Update: Part 3 fixed! Part 5 added! The Vampire Diaries Episode 1 ‘Pilot’
Update: Part 3 reloaded! Part 5 added!
Parts 2-5 after the break:
The Vampire Diaries: Paul Wesley – On the Set…
Courtesy of TheCWSource:
Paul Wesley tells us why he can relate to his character Stefan Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries. He also explains what would happen if Stefan took off his ring. Plus, will Stefan Salvatore show his darker side?
Produced by Catalina Walsh – Camera by Porter Versfelt III – Edited by Catalina Walsh – Production Assistant: Zenaida Gorbea —- A Tribune Interactive Production
Housing: Making Home Affordable mortgage modification plan poll…
Aloha. Please take a second to click the poll below. A few emails have come in requesting an in-depth drilldown of details and expanded coverage of the Making Home Affordable Modification program and I have spent weeks researching for my own interests but before I dive in to more posts on the subject I want to get an idea of how many people want/need the additional info. Gracias.
‘Sorority Row’ Opening Scene…
Our previous posts on the film, and the original!!, here. Film opens tomorrow.
Courtesy of hollywoodstreams
True Blood: Michelle Forbes on Maryanne…
Our previous post on the stupendous career of Michelle Forbes here
Michelle Forbes - Click Image to go to True-Blood.net fan site
Awesome exclusive interview with SciFiWire, go read the whole thing!!:
As the finale looms, the stage is set for one hell of a battle as the only good guys left in Bon Temps—including Sookie, Bill (Stephen Moyer), Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) and Andy—try to stop Maryann and her minions from carving the heart out of Sam so that Dionysus will finally appear. How it will all end Forbes won’t tell, but she does rank the character as one of her favorites.
“She loves her mischief and having her fun along the way,” Forbes said with a laugh. “She has a different understanding of the world and this particular plane. She doesn’t see an end in the road the way everyone else does, because she has no time constraints and no moral constraints. And in playing her it is impossible for me to see her as a villain.
But the same can be said of any character that I have played. Admiral Cain [of Battlestar Galactica], you could say she was a villain, but the beauty of Ron Moore’s writing is that there was logic in what she did and said. The thing about Maryann, too, is that the writers have always given her a beautiful logic in what she says. I just love the entire story. I had no idea where it was going in the beginning. I, however, especially with Maryann, really enjoyed the sense of not knowing.”…
Update:Market Mover: Meredith Whitney – Home Prices may fall another 25%…
Update: Second video clip courtesy CNBC, this has the money quote on the coming second leg down in home prices..
Vodpod videos no longer available.
“There’s no doubt that home prices go down dramatically from here,” Meredith Whitney, of the Whitney Advisory Group, told CNBC
Meredith Whitney is IMO the best financial analyst on the street…
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Home prices in the US could fall by another 25 percent because of high unemployment and another leg down will come for stocks, banking analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC Thursday.
“No bank underwrote a loan with 10 percent unemployment on the horizon,” Whitney said. “I think there is no doubt that home prices will go down dramatically from here, it’s just a question of when.”
Local governments and states are chronically under-funded and “most states are under water,” adding to the problem of low private consumption, she said.
“If you look at the drivers for unemployment I don’t see that reversing very soon,” Whitney said.
If consumers were to decide to spend, “that would be a game-changer,” but it would be an unnatural thing to do in a recession, she said.
“A lot of themes are constant, which is the US consumer and the small business doesn’t have any credit, credit is still contracting,” Whitney said.
Consumer debt and consumer credit have dropped according to the latest figures which also show that people have been spending more from their debit cards than from their credit cards.
“Obviously that doesn’t bode well for spending,” Whitney said….
Weekly Jobless claims slightly lower, long term unemployment continues to drop as people lose bennies, trade deficit widens:
The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits fell last week to 550,000, according to a government report on Thursday that also showed the number of those collecting long-term aid tumbled.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected initial claims to drop to 560,000, after reaching 576,000 the prior week, which had previously been reported as 570,000.Continued claims fell to 6.088 million in the week ended Aug. 29, the latest for which the data is available, from 6.247 million the prior week. That was the lowest level since the week ended April 4.
…Although the drop in jobless claims indicates a healthier labor market, “we haven’t seen hirings pick up yet. We might have the worst of the firings over but the companies are not confidant enough in hiring,” said John Canally, economist at LPL Financial in Boston.
Meanwhile, a separate report showed that the U.S. trade deficit widened the most in more than 10 years in July as imports grew a record 4.7 percent on resurgent U.S. demand for foreign cars, consumer goods and oil, a government report showed on Thursday.
The trade gap expanded 16.3 percent in July to $32.0 billion, the biggest month-to-month increase since February 1999….
Moderate in the Middle 