Adaptive Curmudgeon

It turns out there was a single building with two sides. Like America, the Canadian rink was evenly divided between disparate social populations; in this case, hockey and curling. Two sides of the same icy coin, they should get along harmoniously; but I detected a bit of friction. Must we always “other” the… um…. other? Either that or I just look like a homeless dipshit and read too much into it when I triggered the platoon of psycho-moms.

Despite playing hockey as a kid I’m not enthused about hockey rinks. I have happy memories of skating with friends on frozen beaver ponds. (It’s a miracle nobody drowned, froze, or put an eye out.) Being herded about by groups of helicopter moms is entirely unlike my fuzzy memories of Normal Rockwell style wintertime fun. I was a little bit shaken. I’d smelled a whiff of the universe that will non-ironically say such bullshit as “permanent record” and “extracurriculars will help you get into a good college”. Ugh! A flashback to the tortures of youth!

Luckily, now I was at the curling rink and my stress vanished. It looked, felt, and smelled like a tavern; because that’s exactly what it was. Not the kind of blaring “sportsbar” where dudebros shriek at football games on LCD screens. Not the kind of fern bar where everybody knows your name. But rather the far superior kind of bar where nobody gives a shit about your name and they let you drink in peace.

I soaked in the joy. Thick soft, well-worn carpet, no televisions blaring propaganda or sportsball, dim lights, a half dozen cheap beer lights, and small tables surrounded by comfy seats. Some tables were stocked with decks of cards and cribbage boards. There was a popcorn maker in one corner. Heaven.

One wall was mostly glass windows where you could look out and down at a row of Curling lanes. (I think they’re called “sheets”. Each lane is about the dimensions of a generous pistol lane.) There was a row of barstools near the window. You could sit here and drink in the warmth while heckling your teammates!

I fell in love. Beer taps, comfy chairs, and none of the clucking women from the hockey arena. The perfect man hangout. It was the kind of place that makes me want to throw a sleeping bag in the corner and hibernate all winter.

It was also abandoned. I wandered around a bit and discovered the taps were off. (Don’t judge me! You’d have checked too!) Out on the sheets someone was working a contraption I presume to be a pint sized, walk behind Zamboni. Turned out he was preparing the ice for our arrival. How cool is that?

My friend showed up just as I was settling into a particularly overstuffed chair. I think he’s a bigwig in the curling world, or at least at that curling club, or at least I didn’t have to pay to use the facilities… any one of which makes him a rock star as far as I’m concerned. He explained that more people were soon to arrive. The taps weren’t open but the soda fountains were, so I poured myself a coke and topped it off with a little something from my hip flask. Meanwhile the rest of the gang arrived and a potluck materialized. I tossed a bag of chips in their midst and chowed down on their far more delicious contributions. Someone showed up to open the taps and run the bar. (Liquor laws I guess?) I bought a pitcher or three of shitty beer. Several others did too. Fed, beered, and feeling groovy I was like “I love this sport!” Then it was time to play. I slurped up the last of the beer and (still carrying a cup of mostly hip flask contents with a splash of coke) made my way to the “sheets”.

The game begins…

I wound up at a steel industrial building squeezed between the ass end of what looked like a Perkins and a snowmobile repair shop. Inexplicably, I’d arrived earlier than the rendezvous time. The front of the lot was full so I tucked my truck into a far corner. Nobody noticed me. I was in the mood to drink so I sat in my idling truck sipping beer that had been chilled in a snow filled bucket. (See what I mean about the value of a good bucket?) Soon I had my seat reclined, my feet on the dash, and I was reading an old copy of Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. (Every properly equipped truck has a copy of a good book shoved in the tool box.)

Cold beer, a quiet place to sit, and Mark Twain; it’s as pleasant as vacation as any.

It might have been a stressful week (month? Year?) because the beer went down great. When 4:00 rolled around I strode toward the building and discovered I was a bit more tuned up than I’d planned. No matter. I was a man out to relax, surely no faux pas would ensue.

Wrong! Just inside the door I stumbled smack dab into a gaggle of clucking hockey moms. Jesus, what an uptight bunch! They were barking orders at their progeny like feminine Napoleons. The kids were a confused muddle, had not the slightest clue what the hell was going on, and were getting marched back and forth like toy soldiers. Poor bastards! The helpless tykes were each staggering beneath 40 pounds of fancy overpriced hockey gear. What fresh hell is this? I make fun of degenerate Detroit teenagers buying $200 sneakers but here was the flip side of the coin. Kids barely mature enough to pee on a tree stump were outfitted with top dollar, name brand, shit. How much did that cost?

The Nike / NHL intersection indicates that generic stupidity crosses all social lines. Well not me of course, I played pond hockey with jeans and work gloves. I somehow made it to adulthood without a jersey stenciled with some other dude’s name on the back. I prefer to generate my own unique forms of stupid; which doesn’t require buying expensive clothes. Here’s a hint, if your kid is nine don’t drop several hundred bucks outfitting him like a mini-me version of Gretzky; use your money to pay the fuckin’ light bill and tell the kid to play in the dirt with a stick.

