Final Results from the 2017 New York City Midnight Flash Fiction contest

Brag time!

Over 2,500 writers entered the NYCM Flash Fiction contest last July.

By December, it was down to 64 finalists.

And last night the judges' decisions were released.

I took 5th place overall!

I have four new kickass stories, one of which I'm eying for novel potential.
Oh, and $250 prize money plus some swag.

This was my second year competing. In 2016 I made it to the semi-finals but flamed out there.

Even *getting* to the finals this year was an achievement.

https://www.facebook.com/TrondEHildahlAuthor/

http://www.nycmidnight.com/Competitions/FFC/Challenge.htm

Context is important

Can we have a little nuance on the $hithole comment?

Here is the quote attributed to Mr. Trump:

"Why are we having all these people from $hithole countries come here?"

First, I duly note that the President is actively denying this specific wording. Given other comments he's made, on the record, I personally assume it is a correct quote.

Argument 1:

Suppose I, as a rural Californian, said, "Why are all the people from that $hithole Los Angeles coming through here?"

Am I racist? Or am I "simply" expressing an active dislike for that city?

I gather that people excusing the quote are treating the quote in this way. "He's not calling all the people that, just the--you know--conditions there and all."

Argument 2:

When you balance his comment with the immediately-followed "why can't we bring in more Norwegians?" it equates black, brown, and Latinized nations with "$hithole" and a homogenously white nation as something to welcome to America.

Plus, you know, the ACTUAL WORDS.

Many of the times that Mr. Trump has made a speaking gaffe, his supporters will claim that when you look at such quote in context, it is more understandable as to intent. And most of the time, there's a modicum of truth to that.

In this situation, however, I feel he is damned both by the specific words as well as the context.

For shame, Mr. President.

"A Year's Luck" - from the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction 2016 contest - challenge 3

I made it through to the 3rd challenge in the NYCMFF2016.

Scores from challenges 1 and 2 were totaled (I took 2nd and 7th respectively, out of 35 writers in my group) and the top 5 from each moved on. The 300 of us were then divided into 12 new groups of 25 each. The top 4 from each group in this challenge will move on to the 4th and final round.

Again, flash fiction is a story created in 48 hours or less, with a word count of 1,000 words or less.

My prompts were the genre of mystery; primary location of a bonfire; and an item (which has to appear in the story but not necessarily be a major part) of a fake ID.

I received mystery for the second time in a row! I feel much better with it this time around...
Please feel free to leave a comment with feedback! Thanks in advance!

-Trond

Taking the story down - 6/8/17

"Reality Bites" - from the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction 2016 contest - round 2

Here's my entry in round 2.

Again, flash fiction is a story created in 48 hours or less, with a word count of 1,000 words or less.

My prompts were the genre of mystery; primary location of an airport duty-free shop; and an item (which has to appear in the story but not necessarily be a major part) of a milkshake.

I will admit at the outset that the mystery genre floored me. Please feel free to leave a comment with feedback! Thanks in advance...

-Trond

Taking this story down, sorry... (6/7/17)

--  --  --

Reality Bites

In the final round of a game show, contestants must unravel what is real and what is not.

Fantasy Football decisions

Hello Fantasy Fans!

It’s finally here – after months of waiting, devouring every article, drafting both mock and real… tomorrow night opens the season.

And now you have an active lineup due.

Maybe you went WR for the first three picks and have to choose between Matt Jones, Thomas Rawls, and TJ Yeldon for two RB slots. Maybe you went “best position available” from the 10^th slot in a 12 team league, missing the two 4 WRs and 5 RBs, and your choice for a flex is between Larry Fitzgerald, Travis Benjamin, and Stefon Digs.

Isn’t it funny how all the articles you see right now list Lamar Miller as a better start this week than Todd Gurley, or give the nod to Antonio Brown over Beckham Jr.? As if you are ever going to have to make that choice (speaking purely of redraft leagues).

When it gets down to reality, it is purely matchup driven. I have Cam Newton in one (keeper) league, and guess what – against Denver’s defense I am sitting the consensus (preseason) #1 QB. I drafted Brock Osweiler as a backup and I love him this week against Chicago’s hurt cornerbacks with a couple shiny new toys (I mean rookies).

And speaking of those rookies, I nabbed Will Fuller in a couple drafts. However, even though HIS matchup is equally attractive, he’s riding the pine since I have Randall Cobb and DeSean Jackson penciled in as my starters in one, and Jackson and TY Hilton in another. (Yes, I went against conventional wisdom this year and went RB heavy in most leagues so I do not have some of the premier wideout names).

