
tokamak
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Posts posted by tokamak
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I think I waited a good 2 weeks to bust a nut. The soreness lingered for me longer than most, maybe about a week or so. Not bad pain, just sore. I think my problem is that I wore some fairly loose boxer briefs like day 2 or 3. Keep those compression shorts on.
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41 minutes ago, Machinator said:Video of Beard leaving Lubbock
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10 hours ago, Goodman said:
Big fat tech tears.
"deciding to quit"...lol
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16 minutes ago, jw4381 said:
Yes, Texas is a downgrade from tech. This is an incredible take. Kudos.
ACROSS THE BOARD
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Potential impact of hiring Beard on Ewers?
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So the worst case scenario here is that we hire a very well-liked former player who is universally thought to have a bright future in NBA circles?
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Who knew the CEO of delta was a left wing commie supporter of the ccp?
I can’t stress enough how bad a situation we’re in if we’re having to rely on megacorporations to stand up for democracy.-
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Are the 3rd row seats in the Model Y even usable? The only pics I can find online make the legroom look pretty much nonexistent.
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1 hour ago, CDAK said:
What's the best/easiest way to "shop" mortgages? I don't want to go to the ends of the earth trying to find a slightly lower closing costs or interest rate but would like to get 2-3 cost estimates just to feel like I did my due diligence.
With the first house we bought several years ago, I just used Quicken. It was fine. I have no qualms. I'm having difficulty getting them to respond to me now though. Maybe they've gone downhill. I don't know.
Our agent is really pushing Caliber and gets aggravated when I mention trying to get another quote (which annoys me). I use USAA for most of my banking but they apparently don't offer non-VA mortgages. I'm not a veteran.
We live in the Pacific Northwest if that makes any difference.
We just bought and I found "shopping around" to be much more difficult than it needs to be. I personally can't fucking believe that people make this huge of a financial decision without trying to get the best deal possible, but that's just my personality I guess.
If you have a bank or credit union that you do business with, I found that to be a pretty good option. We did an application with the credit union that issues one of our credit cards. Their process was very easy - after we did the app, they sent me a link to a website that would update once a day with a full menu of loan terms/interest rates/closing costs. In the end we didn't go with them but I think it was basically as easy as "click this button once you're ready to lock in this particular loan".
Side note, you may already know this, but I noticed that rates and closing costs move in relation to each other. For example, the credit union only ever quoted by eighths of a point (that might be standard, not sure), so if rates went down today, but not quite a whole eighth of a point, they'd drop the rate but raise the closing costs to compensate for it. Then if rates kept dropping the next day, maybe they'd leave the rate but bring the fees down some.
Other than the bank route, you can just ask around for brokers that people like. We did applications with two brokers that were recommended to us. Let them know right up front that rate, or closing costs, etc is important to you and if they're good they'll pick up what you're putting down. Let them know they're not the only horse in the race. One got annoyed when I mentioned the credit union, and started applying all sorts of high pressure BS. We cut him loose quick because I ain't got time for that. Sign of unprofessionalism, IMO.
So this strategy worked out well for us because we had the credit union - easy process, everything up front, decent rates but not rock bottom - that we could fall back on plus the broker trying to get us something lower. Only problem for us was that lock periods vary. For the loan that the broker was quoting us, the lock period was shorter, so we had to sweat it out for a week or so and hope that rates wouldn't rise. The situation with fees was always pretty fuzzy to me too, which is an aspect I don't really understand. It's not like I'm going to back out of closing on this house in 4 days or whatever because my lender is all of a sudden showing me fees that are $300 higher than an estimate I saw a few weeks ago. That seems like a flaw in the entire home buying process - once you pass a certain point, everyone has you by the balls.
It seems like there are a few internet outfits that are trying to disrupt mortgages. You mentioned Quicken/Rocket, and Better seems like the trendy one right now. I explored Better a little bit before we got too far in the process. Internet reviews say it's real easy and streamlined, but my impression was that you're gonna end up paying for that with higher closing costs.
Sorry for the long post. Just went through all this a matter of weeks ago so it's fresh in my mind.
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Article is a few paragraphs, short read. It's interesting that on some RW forums, the GA and similar states' laws are being feted. Opposing viewpoints are countered with a few different refrains--if you can't get out to vote between 7:00-7:00 then it's not that important to you, mail in voting is ballot harvesting, people need to learn how to bring their own water, why do you have the bigotry of low expectation for urban (read: POC) voters, people can stand in line it's not that big a deal, and my personal favorite: women shouldn't be allowed to vote anyway because they're too emotional. Is violence emotional because it isn't women who are shooting up massage parlors, Mr. Misogynist.Here's a perspective; article is by David Atkins of Washington Monthly:
Excerpt:
The result is that Republicans must increasingly hold power through minority rule–both by consolidating unjust structural advantages in the gerrymandered House and the malapportioned Senate and Electoral College, and by suppressing the votes of the majority liberal-left coalition. The Republican Party had a choice to try to moderate its behavior and appeal to disenchanted voters, or to double down on unpopular white supremacy, patriarchy, religious extremism and voter suppression, on a path toward open apartheid and authoritarianism. It chose the latter. This is all open knowledge, though the mainstream press sometimes has difficulty calling it like it is.
But less widely discussed is the fascinating unfolding dynamic in the Republican base itself. Republicans increasingly need to pass draconian voter suppression laws not only to quell a growing body of opposition votes, but to keep their own base engaged. It is stated only in euphemisms and hushed tones, but there is genuine terror in the Republican establishment that conservative voters will simply tune out if these measures are not passed. The Big Lie—endlessly repeated in false, unsubstantiated and often defamatory claims by conservative media—that Trump really won the 2020 election but was denied power through fraud is particularly important in explaining this phenomenon.
