"And chew…and chew…8 more…7 more…"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

If you’re a Battlestar Galactica fan and you’re reading this article over on the TV show blog, you might be thinking to yourself, “Who knew Katee Sackhoff was such a girly-girl? And where did THOSE come from?!!!?!” *

.:.

I managed to run about 1.5 miles this morning and then just barely made it work on time. I have an 8AM meeting tomorrow, so clearly there will be no early morning run. I think my only workout of the day will be PowerEating at Fieramosca.

.:.

 

[Brilliance from Indexed, by Jessica Hagy]

.:.

I think that if I were to somehow narrow down my all-time favourite songs, “NYC” by Interpol would be on there.

.:.

* You would probably only think this if you’re a guy. Or my wife, who has a girlcrush on Starbuck.

[tags]battlestar galactica, katee sackhoff, indexed, jessica hagy, interpol[/tags]

C

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

100 days ago we took possession of our condo. Let’s recap: I love the location & neighbourhood even more than I thought I would. The view’s even better than I expected, and Nellie’s gotten used to the balcony. In general I love almost everything about the unit and the building.

However, we’ve had some major problems. The toilet backed up two days in a row; I wasn’t here for that, but Nellie went through hell. Our floors still haven’t been replaced. We’re still missing blinds in our living room. The elevators have been very, very spotty and in various states of disrepair. But most frustrating of all has been the gas leak.

I blogged about it recently. Since then nothing’s improved; in fact, customer service has just pissed us off more. They seem to have two settings: ignoring us or scolding us. Because of work and school I’ve had little time to deal with this, but something’s gotta give soon. The people in charge of fixing what could potentially be a serious safety risk seem to be either incompetent or stupid. I don’t want to threaten them with legal action, but unless they can extract their heads from their asses it may come to that.

None of this has made me not love my new home. I’d just like to be able to love all of it, including the den and the barbecue.

[tags]condo, gas leak, context, spire[/tags]

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

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

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

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

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

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

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

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

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.

[tags][/tags]

Sheer quality

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

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

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

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]