Generally speaking, I’m most-of-the-time okay with Michael Rothstein’s writing at his “Irish Insights” blog.  While not the most prolific/inspiring writer, he gets some good stories at times.  And while he loooooves to cover the mundane during the off-season, so do we, so we can’t knock him for it.

But, Mike, seriously, you can’t call out Tim Brown for his ‘poor’ stock picks one freaking week after he picked them!  That’s just not how the analysis of financial instruments works.  Ever read “Random Walk”?  No?  Shocking. 

I know you like to cover any and everything ND, and Tim Brown’s foray into picking stocks is kind of a fun story.  But please, please please leave the commentary on the quality of those stock picks to people who actually know a tiny little bit about stock valuation, PE ratios, DCF, etc.  Because 1) It’s unfair to Tim and 2) It makes you look a bit foolish.

So just a public service announcement so folks don’t necessarily write Mr. Brown off this early.  Maybe he’s great, maybe he’s terrible.  But one week means nothing.

PS – Your assertion that it’s harder to make money on stocks in a poor economy shows just how much you have to learn.  You may want to hit up Mr. Brown and get some lessons on Shorts, Straddles and general Value strategy.

PPS – Yes, I’m a finance nerd. 

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During my time at Notre Dame, the South Dining Hall’s kitchens were closed for renovation. Note that I wrote “kitchens.” That’s because the dining halls themselves were not closed. They were just left opened to provide students who didn’t want to trek across campus in the freezing February nights to North Dining Hall with a dining “option.” And, really, the only “option” available was Hot Pockets.

That particular year, I ate a lot of Hot Pockets, and I’m pretty sure whatever rare form of cancer eventually kills me can be traced back to my Hot Pockets diet of the late ’90s. Hot Pockets are, after all, the asbestos of the culinary world.

My favorite Hot Pocket was the “Philly Cheese Hot Pocket;” a cleverly named amalgam of processed cheese stuff, “meat parts,” and mushrooms wrapped in what I’m pretty sure is the result of a recycling process for previously recycled coffee cups. Hot Pockets were the only food I’ve willingly eaten to include mushrooms because the quality of the meat parts was so bad that I was never sure if I was eating mushroom or meat part. The plasma-like form that the innards of a Hot Pocket took on after 30 seconds in the industrialized microwaves of the South Dining Hall made any such distinctions impossible anyway.

I bring all this up because it’s the off-season, I just ran across this video on Serious Eats, and it made me oddly nostalgic for Notre Dame.

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