so, as you probably saw, prince was the halftime act for superbowl XLI.  it was weird tho, i mean, prince was somewhat before my time.  i was there when purple rain was released, but not old enough to really want to put on the velvet.  plus, growing up in hawaii, the prince style never caught on.  i mean, in the 80’s k-mart hadn’t even come to hawaii yet, so we couldn’t even get purple velvet suits discount style.  and, frankly, if you dressed like prince in hawaii, you really could not go anywhere without getting beat down - just for the sake of it.

in any case, watching the halftime show i was thinking that the CBS should have provided at least a short background on prince.  i mean, there are probably 3-4 generations of younger kids that have no idea who this guy is.  they tell the most random background info for the players - even the most obscure players - but you just let the guy in the teal velvet suit slide by without an explination?

i think the main problem with prince, is that in the 70s to 80s, you kind of saw a progression of his style.  he kind of grew into the princian image - little steps - like, ok, goatee, ok, barechested suit, ok, colorful barechested suit, ok, purple velvet suit on motorcycle, etc.  Not to mention the hair.

but he’s been quiet for, about a decade i feel.  i mean, he released some albums, but when was the last time you really heard of prince in the last decade, with the exception of his retarded name changing stunts.

but on superbowl sunday, it was like - bam - prince from the 1980s.  just this tiny little guy in a teal suit with chest hair showing prancing all over stage with a fat black lady in white tights.  it was insane.  frankly i was less surprised by janet jackson’s boob. 

i mean, it’s not hard to explain to kids why this lady is showing her boob on tv - we see it to different degrees all the time.  but try explaining prince to your kids.  or fielding the inevitable questions like, ‘why don’t your suits look like that daddy?’ and ‘but i thought men don’t wear makeup.’ 

as for the actual performance - it was good.  i wasn’t blown away to any extent, but his guitar work was impressive as advertised.  on thing tho, i hated how he got the audience to sing the wailing part at the end of purple rain.  isn’t that like, one of his signature songs?  not only that, but the wailing part is his signature part of that song.  and it’s by far one of the hardest parts of a song to sing.  i mean, really, who wants to hear 80,000 fans try to duplicate that note?

As I’ve been predicting to my fellow market watchers this US Equity market is going lower. It seems there is too much optimism priced into the market. To me there seems to be an overwhelming amount of negative backdrop

• Oil prices have crept back to higher levels
• Dollar weakness worldwide
• Credit spreads are at historical tightness, if we get some credit event we could see a repricing of the curve
• Volatility can’t remain too low, over time the equity risk premium becomes too pressured

Anyone have an opinion?

Its a been a couple days since the Newsom scandal has broke. If you’re not familiar with what has transpired, the best coverage can be found at Gavinwatch. Now I’m beginning to look at fallout from the event and how perceptions have changed. As CW Nevius pointed out in an article at Sfgate.com men and woman seem to have vastly different opinions about Gavin now. Its interesting that woman in the city seem to think its ok that Gavin betrayed a friendship. My gut instinct tells me woman that think he’s attractive somehow assume that its expected he sleeps around, so it doesn’t matter who. I even heard an incredibly intelligent woman on the radio state “I don’t care if Gavin betrayed a friendship, if he wants to hook up he can call me anytime.” That’s um, great.

Men seem to be pretty split about the event. Personally I think Nevius hit it on the head when he mentioned the betrayal was something greater than just sleeping “around.” Something about stabbing his campaign manager in the back leaves a real bad taste in my mouth. It shows too much poor character and bad decision making. I also really get sick of people that act contrite only after they get caught doing something wrong. Remember that supposedly this whole ordeal took place over a year ago, if he was so broken up about the betrayal, he didnt look that way over the past year. Wait, I take it back he looks pretty devastated.

Japadamus and I visited the acclaimed San Francisco sushi institution Ebisu last Saturday. Since this was the first time Japadamus visited the restaurant, we decided to bring along a camera. I was surprised that most of the items off the specials menu had already been sold-out before we arrived at 7:30pm. My guess is that most of those things are being listed for street cred, but in reality they must have bought one of each item.

We started the meal off with some clam called Aoyagi, it really wasn’t too memorable so I didnt regret forgetting to take a picture

The next thing we ordered was the albacore tataki. Its made by lightly grilling the outside of an albacore fillet, then its plunged into ice water to stop cooking. They then thinly slice it and serve atop onions, with kaiware sprouts, tobiko and ponzu sauce.

The next thing we ate was ankimo. As many of you know, I’ve attempted to make my own Ankimo several times. You can find the chronicle of it here. Its always interesting to see the different ways many restaurants prepare this fairly simple dish. The Ankimo was cooked in a small log which I found unusual since most places cook the Ankimo in roughly half-dollar size logs. They served the Ankimo on sliced onions with kaiware sprouts and ponzu sauce.

