Madcap

Somehow my first day in the hospital, the day of which I have no memory (What do you mean it’s Sunday, today is Saturday! What seizure, I’ve never had a seizure in my life!) I managed to make a fairly savvy trade. Let’s walk through it, shall we?

Couple years back I bought this closed-end fund called Adams Express. You familiar with CEFs? Your ‘normal’ mutual fund is open-ended – if you mail Vanguard a check for $5000, they take it and buy $5000 of stocks or whatever, so the size of the fund grows: Open ended. A closed-end fund is capped in size with a set number of shares that trade on an exchange, so you just place an order to buy 100 shares of ADX through your broker and you’re done. Often these shares trade at a discount, so you’re getting like $50,000 worth of equity for perhaps $46,000 or so.

Anyhow, ADX, good fund, low turnover, quality stocks, you get a little boost on the dividend yield because it trades at a 15% discount or thereabouts. The hope with these guys is that someday the managers will convert the thing into a proper open-ended fund or otherwise liquidate the thing, which would give you a 15% bump in a day. Nice. But considering that ADX has been around since Jesse James – they were even mentioned in the Coward Robert Ford movie, no joke – you just have to be content with the yield goose. The goose yield? You know, it yields 1.7% instead of, ah, 1.5%. Oh wow that’s huge.

But evidently we’re in a bear market, or something, and I noticed I actually had a pretty big loss in it. So I dumped it to harvest the tax benefit and put the money in MDY, the exchange-traded fund tracking the S & P MidCap 400 Index. I could have looked around for another CEF trading at a discount, but working on a Chocolate from a hospital bed in the middle of a morphine fog, it’s a wonder I made the trade at all and didn’t wind up placing an order to buy $8 million worth of Merrill Lynch July $70 call options.

This is what counts as interesting when you’re sick, man. Sue me.

Did you know the word ‘cloudy’ existed before the word ‘cloud’ ?

Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry
Published: July 21, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news.

I could have written this New York Times article on the new nimble network computer. In fact, I did write it – many times, 12 years ago, as a Silicon Valley reporter for Bloomberg News. My primary job back then was writing a daily “Shares of Cisco Systems Inc. fell as much as 6 percent on concern that sales growth is slowing at the world’s largest maker of computer networking equipment” story, but once in a while I would have the leeway to take a stab at those ‘trend’ stories that captivate American audiences so.

One of these trends was the shift toward “network computing.” Client / server! The Internet! The power is in the network, the hardware’s just boxes! Who needs a PC, who needs a hard drive? Just hook up a keyboard to the network and you’re done! It’s a bold new idea in business – the thin client! The dumb terminal! Rah, rah, rah!

Oh no, what’s Intel gonna do when everyone starts asking for $199 laptops? How is Microsoft going to survive once everyone realizes they don’t really need a $500 suite of software just to download porn business data? Scott McNealy says Windows is a hairball – no way they recover from that! Short that puppy dog before it breaks $5! Come on honey, let’s go make some NOISE! You know, the famous “Netscape Oracle IBM Sun EMC” alliance. You still have your t-shirt and coffee mug from that ‘98 conference, right?

The highlight, I think, was the Oracle ad showing the inner-city kid overcoming his economic challenges by using his $200 network computer to download information on Virginia Woolf, or something, and presumably growing up to be a millionaire professor. Only slightly more grand and overstated than the general notion that Wintel was going to take it in the neck from this worrisome trend of, you know, computer use going up.

Anyway, this month’s Times article hits all the usual notes, adding the new moniker of “cloud computing,” which admittedly sounds cool. And it’s great to know there’s actually a computer company called ANUS. Nice work, Times.

The funny thing is, despite my rare dose of skepticism here, I actually got suckered in by the article and bought one of the cloud computers mentioned in the article. I couldn’t get over the fact that I could get a supposedly full-functioning laptop from H-P for $500 – that’s barely more than an iPhone, and you probably get the benefit of a browser that can handle Flash. Online reviews are bipolar, saying it’s either a wunderkind or a uselessly overmatched unworkable gimmick. But I haven’t bought myself a toy in, I don’t know, ever, and if it doesn’t work out I’ll have something else for the in-kind contribution stack. Win-win-win.

