Markus’ Blog

This is starting to get lame. Here we are, trying to look at temporary accommodation for August and September, and it doesn’t seem to want to work out.

On Wednesday, we had an appointment at 6pm to see a condo one block east of Beatty, between Georgia and Dunsmuir (in those new high rises above Costco). The guy owning it asked us to call him when we were on our way. We did, but it turned out that (a) his phone went to voice mail and (b) that his voice mail was full. So, we couldn’t get in touch with him, nor could we leave him a message. His buzzer went to the same, full mail box, as well. The guy didn’t show up either, even though we had already agreed to meet there at 6pm (it hadn’t been an issue getting a hold of him earlier in the day). Eventually we left and went for dinner. Thankfully, there was at least yummy sushi to be had after this experience, otherwise I would have trekked from Burnaby to Downtown for no reason whatsoever.

The second installment of this story happened this morning. Another appointment, originally set up for 1pm, but then moved to 10am for our convenience. 977 Mainland. We got there five minutes early, waited for the owner. Nobody showed up. We phoned the owner. It went straight to voice mail. No ringing. At least the mail box was not full and we could leave a message. Not that that did us any good. 20 minutes and a second message later, we left. Can you say déjà vu?

And the “best” thing of all: guy #1 did not reply to the e-mail sent to him after the fact, and guy #2 did not phone back despite having received two voice mails and clearly being aware that he stood us up.

What is it with people?! Obviously, they are not very eager to rent out their places. And these things go between $2000 and $2500/month! What really pisses me off, though, is that there’s probably enough demand, that they don’t have to take appointments seriously. They can afford to be asses. If they manage to remember every 5th appointment they make and actually show up, it probably results in a signed deal, which is good enough for them and that’s all they care about.

Finally, the day has arrived. We are departing for our two week vacation in Hong Kong. I hope the flight goes smoothly and Cathay Pacific is as awesome as they were last year when we flew to New York.

It’s going to be one tough flight for me anyhow. Not only will it be the longest I have ever been on a plane: over 13 hours. To top it off, I can’t sleep (very well) on planes. — We’ll see about the “very well” part. I hope it’s a “not very well” and not a “not at all”.

But being there and spending time there should be worth it. I am sure it’ll be a great experience. This will be, after all, my first time to any Asian country. I am very excited and very much looking forward to it.

Since we are bringing our laptop, there should be fairly regular updates (with pictures even!) while we are gone.

It took over a year to get 10,000 spam comments, but only six months to get another 10,000.

Not a good trend.

If it keeps up, I’ll be hitting 30,000 in July.

Has your e-mail address ever been used as sender address in spam? Count yourself lucky if your answer is no. Mine has — as of yesterday night. My main e-mail address, that is, the one I never give out to sign up for something, the one I never enter on web forms. Bloody fuck!

Needless to say I am highly pissed.

I hate spam and consider spammers the scum of mankind in the 21st century. And now this. Guys, I hate you lots already, you don’t need to try getting me to hate you even more.

So far, the fall out has “only” been bounces (“mail could not be delivered”) and auto replies (“Thank you for your e-mail regarding ‘V*1*AGRA’. I am currently out of the office, but will read your e-mail when I return.”). I got 50 51 of those between Mar. 27, 22:56 and Mar. 28, 04:52 Mar. 28, 08:05.

If that’s it, then I got away fairly “good”. I don’t think it’s over yet, though. What pisses me off the most is that I can’t do ANYTHING about it. NOTHING. They send spam with my e-mail address and I get to sit back and watch, and receive — at the very least — all the bounces and auto replies. However, if I’m truly “lucky”, I’ll get (some of) the blame for sending the spam, too.

I am waiting for two things now:

1. that those fucking bastards keep re-useing my e-mail address in future spam runs, i.e. it’ll never end and I’ll have to can my e-mail address. They have it now, so why not keep using it. Stuff it into a big database and have the spam sending software randomly pick it.
2. for pissed off people, who still don’t know that spammers fake sender addresses, telling me to stop trying to sell them pills or other shit and threatening me with law suits or something.

Just lovely.

I am dying to know how they got a hold of my e-mail address. That would be very, very, VERY interesting. Alas, I am never going to find out.

PS: Oh, another bounce just came in as I was typing this post. I had no idea I was fluent in Russian (and Mandarin, too, by the way, just in case anybody was wondering):

This is the Postfix program at host mail.ngks.ru.

I’m sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the message returned below.

