Don't Leave Home Without It.

American Express Antirant #1009: Free USOpen Tickets.

That's right! AmEx is hosting a whole bunch of special offers (for cardmembers) at membershipchangeseverything, and I managed to score on the offer for two free complimentary USOpen Tickets!

Regrettably, I really wish I'd gotten at least four or six to split among family and friends, but the offer was only good for two, and the seats are way up in the nosebleeds in Arthur Ashe stadium, but they're free, and we can invest in a good pair of binoculars. ;)

Now we're watching the first round Agassi v. Pavel (on the big TV, of course).
Agassi seems to be having a tough time (we're in the middle of the second set tiebreaker), but we're pulling hard for him - as it would seem all of Arthur Ashe Stadium is. That's one thing I totally love about the whole setting of the US Open being in NYC. All the other grand slam events - Wimbledon, French, Australian - they all have their own atmospheres, but they always feel a lot stodgier than NYC where you can feel the raw intensity of the crowd - especially when it's for a player like Agassi that everyone LOVES! I'm going to keep watching... and hoping and rooting for the old man!

Taking an old cue...

I shot pool tonight at Slate for the first time, literally, in years with an old ex co-worker of mine. We worked together in derivatives technology at our former employer probably around 2000-2002ish, he left initially to another broker/dealer to be a stat arb trader, and then went to a hedge fund, and now is at another hedge fund, but it sounds like he's also back on the technology front there, not trading anymore.

It was a lot of fun catching up with him, we'd always gotten along and we hadn't seen each other in at least 3 years, so this was a nice chance to catch up, reminisce, and share stories and experiences of what's happened since. We even think that we may have figured out why the Russell 2000 rebalance trade performed so poorly this year! But anyway, it was really nice shooting pool in an old spot that I hadn't been back to in a long time.

Got home a little later than I intended (about 9:30ish) and found that the mrs. was cooking and waiting for me to have dinner. She also bought and lugged home bottles of Coke (the glass bottles I love) and Pellegrino from Dean & Deluca (so I felt thoroughly guilty). :(

Now she's subjecting me to The Simple Life on E!, which I suppose has now become her new guilty pleasure...
It's really horrible.

I want to rave about my job at some point too as it's been pretty good to me, maybe I'll save that for tomorrow... ;)

Back in downtown just briefly

I was pleasantly surprised to get an invite to drinks from an old co-worker. When I started working 7 years ago, we worked in the same group in the technology division of my former employer. I probably last saw him at least 3 or 4 years ago, and he mentioned that a few other folks that we worked with would also be in attendance. There was something nice about being downtown again, and we were back at the old watering hole that I last frequented with them at least 5 or 6 years ago when I still worked with them, The Full Shilling. It was a nice, low-key night with just a few of us reminiscing over a few beers.

Afterwards, I stopped by our old favorite restaurant downtown, ISE, and there completely by coincidence while I was waiting for the takeout order, I ran into another former co-worker, but this was someone who worked in the organization I was last involved with at my former employer, not the technology division.

Now I'm stuffed full of katsu curry and old Seinfeld episodes (off the dvr).

Writer's Block

I keep meaning to get started on a new short story but I find that I'm completely uninspired. I'm rifling through my head desperately trying to grasp on to any creative thought or storyline and it's just not materializing. My mind is just bone dry. I don't know if it's a symptom of being complacent and content, or if I'm really getting to be more and more boring. Maybe my mind is just preoccupied with other things too. I'll probably hang on to the laptop until I fall asleep and see if anything develops.

No warehouse sale for us ... And instead, a trip to hell.

So yesterday, we left the apartment in the early afternoon thinking we would hit the Barney's Warehouse Sale, but no such luck. By the time we got there (around 3ish), there was a line that went down half the block. We just weren't willing to wait that long to get in, I mean, there's some nice stuff but it doesn't seem to be worth that much of a wait. And maybe it's just me, but it seems to be that with each passing year, there seems to be less and less good stuff and just more and more people.

