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Nov. 25th, 2009

Adam Lambert won’t appologise? Oh, for shame!

Okay, Just to set the stage here, I know not everyone’s going to like, appreciate, or even approve of what goes on on TV, particularly nowadays–that’s part of the reason I don’t actually watch TV very often anymore. But, there’s gotta be a line drawn somewhere between that and ridiculous. And expecting someone to appologise for being themselves is, well, about as ridiculous as it gets.

On the American Music Awards, also known as the same show that allows such brilliantly talented artists as Eminem to spend 5 minutes rapping about raping women and interlacing at least half a dozen not rated for TV phrases in along with it, Adam Lambert had the unmitigated gaul to actually kiss his keyboard player–yes, also male–during a performance. Yes, I curse. I curse a lot. I’ll probably do a fair bit of cursing on this here blog–I’ve done it before. I have no problem with that. Much like I have no problem with the openly gay guy who wants to kiss some dood on TV–yes, in spite of the fact I actually do have a girlfriend and am not, will not be, and have not been, gay myself. What I have a problem with, and this is a huge problem, is people who will presume to complain enough about that that it makes headlines for days after the awards, and yet leave Eminem’s talented performance alone, and not offer a comment except in passing when certain other performers break beer bottles over pianos. Okay, I get it. We’re not ready for an openly gay performer like that. But we’re ready for women to show their stuff on stage and guys to talk about raping them.

The guy’s gay. Big deal. He kissed another guy on stage. Also, big deal. And he’s not appologising for it. I may not like the music, but just for this, I sincerely hope he brings his boyfriend, life partner, whatever it is he wants to call the guy he’s with, with him to his next interview and kisses him right on camera. If we’re going to complain about things that may or may not be offensive, let’s at least try and introduce some consistency to the mix here, shall we?

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

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Christmas in the valley.

Occasionally, I’ll share a little something from my music collection, or something I find online, that may or may not have some actual connection to me and/or my family. In this case, it’s a video that was actually uploaded, not by me, to Youtube in 2006. Personally, I think it’s an alright video, and the song is one which almost always gets played around December in my house. Wayne Rostad’s Christmas In the Valley, which–if you exclude the whole part about the cattle and all that–kind of describes some of the atmosphere around the Pembroke area, at least where our family’s concerned. It really is a whole lot simpler time when December hits. And I think this captures that simplisity. Not bad, for a song that was originally recorded probably before I was born. So, here, have a video. Assuming this works properly.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 24th, 2009

When your network takes a crap, and takes your email with it.

At some point during the night last night, and rather inconveniently after Jessica and I had run off to bed and so I couldn’t immediately determine that it was a network issue, this blog, a rarely updated–and, in fact, rather neglected for a couple weeks–political blog, and our email among other things, decided to take a rather gigantic crap on our front lawn. The first ever self-hosted version of the blog–link’s over there in the right sidebar–was started on this network, hosted by DreamHost, in January of 2006. Since then, I’ve always had something going over here. If not a blog, then some little utility or web app I was playing around with just because I can. Or a forum I was testing for one of the RP projects I’m either involved in or dedicating resources to. So I’ve been with them a while.

In that time, I think I’ve only ever really personally encountered… maybe 4 major, “OMG I can’t access a thing” type failures. It may, in fact, even be less than 4. So when I woke up to a screen full of “can’t connect” messages (thanks, Outlook), I was more than a little bit surprised–albeit temporarily. And, admittedly, more than a little bit frustrated–emails I should have received overnight hadn’t actually hit my mailbox yet. Once I managed to get my end of the cleanup out of the way, though, I started looking into something I hadn’t really looked at since, well, the last time DreamHost’s network went and crapped out.

I’ve been eyeing on and off, usually while the blog etc is offline, the idea of moving most if not all of my various outlets fully away from a managed environment. I’ve been running the DH VPS for a few months now, plus I’ve been running two of my own, unmanaged VPS’s for a couple years. Mostly, it’s been a sort of learning environment for me–see how many different ways I can break the system, then reinstall it, and start all over again. And yet, every time something like this happens, I always toss around the idea for a few days of actually expanding my knowledge overall of the Linux environment, and at the same time put into development my own email, and possibly web, solution–one independant from any particular web host. But I never actually get around to doing that.

I’ve done much of the actual research already–the most likely candidate for when I actually decide to take that leap will probably end up being one that centers around Postfix and MySQL, now I just need to find the energy, motivation, and maybe get frustrated enough with my current setup that I finally just say screw it and go with it. It’s probably gonna suck, but at least then I’ll be able to actually figure out for myself what’s up and died on me. Meanwhile, hey, DH, can we get a more stable network please? I really don’t like being forced into considering enduring the necessary brain damage to actually set something like that up. At least not at such a young age.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Islanders 4, Maple Leafs 3.

We were doing so well, too. Well, for about a period and a half anyway. We kept them off the board in the first, and even Toskala managed to make a few huge saves in the frame. I mean, granted we didn’t do a whole lot of actually scoring ourselves, but work with me here. The second was a bust, completely. To the point where we had to change goalies. When the Leafs have to change goalies in the second period, you know they’re not doing very well. The only bright spot in that period was Kessel put yet another one in the net. That made 6 since he became a Leaf. We somehow managed to tie it up in the third, but I couldn’t help but get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. And, sure enough, the overtime winner was an Islanders point. I was surprised. Not because we lost yet again, but because the fact that we lost yet again was perhaps the least surprising thing to me in a very long time. Guys, I know I said we love to lose, but… well… we love to win, too. Can we maybe try that a bit more? Please?

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

OC Transpo switches it up for the winter.

Break out the calendar if you plan on taking the bus next week, and mark down this Saturday’s date under “Important to remember”. OC Transpo has released their winter service schedule, with a twist for a lot of popular routes, which will be effective from then on. To start, they removed my formerly regular stop at Bayshore during their morning runs of routes like the 118. The 101 also doesn’t stop down by the office I used to work anymore–considering, you know, almost no one actually works there anymore–so if you have work to do near where the old Dell building is, you might want to think about taking the 182–at least, I think it still drops you off about a block from there. How does the change affect you? check it out for yourself, and then either bitch, complain, or otherwise opinionate in the comments if you’re so inclined. Or not.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

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Nov. 23rd, 2009

Can’t fault the guy for trying.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a Jays fan. Have been at least in passing since the early 90’s. Have been a more hardcore fan starting in approximately 1999 or 2000. And with every year, and every game I’ve actually been able to sit down and watch, things seem to be progressively worse. The only constant, and that’s often times constantly above .500 for a given season–and way over .500 career–is the only guy on the team fans have collectively called by name since Joe. Roy Halladay, otherwise known as our better answer to Roger Clemens. He’s won as many as 20 games, and I don’t know that he’s ever actually lost more in a season than he’s won–I’m sure someone with a better head for Jays trivia than me will correct me. He continues to get better year by year, while the rest of the team progressively… well, does all kinds of not doing that. And now he’s thinking about leaving the nest. There were trade rumours all through last offseason, and even through part of this one. And they’re talking now about a possibility of him not signing with the Bluejays again once his contract’s up in 2010. Not that he can be blamed–the man deserves a world series win. Actually he’s deserved about 6, but if he gets at least 1 in his career it’ll be well earned. And, as aptly pointed out by the Jays’ new GM, he probably won’t get that as soon as he should with the Jays–the man’s not getting any younger here. So, if you’re really leaving us Roy, we’re gonna miss you. But if you find that world series start you deserve a shot at, I’ll be right there in front of the TV with a pizza and a coke or 3 to watch it. Just please, for the love of God, if you have any love for your fans at all, please don’t do it with the Yankees.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

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Nov. 22nd, 2009

The more random and stupid the email, the better.

And I’ve been known to get some pretty decent random, and stupid, emails. I got this one last Wednesday.

From: spam@email.address.removed
Date: Wed 11/18/2009 10:12 AM
to: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: RE: SHIPMENT AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED

Head Office Branch
Plot 84, Ajose Adeogun Street
Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.

