Holy frig it's a busy time of year. There's so much frigging school stuff to do. Too much work! And I'm sure you all can guess how much I like that.So, in lieu of work, let's get everyone up to speed on a few things of the past couple o' weeks.

My secret visitor
Long-time amie, but never in person, Paige decided to drop by just over a week ago (seems like yesterday!). She arrived with a bouquet of nice flowers, and a cold, which was too bad (the cold, not the flowers). We drove her around the north shore in the prov. park, taking her to Dalvay. We went to eat at the Pilot House, and I then treated her and I to a Grady show in town @ Hunter's! I wish I coulda said a proper see ya, but I didn't have the heart to wake her in the morning. We never even got a picture together! :S At least we got to revel in the rock awesomeness that is Grady, complete with Big Sugar memories and phlegm-loosening bass. How's the cold, Paige?

(I didn't take these two show pics... someone on peilocals did.)

Reggie got da rig, and so do I... almost
The blue Corolla S with the moon roof was sold by that Monday, a couple days after I talked to the owner in S'side. These things are hard to get with a standard tranny! I decided on blue with no moon roof, although I have to wait a while. It was destined for NFLD, but it's coming here to me instead! It gets built on May 20th (A Tuesday, the best day for cars to be built), and should be here by early June! The only thing I don't like so far is the tires prices... so far, from what I see, tires prices are about double that of my current car.

I have always hated Boston... Bruins
That series was too close for comfort. It nearly rekindled the full-on hatred of Boston from my youth. Hopefully Montreal will make short work of Philly. Go, Habs, go! Oft heard during the games now - "Jesus Price, what a save!"


Yep yep yep yep yep yep yep yep yep yep yep... un-hunh, un-hunh
Yep Roc's site is once again offering autographed Sloan CDs. I got mine all ordered up. I didn't even know this one was coming! Bless their little musical hearts, those Sloan boys. Ain't much better than new Sloan in the summer. Early June's gonna be sweet!


Two Steel Strings
Why didn't I know this was available in advance? Crap! I'm about a month behind the ball on this one. Ah well. At least it'll be on its way as soon as Shaun gets my SASE & moola! I only wish he picked a diff. pic for the cover. I don't like it nearly as much as some of the others.


WTF?
Mother Nature's gone bung. It's like Christmas outside! There's a poor little robin under the pine out front that's all like, "WTF?!"


Feathered Friends
There's some ducks and geese hangin' around the new ponds out front. I hope some stick around and have some bird babies!

23

Pfft. I know I can do better than that.
Also, I made my car decision, and I'll tell you about the musical Masonite visit later.

Well, I talked to the dealer yesterday, and the sticker price is the price. I know he's giving me a great deal on my trade-in, and his mark-up isn't huge, so I'm OK with that. I think it's fair.

Now I just have to decide: blue with a moon roof at about $1000 more, or silver. I wish I could just get blue with no moon roof! When I think of what else we could do with the $1000, it sways me towards silver... but when I think of the silver one, I wonder if I'll look at it and always think, "I wish it was blue." I like the silver, I just don't know if I like it more... like save-1000-more.

Hrmm...

At least there will be a meeting of Masonites tonight for the Grady show in town! Any guesses on who's stopping over?

So... I'm thinking of getting a new car. Trade in the '02 Honda, and try out a Toyota. In "town", they offered me about $4850 - $5000 for my car, without seeing it. The black book says somewhere in the $3300 - $4850 range. The initial offer on the new car was the starting price. Nothing surprising. We went up to S'side yesterday, 'cause basically most people agree that doing business is better and cheaper there than in "town". We liked the owner, I tried one of his cars, he tried mine. He heard the same new noise I heard in mine. He thought it might be the axle on the left front. Max $400, worst-case scenario. If that's it, and it's taken care of, he's offering me $6500 on my car, which may be all he gets for it (maybe up to $7500). The orig. price on the new one stayed the same, but, really, we were already happier with this place.

Now.

Two questions for you.

He doesn't have any manual transmission '09 Corolla S models in the two colours I wanted, blue or silver. Initially I want(ed) blue, but it's harder to get, and the silver one I tried out yesterday looked pretty nice, too. Either way, he's got to try and make a trade for me with a dealer in another province. My options: wait until mid-May for a blue one... but it comes with a moon roof. I wasn't going to get the moon roof package because it's an extra $900-something. Probably near $1200 after tax and interest over 5 years. If I go with silver, with no moon roof, I can get it by the end of this month. Which way would you go? And how much would you haggle with someone you just met who made you a really good offer on a trade-in? Would you "cheat" and bring in a print-out from something like carcost.com? How much would you push your luck?

