Friday, April 13, 2007

Random Thoughts on Housing and Shooting Yourself in the Face With Powertools

This is one of those times when I'll post something timely that is actually useful. Don't get used to it because I don't do it too often. Usually, if you if you learn something from here it will be despite my efforts, not because of it.

Here is an interesting article on housing in the NY Times. It makes the point that when house prices are really, really high, sometimes it makes more sense to rent rather than buy. I think they should've printed this 5 years ago. A lot of the problems that we are having in the real estate market would've been avoided if people kept in mind that buying is better than renting, but not if you buy at any price that would've been considered insane a few years ago. It sorta reminds me of the dot com era when a company with nothing but a website, like eToys (which never made any money) stock was selling at a price that made it worth more than twice as much as Toys R Us (which had billions in sales, lots of real stores and which actually turned a profit every year).

The article caught my eye because they mentioned Hollywood Florida, where my Dad used to live. He ended up selling his house about a year ago for what I thought was an outrageous price. A price that I can only attribute to the unrealistic expectations of buyers in the real estate market, or to heavy drug use.

Speaking of heavy drug use, here is another article that caught my eye in the news. It seems that nailgun injuries are up 200% from 5 years ago, mostly due to weekend warriors buying nailguns and shooting themselves with it. Now, I have a compressor and nailgun that I bought, so I find this particularly interesting. Especially since the nailgun has a safety that makes it unlikely that you could ever unintentionally hurt yourself unless you are really, really, careless or do something really, really stupid like the guy who shot himself in the face with his nailgun. I hope to be using my nailgun this weekend when I do some work in the MacGuyver kitchen, so I 'll keep this article in mind if I am tempted to see if my nailgun is working by holding it up to my face and pulling the trigger.

In other news, I've avoided mentioning dating in this blog because I want to keep this blog focussed on ninjas and toilets. But since I found out that I am not going to die, I started dating again. I don't think I want to turn this into a dating blog because only chicks write dating blogs, and I don't have a uterus (although I was worried that I might have grown one when I was forced to watch an episode and a half of Grey's Anatomy). But I have some thoughts on it. Anyway, a prominent chick dating blogger said she would publish my screeds on dating if I sent them to her. Should I do that and tell you where it is? Or do you people want to read it here? I don't want to set up another blog for dating because I already have a second blog and it's too much work (although my Investing Site kicks ass, if I do say so myself), but I don't want this site to be a random collection of eclectic things that don't match. If you want that, you can just go to my grandmother's living room and look at her curio cabinet. Anyway, so do you internets want me to post stuff about it here, or on another site.

(by the way, this will be general dating stuff, I won't mention specific incidents because it's disrespectful).

10 comments:

SAILOR MOON said...

I dont see what you can make it a part of this existing blog. Its not like youre going to be dating everysingle day. Just random stories here and there will suffice. Remember - big projects never work out... then you end up saying some shit like , "oh im feeling overwhelmed" and then you leave for a awhile and come back and say "im not back full time like before, because i have a life, but i dont want to leave you guys" then you come back writing to on the blog and end up wrtiing as much as you use to. And are funny like you used to be. And then you start doing other projects liek other blogs and the cycle starts all over again. Too many bloggers do this...dont let it happen to you AGAIN...
love sailor_moon

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm a new reader so my opinion probably doesn't count as much, but I like random eclectic stuff, even in a relatively focused blog.

And random eclectic DATING stuff would be the cat's pyjamas. I recently read Dating for Dummies, and I love to hear about other people stumbling around in the dating world, doing everything wrong and breaking all the rules and accidentally shooting each other in the face with nail guns, but eventually falling in love anyway and living happily ever after. Or not.

(I think I'm a dating voyeur.)

Anonymous said...

YES, tell us about your dating experiences on this same blog. I really enjoy your stories and laughed for days at the mental picture of you running around with the pig's head. I hope to find your investing blog and hope you have some good insider information to share.
Love, Martha

Anonymous said...

It's always fun to read the dating shenanigans. As long as you keep up on the nail gunning too right?

Carrie M said...

post it!! Just b/c you post about it every so often, it doesn't make you a dating blogger and less of a ninja.

HomeImprovementNinja said...

SAILOR: Yeah, it's a lot of work to do it separately, that's why I'm mulling it over.

Twoste: sadly, lots of my experiences are like Pulp Fiction.

zooM: well, I don't know if the dating stories would be humorous. Which is why I'm hesitating about posting them.


Kathy: thanks. I'll have some stuff for the new blog soon.

Mandi: thanks, but I don't know if the writing will be humorous or philosophical.

Carrie M: instigator!!!

Anonymous said...

Don't make us go somewhere else! I'm sure you can incorporate stories about ninjas and toilets into your dating life. :)

That story about the guy shooting himself in the face with a nail gun is very scary. It blows my mind.

Anonymous said...

When I was on the verge of moving to DC a few years ago, I went house...sorry...small, box-like structure hunting in Old Town Alexandria. Everytime the realtor showed me a place that was between $490K and $550K I felt like asking her to knee me in the groin, because that would've been less insulting than expecting me to shell out that much paper money to be able to hear my neighbors making sweet sweet love in their bathroom.

DC real estate is hogwash. Mostly.

honeykbee said...

I say post the goodies here. One stop shopping for all!

Oh and Hollywood, Florida? Yeah, it was probably drugs.

SimplEnigma said...

Re: NYT article...I definitely agree that it should've been published years ago. I live in NY, and the housing prices are crazy. It got this way because people were so desperate to own property they were willing to pay anything.

LOL @ "only chicks write dating blogs". I feel pigeonholed.