Hurry Up And Wait...

So, since I've last posted: picked a house, signed contract, negotiated with seller, did home inspection, locked in loan...and am now waiting. Closing isn't scheduled until April 25 (4 weeks from next friday), and with the bulk of the pre-closing tasks done it's time to wait.

I ended up picking a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, three story townhouse. This means that I'll go from tripping over stuff in my overly crowded room to feeling as if I have absolutely no furniture. I have enough stuff though to make moving it a lot of work though.

Sure looked strange to me!

(Town)house-hunting has begun in earnest. Botched home improvement projects, check. Questionable odors, check. Overpowering paint schemes, check. If only those were the worst problems that some of these houses had.

As a first time home buyer I've read my fair share of advice for what to look for and what to ignore. But as my first trip out into the marketplace revealed, it was hard to ignore how badly some of these houses had been treated.

#1 Sure a house can be repainted, but when every surface on the inside, and some outside, have been painted a dark shade of purple and you've got purple carpeting too, you've got a problem:



#2 Got renters? Then there's a good chance they destroyed your house. Why? Because it's not their house, and they most likely don't care about selling it--it would mean they have to leave. (I was a renter, I know I didn't intentionally destroy anything, then again I didn't make anything nicer either...)

#3 If your house isn't clean, I'm not sure how good your maintenance would have been either--a clean house is worth actual money.


#4 It's true, it's hard to sell an empty house, all the flaws are magnified because there's nothing else to look at.

#5 Hardwood or pergo flooring only improves the value of your house when you install it properly...those finishing details like edging matter.

That sounds harsh, welcome to a buyer's market.

Look a post!

So I realize it's been a little over 5 months since I last posted...

Here's what happened: 1. I went on vacation for two weeks (Hawaii and Oregon) which entailed the blog going on vacation. 2. I came back from vacation. 3. I didn't come back from my blog vacation.

Simple really. Anyhow, here's where things stand: I've reached 308 in the 1001 MYMSBYD count, which feels like alot, and only my ability to do math keeps reminding me that it isn't even a third--still I'm a glass is 30.77% full kinda person. The goal for this year is 400.

Another source of optimism for me is that since the economy in general and the housing market in particular are not doing great I am in a good position to begin the quest for my first house, or rather, townhouse. This will hopefully provide some good blog fodder as process kicks into gear and I'll be motivated to update the blog more frequently hence forth.

Lastly, I did almost manage to finish reading 50 books last year, coming in 75 pages shy of finishing the last one, which I could have totally done if I hadn't watched When Harry Met Sally on New Year's Eve--but that's tradition and you don't mess with tradition. I haven't set any lofting reading goals for this year luckily, because I'd already be way behind.

It's a glow-in-the-dark compass ring. So you don't get lost. -Big (1988)

1. What did Colonel Jack D. Ripper mix with his pure grain alcohol?

2. Who Oscared as Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire?

3. Who won an Oscar nomination for best actress for her role as Margo Channing in All About Eve?

4. What Tracy-Hepburn film was billed as the hilarious answer to "who wears the pants"?

5. What was Woody Allen's reply in Sleeper to the question: "You mean you haven't had sex in 200 years?"?

ETA: Answers in comments.

Everybody's born knowing all the Beatles lyrics instinctively.

They're passed into the fetus subconsciously along with all the amniotic stuff. Fact, they should be called "The Fetals". -Sliding Doors (1998)

Apparently the last great frontier of digital music is The Beatles.

"The Beatles are really the holy grail for digital music, said Aram Sinnreich, a professor at New York University's department of media culture and communications and managing partner of Radar Research LLC, a media consulting firm. "They have not been available legally from any digital music service to date. Once they are, I think it confers the sense that digital music has finally arrived in the mainstream."

Sure, I'll agree with that. This pronouncement, not so much:

"There's no question that there is a massive demand for the Beatles through a digital channel," Sinnreich said, "not only from baby boomers, who would replace the CDs they used to replace their LPs, but also from today's college students, who demonstrate continued interest in the band despite the fact that it's their grandparents' music."

The first thing is how absurd it would be to replace your CDs with digital downloads: 1. It's expensive, 2. CDs are higher quality/bitrate, 3. Apple makes it insanely easy to copy the CDs you have if you only stick them in the CD drive and hit a button.

