”Look man, remember when there were no seatbelts? What happened then when you crashed?”

“My point is, life is like that car! Sometimes it throws you through the windshield, cracks your skull wide open, even breaks your heart! But you can’t let that stop you from getting back in there! Ride, Billy. RIDE!”

”The problems are in here [referring to the head]; the opportunities are out there.” - Herbert H. Dow, founder of Dow Chemical

You hear it all the time that there are a million ways to make a buck, especially in our industry. It is, in fact, a beautiful thing how many possibilities there are. This book is about ten of those possibilities, and it is written by asset manager and Forbes columnist Ken Fisher, a gentleman who really does believe every single one of us could be rich once we really set our minds to it—a refreshing dose of optimism indeed!

Few things make ITF’s blood boil more than a shoddily-constructed, inconsistent, poorly-explained “best of” list. You should have heard my reaction to Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists List, or 500 Greatest Songs list (or really, any list put out by them). You’re honestly left wondering, “What were they thinking?”

Before going any further dear monkeys, I’m well aware that our media is not to be trusted with anything, let alone something as important as a Top 15 list of the World’s Best Beer. But see it and weep, ladies and gentlemen: http://www.cnbc.com/id/46327587

I haven’t watched a non-007 movie in almost a year, and over the weekend I finally broke that streak by watching “Dirty Harry” and “Magnum Force.”

Needless to say, the movies had an effect other than making me wish that I was a cop working in 1970s San Francisco. Dirty Harry extols the virtue of playing by your own rules, even if it means clashing with your superiors (granted, Detective Callahan’s boss was a crook too, so that makes it a bit easier). As Dirty Harry says many times, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”

But limitations are exactly what most of our educational backgrounds seem to be forcing on us, as James Altucher writes in this old blog post of his: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/03/unschool-your...

“You know, In The Flesh,” a WSO monkey told me at a recent Happy Hour, “that gentleman’s book is the real deal. I ordered that shit on Amazon as soon as I read your review. It’s so right, man. I want to be like that: keep my word, honor my commitments, be respectful and all that. I’m turning over a new leaf because of it.”

He was referring to this: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/how-to-be-a-ge...

I felt it appropriate to revisit this topic today, because judging from the behavior on some recent threads, the aforementioned monkey above is the exception, not the rule. Specifically, these two threads, in which the ladies of WSO acted more gentlemanly than most of the “men”:

When and if the weather ever decides to warm up here in the Northeast, people will discuss how stupid we are to think that the cycles of nature will play by our calendar rules just because we arbitrarily say they should.

It’s the same thing with markets. Every year millions of suckers decide that arbitrary, meaningless calendar timing holds more weight than fundamentals or technical analysis. And none of these is more prominent, or more stupid, than “Sell in May and go away.”

Forget the fact that no one seems to agree upon exactly when to sell in May. Is it on May 1st? May 15th? Noon on May 23rd?

I remember the first time I tried to buy beer on a Sunday in Connecticut. It was quite a shock for me, reading a sign proclaiming the illegality of such a ghastly practice. How dare I try to buy booze on the Sabbath! I had to drive into Westchester County to get it.

And imagine my surprise when I found out about New Hampshire. For a state with the motto “Live Free or Die,” you’d think it would be a no-brainer to let people be free to drink past 1am.

(Updated by ITF after a good strong drink, 4/22/2013)

Whether it’s your first time at one of these events or you just need a refresher on the rules of etiquette, these are the “best practices” for WSO Happy Hours to ensure maximum enjoyment. Bear in mind that these are social events and should be treated as such. You will hopefully meet and talk shop with many of your fellow monkeys, but this is NOT a pure networking event in the traditional sense.

That being said, some of your fellow simians and I have collated the following WSO Happy Hour Best Practices:

1. Thou shall make every reasonable attempt to attend said happy hours, provided that thou hast attaindst the twenty-first year of thine age.

Some of you may remember my first post of 2013, in which I talked about my new year’s resolution: the launch of headofmetal.com, the most accessible heavy metal resource on the web: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/itfs-new-years...

Since then, it’s been an absolute flurry of activity as I write content, learn all about how to use services like Launchrock, 99designs, Vistaprint for business cards, and Wordpress. What I noticed though, was just how often I kept pushing back the launch date to keep tinkering with things behind the scenes.

“You gotta fail fast, bro,” our own Edmundo Braverman advised me. “Silicon Valley speak. Just get it live, get it out there—it won’t be perfect, but it’s better to just fix things as they come up rather than tinker with it forever.” Chief Monkey Patrick, who has kindly offered his suggestions for this since day one, was in agreement.

It's that time again--WSO Happy Hour time! NYC Chairs In The Flesh and guerrillagrrl will be in attendance, and all are welcome. ITF will be around to celebrate and answer questions about his new website, headofmetal.com, a passion project that he is especially excited about—WSO metalheads are especially welcome!

Join us at our old standby pub, the Galway Hooker, located on 36th Street between 5th and Madison, to meet your fellow simians and down some food and drink. 21+ only, please; mention WallStreetOasis.com at the door, and you'll be directed to the pub room (ground floor, all the way in the back).