StatisticalOutlier
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Farrah keeps using this word "batterment." I always thought the correct term was "battery," but what do I know--my law degree isn't from Harvard.
So I looked it up, using google "verbatim," which is what all google searches used to be, back in the glory days of the internet. "Verbatim" looks only for the actual term you enter, not what it thinks you want (to buy).
Here's what I got:
Google verbatim returned 105 instances of the word "batterment" on the whole internet. (To contrast, with a "regular" google search for batterment, I got 56,900,000 results.) "Batterment" is one rare word.
And if you look at the verbatim results, the majority of them are misspellings of "betterment," with sprinklings of bad translation and bad "reading" of the word "betterment" in a scanned document. Plus Farrah-related contributions.
This is not good. It's hard enough to read her word salad when the ingredients consist of actual words.
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5 hours ago, BAForever said:
ETA- have fam in Manhattan Beach. Their 3/2 cute bungalow is 4 blocks from beach. Bought it 10 years ago for $1.2 million. Zestimate now over $2 million. Crazy.
I wonder why it's appreciating so slowly. 😀
I have a friend in Austin whose house was appraised by the county for property tax purposes at $509,900 in 2020, $690,400 in 2021, and now $1,103,158 in 2022.
The 1-bedroom 1-bath condo I sold about 20 years ago was appraised at $166,754 in 2020, $183,013 in 2021, and now $243,079 in 2022.
It's getting to where watching HH episodes in southern California is helping convince me that not every place is insane.
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Very sweet British movie based on the true story of a man who entered the 1976 British Open despite never having played an actual round of golf before, starring Mark Rylance and Sally Hawkins. And two guys I'd never heard of who play his disco-dancing twin sons (also true), who come close to stealing the show.
It's designed to be a heart-warming crowd pleaser, which is not a knock in my book--if it succeeds. Which this one did, for the "crowd" in my theater, anyway--three singletons. However, one of them approached me on the way out to talk about the movie, which almost never happens any more.
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On 2/17/2022 at 2:27 PM, Shannon L. said:
I think he looks a lot like a young John Travolta, but that's not going to stop me from seeing the movie.
I saw the trailer many times in theaters and nothing about it made me want to see the movie, including the fact that in the scenes in the trailer, he looked like John Travolta and not Elvis. But things lined up and I went anyway, and I'm glad I did. I was distracted periodically throughout the movie by his eye makeup, but would push it aside because Butler's performance was so good.
His performance of "Suspicious Minds" in Las Vegas was a-ma-zing.
On 6/25/2022 at 4:59 PM, AimingforYoko said:Yep, this was a Baz Luhrman film all right.
I've seen only Strictly Ballroom, and that was thirty years ago. But I have to say, I was really taken by his style. Even the whatever-it's-called before the opening credits, showing the production company or distributor or whatever, was flashy and gaudy and wonderful. If anybody was going to do a major Elvis biopic, this was the right guy.
On 6/27/2022 at 3:58 PM, bunnyface said:That was 1942. It happened more commonly than we can imagine. It was viewed differently.
Some of the posts here had the ages a little wrong (not significantly, but accuracy matters): According to lots of sources, Priscilla was 14 (not 13) when she met Elvis, and Elvis was 24 (not 22). That's a big ten years when you're talking about being 24 and 14 years old.
Then again, Priscilla's mother was 18 when she got married and 19 when she had Priscilla. I found differing accounts of Priscilla's father's age (he died when she was a baby), but he was at least five years older than her mother (and maybe nine years older), and Wikipedia claims they'd been dating for three years when they got married. Looks like it runs in the family.
But maybe not Elvis's family--his mother was older than his father.
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Here's the letter from her professor:
Her poor professor. That semicolon near the end is a thing of beauty, and her reward for such skill is to deal with the likes of Farrah.
I loved her suggestion that Farrah take a course that would help her develop her writing skills "on the sentence level."
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23 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:
I can't imagine trying to sell that, with the total lack of anything resembling a view, or neighborhood about it.
Well, their seller sold it. I assume whatever negative features a house has is baked into the price. In fact, didn't the HH say they were able to pay a lower price because of the power plant? Seems unlikely that that particular quirk wasn't accounted for in setting the price it was offered at, and then negotiated as usual.
I'm sure that some houses, like this one, will have issues that limit the potential pool of buyers, but really, all houses do. I'm guessing that if a house has something about it that appeals to a smaller pool of people, it will be priced lower, like on a dollar-per-square-foot basis, than houses that appeal to more people. That diminution in value doesn't suddenly appear once someone decides to sell; they paid a lower price when they bought it but never seem to take that into account.
QuoteSo, an apartment measuring 700 square feet could be described as a 700 square-foot apartment.
From what posters have said, the HHs would likely say "foot" instead of "feet" in that sentence. Or, in the example I came up with, "This house is 1200 square foot."