Mama said knock you out

Damn, ho! Oye como va. See, on a Wednesday, I’m the healthiest guy alive — I don’t have cancer, it’s all a misunderstanding, I’m as fit and active as any of you pencil-necked geeks staring into your Interwebs. But then on Thursday I’ll hit a little wrinkle, I’ll get sick to my stomach or just feel a little dizzy — just a little thing will set it off. Next thing I know I’m in the ambulance ($1100 btw) and in the ER and in the ICU and I don’t get home for a week… or two. You see the last entry here is two weeks ago, aye? Well early on the 10th yours truly was called out to the hospital and stayed a week, which is longer than I dared expect. Also longer than Doctor Sunshine thought I would live — he told my wife at one point I had 48 hours. Yeah.

And then a few days in a nursing home… I don’t understand it any more than you do. It’s bizarre — feeling fine one day, death’s door the next. I guess that’s how it goes, or shoud I say va. For the moment I’ve got the healthy / sick dichotomy battling on the same day. I feel great most of the time, but when I run out of gas I really run out — can’t stand up, can’t read, can’t hold a newspaper, can’t think straight. Oh and the double vision is out of control — it’s not like I see you and see your doppleganger a foot to your left, your twin is actually on the other side of the room. Makes reading a bit of a challenge, and blogging a bit tough. This entry looks all right in stereo from my end but just let me know if the unisex version is screwed up. (I don’t know what he’s saying either.)

Yeah, well… what else can I tell you. The nursing home (nursing home yet!) wasn’t anything like the horror stories you hear. The food and the nursing (and the home) were adequate. The real downside was this one neighbor who had dementia and yelled ‘MAMA’ all day and all night and kept his television blasting into the bargain. I guess I’m in better shape than he.

Oh yeah, I had a catheter for extra fun. I braced myself for the removal and felt the ARGHGHGHGH fire of the first yank, took a deep breath, should be over soon…. ARGHGHGHGHGHGH another yank, jeez are we done yet? I mean ARRHGHGHGHGHGHGH good Lord my dick isn’t that big! What’d you give me the John Holmes model for?? Or was it somehow worm-holed into another dimension accessible only through my magical GI tract? And it is magical, believe me, I could tell you some stories. Stick around maybe I will. In the end I shouldn’t complain about the catheter because I was able to VOID easily afterwards, if you can’t they put it back in, and you know what? You don’t feel the pain at all — you just feel the relief of getting that Evian bottle of urine out of your bladder. The pains I have known, the pains I have known. I’ve deserved them all already, deserved them all.

I’ll rap at ya more when I get the time and energy. See you around.

Steve Set-up

Yeah. Like I said, I knew I was asking for trouble writing that bit about “It’s not like I’m so tired I’m gonna pass out at the wheel.” No, I didn’t wreck the Jetta five minutes later. It was more the whole package, the whole megillah. The whole idea that I can get by wih no sleep and it doesn’t bother me. Day after I write that I am on fumes, man, barely able to keep uprite, finding out the bed looks a lot more comfy than the chair even at two in the afternoon. Read a book? Mmmmmmm, mental acuity not quite up to cognitive function of processing words at this time, as you see from current syntax yes. Blog entries are taxing my mental capacity. The radiation table seems like a good place for a nap — can I just stay here for an extra half hour, get my forty winks?

The hell of it is I actually got some decent sleep last night thanks to ambien and pure exhaustion, following the latest epic three-hour dinner down at Lidia’s where the waitress upsold me the prix fixe pasta tasting rather than the bare-bones. I mean I ordered an appetizer and a meal, don’t shove this salad at me on top of it you greedy whore. I didn’t get stuck with the check so I shouldn’t complain. Yes I should. Cascone’s has better food any how. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling so worn out — I’m mean.

Radiation to the head really does make your hair fall out. As you can see from my many pictures on here that is a serious loss for old Simons, who has been selling himself on his looks ever since the 90s. Damn. Something else to regret.

