Is anyone else terrified by the proposed decrease in the mortgage deduction?

First, let me say that I voted for President Obama and am proud to say that. There was little chance I was going to vote for McCain, and his choice of Sarah Palin for a running mate removed all doubt. That said, I'm not thrilled by the President's recent announcement that he plans on reducing the mortgage deduction for individuals making over $250,000 per year.

While I'm not yet in that tax bracket, it will impact me nonetheless. In an already depressed housing market, doing anything that could further weigh down housing prices is borderline insanity. The Bay Area is widely known to be the most expensive metro area in the US. Lots of people here make over $250K per year and still have trouble buying homes. Removing the mortgage deduction which also removes a big incentive to buy a house, will cripple the real estate market in this area - and likely take down a lot of regular folks with it. There are a lot of adjustable rate mortgages in our area, and if home prices are dropping there are going to be a lot of people unable to re-fi in a few years. That means lots of increased mortgage payments and subsequently lots of defaults on loans or complete demolition of savings accounts because they have to sell at lower values to repay the loan. I'm not going to lie. That scares the crap out of me. We're still 3.5 years away from having to re-fi, but the chance of losing 20% to 30% off my condo's value is terrifying. At this point, there's not much I can do besides hope that this economic tsunami is over by then. That's a pretty helpleses feeling. Hopefully the right decisions are made by the right people to avoid what could be a very ugly financial situation in the Bay Area.

SF Day Trips Examiner: Sweeping coastal views, a waterfall, and great fish tacos - San Pedro Valley Park

Just posted a new article at Examiner.com: SF Day Trips Examiner: Sweeping coastal views, a waterfall, and great fish tacos - San Pedro Valley Park.

Here's a snippet:

It's no secret that many visitors as well as locals head south of San Francisco, down Highway 1 to Pacifica for beaches surfing, and picturesque views of the Pacific. The drive through Devil's Slide, a winding stretch of Hwy 1 along sheer cliffs above the ocean, is alone worth the trip. But hurry, because the tunnel will be completed soon leaving the Slide to cyclists only.

While the beaches are fantastic, I'm a much bigger fan of the incredible hiking opportunities that offer hearthumping climbs and sweeping views of the Pacific. One such hike can be found in San Pedro Valley Park, nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains just south of Pacifica. The 1,100 acre park is home to 1,900 foot Montara Mountain as well as 175 ft Brooks Falls which is incredible during the rainy season.

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EarthBaby saves us from mountains of dirty diapers

EarthBaby is a relatively new company - launched in April 2008 - in the San Francisco Bay Area that offers an eco-friendly solution to the disposable diaper problem faced by a lot of parents. As expectant parents, my wife and I have had a lot of consternation around the thought of tossing thousands of diapers into the local land fill when our baby is born comes in July. We toyed with the idea of using cloth diapers, but quite frankly I'm just not prepared to handle that - it's disgusting. So we were starting to prepare ourselves for the inevitability of Pampers and Huggies.

But not any more. Tonight we saw a story on the local news about EarthBaby and our problems are solved. The year-old company offers compostable diapers that they pick up and dispose of for you. So you get the convenience and benefit of great, disposable diapers without killing our natural resources. The downside is that the service is only available in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties in the Bay Area. I would love to know their expansion plans, so if anyone from the company wants to comment that would be great.

Trying out a new gig at Examiner.com

Examiner.com is a local news aggregation site that relies heavily on citizen journalism to cover a variety of topics from news to politics to sports to travel. As I become more interested in writing and blogging - starting with this blog but continuing with my gig at TVLoop and FanSection - I thought I would take a turn at writing for a more professional site. Examiner.com fit the bill so I completed a form and sent in an article submission about the Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve. I guess they liked it, because I'm the new San Francisco Day Trip Travel writer. You can find my profile and content here. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Rick Santelli Needs Some Decaf

I don't really like his politics (he voted for McCain), but I can't deny Rich Santelli has a point regarding Obama's mortgage plan.



I make my mortgage payments every month and things are definitely tighter than they were this time last year. Plus I'm going to need to re-fi at some point and will this plan be there to give me a hand? Probably not. So let's make it an equal opportunity plan and not just one that benefits people that bit off more than they can chew. Oh my god...I sound like my Dad.

My new favorite TV show - Dexter

I took the plunge into the Dexter pool this weekend, and I liked it. I've heard lots of people talking up the greatness of the series but haven't been too interested until recently. I was tired of renting DVDs and decided to taken on a TV show project. Up for consideration was Arrested Development, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Dexter, and Weeds. Dexter won and my wife and I started Season 1 yesterday during a rainy Bay Area Saturday. The show freakin' rocks and I'm already jonesing for disc 2 which will hopefully be enroute from Blockbuster soon but President's Day is throwing a kink in the US postal system.

If you're interested in checking out Dexter, here's a nice preview/promo:



And if you want to get hooked up with a Dexter community to talk with other fans, take trivia questions, etc., check out the Dexter community on TVLoop.com, one of the web properties of Watercooler (the company I work for). And to be completely transparent with the gratuitous self promotion, here's a great Dexter widget for you die-hard fans:


- Find more at TVLoop

Biggest Tools on TV: The Snuggies Old Man

Okay, I don't have anything against old men in general. In fact, some of my favorite people are old men. I love Santa Claus and even though I don't eat fried chicken, Colonel Sanders seems pretty cool with the whole goatee and everything. But the old guy from Snuggies has worn out his welcome. In fact, that goes for the whole Snuggies cast - they're all officially on the Biggest Tools on TV list starting now. They cram their faces with popcorn, type on laptops and read books all the while wrapped up in a backwards robe like some bad extra from Star Trek.

