TestPodRant III: Test One TWO...

Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.

Let's see if I can get streaming MP3's to work... here goes:

Streaming Consciousness...

It works - excellent. Now I need to figure out how to 'embed' a media player into a page to prevent the requirementfor the whole download/start Windows Media rigmarole.

I promise that over the weekend I will replace the target MP3 file with something a little less stupid. Perhaps my impression of Zoidberg or Professors Frink and Farnsworth. Anyhow - I declare victory over the embedding audio-scheisola into these here pages. Video-Scheisola is next, and the eventual aim is for the full-bottle Rant to be similar to those online audio-visuals that Steve Roach used to produce... except mine will have more swearing.

A note for anyone who hastrouble with the player bit which is embedded: the problem is almost certainly on the 'client side' (i.e., at your end). All the embedding does is to activate your browser's default player for the type of file in question (for me - I use Firefox - I had to download and install QuickTime... whereas there was no need to do anything in Internet Explorer which used Windows Media PLayer)

TootRant: A Double-Banger...

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Well, it's time for yet another in the seemingly never-ending series of TootRants. Today it was the S&P (ES) futures, and the 10-year bond (ZN) futures. The timing and placement on the ES trade was somewhat dicey in the early going, and the bond trade was facing the slower bowling from both ends.

The initial declaration was thus:

G'day.

Short the S&P (ES) - currently bid 1271.75. Targets in points: (1, 3.5, 6)

Buy the 10year (currently 105-14.5/32) targets in ticks: (3, 8, 12).

Let's go get 'em.

USSpy.

The ES popped up almost a full point before I had even pressed 'send' after I typed in the "currently bid" number; still, that forms the 'as if' basis for things. Everyone who got the e-mail should have been entering well above 1272.50.

Let's take each trade in turn... if you look at the charts you will be able to see the CCI divergences (but I have not marked them - you're supposed to KNOW how to see them).

First the S&P500 e-mini (chart shows day session only)...

Some might hve been forgiven for thinking that the buying frenzy just after the open was 'real'and was therefore going to produce the RantReconrd's first losing trade in almost six months. Not a bit of it... the entire programspurt was a desperation move by a load of people trying to hold this sucker together. Still, it must suck being a one-lotter, having a one point target and having to ride a 4-point negative excursion...

After the third target was hit, I declared "Fielder's Choice" - leaving it up to subscribers as to whether they took the six points (US$300) per contract, or slapped a trailing stop on the thing and rode what wasto come... here's the actual post:

post-USSpy low is 1263 - cleared the 6-point target 3 by more than two points.

Now, those still holding are pretty much on their own; there's probably going to be some benefit to trailing a stop behind this one (sorry to one and two-lotters, but you'll get to 3+ shortly). I hereby declare "Fielder's Choice"

USSpy.

Not a lot of ambiguity there... and the thing finished just under 20 points (US$1000) from the entry. The RantRecord only keeps that six from the explicit target...

Now let's examine the 10-year trade... it was more better in that there was no negative excursion (the entry was within 2 ticks of the day's low) - but BOY was it a slow one. It was like facing off-spinners from both ends, with the field spread deep and wide. Still, it got there in the end- all three targets knocked over like tail-enders facing Murali. Again, I declared "Fielder's Choice" when the third target was hit, and those still holding made a little over 25% in the session.

ForumRant: Don't Blame Tirkey...

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The RantForums were corrupted by the usual wank-driven "look what I can do" script-kiddies - the sort of thing that is the criminal-mastermind equivalent of breaking off Mercedes "tri-points" and then jerking off with your friends over it.

In this case, the "hackers" claimed to be Turkish and Muslim... all that tells me is that there are a bunch of complete wankers who claim to be Turkish and Muslim. It tells you nothing else.

Doubtless they all have sort wrists from tugging themselves half-blind following their "victory", but frankly it is such a minor inconvenience (deleting some script code, and tightening up the use of the PHP command "stripslashes") that it's actually sad.

Imagine if you styled yourself as a "teen hacker", and that mateurish rubbish was the best you could do: something that takes 5 minutes to fix, and ten minutes to permanently prevent. It basically means that you're a bit of a failure as a "hacker" - especally when you consider how good the REALLY good hackers are. *Note - "lesgerek" - you are about to find out. Call it a "cybercontract").

So, "lesgerek", prepare to have every PC you ever use, sent to heaven. You left footprint the size of Mavro's nostrils.

I noticed the problem when I permitted a new user yesterday, but I didn't fix it until just now - the forensic exercise of finding every trace that was left behind by this amateur little wanker (the better to massively disrupt the browsing life of him and everyone he has ever e-mailed) was something I did very very carefully.

