Disney Needs the Money!

Did you know lawyers from Disney did this?

Click the link above.

Read the very feisty comments.

Ayn Rand is spinning in her grave!

Lawyers - In Every Nook and Cranny!

I'm afraid to even Google what it is!

World's Biggest A$$hole?

Story - here.

Nazism - Alive And Well In America

Check out what was posted on one of my local homeschooling forums today:

I posted 2 months ago about being reported to CPS for homeschooling my daughter Well they did a few home visits I worked with the school did all my paper work right well they came to my house last week and asked my 2nd grader to write her ABC's and she did. I got a letter today telling me I have been found guilty of abusing of my child and if I do not put her in school by monday they will take my child away. I have the books from the school....they gave me their books, I do all the paper work we do 5 hours a day of school work and I still got in trouble. Schools do not like parents homeschooling because they lose money and they are making it harder on parents who homeschool. I just wanted to let everyone know what we are going through.I have all my paper work in order but CPS said NY just does not believe in homeschooling.

That is nothing short of every homeschooling parent's worst nightmare!

And it happened in a district very close to mine.

This is precisely why I paid a $500 retainer to HSLDA only 2 weeks ago.

See - Hired A Homeschool Legal Posse.

Normally I'm a complete DIY'er....but I anted up after reading the horror stories of these Nazi's masquerading as *Child Protective Services* in - Homeschooling: The Right Choice.

Now if I was FORCED to send my kid to government school for a few weeks I could of course do it and everyone would live.

But what if you homeschooled a child in one of the many horrible/violent school districts? And had to deal with the prospect of your child coming home bullied or beat up?

One of the key things I learned from that book is that you NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES let CPS into your house. They will use every dirty trick, (e.g. "...it will be worse if you don't let me in", "I'll have to ASSUME neglect if you don't let me in")

They might even show up with a police officer.

It doesn't matter. Without a warrant from a judge, you NEVER let them in.

You dial your lawyer (HSLDA), and hand the phone out the door to them.

Furthermore, and this is my own take, I would record the entire conversation with them.

I have a digital voice recorder that only cost $40. I KNOW it's going to save me one day. Some government agent is going to say something they shouldn't have....and I'll have proof.

This poor mother would have been in great shape, legal-wise, if she had taped CPS saying that they *don't believe in homeschooling* - a right that's well-protected by the freakin' Constitution!

I Love You, But...

I'm a real fan of this guy so I'll leave his name out of searchable text.

I just heard that he was engaged a year or two ago but the wedding fell apart at the last minute.

Apparently, or so I was told, the young lady refused to sign a pre-nuptial agreement.

Personally I don't blame her. I don't think I would ever sign one either.

And that's not because I'm overly-romantic (ask my wife!) or because I'm naive either.

It's just that when you take vows in front of your friends, family, and God....it just has to mean something.

Heck if that doesn't mean anything, then I don't know what on this *overheated* planet would!

$hit is going to happen in life; you'll never be able to take sufficient pre-emptive action - sometimes  you just have to roll with the punches...

Big Government - Too Ridiculous To Keep Up With!

Check out John Stossel's blog post.

And he has another stomach-turner on Native Americans.

Of course the one party that most people think might have fought this junk HASN'T or HASN'T SUCCEEDED anyway....too worried about being called *racist*, too incompetent to get the job done.

Unauthorized Morons

I already complained on this blog about - Big Gov't Alarmists Wasting My Time.

Guess what, they still are.

My son started summer camp yesterday - one that's subsidized and run by the town. That was what he needed all the *vaccination* records for in the first place.

Recall he also has a severe tree nut/sesame allergy. So everywhere he goes someone has to possess an Epipen in case of an accidental emergency.

We tell the camp this and they request a written authorization - not from us, but from our pediatrician - to administer it.

So we had to go through the tedious ordeal of getting in touch with the doctor, yet again, around the 4th of July when everyone is on vacation - and ask her to write up this BS letter and fax it to the camp.

Camp starts yesterday and I get a phone call from the nurse. Some shrill 'old bag' was screaming at me that she didn't receive any *authorization* from me to administer the EpiPen I sent in with the Prince. I told her that it was sent, to shut her pie-hole, and to relax because I'd be there in person within an hour. Who are these government (school) bureaucrats that they think they can talk to taxpayers/customers in this manner? People don't act so uncivilly in the private sector - because they can't without losing business.

When I get there they tell me that they don't even have a fax machine so wherever it was that the doctor sent that note it didn't reach them.

OK. But why did the camp director specifically tell my wife she could fax the authorization in AND provide a number?

Whatever.

CaptiousNut - The EpiPen is essentially an over-the-counter thing...I don't see why you couldn't just use it

Nurse - We're not allowed to administer ANY medicine without written authorization.

CaptiousNut - I can't write up something right now for you?

Nurse - NO. It has to be from a doctor.

CaptiousNut - That's ridiculous. As a parent I can't authorize you to medicate my own child?

Nurse - Nope.

Obviously, and this is why I try my darnedest to not get mad with these government school people, this policy comes from above, from lawyers/insurance companies worried about legal liability. These Morons are just following orders - as they rationally should do.

But put it this way, say my kid goes into anaphylactic shock because someone at THEIR camp gave him nuts or sesame. Say he's sitting there unable to breathe.

In that case, ARE THEY NOT GOING TO ADMINISTER AN EPIPEN?

I can see it now, God forbid:

"We had to let your kid die because we didn't have written authorization from a doctor to administer medicine."

Yeah, sure, there'd be no *legal liability* in such a scenario...

You see, I'm not at all used to, er inured to, dealing with BS. My kids are not in a government school system; and I've never worked in such an environment either. So one little incident like this can really set me off. Whereas others who lead different lives may think it's no big deal at all to waste hours upon hours running around doing crap like this to appease stupid policies.

Let me just tell you, the jail looks very different from the outside!

