combinatorial

Stop Making Sense

Thu, 14 May 2009 13:36:10 GMT

White House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs'

"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:06:36 GMT

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

The WBCOOP is an online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers.

Registration code: 825678

Palin as maverick

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:20:06 GMT

CNBC twat Bill Griffeth referred to Palin as a "maverick" (a label endlessly and uncritically pasted upon McCain) at least 7 times in the course of 30 seconds today, and I nearly hurled. It made me wonder if he's the only mainstream media personality on this McCain campaign talking point. Unsurprisingly, Eric Alterman has me covered.

Referring to Palin during the August 29 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews claimed, "I think she is a maverick," and added, "[T]he several years she's been in public life has been that of a maverick, someone taking on the good ol' boys. ... Every time one party runs the show, it gets corrupt, and she was challenging it."

Discussing the choice during the August 29 edition of MSNBC Live, anchor Kevin Corke said of McCain: "I'm thinking he likes this idea that she's also a bit of a maverick."

During the August 29 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer uncritically asserted, "Republicans call her a uniter and a tough maverick."

During the August 29 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto asserted, "First, the maverick. He picks a maverick."

An August 29 Detroit Free Press article was headlined "McCain chooses maverick Alaska governor to be his vice president."

In an August 29 post on the washingtonpost.com blog The Fix, staff writer Chris Cillizza claimed, "In choosing Palin, McCain also doubles down on the maverick argument; Palin is the face of reform in the Republican party nationally and is clearly not of Washington -- a key element of her biography given how negative voter sentiment toward the nation's capital is currently.

The so-called liberal media strikes again!

Megan Fox

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:27:23 GMT

In my mind there are really only two possibilities:

1.) Megan Fox is the devil, able to bend any man to her will
2.) Michael Bay is the devil, and he created Megan Fox in order to bend everyone in Hollywood to his will

???

Crude

Thu, 15 May 2008 16:48:03 GMT

wheeeeeeee

Crude

Tue, 13 May 2008 13:41:13 GMT

If you've been looking for a spot to get short crude, now might be a good time. Bearish island reversal, if you're into technical analysis...

Good article

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:35:47 GMT

Fareed Zakaria has always seemed far more important to me than almost any other politically-oriented pundit writing or talking actively in the American mainstream media. His latest Newsweek article made the cover, and it's worth a read.

rofl

Tue, 06 May 2008 19:11:47 GMT

biggest bullshit stock rally ever today....

Best of 2007 CD

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:48:51 GMT

Mike's Best of 2007 CD - [MP3/V0]

Tracklist:

01 - Flying Lotus - Tea Leaf Dancers [Reset EP, Warp]
02 - Matthew Dear - Deserter [Asa Breed, Ghostly]
03 - The National - Mistaken for Strangers [Boxer, Beggars Banquet]
04 - Spoon - You Got Yr Cherry Bomb [Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Merge]
05 - Radiohead - All I Need [In Rainbows, XL]
06 - Panda Bear - Bros (edit) [Person Pitch, Paw Tracks]
07 - Kalabrese - Hide (feat. Guillermo Sohrya) [Rumpelzirkus, Muve]
08 - The Shins - Phantom Limb [Wincing the Night Away, Sub Pop]
09 - Rufus Wainwright - Going to a Town [Release the Stars, Geffen]
10 - LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great [Sound of Silver, DFA/Capitol/EMI]
11 - Modeselektor - The White Flash (feat. Thom Yorke) [Happy Birthday!, BPitch Control]
12 - El-P - Up All Night [I'll Sleep When You're Dead, Def Jux]
13 - Burial - Ghost Hardware [Untrue, Hyperdub]
14 - Black Milk - Sound the Alarm (feat. Guilty Simpson) [Popular Demand, Fat Beats]
15 - M.I.A. - 20 Dollar [Kala, Interscope/XL]
16 - Apparat - Arcadia [Walls, Shitkatapult Strike]
17 - Sigur Ros - Hljomalind [Hvarf/Heim, XL]
18 - Jon Brion - Trial and Error [live at the Steppenwolf Theater, Chicago, crappy bootleg]

Juno

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:08:26 GMT

go see it immed.

