my journal 2

[Yamato]

next task, maybe

Lightening up some of the sheets on my workbook might be the next task.

The heavy sheets that can be changed are... is "ON". Yeah, that's the only concern:



At the moment this sheet holds 74 rectangles with as many systems and it is a bit heavy, especially on my home desktop (not on the server, which is much more powerful).

Now if I brought it from 74 to 120, the load would be almost twice as heavy. Of the 16 symbols I am running, I could trade half on one sheet and half on the other. Yeah, let's do it that way.

Or wait, this might be too complex and not tidy.

If we split the futures in two groups on two sheets I could have:

6 currencies and 2 bond futures on one
3 metals, 2 energies, 3 equity indexes on the other.

I don't like to split them, but if I don't, the workbook might freeze from too much work.

But if I split I have to do better than this.

I want something symmetrical and not these two groups.

Ok, I quit on this one.

Simplifying and restructuring might be good, but only to a certain extent can you do it without side effects. You can't change too much stuff at once without losing control of what you're doing and losing sight of all the implications. So this thing will have to wait. A lot of work was done, but this order of things will remain the way it's been until now. I'll take the risk of making my sheet too heavy and will fix things only if it does turn out to be too heavy.

 

[Yamato]

more on the Kaizen dicks

I found the inspirer of these efficiency dicks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

Kaizen sounds close to "cazzo", which is the Italian for "dick". "Cazzoni" means literally "big dicks" but it really sounds like "dick-heads" or, even better, "morons". So I am going to call them "cazzoni Kaizen" from now on.

It's not so much about the principle. The problem is that these guys are dicks. It's like giving a machine gun to a madman, and saying "hey, what's the problem? The machine gun is an efficient tool...". So this is what this bitch keeps saying to us: "hey, guys, everyone in the world appreciates the kaizen methodology...". The problem is that you're a retarded bitch, that is what the problem is.

And here's another kaizen link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing

 

[Yamato]

Today I gave up and went from "if" to "how" to destroy my work

Final blow by the kaizen people and my boss (who follows them blindly, since he's incompetent) to my statistical work today.

The boss told me that he wants the data the way he had asked for it (his parameters will screw up a lot of things, and previous stats), which is not impossible but which will cause a sharp decline in quality of my stats. Until today my options were:

1) screw up the stats (as little as possible) and obey his stupid orders with the risk that this incompetent guy will tell me in 3 months that I did not make him aware of the risks involved (whereas I objected and warned him in all possible ways).

2) tell him that I will not yield to his stupid requests and that I will keep doing things my way (the proper way), regardless of what he asks me. Which is kind of what I did (without telling him) until now.

I've spoken to my aunt and especially to my uncle, who's a very good person and a retired banker and he told me that my only option is #1, and that actually he has experienced it before in the same exact situation, and that it didn't take him long to realize that he had to yield to the boss, regardless of how stupid his orders were.

So he convinced me, after several phone calls (during the last few weeks) and now the "if" is not an option anymore, since today, when the boss pressed me more and I had to make my final decision. The only question now remains on "how" I will limit the damage in executing his orders. I brought my work home and I will try to devise a way to execute stupid orders and limit the damage to my work. This is also in the bank's interest, even though right now no one seems to give a **** about it.

 

[Yamato]

I tried, but I was filled with disgust

They can't tell me that I haven't tried. I brought the stats home, worked on them for one hour, trying to make them the way they asked me to. "They" means the boss and the ACE-Kaizen idiots. "The way they asked" so to speak because they really don't know what they're asking for, nor do we know what will happen, since the ramifications and implications are huge and potentially very harmful. We've been doing stats in a totally different way for four years. I've warned them every which way, and yet with this idiot, who knows whether in 3 months this idiot will tell me that i should have warned him.

I am afraid tomorrow I will skip work actually. I am not that afraid of being fired over this.

I mean, as i was working on this stuff, and undoing all my work of 4 years, I kept thinking of this incompetent of a boss, who doesn't know what he's actually asking me, and I am having to do it merely because of his stupidity and probably, just like he did before, he will tell me in 3 months that I should have warned him.

