Makeup
posted by williamt on Thursday, November 20, 2008
and has 0 comments
"...big homes are sitting around unsold, turning America's shoreline drives and gated golf estates into zombie communities."With Castle BillSkull not selling, does that make me a zombie? Or is just the house a zombie?
- WSJ today
| Year | Return | $10,000 |
| 1929 | -17.2% | $8,280 |
| 1930 | -33.8% | $5,481 |
| 1931 | -52.7% | $2,593 |
| 1932 | -23.1% | $1,994 |
| Year | Return | $10,000 |
| 1928 | 48.2% | $14,820 |
| 1929 | -23.1% | $11,397 |
| 1930 | -32.8% | $7,659 |
| 1931 | -52.7% | $3,622 |
| 1932 | -21.7% | $2,836 |
| 1933 | 66.7% | $4,728 |
posted by williamt on Saturday, November 15, 2008
and has 1 comments

"Complete crap"Michelle Rhee (over there to the right) is a hero (and pretty hot too), and someone who's efforts I really admire. She is trying to fix the Washington DC public school system... firing bad principals and teachers, fighting the teacher's union, and battling the feds and, well, seemingly everyone.
- Washington DC school czar, Michelle Rhee, to those who say inner-city minority kids can't achieve in school
"Only about 6% of the sophomores can read or do math on grade level"6 percent performing at grade level! 6 percent!!!
- Washington DC high school performance (from above WSJ story)
posted by williamt on Tuesday, November 11, 2008
and has 1 comments
"Everyone has an agenda. Except me."Michael Crichton died last week... here's his de facto/bland/generic obit in the WSJ: He Brought Science to Life. The WSJ can make any dead guy boring.
- Michael Crichton

"Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists."I read Crichton
- Michael Crichton
Labels: globalwarming, obit, qotd
posted by williamt on Tuesday, November 11, 2008
and has 0 comments

"Why did you add 'yow' to your dictionary?"Silly billy... I didn't add "yow" to my dictionary... it's already in there: dictionary.reference.com/browse/yow
- Ty Krieger
posted by williamt on Saturday, November 08, 2008
and has 0 comments

"We talkin' about practice.Here's Alan Iverson's wonderful practice rant... www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI
We ain't talkin' about the game.
We talkin' about practice, man."
- Alan Iverson
posted by williamt on Wednesday, November 05, 2008
and has 0 comments
"John McCain and Sarah Palin... they call this socialistic. You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness."Ah, the virtue of higher taxes... the selfishness of keeping your own stuff... down the rabbit hole we go. I don't believe that any of this crap will happen (raising taxes, personal and cap gains) in the middle of a gut-aching recession, but we'll see.
- Obama on higher taxes

posted by williamt on Monday, November 03, 2008
and has 0 comments
I'm writing from the hotel lobby in beautiful Si Valley for Aart's Aaward ceremony tonight. Travel usually means some reading and viewing... good and bad."The only thing better than vacation is home."
- William T.
posted by williamt on Wednesday, October 29, 2008
and has 0 comments
QOTD"The consequences of these actions were disastrous. Just look at the stock market from the post-Kennedy high in early 1966 to the pre-Reagan low in August of 1982. The average annual real return for U.S. assets compounded annually was -6% per year for 16 years. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a bear market. And it is something that you may well experience again. Yikes!"From Today's WSJ...
- A Laffer, Oct 2008
posted by williamt on Monday, October 27, 2008
and has 0 comments
"There are some people in this room that don't need to be here.Singletary might be a great NFL coach. This whole story is pretty good:
We've got guys in here that are cancers.
The thing about cancer cells is, they multiply.
We've got to cut them out."
- Mike Singletary after his first game as coach of the 49'ers... they lost 34-13 to the crappy Seahawks
"But nothing, nothing I’ve seen has matched the media bias on display in the current Presidential campaign."Malone's (excellent) full story is here:
- Michael S. Malone, some journalist I've never heard of
Ah journalism... lowest all professions. We've had a complete integrity meltdown this election year. It's more than lefty bias. It's angry. It's mean. It's entitled. It's completely ninny-fied as Saturday Night Live becomes the main source for politcial news networks. Another favorite: I saw a CNN piece exploring whether Sarah Palin's wink is racist. No, I am not kidding.
posted by williamt on Monday, October 27, 2008
and has 0 comments
"I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody."
- Obama to the ubiquitous Joe the plumber... the quote of the campaign of 2008
Argentina's lefty government just implemented their version of "spread the wealth"... they are confiscating all private pensions for the public "good": Kirchner's Move on Pensions Hits Argentine Markets"Their pensions go first!"How's that for kismet.
- Joe Biden on targeting the pensions of executives with "big salaries"
posted by williamt on Thursday, October 23, 2008
and has 0 comments

"a state of shocked disbelief"Thanks, Alan.
- Alan Greenspan's reaction to the current credit crunch from biz.yahoo.com/ap/081023/financial_meltdown.html
posted by williamt on Thursday, October 23, 2008
and has 0 comments

