This is the news from 2000 for benturner.com.

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news from 2000...

 

12M/19D/00Y: Soapboxes: "It Has Yet to Play Itself Out" and "The Rise and Fall of a Sheeple Guru". ... It's late. I'm tired. A Camlink: feeling subversive? Then try I AM THE BOSS OF YOU. ... We have no tree yet, my shopping is almost almost done for Xmas, and I'm supposed to have a blind date coming up. Oy! My bro flies in in a few days too!

 

12M/16D/00Y: Soapbox on the rise and fall of this stock market. ... On the playlist: Hitman, No One Lives Forever, Project IGI; Kid Koala - Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Boards of Canada - In a Beautiful Place, Bomfunk MC's - In Stereo.

 

12M/09D/00Y: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is about to come out in the US. I got to see this a couple months ago in Paris (French subtitles, eep!) and I can without a doubt say it's one of the year's best films and contains some of the most fluid and graceful fighting scenes I've ever witnessed. It really does live up to the hype.

 

12M/05D/00Y: Details of my trip to NYC. Details about the new tattoo. Confessions of an online writer. All in the Soapbox section.

 

11M/14D/00Y: Off to NYC for a week for my first long stay there and also to see my aunt and badass Trish and the crew. ... Soapboxes on the election and on dreams and hopes.

 

11M/09D/00Y: I voted, but I almost feel ashamed of my country after the results...or lack thereof. ... I have to be honest, I haven't felt overly compelled on any issues to write about, and besides I've been completely hooked on Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. (which has to be one of the best games ever) ... Going to NYC in a week! ... Quote from stock trading channel on IRC: <jmmerlin> NEWS Chinese Press claiming "USA has bad Erection"

 

10M/29D/00Y: I wanted to write more Soapboxes, but it's late and I figured I should just post the ones I've had sitting around for a while: "Moulting and Metamorphosis", "Biofeedback", and "Internet Arms Race". ... Thoughts on market: my gut feeling on NASDAQ says it needs semi's and wireless to rally, and almost-hammerish candles would confirm good possibility of a rally, but are we on the cusp of a prolonged bear market after a blowoff top earlier this year? Egads, I hope not! ... Finally received my "Story of Ricky" DVD after waiting a few months for Amazon.com to find it. It has to be one of the best (martial arts) movies ever.

 

10M/26D/00Y: This site inactivity is sickening, sorry. Been reflecting on what I learned in Paris. It took a while, but I wanted to thank my mom for arranging and organizing our trip to Paris -- I really appreciate it.

 

10M/12D/00Y: Back in sunny, warm Dallas after a rainy, windy, cold week in Paris! Much time now to spend absorbing everything I experienced there. Drum & Bass Anthems 2000, disc 3 is a wonderful compilation disc. Strongly recommended. Not sure if it's available via Amazon.com; got mine in London. ;)

 

09M/30D/00Y: Soapboxes on Napster and remarks on the writing style I've developed. Paris on Monday! I'd love to see the Naz at 3250 when I get back. Will the Naz hold the bounce off 3600?

 

09M/28D/00Y: The Olympics have been amazing! Why, just last night, we got to see a 6'3" midget beat the shit out of a 6'8" Cuban in boxing, and then watch Karelin finally lose in Greco-Roman wrestling (to an AMERICAN!), and then Venus won the tennis singles, and then the USA baseball team beat Cuba for the gold. It's a sports-lover's dream... ... Is EFnet dying? ... Trish hooked me up with this info about possible future electronica micro-genres.

 

09M/24D/00Y: What have I been up to? Watching the Olympics and getting ready to go to Paris. This is also a time of reflection and re-focusing. I think I have just finally internalized the fact that it is not enough to merely have a correct demeanor about something, but you also have to be able to succeed in what at the time may seem like an instantaneous, insignificant moment, because later you will find out just how big it could have been. ... In market news, I think it's funny that it took this long for Intel to warn about revising its earnings outlook. Could the huge Friday come-back from the Naz on huge volume signal the bottom of this market?

 

09M/14D/00Y: Lots of charts in the newest Soapbox on my summer stock trading. ... Hey kids, collect all evil action figures, Rambus Man, Firestoner, Ms. RIAA, and Intelizard and you can combine them to form the devilish Lawyer Bot, capable of smiting its nemeses, Competition and Ethics, in one swift brief filing!

 

09M/13D/00Y: Okay, that's it, I need to go to Ibiza, an island off Spain, whenever I have the chance... ... Smashing Pumpkins released their new album on Napster in order to say 'fuck you' to their record label, Virgin. Go download it, even if you don't like SP. Napster, no longer just for pirated MP3s, now the free forum for free speech, political statements, and the latest in pop culture. Can you believe it? ... A few weeks of the Olympics to vegge out on and then 10 days in Paris immediately afterwards. The days are just packed!

 

09M/09D/00Y: The RIAA war goes on: "RIAA Sues Mirror Manufacturers" and Greg Knauss's latest essay on suck.com. Knauss, as you may remember, seems to dislike youthful civil disobedience because it reminds him that he's now an old dotcommer and out of the loop, not unlike Cameron Barrett. Luckily, in the real world, suck.com is now passé and visionaries like David Gelernter are stepping up again to help guide us towards seeing how the Internet will eventually evolve, instead of falling slave to traditionalism.

