Will the evicted people be living in the alley now?

An extremely odd thing is happening in the alley behind our building right now.

The people from an apartment a couple of floors below ours are being evicted today. There were a lot of complaints against them and the person who owns the apartment is kicking them out. But now they are sitting on their furniture in the alley behind the building. I've never seen anything like this.

So will they be leaving? Or do we have squatters in the alleyway now?

One of the drawing points of this building when we decided to buy a condo was that no more rentals would be allowed, anyone who bought one of the places would have to live in it. Over time that should effectively get rid of absentee land owners who don't keep the place well maintained. But there are still a couple of apartments being rented out. The place with the evicted squatters is one of them.

The Pride Parade happened earlier today, less than half a block from us, and there is still a party (or several) going on in the street, but here just below us are evicted people sitting on their furniture in the alleyway. This is a bit surreal.

Aug 6 update: Ooh, this building has quite the information gathering mechanism, everyone knows lots about everyone else who lives here... the people evicted were essentially using the place as a shanty town with a roof. Every available surface had an inflatable mattress on it, and there were at least 18 people living in the 2 bedroom apartment. It is, as expected, a complete shambles. New sinks are going to have to be put in, etc. etc. The fire that they started on the lawn outside their balcony will need to be rehabilitated by the gardeners, thankfully we have automatic sprinklers in the lawn that put the fire out!

So the scoop on the furniture in the alleyway is: the people were just sitting and resting there for a while. These people somehow found another apartment a couple of blocks away and were using their two office chairs with wheels to move all of their stuff. I'm not sure how they got the old couch onto those chairs... would have been interesting to watch. So the problem has moved on. So much for buying a place and renting it out as an easy way to make money!

It is unfortunate that there was one really nice guy in the group. He was friendly and tried very hard to be helpful whenever I ran into him in the lobby. He's now lumped into the "group of scum" on life's scorecard, but he could be so much more. That's the tragic part of life.

Could we have just one loud music player?

The Vancouver Pride Parade just finished a couple of hours ago, and it was great. It was extremely colourful, and well attended, and very long - more than 3 hours of floats and crowds going through Vancouver's West End. We have a great view of the parade from our balcony, and even had an MC with a microphone just in front of our place so we had all the commentary for each float! What a great place to live!

And in the next couple of days I will have lots of photos posted on Flickr of the colourful excitement.

But now there are people partying outside at the hotel across the road from us, and some more over to the left, also partying outside but at a different party. The problem is, they are each playing extremely loud music, but not the same music.

One could say there is a battle of music going on outside our home right now. This is not nearly as much fun as the parade was. We have all the windows closed now because we couldn't stand it anymore, but we can still hear the cacophony.

We're not against loud music, it's a festival atmosphere and quite fun, we just want it to be from one place, not two. Is that too much to ask? Do they have to make us sound like grumpy old people because we want just one source of loud music? That's somehow not fair.

Which law would I rather have fail, gravity or Murphy?

I was having a lovely weekend, I was. Everything seemed to be going so well for me finally, and then Monday came.

I got a magnetic door stop in the mail - something that I had ordered weeks ago - and when I got it out of the package I realized I couldn't install it. It needs to be floor mounted, and we have carpet (yes, I know that's not a great thing to have by the front door, but we haven't had it changed yet in our new home) so we need to mount the doorstop on the wall, which won't work. Now I have to send it back and get a different one. (It will just make it easier to get my wheelchair out of my front door if the door is kept open by the magnet.)

I think I am suffering the after affects of a good walloping by Murphy's Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. It just took a break, so the smack was extra hard.

So I got to thinking, if it was possible to mute one of the universe's laws for just a brief moment, would I rather have the law of gravity fail, or Murphy's law fail?

To keep the universe together you need gravity, so a momentary glitch in gravity might be a really bad thing. But if it was short and just localized, it could be a moment of fun. If you had warning of when it was going to fail, you could jump at just the right time and be flying! And then when it came back, well, it was fun when you started. A moment as a bird for a long stay in the hospital could be worth the trade off. It seems skiers who end up in wheelchairs after really bad falls think it's worth the trade off.

To keep your expectations in life down to a "reality" level, you need Murphy's law. If you didn't expect something to go wrong, you wouldn't be planning for it, so you wouldn't have a back-up plan. But wouldn't it be nice to have a brief moment when you know nothing will go wrong? A moment when your plan "A" will work like a charm? A moment when you can just relax and not worry about anything?

Well, it won't happen, you can't fly, and you always need a plan "B". But if you know about these things, you can get on with your life and deal with anything that the universe throws at you really. Being flexible is part of living.

I think I'd like Murphy's law to fail more than the law of gravity, because if I was flying... Murphy's law would send an airplane to smack into me.

Do you really want to park there?

