Kojach

The Quest Begins

2011-03-27T13:49:00.000-05:00

Looking into the motorcycle market, with two primary options for a first bike (the first being more realistic - i.e. affordable):

Suzuki SV650
Ducati Monster 620 Dark

They're both great-size bikes for a first timer with room to grow, and with the V-twin engines have plenty of grunty low-end torque and amazing exhaust notes that will give me just as much pleasure as the ride itself.

First steps are to write the M1 written test, get some basic gear just for training course purposes, and complete the course which yields me the M2 license (after minimum 60 days of having the M1).

After that I'll need to procure some decent-enough gear without going to crazy.

Updates to follow...

ZipCar Credit Crunched

2010-10-14T16:48:00.003-05:00

I really enjoy the concept of ZipCar, and similarly was quite satisfied with the sign-up experience, their payment methods, etc.

It's all quite easy to understand, simple to borrow a car, and so on...

But then I ran into my very first issue after borrowing one of their cars once to do a quick furniture move (a great experience overall with the exception of having to fill one tire with air that was under 10psi).

The ZipCar deal I signed up for is $30 annually with $50 driving credit, but during that last rental they billed my credit card.

So I call Zipcar: What’s up with the no-credit situation?

ZipCar Customer Service: Doesn’t seem like it was applied to your account. What’s the promo code you used?

Never did. I went to www.ZipCar.com/ConcordCityPlace and it just processed it all for me.

I need the code.

There is no code! No area on this page that mentions or allows me to insert a code. Can’t you look it up?

We don’t have access to codes. But if you come across it within 30 days of signing up we can apply it.

But how would I come across it? I came across this, and it doesn’t have a number. Plus IT’S ON YOUR WEBSITE.

Lemme check with supervisor… Sorry we need the code.

Ummm ok there is no number anywhere on this page – no number or code or anything like that.

It could be letters.

There’s no letters either! No code at all!

Well if you come across it within 30 days… or try calling your local office.

Update...

So Sean from my local ZipCar office left me an email, and called me the following morning to apologize for the inconvenience of the situation, and credited me $65 on the account - essentially twice the value of the rental period.

Thanks a lot, Sean!

Still funny how as cool and fun as the ZipCar company seems to be, they obviously haven't polished their customer service skills at the main 1-866 customer service number. I've learned of another situation where customer service told my friend to take a bag of random stuff another 'Zipster' left in the car, go home and list it in a Lost & Found section of their forum - but definitely don't leave it in the car. Umm what? How about you handle it since it's your business and all.

Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts

2010-01-15T14:08:00.008-05:00

Seeing all of these pictures on the web, and video on the news of these people suffering in Haiti - their homes ravaged, friends and family dead or severely wounded - it is just so sad.

I'm still jobless since taking my leave of absence last year to do some backpacking, and maybe the freedom of this makes me just crazy enough to look into going to Haiti and helping out myself.

So I deeply considered flights to Haiti despite my significantly limited monetary resources. Flights to Port Au Prince, and anywhere else in Haiti are suspended. So instead, relief workers are landing in the neighbouring Dominican Republic (DR).

Through Orbitz.com I found flights to Peurto Plata, DR: USD$200 total for a one-way, or USD$383 total for a return ticket - both with Continental Airlines, and both leaving from Pearson Airport in Toronto (YYZ).

At that point though I am learning about various logistical issues even getting to the Haitian border from DR (audio report - Washington Post). And if you are not part of a relief organization, and just there to help out, what then? Will they actually let you in the country?

Another problem is that I can't survive much longer without a job, as I need to pay off this travel debt, combined with auto-debit payments for my student loan, before these creditors start sending hired goons to knock down my front door.

Yes, I suppose I could start immediately selling all my camera stuff, TV, monitor and any other extraneous things I don't absolutely need, to raise money for a ticket or two. But my second more rational thought is that these aid organizations would be calling for relief workers if that is actually what they needed.

They don't. They have aid workers. What they need is money.

It would make me feel immensely more useful actually being there to assist in some way, but on the other hand there is the law of diminishing returns too - sometimes it's just worse, the more untrained people there are around. More people to explain what to do, more people that could really just get in the way, unless they have a specific set of tasks they can accomplish without supervision.

If I was a doctor, paramedic, nurse - then sure, I could be of use. But another guy to carry boxes of bottled water, tell people where to go, or just stand there to watch the action unfold? They have enough of these people.

I regretfully dismiss myself then - for now anyway - and instead look to gain meaningful employment, so I can have the available resources to put to these causes, which would make more of an impact.

Rant: The Job Hunt

2010-01-07T17:29:00.002-05:00

You know what bugs me about online job application websites? They're all different.

And I don't mean different in the way that the 'submit' button is on the left instead of the right, but in the way that they are so varying in terms of their ability to understand the input of the end user.

In short: they're poor.

This website accepts 30 types of documents, but another only understands Microsoft Word. After all, who uses anything else but Microsoft Word? Has anyone heard of Adobe PDF documents, perhaps? They're only everywhere on the internet where standardization is of any interest. Certainly don't inform me in any way which file types you do accept, given it is this limited.

Some websites do not accept attachments at all. So that cover letter and resume you spent hours carefully crafting and agonizing over? The nice tables you used to get that perfect alignment? Forget it. Just copy and paste them into these basic text boxes here that are no larger than a sticky note.

As an alternative, why not let the iResume system make you stand out more? It will take your resume and process it using the latest analytic and querying algorithms, then automatically populate the required fields... all to save you time. Sounds great!

If only it worked.

My job as an IT Analyst for ABC Inc., from February 2003 to June 2009, has now been translated into a job at Mississauga, Ontario, with unknown job title, from September 2001 to September 2001.

So, tell me: what does your tool populate, exactly?

Inconveniently, iResume also picks out your most applicable job skills, by searching for the most random strings of text in your resume, and letting you select them as a skill, like "bank", "analyst" or "Ms" - whatever that is (I still don't know where that came from). Who thought this was a good idea?

It reminds me of older job application software five years ago, where you could select from a hundred words, like "Microsoft" or "security" or "eCommerce". Do those words mean anything by themselves? Would you hire me because I put "security" down as a skill? What does that even mean?

Even better, if two companies you are applying for use the same vendor's job application software, rest assured that your resume is not stored in a central location; instead, and predictably, it exists only on the servers of each individual company.

So though the login screen and questions are identical to that last job you just applied for, because the same company wrote that code, this one will not know the username and password you used for the last one, as it is a completely disparate system.

How 1990.

This makes sense when companies have their own team of HR staff to sift through resumes - why would you store your data elsewhere? But if you hire an external company to build software to save your recruiters' time, why not save the applicant's time, also? Because "why bother?", that's why. "Who cares?" is another good reason.

What is also ironic, is that many of the jobs I am applying for lately are asking for detail-oriented people with excellent written communication, yet many of the job postings demonstrate that nobody like this was involved.

Well, I suppose that's why they need them.

Japan Trip: Day 4

2007-12-09T08:55:00.002-05:00

Gifu to Tokyo

After my routine morning photo editing session, I began packing for Tokyo - jamming the essentials into my pack sack. Then Mrs. Shimoda entered, inviting us to their kitchen for breakfast. We washed up, put our slippers on and went over for some fried eggs, ham, toast and coffee.

She was going to drive us to the station which was some distance away. We ensured all our tickets were in order - marking them with numbers and asterisks since we couldn't read anything but numbers on the tickets - and hopped into Mrs. Shimoda's miniature, sixty-horsepower Suzuki RW Wagon.

The ride to the station, as always on the narrow Japanese rural roads, was fun - just staring out the window wondering, if their two-lane traffic is as wide as a single lane in Canada, why haven't we seen an accident in Japan yet? Surely by now in Canada, especially with five millimeters of snow on the ground, there would be emergency lights and sirens, people who have careened their minivan into a ditch, groups of 4 cars all sandwiched together, standing outside and examining the damage, wondering what powers of the universe caused such chaos.

But not in Japan. As cars seem to pass within a few inches of each other it makes one think - if we didn't have so much space, maybe we would be more inclined to pay attention to what's going on around us. You wouldn't be able to weave in your lane if it was only an inch wider than your car. Weaving at that point would send you into another lane where you would surely get honked at, or in Toronto, shot at. Nevertheless, we got to the Gifu-Hashima station with time to spare, picked up some food and beverages for the trip, and waited for our train.

