Dominos Cinnastix are delicious. And free. Squat. Rip.

Everything I'm about to type is completely boring and pointless.
As someone incapable of cooking anything more complex than sloppy joes or peanut butter on toast it has been a rough few weeks for me food-wise. In a typical week I will go out to my mom's on Sunday and get loaded up with a dickload of good food that gets me though Wednesday or so, at which point I transition to ham sandwiches on one of several different kinds of artisan bread. Buying expensive bread is my way of making a sandwich into a meal, just to kick things up a notch. BAM! Muphucka. Sometimes I go so far as to buy a bag of Sunchips and some juice, but typically it's just a lame-sandwich. That pattern was recently broken when I took a new job a few weeks ago and had to move to working during the day.
Too tired to drive to mom's I was forced to comb the internet for foods that could be prepared by someone else and then brought to me while still hot (I tried to find some place that would actually send over a temporary house boy to feed me but have so far come up short). What I did find was a coupon for a $6 large pizza and some free Cinnastix. Jackpot. Not normally one to go overboard with sweets or greasy stuff in general, I find myself unable to not buy and eat cinnastix multiple times per week. They are too F ing delicious. I would eat them all day every day if I could.
What sucks about this is that the schedule change combined with this garbage cold weather has made me lazy as hell and I've put on 7 or 8 pounds, which is a lot for me. I will go to the gym today though, since it goes without saying that girls don't like fat guys and it's almost spring break time. For someone.
Also, my eyes are bloodshot as a mofo but I promise I haven't been sitting around blowing trees all day. I'm not a hippie, I just need a nap. Buy me this shirt for Christmas: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://rlv.zcache.com/terrance_phillip_blood_rage_tshirt-p235640372742657902qw9y_400.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.zazzle.com/terrance_phillip_blood_rage_tshirt-235640372742657902&usg=__rX9IoAf1FCiQVgJNsGwyX1RjnhE=&h=400&w=400&sz=33&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=48GCAnrGL8E1xM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dterrance%2Band%2Bphillip%2Bblood%2Brage%26ndsp%3D21%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

A brief tale of my encounter with a pathetic soul. AKA God this guy is a loser.

