at 2:14a

/ 2008-07-01 / 1214963551 / @c_p_g /

Most of the interesting photos from the parade were a bit on the edgy side for the wholesome readership of this blog. I'll try to make it up to you.

I've started How We Know What Isn't So: The fallibility of human reasoning in everyday life. So far so good - there's been some mathematical proof against the "hot hand" in basketball and discussion of other problems people have with regression. Next up is Fooled By Randomness - a book many have been recommending.

The Tigers look set to drop their first in seven - down 6-1 in the 6th against MIN right now.

when a man shakes a box of Cherios

/ 2008-06-29 / 1214789212 / @c_p_g /

I've seen a news story on this guy before (hat tip to Jeremy for the link). Here's some excerpts:

  1. Zack Hample can beg for a baseball in 32 languages, including Swahili, Swedish and sign.
  2. “Don’t throw anymore to him,” a woman screamed in disgust. “He already has one.”... Try six.
  3. “I like to take things to extremes,” he said. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘What if I used all this energy and learned the stock market?’ I would be a billionaire. Fortunately, this is what has gotten my interest.”
  4. Hample views his mounting collection (3,494) as if he’s moving up major league’s career hits list. He’s closing in on Hall of Famer Tris Speaker (3,514) at No. 5 and hopes to soon pass Pete Rose (4,256).
  5. “I feel like I should be out there with those guys - it’s a crime that I’m not,” he said. “I always wonder, if these guys weren’t major leaguers, what would they be doing? I’m the answer to my own question.”

Of course I'm a little jelous, given that my Earned Ball Average was hovering around 4 (per game) in 1999 (the last year I kept a good record) and he's got 7.8 this year. His record for a single game is allegedly 28 compared to my 11. But since I turned fifteen or so the sport of gathering loot died out a bit. I still like to get me some at a batting practice, no doubt, but this guy's a die hard.

To make responses to a few of those points, 1: Sad. 3: No you wouldn't. 5: I doubt it.

Anyway. The Tigers did it again - and are now a winning ball club. Very exciting. CWS is over the Cubs right now 1-0 in the 4th. If the White Sox win it it'll be interesting in that the returned the sweep favor. If they lose it it'll be good in that they're in our division. MIN kept up their recent stint of great baseball today with a 5-0 win over Milwaukee.

Tina and I hung around for a little of the Chicago Pride parade this afternoon. I feel like some of the sights last summer were a bit more stirring, but there was some interesting ones nonetheless. And there were some good moments between the protestors and the marchers, as expected. Choice pictures to come soon...

cpg

/ 2008-06-28 / 1214672860 / @c_p_g /

The $138.7m Tigers are magically just a game under .500 with their win over Colorado yesterday. That's 13 of their last 16 to pull within 5 games of the White Sox. The Twins have been playing even better - taking down their last ten (.5 back of CWS). Speaking of the division in general, the five teams have winning streaks totaling 23 games.

I know I've linked to this vid before, but I miss hockey.

Ouch Charlie, that really hurt!

/ 2008-06-26 / 1214531352 / @c_p_g /

The most watched, "most manipulated and needs more regulation" (blah blah blah) contract, light sweet crude, touched a new high of 140.something today. In a free market it's difficult to weed out speculators - no doubt the beauracracy and complexity involved would probably hurt the consumer in the long run. But we need to blame someone.

GM touched a 53 year low. Fifty-three year low. If you had purchased near it's low in 1975 (around $15.40) you'd have a loser right now. But she paid out $81.99 over 135 dividend payments - so if you didn't benchmark against anything (treasuries, S&P, whatever), you'd have made some coin. Anyway - it was a news event that sparked this dip. Clearly there's some serious problems going on and likely a lot more news to come.

The VIX had... kind of a weak showing. Just up 13.20%.

Cheers!

/ 2008-06-22 / 1214181939 / @c_p_g /

We met a couple of interesting folk over the weekend:

To celebrate Jeremy's visiting of the city we had chicken Caesar salads before seafood gazpacho.

And I liked it

/ 2008-06-20 / 1214013734 / @c_p_g /

Triple witching hour comes around four times a year - but it seemed the CBOT products didn't have the same action as the equity options. It was a busier day than most, as most expirations tend to be. There did seem to be more verbal battles in some of the pits today, though.

Index futures, index options, stock options, and single stock futures all expired today (the last of which is a relatively new product). Expiration is simply when derivative contracts are either exercised (at which point you trade cash for the underlying) or cease to exist (become worthless). Market makers, speculators, and hedgers generally trade in and out of positions as different types of risks come up nearest to expiration.

Tomorrow: hunting for cheap deals at garage sales. We're in the market for a coffee table and a television. Joel's work team may need a forward skater in support of a weak Saturday roster in their Saturday afternoon game - and I might just be the person to try to fill those shoes.

And how about those Cubs? That's a tasty start to the weekend series.

NAHB housing index

/ 2008-06-16 / 1213666137 / @c_p_g /

Doug saw it on his trip to the Anagram site - if you rearrange "Internet Anagram Server" you get "I[,] rearrangement servant." Crazy.

Some apartment shopping was completed yesterday. Deals included a $5 computer chair (garage sale) and a twice [price] halved wine rack for $2.48 (Pier 1 Imports). Adam/L-ah hosted taco night - we watched some of the Last Crusade. They just got Lincoln, an English Lab Retriever.

Resizr.com lets you easily slice and dice images. Good for if you have a blog and are on a non-PS box.

@

CLINT EASTWOOD rearranged to OLD WEST ACTION

/ 2008-06-14 / 1213490673 / @c_g_p /

I can't take credit for telling Harry about this one, even though he blogs me some credits. What else does the Internet Anagram Server say those letters give us? Well, 76,924 things, sadly. I glanced, we have: "aced toil towns" and "wails cottoned."

