Thursday, February 26, 2009

My Top Chef

***Spoiler alert. Do not read this if you have not watched the Top Chef Finale and want to find out who wins on your own***

Last night was the season finale for Top Chef 5. I really like the competition shows on Bravo, except for the ones about modeling and hairdos. I'll even watch Top Design and Step It up and Dance from time to time. The Millionaire Matchmaker w/ Patti Stanger is pretty entertaining as well. The hotter the hostess though, the more likely I'm to watch it. C'mon, Padma and Heidi? I don't think there's a straight guy out there that wouldn't mind spending a night with them. I'm sure the show producers had people like me in mind when they were brainstorming about the show since the target audience for Bravo is clearly women, and you can clearly see this by the products they try to sell during commercials (a little marketing lesson for ya).

I really wish Padma had not mentioned that the winner of the first elimination challenge had gone on and win the Top Chef title except for one year in the first episode. For those that don't know who she's referring to, Tre from season 3 was the winner of the first elimination challenge but he went home for doing a dessert just like so many other contestants before him. I think he made like a bread pudding or panna cotta. My original pick was Stefan but it was fairly obvious that his confidence was getting the best of him and he feels that judging by the season overall he should be Top Chef and didn't do his best in the finale. Maybe Richard from Season 4 had the same attitude but at least he knows and even admits on air that he "choked."

As entertaining and profitable it is for me, here are some lessons to be learned from Top Chef:

#1: Mama's Boys Don't Get Far. Yes, I do bet on the shows. Each episode I bet on who's going home and who wins the challenge. One of theory I have that's worked pretty consistently is that if you start talking about your mother during the interview clips, chances are you are going home. This season the first time Fabio talked about his mother I bet on him going home even though he is clearly the producers' favorite and they get a lot of soundbites from him. He was on the bottom but he didn't go home. The very next episode he talked about his grandmother and I bet on him going home again w/ the same result. Again for the third time he mentioned about his mother and I bet on him again and finally this time he was on the bottom and actually DID go home. My theory is that production knows this is the last episode the person is going to be on so they dig up some archive interview footage of the contestants talking about their inspiration for being on the show or just something slightly more emotional for the audience to remember them by. Anyway, if any of you ever end up on these shows, don't mention your mother unless you don't want to win. For all purposes you are an orphan. Grow up, be your own man and not a mama's boy.

#2: Know Thyself and Be Thyself. Speaking of be your own man, last night Carla didn't win b/c she didn't do her food. She has the classical French training background and her food to me has a very rustic and down to earth feeling. Very soulful and loving. Reminds you of grandma's place in a way. However, she let her sous chef Casey's (who's from Dallas and very good looking) suggestions dictate her menu too much. She usually doesn't do these modern, space age techniques like cooking with liquid nitrogen but last night she did a sous vide, which is cooking in a vacuum bag and it didn't turn out well. She also took Casey's suggestions to suffle the cheese instead putting it on tart as her original plan. The oven temperature was too high and the cheese curdled instead. It's cool that she's open-minded and listened to suggestions. I really would've preferred that she stuck to her guns and trust in herself and what got her this far. There's no point in trying to be something you are not just to say fit in or for any reason really. This is not high school. This is life. Be who you are and not what other people wants you to be.

#3: It's All About Love. With Carla's cooking, it reminded me of a quote from Serendipity that the Greeks didn't write obituaries but instead just ask "did he have passion?" Now, I don't know if this is really true or some sentimental line the writers fed in to the movie but I still love the quote. A life without love or passion is really not one worth living at all to me. If you don't love your job, your major, your significant other, then what are you doing?? Why choose to make yourself suffer? Go see your advisor and switch to what you want to study, even if it's Art History. Break up with the cheerleader and go out with the girl next door who digs the same music you do. I don't know what else you live for if it's not for love.

#4: Nobody Loves A Cocky Bastard. Well, at least we know the judges or the show producers don't. The only time I can remember the bad boy winning was Jeffrey Sebelia from season 3 of Project Runway. You're good, we know it. Most important of all, it'll show in your work. Let your work do the talking for you. Marcel from season 2 of Top Chef was really talented, but it was almost as if he was set up to be the antagonist, the bad guy to the eventual winner Ilan. Stefan was clearly a gifted chef but his confidence got to a point to where he think he's got it in the bag and hearing him talk about how he "deserves" to win Top Chef when Padma asked each of the contestants why they should win almost made me sick. Play nice and confidence comes from within, you exude it, not by talking a big game.

