London Calling

Mike, 5/30/2006 06:00:44 PM

Ahlo! Just want to let the fives of readers of this site know that everything is going well in London. I've managed to hit most of the important sites and have taken 3 very entertaining walking tours. If you go, I would recommend hitting up the London Walks tours as they are a very fun way to see parts of the city you wouldn't normally encounter. Also, I'm staying in the most hilariously modern looking hotel. It looks like an uber-trendy bar... awash in bizarre glowing light, strange statues, and techno music. Hope all is going well in the States without me. Cheerio!

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X-Men 3 Sucked Balls And I Hope Brett Ratner Burns In Hell Forever

Justin, 5/26/2006 02:05:25 AM

Out of respect to Miguel because he hasn't seen the picture yet, I won't reveal any of the (many) plot points that angered me beyond all reason here. For that you can hit up my Myspace blog.
But suffice to say it was a real heartbreaker.
And man...5 theaters all at once played the movie starting at 12:01 AM...They all let out simeultaneously, and I have to say that I've never seen that many crestfallen fanboy faces at the same time....Well maybe when Superman died. But this was a real abortion. sigh.

From RJ on 5/30/2006:

Wow. I am glad I played 5 hours of NBA street instead of seeing that movie...

From Mike on 5/30/2006:

I gotta say, I enjoyed X-Men 3, comic be damned. Maybe the whole X-Men mythology would have been better as a 12 issue limited series rather than 43 years of entagled, non-sensical crossover and reovered plot lines.

Without getting into all the spoilers, I thought there were a lot of gutsy calls made which, in the end, made it a far more interesting and entertaining movie than X-Men 1 & 2. Instead of trying to present a bastardized and abridged version of an X-Men storyline, Brent Ratman just went balls out and put together something in the spirit of any alternate X-Men graphic novel (of which there are 18 million published). Then again, maybe he should have just left the whole Phoenix thing alone. The movie would have been 1000 times better with the Mee'kron crystal.

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Trading in futures...

RJ, 5/24/2006 10:06:52 AM

How would legislation requiring all publically traded companies be traded solely in futures affect the decision-making of both management and
investors?

The institution of the publicly traded company has been criticized for encouraging inherently myopic behavior. Salaries, bonuses, and at the very least stock options are often directly tied to reaching particular stock price, revenue or profit targets. Yet In the long run, actions that might temporarily increase stock price, revenues or profits--such as misstating profits or winning a large contract unlikely to be successfully
executed-- may prove to have a net effect that is quite disastrous, though only after several years. Enron's decision to inflate it's holdings may be somewhat atypical, however EDS' bid for the Navy Internet, or the SAIC fiasco at FBI are perhaps more realistic of the typical. Similarly, strategic investments that are costly over 2-3 years, but which might greatly enhance market
share, revenue etc. after several years may not be viewed as favorably.

Would limiting trade to futures force investors--and therefore executive leadership-- to focus more on strategic opportunities and growth? And if so, would this result in changes (for good or bad) in business direction and management quality at lower levels of a corporation? Would such behavior force companies to provide greater transparency out of fear that a significant accounting scandal might have long term affects on stock prices?