Grigory Lukin.com

Monday night.

It’s quite tempting to just write “fuckity-fuck fuck” for today, and to continue in that vein for the rest of the week. So very, very tempting. It won’t accomplish anything productive, though.

So starts my second year of pandemic. Exactly 365 days ago, xgf (né gf) and I looked up an AirBnB in rural Ontario, packed up, and started our big AirBnB odyssey. In some other world, where we never broke up, we might still be hopping between AirBnBs all over Ontario – grizzled yuppie survivors. Heh. Xgf is fine, by the way: I know I haven’t posted about her in a while. She’s still with her parents in a small town almost an hour away from Toronto, still bickering with them, but at the same time she’s probably eligible for Ontario’s phase two vaccination, so her own personal pandemic might end soon. (Or at least the first part of it; nobody has any idea when second shots will come out.)

A zombie bear ate me In my game, Serves me right for going shopping with just a pistol and a shotgun, and leaving my AK-47 at home. (That was 13 hours well spent.) My new character is mildly more cautious, but he still got almost killed by a pair of wolves and (on a separate occasion) a flock of zombie vultures. They really ought to do something about animal control in that apocalyptic dystopia, eh. If and when this game gets adapted for VR, it’ll be beyond amazing. The jump-scares are terrifying enough when it’s just on a computer screen. If it’s actually in your immersive reality… Yeesh. That’d be some grade-A almost-Walking-Dead experience.

If aliens ever invade and take over, daylight saving time will be one of the first things they’ll eliminate to make our world more rational. (Or maybe people just hate it because it happens on a weekend and not, say, at 1pm on a Monday.) Still, we get a whole extra hour of sunlight now. I get to watch the sunrise in bed once again, and – more importantly – I can enjoy a fair bit of daylight by walking outside right after work. It’s such a small luxury, to walk around in fading sunlight without having to worry if my lunch break is over yet… The weather is still crappy, though, so I managed to catch just the first part of tonight’s sunset before speed-walking back home. (When my legs started shaking on that park bench, that was a bit of a giveaway.) If and when it gets warmer, things will get better.

I spent a fair bit of my weekend reading up on trading options. That’s an incredibly complex subject, and I won’t do more than just dip my toes and buy calls and puts for next year: playing it as safe as possible with fairly small amounts of money. In a way, this is the most sophisticated form of gambling: all the concepts, the Greek terms, the exceptions to exceptions to exceptions… It doesn’t surprise me at all that most people just stick to buying and selling stocks. Meanwhile, I found a site that lets you screen stocks for not just their 52-week high but the two-year high, which lets me find stocks that have either fully recovered from last year’s pandemic dip, or have yet to recover. It gave me 161 grossly overpriced stocks (negative earnings, currently at the two-year high point, and over $1 billion market cap), which I reviewed at my leisure, narrowed down to seven, and then to just two. Somewhere, someone decided to sell some very cheap puts on one of those stocks (CX, a Mexican cement company) for waaay out in January 2023. I’m sure I’ll make money on that trade – I’m only curious when.

…I need other hobbies.

In covid news, the long-awaited Ontario vaccination booking portal has finally launched this morning. There were some issues but it appears to be back up again. Yay progress. General Hillier, the guy who helped prepare the rollout, said he’ll be stepping away now that his work here is done. It seems odd to bounce out when there’s still so much to do, so who knows, maybe there’s more to it. Canada’s vaccination effort is going at a snail’s pace but, well, at least it’s going.

Good night, y’all.

Well, fuck. Here is to year two.

Wednesday night.

In late December, I plundered a bunch of “best of” lists on Goodreads for new book recommendations. Being a frugal bastard (never pay if you can get it for free later), I put a bunch of those ebooks on hold at my local library. Not sure how or why, exactly, but a whole lot of them suddenly became available in rapid succession. It’ll take a while for them to become available again, and in-demand e-books can’t be renewed after the three weeks are up, so I guess I volunteered myself for a lot more reading and a bit less gaming. Heh.