#5: What Have You Done for Me Lately. You can tell that Stefan felt that over the entire season he was the best chef, but if we're judging by the entire season, there's no point to having a season finale. It's just how life is really. Doesn't matter if you are a rock legend or a coach who's won bunch of championships, you're judged by your performance NOW! There are no excuses to producing a flop or continuously losing games. You are only as good as your last hit, so you better keep on rocking.

#6: NO DESSERTS. This really doesn't have any life philosophy behind it, but seriously dessert has been the downfall to so many contestants and sent them home or in Stefan's case, cost him the title. I just don't see unless you've practiced or have got that one killer recipe in the bag why you would ever attempt to do a dessert on Top Chef. This is really more of a corollary to #2. Even though most people would consider going from appetizer to heavier plates and finish w/ dessert to be a full meal but you had the option to not do it. He jus turned out a mediocre plate instead of using that opportunity to showcase his abilities more. You had Richard going home this season for a banana s'more, Alex for a creme brulee, and obviously Tre for his bread pudding that I mentioned earlier.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

My SXSW

SXSW has posted their schedule, as told to me by Meiko, Hotel Cafe is doing their showcase at The Parish again. Which means Greg Laswell, Jim Bianco and Cary Brothers will be back as well. It's really funny to me that on the SXSW website it lists a "special guest" for the 12:30am slot, but it says that it's a singer-songwriter from Eureka, CA... uh, I'm just gonna go ahead and guess that it's Sara Bareilles. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to do this deductive reasoning.

For Friday night, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness is playing, along with Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears and Okkervil River, both from Austin! I wanted to go to Black Joe Lewis' CD release party but didn't make it last month. I'm really looking forward to this.

Saturday night it's all about Ra Ra Riot and The Rosebuds!! And yes, I do kind of have a crush on Alexandra Lawn from Ra Ra Riot as well.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

My Love

What is love? Love lifts us up where we belong. Love is the answer to most of the questions in my heart. All you need is love. Boy, The Beatles sure sound like they've got it all figured out but Paul himself got divorced, so what does that mean?

Maybe it doesn't mean anything.

And if Jack Johnson is right that love is the answer to most of the questions in my heart, I think I've been looking for answers in all the wrong places. Instead of answers I seem to have just more and more questions.

"Only unfilled love can be romantic"
--- Vicky Cristina Barcelona

This hit me like a lightning bolt.

Bat Girl, as my best friend Jack had hear about me talk about on so many occasions, is that unfilled love. And it is unfilled not because great obstacles standing before us like a family feud or me going off to war, it was simply because I preferred it that way. The story goes, that I met this girl my sophomore year in an independent study class. Brown hair hazel eyes and a smile to rival the Mona Lisa. We love the same music and share the same interests. If you ask me for what I look for in a girl I would list you bunch of attributes but really I'd be describing her. Later I found out she was dating one of my friends and I soon got involved with someone else so time passed until our paths crossed again in senior year, this time single. Well, I was single.

As we hang out more and more, it became clear to me that she's always dating somebody. It was also clear that she's got some serious daddy issues. Almost every other guy she introduce me to was somebody she used to go out with or date. She didn't want me. Anybody would do, really. She just wanted a warm body to keep her from being bored. I don't even think she believes in the concept of love. I've seen her w/ other guys that she's with at the time and it was just as believable as Jennifer Lopez's acting. Oh, and the friend of mine that she was dating when I first met her? She cheated on him.

