For $45.40/Hour, Strange Old Men and Sticky Hands Aren’t So Bad

This past Sunday morning, my wife and I loaded up the back of her truck with all of our empty soda cans and bottles and headed to the closest grocery store to get a jump on the crowds. It was 7:30 am.

To our dismay, we weren’t the only ones looking to beat the crowds. An elderly man was in there. He didn’t have any returnables but he was “guarding” one of the can machines. That’s okay — there are two more machines that accept cans.

My wife and I proceeded to insert can after can after can after can. Then, my wife machine stopped taking in anymore. Must be full.

She then decided to start feeding the plastic bottle machines. Those weren’t taking any more either. Ugh. She went inside the grocery store to summon some help.

I kept on plugging away at my can machine.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the old guy grabbing cans from my wife’s carriage and feeding them into the machine he was “guarding” when we arrived. I looked over, smiled, then said thanks thinking he was just one of those old friendly guys helping out a nice young lady — my wife.

Then he hit the “Receipt” button and walked out. Um…

Okay, so he stole, like, 80 cents from us. Whatever, he probably needs it more than we do. I wasn’t going to chase him. Still, the nerve of some people!

So my wife returns with a very unfriendly employee who disappears behind a locked door to “fix” the can and bottle machines.

My wife says to me, regarding the can machine that she was feeding before she went inside to get help, “Hey, did you cash out this machine?”

“No.”

Well, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who cashed it out…

Yeah, the old guy.

He was still milling about the parking lot. We shrugged our shoulders, both agreeing that it wasn’t worth making a scene over, and proceeded to stick can after can into the machines.

Finally, we were left with nothing but plastic bottles. Well, the grocery store employee failed to “fix” those machines.

Good help is so hard to find.

While my wife went back inside the grocery story to claim our loot from the courtesy desk (if you’re unfamiliar with the can machines, they print out voucher receipt things), I started to consolidate all of the plastic bottles that we apparently weren’t going to be able to return today into one cart to make it easier to take back to the truck.

The old guy comes in again.

Apparently, he’s now under the impression that I’m giving HIM the bottles. Not sure where he got that idea.

I’m doing my best to use my body to shield the bottles from his grasp.

He was a little slow, not physically — if you catch my drift, and had some prepared story about donating them to the Boy Scouts or something.

That was probably true, I recall something about the Cub Scouts doing a can and bottle drive, but he’d already “taken” a donation from us earlier. These bottles were mine.

“No, we’re keeping these bottles because the machines aren’t working, thanks…”

I wheeled the cart out to the truck and started tossing them into the bed of the truck back. Then I stood guard.

I had to.

How ridiculous is that? He came out to the truck with his Boy Scout story again. Unbelievable.

“Yeah, no thanks. We’re keeping these bottles.”

Then he walked away, finally, and got into his beat up Ford Taurus station wagon and sloooooooowwwwwly drove away.

At this point, I concluded that he wasn’t collecting stuff for the Boy Scouts. He was collecting them for himself.

Very strange.

His speech was super slow, a little slurred, and he sported a trace of a Polish accent, but like I said, he seemed a little slow. He didn’t appear to be a drunk.

He was far too well put together to be a homeless guy collecting cans. Didn’t smell. His clothes weren’t anything unusual for a guy of his age. Besides, homeless guys are smarter than to hit up can redemption centers at 7:30 am on a Sunday.

My wife finally comes out of the grocery store with cash in hand. In less than an hour, we’d returned 908 cans for $45.40.

Had the plastic bottle machines been up and running, we’d have easily cleared $50.

Not bad for a Sunday morning…

Oh, and yes, I realize that the title of this post can be interpreted several different ways…but get your mind out of the gutter…

Posted on August 19th, 2008 at 6:01 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance | 3 Comments »

PMI Cancellation Request (3rd Attempt)

Hopefully today is the day that my 40 day PMI saga concludes.

Countrywide has corrected Friday’s $1500 mistake and the balance on my mortgage is now less than 78% of the original value.

Even Countrywide’s website says so:

Combine that with the FTC‘s claim:

For home mortgages signed on or after July 29, 1999, your PMI must be terminated automatically when you reach 22 percent equity in your home based on the original property value, if your mortgage payments are current. Your PMI also can be canceled, when you request – with certain exceptions – when you reach 20 percent equity in your home based on the original property value, if your mortgage payments are current.

