Quicken Loans Inc, once an obscure online mortgage player, seized on the refinancing boom to become the nation’s third largest mortgage lender, behind only Wells Fargo & Co and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Now, with the refi market saturated, Quicken faces a pivotal challenge — convincing home buyers to trust that emotional transaction to a website instead of the banker next door.
Want to know what I know? Quicken and Quicken Loans are two different companies. So to call Quicken Loans “Quicken” is very, very inaccurate and to disparage it is probably bad for Intuit and its stock price, the company that owns Quicken.
How do I know? I once tested an online program for Quicken Loans and reviewed its trademarks and appropriate branding. You see, I work in software quality assurance, where getting things right is important, unlike journalism.
If you happen to catch me at the gym with an Existentialist look on my face, kinda wondering what I’m doing there perhaps, it could be that I’m listening to a song with a chorus that includes the lines:
I tried so hard,
and got so far,
but in the end, it doesn’t really matter….
This weekend, my beautiful wife and I attended the Springfield Contemporary Theatre presentation of Black Comedy.
In this comedy, a British sculptor named Miller is going to have a busy night: In addition to meeting a wealthy collector who can make his career, he’s also meeting the father of his fiance. To tony the place up, he’s borrowed some furniture from his antique collector neighbor. Before any of the important people arrive, however, the power goes out and his flat is left in darkness. His neighbor returns early and an ex-girlfriend show up, and a comedy occurs in the dark apartment.
As staged, the play took place in the blacked out apartment, but to the characters, it was darkness. At the beginning and end of the play, when there is light, the actors moved in darkness. This allowed the audience to see a lot of the slapstick tumbling and precise movement where the characters could not see anything. The performances were good, and the lead–Miller–was outstanding.
The Springfield Contemporary Theatre is celebrating its 22nd season, but I’d never really heard of it before. The venue is a very intimate little room downtown, with about a hundred seats. Maybe. We sat in the third row, and we could easily have shaken hands with the actors. A number of the theatre patrons knew each other, and it was the most intimate setting for drama that I’ve ever experienced. It was a smaller venue than the theatre company I volunteered with in the last century, where they played to church gyms which were cavernous by comparison.
Now that I’ve found this little theatre group, I’m going to have to attend it frequently.
It’s not uncommon at the YMCA for me to start thrashing on the walking track (but only in the walking lane for safety reasons).
It looks more like a seizure than it used to because I no longer have flowing golden locks:
But watch closely: when I’m at the gym, does it look like I’m thrashing a mullet, or does it look like I’m thrashing braids? It’s a subtle difference, but the second certainly indicates I’m listening to….
This book is an entry in the Makers of the Modern Theological Mind series as was Reinhold Niebuhr. On a recent trip to ABC Books, I found the Kierkegaard volume, and I picked it up and delved right in since I seem to be in a theological phase lately (well, I guess Existentialism and Thomism last January and The Screwtape Letters last July makes for a very slow moving phase, but in my defense, I’ve started a couple books I’ve yet to finish).
What I’ll take from this bit is that Kierkegaard was writing a document targetted to Danish Christians of the era and was mostly a rebuttal to Hegel. His Either/Or countered the Hegelian Thesis>Antithesis>Synthesis bit by saying that ethical choices are exclusive or (XOR, as computer folk would call them) and cannot be reconciled through creating a system or classification where both options exist and relate to one another. It’s told in two parts: the first part by The Seducer, and the second part by The Judge. These two represent the aesthetic and ethical spheres. Fear and Trembling examines the story of Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac and explicates on the religious sphere, which Kierkegaard puts higher than the merely ethical. The book also talks about other writings, but these are the ones I was most interested in.
This book spends a lot of its few (145) pages delving into other philosophers’ and theologians’ work. We get explanations of Hegel and Plato and their systems; we get pages on the Existentialists and people in the 20th century who Kierkegaard influenced (hint: apparently everyone). We even get a whole page of defending Heidegger from his association with the Nazis in Germany. It seems like a lot of real estate on a book on Kierkegaard spent talking about others. But you can boil a lot of Kierkegaard down into pretty short sentences.
As I read it and work through Fear and Trembling, I wonder if Kierkegaard is the man who broke the Christian church. His book Fear and Trembling focuses on the religious individual experiencing something he (or she) thinks is divine and not so much on the divine. It seems a turn to the individualism that runs through Existentialism and whatnot. I’m sure there are some other revolutions and counterrevolutions that go on as well, but given how much of twentieth century thought cites Kierkegaard as an influence, I can’t help wonder if it was a bad influence.
Our dojo offers this shirt, which contains a poem:
A
We
So
Me
Ness
One of the knocks against Elliot Ness (of the Untouchables) was that he often took credit for other people’s work, especially in the popular culture (see the films) and in bar rooms wherever he lived. So this poem excoriates that flaw in his character. But I don’t understand why it’s on a martial arts shirt.
