Some scattered bits and pieces:

--Markets
--The Wire Season 5
--The Filthy Critic
--New Bond Film, The Quantum of Solace (Casino Royale and After the Wedding)
--The Ekhert Tolle Group
--Salmon Rushdie book for next month.
--hiking group from meet.com


--Today was an early one taking the dogs in for their shampoo.

So I headed over to the office to watch the markets. Anyone wondering about markets today would see them drop and then drop suddenly and violently, which happened because the most recent bottoms of both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were breached. I think a lot of folks stood transfixed watching the Dow to see if it would break below 7882, which was it's intraday bottom back on Oct. 10th. Then the markets rallied violently, to finish the day up almost 600. What was the cause of that? Short-covering. Almost entirely short covering and those trying to capitalize on a violent short-covering rally like that, because everyone knows that the G20 is meeting in Washington tomorrow, and traders playing the market short don't like leaving themselves exposed to events, just in case a plan comes out which could cause optimism in the markets. Technically, the breaching of the S&P and the Nasdaq, but not the Dow, means we'll be heading further lower from where we perhaps we'll have a couple days, then we're off to the races again down. At least, that's what people far smarter than I am think will happen.

--Tonight I got my, The Wire Season 5 DVDs from Amazon. In case anyone hasn't ever seen this show or heard about it, I have to plug it here in a few words. This series is written by some Baltimore insiders who actually saw how the city works, how the police department works, how the drug trade functions, and many of the other pressures besides. Basically, this TV series is about the war on drugs, but shows it from all sides. How has the war on drugs affected the police, the gangsters, the cities, the schools, etc. The best written show that has been on TV recently. Not for the faint of heart, however, there is lots of violence if that matters to you.

--While I'm on the crass line, I'll also throw out another favorite of mine: www.bigempire.com/filthy/ that website belongs to the Filthy Critic, who is a mostly underground movie critic who has been writing for years. His pet peave is the terrible storytelling which is becoming so popular in Hollywood. As his name suggests, he's no stranger to profanity. His reviews, however, are hilarious. He has a very large archive that he has been adding to for years. For a good laugh, check out his review of Driven.

--Tonight I'm going to head over to see the 12:01am showing of The Quantum of Solace, the new Bond film. I really enjoyed the last one, Casino Royale. I think going back to the beginning of the Bond series and showing how Bond became the Bond we came to know through the previous actors that have played the role by taking a new actor in Daniel Craig, and showing him as a very bright, capable guy, but very rough around the edges, who goes about solving his problems without any grace was a great stylistic choice for the series. Also from Casino Royale, a plug for another film that the bad guy from that film, Mads Mikkelsen, did recently. The movie is called After the Wedding. It's done by Susan Bier, who is a wonderful Danish film maker who has done some other power films as well. After the Wedding was one of the nominees for best foreign language oscar a few years ago, and is one of the best films I've seen over the past few years.

--So the Ekhert Tolle group was a good one last night. The interesting thing about the first few chapters of his book are how much they remind me of Dan Millman's book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which I read when I was 16 or so. Lots of encouragement to stop thinking. By that, I mean, allowing the mind to rest, attempting to keep oneself in the present. Watching the thoughts that the mind does have. There's more of course, but I'll be wading into his book further and trying this group out at least once more.

--Another book group I've looked at is reading something by Salmon Rushdie next month, so I think I may join in on that one.

--Sunday the first hike with the active hiking group here in town.

So there are a few scattered thoughts for today.