Quick Update

Like Greaseball with his illegitimate children, I've been negligent in maintaining this "web log" lately. This is because I still have no power flowing through to my residential building. I realize the irony of this, considering my profession. Since I'm on a trade floor and my screen is visible to all, this update shall be minimalist and photoless, in complete betrayal of this newsletter's banner slogan.

/"Peace out"

[subsequent update: I was in Austin this weekend, escaping the blackout and performing some due diligence for my bar ranking list. And yes it was awesome, and everybody got laid. So there will be a top ten list put up this week once power is restored. I'm not promising anything, but the #1 slot may shock you (or it may not; I still haven't decided the top 2, given my new information).

Unlike Gaul, this list will be divided in two parts: block #10-3 and then a longer breakdown of #1 vs #2.]

Just a Bad Few Days in the Land of Pemulis

Lehman Brothers goes under, the Dow drops 500 points, a hurricane ravages my hometown and David Foster Wallace is dead.

The Peemster is..very sad.

POTUS Intrade Update

For those of you Obamatons following the political betting markets, I've got some bad news for you. As the poster for the Joe Piscopo vehicle above would hint, the oddsmakers have the race at a dead heat (as of 5pm September 10; this site updates continuously).

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So if you're a betting man (and if you're reading this newsletter, you're probably both), I'd lay some money down on Obama, at least as a hedge against the higher taxes you will inevitably pay under his reign. Plus I think the nation's enthusiasm over the stripper/teacher from Varsity Blues* will wane considerably after she forgoes the comfort of the teleprompter in a one-on-one debate contra Biden.

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And as always, be on the lookout for that October Surprise, one of my favorite election phenomena.

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* [Editor's update: I'm very disappointed in the internet for not having a better picture than this. (Per commenter complaint, the last hyperlink I posted was a busted link) And I've tried every permutation of stripper, teacher, varsity, blues, tonie, perensky, sarah palin, "Miss Davis, will you go to the prom with me", and vpilf that I could think of in my search toolbar. You'll just have to buy the movie, which is fantastic anyway.]

Commenters of the World Unite!

Arise Commentariat!

A revolution has begun here in Pemula. No longer shall commenting be restricted to elitist bourgeois registered blog users. Now the teeming, mongoloid masses may post anonymously.

Have a quip about intrade-implied Presidential death spreads? Think Blake Lively is hotter than Lily Van der Woodsen?* Say so now under the aegis on anonymity, free from the reprisals of the Pemulan state apparatus.

Commentariat, you have nothing to lose but your chains!

*you are a gey if you think this

Texas School of Business

Watching the new iteration of 90210, I saw an ad for the institution represented by the fine logo above. That's some impressive piggybacking.

If Red McCombs were dead, he'd be rolling around in his grave right now.

Special Guest Music Review: Chinese Democracy by Guns 'N Roses

[Editor's note: TBW colleague Tonian gave me permission to reprint his April 1, 2008 review for our periodical. This in honor of the end of the Beijing Olympic Games--in the hope that China may one day throw off the yolk of soft communist authortarianism, and in some hopeful future, bear the horse collar of minarchist anarchocapitalism]

It is a hackneyed joke in the music industry that democracy will ultimately prevail in China before Guns ‘N Roses’ Chinese Democracy gets released. A decade-long feud between Axl Rose and lead guitarist Slash along with many changes in the band’s creative direction, have conspired to delay the album’s release until Fall 2008, seventeen years after the GNR hit Use Your Illusion II.* However, as with all post-industrial musical projects of great import, leaked tracks have percolated through the fiber optic ether, and a painstakingly compiled and verified copy of the final cut has been hustled and smuggled through the back hallways of the McCombs GSB itself…

And so, after several rounds of negotiated barter with Bostonian 2nd year Dan Sarles (let’s just say the words “Carlton Fisk home run ball” entered into the discussion) I managed to procure one such copy, aptly described by my regionally-handicapped friend as “wicked awesome.” That a Princeton-educated English major like Dan could not, through fog of sheer joy, overcome his primal New England urge toward misplaced adjectives in describing Democracy should have indicated to me how “wicked awesome” this album indeed was.

