patrick.net

I think that Bay Area people, especially the transplants, can be pretty addicted to the idea of success, the bright and shining future. Believe, baby, believe. Real estate here, go down? Never!

I saw it with the dot com bubble, too. I knew more than one newly minted Cali couple who held onto their doomed stock options all the way down because they weren't going to give them away for $500K when they knew they were worth $1.5M. Would you give away your Apple stock for just $500K? And it was all Apple stock, you know, the Pets.com and the Webvan. Some of those folks ended up having a bit of a problem with the AMT, since the fed still wanted a chunk of what they had "made" on their now-worthless stock options, and that led to loans from family, bankruptcy, divorce--it was ugly. But you gotta hand it to them all--they had a great capacity to believe.

Are we there again? Yeah, maybe. I know a stay-at-home mom who is all about buying broken-down houses for bargain prices--usually less than $600K!--then fixing them up for resale. I don't know what will happen to her family if there is even a 15% drop in prices, since that 15% is more than she would make in a year if she went back to work--never mind the cost of childcare. But she believes, she knows she's right, she knows that she deserves success and that her potential is unlimited.

The Google-area stuff might retain it's value--I am sorry about that, but lots of two-income tech families with no kids want to live down there. Anywhere else, though? The suburban communities full of .org families and folks with normal incomes? Pheh. Doom, I say.

Bork

Sometimes targeted marketing is invoked by something as innocuous as a bit of catalogue shopping, or a holiday gift card. Marketing firms often cross-reference their data, and when a platinum card indexes a 'golden' zipcode, your mailbox and telephone may become temporarily lively.

Hateful, but there it is.

SQT,

It astounds me, people paying $500,000, $1,000,000, and up for what are basically disposable houses. Shoddily constructed, cookie cutter, no trees. I don't understand it. If you can scarpe together the financing for that amount of money you'd think you'd demand more in terms of quality.

Jennifer Seibel has weirdly unfocused eyes, though not nearly as wonky as Paris Hilton's. Her forehead is also very shiny - lots of botox injections there.

GC said: "A man of the same upbringing tends not to view the woman as a sexual object."

I agree.......Flat chested women are NOT sex objects.

GC Says:

> Interesting. I just checked out J. Siebel’s website.
> Her detailed BIO — which exclaims “adore me,
> understand me, want me” — and her pictures all
> tell the same thing: She is an unhappy woman.

I meet a lot of girls like Jennifer in the Bay Area who have a lot going for them but seem unhappy since they can’t find a guy who measures up to their Dad. Jennifer is an extreme example, since the odds are slim to none that she will find a tall handsome smart guy like her Dad who does so well that he can afford for her to stay home and raise her kids in a beautiful $10 million estate in Ross and give millions to charity every year like her Mom did.

Most girls I meet that grew up around here are bummed out since the odds are very low that they will find an even average looking guy who does well enough to afford for them to stay home with the kids in a crappy little $1.5mm house in Burlingame or Mill Valley and maybe give a few $ to KQED and make it to the Symphonix Bash before the Ball every other year like their Mom did.

That’s absolutely fine, but then you can’t complain about not being able to afford a place in SV where people tend to make lifestyle choices which are different from yours. You can’t have it both ways, unfortunately.

Honestly homes in Silly Valley are not really that expensive in terms of price. However, they are just crap at that price. I blame the NIMBYists for that. There should be more urban development/renewals.

Most people confuse about their life purposes and I am sure they do not make optimal lifestyle choices.

Just look at this list:

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/Worth_1.html

Most richest people are not in technology. And the richest tech barron is not in Silicon Valley.

GC, have you gone hunting (deer, elk, etc) lately?

No. Why do you ask? I have never hunted, although I was quite interested.

Oh, I thought you were pro-hunting. I may be interested too. It is probably a good sport.

GC Says:

> I don’t know if it’s just me . But I’ve noticed that a man’s
> perception of a woman is heavily influenced by his relative
> social background (vis a vis the woman’s). A man of the
> same upbringing tends not to view the woman as a sexual
> object. He more or less views her as an intimate friend.

I’ve noticed that most guys with a Dad that dumped their Mom for a younger hotter wife when they were a kid and (and is currently married to their 3rd or 4th hot young wife) tend to view women as sex objects, while guys with parents happily married for 35 years (and grandparents happily married for 65 years) tend to be looking for a life partner and intimate friend.

