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I’m excited.

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had same issue.

I contacted other parents, checked them out on LinkedIn, took a leap of faith.

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the brain is trash.
but save the bones!

they have cash value

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I want my skull to rest on one of my kids desks.

is that too much to ask after all I’ve done for them?

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I bought a MATTRESS off amazon for 100$ with shipping.

who knows where it came from.

I always feel like it had to cost more money to get items here than I pay…but apparently not.

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a skull is worth 2000$

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I want my bones to go to my family esp the skull

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I’m cheap, but not that cheap

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ugh. i needed the discount 20 years ago.
now I’m financially ok.

but wait. what’s this about refilling mcdonalds cups…

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i see that now. my mortgage co. has online calculator to play with new payoff scenarios and its easy to adjust payments.

cant seem to commit.

if i stayed here for another 25 years i think id rather keep the mortgage,as an inflation hedge.

if im leaving within 10 years, rather pay it off.

although irdational, partial payoff feels more futile, less gratifying.

temecula prob uninhabitable due to global warming by 2043

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i was learning about the Perry expedition of 1853. We went to Japan, pointed some big guns at them, and said trade with us or we will kill you.

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

as long as we can remain willing to kill anyone who dares to challenge our economic plans, our stock market should be fine.

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i agree.

i wonder if my grandparents worrried about crap like this.

one grampa lost a thriving business in the depression, worked hard the balance of his life, at reduced consumption level. their apt was spartan but pleasant. i remember the couch. the dresser. old heavy wood furniture. i was happy there. they were so proud of my mom.

frankly he seemed like a very happy dude. he was always cheerful. he had not much, but it seemed like more than enough for him. he loved playing chess with us, taking us to the park. maybe he was nervous but i didnt see it. lived a long life. i wish he could play chess with my boys. he had the old pieces in a wood box. i think the set was slightly mismatched. very used, very old.

the other was more hardcharging, a lawyer who made money in business but died way too young, not much older than me. yikes.
my understanding is my dad was always searching for approval .

i doubt that grampa worried much about anything from what i hear. he made others worry.

not sure why i worry.

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I don’t believe in G-d, but i almost believe in mammon.

the stock market is our church.

the federal reserve is the Holy Ghost.

short sellers are Jesus Christ.

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it all just feels so unreal.

i had a job during the summer of 1981 on wall street. i was a temp. I recall counting bond coupons people sent in for payment.

those were real little piece of paper. they at least felt like something tangible, real world. they were printed on nice paper and looked kinda like money. i had to be bonded. I didn’t steal any, didn’t even think of it. i was proud and pleased to be handling items of high value. I remember the bank was very old school, fancy, looked like soemthing from the 1930s. I think it was chase manhattan.. i have no idea why they let me do that. i was very young.

now I barely get statements for my accounts.

numbers flit across the computer screen. what the hell is it, where is it. brokerages don’t even have it, it’s on some central repository Book of All Monies somewhere, only G-d knows, i suppose. it’s out there though.

and it is real, of course, i mean, it’s real, since we all believe in it and accept it.

but it can be kind of creepy…like we are living in some kind of mass delusion.

these “stocks”, they are traded millions of times a second by wall streets robots bidding against one another, algorithms. they are bizarre signifiers of what?

if you start to think about this shit too much, you could get really weirded out. is there really something underlying those stock prices that is anything near what the price is?

does that even matter?

are stocks more like works of fine art, worth something for the value we impart to them, much more than the mere paint and canvas? are we really buying a share of a moneymaking business, or just a bet on what everyone thinks everyone else thinks someone might pay for it, like litecoin?

I mean, I put my money in them, but I do not believe in them. it feels a little like the matrix

I believe they have some value, but it is impossible to tell what that is now, let alone 20 years from now.

here’s a thought experiment: what if there were no historical data on the stock market. let’s say every single stock being traded were an IPO today; full, accurate disclosure of everything in the business…

do you think the stock price would be higher,lower or the same as today?

maybe the excitement of the IPO woould drive the prices even higher…but

to me, it’s pretty clear the price would be a hell of a lot lower, since we are willing to pay a premium for historical performance, like it means something for the future. that’s what we look at when we go to invest.

but past returns do not predict future returns, its on every prospectus. so….

people who think about shit too much tend to have worse returns, i think.

my wife’s accounts always outperform mine.

i believe the correct course of action is to give your money to a robot and obey our robot kings.

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ive been watching old japanese movies from netflix. just finished watching “twenty-four eyes”, a 1953 film about a liberal teacher in japan in 1928 who watches her students grow up to suffer or be cannon fodder. it’s called 24 eyes because she has 12 students. also recently wacthed yasujiro ozus TOKYO STORY (brilliant!) and GOOD MORNING (less brilliant but also good). mainly, these old movies make me think about the vagaries of fortune, and how major reversals can occur. people int he movies who were doing great are often not doing well ina short span of time. this is probably not a good way to invest, expecting revresals of fortune…a nd perhaps money and returns on money are far less important in such circumstances. although in 24 eyes, there are lots of winners and losers too. one family prospers while another goes bankrupt, young kids are forced to work, while others do better. next up, ozu’s LATE SPRING. I expect this will also cause me to make poor investment decisions.

i am extremely pleased to live ina society where i can get vintage japanese movies sent to my home by netflix for really not all that much money. I feel wealthy just being able to get them for a few bucks. in the old days, how would i ever get to see such amovie.

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