NEW BEGINNINGS AND OTHER REDUNDENCIES

Monumental news readers (both of you), it would seem my summer of sloth has come to an end. This Friday will mark the last day of my retirement, and this Monday will mark my return to New York's tax base. So, with work, and, inevitably, lots of free time in my afternoon's on the horizon (don't worry, I work for the city), I turn back to the blog. Thus without further ado (OK, feel free to make a reasonable amount of ado if you like)I fill you in on:


WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT PEOPLE DURING RETIREMENT

Lesson #1 - PEOPLE ARE JUDGMENTAL - You complain to a few people that calling at noon on a Tuesday is cutting into your rest, you invite a friend or two to for breakfast at 2pm, and all of a sudden people think you need to find something to do with your time. To all you haters out there (hehe, haters), I'm doing something with my time, it's called sleeping!

Lesson #2 - PEOPLE ARE SENSITIVE- I don't know maybe it's just me but I think damning me to hell is a bit of an overreaction. So I called you at work at 10:30pm and you still had hours to go before you could leave; so I laughed and laughed and laughed; so I mentioned I'd already taken two naps in the past 14 hours. I think we need to focus on the more important issues, like your anger management problems.

Lesson #3 - PEOPLE DON'T LIKE THEMSELVES VERY MUCH - I know I touched on this in lesson #1, but people truly don't understand how I could stand having all this free time. They couldn't understand how I was going to be able to amuse myself every day for, what turned out to be, two months (please keep your 'the the answer is stamina' jokes to yourself). 'All your friends work', they said. 'You won't have anyone to talk to', they said. I tried explaining to them that I had me. That I found myself funny, smart, entertaining and yes, if I'm honest, dead sexy. I mean really, what more could you ask for out of company?

Lesson #4 - PEOPLE THINK I'M A NARCISSIST - No comment.

Lesson #5 - AFTER ALL THIS TIME PEOPLE STILL UNDERRATE THE INTERNET - I woke up this morning before 10 am, go ahead, I'll wait for you to pick up your jaw, got it? OK, as I was saying I was up early this morning and after attending to my morning rituals (quick aside: the FDA recommends 32 grams of dietary fiber a day for men)I hopped on line to peruse recent developments in current events; politics, business, the economy, world news and sports. Seeing how it's October and a Thursday there were no football, hockey or basketball games for my local teams the night before and the Yankees and Mets were both out of they playoffs so I figured I'd start with the shortest topic and went straight to the sports sections of various websites and newspapers. Long story short, it's 6:30 pm and I decided to take a break from reading about baseball to write this post.

God I'll miss being retired.

THE CUISINE OF ETHIOPIA

So I forgot my wallet at home today. I suppose I'm fortunate not to have been involved in some embarrassing story where I'm unable to pay for a meal I've just eaten, but the truth is, I think I'd prefer that eventuality to the present one.

You see, I'm hungry!

I don't know how familiar you all are with the human male's physiology, but it is a scientific fact that hungry men are grumpier and less efficient than their well-fed counterparts. Now, as I'm inefficient even when well-fed (actually I'm borderline comatose after a good shawrma platter), this hunger vaults me from inefficient all the way up to detrimental. Fortunately, given that I am, at present, an immigration attorney (I'm the one keeping them in), at least we can all benefit from my hunger fueled failures.

That being said, I'm still quite grumpy and this serves little to no use. Let me give you an example: Apparently one of the secretaries in our NJ office lost her father (I don't mean this in sense where you start talking about the internet and the eyes of your parental unit glaze over and the words "well, just don't talk to anyone long distance" plop out {or is that just my mother?}[speaking of which how old do you have to be to think you still have to worry about long distance])

Anyway, her dad died, and because we care, someone bought her a greeting card, to which we were all expected add our names and condolences. Now, we've covered greeting cards on here before (I'd link to it, but like there's that whole hunger = useless thing), but I think rhyming couplets reach a whole new level of absurd when it's an 'I'm sorry for your loss' card. I mean, is that really the time for a limerick? "I'm sorry your father went and kicked the bucket, but did your hear the one about the girl from Nantucket?" Actually, that's rather funny, but I'm kind of twisted like that, and I'm assuming most people aren't borderline sociopathic.

