An Exercise in Frustration for Getting a New Loan

Around December 16th or 17th, I talked to a mortgage broker about refinancing. Told him our situation: I have a condo, very little left in the mortgage, my wife has student loans about to be due and I have a ton of equity in the house. Adding it all up, the broker was ecstatic. This was a gimme. Our mortgage is about less than 1/7th of what our place is worth (I bought in 1993 and never refinanced), our school loans added the debt up to about just over half of the equity and I make about 1/4th of what our loan amount was going to be.

Should've been a cakewalk, right?

Well, now it's March 18th, exactly three months later and do we have the loan? No. Are we throwing good money into the ether by paying interest rates on loans we're planning on paying off with the new house loan? Yes.

Here's what happened with the first guy. Yes, I'm on my second broker and that was part of the problem but in a Karmic kind of way, we were blessed when we changed brokers.

In Jan. the first lender calls me up to say that we're locked in at a 5.5% interest rate. "Huh?" I asked, knowing that rates were about the 4.75 to 5% range. He convinces me that this is the absolute lowest we can go (This entire time, I distrusted what he was saying) then tells me what I need to do. I go ahead and do what is needed and then waited. And waited. And waited.

Two weeks after I was supposed to have gotten the loan docs, I called him up and asked what was going on. He replied that the association was slow in getting the paperwork to us. I asked why didn't he call me and enlisted my help since he knew the student loans were coming due and that I didn't want to pay interest on those loans. He just hemmed and hawed.

Two days later, he calls me up and says "Umm, trouble. Because your condo has a 29% tenant occupancy, this lender won't give you the loan. However! I can get you another loan."

I gave him until noon the next day to tell me there was a solution. He called me at 12:02 and tells me that there wasn't a solution, BUT he's working on it. I fired his ass and called up my senators to complain about the arbitrariness of assigning 25% tenant occupancy as a condition for giving out loans to OBVIOUSLY qualified individuals.

My new broker then gets me a 4.5% rate. This confirmed to me that first broker was full of shit.

Everything is chugging along decently when, due to a DISPUTE I STARTED 2-1/2 years ago, which OBVIOUSLY had been settled because the property didn't go into foreclosure and we are current with our payments, my credit reports get flagged and the loan stopped dead in its tracks. I call up my mortgage company, get them to rescind that little blurb in the credit reports and then find out that two of the three credit agencies DIDN'T remove the dispute notice.

So two credit agencies (Experian and Transunion) are holding my loan hostage due to the fact that they can't update credit reports in a timely manner.

My broker just called me up a day ago to say that the account manager at the lending co. has figured out how to bypass this little hurdle.

It turns out that Fannie Mae's underwriting program cares about these little items but Freddie Mac's underwriting program doesn't. (We're talking SOFTWARE programs here). And apparently even though HUMANS can see the dispute as something to be disregarded (for it makes no difference), software cannot be bypassed by humans. However, there was a debt to income ration that Freddie Mac cared about.

Someone had entered in the student loans as debts that still will be incurred AFTER we get the loan, so that made my debt skyhigh. It's now fixed and supposedly, I'm to get loan docs tomorrow or Friday.

You know, I'm not going to hold my breath. I should've just declared myself a bank holding company. Bah! Oh and if this loan doesn't come in, there goes our vacation in Tahoe next weekend.

Billmon's back!!!!

Who is Billmon you ask and why do I seem so... so... excited about this?

Billmon was the proprietor of Whiskey Bar, a writer whose prowess I could only admire from afar, much like Digby of Hullaballoo. I have Whiskey Bar still linked on some of my old blogs but the link's been dead since soon after the last elections.

He visited Egypt and the descriptions he wrote made the air around me seem as hot and arid as he described, while scenes of Egyptian streets and life unfolded in my mind's eye.

He calls it as as it is and he doesn't mince words. And he's as disgusted as ever over the media and our politics.

Go on, read. Drink in every word as if it's smooth whiskey. Then, when you're done, exhale. He's great, isn't he?

kd! kd! kd! We love you!

