open letter to cc sabathia

mr. sabathia,

i hear you are going to sign with the new york yankees for seven years, $170 million dollars. maybe you didn't notice because you had your head buried in a bucket of nachos, but the yankees are dying. they're as good as dead. your presence will not resurrect them. the franchise, blinded by success and adulation, maneuvered itself into obscurity by doing precisely what you and the franchise engaged in, signing free agents to hilarious deals before they actually pitch in new york. carl pavano comes to mind. so does kei igawa. so does jaret wright. so does randy johnson. the yankee model is a relic of bloated baseball inventory. if you didn't notice, the tampa bay rays won the division with youth, speed and team chemistry. you have jeter as your captain, but with every new free agent signed, his influence is diminished. your team is a bunch of a-rods. high paid, hollywood stars that wilt when the time comes to produce. when the "team" needs a leader, there is no leader to found.

and those of us with a memory do remember you started horribly in 2008 with the cleveland indians before being dealt to the inferior national league and racking up big wins, mr. sabathia. that did not go unnoticed. now you've signed into a division that bleeds rivalry. you will have to stand tall against the red sox. can you do it? you did not in 2007 championship series. you will have to stand tall against the entire american league. we'll see if you can handle the pressure. the pressure of new york. the pressure of this contract. the pressure of being the ace of the staff because that's what you signed to do.

you might wonder why i would have such a visceral response to what is a common occurannce during the baseball offseason, the signing of free agents. it's because baseball players don't get it. the world series featured the tampa bay rays versus the philadelphia phillies. both teams featured highly paid players, but both teams had exactly zero big name free agent pickups. they grew their players from within. then they filled holes through free agency. the yankees did not even make the playoffs last year. it's amazing to see that baseball's "greatest" team still does not know how to succeed after being as dominant as they were from 1996 to 2001. during that period, they grew their players from within and signed guys like paul o'neil and scott brosius to fill holes. then they started signing guys like jason giambi and alex rodriguez and they got worse.

but they're stuck in this holding pattern. it makes me smile. because i love watching people/teams who think they are entitled to succeed fail. they think all they have to do is show up and they'll win because the other team will vanish into oblivion out of fear. it doesn't work that way. every team wants to win. and every team will fight to win. so good luck this year yankees. i'll see you when you finish in third place.

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remember, that just because certain people are filmed and recorded and beamed out to thousands/millions of people, it does not mean they have any idea what they are talking about. draw your own conclusions. 10 worst predictions from 2008.

here are fortune's top 25 companies.

did coldplay steal joe satriani's melody? you be the judge.

the title of this entry is a song title from jim o'rourke's album eureka. it's a great freaking album. check it out.

the race

it's that time people. time for me to assign a numerical ranking to the top ten best albums of 2008. and just for fun, i will also rank the 19th best album of 2008. so, without further ado, here they are:

1. fleet foxes- fleet foxes
2. kelley stoltz- circular sounds
3. magnetic fields- distortion
4. dr. dog- fate
5. the walkmen- you and me
6. langhorne slim- langhorne slim
7. blitzen trapper- furr
8. brian wilson- that lucky old sun
9. cut copy- in ghost colour
10. my morning jacket- evil urges

19. travis- ode to j. smith

and those are the top ten, w/number 19, best albums of 2008. it was a pretty good year for music. some honorable mentions include coldplay, sigur ros, elbow, nick cave, m83, the black keys, the last shadow puppets, beach house, the dodos, spiritualized, phantom planet and department of eagles.

this weekend i watched a movie that left me with such massive disappointment that only my eventual children will be able to succeed. "the darjeeling limited" directed by wes anderson was so bad, i thought several times about turning it off in the middle of the movie. "rushmore" is one of my favorite movies of all time. "the royal tennebaums" is stylistically gorgeous, with an awesome soundtrack and beautiful framing. "the aquatic life w/ steve zissou" is quirky and cute. "the darjeeling limited" is tedious, uninteresting, frustrating and completely lacking of direction and character interest. these guys are boring. they are lame. they are totally devoid of human connection. i was harshly disappointed. so disappointed it needed to be documented and read by a couple of people.

i took a quiz this weekend. i now have two finals left and i'm finally done. three years baby. i will continue the countdown until i'm finally done with collegio. that's college for the anglos.

if i had a dog, i'd name it buckley. or arrow.

we all love nixon. here's a list of nixon media.

cool waves

i had my last class last night. the presentation went fine. i sped through my part, as i always due when i'm nervous. the worst part was, i had prepared note cards. but i had the first few memorized. so i was speaking very conversationally at first. then i'd get past the information from those first few cards, and have no idea what i was supposed to say. i took a jim rome pause (which is probably between 5 and 10) seconds to flip through and find my place in my note cards. that was the worst of it, so it wasn't so bad. but i have three assignments (quiz, final, final) until i can say i'm done.

when i first started back to school, my wife was my girlfriend, the astros were the defending national league champions and i had yet to discover my love of oatmeal.

there's not really anything in the news today except that over 500,000 jobs were cut in november. so if you have a job, be grateful.

have a good weekend.

blonde over blue

today, my friends, (can i start saying this again without visions of old, tired republicans?) is the last class day for the fall 2008 semester. tonight is my last class, not counting finals. i will have three assignments to do after tonight that will satisfy the requirements for graduation for the university of houston- downtown. it's so close, i can feel it.

great article from the economist. is saving money really coming into fashion, or is it like conversation when oil prices shot up this summer?

great list of reading material from infectious greed.

college tuition is quickly becoming a hit in the nuts. when i started in spring of 2006, the tuition increased some $600 dollars a semester by fall of 2008. that's incredible.

market volatility explained. we'll see about that.

uncorrected personality traits

i do not understand credit cards. i have never encountered anything like them in business. you sign a contract with them, and if the terms of the contract no longer favor the credit card company, they will change the terms of the contract and there is nothing you can do. they will also stagger billings so that it's more likely you'll miss a payment. then they charge you with a fee and jack up your interest rate. also, if you miss a payment on one, they report it and the other credit card companies will raise your rates as well. now with the current economic climate, credit card companies are raising your rates as much as 15% above your current rate. that is unacceptable.

i don't know about you, but i'm sick of it. i call for a complete and total boycott on credit cards. they have screwed me/us for the last time. use your debit card. use a check. don't use a credit card. use cash. use gold. barter if you have to, but don't use a credit card. this is bullshit. these companies who are "too big to fail" need to be kicked in the ass. they're poorly run. they practice deceiving business practices. they are of no good use. just because we've done it this way for so long doesn't mean we have to continue. live within your means and don't let these companies screw you.

on another note, langhorne slim's self titled album is pretty freakin' good. buy it with a debit card. or cash.

i haven't done a recipe in a while. but i'm sure everyone is tired of turkey and dressing. here is a recipe for garlic soup with potatoes and broccoli.

funny little frog

when i was younger, i would go to the mall with my mother. for whatever reason, she always chose to enter the mall through mervyns. maybe it was because no one else parked there, i don't know. but she rarely bought anything there. i didn't get any clothes from mervyns, but i always hated that place because it was the first we would look every time we went to the mall. well, mervyns is no more and here's how it happened.

