Category: Condo

Je suis fatigue

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Oh dear, I’ve forgotten to blog. Packing up your life into cardboard will do that, I s’pose. The cats are digging it ’cause they can scale the piles of boxes and crawl into the empty ones. The Dandy Warhols cover of “She Sells Sanctuary” is not as good as I would have thought. Is this week over yet? As nuts as it sounds, I’m kinda having fun ’cause we’re throwing out a whack (a metric whack, not an imperial whack) of stuff. Speaking of that, Duarte, come get your printer. Mogwai‘s Barry Burns thinks it’s high time Keith Richards dies and I can’t say I disagree that strongly. I’m surprised Trom hasn’t called me for more maple leaves yet; he was pretty much mainlining them by the end of the day.

OK, must sleep. I have four hours of meetings tomorrow and (yay) more packing to (yay) do. (yay)

[tags]moving, dandy warhols, mogwai, keith richards, (yay)[/tags]

It's like a puzzle, but with heat

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One of the things we’d noticed in the new condo was that the thermostats display in Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Personally, I have no concept of Fahrenheit temperature so that had to go. We tried playing around with the settings, fiddling with buttons, looking for switches, but to no avail. It stayed in Fahrenheit.

Tonight, going through some documents, Nellie found instructions on how to change it. It reads as follows:

  1. Bring the heat setting down to 52°F.
  2. Press the up and down arrows at the same time until the screen clears.
  3. Press the up arrow twice and then press the down arrow once. Then press the up arrow again until the setting changes to Celcius.

Well, my face is red. That’s so intuitive; how could I have not figured that out on my own?

[tags]thermostat, fahrenheit, celsius[/tags]

t-minus-8

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Busy day. I reviewed & submitted my term paper, went for a run, went down to see Nellie at the condo, bought groceries, cleaned the apartment, threw out all the old food in the fridge, packed up all the books and DVDs, answered a bunch of work emails and watched the Raptors beat the Knicks.

Something else I finished up today was loading Nellie’s old MP3 player with country songs. She’s giving it to her mother,who wouldn’t know how to loadit with music, so I pre-loaded it for her. It is the first — and last — time that Alan Jackson will ever touch my hard drive.

.:.

On a completely different note, go read this post by Dave at The Galloping Beaver. It’s the most troubling and illuminating thing you’ll read today.

[tags]moving, the galloping beaver[/tags]

I am Jack's [li] tag

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My life is very, very point form right now. Nellie’s down at the new condo painting while I clean up the mess that has become our old place and write a paper for my class. We were up at 6-something this morning to pick up the car (from Autoshare) and drive to home depot, so the only thing keeping me awake right now is a steady Diet Pepsi drip.

Meanwhile, I have these for you:

OK, back to work.

C'est Irish PJ

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After dinner at the BeerBistro we swung by the condo with CBGB and MS, just to let them see it for the first time. It looks nice at night.

GB and I had met up before dinner, first at the Irish Embassy (too full), then at the BeerBistro bar (also too full) before settling on P.J. O’Brien. It was our first time there, and could become another nice addition to the local selection (along with the IR itself, and C’est What of course).

Tomorrow the painting, etc. starts. I cannot properly convey my excitement.

.:.

My I Hate Your Kids t-shirt arrived in the mail today. Let the angry glares begin.

Next treat expected in the mail: my blog cards.

[tags]irish embassy, pj obrien, cest what, i hate your kids, gaping void, blog card[/tags]

Honeybee blues

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I guess this is why there’s a sign at the Nova Scotia border saying that no honeybees are allowed to enter the province.

With a mysterious disease or parasite ravaging beekeepers’ hives in New Brunswick, honey producers in the region are in for a tough season.

It’s been going on in the U.S. for a while, and has obviously spread to eastern Canada. I suppose the isolationist honeybee policy might pay off.

.:.

Memo to Bell: fix your bloody ‘Simple Move Form’ application. I don’t know what the userid is for my digital voice application, and it doesn’t appear on any of my bills. You also shouldn’t ask me to reply to two questions with one radio button. Finally, when people give up on the form and call — as most will — keep your call center open later than 5 PM.

Seriously, what is it with Bell? I’ve never seen a company — a technology/internet company, no less — change their website so often without ever actually improving it.

[tags]honeybees, new brunswick, bell canada[/tags]

The inner works

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Nellie uploaded a few more pictures of the condo to the condo photoset on Flickr. There’s one of me standing in the living room, admiring the view, typing on my Blackberry. How typical.

