Portland: Beware The Macbook Liberator!

Portland has a new superhero (or will if he ever gets enough liquid courage...): The MacBook Liberator!

I spend a lot of time in coffeehouses because, for a two-dollar house coffee (the drinking of which -- instead of some whipped-creamed, chocolated, cinnamoned espresso drink -- causes the staff and patrons to look down on me as the cheap-ass I am) I can sit in air-conditioned comfort for more than a few hours and read and write (laboriously, by hand) what become blog posts like this one.

During these many coffeehouse visits, I meet or am forced to overhear (loud-talkers of the world, spontaneously and unanimously combust!) people with MacBooks prattle on... usually on Portlanders' favorite topic: how to make more money.

Unfortunately -- for the would-be entrepreneurs, anyway -- the vast percent of their ideas never will come to fruition and make them the degree of rich they believe they're so richly entitled to because their ideas are mostly the recycled ideas of others. Therefore, they often take the form: "Yadda yadda is blowing up in This Other City... How can I make it work in Portland?"

I would have thought such a person would have considered that the person with the original idea either has, indeed, made it work in Portland, or come to the conclusion that it would not work.

In either case, ripping someone off in a lucrative way isn't going to make one rich. It's going to make one get sued. Hard.

And sometimes ideas I overhear (despite my deep desire not to) or am presented with an idea of this form: "OK, how about This Stupid Idea? ... Yeah, I guess it'd be years before I saw money from that, if ever. ... But isn't it kicking ass in This Other City?"

Of course, what truly enrages me is that many of these people have MacBooks! One of the devices I've coveted, and therefore feel entitled to, since its inception!

These mongers of bad ideas need to be put on notice: Continue speak-yelling your mouth-diarrhea, and you are apt to lose the privilege of MacBook ownership.

...I can take a cacophony of stupid-speak from a PC-owner, but not a shouldn't-be Mac person any longer! Order must be foisted on this city!

...Just pay some attention to Apple's commercials, Portland: Macs are for cool people, not pretentious, business-minded assholes whose best ideas consist of recycling other peoples' bad ideas!

For the love of the gods, people, Microsoft recycles or buys out other peoples' and companies' bad ideas! It's their goddam business model! Therefore, according to Apple's commercials, your word-vomit -- by definition -- makes you a John Hodgman... er, PC!

So surrender your Mac, citizen, and get yourself a netbook until you're cool enough for a MacBook (like I am)!

PS: Today's MacBook owner, who should be safely out of my hearing's range, just said something about "the twitter stream"! That's not Mac-person talk!

...If this place served booze, and the above guy stuck around long enough for me to down about ten vodka-OJs, The MacBook Liberator would strike in the name of justice and holy self-interest!

Someone in this depraved city has to bring order among the notebook/laptop-owning community. And one day, Portland, The MacBook Liberator is going to get drunk enough to do just that!

So fear for your MacBooks, poorly costumed should-be PC people. Calvin Bandini/The Fibromyalgian is heading to the Low Brow Lounge Friday. Should he dive deep enough into a bottle of vodka, no MacBook shall be safe!

Bwaa-ha-ha!

Mixx it!

INVEST THE FIBROMYALGIAN'S WAY!*

L. Ron Hubbard received holy wisdom through mental disease, amphetamines and pederasty, and was told when to give up writing sci-fi by the plurality of the voices in his head and to, instead, found a religion.

Let it be known: Lt. Ronald Hubbard certainly didn't give up sci-fi and go on to Dianetics, etc because (paraphrase): The real money is in religion.

Nope.

Now I have been called in a way I didn't expect!: To tell you what stocks to buy!

Sadly, my epiphany doesn't involve an intergalactic opera and nuclear bombs inside volcanoes.

But from here on THE FIBROMYALGIAN will also function, occasionally, as a Here's What to Invest in Right Now! blog.

BUY BUY BUY!:

Apple! I just did, and if everyone who reads this (you, boyo!) does too, we'll send the stock up perhaps a fraction of a small fraction. Guaranteed green, blogfriends!**

But, given my extremely limited resources (all my money belongs to debtors), why would I buy Apple? Why now?

Good questions. Thanks for getting right to it.

I am making Apple a short play -- which I think means that I bought some of its stock, but plan on selling my purchase off rather soon.

Why? Glad you asked!

On September 9 Apple is likely going to announce a revamp of its entire iPod lineup, and the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

...As long as we're doing this, let's toss some completely unsubstantiated rumors around: Apple may be making all its notebooks with touchscreens, so the interface will function much like the iPhone's.

Closer to reality, perhaps, is the possibility that the Mac Mini could bow out and a Mac tablet take its place. ...Many people keep rumors going about this possibility, but forget that they wouldn't buy a tablet PC -- even if it is as sweet as an iPhone on 'roids.

Tablet PCs have been around forever. (Remember the Newton!) They don't get bought. But reading all the rumors re a Mac tablet certainly gives one the impression that there's an untapped market waiting at the gates for the doors to be flung open.

Nope.

[In this space is this sentence instead of a few paragraphs that were deleted for posterity.]

Short: Big product rollout September 9. If you need money for the short term, as I do, buy as many slices of Apple as you can about one half-hour after trading opens (things are cheap around ten a.m. for as much reason as exists in the stock market) tomorrow (use a cheap service like Scottrade or something such).

Then hold tight for just a few weeks or so until Apple announces its financials in its fourth-quarter earnings statement.

Apple sold the hell out of the iPhone 3G in that (this) quarter. Despite issues/flaws/whatever, the iPhone 3G remains an unattainable must-have.

Primarily for this reason, listen in to Apple's 4Q go-round with the analysts, hope that everything any analyst has to say is positive and that you hear "exceeding expected earnings for the quarter by..." as often as possible.

M-kay. That's this edition of THE FIBROMYALGIAN INVESTOR.

Expect more amazing advice and insight in the future.

(But please be aware that the advice given in this and any post on THE FIBROMYALGIAN is not to be construed in any way as advice. --Nothing written is meant to motivate you to do anything, no statement demanding or suggesting you should do something or any thing demands or suggests that you actually do do something or any thing.

(I think this should catch all: This blog post is for entertainment purposes only. The author of this blog expects that the reader will live his/her life after reading the post just as if he/she never read the post.

*The title of this post is in no way meant to suggest that you should "invest the Fibromyalgian's way."

**Any guarantees or promises ever made by C.Bandini are neither. Bandini bears no responsibility for anything -- and that would include washing himself if he had the money to pay someone to do that for him.

Mixx it!