So he comes over the other day, and while I initially simply refused to open the door lest he try to come in, I was hours later dismayed upon exiting to find that he had simply taken to sitting in the bushes around my porch. Whether this was to hide or just feel more comfortable in the dirt I don't know, but anyway.
The stench of moldy teeth on his breath he approached until I, pinned into a corner, could no longer back away from this ragged husk of a man. Then it spoke: "Hey, I know we joke around about me being garbage but I think I finally realize that it wasn't a joke. I am trash and you are all good looking and popular and stuff. How can I turn my pathetic waste of a life around? All I want is to get off the meager government subsidized food rations and out of the section 8 housing the feds give me. I just want a chance to not suck so fucking badly at life. And a shower. Help me."
Now I'm always up for a challenge so I figured what the hell. I'll call it charity work and write it off I thought. I told him to come back in two days, and lacking a car or even money for the bus he returned to the bushes until he saw the mail man come twice (which considering we spoke on Friday afternoon meant he sat three days, what a dipshit). Turns out his Hello Kitty watch is analog and he couldn't read it, and it's also broken so even if he could he would always think its 2:30.
Once he brushed himself off and I turned the hose on him we took some patio furniture (which I later helped him fashion into a makeshift airplane so he could 'fly' home) into the yard and I laid out my plan for his 'future' such as it is.
"So, I've spent a solid 5 minutes thinking about your situation which I think is more than adequate given that any change for you would be an improvement. So, let's get to it. We'll start with your employment status. It's garbage. I was thinking that perhaps we could transition you from your current duty as the guy who cleans the grease traps at Capt D's into a more upwardly mobile position that better utilizes your admittedly limited skill set. Sales seems like a good fit and as it so happens while at Kroger the other day I overheard the manager talking about hiring Spanish speakers to stock the shelves at 3 am. I immediately thought of you. After reviewing your 'qualifications' with the night clerk he decided that you were perhaps under-qualified for the position but he did offer up a spot cleaning out the grease traps, even suggesting they might pay you to do so. That sounded tempting but being who I am I threw him some money and he changed his mind. The job is yours. The $11.85 I used to bribe him was just some leftover shit I was going to throw into the sewer in front of some bums anyway, but to keep you honest it is going to come out of your first 18 paychecks. I'm not a charity after all.
"Now, about your appearance. You look like a sack full of mashed-up assholes. I'm thinking we can get you into something more modern and trendy like some Gant or Knights of the Round Table; is there still a Burlington Coat Factory around here? I think that might be going a bit upscale, but considering that on the rare occasion you actually wear a shirt you only have the bottom button closed it is a step in the right direction. For the last time, this is Nashville, not Staten Island, so leave that pursed-lip fake tan wifebeater spiked hair broseph guinea daego wop I-tie spic guido shit in the landfill where it belongs. And enough with the glow in the dark wolves howling shit already. Here, take these shirts and one of the suits I had custom made for me and just keep losing weight until they fit. You fat shit.
"Of course transportation is at present an issue for you and those like you but I think I have the answer: Stop carrying that mop with you everywhere or at least allow it to dry out completely before you try and get on the bus with it. I would think that should be obvious but clearly in your case I would be thinking incorrectly. You really are rubbish. Scoria. Waste. Shit. Man, your life sucks. Here, take this prepaid phone card in case you want to call the suicide hotline. It only has $400 on it though. Also, what happened to that 86 Fiesta I bought you? Surely you didn't sell it for coke. Are you still giving dudes cocaine in exchange for letting you fellate them? God. Like I told you after your 4th DUI I can't keep buying you vehicles every 6 months. Well, I can but you'll never learn if I do.
"But, back to the mission at hand. Doing in a matter of hours what you have somehow been unable to do during the whole of your shiftless life, I have secured you employment, cleaned you up, dressed you appropriately, given you access to mental health care and solved your motility problem. Please never come to my place of residence again or I will have to call your parole officer, and bear in mind there is a middle school less than 1,000 yards from here so it would be a double whammy for you.
After my presentation he just kind of sat there for a moment taking it all in. He looked around slack-jawed and a butterfly landed on his nose. I showed him how to read a map and helped him catch the bus to the soup kitchen, but rather than say thanks his last words as he drunkenly, unsteadily climbed the bus ramp were 'hey man, can I borrow a dollar?"
Trash through and through. Garbage.

Oy vey. Tomorrow my white ass heads out in search of adventure. Or not. I mean whatever, you know?

In about 10 hours or so my friend Russ and I will be getting on a jet plane (in coach with old peolpe, sweaty people and disgusting dirtbag children, yuck) and heading to Paris for the first stop on our 12-day trip to the wilds of Western Europe. Realizing that few people have ever been brave enough to venture into the untamed depths of France and England (our third stop), we are taking it upon ourselves to go forth and document the goings-on across the pond. We will probably be the first native English speakers to ever set foot in the UK, and as such we are prepared for some difficulties in communication. My plan is to speak ever louder while waving my hands in order to get my point across. In France I will be limited in that I will only have one free hand to wave, as the other will surely be locked in place pinching my nostrils shut, lest I gag on the tender Parisian aroma of sweat mixed with cigarettes that seems to saturate the air and permeate everything around.
I suppose I should take a step back and mention that the backwards countries of France and England will be the bookends to our primary destination: Iceland. Despite it's frigid name the weather is purported to be quite mild considering its location (Lat 65 N, Long 18 W), and at some point the savages inhabiting the island have been taught God's Christian United States English of Sacrament and Redemption as used in Churches of Christ, His one true tongue. Both of these things will make our time there more tolerable.
Anyway, I am taking a computer with me and plan to use this page as journal of sorts to keep track of all the awesome shit that I do that you people back home are not doing. I also have a rough outline of the credit card/ score stuff mostly done for anyone who might care, but it is going on the back burner for now. I'll leave you with a picture of some Alabama fans.

