Palmer’s World

It wasn’t until I saw this video of what Penguin Publishing is thinking of creating for the iPad that I realized how awesome of a device this will be.

Seriously, watch the video before reading any more of this entry. Alright…you done? Let’s chat.

I will admit that I probably wouldn’t even use any of the books that they advertised…kids books, anatomy books, star books…but it’s the concept of what they can do with a book that amazes me. Look at what a kid can do with this device (although I had a great laugh at someone’s comment about they would LOVE to let their kid play with their $500 device!)! Look at how you can click to see inside a human body.

Imagine what it would be like reading a book on this device if it was implemented properly. I can envision the following….imagine you are reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and they mention a painting. You could click and see the painting, or perhaps the specific section they are speaking about. They do that now with the Illustrated Version of the book. Imagine if you come to a word that you just don’t understand. You could highlight it and run a Dictionary search to find out what it means.

Imagine if you were online and enable comments on a page of a book. Perhaps you could tap into what people say about a particular passage of a book…imagine if you are doing a book report and someone has already commented on specific themes in the book and highlights where they appear. Or if you wanted to find the Top Ten phrases uttered by someone in the novel. Voila, they are there!

Until today, I was on the fence about the iPad. I figured it wasn’t impressive as a piece of hardware. But much like the iPod Touch, the magic is in the applications that people build for it. Kind of like how your computer isn’t something to be impressed with, but the software you install *is* what is impressive. I think I’ll be taking the plunge for the iPad solely on the excitement of what people will develop for it in the future.

This is freaking fabulous!

http://mashable.com/2010/03/03/8-bit-wedding-invitations/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Considering I took my relax day on the Saturday, Sunday turned into the day of work. More importantly, clean the house before those friends of Vero’s Dad come to check out the house on Monday! (We have since learned that they have decided not to bother coming to look at it. Not a big deal…it kicked us into high gear to clean the house up). I did some research and found out that the Salvation Army pretty well takes everything you can offer them…I brought over five garbage bags of clothes, a few old computers, a couple of computer monitors and two old bicycles that were taking up valuable real estate downstairs.

I then settled in to paint the basement stairs as my mother had suggested. I dropped over to Canadian Tire and asked for a quart of grey paint and they passed me an oil-based paint and some Varsol. No problem! It would just smell a little strong and need some chemicals to wash the brush.

I started out by throwing on a Pearl Jam bootleg on the stereo, changing into some painting clothes and placing a book and telephone in the basement because I figured I would be down there for an hour or so. I was planning on painting myself into the basement as it was definitely easier to paint going down the stairs instead of going up. I had it all planned out. The only thing I figured I didn’t need some liquids because there was no way I would be down there that long.

After painting the stairs (and I was running dangerously low on paint near the end of it!), I settled in with my U2 book (which is an excellent read, written by the band) and cozied up in my old chair that doesn’t get enough love. The time was 1PM.

After an hour, I took a look at the stairs and was thinking it may not be drying as fast as I thought it would be. The top stairs was JUST starting to dry and that was painted two hours ago. Hmm…I went back to my book.

Fifteen minutes later I’m starting to feel a little cold hanging out in my basement with a t-shirt on. I’m starting to look at my surroundings. What can I use for warmth? Of course, Vero’s Snuggie that was in the laundry basket came to the rescue so I sat back down with the Snuggie and read some more.

Fifteen minutes later and I’m thinking I should be getting ready to go to Mike’s for the Canada vs. US final Olympic game. Hmm…I wonder how the stairs are doing? After looking at them again and realizing they were nowhere near being dry, I start to think this was a bad idea. Here I was stuck in the basement of my own house and Vero was not home. It just did not add up…how come the paint was not drying as fast as it usually does?

It then dawns on me and I leave the following phone message with Mom “Mom, I’m just wondering how long does oil-based paint usually take to dry?”. Click.

Awhile later, Dad phones back and I explain the situation and you can hear Mom laughing in the background and then I believe the word turkey was used more than once. I could only laugh at myself during this time as well. It was a good story to tell!