Rather than doing what I should I almost prefer keep my image of her as it is, at least the good part, instead of finding out for myself first hand I was afraid of what she would turn out to be. But until I find somebody just like her, which is unlikely unless she has a clone, I keep romanticizing. I've gone out w/ other people and all I wish was that I was w/ her. My short stint w/ Vodka Girl (she was Russian... and you guessed it, she's a drinker) ended in a complete failure and fiery crash and I don't think I've yet to fully recover from that. Which brings me up to date, I don't even want to give her a nickname for the slim chance that this somehow finds its way to her computer screen. For whatever reason, maybe b/c I'm socially programmed to be awkward when it comes to this stuff, or that I still have some healing to do from the scars Vodka Girl left, or my romanticism with Bat Girl, I'm already trying to find reasons why it won't work. She's too conservative. She doesn't share my interest in music. She's taller than me by two inches and there's no way girls like shorter guys, just look at how well Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise turned out. And most of all, she's nothing like Bat Girl.

Not very upbeat for Valentine's, I know. Sorry. Oh, in case you were wondering why I called her Bat Girl it's b/c of a certain mascot she was affiliated with and I don't want to disclosed too much more than that lest unwanted problems and drama is traced back to this post. It has before and it probably will again. I just repeat the same mistakes in different form and magnitude.

Friday, February 13, 2009

My "That's What She Said," Part II

On Monday they had a guest on CNBC and I don't remember who the anchor was but that person asked the guest maybe 3 or 4 questions in a row w/out giving him time to digest or answer. So while he was internalizing the questions and coming up w/ a response he said "man, that's a lot to swallow." Seriously, I thought Christmas came early this year. I can't believe he just said that... that was too good.

That night I went to my bar at The Parish and after Meiko's set I went up to get a pictures w/ her and got to talk to her a little bit. She mentioned something about beer while she was playing and someone in the crowd yelled out Shiner since it's a local beer. Someone actually brought over a Shiner while I was talking to her and she goes "now I'm totally double fisting." I didn't even think about it, not even the fact that I'm in front of a semi-star, out of reflex I said "that's what she said." Fortunately she thought it was funny and said that I was good. Yeah, you hear that? Meiko thought I was funny!

She's gonna be back for SXSW w/ the Hotel Cafe showcase on Thursday. This is not out on the news yet. I got this straight from the source.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

My Monday

I've been waiting for this day for a while. It just so happen that a lot of things are happening on this day as well. Since I've decided to buy out a slice of ownership at The Parish I've been looking forward to this concert. Joshua Radin is going to play w/ Meiko and Jesse Harris. I don't even know how many times I've listened to Joshua's new album since it came out, probably more like 60. It's rare for me to be moved to tears by a song, and the last artist that was able to do that was Adele. If you know that I'm a Scrubs fan it's really not that surprising that I'm a fan of Joshua Radin as well. I like this album so much more... the last one is almost a little too depressing.

It just so happen tomorrow that I have to drive my parents to the airport in the morning and rush back to the office before market opens. I have an appointment to inspect my car at 4pm right after the close since I hit a pregnant lady and I have my Dale Carnegie sales class from 6 to 8:30pm. After that I got to rush downtown since I think Meiko is the opening act.

Funny story about Meiko and me, well... it's not really funny and it's not that big of a deal but I was at the Hotel Cafe Tour showcase last year for SXSW and she said she was a bit under the weather or whatever and her throat was hurting a little bit. She asked if anybody would buy her a shot. If I remember correctly she requested whiskey, Jack Daniel even, but my memory fails me right now. Well, I bought her one and just asked the crowd to send it up to the stage for her. A southern girl from Georgia who's a quarter Japanese, talented, and drinks Jack Daniel? I'll admit I was crushing on her so hard for about a month or ten. I wonder if I'll be able to get to meet her backstage. I wonder if she remembers the random act of kindness from a random person in the crowd.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

My Musical

Bass Concert Hall re-opened back in late January after closed down for renovation for about an year and a half and I've been dying to go check it out for myself. So far John Legend and Broken Social Scene played, even Ghostland Observatory made a guest appearance for the UT Ensemble.

During the short time that I lived in New York, I used to see almost a show every week. A good chunk of my paycheck went to rent, taxes, and then Broadway. Since most of the shows touring through Austin I have already seen, it left me with Legally Blonde and Mama Mia. Given the fact that I wasn't really big fan of either movies, I was quite conflicted. But since it gives me a chance to spend some quality time with Cancer Girl I decided to go.

