Headlines
**yes i'll blog more, properly later**
I just wanted to share the differences in newspapers here in Toronto. In fact i'm sure these mirror the differences in newspapers in any given market. But this is fun.
Today the government will announce increased immigration to Canada to cope with a skilled-workers shortage. Here's how our three papers handled it:
The Toronto Start (mushy, left wing)
"Canada Opens Doors to 255,000"
The Globe and Mail (businessy right of centre)
"Canada to Welcome 700,000" (they're thinking over 5 years)
The Sun (Right wing, tabloid, blue collar trashy paper)
"Immigration Trumps Security"
**I promise this is my last post about headlines**
Inanimate object uses verb, direct object missing.
Journalists. Or as will be pointed out by the more anal among us (Heipel, move the to front of the line) headline writers - who are not technically journalists. They kind of annoy me. They try to convey the gist of the story in as few words as possible (bigger font sizes result. Today's National Post:
Report Seeks Weaker Ottawa
What the hell does that mean? Well I think it means that someone wrote a report that suggest that fewer federal powers would be a good thing. Or it could be something else. But it annoys me that an inanimate object (report) uses a verb. The report ain't doing shit. And dont' compare this to uses of 'The White House' or 'Downing Street'. Those get a pass because we know what they are and what the represent.
But most annoying of course is the tone of faux authority with which they are delivered.
And in the world of real journalism how's this for a line (taken from a wire story):
Commenting on the lawsuit, Apple said: "We do not comment on pending litigation."
Ampersand
I watched West Wing tonight. Don't worry this blog is not turning into a fan site, or one of those annoying geek sites that dissects popular cultural products. Generally, as far as I know political shows tend not to breed those kinds of discussions in the same way that Sci-fi does. Is it because the subject matter doesn't lend itself to obsessive 'whatiffing'? or is it more that unstable people tend not to watch political shows. Thank god too, because could you imagine fanfic or worse yet slashfic about the Toby and Josh? eeeuuugh. For those who dont' know fanfic is when peopel wrhite their own stories using tv or film characters. and slash is when they write porn using the characters from tv. The term comes from the original source of it, Kirk/Spock (“kirk-slash-spock”). So leaving aside the utterly horrifying implications of Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy having sex, the fact is that peopel who do write that stuff are sad twats. Pudgy virgins who have no real friends and so only have ‘virtual’ worlds to play in. Which is fine and probably healthy when you’re 15, but is really fucking sad when you’re 35.
Anyway, the point of mentioning West Wing was not to diverge into a discussion of the relative sad-twat-ness of fanfic, but rather to say that it was a brilliant and utterly shocking show. And what was so good about it was that it changed things completely. In short a major character got fired. That’s what I love about the show. They aren’t afraid to change things around. And not in a ‘it was all a dream and Bobby’s still alive’ sort of way either. And not like Star Trek where the whole thing will be solved by the end of the episode. Anwyay it was good and ended with this long, near silent bit at the end. Very moody and dramatic. They’re good at that. Then i caught the end of another show with a long musican montage at the end. Seemed to be a theme this evening. It left me very contemplative. But that was the point. Big turning points in life with the score by W. Snuffy Walden, or Jamie Callum. I wish my life had a soundtrack. I am sure it would make things more interesting. It certainly would telegraph my feelings which would make meetings at work a lot more interesting. People would know i was getting bored, or annoyed because of the music accompanying me. It’s not likely to happen.
Anyway it’s late. I’m going to bed.
‘night!
"I've got blisters on my fingers..."
after a day of chiseling, hammering, sawing, cutting, fluxing, and soldering, i'm done. the pipe is fixed. but i'm covered in blisters (molten solder dripping on me, super heated pipes). ugh i hate home ownership.
and bonus points if anyone can figure out the songwriter who wrote the line (or rather ad-libbed it) that is the title of this entry. (bert you should know).
Take a Leak
So after digging the ceiling out and ripping down chunks of sopping wet drywall and plaster (and coming across a cut out piece of newspaper from 1956) I have found the leak. The good news is that it's right at the ceiling (not two feet up inside the bathroom wall. The bad news is of course that it's a leak. And that it's now got me to the point where I have a two foot hole in my ceiling. Yes the same ceiling we paid to have plastered this spring. yah the one with the crown molding. yup that's the one. The one in the house that is for sale.
I'm more zen about this than I would expect. Frankly I should be freaking out I guess. But the last few weeks of waiting for the house to sell have made me a bit more calm. Because it was either that or go mental.
I was talking to the neighbors about it all last night. Eric and I decided, way back when, that we would sell first then buy a new house. As opposed to some people who do the reverse. Then we felt that we could bear the stress of having no house, but not the stress of potentially having two.
