I have gone away from Marasco as suggested even though I think it will probably win. My hopes are pinned to Rampant Lion in the wet at Eagle Farm. GO THE LION in 3 minutes.

———-

Three words for you

Rampant Freakin DONKEY!!!!!!!

Its time to discuss the American tradition of the tip. A stupider custom I have not come across. Why should I be forced to pay for a service then pay the person who provided me that service more money? It defies logic.

Some of you out there will say I am a tight arse. On the contrary, I have no problem paying people something extra if I think they have done a real good job. But to pay some niff nuff who could barely raise the effort to bring me a beer at more than hour intervals more money because society says I must is a crock of crap.

That’s here in Australia anyway, we have the right to choose. But

If you live in the land of the free you are expected to pay said niff nuff no matter what. The worst part about the whole situation is that you find yourself being forced to carry around horrendous amounts of $1 and $5 dollar bills just to be able to cover this duty. The other tremendous decision made by the Americans was to have all of their folding currency in the same colour. Its always exciting to realise that you have tipped some bloke $20 to open a door for you and you only have $1 left to tip the bloke who cleans your car.

But a little reward for you Captain America, when you visit the land of spent arrows you are free to skip the tip when and where you like. In fact if you are so inclined and think the service has been fairly average darts, I would appreciate it if you would tip in used toilet paper. The paper that just keeps on giving.

If you are actually interested in what the etiquette tip is for a particular service when you visit the US the following page will provide some insight into this for you. I for one am not sure how these people can afford to live with all the tipping they do. The tip seems to be the grease that keeps the whole machine moving.

tipping etiquette

Anyone with any 3rd leg suggestions for the 16LAUMDC feel free to let me know.

Here is a prime example of a company who’s share price is reacting to nothing but hype. For those unaware of what Fortescue is then here is a brief overview. Fortescue Metals Group Limited (FMG, formerly Allied Mining & Processing Limited) is a minerals exploration and development company with interests primarily in iron ore in Western Australia. The company is mainly focused on the development of the Pilbara Iron Ore Project.

Here are some facts about this company that is responsible for the ‘all of a sudden’ Australia’s richest man Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.

Their share price has risen as high as $60.20 yet they have turned a profit only once in the past 10 years.

The company will ship its first ore load next week.

Long term debt is 2.6 billion dollars while shareholder equity is 497million dollars. That’s a fairly large loan these kids have to pay, especially with these increasing interest rates tsk tsk.

The current years forecast is for a loss of -836 million dollars.

The 2009 estimated forecast is for a profit of 1.03 billion dollars.

If these two years come together ‘as estimated’ we are set for a return of 194 million dollars for the two year period. Based on $10 share price you are looking a massive earnings yield of 0.7%. hmmmm that doesn’t sound that good from here but someone out there thinks this is awesome. I find it amazing that the market at any stage thought the company was worth 60 something dollars per share. Anyone who tries to tell you that the company is worth that is just plain stupid. Or on crack, as I suspect a large percentage of the financial investment corporate world (or helpers) is.

Even at $10 it seems risky given the possible events that can occur between now and an ‘estimated’ return.

Cool your heels lads, a more stable buy opportunity will arise down the track. In the mean time Twiggy is either going to sell all he can and secure his billions or hope he can live on the few million dollars worth of shares he has already sold.

In other news Bondy is BACK!!!

FFS every sook and his poodle is having a whinge about the price of fuel. There is even more pressure being put on the government to lower the taxes on fuel. In my opinion that really won’t do anything other than increase taxes somewhere else. The money the government makes and we as citizens get from the existing fuel taxes is huge.

Some say that Australia has none of its own oil, which is forcing us to rely on the supply of oil from other countries. I personally believe Australia has a large capacity of oil, it is just not readily accessible at the moment.

In the mean time we have large gas reserves that are producing copious amounts of gas. And if you read the annual reports of gas producing companies development in this respect continues at exponential rates.

Luckily for me I don’t own a car so I have reason to complain. But, I know if I did own a car it would run on LPG. I just don’t understand why more of the population haven’t gone this way, especially when buying a new car. Yes it’s a bit more fiddly when filling up, you do lose some horsepower but you save money BIG TIME!!!!!

Here are the list of current solutions to the problem as I see it.

1. Pay the full $1.60 per litre
2. Get Coles shopper dockets and pay $1.57 per litre. While losing that in the store.
3. Start riding a bike, walking or jogging
4. Catch a bus
5. Stay home
6. Get LPG fitted to your car and giggle all the way to the bank
7. Bitch and moan about the government

If I could wager the third leg of the 16 leg all up million dollar challenge on any of the above it would obviously be on item 7.

I have decided to take the plunge into the flat panel screen television world. The pricing seems to be simular for both and I think I should go for the HD 1080 stuff that is the latest and greatest talk.

I understand that each type of TV is better for certain types of viewing so here is a list of gear I like.

Car racing
Horse racing
Football
Combat sports
Normal TV shows and movie.

I will also be playing a game console through the unit so I through myself at your mercy and ask

What is the better TV for me?

Any experiences or advice you can provide will be appreciated.

I have decided to have a crack at Apache Cat for leg two of the 16 leg all up million dollar challenge.

Apache Cat $2.20 x $35.30 = $77.40

GO THE CAT!!!!!

Ok you bunch of soft little men. Its time once again, for a great afternoon of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. UFC 84 has a fairly well stacked card that should be chock full of some action packed wrestling, jujitsu and kick boxing.

The UFC really know how to put on a great show and there website for each event is tremendous. I highly recommend you experience it as follows.

http://84.ufc.com/

The main three fights as follows.

Lightweight Championship bout: B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk

Plenty of bad blood between these two. Sherk was stripped of the lightweight title after having tested positive for steroids, an accusation he denies to this day. B J Penn won the title in an absolute blood-o-rama against Joe Stevens. After the fight B J stood in the middle of the Octagon, licked his blood covered gloves and told everyone that Sherk was a dirty rotten drug cheat and there is no way he could win.

I have a feeling B J will win via submission or referee stoppage. There is a strong chance that if caught Sherk will refuse to TAP!!!

Light Heavyweight bout: Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida

A loss for former light heavyweight champion Ortiz means probably the end of his UFC career. He faces a tough opponent in Machida who is undefeated and has been absolutely untroubled in any of his UFC fights. The result of this fight means big changes to the light heavyweight division.

Tito to ground out a victory.

Light Heavyweight bout: Wanderlei Silva vs. Keith Jardine

An absolute stand up slugfest. This fight will be worth the price of admission alone. I predict pain and a fair bit of blood…. Can’t wait.

Jardine in a blood bath.