Going Away Party

* SBC said that they'll use attrition to cut 7000 positions by the end of 2005. They added that annually, 12,000 employees leave the company for whatever reason. They retire or find another job. Whatever. That's a big turnover rate, isn't it? Wouldn't that keep your personnel department busy?

* Are you going to watch Bush deliver the State of the Union (SOTU) tonight? Social Security and Tax Reform will be at the top of the agenda. That's a given. I expect we'll see the first official outline of what Social Security Choice will look like. No matter what it is, or what the President says on any topic, the Democrats will follow-up with a speech on how they don't like any of it.

* Well, too bad I didn't have the house mortgaged and credit cards maxed to throw the cash into Google yesterday. Eeesh. See that ticker today? The only barb on that wire, is that I think there's a lock-up period experation date coming up. I don't know if there will be lots of selling after that date, but I'm not chasing that stock. Heck no.

* If 12,000 leave your company a year, divide that the number of work days in a year... lets say 250 to keep the math easy. So, that means that 48 people are leaving everyday.

* And all the girlies say, I'm pretty fly for a white guy.

* Jim Cramer says that what's good for Google is good for Yahoo. I own Yahoo. So, I hope he's right.

* Searching for 40,000% returns.

* I totally forgot about American Idol last night. I accidentally started flipping channels with about 20 minutes to go, in time to see the guy do his James Brown impersonation. I have to agree with Simon and Randy, that the guy wasn't that good.

* 48 people leaving the company everyday. How do you schedule all the retirement lunches and going away lunches? Is there any time left to do any work? Divide a 9 hour day by 48 people, and that means (approximately) every 10 minutes, you have to have a going away party.

* I always like watching the SOTU. This is the beginning of Bush's second term, so it should be quite interesting.

* The Pope is in the hospital. It seems like he's been Pope forever. And that he's been in bad health forever. Watching TV last night, there was lots of speculation on who might be the next Pope.

* Yes, the market is up yet again. So far. Maybe some of the strength is due to the beginning of the month, when automatically invested 401k money hits mutual funds. I've heard folks say that this tends to happen the last few days of a month through the first few days of the next month. I tried backtesting that investing idea, and it's usually a positive period. Usually.

* Can you imagine getting a Microsoft Outlook reminder every 10 minutes for a going away party? "Reminder: Bob's Going Away Party." tick tick tick... "Reminder: Jane's Going Away Party." tick tick tick... "Reminder: " etc. HOW DO I SHUT THIS REMINDER THINGY OFF???