I was lucky to have been born when Jonas Salk introduced the polio vaccine. For some others who were not as lucky, the iron lung continues to be their everyday reality.
Now I’ve Seen Everything
My good friend Bismo from B-Movie Blues… on stage at Terrificon in Connecticut… with legendary comic book writer/editor Roy Thomas… doing a couple of Elvis songs?? It was a fantastic scene, and a once-in-a-lifetime event that was straight from the Bizarro World!
For an extra special bonus, before joining the ranks of Elvis impersonators, Thomas visited with my pal Joltin’ Joe Sinnott, who was one of Roy’s most valuable artistic assets at Marvel Comics.
In DogRat We Trustee
A couple of weeks ago, after paying off the mortgage on my late father’s house, I asked Quicken Loans to prove me wrong when I predicted they would issue the escrow settlement check in Dad’s name, rather than to the family Trust, with me as Trustee. But of course the check as delivered today was made out to my father, and there is no bank account in existence where it can deposited.
With the mortgage holder deceased, in the previous call I had suggested they look at the deed, as my attorney had re-filed it in April, naming me as Trustee. I was told they couldn’t see the deed to the property without paying a $25 fee to Maricopa County, AZ. I told them that was their problem, not mine.
When I called today to express my disappointment at not being proven wrong, I held the phone to my printer as it printed the deed information, including my name, on a publicly-accessible link, without a login or a fee being required. I offered to fax the sheet to them as proof, but they said that wasn’t necessary, as they knew a mistake had been made and a new check will be sent to me tomorrow.
This latest hassle was on top of a previous screw-up on their part, where they failed to notify me that the Proof of Trust Existence document I’d faxed way back in December wasn’t sufficient, and that they required the full original Trust. So I faxed it to them.
Today I repeated my assertion that all they really needed was to see the deed information for the parcel. The only positive aspect to all of this is they acknowledged I am right, and they screwed up. The “team leader,” whoever that is, has been blamed.
Years of problems like this one — for routine procedures that are far from unprecedented — are why I am known for being difficult and demanding when confronting incompetence. It also proves that I was right by insisting the mortgage be settled prior to closing on the sale of the house, which is not yet listed.
Precisely because the mortgage holder is deceased, I have been working with a Quicken Loans manager, by the way, and not a front-line phone rep. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get in a dig by emphasizing that, “Remember when I said last time that I was hoping you wouldn’t be adding to my aggravation?”
Follow-up: The “manager” at Quicken Loans lied to me. She’s only a “specialist.”
A Randian View of Steve Ditko
An article in The Objectivist Standard has a remembrance of Steve Ditko by someone who seemed to have been inspired by Ditko’s comic book stories to look into the the ideas of Ayn Rand.
Art Deprecation
This is last Sunday’s installment of the “Hi & Lois” comic strip. It made me laugh out loud, but not because of the gag knocking Modern Art. I laughed because of the error. Do you see it?
Yes, that’s right, the Egyptian antiquity of King Tut is actually from the museum gift shop! Okay, so what’s really wrong with this picture? The Arnolfini Portrait, also known as The Arnolfini Wedding, by Jan Van Eyck, is not an example of the Italian Renaissance. It’s one of the finest paintings of the early Northern Flemish (Belgian) Renaissance.
Seeing Red
The New York Times has an interactive map for drilling down into the details of where the votes were for Dumbbell Donny vs. Hilarious Hillary.
The article asks if you live in a political bubble, and here in greater Boston it sure seems that I do. Many of Hillary’s voters weren’t especially enthusiastic for her, myself included, but Trump’s supporters were obviously super excited by his candidacy.