Two back-to-back quarters of recordbreaking profits for oil corporation Exxon.
Oct 30, 2008
I honestly don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream.
Exxon said net income jumped nearly 58 percent to $2.86 a share in the July-September period. That compares with $9.41 billion, or $1.70 a share, a year ago.
The previous record for U.S. corporate profit was set in the last quarter, when Exxon Mobil earned $11.68 billion.
Revenue rose 35 percent to $137.7 billion.
Their portfolio is diversified, one contributing factor towards their high profits was due to them finally paying off the Valdez cleanup costs, and any company that’s doing well in this economy…yay. Less of a drain on the system.
But at the same time…these folks really cheese me off. Two back-to-back quarters of recordbreakingly high profits? With gas prices as high as they were? Yeah, I’ll just bet they made good money.
(My new house has natural gas and radiant heat - so I’ll be giving these folks as little money as possible. But still…in which direction do I throw the rotten vegetables?)
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The realtor called today - the deal's going through!!!
Oct 29, 2008
I am now a homeowner. Well, condo owner. Well, I will be officially on November 24th - closing day. Meanwhile, though...I've already begun making to-do lists, wish lists, all kinds of lists. It's an adorable detached condo-cottage thingamajig with an upstairs and a front porch. And I get a yard with a big tree...and I don't have to do the yardwork. Woo!!!
Thursday Thirteen #168: Thirteen things to set up before the move
- Get moving boxes. I have about 9. I'll need about 60 or 70...so it looks like I'll be spending some time on Craigslist.
- Schedule the cable folks to come hook up the cable. I also want to have them put a cable outlet in the upstairs office, for my internet connection.
- Schedule carpet cleaners. I may as well have the carpets cleaned before I move all my stuff in...and since the current owners are selling it at rock-bottom price, they won't be cleaning the carpets on their way out the door.
- Schedule the movers. I had previously gotten several moving quotes because I'd made an offer on another condo (older construction, that deal ultimately fell through - the home inspection found water leakage) so I know which moving company I'm going to use, and how much it will cost. Now I just have to see if they'll have schedule time for a crosstown move the Monday of Thanksgiving week!
- Get my cable/internet/phone bundled services scheduled to make the move over to the new place.
- Put in my notice for this place. I have until November 10 to let them know I'll be out by December 1. I'm in a lease that extends through April, so if no one wants to rent this place until then, I'll be stuck paying the rent AND my new mortgage. This complex is so insanely popular, though, that even in November/December, there should be someone who wants to rent here and who's willing to disrupt their holiday schedule to move into a cottage apartment.
- Pack (obviously). The trick here will be to avoid packing so early that in my last week here, I'll be looking for books, clothes, and other items that had been tidily packed up three weeks previously. (I tend to be awfully proactive...)
- Get a new post office box. The new place is 100 blocks north of this place; and while I could keep the same post office box, I'd rather get one that's a little bit closer to me. Heck, I'm going to be in this place for quite a while - so I know I won't be getting *another* post office box in a year or so.
- Update my driver's license. It's almost time for yearly tag renewal - I may as well combine the errands!
- Update my voter registration. I'll be in the same county; and I've already voted for this election (hurrah, early voting!!!)
- Figure out what furniture will go in which rooms. I'm moving from a 2BR to a 3BR, so now I have the luxury of a formal library. (How endlessly cool is that?!??) I also haven't quite figured out where to put the cat tower. It's currently in a corner in the living room, and the cats really can't use the lower legs for stretching properly.
- Make my other lists: home improvements, long-range projects I want to tackle, and dream-upgrades (like a high-capacity stacking washer and dryer)
Other T13 blogs
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meme
Oct 28, 2008
I'm more a fan of psychological horror than hack-and-slash flicks. Hitchcockian suspense gets my interest far more than your serial killers, Mike Myers, Leatherface, and what have you. (Besides...too much on-screen gore, and my mind automatically starts trying to figure out how many gallons of Karo corn syrup were used in the scenes that made it to the screen.)
- Alien — which, despite being found in the science fiction section of most DVD sites and classification systems, was most decidedly a gothic horror film. Had you on the edge of your seat the whole time, wondering where the big bad was, what it looked like, and (most important to ailurophiles) would the cat survive.
- Poltergeist II — the most chilling and menacing of all three, IMHO, largely because of the actor cast as the main antagonist. He really did an amazing job embodying the megalomaniacal preacher determined to hold on to life and power at all costs...and to use any tool at hand to do so. Whenever I watch that movie, I have to leave the lights on for a week.
- The Shining — Jack Nicholson's version, not the Steven Webber remake...which was okay, but not as emotionally wringing.
- House on Haunted Hill
- Rose Red — uneven pacing, but pretty chilling. Though since I grew up in the shadow of the infamous Winchester Mystery House, some of the mystique of the house itself was kind of...sapped.
- Army of Darkness — technically, this and its two prequels Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 are parodies. That aside...I love AoD. Love, love, love. (Though a horror purist would argue that I'm missing more than half of the jokes because I'm not familiar with all the tropes of the genre. Eh, well...that's that.)
- The Bone Collector — could be either horror, or detective thriller; though for my purposes
- Wes Craven's New Nightmare — I've watched two of the other Nightmare films, and they're okay. This one, though, this one pokes fun at the series, at the cult following, and examines the mythical forces and triggers behind any horror figure, including how it shapes and is shaped by us.
- The Happening — one could argue that any of M. Night Shyamalan's movies either are horror, or none of them are. I think that this one is. There's plenty of stuff going on around us that we simply can't explain...and the theory behind what caused the happening is valid, it has happened (though not quite in this way), it could conceivably happen. Which is kind of creepy...to realize that we do share the planet with more intelligences than we realize.
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52.5 hours...but who's counting?
Oct 28, 2008
Taking a cue from the themage over at She’s blog, I think I’ll spend the afternoons rewatching Firefly. It’s a way to pass the time…especially since I can’t seem to finish a meme these days. *sigh*
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A meme...to help pass the time. (Or at least, an attempt at making things seem to go less slowly.)
Oct 28, 2008
70 hours and counting down, until I know whether or not I got the detached condo...it's going to be a long week. It just is. So I'm doing a few memes, in the vain hope that the time will pass more quickly. (Yeah, I know...futile. But what the heck...)
This one's a little difficult for me. I don't tend to have really strong food memories - at least, not actual meals. Eating is a necessary function to me, not something to be savored. That said, I do have some pretty memorable desserts - so I'll include those.
- salmon sauteed with feta, vegetables, and white wine (first "real" meal I cooked after I moved up here)
- a five-course meal with friends at a nice restaurant (antipasto, bread dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, salad + soup, filet mignon, flourless chocolate torte. plus the most amazing coffee I've ever tasted.)
- a picnic of my mom's chicken salad sandwiches on sourdough bread, eaten on the beach
- appetizers and cheesecake on the roof of the Union Square Macy's (Cheesecake Factory) We sat at the railing and occasionally peoplewatched. The sun was actually out, it was a lovely summer day, no chilly microclimate crap.
- Better than Sex cake (the recipe's on this site somewhere...I'll link to it later)
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...but I don't know how well that's working.
Oct 24, 2008
Homebuying is stressful.
Waiting for a contingency to clear is stress on top of stress.
Menstrual cramps get more persnickety when you’re stressed.
Oh, la. Joy and bliss. (I won’t know anything until next Thursday. On Halloween, I’ll either be waiting on a home inspection report or drinking and swearing. Stay tuned…)
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