Went to see k.d. lang and Lyle Lovett in concert last night.... boy howdy, does k.d. still have a set of pipes on her.

At one point, I turned to Bratworse and I said, "On our honeymoon, I want k.d. singing in the background."

We went with our good friend Lone Wolf. I was all ready to leave after k.d.'s portion but I knew both Lone Wolf and Bratworse were enjoying themselves so I settled back to enjoy it too. I swear, Lyle Lovett looked 40 at age 8.

k.d. seemed happy and a tad hefty but geezus, can that woman send me into orgasms with her voice. There are only two singers in the world who've made me cry with their vocal acrobatics and one was Placido Domingo and the other is k.d. lang - Listen to her version of Cole Porter's "So in Love" and you'll maybe begin to hear what I hear... the smoky sexy low notes, climbing to controlled high notes that seem to go on forever.

k.d. lang still does it for me... I don't think I've held a crush this long in my life, ever. Thanks k.d., this is like the 6th time I've seen you live and each time, you bring tears to my eyes.

By the way, I miss you doing Johnny Get Angry and Crying. Will you ever do those two in concert ever again?

The End of An Era

There's a part of me today that's sad and wistful - I had finished the last of the Harry Potter books last night.

There's too many things I want to know more about - I kind of hope there is a follow up book.

What do I think of it?

I think it was decently done and fairly well thought out. I was surprised at some of the twists and turns, and half-expected the rest. One was a pleasant surprise, the others made me cry. Heck, even the pleasant one made me cry.

I started the series when the first book came out, based on several friends' recommendations. And today, I find myself drifting among the reeds of memory, reliving bits and pieces of Harry's, Hermione's and Ron's life. I will miss the opportunity to live with them for a few days every few years.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So, anyone reading this? I am, but because life's been fairly busy since Sat., I'm only about 2/3 of the way through.

If you are reading it, are you enjoying it? So far I've cried like three times and I expect I will be crying a few more times before I finish it.

Local Fish Stores - a Review

There are several fish stores within a 15 mile radius of Oakland and I think we have a new favorite, though we have to cross the bridge to get to it.

The Octopus Gardens is where we purchased Ossie, our 75 gallon tank and various asundries. We love Erin, the owner because he has a dark humor, is very sarcastic and dry and ... well, we just like him. Sadly, the Octopus Gardens has closing its doors officially and will be operating out of Erin's home. You can still purchase from Erin at berkeleyaquarium AT yahoo.com however, be forewarned, the prices can be fairly high.

New Alameda Aquatics is another local store I like. They've changed their store hours and their website recently. I've always found their staff to be very knowledgeable and helpful, plus their prices are very reasonable.

Amazon Aquatics, I don't know much about. I've been in there twice and liked what I saw but I haven't really spoken to their staff nor hung out there. There's a lot of space around and maybe that's why I don't hang out there - there just doesn't seem to be as many tanks as some of the other stores.

Lucky Goldfish is really close to our house and rather spacious inside. Because this store deals primarily with freshwater fish, we tend not to go here.

Our latest find is through one of Bratworse's schoolmates. He told us about a store in San Francisco that has a sale every Sunday and so we visited it - twice! It's called the 6th Street Aquarium and it's crammed with fish and fish tank supplies. We took the 3 year old and the 1 year old there this past Sunday because the 1 year old LOVES fish (or at least loves to sign fish). The 3 year old was a tad freaked by the smell, the people and was hanging onto Bratworse's leg almost the entire time. The 1 year old, we tried to keep in our arms, but she struggled hard to get closer looks and finally got her way. She was in hog (or is that fish) heaven!

Anyway, this aquarium gives us an excuse to visit the city.

"Gonna Wash That Shampoo Outta My Hair"

See this shampoo here? It's my beloved Aussie Shampoo. Only about 4 years ago, they discontinued this and produced a new version of this. It comes in a god-awful purple bottle, I guess so you can spot it immediately down the shopping aisle.

