Bass solo... percussion... keyboard...

QOTD

"Well my Daddy sent a message
'Bout the whiskers on my chin
Never had no problem
Cause I always paid the rent"
- Chicago, "I'm a Man"

Nice chart... 10 year performance by asset class... Aug 1999 - 2009:


Source: www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/10-year-asset-class-returns


From "Pump Up The Volume", but left off the soundtrack...

"I like it here."
he he... yow, bill

PS - Daddy, Money, Daddy. Kismet.

Labels: investing, music, qotd, video

QOTD

"By starlight
I'll kiss you
And promise to be
Your one and only

I'll make you
Feel happy
And leave you to be
Lost in mine

And where will we go
What will we do?
Soon said I
We'll know"
- Punkins, "By Starlight"

later... yow, bill

Labels: music, myphoto, qotd

Emailing about "The Counselor" (right) today.
Veronica Hamel is 65 now. Jeez.
I gotta get those Hill Street Blues season DVDs.
They're only like $13; I wonder if they'll hold up almost 30 years later.
Stay tuned.

G - D - Em7 - Cadd9...

QOTD

"It shouldn't be so hard to keep it together
It shouldn't be so hard to say the right thing
To you!
It shouldn't be so hard just to be effortlessly"
- Sister Hazel, wussy lyrics from "Effortlessly"

QOTD2

"

Server is too busy

"
- message from Jenny Sanford site, www.scgovernor.com/about/jenny/... everybody's looking for her picture, like me

Well, here's a tiny Jenny Sanford.

That's always the impulse thing.
Affair? I wonder what she looks like.
It's idiotic. It's slowing down at a traffic accident.
Yet, that's the deal for some reason.
BTW, you look pretty good there in black & white, Jenny.

Oh, and this Mark Sanford thing was a classic, source.
I'm fine. No, I'm hiking. No, I'm in Argentina. No, I'm a little stressed out. No, I had an affair. Ahhhhh!

QOTD3

"Sleep will not come to this tired body now
Peace will not come to this lonely heart
There are some things I'll live without
But I want you to know that I need you right now
I need you tonight"
- Punkins, "In the Arms of Sleep"

What's with the wuss-fest lately?
strum... yow, bill

Labels: music, politics, qotd

QOTD

"Swisher Out-Pitches Wang"
- Rotoworld headline, source: link

Dang, that's funny.

Swisher was the only Yankee pitcher to not give up a run: boxscore.

Also funny, as of today Apr 14 2009, Swisher leads the Yankee in homer, rbi, run, and batting average.
A-Rod come home!

Cub win.
I heart Lou. What a difference a leader makes!

QOTD2

"Rat-tat-tat
Ka-boom-boom"
- Punkins, "XYU", live, and video from the Constantine soundtrack

wang... yow, bill

Labels: music, qotd, sports, video

Ever been on stage at Carnegie Hall?
How's this view treatin' ya?



Brother Brad texted me that last night... excellent (and crappy) phone photo.
He was doing this jazzy gig at Carn-diggy:
www.carnegiehall.org/honor/events/eventDetail.aspx?evt=11265

Speaking of brother Brad and St. Patty's Day... my fave Irish blessing, liberally applied at Brad and Bobbie's weeding:

"Walls for the wind
And a roof for the rain
And drinks beside the fire

Laughter to cheer you
And those you love near you
And all that your heart may desire"
- Irish blessing

blarney... yow, bill

PS - I'll hoist one for Gram Krieger today too.

Labels: fun, music

1. All by myself
I was listening to my Rachmaninoff (sp?) piano concertos the other day and he started playing "All By Myself", that woosy 70's ballad. Google, google, wikipedia... here Eric Carmen lifted a Rach-y pianos concerto for his song thinking it was in the public domain. Shit, I guess I would-a thunk that too. See? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_by_Myself

2. Nerd, not geek
I like "nerd" and dislike "geek".
This (Illini) lady has it backwards:
Geeks may be chic, but negative nerd stereotype still exists, professor says

Nerds are totally in. Shit, 200 years ago, half of us (me included) would have died from flu or earaches or bullies or something stupid. Hey, now the weak survive... and then thrive! He he.

3. Thirty Seven!
Movie: Clerks
Review: 5 bill-stars (out of 5)... great!

I saw "Clerks" on regular TV, but it was a cable channel without censorship, for whatever reason. I can't believe Clerks is 15 years old. Its innocence and honesty jumps off the screen. I like it more now that 15 years ago, no doubt. It's shocking how much has changed in so short a time. I gotta admit, fucking old-timer, 1994 was lookin' pretty good.

QOTD

"Yeah, I went down on a few guys"
- Dante's girlfriend Veronica on her 37 blowjob tally

4. Freedom, not
The media blackout continues. I do wonder what the hell is going on out there to some degree. The stock market goes down nearly every day, so something's going on. Right?
I just googled "President Obama freedom"... first news story that popped up.

QOTD

"[President] Obama appears poised to return to a more traditional American policy of dealing with the world as it is rather than as it might be."
- Some loser journalist from some loser story

He he.
Is there any axis in which the Obama presidency strive to increase our freedoms?
Any?
bueller, bueller... yow, bill

PS - "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"... much better movie than Ferris. I cant' decide on 4 bill-stars or 5, so I'm waiting for the mood to hit.

PPS - Sorry. Couldn't resist. He he.