UPDATE: Someone has told me that this shirt is just the word “Awesomeness.” That’s an interesting theory. However, I must respectfully disagree, because I HAVE AN ENGLISH DEGREE! I KNOW A POEM WHEN I SEE IT! THIS IS A POEM, AND IF YOU WANT TO DISPUTE IT I RECOMMEND YOU SPEND TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON A MOSTLY WORTHLESS DEGREE AND WE CAN ARGUE ABOUT IT AT STARBUCKS! BEHIND THE COUNTER!
I did not know that Rogersville had its own library; I don’t remember seeing it when I went to town for the old Missouri Insight blog (reposted here). As an old railroad town, it would have had the opportunity to create its own library before the Springfield-Greene County library or Webster County library took root.
So I discovered it had a Friends of the Library organization and a small book sale fund raiser, I was all on it. I stopped by early Friday morning. It was held in a small conference room off the side of the small town library. How small? It might have been the smallest I’ve ever been to. Smaller than Clever, for sure.
I only bought three things.
I got:
Halo: The Fall of Reach, another Halo novel by Eric Nyland. I liked First Strike. And I also saw a high school kid at the dojo carrying one of these novels. So it probably won’t be long until I read this one. It is, after all, a paperback that won’t clear much from my to-read shelf space.
Spider Man: The Octopus Agenda, a novel by Diane Duane. I most recently read Duane’s So You Want To Be A Wizard, but this one will probably be more in my wheelhouse. It probably won’t be one I carry around with me to read as I only like to be seen in public with SMAHT books these days.
A single volume of Henry David Thoreau including Walden, The Maine Woods, and Cape Cod. I’ve recently pulled my paperback copy of Walden from the read shelves for a re-reading, so I can put it back and substitute this book, which I can take out in public because it’s a SMAHT book. Except I might not because it’s big and heavy.
Not much, but it wasn’t a big selection. No t-shirts or applications to join the Friends of the Rogersville Library, sadly, or I would have added those to my collections.
And since I recently cleaned part of my library, I had room for them easily. So I should be in pretty good shape until the autumn book sales unless I hit a mother lode at a church sale or something. You don’t see many books at contemporary single family home garage sales.
As I mentioned, I recently cleaned the bookshelves in my office that contain the mass market paperbacks that I’ve read. As I did, I remembered some things about them and about the times in which I read them. Lacking anything better to post about so far today, I’ve decided to comment on them and to present their covers (Gimlet once asked me if I had a Tumblr containing the covers of the books I’ve read, since I’ve been scanning them a number of years for the book reports–I do not).
For the past year and a half or almost two years, my office housed the last of our old guard cats, the small half Siamese we got around the turn of the century. After the penultimate of the old guard died and shortly after we introduced the replacement cats, she developed a disdain for using the litter box, so we isolated her in my office and closed the door, wherein she had her own food and her own litter box, and she was less crotchety. She got ill, and on Sunday before church she was put down, and I buried her with the others. For the first time in a year, my office door is open.
I’ve removed the cat litter from the office, and I have started extensive cleaning operations, including spending four hours dusting all of the unread books on the four bookshelves in the office and the two small shelves of mass market paperbacks.
Ah, that’s better.
In addition to dusting them one by one, I reorganized them, making sure they were tight in the shelves, and I reversed some of them so that the books that were in the back were now in the front. It will give me a fresh set of books to look at when I go to pick something to read.
As I worked, I was delighted to find some really interesting books I would like to read. Clearly, I’ve thought about each volume as I bought it. It made me want to read, but before I do, I have to get through a couple library books I checked out for no other reason than I’m nuts.
Other thoughts:
When I read The Carolingian Chronicles, the support material mentioned another contemporary source A History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours. I found a copy that I’ll probably read sooner rather than later since I’m on a Frankish kick.
I found like four different volumes of work by and biographies of Ernie Pyle, the World War II correspondent. That’s probably pretty comprehensive.
But only one autobiography of Ernest Borgnine.
But two of William Shatner.
The most represented historical figure on the shelves is Winston Churchill. I’ve got a pile of his histories and a couple of biographies. I guess it’s been two years since I read anything about him.
I shall soon come to the tipping point, believe it or not, where I will have read more than half of the Executioner novels I own. Of course, that’s only if I don’t count the related series. Still, I’ll take the encouragement where I can.
I have a shelf and a half of Stephen King books, and I’m not really in a hurry to read them. They’re very thick, and so many times I’ve been disappointed.
I have several Dean Koontz, and although they’re not as long, I’ve not liked the ones I’ve read by Koontz very much barring the Odd Thomas titles.
I even have a John Saul or two, and I’m not a real big horror fan.
