Stone Cold Lead Pipe Locks - Week 2

The group lost a little ground, but is still profitable. No thanks to certain people.

Just a little hand-eye coordination

This is nuts, playing a GH3 guitar part (expert level) on a drum kit. Definitely worth the time to watch it.



Which reminds me, I never posted about the Three Dorks Down reunion.

Plaxico

I guess he really is out with a leg injury.

Freakin' dumbass.

I like to pour it, pour it

Four-and-a-half years ago, Bill and I started homebrewing.

Three years ago, I was talking to my uncle about how I wanted to start kegging beer, but the supplies were so expensive. Soda kegs, a CO2 can, a regulator, etc.

Tony: What do you mean, soda kegs?
Angelos: You know, soda. The kegs soda syrup comes in, then you run them through the soda gun with water and CO2 and you have soda at the bar. (He's been in the food business most of his life).
Tony: That's what I thought you meant. Jesus Christ, I have 15 of those fucking things in my basement [of the restaurant he just bought], I keep calling Pepsi to fucking pick them up, but they don't want them anymore because they use the fucking bags now, so they're just fucking sitting there collecting dust.
Angelos: {jaw hits floor} I'll be down next weekend.

So yeah, I got 15 free kegs (retail: $40 used to $75 fully refurbished), and a CO2 canister. All I needed was a regulator and I was off and running. That wasn't cheap, but it was still a fraction of the overall initial cost of kegging.

The kegs were disgusting, all of them containing remnants of whatever syrup they carried. A lot of mold, a lot of sticky disgusting shitiness, but nothing some elbow grease and a few gallons of hot water and bleach didn't cure.

After a little googling, I found a good supply store online and ordered replacement parts (the difference between a used and a refurbished keg). Gaskets and poppets, primarily. While I was at it, I bought 3 taps and plenty of hose and tubing and hose clamps and lions and tigers and bears. I didn't have a fridge, mind you, but I could dream a little.

Where to find a fridge? For a couple years I'd browse Craigslist and local circulars looking for a cheap used fridge, but nothing appealing came up, and even the most basic cheap fridge was $400+ new. Because of this, I've been limited to kegging from October through March when the garage was cool-to-cold, and I would brew my keg beers based on the expected garage temperature.

Finally, in summer of '07, we redid the kitchen, including new appliances.

I have a fridge!!!!

Then we decide we're going to sell the house and move to an apartment. Fuck. We won't have room for a keg fridge in an apartment. Once again, I put the project off because I'd be better off selling the fridge used. Here it is, though, late November, and we got no action on the house, so we're committed to being here through the winter and trying again in the spring.

Damn it all, I said to myself a few weeks ago, I'm making a keg fridge. When I stop working 60-70 hours a week.

Today was the day. And here we go:






This thing will hold a CO2 canister and three kegs, and I can still get a couple of the door shelves and regular shelves in there for bottled beer.

I am a happy boy.

Stone Cold Lead Pipe Locks - Week 1

Here are the results:


Get your picks in tomorrow, if you plan on including any of the Thursday games.

Here are the spreads for Mike and TJ:

Tennessee	@	Detroit	11.0
Dallas	vs	Seattle	12.5
Philadelphia	vs	Arizona	3.0
Buffalo	vs	San Francisco	7.0
Baltimore	@	Cincinnati	7.0
Indianapolis	@	Cleveland	4.5
Green Bay	vs	Carolina	3.0
St. Louis	vs	Miami	Off (0)
Tampa Bay	vs	New Orleans	3.5
New York (NYG)	@	Washington	3.5
San Diego	vs	Atlanta	5.0
Oakland	vs	Kansas City	3.0
New England	vs	Pittsburgh	1.0
New York (NYJ)	vs	Denver	7.5
Minnesota	vs	Chicago	3.0
Houston	vs	Jacksonville	3.0

Sex is like pizza...

The Bad Sex Writing awards are out, and there are some doozies.

I kissed his mouth ravenously, devouring his neck, earlobes, chest. He broke free with muscular ease, unhooked my bra with composed expertise, found my nipple and flicked his tongue back and forth until it went hard. His towel fell away. Sebastian's erect member was so big I mistook it for some sort of monument in the centre of a town. I almost started directing traffic around it.

