 | ||
| | |
 | ||
 |
Holidays, Reno Shows, and Spite |
This blog is a failure. I accept that. Without the bi-weekly deadlines provided by UAC I procrastinate almost indefinitely. If I were a better person that would probably bother me more.
So instead of trying to rant about some sweeping societal issue, in this quarterly update I will merely write about what I did over Christmas. The old adage that you should write what you know, y'know? I can still remember what I did two weeks ago (barely).
What I did this Christmas was go to Edmonton and visit Ilene's extended family, which included a mom, an aunt, an uncle, a couple cousins and a fuckload of children. Actually--based on conventional math--seven fuck loads.
Two of the kids were boys, and they were easy to tell apart. But the girls were all nearly identical. It was like a blond-haired girl farm for the white slave trade. Even though half of them were adopted and only two were biological sisters (and ironically one of those was the brunette sheep of the family), they were like German soldiers in a WWII shooter. Which one are you again? Does it matter?
You might think, based on the available research, that your beloved scribe might go a little Columbine in a house full of kids, but in actual fact I was fine. Probably because it was not my house and they were not my kids, so if either of them got broken it was not my problem. Ilene was the one who got a larva-headache and needed a break. Maybe because she cares about her aunt and uncle's house, or maybe just because she cares, period.
To get away from the pandemonium and caterwauling of the children we watched the Home and Garden channel. There were a lot of other channels, but due to Christmas and the writers' strike there was sweet FA worth watching. On Boxing Day HGTV had a Holmes on Homes marathon, of which we watched about three hours. At one point Ilene's mom came up to get us and was mesmerized by the siren call of a house that had been improperly raised to expand the basement, and Ilene's aunt eventually had to come looking for her. And was subsequently trapped as well, just like in a horror movie.
People sometimes wonder what kind of porn women like, or what the equivalent of porn is for women. I can now answer that question. Renovation shows are porn for women. Show a woman a bathroom with a jacuzzi tub and porcelain tiles and watch her pupils dilate and her nipples harden. I felt kind of embarrassed being in the room, like I was walking in on a roommate masturbating.
Mike Holmes is every middle-aged woman's renovation fantasy. He comes in, fixes what the last guy screwed up, fixes other things that have always needed fixing, fixes things that you didn't even realize needed fixing until they were fixed, and does it all for free. And he looks rugged and muscular doing it.
Perhaps most fantastically, he has plumbers and electricians and drywallers who not only are willing to be on site at the same time, but actually talk to each other. So either he has some sort of mind-control superpower or all the workers are actually played by actors, because that just doesn't happen in real life. Obviously you can get a lot done when your worker ants don't start fighting at the first whiff of each other's pheromones.
One couple even got him to fix a botched reno that they, themselves, had screwed up. This got Ilene and I thinking. If there's some way to get Mike and his team of smiling, cooperative, hard-bodied construction men and women to fix your own mistakes, then an enterprising couple might be able to game it so they do their reno for free without their having to screw up the house in the first place. Some sort of sob story about the boyfriend being in a wheelchair and unable to reach the wiring in the ceiling, for example.
My favourite show was Flip This House (or maybe That house, who can keep track?). You may have noticed that I'm not much of a fan of dumb people making money off the housing bubble. Something to do with my being a smart person without money, perhaps.
A year ago I probably would've hated the show as the idiot protagonists actually got the ridiculous selling prices they projected. But this is 2007, so it was a theater of disappointment. Yay!
We watched three episodes. The first was about some schmuck and his Improbably Hot Girlfriend doing massive renos (mostly in the kitchen) and hoping to make a profit of $60,000 on top of their expenses of $90,000. Why do people insist on moving walls and pouring new driveways? There is no ROI there. Despite enjoying the eye-candy of the IHG wearing lingerie as a top, I practically giggled with glee when the final report said they actually lost $130,000 on the project. Why don't they film the reaction for that? Schadenfreude works better when you can see the tears.
The second show was even better, because it starred a long-haired no-talent rock singer who literally lived in a camper in an alley but drove a Ferrari. He liked to come in and beat the place up with a sledgehammer, but for putting it back together again he hired a friend who was a general contractor. Presumably that guy was laughing all the way to the bank.
Despite the project going way over schedule and doubling the budget, in his final comments to the camera he was still confident that he would make bank. As it turned out, after sitting unsold for six months he rented it out to cover some portion of his massive debt. But again, where is the reaction shot? I wanted to see his face when they repo'd his car.
The last guy actually did turn a profit. Instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars turning livable houses into slightly prettier houses, he bought a foreclosed property with no kitchen and made it livable. He also kept his costs down around $10,000 even after the delays and cost over-runs. Since he was so practical, I didn't hate him for making a modest profit.
What was amusing in that episode was the help. His usual contractor was booked and couldn't do the job. As Mike Holmes will tell you, good contractors are busy. You don't want the guy who's available on a moment's notice. In this case, I'm not sure if he actually hired a contractor. I kinda think he lured a homeless alcoholic off the street with a bottle of Two Buck Chuck and a hoagie. The man had no front teeth and looked unwashed and underfed, and let's just say that his diction wasn't quite up to the level required by CNN.
At one point the downstairs neighbour came up to complain that there was water "pouring" out of the ceiling. The toothless anti-Holmes claimed that it was just some sort of catchment pan that had tipped over, but that seems about as likely as a Ron Paul presidency. And perhaps coincidentally, there was a two-week jump in the show between when the job was on schedule to finish in two days and when it actually finished. What happened there? Perhaps some sort of undisclosed repairs, or a legal dispute involving another suite in the same building? Perhaps the firing of a certain hirsute tradesperson? We'll never know.
As I said, that one actually made money, and I don't begrudge him that. The moral is that if you keep costs down and actually improve the place, you can turn a profit. Even if you get the work done by uncertified (but possibly certifiable) labour. And don't make structural changes. I mean Christ.
Christmas itself was about a two-day affair. On Christmas Eve the adults opened their presents while the kids were off at a restaurant making some poor waitress's already forgettable holiday slightly worse. Among my treasure trove of loot, I got a $40 EB gift card from Ilene's mom. At the time, I didn't know it was $40; I only found that out on the glorious day when I picked up Rock Band. And certainly, I had no idea Ilene's mom loved me that much. I will have to figure out some way to express my thanks. I paid off my mom's mortgage when she retired last year, perhaps a similar gesture is in order. Or maybe a cat-head tea cozy.
Also on Christmas Eve, we (all) went over to Ilene's uncle's brother's and uncle's brother's wife's house. For those keeping track, that's three and four degrees of not-being-related, respectively. The highlight was when the wife gave her son's girlfriend a thong. Apparently this is an annual event, and other's were disappointed that this time she wasn't drunk enough to try it on for everyone. I was inwardly grateful for all four degrees of separation.
Christmas Day was one long child present-opening marathon, interspersed with eating and crying. The creepiest toy was probably the talking horse that nagged you to buy more talking horses so they can play together. Although maybe that's not creepy, just crass.
Apparently when they went home, the kids got even more presents from Santa. Including a Wii. But since my preorder of Rock Band came in when I got home, I am not jealous. I am, in fact, the opposite of jealous. Who can be jealous of Wii Bowling while rocking the drums to Metallica? Suck it, nine year olds.
