They were killed in their droves.  That’s what the ad said about mosquitoes.  ON MY TV!  Not, “They were killed IN DROVES.”  What does ‘in their droves’ even MEAN and has any single person even asked that freaking question?  Answer: NO!  Why?Because nobody even knew the comment made no sense.  Droves means large quantities.  It comes from old English, or maybe ancient tongues.  In their droves…oh my god.  No, the mosquitoes were “killed in droves”.  And whether or not that was even true, well that’s another posting.  That’s about advertising and …I can’t talk about that right now.  But, thing is, they will sell a freaking bazillion of the things that kill mosquitoes in their droves.

Same as this sentence in an interview: “When I thought about it, I wonder what that meant….”  Started out past tense, second part: present tense.  This was also on my television.  It’s not bad enough that our society is being undermined by idiots, our very language is being corrupted and dumbed into oblivion.  Forget ‘down’.  It’s being flushed by idiots, dumbed into oblivion (mixed metaphor).  What the ‘actual hell’ do they teach in school anyway?  

I like ‘actual’ being used as an adjective though.  I’m okay with that. BUT I DIGRESS.  And I’m losing my hair from STRESS.

And I refuse to call a SINGULAR person ‘they’ (plural), or ‘their’ (also plural), or ‘them’ (also plural).  Why will this upset people?  Because they don’t know what singular and plural MEAN.  These IDIOTS are screaming at us to call them (yes, plural) a MISNOMER.  Kill me now.  I’m going to jail; I just know it.

Nobody gets to police my psyche NOR my grammar.  I’m sick of it; I’m tired of idiots trying to take over my language, my thoughts, my opinions.  Nope, I’m going to jail.  I just know it.  LOL.  Uh oh.  There’s an acronym.

Here’s one.  Say we lost our keys.  Say we have a tendency to lose stuff.  We don’t LOOSE things; we LOSE things.  This is not rocket science.  Oh we LOOSE things because we’re not TO smart.  If you don’t see a problem with that, step away from this article.  What do college professors do when people turn in essays or technical papers with this crap in them?  Oh yeah, EVERYBODY GETS A TROPHY, damnit.   

Then ONE DAY these idiots are going to prescribe PILLS for you and diagnose your ILLNESSES.  They’re going to tell you that you have RBKD (because people are too lazy to speak words and they want to use acronyms for everything.)  RBKD means really bad kidney disease.  I made that up.  And acronym has three syllables.  If that stumped you, go back to …well I was going to say school but never mind.  SO, if a ‘doctor’ tells you you have RBKD, you should ask, “Well, doc, how do you know?” And after you are slapped for QUESTIONING, Doc might say, “Duh because I checked these three boxes.  Take these three pills.  That’ll be a thousand dollars.”  AND YOU WILL PAY.

What the ACTUAL HELL is going on?  What does ANYBODY DO in school??  Oh wait, I know.  Indoctrination.  Uh oh,  Five syllables.   Can you say HOME SCHOOL?

Speaking of science, I read an article in a scientific magazine DECADES AGO that said humans would breed intelligence out of existence until we are too dumb to come in out of the rain.  I remember laughing and then thinking, “Hmmmm”.   It’s not TO bad to be in the rain, unless it’s 33 degrees out.  And I KNOW.  I did that on purpose to see whether or not you would notice.  By the way, if you stay out in 33 degree rain, you DIE. That’s for the recent graduates.

Well, I’m looking around and thinking, “OMG they were right!”  And I USED THE ACRONYM for OH MY GOD!  I’ve been assimilated!  Uh oh, another five syllable word. Well it happened so GRADUALLY.  OMG that’s four syllables.

So, pharmaceutical companies are trying to make us wait FIFTY YEARS before they tell us the truth about the so-called vaccines.  Bet you didn’t know THAT was happening, did you?  Oh well it’s not being REPORTED.  FIFTY YEARS!  But thank goodness, that’s being fought in court, by people who, like me, had to EARN our trophies.  It pays to dig around for actual facts, and that’s ACTUAL actual, if you follow me.  The truth is out there.  And in case you didn’t notice, I’ve been tooling around on the internet this evening and smoke is billowing out of my ears.  What the actual hell?  I like that.  I’m gonna use it a lot.

