Monday, March 05, 2007

Nasdaq Follies


So my good friend Jocylene invited me to go to Nasdaq today because her new company is ringing the opening bell (from Chenai of all places). So I went and it was a kick.
Also weird. Because Nasdaq is all electronic, there is no crowd of traders, the boards and screens you see from the street are really kind of the hub of the whole thing.
But since they were ringing the bell from India, there was a reasonably good sized group ready to watch. We all had breakfast and played hob-nob and it was pretty cool. Then, about 20 minutes before the bell we walked into a different area with a live feed from India. The CEO spoke, the head of Nasdaq International spoke. The US Chenai console general spoke.
All the while, this heavy woman with a large, low center of gravity, from the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce was taking pictures of the big screens in front of us. The screens were about 20 feet across, so you could take a picture from anywhere, but this woman keep shoving her rather large ass in front of Jocelyn. The first time it happened, I laughed and Joce smiled - annoyingly, but like "maybe she just didn't see me".
However you need to understand Joc and I were some of the few people sitting down. There were literally 5 empty rows ahead of us, and this woman stood DIRECTLY in front of Joce.
Well, after moving to take some pictures, she came back and stood right in front of Joce again! This time I laughed out loud, and Joce (rather nosily) moved over to see the board. Damn if Miss Nikon didn't rumble over in front of her again.
But Miss Nikon with the giant ass did realize Joce was annoyed, so as Joce took a deep breath to tell the photog to get out of the way, the lady with the camera whipped around to take a picture of Joc. She pointed, and focused and pointed and focused and pointed and finally snapped. They she looked at the little screen. Then without moving from in front of Jocelyn starting snapping pictures of the people in the back. All the while blocking Joce from seeing the screen.
It was a very bizarre occurrence. DING DING - Bell was rung
Oh yeah, no more thing. The whole kit and kaboodle is done and everyone in Chenai is standing around on the stage and you hear the Nasdaq lady saying, "That went well" and people milling about - even in New York people are turning from the screen, then this GIANT BANG! and screams in India. Then amid the shots of people ducking you see flying debris and think "Bomb!".
Then it happens again and again and you notice the debris is confetti and it was a surprise part of the celebration. And I am glad that wasn't shown on TV.