My brother lives in the distant MD suburbs of DC, and works in the district, but he hasn't been complaining about the price of gas. SW CT has some of the highest gasoline prices in the country, not only do the oil companies practice a cartel-like policy called "zone pricing", which is basically let's all agree to charge more where average income is higher, but CT has the highest state taxes on gasoline in the US.

OTOH, I'm sure our European friends are laughing about our complaints. I've been hearing that gasoline in Europe is around US$9.00 per gallon =8^(

But I have to admit the commute is great!

(belated) Congratulations on breaking the H$300,000 mark, Steph!

Here's looking at you ;-)

steph, what's up? I finally have a weekend that appears devoid of any need to work (at my job that is), so I thought I'd shout out to some of my neglected HD friends. I think even my co-worker, ltmod, is taking the entire weekend off, and he's more of a workaholic than I am. He has a long commute, and now that we have $4.00+ gasoline in our area he's buying a super-duper 3-wheeled scooter for commuting. I'm lucky enough to live within a few miles of the office so I'll keep my BMW 3-Series 8^)

WOW Steph, you are sooooooo awesome!!! I just now topped $70,072... WOOOT! But then I come over here and Steph is TRASHING ME!!! You are $338,634! Wow!!! You rock! Got any inside tips for an old friend? lol ;-P ... Congrats on your amazing rise to super wealth :-)

Yes, you, I had dropped to 290K when I wrote that. I have way too much H$ tied up in the Hillary NOT dropping and Obama wining the nomination markets. There was a HUGE sell-off of Hillary NOT dropping last night when the Drudgereport announced Obama as the nominee. That dropped me to 285K. Then today Obama markets rose significantly pushing me back up to 300K. Then this evening someone made a public 8000 prediction on Hillary NOT dropping.

At the time of this comment I'm back up to 305K (14K behind you) but if this volatility continues I'll be flying up and down.

Lesson learned: DIVERSIFY... but I probably won't... the ups and downs are FUN

Anyway, congratulations on your very stable 319K :-)

Congratulations on catching, passing, and soundly smashing me :-)

It's to DOW day-trading that has been kickin' me.

Hey Steph,

Okay, I see that you are up $5,800+ bucks today, well, I am down over $6,000+ bucks, haha, I am sucking sooo bad all of a sudden :-P Seriously, I topped $31k last night and now less than 24 hrs later, I am at $23k :-/

lucidstates

no tricks this time.
had picked New York/New Jersey for most goals in Stanley Cup Playoffs, that's all.

Hey Steph,

I'm H$53 away from hitting $30,000!!! Woooooot :-D ... I'm exited, just wanted to let you know the good news! Wow what a week its been!

lucidstates

Hey Steph,

I love the smiley btw, instead of your name, hehe, that's cute :-D

Man, I was doing great :-) For like 24 hours I was #1 on the "Weekly Leaderboard", then all of a sudden, within the next 36 hours or so, I get passed up by not one, not two, but 4 other people! Cursesssssss :-P Hahahaha, so now I am at #5 this week and we aren't even half way thru, so by Saturday, I should be outta the top 10 easy, hehehe :-P
Good job on your rebounding as of late, even if you have taken a one day breather, I am sure you'll be at $300k plus within a few weeks :-)

lucidstates
P.S. Here's a tip, if you bet on ALL my questions, with at least $777 each, it will make you rich. I am serious, just try it and if I'm wrong, then you can sue me for all of my $26k HubDub bucks, but if I'm right, then you will be richer then your wildest HubDub dreams :-D ... Tempting huh? Yup, I thought so ;-)

Steph,

You've been on a freakin' tear! Good job!!! Up 33%+ last week? NICE turnaround :-P I was up too, a whopping 2% hahahaha :-P

lucidstates

Steph,

I just jumped above $20k For The First Time Ever! :-D Wooohooooo :-D ... Now, if I lose on this one trade, then I will be knocked back to $15k, hahaha, But it is looking sooooo good and I stand at $21,336 with a potential, if the bet works out, I'll be near $23,500 :-D WOW, I am sooooo thrilled :-D ... I just had to share with someone and you seemed like the perfect one for it :-D

lucidstates

Steph,

I have bad indigestion man! I just ate fried chicken and Frosted Mini Wheats and now I feel awful! ...... Just thought I'd pass that on :-P Hehe :-D

lucidstates

Nope..I just seem to be losing more and more

http://getsatisfaction.com/hubdub/topics/give_us_some_hubdub_love

I have no idea myself either. many of those us artists aren't known over here and if they are, they don't make the music I personally prefer. I am no lover of chart music myself to be honest. :-P

hehe, you don't like today's pop charts? what'd you like more?

