CafeChatNoir

During yesterdays fun and games in the market, over the course of approximately 4 minutes, the Dow dropped 200 points. They’re still not 100% sure exactly what happened, but so far it seems to come down to this - the volume overwhelmed some servers and things “broke out” a little before 3PM. The bottom half of the chart is volume - see that nice little spike there? At one point they were thinking someone made a mistake and put too many zeros at the end of an order, but it seems to just been a whole boatload of unexecuted trades just queued up and waiting.

It will be interesting to see what effect (if any) this has on the continued use of the hybrid trading systems that have been introduced in the past year or so.

ETA @ 4PM - Specialists on the floor of the NYSE have been told not to close their stocks just yet.  Curiouser and curiouser…

- it’s the stupid little shit that makes me borderline homocidal.

Case in point: Vendor calls Monday morning and says, “OK, so can we come out today?” Nope, I need a touch more notice than that and offer up Tuesday afternoon. OK, between 12-4PM it is, and they’ll call when en route. So, I make myself available between 12-4, thinking I might even get lucky and they’ll be early and I can get some other errands run afterwards. Of course, no call and 4 hours wasted waiting around for nothing to happen.

This morning? I get a voicemail - “OK, so what time is good for today?” Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot. I call back and get vendor’s call center… They have me scheduled for between 2-2:30 PM. Again, I need something slightly more than same-freakin’-day notice, and I pointed out the tech said YESTERDAY between 12-4PM, which of course they had no record of in their system. (Left hand, please let me introduce you to right hand.)

So, we’re trying this again on Friday, between 1-3PM, and again, they will call when en route. At least this time I’ll only lose 3 hours…

And I get to go to the DMV this afternoon. Icing on the cake.

Yes, the Dow dropped 416 points today, for a 3.29% loss on the day. Yes, it would be quite possible to have some additional followthrough on this over the course of the week.

No, it is not the end of the world.

He wasn’t as miserable as he looked, I swear I did not throw him out in the backyard for a photo op.

Just for this, the patch of Leyland Cypresses aren’t going anywhere anytime soon - a hound needs a dry spot…

Life seems to have caught up with me. 11 hours of sleep last night and very possibly as much if not more today. Despite what I am sure are appearances to the contrary, I’ve got lots of crap going on - big/small/good/stupid and actually very little wild/craziness and my body has either decided “screw it, we’re stopping for the day” or I can just blame my brother as he was sick earlier in the week.

Note to Iran: Please stop with the asshat uranium enrichment comments, it’s screwing with the stockmarket.
Note to US policymakers: Please stop baiting Iran into asshat uranium enrichment comments, it’s screwing with the stockmarket.

There is an ad on CNBC by the National Association of Payday Lenders (might not have the name quite right, but it’s their self-governing body) and it stresses the responsible use of payday advances. I have no problem with the message whatsoever - getting into those can be an real slippery slope. However, I have to wonder if they’re really reaching their target audience - how many folks who are using paycheck advances are also watching CNBC?

OK, I think I am going to go curl up and die for a while.

Well, amazingly enough the pancakes came out pretty darn well despite the fact that I literally cannot remember the last time I made them. (Thank god for bisquick and buttermilk.) However, I do need to locate a better pan for it next time around, cause flipping them was a little on the sketchy side and there were a few that ended up in the trash. The paprika bacon was wonderful, no surprise there.

I do believe I’ll have a Mardi Gras Guinness before the night is over, if nothing else to drown my sorrows if the Caps don’t win this evening. (3-2 Montreal, 10:15 left in the 2nd period.)

By sheer luck I stumbled on a link for the Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar via del.icio.us, clicked on it because it sounded intriguing and discovered it’s in Philly, less than a mile from where I’ll be staying next month. Oh hells yes, I’ve made a reservation for when I’m up there. Really looking forward to this trip.  Which also reminds me that I have GOT to figure out where on earth I put my camera.

Or Pancake Day, depending on from where you hail…

There will be pancakes here today, which could be interesting given that I can’t even remember the last time I made pancakes. If nothing else, there will be bacon - made up a bit of the paprika bacon I picked up from the butcher shop yesterday and it is GOOD. Properly thick sliced bacon is oh so, so good. Mmmm, bacon.

