More Fun Facts that Suddenly Turning Into A Grow-Up Have Taught Me

[d_aulnoy]

It really is deeply odd to consider how damn quickly my life has changed this year.  From grad student to grown-up, 0 to 60 ....

1) This one's for all the city-dwellers who believe firmly in the glories of public transportation: get a drivers license.  No, now.  No, right now.  Even if you plan on spending the rest of your life wrapped tight in the MTA's vaguely abusive embrace ... get thee to a DMV.  Apparently, because I never had a license, the world now expects me to promptly crash into things, doubling our insurance premiums: however, if I'd had a damned license, even if I'd never, ever used the damn thing, I'd have a perfect driving record.  Sigh ....

2) Check your credit regularly.  (This one I did, thank god.)  If your credit is good, kudos!  If not, dude ... fix it.  Because, apparently, there are parts of this great nation where it is impossible to rent a decent place, necessitating the purchase of a house, and if your credit blows, you're just kinda ... screwed.  Here, note that by "fix it", I do not necessarily mean "pay off all of your grad-school-induced debts and become a productive member of society" (though that would be nice too, I guess): I mean, employ enough of the jury-rigged tactics accepted by the nice people at FICA to drag your score up.  Spend a few months paying more of your balance, periodically apply for a new card to show you're a decent, capital-spending member of society, never cancel a card, etc.

And, finally, at least for now ....

3) Avoid having childishly high expectations for the new Harry Potter movie, because, seriously, you know better.  Also, David Yates?  You cut all of McGonagall's good lines?  And most of Grimmauld Place?  And, and, and ...! [shakes fist impotently]

Comments

[erratic0101.livejournal.com]

They hired a TELEVISION DIRECTOR. Whose previous credits include Will and Grace!?!?

w...t....f??

God. each scene was laid out like it was waiting for a commercial break.

Please god, let them make a BBC mini-series of the Harry Potter books in my lifetime.

(yes, i know that said "mini" series would be like 45 episodes. But so be it)

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Really? Well, that explains a lot (most particularly, the post-snogging scene where Ron and Hermione sit around giggling for no apparent reason). And consider my prayers added to yours ... between the end of book 7 and the marked dearth of lines for Lupin in adaptation #5, I feel he deserves recompense.

[honeychurch.livejournal.com]

on credit - you want to apply for a card occasionally, but not have too many accounts, because that will bring your score down. Also, I don't think canceling hurts that much (I've canceled a few, and it hasn't seemed to affect my score too badly).

Best thing that happened to my credit score was regular payments of my undergrad loan. Not paying it off - just making nice, on-time payments (which was easy, because I went to a public college in-state and refinanced at 3.5%) shot my credit score up by at least 100 pts.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Hee. I feel like we should create a weird community titled "What the Credit Bureau Wants to See From YOU." And, yep on all counts.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

poor_skills talks about that a lot from time to time.

[omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, now that I've paid off both my student loans and my car loan, when we went to apply for a mortgage, we were told I have no credit history, because I have no credit cards.

However, years and years ago, shortly after college, when I was trying to rent and was in a place where paying my student loans all the time was an insurmountable challenge, I couldn't get an apartment because my late payments were a black mark on my record.

Grrr.