TheFranciscos.Net

House-Hunt update – Eva, our realtor just informed me that she’ll meet with the owners tomorrow at 2 PM. So we’ll know tomorrow afternoon how it goes. In the meantime, the suspense is killing me!!!!!!

Comic Minute

I finished reading “Daredevil:Parts Of A Hole” a few days ago. While it was a pretty entertaining story, I felt that it didn’t have much of an impact in the overall myth of Daredevil. I still found Kevin Smith’s run a more significant one than this one by David Mack. But now my favorite writer, Brian Michael Bendis, is holding the reins on the title. The trade paperbacks can’t come soon enough!

I saw a picture of Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock (Daredevil’s alter-ego) on Comics2Film, and thought that he had the look for the part. Whether he can act the part though is another story.

The Pittsburgh Comicon is taking place this weekend in Monroeville. Scheduled to attend are a couple of writers that I follow – Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets), Brian Michael Bendis (Powers, Ultimate Spider-Man, etc), artists – Joseph Michael Linsner (Dawn), Dave Dorman (Star Wars covers), Mike Deodato, Marc Hempel (Sandman), Joe Jusko, Mike Oeming (Powers), George Perez (Avengers, New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths), Chris Sprouse (Tom Strong), Mark Texeira (Ghost Rider, Black Panther) and maybe even Marvel’s big honcho and exquisite artist Joe Quesada. I’m excited about this because I’m been a lifelong comics fan and this is going to be my first convention ever!!!!!

I’m such a geek…..

CD playing – Rivermaya “Greatest Hits”

The House Hunt (continued)

We looked at another house yesterday, a 3 bedroom 2 bath house in Hunters Woods (about half a mile away from the Whitney Chase house). This home was very impressive… the exterior was made of brick and the wood parts were colored a nice shade of brown. It was a bit smaller than the house we were considering. When you got indoors though, the house took on a life of its own. The first thing that hits you are the nicely painted marble-looking walls (with a pillar wallpaper that Aileen hated), then when you go straight into the kitchen, what you see is a beautiful breakfast bar with exquisite kitchen cabinets. Connected to the kitchen was the family room which had hardwood floors and cathedral ceilings. Right next to it was a newly-renovated first floor bathroom with a jet tub. Finally, at the back was a nicely landscaped garden with matching deck. Judging from what we saw, this house was excellent! I was ready to make an offer right then and there.

And then we went upstairs, and then my impressions changed. Small-ish rooms, no master bath (the bathroom was even smaller than the one we have in our apartment), no walk-in closets. In short, it changed my mind for me. It had a beautiful first floor, but the bedrooms just didn’t match the personality of the first floor. This meant that if we wanted this house, we would have to compromise and overlook some of the things that we wanted.

In the end, we figured that what was important for us was room space, a nice and big bathroom (with one preferably connected to the master’s bedroom), and storage space. We decided to go for the Whitney Chase house and after a lengthy conversation with our realtor, made an offer for it last night. The offer was around $9000 less than the asking price, but we thought it was a fair price given the recent selling prices of the homes in the neighborhood. Realtor.Com states that on the average, houses sell for about 6% less than their asking price. Our offer is within that range, so hopefully we have a good chance to get it.

So now the waiting game begins…. we hope that the owners will accept our offer, but if they don’t, we won’t offer any higher than what we already did. We basically gave them what we considered our best offer so that we wouldn’t need to do any negotiation.

BTW, I posted some pictures of the house on Hunters Woods and Whitney Chase. Check them out in our gallery and let us know what you think of both houses.

MP3 playing right now – “The Flame” by Cheap Trick

The Mexican

I tried watching “The Mexican” (starring Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt) last night…. but just couldn’t get through it. I had high hopes for this one, especially with the great cast. I’m a big fan of Julia and Brad, and especially James Gandolfini, but this was definitely one of the lowlights of their careers.

My recommendation – stay away from this one. 1 star.

Oz: The First Season DVD set

Hands down, HBO has got to be the best TV channel on the planet. Some of the series that they produce are the most original and exciting shows ever. For me it started out by getting my hands on the first season of Sex & The City on DVD, which I found hysterically funny in an intelligent sort of way. Then I got hooked on The Sopranos, which ranks as one of the best mob-related pieces of work… it’s easily right up there with The Godfather and Goodfellas. Then there’s the mini-series “From The Earth To The Moon”, co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, which tells the story of the Apollo missions. It’s about bloody time that HBO released the series that started it all…OZ.

Oz is short for Oswald State Penitentiary and is a story about life in prison. To describe it best, it’s basically a soap-opera for guys. Like you would imagine, it’s not a pretty picture and they don’t pull any punches. We see brawls erupting, riots flaming, and men raping each other. What’s so great about this series is that it shows the human side of prisoners. Yes, they’re evil, yes they’re despicable, yes they would be considered filth in society, but Oz lets you inside the workings of their minds. There’s a reason why these people are scum. Life in prison is about survival, and staying alive is the daily struggle of these characters. Each episode leaves you on the edge of your seat, biting you nails until you watch the next one.

The talent of the actors in this show is amazing. Most of them aren’t known to people, and the ones that are have probably only played bit parts in other shows. The most recognizeable face here is probably Edie Falco (who plays Carmela Soprano in The Sopranos), but this is where she got her break. The actors play the characters dead-on, and in my opinion, they’re a better overall cast than even The Sopranos.

