by Paul Slaybaugh | May 18, 2011 | This & That
In a stunning reversal of internal policy, the Internet has asked that bloggers stop adding new content to the collective mainframe.
“It’s gotten out of hand,” Zachary Omega of the Internet confided when reached for comment. “We didn’t think it was possible for there to be too many blogs about the rigors of raising abused beagles in single-parent households, but we were wrong. The first-person, anecdotal nonsense has completely drowned out legitimate commentary.”
To reestablish value to its searchable content, the Internet is asking users to refrain from launching new blogs and social media accounts at this time. The embargo is voluntary for the time being, but Omega foresees a day in the near future when the effort to scale back the banality on the interwebs is not only mandatory, but enforceable by martial law.
“It’s a freaking joke,” Omega confided. “I’m in charge of the coding that separates the wheat from the chaff in online data. Me. Do you have any idea of how much chaff is floating around out there? How am I supposed to send someone to the latest reputable news source when ninety nine out of a hundred entries are posted by some twelve year old kid in Marietta, Georgia who gets picked last in dodgeball?”
Originally designed to connect people from all over the world, the Internet has done exactly that. Unfortunately, the free-flowing exchange of ideas and information has come with a steep cost: quality control.
“I’ve got nothing against cats. I’ve got nothing against kids,” Omega said. “But if I have to read one more missive about Mr. Whiskers’ new flea collar, or the scorching pink-eye outbreak that is plaguing little Joey’s preschool, I’m going to jam an overheated server straight up a soccer mom’s &$$ while I enjoy a refreshing orange wedge.”
Omega did not reserve his ire for familial pulp. In fact, there is one demographic in particular he described as “the bane of the online experience.”
“Realtors … I mean, seriously,” Omega stated. “How many more property listings in Bum Fudge, South Dakota or riveting articles about re-painting the baby’s room prior to selling a home do we really need to read? Five hundred thousand jamokes posting the same ‘Seven Secret Tips to Selling in a Down Market!’ … how novel. Maybe next we can have an authoritative list of instructions for walking and chewing bubble gum.”
Reached for comment, the National Association of Realtors® noted that now is the best time to buy a home in the history of earth.
– Paul Slaybaugh, Disassociative Press © 2011
by Paul Slaybaugh | Apr 20, 2011 | This & That
(Washington DC) – In a statement released this morning, the National Association of Realtors® announced a new initiative aimed at curbing abuse in photographic representation amongst its membership in the virtual sphere.
“This initiative has been ten years in the making,” according to NAR spokesman,Trevor Null. “Ever since Realtors entered the online space en masse, we have been fielding complaints from the public about misleading avatars.”
Jane DeVannon of Surprise, AZ filed one such complaint back in 2009.
“We were nervous first time buyers,” Mrs. DeVannon explained. “Having never been through the process, we had no idea what to expect and knew that we needed to hire a Real Estate agent we could trust to guide us through the process. So we did what we always do when we have a critical decision to make. We Googled it.”
With over 87% of today’s home buyers starting their searches online, per NAR statistics, the DeVannons’ story is a common one.
“We settled on a nice looking gentleman, about forty or forty two, with two darling children in his profile picture. Imagine our surprise when an obese seventy five year old with a goiter the size of an Olsen twin showed up to our first appointment. We tried to make the best of it, but we could just never get past the initial lie,” Mrs. DeVannon related.
“We have long had a reputation problem with the general public,” Null admitted. “Grossly misrepresenting our appearances in online marketing has only served to exacerbate the institutional mistrust. I mean, when you think you’re hiring Gary Cooper, and you get Gary Coleman, it’s a problem.”
According to Initiative UB-FUGLY, all Realtors® will be required to update their avatars monthly, without benefit of Photoshop or similar photo editing software that can alter true appearance.
“And none of this downward pointing camera angle bullshit,” Null expanded. “If you have three chins, the consumer needs to see three chins.”
Penalties for failing to comply with the new requirements will be severe, including mandatory use of DMV photos for first time offenders. Proof of ownership for any/all pets and children in a Realtor’s avatar must be furnished prior to Internet use. Nieces and nephews are off limits.
The news comes too late for the DeVannons, but they are hopeful that future buyers will be spared their painful lesson in what the NAR refers to as “photo synthesis.”
“We think he rented the kids,” Mrs. DeVannon added.
