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Oct. 11th, 2002 02:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
noahgibbs"What's Eating Gilbert Grape"? Good movie. All for it.
Leonardo DiCaprio was really quite good in it, which was a nice change from all the other stuff I've seen him in (Romeo & Juliet and Man in the Iron Mask come to mind). Johnny Depp was quite good, as is frequently the case. The whole thing was very painful to watch and reminded me of how lucky I am to be a callous bastard uninterested in the subtleties of family duty and entitlement.
Watching an Imported Boy reminded me that I, too, should try to keep up on the subtleties of American pop culture just for fitting-in value. I've been a little better about that lately. It can be a new current project, along with the Enneagram, boot camp and homebuying.
Have I mentioned homebuying? I've talked to my investment guy, and the lady who is about to be my realtor, and I talk to a lending agent tomorrow. Which means that I could be in good shape to look at houses by the weekend -- a plan my realtor is pushing hard. She claims two weeks to find a good place, or at least that that's a strong possibility. Well, actually she claims that's pretty standard for her.
On the plus side, that shortens the timeframe on at least one planned activity. I have a bottle of really ungodly good port and I've been looking for a special occasion. Closing on a house would be a fine time to invite a bunch of friends over and decant it. Then I can look for another comparable bottle and start waiting for the next special occasion :-)
Leonardo DiCaprio was really quite good in it, which was a nice change from all the other stuff I've seen him in (Romeo & Juliet and Man in the Iron Mask come to mind). Johnny Depp was quite good, as is frequently the case. The whole thing was very painful to watch and reminded me of how lucky I am to be a callous bastard uninterested in the subtleties of family duty and entitlement.
Watching an Imported Boy reminded me that I, too, should try to keep up on the subtleties of American pop culture just for fitting-in value. I've been a little better about that lately. It can be a new current project, along with the Enneagram, boot camp and homebuying.
Have I mentioned homebuying? I've talked to my investment guy, and the lady who is about to be my realtor, and I talk to a lending agent tomorrow. Which means that I could be in good shape to look at houses by the weekend -- a plan my realtor is pushing hard. She claims two weeks to find a good place, or at least that that's a strong possibility. Well, actually she claims that's pretty standard for her.
On the plus side, that shortens the timeframe on at least one planned activity. I have a bottle of really ungodly good port and I've been looking for a special occasion. Closing on a house would be a fine time to invite a bunch of friends over and decant it. Then I can look for another comparable bottle and start waiting for the next special occasion :-)
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no subject
Date: 2002-10-11 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-11 10:25 am (UTC)But more specifically, Fremont and north of there. Other possibilities include Union City and southern Hayward.
I'd been entertaining the idea of Castro Valley as the northern extent of my search, but my realtor thinks that for price-range reasons I should pretty much limit it to the previous few areas. But then, I need to look at some places in person after hearing phrases like "it's only recently that you can buy anything for less than four hundred thousand dollars out here..."
Then again, I may wind up with a condo, which could be substantially cheaper than that. It's not my first choice, but I'd definitely consider it. We'll see whether townhomes or single-family homes wind up looking cheap and shoddy to me, or if I'm drawn in by the seductive lure of HomeOwner's-Association-provided services. So far I'm not leaning that way.
But I'd like a yard. The idea of a yard, accented by a friend's suggestion to plant clumping bamboo, could allow for a nice outdoor-hot-tub-plus-privacy combination that I'd really like, at the very least as a pipe dream :-)
no subject
Date: 2002-10-11 10:41 am (UTC)Yeah, I wouldn't buy a condo unless it was in the downtown of some really cool house-lacking city (like say NYC). You can probably find a nice townhouse or regular house.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-11 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-11 02:00 pm (UTC)Also, HOA agreements often mean you can't do things like work on your vehicle in your own driveway/garage if the door is open sort of stuff.
If your realtor is good, just check to make sure that there's a clause in your offer that you agree to the terms of the HOA agreement if you haven't seen it already at the time you make the offer.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-11 02:13 pm (UTC)But my first line of defense against it is that I'm not looking for a condo unless I just can't afford a decent standalone place.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-11 01:08 pm (UTC)That said, he did an amazingly good job in "gilbert grape." I like that movie a lot. Plus, Depp. Mmmmmmmm, Depp.