When you misdial the last four digits of your esthetician’s phone number as -0300 instead of -0030, the woman at Atlas Yachts will be very confused when you don’t listen to her greeting and just launch into a request for a Brazilian Wax appointment.

Why is it that the very second you’re trapped in an elevator (no matter how short the entrapment) your first two thoughts are “I’m thirsty” and “I need to pee” even though the concepts contradict, and neither statement was true 3 seconds prior.

Getting rid of my festive halloween shirt in a fit of “I’m sick of packing” pique last summer seemed like a good idea. Now, not so much. Not because I want to wear it myself today, but because I’m pretty sure it would have fit the dog.

I have a really fun blog post to share, but it involves scanning and uploading and clever commentary, and I’m always just a bit too tired when I get home to bother with it. I need some motivation.

And because I’m so good at following through with my blog promises (I don’t do it on purpose, I just forget!), I figuredperhaps the appropriate motivation will come if I sign up for this. So I did. That’s right - one post every day. Even weekends! Oy. We’ll see if I make it past November 2nd.

According to some, my blog is “dead boring” now that I don’t have men puking over my balcony every other weekend. Here’s to a month of quantity over quality, hopefully something amusing also comes out of it!

I want to give you a good car-life, I really, really do!

I got you inspected before buying you a little over a year ago, and other than that seemingly small pulley issue that the dealership said they’d fixed, you checked out A-ok.

Well today marked the day I paid more in repairs for you, in only 18 months, than I paid for you!

That pulley cost over $500 to finally fix properly.

But I suppose it wasn’t soon enough for you, because you rebelled with your broken crankshaft. It’s ok, I didn’t need that $900 at Christmastime anyway.

So I was good to you. I spend about $1500 more on oil changes, filter changes, tune-ups, spark plugs, a new battery, radiator, transmission and brake fluid flushes.

I even went and got you fixed up right away when that idiot backed into you.

And this is how you repay me?

A NINETEEN-HUNDRED DOLLAR TRANSMISSION REBUILD?

Fuck you car.

This is it. Anything else goes wrong, I’m pushing you off a damn cliff into the ocean.

Jonathan posted on Metroblogging Vancouver yesterday regarding his opinion on having a dog in an apartment building.

Vancouver’s no-pets-in-the-building policy is probably a good thing. If people want a dog, they should at least have a house with a yard or public park across the street.

It’s an opinion I hear a lot from people who feel “sorry” for my dog, because she lives in an apartment.

That’s bullshit.

I’ve lived in both apartments and houses with dogs of all sizes, and I can say that it absolutely DOES NOT MATTER what kind of home you inhabit with a dog, you have to exercise them. Putting a dog out in the yard does not guarantee they’re exercising.

I’d actually argue that dogs who live in homes with yards don’t get as much exercise as they should. I know that personally I was FAR more likely to just let the dog out the back door to do its business rather than actually go play outside with it, or take it for a walk around the neighbourhood or to the park every day as I do now.

And I can’t vouch for Mt. Pleasant, but there are a LOT of parks in areas of Vancouver that I’m familiar with. No, there isn’t one immediately across the street from me. But there is one across the street and two blocks west, one a block behind me, and another park across the street from that. Every neighbourhood I’ve explored has at least a public grassy patch every 5 blocks or so. It’s probably better for the dog, and the owner, to have to walk an extra block or two to get to it.

My dog’s trainer actually recommends AGAINST yards for dogs. Sure, a yard is great if you go out there with the animal, but putting them outside alone is a horrible idea. That’s where the poor dog is antaganized by any amount of neighbourhood cats and wildlife, and feels he/she must defend the yard as part of his/her territory. If a person is going to be a good dog owner, it doesn’t matter if the grassy patch is attached to the house or a 6 block hike away - the person must accompany the dog.

Having a dog is far more like having a toddler than having an animal. They’re about as smart as a 3-year old, and need stimulation and interaction in order to flourish and not become destructive and start yelling (barking) and pooping in corners just for the hell of it. The day someone agrees that it’s cruel to have a child in an apartment because they don’t have a yard to play in is the day I’ll agree with the same argument for dogs.

I think his other points are relevant - non-dog people have just as much right to live in a non-dog building as dog-people do to live in a dog-friendly building. I wouldn’t move into a condo complex knowing that strata bylaws state “no dogs” if I wanted a dog to be in my future. If it were that important to me, I’d be putting “dog-friendly” on my list of must-haves right next to 2 full bathrooms and garburator. I’m not about to be a strata-council rabble-rouser to try and bring dogs where none have gone before. People have as much right to live dog-free as those who live in “adult only” complexes have to live child-free.

