Things bouncing around this head of mine: 1/18

- I just heard on the news that Jamie Lynn Spears’ baby is going to have a baby! Wow!
- For those of you that eat lunch daily in Manhattan, what exactly is in the white sauce?
- When is the last day in the year to stop telling people ‘Happy New Year’? I usually stop saying it on Halloween. Is that too late?
- Am I one of only two people that found Monica Lewinsky hot?
- I just don’t understand chopsticks what so ever. They have shovels in Asian countries right? You’d figure that someone out of 2 billion people would have put two and two together. (oh wow, a pun).
- I recently bought Howie Mandel’s old hair on eBay.
- Howie Mandel recently bought MY old hair on eBay.
- I still believe that Andrew Ridgley was the most talented member of Wham!
- My favorite episode of 'Three’s Company' is the one where there was a misunderstanding. That one episode was so great.
- Speaking of ’70 sitcoms, remember the show 'One Day at a Time'? Most men fantasized about Valerie Bertinelli or McKenzie Phillips. No, not me. I wanted Bonnie Franklin to be my mommy.
- I told Donald Trump the other day that I hate people who name drop. They are just like soooo insecure.
- Why can’t I find Bartleys & James anymore?
- Has anyone been in the Paris Hilton? They have a great continental breakfast.
- I am now a practicing Ren Buddhist. I pray to Stimpy.
- Which is more violent: a melee, a donnybrook or a brouhaha?
- People who shovel cement with pitchforks for a living are called Mortar Forkers.
- I heard Randy Johnson got a vasectomy in the off season and will now be called ‘The Big Eunuch’
- Michael Jackson’s new album will probably come out later in 2008. It is tentatively titled ‘Translucent’.
- I just read the Jewish introspective book ‘Matzo Soup for the Colon’.
- Speaking of food, I invented a new delicacy. Pickled Venison. I am calling it Dill Doe.
- Man I think those Thumb movies are sheer genius.
- I use cotton candy as a dust broom.
- My doctor says I suffer from Attention Defici…oh look balloons!

The Mountain Cat

Thursday Random Thoughts 1/17

Stuff I have been thinking about recently:

-I was wondering the other day if the origin of the rap "beef" goes back to the inter-music feud between the Van Zandts and Neil Young in Sweet Home Alabama ? Was this the first calling out in music? Did this fued inspire rappers to call each other out in their music? And did this in any way contribute to the deaths of Tupac and Biggie ?

-Goody's Powders are hands down the best non-prescription headache reliever EVER !!

-It's snowing here today which is really cool because it doesn't snow very often in Charlotte, NC.

-I found out this week that my Alma mater Lenoir-Rhyne College is considering becoming a university. What exactly would that change be? What the heck is the difference between a college and a university. Is there something there I am not getting?

-Am I the only one who doesn't have some sort of music for my cellphone ring tone? All I have is a boring "Ring-Ring" like an old rotary dial phone. It's my "retro" rebellion.

-$243,898 in assets and $180 million in liabilities. Who is that? Mike Nifong thats who. He filed for bankruptcy on January 15th. He deserves any punishment that gets handed down to him.

-I know that I was one of the last people to start paying my bills online but now that I have it sure was nice not to have to worry about writing checks for those annual life insurance premiums I usually forget about in January.

-I have been doing some thinking on this. Give a listen to Shakira and then Tracy Chapman their voices sound eerily the same don't you think? You don't think so? Listen again.

-Don't feel bad laughing at some of the American Idol reject singers. I heard a radio interview yesterday with the "Go down Moses, Let my people Go" singer. He said he was intentionally singing bad to get on TV because he is an actor and he wanted to get his face out there. He doesn't have a disability like someone I was watching the show with thought.

- I am actually very surprised that I really enjoy the music that I have heard off Fergie's album "The Duchess." I don't really care for the Black Eyed Peas but this album is good. Now am I the only one who thinks that Fergie's song Clumsy sounds like the beat track came straight from a Casio keyboard circa the 1980's ??