In the 1987 Cary Elwes vehicle The Princess Bride, Sicilian mastermind and villain Vizzini confronts virtuoso swordsman and protagonist, Westley, with his claim to genius:

Vizzini: I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.

Westley: You're that smart?

Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?

Westley: Yes.

Vizzini: Morons!

Guns ‘N Roses can comfortably make an analogous claim to its own superlative brilliance with its as-yet publicly released magnum opus, Chinese Democracy. Democracy can’t be fairly compared to other GNR albums or to those of its lesser peers—Ten by Pearl Jam or Nevermind by Nirvana—karaoke tyros by comparison. Instead, musical historians 100 years hence will inevitably compare Democracy to Beethoven’s Ninth, The Beatles’ Yesterday, or Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. If ever there were a compendium to fulfill the promise of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure—that perfect music will slay the demonic triumverate of poverty, war, and pollution—it will be Democracy, or it will be nothing. When the physicists overseeing the CERN particle accelerator finally isolate the Higgs Boson, they will find its subatomic spin resonates to the discordant melody of track 2’s heavy metal cover of “Eleanor Rigby”.

Some Democracy highlights, track by track:

December Snow: A melancholy dirge reflecting on loneliness and lost love in winter, the track tops out the album at 15 minutes, 37 seconds. The only “sequel” song in the GNR library.

Eleanor Rigby: Continues in the tradition of “cover as superior to original” begun by “Live and Let Die” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Rumored have caused the McCartney-Mills divorce after Mills realized that her husband had been topped.

Don’t Cry (second redux): GNR’s Pynchonian third take on its 1991 original; Dave Grohl makes a guest appearance on the drums.

Internecine Conflict: An angry refrain directed at the futility and folly of mankind’s wars-“what’s so ‘nice’ about internecine conflict anyway?”

The Return of Slash: The most vindictive track in the album, it mostly takes Use Your Illusion II’s expletive-laden “Get in the Ring” and subs in the word “Slash” for every reference to Bob Guccioni. Apparently Slash’s commitment to new band Velvet Revolver precluded a cameo, prompting this relentless musical tirade.

Sweet Child of Mine (redux): Perhaps the best song of the decade, it’s like the opposite of “Hey There, Delilah” by Plain White T’s.

Long review short: you must buy Chinese Democracy at or before its release date. Mortgage your house, liquidate your stocks, pillage the ATM—do whatever you can to acquire this album—the apotheosis of the audible. If this were a movie, it would be Citizen Kane; if this were a book, it would be Ulysses; if this were a general, it would be Rommel, Kublai Khan, Hannibal and all the other bad guy military prodigies that have so terrified the civilized people of history, all rolled into one. It’s wicked awesome.

So on that note, I’m retiring my station here at the TBW—hope you’ve enjoyed all the needlessly convoluted prose. Good night, and good luck.

*Let’s just all agree to forget 1994’s Spaghetti Incident, GNR’s Rocky V

My favorite Shakespearean Play

has always been Merchant of Venice.

I demand my pound of flesh!

Swiftboat '79

I think that of all the political scandals in all of history that have caused the downfall of regimes that have ruled over empires of millions, this one is my favorite.

...

My favorite part is how his press secretary explains the President's quite sound logic seven years later in his memoir.

Beijing's Deb Party

You will first notice, of course, that the Australians have decided to wear Crocs to the biggest and most meaningless spectacle of the decade. Questionable decision there. The Aussie flag bearer also brought along the nation's "colonial nonsense" flag whilst a few of his team members waved mini versions of the far superior green and yellow boxing kangaroo flag. Otherwise, collectively, they looked kind of like the Watercube.

