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Adventures of a man, his wife, and a Giant Baby! in modern Scotland. Occasional ninja, pirates and squirrels.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Seems I'm not due a good day after all :(
When I got to the optician, it was mentioned to me that a message had been left on my answering machine. Which is nice, except that I received no such message. And, since I have no roommate, and didn't delete the message myself, that means my answering machine isn't working. This isn't a huge surprise, but does add one more annoyance.
Anyway, I got my new glasses, which are much like my old glasses except with slightly darker frames. Also, being made of titanium, the frames are at once lighter and stronger, which is good to know. So, I put them on...
and immediately knew something was badly wrong. Every single thing was out of focus, and I found my vision swimming. But, of course, it could just be that my eyes needed to relax and work with the new lenses, not against them. I was advised to try them out for a couple of days, to let my eyes adapt.
Well, I wore my old glasses for the drive to work, of course, then switched to the new ones. Two hours later, I've had to switch back. Its true that my eyes adapted, and I was able to focus on things that were directly in front of me. And, it's true that those things were in slightly better focus than before.
But the peripherals, ah, the peripherals are useless. Basically, anything that's slightly off-centre is out of focus. Plus, I now have a splitting headache, and then there's the nausea. Badness.
I'll try them again tomorrow morning, to see if it makes any difference if I wear them as my only glasses for the day, but I'm not hopeful. It looks like something has gone wrong with my prescription and they'll need changed.
So, work.
I got to the office and found I have been assigned two more 'distraction tasks', both of which are adjudged to be even higher priority than the previous 'distraction task'. Looks like I'll not be doing any 'real task' work for a few more days, then.
Looking into the first of these, I was quickly able to replicate the problem, which is the first step towards solving it. Plus, I have a good idea what bit of code needs added, and even at what part of the code it needs added. But, can I find this latter location in the code? Not a chance.
Oh well, at least the test I ran overnight worked.
Friday, March 30, 2007
My Marvellous Monde Musicale
I'm drive-ing, driving to work!
Other drivers conspire, in my blind spot to lurk.
It gravely concerns me, for I cannot see them,
when I'm drive-ing, driving to work!
(Catchy, isn't it? The air guitar solo is a bit worrisome, though.)
Anyway, we both agreed that this would be a fine thing. However, I did worry that there might be some resistance. After all, given the quality of so many of our professionals, how bad must the common man be by comparison?
However, there is a solution. Clearly, attempting to convert the whole world in one go, it makes far more sense instead to convert only a small part of the world, thus creating, for example, a Town of Music. Thereafter, we could gradually expand the borders, gradually annexing outlying regions. You know, one aria at a time.
Yeah, I'm not going to touch that one...
An obsessive reader of my blog would yesterday have seen three different versions of the previous post. In the first version, I wrote something that, read in the manner intended, seemed okay. However, it could be read another way, that was very definately not something I wanted to say. So, a couple of hours later, I revised the text to say something else. But, although the new version was better, it still left me rather uneasy, and so I took down the offending paragraph entirely.
I have decided not to revisit it at all. The topic that is touched on is rather grim and depressing, and although I have strong opinions on the matter, actually expressing those opinions runs a very great risk of saying the wrong thing. And, given the nature of the topic, I feel it is therefore best to say nothing at all.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Five Fascinating Facts
Still, I have five that I think you won't know (although some might suspect):
1) The one and only peice of careers advice I got at school said that I was underqualified for the job I am currently doing. For some reason, they omitted "go to university" as one of the options when answering the question "what do you intend to do after leaving school". This wasn't the first time I was sure some of the people at that school were muppets, but it might have been the first time my suspicion was confirmed.
2) At night, before going to bed, I have to neatly fold up the clothes I have been wearing, or I can't get to sleep. Even more ridiculous, when the time comes to drop the dirty clothes into the washing bin, I have to fold them up first before doing this!
3) Every time I have been in a strip club, I have made a profit. I should probably explain...
I was in Arkansas, visiting an old friend, and on the evening I arrived he (in concert with his brother-in-law and a random cousin) decided it would be a good idea to drag me off to a strip club. Actually, to be technical, it wasn't a strip club, but rather a titty bar. (The difference being: in Arkansas there are licensing laws for two types of clubs. Strip clubs have a strict "no touching" rule, but serve alcohol. Titty bars do not serve alcohol, although you can certainly carry in your own drinks, but you're allowed to touch anywhere the girl isn't clothed.) As we were going in, random cousin gave me a bunch of dollar bills, about $8 in all.
It was not a good night. The beers selected by random cousin for consumption that night were Miller Lite with reduced carbs, and were possibly the single worst beers in the entire world. Certainly, they were the worst I've had the misfortune to consume. For the rest of it... (I've deleted the rest of this paragraph. It bothers me a great deal. I may revisit at a later time.)
(The funny thing is, I'm not even particularly opposed to the notion of people taking their clothes off for money. It's just a business, and rather more honest than some. Though that sort of diversion is not for me - I'm an eye-man, and anyway prefer a woman I can actually have a conversation with. Shockingly, the strippers were disinclined to talk, and their eyes had all the excitement and passion of the bored professional.)
So, I forced down a couple of Miller Lite, studied the advertisement/place mat things (and hence my intimate knowledge of Arkansas licensing laws), complained of being far too tired to properly enjoy myself, and tried to ignore my senses. And, by the time we left, I found I still had one of the original dollar bills.
So, as I said, profit.
5) For many years, my CV listed a qualification in cake decoration. I still hold the qualification, since it doesn't expire, but no longer list it on my CV.
4) (You thought I was cheating, didn't you?) I have never been in a nightclub. Incidentally, this means I have been in more titty bars than nightclubs, which is slightly concerning on an academic level.
So, there we go. Anyone know any of those fascinating facts?
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
That's a long way!
I cheered.
I'm now moving onto my next long-held ambition. However, I'm rapidly running out. I think I'd best develop a few more ambitions, just in case. And ideas?
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Why is it...
The Queen
and The Queen. In case you don't know, this is a film starring Helen Mirren as the Queen, and deals with the events of the week following the death of Diana.
Now, normally, when a film wins lots of Oscars or Baftas, this means it's an incredibly depressing film in which really bad things happen to people who may or may not be particularly nice, and often with a hint of 'special interest group' influence. Generally, it is not an indication that the film is in any way worth watching.
But still, it was a film of interest. I distinctly remember the week in question. I was in church when I heard that Diana had died, and it was a bit of a shock, to say the least. On returning home, I found that every channel had a non-stop diet of coverage of these events, and very little real information. Then came the outpouring of public grief, which I considered largely over-the-top (I was actually with the Queen on this one), and the key statements from Earl Spencer and Tony Blair (before the dark times really began)... and then Candle in the Wind.
And I remember the attacks on the monarchy of that week. For a few days there, people really didn't like the Queen, and there seemed to be a mood that we might actually be about to get rid of them, the like of which I have never seen before or since. And then it just evaporated the moment the Queen made her live statement. Ironically, Diana may well have saved the monarchy.
(And, since I'd best address this, my politics as regard the monarchy are complex. In principle, I don't like the concept of monarchy, or inherited priviledge at all. However, I don't believe it's enough to simply clamour for the removal of the monarchy; one needs something to put in its place, and I've never seen a better idea put forward. Certainly, the last thing we need is another batch of useless and corrupt politicians to not vote for. Furthermore, for as long as we haven't gotten rid of the monarchy, I'll take the stance that she remains the Queen, she remains our head of state, and that as such she has claim on my loyalty. As I said, it's complex.)
So, anyway, how is the film?
Actually, it is excellent. The characterisations ring very true, and Mirren really sells the role of Queen. Of particular interest, however, is that none of the characters with the exceptions of the Queen and Tony Blair come off at all well. Cherie and the New Labour people are particularly unpleasant, while the Windsors seem wrapped up in this bizarre little world, oblivious to everyone and everything else.
Tony Blair is a character I've come to dislike over the last ten years. I voted for Labour in 1997, and not since, because back then I really did believe that things were going to be different. It was odd to be reminded that once upon a time he was incredibly popular, and he actually makes almost all the right calls in this film. It's also fun to watch his attitudes to the monarchy change as the film goes on, changing from enjoying his rise at their expense to finally taking direct action to prevent disaster. But the very best part of the film comes at the end, when the Queen points out to him that one day the public may turn on him as they had on her.
And then there's Helen Mirren as the Queen. This must have been a very difficult role, because she is a very private person, and she always does seem quite stoic in her manner. So, how do you portray that without seeming wooden? Well, she does.
The other odd reflection I came away with from the film centres around a scene where the Windsors have a picnic on the Balmoral estate, and the trappings of the meal, the food that was available, and some of the roles that were adopted were all hauntingly familiar. This was a scene that I could have seen playing out in exactly the same manner with my own grandparents a few years ago. Which is perhaps also telling - I have actually met the Queen on one occasion, and my overriding impression then was of how strongly she reminded me of my own grandmother. It's all a bit odd.
Anyway, I highly recommend this film.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Sporting crisis
(Rant about the English media deleted. It would probably upset some people, and is entirely tangential to the subject at hand.)
Except cricket. Cricket is the one sport where I actually do support the English team, for two reasons. The first of these is personal, and has to do with my relationship with my father, and will not be elaborated on further in this post. The second reason is that, to all intents and purposes, there is no Scottish cricket team, largely because a test match takes five days, and the Scottish weather therefore makes just finishing a match cause for celebration. (Naturally, real cricket is test match cricket. But that's another rant for another day... and probably one I won't even bother with.)
Which brings us to the Cricket World Cup... in which Scotland are due to be roundly thrashed by Australia today. And let's make no mistake - we are going to be roundly thrashed. (Not that there's any shame in that. "Oh, no! We lost to the best team in the world!")
Which leaves me is something of a quandary. See, if Scotland actually are in the tournament, then I really have to support them. Dulce et decorum est, and all that. Yet, I can't really support two teams, because that just makes me a dirty two-timing cheat.
What to do, what to do?
Monday, March 12, 2007
Bad Science
To which my answer is: possibly.
