Blessed by the Potato

Today is the 50th anniversary of JFK’s speech at Rice.

My favourite part of the speech — I’m sure the favourite of many — is in the title. There are many situations where those words apply, from choosing worthwhile courses over electives with easy marks, to bike routes for your daily work-out.

My second-favourite part:

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them.

My neighbour, who lives in the other half of the duplex here, moved out a few days ago. He left a bag of garbage on the front porch. I don’t know what happened to his garbage can (I’m 90% certain the landlord left a can with a locking lid specifically to deter the raccoons for his half), but bags are simply not an acceptable container for food waste in this area, especially not in the summer. So of course, now I’ve got a raccoon outside my front door, frolicking in half a loaf of stale bread. I tried to shoo him away, but apparently I’m not terribly frightening on the other side of the glass. He’d only run as far away as the bottom of the steps, and be back in less than a minute. I don’t really want to risk opening the door to become more menacing, in case I’m not.

So I decided to get creative and try deterring him with my laser pointer. I banged on the door and shooed him off the porch to the steps, then as he was about to put a paw down on the top step, started waving the laser dot in front of him. He seemed to bug out the first time, afraid the porch was protected by an evil glowing raccoon-demon-equivalent or something, and after the second time he went around the side and came across the railing. There, I spun the dot around right where he was planning to land, which stopped him 4 or 5 times from jumping down. But I guess he’s hungry — and he already knows that garbage has food in it — so the little light bug couldn’t keep him off for long. I kept playing with the laser in the hopes that he’d get distracted and chase it like a cat. That’d be fun for me, and also keep him from making more of a mess of the garbage. Unfortunately, though I’ve seen that behaviour on youtube, he quickly lost interest in the laser dot once he figured out it wasn’t a serious threat to his dinner.

I was just congratulating myself on a decent week for dieting and exercise. I picked up lots of fresh veggies and whole wheat tortillas for wraps, including a bag of vidalia onions, which were on sale.

But then I got to thinking: a whole bag of onions is a lot of onions. What else can I make with onions?

Onion rings.

I tried looking around online for recipes, and came up with this quasi-compromise. Many recipes call for beer, but I don’t drink beer. Though I do have a few in the fridge, they belong to others, and I don’t really want to open one just to try out an onion ring recipe. Plus, I doubt A&W is using beer for theirs, and that is the pinnacle of onion ring I am aiming for.

Batter:
1 egg
1/4 c milk
1/4 c flour
1/4 c corn flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
A pinch of cayenne pepper (about 1/4 tsp — this could really stand to be ~doubled)
1 tsp paprika (this could also stand to be increased)

Mix together. Cut up onions. Dip rings in batter, then coat in coating. Fry, salt to taste, enjoy.

I came up with my own coating using corn meal and ground up breton crackers, but Wayfare suggested I just use shake ‘n bake, which turned out to be far superior.

Now the key to shake ‘n bake is that it can be baked. I fried a batch first, and they were superb (even my home-brew coating was decent). The baking was merely satisfactory: this batch had the quadrupled cayenne pepper (which turned out to be a bit too much), and though the shake and bake came out nice and crispy on the outside, the texture still wasn’t quite as good as the fried batch. Still, tasty enough.

I was going to take a picture for you all, but could not find my camera, and was hungry. Now of course I sit down at the keyboard and there it is, just a little to the left. Oh well, I’ll just have to make them again to get the picture.

If you’re reading this, then we’re saved. The world has not ended, despite the recent predictions of some. Macho Man Randy Savage died to save us, by keeping Zombie Jesus in a headlock through the appointed hour. Thus every year henceforth, followers of this sect will celebrate Macho Mania on or about May 21 (Canadians may do double-duty with Victoria Day), to celebrate the Macho Man’s sacrifice for all. Ooooh yeah.

Of course, others believe that the prediction was nonsense to begin with, so little to no supernatural mercy can be ascribed to Saint Savage. Potatoism (the way of the Holy Potato) does not contain any explicit teachings on eschatology, no hints as to whether the world will grind to a halt in the freezing darkness, be consumed by flames, drowned by unstoppable seas, or devoured by ravenous zombie dinosaurs — and has certainly provided no sell-by date for the planet.

So yeah, either no danger to begin with, or our continued existence is owed to an unlikely hero’s struggle in the hereafter. Either way, life goes on, and the devout have their new hero, and the rest of us have an excuse to party and eat slim jims in the nice weather of early spring (any recommendations on vegetarian slim jim alternatives?).

I don’t understand what’s happening with TEPCO – the Japanese power utility that is the owner of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.

I made a small speculative bet on it a few months ago, based on the theory that it was oversold based on nuclear fear. I figured the weak point in my analysis was the clean-up cost, as there was a Japanese law to protect nuclear operators from liability in the event of a natural disaster such as the tsunami.

Then in the wake of the disaster, the government seemed to be avoiding the implementation of that law, and I couldn’t figure out why. Sure, the optics weren’t great, but the lawmakers surely knew that a nuclear accident as a result of a natural disaster would be messy — that’s exactly what the law was for. The government seemed to be groping around in all directions: on the one hand trying to create bailouts and schemes for TEPCO and other nuclear operators, and on the other hand trying their darndest to sink them.

One less-important point in my analysis was that with the nuclear plants off-line, TEPCO was surely going to make higher margins on their thermal plants as power prices rose. Instead, the government has not allowed the prices to increase, forcing TEPCO to eat the loss (as fuel costs for thermal plants increased).

Anyway, I probably should have bailed when my initial thesis looked like it might not be true (legal protection to limit the risk of bankruptcy). It’s down over 20% this week, and based on the action in Japan last night, will probably open down another 10% today, putting me at a 60% loss. It’s a small position — I knew it was speculative from the start — but still hurts.

One big factor making me consider bailing is this recent article, which I simply cannot wrap my head around. It makes no sense for the government to be calling for loan forgiveness at this point, to try to pass the burden off to third-party lenders when there are other tools available (e.g.: direct government assistance, as per the previously-mentioned law). If a step as drastic as debt modification is needed, then that’s an indication the common shares are worthless, and it’s time to bail. Unless they’re also modifying that section of the law, where debt holders come before equity holders.

“Tokyo Stock Exchange President Atsushi Saito struck a slightly more incisive tone, and was quoted in the Nikkei business press as saying that Edano’s comments regarding debt waivers were “illogical.” “

But like I said, the government can’t seem to make up its mind on what to do, and it’s not yet clear how much this will cost TEPCO — we’re still largely in the period where fear reigns supreme over information, so it’s hard to say what the value is. Maybe months from now when the spotlight has moved on, the government can “do right” by TEPCO. Maybe it is doomed to bankruptcy and the banks will have to shoulder losses.

I just can’t tell anymore with this one what’s crazed government officials saying stupid, nonsensical things (which is often an opportunity for mis-pricing), and what’s an actual risk of total loss (which is to be avoided). My gut is telling me that this is perhaps the moment of maximum pessimism, and that this is a chance to buy, not sell. But, my brain is saying that the initial reasons for buying have been proven wrong, so it’s time to cut the losses, and that’s what I’ll do.