Has it really been since September that I've last been on here? Wow, doesn't seem like it's been that long. Anyways, I've got a smugmug account now - http://k2lu.smugmug.com - where my pictures will be going. Kitty got me a Nikon D40 over Thanksgiving, so I'm going to try and be all pro with my pictures. I suppose I could link pictures here to show what we've been up to. To start, a couple weeks ago, we went up to the Bay Area to see the Big Game and drove back down HWY 1. We stayed in Carmel and went to Point Lobos. Click those to see pictures.
(Tony, you surreptitious day-trader, this is for you. )
Who says junk mail is boring? I read this article in an industry newsletter. It is about a direct mail piece the guy received many years ago, advertising for a business newsletter called Predictions. It's an interesting - fictional, I think - story. But does it work for you? Does it make you want to subscribe to it or not?
METERED POSTAL INDICIA
The 100% Guarantee a short story by John B. Palmer
Chapter One The
letter that started it all arrived in Joel Adler’s mailbox on a cold
Saturday morning a few weeks before Christmas. It was an
ordinary-looking blue envelope, no return address, sandwiched between a
copy of Time and a handwritten letter from Joel’s son Tim, a college
senior, undoubtedly asking for money.
Joel sorted quickly
through the mail, found nothing that riveted his attention, and turned
back to the morning paper. “QB Hurt: 49ers Super Bowl Hopes Plunge,”
screamed the banner headline on the sports page. “I’ll have to remember
that for the football pool,” Joel thought.
Perhaps it was the
Super Bowl reminder that caused Joel’s glance to shift to the little
blue envelope... for it was then that he noticed the line printed
discretely on the envelope just to the left of his name:
“SUPER BOWL WINNER: 100% GUARANTEED. $1.”
Now intrigued, Joel ripped open the envelope. Inside he found only a
very short letter, which, in its entirety, read as follows:
Dear Sir:
The winner of next month’s Super Bowl game is known to me. For the sum
of one American dollar in cash, I will reveal the name to you. If the
team I name does not win, your dollar will be returned within 72 hours
and you will never hear from me again. —Balthazar Balash
Well, as you can imagine, Joel was hooked. “What’s this guy’s gimmick,”
he wondered. “He can’t be making any money at a dollar a clip.” Joel
extracted his wallet, removed a wrinkled one-dollar bill, inserted in
the reply envelope and tossed it in the outgoing mail basket.
Shortly after New Year’s, another little blue envelope arrived at the Adler household. The letter inside read as follows:
The winner of the Super Bowl game will be the San Francisco 49ers. —Balthazar Balash
Of course Joel didn’t believe a word of it. But the office betting pool
was a small one. And even when he pocketed his winnings, following San
Francisco’s dramatic upset victory, he hardly thought about the little
blue envelope.
A few weeks later, the next blue envelope arrived.
Dear Sir:
The
winner of next month’s election for Prime Minister of France is known
to me. For the sum of five American dollars in cash, I will reveal the
name to you. If the candidate I name does not win, your five dollars
will be returned within 72 hours and you will never hear from me again. —Balthazar Balash
Joel had little interest in French politics, but he was sufficiently
intrigued to risk five dollars to see what would happen.
What happened was what the newspapers called “Stunning Upset in French Vote.”
“Boy,” thought Joel to himself, “I could have made a bundle betting on that one. Wonder what’s next.”
Next came a blue envelope guaranteeing the winner of a basketball
playoff game — for $10. Joel made a few side bets at the office, and
then made a pleasant profit when the prediction came true.
After the fourth prediction — for $25 — the surprise winner of a big
mayor’s election — Joel was baffled, confused, and even more intrigued.
He felt the need to talk things over with his old friend Jay Sampson.
“Jay, as a commodity broker, you’re in the prediction business yourself. What do you make of all this?”
The broker puffed on his pipe thoughtfully. “Look, Joel, you know as
well as I that no one can see into the future. It’s just a gimmick of
some kind.”
“Maybe so,” Joel replied, “But you’ve got to admit that four upsets in a row is pretty darn good.”
“Or pretty lucky. I’d like to see this Balash character try to predict something in my racket.”
“Then take a look at this,” said Joel, tossing a blue envelope onto the broker’s desk.
“Fascinating,” said Jay. “For a mere fifty bucks, he will tell you
whether the price of gold will be higher or lower on June first than on
May first. Are you inclined to take the risk?”
“Well, uh, I
already have. Here’s his answer.” The familiar blue sheet had only one
word on it: “Higher.” Joel smiled sheepishly. “I, uh, thought I might
sell that mutual fund on May first and, well, buy some gold.”
The June 1 closing fix on gold in London was $22.50 higher than the May 1 close.
