This Changes Everything April 28, 2006March 4, 2017 MONKEY BUSINESS I assume you spent most of the day yesterday designing chimp messages for all your friends. I did. This one came from a chimp in a major investment house’s syndication department. This, from a trader who was supposed to execute a 25,000-share short sale for his client. Wanna buy some bonds? SYMS Suggested here a couple of years ago at $7.90 a share, SYM closed last night at $17.75 on news of a ‘Dutch auction,’ under which the company proposes to buy back up to about 22% of its shares at a price of $16 to $18. I’m not selling my shares, despite the nice 125% long-term gain, because I figure the company has a better idea of its value than I do. It seems to think that, at $18, the stock is worth buying a few million shares. (That doesn’t mean the stock might not fall back after this excitement is over, or that the company’s judgment might not prove wrong. But for those who can afford the risk, it may be worth hanging on.) QI It’s now a word in Scrabble. Or in the dictionary, anyway. And my computer doesn’t know! This changes everything. PROBLEM SOLVED You were probably wondering what to do with the previously frozen $4-a-pound baby octopuses in the fish counter of your local supermarket. Sitting there right next to the $31-a-pound stone crabs. I couldn’t ask Charles, who only eats things with legs, not arms, so I asked Steve, who manages the fish department at Publix. How do you cook these? His face twisted into a seriously unenthusiastic look (who would want to, it seemed to be saying). ‘Boil them,’ he finally said, as he handed them to me. Well, I don’t mean to brag, but here it is: 1. Boil them until you are absolutely sure they are dead. 2. Drop them into a bowl of Ragu Lite Tomato Basil spaghetti sauce. 3. Enjoy! If you want to get fancy, haul out some salt and pepper. If you want to go crazy, boil some spaghetti to underlie your octopi. I can’t tell you how pleased I am with myself for discovering this. THE PLUTOCRACY The Republican priorities are nothing less than astonishing. Now that Exxon’s chair has gotten his $398 million retirement package (plus perks), the Republican leadership seeks to eliminate the estate tax his heirs will suffer when he dies. Click here. (Actually, the article is about much wealthier people, to whom $398 million is just fooling around money.)