Screwball

I was only 10. :-) The North coast of Ohio along Lake Erie is really pretty neat. Put-in-Bay, Kelly's, North shore stuff, Cedar Point, etc. Then there is the gazillion dollar drive. From mid Ohio along the lake to downtown Cleveland to a ball game. The money along that stretch of highway is really impressive.

Good for you. You know they appreciate that stuff. They know there are only so many more days left, and each one precious. Any little thing like that is a blessing. Me and a couple of buddies took a trip to the Amish country in SE Ohio one time. Old people do that. We were coming out of a restaurant and I was holding the door open for a guy who looked to be in his 80s. The other two I was with were trying to figure out where we parked. I looked at this guy and said; We already lost the car and we ain't even started drinking yet. He got the biggest kick out of that. Probably made his day. It is really no fun getting old. Rest homes really really suck.

There are about 8 of us, not all show up everyday, but enough. We love to hear the "work day" horror stories of those who are not as fortunate. It really means a lot to us old guys (from 65 to almost 80) to just get out and talk to people every day. The "youngin's" think we are a hoot. They are too. Funny, the bar owner is a long time rabid Tiger fan. I'm guessing he will watch the games at home this week. They have about 10 TVs at his bar. The Tuesday night the Indians scored 3 runs without hitting a ball out of the infield and Skubal hit that guy, some of the Indian fans said he did it on purpose and it got a bit ugly I guess. Glad I wasn't there. Good place to get your ass kicked. Speaking of ass kickings...Hello Tigers!!!! The stat guys might appreciate this, but I'm on the "reversion to the mean" train.

What do we win?

I peed in it. 🙂

I live in the middle of Indian country about 2 hrs from Cleveland's stadium. 3:30 is my usual daily trip to see the other retired guys and have an adult beverage. Not tomorrow - no way, no how. Game will be on, place will be full - all Indian fans who are insufferable. Skubal has had extra days off. I expect him to struggle early. Arm is too live. Fastball will be good, but the other stuff won't do what he wants it to do. Especially that kick ass change. The pitch which sets up the others. Don't walk people. Hope he can settle down and get in a groove after a few innings. What to do with Ramirez? The Tigers have to put the ball in play. Hit the damn ball.

Be glad you don't live in the middle of Indian country. Their fans are insufferable.

Plunk him and save three pitches (I know the rule, I'd plunk him anyway.) 😉

During a computer upgrade I was testing my apps. I happened to find this. 1 year chart. S&P from April 7th (low) to last Friday. From 4835.04 to 6699.52 (this is intraday so we didn't get there). That's a quick %38.5 rip in 5 1/2 months. Bubbles are amazing.

This is correct and it shouldn't even be a question. They play on a field, with a ball, bats, gloves. You still must pitch, catch, and throw the ball. Doesn't matter where it is. And has been said on this very site a gazillion times over the years; in a short series/playoffs anything can happen. For the wanting the bye crowd. Rather not. No live pitching for a few days might **** you up. On the other hand, the Tigers need the practice. 🙂

Speaking of the barchart tweets

That's nuts.

Observation from a distance. Last night they struck out 19 times, which means only 8 guys hit the ball into an out. They had 5 hits, so there is that. They swing at too many bad pitches, and don't swing and hit the ones they should. That's not a very good hitting philosophy no matter when it is in the season. Wee Willie would say, hold my beer.

Unrelated, but I like to watch the market through the charts and my brokers trading software. It gives you much better news too. Unfortunately, my main computer developed an issue a week ago, so it is in getting a tuneup so I haven't been able to do that. My point, while getting fixed, we added an extra ssd drive and more memory. Already has a kick ass NVDA card, so this should be a faster rocket when done. The cost of ssd drives and memory is so cheap it's crazy. I think I spent 2500 bucks back in...I don't know...early 90s for a kick ass rocket ship with a 500 mb hard drive, 8 mb of memory, and a couple of floppy drives. I just spent less than a hundred for gigs. How far we have come. And to think, today, I carry around a memory stick that would hold thousands of that computer. Then there is our phone... I'm old. I remember the days before computers. Now we need huge data centers, apparently. Makes you wonder where it all goes next?

I'm old and have watched a lot of baseball games in my life, but this one was about a crazy of a game as I have ever watched. WTF? In all the chaos I missed the 19 strikeout thing. Really? So only 8 people hit the ball for an out. Outstanding.

