24

* The new season of "24" with Kiefer Sutherland began on sunday night, with a 2-hour episode. Followed up last night, with another 2-hour episode. (For those of you who learned math in California public schools, that means there are 20 hours left. Just trying to help!)

* Yahoo news has a link to a story that says that bran in the diet, is shown to lower the risk of heart disease. Didn't we find that out 20 years ago? At least?

* I’ll have to stick to the approach used by my wife Sue on many of our frequent weekend walks around the neighborhood. After discussing an hour’s worth of her problems she’ll turn to me and say “But enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?” - Bill Gross | January 2005

* So, 24 vs Desperate Housewives? Thank goodness for TIVO.

* My Intel long ain't workin' out so far. I'm hoping for the afterhours pop. I might add a little more sometime in the last hour of the day. We'll see. Semiconductor stocks really have underperformed for quite awhile now. What's that they say about new bull markets? That the leaders of the previous bull market aren't the leaders of the new bull market? AMD warned today, so Intel seems to be getting shorted ahead of earnings. I like to see that kind of pessimism. Again, we'll see...

* The ads for Levitra warn, that if an erection lasts for longer than 4 hours, contact your doctor. 4 hours? 3 hours and 59 minutes is fine, but not a minute longer. And don't take one before gym class, guys.

* "24" has started off very entertaining. Yet, I'm impatient to wait for next week's episode. I'm to the point where I'd just rather wait until summer, and buy the Season DVD and watch all the shows back to back.

* I sold my REIT stocks. The dividends are nice on those things, but they do seem vulnerable to increases in long term interest rates. Everytime Greenspan mentions it, they get slammed. So, I think the risk is that interest rates which are now still near historic lows, are going to trend higher.

* My Anadarko buy is down a bit, too. Oil has fallen, and APC announced that they'll buy back stock and cut back spending on drilling. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, they make money on drilling. They're still spending quite a bit on drilling, just waiting for a more opportune time they say. Yet, buying back stock increases shareholder value. I'm still long.