Property Ladder. We started DVRing it a few months ago, and have been watching every episode we can get our paws on.
If you’ve never seen it, the premise is that one person (or a couple of people, sometimes even a group of people) buys a house with the intention of renovating it and selling it for a profit – ie, “flipping” it. Once they’ve bought the house, the host of the show, Kirsten K3mp, shows up to walk through the house with the buyers and hear about their plans.
And what really makes the show for us is that Kirsten K3mp, while walking through the house and hearing what the buyers have planned, gets this really DISAPPROVING look on her face. It’s always the same disapproving look, and it cracks us UP.
What else we really like about the show is how dumb people are, and they don’t listen to Kirsten (who is a very successful realtor, real estate developer, designer and interior decorator. Also, she was on Saved By the Bell!) when she advises them to do one thing or not do another, and they end up totally fucking up and blowing through their budget in 10.2 seconds flat, and all is chaos.
Also, many times they intend to spend, say, $80,000 on renovating a house and end up spending $120,000, so what do they do? Why, they just raise the price, of course! It doesn’t matter what houses are going for in the area and that they’re dumbasses! Hike that price up, and sit on the house for months and months while it doesn’t sell! Makes sense to THEM.
It’s just a really damn good show, and we usually hit the “What a FUCKING idiot!” point about halfway through every show, where we both exclaim “What a FUCKING idiot!” and roll our eyes at each other.
My only gripe is that we’re apparently in a new season, and at the beginning of the show last season there was a part where Kirsten was talking to someone, and she had that disapproving look on her face, and she sternly said “It’s flipping, not flip-flopping!”, and we’d fast-forward through the opening song-and-credits except for that part, because you can sense the barely concealed rage Kirsten K3mp is carrying around with her, you can TELL that she wants to brand “FLIPPING. NOT FLIP-FLOPPING. YOU FUCKING FOOL.” on the forehead of the idiots she’s talking to, but she holds it together. Barely, but she does it. Anyway, in the new opening sequence, there is no “It’s flipping, not flip-flopping”, and when I first realized that, I turn to Fred and said, plaintively, “How will we know that it’s flipping? Is it flipping, or is it flip-flopping? I don’t KNOW, because she’s not TELLING us anymore!”
We also really like Flip This House and Flip That House.
* * *
Fred went out to the house on Saturday and Sunday to work on the wood shed and do other tasks around the house. I could have gone out to the house with him – I’m sure I could have found
something to do – but instead I opted to stay home and sit around on my dead ass. Besides, Sunday it was FUCKING COLD and I just didn’t even want to think about leaving the house to do anything.
So I didn’t.
I did a lot of reading and watching TV, is what I did. In fact, I read all of
Hannibal Rising on Saturday, and let me tell you this: Don’t fucking bother. There are NO questions that Hannibal Rising answered, that weren’t perfectly well answered in
Hannibal. Thomas Harris needs to get his ass off the Hannibal Lechter gravy train and write something as worth reading as
The Silence of the Lambs or
Red Dragon.
Describing why Hannibal Lechter is the way he is makes him
less interesting, not more.
I can only imagine how much
the movie must suck.
* * *
Movies we watched over the weekend:
Of Mice and Men. I read the book recently, which made me want to see the movie again. Gary Sinise as George and John Malkovich as Lenny – I’m not sure the movie could have been any better cast.
Saw III. Fred rented a bunch of movies Sunday and this was the one I wanted to see most. Why? I have no fucking clue. I spent most of the movie either looking at the wall waiting for the gross part to be over, or looking at one corner of the screen… waiting for the gross part to be over. The main guy (not
Jigsaw or
Julie Lawry, but the other main guy) looked terribly familiar to me, and I kept saying to Fred “Who IS that guy?” He didn’t look familiar to Fred, but then I finally figured it out. “That’s
Robert the Bruce!” I said. And it was. I love me some Robert the Bruce. (Trivia: he was once engaged to Catherine Zeta-Jones.)