The ladies glared at me like I was an abomination. Apparently, men are welcome at the suburban micro-grasshopper’s hockey league like they’re welcome at the elementary school PTA, which is to say “get the hell out of here you damn hairy ape”.

I was just as terrified as the poor kids; a deer in disapproving headlights. Finally, I had the presence of mind to croak “Curling?”

This did wonders. The ladies seemed relieved I had nothing to do with hockey or their precious swarm of half sentient minnows. Moving in unison (almost bovine like), they pointed toward a shabby metal door as if to say “your kind belongs over there… among the drunks and reprobates”. I was happy to leave. Uptight women herding three dozen overequipped, chest high, elf droppings named Hunter and Chad was too much. I fled though the door before they could start using me as a teaching moment. “If you don’t eat your vegetables you’ll wind up like the bad man.”

Part 3 is on deck…

[Note: I missed the period of time when everyone blogs about Christmas (or New Year’s Day) so I decided to tell a story that’s totally unrelated. Details have been omitted for OPSEC.]

I was in Canucistan hanging out with America’s Hat among our good friends to the north. I’d finished what I was doing but was dreading the long drive home. Also, the pre-Christmas commercial orgy of consumption was in full swing. If I got home too early, I’d get mired in it.

On a whim I pulled into a hotel, booked a room for the night, and made ad hok plans. I’d spend the afternoon ice fishing!

Lucky for me, Mrs. Curmudgeon is awesome. She’s chill about Christmas presents (including the fact that I purchase them randomly; as if I don’t own a calendar or know the significance of December). More importantly, she’s totally understanding if disappear an extra day into the forest (or in this case, a lake). If I spend an occasional unscheduled day freezing my balls off on a Canadian lake that’s just how I am. She long ago gave up on civilizing me and that makes me a lucky guy!

Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned ahead. My regular fishing tackle (always stashed in my truck) is useless after the freeze. My solution was to buy new gear at a Canadian Tire. (For those of you who don’t hang out in the land of sleds and poutine, Canadian Tire is like Wal-Mart but with a lower component of useless pussy shit from China. Unavoidably, it is stocked cheap Chinese shit. The difference is that the selection leans a bit more towards objects more suitable for men.)

In theory, ice fishing is inexpensive. The poles are short compared to a usual freshwater lake pole and that apparently makes them cheaper. Reels, line, and tackle are all scaled down too. Not free but inexpensive compared to a rod/reel combo appropriate for June. I selected a rod, reel, ice line, some tackle, a bucket (the bucket is key!), and beer. I doubled my beer allotment thinking I’d find some fishermen out there and coax them into drilling me some iceholes in exchange for a few Molsons. Any activity where I get to say “iceholes” non-ironically is a good one! (Augers are a big-ticket item and I resent that. I should be able to buy a chainsaw powerhead adapter! But so far, no luck.) At a nearby gas station I’d pick up a fishing license, minnows, and maybe a bottle of whiskey. It was a solid plan.

My phone rang and (as often happens) my plans were rearranged.

“Shit! I left this thing on? It’s probably costing me six bucks a minute. Who the hell are you?”

“Ah Curmudgeon, always the same. Other people answer phones with ‘hello’ but not you.”

“This is probably being billed as an international call. Speak fast.”

“OK. Are you heading out or staying overnight?”

“Staying.”

“Got a plan?”

“I’m going to sit on a bucket and freeze my balls off while drinking alone.” (I thought this was a funny way to say “ice fishing” but it didn’t slow him down a bit.)

“The pike bite blows. Don’t bother.”

“Also, I’m avoiding shopping.” (As I said this, I realized I was pushing a cart full of consumer shit through a Canadian Tire.)

“Standby. I’ve got a better idea.”

The phone went dead.

The call was just under a minute. Short declarative sentences. Manspeak. I like conversations like that.

Two minutes later I got a text; short and all caps:

[CURLING AT 1600. ADDRESS = X]

I glanced at my watch. I’d have to hurry. I tossed all of the ice fishing crap out of my cart but kept the bucket. (A good bucket is always a wise investment!) I also kept the beer.

As I jogged toward the checkout, another text arrived:

[BEER]

I smiled. Like I’d forget. I replied:

[CAN CONFIRM]

Another text:

[POTLUCK]

I grabbed a largish bag of chips and hurled it in my cart. It was sufficient. I’m staying in hotels, nobody expects me to bake a cake.

Then I turned off the phone. I hate cell phones and especially cell phone bills. Using an American cell phone in Canada is a billing crap shoot… or at least that’s how I justify being standoffish. (Mostly I just like to turn off my phone whenever possible.)

More to come…

I haven’t been literally off grid but I’ve been pretty unconnected. This leads to strange moments of re-calibration as I reintegrate into the steaming heap of bullshit that’s modern “news”. So much has happened and so little has mattered:

First came the aborted, wasn’t going to happen, easy to call December 10th government shutdown. I bet NO and did well on that one (low money but high ROI).

The sequel, “Pissing Match Mark II”, was another matter. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it.

