KingBurgundy.com

If its not one thing...

Why am I so cursed? :)

The carpet/etc folks called me on Friday because they wanted to arrange to start earlier than planned(Monday at 9am instead of Tuesday at 9am) and of course I was all for it. Sunday night after work I bit the bullet and went up to the new place and just sort-of half dozed on the paint encrusted carpet there so that I wouldn't oversleep and miss them. 10:30am rolls around and still no sign of them. Nice.

I head down to the old place to get a few last things cleaned up and then meet the landlord at 1pm to do a final walkthrough. 12 o clock the carpet people call, oops, sorry, we'll be there at 1pm if thats alright. Fine, ok, see you there. Chris stayed behind to do the walkthrough with Jurgen.

I get to the place about 1:10ish and call the carpet people to make sure I haven't missed them. They say they are running late and will be there about 2pm.... *boggle*. Fine, I warn them I'll have to leaave shortly after that for work and there is little leeway. 2:35pm I call them to tell them I am leaving for work, they are still nowhere near. They tell me they will call me back later to reschedule. They never called. Do I still have my original appointment with them for 9am tomorrow? No fucking idea. I am just flabbergasted at a level of lethargy I have not encountered since I lived in New Mexico.

Homeless

I got a few hours of sleep this morning before having to run down to the new place and meet the locksmith. He rekeyed my locks for me and got me situated. I took another tour of my new place, grabbed the mail key, and left. Upon testing the mail key, I was presented with yet another revelation. It doesn't work. Yes yes, lets all clap together for the worthless previous owner who has made everything as difficult as possible. So going to the post office and showing them my deed and such so they can rekey my mailbox is now added to my list of things to do.

The ridiculousness of getting help and renting a uhaul or what have you to move my stuff out of my current place, renting a storage for my stuff, moving it into storage, waiting 5 days, getting more help, renting another uhaul, etc etc was just too much for me to deal with. So Friday afternoon I have movers coming to pick up my things and take it to their storage warehouse. They will then deliver my things to the new place the following Thursday.

Right then. So after work tonight I get to resume packing and hopefully finish up before about 6am when I have to head up to the new place to let the painters in. Then I'll go talk to the post office. Then I'll come back down to the old place, *possibly* have a bit more time for packing before the movers show, and then let them in to get my stuff. With all of my stuff(for the most part) in storage, I will proceed with the plan to crash at Joe's house until the following Thursday. Saturday I get to swing by the old place again to help clean with Chris.

Somewhere in the midst of this craziness, I'd also like to try and see Ladykillers or Taking Lives this weekend. We'll see.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Hmmm, I'm almost scared to mention this movie since the last few movies I've seen I've absolutely loved, and I don't want to suddenly come off as having undiscriminating tastes... "Oh, that Malek, he loves everything!" However, I'll go ahead and bite the bullet and at least tell you that you should go see this movie because it is fantastic. I have no nits to pick. 5 stars. And the cover of "Everybody's gotta learn sometime" by Beck that rolls with the credits is absolutely amazing.

In other news, I finally got to see City of God too. That is also a 5 star movie and well deserving of the praise I've seen it get.

Now I will go in search of something horrible to watch so that I can come here and rant about it. ;)

I have a big...

Debt!

I closed on my condo today. I believe that if you added up all of the individual times that I have signed something over the course of my life, it still would not add up to equal the amount of times I signed something during that 2 hour period today. Still, it was a rather painless process here at the end of it.

My real estate agent, Judy, wasn't able to be there today as she is overseas on vacation(another casualty of the late close). Sadly, this presents a new and slightly amusing problem, as apparently her partner Ann was unable to locate the house key... Yes, thats right, I don't have a key to my condo, haha. So tomorrow I get to call a locksmith to replace the lock on my place.

Dawn of the Dead

When hell is full, the Malek shall drive to the theater and watch the dead walk the earth.

This movie flat out rocked. First, let me just state for the record, that the opening 5 minutes itself is easily worth the price of admission. The rest of the movie moves along quite well and unlike a lot of the movies in this genre, you generally don't feel that any situations are being contrived for extra drama. This is all pure unadulterated survival/apocalypse horror. It rests easily at the top of the zombie movie heap, a spot which is shared for me by Resident Evil for entirely different reasons. Oh, and make sure to stay through the credits as the movie isn't really over until then. 4 stars.

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I don't understand whats happening in this trailer necessarily, since its in Japanese, but I highly recommend watching it anyway. Its sci fi in some way, obviously, judging by the robots, and it seems to have some anime stylings, although its live action.
Click Here

American Astronaut

Haha, wow.

Today I got to watch American Astronaut at the Madstone theatre here in Denver. It finally opened in a limited 1 week run at a number of Madstone theatre's across the country. Prior to now, its just been touring Festivals for the last few years. You can find a synopsis and a trailer for it among other things here.

