LCHorn

When I worked downtown I used to see scooter wipeouts weekly, like the universe was trying to reassert balance. Given it appeared to be mostly visitors I just figured this had become part of the Austin experience.

All I know is that I had a great sideline seat in 2007 when the brokers got fucked by the regulators and it looked to me like the mortgage bankers were able to protect themselves. 17 years later and I think the independent mortgage bankers are vulnerable and wholesale banks like UWM and Rocket appear to have grown sufficiently large that they have a created a target on their back. I wonder if this lawsuit is the first cannon shot. You’re relatively new to this and haven’t watched banks disappear overnight like that scene in Brand of Brothers where they faded out all the Currahee guys who didn’t make it to Berchtesgarden. Everyone thought Countrywide had deep pockets, too.

IMDb says it’s in post-I agree with you, though-there was nothing about the character’s introduction in BP2 that made me think “I want to know more about her story.” I actually appreciate Marvel trying to grow the audience by adding more diversity both in front and behind the camera, but it’s pretty clear that there’s just a finite numbers of performers charismatic enough to pull it off. Anthony Mackie is a great example-he’s a solid enough actor, I like him in a supporting capacity, but I don’t feel any particularly curiosity about his story out of the orbit of Steve Rodgers. Thunderbolts is going to be a test case for “you wouldn’t pay $10 for a ticket to see any single one of us, but will you pay $10 to see ALL of us?!?!”

I kind of don’t understand why they are fucking around with a side character when you could easily make a show that’s just about D’Onofrio’s Kingpin clawing back his criminal empire. That was the best part of Daredevil, anyway. Plus it‘d be cheap.

Yeah, that total seems ridiculous. From a public health perspective 26,000 rapes, period, since 2022 is unacceptable.

I don’t they are eager to reboot X-Men at the moment. I expect they will spend every dollar possible making sure the F4 story works before going into preproduction-this is Disney’s best chance for a reset. Kang would have been ideal as a villain if Majors wasn’t fired. Totally agree with all of this. I have to think they aren’t stupid and Feige and co know it, too, and have adjusted budgets so they aren’t spending $200m before advertising.

I was thinking something like that-obviously I’m out of the loop. Anyway, back on the subject of property taxes, our top ten problems by rank of priority are recapture repeated 10x, then maybe Travis County taxes, then CofA, then ACC, imo. I know everyone wants to bitch about city of Austin services but at least they exist. Travis County, comparatively, gets none of the scrutiny and they are quite content to take our tax dollars, build a few roads, and haphazardly run the appraisal district.

Granted this is 20 years ago, but I attended ACC for a year while I was suspended from UT and I thought the quality of the instruction was better than I expected (and certainly no worse that I was getting at UT). For one, quite a few of the instructors were UT professors with a side gig, and others appreciated being able to teach without the pressure to publish, fundraise, and fight for tenure. I was actually thinking, in my reply to @Samson's Wig, that maybe one solution would be more partnerships with AISD that would allow ACC to be on high school campuses for AP or introductory college classes (and maybe AISD could save on labor) but I bet they do that already or the savings just doesn’t move the overall needle by much.

Surely you understand that Austin citizens can’t simply repurpose tax revenue from ACC to AISD, right? If you want to complain about the state recapture impoverishing Austin students you’re welcome to join the party but reducing ACC taxes won’t help. On the appraised value side, I still haven’t had my arbitration following my 2023 tax protest when they claimed my value went up 20%.

I'm on episode three of Echo and don't really understand what's going because on because I kept falling asleep during the first two episodes. Does it get better?

My advice, considering you moved in with your SO and not homeless, is to wait it out rather than reduce price. The rate environment is significantly distorting demand and it isn’t likely to be as seasonally driven as 2014-2019. It might be that demand peaks in October because rates are in the 5’s. I also think the previous prejudice against houses that have been sitting isn’t as strong.

Sort of? The MBS market is in competition with the Fed and pricing spread between the two securities is subject to market demand. We’ve seen increased demand for MBS based on projections of what the Fed will do, and decreased demand when the news appears to favor “higher for longer”. All of this is upriver of retail prices but if you want cheap mortgages you need to convince CALPERS to buy the bonds that collateralize them. This is my prediction, but once the Fed does reduce rates (in June or whenever), the MBS market will probably quickly narrow down the spread (so maybe a 25 bps cut on T bills gets us 50 or 100 bps subsequent improvement over maybe the next month). But who knows, there’s massive commercial loan risk exposure by the depository banks and they are also competing with Fannie/Freddie to issue collateralized debt. It might be that six months from now, GSE money is the only game in town and we’ve seen them happily return profits to shareholders rather than adjust pricing to incentivize borrowing.

If you want to upgrade the edges of your crust you can brush them with olive oil before you put on your sauce. When I make homemade dough the edges can get overly crispy and this solves for it.

I can’t believe he’s shooting like that and we’ve only fouled him three times. I thought Ime was supposed to be a rough and tumble defensive coach.

Why would a devoted follower of Christ have any objection toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity? Furthermore, isn’t Jesus’s revolutionary message to fully give of oneself, out of love and charity, in order to bring about heaven on earth? Sharing a holiday in support of this couldn’t be possibly more on message for an actual disciple.

1. Nice of Bateman to dress up. 2. Will Arnett’s hair guy is earning his $$

I still think the Abreu signing was the right call at the time given the understood alternatives. That said, it seems like we’ve lost our appetite for doing anything slightly unconventional, like trading a Miles Straw type for a lotto ticket(s) in the minors. Brown’s first real offseason reminded me of Hunsicker’s when fucking McLane would tell him to add players but not spend anything to do it (and we end up with Scuffy Moehler). The fact that a World Series aspirant is wasting a roster spot on Jon Singleton is befuddling.

Skip the pancakes and order the hamburger, regular fries.

I’m repeating myself on this, but I think that Crane doesn’t trust Brown enough for him to operate freely, particularly on large free agent signings. I miss Luhnow and the sense that there is a plan.

I’m sure this was recorded from the regular St. Andrew’s Sunday service but it’s missing a crowd shot of the six parishioners in attendance, five of whom are senior citizens and the other a driver from the assisted care facility. But, at least he got something to publish to YouTube and X, so kudos I guess for taking a stand….

I think you're overlooking the self-sorting aspect of the universities and boards (while you're conclusion may remain true). TexAgs is probably where you find those missing voters.

Just in weird coincidental ways I met Jake Hammer and Antwan Kirk Hughes as recruits and was heavily selling Texas (the latter was at Buffalo Club when neither of us were legal).

Every few months for the last decade I Google “Winds of Winter news” and see a usual suspects list of SEO bait “articles” that report there’s been no update. It’s like he has his own personal corner of the internet creating a time capsule of his failures.

That joke get retold every couple of weeks on the various Facebook bourbon groups...

You might be right, but I feel like their push to expand the risk pool began more than a decade ago and preceding any common concern about the automobile market changing much (not only that, but from friends who've worked there, it's run a lot like the military where changes only occur incrementally and no one is getting rewarded for making a risky bet on what the future might hold, even if it works out). I also think USAA auto is available beyond officers--I was able to get it and I'm (was) a shitbag enlisted USMC grunt.