the scariest halloween costume ever

ok, we get it, harriet miers withdrew her nomination. CAN THE MEDIA STOP SHOWING PICTURES OF HER??!?! i'm having nightmares where she crawls out from under my bed and eats my face. seriously, she is so fucking scary! i hope dubya nominates someone else soon because i just can't live like this.

the cool kids club

i was a really gay kid growing up. i was into things like jump rope and celebrity gossip--you know, stuff that every second grader is interested in. i remember being obsessed with the "popular girl" image in film and tv and wanted to find a way to become that person before anyone else in grade school could beat me to the punch. i did an in-depth field study at the local mall and roller rink and realized that the most popular girls had 1 thing in common: they had almost superhuman mind control over their peers. it became my mission to find away to control my fellow pupils, make my way to the top of the food chain, and exercise my manifest destiny as sunderland elementary's most popular.

i figured the best way to round up the cattle was to start an elite club. you've got to create the need, know what i'm saying? the criteria for choosing members of my group had to be those who 1) would improve my image and 2) showed promise in the areas of fashion and gossip. i created a newsletter, meant to be the first edition of many, with the hottest celebrity news and crossword puzzles made up of tiffany and debbie gibson song lyrics. needless to say, i needed a name for my club...something catchy...something that would really stand out, you know, like an acronym that would really reach out and grab you. after much pontification, i decided on "cool kids club" but "CKC" just wouldn't do. hmmm....the CCC? nope, sounds like catholic sunday school. what did i finally come up with? take a wild stab... i called it the KKK. yes, i ran around the playground trying to get kids to sign up for the KKK. i actually collected about 12 names or so, but shaneekwa and jamall jackson never spoke to me again. i guess some people can't get their priorities straight.

"we try to keep our eye on the big picture..."

"...the picture keeps getting bigger" -ani difranco

today i'm bullish on humanity and the mind blowing conincidence at the intersection of time and circumstance.

happy birthday amber.

when the herd comes a runnin'

...get your money the f*ck out of that asset class and head for higher ground.

i'm going on such a broker rant today.

broker: um. hi. so do you guys sell reits? i just think real estate is the way to go.

me: why, yes of course! you should definitely put your client 100% into a reit manager.


yes, this too is part of the homosexual agenda.

i want the world. i want the whole world...

...i want to wrap it all up in my pocket it's my bar of chocolate. give it to me NOW!

what's with people's sense of entitlement? part of my wholesaling job is answering inbound calls in addition to selling my financial services products to my assigned territory. these inbound calls are supposed to be related to asset allocation, diversification of portfolios, tactical allocation changes and so forth. the people who call in are somewhat, at least marginally sophisticated retail brokers. every day i am amazed at the audacity of these brokers who are quick to demand that i audit their client's performance, make ridiculous exceptions, speak to their clients, etc. many times i am more than willing to show off my sales prowess but a lot of these guys think that i'm going to pull strings and jump through hoops for them. uh...hell no. as the broker, you take on responsibility to MANAGE YOUR CLIENTS' EXPECTATIONS AND BEHAVIORS. my firm just does the money management part. if you can't control your client then you should not be a broker (i've said as much in so many words as of late and gotten my head chewed off). eat or be eaten. you can't scapegoat your clients' issues on me. what makes people think that i should manage their $50k mutual fund account when i have clients to service that have $70mm with our firm? you don't deserve to get paid, i will be taking your commission this quarter. strap on a set, bitches.

napkin of the month club

apple is coming out with the new video i-pod and who the hell cares? in america, we like watching tv on bigass screens, not little hand-held ones. i realize they're trying to stay competitive and bring new products to market but no one i know will buy this. maybe all the japanese jazz students who hang out in front of berklee music school but nobody else, i tell you, NOBODY!

futures look slightly positive this morning but investors will flip out when fuel inventory comes out and tech will take a nosedive. (how bout shorting semi-conductors?)

i have slight OCD about a few things. napkins are one example of my quirky disorder. see, well, the thing is, i love them. i fucking can't get my hands on enough napkins. i have an entire file cabinet at my desk full of napkins. i take them from everywhere and not just 1 or 2, i take stacks of them. i clean out napkin dispensers. every time i go to the au bon pain (or ooh boo poo as i like to call it) i swing by the utensil station and grab piles of them and stuff them into my "to go" bag. i use probably 8-10 of them at lunch and another 12 or so throughout the day if my hands feel soiled for one reason or another. my friend steph has taken to fedexing me piles of napkins from around the world (or at least from within the i495 belt). she writes nice little summations on the napkin quality and origin then they go in my stash. i'm not creepy like a cat lady or anything, i actually despise clutter but sometimes you just can't seem to get clean enough and napkins are my personal escape from this germ infested, disease ridden office. is that weird?

