Monday, March 07, 2005

Well, I guess you can say I'm baaaaack....

Hello faithful readers (and you new ones too), I have been a bit absent on posting recently. It was not because I was lazy or had nothing to say. I guess I was suffering a bit from writer's block (and partial shock at losing those other great works before they posted). However, I can now let the floodgates open as I have enough data collected in this strangely shaped head to do many posts today. I guess you can say that over the weekend, I got unblocked! :)

OK, I guess I will start with the weekend. It's been a busy one but a great one. Starting on Friday, we enjoyed dinner at the home of a longtime family friend of the Marks family (DW's side). It was also a poker night at WAB's place but we did not make it due to the conversations held after dinner which ran us past 11PM. Families were reacquainted and I met a couple of cool folks that we can possibly hang with later on.

Since we missed real poker, we logged on to Poker Stars and played a couple of tourneys until we were sleepy enough to hit the hay. For DW, that was around 1-ish; for me it was closer to 4AM.

On to Saturday, and we had a very early morning for us on a weekend (when we can help it). We had an appointment out at Golden Mile Chevrolet-Oldsmobile-Cadillac and saw our man, Clyde Goins. Clyde instantly hit it off with us, back in 2003, from the time we went to see what GM had to offer compared to cheap-ass Chrysler ($30Gs PLUS the trade in of the Jeep?!?!?) and Ford ($40Gs, but clueless and disinterested salespeople). He is definitely the salesman, but he is different in that getting us the highest returning vehicle for his bottomline was never the issue. He would have sold us a stripped Venture if that was what we wanted; it was not. So, he made sure to get us the vehicle we wanted, in the colour DW wanted, as quickly as we wanted it. Service with a smile, always.

Anyhow, this day, we needed to get a bit realistic, so we went in to get our monthly payments reduced since the gravy train (AKA I am a *&^%% employee now) has hit a wall. As circumstances have changed in the household (more on the Child later), we no longer need the space, power and amenities that the Roo and the Silhouette offer. We also do not need the gas consumption and insurance rates that accompany it. Don't get me wrong; I am soooo going to miss the Roo and intimidating the stupid and brave on the streets of Toronto. We just have to be practical about things until such a time we can return to the excesses we so enjoy.

We are looking at removing the equivalent, monthly, of the Roo from our debt load. So, for DW, it means a step down from the Silhouette van to an almost as appointed, smaller physical package of the Malibu Maxx. The features that are truly cool on this car include the sunroofs (yes multiple, a tilt and slide upfront, with two fixed movable sunshaded glass sections in the rear), the reclining rear seats, the sliding rear seats, DVD console and the adjustable shelf that turns into a 100lb tailgating table. All this in something that holds about 30 less litres of gas and gets better mileage with its more powerful 200hp V6. We drove a Malibu years ago when the Jeep was playing the ass in Ottawa during my brother's wedding. It was a surprising offering from GM and back then we considered it. It has matured quite well over the years. this choice also means she can feel somewhat safe on the highway amongst all the big trucks.

For Moi, it is a bit more downscale, as the lady gets the toys first (family rule). So, since most of my traveling is in the city compared to her gawd-awful 40-60min daily commute each way through hell's corridor, I am looking at either a used Malibu sedan or a new, five-speed, MP3 radioed, Optra. Yes, it initially looks like a bit of a beater and a touch tinny, but I can assure you that I would drive neither of those things in a new vehicle. This is a model that was based out of the German arm of GM and borrowed by the parent company. It is bigger than the POS Chevy Aveo and it is not a tin can like the POS Neon. It is actually pretty peppy, has a standard dual DIN dash opening (hello Kenwood Mask) with decent speaker placement and it has a cavernous truck with fold down rear seats to accommodate my speaker box for just the right amount of added BOOM.

So, after leaving the friendly confines of GM (at least by Clyde's desk it is friendly), we headed over to ACR Roti for some lunch. We had to scarf that down quickly as we were on our way to a No Limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament downtown that is run by one of our friends. This thing is big with typically 50 people joining in. We finished respectably, but out of the money once again; DW finished 13th and I bowed out at 11th on a bad beat caught yet again on the frickin' river. No, I'm not bitter.

We tried to hit a movie afterwards, but missed the 7PM timeslots and had no desire to wait around till the next slot, so we went home to watch one. We picked School of Rock and Old School because comedy is a great healer. It is apparently a great relaxer as well because I was out before 9:30 and was hard to wake up after that. So, DW watched the movie and woke me when it was done to go to bed.

Sunday. Ugh. Housework. ACK! Ok, so the sty really, REALLY needed some cleaning. We were going to get up nice and early to do it but we were both wiped so we slept in till 11:30. Once up, it was vacuuming, dusting, sinks, bathtub, toilets, swiffering, throwing out paper, organizing and a well placed set of Febreezing. We opened up all the windows for some fresh winter air, and shut off the furnace for a while. Ah, somewhat clean house. Nice.

I did some computer work while DW went out to do the groceries. I also did the wash at the same time. The evening brought dinner (fish and chips) and the Raptor game (my gawd they won on the road for a change, mind you, against a shittier team than they). Some more puttering into the wee hours of the morning and it was time to go to work again.

Ah, Monday. How I loathe thee.

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