But what is pretty clear is that the science that underlies this programme (and, indeed, virtually everything you ever hear about global warming) is bad science. The people involved have taken a subset of the available evidence, moulded it to fit their chosen hypothesis, and presented it as 'proof'. It is, of course, nothing of the sort.
But I'm not surprised. You have to work really hard to get access to good science these days. Good science is built as follows: Develop a hypothesis. Then build an experiment to try to disprove it. If your experiment fails, then that acts as a supporting point in favour of your hypothesis. If your experiment succeeds, your hypothesis is wrong. (Oh, and if you're doing a comparitive study, change one thing. Don't have your kids take a dietary supplement, and fix their diets, and take more exercise, and then claim the dietary supplement improved their brane development.)
Incidentally, this is where the saying "the exception that proves the rules" comes in handy. Testing 'normal' cases against your hypothesis isn't going to get you anywhere - you wouldn't develop a hypothesis that was obviously wrong in the first place. Instead, you try the hard cases... or, if you will, the 'exceptional' ones. If the tests at the extremes work as expected, then that serves as a very strong indicator that your hypothesis is correct. So, the saying means the direct opposite of what most people think it means.
However, all of that is a fairly lengthy aside from where I was intending to go with this. Instead, my topic of choice: evolution.
This has become a major battleground between religion and science. See, the theory of evolution does not require the existence of God for life to have come into existence (it doesn't preclude it either, but some scientist then like to refer to Occam's Razor as 'proof' therefore that God doesn't exist. That Occam's Razor proves exactly nothing, and in fact makes no claim to do so, seems to elude them). So, significant numbers of people of faith are absolutely determined that evolution must be wrong, and will stop at nothing to have it discredited. And, they are absolutely insistent that it must not, under any circumstances, be taught to children.
On the other hand, we have the scientific community. Large portions of which take this as a personal attack on their profession as a whole. And, there is therefore a significant push to see evolution regarded as a matter of incontrovertible scientific fact, to which they will brook no opposition. (And, of course, it must be taught to children because, you know, knowledge is good.)
And here are two inconvenient truths that seem to have been missed by both sides: 1) Evolution is almost certainly correct. 2) Evolution is almost certainly wrong.
The first statement is based on the incompatibility between the mass of available evidence and the nature of the God believed by the men of faith who oppose evolution. In order for evolution to be false, they must pre-suppose a God who deliberately created the world, then went to great effort to not only hide his influence and existence, but even put in huge amounts of effort to indicate to the contrary. That seems a very strange world-view to be taking.
The second statement is based on the very nature of science. Newton's theories about gravity were superceded by Einstein's relativity, which itself looks to be replaced by string theory. So it is with evolution: what we think happened is probably reasonably correct in some aspects, but will almost certainly be shown to be incomplete in several areas, and simply wrong in others. (There are also some major holes in evolution, not least the jump from an ape-like ancestor to a human-like one. There are a number of ideas on how that could have happened, but no clear evidence as yet.)
In the meantime, we're stuck between bad science on all sides. 'Creationist Science' is a joke, and a bad one at that. But so too is any excessive assurance in the correctness of evolution - it's not a matter of scientific fact, but rather the 'best fit' theory we currently have.
(At some later time I may discuss last week's Sunday conversation, in which Richard again shows his weakness with probability. And, also, in which I dissect "Deal or No Deal".)
Getting my money's worth
And so, I made my way to Tesco, as is my wont, and purchased a new non-stick saucepan. Whereupon the old should have been consigned to the outer darkness, where there is wailing and clattering of condiments.
However, it was at this point that genetics got in the way. See, my father always balks at the notion of throwing away a perfectly good saucepan (or, generally, other item) just because it has been replaced and will never be used again. After all, you never know when it might come in handy. What if I can't be bothered doing the washing up for three days?
So, anyway, I have added the dead saucepan to my stack of dead cooking implements, where it joins the first frying pan I purchased.
Still, the momentousness of this event should not be over-stated. It really wasn't worthy of comment until now.
Last week, I was sent to France from Wednesday to Friday. And the hotel where I was staying was almost fully booked, so I had to change rooms after the first night. And, on that first night, I was booked into a 'luxury' room, and on the second I enjoyed a 'standard' room. All very exciting, I'm sure you'll agree.
The difference was truly remarkable. The luxury room had two televisions! Sadly, one of these wasn't plugged in, and so just took up space. Also, there was nothing on, even accounting for the language problem, and when I did discover the Manchester United match (and determined that I could just about become a Man U fan for one night, deeply shameful as that is), the channel only went and lost reception exactly fifteen seconds after kick-off!
Additionally, the luxury room had a COMFY CHAIR, presumably just in case I needed to interrogate someone or make them confess. Alas, Pythonesque as it would have been, I lacked any tea of nice biscuits to offer a potential captive at Elevenses.
But the big difference was the most difficult to deal with, for the luxury room had two single beds instead of one double bed. This caused no end of difficulty, because clearly it was my duty to ensure I got my money's worth from the room (despite that my company were actually paying), and that meant utilising the facilities to their fullest extent.
It was not much fun having to wake up a 2:30 in the morning to swap to the other bed.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
The Squirrel Ballet joke
Anyway, for his 60th birthday celebrations, my family whisked our father off to Barend Holiday Village, a holiday park in Dunfries & Galloway where we had spent several summers in '89, '90 and, I think '91, as well as some Easter holidays a bit later on. There we spent the weekend engaged in all manner of fun and games, somehow avoiding the festive arguments that normal families seem to engage in at times like this. (Sadly, Paul wasn't able to make it, on account of working that weekend. But, other than that, the whole family was there.)
The site had a pool, complete with sauna, on it, and on the Saturday, while making my way from the pool back to the chalet, I chanced to see the local squirrel population, which was in rehearsals for their part in the site's weekly entertainment, a variety performance put on my the local fauna.
For their part, the squirrels had decided to entertain through the medium of ballet. Naturally, they were doing a selection from the Nutcracker Suite.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Making Cheese and Salad sandwiches, the Stephen way
2) Realise that, being an idiot, you've forgotten something. Open the fridge, and take out the apple you're going to have with lunch, and that therefore you need to wash.
3) Then, open the fridge again, and take out the bread and cheese.
4) Make sandwiches, and hope no-one ever finds out.
Anthropomorphic Biscuits
My favourite is the one with the sly mischievous grin. It looks at you as if to say "Go on! Eating a whole packet in one day won't kill you! And no-one need ever know! And we're so sweet. Mmm, biscuits!"
Mmm, biscuits!
A good night at band
Of course, a large part of the reason for this is the Mr Instructor wasn't there. This meant I got to spend an entire evening without having faults picked in my play, such as my playing a tune I've known for fifteen years really badly (um, yeah, okay), or that my 'D doublings' were sloppy... in a tune that doesn't have any 'D doublings'. So, that was quite nice.
But the other reason was that the pipe major wasn't there, which somehow worked out to me being effectively in charge. This was quite nice, because it enabled me to use both my DEEP MIGHTY VOICE (complete with authentic Scottish accent, to make the ladies go all tingly), and also my PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS.
All in all, it was quite fun.
"Wonn! Two! Three! Three Leetle Vowels. Ah Ah Ah!"
Sorry for not posting for a while. Work has been just mental lately, and since I can't even post details about it, I've been left without much time to post, or topics to post on.
Anyway, now it seems that work, thwarted in their attempt to get rid of me by my returning from France, are now considering sending me to a whole other continent! And not one of these friendly continents, either - one brought to you by the letter 'A'! Still, I may be able to avert this disaster, potentially by just not showing up in the office for a few days, and hoping they'll forget about me. It's so crazy, it just might work.


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So, as I mentioned in my prior post, I've made a brand new account on the PS4 in order to have a fresh start in Diablo. I've got my first character to 70 (with a little power leveling help from my main account). After a single run through of Act 1 Bounties on Normal, I've captured the gear I have so that we can go over whats good, whats bad, and what we should be looking for. It's worth noting I don't have any legendaries here, as I power leveled. Odds are, if you hit 70 by playing normally, you'll have a legendary or two, which is fine.
Stats: 611 Vitality (out of 625) // 6% Crit Chance (out of 6%) // 134 Lightning Resist (out of 140) // 1661 Thorns (out of 1817) // +15% Whirlwind Damage (out of 15%)
This is a pretty mediocre helm. It would be an awful helm if it didn't have perfect crit on it, with crit being a big contributor to damage.
The first issue is that it only rolled 3 out of 4 possible primary affixes (an item can roll up to 4 primary affixes, and 2 secondary). That in and of itself is an issue as it means its inherently less powerful than it could be, and limits our enchanting potential. Following that, the helm is missing core stat (for our Barb, Strength) and a socket. If we wanted to salvage this helmet, we'd reroll the Whirlwind damage into Core Stat, as we don't use Whirlwind, and a socket would give us less overall than raw core stat. The secondary affixes (Lightning Resist and Thorns here) don't matter.
Stats: 401 Strength (out of 415) // 411 Vitality (out of 415) // 15% Area Damage (out of 16%) // +14% Overpower Damage (out of 15%) // 123 Physical Resist (out of 140) // +1 Pickup Radius (out of 2)
These shoulders are better than our helm in terms of what we want. It has both Core Stat and Vitality on it, and both rolled near perfect too. The Area Damage and Overpower damage aren't really that helpful, but at least we got 4 primary affixes. Unfortunately, it did roll a secondary resist, which means we can't re-roll to All Resist as a primary. Since that is the case, we'd re-roll Overpower damage to % Life on these shoulders. Area damage, while not necessarily something you want to hunt for on gear, can be useful on Barbarians.
Chest Armor
Stats: 402 Strength (out of 415) // 382 Vitality (out of 415) // +14% Life (out of 14%) // 10% Falling Sword Damage (out of 15%) // 122 Cold Resist (out of 140) // +1 Pickup Radius (out of 2)
This chest armor is actually pretty solid. It rolled 4 primary affixes, 3 of which are stats we'd keep. The core stat roll is super good. Generally, I like to at least be within 10-20 of the max stat when it comes to core stat/vitality. Given that, the Vitality roll is a pinch too low for me, although it'll work, as we're going to be enchanting something else on this chest armor. The +Life % helps with the Vitality roll being lower than I'd like (perfect %life roll no less). The Falling Sword damage is what we'd enchant here, given that its not even a skill our class has. Re-rolling Falling Sword into 3 Sockets is the ideal course here, with those sockets being filled with core stat gems.