HBO series DVDs have become like crack cocaine to me…. I can’t wait for the next installment of each season! I’m currently suffering from Sopranos withdrawal, and am probably going to experience Oz withdrawal soon. Thank God that Sex and the City Season 3 is only a month away! They also can’t release the eventual releases of Band Of Brothers and Six Feet Under fast enough. This is actually becoming more expensive than just subscribing to HBO!

Oz has quickly has become one of my favorite HBO shows, probably second only to The Sopranos. I can’t wait to see the 2nd season!

5 stars all the way baby!

Zoe’s been pretty fussy lately. I think she’s starting to develop the “terrible” in the “terrible two” stage. She just loves saying “no” lately, and we’d catch her looking at our reactions and seeing whether or not it will piss us off. Now is the time when patience does become a virtue. It will be hard to find a balance between being too lenient and being too strict.

She does have her great moments, though. Two is the age when they start developing from saying simple words to forming sentences. It cracks us up whenever she says “Wake up, daddy!” or “Come on, mommy!”. A lot of people that she seems very smart and quick to pick-up at her age. I tell them that she got it from her dad….

The home-buying process is more complex and intensive than I ever thought it would be. I’ve been taking a crash course on the subject through a couple of books (Home-Buying For Dummies and The Idiot’s Guide To Buying and Selling a Home), and reading articles on some websites, especially the Realtor.com and HomeAdvisor websites. I don’t think I’ve ever done this much intense studying since my college days, but I guess if you’re going to spend an obscene amount of money on something, you at least need to be able to gauge whether you’re getting a good deal or not.

We’ve pretty much decided on a house that we like. Some people would probably say that it’s too early in the process to decide and wait for more houses to go on the market. I would say that I’ve been to a lot of houses in my lifetime, and I think I have a pretty good sense of what is a nice place to live in. This house that we like has a certain “vibe”, a certain “homey” feeling to it. The kitchen is great, the bedrooms are the right size, and the bathrooms are so nice I could probably sleep there. I don’t think I need to look at any more houses to see that this one would be a good fit for us.

Let the negotiating begin!

Nothing new from me today…. but check out this great review of Spider-Man. Can’t wait to see this movie!

We offically kicked off our house-hunt yesterday and together with our realtor, looked at a couple of houses in the township we want to live in.

The first house we looked at yesterday was actually the second one we looked at overall. It’s a huge 4BR/2.5BTH house with a good-sized yard. First impression: Nice! The house is tastefully decorated and the current owners obviously take good care of it. Aileen didn’t like the wallpaper in the dining room though, but I thought it was all right. The garage is huge, probably enough for 3 cars if the garage doors were on the side instead of the front. The kitchen also had a generous amount of space. The bedrooms were big and leaves a lot of room for growth. The bathroom in the master’s bedroom is probably the best area of this house. It has a nice garden tub and a shower stall. The great thing is it’s big enough for all three of us to take a bath at the same time!

One of the nice touches in this house are the small things, for example, the arched doorways, and a small matching table in the kitchen near the kitchen island.

The actual neighborhood seems pleasant. It looks like most of the homes on the street are owned by families. There were also several children playing on the street, which gives me the impression that this is a safe street for them to play in.

The short drive to get to the house from Route 30 is about 5 minutes. The homes you see on the road getting there are obviously cheaper and older… I’m not sure how that affects property values.

Pros: Very good size. Meets the criteria that we’re looking for (good-sized rooms, nice bathrooms, big kitchen, and kid-friendly neighborhood).

Cons: Mostly cosmetic, some of the vinyl in the hallway going to the kitchen was starting to peel off. Some small areas in the fireplace and the door need to be repaired. The basement needs to be finished. The stairs going up to the second floor are a bit steep. Also not as much natural lighting as the house we looked at in the Ryan Homes development. The price is also on the high-end of the range we’re looking at. It’s a bit old (10 years). The stairway going up to the house seems a bit dangerous as well.

The second house we looked at was a 13-year old, split-entry(?) home. It’s a nice, cozy home. It looks like a vacation home in Baguio. It has cathedral ceilings, a moderate-size kitchen and a cozy family room downstairs. A huge yard can be found at the back. One nice surprise was the small den downstairs which can also double as an office or a guest room. While walking through the house though, I felt kind of cramped. The hallways were a bit too narrow and the rooms a bit too small for my taste.

Pros: Very cozy, the pictures on the website don’t do it justice. The yard is huge, so Zoe can have lots of room to play around in.

Cons: The rooms are too small for my taste. The walk-in closets are also small. The house also has an unkept lawn, which gives me the impression that the owners don’t take good care of it. The neighborhood seems like it’s an older neighborhood with children that are in the teen years. Also, a 13 year old house seems too old for me. That may be the age when some problems begin to start.

So the search is on. I’m still partial to this first home we saw though (see picture below)-

Sizewise, I found this house to be just right. Pricewise, it’s a good fit for us as well. It’s a 3 bed/2.5 bath house with a 2 car garage in a Ryan Homes development. The master’s bedroom is huge, and the other two bedrooms are a good size as well. It’s also in a good family-friendly neighborhood. The cons of this house is that the 2 bathrooms are BUTT-UGLY. I really don’t know what the owners were thinking when they painted one bathroom shocking pink and the other dull blue. A deck at the back needs to be built and the driveway needs to be paved. These changes alone would probably cost somewhere in the $10,000 range, which would put us near the cost of the 4BR house above, with all the amenities that we want already included.

Anyway, it’s still early in the game. Hopefully, we can decide on a house in a few months time. In the meantime, we’ll enjoy our “window-shopping”.