 

09M/07D/00Y: The US Open this year has been fascinating, stunning, and non-stop. Todd Martin is electrifying and John McEnroe is in his element as the most important person in all of tennis right now. (in my opinion) ... Like the new splash screen? VBT Mordekai comes to life! ... Eminem cruised at the MTV VMAs and Lars Ulrich got booed by Napster fans. And that's the way it should be. :)

 

09M/03D/00Y: Had to do a little cable splicing (which the dumbfuck at Best Buy didn't recommend) but I got a WORKING Sound Blaster Live (the first was defective) and plugged in my stereo speakers into the second jack for 4 speaker sound...nice! But wouldn't we rather have a set of Klipsch speakers? ... Soapbox, "A Trending Life".

 

08M/26D/00Y: The EMLX fiasco on Friday just proves how much of a scam the stock market is and I feel sorry for anyone who got screwed over in it. Meanwhile, some traders made a FORTUNE off it. NASDAQ turned its head the other way and let all the trades before the halt stand. No one is your friend on Wall Street. No one. I, like an idiot, did not short or buy it long when the news came out and was later called a hoax...and our channel had the news just as it came out! ... My virtual host just fucked with its network's IPs, so forgive any inconsistency. Contrary to popular demand, benturner.com isn't going anywhere. Have you noticed a lot of sites are changing up their IPs lately? Is this part of the IP crunch? Internet expansion? ... Snootchie bootchies!

 

08M/23D/00Y: Rich won and I have to hand it to him, he really did write the book on how to win Survivor, as one guy off IRC said. Everyone else needed him to advance, and I thought maybe they could turn the tables on him, but then Kelly kept getting immunity, and it takes no genius to figure out from the show history or her personal life (cc fraud?) that she's duplicitous. ... UpdateFu seems to be collecting personal site links so that it can post when people post updates to their sites...pretty useful for those who scour personal sites daily. ... Okay, if this is true, then why don't men live to 200 years of age? I got everything installed for Win2k Pro and am working on a 4 day uptime so far with it on its maiden stamina run. Woo!

 

08M/21D/00Y: AMD and the semi's finally correcting to let the big boys in. ... Star Wars gangsta rap and Star Wars Christmas. ... Here's an interesting project that recreates famous scenes from history using drawings that resemble the isometric computer game "The Sims". ... Soapbox on east coast clubbing.

 

08M/18D/00Y: Nice AMD bounce...split after Monday close. But man, that move from 92 to 54 was rough! Lots of people I knew were complaining. I didn't hold, but tried to catch the bottom a lot. And ended up missing the bottom. :P It doesn't trade naturally! But I still think it's going to soar. ... Soapbox on the past week here at the ranch. ... TIMMEH!

 

08M/17D/00Y: I spent a lot of the last week prepping my system for installing Win2k on a dual boot. The last three days or so I've been trying to get it to work. The problems were NOT with Win2k (which is a delightful little OS to use) but with my old Abit BH6 r.1.0 motherboard and a defective new SB Live Value. (lemons are hard to figure out) Now things are working pretty good in Win2k and it's fast, stable, and happy. ... Would someone kick Rich off Survivor already?? Geez. And Real World could do without Melissa, too. You'd think the world revolved around the both of them!

 

08M/11D/00Y: Today I had to put our dog to sleep. My parents are on vacation in Hawaii. The dog was not doing well at the end. ... Soapbox regarding the current sentiment of the stock market. ... Win2k going on a dual boot on Monday when my Sound Blaster Live Value arrives. I'm gonna get rid of this Turtle Beach Montego card Office Space style, I think. ... Trish let me know about ClubThings.com (don't forget your glowsticks) and also GaiaLive, which archives live British club performances.

 

08M/05D/00Y: I'm working on some Soapboxes, but nothing new will be up for a few more days at least. Going to Austin for the weekend to see my old roommate, and to go see God of Cookery at the Alamo Draft House. ... Here is an attempt to revive the old Shadows of Yserbius game that used to be on The Sierra Network many years ago. Remember $130/month for unlimited access? Before the Internet was mainstream? ... Wrote a Soapbox in the style of Confederacy of Dunces, because, what can I say, this guy really IS Ignatius Reilly incarnate.

 

07M/31D/00Y: Just got home from a week in Philly, where I met a slew of new friends and got to check out Vinyl, Limelight, Fun, and Twilo in NYC, plus Shampoo, 2-4, the Bike Stop, and Fluid in Philly...wild!

 

07M/18D/00Y: Okay, back home from Italy after two weeks in Rome and Amalfi. More stuff later...

 

07M/02D/00Y: Given time, the truth comes out... ... Soapbox on my quest for a local basketball court, which proved fruitless thus far. ... David Gelernter wrote something wonderful for people like me who are interested in the future of the 'Net and computers. This is a must-read!

 

06M/27D/00Y: New Soapboxes: one on First Amendment file sharing possibilities, another on an idea for a CNBC version of Survivor, and finally some stoking about getting to go to Italy! ... Market's been paralyzed waiting for Greenspan. Too bad my vacation couldn't have come in the last three weeks, which have been ULTRA BORING to trade.

 

06M/22D/00Y: Now if I'd actually BOUGHT ARBA, I'd be much happier right now... ... Soapbox on being a trader. ... This is quite a comprehensive list of swear words in different languages. ... I'm a new (and belated) Kevin Smith fan. ... And dammit, whoever's visiting via cable in Houston and Austin, and DSL in Richardson, I'll find out who you are. :P

 

06M/18D/00Y: Okay, so no rally, more of the same trading range. I'm still bullish, so perhaps we'll break above 3900 this week, eh? Any move above 3900 or below 3700 will be very big, based on these two weeks we've spent consolidating. TIBX broke out on Friday and ARBA, AMD, and RBAK, among many others, look good to go. ... Lakers win the championship tomorrow, but I'm going to go to my friend's graduation. So I'm gonna have to tape it... ... Italy in two weeks now! Sweeeet. ... This article on how record labels hook new artists, written by Steve Albini, is a must-read. ... I feel like listening to Ella and Satchmo singing "They Can't Take That Away from Me". Here are the lyrics to it.

