26
2008
Swaying the Market
Want to affect the market for a day? It’s easy, just report something going on.
Becoming more and more interested in the market, I’ve been watching it on a daily basis. In general, I’ve found that most stocks move up and down together. Clearly a lot more can be written on what’s wrong with that statement (because of stocks that follow the economic cycle and stocks that are independent of economic cycles, for example), but we can agree that there are always trends that the majority of stocks follow on a given day.
But what causes these short-term trends? In short, reports.
Today is probably not the best day to use as an example because there were several “conflicting” reports (meaning some positive, some negative), but let’s take a look at one of them.
There was a report today that said that consumer confidence was been better-than-expected in July. (The ‘expecting’ is done by Wall Street analysts.) Alright, so it’s one of hundreds of reports that have come out in the past few months; it can’t single-handedly change what traders think of the economy and the value of stocks, right? Wrong.
Traders are the most pendant group of people I have ever seen. It’s like the state of the economy and predicting its future is based on only the most recent report issued. Good report, stocks go up; bad report, stocks go down.
What about putting it in perspective? What about looking at the general trend of the reports and anticipating what is going to happen with the economy? That just doesn’t happen.
For some reason, whenever I get worked up about this, I picture a fat guy sitting in his chair with a stained wife-beater shirt eating a turkey leg. He is watching the news and he hears a positive report about consumer spending; he picks up his cell phone, calls someone and just says “buy buy buy”. Then, two minutes later, he hears a negative report about the value of the dollar on the news, picks up his phone, and says “sell sell sell”.
I just don’t get it. What am I missing?
19
2008
Best of Boston
A restaurant that Amanda and I frequent is Woody’s, just outside Northeastern’s campus. One of the last few times we were there, they filmed some footage for the Best of Boston award they were receiving. I guess we looked happy enough for them to include in the video:
16
2008
More Memories
Someone on the State Radio forums just posted a link to this. Turns out, it was filmed at my first State Radio show! The song is “Right Me Up”.
[February 18, 2005 - Old Town Hall, Andover, MA]
26
2008
Austin Powers Memories
I’m watching Austin Powers right now for the first time in a while. I can’t believe it’s been eleven years since it came out and I was so into it. There are so many great lines I had completely forgotten about.
“There you are!”
“Well, hey, do I know you?”
“No, but that’s where you are, you’re there!”
“In Japan, men come first and women come second.”
“Or sometimes not at all!”
“How dare you break wind before me?”
“I’m sorry, baby; I didn’t know it was your turn.”
I’m getting so many more jokes now than I did before, as well as the Cold War reference. I’m also enjoying the TV version of the movie where Alotta Fagina’s name is Alotta Cleavage (pronounced in the movie “clea-va-jay”), Austin’s “Swedish-made penis enlargement pump” is just a “Swedish-made enlargement pump”, and Austin just keeps repeating “do I make you randy?” rather than using the word “horny” on TV.
17
2008
Pet Peeve #3
Misuse of the word “literally”.
Literal means “in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical”. By adding literally to a figure of speech, for example, indicates that you are not using the phrase as a figure of speech, but that you mean exactly what you are saying. So by saying “I’m so hungry I could literally eat a horse right now”, you are saying that you could, in fact, eat an entire horse. Had the word literally been omitted, the saying “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” could be treated as the figure of speech that it is.
An actual example of this misuse that sticks out in my mind (it wasn’t recently, though it’s better than some recent examples) is when a Red Sox announcer commented on how close the ball came to the booth where he was sitting. He said, “the ball literally fell into my lap”. Unfortunately, there is shatter-proof glass in front of him that the ball literally bounced off of causing it to fall to the ground. The ball was not in his lap, contrary to how I understood his comment to mean.
12
2008
More College Humor
Just trying to kill a few minutes, what are the odds that two CollegeHumor videos come along that are worthy of posting?
For starters, I really just like the caption of this video, though the kid playing is really good.
As for the other video, well, I just really enjoyed it.
11
2008
NY Times Coaster Article
Click here for the article. Very interesting. (Make sure to watch the video, too.)
Of note:
- “I found that out firsthand, stalling in Hershey’s parking lot, warily eyeballing a 1996 Great Coaster design, the Wildcat — an imposing coaster that warrants Hershey’s most aggressive ride rating. As I found with Lightning Racer, I couldn’t get enough of it once I got on.”
- “[Twister is] a gut-wrenching coaster, and yet my thoughts drifted back to Lightning Racer. If they could drop that woodie into Knoebels, I might never leave.”
Lightning Racer at night
26
2008
The Nomadic College Student
As I run around my house cleaning, organizing, and packing things before heading back to Kentucky for six months, I reflect on the fact that I’ve moved around so much in the past four years; it’s getting really tiring. Let’s take a look:
- September 2004 – Move from home to campus (Kennedy Hall)
- April 2005 – Move from campus back home for the Summer
- September 2005 – Move back to campus (West Village C)
- September 2006 – Change rooms (West Village C)
- December 2006 – Move off campus back to home
- January 2007 – Move to Pennsylvania
- June 2007 – Move out from Pennsylvania back to home
- July 2007 – Move back to campus (West Village A)
- Fall 2007 – Change rooms (West Village G)
- December 2007 – Move off campus back to home
- January 2008 – Move to Kentucky
- May 2008 – Move straight from Kentucky back to campus (West Village C)
- June 2008 – Move off campus back to home
And now, I am getting my things reorganized and moving back to Kentucky tomorrow. I’m not done moving, though…
- December 2008 – Move out from Kentucky back to home
- January 2009 – Move back to campus
- May 2009 – Move off campus back to home
- Later in May 2009 – Move from home to Kentucky…
Is this normal?
23
2008
I Hate Double Standards
I went to Wendy’s for lunch today and got a spicy chicken sandwich. Still no tomato on it. It’s been a couple weeks since the Salmonella scare started and major chains pulled tomatoes from their list of ingredients.
There have been 552 cases reported and 53 hospitalizations linked to the bacteria since this began.
Yet five million deaths linked to tobacco use occur annually throughout the world. Those are deaths – not even counting those that remain sick as a result of tobacco use.
So why are tomatoes off the shelf, but tobacco is still sold everywhere? Someone should get a tomato lobby into Washington quickly.
(Sources: the FDA and WHO)
19
2008
Evel Knievel Ready to Open
Today is the media day for Evel Knievel at Six Flags St. Louis. There is already a huge buzz around the new ride.
Six Flags made an official press release here, including a video and photos.
The local news posted an on-ride video here.
The same news also held an interview with Clair Hain (owner of Great Coasters), found here.