Nope, not Catholic - just appropriating the fun parts of Lenten season for myself.

Saw this come across the wires this morning: Twelve step program aims to cure email addiction. Put down the crackberry and back away slowly - you’re just not that important. I can only speak for myself but I’ve found over the years that when you’re having problems managing god knows how many emails, it’s usually because of carelessness on the part of the sender. How many emails have you gotten that have been sent to everyone and their brother and have absolutely nothing to do with you? Yet, you still have to take the time to read it and discover that it is meaningless. So, lets have some classes on how to properly send email so it gets to the necessary parties and doesn’t bother anyone else…

In other news, JetBlue is setting out a customer bill of rights. Now, I’m glad they’re addressing the problems on the tarmac from last week - this is a good thing. However, didn’t something like this happen just recently to another airline? (American, I think?) I’d say when something like that happens, even if it’s one of your competitors and not you, wouldn’t you want to have a little sit-down with folks and say, “Hey, what do we have in place to make sure something like that disaster doesn’t happen to our airline?”

I understand how they got out on the tarmacs in the first place - they got information (unfortunately incorrect) that the weather was going to change in short order and they’d be able to take off. OK, I can see going ahead and leaving the gate for that. However, I still can’t understand why it could take upwards of 8 to 11 hours to realize that the weather isn’t going to change after all… And I do understand that when you’ve got planes coming in, planes on the tarmac, a limited amount of gates you can get to, it becomes a logistical challenge to be sure. But dayum, have a hard go/no-go point and if it’s no-go, then get the wheels turning to get that plane back to the gate - don’t just sit there and keep hoping the weather will change.

All I can say is that I really, REALLY hope that when Moxley goes out and starts chasing invisible squirrels at inappropriate times of the evening is that my neighbors can also hear me chasing after him trying to get him to shut the hell up and get back inside. I’m not the most experienced dog owner and I still can’t tell the difference between dog language of “I need to go out and hit the head” and “I want to go chase and bark at things that aren’t actually there.” The little cute-yet-obnoxious one is sitting at the back door yet again looking pathetic. Sorry bud, we’re not gonna anger the neighbors anymore than we may have already done. (However, I can tell you that there was another dog in the near vicinity outside at the same time, so it’s not only MY idiot dog chasing invisible animals in the middle of the night.)

And now for something completely different, and it really is, about a month ago I was introduced to a drink/shot/whatever - a Jagerbomb. Now, I’ve been offered Jagermeister shots before, and I can smell them from a mile away and I know better than to accept them. Fortunately, they have been sent in front of me by folks who were also more than willing to take them back and take care of them and substitute the drink of my choice. However, the Jagerbomb incident was one of those “you can’t turn it down” situations. So, I tried it. To be perfectly honest, I was thrilled that I got it down with no adverse effects. (For those wondering why I would accept a drink not even knowing for sure if it would end up in a contest for color and distance, well, it was just one of those things…I think we’ve all been there.)

What has surprised me is the fact that this particular indulgence has grown on me. It’s not something I’d have more than one of in a given evening if I could ever possibly avoid it, because in essence it is still a shot, despite the Red Bull addition, but there is something about it that makes me understand why these suckers are apparently quite popular. As far as the taste - it’s like Root Beer, slightly stale or fresh out of the bottle, depending on how it’s done. At my GD’s, they come pre-mixed, because they have no actual shot glasses… Something about they get broken (or possibly stolen) way too often, so they stopped buying new shot glasses and the bartenders just get to serve shots in regular glasses. Makes it difficult to do a drop & drink, but I didn’t know any different - and when they’re pre-mixed, they taste like Root Beer that is starting to go a tad on the flat side. The other evening, I had one at the after-hours bar (it’s not really “after hours”, but they’re open later than anyone in town, so…), and it was a “do it yourself” Jagerbomb. Feeling ever so slightly mortified at my lack of experience on the DIY side, I had to ask someone, “WTF do I do? Is it drop & drink or some ritual I’m not aware of?!” Nope, just d & d. Well, damn, now I get it. When you do a d & d on these, it’s like you’ve just cracked a cold bottle of Root Beer. That would explain the attraction to be sure.

