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2003 doesn’t seem so long ago and yet, here we are. I recall getting to the office early to watch the announcement of the host for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It had come down to a battle between Vancouver and Pyeongchang, South Korea.

All of us erupted when we heard it was Vancouver. All but one Korean girl who would become my wife four years on. Everyone noticed that she wasn’t that excited. Someone (not me) sheepishly said “Sorry Mihwa…”

Now the games are here and already making news. I set off for work a little later on Friday in order to watch the Olympic Flame goes past on Robson street. This was not the best spot for viewing anything save for the back of peoples heads.

I managed to get a couple of shots after the torch went past but judging from the pictures the folks at work got, Georgia street was a much better choice. Still, it was great to see so many out to see the torch.

At lunch, I watched in horror as poor Nodar Kumaritashvili got it wrong in the biggest possible way. I was in a restaurant with a co-worker and we saw it before we knew what we were about to see. Needless to say, the mood was left a bit muted. It’s pretty freakin’ tabloidish of the media to continue showing the crash after we know he died.

Friday evening, we watched the opening ceremonies and I thought they were pretty awesome. Worth $1100 for a ticket to go? Of course not; not even if we were filthy rich. Nikki Yanofsky’s interpretation of O Canada was… not very good or pleasant to sit through. “Miss Yanofsky, you clearly have a great set of pipes. Next time, just sing the damn anthem.”

The presentation was really cool, if not a little long. I suppose you need to give a lot to people paying $1100 for a ticket… K.D. Lang was pretty awesome too but I had a hell of a time convincing Mihwa that K.D. is a woman.

The cauldron failure at the end was unfortunate but I thought the bigger FAIL was driving Gretzky through downtown Vancouver in a GM truck with a burned out headlight… Good thing we dumped billions into keeping those clowns afloat. Actually, that’s not the issue… there was NO SECURITY along the route!

Where are the cops on horseback to keep the idiots from running alongside the truck? Or jumping in the truck, for that matter. Any one of those drunken dudes could have brought the torch to a stop by simply running in front to the truck. I’m sure the protestors are having a debrief under a rock somewhere about that missed opportunity.

We went to bed under the familiar buzz of helicopters hovering over downtown. Predictably, we awoke to the familiar buzz of helicopters hovering over downtown. I imagine one day, the lack of helicopters will seem odd. Today, there was a good reason; idiots rioting in the downtown core. The same anarchists that I took pictures of yesterday as they romped down Granville street to a chorus of boos.

You know what? Protesting is fine; a lot of people died to grant you that right. However, when your protests consists of damaging property while you cower behind a mask, you don’t deserve anyone’s support. It’s always the same people and they show up at every event. Frankly, it’s getting old…

In the end, I hope the Olympics are a success. Send snow…

midbach stupid people Olympics, Vancouver

From the 2010 Grammy Awards. I don’t care what you say, this was pretty awesome. I doubt that it’ll live on YouTube very long…

midbach just because... Grammys, P!nk

After the Thomas incident I figure that the easiest was to get a car is to jack one. Walk up to some hipster doofus in Yaletown and knock them over the head with a sockfull of pennies. I’ve played a lot of Grand Theft Auto; should be a piece of cake. If we were looking for a Prius or maybe a Mini, I totally would have done it…

Anyway, we had decided to shelve the car thing for a bit. The Olympics are coming and you can’t drive anywhere anyway. “If something good comes along, we’ll move on it.” That was our plan; do nothing and see what happens.

I kept browsing the various sites and wasn’t seeing much activity. The same cars, week after week but nothing new. Just a bunch of Ricky’s asking a lot of money for high mileage cars.

I did go back and forth with a (seemingly) nice guy over a 2009 Mazda 3. It was pretty much everything we were looking for except that there was no sunroof and he was on the Island. I was going to take a trip over there but when I contacted him again, ‘a buyer was arranging financing’.

I wasn’t too put out. It was more than we wanted to spend and I really wanted the sunroof. Eventually, said car with a sunroof appeared.

That was all I needed to see as I was determined to not have another one slip away. I left work at noon and got on the bus to go have a look at the car. It was nice and the sales guy didn’t seem to be greasy at all.

Leather wouldn’t be my first choice but whatever; they’re heated and that was a must to prevent interior temperature related disagreements.

