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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Exhaustion

I spent the last couple ‘o days (e.g. the weekend) cleaning up around the house, or more specifically, the part of the house I live in.  I spent Saturday cleaning my bathroom (something I had not done in quite some time, I might add) and the hallway, and for the first time in a long time, I actually mopped.  Or, I Swiffered, rather, as I don’t know how to use a mop and bucket.

Anyhoo, I scrubbed the floors down in the hall and washroom, and got rid of a lot of grime that had built up over the past… few months since the last time I bothered cleaning.  I was actually pretty impressed with how well the Swiffer WetJet worked.  For the longest time I thought those sorts of things were simply fads, and that they probably didn’t provide any better of a cleaning job than traditional products.   (That might still be the case of course, since whenever I try to use a mop I just end up spreading the dirt around, since I’ve never been taught the proper method for its use.)

After focusing on the floors, I ended up taking a duster (a Swiffer Duster, at that) to the walls and what-have-you to get rid of cobwebs, etc.  I also cleaned the toilet, sink, shower–the whole shebang.  It’s not that I don’t clean those often (the only thing I find myself too lazy to clean are the floors, really) but I figured I might as well do it all at once.  Once I felt that the bathroom and hallway had been sufficiently scoured, I decided to take a break before cleaning my bedroom.  Although that never… actually happened.  In fact, I put it off until today, Sunday.

When I woke up this morning, I immediately started to clean up.  I didn’t go through my usual routine of preparing myself for the day, as I knew I wouldn’t be leaving the house at all anyway.  I didn’t see the need to be clean myself, if I was just going to work up a sweat cleaning my surroundings.  So after foregoing my traditional morning shower, I started planning out my … plan for cleaning my room.

I took stock of everything I wanted to move, and where I wanted to move it.  I decided which parts of the room I should tackle first, and I even went so far as to put it off for nearly two hours, claiming I was working by planning things out so thoroughly.  It’s not that I didn’t want a cleaner room, it’s that I just didn’t feel up to cleaning it until I had fully awoken.  Surprisingly enough I didn’t feel the need to eat something before cleaning.

After lolly-gagging and dragging my heels as long as I could, I got up, started to clean up the various cans or dishes I had sitting around the room, and took a bunch of them upstairs.  I picked up any trash or old receipts I had neglected to clean up when I had been using them, and started to throw them into a large Sears bag.  After I was sure I had found all of the trash, I went out into the hallway, and started making a pile of things that had to go upstairs, including trash, laundry, and a few things I had brought down and never bothered returning.

I quickly discovered my innate sense of slothfulness again, and ended up sitting back down at my laptop to check the news once more.  One of the reasons I do my cleaning on the weekend is that there isn’t enough to distract me from the task at hand.  I usually rue the weekends, since there’s never any new news posted on my usual list of sites that I check, but in this case, it worked out for me.  I ended up seeing a tweet from @ustream talking about “Weird Al” Yankovic being the guest on some show I had never heard of, and saw that it was on in one-and-a-half hours.

I wanted to watch this show, so I decided to do my best to be finished cleaning by 5:00 PDT.  With a renewed sense of energy (and some awesome tunes playing in the background) I set back about my task of cleaning, and started to put things into storage, bring others out of storage, put things back on shelves, put my laundry all in one place, and pick up all the remotes, controllers, USB cables (there were 8 of them on the floor, not including ones running from controllers or other devices to consoles or my TV/cable box), and other small bits of whatever off of the floor.

By that point I felt ready to vacuum, so I made the trek upstairs to retrieve the vacuum cleaner, as well as take everything that needed to go back up there… back up there.  After returning cutlery, dishes, and various bottles and cans to their rightful places… I realized I hadn’t eaten anything, and found myself famished.  It was around that time that I made myself up a few toasted Dijon turkey and Swiss submarine sandwiches from scratch.  They were delicious.

Afterwards I came back downstairs with the vacuum, and… proceeded to sit back at the computer.  I switched the music playing from the iTunes DJ (it’s just what Apple calls “random”) to one of my Apoptygma Berzerk playlists–specifically one containing tracks from 7 and The Apopcalyptic Manifesto–as I find they’re great to clean up to.

