My loyal readers, what you see above is a picture that my good friend Bryan sent me from Australia. He is suggesting how I might want to decorate my apartment when the time comes. Thank you Bryan for the ideas!
When you look at what's he done, Bryan is not far off from what I actually had in mind. I was indeed thinking of putting my Xbox 360 to the left of the fireplace. Above the fireplace was where I would put some sorta high definition widescreen display. The orientation of the couch is the exact same orientation I would put a couch in. I also really have no need for the fireplace. Between you and me, I kinda wish it wasn't there.
If I were to make "unlimited taco beef", that's also where I would place the mythical bowl on the counter top. If you were wondering, the "unlimited taco beef" refers to a gathering I once promised to a bunch of dudes, Bryan and Adam among them. When I was renting an apartment on campus in my last year of grad school, I had this idea where I'd make about 10+ lbs of taco beef with the accompanying fixings and have "unlimited taco beef" night at my place with the boys. That never happened for reasons I won't get into here but the idea always seemed attractive to all of us.
Last but certainly not least the "exersize" pole is pretty much self-explanatory. No apartment is complete without a brass pole made for dancing around. It's a conversation starter for sure. Also, it reinforces the ceiling from a structural point of view.
Oh, by the way, the seller signed the contract which means this thing is getting pretty damn serious. I have perhaps one, maybe two opportunities left to flee to Mexico and change my identity.
So if you've been following this dog and pony show that I call a blog, you'll know that I've been looking to buy an apartment from approximately April of 2008. From what I hear from a lot of you, that's apparently a long time to be looking. Slightly off-topic but just between you and me, I actually intended to get a real estate agent and start looking at places in early February of 2008 but I procrastinated so much, I left it to April.
Anyways, last week I went to look at an apartment in New West at a development that had just completed this month. In fact, people are still moving in right now, so it's completely new. It was nice enough that it met a lot of the criteria I had for a decent purchase. As such, I made a reasonable offer last night. Before doing so, I had already knew what my upper limit was because anything beyond that just didn't make sense financially for me.
So after just two counteroffers this late afternoon, I got a call back from my realtor. In short, she told me the other party had agreed to my last counteroffer. When I heard that, there was the briefest flash of panic in my mind as resisted the temptation to drop the phone and run away with the circus. I calmed down and all I could say was, "um, really?" Yes, in fact it was true. So my realtor dropped by the studio to get me to sign my part of the new contract.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because I went through this exercise at the end of August, when I agreed to another seller's price and signed the contract. Having sent it off, the seller delayed signing his part and another offer came in, which he ultimately accepted, leaving me holding empty dreams and wishes.
So that's where we currently stand here. I am actually not sure if the other party has signed the contract. I do not have confirmation from my realtor yet. I will contact her tomorrow morning. So by me writing all of this now, I am really tempting fate here. Am I prematurely counting chickens here? Let's just say I haven't moved any of money around yet. I also have not looked at furniture online, which I did the last time when nothing was set in stone yet.
In any case, here's the description of the unit, taken right from the real estate web site:
"Priced for quick sale. Brand new. No GST. Spectacular view. large balcony. Excellent finishing throughout. Granite counters, S/S appliances, fireplace and more. One covered parking and one locker. Close to Skytrain. 24 hr concierge. Includes free Telus internet and cable first year. Includes built-in deep fat fryer."
I may have embellished one detail above. If you're interested, here's the web site for the development. It's the one-bedroom in the first tower. Here are also some pictures from the apartment, the last two pictures are of the fitness centre and the activity room, all of which still need all of its equipment to be delivered. The deal isn't final yet, so I'll keep everyone up to date.
After meeting with my realtor in downtown Vancouver tonight, I had the option of watching the rest of the Canucks game at the studio or just going home. I chose the latter option which was correct choice given how the 'Nucks played tonight.
I caught the bus home and was in the last two kilometer stretch of the Barnet Highway when I noticed the bus driver slowed down considerably. I looked up from my porn on my laptop and saw it was entirely pitch black around the bus. The only illumination was coming from the bus' headlights. None of the street lamps that dotted the highway were on. Given that this whole area is entirely industrial there weren't many lights to begin and those were off too. It was very dark and everyone was looking around trying to figure out what had happened.
I tried to look into the distance but it basically pitch black with a few distant orange lights. In the immediate area, it was just vehicle lights breaking through the darkness. I thought it would be a temporary thing, local to just a small stretch but minutes went by and we were still rumbling along in the darkness.
It was at this time I thought now would be a really bad time to have the bus breakdown. I also thought that if the bus indeed did breakdown, it would be also a bad time for the zombie apocalypse to begin, involving my bus as well.
Luckily, nothing happened but our bus did pass several police cars and a fire truck near the edge of the power outage. Once we got into Port Moody proper, that area all had power and not even a single traffic light was affected. Only once I got home did I figure out from the BC Hydro web site that a power line had come down and left about 500 customers without power. The outage is estimated to be resolved by 4am PST, so it has probably been fixed by the time you read this.
Last but not least, if you're interested in how one man is actually preparing for the zombie apocalypse, read this blog. I refuse to comment as to whether or not I know the blog author personally, except to say his family is lucky to have him.
The above video is the entire last press conference for George W. Bush in his role as the President of the United States. I don't expect any of my readers to watch the whole thing but it's there for you to view. In exactly one week, President-elect Obama will be sworn in and he will take on the responsibility of running the United States.
Reading about Bush's last press conference today made me pause for a minute. Dubya has been running the show for eight painfully long years. Perhaps narcissistically, I began to think about what I was doing eight years ago. First, I was still in my mid-20s when Bush took power on that sad day in January 2000! Wow, I was just a young whipper-snapper back then!
Eight years ago, I was working for EA, as I am now, but I was a video game tester and I made $10.50 an hour. On the day of Dubya's inauguration, I was at work testing a game called Triple Play Baseball for the PC. EA doesn't even make that game franchise anymore.
Eight years ago, I hadn't even thought of going back to school, let alone thinking grad school was an option. I didn't even know what St. John's College was and had nearly forgotten what it was like to eat dinner off a plastic tray.
In eight years, I've done a lot of things that I'm quite happy with. In those same eight years, Bush has done a lot too but I'm not sure he's happy with his list. Now obviously I'm biased but here's a very comprehensive list of executive branch failures in the American government since 2000, also known as the things Bush screwed up while in power. Some of those items pale in comparison to some missteps that will likely define his legacy: Iraq, hurricane Katrina, and Afghanistan.
One more week before the White House is under new management.
