Category: Friends

I have touched down for refueling

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

One more course down. Hopefully. Multiple choice exams make me twitchy…I don’t do very well on them for some reason. I think I analyze wording too much. Anyway, I didn’t feel great when I was writing it. I only need 50.1% to pass the course, but getting an 80 might be a stretch. Oh well. As long as I don’t have to repeat any courses.

.:.

Funny thing happened while I was at the course. One of my classmates was talking about how addicted she is to Facebook. I told her to add me; when I got her friend request it said we had a friend in common.

In my first year of university my roommate began dating a girl. They kept on dating and a few years ago got married. My classmate was her bridesmaid. Our common friend is the guy who lived next door to me in residence, who remained close friends with my former roommate.

The world freaks me out sometimes with its smallness.

.:.

48 hours from now we’ll be lifting off for Paris, if all goes well. Ask me if I’m ready to go. Go ahead, ask me.

I’m going to bed tonight at 10 and getting up at 5 so that I can get a headstart on the jet lag. Getting up at 3:30 on Sunday. It’s gonna suck, but I want to enjoy my time in Paris, not sleep or stumble through it.

[tags]mba, facebook, coincidence, small world, paris, jet lag[/tags]

The calm before the boring, boring storm

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Pretty good start to the day: went over to Barrio to have brunch with CBGB. We ate our fill (I had waffles covered in…well, everything; Nellie had princess pancakes) and caught up with them. Then Nellie and I strolled down Queen Street and checked out a bit more of Leslieville before hopping on the streetcar.

Next stop was UpCountry, where I was all set to be super-bitchy with some staff (I had hissed ultimatums prepared and everything) but the manager happened to be in today and he seemed reasonably confident. He promised delivery this week and apologized profusely, both of which were new events for us. I won’t declare him actually helpful until the bed we picked out is in our bedroom, but if that doesn’t happen this week as promised then I’m bringing the pain.

Then a quick hop over to {shudder} the Eaton Centre where we grabbed some shoes. We’re both in need of some footwear for our upcoming trip, and just wanted to get it over with. I managed to get in and out without throttling any teenagers; I guess those nine beers at brunch took some edge off.

Now, with all that fun out of the way, I’m looking at a day of financial risk management quizzes and work emails. Yaaaaaay.

368 days from now I’ll be done the MBA. Not that I’m counting.

[tags]barrio, brunch, upcountry, skechers, eaton centre, mba[/tags]

I'm starting to believe in curses

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Ever feel like you’re playing bad customer service whack-a-mole? Just when we get the gas leak sorted we have to deal with UpCountry, who are being substantial dicks about the bed we ordered two months ago. They called a month ago to say they’d be following up in a few days to arrange a delivery date, and charged our credit card for the remainder of the bed…but no one ever called us. We’ve tried calling, emailing, everything…no answer, and the mailboxes are all full. Very professional.

So yesterday we went to the store and asked where our bed is. We heard some story about things going from the wrong warehouse blah blah wank, and were given the delivery service’s phone number. My first thought was, “How about you call them and sort it out?” but I realized if we rely on UpCountry to proactively provide customer service we’ll be waiting a long time. We also asked for a better phone number to call since none of the phone numbers they publish actually seem to have a human near the receiver. We were told there is another number, but there’s no point in taking it down since that number won’t be answered either. Clearly UpCountry has been taking customer service lessons from our condo management office.

Luckily, Andrew Richard Designs [caution: cheesy new-age music] next door (where we bought our balcony furniture) were actually nice, if not overly competent. We arrived to pick up the cushions for our benches, only to find out that they’d made us the wrong ones. Right color, wrong texture. However, rather than making us wait 3-4 weeks while they made the right ones, they simply gave us the wrong ones to use temporarily and submitted the correct order. As it turned out, once we got them home, Nellie actually liked how they looked, so I think we’ll keep them after all. Not a perfect experience by any means, but certainly better customer service than UpCountry. I can tolerate a mix-up; what I can’t tolerate is unwillingness to fix (or even acknowledge) said mix-up.

.:.

So, new cushions installed, we fired up the barbeque and had CBGB over. Nellie prepared a tasty seafood feast for us as we relaxed out on the (rather windy) balcony. All very yummy, and after a quick cleanup job we crashed.

[tags]upcountry, andrew richard designs, customer service[/tags]

A song will lift as the mainsail shifts

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

That lovely shawl you see up there is, in fact, my new cast. Pretty, no? I didn’t have a choice of colours, so they gave me the clown motif. I’m thinking I’ll need to cover that up.

Good news, though: I should only have to wear it for four weeks, not six or more. It’s also far more comfortable than that blasted splint (so far, anyway) and gives me more use of my fingers…though my thumb is basically useless now. And you know what’s hard to do sans thumb? Tying your shoes. Try it tomorrow. You’ll curse like you’ve never cursed before.

.:.