I do know it's an adjective in "700-square-foot apartment," and agree that it should be singular. But I don't know enough about parts of speech to know whether the other times are adjectives or what, but they definitely sound terrible with "foot."
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On 6/26/2022 at 7:01 PM, buttersister said:
That was my take awhile ago. Checking in here in case they refreshed anything. But they haven’t, so still not worth the time. I’m even past hate watching.😂
I don't know if it qualifies as "refreshed," but something different I've noticed is the camera swooping around that so many shows have started doing. Or maybe they've been doing it forever and I'm just now noticing it because I've started noticing it elsewhere.
Whatever...I hate it. I've stopped watching Trevor Noah's interviews because of it, and I like him a lot more than I like anybody on this show.
And they'd done product placement before, but Alex's little comment about the bourbon was like a hostage's statement.
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On 6/25/2022 at 10:58 AM, QQQQ said:
I like Maxine, but (shallow comment alert) find the shape of her face/head very distracting.
I didn't notice because I was so distracted by her enormous breasts tightly bound by that green shirt.
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On 6/24/2022 at 10:58 PM, Lantern7 said:
Another painful segment from Jordan that I made myself watch because I need to keep being upset. Seriously, he does great work . . . better than anything he did on The Opposition . . . but the trips must grind his soul to dust.
Anderson Cooper interviewed him on CNN the other day, with respect to this segment. At one point Klepper called himself a "historian" of this type of thing, and it did sound like his soul is none the better for it.
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19 hours ago, cameron said:
I get really bothered when the realtor uses the word foot instead of feet when mentioning size of house.
I haven't noticed because I'm too busy twitching from the other annoyances. But do they say, "This house has 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and is 1200 square foot"?
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1 hour ago, EtheltoTillie said:
This weekend was apparently costume night, and they had on a noted costume designer to discuss Mahogany and Taxi Driver.
Last Saturday I watched the end of Annie Hall and Alicia Malone had Tim Gunn as a guest, talking about the costumes. Maybe it's a series.
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17 hours ago, LittleIggy said:
I got sick of hearing all the y’all this and y’all that from the realtor. And I am from the South. I try not to say “y’all.”
Do people actually prefer "you guys" every time a HH couple is addressed? And convolutions like "This can be your guys's entertaining area"?
I'm from Texas so "y'all" is ingrained in me, but I prefer a simple "you." What's so hard about "I think you'll love this house," addressing both people collectively? And even better, "This can be your entertaining area."
It's as if this realtor, and the realtors who say "you guys" incessantly, aren't even aware that "you" can refer to more than one person, and is infinitely less annoying.
I'm not sure which makes me twitch more: "your guys's," or "I mean" at the start of every sentence.
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For all its faults, the Nashville episode was a breath of fresh air because I don't remember a single "you guys" or the more heinous "your guys's" out of the realtor's mouth. She consistently used the infinitely better "y'all," which can even be made un-torturedly possessive with "y'all's." Mad respect to the South.
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The Kansas City model home looked weird, with that little one-car garage way on the left, and I wondered if that middle part was a converted garage, but it's a brand new house--why would someone want a brand new house that looks like they'd outgrown it and had to convert a garage to living space?
And sure enough, the one they bought has a big garage right in the middle. Apparently THEY didn't want a brand new house that looked like it had a converted garage.
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4 hours ago, MargeGunderson said:
Having said that, there is no law degree offered by the extension school. As usual, Farrah is a lying piece of crap.
Then again, she could be doing the three courses that are a prerequisite for getting into the program where you get a bachelor's degree from Harvard, with a goal of pursuing a law degree elsewhere. That could be a truthful basis for saying she enrolled at Harvard Extension to pursue her law degree.
I'm just shocked that Harvard offers a program leading to a bachelor's degree from Harvard with no admissions criteria except a high school diploma more than five years ago and making a B in three online courses. Do that and voila! You're on your way to a degree from Harvard.
I made a lot of fun of Amber for saying "Purdue" instead of "Purdue Global," but that was before I realized Harvard was offering no-selection-criteria degrees from actual Harvard, and not Harvard Extension.
As I said, things have really changed since I was in college.
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11 hours ago, Jennifersdc said:
Funniest and classic Farrah is her lawyer denying she was indicted. She was.
The article says, "Despite the arraignment on the court calendar, Abraham's attorney released a statement on Wednesday claiming that no charges have been brought against her." But the lawyer's statement is dated June 6, 2022, which is two weeks before the story, and is also not a Wednesday.
Now, I don't understand how social media works, but the article says the claim was "in a statement shared to Abraham's Instagram story." ETonline appears to by saying the lawyer released the statement via Farrah's instagram story, but I don't think that's the case. I'm assuming Farrah did it, because of her superimposed word salad and because it's a very Farrah-like thing to do--use a letter that was based on different facts as proof of something.