oil prices only get attention when they're high. for some reason our elected officials are only willing to watch over oil speculation when prices are high. they should be watching all the time.

the recession is official. i'm so glad we're finally official.

the dow is down over 600 points today. stocks i've been tracking ticked up last week over the past month. i sure have a gut feeling though the holidays will be brutal and obama cannot make announcements everyday to appease wall street. once this thing is down around january, that will be the time to buy. if we get another week or two of upticks, i might be singing a different tune though.

i remember when i got back from my first european trip, i commented that florence was more beautiful than paris. take a look for yourself.

apparently U2 has a new album due out in february. i actually liked their last album quite a bit.

the tourist

hope everyone had a great thanksgiving or giving of thanks, as i like to call it. i went out and bought two books today as a means to congratulate myself on having one week of school left, which means i'll be able to read whatever i want, whenever i want.

i bought "the origins of financial crises" by george cooper. in chapter three, he mentions this video by the ECB that helps to explain inflation.

here is the link. it's actually pretty good. i mean there are some parts that are broad generalizations that exist outside the realm of reality, but it's good anyway. check it out.

the other book i bought was "twilight in the desert" by matthew simmons. i've been talking about this guy for a while on this blog and i finally get to read his book. can't wait. can't wait.

and finally, "in bruges" is one amazing film. it's written by this playwright named something. i saw his play at the alley and it was the funniest, bloodiest thing i'd ever seen on the stage. there was buckets of blood in the final scene, but it was good. and the film was even better than the play.

now i must continue to eat cookies.

dig lazarus dig

i wrote something the other day:

"i cannot think of anything worse than being a woman
marginalized
by waistlines
by the style of shoes you wear"

and in typical perverse fashion, i can't finish it. it needs to be corrupt and yet sympathetic. it should humiliate but offer understanding. i thought of this while i was driving to school after work listening to nick cave. maybe i should recreate that experience and see if anything else comes.

if i can't finish it, hopefully one of you can.

have a great thanksgiving. i'll be out tomorrow.

4 minute warning

so citigroup has intercepted the auto industry's money and run with it. they're going to be bailed out. during the hurricane, i kept hearing the phrase "hunker down" which i used before but probably won't again after hearing it a million times on the news. the same goes with bailout. although i don't use that phrase very often. i won't start for sure. bailout. bailout. bailout. now it's out of my system.

here's more detail on the citi bailout. bailout. bailout.

it's pardon time. you have to love it when the outgoing president sits in a big, comfortable chair and listens to why everyone should be pardoned. that has to be one of the greatest times during the presidency. here's the list so far.

is there anything better than chick-fil-a?

even though i only did it in my head and i didn't tell anyone, i did pick the jets to beat the titans this past weekend. i did, seriously.

there is a film about harry nilsson that has not made it to a large distributor yet. here is the trailor. it looks freakin' great.

new career in a new town

dealbreaker.com is a great website. this headline is classic. it's not like the onion, where stories are hilarious, but false. these stories/events are real, with a sarcastic, funny spin.

the case for buying oil stocks is solid. this recent crash is just screaming for a major buy-in. you can get these stocks dirt cheap. oil will rebound hard and when it does: payday!!

if you have a financial investor, fire them. trust me, unless they are warren buffet (even he's sucking hard right now) they don't know more than you. they cannot predict the future. because they're so deep in the business, they're probably following trends that they recently overheard at some convention or worse, they're pushing stocks on you that make them money, not you. fire them and throw a dart at a stock chart. you'll do just as well or better.

walmart has a new ceo. and they have patio furniture on sale this week.

i can't believe i understand this and find it funny.

another review of the chinese democracy. i'm obsessed with this album.

good luck this weekend. have fun. don't forget where you live.

the mouth breather

i just got off the phone with a woman who seriously was ingesting the phone while i was talking to her. there was so much deep breathing, that i felt the hot air coming through the phone receiver. she must have just gone up 40 flights of stairs or maybe ran from one side of the road to the other in a wild attempt to disrupt passing motorists. whatever she was doing, she now has a phone in her trachea.

we keep hearing about obama's new deal. but about the old new deal? we know it was FDR who birthed it. but what was it? go here.

oil is below $50.00 a barrel. that is absolutely incredible considering that a few months ago it was up over $150.00. this is a clear indication of a slowing of production. companies are ordering less, requiring less shipping. that includes trucks and boats. people are driving less. less goods are being produced. this is absolutely wild.

indicators are indicating bad things happening.

here is chart charting global deflation.

here are five things you can do to hopefully reduce/limit your exposure to alzheimers. one of them is to take fish oil. there are a lot things that are supposedly good for you that become popular fads. fish oil is constantly promoted in various publications as an amazing ingredient for your body and i believe this one. i've read enough about it that it's not something i can poke holes through. it seems legit. i've been taking it for about a year or two now. i also take magnesium and a normal multivitamin. by taking these things now, i'm hoping i won't have to take twenty pills later.

the clouds are nice

more reviews for the chinese democracy. i won't believe this thing exists until i see it with my own two eyes. i always like the more ambitious side of guns and roses. songs like "estranged" and "november rain." those songs were epic. the changed themes, they had plots, they were these huge productions. i hope the chinese democracy is something like that. or, it's just axl eating a corn dog for 60 minutes. that would be the best gag ever.

speaking of albums, i just listened to kelley stoltz's "below the branches." that album has got to be one of the top 15 best albums i've ever heard. every song is an instant classic. i knew the guy was good, but this is amazing. anyone who actually reads this, do me a favor and go to the hype machine and listen to it. it's really, really, really freakin' good.

are there really pirates still out there? that is amazing. apparently they do not partake of the old pirate garb. gone are the peg-legs, the talking birds and the swords. these pirates have no imagination. just a lot of money.

should we raise the gas tax to eliminate future spikes?

thanksgiving is only a day and a week away. i can't wait.

me and my arrow

hope everyone had a good weekend.

here are six reasons why investors are freakin' out.

here are some signs that the bear market is over.

oh that mark cuban. he looks like frankenstein and he's also an inside trader. that's a shame. but if i did have a list of the most annoying people in the world, it would go:

1. bill o'reilly
2. mark cuban
3. alex trebek
4. robin williams
5/6. both of those osmonds

"is expired toothpaste dangerous?" seriously, i could not believe this was in the new york times.

five alternatives to banks.

two jabs please

two quick hits today. the first: why isn't elbow bigger than they are? i don't understand why they're not huge. it might have to do with the fact they came from the circle of bands that were influenced by the radiohead sound and weren't taken seriously. i don't know. i find it weird that bands i listened to when i was 15 are now influencing other bands. could that be it? i don't know. but they are sweet. i love me some elbow. check out the seldom seen kid.

the second: i often can't get lines out of my head, whether they're lines i created or lines from songs. this morning, it's one i created: "maybe it's time you forgot yourself." i am temporarily paralyzed by school, but there's independence on the immediate horizon. there's a million easier ways to say that, but anyway.... the main point is that once i'm out of school and we settle down somewhere, that it's time i forgot myself. it's time i started to make a difference. to help people: kids, the elderly, the something. i don't know. i can't shake it. and it's getting more of my thoughts. it's time i forget myself.

the weather is great. enjoy this.

quick roundup for the day

citi is handing out pink slips and raising your interest rate.

americans eat too much corn.

fidelity will cut 1,700 jobs.

i might be the only one, but i don't care about james bond. never did. never will.