So, HAGN (have a good night) and if you don’t, WTOY (well that’s on you).

 

I went to the gynecologist many years ago, because as it turned out, I had a cyst on one ovary.  Don’t run; I’m not going into details.  There’s a metaphor coming.  Anyway, the doctor said, “I’ll schedule you for surgery.”

I said, “Nope.”

He said, “What did you say?”

I said, “I said no thanks; think of another way.”

Hahaha.  I can still see that face of indignation glaring at me, a not-a-doctor, telling big man no, he in his white lab coat and I in…well nothing but a sheet and sitting on the exam table.  But he said, “Well we can put pressure on it and burst it and I think you KNOW what will happen if it is cancerous.”  By the way, this same guy asked me, years later, whether or not I wanted my baby circumcised.  My baby was a girl.  I never saw him after that.  But I digress, and still I laugh.  Let’s continue.

I said, “I don’t like that option; what’s next?”  I ended up taking birth control and the cyst dissolved.  DROP the mike.  There went a boat payment for that doctor, no doubt.

My point is about the pressure and bursting and broadcasting cells throughout my body, a fear tactic that didn’t work.  Why?  Because I’m not stupid.  But in light of the Fox News issue with Carlson…I’m thinking about the dispersal of all those Fox News watchers who have scattered to the winds, throughout the ‘body’, as it were.  And I’m thinking this could end up being a very interesting outcome for those trying to stifle free speech and an even better one for those whose go-to news channel is now toast.

Think about it.  There is a PLETHORA of sites conservatives can go to, run by independent journalists, individuals who are not under the thumb or control of “Big Media”, not beholding to a non-compete or a rule to parrot what all of the other parrots say.  Do they really think we don’t notice that??  I always wonder whether any of them can actually spell the words they parrot.  I’m sure some of them cannot.

Imagine how unruly, or rather, unruled, the voices of the middle-of-the-road folks will be.  I’m talking about the grassroots folks who are able to listen to ALL perspectives and draw their own conclusions, who have escaped the brainwashing tactics, who believe in free speech!  This is going to be amazing to watch folks.  Don’t despair; just log on to YouTube and look around.  You’re gonna love what you find there.  Oh and dare I say it?  Twitter.  

And listen, this is the way of the future, big media in your silos shouting down at the minions within.  You have built yourself a container within which you control everything, while OUTSIDE your silo, the world is leaving your asses behind.  There is weather, sunshine, even goodness, and intelligent people and opinions different from yours!  OMG.  And I’m being generous when I equate you being in a silo.  What I really think involves a stinky hole ending with a rectum, within which your head has become quite comfortable.  Funny what wealth does to jerks.

I believe in the ability of intelligent people to find their ‘tribe’, to weed out the wackos, to sift through untruths and manipulations and find THE truth, not A truth, not YOUR truth…THE truth.  Which does exist, it’s just that big media doesn’t want you to know that, because it will cost them.  So yeah, I hear silos cracking.  I’m loving it, because people can finally hear what is actually going on and be able to make good, common sense choices.  And there will be no screeching like we’ve been set afire.  We’ll just watch, analyze and move onward, leaving the screeching to echo within the silos…or that other dark smelly place.  The rest of us will be outside in the sun.

Until AI.  Sorry!  Had to say that because you KNOW that’s going to really mess things up.  

At a time when people are feeling powerless and hopeless, I hope you’ve noticed some things happening around us.  We have had three very meaningful events unfolding recently that hold a bit of hope, give us a reason to raise an eyebrow and say, “Hmmmm.”

Let’s think about how powerless we all feel against the elite, wealthy and powerful companies who seem determined to bleed us dry of not only our resources, but also our joie de vivre.  It feels like we had the boot of Covid on our throats and it never really lifted.  Life has been quite difficult; it has emitted a feeling of uncertainty, a shifting of solidness, even fear.  People don’t laugh anymore.  Everyone’s angry, on the edge of combustion, all the time.

