But it would clearly be terrible if Elizabeth Warren chaired the new consumer protection agency!!!!1!

I have been fairly lucky with banks, $5 fees for each foreign ATM withdrawal notwithstanding. But then, I don't do much with my main bank (Wachovia); we got our mortgage through a local smaller bank, and they were awesome.

Ginger, Chase got me the same way.

So, today I need to buy a mattress, open a bank account, and many other things. Uggh.

The bank discussion sent me into a cold sweat and I had to go make sure I'd paid our mortgage. At 3:30am. I am horrified they can do what they do, from sitting on people's money to sitting on people. The Seattle story is just unspeakable.

I just finished reading the funniest thing about Picking your battles which is now on my list of funniest things I've read on the internet.

Fantastic. “It’s an anniversary gift for you, asshole. Two whole weeks early. 15 YEARS IS BIG METAL CHICKENS.”

This is Joe's worst nightmare. I do collect roosters and chickens and if I were to go to Home Goods right now and see one? I WOULD TOTALLY BUY IT and then out it on the front porch and knock on the door. That was just highlarious.

15 YEARS IS BIG METAL CHICKENS

OMG I can't breathe I'm laughing so hard. Also, I need to move to the suburbs so I have room for a big metal chicken in my front yard.

So. Power outage last night, three trunks failed simultaneously and the UPS failed to kick in.

Strange feeling of deja vu. Strange urge to unlock my computer and bolt out the fire exit.

How much water do you boil? Like, you gotta make a cup of tea, how much water is in your kettle? My sister keeps filling mine up, but I only like to have 2c in there at a time.

I did a big balance transfer to BofA to take advantage of the best interest rate I could find, but have no emotional attachment to them. If someone else comes along offering me a better long-term rate I'll drop 'em in a heartbeat.

I do my regular banking through a formerly-local-now-regional bank whose people have been very polite and helpful on the rare occasions I've had an issue. (Thankfully they've never done anything like the bank that mistakenly deposited one paycheck in savings rather than checking and put a hold on the next one due to low balance just as my rent came due.)

What in the world, sara? Last time wasn't enough for them?

I only boil enough to do whatever I'm doing. Otherwise it's wasted fuel to boil what's just going to cool down. I used to fill the kettle and then have water in there all the time, but the logic kicked in and I stopped doing that. I don't like not having enough, though.

But during most of the year, I'm boiling water for my tea and for the birdbath, so I have some volume flexibility.

Whoah. Obama just suddenly got a whole bunch of grey hair.