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Sorting out furniture continues. The question I wrestle with currently is if I should spend five figures on dining room furniture (table+chairs+sideboard) or try my luck on the secondary market. What's out there? Sideboards, plenty. Tables, with careful shopping, available. Chairs? Well, maybe eventually.

I don't dislike the designers' choices at all, I just recoil from the cost when secondhand vintage pieces are available so cheaply in comparison.

There's a place called Mostly Danish out near Cornwall which appears to be one guy with a warehouse full of vintage MCM pieces that he refurbishes and flips. His website is a pain in the ass because he never delists anything he's sold, only marks it "sold out" leaving it mixed in with what's actually available, but maybe it's worth driving out of a weekend to see his horde in person, since he has easily the best inventory in the country.

One then presumes it's possible to get movers to haul stuff 400km for less than the promise of a firstborn, but that seems not impossible. I bet he even knows a guy.

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The IKEA BERGSHYTTAN is close enough to the right shade of brown and only costs $400. Add some BERGMUND chairs, cough up for some Etsy-special slipcovers, and even tossing in a sideboard that's a whole-ass collection for under $3k.

As nice? I mean, technically no, there's no solid wood there. But still.

Dentist time again. For the first time in what has to be at least 15 years, the dentist found a small cavity, this time on the back of my last right-side molar, up against where a wisdom tooth would have been. Easily drilled and filled, though, without any freezing necessary.

My gums remain, er, puffy. I guess I should get back into the habit of WaterPikking.

As I promised the contractor, I annotated the electrical diagram prepared by the designers with part numbers from my preferred electrical supplier (LeGrand, specifically their "Adorne" series).

This was more work than I anticipated.

Then I thought I'd do a nice thing and printed off a hard copy for tomorrow. This was a mistake, the black and white printer produced output that is both too small (it really ought to be 11x17" for legibility) and dithered into illegibility (because my annotations are in red).

Oh well, there are like three print shops within a five minute walk from the apartment if for some reason they can't produce their own printout. Personally, I'll use my iPad to go over it with them.

The buckle on the belt I wear most days has broken. The pin that runs through the belt and secures the, er, shackle(?) and retains the tongue just snapped at both ends, revealing the pin has become bent from the hundreds of bucklings etc.

I guess I need a new leather belt. I don't need it to keep my pants up but it does help with stopping the waistband from rolling over.

My criteria: full grain leather, 1.5" width, some kind of dark brown, ideally bronze hardware (patina-ed brass or "gunmetal" OK in a pinch, no silver/nickel).

Some notes: Popov Leather does a lot of promo (seen them even in my FB ads), but only offers nickel hardware. Roots still makes their leather goods in Canada and has a surprisingly competitive price. JB Leather Supply will let you customize the hardware.

This is silly, surely there's still some place in town that can offer me such a product in person.

Been watching the Olympics a little on TV because after a glut of panel shows those have dried up. I'd like to say that CBC's coverage has been excellent, but if anything I think their prime time coverage is too edited. A whole hockey game or curling match in under 10 minutes? What a surprise, it's just the highlights, which takes all the tension out. Same with the luge and biathlon I saw, chopped down to almost nothing. Downhill ski coverage seemed OK.

I suppose I could use CBC Gem to watch whole events, but on the other hand, 123 minutes of uninterrupted biathlon coverage seems like a bit much. I guess what I'm really saying is that I could do with a middle ground.

I've settled on a quartet of Gisnep, Digits, Bracket City, and Timeguessr before bed. I brush my teeth, get horizontal, and make use of the iPad. It might as well do something for me.

Gisnep is maybe my favourite, but my skill at Timeguessr seems to impress people for some reason. I'm pretty good at the geography part, but not always so much at the time. I consider 40,000 to be the minimum for an acceptable score, and anything 45,000 and up to be excellent.

Bracket City was better before it was blanketed with ads. I guess I could send The Atlantic money again, but come on.

Pixel 10 Pro edition.

I guess this is fine? The Qi2 charger is convenient, but I never had a problem laying my phone on the Qi1 charging pad overnight (although admittedly it could not also function as a mount). Takes pictures well, nice to have the ultrawide and tight lenses. When I first got it, battery life was fairly dire, but I guess it was still self-calibrating, because now it easily lasts up to a day and a half, even with charging capped at 80%.