Standing on the platform while the bullet trains pass is quite the exciting experience. I took a video of a train flying by, but somehow it just doesn't have the same effect. First of all, since the trains were made in a country that chooses to lead the way instead of following the leader - and by following I mean the way that a very fat person tries to follow an olympic triathlete - the trains are electric, and don't have a coal burning furnace from the days of the Model-T Ford. Because of this, and their aerodynamic shape which itself bends space and time, you don't hear them coming until they're ten metres away - too late to jump out of the way had you reconsidered your suicidal wishes, and much faster than anything in Canada.

With more reliable service, better selection of food, and much more room inside, it is quite a nice ride. And the amount of room is surprising since the average Japanese person is about half my size, yet somehow they feel it is worth having more cars with fewer seats in the interest of comfort, instead of jamming as many cattle as they can into their 18th century cars. Though I do believe that GO have put some new carpeting in their cars recently so maybe we're making some efforts there.

The Shinkansen line of bullet trains have various types that are each progressively faster than the other, beginning with the Hikari, Kodame and the fastest we were aware of which took us to Tokyo: the Nozomi. There is apparently another, faster train of which I'm unaware of the name.

We get to the busy city, and grab a cab outside Tokyo station after enjoying some ramen (noodles and soup) in the underground array of eateries. On our trip to the hotel it's obvious this is a busy place, with high end stores like Burberry, Tiffany's, Prada, and Giorgio Armani flooding the streets in the upscale Ginza district. The popular Matsuya Ginza department store takes up an entire city block, elegantly designed as a bright white Louis Vuitton suitcase complete with gold latch and edge accents, and porting the distinctive L-V pattern in multi-colours. Across the street lies the Tokyo Apple Store, Chanel and various other expensive retail stores.

In search for dinner, we cruised some small side streets for a while until coming to a great sushi restaurant my parents ate at last time - Tsukiji Sushiko. After much sake, sushi and watching some wealthy looking Japanese business men eat with their significantly younger ummm... secretaries, we eventually headed back home to sleep in the interest of a very early morning wake-up. The mission: a trip to Tsukiji Fish Market to literally get a taste of what fresh seafood really is.

Japan: Day 3

2007-11-26T01:20:00.000-05:00

Gifu City

Waking up to the call of nature I walked briskly through the arctic-like cold - down the hallway to Yuya's bathroom. Since the Japanese winters are quite mild, barely any of the homes have any central heating, so they depend on electric stand-alone units to heat the areas they are using which are of course off during the night. The daytime temperatures are perfect in comparison - a pleasant 15-17 degrees.

The one saving grace during these late night bathroom visits though are the Japanese toilet seats - the coolest anywhere for sure. All have the standard base and tank, but most have an electronic toilet seat. As soon as you sit down you can hear and feel the seat begin to warm up. Then, after your business, you could just get up, flush and go, but if you want the bidet option the toilet seat will do that for you as well - with settings for men and women of course. The one in Yuya's parents' place even auto-flushes, and some others (in the X Wave hotel for example) begin to pour water into the bowl after you sit to mask the sound of any natural disasters.

I went back to bed, and eventually woke up to the sound of Yuya and my parents talking outside my guest room at the table. I quickly washed up and joined them at Yuya's parents' place for some breakfast. After scrambled eggs, mini sausages, toast and coffee, we had some kitchen table discussions including mini-English and Japanese lessons for all.

I had hoped we would visit a Ramen (noodle soup) restaurant in Japan, so Yuya took my parents and I to one that is quite popular in Gifu, where the Canadian paparazzi unleashed their cameras on the unsuspecting staff. We started with some very fresh gyoza - Chinese dumplings - before being served two types of Ramen, both quite spicy and made for hungry people. Yuya ordered everything, including gigantic beers for my Dad and I which I had serious trouble polishing off.

We then went to a popular nature park in Gifu and had a nice walk around, taking pictures of some Japanese Coy, monuments, more cars of course, and numerous flower arrangements that were part of a local competition. All of this was at the base of Gifu mountain and castle, near the children's playground I remember Yuya taking me to last time I was here - a large wooden obstacle course. We took a break at the tourism centre where cable-car rides to the top of the mountain are booked, and sat for some hot vending-machine coffee. Whenever they say hot though this means the can is like molten lava, but the coffee itself is just above warm. I am now deeply missing Starbucks.

Returning to the car, Yuya then whisked us through the narrow Japanese roads, his engine screaming in the background as he wove through the tight bends and hairpin turns, uphill to a fantastic look-out point where we got a great view of Gifu city. The drive back down the mountain was almost as exciting if it weren't for obtrusive reflectors on the centre line that were placed every two feet, and would seem to take out a tire if one were to stray over the line slightly - which isn't hard to do given the narrowness of these roads.

Once back on ground level, we hit a drug store - quite the experience in comparison to Shopper's Drug Mart - then eventually made it home around 6.30 pm or so. Rina also joined us for dinner - Yuya's mom made some great enoki mushroom soup and fried chicken.

After dinner we gave Yuya and Rina some wedding gifts - his parents gave me a very ornate Japanese gift card with some serious cash money inside. Maybe I should stay in Japan until I spend it all! They also showed us a very nice wedding book they made for themselves; thick pages like a nursery school book, and very professional wedding photos with Yuya wearing a very formal kimono, and Rina clad in 4 eccentric kimonos, from deep red, colourful and flowery varieties to an immaculate white. Obviously the Japanese women put more effort into this than the men! Or maybe Yuya's just lazy. Whichever.

We then fled to our rooms and settled in for the night, preparing for a trip back to Tokyo in the morning to get a taste of the big city.

Japan: Day 2

2007-11-25T19:01:00.003-05:00

Tokyo to Gifu

The faint sound of a Japanese alarm clock combined with the delicate ring of the wake-up phone call brought me into the morning. It was 5:40 AM and time to have a nice shower, shave and repacking of clothes before scrambling for the bus... likely down the road again.

The night before I had realized that my ziplock bag of personal care items withstood the explosive blast of my body wash container, and everything inside had been covered in a clear, aromatic ooze. I washed everything out that night so I was in business this morning - all was dry and ready to go.

Of course the Kovach's were the last ones on the bus, but we weren't too late. The shuttle headed back to Narita airport where we received breakfast vouchers for ¥1,000 ($10) and went to grab some food at an airport coffee shop. My parents had an American-like breakfast, and I opted for a Japanese meal which was quite good. We then had to catch the Narita express train which would connect us at Tokyo station with the Shinkansen.

After a series of elevators, escalators and numerous underground paths it was obvious that my parents' dual rollie-bags were becoming a nuissance while navigating the Japanese underground - and all because of blind people. The Japanese have large, rubberized embossed dots indicating a change in elevation - whether it be stairs, elevators or an incline; and large lines which signify an exit. These are great for the blind, but not so great when my beloved parents are each carrying two rolling bags in addition to jackets and a violin, and the casters catch on these little nubs and cause serious baggage management issues.

Nevertheless, we arrive at Tokyo station, make our way through the terminals via another series of clean underground pathways until we arrive on the platform, and board the Shinkansen. As expected we leave on time, and the train flies toward Nagoya at a million kilometres per hour.

On arrival at Nagoya train station, Yuya's dad, Masami and his fiance, Rina were there to meet us. We drove toward Gifu - me with my camera out the window every five minutes to take shots of numerous passing cars that I didn't recognize, or buildings with loud advertising which usually involves the use of random English words for cool factor.

Just after parking in the Shimoda's driveway, we greeted Yuya and his mother - they pulled in right behind us, Yuya driving his brand new four-door Civic Type-R - and entered Yuya's late grandfather's house. Since his grandfather passed away, they had renovated the street-facing house, where Yuya and Rina will live after the wedding. Yuya's parents still occupy the connected house behind his grandfathers', and both homes rest at the dead end of a very narrow street just barely wide enough for two-directional traffic.