Originally I leaned NO but didn’t buy in. Pelosi and Schumer tried to threaten the Trumpomatic (which is probably never a good idea). “Hey, lets go find the craziest motherfucker in DC and challenge him to a game of chicken”. Trump was like “This! Is! SPARTA!” and we all had a good laugh. I thought “it’s over, Dems know Trump’s willing to turn the dial to eleven so they’ll wisely fold.”

Then Congress went home to do nothing locally instead of doing nothing centrally. I was still thinking “not gonna’ happen” but by then the market was all over the place. I kept my beer money in my pocket.

Then, Trump was like “OK fine, I’ll pussy out on the wall”. I heard this while driving and about ran my truck into a bridge abutment. It seemed amazingly out of character. I didn’t see it coming. I thought for sure Trump wasn’t bluffing but he went (as Mrs. Thatcher would’ve said) “wobbly”.

Within the hour I had new PredictIt plans. Forget lame ass budget shenanigans and go large. Trump was destined to be a one term wonder and this was the moment that sealed the deal. “Welcome to the Carter / Bush Sr. club ya’ chickenshit!” No wall, no re-election. End of story.

Alas I was busy and didn’t have time to set up my laptop in a Starbucks to sell my meager shares of Orange Man and Stupid Party in the markets for “2020 Stupid Party Nominee” and “Which Party wins presidency in 2020” respectively.

I checked out for a few days and forgot all about it. Seemingly the Evil Party was busy overplaying its hand. Soon the situation had reversed and Trump had a spine again. I was totally baffled. It boils down to one of two options.

Option A is that Trump really was about to pansy out. Perhaps Melainia was stroking his nutsack so well he lost his usual almost supernatural sense of the zeitgeist. In a fit of dumbassery he ran an elephant over the thin ice of pissing off the 40% of the populace that supports him. (Wimping on the wall means he’s dead to them.) Then, at the last minute he drank three diet cokes, got his head in the game, and realized he’d made the wrong call. He subsequently backed away from his bad decision. Occam’s razor leans toward this solution set. I’ve noticed Trump is very good at recognizing he’s made a mistake and is willing to correct missteps with whiplash speed.

Option B is that Cheeto Jesus is the slickest psychological manipulation machine to walk the face of the earth. He told the Evil Party “I will fuck you up”. His supporters loved it. When the Evil Party was about to make a show without substance (a half assed pretend shutdown kabuki that wouldn’t give him the clearly demarcated battle lines he wanted) Trump showed a bit of weakness. “OK fine, I’ll kick the can on the wall… just don’t throw me into the brier patch”. The Evil party, being evil, smelled blood and overplayed their hand. Meanwhile, the Stupid party, stood around with their thumb up their ass. Seriously, what’s the point of those toadstools anyway? Then, just when NPR was about to ignore Trump and whine about sad polar bears on Christmas Eve, Trump swerved again. “Nope… it’s still Sparta. No wall means I’ll veto. Yippie Ki Yay Motherfuckers!”

I’m not sure option B is true but I’m not ruling it out either. It’s part of why I stayed the hell out of that market. Trump uses unpredictability as a tool. Also playing chicken with Trump is suicidal. If Trump really did go with option B, he’s playing his opponents like an instrument. He’s either crazy or brilliant. Probably both. I sussed out option B as slick political judo or I’m falling prey to confirmation bias. Probably both. Either way, I’m glad I stayed out of the market and have no predictions about the shutdown’s duration.

In other news, several things have happened that I didn’t expect. I wonder if this is why both parties wanted a shutdown. As a distraction?

The market, which has been on a tear since 2016, is getting flaky. Frankly the stock market is unlinked from true valuation and I can’t make much of it. A re-adjustment seems reasonable after a two year post-Obama skyrocket. I’m actually holding a bit on “Trump recession by 2020”. Regardless, the market took a huge shit, and everyone seemed totally cool with it. It barely ruffled the press’ feathers. What’s up with that? Were they fluffing the Dems pre-shutdown tailgate party or did I just miss the show? Then stocks roared back in the middle of a shutdown. Go figure. Regardless, I’ve no PredictIt position on this.

I had a PredictIt bet that blew up. I held NO that Trump would give special council testimony by 12/31/18. It seemed a safe bet. Everyone knows you never talk to the police. If Trump was dumb enough to walk into a perjury trap he’d have been hammered back when he was just a rich real estate developer. If there was real evidence we’d already have heard of it too. Yet the market resolved at $1 on YES.

It happened? I had no idea. Apparently the big orange idiot did the deed? Why? What kind of asshat will testify before a grand jury when half the population of DC has been going scorched earth on his ass for 2 years? It’s been “Russia, Russia, Russia” with less evidence than a flat earther’s wet dream about Area 51 and he was willing to play ball? Can this be the same guy I associated with Option B cleverness just a few paragraphs above?

Personally, I wouldn’t testify under oath that the sky was blue for those jackoffs. Someone would show up with a new definition of violet and I’d wind up arguing about wavelengths. Or they’d ask me what I’d eaten for breakfast on a leap year while Halley’s Comet was on the rise and I’d answer Cheerios when the real answer was Rice Krispies. I’d wind up in Federal pound me in the ass prison for not properly remembering a thing that’s not a crime. Fuck that noise! Regardless, I lost $0.96.