Content Thugs

Recently, in - YouTube Overshooting - I expressed my frustration at Google/YouTube for their accelerating *copyright* enforcement.

But it's tough to really blame them given the diversified and unrelenting legal assault on them from interested lawyers and competitors. As Microsoft found out, bigness and wealth attract shakedown artists like honey does flies.

Google's won the first round of the enormous lawsuit Viacom brought against it. Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion for not having copyright lawyers inspect all the videos that get uploaded to YouTube before they're made live (they're also asking that Google eliminate private videos because these movies -- often of personal moments in YouTubers' lives -- can't be inspected by Viacom's copyright enforcers).

The lawsuit has been a circus. Filings in the case reveal that Viacom paid dozens of marketing companies to clandestinely upload its videos to YouTube (sometimes "roughing them up" to make them look like pirate-chic leaks). Viacom uploaded so much of its content to YouTube that it actually lost track of which videos were "really" pirated, and which ones it had put there, and sent legal threats to Google over videos it had placed itself.

Other filings reveal profanity-laced email exchanges between different Viacom execs debating who will get to run YouTube when Viacom destroys it with lawsuits, and execs who express their desire to sue YouTube because they can't afford to buy the company and can't replicate its success on their own.

Read the rest of it here.

Hmmmm....Sending legal threats over videos Viacom had uploaded itself?

Sounds like *entrapment* to me.

Here's hoping that Viacom's business gets decimated by the digital, internet revolution!

YouTube Overshooting

If one skims through my older posts they'll find that many, if not most, of the YouTube clips I've artfully embedded into the context of my profundity are *broken*. These music videos, color TV show excerpts, movie trailers, etc. have been mostly been pulled due to *copyright claims* from Hollywood lawyer-thugs.

The censorship has been so bad recently that I'm not even sure I should be highlighting any more YouTube clips at all on my blog because I essentially have to assume they'll only be online for a short time. So, what's the point? I'm not writing for a contemporary audience. No, my posts are intended to be timeless, fodder for at least the next millennia!

Sure if you put up a Dave Matthews song or video and tagged it as such it could easily be caught. So just leave the title of the song out of the video's text description.

But that only worked for a little while. YouTube was soon able to find unannounced songs that enthusiasts had burned into their photo collages and whatnot. I myself had tried to put up clips of all my blog pics set to music some time back. However, eventually YouTube came and removed the *audio* from my uploaded content - yet again due to *copyright claims*.

I've been long wondering if there was an easy work-around - a way to get music on your clips that wouldn't alert Google's copyright-searching algorithms. And I'm sure there are still plenty of such strategies.

But they must keep getting harder and harder to implement. Check out what happened to me last week.

From my daughter's first dance recital, I tried to upload a video my wife took of the grand finale where all the classes, ages 3-17, piled onto the stage and danced to Miley Cyrus' smash hit Party In The USA.

But after tediously uploading the 108 MB file - wirelessly, with my cheap laptop and my parents' even cheaper internet connection(!) - I received instant notification that my uploaded content infringed on some obscure company's copyrights. In disbelief that the violation was accurate I Googled the specific company only to discover that they in fact held the rights to Party In The USA.

You see, my wife recorded the footage on my 6-year old Jurassic digital camera. So Miley Cyrus' song was only coming onto my .MPG file with a TON of noise - meaning...

How in the world has Google designed algorithms that can unearth specific music that's merely playing in the background? How can they find these haystack-needles given the zillions of clips out there?

AND, why would they want to?

Surely no judge would hold them responsible for essentially a song playing on a radio in the background. I wouldn't think anyway.

Since I already have two strikes against me for prior YouTube infractions, upon getting the notification that MY DAUGHTER'S dance recital was essentially copyrighted content....I pulled the clip in a nanosecond rather than risk YouTube cancelling my account altogether.

Can people even safely upload video of their wedding first dances now?

What next? Are they going to pull clips of girls kissing, great-grandmothers doing yoga, and boys farting if ESPN is visible on the color TV in the background?

See also my very first YouTube post, nearly four years old today:

The Future Of Video Media Has Arrived

Eviction Chronicles - Judgment Rendered

After a brutal day in court with my landlord (er, his attorney) we have some clarity.

Recall last Tuesday I was served with an order to appear in court today, less than 7 days later, for a motion to evict me for non-payment of rent, alleged malicious destruction of property, and the alleged interference with the sale of the property.

First of all, it became clear to me last week that my wife and I messed up royally during the course of our March *mediation* with him. Back then, my landlord took me to court because I wanted to use my pre-paid last month rent for March because the house was scheduled for bank auction. After filing to evict me and demand rent, my landlord, er his attorney, actually PAID us the money he owed us (water bill + interest on last month rent = $1,200) AND he said we could stay through April and May provided we pay $2,500 for each month.

What my wife and I didn't realize, was that the opposing attorney snuck in a judgment for *possession* into the agreement. What the bleep did that mean? It was literally a tiny box checked on the form. I thought he already had possession as the landlord. Furthermore, in the course of our mediation, the opposing counsel didn't utter the word a single time. As I said, it was literally snuck into the agreement.

So what exactly is *possession*? Well, apparently when a landlord has it the tenant has basically no rights. The landlord doesn't have to fix anything AND he can pretty much throw you out on a whim.

Hence I wasn't going to the tenant-sympathizing *Housing* Court today; I had to go to District Court where a judge was most likely just going to rule on the legality of the motion - i.e. I didn't pay the April and May rent, ergo the landlord could legally evict me.

I realized all this on Thursday and was downright pissed. All that work, research, and self-defensive legal maneuvering (Board of Health citations, etc.) on my part would be for naught on account of a technicality - *possession*.

So essentially, my landlord barely has to even provide hot water AND he can show the property to buyers at his leisure - the crux of my case was suddenly irrelevant.

And the news got even worse...