Also, the article says at the end, "Abraham, who recently enrolled in Harvard Extension School to pursue her law degree..." Harvard Extension School doesn't offer a law degree, so why does ETonline state this as a fact?
Although...I was doing some digging around the Harvard Extension website and I just have to say that things have really changed since I was in college decades ago. It looks like anybody can enroll in Extension classes and as long as they do well enough, they can obtain a Harvard degree and participate in on-campus commencement and everything.
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On 4/11/2021 at 12:43 PM, CrazyInAlabama said:
When I color my hair, I rinse it out in the kitchen sink too, and now I can grab the hair out of the drain strainer (I like the ones that look like colanders, with a metal bottom, and round holes in it), and put in on the Grabster.
Why don't you just put the hair in the trash instead of on the Grabster, awaiting transfer to the trash?
My problem with the Grabster is that it's not much less gross having that thing with hair stuck in it than having hair on the wall, which isn't even an issue for most people.
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I think it might be the house she chose, but one of them had that banister-less staircase to the unfinished attic plunked right in the living room AND the stairs stuck out such that they were a little bit in front of the fireplace. It's like they were added at some point, which makes me wonder how you used to get into the attic and why this stair situation was preferable.
I noticed a bunch of ductwork up there, which I assume was added at some point (especially after our discussion of mini-splits), so maybe they needed better access to work up there? But if so, I wouldn't leave those stairs-to-nowhere like that.
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20 hours ago, Nellise said:
As someone who's disabled it was a bit annoying watching his savior act with Lola. It's easy to be a friend during the good moments when you don't really have to deal with the disability, but that's not an option for a parent. Someone as flighty as him would peace out the moment it got difficult, but this movie gave him a pass where he never had to deal with that.
But if it were easy to be a friend during the good moments, wouldn't Lola have more friends? At least Andrew tried, when nobody else was. And he recruited the kids to try, too.
As for getting a pass on dealing with Lola's difficult moments, that wasn't his responsibility, and it was never going to be his responsibility because he was never going to have a relationship with Domino and he wasn't even going to get to babysit Lola any more. Domino had Lola when she was very young, and because of that she didn't get to spend her 20s figuring herself out. I thought it was lovely that she acknowledged that and told Andrew to spend his 20s like he's supposed to. It's kind of a twist on the "you deserve better than me" breakup, but genuine.
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Purchased this so you wouldn’t have to.
I have a crazy idea. How about nobody purchase any of it?
It sickens me that Farrah is making bank on this sort of thing, and the people who are buying it are no better, and I want to throttle them if they turn around and complain about the rising cost of food and gas and housing.
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6 hours ago, cpcathy said:
I thought it was trying too hard to be a feel good movie. Cooper has cast himself as a sort of manic, pixie dream boy, so nice, so cute, so funny! There’s no nuance to him. Plus he’s in every scene, and, we’ll, he’s a lot.
He's definitely a lot, but not too much if you like his character, which I did. I'd love to hang out with the guy who can get people up and dancing.
And I was interested in how Andrew was learning about people, how they have their reasons for doing what they do, and he should respect that. And he had his own share of miseries.
8 hours ago, cpcathy said:Then we are given her fiancé, whom we think will be a villain, but, oh, no—he’s nice too!
I don't think thanking Andrew for protecting his step-daughter turned him from being a villain into being nice. In fact, if he hadn't acknowledged what Andrew did, then he would have been portrayed just as one-dimensionally as you think Andrew was portrayed.
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Dazed and Confused plays like a documentary to me because I graduated from high school in a small Texas city in 1975. Using pliers to zip up your jeans--check. Parties where everybody just stands in a field or leans on cars--check. Driving up and down the drag, over and over, all night, drinking beer and smoking weed--check. Driving to other cities for concerts--check. (Although we would get our tickets by mail order.)
The soundtrack was close to perfect, with the known absence of Led Zeppelin. And for me, I would need some early Queen in there, but props to Linklater for Rick Derringer. That's authentic.
As if that weren't enough, I'd lived in Austin for years when the movie came out, and recognized many of the places where they shot. I lived right near Top Notch (which my friends and I always called Tip Top for no good reason at all). That place was really something. Actually, it's still there, but I haven't been in years.
Back then, it was family owned. It was an order-at-the-counter place and the older lady who used to take the orders was surly, but not a charming surly.
There were all sorts of rules. There were no trash cans--patrons were prohibited from clearing their own tables when they were finished. On the menu next to the register, in addition to fountain beverages they had one canned drink--I think a Diet Dr Pepper, for some price. I've always believed it was because some regular used to bring in their own can of Diet Dr Pepper, probably arguing that it's okay because they don't serve it otherwise, and the family decided to thwart that little scheme. I never had the courage to ask the lady why it was on there.
