Fear and Loathing on the Honey Trail '05 - Part 3

As I'm sure you understand by now, I really enjoy the Dublin nightlife. While it is very rare for me to drink, I still love to hit the pubs and clubs. The last few nocturnal excursions have proved very entertaining, and so, at the request of a few cohorts, I organised another trip into town.

Venue is an ongoing problem with these nights out. This is due to the conflicting nature of the qualities required from the chosen establishment. Firstly, people are a necessity. We are, after all, on the Honey Trail - and the whole purpose is to meet people and enjoy ourselves.

Unfortunately, we are not children any more and the days of tolerating the sardine treatment are long, long gone. We need our space, and, if possible, we need seats.

Ideally we wanted a venue full of people and spacious.

Why not require the drink be free as well?

A number of venues were proposed. My particular suggestion, Solas, of Hot Blonde/Hostile Brunette/Bean Garda infamy, was shot down. The Chameleon pointed out that, had the Terrible Trio not appeared, that night would have plummeted.

The Odeon was also touted, but imposed a time-limit due to the cover charge. No one ever arrives on time, and given the potential for hassle, it was rejected.

The Market Bar is a large venue just off Sth Great George's Street. It fit our requirements well. I do not know who suggested it, but the idea was excellent. A converted market, the place is very large, with lots of tables and chairs, and has a huge covered outdoor area for the cancer-inclined.

Our scheduled arrival was 2130, but it surprised no-one that we were late. The Big JL went to bed in the afternoon due to Lions-First-Test-induced, lack-of-sleep fatigue, and the Chameleon was at a barbeque across town. Leaving our residence at 2145 was quite the achievement.

Following a brief flurry of textual telecommunication, I discovered that the Author had arrived, awaiting the arrival of the Hobo. Despite having an earlier appointment there, the Pornstar had not arrived either. Feeling guilty for making the Author fly solo, your humble narrator hailed a taxi with his two associates, making fast progress towards our venue.

By a strange quirk of circumstance, we all converged on the bar at once. Even the Dark Knight appeared, making ourselves seven.

As only he can, the Big JL made an immediate impact on the ladies, banging into two drunken women outside the toilets. It was not really his fault, but fuelled by spirit courage, they immediately accosted him and accused him of assault, only half-jokingly. They then wandered off.

Grabbing a recently vacated table, orders were sent to the bar. There was not enough space for all of us though, and we started scouting for a larger table.

Shortly after our arrival at the table, the Crazy Ladies reappeared, and had a fascinating obsession with blaming him for assaulting them outside the toilets. Quickly dismissing these as drunken fools, he made himself scarce. I was not far behind.

Finding ourselves a bigger table nearby, we all moved over, leaving the Chameleon to talk to them. Both a blessing and a curse, the crazies love the Chameleon. They flock to him like a moth to a lightbulb. I can only assume it is something pheromonal, since he is quite sane. Still, he did not help himself by wholeheartedly embracing their attempts at conversation. I overheard some of it, but it has sadly slipped my mind. All I can remember is that it was crazy talk.

One of the Big JL's friends appeared. The Friend was quite the character, and as is customary when distinct groups known to a person mix, the abuse began to fly.

The Friend was not slow to inform us that the Big JL is known as Big Billy J amongst other circles, for Freudian reasons. We also learned that he does a special line in "birthday treats" for ladies. The rest of us were ignorant of this, but extremely grateful to be enlightened.

Needless to say, the Big JL was somewhat less than enthusiastic about this tragic decompartmentalisation. He had only himself to blame. He had asked the Friend to join us.

Decompartmentalisation? Interesting word! But what does it mean, oh humble narrator?

Well, it is an interesting story.

One of my friends, the Chameleon, once believed in keeping distinct groups of friends separate. I have never been entirely convinced of the logic behind this approach, but the Chameleon was quite rigid about it. While living abroad, he would return on holiday, set up a base camp in one of our residences, and knock about with us. For certain portions of his holiday, however, he would disappear. We would not see him for days.