Next up was good old fashioned Aji. They served it simply with a little green onion and ginger. I was surprised that they didn’t serve it with ponzu sauce similar to Zushi Puzzle or Sushi Sams

We then ordered the Live Scallop. I’ve had live scallop from Zushi Puzzle and Oyaji and this one didnt taste any different. Ebisu prepared their Live Scallop similar to Zushi Puzzle where they make several little nigiris with sliced lemon and a side of ponzu. Like Zushi Puzzle, they also serve the muscle deep fried on the side with vegetables.

Next up was the Bonzai roll which is grilled salmon skin with several vegetables, tobiko and kaiware sprouts.

After that we ordered a negitoro roll. It was served pretty straight forward, no surprises.

Lastly we ordered the Swamp Roll, this was Japadamus’s choice after watching the Itamae in front of us make about 20 of these rolls, apparently it was the most popular of the night. The middle of the roll was albacore tuna mixed with sesame oil and onions similar to a Hawaiian poke. The top was covered with a sea salad.

So overall I thought Ebisu the place was good. It seemed like they had all the technical aspects down but none of the specialty items I really look forward to seeing at high-end sushi places. I’d definitely go back if they started having a greater variety of seasonal fishes.

Was this the best start to a super bowl ever or what?!  92 yard return for a TD on the opening kickoff.  first indy possession ended with an INT.  52 yard run for Jones.  TWO back and forth fumble/recovers, one for indy and one for the bears.  and that was just the first half!

and the rain!  who would have thought it rained so much in miami?  the funniest thing about the rain tho, is that i bet millions of guys went out this winter to pick up big, expensive HDTVs (even i did) for the purpose of watching the biggest game of the year in brilliant sharp color.  only, it was raining so hard it looked like we were watching the whole game through bifocals.  the only time this worked decently was during prince’s show, where you get the nice water droplets prism effect - but for the game, it was horrible!  you’d think for all the billions of dollars spent on the super bowl, they’d be able to design a hood for the cameras or something, right?

the rain also slowed manning.  he had 247 yards - a respectable figure.  but 10 passes were short swings to addai, with most of the yards due to the rookie sidestepping defenders.  for me, addai was the greatest surprise.  i mean, imagine last year he was not even in the NFL, then he gets drafted by the colts - and he ends up playing a key role, if not the most important role, in the super bowl.  good for him.

manning got the MVP, but i think that was just a formality because of his stature in the league and his struggle to get to the super bowl.  i mean, indy ran the ball 40 times!!  they didn’t do that all season!  so, you have 190 yards rushing, and another 70+ yards of passes to RBs, and peyton getting 247 yards passing, a TD and INT…not really a clear cut MVP there i think.

at the end tho, the bears were stuck with grossman, and that was that.  he had only 165 yards (and a big chunk of those yards were despiration yards in the 4th quarter), 2 INTs and a lost fumble.  he was PAINFUL to watch.  was anyone else calling for griese to be put in with 10 mins left in the 4th quarter?  did anyone think that grossman could pull out a comeback?  would the bears have been better off just direct snapping to jones and hester the whole game?

the bears D showed up, but their offense had too many 3 and outs to give them enough rest.  they gave up a long TD to wayne - their biggest mistake of the day and a big momentum shifter.  but overall, they were not bad - just not good enough to make up for the bear’s offense.  i mean, they stopped indy four times in the red zone - a pretty impressive feat.

the bears lost benson in the first half, which seems like a pretty big loss, although jones had a really solid game.  but benson wasn’t there to change up the pace and keep them honest to free up the passing game.

really tho, it was grossman.  lovie smith, for all his coaching genius, should have benched grossman after his INT for TD, and went with griese.  no one would have faulted him for it, since grossman was so inept up to that point (as well as afterwards for that matter).  I mean, this is exactly what I thought would happen in the saints game.  grossman caving under pressure.  but instead he saved his worst game for the super bowl.

so, i think rex grossman should be the MVP - not for the bears, but for the colts.  he singlehandedly tossed away any chance of a comeback, while his three-and-outs left the bears D so tired that they were unable to stop addai and rhodes.  the bears shouldn’t have focused on minimizing the impact of manning, they should have focused on neutralizing grossman.

after the game, manning didn’t look as happy as i would have though - particularly given everything that will be off his back from this point on.  but i think he knew his game today was mediocre at best.  he knew he got lucky, and he knew super bowl XLI was not won by indy, it was given to indy by grossman.

Wow I was totally wrong with that superbowl trade.  Grossman is a joke.  Sorry Japadamus but your Bears looked pretty poor.