So finally after nearly 4 weeks of waiting to hear from the bank/sellers regarding the offer we put in we've finally got an answer sort of. The word is that we have a verbal agreement with a written offer soon to come. The problem lies in how long it took for them to accept or offer and the terms of their counter offer.

Their counter offer/acceptance carries the caveat that the home must close by May 29th. Thats right folks today is May 14th, we still don't have the written acceptance and now we need to close in 15 days. After talking with our mortage broker and our real estate agent we think its possible. But it is a lot of hoops and a short time to jump through them in.

Part of me wants to decline the offer and make the bank/sellers go to foreclosure but that part isn't is strong as the part of me that wants the damn house. And were full circle to "F*ck these F*ckin Bankers" The worst part is that if the hud inspection comes back with things needing attention...I'm fairly sure we're gonna be the ones footin the bill.

Tonight was my first Pizza Luce experience of spring. Round these parts (Uptown) a major rite of passage come spring is to walk down to Luce and indulge in a few rounds of refreshing libations followed by an always delectable pizza.

In years past my pre-pizza patio drink of choice was wine. A rose from spain, an oaky chilean chardonnay....I didn't think a more satisfying drink could be found to enjoy with a warm breeze and an inviting patio. Tonight I switched gears....wine was out I was having beer. Since we ordered "The Luce" pie with banana peppers, I figured I better pick out a crisp refreshing number. I settled in on the Surly Furious.

It was nice to hear that re-iterated at Minnebar yesterday. The panelists during the "State of tech in the State" were refreshingly honest. They pointed out the need for business plans and that simply building a service to be acquired by one of the big three was not a wise direction. The alpha geek in the middle even got props from the crowd when he stated that he was sick of social/ user generated content sites.

Although I do generally agree with the fact that social software is overblown and that the roll-up business model of being acquired by a larger corporation is a failing one; I am not willing to say web 2.0 is not a business model.

"....And the Pharmy goes to FLOMAX"

Seriously how can you not love the marketing for Flomax...the people responsible for the marketing of that drug hit a homerun.

First lets start with the name....FLOMAX say it with me...F.L.O.W.M.A.X. ...hell I can empty my bladder like a supersoaker in the hands of 5th grader but that doesn't stop me from wanting to try this drug. There is no possible way that you could have come up with a better name for a bladder problem drug.

Put that together with one of the single most effective sales techniques...asking a question, insinuating that your product has the answer. Two little words folks thats all it takes.

Weak Stream?

Who hasn't wanted a richer frothier stream.

So here I am watching these extreme skiing and snowboarding chicks on the telly. They are cutting fantastic lines, droppin nice cliffs and overall rocking their socks off. These girlys can tear up a mountain...kind of hot!! but the honeymoon is short, they cut to the interview parts and all you hear over and over in all manners of accents is "man you get up there and look down and its sick, and you get here or there and your stoked" what a let down, listening to these girls talk. Its like someone came along and stole all their adjectives.

The terms "Sick" and "Stoked" single handedly sum up the X-gamification of extreme sports. I love watching people get serious air and knock out some freshies with the best of them, but I can't handle all the crappy lingo.

Dang those Bankers!

We put in an offer on a decent little house in St. Louis Park...but unfortunately the house is a short sale. We put our offer in two days before the home was set to go to sheriffs sale(foreclosure). The sellers agent and the seller(lender) did postpone the foreclosure till the 30th of May. But they didn't give us an acceptance on our offer. Since the home will go to sheriffs sale on the 30th the home sale needs to close by the 29th.

So here we sit waiting to hear if our offer has been accepted, knowing full well that each day that the bank(seller) waits on our offer gives us less time to get our inspections, and mortgage closed. Nevermind the fact that we have waited for over week for a response on our offer.

Actual Lyrics:
shawty wanna thug
bottles in da club
shawty wanna hump
you know i like to touch ya lovely lady lumps
(she lick me like a lollipop)
shawty wanna thug
bottles in da club
shawty wanna hump
you know i like to touch ya lovely lady lumps

Minnesotan Translation:
That young woman is looking for a strong man who isn't too metro sexual
She occasionally would like a fella to buy her a drink or two at the bar
She probably might want to have sex
Are you drunk enough that I can touch your breasts?
She is performing fellatio like my penis is a candy sucker.
Don't ask first if you can kiss her....just kiss her.
Lets have another drink darlin
Are you game for lowering your expectations tonight....if your down...I'm down
I sure would like to touch your breasts.