Another personal lineup decision: Flex between Ryan Matthews and Mike Evans? I’m going with Matthews because Evans is facing Atlanta’s Trufant. Simple as that.

If you have a really solid lineup overall, feel free to take a chance with your personal Will Fuller.  A high ceiling player might be just the ticket if you have a group of solid floors, you know? But don’t go with all your ceiling players, either.

So where am I going with this? We have a limited scope of preseason work (that I don’t trust anyways, because. Preseason.) We have last year’s numbers. We have grades of offensive and defensive lines… Honestly we’re swimming in too much information, but you have to make the call at some point. 

So, my point is – treat this week’s lineup decisions just as you’d treat week 6 or week 12: take the info you have, take your knowledge of the player and teams, and roll with your best guess.

Good luck out there! Are you ready for some football?????

"Eyes On Red" - from the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction 2016 contest

Contest time! This Flash Fiction contest is a story created in 48 hours or less, and a word count of 1,000 words or less.
In round 1, I was assigned the genre of Ghost Story, the primary location of a casino, and an item (which has to appear somewhere, but not necessarily be a major part of the story) of a pair of colored contact lenses.

Editing - taking the story down as I will be working on this story further and submitting for publication.

---

NaNoWriMo

Ever feel like you have the Great American Novel just bursting to get out of your brain? Take the plunge with NaNoWriMo - or National Novel Writing Month.

November is the month, and a novel is the goal. You "win" by completing 50,000 words within the calendar month of November, or 1,667 words per day.

Check out www.nanowrimo.org for details and to register. I am participating this year and will post about my progress at intervals.

Good luck to all who enter!
Best,
Trond

Port 24 update

I finally had a chance to revisit the Port, and spent a while cleaning it up.

MITI was bought out, CLSN and DCTH had reverse splits (boy do I wish I'd sold those prior to the mothball!) and a few calls expired worthless.

This morning I check out the prices of CLSN, DCTH, and PIP and "sold" them at the bid.
Just now I couldn't resist and picked up 2000 shares of VHC.

So the current Port looks like this:
Cash $27,780.30
1500 ARQL
1200 BTX
2600 CLDX
2500 CORT
1100 EXEL
7000 NNVC
6000 PPHM
1600 SGMO
2000 VHC
1800 ZIOP

Total worth (as of this moment) is $213,642.30.
That is a return of 113%, and annualized to about 16% over nearly seven years. Almost 4  of those years, the Post has been neglected to a sorry degree, too! Not bad.

I'll be more active now, and utilizing calls as usual to pick up additional income.

Good luck to all portfolios in the days ahead!

TED talk: Violence --> Poverty

I challenge EVERYONE to watch the 1 1/2 minutes from 10:57 to 12:27.

So I love to watch TED talks but my typical stance is, "Wait, this is 20ish minutes, I just can't spend that time when I don't know if this is WORTH it."

I'll summarize this, so you you can still be ejumacated without having to watch - although this one is worth the 22 minutes.
Poverty is created by, and sustained through violence, in cultures where the concept of law enforcement is spotty. And our own is NOT immune. See the challenge above.

Two impactful quotes:
"Most poor people live outside the protection of the law."
"People don't know how to fix the problem, so they don't talk about the problem."

http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_haugen_the_hidden_reason_for_poverty_the_world_needs_to_address_now#t-609414

Nimrud destroyed

"The Art Newspaper considers it “the greatest single cultural loss since the Second World War,” while Irina Bokova, the director general of UNESCO, condemned “this mad, destructive act that accentuates the horror of the situation,” in a statement while equating the destruction to a war crime."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/14/how-isis-reduced-the-ancient-world-of-nimrud-to-rubble.html

Ridiculous. What a waste of oxygen. 'Nuff said.

ARNA

Longtime readers know I have been a fan of Arena for years.

I am absolutely unhappy with the stock price and have been for years. They were screwed over by the DEA for not getting it scheduled for almost a whole year after Belviq's approval. That killed a lot of momentum. The attitude of doctors for "diet and exercise" and avoiding a pill hurts too, but that is slooooowly changing.

Today's price is about $4.55. And although I am still a fan of the company, I don't see blockbuster price moves soon. So I would be comfortable with selling calls against a position at this point - I want to be long the stock but I think July $5s (if you can get $.35 for them) sound about right. Maybe even the Oct $5s, with the idea of buying them back with some probable summer volatility). On the first you get almost 8% return for 3 months, with another 9% if exercised (all minus commission, of course).

2-5% a month, on a "boring" stock. :-)

Income taxes

It's that time of year, and of course I rebel against the amount due sometimes.