 

06M/12D/00Y: Looks like Reggie decided to show up and play? ... Hot shit, Grooverider video footage at a drum'n'bass performance! ... Here is one of the Webpads that the handheld geeks are waiting eagerly for. ... It looks to me like the Naz will have a huge rally next week, so I'm very bullish (particularly on semi's), but it's triple witching options expiry on Friday so it may not come true...I hate options expiry weeks.

 

06M/09D/00Y: Man, the Pacers can't even beat the Lakers when Bryant sits out the whole game? And how about those Stars winning in triple overtime? Let's see Pierce and Norman win the French! Here's another Flash movie ridiculing Metallica. The Webpad is the next cool handheld device to own. And have you heard of NetFlix? They charge $20/month for you to rent as many DVD movies you want (only 4 at a time) and whenever you're done, you send them back and NetFlix picks up the shipping charges. Nice!

 

06M/05D/00Y: Kobe lobs to Shaq for the emphatic slam to knock out the Blazers! Whew, thanks to the Blazers for choking it up completely. Soapboxes on the London Underground and on the future of the Internet. AMD went from $66 to an all-time high today of $97. Probably needs to settle down for a bit before going higher. Wheeee.

 

06M/03D/00Y: Okay, wtf? Davenport and Agassi lost. Before Kournikova did? Lakers going to game 7 against the Portland Cupcakebakers, Knicks ousted. Rangers tied with their whole division, Stars tied in Stanley Cup but will need a lot to beat the Devils. Don't tell me sports is going to be ultra lame this month! ... Cisco is building a huge campus right next to my house! Literally 1-3 minutes away. Advice to parents: DO NOT SELL THIS HOUSE ANY TIME SOON! ... The ClearStation portfolio that I opened Sunday was up 25% on the long side this week because of the huge huge Naz rally. Why couldn't my real portfolio be like that? Mainly because we just switched from a trader's market to a position market. Where's the damn pullback? Charts looking healthy again, right when they were going to look ugly. That is what happens at market bottoms. Whee! Did you survive the selloff? Not sure what'll happen next week yet; not gonna think about the market until Sunday. But it looks like I'll have to adapt my strategy to match the current market.

 

05M/30D/00Y: [later] Woo, my timing was fortuitous! Biggest gain ever on the big ol' Nazzdog. Now where do we go from here? See how the bears were getting greedy and gradually they're getting more afraid that the markets will turn? See how CNBC is still spinning a bearish tune? See how SONS, the May 25th IPO, was overdosing on crack? These are good signs for more stock, er, speculation in the future. ... I see Napster made the cover of Newsweek. Gee, and exactly who was writing about MP3s back in early 1998? ... By the way, I'm glad the weblog clique is undergoing its own internal struggles. What a joke that whole movement is. But I guess things haven't changed; many of the people involved now were the people who alienated me from the personal site crowd years ago. It's all the same shit. And I have to agree, riothero is absolutely hilarious in its insipidity. These "blogs" even have an anti-negative blogging movement. No, I'm not making this shit up.

 

05M/30D/00Y: Some thoughts on the market: I spent tonight (after a great cookout) looking at stock charts and became optimistic that the Naz either bottomed Wednesday or will bottom very soon. Many charts show potential double bottoms and I think news is beginning to show bullish effects on the market again. Perception always lags the actual market. What I would like to see is weakness early in the week and then some rally-age soon so we can idle for a bit going into the Fed meeting mid-June. Then after that, I would like to see a sustained summer rally and the return of investor confidence. I have opened a long-term portfolio at ClearStation. No doubt they may go down further, but this seemed like a good time to enter and then check back next spring. Long picks: IBAS, SIFY, ITXC, IIJI, ARBA, RBAK, AMZN, SVNX, BEAS, NOK, QCOM, FOX, INFY, WMT, JDSU, SDLI, PROX, NMTC, YHOO, IBM, GE, FDX, CSCO, CAT, BBY, AXP, AOL, AMD, AMAT, ADBE, XRX. Short picks: RNWK, AAPL, INTC, RMBS, CNXT, PALM. No big surprises, but that's why they're long-term. Obviously I might've forgotten some stocks so I'll be adding them later. The IPOs that occurred late in the season I haven't had a chance to research much yet. There are tons more stocks I'd like to short, but who knows? They are buyout targets at this point. Stay awayyyy! ... French Open begins, Knicks come back against the Pacers, Lakers cream the Blazers. I likey! Knicks, Lakers (will win it all), Agassi, Davenport?

 

05M/29D/00Y: RealMedia of Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me), or the lyrics. By the way, I found some stuff from a mainarchive.php page that collected some site introductions back from 1997.

 

05M/28D/00Y: What's that, Seagram? (owner of Universal) You don't like Napster and the "theft" of intellectual property? What was that? Sorry, no one was listeniiiiiiiing... Oh wait, I think I heard this choice quote: "If this is a principle of the New World, it is suspiciously like the Old World principle called slavery." LOL, all I hear is some companies' swan songs. Read the comments posted to slashdot.org, a site which has become the voice of the Internet open sourcers.