Well, since I totally blew my two-question goal, I may as well keep going. Which do you like better? Blue or silver?


Hmm... wait a couple weeks more, to pay more, to get the colour I liked first, with a fancy lid... or get a silver one with no fancy top for a lower price. Decisions, decisions...

Dear sweet baby Vishnu. When I decided on trying to buy a Dell laptop, I had no idea I'd be getting Delhi. Mr. Dell, if you're reading this, there's a farmer in you, and, more importantly, stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Or get the people in your call centers to do some accent training.

Here's how it went down. We picked a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop online to buy. The only changes we wanted were the "cool" "Chill" pattern on the top of it, a better processor, and XP instead of Vista. So, I called them to try and arrange this. Allow me to try and recreate the ordeal in point form. All of the players except for "American Woman" are East Indian.

JJ (his name wasn't JJ, but I'll call him that) was 95% unintelligible. He patched me through to an English-speaking American woman. Little did I know that this would be the last time I encountered this language as I know it. She wanted to know what business I was a part of. Apparently, JJ put me through to the wrong #. She asked if I was calling from Canada, then
put me through to Michael. He understood me, then hung up on my when he tried to put me through somewhere else. I have no idea what the next one's name was. They put me through to Kiran. I could understand him 75% of the time, and I think it's vice versa. I've been on the phone a long time at this point. I explain what I want, and Kiran puts me on hold (he did this several times, sometimes for a long time) and tells me I can't have the computer I want, the pattern I want, or anything like that. But, he can sell me another one (thanks!). At this point, I know the computer has changed, but I don't really know why, and I generally have no idea what's going on. Trying to talk computer specs with someone with a really strong Indian accent is extremely confusing and stressful. I'm basically convinced by this point that I'm going to end up with something nothing like what I want. Did I mention how much sax/synth strings/vibraphone music I've been subjected to up to this point? A LOT. It really wore down my will to deal and haggle. In the end, my Inspiron turned into a Vostro. He tells me I can get XP on it, and that it's exactly the same except for the processor. As the minutes wear on, with me trying to understand him, I find (among other things) that there's no webcam, the memory's a bit different, and the hard drive has 120GB instead of 160 GB. I try to express my desire to have 160GB, but he argues with me that I'd never need more than that. I tell him I just might, he says I won't, this goes on for a few rounds (the nerve!). I ask him to email me the specs and call me back (dial-up). I check my mail, and I can't see 'em all. Gmail has some kind of problem. It's fine anyway. I need more time to think about it and check around. The confusion was making me nervous. He calls back, and I tell him it's a no go tonight. He says he'll call me back in two days, but he needs my credit card number. I say no, 'cause I'm not sure I want to commit. He uses various excuses, and I end up having to be a bit more forceful and very blunt about him not getting my # for something I don't know I want. He was getting pretty forceful with it, and I had to one-up him in that department. I was disgusted. I was spent. I was on the phone for about 1.5 hours.

I checked around yesterday and today, and the make & price he came up with really was the best on an XP machine I could find. We settled on a Dell Vostro 1000 (with things a bit better than the base), at a price of $609 plus taxes. My call tonight still had some confusion, but at least it was much shorter. I was hoping to get a mouse with it, too, like a gal we know did, but no dice tonight.

I'm still a little nervous about what may show up when it arrives. It damn well better have what he sent me the specs on. I'll keep you posted in 7 - 12 business days.

The average is 8, so I'm not that bad. Mind you... I apparently scored higher than 69% of the people who've tried it out. Fucksakes. Maybe now I'll be up to 14%.

Don't think you can cook? Boy, are you wrong! After what I saw on TV tonight, anyone can be a real chef in seconds flat. Picture it: the kids are all racing into the house after school. What could you possibly cook for them? Just open up a jar of Tostitos spinach dip, pour some into a bowl, and put the bowl on a plate. Pour some Tostitos on the plate. Voila! Instant snack! You know what's really unbelievable? "More recipes can be found at www.tostitos.com." That thing was a recipe? Wow. That sucked.