Oddly, NPR, which can’t take a shit without blaming Trump for the smell, didn’t mention Trump’s testimony? I would’ve expected 3-4 days of “the walls are closing in” and “this time we’ve got him”. Radio silence. What’s up with that? Perhaps I was otherwise occupied at the time.

Another market, my creepy actuarial dead pool bet on Mrs. Ginsberg leaving the Supreme court first has bounced all over while I’ve resolutely held a few shares of YES. My logic is simple it’s based on age and a grim fate. Some folks latch their talons into power and mainline the addictive nectar until they’re dead. Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and the recently planted John McCain come to mind. Ginsberg is on that dark spiral. It seems a Faustian bargain to me but then again I’m not addicted to power. If going to a staff meeting in your mid-80’s isn’t hell then what the fuck is?

Mrs. Ginsberg, impresses me with her persistence, but she’s mortal. Personally I think she’s too invested in “preserving her legacy” and it’s a little sad. (Hint: there’s a fine line between “preserve my beautiful legacy” and “build a giant statue of myself”. There’s a reason Ozymandias is in my right margin. Read it.)

Ginsberg can’t “let go”. Faustian bargains are like that. But she’s not a spry 60 year old either.

In keeping with my crude assessment of her motivations and a press that’s to the left of Trotsky, I assume all reporting of Mrs. Ginsberg’s condition are of the Fidel Castro / Pope John Paul II model. The heroic superbeing in question is healthy and fit right up until the moment they were suddenly dead last week. Seriously, Cuban propaganda made it sound like Castro was bench pressing his weight in cigars when images showed a frail man shuffling about in sweatpants. He disappeared for long lengths of time; during which he was “in excellent health”. Finally someone reluctantly said “dude died last Tuesday”. (At least that’s how I remember it.) Incidentally, I mean nothing untoward putting the Pope in the same sentence as that shitweasel Castro. John Paul II seemed like a nice guy. I’m thinking more about the Holy See being as evasive as possible as the man aged.

Anyway I put a PredictIt bid YES on “Ginsberg retires first” shortly after she had a “minor” breaking of three ribs. Just for the record, if I break three ribs I’m going to piss and moan about it big time… not mutter something about “minor”. (Have I mentioned she’s already had two different kinds of cancer?)

I didn’t get a great price because everyone else lemminged on the news. Ginsberg recovered and the price dropped. (You gotta’ hand it to her, she’s harder to kill than John Wick.) My position went from Meh to Crap as the press reported she was doing the montage from Rocky movies.

I ignored the press. Why wouldn’t I?

A few weeks ago (when I wasn’t paying attention) my shares went from Crap to Golden and then back to Meh. I had no idea why.

A check of Google informed me Ginsberg suddenly announced she was already finished with a heretofore unreported treatment for cancer (a third independent unrelated form of cancer). It had been discovered during the “minor” broken ribs but not reported because apparently frail women in their 80’s totally thrive on lung surgery and DON’T LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN YOU DAMN DIRTY BLOGGER!

Anyway the market peaks when she’s having “minor” issues like broken ribs and cancer but takes a dump when the press subsequently reports she was wrestling grizzly bears that morning. I’d like to buy more shares but at this point the value may never go low enough to be a real bargain.

So that’s the PredictIt report. Wild gyrations in markets made of stampeding lemmings. I try to sift through “news” that’s really propaganda without falling prey to confirmation bias. Sometimes I win. Sometimes Trump inexplicably testifies when I’m not paying attention. Sometimes the water’s so damn muddy I stay on shore. Life’s just a game of bullshit detection.

A.C.

P.S. Incidentally, what’s up with Donald Trump Jr.? I bought NO on some lame market  that he’d be in the Denver SuperMax by New Years. (I’m paraphrasing.) It sounded like bullshit. Did the bullshit happen?

Here’s a hint. If you’re a company and are about to introduce a “feature” that will make people burn you in effigy… don’t.

Don’t. Be. That. Guy.

Don’t tell your customers New Coke tastes better. Don’t advertise the shit out of your exciting launch of the Edsel. If you’re working for Google and feel like being evil… don’t. Just don’t do it.

Don’t inflict your better and superior and wildly unpopular ideas on the people who are your customers. They don’t give a crap about your special new take on what’s basically a way to type strings of text. Get over yourself. If they want what you think is a shit sandwich… then get out the bread and make a fuckin’ shit sandwich.

Capiche? Got it it? Ya’ feel me? Did ya’ grok that? We square? Good!

I’m done ranting. I’ve installed the WordPress “classic editor” and it’s good enough for now. It was easier than dumping WordPress lock, stock, and barrel (which I’m eager to do if they get used to this kind of behavior). I recommend “classic” (a.k.a. “geezer mode”) to anyone who cares about such things. (Ironically, WordPress’ editor was always a bit lame. I was actually looking forward to the upgrade. It’s just that Gutenberg is really pathetic. Flat out craptacular. I didn’t relish my blogging becoming another battle against the post-literate society that lurks in my nightmares. Fuckin’ “blocks”?!? They can bite me!)

Happy typing y’all.

A.C.

What a glorious week! I celebrated Jesus’s birthday by doing nothing, absolutely nothing.

