Fast And Furious -- Fifteen Minutes -- October 27, 2020

This post will be meaningless for most readers. This is so much going on that I simply have to jot down notes and come back to them later. This was done quickly; not proofread; there will be typographical errors but no content errors.

Best quip overnight, from a reader:

Someone remarked that the longest ranking Supreme Court Associate Justice - a black man - just swore in a woman - and the only people that are mad about it are liberal Democrats.  (;>) [Schumer, Warren -- happened to catch them Spectrum while moving from one sports channel to another, or saw them on Twitter -- doesn't matter. They are truly beyond the pale; neither has any shame. But I repeat myself.]

That same note from the reader had enough material for a full-day's worth of blogging; I will come back to it later. 

Froglegs: says "he" will release "next one" tonight.

Apple: when we moved into this brand new apartment several years ago, I tossed all the old television sets and bought large-screen smart televisions for every room in the apartment -- that would be two. LOL. 

The sets appeared to have everything; alas, not as smart as I had hoped and miserably difficult to set up. From here on out: no more smart television sets; I'm only buying the largest-screen iMacs Apple sells. Costco has a sale on the 27-inch retina-display iMac -- an additional $100 off at time of purchase ... but this is what got my attention: Costco will limit sales to two per customer. Tells me all I need to know.

I can retire again. XLNX. Link here. Link here. AMD smells Intel's blood in the water and strikes with Xilinx deal. All stock deal.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

Retirement: This will be my third, maybe fourth retirement party. LOL. My first retirement party was at age 47, after twenty years in the USAF. I went on to serve another ten years for a full 30-year-and-a-day career. I gave 110% to the Air Force to the very end. After twenty years, if one stays in, one is working for half-pay. On top of that, professionals in the Air Force are paid well below what the average pay was in the civilian world .... generally true .. many exceptions ...

Twitter: if you don't have a twitter account, run, don't walk, and do it now. Select ten other twitter accounts you want to follow, and you will be pleasantly surprised. 

ZeroHedge: second most important website. #1? Twitter. Strike that. #1 -- the milliondollarway Bakken blog; #2, Twitter; #3, ZeroHedge. I haven't looked at DrudgeReport in over a year, maybe longer.

Best two hours on CNBC: I haven't watched network television or cable news in months except for NASCAR. 

I'm not even watching PGA (golf) now -- the early tournaments are pretty much worthless. But when I did watch CNBC these were the two best hours. The hour just before the market opened when Jim Cramer and some other guy would calmly banter about the market. No shouting. Very few recommendations. Just two old white guys sitting around talking about the market.

The second best hour on CNBC: I think it's called "Smart Money." Don't remember for sure. It's that hour before Cramer's show. Hosted by a woman. Four regular panelists. Provided lots of ideas. 

Apple TV+: on a 27-inch retina display -- will knock your socks off. Our six-year-old granddaughter Sophia discovered an "Apple original" last night and she was blown away.

Remote learning: impossible to articulate how smart these first graders are when it comes to "running" their iPads. Sophia runs circles around me when it comes to managing her Seesaw account on her iPad, along with dozens of other apps. 

John Bostic: the talking heads have it right. It looks like the NFL blew it on this one.

Keystone Kops. Speaking of the NFL. I don't know if it's just me or if others are noting the same thing, but the level of play this year, so far, is pathetic. Some exceptions but overall, the franchise quarterbacks not looking good. Again, some exceptions.

Polls show that the best NFC team right now is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (followed by Seattle, Green Bay, and Chicago). Considering how this all started, this is amazing. Biggest implosion? New England Patriots. The questions:

was it really Belichick or Brady all those years?

who started the discussion for Brady to leave the Patriots? Brady or Belichick?

By the way, one wonders the original spelling of the "Belichick" name and when that occurred? I have a hunch.

Best wells ever in the Bakken. The data supports that observation.

80% of the French: agree on something. The actual number is 79% but I prefer to round most numbers; easier to remember. I'm not even sure 80% of the French agreed that they should resist the Nazis during WWII. 

Swedish experience: Chinese flu. We'll get back to this later. For Americans, there are two memes out there -- President Biden will lock the US down again; President Trump will move on. On August 20, 2020:

"Steven Liesman notes that the pandemic is hitting mom-and-pop retail really, really bad. That was also the discussion in the swimming pool last night: mom-and-pop retail may not be able to hold on much longer, and with another lock down advocated by the Biden/Harris campaign will be the final nail in that coffin." [That must have been about the last time I watched CNBC.]

Blogger app: I'm still not particularly happy about the changes the blogger app made but I'm adjusting. 

That's it. Fifteen minutes.