ShockRant: Sometimes... WHAM

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There are times when it just hits you. When you smell coffee made with condensed milk, suddenly you're 18 again, standing around the 'mornos' urn wih 20 other young soldiers... stinking of sweat, cheeks sore from the strong-yet-subtle recoil of the best infantry weapon ever devised (the Fabrique Nationale FN-LAR, also known as the SLR).

Things that interest me never leave my overcrowded brain. How to pull apart an SLR (including the breech block and the buttstock return spring)... how to load rounds into those pain-in-the-arse magazines... the difficulty of sighting with those "hole and blade" sights... and the recoil. It makes my right cheek throb - and my right eye water - just thinking about it. I didn't know that the blurring was the result of keratoconis until fifteen years later.

Those lightweights who think that a 5.56 mm weapon does the job, have never felt the heft of a 7.62mm RNR (rimless NATO round). (Plus, everyone knows that the FN-LAR was designed to kill you if it hit any limb, whereas the M-16 was designed to wound rather than to kill).

Anyhow - apart from the brief stint as a trained killer, the other things that smacked me between the eyes were The Smuts and one guitar lick.

If you get to know me I will tell you about life as a Smutterman - a profession that is now almost lost to the world, but which was a delightful period of my late-adolescent life. It's nowhere near as "smutty" as it sounds, but it is so interesting that I bore people to sleep when I talk about it - that's how much I liked it. Made a change from "trained killer", that's for sure.

And the guitar lick? Well, when I bought a load of HiFi stuff in 1989 plus a video camera for Mum & Dad, I overpaid by almost a grand (I got a bank cheque for the sickest hifi you can imagine - the speakers alone were $5k worth - but I got he amount wrong). Anyhow - long story short, I had $980 in change so I bought pretty much every CD in the shop. Included amongst these was one by Johnny Diesel and the Injectors; on it was atrack called "Burn", which fast became my favourite.

Fast-forward to New Years Eve, 1990.

Me and Bogey were among the detail providing security for the very same Johnny Diesel (the other act, from memory, was Nick Barker and the Reptiles... but it might have been Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, or Cave Barker and the Mad Reptiles).

So anyhow, there I was with Bogey, in a shirt that was WAY too tight (they only went up to XXL and I had been on the gear for months), and then it happened... that same lick. Little Johnny - the white-breadest little bloke you ever saw in your life - slapped that axe like a reincarnation of Stevie Ray (although I think Stevie Ray was alive at the time, and besides, Johnny Diesel's "Burn" has more soul that anything Vaughn ever did - call me a heretic).

Seriously, the guitar from "Burn" still represents - for me - the ultimate "groovy crunch". It's rock guitar raised to an art in the same way as "Flea" from Red Hot Chili Peppers and John Taylor from Duran Duran both raised bass to an art. (Disagree with me on Taylor - I dare you). Not jazz-wanker slapping (I HATE jazz), just crisp but quintessentially funky finger-picking. ("Rio" is my favourite basstrack of all time).

Fun times, 1990. The women who gave my mate Fred a blowjob just to get a pick that belonged to Richie Sambora... those same women will probably pick up their kids from school tomorrow in a Volvo 4WD paid for by some accountant (the song "Volvo Drivin' Soccer Mom" is one of the best pieces of social commentary since TISM's "Greg! The Stop Sign!"). But they will always carry - as PAD's second abum was titled - that STAIN...

PAD - Perverted and Demented - was a band founded by a mate of mine at Uni; its stuff was actually good music, and included lyrics like "I never agreed to abandon my hate" or something like that... I still have my copy - do YOU?

The rhythm guitarist (Ash) is now an economist with the WTO or some such, Pete Nolly went to Whyalla as an Engineer (God knows where he is now), Jaffa was an Eco student last I saw, and only Ross Coulson was still a bearded shitbag. Go Ross - anyone who can dress up in an SS uniform and crash an International Students' fancy dress night, has my vote3.

Not that I approve of democracy, of course...

PodRant II: Hang On Just A Sec...

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That's IT? All a 'podcast" is is a bloody link to a bloody MP3 file?

Merde.

Well, as my Parisian mates often say, "Ils peuvent aller et s'enculer". (Hint: don't ask your French teacher what that means).

Here's a quick piece of required French for Rant-o-philes (the ladies in particular will LOVE this one... PodRant Number 2...

A short note for young players... you might the MP3 file is a bit 'shitbaggy' for a chappie whose fave Frog pop song is "Meme si" (a ludicrously sappy love duet, part in English, part in Froggish), but let me give you a tip that will last you a life time. These two words will advance you more than you could imagine. Hidden depths. Be able to spot them, and try to have them. If the madding crowd doesn't understand you, you're on the right track, young feller. Either that or you're a nutter like your old mate GT.

