(NOTE: This post is an updated copy of my 2012 post [see also: 2011, 2010,  2009,  2008])

(Check our your property value using the official Fairfax county link.)

THE BASIC SUMMARY: Our real estate assessment stayed the same. No up or down. To. the. dollar. That’s fishy. Seems like perhaps values went down slightly, but Fairfax County wanted to keep the tax revenue going. A 0.00% increase (house went up 0%, land went up 0%), which is obviously less than the average of yearly gains (5.8% a year on average, as of 2 years ago), and slightly less than last year’s 3% increase. Our house value increased $0 a month. That would make this the 4th worst year for our investment return, and the worst return of the last 3 years as well. But we’re still way ahead.

In 1999, we bought the house at  $141K.
In 2000, we  were  assessed  at  $142K.
In 2001, this  grew   by 3.5% to $147K.
In 2002, this  grew   by  39% to $205K.
In 2003, this  grew   by   3% to $211K.
In 2004, this  grew   by  24% to $261K.
In 2005, this  grew   by  34% to $349K.
In 2006, this  grew   by  13% to $395K. [addition basically complete]
In 2007, this  grew   by   3% to $406K  (peak)
In 2008, this dropped by   7% to $375K. [addition officially complete]
In 2009, this dropped by   3% to $364K.
In 2010, this dropped by  18% to $298K. (ouch)
In 2011, this  grew   by   3% to $307K. Finally a gain! 
In 2012, this  grew   by  ~3% to $316K.
In 2013, this   remained      at $316K.

We’re 22% down from our peak value. (But not 37% like 3 years ago)

The house is still worth 2.36X more than we owe on the mortgage (2012=2.32X,2011=2.27X).

We still owe $133.9K on our mortgage [2012=$136.1K].

In 2013, we owe about $2000 less on our mortgage than we did the prior year. [2012=we owed $700 MORE than the prior year due to refinance costs].

So we are still ahead (assessed value minus what is owed on the mortgage) by $182.0K. (2012=$179.8K, 2011=$171.7K, 2010=$163K).

However, our gain in getting ahead was only $2.2K this year, far less than previous years’ gain in being ahead. (2012=$8.1K, 2011=$8.7K).

We’ve lived here 13 years now, so that’s a running average of getting $12,997 ahead each year. This running average has been declining: 2012=$14,903,2011=$15,609.
Per month, that is $1083 ahead each month. [2012=$1249,2011=$1300] ahead each month.

Our mortgage is down to $1025 from  $1300 (refinanced), so this place seems to literally be paying for itself: It’s value goes up more each month, on average, over the entire time we’ve lived here… Than how much we pay each month!

(Of course, the addition wasn’t free, it was about $80K, so we’re really only $102.0K ahead (2012=$99.8K,2011=$91.7K), or only $7,283 ahead per year (2012=$8,317,2011=$8,336), or only about $606 (2012=$693,2011=$694) ahead each month. Still not shabby.))

These people who say houses aren’t a good investment don’t know what they’re talking about. Even if it’s value drops 90%, you’re still getting 10% more of your money back than if you were renting! And we’re sure as hell doing better than dropping 90%… We’re getting double our money back, assuming value holds.

We also have way more living space than people who pay the same amount: 2500 sq ft @ 1025/mo = 41 cents per square foot per month. People in this area (inside the D.C. beltway, or inside D.C. itself) are often paying rates 3-4X as much per square foot month.

Here’s the new graph:

2012’s graph:

2011’s graph:

More:

Broken down via land vs. building:

LAND:
2000: $71K
2001: $71K
2002: $90K (+27%)
2003: $100K (+11%)
2004: $150K (+50%)
2005: $184K (+23%)
2006: $166K (-10%) [addition completed]
2007: $166K
2008: $184K (+11%)
2009: $166K (-10%)
2010: $148K (-11%)
2011: $148K
2012: $152K (+2.7%)
2013: $152K

BUILDING:
2000: $71K
2001: $76K (+7%)
2002: $115K (+51%)
2003: $111K (-3%)
2004: $111K
2005: $165K (+49%) [addition possibly counted here]
2006: $229K (+39%) [addition completed]
2007: $241K (+5%)
2008: $192K (-20%)
2009: $198K (+3%)
2010: $150K (-24%)
2011: $159K (+6%)
2012: $164K (+3%)
2013: $164K

FOOTNOTE: 2006 was about when the construction was mostly finished, but due to problems with it being completely finished, it might not have been legally counted as finished until 2008.

