Photo 365: 2010

Alright so at first I was going to write a whole post about what I did for Christmas, and what I’m looking forward to in the new year, et al, but then it hit me–I have nothing to say.  For Christmas I got some awesome presents, gave my parents some awesome presents, we had awesome meals, and watched awesome movies together.  All in all it was awesome.  But the thing is, I don’ t have that creative spark I usually do for writing at the moment.  Maybe it’s just because I’m tired, who knows.  That being the case, I thought maybe I should try and be creative in a non-writing more spontaneous kind of way.

That said, I’ll use this as an announcematory (not a word) post to ..erm.. announce that I’ll be doing a Photo 365 this year.

What is a “Photo 365″ you ask? Well it’s a project wherein you take a photo of something /every/ day for a year.  You can try and sum up the day, or at least an important part of it with each photo, or .. just take a picture of something that you did that day.  (No pressure!)  Either way, you take a picture every day, and post ‘em all somewhere, so you can have a record of what you did in that specific year.  For a pretty good rundown, you can read this article at Photojoto.

I’ll be posting each photo in a specific collection of sets in my Flickr photostream.  You can find that collection here. (I started my 365 a day early, but it won’t count towards the final tally.  I just couldn’t wait! Here’s hoping I keep this up all year!)

December 31, 2009 · Filed Under Announcements, iPhone

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Oh, would you look at that.

Seems I’ve had this blog for 5 years now. Awesome. Now only if I ever did anything with it, heheheh…

November 12, 2009 · Filed Under Announcements, Journal, Projects

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Just the one I’ve been looking for..

Ever since it was announced oh so many years ago, I’ve wanted one.  I had to suffer for years, seeing all the apps it had, the well designed interface and commercials… But I wait no longer.  I have finally achieved the unachievable–I got one. A year ago now I faced a terrible decision:  Get the phone I want and ditch the carrier I love, or stick with TELUS and get the best they have to offer.

I chose to stay with TELUS for a variety of reasons, but it came down to three main ones: Cost, Viability, and Brand.  It would be too expensive to switch to Rogers. Not only do they charge a ridiculous amount compared to Bellus, but they have awful reception on the Sunshine Coast. Finally, their brand just isn’t very strong. When I see a TELUS commercial I feel proud to know I’m on their network, as opposed to Bell or Rogers. That might just be due to familiarity (I’ve been with TELUS since mid 2000) but I believe that they just have the superior image as far as the consumer is concerned.

Anyway, fast forward a year and change, and I’ve got the phone I wanted all along, but this time on the carrier I love.  I first heard about TELUS’ launching a new HSPA+ network in May this year, and as soon as I saw proof of the network’s existence I was ecstatic.  I knew all along which phone I’d choose when they launched, but I sitll had my doubts I’d be able to get everything working.

I had to make sure that they either announced the phone, or would allow unlocked handsets on the new network.  I had to ensure that I’d be able to keep a Share plan on the new network that was compatible with my parents’ share plans on the CDMA network, and most of all, I had to ensure I wouldn’t get fleeced as far as pricing was.  No one will ever tell you that one cellular provider in Canada is any better than the other–they’re all pretty similar, having outlandish fees and pretty crappy rateplans compared to those in the United States.  What’s worse is the standard here is a 3 year contract, rather than a 2 year one, and there’s usually little-to-no rebate off of upgrading to a new phone before your contract runs out.

Anyway, at least TELUS and Bell don’t force you to pay a System Access Fee (SAF) these days, whereas when Rogers did away with theirs, they simply renamed it the Government Regulated Recovery Fee (GRRF), even though it’s not mandated by the government whatsoever.  TELUS and Bell both charge less overall than Rogers as well, especially for data on the CDMA network, but not so much on the HSPA network.  But I’m getting off track–like I said, the big 3 carriers are pretty much equal, and it all comes down to what kind of rateplan you can get due to “grandfathered” status of your account.  If you’ve had it with a specific carrier for a while, you’ll get better deals, though you may have to call their Loyalty department first and beg for them (or threaten to switch providers.)

So it came down to brand, and I love TELUS (Mobility)’s branding the most.  If you don’t live in Canada (or just don’t watch television) you won’t have seen any of Rogers, TELUS, or Bell’s commercials, so I’ve taken the liberty of Googling away finding some of their most recent ads, which I’ve embedded at the end of this post.  After those commercials, I’ve also embedded the most-recent ad for the phone I got too, in case you can’t guess what it is. (If for some reason you don’t have access to Flash or YouTube, just check the category/tags for this post!)

Rogers has a series of ads that show a guy on a competitors network usually being unable to talk or use data somewhere that the witty Rogers client can. (They also usually feature “Also Sprach Zarathustra”  Here’s a sample:

Bell has recently switched to a series of awful ads that simply show random people doing random things inside of a giant Bell logo–no joke:

Versus TELUS’ ads, which usually feature animals doing humorous things, and lots of phones.  Here are a few:

“Update” (Makes me want a goat, more than a BlackBerry.)

“Get a Jump on Life”: (Again, I want a Goat more than anything after watching this:)

And one from last year that’s simply one of my favourites — “Epic”:

Oh, and here’s the phone-commercial I promised, albeit from AT&T (that should give it away right there, they don’t have any other phones worth bothering with):

November 9, 2009 · Filed Under Announcements, Journal, Projects, iPhone

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A Slight Refresh

While I’ve not thrown caution to the wind and once again redesigned my blog’s layout from scratch, I have gone ahead and… updated and added plugins/widgets.  Basically all I really did was clean up some unused files on the server and replace old plugins with new ones.  I also added a Last.fm widget to the sidebar, but I’m not sure how long I’ll end up using it.

I’ve tried using AudioScrobbler/Last.fm several times since mid-2004, but I never end up using it for all that long.  I’ll scrobble some songs for a few days (maybe a week or two, tops) but in the end I always get sick of either launching the Last.fm application before listening to music, or I find myself changing my tastes in music to suit my Last.fm profile/blog sidebar.  That’s so not what it was intended for, so I end up giving it up.

Anyhoo, maybe this time will be different.  I used to use it with my iPod as well, so whenever I’d listen to music at school or on ze bus, I’d come home, sync it with iTunes, and end up uploading more scrobbler info, but with me not having an iPod these days (I rely on my BlackBerry for music mostly, but that might change before the end of the month) I don’t have a way to scrobble my mobile listening habits.  ‘Less there’s a secret BlackBerry Last.fm application I’ve not run into yet.  (A quick Googling says they discontinued support for WinMo and BlackBerry earlier this year.)

Here’s hoping I don’t just update my Last.fm feed with a few scrobblings of Apoptygma Berzerk before giving up on the service again.

(Oh, in other news, I pre-ordered Left 4 Dead 2 via Steam, and will be following suit with Modern Warfare 2 pretty soon.)

November 2, 2009 · Filed Under Announcements, BlackBerry, Journal, Projects, School

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Number One Canadian Fan

The signed review.

Originally uploaded by The Lazy Canadian

It truly is an honour, I was named the Number One Canadian Fan of review blog The Impulsive Buy, by the main writer, Marvo. Tres awesome.

I asked Marvo via Twitter (@theimpulsivebuy) to send me an autographed copy of my favourite review, because I hadn’t had any luck winning any TIB contests, and wanted something TIBesque.  If you can’t read it, he wrote the following:

“NobleArc, I’m officially naming you TIB’s Number One Canadian Fan, although with that honor [sic] you have the burden of fighting any fellow Canadian who wants that title from you. So be on your toes. Thank you very much for reading TIB. Marvo.”

March 6, 2009 · Filed Under Announcements, Journal

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