 

05M/27D/00Y: Some cool shit! You can be a superstar DJ too! Sort of. Also, check it! The Founding Fathers declarin' their independence. Gosh, it's like the funniest stuff posted since the now notorious Napster Bad! Flash cartoon. ... Check out this trading system. ... Haven't shopped at MassMusic.com yet, but the prices look pretty damn good for buying music. Apparently what they specialize in is getting you hard-to-find imports and such.

 

05M/26D/00Y: Paranoia alert: hits from microsoft.com, ibm.com, and schwab.com. ... I wrote a 'Box about the bearish Nasdaq we seem to be stuck in. Is the pain getting to you yet? ... You know, Union Bay uses Flash quite well. That is more along the lines of where I expected web sites to be by now. But oh well...

 

05M/25D/00Y: Whoo, the Nasdaq's been scary, hasn't it? I don't know why, but my suspicion is we're not done selling. But today's morning rally may confirm a bottom made yesterday. At any rate, if it hasn't happened already, the bottom feels close... Now people realize stocks can go down faster than they went up. ... Three Soapboxes: one about Dr. Laura, one on dreams that I have, and the last on messages written in my high school yearbook four years ago. ... It's summer, baybeeee! ... Sorry, Pacers, but you're boring to watch. Let's see Knicks vs. Lakers for some real fireworks! And what's this? French Open coming soon? Woohoo.

 

05M/24D/00Y: Put in my Celeron 2 566@850 into a BH6r1 mobo along with a slocket... Now it turns out my ATAPI CD-ROM is causing skips in DivX movies because it's just a piece of shit. Ordering a Pioneer 6x SCSI DVD tomorrow -- what a trashy CD-ROM that Teac is. ... So by the way, I unofficially graduated and didn't walk with my "peers", so now I'm at home eating awesome food and relaxing nicely. It's good to be home. ... Excite@Home asks Pacific Bell to stop showing its ads (you know, the hilarious ones with the neighborhood quarreling over sharing cable with each other, like in this QuickTime'd one) and then Time Warner and its troop of cable SS guards are exposed for having employees sign up for and then cancel DSL accounts in Houston in order to test out SBC's service and support. If I were the DSL providers, I'd keep doing exactly what I was doing, because it's clear the cable companies know cable is an inferior product. ... A final note. There is someone in my life, who, despite everything, still manages to accept me. Isn't that a treasure?

 

05M/15D/00Y: "It's funny. You work so hard and do everything you can to get away from a place, but when you finally get your chance to leave, you find a reason to stay." -Ethan Hawke as Jerome Morrow in Gattaca.

 

05M/13D/00Y: Today a little part of my heart died. There is nothing left for me in this city. At least I'm a few days away from leaving Austin.

 

05M/08D/00Y: Idling my time away now...stuck in a limbo now. Everything's telling me to short the Naz, but I'm too coward to take my shorts overnight. I think it's caught in a limbo too, but my best guess is downward break tomorrow. Now is the time for capital preservation. Soapbox on defining moments. By the way, in case you didn't know, Napster got fucked by a judge who decided it wasn't just acting as a "mere conduit". Also, our Russkie comrades have replaced the much-missed lyrics.ch with their own lyrics search engine. Songs for tonight (in RealTrash format): Vast's "Touched" and Shantel's "Bass and Several Cars".

 

05M/05D/00Y: Soapbox on love. Three finals left and I'm outta school for good.

05M/04D/00Y: Here's a Soapbox about Metallica vs. Napster, in the latest turn of events regarding digital copyright. ... Tomorrow is the last day of class ever for me, plus all the Milky Way's planets are going to be in rough alignment. ... The Nasdaq is a trader's wet dream right now, isn't it? ... My long-time friend, Slavek, sent me stats on how often I use profanity on my site, which produced interesting results. Good golly, Beav, we're supposed to be fucking innocent for Christ's sake! ... Nicolas Poussin blows me away sometimes.

 

05M/03D/00Y: Well, I have a lot to write about because we all know torment and misery provide inspiration. :P That, and a renewed hate for Mondrian. At least today's class ended on a good note: dada. AMD goes up every day now. Naz needs consolidation. This is the last week of classes. I tried my best at something but I don't think it panned out. That's why I brood. Definitely a Rollins Band and Massive Attack kind of day.

 

04M/28D/00Y: Startups are hitting the campuses hard. Students are taking the bait. Many will be hurt. That's what the latest Soapbox is about. ... Sometimes I wish that life would stop dicking people around and get to the point. Instead it makes things very convoluted, leaving you to make all the mistakes. We saw "Le dīner de cons" in French today. Good shit. The new Plextor CD burner works great. Howard King can fucking blow me.

 

04M/26D/00Y: AMD hit 87-88 yesterday. Fucking amazing. I don't know what else to say. Its chart is exponential.

 

04M/25D/00Y: I love Gustave Moreau's Orpheus so much I made some wallpaper for my desktop. She is exquisite.

 

04M/23D/00Y: The circus continues. No, not the one on TV, the one in our ongoing "life at university and ghetto dorm" saga! Austin had some brownouts or something tonight and we lost power for a while. After our being reduced to acting stupid with flashlights in the dark, the power came back on and we discovered our television, dead. Allow me to cry a little tear. Sniffle. Ah yes, graduation. When old acquaintances from high school try to make up for lost time. Spare me.

