It’s been a week and a half now since my erstwhile former Room-mate, Vince, vacated the premises, and believe it or not, the hits keep on coming.

I realized, naturally, that he would steal a certain amount of my stuff on his way out. Whether out of vindictiveness or simply out of selfishness and greed, he would take things he thought he might like ( Read more... )

On a separate-but-related note…

With Vince gone, I need to cover his share of the rent this month. I also need to pay for an exterminator. And a cleaner. All of which will come out to somewhere In the neighborhood of $1000. I’m not going to lie. This is a pretty heavy load for me to bear, and I’m not too proud to ask for help here. I’m therefore ( Read more... )

I just got this letter in the mail earlier today.


( Read more... )

When last we left off, I had told Vince that he would need to move out, and that it would be a good idea for him to be out the door by the end of September, which he had agreed to do.

It was at around a week or so later that I gave some thought to the considerable amount of money he owed me, and how I was likely never to see a dime of it. A plan ( Read more... )

I had mentioned earlier this summer that I had been forced to put padlocks on a couple of my cupboards in order to deter Vince from his larceny, and that this was only marginally successful; he simply continued to steal food from me from the refrigerator. I had written a letter to him, explaining in agonizing detail why I viewed this behaviour as ( Read more... )

As long-time readers of my blog will know, I’ve been having some difficulties with my hideous, swine-like monster of a room-mate, Vince, for some time now. For those newer to the readership, I recommend that you check out some of the previous nightmares-rendered-as-text on the topic. I do so not only in order that you might be able to better ( Read more... )

I've said time and time again that my favoured approach to the customer/customer service employee relationship is a faintly adversarial one, and there is perhaps no group of people on earth who could speak to this effect with quite so much authority as the cashiers at my local grocery stores. They've come to expect me to put on a bit of a ( Read more... )

Sorry I’ve been a bit on the quiet side of late, all. I have fallen, it seems, into a trap I have fallen prey to often enough that one might think I’d have learned a thing or two about the follies of it. I speak of that poisoned fruit which is “collaboration.” It seems that any time I need to rely upon others to get anything done, that thing, ( Read more... )

I wouldn't keep posting about my semi-functional beast of a room-mate, Vince, if not for the fact that people seem genuinely fascinated by this situation. As it is, I find myself in an interesting state of mind on the topic; for months now, I had been... well, not content, obviously, but at least WILLING to sit back and observe the sloth of the man ( Read more... )

Some years ago, my friend Paul was visiting Vancouver, and he and I found ourselves at my best friend BJ's place. We were having a fairly weighty discussion about morality and government, revolving around whether a government ought to have a greater responsibility to its people or to the cause of justice as a whole, and what, ultimately, one ought ( Read more... )