A Day in the Life of a Home Buyer

SO MANY CHOICES!!!

Having the opportunity to find a new home that suites the whole family may seem like a great idea at first, but then it turns in to a nightmare. I know this only because I was forced to move when my morning drive turned in to one hour (or more if traffic is bad). After only 3 days, I’m already feeling some “house-finding-symptoms”. However, in these 3 days, I have only begun to eliminate choices, instead of finding houses to put into consideration. For that matter, I’ve seen dozens upon dozens of houses, yet only one house have been half-considered. You would think that because our market is so diverse, it would be easy to find “the perfect house”, but it isn’t.

Today there’s modern luxury homes:

my love...

These are too expensive for my budget, but exist in my dreams.

Older houses:

It's... Good.

These are pretty good, except for the fact that it is hard to find one that please the whole family.

And then cheap, but tiny houses:

...

My family is pretty big, so these won’t work either.

As you can see, I do consider myself a rather contemporary man, even though my budget won’t allow it. I like a modern house with panels of wood and glass. My mom insists on a more-than-decent kitchen, and my dad insists on a more-than-big lot (land). Finding an awesome house with a huge lot is remarkably hard to find in the area I want to buy a house in. So, this is how the first few days of my adventure went:

Wake up

Go on to the web and find decent properties. This usually ends up with expectations lowered, search criteria expanded, search area widened, and general grumpiness. However, a couple of houses are found.

Now our Realtor (apparently a registered trademark) is contacted and he makes appointments. Most of the houses are open to the public from 2-4pm on weekends, so this part is pretty simple.

This is the time to cram a dozen or so houses in to a 2 hour time period. Usually we only get through 5, but that dosen’t stop us from trying to cram 12.

Finally, one half-decent house in need of some renovation is found, but this is not the hard part.

The hard part is debating with mom and dad. The “price-house-lot-appliance-room-…” ratio is always a tad bit off. The price might be too expensive for the property, or the exterior might be not as good as the interior, etc.

This is how most of my weekend was spent. But don’t worry, I’ll find that perfect house… One day.

The Lorax’s Letter

Dear Humans,

I am immortal, yet I am dying. How can you slaughter my race, again and again. You promised, you campaigned, you protested, you donated, you appointed ministers, you wrote books, you researched, you did everything; except destroying. Why is the environment the last thing on your list? Don’t you realize you can’t live if it wasn’t for me? I, speaker for the trees, created and continues to replenish the air you breathe. Please “show not tell”. Use your actions to prove your words.

The world may seam to be made by money. In fact, for that matter; even if it is ran by money, it is still made of nature. It all may change though, very quickly. Take a look:

This is China, the world’s most populated country. What’s in this photo of Shanghai? Well, buildings, signs, and very few trees. These trees are all carefully planted and fertilized unnaturally. To be honest, this place is not so different than Thneedville:

Artificial trees, buildings, and signs. You don’t want to turn the world into Thneedville! Trust me.

Please help. I know you know about climate change. I know you know about pollution. I know you know to turn off the lights. But do you know about an effective and easy way to save the planet? UNPLUG. It is simple, but most people don’t think about it. Unplugging is effective because even if a(n) appliance/electronic/gizmo/etc. is turned off, it still consumes energy. Please unplug (or turn off at the wall socket) toasters, blenders, coffee makers, chargers, TVs, disc players, game consoles, and whatever else is not in use. In fact a TV “turned off” (left on standby) uses 85% of the energy it uses when it is turned on.

Please help! As a Cree Prophecy once said to YOUR race:

“When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money”

Do it for me , The Lorax, do it for the Cree. For that matter, do it for YOU. This is as much as your world, as it is mine.

Pretty, pretty, please? With a cherry on top?

Yours sincerely,

The Lorax

“The New iPad”

Personally, I am not really pleased with “The New iPad”, I think it could be better. Sure, there’s the retina display that’s clearer than a HDTV with 3.1 million pixels. The processor is now A5X, which is incredible. The iSight camera is light years ahead, shooting videos at 1080p and taking incredibly detailed photos. Speech-to-text is included, and there is 4G LTE (again, incredibly advanced) models. But something is missing.

This is Apple. Waking up today, I expected something grand. Maybe a SD slot or perhaps a haptic display? Wouldn’t it be really cool if iPads have a haptic display, giving items on screen texture? The upgrades we see today is already a huge leap, but it isn’t as exciting as other updates. The iPad and the iPhone, the two newest products have had significant changes since they arrived. The first iPad was amazing because it was the first of its kind. The iPad 2 was completely changed with a sleeker design, various hardware changes and IOS 5. But “The New iPad” dosen’t have anything completely new. Even the iPhone 4S has Siri, which is pretty awesome, sci-fi, and more importantly, never seen before. These new features on “The New iPad” exists in other places. The iPhone 4S has a retina display, 4G, iSight camera, 1080p HD video recording, and speech-to-text. The A5X processor is just a small upgrade from the A5 chip. These features are only worth adding because they haven’t been on a tablet before.

Why is “The New iPad” in quotations? Well, because it is just called the iPad. Not iPad 3, or iPad HD. This iPad is just called iPad. iPad is a nice name, with a lot of legal battles in China, but it is still a great name. However, the first iPad was also named “iPad”. How do we refer to this iPad a year later when another new iPad comes out? Are we going to call the iPads iPad, iPad 2, The New iPad, The New-New iPad, etc.? I guess the Apple product numbering system is saying goodbye…

Lots of rumours have been proved right, other unconventional features have been proved wrong. Today, we see a new leap in tablet technology. However, Apple, you can do better. As Tim Cook mentioned, Apple have “the most innovative [people] on earth.”

To see the full keynote and details of the release of the new iPad, Apple TV, iPad iLife suite, iPad iWork suite, and apps for “The New iPad”; click here.