So, the moral of the story is…wait, this is essentially about drinking, so OK, no real “moral” to it, cause well, the moral of that story would be “stick with coffee” or something along those lines, but I suppose it is “don’t be afraid to try something new and be prepared to not hate it.” If you’re ever offered a Jagerbomb and you like Root Beer, give it a go - it may surprise you. But stick with just one in an evening, cause I can see how this could get ugly very quickly.

*Jagermeister = a licorice liquor, somewhat similar to Sambuca, but a strange dark color, stronger smell and frankly, a little scary, especially considering that the bottle looks like a cough syrup remedy from pioneer days.
** Jagerbomb = Red Bull + shot of Jager dropped in it.

Stumbled across this recipe for Herb Monkey Bread this morning in the subscriptions, which reminded me of a very similar recipe I’ve got that is even easier that I needed to get saved before I lose the piece of paper it’s written down on.

Mini Herbed Rolls/Pull Aparts
3 T butter
2 t dill seed
1 t poppy seed
1 T dried minced onion
1/4 t celery seed
1/4 c grated Parmesean cheese
1 12oz. can fridge biscuits

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Melt butter in 8 inch round pan, and sprinkle onion & herb seeds evenly over the butter.

Separate the biscuit dough into 10 biscuits, then quarter each one.

Place dough pieces & cheese in a bag and shake until the pieces are covered with the cheese.

Place the dough pieces in the pan, banke 15-18 minutes until golden brown.

Flip out onto a plate and serve warm.

Can be made ahead and refrigerated before baking - just remove from fridge 15 minutes prior to baking.

And it’s not even a bad drive. Dave & I went out this afternoon to the wilds of Catlett, VA to go to the slaughterhouse/butcher that he had been telling me about (and making me drool in the process.) It is fantastic.

You walk in, there are 2 chalkboards with everything they have on them and a counter. No displays. No fridge of cut items. No - you tell them what you want and they cut it right then and there. Got 2 pounds of sausage, 2 pounds of center cut pork chops, a beautiful sirloin steak and a pound of paprika bacon, at an insanely good price.

Everyone has their thing of what makes a butcher the real thing - for me, it was the fact that they had chitlins on the board. These folks have everything. It’s a great place, and I will be making return visits.

It’s Wilson Farms Meat Co. Take 234 to 28 South, and then left at the second light after the “Welcome to Nokesville” sign/barn with the pig & cow on it, and an immediate left. Hours are M 8-5, T-F 7-5, Sa 7-4. 540-788-4615

And it’s really not a bad drive out there at all, and completely worth it.

ETA: I don’t know if they take credit cards, didn’t see a machine and I was paying cash anyway.  Checks only for “established customers”.

So yesterday I spent somewhere between 30-45 minutes trying to get the ice off my car (with the car running), and managed to get about 1/4 of it off. My brother said he’d work on it today - since he’s a fair amount taller than I am, he can reach the roof of it much easier (which had a 2 inch thick sheet of ice on it that I couldn’t get to budge.)

Well, he was out there and the car is now ice free. How long did it take him? 5 freakin’ minutes.

Happy Friday everyone. Been a fun week with crappy weather here and now it’s all about trying to get rid of the ice. On my car. That I cannot remove. Seriously, I spent somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes today trying to get it off, and managed to remove about 1/4 of it and broke the ice scraper in the process. I am about ready to just go out and pour water all over it even though it would likely just result in more ice on the driveway, which wouldn’t exactly be optimal either. But dammit, I want a driveable car! Little bro is exceptionally generous in the lending of his auto whenever I need it, but still, I’d prefer to be on my own wheels, thankyouverymuch. (Of course, it just occured to me that I could move the car to the side of the street, which is already covered in ice anyway, and try the water trick there…)

But, the cold weather is perfect for Goulaschuppe and it will be ready to go here in about 15 minutes. I do love winter for the soup weather. :)

Been a nice week for the markets, some good consolidation days and some nice bumps with Bernake’s testimony on Wednesday and the some more flatness/consolidation going into the long weekend. I’d expected a little more of a bounce today with traditional short-covering, but you can’t argue too much with the week as a whole. Pays the tab for a few more rounds at GD’s and the tuition for a couple more classes.

