What's up with you?

[ShottleBop]

My 2009 Malibu has 37,000 on it, and I bought it 39/40 months ago. Warranty was for 3 years/36,000 miles. Engine light went on in my car. Mrs. ShottleBop took it in for me: the catalytic converter needed to be replaced. My first thought was, "That's gotta cost at least a grand." One of life's little victories: the catalytic converter is covered for 8 years/80,000 miles. (Yessssss!)

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Everyone okay, Ding?

[Nullifidian]

Hope you're okay, Dingfod!

-----

I just renewed my season subscription to the Long Beach Opera.

The operas this year are The Fall of the House of Usher by Philip Glass, ¡Únicamente la Verdad! by Gabriela Ortiz, a double bill of The Tell-Tale Heart and Van Gogh by Stewart Copeland and Michael Gordon, respectively, and Macbeth by Ernest Bloch. The operas I'm eager to see are the fifth, second, fourth, first, and third, in that order.

Here are video clips of the operas (and one complete version):

The Fall of the House of Usher - Glass

¡Únicamente la Verdad! - Ortiz

The Tell-Tale Heart - Copeland

Van Gogh - Gordon

Macbeth - Bloch

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by Anastasia Beaverhausen

Everyone okay, Ding?

If I am not mistaken, Ding's post was a reply to the question that YB asked in his reply to Gonzo's post.

Gonzo: I just had my first car accident.

YB: What happened?

Ding: A car wreck.

If I am wrong Dingfod will no doubt correct me as soon as he recovers from the car wreck that I don't think he had.

[Watser?]

That's what I figured too.

[Janet]

Booked my Richard III minibreak today. I already have the rooms for the second stretch in London but I'm having a hard time deciding where to stay for the first four days. I've picked out but not booked our hotel in Manchester and I still have to research neighborhoods in Brighton and Edinburgh. Still, this trip is starting to feel very real and I'm getting excited. I just need Man City to put tickets for the New Year's Day game on sale already.

[SharonDee]

I won two free tickets to see some comedian, her name is Anita Renfro. So I'm going tonight but I'm such a loser I couldn't get a date.

Thanks, SiriusXM radio.

[lisarea]

Somebody broke my glasses and hid them in the couch, and all I have to choose from now are a pair of banged up cateyes that I've had for prolly 20 years and this other weird pair with rhinestones that I don't even know why I have them, but they're those weird little shifty-eye glasses where if you wear them, you're just all the time looking at the frames, and I don't like that!

I ordered some new ones just now, but until they get here, I am wearing weird and uncomfortable glasses. MY LIFE IS TERRIBLE.

[Qingdai]

Pfft. Cat's eyes are in again, AGAIN. You just want pity for being a trend setter.

[Ymir's blood]

Jinkies!

[Angakuk]

With a group of youth and adults from our church I participated in a Meals From The Heartland Mobile Hunger Fight. Our group of 10 people packaged and boxed 720 meals over a period of two hours. I don't know if that was a great performance, a poor performance or just an average performance. I do know that we felt like we had accomplished something worthwhile and that we had fun while doing it.

[LadyShea]

OMG guess what? My new mortgage servicer (BofA sold us to them) called me out of the blue today all "blah blah pre-approved for a HARP 2.0 refinance....I'll transfer you". Bada boom bada bing we got an interest rate drop of 3.5 points with no income verification or appraisal or anything. Just "oh sign this stuff". That's like 400.00/month lower payment.

I almost died trying to get BofA to do anything at all, went through 10 months of paper wars and wading through the shit, and this falls out of the sky.

WTF?

[Sock Puppet]

Wow. Congrats on getting out from under BoA. Life is so much better without them, and there's some evidence!

[LadyShea]

I didn't even initiate it! That's what's freaking me out so hard. I would have assumed scam except she knew she was calling my cell phone and verified that it was still an authorized contact number for me and verified hubby's as well

[LadyShea]

Oh, and my new Kindle Fire HD is on it's way. What, a year of hemming and hawing and researching and waiting for the Nexus 7 and more talk....and back to the Kindle. But with HD!

[Gonzo]

The traffic violation got waved completely and I am in a pretty awesome relationship right now. Really don't know how my luck has gotten this good. Awhile back, after the music festival, a friend of mine wished good karma would come to me and I really feel that it has. I couldn't be luckier. Nice to be alive.