At the tail end of a challenging year, several days of being a lard ass has been exactly what the doctor ordered. I earned it. 2018 was a year long uphill marathon. I made it but now it’s time to clock out a while.

I’m so mellow I can’t stand myself. We’re legit snowed in and I just don’t give a shit. Not. A Single. Shit. To. Give. I planned for a few days downtime and apparently I needed it. Clearing snow on our long driveway is pretty much mission critical and I’m usually swarming over the situation like white on rice at the first hint of a storm but not today. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy:

I’m letting “it” ride. If the grid goes down I’ll chill my beer in a snowdrift and drink it in the dark. I like to keep the road clear but I don’t have to go anywhere. If the house burns down because the RFD can’t get here I’ll fuckin’ roast marshmallows over the smoldering ruins. Besides, the RFD doesn’t have a great track record anyway. (“Never lost a foundation yet.”)

As the Millennials say “I’m not up for ‘adulting’ today”.

Merry Christmas y’all!

A.C.

P.S. Someone find the dipstick that “improved” the WordPress editing interface and shove him feet first into a woodchipper. Like I needed another New Coke or Clippy in my life. Anyone who’s already shuffled off the WordPress buffalo for greener pastures and better editing; please give me hints in the comments. Thanks!

I’ve been offline most of the week. (Someday I may have to buy a “traveling tablet”?) Initial reports hint that some of you deposited Christmas presents in my PalPal account? I’m not where I can check for sure but that’s my indication. You guys are awesome! Thanks.

I’ll be back online soon. In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas.

I became my own blind trust. By definition this is impossible. But, I did it!

A blind trust is when someone manages your assets such that you aren’t involved in market decisions. Blind trusts are a legal device intended to shelter one from their own market bending political power or insider knowledge. The trust eliminates the moral hazard that… Ha ha ha ha…. like anyone in such a position is worried about morals. I had ya’ going didn’t I?

OK, the real reasons are related to legal entanglements. Blind trusts are meant to avoid prosecution for “insider trading” (i.e. Martha Stewart) or political shenanigans (a.k.a. “Clintionesque activities”).

I don’t need a blind trust. I’m totally bereft of political power. I’m not even sure my vote is counted anymore (are you?). I’ve no special knowledge of any financial entity. I think of “assets” as things like “fresh tires on the truck” and “a full freezer”. A Rockefeller I am not. Good news! Every dollar I have is my own to misuse at will.

There’s another reason for blind trusts. That is if you’re a rich unworthy inheritor and therefore so fuckin’ irresponsible you’d burn Daddy Warbuck’s fortune on hookers and blow six months after you got your hands on it. (Ask yourself why “trust funder” is not a compliment.) Or, you may need to be shielded from your stupidity. Perhaps, you’ve been so totally indoctrinated you actually believe the shit your college professors said?

That indoctrinated group is where PredictIt comes into play. I figure the game is to find places where people en masse are making bad valuations. As soon as you find that spot, you do the opposite. The efficient markets theory suggests the masses are right more often than not. Based on rational investors you’ll usually lose.

Seen much rationality lately?

In practice, the masses now include people who’ve been indoctrinated since they were getting triggered by Spongebob Squarepants. They’re the target. Find something they believe in deeply. That’s where you’ll sniff out the goldmine of derp.

This is harder than it sounds. People sound like dipshits. It almost appears the natural state of mankind… or at least the college educated (indoctrinatus dipshiitius). But do they act on their dipshit assertions with their own money? Ah ha! Not so much. Watch a hippy sometime. They’ll lecture you about diversity all day long. But after work they’ll hypermile their Prius past fifty blocks of vibrancy to a McMansion which is nestled in a lily white gated community as uniformly manicured as the Queen’s garden. Hippies don’t go large on their beliefs, because they don’t actually believe them. They’ll signal their superiority on Facebook but do you they line up to finance California’s bullet trains and Solindra’s solar plants? Of course not! Hippies know their ideas are shit, that’s why they use taxes to implement them.

(As an aside, the reason young people accumulate mountains of debt for college is they incurred it before they realized deep in their soul that the debt was theirs and not society’s. Their short lifetime of free rides didn’t prepare them for the enormity of a $100K sociology degree. That’s why nobody begins a sociology degree in their 40s. By that age you’ve learned the difference between your money and “everyone’s money”.)

Pondering beliefs, actions, and the distance between the two brings me to Global Warming. (Another aside: I refuse to call it Climate Change. I’ve lived through the “Oncoming Ice Age of Doom” in the 1970’s. I’ve lived through Al Gore’s “Global Warming” that was absolutely going to make an ice free north pole (littered with polar bear skeletons) 5 years ago. I’ll be damned if I’ll let them use the word “change” and claim both options. Call it cold or call it hot but quit bitching’ at me about both.)

Anyway, Global Warming is a good spot to sniff about. It’s a likely intersection of beliefs people claim en masse but which don’t match the measurements (the derp faction) and a place people will spend a ten spot to signal their superiority:

“Will NASA find 2019’s global average temperature highest on record?”