Quick hits:

  • MC Rove is hiding behind his mommy’s skirts.
  • Irish singer Tommy Makem died. I know very little of Tommy Makem, only that he was a singer and that he performed a beautiful rendition (along with the Clancy Brothers) of “When The Ship Comes In” at Bob Dylan’s 30th anniversary concert several years ago. If you haven’t heard it, you really should. There’s nothing quite like a protest song sung by old Irish men.
  • I want a pair of Joe’s new running shoes. Wish I’d thought of that before my birthday…

[tags]broken wrist, gaudy cast, karl rove, tommy makem, saucony[/tags]

A few more broken limbs and hellish weeks at work should do it

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Status du fatblogging:

  • Original weight: 233
  • Weight last week: 229.5
  • Weight this week: 226

Uhhh…ok. Not being able to exercise all week clearly didn’t hurt me as much as not having time to eat normal meals helped me. Still, that’s not sustainable. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to run again once the swelling goes down and I’m in the hard cast.

.:.

We’ve eaten two straight meals on the balcony. The weather’s been perfect for it, and now that we can grill things without fear of explosions I think we’ll be out there even more. Nellie popped down to St. Lawrence Market yesterday for some fruit (which we had this morning with breakfast) and some tofu. We heard there was a booth there that makes tofu palatable, so we tried a place called Ying Ying Soy Food. It was actually really good; one type Nellie grilled in bbq sauce, the other was left plain, and both were tasty. Throw in some grilled veggies and bread and a bottle of white…’twas a good night.

.:.

One more thing: happy birthday, T-Bone!!

[tags]fatblogging, bbq[/tags]

We'll keep the spider that bites the lady that cleans the couch that swallowed the fly

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Three things about the condo:

  1. We have a new couch. It’s big and squishy.
  2. We have a giant spider (seen here) living on our balcony. I’m not particularly fond of spiders, but he’s eating the swarm of insects that seems to frequent the area, so he can stay. Click on the picture if you want to see a higher-res version.
  3. Cleaning lady: best invention ever.

.:.

CBGB came over last night while I was at work and taught Nellie how to make GB’s excellent veggie burgers. I got home in time to enjoy the beautiful weather on the balcony with them. We actually spent the whole night out there, ate some pizza from Amato, and even saw some unexpected fireworks. It was a nice end to a long week.

.:.

Violent protests in Halifax? Ontario supporting public transit? Yesterday was topsy-turvy day, apparently…

[tags]condo furniture, spider, cleaning lady, amato pizza, fireworks, halifax protests, ontario public transit[/tags]

Is 36,000 BTUs enough to cook eggplant?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

It’s been a busy weekend. Yesterday we got up early, went to St. Lawrence Market to pick up some shrimp and scallops and fruit, ran a few errands, picked up some shirts we ordered from American Apparel, did some work (schoolwork, in my case) and went over to CBGB’s place for a barbeque. The barbeque fun didn’t stop there; we zipped around the corner to Home Depot and ordered a barbeque of our own: this one by Vermont Castings [pictured at right].

.:.

The party at CBGB’s (in belated honor of GB’s birthday) was a lot of fun…a packed front porch followed by a packed backyard patio, great food, cold beer, many laughs, and a slight overindulgence in the desserts. What’s better than that?

.:.

Today’s been great so far too: I slept in until 9:00 (the cats practically kicked me off the bed after that), got up, read the paper, went out to find some breakfast and came back raving about the perfect weather: it was warm but not hot, and breezy enough to keep the smog off. I collected Nellie and we headed off on a stroll to the Distillery District. We had a peek in a few galleries, stopped at the Mill Street Brew Pub for some brunch, got some amazing chocolate at Soma and wandered home along the Esplanade, popping up to Front Street so that we could see all the dogs at Woofstock. Now, sadly, it’s back to reality as Nellie has to work all day and I’m catching up on a bunch of stuff. It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning though…

.:.

My comment spam problem is getting worse and worse. Most of you never see it (unless you subscribe to my comment feed) because the comments are buried in old posts, and the vast majority of it gets caught, but when you get 1300/day a few are bound to slip past my spam filter. What does slip past is often very nasty too, so if you’re reading the comments and you see unpleasantness, I apoligize.

[tags]st. lawrence market, american apparel, home depot, vermont castings, distillery district, mill street brew pub, soma chocolate, woofstock, comment spam, akismet[/tags]

I wonder how her husband feels about that

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Today is my friend Marney’s birthday. Today is also Old Maid’s Day. I’m sure those two things are just coincidence.

.:.

Sad, Rebecca Eckler, sad. Only someone deep in the throes of hubris could think that someone stole the plot of Knocked Up from them. Quill & Quire offers their own take on the [ahem] story:

“A warning to comedy writers out there: if you’re working on a gag in which someone has to buy something embarrassing at the supermarket and the cashier calls for a price check on the store PA system, you better make sure Eckler hasn’t used that one – if she has, she’ll think you nicked it from her.”

Tee hee.

.:.

For the sake of my blood pressure, Christopher Hume needs to stop writing articles like this one about the Toronto waterfront.

[tags]old maid’s day, rebecca eckler, christopher hume, toronto waterfront[/tags]

Stoopid WordPress

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Gar. I had a long post all written up but WordPress (or possibly my host?) decided to cack and it disappeared. I can’t be bothered to remember it all or write it all again, so here’s the summary version:

  • We had dinner last night at Fieramosca with CBGB. That was great.
  • I got my hair cut today and ate some gelato. That was great.
  • I realized today that I have a paper due next week, and I haven’t even started it. That sucked.
  • Darth Vader’s a jackass.

Blargh.

[tags]fieramosca, gelato, darth vader[/tags]