When pressed about the females he was meeting, whom we called the Northbrook Brigade (they lived there), he became evasive. Introductions were out of the question. The only reason I have ever reasoned for this tactic was that he was on a long-term shmooze. He feared our behaviour in front of the girls. His concern were not without grounds. We would have slaughtered him.

Anyway, having moved back to this country, the mixing of groups became inevitable. At a big night out in his honour, we finally got to meet the Northbrook Brigade. A few funny stories were exchanged, and nothing untoward occurred. Emboldened by his early success, my friend slowly cast his net wider. He introduced us to the Script Writer.

Quite the bright young girl, the Script Writer was an old, old ex of his. He met her indirectly through the Northbrook Brigade many, many years ago, and they had a brief dalliance back when Adam was a lad.

Visiting Ireland for a short period, the Chameleon could only meet her on a night we were all out. Advertising her as his "really cool friend," I was looking forward to meeting her.

The Script Writer was cool, and spent a summer in Kosovo as a political adviser and script writer for the leader of the Kosovar nationalists. She had studied economics in university and the Chameleon, in a moment of malicious glee, sicced her on me for my troublesome free-market political leanings. He took immense delight from the narrow-eyed glare she threw at me. I defended my position, but we got distracted. The argument I was anticipating never really got started.

Things were going great, everyone was having a rare old time.

And then, disaster.

One of our group, the Invader, started to hit on her. The Chameleon was NOT impressed. At all. The Invader had a girlfriend, and the Chameleon used this as a justification for his explosive reaction. To this day, I remain unconvinced. However deeply buried, I still sense something between the two of them. I doubt anything will come of it, but it is still there.

The Chameleon was incensed. I was annoyed too, but only because I was not the one on the shmooze. I could claim all sorts of high moral ground here, but I will be honest. This girl was cool, and I wanted all her attention. I was talking to her initially, and I let my friend in ahead of me.

The rest of the night was spent alternating between appallingly self-centred moments of introspection, and attempts to placate the livid Chameleon. Things were not helped when another of our group, the Lawyer, began to describe in graphic detail what sexual possibilities lay ahead for the Invader and the Script Writer. Our uncontrollable laughter did not really mollify him, but it did calm him down.

It is very hard to remain furious when people are laughing at you.

The Chameleon is not a spontaneously funny person by nature. He has moments of comic genius, but they are usually inadvertent, or come about through much thought. On a rant, this all changes. The Chameleon can rant like no other person I know. He is priceless.

On that night, he came out with his all-time classic:

YHN: Hey, listen. Chameleon, we are all hungry here. I'm hungry and I want a kebab. You hungry?
C: No, Mick, I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry at all. I don't want a fucking kebab? Do you want to know why? Do you? I'll tell you why! I'm not hungry right now because MY STOMACH IS FULL OF BILE!

Only once before have I ever seen him so angry, and that involved a lot of drink.

From that day on, the Chameleon's experience became the benchmark incident for explosive decompartmentalisation.

So, I think we can all agree that the Big JL got off quite lightly.

But back to the Fear and Loathing.

For those of you who lost tract, I am considerate enough to save you the scrolling: your humble narrator was being enlightened about the Big JL's birthday treats, and the Chameleon was talking to crazy women.

The conversation moved back and forth. The Crazy Ladies went home. The Chameleon rejoined us.

"What? They were fun! They weren't crazy! They weren't! They were quite funny! Nah, they were just drunk. I had a good laugh. What do you mean?"

The Market Bar has a strange quality, and it took me a long time to identify it. It doesn't have any music. The ambient noise is that of three hundred separate conversations humming in the background.

Saturday was a strange night in the city. U2 were playing their second of three concerts in Croke Park. The Gay Pride March had finished a few hours previous. There was a lot of people in the city. And across town, lead by the Wee American, a plethora of foreign students on work exchange discovered the joys of swanky Dawson Street bars like Cafe en Seine and Ron Black's. Textual telecoms revealed she had already given her number to an Irish guy and she wished to know how many points she had just earned doing so! She was quite irate to learn that it counted for nothing.

