No changes this week....
Al McDermott
Discovered via @zerobeta's Spotify ... sound quality is poor but I like the song and this girl (she's 21) has something special, other than the pale blue eyes (watch this interview). Signed by Columbia so they must see what I do.
ETF Trading Portfolio Update -- December 12, 2016
My Sheets Are Satin But My Mind's A Mess
No live version so I'm forced to embed this. Discovered via Spotify. Sounds Elvis Costello-ish to me, but those are very dark lyrics (which I like).
ETF Trading Portfolio Update -- December 5, 2016
No changes this week.
Idiot Wave Frustrations in Tesla
Tesla (TSLA) looks like a long to me now, from an Idiot Wave perspective. Seeing the current chart reminded me of the last time I thought Tesla looked like a long: December 19, 2014. That trade resulted in a ~$30 loss. Then on January 23, 2015, I thought it set up again. That trade also resulted in a ~$30 loss. Finally on March 31, 2015, I thought it set up again. That trade (entered in early April) resulted in an ~$80 gain, for a net gain over the three trades of ~$20 (less commissions, taxes, and my sanity).
See why I call it the Idiot Wave?
Click to enlarge, get a bigger monitor, dummy
ETF Trading Portfolio Update -- November 28, 2016
Reversing the last of my election-time whipsaws.
No Limit Hold'em Poker Tournaments Near Me
del Lago Poker Room -- Tyre, NY (less than an hour drive, totally acceptable)
- 10 table poker room coming next February, they say
Tioga Downs Poker Room -- Nichols, NY (1 hour drive, acceptable)
- 12 table poker room opened December 2, 2016
Turning Stone Poker Room -- Verona, NY (1½ hour drive, semi-acceptable)
- Weekly Tournament Schedule (pdf)
- Weekdays: Noon & 7PM ... Buy-in $90-$105;
- Weekends 11AM & 4PM ... Buy-in $90-$155;
- Tue/Thu 8:30PM ... Buy-in $15 cheapie
- Saturday Night Tournament (pdf) 7PM $100 (prize pool) + $25 fees
- First Sunday Monthly Bounty Tournament (pdf) 11AM Buy-in $230 = $150 (prize pool) +$30 (fees) + $50 bounty
- Third Sunday Monthly Bounty Tournament (pdf) 11AM Buy-in $330 = $200 (prize pool) +$30 (fees) + $100 bounty
Mohegan Sun Pocono Poker Room -- Plains Township, PA (2¼ hour drive, borderline crazy)
Seneca Salamanca Poker Room -- Salamanca, NY (near Bradford, PA) (2½ hour drive, crazy)
- Daily Tournaments (can't make head or tail of that, honestly ... this helps)
Seneca Niagara Poker Room -- Niagara Falls, NY (3 hour drive, really crazy)
Parx Casino Poker Room -- Bensalem, PA (4 hour drive, totally crazy)
- Looks like they have only one no limit hold'em tournament daily (different stakes every day), that's it.
Movies Watched -- About Elly
In Persian. 119 minutes so at least 20 to 30 minutes too long. Streamed on Netflix so no possibility to fast forward. I think a lot of it gets lost in translation. For an ignorant American like me, I don't know anything about Iran or Persian culture, but the basic conflict here is between modernity and traditional values and the secular world and the sacred. It was interesting to me to see the level of development in Iran, it looked poor, like China did 15 years ago.
A group of educated professionals from Tehran go to the seaside (the Caspian sea) for a weekend. Three couples plus one of their old classmates (Ahmad), recently divorced and living in Germany, and a pretty teacher acquaintance (Elly) whom they are trying to hook up with Ahmad. Elly disappears and they don't know if she has drowned or run away. The writer/director (yes, a W.D. By movie) is interested in group dynamics and human nature and how small lies can build up and things (relationships) can fall apart fast when strained (think Lord of the Flies).
Anyway, there are also class issues here (the slack-jawed bumpkins they rent a house from represent rural, unsophisticated, religious society, I guess) that the director explored a lot more thoroughly in another movie of his ("A Separation," which I really liked). It turns out that Sepideh, this stunningly beautiful woman, knew that Elly was engaged to another man before she tried to hook her up with Ahmad, and this is a major no-no in religious Iran (apparently religious fundamentalists are in power there, and they have rules about how engaged women should behave). Elly shouldn't even have gone with them in the first place, and they resent the pickle she's placed them in (even more than they mourn her death).
If you're interested in Persian culture, and this sacred/secular, modern/traditional divide, then you should see it. It gets a yellow rating from me (not green, not red).
Here's my master list of all the movies from 2015 that I've watched.
Radiant Sepideh, still lying
Movies Watched -- Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
In Japanese and English. 105 minutes, but felt longer, probably because I streamed it via Amazon Prime (no fast forwarding). This a W.D. By movie, two brothers named Zellner (not Coen), obviously fans of David Lynch. A bizarre movie, not mainstream, the average Joe would hate this, but I didn't mind it, gets a yellow at least. It's about a mentally ill Japanese woman with great cheekbones and lips. She sees the funny scene in Fargo where Buscemi buries the money in the snow (with the long look in both directions, the classic Coen Brothers' joke), and sets out to find it, arriving in snowy Minnesota dressed like Little Red Riding Hood (or the matchstick girl).
There are many little set pieces that are funny, but the underlying feeling here is tragedy, this is bleak stuff, really really grim, so you have to be in the mood for it, which I strangely was. Rinko Kukuchi is a good actress. The reason it doesn't get a green is captured by this reviewer's closing line: "Kumiko feels like a collection of amusing and/or depressing riffs stitched together within a context that barely matters."
Here's my master list of all the movies from 2015 that I've watched.
In search of untold riches ... but mental health is no joke.