A Good Imagination and a Pile of Junk

Steam just “unlocked” the fallout 3 digital download.

Taking the rest of the day off.

I earned it ;-)

I’m narrowing in on the level of trading performance I’ve been looking for and I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty amazed.

I’ll let you in on a little secret here: Today, not after some $10,000 gain “cover off the ball” trade (like AIG) or some huge currency move; today, after a $120 gain on DIA (which is an index fund measuring 1/10 the Dow Jones Industrial Average) I realized that I’m actually going to make this work. I’m really going to do this and it’s going to work for me.

The market is behaving like a rat in a coffee can (to quote my favorite marketeer Jeff Mackie) and it hasn’t affected me in a material way. Frankly it’s been good for me.

Now, I’d rather it be good than bad because damnit, good is good and the more people that succeed, the better. This ain’t a zero sum game. But frankly, I’ll take market moves over doldrums since that’s how I make money.

Am I going to get rich this way?

Eh, it’s not REALLY the point (well, it’s A point certainly.) The point is that my income is based on my work for the first time… ever. It’s not based on accrued hours spent in a chair. If I succeed, it’s because I SUCCEEDED and for no other reason.

I can do things now like “work really hard in the morning” then take the rest of the day off.

Like, if… oh, y’know…

Fallout 3 is released.

w00t!

:p

Lately I’m finding myself doing an awful lot of large scripting projects lately in a variety of languages. PHP, Perl, Python and a smidge of Ruby as I try to figure out WTF the deal is.

I’m generally an XEmacs based programmer but I’ve got to say, I’m becoming spoiled by a lot of the advanced integrated features in modern compiled-language IDEs. The funky searching, code folding, refactoring, plug-in …err… ’stuff’ that’s in Eclipse, Visual Studio, Borland’s IDEs, IntelliJ, etc.

Any ideas? I might try and re-evaluate the Komodo IDE.

But maybe there are enough Eclipse plugins to make that worth trying. I don’t know though, eclipse is a bit big to wrap my head around casually.

This actually frightens me, and it should frighten you.

Dean: One-Party Rule Would Rule
By Tim Taylor
Roll Call Staff
October 27, 2008, 4:33 p.m.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Monday that he’s looking forward to one party controlling all aspects of government, despite GOP charges that it would be a disastrous Nov. 4 outcome.

“Republicans had a chance to rule. They failed miserably. I think it’s time to give the other party a chance,” Dean said on MSNBC.

It’s not anybody’s responsibility or job to RULE. Government is there to REPRESENT.

I thought this fully bipartisan condemnation of MSNBC has been pretty heartening.

Both sides of aisle rip MSNBC

In a room full of television industry executives, no one seemed inclined to defend MSNBC on Monday for what some were calling its lopsidedly liberal coverage of the presidential election.

At this point I’m wondering if the unifying political issue of our time isn’t going to shape up to be the rejection of establishment media, establishment politicians and the general detachment of “The Powers That Be” from the rest of us.

I’ve been getting some ideas about a nonpartisan (yes, me) grass roots effort to rein in some of this.

Dunno. Market’s going to open in 10 so I’ve got to go contend with that. But I’ll have more about this in the coming couple weeks.

(fixed the homonym, thanks Ian o/)