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| Tuesday Sep 05, 2006
Teenage LobotomyTaipan Groups Dynamic Market AlertBy J. Christoph Amberger-- Teenage Lobotomy -------------------------- Teenage Lobotomyby J. Christoph Amberger Children these days are supposed to be “technologically savvy.” At least that’s what people want you to believe. And sure, most of them learn in kindergarten how to put together a PowerPoint presentation that is every bit as boring and grueling as the one put on by your average Information Technology manager. They know how to download audio files of the “Crazy Frogs” or of Norwegian heavy metal groups whose CDs are so hard to get even the European branches of Amazon fail to deliver. (You need the uncle with the vacation home in Sweden to locate these titles -- and even he’ll consider this favor one you’ll be paying for through the nose later in life.) And they sure know what colors the latest iPod Nano comes in and how many songs you can store on it -- while having no idea how much it costs or that there are really only about 50 songs in this world that are worth listening to. (And they can all be found on Daddy’s old-fashioned Blondie, Ramones and Madness CDs.) But the thing I don’t understand is how viewing video-sharing Web sites a la YouTube.com can qualify a young adult for technology savvy. Why would you consider a teenager who spends his Sunday watching two Hollywood releases that were pirated with a video function of a mobile phone on his computer screen technologically advanced? We got the same effect back in the ‘70s by turning on an East German movie station showing the German-dubbed version of a French Louis de Funes movie on a color TV set the size of a kitchen stove. Only that the sound was better. -- Crude oil prices registered solidly below $70 again today as the East Coast was drowned out in yet another monsoon-like storm. Gasoline prices are continuing to drop. Should this trend continue for another two weeks, we believe we’ll have seen the last of energy-fueled inflation spikes... and a temporary end to rising interest rates, which constitute bearish signals for the U.S. stock market. Tomorrow, we’ll be polling the Taipan Financial News Network editors for their year-end pegs for the Dow, the Nasdaq and oil.
Clowns & Harlots: The Handymenby Christopher Corbett My first handymen were an unlikely couple, a middle-aged ex-Marine masquerading as a plumber and a fresh-faced youth given to the things of the counter culture, albeit a decade late. He wanted to be a hippie. But the Age of Aquarius was over. Failing that, he claimed to be a carpenter. Neither of my handymen had the slightest idea what they were doing. They were my baptism of fire, my initiation, my hazing; with them I lost my innocence as the new owner of an old house. The ex-Marine was Sergeant Buck, or so his friends called him. I called him every morning, bright and early, stirring him from his drunken dreams of donut shop slatterns, to implore him for a word of hope, a status report on a job long overdue. An encouraging word. Anything at all to lift the spirits. But seldom was heard an encouraging word and the skies were, indeed, cloudy all day. Poor Sergeant Buck, too often shattered from the previous night’s revels, could only advise that he’d get back to me. Couldn’t get the parts. Needed a Stilson wrench. Had to see a man about a dog in Dundalk. Sergeant Buck was possessed of a mighty thirst. I returned one twilight to find the old leatherneck and a helpmate (shanghaied from the Stumble On Inn on Fort Avenue) on their second case of National Bohemian Beer, an alarming sight considering that they were using a blowtorch to install copper piping. Their explanation was that it was cheaper to drink than Coke -- which in Baltimore in those days was true. The carpenter, young Cliff, enjoyed a cocktail, too. I believe they had met at some watering hole. The pair came and went, always pausing en route to examine the contents of my refrigerator and swipe a can of beer. They belonged to that old school that holds that drinking beer ain’t really drinking; just something to get the taste of that bad coffee out of your mouth. It was entirely my fault. I had begun on the wrong foot. I believed that one wanted the workmen to like you, to be happy. I believed (my God I was naïve in those days) that happy workers would be good workers. But time would prove that happy workers would be deadbeats. Cliff favored odd jobs. The emphasis here being on the word “odd.” He specialized in taking things apart (and not being able to reassemble them). He also loved taking down shutters and door and window moldings to have them dipped in a