Random Thoughts That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread Go Here

[stevew]

I’ve heard Adam Lambert with Queen and John Mayer with the(whomever is not) Dead are both great acts. Kinda pricy for me though.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Brian Johnson has to be on that list, too, right?

Yeah, I believe that's entirely appropriate

[stevew]

The breakfast Baconator is really good. Didn’t really care for the maple Bacon Chicken Croissant though. It was disappointing.

[Ksyrup]

I want to throat punch the narrators of the McDonald's commercials with the low-key "ba da ba ba bah" at the end.

[Ksyrup]

Also, while I'm ranting about commercials, the Geico commercial with the annoying tax attorney/taxidermy thing doesn't even make sense. One would mishear those two statements, not misread them. Tax attorney is two words - how could you mistake that for taxidermy? Now, you could totally mishear that though.

These are the kinds of things that bug the sh!t out of me on a daily basis...

[henry296]

My wife is annoyed by the AIG financial planner / mom is a super hero commercial. I've only seen it on golf tournaments.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Also, while I'm ranting about commercials, the Geico commercial with the annoying tax attorney/taxidermy thing doesn't even make sense. One would mishear those two statements, not misread them. Tax attorney is two words - how could you mistake that for taxidermy? Now, you could totally mishear that though.

These are the kinds of things that bug the sh!t out of me on a daily basis...

I mute that as soon as it comes on; anything she could sing would annoy me.

[Ksyrup]

I have no idea who she is.

[cuervo72]

Adele Dazeem.

[albionmoonlight]

Woke up this morning to a weird repeating noise--a click followed by what sounded like a laser running out of power in a sci-fi movie or something. It would happen. Wait 5 or 6 seconds. Then it would happen again.

Tracked it to right outside our bedroom window. Where the AC unit is.

Fuck. It's the compressor trying to kick on and seizing up. The unit came with the house when we bought it in 2004, and I have no idea how old it was then, so I knew this day was coming.

Throw on my shoes and stumble out there, hoping that it is something like a stick that got caught in the blades or something that I could actually fix.

And then see that the noise is actually the dying breaths of one of our kids' Ironman laser shooter toys that we got years ago. Apparently, it got left in the yard and forgotten/buried. And one of our dogs dug it up and moved it over by the compressor.

I've never seen $5,000 disappear and reappear so fast in my life.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Woke up this morning to a weird repeating noise--a click followed by what sounded like a laser running out of power in a sci-fi movie or something. It would happen. Wait 5 or 6 seconds. Then it would happen again.

Tracked it to right outside our bedroom window. Where the AC unit is.

Fuck. It's the compressor trying to kick on and seizing up. The unit came with the house when we bought it in 2004, and I have no idea how old it was then, so I knew this day was coming.

Throw on my shoes and stumble out there, hoping that it is something like a stick that got caught in the blades or something that I could actually fix.

And then see that the noise is actually the dying breaths of one of our kids' Ironman laser shooter toys that we got years ago. Apparently, it got left in the yard and forgotten/buried. And one of our dogs dug it up and moved it over by the compressor.

I've never seen $5,000 disappear and reappear so fast in my life.

How the hell were you getting away with $5,000? I just dropped $10,000 for ours.

Speaking of house repairs, should I be nervous that about a third of the houses in my development have gotten new roofs during the pandemic?

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

How the hell were you getting away with $5,000? I just dropped $10,000 for ours.

Good point. I had that number in my head from when my parents did it many years ago. It is probably closer to 10 K now :-(

[JPhillips]

I'm going to need a new roof before long and I was kinda hoping the tropical storm would do some damage and get me an insurance paid roof.

Didn't happen.

[stevew]

I’m getting my furnace and AC done this week for 5500. But my house is not that large.

[Ksyrup]

We replaced our main AC and handler about 3-4 years ago for about $7K. I'm in the warranty business, and that's the one piece of equipment it is worth getting a home warranty for. But you have to read the fine print because most plans have annual and/or per-system limits of liability that will force you to pay for the vast majority of a new plan (they may pay up to $1000 or 1500). But there are some out there that will pay for most/all of it.