Like death and taxes, the attraction between the Friend and the Pornstar was inescapable. Delighted that his nickname was starting to take off, he was in roaring form.

The Friend has a refreshing directness when it comes to females. Unlike most of us, he does not care when caught eyeing a girl. Being caught appraising can be embarrassing for most men. Instinctively we avert our gaze, allowing them the opening to be offended, flattered, get embarrassed, or whatever. In any case, we immediately hand the initiative over to them.

Not so with the Friend.

When gazing, he cares not a jot if she notices. He holds his gaze and dares her to challenge him. His attitude is fantastic. You can hear his eyes and face say "I'm a guy. You are a girl. I'm supposed to look at you. It's why you dress that way." If I can summon the gumption, that will be my new tactic. It certainly seems to work.

Midnight rolled by, allowing the Author and the Hobo to depart, shortly followed by the Dark Knight, busy with other obligations across the city.

But what was to become of us? We needed a new venue, one to see the night out. And we needed one fast. This problem proved as intractable as the first, and many, many options come under scrutiny. Even Isolde's Tower was proposed, despite 0200 being some distance off.

The Wee American was in touch, informing us that she was drunk, but should we all meet up? We told her to come along and meet us in the Turk's Head (a favoured, but recently neglected, haunt of mine), conveniently located across from both Isolde's Tower and Zaytoon.

The Turk's Head was free in, but has gone downhill since my last visit. Without any exaggeration, the first few songs I heard were "Calling Mr. Raider," "Rhythm is a Dancer," and "Get Ready for This."

Seized by panic, I checked my mobile phone and spoke out loud. Relived to find both my mobile in my pocket and my voice broken, I felt the bile rise in my gullet. These songs should not be played on a dancefloor in the year 2005. I held my breath and waited for "Sing Halleluia" to fully enact my deja-vu flashback to the summer of 1996 and the Powerhouse in Mohill back home. The axe never fell.

Those fucking songs were out of date nine years ago. Do not get me wrong. I have no problem with classics, but I do have a major problem with shite.

Disgusted, I looked around to find the men in our group disconcerted. Unaware of Gay Pride, they were concerned at the extremely high proportion of men in the nightclub, many of whom appeared to be gay.

A gay bar is not a suitable location for a night of solid Fear and Loathing. It was not until the next day that we learned the truth. Disheartened by our choice, but stuck in the venue since the Wee American and her cohort were en route.

Up until last Saturday, I have always like the Turk's Head. Good music, fine women, decent tap water and Ballygowan, it had everything I wanted from a venue. Now I am not so convinced. I started dancing with a young lady, but it was just dancing.

The music stopped and we all poured out onto the streets of Temple Bar. Things had gone a bit weird and we resolved to go home. In the confusion, my phone started beeping. Who on earth could be texting me at this time. Is the Pornstar okay? Who could it be?

I laughed and laughed at the message from my friend of Bad Kharma fame, in New York, and still looking for vengeance:

"Okay, it's half 3 in the morning over there. I have to have woken you this time!"

A fine ending to a strange evening.

Layer Cake

I watched this excellent British crime film again recently.

My initial opinion of the film was strongly reconfirmed. Layer Cake is excellent.

Similar in style to Vaughn's other films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, this film is not a caper film. Not in the slightest. In fact, while it does contain a few moments of black humour, you do not leave with a smile on your face.

Focusing on a successful London cocaine dealer, the film is not for the faint-hearted. I do not wish to spoil any of them film by revealing any of the plot, it starts with an excellent ambient track by FC Kahuna providing a background for a soliloquy for the main character - Daniel Craig in fine form.

Backed up with a fantastic soundtrack, I am seriously considering adding it to my modest DVD collection.

Again The Lack of Entries?

Yes, I have been very slack in keeping this little piece updated. Alas, I was hoping to have the Internet in my house by now, but it still hasn't quite worked out.

We should be getting a cable modem in soon but so far I still haven't heard anything.

