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Showing posts from December, 2009

Avatar

I took my brother and my daughter willing and hoping for the best to see Avatar in IMAX 3D at the 11:30 AM matinee on Christmas Eve. The film is a visual feast . Many of the digital effects shots are magically compelling. It ranks with other great cinematic films as one of the most beautiful things you will ever see. You can almost touch the life on Pandora. Almost. Pandora is a gorgeous, savage jungle world . It is the home of the Na’vi People. The Na’vi are central to the telling of the story and therefore they have to be visually convincing. James Cameron masters this situation as few other directors can and delivers an eye-catching thrill ride that doesn’t really seem to last 2 hours and 40 minutes. Time flies. There is some depth to the back story of the Na’vi as revealed in Cameron’s screenplay. Pandora is not a planet but a moon of a lifeless, gaseous planet. Yet, life flourishes abundantly on this moon. The vegetation is evolving like the Na’vi and is, in fact, more evolved

Snow Globe Santa

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Star Trek Rebooted and other 2009 films

I don't go to the theater that often anymore. I'd just as soon wait for the film to come out on DVD or blu-ray and watch it on my spiffy system at home. About this time of year, I usually view films that have caught my attention at the time of their general release during the course of the year. So, recently I've been doing far more film watching than reading. The 2009 crop of interesting films (so far) are Up , District 9 , Inglourious Basterds , and Star Trek . Up is what you expect from Pixar . Great animation, funny sequences, touching character interaction, and - increasingly with Pixar - a sappy storyline. I own most of the Pixar films but I will not be adding Up to my collection. It was OK, a good family film, but that's about it. On a scale of 10 I'd give it a 7. District 9 is an interesting, semi-documentary science-fiction film. It does not rely heavily on special effects nor on action sequences, though both are present in the film and both are well-done

The Copenhagen Climate Summit

The Guardian offered great coverage of the recent, historic international conference on climate change in Copenhagen. So did the New York Times . Al Gore made a buffoon of himself . Obama looked marginalized . Climategate brought over 1500 stolen emails to public light, some of which suggested that some variable global warming data had been manipulated. This undermined in the public sphere confidence as to whether the earth is warming at all. But, the instigators of Climategate only brought confusion, nothing clear for their part either. China was not exactly cooperative to the process . Developing countries threatened at one point to walk out of the talks completely . It costs money to build a clear energy economy versus just burning cheap coal as fast as you can. Where are these poor nations supposed to get the money from? Burning the coal fast as possible generates wealth faster. The earth is warming . It naturally goes through cycles of warming and cooling . We are likely going

Into the Rhineland

I just finished reading Munich, 1938 and France in 1938 in quick succession. Both are very well written histories reflecting the weaknesses of Britain and France in politically dealing with first Italy then Germany in the final year before the start of World War Two. It becomes obvious when you read these books that everything about Hitler’s Anschluss of Austria and conquest of Czechoslovakia in 1938 was predicated upon the weakness of Britain and, particularly, France when Hitler ordered German troops to remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936. Munich, 1938 gives the reader a blow by blow account of the events primarily in London and Berlin leading up to the Munich Agreement . It does not attempt to give the reader much historical context for the events, however. Germany’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936 is hardly mentioned at all. But, France in 1938 fills in some of the gaps of the more recent work, specifically stating: “Germany’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in Ma

And I'm in again, sort of...

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I bought more GLD this afternoon. Looks like Gold is now at or near being oversold . $110 per share is a long-term bargain. It seems like a lot of money but I've been involved with gold since 2003 and it always seems expensive. This is a bull market for gold . You have to get in when you get in and be firm about it. My formula for buying GLD is reflected in the chart below. I use a combination of Slow Stochastic , RSI , and MACD in my readings of most stocks. Generally speaking, in a bull market if the Slow Stochastic drops below 10 and the RSI below 50 then you want to buy. Alternately, if the Slow Stochastic is below 15 for three days in a row (like today) and the RSI is below 50 it is a buy signal as well. This works only for sectors in bull markets. This doesn't work at all in bear markets as I painfully found out in 2000 and 2001. But, hey, learn from your mistakes, right? The MACD is kind of a wild card. If it is negative at the same time you get the other indicators t

Hard Frost, Morning Dogs

Sunday mornings are always the quietest time on my land. I enjoy going down the path we call Pine Forest Road into the heart of my small, 5+ acre patch of woods. The normal, distant rumble of the Interstate is softer on Sunday mornings. All the party people are still sleeping off their liquor. All the church people are preparing to leave for worship, but churches haven’t opened yet. There is no traffic on my road. This morning was our first hard frost since last winter. My open ground was coated in a heavy frosty white-silver. There were no crows or other birds in flight yet. Charlie went out with me after I made coffee. Jennifer and my daughter continued to sleep. There was a moment totally consumed with doggy action at first. As I opened the door for Charlie to go out I was also herding Parks (who now sleeps in our laundry room every night) toward the door for his morning constitutional. I have to pick him up and sit him down the stairs to our carport. His shoulder is bad and we are

I'm out.

Today, I sold all my stocks including my gold stocks at the market open. Although the gold stocks were down at the open thankfully the bulk of gold's decline occurred later in the day. In fact, it accelerated . Meanwhile, my DIA and SPY positions all opened up and then lost ground most of the day so I was able to exit them on a high note before they turned negative. By the close, however, the Transports ended at a new high for the rally - 4101.76. The Dow did not confirm this action, however, closing at 10,388.90 - about 90 points below its recent high. So, another Dow Theory non-confirmation is in effect for now. Last night, I decided the short-term correction in gold is here and took the opportunity to exit the markets entirely except for my holdings in GLD , NEM , and SLV . Otherwise, I'm out. I do not trust this rally in general and gold itself has been greatly overbought for weeks. So, it was a good time to take profits, offset some losses, and consolidate. In the comin

Gaming Austerlitz 1805

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Proof of purchase. My modest "Napoleon 20" Series collection, plus a couple of books. For me, reading and wargaming go hand-in-hand. The Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 has the reputation of being Napoleon Bonaparte’s greatest victory and is renowned as one of the most famous battles in history . It was a stunning achievement and led to the collapse of the Third Coalition , leaving France enough breathing room to victoriously take on Prussia the following year . I have recently been reading about this period and playing a wargame on the battle from Victory Point Games ' "Napoleon 20" Series. I am a big fan of this series and have purchased most of Victory Point's offerings in it. These are small wargames, designed for quick-play while offering enough game design elements to get a feel for the Napoleonic Era and to offer some insights on the battle . As usual, even though the game is designed to be played on a physical map with physical playing pieces (pictu