A waste of bits and bandwidth

Do you ever get the feeling that some businesses don’t watch their competition too closely? Last weekend we wanted to rent a car. National, my normal rental place, wanted $78 a day. “Hmmm… why so expensive?” On the Easter long weekend, we paid ~$40 a day so I checked out a few others rental sites.

Avis was in the $50 range and Budget was around $43. Guess who I rented from even though it was inconvenient? I’m not sure how National figures they can charge so much more when their competition aren’t.

In any event, we had a nice day trip in our deluxe Hyundai Elantra Touring. Brunch in Horseshoe Bay and then off to Whistler. Being in Whistler on the long weekend was like being on a college campus. To be fair it’s not the place to go when you don’t have any plans apart from wandering the village. After an hour of walking around and a pair of ice creams, we were wondering why we came. At least the drive was nice…

The car was really nice even though it was the base model. Tons of air bags, lots of room and ver comfortable. The only negative was that it was a bit gutless. Not so much gutless; the problem is that it comes with a retarded confused transmission. It doesn’t downshift when it should, so I do it and then it won’t upshift after the lower gear is no longer required. Odd. In the city it seemed to be fine.

Once we were home, the inevitable conversation started up about us buying a car, this time initiated by Mihwa. We have this conversation from time to time. One of us brings it up and the other vetoes. This is followed in the coming weeks by the same conversation but with the roles reversed. So far, no car.

Do you like buses? This guy does…

Well, losing interest in blogging took less time than expected. Despite this, I decided I’d better get an April post in. What have we been up to?

Um, we went to Seattle for Easter. Apart from waiting over five hours to get across the Peace Arch, it was an awesome weekend. A beautiful hotel, near all sorts of touristy things and 6-packs of beer for $5 at the corner store. Hard to go wrong, though we did manage to; Bellis Fair sucked.

Upon our return, Mihwa got me a camera for my birthday and I’m so happy with it. It’s a Canon 780IS that shoots HD video, has HDMI out and is smaller than my phone. Nice to have something with me all the time when the people around me are always doing stupid things.

I’m still employed. Enough about that. While contemplating this fascinating turn of events, I stumbled across the most curious cat in Japan.

Lastly, since I’m so insulted that I don’t even get SPAM comments anymore, I will attempt to get a take down notice: feel the fear & do it anyway

Of course, I’d roll over in a second but I’d just like to know if they’re watching everyone or just big, fancy-pants bloggers. “Is this thing on?”

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…

Facebook? meh…

Originally uploaded by midbach

My apologies but I almost never actually go onto Facebook. If I haven’t responded to a request, now you know.

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