We obviously (or maybe not so obviously, if you are hard-core Libertarian?) need some method of raising revenues for the government juggernaut to roll. Where you fall on the graduated vs. flat tax debate probably depends on your income level.

One of the other major alternatives tossed around always seems to be a consumption tax instead of an income tax. The upside to this is that you are not taxing the creative/industrious efforts but instead raising revenues from people spending the money. The downside is that our entire economy is pretty much based on the urge to spend, spend, spend. Putting the brakes on that would tilt the entire economy and it would probably take years of fine-tuning to "get it right," whereas there probably would be a very volatile economy in that interim.

Hmmm. Maybe the libertarians have a point...

Port24 revival

I will be taking the Port out of mothballs soon.

Fortunately the stocks I'd selected were smaller biotechs, for the most part, that need years to come to fruition. I need to review the last few buys and sells to make sure I have the positions current, then will be posting where I'm at.

As a reminder, the Port24 is a fictitious portfolio, started with $100,000, a target of 24% returns per year, and hopefully demonstrating the power of smallcaps combined with covered calls. I think I was averaging around 18%+ a year for quite a while and it will be interesting to see where I'm at with the neglect of over two years.

Writing contest

Like I recently said, I am back in the saddle, writing.

This is a cool little new site, that allows one to write and then (online) publish their works. They have had a few monthly contests and I was very excited to take second place in the March "Running Scared" short story horror contest.

http://www.inkitt.com/anotherworld

The current contest, which just started and runs through May 5th, is "Echo of Another World." It is a short story contest for sci-fi/fantasy and in honor of the late Sir Terry Pratchett.

Wall of worry

"This past month may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/larry-summers-past-month-may-121922702.html

So we have heard this kind of thing before. Part of me thinks it is a planned theme from the government and quasi-governmental think tanks over the next 12 months to harp on these kinds of thing to try to let some steam out of the stock market. We are pretty much at all-time highs on all fronts, interest rates are still low, and business is still clicking along with unemployment down to a 5.5% rate.

My biggest worry? The "sell in May" story. Stay tuned...

Back in business

There have been some life changes!

I am no longer in business as a financial planner, or portfolio manager. This simplifies my life considerably, now that I no longer have to worry about compliance.
I am still going to talk stocks, personal finance, markets. But I am going to offer much more commentary on society and life issues as well.

I find myself writing again. Stories, poetry, this blog, and more. Writing is something I find myself enjoying again.
I once again invite you, "Come join the fun."

Comments, as long as they fit one out of these three categories, are encouraged:
Honest
Funny
Polite

I reserve the right to remove comments where I deem it warranted.

ZIOPharm (ZIOP)

ZIOPharm is a biotech in the cancer space, with an important trial expecting data in the last week of March 2013.

PICASSO 3 is a phase 3 trial in soft tissue sarcoma, using ZIO-201, or palifosfamide. Pali, for short, is also being tested in a phase 3 trial for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with data nearer the end of the year.

They released news this morning that Indiana University has sponsored and initiated a phase 2 trial in recurrent metastatic germ cell (testicular and ovarian) tumors, using pali also. Since the lead investigator here is the same Doctor who leads the NSCLC trial it bodes well of him using the University's time, money, and prestige in bringing this phase 2 there.

ZIOP also has some interesting drugs in their pipeline, albeit most of them are much longer term propositions. Right now, this truly is a play on the PICASSO 3 trial.

While I am cautiously optimistic on its success there, biotech is not for the faint of heart! With the stock closing yesterday at $4.74, I am looking for a runup to the mid $5s in the next two weeks. If PICASSO 3 comes in sucessful I'd like to see the price hit somewhere around $7-8. And conversely, with failure I would expect a price of around $3, although rebounding over the summer to current levels due to the NSCLC trial, and pipeline, potential.

Best,
Trond Hildahl

** This is presented for educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as personalized legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. My own resources, risk tolerance, and personal situation have been taken into consideration for any trades mentioned and should not be used as a basis for someone else's trades. Stocks may lose value and this is not recommendation to buy or sell this particular issue. **

AcelRx has a Good Day

News from ACRX tonight:

PR

AcelRx, in brief, is into pain. No, not Mr Grey-type pain, but the relief of such. Their NanoTab sufentanil system is a pill that melts under the tongue and is like morphine on steroids. And the device that delivers it allows the patient to safely self-dose when needed and yet prevent overdosing and drug-theft.

They already proved last November that this drug is non-inferior to morphine and the company has a third phase 3 trial that will wrap up in the 2nd quarter this year.

I'll be listening to the conference call tomorrow morning, and expect a "sunny" day share-price-wise.

Good luck to all ACRX owners.

