Screwball

I found this entertaining, and as a DIY'er, troubling. Only a minute and a half.

I had to look back into history. From Wiki on Jack Grubman; Jack Grubman Link to Amazon book; Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst: A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market This is a really good read.

Especially when crazy things happen, and we just watched a whole bunch of that.

I read all the Enron books along with all the Wall Street scandals. The phone stuff was wild too. Grubman name rings a bell. He was a Wall Street analyst. It was all about booking **** in the future - creative accounting - add in Arthur Anderson. At least some went to jail over that ****. We have a high dollar college in town and one of the Alumni started and sponsored a speaking thing about 6 times a year. We got free tickets to see Sherron Watson speak at one of the first ones. She was great. I can't imagine sitting next to Jeff Skilling and the other corporate goons spilling her beans in front of congress. She had some nads...

I would have pulled the rip cord and ran off with the money long ago. I don't get all the stops. You only need one. 36% probably shouldn't be one of them. If the position loses 36% your gonna need around 56% to the upside to get it back. But since we have a endless supply of money printing you might be good.

Interesting. As someone who lived in the belly of the corporate beast, dealing with budgets, and corporate bean counter mentality...This is all Enron accounting. Unrealized gains. Profits promised in the future. The current AI bubble is a perfect example. Those who studied or lived through the past have already watched this movie. It doesn't end well.

Maybe 8 years ago me and the Boss went to Pittsburgh for a baseball game. Bought tickets early and had great seats. Stayed at the hotel down on the island between the baseball park and the football park. Really neat area. All kinds of shops, food places, bars. We were lucky enough to see it the start of the game in daylight, and then after dark. It is a truly beautiful park and area. If you ever get the chance, don't miss it. One of the beauties of this trip, was the trip. We had all day to get there as we couldn't check in until 4, so we took the scenic route. Since I live in mid NW Ohio, we went South and took 30 East. We had an old - un-updated Garmin - and at some point ran out of road. No more 30. 21 miles of hills on a 2 lane winding road to get back to society. Found a town called Paris. Told the Boss - see, I told you I would take you to Paris someday. She wasn't amused. It got better. Once back on the correct route, now maybe even late, we go through the panhandle of West Virginia. Two lane highway through a small town, on a curve, there is a sign beside the road. 8 x 10 piece of plywood done with spray paint that said - FAR WOOD That was worth the trip right there. Wish I had gotten a picture.

That's wild! Just today, somewhere on these here nets, I caught a clip of Bowie and Crosby singing a Christmas song.

Oh brother. Has everything went nuts?

The sprint car guys do a good job of that. They allow the fans in the pits after the races and encourage the traveling teams to interact with them. They do a really good job with this and their fan base is growing. Partially, maybe, because NASCAR seems to becoming less popular. Each circuit now has streaming. Flo Sports covers the one series and the other has their own streaming. Some local tracks have also went to streaming. This has helped the sport too. But the costs are nuts. 74 grand for an engine when most shows pay less that 10k is nuts, but that's what they do. They are good for maybe a dozen shows then need to be freshened up at a cost of over 10 grand, but I don't know the exact costs. There are some crown jewel events during the year that pay around 200k to win, but only a half dozen. The top guy made 800k but many others are nowhere near that. They lose their ass, but most racing teams do. Kind of a funny story about where the drivers come from. Years ago I was in southern Ohio at a dirt race. I was working on a car. Bobby Rahal was there since he lived in nearby Columbus. He was wandering around so I saw him in the pits, but once the show started he went to the press box. They interviewed him and asked what he thought of these cars. Yea, their pretty neat, all the power (over 900 hp and a 1425 lb car with driver) with so little weight they put on quite a show. How would you like to strap into one of them? No way says Bobby.

That's probably not enough money. I follow dirt track sprint car racing. There are two main touring circuits of cars. The cars are pretty much the same. Some costs I am aware of; Engines (some teams with maybe two, and others with half a dozen or more ) = $74,000 each Complete rolling car with engine = $100,000+ and they all have at least one backup. Haulers are commonly sold for several hundred dollars given they are full blown semi-trucks now. Two years ago one team disclosed they spent $1.3 million in travel expenses for the year. These costs don't include a shop to work out of. Even in this crude form of racing top teams need millions of dollars to run one of the circuits between the car, travel, and shop costs. This year, with 4 races left, the top winner made a little over $800,000 (World of Outlaw circuit, one of the two big ones). Not near enough to cover all the costs. Indy car, NASCAR, and F1 budgets would put these guys to shame when it comes to cost. Like the old saying goes "want to make a pile of money racing? Start out with a bigger pile." So true.

