We have just released a new plugin, called MT-CategoryCounter. This plugin provides a replacement container for the MTCategories tag, and provides a sorted result list (by number of entries). You can also limit the number of entries returned and restrict the list to children of a single parent category. Enjoy.
Special thanks to Ross for his ideas and support on this plugin.
Not so long ago, I wrote a piece about how many regulations are required to start a business around here. Guess what? License time again.
I've finally realized why the stupid fee is necessary. It is required so that they can afford to pay someone to do the paperwork. The bad part? They probably don't collect enough to cover the expense.
In our world, why can't the county just use their fancy database to print out a receipt saying "This is what you paid last year - any changes you need to make?" But no, they require you to indicate your revenue, calculate the tax (not that it's difficult), fill in all sorts of ID numbers and then mail the thing back in - or pay a few dollars to do it online. That's just stupid.
So a new plan for the Freedom Tower has been unveiled. Since it seems that a previously-selected design wasn't actually selected, as it has been replaced, there is no telling if this is what we will see or not. Some have recently complained about the lackluster design. Frankly, I think it looks better. The twisty-spire look, while, well, odd, just looked strange. I like the new look. Though the base is pretty ugly.
While on the subject, however, I agree that antennas should be excluded from a building's height. What I don't agree with is that spires should be included in the height. That's just stupid. If you include one, you ought to include the other. Otherwise some goofball (can you say David Childs) will simply design a spire that will protect the antenna.
Not for us. But it seems like the interest in the refinancing market has been rising again, and a lot of people are "taking money out of their houses". This is an interesting approach. Don't get me wrong - I understand the appeal of money in a checking account instead of sitting unused in the house. What I don't get is how common it is these days for people to simply take on more and more payments, simply because that's what they do.
Put simply, when you refinance, you may lower your payment. It might even stay about the same and allow you to take money out of your home, making it seem like free money. But in most any case, you're refinancing for another 30-year loan, extending the period over which you must make those payments. Resetting the clock in a sense.
Frankly, I'm looking forward to the day when our house is paid off. For those keeping track, it should be December 1, 2005 (unless we meet any unexpected bumps in the road between now and then). While our house payment is already lower than most people's rent payment, we just don't want to make payments of any sort for the next 25 or so years.
Sure, we could prepay some of the principal each month (and have been, at a lower rate), but since most of the interest in mortgages is front-loaded, it's not helping all that much, and it's just getting us to the point where we pay back the principal faster. We could refinance again to an even lower monthly payment, but then we're back to a 30-year payoff. So we upped the rate at which we're paying things back, and hope to have it paid off this year.
If we refinanced, we'd just start paying more interest into the pockets of the lenders. And perhaps to a PMI company, depending on the loan-to-value ratio of our newly refinanced home. Debt-free in today's society? I know it's pretty unlikely, but we're well on our way. I hope it works out like we expect.
Update: Want a home, but not sure whether to rent or buy? Check out this piece on the subject. It's certainly not everything, but it gives you a pretty decent basis from which to start your planning.
In the endless circle that is Charlotte politics, things have come full circle. Not too long ago, voters turned down a financing package that would not only build a new arena for a basketball team, but commit $100-some million to an arts package for the city.
City Council, citing the belief that voters didn't want the arts package, built the arena anyway. Now, the county, presumably figuring that voters didn't really want the arena, are oh-so-close to pushing the arts package through. Isn't it wonderful to be a resident of Charlotte?
In the popular visualization of a tornado, a new technology gains popular appeal at phenomenal rates, while spawning a whole industry of add-ons for the technology. It should be obvious that the iPod has reached this plateau, with all sorts of accessories to be found for the minute music player. It has become a part of mainstream conciousness.
Now it has apparently made another step towards greatness. Apparently they are being stolen at increasingly frequent rates, and in at least one case, someone has apparently been killed for theirs. More importantly, authorities suspect that it was stolen not for resale, but for personal use. Yes, someone was killed for their iPod. Wow.
Have we really come to the point that a portable music player is worth a person's life? Or, more accurately, that a person's life is worth a portable music player? I hope that it was at least a fourth-generation model and not a Shuffle or something.
In Saturday's Get Fuzzy, Rob is having a conversation with Satchel, and Satchel is repeatedly getting lost, forgetting what was said just moments before. Rob wonders aloud: "Dude, how do you remember smells from 2 years ago and not the last thing you heard?" Satchel promptly indicates that he has forgotten who is on the other end of the phone. Heh. Sounds like our kids.
On Friday night, we found a puppy down the street on our way home from Vacation Bible School. Being the saps we are, we promptly stopped and talked to her. As it turned out, she's not a puppy at all, at least in the sense of being young. While I don't know her exact age, she is at least a few years old. Nonetheless, we were on our way out of town on Saturday morning, and had nowhere to keep her. So we took her with us.
Yesterday morning I went to the vet and they found that she had a microchip, and we obtained the phone number for the owner. Turns out that they live just down the street from us (not too far from where we found the dog). So I called, leaving all sorts of numbers, and waited patiently to hear from them. Nothing.
