This is, of course, the worst sentence of the article:
He is currently working on an all-marble pool in the shape of a dolphin -- 60 feet from nose to tail -- for the home of Ken and Georgia Chamitoff in Palmdale, Calif., which he estimates will cost nearly $300,000; the idea came from their 8-year-old daughter, Sophia.
Look at those houses! Were I the devil, I'd give mcmc a rocket launcher, with a troop of Samoan ammo carries to follow her from house to house.
"As the market for new pools middle class drops off , very high-end models baubles account for an increasing share of construction the market."
In case I haven't mentioned it before, I hate the Times.
Although a close second:
"I think it was important to Ken that Sophia could talk about having a dolphin pool with her friends at school."
What WOULD be the best sentence in the piece, but fails tragically from a lack of genetically-engineer shark people:
"In a very short amount of time, the swimming pool has gone from a recreation center to a complete environment."
I'm sickened by the NYT much more than the pool owners.
7 comments in and I'm already unhealthily angry.
As a child, I was teased mercilessly for having a tuna-shaped swimming pool. My parents skimped on the design to save money. "Tuna always swim near dolphins," they told me, "They always get netted together." Tell that to the kids at school who put dolphin meat in my locker.
Best sentence of the article, LizardBreath style:
Mr. Moran, an investment banker, is somewhat reticent about the interest the pool has attracted from neighbors and others, although he admits it's been a subject of conversation.
My dad has a 25 yard pool. It really is a waste. If you want to swim laps, go to a club. A home pool should be for splashing around and lounging around.
My carp-shaped pool keeps out the riffraff (I don't necessarily specifically mean anyone here). I call it my Koi Pool, because koi are carp. When people come over, they always ask "Where are the koi?" Then I laught and say, "The pool itself is a koi!" They really find this hilarious, especially the second and third time I say it.
And getting accidentally pregnant in.
Wait, really? I always kind of assumed that this was one serious advantage of being, you know, straight.
Beside is hard and poky! Inside is splishy fun.
Beside is hard and poky! Inside is splishy fun.
Homo.
having sex in the pool: paradoxically dry and scrapy.
I tried to tell them, Al. Because I'm a feminist.
Yes, as a valued member of this community observed this week, also from overseas, "beds are classic for a reason" In-water is one of those things tried once.
As I said on the dead thread, Ogged, if Ala gets the tattoo, ou should sue her ass for copyright infringement.
Homo.
Well, sure, I guess, if your lube isn't water-based.
Beside is hard and poky!
Isn't that the point?
My parents put in an in-ground pool (nothing too fancy, but with a diving board and slide!) when they moved twenty years ago and my dad had a new job that seemed like it would have only upward potential. He was fired a year later and stayed unemployed for three years. We lived off my brother's and my college fund until it was gone. Now I'm sitting on a huge pile of loans that I'll never be able to pay off, but my folks still get to have fun pool parties. I resent that pool.
If you have one of those above-ground pools, you could claim it's a tuna shaped pool because that's exactly the shape of a can of fish.
More horrors:
"But when I walked out onto that deck, I thought, 'Damn, this is a million-dollar view and I need a pool that can keep up.' "
AWB:
But, more importantly, did you prefer sex in the pool or next to the pool?
Adding anything involving water to a house seems to cost a great deal more than one expects. I looked into having a moving-water lap pool built at my father's house as a present for a significant round-number birthday a few years ago. The cost was about 250% of what I had expected, so that idea died quickly.
A house that he and the stepmother considered buying a few years before that came with a fountain in the atrium, but the inspection revealed that significant, costly damage to the floor and foundation from years of leaks from the fountain (a pleasant waterfall-and-pool combination, as I recall)
I have a river behind my house. It's pretty and clear blue and spring-fed and has city parks along the other side. It's really wonderful.
Adding anything involving water to a house seems to cost a great deal more than one expects.
31 gets it about 75% right, according to my estimates.
28: I never had sex in the pool, alas.