.*

There are several other observations that I'll make about the opening ceremony (the "walk of nations" part), which I just spent a considerable part of Friday evening watching:

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1) Narrating China's rise to superpower status was Bob Costas, whose thinly veiled disdain for the costumes of inferior nations was highly entertaining. When out walked the Czech delegation--whose sartorial stylings were admittedly Crocs-level bad--Costas' remarks reminded me of Greg Marmalard introducing "Sydney, Clayton, Jugless, and Mohammet" to Pinto back at the Omega House rush party at Faber College.
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2) China put on a hell of a show, but it might have been too good, you know what I mean? They cared a little too much, like the boyfriend that tries too hard and gets dumped for the emotionally distant asshole. When the U.S. hosted the Olympics in '96, we were like, "all of our major cities are busy so--here--you can put your gay little games in Atlanta. They're not doing anything, right?" That's the sort of post-Cold-War superpower arrogance for which Mike Pemulis feels truly wistful and to which China hasn't caught on yet.

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3) Most "talented" team: Sweden, easy, but with Mexico as a surprising second.

Couple of points and/or complaints here though:

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a. NBC's commercial breaks lopped off time from the delegations of Norway and Iceland, who you could see from the quick, post-commercial cutaway shots had some serious talent. This thing was filmed twelve hours before--you can't cut to commercial and then return to where the broadcast was exactly when you left? Makes no sense to me.

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b. Germany's and England's* teams were very disappointing. Brazil had some cuties, as did Italy. As did Australia, despite the outfits. Canada had a lot of white people. I knew they were mostly white; didn't know they were all white. Reminded me of that Coldplay concert I went to with Blackout** back in '06.

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c. The cameras didn't really focus on US talent that much since they were mostly panning over guys like Kobe, LeBron, Phelps etc. They caught Jennie Finch on camera for a minute, but she just doesn't really do it for me, though our President might disagree.

.it

4) Speaking of the President, did anyone else notice how, whenever they caught him on camera, he kept bouncing his knee up and down, slouching back in his seat, clearly bored and impatient? At one point, he had one of those mini American flags in his right hand, and he kept hitting it against his bouncing knee as he looked at his watch. Laura also had her usual vacant stare going in full force. I don't know who handed W. that little flag, but it was clearly a burden by national delegation #186 when it was near midnight. He can't just throw it on the ground like a bag of peanuts at the ballgame, you know?

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Though wouldn't it have been neat if at one point during the ceremony he thought "fuck this little flag!" and tossed it to the ground right as cameras were panning to him? Our pundits would be talking about it for days--that small inanimate piece of cloth, dye, and wood.

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5) Saychelles, Maldives, two Congos, Surinam--you know what? I don't give a shit. Let's lump these all into a big "minor nations" grab bag delegation and move on. With the exception of:

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6) Monaco, who looked very opulent in their blue sports coats and Hermes ties. "They may not win any medals, but the property values stay high regardless" chimes in Costas.

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7) I thought the U.S. delegation looked smashing in their Polo sport coats, white pants, and derbies. Apparently, we're branding ourselves as a superpower among superpowers, and we're going to be the evil preppy superpower. Billy Zabka in a school with three bullies. Real, specialized multipolority. Also impressed that, unlike every other nation, we didn't feel the need to wave little stick flags around, opting just for the one big one. As if to say, "you nerds know what our flag looks like, now check out my blazer, bitch."

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I also liked how in that central post-walk gathering section, all the foreign athletes came up to get photos with visibly annoyed American basketball players.

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Which leads to my final point:

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8) The flag-bearers of Germany, Russia, Argentina, and even China itself are all basketball players living and working in the United States***, including one very conspicous Asian who plays for my hometown Houston Rockets. So say what you want about imperial ebb, our broken financial system, or a post-American world, we're still the rockstars of the world, even if we have to borrow money to buy our rockstar heroin****.

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*Old joke: what do you call an attractive woman in London? Punchline: a tourist. ROFL?

**Checking in: Blackout

***Nowitski, Kirilenko, Ginobili, and Yao

****A metaphor for cheap credit. Did you get it? Maybe you thought I meant oil. Maybe I shouldn't have explained it.

Btw, Yotts, It's Really Me

My buddy Yotts didn't think this was really me writing this drivel. There you go, Yottes.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while

But I've been really busy at work...returning some videotapes etc

Meanwhile, have a look at collegehumor's take on the Christian Bale Assault here.

I'll get to Austin bars 6-10 this evening.