Then Doug H. Says:

> I agree…….Flat chested women are NOT sex objects.

Most guys forget that (almost all) girls that are “curvy” with a “big rack” in their 20’s become fat and gross in their 40’s. You won’t see a lot of slim classy looking women working as strippers, but many guys considered Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy and Grace Kelly “sex objects” and they were all A cups…

I dunno, I still think she's hot.

Maybe she's unhappy, maybe she's had Botox injections (the picture surfer-x linked to is more than a little scary), and maybe my appreciation for her is the product of subconscious feelings of inadequacy...but I still think she's hot. Or I would, if I were a single man.

The idea that rich girls are often unhappy because they can never find a guy who measures up to dad (and almost inevitably have to accept a lower standard of living once they leave the nest) is very interesting. There is some truth to that. I know several beautiful rich women who are still single. They are in their mid to late 30's and do not appear to be headed toward marriage. They are all from broken homes, too, and I suspect that also plays a role.

Poor parenting probably has something to do with it as well. Their parents are probably wrapped up in a materialistic, self-indulgent life. They have not taught their daughters to focus on someone's character instead of their material possessions. So the girls are confused, on the one hand they are instinctively attracted to ordinary guys, but the values instilled by their parents cause them to reject regular guys as unworthy working stiffs. That's sad.

astrid,

Sometimes the shiny skin is caused by microdermabrasions. When I was pregnant with my second child my forehead broke out, so I went and had microdermabrasions every other week for a couple of months until it cleared up. I thought my shiny skin was pregnancy, until I noticed that all of the other, non-pregnant women having it done also had really shiny skin. It goes away a few weeks after you stop.

I have asked a couple of dermatologists and plastic surgeons why botox makes you shiny, and none really knew. One told me he just assumed that the tighter skin had a smoother reflective surface.

Why do people Botox their foreheads and then leave the rest of their face alone? Ah, your forehead looks 28 but the rest of your face looks 45? I see that all the time. It's odd looking to me.

Does anyone know where to buy Spanish magazines in SF? My son is taking Spanish as his third language, and I got him a Mad Magazine in Mexico a few weeks ago. He loves it, and actually looked up words from it. He actually said 'I need to learn to read Spanish better.' I'd love to get him more.

SP :

Thanks. I was a bit perplexed at the outburst myself. Sometimes people get up on the wrong side of the bed.

Eliza, thanks for the nostalgic post about the dot.com days. I still choke up when I see old Webvan vehicles on the road (sans logo) -- dang, some of their warehouses WERE profitable. Okay, still haven't totally let that one go :-)
Had a lot of funny (read: options now worthless) money when I bought in 2000. Thankfully I bought based on real cashflow, and parental advice that I carried around in the back of my mind -- buy a house you can afford on one income. As it was I ended up pretty stressed out but my marriage survived and things that mattered came out intact. Unfortunately, I think the current housing meltdown will make the dot.com bust look like a picnic for those who bought above their means...

I hate to break from the gossip/society pages (great insider coverage, BTW), but here is an article that answers the question "How much does it cost to heat a McMansion?"
Netta Conyers Haynes and her husband paid $700 to heat their five-bedroom Benicia home last month, compared with $200 to $300 in a typical January. They've resolved to leave the heat off in February and cut back expenses to hammer out the dent that their heating bill left in their finances.

"The trips to the bowling alley, eating out just to eat out -- we're not doing that," said Conyers Haynes, 33, a marketing executive for a technology company.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/02/BUGV1NTD3E1.DTL

SQT Says:

What amazes me even more is how people seem to have forgotten that $500k is a lot of money. It’s a half-million and yet people act like it’s just the standard home price now, even if you make less than $100k a year. There is this sense of unreality where people don’t have any concept of what the value of money is anymore. I think our area is particularly vulnerable, so I think a lot of people will be forcibly reminded in the near future that $500k is in fact a lot of money.
_____

Yeah.

I look forward to the day when, once again, $500K commands some respect from the middle class.

Maybe then things will start to balance out...

It’s similar to Manhattan in this sense - it’s just tech instead of finance, law, and media.

Except that Manhattan is generally accepted to be the Center of the World(TM)...