Just in case I am saving a copy of the stats the way they were before the moron asked me to change them. Hopefully the damage done by him will emerge within two weeks and I will be able to fix things and reverse the changes.

I cannot do more than this. At best I can promise I will show up at work tomorrow. If I keep on working on this any longer, I might throw away the file from disgust. Best to stop and at least show up tomorrow. I am enraged. This incompetent cannot ask me to spit on my own work of four years.

All right, I am going tomorrow, but from now on my attitude will be that of Fantozzi. That's what I am more or less. That's what they've reduced me to being: an obedient soldier who doesn't question orders. If things go wrong though, it won't be my problem anymore. I'll be a disciplined idiot, as they apparently want me to be.

 

[Yamato]

all right, they win

I disown my stats. I'll obey like a soldier, doing what they ask me as well as I can. Of course things will get worse now, but after all I am getting paid to obey orders, and if my boss is an idiot, I will have to obey stupid orders, and if he blames me for his own mistakes, provided that he doesn't insult me too much, I'll have to take that, too. This is all new to me. I've never had to put up with this crap before, but I guess there's always a first time.

And, even if I didn't give a **** about being fired and had plenty of money set aside (which is not the case), I would still have to be honest and obey orders, since I am getting paid to do so.

And now I can also rest and not worry any more, since what's most important to them is apparently not that I do things right, but that I obey orders. It's an awful discovery, but I am slowly digesting it. Right now they want me to obey blindly the stupid stuff they're telling me to do. Tomorrow they may regret it, but right now I have no choice. Who knows. Maybe in the future, he will listen to me. Now I have to start pissing on my own work because he told me to.

Thank god for trading, where I can do things my way, and I don't have any bosses.

 

[Yamato]

http://www.putlocker.com/file/FC01C2HUEEOSSSC

 

[bbmac]

Question

Hi Travis

Great Blog, compelling, inspiring, absorbing and sometimes gut wrenchingly painful. I don't know what it's like your end - being the one who is directly involved in the journey you have detailed to us, but your 'warts n' all 'brutal honesty reflected in your knee-jerk writing style ensures that we live every twist and turn with you.

One question if I may,? - it relates to the recent drawdown from the account Hi lasting as long as it has before a new a/c Hi ...When your sole income is from trading (ie you have left your much loved job !) how will you cope with a drawdown time period before a new a/c hi ? Both in terms of what I assume the effect will be on your profit share (income) from the trading (being based on new a/c hi's?) and moreover psycholigically without fear of the habits that you have detailed here and in your original journal that have afflicted your chances of reaching your goals from trading in the past ?

PS: I ask this question via the open thread as opposed to a pm beacuse this is the spirit of the journal.

Thanks,

Continued G/L, I'm hooked and still rooting for ya!

 

[Yamato]

Thanks for the interesting feedback. I had to look up a few terms, particularly "knee jerk writing style", which I will interpret as "impulsive"/"instinctive"/"spontaneous". In fact, this spontaneous sincerity is a deeply ingrained habit for me, and it benefits my writing, just as much as it frustrates me at the office, where I can't keep quiet about what I perceive as wrong: boss giving stupid orders, himself obeying stupid superior orders by boss of boss (who in turn is doing the same thing), employees executing stupid orders without giving proper feedback, boss angry at employees for obeying his stupid orders. Anyway, I was unlucky to be in this situation, and it's the first time in many years that I am stuck with such stupidity. Now I finally understand Fantozzi movies.

Regarding your question, on how I will cope with drawdowns, that is a good point. Right now the investors are keeping me from gambling, because on their account I don't dare to place any discretionary trades, nor interfere with the systems. Until it's their account, this is not a problem - i haven't gambled once in a whole year of trading their account. The problem might be how I will interact with them if their wire transfers to me become my only source of income. I might have to turn into Fantozzi, and obey orders like a soldier, if that happens. So, as far as the investors, my biggest concern is if I quit my job I will be enslaved by them like I am being enslaved at work (after resisting for many years). What I mean to say is that gambling is not a concern as long as I am trading their account.