*wipes face with starbucks collection #3.1 circa june 14th, 2003, old pre-recycled design, 2 ply*

economy schmeconomy

my thoughts from a survey at the learning curve:

1. How do you think the economy is doing?
I think the economy is mediocre. There is some muted growth but consumer confidence is down and the market is lack luster; people are still hungover from the roaring 90's.

2. How do you think the stock market will do for the remainder of the year and into 2006?
The optimist in me says 5% for the S&P but the realist says "flat".

3. Do you think the bull market is over?
I think we're at the tail end of the bull market, '06 will be ugly for stocks (I'm hanging on to my blue chips though).

4. Do you think the real estate market is in a bubble? Has that bubble ended?
I think real estate in hot markets has plateaued. Analysts said Boston would "pop" like it did in the early 90's but it hasn't (I live there). However, Boston is a hot condo market and the units are predominantly owner-occupied, no one is buying 10 condos as rental properties like they did in '91. I think places like Florida should be worrying about housing sustainability--highly leveraged people with little experience, tunnel vision, and herd mentality have been picking up handfuls of properties in places like ft. lauderdale and tampa. I don't know if there is a viable rental market for all of these apartments.

5. What do you think about inflation? Have you noticed any inflation in things other than energy prices?
What inflation?

6. Have you made any lifestyle changes because of the rise in energy prices? Have you changed how you spend money or the kinds of activities you participate in on evenings and weekends?
I don't drive much because I live in the city so I haven't really been effected by high energy prices yet (just wait until winter rolls around). My discretionary spending hasn't changed much: movies & beer.

his and hers

essie and i bought a place together about a month ago. the junk mail that follows is hilarious. i guess he's the mrs. according to wells fargo. it's a slight ego boost for me.

ay dios mio

looks like a slight lift in the market this morning. can we get some exuberance back please? a little year end rally? c'mon party people, fuck high energy and bogus LEIs, let's get out of this range, daddy's got a mortgage to pay! special thanks to GOLDMAN for the critique of TXN which sent it on a downward spiral yesterday.

i'm trying to load all of my cds into i-tunes and i feel like i'm going to be editing my library for the next 6 months. i've got about 500 discs and i pretty much go on a cd spree every tuesday when the new releases come out. i know, i know, i'm living in the stone ages by purchasing CD's and the entire music industry business model is archaic and evil, but i still have a religious method to buying music: buy the cd, go home, put it on, read the liner notes, pay attention to the arrangements, and judge. maybe this is the result of being a musician who was raised by a musician. i analyze what i think the artist was going for, search for influences, and try to relate to the songwriter's experiences. buying an album on i-tunes simply does not give me the same buzz. i think you lose a level of intimacy with a song when you don't look at the context of it. as a songwriter, i would want people to hear the whole collection since my themes tend to bleed together...maybe that's just me but that's how a player's got to be.

currently spinning: fiona apple, my morning jacket, franz ferdinand, ryan adams & the cold roses, fisherspooner

...with liberty & justice

at first glace, harriet miers seems like a typical dubya pick: wealthy texan who has been known by the bush family for decades. i am, however, trying not to throw my left wing up in outrage since so very little is known about her political views. call me ill-informed, but i can't really say that i think someone with no experience as a judge is necessarily qualified for the job. i mean, judge judy has spent more time on the bench, can somebody nominate her? she's what america really needs: an opinionated, pushy jew casting down judgement like moses on the egyptians.

dubya rambled on and on about the roadways miers has made for women in the legal field, describing her as "a pitbull in size 6 shoes"...hmmm, maybe he was actually watching a re-run of judge judy on the WB while he made these comments and just got confused. in any case, first impressions are lasting and she better have some tricks up her sleeve if she wants to get by the dems unscathed.