Stats: 86 Resist All (out of 90) // 31% Crit Damage (out of 50%) // 5664 Life Per Second (out of 6447) // +1 Pickup Radius (out of 2)
These are some awful gloves. First and foremost, only 3 primary affixes (and 1 secondary, but secondary affixes are basically Meg affixes as far as we're concerned at the moment). Of the three affixes we rolled, we didn't get core stat or crit chance. Gloves are one of those slots that are ideal for a more offensive focus (alongside amulets, rings, and to some degree bracers), and these particular gloves just don't cut it. I personally wouldn't even re-roll these, as you're likely to find more workable gloves just by playing. Look for high core stat on your replacements, then re-roll them to at least 8% crit chance, they'll be better than these gloves.
Stats: 394 Strength (out of 415) // 4940 Life Per Second (out of 6447) // 4408 Life per Hit (out of 7736) // 130 Cold Resist (out of 140) // +125 Exp per Kill (out of 139)
These bracers are pretty bad. While they did roll core stat, they only rolled 3 primary affixes, and each one of them is under the threshold I'd consider good. Strength should be at least 400, and Life Per Second should be at least 6000. Life Per Hit is strictly worse than Life Per Second for melee classes, so if you wanted to try and fix these, you'd roll it into 6% crit chance.
Stats: 389 Strength (out of 415) // 362 Vitality (out of 415) // 4504 Life per Second (out of 4642) // 139 Lightning Resist (out of 140) // 1784 Thorns (out of 1817)
Pretty mediocre pants. While they rolled pretty nice stats, they only rolled 3 primary affixes, and only the Life Per Second is in an acceptable range. The Strength and Vitality is under our desired 400 roll (with Vitality rolling near minimum). I wouldn't try enchanting these at all, as Pants are one of those pieces where 4 affixes are super useful. If we had 4 affixes, my ideal final affix would be 2 sockets, filled with core stat gems (rubies for Barbarians).
Stats: 381 Strength (out of 415) // 378 Vitality (out of 415) // 361 Armor (out of 364) // +12% Whirlwind Damage (out of 15%) // +2 Pickup Radius (out of 2)
Well, we got 4 primary affixes at least. The Strength and Vitality rolled lower than I'd like, and the Armor/Whirlwind rolls are useless to me. Armor is a weird stat, as I usually find that you get enough from gear alone. Barbarians, Crusaders, Monks and Demon Hunters also gain armor from their core stat, so it should never be something you're too short on. I'd personally re-roll the Whirlwind damage into +12% Movespeed.
Stats: 529 Strength (out of 625) // 563 Vitality (out of 625) // 6% Attack Speed (out of 6%) // 125 Arcane Resist (out of 140)
A mediocre amulet at best. While it did get core stat and Vitality, it rolled them low, ignoring the fact we don't want vitality on our amulet. I'd personally look for a new amulet, one with Strength (at least 600, although high 500s will do if you get the following), Crit Chance (at least 8%) and Crit Damage (at least 80%). The fourth affix should be a socket or attack speed, with a socket being preferred for preparation for legendary gems.
Stats: 399 Dexterity (out of 415) // 6% Attack Speed (out of 6%) // 4.5% Crit Chance (out of 6%) // 5552 Life Per Hit (out of 7736) // 140 Lightning Resist (out of 140) // 1490 Thorns (out of 1817)
Stats: 48-103 damage (out of 120) // 397 Strength (out of 415) // 5% Crit Chance (out of 6%) // 10% Area Damage (out of 16%) // 3916 Life after Kill (out of 4251)
Both of these rings are pretty mediocre. One of them didn't even roll the correct core stat for our class (gg smart loot?). While the crit chance on both of them is nice, its not quite enough to make them worth using in the long run. Ideal replacements are much like the amulet – Strength, Crit Chance (at least 5.5%), Crit Damage (at least 45%), and a socket.
Stats: +1074-1283 damage (out of 1556) // +7% Damage (out of 10%) // +905 Strength (out of 945) // 18% Area Damage (out of 20%) // +120 Exp per Kill (out of 139) // Ignores Durability Loss
Okay, this is a super good weapon, easily the best piece of gear we have, currently. The damage roll is pretty respectable (even if it is just shy of 300 below the cap), we scored % damage on it (which is a huge contributor to raw weapon dps), AND core stat close to our acceptable range. I plan on re-rolling the area damage into a socket when I have the resources to do so, and placing an Emerald into that socket for more crit damage. A weapon upgrade would have higher damage rolls, 10% weapon damage, 930+ strength and a socket.
That about covers the gear review. My max damage lists on the ring and the weapon are a bit off (seeing as the tooltip for damage range is broken), I'll have more details on those later, probably in their own post, or failing that, a post listing the maximum ranges for every stat in the game on both rares and legendaries for every single item.
The skills I'm using on my Barbarian will get their own post, when I've got my skills figured out, as I'm still ironing out the build.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bitumen & Bolts
Canada, the second largest country in the world by landmass, is home to 30 million people. It's the most economically comparable nation in the world to the United States: just at 1/10th scale. After being more fiscally conservative than Americans — and rather smug about it, particularly after the 2008 credit crisis — a bi-polar economic structure has emerged which undermines the illusory Canadian prosperity.
Canada's economic architecture is a two-headed beast: it is a strong exporter of both raw materials & finished goods, most notably automobiles & military hardware (I'll bet you didn't know that). The vast majority of trade is with the United States.
The durable goods manufacturing & export industry was reborn out a cheap Canadian currency, created out of the ashes of a tight monetary policy & populist anti-American political stance by Pierre Trudeau. In the following years, fiscal & weak monetary policy crafted the Canadian economy as the first major manufacturing out-sourcing hub. Canadian workers were as educated & productive as their
American counterparts, but cheaper, and their health benefits already paid for by the provinces. Coupled with strong government incentives, this ultimately made Canada very competitive.
The Canadian dollar has served as a proxy for basic materials, most notably oil. This is a gross misestimation of the Canadian economy, and even just Canadian trade: the price of a commodity, whose gross sales at $70/bbl comprise of 3% of Canadian GDP has driven the currency. Alberta, which produces 74% of Canadian oil, only shares 14% of Canada's GDP. In contrast, manufacturing driven Ontario comprises of more than 40%: this is another demonstration of the relatively tiny size that oil production is relative to manufacturing.
When oil rises, two key things happen: Americans buy fewer cars, and the Canadian dollar rises with it, making the much larger manufacturing sector less competitive. This is what has catalysed the loss of more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since 2002.
This creates a dichotomous system where the currency "sweet spot" for sustainable productivity across the country & throughout its industries is very narrow. Current values are almost certainly too high, and this is made obvious by the continually falling industrial production. Perhaps the most laissez-faire of major central banks, Bank of Canada is singularly mandated to fight inflation, which is performed almost entirely through rates.
The current economic expansionary cycle, which started several months before the American March of 2009 turnaround, was catalyzed by a very poorly covered bank bailout. The Canadian people, who had been running a Federal budget surplus since 1996, suddenly find themselves with a $64 billion deficit: the new item on tap is a $75 billion bailout (multiply this by 10x to compare it to the US programmes), which creates a massive — for Canada — $64 billion deficit. What makes the Canadian bank bailout even more curious is how big it is relative to how few banks operate in Canada. The banking spectrum is dominated by 5: Toronto Dominion, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal & Bank of Nova Scotia.
Stephen Harper has sworn up and down at every opportunity that the Canadian banks weren't bailed out, the Canadian banking system is the safest in the world, there is no sub-prime lending, and most recently against a co-ordinated global bank tax to pay for the bailouts. The only problem is that it's all untrue.
The Canadian federal government has long been captured. Regulatory capture has killed financial competition & innovation, creating a system where retirement funds are funneled through a closed system. As a customer of Canada's largest bank, Royal Bank, you can expect to pay $28.95 per transaction, plus 2.5% currency fee if you buy American stocks! The swift, uncontested & uncovered bailout neatly demonstrates the extent of the capture.
So – what does the Canadian economy, architected to sell expensive oil & cars to the United States, do when Americans can no longer afford either? Spin up the FIRE economy, of course. Open the credit spigots, lower the borrower requirements & quality, and spur domestic consumption. This is how Canada's mighty balance of trade fell from a surplus of 46.9 billion in 2008 (or 47.9 billion in 2007) to a deficit of 4.8 billion.
The position of the United States in trade has dominated global economics for decades. The cycles of growth & decline of American consumption have driven a high degree of synchronicity in the global economy. Because of this, most every tradeable asset is highly correlated, and perhaps more than two thirds of any trade is simply whether money is flowing in or out of risk-taking assets. This is even more true for the Canadian economy, and Canadian assets: as the largest exporter to the United States, the livelihoods of millions are very sensitive to what American consumers do. Additionally, the quick federal government support to Canadian banks in late 2008 provided opportunities to scoop up American assets on the cheap, which they amply took advantage of. This has increased the exposure of the Canadian economy to the American risk even more.
The Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation (CMHC) is a crown corporation — fully owned by the state — which serves as an analogue to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. From 2003 through 2007, they removed price ceilings (paving the way for what are called "jumbo loans" in the United States), added 40-year mortgages, removed the requirement of a down-payment, and opened itself up as a Mortgage Backed Securities marketplace (which has comprised more than 90% of the Canadian mortgage market since 2007). In order to facilitate continually expanding housing prices, the borrowers obviously must grow progressively less qualified; in this capacity, the CMHC is actually riskier than Fannie or Freddie, who were merely over-leveraged, but not big players in the sub-prime markets.
The price-to-rent ratio has gone from less than even in 2001 to over 2.5:1 — at a peak level, after a small decline during the credit crisis. The price-to-income ratio has gone from almost -2:1 to 1.5:1. Canadian household debt has reached a record $42,000 a person, ranking Canadians as highest debt-to-income ratio in the developed world.