A test drive was taken followed by negotiations where we negotiated with each other over the price. After some back and forth, we agreed on a price. How novel…

So the non-greasy sales guy goes to do some paperwork while I hang out in the car. He’s gone quite a while and by now I’ve played with all the buttons and sat in all the seats. My coffee empty, I get out and am admiring the car from the outside. “Sweet…”

A semi-sketchy woman who was washing the cars on the lot comes up to me:

Semi-sketchy car washer: “Is that a manual? Never driven a Mazda with a manual before”
Me: “Nope, semi-automatic. It’s a nice car to drive.”
Semi-sketchy car washer: “Hmmph. Zoom-zoom. More like 0 – 60 in 1.4 minutes”
Me: *WTF*

At this point the the non-greasy sales guy came up with an arm full of paperwork and told me that he was ready to take me into the Sales Managers office. I turned around to look for the Semi-sketchy car washer to ask her to do a good job washing the car but she had disappeared to the furthest recesses of the lot. Turns out that she was capable of 0 – 60 in something less than 1.4 minutes…

Now maybe it’s just me but if I’m washing used cars and I see a guy eyeing up a ‘76 Pinto, I’ll either say something nice about the car or steer clear of him entirely. Perhaps there’s a reason why she’s washing used cars…

Anyway, the car is awesome and we are super happy with our new purchase. We’ve had it over a week and *touch wood* it hasn’t been broken into and/or stolen. Of course I haven’t been down in a few days to check…

midbach it's all about me Mazda 3

Three years ago today my life changed for the better

midbach life 수현, Korea, Wedding

I found Thomas on Craigslist and spent four days trying to get him to meet with me so that I could look at his car. By now, I’m prepared to move if the car is right as I’ve come to realize that shopping for a car is like shopping for a new cell phone but thousands of times more painful.

Now Thomas always sounded a bit ‘off’ whenever I talked to him on the phone. I would describe him as being self-absorbed and dripping with moist sensitivity. Sort of like a new grad who thinks the work he’s doing in social networking and new media actually is changing the world.

Eventually, I managed to get Thomas and his wife came to my office so that I could take the car for a quick test drive. Not before he insists on emailing me a photo of a faint scrape on the fender “in the interests of full disclosure…” I think this odd at the time but now realize he was hoping I would find this turn of events unacceptable and bail.

I go out to meet them and watch as they circle the block twice, oblivious to my waving at them from the sidewalk. They head down the alley and Thomas hops out while she goes around the block a third time. When Thomas and I finally see each other, he shakes my hand and then runs blindly out onto Melville to direct his wife to one of the half dozen empty spots on the street.

This results in the wife missing him by inches as she doesn’t agree with his choice in parking spots and drives off to park way down the block… Without a word of exaggeration, she came within inches of driving over her husband.

They seemed unfazed by this near miss as we exchange pleasantries on the sidewalk. I slip into the driver seat and we set off down Melville as Thomas begins… “I hope you don’t think we are wasting your time.”

I think to myself that whatever Thomas is about to say, I don’t want to hear it. This idiot is about to tell me that he’s wasting my time and I haven’t driven the car 20 feet. “There is another person interested in the car and he’s arranging financing now.”

I’m not sure of how to respond so I stare straight ahead as I contemplate rear ending the cab in front of us. I decide it’s best to not to give any indication that this is the last f***ing straw and I’m at the end of my rope with him. I do allow myself to briefly fantasize about hitting him square in the face with a dried up ball of play-doh.

Regaining my composure, I realize that this could just be a ploy to get me to offer more money or maybe Thomas really is an idiot and thinks the other guy is a certainty to close. In any event, I don’t have a dried up ball of play-doh handy…

I take the first available right and spin around the block completing the worlds shortest test drive. I park the car in front of the office and look at him; “I have cash, let me know how it turns out with the other guy.” With that, I got out of the car and went back to work figuring that I’ll never hear from Thomas again.

thomas ✆ to Mark 01/08/10

Mark,

I just spoke with the other buyer and he has finalized the deal so I guess it is going to proceed with him. Thank you for your interest and again, I hope we didn’t waste your time.

cheers, thomas

Mark ✆ to thomas 01/08/10

Thomas,

Thank you for letting me know. I get that you just wanted to sell your car. I will no doubt find another car as a Mazda 3 is neither rare, nor difficult to find.

I am however, frustrated that I have spent since Sunday trying to arrange a meeting with you only to find that you were well down the road with another purchaser.

Should I ever find myself needing to define ‘wasting someone’s time’, I will recall this experience.

Mark

thomas ✆ to Mark 01/08/10 (Actual response, edited for brevity)

Mark,

My sincere apologies. …In the future, I will definitely be more forthright… …I guess I had become cynical and lost faith in people, which I will try not to do in the future. Again, that is my fault. Good luck on finding another car…

thomas

midbach stupid people Mazda 3, used car sales