Oh hell yeah.
I was almost sure that I'd be called in to work today, but the phone never rang. So I slept in late. And then when I finally motivated myself to do something, all I did was roll over and hit the button on the coffeemaker, which sits on top of the mini-fridge that sits right next to my bed. Since the fridge is right there, I don't have to get up to get my coconut-flavored creamer, either. And I have two coffee cups sitting next to the coffee maker, too (because you never know when you're gonna have company), so everything I need is right on hand.
Once the coffee finished brewing, I remained in bed drinking the entire pot while I watched college football all morning long. Oh, and before you ask, I had some stellar picks again, like Vanderbilt, Illinois, Northwestern, Kentucky, and Mizzou. All of them lost.
Apparently, I really suck at picking college football games. Ace Rothstein's throne isn't going to be challenged by me anytime soon.
Anyhow, as lazy as my day began, I actually did a few productive things today. I got lots of laundry done. I scrubbed the bathroom. I straightened up my closet and my desk. And I got a bit of reading done, too. But the siren song of the boob tube couldn't keep me away, so I found myself enjoying the Tennessee/Georgia game while trying to avoid seeing the beatdown USC was putting on my pathetic Sun Devils.
In addition to all of the bad news on the college ball scene, I had to face the music in another area today, too. I dug out my quarterly 401k statement that I got back in July. At the time, I just put it in the drawer without looking at it, just because it wasn't a priority. But my next statement comes out this week, and it'll be interesting to compare the two.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'll tell you that I've got 12% of my money in cash, and 88% of it in growth stocks. Unfortunately, they've been growing in the wrong direction all year long, and back in July, my one year rate of return was -10.94% .
Ouch.
And it's gonna be waaaaaay worse this quarter. I'm looking at losses approaching 25-30% for the year. (Update--I cheated. I went online and looked, and right now, YTD, my account value is down about 18%)
But you know what? It's no big deal.
Yep. That's right. I said it. It ain't no thang.
Here's my mini-rant. So many people are, for lack of a better term, completely ignorant about finance and economics. They seriously have no clue. I couldn't even begin to count the number of people I've heard in the past week talking about how they're liquidating everything and getting out of the market until it turns around. Or they're not contributing to their 401k again until next year.
Morons.
First of all, people seem to equate the stock market with the economy. They are not the same, people! The Dow Jones Industrial Average is just an index of 30 common stocks. Yep, thirty stocks, that's it. Now, it's certainly an indicator of the economic mood of the country, a gauge, but it is not The Economy. But all of those companies are still making money, and the dividends are still getting paid, and while it's true things have slowed down a bit, the sky is definitely not falling.
The market sucks, that is true. But the economy is fundamentally sound. People are still going to work every day, producing more goods and services that almost the rest of the world combined. I've been out and about all week long, and in the gloomiest market period in a very long time, there are still lines at the restaurants in town, the casinos are still hopping, and the lights are still on. Just because the economy is growing slower than we'd like, it's still growing!
The old guys that come in and play poker every morning--half of which are true blue lefty socialists--wail about how bad the economy is, yet they're still there spending all of their money at the casino for hours on end every day. My game is full after 8:00 am every day. I did a full eight hours on Friday, and almost had to do overtime. But the economy is bad, according to everyone who is out spending their money the same way they were a few weeks ago when the economy wasn't bad. My favorite illustration of this was just the other day a couple of the old guys were saying, Oh yeah, the economy is in the shitter, people aren't playing anymore--Hank hasn't been here in two months! About a half hour later, like it was on cue, Hank showed up and sat down at the table. One of the old fellers asked him where he'd been and his answer was priceless.
I've been swamped at the shop. I've got more projects than I can handle!
Heh.
I know that the plural of anecdote is not data, but to anybody who says the economy is going bust, I say bullshiat. I've noticed that people just like to repeat what they've heard on TV or the radio. Don't think so? Watch ESPN all weekend, and then talk sports with a group of people on Monday morning. You'll hear the same stuff you heard all weekend, almost verbatim. Why? Because people are social animals and want to participate in the conversation, and they want to sound like they have an informed opinion. But if you've only got one source, and don't do your own 'due diligence', then you may sound informed, but actually, you're just as ignorant as you always were.
And speaking of the current crisis, I, for one, refuse to believe that the credit markets have dried up if somebody like me, with my sub-650 credit score, is still getting weekly offers for credit cards, lines of credit, and new car financing.
Anyhow, before I go off on too many tangents, I'll bring it back to my point. All these trillions of dollars lost in the stock market are mostly paper losses. As I always used to say, it ain't a loss until you take it. Guess what, all that negative movement in your 401k--you've still got the same number of shares, they're just worth less than they were last year. So what? If you're like me, well, I won't be cashing them for another 20+ years. My outlook is simply that stocks are on sale right now.
Another thing--all those shares that people are dumping and selling off? Somebody is buying them. And those somebodies are gonna be dirty rotten filthy stinking rich when the market turns around. And it always does. Although you can't predict when it will turn around like you can predict what time the sun will rise, you absolutely can say that it will eventually rise. So why not take advantage of the buying opportunity when it presents itself?
So I've already contacted the plan administrator for my retirement fund and upped my contribution rate from 5% to 12%, but I'm thinking of going as high as 20% by the end of the year. We'll see how it goes. I also reallocated my account so that the
I am truly putting my money where my mouth is, because when the market comes back to where it was just a year ago, I'm looking at about 30% return. I've got time.
At least I hope this works out better than my football picks, because I'm ridin' this baby all the way down!
