Just saw the movie Collateral but Heat was better

I had the pleasure of watching one of Michael Mann's most recent film's Collateral starring Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise.

It was a very good movie and you can tell this is one of Michael Mann's pet projects. The movie has all of Mann's trademarks:

bad guy protagonist wearing a grey suit and white shirt

the setting is in California and show's off Mann's command of lighting and mood

trains

gun play

two very deeply developed characters, one good, one bad

I can't say i liked it more than Heat (another Mann film), but it was very good. Heat is one of my all time favorite films and the only film to date with Robert Deniro and Al Paccino starring together. Heat is best known for having the best modern day gun battle ever filmed but more importantly is full of great acting and deep character development.

Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?

This ain't no after school special, smoke it! I love Chappelle's Show, and this is an old one, but it's my favorite.

ASTM came back and rebounded above levels i entered in. If i had just waited another day i'd be ahead! Instead i was undisciplined and i lost.

In other news, is it weird how much George W is talking about Iran? It's like he wants to pick a fight. Looks like it's time to run for the hills and invest in commodities. RSNRX is the future.

Apple's iTunes and iPod strategy and why they will be on top for years to come

Today Apple's stock did very well because of a mix of upgrades and the recent news of the split that will be accounted for on February 18th and be reflected on Feb. 28th as 2 for 1 split. Thinking more about Apple and it's future prospects it is interesting to note that current analyst estimates peg Apple as owning more than 80% of the handheld music device market. At first glance one would think that another player or players will emerge and steal away that market share but i believe that will be a hard fought battle. Apple's combination of ease of use of their player, "cool" factor, solid but not spectacular features built-in to the iPod and, and most importantly their DRM (Digital Rights Management) will have an audience that is captive to the Apple way of doing things.

DRM is the crown jewel in this music strategy. As more people buy iPods and use the Apple store, more people will be locked in to sticking with Apple just to maintain interoperability. I believe Apple's marketing campaign with Pepsi to give away free songs should be expanded so even more people start using the Apple store. Once people are exposed to how easy it is to browse for and buy music they will expand their music collections. As they expand their music collections with mp4's downloaded from Apple's iTunes store they will be further entrenched in the Apple camp whether they realize it or not. Apple may not be able to hold on to 80% of the market share, but i believe it will be a hard fought battle for every challenger to steal each percentage point away.

In other news:
Today was an interesting day on the market, i finally got over the fact that i got nailed by the Stem cell stocks and got back in the market. ISWI's earnings came out and they were not impressive or negative, but the stock price was hurt anyway and we saw a drop in the price from a previous close of $6.52 to a gap down open of $6 and even a day low of $5.40. The stock then rolled in waves from $5.80 to upwards of $6.20 and back down again. I jumped in at $5.80 and intend to hold until i hit $7.00

Stocks to watch:
INSP (consider buying in around $43)
NAT (moving up $5 in the last week to $53)
PDS (up 10% in the last week to $75.45)

Waste of time

I lost an hour of my life to this hapland game
sort of worth it. Read the comments for the spoiler. BTW i lost my shirt on the stocks of STEM and ASTM in the market today, down 8%. Argh.

Super Bowl Sunday

4th quarter just started and the Patriots just scored, so it's 21-14 New England Patriots. I hope the Philadelphia Eagles win. So far there hasn't been a single good commercial. In my opinion, the only vaguely compelling Super Bowl advertisementhas been for that Olympus Groove.

The Fedex commerical with Burt Reynolds and the bear set the tone that all commercials following it. After watching that commercial, it made it blatantly obvious that all commercials to come would probably have the gimmicks mentioned in the Fedex commercial, such as celebrities, animals, cute kids and attractive women. Two particularly terrible commercials include go daddy and quizno's. Horrible.

I just hope the Eagles beat the Patriots.

Better than the Super Bowl

i know what my dog will be watching instead of the super bowl

i really like stockcharts.com

Check out this really cool tool:

Performance of 10 different stocks that I'm holding

It just further points out that STEM, ISWI, CNC are places to grow ones money.

Phoenix Garden is the bizzzomb!

Had some of the best Chinese food I've had in my life at this place called Phoenix Garden. Get the salt and pepper shrimp, it's their signature dish. It consists of shrimp with the shells on coated with a batter that has salt and pepper (obviously). You eat it with the shells on and it is good! I also recommend although we didn't order it, the wonton wrapped duck. They individually roll crispy pieces of duck with some sort of vegetable with plum sauce. I also had the short ribs with onions - those were amazing. The fried rice was like no where I've ever eaten. The rice seemed to almost be brined...it was weird but extremely tasty. I looked up the restaurant's rating in Zagats and it ends up that it gets a 24 for food. I would have rated it higher. The manager Allan Chu was extremely friendly and helped us design our meal based on what we were in the mood for. I highly recommend this place if you're in the city, want Chinese food, and are in the 40's on the east side (40th between 2nd and 3rd).

The Ultimate Mutual Fund: RSNRX

This one is off the charts, it's the best performing mutual fund i've seen to date. Even in a bleak market this fund outperforms everything. Now i know that past performance is not an indicator of future proceeds but look at this chart where it clearly outperforms the market the last 5 years. It even doubles your money in a 5 year timeframe.