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The license plate: RAPALOT
The window decal: "Geto For Life"
The car? Honda Civic del Sol
The sound system? Loud!
And just to preempt your shit talk: 63mph only because it was a construction zone (55mph) and I was taking a picture and I haven't got a chance to wash my car in a bit hence the dirty windshield.
Post coming this weekend about our new apartment (love it!), the iPhone 3GS (who named that shit? better specs, tho) and maybe the NBA Finals.
Oh, and fuck AT&T!
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As close to a buzzer beater as you will ever have in soccer. Freakin' awesome. Thank god I have someone to root for vs. Man U. Would really like to see Henry get a Champions League trophy.
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This dude really puts it out there why the financial system will stay screwed up. Yes, bad home loans, ARMs, ponzi schemes, bad asset allocation are part of the puzzle, but...
I'll try to make this one short. I got a D in money and banking when I was here at Wharton.... In the old days, you would gather deposits in the community and then reinvest them through loans to help businesses. You would grow based on your capital and your ability to get deposits. Citibank came out and said, "Look, you need to leverage your capital. There are other forms of capital." Which I call debt. I learned they were debt. Today they're capital. But they said, "You need to manage your liabilities because assets are easy to get. You can make loans. You can buy securities. Assets are simple. It's funding them that's hard. So rather than go out in the community to get people's savings, you can manage your liabilities by borrowing money from the Federal Reserve, the home loan bank."
That was the beginning of really leveraging up in the financial industry. There wasn't much leverage before that. I got a D because Wharton was teaching that at the time. It was the theory of the day. I'd grown up with a father who was livid about it, who just said, "No, you manage your assets." So I wrote a paper saying, "This is all wrong." I didn't have a teacher who appreciated dissent. He didn't want to see me again so he didn't fail me.
I think some of the roots go back that far, where we started coming up with the concept of leverage. You then take that forward. You have your liability management. You can fund almost any asset. You get a new class of people coming out, frankly, of places like Wharton -- who are very driven, and very driven about compensation. And you come up with new asset products because the ability to leverage your capital, the ability to fund the acquisition of assets, becomes almost unlimited. So now, what are we going to do? There are so many hardware stores to lend money to. There are so many people to give mortgages. We need new things. So we had people invent -- literally, I think, "invent" is the right word -- complex assets of long-term unpredictable nature, not well-understood, except by computers.... And then we compensated them for their production in the sale of these instruments. To me, that whole process of unlimited funding, extreme leverage and then a shortage of financial product -- along with paying huge sums of money to bright people to invent more and more product that could be sold and allegedly spread risk -- brought the house of cards down. I think we have to look at this.
As I always say, I'll give someone a bonus for making a loan after [he or she] collects it. We don't give bonuses. I have a friend who's an anesthesiologist. I had surgery, and as I was going in, I said, "Howard, you're gonna put me to sleep." And he said, "Anybody can put you to sleep. I'm gonna wake you up. You're paying me to wake you up." Well, we need to pay these people to collect. I think the compensation system has been terribly skewed. When people rant and rave that it's the bonuses that caused this -- they might not even know what they're talking about because they're just enraged. But in a sense, they're right. And so to me, it's excess leverage, unlimited funding, and compensation for coming up with new product.
From the excellent interview: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2228 which was first brought to my attention by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wibblywobbly...
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This is messed up. Don't watch if you have a weak stomach for gore or cheesy workplace safety videos.
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Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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Don't lie - you used to love this show.
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Whenever I'm feeling down, you need a go-to music video. This is one of mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6sG8WFaZ28
I can't embed it but my favorite parts:
1) Sampling the theme song to the show Night Court
2) A cleanly shaved Cam looking about 12 years old with a young Jim Jones dancing like a fool
3) The all-white dress code...wtf
4) Big Pun looking around 500 pounds and ridiculous
5) Flex appearing in a Jets jersey...Wayne Chrebet?
6) Silkk the Shocker batting cleanup on a song...
7) What was considered attractive in 1998 re: female attire
8) Wyclef being filmed off-set of this atrocity
9) Charli Baltimore with one of the worst verses in the history of rap
10) Big Pun being in front of a fan while rapping...poor guy
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Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
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We are driving to Vegas for the weekend, leaving Friday morning. The worst part of driving from Phoenix to Las Vegas or vice versa is the Hoover Dam area. It's cool to go through the first time (it's a pretty impressive feat of engineering) but it's also a horrible logjam accomidating way more traffic than it ever meant to as well as a Homeland Security issue (I know, I know isn't everything these days...but it really is...)
However, the bridge they are building to bypass the Dam, which was supposed to be done in Late 2008 btw, looks like it will be absolutely terrifying to go over. I speak as someone who is not too good with heights.
That's a long way down.
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I made a new blog cause I'm weird:
http://wegotezpasses.blogspot.com/
It's basically a place to document all the weird, lame, and/or funny lines in hip-hop. Name is from the famous (infamous?) Jay-Z line "How you gonna stop us with your measly asses, we don't stop at the tolls, we got EZ passes, nigga!" Probably the wackest line he has ever said until like the last three years.
Anyway, send me any ideas if you got em. I can buy the domain www.wegotezpasses.com for $10 for a year so that is tempting. If I can keep updating this for than 2 weeks without going ADD, then I might. Also, I would need proof that at least 10 people have ever read my blog. Then it's a dollar per person.