I’ve just finished devouring Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, and it was quite good. Beautiful writing, multiple LOL (literally LOL) moments, fun characterizations. In a nutshell, it’s a book about a failed heist, an accidental hostage situation at an apartment viewing, and idiots. Lots of idiots. (But mostly lovable ones, which is how you can tell it’s fiction and not reality.) The book takes a weird U-turn towards sentimentality somewhere in the middle, changing the tone and seriously cutting down on the levity, but it’s still quite good. It’s rather moving, if nothing else. Solid 4.5 stars, and recommended if you’re looking for something fun and moving to read in this long lockdown. (Just check out the first few pages of the e-book preview – you’ll like it.)

Next up: Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller about the world’s most stubborn taxonomist. (Because it’s good to balance outlandish fiction with almost-as-outlandish non-fiction once in a while.)

The stock I wrote about yesterday, ADS, has finally closed that tiny gap – my online broker sold it at the exact price I’d requested: 5% below its highest pre-pandemic price. That made for a fine 77% profit, especially considering I’d bought it on November 12th, 2020. Just a bit less than four months, basically. (I’d swing-traded it twice before, starting in June.) I never post the dollar figures from my portfolio but it crossed a rather significant point today. I’m trying to be a bit more conscious about my health, so instead of celebrating with a whole bottle of champagne, I’ll just treat myself to a Tim Hortons lunch tomorrow by way of celebrating. (Besides, an entire bottle of champagne holds five glasses, which is entirely too much for one person, and those miniature bottles they sell hold only two glasses, which is just one too few. No justice in this world.)

It’s funny… The first time I researched ADS and added it to the “risky bets” section of my portfolio, in early June, it was trading at a 52.7% discount from its pre-pandemic high, just a few months earlier in 2020. And now, just nine months later, it’s come within 5% of reaching that high price again. (And, therefore, sold as per my standing order.) At the time, it seemed theoretically possible but unimaginable that all those beaten-down stocks would soar again, or that the world would get back on its feet (or at least start to), and especially in less than a year. That’s a weird finance allegory for the fight against covid, but hey, I deal with dollar signs and wild stratagems all day every day at work, so a lot of that carries over. I own 19 different stocks. One has doubled and sold, and I’ll use that cash to pay some of my 2020 taxes. (My company-provided accountant should send the grand total aaaany day now.) There are 18 to go. I sure as hell hope we’re more than 1/19th of the way to eradicating this damn pandemic, not only in the first world but everywhere, but still, this is a real-life proof of concept that at least some things can return to normalcy.

In covid news, there’s more drama in Canada, eh. Someone leaked a draft of the letter from Canada’s top scientists to the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI). The scientists, who include some of the most senior bigwigs at multiple institutions, are really not enthusiastic about NACI’s decision to turn all of Canada into guinea pigs by extending the gap between the vaccines to four whole months. In their own words, “What will the impact be on the variants of concern and potential others? This will remain a guessing game without being able to transfer knowledge from properly performed trials,”

The whole decision behind the four-month gap is a huge bioethical dilemma: try to vaccinate everyone fast in the name of the greater good but take a gamble due to unknown effects of just one dose over four months? Or follow the standard procedure that had been used in clinical trials (three weeks apart) and vaccinate only half as many people, but properly? You already know which side I’m on… The only course I ever failed in my life was Advanced Bioethics. I have a feeling that my professor (he wasn’t nearly as much of a relativist as he’d claimed he was, especially after the rest of the class laughed to the point of tears as he and I debated) would’ve sided with NACI. One big side effect here: I really hope they’re right about this, but if they’re wrong, if this backfires, then it will fuel anti-vaxxers everywhere for the rest of the century and beyond: “here are a bunch of scientists who broke their own rules, didn’t give Canada enough immunity, and made a mess of things when another new variant spread like wildfire among the partially vaccinated.”

Again, I hope it never comes to that, but the cost/benefit analysis here is absolutely bonkers.

And meanwhile, British Columbia has only now started booking vaccine appointments for folks over 85 years old. That’s good news on the balance, but the fact that it’s taken them this long… Oof. Oof, I say.

