Things are not looking good for the consolidation loan.

First, just let me say that I like all of the employees of the bank branch that I use. The branch itself is located in the grocery store I use, which makes for very convenient errand running. There are three women - one with a thick South African accent - and two men, one with dreadlocks who always has a huge grin, and another who always wears a really bright solid-colored shirt with a really bright solid-colored ties.

I talked to one of the women yesterday about the loan, and she printed out the loan application. I brought it back to her — I’ll call her Carol — this morning right after they opened, along with a seperate sheet of paper filled with each creditor, their mailing address, account numbers, and balance owed. She said she’d submit it right away and would call me when she heard something.

I went through the whole day feeling like a million bucks. The boulder was up on a crane, about to be hoisted away. What could go wrong?

Hah. Stupid me.

Carol called me on my cellphone at 5:30pm (they’re open until 7 on weekdays. They’re also open seven days a week). The financing department had been in touch. They’d be happy to approve the loan - yes! - but on the condition of … well, did I have anything I could use as collatoral?

My car?

Was it paid off?

Uh … no?

Carol and I discussed some options, including using my savings account as collatoral (I now have $2k waiting for emergency use). Carol isn’t going into work until late afternoon tomorrow, but told me she would call me again. If the non-paid off car is a problem and can’t be used as collatoral, I wonder if I could increase the amount of the loan to pay off the Carmax loan? That would give my bank the title to my car after all, which might be inducement for them to approve the loan. If not, I wonder if I could lower the requested amount and consolidate only my two highest cards.

Let me get off on a rant here, momentarily - what is the goddamn point of offering a debt consolidation loan to people who are in debt if you aren’t going to approve them? I know my credit is bad - why do you think I’m looking for this loan? It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have my parents co-signing on this loan, and still have to jump through hoops to get the loan - on my own, I would have been told flat out, “Go fuck yourself.” I’m not looking for a handout, I’m not looking to avoid my debts, fuck, if the bank wanted me to pay 20% interest on the loan, I’d do it in a heartbeat because what’s killing me is paying interest on already-accrued interest on my credit cards. It’s like a big catch-22 designed to fuck you in unpleasant places. Thank you, no.

Oh - one other thing - if my bank is unwilling to help me on this, they can keep my checking and saving account business (maybe), but I’ll burn in the fires of Dante’s hell before I go to them for a mortgage or car loan (clearly, in the future after I’ve dug myself out of debt). I stopped by that gas station after work, the new owners said they weren’t hiring … yet. I dropped off an application at a nearby 7-11 last night, and I’m thinking of looking into night-stock jobs at local supermarkets. Yeah, I’m heading towards a 90-hour work week, but that’s because I’m so goddamn sick and tired of drowning.

As you might imagine, this new development pretty much ruined my spirit for the day. I was planning on going home and having myself a good cry, but a bunch of Blogtimoreans called me from the Happy Hour and cheered me up. ACW offered to torch the houses of anyone who stiffed me, and KMart suggested we take Neckbone’s Jeep and his dog down to Mexico and pick up some hookers — although, on later consideration, the amount of gas we’d spend getting to Mexico would pretty much eat up our prositute budget. Anyway, hearing all those people shouting “We Miss You!” (or whatever they said … it was kind of hard to hear) really cheered me up, I felt the love. Thanks guys.

It’s still, of course, possible that the loan will be approved. It’s just that yesterday at this time I thought it was a sure thing, and now I’m on a motorcycle facing a jump over the Grand Canyon. I had been re-reading American Psycho before bed, but I think I’m going to put that aside for a couple of months. (Speaking of which, there’s apparently an uncut version of the movie hitting DVD shelves next Tuesday. I’m going to put it on my netflix que).

UPDATE:

I’ve been calling it a “debt consolidation loan” because that’s what I’m using it for - debt consolidation. In banking terms, it’s actually a personal loan and should have a very low interest rate.

The top image is a link to Southwest’s webpage, bottom image is a link to The Baltimore Sun’s story.

With the swing of a champagne bottle yesterday, Gov. Robert. L. Ehrlich Jr. christened Maryland One, a Boeing 737-700 coated in 60 gallons of red and yellow and black and white paint.

But if the chief executive wants to fly on the airplane, he’ll have to buy a ticket like everyone else.

The plane, which took 512 man-hours to paint in the Maryland flag theme, is not a gubernatorial perk. It’s the latest specialty plane in a Southwest Airlines fleet that includes five other state flag-themed planes, the airline’s 25th-anniversary plane and three 737s painted like Sea World’s orca whales.

