Not OT at all.
I met Kirstie Alley at a little party one time back in 1980. I remember at the time thinking she was unbelievably arrogant. I only remembered her later when I chanced to see her in a movie I was watching and thought, "Dang! There's that arrogant chick I met that time!"
It took me 10 years to figure out that there is a big difference between 'arrogant' and 'confident'. Many people can't tell the difference. I couldn't at the time.
A good example of 'confident' is TD. If you've see him on CNBC, you know that he does not mince words. Somebody asks about a stock, he says precisely what he thinks, AND he backs it up, AND he doesn't guess. He doesn't blow some pink happy smoke about "if this maybe that, good luck!" [big smile]; he says, "Good. Buy it right here and bail if it goes the wrong way" or "Don't touch it, it's probably not going to go your way". And Joe and Bob and Mark don't bother arguing with his ass, because he knows more than they do about what he does, and they know it. I suspect that TD respects the CNBC people for what they do, too. You have a camera pointed at you that is going to 4 million people live, and open your mouth, and you'll see what I mean. <G>
He can do this because the man knows his business. He makes the other dudes on CNBC look like rank amateurs, which cracks me up. He's the best in the world at what he does, and that's why he is on the tube in the first place. Read his book. He knows his business.
It's obvious that he firmly believes that the more people that understand what he does, the better off everybody is. He respects other people and their ability to learn. That's not arrogance. That's confidence.
Kirstie Alley wasn't arrogant, she was just really confident. And her first movie was a pretty good "lucky break" for her, if you recall. People say she was "lucky". I don't think luck had anything to do with it. She knew what she wanted, and she went for it. (Now, she won't even return my phone calls. <G>)
I talk to P & F aficionados on an almost daily basis. P & F is some good stuff. Really good. I am still a rookie at P & F. I waited WAY too long to check it out, and if it were not for Jan I Am, I probably would still be in the dark on P & F. It's some good stuff, P & F, but there is no way I would presume to make a public call on something using it because I have not mastered it. Yet.
I would have studied it 15 years ago, but when I first looked into it, the guy that I asked about it said that it "ignored the time factor" and that sounded *really* stupid, so I didn't bother with it after that. Man, that was stupid. I mean, you ask somebody who doesn't understand P & F to explain it, and you're axing the wrong person, you know? Doh! <G>
Anyway, TD's book didn't exist except inside his head 15 years ago, so maybe it all worked out for the best.
I've been called arrogant. Fine by me. I don't particularly care if somebody thinks I am arrogant. Personally, I don't feel arrogant at all. I feel like there is a lot I don't know, and I'll be happy to tell anybody that asks me that I don't.
If I DO know something, then I'll usually share it. So, anybody that is reading what I write can draw their own conclusions about what my motives are. If somebody can't get past my confidence and see I want to help, then hey, that's not my problem. Besides, it's easy for me, I'm from another planet, I live on a spaceship and you don't know where it is. I'm not running millions of dollars of somebody else's money and talking about it on CNBC. I've got it easy.
As far as the straightedge, I use some very simple trend-line techniques from a book by Thomas DeMark called "The New Science of Technical Analysis". Why? Same reason I am studying P & F. It works. That's all. It works. Very simple. I check it out for myself, I read, I check the dictionary or the glossary if I don't get it, and then I see if it works. If it works, then I sit up straight and pay attention.
P & F works. That doesn't mean that the people that use it are arrogant, or confident, or anything else. All it means is that somebody can use it to make good calls on their own, and that means they can control their own lives better, and I'm a big fan of self-control.
Unlike my stupid cOUSIN, who is WAY out of control. But he has a bog heart, and there is Hope.
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