You’re Not Only For Meth-Heads, Dimetapp
For *wheeze* what it’s *cough* worth:
1. Whitey – Remember back when it was cool to say that you were looking at a condo you couldn’t afford? Remember, also, when you walked into one of those “lending” offices and told them you made 35k a year and they told you, “Hell yeah, you can afford a house! See, your payments will be right around the $650 rent you pay each month!”? Ah, wouldn’t it be nice if your payments didn’t shoot up to around $1800 a month for no apparent reason two years later? The joys of the free market, right? The market will guide itself, indeed…right into the fucking gutter.
2. Cough Cough – Using PDAs (that many other people touch and slobber on) at work and having a child in kindergarten (filled with touchy and slobbery kids) add up to three separate colds since December 1, 2007.
3. Old Crow Medicine Show - When it comes to music, I like to view myself, always, as a growing boy. Being the dude who only listens to late 80’s Metallica forever and loves his mullet has always been a fear of mine. Suffice it to say, I’ve loved experimenting with my ears. This has allowed distinct periods of time when I listened to, for instance, terrible funk a la Limbomaniacs (sample lyric: “When butts are headed in my direction, I slip around back for a closer inspection. I size them all up with no sign of detection and I swoop on in and I make a selection.”), all manner of really boring electronica, and truly embarrassing grunge. However, despite all the failed romps in musical mind-expansion, I do come across some absolute gems. I know I’ve said this before, but I’m saying it again: Old Crow Medicine Show makes my life a little easier to live. Their brand of old-timey Americana is engrossing and refreshing. They’re a band that makes me glad that I experiment as much as I do. I implore you, go forth and listen!
4. Gladiatores – When writers go on strike, things such as this are given birth. I feel like I’m 13 again when I watch it and I act like it, too.
5. Just For You, Randy – I’m a fan of pork. It’s basically the most delicious meat out there (and I’m not talking about that shit in your grocer’s refrigerator case – I’m talking about the good, real stuff raised with care and, arguably depending on your view, ethics). Over the last year or so, I’ve experimented with various ways of preparing pork mainly in either Portuguese or Spanish dishes. Yeah, the Iberians, they love the swine, too. And, man, do they show it. How about America, though? Why is ham so pedestrian here when cured pork like Prosciutto, Jamón Serrano, and Presunto exist? Why is American ham so……blah? Enter Peter Kaminsky’s Pig Perfect: Encounters With Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways To Cook Them. Kaminsky’s book is beyond methods of preparing pork. Indeed, it is about a journey to find amazing pork and the age-old methods of preparing it. To my surprise, there are ham producers in America that do take care in the time and patience required of a good ham. It’s just that various government rules prevent many of them from profiting from it or even selling it at all. America has strange food laws that basically cater to large corporations while smaller, artisan-minded folk (read: local and fresh) can’t get a ham in edgewise (call me a foodie libertarian – hands off my food!). No wonder everyone thinks a ham is a ham is a ham.
ahemm, that would be Gladiators, my dear. love you. hope you feel better. laugh a little through your chest congestion. ;)
WRONG!!!!
It’s Gladiators in English……BUT NOT IN LATIN!
i touch every single PDA & Walkie in all of the store- yes, i think it is only me & the other operators who do so- & are thus exposed to every sneeze, every cough, every unwashed hand… i’ve seen people who hand me those very same pieces of equipment pick their noses, i’ve heard them answer them while in the restroom, & even, in the case of the old honkin’ huge PDAs (which the overnight & backroom still use), i have seen men shove the handle down the back of their pants as sort of an impromptu holster. & my hands come into contact with every single one of them. & how many times have i gotten sick in the last few months?!
my nicotene saturated immune system rules!
Pigs are typically slaughtered by bleeding to death. No matter if it’s a family or factory farm. If that’s what you call ethical treatment, well, hopefully I’m never stranded in the Andes with you when you’re feeling famished.
Oh, and Kim. It’s probably less to do with nicotine and more to do with the frequency in which you touch your face. Cas, stop stroking your beard.
Man, a pig on your diet would get passed right up, buddy. You’re a straight-up red, white, and blue swine, not one raised on acorns and grapes from fine red wine.
Kim not getting sick ever and my getting sick all the damned time has been a family joke fixture for about a decade now. Ever since Hero’s birth, though, it’s proven itself time and again. A strange scientific anomaly it is for sure. During times like this I call her cigarettes vitamin sticks.
As far as the blood, which is most assuredly a requirement in slaughtering a pig, there is always blood sausage! Any true pork farmer/processor would never throw away any useful part of the pig! In my family there was always kishka and, for poultry, czarnina. Good stuff. I had Morcilla (Spanish blood sausage) last year and it was mighty tasty.
here is an article on a pasta all’amatriciana and the importance of guanciale (cured, unsmoked pig jowl). perhaps a new piece of pig to try (unless you already have?).
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E4DD1F30F935A25752C0A96E9C8B63&scp=1&sq=pasta+alla+gricia&st=nyt
as for american gladiators, one of darleen’s teammates from the ny sharks was on it a week ago, so we had to watch it! but i’m not sure i would have watched it otherwise. since i so seldom watch tv, i’m more bummed about the freaking patriots being in the superbowl (again – i hate them) and the packers playoff loss than i am about the writers strike.
That article in the Times was great! I love how people try to lay claim to a certain preparation of pasta. So funny.
I haven’t tried guanciale but I do want to. The first person i came across to sing the praises of the jowl was, indeed, Mario Batali. The way he’s described it made my mouth water. I’m sure I’ll get to it some day.
