rants and observations

We received a phone call from The City of Port Moody regarding our complaint about the neighbour’s dog and it appears they’ve officially deemed it aggressive. This results in an increased annual dog license fee and a requirement that the dog be muzzled when in any public area. I don’t believe the dog is actually aggressive but rather it just doesn’t like my dog and my dog doesn’t like it. This does, however, force them to leash their pet and ensures we don’t have a repeat performance. And if we do then things will become considerably more uncomfortable to our neighbourhood a-holes.

I paid a visit to our neighbour a few weeks ago and asked him if he would be paying the vet bill. He was initially obstinate then became increasingly vague about his decision, taking our address for his ‘reference’ with no promise of payment. He mentioned that he had spoken to a lawyer friend who advised him that he would probably lose if we took the issue to small claims, for which I had already completed the necessary paperwork. He’s right. He would have to pay for the vet bill and the $100 filing fee. If the shoe was on the other foot and our dog had attacked and injured their dog we wouldn’t be able to pay his vet bill fast enough or do whatever else was required to make things right. They’re obviously morally bankrupt so we gave them until Friday, April 2 before I deliver a Notice of Claim to the Port Coquitlam Provincial Court.

I called him on the following Monday and requested, for the last time, that he pay the bill. He begrudgingly agreed and asked me if I wanted to come to his home and collect the cheque. I told him to pop it in the mail but you would think he would have walked the half block himself, wouldn’t you? Well he did in the end, delivering the cheque because he ‘forgot’ to mail it and didn’t want us to move forward with the small claim. He also asked me to contact the City of Port Moody and request that his dog no longer be classified as ‘aggressive’ so he could avoid the increased fee.

I’ll wait until the cheque clears before I consider that one which just proves that two can play the asshole game. Ah, the sweet taste of revenge victory.

I was poking around on Youtube the other day looking for videos about the Boss RC-2 loop station pedal and stumbled across nouveau flamenco guitarist John Gilliat. Mr. Gilliat won the Roland company’s loop station competition in 2009, and for good reason. This guy kicks ass.

I purchased the 2001 album Peace directly from his web site (why don’t more artists do that?!?) and was amazed that he’s producing top quality music from his home studio in Langley, B.C. and that I’ve never had the pleasure of listening to any of it. If you’re looking for Jesse Cook without the snobbery or Gipsy Kings without the tight polyester pants this is the music for you. I only wish he offered embedded cover art, higher bitrate and meta data with his MP3 files but he’s backed such notable performers as the Cirque du Soleil troupe, Mae Moore (one of my personal favourites) and Strunz and Farah so who am I to bitch?

Listen to a few cuts on his web site, notably Christopher (see video below) or Smoke (which reminds me of Kenny Rankin’s Birembau for some reason although it sounds nothing like it) from the Peace album. I’ve listened to this album non-stop since purchasing online last week and heartily recommend it for fans of the genre or anyone wishing to flush Lady Gaga, L’il Wayne or anything to do with Miley Cyrus completely out of their system. You won’t be disappointed and you’ll notice that your headaches disappear too.

So what makes animals so blissful and happy? Could it be the fact that they’re unaware of their own impending death? That’s one of the things that separates animals from humans and may be the root cause of our problems as we make our way through life to our inevitable end.

The Onion News had an interesting piece about primatologists at The Tulane National Primate Research Center teaching Quigley, a Western Lowland Gorilla about his impending demise and the reaction upon learning that his stay on earth is not permanent.

A deeply thoughtful and penetrating look at how science may, at times, do more harm than good. Enjoy.

So you’re having a fight with your husband and looking for the best way to get back at him for being such a…such a…GUY! What to do? It’s obvious. Give away his boat on Craigslist.

Someone posted an ad in the Free category of Craigslist offering a ’21 foot bayliner with 115 h.p. motor’ for the taking. The small ad also stated ‘having fight with husband phone vanessa @6045891455′. So I called. Vanessa was obviously too busy fighting with her husband to answer the phone so I left a message.

While I waited for Vanessa to call me back with directions to my brand new boat, I did a bit of Internet sleuthing. I ran a reverse lookup on the phone number which returns the owner as a beleaguered Brian Larochelle of 10976 145 St in Surrey. Then, using the Google Maps Street View, I see that the home in question has what appears to be a small canopy cover in the driveway suitable for a boat but I’m not sure it’s large enough for a 22 foot Bayliner. A Google Maps satellite view of the backyard reveals no nautical looking items of any kind much less a boat.

So who knows if Vanessa is nasty enough to give away his boat. I’ll probably never hear back from her but my thoughts are with her husband.

Click the thumbnail image above to view the original Craigslist ad