-I had a dead battery the other day and I wanted to again thank the nice lady whose name I don't know who let me borrow her battery for a jump so I didn't have to call AAA.

-Does anyone else LOVE the taste of Red Lobster's cheddar bay biscuits ??

-Tomorrow is the birthday of someone very special to me... It's the birthday of the best wife and mother I know of. I love you Sweetie and I hope you have a great birthday.


-Doc

What kind of RUSH are you?

I work for a mortgage broker. The job of a mortgage broker company is to bring in the clients and place them with a lender that best suits their needs. We deal in very high volume and send lots of file packages to several lenders (Citibank, HSBC, Wells Fargo, etc.). More often than not we are at the mercy of the lender's own volume for a quick mortgage approval. To circumvent this problem the loan originator who brought in the business would mark the client’s file with the word RUSH with a red magic marker. Usually in big letters across the front cover of the file. This will indicate to the lender that we need them to step on it so we can get an approval quicker than a non-RUSH file. This sounds simple. However, the busier we get, the more RUSH files get sent to the already overwhelmed lender. Therefore if every file is a RUSH then NONE of the loans becomes a RUSH! The more RUSH-es we have, the word RUSH no longer has a meaning. The urgency of these files gets diluted.

To troubleshoot, we have come up with different levels of RUSH depending upon the client’s situation. Below is a matrix of these levels (Sort of a Homeland Security Advisory System for Mortgages):

- *BLANK* (No Rush. Client’s do not have a deadline to get approved, meet rate & guidelines or closing).
- RUSH (Client needs an approval in a week. And will need to close within 60 days to meet rate & guidelines).
- RUSH RUSH! (Client needs an approval within 5 days as they need it for a coop board meeting and closing within 60 days).
- MAJOR RUSH!! (Client needs an approval within 4 days as they need it for a coop board meeting and closing within 45 days).
- SUPER RUSH!!! (Without an approval in 3 days, their coop board meeting will be delayed a month and cannot close within 30 days now before their rate goes up).
- SUPER SUPER RUSH!!!! (An approval must be faxed within 2 days as the seller has already set a closing date 20 days from now and there are a lot of outstanding items that have to be cleared!).
- EXTREME RUSH!!!!! (Must have the approval by tomorrow!! The seller is threatening my client to close within 15 days!!)

Well it does get worse. We have yet to use these following terms, but maybe we may have to as this industry gets more frantic and competitive:

- SUPER SEVERE EXTREME RUSH!!!!!! (200 pages were faxed to the lender at 9:01 AM! Must get an approval no later than noon today! Must close by Friday or the clients lose their $100,000 down payment!!!)
- BLOODY SUICIDAL SUPER SEVERE EXTREME RUSH!!!!!!! (HELP!!! We stole this loan from another mortgage broker!! Needs to close in 48 hours! We just faxed you 300 pages. Need the closing set now!!! AGHHH!!!!!!).
- MAJOR SUPER EXTREME SEVERE BLOODY SUICIDAL HOMICIDAL RUSH RUSH RUSH RUSH!!!!!!!!!! (I’ve never seen this kind of RUSH before. But if I do, it will probably be the seventh sign of the apocalypse).

- The Mortgage Cat.

If you want the job at least spell it write... err right

I find this hilarious. Charlotte, NC mayor Pat McCrory announced that he was running for North Carolina Governor on Tuesday and then promptly sent out news releases that had this on them:

Now call me on this if I am wrong but if you are running for an elected office like governor wouldn't you want to make sure you could at least spell it? Now of course "Mayor Pat"as we call him around here wasn't the one in charge of spelling however those who were responsible then decided to get wacky.

The fun began when the mistake was pointed out. It seems the campaign manager said "a hacker had accessed the campaign's computer to alter the word". Then they said no it was a graphic design error. When asked to comment again later in the day they said there was a second hacker attack, then finally at the end of the day McCrory said No it was just a spelling error. Wheew could you follow all that?