I saw a quote that basically said it is like a laurel and hardy musical done by Salvador Dali. That about covers it I think. I have never ever seen a film like this before, nor do I think its likely I'll see one like it again any time soon. There were plenty of laugh out loud funny moments throughout, which had the theatre rolling in the aisles. I think I was the only one there that didn't enjoy the whole thing, however. I had some problems with the editing and felt that there were a few actionless scenes that stretched far too long. Still, fantastic film that I am glad I saw, even though I couldn't possibly recommend it to most people. 4 stars on the "people like Malek" scale, but if I was to recommend it to someone else I would have to give it 2 stars, as it is way too far from the norm for most people to enjoy.

Cory Mcabee, the writer/director/star/composer of this movie, was actually at the theatre doing a question and answer session with the people going to see the movie. I totally didn't expect that, and it was definitely amusing.

Fuuuun

The seller is a cock monger and won't let the painters and carpeters do any work before the close, so since I will need that done before I can move in, and since closing is the 26th, that means I get to move all my stuff into storage for a week.

On the 26th, I'll close, and move all my shit into storage and go live with Joe. The painting will get done starting then, by the 29th. The carpeters will be working on the 30th and 31st. Then on the 2nd, I'll move again, this time out of storage and into the new place. On the plus side, I've managed to really shrink the amount of stuff I have to move by selling furniture that I don't really want anymore and the like.

Judy and my mortgage company have agreed to help offset the storage costs and such, which is nice.

What sucks most about all this of course, is I was supposed to go down to ABQ the weekend of the 2nd since my Aunt and Uncle will be down there visiting. Logistically, that looks impossible at this point, but we'll see.

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In other news, World of Warcraft Phase One Beta Emails have started going out and will arrive within the next day or two. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com

Happy St Paddy's Day

Today I juggled 3 different lenders. I spoke with Antonio over at Coldwell Banker and got fast, friendly, and efficient service and quickly knew where I would stand with them if I chose them. Rates would be a bit higher for the first 7 or so years until I had actually paid off 20% of the loan since they wrap PMI into the interest rate basically, but after that point they would be much lower. I also spoke with Joe's Dad, who is a great guy, and a real go getter in this as he is in everything. Lastly of course, I continued to let Dan pursue things to see what he could come up with. Bottom line for all of them though of course was that I won't be closing this Friday, it has been pushed back into next week, to as late as the following Friday, the 26th.

Although, as demonstrated by my rant yesterday, I ended up completely unsatisfied with the way things were going with Dan, he came back to me today after speaking with his Boss, and Judy my realtor and everyone else and had managed to get together a package that was actually better than my initial package(which, given the lower rates now, really is to be expected) and gave me his guarentee that everything was squared away now. Soooooo, I've gone ahead and bit the bullet and told him to run with it. Its possible I'll end up getting burned again here, but... Things are just so much easier if I stick with Dan, since he already has all my paperwork, signatures, etc etc etc. Hopefully, this works out. If not though, I can still end up going back to Antonio or Mr. Royle.

Judy still needs to talk with the Seller and arrange the changed closing date, as well as HOPEFULLY allowing the Painter and Carpeters to still access the house on the planned dates which are now prior to closing, so that I can still move in the weekend of the 26th. If they can't get in until after closing, I'll basically have to move all of my stuff into storage and stay with Joe for a week, and then move all of my stuff out of storage into the new place. So cross your fingers for me.

***

Jason should be back from Iraq now. I tried calling him and Melissa today to wish him a happy birthday, but no response, so not sure if he's home and just "gettin busy" or if its just taking longer to get back.

House & Loan BS

So frustrated and pissed off right now. *stress*

Today Dan(My Mortgage guy) calls me and lets me know that the loan with the previous underwriter has fallen through because apparently they only loan for condo purchases in buildings where they are 60% + buyer occupied and this one is 57% or some such... I'll refrain from cursing or commenting on how I think that perhaps its a little late to be finding something like this out or how this is merely one in a long line of signs of incompetence(whoops, too late). Anyway, he said we would have to push it back a week, but that on the plus side, the rates would be slightly better now. Fine.

Then he calls back and lets me know he can actually still make the original closing work with much higher rates. I initially agreed to this because I wanted to get things over and done with, but after about 30 minutes of reflection, realized that I didn't really want to get F'd over and end up paying an extra 120 a month (approx) for the life of my loan because of lender incompetence or the like, better to lose my earnest money in the short term I guess(1000 dollars down the drain, wheeeee).

So Dan is working on options again, and again is talking about rates similar to the ones I had originally(What happened to the slightly lower rates? your guess is as good as mine).

