Category: Condo

"What is a ghost?"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I finally summoned enough energy today to do some shopping. We had a delicious brunch at Toba, went to UpCountry to buy a new bed and some patio furniture, picked up some groceries and came home to collapse on the couch. This thing is just lingering forever; I’m feeling marginally better each day, but sleep is still difficult, and I still wake up so congested that I have to blow my nose non-stop for half an hour.

Normally, if I felt like this I would never leave home to do a bunch of walking & shopping, but the furniture situation was just going nowhere and we’re tired of living like students. I mean really, who has a futon for their couch? A long time ago we made the decision not to buy furniture until we were in the new place, but now it was time to get on it. Nellie’s mom is coming to visit soon and we need the couch so that the futon can go to the den/guest bedroom.

Next, the final “urgent” purchase: the barbeque.

.:.

Whilst laying on the couch today I watched The Devil’s Backbone (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a Guillermo Del Toro film released before (and related to) Pan’s Labyrinth (which I loved). Though not as good as Pan’s, it’s absolutely worth watching.

[tags]toba, upcountry, devil’s backbone, pan’s labyrinth[/tags]

Water, water everywhere, but trust me, you do not want to drink it

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On sunny & windy days, this is a pretty typical view: beaucoup de sailboats. More pics over at flickr.

.:.

Enough already with the whining about gas prices. Seriously. It’s cheaper than milk. It’s cheaper than orange juice, Coke or cough syrup. It’s cheaper than bottled water. And yet, there are people like this:

“It’s always like this,” Harris said as she filled her SUV at the Esso station at Lake Shore Blvd. E. and Leslie St. “They spike it up on weekends. They spike it up on the long weekend. They always have an excuse. It’s refinery problems, or it’s terrorism in the Middle East, or hurricanes. Oil is down, so there’s no reason for high prices.”

First of all, you drive an SUV, there’s no reason for you to complain about high gas prices either. If you can afford a gas guzzler, you can’t be strapped for cash.

Second…the same free market economy that made you wealthy enough to buy an SUV is what makes gas prices go up and down according to demand. Of course they’re out to charge you as much as they can; why wouldn’t they? YOU KEEP PAYING IT!!

And please, no excuses about “I need my car to get to work.” Buy a smaller car. Take public transit. Bike. Walk. Car pool. Choose to live closer to work in the first place. If you can’t (or won’t) do any of those things, then by all means, produce the contract you signed when you bought your car stating that gas prices would never, ever go up. Don’t have one? Then buy some oil company stock to offset the losses that you’ve chosen to inflict on yourself.

Side note: it’s interesting to watch the Toronto Star cover stories like this. On one hand, the Star wants to stick to big business and take the side of the poor consumer, but on the other hand they want to be the environmental advocate (ironic, considering they’re a newspaper) so they come across as conflicted in these cases.

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As much as I despised Jerry Falwell, and as cold an emotionless as I can be sometimes, and as much as I think it’s hilarious, I simply cannot bring myself to buy this shirt.

[note: if you don’t get the punchline, read this.]

.:.

A week-old post on Torontoist that I didn’t look at until just now has some great concert footage of the Arcade Fire. The scene in the middle of the clip is the best one; my favourite part is how Richard Reed Parry replicates a snare drum sound.

[tags]toronto, lake ontario, sailboats, spire condominium, gas prices, toronto star, jerry falwell, torontoist, arcade fire[/tags]

Lather. Snort. Repeat.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

My shampoo is tingly. Really, really tingly, almost to the point of burning or poison ivy or something. Anyway, I’m sure it’s meant to be good for my scalp or my hair or both, so I don’t mind the tingliness. However, today, I somehow took breath in just as a big blob of it was running down my face and happened to be just in front of my left nostril, so a bunch of this tingly-ass shampoo shot up my nose.

This, I don’t mind telling you, was not how I planned to spend my nice hot relaxing shower. Now I had to do something, but I also had a bunch more frothing shampoo about to run in to my eyes, so even as my sinuses were disintegrating in the face of this new terror I had to calmly rinse the rest of it from my hair, all while blowing all the air out my nose that I could manage. I wasn’t really thinking about how stupid I must have sounded; instead, all I could think was that maybe I should give baths another try.

Anyway, I didn’t care what the bottle said, I was not going to repeat.

.:.

Last night was the first chance we’ve had in ages to just sit and watch some TV. Actually, to be clear, we didn’t watch TV, but rather watched a few episodes of The Sopranos on the laptop. We’re trying to catch up for the final episode; there’s no way we’ll be able to avoid hearing about the series finale.

.:.

So, we knew it was inevitable that we’d eventually lose some of our view, but we didn’t think it would happen so soon. I suppose those buildings — at the foot of Yonge Street, just west of the Redpath sugar factory — won’t be built for a while, and it’s only a small chunk of our view, but it’s one of the best views we have of the islands. Perhaps, both for the sake of our view and the good of the waterfront, city council will find a way to stop the development and put a park there.

[tags]shampoo, sopranos, toronto condos, yonge street[/tags]

Umm, so…when can I get a 40 exabyte Zen?

