Movie trailers that look excellent

Art School Confidential, and A Scanner Darkly (both via The Movie Blog). Now if we could only get Malkovich and Reeves to star in a movie together, and maybe throw in Christopher Walken too. Like Bacos, Walken makes everything he's in better.

Fungible doesn't mean elasticity is zero

I like Scott Adams, Dilbert is one of the few comics that is worth a damn, but he doesn't really know what he's talking about vis-a-vis the world oil market. He is right that cutting back on our use of oil won't affect terrorism much; whether the effect would be small or non-existent I'm not sure, but it would be too small to worry about. However, if US citizens' demand curve for oil moves down (which is what all of us switching to more efficient cars would very likely do), the world's demand curve moves down. Yes, in the short run the oil we don't use would be used by others, but that's not terribly important. I'm not sure how fast supply would adjust to the change, but the price of oil would go down quickly and quantity would go down eventually. This means less revenue and profit for oil companies and oil-exporting countries. Like I said, this would not likely have any significant impact on terrorism, but the economics are definitely not what Adams thinks they are.

Smack

Another great thing we apparently owe to the Romans. Along with the aqueduct, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, health, wine, public baths, public order, and bringing peace. But besides those things, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Wow

Just sent this by the little sis, the worst flash movie ever. I swear, Democrats are trying to lose.

Super

Google has the Super Bowl commercials (I think all of them) up. Pretty cool, even if the commercials were quite subpar this year.

That's my PG!

I wasn't going to put anything up for Valentine's Day, but this is priceless (thank you Deadspin for bringing it to my attention).

Damn

I can't quite figure out what the Civic driver was doing. You just need to watch the first 15 seconds or so, the rest isn't terribly interesting.
So, I generally leave my personal life off of this site, so details will be sketchy, but blogging may either shoot up or down in frequency.

Investing Stuff

Mostly notes to myself, but here are the 7 Deadly Sins of Fund Management, and a Warren Buffet-based stock screen.

Filliam H. Muffman

Colbert has a great ability to say the most ridiculous things with a straight face. He finally cracked (via reddit).

Failure to read own sentence

In this kind of dumb, long article on dating in the NY Times, "Time and again I hear about a man withdrawing from a relationship and ceasing all contact "for no reason" that the woman can decipher.
When the tables are turned, however, women seem to have little trouble explaining to men why it's over. Whether the man accepts the explanation, believes it or even hears it is another matter."

Um, consider the possibility that the second condition explains the first.


(via Yglesias)

Robert Jordan's Blues

How to tell if your fantasy novel sucks (via Reddit)

I see

So "repeatedly lying...and providing false reports" is nearly iron-clad proof of Iran's nuclear weapons intentions, but Bolton's similar behavior is irrelevant. Got it.
(For the record, I don't trust the Iranian government, but I put zero weight on anything Bolton says. If he told me it was sunny out, I'd grab a flashlight)

Putting it into perspective

You can always count on Allen Iverson. I mean, we're talkin' 'bout cartoons.

Super Bowl Sunday

The big day is here. Seattle Seahawks, Pittsburgh Steelers. Detroit. Hey, did you know that Jerome Bettis is from Detroit? Really, it's true. That's the kind of inside information you only get at this site. Also, Detroit is cold, water is wet, and Holmgren was Brett Favre's coach. These are angles that the media just doesn't want you to know about.
Anyway, last week I was 1-1 picking, both against the spread and straight up, bringing me to 5-5 both ways, so today's game is make-or-break for me. Pittsburgh is favored by 4.5, and they seem to be the trendy pick; everyone loves Bettis, Roethlisberger is a better star-in-the-making than Hasselbeck, the AFC is so much better than the NFC, blah, blah, blah. I actually agree with all those points, but I don't think they're terribly relevant. The three games Pittsburgh won were over Palmer-less Cincy, perennial chokers Indy, and Denver, who shit a little brick. Seattle beat a mediocre Washington team and a good Carolina team. I think we can say they went through comparable tests to get where they are. I'm betting that Seattle's O-line contains a less than 100% Polamalu and allow Alexander and Hasselbeck to have big days, and that in general Seattle carrying a chip on its shoulder beats the win it for Bettis sentiment.
Seahawks 23, Steelers 17.

Brokeback to the Future

Somehow I missed this subtext when I watched those movies.

Fishy

Learn how to eat sushi from Eugene (via Newmark) and Mike. I'm pretty sure Mike is part Japanese, and he lives there, so he should be a pretty reliable source.

I hear that Goldman Sachs' League is Pretty Tough

Jay Williams is playing basketball again.