Stocks take a turn for the worse as investors scoff at the Fed’s decision to step in yet again, this time adding $3 bln in temporary reserves. At $35 bln (the sum of the first two repos), the Fed had already stepped in more aggressively than its actions following the 9/11 attacks to calm a nervous market.

Since a third injection is unprecedented, as such infusions typically only occur during a crisis, investors are again left wondering just how bad the subprime situation is and questioning whether or not an emergency rate cut would even be enough to avert a possible true credit crunch.

I’ve seen Jim Cramer go asplodey before, and mostly I just generally find him entertaining rather than taking his advice seriously at all, but he really went AWOL on CNBC about this same issue recently.

My assessors evaluation this year showed that my place has lost value, homes in the area are now selling for about 10-15% less than I paid four years ago, and many houses have gone to into foreclosure in this area. I’m still waiting to see what prices the homes that recently sold in a foreclosure auction went for wondering how much they will bring the value of my place down. I do somewhat regret buying a place when I was so young, but maybe it’s better in the long run to learn this lesson on a relatively inexpensive piece of property with a standard 30 year loan.

It didn’t quite go as planned as there was a problem during the second stage, however given that it took the Atlas program 12 tries for a successful launch into space, SpaceX seems to be well on their way.

More coverage and video of the launch:

• Space Flight Now
• SpaceX Updates
• Launch Video
• Kwaj Rockets

On a related note, Henry Rollins rants about the current religious movements in the US, and although his round-about presentation could have been better, he drops enough f-bombs to make me happy.

Or they might get angry and gang up on you.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture an angry Seagull on video, but damn are they loud…

I knew something about the show seemed oddly famillar, but I finally put the pieces together in the “gay” episode when they shot a scene at Fontano’s (an old lunch haunt of mine) and during the same scene an RTD bus went by (and you can also see the Chipolte behind them, which is on the other side of Fontano’s). Following that scene, they also film something similar at the Magnolia Hotel.

I also noticed that a few scenes from Trigger Happy TV were filmed in Denver as well (links to typical Trigger fodder for your viewing pleasure here, here and here).

I got home at about 1 and was totally exhausted.. I just might be getting too old for this shit. :O

If you’re of curious mind and get tired of watching 800 commercials for 2 minutes of light content, I’d highly recommend checking it out. You can also stream it from their website, as well as watch old shows. I’d say it’s sort of a cross between PBS and C-Span for sci-tech really, but probably very dry if you never found yourself enjoying any college lectures.

Seems like I’ve been on a bit of a streak for seeing live shows, though I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to post about them. In early March I saw the live version of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party which was as good as expected. It was very laid-back, Dave had plenty of new stuff to talk about (this was the second time I’ve seen him live), and Erykah Badu was /amazing/. I think she needs to have my babies– what a beautiful, soulful woman. I’d love to see her do a full concert and plan on trying to catch her the next time she’s in town.

In mid-March I went to see P.O.S. at the Larimer Lounge. I originally saw P.O.S. perform as one of the openers for Atmosphere and was /very/ impressed… in fact I think it’s the first time I’ve ever bought a CD at a concert, and I’ve seen quite a lot of shows over the years. P.O.S. is basically a punk artist turned indie hip-hop, and both his production and lyrics are pretty amazing. I’m sure if he got much mainstream exposure his material would be quite a bit more popular.

It was my first time at the Larimer Lounge (I was supposed to see Wesley Willis there, but unfortunately he passed away before that concert happened) which was kind of interesting. Basically the front area is a small bar where you can drink, and a very small and short area where the stage is at. You can’t take drinks out of the bar, and I think the place holds around 335 people. Kind of interesting, and I’m sure I’ll end-up going back (Murs was there recently, but I was sick that day).

On St. Patricks Day I saw Dave Attell at Comedy Works. We ended-up with seats maybe 3-4 rows back and had a blast. Dave was on fire and brought-out a lot of material which even seemed risque for him. I’m paraphrasing here, but one of my favorite lines from the evening was something along the lines of:

Oh yeah, I love children, I message them on the internet all the time. “Hey Sarah, do you have a webcam?”

April didn’t really present itself with many concerts, though I did go see The Second City: Red Scare and a Rockies game as well. Red Scare was great– admittedly I’m not necessarily someone who frequents the theatre, but this production was right-up my alley. According to my friend Molly who hooked me up with free tickets (thanks!), I was within the target demographic for the show; young, politically aware, and someone who normally doesn’t go to the theatre. Basically it’s a biting improv performance which covers many current political and social issues such as race, politics, Dubya, the environment, sex, etc, all without holding any punches. I was pretty floored that they actually cursed quite a bit (who doesn’t enjoy a f-bomb?), and I had a great time. It’s only running through the 21st of this month, and I highly recommend checking it out if you’re not easily offended and have an active interest in what’s going on in the world.

The only other show on the horizon that I have tickets for is The Roots at the Fox Theater. Should be a good time. Oh, I guess I did also check-out Body Worlds 2 a couple of weeks back.

My Operating Systems Theory class also started picking-up in April, and I had a great time learning about the initmate internal details about FreeBSD, threading, locking, paging, process scheduling, pooling, and all of the other fun geeky stuff that goes with the intimate details of an Operating System. Unfortunately in the middle of my research paper about FreeBSD I got pretty sick for a couple of weeks and am just now starting to tread water again. My last couple of classes have been soul killers, so I decided to take the next 8 weeks off from school to recharge and take care of some things which have slipped during me being busy with school.

On a related note, I officially scheduled my Summer vacation today for the first week of August. I’ll be heading to the Pacific Northwest with Lindsey to visit Seattle, Portland, and perhaps Vancouver. So far the agenda is to catch a Portland Beavers game (an AAA affiliate of the San Diego Padres), where my High School friend and former neighbor Mike Thompson from High School is a starting pitcher, visiting Archie McPhee, and enjoying the awesome hotel we’re staying at in Seattle (thanks to Lindsey’s work discounts), but I’m sure more will be on the plate before we leave.

I’ll also be heading to Kansas City in a few weeks for a wedding which should be a blast. I’ll be doing a road trip there with my best friend from High School for another good friend’s wedding. I need to remember to find at least one or two BBQ places to try and eat at while I’m there…

Whew, this ended-up being a much longer post than I anticipated.

LOS ANGELES — John Spencer, an Emmy-winning original cast member of NBC’s The West Wing, died suddenly Friday morning of a heart attack, according to a statement released by his publicist.

Spencer, four days short of his 59th birthday, is best known to viewers as Leo McGarry, the chief of staff to West Wing President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen). This season, McGarry was the vice presidential running mate for Democratic nominee Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits).

In a sad bit of irony, he almost “died” on the show last season due to heart problems. I’m only familliar with him for his work on The West Wing, but it’s one of but a handful or less of shows I watch regularly. I had no idea he was on LA Law, but I was pretty young when that show was on the air and don’t remember it that well to be honest.