---

'Open your thighs,' he urged as he parted the folds of her vulva. 'You are so moist down there.'

---

'Perhaps you'd like to take off your shorts.'
'Do I have to?'
'I think you do.'

Hott!

The Name Game - Erica Edition

1. Witness Protection Program Name (mother’s & father’s middle names): "Greta Augustin"

2. NASCAR Name (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad): "Herman Fernando" (That's a winner)
   

3. Star Wars Name (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name): "Tzeric"

4. Detective Name (favorite color, favorite animal): "Red Persian"
   

5. Soap Opera Name (middle name, city where you live): "Ilse Wilton"

6. Superhero Name (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add "THE" to the beginning): "The Pink Swizzle"

7. Fly (?) Name (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name): "Eris"
   

8. Gangsta Name (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie): "Mint Chocolate Chip Chocolate Chip"

9. Rock Star Name (current pet’s name, current street name): "Shatzi Joseph"
   

10. Porn Name (1st pet, street you grew up on): "Fifi Spur"

Fifi and Fudgy. Awesome.

Erica thinks "Fly Name" means your fly-boy name, like your pilot handle. Think Top Gun. That's sounds like a good explanation.

The Name Game

1. Witness Protection Program Name (mother’s & father’s middle names): "Alexy Angelos"

2. NASCAR Name (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad): "Richard (Dick) Angelos"

3. Star Wars Name (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name): "Tzange"

4. Detective Name (favorite color, favorite animal): "Purple Leonburger"
   

5. Soap Opera Name (middle name, city where you live): "George Wilton"

6. Superhero Name (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add "THE" to the beginning): "The Blue Mojito"

7. Fly (?) Name (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name): "Anis" Shut up.
   

8. Gangsta Name (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie): "Rocky Road Chocolate Chip"

9. Rock Star Name (current pet’s name, current street name): "Jake Joseph" (Jake is dead now, so we're petless)
   

10. Porn Name (1st pet, street you grew up on): "Duke Locust"

I have to add, my friend Dave's porn name is Fudgy Warren, which still gets me giggling every time I think of it. I just want to know if he's a top or a bottom. That's probably my all-time favorite. Then again, I have two female friends, Jane and Randee, that have classic porn names as is. I won't write their last names here, but just trust me.

If you haven't already done this, you're tagged.

Also see Toast, Tart, Kona, Phydeaux, Wilde, Tracy.

By the way, since everyone's asking, my guess is that "fly name" should mean the abbreviated 1st initial/1st syllable thing, like A-Rod. In which case, the instructions are wrong. Just my two cents.

A-Tze sucks, but I can see Tracy being a T-San. Tart only has a one-syllable last name, so she's fucked. J-San is kinda lame for Toast, E-Wil is OK, but I'd cheat a bit and make it E-Wild.

How to drive your cat crazy

Step 1. Measure the circumference of your toilet bowl base.

Step 2. Put a leash on your cat about 8 inches shorter than the number you got in step 1.

Was this covered on Mad Men?

Criminy, these ads are awful.

Some are "understandable" in the context of their time, but some are just awful period.

SNL Blogging

Last night's episode was kind of meh. Tim McGraw was decent in a couple skits, Ludacris and T-Pain were awful.

What I want to know is, why was this one not aired?



That was pretty good.

中國民主 Part 2

And here's the best negative review that I've found. Just for balance.

I highlight this one because it's obvious this guy really listened to the album. He's quite specific in his criticisms. I may disagree on some points, but I respect the effort. I've seen a couple reviews that are nothing more that "this took 15 years," etc.; no specifics, just general snark.

Presented without comment

I bet that cameraman got a bonus, though.

中國民主

Chuck Klosterman penned one of the best album reviews I've read in a long time.

Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It's more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom? I've been thinking about this record for 15 years; during that span, I've thought about this record more than I've thought about China, and maybe as much as I've thought about the principles of democracy. This is a little like when that grizzly bear finally ate Timothy Treadwell: Intellectually, he always knew it was coming. He had to. His very existence was built around that conclusion. But you still can't psychologically prepare for the bear who eats you alive, particularly if the bear wears cornrows.

I haven't gotten through the whole album yet, so I'll withhold comment for a little while. But I can agree that the guitar solos are nuts.