I have a bunch of technology and programming books, most of which were out of date when I got them. And some that were not are now.
This includes a couple Apple and Commodore books.
I’ve managed to make room on my shelves (and by make room, I mean there are not many horizontal books stacked upon the two ranks of vertical books per shelf. So I should go to some book sales.
I’m having a little trouble with the $25 book shelves I bought a decade ago at Target. They were not meant for the load I’ve put on them, and they’re failing in different ways. The holes holding the pins are breaking, the shelves bow down so I have to flip them every once in a while, and now the sides are bowing outward so that the shelves don’t reach the pins. I could get some new, better bookshelves, I suppose, but that would require moving all these books again.
I found far fewer duplicates than I’d expected.
Free books.
Normally, I just dump my duplicate books off on my brother and assume he tosses them. But if you see anything you’re interested, let me know in the next week or so and I’ll bundle them off to you. The remainder go to my brother or perhaps ABC Books in a trade.
Titles include:
The Shining by Stephen King. I’ve already read this, but it must be before the blog.
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King. Just think of how many shelves I’d have of Stephen King if I didn’t put them all together to see what I have.
The Demons at Rainbow Bridge by Jack Chalker. The first of the Quintara Marathon series. I have the whole series in ex library books, so the paperback is expendible.
The Romances of Hezekiah Mitchell, a book often found in the Ozarks section of used book stores. Apparently, I’ve found it there twice.
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. I read it in middle school or early high school, and I bought two hardback copies of it. I only need one.
Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac in the Classics Club edition.
A ten volume set of The Great Ideas Program by the Encyclopedia Britannica people in 1959. It’s a selection of readings of great books sorts of things broken down by subject (Philosophy, Ethics, Imaginative Literature, and such). Did I have two complete sets? Of course I did. Don’t be ridiculous!
As I said, if anyone’s interested, let me know. Shout out and they’re yours.
Back in the olden days, I used to edit photos for humourous effect. Then, I had children and no free time. Although I have a bit more free time now, I haven’t gone back to it because the interest isn’t there, and the Internet has moved onto just putting text on a still image and calling it funny.
But for old time’s sake, here are some of my favorites from the annals of this blog.
Someone was cleaning out a computer room and gave me a little plastic box for 3.5″ floppy disks. Probably as a gag.
However, I have far more twenty-year-old disks that can fit in it.
I pretty much have all my old downloads from BBSes circa 1991 as well as driver disks for every component I bought from 1990 through, what, 2003 when CDs replaced the floppies.
So the little disk holder was cute, but someone really misunderestimated my pack rattery.
I’m old enough that I just don’t care how I look, so when I’m working out at the gym, I often lip sync the words with the songs that come on the radio. At least, I hope I’m not really singing the words. And sometimes I’ll smile when I hear a song I haven’t heard in a while but that I clearly think rocks or it wouldn’t be on the iPod Shuffle.
But sometimes, I’ll hear the opening of a song, and I’ll stop mouthing the words in case anyone at the gym can read lips and I’ll glance furtively about to see if there’s anyone close enough to hear any of the loud music leaking from my nostrils.
If you see me doing this, you know it’s probably…
Nickelback.
I know, I know. They’re like a Canadian rock version of the Gin Blossoms (the comparison is likely to get me into fights with actual Gin Blossoms fans if any), but a couple of their songs
“How You Remind Me”:
“Photograph”:
I’m not going write up an academic-level defense of Nickelback, but some of their songs are going to have staying power longer than their usage as a punchline amongst rock fans. Even if it’s just on my iPod.
This book differs from the philosophy of other recent ones which rumble about Bolan going it alone again. Instead, this is a Phoenix Force book, essentially, as Bolan leads a team into the heart of Africa.
While visiting Canada, Bolan gets wind of an African job. Decades ago, a mercenary abandoned his post to rob a bank, and he hid the cache of diamonds and documents in a war-torn land. In the present day (of 1983), the Russians spring the mercenary from an Angola prison to recover the loot. The deposed leader of the African nation wants Bolan and his team to recover the loot from the mercenary and the Russians and to recover some sensitive documents that could embarrass America. So Mack gets the team together, they roll into Africa, and conduct a number of set-piece battles to recover the diamonds, incidentally kill the current deposing general, and kill the bad guys only to discover that the promised documents did not exist and were only a pretext to get the diamonds.
It’s more of a team book instead of an Executioner book; one has to wonder if it was moved over from another title to fit the publication schedule of the month’s Bolan book wasn’t ready. So it’s not really an Executioner book, and if you recognize that, perhaps you’ll enjoy it more.
This is the first I’ve seen in the line that recognizes the actual author of the book in the back in a little bit where “Don Pendleton” pens a note about the actual author. The recogniztion must have been gratifying. This book was written by Alan Bomack, who also wrote The Invisible Assassins. I enjoyed this book more than the earlier one.