The Wait Out

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:48:58 GMT

Well, here's my chance.

Michael Clayton, In the Valley of Elah

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:32:52 GMT

2007 is shaping up to be a great, great year for movies. The studios always backload the year with films they consider to have award potential, but I don't remember a year since 1999 in which I felt overwhelmed at the sheer volume of movies that I really want to see; this is one of those years. In theaters now we have 3:10 to Yuma, Across the Universe, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Darjeeling Limited, Eastern Promises, In the Valley of Elah, Into the Wild, King of California, Michael Clayton, No End in Sight, and Superbad. Still to come are We Own the Night, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Rendition, Things We Lost in the Fire, Reservation Road, Gone Baby Gone, American Gangster, Lions for Lambs, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, No Country for Old Men, I'm Not There, Juno, Cassandra's Dream, Youth Without Youth, There Will Be Blood, and Charlie Wilson's War. Sheesh!

I felt like getting started yesterday, so I arranged a double feature of Michael Clayton and In the Valley of Elah.

Tony Gilroy's directorial debut, Michael Clayton, the legal thriller starring George Clooney, has a fairly simple plot, but through a superbly executed non-linear screenplay which patiently unveils its revelations to us, we get the feeling early on that there is something Big looming on the horizon. Building tension gradually throughout a narrative takes courage and patience, and Gilroy shows here that he has plenty of both. Clooney's character is a 'fixer' for a prominent Manhattan law firm; he refers to himself as a janitor, but his boss (Sydney Pollack) thinks he is the only person on the planet capable of doing his job as well as he does. Essentially, he is sent in to diffuse ugly legal situations before they get out of control. The plot of this film concerns one of these scenarios, in which one of the firm's partners (a wonderfully manic Tom Wilkinson), who has been toiling for six years on the same case of corporate malfeasance, has decided he's seen enough. The performances are wonderful; Clooney is the anti-Danny Ocean here, looking weary and lost. The job demands a certain amount of moral bankruptcy and he begins to question whether he's being properly rewarded for living a soulless existence. I will not reveal the twists and turns, but I will say that the third act is one of the more satisfying than any film in recent memory. Highly recommended.

In the Valley of Elah is the latest from Paul Haggis (of Crash and Million Dollar Baby fame). This is the story of a young soldier who returns home from Iraq, only to disappear days later and eventually is discovered to have been brutally murdered in a field about 30 minutes from the Army base. The base phones his parents (Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon) as soon as he is awol, and knowing that their son would never leave base willfully, they are deeply concerned. Hank (Tommy Lee Jones) sets out immediately for the base, at first hoping to find his son, then hoping to find answers. This is Jones' film, and it is difficult to imagine another actor doing as well as he does here. I would be shocked if he isn't nominated for Best Actor when the Oscar noms are announced. To look at his face, you know at once that he is serious, caring, intelligent, and a realist. There are scenes of astonishing emotional power. Susan Sarandon's performance when Hank phones her to inform her that her second son is dead (the first was killed in combat training) moved me to tears. It's a shame that she only has about 10 minutes of screen time because hers is a powerhouse performance as well. You would expect a movie concerning the war in Iraq to be politically charged, but Haggis wisely keeps politics out of the movie until the very, very end, and even this fits perfectly with the tone of the film and doesn't feel forced. My only criticism is that the explanation of why the murder takes place feels very slight. 9/10 of the movie is build up to the final revelation, and after we find out what happened, it's like, "Oh. Really? That's it?" It seems that more time could've been devoted to the last act, but overall, I still enjoyed it.

The Great Outdoors

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 23:41:02 GMT

I went on a week-long vaca up to northern Wisconsin with my older sister and her family in August. My brother-in-law's parents have a really nice cabin on a lake near Mercer, WI. The highlight of the trip was getting to spend time with my little niece and nephew (2 and 3, respectively), who I don't see nearly enough, but there was also kayaking, fishing, swimming, grilling, and partying. I had a blast; it's so peaceful up there. I really wish we could have taken the camera on the kayaking excursions because there are parts of the river/chain of lakes that are breathtakingly gorgeous. Pics below the jump.