After some kitchen-table discussions, and giving us a tour of their renovations, my Dad got out his violin and had a rehearsal with Rina's friend (also Rina) who will accompany him with the piano. I sat glued to the computer and did some much needed emailing while the duo played on, and Rina selected which pieces she would wanted to hear during the reception.

When the rehearsal concluded, we were whisked off to the cars as our favourite big-sushi restaurant was going to fill up soon, and if we wanted a seat we best move out. Yuya's parents took off first to grab some seats while Yuya hung back to wait for the fat Canadians to get their act together. We then piled into the Type-R and the V-TEC kicked in quite a few times during our express trip to the restaurant, Senari. What a car.

The Shimodas treated us to quite a feast. The sushi chefs worked their magic, and placed gigantic pieces of sushi covering miniature pieces of rice - or in the case of the tamago (egg-omelette sushi) the rice was nori-strapped to the top of a huge slab of egg. We sat and drank a lot of sake, and consumed many rounds of fish, grilled whole shrimp, chowan mushi (egg and seafood soup) and fresh seaweed - all placed directly on the countertop. The most entertaining part of the evening involved watching two guys at the bar inhale packs of cigarettes while dipping flaming Fugu fish fins into a large cup of sake.

When the Canadians were full, we eventually headed back to Yuya's place and drifted off to sleep before 9pm.

Japan: Day 1

2007-11-24T03:00:00.000-05:00

Toronto to Tokyo

[6.55pm EST]

So here we are - my parents and I waiting in the Air Canada Airbus A340 at Pearson International Airport for our take off to Japan. It must be a timely one as well, seeing as how the time between our landing in Tokyo, and our leaving for Nagoya is only an hour and a half.

We sit calmly as we hear that the navigation systems have become unexpectedly problematic. Not to worry, so assures our captain. "It's not unlike your computer at home. Sometimes you just need to reboot it to get things working."

Well that gives me a burst of confidence, let me tell you! The fact that this multi-millon dollar aircraft is similar to my error-prone Windows desktop at home that I got on sale for $1.95 provides all the comfort I need to know that hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL on our jumbo jet we will not only take off safely, but let us arrive alive with all of our limbs intact. I am now fairly certain that there is little chance of the GPS system conking out in mid-flight and directing us into the path of a large mountain face. In Kazakhstan.

Anyway, the power shuts off for about five minutes, then turns back on. About 10 minutes later our captain comes on the air again, indicating that - as expected - the reboot worked. Another problem has developed however in the engine! Super. "A valve in one of the engines is frozen shut - all it takes is to move it back and forth a few times, and we should be good to go. Sorry for the delay folks - we just have to wait for the ground crew to help us out."

So just a valve is it? Good thing the problem lies in one of the engines and not something important. Like the navigation system.

After another hour or so of waiting, we end up running into traffic. On the runway. No, we're not taxiing yet - we're apparently on the wrong side of the runway, and need to wait 20 minutes for the runway to clear so that we can cross it and make our way to the de-icing area. As we eventually cross the runway, and sit in a line up for about a week we are finally promoted to the status of "de-ice-able". This means that the airport services guys in the earmuffs outside run the expensive machinery which blasts alcohol and ethelyne glycol (anti-freeze) on the wings and fuselage of the plane, so that nothing gets frozen stuck during take off (or in mid-flight).

We end up leaving the runway 3 hours late. Needless to say we will not be meeting our connecting flight on time. This sounds like an episode of the Amazing Race already. How typically Canadian. At least we have a good selection of in-flight entertainment to maintain our sanity: Ocean's 13, Chicago - or "our classic movie" as the steward referred to it, or some Harry Potter flick. I'm glad I have my technology to keep me company.

Dinner provided us with an option of seafood tempura, or "the chicken". Though I chose the latter in the interest of nutritional value - assuming both options would have some Japanese flare to them - it was obvious from the man beside me that I picked the wrong one. After some time he likely assumed I was attempting to come onto him by the number of times I looked over and drooled. Oh well. The sake was a great hit though, so if anything is calming my nerves on this flight, it's the booze.

On to read another chapter of The Art of Intrusion, and we'll pick this up later on.

Over and out.

...

We arrive at Tokyo's Narita Airport, and the pilot announces that All Nippon Airlines (ANA) - along with Air Canada in the Star Alliance group of airlines - will have people available to help with rebooking various flights for those who were relatively stranded due to the Toronto weather delay. We all know it was an Air Canada stupidity delay more than anything else, but I'll leave that alone for now.

After disembarkation, ANA have setup a booth immediately outside the gangplank. You think our Canadian counterparts would have done that? I think not - it always seems like mass chaos at Pearson whenever there are flight delays and cancellations. The girls from ANA - even with their limited English skills - were great at assisting us. Unfortunately the flight we had missed that evening would not run again until tomorrow evening, so they indicated we could alternatively take the Shinkanzen - the Japanese bullet train - and that would be leaving around 10 AM the next morning.

A woman from Toronto who was likely going to miss her 8:30 am tour bus in Nagoya the next day was obviously upset since neither of the options would help her get there on time. Since there were some frustration and some language barrier issues, a really nice Japanese kid - who was also part of the flight delay mess - helped out the ANA girls with some more advanced English translation. I can't remember his name now for the life of me but he was a great help. Ultimately ANA would have a shuttle bus to take us to a hotel tonight, a boxed dinner, then a shuttle in the morning so we could connect with the inter-city train that would take us to the Shinkanzen.

Passport control was about a 20 minute wait in line, after which we had to have both index fingers printed and our picture taken - courtesy of an all-in-one job by NEC. After emerging from the security check, we grabbed our checked bags, went through a very brisk customs check, and headed for the ANA counter where we would receive our boxed dinners and await the shuttle bus. We ate our surprisingly good boxed dinner at the airport with him before the bus arrived to take us to the X Wave hotel.

The shuttle drove us approximately 60km away from the airport, and eventually turned down a typically-narrow Japanese road, stopped at the dead end, backed the behemoth up in a tight parking lot entrance and stopped outside what looked like a Thai rub-n-tug parlour. Are we seriously staying overnight in the Tokyo ghetto? Nobody said we were bound for the Marriot, but we weren't expecting the X Wave to be this dire. Then again, by Canadian standards even a Japanese dive is pretty nice in comparison to what ours would be.

As it turned out we weren't staying at the adjacent building. The hotel was actually back up the street, across the main road, at the end of the street. The bus couldn't have turned around there so of course the larger woman of the tourists on our bus complained that walking more than 30 feet was required. Let's go fattie - if you wanna sleep you better hop to it.

The hotel was adequate - definitely not catering to the luxury starved but nice for a change. We were each given our own individual rooms and settled in for the night after having some beer, Cup Noodle and tea from the ubiquitous vending machines - both inside the building and scattered around the street corners.

We watched some TV programs we couldn't understand until about 1:00 AM Japanese time, then settled in for the night since we had a bus to catch at 7:00 AM the next day.

North Americans are more stupid than everyone else

2007-04-18T22:13:00.001-05:00

Is that even possible? I seem to shake my head in total disbelief at someone at least everyday, sometimes multiple times per day. I really do try some self-talk, forcing myself to just accept it and move on, but I just can't because it's too unbelievable.

From my morning drive in, to the people I deal with at work, the people that serve me in food joints and retail stores, I just can't believe how people that stupid can still be alive and haven't somehow gotten themselves killed due to their lack of awareness of things going on around them.

Driving for example. Clearly nobody understands basic traffic flow or the causes and effects of certain situations, never mind the basic art of piloting a vehicle, which almost everyone in this country would refer to as "like, super easy!" despite teenagers complaining that driving exams passable by someone in the geriatric ward of a hospital are difficult. Have you been to Europe? And women, I'm very sorry to say but you are the absolute worst at it, that's no secret. I shake my head at you the most, but the look of total confusion on your face when I pass you on the highway is often worth chuckling over so I'll leave that alone for now to rant about another time.

So back to this stupidity thing. We have warning signs on products you couldn't imagine would be necessary (but obviously someone did something stupid enough to warrant the cautionary graphics) and criminals that seem to rake in boat loads of money in compensation for injuring themselves during some robbery or whatever. The whole world makes fun of us - well, Americans take the brunt of it but don't you worry, we're just a few steps behind as usual! A lot of it does stem from the setting of some precedent in the court system but due to my lack of legal know-how I'll leave that one to the experts.