 

04M/21D/00Y: "When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter." (Camus) Sometimes thinking about other people makes me feel very sad. But there is hope for this young man. ... Ugh, ended flat for the day after being way up in the morning. Still another record week! I have a note on my monitor reminding me NOT to trade on options expiry days. Funny that Microsoft reports some slowdowns and blames it on Intel's processor shortages. Intel is a fiasco waiting to happen and tons of people know it. This guy is even more bullish on AMD than I am! But I am buying AMD big next week I think. Maybe a steep Naz fall will provide a better buying opportunity. Is it a fucking rule that all web designers have to look like they came out of those shitty Mazda commercials with the cheesy end rhyme tune? My god...

 

04M/20D/00Y: Yesterday was my first day using QCharts. Expensive, but popular and excellent trading software. Now I need another 19" monitor to dedicate to it... MamboX looks like just the device I wanted -- portable CD player that supports CD tracks AND MP3. Now just combine this with another Sony product, some DJ headphones, and you're in bizniss!

 

04M/19D/00Y: "Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low." (Henry Ward Beecher) Back to shorting, I guess. Nasdaq had a rounded top today and looks to go lower again. We'll see if this is confirmed tomorrow. Ordered a Plextor 8x/20x CD burner finally. Woohoo!

 

04M/18D/00Y: Well, when they say the market will do whatever everyone least expects, they're right. I guess the capitulation was on Friday, although the stuff I saw didn't seem to be falling like a rock. Monday morning some stocks were dropping 5 points a pop like nothing, but on the open we sprung back up and have had the two biggest Nasdaq rallies ever. Amazing shit! I actually lost a little money yesterday (bleh, lessons learned), but today was very nice. The contrarians win again! Still, I think a lot of people would've been more satisfied if we went down a little lower, so maybe this is just a bounce to screw over the massive number of put buyers on Friday, going into options expiry this Thursday. At any rate, these massive swings are awesome for traders, and I'm loving this a lot! Screw investing when we're in a momentum market!

 

04M/17D/00Y: Eeek, get thee away, tax man! Are you ready for the chaos that the market will bring this week? I am. Gotta be fleet of foot. Soapbox on the Naz's correction. High-speed wireless connectivity via iSky. Quantum encryption. Countdown to graduation is on! One month to go!

 

04M/15D/00Y: Friday was a bloody end to a revolting week. I've never seen the market fall like that. The Nasdaq seems destined for 3000-3150. We STILL haven't had capitulation selling. Most people I've talked to think it'll happen Monday or Tuesday. Ragged, chunky, nasty selling will occur. Then strong hands and traders will come in to snatch the bargains. Joe Retail Investor of course comes in last. I had another record week, but I'm only shorting as a defensive position. I'd MUCH rather go long. So this weekend I'm very bullish and am looking to pick up my favorite stocks at bargain prices for the long haul. All over IRC, there are folks who got margin calls or who lost a ton of money. My condolences. It had to happen eventually.

 

04M/14D/00Y: My god!! AMD doubled the earnings/share prediction from Wall Street. Amazing! Best quarter ever! In a seasonally weak quarter, too! I bought AMD at the close on Wednesday under $64, then sold in the morning today at $76. As much as I love it and think it'll go to $150-200, I think semiconductors are going down hard short-term. They'll be one of the first sectors to bounce -- they're just doing so well. Apologies to Nasdaq longs, but even with all this carnage, we still have yet to see capitulation selling. I'm still doing the summer shorting thing. Naz better hold 3500 or things'll start snowballing fast until just about everyone's swept out. And that's when I'm buying as much as I can. CSCO to 55? INTC to 105?

 

04M/10D/00Y: Eww, Nazzie goes down for the count, looks to suffer bloodbath tomorrow! Once again shorting actively. I hope AMD takes a heavy hit so I can buy in for the blockbuster earnings it'll post after Wednesday's close!! The techheads are buzzing about what AMD will report! I think it's about time for a CD-R -- here in the lair we're toying with DivX codec encoded movies... They make VCDs look like shit. Matrix at full-screen with bright colors and little blurriness, on 1 CD...I love technology.

 

04M/09D/00Y: ...but there are still a lot of stock charts that have more room to go higher up to their former support... Maybe summer doldrums until a weak hands selloff in the fall? I hope not. Trading ranges suck. LOL, here is what happens when investors have too much free time on their hands.

 

04M/08D/00Y: Record week for me last week. Unfortunately, I sold AMD way too early and it left the station without me. Bleh. Where's the pre-earnings selloff? I'm all cash these days -- I think the Naz felt heavy on Friday and the Dow is in what Ed Downs (a dead ringer for Michael York) calls a bearish diamond pattern. I could be wrong, of course, but the Naz has resistance at these levels -- the prior breakdown point. Making money on the short side is so much easier, WHEN you're right. The problem is that people often short way too early...in many cases that's the only way you CAN short. Scaling in gradually. Anyway. Tonight my roomie and I saw The Story of Ricky, which is absolutely the most ridiculous, hilarious kung fu movie I've ever seen. For example, a man tries to punch Ricky and Ricky punches the guy's punch, shattering his hand. I can't express how much fun this movie was. Hardcore, ultrafake Chinese gore!

 

04M/04D/00Y: HOLY COW!! Today was probably one of the most historic days ever in the stock market. We came back from -450 on the Dow and -550 on the Naz to only be down 100. Days like today are the definition of why I trade. Wow, the volatility!! Staggering stuff. Shorting stocks down to -30 in the morning, buying stocks up to 'even' in the afternoon!

