March « 2007 « JerseySmarts.com

Why Can’t Anyone Drive Normal In The State of Pennsylvania

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

Have you ever been in traffic? I’m sure you have. You know when you’re in traffic and the car in front of you starts to slow down (also known as braking), what do you do? You also start to brake. Now, when that person stops, what do you do?? You also stop. So, how come when I’m still half asleep at quarter to 7 in the morning, driving to work, does some dickhead slam into me?? I’ll tell you why, because I was in Pennsylvania and noone in that fucking state can drive normal. What is wrong with people, slam on your goddamn brakes if you have to, that’s how you stop quickly, how you’re not supposed to stop is by slamming into the back of someone else.

So, thank you douschebag for hitting my car, thank you for making me have to wait for an hour and a half for the fucking towtruck to pick my car up, and thank you for making me sit in said tow truck for an hour while we were in the morning rush hour traffic going towards Philly. You suck.

The only saving grace is that the back of my car sustained far less damage than the front of his. Dickhead!

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Posted in Idiots, Morons, & Fools, Random Entries | No Comments »

Marty Finally Gets What He Deserves

Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

I realize this is a couple weeks after the fact but I felt the need to give Martin Scorcese his credit. This was his 6th time being nominated for the Best Director Academy Award (his 8th overall). I think it was fairly safe to say that everyone knew Marty was going to win, especially when the presenters of this award were Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Speilberg. That was an impressive stage to be on with those four guys.

Winning the Oscar isn’t everything and he sure didn’t need it to validate his legacy as one of the finest American Filmakers, but the man deserved it. Take a look at this, out of the five times he lost out on the Best Director Award, three out of the five were men who are known more as actors.

Robert Redford won for Ordinary People, Kevin Costner won for Dances With Wolves and Clint Eastwood won for Million Dollar Baby (In fairness, you could argue that Clint is far better as a director than he ever was an actor). Of those three, I think MDB was a better picture than The Aviator, but you can’t tell me the other two deserved to win the Best Director and Best Picture Awards. Raging Bull and Goodfellas are absolute gems. When you look at most critic’s picks for movies of the decade for the 80’s and 90’s, chances are you’ll see both films either at the # 1 spot or damn close to it. How could he have not won for either of those movies. Kevin Costner? are you serious Academy? Kevin fucking Costner has a best director oscar but Alfred Hitchcock doesn’t, Stanley Kubrick doesn’t, Sergio Leone doesn’t, ugh. Makes me sick.

Anyway, congrats Marty on your well deserved Oscar.

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Posted in Entertainment | No Comments »

The Subprime Mortgage Scare Sacks Stocks

Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

In case you missed it, the stock market tanked today on concerns about subprime lending. Linked at the bottom of this post is a PDF report that I helped compile last spring as a Graduate Student that goes into the horrors of subprime lending. Folks, these mortgages are bad for the common consumer and you all need to stop getting them!

In short, a subprime or “non-traditional mortgage” (NTM) is any mortgage product that is a departures from the longtime gold standard of lending, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. So when you see these commercials for low-interest loans to help you afford a bigger house - stay away!

These interest rates are only available for a short-period of time (usually a 1 - 7 years) and then an automatic “rate reset” sets in and completely jacks up your interest rate! There is nothing you can do about this rate reset because it’s locked into the terms of the loan. STAY AWAY!

The truth is that if you can’t afford to buy a house in the market today or if you plan on buying a house that you actually want to live in and not flip, then you need to be able to afford that house with a traditional 30-year mortgage rate (by the way, flipping has helped ruin many fixed-income communities - e-mail me if you want more information about that).

Mortgage Market Transformation and Foreclosure

Archive for March, 2007

Why Can’t Anyone Drive Normal In The State of Pennsylvania

Marty Finally Gets What He Deserves

The Subprime Mortgage Scare Sacks Stocks