With all that was going on this weekend I have to say that in the comparison the the two major street festivles that were going on this weekend, Canal fest took first place. I only stopped by the Italian Fest just to grab something to eat during the rain soaked portion today. All I can say is that for the most part it was kind of an immediate sequel of the Taste of Buffalo. I looked at a couple of tents and said to myself, "I had their ____ last week!" Other than my usual stops I didn't see too much reason in staying, since the main stage entertainment just didn't appeal to me. Plus in comparison to Canal Fest, they were a bit over priced. An Italian sausage @ Canal Fest was $3.50 while @ the Sorrento Cheese Italian Heritage Festival , it was $5+ at some locations. Seriously I know the name of the game is to make a profit, but there was one tent that wanted $7 for an Italian Sausage! I could go down the street the Louie's at the corner of Delaware & Hertel and get a meal for that much.

Here are a few pics of some of the food staples.

(e:metalpeter) 's Baked Ziti with Pesto. There wasn't a restaurant associated with the place, but it was really good and worth the $4 I paid for it.


My annual stop @ Lobster Hut, pretty much I though this would be food porn for (e:paul)


What is an Italian Heritage Festivle in Buffalo without a Cannoli?


Later on I stopped by the Canal Fest once again. I know (e:mrmike) posted some pics, but here are a few more.

The midway food on Thursday


Some of the Arts & Craft vendors they had on this weekend. Nothing really too exciting, as it was more "Margaritaville this way & I'ts 5 o'clock somewhere signs.


These were taken behind the "local politcal campaigns, church and club fund raiser" food tents. The star of the 2 festivals' for food value was the Our Lady of Czestochowa parish's tent @ the Canal Fest. They had this thing called the "Polish Platter" in which you received a Polish Sausage, 2 pierogies, a cabbage roll and a slice of rye bread for $10. I only had a bit or two from it as my friend had it. But it was really great food if you're into the above mentioned ethnic food and the value was outstanding. Too bad I didn't snap a pic.

I have hit Canal Fest a couple of times so far. But this really gets me every year. It's a midway game in which you are betting on which hole a mouse is going to go into. Once the barker lifts the blue tupperware lid, the mouse then finds a hole to crawl into. The thing about this is that it happened so fast.

This is way too funny if it wasn't the truth.

Yea, we'll give you a check but no one will cash it.

The thing that gets me is the person that is trying to go from Indymac to Washington Mutual. Talk about going from one abusive boyfriend to another.

Yea, We knew this shit was going to happen eventually We saw it happen in September of '07

To be honest I hope people wake up & yank their money out of troubled banks & bring them to their knees. Savers have been practically shit on for the last 30 years. Just ask anyone that for whatever stupid reason, "believed in the system" & had more than $100,000 in Indymac Bank. They may have kept their money safe for the last 10 years, avoided the .com bubble in March '00, never got sucked into low interest, no documentation loan orgy over the last 5 years and now are going to get a haircut on their accounts over 100 K, basically 50 cents on the $.

The only way someone got even that is a saver with Indymac is to have loaded up on those 4.3% CD rates that they were offering. F**K, Fed Funds currently is 2% and that's the rate institutions borrow money. It really was a huge moral hazard, Let's offer rates DOUBLE the market rate to get enough Capital to keep going & if shit blows up in our face, THE TAXPAYERS OF THE USA WILL HOLD THE BAG!!!! Pretty smart, although a bit morally shady.

In a way we are all going to be holding the bag for the whole mess we are going to go through in regards to the Socialism for the Rich. There was no fear in making any loan to anyone with a pulse. While at the same time the whole thought of being prudent and conservative just went by the wayside. With what 70% home ownership in this country and with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac passing the joint around of the homeownership fetish in this country there was just too much froth for the whole thing. You look at the subsidies for Freddie and Fannie, The tax breaks for home ownership and the low interest rates below inflation for so long, people just had a no fear of anything. Just borrow, borrow and borrow like this tool; Do you really need $200 Jeans and BMW? We just can't have home ownership for home ownership sake to perpetuate the "American Dream" and keep prices rising year after year while having solvent institutions that have reserve capital to back up what they are lending. At some point you have to say, "Dude you're horrible with your money and you don't have anything to put Down on this purchase to offset this institution's risk, FLAT OUT NO!" The mission for Fannie & Freddie was at best schizophrenic. You can't make owning for everyone at all costs fit into the framework of being prudent, solvent and responsible for your balance sheet, it just doesn't happen, we can't all be winners.

