January 2005 Archives

Sometimes I have to get creative with the procrastinating. In this picture, for example, I am supposed to be out grocery shopping. Instead it is apparently time to strike the perfect b-boys pose with my new pimped-out camera phone. Incidentally, the phone in question is a Motorola A630 that T-Mobile accidentally sent me last week instead of the Samsung I ordered. It has a mini-keyboard for writing emails and I am totally in love with it... obviously...

I was just watching Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel, one of today's myths was "home skunk remedies." It turns out tomato juice works okay. More importantly, the show mentioned the "bad" smell in skunk spray is due to the "thiols" present in it. Apparently humans (and other animals) are very sensitive to the smell of thiols, and can detect it in just a few parts per billion. The problem is, I don't think I can smell thiols! They are added to natural gas so humans can detect the smell of a gas leak, but I can never smell it! In addition, I actually enjoy the smell of skunks! A Google search on "can't smell thiols" turns up nothing, so maybe I am just imagining it. Also, I once ate a bunch of hamburgers that had been inadvertently doused in lighter fluid and were inedible to several other "normal" people around at the time- they tasted perfectly alright to me! So maybe my smeller just don't work so good in general.

From Dean Baker, "Late Stock Market Rally Makes 2004 a Winning Year Jonathan Fuerbringer New York Times, January 1, 2005, Page C1 This article discusses the stock market's prospects in 2005. It never mentions the current price-to-earnings ratio of the market. This is comparable to assessing the value of rental property without noting the annual rent it produces. In fact, the current price to-earnings-ratio in the market is more than 20 to 1, approximately 50 percent higher than their historic average. This implies that the market can be expected to provide lower than average returns, although the outcome in any particular year will always be unpredictable."

The latest out of Sam T studios, enjoy this loop. Inspired at least partially by this loop of Zissou tunes available on the Life Aquatic homepage. By this I mean it is what I might have piped into my diving helmet if I were trying to one-up Jacgues Cousteau of course. Goodnight.