UPDATE 1-U.S. traders eye bidding war for Chicago exchange [Reuters.com]
Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) put in a bid for the Chicago Board of Trade, slightly over 9% of the price offered by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

• Merc plans to offer futures on index of Chinese stocks--starting May 20, CME will offer trading of Chinese index futures with 24-hour access.


• CME and CBOT to merge--chicago merc and board of trade to merge.


• Volatility Can Be Good


• USFE to offer futures on various ISE indices


• UPDATE 2-CME set for round-the-clock commodity trading


• Chi-Town's Exchange Receives A Boost

chicago mercantile exchange to offer futures contracts for the weather

right now they offer contracts on the temperature in various cities, measured in degrees above or below average temperatures. these contracts are used to predict energy demand.

"Monday also marks the launch of CME's hurricane index futures, and options on futures, which will allow insurers and others to hedge risk against hurricane damage."

Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York

I'm searching for the script for Charlie Kaufman's upcoming Synecdoche, New York, about a theatre director who may be dying or may be going crazy, or both, who, among other things, is building a life-sized replica of New York in a warehouse for his latest play. I'm sure the description is much like saying Being John Malkovich is about John Malkovich playing a life-sized puppet of himself, because there are many other elements, like stories within stories and time jumps. Check the links below for all the info.

Reviewed on Ain't It Cool News
IMDB listing
BeingCharlieKaufman.com blog
CHUD.com post (stands for Cinematic Happenings Under Development, watch out for pop-ups).
Synecdoche Wikipedia entry
Jay Hernandez's Los Angeles Times review of the screenplay
BeingCharlieKaufman.com main page

From what I can tell, it has the key elements of a Kaufman film-- self-referential scenes, a lonely guy who can't quite connect with women, obsessive hobbies--

Party Ben

Party Ben

Ronson and Yoda

DJ Yoda came out with the Amazing Adventures of DJ Yoda in October, and Mark Ronson came out with a CD single, Just, which came out in March. You can buy them on iTunes for $9.99 each.

Revolved has been back up too, since March.

January 12, 2012

The longest heat wave in history will continue for at least another week along the East Coast as temperatures threaten to push into one hundred degrees by Thursday. Yes, you heard it right, by the end of the week we should hit triple digits. But don't let that fool you, because we do have a cold front that may get us down into the low 60s sometime next week. It's been a record-breaking winter, or should I say Indian Summer? And if you think we have it bad, let's look at the temps around the rest of the country.

Flooding in Florida and the Mississippi delta continues to displace thousands who were not able to move in time, and California has been experiencing--well, it's been 2 years now and we still can't call them hurricanes--but that's just what they are--tropical storms resembling hurricanes causing massive devastation.