I should give you a teaser for what’s coming in the next few days and weeks, but I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, so what can I tell you? Count on more of the same like Black Swan Guy says. You know Nassim Taleb. For all his talk about the black swan, the big unpredictable event that people never see coming, the thing he wrote that hit me the hardest was when he said people are also blind to how long things can stay the same. I’ll just take this job for like six months, it’s temporary. We’ll just move into this apartment for now, be like six months, it’s temporary. We’ll just kick out Saddam and invent Iraqi democracy, be like six months, it’s temporary.

Everything’s temporary for me now.

A record you can count on

You see how I get results? Six in the morning I call off the war in Iran. Minutes later,

Ahmadinejad Says `There Won’t Be War,’ Pledges Peace (Update2)

You see how I get these people in line?

Not to say anything positive about any aspect of myself, but I do feel my scrying ability has improved over the past few years as my paranoia has gone down from Defcon 1 to around 4 or 5. I don’t call for the Sears Tower to blow up the night before the election or that nonsense like I used to. Man was I crazy. The one prediction I do regret making just last night was when I said my lack of sleep won’t make me have a car wreck. That’s kind of asking for trouble right there, so let’s erase that one.

Still, peace in the Middle East, woot woot. I took the price of oil down for you while I was at it.

One less thing to worry about

Iran. We’re not going to attack Iran. We all had a giggle when McCain rocked out the “Bomb Iran” Beach Boys jingle, but that’s as far as it goes. It’s not going to happen. Quit sending those Seymour Hersh stories to reddit, it’s a fantasy. Permission to focus your paranoia anywhere else, granted.

What’s in it for us if we attack Iran? You got it, $17 a gallon. Fuckin’ Time magazine saying that Bush would become “the President who leaves the White House on a mule-drawn cart.” Burn. Yeah, we get cocky and belligerent around here, we get reckless with the wars, but there’s no upside to this move — nobody gets reelected, nobody gets rich, nobody gets hoodwinked into forgetting the other war — no reward to this risk. Speaking of other war you may notice we don’t have any armed forces to send to Iran, and I don’t think eight guys from the West Virginia National Guard will get it done just now. America will only attack Iran after those 800 mpg Tesla SUVs come to market.

Israel? They did take out the nuclear facilities that Iraq was putting together back in the 80s, which was, like, awesome. Makes me want to see Munich again. I’m sure they’re not chuffed about the prospect of the Muslim Bomb. But I just can’t see Israel doing something to kick off World War III, or IV or V or whatever the neocons say we’re up to these days. They burn hydrocarbon in Haifa too you know.

Yeah, Ahmadinejad says he’s going to push Israel into the sea and that the Holocaust was the party of the century or never happened, and they’re getting ready to bury 300,000 Jews, and they’re generally loaded for bear. Don’t listen to what he says. Before Mike Ruppert went off the deep end for good he made one last keen observation, pointing out that Ahmadinejad is as much a prisoner to his country’s right wing as someone like Bush is to ours. These guys have to say this nonsense to look tough, to take everyone’s eyes off their 80 million domestic problems, and to be able to say “You may not agree with me, but at least you know where I stand!” DinnerJacket can say he’ll wipe Israel off the map, but, you know, could be easier said than done, yeah? Israel does have the bomb, you know.

Besides, you may have noticed in life, people say things they don’t really mean, even well-regarded heads of state like Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez. Bush told Kerry in the third debate he was going to straighten out Darfur, didn’t he? Omar Minaya told Willie Randolph he’d be managing the Mets right through October. Madonna told me she’s never even sucked A-Rod off. You can’t believe everything you read, man.

I take it in stride

The insomnia, I mean. Actually I’m not even sure we should call it insomnia. You know how anorexia is a misnomer because it means “loss of appetite” but anorexics are actually starving all day long? It’s a bit like that in reverse. I’m not sleeping — it’s after six now and I’ve been up since, what, 11 a.m. yesterday. But I’m not really trying to sleep that hard either. I’m not writhing around on the mat shrieking inside “Why can’t I sleep Why can’t I sleep Why can’t I sleep.” I’m just laying there, or lying. I realize that sleep is not coming any time soon and that’s fine. The room’s dark, I’m horizontal, I don’t have to move — it’s restful. I mean I’m only getting four or five hours a night, but I’m making it. I get up, do my thing, I don’t pass out behing the wheel. I’m fine.