This album is surrounded by so much strange, it's been a punchline for almost 15 years. Will it sound dated? Overworked/overproduced? Just plain irrelevant?

Klosterman asks those and many other questions, and provides some answers. Check it out.

The ring

It's actually worse than this.

Raise your hand if you know how to wipe your ass

You now, I'll fucking talk about anything. I don't care. We're all human, we're all idiots. But a shit roundtable? On videotape? No.

Lu-hoo. Hoo-zer.

This is fucking BEAUTIFUL.



Buh-bye now.

The Toaster League Pick-'ems Challenge

Last week, I stated (and Toast agreed) that it was ridiculous that Arizona was only favored by 3 over Seattle. Nightshift disagreed, basing his argument on the fact that Vegas isn't predicting margins, they're just trying to balance the money.

This is, of course, true. But it didn't change the fact that that was a ridiculously easy spread to bet on. That the line didn't move to 6-7 by game-time surprised me.

When I celebrated my "win" on that pick, Shift had to point out my middling place in the Pick-'em standings. "Would that be the "angelos is in the bottom half of the game pickers" truth or the "even blind squirrels will find a nut now and then" truth?" Yeah, well fuck you too. I wasn't claiming I had a foolproof system (though I'll gladly create one if you subscribe for only $19.99 a month), I would say that there are always a couple spreads each week that are out of whack. In both my picks leagues, I pick all the games, and of course there are games I have no idea — and I would never touch them in Vegas. But I can always find two or three games I feel very good about.

So, for the gang in our Toasters pick league, and TJ and my brother if they want to participate based on the spreads in Ken's pool, here's the challenge for the final 6 games of the year.

After you make your picks, let me know by e-mail, or in the Couch™ thread, one to three "most confident" picks. Six picks to eighteen picks for the rest of the season. This is about making money. Assume a $100 bet with a 10% vig. Can you beat 52.4%, and make money?

I'll post results every Tuesday.

It's on.

Roomba Cat

This is nuts.



That's a great cat.

Most of the cats I've had have been tough, scrappy rescues. Excellent hunters, always wanted to be outside, etc. Turn on the vacuum however, and they were gone.

Boooooo! Yaaaaaaaay!

Unfortunately, Fire Joe Morgan is gone.

But, in a fantastic development, Rob Neyer is finally free! No more of that Insider bullshit. He's one of my favorite SABR guys. I have almost all his books—solo and collaborative—and find him entertaining and informative. Good times.

You can't figure women

But if you're lucky, you'll get a chance to figure out a women.

Great post over at Jezebel.

And yes, it includes the old "nice guy" douchebag.

Nerdgasm in 3... 2... 1...

This is a great site.

Here is Cotton Production in 1860 combined with county-by-county election results for this year.



Sweat tea consumption, north vs. south:



Check it out, but fair warning, it's easy to get lost in the archives.

I think we know why he dumped her

Ahhh, glorious illiteracy.

I salute you, General

Jesus' General, one of the kings of internet snark, goes nuclear. With simple, honest words.

I wonder how many deaf ears (and cold hearts) in the LDS will just poo-poo these efforts, and how many will be inspired to join the "revolt."

Regardless, any church that asks you to "resign" can't be a real church.

Help me figure this out

This is a "rising star" in the Republican party.


This is who Republican voters, and frankly some Democratic voters, called the nigger.


'Scuse, please?

I take it Jindal's color/ethnicity is OK because he's a loony-tunes wingnut?

SNL Blogging

I've been remiss, but after the first two or three disasters, Saturday Night Live has really picked up the pace.

A quick recap of the season before yesterday:
Ep1: Michael Phelps. Sucked, with few exceptions.

Ep2: James Franco. Sucked, with few exceptions.

Ep3: Anna Faris. Sucked, with few exceptions.

Ep4: Anne Hathaway. That's more like it. Some misses, of course, but I never wondered "who the fuck approved that?!?!"

Ep5: Josh Brolin. This is the one where Sarah Palin was on. I was at the 3 Dorks Down reunion, but watched it later on DVR. Good, smart skits, and Brolin was funny.

Notice a trend here? Good actors, good skits? What a concept!

Ep6: Jon Hamm. Also a good episode. But I must say, Coldplay was the funniest thing here. I have never seen a worse performance in my life. Oh, wait, yes I have. At a KARAOKE night!!! To say Chris Martin can't sing is to say that water is wet. Erica and I were losing our shit, it was so bad.