I say Darwin's approach is the best - just take the warning labels off all the products and let the problem solve itself. Gave your child a swiss army knife and they stabbed themselves? Oh well. You put your car into cruise control and it didn't steer itself away from the guardrail? Sorry for your loss. The $30 camera phone you purchased takes bad pictures at weddings? You should have known.

The most recent issue with the Ontario Police force was their brilliant seatbelt blitz during the month of April. Really? Is this something new? If someone hasn't realized in the last 30 years that perhaps wearing a seatbelt is a better idea than not then you should be left to figure it out by yourself regardless of the injury you cause to yourself.

North Americans are just the absolute worst at attempting to devise the most ridiculous blanket solutions to social problems.

People shooting themselves? Ban guns! Drunk people driving at night? Cap alcohol sales at 2am. Don't want your child to watch brutal violence and sex on television? Write to the network and have them cancel the show - it's that easy! No actual parenting required! Actually, if enough of you do it you can get them to censor out all the swearing. Even words like "penis" will be censored out because clearly that is offensive language. How could someone say that on television! Penis. Oh they should be ashamed!

Who am I kidding, it's been like that for at least a decade now. To the point of watching a movie on Fox or some other horrible network late at night that is the same version they had to air at 8pm or whatever the cutoff is, so all the language has been censored out, and not with silence or the ever-amusing <beep> but with someone else's voice who very rarely resembles the actor's in the most remote way. Are we seriously paying for this?

Violence on television. With all of these stay-at-home people who obviously have very little to do with their minds complaining that cartoons from the 80's or whenever have over fifty thousand incidents of violence in each episode. And this violence is causing our children to bring guns to school, and rape women and steal millions of dollars from old ladies. Who's buying into this?

We are so determined to deny responsibility for everything so much so that we'll actually shift the blame to other people or corporations, the latter being the most popular. Drop a can of soup on your toe at the supermarket? Sue the company and you'll probably win millions. And we all know about that woman in the USA spilling hot coffee on her loins. Whether she actually agreed with suing the company is irrelevant.

Unfortunately attitudes will never change and it's only until bad things happen that we eventually wake from our slumber and think differently. We will continue as we have been, and I can only hope at some point beyond which we cannot do anything to counter the momentum of stupidity, other countries will pass by us laughing all the way. Maybe at that point we might take them seriously and realize we're not the best at... anything.

Disservice with a smile

2007-04-12T17:14:00.000-05:00

If one specializes in something you expect them to do a pretty bang-up job of it. The burger place must have a superb array of quality hamburgers, and the pizza joint... well, they know pizza. It's the whole reason they're still in business, and this is especially true for franchises where a good majority of people appreciate their specialty product so much they've built an empire around it.

And though it makes the most sense when the specialty product is in the title such as Kentucky Fried Chicken - or as their marketers would rather you call it, KFC - numerous popular chains are just known for something good.

In Swiss Chalet's case it's their rotisserie chicken. And when combined with french fries and their unique love-it-or-hate-it barbecue sauce (or "used dish water" as my Dad calls it) it makes you smile with contentment. Their latest campaign is chicken marinated in a spicy sauce, served with spicy, battered fries and a house salad. You would think the staff would be trained to up-sell and perfect this thing like crazy and see whether the customer demand leaps or plunges.

During my most recent visit a few days ago, many of us ordered that special with some adjustments to the sides and some opting to pay an extra 99 cents to have the white meat breast as opposed to the standard leg. Well, as dishes began to arrive at our table it seemed we had all made the right choice. Wow that chicken looked good; juicy, tender, fall-off-the-bone good. Then I got my plate.

My first thought was that, perhaps due to some kind of error in The System I ended up with a kids meal.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with The System - whether in hospitality or retail industries - all problems related to the original order are caused by something of a technological nature: computer upgrades, bar-code scanners, etc. otherwise known as The System. An alternate scapegoat is other staff members.

Well, maybe not quite a kids meal, but a portion of chicken the size of an infant's hand slapped on a huge plate beside 30 pounds of french fries somehow just doesn't look right.

I then began to analyze the situation: what would make someone not take a second glance at this and say - "Hey, wait a minute. Something here doesn't look right here because A) this will be served to an adult; and B) this is our feature dish that we are encouraged to promote. Let's put this little chicken back and grab this gentleman a piece more suitable for his age group."

But no that didn't happen, nor was any action taken by the person who brought it to our table because, well... that's likely not in her job description. All she has to do is go to kitchen, pick up food, deliver to customer. Rinse and repeat.

Thankfully our primary server was good enough and took the baby chick away, and replaced it with a man-size portion, no questions asked. What a great guy.

So you folks in the hospitality industry, or really anywhere a little common sense and input from you might benefit the customer and your company as a whole, just... give a shit. Just a little bit. Especially when your primary income depends on tips.

A much belated thank-you

2007-04-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

So a while ago I wrote about how the makers of Axe products would give you a ton of cash to pimp out your bathroom if you could prove it was really disgusting.

Well what do you imagine happened? Yep they ignored me.

Did they? Maybe for a few days, but I received an email from the Axe marketing squad thanking me for the kind mention (which of course further publicizes their campaign) and that someone would soon be in touch. Yeah ok I said.

A week or so later I received another email, saying they would send me a token of their appreciation, but they first need my address. This is getting a touch more serious, and I still highly doubt anything will happen but what's the harm?

After another week I received a care package at my door from none other than Axe - inside were numerous sticks, sprays, body washes and matchbooks... more than I could ever use for years!

I ended up spreading the word and donating a few to other guys who also liked Axe stuff, but I still have a drawer full here that comes in handy for that all-too-important rotation of fragrance.

Thank you, Axe! And my apologies for the severe delay in my reply.

Back in action

2007-04-10T14:59:00.000-05:00

So it's been almost a year since my last post... and though I'd really like to blame it on being insanely busy I cannot.

I am no longer in school so there is no need to procrastinate, but since there has been a few requests to keep up with my ranting and informative posts about various tech gadgets I thought I'd come around again.

What I have been wondering is who really reads this stuff? Who goes out and traverses the thousands of Blogger pages, ultimately ending up at mine, and pauses for a read?

Who knows, perhaps its entrapment under the Google umbrella makes it more advertised than one would expect, but regardless - I am back in action.

Upcoming:
- A much belated thank you
- Women drivers. Yes... you.

Sony Ericsson Z520a

2006-05-20T09:16:00.000-05:00

There are many things to like about this phone feature-wise which is why I've wanted to test it out for a long time: a decent user interface (now improved since the T616, Z600), Bluetooth, speakerphone, infrared (IrDA) and a video/still camera (albeit VGA resolution).

Coming from a Nokia 7250 I noticed things like the 65k colour screen and 40-chord ringtones to be a major improvement, but I also just wanted to use a clamshell phone for a while and see how I like it. Keep in mind that whenever I refer to Nokia, I'm talking about my 7250 and its Series 40 version specifically - things may have improved since.

First of all, for those of you who don't know the difference between the funky Asian-style white model (Z520i) and this unit, the "i" is the International version - supporting languages other than English (yes, life does exist beyond North America!). I much prefer the look of the white phone since it's so different than the millions of silver clamshells out there, and fortunately some eBayers do sell complete white housings for people like me - though I'm using this phone for work and I'd rather not sink $30+ into a phone that doesn't belong to me.

Aside from the good stuff about the phone you can read pretty much anywhere I'll describe some annoyances I've come across while playing around with it for almost a week now.

Opening
It's somewhat difficult to open one-handed compared to some other clamshells that have either a looser hinge, or some indentations to put your fingers. My buddy experienced the same issue and along with other things thought it wasn't worth purchasing.

Camera Button
The camera button way too easy to press and is positioned in an area where you would naturally grab the phone - both open and closed. A firmware update has made this easier requiring the button to be held down for 1 second+ but it still takes pictures occasionally where you weren't expecting it to.

