Sometimes I find my logic amuses even myself. Par exemple, I want to move. So I casually started perusing the apartment listings and then seriously started scanning the apartment listings and then got all excited about the prospect of moving and saving myself money (since it will be to a one-bedroom apartment).
Only then did I look at the conditions of my lease and realize that I need to give them sixty days notice, whereas most apartment listings I have seen have a move in date of about thirty days. So I'd be paying double rent for a month. The excitement level plummeted.
Then, today, I realized that because I was originally planning to stay here until next spring, ten to twelve months from now, even if I did have one month overlap I would still end up saving money in the long run. Excitement back up.
So that's my logic. Spend money now to save in the long run.
[ 24.3.03 7:59 AM | the moving lush ]
Today is the day that I might get my new balcony door, which is good, since the draft under it was horrendous, but kinda bad since I had to move all furniture a minimum of six feet from the door, requiring quite a bit of moving, and some serious thinking. (I won't go into the logic of why they are replacing it now, at the end of the winter, instead of six months ago when the cold air began to creep under)
The thinking came from the fact that, because my cats are the curious creatures that they are, my furniture is strategically placed such that they cannot use it to climb on top of anything dangerous. The TV is carefully moved away from the media cabinet so that they cannot use it to climb on top of the shelves hanging above the TV. The chair is carefully moved a respectable distance from the bar so that they cannot use it to launch themselves onto the glass bar shelves. This continues in the rest of the apartment, but is most obvious in the living room. And now I can use only half my living room. Which means the TV and shelves above it are safe, but the bar, bar shelves, media cabinet and potentially even the low voltage lights that run from one wall to the other are all in danger. Unless I move the media cabinet every night, which isn't my idea of fun.
During all this moving, I also realized that anyone entering my apartment might get the impression that I am somewhat of a ... lush. I haven't gotten around to returning any bottles from the party last week, so there are three small cases of beer sitting in my dining room and another sitting on the kitchen counter. Add to that the four empty bottles of wine sitting on the other side of the kitchen and the almost empty bottle sitting on the dining room table and a disturbing picture begins to appear.
[ 23.3.03 8:32 PM | Volume 1 ]
Heh heh. I'm "published"!!
My friend got a group of my stories bound as a birthday present for me. It's weird to see my stories in "print". It was even weirder reading some of them, as I have not looked at some of them since they were written.
But it's great motivation for me to get back to writing on a regular basis again so I can move onto Volume 2.
[ 11:22 AM | jaded already ]I've been trying to keep my nose out of the US-Iraq war as much as possible, with one exception: I have been reading this Iraqi blog [found through Matt Goyer] - a regular person trying to live in this irregular world. After all the propeganda that both political sides keep throwing up, I was curious what was really going on with the people of Iraq. Of course, you can't really *miss* the propeganda and coverage of the attacks on Iraq, since almost every channel is playing some kind of running commentary on what is occurring.
Since I was only about twelve or so when the Gulf War began in 1991, I don't remember too much about it, other than the fact that we had to make scrapbooks with news clippings about the conflicts, which seems somewhat chilling now that I think about it - forcing children to read all the details and arrange them in a decorated book to keep "forever". Of course I don't know where mine is now. Forever is a very relative term to a child.
But this war I think I will remember, for at least a little while, but not for the reasons you or I might expect. So far, I am remembering this war for all the fuck-ups that came out of it and the war leading up to it in Afghanistan (and I do think that that war is one of the reasons that Bush was pushing for this war in Iraq, but of course that's speculation and can never be proven). People die in war, that's just the way it is, but so far the "good guys" have dropped a bomb on Canadian troops (in Afghanistan), killing four and wounding eight; have aparently shot down a British military plane, death toll unknown; and a US soldier has been held for questioning in an attack on his own camp, killing one and injuring at least eleven others. Yay. Way to show the "bad guys".
And unfortunately, these incidents and others that are sure to come, be it mistakes made by the US, British, or whoever, are what I will remember from this war. I think I was just jaded to begin with.
[ 21.3.03 8:07 AM | friday morning babblings ]
It's 8:05 in the morning and someone has decided that it is a good time to start hammering ... something.
Of course, I've been up since 5:30ish so it doesn't really affect me but I do find it odd nonetheless. I personally try to keep hammering/furniture moving/vigorous tap dancing limited to between the respectful hours of 9 am and 9pm (weekends are a little different). But I have also been known to put other people's needs before my own even so maybe I'm the odd one out here.
These 5:30 am wakeup calls courtesy of my cats do not bode well for staying awake late tonight for Emily's birthday celebrations.
On a side note, June must have been a very popular month for our parents. Among my friends there are six or seven birthdays in the month of march, far more than any other month. Anybody know anything interesting that happened in June 1977?
On an only marginally related side note, I've discovered lately a disturbing tendency to babble during situations in which I am uncomfortable. I'm not sure if it is better or worse than my previous tendency to just shut up and not say anything at all but we shall see, we shall see. Something is better than nothing, yes?
[ 18.3.03 7:48 AM | the "age" is revealed ]
With all the excitement of the "big day" yesterday (read: me sitting on my ass doing absolutely nothing and loving it) I forgot to post The Age of 25, crafted so loverlyly by our dear friend Terry. So here it is, in part (I can't do everything for you):
25 is the age of Adventure.
Freedom is the opportunity to explore, without worrying about losing something. It is the open door to adventure. Adventures are watched on television and read about in books. We should cast ourselves as the main characters in our own action flick.