In theory this does all the neato Gemini stuff, but so far my experience is that Google Assistant was better for my needs, because it was predictable. Also the new voice models are uncanny valley. If pressed I might also conclude that it's marginally less stuttery for the things I actually use my phone for, which is admittedly not much compared to some people.

The two big wins for me are renewed battery life and a lack of scratches on the screen (those were my fault on the 7a), but on the whole, it's a phone, I guess. I think I would have been just as happy with the non-Pro edition, since the battery life is reputedly better.

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I still think that my favourite phone was the Pixel 3, which I attribute in part to the excellent first-party case with the fabric-like texture on the outside.

Bar Isabel edition.

The service was elevated, the jamon croquetas exceptional, the pan con tomate very good, and the cocktails excellent.

The beef tongue was mid, and it was too loud for my taste.

At one point people were saying this was the best casual restaurant in town. I'd say it was a 9/10. I've enjoyed other places more, but not by much admittedly.

Apparently I've been charging my phone wrong. (I did finally get a Pixel 10 Pro out of Rogers.) I had been using my old Qi1 charger like a rube, but the P10P is Qi2 now, and while Qi1 still works (technically), it does make the phone hot and requires you to get the positioning of the charger exactly right.

So I broke down and got a Qi2 charger. And a little 25W cube charger to go with it. And a case with the magnetic ring in the back.

But it all works now: the Qi2 charger attaches itself with the magnets, strong enough to hold up the phone, and refills it at a full 20W. Not that I need that; I always put it on the wireless charger overnight and just work through the day with it.

While I am here, I do still own a car, and it's still there, resting quietly in the underground parking garage of my condo building.

It's not totally idle: I drove it around two weeks ago, just long enough to get the fluids up to temperature and keep the battery charged. I'll do that again next week.

A complicating factor is that there are four rims in garbage bags in the hatch because the building forbids storage of anything in parking spots, so I can't just have them stacked neatly next to the wall. I really ought to at least lay them flat to keep them from rolling around too much in the cargo space.

And list them for sale, to be honest, since it's not like I have any use for them.

Well, if I am going to take a trip, I should figure out where I'm going. The basic shape isn't that hard, I'll take two weeks off: the last time I travelled was last May.

The first answer that comes to mind is London: hang out for a week, ten days maybe. There are great comedy shows literally every day, and glancing at Chortle shows me that I can see everything from big comics doing WIP shows in small rooms to headline dates with Greg Davies or Olga Koch. Ride the tube, buses, trains, see some museums, resist the urge to get fitted for bespoke shirts*, drink a lot of tea and some excellent coffee.

But why not go somewhere new? Someone (and I forget who) suggested Mexico City: a bit rough around the edges by reputation, but a lot better than it used to be. History, markets, food. My Spanish is...not great, but also not zero. If this is the play I should make a list of at least 10 things to see so that I have a goal for every day I'm there.

Somewhere on the Pacific coast is also appealing, like Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta. This would be a different kind of trip, more like going to a resort.

Or just resort it, go all in and read books and nap for a week. Probably not an all-inclusive, since I find I don't eat or drink enough anymore to really make it worthwhile.

I dunno. There are options, certainly, and I should choose among them. London remains appealing.

* - Really, if I wanted to do that, I could do it here: hit up a travelling trunk show, or just go to Philip Sparks

I think the time has come to get more careful about budgeting, in that I should have one and track it. I'm not worried about running out of money, but I need to demonstrate to myself that in fact I do have sufficient cash flow to afford small things like spending $30 on something that might not work out or yes, in fact I can probably afford big things like taking a trip this winter. Not that long ago I would have just spent money on both of those without thinking about it too hard.

It's just challenging to wrap the head around these facts on vibes only when I am also dropping five-figure cheques or pushing thousands through the credit card to pay for things like appliances. My brain errs on the side of caution.

As I've observed before, I usually just use "spend less than you make" as a budget, and while it has the advantage of being brief, at this point I may actually have to consider how many dollars I will need to keep on hand at various times as I continually rebalance my accounts, not least of all aided by Canadian banks who have seem to have given up on giving good deals on savings to existing long-tenured customers in favour of short-term rewards for new joiners.