– Filed by Paul Slaybaugh, BSRE News © 2011
by Paul Slaybaugh | Apr 19, 2011 | This & That
“What do you mean I can’t back out on the inspection,” James “Jamo” Monahan demanded. “Say the frigging icemaker doesn’t work or something.”
“Like I told you earlier, James, er, I mean Jamo,” Agnes DeMerrit explained to her disingenuous client on the other end of the line. “There is no second bite at the apple once repairs are agreed to by both parties. Besides, your ten days were up two weeks ago.”
“Financing?”
“Your loan is approved,” Agnes responded, her short, grey hair losing pigment by the syllable.
“What if I go buy a car to screw up my ratios,” Jamo offered.
“That would be bad faith, James, er, I mean Jamo,” Agnes chastised. “It will cost you your earnest money.”
“Okay, the appraisal,” Jamo suggested. “We can still back out on the appraisal, right?”
“Appraisal came back at purchase price,” Agnes informed him.
“But you said it was ‘highly unlikely’ to appraise at the sales price,” Jamo exploded in her ear. “Now you’re telling me that I’m stuck in a deal at a price I never intended to pay? You listen to me, and you listen to me good. You better find me a way out of this contract or so help me God-“
Agnes pulled the phone away from her ear and took a deep breath. She despised working with investors. Absolutely despised it. Had she not run headlong into the driest spell of a forty year Real Estate career, she would have sent this creep packing so fast his Grecian Formula Plus infused head would have spun inside the raised collar of his pink imitation Polo shirt.
As a rule, she preferred buyers who were actually interested in buying.
“Agnes? Agnes?”
Her client’s strident voice sounded small and tinny from a distance. She took a moment to withdraw something from the desk drawer of her home office before putting the phone back to her ear. She absently unwound a snarl in the cord as she spoke.
“All done?”
Jamo’s silence answered for him.
“Good. Now I’m going to tell you exactly how we are going to get you out of this contract with your earnest funds intact so that you can pursue that new short sale in BFE that just hit the market this morning. If you’re ready to put on your big boy pants and listen, that is.”
“I’m listening.”
“Really listening?
“Yes, I’m really listening,” Jamo assured her.
“No, James,” Agnes rebuked. “I mean really listening.”
“Look, I’m listening, okay,” Jamo replied with exasperation. “I’m really, really listening. The world has stopped outside of this conversation. I’m on pins and freaking needles. Now pretty please with a cherry on top, just tell me what to do!”
Agnes whispered, barely audible.
“What,” Jamo asked.
She whispered again, slightly louder.
“What,” Jamo asked again, straining to understand.
Agnes waited a beat before giving the air horn poised over the mouthpiece of the phone one long, shrill blast and terminating the call.
“I said you’re fired, Jay-mo.”
by Paul Slaybaugh | Mar 13, 2011 | This & That
Sully strolled into the dingy office bullpen ten minutes late with his cell phone glued to his ear. He held up a well-tanned finger to still the chatter around him.
“I don’t care if you have to charter a rowboat and pick them up yourself, just get’em here by tomorrow or so help me God I’ll bury the lob wedge so far up your backside you’ll need a proctologist for a caddy,” he threatened, terminating the call.
“What did I miss,” he asked of no one in particular, surveying the room through designer Ray Bans before lowering his head to practice his golf swing.
“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Sullivan,” Walter Deklan, the office manager, said by way of a welcome. “We were just reviewing goal achievement for the accountability program that corporate introduced last month.”
“Accountability program, pfft,” Sully scoffed. “I don’t need any accountant to tell me my last five hundred bucks just went to re-gripping my Pings. Right?” He nudged the constipated-looking man in the too tight corduroy pants standing next to him.
“How many deals you close this year, Sullivan,” Deklan asked.
“Including the Palmer transaction? None, but it’s only May,” he shrugged and moved on to practicing his short game.
“Perkins, your turn,” Deklan announced, adjusting the knot of the faded royal blue and gold striped tie his son had given him for his forty fifth birthday.
Bodies parted, revealing a small man in the back of the room. His hawkish nose was buried in an iPhone.
“Perkins?”
The little man didn’t flinch.
“Perkins!”
Perkins’ head snapped up, bifocals sliding down the sharp bridge of his beak.
“Oh sorry, just checking in on Foursquare,” he said, nervously pushing the glasses back into place.