Well well well.  It seems like the population at large do have a rudder; we do have a hand on the wheel.  Think about CNN, think about Budweiser and now…think about Fox News.  It has been simple, really.  We just took our attention and our money to another place.  We watched CNN crumble before our eyes, once we got tired of being lied to and fed a version of information that wasn’t right, didn’t resonate with the truth, and eventually sought to make the middle-of-the-road, grassroots people feel stupid.  We’re not stupid.  We were smart enough to select another source of ‘news’.  We don’t like being pushed THAT hard.  Let me be clear: I think we accept far too much blatant manipulation.  But it would appear there’s a limit after all, which, dare I say, gives me hope.

Then there’s Bud Light.  One voice, one person, inexperienced with real life, decided what that brand should represent, or ’embrace’, whatever you want to call it.  She dissed the base of the brand by asking whether we thought she hadn’t thought about losing that demographic and how it wouldn’t matter.  Ha!  I laughed at that.  Oh boy, did I laugh.  And almost instantly, that product couldn’t be given away.  Hard working people, people who don’t want others’ ideology shoved into their eyeballs, turned around, took their wallets, and bought a different product.   Suddenly we saw the horses, the cowboys, the sweeping landscapes.  Yeah, show them some pictures and they’ll swallow the pill, accept the indoctrination.  But wait!  Where are they going???  Then, let’s give the morons free product; that’ll bring them (their money) back.  Nope.  It went elsewhere.  I’m thinking Miller, but I don’t drink beer so what do I know.  I just know that even free beer stayed in the cooler.   It would appear there’s a limit.

Watch out now; this stuff catches on.  People have FINALLY figured out that these corporations need US, we the people, our money, and without it, they crumble to their knees.  What???  CNN???  Oh yeah, big, powerful CNN.  Oh they try firing some of the loudest voices (biggest mouths), or they cut prices, or they ‘change the programming’. But here’s the thing:  We watch.  Especially these days, we watch where our MONEY goes.  And more and more, we’re tired of being poked in the eye with the sharp stick of something that makes our senses cry out in discomfort, saying, “What the hell is going on?!?!”  

Oh I’m hearing that question every day, many times a day.  I say it myself.  But here’s a little side whisper for you.  I quit CNN many YEARS ago, missing only the financial programming.  But they were speaking a language that crucified MY ears many years ago.  And I know, I am mainstream.  Where I go, working people usually go as well, unless they are afraid, never brave.  They are the ones most easily manipulated with fear, a favorite spice stirred into the fare they feed us.  But what I think, I always hear others speak.  So with my experience and my data gathering penchant, I have learned that my views are pretty common, very popular, very mainstream.  

There’s Fox News.  Because of, and mainly because of, what they did to Tucker Carlson, man was there a mass exodus.  Including me.  Look, I was seeing the cargo ship turning a while ago, so my viewership had diminished anyway, but now?  No more Fox of any ilk for me, and remember…I am mainstream.  We are watching the leviathan stumble, hearing the harsh sound of metal bending, ripping and collapsing.  I, for one, won’t be sad to see it fall. I do have sympathy for some of the other big voices there whose income will dwindle away.  But what Fox did was wrong, stifling the voices considered when the Constitution was written.  How many speeches, how many soliloquies, how many shouts and whines do you think I have listened to that went against my grain, while I understood the right for those noises to be made?  A lot, my friends, a lot.  But I just changed the channel.  I didn’t have a screaming meltdown.  But wait, this is a wealthy giant!  Well the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  

Bottom line is this: We are not powerless.  We have had enough of being poked in the eye and brutally shoved into the corner by unintelligent, inexperienced people with money, who bought power.  Have you noticed how many people are not going to doctors anymore?  Why?  They have lost trust because we were shoved into a corner by the government and pharmaceutical companies, manipulated and strong-armed (well not me and not some others, but most).  Mainstream folks don’t respond well to strong arm tactics.  Doctors are leaving the profession by the thousands.  Why?  Because, as one said, “There should be no politics in treating patients.”  And yet there were politicians with zero science experience, and exceptional monetary incentive, telling doctors HOW TO TREAT PATIENTS.   I can’t say that without raising my voice.  OMG imagine Kamala telling MY doctor how to treat me.  well, that wouldn’t work because I don’t go to the doctor.  