All of this adds up to a tremendous sensitivity to prices & confidence as in any classic example of a debt-fueled bubble. Unless wages can quickly rise by 20-30% to cover the un-affordability introduced by credit expansion, or Canada invites an extra million-or-so wealthy immigrants from Taiwan, Canadian home sellers will quickly run out of greater fools. There is evidence that this has already begun: new home listings have once again reached an all-time peak, while sales have already leveled & declined from their highs. At the same time, Canadian consumer insolvencies (bankrupcties & consumer proposals) are up 20% year-over-year.
None of this is good news for the Canadian banks — the top 4 of which own 169 billion in MBS, or foreign MBS owners like General Electric. Additionally, it's not good news for the loonie, whose cretinous investors' distorted views of the Canadian economy has made it a proxy to oil. Where will the loonie be after credit reverts to mean, and the Canadian government, which insures all of those MBSs, has to pony up from the losses these assets are certainly going to take?
The answer is much lower than it is now, and probably where it should have been all along.
Images, links & data: Mish1 Mish2 americaCanada
What do new believers buy?
When I look back at my writing, my estimation of the recession, recovery was flawed in two major ways:
- I underestimated the amount & duration the market would move against the Fed & the government during the panic phase
- I underestimated the amount & duration the market would move, responding to stimulus & recovery
Ultimately, of course, the stimulus & emergency measures taken by the Federal Reserve & government didn't halt the decline; it was the removal of mark-to-market accounting. So: the market knows what's important…
The prevailing question to those like myself who are underweight equities: the S&P 500 is up 75% from its cycle lows. Have we missed the boat?
Has the pilot executed a perfect landing?
Nassim Taleb equated correctly tuning the economy for recovery to landing a 747 between the mountain & sea on a very short run-way.
Let's consider our current economic context:
Job losses have peaked, and we are once again heading into positive territory. The rate of NFP change has been been historically very sticky to the prevailing trend. Although I would not rule out a negative NFP in this cycle, I suspect that some very strong positive releases are coming in the next 6 months. I even expect it to be strong enough to take the unemployment rate down – perhaps to 9% by the end of the year.
Corporate Earnings
2009 was still brutal for corporate earnings. S&P 500 earnings require a +47% move to match their 2006 peak. Consider a selection of multiples:
Also, consider the companies still in the red: BAC, C, BK, PNC, MET…
Valuations and earnings are all over the place. As a whole, the largest stocks are positioned aggressively for growth, but many stocks could see a sharp earnings recovery & subsequent share price lift. I would look for 2010 EPS for 70 or better – giving a forward P/E of 17.
This is already priced into many stocks, but probably not into many financial stocks in particular.
Working Thesis
So: the great battle between inflationary and deflationary forces seems to have tipped over to the side of growth & risk. Massive co-ordinated efforts globally by both government and central banks have saved the capital markets from a 1929-1933 style cliff-dive.
This isn't sustainable. A Keynesian response is leading to awful mal-investment from every sector: governments (particularly the American government, pissing their productivity away with health-care, taxes & inflation, and spending their stimulus dollars on stemming the tide, maintaining the energy dependent status quo, and not building out new infrastructure for the future), central banks (liabilities taken on during the waterfall decline), people (buying new cars & houses they can barely afford) & investors (buying stocks & bonds at prices that ultimately will fall prey to deflation).
Generally, I think we can expect longer busts, and shorter booms. We're in a boom, until the awful foundation of mal-investment & energy structure pulls us back into the flames.
What's left to buy?
I am overweight institutions that stand to gain the most from a recovery that haven't quite seen the effects on their balance sheet yet. Apart from the usual things I like, I think a possible list of candidates are:
- Financial institutions in the red: BAC, C, BK, PNC, MET
- Natural gas
- Short long treasury yields
I just want to make sure that I'm ready to jump off the train…
Birth of the Perma-Bear
Although I didn't place my first trade until a few years later, I wrote & backtested my first trading system some time around 1998. My father & his three brothers were all actively trading the bubbling dot-com boom. My father, the cynic, successfully forecasted the dot-com bust, and the subsequent crash in global equities. In late 1999, my father & I went to our TD Bank financial advisor to liquidate the mutual funds my family had put away for my education. The advisor not only attempted to convince us out of it, but recommended to my father that he re-mortgage his house, and invest the proceeds in the stock market.
As the market topped and came crashing down, my father bought Dow futures puts. He cited many of the same concerns that we've heard more recently: the spread between Eastern & Western/developing & developed standard of living was too wide, our outsourced manufacturing replaced with current account, government & private sector deficits, and the over financialisation of the economy.
He was right on every count. His puts made a tonne of money.
Ultimately, my father thought that our Western economy was trapped in a death spiral, and that the stock market was going much lower. He was probably right about the former, but he continued to hold his puts through the recovery, and negated the winnings he made on the way down. That was his evolution into a perma-bear.
There are a couple of problems with the perma-bear scenario. The principle arguments revolve around indebtness & the standard of living (perhaps around cars). Here's the thing: if the equity markets gave a single greenish-brown floater about the plight of the common man, we'd be in a 40 year bear market. Every facet of American life is inferior with the exception of technology: the quality of our food, our disposable income, the cost of energy, our moral superiority, our economic prospects, the number of hours we work, our buying power…
How can all of those things decline — and in some cases, fall off a cliff — while the market posts 9% yearly returns?
The answer is that the economy changes. Stock market prices are a simple combination of available capital, an appetite for risk, and corporate earnings. Where the common man loses in quality of food, or disposable income, corporate earnings can gain. As long as the central bank keeps printing money (which it does), there will never be a long shortages of capital. This leaves us with the most important factor: appetite for risk. That's all that really matters.
The conclusion isn't that the equities are going to 0: I think it's more correct to say that our booms are getting shorter, and our busts are prolonged.
9 years after my father & I went to our TD Bank financial advisor to liquidate my mutual funds, I shorted stocks, and bought precious metals because everything I knew about the financial world was ending. The spread between the developing & developed standard of livings had finally reached the tipping point. The current account imbalances, debt balloon and financialisation of the economy had finally boiled over. Our global currency system was irreparably broken.
My father has since reconciled with the up-side. It took me until June of 2009 before I jumped back into equities. Even now, my exposure is pretty low: I own a few equities, but mostly write some options & wait for the chaos to return so I can do what is more intellectually comforting to me: shorting the spread between the East and the West. I have that nagging feeling, though: am I now a perma-bear? Like father like son?
Well, at least on the last part: definitely.
Fundamental Playbook for 2010
After the -56% drop in equities between October of 2007 and March 2009, we find ourselves rebounded +64% after a recent -9% pullback. There has essentially only been one trade: you are either long or short risk. Every day is a tug-of-war between reflationary and deflationary pressures: the Federal Reserve furiously expanding monetary base while the Treasury promotes real-estate purchases through tax credits in an attempt to revive the wealth vessel that most American net-worth is held in: houses.
It doesn't work, of course. Unlike China, but very much like Japan, you cannot force a snake-bitten financial sector that doesn't want to make loans (where 5% of their existing loans are 90-days delinquent) to lend money to the even less credit-worthy. In fact, trying to force banks to lend by feeding them newly printed money is a lot like pushing on a string: financial institutions will hoard their cash for their self-fulfilled rainy day prophecy, and only sparingly invest the money into extra liquid assets like stocks, treasuries & commodities.
This leads us to an environment with a 10y which has surpassed 4% & oil which has surpassed $80 at the same time that unemployment is 10.6% (seasonally unadjusted; 9.7% if adjusted, or 21% if you revert back some of the lies the BLS has introduced since 1994). The last time oil was $80/barrel, headline unemployment was less than 5%. A combination of inflation, Chinese hoarding and long-term decline of oil supply — peak oil — has essentially doubled the economic cost in unemployment of oil.
High energy costs & interest rates combine to create a scenario Gregor Macdonald calls the Double Overhead Crush. As complacency from the liquid risk asset market rally sets in, global political solidarity for reflation is beginning to crumble as the Chinese and Europeans engage in gigantic games of macro-economic chicken.
My conclusion to all of this is that risk of real economic activity materially growing in 2010 is low.
What are the risks of real economic growth in 2010?
Stimulus Spending
The most substantial risk of real economic growth in 2010 is that 77% of the $787B stimulus package has yet to be spent. My principal counterpoint is that the vast majority of stimulus is tax cuts, state aid, unemployment programmes & health-care. Other than tax cuts, these measures only stem some of the bleeding. There is no great productivity or efficiency project: no Tennessee Valley Authority or Hoover Dam. Most states are quickly running out of (or already have run out of) unemployment insurance money, and are not far away from mass layoffs and wage slashes. The remainder of the stimulus will treat the bleeding first – and likely not much more.
My second counterpoint is that if we actually did undertake large efficiency project (like solar/nuclear build-outs, or mass transit in a serious way), $80 oil would be a wistfully pleasant number of the past – much like $15 oil is today.
Housing Prices Gaining Traction
Existing home sales volume has been crushed – it is near cycle trough, and the median price has set a new trough low. 38% of existing home sales were distressed. New home sales have been falling every month since the small rebound peaked in July of 2009. The only thing holding up the low-end is massive government government support. With the tax credits expiring for first-time home buyers, and without further action, we're going to see lower real estate values.
I'm unsure if Obama or the Democrats have the political capital left to pull off much here.
Record low (<20%) home equity reinforce the inelasticity of wages. As global competitive pressure is put on inelastic wages, this will continue to crush housing.
The final negative pressure is housing inventory, which sits at 3.27 million houses – a 7.8 month supply.
There may be one final push to move houses as spring arrives, and before the first-time credit expires.
US Equities
The S&P 500 P/E is sitting at a very average 20.33. The earnings multiple curve remains steep. This is typical in an early business cycle, but we seem to have already passed a tipping point where consecutive earnings surprises have turned into disappointments. Look at earnings day performance for many of the biggest companies in the S&P 500:
- Microsoft: -3.34%
- Google: -5.66%
- JP Morgan: -2.26%
- Goldman Sachs: -4.12%
- Pfizer: -2.31%
It's becoming more difficult to beat expectations, and companies will have to engage in earnings management to meet or beat moving forward. This would imply that they could likely continue to beat on paper for some time, but that's very negative for GDP out a few quarters.