“Did you meet the goals we set last week,” Deklan asked.
“Well actually,” Perkins began, swelling beyond his full five feet four inches. “I exceeded them.”
“That’s great, Sidney,” Deklan lauded. “So you made all your calls? Mailed all your letters?”
“Well, not exactly,” Perkins answered. “Phone calls, handwritten notes, pop-ins … that old school stuff might have worked back in your day, but it’s all about the internet now.”
Deklan buried his face in his hands, silently counting to ten as he was apt to do when the kids would shave their names into the dog, or write “FART” on the living room wall in purple crayon.
“So what did you do this week, Sidney,” he asked upon reaching seven.
“Thought you’d never ask,” Perkins squeaked. “This week alone, I composed six hundred and forty two tweets, wrote twelve blog posts and added fifty nine new connections on Linked-In.”
Deklan stared at the second year agent.
“You didn’t make a single sales call?”
“No offense, Dek, but listen to yourself,” Perkins challenged, feeling his oats. “Who makes sales calls anymore? In case you haven’t noticed, everybody is online these days. A place where I happen to be a pretty big deal.”
“Is that right,” Deklan asked.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Perkins assured him. “I just crossed twenty five hundred Facebook friends. I’ve got seven hundred and fifty blog subscribers, and over eleven thousand Twitter followers.”
“And one piece of shit rental listing,” Deklan added.
Perkins blanched, his bulging hazel eyes magnified behind the thick glasses. Rescued from the humiliation by the buzzing of his handheld, he swallowed hard and retreated into his virtual kingdom.
“Make sure to tell all your followers about being the mayor of No New Business,” Deklan suggested, unable to resist the dig.
“How about you, Sheila,” he asked the aggressively dour woman standing directly in front of him with arms crossed. “Did you set aside two hours per day to preview property like we discussed?”
“Cut the crap, Walter,” she snarled. “Nobody wants to talk about your stupid goals. If we needed a guidance counselor, we’d go back to high school.”
A few scattered chuckles confirmed the assertion.
“I know it may seem foolish, Sheila, but the simple stuff works. If you want to be a top producer, you have to do the things that top produ-”
“We’re still out of hazelnut,” she interrupted, seething.
“What?”
“We’ve been out for a month,” she informed him. “Funny it’s the one flavor that always gets forgotten when I’m the only one who drinks it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Sheila.” Deklan began, incredulous. “I place new orders on the first and the fifteenth, and I always include extra packets of-”
“Never a mix up with the Columbian or the French Roast,” she noted. “Just the hazelnut.”
“And these chairs,” she went on, her shrill voice climbing. “Are you waiting for my L4 vertebra to fall completely out before you get around to doing anything about them?”
“Like I said last week, we’re in the middle of a recession here, Sheila,” Deklan began patiently. “We don’t have the mone-”
“Liar,” she screeched, pointing an arthritic finger at the beleaguered office manager. “You managed to find enough of our money for the new sofa in the lobby, didn’t you?”
“What would you have the clients do,” Deklan demanded, his blood beginning to boil. “Sit criss-cross applesauce on the floor? I bought that couch for ten bucks at an estate sale in Old Town. Dragged it in here on my day off.”
She dismissed him with the flick of a bony wrist.
“And why does Clarissa get to bring that mangy fleabag of hers into the office if I can’t bring my Mister Whiskers?”
“It’s a guide dog for chrissakes,” Deklan railed, glancing at the golden retriever sitting at the foot of a heavy set, middle-aged woman wearing a floral patterned sundress and staring at the wall.
“Hear me well, people,” he announced. “Out of the twelve local branches, we were eleventh in production last quarter. Eleventh! Only the charity cases at Town and Country sold less than us, and they’ve been closed since November on account of the fire!”
“Freaking Obama,” Sully opined. “Things will turn around once we vote that bum out of office. Just gotta ride the storm out until twenty twelve.”
A deafening clanging reverberated throughout the office. All turned to see a chubby part-time agent named Herbert Dobbler ringing the sales bell for all he was worth. He wore a black t-shirt with red lettering that said I’m With @ Stupid.
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” Dobbler shouted.
“Okay, okay,” Deklan pleaded, palms out as he tried to restore order. “Can we please get back to-”
“Oh Captain, my Captain,” Dobbler cried before launching another salvo with the bell. “The Dead Realtor Society is hereby called to order!”