The Guardian. Actually a pretty good movie (I think
Kelso might have found his niche), but I was cold to start with, and watching all those people swim around in ice-cold water just made me damn colder.
* * *
You may be asking yourself: “Self, I’m curious. What would be the number of cats that would make one make the jump from needing to vacuum occasionally – say, three times a week – to needing to vacuum each and every day?”
And the answer to that, my friends, is that when one makes the increase from six cats running around the house at all hours to nine cats running around the house at all hours. That is when one needs to vacuum every single day just to keep the mess under semi-control.
Not that I actually vacuum every day. But I should.
So we’re currently letting Joe Bob and Myrtle and Fantine (who we call “Momma”) run around the house all the time, without ever being locked up. I was concerned that Myrtle the Hellbeast would keep me awake at night with her Hellbeast roar (she sounds an awful lot like an angry cougar when she’s, well, angry), but there really hasn’t been an issue.
Fred feels sorry for Myrtle and Joe Bob because they’re going to get all comfortable here, and then we’re going to take them back to the pet store (eventually) and they’ll be all locked up in a little cage together. However, he also informed me that if we adopted them, it’d be the last time a foster cat ever came through our door, so there you go.
Obviously he just doesn’t love Joe Bob enough.
After all these years of not having to worry about the cats eating the plants (though they’d occasionally have a taste of a leaf or two), Joe Bob and Myrtle have made it necessary for me to move the plants off the bar in the kitchen. So I moved the plants out of the kitchen, and they started going after the plant on the Secretaire in the dining room, so I trimmed that plant back so its long, lovely branches (?) wouldn’t tempt them.
Then I walked into the dining room yesterday and saw this.
Apparently he got up on the Secretaire to chew on the plant, then realized he could get on top of the bookcase from there. So he did.
(He didn’t get down on his own, though. Instead, he sat and howled until I dragged a chair up to the bookcase and could reach him to drag him down.)
* * *
Self-portrait #20: How I Spent my Weekend.
Self-portrait
#19 is here, and
#18 is here.
* * *
I had a request for Spanky pictures.
Such a pretty boy, that Spanky.
* * *
I cannot believe it’s been three years since
Tubby died.
* * *
Previously
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Okay, I promise that’s the last weepy I-miss-my-kitty entry.
2003: Bleach is the shit.
2002: Just for the record, Mike Tyson is the biggest fucking idiot in the entire world.
2001: How the hell am I going to get my ass on Survivor 3 if they’re looking for model types??
2000: I was quite excited, as I recall. ]]>
I can’t believe it’s been 3 years. Lord, I miss those pics of the Tubbyman, he was truly entertaining.
I have bad news myself Robyn. Neighbors dogs came in my yard and killed Tootie, my fave kitty. I am so very hurt, sad, and pissed off.
Also, my LJ changed… it was marthaleigh but I name changed it so if you get a chance… add TIGERLADY.
BTW, I love that chair your sitting in while reading a book!
Did you see the Property Ladder where it was a single woman who had never flipped before and she let the house tell her what she should do with it? She was all into spiritual stuff and so she listened to the house. Her timeline and budget were laughable with what she wanted to do (and she failed miserably). It’s the only show I’ve seen that not only did she go completely off budget and over time, but the house hadn’t sold by the “update” portion of the show and at that point she was actually losing money.
In picture #18, you look like Phil Laak, the “Unabomber” of Texas-Hold ‘Em Poker fame. He’s bumpin’ boots with Jennifer Tilly, who’s become a mighty fine poker player in her own right.
Anyway, made me giggle this morning. Thanks.
RIP Tubby. Miss you and your sassy pictures, buddy.
Love that Angus, especially as Connor McGill.
I’ve watched the “Flip This/That House” shows, but I hadn’t heard of “Property Ladder.” Cool! More idiots to yell at. 🙂 A Flip episode I saw the other day had the most horrifying run-down, nasty, filthy former meth lab/bombed-out house in a Third World nation (but it was in LA). AND, get this: The flipper paid $189,000 for it! Ah, LA prices… I didn’t get to see the results, unfortunately.
