Cats and evolution

Consider the cat: his philosophy is simple and easy to execute. Sleep, eat, play with some string or a ball, rub against a leg or chair, repeat. He has no attachments to physical or animate objects. When you stare into the eyes of a cat, you see the souless gazing of a zen master.

Student: Master, what is enlightenment?

Master Cat: Feed me.

Student: Here is your food. What is the meaning of existence?

Master Cat: Rub my back.

Student: Good boy, you like a good rub?

Master Cat: If you rub me wrong again, student, I will kill you and eat your corpse. I will invite all of my friends over to feast on your dead body. Then I will seek and kill any of your descendants. And when I'm done with them, I will seek and kill all your ancestors. And when I'm done with that, I will go horizontally on your inheritance chain and kill all of your cousins, neices, uncles, aunts and so forth; basically anyone who shares at least 10 alleles in common with you.

Student: Why did you bite me? Do you like when I pet you like this?

Master Cat: Ah, that feels good.

Student: What is the cause of suffering in the world?

Master Cat: Leave me alone now. I am sleepy.

So my question is this, and it should be a simple one: Why do cats like seafood, like crab and shrimp?

How, exactly, does a cat in the wild get a hold of some shrimp? How does he catch a crab and then eat the moist, succulent meat? There is no possible way that a cat would have any notion of seafood, much less love and enjoy eating it. How is this possible? The domestic cat has no chance of this, surely. Perhaps it could catch the odd goldfish. But crab? How does the wild african lion eat a nice crab? A bear might eat salmon, but a cat? What is the cat family and where is this cat that can eat a shrimp or a crab in the wild?

I love how the intelligent design lunatics lost their battle in court. Perhaps they can clear up this cat/seafood problem for us. I would like to defeat the right-wing Pat Bush followers thus:

The universe is complex.
Anything this compelx must have been designed.
Anything that is designed must have a Designer.
The Designer must not just design, he must also create by bringing designs into existence.
So the Designer is the Creator.
The Creator of everything must be God.
Therefore, Intelligent Design is a theistic belief and must be decimated and destroyed.

QED

Portfolio update

'Tis the season, so I am posting my stock holdings here. I am bullish on Checkpoint technologies, so I am considering adding more now that it's down. The rest are doing pleasantly, although the return this year was pretty abysmal. As you can see, I am pretty fully invested at this point, which is completely different from the last four or even five years. Questions/concerns/comments? Let me know.

Symbol	Description	Quantity	Price	Current Value	Cost	Change $	Change %
FCASH	Cash	33094.89	$1.00	$33,094.89	NA	NA	NA
CHKP	CHECK POINT SOFTWARETECH LTD	960	$20.26	$19,449.60	$20,479.70	($1,030.10)	-5.03%
FSMKX	SPARTAN 500 INDEX	482.985	$86.70	$41,874.79	$40,556.24	$1,318.55	3.25%
HD	HOME DEPOT INC	499	$40.82	$20,369.18	$20,057.00	$312.18	1.56%
T	AT&T INC	825	$24.83	$20,484.75	$19,758.65	$726.10	3.67%
FSTMX	SPRTN TOTAL MKT	2296.2	$34.92	$80,183.30	$75,062.65	$5,120.65	6.82%
	Total			$215,456.51	$209,009.13	$6,447.38	2.99%

Celbrity Sighting #34

Eating at the local pizza joint, I happened to notice Mario Van Peebles sitting at the next table with his family. Four kids, I think, two boys two girls. All four wearing the most extremely big, 1974, huge, mo'fo' afros. His wife is some kind of exotic darkie, like Indian, or something. Not American Injun, India Injun. Nice people. I don't personally know the dude, in fact, I don't know him from Adam, but I sort of, kind of, recognise him a little. Someone else had to clue me in.

After he signed his credit card receipt and left, the waitress looked inside the leather folding receipt holder and a look of panic crossed her face. She immediately ran around to the front and out the door. I wondered what happened, so later I casually asked my waitress what happened with Mario. She stated that Mario had signed his credit card reciept but then he had mistakenly taken both copies. So, while he would be charged, the waitress wouldn't get a big tip. So naturally, she was concerned.

At the risk of starting off into Reservoir Dogs territory, I don't think the words "small fucking tip" should be in a waitress' vocabulary. You take what I give you and you'll be happy. You're lucky to be serving a celebrity, and my autograph is extremely valuable. So I can't just leave it sitting around on some greasy table on a credit card receipt. Plus, I'm a black character actor nobody recognises and I'm sensitive about my tipping habbits. So there.