I note that feminists will point out that I only addressed young fellers... I am assuming here that all the young women are somewhere discussing make-up and other such shite, while a vanishingly small number of young lads will be ignoring the vast universe of "wrist exercises" available on various porn sites, and will wish to learn Wisdom. After all, there were no great Greek female philosophers... or were there? (I know the answer, and if you don't you should be flogged).

PodRant: Let's See How It Goes...

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It seems like it must be a year ago that the Mighty African Warrior (Mauombo) suggested that I give 'podcasting' a shot. In fact if it's not a year ago, you may all me "Meyer" (as Goering once said).

Anyhow, these things take some time to percolate to the top of my skull, at which time they sprout like the 'fibres' that sprout out of the chancres of Morgellan's sufferers. Gross.

Anyhow, I have decided to have a crack at this podcasting thing - it might be quicker than typing (especially given my massive pie-hands, which give me a propensity for typos).

The next step - and I warn you, I'm serious - is to go 'WebCam' on your colelctive asses. Those of you who are of a religious bent had better get genuflecting and grab them a whole lotta Churchy, coz if I start videoblogging you all know it's only a matter of time before I forget to wear any pants. EEeeeew.

But seriously... atthe moment the key restriction is the lack of a decent mike (that will be solved within a day or twain), but later (in about an hour) I will stick up the first ever AudioRant (or PodRant, or whatever it eventually gets called). You will be able to hear my reedy, squeaky voice and hear the worst French accent since PEter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau (the one and only real Clouseau - do not ever go and see the vile shade that has recently been released, or God will smite you).

Note - I've decided to edit this post and re-post it with the MP3 file attached. For those of you who want to use the podcast 'properly', you'll need one of them 'podcast clients' - a list of the mcan be found here...

OK - here is the file... PODRANT Number 1. It's actually quite a small file, as it turns out... so it should 'stream real nice...

TootRant: I'm Not Even Gonna...

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No, seriously. No 'Toot toot' for the little scalp on the long side of the SPI (which worked even if you entered badly); no 'Toot toot' for the little (tiny) scalp on the long side of the bond, either, although the bloody bond trade annoyed the hell out of me: we exited with a few ticks - $400-odd in gains for 2-lot traders - and then what d'you know, the frigging thing spikes a whole POINT the following day. For those who haven't bothered to familiarise themselves with margin requirements, that's bloody near a 100% profit on maintenance margins. MISSED. Still, it's given it all back today, so that's something, at least.

Still, like Con the Fruiterer's Wife, "I no complain". Because as Mav's Mum often says (when discussing long-side bond trades during an obvious bond bear market)... "This... danger. This... very danger."

She often then proceeds to tell someone to "Get mechanic", but that's not important right now.

I've had several folks e-mail me and query why I have 'laissee glisser' (let slide) the normal daily End of Day crap-sheets... I mean, RantSheets. I thought I would deal with that tout de suite.

I have been meaning to revive the CrapSheets (the good old OzRant and USRant) for a while now, but franchement I've had a crack at converting (to PHP) the Excel macros that drive the whole shebang, and it's been more trouble than it's worth. I mean I spent ten whole minutes trying (I am not someone who believes in the merits of a job hard-won: I believe that given my talents, a job should be finished in ten minutes, n'importe quoi). I have been very strongly resisting installing any Microsoft crap on my new machine (hence I work with OpenOffice for word/excel/powerpoint type stuff), which means that my old RantGen worksheets no longer work.

But I feel your collective pain, angst, soul-cries and what-have-you, so I've decided to try and dig out my old Office 2000 CD (if I can find it amongst the crap in the boxes here at Rant a la Campagne). Like most Office installs, it's a copy (but mine is copy of a legitimate disk of my very own, which I have somehow misplaced - I promise).

Of course I could just download a pirate copy via Morpheus...

Anyhow, by hook crook or brook, I will re-commence full, proper RantSheets starting next Monday (Australian time). The only reason I don't anticipate getting them back on line before then, is that The Lovely's parents are infesting our lives for the next few days (starting tomorrow). I use the word "infesting" solely for literary effect, since the aforementioned parents are nice folks, tout les deux.

Now... what Morpheus search phrases should I use? Do I want OfficeXP or Office 2000?...

Just kidding, Mr Gates.

TootRant: Another Good Day (Night, for me)...

Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.