Tubby seemed like such a sweetheart. I can’t believe it’s been three years, either. 🙁
Property Ladder and Flip This House caused me to think real hard about having my cable disconnected. I DVR’d Flip This House after the first show I saw. I loved those shows – I really miss them now that you brought them up. Sigh. Maybe by this summer, I will get satellite installed. No more cable for me – too darn expensive!
Aw Spanky! He’s so pretty. He would make a good match with our Zoe who is also pretty but not so smart.
Is Property Ladder the show TLC made a spoof commercial about with a gingerbread house and gingerbread women? I LOVED that commercial.
RIP Tubby. I can’t believe it’s been 3 years either.
We watched variations of those shows all weekend. Did anyone else see the “crappy country” lady? or how about the guy who thought he could fix the house in four weeks for 10k? I don’t know how his wife put up with him!
We watch Flip that house too! I enjoy it for the most part, they seem to always make a profit on it but why do they count the money they put into it as a profit? Profit I thought, was what you made after your expenses?
Anyway, my jaw dropped when I saw it had been 3 years since Tubby died! It has went so quick! Then I realized how long I had been reading you! WOW! Time flies!
Look at you all curled up in that chair with so much room to spare! *Applause*
Thanks for the Spanky Pictures Robyn.
He’s my favorite! Right up there with Miss Maddy. 😉
You look soooo skinny! 😀
Oh, that link about the water buffalo in China just made me cry! I’m about to leave for class, and now I have to fix my make up first. Thanks a bunch. 🙂
Seriously. What a great idea. Why donate the money when an actual buffalo would help more? That family was so moved by what was done…it was beautiful to watch. And to think that it only costs $400-$500 USD to buy one, yet costs them a year’s salary. So sad. I wish I had $500 to buy a buffalo!
I still miss seeing that big boy Tubby! I have a question: Do you read hardback books with the loose cover on them or do you usually take them off?
Aww, I miss Tubby, too! I think that my favorite pics of him are those ones where it looks like he MIGHT be relaxing, except for the bitchy meow that is coming out of his mouth!
Tubby rocked.
Tubby was my favorite of all your cats. I sure do miss him. Three years gone – unbelievable! ((((Tubs))))
aww, Spanky!!! he is so cute! Though I love seeing pics of all of your cats (and the fosters)
Know what? hearing about all your foster work has made fostering a goal of mine (when it is financially possible) in a few years.
I miss Tubby, too.
Thanks for sharing all your kitties with us!
My husband and I LOVE “Property Ladder” and Kirsten’s disapproving look is the VERY BEST PART.
Um, does anyone else see that Spanky has lips. Non-kitty looking lips? He is definately a pretty boy.
Hey Robyn…I have to say this…even though I’m sure you know it and have everything completely under control. But. If I didn’t say this…and something happened…I would NEVER EVER EVER forgive myself. So. Here goes…
Are those plants in the picures ‘Philadendrins’ (Ok..I KNOW that is not spelled right…but right now, it hardly matters as long as you know what I’m talking about!)?
They are BEAUTIFUL long ‘viney’ plants with spade shaped leaves. And. Are EXTREMLY poisonous to cats. Or…that’s what I’ve always heard. I have ONE. Only because it came to me from my mothers funeral…and it lives outdoors in the summer….and shut-up tight in the master bath in the winter to keep the seven heathen cats in my house from eating it.
Although honestly. The hair thing/sweeping thing you mentioned? Amen sister. And. I have the Dyson specifically for animal hair. Hm. Maybe I should let them get to the plant!!
No. Only kidding. I love each and everyone of those little idiots…along with their 21 relatives that live out one the porch and in the barn. And…YES….they are all spayed and neutered….not to mention spoiled rotten.
Anyway. In case you didn’t know. I had to mention it. But…if it’s not that kind of plant…just tell me to mind my own business, ok?