After finally moving the last things back wherever they had to go, I unplugged my heater, and put it on my bed.  I followed suit with my Rock Band 2 Drum Set, the caddy I keep my remotes and various cables in/on, and my laundry basket and bag.  By that point it was 4:47, so I decided to quickly vacuum before “Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show” started on Ustream.  After a few minutes of figuring how the hell the vacuum worked (I put the thing together, you think I’d remember how it worked!) I set it to the proper setting for my carpet, and went around the room… vacuuming.

I’m sure you’ve all vacuumed before, so I’ll spare you the details. (And if you haven’t vacuumed, you don’t know what you’re missing.  Lower back pain is awesome, by the way.)

Anyway, by the time I was done, the show was just starting, and I discovered that Al wouldn’t be on for a few more minutes most likely, so I skipped the opening dialogue/monologue, and grabbed a drink, put the vacuum away, and put the stuff in my room back where it was before.  I then spent about.. two and a half hours watching the aforementioned show before realizing I never got around to putting my bedding on to wash.

And come to think of it… I never took it out and put it on to dry!

October 25, 2009 · Filed Under Journal, Projects, Weatherlight

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Ah, family…

::Preface::

This post is loooooooong, and is simply a record of the last three or four days. Despite its length, it’s still rather vague, but is mainly a personal journal entry. If you want to save a lot of time/effort, don’t read it. If you want to hear about the recent visit of my kooky cousin Sean, by all means, grab a cup of coffee, and settle in for the long ride.

::End of Preface::

About a week ago now I received notice from ma’ mom that my aunt Jean and cousin Sean would be coming by to visit. Shortly after that, I expected my parents to go into clean-the-house overdrive, but it didn’t really happen until the night before Sean and Jean’s arrival.

A few days before that I–uncharacteristically, I might add–had done the dishes, folded and put away towels in the linen closet, cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned the bathrooms, and even dusted certain parts of the house.

But back to Saturday night, and our attempts to clean out the guest room: No one had bothered going into the guest room in ages. There was no reason to, as it was full o’ storage/junk. But that night we vacuumed, cleaned, dusted, moved stuff into the closet, moved in a nicer mattress/box spring, etc. We made the room fit for.. erm… a guest.

The only problem was that the room still had this awful heavy hide-a-bed couch in it that we had brought down with us from Powell River when we moved here 6 years ago. The couch, in its’ prime, used to be super comfortable. I could lie on the thing for *hours* on end, and never get uncomfortable… but that was 8-10 years ago, and now the couch had fallen into disuse and disrepair.

So we cleaned the couch out as best we could, and made sure that it wasn’t quite as dusty as it used to be, and simply covered it with a blanket. After spraying the room with raid (there were tonnes o’ bugs and what not that had made the couch their home) and airing it out after, we were finished.

The next day, I woke up around noon, and spent most of my time trying to figure out what to do ’til Sean and Jean showed up. I was told they’d probably arrive between 2 and 3 PM, but that I should also listen for them beforehand, just in case.

Ultimately, I ended up playing Mass Effect to kill time until about 2:30, when I headed upstairs to grab a bite to eat, and make sure I hadn’t been sitting playing a video game while they sat in the car outside.

After another hour of waiting (and watching Seinfeld and M*A*S*H) they finally arrived, and I took the opportunity to sort of show them around a little, and to catch up with them.

After that, Sean and I spent a few hours playing NHL 2K9 before dinner. Eventually, my dad made burgers for everyone (they were awesome, as usual) and we all just kind of sat around talking for a few hours.

Sean ended up setting up his computer to find something to do, so I went and got my laptop, and we ended up playing Age of Empires II: The Conquerors for a few hours until everyone else wanted to go to bed. After that, Sean and I watched a bit of TV, until I too wanted to sleep. I don’t know what he did the rest of the night/morning.

I awoke to the cool breeze wafting in my window. I could feel it flowing down the wall, over my head, down to my toes, and back up the wall and out the other window. It was chilly, but nice. A few moments later, the intercom started beeping at me, and my dad told me breakfast was just about ready. That meant one thing, and one thing only: Bacon.

I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, darted out the door, knocked on Sean’s door, told him breakfast was nearly ready, and hopped up the stairs. My dad then asked me how Sean wanted his eggs. This led me to pop back down the stairs, ask Sean how he liked his eggs, and receive a very groggy “over hard.”

I then raced back up the stairs, told my dad he liked them over hard…maybe, and then sat down at the table. A few seconds later Sean appeared, wide awake. It was kind of weird.