But the type of house someone lives in is NOT a valid qualifier to determine whether or not they’re a good dog owner (or parent), and is not a valid argument for banning dogs from apartment buildings.

Were I to be a Strata Council renegate, I’d far rather get on the council at the new place, and try to put in a clause that bans judgemental ignorami (not that Jonathan’s necessarily one - I don’t know him from Adam - he just planted the seed to ignite my wrath) from living there.

I’m surprised I haven’t seen this on Craigslist yet, so I figured I’d put it here myself.

You: Hot, short-haired girl in grey slacks, black pumps and a black sweater, carrying take-out across the intersection of Broadway at Oak.

Me: Dude on the bus stopped at the intersection.

That was a pretty fantastic trip you took, getting the pointy toe of your shoe caught in the opening of your opposite pant leg. Even more fantastic was the fact that you managed to not quite fall on your face, or spill your sushi.

Nice recovery. Drinks?

The man and I were kindof bored last night.

TV wasn’t interesting, it was raining outside, books weren’t satisfying our restless need to do something.

So we did this.

That’s right.

We’re now the couple who sits at home on a Wednesday night and does the Crossword Puzzle together.

Good thing we finished before our 8:00pm bedtime!

Chris posted yesterday about why he thinks MythTV is a better PVR solution for him than TiVo. I was responding in his comments, but I got a little longwinded and decided to post my response here instead.

Read his post first, then read this knowing that I love my TiVo, probably inappropriately, and Chris is a geek to the n^th degree who really enjoys hacking and subverting “the man’s” commercial grip on the world (and I say that admirably!).

I don’t doubt that MythTV is better for some but I’d still argue that you fit into a very small niche for whom that applies. For the sake of this particular discussion, I’ll assume that one can get all the necessary MythTV hardware (an entire, functional box, assuming one would have to procure all these things) and have the software installed for less than $300CAD and the cost of 1h of labour (which is how long it took me to setup my TiVo out of the box, including time waiting for software downloads to complete).

However, for most people the Linux (or even basic computer assembly & setup) know-how alone already puts that option out of reach. Of course, based entirely on personal experience, someone who does have the Linux knowledge generally also has enough spare computer parts hanging around to make it work….

But! back to features…

The most significant thing you’ve listed so far that TiVo doesn’t have is the index of console games. It does have a bunch of Yahoo games (bejeweled, etc.) built in, but I have yet to try them out. Ditto with the photo gallery - it may offer zoom and rotation options, but I haven’t tried those yet. Those aren’t important functions for me to have on my TV - and I hung up my video gaming hat after I couldn’t pass Level 3 at Echo the Dolphin for Sega Genesis.

I can listen to streaming audio and mp3s on the TiVo through the shared home network, and transfer files off the TiVo onto my PC (no Mac software yet, bad TiVo!), but I don’t know about transferring other content onto the TV through it.

Though you state you don’t have any use for it, I’ve found the wishlist feature HIGHLY useful in my experience. It took a while, because I started off always having far more TV recorded than I could possibly watch, though having had a PVR for about a year now, I’ve really evolved my recording habits to more closely match my PVR experience. Now I use it if there’s a particular actor I like or a show I know is coming to Canadian Cable eventually but hasn’t made it onto the programming grid yet, and I can rest assured I won’t miss him/her/it.

The other big feature that MythTV doesn’t offer is profiling. With TiVo I can give all the shows I encounter 1-3 thumbs up or down, and TiVo will additionally record its own TiVo suggestions based on my input on likes or dislikes (and you’re right - these should be advertised on the main site! They used to be…). I’ve discovered some great TV that way without even knowing it existed (Weeds was one such suggestion, Boston Legal was another - arguably my two favourite shows), which I’m pretty grateful to TiVo for. It also caught Neil’s preferences and started recording Monty Python’s Flying Circus (which I’m not quite as grateful for - but those are the compromises you make in a relationship). As far as I know, this is the “big thing” that sets TiVo apart as a bona-fide service over any other PVR device out there, as nobody else offers it.

I also didn’t see on their website if MythTV does automatic firmware upgrades. TiVo does.

Now about that monthly subscription fee. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who say “why build it when I can buy it” and those who say “why buy it when I can build it.” Neil and I happen to be the former (which is why, despite his knowledge and our collection of extraneous computer equipment, we have TiVo instead). Financial guy David Bach (Finish Rich Books) said “calculate your hourly wage - if you can hire someone to do the things that keep you from being the best you can be at your $work for less than your hourly wage, you should. Then you can focus on getting that raise, promotion, etc. while someone else scrubs the toilets.” Whether that involves being able to rest so you’re fresh to think about being innovative at work, or freeing up time to hack at some extracurricular project you’ve been working on that will expand your $work related knowledge, it makes sense to me.