We are all going to be homeowners as the U.S. Government is going to end up buying Fannie & Freddie. So I guess it makes the Government your benefactor landlord. So is this mess what the ownership society was all about? So instead of one big apartment bloc of flats owned and operated by the government as they did in the Eastern Bloc, we are going to have Uncle Sam own our Patio Home Condo's? Then again that's another thing with the people the invested in Freddie & Fannie, the GSE's that provided a nice stream of income, your shareholder equity at the end of this, ZERO. Do you think that in say 10 years if the "investment" for these Government Sponsored Enterprises pans out that they will return the gain to the taxpayers in the form of tax cuts?

At the end of the day we have to realize that Capitalism is a ZERO SUM GAME. You can't have success without failure. We compete every day for Jobs, Mates and parking spaces. This whole, let's help everyone out and bail them out is just plain bullshit. At the end of the day we are all going to fit the bill. If they tighten in the Easy money, people won't to be able to buy those McMansion's due to no institution willing to lend them money. How many people can lay down $40,000 Cold Hard Cash for a $400,000 house? They used to do it 30 + years ago & the payment could only be as high as 25% of your NET Income, since they wanted to make sure you could may your Bill every month.

We can either have responsible lending or easy money to let Real Estate prices keep their upward trajectory forever. You do that by making it affordable for people with the money they have, or give people more money to spend. The second option has been the policy for the country for the last 20 years and obviously that hasn't worked.

What I figure they are going to do since there is just took much at stake to let the economy inflate to Wilhelm Republic levels. All of us are going to be on the hook for bailing out all of the wreckless financial institutions. It's kind of like living in a Dorm and some drunken frat boys trashed the bathrooms. Well no one is going to fess up and everyone on the floor is going to get assessed a bill for the repairs.

At this point just keep on shorting the financials & buy Gold.

After I came home from Canada on Saturday I ended up stopping by this party that I have been going to for a few years now. It's out in Wilson and at night you could see the Toronto skyline clearly. The funny part of the whole evening was I ran into (e:kookcity2000) there! He was friends with one of the brother's that host this event.

It's a gathering of people all across the country. Everyone for the most part highly intelligent and pretty well off, so it was quite the refreshing environment. The highlight was talking to this one Hipster guy Josh who totally embraced our contribution to the party of Old Milwaukee and Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor. I have never seen Labatt Blue sit in a cooler so long untouched. That was quite a shocker to be honest. On a personal note there was this guy from Baltimore there who wore a "National Bohemian Beer" shirt that is of the Pabst family product line, but unavailable here.

Unlike past years the Dad of the family finally constructed himself a "Man Cave" and for the later part of the evening I watched UFC 86. Needless to say it was interesting to kick back watching the bloodsport while listening to old school progressive rock at the same time as the soundtrack for this party.

Needless to say here are some scenic pics of Lake Ontario and some fireworks in action.

I spent most of my July 4th Holiday over in Canada. Really what was behind it was the need to just get away for a change in scenery. So other than hanging with my family over there, I did do a couple of things on my own. The feature being my little wandering around the Woodbine Race Track. It's in Rexdale right by Lester B. Pearson International Airport and has been a fixture since the 50's.



This is what it cost to fill up My uncle's Nissan Maxima starting with a 1/4th tank. Mind you I filled my up car with 1/4 of a tank for $60 in the US of A.


If you Can't be a real good golfer, at least look like one...









For the most part the track is largely under utilized as there are 5 levels. The frist floor is the Casino and most of the horse betting activity is on levels 2 and 3. I went up to 4 and 5 somehow through using the stairs and I felt like a kid exploring into places that I should not have been ;-)

What an ass kicking day on Wall St. Although, in all I had the best day I ever had owning individual stocks. So for the most part when the Red arrows are all over the place, I'm happy and if Gold & silver counters by going green, then I'm ecstatic. This shit is only to get worse, not better. My advise is to get just buy precious metal stocks/mutual funds if that is something you can do.
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On another note I just discovered

I Can't Believe I'm Still Single

on Showtime tonight. All I can say is I DO NOT WANT TO END UP LIKE THAT GUY! Yea, I do see some similarites between Scott Baio's "Scott Baio is 45 and single," but WTF??? It makes me want to get married again just for the sake of getting married again, even though I realized that it was a horrible decision to make just to avoid being some weirdo like this Eric Schaeffer guy.