Labels: 5stars, fun, movies, music, politics

Ty census:

• Naperville = 627 people
• Chicago = 1,000-something people
• USA = 1.2 million

It was math time tonight when we got started. I was going to show Ty how to figger how much $1 trillion dollars is for each person in the US. I quickly got a notion that Ty's 9 year-old guess-timates of the size of the world were a little off. He he.

The real census:

• Naperville = ~150K
• Chicago = ~ 3M
• USA = ~300M

So, for the record, (Ty and I didn't get this far with all our census shenaigans) $1 trillion dollars is more than $3,000 for each man, woman and child in the country. A family of 4 is tossing $12,000 into the campfire. A trillion is a million million. I was thinking of penning a letter to President Obama asking for a paltry 1 millionth of the "stimulus" package.

Some other cool stats for you. The US census guys have their own guess-timates:

One birth every..................................   8 seconds
One death every..................................  12 seconds
One international migrant (net) every............  36 seconds
Net gain of one person every.....................  14 seconds

These are from: www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
They also have a people-o-meter with the "current" population of the US running, based on the stats above.

QOTD

"There are a billion people in China.
That means even if you're one in a million...
There are a thousand other guys out there, just like you."
- ???

I heart "Free the Bee" by Melt Banana. Ty too.
I saw Melt Banana in NYNY with Tommy back in the day.
Here's the wigged-out lead (girlie) singer and the Sars-mask-wearing guitarist.



free the bee... yow, bill

PS - Stay tuned... I'm 2/3 of the way through "The Road"... about as fucked up a book as I can recall reading.
PPS - And as the glossy, paperback book cover says, "Now a major motion picture"... www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/. What the... Viggo Mortenson and Charlize Theron... talk about fucked up. Why didn't they just throw Kate Winslett in there. That inspires a QOTD.

QOTD2

"He'd sell cancer if they paid him."
- Moz

Amen, Mozy.

Labels: fun, music

QOTD

"Singing in the sunshine, laughing in the rain
Hitting on the moonshine, rocking in the grain
Got no time to pack my bags, my foots outside the door
Got a date, I can't be late, for the high hopes hailla ball."
- Led Zep, "The Ocean"

Some asshole (Iraqi journalist, I guess) threw a shoe at W today in Iraq:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/14/bush.iraq/

You know how Yahoo headlines this attack on our President: "Surprise protest at Bush visit". The linked AP story is equally smarmy and undeserving of the effort of a hyperlink.

It's not everything, I know. But it is something. There's something to be said about the company you keep. It's a warm blanket to not be a part of the crowd that hates W and loves Obama. The crowd of hatred and raw, surging emotion. I will side with reason over this emotion... not hating and certainly not loving some politician, not being a part of the mass hysteria in either direction. Yes, it's a wonderful, warm, rational place to be.

QOTD2

Singing to an ocean, I can hear the ocean's roar
Play for free, play for me and play a whole lot more, more!
Singing about good things and the sun that lights the day
I used to sing on the mountains, has the ocean lost it's way.
- Led Zep, "The Ocean"

I heart the WSJ.
Fitzgerald Should Keep His Opinions to Himself

I listened to Patrick Fitzgerald on the radio. I had the same queasy feeling. Why is this officer of the court (and the FBI guy with him) giving his personal opinion of the morality of a case? Why the need for hyperbole? Fitzgerald reminds me very much of the excesses of Elliot Spitzer... we'll see how the Fitzgerald story ends?

QOTD3

Sitting round singing songs 'til the night turns into day
Used to sing on the mountains but the mountains washed away
Now I'm singing all my songs to the girl who won my heart
She is only three years old and it's a real fine way to start.
- Led Zep, "The Ocean"

Merry Christmas!
oh so good... yow, bill

PS - This is the big ole Christmas tree in Geneva, IL (snarfed from some other blog)... saw it this weekend with Kim39. The tiny Geneva downtown is beautifully done for Christmas!

Labels: music, politics, qotd

QOTD

"A young musician of unhealthily sensitive nature and endowed with vivid imagination has poisoned himself with opium in a paroxysm of lovesick despair."
- Berlioz description of his "Symphonie Fantastique"

So, in 1830, Berlioz gets hammered and writes a half hour symphony for some hot chick. He was 26 at the time... one year older than Hol.

My next (excellent) CSO experience in a couple weeks (I'm going with Holly) features Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique". Excellent.

QOTD2

“For 37 years I've practiced 14 hours a day, and now they call me a genius”
- Pablo de Sarasate, violinist (quote)

peace... yow, bill

Labels: music, qotd

QOTD

"I'll tell you why I'm lying here...
but god forgive me...
and God help us all...
because you don't know what you ask of me."
- man laying on the sidewalk in the video for "Just", Radiohead

The best music video: youtube.com/watch?v=jufT3v1roaU

I saw Stevie Wonder at Summerfest with 39 and friends. I'd give Stevie a strong 4/5 bill-stars. It was a very fun, positive concert.

That's the Summerfest smiley face logo over there. It seems a nice fit with the event and locale. Wisconsin and Milwaukee are just kind of sleepy, smiley fun places to go have a brew and listen to some music.

you do it to yourself... yow, bill

Labels: music, qotd

Lyric of the Day

I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
All the figures I used to see

All my lovers were there with me
All my past and futures
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt
- "Pyramid Song", Radiohead

Just a great, great video too.
Who knows how permanent these youtube links are, but whatever...

• "Real" video: youtube.com/watch?v=cqP0WNpojFM
• And a fucking incredible live version... youtube.com/watch?v=I_6begaAXMg
  

Those Radiohead wankers do it right.
p-p-p-pyramid... yow, bill

Labels: music, qotd