Kijiji Fail

You know, I am all about kijiji (not like Sylvia is all about it, but I still like it).  It is a place where you can get some great deals, get rid of excess junk in the house and so on.  We score a bunch of great things on there.  What is great about this giant online classified ad system is that most time, prices are negotiable, and people typically expect the barter system.  

I was surfing Kijiji for books when I came across this ad for Harry Potter Books:

I am selling the complete Harry Potter Book Series for $100.00.

 

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

 

All books are hardcover and are in excellent condition. Buy the set and get three Harry Potter book marks!

 

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 Guidelines

 

(1) Unless stated otherwise, all item prices are non-negotiable!

(2) If an item price is negotiable, please give a reasonable price. Lowballs will be ignored!

(3) All items are pick-up only! No deliveries will be made!

 

Steps for Inquiry & Pick-Up

 

(1) Please contact via e-mail

- Please leave your name (you do not need to include your phone number since I do not like to make calls)

- Please make sure that the e-mail you include is correct (otherwise I will not be able to reply)

- Please use proper English spelling, grammar, and punctuation (sorry, I do not speak French). If you type in chat speak or have too many errors in your e-mail, I will not respond (on account that I will not be able to understand you!)

- Please be polite!

(2) I'll respond within a few minutes/hours if e-mail is sent before 10:30pm (may take a bit longer to reply if I'm away from my computer)
(3) Please respond back within a few hours of my reply
(4) Please pick-up within 48 hours of set date/time (if you need to reschedule, let me know!)
(5) If item/s are not picked up within 48 hours (unless otherwise arranged), you may lose them, and they will be reposted back on Kijiji
  *Please check out my other ads for more fun items and deals!*

Now, doesn't this take all the fun out of it?  Sure, I typically laugh at people with bad spelling, but really, this is a little much, don't you think?  And really, guidelines? Really?  I can't believe it.  The complete douchery of this guy's ad makes me ponder the following:

(1) I don't want to respond to it, due to complete jerkiness.

(2) What's with the underline+exclamation point of "non-negotiable"?  Could it not have quite politely stated that prices are firm?

(3) I can't check my mail in the day at work, so do I automatically get thrown out because I can't reply right away?

(4) Does this guy really have the audacity to ask me to check out his/her other ads?  Why?  So I can get told what a horrible person I am for not using spell check?

(5) This makes me want to respond with half ass grammar, ask the seller if he/she can meet me somewhere as I don't have a car (even though I do), throw a few German words in my response and see if he/she can speak that, since he can't speak French, take too long to reply back to him/her, offer the seller a low ball figure and then, just to top it off, not go and pick up the items.

I think it will be a freaking miracle if these books actually sell.

-d

...I wonder what the other ads are...

Changing the Diaper

I know this is a little off topic from the recipes and such, but I feel that I should share with the world (or at least, the 9 people a month who read this) about changing Lexie's bum.  Before I get started, I know from time to time Sylvia or myself will say "change the bum" in front of other parents and get funny looks.  That is what we (and I think Sylvia will say just me, and she picked it up) say for changing the diaper.  I know, if you take it in the most literal meaning, it doesn't make a lick of sense, but hey, we are who we are.

Anyway, on to the changing of Lexie's bum.  You see, what makes it special and unique is that when you take off here diaper, this is the time that she decided to poop.  And I don't mean just a little girl trickle of poop, I am talking it is like a canon going off.  So when you change her, you have to hold her legs up and wait for the inevitable to occur.  Oh, and it doesn't stop there, no.  She then pees at us and decided to throw up at the same time.  All the orifices are getting a work out a changing time.  It didn't take us too long to set up a shielding system for us so that our clothes and whatever she is on when we change her (bed, floor, change table etc) gets the full brunt of Lexie.  There have been times, when we first brought her home, that we went through five diapers and three sleeper in one changing session!

In the end, she has such a satisfied look on her face after she explodes at us, it almost is worth it. 

..I am sure if she were to ever read this some time in the future, she would be mortified.  I guess that is what dads are supposed to do right?

Until next time,
-d

Useful Tip of the Day - Getting Rid of Fruit Flies

I hate fruit flies.  I hate 'em.  Stupid little pests that are always up in your face whenever you want to grab an apple from the basket.  I swear these little buggers know when I am coming to leave where they are hiding harass me.  I have no quams about saying that it gives me great pleasure when I kill some of them, or in this case, a mass grave of them.  This little tip comes from, as far as I know, one of my "many" followers Kerl, who may have gotten this from her mother-in-law, but hey, why give others credit when you can take it for yourself.

Seems like a very simple way of ridding yourself of fruit flies is a little dish of some white vinegar and a sheet of pastic wrap.  Just put some vinegar into the dish and put the plastic wrap over top of it.  Poke a couple of little slots through the plastic wrap.  Turns out, fruit flies aren't very bright, and the smell of the vinegar attacts them into their pending sarcophagus, but they can't figure out how to get out once they are in there.  Then let the mass killings begin.  It sounds morbid, yes, but seeing those little nuisances floating around in vinegar warms my heart like a fine Scotch on a cool winters day.

That's about it for today.

Until next time,

-d

Edit: Thanks Paul, my usual editor has given up on editing for me.

Naming a Baby

Having a baby is one of those special, wonderful times yada yada yada... Everyone has heard those lines piped up many times. But what people don't know, especially those who don't have any kids, is how incredibly stressful it is. First of all, there is the wife portion of the equation. She is the strong one who carries around the baby and has to deliver. But what about the dad? We have to go through the having to eat ice cream and junk food all the time out of sympathy (please note the deadpan there).

Then there is the colour scheme of the baby's room. Since we don't know what we are having, we had to pick a neutral colour. But then the discussions happens of what exact colour to make the room. Do we choose a brown? A yellow? If yellow, a lemon yellow? Canary yellow? There are hundreds of different names and shades for the simple colour of yellow!

BUT, the absolutely most stressful part about having a baby (especially when you don't know the sex) is naming the little monster. Even before Sylvia was pregnant with our second baby, we were talking about what kind of names we like. There are never any (or so few anyway) that two people can agree on. I can't imagine how people come to the decision to name the baby. No wonder in the old days everyone was junior or the third or something like that, because that was easy. No arguing whether the names Zelda and Zoltan go with Cameron. No arguing that Flavio sounds too much like a gay adult star's stage name (not that there is anything wrong with that. A person's sexual preference is no body's business but their own). No discussion that Dario sounds too much like Mario (another great choice) who reminds a person of a small, fat plumber who jumps on Koopa Troopa's and mushrooms. No conversation that Trent reminds some people of the river in Peterborough, and not of the great Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails for anyone who doesn't know). No thoughts that Oscar would make people sing the Oscar Meyer Wiener song.

And where do we, as parents, get the right to name the baby anyway? Olivia never asked to be an Olivia. Maybe she, when she grows up, decides that Ursula fits her personality much nicer. The audacity of parents to name a child. And what about poor Apple Martin, Dweezel and Moonbeam Zappa? What is wrong with these people! I know we want unique, but really. Or we can go on the other end of the spectrum and name our child the most popular name in the world; Mohammed (or the countless other ways of spelling that name). I am sure that Mohammed Cameron would go so nicely together. I saw four kids playing the other day and two of them were named Mohammed!

When it comes down to it, naming the baby is certainly the hardest thing. It has been at least 34 weeks now that we have been in discussion about the baby name, and we are only slightly closer than when we started.

Babies are a wonderful thing. We are lucky to be able to have one already, and then have another on the way, when there are so many people who aren't able to have children when they want them, so I can't really complain, because my ranting is really trivial.

Until next time

-d