The posting schedule will be a little erratic over the holidays….something will happen, but not sure when….coming back strong for the new year though, that’s fo sho….gonna be in Tunica, MS for a day or two and some old school homies are gonna try and make the trip….good times in the offing…

Tunica Update #1 - Played craps for about an hour, up $1600.  Passed on the alcohol given significant consumption  the previous four days – seems there’s a high correlation between drinking and fun/yelling.  My boy JG is getting in later tonight, should be good times, will try not to lose it all before he gets here (but family obligations should hopefully help prevent that).

Christmas fact: I have not been in a retail store in December.  It’s the thought that counts, and I think everyone really prefers cash.

Tunica Update #2 –  Predictably, I started losing my ass on day two.  Even the arrival of JG and my dad manning up big time to stay awake past midnight didn’t aid my cause.  Then, at 4:15 AM, a college kid in a fleece sweater managed a sweet 45 minute roll, coincident with my pumping up my bets.  Made a fat stack.  I am done with casinos for 1 year and 1 week.  No casino gaming in 2010, so burned out.  SO thinks i’m not serious.  She is incorrect.  Good to have my last session be a fat upswing, I will enjoy the hiatus.

A banded stack of hundos is always a good thing

Happy Holidays,

Chilly17

This photo leads to a lot of other questions, obviously.  Who was Jerry?  Was the need to obscure the original, ill-fated breast tattoo so great that she (he?) had to get anatomical over THE CENTER OF HER (HIS?) CHEST?  Who’s 2#dicksucka?  Was this a legitimate contest?  Who sanctioned it?  Was it an NCAA event?  Was there an option of a trophy or medal instead of a large center-of-the-chest tattoo?  Assuming this is a lady, how does the tat affect her ability to wear a low cut cocktail dress to an important social event?  (Obviously such strong credentials could boost social standing as well)  There are tons of questions, these are only the tip – which would still be visible wearing most non-puritan clothing…

1#DS, I salute you.  Also – how was this contest scored?  I assume an international panel of judges?  Seems like a very subjective sport….

Real post coming Thursday, couldn’t let this wait though – too topical,

Chilly17, some wasted potential here

Might be coming back tomorrow, or might stay an extra day or two, who knows?  Anyway, will be back with more nonsense shortly.

It's 160 degrees today, but not too humid

It was looking pretty bleak and I wasn’t even drunk enough to say at least I had some drinks (I was drinking vodka sodas with lime to start to nurture my girlish figure)…..and I was also playing outdoor craps at a half-size table by myself….then I went on a patented Chilly17 mini-run…including rolling five 5s in a row (which is essentially like getting 5 blackjacks in a row, and I was aggressively increasing my bet each time)….and made $2273 on my roll….so i lost $27 in that first session – but I had 2 drinks!  They are like $38 at The Cove so let’s book that as a win….

Little lazy river session, some chicken fingers to get pre-wired for the Nobu to come….Live vicariously, ya’ll….

Chilly17

Hola, I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya…anyhoo, stayed up til 3:30 AM playing R-Type on the PS3.  Yes, that’s a videogame from 1987, not some of the newfangled shit that I can never figure out how to control.  But blowing up shit in two dimensions?  That, I understand.  But god am I awful – I blame it on the super-sensitive controller not being able to keep up with my cat-drinking-Red-Bull-like reflexes.  Anyway, I’m a little tired today, and also a little puzzled at how Bank of America is trading.  I need to read more but I thought converting all those government preferreds was tantamount to nationalization?  Guess not, prob just puts them in roughly same boat as big C.  Definite cause for 30% run.

Onto some stuff:

1.  Celebrity Apprentice

I am disgusted with myself for watching this moronic show (especially given that it’s always two hours long, except for the finale, which measures in at a horrific three hours).  Some Google searcher found my site yesterday by searching “I hate Annie Duke” – that amuses me because I don’t think I ever really wrote that sentiment specifically, but it was definitely coursing through my veins.  I have seen self-absorbed, self-obsessed, but Annie Duke takes it to a higher level, higher even than Tyra Banks.  I think she’s into self-deification at this point.  Hearing her crying and bragging about beating Clint Black in a songwriting contest was pure verbal ipecac.  

Of course, it all comes down to Joan vs. Annie now (I’m sure the producers had nothing to do with that).  Jesse James was clearly the most competent contestant (and, in his defense, Clint Black was the only one who seemed to realize it was a game).  I guess I’ll pull for a member of the Rivers family here, over-the-top insults aside (calling Annie “pit viper whore” and “Hitler” was probably excessive for a game ostensibly benefitting charities).  TV guys – please minimize the closeups of Joan’s face, it’s only slightly less shocking than the face transplant lady.

2.  Micro review: New Yankee Stadium

Went to the Yanks/Sox tilt Monday night, the one that started 2.5 hours late, my first time in the new stadium.  I’m no expert, but it’s pretty sweet: the jumbotron has insanely great resolution, the corridors inside are actually wide enough for more than 4-5 people to walk through simultaneously and the food options looked pretty good.  Belying my poor, unemployed state I had fantastic seats courtesy of a former colleague via some philanthropic lawyers (I doubt they were looking for future business or anything).  

There are a few good seats available

There was some pretty humorous hazing going on, particularly toward Jason Varitek – “Don’t worry about it, Varitek, you’re making up for your offense with your D” – the game after Carl Crawford had a major league record-tying six stolen bases against Boston.  Okay, maybe that’s only funny to me – but anything repeated like 60 times ten feet from the dude is likely to seem funny.  Starting to understand why these guys make so much money, having everyone yell how much you suck every day would be painful to the self esteem (unless you are Annie Duke – she’s fucking amazing!  No one would ever heckle her!)

