Sorry family gatherings have kept me quite busy. Very Happy Holidays to you and yours and I wish you a prosperous New Year!
I will be extremely busy with work during the first two weeks of Janaury so my postings may be limited. I am on a much needed vacation in Asia for the last two weeks of January and I hope to get some pleasure reading done before I start writing my licensing exams. I hope to at least write some thoughtful posts while I am there, not sure about Internet Access though…
So apparantly my girlfriend has never seen Kindergarten Cop. My thoughts exactly, what a travesty. So I took it upon myself to right this grevious wrong, and allow a master thespian to regale us with his wide range of dramatic skills. Arnold used his entire acting toolbox in this one. Initially a very gritty movie, as he hunts for the uber bad guy Mr Crisp (of 3 O’Clock High fame, anothe fave of mine) Arnold has to transform himself into a Kindergarten teacher in his hunt for Mr Crisp. Classic lines combined with listening to the jerky boys clips taken from this movie (“Who is your daddy and what does he do?) makes it a classic. A double thumbs up!
A very light read. It starts off by discussing Zen, which translates into poker as being one with the game and understanding the games ebbs and flows. In poker terms this means being cogniscent of people changing gears, being on tilt, etc. It starts off with Fundamentals of Poker, and then moves to Calmness and Rythym which in this case translates to lack of ego.
Next up is Nuts and Bolts which allows for the inclusion of failure in the system (not being upset as long as you make the right play). Warrior Zen discusses agression in poker and playing on instinct (after you’ve gained it). Lastly emotions and opponents watches for emotions in you and your opponent, as well as your motives for playing.
The appendix contains some worthwhile insights on Poker software. All in all a good light read. If you walk away with one or two things to change your game, then the book has paid for itself. Originally I gave it a 3 out of 5, but I have to bump it up to 3.5 / 5. Any book that has multiple Chuck Norris quotes has to be good…
I had my friend Laurie over on the weekend and we did a walkthrough of the Campaign game for Europe Engulfed. It’s similar to Axis and Allies, but with much more refined mechanics and also encompasses some fog of war. We started in September 39, and I did the standard issue Polish campaign. Laurie attempted a key reinforcement of my initial assualt in Southern Poland over a river, but I managed to sweep away the Poles thanks to some hot dice. We went through the phony war, and both built up rather large stacks before I began Operation Yellow in the west. My masses of armor quickly decimated his, and no amount of strategic reinforcement on his end could forestall the inevitable.
It plays really well, and abstracts alot of the naval and air activity for the sake of brevity. Strategic Warfare is handled through a generic point allocation system and works pretty well. I’m going to try and learn this system, as Asia Engulfed will be out early next year, and there is a pretty large and active community. A full game probably runs around 8-12 hours between two relatively experienced players.
I still hanker for something a bit more complicated, probably along the lines of A World At War or World in Flames. These are monster games which probaly take upward of 30+ hours to play among experienced players. I think I will need to see which of these is more actively played in Toronto before I make my choice…
I have my second last MBA assignment due tonight. It’s on the valuation of a company using the Residual Income valaution model. It’s been a great learning experience as the model has been built basically from scratch. It’s been alot of work, but I think we did a very comprehensice job so I am really happy. It was also interesting looking at the fundamantal side. As part of the CFA curriculim, fundamental valuation is a key cornerstone, but actually applying the concepts to practice was a great opportunity. I look forward to doing an investment modeling course at work next year as well.
Okay, back to the topic at hand. So my plan for the holidays was to finish my last assignment in record time and then spend the entire holiday season studying. But no more! As a result of some sort of legal kerfluffle, my exams for the start of the month have been cancelled!!! As a result, I just have my last assignment to focus on, which I hope I can finish this week! The order of the day is then relaxation for the next month! I will be really busy at work but plan to just relax every night instead of grinding away at some assignment or the other. That being said, I’m sure the cycle will begin again in February, but a breather is much needed.
I’m sure everyone has already read this, but to those who haven’t here goes. In a nutshell, Levitt applies economic theory and “radical” thinking to everyday problems. It’s written in an easy to read style with a lack of traditional academic dryness. This has helped propel it onto the best seller lists and his given him the artistic license to discuss the topics of his choosing.
Among the topics Levitt covers are comparing Teachers to Sumo Wrasslers (the “street” name for wrestlers), Real Estate agents to the Ku Klux Klan, and why Drug dealers still live at home with their parents. The section on parenting is really good and I highly recommend it to my good friend Snook. His most interesting argument has to be that abortion reduces crime, because it prevents those who are most susceptible to becoming criminal (poor, single parent, etc) from ever being born. This allows self selection to prevail over natural selection in my opinion.
For a long plane flight, the daily commute, or a rainy day it’s an easy and entertaining read. I actually learned something else from the section on parenting (that poor parents echo the names of rich (successful) parents and that this cycle is constantly changing) so I give it a 3.75 out of 5.
Another light read by Andy Kessler. This recounts his travails as a hedge fund manager during the later 90’s early 00’s. Andy, originally an electrical engineer, started his career on Wall Street covering semiconductors. The book starts off detailing his struggles in pitching the investment to investors. There is some material recounted from his other books, including the history of the industrial revolution.
What is fascinating in this book is how he discusses how one of his investors, a swiss gentleman, pushed him to explain his edge (he was sitting beside him on an airplane and they ended up discussing the markets) . This led him to discuss his edge in phone conversations with the swiss investor, and propels Kessler to determine the actual flow of capital in the markets. This carries him across the globe and he ends up with a very interesting discovery! I won’t ruin the ending for my readers but it is a great book. I give it a 4.5 out of 5 (-.5 just for the rehashed material).
Now that my studies are temporarily nearing an end (before I start CMT and CMA), I am looking to explore some philisophical and metaphysical studies. I will start in the Roman lake, and explore stoicism, which the Greeks are credited with developing, through the writings of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca.
From there I will move to the driving force behind my fervent pursuit of studies (attributable to the flattening of the earth): China and India. I want to counterbalance stoicism with studies of oriental philosophy through a re-read of Sun Tzu’s the Art of War as well as Musashi’s Book of 5 Rings, a Japanese version of the Art of War.
Afterthat I will swing back to Rhine (more precisely the Vistula in nothern Germany/Eastern Prussia) and the germanic barbarians with Von Clausewitz’s on War. And from there move to arguably Germany’s greatest general in the Second World War (contested in my opinion with Model and perhaps Hausser) Erich Von Manstein, and his autobiagraphy: Lost Victories.
That should prepare me for the jump back into finance and my last book about Bismark and his financier Bloechroeder. The Arts of Business and War are inexorably intertwined…
I’m off to the office X-Mas party, so this post will be brief. Just a list of books I’m currently reading:
Your Money or Your Life (Consumerism)
The Republic (Plato)
The Sovereign Individual (The implications of the Information Age)
The Four Pillars of Investing
I think I will be adding Atlas Shrugged to this list…
You are currently browsing the DAILY RUMINATIONS blog archives for December, 2006.
 | nikdeers on Posting from Hong Kong ai… |
 | rekteks on Posting from Hong Kong ai… |
 | westers on Posting from Hong Kong ai… |
 | romiksan on Posting from Hong Kong ai… |
 | rekrassylis on Posting from Hong Kong ai… |
