| Thank Goodness It's Not in March |
[Jan. 7th, 2010|02:38 pm] |
 I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play. Registration code: 171554
Yeah, p0ker for me (other than January 29th, when I'm scheduled to be in Valencia). |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 7th, 2010|09:48 am] |
selling half of the S&P 500 eminis at 1134
+ 6 points |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 7th, 2010|09:10 am] |
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long the S&P 500 eminis at 1128 |
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| PCA main event, Day 1 |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|11:29 pm] |
Had a good starting table with a few spewboxes, but didn't manage to ever find a big hand against any of them. Finished the day below starting stack, bagging 18,900. Peaked around 55k. Played a hand poorly in the last level against Joe Cassidy where I made at least two incorrect decisions.
Tired now. Hopefully tomorrow is better. |
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| What's the Constitution Between Friends? |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|03:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
Just got home from an audit. The IRS in Laguna Niguel is for global warming: The office we met in was at least 78 F.
Congratulations to the State Department. They've improved their performance markedly. It took six months for them to revoke Mohammed Atta's visa after 9/11; it only took twelve days for Farouk Abudlmutallab's visa to be revoked. Of course, the visa should never have been issued....
No wonder government employees are generally happy:
Via Business Insider, this chart shows that the government payroll has gone up, up, and up. Sure, some of this is needed (our population has grown) but our government payroll should be going down, down, down right now.
Rasmussen report that the Generic GOP candidate leads the Generic Democratic candidate by nine points. Of course, it's Rasmussen so hopefully the Democrats will continue down their current path. I should mention that when the generic GOP and Democrat has been close, the GOP has picked up seats.
Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission has passed a bill that would tax CO2 at the state line. North Dakota plan on suing. Hint to Minnesota: Only the federal government can regulate commerce between the states; the measure is clearly unconstitutional. We won't even get into the ridiculousness of global cooling right now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|02:57 pm] |
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I still have POT from 102. It has some resistance at 123, but it looks like it will break through and move higher. Could be one to watch. |
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| a few minor revisions |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|02:12 pm] |
I have promised to show why I think Nixon was the worst modern president, but I am not going to do it here. In part, because few of you care, in part because the project is too long to keep promising and I want to do it slowly, and in part because there is a better place to do it. So, go there if you care.
....But now, all this research into Nixon's past has me peeved.
I don't get even annoyed too often, but a few things do it.
( Read here to know one thing. )
I am now speechless with disgust.
Did that make sense?
Poll #1508071 does anybody really know what time it is?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14Historical revisionism... |
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| Loud |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|09:37 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
A friend of mine went to last night's Hawks game (a 4-1 win over Minnesota), and his first comment to me was, "I've never seen or heard an anthem like that." Here's a taste of what it's like:
The Hawks have also brought back Harvey Wittenburg, their long-time nasal-voiced PA announcer. I don't know if it's permanent, but he's done the last two games (Anaheim on Sunday and last night's Minnesota game). He was the PA announcer when I was growing up in Chicago.
Oh, yes: The Hawks are pretty good, too. They have the most points of any team in the NHL. |
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| Adventures in Customer Service |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|09:13 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
This morning, I needed to place two customer service calls. First, I needed to call the Orange County Register. The Register, in a cost-saving move, recently contracted with the Los Angeles Times for the Times to deliver the Register. That hasn't been a problem for the month and a half that it's been happening until this morning. Today, I received the Times instead of the Register.
So I called the Register and:
Call #1: Phone call dropped after I entered in my home telephone number.
Call #2: Phone call dropped after being on hold for 3 minutes.
Call #3: Phone call dropped after being on hold for 5 minutes.
Call #4: Got through, promise of a Register being delivered within an hour (and it was).
Next, I needed to call my tax software vendor. My software is miscalculating 2010 California estimated taxes. The Bronze Golden State, in a move to make more money, moved from a 30-30-20-20 scheme for estimated payments to a 30-40-0-30 scheme. However, my software is calculating it using the old method.
So I first tried to email my vendor. (The forms aren't final, and I just want to make sure they know about it.) Using the web-based email to customer support form, the only option is to "reset" the email. You can't send it.
So I call the 800#. The woman who gets my call (in the US, btw) notes that I have nine different account numbers. That in itself is a long story. There have been multiple problems in the past, and the resolution has been to assign me a new account number. It works great until I have to call technical support and they attempt to figure out which account number is mine. Their system won't allow them to delete the old account numbers....
It turns out that the card I was sent by my vendor just one month ago noting my account number as being x (a nine-digit number) is wrong; I've been reassigned (again) to a new six-digit number. Yeah! My tenth account number in ten years!
In any case, she verified the problem (once she could pull up my account), and after checking with her supervisor noted they were aware of the problem. They are waiting on California to finalize the form, and the fix will then be made. The wait is at least 15 more days for the forms to be finalized (more likely 20 - 30). For my one client who wants to file tomorrow, that's not happening.
We then moved on to problem #2 (being unable to utilize the web email system). It turns out that's down at the moment and they are aware of the problem.
Just another day at the office.... |
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| A Bad Day for the Democrats / Joan Rivers and Flying |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|06:51 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
First, Senator Bryon Dorgan (D-ND) announces he won't seek reelection. Now, Governor Bill Ritter (D-CO) is apparently dropping out of his reelction campaign.
As ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) schmengie has said, drip, drip, drip. I disagree with jpmassar that it's very bad news; rather, it's facing reality. Frankly, if Governor John Hoeven (R-ND) had run, Senator Dorgan would have almost certainly been defeated (he was trailing in polls by something like 58% - 36%).
