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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All That Glitters…

The sun has once again decied to shine upon the Sunshine Coast, rather than hide behind a shield of clouds, rain, sleet, hail, and snow.  The last few days it has been absolutely beautiful and sunny, and it’s reminding me why I love living here so much–the spring and/or summer are fantasticly beautiful.  The winters might be harsh, but heck, who cares when I get this beautiful weather half the year.

Anyway, I’m writing this post because lately life has again been pretty damn good, and I want to have a record of these awesome times!  Today I got myself a haircut (as my last was… sometime around September 2008?) and I no longer feel as though someone has poured a bucket of hair over my head, and that it somehow just… stayed there.  But the haircutting is just one of the final steps for Cleanfest 2009–whereby I clean myself up through shaving, haircut, new clothes etc… and I also clean my room.  Currently it’s just fandabbybabulous, and pretty clean all around.  The few spots with dirt/dust are under the table I’ve got my 360, PS3, and lappy on, as it’s hard to get under there with a vaccum, let alone any other form of cleaning.

I’m also still into Magic, just as I was when I last posted, and I’m currently debating the purchase of a booster box o’ Mirrodin, as I never gave the set a chance (and now, upon looking back at some of the terribly broken cards, wish I had) because it was the first set to leave Dominaria, something I wasn’t ready to do in 2003, as I had just left Powell River and moved to Sechelt.  I wasn’t about to make any other large changes in my life, even if it was just the setting of a game I play.  Plus at least Mirrodin is tied to Dominaria, in that it was created by Karn–a former denizen of Dominaria–who is a silver golem/living embodiment of Urza’s Legacy, and is thus now a sensient being, and a Planeswalker with the memories of Glacian, Xantcha, and Urza…anyway, that’ll make no sense to anyone who doesn’t pride themselves on their Magic: the Gathering lore. ;)

… where was I?

Oh, yes, I like Magic still, and I’ve even got a way to play it twice a month, guaranteed*!  The local hobby shop, The Lion’s Den, is now running a biweekly Friday Night Magic… knockoff.  It’s not officially a Friday Night Magic tournament or anything, it’s just a time when everyone who plays Magic–and knows of the event–on the Sunshine Coast can get together, and have several large games for a few hours.

In music news, as of late I’ve been listening to a lot of Belle and Sebastian, and Apoptygma Berzerk–they’re bands that don’t really mix at all, but I’m listening to tonnes of them none-the-less.  There was a brief period between Beatlemania 2009 and this new fusion of lyrical subtlety and booming beats, where all I would listen to was Neil Diamond again.  Right now the predominant music is either APB or B&S, but with splashes of Beatles and Neil Diamond every once and a while.  Especially Diamond’s “Lament in D Minor (Dance of the Sabres)“.

In the realm of novels, I’ve recently been able to track down a book I was looking for for quite some time–”Star Trek Deep Space Nine #27: A Stitch in Time” by Andrew J. Robinson.  The novel was released in the year 2000–I just noticed that if it had been released in like.. 1997, would I say “the year 1997″? No.  I’d say 1997. So why the “the year” prefix to 2000?  It just sounds silly saying something came out in 2000–but is now out of print, and for some reason is up on Amazon and eBay for $30 at the least, and $140 at the most… it’s bizarre.  I wanted to read it just because it revolves around Garak, a Cardassian and former spy for the Obsidian Order, who resides on Deep Space Nine after it’s taken over by Starfleet–anyway, it looked like a good book, but was obscenely priced online, so I tracked down a copy at the local bookstore for $4.97.  That’s much better. :)

I fear this post has outgrown its… uh.. intended length, and I’m clealry stretching my vocabulary so far I’m running out of ways to describe even the most mundane of concepts.  Or maybe I’m not.  Either way, all things must end eventually, and it’s time for this post to end… right now.

March 5, 2009 · Filed Under Journal, Magic, Projects

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