When I was a little girl, one of my classmates, an obnoxious, blond, little tot named "Anders," was fond of saying "You can't afford it!" to everyone who was in earshot. Later in life, I became certain Eddie Murphy had known Anders (though the timing, geography and demographics of this notion are difficult to compute) owing to his Delirious "We got ice cream" routine.
I have some ice cream, and I'm gonna eat it all, I'm gonna all- all my, ice- ice- cream. You don't have no ice cream. You didn't get none. Cause you on the welfare, You can't afford it, You can't afford it. And yo father is an al-co-hol-ic. Wanna a lick? Psych!
One sunny afternoon in the locale of Equity Private's early development, Anders taunted the newly arrived, token American student in the class over the new watch which Anders possessed, and the American did not. Strangely, I remember the watch being a very pleasant shade of pink, but that's for another time. In any event, Anders barely managed to get the words "You can't afford it," (in fairness, it was more of a "You can't affooooooord it") out before becoming the recipient of the most crushing blow to the groin any pre-teen could have been expected to deliver. Who said Americans can't play soccer?
Perhaps this is a somewhat circuitous narrative to arrive at the following basic point:
However like schoolyard the posturing, you probably shouldn't be taunting a company backed by Carl Icahn with "You can't affoooord it!" That is, unless you are wearing a lot of protective gear.
Can Blockbuster Afford Circuit City? [WSJ]
A bit of "You can't affooooord it" taunting after the jump. Warning: NSFW (unless you work at SAC).
Posted by General Zod , Apr 21, 2008 10:51AM
HALF!
Posted by Investorcluzo , Apr 21, 2008 10:56AM
classic eddie, love it! before he got involved with the trannies...but I guess should have known something was amiss: hey norton!
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 11:00AM
can someone stop this guy from posting? He sucks major balls.
Posted by ep , Apr 21, 2008 11:12AM
"can someone stop this guy from posting? He sucks major balls."
You can't affoooooooord it! (Or get my gender right).
Posted by american bandersnatch , Apr 21, 2008 11:35AM
When a story starts "When I was a little girl ...", I can guess the gender of the person posting with a fairly high success rate. Some people seem to have more difficulty.
Posted by IA , Apr 21, 2008 11:51AM
Has anyone from SNL remained funny past the age of 45, aside from Bill Murray?
Posted by onetwo , Apr 21, 2008 12:00PM
Hopefully she was an "Executive Transvestite".
Posted by Investorcluzo , Apr 21, 2008 12:14PM
@onetwo: please don't encourage the type of nonsense we have seen posted by @11:00. talk about sucking major balls, perhaps he/she had some in the way while reading the story. btw, hope things are well at the, now not so, new gig.
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 12:18PM
what was the locale that had token yanks?
Canada?
Suid Afrika?
Please not a pom... (shuddder)
Posted by General Zod , Apr 21, 2008 12:23PM
What have you done for me lately?
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 12:49PM
EP, I once thought no one could match Bess, but you are quickly becoming my favorite db writer (don't tell Levin - it'll break her poor heart!) Don't be afraid to follow BL's lead and throw a little profanity in there once in awhile, though. Also, nice response to "guest" @11:00...what a douche.
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 1:33PM
regardless of guest@11am's mistake in identifying EP's gender, the fact remains, just because dealbreaker aliases and friends post supportive comments, doesn't mean that guest@11am is wrong in his/her statement "EP sucks". my guess is that EP articles get far fewer hits/clicks than other non-EP articles. as a rough proxy, look at # of comments (factoring out comments posted by Dealbreaker aliases/EP) on EP's articles.
EP, just because you are writing on Dealbreaker doesn't mean your articles will suddenly be read. They weren't on your original site, and at best, there's probably a marginal uptick in hits on your posts on Dealbreaker simply b/c the site gets more hits in general.
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 1:43PM
So my interpretation is that Carl Ichaan plans to kick CC in the balls?
Still seems far more pleasant than what AOL did to Time Warner.
Posted by ep , Apr 21, 2008 1:51PM
Eh. Going Private is approaching its 2,000,000th hit, if that sort of thing matters. To be honest, I have no clue if that is substantial or not in the world of financial blogging.
I don't care much about readership size. Why should I? I don't advertise. I have no financial stake in large readership.