And so we have a lack of entries, since I need the Internet. I could write this stuff at home I suppose, and once I get my laptop back, this may very well be a short-term solution.

I shall have to see.

In the meantime, another longish article should appear soon.

Fear and Loathing at the Pornstar's Birthday

Despite their role as the purveyors of fantasy, pornstars are human. They have birthdays. One such anniversary was celebrated last Saturday night. Along with his erstwhile companions the Chameleon, the Author and the Hobo.

The Odeon is a fashionable bar at the end of Harcourt Street in Dublin 2. Near St. Stephen's Green and surrounded by Georgian buildings, the building was originally a train station. While it is not a place I frequent, I must admit to always enjoying the nights I spend there.

The Pornstar has some very attractive friends, and I was definitely hoping to exploit this. I am lagging significantly in points at the moment, an untenable situation.

Arriving about fifteen minutes before the cover charge started, the Chameleon and I found the Author and the Hobo sitting outside on the veranda enjoying the beautiful summer evening. The Pornstar has arrived unnoticed and was inside.

And now I had a dilemma. During a brief stay in Zanzibar the week before, your humble narrator became embroiled in a conversation with the heroine of "O Reciprocity, Where Art Thou?" about drinking.

As most people know, I drink very rarely. The reasons are numerous. Never one to do things piecemeal, when I do drink, I DRINK. Double-vodkas and Lucozade/Red Bull, shots of tequila, you name it, I want it all. I get absolutely hammered.

The last time I drank, I became very obnoxious. Alcohol bypasses the "discretion override" circuit in my brain, and I tend to give people a hard time. Without becoming truly offensive, I just refuse to shut up. At the time, I think I am the funniest man in the world. By the end of the night, I had behaved appallingly to a girl I have the utmost respect for and I realised Mick the Drunk could be an utter wanker. He should only be asked out to play when he gives strong and ironclad guarantees of good behaviour.

Fortunately the discretion override circuit was operating within normal parameters during the conversation with the fair lady, and the above was referenced in only the briefest of terms.

But sometimes Mick the Drunk is cool. He talks to ladies with ease and has been an integral part of a few fantastically memorable nights out.

My favourite story of his occurred about four years ago. I was out in Tramco with a male and female friend. They hooked up. Leaving me bereft, I was forced to find my own entertainment. It was the night I discovered Vodka and Lucozade, and that going up to girls and talking shite was much easier than I ever thought possible.

Once the night had ended, I blundered outside and found myself in the all-night Spar situated right beside Tramco. I quickly struck up a conversation with a young lady behind me in the queue. Her face and the details of the conversation are sadly lost to the mists of time and alcohol, but I do remember that she was not unattractive (Would on the binary scale).

Outside the spar, the new couple had emerged and were valiantly trying to hail a taxi. Enjoying myself immensely, I left them to it and continued talking to the girl. Suddenly, a taxi stopped and my friend ran over and told me we had to go.

YHN: Well, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you, but the taxi is here and I have to go home.
Girl: And where is home?
YHN: Glasnevin.
Girl: Sounds good to me.

And I just walked off.

In my defense, I did not hear the last line, and only know of it because I was told about it a week later. At the time I was annoyed, but, being honest, it is much better story than if I had pulled.

But back to the birthday party...

Having dithered on whether or not to drink, I decided I like Erdinger, so why not? Placing the Author and the Chameleon on "bollox overwatch" as a security precaution, I was confident I could survive the night with my reputation intact.

Almost immediately, an argument broke out.

Sitting on the veranda, on a fine summer's night, the four of us plunged headlong into a protracted wrangle over the role of religion in society. Both the Hobo and myself are of the firm opinion that religion should have a role to play. The Author and the Chameleon strongly feel that it should not. Those were our essential positions and both sides were well entrenched.

I argued my point well, doubly so since the beer was starting to kick in. I was having a simultaneous conversation via text message with a student of mine who, having required help with a new iPod, then informed me she'd rather sit in and watch Celebrity Love Island than go out and socialise. Disgusted, I proceeded to split myself in two, arguing about church and state with reason and rationality through my mouth and hurling vitriolic invective with my thumb. I can only assume the abuse heightened as the beer-level sank.