At least, that's what I would say if I were Van Peebles.

On a slightly different note, I have started watching disk 1 of season 1 of the Larry David Show. I mean, Curb Your Enthusiasm. This is some positively funny shit. I am averse to all forms of television, including some of the really good high quality stuff, like CNN or Fox News. But I somehow finally caved recently and started watching the end of season 4. I especially liked the season finale where Larry goes to heaven and argues with the angel, Dustin Hoffman. I was literally crying, in tears.

I asked four of my friends and was able to successfully finagle all four seasons on DVD as Christmas gifts (unfortunatley, a fifth friend tried to be helpful and got me a duplicate season 3; I'll have to return that one, asshole).

I always sort of "liked", mildly, the Seinfeld show. I never watched it much, except for some semi-regular visits during the "Seinfeld parties" that people would have. Remember those? You go to someone's house and watch their TV? As if I wanted to watch it myself, I couldn't. Wait, I didn't have any TV reception, so I couldn't. But that's not the point. I came over to socialise, not watch TV!

Anyway, I used to mildly enjoy and maybe slightly guffaw at the Seinfeld shows. But it weren't really all that great. But then, the heavens opened and I saw the Larry David show, and now I realise how truly awful and horrible Seinfeld was. Not the sitcom, the man. Larry David is an awesome comic and Jerry Seinfeld is a worthless pile of useless shit. Jerrry Seinfeld is to stand-up comics as David Copperfield is to magicians. In fact, now I have thrown away all my semi-fond memories of the Seinfeld show and I have replaced them with the happy goodness of the Larry David show. Highly recommended.

Updated: Deal or No Deal

There is an update after the last time I watched Howie Mandel (AKA Son of Mr. Clean™ -- get it, he's a bald, gay pirate and also a germ freak?). This updates all you need to know about the show and gives you every reason to stop watching (which I have, I promise).

1. At some points when the contestants get down to two cases, Son of Mr. Clean™ will offer a "switch". That is, you can switch the case you have for the case that you don't have. Now, if you were paying attention in maths classes and also reading my previous posting, you would realise by now that there is no benefit nor any deficit to perform a switch. The cases are random. And, in fact, the whole basis of the show is a crock of shit by "pretending" that you have "chosen" a case. In fact, the game would be exactly the same if all the cases remained on stage and you played as usual. Having the case in front of you is a mental shenanigan that has no bearing on the outcome of the game.
   
   Switching the case is completely neutral to your position. In any case, you would never open the case you had, unless both cases are above your target amount, and the bank's offer was lower than a fair offer.
   
   Strategy: Don't switch cases. Better yet, don't take ownership of the case. Leave it on stage. It doesn't matter if the case is in front of you or on stage, or if you selected it or not.
   

Deal or No Deal

As much fun as it is to consider the implications of this game show, it is not much fun actually watching it. I must admit with some shame to having viewed a few episodes recently. (Please see Wikipidia for details.)

I can recall the blissful days of youth when I did not own a television. I can recall the somewhat blissful days of slightly older youth when I did own a television - but I did not have a cable, satellite, or antenna connection. I would only use the TV to watch movies on the old VHS format, which in my day was a magnetic media stored in a plastic case about the size of a large paperback. You kids now-a-days probably don't even know what I'm talking about.

Now in my later years of life I watch TV a few hours per day, and not just "good" stuff like movies, but the really bad, depraved stuff, like NBC or ABC. Can your mind contain the horror of thinking back to the days when there were three networks and the mindless drooling zombies that fill this wasteland we call America were tuned in night-after-night-day-after-day to one of these three channels?

Whenever I hear the theme song for "Friends", sometimes I want to run and hide in a closet curled up in the fetal position. Other times I hear the theme and I want to find a weapon and destroy the television. More than ever, you can find reruns of "Friends" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" or "Will and Grace" running virtually 24x7. Is it any wonder we are the infidels to be destroyed by radical Islam? Watch a few episodes of prime-time television and sit throuugh the commercials and then tell me you don't want to fly a plane into a building and kill a few of the miserable assholes who put this shit on TV, or the so-called "innocents" who merely watch it.

But I digress.