Speaking of his blog, he's finally putting up real content related to his film work. Check it. I joined him and Jim at Victor's compound in Grand Rapids last night for a little shindig. Victor appears in a headlining image in an article "The art of the entrepreneur" - found in the Grand Valley Magazine Spring 2008 issue.

Tina moved into the CPG house this afternoon. Back to the roommate life.

From my short trip to the Detroit area today:

Immortal mice

/ 2008-06-10 / 1213152959 / @c_p_g /

An article on Y! Finance referenced a $1M bet between Buffett and some hedge fund guy over some financial blah blah blah (ability to beat the S&P over a long period of time) administered by Longbets. Google's CEO has a bet on over commercial planes being flown by pilotless planes by 2030. And there's a whole bunch of interesting predictions, like:

CL

/ 2008-06-07 / 1212895709 / @c_p_g /

Ramzoid recently pointed out how gas prices are quick to react to increases in the price of crude oil but take their time when crude falls. On Thursday, oil prices had their largest jump ($5.49) and proceeded to crush that with a $10.74 move upward yesterday. For the first time ever, the Nymex temporarily halted trading (daily limit is plus-minus $10; when a limit is hit trading is halted for five minutes).

All of which was pretty cool - everyone on the floor was glued to the price of oil. The Dow finished down about 400.

Speaking of trading limits - there are limits on some of the agro products that apparently get hit relatively frequently. And with the advent of options in which customers can get sythetically long/short at any price, limits are kind of an artifact.

big tick little tick

/ 2008-06-05 / 1212709056 / @c_p_g /

We want the cup

Some of the Pens fans (or those Anti Wings) on the floor didn't appreciate the "we want the cup!" chants near the end of game 5. Less didn't appreciate and more thought it was silly.

Jeremy drove in to join Joel and another with myself at Mad River for game 6. Rames was in town ahead of his first ever business trip (to Pennsylvania no less) - his flight left this morning at 6am and legged him through Detroit. Anyway - the crowd wasn't as dense as we had found Duffy's to be, but there were ample people into the game.

What's wikipedia telling me?

Anyway - good game, exciting finish. Of course it's nice to win it, but almost equally so is the fact that it was a real series (not what was lining up after game 2).

Political Intrade fair values (all contracts are for this year).

Lakers are favored to win the Finals around 61.7%, but Boston is favored to win the first game at around 58.75% (the Bos -2.5 line is 52.5%). I've got small interest in even money on the Bos -2.5.

LEH

/ 2008-06-02 / 1212453351 / @c_p_g /

Jeremy reports that Charley the Singing Hotdog Man is involved in starting his own line of mustard: Charley's Ballpark Mustard. There isn't much at the website just yet.

Joel and I played some roller hockey on a nice beach court. Nabsports' leagues seem to be no longer accepting free agents, sadly.

The Wings are about five minutes into the last game of the playoffs. I'll guess 3-1 is the final.

From the Belmont/Sheffield Festival on Saturday:

What's the time?

/ 2008-05-31 / 1212248152 / @c_p_g /

A co-worker and I arrived at the Cubs game at the stretch. The Rockies had a commanding 5-run lead (the wasn't close) - which was cut back a bit from the 7-0 score when we left the office. At one point the Rockies were up 8-0. And then the bottom of the 7th happened, Cubs picking up 6 runs: Soriano lined out, Fontenot singled, Blanco homered, Hoffpauir singled, Fukudome singled, Edmonds doubled, DeRose homered, Cedeno grounded out and Marquis struck out. The Cubs would hold the score and win 10-9.

Joel, Jake, Amanda and I helped Adam and Ella move in to their new Chicago pad in the late evening.

The Celtics advance to the Finals for the first time since 1987. The Wings take on the Pens at 8ET tonight.

go cubs go

/ 2008-05-29 / 1212107275 / @c_p_g /

This just in: the NBA is looking into rule changes to make basketball a real sport. ESPN has an article about fines being imposed next season for flopping (similar to the NHL's 05-06 addition of a diving minor). Rasheed was quoted within (audio available on the page): "All that bull(bleep)-ass calls they had out there. With Mike [Callahan] and Kenny [Mauer] -- you've all seen that (bleep)," Wallace said. "You saw them calls. The cats are flopping all over the floor and they're calling that (bleep). That (bleep) ain't basketball out there. It's all (bleeping) entertainment. You all should know that (bleep). It's all (bleeping) entertainment."

Not to confuse, I do enjoy getting a bit into Pistons playoffs. And pickup games. But that's about as far as it goes.

Trader Monthly has Chicago in the top spot as the best trading city in the world (article at Reuters). Keeping second place London and third place NYC out of the first position: taxes and high real-estate prices.

Kara wrote about the Octopus-toss tradition at Wings home games. Here's some tidbits in addition to hers:

Enhance. Enhance. Enhance.

/ 2008-05-28 / 1212025988 / @c_p_g /

The Western Conference was previously the Clarence Campbell Conference. The Eastern was known as the Price of Wales Conference. The Eastern Conference has won 12 of 25 times since the 1981-82 season and 9 of 17 since the 1989-90 season. It would seem that the Western Conference's strength over the Eastern's is somewhat misfounded, and doesn't compare to the domination of the AL over the NL (11 of 17 since 1990 in World Series play, and hasn't lost the All-Star game in the last 11 contests). Also notable, the NL won 20 times of 21 between 1962 and 1982.

And Kara made a blog. Nothing provacative yet.

Greg made a post titled "Dekes and one-timers: The great goals of NHL '94". This video was included.

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\Va"frous\, a. [L. vafer.] Crafty; cunning; sly; as, vafrous tricks.