Speaking of classes (nice segue, wasn’t it?), I’ve gotten off my arse and registered for my next one. (The classes roll monthly, so not starting anything at the beginning of February due to the questionable status of my laptop was no big deal - I knew I’d be back at it soon enough.) This one is “Introduction to Intelligence” - it’s a 16 week one, and I’d add another 16 week in core requirements if I could find one, but all the others at the moment are 8 week, which would be like 3 classes vs 2 classes and well, I’m a wuss and don’t want to make that jump until I see how I can fare with 2 classes at the same time. I’ve done one of the 8 week classes, and it was a little tight at times, but I was also still working, so it’s kind of hard to judge how it would be otherwise. But, there are a couple 16 week ones opening in April, so I’ll pick one of those up. Also got word that I comped out of the 4 other classes, 2 basic english & 2 basic history, so go me. (I’m essentially re-doing undergrad, I want a better basis in the area than the accounting degree I’ve got before I go attempting grad level work. Bonus is that I’ve comped out of all the “fluff” and am only doing the core/major classes.)

I stumbled on this recipe for Lobster & Beer Risotto. There must be something like “lobster appreciation day” or some such nonsense that would warrant making this… Hell, I’ll probably just settle for, “The sun came up this morning, there is reason to celebrate.”

ETA: Link working now.

Thanks to Celia for letting me know that the area I was looking at in Philly is a pretty decent part of town AND giving me a restaurant recommendation to boot. Got my tickets for the museum exhibit, the flower show folks say there is no problems with tickets at the door, and hotel is booked. (And I am pretty sure center city hotels are making ALL their money for the year off this one week of the flower show.)

I’m thinking I may just take the train up - looking at the Amtrak schedules, there are tons of trains going up and back, and even with getting to the metro & Union Station, I think it would be better than trying to drive in an unfamiliar town.

It’s been much too long since I’ve gone somewhere new & different - this should be fun.

Add to that list: Congressional hearings. Sure, Congressional hearings aren’t actually making anything, but eventually they lead to laws being made and well, it’s not always pretty.

Been watching Ben Bernake in front of the finance committees the past two days. Despite the fact that I’ve been a swooning fangirl of Alan Greenspan’s for years, the new guy has won me over in his time in the position. He knows his stuff, is very levelheaded and not into fear-mongering.

Overall, the hearings have been fairly tame, a lot of good questions and answers, no raking over the coals and very minimal snarkiness.

However, what is going to make my head explode is how many times I’ve heard reps saying things about “MY district” - do you not understand that the Fed is a regional/national organization? When you’re talking about Fed issues you have to think about the entire region that you are a part of, not just your district. Your district is just a little piece of a bigger thing and you have to remember that - it’s not all about you.

The other question/comment that just killed me was someone talking about “increasing take home pay” in her district… It seemed to be asked in a matter that she expected him to wave a magic wand and everyone would have higher take home pay. In my mind, for higher take home pay, there are two ways to go about it: 1) Make yourself more marketable so you can move up (and Bernake HAS said addressed workforce education as being critical) and/or 2) Find a better employer. Honestly, not sure how the Federal Reserve could directly control it, at least not in the way the representative appeared to think. (Yes, part of their work is employment, but not “*poof*, here’s higher take home pay”)

Best question/comment? From a congressman new to Congress and the committee - just asked (paraphrased to be sure) “Can you give a high level rundown of what the Fed is actually responsible for so that we don’t ask questions about things that you have absolutely no responsibility for?” Kinda think maybe he should have gotten to ask his question first…

Thanks to Unknown_Progrmr for the heads up on this.

If you’ve got Peter Pan or Great Value peanut butter with a code starting with 2111 on the lid, you can toss it or return it to ConAgra for a refund - it’s been linked to a salmonella outbreak.

Before you blow it off thinking you haven’t bought peanut butter recently and this is “new” - check the pantry. Surprised the hell out of me when I discovered a jar with the 2111 code…

from the “not so much into Valentine’s Day” side of things…  (SFW)

Yesterday on CNBC I watched a slew of folks getting their knickers in a twist over some news coming out from Bank of America. The news? They’re offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers, which in more than a few cases are undocumented aliens in the United States.

The responses to this ranged from “well, it gets them in the system in one way or another” to “they’re effectively going to finance the next terrorist attack!”

