Tag: bullshit

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Trading Is Easy

No it fucking isn’t.

This trade is a clusterfuck of emotions and bad decisions. See that big assed red candle on the left? After a crazy day yesterday with Cassava Sciences Inc increasing 20$ over the day, this morning there was a crazy drop BEFORE the markets even opened from a high of $48 down to $39 over the course of a 5 minute period. Here’s where the fuckery comes in.

I quickly analyzed the situation and decided that when the market opened we’d get a bounce back up, probably half way around $45. So I bought shares in a market when it might have been smarter to sell into the weakness. No, not your superhero buddy Zaal! No he BUYS into a selling market on a hunch.

Well this idiot was right. When the market opens (that first big green candle) it did start crawling back towards my target. I actually had a limit order in at $44.37 so that was going to be our OUT! Other than the little red Doji candle at 0935, it continued up as expected with steady volume. As it neared the top of the 0950 candle, it seemed the momentum was slowing. I started to get a bit nervous and thought how stupid it would be if I didn’t even try to take some profit now that I was in the green. I took two partials and sold 50 shares @ $43.16 and $43.21 with my average cost of $41.31.

“What does that mean for you, idiot?”. It means that I made some money. How much? On the first 50 shares, I made $92.50. Second 50 shares, $95. But I held the last 50 in the hopes it might get higher and it did with me finally selling my last 50 shares @ $44.37 for a final profit of $153. All of these numbers are documented on the image above if you want to click on it.

So I got triple my daily target by:

  1. Using my limited trading knowledge
  2. Knowing what happened in the market on the previous day
  3. Willing to risk some money to get more money.

If I’d not known any of those three things checked off above, I wouldn’t have taken the trade.

Straight talk here: when the stock was at it’s lowest, if I’d decided to close my position at max loss, I would have been out $600 but I didn’t because of the three items listed above.

So… intraday trading. Yeah, super easy. 😒

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My Apathy is Overcoming My Caution

C-19 Sucks. Not travelling sucks. Having my guys unhappy at home sucks. And I’m losing the battle to continue doing what we’ve been doing for the past 2 years.

At what point does my life, which will probably be shorter than average due to the shit I’ve seen and done over the years, need to continue on with occasional trips away?

I’m very close to booking a ticket and finding somewhere to go. England just legislated the removal of testing for folks flying in from abroad. Maybe I go there for a week just to see what the world is like beyond my own city?

If I don’t do something interesting soon, I’m going to lose my shit.

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Zuckerberg And a Bold Faced Lie

Think it’s super important for people to watch this and think about how far we’ve come in 9 years. Watch and remember. Maybe it’s time to re-think how much you’re sharing on the “Social Network”.

Remember: if you’re not paying for a service, you’re the product.  More after the video.

When Facebook opened to the public, as opposed to just Harvard students, I signed up almost immediately and thought it was neat. Here’s my first post from July 7, 2007:

How exactly should I feel about jumping on this fucking bandwagon? Ashamed? Oh, most assuredly.Engaged? No, I’ve coded a better web interface in my sleep. I awoke with a hard-on it was so good. Feeling a sense of security? Umm… no. Now any knob who once knew me, knew of me or simply knows my name can peer into whatever detail I choose to leave on this site. Retarded. Ummm yeah. I’m done. I’m on facebook. Yay.

Only slightly prophetic, no?

One day soon, I’m going to swap over all my “social networking” to this site where I have a bit more control. Oh, I hold no illusions; anyone that’s actually interested in my content on the Internet can download it and use it as they see fit but I have control over what I share with the world here instead of thinking I have some modicum of privacy. The illusion that most social networking enthusiasts work under is that they have privacy. Seeing my FB data dump shows me how much I’ve shared over eleven years and that’s making me move more here, under my control.

I think more people should look to control the content that’s about them floating around on the net. Maybe I’m starting to get a bit paranoid but I want my thoughts, pictures, status updates to be mine and not sold to a company that will attempt to make money from me without me getting equal value in return.

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All You Can Eat KFC?

Would anyone reading this actually go for all you can eat KFC?

I’m so very conflicted by this; on the one hand I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it to leave work on time (that’s a post for another occasion) and stand in line to get all I can eat KFC. On the other, I think it would be incredibly disrespectful to my wife.

Sly spends so much time and thought putting together healthy meals for her and I that actually partaking of an ‘All You Can Eat Chicken’ scenario would probably set me back months in my healthy eating regimen.  It’s been a tough slog for her, coming up with things that I would not mind eating regularly. Lots of salad, lots of skinless, boneless chicken breast. Lots of it. Many chickens died to supply our dinners.

