TwoBlog

We all know that hearing a familiar song can bring back very vivid memories.  It can happen at weird times and out of the blue.  Which blows my mind as to how our mind stores information (that’s mind-blowing-ly profound).

I’m sitting here reading email when ‘Goodnight Saigon’ by Billy Joel randomly pops up on my iTunes.  Instantly and vividly I’m brought back to a cram-session I had studying Grade 13 Calculus in my parent’s living room just a couple of hrs before the exam.  I even remember what in particular I was studying:  A proof for Pythagoras theorem.

That is how the mind works.  I can’t remember to call my mechanic (thanks for reminding me Billy!) on a given day or whether I’m supposed to pick up my daughter later today but I can remember this polaroid instance 18 yrs ago.

Which throws me off on a tangent:  A couple days ago driving home from Detroit after a trip to Vegas (more to come on that) I was on a certain section of I-94 when I remembered what I was thinking about on this same stretch of road 3 yrs ago when I last there (coming home from an earlier trip to Vegas).  It also has to do with music.  I was listening to Meat Loaf’s “Back Into Hell” sequel album to “Bat Out of Hell” when I started spewing out ideas out loud to poor Sonia about how I could string all these Meat Loaf songs into a musical.  We had just seen a show in Vegas called “We Will Rock You” that had a pretty dodgey plot strung together by dental floss in order to lay down all the Queen mega-hits and make some cool cash along the way.  Had also seen Mamma Mia a few weeks earlier so I was drenched in camp.
So I thought aloud:  this has got to be easy money.  Everyone loves Meat Loaf (both singer and food) and his tunes are made for this sort of thing.  I don’t want to give out too much but here’s the gist of the plot I had spun:  It has to do with a teenage boy and girl struggling through a heated yet difficult teenage romance.  They move apart as they finish school only to meet up years later (in their 30’s) after living their separate divergent lives:  one has made it big, one has fallen on hard times.  They may or may not rekindle that fire.  Lots of dancing, lights, screaming power chords, etc. and BAM!  insta-hit!
If anybody has Meat Loaf’s email please pass it along or have him get in touch with me.  We’ll do lunch and plan out our mega-smash broadway show.  I guarantee it would blow Mamma Mia out of the water.

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If you want to get depressed in a hurry (doesn’t everybody?) you should go out and rent the documentary “The End Of Suburbia”. This happy little film discusses the inevitable downfall of our society due to the decreasing availability of oil.

We all know about this and are aware of the many obvious costs of our oil gluttony: war, global warming, environment depletion. The doc discussese these issues in detail but the key element discussed which is described by the title is how this is will affect our day-to-day lives. With our exploitation of oil we have created the suburbia that is seen today and when the oil runs out will dramatically change the landscape of these environments.

The dwellers of suburbia by definition are required to drive their vehicle many miles for virtually all their needs. When the oil runs out, these suburbs will become the new ’slums’ or become extinct as people move closer together as before the big boom in the 60’s. Alternatively, the slums will adapt and re-adjust to small communities that have the needs within walking distance. But there will be a cost to this: Many of these ‘McMansions’ as they are called by the documentary will become quasi-apartment buildings, very similar to what is seen in inner-city suburbs today.

Not to bore you or put myself into a deeper state of depression, I’ll skip the finer points and wrap up with some points that are important to me:

- how will the oil depletion affect the value of my home in the future? We live in an older suburb on the outskirts of the city. But it is located within a fairly self-supporting village with other small towns and villages within a 5 kilometer radius. Will the future see an increase or decrease in value? What services need to exist in the community to become even more self-sufficient and thus worthwhile to live in the community? Given that driving may become overly-expensive, how attractive is our community?
- To answer the above, we need to also think about what type of work people will be doing in 10, 20, 30 or 40 years from now? Our local metropolis is fairly diverse (several colleges, universities, factories, etc.) but has become prevalently a technology centre. What value will these jobs have down the road? How expensive will it be to drive into these jobs from outside of the city? What will I be doing?

- These questions will certainly drive the path we take whenever we evaluate our place of living, whether we should think about moving and to where we should be moving. And this evaluation should be ongoing along with a healthy (but not paranoid) awareness of housing trends and other indicators that provide insight into the future (cost of oil, US invasions into other oil rich countries, that sort of thing).

- Wherever we live, it’ll someday need to be a walkable, smart growth community.  Already, subdivisions are being built to accommodate this and they are selling at a monster premium.

The doc was a little over the top and most likely produced by conspiracy theorists, but when reviewed rationally there was good discussion within the film and some value to take away from it.

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Olivia and I saw our first robin of 2007 yesterday afternoon while heading out for a stroll.  It was sitting atop our chimney stack.  It’s mate was on the neighbour’s roof.

I enjoy hearing and seeing that 1st robin of spring.  In fact I don’t mind robins on the whole.  Except when I’m golfing.  Then it turns to bitter hatred.  I despise them then.  Just ask Tim why.