He's not a bad guy at all and is totally misunderstood, but unfortunately he does not have the balance to counter his shortcomings. If you are going to be a socially oblivious guy that comes off as a prick you need to be more of a bad influence "the kind of JERK that women love" or be a total man wuss to be successful in relationships that you are seeking. Being a socially oblivious prick or at least appearing so does not get you any sympathy from any woman. The decades of him not being with anyone just drive this home.

I have to hand it to Showtime for just being the kind of premium cable for shows these days. It will be a show that I will be watching regularly to make sure that I extinguish the shit that I have in common with the guy, because honest I do see some of my self in him and it FREAKING SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF ME!!!

This article kind of irked me today Basically we are all going to chip in to bail out people that are under water in their mortgages. Frankly I think it absolutely sucks. Let's reward people that took on irresponsible risk by saving their asses at your expense. Here I though this was Capitalism and for taking a chance at profiting you also accepted the possibility of losing. So as a guy that is just saving his money to maybe, "PUT DOWN A DOWNPAYMENT" I have to watch my tax money go to people that gambled and LOST. I mean if you're a Real Estate Developer and you lost you should not come to me to recoup your losses.

The sad part is that's it is criminal what say the Banks have done with people's deposits. Here is a Freaking Fine Example I seriously want to know what they were smoking when they though of that project. Here is my guess, (1. Real Estate only goes one direction, that is Up 2. We can always write this off 3. There will be some government bailout to help us out, so if the bank goes under FDIC Insurance will cover it.) Seriously the amount of money that is swishing around is just astounding.

Now we have people on people calling for serious restrictions on Commodity and Futures trading. This is the blame for the run up in Energy Prices. Look no one really cared for the last 7 years when Housing prices ran up. People were actually cheering when it was going on, "Flip that House, Flip that House, Flip that House" on A & E. There was never a cry for "Win fall Profits Tax" or the People that were banking the dough in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada were not going to SHARE THE PROFITS WITH YOU WHEN TIMES WERE GOOD! Then again, that's the coutry we live in now Privatize the profits & Socialize the Losses. It's OK to take a chance and lose money, but if you take a chance on a house it's not your fault. After all is it really too much to ask when you BORROWED MONEY & PROMISE TO PAY IT BACK? !?

Just think now in a couple of years as the 'Burbs unwind the Slumlords that have been sitting on property in the City for decades are going to be rewarded now that people won't be able to afford the white picket fence. Are they going to spread the money around as they start to say Cha-Ching after they can actually sell their stuff to people that are actually going to live there instead of flipping them to some "investor" on Craigslist that just can't pass up a bargin of a $25,000 house? I don't think so. We're just going to throw money down a hole on declining McMansions in the suburbs & exSuburbs as they turn into say Red Cross Offices as the Mansions on Delaware Ave did decades ago as the cost of keeping up those structures up just became too burdensome.

I just had a really start to what should have been a lazy Sunday. So what I ended up doing was just taking a Sunday drive of which I could just get away for a few hours & still come home at a reasonable hour. So I thought, heck why not drive down the 90 to check out the newest casino or in this case Racino (racetrack & casino) Presque Isle Downs Erie, PA.

Well I only lasted there 1/2 hour. The place was absolutely packed as the parking lot was just full. Once inside my friend got ID by security who then proceeded to ask questions about Seneca Niagara, since he has a room booked there next week or so. We basically told him that it was nice & if he wanted to try something different he could go to the bars on Third St. But Yea, The place was wall to wall people. You could not find a machine that was not occupied. The one aspect of the place that made me run was the smoke. Being so progressive in Canada and New York State it just drove me bonkers. I really wanted to check out the thoroughbred racing, but I just couldn't wait until then. So all in all we spend about 1/2 hour in the place. Although I have a few pics to prove it.






One more thing. How the stock of the parent company Moutaineer MNTG is only $5 I just don't understand. This place is going to be a goldmine. On the stupid shuttle bus I heard some slot players comment that the place was not this jammed packed when it had it's grand opening. Casinos in Pennsylvania are just going to be "CHA-CHING!" Yea, Mountaineer is going to some some people from Pittsburgh that are going to play at the Meadows & Wheeling Island, but all I can see for Presque Isle is Expansion. The people that mobbed this place today came from somewhere.


So other than just seeing this place, we went shopping at some mall in Erie & ate dinner at Quaker Steak & Lube. For the most part I just had to check the place out before they open up on Transit Road where Don Pablo's once stood in front of the Regal/Imax. I just had the wings with the cheese/bacon/scallions fries & it was pretty descent.

(e:jason) I think we may have found our answer to that problem...



;-)