This should at least mute stock performance for the next few months. As a consequence, I'm writing vertical call spreads on SPY to earn some income while I wait for something more interesting to happen. Given the macro environment, I'll be shorting ES futures directly on the 200×50 MA cross. I will reconsider my options and ES shorting strategy if we see a meaningful improvement in unemployment and housing prices without corresponding yield & oil hikes.
My suspicion is that we will see the down-draft in the 2nd half of 2010, after earnings management becomes more difficult, high energy & rate input costs, and the European debt crisis comes to a head.
Until then, I am going long periodically on the RSI-2 mean reversion as long as my risk index remains positive.
Canadian Dollar: A Tale of Two Economies
For many years, the Canadian economy has been a strong exporter. The nation's productivity is reflected in the numbers: over the past decade, Canada has a net surplus of 531 billion dollars – more than twice what Revenue Canada takes in income tax every year. In 2007, exports comprised of 35% of Canada's GDP. Canada's economy is clearly inexorably dependent on it, and any decline is keenly felt around the country. This mighty aggregate savings has driven demand for the Canadian dollar. At the same time, more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2002 largely because Canadian dollar strength has made it too expensive to manufacture in or buy from Canada.
There have been some misdirected cries by unions to curtail investment in tarsands oil projects, which strengthen the Canadian dollar as oil demand grows. That would be like trading a position of strength for a position of weakness. It does illustrate that Canada is a Tale of Two Economies. The economies in the Eastern half of the country are driven by manufacturing and exporting durable goods — cars, in particular — to the United States. For this to be effective, the Canadian dollar needs to be closer to 77 cents than parity. In contrast, the economies of the West require high oil prices for the tar-sands projects to be economical.
Beloved Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau led Canada the last time the Canadian dollar flirted with parity. He was driven out office when he let the currency appreciate, and the US manufacturers left for more competitively priced labour. Canadians are once again close to the same point. Speculators have treated the Canadian dollar like a developing world resource currency — a currency proxy to oil. There are some serious problems with this thesis – mainly that Canada is an advanced manufacturing economy which is dependent on exporting durable goods to the USA using cheaper labour as a competitive advantage.
This Tale of Two Economies provide fairly hard limits on the upside and downside of the Canadian dollar: the longer as the Canadian dollar is near parity, the more Canadian economic data will deteriorate as Canadians lose their well paid manufacturing (& services to manufacturing labour) jobs.
At the same time, a Canadian housing bubble is brewing. Yes: Canadians are mimicking the same conversion of productivity into debt that their American cousins did between 2004-2007. I'm not willing to short this directly, yet: a bubble can stay longer than I can stay solvent. The chief reason I believe that this bubble will be more short-lived than the American analogue is the state of the economy as it relates to currency strength (and corresponding manufacturing weakness), as well as the structural limits imposed by interest rates & energy inputs on its biggest trading partner, the United States. Except in Alberta — and only short-lived there — these conditions will not support the wage growth necessary to sustain housing price inflation.
This leads us to complete our Canadian economic trifecta of doom: much like the mid-late stages of the US housing bubble, prices are supported by credit growth.
The great myth is that Canadian banks are better regulated than their American counter-parts. This is largely bullshit. There are some differences: Canadian banks did not engage in the kind of securitisation & poor quality lending that is largely blamed for the American credit crisis. The problem is that the small fraction of US mortgages that sub-prime comprised of didn't take out the US economy: they were merely the canary in the coal-mine. On the other side, Canadian banks have something even scarier: no fractional reserve limit, and poorer reporting requirements. We really won't know how many skeletons are in Canadian banking closets until they would need to raise more capital than is largely suspected they need. Follow the interactions between the Canadian banks and the credit markets to track this issue. This will potentially be aggravated with a housing bubble — in its final stages, supported by credit growth — popping. There could be a lot of skeletons here.
There isn't a trade against banks, yet, but I'll be watching closely, and probably shorting Canadian banks on something simple like the 100d MA. The Canadian dollar is a different story: I'm writing options against parity, and shorting it on 100d MA crosses. The principle risks associated with shorting the Canadian dollar are higher oil prices, and the Bank of Canada raising interest rates prematurely to snuff the housing bubble. I don't think either are likely, but I am still mostly comfortable with the resulting economic changes: anything higher than $80 oil will have long-term demand destruction, and a housing bubble murdering rate-hike will take the rest of the economy — and almost certainly the banks — with it.
Reflecting on Obscure late 19th and 20th Century Composers
I am a digital collector of classical music recordings. I have many DVDs chock full of MP3s and Ogg Vorbis of recordings of everything I could get my hands. I have any piece that's been played with any regularity in the past 50 years, and usually have 4 or 5 different performances from different artists of each piece. I had thought that I had a decent handle on musical history starting from the master himself (Bach).
After discovering a few dozen new composers in the last several weeks, boy was I wrong! There was (and still is) so much great classical music that I hadn't heard.
Most of what I had not heard was from Eastern Europe, where the composers were often displaced or suppressed by the formation of the USSR.
So, I will share some of my journey with you:
Anatoly Nikolayevich Alexandrov
Anatoly's music is very archetypically Russian. It's emotive, and very similar to Rachmaninov. The first of his 6 preludes, below, begins with a pretty thunderous statement. To give context, it was written around the time when Russia withdrew (conceding much of its territory) from World War I, and the country was on the brink of civil war.
Borys Mykolayovych Lyatoshynsky
I am not a fan of atonal music. Many atonal composers seem to have had a moment of epiphany where they have understood music well enough to compose atonally. I wonder if listeners have the same epiphany? His Mourning Prelude is one of the few atonal pieces which transcends my lack of understanding of music without tonal centering. It's a gripping piece that merges the slavic classical romanticism with atonality.
Sergei Mikhailovich Lyapunov
Lyapunov was a protoge of Liszt, and his music sounds like it! Like Liszt, he trades off creativity in rhythm and thematic material for virtuosic texture.
Felix Blumenfeld
Blumenfeld commands wonderful virtuosic textures like Lyapunov in the style of Liszt, but he is a much more interesting crafter of thematic material. His closest analogue is perhaps Rachmaninov. Although his name is not well known, he is certainly central to many names who are: he was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, and Vladimir Horowitz was a pupil of Blumenfeld.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
His first sonata, below, is a mostly tonal (but not strictly) piece of considerable depth that is perhaps similar (though less-tonally centered) to Chopin. He began its composition at 11 years old.
Arthur-Vincent Lourié
Born in Russia, Lourie's music sounds very modern, and it's very pretty.
Julius Reubke
Reubke, another Liszt protoge, only lived 24 years. His work has broad, sweeping dynamics with incredible musical textures which are (like other Liszt pupils) traded off from theme & melodies. This is an incredible work, especially from a 23 year-old.
Ján Levoslav Bella
Bella's Piano Sonata in Bb Minor typifies the slavic romanticism with a Hungarian bend. The piece is potent.
Gabriel Pierné
What a piece! This is romantic period music at its best. It's very much like Rachmaninov.
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev
The piece below is the second movement of his unfinished piano concerto, written at the age of 19. This is very dark indeed. Also, doesn't he look like Andy Mckee?
Erno Dohnanyi
This is my favourite of the group. I am a sucker for beautiful themes and melodies, and he incorporates them into a great package filled with deep textures and rich orchestration.
Finding this music was very eye-opening, and it's led me on a path of musical discovery that I didn't know existed. I hope that you find something here that gives you a similar gift.
Happy holidays,
End of Year Strategy
We're coming up to the traditional Santa Claus rally, and to quantify this, I've used Seasonalysis to examine the patterns. Here are some interesting patterns about the S&P 500:
- Nov 25 through Dec 5, SPY has gained an average of 1.7%, going up 88.9% of the time
- Nov 21 through Dec 9, SPY has gained an average of 2.4%, going up 88.9% of the time
- Dec 4 through Jan 4, the S&P 500 has gained an average of 1.7%, going up 77.6% of the time – going back to 1960!
The bias towards the upside is clear, but the question that remains is whether the depression the United States is facing will provide the exceptional case.
What is the market telling us? Let's look at the big retailers. Confidence in holiday earnings looks very high.
|P/E Ratio
|JC Penny
Those are strong multiples that imply strong growth. For some time now, multiples have been growing, and earnings surprises have been consistent. Forward multiples look to have a lot of value. The question remains: how realistic is forward earnings growth?
Who wouldn't want to buy IBM at 11.66, GS at 8.88, or MB at 1.66? Quite clearly, the market doesn't really have that much confidence in future earnings, and the good run-up we've had supported by a steady stream of earnings surprises has not really convinced buyers of a sustained recovery.
Let's look at some key companies & sectors.
Technology is now the single largest sector in the United States. The landscape is dominated by a small handful of hardware and software makers: Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Google & Cisco. Telecommunication giants AT&T and Verizon are generally included in this sector, but they have as much to do with technology as Circuit City; they are utility companies with retail outlets.
Let's compare their sales from the peak on October 2007 to now:
|October 2007 Price/Sales Ratio
|October 2007 Total Trailing 12m Sales
|November 2009 Price/Sales Ratio
|November 2009 Total Trailing 12m Sales
At present, these companies add up to $1.015 trillion dollars in market capitalisation, sitting on a foundation of $361.04 billion dollars in sales — a market cap to sales ratio of 2.81.
In 2007, these companies had a combined market capitalisation of $1.067 trillion dollars after $318.38 billion in sales — a market cap to sales ratio of 3.35.
The take-away is that these companies are collectively worth what they were at the peak in October of 2007, and have better sales by $42.66B. Individually, the picture is interesting. Google and Apple matured into earnings , and the modest commodity PC & office equipment maker Hewlett Packard has actually increased sales by close to 17%!
These companies have an ability to survive and thrive because they service the consumer, government, business, and export to foreign economies. Apple does have more consumer exposure than the others, and they are now selling into the Chinese market, but piracy remains a real concern. My take on the top six is that they remain a good hold as long as USD denominated asset inflation continues.
HPQ makes a case against bottom-up investing: you could have predicted a $16.66B increase in sales & $0.52B increase in earnings, but you would have lost money buying it.
