April 14, 2008

• News And Notes

  

  EVICTION ANNIVERSARY, UPCOMING BIRTHDAY, NEW TOY:  A few Friday evening's ago, my roommate Cancerboy announced apropos of nothing that he was going to begin looking for new lodgings. He'd been on Craigslist, and had printed out half a dozen rental announcements in the South Bay area. I was a bit surprised, until I realized that it was last year at around this time that Anwer, the owner of our duplex, had attempted to evict us. I'd almost forgotten the brouhaha from last year (documented in my video blog series: "Almost Homeless" ), but Joel had not, and he didn't want to go through any more grief at having move-out dates thrown his way by our overeager building owner.

  "W-wait a minute, Joel", I stammered. "Don't think about moving out NOW! I can't afford to rent a new place right now. Let's just glide along where we are for a bit."

  "You and Anwer made a deal." was Cancerboy's reply. "He said he'd give you a year, because you wanted to move into a senior mobile home court on your birthday, which is coming up on May 1st!"

  "Nothing was written in stone, buddy. I mentioned that I wanted to live here at least another year, okay, but he wasn't giving us any ultimatums."

  "Wasn't he? I don't want to take that chance."

  Well, the very next weekend, Anwer just happened to drop by, and noticed water seeping from under our garage door. His ever present handyman had neglected to cap a pipe when they'd installed our neighbor's bathroom in 2007, and there was a clog somewhere in the main line, so the overspill from our neighbor's shower stall was leaking right into our garage. As we cleared a bunch of stuff out of the garage I took advantage of the fact Joel, Anwer, and I were all standing in the same place at the same time. "Anwer ," I said calmly, " I want to talk to you about our tenancy."

  I didn't have to plead much, but after our conversation, Joel was convinced the guy wasn't aiming to kick us out again for my 55th birthday present this year. Yes, I did want to be able to buy a mobile home by now, but it doesn't look like this is going to happen. Besides, the housing market itself is in a bit of a nosedive, and perhaps I might be able to afford a real house instead of a mobile home. But first I still need to pay down more of my credit card debt. I just want to make sure I'm not being forced into any situation by anyone else, including my roommate or the owner of the house. Anwer can wait till we decide to move to make any more renovations. I told him flatly that he lost a lot of money when the neighbor's half of the duplex sat empty for almost six months last year. Joel has enough money saved that he could get a rental anywhere on the spur of the moment, but I wanted to make sure he knew that a new rental would be costing him about $400.00  more a month than he's paying now splitting the rent with me on our present place.

  It looks like we're okay where we are for a while. It's weird to think that we got that eviciton last year at this time.

  On May 1st, I turn 55 years old. I've been joking here on the blog and in "real life" that I've been a 'tweenior" for the past four years, since I hit 50, and now, when I turn 55 on May 1st of 2008, I will finally be a "senior". This joking about like I'm turning into a teenager from a "tween" is not really funny when I think about it. I think for the first time since I hit the big five-oh back in 2003 I'm actually feeling a bit "old". I'm still attempting to write the date as March, as though I really don't want it to be April, because that means May is right around the corner. I like to say I'm forever "living in the now." The now seems to be catching up to me and kicking me in the arse.

  I haven't gotten depressed about it. Much. Or should I say "yet". One very interesting perception from my viewpoint is that since I never married and am childless, I still "feel" like I did in my 20s. I never "raised" anyone. I never had true responsibilities. Until I happen to look in a mirror, or get up out of a chair, or lie down on my aching hip replacement, I can still feel young, at least a bit. There are good and bad points to any situation. I accept that I am in fact aging, however, and even though I do have a bit of trepidation, and woulld like things to stay the same for a while, and not rush headlong into the future so quickly, I am also excited to be living in a time where that future is going to happen.

  I can't have the one without the other. If I want to see the future, I'm going to be seeing it through older eyes. And I can look on the bright side of that situation. I already HAD one cataract surgery already!

  As I get older, I seem to think that some of my "toys" are prematurely going on the brink, but really, they're just getting older and more obsolete as well. On Wednesday last, my DVD player, bought in the early 90s , when DVDs were a new medium, decided to die a slow painful death. At first, sporadic DVDs were not recognized  by the player. "NO DISC" would show up on the display. Sometimes I could jiggle the disc drawer, or shut the player off and turn it on again, (giving it the old "reboot") and the player might recognize the disc, but on Wednesday evening, I couldn't get either the rental discs, nor any in my own collection to play in the machine. Even though I'm broke, I had to pull out a credit card and get a new player. After all, I need my entertainment. I'm not going out too much these days because of the high gasoline prices. In Long Beach, where I work, premium was a $3.99 a gallon last week. One more penny, and we'll have $4.00 a gallon gas. I remember not too long ago when we topped $3.00 a gallon. I don't know how there are still so many cars on the road. You'd think at some point some people just won't be able to afford to drive around. I can't take extravagant "photo expeditions" anymore. So it was time for a new DVD player.

  On Thursday afternoon, I visited our local Circuit City Store, and got one of the new "Blu Ray" or High Definition players. There was a Sony model for $399.00 and I bought that one, the least expensive on the shelf. I hooked it up, and changed my Netflix account to a "Blu Ray" account, so that Netflix will ship the high def discs if they are available. On Friday, I took half a day off, and went to Hollywood Video, and rented some more Blu Ray discs. Over this past weekend, I pretty much did nothing except watch rented movies on the new machine. I have a 52" widescreen HDTV, with component cables for the picture, and the picture from the new player is excellent.The picture on  the older DVDs is sharper as well. The only thing I don't like about the Blu Ray player is that it is basically a computer, like my DirecTV DVR, and it doesn't just click on and off, it takes time to "boot up" and the discs have to "load" into the machine. Perhaps more expensive players have less of this "boot time". One thing I really like about the player, is that the display it sends to the monitor doesn't need much tweaking utilizing the TVs sharpness and color controls. The picture does have a pretty nice "wow' factor.

  So, as I look forward to (or don't want to look forward to)  turning 55 years old in a little over two weeks, I have a nice new "toy" to play with. Of course on top of the $669.00 I paid just two weeks ago for belt service and a new water pump on my car, and the $399.00 I just spent for the Blu Ray DVD player (both on the same credit card) and with gasoline inching up past $4.00 an hour, I still have "money problems" of course, but hopefully things will straighten up a bit as time wears on. I'd like to stop the aging at 55. But then so would we all.

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  I was really cooking on Xanga for a bit there, but I'm a bit "Xangafried" right now. These things happen. Over two weekends, I found myself  mostly"on" the Xanga service, but this past weekend I think I was "on Xanga:" only for a few moments. I still haven't "completed" answering comments from the Xangapedia entry, although I have pretty much kept up with the entries since then. For a while, I was getting lots of new subscribers and new commenters, and as usual I have attempted to keep up correspondence with as many folks as possible. I'm not taking a 'hiatus" or anything, but I have scaled my Xanga participation back a bit. MFN/ppf  EDIT: 4/15 7:36am pdt. It's taken almost a month, but this morning I finished retruning ALL the comments I received on the featured "Xangapedia" entry. I don't think I'll ever promise myself to respond to each individual comment if I ever get featured again.

  • 10:06 am
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