hot weekend. hot as hell.

Hell of a weekend. Or should I say the weekend was hell.

Friday was, for the most part, horrible. Spent the better part of the day investigating and researching into the Madoff scandal as I have a few clients who had investments with this petty thief. I've been saying for years how something wasn't right with this guy. For starters, in an arena where the technology is never fast enough to get your trades through, this guy was claiming to have the most cutting edge technology to aid in his system. Odd since his 1099's were sent out on handwritten or typed forms and his monthly reporting was done on old dot matrix style printer paper with the perforated edges. I didn't even know they made that shit anymore. Everything was so hush hush over there, only Bernie and his sons know what's going on blah blah blah. The whole thing appeared to be ridiculous and, I guess, those people who have lost it all with him now see that the age old adage is true. "If it looks too good to be true...."

I felt horrible when I learned of the scam , mainly because one of of my best friends and her family took a massive hit as a result. To make matters worse, over the last ten or so years, I've been trying to get my friend's dad to at lease diversify a bit, move some money into treasuries or other investments. He always asked the same thing "in a bad market will I still get 10 to 15%?"

So, when my friend got the call from her dad and the first words out of his mouth were "Floogin was right all along," I felt even worse. Normally, I 'd relish the I told you so moment, sneaking off into a private corner and rubbing one out in celebratory glee but not here, not now. This is horrific. Sure, there are people saying "they were rich, who cares" but the folks who were involved here weren't all rich. They thought they were thanks to what I'm guessing are made up statements, phony documentation and utter horseshit reporting. So, when my cousin's grandfather, who is in his late 80's and had one bank account that held everything, learns that the $75 million dollars he thought he had is actually a big zero, he's got a hell of a problem.

No money to pay the maintenance on his apartment. No money for food. No money for the various endowments he has set and promised to fund for as long as he lives. No inheritence for his kids, grand kids or great grand kids. He went from being the guy they all relied on to begging for handouts in the blink of an eye.

fucking sucks, regardless of your opinion of people with money.

So, that's Friday.

Friday night was my sister's anniversary. 20 years of marriage. Always fun to get the McNoogin clan in one room, locked away from the rest of the restaurant, and see what transpires. I had myself on drink as I like to stay relatively sharp at these things. Better to enjoy the chaos around you than to be a semi-willing participant in the maelstrom.

So, I watched as my younger sister's husband devolved into slurring, mumbling sweaty ass. I watched as the celebratory anniversary bride became a slurring, head lolling, eyes closing mess and I watched and listened as her kids (one 14, one 17) made fun of her drunken behavior.

My wife and I snuck out as soon as we could. Ugly gathering of ugly drunks. If I was a pickpocket or a con man, it might have been more fun.

Saturday I took the kids to get new phones for the apartment. Managed to put a bit too much pressure on the foot/ankle in the process of getting in and out of cabs and the pain was rather bad. I actually resorted to calling the wife and asking where the fuck my pills were. She was fucking carrying them around with her. Brilliant idea, if she were me. Dumb in an epic, biblical manner if she was not me.

She came home, I scored my meds, popped me a perc but it was too late. The pain was not going away.

Went to see The Reader. Ok movie, lots of Kate Winslet flesh scenes. I don't get her. She has the doughiest, flabby looking legs and arms but her wasit and body is fucking stellar. So odd. For some reason, the director of this movie thought she should look as much like Madonna as possible. So the german accent she used in the film made me think of Madonna's faux brit accent, further confusing me. The movie isn't bad. Seriously. A bit too much cock viewing for my taste but catching my own naked reflection in the mirror as I walk out of the shower is a bit too much cock viewing for me. Not that my cock is small. It isn't. Seriously. No, really. It isn't. Massive is more like it. It's like a forearm or something.

Fine, it's small. On the bright side, it's almost new. Rarely used. Maybe that explains the smallness. It's becoming akin to my appendix. Small, shriveled and useless. atrophied organ and all that.

Went to the outlass for a party at their club last night. Food was fair, company was ok. I let the wife drive and her stop and go style of driving made me nauseous. My son puked as soon as he got out of the car and my daughter begged me to drive home. I did.

While there the kids exchanged presents with their cousins. Good stuff. Always fun watching the kids get what they want. Even more fun watching the disappointment of gettting a lame gift. I'm cruel.

As we were loading up the car to head home I picked up the bag of gifts that my wife had left next to the car. She is such a good packer, she managed to fit all the gifts into one big bag.
She even managed to fit the $2000 SLR camera. Of course she didn't tell me this so, when I picked up the bag the camera rolled out and landed lens down. It was in the camera bag so, I figured, minimal damage.

Minimal if you consider a shattered lens filter minimal.

I'm heading to the camera store today to see if the lens is fucked.

Got home after 10. the kids were wired. They wanted to play with their new shit. My son had his face painted like spiderman but he wanted to wear his new extended wing batman cap thing. Paint from his face everywhere. Scratches and scrapes from the wings everywhere.

The weekend must've run me a couple grand between the anniversary gift, dinner and movies saturday, the phones, the shopping we did on saturday and sunday and now, add the likelihood of me needing a new lens for my camera and I might actually top the $3k mark.

fucked.

He runs the risk of being homeless.