There is definitely something moving around in our attic.
It’s possible it’s on the roof, but it seems more attic-ish.
I can’t wait to find out what it is at some other time.
Monthly Archives: February 2006
Stolen from jsaint, who should never date me.
Link: The 32-Type Dating Test by OkCupid – Free Online Dating. |
Scandal!: Reality Show, Episode 1
Cheney’s Got a Gun
I don’t normally feel Jay Leno’s worth quoting, but…
I think Cheney is starting to lose it. After he shot the guy he
screamed, ‘Anyone else want to call domestic wire tapping illegal?’
Ha!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/14/cheney.jokes.ap/index.html
Gratitude
See, this
is why I don’t make campaign contributions to the Republican party.
Dopples, Reality, TransAmerica
If you’re going to use the name, you should at least use it. Harumph.
—
The first Scandal!: Reality Show went… okay. It was rough, and I don’t think anyone was particularly happy with it. But, it had some funny moments.
It’ll find its legs.
—
Whiggin’ out
So it says here that the Whig party was formed in response to the overreaching executive policies of President Andrew Jackson.
Seems they felt the prez was gettin’ a might uppity, doing things that maybe he wasn’t authorized to do, such as taking deposits from the Bank of the United States without the consent of congress.
Who’s up for a Whig rally?
This time they probably won’t fall apart due to internal squabbling on the question of slavery. I think that question’s probably been pretty well answered now (It’s bad.)
Book Log – Paypal Hacks
Paypal Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools by Shannon
Sofield, Dave Nielson & Dave Burchell.
Everything from how to set up a basic personal account to advanced web API
techniques. It’s an acceptable overview with tips, and I’m surprised by
how simple it is to implement Paypal for various things. I guess I should
have guessed, considering it’s popularity.
Historically, I’ve found Paypal hard to work with for various reasons (I
don’t use it often enough to keep an account funded or remember
passwords… things like that), but the example of using Paypal to pay a
coworker for your share of lunch has inspired me to revisit the service.
Now, I’m ready to take over the world.
Heating Bill… conquered! Sorta.
This month’s bill, after keeping the thermostat at 65 degrees (and programming it to go to 62 during the day) is down from $480 to $179.
Still a lot of money, but more bamboo shoots under the fingernails instead of hot pokers in the eye.
Book Log – Bull!
BULL! A History of the Boom, 1982-1999 by Maggie Mahar
This was a great book, at least for an investing geek like me. Charlie
Munger (2nd in command at Berkshire Hathaway) emphatically recommended
this book back when it came out in 2003. A real in-depth look at the
insanity.
For instance, consider the position of mutual fund managers in 1998. They
are judged by their returns, relative to an index like the S&P 500.
They’re looking at the prices the market is giving companies like Cisco
and Amazon and saying to themselves “this doesn’t make sense.” But they
can’t not buy them. Because even though the rise of the prices is
insane, if they don’t meet or beat that insane rise, they’ll get canned.
If they buy into sensibly priced stocks, which are few and far between,
and they “only” get something like 15% annual return while the Ciscos and
Amazons return 100%, they’ll get canned. On the flip side, if they buy
the stocks that everyone else is buying, like Amazon and Cisco, and then
the whole market tanks, especially Amazon and Cisco, they won’t get
canned, because the index tanked, and hey, everybody was fooled anyway,
right?
So, the ramp up to the 1998-2001 crash slowly weeded out fund managers who
kept their integrity and bought what made sense for their clients instead
of their career. The dark side of Natural Selection: the remaining herd
were well adapted for the environment that selected them (the bull
market), but when that environment changed… extinction of their client’s
dollars.
A very informative read.