This product is right up there with the Shamwow and Slapchop for products that I can see absolutely no use for. Do you know to use a blanket? Yes, okay good. Do your arms work? Perfect, only one more question. Are you retarded. No? Then the Snuggie is obviously not for you. But, the WTF Blanket might be. Check out this fantastic Snuggie parody that I found on AdFreak tonight. Classic.

Extortion is the New Facebook Business Model

YoBusted, a new company that allows users to upload compromising photos and videos of their friends, has a new way to make money on Facebook - extortion. That's right, YoBusted's business model is to charge those very same friends a fee to remove the offending materials from the site. So the next time your buddy uploads that picture of you macking with that stripper in Vegas, prepare to cough up some dough to have it hidden from prying eyes.

While you have to give them an E for effort here, this can't seriously be their revenue model. In fact, the word is that Facebook is preparing to open up a serious can of whoop ass on the fledgling site after photos from Facebook profiles made their way there. In fact, accoriding to Silicon Alley Insider, Facebook has brought in the big guns from the FBI.

I have to admit, I was curious about what I would find on the site, so I headed over to take a look. All I found were some MySQL errors, so it appears as if YoBusted is...well...busted. At least for now. When then site comes back online they'll likely have plenty of lawsuits to keep them busy. Good luck guys.

ESPN takes some heat for the Fist Kiss

Is this ad homophobic?



Evidently gay-advocates think it is so ESPN has agreed to stop airing it according to AdRants. Has politically correctness so permeated our everyday lives that we can't make fun of the idiocy of the fist bump without catching grief for being homophobic? Has it really come to that?

Personally, I think the ad is funny. I think Shaq treats Breen like a lepper because 1) the fist bump is the stupidest fad ever, and 2) calling it a fist kiss makes it even more absurd. Steve Hall from AdRants said it best in his comment at Ad Freak:

everybody needs to lighten up...this isn't homophobic, and this isn't about jock culture. Calling the fist bump (whether it's lame or not) a fist kiss turns it into something it's not and gives it sexual connotations (when its not a sexual act). So it's weird. Doesn't mean it's anti-gay. Doesn't mean it's homophobic. If someone came up to you and tried to shake your hand and said "gimme some handsex" or "let's handf*$k" you'd think that was weird too...

Handsex. Well put Steve.

Reading anything more into what's supposed to be a humorous ad is just taking life way to seriously folks. I can understand why ESPN caved to pressure to remove it from circulation, but it never should have come to that.

The Secrets of Lost Unveiled

Well not really, but ABC is now creating a featurette that attempts to summarize the latest episode using action figures and cutouts. Nice. First they confuse the hell out of us on a regular basis and now they're probably mocking us as we all flock to this goofy little video. It's a conspiracy. Whatever the case, enjoy Lost Untangled.

Facebook Turns Five

In case you've been under a rock today, you already know that Facebook has reached it's 5th birthday. It's hard to believe that Facebook has only been around for five years. With 150 million users and countless addicts, it's difficult to remember a time when updating your status or posting photos to share with friends wasn't part of your every day life. That's a testament not only to the popularity of the site, but to how it has effectively changed the way people socialize and share content with each other. Facebook has completely changed the game. Here are just a few of my favorite moments from within my own little social graph:

1. Finding a out a friend got divorced because they changed their relationship status.
2. Finding out another friend got divorced because they updated their general status that they were "on the way to sign the divorce papers". Nice.
3. Seeing countless women announce their pregnancies before the swimmers even hit the egg. What happened to the three month rule?
4. Seeing the "back in the day" photos of all of my adult friends when they were living large in the 80s. Yikes.
5. Getting friend requests from high school classmates who I didn't know then and certainly don't know almost 20 years later. Why would I want to connect with you people? No offense, but we're not friends.

While there are some that are skeptical on whether Facebook can continue the rocket-ship rise of the last few years, the site has really just scratched the surface from a business perspective. The company has been completey focused on growth and has just now begun to take a harder look at revenue. If you're interested in a retrospective on how Facebook has changed over the years, Inside Facebook has some great screenshots.

Comcast makes everyone forget all about the Heidi Game

By now you've obviously heard about the "mishap" in Tuscon, AZ where Comcast aired a solid 10 seconds of porn from Club Jenna during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. I say "mishap", because come on...how does that happen? I don't know what went wrong, but I would bet my next two paychecks that was no mishap and some technician is getting a big laugh with his buddies tonight.

Anyway, I took a gander at the offending footage and it's definitely the full monty and then some. I can just see some family sitting around watching their beloved Cardinals score the go ahead TD only to be treated to ten seconds of Mr. Floppy bouncing off their television screen. If you absolutely have to see the carnage, here's the link. It's obviously not safe or work or other public viewing.

Comcast has apologized profusely but there's no word yet on what kind of make good they're planning to give impacted customers. Free subscription to Club Jenna maybe?