I’m off today, but not to have any fun. No, instead I’ll be accompanying the home inspector to see if the house I’m about to buy is getting ready to fall down or not. It’s my last chance to get out. Otherwise, it’s full speed ahead, with a trip to the mortgage dude to sign off on all that shit before racing back to try and make my appointment to have needles shoved into me (and take a half-hour nap while they work their magic). I’m not used all this activity. In the past, a big day for me was stopping at the grocery store to buy beer on the way home from work. Tomorrow doesn’t get much much better. It’s work in the morning, with a break to go to the dentist to see if he can end the agony where my filling dropped out. I haven’t had a dentist in a while now, so this probably won’t be pretty. Unfortunately, pain has overcome fear, so I guess I gotta go. The counter-clockwise decay of my body continues. It started with my right foot, moved to my right shoulder, and is now in the left side of my mouth (I guess I’m lucky it skipped my brain on the way around; coulda had a nice little brain aneurysm or something before the toothache. Well, maybe on the second trip around).
Watch out everybody, Earl’s coming. As things stand right now, the worst we’ll get where I live is a few clouds. You folks on the East Coast might not be so lucky. Could be a wet Labor Day for you. Not that it matters, of course. It’s only a matter of time before the bed bugs take over dominion of the planet from the humans. Another bunch of bloodsuckers – same as the old boss.
Major combat operations in Iraq have ended (again), and President Obama will be making an address tonight that will NOT include the phrase ‘Mission Accomplished.’ Hopefully they’ve focus-tested a different slogan and come up with something better.
I braved the waters of Time Warner ‘support’ chat again this morning, this time to try and find out the price of cable AFTER the promotional period is over. It isn’t on their website (they have a FAQ asking what the cost will be, and the answer is “it will revert to the regular price”), and the chatbot apparently can’t tell me either. I guess it’s a secret.
Everybody keeps asking me if I’m ‘excited’ about buying a different house. I guess I’ve just got too much Jack Benny in me to get excited at the prospect of spending that much money. Plus, I can’t for the life of me figure out how in the hell everything’s gonna get done and moved out of where I live now (let alone all the work that needs to get done where I’m going). Just the thought of it all gives me a headache. Thank goodness I’ve got a toothache to keep my mind off of it.
Oh well, I guess I’d better get ready to go deal with the day.
I hope the East Coasties will be OK but we don’t need any more Earl in the Gulf.
I don’t know art but I know what I like.
:cake: :cake:
and speaking of bedbugs
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and one for Jim
:sammy: :fire:
Again, safe travels to a favorite journalist/correspondent team on their way back in search of the truth. Be careful out there.
By most standard measures of economic health, New York City’s recovery from the financial crisis and the recession it started is well under way.
The typical New Yorker is less likely to be unemployed or facing foreclosure or bankruptcy than the average American. Homes in the metropolitan area have held their value better than in most other big cities as more people are moving to the region than deserting it. Tourists continue to flock to the city, filling hotel rooms at the highest rate in the country, and at rising prices.
Wall Street — still the engine that powers the city — roared back faster than expected, eliminated far fewer jobs than had been forecast, resumed paying out big bonuses and has begun to hire again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/nyregion/31nyecon.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion
Blasting off mountaintops to reach coal in Appalachia or churning out millions of tons of carbon dioxide to extract oil from sand in Alberta are among environmentalists’ biggest industrial irritants. But they are also legal and lucrative.
For a growing number of banks, however, that does not seem to matter.
After years of legal entanglements arising from environmental messes and increased scrutiny of banks that finance the dirtiest industries, several large commercial lenders are taking a stand on industry practices that they regard as risky to their reputations and bottom lines.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/business/energy-environment/31coal.html?ref=us
The state attorney general has failed to back up accusations that a former University of Virginia climate change researcher defrauded state taxpayers in obtaining government grants, a judge ruled Monday.
Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr., who is retired but filling in on the Albemarle County Circuit Court bench, determined that the university could be subject to an investigation by the attorney general, Ken T. Cuccinelli. But Judge Peatross found that Mr. Cuccinelli’s two administrative subpoenas for the records of the researcher, Michael E. Mann, failed to spell out the nature of his alleged wrongdoing.
“What the attorney general suspects that Dr. Mann did that was false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the commonwealth is simply not stated,†Judge Peatross said in his ruling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/science/earth/31climate.html?ref=us
A bigoted pastor who has assailed gays and Muslims is launching the “9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero” a mere two blocks from the World Trade Center site this Sunday but so far the project hasn’t drawn a peep of protest from those who are outraged by the “ground zero mosque.”
Pastor Bill Keller of Florida said today he will begin preaching this Sunday at the Marriott at 85 West Street
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/30/911-christians-plan-their_n_699322.html?ir=New%20York
The Boss called me yesterday and said I’m back to working 2 days a weeks, maybe. This is getting to be quite a rollercoaster. I guess I’ll know for sure by the 13.
In the meantime, hurricane Earl is making its way to the eastcoast. If we stay on the island when it hits, there is a good chance trees will come down and possibly hit the house. If we go back to Brooklyn, the wind and rain may cause the roof to leak even though it’s new. Brooklyn seems like a better bet to me. Hubby thinks the island sounds better. Of course the best thing is for the storm to just forget the coast and go out to sea.