Michael Gracie

And it’s not even April Fools Day

From Yahoo! News:

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Maybe there’s a market out there for penis alarm systems, although I doubt anyone would purchase the automatic penis disablement option.

The “Mobile” category is now gone…I’ve moved the paltry five posts to “Office.” I’d like to say I did this for the same reason Russell Beattie tossed mobile, but it’s not. I still believe in the general concept of internet mobility, but its contortions (like blogging) just don’t suit me. When I’m away from the desk I’m usually either:

• Walking the dog - He gets pissed if I use the phone during his time and starts “drag-assing”, which results in a half-hour walk taking two hours.
• Driving - I can weave through traffic and tap out text messages, but I have trouble logging into Wordpress while doing the same.
• Meeting - Downright rude to blog while in a meeting, although I’ve seen a few folks try it only to wonder afterwards why they were alone in a previously crowded room.
• Drinking, eating, or otherwise making merry - If you must have web access while drinking, I suggest you find new friends to drink with; if you’re doing it while eating, remember to clean the keyboard afterwards.
• Fishing - The water is my church, and my fly box is my Bible. You might blog while you’re in Sunday services, but if I do it during mine I run the chance of dropping my Blackberry in a river and voiding the warranty.

I think that is more than enough excuses.

Derivative headline for a derivative world.

Was discussing the same idea with a colleague just this morning…

And if another investment bank were to fall like Bear Stearns, there are no more J.P. Morgans to pick up the pieces. In addition, counting on foreign countries’ investment funds may be problematic, as many politicians balk at the fact that all but one sovereign wealth funds are from countries without a democratic system.

For the better part of a year there’s been play with banking shorts. Now there seems to be a lot of money sitting on the sidelines, persistent chatter that the bottom has been reached, and yet continued resistance towards the upside. Uncertainty is the prevailing wind.

The take over here is there are still a lot of writedowns left to go, and even more balance sheet games which will eventually exacerbate the situation. The Fed and the Treasury seem to have “blown their wads” too early. More obvious taxpayer funded/direct bailouts could create downright insurrection (or at least there are going to be a lot of pissed off renters rioting in the streets). The WSJ is correct in their assumption - there just aren’t many J.P. Morgans left to do the bailing. Then there is the offshore money. Politics aside, you have to wonder how much of it will be willing to chase financial assets of a dollar denominated nature - said assets may look cheap to them now, but may get a hell of a lot cheaper in the year to come too.

At the very least I suspect it is going to be an interesting summer.

Well just about everyone. But it depends on where you look.

Newspapers are crying “Craigslist, Craigslist!” Mags just blame blogs (I think). But no matter where you turn in the print media realm, some entrenched someone is blaming the internet for their woes. Personally, I think the above mentioned problems stem from piss poor content. A recently lobotomized chimpanzee could probably still reason that much of what they are reading, otherwise passed off as “news”, is really some journo’s half-baked attempt to skew the issue of the day to their fancy (while they wait for their contract buyout). Plainly and simply, it’s primarily bunk.

There are, however, a few good tithings within. Plenty of publications are getting bought out by guys who think Google is stealing their content. This levels the playing field by letting a few shareholders save face, and it keeps Google somewhat in check (baseless lawsuits notwithstanding). And there are plenty of blogs out there that get to opine endlessly about the need for print publications to adapt - some of these folks will eventually succumb to gainful employment as the VP’s of Internet Strategy for these dinosaurs, and many developers will make a few bucks setting up in-house blogging networks. Additionally, a few feed aggregators get bought, and some twenty-something MBA school dropouts get to pay Mom, Dad, and J.P. Morgan Chase back. Several years from now mainstream print publications will figure out whether their desperate attempts worked. I suspect many won’t last that long.

Meanwhile, those three-inch thick books that wind up on your doorstep (i.e. yellow pages)? Well, they’re print - pretty much newsprint, just bound. They take up a lot of paper and press time. They’re given away. There are few internet-oriented barriers to entry. Time to dig another grave?

Uh, nope. They seem to be thriving. Maybe it is because they whine less.

UPDATE/ADDITIONAL: Peter Kafka says the economic downturn is making magazines bleed. A comparison of rate cards to home prices? Very original.

Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture, on the National Association of Realtors…

My apologies for lumping in the Realtor’s group with drug abusers. In doing so, I meant no insult to the crackheads of the world…

Heh.

I was shooting for a leg amputation instead

The New York Times called for the death of blogging, or maybe that’s death from it. No need to link to it - the echo chamber takes care of all your referencing needs.

While folks throughout the world were keeling over on their keyboards, I was out on a river Sunday. We had sun for about ten seconds, and snow flurries for the other seven hours. The water’s edge was icy, and the water itself was roughly one degree warmer. I made the mistake of standing in said flow.

I’d picked up a North Face Denali jacket for a cool hundred bucks during the one and only stop on the way up, and with capilene from head to toe you would have thought a die hard could take it. Could have.

Roughly fifteen minutes after arrival, my right foot started feeling damp. A half hour later the whole leg was soaked up to the knee. What gives?

This…

…as in giving me a quart of water shloshing around inside my waders.

I put up with it for the rest of the day, but by the time we prepared for the hike out I felt like I was walking on a stub. The moment I complained the jokes started flying:

• “Let’s get rid of the toes right here on the trail. It’ll make the hike easier.”
• “Do you have a liquor flask? Not for the pain - we need to sterilize first.”
• “Are you sure you didn’t just pee in your waders again?”

Ha ha ha. I wound up getting comped a meal and a microbrew (out of pitty, I guess). But my sides still hurt from the comedy.

I do not wish to demean anyone’s death. It is certainly tragic, and I am sure those whose hearts failed from the stress are dearly missed. I send both my condolences, and a message…

There are a lot more important things in life than grabbing internet headlines - one of mine just happens to be catching fish (and getting heavily ribbed by my friends).

Does anyone see confusion between the leading story and those following?
Compliments of Yahoo! Finance

Paul Kedrosky says Barry Ritholtz is a perma-bear. Mr. Ritholtz’s latest claim, that a short fund manager’s April Fools Day memo caused today’s market rally might lend credence to the claim, but I am not buying it.

One need look no further than the links Mr. Ritholtz points to in his post. Each and every piece of cheerleading which referenced “the memo” has now been wiped clean, meaning the so-called journalists have tacitly admitted to being hoodwinked.

When the markets can only thrive on bogus AMBAC bailout rumors and short-fund managers’ April Fools jokes, said markets cannot be particularly healthy.

SIDE NOTE: the S&P was up 33 and change as I wrote this.

UPDATE: Looks like the joke went meta. I suspect a lot of folks are now saying they knew it all along. Me…not going there. I was duped by some masterful work - my skepticism of the media was worked over bigtime. And I doubt I’m alone in getting fooled or with regard to the media incredulity.