(Apologies to anyone who was expecting this over the weekend, but the same reason I’m posting tonight is the same reason it is a shorter update. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. How about a full refund?)
– Basketball rims in NYC are unique: “New York is among the few places, and possibly the only one, where municipal rims used at more than 700 public parks are still made by hand.” One kid describes them as “ghetto rims”. (McCarthy)
– Blame Kevin Costner for oil spill: Anyone who invests tens of millions of dollars into a company that cleans up oil spills, should definitely be looked at as sketchy. Say what you want about BP, but they lose money as this oil dumps out. If Kevin stands to gain from spilled oil, then he’s basically ecstatic that the Gulf ecosystem is getting destroyed. (Core77)
– What was “little noticed” in the health care bill? Um, just about everything. I’m sorry, that’s not entirely true. Most opponents of the bill knew; most backers are surprised. (Wooten)
– Straight outta Compton: A crazy detector named IceCube, in Antarctica, is finding “shrapnel” from supernovae. (New Scientist)
– Wine bottle torches: This link will show you how to make one yourself. Enjoy. (Core77)
– Speaking of wine bottles: Woo slept on his job again and missed a design out of the UK for a wine bottle that is “188 grams lighter than the average.” (Core77)
– Woman sues Google because she’s an idiot: She used Google Maps for walking directions. She didn’t use herself for the age-old question: “Should I walk along a highway?”. (Boing Boing)
– The music collar for deaf people: The collar allows deaf people to feel the music on their skin. Looks like something out of Fifth Element: (Gizmodo)
– Ballin’ ass sniper scopes: DARPA wants: a scope that allows snipers to shoot 2000 meters in 40 mph winds, bullets that change trajectory in mid-air, and another scope that makes snipers practically invisible. And what DARPA wants, DARPA gets. (Wired)
– Let’s do some shooting: Fly to Germany for a sweet, sweet range: (Gizmodo)
– Want to make a cake in 5 minutes? You can have your cake and eat it too, or make it and eat it. Or whatever else you like to do with cake when no one is watching. Except God, he’s always watching you. But hey, watch this: (Boing Boing)
– Twitter Update: I had to post this, because I got retweeted this week. Last year the Giants had two beat writers from the Star-Ledger: Mike Garafolo and Jenny Vrentas. This week Jenny was tweeting from the Jets OTAs and that was extremely annoying because it meant I was getting updates from the Jets OTAs. I “tweeted at shorty” asking if she was stuck with the Jets, she replied no, which led to my next tweet, which in turn got retweeted by Garafolo as such:
“I’d be offended if it weren’t true. RT @jblake33: @JennyVrentas that sucks, we know @NJ_Giants can’t do it alone…” – Mike Garafolo
I got no uptick in followers because it wasn’t about Bieber. Just shows you what an unexplosive online presence I have.
– The Marks’ Financial Update:
- MFL – Draw as straight a line as you can across an unlined piece of paper. That’s what Mark Lee’s chart looks like these past two (four?) weeks. He started at $13.70 and closed at $13.73, the only Mark to make us some money these past two weeks.
- MDH – Hey, let’s go for another roller coaster for two weeks. Why not? Start at $3.49, plummet down to $2.95 on May 20th, ride back up to $3.39 and add in a short little drop to end the period at $3.10. Harter, it seems like investors are just unsure if you’ll be following Greece. Not with the debt crisis, but with the rioting. I could see Harter rioting by himself in Hoboken.
- MAB – Bunk’s on shaky ground here with a slight decline over this investment period. He came in at $15.24, dipped baby dipped down to $14.46 on May 25th, then closed out at $14.635. That nice little pop a couple Fridays ago is just a thing of the past. And past performance is no guarantee of future returns.
I decided to be nice and post (terribly) a chart of the Marks’ performance over the past 5 years. Harter is in the biggest hole, but Bunk and Mark Lee are pretty much even. (I’m too nice, otherwise I would have put the S&P 500’s performance in here.)
Happy Memorial Day. Remember that there’s some people risking a lot for you, some people who risked a lot for you, and a lot of people who risked it all for you.
Blake's Update 