Ep7: Ben Affleck. Good stuff. Erica and I went out that night, and it was her turn to be driver, so I was pretty shitty when we started this episode. I swore it was Paul Rudd at first. I had some serious beer goggles on. Here is Affleck doing Olbermann:


Good times.

Yesterday:
Ep8: Paul Rudd. Of course it was. I had to listen to Erica "insist" that the host was Ben Affleck all night. Guuuhhhhhh. Here is the Digital Short, which was brilliantly insane as always:



Alrighty then!

Here's Justin Timberlake in a great skit:


And here's Beyonce and her "dancers:"

Justin Timberlake & Beyonce - Parodie "Single Ladies" SNL
by Rock_You_Justin

Beyonce? Yum....

So, we're caught up. They've really picked up the pace since the first three episodes. Good stuff.

A "hole in our historical memory"

A must read about our nuclear attacks on Japan.

The world has very few photographs of what gave Morrison that unforgettable jolt. This is no accident. On September 18, 1945, just over a month after Japan had surrendered, the U.S. Government imposed a strict code of censorship on the newly defeated nation. It read, in part: “nothing shall be printed which might, directly or by inference, disturb public tranquility.

h/t Sully

The cuteness battle has been won

(h/t Jezebel)

They lied to me!

The latest in the Hitler series is here, and awesome:



The last one I posted was about football, but there are tons of these out there, all types of subject matter.

All you need to know

Michael Lewis, of Liar's Poker and Moneyball fame, explains the financial meltdown like I haven't seen it done yet. This kid, he can write a little.

Some key grafs:

The second company for which Eisman was given sole responsibility was Lomas Financial, which had just emerged from bankruptcy. “I put a sell rating on the thing because it was a piece of shit,” Eisman says. “I didn’t know that you weren’t supposed to put a sell rating on companies. I thought there were three boxes—buy, hold, sell—and you could pick the one you thought you should.” He was pressured generally to be a bit more upbeat, but upbeat wasn’t Steve Eisman’s style. Upbeat and Eisman didn’t occupy the same planet. A hedge fund manager who counts Eisman as a friend set out to explain him to me but quit a minute into it. After describing how Eisman exposed various important people as either liars or idiots, the hedge fund manager started to laugh. “He’s sort of a prick in a way, but he’s smart and honest and fearless.”

... Eisman stuck to his sell rating on Lomas Financial, even after the company announced that investors needn’t worry about its financial condition, as it had hedged its market risk. “The single greatest line I ever wrote as an analyst,” says Eisman, “was after Lomas said they were hedged.” He recited the line from memory: “ ‘The Lomas Financial Corp. is a perfectly hedged financial institution: It loses money in every conceivable interest-rate environment.’ I enjoyed writing that sentence more than any sentence I ever wrote.” A few months after he’d delivered that line in his report, Lomas Financial returned to bankruptcy.

...

The juiciest shorts—the bonds ultimately backed by the mortgages most likely to default—had several characteristics. They’d be in what Wall Street people were now calling the sand states: Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada. The loans would have been made by one of the more dubious mortgage lenders; Long Beach Financial, wholly owned by Washington Mutual, was a great example. Long Beach Financial was moving money out the door as fast as it could, few questions asked, in loans built to self-destruct. It specialized in asking home­owners with bad credit and no proof of income to put no money down and defer interest payments for as long as possible. In Bakersfield, California, a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $720,000.

More generally, the subprime market tapped a tranche of the American public that did not typically have anything to do with Wall Street. Lenders were making loans to people who, based on their credit ratings, were less creditworthy than 71 percent of the population. Eisman knew some of these people. One day, his housekeeper, a South American woman, told him that she was planning to buy a townhouse in Queens. “The price was absurd, and they were giving her a low-down-payment option-ARM,” says Eisman, who talked her into taking out a conventional fixed-rate mortgage. Next, the baby nurse he’d hired back in 1997 to take care of his newborn twin daughters phoned him. “She was this lovely woman from Jamaica,” he says. “One day she calls me and says she and her sister own five townhouses in Queens. I said, ‘How did that happen?’ ” It happened because after they bought the first one and its value rose, the lenders came and suggested they refinance and take out $250,000, which they used to buy another one. Then the price of that one rose too, and they repeated the experiment. “By the time they were done,” Eisman says, “they owned five of them, the market was falling, and they couldn’t make any of the payments.”

