Liquid Nonsense

If you value your friendship with me, then you will watch this (for RSS readers, it's an embedded link):



It's roughly 10 minutes and in Japanese. If I can locate a subtitled version I will post it. Believe me, the translation does not help the narrative. You will be a richer human being for seeing this.

Labels: insanity

The whole buying-a-house thing has really served to illustrate the tedium that is paper work. I think I have signed somewhere around a hojillion different papers taking care of everything from home inspections, to seller disclosure acknowledgments, and various loan papers. This would not be such a phenomenal pain if so many technology changes did not have to occur. I receive papers in email, then I print, sign, and fax them back. Email, to print, to fax machine for one damned transaction.

I decided to investigate what options exist for digital signatures, and that in and of itself, took me the better part of three days to sort out. The standards regulating digital signatures are numerous and nebulous. Generally, I feel pretty confident with tech matters, but these were downright confusing. Long-story short: nobody would know how to handle a digital signature even if I used one because PDF files are scary and dangerous and essentially no one outside of a certificate authority seems to know anything about them.

In other technologically-inclined news, I have finally purchased a scanner. It's pretty nifty-spiffy and has enabled me to digitize various older "things" that I have meant to do for some time. Of interest:

Vintage. Pictures of people and events that pre-date college.

Japan. Pictures from trip to Japan back in 2003.

Note: I am going to apologize now. These pictures were taken on either A) a very shitty Kodak advantix camera, or B) a disposable camera. The quality is not the greatest.

Labels: house, pictures, technology

Today around 5:30pm I decide to go use the bathroom. I go through the same motions that we all do every day, except I look down and it looks like I've shit out about a pint of my own blood. Momentary panic ensues... I then recall my lunch which largely consisted of delicious Moroccan beets. I proceed to further recall beets change the color of various bodily fluids and I decide that I am, in fact, not dying from a gastric hemorrhage or some horrible ulceration of my innards.

Labels: health

I guess it worked out rather well that my 101th post (and the posts surrounding it) to this blog would be about me purchasing a house. Fortuitous indeed.

This afternoon I took a few hours off of work so I could head down to Tempe to take care of the usual terminate and housing inspections necessary to complete the whole buying process. I met up with Phil at SCNM and we proceeded to meet up with Maria (my realtor) and the house inspector at the place. The whole process was actually fairly painless as he walked us step-by-step through all the potential problem areas. Thankfully, there weren't any show-stoppers and even the problems he did find were relatively minor. All in all, a crack on the back wall is the only spot of potential concern, so we're bringing in a structural engineer to fully evaluate it and make sure that it isn't going to compromise the wall's integrity. Two checks and a few signatures later we were done and I got to resume my waiting game for closing (Feb. 6th).

I have to admit that it ended up being a really nice afternoon. Phil and I grabbed lunch over at Whole Foods and ran into Cynthia and Amanda by surprise, which was a nice coincidence. After all, lunch is a wonderful social time and random friend encounters are always appreciated. We also hit up the Bova Furniture store, which I am totally infatuated with, and proceeded to look at various pieces that I might get for the house. I have absolutely no doubt that we were coming off as anything less than flaming. Something about two gay men wandering through a contemporary furniture store comparing wood grains, leather types, and color selections...

My Flickr account has also been updated with more pictures of the place, for the curious. I didn't grab any decent shots of the second floor yet, but I'll get them up there eventually. As I start painting walls and buying furniture I'll update the account so everyone who doesn't live in Arizona can watch it grow too. I am ridiculously excited to get started on the whole process.

Labels: house

Yesterday morning the house I entered into contract on officially went into escrow. The process is underway and I have housing inspections to attend to tomorrow afternoon. On Thursday I am meeting up with my mortgage broker to finalize everything I need to actually complete the purchase. The entire process is kind of unreal at the moment... Regardless, I am totally stoked to have a house to move in to. If something screws the process up at this point I am going to be seriously upset.

I feel that I am going to need to step up on my financial responsibility at this point. In all honesty I think I do a pretty good job of managing my money, especially contrary to what my parents may think. To date I have opened savings accounts, money market accounts, a stock portfolio, and I have started a small handful of businesses. At the end of this month I am going to have a mortgage added into the mix, which is only going to make calculating tax deductions and withholdings that much more interesting. By "interesting" I mean "complicated".

Enter Quicken. For the first time in my life I am using financial management software. I have to admit, thus far I am fairly impressed. It's taken a while, but I finally entered all my bank accounts, paychecks, stocks, and various other miscellany. Several clicks and a few wizard steps later it has correctly calculated my taxes for 2006 and informed me that I have a fairly large refund heading my way (suh-weet!). It can tell me how my portfolio is doing in real-time as well as reflect my balance sheet to reflect market trends. It can let me know when I have paid an excessive amount for the Thai iced tea with boba that I love so dearly.