RE:YOUR PAYMENT NOTIFICATION
From:Dr Paul Smith.
Remittance Manager.
Zenith Bank Of Nigeria.
Attention:Beneficiary

This is to officially inform you that we have verified your contact file presently in our database, as regards your African Union (AU)solidarity fund that was awarded to you upon been one of the lucky Beneficiary in its last draw on the 9th of November 2009.
This award is funded by the African Union( AU) so as to strengthen tires between Africa and the rest of the world with particular reference to Nigeria.
We have discovered you have not received your payment due to your lack of co-operation and not fulfilling the obligations giving to you in respect to your contract payment.
Secondly, you are hereby advised to stop dealing with some non-officials in the bank as this is an illegal act and will have to stop if you so wish to receive your payment immediately. After the board meeting held at our headquarters, we have resolved in finding a solution to this problem, and as you may know, we have arranged your payment through our SWIFT CARD PAYMENT CENTRE in Europe, America,Africa and Asia Pacific, which is the instruction given by our president, ALAHAJI USMAN AMIR YARADUA (GCFR) Federal Republic of Nigeria.

This card center will send you an ATM CARD which you will use to withdraw your money totaling to a tune of $7.000.000.00 (Seven Million Dollars) in an ATM MACHINE in any part of the world, but the maximum is ($2,000) per transaction. So, if you like to receive your fund this way,reply to this office immediately for the issuing of your (ATM) CARD with the below Information.

(1) Name:
(2) Address:
(3) Phone:
(4) Age:

Alternatively, you can come down to the header address to claim your fund with the original notification mail that will be sent to you shortly.
We shall be expecting to receive your information you have to stop any further communication with anybody or office apart from this office of the presidency.
On this regards, do not hesitate to contact me for more details and direction, and also please do update me with any new development.
Thanks for your co-operation.

Best Regards,

Dr Paul Smith
Remittance Manager
Zenith Bank Of Nigeria.

Note: Because of impostors, we hereby issue you with our code of conduct, which is (202) so you have to indicate this code when contacting or emailing this CARD CENTER and remember that there is a $100 charges for openning your non-residence and we would advise you not to reply to these e-mail if you do not have the said fee for openning your non-residence account.

Were this email actually legitimate, and were I actually entitled to any amount of money, and were it in fact due to be coming to me ASAP from some overseas establishment, I doubt they’d be sending me a poorly written email about it. But, since neither of those “if”s appear to be true, and the email in question looks as though a 4th grader had a crack at writing it, it gets the spammer stupidity award for November, 2009. Sometimes, 419 scams amuse the royal hell out of me. But just sometimes.

Also: If anyone *does* actually want to send me 7 million dollars, I won’t say no. Just don’t tell me via email.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Maple Leafs 2, Capitals 1.

So they do know how to win. Or at least, how to pretend to win. And in a shootout, of all things–that’s been a problem for them since they introduced the bloody thing back in 2005. Well into the season’s second month, and we’re the proud owners of a 4th win. Compare that with way too many losses and we have a small problem. Still, at least we won this one. I was afraid we’d have to drop another 10 first. At the risk of sounding way too optimistic, I hope it’s a sign we’re turning around a little. Although, the logical part of me–the part I usually try to shut up on account of it makes too much goddamn sense–is already saying don’t count on it. Sometimes, I hate logic.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Hurricanes 6, Maple Leafs 5.

Uh. What? How in the hell did we go from a 3-goal lead at the end of the second period, to… to… well… losing. In a shootout. Badly. We just don’t do that. Like, at all. Against Carolina, of all freaking teams. Carolina. Loser of 14 straight at one point. I think they might actuallh possess the same number of, if not more, wins than us. And we were winning. Please, please tell me this season’s almost over. Or at least tell me we’re getting a new team.

Last match

The Hurricanes came to Toronto a few weeks ago, and much to my surprise, at which point they rather got soundly beaten. We played probably only slightly better then, and managed to get out of there with 2 points. We show up in Carolina, play like we plan to soundly beat them even more so, and then… promptly fall asleep at the wheel. Huge difference a couple weeks makes. I’d like the team from a couple weeks ago back, please.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

I am so here.

As the title says, I made it here intact and about 5 minutes ahead of schedule. We were supposed to be in by quarter past midnight, but ended up actually pulling in at about 10 past, give or take delays. Most of Friday night was spent being all manner of lazy, and just catching up. Well, that and sleeping. Yesterday consisted of hanging with Julie and her husband for the better part of the evening. We came to the not too surprising realization that as a general rule, blindness organizations suck for anything beyond good PR. Not that we didn’t already know this, but y’know. Shooting the shit with them lasted a couple hours before we packed it up and headed back to Jess’s apartment. There was sleep to be had, and a nice, healthy dose of relaxation. And the random conversation among other things didn’t hurt matters any either. Today’s been relatively low key–most of it was spent doing not a whole lot, and now we’re sort of contemplating exactly how much effort to put towards dinner.

I did get a chance to show off the new phone this weekend–the same phone that approximately half this post was written on before the battery finally gave out, and the general consensus matches mine–the phone, in all its unvelieveable thinness, still kicks wicked ass. Folks who follow my Twitter feed will note I was able to update multiple times throughout the trip, even on the US side of the border. I happened to be on one of Greyhound’s attempts at a newer bus–and, let’s say, it could use some improvements in the leg room department. But, aside from that It’s not half bad. I stole their wireless connection after we crossed the border, and proceed to IM with random people as we were heading out of Buffalow. I still owe an assessment of the phone, and it’ll happen later on this week, if I remember. But as for now, the girlfriend’s up to her ears in housework, and I’m off to maybe attempt assistance without breakage. I’ll do hockey recaps later, also if I remember. In the meantime, have a Sunday evening.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 19th, 2009

A moment in history. Or, not.

For perhaps the second time in my life, my Christmas shopping is officially complete. And it’s not even the last week of November–although I didn’t miss it by much. And, with the exception of the mother thing almost spying her gift by accident–fortunately, she didn’t end up looking in that direction until it was appropriately adjusted–I dare say it went off without a hitch. Tonight, however, is going to be loads of fun. I have giftage to wrap. I have things to pack, including laundry. I have arangements to either make, or not, depending on whether or not Jessica can get the holiday off. I have gifts to either bring with me, or leave here, again depending on said holiday time off being obtained by the said young lady. And, I have to do the last minute mad dash around my apartment making sure I have the various rather important documentation required in order for me to flee the country for upwards of a month. And, somewhere in there, I have to remember to breathe. If there’s time left after that, there exists Christmas cards that need to be readied for mailing when December actually gets here. Roughly translated: oh crap. This could be a late night.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 18th, 2009

Yep, this inspires confidence in the uniform.

This doesn’t exactly make me warm up to the idea of having police officers in schools, for any reason. An Ottawa police officer, now suspended with pay, is being brought up on child abuse charges. Well, actually, more like 4 counts of assault–and 2 of them with a weapon, but they might as well amount to child abuse. Considering the children in question were in his own family and all. And he was dealing with the public on a regular basis? Sometimes, the city scares me.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Senators 3, Maple Leafs 2.

Wow. We suck. Oh my god do we suck. The only one of us who’s getting any kind of consistent points here is Kessel. And if he weren’t, there’d probably be a lineup outside GM Brian Burke’s office full of gun-wielding Leafs fans. Hell, couple more nights like tonight and there might be anyway. Just how craptastic is this season so far? You need only look as far as an exerpt from Twitter last night.

Holy crap. Was that an almost goal? By Toronto? @torontomike, please tell me I’m not seeing things.
@quanin The equalizer is imminent

And then, almost right on queue, the horn sounded. And away went the chance for that equalizer. I cringe at the thought of disputing the word of a man who’s loyalty to the Leafs equals or betters my own, but… well… enough said. Is it next season yet?

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 17th, 2009

Precisely why I’m a linux user, and a Gentoo user specificly.

A couple months ago, when they released version 2.10 of Glibc into the unstable tree for Gentoo, I thought it’d be fun to try rebuilding everything right then so that I might get what was left of the old 2.9 version off my system. Didn’t quite go as well as I thought–in fact, one of the programs I use fairly frequently when I’m not home, absolutely refused to compile against the new Glibc. Well, crap. There just went that. So I filed this bug report, and expected not a whole lot to get done about it–I’m probably one of a very small subset of users who actually still run that program, right? So clearly it won’t be a priority. I mean, that’s what I’m used to–you send Microsoft an error report, or any of the Windows program authors a similar report, they more often than not just sort of ignore it. I was perfectly ready for them to do that here. I’d even started researching alternative programs I could make use of while on my coming up road trip. Then, in with the other couple hundred of last night’s emails, I get this.