None of those address the point mentioned earlier about legislatures being able to change the outcome of an election if they don't like the result. That is the Biggest Lie of all the GOP is trying to sell. That elections going forward are to be free and fair no matter your gender or skin color or religion or party.
How the fuck is it possible that coastal media types STILL think there is a significant Republican establishment that is horrified by all this? They’ve been repeating that shit for 5 years now and it gets less true every day. The Republican “establishment” is fundamentally Trumpist in nature now. -
Wait a minute. Does ACU know that their coach drinks beer?
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OK I'm sure I'll get blasted but I don't follow basketball much at all. Beard's last two years at Tech look pretty unimpressive. No worries?
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18 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:
You're gonna love this. He has like 5 children I think. All boys if I remember correctly.
I bet he's one of those weirdo fucks that gives all their kids names starting with the same letter.
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I haven't had any problems with my circa-2015 Spirit, but yeah if you look at basically anywhere with honest reviews, it's people talking about how Weber quality has gone down from where it used to be.
My Spirit is propane, but I just moved to a new house with a gas hookup. Weber specifically says on their website that you can't convert it and doing so will void the warranty (I'm out anyway). I swear people have told me they used to sell the conversion kits themselves.
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Please baby Jesus let one of them be Campbell.
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2 hours ago, Bevo said:
I was looking At Kris Kross' film and not a whole lot jumped out. He will be alright. He isn't that big and doesn't have an elite first step but he is pretty big, has decent quickness, and is pretty aggressive. He seems like a high floor kind of guy for us. I think the idea with him is to put additional functional weight on him and have him plug the interior with bull rushing and enough quickness to get off blocks. I think we will warm up to him and he will be a productive player for us but I don't see stardom.
Solid analysis.
Anyway you basically described high school T'Vondre Sweat, minus the Schrodinger's cat size situation. Now Sweat is an interior terror that shits out helmets he ate for breakfast. Therefore I'm putting Ross down for the same and I'll hold you, @Bevo, personally responsible if it doesn't happen.
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Where are all these cash buyers coming from? People from the coasts that cashed out? International buyers? Investors?
We just sold in Houston and 2 of the 5 offers we got were straight cash, homie.
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4 hours ago, Paper_jam said:
I do remember in the mid-90s you could open up the Statesman and there'd be tons of ads for local, mom-n-pop type computer businesses. (But by the later 90s the bigger stores mostly stomped them out.) What was the name of that big (at the time) PC parts store that was somewhere near Lamar & Anderson, where that chinese buffet used to be? I think it was next to NTB,
In the Metroplex we had First Saturday or Third Saturday or something like that. I can't remember the exact day. You could go to a convention center in downtown Dallas and every mom and pop computer store in the region would be there selling stuff. Dozens of them under one roof. They'd have boxes and trays of parts piled up everywhere and all their prices written on a white board. So this place over here might have an AMD K6 for $86, but that store on the other side of the hall has 'em for $79. Then a 3rd guy has a K6 + a 128 MB stick of RAM combo for $169. It was like heaven to a high school nerd like me. Built my first ever computer from parts bought at one of those shows.
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14 hours ago, castolon said:
Looks like you’ve got a solid setup going thereWe need a record player homies thread. Maybe there is one. I've got a Fluance RT81 but it's just hooked up to a decent Sony Bluetooth speaker right now. Has started to hum for some reason that I can't figure out. Not an audiophile by any means, but I'd like to eventually at least get a nice pair of bookshelf speakers and maybe a sub.
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17 hours ago, Davis Lane said:
When Fry's opened up here I inevitably lost my job at a local computer store.
As did many others due the many local stores closing.
Yes, Fry's had great deals but man did they knock out the local competition.
I did buy my very first pair 1G drives from there.
I thought I'd never run out of hard drive space.
I remember buying a 1 gb flash drive for like $75 bucks or something at Fry's. I thought that was amazing. Now a 1 gb flash drive is literally trash.
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Let’s fucking plaaaaaay
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The deal with Houston is that it’s built on a vast plain with damn near limitless ability to sprawl North, West, and South. Supply will never be a problem here. Fulshear is hot right now for crying out loud. Pretty soon they’ll be building subdivisions in Sealy, and I’m only halfway joking.
The two industries that butter our bread are energy and healthcare. I assume O&G has plenty of good times left but it’s never going to truly boom again. The region has made a lot of noise about pivoting from healthcare delivery to much higher value biotech. Hasn’t happened yet. I think lack of a top class university that’s bigger than a very large high school is the main problem. These things take time in any case. I’m also a couple margaritas deep right now and talking out of my ass so take it FWIW.
Basically we’re lacking several of the ingredients that have turned Austin into an insane boomtown right now. No tech industry, lower desirability to people from the coasts, no major university, uninteresting geography and cityscape. It’s a nice sellers market at the moment here but nothing like the frenzy happening there.-
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I bet the neighbors are really sad to be losing this dude from the neighborhood.
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I'm absolutely floored by how bad UWM's consumer-facing web portal is. It looks like the internet circa 1994.
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All Encompassing Mortgage and Real Estate Thread
in Business and Markets
Posted
Big part of it has got to be the Fed as well, right? They’ve decided that they absolutely do not want anyone to save money, so there’s nothing to do with it expect pile it into the stock market or real estate, no matter how out of whack prices get.