Maybe health ‘care’, now health ‘business’ needs to take a look at what is happening to the other three giants I mentioned.  Here’s a question:  How long do you think the drug companies can direct your life if you just stop taking drugs for every change of wind direction?  That’s a question I’ve asked for decades.  We actually listen to JINGLES about drugs, of which the side effects of many, is DEATH.  Sorry, that’s just stupid.  STUPID.  Yet we robot walk to the doctor and ask for the drug that says K is for Kidney.  Oh my god kill me now.  And then I say maybe this is natural selection.  Sorry not sorry.  People are so afraid they’re killing themselves trying to live a terribly unhealthy life and still want to live forever.  Yeah, that’s natural selection.  We get what we accept and/or deserve.

So look around you.  Look at CNN.  Look at Bud Light.  Look at Fox News.  And remember your own power as a consumer.  And take that to the polls with you if you’re tired of having that sharp stick shoved in your eyeballs.

 

Well, well, well, whaddaya know.  Baby Boomers have come back to the top.  Boomers are now the number one age group buying homes.  Overtaking Millenials.  Imagine.  WHAT’S THIS WORLD COMING TO?

Check out Lennar.com to see their 3D printed homes.  The process is amazing and the homes look great.  Check it out at Lennar.com.

Alex Murdaugh.  I’m guessing everyone has heard that name by now.  The Murdaugh name came forth years ago, in fact, after ‘The Boat Crash”, during which Paul Murdaugh was supposedly driving The Boat.  It was a runabout, center console it looked like, nothing fancy, but still deadly in the hands of drunk kids, mildly or terribly.  Mallory Beach died in that crash, a lovely young woman with the whole world at her feet.  I was heartbroken for her and for her family.  And I felt terrible for the other kids too, the ones who lived and now must live with that tragedy a part of their psyche.  And I also reflected on how many times I should not have survived my own antics, and the universe wobbled a bit.  Why do some of us just get away while others go down in flames?  Are we able to sit in judgement solely because we didn’t get caught?  No.  We are not.  But then we do, we all do, and this makes me sad for us.

All of the teens had been consuming too much alcohol, it is said, with Paul and another young man on video at a bar doing shots just before heading toward home, intercepted by The Crash. I was a boat person once; that kind of behavior is completely illegal and dangerous…as it turned out to be.  There was a terrible crash into a bridge during which Mallory was thrown overboard, not to be found for days.  Others were taken to the hospital.  Immediately, we saw, a swarm of legal guys rallied around the emergency room (it’s on camera), one of whom was Paul’s father, Alex.  It seemed wrong that attorneys were talking to these kids, or attempting to engage them, without their parents being there; something just felt wrong about that.  And that was my introduction to the Murdaughs and that area of South Carolina.

Then there was the suspicious death of Stephen Smith, with the Murdaugh name woven into that story as well.  Stephen’s death wasn’t suspicious.  Someone knows exactly what happened to that young man.  Again, a beautiful young life with the world at his feet, snuffed out terribly.  He was left, dead, on that SC road and I think his killer(s) hoped he’d be hit by a vehicle on that dark, unlit road, conveniently blaming his death on the victim being in the middle of the road.  Thankfully that didn’t happen.  Someone saw him and called the police in time for him to be moved off the highway.  But something fishy happened with the coroner’s report or the medical examiner.  I can’t keep them straight.  But the news says, over and over, there was zero indication of a hit and run.  More likely he was hit by an object (baseball bat), held by a person leaning out of a speeding car.  You know that stupid game.  Seems like all young upstarts do it, usually targeting mailboxes.  Yeah, I think that’s what happened to Stephen.  And I listened to his mother and cried with her too, at the death of her boy, and at the surety that nothing would be done to find out the truth.  Man’s inhumanity to man.