And the next four predictions, which cost the new partnership of Adler
and Sampson $100, $250, $500, and $1,000 respectively, were equally
surprising and equally correct. The two men, who had made quite a bit
of money in investments and side bets, were utterly mystified.
“Look,” said Jay at one of their weekly lunches that fall, “I know I
said I didn’t believe in magic. “But, well look — this Balash has made
nine correct predictions in a row, and at least seven of them were big
surprises. The odds against that are astronomical.”
Joel
readily agreed. “Unexplainable things do happen all the time. I don’t
know if it’s what they call a miracle or what. I just know that I’m
darn well convinced.”
“I’ve got to admit that I am too,” said the broker. “In fact, I can hardly wait for prediction number ten.”
“Then have a look at this,” said Joel. “It came in the morning mail.” The blue sheet read as follows:
Dear Sir:
On
September 27, there is a fight for the WBC heavyweight championship of
the world. The winner is known to me. I will sell you that name for the
sum of one million American dollars in cash. If the fighter I name does
not win, I will refund your one million dollars within 72 hours. —Balthazar Balash
The two men looked at each other long and hard. Then, as one, they
whipped out their pens and started calculating. “If I re-mortgage the
house...” “I’ve had an offer on that land in Hawaii.” “I can put
together a syndicate —- I know Gustafson and Whitman would go for it…”
And so it went. Within a week, the syndicate had been formed. One
million dollars to buy the name of the winner, and four million more to
place the bets discreetly at Las Vegas and London bookmaking parlors.
The huge sum of cash was transmitted, and two weeks before the fight,
the blue envelope came. The syndicate gathered in Jay’s office to open
it. Joel was the first to speak. “It’s Walker,” he shouted. “Walker —-
the four-to-one underdog. That means sixteen million dollars,
gentlemen. Sixteen million dollars!”
Chapter Two Walker lost.
Chapter Three The money was never returned.
Chapter Four Final Report: The Balthazar Balash Case Investigative Unit, Los Angeles Police Department Based
on records found in the apartment abandoned by Balash the day after two
parcels containing $1 million cash each were sent to his Post Office
box, the method used was as follows:
Initially, Balash sent out
enough sales letters to produce at least 1,024 responses. Half of these
customers (512) got a letter predicting that San Francisco would win
the Super bowl. The other 512 got a letter predicting that Cincinnati
would win. When San Francisco won, he used the money sent in by the 512
winners to make refunds to the 512 losers.
Next, for the French
election, he sent one candidate’s name to 256 of his remaining
customers and the other name to the other 256. Again, he paid off the
losers with the money sent by the winners.
Now he had only 256
customers left. 128 got the name of one basketball team, 128, the
other. For the mayor’s election, 64 people were sent each name. For the
gold prediction, 32 people were told “higher” and 32 were told “lower.”
And
so it went, right down the very last prediction, when he had only two
customers left. Each of these customers had been given, by the luck of
the draw, nine correct predictions. They were well and truly hooked. Of
course they didn’t know that there had originally been 1,022 other
clients.
One customer (an Arab oil sheikh) was given one
fighter’s name for a million dollars, and the Adler syndicate was given
the other fighter’s name for another million. The Arab presumably is
quite happy now, and so, we may assume, is Balthazar Balash, who
disappeared with two million dollars in cash, and can almost certainly
never be traced.
Conclusion: In the business of predicting the
future, some people may be quite good indeed —- but there’s no such
thing as a 100% guarantee.
Anyone investing in the advice of predictors is hereby advised to act cautiously.
————————————————————————————
Dear Fellow Investor Now
that I have your attention, I would like to recommend that you very
cautiously make a modest investment in the services of some of the best
investment predictors in the world today.
There is a new,
inexpensive but extremely powerful investment advisory service called,
simply, PREDICTIONS: SPECIFIC INVESTMENT FORECASTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
FROM THE WORLD’S TOP FINANCIAL EXPERTS.
We went to another preseason Ducks game today versus the Phoenix Coyotes. This time, we took my sister and her oldest daughter Doogal (her new nickname apparently). The game was ok, being preseason and all. But they did get to see a shootout! I hope they had a good time even though the Ducks lost. Doogal was in charge of watching Freddie the Red-Eyed Tree Frog for her kindergarden class, so it was a good trip for him too.
Here is a video of Todd Bertuzzi scoring the first shootout goal. Kunitz and McDonald missed the next two.
We went to the Anaheim Ducks game vs the Los Angeles Kings today. Ducks looked a little lethargic, but they were without some players. Went with Cousin Paul and Rob, and Cecilia. Paul was in town for Rob's birthday and leaves to go back to Singapore tomorrow.
Here is a video from the last few minutes of the *sniff* loss.
)