This year, instead of stressing about acquiring things we can have at any time in our adult lives, we should regard our young age as an opportunity to create great stories we can retell when we are older. So go for coffee at midnight, talk to strangers, go on a pilgrimage, take the day off and explore. Freedom at this point in our lives in a gift that should not be overlooked.
[ 16.3.03 8:57 PM | i survived ]
Signs of a good/bad birthday bash: two day headache.
I also have a mysterious pain down the right side of my face, a *very* sore spot on my breastbone, and a pulled muscle in my shoulder than actually hurts when I breathe. No bruising that I can see, but still more "fun" than I expected.
But everyone said I looked like I was having a good time at my birthday fete on Friday ... at least until I started hugging the toilet (thankfully it was cleaned thoroughly only a few hours before the party).
[ 9.3.03 10:10 AM | riding in cars with val ]
I have this friend, let's call her ... Val, just for the sake of giving her name. Now Val has a problem with cars. Over the course of my friendship with her, she has owned four(?) cars in almost as many years. Something just always goes wrong with her cars. Being a student, she has purchased her cars used, and you would expect that some cars might lean towards being lemons, but all her cars always had something wrong with them shortly after she bought them. It's like she's cursed.
Let's take the example of her next-to-latest car, mostly because I find the story interesting. Now keep in mind I may be paraphrasing here, or I may not get all the facts just right but the end result is correct.
She purchased this car about two years ago and from the beginning, she had little problems with the car. Mostly electrical if my memory serves me correctly, but always little things - like a battery dying for no good reason. Or a dashboard light going on and off sporadically. Just little things. She suspected something larger was wrong with the car, but didn't know what it was, so she was forced to fix the little problems as they came up without getting to the root of what she thought the problem was. When she finally paid off her car (she had financed it through the dealership) she received the ownership papers and discovered the source of her problems - before she had owned the car, it had been completely submersed in a body of water. Apparently that isn't considered an "accident", therefore the person who sold her the car was not obligated to tell her about it until she finally paid it off. Just after getting rid of that car and getting her newest car, she discovered that her brake and fuel lines had fused together.
Now there's her latest car. She purchased this machine in August-ish, and within a month, she had to replace the clutch. Not something you could tell before she bought it, but still an added expense on a new-to-her car that was not expected. Since that time, I think the car has been relatively repair-free, until about a week ago when one of her front headlights unexpectedly went out. A few days later, the other headlight went out, leaving her able to drive only during daylight hours. Considering her work schedule requires her to be up and on the road before the sun has even considered peeking over the horizon, this posed a problem. So, she stopped by the friendly neighbourhood service bay to get them to install new headlights. Now, let me take a little tangent here to say this: Val knows cars. Maybe because she's had so many problems, maybe just because she likes them, but regardless, she knows cars. And the only reason she went to a service bay to get the headlights replaced was because she didn't have the correct socket size to do it herself (or something like that - unlike Val, I do not know cars) So what should have been a five minute stop to install the headlights turned into a hour and a half stop, at the end of which the headlights weren't installed and the sun had set so Val could no longer even drive her car home.
So, last night, after dinner and a play with some friends, I drove Val home while she detailed her adventures with headlights over the last week or so. As I dropped her off at her place, I got out of my car to try and hack the last little bit of ice off my windshield, only to notice that one of my headlights had gone out over the course of the drive.
And of course I blamed Val. And as she walked up the path to her front door, claiming total innocence, the headlight mysteriously came back to life.
As if a curse had been lifted.
[ 3.3.03 7:42 PM | restless ]
I think all those years in co-op, switching between school and work every four months and the requisite location change involved, has finally come back to bite me in the ass: I want to move. Now.
Thankfully I haven't grown tired of my job just quite yet, but I am getting a little restless in my apartment. The feeling started when I didn't have any hot water, grew when I didn't have any water at all, and has solidified as winter drags on and I feel the cold draft continuing to blow under my balcony door, despite all my efforts to stop it.
I want light. I want parquette floors. I want to be able to rearrange my living room.
When I was younger I rearranged my room approximately every six months. I just got that itch that had to be scratched and the way to do it was the change my furniture. When I started university, the four month on, four month off routine of school and work meant I pretty much *had* to rearrange my room every four months because I always had a new room.
But I've tried rearranging the furniture. My bedroom has undergone four transformations in ten months. The dining room has gone through at least three. The living room would have probably gone through several if the furniture weren't so darned heavy.
So I'm half-heartedly looking out for "For Rent" signs. But since my criteria involves being able to walk to work, I'm a little stuck for locations. So for now, I've broken out the little furniture cut-outs of my living room furniture so I can plan a change without breaking my back.
[ 2.3.03 1:52 AM | smarter for it ]
Three things I learned tonight at a stag and doe:
- The irony of a hair-down-to-the middle-of-his-back, scruffy looking guy rocking out to "Get a haircut and get a real job" will be lost on everyone but you and your friends.
- Signing your rent cheque at 1:40 in the morning after several drinks is harder than you think.
- ... I don't remember three. I think it may have had something to do with our blow-up doll, but I can't be certain. Perhaps I will remember in the morning. Oh wait, it is morning.
[ 1.3.03 10:41 AM | slow as molasses ]
Brad loaned me the first season of 24 not too long ago and I finally got time to sit down and give it a good go. And I gotta say, it's a little hard to like. I like the story, I like the characters, I like the actors, it's just taking too darned long to get anywhere in the storyline. I know that's the premise of the whole thing - one hour in the show is one hour in real time - but I've already been watching it for more than seven hours and only in the last hour has the plot progressed beyond the basics. It's kind of like watching paint dry.
Which is, coincidentally, the other thing I am doing today.