Then there was the shooting on that lonely SC highway.  Someone shot at good old Alex Murdaugh.  He was driving a Mercedes SUV, the ones that have drive-flat tires?  And he stopped to change a tire.  Pa-lease.  Nobody driving a Mercedes gets out to change a tire.  I know.  I used to drive one.  You either call roadside assistance, or BETTER YET, drive those drive-flat tires to a shop for repair.  Then we find that Alex set the whole thing up to have himself wiped out so his oldest son could inherit 10 million dollars.  Well…what about his WIFE and his YOUNGEST SON?  What about THEIR 10 million dollars? See now I’m starting to smell something that kind of smells like a rat.  I’m sensing a family divide: Maggie and Paul on one side and then Alex and Buster on the other.

And let’s not forget about the drugs.  Oh my.  A twenty year addiction to opioids, if you can believe that.  Who was addicted?  Well Alex Murdaugh.  There’s that NAME again.  And listen, I can’t keep up with how many pills he took or bought, but apparently there were SO many that he had to steal to pay for them.  From whom, you might ask?  Well let’s take a look.  And by the way, I do not believe Alex’s addiction story.  I just do not.

He was a personal injury lawyer, apparently.  And he handled the big cases, along with some small ones.  He won multi-million lawsuit payouts and then, well, kept the money.  From a LOT of his clients.  From a young man on life support who later died, from a young woman whose mom and brother were killed in a terrible accident she survived.  She lived in poverty because Alex kept her payout, embarrassing her by having her ask for grocery money when by then, she was actually a multi-millionaire, not knowing it.  Then there was Alex’s housekeeper who ‘fell down the stairs’ at Alex’s house after which he jumped in and volunteered to sue himself.  Gloria died, leaving children behind, and Alex got a huge insurance payout.  He kept that money too.

Then he stole from his law firm.  Millions!  His law partners had to come out of pocket to pay his debts and make his clients whole.  Alex’s firm had a manager and an accountant, who were responsible for the firm’s numbers adding up.  He threw them right under the bus.  His paralegals were stunned, fooled by lies and sleight of hand.  These things hurt.  They hurt because this behavior is perpetrated by someone trusted and even loved.  Man’s inhumanity to man.  Inhumanity without the slightest hint of regret.

Now, the horrific murders:  Alex’ wife Maggie and son Paul were BRUTALLY murdered by gunshots, from both a rifle and a shotgun.  Maggie was shot 6 or 7 times, two of which entered her head.  Paul was shot twice, the last one blowing his brain out of his head, or what was left of it. The intent was murder.  No doubt about it.   Alex Murdaugh has been found guilty of this crime, folks.  The husband and father.  It might seem somewhat run of the mill these days; there are SO MANY murders by ‘loved ones’.  And Alex lied and lied about nearly every step of that investigation.  It seems he put a lot of thought into how to do this and get away with it, and seemed to be establishing alibis in the immediate aftermath.  But still, he was the husband and father.  How could this even be real?

This man fooled every single person he knew, lied to every single one.  Every one, meaning he was a special kind of liar, a very good one to say the least.  He seems to be a narcissist or psychopath, or maybe both.  Because of that I fully expected him to take the stand in his own defense.  He would have thought, and probably did, that he was the smartest person in the room.  He was wrong.  He didn’t fool anybody.  His jig was up.  And how many dead bodies are scattered around this man?  I count at least 6, including the boy on life support: Mallory, Stephen, Gloria, the young man on life support, Maggie, Paul.  There may be more.  Man’s inhumanity to man.

Now comes the part I can’t understand.  I saw him break down when he heard or spoke about Paul…not Maggie, just Paul.  Those tears seemed real, and I believe they were. But psychopaths don’t feel pain like normal people,  and when narcissists don’t need you anymore, you are worthless to them.  I get that.  That’s when it gets dangerous.  That’s when you become expendable.

And still, I feel terrible for Alex too.  I cannot shake the sadness I feel about this tragedy, the entirety of it, including Alex, which had to begin with one decision, one moment in time when he decided that rules didn’t apply to him.  We had the chance to meet Alex’s family during this trial and they seemed like really good people, part of a close knit family who loved one another…except for Alex, who was just fooling them all.

