Every day, I've been putting in a little more into the revamp. You can always check it out at index2.php. I want it to do a better job of parsing the blogs, (mine, Ron's, etc.) as I'm thinking the front page should be more of a "portal" if I may use a lame buzzword from five years ago. Then, it's back to working on making it look pretty.
In financial news - I recently embarked into the world of options trading. For those of you who don't know what options trading is, you have a lot of company. Basically, they are the right to buy a stock at a pre-determined price by a pre-determined date. In exchange, you pay someone a premium for that right. From this, there is a whole ridiculous world of financial oppurtunity.
As I explained previously, things were looking pretty good. Then all hell broke loose for SEPR. I am in a "Calendar Spread". I won't bother to explain it now, but I bought .ZQTAE and sold .ERQCF . So, take the bid price of .ZQTAE and subtract the ask price of .ERQCF. For every penny over 6.15, I make $3. For every penny below 6.15, I lose $3. Right now, I'm down about $135, but I'll make it back. I have until March 19th to turn it around and I'm still confident. I think.
Well.. apparently my little talky-talkys aren't funny enough anymore. Then, I shall try anew...
Being a shrewd observer of human nature and spectactular multi-tasker, I find great comfort in seeing people struggle with seemingly simple tasks. It also helps that I'm evil, but I digress...
In middle school, my best friend was saddled with a rough affliction, and until last night, I thought he was alone in this world. I was wrong.
This weekend, I attended the Hamtramck Blowout, a music festival of local bands. It rocked. However, the bands were spread out over more than a dozen venues, some more than a mile from each other. The weekend required a lot of walking. While traveling from one site to another, the air was filled with animated conversation between myself, Ron and Liz. (Amber was at a memorial service, and did not attend. I asked to go because I am such an awesome guy, but was rebuffed.)
Ron and Liz have been going out since the dawn of time, so I would walk to one side of them. I have always been very conscious of personal space and relative speeds and positioning when I walk. You know how there are people who walk next to you that are oblivious to upcoming objects? Like when there is a fire hydrant up ahead and you notice that you and your group will get to it at the same time that the approaching group will? I notice these things well in advance of everyone else and begin planning whether I should slow down and fall behind the group to narrow our width, avoiding the otherwise inevitable port side collision with the oncoming drunks/fire hydrant, or if I should speed up and look like a complete dork by speed-walking - but save myself from the imminent collison of two equally oblivious chatter-groups. I'm always thinking.
Well, for some reason I ended up between them. I felt immediately uncomfortable as an interloper in their world, but realized I couldn't back out. As weird as I felt, it would have been even more awkward to slow down and make a flanking movement to either side - as it would have drawn attention to the fact that I took up a poor walking position in the first place. Being the manly man I am, I marched on. That is, until I noticed my buffer zone was disappearing!
Now, not only was I in the wrong position, but the error was growing worse by the second! This is where Todd, my friend from middle school comes in. You see, he was an angle walker. Walking side-by-side, there is always the tough balance of facing your side companion while talking and looking in front of you to re-orient yourself and prevent embarrassing tripping or stepping-in-dog-turd action. So, you have to alternate. You talk a little, then turn to look. Unfortunately, this skill is not taught in school, where they instead focus on things like diagramming sentences and other useless crap. (Aside: Why isn't this stuff taught? Like -- How do I do laundry? Do I shave with or against the grain? Why do people who proclaim themselves as followers of Jesus turn out to be those most intolerant and lacking in compassion for the less fortunate - when THAT WAS HIS BASIC FUCKING POINT!? At exactly what point does "Oops, my pants fell down!" turn into public indecency?)
Anyway... Todd could not handle both actions simultaneously. So, he angle-walked. Whenever he turned to face you, he feet turned ever-so-slightly to your side, and as walked forward, he also drew closer. You had to keep backing away until you were walking in the roadside gutter, wallowing in its crapulence. He forced you off the sidewalk every time he tried to talk with his angle-walking, like a linebacker trying to cut off a receiver at the sideline. And even worse, he was completely oblivious to it. Fortunately, I seriously lacked social graces at that time, so when he began closing in, I would shove him back away from me and scream, "Walk straight, you idiot!" ( I wasn't good at snappy insults then.)
