Cup of Coffee

March 23, 2012: This Wasn’t the Plan

136 Comments

I just had the worst night of my life last night, as my brother tried desperately to have a serious physical fight with me (if I explained his reasoning, it would just be embarrassing for him, so I'll skip it).

I'm glad the caucus is tonight. Nobody's planning on fisticuffs, are they?

136 thoughts on “March 23, 2012: This Wasn’t the Plan”

  2. I'm really sorry to hear that, spooky. What happened is none of my business, but I hope at some point the rift can be healed. In the meantime, I hope you can still enjoy your trip.

    2. Padre, if I was going to seriously talk about this with anyone here, you'd be on the shortlist, and I always appreciate your openness and generosity with all of us here.

      Last night will definitely be unforgettable and he said some things he'll regret for the rest of his life.

      Frankly, he needs to stop drinking. He treats rum like water - which is something I do, too, so I've stopped drinking rum - but he almost always ends up getting violent. It's just never been focused at me before. It was terrifying and heartbreaking all at once.

  3. We received a counter-offer yesterday afternoon. The sellers asked for $500 more than our offer and right to cure. We agreed, and as of yesterday afternoon we are under contract. The inspection will be next week, and if all goes well we will close the first week of May.

    2. Congrats, CH. Sheenie and I had a similar experience in which the seller rejected our offer (but did not provide a counter-offer). When we asked them to counter, they asked for barely more than our offer (and we accepted with the provision that they pay closing costs which ended up making their counter a net-gain for us - I'm pretty sure their realtor was an idiot).

      1. Our seller's realtor was an idiot. She had only sold two homes in her life before, both over a million dollars. The sellers wanted the exact market value for their home, even though nobody is getting that these days. My realtor kept having to help her with forms. He had to remind her to turn the heat up in the house. She actually told him she hoped the pipes didn't freeze, because that would be bad news for us, even though we didn't own the house yet. Finally, she tried to pawn off a refrigerator that was in the garage. We told her we'd take it if it worked. The next day, suddenly, one of the sons "wanted it."

        The couple we bought it from were in their 90's, had already moved to Florida, and were getting straight cash as they already straight up owned the home. They were getting so angry every time we counter-offered to a rate that was actually around the same rate other homes were going for in the area. When the finally came down to our price, they demanded that they wouldn't be responsible for fixing anything.

        1. Sounds like that realtor and our mortgage officer might be related. Despite having given us pre-approval status weeks ago, we found out yesterday that she had never actually looked in our accounts to verify that we could actually make the downpayment we had claimed.

          1. Yeouch. One thing I will say is that I have a very good mortgage officer and a very good realtor.

          2. That happened to us. Two days before closing, our loan officer called us and said, "I need all your W-2." When we pointed out that he already had them from months earlier when he pre-approved us to a certain amount, he denied it. Oh, and then he went on vacation for the following week without going over the forms we sent him eventually resulting in our closing being pushed back three weeks.

        2. We actually had a great realtor. She showed us half a dozen houses until we found the one that was right for us. We had verbally locked in our rate with our mortgage broker, but when we went to put it on paper the interest rate was half a point higher than the rate he quoted. This was 17 years ago and rates were pretty volatile at the time. Turns out the guy gave us a rate near the end of the day based on the rate at market open, and he didn't check to see if the rate had changed. It had, and not in his favor. When our realtor found out, she tore the guy a new posterior orifice and made him take the loss on the half point and give us the rate he verbally quoted. Since then we've steered at least three clients in her direction. Taking care of your customers is just good business.

      2. Our sellers' realtor gave us this big sob story with their initial counter offer about how they had had a better offer 6 months before and they were going to have to bring a ton of money to close, and blahblahblah. I'm a compassionate guy and all, but none of those things were our problem.

          1. when we sold our house in Champaign, the market was down for existing homes because of a building boom. So our buyers were aggressive, asking for various things, which we accommodated. Until the closing, when they asked for new sh!t.

            I came this -->< -- close to killing the deal, even though we were getting on the road for Cali that morning. Even our realtor was incensed. It took our lawyer to regain calm in the room and say, in no uncertain terms, "no more changes".

            1. cc to Sean. something weird is going on. I keep trying to close an italics tag, but the close tag code keeps disappearing. I had to just remove the open tag (it was supposed to be around "that morning").

              seriously, I tried three times, including starting fresh by using the tag buttons provided.

              1. I think at least once was my fault. Pretty sure we both edited it at the same time. Also, I think it might be getting confused by your --><-- part. Let me try to edit it to see how it goes.

              2. Yep, the -->< -- part did cause some issues. Since you actually used > and <, it caused problems only once you used italics.

                1. ahhh. I hadn't thought of that effect. I will be sure to try to remember to use > < in the future.

        2. We happened to submit our bid for the house the same day as another couple. Their realtor gave both parties the opportunity to revise their offers based on that. We raised ours some, but not as high as the posting.