This argument continued until the Pornstar appeared with her attractive friend. Desperately trying to get noticed, I threw the odd comment her direction, but the alcohol had yet to take grasp. The inevitable result was that the obvious approach of taking to my feet and actually talking to the girl never really occurred to me.

By the whims of the trickster gods, another party was occurring across town, in the residence of the Author, and we had all agreed to finish the night there. At the Pornstar's urging, we moved inside to socialise before we took our leave. This confluence of events was particularly unfortunate, and I did not feel comfortable settling into a conversation when my departure is imminent. The Odeon was full of fine ladies, and I already had an established attack vector with a few.

Reluctantly taking our leave, the Chameleon and I took solace from the fact that most parties in the Author's residence are excellent, so all was not lost.

Along the way, while crossing College Green, a beautiful and tall girl was walking down Dame Street. Jim Bob kept walking.

YHN: Let's talk to her. Seriously. I'll do it. No problem.
C: Holy shit Mick, I'm glad you don't drink, cos if you did my annual goal of 28 points would start to look seriously inadequate.
YHN: What have we got to lose?

It will come as a surprise to no-one that Beautiful Tall Girl told me in no uncertain terms she wasn't interested. In fact, she was astonishingly hostile, but that is fair enough.

The Chameleon was not impressed.

C: I knew that was pointless. She had a look.
YHN: Fair enough, but we never knew until we tried.
C: I knew. She had a look.
YHN: I doesn't work that way. I know. I've seen it with my mates. I've looked at girls and thought there wasn't a hope, and then they were really friendly once you talked to them.
C: Not with girls like that.
YHN: Yes with girls like that! Look, think about it mathematically. I'll admit, the chances were slim, but she was lovely, so the payoff was very high. Put the two together and you've got yourself a decent expectation value there!
C: No! You are totally wrong. More than likely you get told to fuck off and then your confidence takes a hit.
YHN: Well, yes, I'll give you that. But I still think it was totally worth it. She was incredibly hostile though, wasn't she?
C: Yes she was.

I do two very strange things when I get drunk. First, when writing text messages, I spell things perfectly, observe punctuation, and don't miss predonyms. Secondly, I tend to view things mathematically (cf. my use of probability theory to justify talking to the BTG). I am sure other people do both as well, but it cannot be common.

Arriving at the party, I was somewhat dismayed to find only a few people there. Selfishly regretting leaving all the ladies, and ignoring the fact that I like the two girls the party was for, I immediately attacked my noggin of vodka, liberally diluting it with everybody's favourite glucose drink.

Wandering upstairs a little later on, I entered a room to find the Author deep in conversation with a female. While in retrospect, what I was looking at was two people in a private conversation, at the time all I saw was two people to talk to and an empty chair beside them.

Plonking myself down, within thirty seconds I went off on a rant about some of the more entertainingly clueless students that I have came across as a lecturer. It got to the point where both the Author and the Chameleon started giving me umbrella signals (the code word which activates "bollox overwatch" mode) - so I forced myself to calm down.

The girl was attractive, but something about her demeanour starting firing warning bells. I did not care. Going into what my brain thought was shmooze mode, I started talking to her, but she started railing against men and how they treat her badly, laying accusations around left and right. Pegging her as yet another crazy female, I decided it was probably safer to go back downstairs.

Thirty minutes later saw your humble narrator at the bottom of the stairs with Attractive But Crazy Girl once more. Showing all the sense common to someone in my state, I decided to try talking to her again. After all, she was pleasing to the eye and available, at least in theory.

Alas, when she immediately detoured the conversation in the general direction of slating another guy at the party, the end result was inevitable. Leaving me with the contents of her spleen, but little else, she walked over to the target of her vitriol and starting kissing him on the couch.

It was at that point that I realised it was time for home.

Before I went to sleep though, I stored the following in my phone:

How strange! Barely fit to stand yet able to way(sic) lyrical on subjects profound, I feel bitter from the rejection of lesser mortals. Alcohol is a strange drug!