You may enjoy hacking at and customizing your MythTV box, but again I’d suggest that’s a trait more unique to the niche that would use MythTV. And knowing your approximate salary range, you’d have to spend less than 1 hour per month working on the MythTV box before it became “more expensive” for you than subscribing to TiVo.

What I’ve figured out most about all this is that MythTV seems to be a product designed to appeal to those who really enjoy a computer-based multimedia experience and want to add manipulating broadcast television to that experience.

TiVo is for those who really enjoy Television, and want to enhance their TV-based multimedia experience with an out-of-the-box solution that “just works.”

Much to my surprise, I received a call from friendly Kurt at the Home Depot on Sunday afternoon (a customer service call on a Sunday!).

I calmly and rationally explained my experience, and told Kurt my major disappointment was in the fact that they couldn’t do a straight exchange for the item, requiring me to a) subject myself to further inconvenience with the shipping company and b) wait 3-4 weeks to actually receive my (hopefully undamaged) product.

Kurt listened politely and we chatted and settled a few things.

1. The shipping company (contracted by UPS) is supposed to offer everyone a 30 minute delivery window up until 7:00pm Monday-Friday. Not mentioning that and then showing up over an hour late is completely unacceptable. Home Depot just dumped Purolator for similar issues, and will be launching a formal complaint with UPS because of this.

2. My feedback on their return policy has been recorded and will be passed on, for whatever that’s worth. They are currently working on an inventory interface that will allow homedepot.ca orders to be facilitated through local stores, but they’re not there yet. Fair enough. Because of my feedback and situation, Kurt assured me that though it’s not their policy at this time, they’ll ensure my exchange is quick and easy (and not requiring multiple shipments) or facilitate the pickup and issue me a credit for the order.

3. As an additional good faith measure by Home Depot, I have also been offered 10% off my next order online up to $100. When all I was expecting was for someone to hear and acknowledge my complaint, and to fix the situation, the additional offer to incent me to shop again at homedepot.ca (and hopefully have a better experience) was unexpected, welcome, and really smart on their end.

And how did I manage to complain my way into this? I had a valid issue, I politely and immediately asked the lowest rung on the call centre ladder to either speak to someone, or have them call me back as soon as possible about my issue, and I stuck to the facts, rather than the emotion behind my the delay in having my precious yuppy wine fridge (because even I wouldn’t take me seriously if I were whining about that). There’s no point in trying to deal with the person who answers the phone, and sometimes the person with the decision making power to help you isn’t available right away. The more polite you are in trying to get to the right person, the faster that usually happens, and the more amenable they usually are to talking with you.

So far so good Home Depot. You’re nearly forgiven. We’ll see how this all plays out and I’ll update again with the final resolution.

After our adventures in Bordeaux buying, the man and I decided to buy a wine fridge after all. Hooray!

Except, not so much.

We ordered online from the Home Despot (yes, despot), and hoped our fridge would arrive in fairly short order. Worst decision ever.

After a couple days, I received an email that my order had shipped. I tried to track it online, but no dice. I called the Home Depot to ask why it wasn’t working, when I was informed that it was being shipped by a “Common Carrier” and couldn’t be tracked online. Could I have the name or contact information of the carrier? Of course not. Despite multiple requests.

The only thing I was ever told was that the carrier (who would insist on remaining nameless) would contact me 24-48 hours before delivery to arrange a time to receive the order. Fine then.

I received a very cordial call from the freight company and set up a delivery time. Not a convenient one, but a time nonetheless. Between 11am and 1pm on Friday. So I went into work early, and packed myself up to get home by 11am to work from home and wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

Until 2:09pm.

That’s when I got a faint knock on the door. The delivery driver was there, saying my buzzer didn’t work. Too bad he tried the wrong buzzer entirely, even though the correct number was written on the delivery slip. No matter, the fridge is here!

Fridge is unloaded, delivery guy leaves, I rip open the packaging like a kid on Christmas!

And find…. the dent.

A huge unsightly gash in the side of my pristine fridge!

So I call the Home Depot, which is where they had a chance to make things right, and instead did absolutely everything wrong.

I’m instructed to keep the original packaging (have you seen how much stuff comes packaged with a fridge? I’m going to have to sleep with the stuff!) and the carrier will be instructed to contact me to set up a time to pick up the busted up appliance. There goes another few hours off work.