Shutter Sound
Although I understand the reasoning, the shutter sound is very loud. Sometimes you just want to take a picture in a non-invadion, non-malicious way and not draw attention to yourself. Unfortunately many electronic products are now designed for the disgusting, stupid people in the world and we now have to suffer for it. In contrast though, the Motorola V3 (RAZR) will let you select between ~4 shutter sounds, or simply disable it. Was that so hard?

External Display
The external screen is somewhat poor - I'd almost rather have a high res monochrome screen that's highly visible in daylight.

Photo Caller ID
Any picture you have associated with a contact to be displayed when they call doesn't even fill the whole screen, but instead is surrounded by a white Polaroid-like border. Good effort, but not really suited for a miniature screen.

Standby Clock
The external screen displays the time when the phone is in standy mode, but the font size is so miniature that you can't read the time from a distance at all. Either put your face right up to it or hit a button to reactivate the screen.

Headset Connector
Since both the charger and the headset connected cover the entire base of the phone, you cannot charge the phone and have a headset plugged in at the same time (obviously Bluetooth headsets don't have this problem). As with my beloved Nokia, proprietary headset connectors drive me crazy. Why is the standard 2.5mm jack so frightening?

SMS
This isn't necessarily a gripe, but since playing with the Motorola RAZR I found myself liking iTAP better than I thought. In the iTAP world, spelling long words like Mississauga or Burnhamthorpe will require as few characters as possible for the phone to recognize the word and suggest it as an option. Both Nokia and SE unfortunately will require you to spell out the whole word.

File Transfer
Maybe it's because I'm still using IrDA and I haven't tried looking for the options (or read the manual) but I can't seem to transfer any files without the phone prompting me whether I want to accept the file. This is pretty annoying when you're copying over 15 wallpaper images and you've got to babysit the phone and press OK for each file coming down the pipe.

The Good

Here are some things I never came across while reading other reviews:

Massive amount of details per contact (address, email, 5 numbers, Title, Company name, picture ID, Info field).
Sending an SMS to multiple people can be done either after composing a message or right from the phonebook. A Mark Several option is provided which turns the phonebook into a checklist.
Words not already in the dictionary can be added, and when selecting the Spell option, whatever word you were trying to spell is in the text field to be edited unlike my Nokia which makes you write it out again.
For key SMS combinations that have multiple word options, the most used option will become the default.
When sending the message to a contact, the most recent contact to whom you've sent messages recently are displayed in a list of Send-To's, with a Contacts Lookup topping the list.
Countdown timer and stopwatch (Not all phones have them - e.g. RAZR)
The calendar can be searched for a string of text which will return all appointments that matched the query.
Alarms (and appointments - optional) will work with the phone off, and recurring alarms can be checked on/off for all days of the week.
A note can be pinned to the start menu as a reminder - displayed as a transparent PostIt covering the wallpaper. They cannot be as long as an SMS but are great for little things.
Unlike the Z600, you can actually edit a contact's information while in the phonebook. The Z600 forced you to get out of the Phonebook, into the main menu select some Contact Management icon.
Unlike Nokia's clumsy implementation, you can send and receive pretty much anything via BT or IrDA. The only thing you could send with the Nokia is a contact's "business card".
Video playback can be seen in full screen mode, which of course requires the phone to be rotated on its side.
Self portraits can be done with the flip closed and by holding down the camera button for a second. You can see the image in the external screen.
Standby mode with the flip closed will show a screen-saver-like clock in the external screen which moves around. Any missed events (calls, messages) will be displayed as an icon. The contrast isn't amazing but better than the T616. Touching the camera button (literally) will reactivate the screen in colour and everything can be seen in better detail.

Motorola Phonebooks: Just barely adequate

2006-04-09T19:13:00.000-05:00

Many of you probably own some wireless Motorola product - most likely one of their mobile phones such as their ubersuccessful V3 RAZR, V600 and similar phones.

The software they run is pretty much identical between them all with their very own Motorola-esque interface that have frustrated many, yet still being used by more people than you would imagine.

Why? Style and Features.

In addition to in-demand features like EDGE data transfer, Bluetooth and speakerphones, I've got to admit that the style of Motos top-end phones is pretty good which doesn't make you wonder why so many people buy them. Not only is the exterior of the V3 gorgeous in all of its simplicity, but the colour screen is to die for. Really.

When purchasing a mobile phone, some people look for features, others for style, and some (like me) for general usability.

Fortunately people like me do not make up a large percentage of their target market, otherwise they would sell millions of units one week only to come victim to an equal percentage of customer returns the following week.

PRODUCT RETURN FORM

Customer Name: Alex Kovach
Product Manufacturer: Motorola
Product Model: V3 RAZR (But really damn near all others)
Reason for return: Worst. Phonebook. Ever.

You might ask yourself why I'm so anal about something so simple as a phonebook.

The reason: phones with all of these features, and styles such as this don't come cheap. The RAZR at the time that I bought it for example was $300. Not the most expensive but far from the cheapest.

If I'm going to pay money like that for a product, I would expect it to function at least as good as all others, if not better. In the case of the Motorola phones however, they perform far, far worse with respect to the phonebook (ONLY the phonebook).

Why should I settle for something that would clearly irritate me for every day that I own the product when there are many other manufacturers to choose from? Nokia phones for example (Series 40 specifically) are extremely intuitive to use and quick. Menu options are where you expect them to be and if you're ever wondering if you can do [this], and do it [here], then you probably can.

And the reason it bothers me? Laziness. How could a company as large as Motorola not realize how poor their product is in comparison to others? If you can clearly see the deficiencies in your product, why would you not do everything to make it better, and perhaps have YOUR product be renowned for its ease of use as well as style?

Why is the Moto phonebook so bad?

The Phonebook

For a very long time, although other manufacturers changed to more usable methods, Motorola still had each of your contact numbers as a separate entry.

In other words, if Mom can be reached at home, work, and her mobile phone, you would have three separate Mom entries: Mom (Cell), Mom (Work), Mom (Home).

The method chosen by other manufacturers was a single contact entry with multiple numbers per entry, so you would have one entry "Mom", and three numbers associated to that contact. It is really hard to believe why one would do it any other way.

To top it all off, the poor user of the Moto phone (current model lineup) would be prompted to select a memory location of where they would want to store a new number they're entering.

Hmmm memory location... You mean speed dial? Nope. Memory location.

Why would anyone care about that? They wouldn't. That's my point.

I had a Samsung phone that did that too and that's partly what annoyed me for the life of the phone amongst other award winning interface decisions.

----

Finally, with the RAZR they've waddled into the 21st Century and implemented the one-contact, multiple-entries solution.

Well... sort of. Once again Motorola stumbles on something that could have been done so well.

First of all, the default setting of the phone is to have separate contact entries for your numbers Ã la 1995. Only due to my curious nature am I able to notice the option to group your contacts together.

So, is this it? Have they nailed it? No. They haven't.

---

Let's say you meet someone at a business function. And let's assume that since this is Canada their name is probably not going to be John Smith, but something of a more international flavour that may not be the easiest for most lazy North Americans to spell.

You get their email addresss and phone number, store those in your phone under their name and agree to get back to them. You'll meet up eventually, have lunch, exchange business cards and so on.

Looking at the business card now it's clear that you've misspelled their name - so it's not John Ayzerbomb, it's John Aizserbaum.

No problem, not everyone's perfect. I'll just edit their contact information.

Oh, wait a second. So the phone will let me edit the contact info for their email, OR the contact info for their number? Well isn't it the same? Wouldn't that be the whole purpose for grouping these two details together?

Motorola user interface design experts obviously think otherwise.

Let's pick one at random.

OOoh... The phone number. What luck!

Click Edit --> Contact Name. I correct the name and click Save Entry.

Fabulous job... until you realize that the name for the phone number has changed yet the name belonging to the email address is still buggered. Great design guys.

---

Aside from the phonebook let's take a look at profiles.

A lot of phones nowadays (it used to be only Nokias) will let you have various profiles stored in the phone: Meeting, Outside, Silent, etc. so you don't have to manually adjust your ringer volume under those circumstances. Selecting a profile can change a lot more than the volume alone and takes much less time to do.

Have you ever wondered when you're in a theater, and at least one mobile phone owner can be heard adjusting his volume?

"BRRRIING, BRING, Bring, bring, brn"

Yes. That's a Motorola.