17 Nov 2009; Dawid Węgliński (cla) bitchx-1.1-r4.ebuild,+files/1.1/bitchx-1.1-open-mode.patch:Pass mode to O_CREAT bug #285374

It’s probably not directly related to what I reported. At least, I didn’t think so. So I wasn’t in a real big hurry to test it out. I waited until the automatic synchronisation went off this morning to pick up the new changes, and this afternoon, out of random boredom/curiosity/whatever, I tried yet again to compile the thing. And, surprising the hell out of me, it actually didn’t fall over sideways. I’m really not used to that.

that’s something I literally never saw, like, at all in all my years using, writing about, complaining about, trying to fix, abruptly breaking, and eventually reinstalling Windows. I have no idea how many times I naively hit the “send error report” button on this or that crashed program, utility, or the OS itself, thinking “Hey, Microsoft might get to fixing this.”, only to install several Windows updates that, yep, didn’t actually fix it. So actually seeing an update come across my desk that, wouldn’t you know, actually fixes a problem? Yeah, that’s new. And it’s definitely not hurting my consideration for putting more and more time into using Gentoo locally.

Explanation: BitchX, BX for short, is a Linux based client for connecting to IRC (Internet Relay Chat). I have no idea why they call it BitchX. But, it’s a decent enough program for what I use it for, so I also don’t particularly care.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Convensional TV isn’t making it any easier to start watching again…

For years now, I’ve been watching slowly less and less TV. At least, watching less of it actually *on* my television. Before, say, in about 2003 or so, I used to watch just about everything I wanted to on TV–you didn’t use to have a whole lot of other choice. I mean, you could download every single episode of every single series you were keeping up with, one episode at a time, but it usually took for bloody ever, and often times they weren’t exactly of very decent quality. Plus, I was in college, and the college network had a nasty little habbit of randomly crapping out–sometimes for a couple hours at a time, so that made doing anything that required a constant net connection a little tiny bit challenging.

Flash forward 6 years or so. Now, with the growing popularity of torrenting technology, plus increasingly faster connections, downloading entire seasons of series becomes a whole lot easier–I’m downloading the first 7 seasons of CSI Miami as I write this. Add to that, you can pretty much pay I think it’s like $5 or so, if that, to somewhere like iTunes and have access to download entire seasons that way. And there’s still the old fashion method of downloading one episode at a time over your more traditional filesharing clients–Bear Share comes to mind–although many of the same issues of old usually pop their heads up when that’s tried. And, if that isn’t good enough and you want to keep things on the still semi-legal, many of the more popular shows are usually available online, streamed directly from the originating station/network’s website–for exactly free. Of course, if desperation sets in there’s always Youtube if nothing else.

So what’s the point? Lately, I’ve been keeping track of exactly how much actual TV I watch on TV, and the amount is really quite surprising. Consider it like this. At the moment, my TV’s turned off. It may stay turned off until 7:30 tonight, when the hockey game comes on. It may get turned on maybe an hour and a half earlier for local news, assuming I decide I can’t get just as much information online throughout the day. And it will probably be turned off again after tonight’s hockey game–unless my Leafs display their usual amount of suckitude, at which point it may be turned off halfway through said game. That routine will likely continue, until approximately April 5th or so, at which point the baseball season will start, and my TV will be on long enough to watch that. I don’t usually watch Star Trek, CSI, or any of my other shows on TV anymore, unless they happen to be on at someone else’s place while I’m over. I don’t watch American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance, so I’m not missing a whole lot by not catching up on who got kicked/voted/bought off or whatever on those series. So really, my TV watching peaks at perhaps, at most, maybe 5 hours a week–all of it sports broadcasts you can’t download, or stream without usually paying for it anyway.

I was reading earlier this morning about the so-called TV tax hearings being held in Ottawa between the broadcasters and the cable companies. During yesterday’s hearings, CTV, one of Canada’s major broadcasting companies, escentially told the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that if cable companies don’t start paying for the privelege of transmitting their signals–which, roughly translated, means if we don’t start paying up for the privelege of receiving their signals, they will either start blocking US programming or pull their signals off any carriers who don’t want to pay for it. Which, to me, means I’ll lose my local news. Which I get online anyway. Hockey Night in Canada is streamed online, so if I have to, I can watch it there for far less than I’m paying for the privelege to watch it on a CBC channel as it is. Rogers and Bell Canada own two of the major broadcasting channels my sports programs show up on outside of HNIC–Sportsnet and TSN, respectively, so I doubt they’ll be pulling their own channels off the various networks. And, since I get my US programming fix via Torrents, directly from the originating US networks’ websites, or when I’m over at someone else’s place, I don’t miss much by having it blocked by CTV.

So what are we missing again? Broadcasters want compensation from the cable companies, who will take said compensation from us, for… exactly what? So we have the option to watch our local news on TV as opposed to getting it from any number of newspapers, either online or in paper copy? So we can watch the same shows on TV, occasionally interupted by commercials, that we can either buy from iTunes or download from Mininova without, or that we can watch with different commercials by tuning in the originating US network? If the choice is between that and paying more for the privelege of being able to watch the same, limited number of programs I actually still watch on TV, I see a cancelation in my not too distant future.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

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Christmas shopping, round 2.

Not unlike my last attempt at Christmas shopping, the trip overall resulted in one mall, store, and small kiosk after another. But, I managed to accomplish more than I expected with this trip–though, certainly not everything I planned. I scratched off Christmas gifts for my father, as well as Jessica. And, of course, because it’s very easy to pick up on things mom’s contemplating getting for herself, I came away with a crap ton of ideas for her–which, the plan is, to attempt to pick up before I leave for Rochester on Friday. At that point, I will have actually, for perhaps the second time in my life, accomplished the task of getting my shopping done before December even gets here. That almost never happens–a trait I come by honestly from my dad, who this year will likely be again cruising the stores looking for one last gift idea on December 24th. All that leaves me to do after that is come back on the 23rd, and enjoy Christmas, hopefully being accompanied by Jessica. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could find something to complain about with that. Now, if we could just get December to show up a little bit sooner.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 16th, 2009

Flames 5, Maple Leafs 2.

Uh. What? Where’s the hockey? Where’s the home team? They did remember we played on Saturday, didn’t they? Did they remember games usually go about 2.5 hours? I don’t think so.

We’re 3, 10 and 5. We’ve officially lost 5 times as many games, counting our shootout losses, as we’ve won. We have officially established a level of play comparative only with the Carolina Hurricanes–who we beat last week. And yet we’re supposedly the richest team in the league. I sure hope we can have a refund on this season. Bad was 4 games ago. This… is depressing.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

My Facebook MySpace resistance.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I practically live on Twitter, even if I don’t actually do a whole lot in the way of actually, you know, posting to the thing. Still, I make regular use of it to follow certain companies online, as well as keep up with folks–some of whom might actually read this thing at some point.

But, for all its similarities, I find myself going through phases on Facebook. I’ll play around on it for a month or two, then get bored with it and move onto something else–right now, I’m at the bored with it phase. Even though you can do exactly the same thing with that that you can do with Twitter, and then some. I haven’t the slightest clue why, but for whatever reason I can never manage to actually stay involved over there. My profile hasn’t gotten a whole lot of attention of late, and I have no clue if or when it will again. When I do get involved with it, it’s only to try and get back into playing Mafia Wars again–so I guess you could say my profile hasn’t gotten much attention in several months.

Compare that with MySpace, where I have absolutely no profile, no intention of ever getting a profile, and if it went offline at midnight tonight I probably wouldn’t notice. I did have a friend or two who swore by MySpace. Looking at their profiles for just 5 minutes, mostly because it was the only way to actually figure out what they were up to, was enough to make me seriously reconsider ever having anything to do with it. MySpace is a highschool type collection of overly animated profiles and, really, way too corny music. If I wanted that, I could dress the site up like that here without too much effort. There’s a reason I haven’t, though.

So, if you want to keep in touch with me, send me an email. Catch me on IM. Follow the blog, or Twitter. Or, slightly less likely to be updated, tap me on the shoulder on Facebook. My resistance to Facebook fades every so often. My resistance to MySpace? It’s an immunity. That works for me.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 15th, 2009

What are they doing to my waterfront festival?

