Archive for the ‘Life at Home’ category

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One happy family

January 29th, 2007

I don’t like my neighbors.  On one side of me is a married couple a little older than Swedish Girl and me.  On the other side of me is a man?  A woman?  One of each?  I have no idea, as their shades and blinds are always closed and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them.  They/he/she is (are?) quiet, so that’s good.  The pricks on the floor above me are loud.  I swear on one Sunday morning a few weeks ago, it sounded as if they had some friends over and were bowling with both bowling balls and each other.  These neighbors were kind enough to rip up their wall-to-wall carpeting some time ago, so we can hear every footstep, every dropped beer bottle, and every bowled ball or human.  The old lady across the hall is quiet, but I get the feeling she’s keeping an eye on my comings and goings through her peep hole.

It’s mostly the married couple next door that bug me.  Just this morning, they were leaving their apartment just as I was leaving mine.  The wife went out of her way to ignore me.  The husband and I exchanged cordial good mornings, but then he let the outer door slam on me moments later.  Lovely.  His wife apparently thinks I’m a serial rapist or something, because other times that I’ve held the door for her, she’s dashed through with nary a ‘thank you’ or a nod.  I have come to the conclusion that, contrary to the typical fiber of my being, I’m going to turn up the faux charm and really kill that couple with kindness. 

There is one really friendly neighbor with whom I wish I shared a wall.  I call him Detergent Guy because one late night as Swedish Girl and I were watching TV in our pajamas, he loudly knocked on our door.  It was such a forceful knock, that we thought the RA was coming to bust us for something.  Turns out, he was drunk and doing some laundry, but he couldn’t carry everything and spilled laundry detergent on our door and floor mat.  Since then, he’s been cool with us.  I hope that event (and subsequent hallway exchanges of pleasantries) helped erase the image in his mind of Cool Jesus as slayer of old ladies. 

But that’s a tale for tomorrow…

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Posted in Complaint Department, Life at Home

Personal Assistance

November 10th, 2006

I think I understand why some people have personal assistants and others don’t. Movie stars, musicians, and power brokers aren’t necessarily any busier than I am; it’s just that they can afford to have them. Is there anyone who wouldn’t want a personal assistant if they could afford one? As I was driving home from work last night, I was thinking of all the things a personal assistant could take care of for me – making my hair cut/teeth cleaning/oil change appointments, returning a package at the post office, dropping off/picking up my dry cleaning, locating that out of print CD box set that is only available overseas, picking up a white, silk pocket square that I need for my office holiday party, and on and on. But is it doing these mundane tasks that keeps us grounded? Would I lose myself if I stopped going to the dry cleaners or making my own appointments? I guess, for better or worse, these chores help keep my feet on the ground.

And now for something completely different…wasabi peas. I picked up a bag of wasabi peas at Harry & David last week and I’m in love with these things now. The only issue I have is that there isn’t enough wasabi coating on all the peas. In fact, some are barely touched by wasabi coating at all. But in general, these things are a great tasting, healthy (4 grams of dietary fiber per serving!) snack.

Egg nog. A week and a half ago, my eyes lit up with glee when I saw that egg nog had made it’s annual appearance at the supermarket. I quickly grabbed a quart of fat free nog only to find out at home that I had mistakenly purchased fat free egg nog flavored milk. Not good. Not good at all. I dumped it out, but was able to find light egg nog the other day. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

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Posted in Life at Home

New Photos

October 31st, 2006

Just the other night, MP and I took a few photos of our apartment to put up online. Things aren’t 100% completed yet, but we basically just need to put up some decorations and wall art.

In any event, the photos can be found in my set on Flickr. Check them out if you’re interested.

More to come, I’m sure…

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Posted in California, Life at Home

Things Sometimes Work Out

October 27th, 2006

Yesterday was a pretty good day, as far as regular days go. I got stuck at work late, but it worked out well because Swedish Girl called and wanted to meet up for dinner and drinks. That saved me a whole lot of time and miles since I hadn’t gone home yet. There’s something pretty cool about having your wife buy you a beer, too. While sitting at the bar and telling Swedish Girl about the trials and tribulations of my day, I mentioned how it’s not always easy to please everyone, specifically your friends and family. I, much like most of you, try, but do not always succeed. I rattled off a short list of people in need of pleasing and the things I had to try to do to keep them happy.

The list, as usual, included Cool Jesus. Aside from How I Met Your Mother on Monday nights, Thursday is the only TV night I care about. I had to head home, watch My Name is Earl and The Office, and then burn rubber to a local coffee house to watch my friend’s band. He would have been bummed out if I hadn’t shown up, knowing how close I live to the venue. Well, I raced home to find out that Earl and Office were reruns, so I raced back out and caught my friend’s band along with a mutual friend of ours. So, things worked out and I managed to make two people happy.

Earlier in the day, I found out that my landlord is going on a month-long vacation. This is excellent timing for a somewhat complicated reason. See, the smoke detector in my apartment does not work, but it’s not battery-operated. It’s hard-wired into the building. Also, my apartment doesn’t have a carbon monoxide detector, which is now against the law in Massachusetts. I brought this to my landlord’s attention in September and, despite his promises, he never provided them. He eventually said that I could buy them and subtract them from my October rent.