Let's hope that if these are indeed lies that McCrory's staff can keep them better under wraps or at least make sure everyone knows which lie is being told so there is less confusion.

Good grief. Not a good way to start out the first day of a campaign. This campaign may prove fun for watching!

-Doc

(In the interest of full disclosure I did vote for McCrory, a Republican twice for mayor of Charlotte despite being a Democrat myself and I think he has done a good job running Charlotte even though he should be a full time mayor and not a Duke Energy employee)

Ask Doc and the Mt. Cat

We meant to introduce this yesterday but got caught up in The great won ton caper of '08. We are going to have a new segment from time to time here called "Ask Doc and the Mt. Cat" If you have an issue that you need advise on please submit an e-mail to docmtcat@gmail.com and we will endeavour to give you our best advice "Dear Abby" style. Of course your identity will be kept anonymous and hopefully we can help. This is just our little way of giving back to the community that has been so good to us.

There is a box that will stay on the right hand side of the page with the e-mail address and some information.

Help us help you!

-Doc and the Mt. Cat

Wonton-gate '08!

Yo this Cat is not happy. I brought into work a whole lot of left over Chinese food from the weekend and someone in my office either ate or threw out my wonton soup! I had big Tupperware filed with wontons. Plus someone took my last fried wonton. Oh but they didn't touch the rest of my Happy Family with mixed Chinese vegetables or Barbecued Beef with rice dishes!! Not that this food was expensive but it is the doggone principle of it! I confronted a few likely culprits but no admissions. Mark my words I will get to the bottom of this.

Hell hath no fury than a Cat who has his food stolen!

- The Mountain Cat!!!

This made me think

The other day while stopped in bad traffic waiting to turn on to the interstate I saw another car opposite of me that I can only describe as a kind of gang banger car. It was lowered with big chrome rims and there was a 20ish African American male slumped low in the drivers seat sporting cornrow braids. I didn't think anything of it at first as this in itself is not an unusual sight, however I had to take a second look. As I sat there I began to realize that he was singing the the same song that I was hearing on my car radio. I looked again and there was no doubt that he was mouthing the words to Led Zeppelin's Living Loving Maid.

I had two thoughts. First of all maybe just maybe I have more street cred than I thought. Then discarding that as preposterous my second thought was that some prejudice or preconceived notion inside of me automatically assumed that this guy based solely on his appearance would probably enjoy some other kind of music that I was listening to. That made me think. I am certainly not a racist person. I was actually brought up in a very racially and culturally diverse family setting. This situation just helped to remind me that self examination of my own preconceived notions about the other folks we share this planet with is healthy for me. Never make assumptions based on appearances because so often those are wrong. If my window had been down I would have probably said something totally un-cool to him like. "Rock On Man!"

Yeah I really need to work on that street cred thing.

-Doc

New Poll 1/14/08 - Cola Wars

Thanks to everyone who voted in last weeks poll. (which is archived down the right hand side of the page) Subway Oil and Vinegar posed a huge challenge to Arby's Horsey Sauce however Horsey won in the end due not only to it's deliciousness but also to it's huge fan following. Taco Bell Mild Sauce finished a distant third. Therefore Arby's horsey Sauce shall here by be referred to as "World's Best Condiment" Thank you to those who got up and clicked it to victory and in the process making Oil and Vinegar seem more like Oil and water. But I digress.

This week I expect an equally epic battle. Last week taste buds were the determining factor but this week I feel that the vote will fall along geographical lines. It's The Cola Wars !! The poll this week is What do you call those carbonated beverages that we all drink? Soda, Pop, Soft Drink, coke (generic term), Cola, or Other. Let the debate and the war wage and may the best term with the most support win. If you have an "other" please post it here. Voting begins now and runs through Midnight Sunday night.

Bottoms up !

-Doc