Category: Stupid

Mortgage companies and condo insurance

Do you own a condo? Have you recently gotten a breathless letter from your mortgage company telling you that the insurance policy for your building is expiring and all life on Earth is about to end in a fiery apocalypse if you don’t show them proof of insurance?

So, here’s the thing. Nearly all condo building policies are written for one year. Your mortgage company knows this. So when they send you this letter, it’s the same as a letter saying, “When you got approved for your loan, you said you were 36 years old. Now our records indicate you are 37, you dirty liar. We will murder you and your dog in your sleep if you do not rectify this IMMEDIATELY”.

Why are rats visiting my free rat buffet?

I like tagging along with the pest control guys when they do the exterior rat treatments. Bugs I don’t find that interesting, but rat control really is. I’m increasingly not a fan of poison and much more a fan of taking away their food sources and entry points. It’s more effective AND better environmentally.

Today I was letting the pest guy into a locked garage and one of the building unit owners came out and we chatted. He showed me their neighbor who had rats get into his Porsche SUV and cause all sorts of damage to the engine. He showed me the rat poison boxes in the backyard, and the kennel for the feral cat from the city.

And then we looked at the guy’s curbside compost bin with the lid half off, and his trash bin, which was so overfilled it couldn’t close.

Rats like food. Do you know why they eat the poison we leave out? Because they think it’s food. If you leave ACTUAL food out, they will eat that instead, and then they will snack on the delicious plastic in your SUV engine for dessert.

I’m sure the feral cat will do wonders for the population of songbirds in the alley, though, congrats on that.

Crypto is garbage

Cryptocurrency is really good for:

  • Fraud
  • This unregulated pseudo-stock-market where one type of digital magic bean is worth five figures despite having no basis in reality

That’s it. If it had any real use or value as a currency, Paypal, Venmo, Zelle, CashApp, the entire ACH industry, and every other way we transfer money between people or businesses without using a credit card would be on the way out. The fact that there is no competitor to these products that a normal person can use proves that crypto is useless.

This morning, I walked into a bank and withdrew cash. I then walked down the street to another bank and deposited the cash. Then I sent that cash via Zelle to a vendor who is going to do a painting project for one of my clients. This was an incredibly stupid process (again, that crypto could have done for me if it worked like the advocates said).

At least the teller wished me a happy birthday after looking at my ID.