Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
by Tricia
Off to the Hockey game! BRRRR I’ve had a fever for the better part of the last four days! I’m gonna freeze! Wish us luck that the Toronto team wins! I promise I’ll come back with some photos for the hockey fans out there.
There are hockey fans out there isn’t there? hello … ?
Ok, off to get my Parka for my cold few hour stay in an ice rink. Maybe some tylenol too. Uh huh
by Tricia
Chris came home from Brantford yesterday with his brother and nephew. We’d talked around midnight late Sunday/ Early Monday to wish each other a happy new year and at that time we didn’t think Chris’ brother was going to come to Toronto until Tuesday.
Surprise … they showed up with Chris yesterday afternoon. I think they will be here until Thursday or Friday. I’m going to try to keep posting while they are visiting but if I don’t it’s because I have visitors. Don’t worry if this site goes quiet for a day or two. Ok?
This evening we are going to a hockey game. No not an NHL game, but I suppose it’s the second best type we could go to. We’re going to watch the farm teams for the NHL – the Toronto Marlees and the Syracuse Crunch at the Ricoh Coliseum. I think that I can bring a camera in, so I might take some photos.
I’m not a huge hockey fan – ahhh all the Canadians reading this are going to take me out back and shoot me now! LOL Hey – I do watch it on TV and attend games … I’m just not an avid fan.
I had asked people to write a link to two of our sites and I’d give them a link on this site – in a post. I asked this some time last week and the response has been very good. Unfortunately due to my not feeling well and having relatives in town and now in my house I haven’t had a chance to repay these people with some linky love. I promise that I will most definitely do that later this week. In the meantime if anyone else wants to get in on my link deal – read the post and I will get back to you by the end of the week with some linky love.
by Tricia
Enough about Sofie my little old lady stalker neighbor … this time I wanna talk about my gawd awful Karaoke singing neighbors!
They Are Driving Me Nuts!
Friday, beginning sometime around three p.m. I began to hear what possible might have been country music through the walls of my home. The sound was coming from the adjoined neighboring house … the Karaoke neighbors. The music was accompanied by what can only be described as the sound of wailing dogs left out in the cold and howling to get in. Yes, they were singing.
OH my Gawd, they were singing?!?!
They continued on through the evening, at least until 11:00 pm. It was unbearable! The music changed but unfortunately if anything the singing was worse. We’ve been through this before. They were probably partying and drinking. The music gets louder and louder through the night- probably thanks to an unhealthy dose of alcohol, and unfortunately the singing only gets worse.
People, no matter what they believe, do not sing better when they’ve been drinking.
That was Friday ….
This is now early Monday morning.
They took Saturday off.
Unfortunately, they did not take Sunday off.
I was sick all day Saturday. Actually it started Friday night. I’m only guessing that their music stopped at 11 pm Friday because I fell asleep on the couch to escape my pain and perhaps them as well. Saturday was not a good day for me – fevers and pain in my belly all day. I took it easy because I wanted to go with my husband to see his brother and the rest of his family for New Years Eve. I didn’t make it though. I felt a bit better on Sunday but not enough to be able to go out and party all night.
So I’m home. Spent the afternoon and a good portion of the evening working on my sites. I actually felt like I got something accomplished without Chris hovering around me.
At about 8:30 pm the horrid Karaoke began again. It was sporadic, but very very loud. I didn’t want to go and knock on their door because I’m feeling yucky and look horrible. Wait a minute that might have actually helped!
Instead I spent my time yelling at the walls. Yeah … I’m hoarse now from yelling at them to shut up – not from screaming as the year changed. What a twit huh?
If you are picturing a woman, no make up, dressed in sweats and looking ill, holding her hands cupped around her mouth and yelling loudly at a wall while stomping her feet, well yeah, that’s me you’re seeing. Now forget you ever saw that, and we won’t speak of it again.
Their house quieted down sometime after 10. I thought I’d lucked out and that maybe they went to a friends. They must have gone somewhere, but not for long because around 11:30 I started hearing a lot of loud voices and thumping feet over there, and the sound of microphones being dropped – you know that bang and hiss they make when they fall and their turned on and the sound comes out the speakers. Yeah. Not nice.
Right after midnight the Howling music began. I swear it sounds like they are in some big empty warehouse. Their music and singing almost echoes. I can’t make out the words to their songs but they sing so bad I doubt I could if I was in the same room.
Christmas Eve was like this too, but if anything their awful music and singing was better than it was Friday or today. I can’t believe they’ve managed to get worse through the week! My husband refused to complain about it last Sunday, no matter how much I plead with him to go over and knock on their door. He said it was Christmas Eve .. leave them alone. Yet he complained all week about how loud they’d been last Sunday. Yeah … whatever Chris.
Calling them doesn’t help. They can’t hear the phone. Heck I can’t hear my phone at times since it sounds like they are in MY living room. Knocking on the door doesn’t help much either. When we’ve complained in the past they tone it down for a bit, and look at us like there’s something wrong with us complaining about their music. They claim that they can’t hear us. Well, let me tell you – I can hear them. All __ The __ Time!
