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Apartment hunting, again...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 907
Bullshit. A bunch of expired listings, landlords who run their ads (same as last year, word for word) as a sort of perverted show-and-tell, never getting back to you, my predictions of abundant listings following the pandemic entirely wrong. 100%. Listings have dropped to a third - 22 or less, from a high of 90+ over the summer, and most ads are just people advertising they need an apartment or room to stay in over the winter. Landlords - few. Landlords that respond, fewer. Today, 10 hours - full - on hold for a potential landlady that has a suite to rent but has to take just "one more call" before she can speak to me.
Calgary was no great show either, but this is crazy. Nonetheless, I need a place to live.
The interview, she wants to talk, can I work?, can I maybe run an air-bnb?, can I fix roofs?, paint?, mow lawns?, shovel snow?, do I want it furnished and how much extra am I willing to pay...?
On and On and On...
If I don't find a place soon - possible, even probable, I'm packing up the jeep and moving to Nova Scotia. Or somewhere, not here, this - until I've made my fortune, is insane. And what makes it worse - like in 3/4 of BC - is that a full 2/3 of the properties here - more, even - are vacant all winter, vacation properties held by out-of-towners.
We need to eat the rich, if only to make room for the locals.
Insurance Fraud
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 604
This is, of course and we're all assured - a bad thing, and frankly I take a dim view of people that do it because it causes an increase in my rates.
On the other hand, why should we be forced to have insurance at all? I mean, it's obvious, if you think about it - it's to prevent us from incurring a debt or liability (eg: house fire on a mortgage, car accident that's our fault...etc) that we can't pay. The insurer then assumes the risk and adjusts the premium based on how risky they think we are.
But then, poke a little closer and you'll see some disturbing things. Like how come we have to pay insurance on every vehicle we own? Technically, I can only be driving one car at a time (despite having two hands). This is a nice piece of legislation that seems a tax on the rich. Or - if I have the assets to pay any liability I might incur, why should I have insurance?
Or, consider my case, but I think you can generalize to yourself - never a claim, in almost 40 years, wouldn't insurance then work better - for me, for us, if it was done like a life-insurance premium where we could at the end of our term withdraw (with compounded interest) our contributions?
The more you look at it, the more you realize that insurance is just a scam legislated into law by those interest groups with a share in insurance companies...
In an old prison
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1020
I'm in an old prison, high ceilings, stone, lights hanging down. It's a big cell.
The warden has thrown me a party, invited all my friends, he's sympathetic, knows I'm innocent, knows I shouldn't be here.
How long have I been here? I don't know...4, 5 days?
These friends, there's no one here that I know or recognize, and I'm asking the warden about an old friend - I know he's here, Milan from Edmonton, and the warden, he does some checking, shakes his head sadly, and I realize that he's probably in an Edmonton cell.
Meanwhile, I recognize Milan's daughter, young 20-something blonde, his wife, 40ish Czech, and his daughter's boyfriend, wearing a dog mask, under a table, eating food from a dog dish...
And I say to his wife "my...your daughter's boyfriend looks just like Milan..."...I've spotted the cheekbones, jaw, poking from under the mask...
She delights in this and maliciously tells the daughter, who begins kicking at me with her stilettos and shrieking that he looks nothing like her father...
The parties over, everyone has left, the warden is locking my cell, he tells me he will bring a menu for tomorrow night's dinner, and I'm surprised, I remember nothing of the past few days, and - I get a menu?
**Milan, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't have a wife. Or a daughter.
Dinner with Stormy
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Stormy
- Hits: 583
Meanwhile, back from another expedition and I'm out for dinner with Stormy. Well, maybe not out, but over at his place. True to form he "made" me a burger...
A burger, wrapped in 7 plastic bags and a used serviette. And - look closer ... is that a bite out of it?
I think it is. "No, no, ..." Stormy argues, "they just started to cut it in half, I can never eat a whole one..."
Anyways, I nibbled at the un-nibbled end so as not to appear ungrateful, the rest of the food was as appetizing, I just kept pretending to eat and throwing it back into the bag...
When I was younger I worried that in my grand adventures of life what would I do if I were with the Eskimos and I was expected to eat a Seals eyeball, or eat Monkey Brains and roasted bugs with Indiana Jones. Knowing Stormy has made me realize I'd probably be just fine.
For a sampling of the great artists company view the video. Although, I have to say, he wasn't in great form.
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