To begin with, what BoA is doing is not new, nor is it illegal. Personally, I don’t have a problem with providing tools of commerce to people, regardless of whether or not they are citizens of this country. Additionally, if the financial institutions doing this are willing to take on the associated risks of these programs, that is their perogative. I don’t honestly think that terrorists are going to be busting down the doors at BoA to get credit cards anytime soon.

I do question the whole thing for a couple different reasons. If I were an undocumented/illegal alien in the country, I don’t think I’d want to be doing anything that would be creating a paper trail if at all possible, and a credit card does exactly that. I will be very interested to see how this program works for BoA - I know they’re looking for some growth out of it, but I would expect that at least some of their anticipated customer base may be somewhat reluctant to come forward.

Second, from a financial institution perspective - at what point is the government going to come knocking on the door and saying, “OK, all those credit card customers you have with no SSN’s? We want names, addresses, phone numbers, everything.” Maybe it would never happen, but in the current political environment, I think it’s at least somewhat within the realm of possibility.

Yes, there are lots of legitimate and legal reasons to be in the country and not have a Social Security number, and I’m sure for those folks having access to a credit card off a US based bank could be a nice thing to have. (Though I had no problems with my US MasterCard while in London…)

For the folks out there that are flailing about over this, the answer is really not that complicated. First, don’t take your banking business to BoA. Second, lobby your representatives to change the law. Making ridiculous statements about terrorism helps nothing.

I know so many people that just despise today, but I’m not one of them. Sure, it’s marketed to the point of absurd, and no, I don’t think a guy should feel like he has to buy diamond earrings for someone on their first V-day together, but I like it nonetheless. And lord knows, I’ve been on my own more often than with someone over the years, and I still like it.

C’mon, it’s about love!!! And not just romantic love - my grandfather used to send me & my Mom Valentine’s day cards. (I always thought that was so sweet.) And then there was the Valentine’s Day Massacre of 2001 - about a dozen of us, a lot of Guinness and a LOT of love among friends.

Hell, be your own Valentine. Make yourself a nice dinner. Go snag that favorite bottle of wine and open it and enjoy it.

And as always, consider yourself smooched.

So, I’m thinking I may head up to Philly next month for a couple days for the Philadelphia Flower Show & the Tutankhamun exhibit. Looking at the maps, the convention center/hotel/museum all are within about a mile of each other, which is good, but I know absolutely nothing of Philly, so it may also all be in the skankiest part of town.

So, if anyone out there knows the area around the convention center at all and can tell me if it’s semi-decent or if I’m not going to want to even leave my hotel room, that would be great.

After making folks put up with the myriad of appearing, disappearing and reappearing test posts, here’s something with (hopefully) some redeeming value. I got this recipe from the lovely Ms. Holly Orberg when she was my cube neighbor back at AT&T and got a craving for it the other night. It makes ~2 cups, but I don’t think there be an issue w/cutting it in half if you’re just snacking on your own.

1/2 # tiny salad shrimp*
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. mayonnaise
1-2 stalks green onion, chopped**
2 T ketchup***

Combine everything but the shrimp, and the fold in the shrimp. Let chill/setup in the fridge for about an hour, serve with crackers or chips. (It’s really good with Fritos.)

* If you can’t get salad shrimp, which I could not, you can go with small/medium shrimp and cut them up into little pieces. However, if you’re buying raw w/shells on and cooking them, you’ll need more than 1/2#. I used 31-40s and I’d say 3/4# (raw/uncooked) would have been better.
** I think fresh chives would also work nicely for this..
*** I use cocktail sauce, I also think that chili sauce could work too.

Many, many thanks to mendel for his help on this and providing a mod on ljxp to solve the post ID problem and the bit of code to put in the control panel to make it work.

Woohoo!!!!!!

I’ve almost got things the way I want them… I’ve finally gotten the ljxp crossposter to work - seems I had a bad/old version of it when I started out.

The comment count image is going in the posts…except that from what I can tell from what is displaying (-1) and reading the code, it seems to be deciding that the post ID is invalid and as such, tagging it w/the -1… I really like the idea of getting the comments on the site vs. LJ, especially since I found the “subscribe to comments” plugin so folks can get replies and I really want this to work.

There must be a way to fix it, just gotta figure it out…

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