I had a quick squizz at the SPI at close to midnight (French time), realising that the Budget had just bee ntabled in Oz. The surplus is a fabrication that would land a business owner in jail if they accounted the same way as the government (ignore accruals, treat the whole of the proceeds from asset sales as revenue). Still, that doesn't really matter: financial market types would not know howto read government acounting, and don't really give a shit about it anyway. All they want to know is where the core number is relative to everyone elses guesses.

No, the thing that mattered is that the after-hours SPI spiked like blazes, and thus set up another bunch of nuffnuffs for shearing and slaughter. As soon as I saw that the SPI had spiked to just above 5390, I sent this out...

Subject: SPI Went SILLY Overnight...

Date: Tue, 09 May 2006 17:01:38 -0500

From: SPISpy List Admin

To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Greetings SPISpyers.

Those of you who booked the big drop last trade (120 on half of all units >=3, and 70 on the other half) can short the open.

Others, wait for a failure. The end of the first half-hour of the cash (ASX) is the likely failure point if the market continues to rise at the open. If it tanks at the open then it should bounce from 11:15 p.m. into 1:30 p.m., which will be the optimal time for a secondary short. DO NOT TRY LONG-SIDE EXPOSURE.

Targets (6,12,open); again, this is one where the more heavily-capitalised traders will do well, but I urge the smone-lotters to stick with the targets. they might be annoyingly small, but better to pocket 3-6 points every trade thn to swing for the fences and get pants-ed.

Cheerio for now,

SPISpy.

Well, it took ten minutes after the open for the three-lotters to bag the first six points (on unit 1), whereas others had to wait until 10:30 to enter and then another ten minutes before their target 1 was hit. Six minutes later, target 2 was hit, and three-lotters continued the rise to the point where they currently sit on 50-odd points of gain on units 3 and above (all SPISpyers lock in target profits on the first 2 units)

So, since the post about ten days ago in which a short was advocated at 5340 (and 120 points per contract was taken by more than a few three-lotters), the SPI has actually RISEN 1 point (it is currently at 5341 in the SYCOM market), and yet SPISpyer 3-lotters have pocketed over 175 points per contract (on just two trades). Those trading more than three only averaged about 85 points on the first trade (a trailing stop was hit), and are sitting on 60 points on this one.

The pillage continues - we are still loss-less since November 21st last year. And since I have now got my timing back, we're only having to 'ride' negative excursions of a point or two. Tasty.

Gotta go - Skeckie is trying to eat my cake.

J'aimeRANT: What Does This Have To Do With...

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E verythng in the world can - in the limiting case - be slapped into one of two binary categories (the categories themselves can be left to the reader for the moment). White/non-White... right/wrong... good/evil. Dick Cheney/Things with a non-pus-oozing soul...

OK - I confess... there are things other than Dick Cheney which have souls that ooze pus. Not many things, but one or two - many of which can't be observed outside of episodes of Buffy or Angel.

I have never really made clear the extent to which I owe my Woggo mate Mav, for telling me to watch Buffy. I had seldom watched it, but he told me that you had to stick with it for a couple of episodes, then I would get it. I did, and as a result... I did. It is almost for this reason alone (but also for the fact that he is Wog of the Week, for the last 300 weeks in a row) that he will always have a fee bed anywhere that I reside.

Still, we have not got to my favourite dichotomy yet.

My favourite dichotomy is the simplest dichotomy in the Universe (unless you're suffering from schizophrenia... I know I am).

That simple dichotomy, for which I will use the language of a peasant population (the French, although you could use any European population) - is the simple Froggish dichotomy... j'aime/j'aime pas. Put into non-gibberish: me likey/me no likey.

Me likey lots of things - movies in which something blows up; Cobram Tasty cheese (please, please, someone send me an aid package containing a six-pack of Four 'n' Twenties, some Cobram Tasty, and some Don Pepperoni!!); Julien's baguettes; movies in which something blows up. Maybe I mentioned that twice.

War Nerd. William S Lind's strategic thinking. Movies in which something blows up.

Cheap, sweet white wine. (Ultra cheap, if I've got a bottle of fruit liqueur at home to make Kir - which is named after a Dijon abbe, not a Ukrainian General). The food at Foyer Viet Nam in Rue Monge in the 5th. Collingwood (GO PIES... 3rd at the moment, but unlikely to win a game post-May). Lance Klusener. Canterbury Crusaders. Rob Sitch (who I met in the green room at Channel 10 the night Jim Dunn was on). How Green Was My Cactus and Chicken Man (you don't even remember them, do you? It was back when people like me listened to the radio). Ren & Stimpy... Futurama... Beavis & Butthead... Johnny Bravo.