It’s actually just about 1 a.m. and if they don’t stop soon I’m going to go bust their door down. This is really inconsiderate. I am very angry at them right now – so angry in fact that I might even call the police. I’ve never done that to anyone before.
I know it’s New Years and I really don’t mind people having fun … I like to have fun too, but if you were here and you could hear how loud and how awful the sound is you’d be wanting to call the police too. It sounds like they are IN my living room. Going upstairs doesn’t help either because it’s almost as loud. Plus, this is the third time in a week that they’ve driven me nuts with their loud awful singing.
Once I can forgive, three times in a week, uh huh.
This time I will be complaining.
The real problem is that they are actually very nice people, and overall they are good neighbors to have. They don’t do this very often anymore. They used to all the time, I think our complaints and actually bringing them into our home to hear how loud they were helped a bit.
I’ve already told Chris that our next home will be DETACHED. No more semi-detached for me, thank you very much.
Hmmm now I’m done editing this post and it’s 1:10 am .. I heard noise at their front door and I think their guests might be leaving. The karaoke stopped about 10 minutes ago too. Keeping my fingers crossed that it’s over.
by Tricia
Sadam was hanged at 9:55 pm EST, sunrise in Iraq. this happened less than 30 minutes ago.
Digg this story – http://digg.com/politics/Saddam_Hussein_Dead_3
Update: 4:25 a.m EST December 30th – We ended up watching CNN for hours. In fact as I sit here writing posts for the next few days I still have CNN playing on my TV. I really wasn’t watching in the hope that I would seen Saddam hanged. I would never want to watch something like that – no matter how evil a person might be.
At 4:10 a.m. CNN finally was able to show some video related to Saddam Hussein’s hanging. The video had just been aired on Iraq TV, and quickly dispersed throughout the worlds news agencies. CNN showed video of Saddam being led into the gallows, shackled and handcuffed, and wearing what appeared to be a dark suit coat. He refused the head covering that was offered to him.
The gallowmen, what do you call those people anyway?, were wearing what appeared to be ski masks and looked very much like men dressed to rob a bank or a store. One of the men placed the head gear around Husseins neck, perhaps to protect his skin, and then placed the noose over his head and tightened it around his neck. The video freezes, as it apparently did on Iraq TV as well, with Saddam standing in position on the gallows looking straight ahead.
He looked resigned to his fate – but neither brave nor defiant – just resigned.
I’m still deciding how I feel about his hanging. Certainly he was an evil man who harmed and killed many. One commentator on CNN said that he might be responsible for killing as many as 2 million of his own people. I do think he might have been hanged too soon. I would have liked to see him stand trial for his crimes against the Kurds.
When Chris and I lived in the apartment we had a very nice Kurdish couple living above us. Both of them had lost many family members to Saddam when he gassed his own people. The Iraqi couple that lived above us left the country shortly after Husseins attack on the kurds. They missed their family, living and dead, terribly but new that they needed to make a life for themselves away from their homeland. Perhaps moving from the country was the only way they could make a good life for themselves after that.
It’s for my former neighbors, and other Iraqis that I know that I wish Saddam had stood trial for the majority of the wrongs that he’d done.
How do you feel about his death?
by Tricia
My brother in law will be coming to Toronto / Brantford from Chicago to celebrate New Years with us. I think that he might actually be driving from Chicago tomorrow. It’s going to be a fun time when he arrives! He loves to party.
You might remember that this past August Chris and I drove to Chicago with some friends, well sorta friends, and spent the weekend there. That was a lot of driving just for a weekend trip, but since it was my first time visiting Chicago I didn’t mind. I was excited to go there since I’d heard so much about the city but hadn’t seen it before.
Even though my visit was brief, I left there with no doubt in my mind that I could live there. You see, I found Chicago to be similar in a lot of ways to Toronto. I know it’s not the same, but the hustle and bustle, always having something going on, yeah that’s just like Toronto.
Now, if I was going to move there, or if someone that I knew was moving there I’d tell them to contact the NewCastle Realty Group. They specialize in Chicago Real Estate for the whole 7 county area including the city of Chicago and over 180 surrounding cities. Their agents are said to be extremely helpful, as they help you find homes that meet your criteria and give you information on the populations in the areas you like houses of worship, median income levels, schools, access to transportation or commuting information and other areas of interest close to the area that you are viewing. They will assist you through the entire process of buying your new home, and if necessary assist you with the selling of your current home, recommending local attorneys, mortgage consultants and home inspectors.
You can browse available properties on their website, and look up other helpful information that will teach you more about the process of buying or selling a home. You might even be interested in reading their informative blog as well.
The NewCastle group sounds very much like the company that helped us purchase our home here in Toronto, and if they are anything like the company that helped Chris and I then you’ll be quite pleased with their services.