Joan Rivers was bumped off a flight from Costa Rica because her passport apparently had both her legal name and her stage name. This one can't be blamed on the TSA; rather, it's a Continental Airlines agent in San Jose, Costa Rica.
“If I were going to make up an alias, I wouldn’t pick Rosenberg. I’d pick Jolie or Pitt,” said Rivers, back home Monday in New York with her sense of humor intact. “Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks? I can tell you Donna Karan does not make anything that hides a bomb,” she said.
I'm trying to figure out how many airline trips I'll have to make in 2010. I know of four to Northern California and two to Jacksonville. The flights to either San Jose (CA), Oakland, or Sacramento take about an hour. I wonder how long security will take later this year? |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|03:01 pm] |
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Several more signals today. Also my ES(S&P 500) trading day in charts. Four trades today. How many will make money??( Read more... ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|10:22 am] |
Got a good buy signal on GS yesterday. I bought it today at 174.75
AMAT finally broke above 14, and looks good.
DELL up 2% today.
Also looking to buy BAC today if I get a buy signal. |
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| Hawaii: Day 4 |
[Jan. 4th, 2010|06:16 pm] |
The PMOW sting seems to be in remission. Slightly itchy, but totally manageable now and I don't even notice it.
Woke up at 5:45 to hike Diamond Head. Online reviews indicated it was best to get there before sunset, and Gavin suggested that I try to get there as soon as it opened to avoid the Japanese tourists. Well, really, there is no way to avoid the Japanese tourists, no matter how early you get there. They are all over the place, snapping pictures like crazy. The way up was relatively easy, a quick and not-very-steep 20-minute hike. The only challenging thing was trying not to twist an ankle going up on the uneven terrain in the dark.
Once up there the view is quite nice, although again, the fact that it's so busy subtracts quite a bit from the experience. It's not exactly enjoying nature in serenity up there. I played with my settings as much as possible, but really, I'm not a photographer and I own a point-and-shoot:
From what might be the place with the most Japanese tourists on Oahu to one where there are probably the least -- the Pearl Harbor memorial/museum. Seriously, this might be the only place in Honolulu where I didn't encounter any Japanese tourists; they are everywhere in Waikiki. Unfortunately for me, the USS Missouri (what I think is generally considered the main attraction) was in drydock and thus unavailable for tours. I toured the Pacific Aviation Museum which was good, but small.
I think I spent just the right amount of time in both Tokyo and Hawaii, for my style of travel. Any less and I would have been feeling very rushed; any less and I would have gotten bored and tired of it. Overall, I've enjoyed this trip immensely, and am extremely glad I did it. Not being able to surf was a big downer, but aside from that, I've gotten everything I wanted out of this trip.
I would definitely be willing to do Tokyo again by myself; Hawaii, probably less so. Tokyo is much more interesting for the single traveler because it is more about the experience than the doing; Hawaii is certainly more about the doing. I find I enjoy new and unique experiences just fine by myself, but recreational things tend to be more enjoyable with friends or girlfriends.
Now I'm writing from the airport in Honolulu, which is one of the more spartan and quaint major city airports I've been to in the US. In about twelve hours, I'll be in Nassau for the PCA and the tourism will be over. It is kind of strange; I imagine not many people go to the Bahamas and not consider it tourism, but this being my fourth year there, I don't plan to do much other than play cards and hang out with people.
So, the next update should actually be poker-related! Playing Day 1B, since I'll arrive in Nassau just as 1A gets started. Time to get that three million! |
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| Lazyweb: How Much RAM Do I Need? |
[Jan. 4th, 2010|08:27 am] |
I'm really happy with my new computer. That said, it may be that I don't have enough RAM. Let me explain.
I've done a PowerPoint presentation that I need to record as a video using Camtasia. Camtasia is a notorious hog of system resources. I attempted to record the video last night, but the PowerPoint lag was at least 15 seconds. I doubt people want 15 seconds of lag on every pp wipe, etc.
My computer is:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 3
Dell Precision T3400 Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
2.99GHz, 3.25 GB of RAM
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 290 Display adaptors, 2 24" Dell Monitors
Thoughts? |
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| The Debut of the Von Karman Index |
[Jan. 4th, 2010|08:19 am] |
Beginning today I'm going to report monthly the Von Karman Index. The VKI is a qualitative look at commercial real estate. Most mornings I drive home from the gym on Von Karman Avenue. The 1.3 miles from Main Street to Barranca Parkway is a light industrial section of Irvine, with numerous small manufacturers and light commercial/industrial buildings. At the corner of Barranca & Von Karman is a Sam's Club and some retail. The District, a large retail center, is another two blocks down Von Karman.
The VKI will measure the number of "For Lease" signs in this 1.3 mile stretch. Last January there were 4. This morning, I counted 15. Irvne is doing far better than most of California in the recession. However, the VKI is at or a near an all-time high.
I'll report the VKi on the first Monday of each month.
Wall Street Journal: You and I are the biggest losers with Fannie and Freddie. "The Treasury is hoping no one notices, and no wonder. Taxpayers are continuing to buy senior preferred stock in the two firms to cover their growing losses—a combined $111 billion so far." |
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| A Hypothetical Conversation that May Really Occur |
[Jan. 3rd, 2010|08:35 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
Arizona may abandon speed cameras. The public is unhappy.
Meanwhile, the public is also unhappy with the Democratic party per Rasmussen. Of course, since it's Rasmussen reporting this I expect Democrats to go into denial mode.
"It can't be our policies," one Democrat will mutter. "All the legislators I know are in favor of them."
"But what about all these complaints from the public on the new healthcare legislation?" asks his staffer.
"Well," the Congressman will mutter, "They're the public. Congress' views are more important." |
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discontent
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