Back then, I tried out the new "improved" version of this shampoo. First off, the nice non-offensive yellow-cream color was changed to a pearly white color. Secondly, they improved it by getting it not to lather. Just a dab of the original shampoo would lather up my short hair quite nicely. With the new "improved" version, I needed 5 times as much shampoo to get the same lather. I instantly saw what the improvement was: it was an improvement for the manufacturers and retailers since you had to replenish the shampoo more often (5 times more often!).

Apparently I bitched about the new "improved" shampoo so much that Bratworse went on a shopping spree when she went to visit her mother. She went into EVERY grocery store and drug store near her mother's house and bought me 5 bottles of the original shampoo.

Four years later, I finally used up the last of the shampoo about two weeks ago. *SNIFF*

I'm on the hunt for new shampoos. I've tried out Garnier's Fructis and BOY! I DO NOT LIKE this shampoo at all.

Aussie Mega Shampoo left my hair feeling light and responsive. Garnier's Fructis feels like it's still in my hair after I rinse, leaving the hair heavy and unresponsive. Of course, it's that pearly white that the new "improved" Aussie Shampoo is - I am now totally prejudiced against that color of shampoo.

Manufacturers of Aussie Shampoo: I understand you needed to up your profits some. But why did you have to come up with something that's FIVE times worse? Why not just twice? I really miss your shampoo - when I tried it out in the 80's I visibly relaxed because I no longer had to spend minutes in the shampoo aisle trying to figure out what I kinda liked.

Ugh, I hate how my hair feels because of this Garnier Fructis.

Oh, by the way, Bratworse? When you bought me these 5 bottles, you did something no one else in the world has even come close to matching. I love you so much and thanks!

Setting up an Aquarium

YAY! Our 75 gallon tank FINALLY has sea water in it!

The day the flood happened in our condo, was the day we were set to start our 75 gallon tank. It is now a year and a month later and we finally were able to get started on this project again.

To cycle our tank, we got one of these guys, an arrow crab, one new live rock (our $500 worth of live rock didn't survive the year. Neither did our $100 of live sand), a scoop of live sand, and one blue/gold damsel.

Welcome to the family guys and thanks for helping to cycle our tank.

Praise for M.B. Jessee

Bratworse had done a wonderful sponge paint job in the living room and of the walls affected by the flood of last year, one of them had the faux decorative wall paint on it. So we hired M.B. Jessee to paint this wall to match the other walls.

Well, because the job has taken so long, and the house is in complete disarray, the paint that was used as the base for that wall, was completely wrong. It was waaaay too pinkish (we have a blue/purple motif throughout the living room).

Brian Sweet (sp?) is M.B. Jessee's faux painter and oh man, did he do wonders!

He had called up saying umm, did you know that the base paint is waaaay off and we told him yes, we knew it, but please just do the best in matching the wall with the rest of the unit.

Expecting the worst, we came back to the house yesterday to inspect it and lo and behold, we were blown away. The result is only slighty more pinkish than the original. We are ECSTATIC!

So, if you are in the Oakland/Alameda/Bay Area and need a good decorative painter for your house/office/etc.? Hire Brian Sweet of M.B. Jessee! Outstanding work!

Where's the Live Q&A for Dan Froomkin?

Aware that it's Thursday, I wondered whether I missed a live Q & A with Dan Froomkin, auther of my favorite column in the Washington Post. So I check the transcripts and lo and behold, Dan Froomkin hasn't had a Live Talk since March 28th.

WTF?!?

Washington Post, give this man his Live Q&A's back. He's the best thing you have.

[Added]

So I dropped Dan Froomkin a line asking if his Live Q & A's are still around since I couldn't find them on the archive page and [JUMPS AROUND LIKE A FAN GIRL] OMG! He wrote back!

Hi and thanks for pointing that out. There was a glitch on the archive page. It's been fixed now. My chats continue apace!

D

I've a feeling if this wasn't a virtual mail, I'd be grasping the letter with both hands and bouncing up and down, re-reading and re-reading his words. Gawrsh, I feel like *such* a fan girl.

