The stock market is still all over the place, and who knows where the housing market is headed - all I know is I owe a ton of money to the US Treasury and California's Franchise Tax Board. To steal an inappropriate exclamation from WaMu, "Woohoo!"

If the stock market is down to 1997 prices, and assets are highly correlated - as this current bubble bursting has proven - then it follows logically that house prices should also retreat to 1997 levels. If you own a home, I'm sure you're already moving the mouse cursor to the button marked "x" to close this window, but bear with me for a minute. Or, just close it. See if I care.

The "good" news ("good" being a relative term in this context) is that according to Case Schiller, some markets are already back to 2000 levels. Redfin and CalculatedRisk, among others, have highlighted this in recent posts. In my native Bay Area, this has been particularly acute in the less distinctive suburbs, while more established areas - Pacific Heights, Ross, Piedmont, etc. - have been largely immune. Or so it would seem - but for the inventory that's been out there for 180 days in some cases.

I think (and this is where if you own a house you should make for that "x" - and fast) the regions that have been spared the downturn are going to find that the pixie dust wears off with time. Oversupply in exclusive locales isn't the major concern - posh suburbs have restrictive building regulations, little spare land, and a precisely 0% chance for a 50-unit condo building springing up in 2009. It's something much, much more difficult to compete with: the true substitute.

Nobody is thinking, "Do I live in a newly built community in Benicia for $200,000 or a mansion in Pacific Heights for $1.9 million?" But, a lot of people compare a 2-bedroom single family unit in Benecia to, say, a 2-bedroom single family unit in Martinez, where the price was just cut by a little more than the prices in Benicia. And those looking in Pinole might look at a similar unit in Benicia because it's just a little cheaper than it was before, and Pinole hasn't seen those price cuts yet. But now because the buyer bought in Benicia, Pinole asking prices go down. And then a house in El Cerrito never gets an offer because Pinole looks a little cheaper. And on and on until Rockridge is one step from San Francisco, and the softening market there lures city buyers who were looking for a 2 bedroom in Pac Heights but realized that Rockridge was a great alternative - and just as short a commute to downtown (without having to deal with the 30).

Not so suddenly Pacific Heights is actually tied to Benicia. It isn't that John Q. Buyer is comparing them directly; rather, it's a cascade of comparisons, where each individual comparison results in the softening of markets that started in the exurbs, in oversupplied new construction, eventually hitting the storied shores of the city's tawniest neighborhoods. Is Danielle Steele worried? No. But you're not Danielle Steele (Or are you? Ms. Steele, if you are reading this, please leave a comment).

Hello, 2000 prices. Go away, taxman.

At work I'm always watching our user experience (UX for the tech crowd) get better. Tweaking, redesigning, constantly focused on making the site more trustworthy, usable, efficient, etc. So I was shocked to find literally the other side of the UX coin: http://Optoutprescreen.com.

Optoutprescreen is the phishing-like site set up by the major credit reporting agencies, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, and Innovis Data Solutions where consumers can opt-out from getting credit card solicitations. These "firm" offers of credit are not only a huge risk to consumers who spend too much and can't resist borrowing more, but also are an open door to identity theives, where someone could easily open a credit card in your name and destroy your credit (how? everything they need is right there in your trash! one place, one envelope!).

Congress recognized this danger and, after much lobbying (on both sides - which shows how bad this is for consumers, that this law actually passed over the cries of the credit agencies) the Fair And Accurate Credit Transactions Act went into action in 2003, revising the Fair Credit Reporting Act to require a way for consumers to opt out of receiving these unsolicited credit offers that's included in the soliciations.

I've never actually opened one (I feel that because it's a felony offense to open someone else's mail, it's better to leave the envelopes sealed in the trash - not that an identity theif would care that much) so I've never seen this. But I stumbled on it today from the DMAChoice website, where you can opt out of receiving junk mail - catalogs, ValuePak (whatever that is), etc.

It looks like a scam. They ask for all of your information - date of birth, social security number, it's ridiculous. Why do they need it? They just need your name and your address! But, they've clearly figured out that the sketchier and more illicit this site looks, the less likely you are to put this key information in. You'll "abandon"  - and the credit offers can keep coming.

I'll admit to being skeptical when I found the site, but I clicked through from DMAChoice.org which is a well known site for the Direct Marketing Association, with clear branding, a good user experience, and obvious ties to real companies. So I realized what optoutprescreen (what evil genius came up with that URL, anyway?) was doing - purposefully trying to sketch me out of opting out, and I ignored it.

Still when I sent it onto my wife, she was horrified by it and asked if it was a forgery - apparently, other people have too. Just take a look at wikipedia.

Amazing what kind of bad UX smart people can create when they're motivated by evil.   

I've been working hard at TripIt, since day one - more to do than there's time for, really. Barely even enough time to decide what to do, there's so many interesting, productive things to get done. Which is awesome. But today, I found myself leaning back in my chair, feet up on my filing cabinet, reading... for fun. It was about 11:45 AM.

This midday interlude would probably not go down well in any workplace, especially in one where the person engaging in it sits in the physical center of the open-plan office, the only spot where literally everyone can see him (and his monitor) without so much as moving their eyes. So I can only guess that my choice of literature - Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X 3rd Edition - must explain why most of the staring wasn't from the business people (who expect me to be productive) but from the engineers, who were shocked - shocked! - to find that the business people can read!

I do make a game of pretending that I understand something about programming. Mostly to feel like the thousands of dollars spent on the eight Dartmouth College computer science courses wasn't totally wasted (though, I'll be honest, I didn't get much out of CS 68 - Principles of Programming Languages). But I do enjoy programming - I've been doing it since I was about 10 (when I learned BASIC) and it's sad that today the only programming I do is in Excel - if you can call it that. I think back to those nights spent in front of the white glow of CodeWarrior and wonder... will I ever be as entertained/captivated/held hostage as I was by those lousy bugs?

So, when Andy asked politely for his book back (because he actually gets paid to read that stuff) I realized perhaps I should get all set up so that the next time I steal it I can actually get something done. Xcode is now loaded on my work macbook, and hopefully - unlike my Ruby / MySQL misadventure (where I couldn't ever figure out why MySQL wouldn't boot up on my personal macbook, and eventually threw in the towel after only ever accomplishing the requisite "Hello, World!") I'm ready to roll up my sleeves again and get dirty. Not because I get paid to do it, but just because it's fun.

And even if it isn't fun, it'll be worth it to see the look on the faces of the TripIt engineers (who all sit behind me over my left shoulder) when they see the compiler going on my screen. Or, more likely, when they see me rebooting my mac just like I did four times an hour in college after writing to a memory block that wasn't meant to be written to...

In week 2, I'm exceedingly glad I joined the TripIt team. The product is awsome, this launch we're working on is going to be a game changer - travel will be more fun,  and more social, than ever. And I'll be able to compete at who amongst my highly competitive friends travels most.

Can't wait to see what comes next - and to make it happen.