I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that one bag of Pop Secret Homestyle microwave popcorn has 15 grams of trans fat. Oh god. It is like eating poison.

This will definitely elevate your risk of coronary heart disease. It is also possible it will increase your risk of cancer, diabetes, liver dysfunction and infertility. Maoxian’s been eating this stuff - even pork rinds are better for you.
However, popcorn (without the added fat) is actually a nutritional, whole-grain snack that is high in complex carbohydrates and fiber. Always read the nutrition facts label.

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

Posting will be light the next few weeks as I am getting married on June 30 and then going on a honeymoon in Italy. I’m taking next week off to get everything organized.
Here is a picture of Sara and I at a friend’s wedding last summer:

Be back in mid-July.

This is an article I originally published in November 2004. I’m reposting it because the recent post about Bobby Fisher reminded me of it.

If you don’t know, a Grandmaster ranking is the highest ranking in chess. It goes in this order: Expert -> Master -> International Master -> Grandmaster.
I am only an expert.
There are currently only a little over 500 grandmasters in the world.
And one of them just head butted a police officer.
I played in a tournament once when a Russian chess master punched another player in the face while they were playing. I was playing my game when suddenly I heard the commotion of pieces being knocked over and some shouting. The guy who was punched screamed “I’ll sue!!”
There is a much higher percentage of insanity among chess players than with the general population. Besides the obvious example, Bobby Fischer, American world champion Paul Morphy also went nuts. Towards the end of his life, he liked to arrange women’s shoes in a half-circle in the middle of the floor. When asked why he did this, he replied “because it looks pretty.”
Former world champion Wilhelm Steinitz believed he could move pieces through mental telepathy and died in an insane asylum.
US Champion and blindfold great Harry Pillsbury died broke and insane.
Blindfold chess was outlawed in Russia because they thought it drove people nuts.
Another great player, Aaron Nimzowitsch, was not completely insane, but he was a bit “given to bizarre behavior.” For example, in the middle of a complicated position once, he went to the corner of the room and stood on his head.
Mexican grandmaster, Carlos Torre, stripped naked on a New York bus. He had the habit of walking around nude and was once picked up for running down Fifth Avenue in New York in the nude. He was addicted to pineapple sundaes and consumed 15 a day.
The Polish master Paulino Frydman represented his country in seven chess olympiads. He liked to clear out hotels by running down the halls in his underwear yelling, “Fire!”
One of the best players of all time, Akiba Rubinstein, had a mental disorder his entire life. His wife warned many potential visitors, “Do not stay long, for if you do stay too long he will leave by way of the window.”
World champion Alexander Alekhine married four times to women 20 to 30 years older than he. He named his cat “chess,” played in chess events completely drunk, and sometimes urinated on the floor at these events.

Did you know that in 1958 Bobby Fischer became the US Chess Champion at age 14? He was only 14 years old and he was better than any other chess player in the US. Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say?
That’s one of the amazing things about chess - in a test of intellect, a child can beat a man.
Even more amazing were his results in the 1971 Candidates matches - competing for a spot in the 1972 World Championship, which he eventually won.
In the candidate matches, the best players in the world compete to decide who will challenge the world champion. Fischer won his first match against Mark Taimanov with a perfect score of 6-0. This is an amazing score. Often, when the best chess players compete with each other, there are many draws. When both players are so good at the game, it is difficult to find an edge and leverage it to a win. Many grandmaster games end in draws. But Fischer completely dominated.
His next match was against Bent Larsen. The previous year Larsen had played first board ahead of Fischer for the Rest of the World team. But Fischer beat him 6-0! That’s 12-0 against the best chess players in the world! He then beat Petrosian 6.5-2.5 to play Spassky.

Another thing that made this time very exciting was that the chess world had been completely dominated by the Russians for decades (and still is). Since 1927, only two world champions had not been from the Soviet Union, and no player from the United States had claimed the title. Then in 1972, during the Cold War, Bobby Fischer rose to beat Spassky.

Fischer’s victory over the Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in the 1972 World Chess Championship not only sparked heightened international interest in chess, but was seen as a symbolic victory for the capitalist West. Particularly in the United States, Spassky was portrayed as the product of an impersonal, mechanical, and oppressive system of state control, while Fischer was depicted as a solitary genius who had heroically overcome the Soviets’ dominance.

What does this hero do now? Well, he has pretty much gone crazy and sometimes goes off on radio broadcasts about how much he hates Jews and the USA.
It’s kind of a depressing end to a very amazing story.
This video shows what he has now become (warning: it is very offensive and not safe for work!):

One thing I’ve noticed that some WallStreak users are doing is just watching one user. Instead of going to the main page, where you see posts by all users (or all users you have not blocked), they are just watching a particular user’s page. For example, they might load Pinoy’s page and they can sit back and the page will automatically update with posts by Pinoytrader, along with his stock watchlist.
What if there are two traders that you would like to watch? Or three?
When you create your account (or after you have created your account by clicking on the “Edit Profile” link), you can select the Whitelist option, which means that only posts of users that you select will be displayed.

To add a user’s posts to your view, just click on the “add user” link in the sidebar:

At any time you can switch back to the regular view (all users you have not blocked) by clicking on the “Edit Profile” link and changing the option back to Blacklist.