We never considered this eventuality. So as I was saying to the neighbors could you imagine how absolutely fucking mental I would be right now if the house was still unsold, we had already bought another and there was a huge fucking hole in my dining room?
Yes. well we're ALL glad that that's not the case now aren't we?
I'm going for a shower.
More later.
Wanna Buy This House?
The House Does NOT want to be sold
This morning I dashed down to the basement to get some undies for the day and I noticed plaster and 'stuff' all over the dining room floor. It would seem that we have a leak in the plubming in the bathroom and now the ceiling has, well, fallen in. Shit.
BUGGER
FUCK
DAMN
BOLLIX
SHITE
ARSE
It would seem our house does not want to be sold. Anyway, here we are. The house is temporarily off the market (obviously!) and we'll see about repairs on the weekend. But I would venture a guess that we'll not get it back on the market before the spring (just 'cos if we don't get it back up by november, there's no point in trying to sell it as we approach the holidays).
So there you go.(i'll take pics later and show youse)
Why the Public Service Sucks
The public service sucks. And here's why. they use language like this:
In Phases One and Two, we engaged research consultants to examine the landscape of capacity building services in Ontario, to engage funders in a dialogue about what their grantees need from capacity builders, and to look at the form and function of the core members of the OCBN.In Phase Three, we reviewed the outcomes of the previous phases and reaffirmed a commitment to build a comprehensive catalogue of capacity builders across Ontario that is accessible to both capacity builders and those seeking capacity building services.
but fortunately I have Hamish (son of a public servant) to translate:
We thought about stuff, thought about what we were thinking about, then thought about all that and confirmed that we had been thinking about something.
Osedax mucofloris
Don't worry, I'm not turning into Heipel, I just love this name. Scientists discovered this thing in the North Sea. It's called: Osedax mucofloris, which literally means "bone-eating snot-flower"
haha. oh I amuse myself.
Mustapha Kunt
This was received today from PJ. It's a document recently released from the archives of the the British Government. It was written during the second world war by the UK ambassador to Russia. Click on it to get a larger image and read the text.
Comedy
It's odd how things happen in clumps (threes maybe?) last week I bought tickets someone at work was selling to go see Jon Stewart do stand-up at Massey Hall in Toronto. And then last night we went to a bar downtown on King St. to see an open mic night.
Jon Stewart was very very funny (well for $90 he should be) and he's a pro so it's what you expect. He was really quite masterful at working the room. Which, considering the room was a 900 seat theatre, was impressive.
Last night we went to Betty's (a bar that used to be called the Betty Ford, but got sued by the famous clinic and therefore stopped using that name) to see Corktown Comedy (corktown beeing the neighborhood it's in). Being open mic night the range of talent was quite broad. There were of course, the excruciatingly bad and the shockingly good as well. It was free and wortht the 50 bucks we spent on drinks and burgers. We were there because a friend of ours was doing her stand up. She's someone who I got into a conversation with at a party last year about this. We talked and I realised(remembered) that I wanted to try it. After 10 months of thinking about it, I'm a bit closer to actually doing something about it. so last night was my first foray into the world of comedy. Of course I didn't perform, but I know I will. And before the end of this year too.
***
In th past I have found myself saying, when the option or the possibility came up, that I could never go live in this or that small city or rural place. I didn't want to leave the bright lights and big city. Thinking about it however, for someone who lives in the most cosmpolitan, multicultural city in the country, with theatre, comedy, bars, bands, dance, art coming out the proverbial wazoo. And I see almost none of it. It's sad really. I have always thought that I could never live in some small city with one gay bar. But as I consider it, I really only go to ONE gay bar. I swear the only thing I would probably actually miss if I left Toronto would be the restaurants. It's about the only thing I do see a lot of.
So my committment for the rest of the year is to see as much as possible of what the city has. Not necessarily go out more. Because I do go out a lot. But to just make different choices. So no more of the same old same old. For the rest of the year i'm going to make an effort, when going out, to choose something I haven't before. Anyone wanna come?
Blogger Sucks
Blogger is worth exactly as much as we pay for it.
I'm Pissed Off
Really, that's the gist of it. I'm pissed off. I'm cranky about the whole house selling thing. I hate that there's nothing to do, just wait. I'm pissed at our sales guy whose strategy (it seems to me) is to put the house up for sale and then wait. This in fact, seems to be the entire strategy for anyone selling a house these days. Which really leaves me feeling a tad ripped off at the eight to ten thousand dollars that we're paying for that particular end of the deal.
I'm cranky too with myself for being cranky and being the only one who thinks that this sucks. Eric and I got into it tonight about it. He's pissed at me for being pissed, and I'm pissed at him for not being pissed. Feeds rather nicely into one of our favourite relationship-pathologies as it happens.