Wii Wireless Sensor Bar by Nyko

Remember the stir-crazied cat I blogged about earlier in the week? Well, while we were at the hotel room, she decided the wire to the Wii's sensor bar was a good way to quell the time. To thwart her chewing capabilities, we splurged and bought a Wii wireless sensor bar by Nyko.

I finally had a chance to try it out the other night.

OMG! I am LOVING this bar. It is much more sensitive than the original and much less annoying, due to the lack of wires. (The original had like a 25 foot cord! Okay, I'm exaggerating but only a little) With the original, whenever I played Cooking Mama: Cook Off I had to reset the controller to make sure it was synched with the sensor bar correctly. With the new wireless and sensitive sensor bar, I just plunged into the game with no adjustments needed.

Bratworse is looking forward to getting our Rayman back from Writerboy and his wife so she can drum without worrying that the sensor didn't pick up her movements.

The only two drawbacks to the sensor bar? It uses four AA batteries, AND you have to either turn it off physically yourself, or put it on a 1 hour or 2 hour timer to shut it off.

If you own a Wii, consider plunking down $20 for this. Also, invest in rechargeable batteries. Your Wii remotes and your wireless sensor bar will love you. So will the environment AND your pocketbook.

One Out of Three...

...comments that ring true, ain't bad for Microsoft (considering their track record with me).

“Today’s games-and-entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content,” said Peter Moore, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, in Redmond, Wash.

FALSE! I just bought Bratworse Animal Crossing which is a Gamecube game, and boy is she hooked. Graphics isn't high def and yet the fun quotient is extremely high.

John Rodman, group product manager for the Xbox platform and Xbox Live, said

“We don’t feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing,”

TRUE! Since getting the Wii, we haven't spent ANY money on the XBox or the PS2, nor do we plan on spending money on their next-gen consoles. I will admit that I'm contemplating renting Fight Night Round 3 for the PS3 in two weeks simply because I will be spending some time with gamers that have the 360 and PS3, but we're bringing our Wii too. Wonder which system will win out at that geek party.

John Rodman also said

“We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else.”

Again, FALSE! Well, it might be true of testosterone filled boys but this gamer who is 42 years old and is willing to spend oh, a thousand or so a year on my gaming habits doesn't seen anything on the high def line-up that appeals to me even remotely.

Now that I have Cooking Mama: Cook Off, it's Wii Music Orchestra I'm eagerly anticipating, despite the scant information about it.

Barbara Lee

Have I said how much I admire Barbara Lee, my congress-woman?

More and more, my respect for her grows. She is not afraid to say to her peers, what you're doing is pure rhetoric. And she IS working for the majority of us here in Oakland. Most of us here want the Iraq war to end. Now. Keeping it funded will just enable the war to limp along towards an amorphous end.

The House Appropriations Committee Thursday approved, largely along party lines, the Iraq supplemental spending bill.
Democrats prevailed with their plan of attaching a withdrawal timetable for U.S. troops to the measure, which passed 36-28.

Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.) was the sole Democrat voting against the bill, but she agreed not to offer a fast-withdrawal amendment, which Democratic leaders considered troubling, to the underlying bill.

"I don't think the president deserves another chance," Lee said.

Thank you Ms. Lee. I have NEVER regretted voting for you.

Repeating History?

The GDC (Game Developers' Conference) is going on right now and it's something I like to read about and perhaps, one day attend either as a fan or a professional. Instead, I read accounts from sites like Joystiq and Gizmodo. Earlier today, I blogged about a comment made by someone from Maxis/EA about how the Wii was basically two Gamecubes duct taped together.

Now I read about how Mark Rein basically scoffs at Wii's computing powers and claims that the Unreal Tournament 3's engine won't make it to the Wii due to the lack of power.

All these comments are reminding me of American automakers when Toyota and Honda started selling in America.

'Nuff said?

