Turn-ons: Hydrocarbons, my G4, honesty, brunettes.

Ah, okay, so that last one is mine. But whoa boy, am I a little nervous right now.

Why?

Well, first up, the Playboy interview in the January 2007 issue [link good only till they update with next month's issue] is with Boone Pickens. (Along with, natch, a cover of Pamela Anderson. Do we need to see any more of her? No.) Boone Pickens is of course these days probably the most familiar mainstream proponent of peak oil, as well as the head honcho of several very successful hedge funds focused around energy.

Secondly, the January 2007 issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine has a cover shot and profile ['Macro Man' - pdf warning] of my other favorite hedge fund manager, Peter Thiel, who's performance has also been remarkable over the past few years, and naturally his peak oil views are mentioned in the article.

Okay, so it isn't quite like Time Magazine picked James Kunstler for Man of the Year or something, and it's not on the level of the famous BusinessWeek cover proclaiming "The Death of Equities", or even the Economist's cover in 1999 predicting $5 oil as far as the eye could see.

But when two major media outlets pick up on our two favorite fund managers and prognosticators simultaneously after both having had a significant period of out performance under their belts, wow, it's really got to raise your contrarian hackles something awful. The herd, my friends, is gazing our way with a longing sort of look. We can only hope they get distracted by Miss January, who, interestingly enough, has the word "Respect" tattooed right over her.. Well, I'll leave that little detail to be uncovered in your research. Remember folks, since it's all about your investments, it's not only tax deductible, but you can actually justify it to the wife.

What does it all mean? Maybe nothing, maybe something. Keep an eye out. Stops in place. Discipline rules.

[Sidenote: Oddly enough, reading the Bloomberg profile, I discovered that Peter Thiel and I share a similar background. We were both born in Frankfurt, he in 1967, I in 1966; his family moved a lot, and he attended 7 elementary schools in different countries, similarly, I attended 5 elementary schools in assorted countries; he eventually settled in San Francisco and attended a local college (Stanford), I eventually settled in Los Angeles and attended a local college (UCLA), he drives a Mercedes McLaren SLR, I drive a... okay, so we diverged a little bit somewhere in the middle.]

I leave you with the contrarian wisdom of Groucho Marx:

"I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER."