Chicago: customers are advised to allow extra travel time

bah. Only grownups do things like that.

I didn't have one until a couple of years ago, and I only got it to buy (and pay off right away) big things infrequently, just to build a little credit. I have no idea what my credit is, but I'm hoping that + my car have helped out.

My guess is it's b/c you don't have a credit card. i don't know how late you pay bills & such, but they typically don't report those to the big guys all the time unless it's more extreme circumstances.
why not apply for a credit card w/ a low credit limit to start with & just have it to build credit?

Yeah, you are definitely going to want a credit card. That can be a huge blow to your credit score as far as potential lenders are concerned. Sounds counterintuitive, but its true.

i dunno... every late bill i've ever had shows up on my credit report, for the last 10 years or so.

how late is late though?

After I left college I got screwed over by roommates of mine. Basically I graduated in May and moved here for my job in June, but the apartment lease went until the end of August so my two roommates stayed there all summer. I set up all the accounts to switch over to their names, all they had to do was sign a paper and mail it back in. They never did and never paid any of the bills for June-August. I had no idea until I was contacted by collection agencies in October. Amazingly only one of them showed up on my credit history and I was able to rectify it.

I don't want to talk about credit cards. (un)Fortunately, I'm signing up for another online community that is all about that.

after the due date. I dunno, maybe they don't all report late bills the same way, but AT&T will nail you to the wall for every penny. They'll give you bad credit while they're charging you for services you didn't actually use.

why not apply for a credit card w/ a low credit limit to start with & just have it to build credit?

Because I are a dunce when it comes to finance. I don't even know what "building credit" means!

I don't mean to make excuses, I'm just saying. I suppose I'll look into it.

john stewart and bill moyers is great, I missed this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uDiWMPuOxLQ

I'm looking at my credit report now! It looks decent. I thought I would have some late bills from back in the day, but I guess they weren't as late as all that. Actually I see nothing about bills here, just auto loan, credit card, + bank.

Apparently seeing your credit score costs $, though?

SORRY FOR BORINGNESS

ABORT

there are free ones!!

free abortions?

that's the way things OUGHT to be

john, you're lack of credit card means lack of credit, means lack of credit score. since there is no record of how you handle credit it is assumed that you can't until you can prove that you can.

until fairly recently i a good credit score. a few years ago it was a fantastic one. now my credit is so bad some places don't even want to take my cash.

I tried looking at my credit report online, but none of the companies were able to process my request.

free credit reports, dawg.

(Probably because of the whole no-credit-card sitch.)

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/i-has-to-work-overtime-again-today-do-not-want.jpg

(pssst! credit reports are free! free!)

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.shtm

is anyone else hooked on watching that kanye video? i just watched it again & noticed all these new things.

i've seen it a total of twice if that counts as "hooked"

(pssst! credit reports are free! free!)

yes, but what about abortions? That's the real issue.

to change the subject, the humidity is so high that i've been out of the shower for over a half hour and my hair is still dripping wet. it's just not gonna dry. i was watching tom skilling a while ago and one of the south suburbs had a temperature of 91 with a dew point of 82 which made it feel like you were about 6 and half feet under water.

are you serious about abortions being free? i don't know that i agree with that if you are.

free abortions available here

nice try, que, but not this time

are you serious about abortions being free?

No. What I really believe is that they should be mandatory.

I don't get the nekkid pic... it has arrows pointing at his willie that say "do not want," but his willie is hardly the problem. A dick's a dick, but a big fat old man gut... that's what you do not want.

there was some giant cock on perez hilton today.

http://perezhilton.com/?cat=319

it won't show up if you click on that link, but will one click after. You have been warned about the extremely LARGE COCK.

free credit REPORTS, not free credit scores

Credit card means they know you have access to 7k or whatever if your life goes kerplunk.

Whose is it?

Credit card means they know you have access to 7k or whatever if your life goes kerplunk.

I could just give them my bank statement, in that case.

the cock? i actually don't know this guy. Here's his wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azis

I have a great credit rating, but I don't care about it so much right now. I care about paying off my debt.

CASE IN POINT:
It's like when I was talking to that credit card rep earlier today and she was saying the way I could get my rate lowered would be to have more fluxuation in my card. I said, you mean paying the total down more aggressively could get me a lower rate? First she said, No, because if I paid off my card, why would I care what the rate was? (followed by lots of laughter) And then she said, No, we want to see the total going down AND up. In other words, in order to establish I'm a "good" creditor/customer, I have to use my card more.
Bastards.

it's patriotic?

Attn. Kevin, I will be dogsitting a weiner dog over Labor Day week. I don't really want to but this girl has catsit for me one million times, so it's karma.

hooray big dicks!

That's a nice last post of the day for me. Off to the gym!

i'm going to reckless on milwaukee to sell some more 7"s so i can buy cigarettes and groceries. some good stuff will (hopefully) be in the used bin tonight or tomorrow:

sebadoh - skull b/w punching myself in the face publicly, repeatedly and plate o' hatred. sub pop. first song on the b side is basically a mash note from jake lowenstein to a girl he persued from boston to louisville. plate o' hatred is a great non-album track. i should burn this to my laptop before i trade it.
tennessee tearjerkers - chills & fever b/w i want you. on brown sound. on this version of the tearjerkers jack oblivian is backed up by t. money and bubba bonds (who have been in a ton of good memphis bands) and margaret garrett from mr. airplane man. hand numbered, #78 of 500.
dirtbombs - merit b/w mystified. on kapow! electric blue vinyl, mystified is a cover of a romantics song.
functional blackouts - raw dog, raw deal. on wrench records. imported record from london for a band that lives in the neighborhood. sounds like every other functional blackouts song.
stepehn malkmus - discretion grove b/w sin taxi. on matador. still sealed! bought this when it first came out, me and towga bought them independently of each other and it appears we never opened mine.
malkmus - jo jo's jacket b/w open and shut cases. on domino. i guess the b-side was non-album track? who cares?
the shins - so i say b/w when i goose step. on sub pop. picture disc. never played because picutre discs ruin turntables. for a long time this was hung on the door to me and jen's music closet. pretty picture disc of penguins.
the mistreaters - stranded. on big neck. four songs from milwaukee sleaze rockers the mistreaters. kevin mistreater runs dusty medical record, the label that gave you the black lips live at wfmu, the goodnight lovin' lp, and most of the great pop 7"s by the slew of amazing bands coming out of milwaukee right now.
doug martsch - 5 on 3/untitled. split 7" on the home recorded cassette culture label. from 1994? most intricate packaging for a 7" i've ever seen. limited release, can't remember how many but 100 or 300 sounds right.
scud mountain boys/steve westfield & the slow band - television/sittin' on the bottom of the world. chunk records. smb's was joe pernice's band prior to pernice bros., as of 3 years ago he was still doing this one live and it's still one of my favorites ever. steve westfield is a western mass legend, this version of the slow band was fellow western mass residents lou barlow, murph, and jim joe greedy. this is more folky, alt-country rock. i preferred his more punk informed work with the pajama slave dancers.
orangutang - bigger chunk. on demigod. on clear orange vinyl. i've had this since college, orangutang was one band that i was always willing to try to sneak into a bar to try to see. they put on hellacious shows in boston in the early '90s. tastes change, i listened to it the other night and ... well, not my thing anymore.
kit/deerhoof split - 3 songs by kit (label just says 3 Songs but there are in fact three tracks on their side). get along with little doggies and the forbidden fruit by deerhoof. #2 in the buddy series from narnack records. on clear green vinyl. deerhoof tracks are awesome, if you see this in the bin buy it.

xpost to jordan, there is now a weiner dog in my top 12 on myspace.

I HAVE GOOD ADVICE ON BUILDING CREDIT!!

DAMMIT.

OK--beyond getting a credit card, which is good,

LOVE Scud Mountain Boys. Want.

SHIT--the reason that keeps happening is b/c i have cuticle exfoliator on my nails and it makes it hard to type and I keep hitting the touchpad which was hovering over "submit"....

Anyway. Things like paying late on phone, gas, or most rent do not matter since they don't report to credit agencies. Getting a credit card is good as long as you USE IT and pay on time. Just having it is of no use if you don't use it and pay on it.

BETTER YET: If you go to LaSalle Bank, they have something called something like the Building Dreams (or something Dreams) program. You put down $200, they put that money on hold and issue you a loan for $1000 which is put into a CD. You pay on the $1000 loan for 12 months at a low interest rate (total interest payments for the year are only $18) and you earn a small interest rate on the CD, so you pretty much break even. Payments are only $68 a month and at the end of the year you have build credit (considerably) and you have $1000 in the bank!

This program is better than a credit card because 1. they are an "A" lender, and 2. because personal loans count for more than a credit card (I think) and 3. because the amount is more than you would put on a credit card all at once.

Seriously, it's a GREAT program.

You CAN'T lose.

LaSalle is one of the few banks that offer this anymore because they are obviously not making much money at all on it.

One more perk: because the loan is secured by the funds in the CD, you pretty much can't be turned down for the loan unless you're like under indictment for grand larceny or something.

there has to be a catch