I was told by a local attorney back in January that it would cost my landlord $4,000 to hire the sheriff and a moving company to physically evict me. There's no way my bankrupt scumbag landlord would ever put that kind of money up. So my fallback move would have just been to force him to go into his pocket and dare him to physically evict me.

But late last week another attorney, a buddy of mine, told me that the cost for physical eviction was *only $300* and that the tenant (i.e. me) would have to pay to retrieve their stuff.

Crap!

So now my worst case scenario was losing on Monday, getting notified by a sheriff, and having strangers pack up my house in 48 hours on Wednesday.

Double crap!

Could you imagine the injustice of ME GETTING BOOTED OUT OF HERE???

So I scrambled. First of all, we had been planning to move out roughly around May 24th anyway. The movers from my wife's company had already contacted us about a date. But could they move it up to Tuesday or Wednesday of this week? On 5 days notice? They hadn't yet returned my wife's phone calls.

Option 2 - Swallow my pride?

I tried to approach my landlord about a possible compromise. He wouldn't even talk to me. I emailed him my proposal, "$2,500 (half of what he thinks I owe) and I'd move out in two weeks, May 21st." He essentially told me to get lost.

Recall the guy is a lunatic. It'd be highly unlikely that he do better than that in court. A judge would probably give him a judgment for execution (i.e. eviction) OR some money....he wasn't going to get both - I don't think.

My wife calls me later in the day, Friday, and informs me that the movers can come pack on Thursday and load the truck on Friday. So that was comforting. Even in the event of a courtroom loss, I'd inform my landlord that I'd be out on Friday. STILL, he might, out of his palpable spite, decide to sick the sheriff on me right away, Wednesday, before my movers got here. I know I certainly would if I were him! I was definitely worried about this and resolved that in the worst, worst case scenario, upon receiving 48 hours notice from a sheriff, I'd simply run down to UHaul, rent a truck, and conscript my friends to help me load it. But again, that's the worse of the worst possible outcomes. I figured that I had to be totally prepared no matter what happened.

But still, I had one heck of a case and my landlord, with his $5 million, 88 page bankruptcy filing, is not exactly a sympathetic fellow. There was a solid chance that a judge would scoff at my landlord and his refusal to supply hot water during the first week of April, at his Board of Health citations, and at his portfolio of harassment and tell him and his attorney to take a hike. In fact, my landlord's attorney had already prepared for this event - he had already filed (and served me) with a Summary Eviction Notice for May 27th. I would, if I could, argue that is where my case belonged in the first place. That would be a much better venue for a tenant to defend himself AND I could file a response by May 24th and get the case punted for two additional weeks automatically. It'd be mid-June before I ever saw a courtroom - and the bank might well have taken *possession* for itself! (And the bank might well have been offering me $3,000 to vacate the place in good shape.)

I show up in court today at 9am. There's no sign of my landlord or his attorney. The judge comes in fashionably late and starts whizzing through the motions. My stomach is turning with anxiety and the hope that a no-show will default in my favor.

My case is called and I rise up...

Some lawyer dude runs out and gets word to someone...

My landlord comes running in looking like a basket-case....he says his attorney is *coming*.

The judge says he can wait and calls for a 10 minute recess.

Now my nerves are totally frayed watching the clock and watching people come in and out of the courtroom THAT AREN'T MY LANDLORD'S ATTORNEY.

The judge comes back in and starts rifling through the cases again...

My stomach feels like it just did every ride in an amusement park....and I notice on the carpeted floor of the courtroom about 56 disgusting fingernails (none of which were even mine)!

Still, no attorney. My illiterate scumbag landlord is now sitting in front of me poring over the paperwork in front of him. He's going to have to present this case himself - if at all...

Now it's just us left in the courtroom and the judge asks my landlord where his attorney is.

Scumbag - [shaking] He's coming....He's on his way from the airport, getting back from Florida.

Say what? He filed a motion less than a week ago to drag me into court....with a flight that would be cutting it close?

The judge said "OK....I'll hear this one in First Session when he gets here."

I protested. Like a Moron, I stood up and called BS on the judge.

CaptiousNut - Your Honor, if I showed up late you'd rule against me. I couldn't even get an attorney on such short notice.

Now at that, he could have easily jammed his gavel right up my hiney....but he didn't. He calmly asserted that if I had an attorney running late, he'd give me more time.

So out of civil and into a criminal courtroom I went. How fitting for my landlord - only I was the defendant!

There the agonizing wait continued. In the meantime, I got my first experience ever in a criminal courtroom. Some young chick next to me was furiously typing away on her iPhone throughout - though furious in the sense of how a normal broad would do it. Her calmness became a mystery to me when the judge called her before him. This girl had been arrested for her third possession of heroin charge within a couple of months. She was going to jail and didn't show any concern whatsoever.

And then there was a serial alcoholic send to *a bed*; a grocery store shoplifter; someone (else) accused of malicious destruction of property and intimidating a witness; a dude charged with robbing at knifepoint an alleged drug dealer of his cash and needles; and best of all were two drug addict clowns accused of masked armed robbery - one of whom couldn't stop laughing throughout the deliberation.

While I appreciated the distraction, I was still exasperated that the judge had given opposing counsel now 2 hours extra time to show up. And show up he did just then.

About 15 minutes later the judge espies the lawyer, whom he knew well apparently, in the courtroom and tells him to meet with me outside. One thing I learned from this day in court is how common this directive was. I guess, in contradistinction to color TV drama, this is how the creaky wheels of justice mostly turn - out in the hall from ordered mediation.

And during this first courtroom experience of mine, I realized that the judge wasn't really going to be very interested in the details of my case - my pics of dead mice, a flooded basement, and whatnot. He wasn't going to care how slimy my landlord was - or about any of the small (compared to heroin) issues I was all fired up to present.

So out into the hall I went with this lawyer...

Lawyer - What are you offering?

CaptiousNut - Well I offered (dirtbag) $2,500 and to move out on May 21st (11 days later) last week but he wouldn't even talk to me.