Kayaks

Master and Commander

Deadly serious game of bocce (my sister and I crushed)

GRASS LOL

A little after dinner fishing

Got one!

WBCoOP

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:48:28 GMT

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

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Registration code: 8818780

music has the right to children

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:07:42 GMT

Yay! So we played our first show Sunday night, and it was really, really fun. Lots of tightening of the band to take care of, but hey for two practices I thought it came together pretty well.

stars' e-checks

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:40:33 GMT

I did the initial direct deposit from my checking account on August 23rd. It showed up on my bank statement within 48 hours. I was told by support that I would now be able to make withdrawals from my Stars account and have them direct deposited via e-check. Dubious of this claim, I attempted to withdraw a small amount on August 26. It appeared yesterday so I guess it works...

music

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:57:17 GMT

I'm playing in a real band again. Our first show is September 23rd at The Note in Chicago. We're opening for AM Syndicate - a pretty cool band from Austin, TX. Their main guy was in ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead. Their sound is similar enough to ours that people who come to see them should at least give us a fair shake.

Our goal was to be playing out by Oct. 1, and I felt that even that goal was maybe rushing things a bit, but we (mainly I) have been working like crazy to get all the technical issues squared away (it isn't the easiest thing ever to reproduce music that is mostly made in the computer in a live setting with real people playing instead of just pressing 'play'), and I feel like we'll be ready, if not 100%. This is a totally decent venue, so I don't want to treat it too much like a 'warm up' show, but it will probably end up being that.

We had our first rehearsal last Sunday, and it went pretty well. Our drummer has this tiny little electronic kit that sounds great. I wasted rehearsal time just fooling around with it because it was so much fun... Anyway, it seems as if the ball is rolling suddenly and swiftly - we have at least three more shows in the works. The full length album that we've been working on is also near completion finally, and we have label interest without ever having played a single show, so we must be on the right track. You can hear some of the tunes at www.williamfillmore.com. The pictures below are, in order, 1) full band with John out front looking very unband-like, sporting baseball hat, shorts and running shoes; 2) Adam twiddling knobs, as he is wont to do; 3) my ass, with glimpses of my ridiculous guitar rig (you can see the laptop on the floor); 4) keyboard player Beagle, looking ultra tough; 5) posed band shot, with John sporting ski goggles. Looking at all the posed band photos of all-time, we decided we hate them all and after doing this one silly one, we will do only sillier things in band photos from here out, e.g. stage a massive brawl between all band members and have that be the photo.

funny stuff

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:39:12 GMT

I get made fun of quite a bit for playing babystakes freezeouts, but I mean, have a look at this, from a non-rebuy $27.50:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

saw flop|saw showdown

MP3 (t4050)
CO (t540)
Button (t3755)
SB (t2740)
BB (t3560)
UTG (t1280)
Hero (t4900)
MP1 (t2315)
MP2 (t3830)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Kc, Kh.

UTG calls t30, Hero raises to t150, MP1 raises to t420, 4 folds, SB calls t405, 1 fold, UTG calls t390, Hero raises to t4900, MP1 calls t1895 (All-In), SB calls t2320 (All-In), UTG calls t860 (All-In).

Flop: (t11265) 9s, Td, 4s (4 players, 3 all-in)

Turn: (t11265) 5d (4 players, 3 all-in)

River: (t11265) 8d (4 players, 3 all-in)

Final Pot: t11265

Results in white below:

SB has Qc Qd (one pair, queens).

UTG has 6d 6h (one pair, sixes).

Hero has Kc Kh (one pair, kings).

MP1 has Jd Ks (high card, king).

Outcome: Hero wins t11265.