Now, taken alone, maybe I would be slightly less worried...but then there is the fact that it seems that there have been sudden minor emergencies all along for no real reason. 1)Suddenly in a flurry of activity he needs copies of my DL, SS Card and the phone number for my Landlord 10 business days before closing. Ok, I can understand maybe not gathering this info initially, forgetting it would be necessary maybe, but guess what, I GAVE him that info on our first meeting...I guess he lost it. 2)Suddenly needing an additional sig on something that he forgot to have me sign before the following day. 3)The day after that, suddenly needing 24 MONTHS of cancelled checks paid to my landlord which would have been a struggle to get in the best of times, but proved impossible to attain 7 days before close(USBank could make them available to me in 10 business days at substantial cost). Well, turns out they could make it work without them after all... Gee, thanks for making me stress about it for nothing.

Sooooooo. Fuck this noise. I called my friend Joe and confirmed that it would still be alright to crash at his place if worse comes to worst. He called me right back and told me he had just talked to his brother Chad(who is also a lender) and that he thinks he can help me out, so I'll be talking to Chad tomorrow to examine other options in case I want to pull the plug on my current lender. I still want to, in an ideal world, buy the condo that I've been trying for, so hopefully the Seller is happy by the extra grand he's getting to keep now thanks to my lender's incompetence and we can work out a new closing. However, worst case scenario, I'm ready to start the whole process over and find another place if need be, although this time it would be with a different Mortgage company.

*deep breath* Oh well, this has been slightly carthartic, and I feel a little bit less like I'm going to have a stress induced heart attack now.

Bye Bye Angel

Yeah, so this is a really old entry that I never actually published. Oops. I'll add some new stuff to make it more current.

So anyway, WB decided that Angel is done, kaput, after this season. Joss Whedon made a very heartfelt statement regarding its cancellation here that is very worth reading. Poor guy keeps getting his shows shut down. And they are good!

I do have an interesting theory though. Its all Ben Edlund(of the Tick)'s fault. You see, he was a writer and producer on Firefly from the get go and Firefly got cancelled like right away. Next up, Joss brings him over to Angel and here we go again. :( And of course, The Tick live action show got canned pretty quick too. I'm not saying his writing is bad or anything, his eps are great, just that he's cursed.

In other cancellation news, as my brother points out in a comment below, Sam & Max 2 was being developed by Lucasarts and by all early indications looked to be a fantastic followup to the original, but they just cancelled the project recently(Even though its almost done, for fucks sake). They don't think the market is ready for another good adventure game right now.... *boggle* Here is a big middle finger shout out to LucasArts ..!.. Keep releasing your crappy star wars games you corporate fucking whores!

***

RIAA sued for extortion/racketeering!

Last but not least, a huge treat for any video game fan. 3 very good movies made with the Super Mario Brothers engine/graphics. Basically they present the backstory for the game:

SMB Part I
SMB Part II
SMB Part III

Snag!

The loan folks decided that they don't trust the word of an independent landlord that I've been paying my rent on time and want to see TWENTY FOUR months of cancelled checks. I laughed at them, but told them I'd call the bank and see what I could do. US Bank will charge me a boat load to do it, but they will...HOWEVER, it will take them 10 business days to do it. IE, there is no way it could get done before the closing date. So, I called the loan people back and they stuttered a bit and told me they would get back to me.

*cue dramatic music* Will Malek get to buy the condo? Tune in next time!

Hectic!

Tonight at work was super hectic. There was a major exchange outage which causes all sorts of problems.

On the home front, the appraisal went off without a hitch, now I'm just waiting on final loan approval, which should happen by Monday-ish. Just a little over a week to go until I close. I'm trying to get as prepared as possible for the impending move(packing, arranging utilities, etc), so life outside of work is pretty hectic at the moment too.

***

On my trip to visit the family this past holiday I actually forgot to take pictures for almost the entire trip.... However, right at the tail end I managed to snap a pic of my brother Joe sporting a more punky look than usual(click for larger versions as usual):

&

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This is a spelunking story that you should read RIGHT NOW, hehe.

Jesus Day

Apparently, today is Jesus Day. How do I know this? Well, I fell asleep on the couch this morning at about 9am. At 10am, a knock at the door disturbed me from my slumber. I answer it and am faced by two little old ladies. I quickly notice that they are carting around an "Awake" magazine and realize that I have to escape quickly. "Oh shit! The cat is on fire!" *Slam* Haha, no, I actually just said I was not interested, thanks, have a nice day and went back to sleep. Fast forward to about 30 minutes ago, when there was another knock on the door. This time it was two men in suits from the Church of Latter Day Saints. I mentioned the old ladies and the fact that their word would also not be needed. Took a bit more wrangling with these two, but still escaped unscathed after only a few moments.

I've mostly recovered from that Cold/Flu I had now. There is still a trace of it, especially when I first wake up in the morning, but oh well.

House stuff is still proceeding as planned. Waiting on an appraisal, and then final loan approval as the two last things that could still go wrong before I close on the 19th. I've arranged for my utilities to cut off and start in the new place now. A few other things I'll still need to do, like forward my mail, but I need to wait on things like that till I'm sure there will be no problems, as its too hard to undo them.