| Oh, yes. |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|05:09 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | bikes | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the Darke | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Girl Talk - Minute by Minute | ] |
The continuing log of Mark's Stolen Bicycles:
#5 was stolen from outside my work on Friday, July 3rd. I was using the rather ratty chain that it's previous, generous owner had given me - it was only ever a deterrent to undetermined thieves.
I have already procured a replacement - it's orange! -, free as #5 was, and now need only a lock.
I just decided to take a look in the archives for other bike posts. It looks like I got 2 years of service out of good ol' #5 - a bit less than I had thought. |
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| SaskTel |
[Dec. 12th, 2008|10:24 am] |
Well, I just passed my training exam. That means I'm in. In at SaskTel.
It's kind of like the land of milk and honey. I mean, working tech support isn't exactly easy, but it's a LONG way from hard. And the wages - oh MY, the wages! And then there are the benefits package, the health package, the insurance package... let me just say, it's re-DONK-ulous. It's a public company, so I can say whatever I like about our wages and whatnot, but I'd prefer if you asked rather than just having me tell everyone. I don't want to gloat.
I am kind of relieved that I didn't get in at Access, frankly. This is so much better it almost physically hurts, except perhaps in reverse.
I'm just really, really happy recently. I mean, I'm usually what most people would call "happy" - if someone asks how I'm doing, I say "well" or "pretty decent" or perhaps "fine", though I try not to be Frantic, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. But recently? "Faaaaantastic", "Grrrrrreat!", "fucking excellent", and at least "pretty great" have been my status lines. It's kind of crazy.
Enter the next stage of my life: the making money part. Soon I will be invincible.
I wonder if I should talk to my manager about taking a class in Winter '09. I will likely need more classes to support my eventual managerial bids. Hmmm.
More updates as I think of them. |
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| Silver Linings |
[Nov. 19th, 2008|05:01 am] |
I just read a fantastic article on a possible silver lining from the fall-out: Will the Wall Street Storm have a giant silver lining.
One of the most salient bits concerns 'quants' (pay attention, you're likely to be hearing a lot about these guys soon), those MIT/Harvard physics/math whizzes who were making hojillians to cook up destructive and confusing new financial tools like derivatives. Well, around 200 000 of them are now losing their jobs, and are moving into other fields.
I find the thought of all of these quants entering other fields now that finance is not making them millionaires, and thus possibly giving us the brain-power we need to develop alternative energy structures quickly, to be ironically delicious. Oh finance. First you taketh away, then you giveth. |
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| aBLOGalypse |
[Nov. 6th, 2008|06:25 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | meme | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the Darke | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | random Bullet For My Valentine | ] |
So it would appear that the c3nobyte has tagged me in this bloggy meme-y thing. I'm not sure why she did so. Perhaps she likes giving me social diseases.
Regardless, diseased I remain. And, rather than simply ignoring this and hoping it goes away, I shall use this opportunity to share a few bits of random. Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
I have decided that my branch of this forking disease stops with me, and shall therefore tag NO ONE. That's right, bitches. And also non-bitches.
1. I have incredible difficulty waking up at any time prior to about 9am, regardless of the time spent sleeping. What would be a good night's sleep from 2am to 10am is much less so from 10pm to 6am.
2. I believe truth to be perhaps the most valuable gift that can be earned.
3. I may not always eat my vegetables, but I always eat my fruits.
4. I have a wonderful, loving family, none of whom really get me in the slightest.
5. Due to it being sized slightly incorrectly, I lost my grad ring. I am completely uninterested in acquiring more jewelery for myself.
6. I have a Java book that has been sitting on my desk for me to read for 2 months, and instead I am reading a book on Public Finance and auditing an economics course. And yes, I DO have my B.Sc. in Computer Science. |
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| There is a song |
[Oct. 22nd, 2008|10:55 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | music, thoughts | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the Darke | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  furious | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Tool - Vicarious | ] |
It is my favourite song of all time.
It is one of the only songs that immediately makes me emotional. Specifically, it makes me both furious and teary-eyed, at the same time.
The song is Vicarious, by Tool.
I become furious because they're right. They're so right it hurts.
I become sad because there is nothing I can do about it.
Maybe its thinking about the girl I met at Chris' place last night, particularly her family. Maybe its thinking about the world economy and the nations that aren't part of the G7, and the turmoil and death that must be happening world-wide right now. I don't know. Likely some of both.
Why is it that I do NOT vicariously live while the whole world dies? Feed on tragedy? What the fucking fuck. And yet I know its true.
Much better I than you. |
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| Blogging |
[Oct. 21st, 2008|01:25 am] |
I wonder often why I created this blog.
I am not a needy individual. I do not require your vindication (though I admit, your infusions of knowledge are quite delightful).
Nor do I feel a desire to spew vitriol. Quite the contrary.
But some days, I do know why. And I am grateful to Andrew Sullivan for reminding me.