My New Favorite Astro

[can you believe the Royals let this guy get away?]

Have you caught the fever yet, Astros fans? I'm talking about Runelvys Hernandez fever. In an effort to speed up this season's historical chase of the 1927 Yankees , the Astros have added fireball pitcher and competitive eating champion Runelvys Hernandez to the roster, shoring up their one weakness since the Chacon incident.

RH is listed as weighing 250 pounds on a 6' 1'' frame. Gross the weight up 10% and net the height down the same to account for media guide propaganda, and you've probably got one of the heaviest players ever to actually break through all four tiers of the minor leagues and get to the Show. Bill James in his millenial reference guide* cites Cecil Fielder as the heaviest player of the 1990s at 261 pounds, so RH likely surpasses this particular epochal record.

Don't worry though--Runny is sporting a 10.29 ERA, which means, statistically speaking, that he is "due" for some big wins.

Quite a mane too, eh?

*Clearly I've been reading this one lately

Clarification

My buddy Spill has added his two cents to the debate over Austin bars and how not-awesome each of his detritus bars are--closely tracking the format that I used.

A couple of things I need to address:

1) The question of 'when does a restaurant become a bar?' For the purposes of this debate, we'll follow the Ernie Banks rule set out by baseball historian and statistician Bill James. If you followed that hyperlink, you'd notice that Ernie Banks, a Hall of Fame Chicago Cub, spent years 22-30 at shortstop and years 30-40 or so at 1B and 3B. He is ranked by Bill James in his millenial tome as the 5th greatest shortstop of all time based on the "where did he bring the most to the table?" principle. That is: Ernie Banks had Hall of Fame credentials at SS, but probably just "good" stats at 1B/3B--AND--everything he brought to the table at 1B/3B should be counted, on a discounted basis, toward his SS ranking.

This is relevant to the discussion of Cain and Abel's which is, of course, a restaraunt in the sense that-yes-you can order food during the daytime and a waitress will come around and take your order. They'll even put some food on your plate and send you one of those foldy bill holders at the end of the meal and expect the standard 20% tip.

But who among us actually considers this place a restaraunt? Who takes a date out for dinner and says "hey-let's grab some fajitas at Cain and Abel's?" No one, right? Almost all the value it brings to the table is as a bar. This isn't true for Kenichi--where they have a pretty cool bar, but 90% of its value comes through its great sashimi and air-polluting hot rock beef. This isn't true for Malaga, where you can grab some great wine, but you're politely encouraged to please-try-some-tapas-off-of-an-awkward food-holding tower-or-we-won't-let-you-sit-in-the-main-area-type deal.

I think you'd have to suspend a lot of your cognitive reasoning to disqualify C&A as a bar just because it has a couple of waitresses and tables.

2) Can't believe I forgot Speakeasy, whose review I'll add as an appendix to the top ten list (it would probably rank #12 or so). Spill is right though; those steps are a killer.

3) I see that Spill is having a suspense-filled day-by-day introduction of his top ten, ala a properly administered game of elimination credit card roulette. I'm not so ambitious. I'll be introducing my top ten in two blocks of five. 10-6 comes some time this week.

Other topics we'll soon be covering: 1. the Carl Ichan/Yahoo situation 2. a book review of Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World 3. a mailbag, where we'll answer reader mail.

I think I've used my annual quota of hyphens here.

Detritus Ex Austiniax

Or is it Ex Austiniam? I don't really know. Despite the many Roman numerals in my name, I'm not completely brushed up on the proper use of the Latin ablative declension.

So anyway, your old friend Mike F.M. Pemulis IV tried to whittle down a list of ten top Austin bars...and I came up with over 25 worth mentioning. And that excludes restaraunts, places like Kenichi, Malaga, Hula Hut, Maiko, Uchi and others that have entrenched themselves into Pemulan lore. Also excludes Stubbs, Alamo Drafthouse, Zona Rosa, Antone's, Zilker Park and other such venues. Good god Austin was a cool town.

Per the post title's suggestion, we're clearing through the detritus now--those marginal fifteen bars that, through one fatal flaw or another, were excluded from the top ten list.