This past friday we threw a party at our apartment. Nothing special, the usual ....beer, redbull, jager and wine mostly. As with all parties our fridge was left with a few stragglers. Today I was thirsty after a long day and against my better judgement I grabbed a Leinys berry wiess. Now I know what your thinking...and I was thinking it too...but I thought....It can't be that bad?

Its Worse!

Honestly I couldn't even swallow the first sip. It was like a spoonful of jelly mixed with a spritz of miller light. Seriously who the fuck drinks this stuff. I guess thats why there was 5 bottles of a six pack left. I promptly poured the rest of the bottle down the drain.

So my question is this....who the hell drinks all these juice/beer combos. Miller Chill, Leinies berry weiss and summer shandy to name a few. Is anyone over the age of 24 actually drinking this stuff or is it simply an attempt to latently market to kids?

I guess I shouldn't call the kettle black...I vividly remember drinking Zima with Jolly Ranchers roughly 15 years ago.

For the last couple of days, google searches have yielded a suspicious error. Basically I type in a search phrase say "twin cities real estate"....I wait for my freshly indexed goodness. But do I get what I want...NO!

Instead I am greeted by an error message that says essentially:
"Your querly looks surprisingly similar to those used by computer generated requests (bots)....if you are not a bot we do apologize...please kindly enter this Captcha so that we may serve you your results that you as human being so rightly deserve."

Can I say for sure that this is caused by USI Wireless? No I don't know enough about network technology, but I do suspect that USI Wireless is routing my search traffic somehow or is forwarding my urls in manner that google doesn't appreciate. Regardless it's a internet error and at this point I tend to blame USI Wireless for most of my problems in that department, when in rome I guess?

Karyn and I are in the process of purchasing our first home. We have created a list of all the things that we are looking for in a home. We look at the crime stats trying to determine the best neighborhood. I send out twitters asking for home surfing tips. We plug in all kinds of variables into all types of different websites. What I am getting at is that we, like most people searching for a new home; try to make the decision as logical as possible.

So about a week or so ago one of my favorite and possibly the most popular technology blog on the internet went through a fairly major redesign. Kudos to the team at AOL/Blogmsith on the clean design it looks amazing. Ditto the fluid layout, it is nice to be able to see gadgets in their full glory. The site truly shines on my 22" monitor at work. But the the redesign is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. In fact in my opinion, it actually took a small step backward.

What the hell has happened to the world, no wonder the music industry is in the shitter. I realize that most rap is sold to young white men and that many of these men are geeks but WFT? This song sucks...the hook "Google me baby, just google me baby" I realize that the song is a tongue-in-cheek attempt to encourage the listener to search out the artist....but it is just such a crappy song. Every record label is scrambling to put together the next Soldier Boy type viral new media hit, but this is not the way to do it.

If you didn't have the constitution to listen thru the song to the chorus, I've posted the hook.

Lyrics (hook):
"(You ain't nobody) Google me baby!
(Ya betta ask somebody) You betta google me baby!
(You ain't nobody) Google me baby!
(Ya betta ask somebody) You betta google me baby!
Google me baby ."

This past thursday my wife had happy hour at Laredos the new tex-mex restaurant on the Excelsior & Grand corner that used to house Brix and Mojitos.

Laredos is run by the same folks behind McCoys and Brix the restaurant that formerly resided in the space. When transformed from Mojitos to Brix the entire space was renovated. Sadly this renovation is mostly cosmetic.

Throw in a few cowboy hats, add some barbed wire....dabble about a handful of license plates from Wyoming, Montana, Texas etc...and viola Tex-Mex. The food fared similar to the renovation. We started with the guacamole, it was table-side style but paled in comparison to similar offerings at Bar Abilene and Tejas. For dinner I had chicken and chorizo enchiladas, they were acceptable but forgetable..the rice was dry, the beans were watery. Wifey had the burrito she seemed to like it.

Original Lyrics:
Du
du hast
du hast mich
du hast mich gefragt
du hast mich gefragt, und ich hab nichts gesagt

Willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet
treu ihr sein für alle Tage

Nein

Willst du bis zum Tod, der scheide
sie lieben auch in schlechten Tagen

Nein

My Translation:

would
would you
would you really
would you really, you would eat that?

mayonnaise on a bratwust and you eat it?
maybe if its on a rye bun

No
maybe if you were starving on a deserted island and you could not find any suitable stone ground mustard

No..it's not right I will never put mayonnaise on my wurst regardless of rye bun.