Updates

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:32:00 GMT

On Monday, we went over to Venetian and played the $330 NL tourney. It got about 550 entrants, and 1st was like $52k. Play was predictably terrible - I'd guess something like 3/4 of the field had no chance of winning the event. The hyped 'deepstack' structure was, of course, not particularly deep. 40 minute levels live just aren't long enough with how slowly people play. I had chipped up from the original 6k starting stack to about 8k when I played the following hand: Blinds 100/200/25a. I raise to 600 from mp with JsJh. 40ish rich bored guy who had been splashing around trying to go bust so he could make his dinner reservation (why play?) calls from the BB and insta-shoves a Ts8s3h flop; he has like 4k total. I call quickly and he tables Ac9s. Turn is the As so I still have outs with jacks and spades, but river bricks and I'm semi crippled. Nothing major happens after that; I shove a few times and don't get called, then the bustout hand. 6 limpers in the field, I check in the BB with 9c2c. Flop is Qc9h4c. I lead, committing myself, UTG raises enough to put me in. He has AQ with no clubs, but I brick and GHN.

Conveniently, Chris, Pete and I all busted at the exact same time so we went home and played some stuff online. I ended up taking down the late night $109 20k gtd. on Stars for $9300. It was certainly nice to start the trip with a win. Pete was sitting next to me sweating basically the entire tourney which made it even more fun. He'd give thoughts here and there so he was invested in the results too. We were both pretty giddy after the win, despite it being 3:30 a.m., so we had a few celebratory drinks. I was lucky to pick up some hands at the ft and get action on them, e.g. 4-handed I make a standard raise on the button with AA and the SB shoves with AJ and I hold. Then I won two races (55>KQs and 99>AQs) to bust the guys in 3rd and 2nd, respectively. I also played an $11r satellite to the 150 seat wsop thing on Stars and won that seat...it feels like there's sort of a lot of pressure to win the main event seat this Sunday so I hope I get that taken care of.

On Tuesday, I slept in, and decided to play the $50k on Stars when I woke up. I got a stack going early but sort of floundered for a while until I ended up racing for a 45k pot which would've put me top 5 in chips right on the bubble. I had AhKd and shoved over an ep raiser, he called with QQ no dime, flop is 3 low diamonds, and somehow I don't get there??? After busting, Chris and I went to play a round of twilight at Wildhorse, the public course that's 3 minutes away. I'm not much of a golfer - ok, I suck and rarely play, but I like being out there and I like drinking so at least there's that. Somehow I managed to play pretty well - I matched Chris' 49 on the front 9 (he plays a lot so I guess that was good), even sinking a 12 foot birdie putt on a par 4 for my first birdie ever (I think). The wheels fell off the wagon a little on the back 9, particularly on the longer par 5s. On one of these I hit two tee shots (I take mulligans liberally from the tee because I suck) on a straight line out of bounds to the exact same spot. Later, I hit a 5 iron directly at the next teebox (which was only about 20 yards to the left of the pin I was aiming for), but I managed hit the golf cart of the guys in front of us, which I thought was hilarious, and they were good guys and laughed about it too. The ball took a super favorable bounce off their cart and I had an easy chip to get on (golf is ez). I finished up pretty strong and closed out with a 105, which for this being the first time out this summer isn't bad for me.

Tuesday night, I decided to take Chris and Pete out for a decent meal to celebrate the Stars win. We went to Sushi Roku at Caesar's, which is one of my favorite restaurants in Vegas. They both ate steaks (puss house about eating raw fish), but I ate like 24 pieces of sushi and it was delicious. The vibe of that place reminds me of South Beach - like, nobody is really dressed up, but you don't want to look like a piece of shit either. Casual chic is the term they use, I guess. They also play good music. It's loungey, but it isn't too 'W hotel acid-jazz-we're-trying-to-sound-hip-but-everyone-knows-this-music-sucks-ish'. Like, you might hear Sneaker Pimps there. Anyway, recommended.

On Wednesday, Chris and I headed over to Binion's to play their $150 PLO tourney. I was impressed with the way this tourney was run. We went to sort of donk around and check out the scene over there since they are running daily tourneys, and I'm glad we did. Shannon Elizabeth played and she was in my line of sight for the duration of my tourney existence; this obviously made the trip worthwhile. I never got anything going in the tourney, but Chris ended up getting a ton of chips so I decided to bail and cabbed it over to the Rio. I watched some of the $2500 NL final table with Devon Porter and John Phan. I saw Devon double up on a really crazy hand. They were 4-handed, blinds were 30k/60k I think. Guy opens utg for 180k, Devon moves in from the SB for around 500k total, utg calls. Devon has 3s3h, other guy has Ad7d. Flop comes 542, two diamonds. Turn pairs the 5. River 3d, giving the other guy the nut flush, but Devon makes a boat. Even Devon thought he was toast when the dime peeled, but the place went nuts; it'll be a great tv hand. I also railed some of the $5k NL event, which had a pretty stacked field. It occurred to me how silly it must feel to play these tourneys if you're someone like Chip Reese. The buy-in is a bit more than half a bet in the game you play...he seemed bored and busted while I was there.