For as long as I can remember, every time we had the chance we’d pack up the family and head out to Pembroke’s waterfront in mid-August to get a halfway decent seat for whichever big name bands were playing. It was the Roadhammers once, Wide Mouth Mason, and there were probably a few others I can’t immediately remember. Often times, nights like that would be followed up by a Sunday afternoon browse through festival grounds to get a look at whatever it is we didn’t get to see on Friday or Saturday.

Sunday wasn’t a concert going day–mind you, that was largely because the performers they got in on Sundays were, well, often times local. And often times not very good. And since we’re talking Pembroke, we know they won’t be inclined to change that. Instead, because Sunday is a low attendance day, the city’s contemplating cancelling Sundays and starting the festival on Thursday instead.

Among the suggestions includes dropping the thinly attended Sunday program of the three-day festival, saving on the expense of hosting it, while concentrating on Thursday evening.

“Pembroke is not a Sunday “let’s go to the festival” community,” she said, as in the past four years the Sunday program never attracted more than 1,500 people, despite having attractions like April Verch, Fred Eaglesmith, Valdy and the Fiddling and Step Dance show.

By having the festival start on Thursday and wrap up Saturday, organizers can take advantage of the college crowd, who like to head out Thursdays to have fun. The large turnout of people to this year’s finale of the Ottawa Valley’s Got Talent contest, held at the waterfront amphitheatre Thursday evening, is testament to that idea.

Prior to the attending of any of the Sunday events, I hadn’t heard of most if not all of those. The only reason I have any interest in fiddling and/or step dancing is because I have a cousin who was, at one time, involved in it–and I don’t think I attended that Sunday on account of having to work anyway. So… um, no, they’re not about to go drawing in huge crowds if you’re roping them in for that. Keep the Sunday program, just… with better material. Maybe stick the talent show over there. I’d listen to that over a reappearance of April.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 14th, 2009

Christmas shopping is a sport for the insane.

Not unlike any other kind of shopping, should you happen to live somewhere like, say, Ottawa. But in this case, it’s even more so. I’ve been spending the better part of the last couple days trying to do exactly that. I’ve been getting suggestions and ideas for christmas gifts for most members of my family, and actually picking things up for a few of them. It hasn’t gotten December quality insane yet, but it’s come awefully close a time or two. So far, I’ve managed gifts for my brother and sister-in-law, a gift for my nephew, and a couple things for Jessica. This week will be even more insane as I manage, somehow, to do anything and everything under the bloody sun. I have Christmas shopping to finish, gifts to aquire, wrap, and appropriately hide, and last minute arangements to make for Jess’s grad gift in a couple weeks–all before my Friday departure. And in the process of doing all this, I have a sneaking suspicion I’m about to come to a potentially very startling realization. If this were to happen more than once a year, there’d be a lot fewer beds in the local psych ward. Possibly not a bad thing. Possibly.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Blackhawks 3, Maple Leafs 2.

Yeah, I know, a day late and a ddollar short–they’re desperately trying to lose another one. But, at least I’m doing it. My reason for its lateness is for another post.

I caught the majority of last night’s game this morning. And didn’t like very much of what I saw, really. When I turned it on, they were already down by two and hadn’t scored yet–story of our lives this season, it would appear. They managed to make it a semi-interesting game heading into the third, but… well… yeah. They had nothin’. Up side, Phil Kessel scored, yet again. Twice. Down side, Vesa Toskala missed 3. And the one I saw him miss he shouldn’t have. Brian Birk’s on the phone to North Carolina as I write this asking what he can trade for the league basement. We, meanwhile, are hoping for a small miracle. Can we have next season yet?

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 12th, 2009

Wild 5, Maple Leafs 2.

I speculated on Twitter, during the Hurricanes game, that we’d not seen the last of the team that not quite was. And, sure enough, they didn’t disappoint. They showed up for the first period, actually managed to keep up with the game during that–even if they, yet again, gave up the opening goal, and then sort of thought it was done. They did manage, somehow, to tie it up in the first… but, well, that was pretty much all she wrote. Three goals in the second, and an empty net at the end of the third, and probably 2 of those could have been prevented, and our undefeated streak comes to a screaming hault. They did manage to bury one at the 17 mark of the second period, but by that point we kind of already wrote the game off. There was one bright side to that night, though. I guess. Um, I… er, I had pizza. Oh yeah, and the new phone did actually end up coming–thoughts on that when I’m not typing on the parents’ computer. But the game? Yeah, I’d like a do over please.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 10th, 2009

Small town life isn’t bad. It’s the logistics that suck.

A few days ago, I made mention to the fact I’ve been playing hell trying to get my hands on a phone from Rogers to replace the one I have now that’s both getting to be outdated, and, I suspect, is now starting to have issues with the battery–a thing I wasn’t suspicious of when all this started. Well, as hinted at in that post, the order actually went through–eventually. And, Friday night, they sent the package to be shipped out. It was due to come in yesterday. There was just one small problem. It didn’t actually leave the originating facility until yesterday, which meant they had to reschedule the delivery date. The official date is now the eleventh of November–also known as rememberence day, when not only did I not think things actually got delivered, but I won’t actually be home. Adding to the overall confusion of a move like that, the package itself is, or was at 9:35 this morning, sitting in an office in Pembroke. Pembroke is about 15 minutes away from me if you stay within the speed limit. If I had a vehicle, or a transportation system that vaguely resembled the one in Ottawa, I could have been there, picked up the thing, and been back here well before noon.

The scheduling fubar isn’t entirely the fault of UPS, though. In this area, UPS at some point–I have no idea at which point, though–hands off anything destined for Pembroke and area to Purolator, who I personally wouldn’t recommend to ship a postcard let alone something you actually paid good money for. From then on, I think it kind of gets fit in around the packages they actually get scheduled directly to ship. Which means, if they have to get it here before 8:00 tonight, I expect to see it by about 7:50. Just in time for me to get up in between periods and sign for it.

Small town life does have its absolutely positive perks, particularly when, assuming one’s relatives living in the said small town actually behave themselves, they’re a lot more accessible to actually go out and do things with more often–without the need to spend a couple days working out travel times first, and aranging to have somewhere to stay before one leaves to do those things. It’s nice, contrary to what I might complain about on here while I live here. There’s just, simply put, no such thing as a shortcut to doing much of anything. You escentially have to shoot past here, and double back, in order to get here unless you’re driving directly on your own–buses stop here coming from either North Bay, or Ottawa. And that’s probably what my package from Rogers ends up doing. So it ends up taking probably 9 or 10 hours to make a trip you could do directly, without stopping save for meals etc, in 4 or 5. Talk about long way around for a shortcut. And you can’t do much without it.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

We just love to lose.

I’ve never actually lived in Toronto. Closest I’ve lived would be Barrie, which for those of you who haven’t been up that way is about an hour north. Beyond that, I’ve spent the last 5 or 6 years either in or around Ottawa and the valley. But still, I can’t help but keep on following Toronto’s sports teams. Well, some of them, anyway. And every year, I notice a lot of the same trends–even among sports teams in Toronto I don’t actually follow.

The Leafs, God help them, haven’t won a Stanley cup since around the same time my mother was born. They haven’t seen a playoff round since 2003-2004. The Bluejays haven’t won a world series, or been to the playoffs, since I was 10. The Raptors have made the playoffs a grand total of… twice? Maybe three times? And they haven’t really done a whole lot with that. And the Argos–well, let’s just not talk about the Argos. Now, granted I only follow two of the four teams listed, but let’s have a look at all four of them anyway. They post losing seasons. In some cases, downright depressing seasons. I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy when the Bluejays ended their 2009 season on a very pathetic whimper. And they still fill the seats. If this were Ottawa, or New York, or–yes, even the money-bleeding Phoenix Coyotes, the majority of the arena would be empty. So what makes Toronto fans so different?

I can only speculate at this point, but speculate I will. To put it rather plainly, we love to lose. We don’t go there expecting a W. We buy that baseball ticket, or rush home to watch that hockey game on TV, because the Bluejays play a 3-game set with the Yankees. Or because the Leafs and Canadians are on Hockey Night in Canada. And we enjoy every damn minute of it. We even love to boo the bad guys.