RANDOM NOTE: The Google Chart Playground is very, very useful. Saves a lot of manual page refresheses…

Mood: did not want to type this up the day I re-installed windows!
Music: GWAR!!

THE END

ABUSE OF AUTHORITY: Philly Cop Found Not Guilty for Punching Woman on Camera

Fucking ridiculous. That is all.

Let us remember Philadelphia Police Lt. Jonathan Josey as the violent thug that he is.

Let s remember Judge Patrick Dugan as the judge who ruled police can punch us in the face if we are holding a beer.

LINK URL: http://www.photographyisnotacrime.com/2013/02/26/philly-cop-found-not-guilty-for-punching-woman-on-camera/

Here’s an old story… The year was probably around 1991 or so.

me, 1991ish

I would skip lunch every day during the week, so that I could pool my lunch money in addition to my $2/week allowance and be able to afford a new cassette each weekend at Potomac Mills
mall.

Random hot ‘older’ chick (now younger than me, I bet) that we dared Ravi to take a random picture of. Potomac Mills Mallrat days, 1991ish.

Occasionally, I would buy an album simply because I’d heard someone mention the name, or because I thought the cover art was good. Especially if it was on a label I liked, like Noise Records.

Dreamweaver: One of the greatest albums of all time.

There was no real way to find out about music. Everyone else’s taste sucked. For instance, to get my first Misfits album, I asked punks in the record store which one I should buy. They sent me home with Earth A.D.. Yay.

Earth A.D.: A great Misfits album to start with. If you can handle that, the rest will be easy. Here’s a drawing I traced from the Die Die My darling 12-inch vinyl single. DDMD is also on Earth A.D.

So anyway — this week, I decided to buy Slip It In, by Black Flag. Without knowing at all what it sounded like.

To this day, I can’t STAND Henry Rollins, OR HIS FUCKING NECK. (Except his open letter to Ann Coulter. That was awesome.)

Suffice to say, I was incredibly, incredibly disappointed with this album. I found it to be one of the most annoying, grating things that I’ve ever heard. And I was someone who pretty much listened exclusively to speedmetal (as it was called then, today, thrash metal more accurately describes the specific metal I would listen to).

”What is this shit?!?!?!?!”

I tore the cover up into tiny pieces. I then consumed each and every tiny piece, until the entire album cover had been eaten. Since I thought it was shit, it was fitting to use my body to turn it into actual shit.

Sometimes I eat weird things. Like a whole piece of paper during class in college once, ’cause I was so hungry and I don’t cut class.

I then broke apart the plastic cassette. I stretched the tape out from my best friend Sam Watson‘s house, all the way to my house.

path of Black Flag cassette stretch

Never before have I destroyed music in such a total fashion.

the Album Tacos version of this album would have tasted much better…

Anyway, the title refers to one of my best Halloween costumes. This would be around 8th or 9th grade, when I took a broken cassette or two, and covered myself in cassette tape, and simply went as “Cassette Man”. I did this with blank tapes that had broken from overuse or abuse. It was a pretty cool costume, and I bet no pictures of it exist :/

Me & Sam Watson, 1991ish, making ridiculous music that I could stand far more than Black Flag’s ”Slip It In”.

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[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Reality TV suddenly becomes important.

PEOPLE: Directed by actor/producer/writer/director Peter Berg (who directed Hancock, and stars in Chicago Hope). Written by a 2 Caprica + Battlestar Galactica + Deep Space 9 + Star Trek:TNG writer/producers.