Lawyer - Why didn't you send that to us?

CaptiousNut - He didn't tell you about that?

Lawyer - He did, but....you should have contacted us.

CaptiousNut - I'm not offering that anymore.

Lawyer - Why not?

CaptiousNut - Because I had to spend all weekend getting ready for this trial. And because I had to scramble to line up movers in the event that I lost.

Lawyer - What are you proposing?

CaptiousNut - Nothing. I can be out by Friday.

Lawyer - Well, we can evict you immediately...

CaptiousNut - Yeah, you can have a sheriff there by Wednesday and if I'm notified I'll rent a truck and move myself.

Lawyer - Look, you don't want to go down that road. You are opening up yourself to be sued for damages. You still owe (dirtbag) money - one month plus a third of this month's rent.

CaptiousNut - What about all the Board of Health citations? What about him entering my house without authorization? Look, I'm prepared to lose; I realize that I messed up granting him *possession* back in March.

And this went back and forth several times. Really, it was a discovery process for the attorney. He tried to act all calm and friendly but I knew he was just trying to get the gist of my argument so he wouldn't embarrass himself in court. But I was doing the same, to an extent anyway, or so I thought.

For example, in this motion filed against me, where dirtbag accused me of *trying to frustrate the sale of this property* his attorney wrote:

....Tenant has refused to allow access for the showing of the property and has continued to actively interfere in all efforts to sell by making false and defamatory statements to potential buyers. These actions have been done with the express intent to frustrate the sale of the property. Tenant has even gone so far as to advertise the property on Craigslist with the express intent to interfere with any potential sale of the property.

And during the course of our hallway *mediation*, the attorney brought it up.

Lawyer - What was that Craigslist ad all about? You know, advertising someone else's property for sale on the internet like that is a big deal. It's a serious offense...

CaptiousNut - Hah! That ad just proved that IT WAS THE BANK WHO WAS SELLING THE PROPERTY AND NOT YOUR CLIENT. AND WITH THE MIDNIGHT BANKRUPTCY FILING IT PROVES THAT THE ONLY ONE TRYING TO FRUSTRATE A SALE WAS YOUR CLIENT.

Lawyer - Well then what was the ad for?

CaptiousNut - I was going to grant access to my house for any auction bidders....I was going to charge them $100 apiece - a number they'd surely cough up before bidding several hundred thousand dollars on a property without otherwise seeing the inside of the house.

Now I realize that I messed up here, again. I should have not given my counterargument to opposing counsel here for free. Obviously, in hindsight, he didn't fully understand the issue and had he brought it up in court I would have embarrassed him for his ignorance.

But I also learned a thing or two from this conversation. I learned that one of my claims - the harassment from my landlord running his unauthorized businesses on the property - had already gone to court three years before. And the court ruled in favor my landlord. So that was an issue I now knew not to push in front of a judge.

Lawyer - So it looks like you want to continue fighting...

CaptiousNut - I absolutely do not. I want to move on.

Lawyer - Well then pay the man what you owe him. You've inflicted serious harm on him with all this. He's really hurting.

CaptiousNut - I can't pay him, not when he's made my life a living hell for the past 5 months. How much do you think I should deduct for all the deferred maintenance and the loss of hot water?

Lawyer - Deduct $200 from April rent and pay for 10 days of May. (about $3,300)

CaptiousNut - Only $200?

Lawyer - Yeah.

CaptiousNut - I already had to pay the plumber $100. You think no hot water for nearly a week, for the fourth time is only worth $100.

Lawyer - No. I'm giving you $200.

Obviously, the guy didn't understand the math. This went back and forth a bit more. The attorney told me I should pay up because it was the right thing to do. And he even threatened me with a defamation suit. He said that dirtbag's new employer (whom I called a little while ago) was willing to sign an affidavit testifying to the fact that I *defamed* my landlord.

CaptiousNut - Well I could pay all the rent money you are demanding and (dirtbag) could still bring a defamation suit against me. So I'm not afraid of that threat.

Lawyer - IT'S NOT A THREAT. I'm not threatening you in any way....

Lawyer - You need to pay the man his money.

CaptiousNut - I'll tell you what, I'll pay $1,200 and be out by Friday.

Lawyer - No. Let's go see the judge.

CaptiousNut - You're not even going to take that offer to your client?

Lawyer - Nope. Young man, you're taking a big risk.

CaptiousNut - Let's go see the judge. I'm totally prepared to move out.

Ten minutes later, the judge calls us.

Judge - Why didn't you pay your rent?

CaptiousNut - I had no hot water. I lost hot water on March 30th and the landlord was completely non-responsive. I had no hot water for a week; this was the fourth time I had lost hot water; and it was a problem that the landlord was cited for by the Board of Health.

Judge - Let me see the citation. (he read it)

Judge - But all these (Board of Health) issues were there before you entered an agreement for judgment.

CaptiousNut - But there's been a whole lot more. We have a gas leak on our stove; we have rodents in the house; the landlord is entering my house without notice and without permission; the house in the late stages of foreclosure; he's trying to harass us out of there so he can homestead it to delay another auction....

I tried to cram as much stuff in there as I could. Again, from my earlier experience in the courtroom I could tell that these details were not going to interest the judge much. After all every landlord/tenant relationship has a contentious history. I did my best, in my 30 second opportunity to convey the worst about my personal situation.

CaptiousNut - The living conditions are so bad, I want relief from that judgment. I'm prepared to move out May 21st. I have kids in school that they need to finish up.

Judge - (to opposing counsel) What's the problem with that? It's only 10 days away?

Lawyer - That's not acceptable to us. Money is owed.

Judge - Has there been any deal offered?

CaptiousNut - I offered him $2,500 and a May 21st move out date last week (turning around toward landlord indignantly) AND HE WOULDN'T EVEN TALK TO ME.

Judge - Are you offering that now?