Holy balls.

The weather here has been pretty awesome lately, so awesome in fact that I haven't messed with this shit much. Once my laptop gets here I should be able to sit on the porch and write all day. I think I'm going to try and write a book, or at least see how much I can get done in one sitting. Anyway, until I can finish Greg's story between wankings enjoy the following pic I found somewhere online.

Friday night was not everything it could have been. But it was something, and sometimes that is better than nothing.

Friday got off to a late start. We didn't get Holy crap that chicken and those brownies I ate are about to explode out my ass. Gotta run... will finish lat

I didn't do anything worthwhile today. But I did find this picture of two morons so I don't feel too bad anymore.

Yeah, these guys truly suck balls in a way that is seldom seen in this day and age. Truly awe-inspiring. Stay in school.

Anyway, since nothing happened today I'll just write something that might actually be interesting to some people.

Reading bits and pieces of Rori's new blog about credit card stuff has inspired me to put to paper something I was telling P-Base (see, I'm starting the pseudonym game already, though in this case I'm not sure why) a few weeks ago. Lori's take is very Dave Ramseyish, and that is fine if it works and you are looking for the easiest way to just pay off some debt. My take on the matter is pretty much as anti-Dave as one can get, but you end up with a lot more in terms of return on time and money.
For those who don't know, Dave's plan is based on 'debt snowballs', paying bills from smallest to largest, and cutting up credit cards. It is very easy to figure out and stick with, and there is pretty much no risk involved. It is aimed at those who either don't know or don't really care how credit scoring works, and there is a huge amount of nonsense credit card scaremongering thrown in. But it works. With Dave's plan you pay interest on your debt, hurt your credit score, and live in some fantasy world free of liquidity where having $10k in the bank as an emergency fund will somehow solve all your problems.
The path I walk is very different and not for everybody and is admittedly more difficult given the economy these days. But, with some patience and time you can still save money, travel well for almost free and even make money by having huge amounts of credit card debt. All the while your creditworthiness will be going through the roof and you will be establishing a solid credit history (which should come in handy when trying to make some decent money once credit starts flowing again). The downside to this is that it's really easy to fuck up big time if you are a lazy shit and/ or just don't have time for it.
My plan is based around getting more credit cards shifting debt. If you don't have debt, get some, as it will become your friend. If you are old-fashioned and don't feel like leveraging one of your most valuable assets (your credit score) stop reading. If you are reckless and can't control yourself then you are already fucked. Now, to be fair, this isn't something I just came up with myself; it's based on what I've read over the years at Fatwallet finance forums (ignore most of the rest of the site) and countless other sites as well as what has worked for me. You'll notice I focus a great deal on Greg's credit score. This is what the whole fucking shebang is about. Get that right and everything else will just fall into place. Unless you're an asshole or something. I'll also try and throw in some bullet points somewhere along the way explicitly highlighting important stuff that may or may not be inferred by you, the hapless reader doucheass.
I've tried to explain this to people a couple times without much success, so if this doesn't make sense I will edit it and expand as necessary. I'll try a case-study approach. Let us take Greg DiPhallus and his $10k of debt as an example, calling him Greg or GDP for short. I just noticed that GDP is harder to type than Greg, so we're going with Greg. Moving on, Greg has just finished a few shitty years at a small private Christian college where he never got laid despite being hot as fuck and smart as shit, as well as incredibly humble. Up to this point in his life Greg has thought about his credit score about as much as hot bitches have thought about his bulge: Not too fucking much. Over the years he has signed up for various store cards to save 20% at Structure or get a free T-Shirt on the beach during spring break at PCB or some shit like that, and he also has a debit card, some other credit cards and a checking account. Most of his debt is spread across several low-limit cards that charge high interest rates (I think this seems like the most common scenario). Greg has a job that pays average wage for the area. I don't know, $50k or so? $60? $30? It probably won't matter anyway. But the fucker has a job and some income. And rent. Car payment? I don't think most people I know have them so I'll say no. But if we want to give him one we can work that in in another post. In fact, lets say he does have one and we'll get to it later.