The first night of fireworks in Vancouver was last night. It was our first fireworks in our new home, which is about 3 blocks from the beach that you sit on for the best view of the fireworks.

Unfortunately, we don't get a good view of the fireworks from our balcony - too many buildings in our way - but we do get a good view of the crowds. We also get a good view of the alley behind our building and what people do in it.

There are many public transit options to get you close to the fireworks. We recently had a little sports event here, so there are even more options this year, with a new skytrain line and all. It is quite a walk down to the beach from there, but it was a nice night for a walk, and it's good exercise.

But some people still insist on driving their own vehicles down and paying ridiculous sums of money, or risk parking illegally, to park their vehicle and then walk to the beach with the thousands of others who took transit. They get less exercise that way.

The organizers of the fireworks realize there will be thousands of people down at the beach, and they do bring in portable toilets for the crowds, but apparently not enough.

As the crowd walked away from the beach after the fireworks, many many many males - human males, not canine males, no one in their right minds would bring their dogs to the fireworks - peed in the alleys.

We have a small parking lot next to our building. They peed there too.

So all of the vehicles that were parked in the alley, or parked in the parking lot, got peed on. All of the vehicles people couldn't bear to leave at home will now have urine stains on them. If they're lucky, it's just on the tires.

So do you really want to drive down to the fireworks? Do ya?

Is there really an app for the end of the world?

I heard about one, so I went on a search for it.

Oh the fun advertisers have!

For those who believe that the world will end on Dec 21, 2012 there is an iPhone app that will let them keep track of time using the ancient Maya calendar!

A countdown to the end? Not really.. but if you want to know what the date is according to the Maya calendar, complete with the proper glyphs for it, this app will let you keep up with the ancients. The end of the world hook in the advertising is subtle: "learn about various Maya cycles of time and gain a better understanding of why December 21, 2012 A.D. is an important Maya date." The end is near!

I remember many years ago the sandwich board with "the end is near" painted on it that doomsayers sported on the streets was as high tech as the end got, but now we can count down to the end of the world with digital accuracy. Now, yes, there's an app for that! Progress.

Is everything I'm missing in the same spot?

I know I've seen my sunglasses somewhere...

My iPod surfaced a couple of weeks ago, so I know it's around here somewhere...

The cork coasters all turned up in the same place at the same time... but I can't remember where that was, so we've been using another bunch that turned up together and haven't escaped yet.

This may be just the effects of moving, but I can't help thinking that everything I've been missing is somehow in the same spot.

When you find socks that go missing in the laundry, aren't they usually all in the same spot? When you find yourself a whole lot of paperwork you forgot to do, that's usually in the same spot. When you find that book that you were looking for, there's a whole lot of books that you want in that very same spot.

So maybe somewhere in our new apartment, there is a treasure trove of everything I've been looking for.

Well, it's possible.

What will I miss about cable TV?

We've recently moved, and in all the clutter, we haven't bothered to get ourselves comfortable around the TV yet.

We do intend to get a flat panel TV, but we haven't bothered yet.

I do use the old TV to play with my Wii, but that's about all we've done with our old TV so far.

We moved in over a month ago. I don't think we'll be needing cable TV in the future! We haven't missed it!

With the growing availability of TV programs available on the Internet - through youtube and many of the networks like the food channel and even the space channel - we have been watching some programs on our computers. They do typically insert 1 commercial 4 or 5 times inside the program, but it's better than 6 commercials 18 times an hour like you get on cable! And you can start and stop the programs whenever you want! No more making it home in time to watch...

But what will I miss about cable TV? I will miss Vince and his Slap Chopper.

I went to see my dentist last week, she has TVs on the ceiling so you can distract yourself when she has her hands in your mouth. And she of course has cable. I flipped through a few channels and landed on a commercial for Slap Chopper. Yes, Vince is so thrilled about his product, and so eager to convince his viewers that their life will be so much better with his product, I stopped flipping channels and watched the commercial!

So why is this commercial the only thing that catches my eye? Why is it the only thing I've been missing without cable TV? Is it the product? Nah. I have something just like it, and it doesn't make life better, it's just more to wash up when I use it. Does Vince have sex appeal? Nah. He's kinda young for me, nice kid, but. Does the artistic value of the commercial scream for attention? Nah. It's just a guy in a kitchen.

So why is this something that pops? I think it's because Vince seems to be talking directly to you, and he's just glad to be doing it! How often does that happen?

When I'm out in the park in the morning and someone says "Good morning!" as they run by, they mean it, and they only do it because they're happy, and I say "Good morning!" back at them. It's the same kind of feeling as I get watching Vince. There's no obligation, it's just a happy person being happy. I find that appealing, and so unusual coming from the TV. So I'll miss Vince.

Funny old world, isn't it?