Our household is looking to purchase probably about 2-3 more casual games for the Mac this next year. Probably 2-3 serious games for the PC and Mac - maybe more if I hit the lotto. We're looking to buy about 6-15 more games for the Wii in the next twelve months, depending on which titles are released. On March 20th, we're hoping to score Cooking Mama: Cookoff, Tiger Woods, and maybe Prince of Persia: three very different games. (Okay, truth be told, I'M the one hoping to score. Bratworse's happy with Wii Sports and wants a drumming game.)

Notice the lack of games for PS2 or Xbox, much less games for the next-gen consoles? You guys can have your graphics. I'll stick to fun games that I can play with a group of people AND by myself.

Can't Help Myself

So, I heard from an ex-client this week, Rafael Kayanan and of course, I do a google search on him. I check up on old clients occasionally and in fact, I had googled Raf a few weeks ago and found his old site which looked like it hadn't been updated in a while. I didn't look much further and now I'm kicking myself because I just found his artblog and found some really wonderful loose brush work that I had never seen him experiment on before in the 8-10 years I worked for him. So I'm stealing it to show off here, and give him some other exposure. Hope you don't mind, Raf!

Rafael Kayanan was one of my first 4 clients, and he was one of the ones I'd say I was closest to, in terms of friendships. We never ran out of things to talk about and I loved every moment we spent on the phone, and in person. I promoted the hell out of Raf because he was easily one of the most reliable and talented and nicest guys around, with one MAJOR plus: he understood the world of business and how it's run.

Head over there and be prepared to be overwhelmed a bit. Raf's like a modern-day Renaissance Man - he has to experiment with his artwork constantly and he is as deeply into his martial arts as ever plus he's forever trying to merge the two in his life.

OH! One further thing? That scene in Nobody where she's working out with the martial arts dummy? Raf and I had a HUGE discussion about that while I was writing it and though Charlie did an admirable job with his rendition, it looked NOTHING like what Raf and I were talking about.

And the title of this post? I just can't help myself... I LOVE my ex-clients' artwork and can't help promoting them still.

So, art directors, comic book editors, fight scene coordinators, stunt people, anyone who might want a talented artist with a strong style and MEETS DEADLINES, go to http://rafaelkayanan.blogstream.com/. Thank me later.

Wheeeeeee, It's the Wii!

Miraculously last week, we managed to score a Nintendo Wii and extra controllers. And boy-howdy, is it one sweet machine.

The good news is, yes, you actually have to get off your butt to play some of those games - like bowling and boxing. The bad news is, at times, the sensor won't register some of your movements (At times meaning infrequently).

Our impressions and one paragraph reviews of the Wii games we got:

Wii Sports: a big WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE for this game. It's probably both Bratworse's and my favorite since we get to play with and against each other. We made our friends make little Miis of themselves (Avatars that can travel from console to console) and now when we play baseball, our friends get to be on our team! Yay!

Red Steel: So far, it's our least favorite mainly because neither Bratworse nor I are big FPS (First Person Shooters) players. Our friend Bryan the Fireman really like the controls and how they worked with the weird controllers (shown above) and he's a BIG FPS player, playing SoComm and all those 007 games. Red Steel got his nod of approval.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz: Altogether, this could be much better. It was fun trying out all the party games, but execution was a bit wonky at times. I've a feeling that the other Party Games for the Wii will be better though. Still, we like it enough to have played it two out of the five days we've had the Wii.

Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess: We've only just delved into this game. I never played Legend of Zelda and since we bought the Wii to be a console for both of us to play together, we held off on playing it. A few nights ago, my best friend, DanceTeach from L.A., tried it out and loved it. I've a feeling that's what we're going to be playing tonight. I'll let you know more once I've actually played the game. (I've just watched it being played)

Rayman: Raving Rabbids: Okay, this is too cute for words. So far, it's a good party game, the solo game has been fun (Bratworse and I take turns playing because each "quest" only lasts a few minutes if that and levels only need 4 out of 5 quests completed to move to the next). Basically the premise of the game is, you are in gladitorial combat (of sorts) and you have to get the fans (the rabbids) to root for you. The way to do that is to win the events (quests). Events could be, throwing a cow, milking a cow, turning spotlights on during a dance sequence in time to the music, racing a warthog, etc. Just try it, you'll like it.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion: This is my favorite game so far. You get to operate and defibrillate and oh my, it's just fun. Both Bratworse and I are hooked on this game, taking turns operating and making the other person go first so we don't walk into an operation blindly without knowing any of the procedures (makes you glad we aren't real surgeons eh?). DanceTeach also had fun with this as he proudly announced to his boyfriend/husband that he saved three lives and only killed one person.

