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Fun and Profit in the Eye of the Beholder There's a computer in there somewhere. You
get but you pay for The most fascinating thing I read about was how the forces of darkness have created a mortgage debt bubble to replace the equities bubble. An interesting notion, to say the least. In hot housing markets like Denver and Boulder, prices have actually come down a bit. (Tick-tock, y'all.) Another article pointed out how ravenous consumers denied the "wealth effect" of swollen portfolios are browbeating appraisers so they can borrow even more against their homes. This should make for quite a show if prices really do come down, but they won't and never have, correct? I had to laugh when I read how such-and-such an organization had been tracking residential real estate since 1964 (ooohhh) and that the average price has "always risen." Hell, that's good enough for me. People here in Taos will drag you out in back and shoot you if you dare suggest another possibility. Should you somehow survive and be recaptured, they make you wear a dunce cap and walk around the Plaza in your underwear.  This kind of edginess is part of what's keeping computer sales from speeding up, of course. That, and the fact that my five-year-old PowerMac can't take me to $45 subscription sites just as quickly as a new one won't. (Did I say that right?) Anyway, it's hard to justify the cost of something no one really needs when things are so uncertain in the world. Better wait until we're pumping that Iraqi oil, and just remember not to be the last one on your block to sell the mansion and cash out. Just kidding, of course. Boomers never do things all at once. Magic,
mud, and silence In another not even remotely computer-related local adventure (please take the time to visualize a half-price iMac and feel really good), we actually drove out to San Cristobal where we used to live to inspect an old adobe house for rent. Good old San Cristobal. As soon as I stopped the car and opened the door, my ears were assaulted by, well, absolutely nothing... You don't know quiet until you're in that valley, at least if no coyotes are around. But then I noticed yes, there was a sound or two: when I turned my head and held my breath, I could just make out the muted tinkle of a wind chime hanging on the porch and the nearly silent hissing of a breeze moving through the pines.. . Oh GOD, I love that place! The house had lots to recommend itself, aside from the fact that if we'd taken it, I might have had to run a phone cord out the window and around the front to hook the Big Guy up where I'd most likely want to work. With adobe houses, there isn't any easy way to feed the cable through a wall. (Back in Maryland, a decent indoor sneeze would have made the siding flap like leghorns on a takeoff run and shown me any number of rot-enhanced gaps I could have used, hoho.) Not that everything is really tight in houses such as these, of course. The unrepaired erosion on the eastside wall beside the propane heater vent was less than reassuring, although on the other hand, it's only dirt returning to the earth. If you don't take care of an unstuccoed adobe by remudding the outside every year, eventually it more or less just disappears... And far from being cause for shame, this process is regarded locally as something natural, at least among folks not inclined to drag you out in back and shoot you for saying things like, "WHAT?! A quarter-million dollar fixer-upper?"  We turned it down, though. The savings from the lower rent would have been wiped out by commuting costs, and old adobes built when no one had anything better to do than cut ten cords of wood a year aren't oriented towards the sun. A house like that will hold the heat, all right, but getting it warm to start with costs a fortune in propane. I counted one nice fireplace and three lovely gas wall heaters. Brrr. And damn! Oh,
you did not! My wife had a hard time at the supermarket this afternoon. Monday is a holiday, so everything you'd ever want to eat was missing from the shelves and all the lines were long and horrible. Be that as it may, she scored some grub and catfood, thoughtfully forgetting all her discount coupons so that Smith's could make more money on the sale, and finally escaped the parking lot, only to be held up fuming at a busy traffic signal. Suddenly she heard a honk, and then a "B-A-A-A-A-A!" (Huh?) Right there in amongst the monster Texas S.U.V.s and Sunday lowrider cruisers was a big black-faced sheep making its way across Paseo del Pueblo Sur, just the sort of thing to make it all worthwhile. 
"Grack!" Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr really loves it when his FarrFeed blog hits are coming in hot and heavy. Please vote early and often. FARRFEED.COM -- new Salon blog! The GRACK! Update mailing list needs you! Just CLICK HERE and send a blank email. (Current year's columns just below)
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