patrick.net

Red Whine says:
[... brilliant rant ...]

LOL. Thanks. That really hit the spot.

1 HaHa is a decent wage. But it is still a wage.

Exactly. As I have said before, being "highly salaried" is still salaried. Meaning: no G-V for you. :)

Actually, Speaking of copyright issues,I have a very basic question, and since many of you work in law, perhaps you could be of assistence. I am redesigning my site. On it are hundreds of examples of advertising pieces ranging from high volume emails to interactive rich media. Some of the work is purely conceptual. There are 2 pieces that were never used commerically but have some images in the background, mostly out of the way and somewhat obscure, but still there nonetheless. They came off of one of those pay-per-photo sites. Now... seeing that the site is made for future clients, there is the direct corrolation between potential money somewhat loosly connected to the work on the site. I realize that if the aforementioned company were to see these, they might ask me to take them down. My question is that would it be almost standard procedure simply to ask me to remove the image first.. or could they immediatly sue me for copyright infringement? It's no biggie. I'm thinking of taking the 2 pieces out anyhow. thanks guys!

and... speaking of working on computers for a living... I'm almost with you guys. I used to mow lawns and fix equipment for a living. I just hooked up a small trailer,mowed around 35 lawns, and did my own thing. It wasn't near the dough I make now, but there are days that I'd almost trade and go back. As it it now, I have to wear arm braces because I have slight tendonitus from working on these things almost round the clock. Got home last night, worked until 1AM... on ANOTHER computer!

Joe,
My wedding suit was a used suit my wife's mom got from the salvation army. No kidding. It was barely even worn, fit like a glove, and looked great. It made me look like some weasly CEO. If I had a wish for fashion, of which is a subject that I am ill-informed about, it would be that suddenly western ties and cowboy hats worn with suits and boots made a big comeback. I remember going to Texas as a kid and seeing businessmen downtown dressed like this and thought that that was the coolest thing in the world- getting away with dressing like a cowboy at the office.

Jesus.. I'm going to fill up the board.I should just read the posts first. sorry. ANyhow, if HA HA is still around, I had a technical question for you, since you seem to know your way around programming. Anyhow, do you have any working knowledge about the workaround for activex embeds in IE7? The problem now is that Microsoft got sued by some worthless company which required them to change their browser so that you have to click the page first before flash will load. I have since founf a workaround for this, but it isn't entirely stable in all browsers. This is what I have thus far:

}
-->

AC_FL_RunContent( 'codebase','http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab
#version=7,0,19,0','width','1100','height','2500','src','email2','quality','high','pluginspage',
'http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer','movie','email2' ); //end AC code

Is there a better way to implement this? thankee!

David Seiders (NAHB) said:

"Anyone out there saying that April's 4.9% increase in home sales is an indication of a recovery in the housing market SHOULD BE LOCKED UP!" in his interview on Bloomberg's! He had a very refreshing candor about him that Suzie Assad should have not only acknowledged but encouraged! It seemed like he took great pains to distance himself from Lerah.

Welcome to the team Mr. Seiders!

SHOULD BE LOCKED UP!

Wow! He went on to say that the "overall trend" is decidely downward in nature as they went on to discuss the incentives that builders are now desperately employing. Randy H, David Seiders (NAHB) sounded like Shiller "got to him" and that he is now on the "payroll"! Shiller did not go into this with his eyes closed. He carefully weighed his natural market and it seems he has found a new spokesman for housing futures.

WWII,

Are you a fan at all of the "Mythbusters"? My brother and I had thrown a lot of "dummies" from perilous heights as kids along with our policy of "testing to destruction" primarily with "found" property. Not that we're proud of it but how long can a lawnmower run without oil? The way that rod's a knockin' (and nothing else salvage worthy) we might as well find out! I just know our "Pivoting Roof Top Water Balloon Launching Device" was a favorite with the local PD!

SFWoman,

LOL! The Nevada realt-whores can certainly one up that, when the time comes:)

SFWoman,

Just hysterical! Some of the realtor turned realt-whore quotes were just golden! Isn't that how Heidi Fleiss got her start? "Up scale", discreet?

I drove an older Volvo for years. If ever there was a car that could run without oil this was it. One time while breaking for a stop sign on a steep downhill I noticed the "oil light" came on. I thought huh, I just changed the oil........ Oh I dunno? Stopped in a service station and the attendant told me it was a "little low". 4 quarts low to be exact! Oh well, 4 out of 5 ain't bad. Ran like champ.

LOL! Synergy! Maybe the Google-pimps should pay you and HARM royalty for the idea.

This sort of "lateral movement" reminds me of OO's ideas from HK's RE price collapse.