The 12 crew members are played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (captain) (Black Hawk Down), Kerry Bishe (Scrubs), Joy Bryant (Parenthood), Jose Pablo Cantillo (Verona in Crank, a cop in Disturbia, and of course 1 ep of Nip/Tuck, like sooo many people), Ritchie Coster (The Chechen in Batman:The Dark Knight), James D’Arcy (Exorcist 2004), Clea DuVall (!!!!) (21 Grams, But I’m A Cheerleader, The Grudge, The Faculty, Can’t Hardly Wait, Heroes, Carnivale), Gene Farber (4 eps of 24), Sienna Guillory (Inkheart, Jill Valentine in Resident Evil:Apocalypse, The Time Machine), Erik Jensen, Nelson Lee (Blade:The Series), and Omar Metwally (Rendition). The “virtual man” is played by Jimmi Simpson (Bob from The Invention Of Lying, Lyle The Intern on David Letterman 2008-2009, 2 eps of Carnivale, 3 eps of 24).

QUIRKS: Virtual reality. Space travel. Reality TV. And all in the first 15 minutes! I really don’t think these 3 things have EVER been combined! Being on a spaceship with 5 billion viewers of a reality tv show based on you being on a spaceship? Way to add to the stress!

VISUALS: Dry and sterile. This is about being trapped in a metal cylinder [a space ship] for 10 years. Though the activation of the Orion Drive was pretty damn cool.

BAD STUFF: Very very interesting, but the fatal flaw is that the movie just… stops. There really should be more. Carolyn didn’t feel robbed, but I did a bit. I was told to think of it more as a pilot movie, due to the fact that things don’t *REALLY* conclude. I listened to this advice, but never realized that it REALLY IS a Made-for-TV pilot. The movie literally ended without me realizing any of the subplots were even close to being properly concluded. It’s too bad this wasn’t picked up as a series. But they should be more clear that it’s a pilot, when marketing it. Of course, I could have done more research, but I avoid doing that, because I want to avoid spoilers.

GOOD STUFF: The psychology. The virtual reality / computer bug / 2001 angle. The Hollywood / reality TV angle. The save the human species angle. The Parkinson’s Disease angle. There are SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS GOING ON in this. I see now that it is because they were setting up multiple plots that would take full seasons to come to fruition, but really, it was kind of nice that it was so chock full of interesting happenings. This is, perhaps, an example of what TV has to offer that movies don’t. (Despite the fact that I thought this was a “real” movie when I was watching it.) I don’t watch much sci-fi TV — and it’s not a leading category for my movies either (that would be comedy) — but if this was a series I would be a faithful viewer ’til the end. This could have been a Firefly-level happening, had FOX not been so typically stupid about picking up series.

CONCLUSION: This would have been a 5-star movie if it had not ended so abruptly! That is, had it been a movie and not a pilot.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4.4/5 stars (a high 4). IMDB: 8.4/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 6.5/10, Netflix: 2.6/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.4/5 stars).

RECOMMENDATION: Sci-fi people should check this out! It’s much more psychology-based than effects-and-action-based, which is how science fiction SHOULD be.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Almost seemed like a combination of Pandorum (without the horror elements), 2001 (the movie), Avalon (2001), and the movie Live! (without the political elements).

COINCIDENCES: While talking about the earth being uninhabitable in 100 years, showing red circles in the Gulf Of Mexico followed by a BP station collapsing is quite interesting, what with the current Deepwater Horizon oil well catastrophe currently happening as of the writing of this blogpost.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Several people I knew had seen this, and had good things to say about it. (more…)

RELIGION: Cardinal Roger Mahony: I Forgive Those Who Are Angry at Me for Covering Up Child Rape

What a piece of shit. This guy is worse than the worst child molester you can imagine.

The commenters are right: The Catholic Church needs to be charged under RICO organized crime laws.

If you tithe, you’re paying for rape. Period.

LINK URL: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/02/17/cardinal-roger-mahony-i-forgive-those-who-are-angry-at-me-for-covering-up-child-rape/

COMEDY: CATS: Nom Nom Nom: Kitty Loves You

The orange cat near the end is our cat Oranjello!

Someone else made this… I simply ran into it. That is my mother-in-law Anne’s hand in the picture. Vicky originally took it.

LINK URL: http://cheezburger.com/7000427008?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+comixed%2FCMX+%28Comixed%29

IRC downloading, 2001

Remember IRC? It was the first thing I did when I got on the internet in 1992 at Virginia Tech — and the first time I’d done it legally. Funny stuff you could do with the mIRC IRC client. You could have a custom quit message. For example, you could type:

/quit gotta go to work

and then it would say to everyone else in the channel:

ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (gotta go to work).