So here goes nothing… I’m going to submit another request to Countrywide to have my PMI canceled.

Hopefully this time I won’t get the same form letter that I’ve already received twice…

Posted on August 18th, 2008 at 7:43 am by Brainy Smurf
PMI - Mortgage Insurance | 9 Comments »

Uncomfortable Social Situations

Ever get stuck talking to someone that you’d really rather not be stuck talking to?

I’m not talking about how sometimes it seems like you’re the go-to guy when someone needs the time or something. Though I don’t wear a watch, and that’s plainly visible to all around me, it seems that anytime I’m in a public place, a stranger will single me out and ask if I have the time.

Because I don’t regularly carry a cell phone either, the answer has always been, “Nope, sorry…”

Anyway, last weekend at the casino while waiting in line (for 3+ hours) to get into the They Might Be Giants show, we ended up behind a kid that was by himself.

I’m not one to judge — actually, I am, but I wasn’t on this occasion… I’ve gone to concerts by myself too. It’s one of those things that you almost have to do when you’re not really into Top 40 or mainstream music. Or hockey. Why doesn’t anyone like hockey?

Anyway, to better pass the time, pretty much everyone who stands in line by themselves is sorta looking for someone to talk to and something to talk about.

While I would have been perfectly happy silently observing people at the blackjack tables right near us, or just commenting on all the people walking by with my wife, this kid needed to talk to someone and I was the someone because I just happened to be the guy right behind him.

At first, it was a pleasant banter like, “How many times have you seen TMBG?” or “Where are you guys from?”

That’s fine. I answered honestly and kinda figured the conversation that I wasn’t real keen on having anyway would fizzle out in a few minutes and I could go back to playing blackjack over some stranger’s shoulder.

But he wouldn’t stop. And he was weird!

“I play bass in a two man band. That’s all I have to say about that…” And then he’d, like, air guitar some bass lines and wiggle his fingers.

Um… Okay?

I mean, how am I supposed to pleasantly respond to that? In any other situation, I would have smiled politely and walked away, but I wasn’t about to give up my place in line.

As the time passed, and more awkward moments ensued, he decided that we should list the TMBG songs that we hate.

Yeah, that’s a great idea. Here we are standing in line to see a band that we supposedly both like a lot, so let’s list out their songs that suck. Yep, that sounds fun…

Huh?

I played along and apparently every song that I wasn’t real fond of (or pretended not to like) was one of his favorites. I get it; he wants to be Mr. Confrontational.

This whole time, I’m thinking, “Please let this conversation end.”

Then he went on a bit of a tangent talking about how he works a dead-end nightshift job at a gas station and how sometimes guys in their 60′s will come in to buy cigarettes or something and say “Hey there, what kind of music do you listen to?” and he responds with something rude like, “Yeah, let’s not go there. We’re just wasting both of our times…” because he’s in to bands like, well, he listed off a bunch of indie crap that I’d never heard of.

Now I’m thinking, okay, not only is this kid a social weirdo, he’s a rude jerk too… I should have told him an hour ago that I didn’t really want to talk to him… Too late for that now…

I told him my second favorite band was the Jonas Brothers… No, I’m just kidding.

Then he started to list off all of the TMBG albums he had as if to impress me or something. Yeah, kid, of the 200 or so people standing in this line, I’m pretty sure 80% of them have every album you do. Then he started contradicting statements he’d made earlier when listing the songs he hated…

“Yeah, this song sucks, this one too, that one… Basically tracks 1-12 are terrible.” An hour later, to him, that album “was a pretty strong record. That’s all I have to say about that.” Sigh…

Apparently, “That’s all I have to say about that” was his tagline. He didn’t say it like Forrest Gump, but I couldn’t help but hear it that way.

Then he started quizzing me so as to show me up or something. I think that in some ways I surprised him with my knowledge. I mean, physically, I don’t scream psycho fanatical fan of a band few have ever heard of. But at the same time, I do happen to know about as much as those psycho fanatical fans. I just keep it in the closet.