The chords on Deklan’s neck reared up like angry cobras as peels of laughter erupted from all corners of the bullpen.
“Two thousand eleven … going once,” Dobbler howled. “Going twice!”
Deklan blinked hard, once. A change coming over his normally genial face.
“Sold,” Dobbler hollered, ringing the bell to punctuate the joke. “To the gentleman in the black robe with a scythe!”
More laughter.
“You know what, that’s it,” Deklan declared, his icy voice barely audible above the raucous din. “If you want to sit in your cubicles complaining about the market and the coffee all day, go right ahead, but I’m not going down with the ship!”
He tore off his tie and threw it to the floor.
“You want to tweet about the movie you saw last night and call it networking, be my guest,” he boomed. “You want to optimize your websites, but not answer the phone when it actually rings? Knock yourselves out!”
He removed a highly polished black wingtip and hurled it across the room, causing three terrified sales associates to duck.
“I bring in top shelf instructors, cater lunch for you mooches, give you all I’ve got from thirty years of sales experience in every kind of market you can dream of, and for what? For you to think about selling a house every other leap year when you’re not too busy working on your slice or stumping for Bring Your Cat to Work Day?”
Deklan turned on a folding table that supported a veggie platter and tray of lukewarm cold cuts. He crammed three rolls of smoked turkey into his mouth before upending the entire spread.
“Well, guess what, kids,” he resumed, Butterbean-flecked spittle bursting from his mouth. “Class is dismissed! As of five minutes ago, I no longer work at this daycare for the criminally idiotic. Good luck. Best wishes. Try not to eat the plants. Deklan out!”
He tore the company nametag off the breast of his dress shirt, leaving a ragged hole in the white fabric, and stormed down the hall. One heel clicking each time it touched down on the porcelain tile, the other silent.
“Make sure to wave when you greet me at Walmart next week,” Deklan shouted over his shoulder as he darted into the break room. The sound of smashing glass carried back to the bullpen.
“Coffee pot,” Sheila whispered in horror.
“Vending machine still owe you that Diet Coke, Arturo,” Deklan bellowed before a flying soda can exploded against the far wall of the hallway.
Thirty more seconds of indiscriminate thrashing and their former manager appeared as a silhouette against the floor to ceiling window in the front lobby. He was hunched over, holding something heavy. It was his bare ass.
“Look, ma! I’m the mayor of SAYONARA SUCKERS,” Deklan yelled before straightening up, ripping the fax machine off the secretary’s desk and and heaving it through the window; an ungodly crash punctuating the lethal shower of tinted glass. He kicked out half a dozen stubborn shards with his stockinged foot, ducked through the jagged opening and disappeared into the midday sun, leaving a faint trail of blood in his wake.
A pronounced silence filled the decimated office, shell-shocked agents searching each other’s faces for confirmation of what they just saw.
At last, a low, reverent whistle escaped Dobbler’s lips, breaking the spell.
“Winning,” he breathed.
“So,” Sully prompted his bewildered colleagues, twisting his heels into non-existent sand to practice his bunker shots. “Eight months … who had the under?”
“That would be me,” Sheila answered, cracking her first smile of the year.
Clarissa stood and lumbered to the water cooler without assistance, her pupils no longer swimming as she retrieved a paper cup from the dispenser.
“Think downtown will wise up and hire in-house this time,” she asked between sips.
“Beats me,” Perkins snickered. “But I am so tweeting this.”
by Paul Slaybaugh | Feb 10, 2011 | Scottsdale Real Estate, This & That
Feb 9, 2013 09:45 AM
Disassociative Press
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SCOTTSDALE (DP) – A four year federal wildlife program to rehabilitate the sagging numbers of a local animal population has proven to be a rousing success, according to Dr. Slade Winders of the Herpetological Society of North America. Non-indigenous to the Sonoran Desert, Realtus Serpentes is believed to have first been introduced to Arizona shortly after the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 by a traveling circus based out of Toledo, OH. An aggressive reptilian known commonly as “REALTOR,” Realtus Serpentes wasted little time overrunning the desert terrain, specifically the densely populated metro areas, earning the apex predator a fast reputation as a nuisance species.
“Times were you couldn’t turn around without bumping into six of the f&%$*rs,” according to sixty year Scottsdale resident Eli Jessop.
