Flight of the Conchords is a new HBO show about the self-proclaimed "formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular folk-parody duo." Generally the show has been pretty hit and miss and I can't really say that I like the show, but sometimes the songs during the episodes are hilarious. This is my favorite, and doesn't require ever having watched the show...
7.23.2007
7.15.2007
Almost there...
We are getting closer to being home owners by the minute. I don't think everyone knows the whole story so we'll play a quick game of catch up and recap:
1) We made our third offer on a townhouse a couple of weeks ago that was in a neighborhood we really like and was priced to sell
2) Intense negotiations ensued on things like the asking price, closing date, and if the fridge had an ice maker (surprisingly the fridge does not have one)
3) The sellers proceeded to change their mind about three times on when they actually wanted to move out, which left us with this complex agreement: closing on July 31st with an offer to pay our rent for August, plus they want to stay in the house until August 13th and rent back from us during that time.
4) Once the closing date was all of a sudden very soon, we began hustling on things like getting a loan, inspection, and insurance
5) Our home inspection revealed an interesting problem in the roof. As with many townhomes and condos built in the early 1980s, the roof contains plywood treated with a fire retardant chemical (called FRT plywood) that was designed to reduce the spreading of fire among adjacent units. Unfortunately, someone forget to check if attic temperatures over 120 or so degrees would cause the same chemical reaction to occur and essentially break down the plywood without a fire present. So half of our roof has plywood that is breaking down (apparently the sellers got gypped when getting a new a roof in 2002 because they were shocked as well), but it sounds like they will replace the roof
6) And finally we changed our lender at the last minute, to take advantage of less fees from a local lender on some good advice from our real estate agent - this was a pain to do but worth it for the extra $$.
In a nutshell, we are really close to finishing this up. Here are two pictures showing off the nice hardwood floors from the entry way and the back brick patio attached to the walkout basement:
1) We made our third offer on a townhouse a couple of weeks ago that was in a neighborhood we really like and was priced to sell
2) Intense negotiations ensued on things like the asking price, closing date, and if the fridge had an ice maker (surprisingly the fridge does not have one)
3) The sellers proceeded to change their mind about three times on when they actually wanted to move out, which left us with this complex agreement: closing on July 31st with an offer to pay our rent for August, plus they want to stay in the house until August 13th and rent back from us during that time.
4) Once the closing date was all of a sudden very soon, we began hustling on things like getting a loan, inspection, and insurance
5) Our home inspection revealed an interesting problem in the roof. As with many townhomes and condos built in the early 1980s, the roof contains plywood treated with a fire retardant chemical (called FRT plywood) that was designed to reduce the spreading of fire among adjacent units. Unfortunately, someone forget to check if attic temperatures over 120 or so degrees would cause the same chemical reaction to occur and essentially break down the plywood without a fire present. So half of our roof has plywood that is breaking down (apparently the sellers got gypped when getting a new a roof in 2002 because they were shocked as well), but it sounds like they will replace the roof
6) And finally we changed our lender at the last minute, to take advantage of less fees from a local lender on some good advice from our real estate agent - this was a pain to do but worth it for the extra $$.
In a nutshell, we are really close to finishing this up. Here are two pictures showing off the nice hardwood floors from the entry way and the back brick patio attached to the walkout basement:
7.01.2007
An American Tradition...
Switching gears a little bit from previous posts (another housing update will hopefully appear soon), I was inspired by this post the other weekend after Ben pulled ahead of Rob and Sarah for most times spending the night in our apartment. One morning, we ended watching what was perhaps the greatest gladiator themed show of our generation, American Gladiators. Thankfully American Gladiators comes on Saturday morning on ESPN Classic, allowing us to continually enjoy this American classic.
We got to see a two of my favorite events:
While doing a little research for this article, I did stumble upon a game called Gauntlet, that I only very vaguely remembered seeing. I think this may prove to be a key clue to the origin of the game Gauntlet (or more like Super-Gauntlet) that we used to play in our college apartment that contained a long, narrow hallway. Instead of the one-on-one version we used to play, it was one player versus 5 gladiators. If you check out the video here you'll notice that some of the pads look strangely like a vacuum cleaner once used in the seldom played version called Super-Gauntlet.
Just one more clip that perfectly captures the cheese factor. If you never watched the show, I think its spirit is best summed up here:
We got to see a two of my favorite events:
- Powerball - the idea of this game was to insert balls into one of several cylinders before being killed by a gladiator (they were two players, three gladiators, and 5 cylinders). The hits in Powerball were pretty crazy: the tended to either be a vicious body slam or a shoulders and above hit. Check out the link to see Jazz rock in the woman's event.
- Assault - This was like the ultimate Nerf game. The player dodged tennis balls fired from a giant air cannon, and had to use various "nerf-like" weapons to try to hit a target. It always looked really fun to play, and you almost never saw a player hit the target.
While doing a little research for this article, I did stumble upon a game called Gauntlet, that I only very vaguely remembered seeing. I think this may prove to be a key clue to the origin of the game Gauntlet (or more like Super-Gauntlet) that we used to play in our college apartment that contained a long, narrow hallway. Instead of the one-on-one version we used to play, it was one player versus 5 gladiators. If you check out the video here you'll notice that some of the pads look strangely like a vacuum cleaner once used in the seldom played version called Super-Gauntlet.
Just one more clip that perfectly captures the cheese factor. If you never watched the show, I think its spirit is best summed up here:
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