I wish I'd been blogging on 9/11. To remember exactly what I was thinking, when the 2nd tower hit? Or when I got up for breakfast and saw the 1st tower on fire, and wondered if it was real? That would be something. But I HAVE so much from my blog. These memories, with the faulty nature of my memory, would likely be lost if not for it.
I do not possess many of the facets that Andrew mentions. I do not have a bevy of readers; I do not engage in huge email debates through my blog. However, I do enjoy being able to participate in comment-fests on others' blogs. Blogging has had a wonderful effect on literacy and the overall importance of text versus video.
Thank you, Andrew Sullivan. I liked you on Real Time with Bill Maher, you have given me a small present today, and you have proved yourself worth listening to in future.
Without further ado,
Andrew Sullivan: Why I Blog |
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| Life According to Mark |
[Oct. 12th, 2008|09:03 pm] |
I swear, LJ is pretty low on my list of priorities; I ignore it so frequently. I am back for one major reason: I have been thinking a LOT about economics for the last few weeks, and I think I want to put my thoughts down into a stable form.
First, my update on own economic situation. I should be bringing in an income soon, hopefully by the start of November. I wish companies weren't so freaking slow in their hiring, but they are. I will almost certainly be coding, and I will work at it long enough to get out and do something I actually WANT to. Yay job experience! What I'll be working at in a few years is mostly mystery to me. Maybe I'll take some course and become an accountant or a financial analyst, maybe an administrator of some kind. I may transfer to being a business analyst after I get some experience - I understand the programming cycle pretty well, and that sounds like the kind of problem solving and theoretical application that I would LOVE.
The reason I'm really posting, though, is the global economy. I have to admit, I'm very excited. I wish I had years of financial experience and tons of money right now, so I could make a hojillion dollars in the stock market.
Let me explain. Now, I'm no economic genius. I could be wrong about this. But the view I have is this: there are a lot of good, solid companies out there, like General Electric and Wells Fargo and Coca-Cola, that are trading down from what they really should be. There are other, shakier companies that are WAY down from what they should be, like General Motors. We don't have 30% unemployment, like we did around the Great Depression. We don't have the kind of lax restrictions that allowed that stock crash to ripple through the US. More importantly, we have 75 years of economic advancement, and the ability for economists to hear about this plan and figure out solutions THE NEXT DAY. A week ago, Paulson was going to be auctioning off worthless mortgages or something, and now (taking the advice of bushels of economists) he's going to be doing some kind of "recapitalization:" (read: government buying the banks). The US is falling to communism! How delightful!
There are a lot of reasons this downward spiral is continuing. I don't understand half of them, I'm sure. But the important thing is that the economists do, and I know how to listen and read. What most of them are saying is that governments are going to need to buy their countries' major banks: though currently Canada and (I think) New Zealand are the only countries with government-run banks, the world is going to follow them through massive recapitalization. The UK is already there, I understand.
This is my (quite vague) prediction. This crisis is going to continue to become worse for a little while, the stock market is going to continue to drop. Eventually, some businesses will be forced to cut jobs, and their growth will go down. We will hit a global recession (that's the difficult part to understand, I think - we're not actually in a global recession yet, we're just having a lot of stock market turmoil). But then, the government buying of banks will bring liquidity back into the market (i.e., people will be able to borrow, and what's more, borrow without losing their shirt). And then? Remember those stocks I mentioned before? There are still a lot of good companies out there, and far more decent companies, and most of them will still have their doors open for business. When companies can BORROW money again from banks, and don't have to sell stock just to have enough money to continue to EXIST, they will be able to invest again. It will turn from a market of fear selling to a market that is vastly undervalued. And stocks are going to soar like there is no tomorrow.
This is a time of incredible opportunity. I don't know when the time to strike will be, but I hope that things happen a LOT slower than I think they are going to, so that I have money before things start to get better. Because, dammit, I know Jill said that there are financial analysts willing to give consultations for free. I want to be a part of this thing.
I'm afraid I just don't believe people who say that "we have a long way to go before we hit bottom". I just don't. This is unprecedented territory, true, but we've lost 40% on most world stock markets in, what, 2 weeks? 3? That isn't RATIONAL selling. That is FEAR selling. The world is still a wealthy place - the problem is that the rich people are terrified that if they lend each other money, they won't have enough to cover their obligations. Once world governments stop the markets from hemmoraging money, and restore confidence, the world will begin to heal. And in the process of healing, it will make wise investors filthy stinking rich.
I've been reading so many different blogs and news sites that its all become a blur, but one I just read an hour ago said that the risk/profit ratio on the S&P 500 is currently at around 11%. Canada Savings bonds give you, what, a bit over 3%? With nothing to help against inflation? Good grief.
Of course, what exactly is going to happen with the US is anyone's guess. They're so far into debt already that they're going to have a heck of a time climbing out. Did you hear about the Debt Clock on Wall Street being taken down? Yeah. They needed to add another digit to the debt - $9.9 trillion wasn't enough. Nice going Bush.
PS: heh. Clever music program. You always know what to play. |
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