"Life’s Too Short To Clean Your Own Home"There's a change for ya. Everybody used to clean their own houses.
- I saw this slogan on a van parked at Portillos... I think it's these guys: The Cleaning Authority
posted by williamt on Wednesday, October 22, 2008
and has 0 comments
Guy: "It's over, Johnny. It's over!"Intrade don't lie... it's over.
Rambo: "Nothing is over. Nothing!"
- from "First Blood"

posted by williamt on Tuesday, October 21, 2008
and has 0 comments

"Lions and Bears!!! The old-time rivalry is alive and well!"QOTD2
- TV announcer at today's Bear-Viking game
"You're so ugly; you make my skin crawl. No, wait... that's my maggots!"Klaatu barada nikto.
- Disembodied head display at the Halloween store
posted by williamt on Sunday, October 19, 2008
and has 0 comments
"I've tried to avoid teaching, which for all its charm takes a lot of your energy and makes you doubt yourself."In the Q&A with Updike, he describes his daily habit: wakeup and write 3 pages. He's 76, and it sounds like he still follows that regimen. That's a good habit to copy.
- John Updike from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122419950877642737.html
"It's not that I want to punish your success... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."If the repub nominee for president can't run with this shit... ay carumba!
- Barack Obama, Oct 2008 on his plan to tax the bejesus out of "Joe the plumber"
posted by williamt on Friday, October 17, 2008
and has 0 comments
"That's a long ass project."I'm trying to figure out the best way to scan in a zillion old photo albums.
- Chris the Commish, on my copying all my photo albums
5. ScanMyPhotos - only 300 dpiI think I'll try DigMyPics. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the Kodak printing, but Legacy does that too. They had the best customer service, and they (supposedly) have 3 steps (as detailed on their website) where they do a quality check: scanning, color correction, and final review. I hope they really have some manual intervention because scanning is a dang squirrelly process.
4. ScanCafe - no reprints, long wait
3. BritePix - bad vibe, bad internet phone call
2. Legacy - I like the local place, it costs a little more
1. DigMyPics
Labels: qotd, technology
posted by williamt on Monday, October 13, 2008
and has 0 comments
"We've had virtually no calls, only a handful."Great article on the recent decline: What History Tells Us About the Market
- Theodore Aronson, money manager about his "numb" investors/clients during this market decline
"I can't say that I forgive my father, but now I can imagine what he probably chose never to remember - the goad of an unthinkable urge, pricking him, pressing him, wrapping him in an impenetrable fog of self that must have seemed, when he wandered around the house late at night after working and drinking, like the very darkness. This is the gleaming obsidian shard I safeguard above all the others."Money.
- Jane Smiley, "A Thousand Acres" (a 5 bill-star book, BTW)

posted by williamt on Sunday, October 12, 2008
and has 0 comments

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: democracy just doesn' t work"Well, I watched my first prez debate this election year.
- Kent Brockman, "The Simpsons"
posted by williamt on Wednesday, October 08, 2008
and has 0 comments
"The heels are on; the gloves are off."Two more blatant hit pieces on Sarah Palin:
- Sarah Palin

"This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America. We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism."Gol dang it... that's what I'm talking about!
- Sarah Palin on Barry O'Bama
posted by williamt on Monday, October 06, 2008
and has 0 comments
"I think you're crazy. This whole thing doesn't make any sense."Hey, fuck that old man. Here's a better one.
- Old man on the sidewalk hassling some poor runner schlub who cramped up during the marathon
"RUN BILL RUN!"My marathon result today: a B (see previous post for grading scale... he he)
- I saw this sign 3-4 times while running, but I never saw their Bill

"With Gram, you always knew there was somebody who would be happy to see you."
- Brian Krieger
posted by williamt on Sunday, October 05, 2008
and has 0 comments
2 miles. Done."Bet it all. Win it all."run old man... yow, bill
- Brian Krieger

posted by williamt on Thursday, October 02, 2008
and has 2 comments
Q: "What do you expect out of Freddy Garcia against the Sox today?"Buehrle went on to say that he text-messaged Garcia at a bar last night, and that Garcia frequently drank before starts when he was with the White Sox. Excellent.
A: "A hungover Freddy"
- Sock pitcher Mark Buehrle on the radio today


posted by williamt on Monday, September 29, 2008
and has 0 comments
"I guarantee you that Moore's Law will not end on my watch. Nobody in tech wants to be the guy who goes down in history for killing Moore's Law -- and it sure won't be me."Here's Moore's Law if you don't know what it is: Wikipedia on Moore's Law.
- Intel CEO Paul S. Otellini from "Intel Reboots for the 21st Century"

Labels: qotd, technology
posted by williamt on Sunday, September 28, 2008
and has 0 comments

Labels: globalwarming, marathon, politics, qotd
posted by williamt on Thursday, September 25, 2008
and has 0 comments
"No Americans say that the national economy is getting better"1,100 random phone calls between Sep 16-19... such great stats... they should make this shit pay-per-view:
- Latest poll by these American Research Group guys
How is even possible or conceivable that John McCain wins the election with this crap going on?
posted by williamt on Tuesday, September 23, 2008
and has 0 comments
"The Bautista brothers expressed their feelings silently every time the got into their truck: the drove home to their wives faster than they drove away."Book: "Confessions of a Contractor" by Richard Murphy
- from "Confessions of a Contractor" by Richard Murphy
posted by williamt on Monday, September 22, 2008
and has 0 comments
"To be frank about it, given the talents of Gen. Petraeus and the talent that he had around him on his own staff, if I look back on it and am honest with myself, they would have accomplished all the same results if I had never gone to Iraq."Outstanding article on the Iraq war: Why the Surge Worked
- General Jack Keane on "the surge"
posted by williamt on Sunday, September 21, 2008
and has 0 comments
"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom."I like that: attention, awareness, discipline, effort, caring, sacrifice.
- David Foster Wallace, 2005
Labels: qotd
posted by williamt on Friday, September 19, 2008
and has 0 comments
"Have not money, the thirst for possessions, for power and even knowledge, diverted man from his true destiny?"
- Pope Benedict Sep 2008 in Paris
"Benedict blasted modern society's thirst for these new 'pagan' idols as a 'scandal, a real plague.' The pope urged the faithful to 'shun