Hmm, I feel like I may have drifted from my point, where was I? Ah, yes, so they gave me this dumb card to sign in middle of what should have been my lunch hour. My stomach is rumbling, I'm seeing spots, and at that moment, I was of the opinion her father was better off than the rest of us. I know it doesn't justify it, but I don't care, I wrote it and i stand by it! OK, so maybe drawing an arrow toward said limerick and writing "what he said" isn't the most friendly gesture, but there's a good reason I didn't sign my name next to it!

BY ANY OTHER NAME

So, where was I?

I must say, I've missed our little chats. I know it's a bit of a cliche, but you guys are really just great listeners; I always feel comfortable opening up to you. I mean if not for you, observations like, "Cinco de Mayo being the worst ever name for a holiday", would just disappear amongst the synapses and ganglia. Now, don't get too pleased with yourselves, I am after all doing all the work, and to be honest, you aren't exactly the most stimulating company, so there's plenty of room for improvement. That being said, here it is:

Top Five Things That Bother Me Today

#5 - Cinco de Mayo - I'll be honest, I've done no research at all on this matter, but I think it's fair (not that I care) to say that this is pretty much the dumbest name for a holiday in the brief history of man and long weekends. Seriously, The guy who thought up CSI Green Bay used more creativity than whoever established this holiday. Things sounding cooler in Spanish aside, the name for the holiday that falls on May fifth is, May fifth. Even Big Bird thinks that name lacks imagination.

#4 - Tomato Juice - You know what occurred to me a second and a half into taking my first ever sip of tomato juice? If you can pour it on pasta and call it a sauce, you shouldn't be allowed to call it juice. I'm sure lycopene is really good for me and all, but I don't think that's any excuse for putting a straw in tomato sauce and calling it a beverage. I have no proof but I'm relatively certain the people behind this fiasco are the same ones that brought us soy MILK (I never knew soy beans had nipples).

#3 - Allergies - Now, far be it from me to question the good old prime mover, but as we turn the calendar to spring, I feel I must once again question the utility of of allergies. I'm not quarrelling with the existence of disease, I understand a thinning of the herd is necessary for the greater good, but I don't understand how having mucus and tears leak and fill every orifice in my head contributes in any way to society's greater good. Was God concerned that with Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts aging and the 'Sex and the City' Generation taking front and center, the tissue industry would crumble? Judging by the fact that Patrick Dempsey still has a career I'd venture to say that they're doing just fine. So how about it big guy?

#2 - CEO's - Look, I'm as greedy as the next Jew, but even I find myself throwing up in my mouth when I hear a CEO say that cutting his pay from $400,000,000 would be bad for the economy because if we cut the pay for CEO's we won't be able to attract the greatest talents. Let's ignore for a moment the fact that turning a massive profit while running an oil company is a job that a retarded, dyslexic, product of incest, orangutan could do without having to take a break from pulling fleas out of his coat, but is someone out there really saying that there are geniuses out there who would give up a career in business because they'd only make $300,000,000? What are they going to do instead? Invent Soy milk?

#1 - The fact that haven't seen 'Ironman' yet - If this lasts any longer I'm pretty sure I'll be the subject of the Scarlet Letter II. There are people in Ethiopia who traded this week's rotten banana for tickets to that movie. Speaking of which, I was reading a cooking magazine (shut up) and there was an article entitled, 'The Cuisine of Ethiopia' I'd do a joke but it almost seems like overkill.

A LESS THAN AWESOME VACATION

I know, I know, I've been gone for a while. I know what some of you're thinking, he ran out of stuff to complain about, he got lazy, realized no one was ever going to post a comment. These, friends, are lies! I will never run out of things to complain about. I have always been lazy and well, OK that last one's probably true, ingrates! Anyway, the truth is, embarrassing as it might be, I've been working! (I apologize, I realize that was an awful lot of exclamation points for a single paragraph) I don't know how it happened. It started out, innoucuously enough, with one attorney tendering her resignation. Her work was disbursed among the remaining attorneys and i thought life would go along as normal. Only it didn't. It would seem, unlike me, the other attorneys actually do quite a lot of what I had been heretofore calling "work", only they do it without the quotation marks. So that, in short (or long), is where I've been. Also baseball season started and my fantasy baseball teams are in contention. Whatever, you're just jealous. Anyway, that's all for now, but I'll be back with more soon, it looks like I only have to "work" in the near future.

