How many trick-or-treaters do you think you’ll get this year? I’m predicting I’ll get no more than 3 groups, given my neighborhood’s dearth of children. Those that do make the journey to my door are going to be spoiled rotten. I always hated getting cheap candy as a child, so I’m going for the gold. Name-brand chocolate, baby!

Imagine my happiness when I saw this entry on Digg: Scientists Uncover Key to Hockey Goalie Success. Finally, I would eat the fruit of goalie enlightenment! My enthusiasm waned when I read the article. It seems that they key to success as a goalie is to watch the puck. Wow, thanks Captain Obvious!

Sunday night brought the first game of the season for me. The good news is that my team seems a lot better than it did last year. I made a number of solid saves and was feeling pretty good. The bad news is that we were still outshot 38-28 and lost the game 3-4. The troubling thing is that one of those four goals was deflected in by my own defenseman (arg!).

Despite that, it was fun, and I look forward to the twenty or so remaining games.

ExxonMobile announced that their third-quarter profit was $10.49 billion. In 2005, ExxonMobile had a net profit of $36.1 billion on revenues of $370 billion (9.75%).

For comparison, Microsoft had earnings of $3.48 billion in their first fiscal quarter. For fiscal 2006, their profit margin was 28.5%.

If Microsoft had Exxon’s 2005 revenue but retained their profit margin, they would have had a net profit of $105.5 billion.

Exxon’s quarterly profit is front-page news; Microsoft’s is relegated to the interior of the business section.



People are infatuated with large numbers.

I had my first experience playing poker against a celebrity this evening.

I was playing the 8/16 at Canterbury against a number of older gentlemen and one guy who appeared to be about my age. He was playing decently, a bit on the aggressive side, and listening to an iPod. None of this was out of place; there are lots of twenty-somethings playing poker at any given time. Then I noticed his watch.

While lots of guys in their mid-twenties play poker in card rooms, not many of them wear $4000 Breitling watches. Something didn’t add up.

A few minutes later, a passerby revealed the man’s secret with a question. “Recover from the concussion?” he asked, to which the player responded that he had resumed practicing.

It turns out that I was playing against Mattias Weinhandl, who is a right wing for the Minnesota Wild. Nice guy, not presumptuous or arrogant at all. He even took it well when I beat him with 94s. Hope he recovers from his head injury.

The general elections are fast approaching, and the big question on everybody’s minds is, “Will the Republicans lose control of Congress?” To answer that question, I like to turn to the financial markets.

The Dow has been hitting record highs lately, and oil has backed off significantly from its summer peak. Both of these metrics have a profound psychological impact on the populace, but their connection to the election is capricious at best. I prefer to look towards an exotic futures market for my political insight.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, the University of Iowa runs a futures market for the outcome of major US elections. A really simple, hand-wavy explanation is that the market allows investors to put their money where their mouth is; this is a real market where people win and lose real money. Contracts are available for control of the Senate, control of the House, and overall status of the Congress.

This sort of market tends to be good at predicting the future because its participants tend to make transactions that they think will be most profitable regardless of their heart-felt biases. To wit: if a Democrat really wanted to see the Dems win the House but saw all signs as pointing towards continued Republican control, he would buy a contract that would make him a profit if the Republicans kept power.

What are the markets currently predicting? It depends on which market is being evaluated, but in general, the consensus is that the Republicans will lose the House. The Senate race is less clear, but at the moment, the signs suggest that the Democrats will not control the Senate. It will be interesting to see how accurate the markets are. Historically, they’ve been pretty good at a few weeks out, but the markets incorrectly called the Senate outcome for the last mid-term election.

Speaking of futures markets, check out the new housing futures. That market is currently predicting a 7% drop in home values nation-wide by August 2007. Might want to hold off on that home purchase just a bit longer…