[Sock Puppet]

The realtor issue I ranted about over here is now resolved. The third realtor agreed with the higher sell price for my house, so we're off to the races. Between the two that weren't idiots, we still liked the first one the best, so he came over last night and got our initial papers signed. The last realtor* opined that we shouldn't list before Thanksgiving, since we wouldn't get many showings and it would just inflate the Days On Market number. But this guy said, screw that, you guys want out of here as quickly as possible, so let's not waste a weekend. Plus there very well could be some folks with time off who want to check it out. So we actually are listing today. Stager comes tomorrow to tell us how much our clutter sucks, and then Saturday we get the first round of photos done.

Oh, and I was wrong about what the buyout option is based on. It would be based on an average of two appraisals that they order for the purpose. So they'll prolly low-ball it anyway, but hopefully I won't have to resort to it. Still, I didn't want an agent who thinks my house is worth tens of thousands less than it is.



*Gawd, I'm saying "realtor" a lot in this poast. Which isn't so bad, except that every time I type it out, I imagine some mouthbreather pronouncing it "real-a-tor."

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Oh, and my new Kindle Fire HD is on it's way. What, a year of hemming and hawing and researching and waiting for the Nexus 7 and more talk....and back to the Kindle. But with HD!

I'm posting from a Nexus 7. I was tempted with the Fire HD, but I've been liking the (relative) openness of the Nexus 7. The pictures I recently didn't post because Picasa made it hard I took using a DSLR controller over the USB. (It's not an improvement over taking pics through the laptop, though it's a bit more fun.)

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

The realtor issue I ranted about over here is now resolved. The third realtor agreed with the higher sell price for my house, so we're off to the races. Between the two that weren't idiots, we still liked the first one the best, so he came over last night and got our initial papers signed. The last realtor* opined that we shouldn't list before Thanksgiving, since we wouldn't get many showings and it would just inflate the Days On Market number. But this guy said, screw that, you guys want out of here as quickly as possible, so let's not waste a weekend. Plus there very well could be some folks with time off who want to check it out. So we actually are listing today. Stager comes tomorrow to tell us how much our clutter sucks, and then Saturday we get the first round of photos done.

My parents have had showings on holiday weekends and over Christmas that turned into sales. Of course, some of them are just vacationers (golf resort town) who don't have enough to do or want to scout the area but don't know if/when/where they'll ultimately move.

But if you're not in a tourist area/vacation spot type of place, like my parents are, then I would guess that anyone who comes to look over the holiday is more likely to be a serious buyer than where they are.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

I'm posting from a Nexus 7. I was tempted with the Fire HD, but I've been liking the (relative) openness of the Nexus 7. The pictures I recently didn't post because Picasa made it hard I took using a DSLR controller over the USB. (It's not an improvement over taking pics through the laptop, though it's a bit more fun.)

We really, really considered it, but the HDMI output won it for the Kindle. After all, for us this is mostly a media device.

[LadyShea]

I just bagged Dad's xmas present for Mom on eBay for 1/2 what I had predicted based on recent auctions of this item...which is about 80% off original retail.

So, so stoked. She's been wanting this for like 10 years, and I just made Dad the hero.

[Sock Puppet]

De-cluttering is mostly done. Got rid of a shit-ton (not sure on the conversion factor for you Euros, but I believe it's at least six metric buttloads) of furniture we didn't need, too. For years I've been trying to get rid of this huge-assed entertainment center thing my Dad made. I finally bit the bullet and let it go for a couple hundred, since the buyer could haul it away her own self, which was a big part of the deal.

Jesus Crispy Fucknuggets but we have a lot of crap. Worked for three days straight to get it all moved, boxed, sold, etc. Kafka Inc. will hire movers to pack everything, so I really didn't want to box up too much, but for staging purposes a lot of shit needed to get the hell out of the house and into the garage. They'll just have to repack it.

Once I knocked off for the day last night, I collapsed on the couch. Big mistake. For the better part of an hour, I couldn't move. At all. Fuck, I hate getting old.

[specious_reasons]

Was just a witness to an accident. The lady driving next to me drove through the red light (I stopped) and hit the lady who had the green left turn light.
I felt sorry for the lady who was hit - there was pretty much nothing she could do - so I stopped and confirmed no one was hurt and gave a brief statement to the police.
When I got to work, I took notes so I'm prepared for the deluge of phone calls.

[Ymir's blood]

If your area had a Stand Your Ground law, you could have shot everyone and left before the cops arrived.

[vremya]

Crazy unmedicated totally sexist bipolar narcissist guy with PTSD fired me. I'll miss the money but I can cut back on therapy now.