Yeeking Everywhere

Hobbies

yeeker — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 11:59:57 +0000

I like to read. Don’t most people? I’m a huge fan of The Deal which is a bi-weekly magazine (that I get for FREE!) about the investment banking industry and Wall Street in general. It’s as informative as Trader Monthly is braggadocious (sp?). Reading through the 1st quarter of the magazine which boasts about the various personnel happenings in investment banking I came upon a little biographical information about one of the new hires at Morgan Stanley. Apparently, he likes golf (no problem there, I do too) and reading… but reading where? Well, his hobby is “reading on airplanes, which like any self-respecting investment banker, means a lot of.” Now I didn’t realize that sitting on an airplane is considering a hobby. That’s the same difference between commuting work in drudgery every day and track cart racing at Dromo1 on the weekends. Now, that’s sad.

P.S., The Deal is an extra-large tabloid size. Four-color glossy… looks great but it’s thin and there’s no purpose for its size format. It is more expensive to ship because of its size, the paper size is odd too and thus is extremely wasteful but this is the banking industry and a big format tabloid like this really stands out on the train I suppose. That’s sad when grown men use not only paychecks as a testament to one’s bravado but also magazines as well.

P.S.2: As much as I make fun of it, TD is a resource for insider information. In some cases the analysis is very deep and as opposed to the WSJ, you know all these guys want to do is make money. I read about various arbitrage opportunities and industry power plays that an individual investor like me can win with. Whereas WSJ might be concerned with Apple and Microsoft, TD will talk about upsides in commodities and utilities. Not glitzy but makes money.

Boo!

yeeker — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 05:11:53 +0000

Yet another year of Halloween is upon me. I’ve never been much of a fan of the whole candy, scary costume crap. In high school, I went to Knott’s Scary Farm. It’s one big teenage haunted theme park. Lots of fun especially when crawling through the mazes. I believe Knott’s makes a large amount of their profits during this time of the year and must hire legions of “monsters” to don makeup, wigs and chase around young co-eds. The monsters don’t even chase guys, they go straight for the squeamish ones. Aside from those fond high school memories I’ve never been attached to the occasion. I’m not much of a candy fan either nor really into the whole costume thing. I was just going to wear what I had lying around but this should be my year to try something new, ya? In my search for The Ultimate Costume I came up empty but did cross by some amusing ones. I would’ve gotten this one had I started my costume search earlier-it’s appropriately entitled “Country Lovin’.”

Cha-Ching!

yeeker — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 07:54:26 +0000

I came across this great little snippet about having the right amount of change. So what’s the magic combination? This $.99 will allow you to always have the right amount.

3 quarters
1 dime
2 nickels
4 pennies

Shopaholics

yeeker — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 07:51:06 +0000

I think this BB linky was definitely meant for some of my friends and even my sister.

“A new survey suggests that six percent of adults experience bouts of compulsive buying that may “leave them saddled with debt, anxiety, and depression.”

Jeremy Camp Rocks

yeeker — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:35:55 +0000

I’ve never been a real fan of Christian music but somehow it just moves me, especially while I sit in church on Sunday mornings. Sad to say but I kind of go to hear the music. It’s nice and uplifting good shizzle. I know I’m pretty outdated in some ways but I just discovered allofmp3.com after CJK kept talking about it. I bought a few albums like the new Killers and a new Diana Krall album but I’m really stoked about the Jeremy Camp album. Thus, this begets the question of ethics. I’m “purchasing” Camp’s album but from a faceless Russian Web site which has been accused do the equivalent of fandango on the RIAA’s symbolic logo. In another hypothetical scenario, were I sign up for the most expensive Netflix rental plan but copy every single DVD that I receive… am I really cheating the system? Someone has paid for the album plus the backups I have would be merely poor duplicates of the good stuff. Ah… moral dilemmas indeed.

Long Time No Post

yeeker — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:22:37 +0000

Not like I ever have anything interesting to say and no one reads this, ‘cept maybe one friend whom I told about this. Not like she reads this snuff either. Hah. Anyways, I heard on my typical NPR drive. The announcer (you figure by now I would know everyone’s voices) said “the cost of money remain unchanged.” This was in regards to the Fed’s decision not to raise interest rates. I believe this to be an illogical statement. The cost of borrowing has remained unchanged but a USD dollar still costs the same as yesterday. Good lord, has NPR actually made a mistake?

Magician Extraordinaire

yeeker — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 07:59:47 +0000

I probably shouldn’t be too shocked by DubYa’s chicanery here. I always wonder why his administration works so hard to get these powers when it all could backfire in the very next election. The legacy of this administration, may not be the War, but more importantly the legacy of opening the door wide open to future abuse of power by the Executive Branch. In this case, his excellency has managed to smile for the photo op and turn around and give us all the finger when the cameras turn off. I’m glad to see senior Congressional members taking the lead on this. There really is some glimmer of hope that the Reps won’t let the Bushies rule the world.

Sloppy Seconds

yeeker — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:36:46 +0000

It’s funny how the media doesn’t always come up with original content. I’ve seen movies depicting TV or newspaper newsrooms whereby they drum up ideas after watching each other’s respective coverage. TV news might be on the scene which ends up being tomorrow’s front page story. Case in point, I heard this story on NPR in May and look, there’s a story in the L.A. Times this past weekend! Sheesh… come up with something original L.A. Times. Well, it’s probably none the less a good story to be told.

Soc(her)

yeeker — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:49:38 +0000

I already enjoy futbol (i.e. soccer) especially during World Cup. Recent TV ratings show that U.S. viewership is up significantly over the last World Cup. Is it because the U.S. is ranked higher this time? I hold that saavy marketing wins out. Men oogling soccer balls and babes can certainly stir the same emotions as a last-minute bicycle kick through a goalie’s outstretched arms. Check out the pics here (Kineda) and here (Flickr).

Bush = Environment! (Since when did HELL freeze over?)

yeeker — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 06:28:40 +0000

Hey nice, Bush decided to create the world’s largest marine protected area near Hawaii. I’m really surprised by this since Bush has not been known to be a friend of the environment. Of course, this comes not at the expense of his traditional supporters – his old oil tycoon buddies. In the end, this does help prop up the U.S. flagging environmental policy as well as act as a good will gesture in the direction of environmentalists. Perhaps this lame duck president isn’t as lame as we’ve all thought.