 

04M/04D/00Y: Today was just an absolute bloodbath on the NASDAQ. The rest of the market did pretty damn well though! But we know who got hurt today. Couple of Soapboxes, one on my last days at the university and another on the market divergence we're seeing right now. Note: so much for that CHRD bottom. AMD however hit new all-time highs!

 

04M/03D/00Y: Next week we should find out if this rumor that Dell (the last OEM not using AMD) ordered AMD chips is true. Should be big news. No doubt Microsoft will be the news on Monday as the Naz futures are very red right now. AMD earnings next week! I am virtually all cash except for AMD and CHRD (it bottomed Friday) and so I'll be trading the volatility for sure now that my capital isn't tied up. Just to let you know how much Austin sucks: Romeo Must Die and High Fidelity are NOT playing at the big movie theater close to us. And I reiterate that Austin theaters rarely play movies after 9:30 except at the Alamo Draft House. How fucking sad. Did you know the Mission Impossible 2 theme from the trailer is now online? The Limp Bizkit track was leaked and now you can get it. Good shit.

 

04M/01D/00Y: The bad thing about being a news hound is that on April 1, you can't believe anything you read...bad jokes abound. We got our new fridge finally!! It's so spacious and clean...and the air conditioning problem has been identified so that's okay too, just as Austin begins its 5 month annual drought. :P The market has been a ton of fun. While last week must've destroyed some heavily margined players (luckily I sold off everything I owned except AMD, which actually went up last week, so I made out great through the carnage), the near-record NASDAQ volume on Friday seems like a short-term bottom going into earnings season. Lots of buying up of strong companies, I think. Friday though I was merrily shorting TIBX. Naz 5000 has heavy resistance (I guessed 5000-5200, honest!) and after this bounce I will be shorting more than going long, going into summer. AOL, AMD, and XRX are excellent longs though and should do really well over the summer. I wrote a Soapbox on life decisions and the impact they have.

 

03M/29D/00Y: Good news continues to come out of AMD. I'm really excited about it! Maybe it will break $60/share this week? It seems as though Kentron has figured out a way to double the data rate of synchronous RAM. This is HUGE! Rambus's RDRAM doesn't stand a chance if this tech works out.

 

03M/27D/00Y: American Beauty and The Matrix tore it up at this year's Oscars. Woohoo! I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that if I won an Oscar right now, I probably wouldn't have many people to thank. How many people would you thank? Ideally (and this is not a slight to anyone else), I would thank just my wife. That's how important she would have to be to me. But for most, it is a sad story, a real story, and I think it will eventually be a tale with no Oscar and no wife. Which means one better do whatever he loves in the world or else he'll have nothing.

 

03M/26D/00Y: There's a dot-com backlash occurring in San Francisco. While it smacks a little of jealousy, I do agree with it for the most part. The gold rush effect on the Internet was obvious, and I have no problem with that, but I will enjoy most heartily the ghost towns this craze will leave behind. Web design, for example, is now jammed with a lot of people who are intolerable. Many of these web design companies are going to go down in flames. Get away, get away!! Do any of these people ever stop to think why they're working slave labor hours on this stuff? They're still caught up in the novelty and hip factor of it all. Scary. Soapbox on gun rights. I didn't like the end product, but oh well. Oh, and by the way, this is the saddest shit. A university won't pay up to get ethernet for all its students and then it goes nuts when students try to circumvent the problem. Makes me sick. Being a student really sucks. My dorm never had ethernet for the four years I was there. Luckily DSL became available at a cheap price.

 

03M/21D/00Y: Severe case of senioritis kicking in. Must re-motivate self for last couple of months of school... Jon "Don't-Call-Me-Exploitative" Katz at /. is up to his old tricks, declaring once again the end of newspapers and probably the end of paper books as well. Two comments: 1) newspapers online are even more useful than in print in many cases -- most of the sites I hit regularly compile a list of articles from all the various publications, so I only have to see what I want, and 2) as much of a technophile as I am, I see that books have NOT translated onto the Internet and that they will CONTINUE to be the way they are because there is no superior method of displaying books in electronic form yet. The people who say that books are better off online obviously have never TRIED to read something off the Gutenburg Project and they're just some stupid Internet pundit who doesn't really KNOW how to use a computer, but goes around proclaiming it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I fucking HATE people like that. GO AWAY. I HATE people who come off as though they love the Internet, like George W. Bush and his stupid "Your Internet is a great place blah blah" joke at the end of his e-mail to Al Gore. HAH HAH, THAT WOULD BE SO FUNNY A YEAR AGO. Jesus, I don't need my president to be a comedian, I just want him to be, first and foremost, a boring focused politician. Is that too much to ask? Opportunists are slime, and the Internet is the newest scam for them to latch on to. By the way, I do think books will make it to electronic format -- it's natural for it to do so. But not until some sort of handheld superior visual display is created. As for this whole e-book thing, who cares about Stephen King? His latest work is blasé and he's only being whored out. Do you REALLY think he has as much insight into the Internet compared to a Neal Stephenson who also has released his work online (for free), but for FAR more insightful reasons? (open source, freedom of information, etc.) Way to go, King!! Release that e-book in .pdf format, one of many annoying formats out there like .qt, .rm, et cetera! I'm happy to see after many centuries of improvement, we've finally been able to make a book LESS readable. Oh, by the way, King's book has already been hacked and released for free on the 'Net. Whoah, didn't see that one coming. This is turning into a mini 'Box. I'm kind of concerned about the Naz because it still seems kind of heavy. I have to agree with Cramer at thestreet.com and say that there's WAY too much supply in the market right now, and these biotech/MSTR debacles that end in -$100/share or more days in individual stocks are only a hint of what will come to the companies that are greedy and which haven't been truthful. Time to hold real growth stocks with real earnings and good products/services. Like AOL and AMD. ;)

 

03M/18D/00Y: Finally picked up some AOL stock. One day it was below 50, the next day it was at 60. Oy. AOL moves like a Mack truck -- once it changes direction, it just keeps going... Scary that most all my portfolio is in two NYSE listed stocks. AMD and AOL, the race to 150! I'm still reliving the scene in Final Destination where the chick gets plowed over by a bus. Oy! Soapbox calling for sports fans to lighten up.