So what do these schwug bars have in common? Large "second wave" populations, difficulty in getting a God damn drink sometime tonight, poor navigability and lappability, poor lighting/music gratuitously loud, general grunginess (especially the prevalence of non-partitioned bathrooms), and, perhaps most importantly, low BA/OBP/Slg numbers for MFMP IV. Unlike the top ten, these won't be in order:

11) 219 West--Alright, this one's number eleven, but I'm not ranking any others in this post. I really wanted 219 to crack the top ten, but, ultimately, it's a happy hour place-a pregame stop at best. And if you can't get a table by the bar, you're pretty much squeezed against or leaning over other people. The location is great for pregaming though, as it's within a short walk of three of the top ten bars which will be named later. Also, I hit a HR off of Greaseball's girlfriend's sister after a few drinks there, which was a nice capstone case if you will.

Qua--we all know about the baby sharks swimming under the dance floor. Otherwise it's just kind of an awkward place. Lighting is poor and conversation is impossible because of the blaring haus.

Logan's--I like Logan's; really I do. I even like the novelty of their interrupting the music and showing funny movie clips on the flat screens that are all over the place. But the lighting is just way too dark. Fives become sevens and sevens become nines. You might have some regrets later, man, like triples or more off of Single A talent. Weird men's room too (no place to set your beer; it's like they designed it so you can't set one down, even for a second).

Star Bar--it's kind of the inverse of 219 West in that it's a place you go to close 'er out, but you're not picking anyone up there. Coffee is for closers and so is Star Bar, but these kind of specialist places aren't going to make the top ten. Best martinis in town. You'll see the SAE Class of '98 type here.

Spill--I have a friend who likes this bar so much that his callsign on this blog is actually Spill. But I have to disagree--Spill (the bar) is deeply flawed. The crowd is definition Second Wave, they do not stock Johnnie Walker Black, and the place always smells like vomit. Also there's a line, which is borderline insulting.

Molotov's--this place is pretty bleh; I never got why so many people like it. It's got a decent deck on the 2nd floor. I actually have a decent OBP here too. If I were ranking these, it'd be probably 18 or so, but that is more a testament to Austin's superlativity than Molotov's mediocrity.

Betsy's--why is this place connected to Hi/Lo? They have nothing in common as bars. Anyway, Betsy's has a TV connected to an Atari in the back room which has comfortable couches. One time I was there with then-consort Reebok and her friend TexMex. TexMex was unbelievable at Centipede and Pong and she was born in 1986. It really floored me.

(I have two "assists" relating to TexMex, by the way. I feel like Esquire and Powerpoint* really owe me more "dap" for those assists. They were more like alleyoops)

Shakespeare's--Pass.

Lavaca St Bar--great location, easy to get a drink, very friendly staff, shuffleboard if you're bored. Sometimes even some decent talent. Just doesn't feel top ten though does it?

311--You really can't say enough bad things about this bar can you? It's thin and long and the bar sticks way out, meaning navigability is zero. Service is abysmally slow because they have these manual cash registers from the '30s--you pretty much have to order two or three drinks at a time. When you do get your drinks, you're always holding them way high up in the air so as not to spill them on the drunk people bumping into you. The bathrooms are the worst in Austin, having no partitions, no mirrors, no tiles on the floor, no functioning sinks. The band is always that same one headlined by the owner of the bar.

But they've got that dance floor, and, for some reason, you'll find probably the best college age talent in Austin there after 1am Friday and Saturday. I can't stand the bar, but I'm always delighted when someone suggests we go.

Blind Pig--I'm 0 for two years at this place. You could even argue that I'm sporting a negative batting average there, since I had to pull the ripcord on Azteca after running into TexMex, in full on spy mode, at an inoportune time. Yip-life handed me lemons, and I said "fuck those lemons" and bailed.

On the surface, it's a lot like Maggie Mae's (which will make the top ten), but it seems to be cursed; it's Austin's incarnation of Warehouse Live**

Peckerhead's--I apparently had an 'incident' at Peckerhead's once that my memory does not serve me well on. From what I hear, I had a pretty good time though, even if I almost lost a girlfriend in the process.

