Nothing really to report but I do have something to populate my now dusted off blog. On their own, they are too much for Twitter and yet not enough enough to warrant posting. If I have to explain all this, you probably know that you should just move on…
I was outside my office deciding where I should go for my afternoon walk one day this week when this old street dude comes up and starts telling me jokes. I’m pretty sure he was tanked but he told me three jokes, two of which were not bad. I told him he needed to work on his delivery for the third one. We wished each other a good day and he wandered off. Didn’t ask me for shit which made me want to give him something…
I frequent the Blenz at Robson and Bute with some regularity. Not enough for anyone to know my name or know what I order but frequently. What the hell is it with the staff in there? I once handed over a $20 bill for a coffee and muffin and had to ask for my change. This week I got my change and muffin but she forgot my coffee. How do you forget the coffee in a coffee house? She explained that it was the third time today she forgot and it was like 8:15…
Like cool music? Love cool music that is free? Love cool free music that the band asks you to freely torrent? Click here Trent Reznor gets it.
Developer: It really hurt when you asked if I was gonna test it this time
Me: Your anguish sustains me
Watching Family Guy pays off in spades…
midbach Contractual Obligation observations
My apologies but I almost never actually go onto Facebook. If I haven’t responded to a request, now you know.
midbach Contractual Obligation Flickr
The office I work in is located next to a federal office. The Department of Indian Affairs I believe.
Our buildings are separated by a small courtyard and unlike us, they have their lights on. This means if we look out the window we have a decent view of what the drones are up to. This assumes that it’s after 9AM or before 4:30PM because outside of that window, the place is deserted.
It didn’t take us long to notice one guy in particular. He does nothing but play Solitaire. Like, all day, every day. When he was gone for a week, we assumed that he was off at some sort of advanced Solitaire fantasy camp or something.
It’s so obvious because his back is towards us and he plays full screen so we can practically see the cards that he’s playing. We assume he is a manager as he’s in a corner office and keeps his door closed. If anyone sticks a head in his office and he quickly minimizes his game.
We given consideration to putting up a sign: “Red 5 on Black 6″ or getting an over-sized deck of cards and hanging them up in our window. Anything to try and alert him to the fact that we can see him.
Early last week I went over to see if he was playing as there is comfort in the familiar. “Hey, buddy is on YouTube!” Whoa! “YouTube doesn’t have that sort of video…” It’s just after 9 in the morning and this guys is watching a pr0n video, in full screen glory. After a minute or two, most of the people in my department are standing at the window watching buddy, watch pr0n.
Your tax dollars at work…
midbach stupid people drones
I have watched the credit crisis take its toll on the global economy with some interest. Like you, I have equity investments and my outlook has not surprisingly swung from cautiously bullish a year a go to full on bearish as the crisis took hold.
When it comes to real estate, particularly in Vancouver, I’ve been a bear for years. It’s unrealistic, unsustainable and frankly ridiculous. “$600/sf for a studio in Gastown? SIGN ME UP!!”
I liken real estate price to the dotcom bubble of the late 90’s. Stocks unrealistically rise by 25% a year for several years and everyone expects that this is the new normal. You will note that the stock market eventually reverted to historical norms. I’m quite sure that real estate market will too. See my last post for where that might take us.
So I have come to visit Garth Turner’s blog more and more as the real estate market has tanked. He too, is a massive bear on the economy and real estate so it’s easy for me to nod in agreement with most of what he is saying. Now obviously he has a couple of books to push and everyone has their own agenda but mostly I’ve been drinking his kool-aid.
He has backed off on his Depression talk and to date, has stopped with some of his more over the top, gloom and doom predictions for post apocalypse economic colapse.
In early March, Turner was on the Allen Gregg show on TVO. He was talking about the Canadian economic outlook and it was a great listen. I would encourage you to listen and come to your own conclusions.
With the recession deepening, many Canadians are worried about how bad it will get and what they can do to survive it. In a new book, financial expert and former MP Garth Turner offers practical advice on how to deal with falling house prices, shrinking investments, and more. It’s called After the Crash: How to Guard Your Money in These Turbulent Times. Link to show
midbach Contractual Obligation economy, real estate
While this image from the New York Times speaks to the rise in American home values since 1997, one has to wonder how far certain Canadian cities *cough*Vancouver*cough* are from this sort of spike in values.
When a purchaser requires over 70% of their gross income to buy a house in Vancouver, I think it’s not that far off. I noticed an open house on my way to work a few days ago. Typical Vancouver condo, on Georgia St. where they were asking in the area of $550 per square foot. Not surprisingly there were no line ups of condo crazed people bidding the price higher.
Yeah, me thinks we’ll keep saving our pennies and renting a while longer yet.
midbach stupid people real estate
