{"id":99931,"date":"2016-12-23T11:56:31","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T16:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=99931"},"modified":"2016-12-23T05:57:18","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T10:57:18","slug":"its-the-most-wonderful-time-wasters-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2016\/12\/its-the-most-wonderful-time-wasters-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the Most Wonderful Time-Wasters of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
December 23, 2016<\/div>
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By WallStreetDaily.com<\/u><\/a> \"It\u2019s<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll never have more fun than you will by making your way through <\/em>Wall Street Daily\u2019s trove of (mostly holiday-inspired) treasures.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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We\u2019re taking it light today to mark our final issue before the holidays are in full swing.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s fun stuff to look at, maybe some fun stuff to buy with gift cards, and, above all, fun stuff to share with your spouse, siblings, and spawn.<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas, Blessed Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays \u2014 whatever your angle, may this be the best ever for you and yours.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s wishing everyone \u2014 investors, traders, speculators, indexers, stock pickers, Trumpkins, Clintonites, Bernie Bros, environmental whackos, climate-change deniers, nerds, hipsters, luddites, geeks, cat people, dog lovers, Friends\u2026Romans\u2026Countrymen \u2014 a fantastic 2017.<\/p>

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First things first: You\u2019ll need a drink. Here, as told by his niece Kate, is how William Faulkner got through winter<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Pappy alone decided when a Hot Toddy was needed, and he administered it to his patient with the best bedside manner of a country doctor. He prepared it in the kitchen in the following way: Take one heavy glass tumbler. Fill approximately half full with Heaven Hill bourbon (the Jack Daniel\u2019s was reserved for Pappy\u2019s ailments). Add one tablespoon of sugar. Squeeze 1\/2 lemon and drop into glass. Stir until sugar dissolves. Fill glass with boiling water. Serve with potholder to protect patient\u2019s hands from the hot glass. Pappy always made a small ceremony out of serving his Hot Toddy, bringing it upstairs on a silver tray and admonishing his patient to drink it quickly, before it cooled off. It never failed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continuing the drink bent, here\u2019s a set of two whiskey glasses perfected by science<\/a>, as described at Huckberry:<\/p>\n

Master distillers spent nearly two years designing the Norlan Whiskey Glass\u00a0($48, 2-set)<\/a>, testing over three dozen prototypes until they arrived at a model that met their exacting specifications (and raised a whopping $807k on Kickstarter).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continuing the literary bent, here\u2019s Shane Parrish of Farnam Street with an ode of sorts to the particularly American author Louis L\u2019Amour, who wrote the following in 1980<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Often I hear people say they do not have the time to read. That\u2019s absolute nonsense. In one year during which I kept that kind of record, I read 25 books while waiting for people. In offices, applying for jobs, waiting to see a dentist, waiting in a restaurant for friends, many such places. I read on buses, trains and planes. If one really wants to learn, one has to decide what is important. Spending an evening on the town? Attending a ballgame? Or learning something that can be with you your life long?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here\u2019s multimedia legend Neil Gaiman reading Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s The Raven<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

While were on books, here\u2019s one for a slice of film fans: Bad Dads: Art Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson<\/em>. From the introduction to the Spoke Gallery\u2019s exhibit, by Christine Ro via Boing Boing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Bad Dads<\/em> lets the art do the talking. This collection stems from an annual gallery exhibition of artworks paying homage to Wes Anderson films. There\u2019s brief introductory text by Anderson himself, as well as from critic Matt Zoller Seitz and curator Ken Harman, but the book is almost entirely made up of images.<\/p>\n

My favorite pieces are the dioramas, which capture the caught-in-their-own-world quality of Wes Anderson\u2019s movies. But there\u2019s something here for everyone: Mr. and Mrs. Fox<\/em> action figures? Yes. Nude paintings of Margot Tenenbaum? Check. Models of the ship from the Life Aquatic<\/em> and the train from The Darjeeling Limited<\/em>? This book has you covered. More portraits of Bill Murray than you can shake a stick at? They\u2019re all here. The creativity on show is astonishing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And while we\u2019re on the cinematic theme, here\u2019s a fantastic Christmas tree ornament based on that classic of the season Die Hard<\/em><\/a>. (See more ways to spend time with your family in front of the big screen in Old Things New, at the end of this issue.)<\/p>\n

Many of you will venture out to see the box-office champion of this holiday season, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story<\/em>; better to go armed with knowledge.<\/p>\n

The good folks at FiveThirtyEight have prepared a solid visualization of the epochal Dark Side vs. Light Side conflict, \u201cwith apologies to Charles Joseph Minard<\/a> and his visualization of Napoleon\u2019s invasion of Russia<\/a>.\u201d Here\u2019s the Galactic Civil War in one chart<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Staying \u201cseasonal,\u201d here\u2019s a great \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d visual<\/a>. Snow in the Sahara? Snow in the Sahara!<\/a><\/p>\n

More \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d? More \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d! Check out this video depicting what can happen with a DIY snowboarder-tugging drone. (Warning: There\u2019s some salty language here.)<\/p>\n