Pangaea--everyone here is a ten because their annual lighting expenses are something like three bucks, fifty. Having said that, it's a pretty cool place, if a bit out of place in Austin. It's carved out of the old 4th St Alamo Drafthouse (if I were to consider AD a "bar" it would be in the top five). Bottle service here ain't cheap, and there is always a crazy line, so you have to buy that bottle to get in. If you're a real hitter, you'll just buy the bar.

Treasure Island--Demographers say that by 2050, the white population of the United States will be a minority. If this is true, then TI is way, way ahead of its time. There is nothing wrong with this-or at least I won't admit there is something wrong with this-but this bar can be intimidating for skin types 1-3. My friend Tonian once wrote in the TBW that this was the worst bar in Austin; we agree on a lot of things, that Tonian and I, but this isn't the worst.

Pure--this is. It's a sordid attempt to copy and exploit the name brand of Las Vegas' Pure. They poured a lot of capex into making such a terrible bar, and though they get an E for effort, they get an F-plus for execution.

Chuggin Monkey--perfectly average sixth street bar. Bad navigability, but very friendly bartenders. Doesn't one of Dannibal's friends own it or something? Seems like something one of Dannibal's friends would do. I like the unpretentious name.

Oilcan Harry's--Gapeshow's favorite bar. This is not one of the three bars near 219 West that I was referencing earlier.

* You like the nickname ppt? That's what you get for becoming a consultant.
** A place in Houston at which MP has an incredibly bad record--an actual negative four for four with one set of slashed tires to boot. I won't go there anymore. They should just rename the place the Hindenburg Club.

Gossip Girl Update!!!! Gossip Girl Update!!!!

[With a plethora of distracting hyperlinks and footnotes]

The best looking girl on Gossip Girl is not Serena van der Woodsen, Blair Waldorf, or or Georgina Sparks; it's Lily van der Woodsen, Serena's mom. She joins Julia Cooper-Nichol (from the O.C.), Kirsten Cohen (also from the O.C.), and Famke Jansen* (Nip/Tuck) in the "Moms who are better looking than their kids" pantheon--a pantheon, that, quite frankly, I'd like to see expanded, despite any implications about negative genetic drift.

Maybe I'm getting a bit long in the tooth, but I don't think the contest between her and the GG nymphets is even close. She just does it for me, you know? All the other characters have aesthetic flaws (alien-like features, brown hair), but not Lily van der Woodsen**.

There's an especially funny scene where the guy who looks like John Stamos is forced to choose between Lily and his kinda ok, but not-quite pulchritudinous wife--a choice forced on him by the wife!--and it's the worst mismatch since Rommel v. Gamelin, France 1940.

Let's hope we see more of Lily and other gorgeous snow leopards*** on this show and on many others.

[Editor's update: the follwing entry appears on the imdb page of the actress who plays Lily:

"Bodies of Evidence" .... Diana Wallace (1 episode, 1992) - Afternoon Delights (1992) TV episode .... Diana Wallace

end update]

*who turned out to be a post-op in the worst TV plot twist since the "it was all a dream" debacle that ruined Dallas.

**Is her name a play on Lily von Schtupp?

***Like a classier cougar

Dear IT Help Desk,

Hello,

Just now I attempted (and was blocked) from doing a Google search on “refinery crack spreads”, a measure of the gross margin experienced by oil refiners, in order to inform an assumption about a trade counterparty’s high pressure steam demand from a cogeneration plant whose capacity we are trying to rehedge and refinance. (The counterparty is one of said refiners).

I’m fairly certain I understand why I’m being blocked on this search; fyi they are called “crack spreads” because they refer to a refinery's catalytic cracker, which helps turn oil into gasoline. The refiner has a daily call option on the steam produced by the plant---steam which is used to facilitate the crack--so this research is non-trivial.

Thus, I was hoping that in this particular case the restriction on “crack spreads” be lifted.

Thanks,

Michael Pemulis
Corporate Finance
-----
--- Texas Ave., Ste. ----
Houston, Texas 77002

p.s. I promise not to use the results of this search to buy any crack.