CaptiousNut - No. I'm not because he dragged me into court. I offered only $1200 now and to move out this Friday.

Lawyer - That's not acceptable to us.

Judge - What is this about *malicious destruction of property*?

Lawyer - (slowly, stammering) Things were functioning properly before we signed the agreement....so we assume that he damaged them since then.

CaptiousNut - WHY WOULD I DAMAGE MY STOVE? I have a burner on my stove that shoots flames out and is a fire hazard....I have children in the house that can reach it...

Here I should have gone ballistic and accused THEM of making false and defamatory statements. That lawyer included an accusation in the complaint that had ZERO BASIS in fact. In hindsight, I should have expressed every ounce of the indignation I felt. I should have yelled, "Your Honor, this is exactly the type of harrassment I've been subject to. They make completely bogus accusations and then I have to answer them in court! It's legal harrassment!"

Judge - If he pays $1,200 execution is stayed until Friday.



Out in the hall, I wrote a check for the dirtbag and handed it to his attorney who said, "We'll deal with the balance of what you owe later on."

In other words, he was threatening/promising to sue me for probably $2,500 plus, I would assume, damages. This would really suck as I'd have to come back up from New York to fight it. He knows that and even said in the course of our prior talk, "Pay the man what you owe him. You don't want to have to come all the way back up here from New York for court again..."

While I do very much want and need this thing to be over, it looks like there's more to come. At some point, and we may already be there or past it, I have to do a calculation of how much time and effort I'm expending over a couple of grand. I know full well that's what he (and his attorney) are banking on; and that's precisely how he stole so much money from plumbers, contractors, former tenants,....by wearing them out to the point where they figure it's not worth it to fight over $500 here or $3,000 there. While it was never about the money for me, it was about the moral obligation of standing up to a bully crook, still I have other stuff to do - I have to get on about building a new life for my family, and maybe a new career in New York.

A lawyer friend of mine told me, given that expressed threat, to expect a regular *breach of contract* lawsuit from my landlord - if he in fact pursues the matter. I would think they try to serve me with a notice in the next couple of days before I disappear to *somewhere in New York*.

So....did I win or lose? Or should I be judged on *how I played the game*?

I felt like I lost. I was sick to my stomach afterwards and I don't understand why. Maybe I've worn myself out fighting this matter; maybe I was hungry; maybe it was the stock market bouncing 400 points yesterday?

The inherent problem with my case, aside from not being a tenant under the protection of a lease, was that by arguing strenously that my house was *unlivable*, in order to forcefully make that arugment, I have to planning to move out soon. In the end, my landlord, via his negligence and harrassment, did in fact force me out. And that'll be my defense later on should I be sued for monetary damages.

On one level I did win. I offered my landlord $2,500 last week and he turned it down - probably, along with his lawyer, assuming I would still be willing to pay that much, if not more, in a court. Since he only got $1,200 from me, I won that little game-within-a-game. Recall my pedigree as an option pit trader. I know value and I know that when a good offer is made and rejected you have to make penalize the pigs who held out for more; you have to reduce your terms. Only amateurs bid-and-offer less than they are willing to commit to with a hope of splitting the difference later on. In my email to my landlord last week I told him point blank that I would offer this deal if I had to waste my weekend preparing for court.

And I also won in the sense that the opposing counsel turned down my offer in the hallway only to be forced by the judge to accept it. I could have done worse, and I could have done better. The judge sliced the baby in half and moved on to the next case. Later on I'll do a post on *how I should have argued*.

But still, I didn't feel good about the outcome at all. Usually after these things there would be implicit relief in their closure. But there was no closure here with his attorney promising to keep coming after me.

I'm mildly upset at myself too - for granting *possession* to my landlord back in March. Ask almost anybody and they have no idea what that legal term means. Perhaps I read the agreement too quickly before signing. I'd have never given up any more of my rights as a tenant had I known what it meant - especially given the situation with my negligent landlord. Would having a lawyer have helped me? Sure. But it would have cost money too. I dealt with a Summary Evictions Notice and two Motions all on my own. An attorney would have cost at least $1,000 for all that. And what would it have accomplished? We were voluntarily planning on moving before the end of May anyway. So we moved a couple of weeks earlier. So what?

But I don't beat myself up over my mistakes - recall I've been a trader for 15+ years and hence demonstrably wrong at least 70% of the time.

Back in April, when this nonsense started up again with a loss of hot water and the scumbag demanding access to *show* a house he could never in a million years sell....my wife and I promised that we would fight him but not to the point where it spoiled out time here. On that mission we failed miserably. It was simply too hard to keep this last battle unemotional. It'd be one thing if the house was simply falling apart. But the killer was the physical presence of my landlord on the property, right outside my window, at all hours, every single day. It's tough to ignore a jerk of this magnitude who's on your doorstep all the time. Heck, not only are his victims customers rolling in and out of my driveway all the time, and not only he is lingering in his *office* past midnight dreaming up new theivin' schemes, but his teenage kids drop in whenever they feel like it (with their punk friends) and even his dog is here all the time.

As I've said before - the past 2.75 years here on Boston's South Shore, a place, despite being a native Ma$$hole I knew nothing about 3 years ago, my time here has been the most joyful of my entire life. Ideally I would have been able to spend my final days here saying goodbye to our friends, having one last huge barbecue at the house, and hitting, one last time, all the local places around here that had become special to us - instead of fighting with a dirtbag over a couple of grand.

Here's what I wrote most presciently about the scumbag over 2.5 years ago, after I had just got to know him a bit:

Now before I even signed my lease with this guy I knew he was in financial straits. He was trying to sell this particular house we rented for over $1 million but I knew from researching the area that it wasn't worth a nickel over 700k. Furthermore, he candidly told me that he owed $1.2 million in mortgage debt on the property AND that he owed $1.8 million on his abode. I Zillow-stalked him a bit - meaning I researched the size and value of his other house and learned that it also was worth much less than its debt load. And it suffices to say that every other bit of info I discovered about this guy literally screamed that he was tapped out and broke. So I knew what I was getting into from the get-go.