When I think of the list for 'me no likey' (you have to say that like Hop Sing from Bonanza) , the list is actually really short. After all, you are talking about a lad who watched "Tomorrow People" and "Blake's Seven" as well as "My Favorite Martian" and "Bewitched". I even know who Bo, Hope, and Marlena are (they still look the same!!). I guess I mostly don't like false hope. Bonanza, Brady Bunch - hat sort of thing. Blairworld.

I am glad - so glad... sometimes I feel so glad... (excuse the ripoff of the Beatles' "It's Just Another Day") that Blair got handed his hat in the latest UK local elections. I was in London for the results, and it was like an episode of Fawlty Towers (Nobody Mention The War). The compliant Pommie media was falling all over itself to exculpate Blair's toadying to Bush, and trying to blame the rout on things like the fact that John Prescott has apparently rooted some bird. (A huge improvement over the boy-love which permeates much of Washington, I'll give you the tip). It's increasingly clear to me that there's a bit of 'man on man action' which has protected Blair lo these few years. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but frankly if I was a fudge-packer I would be honest about it... but of course it's the packees that are the most blackmailable, and you just know that somewhere someone has those photos of Blair on all fours, date chockers - but likewise half of the editors of London rags are probably also in similar photo's, bums covered in Crisco spreadeagled over a vaulting horse...).

You might be surprised to note that fudge-packing (either as 'pitcher' or 'catcher') is one of those things that for me falls into neither category; personally it's never been remotely of interest, but I would not send those who choose that lifestyle off to concentration camps. (Whereas the dickwad who tooted me at the Shell on Boulevard Raspail - who just about shit himself when I got out of the car and started walking towards his HP'd Renault Megane - would go straight to the gas chamber in a GT-led Reign of Terror... "being a dick" would be a capital offense).

Drug prohibition: j'aime pas (but also drug use, personally, j'aime pas unless it's steroids or ephedrine, in which case give me a call!!). And to those of you who think that booze is a drug... grow up, you retard.

I also think that there is the odd thing for which "j'aime pas" is just not enough.

We all know that women aren't that smart (after all, men stopped wearing high heels and makeup in the 17th century), but honestly, could women's makeup ads be any more insulting to the intelligence? They have even started using "self-assessment" as their "clinical test" results.

Let's see: "woman A" is dumb enough to participate in a trial for "glop B". And somehow her self-assessment of its wrinkle-reducing powers is meant to be taken seriously... leave to one side that their sample sizes are nowhere near large enough to satisfy Kolmogorov's Central Limit Theorem...

OK - it's not just advertisign of women's face-goo. Sanitary pad adverts are also off-the-scale on the hate-o-meter. Shampoo ads, likewise.

Of course, I love any ad in which there is a tit-shot (which is half the ads on French telly). The breast is a thing of beauty and wonder, n'importe ou on le trouve (no matter where you find it).

I hate the New Age. J'aime pas.

 BA lost my luggage. J'aime pas (especially since I then had to walk from Maisse to Noisy-sur-École, which is a lazy 12 km).

Let me digress onto the walking thing...

It was pissing down when I got to Maisse - and it didn't stop.

I faced it a like a legionnaire. I confronted, I adapted, I overcame. (And when I got home I even denied myself a nice hot bath until the following day). And today I walked into Milly-la-Forêt to buy bread - 3 km each way. That's how hard I am.

I point out here that I did not hitch-hike. I walked. I was always on the opposite side of the road (thus indicating "I would not accept a lift from you peasants even if you offered"). I covered the distance in less than 2 hours, and I was wearing jeans which were too big (and no belt - ot was in my bag) and a leather coat which weighs 6kg (you think I'm jokng? Line up and wear the thing yourself).

I did the Battle Efficiency Test (16km with pack and rifle) aged 18 and I now know I could do the same again tomorrow. It's 16km with an obstacle course thrown in... piece of piss.

Back to the list.

Goths... for some reason which I don't understand, J'aime. You might think I'm joking, but I am not; I reckon I am an analytical sort of bloke, but try as I might I cannot work out what it is about Goth-ness that (to coin a Derek & Clive phrase) "gives me the 'orn".

The trees around the house at Noisy-sur-Ecole have burst into full leaf in the few days that I was in London. Finally, the sticks in our front yard look like trees. It's beautiful. J'aime.

And to think - the unspoken thing about Rantophilia (unspoken until now, that is) is that any dickhead who turned up would be more than welcome. The two young Aussies I met at the airport on the way back from London are on an open invitation to give me a ring and I will buy them a beer; we had an hour on the RER from Charles de Gaulle to talk absolute rubbish to each other, and we came to the same conclusion: that the other party was not a complete dickwad.