Yet another question is if I wil make enough money to support myself, but for sure I won't quit my job unless that is the case, so it will take years before that happens.

Getting back to gambling, if I funded my account, which is still my desire, then the gambling problem would present itself again. Maybe it will be less of a problem if my dreams of quitting my job do not entirely depend on my account.

However, if I were trading my own account, gambling would be the biggest risk, and the pressure to ovecome the drawdown might be so high that again I would take risks I can't afford and blow it out endlessly, like I've been doing for 14 years. That is why now I practically don't have an account (it's open but there's not enough capital to trade) and that is why my only hope of succeeding are the investors, who are not only providers of capital, but impulse inhibitors, and they provide confidence and support when the systems don't go well.

And yes, keep asking questions on the journal, so that I can share the reply with others.

 

[Yamato]

the Kaizen saga continues

Today the boss asked me to screw up my stats with his requested changes, and to add yet another 5 columns. I created these stats in 2007. The first boss, from 2007 to 2008 made me increase the columns and fields from 10 to 40. The second boss was removed from the post in 2009 after 6 months of working poorly. The third boss, from 2009 to 2010, asked me to extend the columns from 40 to 80 (one at a time). Now the fourth boss, who's with us since 2011, has made me bring the columns from 80 to over 100, and I am just one person. Always the same person.

How did I achieve this? I kept on improving, which is what Kaizen actually means. I was doing this all by myself and getting more efficient all the time. That's how I managed to do more and more work in the same hours. Actually I went from the 8 hours of 2007 to a part-time schedule of 6 hours of 2011. Then the "kaizen team" comes to my office, and they made me lose it. Lose my temper, lose my efficiency, everything. Do I have the right to be upset? Nope. They're all easygoing and relaxed. They worry about me working too much and skipping lunch. They try to cheer me up... it would seem that I have the wrong attitude... wrong. They are all easygoing because all the work still rests on my shoulders, while they direct things.

These guys (the kaizen dicks and my boss, kissing up to them) ask the impossible of me, to make them look good at the end of this six-month process, require me to destroy my own work, then expect me to deliver the same precision and speed after I tell them that their changes will compromise precision and speed, and then, after all these requests, they all go together on a coffee break, while, in order to make this lie appear as the truth, I am supposed to break my back to deliver the impossible, stay extra hours and skip all breaks during the day.

These Kaizen guys are inefficient lazy stupid people, who were sent to us by other idiots, and they've convinced my idiot of a boss to follow their advised changes (our of sheer power or out of convincing him, and I don't know if he's so fearful or so stupid to listen to them). So I am the last guy who has to get screwed because of this long chain of idiots passing on work from one to another, and it all ends up in my hands. There's no way for me to say that it's not possible, because it is possible. The only requirement for it to be possible is that I spend the entire day working my ass off for them, and stay extra time to finish the job, sometimes even bring the work home. And get more tired and frustrated each day.

So, here's the deal: this week, I could not take it anymore, and, starting Monday, I've decided that, no matter how behind I am, I will still go home, more or less at the time I am supposed to go home.

They have to know sooner or later that I cannot keep up with their stupid requests. Furthermore, one thing is to do the double backflip in order to keep things neat and efficient and another thing is to do the same effort in order to destroy my own previous work, while allowing them to lie about their performance. There's no way I will put into destroying my work the same effort that I put into doing it.

And listen to this. My boss today had the nerve to ask me if the changes implemented at his request would produce reliable data. This after I told him for weeks that I didn't want to implement his requested changes because it would compromise the reliability and efficiency of the data. Could you be more of a back-stabbing sleazy unfair dishonest incoherent idiot? Actually that is precisely what convinced me to leave at 3 pm sharp. You want to screw me in all possible ways? Fine. At least I preserve the right to go home after getting screwed throughout my work hours.