Best,
Trond Hildahl

** This is presented for educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as personalized legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. My own resources, risk tolerance, and personal situation have been taken into consideration for any trades mentioned and should not be used as a basis for someone else's trades. Stocks may lose value and this is not recommendation to buy or sell this particular issue. **

VirnetX (VHC) and Uni-Pixel (UNXL)

Good morning!

Last night, VHC received the final judgment in its court victory against Apple from last November. The jury award of $368M was confirmed, along with daily damages that total about another $18M+. Their request for an injunction (yes, an injunction against the iphone4 (!) amongst other products) was denied. The parties were ordered into mediation within 45 days to come up with a license for royalties – or else the judge will impose one. All in all, a clear win for VirnetX AND the trial against Cisco starts in two weeks – on the same patent suite, in front of the same judge who oversaw victories against Microsoft and Apple, and who used to be a software engineer.

Add to that this morning the USPTO reviewed and confirmed several core patents that VHC holds.


Uni-Pixel makes touchscreens and films that may represent an order of magnitude improvement in cost and flexibility for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). They have signed several agreements and licenses in the last few months (including Texas Instruments and an unnamed “major PC maker”).

The company had its 4Q12 earnings call last night and I expect good things for all of 2013 from this company. They are ramping up to production mode and have $5M in pre-orders already. Wall Street seems to be cheering them on today, with the price up 23% to the $23+ level.

Excellent news from both.
Best regards,
Trond Hildahl

--This is presented for educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as personalized legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. Stocks may lose value and this is not recommendation to buy or sell this particular issue.

Flip-flop on Celsion

It is no secret that I was an outspoken bull on Celsion for the last three years.
While I have quite a lot of sympathy for current shareholders, I personally am 100% out of the stock right now. I had a good exchange with a current bull, and thought it would make the basis for an interesting post.

---

Most important, first:
>>did you flip around and go short?

Nope - I never short.
At the absolute most if I am quite certain of a decline I'll buy puts. Don't *like* the idea or process of shorting - too many problems/games that can be played but I guess this is not the time or place for that. [TH - I have PLENTY of posts here over the years to illustrate my issues with shorting]

>>Did you ever consider that PFS in the control group as a whole was 14.4, BUT what if it is less in other subsets? Such as China's 200 patients? What if PFS in the China subset is only 12?

I considered it, and here's my take:

We had very convincing arguments that we'd be golden if PFS came in anywhere under 17 months or so. (Perhaps you'll recall that although I was extremely bullish my own continued mantra was we should expect around a 14:24 PFS. My control arm projection was almost spot on - but with "not even close" we obviously made some kind of dreadful miscalculation of the hazard ratio.)

So given that 14.4 wasn't close, I hold out very diminishing hopes that even a clear subset at 12 would have been stat-sig.
Add to that, that for a 200 patient subset to achieve 12 when the overall was 14.4, the ex-Chinese group would have been even worse than 14.4.

And the DMC at interim did not halt for failure, which if we weren't close at 14.4, with a subset of ~500 out of 600 at the time showing a 15+ PFS ... I propose that such a situation simply couldn't have happened.

And finally:
>>They will not go bankrupt. They have a lot of cash now, 2 ongoing trials, RCW is VERY promising, and probably what they should have focused on in the first place.....

You are right, BK is not going to happen. But massive dilution has happened, and that cash will disappear faster that you might think. ABLATE is only 80?? patients but they were slow to enroll to conserve cash for HEAT results. Gearing up now cost $. And that is ph2, which they were depending on good HEAT results to allow off-label. By itself ABLATE is not registrational. More money needed! And if you'll recall, even the BS BiotechSage admitted HCC ph1 looked decent and it was MLC and distant mets that posed the problem.

I agree that RCW may be the best shot. But they took ... so ... long ... to enroll even the ph1, I don't see the larger ph2 finishing with results anytime before 2016.

I put a HUGE amount of time, attention, and DD into the bull case. But I am always cogent about what might happen and once the "unthinkable" happened then I have to put credence in the bear case until proved wrong (again). The reward is definitely there, at this price, but the risk is, in my opinion, much worse.

GLTY
Trond

---

So there you go. I followed my principles and took my basis out in the $7s and $8s, but for three years, and the time and effort I put into this, I am not sure I "got my money's worth" here. Another lesson in the minefield called biotech.

Best,
Trond Hildahl

** This is presented for educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as personalized legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. My own resources, risk tolerance, and personal situation have been taken into consideration for any trades mentioned and should not be used as a basis for someone else's trades. Stocks may lose value and this is not recommendation to buy or sell this particular issue.