Offer(s)?

4pm today: the phone rings - it's our agent. "There's an offer," she says.

"The doctor from this morning, who's been here three times? " I say.

"Nope; someone else."

"Really...that's interesting. So, what now?"

"He wants to put in an offer tonight at nine, expiring at midnight."

"Put the screws to us?"

"Yep. So now I call the other interested parties..."

Later: "The doctor wants to check the zoning...and then he wants to present an offer tomorrow..."

"Two offers?"

"I told the first one that you were working tonight so they'll both present tomorrow after 7pm."

"They're aware of each other?"

"Yes."

This should be interesting.

Here fishy fishy!

So last night we had a visit from an agent and her client, a Doctor who's looking for office space in the neighbourhood. By a fluke of zoning our house is classified as R3-C3, which means commercial use as well as residencial...

Turns out that the Doctor had visited the perpetual open house that happens here every Sunday and wanted to view the house again. He went through silently, his agent chattering away the whole time telling him that he could do this and that, doing a damn good job of selling our place's potential to him.

Well, lo and behold I get a phone call this morning that the same agent wanted to come through at 10AM. For once the place was shipshape first thing in the morning- I even made the bed right away, one of the habits I've NEVER developed consistently. Our agent's office didn't say whether it was the Doctor but I wasn't surprised when the Doctor and what could only be his wife and 2 other family members arrived at our door.

Again they were disconcertingly silent except for some rapid-fire Hindi amongst themselves (an assumption on the language, granted. No comments about cunning linguists, please!) and then left.

That's a total of three visits from the silent Doctor.

The hook is dangling. The bait is ready.

Here fishy fishy!

Joe who? Part Two

Andrew Coyne said it better:

It was quite a shock to me when I started falling back into my right-wing roots and actually became interested in a leadership contest this time out. Like many voters, I feel that I will actually be able to have a clear choice this upcoming election. And it's no coincidence that this happened after Joe Clark became irrelevant to the whole process.

The sad part is that this is creeping into everday Canadian life now. Hands up everyone who's met someone who can't make a decision (or at the least have an opinion) about something obvious without consulting every last idiot in the room? This is called "consultative leadership." I call it a bleeding waste of time.

It's telling that Joe Clark's "big statement" is to support the best candidate in each riding. It's a remarkably easy way of not actually having to declare your beliefs.

It's hopeful that when the Conservative Party comes up with its platform that there are unique positions, rather than the "me too-ism" of the last election that made it so frightfully boring.

Spring is sprung

When I was biking by the Lakeshore Yacht club in Colonel Samuel Smith park in Etobicoke last week the on-shore compound was full of boats and almost all of the slips were empty.

Now the exact opposite is true. The slips are full, but it's funny that more masts haven't been stepped yet. Yesterday was prime sailing weather.

Hypocrite

I wore a bike helmet for the first time ever today...

Big damn woop. you say?

Well, you see, I never wore one growing up. Nobody wore them. I remember trying some REALLY dumb stunts on my old red supercycle. By the time I moved on to my ten speed I had gone through 6 pairs of handlebars...

When I bought my mountain bike in '97 I bought a helmet too, but since I was sticking mainly to the roads the helmet sat in the closet - I didn't need it. Besides it felt...weird. So I never wore it.

Until today.

You see, I bought my oldest daughter a bike, a cute little purple and white number with training wheels that looks very sporty, that she can't ride outside until we buy her a helmet. She thinks it's cool having the bike inside and has been practising balancing on it.

So why did I dig up my old helmet? Well I didn't want to be a hypocrite. Up until this point I've chosen not to wear it, but it will be hard to explain to my little girl why she has to wear protection and Daddy does not.

So as far as she'll know, Daddy's always worn a helmet. And she will, too.

Because if it's a choice between lies and hypocrisy, I'll choose outright lies everytime, especially if my little one's safety is concerned.

I'll just have to get used to the damned clunky thing...

Joe who?

Amazingly, it's Canadian politics that's broken my dryspell...

Clark prefers 'devil we know' to Harper

It's always interesting after a political party goes through a dramatic change to see the "losers" in the process come out and slag the winners.

