I got a call last night from my favourite banking institution, President's Choice Financial.

"Mr. Lau," he said. "Since you are a preferred customer, we would like to offer you a mortgage at such-n-such rate."

This is coming from the same bank that, as recently as two months ago, refused to give me even $100 of overdraft protection, any line of credit or a credit card, even though my credit is good. I told this to the guy on the other end of the phone and he said he would check my credit score to see why I was rejected. A few minutes later, he returns to tell me he doesn't understand why I got rejected.

"It turns out we can give you up to a gazillion dollars in overdraft protection. How much to you want?"

"All of it," I said.

Then he repeats the same thing for my line of credit and now I have a gazillion dollars line of credit, too, and I'm happy. It still makes me wonder about the previous rejections, though. What up with that?

Haven't experienced any rolling blackout since power came back on Friday.

Had a marathon of a barbecue yesterday. Good but long. We finished off by going to a Chinese snack place that lasted until 1am. Can't remember the name of the restaurant (as usual, but if I remember, I'll post it) but it was decorated in an interesting way to evoke a Chinese garden and a Chinese teahouse at the same time. I liked it.


Ahh, it's late, I'm feeling a bit tired and I'm probably going to work tomorrow so I'm not going to say this with very clever segues ['se-(")gwAs]. Just quick and dirty, back to basics direct style. A few items in the news in case you haven't found them in the sites I've linked to:

- The Iraqis had some tips for us for how to cope with a blackout.

- A bit of black humour. How would you handle the death of a beloved pet?

- Have you guys checked this out? I think I most a few people who sound like this. hehehe