The American Public Is Slightly Less Dumb

It's possible American democracy isn't a failed system backed by the votes of undereducated mongoloids; it's just very time-lagged, at least according to this survey.

Let's back up. In my schoolboy days, back at Vanderbilt, I took a geology 101-type class in anticipation of my entrance into the oil and gas reserve acquisition business in which our professor took an informal survey to determine our support for drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), where the somewhat endagered caribou make their home.

This was one of those auditorium size classes with 100+ students and only about three hands shot up in support of such drilling. Mine was one of them, because I'm a ruthless, speciocidal bastard, especially with regard to mammals that we don't eat on a massive scale.

The good professor then explained that there was ~$125 billion worth of oil in them thar hills on an estimated ultimate recovery basis, which we, as socially responsible citizens, had to weigh against the fate of the indigenous caribou, who would be allegedly harmed if a few rigs desecrated the icy hellscape there. I guess Blitzen et al were too important a consideration for the class, but the professor and I believed otherwise at the time.

That was 2003, when oil was trading at about 20-buck-a-barrel. Now that West Texas Intermediate is trading over $140 per barrel, those reserves, on a non-discounted basis, should be worth about $875 billion. Especially since the forward price curve on that light, sweet, and I must say, delicious, WTI isn't deeply backwardated.

I don't have a engineering report on the area, so I don't know the discounting convention or even a reserve/production ratio, but let's cut that in half to discount for present value and get a little back-of-the-envelope calc going. That's a $437 billion PV. Cash in the ground. Enough to cover half of the Iraq war to date. Let's gross that up to $500 billion because oil recovery techniques have improved in the last five years (a conservative gross up), so now we're talking 3-4% of our GDP, depending on which metric you believe. That's what they call in the metric system a "shitload."

Some very benighted politicians have blamed speculators for the run up in prices. We'll get to why this is one of the dumbest theories since intelligent design later, but the reason energy prices are high is because supply at price (p (t-1)) is less than demand at price (p(t-1). My former employer, Matt Simmons, called* this years ago, which is why your friend Mikey P got into that oil and gas game right out of college, after having seen the good Mr. Simmons present at the Coronado Club** in Houston as a 3rd year at Vandy.

Look, I'd be just fine with the American public continuing to restrict drilling in Alaska, in the East and West Coast offshore, and in our national parks--that's money in my pocket. Hell, I'm kind of supporting Obama in '08 because his energy plan is so retarded*** in the fact that it diverts resources to--I'll even say "speculative"--energy sources over proven conventional ones. Bad for the old USA but good for Mike Pemulis and his hometown of Houston. That's a trade I'll always make, at least till I own my own jet and/or ostrich boots become the business footwear norm nationwide once again.

*Blogger's being gee with hyperlinks here, just google the guy.

**Not the strip club, the eating club.

***control-F "solar" on this one.

Gee Six Sigma Shenanigans

It's a toolbook alright.

This morning at my office there was a presentation given on "six sigma", a Way of Life dedicated to the elimination of errors in industrial processes (and a very simplistic appropriation of third-day-of-class high school level stats almost on par with this guy's*).

Well, there was supposed to be a presentation, but the guy couldn't work the DVD for a solid and delightfully awkward 20 minutes. 0 for 1 I guess. What's that, like, negative three sigma? Gonna be tough to get that average back up to 3.4 errors per million starting off like that.

There was also a detailed (and related) presentation on delivering high quality, error free products to our customers--an interesting discussion since we basically sell a commodity (megawatts) that is inherently error-free as constrained by several laws of physics, and we don't really have "customers" (just trading counterparties), but whatevski; it made for some nice lifewasting. Did I mention we have a lot of Rice MBAs working here?

Incidentally, we are one of the top three energy producers in this nation.

*worst book of the new century, by the way. Bad math, bad prose, made up anecdotes as evidence. Prof. Damien called him the biggest fraud since Deepak Chopra**, and I agree with him.

**great cameo in the Love Guru, btw, Deep***.

***As Jack Handey once said, "if you ever come across a footnote within a footnote, just be prepared for the ride of your life."