Joe says this? Well that's it. The new Conservative Party should just fold its tent and shove off. Let's see: how long was Joe Clark able to hold a government together? Was it nine months before he was slapped by Trudeau in 1980's elections? If anyone knows about losing elections and watching your party be ground into the dust it's Joe Clark.

I'm taking my ball and going home! Nyahhh!

Good Lord. That would mean I'd actually have to know who the candidate is in my local riding! Screw you Joe!

Severe effin' Writer's Block...

...is plaguing me at the moment.

I'm hoping that this throwaway post will "cleanse the palate", so to speak. I hope I won't have to resort to "walked the dog" "done the dishes" posts that are the last resort of the creatively bankrupt...

***Apologies to any bloggers that happen along who subsist on "walked the dog" "done the dishes" posts, but come on, admit it to yourselves...

Heart of Oak

This is the third viewing I've had of the film.

Damn is Master and Commander good.

I appreciate the difficulty of adapting novels beloved by fans of the genre to the screen: too much detail and you piss off people who never read the novels; too much exposition (to get the rest of the audience to figure out what the hell is going on) and you get the Napoleonic Wars for first graders, as insulting to fans of O'Brian as Pirates of the Carribean was to anyone who takes their naval history seriously. (OK, I thought it was a fun film...Babe du jour Keira Knightley sauced up the screen pretty well.)

I think Peter Weir has struck the right balance with this one.

More detailed thoughts as I go through the extras on disc 2. Now I've got to reconnect my subwoofer...

The lowest price I found was at evil Walmart ($C34.83)

Chess Club

Yes, I was in the chess and computer club...

Shut up.

Tuesday

Tuesday can't come quick enough for me.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World comes out on Tuesday.

Because of my slavish devotion to the books (I am in the process of re-reading ALL of the novels in chronological order) I am practically salivating over the double disc, special edition.

The only thing that troubles me is that there is no possible way that the film could possibly convey the richness and depths of the novels (note that I'm saying this before actually seeing the movie!) and that the "changes" wrought on O'Brian's text may mess things up dramatically. Why the hell can't the U.S. Navy be the opposition? And, of course they can't get into the secret agent activities of Stephen Maturin in any way (kind of hard to do any spying when the movie takes place totally at sea) which means that the movie might not have the Aubrey-Maturin balance that the novels have.

But that's nit-picking...

Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday!

* note: the cheapest place I've found the 2-disc advertised is the Future Shop @ $35.99.

Fallen Jedi

:: how jedi are you? ::

via Flea (your bidding, my master?)

Capitalism for Toddlers

2 1/2 year old Boo-Boo:Where Mama, Daddy?

Frazzled stay-at-home Kraut, feeding sceaming ten-month old:She went to work, Boo.

BB: Mama go work, buy money?

K: I guess you could put it that way...

BB: And buy Oreo's for Boo-Boo and Ruby?

K: The dog doesn't eat Oreo's, hon.

BB: I holds it for her! She get it later...or I could eats it!

She is quite pleased with the idea of utilising the ficticious "dog's share." I gotta watch and make sure she doesn't take out a credit card in the dog's name...

Interview Fallout

Hell, I realized that I didn't update you, gentle reader, on the results of my job interview.

Last Monday I phone the headhunter to check in and ask for feedback and was told that they liked me, but...(there's always a damned "but" isn't there?) they were still interviewing and were probably going in another direction.

Well, I thought, some companies require their financial personnel to be accredited, though something in her tone made me decide to probe a bit.

So I said one word: "Direction?" and then pause.

"Well, honestly I shouldn't be telling you this," says Sara the Headhunter, "but one of the organizations core values is diversity..."

"Diversity?" I say and then pause. This pause thing is great. If I wasn't such a yappy guy I'd use this more often...

"...and I think that they're looking for either a woman, or someone of a minority group. But they still haven't decided anything. Call me next week. They did like you though, they said."

Now someone's going to say that this is all for the greater good, that somehow me not getting this job will somehow tilt the scales in favour of a more just society that will value us all more equally, that the scales were so far out of balance for so long that they have to be tilted the other way, minorities need to be promoted in order to somehow equal things out...and intellectually I'd have to say there's something there...

