- I had a plan to buy some way out of the money puts on Google once I had a sell signal on the market. If the market was going to head into the next bear phase, my plan was to watch that GOOG PE multiple compress and swing for the fences with some long-dated puts. Unfortunately, my Black Box hasn't generated a sell on the market just yet and GOOG seems to be crumbling a bit too early for me to employ this strategery. In fact, this weekend's Barrons has an article on GOOG that could initiate further selling this week. Okay, so now I need a Plan B. I need to find another frothy "can't go wrong" stock. I may need a Plan C and D, too...
- Michelle Kwan calling it quits. She's 25. How ridiculous is that? To be washed-up at 25!
- OK, so I did go for another bike ride today. It wasn't easy. I was sore where no heterosexual man should be sore. I started off and sitting on the bike seat initially was a religious experience. Holy guacamole! I almost turned back to wait another day. Nah, tough it out, dude. My legs were a little fatigued, too. I started off a little slower, thinking I'd just cruise and enjoy the ride. But after a couple miles I was pushing it. No pain, no gain.
- Transporter 1 vs. Transporter 2: I liked the first one better. I thought the story was a bit better. Both watchable, though.
- I think the reason Firefly didn't make it, is because it's slowwww. It's watchable, and I'll go through the other discs and eventually Serenity in the weeks ahead. But the country western theme in outer space seems a little... off.
- Netflix catching some flack for "throttling" frequent renters. That is, rumor says that once a subscriber has gone over a predetermined threshold, Netflix then gives priority on new movie releases to less-frequent subscribers and turnaround time slows down. I haven't noticed this (as a subscriber). I rent a ton of movies via NFLX, and am very happy with their service. The thing I like the best is shopping online. I used to wander around a video store for 30 minutes, and struggle to find something. Oh, and re-renting movies I had already seen. NFLX makes it easy. I have a big queue of movies. No worries!
- Barry Ritholz (The Big Picture blog) links to a story about how the rich are getting richer. The story seems to suggest that raising the minimum wage (or creating a "living wage") would somehow help. But I had to think a bit on this. This is often a Republican vs. Democrate argument, and I'm neither. Raising the minimum wage pushes all wages higher. In cities that have living wages, isn't the cost of living higher? Maybe that's because people make more money. Plus, aren't the majority of minimum wage workers part-time workers? Often, these are teens and college students. And I recall some story about how these are normally kids from middle-class and rich homes. So, creating a "living wage" would only help out a very small percentage of folks for a very short time, until other wages were pushed up and the cost of living increased. Then they'd be in the same boat they are now. Just thinking out loud here!