Later Wednesday night I decided to play the late $109 on Stars again and took 3rd this time for $3500. There was some pretty massive hosage this time, but it happened in spots where the plays were absolute no brainers. First one, I think blinds were 200/400 and really active guy directly on my right raises, I have like 11.5k and TT. I shove, Pete is directly to my left at the table and sitting across the room from me in real life. He says, "I don't think I can fold." I reply, "do what you have to do." He overshoves 20k. Original raiser instacalls with AA. Pete has AK. I spike a T on the flop and no one else improves, so I then have a ton of chips. Around bubble time I have QQ hold against A2 for a huge pot. At the final table I shove 77 from the sb on a lp raiser only to have the bb wake up with AA. So that cripples me, and a few hands later I'm forced to shove AQ against an ep raise and a flatcall in between. Ep raiser has KK, but I spike an ace on the river to get back to almost average. Three handed, the other two were playing very, very timidly, trying to lock up 2nd place money so I was shoving a whole bunch, probably top 40% or so, and I eventually shoved K6 from the sb into the JJ of the bb and failed to hose for once.

Yesterday I played my first $540 at Venetian. 10k starting chips, same structure as the 330s, 40 minute levels, etc. Huge field again, around 550 entrants I guess, so first was $78k. I didn't really have many interesting hands...just chipped up slowly in the early going. There was one spot I hated. Blinds 200/400/25a. I have like 17k and raise to 1200 utg+1 with TT. Guy two behind me recently doubled in a huge pot with top 2 against top and bottom so he's sitting on like 60k. He flatcalls. Guy two behind him has like 7k total and shoves, it folds back around to me. I have no idea what to do here. Guy with 7k is a younger, competent internet player. He had shoved over a raise previously once and showed AK. He takes zero time to make his decision. I guess his range is basically TT+, AK, so I decide to fold. It's a weird spot because it feels like if I'm significantly shorter or deeper, I probably have to call...Huge stack folds too somehow and says while pointing to me, "if he was callin, then i'm a-defuhnettleh callin". Bustout hand happens at 300/600/50a. I have like 22k. Imminently trappable older guy raises to 2k from CO. I flat in the BB with KK. Flop Q-high, check, bet, raise, instashove, instacall. He has AQ, turn Q, ighn. I came home and felt like getting obliterated so Chris and I went on a beer run, then grabbed dinner at this place called Memphis Barbeque here in Henderson. It was good and cheap, so I'm sure we'll go back. When we came home, I convinced Chris to take part in my desperate attempts to cling to youth and we did a power hour and played battleship style hu matches with no blind increases on stars. Good times.

Today I don't really feel like playing so I sat out the daily stuff online. Think I'll go to the pool and chill and maybe play some golf later. I want to be as fresh as possible for the wsop sats on Sunday.

Arrivals and Departures

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 19:15:10 GMT

I officially arrived in Vegas yesterday morning; no travel snafus or delays. I did force billybizzle to wake up at 7:30 and pick me up from the airport (he lost a last longer bet with Chris for this honor). The condo is really nice and spacious - should make a nice home for the next month or so.

Chris and I played some junk online, and once we busted out of everything we decided to go to the golf course to hit some balls. There's a really nice public course about 4 minutes away from our place; I'm guessing we'll spend a good amount of time there. 18 holes at twilight is around $50, which isn't bad anywhere, but being so convenient, it's really pretty great. I'm not much of a golfer, but Chris is into it - I figure this is as good a time as any to get some hours in. After golf, we bought a cooler and some ice, brought some beer down to the pool and chilled for about an hour before heading to the strip.