If you've been wondering why there's been few posts, this month has been crazy in terms of travel, events and whatnot. And now, with the Wii, there's even less time to post.

Oh, and in case you're wondering? We LOVE LOVE LOVE our Wii.

Macs Must be Doing Well...

It seems most of the listings on Craigslist for IT support now advertises experience with the Macs. Back about 2 years ago, most of them still were exclusively PC.

Vehrrrry interesting, as Arte Johnson would say.

Authentic Shanghai Food

There's a little tiny hole in the wall here in Oakland, California that serves up authentic Shanghai food, otherwise known as comfort food for me.

It's called The Shanghai Restaurant located at 930 Webster Street in the Oakland Chinatown district. (510) 465-6878

Man, is the food good there. You won't find the standard fare that you get at other hole in the wall places, simply because Shanghai food was never really imported to the U.S. until fairly recently.

In L.A. my family frequented the Mandarin Shanghai restaurant now named the Mandarin something or another, since 1976 simply because it was one of the few successful Shanghai restaurants there. I've often run into distant relatives dining there.

If you go to The Shanghai Restaurant, try out their little dragon dumplings. It's an explosion of heaven in your mouth, when you bite into one. Also try out their braised pork leg. It's a huge hunk of meat that's falling off the bone and it's oh so wonderful. Only $8.95 for such a large hunk of meat that will last at least 3 meals (if there's two of you).

Also, if you want to discover one of the sources for Spaghetti, ask for their Tsah Tsiang noodles. We call it Chinese spaghetti in this household.

You will love their food.

Bad Bargains, #1

I think I'm going to start a series called Bad Bargains... these are incredibly bad bargains that upon first glance looked like a good idea.

The office supply store I buy from is offering up 18 bags of 2.5 oz Starbucks coffee beans for $43.09.

Wow, I said, 18 bags, that's incredible!

But I usually double-check things that seem too good to be true. So I went to the office refridgerator, pulled it open and took out our regular bag of coffee. It's a 1 lb bag, and helpfully, the package says 16 oz. (which I knew, but I'd have to dig in the recesses of my brain to figure out).

I took out a calculator, and multiplied 18 x 2.5 which gave me a total of 45 oz. Divided that by 16, and got 2.8 lbs.

I pay $9.99 for each l lb of Caffe Verona. For $43.07, I could get four 1-lb bags of Caffe Verona AND a couple of scones.

Therefore, the 18 2.5 oz bags for $43.07 is a BAD BARGAIN. Don't do it.

Critical Space, by Greg Rucka

Gah! I have a love-hate relationship with Greg Rucka's writing.

I hate that his books end, and I love his style of writing, especially when he gets to write about strong women.

I am in the middle of Critical Space, a book that's a few years old. I find that when I read Greg, I tend to want to read a bunch of his books all at once, and therefore, I buy his books until I get a stack at least two high before I indulge.

As usual, I am gripped by the story, even though I'm only reading a few pages at a time. You have no idea how much I want to just delve into it, submerging myself into this Bodyguard world of Atticus Kodiak but alas, life itself beckons and I am reduced to snatching words out of pockets of time.

The thing about reading stories about Atticus Kodiak? I ALWAYS picture Greg Rucka as Atticus, so when I read about Atticus getting kicked in the head, I picture Greg there. Oh, I talk like I know Greg Rucka because I do know him. He wrote the introduction to my book, and boy, what a great introduction it was.