100 greatest singers from rolling stone.

my top 3 greatest singers are:
1. brian wilson
2. harry nilsson
3. jeff buckley

your car has been crushed into a cube

i just had a very simpsons moment. i ordered 3 cds off of the best buy website with a gift card i got for my birthday. here are the three email titles i received shortly after purchase:

1. welcome to bestbuy.com
2. thanks for ordering with best buy
3. your item is backordered

very nice. does anyone else have a hatred for best buy? i do. they come into town and run the local record shops off. but they focus more and more on big ticket items and start cutting back on the number of titles ordered in music. so they chase off the independent store with everything you could want and then stop ordering a diversified number of albums and order eight million copies of jessica simpson or incubus.

best buy and circuit city. hey, remember media play? or sam goody? i worked at sam goody for a while. they also had another big media store that i can't remember the title of right now that failed. they were green usually. or maybe i'm thinking of media play again.

who knows. all i know is you matter how you slice, the chicken is one tasty bird.

frankie lee and judas priest

i love when curse words are overdubbed for regular television. i can't remember what movie it was, it might have been "back to the future" when doc or marty said "jesus christ," the overdub could be heard saying, "judas priest." that was always one of my favorite overdub moments.

top 10 most accountable companies.

here's a quick recap of what is in store for the president elect.

year of flops. the phantom and the shadow.

does it make sense to save the auto industry? at least without some quid pro quo? the industry cannot rise to the challenge of increasing miles per gallon and lowering emissions. they do not have answer to the asian auto market. if they are given a bailout, they should be held accountable for performance standards, not only of their company, but of their product. by the end of the next decade, detroit should be able to roll out a new car that is efficient and cheap. and if they don't, payback is a bitch.

what do you think? or how about you?

they punctured my yolk

after yesterday's confessions of emotional comeuppance, it's now back to business. we're hitting the stretch run for the 4th quarter. it's not looking good out there. stand back, cover your eyes and get ready to fork over all the dismal christmas money you get this year, because soon after obama takes office, the market will turn bullish again. the end of december to mid-january should be the time to jump in.

this guy has advice. and so does this guy. but i don't care for his advice.

this was from yesterday. the fed loans out $2 trillion of the money outside of the congress approved TARP. so who is it going to? they won't tell you.

"a trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon we're talking about real money."

article is somewhat weak, but good breakdown of how your money is taxed as you invest and is distributed.

good entry in popless about wilco. right at the top.

this guy actually heard "the chinese democracy." i'm starting to think it's real.

carry that weight

this is the longest non-posting span i've had since i started. friday was my birthday. saturday was my birthday party and sunday was a day of sleep.

i don't have any links. today is a weird day for me. my birthday is over. the party is over and now it's back to work. back to getting my last month of school over with. i realized something on sunday, a few somethings. the first is that i want to change my behavior. this is something that's been on my mind for some time. i do not enjoy staying up late and drinking anymore. i do not enjoy the way my body feels afterwards and i do not enjoy the thoughts and emotions that i experience when i am in that way. it's not real emotion. it's enhanced and fabricated and it betrays me because it masquerades as real. i do not want to experience it anymore.

the other something was a feeling of extreme change. in the past year, i've been married and i will graduate this winter and i had rarely felt change like this spirit of change i felt on sunday. i hadn't because i initiated those changes, getting married, going to school, etc. i am amazed by them, but i made them happen and i was fully aware of most of the changes those decisions would bring. the change i am speaking of now came from visiting my best friend's grandmother house. it was the house i thought of as my own home. it was the house i spent a lot of time in from the age of 15 to 19. i felt so free at that house. it was right on the river and we would take the jet ski out and under the bridge, over to where to the nice water started. we would leave around midnight and go play pool under 2 in the morning. we would listen to new bands and get on the internet when it was new.

i saw that house this weekend and was shocked at how it looked. the upstairs is lonely and foul. the downstairs is lived in and mostly the way it was the last time i had been there. but there was an overall sense of decay with the house. i can't imagine being over 80 years old and having to clean that big house all my myself so i completely feel for the wonderful woman who lives there. it's just amazing how your mind carries on the image of something indefinitely. and it won't change until you confront your mind with reality. the reality was sad, which it often is. but as i sat and spoke with my friend about the house and all of time hanging out there, i began to think of the house as a huge safety net. it had caught various members of my friends family and it had even caught me. i'll cherish being in that house with my friend and his family because i always felt welcome and made to feel like a member of the family. i was lucky to have walked through its door.

thursday afternoon

thursdays are so tempting. you can really feel friday, especially when you get off work. you want to go and hang out. you want to act like it's friday. but it's not. it's still thursday and you still have to go to work on friday morning. thursday nights, such a tease.

this breakdown by the economist is interesting. what's interesting is how annual income was basically negligible in this election. that surprised me. anyway, here it is.

planet finance and its demise.

so inflation was the big worry when rates were being cut like joan rivers (wow, a joan rivers reference!). seems that deflation is now the big worry. then comes stagflation.

could cap and trade derail obama's administration?

tomorrow is my birthday. i probably won't post unless i'm feeling really good. which is a possibility. a real possibility.

the room got heavy

it's over. wow. it's finally over. 8 years of bullshit is over. i hope our energy and motivation will channel into positive endeavors. it's just crazy right now that's finally over. there's one thing that impressed me more than anything else: his temperment. he was cool, calm and collected the entire time. do you realize what he just did? he beat hillary clinton for the democratic nomination and then beat long time senator john mccain. this is like running through ali and then foreman in the same year. and he did it. the old regime is done. the boomers, the "me" generation has given way to the "we" generation. it's time.

here's the final-ish map.

here are some points we need to look to in the coming four years.

even with oil slipping in prices, which is only temporary, green energy needs to be brought to the table and pushed into the mainstream within these next four years.

snow patrol has a new album out. i've never heard a single note by these guys. but here's a review. actually, i won't include a review.

won't get fooled again

full day of poll watching.

feels like change.

inhale. embrace. sleep and dream.

electioneering

tomorrow we'll have a new president. i have never been this excited about a presidential election. 8 years of crap will end tomorrow. i identify with a candidate and i see the need for change. 8 years ago i was living at home, attending junior college and i had no idea of the world and how a skirmish in georgia (not our georgia) affects world relations, prices of oil, stock indexes and which media source to believe in the first place. i also had no idea of muenster cheese, another great development in my life. i am counting the seconds. there will be no missed counting in this election because america is no longer 50/50. the revolution will be televised.

i'm sure this has made the rounds, but here is a prank call from nicholas sarkozy to sarah palin. she is just super.

this guy equates the current situation to aldous huxley's brave new world. not sure the situations are that similar, but interesting read nonetheless.