The Postfix program

<kribtsov @int.ngks.ru>: data format error. Command output: kribtsov: Mailbox does not exist

Reporting-MTA: dns; mail.ngks.ru
Arrival-Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:10:43 +0300 (MSK)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; kribtsov@int.ngks.ru
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; data format error. Command output: kribtsov: Mailbox does not exist

Subject: Те�нологи� п�о�е��ионал�ного �еле�онного поведени�
From: ��и��ина <mmayer[at]mmayer|dot|net>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:33:50 +0000
To: <kribtsov @int.ngks.ru>

TPE���� дл� �ек�е�а�ей, менедже�ов по п�одажам, �е�еп�иони��ов

«Т�Х������Я �Р�Ф�СС�����Ь���� Т���Ф������ ��������Я»

1 а п � е л � 2008 г. (� 10.00 до 18.00)

1. Спе�и�ика �еле�онн�� пе�егово�ов. �б�ение без виз�ал�ного кон�ак�а: важное п�еим��е��во п�и пе�егово�а�. (Уп�ажнение).
[...]

Today’s commute to work was pretty much an exact repeat of yesterday’s. A few things were different:

• At 7am, a radio announcement was made on 95 Crave that Translink had kept four trolley buses running overnight to keep the wires clear and that that had worked.
• The bus was just beeping, it didn’t turn into the continous alarm heard yesterday.
• We were going faster (maybe 25 km/h as opposed to 10 km/h yesterday).
• We made it till 29^th Avenue till we were told to get off the bus (yesterday the journey was over for me as 31^st Avenue).

Without the radio announcement I probably would have checked Translink’s web-site for up-to-date information or I would have walked over to Knight street right away. With the announcement, however, I decided it would be “save” to just give it another shot. — It was not.

This is what Translink has to say this time around:

17 trolleys were kept running through the city overnight to keep the trolley wires warm, and that’s helped get our morning rush-hour service on the roads. Still some isolated instances of delays due to ice on overhead, predominantly in shaded areas.

So, yes, while it may be true that running 17 buses over night (not 4 like they said on the radio) helped, it did not make much of a difference for me. Still ended up taking #25 and #22 instead.

And the main question remains:

Why did nobody clue into this ahead of time?!

Something else is not going to change, either:

I hate incompetency, of which this is a prime example.

This is the story of my commute to work this morning. When I left the building, I could see a new trolley bus approaching my stop. Excellent! I wasn’t going to have to wait in the (below freezing) cold at all! But then I realized that the bus wasn’t moving. It was stopped and its hazard flashers were on. And I am thinking to myself: “Oh, oh. That’s not good. Doesn’t bode well.”

To my surprise, the bus started moving again only a few seconds later, and I was relieved. Way too early, as it would soon turn out. Leaving our stop, we started down Fraser Street slowly, to the noisy beeping of the bus, complaining that it couldn’t get power from the power lines. The beeping soon turned into an angry, continuous alarm. When that happened, the bus driver would go to “work the poles”: park the bus, get off, knock the ice of the poles and/or power lines and start going again. Within the next two blocks, the bus driver had to stop three times to to this. And every time, the bus would complain again pretty much immediately. So, it took about 3-4 minutes to travel a distance that normally takes 10-15 seconds.

When I saw two more buses having the exact same problems going the other way, I knew it was time for me to get off the trolley and use bus lines I know are serviced by diesel buses. All the while, I kept wondering why the old trolley buses never seemed to have this issue, but I was not going to go through any more slowly creeping down Fraser street on the #8 and follow that up by slowly creeping down Broadway on the #9. I took the #25 over to Knight, instead, and the #22 to Clark and 6^th Avenue, which is about a block from VCC-Clark Skytrain station.

That didn’t work out too badly. It took me about 50 minutes to get to work that way. It should have been more like 35 minutes going the regular way, but oh well. Could have been much worse. I am pretty sure staying on the #8 would have been.

The only thing that sucks is that I was leaving home early to make some phone calls to Austria before starting work (on my cell, not using the work line for that), but by the time I got into the office, it was past 5:00pm over there already and everybody had already gone home. Without this issue, I would have made it on time.

And this is what almighty Translink has to say about the frost disaster:

Coast Mountain Bus Co.

Trolley bus service is slowly being restored, but there are still major delays.

Diesel buses are being used on some trolley routes, and this may cause slight delays on routes normally served by diesels.

Suburban routes coming into Vancouver are picking up local customers, as well. B-Line buses are picking up at all stops for the time-being, as well.

Old trolley buses with ice cutters are being used to clear the overhead lines, thereby setting free more and more of the new trolleys.

We remind customers to please dress warmly and exercise patience on this commute.

The City of Vancouver has closed Yukon Street at West 7th Avenue, therefore 50 service will re-route via West 5th Avenue, Columbia Street, Broadway to regular route.

I “like” the “dress warmly” part the best. Fun stuff — not.