For more than a year, in fact, nearly two, we've been thinking of selling. For six months we've worked towards it, now it's for sale and the dumb cunts who walk through here won't buy it. So I'm cranky.
I'm sorry this blog entry doesn't leave you feeling perky. It's funny that Joe and I were talking about Hamish's blog today. I would say that if I were Hame I would have worked through where I am with this and presented you with the results. Great for him that he can do it. I can't. So instead you get me pissed. That's it.
More REAL Real Estate
From Steve:
Cheery: The forensic team did a pretty good job of removing the remains of the previous owners who were violently killed in the foyer.
Just Steps to Schools: 16-year-old Grade 7 students do drug deals on your front yard.
Huge Pantry: Spelling error in the listing, the seller's wife actually has a huge ass
REAL real estate
I just sent this as an email to Jane, but I figured I'd put it up here too. It's the beginning of a much longer list. After looking for houses the first time we bought in Toronto we discovered that the gulf between what a house listing says and what the reality of the property is, is HUGE. It can actually be comical. "Fixer-upper" means it's a shit-hole that is only still standing out of habit. "charming" often means the last owner used a colour-blind schizophrenic as a decorator.
So you cope by translating in your head, even before you go see the thouse. For years now i've been threatening to write down my list of translated terms. I'm sure someone someplace on the internet has done this or something like it, I don't care. Here's my list. It'll get bigger i'm sure as time goes on, and as we go see more houses. oh and feel free to contribute your own by either emailing me, or commenting. I'll throw them up here as I have time.
Bright: "six 100watt light bulbs, but no windows"
Spacious: "open concept, no walls, electric heating.
Cozy: "so small that the 'fitted' broadloom is actually a welcome mat"
Close to everything: "under a highway overpass"
Handyman Special: "Would be condemned in a bario in brazil"
Nanny Suite: "the last couple kept a filipina locked in the furnace room, you could too."
Needs updating: Harvest Gold Fridge and Avocado Stove stuck to cracking �Conquistador Chic� Patterned Linoleum. (From Jane)
Spectacles
This weekend was the first one in many months where we didn't do anything on the house. Of course this was because the house is now for sale and we couldn't do anything on the house. Needless to say i'm fucking happy about that.
Instead I went out and had a meeting with a freelance client (yes I still do a bit of moonlighting). The client, who we'll call Dr. Dick, is an MD who does penis enlargement, fixes erectile disfunction and other 'male' problems. It's fascinating stuff and no, to answer the question burning in your minds, we're not working for barter. Talking to him over coffee in a Tim Horton's was fun, I'm quite sure the patrons sitting near us were quite interested in our conversation. At one point he was talking about his colleague, the fellow who invented and patented a lot of the procedures they use, and he said something like "Ken has seen more erect penises than probably any man around, from a statistical point of view he knows what he's talking about." Ahem. I know some people who would likely be in the running for that distinction. Hell, I think I am.
However. So that was my Saturday. On Sunday we all trooped up to Pacific Mall, a little outpost of Hong Kong just north of Toronto. I got myself new glasses. They'll be ready in about a week. I brought Steve, Joe and Eric with me to help me choose. I think this is important to do; glasses are not something that you can buy in isolation. For one thing you can't see yourself properly in them (I'm quite blind without my own ones on) and for another, you just need opinions of those who'll be forced to stare at you in them. So I brought them along. It's funny, I always want to go a bit more funky. Steve's generally ok with that. In fact he encourages it. Joe too, but they don't have to stare at me all the damn time. The problem is Eric tends to be a bit conservative in these matters (and a few others besides) and isn't shy about saying that he thinks they don't work. I find that a bit frustrating sometimes; wanting to change something or make a bold statement only to be told it doesn't work. I end up feeling bland or boring sometimes. I wish i could step out and do something weird. However I think I ended up witha pretty cool pair of glasses. I was down to deciding between two pairs and the part that pushed me over the edge was not that one pair was better but that the other pair, which looked great on me, also looked great on Steve, Joe and Eric. Thereby proving the salesgirl's point that they're the kind of glasses that look good on anyone (which I interpreted to mean 'common'). The other pair looked like shite on them, but good on me (we're calling that unique).
I'll put a pic on the blog next week or so when they are ready.
************
Not much else to report. Near as I can figure about 15-20 people came to see the house this weekend all told. Tonight is the first night we're officially accepting offers, so we'll see. I have not much hope that we'll actually get an offer today. I'm figuring that anything under a month to sell it is pretty good. I sure as fuck hope we get rid of it quickly. We have still not seen any other places (just house-porn surfing) but we might go visit one or two this week to whet our appetite.