it's amazing how many decisions and how much forceful persuasion was used to get us right where we're at. it's a culture of short-term profits. no one regards long-term financial position anymore. the immediate mentally we have now has pervaded even our strongest business minds.

better go to circuit city while you can.

from rolling stone: best and worst of cable news.

rojo will love you baby

it's halloween and i could give a shit. but i'm in such a good mood. i know our country is in dire straits, but in a few days, we'll be electing a new regime. a new time. i feel prosperous and i feel enlightened everyday. i feel anxious for change. i'm changing every day and it's the only way.

here is wilco on the colbert report.

nobody reads this thing, but i'm having a blast doing it.

remember, i have developed a theory. i actually had a similar conversation with a great friend of mine. he mentioned how i used to think. he mentioned how i used to act. i was accustomed to things on an everyday basis. that's where i was off. there is no everyday. things will play out over time and just because you're unhappy today doesn't mean you'll be unhappy tomorrow. it's true. your enemies will become your friends and your friends will become your family. wait for it. and tell me i was right.

tonight's the night.

we (they) are the champions

congratulations to former astros closer brad lidge, former astros utility man eric bruntlett and former astros manager jimy (one "m") williams on becoming world series champions. special kudos goes out to lidge who completely turned his career around from his shaky status here in houston, did not blow a save all season and recorded the last out of the world series. no matter how you feel about how he melted down here, he deserves this success. the phillies are world champs.

learned a new word today: solipsism- extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.

they are going to try and put together a clearing house for credit default swaps.

the avclub has an article about the movie "the rocketeer." i actually saw that in the theater when i was like 11 or something. i thought it was great. and it was my first introduction to jennifer connelly, who was only 20 years old in the movie. in the article, the author says, "she possesses the kind of jaw-dropping beauty that makes you angry, since you could never possess it and it felt like you were going to run amok like the Hulk due to sexual frustration." that just about sums up the age of 14-18.

the economy is shrinking. shrinking like an old man. or an old woman. they're all shrinking.

from rolling stone: memories from the campaign trail.

wilco- in the studio

check it out from rolling stone:

"Wilco have already recorded demos for a new album and are heading into their Chicago studio, the Loft, this month to start rerecording and fleshing them out. “Sonically it’s going to be a much wilder, much more unexpected record,” says guitarist Nels Cline. “There’s going to be too much to choose from. Right now it’s an embarrassment of riches, for sure.”

wow.

the kids don't stand a chance

just read a great article on valuation methods of current stock prices. it's all about perspective when it comes to the stock market. yes stocks are low, but is that due to the tremendous build-up of this recent bull run and just appear low by recent comparisons? are they low enough to really jump in right now? i think not. i think they'll get lower. and if i'm wrong, then i will slowly saw off my pinkie with a blade of grass.

similar article here.

the world series is supposed to resume tonight. go rays.

here's a great chart from bloomberg demonstrating how liquidity is non-existent right now based on historic levels.

here's an interview with kevin smith from the onionavclub. is it just me or does that guy get more and more obnoxious as the years go on? i mean, he did one good movie a long time ago. since then, he's put out crap. nothing but crap.

pitchfork finally got around to reviewing blitzen trappers new album furr. they liked it.

usually i put pretty ridiculous recipes on here, but this one sounded pretty good.

outta mind, outta site

the dow has surged close to 900 points today. at least the last time i looked it did. it could be down around 5,000 total by now. in fact.......it's not. just checked. i wish i had money to invest. maybe i should solicit some cash donations and i could invest it, for a slight fee. like 30% of earnings.

the world series will resume tomorrow night in a truncated four inning game. did you see the rain last night? wow. i don't know how anybody caught or threw or ran anywhere. it was like a river through the infield. i once played little league and we practiced right next to these woods behind a church. anyway, it had rained really bad for a few days and this area did not drain well at all. but we had to practice. so we went out there and played, which doesn't sound bad. but the water had become stagnent and it stunk so bad. it had combined with the humidity and dirt to form super wet dirt, otherwise known as mud. i had to ride home in the bed of the truck because my dad didn't want me in the cab. i wonder if the stadium will smell like that. probably not. probably smell like fresh cut hair or maybe just opened electronics.

ryan adams has a new album out with the cardinals. here's a review.

anybody seen the obama "wassup" ad on youtube? here it is. and here's the story of how it got made.

is mark-to-market a good thing or a bad thing? the SEC will try and figure it out.

here is a recipe for peanut butter chili. i dare someone to make this.

canceled check

what a weekend. i don't think i've ever sat at home more than i did these past two days. wow. i was starting to get bed sores.

the longhorns won on saturday against oklahoma state. top ranked team in the country going against texas tech next weekend. can't wait for that. and the texans actually won again. that's three in a row. i did not make it to this game and they won anyway. those guys were very brave to play that game without me in attendance. so brave.

saw 60 minutes last night. they had a great story about credit default swaps.

and this guy believes america is in decline and has altered his investing strategy to highlight stable companies with healthy dividends.

here's paul krugman on charlie rose.

i voted on saturday. early voting is the way to go. get out and vote.

from the onion avclub: 23 unusual vampire variations.

are you passionate?

i just got back from paying my graduation fee. the fee goes towards paying for your cap and gown and diploma. i wanted to take a picture of me and the girl working in the registrar's office. i don't think she understood how important that moment was for me. after i paid it, i drove around downtown thinking of my three years at UHD. here's what i thought of:

- my first day. i took the bus downtown because i had decided that the bus was going to be my new mode of transportation. the morning ride was a success. i made it to class on time. but after class was a different story. i waited by jones hall for 45 minutes without seeing a bus. finally, i decided to take matters into my own hands. i began to walk and i walked all the way from downtown, down memorial to my apartments at memorial and shepard. i never took the bus again.

- the fun semester. last fall, i took intermediate acctg. II, individual tax, AIS and some HR class. it was the first semester in the new business building. all i remember about that semester is standing around outside with tim and lindsey talking about internships and jobs. that was the semester i got the job at SPX and left fox sports. i was getting married the next semester. it felt like everything was finally changing.

- the rainout. during the first summer session in 2006, we got rained out for a few days and the school was closed due to flooding. i took the opportunity to see for myself what was happening. so i got on my bike and rode in the rain downtown with my digital camera wrapped up and dry. i took tons of pictures around the campus and over the bridge. it was amazing to see the bayou area right behind the spaghetti warehouse turn into a raging river. i was soaking wet and dirty as hell by the end of it, but it was great to see what a little rain can do.

- the test. i had to take a test for an online class on campus early on a saturday in february of 2008. i had studied the day before but convinced myself i needed to do more studying at school, since that was where i was going to take the test and somehow the information was more likely to stay with me. anyway, i got there and blew off studying. i went walking downtown. it was february and it was grey. it was early too, around 9:30. no one was moving around, except the bums. downtown looked like the old downtown i knew when i was younger. it was ugly. it was dirty. and i felt completely isolated there.

- one time i drank so many energy drinks, i could barely keep my hand steady during my exam.