ALL I CARE ABOUT IS... ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR HAIRCUT?

THE TOP FIVE THINGS THAT BOTHER ME TODAY:

#1 - People who think I’m dumb – JP Morgan has today announced that it will raise its offer for Bear Stearns from $2 per share to $10 per share. For all you liberal arts majors out there, they’ve quintupled their offer. This leads us to ask, why? Need to ask why? But didn’t JP Morgan give a reason for upping its offer by 500%? Yes, yes they did, and here it is: “we want to pacify angry Bear shareholders.”

Really? That’s the best they could come up with? In essence, they’re asking you to believe that they’re willing to quintuple their offer, not because they think that Bear Stearns is a steal even at five times the price, not because the government has essentially indemnified you against any loss by guaranteeing $30 BILLION in losses, but because they want to appease people who are angry? Who believes this crap?

They upped the offer not because angry people would reject the offer and further weaken the economy, but because they’re greedy vultures who, after thinking they’d safely snuck away with a well preserved carcass found themselves under the glaring spotlight of other vultures, vultures who asked; why didn’t the government ask me if I’d pay more to buy BS? Vultures who said; hell, the building alone is worth over a billion dollars and really, how much can they be on the hook for over and above $30 billion in guarantees? (I grant you that the whole ‘vulture’ analogy fell apart rather quickly, unless of course vultures have an organized system of government with a central bank and spotlights, but I feel like the comparison remains apt.)

#2 – People who discuss their aberrant lifestyles on the bus – Things I don’t want to hear a man talking about at 8am: 1) The various threesomes in which you have engaged 2) The moral hazards of dating two sisters and why you should be excused for their violations (morals and sisters) 3) Interest rates on 15 year T-bills in relation to junk bonds. That last one was unrelated but you know, it’s still annoying.

#3 – Time – I can’t decide if I want it to go by faster or slower. It’s really making me sound like a hypocrite. Though maybe we could have some sort of relativity machine that makes time feel slower on weekends, but faster on weekdays, but not on legal holidays, or sick days or vacation, or at night when I get home from work. OK I think I may need some more time with this.

#4 – Internet sites that hide customer service numbers – Who on God’s green Earth decided that a FAQ list could take the place of a customer service number? You know what question I asked frequently? Where’s the damn number! Didn’t see that on their precious little list. Now I know even if I get to customer service I’ll get screwed worse than those two sisters, but dude, come on, at least pretend like you care that I’m unsatisfied. Throw me a bone!

#5 – Reporters and their dumb questions Part II – There was a shooting outside some sports bar in the Bronx last night so of course the local news sent a reporter up there to interview people who live in the area. This particular reporter had exactly one interview make the cut. Her interviewee, a man who lives in the neighborhood, did not witness the shooting, and knew nothing about the bar, or the people involved. In fact, his knowledge, he said, was limited to the fact that there was a shooting. So what insightful question did our intrepid reporter ask this man with no useful information? Wait for it...

“Does this incident make you feel less safe living here?”

Bam! There it is. The only redeeming feature was the man’s response,

“Well, someone got shot, that doesn’t make me feel more safe.”

MOMMY, WOW! I'M A BIG KID NOW!

Hello all,

Before we begin today I just want to ask if any of you caught The Daily Show last night, if so, you'd have heard John Stewart deliver a joke that pretty much copied my oh, he only made those racist threatening remarks because black people are angry, THAT'S a relief. Now I'm not trying to say I have a copyright on the joke, though if any of you out there know anything about copyright infringement, call me, but I thought you'd appreciate knowing that, as a devoted reader of the best blog on the interweb highway, you're always ahead of the current events/comedy curve. Go on, give yourself a pat on the back.