So yes, sure, bring on the Hockey Night in Canada. Bring on the toronto versus Ottawa. Bring on the Bluejays versus Yankees. Because at the end of the day, the score’s probably going to wind up coming up as something like 7 6 after a shootout. And let me tell you, if we have to lose, losing can’t get much more exciting than a game like that. We love to lose. You’re damn right.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Still trying to make it 7.

It’s nice to know folks can still talk up a good game. Even though a team didn’t end up coming to Hamilton, the NHL’s now saying it’s not opposed to another team in Canada, possibly in the near future. And possibly in Toronto’s market. I don’t see that as a bad thing for either side of the equasion. Hockey fans in general, whether they’re particular fans of toronto or Ottawa or neither, often times will tune in to see the battle of Ontario pick up where it left off. I try to watch as many games as I can, but those games deserve their own extra effort to attempt to watch. So, yes, I’d watch a battle of Toronto, or of southern Ontario.

I was too young when Winnipeg and Quebec headed south, but I heard an aweful lot growing up about the dynamic of playing games like that. And, if not in Toronto or Hamilton, I’d love a shot at getting to see another Toronto versus Quebec game. So, by all means, Gary/NHL owners. Make it 7. Or 8. Or 9. Bring the Canadian sport back to Canada. And let’s reignite some of the old rivalries that made hockey something you didn’t just watch because it went down well with pizza and beer. Your fans will thank you.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 9th, 2009

If you live In Ottawa, plenty of H1N1 vaccine available.

Clinics in the city have enough to last a few days, apparently. So those who want to, go get your shot. And those that don’t, sorry in advance for any trafic jams as a result. As for me, I’ll just minimize my venturing into crowded rooms until this whole H1N1 thing blows over if it’s all the same to you. Besides, if UPS cooperates today’s the day I should have a new toy to play with. That should make that objective a little easier. here’s a realtime list of currently available H1N1 clinics in Ottawa. Not sure how accurate it is, but it’ll give anyone who’s curious a starting point.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

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I’ll stick with Linux, thanks.

Out of random curiosity last year, I started to tinker with Linux on a local machine–specificly, a 5-year-old HP laptop that wasn’t really being used for a whole lot else. Not really being willing to bother considering what I could manage to lose and what I might want to keep–there was 4 years of crap on that laptop pre-install, I just pulled everything off that HD and onto this machine, and went about the business of installing Gentoo. I know, at least three of you are laughing at me for having made that decision. I like a challenge, okay? Since then, I’ve been playing, tweeking, updating, tweeking, and playing some more just to see how long it takes me to get everything working. Or, how long it takes me to break things so horribly it doesn’t even boot, whichever comes first.

There’s a point to this, I swear. The thing that drew me initially to Linux is the fact that it can run on damn near anything with the right amount of tweeking. And the people behind it actually encourage it. I mean, the fact that it’s free doesn’t hurt either but still. I can dig up an old Pentium II, hook it up, pray to god it has an ethernet port on the thing so I can plug it into the router, and probably find a current version of Linux that’ll run on it. Windows and Mac OS can’t really make that claim. Hell, the advent of Vista broke most machines that could have run XP just fine a couple years ago. And Apple’s been trying for, like, ever to find a way to restrict people to buying their hardware if you want their OS.

They’re trying it again, this time in the form of an update that apparently removes Intel Atom chipset support from the OS. While they point out it probably won’t take very long before someone comes up with a patch for it, they also sort of halfway gloss over the entire point as to why I won’t be buying a Mac anytime soon, against the multitude of advice that’ll no doubt be offered to me by Mac and Mac OS users alike. The OS can run on damn near any Intel chipset out there. And it even needs little to no modification to actually do so. You would think, since it means selling more copies of their OS, and since it means they can take even more market share away from Windows and Linux, they’d be all over it. Apparently you’d be wrong.

I don’t like being told what I’m allowed to do with something I already paid for. That’s why I don’t own an iPhone, and why once I’m more comfortable with Linux I’ll probably be switching from Windows entirely. If Apple’s going to insist that if I want to run their OS, whether I have space for it or not I absolutely must buy their hardware, I’ll stick to Linux, thanks. Or, if not Linux, someone who’s not trying to work against me.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

I get the most random of emails.

Of course, most of the random emails I end up getting turn out to be spam, but some are still rather amusing. I got this one last night, for the third time this week and from the third different address this week.

From: spam@email.address.removed
To: my@email.address.removed
Date: Mon 09/11/2009 3:40 AM
Subject: Webmail Verification Update!

Your mailbox quota has exceeded the storage limit which is 20GB as set by your administrator, you are currently running on 20.9GB.
You may not be able to send or receive new mails until you re-validate your mailbox.
To re-activate your account please click the link and login with the username and password provided for you below:
http://rpc.formmailhosting.com/showform.php?id=6256
Thanks and we are sorry for the inconviniences Localhost.

Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’d love it if someone would give me 20 GB just for email storage and it didn’t end up being Gmail. But, if they did… I doubt they’d sign their warning emails “Localhost”. Or deactivate it for being overquota and require revalidation. Yes, spammers are stupid. Or, perhaps, I’m still tired. That may also be why I’m still smirking.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 8th, 2009

On my fascination with lists.

I have no idea why, but sometimes, just for random amusement or because I’m way too lazy to do much of anything else, the best way I find to get my point(s) across on here is in list format. I actually started it while I was still using LJ–and, in fact, probably picked it up from Michelle–as a way of writing things down that I either don’t want to, or don’t plan to right now, go into further detail on. Probably also explains why I’m starting to get back into Twitter at about the same time I considered getting back into blogging. I’m probably just as likely to release a brief blurb about something as I am to go into elaborate detail about it, so they kind of fit rather well together, I think. What I’m likely to go into list format about–in list format:

  • Random, possibly unrelated points with little to no explanation behind them
  • Thoughts of the day, as they happen and as I remember to write them
  • To do lists–I occasionally make those
  • Recaps of possibly related posts, where appropriate
  • Ideas for a project that I haven’t fully fleshed out yet
  • Entries not unlike this one

Of course, there’s just a lot of things that make it to Twitter that don’t really need any further explanation–or, for that matter, belong on a blog. Or if they do, they belong there after events have happened that actually give them context. That’s also why my Twitter feed’s in the sidebar, and why you can follow it here. I may also make 2 or 3 obscure mentions of something, either on Twitter or on the blog, that don’t get expanded upon for a couple days. That’s generally what happens when I get particularly lazy. And, possibly, it may be a semi-good reason to not be so quick to switch to bullet points/list format/whatever you want to call it. But, it’s worked for me. If it ever stops working for me, then I’ll think about changing my ways. If it doesn’t take too much effort–see the lazyness claim above.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 7th, 2009

How’d I get here?

I keep threatening to do that post about what the hell happened to me since the last time I was actively blogging (Um, LJ-ing, perhaps?). Well, consider this my attempt at doing so. I’ll warn you in advance there will probably be things that get missed–it *has* been about 4 months, after all.

For starters, there were more than a few trips across the Canada/US border between myself and Jessica, who’s rarely updated LJ is over here for anyone who doesn’t already read her. Things in that department I don’t think can get much better. Well, beyond the elimination of the border but eh, that’s coming. Beyond that, I’ve been doing a lot more experimentation with Gentoo, my for the moment linux distribution of choice. I’d messed around very briefly with Debian and Ubuntu, but couldn’t get quite what I wanted out of those distributions. That, plus I rather like a challenge and Gentoo definitely provides that. I kept an old HP laptop around for the purposes of experimentation–and, actually, it was the same laptop I did most of my blogging on in the old days–so I can break it 6 ways from Sunday and not really be set back more than a couple hours’ tinkering. Works perfectly fine for me. In addition to that, I’ve been continuing to pound pavement in hopes of landing me a job. Not an easy thing to do when every day the unemployment line gets longer, but we manage. This in between trips to catch up with family, because… well, you know, they don’t tend to like it when you avoid them for long stretches at a time.

Then there was the move. I’d spent the last year and a half or so on employment insurance while I looked for work, thus enabling to keep my rather nice–even if I do say so myself–apartment in Ottawa’s west end. Not having found anything though, it became necessary for me to find somewhere else to call home lest I end up going very broke very quickly. So, on October 23rd, everything I own and a few things I forgot I owned got stuffed into one box or another, and carted an hour and a half away to this, a basement apartment who’s upstairs neighbour has perhaps one of the creakiest floors I’ve heard in my life. Now, I’m still looking for work, still finding time to do a little geeking, and still–at least, as of about 2 weeks from yesterday–making trips across the border when I have the time, money and transportation. Not a whole lot has changed, save for my mailing address–which I’m still finding things that didn’t get the notification of that change–and the fact some things in life just plain aren’t as convenient as they were a month ago. But, win some, lose some. That be life.