Push came to shove and I never did get around to buying the smoke and CO detectors. My landlord even called me (I have never had so much phone time with a landlord in all my life) and said that I lost my chance. He said the offer was no longer valid. Just as I was about to lay into him, he said, “Gotcha! Just kidding, Brian! I got you good!” The guy is insane. I had to tell him that I actually bought the detectors, but was so used to writing out the rent check for the same amount, that I forgot to subtract the cost. He pressed me further, asking how much they cost (because he had already instructed me to not buy “the fancy ones”) and I told him they were about $20 each. I hope this is accurate.

I plan on picking up the two detectors tonight, subtracting them from the rent check on Tuesday, and giving the rent check to his brother on Wednesday. Since my landlord won’t be back for a month, hopefully he won’t ask why the detectors I bought in September have receipts dated October. Things just work out sometimes.

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Posted in Life, Life at Home

How I Met Your Mother

October 11th, 2006

Cool Jesus is reaching out. I know The Diatribe has a decent number of readers out there who can help me. Monday night was going to be a good night. Not only entertaining (one of my current top five favorite shows, How I Met Your Mother, was on), but productive (I was doing some long overdue ironing). Fate had other plans, however; just as the clock struck 8 pm, we lost power. A transformer blew up right outside my building and my entire neighborhood was shut down. It’s always fun when the power goes out because I get to light candles and live like the olden days, and then I grab my flashlight and run outside to find out what happened. However, it is not fun when it happens just as one of your current top five favorite shows is about to start.

But I digress. Surely, there is someone out there who can help me by recapping the events of the episode. Please. My week just hasn’t been the same without finding out what is going on with Ted, Robin, Barney, Marshall, and Lily. Suit up! and help out a friend.

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Posted in Life at Home, Television

The Plumber

October 7th, 2006

Over the last couple of months, I have been dealing with a leaky bathroom faucet. It’s not the simple, typical drip from the spiggot. Rather, it leaks from the top of the faucet assembly onto the vanity. Seeing as how there was such a list of things that we needed the landlord to fix when we moved in, this was put on the backburner. But the landlord has taken care of the bigger issues and without anything else to worry about, we became increasingly annoyed with the pools of water all over the vanity. The landlord’s personal plumber arrived this morning to fix it, but all he did was serve me a fixin’ of attitude.

He was 100%, even 1000%(!!!) sure that this particular Delta washerless faucet could not possibly leak the way I described it. In turn, I was 100% sure that I had seen it leak with my own eyes. We stood there in my tiny bathroom staring at the running faucet and I was just waiting for the leak to do its thing. And it didn’t. I could tell the plumber was loving this. He kept repeating the part about being an expert and knowing that a Delta washerless faucet cannot leak that way and as he was raising his voice and throwing his hands up, I started to raise my voice. What can you do when you’re arguing with someone who is certain that he’s right, even when you’re certain that you’re right?

He pretty much accused me of calling him a liar when I merely held my ground and told him that, no, the standing water was not caused by our own sloppiness. So, we let the water run and he enjoyed every drop. “I’m abusing it now!” he shouted as he frantically turned the hot and cold water on and off, faster and slower. “See! Abusing! Abusing! And abusing!” He walked away in disgust and said, “Hey, my man, I’ll wait 10 minutes and we’ll see if it does anything.” I thought that was fair, but a mere 60 seconds later, he grabbed his tools, headed for the door, and asked, “Okay, can I go now?”

I told him that I’d just contact my landlord directly if the leak were to occur again. Even though he suggested this very thing five minutes earlier, hearing it from me enraged him even more. “Ray is my good friend!” he shouted, “I wouldn’t lie to you, my man.” So, this plumber went from calling me “a gentleman” over the phone the other day to storming out of my apartment and leaving me scratching my head. All I could do was tip my cap to whatever mischievous spirit keeps making me look like a fool when I try to point out broken things to the plumber from hell.

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Posted in House Keeping, Life at Home

The Real Announcement

September 14th, 2006

First off, I have to apologize for faking everyone out a few days ago with the announcement news.. but it was true, there was a big Apple announcement day.. now for a little Announcement about Miss Possible and myself.. We’re off to the big state of California.

Yep, you’ve heard it right folks.. we’re leaving the lovely New Jersey area in favor of a warmer climate and a better way of life.. that’s right, Silicon Valley, CA. And it gets better.. I’ve landed a job at Google. Yes, let me repeat that.. I’m going to work for Google.. wow.

After, what I’ve dubbed ‘The Summer of Stress’ which was in large part caused by the intense Google interview process, we’ve finally shored things up and I received an offer a few days ago. I’m heading off to go work in the AdWords department of Google, to help advertisers optimize their online ads and get their campaigns on the right track.

We’re thrilled to start this new adventure to the west coast, and look forward to the many new things that are to come: a new car, a new job, new way of life, new apartment, and an entirely new coast. Very strange. It hasn’t sunk in completely yet, but.. I’m sure it will over the next few weeks.

Tentatively, we’re planning on heading out in the middle of October, so we’re still around in the New York area for a little while. We also plan on making a final trip back up to “The Bean” and “The Twilight Zone” to bid a fond farewell to our friends and family that reside in Massagoosenuts.

Not as eloquent as Steve Jobs, but.. it’s still a big announcement

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Posted in Life, Life at Home