Women's Rights!

(Thx "Homeslice")

HAPPY WEDNESDAY (AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN)

Completely Expected

NC State 29, UVA 24

The good thing about being a Virginia football fan is that these losses are not in the least bit shocking or surprising. It helps to numb the pain of losing to a (previously) 2-5 team that hadn't beaten an ACC opponent in 9 straight games. Way to Groh, Al. ACC Coach of the Year!!

Still, it could have been worse. We could have lost on a play like this...

Oh, right, I have a blog...

So, I met with my new realtor yesterday, having secretly fired my old realtor (secretly because he doesn't know - or probably care - that he's been fired). The new one used to work with my dad and now does real estate full time. It's been lucrative for her, but, like anyone who's dabbled lately, she's pretty bitter about the state of things right now. Basically, exactly what I'm looking for in a realtor. Also, she came prepared with research and marketing materials for whenever I decide to try to sell one or both of my places again. Her commission is a little higher, but I've already learned that you get (or don't get) what you pay for (or don't pay for).

After exchanging pleasantries and catching up with my dad, she got right down to her market outlook, specifically for my two houses. In a word, the market is: shit. But, that's fine, it's what I expected to hear and a lot better than the smoke my old realtor was blowing up my ass about being able to sell my house for $50K above market. Her advice was basically to re-do my W-4 employment worksheet so I'm getting less taxes taken out of my paycheck. Also, she recommended refinancing one or both of my houses. Helpful, because Countrywide is suddenly all over that. In fact, I just got an email today specifically offering to refi my accounts at no cost to me.

Therefore, my new strategy is to do both of these things and, as she suggested, wait it out. This might mean waiting it out until 2009. I hate bleeding money (though the two above acts might halt or lessen that), I hate being a landlord (no help there), I hate the plague of plagues heaped upon my houses each month, and I hate that these two houses tie me to this place and this job until I can get rid of them. But, the alternatives (short sell, foreclosure, burn to the ground for insurance money...wait, you didn't read that last one) aren't much better.

So, the Disgruntledness continues! Huzzah!

In other news:

-Turns out $150,000-aires are the new millionaires!! Keep those incentives for bettering ourselves financially coming, boys!

-To be fair, this was the second part of his Make-A-Wish wish. (Seriously, though, how are pit bulls still legal? Does it ever end well when one owns them?)

-Naked sleepwalkers in hotels!! That reminds me of something, but I can't quite remember what...

-The Onion predicts the future!!

-And finally, a tip o' the hat to Tom Brady, who has single-handedly saved not one, but two of my fantasy football seasons. Thanks, Tom, I'd gladly watch you shower anytime you wanted.

GILF

This lady rules. As an aside, my Comcast-provided internet is not working (I'm "borrowing" a neighbor's unsecured line), not that that colors my opinion of this...

From Yahoo!...

Woman fined for hammer fit at Comcast

BRISTOW, Va. - She was fined and got a suspended jail sentence, but Mona Shaw says she has no regrets about using a hammer to vent her frustration at a cable company.

"I stand by my actions even more so after getting all these telephone calls and hearing other people's complaints," she told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

Shaw, 75, and her husband, Don, say they had an appointment in August for a Comcast technician to come to their Bristow home to install the company's heavily advertised Triple Play phone, Internet and cable service.

The Shaws say no one came all day, and the technician who showed up two days later left without finishing the setup. Two days after that, Comcast cut off all their service.

At the Comcast office in Manassas later that day, they waited for a manager for two hours before being told the manager had left for the day, the Shaws say.

Shaw, a churchgoing secretary of the local AARP branch, returned the next Monday — with a hammer.

"I smashed a keyboard, knocked over a monitor ... and I went to hit the telephone," Shaw said. "I figured, 'Hey, my telephone is screwed up, so is yours.'" [ed. note: Fuck that's a great quote!)

Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, disputes Shaw's version of its customer service record and calls Shaw's hammer fit on Aug. 20 an "inappropriate situation."

"Nothing justifies this sort of dangerous behavior," Comcast spokeswoman Beth Bacha said.

Police arrested Shaw for disorderly conduct. She received a three-month suspended sentence, was fined $345 and and is barred from going near the Comcast offices for a year.

The Shaws did eventually get phone and television service — with Verizon and DirecTV.

She said many people have called her a hero. "But no, I'm just an old lady who got mad. I had a hissy fit," she said.

And the Lord Sayeth...

The Hillary Clinton Health Care Plan

From CNN.com

Brits resort to pulling own teeth

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Some English people have resorted to pulling out their own teeth because they cannot find -- or cannot afford -- a dentist, a major study has revealed.

Six percent of those questioned in a survey of 5,000 patients admitted they had resorted to self-treatment using pliers and glue, the UK's Press Association reported.

England has a two-tier dental care system with some dentists offering publicly subsidized treatment through the National Health Service and others performing more expensive private work.

But more than three-quarters of those polled said they had been forced to pay for private treatment because they had been unable to find an NHS dentist. Almost a fifth said they had refused dental treatment because of the cost.

One respondent in Lancashire, northern England, claimed to have extracted 14 of their own teeth with a pair of pliers. In Liverpool, one of those collecting data for the survey interviewed three people who had pulled out their own teeth in one morning.

"I took most of my teeth out in the shed with pliers. I have one to go," another respondent wrote.

Others said they had fixed broken crowns using glue to avoid costly dental work.

Valerie Halsworth, 64, told British television's GMTV she had removed seven of her own teeth using her husband's pliers when her toothache became unbearable and she was unable to find an NHS dentist willing to treat her.

Halsworth admitted that the first extraction had been "excruciatingly painful." But she added: "It got that painful that I just had to do something... When you have taken a tooth out... the pain has gone."

Sharon Grant, chair of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, which commissioned the survey, said: "These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly.

"Where NHS dental services are available, people are happy with the quality of treatment provided but many find the NHS fee system confusing and expensive, with some patients taking out loans to pay for treatment or more worryingly taking matters into their own hands."

On The Issue of Robot Attacks, Mr. Giuliani Frowned and Replied, "No, We Are Not Prepared For That."

The Disgruntleds

I'm having a pretty frustrating and long week, so this seemed as good a time as any to initiate a new semi-weekly/monthly feature: The Disgruntleds. This, simply, is a list of the things disgruntling me right now. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

1.) Crocs. They look ok on kids, but pretentious and stupid on adults. As I told the Disgruntled Girlfriend yesterday, I'm not gay, but some of those color combos have just (snap) got (snap) to (snap) go. Mmm-hmmm...

2.) People talking into their cell phones like they were walkie-talkies. You don't look cool, asshole. And your phone is not a walkie-talkie.

3.) Walkie-talkie cell phones.

4.) When co-workers (like my boss, who's office is next to mine) dial using their speaker phone, then when the other person says, audibly, "Hello?" the co-worker (or boss) picks up the phone and starts using it normally. What the fuck is the point of doing that?

5.) "Bro"/"Brah"

6.) The New York Times

7.) Fantasy football weeks ruined by "game-time decisions" (conversely, accurately predicting these decisions makes me less disgruntled)

8.) Robot marriages?

9.) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his body odor

10.) Goddamn fucking real estate

Have a disgruntled day!!

P.S. Look who just turned 18!!