Surely there are huge sums of money to be made profiting from an addiction attached to money with no physical product that is available. Via Alan Meckler I read a NYT article about how big institutional investors are betting on online gaming, in spite of it being illegal in the US.

A large part of the reason online gaming is illegal is that tradional casinos (big money) do not want additional competition, but the institutional investers (big money) will probably hedge off any legal action.

Got in contact with some real fucktards recently via email.

One asshole wished me a merry Christmas and then sent me what was nearly a press release about my needing to check out and promote his software.

Stock trading spam and blog comment spammers are on the prowl.

Another guy reminded me that I should join his SEO forum.

Then sites like Gimpsy send you 20 promote your sites emails on Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Selfish ignorant automated greed marketing...I mention it to remind myself not to become it / not to do it.

I recently watched 2 movies in 2 days, which is pretty rare for me. I Love Huckabees was about existentialism.

Existentialism tends to view human beings as subjects in an indifferent, objective, often ambiguous, and "absurd" universe in which meaning is not provided by the natural order, but rather can be created, however provisionally and unstably, by human beings' actions and interpretations. - Wikipedia

It seemed to me like he pushed himself closer to self destruction as he spread himself thinner and grew older without getting what he really wanted. Not only was he addicted to speed, but it also seems he was addicted to the controversy it caused. Eventually the self reinforcing cycle caused him to do bad things to justify earlier activity. Being a rich star allows you to get away with living a really fucked up life for a long time.

I also think that the movie well showed some of the problems associated with extreme hard drug usage and / or being a star. The rush associated with finding extremely different perspectives on reality makes normal life seem boring. I think athletes also experience the phenomenon later in life. It is inevitable that most people who live too fast die young or are forced to slow down...and slowing down while curbing whatever addictions and bad tendencies one has is not easy.

Although his style, songs, and sound are uniquely his own, his life story reminds me a bunch of lyrics other singers recently wrote

And for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
- Karma Police by Radiohead

From the first line of the first page
to the end of the last day
from the start in your own way
you just want somebody listening to what you say
- Square 1 by Coldplay

Maybe you get what you wanted
Maybe you'll stumble upon it
- White Shadows by Coldplay

If I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
- Hurt by Nine Inch Nails

Although he was fucked up for a long time later in his life Johnny got exactly what he wanted, marrying June Carter. They lived happily together for about 35 years and then he died only about 4 months after her. While the Radiohead song Karma Police sounds like it is about losing yourself it really is about finding yourself.

I don't interact with people as much as most "normal" people do, so I love connecting with the emotion trapped in a song...and seeing a biopsy of a bad ass song writer struggling with loss from a young age was cool. Johnny created a video of the song Hurt soon before dying.

Wow she is so pretty...sorta

Wow this guy is honest...sorta

With all the lies that are coming out now imagine how bad it would be if the full story about Bush came out.

The atmosphere is shitty, but the economy is doing well, sort of.

I wonder if Bush will get impeached for spying on US citizens, ie: the program. If he is I hope they put him in jail so he is kept safe from the terrorists...the scumbag.

When you sell stock for profit you get taxed on it. I sold some Goog shares recently and had many thousands of profit.

I hate income because it causes you to have to pay more taxes, and much of our taxes go to bombing poor villiages in third world countries.

The stock market is sorta like a legalized form of gambling, where if you lose it is tax deductible.

Don't let the deep loss dogs sit in your account. Sell sell sell!

I still had some stocks left from the previous stock bubble, and it feels great selling some CMGI or Lucent right about now, because you can almost be certain it will be another 20 - 30 years at a minimum before they got to the same level as they were back in the bubble days. CMGI will likely never be worth what it once was. Lucent is a bit doubtful itself aswell. At the communications platforms expand much of the value add is layered on top of the underlying systems. Although Lucent has been profitable for a long time there is no reason to hold a 2 dollar stock that you paid around $80 for.

The nice thing with my recent flipping of Google shares is that on the whole I think I am ahead in the stock market, which is impressive considering how bad my timing was on buying the bubble 1.0 stocks hehehe.

Orwell's Preface to Animal Farm

So the other night I was in Chicago.

Since I was doing a bit of public speaking at an event that costs a few grand to go to I decided to dress up a bit. I wore a dress shirt that was about at thin as silk. A friend from Denmark was over with a coat on talking about how cold it is. I did not wear a coat and told myself I was not that cold...and I was not.

In many times in many places in many ways I lie to myself, and often enough I think I realize that I am doing it and I recognize the potential outcomes. Most of the time the short term outcome of the self lie is positive. Sometimes it blows up badly, but then I have to learn to avoid those situations. It is much harder to see the longterm trends with it though.

A few lies or thoughts I need to remember to always tell myself:

• it is not that cold in the winter
  
• music and water make me less hungry
  
• exercise makes me less hungry

I also tell myself that I have lower than average serotonin levels...which I think is almost a logical deduction based upon lots of reading, drugs I once liked, and the various life experiences I have had.

Sometimes I tell myself shitty lies. Those are the ones that blow up bad. Usually the blow up worst when combined with prolonged periods of isolation and / or alchohol.

While occassionally people will take time out of their days to treat me like a piece of shit many people also go out of their ways to be exceptionally kind to me. And sometimes I even have a few fans, which to me is obviously weird.

Between random acts of kindness from strangers, many friends, and family I believe that many of the bad (or destructive) lies are sorting themselves out...which is cool. Some things I still have to learn to let go of though.

How I believe my own lies allows stuff to go thermal runaway a bit much...really happy or really sad. Not so much in the middle. Not that it is necissarily bad, I just need to recognize limits and live at least some % of my life in a reality similar to some of those around me :)

So I have heard of this or something similar before, but have not been to Pandora in a great deal of time.

Holding true to form with my algorithmic mind I was almost more interested in the related recommendations than the music...although music makes me happy :)

I started skipping a bunch of songs and after about 10 to 12 they stated their license limits the number of songs you can skip in an hour.

Part of me wants to test the nearby computer to see if the limit is IP based or computer based :)

Bush concern at Iraq 'propaganda'

that has to be the funniest article title I have read in at least a month.

So I talked to a hotel person. Told them I was going to a conference days a through f.

The hotel was sold out during those dates. So then the person asked me if I was flexible with my days.

I said no.

They then recommended a hotel about 6 blocks away.

I asked if any were closer and she said "none that I would recommend. the Essex is ratty with holes in the carpet, etc."

I booked the Essex...will let you know how it goes :)