I suppose I should be commending them on even having profiles in the phone at all. Especially since they're even assigned clever names like: Low Ringer, High Ringer, and High + Vibe.

And to select between them all you have to do is adjust your volume control! Awesome!

Nothing says job well done than the Moto design team getting profiles on their brand spanking new V3 RAZR... the epitome of mobile style for Hollywood and most of fashion conscious North America.

Lotus Notes - Wondertool Numero Uno

2006-04-09T16:03:00.000-05:00

Yes I'm still alive and well but with my schedule filled with various school projects and going to work I haven't been blogging lately. Due to recent experiences at work however I thought I'd let you in on some insider information regarding an unfortunate choice most companies have made for their email solutions.

Most people should think of MS Outlook, Thunderbird or other decent email applications before even considering Lotus Notes as a solution to their email needs.

I myself have chosen to the GMail route for personal use since I find the interface is great, although not the most efficient at times, grouping your conversations together and generally responding quickly to user actions.

But let's get back to Lotus Notes, and why I hope nobody ever has to use this horribly bloated mess of an application whose user-interface experts must have been away on vacation during its development.

First of all, the WHY.

Why would anyone even bother with it? Well, in my case the company I work at uses it so I don't have a choice. I can't think of any other reason anyone would subject themselves to its psychological torture.

Why am I bothered by it so much?

Usability Blunder #1

I write an email and send it off - let's say I included a 10mb project document and sent it to Joe Swanson, Ubergenius. I also sent carbon copies (for those of you who haven't figured out what "Cc" means) to my project team.

Joe responded to my message (also using Notes) and has unfortunately selected the Reply-To-All-With-History option.

Silly, Joe. Will he ever learn?

There's a multitude of reply options in the wondertool that is Lotus Notes:

Reply will not include any history at all
Reply-with-History resolves that but includes all original attachments in the reply. Why anyone would want to do this on a regular basis is beyond me.
Reply-without-Attachments is available yes, but since it's the last option on the menu it seldom gets noticed nevermind selected.

And yes, those options are duplicated for the dreaded Reply-To-All feature.

So the attachment I sent Joe has now been sent back to me as well as the 15 people in the Cc list.

Thanks, Joe for assassinating the mailbox storage limit for my whole project team.

Usability Blunder #2

Respond to an item in your "sent Items" and Notes cleverly decides that the recipient should be none other than yourself: the initial sender of the message.

SURELY if you want to reply to any email you want to reply to the sender, right? Sheesh, even Gmail got this one right and it hasn't been around for long at all. I can just imagine how many years this application has butchered such a simple function.

Usability Blunder #3

Lotus Notes has a side bar on the left side of the screen that can hold your bookmarks to address books and other databases (everything in Notes is basically a database).

I can't be positive, but most people would think if you have a bookmark set to point to a certain database that's most likely what you expect it to run when you click on it.

Well folks, in the world of Notes it's a different world. Of course it will work when you initially set it up, but there have been countless times where that very bookmark that I've clicked on about 40 times this morning to run my database development project now decides to point to another database.

Hmmm ok. Well maybe the design is the same? No, it's a completely different filename in a completely different location with a completely different design.

Let's try directly opening the file I was working on before then, that should work.

Oh, it doesn't. Well it does in a way, but unfortunately I'm not satisfied with running a backup version of the database that I made about 3 weeks ago. I'd rather run the one that I've put about 50 hours of work into since, thank you.

I don't change a thing, and get back from a much needed coffee run.

Clicking on the icon now points to the proper database again.

Magic!

Usability Blunder #4

Wow, the storage limit of my mailbox is really getting up there.

Around the time I get a warning before sending any outgoing mail out is when I start going through my existing items and saving/removing attachments I didn't have a chance to do at the time.

Oh here we go, I found an email with a 6mb attachment - that's probably a good chunk of memory I can restore in my profile.

I open it up, save and delete the attachment and have a look at the buttons available to me in the toolbar.

Send
Save & Send

Hmmm that's weird. So I'll have to send the message back to the people in the Cc list simply because I wanted to remove the attachment? That doesn't make much sense.

To conquer this you'll need to press the Esc key which brings up a menu to "Save Only" the email without sending it to anyone. Shouldn't this be placed in the toolbar as a standard action? You'd think so... but no.

Usability Blunder #5:
Developing applications using Notes Designer

Lotus Notes uses the Domino server to run its databases, which use framesets, agents, forms and pages using Lotusscript, a formula language and JavaScript.

Since I'm not too familiar with JavaScript I've been using Lotusscript heavily as well as the formula language for when it's more efficient to do so (fairly often actually).

Lotusscript itself is a spin-off of visual basic... no semicolons are needed at the end of lines and the function names are pretty much identical. It has the same basic form elements such as text boxes, list- and combo-boxes and in general everything works fairly well.

The Blunder

Let's say I'm in the middle of writing code for a button. I finish a line that requires some testing, the designer doesn't have a problem with the syntax so I preview my form with the code changes to ensure it works the way I expect.

Notes: "Do you want to save your form before proceeding?"

I sure do! I click YES. Maybe the first time it doesn't work because I made some type of logical error in the code.

I'll exit from the preview, change the code and hit CTRL+S to save so as to not be bothered by the save-prompt again. I click Preview again.

Notes continues into preview mode, yet somehow, basic unrelated functionality in that button code that was working not 2 minutes ago is now not performing its usual action.

That's odd, let's investigate.

Found it!

A line of code that I haven't been anywhere near in the last 2 days has somehow disappeared.

Once again... magic!

I've found one way to try and overcome this is clicking on the form itself after modifying the code and then doing the CTRL+S. It seems as though even using that shortcut while in the code-editing window will give you a greater chance of code disappearance.

This is by far the most frustrating thing in the development environment.

honorable Mention: Rich Text Fields

Another frustrating thing is probably working with rich-text fields, as for some reason after any changes are made, the document being modified must be saved, closed and re-opened in order for the changes to be seen on the screen. Amazing!

I can't think of anything else at the moment unfortunately.

As you can see, I'm far from thrilled with this application but hopefully I've steered you away for the moment until things improve.

Next up at the firing range: Motorola phonebook design.

Happy Birthday Sandra!

2005-11-29T18:37:00.000-05:00

It's my friend Sandra's birthday today so we'll wish her a Happy 20-something! I hope she has all the fun she's entitled to after these horrendous exams are over with.

So where have I been?

Seems like the wrath of assignments, projects, uncompleteable (Is that even a word? It should be.) midterms and cold, wet weather have gotten the better of me.

Have I become the lazy fatass I was when I was 16? Perhaps.

My car needs servicing yet again despite the $1,500 bill I forked over last time. All was necessary though and the mechanic is a good guy despite indirectly taking food out of my mouth. Visa and American Express love me. I'm their #1 client.

Lookin forward to going out this weekend though - it's been a while. Let's get our drink on.

Police Brutality in London

2005-11-15T08:16:00.000-05:00

This is crazy!

If anyone witnessed this in London please get ahold of the author of that article. Will write more later, but definitely not a surprise to read about officers on a power trip. It's just sad to see it goes way too far sometimes.

Online etiquette

2005-11-14T11:13:00.000-05:00

No this isn't yet another complaint about how the Internet is dragging our human interaction and writing skills into the gutter.

Some expressions derived from online chatter can describe one's behaviour accurately enough without them having to write complete sentences to describe their state of emotion. So really, it's making our language more efficient.

Please don't take this and apply it to your professional lives, however. I'm just talking about casual writing between friends.

The Beef

The problem I'm finding these days is with the overuse of these helpful acronyms, punctuation, and spelling in general.

Not only that, but (granting an exception for ESL students), it seems like some people never quite understood the difference between they're, their, and there as well as numerous other words (to, too, and two).

Let's examine LOL for a minute: Laugh Out Loud.

The goal of this expression is to subdue the need for writing an endless string of hahaha, or typing I am laughing so hard right now.

Unfortunately the efficiency is annulled when numerous LOL's are joined together, expressing extreme cases of laughing out loud. Funny, but counterproductive.

LOL LOL LOL LOL !!!!!