With notes like the above left for myself, it is probably just as well I drink rarely, and this is before I even think about the way I felt the next day.

Bad Kharma

I have inherited my father's sense of humour. I get a great kick out of giving people grief, though in a good-natured way.

A long-standing favourite of mine is to phone or text people just as they drifting off into the warm embrace of a good-night's sleep. My nasty side finds this hilarious.

A few nights back, I gave full and untempered rein to the darker side of my humour.

Foolishly telling me she was going to sleep, a friend concluded a text message conversation concerning a misbehaving iPod.

I waited perhaps thirty minutes or so, and at 0030, sent the following text:

Oh I'm sorry? Did I wake you?

Almost immediately, a response to the negative came back. Balmy and humid, a lot of people slept fitfully at best that night.

Undeterred, I allowed perhaps two hours to pass. At about 0240, I sent the following

How about now?

The initial response was satisfyingly brief: "Asshole," followed about twenty minutes later, with a more verbose response:

"You utter wanker. Now I am completely awake!"

I think I can safely call that a success.

Johnny Cronin

I went to see my old friends the Cronins at a gig in Whelans last night. Mick and Johnny Cronin have known me since I was born, both our families lived in Leeds in the 1970s, and it appears that my Dad and their mother went "a-courting" when they were very young.

The lads are in an excellent band. I really like them, and not because they are my friends.

If you like alternative music, and have a taste for guitars-bass-and-drums type bands, you should check them out

http://www.johnnycronin.com

Hiberno-English

I attended a fascinating talk last night as part of my job.

At a reception for some postgraduates in DIT, Professor T.P. Dolan gave a talk on Hiberno-English, which is the version of the English language we use here in Ireland.

Until last night, I did not realise we have a very different syntax for words over here. One excellent example is the sentence "She was in bed all week with the doctor." While this would provoke feelings of sympathy to most of the Irish, to almost everyone else it takes on a more lascivious meaning.

The main strength of the English language is twofold, according to the Professor: Firstly, it was the language of success. In colonial times, it was the rulers who spoke English, and even today, the language of the US is English.

Secondly, English is promiscuous. It will mate with anything, and lacking any sort of Institution to ensure the language remained pure. Larceny and promiscuity has been the vices of the English tongue since its early days, and its million words are result.

I have always been interested in etymology, and, according to the Professor, there is a strong body of evidence that the word 'phoney' comes from the Irish word for 'ring:' fainne, and the fact that Irish fraudsters sold fake rings in New York in the 1850s.

It is also interesting that, despite its proximity to Britain, very few words have been stolen into English, whiskey being one of the few notable exceptions.

And to think that I considered the whole thing a big hassle as I walked up to DIT...

Deflation

It transpires that our chosen Broadband provider cannot get a signal at our house.

Six weeks of waiting goes bye-bye, which is pretty disappointing.

Still, upon learning this news I decided to try to get our phone-line reactivated and get normal broadband in. I think a fixed IP is out of the question, which is irritating, but at least we will have a relatively fast connection, even if it does cost more money.

Two more weeks of telecommunication darks ages.

It really is frustrating - especially since I was really looking forward to blogging from home, late at night, when my brain is filled with all sorts of strange things.

New York

It seems that my algorithms are finally producing numbers that make sense, so I am celebrating this breakthrough by working at my office on a Saturday. Things are pretty wild down here in Westland Row. Currently, I await results from a larger simulation run, which should give me better data.

Thus, do I sit at the keyboard and LCD, so that I might concoct a topic upon which to wax lyrical. For the moment, the web is bled dry of distractions and I must kill the time.

Fortunately, the Muses smile upon me, casting my thoughts forward to September.

One of my oldest friends is getting married on September 10 in New Jersey, and I am part of the Bridal Party. It is strange to type such words... I am part of the Bridal Party.

Thus do I have an excuse for another trip to NYC, my second this year. Unfortunately constraints both temporal and financial have limited the stay to eight days or so, but I have high hopes for the holiday.