...

Nor can you tell him that you asked him to lunch because you thought that you could trace the biggest financial crisis in the history of the world back to a decision he had made. John Gutfreund did violence to the Wall Street social order—and got himself dubbed the King of Wall Street—when he turned Salomon Brothers from a private partnership into Wall Street’s first public corporation. He ignored the outrage of Salomon’s retired partners. (“I was disgusted by his materialism,” William Salomon, the son of the firm’s founder, who had made Gutfreund C.E.O. only after he’d promised never to sell the firm, had told me.) He lifted a giant middle finger at the moral disapproval of his fellow Wall Street C.E.O.’s. And he seized the day. He and the other partners not only made a quick killing; they transferred the ultimate financial risk from themselves to their shareholders. It didn’t, in the end, make a great deal of sense for the shareholders. (A share of Salomon Brothers purchased when I arrived on the trading floor, in 1986, at a then market price of $42, would be worth 2.26 shares of Citigroup today—market value: $27.) But it made fantastic sense for the investment bankers.

...

No investment bank owned by its employees would have levered itself 35 to 1 or bought and held $50 billion in mezzanine C.D.O.’s. I doubt any partnership would have sought to game the rating agencies or leap into bed with loan sharks or even allow mezzanine C.D.O.’s to be sold to its customers. The hoped-for short-term gain would not have justified the long-term hit.

Seriously, read the whole thing. What we have now is 20 years in the making, and Lewis knew it from day 1.

Ouch

Shysterball asks an interesting hypothetical.

Um, maybe? Would I recover? I'm not worried about fertility, just regular function.

Warning

This is the grossest post in the history of the internet.

Seriously. Don't say I didn't warn you.

You're all dicks

Dickipedia. A handy reference!

(from TJ)

Sing it, sister!

Since I got nuttin' else

Here's a video of a silly cat.

New World Order

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

More on Obama and Prop 8

Crazy-good post by Terrance over at Pam's, about black homophobia.

A wingnut blogger outs himself when Prop 8 was declared passed. The comments were classy and full of empathy, as you can imagine. I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking there. The comments were hateful as you would expect. Seriously, read some.

Pam braves the Freeper comment board and returns to report the usual hysteria.

A post-election cross-burning. In New Jersey.

Now what?

This is funny. Inaccurate, but funny. Now is the time to get wonkish about health care, bitchez!

Oh noes!

Windows 3.x is finally discontinued.

Damn.

I learned how to network on 3.11. That thing rocked.

Post-mortem items

"NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books."

--------------------------

Assrocket at Powerline:
And the next time a hurricane strikes, it will be the Democrats' fault.

What a douchebag.

Anyway, this really doesn't need to be said, but, for the record:
No one said Katrina the storm was the GOP's "fault." It's was the preparation and response, namely the complete lack thereof, that was the GOP's fault. And you know that, so... seriously, slink back under your rock and STFU already.

Also: I will goddamned guarantee you that when another big one hits, you fuckwads on the right will understand what the word "competent" means.

----------------------

Paul the Spud has a good one.

Maybe giving McCain a teensy too much credit for self-awareness, but a really good analysis overall.

---------------------

Toast is deliriously blogging the day away.

------------------------

On Prop 8:
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Kevin Drum
Sebastian at ObsidianWings
Sullivan

Nice going there, jackasses

So, California black and latino/a voters... what the fuck is your problem?

Here're the Prop 8 exit poll results:


Good to know that this whole Obama thing means nothing to you.

Unless there's some other way to interpret a vote for Obama combined with a vote to remove rights for fellow humans beings. I don't see one. I just see that two minorities combined forces to deprive another minority.

UPDATE: A powerful post about similar doings in Texas.

YYYYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

(stolen from Furious, who stole it from...)

Early thoughts

I voted this morning, and have been useless ever since.

Posts like these didn't help.
Fuck you Joe.
Fuck you racists.
Fuck you news channel rating/drama whores.
Get ready for 8 years of this. Assuming Obama wins, of course.