Fine, you can be the bigger fan than me — that’s fine. I let him win. I’m perfectly happy owning all of the albums, knowing all of the words, and going to a concert or two every time they come to my area. He can be the guy who drives 8 hours for free shows for a band that endlessly tours in New England anyway and recite set lists of shows he never attended. (Kinda reminds me of those guys in high school that could recite the batting order of the 1927 NY Yankees, but wouldn’t actually swing a bat in gym class…)

Then, as if he hadn’t said enough, he started to get all philosophical… Talking about how such and such an album was the soundtrack to a really nostalgic part of his life…

Um, yeah, I really don’t care. That’s your life, not mine, and quite honestly, yeah, I just really don’t care. Of course, I didn’t vocalize my thoughts…

Finally, around a half hour passed without him saying anything… I thought I was home free.

Then he turned around and said, “Have we met before because you look really familiar?”

Having never actually been inside a gas station before, I said, “Nope, don’t think so. Unless you were at this show last year. Or the year before. Or at a show in Lenox, Massachusetts back in 1992…”

At the mention of 1992, he was shocked and asked, “How old are you?” I told him I’d be 32 in a few days… He said he was 25. Hmmm, might explain why we had pretty much nothing in common (other than this band).

He turned back around. It was at his time that I started to do a little math in my head… The album that he claimed to be the soundtrack of the most nostalgic time in his life came out in 1990. He would have been seven.

I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t having many eventful life altering moments when I was seven. At the very least, nothing that I would call “nostalgic” to a complete stranger.

I had some pretty sweet birthday parties at that age and a few nasty wipe-outs on my bike that I recall, but really, nothing that would make me all misty eyed now thinking of days gone by. Maybe that time I drew a moustache on myself with a sharpie. Nah, that was just cool.

Then, as luck would have it, a weathered sketchy dude (there are a lot of them at the casino) came up to the line, like many passersby do, and asked who was playing tonight. The kid responded, “They Might Be Giants”.

The dude, looked over at my wife and said, “Smurfette?”

Sketchy Galore knew my wife!

Nice guy, but the type that you’d almost expect to find at a casino. Yeah, that sounds like a dig, and it sort of is, but I really had nothing against him. He seemed like a nice personable guy and better yet, he’d actually seen They Might Be Giants before. Probably back around 1992… Basically, in this line and at the time, he was an ally that I wanted to have. Gave me some street cred — through association.

He hadn’t seen my wife in over a decade so it was a really neat moment (dare I say nostalgic?) for her.

For me, I was like, cool, this guy probably scares the crap out of the kid in front of me and now that he can see that we’re like friends or something, he’ll leave me alone.

He and my wife caught up for a few minutes and at the end, they sighed, “Small world… Great seeing you.”

I was thinking to myself, yep, small world but a big freakin’ casino.

Now, last year I mentioned that one of the members of the band, John Flansburgh, worked the line handing out stickers before the show and how I was shocked that no one in the line seemed to know who he was. Honestly, they treated him like an average roadie or something.

This year, about an hour before show time, the other member of the band, John Linnell, walked right by the line twice in an “I’m lost” sort of way (obviously trying to get his bearings before finding something to eat before the show). My wife noticed him, gave me the nudge, and I was like, holy crap, that really is him. Cool.

Again, this year, no one in the line noticed it.

Even the kid in front of me didn’t acknowledge it. Wait a minute, this kid was just claiming to be their biggest fan ever and he doesn’t even know what they look like… What’s up with that?

As if it couldn’t get any worse, he turned back around and said, “You know, you look like a combination of two people I know…”

I snidely responded, “Oh, you’ve met my parents?”

This response got a chuckle out of the woman behind me in line. I had a feeling she was feeling my pain listening in to this epic conversation that was clearly uncomfortable from the start. She lucked out and chatted with my wife for a bit while I was stuck keeping the socially challenged occupied…

When the venue finally opened, we thankfully weren’t seated at the same table as him… Big sigh of relief.

This year, again, we were to the left of the stage, but also again, less than 10 feet from the band.

Total bill for the night was $4.

Tonight’s free show is Charo. Cuchi-cuchi!

Speaking of Charo – the kid in front of me had never heard of her… Does he live in a cave? She even did a Geico commercial?!

Anyway, we’re not going… Can you imagine the people in that line?

Posted on August 16th, 2008 at 6:48 am by Brainy Smurf
Life, Music | 1 Comment »

Searching for a ‘New’ Car with 150k Miles on It

So we are looking for a car.

It’s the season.

We lost the Sable when a deer slammed into it.