I love New York. I never get tired of going there. Walking around the sidewalks of Manhattan gives me a sensation unlike anything else. It is still a while in the future, but things like that have a habit of creeping up on you.

The other benefit is that I might be there while my cousin is there. He is going to Canada on Monday, and hits 21 years on Wednesday.

I spoke to him for the first time in about five years last night at the party in Cavan. Conversation was surprisingly easy. We saw a lot of each other as kids, but I imagined time would create distance. I was gladdened to be proved wrong.

Freely I admit the rambling nature of this article. Sometimes it is cathartic to get the jumbled mess out of your brain and articulated.

Stochastic Mathematics

One of the most common question people ask me is "What are you researching for your PhD?" So common, in fact, I would have to put it third behind "When are you finished?" and "How long have you been doing it now?"

So, here is a very simple explanation of what I am researching.

The financial world has contracts known as options. An option contract bestows upon the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset for a given price (stipulated in the contract) on a given date in the future.

So, if the markets move favourably between now and then, the holder can exercise his option and make money. If the markets move unfavourably, the holder will not exercise the contract (as he would then lose money).

Following me so far? Good.

Now, since the other party in the contract is taking all the risk, she receives an upfront payment to write the contract. This value is known as the price of the option. The problem is, that if the option is priced wrongly, it is possible to make risk-free money from the market inaccuracy. Getting option pricing correct is important.

Options are popular because of the principle of leverage.

Leverage is very simple. Because the price of options is typically much less than that of the underlying assets, you can essentially multiply your investments. So, as an example, you could buy Microsoft stock for $150, let it grow to $200 on the 31 October, making $50 on the transaction.

Alternatively you could buy an option to buy Microsoft stock on 31 October at $150 for $10 (as an example price). You then exercise the option, buy it for $150 and immediately sell it on the market for $200. The end result is that you have made the same amount of money for a much smaller investment of capital.

In the above example, I have sacrificied a few technicalities at the altar of simplicity, but the overall concept is preserved.

Given the above, it is obvious why leveraging is so attractive to the markets. Options facilitate this leveraging.

In the financial world, there are two main types of options, European options and American options. The nomenclature has nothing to do with geography, and I am not certain why they are named such.

European options only allow the holder to exercise the option on the date of expiry stipulated in the contract. American options allow the holder to exercise early, if she wishes.

While this difference does not seem profound, mathematically the consequences are huge.

Until the 1970s, option-pricing was a black art, with no fully scientific method for performing these calculations. Then, two mathematicians solved the problem. Their approach was very novel. They removed all quantities that could not be quantified and assumed that the markets moved completely randomly. Their work was a revelation, but was not without its problems.

It relies heavily on a branch of mathematics called Stochastic Mathematics, which deals with function involving random numbers. While not particularly difficult, it is quite intimidating at first, despite being based an very simple and clever ideas.

The solution for simple European options was solved almost immediately, producing a relatively simple formula, easily programmed into the handheld computers that traders use on the exchange floor. Even the more exotic European options, which do not have an analytic solution, were straightforward to price using numerical techniques such as MonteCarlo integration.

Unfortunately, there is no analytic solution to the American option price problem. All results must be calculated numerically using a computer. Even then, it is hard to capture the early exercise features of American options in the models.

Enter your humble narrator.

My work takes a two-pronged assault on the problem. Using two completely distinct techniques (finite-difference and MonteCarlo integration), I am developing different algorithms to price American options. While the finite-difference approach has the benefit that implementing it for European and American options is almost identical (typically one line of code needs to be added for the early exercise feature), it has some major drawbacks - I will spare you the details.

Naturally, the MonteCarlo approach does not have these drawbacks, but has problems elsewhere - one of the most important being that the early exercise features can be very awkward to implement effectively.

Thankfully, I am almost finished. As I type this I await a program completion. I decided to write this entry since I have been waiting for a while. Hopefully, it will finish soon.

Here is hoping that the numbers are better than previous attempts.