From the Modesto Bee:

In a time when real estate stories are filled with foreclosures, loans gone sideways and homeowners on the brink of financial ruin, lending professionals say avoiding such traps requires a simple step. That step is to read through and understand every detail before committing to a home mortgage, though many consumers admit they don't.

In a recent poll of about 1,000 adults by Bankrate.com, about 34 percent of homeowners had no idea what kind of mortgage they had, said Greg McBride, a senior analyst for the financial information Web site.



iTunes is currently playing: Steal Me Blind from the album Alf by Alison Moyet.

... when you could only get a loan if you could prove you didn't really need it?

From MSNBC.com:

Washington Mutual, another big lender, in March stopped offering [no money down] loans to subprime borrowers, typically people with poor credit. It also reduced the size of loans to other borrowers.

"It used to be that we would finance a loan up to $1 million with no down payment for a first-time home buyer," said Daniel H. Aminoff, a senior loan consultant at Washington Mutual Home Loans in Alexandria. "But as of March, we will only finance a loan of $417,000 with no down payment."

AND

Many lenders now place more emphasis on job stability and low debt when writing no-down-payment loans. Almost all verify a borrower's income and employment, which was not the case during the housing boom.

iTunes is currently playing: Back Down To Earth from the album Boys In The Trees by Carly Simon.

I've been reading a number of blogs lately that document the housing crash which is going on all around us. One blog, called the Housing Bubble, includes a gallery of photos taken around the country that show the current state of things. Here are a few that I particularly like:



WHO would buy a house next door to THAT THING, in ANY kind of market?? Better yet, why did someone build a house there in the first place?



When someone says "I want a place with a view", they probably don't mean a view of a GAS STATION!!



And here is something for flippers to play while they wait for prospective buyers to show up at their open houses ... and wait ... and wait ... (Image is the creation of Aaron Erimez. Thanks, Aaron!)

iTunes is currently playing: House Of Cards from the album Stones In The Road by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

... hurry to Linens and Things and buy a SONIC SCRUBBER while they are still available.



Use it with Comet Soft Cleanser Cream with Bleach ...



... and watch what happens. This thing is amazing -- and worth every penny of the $12.99 price tag.

You're welcome!



iTunes is currently playing: Rest For The Weary from the album The Rainy Season by Marc Cohn.

My copy arrived from Amazon via UPS at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, the 21st. I finished it shortly before 1:00 a.m. on Sunday, the 22nd.

Wow. If you liked the first six books, you will LOVE #7. It was everything I had hoped for and then some. And it will make an amazing movie. I can hardly wait.

I'm sorry I didn't have time to re-read all six books before "Deathly Hallows" came out. I plan to re-read all seven one of these days. Maybe before I go see movie #7.

iTunes is currently playing: Seven Years from the album Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant.

Text of rejection slip from editor A.J. Fifield to writer Gertrude Stein:

"I am only one, only one, only. Only one being, one at the same time. Not two, not three, only one. Only one life to live, only sixty minutes in one hour. Only one pair of eyes. Only one brain ... I cannot read your MS three or four times. Not even one time. Only one look, only one look is enough. Hardly one copy would sell here. Hardly one. Hardly."

From Authors Guild Bulletin - Spring 2007.

iTunes is currently playing: Speak Like A Child from the album The Singular Adventures Of The Style Council by The Style Council.

... or ...

"You may say to yourself: MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE!?"



iTunes is currently playing: Once In A Lifetime from the album Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads.

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of Library."

- Jorge Luis Borges

iTunes is currently playing: The Book I Read from the [bootleg] album Live at the Sun Palace (Tokyo) by Talking Heads.

From the L.A.Times:

Los Angeles' favorite cat seems to have nine lives.

The three-sided "Felix" automobile dealership sign near downtown that has survived earthquakes, fires, riots and recession escaped another close call Thursday as the city's Cultural Heritage Commission voted to declare it a historic-cultural monument.

Commissioners rejected recommendations by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and downtown-area City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who favor redevelopment of the South Figueroa Street corner where the cartoon cat figure has loomed large for half a century.

"It is literally a modern totem pole," said sign preservation advocate Jim Childs. "It really explains the evolution of the automobile and Los Angeles."


(Gary Friedman / LAT)

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

The loss of youth and innocence is one of the great themes of literature. Here the California poet Kim Noriega looks deeply into a photograph from forty years ago.


Heaven, 1963

It's my favorite photo--
captioned, "Daddy and His Sweetheart."
It's in black and white,
it's before Pabst Blue Ribbon,
before his tongue became a knife
that made my mother bleed,
and before he blackened my eye
the time he thought I meant to end my life.

He's standing in our yard on Porter Road
beneath the old chestnut tree.
He's wearing sunglasses,
a light cotton shirt,
and a dreamy expression.

He's twenty-seven.
I'm two.
My hair, still baby curls,
is being tossed by a gentle breeze.
I'm fast asleep in his arms.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. From "Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets" (Huntington Beach, CA, Tebot Bach, 2006), 117. Copyright (c) 2006 by Kim Noriega. Reprinted with permission of the author and Tebot Bach. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

iTunes is currently playing: Picture This from the album Picture This by Jim Brickman.