And how come the old trolleys have ice cutters and the new ones don’t? How come nobody clued into this before trolley bus service broke down this morning? Is it going to be like this for the rest of the cold season or are they going to wake up and do something to prevent this in the future?

Real fun stuff, I have to say. — I guess it could be so much worse (as in apartment trashed and tenants becoming violent), but it’s still annoying as hell.

My condo in Austria has been rented out since February 2006. The first year, during which it was rented to a middle-aged married couple, things went pretty well. The tenant tended to pay rent approximately a week late every month. Due to long weekends and holidays this sometimes lead to me not getting the rent till the 11^th or 12^th of the month. Getting it around the 6^th was “normal”. Not something you could get away with for very long in Canada, but laws are different in Austria. They are much more protective of the tenant, not the landlord, since the former is considered the “poorer” of the two while the latter is the “richer”. It’s stressing the social aspect of society. — Makes sense, I guess, in some ways, since people are not renting out the basements of their homes there to recover part of the mortgage cost, like they do here. So, somebody renting out is usually someone who can afford to own two places (one to live in, one to rent out) or is a commercial landlord. Plus it’s all about consumer protection and the tenant is, in this case, the “consumer equivalent” while the landlord is the “business owner”.

I was a little annoyed by his always paying late, but given the law and the fact that I am almost 9,000 km away, I just sucked it up.

Then that couple got divorced, in May 2007 or so. And the husband couldn’t afford the rent anymore on his own. Of course, he didn’t contact my mom ahead of time, letting her know what was going on. In June, he just stopped paying rent altogether without saying anything. Not good. My mom had to phone him up and find to what the hell was going on.

In the end, with the help of the realtor lady who had helped us find the renter, it was agreed that he would be moving out after two months and that the rent for these two months would come from his security deposit. The law requires three months of security deposit (not half a month as it is here). So, we kept two months of the deposit (as rent for June and July) and returned the third month to the tenant when he moved out.

The good parts about this story: the condo was in very good condition, not trashed in the least (it’s fully furnished), the guy was nice and understanding and didn’t try to put up a stink — which I am sure he could have to some extent, had he tried.

He was out by July 31, 2007, and our trusty realtor lady had already found a new tenant by that point. A young German business man who travels lots and was sick of staying in hotels. The furnished apartment was perfect for him.

He moved in the middle of August. So far, so good. There were a few hiccups getting the three months worth of security deposit from him (he obviously hadn’t done his research and didn’t know he’d need that much money up front), but in the end it worked out. It delayed his move into the condo by about two weeks, though.

However, it now looks like the fun hadn’t even started till that point yet. As unbelievable as it may sound, he has never paid his rent on time since moving in. Yes, NEVER. Not only did he not pay on time, it took several phone calls from my mom and meeting him in person each time to receive the rent — in cash. Afterwards, my mom had to go to the bank herself to deposit it.

He keeps promising that he’ll set up an Austrian bank account and create an automatic monthly transfer to take care of the rent, but this has not happened to date. How hard is it again to open a bank account? Not very. It took me about three weeks (if that) after coming to Canada to open a chequings and a savings account. Besides, the European Monetary Union ensures that it is possible to transfer funds within the EU free of charge, meaning he could even pay the rent from his German account just fine.

He seems to be a nice, friendly, reliable guy, and he has always been very respectful and forthcoming when my mom phoned him (and met him in person), which I appreciate — but come on. I know you are lying to her, dude. If you really wanted to set up an automatic bank transfer, like you claim, you had plenty of time to do so by now. Since the middle of August, to be precise. It’s not that hard. Yes, you are traveling lots, but still. And there’s always web-banking.

I have now invoked the help of our trusty realtor lady. She seems pretty confident that she can talk some sense into him. I hope she’s right, but she has never let us down. If she can’t do it, then nobody can and my current tenant is a real stupid MOFO (for not listening to her) and I’d like to have him out of the condo today rather than tomorrow.

Oh, and did I mention that he hasn’t paid his rent for November yet? Well, I guess, that didn’t really come as a surprise now, did it.

I knew along with everybody else that there was some (indirect) price gouging going on in Canada with the US dollar losing more and more against the Canadian dollar. What I didn’t know is how bad it was in the consumer electronic market.

Take the new Canon Powershot G9 for instance, which I am considering getting myself (or have Santa get for me lol). My good old G1 is slowly coming to the end of its useful life. I like the G1, but there are so many more, nice features available now, seven years after the G1. One thing I will miss, however, will be the tilting LCD.