 

03M/16D/00Y: Something freaky: I rented the movie Pi (good film!) and didn't even know it was official Pi Day. (March 14, or 3/14, get it?) Now I've memorized the 216 digit name of God and can see the streams of digital characters making up the walls of my room.

 

03M/12D/00Y: Ah yes, SXSW in Austin. When all the "old" folks and latecomers converge to talk about outdated things which really happened years ago. Hey, that's great. Glad I'm away for Spring Break. Give me a drum and bass DJ show, not a convention of wannabe grunge yuppies. But I guess DJ Dara will have to be in an Apple or Volkswagen commercial before THEY'LL listen to it. :p

 

03M/08D/00Y: Did I call it or what? You have NO idea how happy AMD stock is making me. What's more, I have a feeling that these long runs are not over yet. X-Box announcement on Friday and AMD stock just broke out to all-time highs.

 

03M/04D/00Y: Finally AMD stock is ready to go higher! With their probable announcements of 1GHz chips on Monday and inclusion in Microsoft's gaming console, the X-Box, in a couple weeks, they should provide nice catalysts. And maybe I should raise that Naz 5000-5200 target, huh? This is getting ridiculous...but I'm not complaining.

 

02M/27D/00Y: Here's my recommendation list at ClearStation. Did you hear about the thirsty monkeys that stoned a Kenya man to death while he was letting his livestock drink? Man. What a way to go. Go check out the Romeo Must Die trailer featuring Jet Li!! Two Soapboxes: one on capital punishment (again) and another on the recent market divergence.

 

02M/24D/00Y: Oh yeah, our air conditioning came back on last weekend. Whew. New fridge too, even if it's really small. I see NASDAQ naysayers got burned yet again... Am bullish until April-May, when I'm gonna go short on the high-flyers that need correcting. Not much to write about right now in the Soapbox, but I don't think many people would want to hear what I have to say at this juncture.

 

02M/22D/00Y: Just saw Jet Li's "Fists of Legend". So strong. That's what martial arts films should be like. Gotta go to the Chinese video store for the real good stuff. Remember when I said I wanted to grow up to be a wealthy anonymous philanthropist? Thomas Crown sounds good. :p

 

02M/19D/00Y: Soapboxes about breaking points and spec'ing out a new computer. E*Trade just keeps the hilarious commercials coming. ROFL. And this one too! Bahahaha.

 

02M/18D/00Y: Market induces sheeple panic! Just when you thought my apartment complex couldn't get any worse, the air conditioning goes out. It was funny that the online chat with Wolf Blitzer and Bill Clinton was victim of a nick takeover. Who wants to bet this isn't the first time Clinton's been on IRC? ;)

 

02M/12D/00Y: There's something oh so very satisfying about going to class and coming back to see that AMD was halted and reopened +2 and change on news of stronger than expected sales. GO BABY!! AMD to $100! Hehehe. Forbes has two interesting articles in this issue: 1) MTVi has filed for an IPO. This is the closest we get to MTV IPOing I guess. I'll say it now and I'll say it again. MTV is a moneymaker. 2) Some dumbass named Coolidge did an article on afterhours crackhead trading. Remember, parents, when I told you about this stuff? It details what goes on in #activetrader, an IRC channel I idle in. The whole crackhead bidness is hilarious to watch. I just wish Coolidge understood that it wasn't so malicious as she portrays it to be.

 

02M/11D/00Y: I'm hooked like a cheap $10 crackwhore on two songs from the soundtrack of Leo's new movie, "The Beach". They are 'Porcelain' by Moby and 'Touched' by Vast. I can't get my mind off them. I gotta see The Boiler Room when it comes out. Soapbox: "A Day of Accomplishment". ScamWorld. LOL.

 

02M/10D/00Y: WOW. Yahoo, eBay, Amazon.com, CNN.com, zdnet.com, buy.com all taken down, with some other various backbone problems and DoS attacks. No message from the attackers yet either. Weird. GO CHRIS WOODRUFF! I didn't think he could do it, but he did! He won the first round of Davis Cup for the Americans! Hehe, he's gained new respect at tennis clubs everywhere. UT Austin banned Napster from its network. Just like all those other universities, falling into line. A PBS Nova special on the stock market. AMD stock is on a fucking roll! Woohoo! New Soapbox.

 

02M/03D/00Y: William Gibson and Chris Cunningham working together on Neuromancer, the movie!! And hey, guess who's on DSL now? My roommate's friend set up a firewalled server running Debian and we have an Efficient Networks DSL modem/router and a hub feeding fast and fresh data to both our computers. My room is a frigging tangle of cables and wires now. :P The NASDAQ said fuck you and went higher -- it's back up in choke territory -- can it punch through 4300 and stay there? This is why I trade -- it lets me change my mind instantly. :P PALM and ALTA IPOs coming up soon!