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Holding on to Apple stock was the right thing to do. The stock is worth now more than twice what it was worth even at the peak of the bubble. Many Cupertino folks have done well for themselves thanks to this.

I know someone who just retired after 9 years at Apple. :(

Except that Manhattan is generally accepted to be the Center of the World(TM)…

... outside of California.

Unless I missed something, it looks like you get all the way down to #15 before you see a Silicon Valley name (Ellison) in that list.

You did not miss anything. There are wealthier people in Mexico and China. :)

Except that Manhattan is generally accepted to be the Center of the World(TM)…

... outside of anywhere but Manhattan.

Lucky me. I was raised in impoverished graduate school housing, so my material standards are quite low.

On the other hand, I'm not very tolerant of stupid people. Maybe I would be more tolerant if I was raised in a trailer park.

Is Manhattan even on a leyline?

Lucky me. I was raised in impoverished graduate school housing, so my material standards are quite low.

Astrid, it takes no time for you to get spoiled. Trust me.

On the other hand, I’m not very tolerant of stupid people. Maybe I would be more tolerant if I was raised in a trailer park.

I am very tolerant of stupid people beause I am one of them.

Counter to the social conditioning argument - maybe not. I'm quite intolerant of stupid professors and stupid graduate students - and there's quite a few of them. Extreme right wing economics professors and ditsy left wing ethic studies professors tend to be the worst.

RE: Manhattan

I tried looking for a Manhattan name on the Forbes global list and I could not find one in the first page.

Center of the 'Verse indeed.

I’m quite intolerant of stupid professors and stupid graduate students - and there’s quite a few of them.

I am tolerant of them when them are holding what I want.

Extreme right wing economics professors and ditsy left wing ethic studies professors tend to be the worst.

In short, there are no good extremists. Even those who are extremely good must be bad.

Peter P,

You're many things, but you're not stupid. Your approach to life is actually quite similar to my college Buddhism instructor, with a couple superficial differences.

You’re many things, but you’re not stupid. Your approach to life is actually quite similar to my college Buddhism instructor, with a couple superficial differences.

Really? :)

Perhaps I should look into Buddhism. Is vegetarianism optional?

It is in Tibetan Buddhism and amongst Mainland China's official classes. I know waaaay too many "devout" Buddhist Communist cadres.

You know, religion is an interesting subject. Well, philosophy is just amazing.

I always wanted to get a degree in philosophy but I do not want to end up selling souvenirs in a shop.

GC said: "But personalities, natural grace and other mental qualities are much more important in intimate relationships."

You are correct....if you are in to that type of stuff. :)

Just so you know, my tongue is firmly in cheek. Married my HS sweetheart, two great sons, and happily married for 8 years. Of course, my wife and I have been married for 34 years total.....but a week here and a week there.....after 34 years it adds up!

Only if you go to Brown. U of Chicago philosophy majors probably become embittered conservative economist/lawyers. Princeton philosophy majors (it IS still okay to bash Princeton philosophy majors here, right?) probably become evil megalomaniac intent on taking over the World.

But personalities, natural grace and other mental qualities are much more important in intimate relationships.

Very true. Looks (and the preference of looks) do not last. Personalities (and the preference of personalities) are more permanent.

I guess it could be microabrasion and not botox…though if I understand FAB's earlier comment, she's already in her 40s, in which case she looks like she had something done.

She's obviously a very well formed woman and takes good care of herself. But just something about her eyes looks a bit off.

SP,

Unlikely. I looked her up on several unassociated sites (social pictures) and her eyes always looked funny.

Elizabeth Taylor definitely didn't age as well as Audrey Hepburn. She's such a parody of an ungracefully aging female celebrity nowadays that people forget how gorgeous she happen to be in her teens/early twenties.

Interesting photo of Gavin with his (probably ex) girlfriend as they watch his Uncle's Sister in Law take over as Speaker of the House:

http://tinyurl.com/24rj4o

So.. um.. about that housing….

More tangents please. Housing is a dead horse. We have prevailed!

I wonder how many of those botox injections and boob expansions were paid by the housing bubble...

Well, boobs, bubbles, there are some vague similarities.

I wonder how many of those botox injections and boob expansions were paid by the housing bubble…

Bubbles for bubbles. I bet they can do 1031 exchanges. :)

Not tax advice