.:.

Best new song I’ve heard in a while: “No Pussy Blues” by Grinderman. Unfortunately the rest of the disc just isn’t nearly as good. If you’d told me that Nick Cave’s voice + guitar feedback = a good song, I wouldn’t have believed you.

[tags]grinderman, spire condominium, toronto[/tags]

Nine tenths

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We are standing in our condo. That’s right…OUR condo; we are now the owners. We have our own keys, and can come and go as we please. And please we do. Nellie’s busy taking pictures, measuring, checking light switches and the like. I’m admiring the view of the beach, St. Lawrence Market, the lake, the islands, St. James Cathedral, the Flatiron building, and the bank towers. This is fun.

And it only took 3 years…

[tags]spire condominium[/tags]

The universe rights itself

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The New York Islanders just beat the New Jersey Devils in a shootout (after giving up the tying goal with 0.8 seconds left), securing the final playoff spot and sending the Maple Leafs off to compete for tee times with the Montreal Canadiens.

.:.

Still on hockey, the attention for Montreal fans now changes to gutting the house for repairs. Sergei Samsonov will never play another game in the CH sweater, and David Aebischer found himself displaced by Jaroslav Halak. Sheldon Souray may well leave as an unrestricted free agent; Alex Kovalev will be traded if a buyer can be found for his huge contract, bought out if one cannot.

Still, the core of this team is very good. They have a ton of good young talent in Higgins, Ryder, Komisarek, Lapierre, Latendresse, Plekanec, Kostitsyn, Perezhogin, Gorges and Halak. They have some solid veterans like Koivu, Markov, Bonk and Johnson, and some solid role players. What they’re missing is a #1 center and a good mobile defenseman; if they can unload or buy out Samsonov, Kovalev and Aebischer and attract a few free agents, they could resume the form they had earlier this season.

.:.

Pool news: I believe I have 1st place in my hockey pool, but won’t know for sure until tomorrow. I picked up Islanders goalie Wade Dubielewicz last night and he recorded the win in today’s game, but more importantly Ryan Smyth didn’t score the game-winning goal, which might’ve made it close. I’m also creeping up dangerously close to 1st in my basketball pool, but I don’t see how I can make up any more ground (as it’s a roto pool).

.:.

My musical inbox is out of control. My brother is partly to blame, sending me half a dozen new albums to check out, but I’m no better. I keep grabbing new stuff even though I have no time to listen to it.

  • apostle of hustle . national anthem of nowhere
  • aliens . astronomy for dogs
  • bird and the bee . bird and the bee
  • brmc . baby 81
  • clinic . internal wrangling
  • clutch . from beale street to oblivion
  • dalek . abandoned language
  • dalek . absence
  • friday morning’s regret . when lost at sea
  • grinderman . grinderman
  • in-flight safety . coast is clear
  • kings of leon . because of the time
  • klaxons . myths of the near future
  • low . drums and guns
  • marissa nadler . songs iii: bird on the water
  • national . boxer
  • nine inch nails . year zero
  • ted leo . living with the living
  • worker bee . divorce your legs

So far I’ve had quick listens to brmc (good), clinic (not so good), grinderman (starts off strong, drifts from there), kings of leon (good), low (not sure yet) and ted leo (also not sure yet).

.:.

Last night, post-apocalypse, we started to purge the old crap out of our apartment. I love the “throwing shit out” phase. LOVE it. It’ll be difficult to stop me now. “Do we really need towels? I mean need them?”

[tags]islanders, maple leafs, nhl playoffs, montreal canadiens, hockey pool, nasketball pool, brmc, clinic, grinderman, kings of leon, low, ted leo, moving[/tags]

If you add some facial hair and an Adam's apple, maybe

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Just got home from the Auld Spot, where we had dinner and a couple of drinks with CBGB. I hadn’t seen them for a while; they were away in Europe and my scarlet fever kept me housebound upon their return. By the way, CB, this is what Sabrina Lloyd looks like. –>

.:.

Booked a whole great big bunch of travel stuff today, so that’s effectively off our plate. I can now focus on getting all my school work done before the 20th, and then I can concentrate on packing for a few days. Then I have five days in which to help unpack and set up before I bugger off for book learnin’.

[tags]auld spot, sabrina lloyd[/tags]