The second thing, I wonder if they'll restrict certain groupings of songs to album only purchases. Like the first two songs of Sgt. Pepper, or the last half of Abbey Road. Time will tell, but as you might guess, I won't be buying my Beatles digitally.

Paul McCartney seems resigned to the idea of digital music though. When interviewed on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic:

To me, it doesn't really matter, it's however people want to take the music--to me it's the music that matters. You know, it's probably better if they listen to the vinyl, but how many people are going to do that these days? It's kind of inconvenient. It probably is the best sound, if you're going to be a hi-fi nut. That's actually probably the best way to do it. I don't care though, however people want to do it.

You can listen to the whole live show and interview here, it's well worth it.

There is no spoon. -The Matrix (1999)

1. Who portrayed The Ugly in The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly?

2. What was Gene Kelly's occupation in the 1951 classic An American In Paris?

3. What 1957 film had the line: "Easy enough to talk of soul and spirit and essential worth, but not when you're three feet tall"?

4. What co-star of Shane died at 30 when he slammed his van into the side of a truck in Lakewood, Colorado, in 1972?

5. What was Brian's last name in Monty Python's Life Of Brian?

ETA: answers in the comments.

Don't Panic.

#20: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.

I've known that 42 is the ultimate answer since I was seven, along with the every line from Monty Python And The Holy Grail, because I lived in the same house with my middle brother. So it was about time I actually got around to reading the book--my middle childhood makes so much more sense now. The 2005 movie was pretty good, but the book is comic genius. What P.G. Wodehouse novels are to the English novel, Douglas Adams is to the science fiction novel. Science fiction is normally not a genre I gravitate to, but I would recommend this, only because if you like sci-fi then this is up your alley and if you don't you can view the whole book as a satire of the classic sci-fi novel, so you can't lose. On that note, so long and thanks for all the fish.

You have another question? Sure, I got one question for you. It's CAN YOU DEAL WITH THAT? -Meet The Parents (2000)

Now that the internet problems at chez 57 have been resolved 1001 Movies trivia can post on schedule:

1. What did the blind flower girl throw in The Little Tramp's face in City Lights?

2. Who played gay desparado Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon?

3. What did Harold Chasen convert his Jaguar into in Harold And Maude?

4. What 1974 Jack Nicholson film was set in 1937?

5. What famed Paris restaurant was Vincente Minnelli's 1958 musical Gigi partly set in?

ETA: Answers in the comments.

Sprechen Sie Daytshish?

When I took German in college, little did I know it would come in handy for reading a murder-mystery set in a fictional Jewish refugee colony in Alaska. That's right, it's book update time once again. I'm pretty far behind on posting about my reading progress, but I'll try to get it under control over the next few weeks.

#19: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon.
This is the first book I've read by Michael Chabon (I know, I'm apparently the only one who hasn't read The Amazing Adventure's of Kavelier And Clay). Coming off a Dashiell Hammett's complete novels this book was a little bit flat for me as a genre book. It came really close to working for me, but was a little bit short in a few areas. I really liked the Yiddish for the first third of the book, after that it started to seem a little gimmicky. I also really liked the plot for the first third and the last third of the book, the middle was slow and not helped by my sudden irritation with the unblent Yiddish. That being said, knowing German added another layer to the characterizations for me. Since a good bit of Yiddish is the phonetic spelling of the German word (how you can be more phonetic than German I don't know), or just the German word, I was amused to find that the main character's ex-wife has the last name Gelbfish, or yellow fish. My favorite Yiddish transformation is familiar to most bagel-eaters of the northeast: lox = lachs = salmon. You can translate from Yiddish to English as much as you want here.

Ray. If someone asks if you are a god, you say, "yes!" -Ghostbusters (1984)

Movie trivia time...

1. What film had Sugar claiming she always got "the fuzzy end of the lollipop"?

2. What was the theme song for The Grapes Of Wrath?

3. What 1936 Charlie Chaplin film ended with the title card: "Buck up. Never say die. WE'LL GET ALONG"?

4. Who played teenage hooker Iris in Taxi Driver?

5. Where did Cary Grant meet Deborah Kerr in An Affair To Remember?

ETA: Answers in the comments.