When I say I wasn't a big fan of the movie is a nice way to put it. I hated it. It is everything I hate about L.A. in cinematic form. Every time it is on TV it triggers my gag reflects and makes me want to throw up. It is against everything I stand for as a man. Yeah, there's a self-confidence message in there, but it is almost as real and believable as those size 38DD breasts you see on the beach. As for Mama Mia? Well, I have not been able to sit through the first 30 minutes of it yet. It was one of the in-flight movies while I was flying to and back from Spain. On multiple occasions I would start watching it and quickly get very nauseated and let's just say it's because of the turbulence. I've never been that big of an ABBA fan anyway.

I'll admit, the musical is different. At least I didn't throw up or start bleeding from the nose. It was fun, I liked it but far from loving it. There, I said it. I refused to say anything positive about the show for the longest time. Once I stop judging it by what I believe what a musical should be I was at least able to accept it other than some lame excuse to make women and homosexuals withdraw money from their bank accounts. When I think of musical I think of Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Chicago, and the likes. Of course, lately there's been more a trend toward trivial pop culture. There's just no talent like Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Sondheim or Jonathan Laron anymore. I mean, c'mon... Seussical The Musical, The Wedding Singer, and of course now Legally Blonde? Even Spamalot, which I liked a lot was based on a Monty Python movie. Wicked was based on a novel that's a spin off from a classic. In both cases the musical component was lacking. The two biggest component of a musical is its story and its music. In this case, a double negative does not make it a positive for Legally Blonde.

There were some nice jokes in the show with brilliant setup and punch line combination. It's just sad that they were pretty much all gay, blonde, or fashion/shopping jokes and lacking a bit in originality and intelligence. Even if was fun the fact is we're watching bunch of under studies. If Laura Bell Bundy was playing Elle it would be a total different show. The lead for this tour was injured so we were watching the understudy of the understudy... basically it's like the third string quarterback trying to lead a mediocre team and let's face it, unless the tour director is Bill Belichick and the understudy is related to Tom Brady there's no way it can achieve greatness. At least Bundy played Glinda in Wicked and have the vocal chops. The girl that played Elle we saw was just too whiny, nasally and throaty. For a show about a blonde sorority girl, they totally let the men steal the show, like Emmett and the UPS Guy. Especially the UPS Guy.

I do have to compliment the staging though. First they had two vertical and one horizontal bars lit that would frame the stage. In different scene they would move the horizontal bar lower or one of the vertical bars in to shrink the frame. At first I thought there was some kind of wheel or pulley system but I later realized that they just had the two vertical behind the horizontal one to create the optical illusion that they were connected. Just subtle things like that adds a lot to the show. Like the fact for the song Ireland, the girl playing Paulette actually had on green shoes which you didn't realize before that blends in and accentuate w/ the rest of the set.

So there, it was entertaining and for $38 you get what you paid for, but I refuse to admit that I even remotely liked the show for that it's an insult to the magic of Broadway.

My 20 Minutes

20 minutes. That's about the amount of time for me to blow up on Friday. It wasn't really that bad. I've lost more money than that before. It was, however, for the first time that I really didn't like my job. I took my headset off, threw them on the desk. Repeat the process for my SmartGlove. First the left hand, then the right hand. "I'm fucking going back to sleep." And that was that. I grabbed my coat and headed out the door. I didn't even take my messenger bag with me. My ring and watch were still sitting on the desk as well. I simply could not stand the place anymore and I was determined to remove myself from the environment that's been causing me much frustration.

I went home. Watched RocknRolla. Crawled into my bed and slept. Coincidentally when I woke up it was about 3:10pm EST. The day was pretty much over as far as I'm concerned.

At one point my dad did come see why I was home so early. "Did you forget something?" I thought about giving him the silent treatment but I just told him I had a bad day and didn't feel like sticking around the office. Funny enough, later on while I was having "lunch" my mom said something like "man, the market shot up today and just kept going up huh?" "Gee, no fucking shit, Mom." Well ok, I didn't say that... it did cross my mind but instead I just lethargically said that I'd rather not talk stocks today. She knows just how I know not to mention AIG around her. There are two stocks we don't talk about in our household: AIG and JSDA.