My question is why not just give the job to the best applicant? And if I'm not the best applicant, follow through and tell me why I'm not the best applicant.

Hundreds of years of injustice can't be corrected by decades of quotas.

And, what the hell, it's not like I personally oppressed anybody - other than friends and family, that is.

At Least He's Honest About This

Martin says Canada can't join international force to stabilize Iraq

Contrast this honest account of Canadian force-readiness with the grandstanding former Prime Minister Chretien did last year when he refused to join the coalition. It's really easy to refuse to participate and claim some kind of moral superiority when your armed forces have been bled to the bone for decades rendering them basically useless.

Much better to save face by playing the conscientious objector...

Oh, for the love of #@$!$!!

J-Lo's Mom Hits Atlantic City Jackpot

Like she needs it. (Yes, I'm jealous...)

It was divine intervention

Grrrrr! Yes, religious devotion = gambling winnings. Like Our Lady didn't have more important things to do than reward the mother of the world's brattiest pop star.

Since Everybody else is doing this quiz...

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Fall on your knees before me, useless knaves!

Via so many sources I can't even begin to name...

Gadget

We've had a PVR (personal video recorder) in our house for a month now and the difference in our television viewing is phenomenal. For those who don't know a PVR is basically a VCR that uses a hard disk to store programs rather than video cassettes. This is the closest thing in Canada to a TIVO.

So what's the big deal? It can record two programs simultaneously. It allows pausing of live TV (would've been handy during the Superbowl) and lets you playback shows in a totally random order, which is great if you don't want to spend all of your time fast forwarding and rewinding.

It's also lets us audition shows we wouldn't ordinarily have time to see or wouldn't give a chance to if it would take up valuable tape space.

Current favourites include (in no particular order):

• Dead Like Me - One of those dark little shows that gets under your skin from the pilot episode onwards. The fun is also trying to spot which part of Vancouver is trying to double for Seattle.
• Jeremiah - from the same guy who did Babylon 5. Stars Luke Perry, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and Sean Astin. I've totally forgotten Dylan McKay, Theo Huxtable and Samwise Gamgee...
• The Sopranos - Of course
• Six Feet Under - Of course, again.
• Carnivale - Good, Evil, Carnies, Old Time Religion and "Countin' down to Armageddon!"
• Curb Your Enthusiasm - ever wonder what George Costanza would've done if he and Jerry Seinfeld had sold his pilot to NBC? He'd probably have the surreal adventures that Larry David does on a weekly basis.
• Deadwood - three episodes in and I'm hooked. Prize winner for highest use of the word "fuck." Ugly male full frontal nudity in a whorehouse. I don't know where they're going but it's gonna be a helluva ride...
• Wonderfalls - Watch it before the idiots at Fox cancel it. A show that'll be a classic only after Fox succeeds in burying it. UPDATE: Damn that was fast....
• Coupling and The Office - Forget the abomination of NBC's Coupling last fall- For the real deal you have to view the original BBC version. The Office is the funniest thing I've seen in a LONG time. Any American network that tries to do a domestic version of this can't help but ruin it. If you work in an office you will recognize these people...

I don't know how many of these shows I could watch without the PVR. It's well worth the extra bucks. I don't know why Rogers was flogging the dead horse that is Video on Demand (VOD) when they could've gotten this thing off the ground sooner and got my money faster.

Ownership

So Rue's getting a feeling that we're selling the house.

Soon.

Like, this weekend.

And considering that my antenna is crap when trying to predict major events (hey, I'm the guy that tried to get into the investment industry just as NASDAQ peaked and was starting its plummet) I'm trying not to jinx it.

With the weather getting better I've noticed more serious potential buyers out and about.

So do I feel it too? Well I feel something and that something is queasiness. Queasiness at the whole damn process of home ownership - property taxes, utilities, maintenance etc. - it's all starting to piss me off righteously.

I don't know if I'll ever want to own a house again for a long while. Not to mention the fact that we're pinned here until a deal is struck. I want this house sold.

Now.