It might seem like torture agony, being condemned to wakefulness from midnight to seven. I’m sure it is for most people. But right now it’s good. I need time to think anyway. This is a good time for me to flex my fertile brain and impress Carla Bruni. I mean I have a lot to sort out here — financial affairs, moving across the country, liquidating my platinum bullion, the end of the world, Ahmadinejad, my brother — somebody has to decipher all this and I can’t leave it up to anyone else. And I can’t put it off, so, sleep? Forget it.

Still here

february 2007

You don’t think I forgot about you already? You know the drill. I only have time to think between the hours of two and seven a.m. and I do my best to use those hours effectively, keeping the ceiling in place with the raw power of my bloodshot eyes. I’m always up for the dawn, just waiting for the 6 a.m. steroid — during the day I don’t have any time to write for you or anyone else, what with my many responsibilities. That Jetta isn’t going to change its own oil, you know.

The family visits continue, the eating continues, this guy can eat. Oh, the menu review I have locked and loaded for you — you’ll see. Anyway, just dashing this off so you know I haven’t died yet. Really it was just the holiday weekend, everyone took it easy. Even Matt Savinar didn’t seem to have his heart in his work the last few days.

A partial list of people who have been fortunate enough to see me naked since 2005

The primary care doctor. The gastroenterologist who performed the colonoscopy. The first colorectal surgeon. The radation oncologist. The first colorectal surgeon’s nurses. The second colorectal surgeon who couldn’t figure out why I had an ileostomy rather than the more conventional colostomy. The third colorectal surgeon. The second oncologist. The New York wound nurse who kept telling me how to look after my “stomer.” The general surgeon who gave me the colostomy nine months after the ileostomy had been taken down. The army of nurses who pushed away the septic shock this St. Patrick’s Day. The wound nurse who visits three times a week. The substitute wound nurse. The other wound nurses in the hospital.

I have nothing to hide.

I will say

The Bristol is tits. Where have they been all my life? Going on twenty years in this town I’d only eaten there once before the family death tours started up last week. I’m trying to make up for lost time though. (Well, double that.) Thing is I don’t even like fish in particular, and I don’t like cajun food either, but throw me that gumbo soup and I’m goin. It’s spicy and — what the — rice on top? Who knew? Rice and crackers? Oh this is deluxe. And the biscuit nearby, that shit is gold.

But I’m just getting warmed up. The steroids, you know, I’m eating. Give me the mixed grill so I can make Jonathan Franzen proud. Crab cake? Gone in sixty seconds. Shrimp? One, two, three, four, done. Scallops? I don’t like scallops. Mom used to make them when we were still Catholic, they’re bland. But dump them in the remoulade here and you’re good. What else? Oh right, the salmon, flown in from let’s not think about the oil crisis and the 1500-mile Caesar salad. Good salmon though, mighty fresh. Mashed potatoes go with fish? Evidently. Wife can only eat half of her shrimp quesadillas? I’m down. Are we at halftime yet?

I did make a mistake last night though. I was talking up the carrot cake all through the meal, even to the waiter, but ordering it again would have given me the same exact menu I’d had a week earlier. I already hate how predictable I am anyway, so I ordered apple pie instead — out of control, this one. he’s insane!! The pie was not the equal of the cake, no. Another setback, another misjudgment, another failing, another travesty. Adding to a long list, really, but I think I’ve accepted most of the items on there by now.

Speaking of long list, went through some of the old diaries in the Simons archives. God, what a whiner. Mehhhhh, I bought a stock and it went down the next day, I sold some calls on Lehman and it went up right after and then I closed them out and it went back down, wehhhh. I hate that guy and I’m glad he’s dying. Really, whiny trust fund brat counting his money all day, what a jerk! Come on! I will say the cancer has kind of beaten that miser out of me somewhat. So that’s progress. Cancer soup for the soul, try some.