A few short moments later, we (my mom, dad, aunt, cousin, and myself) all feasted at great length upon an expertly cooked breakfast.

Now unfortunately, Monday entailed some work on everyone’s part. My father wished to capitalize on Sean’s presence by conscripting him into helping move the aforementioned couch of horrors out of the house, into the van, and into the dump.

We all pitched in–by which I mean my aunt Jean went out and had a cigarette, and I just kind of poked fun at everyone who was trying to move it–and in the end, we got it in our van, although we had to tie a rope across the back doors to keep it closed.

My mom and dad drove in the van to the dump, while Sean, Jean, and myself took Jean’s car to follow them as my dad needed Sean’s help to unload the couch, and me and Sean had some errands to run in town.

After we left the dump, me and Sean headed to the mall to do some shopping. We stopped by Shopper’s Drug Mart for a few refreshments and a birthday card for my mom (her birthday was the next day!), and proceeded to wander through the rest of the mall.

After Sean bought some CDs at The Source by Circuit City and I grabbed a booster pack at The Lion’s Den, we stopped by the Upstairs Downstairs Shoppe to buy my mom a birthday gift. (Or four. Or five.)

After much debating over what to get, we decided on some candles that looked like stones, a stained glass ship that held a candle, a squirrel wind chime… thing, and a base for the aforementioned candles.

We had them wrapped, and placed in a box, and then Sean suggested we get a flower for the top of the box, much like a ribbon or other such gift accoutrements. We then headed back to the car, and went back home to give her the presents. (Albeit a tad early.)

As far as dinner was concerned, our original plan was to have steak, barbequed to perfection in the hot summer evening. Instead, it was raining, so we all went out to a Chinese buffet, and ate a lot of various dishes.

After that, Sean and I played more Age o’ Empires, and then he drove me in to work, where I spent the following 5 hours doing various paperwork for the store–most of it to do with receiving new stock.

Once I was done e’erything at work, Sean and Jean came to pick me up, and they took me home, where we all sat and chatted for a few hours until Jean went to bed, and Sean and I went downstairs.

We watched the latter half of Transformers, on one of the movie channels, and then went our separate ways, to sleep.

Tuesday morning was a lot like Monday morning. There was bacon, and the bacon was good. This time Sean turned his meal into a sandwich, and we ran out of Five Alive.

The first order of business for the day was..nothing, really. For the most part, we all sat around chatting for a few hours. Later my mom and dad took my aunt in to see where I worked. Sean and I once again followed in his mom’s car, and after a quick bit of shopping, our parents all headed home.

I had some errands to run, so Sean drove me to the post office to sort a mail issue out. After that, Sean remembered he had to stop by an ICBC branch to pay off a speeding ticket he had been written in Golden, BC.

I told him where it was–in the Trail Bay Centre, where we had gone on a shopping spree the day before–and after a brief tour of the parking lot, we found a space near it, and went inside.

After speaking with a friendly woman who worked there, Sean realized that ICBC had made a mistake, and were still charging him for insurance on a vehicle that had been stolen and them impounded. The Nanaimo branch ICBC he had dealt with had promised to cancel the insurance on said vehicle, but had failed to do so.

ICBC now said that he owed $635 in payments, and that he had “faulted” on said payments, meaning he would be unable to get a car insured for 2 years, and even when he did so, his premiums would be outrageous.

After receiving information about how he could contact ICBC’s main offices–they were unable to do anything at our branch–we headed to the mall’s pay phones, which are conveniently located near the BCLC booth.

Sean had me redeem the winnings from a few Scratch & Wins, and purchase more, redeem, purchase, redeem, and so on until he had won over 10-15 tickets, and was up $14. (All the while on the phone with ICBC!)

After getting off of the phone and redeeming more tickets, Sean scratched a few more until he had lost it all again. I tried my luck at one of the deluxe $10 tickets, a Monopoly one, but I didn’t win anything.

After that we headed back to the car, and back to the house. A little while later I began installing Windows XP on my aunt Jean’s new (to her) computer that she had gotten from her brother (my uncle), Frank.

After installing all the updates, and replacing the Norton 2003 Trial with AVG, we headed out to the Grasshopper Pub in Pender Harbour, where things would take a turn…for the weird.

