Bursting the Bubble

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/13/MNVPSEMVQ.DTL

"It costs so much money for some of these people to get into the housing market," he said. "We're looking at an emergency loan program to help people refinance, in part because is the cost to help these people keep their homes more efficient than building more affordable housing? It's something we have to look at."

Isn't this bizarre and familiar? The greatest number of bank reposessions and short sales are occurring in the poorer neighborhoods, in spite of their sometimes sharing a Zip code with a perfectly established upscale securely higher-valued neighborhood.

The implication is that these homes aren't any sort of bargain. They could be presented in such a way to the lesser-informed as something grand and worth the investment, but anyone familiar with the area would know better.

A large portion of the paper on these loans is held by International funds. Some of the interest was specifically identified as "French" while the rest were simply "International."

Homosidal

What a shock to watch the 1961 William Castle horror-ble "Homicidal" for the first time. The Castle take on horror has been an inspiration to many fine auteurs in the horror genre.
Why was this classic never before broadcast on television?
Some of my fondest childhood memories are of the times "House on Haunted Hill" was being rebroadcast on Saturday "Fright Night" features. How I looked forward to watching "Attack of the Crab Monsters" every Saturday morning. My brother seemed more anxious for "Shirley Temple Theater" and polishing silverware. Neither one of us would have considered spending the weekend playing with other boys.
"The Tingler" was a rarer treat. I remember my first encounter with that tentacled terror was after I had already visited Haunted Hill so many times that I could recite the scenes from memory.
Now, 46 years after its release, "Homicidal" is finally given air.
It obviously owes a huge debt to Hitchcock's "Psycho"(1960). There are shots of the sharply tailored young beauty entering the mysterious house, and climbing the stairs. These same stairs will soon challenge a dark older woman named "Helga" who, confined to a wheelchair, manages, through the clever dramatic device of having had a stroke in Denmark, to provide the need to bring a paid live-in female companion back to Solvang, California. Every detail is very, very important - there wasn't anything in the budget to support extraneous detail!
William Castle is reported, hopefully in jest, to have warned that he would personally take out anyone who revealed the ending of his movie. Puhleeze!

The Bluff Stops...where?

I Bluff You Not

With the Vip-Co application in process, might this be a good opportunity to discuss permitting Wim Moo to re-build his house on Navajo Way with a more ergonomic design? His two-story box must get absolutely pummeled by the winds that whip over that bluff all winter long.
Having a house to the West of the Moo house, below them on the bluff, would likely provide a degree of shelter from the winds.
Even if Sir Wim declines to tear down and do over, the design of the Vipp-Co house as executed will have a very powerful impact on his wind and weather patterns, which should be of much more realistic concern than any view impact.
It also is apparent, from observing several photographs taken of the bluff beneath the Moo house and bisecting the proposed buildling site N-S, that the bluff has lost several feet of earth since the last measures were taken.
The Moo house looms over the precipice, seemingly ready to drop over the edge.
The reason you want plants to grow quickly on the bluff is because the greenery will hide evidence of recent earth wastage.
Build it up, mark it up, sell, and move on.

Martha, Lisette, Barbara, and I

Tonight for the first time I watched "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers." It's one of those treasures I knew was waiting for me. Oooch.
I plugged the title into the IMDB site, and then jumped to info about one of the credited writers, John (a.k.a. "Jack") Patrick. He was found suffocated in his room with a plastic bag tied around his head, in 1995.His wife, nee Mildred Legaye, was born in 1925 and may live still.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0665875/bio

Antics of Deviants, with Amusing Results.

I worry about this "Platinum Age" of broadcast entertainment, as entertainment becomes more and more reasonably competent to live our lives for us.
Hey, before I forget, I want to recommend "Masters of Science Fiction" to you. It's abc, I believe, and Saturday nights after 10. It's a sleeeeeeper smackdown. This week's episode featured Anne Heche, for kitsche, it was riveting and excellent science fiction. So au courant, it hits hard.
I remember watching episodes of "The Outer Limits" in first run and being so surprised by what was being presented. Subsequent viewings dramatically lessen the impact of the scenic progression.
One of my favorite topics is time travel versus the incontestable immutability of the soul, although I have ... just lately been grateful for the entertainment options I enjoy each day. Going from CIA Black Sites to E!TopTen feels much like driving from Mendocino back to the WC in a go: the sudden change in pressure can be very jarring to the system. Guess it's just time to take another sip of the KoolAid and get back to work. brb

Crab cakes

Tonight I realized what "crabs" are. Every day on the beach we walk over dead things, and they are always swarming with little crab-like critters. Little ones.
The puggies often step right through the swarm. Isabella likes to back up to anything dead, raise one back leg, lower her pudendum, and pee.
Apparently these critters prefer to munch on their deceased prey than tackle anything with a still beating heart- and thereby hangs my theory that on "public beaches" which are groomed, i.e., from which decaying matter is removed, the "crabs" are ravenous for sustenance and will eagerly snatch hold of anything meaty, whether human, canine, or otherwise.
The only time I have ever had crabs was after "dating" a very cute bartender who I met in San Jose. He invited me to visit him at his home in Santa Cruz over the weekend. Fun! It was to be my first "romantic weekend out of town" since moving to San Francisco.
His apartment was cozy, and near the beach. He had very little furniture: he explained that he was renovating the place, even though it was only a rental.
We fooled around on his bed, which was a mattress on the floor. After a tender post-coital cuddle, I excused myself to use the bathroom.
Imagine my shock to discover that there were no fixtures! He was remodeling the bathroom, too!
"Where do I take my business?" I asked.
He explained that if I was careful I could just aim for the hole in the floor, but otherwise I could use the public beach restroom, which was "only two blocks away."
I made some excuse to leave, and my new crabs and I left for home.

Another crabby encounter was with Tom McVitty, an early blond hotty who had a penchant for banging coke and getting banged by cock...I picked him up hitchhiking at Bonny Doon beach, near Santa Cruz. He had very fine, blonde hair on his chest but a full set of pubes, and they were absolutely swarming. I fetched him a bottle of Rid from the nearest Walgreen's, and the bottom of the tub was coated with crab corpses when he was done.

What have we learned from all this nonsense?

Well, don't lay down on the beach unless there are plenty of dead things around to feed the local crab population, and when you come to visit we will have to comb through your chest hairs after each beach adventure to make sure that you are not harboring any tiny bioterrorists.

Adventure...with naughty bits

So he's the most sexually adventurous man I've ever met.He's strong, and sexy, and handsome, and virile, and hard, and insatiable. He has the strongest sex drive of anyone I've ever known, and we seemed to surprise each other with the extent to which we were willing to go to wear each other to a sex satiated frazzle.
Then he peed on me.
No big deal. It was his idea. I was kneeling in the shower and there were tiles all around and the water was flowing. He loved that.

Any and every time that I approached him, day or night, to my delight, the pants came off.

After breakast Sunday, he left me in a sweaty cum-drenched heap. Later he mocked me, gently, with, "You're not going to leave me here like this, are you?"
"It's not like you were tied up or anything!!" he said.
Hmph. No, it really wasn't like that at all.

Sunday afternoon I drove him up the hill to show him the view up and down the coast. He tentatively stroked his cock through his shorts. Suddenly he unzipped his fly, reached into his shorts, and brought out his hardening cock. Stroking himself to climax, he exclaimed, "I love this view!"Had he put that sock into the door pocket just for this occasion? I thought that demonstrated exquisite forethought.