Texas Calculatem and Poker Office Blog

I went to look at some woodland with my cheapskate mate today. We were thinking of doing some buy-and-forget investing. Basically, everyone knows there's a shortage of space in the UK, and we therefore thought that some land could be a good investment. So despite the land not having any permission, we hypothesised that in the long term, someone is going to want to knock down the trees and builder over it.

However, the wood was a bit hard to access, on sloping ground, and very densely populated with trees. While we had no intention of purchasing the woodland with the aim of actualy clearing the land ourselves, we didn't think other punters would be keen on the idea either. However, we did meet a nice placid horse (see picture above), and the kind owner showed around the place explaining the pros and cons of the situation.

The trading world has been pretty tough in the past week. Barclays Bank put in a bid for ABN Amro, Norway's biggest bank. This caused my arbitrage relationships to stretch in scary ways, as ABN Amro's share price rocketed over 8%, and the fundamentals therefore changed.

On Wednesday, the FOMC failed to use the word "tentative" in their statement, and that led to some big moves after the European markets had closed.

While I managed to sidestep the unforeseen volatility, it wasn't a fun week!

In terms of Poker, I didn't bother going to a home game last night. Instead, one of my buddies cooked me some chilli and rice. It was good shit. Though she cheekily used a packet instead of mixing the spices herself. My brother has just signed up with PKR, that 3D poker site. PKR also sent me a letter offering me a $250 match deposit bonus if I made a deposit. However, I'm still not feeling the love from the cards. I think I should stay away until I feel more motivated again.