December 2004 Archives

When I was a kid, strangers would come up to me and tell me to "say it". Well, here you go. Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?

And that means that Rose, her daughter and I can go to Brockville and Ste-Buttfuque-de-Nowhere for the holidays. I will see you all Monday or Tuesday. Have a great weekend.

I just saw a very, VERY fat man sleeping in the passenger side of a too-small car. Topless. With the window open. It's -10°C here right now and snowing. I guess he was feeling a little warm compared to yesterday.

I said to myself that I wouldn't comment on the weather in Montreal today, but I will say this: If it weren't for long underwear, I'd have no legs.

From Martine, translated:

My nephew, Alexis, 6 years old:

"I've found proof that Santa Claus exists."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes. he must exist because if he didn't, that would mean that my parents are telling me lies."

Busté. I wonder how he will react to the rest of the Big Lies They Tell You. Let's make a brief and definitely incomplete list:

Jacked directly from Joelle:

Three Names You Go By:

1. JonasParker
2. JP
3. Chéri

Three Screennames You Have:

1. JonasParker
2. JParker
3. There isn't a third one. That's not a name. Neither is....grrr.

Three Things You Like About Yourself: This is the reason I am even doing this meme.

1. My hands
2. My ease in social situations (in two languages, sometimes!)
3. My ability to keep my head when others would be losing their shit completely

We'll go in reverse order.

• Back in June, I lost my credit card, so I was issued another one with, naturally, a different number. I told the relevant parties, except my ISP: I forgot. So they've been trying to bill me since then, and me, thinking that if there ever were a problem, they'd let me know as they've always done. I figured that everything was fine with them, and I didn't check the details of my credit card statement (plus I absolutely hate looking at it). Seems as though it all came to a head on Friday, though. The order was made to cut me off. But all of this seems a little strange. I remember a couple of years ago when I was about two weeks late with a payment. They suspended the service. Two weeks. But this time it was six months without a word. Now, they say that they called and left messages, but I never got such a message from them. They say that they sent emails, but I keep all my emails from companies with which I do business, and I never received anything from them. I always check my junk email filter thoroughly as well. Nothing. So I had to pay $400 this morning to save my Internet connection. Hello, world.
• Université de Montréal. I swear to God that within the French system there are two kinds of people: québécois and foreigners. I was born in the province next door, but it's like I might as well have been born in Burundi. When I made the statement under oath a few months ago, I declared that I was a resident of Quebec. Now they want me to prove that I am not a foreigner. This would not be a problem at McGill or Concordia, I'm sure. Anyway, I lost my birth certicate years ago, so I have to reapply. I'll get it in six to eight weeks if I am lucky, and then this bullshit will be over hopefully.
• Revenu Québec insists that I owe them a bunch of money. They showed me that I wasn't actually paying them money off my paycheck in 1998 (my company was sketchier than I thought), although I figured that my company was paying taxes. I didn't do my taxes that year, and never really took them seriously until 1999/2000. This means that I will be paying them in installments for a while. Look at me, I'm jobless!

I will not be crushed in spirit. If it's one thing I cannot afford, it's that. I'm not buying.

In a matter of a few days, three separate agencies have decided to make me pay them twice for things I already paid for. First, a few days ago, the HR woman from my old job gave me a call to say that the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency wanted me to pay them taxes from pay back in 1998 totalling some $1400. They wanted her to give them my account information so they can garnish my pay. The problem is, of course, that I have no job. The other problem is that if they had my account information, they could seize my account and simply take all my money. Lastly, they never bothered to notify me that there was a problem. Sounds like a scam, doesn't it? Especially when I went down to the CCRA office to find out what was going on. They had no idea. They never issued an order to garnish pay.

When she first told me this story, I asked her to be absolutely certain that it was CCRA that had issued the letter. She said she was. She was fucking wrong, of course. It was Revenu Quebec, who are even bigger fuckers than the CCRA.

I went down to their offices and was surprised at how fast I was served (5 minutes, but even more surprised that the tax queen that I was dealing with was really fucking hot. I couldn't quite believe it. I mean, she was super hot. Government workers, especially tax workers who work in grey and beige offices and screw people over all day are never attractive. That's like seeing a hot bus driver (which I did see a couple of weeks ago and nearly floored me since 70% of the ones here are extremely average middle-aged French guys).