Anyhow, enough about that. I'm just tired of listening to people who don't know what they're talking about. My advice to you, dear readers, is that if you're less than 40 years old, it's time to go Blackjack in your retirement accounts and double down. Getting out of the market is the absolute last thing you should do.
So what else is new in the life of Mikey? Well, cruise week took up a boatload of my free time. On Wednesday, when I wrote that sea day post and then followed it up with the 20 questions post, all that writing took over seven hours to do. Hey, once I get going, I let 'er rip. Sometimes I can't stop. So I appreciate the indulgence y'all show me when I've got nuthin' for a few days in a row. But I remember calling Lars on Wednesday afternoon around four or five, and seeing if he could get away for dinner. It was, and I shiat you not, FREE PIZZA DAY at Grimaldi's! It was their one-year anniversary, and VIPs like me got an invite to come down and grub on free pizza and beer all day long. Well, Lars couldn't get away, he had some family coming to town, so I decided I'd just go later, once I made my sea day update. But like I said, once I started writing, answering questions, and organizing pictures, I just couldn't stop. When I realized, sometime around midnight, that I'd missed out on the anniversary party at Grimaldi's, well, I was quite bummed out.
Talk about your missed opportunities... That was almost as bad as missing out on the Bad Beat Jackpot last two weeks ago. Maybe worse. There will be other jackpots, but there may never be another free pizza day at Grimaldi's.
On Tuesday I got to experience a little bit of Vegas. Drew was still in town and he called me up with free tickets to go see Blue Man Group down at the Venetian. I had nothing going on, so I agreed to go.
When we walked into the theatre and gave the usher our tickets, he told us that it was our lucky day--we were getting upgraded. To the very front row! Yep, right smack in the middle of downtown plastic ponchoville. I don't know what we did to deserve it, but there was no way I was going to put on a big plastic body-condom and sit there sweating my ass off. So I just held it in front of me for the entire show.
The show was, shall we say, interesting. Maybe I was expecting more, but the first 45 minutes or so just dragged ass. It was boring as hell. Ok, so I get it, you do a sight gag and then stare at each other wide-eyed for thirty seconds or more. Yeah, that works once, but once was enough. Otherwise there was just a lot of uncomfortable silence while the audience waited for something funny or entertaining to happen. I almost yelled out "DO SOMETHING!" from the front row while they were just sitting there staring at each other trying to be funny with silent facial expressions. Very lame. For awhile there, I thought they should rename the act to the Blue Mime Group.
But after an hour, it picked up a bit, and when they had the entire band going with the strobe lights and whatnot, that was kind of fun. And that whole thing where they drop toilet paper on the audience, well, it all gets pushed up to the front, and I swear at one point I was buried under six feet of asswipe. Yes, it was over my head. It was so thick and so deep that I couldn't see Drew, and he was less than a foot away from me! We were completely covered during the last ten minutes of the show, and trying to root our way out of it was akin to trying to dig ourselves out of an avalanche.
As far as the show goes, we both agreed that we would've been extremely pissed if we'd paid the $90+ face value for the tickets, and even if I got free tickets again, I wouldn't go. I just really didn't enjoy it that much. Some of the stuff was pretty cool, but I guess my expectations were too high. I kept waiting for a payoff that never came. Honestly, I probably would've enjoyed a bunch of drag queens playing classic rock cover tunes on the bagpipes more than I enjoyed the Blue Man Group.
Overall, I give it a thumbs down. Save your money. And the ponchos? A lot of hype. We were about as close as you could possibly get to the performance, and I didn't get hit with a drop of paint. The only thing that came close is when one of the guys spit out a mouth full of marshmallows. I was expecting something good and messy like Gallagher's Sledge-o-Matic bit, but all we got was a bunch of guys beating on upside down garbage cans while they poured paint on them.
Woot.
After the show, however, the evening picked up considerably because we had dinner over at on of my favorite spots--the Grand Lux Cafe. Believe it or not, but I didn't get my usual Asian Nachos this time. The basket of bread they served first took the edge off the hunger, so I went with something I've wanted to eat for three years or so.Back during March Madness of 2005, a whole bunch of us went there for dinner one night, and we ended up getting about five different appetizers to start the meal with. Well, between that and the bread, by the time the entrees arrived, I think I ate about three bites and gave up--I was full. I found out later why I had no appetite--I was about as sick as I'd ever been that week, but the symptoms didn't manifest themselves for another 24 hours or so.
Anyhow, that night I ordered something called 'Sunday Night Pasta', and it was really good. It was basically a huge tray of spaghetti made with steak, short ribs, mushrooms, cheese, and other assorted veggies.
So that's what I ordered this time around, and I still ended up taking half of it home with me and eating it for lunch the next day. It was damn good, and even better as leftovers.
Other than that, not much else has been going on. I'm on call this whole weekend, but I'd love to pick up another shift. Dougie's coming to town in two weeks for a three-day poker tournament bender, and I need to put together a bankroll. We're gonna do a couple of those Binion's Poker Open tourneys that I did back in May and June, so hopefully I'll have the same luck this time around. I'm sure there will be some side action on who lasts longer, but other than that, I just hope we both do well and have lots of fun. I think we'll be staying down at the Nugget that weekend, so I'm hoping the weather hasn't cooled off too much because it would be nice to be able to use the pool and swim alongside the shark tank during our off-time.
That's about it from here. And now that I've done all this writing, I think I'm just gonna sloth-out here for the rest of the evening watching SportsCenter with my beer and my bacon salt-seasoned popcorn.
Life is good.
Mikey
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