• The scraps of self-esteem I have left from not acting on the casino idea are being lapped up by Boo with the aforementioned drop in Electronic Arts, a name I have subjected to every insult I can think of - except for actually shorting the stock. As mentioned at the start of this gaming cycle, the leaders of one cycle seldom keep that title through the next.
  
  The Xbox360 / PS3 / Nintendo (NTDOY) Wii era is going to leave Activision (ATVI) at the top of the software heap, Nintendo the king of hardware with Electronic Arts and Sony (SNE) as the respective victims. For what it’s worth, I’ve been out of Activision for a while now and can’t picture having much of an interest in the space for a couple more years, when we can all handicap the next console upgrade round.
  
  
• If I was in charge of Fast Money’s Poll of the Day, or even on tonight’s show, I’d make the question:
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  “Which Founding CEO spends the most time ruing the moment he decided to come back and attempt to return his firm to greatness?: A) Michael “DJ Ditty” Dell of Dell (DELL), B) Jerry “Over His Head” Yang of Yahoo (YHOO) or C) Howard “Stuck Between Hippie and Stuffed Shirt” Schultz of Starbucks (SBUX)”.
  
  I’d answer Yang; I’ve met Carl Icahn. I like him but I wouldn’t want him to own 10% of my life and have my number on his speed dial. While we’re opining, I would suggest that, of the three, Schultz is doing the most things right. He’s taking flack from the hippies but he should be, Starbucks has been pandering to the free-love crowd for far too long for the stock’s good. It doesn’t make Starbucks a buy but I like the stock more every time I see columns such as this one.
  
  
• What would I do if I were forced to run Electronic Arts or Yahoo? I’d suspend drug testing, serve up quintuple espressos and make my charges watch one or all of the Greatest Inspirational Speeches I’ve found on today’s Youtube.com binge (Al Pacino and Billy Bob Thornton. I doubt it would work but at least it might shake the malaise of someone in the room and infect EA and Yahoo. At the very least, it would be 10-minutes my employees didn’t spend working on their resumes for Activision and/or Google (GOOG).
  
  
• If I were Mr. Schultz or Dell, I’d just go with the janitor chewing out Rudy. Honestly, both companies are post-peak road kill at this time, in this economy. “Dying with dignity” amounts to a lofty goal for Dell and Starbucks.
  
  
• Finally, if I were in the corner office at General Motors (GM) I’d probably watch porn in the morning and golf in the afternoon after 3-martini lunches. It seems some sort of government mandate that Rick Waggoner gets about $15 million a year regardless of performance. That being the case, I can’t understand the point of even bothering to pretend to work.

With that, I’m off for a Halloween parade featuring Minnie Mouse, a Pirate and my own still to be determined costume. Make it a great and safe weekend, Minyans. We’ll put all of this October ugliness behind us and start fresh on Monday!