So I don’t have a problem saying I enjoy chicken. I’m normally a big fan of Chicken on the Way (Poulet En Route!) or even Cluck and Cleaver for my fried chicken fix. But I really don’t think I’d be happy eating my weight in KFC. Can you even call that chicken in the real sense? Perhaps more of a colloquial sense?

Anyways, if you’re in Calgary on 17th Avenue (and 12th Street SW) in the Beltline on Wednesday and you can stomach it, stop by for all you can eat KFC. What could go wrong?

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Salient

 

Throughout my adult life, I’ve battled with sleeplessness. I won’t call it insomnia because I’ve never gone days on end without rest. If you see a post early morning (like this one), you can rest assured that I was just unable to decide if tiredness was on the horizon.

No, my M.O. is sitting in front of the computer until all hours because I know that if I try to lay my head on a pillow, I’m going to stare aimlessly at the ceiling while my head grinds with things I need to do, plans that need hatching, protocols that need following and contingencies that need development.

I’m a worrier; I’ve always been a worrier but it’s the worry that keeps me and those around me (relatively) safe most of the time.  I think of scenarios that might not necessarily need thinking about. Seriously, why would I need to plan out my actions in the event the group I’m wandering around the woods with is attacked by a cougar? Like where the hell does this come from? For the record, it is a scenario I’ve thought about and have a plan for. How ridiculous is that?

This is something that developed in my early 20’s and has been around for some time. People that know me might extrapolate about why it began at that time but I won’t get into that now.

It wasn’t until recently when I was perusing some old episodes of Scrubs on Youtube that I found this song being used as a plot device. It describes one man’s inability to control the worry that pops into his head and how it’s causing him some grief and sleepless nights. Give it a watch/listen.

Yeah, salient.

There’s a bottle of Jack sitting on the shelf yonder that might solve the problem but only introduce a new one.

So I sit at my battle station, clicking away into the night, keying in words, phrases and the occasional sentence coherent enough to share, all the while wondering if my brain will release its grip on my body and give me some fucking rest even if it means waking up with a keyboard imprinted on my face.

Now… what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?

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“Nah, I don’t believe in it.”

So… tipping.  I’d like to talk about it a bit. Though I don’t consider myself Mr. Pink, it takes a bit to make me want to tip more than 15%. I’ve also been known to express my distaste with a particular server’s attentiveness with a zero % tip. Yes, it happens but not very often. I’ll leave it to Mr. Pink to explain one point of view on this topic.

Yeah.. so I’m no Mr. Pink, I’m starting to feel a little worn out about dealing with tipping. Then I get to hear the ‘etiquette expert’ below natter on about ’20 being the new 15′,  I just want everyone to move over to the European/Australian system. Let’s listen to these rocket surgeons.

Now I have been, recently, tipping strictly at 20% but this has been some very great service in restaurants that Sly and I frequent because we love the food and the service but that has been my choice and I know that I don’t have to tip that much if I don’t want to. Now they want to make 20% the defacto value for tipping in all scenarios? AND….

You want me to tip the person that pours my coffee? Seriously?  What about the guy at McDonald’s? Do they deserve 20% because they gathered my order and put it on a tray/in a bag? Fuck that.

Look, I know people have it tough in the service industry. I know this.  I’ve spent many summers living on my tips while working in restaurants.  I have family that have spent most of their adult life owning/working in restaurants.  But the expectation is now that I have to pay 1/5th of my total bill towards paying the server, by default?

Sorry, not going to happen. You want 20% you best work for it. I don’t want you average service.  That’s just going to get you 15% at best. I want your attention every time I make eye contact with you.  I want my water filled. If I’m drinking a soft drink or something similar, there’s no reason for me to see the bottom of my glass.  My food best arrive on plates that aren’t too hot, which usually indicates an inordinate amount of time under a heat lamp. Bottom line is I want the best possible dining experience ever and if you can’t offer that extraordinary level of service, please don’t expect an extraordinary tip!

Course if you can’t manage that and still expect your patrons to pay you what you think you deserve, maybe it’s time for an occupation change?

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Handcrafted? Bullshit!

Just finished a survey for Starbucks. Throughout, they continually referred to their drinks as ‘Handcrafted’. That is such a crock of shit since the only hands involved in the entire process are used to carry my drink from the automated machine, to the hot water reservoir and back to the drop off counter. That’s it! There was no crafting involved.