- i remember wanting to fall asleep every night in intermediate acctg. III and auditing because i had been up since six that morning, had worked all day and was ready for a nap. i also remember during my final for intermediate acctg. III, my professor had a cold and she kept hacking and sneezing and wheezing during the entire exam. on top of that, i had drank two diet sodas right before the exam. so i was in agony trying to concentrate and not piss myself while constantly being distracted by my phlemmy professor. i wanted to knock her out.

- i remember riding my bike to school one day. i rode from my current address. the morning ride was fine. it took a little under an hour to get there. but the ride back was anything but easy. i didn't know it, but i had picked the windiest day on record. winds were clocked at record speeds. those winds made my 50 minute morning journey a two hour journey home. i actually called my wife to pick me up from the restaurant down the street because i couldn't make it home.

- i remember finally realizing the library had real books and i didn't have to buy so many books. i could check them out. i checked out three and read them in a month. i can't wait to have time to read again.

- i remember everyday wondering if i had made the right choice, if i was good enough and smart enough to pull this off. this wasn't a question of competition among my fellow students like so many times before in school. this was a question of myself. could i do this? did i have what it took to concentrate and focus and learn an entirely foreign industry? there were a lot of days i doubted myself.

- i remember parking everyday what felt like 5 miles from the school and walking up the bridge over the bayou, sweating my ass off carrying three, sometimes four books in the same backpack i used in high school.

- finally, i remember what it was like to pay for my graduation fee. i'm not done yet. i still have a few weeks, a few papers, a few tests. but looking back, it's amazing where i started. i was working at fox sports. my days off were tuesday and wednesday. i had a girlfriend and i lived alone. i had no idea what i was in store for.

come in number 51, your time is up

i like the first line of this article. "if you say something long enough and loud enough, it will become truth." are our corporate tax rates really the highest in the world? maybe. but how could we forget our millions of tax lawyers, who have legions of deductions and millions of little safe havens for you to hide your money? i think i'm just about done crying for corportations.

there's another good line in this article: "talent will continue to flock to unworthy causes." back in 7th or 8th grade, i had a professor, who i can't remember, say something along the lines of, "who the hell would want to be president of the united states?" his logic was along the lines of too much responsibility, not enough money. why not go to wall street and bank without having to worry about genocide in a far away place. i think fortune cookies are determining the direction of this country.

on a sidenote, can you imagine seriously living in the white house? how incredibly stupid would you feel? i would feel like an idiot. living in the white house. get a house or a townhome. you could never be comfortable in the white house. too much old furniture and who knows if nixon still has those rooms bugged? imagine throwing up in the white house. or having a horrible stomach ache in the white house bathroom. or having a lazy sunday, eating cheetos and watching football in your underwear. can you imagine doing that in the white house? plus, what about pop-ins? now, you might get a family member or a neighbor poppin-in. if you live in the white house, gorbachev could pop-in. or bono. or ted ferguson. who is ted ferguson? i don't know, but he could pop-in too. living in the white house. i don't think so.

that's enough of that.

how many people read this thing anyway? i probably count two. you and you.

charlie kaufmann (writer of being john malkovich, adaptation and eternal sunshine of the spotless mind) has directed his first film. here's a review.

the opec cartel is cutting production. i didn't mean to double dare them. it just happened.

here is a recipe for warm potato salad with goat cheese.

tampa bay is back in this thing.

hammering the cramps

great article on obama. i honestly believe if he doesn't win this election, there will be irrevocable damage done to our country and society. how people don't see that, i have no idea.

good article on the myth of talent.

good article on the real sarah palin.

average article on colleges hurting during the credit crunch.

the onion avclub adds office space to the new cult canon.

johnny cash's live from folsom prison has been remastered and re-released. "hello, i'm johnny cash." is there any other intro to an album that comes close to that one? maybe. the new radicals had one that went, "make my nipples hard, let's go." that would be a close second.

is "the chinese democracy" really going to happen?

shatner is pissed at sulu. sulu is gay. shatner pissed at sulu for other reasons. wow.

ego tripping at the gates of hell

hank paulson was on charlie rose last night.

if there is a barometer for this economic situation, it could be found in the behavior of walmart shoppers.

other bellweathers abound.

opec is an oil cartel and it will go down as the stupidest cartel ever. dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. do not be confused here. we are experiencing a momentary reprieve in oil prices due to a global slowdown in production. this is temporary. before you can blink or something probably longer than blinking, oil will be back at $150 a barrel and beyond. keep your bike handy and don't start thinking about that SUV. keep thinking about kittens and hang in there.

bob dylan's latest bootleg review from pitchfork.

here's a recipe for mashed potatoes with kale. what is kale?

i was also thinking about edamame yesterday. i can't get enough of that stuff. i'm going to try and make some at home. i think the secret ingredient is salt. that's only funny if you've had edamame. if you have not, i have no jokes for you.

no depression

just got done participating in an email conversation where the final agreement came that a rabid mailman deserves some applause because he continues to work while being rabid. that was my contribution. my friend's point before that was, that we tend to view other people as we would view ourselves, which is not always accurate. it's better to view them as possible science experiments, where actions are caused by unknown stimuli that we cannot easily see. we write down the results and try to remain scientifically objective. it's a good point. but so is the mailman because if a rabid mailman is not an american hero, i don't know who/what is.

great blurb about kirk kerkorian.

the avclub has a taste test section where they get together with friends/neighbors/rabid mailmen and eat something that could not seriously be packaged and sold on the market, but it is. this week/month is canned cakes and pudding.

the market downturn and your life. interesting.

it's weird. i was driving around yesterday thinking about the world series. there has not been a series to go more than five games since 2003 when florida beat new york. since then, we've had three sweeps: '04, '05 and '07. the world series has lost it's luster. jayson stark was thinking the same thing. here's his reasons.

wedding video

usually don't find these very amusing/interesting, but having just been married, this one is tough to watch. bruce, you did excellent dude. this guy, not so much.

welcome to the working week

had a brilliant weekend. went to the arts festival on saturday. my wife and i volunteered at a snap tent for about three hours. i handled the money and she ran drinks to the people up front. it was a beautiful day and we had a good time. then, on sunday, we went to the texans game. we won, which is always nice. but most importantly, i found a pair of sunglasses on the floor. they're ray-bans. so what a day right! football, beer and free sunglasses.

this should definitely rank in the top 5 of greatest baseball stories ever. the tampa bay rays, who had never won more than 70 games in a season, are heading to the world series. wow. i love these guys. upton, langoria, kazmir, crawford. these guys are young and hungry. and hungry and young. they'll be around for a few years before they all demand top dollar contracts. but it should be good until then.

so i picked the rays to win in seven against boston. got that one right on the money. i did pick the dodgers however to beat the phillies, so wasn't too keen on that one. but, i've got this one. the world series winner will be the tampa bay rays in 6 games. this should give hope to every astros fan out there that it can be done. that and we need gerry hunsicker.

so what else? here's 13 fake presidential bids from the onion avclub.

think the whole stealing of the election thing is just paranoia and possibly indigestion? think again.

