While sorting through old paperwork (pronounced “shredding the bills and pitching the rest”), I found a double-sided glossy color flier from the peak of the local housing bubble about 2.5 years ago, advertising my next-door neighbor’s house for the sweet price of only $815,000. The realtor even registered a domain name for it and everything. Not that he expected me to buy it, of course. He was letting me know it was a seller’s market, and time for me to jump in!

No, it didn’t sell. Not even when he brought in an entire freakin’ tour bus full of potential buyers (which blocked my driveway for about an hour).

It finally sold two months ago, for $429,000. I don’t know what he bought it for, but I’d guess that my neighbor lost at least $150,000. I’d feel worse for him if he hadn’t asked me a few years ago if I had any good ideas for investing half a million dollars.

Amusing thing I hadn’t noticed before: the ad says “large yard - space for RV or boat”. This is a bald-faced lie, and the realtor should be bitch-slapped for making this claim and backing it up with a deceptive photo. Without a cargo helicopter, the only way to get an RV into his back yard would be to knock down the fence, pave over about six feet of my front lawn, relocate the utility box at the curb, and then very, very carefully squeeze it along the side of his house. Which would be illegal, because it would be visible from the street.

You might be able to get a small boat back there by only paving a few feet of my lawn, but you’d have a helluva time getting it back out again.

From Instapundit at the Republican convention:

His bus was attacked by protesters who dropped sandbags from an overpass, but he was unscathed.

[Update: Really winning the hearts and minds out there, gang. And I do mean “gang”:

Protesters smashed windows, punctured car tires and threw bottles Monday during an anti-war march to the site of the Republican National Convention.

I hope you brought plenty of bail money. Excuse me, I hope your parents brought plenty of bail money. Or not, preferably. Rot in jail for a while.]

The trailers for Hellboy 2 may or may not be advertising a good action flick. One thing they’re definitely advertising is the creeping doom that is political correctness.

Take a good look at this frame:

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It’s times like this that I’m glad I don’t follow local politics. Also that I have three cops living on my street.

Dennis Donohue, mayor of Salinas, an agricultural community dubbed America's salad bowl and the birthplace of the Nobel Laureate, John Steinbeck, appealed to the community to participate in a week-long Fasting for Peace campaign.

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"Make no mistake, a single fast or city flower or group of grandmas alone won't reduce violence in the streets," the paper stated. "But combined, they inject positive thinking into a city so desperate for some, and represent another chance for Salinas to come together over a community problem."

And why is this news in the UK? Because the Great Nanny has made this sort of wishful thinking their last remaining hope for crime control.

Nice to see not all of my neighbors are as deluded as the mayor, though:

"Fasting will accomplish NOTHING with regard to the gang violence problem. It is your typical liberal form-over-substance response to a serious problem that needs serious action, not new-age hullabaloo."

Barack Obama, July 16, 2008, as seen on CNN:

Throughout our history, America's confronted constantly evolving danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the frontier, from the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor, to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Americans have adapted to the threats posed by an ever-changing world.

Commenting on the common fantasy that America is a repressive police state, Steven says:

It's almost like LARPing for them, with the added benefit that they can feel "besieged and persecuted", and feel like they're part of a revolutionary movement, without actually risking anything important. Because what they're doing is about as dangerous as going to a slasher movie.

Indeed. Leftist Activist Repression and Persecution: a new game from the makers of Emo: The Whimpering.

Got this in my change from lunch today:

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Just a helpful tip: when you find yourself being passed on the right by a dump truck that’s barely able to do the speed limit, you’re in the wrong lane.

Also, when you finally change lanes to allow the person behind you to pass, wait until the other four people behind him pass before you pull back into the left lane. You’ll live longer.