Without mark-to-market, the largest institutions in the world are a black box. We can only imagine that reflation is good for these institutions. The smaller banks are dropping like flies as Main Street fails to recover with Wall Street. Forecasting these companies in aggregate boil down to liquidity flow & momentum with particular attention to detail to the debt markets. Forecasting the largest banks obviously have the most importance due to market cap weighting in the indices.
The closed-end debt funds have had momentum slowing for longer than the equity markets. Prior to the great collapse starting in July of 2007, closed-end debt funds had already began to sink, and I would expect the high-yield funds to drop first when the rug of reality is swiped from underneath the feet of equity pricing. Total return (equity value adjusted for dividends from interest) of these funds have slowed, but it hasn't (yet) experienced the kind of drop I'd expect before a roll-over of USD denominated asset inflation momentum.
I am watching the debt markets, as they likely will be the first to fall. Their fortunes are pinned recursively with that of all USD denominated assets, and as reflation continues, the big boys will continue to do well.
Basic Materials
The major integrated oil companies like Exxon Mobil are disappointing based on weak demand. As storage and hoarding become more difficult, oil prices are going to be under pressure for at least the rest of the year, and perhaps into the first quarter of 2010. Buyers are betting on recovery and hoarding. There are full tankers who will not sell at current prices because they've taken a bath. The price of oil will be under significant supply pressure with little real demand for the conceivable future. I am selling all of my American centric integrated oil & gas as a consequence. They originally looked like deals, but the market was pricing in this pressure.
Based on the persistence of global returns (momentum), USD denominated asset inflation remains quite strong. 19 of 22 global equity indices are at or near their rally highs. Out of the US sectors, only the utility group is lagging. Gold is at all-time highs. Silver is +117% since its Octobter 2008 lows.
The juxtaposition of real economic activity being at a crisis low and assets being at a crisis high isn't lost on many people. Corporate profits are coming from growth-less USD denominated asset inflation, cost-cutting, job-shedding and government bail-outs. The steady stream of "surprises" has guided multiples higher, and a failure to meet expectations would likely to trigger a dramatic sell-off. Some sectors, like energy, may already be there.
For now, I am modestly long. Prices with the same denominator trade in sympathy, but debt, money & commodities will probably signal that it's time for the exits before equities roll over.
Global Market Overview
Entering November, we're facing a two-week slump that has the S&P 500 about -6% off its immediate high. Anecdotally, bearish sentiment and calls for a top seem rampant amongst observers in the blogging & Twitter community. Without taking a sentiment poll, and measuring the correlation with future returns, it's tough to say what that means – if anything.
There is certainly no shortage of reasons to be pessimistic. Last month's cooked non-farm payroll surprised most people by reversing the trend of slowing job losses. The deflationists ask themselves: if a $1.4T government deficit can't create a single net job, what kind of future do we have?
Our future is likely one with increased volatility, growing currency imbalances, and a weakening American gravity, allowing the rest of the world to slip farther out of orbit.
These macro political & economic themes will dominate at least the next decade. The effects of each impulse from each force have on global prices is far more difficult to understand and predict. The highly leveraged structure of the dollar coupled with the USD being the most popular base for currency, commodity, bond & equity transactions make reading momentum an able forecasting mechanism.
Despite the weakness in US equities over the past several weeks, I don't see the panic in global markets that I'm hearing from observers. The NZX-50 & Shanghai have actually gained since the S&P 500 peaked. Commodities are still strong. The 10y yield gained (relatively) about 7.5% – from 3.16% to 3.39% in October.
Could we see some more weakness? Sure. Could this really be the top? Also possible. However, I look for outperformance in momentum because of the self-feeding nature of money creation and destruction. I remain long in my equity holdings, and I'm using this opportunity to buy a few calls for a quick trade.
Themes & Forces for 4Q
I've been pretty quiet for the past several months, taking advantage of the momentum of global reflation. With newly minted Federal Reserve displacing risk capital in government bonds and mortgages, they have forced many savers to speculate in equities. This, combined with weak stimulus and low multiplier government spending, has led to earnings and valuations which would indicate a fairly regular economy. Google's P/E is 33.9. Exxon Mobile's is 10.99. If you didn't think we had a global depression hanging over our heads, the markets look pretty fairly valued.
None of this have helped the common man — at best, for the moment, it may have made it hurt less. The October BLS non-farm payroll report surprised observers to the downside to the tune of 216,000 jobs. Equities don't care about the plight of the common man. Inflation is generally good for large corporations who can more easily ring profit out of it at the expense of consumers. The resultant imbalance is expressed in consumer debt. The link between inflation and earnings is so strong that CXO Advisory bases their Real Earnings Yield Model on it.
The Federal Reserve is clearly trying to revive this inflate and borrow model. Chris Martenson has calculated that the Federal Reserve is more than 100% of the 2009 mortgage market. Why, then, also despite the $8,000 home-buyer tax credit, is the Case-Shiller Composite-20 only 3.6% off its recession lows?
Let's first start by axing more than 20% of people who have mortgages beecause they are under water. Next, let's make them anxious about the economy by killing their retirement investments. Finally, let's shed 4,127,000 jobs – and not even make an argument about the overstatement of employment in government reporting.
If housing doesn't start to move really soon, government obligations on their backstopping agreements are going to be measured in annual GDPs.
So, why am I still bullish on equities?
Liquidity, momentum & inflation.
This deflation has led to an inflationary pop as governments have responded to the threat. Economist Marc Faber contends that this is actually good for equities, gold and inflation sensitive assets because the Federal Reserve will print more money as things get worse.
Most global equity markets are still trending strongly, consistently setting new highs. The disturbing laggard is China, but after an index doubles in under a year, it's not that damaging to the trend for a 20% pullback. However, they really cannot slip back too much farther without putting the rest of the world at risk of dropping in sympathy.
Commodities are just shy of their recession highs. Treasuries yields are suffering, but without a $1.75T bond purchase programme — and everything else considered equal — yields would probably be leading upwards rather than lagging.
Global reflation chugs along. It may have dangers, but how is that different from the past 8 months? The framework and willingness to monetise debt is present like never before. To conclude, I will leave you with some of my long ideas:
- EEM – iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The US economy isn't going to grow in real terms any time in the conceivable future, but the emerging market economies already are again.
- AAPL – Apple. The best run large company in the world. AT&T made it worth while to get Apple to extend the exclusivity. Great management, great technology, great consumers and great marketing. Take whatever I say with a grain of salt, of course: I dual-wield my iPhone 3GS and MacBook.
- DV – DeVry. Recessions push the unemployed and underemployed to pursue new careers.
- COP – ConocoPhillips. Big oils are very undervalued, and if you believe reflation will continue, you have got to believe that they will pick up.
- AEA – Advance America. Cash advance is very lucrative business these days, and along with being long equities, I'm long American poverty.
- TTWO – Take-Two Interactive Software. Among its properties are Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto), 2K Games and 2K Sports. This should rock the 4Q. Did I mention that Asians are huge gamers, too? Slack in domestic demand will get replaced.
I am on this train while momentum carries it. Then, I will jump off it.
Observations & VIX Interpretation
The VIX is an indicator distributed by the CBOE which uses the out-of-the-money put and call prices for the front and next months to forecast implied volatility for the next calendar month.
The reality, however, is that it's largely a reflection of the past calendar month. This is demonstrated by plotting Wilder's Average True Range (ATR) of the past 20 trading days (approximately one calendar month) against the VIX. The shape of the two curves are almost exactly the same. The divergences are in magnitude, and the apparent under-pricing of risk in 2000 and 2008 are very interesting. Consequently, I've plotted a histogram of the difference between the two.
The VIX At Bottoms
Despite its most obvious usefulness more as a mirror rather than a crystal ball, the VIX has served as a bottoming indicator for both strong secular declines in the past decade.
Observe that in both instances, the VIX peaked before the ultimate bottoms in price & time. Options writers are the most sophisticated of investors, and they clearly bet on the bottom. Perhaps it was obvious to them what is obvious now: oil, gold, silver and Asian equities were well off their ultimate November and December lows.
The other supporting theory is Max Pain Theory, which theorises that since options writers are the most sophisticated (and likely the largest) players, they will simply manipulate the market to make the most money. Max Pain is the closing price at expiry of a security which gives the largest total payout to options writers. I haven't seen or conducted a study on the forecasting power of this, but I wouldn't discount it as a vector of influence on equities; the necessary supporting data that options writers make out like bandits was covered in depth by CXO Advisory.
State of the Global Markets
Macroeconomic data remains uniformly off its peak values. Unemployment statistics see a slowing in declines, showing only 216,000 NFP jobs lost on Friday's report, but other measures like withholding and discouraged workers continue to climb. The market is viewing this surprise news positively, so green shoots are still in vogue.
Plenty of important new data is coming out this week around the world: British manufacturing production, Canadian rate announcement, building permits & housing starts, Australian home loans & retail sales, New Zealand's central bank rate announcement, Chinese trade balance, and American unemployment claims & trade balance. I would expect that the lessening negative momentum will continue, and that will be reacted to tepidly by global investors.
Global Market Momentum
Almost every stock market is channeling upwards. It looks like China — a laggard in the past two months after 100% run-up since November — might be finished its correction. The Chinese economy & stock market are largely credited for lifting the world out of recession, and it stands to reason that weakness in China would probably pull everyone else down into deflation oblivion again. I would put the odds of that quite low: central bank & governments around the world have demonstrated a relentless commitment to reflation, and the threat of more money printing & stimulus will likely temper any aggressive selling tendencies. The danger is in the Chinese real-estate market toppling as China apparently tightens lending standards to curb urban inflation. This is a real risk, but probably won't introduce economic volatility for a few months.
The Dow Jones Commodity Index is up only +22% from its lows. Oil has bumped its head repeatedly around the $70/bl mark. I expected this, and expect this to continue as new supply becomes available from projects which become progressively more economically viable as energy prices increase. Tepid growth and increased supply make oil a poor short and intermediate term investment, in my view.