And we could go back to one or two Tiger games, but let's not... 😞

The difference between a double play and a line drive hit to the outfield and drive in a run, is a small fraction of an in inch, or a millisecond, at the point of contact. Kinda like golf. We all know how that goes. One itty bitty little thing could have changed the entire outcome. That's the beauty of baseball.

As one who shut this stuff off years ago, and then got hooked again; I thought the entire playoffs were a really good show. As much as I didn't like how it all ended, it was highly entertaining. Drama, long games, a little bit of everything sit on the end of your seat type stuff. I'm glad I watched. Bravo to baseball for this one.

I know most here follow F1, so this is off topic, but racing. Kyle Larson became a 2 time NASCAR champ today. I think that is really cool. He came from the dirt, like many others in the past who were great racers - see Foyt, Andretti, Unser, the list goes on. Those dirt guys can race. I know nothing about F1, but the Indy are people are really missing the boat, there are some really good dirt guys, and that type of racing on asphalt as well, who are really really good. It's all about money and connections. I think it was Johnny Ruthoford of Indy fame who said one year "there are more car salesmen here than race car drivers." That was a long time ago and it hasn't changed much. That said, Larson is a generational talent. I think he will get another crack at Indy this year. I think the last dirt guy to win Indy was Al Unser Jr. in 1994.

What a crazy game and it's only the 4th.

OK, that makes sense. So we have a kind of semi-electonic strike zone. Or a semi-umpire strike zone. Not sure which. This is too complicated. 🙂

Why would a catcher worry about framing with an electronic strike zone? He's not fooling the batter, he can't see what he does.

If it wasn't for Joe Rogan, Kyle, and is wife Krystal Ball and her shows on The Hill and now Breaking Points would have never gotten off the ground. He helped them, had them on his show. They kissed his ass. Funny how this **** works.

It was probably harder to hit a home run in the lower deck in right field that the upper deck or out of the park. That overhang was quite significant. We had seats out there one game and I got a ball during batting practice (Steve Kemp). It was a shot. Hit around row 4 or 5. On edit; it wasn't that far. Right field was a left handed batters dream.

That's only part of the window. When you open the Co-Pilot app the first screen is not full screen, but most of it. That disclaimer is way at the bottom and very small. If you are not looking, you could miss it. I only captured part of the screen - my mistake - which makes it look bigger than it is.

A little on the AI computer thing... Had an issue with text messages on my phone. I could send and get back if it was to one person. Once there were more than one, they could get mine, but I did not get a response. Oh, goody, here we go. I used the Microsoft Co-Pilot that comes with Windows 11. I spent an hour trying to fix this with no luck. I then logged into my phone carrier account and tried get help there. That might have been worse than Co-pilot. Truly awful. Probably another AI bot, just worse... I ended up fixing it myself by accident. The lack of support all started out with those damn phone tree systems. But I also noticed this. When you open Co-Pilot this is the screen. WAY at the bottom, in letters so small you need to be a piss ant to read...(I had to crop the picture because it was so close to the bottom). Too funny But a link to opt out. That's funny too.

It is no secret on Wall Street cutting jobs make stock prices go up. I was a victim quite a few times over the years myself. As long as there is a bottom line, the next 8K, and bean counters - cutting costs will always be the plan - and people are the easiest way to do so. And in a way it should be, but usually the wrong ones. The waste in large multi-nationals is off the charts. A lot of fat could be cut, or used in a more productive way (what a concept). It don't work that way. It is a giant cluster ****, like Office Space the movie only worse. So let's **** it up even more with AI and get rid of the people who actually helped make the trains on time. That's all these greedy assholes running these companies wanted anyway, a bunch of ass kissing robots. Be careful what you wish for dickheads.

AAPL is up about 2 1/2% and AMZN up around 13 after hours. The NASDAQ futures are up a percent. Both are trading at a 30 to 40 times earnings. Not a bubble.

It's all about credit. I know people who are broke, live paycheck to paycheck. They don't have $1 grand in savings to fall back on. When their credit card gets full and they can't buy stuff, they try to get another card. They are late on their bills so the interest keeps going up and they can't get out. Some consolidate debt into a loan to pay off debts, but still have to pay off the loan - at higher interest many times. They can't get out and become debt slaves. Debt is money - money people don't have. And speaking of cars, one of the debt slave vehicles (pun intended). From Bubblevision; K-shaped cars: New vehicle prices top $50,000 while auto loan delinquencies keep rising Some clips from the article;