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It’s been a beeeeezy day. I was up at 6:30; never really got back to sleep. We got a lot done with the condo today, actually; I cleaned up the den and collapsed a bunch of boxes, and we did even more once Nellie got home. Took a pile of stuff down to our (very small…grrr) storage locker and recycled piles of old cardboard & newspaper. We also set up most of the stereo (no surround speakers yet as we have to buy stands). Somewhere in there Nellie went for brunch and a wine & cheese tasting; I had time to knock off a ton of errands, set up my new Zen, watch a hockey game and a football match (Toronto FC: 3 goals (!) and a win) and get my mother hooked on a web 2.0 geneology site.

.:.

Go watch this. I wouldn’t say it’s the world’s best presentation, but it’s informative.

[tags]moving in, unpacking, zen vision m, geni.com, shift happens[/tags]

PeanutAllergy Inc.

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If the Globe and Mail weren’t such dicks about their online content, you could read this interesting article by Russell Smith about the recent spate of anti-religion books, Christopher Hitchens’ (which I talked about here) being the latest. Smith made the point that, even if it’s not dressed up as a cult/religion, slavish devotion is still hard to take. He even comments about how allergies that never used to exist suddenly afflict half the population: his example was half the population of Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood claiming to be allergic to wheat gluten; I’d suggest that the current generation of children all seemingly being allergic to peanuts is another good one.

Update from the comments: Joe dropped this great quote from the recent Lou Dobbs interview with Hitchens: “Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins.”

.:.

Google Analytics has revamped their reporting engine. Holy crap. Magnifique. I’ll never use StatCounter again.

.:.

Walking home from the grocery store tonight we noticed that a bakery is going in on the ground floor. Sweet. Dangerous, but sweet.

[tags]globe and mail, russell smith, christopher hitchens, google analytics, bakery[/tags]

One host serving music, another serving veggie burgers

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Another busy day: we read newspapers, got a snack at Starbucks, went back to Canadian Tire to pick up a Roomba (which, upon opening, we found had already been used and was all scratched up and dirty…so that’ll be going back) and some other condo-y stuff, cleaned up, finally cleaned out my suitcase from last week, did some laundry, did some work, put together the other desk in the den and crossed a bunch of stuff of the to-do list.

.:.

Last night we went over to CBGB’s place, where GB cooked up some of his famous veggie burgers. These are the type that aren’t trying to simulate meat, but rather have a flavour all their own and just happen to sit between a bun. They were spicy and thick and I had three of them. Yum.

.:.

I just ordered one of these. I’m very excited. Not only does it do pictures & video and give me more room for music, but it also has a USB host feature, so I can download pictures to it directly from our camera without having to carry a laptop around or buy a gigantic memory card.

[tags]roomba, canadian tire, veggie burgers, creative zen vision m[/tags]

Really, we just want one to annoy the cats

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The condo is looking ever-more lived in. We have a shower rod & curtain in the master bathroom, and bought some new towels to replace the old ones which were sacrificed to stem the shit tide. We went to Canadian Tire in the hopes of buying several things, but got so frustrated that we forgot to pick up the Roomba.

I’ve also set up half of the desk (we’re making two small desks rather than one large one) in the den and am typing this on my computer. Not that Nellie’s laptop isn’t nice, but I’ve missed my full-size monitor, real mouse and real keyboard. Welcome back, baby.

.:.

In a few minutes we’ll be off to CBGB’s place for a bbq. We don’t have our own yet; it’s near the top of the list, but I feel like we need to get all the boxes out of the way first.

[tags]new condo, canadian tire, roomba[/tags]

Kinda-stranger in a slightly strange land

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Forgot to mention: just after I printed my exam (I was one of the few people who typed it, which I think led me to type twice as much as anyone else wrote) I walked back to the computer and closed MS Word…which promptly crashed the computer. Like, Blue Screen Of Death crash. Good thing I printed first. That would have been a suck.

.:.

It feels good to be home. As soon as I got home I went and grabbed some lunch, and I realized it’s the first time since we moved that I had to chance to actually look at any of the new neighbourhood. I know it well enough so it’s not like things are a mystery,  but I like the idea of discovering all the shortcuts and back alleys and hidden spots. Now I’ve just gotta find some time…

[tags]blue screen of death, st. lawrence market, toronto neighbourhoods[/tags]

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Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Okey doke, class is over. At some point tonight I’ll try studying, but probably not before I head over and order pizza. Today was another Subway day, bringing us to 3 outsourced lunches out of a possible 4.

Brave, brave Nellie got trapped at home again today, fighting off an overflowing toilet. I’ll get home around noon tomorrow to relieve her if it should start up again.

[tags]mba, pizza, overflowing toilet[/tags]

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Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Presentation’s done, so now I just have to study a bit and get some real work done before our run-through tonight. Lunch was off-putting again today, so it was Subway for me (and four classmates). I’m hoping for better things at dinner.

.:.

The gym hasn’t been open all week, so I’m feeling awfully lazy. I really wish they’d open it up, even just tomorrow night so that I can shoot around for a few minutes.

.:.

Poor Nellie had to deal with some condo issues this morning. A toilet overflowed, so our hardwood in the hallway and kitchen is likely ruined. I’m glad we had our insurance arranged for the day we moved in and didn’t wait.

Yay for home ownership.

[tags]mba, condo, toilet back up[/tags]