so what could be the only silver lining of this entire financial mess. maybe the realization that putting a little away is a good idea.

whatever and ever amen

a couple wilco songs floating around the hypemachine. one is panthers. they also have a song called one true vine. a couple of b-sides that didn't make it on the albums. i think panthers is from a ghost is born sessions and one true vine is from the sky blue sky sessions.

going to the bayou city art festival today. we're drinking in the bayou today.

up the ladder

warren buffet is buying. that's a signal that i should be buying. now i have to figure out what to buy. i'm putting all my money in reuseable dental floss. it's going to be the next big thing. w.b. (as i like to call him) has a great line: "be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." the market is full of fear. so if you're interested, do your homework, find a stable, undervalued company and make a splash. don't dilute your earnings and diversify. go for the big one.

here's a review of the new oliver stone movie W.

how the hell did the red sox come back and win that game last night. wow.

adam smith: eurotrash. is capitalism doomed? no. the problem lies when you brazenly flout the laws of business, there's going to be trouble.

got this in an email from my cousin commenting as joe biden about joe the plumber:
"now don't get me wrong...i love joe the plummer...i'd stick a hot needle in my eye for the man....but he's mentally unstable and smells like feet."

casey at the bat

the greatest moment in baseball history took place when i was eight years old. i watched it happen. i still can't believe it.

death and all of his friends

we had our last great debate last night. and it seems that joe the plumber is all anyone can focus on. as many times as john mccain mentioned the name, joe the plumber, he better be the first guy he calls if there is a leak in the white house, should he win the election.

and what's with calling everyone "my friends?" that's enough with that.

the phillies are going to the world series. that is the team that ed wade built. mostly. but that brings about great expectations for astros fans. i trust ed wade in evaluating raw, unproven talent, such as ryan howard, chase utley and jimmy rollins. but his trades are so lop-sided. he got nothing for scott rolen, he got nothing for curt schilling and he got nothing for brad lidge. stay away from trades and we should be alright.

oil is continuing to drop. but we're not seeing it at the stations yet, are we? it's falling, but compare the price of gasoline pre-runup to post-runup. they sure don't come down as fast as they go up. funny how that happens.

how do we manage the banks? here's some points.

the nikkei and dow convergence.

early voting is going to take place soon. there will be polling stations open on sat. oct. 25th and sunday, oct. 26th. you can vote at any polling station that is participating in early voting as long as you're registered.

keep the wolves from the door

excellent article on the slow death of reaganomics.

administration on the move to unclog credit avenues.

we now have the decabox on cnbc.

speaking of deca-stuff, there is a complete series of movies called the decalogue filmed for polish television like ten years ago. there are ten movies and each has a central theme from the ten commandments. at this point, you're probably thinking kirk cameron and uncomfortable high-fives and cheesy 90 minute character turnarounds. this is not that. these movies ever-so-slightly mix the commandment theme with the plot of the movie. i only saw four of them, but i was blown away. great stuff. and each one is only about an hour. you're not watching a whole two-hour movie. if you've got a free weekend, check it out. credit to dave mann for introducing me to the decalogue.

bob dylan has a new bootleg series out. i have volumes 1-3 which have an amazing non-released (i guess it's officially released now, right?) song called "she's your lover now." excellent stuff.

8 best trader pics from last week

pretty funny stuff. 8 pics.

good news for people who love good news

the gap is widening. dare i say, people are paying attention?

here is the website to sign up for legs against arms mailing list. they haven't played any shows in a while, but sign up anyway. they're coming out of the studio soon with some wild stuff.

europe's got a case of meanies.

hank paulson bested by the british.

paul krugman wins nobel economics prize.

obama's economic rescue plan. i hope it includes gift certificates to best buy because i've had my eye on this amazing gift certificate there that i could buy with the other gift certificate.

troopergate? that's weak. how about: palin's folly?

monday, monday

stocks are up so far this morning. i also had a fiber one peanut butter granola bar for breakfast. that was perfection.

here's some ideas to keep in mind during a recession.

we've had to plan for a hurricane and a recession this year. that's quite the twofer. now let's not add president mccain to that list and i'll be a happy man.

little bit of history on the tools FDR and others have used in similar situations.

interesting review of a band called department of eagles. it's done by one of the guys in grizzly bear, which immediately perks my ears. haven't heard any of it yet. but if anyone reads this and does listen to it, let me know.

"forget about your house of cards, and i'll do mine."

went to my first texans game this weekend. i know i recently posted that i would never go because ticket prices are outrageous and blah, blah, blah. but.....this one was FREE. that's right. you don't turn down anything that's free and that includes the few things that were free that i should have turned down like that bowl of hush puppies. so what a game right! texans try to blow every chance they get and they still end up winning. don't know how they did it. my eyes were closed most of the game in fear. but i heard cheering and that was a good sign.

got a midterm on tuesday and saturday. that means i'm halfway done with my last semester. wow.

time to think

voting time is getting closer. where are you going to vote? how do you know? well my friend austin has the answers. here's some links:

here is the list of numbers for every county in texas. find your county, find the number, call and find out where to vote.

those of you in harris county can possibly look here. but if that doesn't work, look at the above link and call the number.

websites are a treasure chest of information. here is obama's website. go and look around. it just takes a second.

remember, this is your future. if you care at all about how much you pay for a bottle of pills, about how far reaching the american military machine will reach, about the way we use energy and how our energy policy has corrupted our foreign policy, about regulations when it comes to bills introduced by republicans such as phil gramm that eliminates oversight on financial institutions, about the role america will play in the next 50 years to come up with positive solutions to furious predicaments that face us, find out where you vote and vote for the party that speaks for you. quick question: are you better off after the last 8 years? are you? i'm not. think about it.

a case of malaise

here's how much farther this thing could drop.

oil's in freefall. for now.

dollar holding ground.

i wonder why david bowie doesn't get the respect he deserves here in america. while albums like ziggy stardust and low are reconized as trend-setting albums, one of my favorites is aladdin sane. like most stylistically amorphous albums, i didn't like it at first. it was sandwiched between the ziggy days and the low days and it wasn't poppy like hunky dory. so i buried it. but i put it on my mp3 player a year ago and let it play. i was amazed at the change in styles of each song. they were vocally strong, musically radical and not at all campy like ziggy, except the awful cover of the rolling stones "let's spend the night together." it's a truly great album, and for bowie, that makes hundy dory, ziggy, aladdin sane, low and heroes. lodger is even growing on me.

do yourself a favor and go listen to some bowie. we all need a little bowie in our lives.

living in america

i've got a lot of work to do today, so here are the lyrics to "living in america" by james brown:

"Yeah, uh! Get up, now! Ow! Knock out this!
Super highways, coast to coast, easy to get anywhere
On the transcontinental overload, just slide behind the wheel
How does it feel?
When there's no destination - that's too far
And somewhere on the way,you might find out who you are
Living in America - eye to eye, station to station
Living in America - hand to hand, across the nation
Living in America - got to have a celebration
Rock my soul
Smokestack, fatback, many miles of railroad track
All night radio, keep on runnin'through your rock 'n' roll soul
All night diners keep you awake, hey, on black coffee and a hard roll
You might have to walk the fine line, you might take the hard line
But everybody's working overtime
Living in America - eye to eye, station to station
Living in America - hand to hand, across the nation
Living in America - got to have a celebration
I live in America, help me out, but I live in America, wait a minute
You might not be looking for the promised land, but you might find it anyway
Under one of those old familiar names
Like New Orleans (New Orleans),Detroit City (Detroit City), Dallas (Dallas)Pittsburg P.A. (Pittsburg P.A.),New York City (New York City)Kansas City (Kansas City),Atlanta (Atlanta), Chicago and L.A.
Living in America - hit me
Living in America - yeah, I walk in and out
Living in America
I live in America - state lines, gonna make the prime, thatI live in America - hey, I know what it means,
Living in America - Eddie Murphy, eat your heart out
Living in America - hit me, I said now, eye to eye, station to station
Living in America - so nice, with your bare self
Living in America - I feel good!"

don't get high on what you create

bankers and financial gurus got high on what they created. it wasn't real. none of it was real. the stock market is telling us so. it was a shadow banking system alongside the real banking system. and i'm afraid the real one was seduced by the dark side. it all comes back to "star wars," doesn't it?

anyway, here's a good article on the history of u.s. banking.

iceland trip anyone?

iceland could be the first national bankruptcy.

another icelandic bank fails.

here is the libor in pictures.

what kurt wagner of lambchop is listening to right now.

got a copy of blitzen trapper from my buddy tanner. wow. good stuff.

goodnight

in meinem Kopf habe ich bereits überwunden

new avett brothers video. go here.

new avett brothers video. go here.

drunk pumpkin por la esposa

donde esta la playa

"it's back to the battle today
but i wouldn't have it any other way"

-the walkmen

the fed, in coordination with the other feds, has enacted an emergency interest rate cut.

did anyone watch the debate last night? i couldn't help but yell at the television every time mr. mccain referred to himself having a "cool hand at the tiller." mccain and cool hand should never be put in the same sentence and obama ran with it at one point, as he should have. they've got one more debate. don't you wish the v.p.s had one more? and katie couric could moderate it? and we could ask sarah palin what books she's read besides "aerial wolf gunning for dummies."

three bank stocks to choose from? maybe.

nobel prize goes to three chemists.

"we're a body poked too many times by interns."

wow. iceland's krona is freefalling and we could have gotten a tremendous deal. we were only four months too early. oh well. let's go back. icelandair has some great deals going.

bear stearn's models apparently had no mention of default risk. that probably should have been considered.

here's stephen colbert with cnbc's jim cramer.

i wonder if john mccain is going to get all "mavericky" and be the real maverick that he is. i wonder if he'll willingly discuss his role in the keating 5 scandal or why he is a pale image of the man who ran for office in 2000. we'll find out tonight. get your popcorn ready.

go here to see sarah palin's 2006 and 2007 tax returns.

go here to see magritte.

is that rain outside?

well i was 3 for 4. the angels still can't get past the red sox. now, for the championship series:

tampa bay rays vs. boston red sox: they were one and two all year. i've got two opinions rumbling around with the apple i had for breakfast. the first says the red sox are battle tested and will squeek by the rookie rays. the other says the rays won the division and took it to the red sox several times this year. so i'm going with the latter. rays in 7.

los angeles dodgers vs. philadelphia phillies: the phillies took on a weary pitching staff with milwaukee. the dodgers took on a cubs team that looked mildly confused for three games. i think the dodgers will respond better to a more competitive nature. the phillies staff, besides cole hamels, will not be able to keep manny and company in check. the dodgers pitching staff will pound the phillies and they'll get to brad lidge too. dodgers in 6.

if my prediction holds up, we'll have a tampa bay-los angeles world series. who the hell would have thought that in april?

looks like the fed is going to start buying commercial paper.

when we were in reykjavik, we took a tour into the interior of the island. on the way, our driver informed us of the massive amount of debt icelanders had accumulated within the past decade. looks like he knew what he was talking about. the krona is in freefall.

solar gets a kick.

oregon's floating wind farm.

mark to market and other tidbits

the accounting rule that ravaged garbage assets.

lehman's slide did not hurt executive bonus pay.

the arrested development star who can't be stopped.

seatbelts please

okay,

oil is down.

the dollar is up.

stocks are down.

and somehow byron allen still has a show. how is this possible? it comes on at like 3:48 a.m. it's not even scheduled on the half hour. they just throw it in when there's nothing else to air. it's amazing. it's the longest running career of an absolute invisible nature i have ever come across.

the world on the edge.

emerging markets decline.

if you're reading this, you're probably getting a sense of how real this situation is. i'm not sure our congress gets it and i know our president doesn't get it. do our two candidates get it? we'll see in the upcoming debate.

i have to wonder how soon people will be unable to justify spending over $200 on sports tickets. it hasn't happened yet, but this credit crunch is coming for each of us who has deluded ourselves into thinking we can live beyond our means and no one will notice.

subprime flowchart from the deal

101 years and counting

it's called karma cubs fan. you took an astros team on the run from a hurricane, made them play in milwaukee and humiliated them. you threw a no-hitter at their expense in the first game after the hurricane. your fans came in droves and booed the "home" team in milwaukee. you swept the astros and moved on.

now you got swept. now you're at home again wondering how it is possible to have a team so inept as to go 101 years without a world series. i'll tell you how. when you take away all the curses and goats and bartmans, you have a poorly run franchise, with inadequate players and a bunch of arrogant, pompous fans who feel they have a divine right to win the world series. you don't. and until you realize that, you never will win.

so enjoy your no-hitter against the astros. i hope it was enough to get you through another long, losing, cold winter.

the bailout is about healthcare per sarah palin

i've watched this thing three times and i still have no idea what she is talking about.

the scary thing is, neither does she.

here's another one.

here's another one.

here's another one.

this is painful. dan qualye seriously looks like alex trebek right about now. speaking of sean connery, he's got some domestic ideas he'd like to share.

before and after

this will be my last mention of hurricane ike. but i forgot i took the bottom picture just before sundown on friday evening. the top picture was taken the next morning after the hurricane. you can't see from the picture, but there are two more huge trees blocking the street. both pictures are facing the same direction. in fact, you can see the chase building in the bottom one.

i wonder if that car was out there all night? that was a bold move.

saturday in the city

the bailout passed and the texans still suck. some thing's change, some don't. we'll see what happens in the following weeks.

check out this quote from hank paulson, then ceo of goldman sachs, in 2000. so let me see if i have this straight, we help goldman today by destroying our financials tomorrow? is that right? do i have that right?

energy star appliances seem all too common now.

watched a really good movie last night called "talk to me" about dj petey greene in washington during the 60's and 70's. not sure how good the movie would have been without don cheadle. man, that dude is awesome.

the 12 pics of rod stewart.

new video from the fleet foxes.

here's some tips on growing a beard. it's going to happen soon.

the days of wine and booze

been listening to one song repeatedly off of the minus 5 album "down with wilco."