All this together should hopefully help me manage my money a little bit better as well as enforce the savings plans I have put in place. Part of me is really excited to be able to manage this stuff so effectively, and part of me is concerned that the little banker within me that I thought I killed might somehow still be alive. I guess only time will tell.

Labels: money

Nearly a month ago, during my quest for a house, I made an offer on a place I really liked in southern Tempe. My realtor suggested that we really low-ball the guy to see if he was willing to negotiate down from his asking price. Well, it just so happened that the man's agent was a complete and utter dingbat, and actually ended up countering for a price higher than the original asking value. Nobody was really sure how exactly the math worked... Needless to say, we dropped the idea of getting that house.

Fast forward to yesterday. The house I made the original offer on was still listed. At the time of my first offer the house had already been on the market for nearly 150 days. One month and a house payment later, the house was still listed. My realtor and I made another stop by the place to check it out one more time and decided to make the same low-ball offer back. This time, however, the guy accepted the offer verbally. Last night we scrambled to get the paperwork together and everything else we needed to in order to get this process moving. This morning I was emailed all the documents in PDF format, printed them, signed them, and faxed them back to the various parties that needed them. Right now I'm waiting on the guy, 'cause he lives in North Carolina now, to acknowledge them and send them back with his signature.

If everything goes according to plan then I receive the keys to my shiny new house on February 6th.

I find that the funny part of this process is that I was not terribly excited before yesterday. Sure, I wanted a house and I wanted a place to call my own, but it was not this real or visceral. Now that paperwork is changing hands with verbal confirmations in the air I have become actively engaged. Suddenly February 6th feels like it is a long time away. In all reality I realize that it is essentially a mere 30 calendar days away... it just feels like more.

One interesting problem of this move is going to be a severe lack of furniture. I believe the sum of my furniture-like belongings at this point include: a desk, a bed, 4 bookshelves, 2 theater seats, a very uncomfortable black love seat, and a very comfortable little bendy chair from Ikea. The part of my genetics that tell me that I heart men also tell me that I would like to tastefully decorate my house in a contemporary style. The problem happens to be none of my current furniture fits that theme, so I am essentially starting with absolutely no furniture. Luckily, I have some money set aside that I might be able to buy a few pieces just so I have something to sit on.

The picture on this post is the actual place I am buying. The next time I swing by the house I shall take my camera with me and start putting more pictures on my Flickr account.

Wish me luck!

Labels: house

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Remained a full-time employee for a full year and traveled to China.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
To the best of my knowledge I didn't make any resolutions last year. I'm going to continue my efforts to try and gain a little weight :-).

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No, but my morally bankrupt cousins adopted an Ethiopian child because Ethiopian children look good with Prada.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Personally, no. Still a little close, yes.

5. What countries did you visit?
China over the summer.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
A better understanding of what I would actually like to dedicate a reasonable portion of my career to doing.

7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why:
Jan. 14th, 2006. Met Phil. I remember because one month from when we met was Valentines Day.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Traveling to China and working with the real Shaolin monks in a training pavilion at the temple in Deng Feng.

9. What was your biggest failure?
My complete and utter lack of interest in closing out the undergraduate stage of my academic career. All the classes are done, but it took me forever to actually fucking graduate. Lousy bureaucratic process.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing outside of the usual sparring accidents. I took an amazing spinning back kick to the ribs sometime late in the summer. That was fun.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I wish I could have said a house, but that will have to wait until 2007. Probably my new LCD tv.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Phil's at several points deserved celebration. My job was sucking my soul out via my anus around April of 2006 and I felt he was a champ putting up with my emotional distress. The innumerable hours spent laughing with Heidi about all the things ridiculous in this world also deserve a mention.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Virtually no day goes by without somebody offending my sensibilities in a way that makes me want to either gag, or severely and irreparably harm their genitalia. Seriously, working at a company that bends to the conservative side makes me question how, as a species, we have ever gotten this far. Boggles the mind!

14. Where did most of your money go?
Miscellaneous classes and food take up the most. Martial arts, yoga, gym, and everything else associated with those activities. Plus all the food required to recover from those activities. Surprisingly, there was also some legitimate savings in there as well.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Receiving my black belt in China, but strangely enough I actually think I was slightly more excited to the see The Fountain by Darren Aaronofsky.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
"Sleeping In" by The Postal Service

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier
ii. thinner or fatter? Definitely not fatter. Hopefully not thinner.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer. I've never been a full-time employee before.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Tying up loose ends. I'm far too comfortable leaving things in indeterminate states.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Staying up late and then being tired in the morning? That just sounds like a generic, shitty answer. How about spending less time in crazy boy state?