In the end they offered up some suggestions on how to escape the basement…I couldn’t find any plastics bags for my feet so I decided to just run up the stairs and get rid of my socks afterward.

That’s how I escaped my basement before the final game of the Olympics. There are some spots that need touching up as the socks lifted a few layers of paint. I also checked the stairs out this morning and I sure hope I have enough paint left to touch all the stairs up. Otherwise another quart needs to be bought.

Lessons Learned:
- Oil-based paint takes 4-5 hours to dry.
- Oil-based paint is quite sticky.
- If you do plan on painting yourself into a corner, think in terms of ‘worst-case scenario’ instead of ‘normal scenario’
- While in ‘worst-case scenario’, supply yourself with a bucket to urinate in, a 12-pack of beer, and ensure that the TV is properly set up to watch the Olympics game. I will be honest with you…I was contemplating just staying down there for 5 hours but the thought of a) missing the game and b) setting up the tv, but not having a few beer to have during the final game, made me realize that I can sacrifice some socks.
- If you plan to leave the music on upstairs, put on a a normal length CD and not a 3 hour long bootleg of the 2005 Ottawa show by Pearl Jam. While it’s a great bootleg, I was eying up my guitar downstairs thinking I could get in a few hours of playing but the stereo was cranked and I would competing against it the entire time.
- Stick to latex paint.

Excuse my ignorance as there may be bars across Canada which already serve Sam Adams in draught format. But I have not found any in Ottawa.

But the Boston Beer Co. and Moosehead and teamed up to distribute Sam Adams beers in Canada. Sweetness! I heart Sam Adams beer.

http://greatcanadianpubs.blogspot.com/2010/02/boston-beer-co-moosehead-breweries.html

Can I also point out that I am reading this excellent book concerning beer in Canada throughout history? It is quite amazing. For example, I never knew that after prohibition ended, it was still some time until alcohol was allowed to be drank in public…PEI didn’t allow it until 1964! What the heck?!

On Tuesday night I hear Vero chatting with someone and it sounds like she is offering up information on our house. I find this odd but wait until she is done (read: she is ignoring my frantic arm-waving to catch her attention. She is cunning.) and find out that Vero’s Dad has let someone in Hearst know that we are looking to sell our house sometime this year. Turns out he is coming into town this weekend and is hoping to look at some places to buy for his daughters who are students.

Now, if you didn’t know already, I have been slowly preparing the place for final sale worthy appearances. For example, I went through the basement and basically through garbage worthy items into a pile. However, I have not thrown anything out from that pile yet…mattresses, old clothes, bikes, computer monitors…luckily for us, the phone call came on garbage night so I hauled out a slew of garbage to the curb and the basement looks semi-respectable now.

Actually, the place looks quite spotless now. We even removed a few personal photos from the walls (which I have heard, but cannot believe, affects the sale of a house). Photos were taken, fact sheets were prepped, and now the house is actually pretty decent (except for the garage. Oh that garage is like the aftermath of Hiroshima) and we’ll keep it that way for awhile.

My only dilemna at this moment is to properly ascertain how much my property is worth. I have a few leads on this, be it my research for the past few years on what houses have been listed as on my block, or real estate agents willing to nice and give me a comparison report of houses around the area. I am interested in what they have to report and the only outstanding question is this:

iplaying: Thrasher – Neil Young: Rust Never Sleeps
How much difference in price does a finished vs. unfinished basement bring? Are we talking $5K? $10K? $15K? $20K? I have an unfinished basement so this would be essential to determine what to sell the house for.

Sunday afternoon, Mike came over for a few bevvies while we watched the Olympics biathlon trial. I had a hard time believing him that they can finish a 15km course in about 30 minutes but lo and behold, it was done. Dang, those guys ski faster than I used to bike to work!

Rob then dropped by and Mike, Vero, Andreane and I hopped into the van to head out to Navan to check out a house I had my eye on. It was an…interesting listing. In that it said that it was a low price due to the outstanding renovations needed to the place. The pictures looked decent so I wondered what really needed to be done. Here is the listing so you can take a look: http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=9137490

We arrive and walk in and I’m thinking it’s not all that bad. But it is once you start walking through and realizing all the little things that need to be finished but more importantly, the shoddy craftsmanship of the work that has already been done! My favourite example of this is the fireplace in the basement which doesn’t have a chimney, but some form of insulated flexible piping system for the smoke to go up into. Hmm… There were also other questionable design elements such as the two bedrooms which shared the same fireplace so you could technically see into the other room if you just looked through the fireplace!