Denise and I went out to dinner, then a movie. Still nothing. Wanting to do the Right Thing, we hitched our newest family member (dubbed Princess by then) to her leash and took a walk to the address in question. There was a car pulling in, and out came a youngish couple and a friend. Looked like they had just pulled in from dinner or something, and they seemed very excited to have their baby back safe and sound.
We came home, a bit saddened that Princess was gone, but still happy that things had worked out - she had found her way back to her family and all was right with the world. Of course, that wouldn't make for much of a story.
This morning, a neighbor calls to say that she thinks she just saw the same dog on the loose, a bit further down the street. Beging the aforementioned sap that I am, I quickly jumped in the car and went looking. Not too long thereafter, I found her, taken in by a friendly neighbor who had seen her poking around.
At this point you have to wonder. After having your beloved pet back for just a few hours, you let her out again, and she's on the loose? That's just wrong. It's not that these people want to have her wandering - that isn't it at all. But they seem unable to grasp the concept of keeping their dog under their control. We had minor problems throughout the weekend, but nothing that would have kept us from preventing her to escape again - demonstrated by the fact that we came home with her again.
Now Princess (actually Ruby) is back home again, we wonder how long it will be before we see her on the road again. And even more importantly, what do we do then?
With this morning's announcement of explosions in the London subway system, you have to wonder about terrorism around us. I've long held that it's not about the act itself - just look at the word. It starts, for good reason, with terror.
I've also believed, for about the four years that have elapsed since the September 11th attacks, that the next ones won't come by plane - and they may not even come in the US. That's simple strategy. With everyone focused so much on airport security (whether or not it is effective), why waste the effort? Just look elsewhere.
It's even more interesting, and perhaps quite sad, that the attention paid to the attacks is relative not so much to the devastation, but to the (perceived) prominence in the world scene. The World Trade Center attack was hugely devastating, but it was also the US - so naturally all those US-based media teams covered it relentlessly. I suspect we'll see something similar, though on a smaller scale, for London.
But look at last year's attack in Madrid. While it received plenty of attention, it seemed to last for a day or so and quickly faded into the background of everyone's mind. That's sad. It's a worldwide problem we have, and we all need to be aware of each other - we aren't in this just for ourselves, but need to keep an eye out for everyone around us.
Meanwhile, if I were the leader of a terrorist cell, I'd be laughing mightily today as not only London scrambles, but the rest of the world - and specifically the US - rushes all their people to the train station. Perfect time for an attack at the airport, don't you think?
Not too terribly long ago, Denise and I went to see National Treasure with Nicolas Cage. A bit on the eccentric side, and amazing how quickly some of the clues came to them after the first one fell into place, but if you can stand Cage's quasi-serious expressions without laughing, it was all-in-all a good way to spend a buck on a movie.
Two nights ago, Denise and I again ventured out, this time to see Sahara with competing hunk Matthew McConaughey (Cage is so much easier to spell). While there wasn't quite the puzzle aspect to the movie, it was just more fun. The camraderie between McConaughey and co-star Steve Zahn was simply incredible and made for many great moments throughout. I hope there are more to come, as it seems that this might be a great buddy tag-team for future sequels. While a bit unbelievable in the physical feats towards the end, and the horrible aim of the bad guys, it was an enjoyable flick and also satisfying for a buck.
On the way home tonight, I noticed a small truck that must have been completely absorbed by the semi trailer in front of it. I say this because they were about five feet away. On a freeway. At roughly 70 miles per hour. Good thing the semi didn't stop. The last thing those people saw would have been the signs.
Interestingly, right after that I saw a semi that was interested in a Chevy Blazer, about fifteen feet in front of it. Luckily for the occupants of the Blazer, they didn't need to stop suddenly. They would have had a rude surprise ahead.
And for the first time in a very long time, I saw a vehicle with a "Baby on Board" sign hanging in the window. In fact, the vehicle had at least two (right side and back). Maybe a third on the left, but I couldn't tell. What I don't get is why people spend their money on this kind of thing.
Is this like one of those stickers you put on your door in case of a fire, so that any rescue personnel will make sure they get the animals out of the house? So if you leave your kids in a parking lot, someone will know to get them out? Or are you supposed to drive more slowly when nearby one of these vehicles? Or let them pass because the driver is certainly a bit haggard from the worries of having a baby and may not be paying much attention?
I just don't know. Sounds a bit egotistical to me, in any case.
So he's not Paul. Rat, from Pearls Before Swine, can occasionally give him a run for his money when it comes to words of wisdom. This time is no exception. After running through a laundry list of faults from his neighbors (house color, barking dogs, car alarms, mowing lawns), he declares "Whoever said 'Love Your Neighbor' never could have foreseen the idiots that live on our block".
How true. And how utterly ridiculous at the same time. We tend to overlook the larger issues - sparing the lives of murderers, forgiving crime after crime against our neighbors. But paint your house the wrong color, or skip mowing your yard? That's simply too much.
