House

There's finally news on the Ottawa front - Jorghnassen and I took possession of a house. That is, we did not overwhelm and tearfully bully an innocent bystander out of his or her domicile. We did, however, legitimately purchase a residence in Gatineau that is more likely to be permanent than the other places we've been living at in the last several years.

Before I get all mushy about the move (and divulge more details about it), let me show you my house. (*This is the realtor's photo.)
*
Right now there's nothing inside, as the previous owner had just moved out of the house yesterday and I finally stepped inside the thing for the first time ever. We drove from Montreal to Ottawa to arrive to find the ever-efficient and handy Mme Emond and Hector waiting outside for us, to report that the house was indeed empty and they were ready to start fixing up, cleaning and painting our house. Fantastic!

There are no real complaints about the house itself. It's got its quirks and such that Jorgh noticed after an empty house examination, such as curved walls, a completely lit basement with one switch, and cables running through every room from holes drilled through floors and walls:

I suppose it just means there's more places for TVs to be found in the house. Not that I'd want a TV in every room. Oh, by the way:

...walk-in closet. Or room-sized closet.

We hope our paint colour choices will not be distasteful. For instance, quick sloppy 'shop jobs (and not sure what the actual colours are anymore):


Boy, my 'shop skillz teh suXX0rs.

To be fair, I did drive 8 hours back to Waterloo after visiting, and I had to get a coffee to get through the last hour because we were both falling asleep. Which also explains such a late post.

Montreal-Bound

I'm ditching this hole for Montreal tomorrow for Kathy and M-C's wedding on that lucky day. I'll be staying at my sister's place, so don't nobody do nutin' until I get there. Yeah, I'm a narcissist.

The dying throes of the Cheap Lamp Made in China

#@$% it, I'm tired of everything around me breaking.

As far as I know...

This is the floor plan for where we are going to be living. Actually, it's not. It's a guess as far as I know, from the limited photos available from Jorghnassen, the inspector, and the realtor's web site. I seriously have no idea what it looks like.

Anyway, there's three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, and a finished basement. Not only that, but there's enough patio and patio windows to complain that there's too much. Oh, what will we do with so much BBQ space??? Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

Jorgh mentioned that there's a possibility of making a third washroom in the basement, thereby completing the trifecta of places to run for toilet emergencies when your two other washrooms are occupied for some reason when there's only two people living in the whole house. I am against this prospective washroom because then that would make it three toilets to scrub. I already hate doing one.

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In the meantime, while Jorgh and his parents have been busy taking care of absolutely everything else about the house, I've been assigned the task of finding a mover who will not break our stuff transporting it to Gatineau. On one hand, it's not hard to find a mover. On the other hand, it's quite difficult to find the mover who will agree to:

• Not be a douche and move our shit across the provincial boundary (I know, Ottawa-Gatineau?)


• Come to the apartment and actually look at the stuff to be moved to give an estimate


• Come over to our apartment to give a written estimate that isn't ridiculously huge


• Call back after the estimate and say that their written estimate will be ready to be emailed, even though it was written down in front of you while they were here.

I'm just about ready to pick the movers once they actually do the last point.

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It's very odd to find polite people wherever you go in a city, but (as long as I'm not driving) everyone here has been exceptionally friendly and wonderfully courteous. There really is a small-town feel when I'm going around town, even though it's been reported that this area is actually expanding too quickly for its water supply to catch up with.

If there's anything I'd miss about Waterloo, it's the way people actually regarded each other in their everyday interactions. Except while driving. They're polite, patient, and very friendly. Except while driving. They're very quaint, what with their Mennonites and farmers markets and small community strawberry and apple festivals and their warped ideas about cheeses... so adorable. Except while driving. They go as far as helping a stupid woman take care of her windshield wipers, bringing her to a "mall" when asked, and tolerating our every single critique when we were looking for edible food.