Probably this has already been linked to, but just in case, the truly interesting NYT swimming article of the week:
But over the past four days of twice-daily two-hour sessions, Olsen has shown just what a miracle worker a top coach can be. Thanks to a series of progressive drills, in-the-pool demonstrations, computerized stroke analysis and spot-on analogies, he has helped me reprise "Pygmalion" in the pool.
Adding [A]nything involving water to a house seems to cost a great deal more than one expects.
Except in Elgin, of course.
I must note that, paradoxically, pools are great for dry-humping. At least, the dykey kind. So, score one for Team Lesbo, I guess.
inside: having sex in the pool: paradoxically dry and scrapy.
beside: hard and poky!
on the diving board: priceless?
Team Faggit loses a point: pools are lousy for blowjobs.
Other examples of water = $$$:
plumbing
boats
aquaria
All money pits.
Exhibit 3,109,498 for why we need a much higher top tax bracket.
on the diving board: priceless?
Not according to Hunter S. Thompson. One of his latest autobiographical books told the story of the time in his twenties or thirties that he had drunken sex on a diving board for a long while and ended up with a horrendously bloody back from the no-slip grit surface.
I think the movie Showgirls forever ruined sex in the pool.
why we need a much higher top tax bracket.
that captures as many Times reporters as possible.
that captures as many Times reporters as possible.
Nah, a Pigou tax on lifestyle articles (determined by circulation and website hits, perhaps?) would be more efficient at accomplishing our agenda. After all, we want them to continue to manage the occasional bit of investigative reporting.
Also, while I'm dreaming about a more perfect tax structure for my desires, how about a bacon subsidy?
Fortunately, Ben Bernacke cut the discount rate. Fiscal crisis averted! Go on building your tuna pools, idle rich of America!
pools are lousy for blowjobs
What, your pool doesn't have a shallow end?
Let's not get any mandom in the pool, ok?
Sex on the only-just-submerged tiled divider between the jacuzzi and the rest of the pool works pretty well. I'm told.
Let's not get any mandom in the pool, ok?
MANDOM is twice as effective as chlorine. Its spermicidal efficacy is still being tested (here, bunnybunnybunny).
pools are lousy for blowjobs
What, your pool doesn't have a shallow end?
What, your pool doesn't have a swallow end?
nothing has been so dissapointing about my summer so far than failing to befriend someone with rich parents who own a pool where i can go cabana it up on th e weekends
Sex on the only-just-submerged tiled divider between the jacuzzi and the rest of the pool works pretty well. I'm told.
Sex between fabulously good-looking people works pretty well. According to the movies.
My mom is really nosy. Every time I've brought a dude home to meet my parents, she will appear, suddenly, wherever we are, with snacks. I haven't brought anyone home for several years, but she used to do it when I was in college. Fooling around in the pool is very difficult when your mom keeps appearing and shouting "Fresh berry daquiris! Doesn't that sound refreshing?!"
"Fresh berry daquiris! Doesn't that sound refreshing?!"
Mmm! Yes it does!
What, your pool doesn't have a swallow end?
They always fly away. I guess I could put a net over the swallow end... plus, the swallow end is a disconcerting blend of soft and pokey.
Fooling around in the pool is very difficult when your mom keeps appearing and shouting "Fresh berry daquiris! Doesn't that sound refreshing?!"
That's why you're supposed to go park somewhere, like every other red-blooded American teenager.
Sex between fabulously good-looking people works pretty well. According to the movies.
You shouldnt put down Jammies like that.
It can't be a good sign that the fresh berry daquiris sound like the better option.
Why do you think she calls him Jammies?
It's short for Jamaal, of course!
I really struggle with the emotions this article brings up. Wealth can allow the luxury of being outwardly decent, but also spare one from pressures to betray others for one's own benefit; many rich people are in fact quite nice on an interpersonal, money-independent level. It is shallow and unjust to hate them just for the casual entitlement and the bad taste. Also, judge not for a variety of very good reasons. Nevertheless, going into whole foods makes my flesh crawl, and the occasions when I go to the mall where the Saudis and moguls shop
makes me want to shower. Intolerance for even a hint of arrogance from a rich person is a failing like any other intolerance, the kids are to be pitied for having such empty parents.