Silver finally lifted off and rocketed past the $15 and $16 levels. As was mentioned on Macro Hour on StockTwits.tv last night, the gold/silver ratio is a very heavily defended area that makes silver a very compelling purchase to the price-action inclined. I've been buying silver since the sub-$9 levels based on the relative value, and it looks like taking profit might soon be an attractive option for me.
Natural gas continues to be a freak show, sporting a massive contango, production & development breakthroughs, storage challenges, and the destruction of American demand.
US Treasuries
The US treasury market tells a pretty different story to silver & equities. Despite record borrowing this year, the 10y is still only 3.44%. Yes, it is substantially off its insane low of 2.04%, but it is absurdly low in any growth scenario. Either traders are pricing in a significant deflation risk not reflected elsewhere, or the debt monetisation is responsible. Even the long end of the curve seems to be following a very consistent down-trend. The likely scenario is a precarious balancing act by the Federal Reserve to keep mortgage rates down in an attempt to stimulate the economy despite money leaving for equities and commodities.
Financial valuations remain quite expansive (JPM at 132, BAC at 38.84, etc), while mainly traditional large cap technology growth stocks look like value stocks (MSFT at 15.2 and T at 12.63). Priced for their forward earnings, almost everything looks like a value stock: JPM at 14.02, BAC at 17.44, MSFT at 12.76 and T at 11.39. Earnings day performance is all over the map. If the surprises continue, we will get higher stock prices. I think there are some great deals, especially in the seasonal consumer discretionary area as they traditionally bottom before Christmas.
Reflation is continuing as planned. I am fluent in good arguments which support a stronger September/October, but history & statistics are simply not indicative of much strength here. I am still invested in things which have the best long-term prospects: American poverty from a massive transfer of wealth to bank balance sheets, and the resource contention from a strong Asia. I think there's ultimately an expiry date on reflation, but there is a persistence of positively interpreted macro-economic data and asset returns, so while that train is moving up the mountain, I want to be on it.
- Bitumen & Bolts
- What do new believers buy?
- Birth of the Perma-Bear
- Fundamental Playbook for 2010
- Reflecting on Obscure late 19th and 20th Century Composers
- End of Year Strategy
- Global Market Overview
- Themes & Forces for 4Q
- Observations & VIX Interpretation
- State of the Global Markets
- Another Bounce To Buy
- Answer Unclear; Try Again
- June 2010 (1)
- April 2010 (2)
- February 2010 (1)
- December 2009 (1)
- November 2009 (2)
- October 2009 (1)
- September 2009 (2)
- July 2009 (2)
- June 2009 (2)
- May 2009 (1)
- April 2009 (3)
- March 2009 (2)
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text: I use miso all the time. There is no fat in the kind I buy, at least not according to the Nutrition Facts label. The ingredient list says "fermented soybeans." Salt, yes, and lots of it, but no fat. It is, I believe, the soybeans themselves that are high in fat. Some soy _products_ have a lot of fat, but a lot of them also do not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Davina C. Lopez dlopez@xxxxxxxxx Emory Women's Center, Box 24172 ph 404-727-2000 Atlanta, GA 30322 fx 404-727-2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------


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Four Things You Need to Know: An Overbearing Mother; Credit Default Swaps; Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities; Freaky Dollar Momentum
What you need to know (and what it means)!
1. An Overbearing Mother
Mother Morgan is turning cautious, and I am not talking about the historically gloomy Stephen Roach.
- Chief Strategist and steadfast bull Henry McVey has increased his Bear Case probability from 20% to 30%, by subtracting from the Bull Case scenario.
- He has also toned down his EPS estimate for the S&P 500 (3% growth) to well below consensus, and sees maximum upside of 1525.
- Meanwhile, economist Richard Berner pins his hopes for avoiding a recession on continued strong job and wage growth. Reading between the lines, if the latter doers not come through we've got a problem.
- Not to be left behind, Stephen Roach doesn't buy the growing chorus that the world can keep humming along if the U.S. goes into a recession. This is nothing new to the Doom and Gloom crowd, but it is somewhat surprising coming from some of Hoofy's best friends.
2. Credit Default Swaps
To keep things fair and balanced, as much as I am genetically capable of, the all important Credit Default Swap market, where credit insurance on trillions of dollars of debt can be had for the financial equivalent of a "$1 meal," seems to be shaking off its recent jitters, with spreads coming in across the credit spectrum.
- Cheap insurance = more leverage opportunities = more LBO's / M&A = higher equity prices.
- I remain unconvinced of the validity of such logic, but for now stock prices have agreed with its conclusion so Boo needs to be respectful.
- See the following charts:
3. Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities
The same can't be said of the spreads in the Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS), where REIT's go to tap the debt to fuel their monopoly game.
- Spreads are holding their recent meaningful widening, and at the low end of the curve – the area closest to REIT's in the capital structure – they are actually getting worse.
- This, IMHO, is the reason why the proxy iShares REIT Index (IYR) looks to be in serious need for some anti-depressant.
- Hoofy would argue that most of the damage is taking place in the CMBS derivatives, and that the actual "bonds" are doing just fine (at least according to Morgan Stanley's data).
- Boo counters that the same dynamic took place in the residential mortgage market and we now know how well that's working out.
4. Freaky Dollar Momentum
Before this morning's inflation data, the dollar's slide was picking up steam especially against the Euro.
- We know that for U.S. investors a weaker dollar might help nominal equity prices, unless – that is - things in the currency markets get "freaky."
- Quantifying "freaky" is difficult, but historically when the Dollar Index (DXY) 10-day Rate of Change goes below the -2 level, the equity markets have considered that to be "freaky."
- 1
Copyright 2011 Minyanville Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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smart market commentary.


text:
Fluffycloud Studios
Liza Stevens - Pictures and ponderings
Tuesday, 6 May 2014
Here's a cover I designed for an e-book. It's just pencil, as part of my attempt to keep life as simple as possible.
I am today mourning the loss of Albert, my lovely little apple tree, who yesterday was savagely murdered by the Mr with a strimmer. He hasn't officially been pronounced dead yet but The Internet tells me that as the bark is damaged all the way round, it is inevitable. My buddleia was also wiped out.
Goodbye Albert, I used to enjoy talking to you and watching you grow, and I am sorry it had to end this way. You never even got to make an apple.
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Making use of an entire lemon. This is a great way to add flavor to butters, marinades, dressings and to any side dish. In addition, I love to place some lemon peel onto a freshly glazed bundt cake or as a garnish to any plate.
What do you use citrus peel or zest on/for?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
A Year to Savor the Thyme - Tip # 17 Lemon Zest
Labels: A year to Savor the Thyme, Dairy-free, Gluten-free, Super Fast, Tips, Tools, Vegetarian
3 comments:
- boliyou said...
My favorite way to use lemon is on sauteed chicken or scallops in white wine with some lemon juice and zest.
- May 11, 2010 at 8:32 AM
- DailyChef said...
For me, desserts (especially cakes) - I love a good citrus treat!
- May 11, 2010 at 2:53 PM
- Jen @ My Kitchen Addiction said...
Always enjoy your videos :) I love citrus zest... I often put it in sauces or icings (or anything else I'm making!)
- May 14, 2010 at 6:46 AM
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What do you do for vacations? Are they big and elaborate or just relaxing time off from the daily grind? Ours are a mix of the two. We love going places and being in Europe makes that easy and kind of a requirement! But, we are also homebodies and just like spending time together as a family. For instance, when Nathan comes home at the end of the month, those 18 days will be spent lounging around the house, playing with the kids, and the occasional date.
My favorite vacation was spent seeing England and Scotland. When Nathan got home from Iraq back in 2004 we spent 10 days exploring those two beautiful countries (well, we went to Wales, too, but only for one short stop.). I fell in love with Scotland and cried the day we left. I would go back in a heartbeat. Of course, we took this vacation before we upgraded to a digital camera, so I only have these pictures from Stonehenge on my computer.
What is your favorite vacation spot?
Now, for another wonderful cookie! I know EVERYONE has a recipe for these, but it wouldn't feel right to be posting about cookies I make during this time of year and not post these. They have about a million names (Mexican Wedding Cookies and Russian Tea Cakes seem to be the most popular), but I like to call them snowballs. It's whimsical, and, well, that's what they look like!
1 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup pecans, chopped
additional powdered sugar for rolling
Cream butter in large bowl. Add sugar; cream until light. Stir in vanilla. Mix in flour and salt. Stir in nuts. Shape into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Roll in powdered sugar directly out of the oven and again when cooled.


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Wednesday, 3 February 2016
Oooh you cheeky monkey!
This time I stamped the monkey twice with Versafine Black Onyx, heat embossing him with clear powder, and stamped and heat embosses the leaf and banana onto some snippets of green and yellow card. I also used a punch, I think it's also made by Woodware, to punch some leaves from the green snippets and used a white gel pen to add veins to the leaves.
I used the face, paws and one leaf of one image to add dimension to the other, sandwiching a banana between the two layers of each paw. Then I scattered a couple more bananas around the card - I can't quite decide whether he is catching bananas that are being thrown to him, or throwing them away himself!
Whichever it is, he's certainly a cheeky monkey!
I'm sharing this with
Addicted to Stamps and More - Clean and Simple
Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 214
Glitter and Sparkle - Embossing, heat or dry
Fab n Funky - all creatures great and small
Suzy Bee's Blooming Challenge - add an animal
10 comments:
This image made me smile too. :-) A really cute card, Jane. xxReplyDelete
Hee hee hee . . . this is really cute. Now, stop monkeying around and swing by the Playground Tree house for some fun!ReplyDelete
Hugs, Sarn xxx
Aw Jane - how totally adorable. That cheeky little chappy really did make me smile - love how he's peeking out of the card (that's the effect you achieved) and the little leaves are a great touch!ReplyDelete
Di xx
Thanks for sharing your lovely crafting for Suzy Bee's Bloomin' challenge 115 - hope to see you again soon, Hazel, DT xReplyDelete
what a lovely fun cardReplyDelete
thanks for joining glitter n sparkle
This really is a fun card Jane. It's a lovely set and I like how you've decoupaged parts of the cheeky monkey. BarbxxReplyDelete
So cute, and your coloring is fabulous! Thanks so much for playing along with us this week at ATSM!ReplyDelete
Super sweet, Jane! I love you CAS design and the great coloring. The sentiment is fun too! :) Thanks for playing along at ATSM. MelissaReplyDelete
I love your cheeky little money and also the way that you have layered the leaves. A perfect card for our challenge at Fab n Funky.ReplyDelete
Thanks for joining us this week.
