Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I trust you all had a great 2013 and Christmas season!

It's been a wild ride for this writer all year. Exciting work challenges, home improvements, smoking meat, and another glorious NFL season.

I played fantasy football for the first time last year in my work league, losing in the championship final. This year I got to the work league playoffs, but was upset because Calvin Johnson stank up the joint against the Ravens. I made two title rounds in 2 of the 3 other leagues I played in and it's yet to be decided. Not to bad!

On things economic, there was some good stuff (better jobs numbers sort of, Europe got quiet, credit expanded, the market took off), and some bad stuff (credit expanded in bad things (cars, student loans), market took off masking risk, Paul Krugman is still considered smart!). Long time readers know it's always my advice to stick conservative and aim for ~ 10% a year returns. If you did not step on a landmine this year, and it would have been hard to, then you probably made 2-4 years worth of returns this past year. It's ok to bank it and play light next year. I am doing just that.

For Christmas the wife got me a video called "Black Air: The Buick Gran National Documentary" and this of course has me even more crazed over muscle cars than normal.

I am always checking the awesome site RK Motors in Charlotte and it's getting harder and harder not to pull the trigger on a vintage Plymouth GTX or a 1955 Chevy. Or maybe a 1987 GNX? Who knows but it's about time to trade in the Infiniti and I could get crazy!

All my best for the new year!

Have a good night.

River Bottom Nightmare Band!

Love it:

Football

HURRY!!!! While it is still Posted. Ozzy and Randy

As soon as they are uploaded they get taken down but here is a video of the first 3 songs of the immortal Randy Rhoads "Tribute" album!!!

The intro, opening song "I Don't Know" followed by the greatest song ever recorded live, this version of "Crazy Train" is simply too much to pass over:

LOVE IT.

Airforce Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner

This classic film was on this weekend and I always love the OG-riginal "Red Dawn" from 1984. One of the best scenes is Col. Andrew Tanner discussing the invasion:

Love it.

Have a good night.

So What Happened?

Ok so this I had to share.

Kola Superdeep Borehole
I have mentioned this before, but as a reminder via Wiki:

The Kola Superdeep Borehole is the result of a scientific drilling project of the Soviet Union on the Kola Peninsula. The project attempted to drill as deep as possible into the Earth's crust. Drilling began on 24 May 1970 using the Uralmash-4E, and later the Uralmash-15000 series drilling rig. A number of boreholes were drilled by branching from a central hole. The deepest, SG-3, reached 12,262 metres (40,230 ft) (2.21 leagues) in 1989, and is the deepest hole ever drilled, and the deepest artificial point on Earth.

So what happened?

Well I leave you with two images.

One, the place looks like it was destroyed (click for larger view):

Yeah, many old USSR sites look bad. The collapse and all that. I get it.

But then why was the borehole WELDED SHUT and left INTACT all this time? (click for larger view):

I dunno, but I bet it's interesting!

Have a good night.

The Onion: "Financial Sector Thinks It’s About Ready To Ruin World Again"

Oh this is classic:

Via The Onion:
Financial Sector Thinks It’s About Ready To Ruin World Again

Read it all, but some funny (true?) snippets:
-“People are beginning to feel at ease spending money and investing in their futures again,” Blankfein continued. “That’s the perfect time to step in and do what we do best: rip the heart right out of the world’s economy.”

** See this commercial as back up:


-“On second thought, maybe we’ll wipe out the housing market again too, just for the hell of it,” Schnall quickly added. “Might as well, right?”

**The current accepted idea of a housing recovery is going to be so hilarious in a year or so I chuckle everyday.

-“Now that the public’s efforts to curtail questionable Wall Street trading practices have all but ceased, it’s time for us to bring the world to its knees again,” said AIG CEO Robert Benmosche. “There are still plenty of opaque financial derivatives, high-frequency trading operations, and off-balance sheet transactions out there, all with virtually no federal regulation. Trust me, we can definitely work with that. And if anything, we can always just lobby for further concessions and deregulation in Washington—which, by the way, is so, so easy to do—and then we can cause as much damage as we want.”

**No worries bulls, Janet Yellen is set to unleash QE Infinity TIMES Infinity come January but wowza, it's quite a way until then! Another commercial to help with the visual:


-"And while we’re at it, we’ll make sure we once again come away from this whole thing scot-free and far wealthier.”

**It's true. What really drove me away from things market and trading was that every trader/investor/money manager is responsible for the way the market works. To turn a blind eye in the awe of an uptrend is dishonest and shows where your real drive is from.

Have a good night.