Hey, you are also #2 on my friends leaderboard this week! ... Good Job, by us a round of drinks this week and next, I will buy you a round, I totally promise *if I win*

You paying? Course LET'S PARTY!!!!! ... Hehehe, I am down $2k this week :-( ... I think you are jinxin' me or something, haha :-P

I have a hot tip! ... Okay, so I don't :-D

Congrats on making your money back :-D

lucidstates

Sure Sure, excuses excuses! ... You know that I am a $500k player just on a temp $18k budget, hahahahaha :-P ... Okay, so maybe not, but yeah, we'll see how many weeks I can keep up this pace and how many weekends you can keep up your pace :-D ... Do not worry if you keep this pace, I won't mock you or anything, I will actually root you on! Goooo Steph Goooo, in the direction you are currently going, teehee :-P

Okay, I am not mean, just playing, so actually, I hope you do really well, cause I don't wanna catch up at your expense, that's not cool, I just wanna gain like 25% a week and eventually I'll catch ya, I hope anyway :-)
BTWm what did cost you $25k this weekend? Just wondering, cause for me last 2 weekends it's been bad bets on Movies Box Office returns.

Cheerio and see ya later,

lucidstates

Haha, I spelled your instead of you :-P

Hey Steph,

Just wanted to update you and remind your to keep an eye on your rearview mirror :-P

I am up like $4k this week, WOOT! So I did a recalculation and found an astonishing thing! You are now 11.25260122699 TIMES richer then I am :-D
So even though this is like comparing Bill Gates to the Starbucks Barista, it still does make me feel a little better about our utterly unequal standing :-P

So yeah, I am happy with my weekly returns, now if I can just keep it up, I might catch you before Bush leaves office, teehee :-D

lucidstates

Hey Steph,

Are you broken down or something?
Need a tow?
Inquiring minds would like to know!

A Lame HubPoem
by AAA 8^)

Great news Steph;
http://getsatisfaction.com/hubdub/topics/result_of_the_vote

Thank you.... Thank you all...... No really, thank you...... Please sit, hehe...... Thank you........ Seriously you can all, thank you, you can all sit now..... thank you........*waves and blushes* ...... This is too much..... thank you all soooo much *blows kisses as the girls start screaming*

**Crowd starts a rumble and chanting**

LUCID! ... LUCID!! ... LUCID!!!

Thank you soo much, I'd like to say...............

Okay, so I'm NOT that popular :-P

But thank you for the umm, seemingly genuine thank you and all that, I can tell you TRULY meant it and it means soooo much to me that you were NOT mocking me, hahahahaha, uhh-hmmmmm ...

crickets chirping??? Are you suggesting something here? ... Listen little missy, this strike was a fight! A scrap! A nail biter! Or a total waste of time, hehe, I don't know yet :-P

But thank you nevertheless for always being there for me, even if you never even offered me a blanket or a coffee :-( ... Your words were enough to get me through the loooong blustery nights :-P

Okay seriously now ... Give me some of yer money if you care about my efforts soooo much :-D ... No, do not worry, I won't say no, I am a very grateful recipient of charity :-D ......... Okay, I can see that look on your face, it ISN'T THAT ridiculous of a request, oops I meant, an option now is it?
Hey, I'd be plenty happy with just an hourly wage for my efforts. .... That sound good to you?
Awesome! Glad you agree with me. So lemme see....... *pulls out calculator* That's 72 hours * $14.50/hour = $1,044 + Overtime and Weekend Rate adds 24.8% to the total now equals = $252.91 additional, but hey, I was outside in the cold, so lets just round that to $300 ..... And yep, okay, you owe me $1,344.00
I have paypal or you can just send me cash :-D

I'll be waiting.........

lucidstates

Hey Steph,

Hehehe, you called me Lu, hahahaha 8) Never had anyone do that before :-P ... Just don't start callin' me Lulu, or we WILL have a serious malfunction at the junction!!! ... So you wanna run my account huh? You never answered whether that'd be crossing the picket lines or not.... Hmmm, you wouldn't be setting me up, rigghhtt??? **Looks at you suspiciously**

Hehe, okay, I am no longer on strike, cause the admins chose for us to VOTE on Satyaki's penalty, and so I did, I sent Nigel my vote via email to KICK SATYAKI OFF OF HUBDUB ISLAND!!! ... So, I think that settles that :-D

So lemme see where we're at ............ WOW, you're kicking my butt since I went on strike! How un-lady like of you! ... Now you're 15.34359219326 TIMES more successful than I am :-(
I hope you're happy with yourself young lady! ... **reaches for a tissue and some anti-depressants** ... I try soooo hard, I protested for almost 72 straight hours, in the bitter cold, day and night, no food, no water, now I'm running a 104 fever and my eyes still hurt from the tear gas assaults .... and this is the thanks I get?!?!