Talk about a sweet market! It should be a shoe it! Buy NO and laugh all the way to the bank. In general, betting against anything being the highest on record is pretty safe. By definition, most of the shit that happens in any given year is well within the range of shit that’s happened in recorded history. That’s why records are… um… recorded.

I’d happily bet against almost anything setting any record in any year. Will the number of excellent blowjobs in San Jose be the most in human history in 2019? No! Will German speaking fruit bats die more in 2019 than any other year in history? No! Will the number of re-animated corpses that play kazoos be more in 2019 than any other time in recorded history? No!Will the number of Fiats attacked by weasels in Guam be the most ever? No! Will the number of times Paul Krugman is wrong exceed humanly understood number theory in 2019? OK… Krugman is an exception. He’ll be more wrong every year until someone takes him behind a barn and Old Yeller’s his ass. So there you have it, averaged over several markets, bidding NO against highest records is a no brainer.

But that’s thinking like a Curmudgeon who lives on earth where the sky is blue and 2+2=4. This is an era when reality is pushed in the corner and getting dogpiled by lemmings. Read the fine print. This isn’t a market about actual thermometers recording actual temperatures… it’s a market about what NASA will say about global modeled aggregates. Is NASA going to tell the truth? “We measured temperatures and found absolutely nothing interesting, please fund us more.” Riiiiiight.

It’s not a verifiable single number: “will Boston Airport weather station record >X degrees”, “will 2019 max out this thermometer in Rome that’s been around 400 years”, or even “the high number will be on the raw Landsat datastream that’s been incoming since 1972”. That’s the catch. NASA can announce any damn thing they want.

Betting against a historic never before seen recorded maximum is easy. Betting against NASA flinging shit is hard.

The game is afoot!

I decided the best way to play it was assume chimps were in the market. (It’s a global warming market after all.) I conjectured they’d collectively bid according to their teeny tiny world view. They’d say “NO WAY” to “global warming” when the Northern Hemisphere is in winter and the press is baying that Manhattan got 3″ of snow. “This just in, Manhattan is reeling from ankle deep snow! Stockbrokers are resorting to cannibalism because the Kobe Beef supply ran short. This is Trump’s fault.”

I further hypothesize they’d say “IT’S A RECORD WARMING YEAR” when it’s August and their nutsacks are sweaty. “This just in; everyone in Phoenix will die if the air conditioners fail for more than seven minutes. This is Trumps fault. Stay tuned for Bill Nye explaining how it’ll totally improve power grid reliability to switch to windmills.”

Two predictable motions; one down, one up. Then, the hard part. I’ll have to get the hell out before the end. I can’t just buy and ride it to the end of 2019. We all know the purpose of NASA is not science but to “engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering“. When NASA replaced the guys with slide rules and started taking orders about “feeling good”; it was all over. By now, there could be penguins in Maui and they’d say this proves global warming has been caused by middle class Americans who own SUVs.

So the safe buy in was “NO” during winter in Northern hemisphere. But it was priced too high. NO was somewhere near $.60. I decided to wait.

I tuned in after a tree day absence. YES had plunged 28%! (Meaning NO had soared.) I’d missed it. Damn.

But what’s this? I’d logged in a “BUY NO” order at $0.52. I don’t remember doing that.

Yes had made a minor run. NO clicked down just enough to trigger my buy. Then YES fell off the cliff and my pittance of NO shares gained 30%. Sweet!

Before anyone thinks I’m suddenly rich I’ll restate that this is a micro pittance we’re talking about. Not even enough to buy a six pack of beer. Alas, I’m simply not constitutionally built to risk money in serious amounts. I’ll take risks with chainsaws and motorcycles but I’ve had a fiscally lean times and they change you. Using money that would hurt if I lost it is not my way. Even so, I’m delighted. I do put real money up at real decision points and really report when I suck and when I rule. I figure it’s the same market calls to make 30% return on five bucks as it is a thousand.

Also, it’s all for fun. Did I fret about this over the weekend? Nope. I’d forgotten about my BUY order. I was my own blind trust. How cool is that?

After a small PredictIt victory calling “no” the 12/10 shutdown there was another chance. They opened a market for “Will OPM indicate government shut down at noon on December 24, 2018?” I was like “Alright, I gotta’ get me a piece of this”. Sadly, life distracted me and I missed the moment.

Here’s my TL;DR version of the situation.

Trump: “You guys don’t get it. I promised to build a wall. I used little words and was very clear about it. If I don’t get something done the people that voted for me will tear me apart like jackals.”

Ann Coulter: “Today’s BORDER WALL CONSTRUCTION UPDATE: Miles completed yesterday-Zero; Miles completed since Inauguration– Zero. NEXT UPDATE TOMORROW.”

Trump: “See what I mean? That’s pretty hard to spin.”

Chuck Schumer: “Get with the program. Republicans always cave. It’s in the manual. Didn’t you get the secret deep swamp manual that is given to all incoming presidents? It’s on chapter 4. There’s a chart and everything. Read the fuckin’ manual!”

Trump: “You’re boring me.”

Schumer: “Dude, it’s simple. You pretend to care and then say something like ‘those mean jerks in congress stopped me’. Then you feel sad at first but you fuck an intern in the oval office and it all goes away. It’s been like that decades. The script is all written out.”

