Steaming Turd

A while back, CNBC changed some of their graphics for things like stock charts and the ticker. I thought the changes mostly sucked, especially the tendency for things to unnecessarily beep and rotate, so I e-mailed them to say so. Their response was to ask me to participate in a survey about those changes, and I figured that since the survey didn’t ask me for personally identifiable information, why not.

Anyway, periodically, they send me an e-mail asking me to do another survey. In today’s survey was this question, followed by about a dozen options:

Which of the following are main reasons you watch CNBC during the day?
Please select all that apply - but don’t go crazy and pick them all

When I was growing up, our family got a cat. Technically, she was a gift for my sister’s birthday, but we all took care of the cat, as she was our only pet at the time. We got her from the pound when she was just a kitten, probably just two or three months old. She was white and tan, shorthaired (though I don’t think anybody ever told her that), and adorable. From her colorings, my sister named her Caramel, but in practice, that name only really ever got used at the vet’s office. We all just called her Kitty.

When we were still kids, we did some mean things to the cat. Not horribly mean, mind you. We’d chase her around the house, we’d trap her underneath an overturned laundry basket, and one time we put paper cuffs on all four of her feet and laughed when she hopped straight up and down trying to get them off.

We got Kitty declawed (front paws) and spayed. Up until that point, Kitty would occasionally go tearing through the house from the living room through to the kitchen and back, for no real reason at all, and then when she got back running into the living room, she’d jump up and attach herself to the back of the chair. After her paws healed up, she tried this one more time - she went racing through the house, ran into the living room, leapt onto the back of the chair, and wham, hit the ground. She never tried to latch herself onto the chair again.

Mom claimed to hate Kitty. She didn’t really, though I’m sure she wished the cat wouldn’t shed so much. But on occasion, we found Mom and Kitty in the kitchen, looking at each other. Mom would say, “He-e-e-llo-o-o”, and Kitty would meow back, so Mom must have liked the cat well enough to hold a conversation with her.

Eventually, I went off to college, and in my absence, my other sister got a dog. The cat, of course, hated the dog (who was just a puppy at the time, compared to the cat’s ten or so years), at least at first. But the dog was curious and hyper, and always wanted to see what that weird furball was that kept running away. As time passed, Kitty’s fear of the dog turned to mere annoyance, and Dad told me that one day, the cat was sitting in the kitchen when the dog walked up to her. The dog started sniffing her, and her response was to haul off and punch the dog in the face twice.

Kitty eventually began showing signs of diabetes. My sister had to give the cat an insulin shot in the flank every day for several years, and I’m sure both my sister and the cat hated every one. But Kitty eventually got used to it. When people take insulin, they at least know that the pain of the process is necessary to save their lives. But I’m sure it was hard on my sister to have to do that to the cat for so long, knowing that Kitty would never be able to understand or appreciate why.

Later on, my sister moved to her own apartment in West Virginia, and eventually moved to North Carolina, taking Kitty with her, so I haven’t seen that cat for a long time. But my sister wrote me to let me know that Kitty died Saturday at 19 years of age. I mentioned my surprise that Kitty stuck it out through thick and thin for so long, and said that she was one stubborn cat. My sister’s response:

You’re right, she was stubborn! And she had her own personality, which I just loved about her. And, actually, last year they said she was no longer diabetic, but had an overactive thyroid. If it wasn’t one thing with her, it was another!!

I also asked her to send me some photos, and I share those with you now.

As a Kitten

Age 6 or 7

Age 19

I know a lot of people hate hearing about other people’s stock portfolios. But I’ve had such mediocre luck in the market in the second half of 2005 that I wanted to share some good news with people who really don’t care.

