CafeChatNoir

No fate but the fate you make for yourself.

Lag – it’s not just for gamers anymore

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…

February 28, 2007 - 5:29 PM Comments (3)

The big stuff doesn’t really bother me

the-big-stuff-doesnt-really-bother-me

- 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.

February 28, 2007 - 1:46 PM No Comments

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.

February 27, 2007 - 6:10 PM Comments (3)

Waiting on my brother’s return

February 26, 2007 - 4:56 PM Comments (2)

My snow monster

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…

February 25, 2007 - 2:05 PM Comments (3)

Snow!

February 25, 2007 - 12:24 PM Comments (2)

Despite being 10 feet tall and bulletproof

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.

February 22, 2007 - 12:24 PM Comments (2)

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.

February 20, 2007 - 9:24 PM No Comments

Happy Mardi Gras!

happy-mardi-gras

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.

February 20, 2007 - 2:32 PM No Comments

My darling dog & Jagerbombs

my-darling-dog-jagerbombs

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.

February 20, 2007 - 1:51 AM Comments (2)

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