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So, even though I despise these things (see here) I still watched this year’s event.  What a hypocrite I am.   Some observations:

• Ellen DeGeneres is equally as bad/good as Jon Stewart.  So we can assume she won’t be hosting next year (Seinfield anyone?).
• I didn’t see any of the movies up for any Oscar except for Babel and I thought that movie was pretty lame-o.
• We rarely go to movies these days.  When we did go once late last year it was to see Babel – should maybe have went to see the Departed which was playing at the same time.
• Bravo for cutting off speeches ruthlessly for the non-celebrities.  Too bad it wasn’t the case for the more famous ones.
• Since when do Americal Idol dropouts get to win Oscar’s?  Geez, I guess anybody can win one of these things.  I’d rather be Wonderboy.

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I have a huge backlog of blogs but this one I couldn’t resist.  For Alex, a strange invention I read from my page-a-day calendar:

Separable Pants – The zipper goes all the way around the crotch, from the front to the back.  That way, you can mix and match the legs with other colours and styles, making your own artistic, customized pants

Hmm.  My recommendation for men (especially the hairier type thereof):  Commando not advised.

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On the way to work today two noteworthy things crossed my mind:

1.  When are the city workers going to clean up the dog’s head that has been on the side of the road for over a week now?  It has to be grossing out more people than just me.
2.  How did a dog’s head (from a fairly large dog from the look of things) get there in the first place and I wonder what is in the plastic bag beside it (but not that interested to go find out)?

Yikes.

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Our VW Jetta has gone bonkers.  I unlocked the car door this morning and the alarm went off.  No way to shut it off.  The unfortunate part of it all (other than the fact that the horn wouldn’t stop until we disconnected the wires to it) is that the engine won’t start until it’s been disabled.  What a great way to build in maintenance revenues for the dealerships.

Research shows (mainly from www.myvwlemon.com) that many people have had this problem and I confirmed this fact with the dealership.  There are multiple sources to the problem so it is not simple for the owner to troubleshoot.   After reading about the alarm system I can’t believe how hokey it is and how susceptible to failure it can be.  How could somebody from a well-known manufacturer have approved of the design for the system is beyond me.  Especially a system where there is no simple way for an owner to bypass the alarm system with the appropriate authentication (like a valid key or a key-code combo known only by the owner/dealer).  I’m sure the dealership will have no problem resolving the problem but good luck getting the secret from them.

I’ve instructed the dealership to disable the alarm system such that my car will start and so that I can still lock the doors with my key.  I don’t care about the alarm system itself and the reason was made abundently clear this morning:  After 20 minutes of the horn incessantly blaring, the only person on my street who cared was my neighbour who was only interested in helping me stop the damn noise.

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I’ve been watching OG around the piano and the guitar and she seems to be picking up the knack for playing these instruments.  At least figuring out how they work and showing huge enthusiasm.   It might be time to shift my career into the music industry.

I think the world is ready for another family band a la Partridge Family, Hanson, Jackson 5.  Lord knows how well they did financially and how it kept the families together living a healthy normal functioning life.

The first move should be to go out and find a crooked materialistic agent but I’m going to hold off on that.  I’m more interested in coming up with a name for the band that will consist of Olivia, myself and Sonia (although she hasn’t bought into the idea yet).

How about “L’il O.G. and the Furious 2″?  Although we’re not big into Hip Hop (in fact I don’t even know what style we’re going to play) it is kind of catchy.  Or how about “The Roach Experiment (featuring L’il O.G.)”?

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Have I reached midlife when I listen to ‘Like A Rock’ by Bob Seger and instead of being the guy he sings about, I am relating to the words of the song itself?  I never really understood that song until now.  Those Seger and Springsteen songs are now making way too much sense to me.

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I am not happy.  I received an ‘amended’ T4 from work the other day for 2004.  When I punch the updates in, I discovered my return should have been $550 less than it was.  Thus, I need to have a re-assessment done. 

I found out that the paperwork isn’t so bad since you can apply for an ‘ePass’ at ccra.ca that allows you to view lots of your government goings-on including previous years income tax assessments.  A click brings you to a re-assesment area where you can punch in the corrections and they will calculate the new balances online and then mail you an official document. 

Of course, any overdue tax payment is subject to interest and penalties.  As of April 30th, I’ll be a year overdue on the payment.  This equates to about $40.  You can be sure that the company will be footing that bill considering it was their blunder and tardiness.   I wonder if I wait long enough to inflate the penalties…..I’d better not go there.

I initially considered not paying it at all and feigning ignorance.  But further research highlighted to me that the government doesn’t allow ignorance as an excuse.  They’ll ding you anyway.  So, I have to assume eventually the error would have been noticed and to avoid the possibility of an unwanted audit, it’s in my best interest to cough up the coin.

Why is it I live in Canada again?

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