I'm about 50 miles SE of Toledo and I can't say I've ever heard of the company nor noticed any solar farms around here. I go from here to Toledo once every few months. Same with Columbus. I'm talking farms. On the other hand, the state college I taught at build a solar farm on campus over the last year. I don't know if had anything to do with that company or not. Over around Findlay, if you drive down I75 you can see some large windmills. Those have been there for around 7 years (?) and were funded by Whirlpool and Ball Corporations, so not affiliated with that company either, but alt energy just the same. There is a small solar farm on the east side of town but I don't know anything about them. I have heard people talk about large solar farms in the area, but I don't remember where. Right now our farmers are probably worried about their harvest this year. We are in the middle of a huge drought. Soy beans are like bee bees.

I don't think so. It goes back to the "last mile" stuff. Who owns the infrastructure. In our case, the old coax lines used the power poles, but that doesn't happen all the time around here anymore (and a lot of other places). As the fiber people started to compete against the old coax people, they ran most of the cable underground. Not only long runs down streets, but from the street to the house. The digging/boring machines are pretty neat. One guy I know who worked in the industry told me they couldn't get fiber to me (few years ago) is because of rivers, creeks, and railroads. Which means no power poles are used to cross them. Don't know, but guessing, regulations to keep the big players in control. Or cost. Maybe more accurate; want to run your cable - bend over. As this technology progresses, it will change once again. They know that, the next big thing is coming. I remember the days when there was a wire coming into your house, to a phone with a wire hooked to a handset so you could talk on a phone. Once the technology gets good enough, we won't need the wires or fiber for our internet either. I know, you can do that now, but it's not common. But, even if you go WW (trademark; worldwide wireless) someone and something are connecting everyone, so it goes back to the first mile. Who designed it - who built it - and who paid for it. After that, everyone else are poachers.

To the first paragraph; so cool, and good on all them. We don't have the ability to do that. Our local TV stations are at least 50 miles away. You can get some over the air, but not all. Part of the problem with getting internet to everyone is it changes all the time. I'm on my third supplier in the last 25 years. I just went fiber optic this spring. I waited over a year, and I'm in town. It replaced the old coax type stuff. It can only grow so fast, and then there is the cost. Are you going to run 5 miles of line or cable to supply 10 people? Probably not. All about numbers. The bad part of teaching is the kids they send us. It all starts at home.

I think it was March 2020, due to the COVID issue at the time, the school I taught at tried to go remote. High school age kids taking life courses, for a lack of a better word. We are in rural Ohio. Kids from 14 surrounding schools were bussed in daily. We couldn't go remote. Over half didn't have good enough internet, or none at all. Another area of needs that has failed miserably. And FWIW, after spending the last 6 years teaching for a state college, our educational system is another epic cluster ****.

Short sellers used to be the gumshoes of the markets. They sniffed out the fraud, waste, and BS. I'm guessing most are out of business or broke by now thanks to all the money printing and this current bubble of all bubbles.

Jim Chanos Tweet; Stock is up almost 4% as I type this. For those who don't know who Jim Chanos is;

Nvidia plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as part of data center buildout - CNBC We will love our future electric rates.

I wish I could read this, but I can't get around the block. Depending on your plan, money market stuff hasn't been a bad play. I'm not going to look it up, but even Buffett was doing this more than usual from what I read. I can say, after playing this kind of stuff myself, short term too, has been pretty good. No risk. I'm old. No complaints. That said, like others mentioned, you could have made an absolute killing over the last... I don't know - since 2008/2009 the last time they blew up the financial system. March 6th, 2009 the S&P 500 hit an intra-day low of 666. Ain't that wild? If I remember right. This was 9 years after the dot-com bubble that blew up. And now, if you look at a chart, this puppy looks like Mt. Everest. The everything bubble. Over the last 14-15 years since the great financial crisis of 08/09 they have pumped and dumped "everything" with this AI stuff being the latest flavor. I remember the old guy Art Cashin of CNBC who spent 50 years on the floor of the NYSE say in an interview one time "we came in here every day thinking today is the day it's all going to pop. It took 3 years." Like the old saying; the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. So very very true. At the same time, we are flooded with money. And they keep making more. The market is no reflection of things on the ground in America, or the world. This is a debt fueled bubble of all bubbles. All it needs is a pin. For fun, I searched the 2009 low to see how close I was. I thought it was the 9th, but it was the 6th. I got a kick out of the google search result though (bold mine); Bear market my ass, it was a ****ing crash! While I'm on with searches and quotes, no matter what monetary theory you follow and believe in, I always thought the one below made sense. The Fed target is 2%. Doesn't sound like much. We've ran hotter than that for a long time because they do a piss poor job of measuring it. We continue to get less for the money we have. To fix problems they create more money via debt. Cheaper, easier money. It works till it don't. Then of course there is this little thing called interest. I've heard that will bite you in the ass. It's all about the math. Exponents are a bitch. This won't end well once again. And the banksters will get bailed out.