Seriously though; if you're ever in Paris, drop me a line (my e-mail address is the most unimaginative in he world, and  ends in "gmail.com")... I lied to the ginger shortass Pom who tried to steal our table in Putney the other day when I said  ....

Share a table? With YOU? You're fucking kidding yourself mate. I'm Australian - we are picky about who we drink with...

BlabRant: Last Half-Scheisen Post - Promis

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I just s'posed I ought to tell folks that this weekend I am off to LONDON (my flight is 9:45 a.m. tomorrow morning, which means I have to leave Noisy sur Ecole (our country place) at about 6 a.m.)

For those of youse who realise what a trip to London means, let me just say

Yee-HAAA!!!

Now, I am sure that someone will find some way to piss on my parade, but from where I sit it seems very unlikely.

I keep going over stuff in my peanut-brain... Could it be? Could the sphincter-clenching pain be about to end? Could the ramifications of a $3000 tax-haven-establishing-fee saved finally be about to run their course? For the record, that was the worst decision of my life - saving $3000 off of a bill of $15000, with the result that my life gets the Gatorade Bottle of Doom jammed squarely up its Vord for years on end.

I should shut up now - this is getting a little too close to tempting Fate, which I will not do. Between the new venture that Thierry and I have on the burners, and the London trip (which should include a joyous denouement itself), the next half-decade should be a damn sight more cake-ridden than the past half-decade (I am over-egging the pain-pudding here... the 'red hot pokers to the groinal region' have only been applied for about three years)

This sounds strongly worded, but those of you who now know me will, in a short period, be saying "I know that bloke. No, really, I do. I used to read his crap from time to time, back when he was nobody." Some of you will add (honestly) "Good bloke. Very handsome. Chicks loved him."

Mavro, you know what I am on about, my Woggo amigo.

One thing I vow - we will continue to tear out pounds upon pounds of flesh from the nuffnuffs who want to be on the worng side of the SPI and S&P futures... and of course stock analysis is something I just dig the way a crack addict digs crack. It's something I do because I really, really LIKE it... So we will have many months of happy analytics yet tom come. don't you worry about that!

CommentRant: OK... This Is How It Goes...

Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.

Turns out that in order to keep some semblance of control over comments (i.e., to stop nerdlingers from posting crap about Viagra and badness 'cures' and such), I have to have yet another set of 'members'.

So, if you want to post comments, you will have to go through a sign-up procedure to create a Blogger login, then I will have to provide you with 'membership' of this blog. There have never been many comments apart from the usual "GT, You're SO HOT!" sand other stuff that everybody knows already.

So, as a way to pay homage to my rapidly-declining number of chins (back in Oz I was on my way to a third, but now I only have one-and-a-quarter), let me simply say that anyone who bothers to create a login will have pretty much untrammeled access. They probably won'tbe able to actually post, but they will be able to say whatever they like.

OK, OK... line up in an orderly fashion... don't push, there's plenty to go around.

Seriously though, if you have something to add, make sure you do so. When I am known to the world as The Brutal Tyrant, you will be able to avoid the death penalty solely based on any post to this blog (or anywhere else) even if you are disagreeing with me (after all, even a Brutal Tyrant would not execute the dim-witted).

Once I have established my Kingdom of Hell on Earth, my minions will be instructed that subscribers to RantPRO, and members of this Blog, are to be spared the red-hot pokers in the anal region (unless they specifically request it - I know that some of you are pretty funky).

A couple of folks have asked recently why they can't find the subscription page - the short answer is... It's a bit of a test. If you can't find it, you're not trying (or you're trying badly). If you/re not trying, you're not interested. Simple.

I will have another "Open Weekend" shortly, at which time everyone will get to take a look at the enhanced PRO offering. The timing depends on whether I can find a place that sells Sloe Gin this weekend; if so, I will spend part of next week unconscious, and given the requirement to'propagate' new bits of the PRO site, that might fdelay the OPen Session until the following week. Who knows (or dares to dream)?

KirRant: This Guy... This Guy Right Here...

Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.

I'm kidding - I am not scheisen (however I am annoyed that French uses the same word for 'flight' (vol) as for theft. Stupid.

Also, 'tir' can mean "shoot" or "pull".

That could lead to all sorts of confusion if you're told to 'tir' the little red tabs on your life jacket...

But enough of dumbass French stuff (frankly I hope that after a couple of years I develop a sexy Froggish lilt to my English... I will probably end up sounding like Gabriel Gate or Inspector Clouseau (the real Peter Sellers version, not the abomination that I will never EVER watch with that hack Steve Martin).

But I digress...

