Neither Maria nor I are impressed at this point
Seriously, people. Anybody got a cardboard box I can borrow for a couple of weeks?
Guess what just happened!
Category Archives: Really Yellowknife REALLY
Scotch that!
It's bad news when the Bartender cries
So yesterday I decided I’d been good (god knows why I decided that, but I can be somewhat arbitrary at times) and deserved a treat, and so I took myself to the local filling station, an agreeably-but-not-intimidatingly casual place named after a species of plant which did not, in fact, exist on the premises.
Unless it was hiding, and after what happened, who could blame it?
The waitress was attentive, and sweet, and barely old enough to be out that late on a school night. She asked me what I would like to drink, and I thought about what not-too-exotic-but-still-tasty items might be available in the subarctic regions and said, “Do you have Johnny Walker Black?”
She looked at me with alarm.
“Rum?” she asked.
“…Scotch,” I replied, probably just as startled as she had been. She’d apparently never heard of this exotic tipple. I might as well have asked for a Connecticut Bullfrog, Andover style.
She toddled off to whisper to the bartender. No doubt she thought it was something that was kept under the bar, in case of the po-po.
She came back smiling, and saying Yes, Yes, we have this ‘Johnny Walker Black’ stuff! or words to that effect. So I ordered a double.
“With Pepsi?”
And so concludes our Slice of Life in the Knife for this evening. The following I post here because it is perhaps the finest ten minutes of a bartending god as you will ever witness in your entire life, unless you buy the film The Sin of Harold Diddlebock and watch the whole thing repeatedly, as is your right. Or would be, if you hadn’t downloaded the damn thing from Bittorrent, eh?
and, for the complete opposite, here:
Did that guy actually get paid for this?
(via Whisky2.0)
An Explanation!
Well, this certainly accounts for what just happened to me.
http://twitter.com/#!/forgetful_man/statuses/98247762377838594
The Not-So-Happy Wanderer
Maria and I are in perfect agreement here
Yodelei-oh-fuckit.
So. Yellowknife. So. Vancouver. I realize that the housing situation is tight up here, but is there really any excuse for what just happened to me?
I moved up here at the beginning of July and, thanks to a commenter on one of my blogs who lives in Yellowknife but was wanting to go South for the summer without paying $1300 a month in rent for a place she was not using, walked right into a sweet sublet three or four blocks from work and with lovely and copious light. The plan was, she’d stay down South till September at least, which was awesome for me, as by then it would be clear both to me and to The Boss whether or not this “employment” experiment (as opposed to the last decade and a bit of self-employment) had been a success.
Didn’t work out that way: the Southerly situation was untenable, I’d left my apartment in NO CONDITION for a swap (trust me, I’m sure the ravens on the patio were gossiping about the state of the living room), and she was coming back. So there I was, facing August with no place to stay and a VERY tight rental market, when I got an email from my Co-op back in Vancouver, where I had left all my stuff because moving it into storage wouldn’t have saved me anything at all, once you factor in the move itself.
They doubled my rent.
Imagine my joy.
Yep, I’m employed now (albeit in a temporary, probationary position which could terminate at any moment) and so the benevolent hippies decided that it was appropriate to increase my housing charges to the point where my monthly housing fees in Vancouver and Yellowknife actually exceed my net income. They may exceed my gross income, too, but I’m too nauseated even to contemplate the grosses, and who among you can blame me? Eh? I ask yez.
That situation lasted about a week when I found a friend-of-a-friend who had an extra bedroom in her house for $600 per month, which was awesome (though I half expected Vancouver to raise my rent AGAIN when they found out I was saving money!) and it even came with a washer and dryer. The house was toured, issues were discussed, and we left, to my recollection, with an agreement that unless something went really sideways and one of us contacted the other to say so, all was good for my moving in on the first of August.
Cut to the first of August. Today.
Picture a smiling icecoaster coming up the sidewalk, friend with carload of my things idling at the curb. Picture said friend-of-a-friend coming out to meet me with what can only be described as a shit-eating grin on her face (note: does not mean what you think it means. means this instead).
Oh, guess what. Sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’ve been offline. Camping, actually. So you couldn’t have gotten in touch with me but, anyway, when I didn’t hear from you I just, you know, sort of figured I’d just go ahead and change my mind. Sorryyyyyy. So, yeah.
So.
It’s a good thing I’ve been scouting out charities to volunteer for, because at least I am well-informed about homeless shelter options in Yellowknife.
When the snows set in I'll kill my Tauntaun.
raincoaster 