sitting outside a starbucks

an obviously homeless and very fucked up looking guy is making his way up the sidewalk with a slow, shuffling walk. he's holding a can of turpentine. he stops to pour some more into a small rag he's holding in his other hand. takes a few more steps, the turpentine dripping from his hand. he then stops to inhale deeply from his rag a few times. turns around and walks into the starbucks. maybe for some paper napkins? stumbles out in a minute and slowly continues on up the hill.

this 60-something persian concierge was getting flack from a 30-ish resident who'd just gotten in the front door for not going outside and telling people waiting for the bus to not stand in front of the entrance. but the people were standing in front of the entrance because thats where there was some cover from the rain. the concierge got more and more agitated. started speaking louder and louder, with increasingly bad english, culminating in saying "Fuck You!" to the resident a couple times.

it got to the concierge's supervisor that i witnessed that incident, so i kinda confirmed it for him, somehow trying to save the old guy, but he still got the axe. he told me he used to be a fighter plane mechanic back home. i thought he sounded a bit bitter about his "career change".

i saw the old guy back at the concierge desk at that building the other day :)

2 guys put on balaclavas in the garage of a 2-tower apartment building. they make their way up the stairs to the ground floor. they enter the management office, get out their mace and demand all the money the ladies in the office have. the ladies answer they put all the money they get from residents into the safe through a slot, but they dont have the key. the manager has the key, but he's not at the building. so the boys try to pull out the safe, but cant. the lady in the leasing office right next door saw what was happening through the partly glass wall, dialed 911, and as she yelled into the phone "help! we're being robbed!" the would be robbers bolted out of there. i bet she dialed 911 and the operator went "police, fire, or ambulance?" and the lady just lost her nerve...

***

saw a video of a bike thief being tackled by 3 plain clothes security guys the other day. it felt so good. i wanted them to hurt him. bad. i hope they did. couldnt see - the camera looked too high up...

homie-cide

yet another brothel suite in another expensive downtown highrise. 2 asian guys enter just after midnight. about 15 minutes later the guys are back out with some laptops, this time hoodies up. a few minutes after they leave the building, police arrive. apparently the killing of the guy that was looking after the girls was quite noisy...

was it planned? simply a rip-off of an already illegal operation? thought no one would go to the police with it? was it to get the laptops, possibly containing the name of someone who really didnt wanna leave a trail? was it to get names of ppl for blackmail purposes? or was it just heat of the moment, hence hoodies on way out only? ... and laptops because they were repeat customers? or just thought theft wasnt gonna be as big a problem if they were caught?

things you hear at these expensive appartment buildings...

concierge: see that guy? he works for (local phone company). he keeps going to the brothel suite here all the time...
me: there's a brothel suite here???????
concierge: yeah, you didnt know? yeah, its a different girl every week. poor girls, they get a new customer like every half hour.

*note: i saw this guy show up at a different appartment building the other day. he's not a technician, in case anyone's wondering. i wonder if he spends most of his money on this.

***

maintenance guy: yeah, so we were doing fire alarm testing in all the suites at (1st brothel suite building), and we go in this one suite, and there's machine guns and ammo on the table in the living room. turns out there's some east indian guys passed out in the bedroom. we left right away and called the cops.
me: yeah i was working there once, and these 2 cops show up gesturing to the concierge to open the door, then asking to be let up to whatever floor. 30 seconds later 2 more cops show up. 30 seconds later 2 more - with shotguns! and then a paddy wagon parks just at the corner. found out later that it was just some domestic dispute between someone's girlfriend and mom, but now i know the reason for the overkill.

***

bike patrolman to concierge: there was this bum that kept hanging out in this parkade, and i kept telling him to leave, and he kept coming back, so i finally called the cops. so this big cop shows up, i take him to where the bum is. the cop said he's seen the bum before, and then just tells me to beat it. so i rode away just around the first corner, but stopped just to see what was going on, and the cop started to beat the shit out of the bum, and the bum was just squealing like a little girl...

***

maintenance guy: this lady came down to the front desk asking if we'd seen her husband. apparently he'd go for a bike ride every morning, then come back and go to work, but he never came back from his bike ride that morning. so we checked to make sure he'd gotten his bike out of the storage, and he just never came back. not long after we heard someone was hanging from a tree not far away. i went to see and yeah, that was the guy - he just hung himself. i told the concierge to help his wife with anything she might need...