          They took our offer, though their realtor told ours that the other offer was higher. The difference was a letter we had written to the couple with our offer telling them about ourselves and our plans (we wanted a large family, and my wife grew up in the area and so forth) on the advice of our realtor.

          Before that, I never would have thought that something like that would make any difference.

            1. I agree with strat, that is really cool! With your permission, I'll keep it in my back pocket for our next home purchase.

                  1. Well, I'm a Minnesotan. I'd have said no problem, done it anyway and then talked about him behind his back.

          2. I've had our agent tell us that writing a letter like that would help sway the sellers.

    3. The first house we bought here in Omaha it turns out we were bidding against the agent that was selling the house. The house had been on the market for about 6 months with no action when we put in an offer, than all of sudden there was another offer. If I had been the seller and knew this I would think you could take some kind of action against your agent. Needless to say it was an unpleasant experience.

      1. I think if you're the buyer you'd have an action against the agent if you ended up paying more.

        1. At that point we were just glad to get the house, we didn't really want to go through the hassle of any kind of action for what probably wouldn't have been that much cash. Plus, the offending agent lived in the neighborhood.

          1. Yeah, there's a practicality element to those kinds of things. My least favorite clients are the ones who choose their course of action based on "the principle of the thing," even though they'll be worse off in the end.

  5. I'm going to finalizing keepers today. If you haven't picked yours yet, the list of elidgible players is here. If you send your picks to robzk (at) yahoo by this afternoon, I'll add your keepers to the list. Otherwise, you will not keep anyone and be able to draft an entirely new team.

  6. It looks like Jamie Moyer is going to make the Rockies rotation. Craig points out a few fun facts about this, such as he played in 141 games before the franchise existed and he's older, today, than anyone in the rotation or regular lineup of that 1993 team, except for Andres Galarraga.

  7. Salon tells us what's really wrong with John Carter.

    The books are good. They’re huge enthralling silly fun and yes they’re corny by that gee-whiz turn-of the last-century American go-getter optimism creates a consistent and charming tone. Many of the tropes Burroughs invented have been ripped off, or ‘anthologized’ by generations of filmmakers, most notably in recent years, Lucas, Spielberg and Cameron. The auteur of Avatar even admitted he was making ‘an Edgar Rice Burroughs movie’. What none of these directors have managed to duplicate or purloin is the tone of Burrough’s breathless prose. And no one has fallen so far short as Andrew Stanton. Apparently his love for the material is sincere; all the more baffling that he would betray it so artlessly. The list of blunders is endless, but you can start withg that “jumbled, confusing narrative” that all the critics complained about. No one ever complained about the jumbled narrative in a Burroughs novel. And [no] one ever called Tchaikovsky “tuneless”.

  8. Well I wouldn't say I'm planning on fisticuffs, but...

    Really though, that's a bummer. Your first Surly is on me.

      2. I knew a couple of brothers who lived together in college. One night, they got in a fight and the older one threw a punch at the younger. The younger ducked and the punch hit a door, breaking the older brother's hand. They took him to the doctor to get it set and in a cast and the two brothers were seen later that night at a local bar drinking together.

        I would have thought that the drinking that preceded the fight would have been enough.

        1. That's some dysfunction right there.

          Nick and I have never, ever had anything resembling last night. I just don't know if I even feel safe around him anymore.

        2. My three brothers and I never drank enough to fight (I think we'd all be sullen drunks anyway, not angry drunks) but when we had disagreements, we took to wrasslin' instead of fighting. I can still feel the rug burns everywhere.

          1. I'm a maudlin drunk. I was confused and trying to tell my brother how much I loved him as he was trying to talk himself into beating the bajeepers out of me.

      3. This bites Spooky. Good luck to the both of you.

        I already owed you a drink, but we'll just say it's "multi-purposed."

        1. I'd guess small sample size. Like a team of MSNBC reporters camped out in Wasilla and outpaced the rest of the state.

          I know from my sister that there's no real broadcast there, and limited cable channels. She said they had like one or two channels that would show the top shows out of all major networks. Maybe MSNBC gets a couple of hours overnight.

          Could be the only reason the Onion is leading in MN is that Comedy Central was not listed.

    2. Heh, and none for Forbes. Reading the attached article says NPR is also popular in Minnesota. I'd really like to see the data to see just how much of a lead the most popular organization is.

    3. Uh, oh. IT Dept. fail:

      Sorry; your browser can't display this visualization.
      Please try again using a modern browser like FireFox, Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer 9.

    4. And I'm in the only CNN state. I should've guessed, since that's what nearly all the waiting room and restaurant TV's are always tuned to.

    2. 68 - probably mostly due to military service and a small town upbringing.
      Or I could just be a closet redneck yokel

      1. I didn't know a single one of those military symbols (and hadn't watched any of the TV shows mentioned). I'm surprised my score was as high as it was.

      2. 66. Probably due to small-town upbringing and factory work, both at my Dad's old factory, and then Katolite for a half-summer.

      1. 35. But I didn't go to Branson to see Roy Clark, I was just passing through.

        Another question would have been: Was Roy pickin or grinnin?