Trump: “Nope. My voters are sick of bullshit. It has to be concrete progress. Like literally made of concrete. If I have to go there and smack Dan Rather’s skull off it I’ll do it. They are tired of ‘hope’, ‘change’, and ‘thousand points of blah blah blah’. They want dozers and cranes in the desert.”

Nancy Pelosi: “We will bury you!”

Trump: “Meh.”

Elizabeth Warren: “We’re not bluffing! We’ll grind the government to a halt.”

Trump: “I give 1/1024th of a shit about your opinion.”

Schumer: “It’ll happen on Christmas Eve. You’ll be totally unpopular with liberals. People will dislike you. They’ll call you mean names like Grinchy McGrincehrson!” 

Trump: “I’ll be unpopular ? Oh dear. Should I retire to the fainting couch? You can’t threaten me with unpopularity among people who shriek that I’m Putin’s ass clown. They block roads in Portland and actively wanted to impeach me before I was even sworn in. They’ll always hate me. You’ve already spent two years going scorched earth and so far what’s come out of it is that Stormy Daniels now owes me money. I’m not really worried about it.”

Schumer: “You’ve got a fainting couch too? I use mine all the time. We have common ground.”

Pelosi: “I’ll get you and your little dog too!”

Trump: “I have a dog? I don’t recall a dog. I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Curmudgeon: “Oh yeah! They’re threatening a guy who’s totally cool with conflict… and they’re threatening him with conflict. I smell volatility! I gotta’ buy in.”

Life: “No time for your on-line games. There’s shit to do.”

PredictIt: “Chance of shutdown is higher than you’d think.”

Curmudgeon: “There’s hippies out there that really think this will happen. I need to fleece them.”

Life: “No time Curmudgeon.”

Schumer and Pelosi: “We want to go to the White House and personally threaten you.”

Trump: “You know the address. I’ll be waiting. Step carefully over the bones of my slain enemies that are strewn around the lawn.”

Schumer and Pelosi: “We’ve come to kick your ass. Let’s meet in private.”

Trump: “Nope. We do this here. We do it now.”

PredictIt: “Red Alert! The president isn’t following the script. What do we do?”

Schumer and Pelosi: “People are watching.”

Trump: “You get used to it. I’m always being watched. I’ve brought this club and I’m going to hit you with it.”

Schumer and Pelosi: “It’s Christmas. People will be sad.”

Trump: “My voters will make popcorn and cheer. Now stand still because I’m going to beat you like a rented mule.”

Schumer: “You’re not following the script.”

Pelosi: “Can’t we do this in private?”

Trump: (To the press) “Write this down: I fear nothing. Chaos is my thing. I like firing people. I enjoy conflict. I like building stuff. I built tons of shit in New York when you need six lawyers and a permit just to make a cup of coffee. I turned Manhattan into my personal version of SimCity. This is fun. I’m getting an erection just thinking about shutting down every stinking office from the Pentagon’s janitors to the NOAA (whatever the hell NOAA means). I like being in the headlines and my people want a damn wall. Go ahead and spin that statement on CNN anyway you like.”

PredictIt: “RUUUUUUUN!”

Curmudgeon: “Shit, I missed a fast selloff. Dammit!”

So there you have it. I missed a one hour window where I could’ve cleaned up. The market still exists but it’s dead right now. Until something changes I’m sitting this one out. Maybe the press will drum up a witch hunt or Trump will pussy out but barring more shenanigans I missed my chance. Thanks for tuning into CNN; Curmudgeon News Network.

[This post is a smattering of topics. I like a well thought out thesis but today’s post is what it is.]

Topic 1: WordPress Is Fucking With Me

WordPress has followed the Microsoft format for software development: “People (or at least Curmudgeons) are using our software like a generic, uninteresting, useful, and reliable tool. It gets the job done and otherwise leaves them alone. It’s a hammer in world full of nails. It’s nothing but an appliance. This cannot stand. WE MUST UPGRADE!”

So, now WordPress is actively annoying. It fucks with your train of thought, interferes with mundane tasks, and generally gets in your face. It’s as if the most important thing about a blog is the software and not the content. Which, sadly, might reflect on society as a whole even if it seems foreign to me.

I shouted at WordPress “Fuckin’ leave me alone!” It responded: “No need to thank us. We’re here to help. We can’t wait to get into the business of censoring content and maybe branch out into self driving cars! In the meantime would you like New Coke and a talking paperclip?”

Ah well. These things happen. Software companies get bored and step on their own dick from time to time… it’s what they do. I’ll either get used to it or dump it. For the moment this blog post looks like it was typeset by a monkey on Adderall and I’ll let it stand as such.

Topic #2: Generic Whining:

I expected by now to be knee deep in crumpled drafts of squirrel stories; honing the final touches on my magnum opus. Alas, it’s not yet happening. You know what they say: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

My plans aren’t yet coming to fruition. They will eventually. I’m treading water plenty fine and sometimes that’s good enough. Thanks for your patience with no-squirrels and light posting. 