Sob.
Sob.
Quadruple sob.
Guhhhhhh.
Yes.
Prop 8.
Prop 8.
Georgia? I don't know, but...
OK, just fucking shoot me now. Sob.


The ants in my pants are exceptionally active tonight. If I don't have a heart attack, we're good.

Gaaaahhhh!

(h/t Sullivan)

What a beautiful day

I voted this morning before work, and it went quite well. I live in a suburb of a small city, so I didn't expect the kind of nightmare crowds people have been reporting all over the country, and I was right. The gym was more crowded than I've ever seen it, mind you, but from parking to driving away a mere 18 minutes elapsed. It would have been under 10 minutes, but the couple in front of me had three small children to wrangle while they each took their turns.

My town is broken up into 15 voting sections, so I headed over to table 15 and signed the log book as the guy checked off that I was the 84th person to vote that morning at that table. He then gave me a large poster of the ballot layout. This is a souvenir!


I took my place in line and looked around. I saw a lot of smiling faces, a lot of volunteers, and the multigenerational black family (8 people of voting age plus some kids) at table 14. As each one came out of the booth (I think about 5 made it in and out while I waited), the others laughed and applauded and there were tears and group-hugs all around. That was it. I had my election memory. I almost choked up myself.

After the couple in front of me was done, I stepped forward, but back in time:

Levers, baby, levers.

That exact model, too. I flipped my choices, pulled the lever back to the left, and was out of there in no time.

My duty is done. Now I have to sit through work all day, and I can't stand it! I want to time-warp ahead to 9pm tonight.

Andrew Sullivan is collecting stories at his place, and he's had some great reader contributions so far. Check him out. And don't miss his endorsement. It's a great piece.

Ooh ooh ooh!

Holy crap!

Robert Downey Jr. set his crotch on fire!

Robert Downey Jr. is playing Sherlock Holmes in a Guy Richie movie? Can I just buy a ticket now?

And you wonder why American car-makers suck

Where'd they get this guy? HVCC remedial reading?

Fixed!

Enough with these fucking morons already.

Awesome. And a little depressing. And a lot funny.

This Fucking Election.

The enablers of the mortgage meltdown

This is it, right here.

“If a loan came from a top loan officer, they didn’t care what the situation was, you had to make that loan work,” she says. “You were like a bad person if you declined a loan.”

One loan file was filled with so many discrepancies that she felt certain it involved mortgage fraud. She turned the loan down, she says, only to be scolded by her supervisor.

“She told me, ‘This broker has closed over $1 million with us and there is no reason you cannot make this loan work,’ ” Ms. Cooper says. “I explained to her the loan was not good at all, but she said I had to sign it.”

The argument did not end there, however. Ms. Cooper says her immediate boss complained to the team manager about the loan rejection and asked that Ms. Cooper be “written up,” with a formal letter of complaint placed in her personnel file.

Ms. Cooper said the team manager told her to “restructure” the loan to make it work. “I said, how can you restructure fraud? This is a fraudulent loan,” she recalls.

Ms. Cooper says that her bosses placed her on probation for 30 days for refusing to approve the loan and that her team manager signed off on the loan.

Four months later, the loan was in default, she says. The borrower had not made a single payment. “They tried to hang it on me,” Ms. Cooper said, “but I said, ‘No, I put in the system that I am not approving this loan.’ ”

As I said in my original post on the topic, a loan officer's job used to be vetting loans so the bank wouldn't lose money to defaults. Once the banks started selling off loans, that didn't matter.

I do not understand your crazy moon language

[Scene]

Boss: Hey, please get this sign translated into Welsh for me.
Bob: Sure thing, boss.

Bob e-mails Welsh translator, "Hey, Maelgwn, can you send me a quick translation of the following text, so we can get a sign made up?"

Shortly thereafter, Bob receives an e-mail from Maelgwn. "Hey, great response time," he thinks. "I can get out early today." Bob forwards the text to the sign-maker.

[End scene]

Sign goes up some time later.

Someone notices the translation reads: I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the translator wasn't in, and had his e-mail set to auto-reply. Bob just ran with it.

Needless to say, I've sent this story to everyone in my company. It may not be as funny as the hedgehog, but it'll do.

The Feres Twins beg to differ

They'll see your javelin, and raise you a synchronized swim.

These people are nuts

And I mean that in the best possible way.