So Long Netbank

Apparently the Office of Thrift Supervision shut Netbank down. I didn't even know there was such a thing as an Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). From what I understand they gave Netbank to the FDIC (someone I have heard of) and the FDIC is going to lay the burden on ING Bank. I'm sure ING Bank will make loads of money out of this somehow.

This is new for me, and actually very unexpected. I've never had my bank fail on me before. According to the OTS, "NetBank sustained significant losses in 2006 primarily due to early payment defaults on loans sold, weak underwriting, poor documentation, a lack of proper controls, and failed business strategies." I've been using Netbank for years. I think I opened up my account with them in 2000. I have to admit I've never had a problem with this as a customer. In fact quite the opposite. I'd go so far as to say they went out of their way to keep me happy.

I'm a small potatoes customer, but all I had to do was ask and they upped my savings account interest to 4.49%. I always felt they were very honest with me, and I think I only actually had to call them once. Pretty good considering they are an online bank with no branches.

Maybe, behind the scenes, they were shady and didn't do things by the book. Maybe thats why they got closed down. And maybe I can't speak for other customers, but I can say I was very happy with them and now I'm a little nervous about a new bank to deal with. The good news is, at least I don't have to do anything. Just sit back and wait for this new ING Bank to tell me how they're going to screw me over. But everything will remain the same for me for the "foreseeable future."

Sock Paradox

In my sock draw are only two types of socks. A white short normal sock with gray heals and toes, and a white ridiculous tall sock that goes to my calf. I have an unspecified ratio of these two socks, but I have many of each. I don't fold my socks. I don't sort my socks. I just throw them in the draw and when I need them I start pulling out socks one by one knowing that I will never have to pull out more than three socks to get a pair.

One would think that some days I get a pair on the first two tries, and some days I have to pull out three before I get my pair. This is not the case. Every day I have to pull out three socks before I get a pair. I wonder why this is? I cannot find a paradox on Wikipedia that explains this phenomenon. Maybe one time, long ago, before I kept track I might have only had to pull out two. But now that I've noticed, it never fails, no matter how many socks are left I have to pull out three before I get a pair.

Observations of College Students

My observations of my fellow students leaves me to believe most of them are either jerks or lazy. Some are both, many are neither, but I think almost all of them have something up their butt in some way or another.

On a better subject, my new topic in English is open source software. The cat idea was cool, but after doing more research I found that there is not much debate there. Free software is apparently very interesting to the class as well. The other day we had to present two of our sources to the class and it was supposed to take all of maybe ten minutes. I ended up taking most of the class period. I felt kinda bad about it because it takes up time from other students, but I think I got a good number of people interested in my topic... go figure people like free stuff.

August Spending Analysis

I came to a profound conclusion about my monthly spending analysis. It's freakin' boring. Even to me. I think I'm going to forgo the August pie charts and turn it into an annual spending analysis. I can take the first few days of January to look back and see how I did over the year. Month to month doesn't really have enough interesting things taking place. I'll still post under the financial label from time to time I'm sure.

Commercial

It turns out I'm going to be in a commercial. I didn't want to be the guy in the commercial, but when presented with the overwhelming logical arguments that it should be me I had no choice.

Me being in the commercial is not the cool part though. The cool part is what we get to do in the commercial. We get to destroy computers! Of course I took many pictures and when I get a chance I will post the videos as well.

Here is a before shot of the computer we dropped. I know it's hard to tell, but we left out many screws.

The after shot isn't too great, but you can see there was some real destruction.


Here is the after shot of a laptop we ran over. Surprisingly unimpressive, but I think it will get our point across.