These people enrage me, both the boss and this efficiency team, that came out of nowhere. Each morning we have our one-hour briefing where they pretend to give us directions on how to improve, the boss plays along, and then at the end I go to my office and try to catch up the time we wasted, and they all go on a long and relaxing and enjoyable coffee break.

During the bull**** meeting, usually one way or another I am asked something, and each time I can't help bringing up what I think about this whole process, that it is a disaster, a farce, a mess. And, as I talk, I quickly get livid with anger. As I talk, I can feel my face get red and hot.

I wish they just left me alone, working in my room, and didn't request my presence at these bull**** meetings. I can't help speaking the truth when I hear lies all around me.

 

[Yamato]

Bob Seger- Till It Shines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdtAH_Aknnc

 

[Yamato]

Rita Coolidge - We Are All Alone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUzjg2mUmVo

 

[Yamato]

thank god for the systems

More frustration from the kaizen crew today.

No news though. The boss is pressuring me more and more to implement their changes, which he initially pretended were stupid, and now seems to believe in. Or maybe he pretends he does, because he's forced to listen to them. At the start, months ago, he described the situation as if we just had to be a little patient until these guys were gone. Now he's requested me to implement absurd changes, and today I've finished those changes, but with them I have also lost all my motivation to work. So I left at 3 pm sharp, despite being behind with my work. I told him this "yes, I am behind by 13 reports, but I am going home nonetheless, because I am tired". And he replied "thank you", because he knows how much I have done for this office and how right I am in being frustrated with this whole situation.

On the other hand, the principle is obedience, so I think I am also being very wrong in disrespecting him for the sake of speaking the truth. Each day during our one-hour bull**** meeting, I keep using the expression "this is a disaster", and I realize this is the pure truth, but it also questions his role as a boss.

In fact he is a complete idiot. These kaizen team are complete morons. Yes, correct. It sounds like I am being delusional, but if I am right, then they're idiots. I am a fool, or they're total idiots. I am positive it's the latter.

On the other hand, it is true that I consider idiots the majority people around me.

But let's stop describing things rationally and let's just vent out my emotions and frustration. The usual complaining one writes a journal for.

I cannot stand the daily one-hour meeting where I am expected to say and act as if everything was going well. What really angers me is that the boss, after all my non-stop objections, comes up to me every morning and asks me "everything is ok, right?", as if I had to reassure him after I've spent four months repeating "this is a disaster".

I asked to be excused from the meetings, exempted from the meetings, but it's not possible. I have to go, I have to sit, and I have to listen, and... the problem: I have to pretend I agree.

So, then they ask me, and I can't help saying "disaster", "farce", "bull****", and they say I am being negative, but when I get into the details of what's wrong, they still don't listen or reply stupidly. Of course they do, since I am the only one who knows what we are talking about, since I created the stats for the office, and I practically have kept everything in order for years.

So obviously I am the one who's the most pissed off when there's a team coming to reorganize the office and they don't even ask my opinion and start changing things around.

So **** these ACE team, **** their Kaizen methodology wrongly applied for sure, **** the boss, **** them all.

Tomorrow there's going to be yet another one of those meetings, and I am really desperate. I don't want to lie and answer "yes, everything is going perfectly", but I am tired of yelling, making trouble, getting red in the face, and losing my temper. I am tired of both and I don't know what to do. I am a very peaceful person, but here they're forcing to do unpleasant stuff, to be in the company of idiots, and to obey idiots.

Thank god for the systems, that are the only way out, the only hope. The more crap I am given by the bank, the more systems I build. I hope it's like that. Otherwise it means they're slowly killing me. I want my project to come true. Slowly they're building up profit. Here's the present situation:



I just need them to go beyond 20k, and all my worries will vanish. I can't simultaneously take a drawdown from the systems and a drawdown from the office. And for the past month this has been the case and I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown - not that I ever had any, because so far I have been very stable.

I can't take it anymore, I can't take it anymore, I can't take it anymore.

I am tired, I am tired, I am tired.

I will leave at 3 every day, I will leave at 3 every day, I will leave at 3 every day.

Screw you all, screw you all, screw you all.

