Modus-Opera-Andi, Costco Kiosks and a Beautiful Song "Nessun Dorma" by Luciano Pavarotti

Never really my "modus Opera-andi" but if you remember (way back to the '02) at the end of the movie "The Sum of All Fears"(links to IMDb) the beautiful melody playing in the arms dealer's home right before he gets the blade and the song playing as the Neo-Nazi extremist Jaguar driver continues his bad habit is the song "Nessun Dorma-(Tourandot)" by the recently deceased Luciano Pavarotti.

Ironic because the title translates to "None Shall Sleep" and all of the bad guys were about to take a dirt nap, but I digress; I haven't heard this song until last night when it was playing in Costco on their little "Thanks-X-Mas_oween" kiosk but they unfortunately were not selling the Opera Collection Cd and didn't list the names or titles of song tracks. Just for fun try this experiment: Ask a handful of Costco employees or Sam's Club associates (whatever your big box of choice is) to name that Opera singer. I'll bet "usted oirá nada más que grillos"-sorry "mi Italiano es mierda". Luckily, a lovely lady stopped and said that is Pavarotti and after a little playing on E-Music, I found it. Also, if you need to have a "control" for your experiment ask them to name the very next song when it cuts over to the Rocking Halloween album, yahtzee! It's the Monster Mash!

FYI: it helps to know how to spell P-A-V-A-R-O-T-T-I.

Sunday Samurai: I Can't Wait...The New Harris Teeter, Pigs In A Blanket & Big Box (Home Depot & Lowes) Staying Open An Hour Later

For the new Harris Teeter store to open in the West Ashley section of Charleston, South Carolina. For those of you who live West of the Ashley River in Charleston and have suffered for years without a 24-hour grocery store to quash that desire for a midnight snack I present you the new Harris Teeter store. Be patient my friends, the end is near and she should be open here soon.

I was in the Pig the other night about 10 minutes before closing time (like 9 pm) and I asked the manager if the Pig was going to start staying open later to compete with the new Teeter. He replied, "Oh gosh no, in fact, I wish we could go back to closing at 7 pm." Seriously?

Leave it to Beaver or just leave Beaver
I can understand the gentleman's desire to hearken back to the old days when we all ate dinner together at 6:30 pm and the grocery closed early because most folks only made a trip to the "sto" once a week. But let's get with the times people, we work late, jam our schedules full of errands and appointments ad nauseum. And let's face it, convenience stores these days just are not that convenient.

Just recently, Home Depot decided to open an hour earlier and stay open an hour later. How friggin awesome is that? Countless times, I have broken something (whilst trying to repair something else) or been mid-way into a project when I realized I needed something-that I could only find-from HD or Lowes (not the 24-hour Super Wal-Mart) and then looked at the clock only to realize I had fifteen minutes before they closed. Not anymore baby! (FYI: Lowes decided to match their cross-street competition and match Home Depot's hours). I even filled out my first receipt-questionairre exclaiming how I loved the later hours @ Home Depot and wished they would advertise this new change so more people would take advantage of their new closing time.

For those great deciders who changed the hours @ Lowes & Home Depot-Bravo! To the Big Whigs @ the Teeter who decided to provide the folks here this side of the Ashley a new store-Bravo indeed Sirs.

Financial Bracketology from Jay-Bird!

Click on image for larger (and printable) image!

When Life Gives You Lehmans-Make Lemonade and Ron Paul on Fox Business "Noise"

This one is for Pit-Stop, "Mr. I'm going to post, but I am sorry, I am too busy to do this". Sure, this just took all of 30-seconds, but whatever. The bottom-line is this, whomever is the next President of the United States will have to raise taxes: 2 wars, a bail-out and the Bush tax cuts-will do nothing more than dig us deeper in debt.

And where is this money coming from? Well, if our Government is not currently raising money (taxation) and the dollar is in the crapper (see USD vs Euro) because our National Debt added another 3 digits on the national debt board this past year-read we're printing money to cover our arse. Then the only place to take money from is the Social Security coffers, which those naysayers say will be broke before the X-Generation gets to the age of retirement. And why will it be broke? Because these spend-thrift Republicans keep covering their tax-cuts, government expansions and war-chests by "writing a bad check to Peter to pay Paul" (not Ron Paul).