In the end, we said goodbye to that pad. The area was quite lovely though…exactly what Vero and I are looking for…a quiet street, some privacy, etc. But it wasn’t meant to be.

We were driving through Orleans and saw another open house sign so the six of us decided to drop in to take a look. Now, I’m going to put it out there right now…I think all open houses should have the price listed on the sign outside. Because otherwise, we may be wasting your time. So for example, if I would have known that this house was selling for $575K…I probably wouldn’t have bothered this individual! But here we were taking a look inside and in the end I said “Well, I think it’s a little big for us at this moment” but really I didn’t like his backyard. He did say “I figured as much” and I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that. Either way, we went on our way and that was the end of Excursion #2.

As stated before, we’re just going around places to see what they have to offer so we can form a clear picture of what we want. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much inspiration from either of these places other than the fact that the first place let me know what I *don’t* want!

On Friday I went over to Stephen’s pad to watch some Black Dynamite. This is quite the killer film and it’s the fifth time I’ve seen it. It never gets old. It reminds me of how I could watch Napoleon Dynamite and never be bored. Wait a second…is there a link between the two films through the word Dynamite? Interesting.

While I was over there, I beheld the Winter Olympics in all its high-definition glory. I was quite impressed to see the frost on the whiskers of the bobsledding team. Incredible! It was definitely a different experience from watching it on my rabbit ears back home where there are some instances where it’s hard to see where the puck is on the ice!

We did have some excellent wings as well. The jerk sauce wings were my personal faves. I especially loved how Stephen we were waiting for the second batch to be done and when the oven chimed, we went to find wing-goodness but only to find that we had forgotten to put the wings in the oven! Silly.

All in all, a great night with great friends.

Saturday I headed out to Aylmer for a surprise birthday party for my colleague Marie-Annik. It was held at the Knights of Columbus hall and was a decent setup. Around eighty people were there and Marie-Annik was definitely surprised when a quick stop into the Knights of Columbus hall to have a beer with her boyfriend turned into a surprise party of epic proportions! Juan, Eric, Mina and Nat were along with me and we chatted about everything ranging from weddings across the world and what Eric should not do while in the Dominican for a week.

We were fed like kings…there was a great roast beef buffet offered to everyone. Kudos to the organizers! There was also an amazing slideshow prepared by her brother. I will definitely need to get some tips on making a killer presentation.

I had to leave half way through the presentation as I was heading to another birthday bash for Christine out in Kanata. I raced down the Ottawa River Parkway to get to Mike and Mel’s place in record time. We watched the Olympics for awhile and then headed out to Darcy McGees for the night. It was a nice evening out for a few beer and watching Ultimate Fighting. This was the first time I had ever watched Ultimate Fighting and it was interesting enough to keep my attention but I’m not sure if I would go out of my way to watch two guys kick each others asses. Melissa had this amazing system of predicting the winner which involved a cross between how good the guy looked, how much of a neanderthal did the guy resemble, and how cocky they were. Amazingly, she was right every time. She also told me about how every football team has members called Smith, Jones, Jackson, Brown and something else I can’t remember. I had a good laugh when she amazed Superbowl watchers with that fact one year.

Vero is in a new play which starts on March 24 at La Nouvelle Scene.  It is called Rappel.

While all I know about is that Vero had to go to a Lady Gaga concert to do some research (ha ha), they made a promotional video (the first I have ever seen for a theatrical play) and I must say it makes the play look quite cool.

Especially when Vero shows up around 0:44 seconds into the video!  Cool!  She said that the director was wanting the girls to look like cannibals.  I laugh at the point where her face comes into the frame from behind the chair and the look on her face.

Anyhow, if anyone is interested in attending the play with me, by all means, get in touch with me in March!