a little sad

i was down at the marina measuring the mast. while, at first glance, this looks to be an uproariously good-time, gut-busting double-entendre sight-gag ripe for the benny hill show, it was actually a little sad standing around on the dock with phil, wishing that i was steering her over to angel island. i could use a little reminder of the fact that my life here in berkeley is just as sweet as it was in new zealand. (dudes, look at that string of double hyphenated words! if jacking off with wordplay isn’t sweet, i don’t know what is). had a great dinner out in clayton with dave, courtney, vivianna, and phil, and sat around discussing real estate. dave has three properties now, and is extremely bullish on the market. phil and i are followers of the economist, and are at a loss to explain why the irrational exuberance in property valuation has not collapsed on itself. i am going to start looking at fourplexes, so i have some familiarity with the market when it reverses. (whenever the fuck that is…like i said, i don’t understand it. perhaps when the chinese decide that fueling this country’s debt is no longer to our mutual advantage, and interest rates start cruising skyward in order to attract the cash back. or maybe when it becomes apparent that fannie mae and freddie mac’s accounting irregularities are in fact, a huge liquid shit waiting to spill). like i said, i don’t really understand what’s going on these days, but a part of me is still deeply cynical about capitalism, and all the complicated financial instruments that seem to be generating these bubbles.