But instead of sending another fridge to a valuable customer in good faith to exchange the units, the Home Despot insists on waiting for the broken unit to arrive back in their Burlington ON warehouse (a mere 4500 kms away) before sending the replacememt back across the country to me.

No, there is apparently no way around this. I can’t work with a local store to make a swap, and there’s no way they’ll send a whole extra unit (I mean, I’m sure having that extra $250 out of the warehouse makes a HUGE dent in their bottom line, right?) as a replacement at the same time as the pickup.

I replied that I would arrange a time for them to pick up the fridge and would like them to promptly cancel my order. It took two weeks to get the original fridge, I’ll be damned if I’m going to take yet ANOTHER day off on top of the return pick-up and wait about four weeks to receive an appliance I can get at innumerable other places.

I also asked for a supervisor or customer service person of some sort to contact me to discuss the issue, since I find it all pretty ridiculous, and I’m hoping that someone other than their friendly but ultimately useless call centre monkeys can actually find a reasonable solution to the issue.

Considering the speed and concern with which my issues about the neverending bathroom reno were addressed (read: none) I don’t have high hopes.

Until then, no more Home Despot for me. I’ll pay more and shop around elsewhere if it means avoiding supporting such terrible practices.

In the meantime, I think I’ll crack open one of the bottles of currently un-refrigerated wine, and weep.

Right. Still here.

Turns out I did get sick on Thursday (that’d be the 5th for those playing along at home) and spent the day on the couch. I’m still not really better per se, but it was nice to get the day of rest in, and that along with the 3-day weekend means I’ve made it through the following week relatively unscathed.

I’m still not sleeping well though.

I think that has less to do with me, and more to do with the fact that we’ve decided to start crating the dog at night.

I am going to be a horrible parent. I should reserve my spot on Nanny 911 now

Our issue with the animal is that she’s decided that she’d prefer to eat twice a day - once at 10:00pm and once at 2:00am. And she is a NOISY eater. Then, after crunching and slobbering her way through 4 cups of dry kibble, she needs to slurp at a gallon of water.

If she’s not eating her kibble at 2am, she’s either rummaging through the bathroom garbage, or trying to take up the lion’s share of the space on our bed. It’s got to stop.

So now, instead of random disturbance destruction in the middle of the night, we’re treated to scuttling and whining. The damn dog doesn’t like to be alone in the dark (remember, she’s afraid of EVERYTHING).

Logically I know she’s just being a giant pain and doing what she can to be let out to roam free (which she does during the day, except she uses the time to sleep on the couch instead of eating or drinking or being any sort of destructive). But my poor black little heart, it gets ALL EFFING TORN UP when I hear her pitiful cries because all she wants is to snuggle with her mommy and maybe just one night won’t hurt and maybe she’ll be good tomorrow and OH GOD WHAT HAVE I BECOME?

So yah.

Not blogging, not sleeping.

I would feel guilty about the not blogging thing, but as you can see, all my guilt is currently being used up at the moment because I’m a horrible mother.

I do believe I’m getting sick.

I have perpetually dry eyes, a cough, exhaustion, sniffles - I figured it was just a matter of time.

Problem is, I haven’t had the time to slow down enough to just get sick! I was really feeling ill on Friday, had a busy weekend, and was a mess on Monday.

I figured Tuesday or Wednesday morning I’d be down for the count.

But nooooooooo.

So far, I still feel just fuzzy and off enough to be annoyed, but not actually sick.

Anyone have any ideas of what I can do to fully bring on some sort of plague, complete with raw, runny nose, body aches, and maybe a bronchial rattle?

I figure the sooner I get sick, the sooner I can hurry up and feel better.

Because this cold and flu season purgatory really sucks.

Scene: Morning in the Watkiss/Wiederick household.

The boy has just made coffee and delivered it to the girl, who has turned on the morning news and thrown some sort of squeaking, slobbery something across the room for the umpteenth time to avoid a storm of morningdogbreath kisses.

The coffee has led to cuddling, which has led to canoodling, which has led to… well… let’s keep this one PG for the kids out there.

Suddenly, it happens.

CHAOS ERUPTS!

That goddamn Mini Wheats commercial is on AGAIN!

Suddenly both humans in the room propel themselves violently into action in a frantic search for the remote control!

The suddenly frightened dog whines and cowers behind the door.

SUCCESS!

Remote found!

Commercial Muted!

Unfortunately not before that goddamned theme song is firmly stuck in the girl’s head for the rest of the day.

Miiiiiiiiii Niiiiiiiii FUCK FUCK FUCK.