Sharon x
Awesome card. Love this cheeky monkey and the bananas are such fun. Thank you for playing along with us at Fab'n'Funky this week. Pat K xxReplyDelete
In line with new Data Protection legislation (GDPR) by commenting you do so in the knowledge that your name & comment are visible to all who visit this blog and thereby consent to the use of that personal information for that specific purpose.


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Short Bowel Syndrome - Get information and read articles on Short Bowel Syndrome sign, symptoms, causes, treatment, prevention and diagnosis at onlymyhealth.com, your complete health guide.
Short bowel syndrome refers to a group of problems that are related to poor absorption of nutrients. This occurs in those people who have had half or more of their small intestine removed.
Short bowel syndrome is a group of problems related to poor absorption of nutrients that typically occurs in people who have had half or more of their small intestine removed.
Diarrhea is the main symptom of short bowel syndrome. Diarrhea can lead to dehydration, malnutrition, and weight loss.
The main cause of short bowel syndrome is surgical removal of half or more of the small intestine to treat intestinal diseases, injuries, or defects present at birth.
The main treatment for short bowel syndrome is nutritional support.


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Another day, another food scandal iN China. McDonald's and Yum Brands (Burger King) will stop buying meat products from Shanghai Husi Food Company, which was caught selling chicken and beef past their sell-by date.
Update: McDonald's Japan, KFC, Papa John's and Starbucks China also said they stopped sourcing meat products from Shanghai Husi due to its practice of selling expired meat.
[source, source 2, source 3]


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Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Weapon of Choice
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Dings Youth Project
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Get Dring Mobile
Mike was 23 when he broke his neck in a road traffic accident, resulting in paralysis from the upper
chest down – medically he is classified as having a complete Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) resulting in
Tetraplegia (level C6).
Between April 09 and April 2010, friends and family of Mike are attempting to raise money to put
towards the purchase of an adapted car which will enable him to drive independently. Mikes needs
are such that such a vehicle is highly specialised and comes at a very high price.
As part of this fundraising we have organised the GDM Art event and auction which will be held at
the Paintworks, Bath Road, Bristol on the 14th and 15th of October.
The doors will be open from 11am to 9pm on Wednesday for a full days viewing of the works going
under the hammer. Thursday will be a busy day with the opportunity for further viewing from 12pm.
There will be live painting by Mr Jago, Inkie, Lokey, Felix, Eelus, Xenz, Paris, Boswell, Vermin, Milk
and Dora starting at 4pm and the auction including lots by Guy Denning, Pam Glew, Rowdy, Ian
Francis and Nick Walker to name but a few, will commence at 7pm.
The work can be viewed on line at Dreweatts, www.dnfa.com and at www.art-el.co.uk. Bidding can
be made in person or live online at www.the-saleroom.com on the evening, commission bids will
be taken with valid credit/debit card details prior to the event. If you wish to make a commission
bid and to register for bidding please contact The GDM team on 07789 971273 or e-mail
The event will also include a fine art 'mystery' postcard sale featuring work from award winning
artists from all over the world, many of which have shown in the BP portrait awards and with some
having work in the National Portrait Gallery their work usually thousands. This sale therefore gives
people the opportunity to purchase a piece of art that would usually cost a small fortune, for just
We are also running a raffle to win a portrait painted by Vincent Brown, a multi award winning
portrait and figurative artist from Bristol. Tickets will be available at the event and are also
available now via the GDM blog at http://getdringmobile.wordpress.com. For more information
about Vincent Brown and to see examples of his amazing work please visit his web-site at http://
Vince himself will be attending the event and will determine the winner of our very own portrait
competition. We hope to see lots of you there, with live painting, music, beer and curry this
promises to be a great night.
If you require any further information regarding the event or Get DringMobile please contact us at
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
CSB Canvases in store NOW!
Acerone @ Triple Drop
1) The Arches
2) Big Ben
3) Queen Street
4) 'Triple Drop' - 5 x 12" canvases displayed vertically (left to right) by Ziml, Acer and Dicy
5) 'Mash Up' - Left to right - Acer 'Stars', Ziml 'Ziminatures', Dicy screenprint 'Sketchbook Sessions' and Ziml's hexigons.
Some of these pieces are still available so drop me a line if you are interested in anything to can see here. Thanks again to all of you who came along and made the show such a sucess - and specail thanks to all who came and said hello and had a chat. I always like to meet some new faces...
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Second Look
I was pleased to find out last week that one of my images has been selected to be a finalist in the Bristol : A Second Look competition at Photographique, Balwin Street, Bristol.
The brief was to produce photographs that show:
- unnoticed aspects of Bristol,
- what we might otherwise pass by,
- the small things we might take for granted,
- details with hidden interest or beauty,
- places which people might not normally be able to see.


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The long road of marketing does have some delightful moments. Today I received a thank you note from Los Ranchos Elementary School Library, where I read one of my books to a second grade class. Included was a photo of the event and a note from the school librarian. It was signed by all the kids.
I'm not sure who had the most fun or learned the most from this experience: me or the second graders. I read my book "Hopping to the Moon" and was amazed with how much they knew about the Moon, gravity and outer space in general. We talked about what to expect on the Moon, how they might write their own story about going there and how other animals (kangaroos) might visit. We had a lively discussion.
Most of the children were there to check out books, but a few came by the table where I had my books piled. I was interested to see what stories the kids chose. Was it based on the subject matter (butterflies) or the covers? One little boy was so enthusiastic about "Camouflage" when he found that he could find all the animals hiding in the wild, he wanted to show the whole class. I ended up donating that book and two others to the school. As I left, I gave each child my brochure. Hopefully they took my brochures home, and I'll be asked to return to the school for another event.


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The word pomegranate is old French for "seeded apple," a fitting name for this apple-sized fruit filled with jewel-like cluster of red seeds. There are many types of pomegranates cultivated around the world. One of the most popular in North America is called Wonderful. It is perhaps the best pomegranate for juicing. The fruit is available from fall to early winter. Pomegranates have a leathery, deep red to purplish rind. The fruit can be eaten out of hand by deeply scoring vertically and then breaking it apart. The clusters of juice sacs are then lifted our and eaten. . One fruit yields about 1/3 cup of juice. The juice can be used to make jellies, sorbets, or sauces, as well as to flavor cakes and baked apples.
Friday, October 2
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Labels: Know It
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We went strawberry picking the other day and came home with 6 pounds of delicious juicy berries. The berries reminded me of a painting I started a year and a half ago. I was very pregnant at the time, but wanted to have a painting included in an exhibit at a local gallery. I don't recall the exact theme of the show, but it had something to do with the Eastern Shore, a local theme. One of the many things I love about the Eastern Shore is the strawberries in late spring, so I started a painting of just that. Well, Waylon came a week early and I never did finish the painting or enter the show. That painting, along with the rest of my artwork, eventually got packed up and has been sitting in our basement ever since (waiting patiently for a permanent home). So I dug out my strawberries and finished it up this week.
Perhaps this is why I have such a hard time letting go of my work, every painting is tied up with my life at the time it was started or completed. This painting will forever remind me of a two-year-old short haired Hollin, our little rancher in Woolford, wondering who our second baby would be, and of course, STRAWBERRIES.


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On Monday, June 12, the Sarasota Architectural Foundation (SAF) announced the 2017 winners of the sixth annual SAF-Paul Rudolph Scholarships. The awards presentation took place at Ringling College of Art + Design's Academic Center, Room 207, from 5:30 to 7 pm.
Maxwell Strauss – $5,000 college scholarship
Sarasota Christian School graduate
Bachelor's Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia
Will attend the University of Texas, Austin
Bailey Jordan – $1,000 college scholarship
Venice Senior High School graduate
Will be attending the University of Notre Dame, IN
Emily Cain – $500 college scholarship
Pine View School graduate
Will be attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Morgan Ann Mulholland – $500 college scholarship
Lakewood Ranch High School graduate
Will be attending both Santa Fe College and University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
About the SAF – Paul Rudolph Scholarship Awards
Since 2012, SAF and the Michael Kalman Foundation has awarded $36,262.00 to twelve Florida high school graduates enrolled in a NAAB-accredited professional degree (5-year BA or BA + MA) in architecture. Applicants must be a graduate of a Sarasota, Manatee, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Charlotte, Lee or Collier County, Florida High School and in need of financial assistance.
About Paul Rudolph
Born in 1918, Paul Rudolph studied with Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius at Harvard Graduate School of Design and was later Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale University. Buildings of his design can be found in cities around the world, including New York, Boston, Fort Worth, Singapore, Hong Kong and Jakarta. He continued to design buildings into the 1990s, and died in 1997 at the age of 79.
Rudolph, beginning his career in Sarasota, Florida, was one of the most influential architects in all of Florida in the 1950s and was the lead figure in the Sarasota School of Architecture Movement. Among his many award-winning Florida buildings include the Walker Guest House (1952, Sanibel Island), Umbrella House (1953, Sarasota) Sarasota High School Addition (1958, Sarasota), Deering Residence (1959, Casey Key) and Milam Residence (1961, Ponta Vedra).
For more information, please visit https://saf.wildapricot.org/scholarship


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Make a fabulous Thanksgiving feast with all the trimmings in only the time it takes to roast the turkey.
Whether it's your first Thanksgiving dinner or you're just pressed for time, this is the menu to choose when you want to keep things simple and delicious. The turkey is brushed with butter and roasted unstuffed, without any multi-day brining processes.
While the turkey roasts, you have plenty of time to pull together the classic sides: bread stuffing with apples, bacon, and mushrooms; fluffy mashed potatoes with rustic bits of skin in the mash; a quick cranberry relish, and green beans with toasted almonds.
For dessert, skip the fussy pie crust and serve a sophisticated sage-pumpkin Bundt cake: you can either bake it the night before Thanksgiving, or put it in the oven when the turkey comes out.