Bringing my expert training to focus, I pointed out that Ron was angle-walking. He had been unaware, but after I pointed it out he was able to correct it and we resumed walking about Hamtramck.
Once again, Chris makes the world a better place. You're welcome, world. You're welcome.
I'm in the process of doing my taxes this evening and it has been a chore to say the least. Not that it is easy for everyone, but I have to also balance three W-2s from two jobs and unemployment. I was overwithheld from Disney (last Jan) and withheld nothing from unemployment. Throw an IRA conversion from a 401k to a Roth IRA, making the amount taxable, selling my home, moving to an apartment and all of the mortgage deductions, credits and income those things entail.. and you get results that are a bit wacky.
I used some Tax software, but the answers seemed a bit off. I am owed about $130 from the Feds, but I came up short $484 to Michigan. That sucks. And is wrong.
After doing some stuff by hand, I owe MI $160, not $484. Umm, yeah... while bordering on unemployment, $320 is a pretty big deal. So, just a warning -- fear your returns. And don't trust computers. And covering your desk and surrounding floor with dozens of piles of papers is a good thing.
P.S. I know I promised an Amber story, but the taxes stuff threw me off. I'll mock Amber tomorrow.
I finally got my new computer! And yes, Greg, this is not an anecdote. (I was going to post a pillowcase story mocking Amber, but she was in rough shape today - so I felt bad about kicking a dead horse in the mouth. I love mixing metaphors. Tomorrow, she will rebound, and I will mock anew.)
So, on Thursday, after three solid years of work from my current computer (which I am currently typing on), my new computer arrived, or rather the parts for it did. It is much cheaper to buy the parts for a computer online and assemble them together than to buy it premade. However, it does require a certain amount of knowledge and access to an operating system, both of which I have.
The specs:
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton - 333Mhz FSB, 512k cache)
512 MB KingstonPC 3500 RAM (433Mhz, one stick)
80GB Seagate Hard Drive (SATA, 8MB cache)
Epox 8RDA3+ motherboard (nVidia nForce2 chipset, two Ethernet jacks, digital audio out, 6 USB 2.0, 2 Firewire, 2x SATA RAID, 2x IDE - also really good for overclocking)
Gigabyte Radeon 9200 video card (with video capture in)
Antec Sonata Case (hopefully really quiet)
The goal -- make a quiet, overclocked (fast) PC. Unfortunately, the goal was sidetracked for most of Friday as I could not get it to boot. After about 6 hours of sheer frustration, I figured out by sheer, random luck that if you plug the cord for the USB port on the front of the case onto the motherboard, umm - the whole computer doesn't boot. No lights, no power, no nothing.
That made no sense, but whatever. After finally getting it to work, I headed off to the DVD bash at Sevin, a nightclub in nearby Pontiac. (For those of you new to this dance, WDVD was my former employer, before they threw me out a little over a year ago.) Much thanks to Ron for getting us in free. Saw Vertical for the first time in quite awhile, and found out that he is soon to be a Dad. Had a pretty good time as about 15-20 friends showed up, making it quite the event. Unfortunately, drinks were only 75 cents before 11PM. This caused a buying frenzy at 10:59, including some irrational decisions - some of which led to my lovely girlfriend spending Saturday alternately on the couch and in bed.
The most interesting aspect of Sevin is that a) there were "cage dancers" and b) it was 80's night. Most of the night was spent staring alternately at the dancers and one of our waitresses. The waitresses were dressed in faux 80's fashion and ours had either a weird skirt or bizzarre anatomical proportions.
Her skirt was at the most - 4 inches long (I have indepedent confirmation on this estimation). Now that is clearly not enough material to cover up any regular sized derriere, but in her defense - she was a very small woman. Even more troubling was the observation that her midriff was bare, clearly leaving her unable to hide any crack in a shirt tail - this despite the fact that the skirt covered everything on the bottom side with over an inch to spare.
Now, do the math. If there was nothing showing either above or below, it was four inches long and there was one inch to spare = her butt was only three inches in the vertical dimension! I didn't think that this was humanly possible! (For reference, my estimates place my butt height at around 8 inches.) How does one attempt to go to the bathroom with such small proportions? There are no toilet seats manufactured (training seats excepted) that could prevent her from falling in! She therefore must have legs of steel to allow her to squat for such extended periods of time. It's all about the hovering for her.