 

02M/02D/00Y: I am no longer bullish on Apple until they can prove that they can move up to the next level. I'm not convinced by their future products except for OS X, which has, however, had its share of gripes from the interface gurus. Apple is lacking in gaming still. The NASDAQ is rallying, yes, and into the Fed interest rate decision tomorrow. But, dare I say, have we topped out on a bounce that will end and go lower? The NASDAQ traded 2 billion shares at its height, and has been bouncing on volume of only about 1.5 billion. Hmm. We broke a channel. I think we go lower. Somehow. I'm so used to the market rallying after a Fed rate hike... :P UpcomingMovies.com has rumors for Star Wars: Episode 2, Matrix 2, Gladiator, X-Men, and more. Interesting stuff.

 

02M/01D/00Y: Agassi! Graf should dish out a little extra sugar for that. These findings confirm the trend among younger Internet users as they grow older (like me). The TI CEO said that PCs are dead and that wireless handheld devices will be the future. While they WILL be the future (more and more people this year will be seen carrying hand-helds, I wager), I disagree on PCs -- as far as I can tell, the PC is not going anywhere soon because it's nice to have full-size devices and huge monitors to do work on. Not cramped, small devices that you can't really do that much with yet. Are you excited about seeing this "The Sims" computer game? It lets you watch and aid a person of your creation as he/she holds a job, maintains a household, accumulates wealth, and...loses his girlfriend to another chick on their patio? Coooool. Soapboxes: "Daytrading Restrictions" and "Friendships Bounce Off Me".

 

01M/29D/00Y: Hahahahaha. Davenport beat Hingis in the Oz Open final. And this after Hingis was a bad loser in the doubles final. Come on Agassi, let's start off the New Year right!! The market is getting pounded, and this time, I'm not getting hurt at all. :) Short the crap, buy the bargains. (i.e. ICGE vs. CMGI)

 

01M/28D/00Y: Two Soapboxes: 1) "Our Boy Graduates to Broadband...for Good" and 2) Why Intel Sucks. Wagon Christ, U-Ziq, and Autechre are good shit to listen to. It was worth it goofing on Clinton all night and finally he says he wants for all "American communities to be more liberal...I mean liveable". And not only once, but saying it TWICE! LOL. I shall miss him as president. We've never had it so good that we can joke about the guy and not hate him. Or, at least, no one I know hates him. Gore looked like a demon back there behind Clinton. And Bush just creeps me out. And even Chelsea didn't look THAT bad with all that makeup on. Here's hoping that Davenport pummels the shit out of Hingis and Agassi claims another Grand Slam!

 

01M/27D/00Y: NASDAQ falls apart again at the same levels. Disappointing growth from some big names. DELL of course misses. This is why I trade, not go long-term (not worth it in this volatile a market). Time to short the crap stocks unless we get above 4200 strongly. This is one of the new cool gadgets: GuruNet (I haven't tried it, but it looks pretty useful and has good reviews). And if you wonder what being a web designer is like, or you're considering being one, read this. I must say, Zeldman summed it up pretty well. Designers have more fun designing to impress other designers.

 

01M/22D/00Y: Okay, NASDAQ closes at its high, above 4200...on record volume. However, it's grinding its way through with difficulty. I still like it to 5000-5200 before summer hits! Two new Soapboxes: "Growing Up" and the first of the new year, "The Year I Graduated". UPDATE: reaction to cursory glance at other personal sites -- they seriously make me physically ill. If you want an example, just go to this site and click on 'manifesto'. I mean, oh my god, aren't we the nouvelle classiciste. LOL. Exceptions to the rule: Justin Hall and Lance Arthur. Still goin' strong, baybuh!

 

01M/15D/00Y: I'm back home now. And school starts on Tuesday. My last semester of school! Want to see some great runs? Look at AOL, Apple, Motorola, and AMD. AMD is at 52-week highs on sympathy from Intel's earning surprise, plus it has earnings next week (Athlon sales will shoot their earnings through the roof). I think AMD is going to be the next Apple/NVidia runner. :) Prediction for 2000: Dow Jones and S&P perform extraordinarily well (market breadth will improve). NASDAQ needs to show strength above 4200. Can you tell what I'm interested in these days? It's a phenomenon. Brought to us by the Internet, that network of sites everyone said was going to putter out, when I started 5 or 6 years ago. When that prediction failed, everyone said AOL would die. Ouch, does it hurt to be wrong? I'm going to be busy, but I'll be responding soon to the e-mails sent to me.

 

01M/09D/00Y: LOL...followed by a bullish engulfing pattern. Now we just need confirmation on Monday and it's off to the earnings races! What a wild first week!

 

01M/05D/00Y: Uh oh, is that a confirmed hanging man formation on the NASDAQ? Not good. Been reading Beyond Candlesticks by Steve Nison. I know I'll always keep that book close to me.

 

01M/04D/00Y: Here in Sweden the snow is actually melting. We had a great view of the fireworks and festivities, and all in all it was the most impressive fireworks I'd ever seen. Now I'm prepped for that summer in Europe. Hard to believe about the NASDAQ, because it looks like the Internets are starting a fresh run! Watch AOL, IIJI, KOREA, SIFY, etc. Me, I'm trading B2Bs mainly. I have a bunch to write about in my Soapboxes, and I think I've rediscovered something that had disappeared for a while. For Xmas, I got tons of cool stuff, including a Palm V. The fun books I got will be great for reading during that government class I have coming up next semester! ;) By the way, thanks to my parents for making Christmas ultra special. I really appreciate it.