Are All Baked Goods Lies Or Just The Cake?

Sometimes Wall Street folks like to make bets to amuse themselves. Little things like, “Will the unemployment number be over or under four hundred and thirty thousand?” or “Nikkei above 8,000 at the end of trading?” or “Can we really take down the entire global financial system by applying excessive leverage to buy securities we don’t understand?” You know, stuff like that --just for fun. I don’t wager for money (more due to poverty than any sense of moral superiority), but enjoy seeing what people will do simply because there is a wager available.

I’ve seen people wear boating life jackets for an entire day, drink a bottle of Tabasco sauce without stopping for breath, try to eat one of every item in the vending machine, and walk past the CNBC camera six times in a minute when an interview is being conducted on live television. The next day we did really mean things to him. I’m kidding of course.

The victim was a woman.

______________________________

Today there were a few dozen pies delivered to the floor. No one seems to know why, but hey -- free pie. The kid who sits next me was excited about pie and was wondering which one he should try. He jokingly said, “Maybe I should have a piece of each one to get ready for Thanksgiving.” Not wanting him to miss out on a chance for pasty-related immortality, I challenged him to eat a full slice of all five types. Of course this was after he’d eaten three tacos for lunch. Unable to resist the bet or the opportunity for a spontaneous diabetic coma, he accepted.

He just polished off piece number three (crumb-top apple). When asked how he was doing he responded, “Pie makes me sad.”

No, there is no point to this post. Just a fantastic quote that I’ll be using sporadically and inappropriately throughout the holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving.

And Leap Year Is Downright Mindblowing

I’m not blessed with an abundance of “people skills”. This isn’t something of which I’m proud and to be honest I try harder than you might think. Not that you think about such things because you have better stuff to occupy your time. Also, you have something in your teeth, but I only point it out because we’re friends. Anyway, interpersonal relationships are not my forte.

One side effect of this deficit is that I often ask different people similar questions when making conversation. My current question is, “What are your plans for Thanksgiving?” I’ve probably asked this half a dozen times today and received an unsurprising array of answers, bar one. Fewer than ten minutes ago one of the young new employees stopped by my desk to offer me a treat. She had a selection of cookies and brownies scavenged from a meeting. I wasn’t thrilled to be interrupted, but hey -- free cookies. I asked her my trying-to-show-interest-in-you-without-having-any-clue-how question of the week. Her response? “Well, Thanksgiving is on Thursday this year so there’s not as much time to get away as in some other years. I’m just going to Greenwich to visit my aunt and uncle.”

This is the future of Wall Street. Be afraid.

Mr Muffet

That many Americans are experiencing financial challenges is no surprise to you, savvy reader. That they may be solved by arachnids could be.

Via geekologie (try to surpress your shock that I reference such a site) we have the following excellent tale of how to respond to bill collectors.



The complete email chain is available here. Go read it now, then start drawing your way to a prosperous new tomorrow.

Greatest Silent Movie of All Time?

Read this, then watch this.

You're welcome.

Today's Email

I receive about six hundred emails daily. (It’s a rare day when spam reaches me, thankfully.) This is not a big deal; it’s just part of my job, which I know is remarkably easy. Some people have to do actual work like dealing with the public, or chasing children around all day, or lifting heavy things. I mostly sit in front of a bunch of computer monitors looking for interesting information and identifying mispriced securities. I read a lot of stuff, some of which comes to me via email. It’s terribly exciting and glamorous -- you can be jealous for a minute as long as you repent.

There is a lot of dross among the email. About half of it gets quickly skimmed and deleted. Some can be dealt with via monosyllabic response. A small amount of it requires thought, or analysis, or adds a piece to some information puzzle with which I’m struggling. Those are good emails. My favorites though are the ones that make me smile. For your (ok, really for my) amusement, are excerpts from two messages I received today. These are, I promise, verbatim quotes.

“Thanks again for bring [sic] my pants ! !”

“Hardest coal to get is met coal, dangerous and gassy (sounds like my uncle)”

I haven’t yet decided which of these is better, so I’d appreciate your views in the comments. If it’s helpful I can provide context, but it would not make either line more intelligible or less amusing.