We decided to grab dinner at Venetian and play their $200 8:00 tourney. We also met up with bizzle, leftygolfer, and Huskers20; the latter 2 played the Venetian $1k event - lefty was still in and busted pretty late but shy of the $. In the 8:00 tourney, you start with 4k in chips, blinds 25/50, 30 minute levels. The structure is obviously really crapshooty - at 400/800/50a, the average stack was like 10k. I didn't have any really interesting hands until I was in shove mode, but I feel like I play jam or fold as well as pretty much anyone, and certainly better than everyone in a live $200 mtt. I picked spots well enough to get up to about 45k with 12 players left, blinds 1500/3000/300a (18 spots paid). So we're 6-handed at two tables, average is probably around 35k. UTG opens to 20k with about 30k behind, I have AA two behind him. I agonize a bit, then reluctantly shove. Fold, SB overcalls all-in, BB folds, and UTG has to call off most of his stack. UTG has 55, SB has QQ. This is roughly a 120k pot, which will make the winner cl by about 50k going into the ft. Flop QJT, turn 4, river 2. So I'm left with 1500. I win two showdowns in a row and then start moving in every hand and not getting called. I work back up to around 30k and end up going out 10th when I shove KQo and lose to 66. First was $6k, 10th was an awesome $284. I really only played this as sort of a warm to get back in the feel for live play, and I wasn't invested at all - I was drinking pretty much throughout - but still a lame spot.

I think the game plan today is to play online a bit and then head to the strip to see Seinfeld. We're all playing the $330 at Venetian on Monday. I'm looking forward to checking out the "deepstack" structure.

Changes are afoot at the circle mk.

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:21:36 GMT

Most of you who will read this are people I talk to on a semi-regular basis, and therefore this won't be terribly enlightening. I do feel, however, that I should probably document the recent happenings in my life in some manner (if only for myself to come back to at a later date).

In short, I decided to leave my company after having been there for 3 years. When I started at BWT (right out of college), it was a small company with fewer than 20 traders. After 2 years, it had grown to almost 100 traders and probably 50+ tech staff. Then, at the beginning of this calendar year, it was announced that a merger was imminent and lay-offs (plus an overhaul of the business model) would ensue. With 100 traders, we essentially had a lot of people pointing at the same things, doing very high volume and very high frequency. The new business model would require far fewer traders, each of whom would 'carry more of the load'. I survived all of these cuts (down to ~30 traders), despite feeling almost certain (did I say 90%, Pete?) that I was going get axed at the end of March (end of Q1). After March came and went, I felt my position was relatively secure. This feeling continued until Tuesday, May 22nd, when I was pulled into a meeting with a number of other traders.

We were told that

A) The merger will happen within the next 6 months, at which time everyone excepting the partners will be let go (I'm not a partner).
B) Our deal will be changed, giving each trader a lower % of their own profits, (this is something of a wash, due to each person trading higher volume and therefore making more net $ each day) but it still adds up to each individual accepting more risk and less % reward.
C) I hold my own personal capital that I have built up over the past 3 years which stays at the firm as my "in case shit" money (as in, in case I personally lose $80k in a day, the firm debits that loss from my own 'holdback', as it's called, as a way to mitigate the entire company's risk and I just work it back up until the loss is erased in my own account. Everything we trade is highly leveraged, and therefore when losses pile up, they tend to do so across the board, and if every trader has an insurance policy, it basically helps everyone. But this is my money. I am the only one who can do something dumb and lose it. If the firm blows out, my money is still safe because I am not a partner. The partners (there are 10 of them) also each keep a large amount of personal capital at the firm. This is the money that allows the company to borrow from banks and hold gigantic positions for long periods of time. If anyone at the company were to do something stupid (like lose $100 million) and blow the firm out, the partners would lose a share of their money. They are paid quite well for accepting this risk, however - to the tune of 50% of the profits of every trader in the firm. On May 22nd, we were told that now our own personal holdbacks would be at risk in the event that the firm loses money. Apparently the partners decided they aren't comfortable with the amount of risk they're now assuming and want every trader to accept partner risk without accepting partner rewards.