Like I said, it wasn't really that bad. Normally if I took a hit like that in the morning I'd just dial down my shares to like 200 shares and zone in for the rest of the day until I feel like my head is back in the ball game and I'll up my share sizes again. Usually I'd either at least make up half of my losses or break even. I consider myself resilient. I get knocked down but I'll always try to get back up. For some reason I didn't even bother on Friday. I was on the brink of not able to hold back my rage. Maybe I would rip my monitors off and throw them across the room. Take my keyboard and smash whoever come up to me in the head.

The job data came out that morning and shortly after the open I interpreted what I saw in the market as weakness and that the market was going to pretty much roll over and play dead. I loaded up the shares and well, got stopped out. Normally this would've been typical except I loaded up about 4 times my normal size and I basically lost my mind after that. My long position got stopped out as well and my next two shorts was the same result. I did reduce my share size but they were still pretty big consider my norm. Honestly, I was trading like a mad man.

To be more accurate, I lost my mind at the close the previous day, after I broke my rule of not playing Call of Duty during market hours. The two biggest problems with playing CoD during market hours is that 1) Missed opportunities and 2) Residual excessive aggression heading into the close.

Truthfully, what I was mad about wasn't that I lost money. I wasn't mad about getting stopped out. I wasn't mad about the ridiculous up move the market made despite the pitiful job numbers. The rationale was that w/ this horrible job data it'll urge the government to pass the stimulus package. Whatever. I'm just so sick off it. I was mad about myself. I was mad that I had broken my rule. I was mad about not sticking to my discipline. I was mad about being distracted having all these stuff going on in my head and going into the office w/ my head not screwed on right. I was mad that I had gone mad.

This is the same elementary mistake I made again and again before. I was eager to get to HP the same fashion I wanted to super. I was upset that I was not getting the result that I believe I should be seeing. Especially after our training session last week where after hearing the panel of HP's talk further cement my belief that I have what it takes to be an HP myself. If you had asked me the same questions the rookies were asking I would've answered almost word for word the exact same way. There's nothing more to do except to get over it, buckle down and claw my way back up.

I wanted to document the high and low of trading. Well, you're getting the low right now unfortunately.

Friday, February 6, 2009

My Talk Show

CNBC has gotten ridiculously annoying lately. Right around 11am CST, the segment Power Lunch comes on and the anchors will start yakking about topic du jour, which lately is always about the stimulus package. I believe that journalism is about information. It's to inform the public. Give me the news. Give me what's important. Sure, the show is in a debate format, but let's at least have some intelligent people making some valid point. The person I can't stand the most is Dennis Kneale, whom I'm convince more and more each day is gay. All they're doing is squawking like bunch of chickens and not making any sense whatsoever. Look, if I want to watch or listen to meaningless argument I would've flipped over to The View ok?

Oh, and Mark Haines, who is on in the early morning and right after the bell, I believe is CNBC's version of Willard Scott from The Today Show. They're just getting... oh, what's a nice way of putting it... senile. Some of the stuff he says on air is just flat out ridiculous, silly, and makes absolutely no sense except maybe to the clown in his ear with a twisted sense of humor. By that I don't mean his producer but that I do believe he has a clown talking in his ears telling him what he thinks is funny. There's no other explanations. My god, I would be embarrassed to be his kid of grandkid.

Maria Bartiromo... her voice just kicks into this unpleasant high pitch sometimes. I want to guess she's Italian w/ that last name b/c I get images in my head of her screeching in an Italian market selling artichokes or anchovies.

Lastly, I'm sure I'm not the only one that feel this way b/c CNBC seems to have made changes to it but the TD Ameritrade ad they run usually about 2 minutes before the opening and closing bell has the audio clip of an actual bell ringing just like the one they use down on the floor. The first few days they ran that ad so many of us got spooked and almost sent out orders prematurely. I want to believe that either CNBC or TD Ameritrade received so many complaints they've decided to take the audio clip out.

In related news, while a colleague of mine was getting fed up w/ the Power Lunch bunch he said under his breath: "God, shut the hell up! You guys are so annoying. I'll give you a real stimulus package to get excited about." Of course, you already know what my response was ("that's what she said"). Oh, and this just happened today that DKS was running up and someone called out for news, to which the Pit responded: "oh, Dick's just got upgraded" and then someone over the headset made some lesbian or homo jokes... It was funny at the time; I can't recreate that moment for you through this medium.