That left us two vehicles — our intrepid 1995 Taurus and our diligent and appropriately appointed 1991 Volkswagen Fox.

As you can see, we do not buy new cars here.

Although, that was not always the case.

Early in our married life together, when the future looked bright in every way, Mary and I bought two new cars back to back.

The first was stingy on gas and practical — a Plymouth Horizon. You remember, Plymouth’s answer to the VW Rabbit. The car was ice blue, with cloth seats and got over 30 miles to the gallon around town and better on the highway. And Mary and I took good care of that car.

Until the car was rear-ended as she waited to enter I-91.

Then, we bought our navy blue Taurus wagon. If we could have, we would still be driving it. But the car bottomed out at 216,000 miles. Who says American cars can’t break 200,000? At the end, the car could not make it up Kelly’s Hill, and we let it go.

Since then, it has been a menagerie of cars, mostly Volvo wagons with over 200,000 miles on them, and Tauruses with over 150,000. The kids, who were so young once, do not quite remember the salad days when we drove new cars. They pine for something that looks good and runs well.

And this, I confess, makes me a bad father because I continue to settle on these old clunkers with no car payments and short lives. At least, they are safe, but even now I worry because the Fox does not have airbags.

So we are looking for a car.

This is how I go about it.

I get on the internet and check craigslist. You can find anything on craigslist, especially, cars, car parts, whatever might have once resembled a car to an actual fine car with a pedigree like a Benz or Lexus.

When I find cars, I email the link to my kids for their approval.

For instance, I found an Escort in Southington, whose owner was just tired of the car and wanted to get rid of it for $500. Bingo.

Then there was a 1988 Honda Accord in Meriden. The car had 139,000 original miles. A Honda with 139,000 miles. Come on, that is like a new car, even though it was built in 1988.

The list goes on, but you get the point.

From there, we looked at cars in Manchester, Norwich, and Norwalk.

I didn’t stop.

I found a Saab in Manchester, N.H., that looked good and added it to the list.

“Dad, what are you doing?” one kid asked me. “I called for that Saab. It’s in New Hampshire. The guy who answered the phone told me I was crazy to drive all that way for an $800 car.”

“Come on,” I said, “it would be fun. We’ll drive up, spend time with Uncle Harold, and check out the car.”

Of course, I have no idea what registering an out of state car would be like, and would I really like to be driving back and forth to complete the paperwork.

Heck, it sounded like a good idea.

Another choice was the 1983 BMW 320i with only 140,000 miles on it. That would be a fun car to own.

And it would fit our budget.

I did tell you I’m working with a budget — between $500 and $700.

I feel somewhat guilty about that.

I mean how good can a car that’s going for that paltry sum really be?

I’m going to be sending my kids out in one of these. Am I crazy?

“Dad,” I heard from one of the 20-somethings, “you know I’m not materialistic, having grown up in this household, but I do think aesthetics are important.”

Aesthetics.

Just to make sure I knew what was being addressed I looked up the definition: Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary states: “1. a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of the beautiful and with judgments concerning beauty 2. the description and explanation of artistic phenomena and aesthetic experience by means of other sciences.”

It was two days later when I responded, “I’ve been thinking about what you said about aesthetics. I’ll tell you what aesthetics is. Aesthetics is getting from point A to point B with good gas mileage and safely.”

“I figured.”

Go figure.

At least I know all the money we’re spending on college and not on cars, isn’t going to waste.

This was a freelance column in the local weekly in town. You know, the page in the middle that’s geared towards the blue-hairs out there.

I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that I’m lone reader in the 18-35 age demographic for the entire newspaper, actually, not just the middle page. Yes, the type is even larger on this page. I’m not kidding.

Anyway, I just though it was a neat story and, to a certain degree, something that I wish I could do.

Just think — a $500 car would only have to last around 60 days before you’d be saving substantial money by driving it. Best of all, you could theoretically have a “new” car every few months. That’d be pretty neat.

My only hurdle is the fact that I don’t really know anything about servicing a car. I mean, I can change a tire and even top-up the washer fluid (though I’ve only done that once), but that’s where I draw the line.

So, obviously, I’m not a great candidate for driving a clunker on its last legs.

Posted on August 15th, 2008 at 1:21 pm by Brainy Smurf
Bargains, Cutting Costs, Life | No Comments »

I don’t F’ing Believe It…

I logged in to my Countrywide account to submit my latest requested to have PMI canceled and it threw me into an internal rage.