Work goes on in the meanwhile, and one day at a time, I move forward in implementing my 52 new systems (46 new and 6 improved).

Now let us slowly try to fall asleep.

Fall asleep. Fall asleep. Fall asleep.

Don't get mad at boss, don't get mad at boss...

Don't disrespect him...

He's not guilty... he's just kissing up to higher bosses...

Don't push your luck... don't become a problem for the bank.... they're paying you after all.

Stop caring.

Just relax and be peaceful.

Stop caring so much.

They don't deserve your perfectionism.

Everyone tells you to go home. Just go home when you're allowed to.

Let your mind drift...

You'll be refreshed, completely energized.

For now all you need to worry about is... sleeping.

Right now, my suggestion to you right now is drift.

And as my voice fades from your conscious mind...

 

[Yamato]

Good. Another day of leaving at 3 pm sharp, as allowed by my schedule. Today I flatly told him. You want me to destroy my work of the past 3 years? Fine, I will obey, but you cannot force me to stay extra hours to do something I don''t believe in, such as screwing up my own work. I will do it, but you will have to decide what to do with my six hours of daily work. My motivation is at zero, and below zero, and the most I can promise is that I won't sabotage your orders. I promise I will execute your orders as well as possible, and that I will try to limit the damage of your orders (while executing them). I promise I will not take any breaks as usual and work during my hours to obey your (wrong) orders. Yes, I told all this to my boss. I told him that "this is a huge mess" and that all I can promise is that I won't sabotage, I promise I will execute your orders in the best possible way, but there's no way you're keeping me here any extra hours if you are asking me to do something I consider totally wrong. Also, since there won't be enough time to do all your asking and in the (inefficient) way you're asking, then choose the things you want me to skip. At which he replied "you can't skip anything" and I said "fine, do whatever you want with my hours, but I am leaving at 3 pm" and then he said "fine".

Also, there's no way that I will stay here late every day, as I've been doing, to patch things up while you guys go home or go on a coffee break after having given me harmful orders.

And now it's up to him to get everything else to work out, because I won't be doing any extra efforts to make things right. He requires me to spit on my own work? Fine, during my work hours I will do so. But not one minute beyond my work hours. I told him, in front of everyone.

I am very pissed off, I am totally against what he's asking me to do, i am positive he's messing up my work and the office procedures, but my only option is to execute his orders. Fine. But not on my free time. I can only take six hours a day of this disastrous activity.

The point is: I am not going to do any more double back flips for you morons. I've warned you we're doing the wrong things and the product will get worse, you won't listen to me, then I will do what you ask, but I am not staying any extra time to repair your damage.

In a way I am sabotaging, but it's perfectly legal, because by losing motivation, I will just do as well as i can what they ask, yet refrain from any huge efforts, since without motivation, I can't do anything about that part. Yet it's also good for them, because this way I won't be exploding in anger on a daily basis, since I know that I don't give a damn what goes wrong from now on, and that I am going home at 3 pm no matter how behind I am and how screwed up my work is.

 

[Yamato]

Larry and Michelle Williams

Look what I came across by browsing on the internet:
http://www.robbinstrading.com/worldcup/standings.asp

World Cup Championship of Futures Trading
Top Overall Performance Among All Divisions
2010: Andrea Unger 240%
2009: Andrea Unger 115%
2008: Andrea Unger 672%
2007: Michael Cook 250%
2006: Kevin Davey 107%
2005: Ed Twardus 278%
2004: Kurt Sakaeda 929%
2003: Int'l. Capital Mngt. 88%
2002: John Holsinger 608%
2001: David Cash 53%
2000: Kurt Sakaeda 595%
1999: Chuck Hughes 315%
1998: Jason Park 99%
1997: Michelle Williams 1,000%
1996: Reinhart Rentsch 95%
1995: Dennis Minogue 219%
1994: Frank Suler 85%
1993: Richard Hedreen 173%
1992: Mike Lundgren 212%
1991: Thomas Kobara 200%
1990: Mike Lundgren 244%
1989: Mike Lundgren 176%
1988: David Kline 148%
1987: Larry Williams 11,376%
1986: Henry Thayer 231%
1985: Ralph Casazzone 1,283%
1984: Ralph Casazzone 264%

Can you believe this hot actress, the daughter of that famous trader, was at 17 a better trader than I ever will be? Can I be envious?