Eagle Materials (EXP:NYSE) is a relatively small maker of cement, wallboard, and gypsum (and by small, I mean they’re the 11th largest cement maker in the US). I bought in a bit over three months ago based on the idea (which may or may not be valid) that New Orleans was going to need a lot of cement and wallboard in the reconstruction effort, and noticing that 29% of the float was sold short, figured this could be a great play to pick up money if a short squeeze came along. What I didn’t know at the time was that (a) there’s a gigantic shortfall in cement supply, and (b) that Eagle Materials was going to report such a fantabulous quarter. I was in for about $1k just before they reported at the beginning of November, and picked up an increase from the $105 I bought in at, to the low-to-mid $120s.

Fast forward just under three months, and Eagle reports their next quarter. But the day before that happens, one of the few analysts covering the stock upgrades it from hold to buy. The stock bumps to $130ish that day, and the next day (the day they were reporting after the market close) I see that it’s come back in to $126, so I pick up another ten shares. The earnings report comes out, and they’re not only showing HUGE growth in the last quarter, but they’re expecting waaaay above analyst estimates for the entire next fiscal year! On top of that, they’re issuing a 3:1 split in February and increasing their dividend to 17.5 cents a share (up from 10 cents).

Long story short, the stock was up to $163 at the close today. I’m not rich or anything off this, of course, but after making a couple annoyingly bad choices last year, I’m really glad this one worked out. I guess even a blind nut finds a squirrel occasionally

Edit: After I thought about my telling of this story a bit, I remembered that I initially started looking at cement companies after hearing about the shortage. The New Orleans idea was one of several factors (including the short float, the P/E ratio at the time, the relatively small size of the company, and the fact that it was relatively unnoticed by analysts) that helped me decide to choose it over other companies. But I honestly didn’t realize that the cement shortage was as large as it was.

It appears that somebody deeplinked my mirror of the old “YA RLY” bird sometime in late November, causing this to happen:

Update: And after checking the error logs since removing the image file, it appears that “somebody” means “everyone and their grandmother”. This is probably due to this. (Warning: NSFW if you have Google SafeSearch turned off)

Maybe I should celebrate that my weblog actually became the #1 search result on Google Images for an actual, legitimate, honest-to-god web meme. It’s almost tempting to put the image back and see how long I can keep this, er, honor.

Professor Ed Felten has an interesting blog post concerning the Analog Hole bill (or A-Hole bill). He notes that the VEIL content protection system is proprietary and currently only available by signing an NDA and paying the licensors a $10k fee, but is also explicitly specified in the A-Hole bill as being required on all analog video devices. In essence, the incorporation of the VEIL specification by reference creates a secret law, inaccessible to the public except for those people who can afford to pay the licensing fee.

I watched most of the WVU at UCLA men’s basketball game today. The first half, West Virginia dominated, running the score up 39-22 at the half. But in the second half, WVU’s performance fell flat, as they went for nearly ten scoreless minutes and allowed UCLA to come back - WVU’s lead had been whittled to 59-56 with about 6 seconds left in the game.

UCLA had possession, and it looked like it was going to be tight. UCLA’s Jordan Farmar was bringing the ball up through the back court, getting ready to make a drive, and the commentators were trying to prognosticate whether WVU would take a foul to prevent the three, when WVU’s Mike Gansey casually stole the ball and headed cross-court to run off the clock! He drew the foul from Farmar at 2.5 seconds and made his free throw to seal up the game, 60-56.

Gansey scored 24 points in the game, including all three 3-point attempts and 7 out of 9 free throws. He also racked up four steals during the game, compared to the three steals that UCLA managed as a team. Kevin Pittsnogle is often regarded as the primary source of points for the West Virginia team, averaging 20.6 a game and leading the Big East conference, but Pittsnogle went 4-15 this game, missing all five 3-pointers he put up.

The win by West Virginia marks the second win out of three games against UCLA since their first meeting in 1959, when WVU legend, Hall of Famer, and NBA logo model Jerry West led the team to victory. Their other game was in 1968.