Southwest executives said they wanted to fly Maryland’s colors high - 38,000 feet high - as thanks for booking enough seats to make Baltimore-Washington International Airport its third-busiest hub. Arizona and Nevada, with the No. 1 and 2 hubs, also have lacquered tributes.

Maryland One flew in overnight from Seattle, where it was built and emblazoned, and touched down between regularly scheduled flights at BWI. Its unveiling was timed for Flag Day, the annual salute to the Stars and Stripes.

“It’s appropriate on Flag Day, that the Maryland state flag fly higher than normal,” said Colleen C. Barrett, Southwest’s president.

I think the Maryland flag is the coolest state flag in the entire union. It’s the only one that looks like some creative thought was ever put into it. So when I opened The Baltimore Sun today and saw that on the front of the business section was an image of an airplane with a huge mural of the Maryland flag boldly displayed on it, I thought to myself, “That’s effin’ radical, man.”

The case is finally closed.

An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband’s contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner’s office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.

This is disturbing …

The Senate may be within one or two votes of passing a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the U.S. flag, clearing the way for ratification by the states, a key opponent of the measure said Tuesday.

“It’s scary close,” said Terri Schroeder of the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the amendment. “People think it’s something that’s never going to happen. … The reality is we’re very close to losing this battle.”

Congress regularly has debated the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas flag desecration law in 1989 and its own Flag Protection Act the next year. But until now, it has failed to muster the two-thirds vote needed in both the House of Representatives and the Senate before states try to ratify the measure.

Next week, the House will vote on the amendment for a seventh time. If history is a guide, it will pass for a seventh time. That’s when the spotlight switches to the Senate, where the amendment has always died.

But this time may be different. Amendment supporters say last year’s election expanding the Senate Republican majority to 55 has buoyed their hopes for passage. Five freshmen senators — Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, John Thune of South Dakota and David Vitter of Louisiana — voted for the amendment as House members and plan to do so again.

They will be joined by at least five Democrats who have co-sponsored the resolution, including Dianne Feinstein of California and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Both are up for re-election next year.

Not all senators have publicly declared their support or opposition.

In 2000, when the Senate last took up the matter, 63 voted for the amendment, four short of a two-thirds majority.

“We’re going to have deeper support for this, and the intensity is growing,” Thune said Tuesday, which was Flag Day. “There’s momentum.”

Norm Ornstein, a political analyst at the business-oriented American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, says he expects “a cliffhanger.” He says Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is eager to bring up the issue, and some Democrats may be too nervous to oppose it.

Scenes of foreigners burning American flags may be common on TV, but such desecration is rare in this country. The Citizens Flag Alliance, an advocacy group that supports a constitutional amendment, reports a decline in flag desecration incidents, with only one this year.

Still, “it’s important that we venerate the national symbol of our country,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the amendment’s chief sponsor. “Burning, urinating, defecating on the flag — this is not speech. This is offensive conduct.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee may not hold a hearing until around the July Fourth holiday, and a floor vote hasn’t been scheduled.

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato is skeptical about the amendment’s prospects. “They may come close,” he says, “but I would put good money on the likelihood that, once again, it won’t be sent to the states.”

If it is, though, “it is almost a foregone conclusion that the states would ratify” the amendment, says John Vile, a constitutional law expert at Middle Tennessee State University and editor of Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America.

Every state legislature has passed resolutions urging Congress to send them a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. Still, such resolutions aren’t binding, and “that doesn’t necessarily mean it would pass in the states,” says Heather Morton, of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

A poll released last week by the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center in Nashville found 63% oppose a flag amendment, up from 53% last year.

“Clearly, more Americans are having second thoughts about using a constitutional amendment to” instill respect for the flag, said Gene Policinski, the center’s executive director. “Many Americans consider it the ultimate test of a free society to permit the insult or even desecration of one of the great symbols of the nation.”

Let’s all remember how the government disposes of old flags: they get burned. What’s the difference between the government burning a flag and a citizen? When a citizen burns the flag of the United States, its in protest.

From Congress’ point of view, this isn’t about protecting the flag, this is about restricting how citizens may protest the government. Let’s remember that this country was founded on, among other things, the basic principle that protesting an unjust government was an acceptable thing to do. Don’t let our government decide how we can or can’t protest against it.