Right. So Greg has $10k on 4 credit cards. What is he to do? Well, first and foremost he needs to check his credit score. Not the FAKO shit from freecreditreport.com or any other similar garbage. He needs to know his real FICO score. It is not free. Reports are free, scores are not. Let's put him at a shitty-but common 640 or so. This is not a great score, but with patience it is certainly workable. Along with the naked number it will be helpful to have an idea of what exactly it means and how it is calculated; once we know how they figure it we can figure out how to raise it. Here is a good explanation http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/credit-scoring/20031104a1.asp
A couple things to note: Paying your shit on time, your debt to credit ratio and the age of your accounts together make up 80% of your score. Eighty fucking percent. Notice what doesn't mean shit: Income, owning a home, age, whether you're a bitch or dude, etc. The things we can easily change are the things that matter most, and the things we're more or less stuck with count for ass.
How does this apply to Greg and what should he do next? First, pay all his bills on time for a few months. That is common sense. Then hit the phones, bitch. Start with the easiest possible shit and call each card co and ask them to drop the interest rate. Every little bit helps, though soon he won't even look at APRs because they won't matter. But for now Greg is a broke ass pussy bitch. He will probably get a lot of 'nos' but whatever. Fuck them.
Now that he is working on the first factor he can control it's time to move on to the second: the debt to credit ratio. Let's say Greg owes $2k on a card with a limit of $2500. That means he's carrying a balance equal to 80% of his credit available, and that looks bad to creditors and the layman alike. Knowing that a lower % of credit used is better regardless of the exact numbers involved, how can a guy with more or less fixed income and expenses decrease that number most easily and make himself at least appear more credit-worthy? Save up and pay it off? Sure, but we want easy, and the easiest way is to simply get more available credit. It is at this point Dave Ramsey starts blowing loads into his own face. Most credit cards have a button online that reads 'request credit limit increase' and most of them are fairly loose with what they give you, though once you get around $24.9k with AMEX on a single card they can be a pain to deal with. Anyway the idea is to either call or go online and request a credit line increase for that card. Let's lowball and say they only give him $1k more of credit. Now he owes $2k on a card that will give him $3.5k. Despite his debt not changing he is now only using 57% or so of his available credit. Do this for each card and it will make a difference in his score, and that is what counts in the long run. Now, it is important to do your homework, as you do not want the card issuers making hard pulls when they do this. I am getting tired but will pick this up later. I'm going to leave myself some notes as to what I'm thinking.
-planning - balance transfer (to card and/ or bank account)- online banking- liquidity- money in hand/ credit (as it relates to emergency fund) - interest compounding for/ against you - getting stuff along the way - 100s of ks of airline miles/ hotel points/ etc - avoiding renewal fees - consolidation - issuers - resources - conventional wisdom is for dumb people - making money with other people's money (enough to pay bills/ more) - don't cut up cards, never close them, consolidate
- minimize hard pulls
- what are pulls
- FAKO/FIKO
- Business cards
- hide debt
There is plenty more. I didn't realize how much there was to this when I started writing it. Shit. So I guess from here on out this blog will be finishing this explanation of stuff mixed with the random stupid shit that goes on. Since I don't have to worry about mixing audiences (since there isn't one) I'm not going to bother with starting a new blog. If by some chance you've come here for one thing and find the other that day then I don't care. Please keep in mind that it's 3 am here so the syntax and grammar might suck but if you're reading this so does your credit. And sister. At this point I'm just typing what I think of and the editing/ correcting can be done later. By your mother. I have not proofread this and I don't plan on it until I come back and splice all this type of shit together into one big story.

Shit. I don't know how to delete this damn thing.

Boobs.