The material I post is of limited interest to a vanishingly small audience by virtue of specialization in an already narrow field.
I don't link back to Going Private from here. Bess does, from time to time, but not because I ask her.
Again, I don't spend a lot of time measuring readership.
You are, of course, welcome to narrow it even more by failing to click on my posts. And yet, this seems a challenge for you. Your propensity to comment on each of them seems to suggest a fairly classic bit of projection.
If you keep up that kind of repression, you are going to end up standing behind the podium admitting to some kind of very off-color sexual affectation in the midst of the "Modern Advances in Hemostatic Agents and Instruments" awards dinner, or something. These things never break small.
You know, you don't have to be threatened by your secret desires. No one has to know. You can stay up all night with the laptop reading my old stuff. There are two years of Going Private archives to delve into. Use one of the older laptops with slower processors, less heat and therefore no fans to wake up your significant other while you burn the hours away before the dawn.
Oh, and I'm the princess of financial darkness. When I comment on my own posts, you'll know it.
Posted by General Zod , Apr 21, 2008 1:57PM
"I'm the princess of financial darkness" = awesome. General Zod approves.
Posted by american bandersnatch , Apr 21, 2008 2:07PM
Few things are more annoying that people who refer to themselves in the third person. (possible exception is Jimmy who Elaine was interested in)
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 2:15PM
Imagine this-- DealBreaker has a Most Viewed feature. In order--
* In Other News, Citi Plans to Rename Its Quarterly Conference Call With Analysts to 'Lil' Vik's Happy Talk'
* British Banking
* How To Think About How Phenomenally Failing Citi Is Still A (Sacred) Cash Cow
* Nelson Is Angry: Your Instant 13D Report
* Layoffs Watch ’08: BNP
* The Undergraduate's Guide To Q&A On Merril Lynch's Q1'08 Call
* Private Equity Is Destroying Roads, Schools and Hospitals
* How Are Things At Merrill? No One (At Merrill) Can Really Say
* Non-Layoffs Watch '08
* Bear Trader To GS
* Only A Matter Of Time
* George Soros's Big Swinging Grapes
* Hurry! Space Is Limited!
* Loeb/Griffin Friends Again, Griffin/Dimon, Not So Much
* Layoffs Watch '08: BoA
* Your Employer Will Have No Problem With This
* CDO Cagematch
* Crack Bankruptcy Team: A Special (And Especially Long) DealBreaker Report
* In: Equity, Dilution. Out: Wachovia Employees
* Don't Get Stuck Swabbing The Skipper's Deck
I count EP at 8 of the top 20.
Posted by Investorcluzo , Apr 21, 2008 2:21PM
oh snap!!! ep has taken this $hit personal and provided her own zoro snap in z formation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd7T7maVlVo&feature=related to "mr./mrs. suck balls"...you go girl!
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 2:22PM
Hey, this is the same guest from @ 12:49. I would just like to say that guest @ 1:33 is also a giant douche.
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 3:15PM
http://dealbreaker.com/community/2008/04/petition-to-get-rid-of-ep-and.php
Posted by Anal_yst , Apr 21, 2008 3:34PM
I Imagine this guest who put the petition schwag up in the community - and feels compelled to re-post it in the comments on every single post - hasn't been a regular DB reader for long, and likely isn't very attune to the happenings in the financial world.
The fundamental lack of understanding of 'market-based' solutions to this/these persons dissatisfaction with EP's posts suggests said individual(s) are not financial or business professionals, but rather 12-year olds sitting in their parent's basements talking smack on teh internets.
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 4:50PM
@2:15. you sound a lot like EP. conveniently, EP says "I'm the princess of financial darkness. When I comment on my own posts, you'll know it." so OBVIOUSLY, it can't be EP posting since she pre-empted and said she doesn't. curious.
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 5:20PM
@ 4:50. You're retarded.
Even if 2:15 was EP (although I'm sure it wasn't), it's not like the post was some subjective statement about her popularity.
Rather, it was merely a statement of objective fact. So really, your only criticism is that you think EP anonymously defended herself by using actual, non-retarded facts.
Curious indeed.
Posted by guest , Apr 21, 2008 8:51PM
EP you're getting funnier each day. I just your hope your sarcasm doesn't show up in other places.