For Pit-Stop, I knew that Ron Paul would not win his party's nomination because, sadly, he is way too smart to be a Republican. Look, deny it all you want Repubs, but for the most part, Republicans are not the "thinkers" of the bunch. Republicans like "red-meat": facts-dumb, environment-gay; gun-control-hello, did you forget about the 2nd Amendment? If you want to win, just say something about terrorism and how the liberal American hating Democrats can't protect this country. In the primaries, Ron Paul answered one of the questions smartly as that is not a decision for the president of the United States under our Constitution. Dag-Jimmit! Could you not hear the crickets? Capt Hairdo (and former East-coast elitist) announced that he would "fight terrorism over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here"-cheers! Is it that easy Republicans that you won't listen to "smart" people because they care about America's role on the world's stage? Or that they might have ideas that are outside of the small-minded box?

And for all of those pithy comments about how you don't vote Democratic because you work and you don't think government should be the source of handouts (read: Welfare); well, these government bailouts to Wall Street are (Ron Paul has this one right-link to Paul's article on the Bailouts) nothing more than covering the risks that investment banks knowingly took and now know as long as they are a direct correlation between Wall Street and Main Street, they can take all the chances they want, because for all intensive purposes they are playing with the "houses money" (read: you, the American tax-payers money). And if you took every American currently on welfare and gave them $1 million (Yahtzee!), the total would still be less than 1% of bailout given to Lehman Brothers.

McCain Flip-Flops & Palin Needs A Re-Fresher Course on the Rachel Maddow Show!

Rachel Maddow's new show is good stuff in the encore presentation of what she used to do on Olbermann's Show. You know, in the world of video clips and You-Tube, politicians need to pay attention and realize that people will put their Google to work and catch a patrician by their toe. For those of you who don't remember the S&L scandal and the Keating 5 (which John McCain was a member of) from the '80's, you should check out Micheal Lewis' book, Liar's Poker-one of the Bushido's favorite books, where Lewis breaks down the hubris misplayed by the big-swinging-Dicks as they continued to take on bad-debt just to prove they could take on the aforementioned debt-which led to a formal break-down in the savings and loan industry. Unfortunately, this should have been a book passed out in business 101, or perhaps to freshman-"congressman" as they work their way up to certain committees, and become decision makers for the rest of America. Because as the old adage goes, "those who don't know history, are doomed to repeat it."

Hurricane Dean Came Rolling In At 4:30 This Morning

Ain't that a kick in the head
According to the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Dean hit landfall this morning near Chetumal, the capital of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. For those of you who've partied in Cancun and Cozumel on the Yucatan Peninsula, Chetumal is just south of these locales. The Category 5 Hurricane is as large as the state of Texas and is the strongest storm to hit landfall since Hurricane Andrew hit Florida. Hurricane Dean is expected to effect the entire Yucatan Peninsula from Belize to Cancun. (Photo courtesy of Broadway to Vegas)

Like the Sailor Said quote, Ain't that a hole in the boat
Luckily, despite the size of this storm most people evacuated for the storm after the government's warnings. Only seven deaths are attributed to Hurricane Dean so far-hopefully, there will only be seven. And hopefully, after crossing the Yucatan Peninsula this storm will not regain strength in the warm waters of the Gulf as Hurricane Katrina did. (Photo courtesy of CNN.com).

Mexico's state owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos, aka PEMEX shut down their refineries in the Gulf, but this should not effect prices here in the States as the storm will miss the Gulf refineries that the US gets a third of US Crude production. Oil is dropping for the 2nd consecutive day, (down $1.63, closing at $70.35) trading right now at $70.67.
Posted by The Bushido

Breaking News! Nardelli leaves Home Depot

Home Depot announced they are pushing Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli out of the plane with a $210 million “you can do it, we can help-golden parachute” to help him land softly. Nardelli has a one-year non-compete that he has to uphold, so Bobby gets a year long vacation to take as well. Nardelli was forced out because shareholders were upset with his lofty pay and poor-stock performance. Vice-Chairman Frank Blakes will be the acting CEO, which actually took effect yesterday-sorry, holiday.

Home Depot (HD) was up 6.2% to $42.66 in electronic composite “futures” trading before the market opened. The 52-week high for HD was last March @ $43.95; conversely, the low was last July 18th, @ $32.85. Home Depot puts out (occasionally) for their investors with a dividend yield of 2.2%.