Once I have the space in this apartment, and everything I’ll immediately need to do so out of boxes and set up, I plan to get back into tweeking the laptop and making things work just that much better. And, with a little luck and a small miracle, it might result in me accidentally coming up on a skill or three I can put in a resume. Never hurts to say you can do something, particularly when that something didn’t require you shell out money you don’t have for a college/university education. Of course, if I don’t get that out of it, then maybe I’ll just have a computer I can use should I ever decide to wipe windows off this one. Either way, I can’t find a down side here.

Well, that’s the summer and part of spring in a nutshell. Not very exciting, just… chaotic, really. Semi-organized chaos, but still. And if this is any indication, the next couple months don’t plan to be any different. Which, surprisingly, is how I like it. Can’t very well go researching new and somewhat impressive things to buy if you don’t have time to, after all.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Maple Leafs 5, Red Wings 1.

Well, it’s not really what I’d call a winning streak, but I’ll take an undefeated streak just as well. At least one point in 7 games, and 2 points in each of the last 2 games, and Kessel netted himself 2 points tonight. Hard to find fault in at least tonight’s performance–hell, they managed to surprise the hell out of me. Could things have been improved? Sure. But, they killed every penalty they got themselves in, they only gave up the one goal, and it didn’t take a shootout. Not a bad starting place. Tuesday, they play the Wild. If they collapse then, I shall take back most of what I said. But until then, halalooya we got us a hockey team!

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Searching for the elusive new job.

After Dell’s closure in June of last year, I’ve been devoting much of my time to trying to find something remotely resembling work that I can get into. I’ve had several interviews, but that’s usually about as far as they go. I have another this wednesday for the CAA–I’ve had conversations with them before, so this shouldn’t be entirely too difficult.

I attribute part of my amusement at an observation I made yesterday to boredom, and perhaps to being still a little overtired, but a random stat circulated around Ottawa news outlets yesterday morning put a somewhat ironic smirk on my face. In the month of October, 800 full-time jobs were created. But yet, in that same period, unemployment went up by almost half a percentage point. Guess I’m gonna have more competition for that position than I thought. And the search continues.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Maple Leafs 3, Hurricanes 2.

It had to happen sometime. I mean, we couldn’t have gone through the entire season on just won win, could we? Well, okay, so maybe we could have. Luckily we won’t have to worry about finding out. After last night’s win, the Leafs are just slightly less likely to have a standing reservation at the NHL basement hotel. Which suits me just fine, even if it means I didn’t get to see the much advertised scoring ability of one Phil Kessel. Ah well, still plenty of season to go. And if we get really lucky, they’ll continue to actually hit the net with what shots they do actually take. When Ottawa’s ahead of you in the standings, you know there’s a problem.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 6th, 2009

Have we hit bottom yet?

It’s no secret that I’m a Leafs fan. Probably to my own detrament, even. But I am. It’s well documented on my LJ, and even more so on my older, much deader blog. I’ve joked that it might as well be a religion. Well, that religion’s on the verge of finding itself in shambles, at least for those of us devoted to our Leafs. We’ve won an impressive… 1 game all season. And one might argue we didn’t deserve to win. You know it’s bad when I don’t lose sleep over missing a game. Even now, while it’s been switched on over here and will start in a couple minutes, I wouldn’t be too upset if it disappeared from my television. It’s all to do with the sinking feeling I get every time we talk Leafs. Face it, we’ve kind of hit rock bottom this season. Even a guy who’s probably a bigger Leafs fan than me called it the worst start in franchise history. Can we break out of it? Sooner or later we have to. “Close but no cigar” should be our new slogan.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

I thought it was just a 24th-century thing.

Apparently, I now stand corrected. Scientists have discovered antimatter. Well, sort of. The Fermi gamma ray telescope picked something up they’re calling antimatter when it observed a lightning storm. Don’t look now, but we may yet be heading for Star Trek days in my lifetime. Probably not, but hey, it’s a nifty thought.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Giving that new phone thing a try again.

One of the things I’ve been working at trying to accomplish before the move (more on that later), and haven’t actually managed to accomplish yet, is the replacement of my old Nokia phone–specificly, the 6682. I tried once before, but the folks over at Rogers’s sales department seem to have a bit of a hearing problem. Or perhaps just a comprehension problem.

I ordered the Nokia E71, but about 5 days after the order was placed the phone I actually received wasn’t it. No big deal, I’ll just return it. Except not quite. I fired it back at UPS the same day I received it, and 2 days later, they knocked on my door with the exact same phone–and no return sticker thinggy. Brilliant. I spent pretty much the next week trying to twist their arm into getting me another one before I packed everything up and scrammed back to the Pembroke area. Suffice it to say, and not really all that surprising to me, it ended up actually rather not happening. Go figure.

Then, the move happened. I packed up my old apartment in Ottawa, came 1.5 hours southwest-ish to Petawawa, and unpacked most of it in the span of a day or two. Actually, a lot of stuff’s still in boxes–but, hey, the majority’s actually useable again. I can live with that. Once I had things up and running here, it was back on the phone to Rogers to try and sort this mess out. I still had the phone, in its original UPS packaging, sitting on the end of my desk–well, once said desk finally got put back together–for the first weekend of my living in the new place. Rogers still wanted to email me a shipping sticker thing to print off and use. Which would have been perfect, except I still had absolutely no way to get access to said email. They tend not to remember you told them that 5 times already.

I eventually gave up on that, as my return window was very quickly closing and I was flirting with a headache. I also finally ended up getting net access that Sunday night, but by then I wasn’t about to reenter that same dance. So instead, I called UPS up myself. And, as luck or something like it should have it, this time I got someone with more than half a clue. I scheduled them to come and pick up the thing. I got the address to one of their receiving yards from Rogers that morning, and when shipping dood showed up, it got handed to him. Along with a request to forget about billing me, and stick Rogers with the price tag–something he seemed a little too eager to do, but I wasn’t about to argue. Meant I could cheap out and well, cheap is good, no?

The phone never did come back to me, and the fact they’re not charging me for it on this month’s bill would seem to indicate they did receive it, and didn’t screw up the processing of it. Either that or someone just committed a rather significant oopsy. Either way, as long as the price for that phone doesn’t end up on a future bill, I’m not about to call them up and say otherwise. So now, with that phone being on its way or already back to Rogers and out of my hair, I can focus on getting the one I was actually after.

Which, last week, is exactly what I ended up doing. Only this time, rather than them simply sticking the wrong phone on my bill, the one I was after for whatever reason wasn’t showing up as one I was eligible to actually purchase. Perfect. So far you’re 3 for 3, Rogers. So I give them what for over the phone, and the rep basicly decides at that point to take responsibility for the whole damn thing. Which, when dealing with me, has been known to be a mistake. She tells me she’s going to keep checking, and call me if and when it actually gets sorted out. And, since everything should have been reset when I returned the phone and I knew I was eligible for it before I tried to buy it the first time, clearly it was a problem internal to them.

I wasn’t holding my breath–remember, I used to sit on the other end of similar conversations. I know most folks who say that do it with the complete intent of blowing you off knowing the chances of them getting you again are pretty well slim to none. Particularly when you’re running an operation with multiple call centers in multiple locations dealing with multiple thousand customers nationally. This morning, though, I did get that call. Whatever went and broke on their end wound up getting fixed. Finally. So, after much nashing of teeth and a whole lot of wanting to curse out the next rep to pick up the phone, I managed, somehow, to at least get the order processed. Now, hopefully they send me the correct phone on this attempt. And, hopefully they do it before Google Voice goes global. Otherwise I see a bitchfest in their, and my, near future.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

The Canadian stereotypes are true!

When most people who haven’t actually had anything really to do with Canada think of us, their first impression is often of us sitting around, snacking on some poutine, and sucking back a beer. Which, depending on which part of Canada you’re talking about, probably isn’t all too far from the truth. I didn’t know that was true of Toronto, though. But yet, in an attempt at bringing the Pan American Olympics to Canada in 2015, Toronto officials–and some provincial ones–are in Mexico, sitting down to a lunch of poutine and beer. With a little smoked salmon and chardonnay for folks who aren’t french fry fans. Guess what they say is true. There’s always a little fact based in every rumour. Who knew?