"Third, throughout the downtime in Asia, the only industry that kept doing well was, cosmetics. The reason is, the women who are paid less to begin with find it particularly economically worthwhile to grab a rich husband, so to speak. I think this may be replicable here because of the wage gap between men and women. I also concur with the security products mentioned above, because crime rate in both place did go up due to recessions."

Time to invest in lipstick and guard dogs.

SQT,

I thought the realt-whore seemed to imply "would rather your husband be at up-scale gentlemen's establishment or one of those sleazy clubs"?

Uh, just for the record, Mr. DinOR would be SO DEAD either way it wouldn't matter! (These Filipina gals will hack you to death with a machette...... then take pictures to show their friends!)

But gee hon, it was an "up-scale" gentlemen's establishment!

Forget the ambulance, somebody call the coroner.

I do wonder about the social impact of the RE bubble collapse. Last time this happened, a lot of communities in SoCal turned very bad in a hurry. I think the reversal will be even faster this time around, given the amount of investment properties bought by far away and inexperienced landlords.

The other thing is how the overleveraged owner-users will deal with their lives. I'd hate to live with an upside-down interest only mortgage that I can't escape except via bankruptcy (now extremely difficult) or another RE bubble. (or inflation, but I think high inflation will push most of these guys into bankruptcy)

DinOR,

Exactly. Plus, the last thing any wife would want are attractive and well turned out "companions" offered there. Hubby might not be tempted to run off with a low rent hussy but they might think about doing a trade-in at one of these places.

As we go through life I've come to realize that every young gal you see is "someone's daughter". We should remember that! When we're about to "lay on the horn" in the parking lot, remember that old gal is "somebody's mother". Even though I get "snubbed" from time to time much of Oregon (Portland doesn't count here) is still a place where it's perfectly O.K to get the door for a lady and take your hat off when addressing one. We should remember that too.

SQT,

I'm not a man and my boyfriend is not the sort to frequent "gentlemen's clubs", so I don't know what they'd consider acceptable. Anyone care to anonymously anonymously comment on acceptability of marrying exotic dancers?

On the other hand, Anna Nicole Smith managed to catch herself one while pole dancing, so it's at least possible.

SQT,
If you have boys, they tend to be facisnated with burning things. I know me and everyone else I knew when I was little did, but we also lived in the sticks and had ready access to stockpiles of firecrackers which were sold by the grocery bag at large firecracker supercenters nearby. Out here that might be a tad more difficult. It seems that these days there are simply too many gadgets- Ipods, Gameboys, cell phones, and Xboxes to pacify children enough to be less interested in the great outdoors, and strange experiments.

SQT,

I'm sure it's not nearly the driving impulse it once was. With today's video games offering the chance to "lay waste" to an entire city, blowing the door off of a junk freezer with an M-80 just doesn't have the same appeal. Most of the "experiments" I've seen of late were amateurish, lacked imagination and delivered predictable results. Unlike the stunts (that some how pass for entertainment) on shows like "Jackass" ours were inventive and pushed the envelope. Usually until the FD arrived.

Thus the famous saying: Relax! The cops won't be here for another 10 minutes!

Can we make that applicable to mortgage fraud?

But we've "cooked" the applicant's income, debt to income and FICO score!

Relax! The cops won't be here for another 10 minutes!

SQT,

I assumed that there's no prostitution there. Marrying prostitutes is something else altogether.

astrid,

Hell! I'll come right out and say it. Much of the reason I went "independent" is b/c of that very reason! Ex-strippers are utterly destructive (and disruptive) in the work place. Apparently they are quite accustomed to men throwing money at them for no reason so their expectations know no bounds. A guy (from my WIFE's work of all places) was going to marry our "receptionist". The guy was a really good kid and took ex-strippers son to everything from "t-ball" to school plays and it became obvious that Ms. Ex-stripper was content to kick back and "not be a mom for awhile". Suffice it to say the whole wedding was called off and she filed for a "job related stress claim". According to my buddy, she got it.

"You’re nicer than I am, or at least more willing to give the benefit of the doubt. ;)"

Only in California. I will assume much nastier things about the Nevada Realt-whores. ;) I still think exotic dancers and their patrons are all pretty skanky and crass. Most of the women look like hell after they turn 25 and I can't imagine spending $500-1,000 to have someone with fake boobs fake interest in you.

SQT,
I would just assume that the will to be destructive will be in every kid( boys in particular). Maybe it's part of the growth process. It is a good way for them to develop methods for not getting caught, which can be useful later in life. My brother sucked at it and got caught every time. On the other hand I was a sweet angel in my parent's eyes because I was very perceptive. I'm by no means giving parental advice as I don't even have kids, but the kids I grew up with who had the strictest parents wound up being the worst behaved- like the boy down the street from me who likes blowing up mail boxes with pipe bombs. On the other hand, it seemed like all of us who wound up doing a lot of destructive things got it out of our system by the age of 16-17 or around there. My wife still makes fun of me whenever we go hiking and sometimes throw sticks off of hills and outlooks.

whoops- I meant "liked" as in past tense in the above mailbox statement.