toxic vat. This process removed old paint (and everything in my old house had 17 coats of paint on it). But, alas, it also caused the shutters to warp and fall apart. Young Cliff had not considered this consequence. The high point of my year (yes, they were with me that long) with Sergeant Buck and young Cliff was the reunion of Sergeant Buck’s old regiment -- a much-anticipated event, which he said, would require “a 48-hour pass.” This gala was, based on his account, a cross between the rape of the Sabine maidens and Helter Skelter. His description of previous such revels resembled a gathering of rogue Kiwanians as envisioned by horror filmmaker Wes Craven. Hotels had been demolished. Towns leveled. The smart money (and I was hemorrhaging smart money at this point) advised the Sergeant Buck would be incapacitated for at least a fortnight as a result of these exertions, if not AWOL or in jail. Young Cliff allowed as last year’s mustering of the regiment had resulted in Sergeant Buck “waking up in Richmond with his pants on backwards.” I did not ask any questions. Sergeant Buck had been with the Marines from the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli and to quite a few even wilder places that seemed to involve red light districts in the Philippines. How much actual combat he had seen, I cannot say. But I know for certain that he fought his way in and out of roadhouses and honky-tonks within a 40-mile radius of Baltimore and was banned for life at the Swallow at the Hollow and Jerry’s Friendly Tavern across the street. Well, as the scriptures tell us, judge not, lest ye be judged. He left the Marines with no real skills but a vague idea that he could be a plumber. As suddenly as Sergeant Buck vanished for the reunion of his old regiment, he reappeared one morning, clean-shaven, clean shirted. Bright of eye. Back in the saddle again. And like a fool I went along with it. I had to believe in something. This time he had a painter for me! A house painter! A woman house painter. She came around to give me an estimate and I saw what Sergeant Buck’s intentions were. The painter was a comely young thing in acid-washed jeans perhaps two sizes too small, a gay divorcee with a saucy smile. I should guess about 30, an age when a woman like that has a fairly lively past but still hopes for the future. Sergeant Buck, much smitten, took to hanging around my house like an old hound dog. The girl wasn’t a bad painter, either, just terribly slow. And like Sergeant Buck and young Cliff, she kept queer hours, often disappearing for two or three days, until one day, she decamped altogether. And so did Sergeant Buck and young Cliff. And I was temporarily at a loss but I found other handymen to complete their jobs. Years later, I ran into the sergeant at the old Boulevard Hardware store at 33rd and Greenmount. He had just left the Stadium Lounge across the street and was not wearing a shirt. It was January! I hailed the sergeant and reminded him that he had left two 100-pound sacks of cement in my garage (five years ago at that point) and a sump pump. He advised that he would “get right on that, chief.” I never saw the sergeant again. The cement and the sump pump were still in the garage when I sold the house 10 years later. Christopher Corbett is the author of “Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express” (Random House/Broadway Books) www.orphanspreferred.com ---------------------------- Aegis Group PLC, Avanex Corporation, Donaldson Company Inc, Finisar Corporation, and SPACEHAB Inc are releasing earnings. Sign up here:
Unlock Dates for September 2006 Keep an eye on Tim Hortons Inc. and Himax Technologies for significant sell-offs. You may want to short shares or buy puts on these two positions. Brought to you by Extreme Volatility Speculator
Upgrades and Downgrades ---------------------------- How a Secret Island Off the Coast of Denmark Is Causing “Silent Panic at OPEC”! Right now, 4,400 residents of this “secret island” pay nothing for power. When their free-power technologies go mainstream in 2008, you’ll witness a $25 billion global energy shift that’ll make Middle Eastern oil worthless. Early shareholders in these free-power technologies will make hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Quote of the Day “A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don’t are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, merely using different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith. These are not defenders of religion but Muslim supremacists trying to force their dictates upon the liberal West.” - Charles Krauthammer, Feb. 10, 2006
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