I’ve been sending Countrywide additional principle payments on a weekly basis for over a year now.

Not a single hitch. Not one.

Today, they decide to apply my extra payment (yeah, the one that will eliminate PMI) towards interest and escrow instead of principle.

WTF?!

I put in a request for them to correct it and the response: “Your request will be personally reviewed, therefore, please allow 2 business days for your request to be processed.”

This, being a Thursday, means they won’t do anything until Monday.

Okay, I’m jumping on the bandwagon now…

Countrywide sucks.

Posted on August 14th, 2008 at 11:25 am by Brainy Smurf
Mortgage, PMI - Mortgage Insurance, Rants | 3 Comments »

Set It and Forget It: Extra Modest 15-Week Payment Plan

In an effort to boost my savings rate more rapidly, I’ve set-up a payment plan that will pay down the $1500 credit card convenience check I wrote to myself earlier this week.

Yeah, the check that I used to accelerate the PMI cancellation process by a few weeks.

In the past, with a $1545 balance ($1500 + $45 transaction fee) hanging over my head, I would have attacked it like crazy until it was gone. I’m thinking… two payments.

Problem being, using that method, I’d continue to be broke well into September. Maybe even October.

I’ve felt tapped out for a few months now already and I really need to get a comfortable buffer so that I’m not right up against the wall for a few weeks each month — you know, when your checking account balance is less than 4 figures…

It’s funny, that used to be the norm. Now it just makes me nervous.

So I set up an automatic payment plan through Bank of America to pay Chase $103 every Friday for the next 15 weeks.

I realize that the balance is at 0% until May of 2009, so to make the most of my money, I should just pay the minimum until April, but I’d really prefer to be 100% debt free by the end of the year instead of leaving a small balance just kind of swaying in the breeze for months and months.

This way, by November 21st, the credit card balance will be back to zero. The PMI should be long canceled. And the car should be paid off.

Total cost to me? That $45 transaction fee. I can handle that.

I’ll then have the whole month of December to “practice” saving instead of making debt payments before we slide into 2009…

Posted on August 14th, 2008 at 7:49 am by Brainy Smurf
Credit Card, Finance | 2 Comments »

Yet Another Automatic Insurance Payment for Coverage I Don’t Need

Add another $85.15 to the amount I’ve needlessly paid for Private Mortgage Insurance.

Yep, as I predicted last month when I first reached the threshold required to request PMI cancellation, Countrywide really is going to squeeze every last penny out of me.

Total, that I feel has been stolen from me, is now $170.30.

Do you know what an additional $85.15 per month towards principle instead insurance I don’t need anymore would have gotten me?

According to Countrywide’s very own ‘Amortization Schedule Calculator’, a monthly payment in that amount ($85.15) would save me almost $17k in interest and knock over 7 years off of my mortgage. That’s a big deal.

I’m not planning on letting them “steal” $17k from me.

Tomorrow, with another $1500 being applied towards the principle, I’ll make my third attempt at getting them to drop it once and for all.

At this point, now that I will have exceeded the federal auto cancellation mark, I can’t imagine they’ll turn me down.

Actually, I take that back… I can imagine that.

I almost expect it.

Any one wanna bet they hit me up for $85.15 in September too?

Grrrrr…

Posted on August 13th, 2008 at 3:32 pm by Brainy Smurf
PMI - Mortgage Insurance | No Comments »

Shuffling Debt: My Impatience has Gotten the Better of Me…

Using one of those 0% credit card offers, I wrote a $1500 check to myself and deposited it into my checking account yesterday as a pseudo birthday present to myself.

Once the check clears, probably today, I intend to send all $1500 towards my mortgage to put myself beyond the 22% mark on the balance which should kick off the automatic cancellation of PMI.

I have a sinking feeling that when I put in my third cancellation request that Countrywide will come back and say, “No, you actually need to hit the 25% mark before we cancel the PMI… Oh, and please send us an additional $135 too!”

A response like that will be deflating…

By the numbers alone, I would have made this benchmark later this month without taking this short-term loan but I feel a little bit more comfortable doing it this way as I’m not tapping myself out.