The Killers

Punctuation and lack of proper Internet etiquette really kills it for me sometimes. Let's provide some examples to get you in the same frame of mind:

Are you going to Jessica's party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, if you'd ask me in the form of a question I'd consider it. Unfortunately, not only are you screaming at me with 30 exclamation marks, but your question lacks the basic building block of the request-response scenario: The Question Mark.

The answer to your pseudo-question is NO anyway.

Another example:

HEY DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN GET THIS PHONE???????? I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We've already covered the punctuation so I won't beat you over the head with it again. At least this person used a question mark, though 10 of them may be excessive.

Their problem is that they haven't yet caught on that not many people type in ALL CAPS on the net, and when they do it typically demonstrates some form of excitement or anger.

So if you're not feeling any of those, click the damn thing off and continue typing without screaming at me.

They grow on you

2005-11-09T22:11:00.000-05:00

When UGGs first made it on the scene, I really couldn't believe my eyes. Could some seriously ugly boots really capture the hearts and wallets of Western's beautiful student body?

Somehow it did many years ago, and I ridiculed this "fashion statement" like it was my job.

Just picture a very attractive girl, who could be seen in August weather in a short skirt, tank top and cute sandals, engulfing herself in ugly, wooley-mammoth-looking boots in the fall, complimented by tucked-in grey sweats and a hoodie. Now, maybe I've suddenly become attracted to those hunter-gatherer types of girls (Neanderthelle), but something about girls in mukluks three times the size of their legs is kinda hot these days.

Surprisingly, I've come to accept the new look of today's Western woman. It's very unfortunate that they don't highlight her curves in the least way, but I'm sure that despite the freezing whether outside (oh not now, but just you wait) she's having her own little party in her boots. And I'll just have to be happy for her. Or just cross my fingers that I get invited. Whichever.

For a different angle, see what Paige has to say about them.

Yes, this was just a sad excuse to link to her page. Girls are pretty.

Paige, you're pretty.

Hush...

2005-11-09T13:21:00.000-05:00

Hip-hop fans and those of you who enjoyed the brief pre-challenge music from The Contender may want to check out the new album from Hush: Bulletproof.

R&B fans might be more drawn to tracks like Let It Breathe, but high energy tracks like Fired Up and Put 'Em Down (both from The Contender) are more for the hip-hop crowd.

Hush is also featured in the upcoming Need For Speed: Most Wanted video game soundtrack.

Oh please!

2005-11-08T19:57:00.000-05:00

So people have been complaining about Steven Harper's comment about the Remebrance Day poppy.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

First of all, he's not criticizing the symbolism of the poppy, or making any form of negative gesture towards our veterans. I'm sure like the rest of us he has a great deal of respect for them.

We're talking about the production quality of the symbol itself, how the fastening design hasn't much changed in the 80 years that it's been around, and how they constantly fall off since they use a simple pin instead of something that would actually keep the poppy attached to your clothes.

I can't believe people so easily turn this around as some form of shameful comment against the veterans. They obviously have incredibly poor listening skills, and have this magical ability to tune out what he actually said.

Selective listening is bliss.

Autumn in London

2005-10-30T08:10:00.000-05:00

This is my usual biking route - from home to campus, then backtracking through the Thames River Trail - about 30km in total. There's always some nice scenery, but I love the fall especially. The smell of the leaves and a cool brisk wind just seem to wake you up nicely in the morning.

20 Years of Nintendo

2005-10-27T00:28:00.000-05:00

1UP.com writes about Nintendo's 20th anniversary in North America.

Man I spent so many hours playing those games as a kid and, ironically many of them are still loads of fun, which I can't say about some old TV shows I used to watch.

Winter's coming

2005-10-21T21:31:00.000-05:00

Well, what a weekend I have.

At least there's some decent weather out. Yes, I know, it's getting colder, but there's still plenty of sunlight to be getting out with the bike or rollerblades, or whatever else gets your jollies off.

My weekend unfortunately will be consisting of a lot of dedication in the computer labs on campus. Yes, I'm the ubergeek this weekend. I've got two assignments and a project report due next week, coupled with a midterm on Saturday.

God I love Computer Science. Not only does it have a magical ability to turn women off like a bad cologne, but it eats up your free time like crazy.

If it's still dry, and there's sunlight, I will be riding the bike when I can! Still waiting for that damn mechanic to call me back with the bill.

Should start cutting down that damn money tree now I suppose, seems like labour charges might be outweighing the value of my car.

Nuts, bolts, and dolla billas

2005-10-19T13:12:00.000-05:00

So I took the car into the shop today - there's been many things needing repair for a while, but they weren't bad enough to fix over the summer. Now that winter's coming, things like a leaking exhaust, squeeling brakes, seized calipers, and a minor A/C leak might be worth looking at.

Looking forward to a friendly call from the mechanic giving me a much higher estimate than I'm expecting. He's a decent guy though so maybe it won't be all that bad.

A local Toyota dealer did fix a seized caliper just over a year ago, so I'm hoping it's that same one that I can take back to them and say "WTF". Otherwise, it'll be a few more leaves off my money tree.

If I give him a whole branch, maybe he could bump the horsepower up a hundred or so. Or at least put a Type-R sticker on the back.

No, that wouldn't be cool.

YouSendIt stores 1Gb files

2005-10-15T23:13:00.000-05:00

This site I came across recently is a great way to circumvent file-size limits on email servers.

YouSendIt simply hosts whatever file you'd like for seven days (or 25 downloads). During that time your recipients and whomever you send the link to can download the file quickly and easier (no registration required).

In addition, downloading from their site is quite a bit faster than if you were able to grab it via email.

MySpace Hacker

2005-10-15T13:05:00.000-05:00

For all tech-savvy people out there, this is a must read.

Some have cursed Samy's name ever since he unexpectedly came up on their MySpace profile, but regardless, he ended up coding some wicked hack that ended up gaining him over one million "friends" in a very short time.

Read the whole story, get a technical explanation (and code) as to how he did it, and read the interview.

On the same topic, here's a funny anti-MySpace site, and another even funnier one.

Only in America

2005-10-14T11:07:00.000-05:00

So the makers of Axe body wash have gathered together $15,000 to Pimp Your Fraternity Shower.

The catch is that this bathroom must be so absolutely disgusting that it will be voted as, well, most deserving of a makeover.

I can't really understand the need for a plasma screen inside my bathroom, but hey, what the hell? It's free!

Check out the rules here. Unfortunately you do have to be a resident of the USA, and your frat must be recognized by the college.

Quebecor president's sister assaults police

2005-10-13T22:03:00.000-05:00

If you think all the press about this situation is because some chick assaulted police officers, you're wrong.

The majority of the press is about how wrong and unjustified it was that the police assaulted her (watch the video here).

Oh please! Are you kidding me?

She got exactly what she had coming to her once she committed the crime, then proceeded to ram her car into a police cruiser, and have them chase her for multiple blocks in Montreal.

Not only that, but before the officer slams her into the side of the cruiser, she's already resisting pretty heavily.

And this was all for what? A pack of cigarettes? Need I mention the 21 criminal charges she's facing in total?

Clearly this girl has issues, but just because she's the sister of a multi-millionaire doesn't mean she's entitled to anything more than your average citizen. It does mean unfortunately that she's entitled to increased publicity.

If the average citizen did something that stupid, regardless of their sex, I'd applaud the police for their actions just the same.

There are quite a few people that scoff at the police, simply because they're not intimidating enough. Don't get me started about traffic cops that bust people for going over the speed limit - they're a different breed entirely. I'm talking about those officers that actually serve some purpose.

If you knew that you would not only get arrested, but have the crap beat out of you by the cops (à la Russian Polizei) then maybe you'll reconsider what you're about to do.

Vive le Montréal!

(Here's a followup to the story)

Mom delivers 16th child

2005-10-13T10:35:00.000-05:00

And They want more kids on top of this... are they crazy?

This had to happen in the US of course. I can't imagine what people are thinking when they do this.

How can you not be busy enough taking care of 4 children comfortably? Are these kids actually getting enough attention?

People complain when classrooms get over a certain threshhold since not one child is given adequate support and attention, since the teacher's (or in this case, parents) efforts need to be spread across many students, and not enough time can be devoted to one who may have more difficulty with certain issues than others.