The reason I've called you all together is to announce that I'vefinally figured out what weent wrong with COMMENTS. I've managed to re-enable them. So from now on if someone wants to tell me how handsome I am, it will be easy.

English mirrors French (in terms ofstupidity) sometimes. I noticed that there was a selection in the Blogger control panel that said "Moderate Comments". I thought "Who wants MODERATE comments? The more extreme, the more passionate the commentator! bring on IMMODERATE comments!".

But this was one of the few instances where you can make a sensible English sentence that can be interpreted two ways(we have LOADS more words than any other lingo). Obviously it was meant tosay MODERATE as in 'assess, adjudicate, censor'. Well, I don't want to do that either, but sionce I dont want a load of dickwad autobots sposting comments that say "I agree... buy Knob-Doubler 2006 from my website at this link", I reckon I will limit it to registered members. No idea how you register - I will find out and let you know...

NabkhaRant: What're YOU Lookin' At?

Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.

Tell you something for free (since I'm feeling a teensy bit of a buzzafter four 'deb-catcher' glasses of peach Kir).

I hate flies. Flies, mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, leeches, politicians and stockbrokers. But right now, flies top the list - mstly because there is a fly the size of Tasmania bumping its idiotic head against the window, spoiling the 'vibe' of my little dormer window view onto the forest.

For a while I had convinced myself that it was the forest of Fontainebleau (a chateau near here), but actually it's a little piece of the Foret des Trois Pignons (forest of the three pine trees). Stupid name, nice forest (and since it's been a cold start to spring, the forest is still not as green as I think I deserve). To mangle some more French, the feuilles are not pousse-ing to the desired extent (although let me say that the surrounds are - to use teen-French - hyper-sympa. (Pronounced 'eee-per-sum-pa').

French gives me the shits from time to time. It annoys the crap out of me that 'leg' is feminine. So is ankle (but knee is masculine). So it's la jambe, but le genou.

So if you wanted to say "his knee" you would say "son genou" which seems sensible enough. He is. after all, a he. So things ought to be his. His leg, his ankle, his knee. And so on, right to the groinal region.

Sounds sensible, don't it? Not so fast, Gunnar (I like that name a lot - maybe I will ignore the pact and name my first-born Gunnar instead of Rumpelstiltskin).

If your Frog busts his leg, he babbles that he has broken sa jambe. And here's where I start getting riled.

In English, your leg is a bit of YOU, and so it has YOUR gender. If you're a she, your leg is 'hers' to outsiders. Likewise, your car is yours (hers, if I'm telling someone else) and your bank account is hers too. So all you have to remember is the gender of the owner.

Not so if you're trying to gabble in your dago-lingo. Froggish, Eye-talian, Spain-ish... all the same. Even Krautish has this annoying feature. It annoys me that a table has a gender in those languages - where are its genitals?

If you want to know why English is the lingua franca of the world, look no further than that. Sure, our spelling makes absolutely no sense; nobody could argue otherwise. But in terms of being easy to pick up the spoken word, a child could do it. Plus, the irregularities of verbs like 'do', 'be' 'go' and 'have' areless byzantine in English than just about any other ngo going(except maybe Indonesiac which only has about forty words anyway). If you never had to WRITE anything, it should take you about five weeks to learn decent English, I reckon. And most of the saving comes from not having to piss-ass about with giving a rat's ass about whether a coffee-cup is a boy or a girl.

Speaking of large flies (I am sure I was doing that before), there was a bee the like of which I have never seen outside on the wisteria when I went out to patch a hole in the muffler of the RantWagen (a 1987 VW Passat, which took me to Germany and back in a day without so much as a whimper). Anyhow... this bee was big, it was black, and it was hairy. It was bigger than any wasp I have ever seen (and remember, it was a bee). Its abdomen was about the same size as the abdomen of a funnel-web, but hairier. It was just futtering about going from flower to flower (as you do if you're a bee, I guess... if you're not stinging someone), making a noise about as loud as a Chinook during an ammo resupply.

Speaking of Kir, for the first three months of my stay in France I thought it was some sort of aniseed concoction; the fact that it started with a 'K' made me suss that it probly wasn't Froggish. Wrong - as I found out, it is named for the Abbé Kir (who invented it) and its 'default' is a glass of 'vin blanc de table' (crap white - the crappier the better) with a shot of creme de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur).  The good Abbé invented it to get rid of some crap white he had lying about, and used creme de cassis because he was from Dijon - and Dijon is famous for two things... blackcurrants and mustard. History does not tell us whether the Abbé first tried the mustard route, but suffice it to say that nowadays if you don't like Ribena you can substitute a different liqueur (for me, it's peach).