On the other hand, the one thing I will not miss is the food and restaurant choices. This guy puts it more succinctly: "More than half the times I think I haven't got the energy to cook, N suggests we eat out, I run over the possibilities in my mind, and then I get up and cook a meal."

Mind you, I enjoy the few places that Jorgh and I visited, like Raintree Cafe and Sakura Island, but for mind-blowingly awesome you'd really have to go back to larger and/or more diverse cities. Or where they know what a loaf of bread looks like.

Thank you, Waterloo, for teaching me to be less lazy in cooking meals at home because you have no viable alternatives.

And thank you, Waterloo, for teaching me that drivers are just as crazy here as they are in Quebec. I don't feel so bad anymore.

The dying throes of the GPS Unit

I have the video of the exact moment the GPS unit's switch broke. That was the time that I gave the keynote speech for graduation. At the end of the speech, I played a song (if you still don't know what it is, you fail HARD) with an mp3 accompaniment playing on the GPS unit. The unit is notoriously hard to turn on and off because the face of the switch is like a floating pancake with a toothpick under it, and the electronic component of the switch is like a ROCK. The toothpick has to push the rock hard enough not to break.

Well, right at that last time I turned off the accompaniment to the song, the rock got unseated from its circuit board, and now no pressing of the pancake will ever turn it on unless someone managed to resolder the stupid thing.

It also turns out that nobody in Canada will service this thing, and the only way that this gift from Jorgh's father (through credit card rewards) can be fixed is if we exchange it at the point-of-sale. Which would be great if there were a point-of-sale. Nobody sells this unit.

Once my batteries have finished charging, I will show you what miracles have (temporarily) revived the GPS unit, and you can decide whether it should be used like this from now on or not.

The dying throes of the Breadmaker

Another stupid thing that happened just last night was that one of the two paddles of the breadmaker decided to not want to turn anymore. I know, you're wondering, "How does an appliance decide it doesn't want to work for you anymore?" It's simple - appliances are designed to not give a flying fork about humans. They are programmed by their masters (inhuman human beings) to flip you the birdie when the time is right: while you are using them.

Anyway, I withheld taking it apart today to see what is wrong until I can find out if I can get this thing serviced.

The dying throes of the Tablet

Strangely enough, a Wacom Graphire 2 tablet mouse can last a million falling-on-the-hard-ground episodes, can be clicked hard enough to become slightly inoperable if not for a convenient jimmy with a piece of paper, and can be used for nearly 8 years... but if you use the scroll wheel just a little too much it suddenly doesn't want to work for you no more. :(

Here's a brief review of my tablet's condition:

Its pen works perfectly fine, but I discovered that the pen mouse driver for this computer doesn't work for DOS games that have mouse capabilities. Its tablet interface is still quite workable, if only for a few scratches and the plastic covering wearing down over the last several years. Its mouse, as stated above, even keeps trucking along while pieces of plastic slowly degrade over time.

I periodically explore the possibilities of buying spare parts for my tablet, but it really hasn't been in need of one until today. It seems that Wacom discontinued the Graphire-with-the-wire line a long time ago. On top of that, nobody sells the Graphire 2, 3, or 4 parts, in favour of the newer Bamboo or Cintiq models. I don't even know if they have Intuos parts but it doesn't matter as none of those are even compatible with my tablet.

There was a time when Wacom's direct site did sell parts but only to the US. No possibility of shipping to Canada, even though we're closer to ship here than if someone wanted to order from, oh, say Alaska or something just as logical.

Nobody sells it online either, even on eBay (if I had ever been inclined to buy from there having had a brain transplant or hell froze over).

It looks like I might have to bid my mouse farewell. All over a stupid scroll wheel... :(

ADDENDUM: After taking it apart and looking very intently at the innards, I discovered that it is indeed unrepairable unless I suddenly gained the ability to mold unbreakable plastic and rubber parts about 5 mm in diameter.

EDIT: The Wacom eStore is still down. :(:(