TGIF Randomosity

• So, no back-to-back positive days for the stock market in May.  $$  Who is glad to see May go buh-bye?
• Here in CA, it’s been colder than usual.  Snow pack thick enough to have ski resorts open over Memorial Day weekend.  Gee, I remember when we used to go boating and camping. 
• Speaking of, the New York Times plaintively ponders global warmism’s loss of credibility.  We're old enough to remember the "greenhouse effect," which became "global warming," which became "climate change," which now apparently has become "climate science." Just as "retarded" was a clinical term until it developed connotations of mockery and insult, so each term for greenhouseeffectglobalwarmingclimatechangeclimatescience comes to connote dishonest alarmism--because that is what GEGWCCCS is all about.
• Ticket demand for World Cup huge.
• US considers military option in Pakistan.  Gee, that ought to keep things interesting. 
• You know, Rome fell from within.  Just sayin’…  So we, the US, are making decisions on military excursions and domestic entitlements that who knows how the hell we’re going to pay for.  Well, obviously, we’re not going to pay for them in the end.  The debt will continue to grow until we can no longer borrow money.  Hopefully, that’s some other generation’s problem, but I wouldn’t bank on it, so to speak.
• Celtics win!  Back to the Finals.  Their opponent is either Phoenix or LA, and who wouldn’t like it to be LA?  LOL, biased here.
• Gary Coleman dies of brain hemorrhage at 42.  The diminutive Coleman, who suffered from a congenital kidney disease that halted his growth, was hospitalized Wednesday night after suffering an intracranial hemorrhage at his home in Santaquin, Utah. Media reports said he had fallen and hit his head
• Caught up on my Saturday Night Live earlier tonight.  Using the FF button early and often.  Slowing down on the Ke$ha performances.  Just sayin’…

• iPod news?  Bought a Marware Eco-Flip case.  It’s a folio-style case.   Even fits in my man purse.  Yikes.
• UCONN – 8 violations in NCAA men’s hoops.
• Worst May for the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1940.
• One last trip down LOST memorial lane…  Best blog ever is from someone who started blogging about the series as someone who had never seen the previous seasons’ episodes.  Never Seen Lost.  Must reading!

#11: It's the End of May as We Know It

via AudioBoo

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#10: Market Correction... Continues

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Posted via web from muckdog's posterous

Everyone is on the Dole Now

An amazing look private paychecks compared to government benefits Everyone is on the dole now.

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010….

A record-low 41.9% of the nation’s personal income came from private wages and salaries in the first quarter, down from 44.6% when the recession began in December 2007

Link

Anyone see a problem with a growing public sector and a shrinking private sector?

Tuesday Reversal

· Nice reversal in the stock market today. It was very gloomy earlier. $$
· $PM seems like an interesting stock at these levels. Yielding over 5%. Plus, on my lunch time walk I noticed that even with the tensions on the Korean peninsula, the chaos in Europe, and the oil spill in the gulf, that people were still smoking. $PM is an international company, and subject to some currency fluctuations I suppose. And valuation is more than numbers; it can be a function of optimism or pessimism. But I like it better than the domestic companies in the same business. (No position in the stock).
· The 24 finale turned out NOT to be Jack's hallucination. Maybe that'll be revealed in the movie.
· Yeah, Lost. So, I'm out on a walk last night listening to a radio show that was talking about the Lost finale. Same discussions as I mentioned in the last post. There may be lots of questions and frustration about the lack of an official resolution. But maybe that's the best way for Lost to have ended it.
· Oh, when Jack woke up on the island, he was in a suit and dress shirt. The last episode he was wearing a blue shirt. The stab wound was on the opposite side from when the series began. Plus, the shoe hanging from the bamboo was all tattered and weathered. Aha! It was all real!
· "People keep asking me if I know what happened during the finale of "Lost." I don't know what happened, but that doesn't stop me from telling other people that their theories are wrong." -Jimmy Kimmel

Lost: The Hallucinogenic End

I watched the series finale for #Lost last night, and then tossed and turned all night thinking about it. Hallucinating? Really? I can’t get the plot line out of my thoughts. Was it all a dream or hallucination as Jack faded away amongst the bamboo? Did it really happen? Were they all dead from episode one?

My first thought compared the story to Anne Hathaway’s in “Passengers.” Sorry to be the spoiler for that one if you haven’t seen it, but everyone’s dead and coming to grips with their situation before they pass on to what’s next. But Lost is too complex and we’re far too involved for that.

Then I thought, maybe it’s more like “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” where a soldier is about to be hung for sabotage during the Civil War, and is suddenly saved when the rope breaks. Again, a spoiler alert, it turns out that his fortune, escape, and subsequent happenings all were a fantasy that happened between the drop and the snapping of his neck. The rope doesn’t break.

This morning, I crawled around the blogs and news feeds for commentary about what it all meant. Consider that a plea for help, if you will.

Most of the commentary seems to be on the side that the island was real. That seems to neatly tidy up the loose ends, except for all the sci-fi stuff. The biggest deliveries last night were from Hurley and Ben talking about each other being a good #1 and a good #2, and then Jack’s dad, Christian Shepherd, telling his son that they’re all dead and some died before Jack, while some died later. In addition, Christian Shepherd said that they had created this place so that they could find each other before they left to what’s next. The sideways flash was the purgatory where they all lived and waited until they found each other again, trapped in time waiting until everyone was ready.

That latter is the ending that makes me feel the best about watching every episode, plus a run through every episode on Netflix in 2009. Unfortunately, I believe the simplest solution is the most likely. That would be that there were no survivors of the plane crash. There wasn’t even necessarily an island.

I’m going to miss the show.

Sell Low Saturday

• Interesting article in the NY Times on resisting the urge to sell low.  $$

“When a lot of people reach their threshold of pain, they sell their stocks and try to move to more secure holdings — cash, bonds, Treasuries,” said Louis S. Harvey, president of Dalbar, a fund research firm in Boston. “These decisions don’t work out very well for most people.”

Over the long haul, the average investor has badly underperformed the overall stock market: through December, over the last 20 years, the average stock fund investor has had annualized returns of only 3.2 percent, compared with 8.2 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, according to Dalbar. Shortsighted moves in down periods account for much of the deficit, Mr. Harvey said.

• After having sold some stuff a few weeks ago, I’ve been starting to eye some stocks and ETFs again.  I think being patient is the right course of action, but tempting to start nibbling.  Maybe ahead of the month-end 401k adds.  Assuming people are still doing that, of course.
• I ended up with this picture of Ming-Na for today.  I was searching for Stargate Universe pictures, and Elyse Levesque, but this pic will do for today.  Agreed?
• Bret Michaels recovering and taking precaution after the stroke and brain hemorrhage.  Yikes.
• Happy birthday, Pac-Man!  Man, the game seems lame compared to what we have now.  But back in the day…
• I have the Brewers-Twins game on, and Leo Laport’s The Tech Guy.
• BP chief executive says no guarantees on efforts to cap the oil leak, as the oil mess hits Louisiana.  The top kill strategy seems like it would be hard to implement.  Think of trying to cover up a fire hydrant spewing water.  Or placing your hand over a leaking faucet.  I wish them luck.
• I like the 100-calorie packages of microwave popcorn.  Seems like just the right amount for a salty snack.
• Even though I have an iPad 3G, I haven’t used it outside of a wi-fi hotspot yet.  Thus, I haven’t enabled the 3G. I’m not sure I want to spend $30 a month for access when I don’t think I’ll use it that much.  Maybe if I go on a long vacation or something.