Hehehe, okay, so I am not THAT upset, but I am now more fired up then ever! You just watch out mannnnn! :-D

lucidstates (Lu)

I hate to say it Steph, cause it only destroys my self confidence, but here goes, you are not 15% ahead of me...... You are 15 TIMES ahead of me, hahahahahaha :-D
Just wanted to clarify that umm tiny small point :-P
But you look out woman, I am coming, and I will overtake you in, ummmm, maybe 3 months, hahahaha, but still, you be a watchin' your rear view mirror, cause the object (me) am getting closer then I appear :-D

See ya around,

lucidstates (This user: Is On Strike)

Hey steph, you're just a first name ... does that make you cooler than me?

Just teasing.

AAA 8^)

You go Steph :-D ... Nice to have ya on my friends list :-D ... Nice earnings too! You are ohh let me see, 14.27133150399 times better then me :-D Hahaha, but nottt quite 15 times as good as I am, so nuhhh *sticks out tongue*, take that :-P
Man I was doing very well until 2 weekends back when I got hammered by my movie picks :-( ... But even with those, you'd still be some 14.11 times ahead of me, hahaha :-D
Anywhoo, great to have ya :-D

you're doing yourself unneeded harm

http://getsatisfaction.com/hubdub/topics/i_am_on_strike

Why is everybody starting to call me AAA? I'm going to have to start offering towing and roadside assistance! I can tell drunk drivers to make certain they boot their cars to Safe Mode 8^)

I think we could fix this lack of sleep thing if we just adopted the decimal calendar ... 100 hours in a day, 10 days in a week! That way there would only be 8-9 weeks a year, so when you said, "I can get that done in a week!", you _really_ could 8^)

I've been doing this waaaay too long. I quit caffeine a couple of months ago, I'm so used to the lack of sleep I don't need it anymore. Regarding ltmod, when he says everyday, that really _does_ mean seven days a week.

coding 8 hours straight on 3 hours of sleep is how I work everyday!

http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_Rajagopal_Sathish_remain_as_the_player_with_the_most_catches_at_the_end_of_the_ICL_tournament__5359/view
Not that tough to bet if you watch cricket - look at the list .

Why will they be banned?

I thought as a developer you might enjoy my (in the flesh and on Hubdub) friend ltmod's avatar/gif. This was emailed to us by a co-worker and I wish _I_ had thought of using it for Hubdub 8^(

http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_3193

On page one of weekly % gains all users. props!

All kruijs did was prove that my intuition was accurate 8^) Now if I could just apply that to investing in Hubdub questions ...

My pleasure :)

Anyway, you're 4 times my wealth. And you're only 580K away from crudsy so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed ...

btw: AAA and you speculated about HD's techological platform. It runs Apache/PHP5, see AAA's profile where I shouted it.

I'm not entirely sure, but during my early beta testing days I got some apache error screens, so I'm guessing they are apache on linux. As far as languages go it could be anything, to my thinking PHP, Perl or Python seem to be likely candidates, with MySQL or another open source database. Early on I asked Nigel if they were considering turning Hubdub into an open source project, to which he replied in the negative, which in my opinion is the correct decision for them. Open source projects have a certain appeal, but tend to be plagued by some systemic problems, most seriously that the conflicting goals of the participants tend to turn project management into an exercise in herding cats.

My background is C/C++ on Solaris. I also have a lot of experience scripting (mostly Bourne Shell, with lots of awk and sed thrown in), and lately lots, and lots, of SQL Server. How about you? Web developer can mean a lot of different technologies. I guess in the final analysis I'd rather be a janitor than a hoe 8^), but that's just me.

"Web developer by day, musician by night", sounds good. I'm a developer by day and a developer by night 8^) My screen saver reads, "Data Janitor", since I have a knack for finding, and fixing, anomalous data.

woooo hoooo!

Steph's <$H20k behind me on the Overall!

If you want to try out the HTML, use this profile: http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_4616

WOOHOO!!! My net worth just reached H$200,000!!!!!

= )

Hi Steph

Ha! How is that even possible?

This just in from a recent settlement notice:

"In total you gained H$0.08 on this question."

I'm gonna catch you Steph -- *real* soon. Watch out!

I'm always around...

= )

I am just trying to get the old stock market crowd back so that predictions would again be fun . I loved it when our net worth used to fluctuate by thousands every second!! please come back.

Do something with all that cash...you've been stuck at your position for the last two weeks!!

shouting back..

"Reset the leader boards, leave the H$. "

You can have the H$ or James -- which is it gonna be?
;-)