Stay safe, folks. Pick up a book or something, eh?

Tuesday night.

I’m ending this day with less blood than I started it with, and with the uncanny sensation of knowing what my blood-brain barrier feels like. In other words, I had my initial screening for the vaccine trial. The blood filled multiple vials, and the nasal test was apparently mandatory, to reassure them that their newest guinea pig does not, in fact, already have covid. Heh. And here I thought I’d go the entire pandemic without having the edge of my brain scraped… If you never experienced that sensation, good for you – I hope you never do. If you did experience it – how weird is it, huh? Why the hell would we even have receptors that far up? Ye gods, that was such an unsettling sensation – and there’s nothing you can do to take your mind off it. Logically, I knew that I wasn’t harmed, and definitely wasn’t harmed permanently, but it just felt so… wrong.

Anyhow, I’ll get the first of this experimental vaccine in 10 days, next Friday. They’ll keep me around for an entire hour just to watch out for any side effects and/or superpowers. Should be fun. It was also equal parts sad and pathetic how excited I was to have a tiny short conversation with the receptionist dude and the doctor dude. It’s been so long… On my drive back, when the sun was fully up, I had my window down and my mask off. It seemed safe – a way to enjoy some fresh air at long last. Next thing I knew, a maskless construction worker got right in my (equally maskless) face to tell me I had to make a U-turn due to some construction. That was the first time I actually came face to face (with no masks) with another human being since I left my landlords behind almost two months ago. It sure would be ironic if after all these precautions, all these months, I catch covid due to a random encounter with a maskless worker. Heh. I know I talk a lot about my zombie video game, but come on, that was a classic zombie scare jump-scene right there.

The world is starting to recover a little… S&P-500 is about 20% higher than its highest point just before the pandemic. I think a lot of that is driven by the overvalued tech sector. Almost a year ago, I sold all of my Amazon stock and invested the proceeds into the most covid-battered stocks out there. I set my sell price for each stock using the same formula: their highest point in Q1 2020, just before the pandemic, minus 5%. (No need to be greedy, eh?) The rationale was that once they get that high up, the economy will have recovered. Most of them aren’t there yet, but they’re getting there. ADS (Alliance Data Systems) is a company specializing in loyalty cards, among other things. Today, the ADS stock price missed my target by just eight cents. That was pretty funny – I’m sure it’ll get there soon.

Speaking of stops, that mad legion at r/wallstreetbets finally succeeded in getting Gamestop’s stock price back up again. It rose up past $100 last week, briefly kissed $200, bounced up and down, and closed at $246.90 today. Gotta say, that’s impressive and I didn’t see that resurgence coming. Good for them, eh. As for me, I’ll have to start stockpiling cash for what I expect to be a pretty high tax bill in the coming weeks. (And it’ll be higher yet next year, once I have to pay taxes on my Gamestop earnings.)

In covid news, a very macabre success story from the US: for the first time since late November, the daily covid death toll is below 1,000. According to this article, 749 Americans died over the course of 24 hours. Once upon a time, that would’ve been a tragedy. Now, just a year after the virus appeared in the US, it’s good news. Who knows, maybe someday the States will celebrate fewer than 100 daily covid fatalities.

In other covid news, there’s a vaccine war between Italy and Australia. (If you had that on your 2021 bingo card… Well, you got a very weird bingo card, what can I say.) As near as I can tell, the sequence is this. Australia ordered AstraZeneca vaccines. Australia defeated covid. Italy did not defeat covid. AZ vaccines got approved. AZ’s facility in Belgium had manufacturing issues. The EU didn’t get all the AZ doses they ordered due to manufacturing issues. AZ decided to send the ordered vaccines to Australia, as per prior agreement. Italy blocked the shipment, got the European commission to back it up, and caused an international scandal. (One of Italy’s arguments basically comes down to “we need it more than they do.”) Australia is being a good sport about it, saying the block won’t impact their vaccine rollout. However, Germany is warning Italy and the rest of the EU that their decision to “tear up the rulebook” could have serious and wide-ranging consequences down the road. When even Germany tells you that your foreign policy might be a little bit too aggressive, you know you probably made several bad decisions. Heh.