The guy wanted "first, last, and security" upfront - $7,500 ($2,500 in monthly rent). We signed the lease and Fedexed it to him with our check on July 3rd. On July 5th, the guy literally called me four separate times asking where the check was. I said, "Hey buddy, settle down. Yesterday was a holiday. If it's not there later today, it will be there tomorrow or the next day. We aren't moving in for a month. What's the big deal?"

Don't think for a moment this guy deposited the money in an escrow account as the more professional landlords would do. He obviously needed it to pay his personal bills forthwith.

Renting from this guy was making me more nervous by the second and we had a month yet before we moved in. Once we did, he effectively only had $5,000 of our money that we could lose. Since we would not be paying rent again for our "last" month, he would effectively only have $2,500 to hold over our heads. My wife remains very concerned about this clown we rented from - especially after I just relayed her the conversation I had with the previous tenant. I had to remind my wife that our monetary risk was a mere $2,500 and that I lose that kind of money in split-seconds trading. Everything one ever does has financial risks. The trick is to stay on top of their probabilities and magnitudes.

It also goes without saying that the landlord always takes on more risk than the renter who could just stop paying rent at any moment. In most states it will take many months for a landlord to get an eviction notice executed on a non-paying tenant. I could very well decide not to pay my penultimate month's rent - as well as the "last" month's - and leave the landlord with effectively no security deposit to withhold. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Outside of the security deposit, tenants still bear other risks while renting from a bankrupt landlord. For one thing, he'll skimp on maintenance. I already noted that I have a fire hazard of a chimney that my landlord won't deal with. There's also the general issue of having a business relationship with anyone who is losing their shirt. They'll be understandably ornery. I once worked for a guy who was losing millions in his own trading accounts. The bastard took it out on me and that effectively ended our partnership. I don't know that most people have ever seen acquaintances, friends, or colleagues lose their entire livelihood via bankruptcy but I can assure them, it's nothing you want to be a party to. It doesn't matter whether the outcome is bad luck, tragic, or even due justice. I guess just as waiters and bartenders tend to over tip, as a trader well-accustomed to losing money, even when some people that I loathe have gone broke I feel for them.

My landlord is a phenomenally nice guy. He does just about everything he can for us but financial realities are tough to overcome with a smile. I'd be really surprised if our rental/business/personal relationship didn't deteriorate rapidly over the next few months. I've just seen this movie too many times.

Well, it lasted, thanks to banks *not foreclosing*, a whole lot longer than I ever expected it to.

In effect, despite the late innings disaster, I have to say that on some level, by being able to stay in this house for the reasonably cheap rent we paid, that I benefitted from the banks' foot-dragging.

Going forward, the packers will be here on Thursday and the truck will be loaded on Friday. The only loose end we have here is my daughter's dance recital on May 23rd. So I am going to squat a my parents house in Worcester for a week - hopefully getting in a few rounds of golf - and then come back out here next weekend for the recital (before heading down to NY). My wife is busy as $hit with her new job and she'll be in Miami all next week because of it. Much of her new staff is based there and, hopefully, she'll be able to work out of that office in the wintertime. Therefore my future snowbird plans are shifting across Florida from Naples to Miami. THAT I'm very much looking forward to. (I like to walk South Beach with my head swiveled landward.)

As I mentioned earlier in this post, with promised future suits, these Eviction Chronicles might not yet be over.

HOWEVER, realize that we are moving in the the MIL on Long Island. So I'm trading one monstrous landlord for another, i.e. there'll be NO decrease in abode blog material!

Note she's not only a veteran landlord in her own right, but also a meticulous reader of this blog. No doubt she's taking careful notes and will be fortifying *possession* claims before we move in!

Eviction Chronicles - Episode 422

With my house scheduled to be auctioned off next week...

On that very same morning, I have to appear in court - my landlord has filed a motion to *vacate* the dismissal from his last attempt to evict/rob from me!

Here's the story.

Given a public notice to foreclose on the house I rent, I told my landlord that March was my *last month*. In other words, I wasn't going to pay rent to him and have my pre-paid last month get blown into the wind. Realize that post-auction, I'd have a new landlord, one who'd be looking to collect rent from me April 1st. One who'd be indifferent to the fact that my prior landlord robbed me.

There's a bit more to the strategy here, but I'm going to omit that for the time being. It suffices to say that I have to appear in court next week.

At first, I didn't know what the *notice* he served me with was. I had thought it was a *summary for eviction* but it wasn't. It is a motion to throw out our prior agreement - where he agreed to consider my January rent paid by the legal return of my security deposit. Why does he want it *vacated*? Because this will allow him to accelerate the eviction process. It will allow him to get a court date quicker - I believe.

As far as I can tell, if he wins the motion, I'll get a day in court to make my case.

But if he loses, he has to start the process over again, and do it correctly.

I don't know, and couldn't find out, the specifics of this legal procedure. I think he may have *procedural* issues with what he did. For one thing, there seems to be some statute of limitations on vacating dismissals - ten days or something (he's at like day 30). Secondly, the only stipulation of the agreement we signed back in early February was that I pay him the $2,500 of February rent. That I did with a check and thus can't be contested.

This Moron articulated something to the effect in his complaint that my signing that agreement, I agreed to pay him rent going forward. Say what?

Another issue entirely came up....like the house being repossessed!

But I don't know the law. Perhaps two *Notices to Quit*, regardless of whether or not they are legit grant a landlord an expedited eviction process. It certainly seems like my Moron is attempting an *end-around* due process. I know. Restrain your SHOCK.

The lawyer I consulted warned me that the Court is a *zoo* and that I could get some idiotic judge who, for whatever reason, rules in my landlord's favor. And while though the motion is nominally to *vacate* a prior dismissal, in the complaint he's also asking the Court for *possession*. So in the unlikely case that I lose and some loony judge grants hims possession....I'd have maybe 10-12 days to pack up.