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Allow me to introduce the 160+ members of Blood, Sweat & Tears (everybody gets a solo!):

Thank you for this. Fantastic.

[sterlingice]

We replaced our 2004 2.5 ton and 3 ton A/C last year for somewhere between $14K and $15K. But it's Houston and we probably run our air as much as anywhere in the country (along with southern Florida).

SI

[ISiddiqui]

These sort of things make me feel ok that I still rent...

[spleen1015]

Sold our house 2 years ago because with our lives at the time, maintaining a house was a hassle. Just had an offer accepted on a house yesterday. We want to be back in a house for more privacy and because upstairs neighbors can be assholes.

I guess it depends, if you rent in an apartment or a house.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

These sort of things make me feel ok that I still rent...

The people who really push the "a house is an investment" idea either live somewhere that property values skyrocket and/or like to conveniently leave these things out. I think there are a number of reasons to buy a house but to save money is not one of them. Not even including maintenance (like the roof, A/C, fence, and a number of smaller things I've had to replace in the last 5 years), I light something like $1000 a month on fire and just send it away between property taxes, interest (and we paid our 20% down payment), insurance, HOA fees, etc. This whole myth of "well, if you're renting, you're just throwing away money but with a home..." neglects that fact. Never mind the flexibility that renters have to move to chase jobs or move due to family situation or whatever.

That said, we're happy with our house and we like the living conditions a lot more than renting. Though we rented a house for a couple of years and that was pretty nice. I wouldn't be really excited about going back to living in apartments, though.

SI

[Radii]

The older I get the more of a pull I feel towards the idea that it would be very nice to own a home outright by the time I reach retirement age, but outside of that I am 100% content with renting, including the financial angle.

[molson]

Buying was the most important financial decision I ever made, but, I was lucky enough to buy in an area where my first home increased in value close to 4X since 2008. I started with something like 5k down on my first house and now with regular mortgage payments (all under $900, even today), it's so much property equity that I never would have equaled 5% of with saving.

The occasional repairs don't stress me out at all. Everything breaking or needing to be placed is an opportunity to upgrade your own property in your own vision, which improves the home's value and your own quality of life.

And when an area's property values have exploded like my city, the huge increases is rent people experience is terrifying. As are people wanting to sell their rental houses to cash in, leaving renters scrambling in a terrible renter's market. 1-bedroom apartments in crappy complexes are over $1,000/month now, and I keep sending over my $875 a month or whatever for my current house with has about doubled in value since 2015.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by molson

Buying was the most important financial decision I ever made, but, I was lucky enough to buy in an area where my first home increased in value close to 4X since 2008. I started with something like 5k down on my first house and now with regular mortgage payments (all under $900, even today), it's so much property equity that I never would have equaled 5% of with saving.

Wow, congrats. My house has increased about 45% in 19 years and I refinished the basement for zillow to give me a bump.

I'm in a nice school district, IMO desirable subdivision, and a growing county. I'm jealous of others where home appreciation is through the roof. But I never viewed a home as an investment for retirement, just a place to call my own.

Looking back, any tips or trade secrets on picking the house you did?

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Radii

The older I get the more of a pull I feel towards the idea that it would be very nice to own a home outright by the time I reach retirement age, but outside of that I am 100% content with renting, including the financial angle.

This has to be a goal for most people.

My parents are both retirement age. They have been so financial irresponsible that that owe 80% on the house they bought 30 years ago because they are stupid with credit cards and keep refinancing, rolling that credit in. Its moronic.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Looking back, any tips or trade secrets on picking the house you did?

When we bought our house, we were looking at several, but we fell in love with this one.

Our realtor said that out of all the houses we were looking at, ours was likely to have the least appreciation in value compared to the others. But, we really wanted this house and we were looking at it as a home and not an investment, so we bought it.