Such anecdotal reports were backed up by hard data. By the year 2000, there were more REALTORs in Scottsdale than all other species combined.
“We hadn’t seen this level of infestation since Menudo, possibly The Bay City Rollers,” said Early Cousins of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA when reached for comment.
The unbridled population surge was derailed with the bursting of the housing bubble in 2007, however. While omnivorous, the REALTOR’s primary food sources are the Homeownerus Equitablis and Buyerus Solventus. Suddenly deprived of both during the period Real Estate naturalists refer to as the “The Lost Years,” REALTORs that once had their choice of bloated, single-family prey were left to scavenge the picked over bones of short sale carcasses and chase down stray tenants for section 8 tenement housing. The results were devastating. According to Dr. Winders, the population of REALTORs plummeted from a high water mark of approximately seventeen trillion in the second quarter of 2006 to twenty eight within ten months.
“Classic overpopulation model,” Winders noted. “This species was so successful in dominating its environment that it outpaced its food source. The resulting attrition to the Realtus Serpentes‘ ranks brought it to the brink of extinction. That’s when we stepped in.”
In addition to losing numbers to starvation, neighboring markets and social media, the REALTOR has been a frequent target of poaching. Long coveted by boot makers for its leathery pelt, REALTOR pot-shotting spiked sharply from 2007-2009 in tandem with home value degradation and mortgage defaults.
“I got one a’ the sumbiches on the wall in my den,” Jessop boasted. “Probably weren’t the same one that sold me this dump for five hunnered grand, but what do I care? All look the same anyway.”
Placed on the endangered species list in late 2009 after a comprehensive federal wildlife study determined through geo-tagging and tracking that the Scottsdale REALTOR population was down to four REO agents, two short sale specialists and a silverback who had occupied the same bullpen cubicle since the Truman administration, the surviving animals were originally housed in the venomous reptile enclosure of the Phoenix Zoo until a new wing with WIFI and Hannibal Lecter restraints could be erected. Much to visitors’ delight, a microfiche machine and Sanka dispensary were provided to ease the transition of the one zoo staffers would come to affectionately dub “Mongo.”
In the ensuing months, new financing options emerged, interest rates remained low and prices began to stabilize, coaxing Buyerus Solventus to return to its natural grazing areas. Perhaps even more encouraging, members of the sub-species Investorus Gigantus migrated from the plains of the Midwest and the frozen reaches of Canada to take advantage of the unprecedented value bounty before all of the good grass was gone. Before long, the prey numbers had grown so large that the REALTORs began returning as well.
“First one I seen in the wild since 2008 was last March. Thought it was just another chupacabra until I saw the scales,” said Jessop.
Soon enough, Arizona Real Estate schools were operating at full capacity and license renewals picked up as quickly as they had dropped off. An aggressive public awareness campaign helped to alter the image of the REALTOR from mindless equity killer to vital member of the housing ecosystem. Through the Adopt-An-Agent program, thousands of Scottsdale residents learned to live side by side with the misunderstood tetrapod, grudgingly accepting the occasional blood sacrifice in return for the symbiotic culling of the Bankus Properitus, or “bank owned property” herds. The cumulative effect proved so successful that the REALTOR was officially removed from the endangered list in May of 2012. According to Arizona Game and Fish estimates, there are now nearly fifty billion REALTORs in the metro Phoenix area today. The success of the repopulation effort has taken even its most optimistic supporters by surprise.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be standing here today, four short years later, saying that we are ready to release the original Scottsdale Seven back into the wild,” Winders admitted. “Now our children don’t just have to read about these magnificent creatures in textbooks or visit them at our zoos, but will actually get to see them in their natural habitat for generations to come. This is a victory for us all.”
“Horses&$t,” added Jessop.
-Paul Slaybaugh, Staff Writer
© 2013 The Disassociative Press. All rights reserved.
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Update: At 6:32 AM on Feb 10, 2013, the so-called “Scottsdale Seven” REALTORs were released behind a vacant, bank-owned tri-level near McDonald and Granite Reef in central Scottsdale. Two were shot within four hours and one took a job selling mobile phones, but four have been successfully re-assimilated into their packs. When reached for comment, Dr. Winders said he was proud of his team’s achievements and that he was returning to his previous work performing blindfolded root canals on rabid king cobras with overbites.