Fascinating stuff. Here's another link:
Michelle Williams’s Father Is Extradited to U.S. For Tax-Evasion

Lucky sons of bitches. And I am here in Rome, dealing with the neighbour bitch, with the asshole of a boss, the efficiency team... This girl had done everything by the age of 17. That's what I get for choosing to be born in the wrong family.

Damn. Dude... doesn't she look like the typical stupid american chick? That's what I had always thought. And yet this woman has superior intelligence or something like that. I feel like I was born into an inferior race. Pretty unusual feeling, since usually I feel like I am living among idiots.

I'll watch her movie, to see if I can become a better trader:
http://www.letmewatchthis.ch/watch-1723867-Blue-Valentine

Oh, and this other guy, ryan gosling, is one who acts in good movies, best one of which are:
http://www.letmewatchthis.ch/watch-11804-The-Believer
http://www.letmewatchthis.ch/watch-6517-Stay

[...]

Good movie so far, this "blue valentine", neorealist type of thing. Movie about life the way it is for the lower classes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neorealism_(art)

Neorealism is characterized by a general atmosphere of authenticity. Andre Bazin, a French film theorist and critic, argued that neorealism portrays: truth, naturalness, authenticity, and is a cinema of duration. The necessary characteristics of neo-realism in film include:[1]

a definite social context;
a sense of historical actuality and immediacy;
political commitment to progressive social change;
authentic on-location shooting as opposed to the artificial studio;
a rejection of classical Hollywood acting styles; extensive use of non-professional actors as much as possible;
a documentary style of cinematography.

Minute 26: not evolving well. Not good. Almost predictable. We'll see how it goes from here.

Dude! Minute 29... and before: montage makes the plot incomprehensible. The script is sucking more and more. Bad director and bad screenwriter. The actors are good of course, but... they picked the wrong movie to be in.

This director is no good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Cianfrance

I am at minute 38, there's another 80 minutes go... yeah, and I would not bear to watch the rest of it if it weren't for gosling being in it. Excellent actor.

Wait, maybe I am prejudiced because she was a profitable trader at 17... No no, the plot sucks. This movie is no good.

More on williams:
http://www.nndb.com/people/362/000109035/

Ok, here's the whole point of everything:
Here's How Actress Michelle Williams Won The World Cup Of Futures Trading Award At Age 17

Here's what I wondering about and searching for:

Michelle grew up watching her father, commodities trader Larry Williams, beat markets and become a prominent investor.

(He created the Williams %R market indicator and has published nine books on investing.)

And in 1997, after she'd had a few small TV appearances, Michelle entered and won a futures trading competition -- ten years after her father won the same competition.

In fact, she didn't just win the competition, she blew it away. No one has beat her returns - 1,000% - since she won the competition.

Is that all? I want to know more. Nope. Nothing. I could not find anything more. On elitetrader i found someone who wrote that she graduated from highschool at 15. Man, definitely not dumb as she looks.

Movie is quite realistic, but the plot sucks. The director misuses and abuses flashbacks. And there's too much sex. When a movie uses sex so much, unless of course it is the focus of the movie, but it isn't, it means it doesn't have much to say. Movie is failed. However, still better than any movie with Tom Cruise. But not worth watching. Movie not worth watching. Movie to forget.

 

[Yamato]

we're all alone, me and my systems

Outside the rain begins and it may never end. So cry no more, on the shore a dream will take us out to sea. Forever more, forever more. Close your eyes and dream, and and you can be with me, 'neath the waves, through the caves of hours, long forgotten now. We're all alone. We're all alone.

I don't know exactly what she's singing, but this song is referring to me and my systems, it's pretty obvious.

Speaking of which. During the week I work on the files that are not running (back-tested part or forward-tested registry). During the weekend I work on the automated part (it's one file).