And now, time to catch up on all the sleep… Good night, y’all.

Sunday night.

I am trying to declutter my mind. Today’s experiment on myself was a pretty productive one. It felt weird, absolutely weird to go so long without social media. (I cheated a bit and checked it first thing in the morning, but only to see if I had any replies.) Social media is a cobweb for the modern brain: all those apps – Reddit, Twitter, Facebook – are specifically designed to get you engaged, entrapped, hooked on the dopamine hits of receiving “likes” or reputation points. The conversations on those apps rarely bring joy. I couldn’t completely detach myself from my computer, so after I finished reading “The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking)” by Dr. Katie Mack, I went back to playing 7 Days to Die. (My new character is an office drone guy turned survivor. Heh.) Perhaps it’s because of my social media fast, but today was nice and tranquil.

I’ve also quit (or I hope I’ve quit) a certain political blog I’ve been part of for several years. If you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, you might have noticed that I’m, ahem, a bit more passionate about politics than most people. The blog I used to hang out on is mostly left-leaning (as am I), and has a diverse group of people engaging in mostly engaging discussions in the comment section. Last night, I made what I thought was a reasonable point (Democrats took 45 whole days to pass the stimulus bill in the senate, and lost the caucus unity while doing so), and today I woke up to see about 10 downvotes. Heh. That place really is an echo chamber… It’s all for the best.

This, here, now, is the seed of the kind of person I’ll be in the future. This isolation, this overabundance of time with virtually zero human contact is an involuntary experiment, a chance to rearrange my priorities. I don’t want to eventually turn into an angry old man who yells at a news channel or spends days on end getting angrier and angrier about social media strangers who have different opinions. It’s futile, and it changes nothing. Quitting all of this cold turkey (at least the political blog; social media can stay, in very limited capacity) will not be easy, but I think it’s the right move.

Incidentally, and before I forget, Katie Mack’s book was all sorts of amazing. I like to think I’m smart, and there were whole sections of that book that made me feel rather stupid. Not all of the material was easy to digest, but Mack is a great storyteller with a fun sense of humour: she turned what could have been a mind-bogglingly dry book into a rather fun romp across the universe. Next up: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. I like the premise, and the opening is quite engaging.

I measure life in bottles of vitamins… Today was the last gummy from the bottle I started 141 days ago, all the way on day 217, in mid-October. I guess I missed 16 days or so, because it’s definitely been longer than 125. Oh well. A fair bit has changed since I started that bottle. Multiple vaccines got approved. Trump lost the election and organized an attempted coup. I made more money on the stock market than I’d ever dared to imagine in my wildest dreams. (Thanks, Gamestop!) I got my own little studio even though I’d thought I’d stay with my Vietnamese landlords forever. (If not for their strange free-for-all dinner parties 10 days in a row in December… Incidentally, the landlady got invited to apply for permanent residency, so her family will be able to stay in Canada now. Hooray!) I discovered new frontiers of solitude. I signed up for a covid vaccine trial. That’s quite a lot for less than five months, eh?

The new bottle has 150 gummies. Two a day, every day, ideally without skipping. Seventy-five days. I’ll run out in late May. How different will the world be by then, I wonder?

In covid news, there was an anti-mask protest in the US. Again. This time it was different, though. In Idaho, approximately 100 protestors started a fire in a barrel and set masks on fire. There are videos of children throwing masks into the fire while their parents cheer them on. Idaho doesn’t have a state-level mask mandate, though some cities and counties require folks to wear masks. I know that idiocy isn’t representative of the entire United States. I know it’s just a surprisingly large group of militant morons. But still – that could be the first of many such events. Idiocy catches on really easily. I don’t so much care about the way this impacts the US image abroad (there is nothing left to impact) – I’m concerned about empowered yahoos escalating things even further and going after businesses, elected officials, or their fellow citizens who are just trying to get through this pandemic. We’ll see, I guess.

Here is to a sunnier week.