Public Service Announcement for Dekalb County Homeowners

Posted on February 28, 2007 by electricrocket

Effective January 1st, homeowners in DeKalb County that receive the benefit of homestead exemption may also apply for a property assessment freeze to help offset future increases in property value. This freeze does not affect school, city or state taxes. Homeowners who currently have homestead exemption must apply for this freeze, however new applicants applying for an exemption will receive the benefit of the freeze with their exemption. Residents must qualify for this freeze by March 1st 2007 by mail, online or in person at the Tax Commissioner’s office.

https://dklbweb.dekalbga.org/taxcommissioner/index.asp?pg=homestead#applications

Your mileage may vary

Posted on February 21, 2007 by electricrocket

steakums sent me this link, in our ongoing discussions about whether to minivan or not to minivan.

One commenter on this article said : I don’t know why everyone is opposed to SUV’s. I personally love mine, and it gets great gas mileage, contrary to the popular belief. I fill it up once a week, ($30-35) and I can go all week on one tank of gas. (I live very close to work).

Leaving aside the ignorance on how one measures “gas mileage”, this comment dredged up a pet peeve I have about discussing gas mileage. It bothers me to an extent, and probably irrationally so, when I ask someone how their gas mileage is on their vehicle, and they say “Great! It’s about 20MPG!”

While I’ll allow that 20MPG could be relatively “great” for a specific type of vehicle, say a Semi or a garbage barge, I can’t allow that it is empirically “great” for anything.

So, I’m offering an empirical rating chart for gas mileage conversations. You and yours may choose to adopt it, you may not. I offer it as a suggestion, and letting everyone know what I mean when I say “great”.

MPG                  RATING
0-20MPG              embarrassing
20-30MPG             poor
30-40MPG             acceptable
40-50MPG             good
50MPG-100MPG         great
100MPG+              awesome

These will have to be adjusted periodically for technological improvements.

And, of course, one can still use phrases with relative qualifications, such as “My minivan gets 35MPG, which is great for a minivan.” I’ve got no beef with that.

The Neat Germ

Posted on February 12, 2007 by electricrocket

So, yesterday, Rocketbro was out running errands and stopped by the do-it-yourself car wash.

When he got home, the outside of his car was so nice, he decided to do the inside… vacuuming and 409ing and so forth.

He was on such a roll, that he then proceeded to vacuum out Stacey’s car, thus destroying a local tourist attraction¹.

Crazed and delusional to the point of losing his sense of self preservation, he went on to spit-shine the inside of my car.

Inside, his diligence guilted or inspired (hard to tell which) to knock out the Enormous Tower of Laundry whilst simultaneously baking a chocolate heart-shaped cake from scratch, and me to reorganize the pantry².

All of which to say is I <3 my brother, and I'm considering somehow trashing his credit so he can't afford to buy a house and move out. ¹ Atlanta’s Largest Collection of Dropped Goldfish Crackers.
² Hey, I was sick. This was a big contribution for me.