Yes, you're right - this post seems to be going nowhere; sorry about  that. It's just a test to see whether I have made the right changes to the CSS file (I am trying to repalce all <p></p> sets with <br/>, you see). If it works, great. If not, back to the ol' drawing board.

Kir is a good idea. At the risk of being branded a heretic to my own religion (G&Tism - the worship of Tanquerray and Tonic with a twist of lime), I might have to declare that Kir is almost as nice as my own invention - the "GeoffreyT" (which is a pint of Guinness with two shots of Tia Maria in it... go on, you know you want one...). Of course as you well know, Bro. Lawrence, if I had a reliable source of Sloe Gin I would be in no condition to even WRITE this sentence...

OsloRant: Speaking of Norway...

Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.

As I mentioned in the post below, we spent a few days in OPEC's Viking Headquarters last week. Actually I don't think that Norway is a member of OPEC (at least it wasn't a couple of years ago).

I was somewhat taken aback by the SIZE of the Norwegian in the street... your average Kjell, Gunnar or Haaken is a big unit, let me tell you. Usually I can wander the streets safe in the knowledge that I am half a head taller than the average bloke (in France I am usually a full head taller), and usually I am also the most cube-shaped bloke on the block.

Not so in Oslo; I was mid-pack at best (and I flatter myself); obviously gulping down buckets-ful of pickled herring must put meat on the bones.

And, being big units, they are immune to many of the normal insecurities of Homo Sapiens; I saw very few SUVs in Norway (as you know, it is my view that nobody should be allowed to buy an SUV unless they can see over the top of it while standing next to it). And polite; I've never seen anything like it.

Someone explained to me that the reason folks are polite to me in Paris, is that I'm half as big again as most Frenchmen (I don't believe that's the reason, frankly - I think that the famed Parisian rudeness is like French culinary supremacy and American military supremacy - i.e., they are all myths).

Anyhow - the Nords don't have that justification: these enormous units were also very polite, in a way that projected an easy self-confidence. No 'Have a nice day" rubbish in Oslo, I can assure you.

I also like the fact that the semi-formal form of "Hello" in Norwegian is pronounced "Hi-hi", and with their musical tilt to the end of phrases, it sounds very melodic. I was watching an ad in Norwegian featuring a middle-aged bloke who looked like he had been dragged backwards through a hedge (or he hadn't slept or bathed for a few days). He kept gabbling these vaguely sing-soing phrases (Hoo-de-haar-de-hoo-de-hoo... like the Chef on the Muppets), and you just got the feeling that he was abvout to start giggling. Sure enough, he did.

And my new Norwegian mate Inge was cackling like a banshee when he was teaching me swear-words. Being an immature kind of guy, I promptly transmitted these to Thierry (the Chairman of the European Energy Laywers Group, and Sarah's boss), telling him that they were polite expressions. He tried one on the waiter. The waiter - cool as ice - nodded and said "Very good... who told you that you should say that?" At this point Inge was just about wetting himself.

For the record, I told Thierry that "Takk vor firfaen' was "Thank you very much". Actually it's something like "Thanks for arsehole" - which as you rightly observe doesn't mean anything that makes sense (I added the 'Takk vor' bit myself, because Thierry already knew that 'Takk' was thankyou).

Still, it was all in good sport; Thierry loves a blag (in French, "blague" is a joke).

The SPI has done just what we thought - and there is considerably more downside to come, however the thing is trying very hard to hold 5250.

Still, it has not even come CLOSE to testing the trailing stop that SPISpyers trading 3 or more units are aware of... of which, more later...

I know, the bit above about French culinary supremacy being a myth sounds like heresy, but frankly it's true. French cooking is bland as buggery. You can tell by the way that all the Asian cuisines are 'de-fanged' for the French market (i.e., all the spice is taken out). Plus, they don't 'do' bacon and eggs on toast (unlike my new-found Norwegian chums - we had B'n'E every morning while we were in Oslo).>

To add pain to shame, yesterday I had a crack at the French version of a sausage roll. BIG mistake. I recall the sosso's that Otto's wife heated up for us one night after a night 'on the gas' - I would pay €50 for a pack of five Jumbo sosso's right now. And PIES... what have the French got against a bloody nice meat pie? It doesn't have to be a Four'n'Twenty, it just has to be a bloody PIE. You can get four hundred types of cheese, all of which smell like a Frenchman's feet; where is the equivalent of Nimbin extra tasty or Cobram Tasty? No wonder they've been hopeless in war. If you're in a country where the food is only 'fair' but he wine is EXCELLENT and cheap, you spend most of your time half-scheisen... (there's a hint there as to why the tone of this missive is somewhat rambling and only semi-coherent)...