It turns out that we are now in an area close to where our town is doing a ton of public development (a huge public park, incentives for restaurants, etc.), so our home has basically increased a lot in value as a direct result of that.

All of which is to say, buy the house you want because no one can truly predict the future. Too many decisions that are out of your hands (schools, highways, traffic, development) will affect the value in ways you can't anticipate.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Looking back, any tips or trade secrets on picking the house you did?

It was hard to miss in a city like Boise, but my own strategy with both of my home purchases was looking for a not-great neighborhood that was close to the city center. As the city grows out and out, those pockets of run-down neighborhoods get improved very quickly. Of course this only works in a city that is growing.

I live in a still pretty-run down area of the Boise Bench, but the improvement has already been very visible. It was very obvious to me that a neighborhood 15 minutes from the airport and 15 minutes from downtown was going to be very hot in a city where new home buyers are starting to have to look more and more and the growing suburbia 20 miles+ outside of downtown. Even in 2015, you could see that the 80+year old 700 square foot houses were being torn down one by one and replaced with new construction. And, I've bought houses that don't have any big problems that need immediate attention, but is older and will need fixing up sooner or later. So every time I do have to do a repair, it's less stressful because I'm tangibly and dramatically improving the house with each new thing.

So I guess the common thread with both of those strategies is look for both a house and a neighborhood that has room to improve. You'll get a better value and you'll benefit from that improvement. A nice house in a nice neighborhood might improve in value, but not because the neighborhood or house improves, which limits the value increase.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Sold our house 2 years ago because with our lives at the time, maintaining a house was a hassle. Just had an offer accepted on a house yesterday. We want to be back in a house for more privacy and because upstairs neighbors can be assholes.

I guess it depends, if you rent in an apartment or a house.

That's fair about upstairs neighbors. We live in an apartment complex - I have lived in this one for 10 years, but upgraded to a 2bd room when my wife moved in a few years back (it was prior to when we were we'd). It's in walking distance to the train station which is why I've been here since long. And walking to the local bar, etc. To give you an idea, I have a 2017 Mazda 3 and I haven't hit 9,000 miles on it yet. Though now with a kid, that benefit may be lost (we are registered for a day care in my office building - whenever we go back)

[JPhillips]

Remember that there's always another house that's just as good. If you lose out on one, it isn't the end of the world.

[stevew]

Wife can’t understand why I don’t want to go to a friend’s wedding reception next month. I’m Strongly doubting there will be distancing at the reception. I don’t know anyone who’s going. There’s basically no chance I’m going to soldier thru this. Basically an impossible situation that I have no desire to be a part of. It’s not even worth a 1% chance of catching covid for me.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by stevew

Wife can’t understand why I don’t want to go to a friend’s wedding reception next month. I’m Strongly doubting there will be distancing at the reception. I don’t know anyone who’s going. There’s basically no chance I’m going to soldier thru this. Basically an impossible situation that I have no desire to be a part of. It’s not even worth a 1% chance of catching covid for me.

Yeah. A wedding reception is going to have a lot of people there with COVID fatigue who are going to use it as a chance to cut loose. Hard pass.

[stevew]

I haven’t eaten at a restaurant since this mess started and I’m not about to eat with a bunch of Karens.

I guess they’re pot committed to having the celebration but I strongly doubt October will be out of the woods.

[NobodyHere]

So if covid has done one good thing, it has given us a good excuse not to go to weddings.

[stevew]

Oh yeah, it’s also in the middle of nowhere where you can’t get an Uber. Even before Covid this was a pass

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

It turns out that we are now in an area close to where our town is doing a ton of public development (a huge public park, incentives for restaurants, etc.), so our home has basically increased a lot in value as a direct result of that.

All of which is to say, buy the house you want because no one can truly predict the future. Too many decisions that are out of your hands (schools, highways, traffic, development) will affect the value in ways you can't anticipate.

I don't know where you are in the Triangle, but my sister went from dipping a toe into the market to having an offer accepted (as a first-timer) all in the span of a month or so. Hot market.