The menu also had a notation about beverages, and I can't remember exactly what it was, but it specified a "normal amount of ice." Maybe this was before they had the self-service fountain drinks? But I've always loved that use of "normal" and, as with the can of Diet Dr Pepper, wondered what led to it.
In that same area is where they filmed the exteriors for the pool hall, and a year after the movie came out, I got my first dial-up internet connection from a company that was located in that shopping center.
So I have the perfect combination of the experience they had in Dazed and Confused and recognizing the places they were having it.
I really cherish spending hours driving around with my friends, talking. I had an 8-track player in my car, which divides albums into four parts, instead of two parts (front and back on an album). If the songs on the album didn't time out right, when going from track 1 to track 2, for example, the tape would fade a song out and fade it back in after the CA-THUNK of the track changing. It had a "repeat" button, and one night, after hours of driving around, we realized the Black Sabbath tape had been on "repeat," so we listened to just that 1/4 of the album over and over for hours and didn't even notice. Only after realizing it did I think, "I thought I'd heard Iron Man an awful lot."
Fun times, and Dazed and Confused captures them perfectly.
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If you watch House Hunters International, you'll see mini-split air conditioners, especially in tropical areas. My first encounter with one was a non-high-rise hotel room in Aruba.
I noticed that in @Bastet's link, the part that goes on the interior wall is described as "quiet and elegant." I wouldn't go so far as elegant, but they're a lot better looking than window units in a window or even installed in a hole in the wall instead of a window, which I've always thought were heinous looking.
[I'll also note that the website says, "That’s why the table of the best ductless units below consists solemnly of the 1 zone mini split AC systems." Argh.]
Now that I think about it, you also see mini-splits in tiny houses. RVs typically have roof air units, which are incredibly noisy and add to the RV's height, which matters if you're doing down the road. Some have "traditional" ducted air conditioners, which are a million times quieter, but require a place for the unit itself in a lower compartment, which tiny houses typically don't have. But tiny houses do have an outside wall on which the exterior part of the mini-split can be installed, especially if the mini-split is anticipated in the original plans.
As for the show, I've gotten to where I'm always trying to figure out what the air conditioning situation is. If I were showing a house without central air, I would remove all window units unless they were necessary at that time of year. Maybe window units wouldn't be a deal breaker, but I'd rather have a buyer imagine what they'll look like instead of actually seeing them.
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This is on Apple TV+, but I saw it in a theater. I was not compelled by the description: "A young man who works as a Bar Mitzvah party host strikes up a friendship with a mother and her autistic daughter." But the scheduling was good so I went anyway.
I'd say it's more, "Recent college graduate is living at home, adrift." Which might not be any more compelling for some people, but I don't mind movies about 20-somethings figuring out their lives. I liked Mumblecore, for example, even though I was way outside its demographic. But where Mumblecore was often not very polished, Cha Cha Real Smooth is very polished, and I kind of can't believe the writer/director/star is 25 years old.
I loved this movie, even though I spent a good amount of it reminding myself that the star was not Chris Eigeman. This kid looks exactly like him, sounds like him, and even moves like him, and he as the same charm. Fortunately, he also has much bigger teeth than Eigeman, so when he smiles I grok that it's not Jason Stiles, but that's about the only way to tell them apart.
I'm also realizing Leslie Mann has worn thin for me. And that Dakota Johnson is a wonder--I need to pay more attention to her. And the girl who played the daughter was outstanding.
It's basically two hours with good people who are interestingly complex.
House Hunters - General Discussion
in House Hunters
What @Empress1 said, above, plus the effects of the GI Bill after WW II.
The GI Bill offered low-cost mortgages, with the intention of veterans buying houses and having the value of the houses go up over time, creating wealth. (And even today, a house is still the most common generational wealth asset.) It really was a solid thing for the government to do for the benefit of veterans. In theory.
But Blacks weren't able to take advantage of this benefit in the numbers whites were because banks weren't offering mortgages in Black neighborhoods (redlining). They were offering mortgages in the new suburbs, but many of those suburbs weren't an option for Blacks, whether because of deed restrictions, or regular old racism if a Black family moved into a white neighborhood.
A huge number of white veterans used the GI Bill to buy houses to live in, with the house's value appreciating over time, and then leave the appreciated asset to their children. Blacks, meanwhile, were paying rent (also known on HH as "throwing your money away every month").
(As an aside, the other big benefit of the GI Bill was paying for college, but in the South, Blacks couldn't go to segregated white colleges, and there were way too many Black veterans for the HBCUs to admit, and therefore many Blacks in the South were unable to use the GI Bill's college benefits.)
I find it to be a dismal and actually embarrassing history, but even so, am getting tired of hearing "generational wealth" constantly on HH. Just buy your damn house, like everybody else does.