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Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
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The new M Resort in Vegas has a pharmacy. Total dream job...actually, probably hell with abusive drunk customers and tons of transferring controlled substance prescriptions across state lines but intriguing concept. Going to have to check it out when I'm in Vegas next week.
"While the slots, blackjack tables and guest rooms are standard casino requirements, the property also has a few unique features worth mentioning.
Like a pharmacy.
Yes, I said pharmacy. A real, fully-staffed pharmacy -- not some edgy-named pool party or nightclub (M hasn’t announced any Rehab-style pool parties and has no nightclub to speak of.)
Thanks to this pharmaceutical innovation, patrons can have their prescriptions filled while they dine, gamble, or are otherwise entertained on-site. And after a pharmacist doles out the drugs, staff will deliver them right to the customer’s table or slot machine."
Doles out the drugs...no wonder this profession suffers from a lack of respect.
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The Suns cemented their place in the lottery tonight with their loss to Dallas. What a joke this team is. It's sad when Louis Amundson and Grant Hill are your toughest defenders. That being said, in the East we'd be in the playoffs. Karma for when the Patriots whooped the Cardinals ass and still missed the playoffs with a better record than us. Or when the D-Backs won the World Series in the 4th season with a steroided Matt Williams and a now questionable Luis Gonzalez (I really hope he didn't do it though...he's a real nice guy...)
Or Robert Sarver fucking over Joe Johnson and completely destroying what could have been many seasons of title runs. And letting Kurt Thomas and (former ASU star) Eddie House (valuable role players and fan favorites) go for nothing. Whatever. Amare will be back next year with a bionic eye (still no heart) and we will get a lottery pick which we will probably sell for cash. Fuck Robert Sarver.
So, what about ASU's chances in the NCAA tournament?
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Saturday, March 7th, 2009
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First Friday Downtown was fun.
1) Weird people, but we probably only saw 20% of them. Didn't get to check out the guy who swallows swords and hangs things from his eyelids, all the crazy Scientology and anti-Scientology people, or witness any good breakdancing.
2) Saw at least two encounters where people got in verbal arguments with bartenders ending in hilarious results. The bartenders downtown suck and have really trashy tattoos. (More trashy than your usual bitter bartender...and more bitter, too.)
3) Got to see some really self-indulgent art like a guy who cut a page out of Rolling Stone, printed some words on it, framed it, and was trying to see it for $1200. FOH. But some nice art, too.
4) Rode the Phoenix Light Rail for the first time. Impressions: Very clean. Runs to semi-useful locations but only really efficient to shuttle you from Uptown Phoenix to Downtown or Tempe. Relatively free of undesirables. We got our passes checked by some hardass Metro Paul Blart. He reminded us to always tap our passes to which we replied "Oh, I definitely tapped that" Our 14-year-old humor may have disgusted our fellow riders and maybe the girls in our party. Oh well! One group of out-of-towners took the light rail the complete opposite way of where they were supposed to go. And it was the last train at 11pm! Why does it stop running at 11pm? Weak. Oh and the Park and Ride does not seem too secure. Saw lots of random people hanging around the outside area, training for future crimes by randomly sprinting around down the street. I'd be happier it had a huge barbed wire fence around the cars and there was more than just one guy riding around on a Segway patrolling. Like maybe actual armed police officers?!
5) Got a random hot dog off a street vendor and lived to tell about it and also ate at Majerle's afterwards. Jon and I stumbled into a random backroom accidently and found ourselves face-to-face with Cedric Ceballos. He was like fixing a light or something there. I was like DUDE, you won the freakin Dunk Contest! Now he's like managing that restaurant part-time. Thunder Dan looks out for his own! I also ordered a "Diddy" at Majerle's...Ciroc and lemonade, baby.
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Today is a great day. Slept forever, went to Kashman's with Olivia for breakfast then took it back to 2004 and swam at the Terravita pool and worked out there. Middle-aged ladies at the pool were too funny talking about Facebook and the best happy hours in town. Don't y'all got a family? Now I'm at home, chilling, and watching the various ESPN programming and MTV Jamz. I could do this all day.
P.S: I even got tan. It's 91 degrees here! March in Arizona...
P.P.S: I finally found a CDQ version of "Tear It Up"...one of the top 5 songs they used to play at the Buzz. Hoollllaaaaa...
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Monday, February 16th, 2009
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I hope Griffey, Jr. resigns with the Mariners. Because...
( I got baseball cards! )
Still missing the 1989 Upper Deck "1" card, though. I need to buy that sometime...
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Friday, February 13th, 2009
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20 years ago, Jay was doing this.
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Monday, February 9th, 2009
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Sunday, February 8th, 2009
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So Olivia and I are back together again. :) I guess you can't keep a good thing down. We now have a better idea on how to make each other happier and we are focused on the near-term, not the long term when she gets accepted into her Ph.D program. No one said this relationship business would be easy! And she's cooking for me on V-Day. I'm so excited, I love when people cook for me!
As far as other stuff...I'm still pissed about the Super Bowl, the Suns are marginally better, and the Grammy Awards gave a bunch of awards to some Robert Plant album no one has heard or gave a shit about.
I have also been watching a lot of Entourage episodes. Even though a bunch of college kids ruined it by butchering all his quotes, Ari Gold is still one of the best TV characters ever.
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