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Nov. 5th, 2009

Well hello there, winter.

I got the distinct impression when I got up this morning something was up. It wasn’t forecast to get all that cold last night, but I definitely needed to add some heat to the mix. Now, I know why. Apparently, at some point before I got around to actually getting out of bed, we were on the receiving end of a little dusting of snow. Hardly enough to do anything except make people reconsider road travel at breakneck speeds, but still an indication. Winter, in all her uh, glory, has returned to the great white north. Now, which box is my winter gear in?

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

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Reviving an old blog, and reincarnating an older one.

After a little over 4 months not maintaining a personal blog, I decided to get back into it again. And, while Live Journal served its purposes when I eventually moved away from Movable Type, I kind of liked being able to actually know what’s happening insofar as the blog was concerned. I could have–okay, so some folks will probably insist should have–gone back to MT, but I’ve also become quite fascinated with Wordpress of late. Specificly, the amount of flexibility it gives you–and that without needing to know all that much about PHP. Which, well, is great, considering the only thing to this point I’ve managed to do in that language with any degree of success is break it.

The down side is, of course, I’ve yet to actually find a program I like that will allow me to update this blog without needing to have a browser open. But, hell. This loads easier and faster than the old site anyway. And because it’s self-contained, I’m not quite as dependant on other people’s ability to figure out what went splork.

All this to say I’m trying to start up with the regular blogging again. If it’s random, amusing, or just plain makes me wonder what in the 7 levels of hell someone’s thinking, or even if it just involves me–some folks seem to be under the misguided impression I lead an interesting life, it’ll go here. It’ll also go on my LJ, though that’s mostly for the folks who still have me on their friends lists and don’t know about the change yet. And for my next trick, an entry that actually relates to what I’m up to. Hint: it involves another move.

Originally published at Welcome to Nowhere. Please leave any comments there.

Jun. 3rd, 2009

last weekend, the past week, and what happens when I have free time.

As anyone who follows my twitter feed will probably already know, last weekend went actually quite well with myself and Jessica ([info]samari76). She arived safely on Friday, and we spent the majority of that day just hanging around the apartment, talking. she ended up being a little more tired than she thought she'd be, so she caught a couple hours' sleep while I came out here to finish up with checking email and the like. We ended up just relaxing and enjoying ourselves for the rest of that evening. I threw together a little something for supper, and we just sort of talked and did a little listening to music. Saturday we slept in a little, and took our time getting to that point most people would call awake. Again, there was more just hanging out, and talking. We ended up ordering out for supper, after which we got into a bottle of lemmon rum I'd picked up a couple days before leaving Pembroke.

It was actually before we started drinking, though, when we got a call that my grandpa had been taken to the Ottawa hospital; he was having issues with his apendix and they weren't sure if it would require surgery or not. We stayed up most of the night waiting for news, but after being told my parents were enroute to Ottawa just behind him to make sure he was being looked after, we hadn't heard anything. Trish IMed me at that point to say she hadn't heard anything new, really, either. We ended up aranging to get together for breakfast the next day, since we'd not hung out in a while anyway and Jess was looking forward to seeing her again. Well, that, plus since we were waiting for information it made more sense to all be in one place when it came in. We ended up going to bed about 4:00 that morning, getting up again at an impressive 9:00. Cabbing it over there, we hung out with Trish, her husband and both her brothers for much of the morning. She made an awesome breakfast, which kind of reminded me a little of something you'd be able to order from any decent restaurant on Jessica's side of the border. Family started to trickle in shortly after, and we learned he wasn't actually going to get the surgery right yet; they wanted to see if they couldn't treat it with antibiotics first, which kind of makes sense to me. I mean, the guy *is* in his 80's. No sense in putting him through a surgery that may or may not be required. We got to see a goodly portion of my family, though. And Jess got to meet a few people we couldn't get around to visiting the last time we were both in that neighbourhood. We all sat around and talked, the older guys watching nascar on TV and everyone with something better to do just generally conversating/trying not to hear it. They ordered pizza and wings, some of which we both helped ourselves to (Hey, breakfast was good, but it's pizza and wings. Come on.). We spent the rest of the day just sort of hanging out. After everyone left, Trish, her husband, both brothers, plus myself and Jessica decided to go and check out one of the local carnivals in town that weekend. We got there just in time for it to start packing up, of course, but at least Jess got to get a brief look at some of what goes on around here this time of year. We didn't get home until about 9:00 or so, and stayed up for a bit longer just generally talking and the like.

Monday was a very low key day; we didn't even get dressed until that evening. we just enjoyed our last day together for a while, and recovered sort of from the day before. I took Jess to the bus station that night, and she made it across the border all in one piece, luggage and all. As for me, I went back home and did that thing where I fall into bed until 6 or 7 the next morning. I spent the rest of the week going through my usual routine; looking for work, not finding much, talking to Jess, and occasionally cursing technology. I did eventually finally hear that my grandpa was back home and doing well, the antibiotics seeming to be working thus far, so that was one less thing on my list of things to be paying attention to.

One thing I did finally get around to this week, that I'd been threatening to do before, is installing Gentoo linux on the formerly retired laptop. It actually didn't take too long when you break it down to time spent actually working on the system; the longest part of it all was the waiting for things to compile. I had it installed and running by yesterday morning, and talking by yesterday afternoon after I learned I missed a step in building the kernel so had to do that all over again. Lovely. I got that fixed up though, and it behaves beautifully now. I ended up playing around with Speakup, one of the screenreading packages available for linux, a bit yesterday and again this morning. Now, I'm waiting for the various Gnome packages to install, including its screenreader, so I can have a little bit of a look at that. Judging by the sheer number of packages that are needing instalation, and the fact they all need to be compiled, this could take a while. In the meantime, I have free time on my hands that I'm sure I'll put to good use ordering groceries. Or sleeping. Or something. I may or may not have missed something in my update. If I did, I'm sure Jess will remind me... she's good like that. As for now, though, I'm so gone it's not funny.

May. 22nd, 2009

An updatey type thing.

Because I've come to the shocking realization that Twitter is not, in fact, sufficient for updating in any amount of significant detail. Well, okay, so I already knew that. Oh well. Not a whole lot of any real significance has gone on of late that needs updating anyway. Spent Victoria day weekend in Pembroke with the family, only getting back just yesterday. And this time, aside from the fact I spent most of the weekend doing free tech support for my father, who's laptop decided it wanted to spend most of said weekend sideways, it was actually nice and uneventful. Not bad for a long weekend, I dare say. In the last week and a bit, I've found a grand total of 2 jobs (including the one I just applied for a few minutes ago). Not bad considering there was a report released not all that long ago saying over 30000 new jobs were created up here. Guess I shouldn't have expected they'd all be created in my particular industries of choice. Oh well, I've still got unemployment insurance.

No sooner did we end our long weekend up here than the folks south of the border are starting theirs. And with Jessica ([info]samari76) having Monday off from class, we decided to spend the long weekend in style. So, she's presently on a bus and an hour and a half from the station, where I'll be meeting her. Neither of us likes to make any kind of detailed plans, but I can say the 3 or so days she's here are going to be enjoyed by both of us. And I do know that one of said days is going to be concluded with the consumption of things alcoholic. Because hey, all the cool kids are doing it. Can't guarantee we'll have a whole lot of time for LJ, but you can still keep up with us on Twitter if you're into that sorta thing (I'm over here, and she's over here.). I have this nasty habbit of paying more attention to that than LJ lately these days anyway. But today, well, and the rest of the weekend, I'll actually have a reason. Happy memorial day to those who cellebrate it, belated happy Victoria day to those who cellebrated it, and I'll catch yall on the flip side.

May. 12th, 2009

Let's just all be 6 for a minute.

First off, because there will probably be at least one person asking why it is I'm posting about this, I'll just say right now, I'm doing it because that's what one does when they have access to a medium with which to do so. Names of the offending parties will be removed, to protect the guilty. Because contrary to the opinion of a small minority, I can occasionally be a nice guy. Somewhat.