No news to report, but I have added something nifty to the comments. (Yes, I am obsessed with the comments and tinkering these days, rather than giving you half-decent writing. Give me a job to slack off at, and you'll get your entries.) It's called a Gravatar, or Globally Recognized Avatar. This way you can get a little icon next to your name whenever you post a comment to a blog if that blog is Gravatar-enabled, like this one, and Cheeseorgy. If you don't have your own Gravatar, you can get one. Until then, anytime you comment here, you will get one of these next to your name. So sign up, it seems cool. My gravatar is based on this 2003 photo I took of myself.

Last Sunday, Rose moved in.

I hate moving more than cancer, not that I would actually know what cancer is like. But I like to say that if I could choose between manually moving stuff from one place to another or a day of chemotherapy (without the lasting effects), I might pick the chemo. At least once. Moving is just so damn tedious I can't stand it. It doesn't matter how much stuff there is to move, either. Rose doesn't have much stuff, but I do. And now we have duplicates of many things. And space is very tight now.

Rose's brother and father drove in with her daughter's bed in tow. This was important for Rose in that her daughter would finally be able to sleep in a bed of her own in a room of her own whenever they were together. Very important. After the crisis of the spring before last, the girl lost much of what she had, and now she can have some of it back.

Eventually we loaded everything up into the rickety wagon and drove here. My asthma and bronchitis kicked in, naturally, but in the end we were able to get everything up. Only one trip from her place to mine. The couch was an adventure, though. The couch where the bed was to go in an enormous beast of a thing, and Rose's father had to take off two doors to get it out of my apartment. It's so huge that the Salvation Army wouldn't pick it up. It is still sitting on my back balcony.

Rose's parents, particularly her father, do not really like buying new things. When they buy something, it should last forever. Thirty years isn't forever, which means that they haven't got their money's worth. Her parent's bed is older than she is. It sags in odd places. It even looks awful. It's so bad that her mom hasn't had a good night's sleep in more than fifteen years, but yet they would not replace the bed. Since Rose was suddenly about to have an extra queen-size bed, she decided to give it to her parents. But then, the ingrates weren't sure if they were going to use the damn thing, and they weren't even grateful that they received a new bed for free from their daughter who could use some extra cash and could have sold the thing! Weirdos. They don't know how good they have it sometimes, having her as a daughter. Rose put her foot down and said that there would be hell to pay if the bed weren't set up the next time she was visiting.

As for me, life hasn't really changed much, which is how I like it. She was here all the time anyway, so now we can save some cash. Things still aren't properly put away and we have duplicates of things. But we are only living here temporarily until we find a bigger and better place to live in the spring. Wish us luck.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I truly should have seen it coming more clearly than I did.

Marqui, a producer of web-based content management software for businesses, has created a marketing program for bloggers. I have a number of questions about their services and web apps, but from what I see, it has actually got me excited about software sales again, and I didn't think this was possible.

Marqui is paying top bloggers between $800-$1000 USD per month to blog. They simply have to mention Marqui once a week. Of course, there are terms and conditions that apply, but I think I could abide by these, I just have to think about the ethics. Later.

It wasn't too long ago that I talked dreamily of blogging for cash, blogging for a living. I may just get that chance, you never know. At a time when the word "blog" won easily as "Word of the Year", I might never get another chance like this again. Now might be the time to renew my interests in promoting blogging in education and business. Perhaps I should lead a seminar next year.

I started this day early, and was so disappointed with what I did today (which was SFA, and that's not sales force automation), that I was in a bad mood when rose came home from work. I'm sure that being sensitive cost me my massage tonight. But now with this inspiring me, who knows? Maybe the spark in me will return.

While I tinker with something. Please be patient. If you need to, use the new email link in the sidebar. Or click here. I'll get around to making an email form soon.

There. I have done it. As of now, you should be able to switch between the default grey layout and Stella 2.0. Just click the "SKIN THIS SITE" link in the navigation sidebar. I will add more themes in the coming weeks.