Today's Thoughts:

This Bear Stearns news is becoming fishier and fishier. In case you aren’t aware the trouble started last week when rumors started circulating that BS had a liquidity issue. (Now, while I admit I may not grasp the full depth of the crisis posed by a lack of liquidity, I do understand that when people come asking for money you owe them, you can’t pay them back in office space.) BS responded by saying, no no, we don’t have a liquidity issue, we’re the Evian of investment banking, the Perrier of sub-prime mortgages, the Poland Spring of cash on hand (This may not be the central cause, but as an incidental point, it’s probably not the best idea to invoke Poland, the polish or anything that brings to mind a Polak joke, when defending your business acumen, it could lead to well, more jokes, e.g., how does a Polak solve a liquidity crisis? By selling his stock for a 93% discount!).

Anyway, it would seem people believed these rumors, not the Chairman of BS (though really when evaluating the trustworthiness of a statement, I feel like the guy called the Chairman of BS is at a severe disadvantage.), and in response called in their debts. Accordingly, a liquidity crisis, whether real or imagined before, became, unquestionably, real. What interests me, however (and if it interests me you can be sure you’ll see it on the Daily Show), is that the SEC is now investigating the source of those rumors; attempting to discover if they may have been perpetuated and perpetrated on the market by people who had shorted BS’s stock. In other words, if people made crap up so they’d win their bet about BS going down. This, apparently, is illegal.

More to the point though, I mean rumors are rumors, and people will always wonder if they’re true and maybe speculate on their own (unless they’re about Tom Cruise being a nutbag Scientologist who brainwashed his wife and thinks Earth was spawn by alien’s, in which case they ARE true and doubting them makes you kind of a ‘tard), but what we’re talking about here are rumors, possibly unsubstantiated ones destroying an entire investment bank. BS stock wasn’t sold by uninitiated tourists from Omaha who flinch at the sight of a working car, it was dumped by professionals, people at the top of their field, if they were hookers, Elliot Spitzer wouldn’t be able to afford them. Yet, these supposed masters of their domain, these MBA waving, hair gel smearing, gym at lunch going, fat bonus taking, cowards, wet themselves at the thought of a BS liquidity crisis, like a thirsty octogenarian with bladder control issues. These are the people in charge of our economy, the people’s who’s confidence and fears decide whether we will have to continue pretending the Canadian dollar is worth less than our own or whether we can go back to using them as kindling and toilet paper (surprisingly soft, though not very absorbent) Does this not concern anyone else?

THE AUDACITY OF RACISM

Just a few quick thoughts today:

- Barrack Obama is torn. He likes his pastor, he feel connected to him after being a member of his church for 20 odd years, but at the same time, it seems the guy is a flaming racist. This wouldn't be a particulary big problem if oh I don't know, say it were 50 years ago and Obama and his pastor were both white, but we have cell phones internet and youtube and so it's a very very big problem. Obama's response, people say dumb things when they're angry, and black people are angry. Black people are angry; I'm sure that will calm the fears of all white people the world over.

- I was going to write today about NY's new governor - a blind man - admitting to having affairs with multiple women several years ago. One doesn't generally admit to these things in advance, but my guess is that, seeing the climate, he decided admitting to having sex with people to whom he wasn't married wouldn't be nearly as bad now, as it would be once the sins of 'Elliot I'll pay more if you don't Spitzer' faded from the collective consciousness. I was going to ask how a man who couldn't even appreciate the concept of identical twins, could desire the company of so many different women and for that matter how he could get away with it. These may well be valid questions, but they've lost my interest. No, the question that does come to mind, the question that seems inevitable is, if the public wants an elected official who won't make dumb decisions for sex, why hasn't it elected more eunuchs and women? Oh that's right, Hillary Clinton.

- Bear Stearns was bought up by Morgan Stanley for $215 million, and the government promised to cover $30 billion in losses should it be necessary. According to my admittedly weak math skills they just got a $30,000 million loan for $215 million or a loan of over $150 for every dollar spent. I can't imagine how we ever got into a mortgage crisis.