I will be representing myself in court next week - which invokes that old saw, that I have a Moron for my lawyer and my lawyer has a Moron for a client!

(Don't forget, he's probably going to declare personal bankruptcy a couple days before my court date. Next week certainly is *crunchtime*.)

Useless Professionals

In the course of my *eviction chronicles*, recall I had an informal meeting with a local attorney.

See - Lawyer Says.

As he left my house, I asked he what he was going to charge me for the consult, "nothing" was his twice-iterated response.

I didn't hire him because, well, there was nothing going on. It wasn't until a few days later that I was served with a summons for an eviction proceeding. When that happened, I emailed him a question about dodging the server; he advised me not to do so and asked me to scan and forward a copy of the summons to him; but that was it. He never responded and why would he....I hadn't hired him. I figured he was just a local guy, being nice, so that when I did have a need I would use him (or refer him) - much in the manner of salesman types.

In fact, I didn't even know whether or not I was obligated to have a lawyer at my eviction hearing. I planned on doing the defense myself - printing out dead rat pictures and showboating my kids in tattered clothing.

Recall as my court date was approaching, I unleashed my leverage on the dingbat landlord....and he folded like a house of cards. He dismissed the case early this week. See - Eviction Chronicles - Chapter 1 Finale.

But late last night I got this email from that same attorney, again a guy who I met with only briefly some 3 weeks ago:

C-Nut. Due to an emergency I must travel to New York City at 6am tomorrow. Please ask the court to continue the case to 2-18-10 or 2-25-10 or 3-4-10 or 3-11-10.

Print this email and bring it with you.

Say what?

For some reason he had it in his head that he was going to represent me in court the next day, the 11th as per the summons.

Now I'm scratching my head.

When exactly did he think I hired him???

Furthermore, if I did hire him, then why the [bleep] did he not so much as even email me for the the past 3 weeks to discuss my professional *defense*?

Was I supposed to pay a lawyer who did ZERO work on my case beforehand?

Heck, by law I had to formally respond to the court and to my landlord's attorney 3 days before the hearing, on the 8th. This part of the procedure he was surely aware of. And yet, obviously, he didn't offer to assist in that. Instead I get this last-minute email from him the night before.

It would have only been fair for him to show up in court, without a client, for a case that was dismissed, because he hadn't any professionalism at all.

I gave him a curt email response:

Case was dismissed.

An hour later, after probably much head-scratching of his own, he responded:

Good job.

No $hit butthead. I'd say thanks for nothing, but his initial consult did give me two more bits of leverage against the scumbag landlord - 1) the $4,000 cost of physical eviction and 2) the water bill. (And those potential bombs remain unfired, in my arsenal for another battle.)

I've long known that I have to do everything myself. I can't stand PAYING reputed professionals: accountants, lawyers, doctors, financial advisers, educators, et al. for a negative ROI.

Slapped By YouTube, Again

A week or so ago I received a YouTube message from some guy (Tom Mabe?) nicely telling me that he had sold the rights to his *Pranks* to Sony. He advised me to take down my little clip of his - one that had amassed 225,000 hits for my account.

I didn't take it too seriously, because, well these types of notices are common.

But soon after that, I got a *copyright violation* notice from YouTube. They said it was my second one and the next would result in a cancellation of my account. Crap! (The first offense was that Jewish girl pranking her parents about her new Italian boyfriend. But that was two freakin years ago.)

Now the last thing I need is for YouTube to delete my account. I'd have to create a new identity, rename and reload at least some of the videos. So I went ahead and deleted ANY clip of mine, no matter how obscure, that could net me another potential copyright violation.

Am I pissed at this?

Yeah, a bit. But Google dragged their feet long enough on this front. I commend them for standing up to the thugs.

It seems like I'm always in trouble with the law these days, doesn't it? With my eviction situation and whatnot...

Recall YouTube also slapped me for posting objectionable content recently - my clip of drowning a rat!

BTW, to hear that hilarious Jewish/Italian prank, click here.

Try as they might, those legal thugs haven't been able to erase it from the public domain!!!

Newspapers Dead....But Dummies Still Need Direction

So my wife took our son to her office in Boston last week on a *slow* Veterans Day.

In town, she had THREE separate people hysterically run up and inform her that the Maclaren stroller she was pushing could be one of the million or so that was being *recalled*.

Heck it was the *most emailed* story from the Boston Globe that morning - Strollers Recalled For Fingertip Amputation Hazard.

Whatever. More alarming to us were the knee-jerk Morons who *jump* when thoroughly discredited, overly sensational, information sources tell them to.

My wife dialed it back, suggesting that they are just trying to be helpful.

But if they want at all to be helpful, to me or to society at large, they really ought to stop ingesting that mind poison.

Look at the scumbags who've bought the first *paid search result* from Google:

Darn Those Copyright Fascists!

Below find one of my 80s YouTube playlists. Click to enlarge. DO NOT LAUGH or I will jam a Rubik's Cube up your...



Slowly but surely, the record label lawyers have gotten all those tracks pulled off the site (see - [video unavailable]). Perhaps they are just trying to drag me into the 1990s?

I'm sure I could rebuild the list. I'm sure I could find all of those tunes out there *slightly misspelled*. Or maybe not?....Google/YouTube is a lot savvier than Napster/Morpheus ever was. AND their flush coffers make them an easier legal target...



That's one of my favs. I can't tell you how many times I played it on the jukebox at Chaucers in Center City Philadelphia. Usually, I liked to invoke it somewhere between my 11th and 13th Yuengling Lager. I'd sit there and imagine I was going to become Charlie Sheen in that movie.

See also:

You Know You're Old When...

For West Coast Tom!