I can't wait to finish. At this rate it will take me about three more weeks to do everything. I will be finished by early June. That's an important anniversary for me, because that's when I started trading with outside capital (after blowing out my account once too many), and, when I started last year, I knew very little about money management and appraising my systems' performance. I have come a long way. Also, back then I had only 40 systems. Now, after a year, I have 120. My systems have grown faster than marijuana. And I am getting high on them, too.

I once grew a marijuana plant, when I was in Luxembourg. One of the many bosses at my office (wherever I go, I have more bosses than colleagues - everyone is a boss except me) actually came to work high one day, and so I asked her if she had any seeds for me. So that's what I did in luxembourg. From a seed I grew a plant one-meter tall in just a few months. Yeah, those were the times. That was great. I smoked it. I smoked the whole plant. What a great place. I left it because I got bored there. I should have stayed. But back then there were no computers, or rather: I didn't think of buying one. In fact that is the only time I lived with a girlfriend and she left me because I wouldn't buy her a computer. Why? Because i was spending all my money for my trading. That's when i started blowing out my accounts, in luxembourg. That's right, as early as September 1997 I was saying to myself "hey, this is easy - in a year I will be a millionaire". I should have instead bought that damn computer for her, and it would have helped me so much with trading. Instead, I was sending orders via fax from work, to a broker in Belgium. That's right, because in luxembourg there were no options to trade, and that is what I started doing from the start. And the options had a spread of something like 40 bid and 70 ask, or at best 50 bid and 60 ask and I still bought them. I blew all my monthly savings for two years with those BEL-20 options.

I used to take the train to Arlon, in Belgium, on the border, every month or two, and bring some cash to fund my account. Ah ah, just like I've been doing with IB (except via wire transfers) for the past few years. I still have that account. I will use it for money laundering one day.

Close the window
Calm the light
And it will be alright
No need to bother now
Let it out
Let it all begin
All's forgotten now
We're all alone
oh-oh, we're all alone

 

[Yamato]

starting out as a digital artist (painting and stuff)

I will start a career as a painter today, because all that I had to say has been said, and I have started to repeat myself, after these thousands of posts.

I will use the windows program called... no, I will use hypersnap. Then I will place the pictures here.

Maybe this career will last just one post or maybe I will keep going. I am a self-taught writer and painter, so don't expect much.

I will just do whatever comes to mind.

I don't want to use photoshop, because that program is too heavy to open.

I will start... well, I won't even say it until I do it.



This is some dude, with the ocean behind him. I put a wall behind the dude, to pretend that his picture is a mural/graffiti type of thing.

And this music accompanies the picture, because I was listening to it, while I uploaded the work (done a while ago - I'll post some previous work for now):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAU3WvqTCmU

This is some broad, I turned her tiny facebook picture into a work of art:



This music has to go along with the picture, because i was listening to it as I uploaded the picture:

Some broads and a dude:







I am pretty good at putting people up against the wall.

 

[Yamato]

more digital art work - three broads

These are three more broads as represented in my art work:







This is the perfect music for those pictures, because it was playing while I was uploading them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw-ArzPl0bg

 

[Yamato]

Now I'll start working on some traders and posting their modified pictures.

Two traders have always struck me and they are livermore's and seykota's expression in these two pictures:





I still haven't done any art work on them two, but I want to point out that they both look relaxed, carefree, and almost... like fools by how relaxed they are. This reminds me of that chick, Michelle Williams, who also looks like a dumb blonde, and yet they're all great traders.

So it seems that maybe you either have to be retarded or relaxed and easygoing to be a good trader.

A nervous wreck like me doesn't make any money. The easygoing carefree happy-go-lucky fellas are the ones make the money. Or maybe you know what? Maybe when you're really smart, unlike me, you can afford to be easygoing and relaxed and still ace every situation. Those who like me were taught that you get rewards through hard work and stressing out all the time may even be hampered in their intellectual development by these deeply ingrained values, in that they're not willing to take any shortcuts and head straight for the hard work whenever they see it. Or maybe I am just stupid and what is hard work for me is nothing to them. Most likely so.