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Christmas with my family is a 25 minute event that is followed up with nothing in particular. I made my parents watch both Super Size Me, and Thank You for Smoking. Only in retrospect did I appreciate the fact I made my parents watch movies about over-indulgence and bad habits on Christmas Day.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Phil. No question about it. I have the summer cell phone bills to prove it when he went a'travelin'.

22. Did you fall in love in 2006?
Actually, yes.

23. How many one-night stands?
They had their place.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
The only TV show I watch is House. Thank you Mr. Internet.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
A handful of individuals. I don't necessarily hate them... I definitely would not actively seek to harm them, but if I saw them stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire I wouldn't stop to help them.

26. What was the best book you read?
"Lapsing into a comma," by Bill Walsh and "Eon," by Greg Bear. I think.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Dresden Dolls

28. What did you want and get?
My black belt and the opportunity to see China.

29. scene missing

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Toss up between The Fountain and Casino Royale. Secretly I'm a pretty big James Bond fan.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you (optional)?
I survived to be 24. Phil and I had a small gathering at his house where we drank and played Lunch Money. Spending an evening pretending to be little Catholic school girls beating the everliving piss out of each other is an absolutely wonderful way to spend one's birthday.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Coworkers that knew a green lifestyle was an environmental reference, not an economic one.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Callow youth standing in his Merrell shoes and comfy pants.

34. What kept you sane?
The time spent with Phil and being able to periodically retreat to one of my various projects (e.g., photography, gaming, wandering).

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Hugh Laurie from House.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The most stirring event would have to be watching the Democrats seize control of the House and the Senate. In a close second would be all the smaller events centered around the banning of gay marriage; 'cause I'm happy with my status as a second-class citizen.

37. Whom did you miss?
Phil, when he was traveling or inaccessible due to academic woes. Susahnn for moving to Colorado. Heidi for almost moving away, but brought back by a cruel and twisted yet comically absurd fate.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Phil for being my boyfriend.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006:
It is possible to be someone's friend or boss, but not both at the same time. I have also had it beaten into my head how difficult it can be to relate to people with drastically different world views. For the first time I feel like I am surrounded by people with a completely different ideology, and it's fucking hard. I am honestly not sure how long I will remain with my current company, but the next one will definitely be of a liberal bent and very likely based on renewable economics.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Don't wake me. I plan on sleeping in."

Labels: meme

Sometime during the last two weeks I have really retaken up my interest in Pink Floyd. I am really not sure what prompted the investigation, but a few days ago I swung by Zia and bought some of their CDs so I could play them on my kick-ass stereo as opposed to simply listening to the mp3 versions via computer.

Pink Floyd has a bizarre effect on me. It could just be the hallucinogens, but somehow listening to a complete CD always puts me in a dream-like state where I basically just want to stare at the wall and think in a meditative sense. Part of me understands the complete campiness of saying that Pink Floyd is drug music, but I really don't think Pink Floyd can be appreciated without some kind of psychoactive substance. I am reasonably sure this is the same relationship I have to Shpongle.

On a completely unrelated note, Christmas was completely uneventful. Just the way I like it.

New Years was awesome. Started the evening off at Zach's annual New Year's party which was pretty good. The tradition of playing Cranium has been firmly established, but now that more and more of my friends are turning professionals, they can't always make it back for these events. Unfortunately, this year the team I usually play on got defeated pretty badly. I am not going to mention how badly, but I will say it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Afterward Phil and I went to Jean-Luc's (at least I think it was Jean-Luc's) 007 James Bond themed New Year's party. A whole bunch of gay men, naturopathic med students, and a light dusting of various other individuals make for a pretty crazy good time.

What I found particularly funny about the night was the dancing. I make no claims about being a great, or even good, dancer but I feel I can do a passable job. Some of the ladies made some rather nice comments toward me that I am going to assume where sincere that felt kind of nice. Dancing is one of those things I wished I was better at. Just writing this I cannot even remember the last time I went to a club here in Phoenix. That kind of makes me sad. Especially thinking back to the nights with Megan when we would go down and get out club on and dance tell the early morning. Also, it was a lot of fun grinding with Phil that night. Put alcohol in us and we get pretty touchy-feely-grindy-flirty in public.

Last note of the evening, I placed a few more pictures up in a set called "Thanksgiving Weekend" on my Flickr gallery. Picture highlights include several low-light shots from the Urban Cafe, dog pictures, and me trying to take artsy still lifes.

Labels: ambient, parties, Pink Floyd, psychedelic rock