Deal or No Deal is quite Zen, when you really get down to it. Do you have a deal? Or do you have a no-deal? I will take the no-deal almost everytime. And most of these gamblers, I mean, game show contestants do as well. I've come up with some strategies that would work and would immediately render the show worthless. I mean to say, more worthless than it already is. To wit:

1. I have a devious little, tiny, secret that most average, run-of-the-mill idiots don't seem to get. The cases are assigned randomly, so it doesn't matter which case you choose. You can choose "number 8" because that's your birthday or choose "number 22!" because that's how old you were when you first realised you had a lot of years left on this miserable planet, and you decided then that you probably would rather shoot your brains onto the wall and put an end to this nonsense and suffering we call life. But none of those numbers mean anything to your selection of the cases "filled with money" (really just placards with numbers and symbols).
   
   Strategy: Pick cases in numeric order.
   
   
2. Another secret of the game is that the "mysterious" banker will generally make a mathematically fair offer. Naturally, if the first offer is $7,000 or something small like that and you don't need that kind of money anyway, you don't take the deal. Or rather, you do take the no-deal. But hey, $7,000 is a good number and that's roughly $3,500 more than you had previously (after taxes, naturally!) So at any moment, it is not generally a mistake to take the deal. In general, the deal will increase as the levels progress (to a certain point), so there is some future expectation that is not counted. Close enough.
   
   Strategy: Take the deal whenever the dollar figure is big enough that you are happy with it.
   
   Sub-strategy: Assign a dollar figure you will be happy with before you get on stage and announce, "When the deal gets above $100,000, I will almost certainly take the deal. And I will pick cases in numerical order until I get there."
   
   
3. The game works by increasing the deal amount until the value of the deal proposition is such that you decide to take it. In general, you can continue to take the no-deal as long as you have enough cases with values above your target amount, and the number of these cases above your target amount is less than or equal to the number of cases you have to pick. With the exception of one single case and one single dollar amount remaining. In that case, you take the deal. Here are some examples:

   Cases to pick	Cases above target amount	Deal or No-Deal
   2	3	No-deal
   2	2	No-deal*
   1	3	No-deal
   4	2	DEAL!!!
   1	1	DEAL!!!
   2	1	DEAL!!!

   
   

   *You can take the deal if it is above your target amount and also if you have very few below-target case amounts
   
   Strategy: Continue to take no-deal as long as the offer is below your target amount and you have more or equal target cases above your target amount than you have cases to pick. The exception is one single case above your taget amount, in which case you should take the deal even if the offer is below your target amount.
   
   

4. Final cases. There are only a few cases where you would actually choose to open your case! In 99% of the cases, I doubt any fool would do it. But there are a lot of fools out there, and there are many of them reproducing as we speak. The only time you would open the case is if a) both dollar amounts remaining are above your target (big money!) and b) the bank's offer is below the mathematically fair offer (it is usually). If the bank's offer is above the fair number (which would simply be the average of the two at this point -- it's even money), then you take the bank's offer. They are not going to do that, but it's possible. As I say, you only open the case if both remaining dollar amounts are above your target and the bank's offer is not above the fair value. IN ALL OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, YOU STEADFASTLY REFUSE TO OPEN YOUR CASE AND YOU TAKE THE MOTHERFUCKING DEAL.
   
   Strategy: Do not open your case unless you are down to the two options, $1,000,000 and $750,000. The bank's offer will be slightly below the mean, say, $870,000. Do not open your case, under all circumstances other than the one I have posed.
   

Summary: Set a target amount you would like to win. Pick cases in numeric order and take no-deal as long as the offer is below your target. If you have less cases above the target than cases you must pick (and thus, eliminate), take the deal. If you have only one case above the target amount, take the deal. Take no-deal at the end only if you have both the $1M and $750K left. Otherwise, take the deal.

I do so hate TV. But I like to watch.

Rookie mistakes and how to make them

We've all been there, I think. You do something that is totally stupid and braindead and everyone is looking at you like, "What the f.....?" And you say, "You know, I meant to do that." If you know what NIS+ is, congratulations. If not, just think "Solaris login account database".

Scene 1: interior, work office, worker typing at computer keyboard.

Type type type. Subtitle: "Setting up NIS+ server on a development server for new Solaris cluster."

Type type type. Ring, ring.

Worker: "Hello? You need help with that now? OK, I'll be down."

Exuent.

Scene 2: interior, work office, twenty minutes later.

Entrance stage right, worker.

Worker: "Ah, where were we?"

Worker sits down.

Type type. Type? Type type type. Type? Type?!