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Speaking of, it might be time to finally close the ING DirectTangerine savings account I've used as my primary short-to-medium term holding since, uh, 2004? Tangerine (now a subsidiary of Scotia) has long-abandoned ING's simple business plan of "here's the best interest rate on savings in the market, just don't expect any frills". After resisting for some time, I did finally open a savings account with my primary chequing bank CIBC (a chequing customer since, um, at least 2002), but their rates are also unimpressive.

At least I still get a good deal on my mortgage, I guess. For the few things one occasionally needs a full-service retail bank with branches and everything, CIBC is as good as any of the others, so I don't see myself parting ways with them completely any time soon. But maybe it's time to open yet-another savings account to earn an extra $60/month. That would at least pay for some experimental purchases.

I am tentatively hopeful that after last week's bomb-throwing that the designers will come up with a revised plan that doesn't cost (without exaggeration) seven figures. Originally they claimed they'd have something early this week but unsurprisingly they punted to next week as I basically forced them to start again from concepts, which normally they allot six weeks for. I guess we'll see.

The contractor hit his first milestone, declaring demo to be complete, so I have prepared the first of six very large cheques, the kind that could buy a perfectly respectable automobile in different circumstances. I guess that means they wrestled the bathtubs out. The next phase is asbestos abatement, which became necessary when it was pointed out to me that modifying the kitchen ceiling, taking down the crown molding, installing cabinets to the ceiling, doing anything with blinds and/or drapery, or changing closet doors would all be affected.

As for me... well, if I get bored on the weekend, I may go look at some tableware at West Elm or Stokes. Secretly one of my goals is to wind up with zero silver or white anywhere in the finished result, and West Elm has some flatware in a "champagne satin" that might do, since all black feels a bit odd and brass/gold is too ostentatious. IKEA has some pretty blue stoneware in their current collection, but I suspect I might be able to do even better.

After being not that interested in the subject heretofore, I am beginning to think about getting a 3D printer, either a used Prusa (there are MK3S+ units available on FB Marketplace, likely aged out of someone's print farm) or a new Bambu A1 (since it's not that much more expensive and offers much faster print times and a slightly larger bed). "But why?" you ask? Well, that's the question I asked myself for a long time, but I now have a short list of things that could make it worth it:

• A glide block for the upper track of the sliding door in the coat closet in my parents' house
• A replacement for the one missing foot on one of the rear speakers (I'm using a screw about the right length for now, but it falls out when moving it)
• A door prop for the washing machine (front loaders need to dry out to keep the seals from molding, but the door doesn't always stay partially closed)

But the real star is... gridfinity for kitchen drawer organization. PLA and PETG are both food safe enough to hold up spatulas, can openers, etc. (although I wouldn't eat hot soup out of them), and there are pre-made collections of kitchen organizers so I wouldn't even have to do that much 3D CAD myself (possibly none?).

Still something to think about, since this is likely a $400 investment either way.

The parents have successfully returned from a week in Grenada. Only delayed by a day: owing to weather, their flight yesterday was cancelled and rebooked for today. Air Canada just...left the plane on the Grenadian tarmac for nearly a full day. Given how many hours those are supposed to spend in the sky (Internet sleuthing tells me it was scheduled to fly YYZ-MEX-YYZ-ORD-YYZ in the time it was sitting then returning to YYZ) that must have been an expensive call.

They were also on the hook for finding their own accomodation for the extra night. Naturally, they got bounced from the resort they were staying at: the inbound flight came in from Canada, and so the place was fully booked. Thankfully they found a place, but it was not cheap. They're hoping their credit card's travel insurance comes through.

It's nice to have them back, not least of all because now I don't have to tackle the remaining 70% of the driveway unassisted tomorrow. I managed to clear a trail from front steps to road, but we'll have to widen that to have any hope of getting at least one car down the driveway.

On Thursday, a dead mouse appeared on the ledge outside of my second-story window. How did it get there? I certainly don't know. That mouse was either placed there, poisoned, or diseased: a healthy mouse knows not to hang out on an exposed ledge in subzero conditions. And it wasn't passing by casually, since there's no reason for a mouse to be there, so it was either out of its mind on poison or infection, or something put it there. But what could have left it? A bird of prey? They don't land on the window ledge, it's too flat and not big enough. Nothing goes there, except for the occasional small passerine bird.

Given that it's freezer temperatures outside, I was not going to open the casement to reach toward a corpse in front of the fixed window panel. It can stay there for now.

Yesterday I was looking out into the backyard in advance of today's monster snowfall, and the mouse was gone. Maybe it was stashed...but I can't imagine by what.