In reality, I’m not really taking on more debt — I’m just shuffling it around a bit to a lower interest rate. At least, that’s how I’m justifying it to myself…

From here on out, I’m going to relax the mortgage paydown pace and focus more on the auto loan. That should be finished in short order at which point I’ll focus more heavily on savings.

Oh, and let’s not forget the new $1500 balance I’ll have on my Chase credit card…

Posted on August 13th, 2008 at 5:16 am by Brainy Smurf
Credit Card, Finance, PMI - Mortgage Insurance | 7 Comments »

Addendum to 2008 Goals

I’ve already stated that I’m throwing in the towel on the $10k in savings by the end of the year. At the time, it was still remotely possible to achieve, but now, a few weeks later, it’s not a goal that I’m confident that I can accomplish.

And I’m not sure if anyone has noticed that I’ve mysteriously misplaced a couple of my original goals…

One was to run a marathon in a competitive fashion and the other was to increase my passive income.

The first isn’t happening. No way, no how. I’ve got the shoes. I’ve got the time. But I don’t have the stamina. I’ve given it the “old college try” a few times this summer — running 6 or 7 consecutive days in a row — but an eventual bout of asthma always put a stop to it before I really got into a good routine.

It’s just not there anymore, and this late in the game, I’m not sure I could even get up to speed to run that far in time for the NYC Marathon in November (sponsored by ING — how appropriate!). Maybe next year.

The other goal was to increase my passive income considerably. I stated that I wanted to triple it in 2008. Yikes! What was I thinking?

So far, I have definitely increased my passive income over years past, but not by a whole lot. Certainly not triple. From day one, it was an unrealistic goal.

That’s okay. As long as I’m working less and still making a few bucks as I sleep, it’s all good. And I think the entire idea stemmed from the fact that I knew I wanted to work less — I just didn’t want to earn less too. So, looking at it that way, I half-way accomplished the goal since I am definitely working less. Kinda? Sorta?

But the new goal I’m adding stems from a comment made by Coupon Artist earlier this month. She inquired as to why I’d increase my 401k contributions more (I’ve already hit the maximum match) when I could be contributing to an IRA instead.

I admitted to my ignorance on the subject, but having read up on it a bit over the past few days, rather than strive for the $10k in savings this year, I’m going to instead open a Roth IRA with Vanguard and contribute the full $5k before the end of the year (though I’m aware I could wait all the way up until April 15, 2009).

I still can’t really grasp the advantages of a Roth IRA, but in the long-term picture, having some money there certainly can’t hurt.

Posted on August 12th, 2008 at 5:43 am by Brainy Smurf
2008 Goals, Finance, Roth IRA | 4 Comments »

Value Dropping Every Minute

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it in the past before on PIAC, but since I quit my photographer position last November, I’ve had around $30k worth of camera equipment essentially collecting dust in the corner of my, ahem, jersey room.

While the lenses and the lighting equipment hold their value, the actual camera bodies certainly do not — and they make up for at least half of that $30k total. Definitely a depreciating asset…

So, having noticed a blog that my wife frequents regularly has a “daily photo” section and that I’ve got tons and tons of expensive camera equipment doing a whole lot of nothing, well, I thought I’d start doing “picture of the day” posts here too!

It probably won’t be popular.

It probably won’t be nice to look at.

And it probably won’t generate any comments either but I can’t fathom selling the equipment off and it hurts to watch it go un-used.

Maybe I’ll even use January 2007′s “Dumbest Purchase”.

Not sure when I’ll start…or even if I’ll start.

It’s just an idea at this point.

Posted on August 10th, 2008 at 7:49 am by Brainy Smurf
Blogging?, Motivation, Photo | 4 Comments »

I Just Saved a Bunch of Money on my Car Insurance…

But I didn’t call Geico.

Maybe I should have?

15 Minutes are so hard to find these days…

I also doubt that Mrs. Butterworth would have answered the phone there anyway and that would’ve left me somewhat disappointed…

Anyway, it all started last week when I received my renewal notice from Allstate.

Yes, the same Allstate that screwed me over royally with my homeowners insurance.

To their defence, they’re also the same Allstate that didn’t raise my premiums after I essentially totaled my BMW.

It’s a love/hate relationship.

Anyway, I recognize the moderately thick square envelope every time it arrives and it’s never good news — basically nothing more than a HUGE bill.

My premium this time was $1102.20 for the next six months.