        2. Roy was grinnin', which always bugged me, since he was so good on the banjo (and I only knew Buck as the Hee Haw buffoon then -- now I know better). I should get extra credit for knowing it was Roy.

    11. I'm a 62. Small town/rural Midwest childhood and adolescence. No military service, but I love military history so I scored well there. If I'd only bought some Avon products in my life I might have the highest score here.

      1. I'm going to go watch an entire show of Oprah or Dr. Phil just to make sure I keep my place at the top of the heap.

    12. I got a 40. I was just thinking the other day about how I am categorically a WASP, but that probably doesn't have much to do with it. I do wonder how long what this guy defines as "mainstream culture" will stay that way.

    13. 32. I would have guessed that it would be lower, but the category that I was placed into fits my life pretty well.

  11. It looks like it might be best if I could get a ride tonight, as timing would be a pain for Josh.

    If anyone's out here in the west (I'm in Burnsville, specifically), email me or say something here so I can email you. I'd need to get back somehow, too, so be sure it wouldn't be a huge burden on you.

    Otherwise, Josh and I could work it out, but I'm not sure when I'd get there. Sorry for the short notice...

    1. I think that counts as south.

      I might be able to help, since I'm kind of heading that way after work so I can drive there (downtown St. Paul to right by the airport). If you could make it to the Mall of America or airport (hint: express bus), it would be trivial for me to give you a ride.

      1. So what exactly is the plan for tonight? I know it's at Psycho Suzi's, but are we meeting to eat downstairs or are we going straight to the bar?

        I will be watching GRZ for the early evening so if we are doing dinner first, I could bring her and be there around 6. Otherwise, I can try to come later, but I'm not sure how much later it'll be (at least 6:30, possibly at late as 7:30).

          1. I just called. Kids are welcome, but reservations aren't accepted. Someone can call ahead 30 minutes before we arrive, but at least half the group needs to be there to be seated. Also, based on a group of about 10 and showing up at 6:00, she estimated a wait time of 45 minutes to 2 hours, as it's already starting to get a little busy.

            I'm thinking it'd be kind of crazy for me to show up with a 2 year old so I will plan on showing up somewhere around 7:00 to hang out and have a drink or two.

                1. Well, I stopped by and walked by a few times, but not having anything better than facebook pictures to ID people made it kind of rough. Next time we do this, remind me to get somebody's cell number.

                  Hope you have a blast and sorry I missed you all.

          3. I'll try to leave home before 8:00, but I'm depending upon the cooperation of a newborn and a toddler, so you know how that might go.

        1. I can probably get to the MoA around 6:15. I believe the buses stop in the basement, by the LRT, so I think it would be easiest to meet you there.

  12. Twins are in true post-season form. They blow a 4-0 6th inning lead over the Yankmes and now trail 4-6.

    1. But Liriano went 5 innings, walking one and striking out 5, giving up zero runs. Morneau hit a double, and Willingham a home run and a double. Manship gave up all the runs, and we already know what he's got, so this is a positive game to me.

      1. Oh, I understand there were positives from the game and spring training W's & L's don't mean much, but it's still irritating as all get out when they blow a lead to the Yankmes and end up losing. It brings up to many bitter memories.

        1. Maybe they're getting the losses out now, so just wins are left...

          Nope, they'll lose anyway.

          1. If the team loses 100 games this season, but they win the season series with the Yankees, I might consider it a positive season overall.

            1. In order for that scenario to be considered a net win, they would have to sweep the season series, and the Yankees would have to have the 2011 Red Sox' October.

      2. Frankie has been looking pretty good this spring. I hope his arm doesn't fall off before the All-Star break.

        1. I hope his arm doesn't fall off before the All-Star break before we trade him.

          FTFY.

          1. Uh, left-handed, high velocity, control issues, and earn(s/ed) a fluky win. I think that's what the equation says.

            1. Which is patently false, of course.

              A relief pitcher like the one equated there would be...who?

              Also, that sounds like a fun idea for a game.

  13. The plot thickens: my brother texted me an apology. He can't remember what any of it was about (lucky him) but is extremely contrite about what's happened. Apologies don't come easy to him, so this is a big deal.

    This essentially saves my trip here. Every second had been horrible since it all went down.

  14. One of my roommates from my junior year of college became a father last night. Another is getting married tonight. Hanging with spoons seems like a little bit of a let-down!

    1. My brother became a father last night as well. Busy weekend all over the place, eh?

  15. Have fun tonight gang! I'll raise a glass to y'all down here in Omerha. Stay safe.

  16. I'm very upset with myself that I didn't get the Real March Madness bracket pool going this year.

    My picks (with one game in the books - Union over Mich. St.)

    Frozen four will be:

    UMD over BU
    Minn. over UND
    Union over UMass-Lowell
    Ferris St. over Michigan

    Championship is Minnesota over Ferris St.

  18. Quincy Acy kicking some X-men butt - (NBBW aunt/uncle also from Mesquite, Texas).

Comments are closed.