Wanting to out-do everyone else, I thought it would be funny to say something offensive to a lot of people. Especially since they can’t kick you from the channel — because you just quit! But I wanted my solution to be technically impressive too, so I scripted up random twisted sentences, by creating some text files that would be pieced together, almost like a Mad-Lib. That way, I could leave, and it would automatically come up with hilarious/crazy/sick/twisted things.

Here are some actual examples:

1. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (sold children to pimps (who will make whores out of them), while they slowly bled to death).ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (got a blow job from your fat mom while on the floor of congress).
2. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (sold children to cannabalistic African tribes, where they will slowly starve to death)
3. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (got a rim job from your fat mom in front of the Queen Of England).
4. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (smoked medical marijuana with The Taliban in front of 221 innocent children).
5. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (sold children to child pornographers, while they pleaded for their lives).
6. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (dropped acid with Ronald Reagan while in the White House).
7. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (sold children to black market organ harvesters, while onlookers laughed).
8. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (had an intense bondage session with your aunt while watching cartoons).
9. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (got a hand job from Mohammad Atta on national television).
10. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (sold children to black market organ harvesters, where their spirit will be broken).
11. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (spooged all over your raunchy mom in front of 566 innocent children).
12. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (sold children to medical laboratories for twisted genetic experiments, where their spirit will be broken).
13. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (snorted crystal meth with George Bush while going on a homocidal killing spree).
14. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (spanked Mohammad Atta in front of Mohammad Atta’s mother).
15. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (smoked P.C.P. with George W. Bush in front of 317 starving Afghan refugees).
16. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (took psychedelic mushrooms with Jesus Christ in front of 567 innocent children).
17. ClintJCL (192.168.0.1) quit the channel (spanked your sister in front of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir).

The possibilities, while not endless, were pretty damn vast.

How did I do this?

I did this by piecing together sentence fragments from text files I created. Sentences followed one of these formats:

1. sold children $read(thingstosellchidreninto.lst) $+ , $read(sadsentenceendings.lst)
2. $read(drugtaking.lst) with $read(funnydrugcelebrities.lst) $read(funnysentenceendings.lst)
3. $read(sexualthingstodowithpeople.lst) $read(funnypeopletohavesexwith.lst_ $read(funnysentenceendings.lst_)

4. It was also set up so that about 5% of the time, it would make political statements, quote Sabbat lyrics, or Praise “Bob” …. but I’m not including those in this blogpost. This blogpost is about funny things I’ve said dynamically and programatically; not static things I’ve said. :)

I will include the actual contents of the files at the bottom of the post. But here is the list of the files themselves:

• drugs.lst: a list of drugs (pot, acid, cocaine).
• drugtaking.lst: a list of drugtaking phrases (injected heroin, dropped acid, smoked pot).
  



• FunnyDrugCelebrities.lst: a list of people/entities that are amusing to think about doing drugs. (The Pope, Barbara Bush, Janet Reno, God).


Haha.. Celebrities are funny to do drugs with. Aren't Sid & Nancy funny? Ha ha.

• FunnyPeopleToHaveSexWith.lst: it’s what the filename sounds like. (Your mom, your sister, your dead grandmother’s corpse, etc).
  

  Funny to have sex with

• FunnySentenceEndings.lst: Tacked on to the ends of sentences to make them funnier. (while in the whitehouse, on national television, in front of 22 cops, in front of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir)
  

  everything's funnier in front of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!

• SadSentenceEndings.lst: This could have been in the same file as FunnySentenceEndings, but I randomly decided whether it would be funny or sad. Sad ones included “while they begged for death’s sweet release”, “while they slowly bled to death”, “where they will spend the rest of their lives in misery”, and such.
  

  sentence endings so sad...they're funny

• SexualThingsToDoWithPeople.lst: A list of sex acts (had anal sex with, had an intense bondage session with, etc)
  

  No... Really... Weird sex acts ARE FUNNY!!!

• …And the most twisted filename of all: ThingsToSellChildrenInto.lst (sweatshops, sexual slavery, etc – check out the full file below)
  

  Sell them into smoking advertising! HA HA!