Yeah, for one reason or another, I always find that both the smartest people and the dumbest people share this common characteristic of being relaxed and easygoing.

I am tired, and my career as a painter ends here. I won't be doing any more digital art work. I like much better posting music, and posting my online research. Painting type of art is not my stuff.

 

[Yamato]

I still can't sleep. I haven't written enough.

Tomorrow the usual bitch will wake me up by slamming her door at 7.20. But even sooner, an hour sooner, the baby neighbour from the other side of the apartment, will wake me up, or his mother bitch neighbour will wake me up by telling her baby to shut up and not wake me up.

It reminds me of when I was at the hospital and this nurse woke me up to make sure I was sleeping. She woke me up by asking me if I was sleeping. Sadistic bitches nurses. Then she said "i just wanted to make sure that you were sleeping".

People are trouble. Staying away from people is good, generally speaking. You need money to buy space around you so you can isolate yourself from other people. The more money you have the more space you can put between yourself and people.

For example, if you don't have to go to work, that is 8 hours of no stress from people that you buy yourself. If you have the money for the cab, you're sparing yourself the people in the subway - a lot of daily stress comes from that.

But then there's a majority of dudes, who actually look for friends to go out to crowded places in the weekends or every night even. Those guys I do not understand. I fear humans as much as dangerous dogs. As they say, homo homini lupus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_homini_lupus

Which is exactly what I think, and it contradicts that man is a social animal. It is an animal, but, if possible, antisocial. All of us who can avoid crowds, do so. Except the young fellas, the ********s who feel the need to go to "clubs". The "omg dude I'm like..." crowd.

As I grow older, I find more and more people talking and reasoning like me. Either because the "omg dude I'm like..." people die out, or because they grow up.

But all this complaining is still not enough to make me go to sleep.

You know, lately I've been maturing the idea that the time is ripe for some killing or at least some serious crime, after a life of very proper behaviour and getting screwed because of it. Like Jim Carrey in that movie, Fun with Dick and Jane. Or in Me, Myself and Irene. I am about to get that split personality, whereby if you push me too hard, I will from being very nice to becoming very dangerous for people. This is what happens when you're brought to be too polite for people around you. I could have been ok in northern europe, but not here in italy, let alone in rome. These are criminals compared to how I behave and it leads to non-stop frustration for me. Because I cannot defend myself with the tools I was brought up to use (none, show the other cheek, get crucified). So of course I will turn sooner or later into taxi driver, or one of those Jim Carrey characters. That is, unless I can first isolate myself from these indecent people, before I lose my temper, but it might soon be too late. I've lost my temper every day at work for the past three weeks. It had never happened before, except once in Luxembourg, when the boss was rushing me to work faster, while my colleague was preparing coffee and donuts for the office, instead of helping me by doing her share of work. I started screaming insults for about 30 seconds. I lost my temper. You know? Tomorrow I might really not go to work or go late. I am getting really pissed off. But no, I will go, even if I don't get any sleep, because i have to prove my point that I will work hard, but only until 3 pm. If I go late, I lose my coherence.

Ok, re-reading this post and then going to sleep, in about 3 minutes.

 

[Yamato]

fourth day of going at 9 am and leaving at 3 pm

The kaizen saga continues and so does my demotivation.

Today I will leave, for the fourth time in a row, at 3 pm, which is not usual for me, but it should become usual until the boss asks me to do stuff I consider wrong. You abuse my intelligence, so at least I get to go home when I am entitled to. You ask me to mess up my work of 4 years, so don't expect me now to perform double backflips to make it all still work as perfectly as before. You ask everything and the opposite of everything of me, and so don't expect me to go crazy because of you: I will simply stop caring and consider you a moron. Boss, I am labeling you as a moron for the rest of your life.

This is the most appropriate soundtrack for my continuing kaizen office routine - starting with a peaceful sensation and going with an increasing pace towards horror:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST2H8FWDvEA

See you in 7 hours.