Another four months gone. Call Fromasta and myself picky if you will, but there we were looking for ANOTHER place to live. There's nothing really wrong with this place; the people were cool, decent location, passable furniture. But kind of expensive for our tastes, and we really wanted to find a place closer to school with a longer term lease. With all this talk of double cohort (the elimination of grade 13 in Ontario, meaning more students entering university) we were worried that we wouldn't find a place come September. So we set out to lock up a place during the summer study term, *groan* and take over the lease in September.

Scouring through university web sites and the classifieds has gotten us all our living accomodations so far, so we started that way. Nothing showed up for the first few days, so naturally the panic started to settle in. Even worse, some of the places we called were taken a within a couple of days of the ad being posted. Uh oh...

But wait! Here's a lead! Close to school, cheap rent, 2 or 3 vacancies... excellent. Yah, I really wanted to like this place, but... *sigh*

I knew from the phone call that seeing this place was going to be uh.... interesting? The guy (let's call him redrum - explanation coming) sounded really nice and everything, but mentioning that he was in a bind because his former roommate left... well, didn't help. He also mentioned that the place is originally for two people including himself. But after I said that I have a roomie with me, he said that he could convert another room into a bedroom. That sounded alright, but he proceeded to mention that that would require doors to be installed. Yes, DOORS.

In any case, we set up a time to see the place. I have to admit that part of me was morbidly curious about how wild it would be. Bah, I probably smelled an itoop article. I coaxed bc jon to come with me (I needed witnesses), and the building seemed ok, albeit a little old. I knock on the door, and the redrum greets us, dressed in an undershit and shorts. He's also sporting a thick stylish beard, neatly trimmed. An interesting first impression, but he seemed like a really cool dude.

redrum showed us the apartment starting clockwise, perhaps to set up his room as the grand finale of the tour, and coincidentally this article. *sigh* The place is really big, but like I said, kinda old. The kitchen was as narrow as a hallway; opening the fridge door denied you access to the rest of the kitchen. All in all, I was pretty discouraged.

Then came his room, or as I call it, the 'red room'. OYE, where to begin. It was painted is dark, blood-colored red, with black trim around the top and bottom. There were blocks nailed to the walls for the candles he had set up... if the candles were lit, that would have sent me running. He had theatre masks set up on the walls, which was explained by his program of studies: theatre and programming (?!). Yup...

He said, "I'm a comedian." with the straightest face possible. Well, I laughed anyways.

So many other stories... *sigh* his former roommate was a member of a band who left redrum with all the rent to pay, the fact that several people have visited the place and NO ONE has confirmed *hint hint*, and the fact that there's no 'lease' to sign. I mean, who wants to be bothered with all that, right?

Oh, did I mention the red lamp shade that he made from tissue paper?

I... I'm done.