We did end up having a fantastic brunch at Bruxelles, which was really nice. I can always go for a good Croque Monsieur, and my wife can always go for a great bowl of mussels - they know how to do both great. So afterwards, I stopped by Nickel, where my wife got me a gift certificate for a massage - which I booked a reservation for, and I bought some more skin and shave products that I'm convinced will make me look better (not that anything can possibly help me anyway). That's when we went over to the warehouse sale and saw the insane looking line. So instead of doing that, we went up to 23rd & 6th and hit:

• Circuit City (for a pair of headphones for work, and We Love Katamari - a PS2 game)
  
• Barnes & Noble (for some magazines, and a huge Italian cookbook)
  
• and Bed, Bath & Beyond. (for some assorted housewares)
  
• And a Starbucks somewhere along the way. (mmm. pomegranate frappuccino)
  

Bed, Bath & Beyond is an absolute hellhole. The moment I walk into that place and see the walls lined up with endless choices of different products, I start thinking that there must be something I need at home that I'm forgetting about, and I'll magically remember if I carefully scour through each and every product that's on every single wall of the place. For my own sanity, I just have to keep remembering only to get the specific things we thought about BEFORE walking in there and getting the hell out before I go nuts. As if that didn't give me enough of a headache being in there, you then end up spending forever waiting to check out. I don't understand what in the world these cashiers do, but it's as if they have to spend five minutes per item being checked out.

After getting home, I productively spent hours watching TV -

• catching up on the latest ep of Komyo ga Tsuji
  
• Monty Python's Meaning of Life (in HD!)
  
• Secret of My Success (the old 80s Michael J. Fox movie)
  
• an old SNL w/ Alec Baldwin
  
• Kissing Jessica Stein
  

After all of that, it was around 3AM or so and I found that my net connection had died (thanks, Time Warner!), so I collapsed, woke up, and am now writing this for all of you people...

Wouldn't it be cool to be a sommelier?

I think it'd be kind of a cool job. You'd probably have to tolerate some snobby clientele though as most places that employ sommeliers seem to be of the more upscale variety. I really do want to get more into wine. So much so that I even subscribed to Wine Spectator. The trick is finding time to read it. Oh well. Sideways is on at the moment, so I just started thinking about it.

TV: Sideways
iPod: Still need to clean up my music library.
Wife: chomping away on corn. My wife can eat unbelievable amounts of corn like you wouldn't believe. It's kind of scary.

Something smells goooooood....... !

Sitting here being the lazy ass that I am while my wife's cooking in the kitchen. She mentioned something about delicious pasta (that she made for herself, which she's now making for both of us), and I'm pretty sure there's Italian sausage and broccoli rabe involved. Something's starting to smell really really REALLY good. Mmmm.... I really should get over my fear of the kitchen and try my hand at the whole cooking thing. (my whole tendency to overcook and the one or two incidents of making my wife sick are somewhat discouraging though...)

Some more about the Movie in the Park last night... It was just THAT fantastic!

Raiders of the Lost Ark in the Brooklyn Bridge Park last night (as I mentioned earlier below a few posts ago), really was so unbelievably amazing. It'd been so long since I'd seen Raiders I really forgot how much I loved it. The whole swinging the sword to and fro, and Indiana Jones's answer of BANG!

The brilliance of the movie itself aside, the venue was just so unbelievably awesome. Here's a few pics my wife took (while holding our spot in the park waiting for me and our friends to show up). Note the last one where the inflatable screen shows up out of nowhere right before they start screening the movie -

Liar's Poker at Tuscan Square

So, at work, my manager and the one other member of our group (also more senior than me) really love going to Tuscan Square for our coffee breaks. The cappuccinos there (my usual choice, though my manager and co-worker usually get lattes) are absolutely heavenly. It feels fairly authentic too as they have Italian newspapers about for patrons to browse.
For those of you who don't know, I'm employed at a large securities broker/dealer, and I've been at this particular employer since May of this year. Prior to that, I was employed at a larger and more well-known securities firm, and this was the case with my manager and co-worker as well (although, they've been at this particular firm for about 3+ years now, and they came from different previous firms).
Anyway, yesterday during our mid-morning coffee break, we got to talking about Liar's Poker, initially the book written by a former bond trader, and then the game (which I had never played). So, of course, they taught me how it was done and expressed their surprise at the fact I didn't already know how to play, especially considering the parallels that can be drawn between the game and the behavior of the equity market. I was about to start describing the rules, but I think wiki does a much better job.
Consider the rules and the gameplay for a moment - and consider how the game would be played out with a large multitude of players (which, they kept telling me, was when it's most fun). It emulates the behaviors of traders in the equity market in a number of ways:

• you're betting


• you're betting based on what you know (the numbers in your hand)


• you're betting based on what you don't know (the numbers in the hands of the other players)


• and you're betting based on what others are betting based on what they know and don't know.