Clearly, this is just like a rich kid, who never really appreciates all the things he has, but enjoys the feeling he gets when new toys and more expensive gifts are given to him. Of course he'll just keep on accepting them, but does he really take care and value them as someone less fortunate would? Of course not.

And once again, the weirdness of it all centers around religious fanatics. "If God wants to give us more children..." Umm, actually it's not God that's doing it, it's just a biological fact that if you have your husband injecting sperm into you, most likely a child will be the end result.

People will never cease to amaze me.

I suppose the one positive thing I can say about this family is that the husband is a hard worker, and the family isn't just sitting down in front of the television collecting unemployment insurance.

Let's talk about cup size

2005-10-12T11:27:00.000-05:00

It seems like no matter where I get a Tim Horton's coffee from, especially those medium cups, coffee constantly sloshes out the sides of the lid, spilling on my hands, clothes, shoes, and car upholstery.

Do you people not use your own product?

Surely you must notice a problem when your average no-name brand cup, and someone with Starbucks is happily walking down the street, yet the poor bastard that opted for Tim Horton's coffee is cradling the cup with a 5-pack of napkins that are soaked with java.

It's also unfortunate that you have two (at least) different manufacturers supplying you with lids: Lilly (GTA) and Conference Cup (London).

Coffee leaks out of each equally, really, but at least Conference Cup can manage to make a lid with a half-decent tear-off tab. It could also use some improvement however.

Lilly on the other hand seems to think their completely inadequate design for the tear-away top is satisfactory.

Well, Lilly, let me tell you something: when I open 10 coffees, and 4 of the tops tear sideways, diagonally, and basically every way but the way they're supposed to, there's a problem, isn't there?

I'll make a deal with you. Even though I haven't had academic training in this field, I will volunteer my free time, to speak with your product "engineers" (what do you guys get paid for anyway?) and make numerous suggestions that would improve this situation. Better perforation for one thing.

It's too bad that this rant will never get into the hands of the marketing or product development team, but do realize I'm not just a bucket of thumbs, who somehow finds a way to screw up well-engineered products.

These same issues infuriate other people too, and the annoyace becomes far more severe when this phenomenon manages to cause coffee spillage on numerous items surrounding you, including other people.

There are reasons why certain products are well designed: the majority of people using these products experience some degree of satisfaction that can augment the enjoyment of the product itself.

This means people would enjoy your product (coffee) more if the containers you placed your product in were of a better design. And the same happens to some degree, vice-versa.

I might also mention, that while you're adjusting your cup and lid specifications with your suppliers, that you coordinate with your store managers and advise them that their cream dispensers are highly uncalibrated.

These machines are supposed to dispense an equal amount of cream, proportional to the cup size if you don't realize this already.

What does this mean? One cream in a medium coffee, is equivalent to one cream in a large coffee. So those of you who order a small regular (one-cream one-sugar), but a jumbo triple-triple thinking you're getting the equivalent proportions of cream, you are mistaken. Or at least you would be if the machines were dispensing cream consistently across all the stores.

We all know unfortunately that no matter which location you visit, you're met with the adverse situation of having your medium-regular coffee anywhere from damn near black to a full-on double-double.

It's not that difficult to notice defficiencies in your system guys, so please, Mother of Christ, get on it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-10-09T12:56:00.000-05:00

What a great weekend we have here in Oakville! The sun is shining, everyone and their kids are outside, and although there is the occasional cool wind blowing by, this makes for a very enjoyable weekend.

Not only are we giving thanks for umm... well, the stuff and people that we have, but I've found Thanksgiving is the perfect time to bask in the materialistic world that we live in and treat myself to something needful... or at least, "wantful". Is that a word?

I had recently taken to lowering myself (what a terribly unfortunate life I lead) to purchasing sunglasses from local sporting stores... giving myself a budget of no more than $30 per pair since I've lost or have had many pairs of Oakleys stolen.

This weekend's task was finding a replacement for my current inexpensive (cheap) pair of sunglasses that broke last week.

The problem is, that not only are sunglasses one of the few ways us guys can accessorize (yes I realize that statement is the tell-tale sign of a metrosexual), but the cheaper alternatives really are inferior in every possible way.

Not only can I spend a whole day and find nothing but pure crap, manufactured in the People's Republic of China, but none of them really look that great either, and most will experience breakage during a light breeze. Never mind the crooked arms, and hastily glued-on lenses.

Oakville Place, Oakville's only real mall, was recently renovated and now houses some very nice stores, including a Sunglass Hut booth.

The poor guy at the booth of course had to mute his frustrations, and deal with my indecisiveness for almost an hour while I perused the abudance of plastic, metal and glass. Fortunately for him, after dismissing several of his potentially acceptable suggestions, I managed to find a pair of Maui Jims that served as great multifunction glasses.

He actually twisted the frames of these all around, yet they not only refrained from snapping, but immediately reformed themselves. Cool.

We'll see how long these last before following in the doomed footsteps of the last three pairs!

Like a sieve

2005-10-08T11:25:00.000-05:00

I was at Square One about a month ago.
In walking around I step into Eddie Bauer to see if anything's changed... I'm not much for the clothes but they have the occasional bag/watch that's pretty nice.

I spot this water bottle, and say to myself "hey that'd be handy".

In using this bottle ever since, I've noticed two very huge errors in design:

The large straw doesn't easily collapse into the bottle.

If you've got it standing up, there's no way to close the bottle. If you pull it out, there's no place to put the straw. If I put it in my messenger bag, it really does slosh and throw water all over the place unless I'm holding it, or supporting my bag with one hand while making huge efforts to move my legs and feet in an almost motionless fashion.

Just think of the Ninja, and how they do it. As you can imagine, it's not easy. Even doing all of these actions simultaneously, it still leaks out the top.

I might also add, that the straw has an accordian-like section at the top end, like those drinking straws you used when you were 10 years old. It's just as rigid as the rest of the straw of course, so... the purpose? You'd have to ask Eddie.

It still leaks.

Let's say I bend the straw a bit and force it into the bottle. You might say, "Alex you idiot, why not just close it. Doesn't it close?"

Why yes, it does. Or it looks like it does anyway. Making careless assumptions such as those will give you wet-ass my friends.

The rubberized "stopper", although it does look efficient enough, tends to somehow detach itself, leaving the top open to full H2O-flow once again.

Eddie Bauer, please test your products before releasing them to the general population.

Believe it or not, there are products in existance that don't frustrate every neuron of one's mind while using them.

Welcome Taisho!

2005-10-07T16:49:00.000-05:00

Owain and Michie Yamanaka had their first child, Taisho, this past week. Looking forward to meeting the young lad!

Just don't let him consume that corrosive slop at the rate we did when we were kids!

Kev Does Hong Kong

2005-10-07T16:29:00.001-05:00

For any of you that know Kevin, you may want to stay updated with his Hong Kong trip.

He'll be there until the end of December in the first semester of his last year of law school.

There've been an unsurprising number of rants about people, but some pretty hilarious stories also. He's keeping it up to date as often as possible.

This weekend he's in Japan, starting in Tokyo then visiting Yuya in Gifu.

Are we at the airport?

2005-10-07T16:29:00.000-05:00

I still haven't figured out why many people on campus this year have opted to purchase those clunky roller-bags.

What am I talking about?

You know when you're at the airport, and everyone's rolling their belongings in luggage that have casters on the bottom?

This is because when you travel, you don't want to be dealing with heavy baggage, which unfortunately doesn't include what your significant other may be haunting you with.

But we're not on the airport, we're on campus. How much stuff could you possibly need to have with you at all times, that you must roll your bag with you across campus?

This brings back memories of my x-girlfriend in Texas, wondering why 90% of the students at her school walked around with them also.

*batump batump batump batump batump batump batump*

If I could better describe the sound they make, I would, but unfortunately this is the best I can do.

*batump batump batump batump*

Let's hope the majority of the student body doesn't follow suit.

Overheard @ Western

2005-10-07T16:15:00.000-05:00

Definitely one of the more entertaining blogs, and how appropriate!

Conversations overheard at UWO

A new blog

2005-10-07T11:41:00.000-05:00

Haven't really played around with this much, besides my MSN Space.

We'll see how it goes!