I know I’ve read a bunch of these books this year. I promise I’m reading some headier work more slowly. Ask anyone.
Also, note this is an investment grade men’s adventure novel. Inside the back cover, there’s a price tag for $1, but on the back, the price tag from when my beautiful wife bought this for my birthday is $1.13. This book increased in value 13%. I mean, down from it’s original price of $2.25, but it’s rebounding, baby. I should buy a bunch of them!
Basically, the city of Joplin picked one company to spend a lot of government money, the company didn’t do much but spend the money, lawsuits ensued, and meanwhile, the people and businesses of Joplin lived their lives and livelihoods which involved building things without top-down direction and money-spending.
So the News-Leader is running a reflection on the phenomenon.
I didn’t read it. If you do, remember that the next time the city (any city, or any town) proposes a five-year-plan or other central planning device, the twenty-somethings at the News-Leader will laud it.
On a lark, I ordered a small jar of Vegemite, the Australian sandwich spread. Come on, you know, the one mentioned in Men at Work’s “Men Down Under”:
So yesterday was the day to try it out. I made a sandwich for myself and a couple small quarters for my children to try, and….
I had one bite. Which I managed to chew and completely swallow. Although not in the time it took me to throw the rest of the sandwich out.
Never in my life have I had a hankering for a beer/sardine/salt/coffee sandwich.
Although my children started complaining about it before it was served in their normal resistance to something new, I came to agree with them, and they tried it themselves after I took my bite and reacted comically to it.
I mean, I grew up in poverty, but my family was not poor enough to serve this.
I’m blessed to have grown up in a bountiful land where one can go pick food from outdoors instead of a desert surrounded by twenty-foot-long crocodiles.
The wikihistory of Vegemite is that an entrepreneur wanted to make a food out of industrial by-products. And he did it.
God help me, I saw in the Wiki entry that they use it as a pastry filling. I suspect that the Australians do this to keep other people away from their doughnuts.
You know why Australian rules football is so vicious? The winners get a Vegemite sandwich. The losers get a year’s supply of Vegemite and a sixty-DVD Paul Hogan complete film set.
It does give me a couple insights into the Men At Work song, though. Now I know why Australian men chunder.
Needless to say, of the 220 grams of Vegemite shipped to Nogglestead from England, the total consumed was probably a gram before I dumped the jar in the garbage. Which I’m frankly afraid to admit on the Internet lest it’s a felony to dump Vegemite in an American landfill.
I don’t know where I bought this book, but I know why I picked it up recently: because my soon-to-be ten-year-old has recently acquired a taste for all things Simpsons from a couple of books he’s gotten, and he wanted to read this one, but I wouldn’t let him until I’d read it. In a manner befitting Bart and Lisa, he asked me repeatedly, multiple times daily, whether I was reading the book yet and, if I was not doing anything, whether I could not better spend the time reading the book.
It’s an episode guide to the shorts from The Tracey Ullman Show and the first eight seasons of The Simpsons. Not to make you feel old, old man, but this is a twenty-year-old guide to The Simpsons. Apparently, there has been at least one additional book for completeness’ evolving sake. For each episode, there’s a synopsis, a character highlighted, a number of jokes you might have missed, some notable quotes, ties to other Simpsons episodes, and things to identify what movies or whatnot the episode lampooned. After each season, there’s a compendium listing of things like the times Homer says, “D’oh!” or “Mmmm….” That’s about it. Much to my child’s chagrin, it took me a number of weeks to go through the complete book, as I could only make it a couple of episodes at a sitting.
Of course, what’s a good book/episode guide without double-effect nostalgia. As I read the book, I see the air date at the top and remember what I was doing around that particular time. Watching The Adventures of Beans Baxter instead of the Simpsons on Fox; graduating high school; going to college; working in a grocery after college; receiving the email from the woman who would become my wife; and so on. Additionally, I started watching the Simpsons on DVD around 2004 (as mentioned here), so some of the episodes are familiar from my pre-parental, stay up until two o’clock work-from-home days (as opposed to my current parental stay up until nine o’clock work-from-home days). So I remember watching them on the eMac in my office as I worked or after I finished work or live-blogging the Republican National Convention of the era.
The jokes, the humor, and their relevance remain but change over time. Much of the stuff lampooned still holds true, although some of it might seem dated to kids from today. But not all of it. And sometimes you can apply the gags to your own life. For example, I read Bart saying Branson is like Las Vegas if Ned Flanders ran it. I read this in Branson on vacation this week. So it’s not quite Jeopardy!-esque as the nexus of all knowledge, but.
At any rate, interesting as a fill-in reader for moments when you don’t have a lot of time for Kierkegaard. Or to educate your children on late 20th century animation.
