Won’t this be fun

Police reopening Al Gore’s assault on massage girl John Edwards was unavailable for comment.

What’d I say about coyotes?

Thief held at gunpoint by armed homeowner.

A suspected Maryville burglar is under arrest after he was allegedly caught in the act and held at gunpoint.

John Ross Webb, 24, of Maryville, is facing charges of burglary of a vehicle and unlawful carrying of a weapon. He was being held in the Blount County Detention Center on $31,000 bond.

Webb was arrested after Blount County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home of Jason Smith, who was holding Webb at gunpoint.

Smith said he was sitting at his computer right in front of a window, when he noticed the dome light in his car come on and then saw a person inside.

“I got up, and I grabbed my firearm,” he said. “I pointed my gun at the windshield and watched him for about a minute or two, then I asked him, what are you doing in my car?”

Smith said, at first, Webb didn’t notice him or the gun. He banged on the side of the house to wake his wife, who called 911.

Meanwhile, Smith continued to hold him at gunpoint, realizing Webb had a machete.

“He said, ‘this is a big misunderstanding, just let me leave and I’ll return all your items. Let me leave, let me slip through the woods, let me go elsewhere before the cops get here,'” Smith described. “He says, ‘I can’t afford to get arrested.'”

Smith said letting Webb go wasn’t an option, adding that he has “zero tolerance” for thieves. Webb reportedly told Smith he was only trying to retrieve property that was stolen from him out of his friend’s car.

But Smith said that story didn’t hold up when the suspect could neither name the color or type of car.

When officers arrived, Smith said he got his GPS and knife back from Webb, but officers found even more items in his bag and later in his car. Those items included checks, debit cards, another GPS and pawn shop slips.

“I think he needs to repay his debt to society, and I think he needs to learn his lesson, and I hope he does get a harsh penalty ’cause it’s the people that work hard for what they have, and they like what they have. If they didn’t like what they have, they wouldn’t have it,” Smith said. “This is one person that’s going to learn his lesson now, hopefully.”

Webb is set to appear in court on July 7.

Why I’m not an early adopter

Apple looking to hire antenna engineers for its iPhone Let me know when you have it worked out, guys.

Nathaniel Witherall project gets the axe from Connecticut

State finally starts slashing spending. I’d say too little, too late, but we have to start somewhere. Since the imposition of Lowell Weicker’s income tax, we’ve doubled the state payroll and quadrupled (after inflation) our spending. As they say, when something can’t keep going, it won’t. And now we’re seeing that happen.

Next step.on the local level: let’s kill the high school auditorium project. If we can no longer count on return of stolen money from Hartford, and we can’t, then this $30 million boondoggle is all ours. Let’s not do it.

The Hell with it, I think I’m keeping a shotgun loaded and handy

These guys are great in the wilderness, but two little girls attacked in the town next over make me nervous.

Bud Lite salutes real men of genius

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmar on the iPhone, 2007. Hahahahaha! This guy gets paid a ton of money to run Microsoft, if you care.

January 2007:

INTERVIEWER: …  The Zune was getting some traction. Then Steve Jobs goes to MacWorld and he pulls out this iPhone.  What was your reaction when you saw that?

STEVE BALLMER: 500 dollars?  Fully subsidized? With a plan?  I said that is the most expensive phone in the world.  And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard.  Which makes it not a very good email machine.

INTERVIEWER: How do you compete with that, though?  He sucked out a lot of the spotlight…

STEVE BALLMER: Let’s take phones first. Right now, we’re selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year.  Apple is selling zero phones a year.  In six months, they’ll have the most expensive phone by far ever in the marketplace…

Coyotes, burglars, get a gun

good bye

One armed citizen, two burglars, tax payer savings.

If this guy and his pal were waiting for you at your home, would you want the telephone number of the ACLU, or a pistol?

Well we ruined City University -why should the French be left with grandes ecoles?

Diversity shall rule.

PARIS — France is embarking on a grand experiment — how to diversify the overwhelmingly white “grandes écoles,” the elite universities that have produced French leaders in every walk of life.

Honestly, I can’t think of a single  accomplished Frenchman who emerged from one of these fine institutions in the past fifty years (I can’t think of a single accomplished Frenchman, for that matter) so what’s the big deal? Still, it’s a shame to see a meritocracy destroyed in favor of a boobacracy.

This is sad- first LT, now Bill Parcells

School crossing guard Bill Parcells?

Former Giants coach beats school child who called him”fatso”. Shocking. No mention of rape, though.