Traders always consider market intelligence to be paramount, but the dimension of knowing "what the other guy has", and what the other guy's doing also definitely directly affects what they decide to do next. And of course, when you're trading, it's never ever as clear cut as sitting across a visible number of other players, so then there's also the more complex dimension of considering how many other players just might be out there - and what each of them are going to do based on what each of them are seeing (and whether or not they see and perceive things the same way you do - and maybe they won't, based solely on what's in their particular hand).
Anyway, yeah I know. Too many words. But this is the sort of stuff that I find fascinating and it's why I do what I do (as my choice of occupation), that's what keeps me going. I definitely feel like I need more schooling though, some more formal training on subject matter like game theory (the why of the behaviors that are observed), and economics and finance (the rules of the game). But, enough for today (and for the week). Think it's time to watch some TV and relax around the apartment.

TV: That's a tough one. Think I'll turn it on and pick something recorded on the DVR. The next episode of Komyo ga Tsuji (with English subtitles) should be on TVJAPAN during the day tomorrow!
iPod: Off. Think I'll spend some time later tonight consolidating and cleaning up my iTunes Music Library.

Pet Shop Boys Pet Shop Boys Pet Shop Boys

The music's pumping through me, I rush into the crowd
The sweat is pouring off me, the beat is dead loud

We've got tickets for the Oct. 14 show at Radio City Music Hall. (literally a block or two away from where I work now). That's gonna be so cool. Of course, we'll probably end up being the only two straight people there. I continue to be hopelessly addicted to all of their songs (which I've got playing on the iPod), but it's probably just one of my usual kicks on something. (After all, I was listening to Hikaru Utada's latest Ultra Blue on continuous repeat for a month or so not so long ago....)

oh yeah, and it's a slow Friday at the office. More on that to come...

Best "thermal" drinking glasses EVER.

I love these. In fact, I'm drinking my morning coffee (thanks to my lovely wife) in one of these right now. They're so damn cool. The (automatic timer, of course) coffee maker is pretty damn cool too. And, she's right, this is a whole lot more economical (and better tasting, really) than my obnoxious Starbucks habit...

Ok, I really really should be getting to work now.
(Speaking of which, it is Friday, so.. free bagels!)

Movie in the Park!

So we spent the night at the Brooklyn Bridge Park watching Raiders of the Lost Ark with a few good friends. If you're in the area to catch one of these free events put on by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, I highly recommend it. Sitting down in the park with some snacks and drinks watching a young Indiana Jones on the big screen while under the Brooklyn Bridge and being right next to the water and the skyline was just a fantastically awesome evening. Unfortunately for us, we were hoping to hit Grimaldi's for some pizza right after, but we were turned away as they claimed to be closed (at 10:40??), so we ended up eating at Iron Chef House since they seemed to be the only place in the neighborhood willing to serve us. We probably could have stuck around DUMBO to find another place to eat there, but I didn't think of that.

Oh God. I HATE this episode.

Did I mention (a minute or two ago) we're glued to the watered-down versions of the old (well I suppose there are no 'new' ones, eh?) episodes of 'Sex and the City' on TBS? Jack Berger. Those of you who have watched the series know what I'm talking about. I just found the whole plotline that featured him to be so unbelievably annoying. Did it serve any purpose in the series at all?? It was just needless fluff. Turn it off, you say. Yeah, I've been feeling pretty tired all day and I keep meaning to wake up early enough to hit the dry cleaners before shoving off to work in the mornings, but still haven't managed to do that. Try again tomorrow...

TV: Didn't you just read what I said? Still that idiotic old ep of 'Sex and the City'
iPod: Make some smart playlists to sync up onto the iPod mini. Oh yeah, I just re-imported my whole entire iTunes library, so saying 'most often played' gives me nothing since the play counts were all reset after being re-imported. Grumble.

Evenings in Midtown

I gotta say... now that I'm working in midtown (Rockefeller Center, to be precise), I'm really starting to like it a lot more than working downtown. I had a chance to stop by the unbelievably outrageous Fifth Avenue Apple Store to pickup a few things for my old iPod (mini), the new wireless Mighty Mouse (which - btw, works like a dream), pickup a new office bag (briefcase/portfolio like thing that I've been looking for), and eat dinner (w/ my wife) at Joe's Shanghai. All this, and we were back home by 8:30! Man, I love this city!

TV: TBS - 'Sex and the City' (old, watered-down edited eps)
iPod: loading up the old iPod mini with tunes to bring to work...

most importantly....

There's so much that's happened this past week, this past month, this past year, even. But it would only be proper to kick off this blog with the most important thing that's happened not only this year, but in my life. I'm married to my loving wife, the most wonderful woman in the world. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how lucky I am... :)