Boring pious sentiment I guess-- but the reaction these pools and this smugness brings up for me is uglier than just sarcasm, and I need a way to suppress it. Like the 1983 dance hit White Horse says, "If you want to be rich you got to be a bitch."
62: I thought it was kind of like, "um, no, go ahead and keep your clothes on."
8: Or museums. Now that I'm a mature adult with my own private living quarters, seeing teens fool around in museums fills me with annoyance. But when I was 19, man. Thank you, relatively empty Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art! Thank you Andy Warhol Museum!
Museums? Jeez, AWB, no wonder you only date crazy guys.
It used to be a requirement. I get more vanilla with age.
Okay, as long as we're airing usage peeves, can I just point out that it's spelled "whoa"?
Thank you.
I haven't slept much. Near break-in at 1am, cops, no sleep till 4am.
From the direction of the discussion, clearly "swim laps" in the post title needs to be revised.
74: You know me. If no one listens the first time, I'll just KEEP SAYING IT UNTIL THEY DO.
Ahem.
Becks, I think that the line from comment 5,
"I think it was important to Ken that Sophia could talk about having a dolphin pool with her friends at school."beats out number one (explaining how the design choice came from their 8 year-old daughter).
I'd kind of like to see a picture of the Morans' pool,
two-story pool connected by a slide and a recirculating waterfall with sweeping staircases on either side. The lines of the pools -- the bottom one is 320 square feet and the top one 450.
I'm kind of confused as to how the sweeping staircases can be safe.
This whole over-the-top house/pool market is absurd. Having said that, I wish that more attention were paid to the aesthetics of regular pools--particularly public (not just club), actual public pools. I'd love to see some Roman-style mosaics in them.
Just in passing, for your amusement, I want to note that I have a lot to get done today, most of which requires that I be away from my computer. I did need to do a couple of things on the computer, but on my TO DO list there's one negative item: "Do not read Unfogged."
Obviously I've broken that--maybe because I felt that I had to share that point--and I'm about to absent myself, but it's very telling.
I continue to hate Heebie.
I think you secretly like-like me.
clearly "swim laps" in the post title needs to be revised
"swim laps" s/b "get a lap dance"?
Heebie is banned! For one year!
OW! Owie! OW! Cruel and unusual!
"Do not read Unfogged."
Do not think of a white elephant.
I think you secretly like-like me.
Nuh uh!
Near break-in at 1am, cops, no sleep till 4am.
So sorry to hear it, White Bear.
It took AWB a long time to wash off the cocaine.
So's your face!
::Runs off crying::
79- The public baths in Budapest are awesome. I want to see some rich person build that in their back yard.
"Anal exams in film for 400, Alex"
I can only remember the one Michael Bates does on Malcolm MacDowell in A Clockwork Orange, but there must be many.
Wrong thread, sorry. Don't know how that happened.
You were pitching towards a different hole. It's okay.
I thought it was kind of like, "um, no, go ahead and keep your clothes on."
recent joke from comic:
"I always want the lights off when we have sex. My boyfriend said 'Honey, we can leave the lights on....you have a beautiful body.' I said, 'Awww, that is so sweet. You think I want the lights off because of the way I look!"
This is not the underwater sex blog.
We should expect a new, rowdier crowd. The jackbooted thug lady closed the other bar.
Those god-damned riff raff better not fornicate in my cabana.
(sips daquiri, huffily)
I must note that, paradoxically, pools are great for dry-humping. At least, the dykey kind. So, score one for Team Lesbo, I guess.
for straight dry-humping too. pools are a little too well-lit. but it is especially amazing in a swimming hole at night. oh my god. oh. my. god.
99: we'll be changing that, thank you.
Just in case the NYT didn't sufficiently fuel your class anger (read envy) with the pool piece, there's also this piece about the rich buying exotic cars on the "easy payment plan":
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/automobiles/12LEASE.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Extra points for all the ways the rich get tax-breaks on these things.
Next up: An article about dolphin-shaped pools in exotic cars.