so in other words, the $ symbol really means 'the current line'
    not the program counter ('cause the program counter is pointing
    to the next instruction)

Note that this is assembler and sometimes CPU architecture dependent.
(not that I can think of an assembler where "jump $" is a no-op, or
a CPU that increments the PC at the end of the instruction, but I'm
pretty sure I've seen at least one of those somewhere...)

BillW