No time to write, I am halfway through the newest Dresden Files book which came out on Tuesday.

I read an interview with Butcher where he claimed he was targeting completion of the next one in the Spring, so we might not have to wait another five-plus years to find out how next our poor wizard detective will be tortured. I still remember when Skin Game came out in 2014, and that was only three (really, two, since one got split) books ago.

James Acaster edition.

Acaster knows what he's about, although since Hecklers Welcome he also knows what the less sophisticated members of his audience want:

pOpPaDoMs oR BwEaD, jAmEs aCaStEr, PoPpAdOmS Or bWeAd!!

(etc)

But he's figured out how to get around it: he comes out as Craig Simons, the UK's Number 1 James Acaster Tribute Act, which lets him do all the mocking lines himself, quickly taking the wind out of the hecklers' sails. And from there he piles meta on meta on meta, in a manner I can only describe as "masterful", not least of all because you don't even have to know what he's talking about to get it.

I thought the performance was untitled, but no, in fact, that's a joke, too: the show is called James Acaster, as performed by Craig Simons (who is actually, not a spoiler, James Acaster). But you can't know that going in. It's brilliant.

The only sour note for me is that a big part of the leadup to the final gag involves talking about ABBA Voyage and Bjorn Again, and while the latter's not difficult to figure out from context clues, I would not expect North American audiences to know what ABBA Voyage is. The only important part is to know that it's ABBA but holograms, but a quick sidebar to fill that in would have made the last 10 minutes a little smoother, because I could feel the house slipping away a little. (He still got them in the end.)

I don't know that I can express it any better than this reddit comment: "I legitimately think it’s the best I’ve seen anyone be at anything."

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As an encore, Acaster comes out as himself (in part to assure the unsure that, yes, really, that was James Acaster all along) and invites questions from the audience. Someone got him to talk about Sean Lock, and his reminiscences were actually quite nice, but I thought the inciting heckle ("he's no Sean Lock!" in response to him talking about a different heckler) was disrespectful.

I have purchased appliances. Strictly speaking, I have agreed to purchase appliances and only made a down payment, but it's as good as done. It's a good thing I have a lot of money saved up.

In the end I wound up with everything recommended by the designers (they chose well) with one exception: trading the Bosch microwave for a Fisher & Paykel meant that I qualified for the ultra-mega package discount because I agreed to buy F&P's fridge and stove as well, and three pieces meant more savings. Every drawer microwave is ultimately made by Sharp anyway because they hold some key patent, so any difference will be marginal since it's the same stuff under the skin. Toss in a Bosch DW, the fancy Falmec flush-mount exhaust fan, and an LG WashTower™, and that's a full set of large in-home machinery.

The shopping experience was not quite everything I had hoped for: while I could poke at various items, none were operational, so I couldn't tell (e.g.) if the induction coils will buzz or not. The dishwasher has touch controls instead of discreet buttons, but at least they appear to be membrane switches (which are better than a touchscreen).

I also purchased an extended warranty, which includes a single preventative maintenance visit. I'll have to make a note to get that done in 2-3 years' time, but I've done things like that before. I've been using the same calendar for nearly 20 years.

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I also have new sheets, since Bed Threads had a big Boxing Day sale. It took a couple of weeks for them to get shipped here from Australia, but that's OK. I have laid them up for future use.

I still need plates, glassware, cutlery, towels, and a mattress. All in good time, there's months until the place will be done.

Big Trouble in Little China edition.

The generous reading of what's presented is that this was an attempt to make an action film with fantasy elements that just so happen to be Chinese. The American lead is a bumbling oaf and all the real work is done by the Chinese-American leads: it's a subversion of the white saviour trope (macho man edition). So what if the mythos is culturally incongruent? It doesn't patronize. No one would make the same argument about, I dunno, a movie about some ancient mystic order of Belgian monks with supernatural powers.

The more grounded reading is that the plot depends too heavily on exposition dumps, most of the characters are empty shells, the fight choreo is atrocious even by chop-socky standards, and the mythos is Orientalist garbage even by the standards of the 80s. I think they might have been aiming for campy but I find it's not aging that well.

That said, a modern remake could maybe pull it off, but there's no danger of that currently (apparently).

2/4. Also because this was a John Carpenter film, there are a couple of weird creature effects that didn't seem to add much.