Worker: "Who the f?&%&$ set this piece of s&%*#)$ up? Whoever did this has no f*&$&#@)@) idea how to set up NIS+."

Type. Type. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Worker: "Much better. Now, start from scratch."

Type. Type. Ring ring.

Worker: "Who's calling now? I'm busy."

Type. Ring. Ring. Type....

Type....

Worker: "I got kicked out. That's strange. Why can't I log in to the main system any more?"

Ring. Ring.

Worker: "Why is my phone ringing?"

Worker (stage whisper to audience): "I can't answer that now, I've already stopped this project once to help someone else. If I leave in the middle of a project, I might forget where I am and make a mistake."

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

Worker: "I wonder why both of my lines are ringing now? Why won't they leave me alone?"

Type... Type? Type?

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Worker: "Why is the text pager system alerting me to NIS+ problems on the live server?"

Type... Backspacebackspacebackspace. Typetypetypetype...

Worker: "ooooooooooops...."

Ring. Ring RING RINGBEEPRINGRINGBEEPRINGRING....

Fade to silence, freeze. Rod Sirling approaches from stage rear into a spotlight.

Sirling takes a long, sweet drag on silky, smooth tobacco smoke.

Sirling: "As you have just seen, you should always pay attention to the stop signs and warning lights that flash as you drive through life. Always practise mindfullness and be immersed in the present moment. Whether you are an experienced professional or rank amateur, your next step could be into that dark dank dungeon we call... the You Fucked Up and You Better Have Some Backup Tapes Handy Zone."

Fade to black.

Bush Dubya goin' down

There is a favourite song of mine by the Zen Blues Masters Led Zeppelin called "When the Levee Breaks". Of course, they were not the first to sing it, nor the first to write the words. But there are several lines that are appropriate for our fearless leader, George Dubya Boosh.

Let me start by giving the short of it: Basically, this "Wire Tap Gate" is going to be big. I think it could turn into a Lewinsky. No, not a big, fat, ungainly, stupid whore. It could turn into a huge deal with potential impeachment implications. I honestly believe that we're going to be sitting here a year or 18 months from now watching congress count votes on TV.

I don't think it has to do with abuse of power (which it does), nor denial of wrong-doing (which he does deny -- not that he didn't do it, but that he did it legally), nor with the hunting down of leakers (leaker-s, n. one who leaks). I think it has more to do with the fact that Boosh uses terms like "evildoers" and "suiciders". I think the use of the term "suicider" is punishable by impeachment. Imagine the trial transcript:

Justice: Do you understand the charges brought before you, Mr. President?

GW Boosh: Do I understand the charges? Of course I do. When I spoke to the speech to the union... er... nation... I mean, the speech to the nation... or whatever you want to call it...

Justice: Can you please just say something clearly so the court can understand it?

GWB: Well, hell, we are on the right side. I mean, not on the left side. You can't take the left and do the right thing. That's what we say around here in Texas. Maybe Tennessee, but usually in Texas. Um... Fool me once?

Anyway, I'll stop with that. But honestly, how do you stand on one foot, tell us that the Weapons of Mass Destruction do not exist, wave your hands, tell us that our intelligence was wrong, and then scream but we MUST PERFORM WIRE TAPS TO FIGHT THE WAR ON TERROR. In the mind of the religious right and their leader, Pat Robertson (backspace backspace) Dubya Boosh, all that is required is religious fervour and belief.

Well, I am a goddamned hyphenated American. And I say, Fuck Belief. Show me the facts. Let me decide, asshole. This is not the Evil Empire nor the Doers of Evil, Inc., nor Suiciders Anonymous. I do not blindly follow an intellectually inferior creationist former alcoholic's blind charge into the gloom. We're in this mess (read: Iraq) and we'll fix it. That's shame on me. Wire taps and continued WAR on TERROR which necessarily begets terror at home? That's um... well... you can't get fooled again.

And that brings us back to Led Zeppelin:

Cryin' won't help ya, praying won't do ya no good.
When the levee breaks, mama you got to move.

Goin' down, goin' down. Goin' down, down, down, dowwwwwwwwn...

Fresh Face

This will be my blog. This blog will include, but not be limited to the following topics:

Stocks
HoldEm Poker
Politics
Zen
Not Zen
Movies
Maths
Scientific Scepticism
Jokes
Motherfucking Shit Language

What distinguishes this blog from millions of others? Not very much at all, unfortunately.