Archive for November, 2008
Quote of the Day
Friday, November 28th, 2008
“I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process. I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with that same set of values.”
- George Bush
Tagged and Bagged
Monday, November 24th, 2008
To be clear, this is not a “bad bank” model. Assets are not, apparently, being taken off the Citi balance sheet and put into another entity walled off from the Citi biological host. Instead, they are being left on the Citi balance sheet, but tagged and bagged for eventual disposal via taxpayers.
Three hundred billion, no existing management turnover, no forced breakup for a “too big to fail” company that did, and the former management, which walked away a year or so ago, is sitting on beach earning twenty percent.
The auto-makers are next on the list…
I wonder who’s next in line after that?
The details –
In short: (a) Citi gets another $27 billion on the same terms as the first $25 billion, except that the interest rate is now 8% instead of 5%, and there is a cap on dividends of $0.01 per share per quarter; and (b) the government (Treasury, FDIC, Fed) agrees to absorb 90% of losses above $29 billion on a $306 billion slice of Citi’s assets, made up of residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities. (If triggered, some of that guarantee will be provided as a loan from the Fed.) There is also a warrant to buy up to $2.7 billion worth of common stock (I presume) at a staggeringly silly price of $10.61 per share (Citi closed at $3.77 on Friday).
Our Congress (Democrat and Republican) approved this. Maybe we should have thrown them all out?
GTA IV
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
No excess violence there. Nope. None that I can see. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to make a run to Best Buy.
Geithner
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
Basically a continuation of current policy. Expect more money to be thrown from the helicopters of a heavy handed FED all through next year. Obama doesn’t ‘get it’ either.
XBox Live Experience Update
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
On the 360 –
- Navigation is simple, fluid and easy to work with.
- The quick launch mini-menuing overlay is awesome.
- Big, beautiful cover art and themes for films, television shows, and video is a very welcome improvement. The experience of browsing films for rent is vastly improved. Very cool.
- The Avatars give things a nice personal touch.
- HDD full game installs sounds great – no CD-ROM use when you’re playing and faster response times. (I haven’t tried this yet though as I need to upgrade my drive.)
- The new games and films spotlights are great. Videos, screenshots, descriptions, etc.. Very welcome addition.
- NetFlix streaming – I haven’t tried this. Standard definition video – meh. I usually don’t rent SD content, but having the entire NetFlix library at my finger tips is pretty tempting. I might have to upgrade to a Gold membership and try it out for a year.
On XBox Live –
- The whole XBox Live web site has undergone major improvements which is great to see. It’s a little pokey though in terms of performance. They should lighten it up a bit.
- Preview and order films online and have them auto-download to the 360 (like Amazon Unbox and Tivo) is a killer feature in my book.
What’s still missing -
Motion controllers and motion sensing games – there were rumors floating around of a Christmas release for the new ‘Newton’ motion controller for the 360, but so far no dice. I dig Wii games as much as I dig games like Halo3, but I’d rather not deal with two consoles clogging the space under my television. A motion controller and some slick hi-def party games would really round out the 360 experience. It’s inevitable we’ll see this but right now it’s not looking good for a Christmas release.
Better marketing – I still run into people who don’t realize you can rent films or buy games over the network. I also haven’t seen a lot of general 360 advertising lately. This is something Microsoft just never seems to get. You have to advertise the product so people know what’s possible with it.
Bans on Gay Marriage
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
Unbelievable. Who knew the country was so homophobic. In Florida, the Constitutional ban exceeded the new 60% threshold for Constitutional changes, and in California, voters decided farm animals were entitled to better rights, but not gays. How screwed up is that?
Barack Obama elected the 44th President Of The United States
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
Very very cool. Congrats to the Democrats. Please take good care of us all.
