I just got off the phone with our landlady, who is in town from Dallas to deal with the downstairs tenants. It was my belief that her “dealing-with” would involve handing them their eviction notice. But she talked to the mother (who claimed to be in the hospital with a broken leg and that was her reason for not being around) this morning, and is now talking about reconciliation and how they have (again) promised to abide by house rules and keep the music down. The mother even claimed that her son’s stereo *broke* and can’t be played loud any more. This is odd because it was loud LAST NIGHT and if she’s in the hospital I’m not sure how she’d know that it broke this morning.
Ok, fuck odd, I don’t believe it for a second. The mother doesn’t even live downstairs any more and I only know she’s around when her welfare cheque arrives.
They’re constantly screaming at each other, playing music ridiculously loud, smoking in the house (which filters up through the vents and stinks up my place), and whenever any kind of money arrives they’re having their friends over for a party.
The landlady is on her way over now to give me a printed 30 day notice for them if they don’t “keep up their end of the bargain” which they already haven’t, for FIVE MONTHS. She’s basically been convinced by the mother downstairs that it’s all a misunderstanding and that from now on things will be better. I haven’t even been keeping track of all the bullshit I’ve put up with in the past month because I was told these assholes were moving out December first.
Did I mention there’s a goddamned shopping cart outside their door? Yes, that’s right, they steal shopping carts to get their groceries home.
Anybody got a house for rent? Looks like I’m scouring Craigslist over the next while. To hell with this house and to hell with the downstairs tenants.
When I first heard about the “Quebec as a nation within Canada” thing, I thought it was a joke. Then I thought Harper had gone insane.
But now it’s passed? And not just passed, but with a 266-16 vote? What the fucking hell? Are politicians so stupid and self-serving that they will sacrifice this entire nation to ensure they win the next election? Because that’s all this was — a power play end-run on a Bloc Quebecois motion to recognize Quebec as a nation. Both parties knew that anyone who voted against it would lose support in Quebec, so they did what they felt was the safe thing and screwed up the motion to mean less (though not, I fear, nothing) and then all happily voted for it and now are probably patting themselves on the back for it.
But now it’s out there, you morons! It’s a step, and a step in absolutely positively the wrong direction for this country and you did it not because it was the right thing to do for Canada, but for yourselves. Fuck every single one of you assholes in parliament who voted for this.
I thought I’d posted this a while ago, but couldn’t find it in my own archives. Oh well, if it’s a repeat it’s a good one
Mel and some friends and I decided to go catch the 7:40 showing of Casino Royale last night at Metrotown. We knew we’d have to get there early to get tickets and decent seats, so Mel & I went at about 6, picked up tickets and then wandered through the Mall. Boy there’s nothing there I want to buy. Well, that’s true of anywhere that doesn’t have cheap widescreen Plasma TVs and maybe the Nintendo Wii in stock. But I digress…
We returned to the theatre just before 7, thinking we had plenty of time to get in line. 40 minutes, right? WRONG. Between us and the entrance to the theatre was a massive throng of humanity. Probably 80% of the theatre’s maximum population stood in a thick line that snaked back and forth.
Then I got a call from Pat, who had just arrived to find out they were sold out. And then Jen called, and she hadn’t even left yet!
We ended up selling off our tickets to an asian gentleman who was really excited that he got them. We even made a whopping 10 cent profit ($10.95/ticket and he gave us $22) so at least it wasn’t all bad.
I really do hate going out to see movies. I need to make enough money to justify buying a 50″ Plasma so we can just forget about going out except to the very finest of movies, and only then sneaking out on some weekday or during a matinee when we don’t have to get stuck in the crowd.
It’s odd, isn’t it? The crowd is profit for the industry, but it’s driving away further profit. I’m sure an economist somewhere is calculating the best middleground for crowdedness/comfort for maximum profit. Looking at it this way, I can see an argument that a lot of the DVD market is people who would have normally just given up completely on seeing movies because of the hassle involved.
Yesterday was Welfare Wednesday, so of course today we have the mother back in the house (she only shows up to pick up her cheque) and the screaming match has begun. She’s gone totally mental, screaming almost incoherently “YOU TOOK MY SON AWAY! YOU STOLE MY SON!” over and over again. I don’t know if she’s talking to her son’s boyfriend, or to her own ex-boyfriend who for some stupid reason still lives downstairs and she doesn’t.
I know she gets money from the government for taking care of her (adult) son because he gets seizures and can’t work. My guess is that he’s told her that he’s moving out to live with his girlfriend and that she’ll start getting the sweet government money to care for him rather than his mom.
You would not believe that someone can scream like that for a full thirty minutes.
I just keep telling myself “seven more days and they’re gone, seven more days and they’re gone” over and over again. I’m pretty sure I’m never going to see their share of they heat/hydro bills. And if I don’t, how do you sue someone who has no money and no job?
I think it’s just the head-tilt on some of them…
Got this from my fellow now-skinny buddy BhagwanX
This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you’ve read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.
- The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (I can only get about halfway through the second book — love the movies though!)
- The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov*
- Dune, Frank Herbert*
- Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein*
- A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
- Neuromancer, William Gibson*
- Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
- The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
- Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
- The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
- A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
- The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov*
- Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
- Cities in Flight, James Blish
- The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
- Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison*
- Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison*
- The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
- Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
- Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
- Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card*
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson- The Forever War, Joe Haldeman*
- Gateway, Frederik Pohl*
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling*
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
- I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
- Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
- Little, Big, John Crowley
- Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
- The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
- Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
- More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
- The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
- On the Beach, Nevil Shute
- Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
- Ringworld, Larry Niven
- Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
- The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
- Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson*
- Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
- The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
- Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein*
- Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock*
- The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
- Timescape, Gregory Benford
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
Well, from one fake promo for an upcoming superhero movie, to a real trailer!
The Spiderman 3 Trailer is up at retrocrush, and it’s awesome! In a measly two and a half minutes they pack in more actual superheroics than Superman Returns did in two and a half HOURS.
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