OK, this is wrong on so many levels, but I know I won’t be able to resist it: You can force an Otis elevator to go to just the floor you want, without stopping off at any others where people are requesting an elevator. Press the floor you want simultaneously with the Close Door button and, apparently, it’ll ignore the other floor requests and make your elevator an express to the floor you want.
Now I know of a free fun activity when I go to New York City next month.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but the Otis Web site is probably the most boring site on the entire Internet.
Years ago, some friends and I played against each other in the Hollywood Stock Exchange. After years of not playing, it turns out our accounts are still active, and my account, which started with a $2 million stake all those years ago, now is at crazy Sultan of Brunei levels, clocking in at H$571,176,653.44 when I logged in today. More than two hundred and fifty percent growth on investment ain’t bad.
How I did it is pretty simple. Forget emotion, forget your own preferences. Stock value is supposed to equal, in millions, what a movie will earn after four weeks of release. If the price is less than that, buy it. If it’s more than that, sell it. It’s that simple.
So, The Brothers Grimm isn’t tearing it up at the box office right now? I bought it at $6.68. Unless Terry Gilliam starts showing up in theaters and killing movie-goers with a shovel, it will earn more than $6.68 million dollars in its first month of release. (In fact, it made $15.1 million in its first weekend.) That’s all there is to it.
I used to use my friend Greg’s UpcomingMovies.com site to look two years ahead for summer blockbusters before anyone else heard of them, since they tend to have the largest four week grosses each year. His site is now part of Yahoo! Movies, but the principle is still the same.
Now, if only someone would give me a $2 million stake in real life and unleash me on the stock market …
You know, I thought I started with a smaller stake than $2 million. HSX says my lifetime percentage gain is a whopping +28,443.35%. Yowza.
And now, you can cash in your H$ for some of the least interesting prizes ever. I’m sitting on my nest egg, thanks.
Why the heck didn’t anyone tell me about this show? Every time I turn on MTV2, it’s always that stupid Mike Jones video. (Apparently, you no longer need to enunciate to be a successful rapper.)
Anyway, Video Mods is hilarious — good music as performed by video game characters — and, so far, no Mike Jones.
These guys are some of the pets at the Precious Pets animal shelter on Walnut Street in Hesperia. They and their compatriots will be in a story in Tuesday’s Star.
That third picture just makes me happy whenever I look at it. What a glimpse of pure doggy joy. I wish I was a musician so I could use that for a record album cover.
The #1 sign that the Associated Press might need new thinking in charge of their venerable style guide:
fund raising, fund-raising, fund-raiser
Fund raising is difficult. They planned a fund-raising campaign. A fund-raiser was hired. The organization was planning a fund-raiser.
(Page 102, The Associated Press Stylebook, 2004 edition)
I’m going to hold a fund-raiser to get all of those variants just turned into “fundraiser,” like the rest of the English language uses. And “stylebook” isn’t one word, guys.
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