Coming soon...

A review of the top ten bars* in Austin, dictatorially rated by me, Michael Fitz Mortimer Pemulis IV. A detailed breakdown of circumnavigability**, leopard content, noise pollution, lighting, and bar access shall be included.

*That old C&A will be high on this list, but it won't top it.

**very important, as will be explained

Stark Contrast to the Hildog or The Ukraine is Not Weak!

Here's Ukranian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, a 21st century Eleanor of Aquitane if there ever were one. If Hildog looked like her, I think I woulda switched sides.

The Market Still Likes Hildog or Introducing The Barack Obama Death Spread

Why is Hillary smiling maniacally? Well, perhaps she follows intrade, where Hildog POTUS contracts are still trading north of $5.oo.*

My friend Spill confided in me a couple months ago that he had been having this recurring nightmare--that on Tuesday November 4, millions of Obama supporters would wake up and suddenly realize "wait..I'm about to vote for a black to be president?" and usher in four years for this guy or something.

Well, bad news, Spilly; it looks like the political betting markets are indicating a worse nightmare for you--the RFK scenario.

As many of you might remember from my TBW column**, I'm a big fan of those political betting markets and interpolating meaning from different "spreads" created by the relative value [bunch of boring math shit]. Point is, I was able to isolate a "John McCain death spread" that basically said the markets are betting there is a 3% chance that McCain would die, he being an old man and all.

So as of June 14, Hildog POTUS contracts are trading for $5 even though she's been mathematically eliminated from the Democratic Nomination. Hell, she's even conceded, meaning there has to be some other "way" in which she can get to that POTUS; otherwise whence the $5 contracts?

Clearly, the markets are betting that someone is going to try to assassinate Obama. Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened more often. I mean a lot of people dislike Bush 43, and no one, not one deranged soul in our nation of 300 MM+ or among our countless foreign enemies, has even tried to kill him.

Why am I certain this is a death spread and not some sort of clandestine Clintonesque power play? Well, for one thing, Hildog DemNom contracts are trading below her POTUS contracts, meaning the market thinks it's more likely that she becomes President than she becomes nominee. Meaning people are betting on the iteratively small chance that she gets the Veep nod and Obama dies, since that's the only way she becomes President after the convention.

Anyway, the probability appears to be only 1 in 20, and I'd be a bit sad were the unlikely to occur, since I find Obama almost tolerable for a Dem. I think Hildog would have to suppress a cackle or two though.

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*Y'all know the drill-event occurence in a contract pays $100, so for a 1/4 of the cost of a lap dance, you can get a Hildog contract that pays $100 if she seizes the White House.

**TBW.com last updated August 2006

Gossip Girls

We'll also be talking a lot about Gossip Girls here. A lot.

"Who am I? Why am I here?"

A pretty choice quote by Admiral Stockdale to open the 1992 vice presidential debate. It didn't really work out for him or his running mate, Ross Perot, but it's a question worth answering, since there are literally dozens of other blogs out there on this here internets.

Pretty much the first day of b-school, they really emphasize one point: specialize. As a manager, you should focus on what you do best and only what you do best, ignoring the need for diversification since your shareholders can create their own portfolios and "homemake" diversification without your clumsy, agency-conflicted interference. I think the same applies to blogs since it is very easy to click from one to the other, each being the best at its own little niche.

But fuck it--I'm an empire builder. Thus, this blog will be 'focused' on all sorts of inane lagniappe, namely: political betting markets; baseball; CMBS/Treasury spreads and synthetic fixed income arbitrage; The Hills; deconstructing bad financial journalism; frequent footnoting*; fund dating stories from my sordid past**; assiduous arrogance, reviews of non-existent albums; life in Austin and Houston; my current beta-neutral long/short positions; the upcoming 90210 redux; mailbags.

So welcome to the show folks; I'll be updating at least once a week. Here's that Stockdale debate. Fast forward to about minute 7 and prepare to be amused:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Jbmaq4YHA

*denoted thusly
**Everyone gets codenames, of course, as will all male friends. So no need to worry about your exploits on East 6th St., Greaseball.