First of all, on the way to the pub we stopped by my Mom’s friend Ada’s house to pick Ada up. When we made it to the pub, Sean met his friend Katie there, whom he had known in Powell River.

We all sat together, and then moved, and than sat together again. Sean ordered himself a pitcher of Budweiser, and it all went kind of downhill.

Sean had invited Katie, and had planned on meeting her there, so they talked for quite a bit, catching up and what not. My mom, Ada, and my aunt Jean were having an in depth discussion about…well, I don’t know what actually.

My dad was playing the Pacific Hold ‘Em province-wide electronic poker game, as well as Keno. I was talking mostly to Sean, Katie, and my dad, all about various subjects.

Eventually our food came, and for a little while our tables went quiet. But once the food had disappeared, we all began conversing once more.

Sean, being Sean, had found out that Katie was in a relationship, and immediately went and played pool with a woman named Michelle. Michelle was … well I’m not going to use that kind of language on ma’ blog, but people seemed to consider her quite promiscuous.

After Michelle beat Sean at pool once, and Sean had beaten her once, he ended up playing a game with a woman named Dana. Katie remained at the table with Ada and ma’ family, occasionally leaving to answer her phone.

After a while, Katie realized that she had to work in 7 hours and 45 minutes and decided she best go home to bed. She said bye to Sean, to which he replied: “I don’t have to walk you out to the car door, do I?”

After Katie told Sean that no, he didn’t have to do that, he said something along the lines of: “Good, ’cause I don’t want to.” and then went back to play pool with Michelle again.

It was around this time that Michelle grew tired of Sean, and started to screw with him. She led two other guys out onto the deck with her, Sean followed shortly after, and apparently she burned him with her cigarette…or something.

After that, Sean seemed to have two options left: A) Hit on the waitress who was working, and seemed extremely busy. Or B) Go back and see Dana and her friend.

It was around this time that Sean bought a shot of Tequila for himself and Dana. He later mentioned that it was a bad idea.

Sean then took perrogative and invited Dana and her friend Shannon over to our table, to meet his family I suppose.

Now let’s just say the whole night got bad after that. The man showed no shame if he felt any, and he was hitting on Dana like there was no tomorrow. He was also very drunk.

He eventually … licked Dana’s hair, and tried to guess the shampoo. He stole her ring, but eventually gave it back… (It was a ring that she received for working for 5 straight years at the local RBC branch.)

There are other things that happened, most of which I don’t care to remember. Suffice it to say, they were all drunk, and no matter how many times my dad and his mom tried to tell him it was time to go, he wouldn’t listen. Instead he made puppy eyes at Dana, and howled like a coyote. Repeatedly.

After a while, my parents, Ada, and Jean all went out and got into the van, leaving me to coerce Sean out of the pub. After Dana and Shannon had shaken my hand around 4 or 5 times, and given me a few hugs, Sean was finally heading towards the door.

After some mutual… well, groping between Sean and Dana, she walked him to our van. I said goodbye once more to Shannon on my way out the door, and got Sean down the stairs and to the van safely. He then started making out with Dana, before he /finally/ got in the car.

Dana and Shannon had exchanged phone numbers with Sean, and when we were driving away from the pub, he was trying desperately to remember their names.

Due to the excessive amounts of beer, Tequila, and Jack Daniels Sean had imbibed, he really had to pee on the way home. He made some remark about how now-a-days a phone is as, if not more, important than a condom. We pulled over off the highway so Sean could relieve himself, and he did so… while yelling “woo-hoo!” or something similar.

After getting back in the van Sean, no longer having to concentrate on not peeing his pants, started to hit on Ada. A lot. Like a /lot/.

We eventually made it to Ada’s, let her out of the van, and tried to keep Sean in it. As we drove away, he asked if she was married. My mom told him she had a partner named Rob, and all Sean cared was that she wasn’t married.

Sean then reassured my mom that he would never screw her friend in our house. I’m sure that helped her sleep that night.

Once we got home, I decided that since I had to get up in around 7ish hours, I should go to bed. Sean stayed upstairs and talked to his mom and my parents.

The next morning (which was this morning, actually.) I awoke, got ready for work and headed out. By the time I get home he will be gone again, but it was sure nice seeing him.

I hope we’ll do this again when he gets back from Afghanistan between February and May 2010.

Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

July 8, 2009 · Filed Under BlackBerry, Journal, Work

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