It's fairly obvious that this is their way of letting people go without actually letting people go; you'd have to be retarded to stay under these circumstances. I am not about to let some mouthbreathing trader (and yes we had several) who has absolutely no business slinging 500 lots of cash lose my blah blah blah hard earned money. But with the merger happening in the next 6 months anyway, it felt like this presented the perfect timing for me to leave. I finished out the month. (Others did the same).

Now I get to take the summer off and chill out for a while. I have worked almost non-stop 70-80 hour weeks for the past 3 years, suffered burn-out 4 or 5 times, made some money, learned a lot, but maybe lost some perspective as well. I'm going to take some time to reconnect with friends I've neglected, and I'm going to do some traveling.

My first stop will be Vegas and the WSOP. I'll be leaving this Friday, June 8th, and I don't know exactly when I'll be coming back to Chicago, but it will probably be after the main event. I'll be staying in a condo in Henderson with billybizzle and summerofsumner. I have neither delusions nor intentions of becoming a full-time poker player, but it is something that I enjoy very much that I've had some success with in limited play thus far. I'm looking at this trip as mostly a vacation. I hope to do more partying/sitting by the pool/de-stressing than poker playing. I will not be direct-buying 40 1000+ entrant MTTs or anything. I will probably play a few of the wsop prelims that I think represent good value, and then I imagine we will spend a fair amount of time at both the Venetian and the Bellagio for their MTT series, respectively. So having said that... Prock, Kaplan, Pelton, Kyle - drinks?

After Vegas, I may go to Europe for a while. I had the pleasure of traveling through Italy, Austria, Germany, France, and England during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college, and I've been itching to get back ever since I began working. It's hard to get away from the desk when there's money to be made....

I will also finally have the time to focus some energy properly on music, which is probably my true passion. I look forward to finishing the will/fill album with John, and hopefully we'll start playing some shows. I miss playing live so so badly.

Then when the leaves start to change, I'm guessing I will go trade somewhere else. I have a lot of connections now in the business and should have no trouble finding something. If I'm going to stay in this industry forever, I'll probably have to go through NYC at some point, so that could be the next logical step.

To any of you guys who are going to be in Vegas in June/July, feel free to drop me a line.

Some notes on Schlesinger

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:02:39 GMT

Before Nixon and co. effectively turned "liberalism" into a dirty word, Arthur Schlesinger had this to say about it:

"Liberalism in America, has been a party of social progress rather than of intellectual doctrine, committed to ends rather than to methods. When a laissez-faire policy seemed best calculated to achieve the liberal objective of equality of opportunity for all -- as it did in the time of Jefferson -- liberals believed, in the Jeffersonian phrase, that that government is best which governs least. But, when the growing complexity of industrial conditions required increasing government intervention in order to assure more equal opportunities, the liberal tradition, faithful to the goal rather than to the dogma, altered its view of the state." -- from "Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans" (1956), from The Politics of Hope (Boston: Riverside Press, 1962).

His memorial service was yesterday. The media are rightfully concerned with Alec Baldwin's daughter, but you can still read about the ceremony here and here.

Zodiac

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:59:17 GMT

Haven't posted in a while. Some random stuff...

I've been looking forward to David Fincher's Zodiac since production was announced some 3 years ago. It looks like every critic worth a salt thinks it's a really good movie. I'll probably end up going to see it by myself tonight, since the grisly serial killer movie is not exactly old girl's cup of tea.

I've been working an insane amount the past week since the markets are finally giving us some volatility. Tuesday was kind of scary. Global sentiment has really shifted, and this credit crunch looks real. I am very much on board with the long curve, long vol sentiment.

winter wonderland

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:58:45 GMT

Okay, so if I'm reading this correctly - and I like to think that I am - people who choose to live in this land are enduring temperatures of -19 degrees F with winds of 84 MPH. This equates to a wind chill of -63 degrees F. I'm not even sure how 84 mph winds are possible absent a hurricane or tornado. New Hampshire: the land of snow hurricanes...

another song...

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:13:28 GMT

...is up on the myspace page.

http://www.myspace.com/willfill