Then I think about Buster Murdaugh getting kicked out of law school for cheating and how hard his legal family were working to slide him back in…he did nothing to help himself, by the way.  And there’s Paul.  Paul had a nickname for when he was drunk.  His personality was so angry and aggressive, abusive, that they called him ‘Drunk Timmy’.  And after the Boat Crash, he was walking free, ostensibly awaiting trial.  He had been charged in that case.  So what kind of legacy was Alex leaving behind anyway?  And now, it looks like Buster might as well choose another course of study because the Murdaugh name has been x-ed out with red paint.  I don’t know how I feel about that yet.

See, this “rules don’t apply to me” mentality had to come from somewhere, and maybe Alex’s DNA was inherited.  Maybe his long-standing legal eagle family members were also criminals.  Well, we may find out.  That’s being looked into.  And it seems Stephen’s death is now being investigated.  So the Murdaugh name may still pop up again.

And I will be reminded how important choices are, how important it is to have consequences for our actions, to not be rescued from crime, even the small ones.  And I will still feel so incredibly sad about how we treat one another.  We are supposed to love our enemies, and maybe this sadness I feel has something to do with that.

First, our market is the NC Triangle Market, with Raleigh NC at the center.

Second, real estate agents don’t own a crystal ball. We cannot materialize buyers.  We don’t actually control the rotation of the earth.  Hurts to admit that.  FORTUNATELY we have access to market experts who can tell us what to expect.  Here, (Triangle, remember?) we have FIVE THOUSAND PEOPLE A MONTH moving in, according to the Triangle Business Journal.  I know that’s true when I drive around.  And, our market is predicted to keep right on humming along.  Hmmmm.  I wonder if the Journal are biased in any way.  Don’t think so.  Why?

Our area ranks fourth in the US, behind Seattle, Austin and San Francisco.  People love it here, particularly people from NY, CO, NJ, FL, TX and AZ (again, according to the Business Journal).  Why?  Tech jobs, healthcare jobs, universities, and just plain awesomeness.  That’s from me.  I live here and I work in real estate.  We are halfway between north and south east coast, halfway between mountains and coast.  I know, the only reason people from Seattle would come here is 1) job; 2) running away from something.  That’s a joke.  No, not really.

Well what happened in Dec and Jan around here then??  Well, holidays, interest rate shock, actually nose bleed from the fast elevation of interest rates, price increase of everything needed to survive, and maybe sheer exhaustion from 2022.  But things are beginning to normalize and will continue to do so, and people realize that even with a 6.5% interest rate, you can still buy a home.  And don’t forget that lenders are working hard to make it possible to get a loan.  Relax!  You can do this!  My first home carried an interest rate of SIXTEEN PERCENT and that was with perfect credit.  Seriously, relax.  I did it in my 30’s.  You can do this.

We have to keep an eye on the tech PLANS, because there are supposed to be some big dogs coming in to our area who may be slowed down because of inflation and all of the accompanying poop storm.  But they still have to have a ‘forward’ team who need housing and my expectation that they will 1) buy rather than rent; and 2) look in the luxury market.  Let’s see how that goes, because that’s a wild guess.  I do know that executives are ‘expected’ to live to a certain standard.  In other words, don’t count on them to buy the flipper house.

I have seen an early bump in activity in my business.  Normally my market wakes up and stretches in February’s but it started stretching in January.  That’s early.  So far, that’s supporting the TBJ prediction about the health of our market for 2023.  In the 2008 crash, as a reminder, we were the LAST in the US to fall, and the FIRST to start climbing out.  This wasn’t a crash, it was a forced nap; so we should be fine.

If you want to buy, you should still expect to put some cash up front on the table.  Due diligence, earnest money, inspections, etc.  Want to get a handle on that stuff?  I can help.  NOTE: Real estate laws in NC are not the same as those in TX, FL, CO, NJ, NY, AZ.  Yes you have the internet, but yes, you need an agent.  Because this is NC.

If you want to SELL, by February, you should be calling me to list your home, because by March it’ll be a race again.  I’m Brenda with Coldwell Banker Advantage.  Call me.