Author: Dan Dickinson

Like sand through the hourglass, this is irritating the shit out of me

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I’ve been too busy to blog lately. Sorry, devoted readers, but work is intruding like a mother. I’m on my way out the door now to meet Nellie, head home, eat something and do another 3 or 4 hours of reading. I won’t come up for air again until Friday evening, probably, when I visit Fieramosca with some friends. Awesome food, downtime and non-work conversation…I’m not looking forward to that a bit.

On an unrelated topic, does anyone have a time machine?

[tags]aaaarrrggghghjhtrphtjrhrhotyhnryoh[/tags]

Serendipity

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Why, you may be asking yourself, is Dan blogging at 3:43 AM? Well, I’m up for work. Implementations happen overnight and I’ve been up since about 2:20.

So here I was, sitting quietly in the living room with my laptop, when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off. Now, fire alarms at 3 AM in a high rise are never calming events, but at least I was already awake. There’s nothing quite as jarring as being ripped from your sleep by a warning that you’re about to be immolated.

So, we check the hallway and it’s going out there too. Not much activity on our floor, but I can hear people in the stairwell. By this point Nellie’s roused herself and starts to get dressed. We see fire trucks coming up the street. We stuff the cats into their bags, gather wallets & keys and debate whether to start the long trek down. Then the fire department comes on the intercom and tells us it’s a minor situation (not even a fire, I’m guessing) on the 43rd floor (above us…a good sign) so we wait a few minutes, let the cats out of the bags and go back to work/sleep.

My implementation’s almost done, so I should be going back to sleep myself pretty soon. Fingers crossed.

[tags]fire alarm[/tags]

Gas leak: reprised

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About a month ago we had a gas leak in the den. That’s where the cutoff for our unit is, and we first noticed the smell the very day the building’s maintenance people came by to open it up. We were up ’til 2:00 that night waiting for the guy from Enbridge, who shut off the valve, located the leak and left a problem report for the building’s maintenance guys.

The next day Nellie called our condo’s customer service office and explained what happened. They said they’d look into it and get back to us. Later that day nothing had happened so Nellie called back. They told us that because Enbridge had turned off the valve and we could no longer smell the gas they didn’t consider it an emergency and they’d get to it later.

So we waited. An entire summer month, not able to barbecue, and no word from customer service. Nellie followed up several times, most recently with an email and a letter last week, to which we got no response. Their customer service center is only open during business hours during the week, and we’ve both been so busy at work that we haven’t been able to go in person, so they’ve been free to ignore our requests.

Last night, around 11:00, Nellie smelled gas in the den. We waited for a while and double-checked, but it was definitely gas. So we call Enbridge again; the same guy comes over around 2:00 and is incredulous that the building hasn’t fixed the problem yet. He gets up by the panel, his little detector thing goes off…yup, the leak’s still there. He checks the cutoff…the valve has been opened.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Nellie didn’t open the valve, and I sure as shit didn’t either. We had no warning that anyone from the building would be coming by to do it either, but it seems like a strange coincidence considering we just last week sent them a letter (which is, reportedly, the only communication they respond well to). The only other possibility is that the valve is loose and fell closed…which is no less troubling.

I don’t know exactly when I’m going to get downstairs to the customer service office, because this week will be even worse than most work-wise, but when I do it’s not going to be a polite conversation. I’ll be cursing like Mel Gibson in Signs. Get your tickets now.

.:.

On a happier note, we have fatblogging check in #2:

  • Original weight: 233
  • Weight last week: 231
  • Weight this week: 229

So another 2 pounds lost. Not a great week for exercise, but I seem to be better with cutting out the junk food.

[tags]gas leak, fatblogging[/tags]

The club that everybody wants to join but no one wants to visit

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Long day yesterday. I got out of work some time after 7:30, got home a little after 8:00 and went straight to C’est What with Nellie for some comfort food beer. My red curry noodles were quite hot and rather without flavour, but the Dennison’s was cold.

We came home, crashed on the couch, watched a little TV and passed out around 11:30. Clearly we have achieved new levels of lame.

.:.

Today: not much better. I’ve been relaxing a bit so far, cleaning up, reading the paper, doing laundry, checking feeds…basically, everything I can do to avoid working on my paper.

If my life is occupied with working, studying, exercising, sleeping and enjoying myself, I have come to the realization that I can do 3, or maybe 4, of those at any one time. Right now I’m working lots, sleeping less than I should, exercising when I can and putting together a few moments of enjoyment (the odd beer with my wife, for example). That leaves out school. This weekend I believe school (and work) will be absorbing what’s left of any potential enjoyment. Well, I guess I knew what I was signing up for.

.:.

We got our final condo closing date earlier this week. As of Aug 14 we’ll join the official club of people who get jumpy when the realities of a mortgage sinks in.

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Sheer quality

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I forgot to blog about this on Monday. I support the cause behind Live Earth, but I also support Barry’s right to slag the Black Eyed Peas and James Blunt. To wit:

Since the Live Earth concert the other day, everything has changed. In these 2 days since the concert the environment has apparently regenerated up to 68% of the damage done by humans because of the sheer quality of the music played by David Gray and Black Eyed Peas. When Madonna played, the ozone layer hole sealed up, probably to keep the great music from leaking out into space!
Most amazingly of all though, I woke up this morning to find 3 new full grown trees in my back garden with a note from James Blunt which read,”I’m planting trees in your area for the environment’s sake, stay beautiful”.
How good is that?

From Mogwai.

[tags]mogwai, live earth[/tags]

The gathering storm

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A thunderstorm rolled in over Toronto in the early evening. It came in over the lake, providing this awesome contrast. There was crazy lightning too, as well as a giant rainbow (picture to come another time).

By the time, the title is also the name of a Godspeed You! Black Emperor song. Well, part of a 20-minute song called “Storm”. You should really download it. It’s brilliant.

[tags]toronto, thunderstorm, godspeed you black emperor[/tags]

"She was the still point of the turning world, man."

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The shortlist for the Polaris Music Prize is up. It’s very, very good. You’d have to think the odds are with the Arcade Fire or Feist albums, but my dark horse is…well, The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse.

.:.

The Virgin Suicides gets better every time I watch it. The scene near the end where they play music to each other over the phone just kills me.

.:.

Create your own Simpsons avatar over at the official movie site. I made one last night but it’s on another computer and (you guessed it) I can’t be bothered to go gittit. [via Showcase Sideshow]

.:.

Maybe more than any other show, The Shield just stays at an incredibly high level. There’s never really a lull or a down episode; it just stays good.

[tags]polaris music prize, the virgin suicides, simpsons movie, the shield[/tags]