Copyrighted Morons

YouTube Copyright Policing

Take That, Slimy Lawyers

I made some Goya rice the other day. The box had this disclaimer:

Warnings: May contain milk, egg, wheat, peanut, soybean, tree nuts, crustacean shell fish, and fish.

Now between my two kids and their *opposite* allergies I figure collectively they are allergic to at least half of that list. These are serious allergies too. I have prescription EpiPens for both.

Of course, I gave the rice to them. It's not a serious *warning* at all on the box; it's a disclaimer because those ingredients are used, perhaps, somewhere in the same manufacturing plant. I wouldn't be able to sufficiently feed the kids if I eliminated every foodstuff that *may have traces of peanuts*, etc.

And if they ever have a really bad reaction I'll just sue!

Ambulance Chasing At Bear Stearns

From CNBC:

I have to give a shout-out to Ray Schmitz, an associate broker at Coldwell Banker Previews International in New York City.

A week ago last Monday, when several employees of Bear Stearns Bear Stearns Cos were leaving the building with cartons and plants, Schmitz was standing outside the building, handing out his business card.

"There were some people who were not happy about their own circumstances,” Schmitz told me this morning, “and sure there were people who didn’t want to talk to me and some who didn’t want to look at me."



What next? Are divorce lawyers going to start whipping out their business cards every time they see a couple argue in a restaurant?

I wouldn't put it past them.

This Bear Stearns thing reminds me of my own serious car accident. About nine years ago, after the car I was in was pulverized by another and wrapped around a telephone pole, I laid sprawled out, immobilized on the backseat when some lawyer reaches in, before the paramedics, and handed me his business card. I wish I kept it so I could post his info here. Furthermore, of course the guy that caused the accident admitted, later on in legal proceedings, that he met his legal counsel randomly in the hospital. SURE it was "random". They are total scumbags, the lot of these PI lawyers.

Anyway, it's a wonder that some meathead from Bear Stearns didn't reach out and punch the real estate jerk.

There's a major difference between say my harmless brand of mental schadenfreude and the in-your-face commercial variety.

Class Action Scumbags

Part of this post is reprinted from a prior one.

In California, a group of stock brokers sued their employer (Merrill Lynch) for overtime pay and won a settlement. Amazing considering that they get paid on commission and presumably have already been compensated for their "extra" work. But I guess in the land of fruits, nuts, and communists...it is not at all surprising.

The lawyers will collect $9 million of the $37 million settlement while brokers will get around $10,000 each. Furthermore, other brokerage firms are going to settle with their brokers without a fight as well. This is simply corporate extortion wrought by legal technicality, socialist judges, and vile class action attorneys.

Most people have an idea that class action lawyers are an economic bane but it's mostly just a vague notion. Remember, Big Media has never ever done a negative story on class action lawyers. The negative externalities of class action tort simply don't exist, at least in their view. When tag gets banned, the pinheads mutter about lawsuits, but they never indict the legal climate or the villainous lawyers. In fact they coddle them.

Not only did all of the major brokerage houses have to settle with California over this case, it cascaded into other states as well. So far the cost for job-creating brokerage firms has been:

Cost of Litigation + Cost of Settlement

Now add in,

+ the Cost of Changing their Compensation Plans

+ Cost of Lobbying for Legal Reform

The firms tried to get the laws changed, but pols everywhere remained uninterested or should I say, disinterested. Not many econo-illiterate, jelly-spined politicians want to stump for a law that,

1) would anger the tort lobby - remember most pols ARE LAWYERS.
2) would appear to put them on the side of evil Wall Street firms.
3) breaks their general habit of doing nothing.

Now you won't read this officially anywhere but the brokerage firms have considered everything and made the rational corporate decision to fire all brokers that earn under 100k.

Okay, they aren't exactly firing them but these antiquated Fair Labor laws proved too hard to circumvent. Hence the firms instead had to create complicated compensation plans that would encourage all the sub-100k earners to quit.

So who cares? Right?

First of all, I mentioned this small beer story to highlight a clear negative externality of class action lawyers - parasites who kept a third of the multi-million dollar settlements while they eliminated five-figure jobs. This brand of BS is simply not reported on by the socialist organs of Big Media.

Another casualty, besides the up-and-coming brokers, is customer service. They'll be fewer brokers to answer calls, walk customers through setting up 529 accounts, and help guide the clueless through the investment universe. Firms will be forced to push clients toward internet-based resources, annoying telephone menus, and overall a more depersonalized customer experience. This move won't affect wealthy clients one bit - their plentiful assets will still receive professional, white-glove care. As usual, the victims of these rich class action lawyers will be working class brokers and their relatively lower income clients.

I drafted this post a while back. Today I did find a Dow Jones newswire mention of this lesson in class action externalities. It includes these two rich quotes,

"This would be a step in the direction of fairness, but lowering the brokers' payout rate in exchange for complying with the law may not be the best way to proceed," said Justin M. Swartz, a labor lawyer with the New York-based law firm Outten & Golden.

"Other firms will be wise to follow Smith Barney's lead, because following the labor laws should be a priority at all companies. I would hope, however, that the other firms decide to do so without taking money out of brokers' pockets," he added.

Does this lawyer need to be punched or what?

It's jaw-dropping to hear a labor lawyer paint the brokerage firms as the bad guys.

Firms HIRE workers and service the public.

Lawyers are the ones who eliminated their jobs, lowered their pay, and lowered the level of customer service for everyone so they could line their own pockets.

Lawyers are half the problem; on the other half are politicians, in bed with the tort lobby and afraid of how fixing an antiquated law might make them look politically.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was written to protect blue collar workers who punched a clock and sold door-to-door - hardly the profile of today's six-figure earning stock brokers.

On second thought, since the pols are all lawyers, we can safely say that lawyers constitute the entire problem. And it certainly doesn't help that judges are all lawyers as well.



A lawyer himself, Abraham Lincoln once said,

"...if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer."

So far, brokerage firms have agreed to pay more than $250 million to settle claims.