DinOR,

Your friend lucked out. If there was ever a group of people no one should marry, I think strippers would be on top of the list, after lepers and before professional BASE jumpers.

SQT,

While I can't speak for WWII I want to make clear that in NO WAY was my childhood "normal". It is not normal to lay a steel pipe across the train tracks to get the "crossing guard arm" to come down just to see "if da cops will chase us!" Oh, btw the steel pipe was from dismantling an arm rail at the high school bleachers. It was not returned. If Peter P is interested, no, karma doesn't necessarily have to be in the next life.

WWII and DinOR,

Sheesh, you guys were wild! Most of my male friends and acquaintances seem content to out their wild side with video games and D&D.

astrid,

Yes, I do consider my wife's co-worker extemely lucky! He's still there and his career is moving forward at a Fortune 500 company. SHE on the other hand has no doubt either gone back to being a pole dance "artist" or found somewhere else to hook up her umbilical cord. Not really, I can't back that up. She ruined our office with her distractions, stymied production with her endless "personal days" and my wife says her ex-fiancee still has to endure comments about his past. She just seemed to leave a trail of human wreckage and some how justify it in her own mind b/c "she had a hard life" growing up? Yeah, get in line.

New Thread: Lex on US Housing Market

DinOR,

Good luck to your friend! Anyone who is willing to treat someone else's kid (I assume the kid was born out of wedlock too) like their own is a good guy and don't deserve to be taken for granted.

SQT, astrid,

Actually what WW2 & DinOR described is pretty much the norm among pre-teen & early teenage boys. I spent many a fondly recalled summer setting "found" items on fire and/or blowing them up with my schoolyard pals. The fact that Mexico (and illegal fireworks/explosives) were in relatively easy reach would occasionally produce some, uh, 'interesting' results. I was probably the least destructive male in my family and even I nearly set a neighbor's car on fire (accidentally) after creating a rolling "roman candle" out of an old tire and some newspapers.

WWII,

My question is that would it be almost standard procedure simply to ask me to remove the image first.. or could they immediatly sue me for copyright infringement?!

Assuming that there is a copyright notice somewhere on the images, such as the circle "c" symbol, or the word "copyright," the year, and the name of the copyright holder, they can immediately sue you for infringment -- the copyright symbol satisfies the requirement that the infringer have actual notice that the material he is using is copyrighted, and there is no need to send a letter.

However, as a practical matter, copyright holders still send a cease-and-desist letter before filing suit about 99% of the time, especially if the infringer isn't making any money from the use of the copyrighted material. The letter is not a prerequisite for bringing an infringement claim, it is a means of putting you on notice of your infringement so that if you continue to do so, the copyright holder can claim that you are a willful infringer and win a larger damage award.

You could always find yourself in the unlucky 1%, but the odds are in your favor. Of course, copyright infringment is illegal, and I cannot recommend that anyone violate the law. I advise you to remove the copyrighted material immediately.

As before, this is just my seat-of-the-pants opinion; I haven't researched it and I may be wrong. We don't have any attorney-client relationship -- we've never even met -- and you should not rely on my off-the-cuff advice.

LOL -- everyone's experiences jive with mine. I was a pyromaniac too as a kid. My buddy Matt actually blew several fingers off when making a pipe bomb (they sewed them back and he got like 90% of normal range of motion, so it was okay). Karl almost chopped off his own foot with an axe. I broke my nose into several pieces while riding my bike through a construction site at high speed; I hit a metal bar with my face -- I stopped and my bike kept going. Ah, those were the days.

Btw, I think you people are being way too hard on Suzanah Juras and the "Femme de Maison" girls. Toplessness is a serious problem affecting a large chunk of the attractive U.S. female population and it's nothing to be taken lightly! These poor girls are simply trying to make a living with their God-given "talents", which is all they have. What's wrong with that?

Honestly, you people are so cruel and heartless sometimes!

SP,

Not every woman wants two lumps of silicon put into their chest. However, the coming recession may change their minds, per OO's observation.

I really don't get the appeal though. These guys are smart enough to know that the women are only feigning interest in return for money. What's do they get out of this?

Also, $2M estate is a pretty lame setting for an exclusive club.

@LILLL,

Your friend is Harry Reems?

SQT,

There's always a chance you'd end up with a Peter P on your hands..."mom, you're driving too fast" and "mom, can we go out for sushi?"