Friday Homestretch/AFTP
Homestretch is a tad early, but it’s pretty long (1,000 words), so maybe take your time with it. Plus, I know there are probably thousands of people right now jockeying to leave work early while the rest of us stick around and watch soccer on our PC’s whilst we pretend to work… So here’s some reading material for the early commute.
France beat Uruguay 2-0 earlier, Brazil/Belgium starts at 2PM, and Thailand Boys Soccer Club is still VERY late for the match they had last week… Thoughts and prayers.
After a trading week littered with anemic attendance (me included), low volumes, and very little volatility, we are coasting into summer Friday traffic jams with markets higher across the board. Jobs number looked good. Businesses added 213,000 jobs in June, another stronger-than-expected month of gains. Employers kept hiring even as fears grew of a global trade war. And although Trump supporters would love to take all the credit, the economy has added jobs every month for almost eight years, the longest streak on record. On the negative side, unemployment crept back up to 4%, and it seems like there is a lid on wage growth… With the job market expanding and new workers flooding in, employers may not feel pressure to hike wages for the time being.
Stock specific, only interesting thing I see is Biogen up 16% after they announced positive results from a mid-stage trial of a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think Alzheimer’s is an eventuality for me. I forget much more than I remember nowadays. I am not buying Biogen up here, but I am certainly rooting for them to help me keep my sanity in 10 years.
Talked about being on vacation last week and more than one person commented on how I “conveniently” missed this year’s Gay Pride Parade. That was not purposeful, but I am glad to be as far away as possible from any NYC parade. My kids will never see the Thanksgiving or Patty’s Day Parade outside of the coverage on WPIX.
Here’s a fond memory… I was driving through the gay parade once on my way home from Brooklyn, and my wife and I were stopped at a light along the parade route with our first kid asleep in a car seat. Had to be maybe 12 or 13 years ago.
My window was open, and as the marchers spilled out into the traffic box in front of us, one particularly fancy lad ran up to my car, and shouted at me, “Stop living a lie, and come march with me!!!”
I turned to my wife, who said, “Well?”
And I answered, “Nah… Maybe next year.” And we drove off, back into my heterosexual lie… Err “LIFE”!… Not “lie”… My heterosexual LIFE is not a LIE… Man, I loves me some vagina, and sports stuff.
What else?…
Oh. I cooked on a charcoal grill this Fourth. One of those industrial public ones with no hood. You usually see them in the kind of public parks your creepy uncle parks his van outside of at night and gets hand-jobs from desperate homeless guys.
Never know exactly how to cook on those things, but this time I got it right.
Got the coals nice and hot on both sides of the double grill, and then charred up 3 pounds of pork ribs. Weren’t cooked through, but I got some nice color on all sides. All the while, I had an aluminum tray filled with a half a beer, a jar of sliced hot cherry peppers with the vinegar they were jarred in, along with the juice and zest of a lemon I charred over the coals on the other side of the double grill. Tray wrapped tight in foil, and once the vinegar/lemon/beer/hot pepper mix came up to a boil, I dumped the ribs in, re-covered with foil, and let them braise on the least-hot part of the grill(s) for 20 minutes or so. Served up the ribs in little paper bowls with the juice and peppers spooned over, and a slice of Italian bread on the side to soak it all up.
Was a big hit.
I am not a fan of public anything… particularly grills… but I had no other option, and I think the intense heat from the coals was enough to burn off any of the AIDs left behind by your uncle and his “friends”.
This hasn’t turned into a cooking blog. I just don’t have any CrossFit milestones to highlight, so I am going to talk about food every now and again.
What I am going to continue to highlight is the weekly Ass From The Past (AFTP). I continue to have fun reminiscing about these broads.
Is Jessica Alba old enough to be considered an Ass From The Past (she will be the youngest AFTP, ever)? The reasons I say, “Yes!” are because she is on every recent MILF top 10 list, she’s 37 (which is, like, 57 in Hollywood years), she has 3 kids, and has been acting for almost 25 years.
Plus, I wrote about her waaaaay back in 2005, probably at her apex, when she appeared in a gem of a scuba diving movie called Into The Blue with the now extremely dead, Paul Walker- RIP (Roasted In a Porsche)… Too soon? Too fast? Too furious?
I don’t remember much from my old takeareport writings (re. Alzheimer’s comments above), but I do remember typing “Into The Blue?… More like INTO A SOCK!… Am I right fellas?” And that brilliant quip still holds true today.
Alba went on to star in a host of mediocre movies. I am not sure if she is done with acting, and I am not going to check because I really don’t care.
In 2012, she and a partner developed a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products which went on to be called The Honest Company. In 2014, The Honest Company was given a valuation of just over $1 billion, and Alba is said to own 15-20% of that.
So if you didn’t think she was attractive before, does the added 150-200 million dollars stir your loins a tad? If not, then maybe you should wait in the van with your uncle.
Finance is sexy.
Good weekend.
Take a report.
-Large