So, we still have the spilt between buyers and seller

I watched two deals go south today because my buyers (and I) think the market’s going down, while sellers think it’s coming back up for air. I make no special claim to brilliance on my part but my clients are pretty sophisticated businessmen and they’re on the same wavelength I am.

So we’ll see: either there will be some great bargains come mid-September or the market will zoom,and some buyers will have to pay  more than they expect to. I’m advising  my buyers to wait, and  pick up another 20% on a number of failed houses.

Everyone knows there’s no sanity clause

Nine-year-old New Canaan girl rescued from chimney

Remember Boston’s “Big Dig”?

According to Bloomberg, the same bankers who enriched themselves selling financing to idiot Boston politicians are now getting rich again selling them a”solution”. If it weren’t that Boston has such a squeaky-clean reputation among its politicians, I’d suspect that the fix was in here. But would Boston pols team up with Wall Street to rip off taxpayers? Never. Just one of those unlucky coincidents, I guess.

Eight sales, one contract, 7 price drops today

Here’s the deal: you missed the spring market. Sales are old information, contracts are what’s going on now, and there’s nothing going on now. See you in September.

More sales, but no contracts

123 Lockwood, Riverside

We’re watching the moderate -sized goats pass through the python I believe that after this – famine.

This house tried getting $2. 195 back in 2007. The owners got real and sold it today for $1.510. Good price for both parties.

 

 

24 Hendrie Drive, Old Greenwich

This just sold for $2.275, from an asking price of $2.350. It last sold for $1.6 million in 2000, so that sounds about right, maybe.

 

But if you aren’t Mel Gibson, there doesn’t seem to be much activity in the mid-range houses. You may want to consider that in your plans.

OMG! A bidding war!

14 Griffith Rd

 

Listed at $969 and sold for $990 in 16 days. Must have been one of those buyers’ credit deals, don’t you think? My clients and I looked at it and weren’t impressed but that’s what makes a horse race. Assessment is $630,000.    

As I’ve pointed out here many times, looking back at the bidding war “winners” of a few years ago, they all turned out to be losers. But maybe this time is different.

Mel Gibson blinks

Braveheart on his way to closing at 124 Old Mill

Started at $39.5 a few years ago, closed today for $24 million. (I’ll search – I think I predicted that price). But don’t cry too hard for listing agent Joe Barbeiri, he got both sides of the deal.

UPDATE: It seems that Joe, with his price reduction of 39% from original asking price, has approached  David Ogilvy’s own reduction of 52% 521 Round Hill (Leona’s place), from $125 million to $60 (it’s now down to $55 million). On a dollar scale, though, Ogilvy’s $65 million price cut dwarf’s Barbeiri’s mere $15,500,000 and of course, David lost his listing while Joe sold his to his own client. So I give this battle to Joe.

You know, at 75 acres, that’s only $320,000 per acre, with a huge mansion tossed in for free. Talk about your volume discount.

UPDATE: here’s an interesting calculation: if Mel’s land sold for $320,000 per acre with an obsolete house on it, how much is Leona’s 40 acres, also with an obsolete house worth? Says here, $12, 800,000. Now her land is higher, with better views, and Round Hill is a more prestigious address than Old Mill, but how much is that worth – 2X as much (I’m being wildly optimistic here) ? If so, the price is $25.6, not the current price of $55 million. And nowhere close to the original $125 million. I smell a bargain to be gotten here. And that smells T-r-o-u-b-l-e!

UPDATE: August ’09, I reported that Justin Timberlake was rumored to be buying the Gibson place. I don’t know about that but I did predict it would go in the high teens, low 20s.

Here was a great buy, damn it

65 EdgewaterDrive

Just sold for $2.125. A big beautiful home, perfectly livable as it was but could easily be renovated, on the creek, with seawall and dock, 0.5 acres. I tried fruitlessly  to interest some of my clients in this property and now it’s too late. An excellent buy.

What’s an Old Greenwich fixer-upper/tear down going for?

40 Lockwood Avenue

 

$1.3 million, in this case. Assessed at $1.1, started off at $1.595 or thereabouts but sold in just 49 days, so the sellers (an estate) were adaptable. 1/4 acre.

There’s coyote love, and then there’s waking up and finding an ugly, $520 million oil purchase in bed with you

Drunken british oil trader buys $520 million in futures while in blackout.

PVM Oil Futures trader Steve Perkins bought 7m barrels of crude in late-night trading binge on his laptop, driving the oil price to an eight-month high.

Not a good career move, if you’re wondering.

Pave Rye!

Lyme disease, plague and now a second coyote attack on a little girl! This keeps up, Detroit’s going to look safer. Time to get a carry permit?