MattPie

Year ago, a friend of mine had, "You found Jesus? If no one claims him in 30 days, he's yours to keep!"

On the surface, you can say the internet allows you to find other people to reinforce and encourage whatever type of crazy you are a lot easier than if you had to do it locally.

According to wikipedia, there are roughly 460,000 Army and Air National Guard members. There's another (I assume you can't be in both) 500,000-ish Reserve members split across the branches of the services. So roughly 1M people out of the roughly 50M households with guns (assuming every reserve/guard member has a gun in the house). There's bound be a population of former military, reserve, and guard members in the gun-owning population also. The remainder is still a lot of people that likely haven't had a lot of training on how to use a gun.

What's got you torqued? (there's a metric mechanical joke for you)

LOL, I'll get to work on that one; I love it!

My daughter pointed at my Sabres T-shirt last night and said, "Mooo!" (she's all into animal noises right now). I wasn't sure if this belongs in the Awesome or Complaint thread, so I'll put it here. What does the buffalo (er, bison) say?

The Sixers were equally impressive until breaking their streak the other day. (I don't actually follow the NBA, but heard it mentioned on the radio here)

I was thinking about it some more last night, and other people have alluded to it, but when you get approved for a mortgage they'll approve you for, frankly, a lot more than you can comfortably afford. I forget what the formula is but there's no way I could live comfortably if I had maxxed out my mortgage. Think of it like the NHL salary cap and you're Florida with an internal budget and not the Rangers (or Sabres these days) spending to the limit. It doesn't seem like you'd do that, but I figured it should be said.

I don't think Crockpots go that high.

I'm fairly sure I do too. Wife handles it though, and so far just the IRA stuff.

That was my thought too.

I don't want to argue too much since it really depends on the specifics of each situation, but if I had continued to rent (granted, a two-bed apartment and not a house), I'd still be paying $300-400 less per month than my mortgage. Over 9 years, that's a lot a money, especially if I had just taken my down payment and invested it in an index fund or something. And as I mentioned, if I sold today I *might* get my down payment back (my house's value has declined at least 10%, and for awhile it was closer to 20%). And I did make extra payments early on to try to get ahead. As for rates, mine is in the mid-4% range from 2010, the earlier rate was a little higher (maybe 6%, nowhere near teens). That was in the heart of the housing bubble where banks were practically giving money away. I'm not saying don't buy a house, I'm saying be wary. There's a confluence of stuff that made my decision pretty questionable, although it seemed like a good idea at the time. As it is, if I ran the numbers I'd bet the house is one of the worst decisions I've made financially. The only other thing that comes close is buying a motorcycle. My house started depreciating a couple years after I bought it, my bad luck (or lack of foresight). It's still worth less than I paid. My property and school taxes are more than my parents' place in Elma, so I don't want to hear about how bad NYS taxes are, either. Between PA state and local income taxes, I'm pretty close to NYS income tax too. (I'm checking out now, I'm getting too ranty) Your second paragraph is spot on. Maybe if you look at just the mortgage+ vs. rent, you come out OK. But once you add in all the maintenance and improvements it starts to get dicey. Maybe some of that comes back when you sell, but something like the lawn is just a cost. And like tires on a car, you're never going to recoup the cost; you can only lose value if the lawn needs work when you're selling.

In my experience, the first thing to know is: YOU ARE GOING TO SPEND MORE MONEY PER MONTH TO OWN THAN RENT. Some of that money comes back with tax breaks, but I still feel like I'm paying out way more than I way when I was renting. Partly with the mortgage itself, but also the other bills and costs that you're shielded from in a rental (trash collection, water, HOA fees, lawn maintenance, &c.). Long term, like 10-15 years, I think you start to get ahead (although I've owned my house 9 years and a don't feel like I'm ahead at all) but that's assuming your house stays stable in value or increases. Until recently my mortgage balance and home value tracked pretty well such that I'd just barely be able to pay off my mortgage if I sold my house. And I considered myself fortunate that I wasn't "underwater" at any point so I wouldn't have to pay into selling my house like the people I bought from. But if I sold today, I'd get roughly my down payment back (last I checked). All the money I paid into capital and interest (and property taxes, and fees)? Gone. I don't want to be completely negative, I have a nice house that meets most of my needs. And I bought at a ridiculously bad time. But do your homework and be prepared to live in that place for a LONG time in case the market dictates that selling your house would be cost-prohibitive.

Can he kick extra points? No, and I thought the same thing when Moulson's was called too. :blink:

Are you arguing that the media plays-up "white guy on anyone else violence" or the media doesn't care about a black man shooting up a park in the city?

http://zap2it.com/2015/09/kevin-smith-mallrats-2-shooting-location/

I wonder if she'll be in Mall Rats 2, which is shooting a mall near MattPieTown. If they put up a fake "Casual Male" store front, I'm so getting a picture.

I'll agree with the SSD comment. My work laptop and the laptop I just bought for my wife are in the same neighborhood in terms of RAM and CPU, but my work machine feels a bunch faster with SSD even though it has software-based encryption software installed. I want to upgrade the wife's machine to SSD but she won't green-light the money yet. :) That being said, CPU and screen (and sometimes RAM) aren't really upgradable, but I can put an SSD in for $80 right now. When I bought this machine, I decided to maximize the pieces I can't change and accept that I may need to upgrade later. (Dell Inspiron 13, 2-in-1 with 1080p screen, 8GB RAM, and a Core i5. Bit out of your budget when I bought it at nearly $700, but that was earlier this year).

With 3-4 goals being scored per game, total, if you take one away from a team that's 33-50% of that teams expected goal production for the game. That's probably more of the issue than "momentum".

I have a 6-pack of it; I'm sure it's a nice example of the style (yellow lager) it's not my cup of tea.

I was walking around in 35 degrees today barefoot in PJ pants and a t-shirt to bring in the mail and trash cans. I'm guessing I'll never learn. :) That being said, I seem to be more immune to the cold than some people for some reason. It honestly hurts my wife when it's cold out; for me it's mildly unpleasant for the first 10-15 minutes. I guess the extra weight is good for something.

Didn't Samsom mention that he prefers Samson to Sam? It's Baba O'Reilly, so that frees up the name for Matt Rhino Ellis.

This seems like it'd be a perfect photo that photoshop in some guitars and be a rocking guitar solo.

Probably not really to joke about, but: In post-Soviet Russia, Turkey Shoots You. And, Turkey is always a bit skittish this time of year.

That can't be right, Gentlemen prefer Blondes.