It’s sad that Mario’s father, who owns Salumi in Seattle (when Kim went to Seattle last year I asked her if she happened to pass by there…), is one of a very few purveyors of true charcuterie in America. Even when I was a kid, 25 years ago, I remember my mom going to a poulterer to get the duck for czarnina and carrying the little vials of blood home with the duck itself. There are very few places like that now. What happened to the poulterers? What happened to the sausage shops? Hell, what happened to the bakeries?! The bread you get from your standard grocery store is typically a horrendous bastardization of real bread – a heightened Wonder Bread, if you will. Everything is so homogenized because people have seriously forgotten how to eat. The big-box grocer is not the entirety of the food world…
i used to wrestle pigs. at the time i thought it was ethical treatment :)
You shouldn’t say mean things about the girls you dated. ;)
Tim, I think that Randy is your friend now. When he’s mean to you like that, he likes you. Randy is sort of like that kid in 4th grade that punches girls in the head when he likes them.
Whatever dad! He started it…
Show me a homeowner with an ARM whose Promissory Note* didn’t clearly spell out the potential for a significant rate hike, and I’ll show you someone who has the right to claim that his payment skyrocketed for “no apparent reason.” I won’t defend unethical lending practices, but I don’t have much sympathy for short-sighted consumers either. We all know that between what your lender/broker tells you and what is actually on the documents you’re signing, it’s the documents that really count, so it’s no excuse to play dumb when the other shoe falls. Blame the concept of the free market if you want, but remember that consumers actively direct the market with their dollars; producers just react accordingly (in this case, to the detriment of both groups.)
* A pretty easy-to-read document. You don’t have to be a lawyer to comprehend it. And if you want to actually research what you’re signing, there are resources.
Also, AG is okay, but Ninja Warrior is far superior.
First, welcome back Tony!
Second, Ninja Warrior is freaking fantastic!
Third, I definitely agree that a huge portion of the sub-prime debacle is ignorant/short-sighted consumers. But most of these financial institutions took on substantial risk by ignoring their customers ignorance. And when both these parties screw up, the people that can actually afford their home (me) get caught in the middle because the market is in turmoil.
Couldn’t agree more.
Oh, I’m not completely faulting the lending industry for doing this (and, doesn’t it sound perverse to call lending an “industry”?). I know so many people just sign their lives away without reading the papers set in front of them. However, leaving aside blatant deception of non-English speakers, there’s a trick to getting people to sign off on papers they have no full concept of. My situation is unique in that while growing up I saw this happen all the time with my parents who were 1) older and 2) deaf. I know now as an adult that there were countless instances where we were taken advantage of because of the above reasons and because their “interpreter” was a ten year-old kid. This is a rare case, but the practice certainly does trickle down. Talk to people who don’t understand what leasing a car actually means… The bottom line is this: yes, consumers should be much more careful with the papers they sign for major purchases, but should the consumer always assume that they are entering into some contentious game of cat and mouse with a lender whether it be a bank, a lender, or otherwise? I think not. Our economy is cracking and it’s partly because of such dishonest business practice….which leads me to, once again, think about Mr. Nader.
Ninja Warrior rules.
Oh, and, um, yeah! It’s great to see you (or, at the very least, your words), Tony!
“…should the consumer always assume that they are entering into some contentious game of cat and mouse with a lender whether it be a bank, a lender, or otherwise?”
I think there are three categories of borrowers. First, those who are most easily taken advantage of, e.g. people who don’t speak/read English well enough to understand what they are signing. There are some counter arguments to that, however. Do these people come from countries where there are no laws and where the concept of binding legal documents simply doesn’t exist?* I doubt it. Therefore, they still have the responsibility of somehow researching what they are signing. Also, I work for a large bank and we have a “Foreign Language Contact List” at our disposal, so that if a customer needs help understanding something, we can contact an employee who speaks their language to help. The list is comprehensive – I’m talking Assyrian to Yoruba and everything in between. (Creole? Yep. Bulgarian? You betcha. Even Sign, although it may obviously take some effort to get everyone in the same room.) So even this category of people can’t be totally absolved.
Second, people who know full well their payments will go up drastically, beyond what they can currently afford, but assume they will be making enough when the time comes. A big gamble. I’m sure it works out for some, but when it doesn’t, it’s both the borrower’s and lender’s fault for taking that risk.
Third, people who are fully able to read/research/understand what they are signing, but don’t out of laziness or misplaced trust in the broker or lender they are dealing with.
So to answer your question, the answer is “yes.” Always assume that when someone is trying to sell you something, they might not choose to be totally straight with you. That’s just reality, unfortunately. You might find that you actually ARE dealing with a trustworthy person, but why not double check before “signing your life away,” as you put it? No matter how many laws are put in place to protect the consumer, you can’t legislate against a slick sales pitch.
Lastly, even the most honest lender can’t predict with certainty what will happen a few years down the road. If a person bases his decision on speculation about what interest rates or property values or his personal income might be in five years, that, once again, is a gamble. The problem is that too many people on both sides of the equation decided it was a good idea to gamble.
Anyway, Cas, it was the phrase “no apparent reason” that caught my eye, and you probably didn’t even mean that 100% literally. (And yet here we are, five thousand words later.) And thanks guys for the “welcome back.” I got burned out on the whole idea of online arguing. Still am, really, but I felt like chiming in on this one.
*We had a guy from Georgia (the country) doing some sort of internship in my department a while back and he said his country does not have a credit reporting system like we have here. I asked him, “So how do you decide if you should make a loan, then?” He replied, “You look at the person’s eyes and you can just tell.” It’s amazing to think that it used to be done that way here, too.
Your points are understandably valid, Tony. Actually, it was interesting to read the different points of view from which lending takes place. I know that consumers should just assume they’re being sold something all the time. I just think it sucks when it comes to such weighty matters that affect your credit (auto sales being one giant gorilla in the room when I say that).
The story about the Georgian was great. It made me chuckle, which is something I needed at this point of my morning.