• HatedPeople.lst: Only used from within FunnyPeopleToHaveSexWith.lst (because it’s funny to have sex with hated people) and FunnySentenceEndings (because it’s funny to do things in front of the mom’s of hated people). Osama Bin Laden was in this list. I really could have made this a nice, long list if I’d really tried.

And now, past the jump, the contents of the files themselves… But first, a Sloth!

This is actually related to the discussion. Back in the IRC days, my name was _Vengeance_. Needing to win wars against other people's scripts, I ended up running several other clients, including _Wrath_, _Sloth_, and _Avarice_. Well, someone sent this sloth.jpg file to me randomly once! Paranoid people will never experience the joys that can be had by automatically accepting unattended file transfers from strangers!

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[IMDB link] [Netflix link] “When your computer’s already your best friend… why not go all the way?”

PLOT SUMMARY: A programmer must deal with the approaching Y2K deadline, while being dumped by his girlfriend, finding a new romantic love interest, and dealing with a new sexual addiction involving a fetish for computers. This is basically a cringe comedy movie. They bill it as a romantic comedy, but there’s really almost no romance at all. It’s cringe comedy. And sexual too. Though there’s not really much real nudity.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Programmer rapes computers at the possible expense of Y2K societal collapse.

PEOPLE: Starring Tyler Labine as the main character. He played a drunk customer in Zack And Miri Make A Porno, and played John Belushi in the movie Behind The Camera: The Unauthorized Story Of Mork & Mindy. Jane the crippled secretary is played by Sonja Bennett. It’s rare for me to say this, but I think she works better as a brunette. She was part of one of the couples in Young People Fucking. The lovely brown-eyed girlfriend that dumps him is Laura Bertram (Andromeda). Gustafson is played by Geoff Gustafson — Dr. Jeff in Hot Tub Time Machine, and a bridge crewperson in the movie 2012. Keith Mendelson was played by Keith Dallas, aka Big Leroy in Snakes On A Plane, and a bit role as a Parthenon Janitor in Percy Jackson & The Olympians:The Lightning Thief.

And let’s not forget The Boss. What a great character she was, with her mousy voice and crazy professionalism. She seemed like Ana from the new V series, if she was on intraveneous Prozac. Played by Alisen Down, who looks nothing like the character she played. As well as Lillian Luthor in Smallville, and lots of sci-fi TV.

QUIRKS: Y2K. Computers. Programming. Fetishes. FUCKING COMPUTERS. Like, raping them. Drilling a hole in them and raping them. I shit you not.

Everybody’s name ends in “son”. Why? I don’t know.

That weird guy who gets more and more numb during the entire movie, and then is unrecognizably different at the end. Why did they include him? Some sort of symbolism? It was delightful quirkiness, regardless.

MORALS: Everyone has a dark side. Rather than persecute those around you for discovering theirs, embrace your own.

BAD STUFF: Should have been called Control Alt Insert, really. Control Alt Delete is already taken by the comic of the same name, and its animated adaptation.

Apparently, sexual fetishes AND computer geekery make for a movie the public hates. Ahh, dumb public. You don’t know what you’re missing. Anything involving weird sex is automatically voted down. Anything involving the dark side of human behavior is automatically voted down. Dumb, dumb public. This was hilarious.

CONCLUSION: An incredibly unique cringe comedy based on computer fetishism and geekery. I’m sorely tempted to give this 5 stars. Never in my life did I think I’d watch a movie with a subplot involving a guy throwing away his Commodore 64 in order to prevent himself from drilling a hole into it and having sex with it. Nor have I watched a movie about Y2K paranoia before…

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4.4/5 stars — a high 4. IMDB: 8.6/10 — a low 9.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3.6/5 stars — a low 4. IMDB: 7.6/10 — a low 8.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 4.5/10, Netflix: 2.2/5 stars (too much for the public to stand, eh?).

RECOMMENDATION: All computer geeks and perverts must see this! It’s a laugh! A subtle, dry, disturbing, cringy laugh.

SIMILAR MOVIES: None. Though one could maybe mention Tetsuo The Iron Man, but that movie is more of a montage of horror than a comedy with a plot.

MOVIE QUOTE: Some good ones, but IMDB isn’t listing any…

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