I'm really flattered. I will have to take you up on that someday. I'm saving money to take a trip, and the monterey peninsula may be involved. I'm scared to death of The Big One, like I'll be there when it happens. It's really irrational of me to worry so much about it because it's a place I really want to visit someday.

Now back to our regular programming.....

I actually sat and watched the c-span webcast of the senate debate the other day. I could only take about 2 hours of it before I started to feel sick. There are only two parties here, the far left and the far right. Our elected people are acting so savagely. Who gets off on this besides people in the media? We need election reform now more than ever. Watch what's going to happen. The use of the filibuster to torpedo judicial nominations is going to explode. When the Democrats are back in power in '08 the Republicans are going to do exactly the same thing. We're going to be battling about every single nomination in the same way we're doing it right now. I don't care about pending cases - I actually support this idea and credit the Democrats for it because every single important judicial nomination should be closely scrutinized. I want to make sure that no more extreme judges, left or right, are given a lifetime post. Keep the filibuster! No more Clarence Thomas or Ruth Ginsberg types! I just wish the righties would have figured this out sooner.

Jason

Twisted, yeah it is a matter of opinion as I injected my own thoughts into the whole deal. I'm not necessarily saying people are dumb for living there, so if I came across that way it wasn't intended. I still wouldn't pay a half million dollars for a teeny weeny house, no matter how cool a place is perceived to be.

I've actually always wanted to visit San Fran, but I'm probably not welcome there. I'll have to go in covert.

Jason

Look at my User Pic. Feast on the beauty. This is how I dress when I go to the Suburbs. You see I have a dilemma. I don't look rich enough to get attention from Suburbanites, yet I don't look scenesterish enough to get attention from Elmwoodites. So eventually I decided "fuck it" and started dressing way down. You would never recognize me on the street because I look like a scrub. I do my best to stay low key but I really don't want to look like a scrub any more. I don't want to be outed as a decent earner. I need some girls or some gay dudes to take me out shopping because I need a personal style that makes me satisfied and at the same time will rope in the Elmwood ladies.

Of course, even with my new personal style I will still have to get the balls to ask out the girls in question, who are always in the hood. Some girls I would talk to no problem, but the ones I think are really cute my cheeks turn really red and I act like they don't exist. First things first, some new duds!

Jason

Ajay,

I wouldn't go so far as to say that there will be only 2 "classes" of residents.

Before I get into this, no place on earth is so sweet that you should give up at least half your income just to have a roof over your head. No 2 bedroom home is worth a half million dollars. This has to do with people making ill advised financial decisions just as much as it is sketchy business practice. I'll offer up a few tidbits that I've learned.

Not too long ago the housing market and related industries were more or less carrying our economy. It is my belief that the Feds kept interest rates low on purpose to keep everything afloat. Of course when interest rates are low, people seemingly are willing to accumulate shitloads of debt as their interest payments are lower. As our economy has gotten stronger lately the Feds have slowly increased interest rates.

Increased interest rates are bad news for San Fran residents because nearly all of them have variable interest rate mortgages. Since they have taken on such large amounts of debt the interest payments on their home jump dramatically. Not coincidentally there has been a huge spike in the number of foreclosures. It gets more interesting when you learn how banks behave. I've learned that the banks are more than willing to give people these huge mortgages because they pass off the risk by selling those mortgages to Fannie Mae. Not a bad deal for the banks, eh?

The reason why I say that you shouldn't worry about there being 2 classes of residents is because a lot of those POs are swiftly being put on their ass for the reasons I've explained, plus many more that I have not explained. I've read that lately San Fran is losing those high paying dot com jobs, so average salary is actually going down. People can't afford to buy homes obviously, and any market can't last if there is no money going through it.

What I don't get is why and how housing prices got so high so fast. San Fran has lower property tax rates than we do, so it wouldn't surprise me if they got their tax money the same way Buffalo does - reassessment of homes by a "preferred" agency. House values go up artificially and the government doesn't have to say it raised tax rates! A very slick maneuver indeed.

I don't have all the answers obviously but I thought I would just offer a few things for conversation. Anyway Ajay why would you want to move to Cali? The Big One is way overdue and you definitely don't want to be there when THAT goes down. =)

Jason

I was going to write about tin foil capism and the Newsweek debacle, but instead I'll talk to you all about something much more important and interesting...ME of course. You see in less than a month I turn 27. As most people find out through experience, I've grown up a lot since I turned 23. Every new birthday brings the question, are you where you want to be and doing what you want to do? I don't really believe in marriage (I could fill up page after page about that), so I never think about being married with kids like so many of my friends. I still haven't been to London or Stockholm because I've been paying a huge chunk of my money to help take care of my family. I still want to go to Graduate school. There are so many things I still need to do in order to be satisfied.

In other news, I've been at home alone a bunch lately because (e:Joshua) has a new job and he's flying all over the country. He left a big mess here for me to clean up so I guess I can spend my time doing that. One cool thing is that my ladies man of a best friend has a bunch of new girls lined up. I love going out and playing wingman with him because there is zero pressure on me to be a perfect gentleman. I can be as silly as I want because all that matters is that he looks good. In fact I'm so damn fucking tired of being a gentleman. It gets you nowhere, it's not appreciated and you get the opposite of the result you want out of it. Chivalry isn't dead, it's just that it's not worth the effort anymore. That's what makes Wingman so fun. Don't be a jerk, make good conversation and be silly, a little bit of a smart ass even. I'm there!

Jason