Also, of note – free food if you are in a Legends seat.  This could really bring down the uber-high cost of the ticket if you are a competitive hot dog eater (although you have to go to the Legends Lounge to get the food, and the beers they bring to you are $15….a non-bargain.)

Micro-Verdict:  Did not suck.

3.  Micro Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

What's that on the floor?

There’s not much to say about this one, you’ve read the reviews.  It kind of sucks, but not as bad as you’d think.  It also makes almost zero sense.  Hugh Jackman apparently did a little working out in advance of this one as he’s got some veins sticking out of his arms that I didn’t even realize existed.  Liev Schrieber and (gasp) Ryan Reynolds are good.  Tim Riggins from FNL plays a completely new character: mutant Tim Riggins, complete with authentic Tim Riggins accent.  

Besides several illogical plot points and character motivations, there are about ten too many mutants introduced.  Speaking of which, if they are going to introduce so many mutants in all these movies, why are they shying away from the baddest-assed mutant of all?  Where is Havok???  He’s Cyclops’ bro and can merely absorb ambient cosmic energy into the cells of his body, then transform and release it as waves of energy that heat the air in their path enough to turn it into plasma.  Translation: he blows a lot of shit up.  If I recall correctly, he once turned Wolverine into an adamantium skeleton, so there’s probably some Marvel backlash against him.  Or else his headgear is a little off-putting.  

 

Classic all-black, plus a tiara

Micro-Verdict:  Sucked.

4.  Funyuns

Prominently featured in two recent episodes of Chilly17-endorsed Breaking Bad!  Finally, some well-deserved respect and national exposure.

Later, 

Chilly17

those 2000+ word posts have been taking like 4 hours to write, even though: 1) they are lame, and 2) they are about near and dear topics that are ostensibly easier to opine about. But i did promise to myself that i would put some content on my fledgling site; back when i was a part of the working world, i highly valued the rare web article that was fairly interesting, entertaining and  long enough to endure my Grilled Stuft Burrito and Double Decker Taco lunch…there wasn’t actually much out there….now if i just had anything interesting to say!…anyway, i am going to post 3 longish entries per week (given my trading, drinking and gym visits, there isn’t a whole lot of free time, even for the COBRA-enhanced) at a minimum….feel free to comment in the posts as i haven’t been referred to as “fuckhead” nearly enough in my unemployed months.

Thursday Observations:

#1:  The Market - It seriously cannot be this simple making money on the short side of the market – it’s almost guaranteed that my venture to the short side will lead to the squeeze of all squeezes….but stay tuned if you are in the equity markets – i think Dow 6000 is likely but heaven forbid Dow 5000…full disclosure: Dow 5000 and i will probably need to stay at your place for a couple weeks.

#2  Terrell Owens - Was there really a lot of internal debate about this on the ‘Boys?  I seriously fucking hate the Cowboys (N iners fan since 1980 – feel free to blow me with your “frontrunner” accusations – they’ve sucked for 10+ years – but HAVE won a playoff game since the ‘Boys have) but i think this clearly makes them better…alligator arms, team cancer, major distraction at all times…one interesting note is that one of my VPs when i was an investment banking associate at Tarp Bank 1 was his training camp roommate in 1996.  This VP was an enormous dude (all-SEC defensive end at Vandy) and he said Owens had the biggest hands of anyone he’d ever known.  Jesus.  

#3 – Watchmen –  I’m probably going to see this tomorrow at like 4:15, but a lot of that is because my schedule is fucking awesome.  I know they’ve advertised out the ying yang and the graphic novel is considered a Michelangelo-ish masterpiece, but i just can’t imagine this really killing the box office.  Maybe $120-150 million total domestic receipts.  Grim subject matter, uber violent, and zero chance of a sequel (unless they REALLY made changes) …I haven’t seen the film yet, and this is taboo to admit, but i didn’t think the novel was really that great (but i read it in 2006, not 1986)….but Rorschach is the fucking bomb….probably the literary embodiment of “uncompromising.”

#4 – Submarine Training – One vignette i forgot to mention…the first thing you learn to do on a submarine is be the shift engineering officer (“Engineering Officer of the Watch” or EOOW in Navy parlance).  One of the key things you had to do was give orders over the main microphone.  Sounds pretty easy – say a couple words, the crew carries out your orders.  There were very strict acceptable phraseologies – never “increasing/decreasing” because they sound too much the same…”raising/lowering” was the only way to go.  

Prototype, that second phase of training i referenced in my previous post, was the first place we actually took the MIC as EOOW.  (I was in Charleston, SC – which i am almost sure was the only city in America in 1995 where you could still stop for 3 seperate freight trains within a 2 mile driving radius)….i was absolutely petrified during my first “watch”; one of the first, very simplistic orders i had to give was “Start Main Coolant Pumps 1 and 2″….sweating literally buckets, i grabbed the mike like the eager Rabbit and 8 Mile and offered “Start Main Poolant Cunts 1 and 2″….took a while to restore order….

Here’s a pretty sweet music video with a decent gym song – bonus points for showing some outlandish things to do to really drunk people (aside from the usual penis drawings)…

The purple label, cab/shiraz blend, is fucking delicious, no matter what all you wine snobs think…pair that with some Fiery Habanero Doritos and you are set for an hour or two (depending on whether you went for the magnum)…

So anyway, in lieu of my annoying long emails, i have started this site and will put all my ruminations, musings, insights here.   Brutally honest feedback appreciated – after being in the military and a banker i’m pretty used to constructive criticism (“you are a fucking moron, how could you do that?!?”)…