Category Archives: wtf?

water works

15 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in home, rants, sevilla, wtf?

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Back in February when I thought I was literally flushing money down the toilet I made a few changes in order to save water, but the water bill kept coming in very high and also saying that nobody lived here and that those 0 inhabitants were using more than 300 litres of water a day (!!!).

So I spoke to my next door neighbour about his water bill and it turned out they were paying half the amount I was – and they have a baby! So I finally went down to the Emasesa office to ask what the heck was going on and they told me that I had to “empadronar” (not sure what this is in English, basically you register how many people are living in your house at a government office) and bring that certificate to the office in order to change the rate. Because apparently the rate you pay is less when more people live in your house.

And so I did all this and the next water bill, which arrived yesterday, was a little more than half the amount of the previous one.

Great, you say? Well, yes. But, why didn’t Emasesa tell me about the empadronamiento certificate when I first went to their office in February to change the name on the water bill – a “service” for which they charged a whopping 78.50€? I mean, wtf. They obviously saw that my place was listed as having no inhabitants and knew about the crazy rate I’d be paying. And if I hadn’t spoken to my neighbour I’d never have known that my water bill was off because every other place I’ve lived in Spain had the water included in the rent.

In other news, my old friends at Movistar are now suing me because I didn’t pay their final – INCORRECT – bills in which they charged me for service when I didn’t have any and, after several phone calls from me (I’ll never get that time back), wouldn’t send me corrected ones. Bastards.

And now I am off to enjoy a birthday lunch with Pilar and forget all this crap for awhile.

mystery solved

17 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in animals & pets, cats, home, wtf?

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Luna has already shown us that she quite enjoys a nice comfy cat bed, but this didn’t explain why we kept finding her asleep in Azar’s litter box out on my bedroom balcony. Nog suggested that perhaps it was because the sand got warmed up in the afternoon sun, which kind of only made it seem even grosser, though it must be said that this litter box gets very little use. I have it out there for when nobody is home and we separate the cats. Azar gets my room, with his food and water dishes and balcony litter box. Luna is put in the “air lock” hallway that connects to Nog’s room. And Loki has the run of the rest of the house. Which means having three litter boxes! Which I hope will be temporary, or at least that we’ll be able to go back to just having two after Luna has grown enough to fend off the big orange galoot when he gets overly playful.

But this still didn’t explain why Luna kept going out to sleep in Azar’s litter box. Until I put two and two together… that Luna loves being out on the balcony and she likes having a bed to sleep on. So this afternoon I put an old cushion out there and voilà! She suddenly wasn’t interested in the litter box anymore. Cats, eh?

appliancide

24 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by in home, wtf?

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Remember the other day when my 10-year-old microwave kicked the bucket, which left me in a quandry about whether a new microwave or a BBQ would take priority? Well, turns out neither after my 7-year-old toaster decided it would toast no more… wtf? Actually, I think I aided its demise because I’ve been toasting a lot of Portuguese bread lately, which is a bit too “short” to get out of the toaster without sticking something sharp into it… whatever. So today I found this cute little flat toaster for a mere 19€, which I think solves a lot of our toasting issues here at casa az. But it’s seriously left me wondering what’s going to be next.

Or maybe it’s the kitchen that’s jinxed. Why just yesterday I put on some asparagus for Azar, leaving two perfect stalks to gently steam in a flat pan while I went back to my laptop to do a bit of tweeting and other social media stuff. About half an hour later I wondered who was making toast (certainly couldn’t have been anyone here!) and that’s when I found that the pan was burned beyond hope, the asparagus had turned to charcoal and even the hard ceramic-plastic knob on top of the lid had melted. Then about an hour later I looked in the freezer for some ice and found a bottle of wine that I’d put in there the day before for a “quick chill”. I don’t understand. I have both a Portuguese lucky kitchen cat and a Chinese lucky money cat up above the cooker. Where am I going wrong?

shoefiti

03 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by in shoes, silly, weird, wtf?

≈ 10 Comments

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On Saturday afternoon while out on my tapas tour with Rachel (now aka @JaenTapas) we spotted the shoes on the right dangling up there and I stopped to take a photo of this curious sight. I put the pic up on Twitter when I got home and probably would have forgotten all about it, except that two days later (yesterday) I spotted another pair of shoes up in the air which seemed, well, weird. So I also put that on Twitter and got a few responses including one from Baron Grim who left a Wikipedia link about shoe flinging which also mentioned “shoefiti”. Seriously – shoefiti?

Have you ever seen this before?

Shoefiti

it’s for girls!

11 Monday Apr 2011

Posted by in fitness, health & happiness, wtf?

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Sled, you’re going to love this one.

My gym has recently opened this new workout room For Women Only, which opens off the shower & changing room. Goodness knows what it was before – storage? nothing? This photo shows about 2/3 of the room – there are three other machines to the left. Apparently users of this facility will be given a half-hour routine which will focus on weight loss and getting in shape (so what are the other two floors of machines for?) and, of course, there will be no big smelly men around. Oh, and it’ll cost an extra 5 euros a month.

Current female members can try out this new facility free of charge until May, so I went upstairs this morning to check it out. It was not only small – and purple and pink! – but it also didn’t have most of the machines I use. I couldn’t imagine it being comfortable when full, which would be about six people. So it looks like I’ll be saving that 5 euros a month.