Do we have to remind the NAFO guys that Leningrad no longer exists?

Just got this game, and it's actually really awesome. Stalker mixed with SCP mixed with Car Mechanic Simulator.

You have a possessed car that you maintain and customize and use to navigate around a Stalker style zone avoiding anomalies and looting all the while picking up weird radio transmissions and following a storyline with 3 other characters on the radio.

The zones aren't randomly generated, only the anomaly placement, so as you navigate a zone multiple times you start to get more comfortable with the roads and shortcuts meaning you can start navigating further out and getting more resources to upgrade your car and base with.

So far I absolutely love it, basically FTL but with the loops being a part of the storyline (your car will always keep you alive even if you lose all your loot and it gets totally fucked). So like if you die or get caught in an anomaly storm, your car will just zap you back to the garage, usually in a state so fucked that it barely drives, e.g. no wheels, no engine, and no headlights just barelling metal on pavement into the back wall.

You can also pick up "quirks" which are a fun sort of puzzle. Basically any action in the car or any state of the car can become randomly linked to another action. So like opening the back left door could turn your radio on, or flipped on your wipers could slam on the gas. So as you're out there surviving, you'll also have to be paying attention to what you did to make the trunk open, then diagnose the issue and repair it.

But yeah, if you're interested in rouge type games this one is top tier. Especially on PS5 because the haptic feedback is really dialed in on this one. You can tell how fucked your car is just by the feedback on the triggers (brake gets stuck, gas kicks back and rumbles aggressively).

Where every day is Tuesday

If any of you are on his American tour route, definitely go see him. We were his first show and he took a seated show and turned it into chaos then threw out the setlist and just asked what people wanted to hear.

Plus he's got the bassist from Radiohead with him.

Not really much else to say. Just that I find the similarities funny.

So I did a bit more research, it seems that there are tons of loan programs under the USDA umbrella. Lots having to do with farming, but also lots having to do with "rural development".

These loans fall under something called the SFH Direct Loan Program (for nonfarm tracts). Which you can read more about here and see the forms here.

There are multiple tiers of these loans and they are all dependent on income and ability to pay. They work almost inverse of a typical mortgage loan where the only thing that matters is your history with on time payments and having at least an average credit score. They start at 3.25% interest for "Low Income" individuals and families (determined by a chart that's bucketed by county). Seems to be between $45k and $65k on average for "Low Income" and the "Very Low Income" group is anyone below the $20k poverty line.

All these income buckets are determined by number of applicants with deductions disabled or child dependants (about $10k taken off your net income per dependent). You can also deduct medical expenses. So the name of the game is trying to figure out how to structure who in your family will be on the loan to get the lowest mortgage rate (1% with the grants for very low income applicants, but these need to be repaid if the house is ever sold).

All these loans are given out directly by the government meaning you don't owe a mortgage to a bank, but to the USDA itself. You have no down payment if you are accepted and are allowed to purchase any "quality" home that's at or below the loan limit for your area (seems to be around $300k plus or minus in most places).

So if you're really desperate and live outside a major metropolitan area, this might actually be an option to break out of the rental hellscape or if you have a bad mortgage and think you'd qualify this might be a way to refinance directly through the federal government.

I'm by no means offering you any financial advice, and an definitely not a financial advisor, but this program seems to genuinely have some merit and honestly I think it could work as a greatly expanded solution to the housing crisis, directly government issued mortgages with downwardly adjustable rates, long terms, and income based grants.

We're being booted from our rental because the landlord wants to let his daughter move in and we can't find anything else around here for even remotely the same price. Even rotted out single wide mobile homes are going for $1800/month.

I was turned onto USDA loans by someone and it seems like as long as we make under $65k/year we can qualify for like $336,000 in loans with 0% down.

Is there any catch? The rates seem to start at 3.5% of you're under the $65,000 income limit which would put our monthly payments like $300 below renting.