West Virginia was ranked 12th or 17th before this game, depending on whom you ask. Their schedule includes tough games against UConn (currently #3 and facing #15 Louisville tonight) and Pitt (currently #9, though they suffered their first season loss this weekend to unranked St. John’s), both of which are Big East Conference opponents and currently trailing in the conference standings. WVU hosts Marshall next week in a backyard brawl.

..outrageous accent, you silly king?!

Recently, I was presented with a free copy of the Lord of the Rings Helm’s Deep roleplaying game book, due to my contributions as a playtester. In the book are rules for a mass combat system, for playing out gigantic epic battles between the forces of good and evil. (Of course, it goes without saying that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.) Anyway, amid these rules appears the word “manoeuvre”, which is apparently the even more unwieldy British spelling of the unwieldy French-derived word “maneuver”, pronounced muhn-oo-ver.

Anyway, it occurred to me after looking at the British spelling that the root “oeuvre” also appears in the French word “hors d’oeuvre”, and as we all know (and were probably surprised to learn the first time we saw the word in print), that word is pronounced or-derv.

Let’s compare the pronunciations of those roots.

hors d’oeuvre: erv
manoeuvre: oo-ver

What this tells me is that one of these things should be true:

1. The word “maneuver” should be pronounced muhn-erv.
2. When I look at “hors d’oeuvre” and think “whores doo-ver”, I shouldn’t feel stupid.

On a side note, I was disappointed to learn that antipasto is just Italian for hors d’oeuvre. On the bright side, at least the Italian version isn’t spelled stupidly.

So, I recently watched the cartoon Duck Amuck, a 1953 WB cartoon featuring Daffy Duck as the victim of animation gone haywire. Not to give anything away, but at the end of a series of laughs involving an animator who keeps screwing with Daffy, we find out that the animator is actually Bugs Bunny, who delivers one line to end the cartoon: “Ain’t I a stinker?”

According to the commentary and special materials (this was on DVD), a studio exec for Warner Brothers didn’t like the ending of the cartoon, claiming (in true Hollywood-style ignorance) that Bugs is too big of a star to be used in this fashion. Of course, eventually director Chuck Jones won out, and rightly so. Rather than abusing a star to get a 10-second cameo playing second banana to Daffy, the cartoon actually shows that Bugs has such a strong presence that he can steal an entire several-minute cartoon with nothing more than a four-word line at the end. That’s the real genius of this cartoon, and is unsurprisingly the exact opposite of what the studio exec thought.

That’s a problem that pervades entertainment. The people with the least creative experience always try to take the most creative control. That idea has led to problems on numerous television shows, where what the public is eventually given is formulaic and uninspired; and along with poor promotion and a constantly changing timeslot, kills even the best of TV shows dead. And it’s the same reason why every song on the radio sounds the same.

And that reminds me - the other day, I was flipping through the channels and came to MTV2, which was running a show where they (gasp) take a music video (yes, occasionally a music video will actually air on a channel other than VH1 Classic) and show you the lyrics on-screen as they’re being sung/said. They generally apply this concept to rap videos, presumably because nobody can understand what those guys are saying. Of course, this doesn’t actually help you understand the lyrics, because rappers are apparently incapable of expressing ideas without drawing the ire of the censors, and this means that fully half of the lyrics are bleeped out on-screen just like they are in the song.

Not that we’re missing much anyway. There hasn’t been a good rap song since The Humpty Dance, Baby Got Back, and Sabotage.

So I get this department-related e-mail today. It’s located way back up in the inbox, because it was sent on 7 December 2005. Note the headers:

Received: from mpspam3.TIS.case.Edu by ims-msg.cwru.edu for xxx@xxxx.xxx; Sat, 14 Jan 2006 17:53:01 -0500 (EST)
Received: from [x.x.x.x] by mpv3.TIS.cwru.edu (MOS 3.6.4-CR); Wed, 07 Dec 2005 11:21:19 -0500 (EST)

I wonder what took so long? Bad weather?

Warning: Picture may be disturbing to those weak of heart.