That’s actually up around $31 since this time last year.

Sure, that covers my two cars but, even still, I’ve always felt that $2200 per year was a little steep. Perhaps not after the accident, but prior to that, definitely.

So flipping through the entire policy, and thinking about raising my deductible or just plain lowering some of my coverage to save a few bucks I noticed that it listed me as a “32 year old single male.”

A few problems with that… First, I’m only 31. Second, I’m married. That last part is factual. I am male.

Now, in addition, I’d received one of those canned cold-call emails in the middle of the night from my Allstate insurance agent. You know the kind. After they’ve made their pitch for something they always close with the standard, “If you have any questions about your policy, please don’t hesitate to ask!”

Okay…

I filled out the online form and said, “I got married back in 2006 but my policy still lists me as single. Will that get me any sort of discount? Please?”

I didn’t bother to mention the age issue as I’ll be 32 by the time the policy takes effect.

My agent’s secretary responded yesterday morning via email asking me to call the office to “confirm” the marriage.

After spending 4 minutes and 20 seconds on the phone during my lunch hour, I’m happy to report that my new 6-month premium is $885.40.

Over the span of a year, that’s over $400 less! That’s HUGE!

But now I’m kicking myself for being so friendly… I should have demanded the discount retroactively for the past 2 years…

Nah, a $400 savings is good enough for me…

Posted on August 8th, 2008 at 7:42 am by Brainy Smurf
Cutting Costs, Insurance | 2 Comments »

Let the Games Begin!

I’m pretty excited for the Olympics to get going tonight (actually, later this morning).

Just this week my wife and I were talking about how we haven’t been watching much television lately. We don’t watch anything in prime time actually. (No, the conversation never turned anywhere near the idea of canceling cable to save money…)

But starting tonight, I think we’ll have something somewhat interesting to watch every night of the week! That is, if NBC doesn’t over sensationalize every single thing an American athlete does or has done…

I’m not really interested about how Amanda Beard loves animals, hates China, and likes to pose nude. I could really care less. The Olympics aren’t the place to go out and make a political statement or stage a protest. And she’s a freakin’ competitor?! Just jump in the pool and swim — in a regular bathing suit…

My first experience of unbiased Olympic coverage was back in 1992 for the Albertville Winter Games. At the time, I was in Germany and the television coverage was far from all German, all the time — even though they were speaking German.

It didn’t leave a huge impression on me back then, but for the last Summer Games in Athens, we happened to be in Canada and CBC’s coverage brought the memories rushing back.

It was… refreshing.

In response to NBC’s alleged over-reporting of the US athletes, Bob Costas recently responded, “Are Americans somewhat more interested in American performers? Of course they are, but we don’t insult the intelligence of the audience. They’re interested in any good story where ever it may appear.”

Okay, Bob… But, NBC does insult the intelligence of the audience.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Team Handball on NBC’s prime time coverage. Could it be because the United States is terrible at the sport? Do they forbid televising an event where the Americans get crushed or fail to even show up?

I dunno, the NBC coverage gets a little boring and old when you just keep on seeing one American after another win gold. That’s fine though, I’d agree that stuff should be covered. It’s a huge accomplishment.

But really, there aren’t that many events at the Olympics and they should probably show *every* medal winning performance whether an American is on the podium or not.

I’d appreciate that.

I doubt that I’m alone.

Based on their past coverage, to the casual fan, the US has apparently pitched a shutout against the world.

I mean, would it hurt to show, I dunno, the gold medal game in Team Handball between Denmark and South Korea? At the very least, it might enlighten a few of the geography-challenged out there.

I’m only using Team Handball as an example because it’s one of those games that I don’t even really understand, but it’s a fascinating thing to see. It’s fast, it’s rough, and it’s exciting. And every single one of the players is anonymous to me. That alone disqualifies its entertainment value for NBC, it seems.

NBC doesn’t seem to understand that to make great television, the public doesn’t need some sob-story background on the athlete from the wrong side of the tracks who’s bound for glory. I know I don’t need that.

I’d be perfectly happy if I never heard the names Michael Phelps, Dara Torres, on Shawn Johnson again…

And the games haven’t even started yet!?

Can you say, overexposed?

Posted on August 8th, 2008 at 6:25 am by Brainy Smurf
Current Events, Rants, Television | No Comments »