BestBuy in the US offers the G9 for US$499.99, BestBuy in Canada offers it for CA$599.99. Yep, thats $100 more in Canada, despite the fact that the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar. According to XE.com, US$499.99 = CA$476.242 in today’s money. Granted, that’s a little unfair, because XE shows mid-market rates — better rates than anybody would ever get at a bank counter or through their credit card. So let’s assume US$499.99 = CA$489.99 if you did the exchange at the bank. And doesn’t $489.99 look like a perfect marketing price (seeming like a lot less than $500 while still being close)? Nope, apparently not. They want $600 instead.

Ain’t gonna happen, people. Not from me. I can get it shipped from the States and still save a bundle. And that’s without even looking at Amazon.com and other online stores, who will most likely be even cheaper.

I remember I did the same thing seven years ago, when I bought the G1. Except that I ordered it from Germany, where it was a lot cheaper than in Austria. — I guess, we’ve found yet another stunning similarity in how the relationship Canada vs. US mirrors the relationship Austria vs. Germany. There are quite a few that I have come to notice, but that’s material for another post.

Today, my site exceeded the threshold of 10,000 spam comments — according to my Akismet statistics. It only took about a year for my blog to reach that crazy number. Can’t remember exactly when I installed and activated the Akismet plugin for Wordpress (at that time it didn’t come bundled with Wordpress yet).

I briefly had other spam protection solutions (can’t even remember at this point what they were), but switched to Akismet when it became available. I am sure glad I did. I also turned on “automatically delete spam comments from old posts” when that feature became available, and I am very glad about that feature, too.

Without Akismet, I would have been forced to either make it much harder for people to leave legitimate comments (captchas, enforcing logging in, etc.) or turn off commenting altogether. I can’t believe that blog spamming is that bad these days that my tiny blog receives 10,000 spams in a year. Big sites receive 100 times the amount of spam. Basically, spammers are attacking the third Internet technology now:

• first they ruined usenet (news groups)
• then they made dealing with e-mail a pain in the rear
• and lastly (for now) they are going for web sites and are making blogging difficult, too (the same goes for forums, wikis, etc.)

They are putting the burden of their money making on the e-mail user (who needs spam filters) and the blog/web site owner (who, too, needs spam filters), and so on, and so forth. I hate those bastards. Let’s hope they die out some day. Unfortunately, I’m afraid there’s simply too much money to be made with not much financial risk or any (serious) legal implications.

This morning, the next chapter in the endless bird poop story took place. Mediation at Small Claims Court. It sure was an interesting, albeit unpleasant experience. The whole ordeal took about two and a half hours.

It turns out that my assessment of the previous owner’s mind-set was pretty much accurate. No willingness to accept any form of responsibility or admit any wrongdoing (in spite of signed contracts clearly stating responsibilities that were not met).

After both parties made their opening statements, the previous owner said he would be totally open to a dialog and a discussion, but he would not be willing to pay the cleaning bill (as in “not a cent”). So what exactly do you want to talk about then? We already know that you are not thrilled about paying, ’cause otherwise you would have done it already. But we’re not going to walk away empty handed either, ’cause if we were planning on doing that, we wouldn’t have even filed the claim.

Very frustrating and annoying.

We did reach an agreement at the end, but only after we started making concessions and kept going down that path way further than we were originally planning to do. Had it not been for that, we’d actually be going to court over pigeon feces.

Our original claim was for $472. Not willing to actually take this ridiculous matter to court, we first offered to drop the court fees ($160) from our claim and settle for the pure cleaning cost ($312). His counter offer was to pay half the cleaning cost — which wouldn’t even have covered our filing and service fees at court, let alone part of the cleaning expenses. In other words, paying for the cleaning ourselves and not even bothering with court would have been cheaper. So no, that didn’t work for us.

Eventually, we settled for $235 (which is just under half of $472), but what a pain in the rear that was. He still thinks our claim is completely unreasonable. While he did apologize for not informing us about the bird nest (and have us find out by stumbling over it), he still maintains that he did nothing wrong.

To top it all of, he insisted that he would not be able to make a lump sum payment. It will be four post-dated cheques over 3x $60 and 1x $55. One for each month from May till August.

Congratulations! You have successfully managed to drag out this issue for a full year. Bloody hell!

What a ridiculous request! He makes about as much money as I do, his wife makes more. Combined, they thus have more income than we do — and he tells us he has to drag this out for another four months and that he doesn’t have two-hundred-and-a-few bucks sitting around? That’s very hard to believe.

The only good things about this agreement are:

• This is hopefully the end of it — even if it’ll drag on till August — and we won’t have to deal with it for much longer. Just wait and deposit the cheques.
• He’s pretty much as upset and pissed about the settlement as we are. Or in other words: neither party got what they wanted. Sometimes there even lies satisfaction in what you don’t get.

I just hope we don’t have to go back to court to file for a payment order, because he’s not complying with the terms of the settlement.