"one day, when i'm old or dead
one day, can't get out of bed
i hope and pray the night before
we were out of our heads
cause i never want to lose
no i, never want to lose
the days of wine and booze"
- the minus five

i'm also obsessed with the pernice brothers. check this one out.

i wonder if anyone in the world is watching wings right now.

i momentarily love the los angeles dodgers. the cubs are going down.

rack me

the whole article is here, but i couldn't help but post some of this from rolling stone:

"The defining moment for me came shortly after Palin and her family stepped down from the stage to uproarious applause, looking happy enough to throw a whole library full of books into a sewer. In the crush to exit the stadium, a middle-aged woman wearing a cowboy hat, a red-white-and-blue shirt and an obvious eye job gushed to a male colleague — they were both wearing badges identifying them as members of the Colorado delegation — at the Xcel gates.
"She totally reminds me of my cousin!" the delegate screeched. "She's a real woman! The real thing!"

I stared at her open-mouthed. In that moment, the rank cynicism of the whole sorry deal was laid bare. Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation."

wow.

fancy plans and pants to match

when warren buffet, or as i like to call him "w.b.", speaks, i listen. he's got a fix for the economy.

here it is.

big time hate piece on john mccain from rolling stone. big time.

best sportswriter going: jason whitlock.

pigs on the wing

this is the real worry behind the massive congressional bailout. maybe it will help, maybe not. all i know is that penguins are some funny looking birds.

bailout 101. good time reading.

what is the libor?

who wrote "pigs on the wing"?

and did anyone know brian wilson has had a new album out for a couple of weeks? it's actually really good.

bill maher's got a new documentary out. check it out.

derivatives

warren buffet calls derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction." i can't begin to explain what derivatives are because i only understand part of it. but when you have warren buffet saying that about something, it begs notice.

phill gramm was a senator from texas. he was also john mccain's campaign co-chair before he said something amazingly stupid. he also sponsored a bill adamantly denouncing regulation of our financial institutions. he also authored an act to allow consolidation of commercial and investment banks. the gramm-leach-bliley act has been highlighted here before.

isn't it amazing how one man who most of us never heard helped to create the situation we're currently facing. he's not our president, so he won't get blamed. but his stamp of approval is all over this mess. and he was john mccain's close advisor, probably still is, just without a title. john mccain has admitted openly he knows nothing about the economy. and he's got this man talking into his ear. and he could be our next president. and our next vice president is even more amazing. i'll wait until after the debate to discuss that. wow.

picks

mlb postseason picks are in for 2008. here are the league divisional rounds:

national league

chicago cubs vs. los angeles dodgers: i have the dodgers in this one. i like the way their staff has come together. i really like what manny has done to that lineup. and i think the cubs are coming in to the playoffs with a real lack of momentum. dodgers in 4.

philadelphia phillies vs. milwaukee brewers: i like the phillies here. i can't understand why this team underachieves as much as they do, but i think this year they get their act together and get to the 2nd round. hamels, moyer and myers with lidge closing will do better than c.c. and a busted up ben sheets. phillies in 4.

american league

tampa bay rays vs. chicago white sox: tampa bay is my team this year. i love the way this team is put together. i love the way they took it to the yankees and red sox and won the division. i love jerry hunsicker who is an advisor. and i absolutely hate the white sox. go rays! rays in 5.

los angeles angels of anaheim vs. boston red sox: isn't that name the most ridiculous thing in sports this side of al davis? i like them anyway though. i think they finally get over that hump with boston. boston is banged up. beckett will throw, but who knows how much he's got. lowell is hurt and jason bay is weak. texeria, lackey and k-rod will steamroll this red sox team. angels is 4.

once these predictions hit their mark, which they're guaranteed to do, i'll be back to pick for the league championship series.

u.s. saves europe....for now

aig was propped up, while lehman's was cut loose.

here's the reason.

alphabet soup is doing us in

are CDS the next card to fall?

that's the $55 trillion dollar question.

we need glue and scotch tape

check out a link from paul kedrosky's blog that's a link to michael lewett's column.

let's recap

i have to wonder what value a system has that generates value of physical assets by emotion. are some of these companies really worthless? maybe. probably not yet, but they're moving that way, if we're talking about financials. are the others really worth less today than they were yesterday? yes. but why? why are these companies who do not trade in financials worth less? is it because they are low of cash, therefore steps away from insolvency? possibly. i'm not an expert.

but what to make of the term "market fears?" how can we calm the fears of wall street? because they sure seem like a bunch that is easily rattled. today's dip was huge. it was the single largest one-day drop in the dow. ever. can you believe that? we just witnessed the largest one-day drop in the dow ever. it's never happened before.

so how will injecting $700 billion into the market help the market? will it really hit the market? because buying worthless assets in the hopes to sell them in the future does not seem like a way to turn this market around. by doing so, i suppose we're taking bad assets off the books, allowing banks to rid themselves of these subprime mortgages and stay afloat. i think that's what the plan is. that and then to sell them later on for a profit, if a profit can be had.

but who are buying from first? how much are we going to buy from each bank? will this reach into international bank books? will banks start lending to each other again if we take these bad assets off the books? will some sort of oversight be added back into the equation? because i cannot sit back and watch greed and arrogance run entire industries into the ground. we all sit back as long as we're making money. but think for a second. do you know what a future trend is? do you know bankers/investors/financial experts look at these future trends and convince themselves a trend is indefinate? why do you they do this? because the current trend is full of cash. and if something is too good to be true, then we'll make it true.

anyway. it's not the end of the world. it's not the end of this country. sometimes i wonder just how far we'll go to make money. to earn revenue. to boost earnings per share. corporations have no responsibility. they're whole existence is to make money. if you rely on them for anything, anything at all, you're a fool. stay smart. smarter than them. stay ahead of them.

we need a change.

swing and a miss

house defeats bill.

america, this is hunger and disease.

hunger and disease, this is america.

you two get to know each other.

the end of pax americana?

there was the romans. there was the british. there was the americans? found out here.

also, there's a plan in place to help/slow our financial meltdown. it will be voted in. we should probably read it.

hey did anyone watch the debate the other night? why won't john mccain look at barack obama? he kept looking down at jim lehrer. i found that somewhat strange. and what is with republican smiles? john mccain's smile is eerily similar to george bush's weird smile. and there's this guy.

"lighten up henry. it's only vomit."

and finally, brad ausmus played his last game for the astros today. in the last few years, craig biggio, jeff bagwell and now brad ausmus, have all retired. i remember seeing all these guys play at the astrodome, including ken caminiti.

my favorite brad ausmus memory will be that 18 inning game against the braves in the nlds. lance berkman had hit a grand slam to pull us back within one run. but the bottom of the ninth came and we were at the bottom of our lineup. brad ausmus connected on a pitch and sent it over 400ft. to tie the game. it was the most improbable home run i think i've ever seen. we went on to win that game and the series. that game was so long, i woke up and it was already the fourth inning. i went to work and it was still on the radio. i got to work and proceeded to sit and watch every pitch for two and a half hours before we finally won. i can't imagine what it was like to have been there that day.

good luck brad.