Uncle Sam to the Rescue

Don't want to offend anyone, but I have to say that I am pissed off about the White House's plan to bail out the mortgage industry on the sub-prime loan fiasco. I'm not in favor of kicking folks out in the street, but there was a reason that the sub-prime loans sounded too good to be true. They were too good to be true. If you bought a house that you had no business affording, why is it a big surprise when you can't afford it? I looked at sub-prime loans and decided (based on the facts) that I couldn't afford to take that kind of a risk. What if I didn't get raises? What if the housing market didn't do all that well? Then I'd be stuck with a mortgage I couldn't afford.

Well, now I'm the one that looks like an idiot, because I should have bought a house that I couldn't afford, because now my tax money will pay for the bailout of people who didn't think before they bought with a sub-prime loan.

I know. I'm a scrooge.

Pictures and Princesses

Please someone tell me this is a joke: http://omg.yahoo.com/hilton-tries-to-help-drunk-elephants/news/3966 A million causes, hundreds of millions of needy people, and this is the cause she picks to put her celebrity and father's fortune behind? Has the state of California considered involuntary commitment?.

Also found this controversy http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/11/AR2007111100779.html about some snapshots taken by Ansel Adams really interesting. I love the fancy pants art history snoots complaining about how MoMA or the Chicago Museum would never exhibit them because they were not completed works. But I wonder if they would have been willing to display DaVinci's Horses, which was an entire exhibit devoted to his sketches. I think it's an apples to apples comparison. And to accuse the tiny Museum of the Albemarle of "profiteering"? Please.

Randomocity

A movie recommendation for you: "Igby Goes Down." Great ensemble movie about a privileged kid (Kieran Caulkin) struggling with his identity and his relationship with his mother. Susan Sarandon proves once again that she is a transcendent actor and Jeff Goldblum puts in his best performance since "Big Chill." Who know Ryan Phillipe could act? And well, Clare Danes could read the phone book and I'd watch, but she really was very good in this movie.

I'm easily moved and so sometimes I'll try to share with you all stories that bring a tear to my eye. Here's one: http://myespn.go.com/s/conversations/show/story/3103651 The kicker of course was the kid saying that he would donate the check to charity.... Now, the cynic in my notes that he makes more in a week than I do in four months, but still...

Random Thoughts

OK. I promised random thoughts and here is one:

Actually, maybe someone can help me understand this. Where I live there is a growing number of window stickers in cars that say "In loving memory of (insert name), departed loving (insert relationship)." On a car. Really.

Now, I definitely get wanting to keep someone's memory alive, but I don't get what amounts to a fancy bumper sticker to do it. And when the bumpersticker is on a well maintained fancy car, well that's one thing, but when it's on an import mini pickup truck with a dented bumper... Does that really bring the deceased to mind in a very flattering light? I don't think so, but I'm willing to be convinced.

Welcome to my Blog

Hello cyberspace! I haven't done a blog before, but I like to write, so I think it's a bit of a natural fit. What I hope to do is just post kind of frequently with real short comments that come to my head. It might end up being about soccer, about college football or basketball, about the Redskins, about politics, about pop culture. Depending on how comfortable I get with this thing, it might also be about what really is important to me, like my son, my job, my relationship with the X.

Anyway, I don't know, so I won't try to guess.

Today, I actually have a chance to watch my beloved Tar Heels play football. My sweet son is thankfully sleeping peacefully (what will I do when he does finally give up his nap???). They are hanging in against NCState, which is nice to see. This team under new coach Butch Davis has only been blown out once this season and that was against South Florida who was #3 in the nation at one point. That's the big difference between the team last year and the team this year. Last year they'd play well in the first half and hand with some really good teams, but end up getting tired or discouraged and get blown out. This year, they seem to be able to weather mistakes and deficiencies in the first half and make the other team work in the second half. The half time adjustments are also solid and suggest that Butch Davis is a wee bit smarter than John Bunting...