[spleen1015]

Here's how the market is here.

I have 27 houses saved on Zillow, 11 of which we've looked at since Thursday. All saved since Thursday. Of the 27, 15 have sales pending, 10 are still for sale and 2 are off the market. This is a city of almost 94k.

Pretty nuts.

[CrimsonFox]

[Ksyrup]

Back in 2006 when we moved from Florida to Kentucky, I believe our house may have been the last sale at the top of the Tallahassee market before the plummet. We put the house up for sale on Friday at $25K more than our realtor wanted to (I insisted) while we flew to Lexington to look for a house and it sold on Sunday night for the asking price.

My neighbor, a huge a$$hole, put his house up for sale 1 month later (I'm sure the fact that we happened to sell to a young black woman had nothing to do with it) and it didn't sell for 18 months.

That may be the best timing I'll ever have for anything having to do with finances.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Also, while I'm ranting about commercials, the Geico commercial with the annoying tax attorney/taxidermy thing doesn't even make sense. One would mishear those two statements, not misread them. Tax attorney is two words - how could you mistake that for taxidermy? Now, you could totally mishear that though.

These are the kinds of things that bug the sh!t out of me on a daily basis...

I'm with you on this. It's really just lazy writing though right? They could've just changed "read" to "heard" and it would've been fine.

[stevew]

Food vloggers talking about the whopper is becoming unbearable. And I even like Daym Drops.

[Lathum]

My wife asked me to buy stuff for salad this week, stating we should eat more salads for dinner, etc...OK, so I buy a bunch of stuff and my daughter and I make a big bin of salad today. Wife has late meeting tonight so I make tacos for me and the kids. Ask wife if she wants me to make her a blackened shrimp salad for dinner when meetings are done. She says no, she will just door dash Chipotle. doh!

[stevew]

re: Adele Dazeem

Why in the fuck do insurance companies advertise so much? Geico/Statefarm/Liberty Mutual spend so much money.

[21C]

The students at my high school wear uniforms every day. Once in a while, like today, we have an out-of-uniform day where they can wear normal clothes. One of my students came dressed as a jedi. I was both inwardly applauding his desire to share his enthusiastic interest in the Star Wars universe and saddened to think that he was going to get the shit beaten out of him on the bus home.

[thesloppy]

You ever get a zit on the back of your ear and because you can't see it you pick it until it's just a sore, oozing mass of pulpy flesh? Yeah, me neither.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by 21C

The students at my high school wear uniforms every day. Once in a while, like today, we have an out-of-uniform day where they can wear normal clothes. One of my students came dressed as a jedi. I was both inwardly applauding his desire to share his enthusiastic interest in the Star Wars universe and saddened to think that he was going to get the shit beaten out of him on the bus home.

There’s like 70K Australians who list their religion as Jedi. Would a bus beat down be a hate crime?

[21C]

Identifying as Jedi is equivalent to voting for Boaty McBoatface.

[stevew]

Chris Webber on PBP and the taxidermy/tax attorney geico ad make me wanna boycott the NBA

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by stevew

There’s like 70K Australians who list their religion as Jedi. Would a bus beat down be a hate crime?

Well, it does look like Tatooine for most of Australia.

[JPhillips]

Looking at Eric Davis stats because of the hated player thread. He finished 1987 with this line:

.293/.399/.593 with 37 HR and 100 RBI

and 50 steals
and a Gold Glove in CF

Yet somehow he was only ninth in the MVP voting.

[cuervo72]

1987 was screwy. I had Dale Murphy on my MicroLeague team that year and it was a battle at times to keep him in my lineup.

He was .295/.417/.580 with 44 HR and 105 RBI. He finished 11th in the MVP vote.

[Ben E Lou]

There should be a special place in Hell reserved for people who--after five months of this--INSIST on turning cameras on for meetings....and also have terrible bandwidth and thus make the meeting far more inefficient than it needed to be.