Topic #3: PredictIt

I promised to keep y’all up to date so here goes:

I risked a pittance on the November elections and lost a pittance. I learned from that. Good! That’s what prediction markets are all about. (I’m less a gambler than an observational amateur economist… if such a thing exists.)

I’d already picked a few other markets to keep the game going. But I was loathe to throw more money into the maw. The idea here is to make money, not lose it. So I sold out a micro-pittance in another market to free up some “cash” for a more likely market. This came at a small (sub-atomic?) profit.

Ta da! My user icon or whatever the heck you call it clicked up from whatever it was to “Novice”. There was some modest graphical fanfare. Apparently there are social media style ranks to the user account? Who knew?

First of all I’m a bit insulted to see “nudging” so obvious. The idea with mass manipulation is to be subtle. But there you have it, the instant you make a profit on even one market you’re automatically raised a level.

Not that “Novice” is impressive but it’s mathematically incorrect. I expected so long as my losses outweigh my gains I’d be labeled (quite properly) “Loser”. But it looks like only wins count. You can keep throwing bets willy nilly until you luck out and make a win? Then bask in instant social networking stature? It probably matters in the forums I don’t read.

The next market of interest was “Next justice to leave the Supreme Court”. The unstoppable, unkillable, wildly popular and equally loathed Justice Ginsberg had fallen and broken some ribs. I sensed the press wouldn’t report the whole story even if she were decapitated by Godzilla. They’d report that she was jogging and wrestling alligators right until she unexpectedly takes a dirt nap last week.

I bought in, (at a pittance level of course). Alas the share price on “Ginsberg bails first” had already climbed and I locked in at the higher value. In case you’re wondering, the second banana in the “race to bail” is Clarence Thomas, the only other oldster in the same relative dimension as creaky Ginsberg. The rest are trading in very small values like a nickel or a few pennies on a “Pays $1 if they’re the one” market.

I have mixed feelings about this. Ginsberg is clearly very partisan. She will never leave the court under her own power. I theorize she overplayed her hand. She might have gracefully retired to hand the choice to fill her seat to Hillary (the anointed one). However, that didn’t happen (I pause to smile) and now she’s hell bent upon outlasting the Orange Menace. She’ll never retire for such mundane reasons as because she’s tired of working or wants to spend time with family.

From now until won 2020 or maybe 2024 the only thing that’ll get Ginsberg out of her job is the grim reaper. I’m mildly concerned I’m betting in a defacto dead pool. It’s unseemly.

As far as I can tell, the only risk that it’s not a dead pool is Clarence Thomas. He has a personality and seems to enjoy life (no sign of that from Ginsberg). Thomas doesn’t fear the Orange Menace so he won’t fret over his replacement should he retire. He might want to actually not work until he dies. I respect that. (There’s something extremely creepy about the Robert Byrd mentality of working to extreme old age death in a seat of power. It seems an earthly hell. Some sort of Faustian bargain for power. But what do I know? I’m just a blogger who never has nor ever wants power over anyone.)

At any rate, Thomas is trailing at around half the odds of “quitting” as Ginsberg. Whether the market is taking into account actuarial or personality traits is anyone’s guess.

I’m holding tight on Ginsberg. It’s unseemly to be in a dead pool but then again I’m a vicious profiteer at heart. Nobody lives forever and Ginsberg seems about as healthy as Hillary Clinton (they would’ve made an interesting pair). To her credit, the feisty Ginsberg has survived two different cancers and bounced back broken ribs like a champ. She’d probably enter the Olympic shot put if it would keep a strict constitutionalist out of “her” justice seat. But time stops for no-one. I wish her well but going toe to toe with mortality over politics sounds like a losing bet. Time will tell.

Another notable bet was on “Will OPM indicate government shut down at noon on December 10, 2018?” I bet “no” and then a few days later bought a few more shares of “no”. I rode it all the way to a $1 payout of “that shit didn’t happen”.

I was delighted! I have no special knowledge that anyone else lacks, but I read the tea leaves better. I cleared an after fees 44% profit! Nice!

This almost, but not quite, wipes out my losses from the election. Huzzah.

Keep in mind were talking pittances here. I just about earned enough to buy a six pack. But I’m also keeping “score” with real, after fees, percentages and not just throwing money into a nerdy Vegas slot machine. 

Also, for no apparent reason, I went from “Novice” to “Prognosticator”. This is irrelevant but it happened. You can shit in one hand and put a social media title in the other and see for yourself which weighs more. I thought I’d report it in the interst of completeness.

I have some micro micro sub compact bets that won’t play out until the end of calendar year. They’re not even large enough to buy a cup of coffee but I expect to win them both. I’ll report my failure or success then. 

(One last note: PredictIt servers have conked twice on me. Once during the elections and then again near 12/10. It’s possible that PredictIt is over its head in terms of IT. It’s also entirely possible that someone is playing games Clinton style. The damn thing freezes at a critical moment and then emerges on the other side? Really? Smells bad. If I had real money in PredictIt I’d wonder if I was subsidizing inside track day traders near the finish line. Then again it has no relevance to me; I bought at price $X and waited for it to go to $0 or $1 and it’s only tiny amounts. All the math has worked out for me properly. Just be warned if you’re taking this thing seriously that it’s shaky under load.)