Jess ([info]samari76) and I haven't particularly cared a whole lot for a particular person she has the misfortune of working with since events, that have already been gone over either generally or specificly on her LJ, transpired a few months ago. Things were said, and whether they were meant in the spirit in which they were taken or not, they were things you just don't say to/about someone you're supposed to be friends with. This of course after said person pretty much invented a conversation between myself and them that never happened, and proceeded to fill Jess in on only the vaguest details as to what it was about before going into some explanation about why they couldn't go into specifics right then and there. Said person hadn't so much as tried to talk to either of us since then, until yesterday, when I received an email from them. The general point of that email pretty much consisted of "Tell Jess not to write about me in her LJ anymore.". Apparently, as we were to learn later, the supposedly unwanted entry was written a couple weeks ago, and friends locked, which kind of limits the people who had access to read it pretty significantly right there; this person isn't on LJ, never mind her flist, so they're automaticly ruled out.

I responded to the email this morning, letting them know in no uncertain terms that I wasn't about to tell her what it was she could and could not write in her own LJ. It *was*, after all, her LJ and I'm really not into the whole sensorship thing. Sorry. They wrote me back, because clearly I didn't understand them the first time and how dare she write about them on her LJ when they're not *on* LJ and have given her no reason to do so. So again, I responded, telling them exactly the same thing; it's *her* LJ, with *her* opinions on things that matter to or have quite irritated her. And neither myself, nor anyone else, is about to tell her, or anyone else, they're not supposed/allowed to write about such things in their own personal space. That *is*, after all, why we have our own personal space, y/n? I also added in this reply that if they didn't like what was being written about them, perhaps they aught to 1: stop doing whatever is prompting the entry in question, and 2: keep their and their friends' noses out of her/our LJ's.

I guess they thought third time's a charm, because they again responded, trying to play the "you don't understand" game. So again I restated my point, then told them to either deal with it, or whine to someone who cared. Because at that point, well... actually... long before that point, I seem to have forgotten how. All they said in their last reply to me was, "You're right.". And that was pretty much that.

The conversation in and of itself wasn't the problem, though. Actually, to be fair, the conversation didn't bother me at all. That was just this person's typical behaviour whenever they discovered we weren't going to be playing by their rules. The thing that irritated me to no end, though? Someone, and there are definite suspicions as to who, decided to share said entry with their significant other. Said significant other happens to be close friends with the person about whom the entry was written. So, the entry in question, or at least the general point behind said entry, ended up leaving the LJ flist, and showing up at Jess's place of work. The emphasis here, of course, is that this was *not* an entry that could have been accessed by just anyone at random. Someone decided to stick their nose in where it had no business being, just for the sake of trying very hard to stir the pot. And that, more than anything else, pisses me off to the third degree. If you're so bored that you can find some form of amusement in playing the part of the gossip girl, you are in desperate need of either a hobby or a job. Or both, if it'll help. And sorry, but being a proverbial pain in my ass does not constitute the makings of either. People need to seriously start acting their age, knock it off with the highschool bullshit, or crawl themselves into the nearest hole so the rest of the world can go on headache free. You can join the rest of the adults when you decide you can act like one.

May. 9th, 2009

If ever you find yourself wondering why I so love call center jobs...

You need look no farther than moments like this. Not mine, obviously, but good lord I wish I could take credit for this.

No Tickey, No Watchey
Call Center | Ontario, Canada

(I work in the billing department for a cable company. One day I took the following call.)

Me: “Thank you for calling ****, my name is ****, what can I help you with?”

Customer: “Hi, I need you turn my cable back on so I can watch the fight this weekend.”

Me: “OK, if I could get your phone number, I’ll bring up your account and see what’s up.”

(I proceed to bring up his account, and notice he had been installed 6 months ago, and had not once paid his bill.)

Me: “Sir, I’m afraid that we can’t turn anything back on for your account until there has been a payment made.”

Customer: “No, that’s not the agreement. I need to watch the fight this weekend, my boys are coming over.”

Me: “That’s all well and good, but you owe us over two thousand dollars for charges, pay per view and equipment. Nothing can be done until you are up to
date on payment.”

Customer: *angry* “I NEVER AGREED TO PAY YOU ANY F****** MONEY! GIVE ME MY GOD**** CABLE!

Me: “Sir, you obviously don’t understand how this works. We provide a service, and in return you pay a monthly fee. This is where we’re at; nothing can
be done until you pay your balance.”

Customer: “F*** YOU GUYS THEN! I’LL JUST WATCH IT ONLINE, SO THERE! WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?”

Me: “I think you forgot that we supply your internet as well. It won’t be reconnected until you pay your bill.”


Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you, the clue by four.

May. 4th, 2009

And sometimes, forwarded emails can be fucking hillarious.


Due to the climate of political correctness now pervading Canada , Albertans will no longer be referred to as 'Rednecks.' You must now refer to them as Rocky Mountain/Prairie Canadians.

And furthermore


HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT WOMEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:
1. She is not a 'BABE' or a 'CHICK' - She is a ' BREASTED Canadian.'
2. She is not 'EASY' - She is 'HORIZONTALLY ACCESSIBLE.'
3. She is not a 'DUMB BLONDE' - She is a 'LIGHT-HAIRED DETOUR OFF THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.'
4. She has not 'BEEN AROUND' - She is a 'PREVIOUSLY-ENJOYED COMPANION.'
5. She does not 'NAG' you - She becomes ' VERBALLY REPETITIVE.'
6. She is not a 'TWO-BIT HOOKER' - She is a ' LOW COST PROVIDER.'


HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT MEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:
1. He does not have a 'BEER GUT' - He has developed a 'LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY.'
2. He is not a 'BAD DANCER' - He is ' OVERLY CAUCASIAN.'
3. He does not 'GET LOST ALL THE TIME' - He ' INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS.'
4. He is not 'BALDING' - He is in 'FOLLICLE REGRESSION.'
5. He does not act like a 'TOTAL ASS' - He develops a case of RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION.'
6. It's not his 'CRACK' you see hanging out of his pants - It's 'REAR CLEAVAGE.'


And the best thing about it? It's also employer friendly! Fire me for saying that, your royal prickness er, I mean...

Apr. 30th, 2009

Do we need another political blog? And, would I get help?

I've always had a passing interest in politics. Following it, reading about it, commenting and/or debating it. I'd like to try my hand at blogging about it. I know at least one of you is going "Good god he wants somewhere *else* to spray his opinionated bs.". And, well, that's part of it. But more so, I'm thinking more along the lines of offering a place that could be used as a debating tool. I'm thinking something not too much different from this LJ, except a little bit more professional and, well, not necessarily on LJ. Very much unsensored, beyond the rules of common sense etc. Because really, media outlets and former political party members shouldn't be the only ones who get to get on a soapbox about crap like this.

It'd cover politics on both sides of the Canada/US border, so if anyone's interested in helping, I'd be curious to know that as well. Mostly because I don't know nearly as much as I probably should about US politics. I already have a general idea of how I want to structure the blog, mostly. Now, I just need to know if anyone would read/contribute to it. Because, y'know, a blog written by and read by one person isn't a very effective blog. See, this is what happens when I've been up for a while and up to my ears in news articles.

Apr. 24th, 2009

Be careful when asking citizens caught in the economic crisis how to fix the economy.

You may wake up one morning and see an answer like this in your morning paper.

Dear Mr. President,

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America's economy.

Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. - Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing crisis fixed.

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress and their constituents pay their taxes...


And yall thought I was blunt/sarcastic/whatever. Not that I haven't thought this exact same thing for our political system. Wonder if I aughta mail an altered version of this to our beloved Prime Minister?

Apr. 23rd, 2009

Do we need our own Obama?

After having a quick read at this article about the bank of Canada cutting their interest rate yet again, and all the various... well, shall we say whining that goes about in the comments to it, it sort of left me wondering what the situation would be like on this side of the border if we had our own equivalent to the US's Barack Obama. Perhaps sans the historical significance of it, because really, even the Americans had to have been getting tired of it after a while But, is someone with his way of thinking what Canada needs to pull itself out of the economical suckerpunch that just slammed into us? Or, perhaps, do we all just need to line up outside the parliament buildings with clubs and say good morning to our fair politicians as they pull up for work?

Edit: On second thought, I'll take Obama, minus certain members of his staff.

Apr. 20th, 2009

And the Mac advantage is...

... Definitely not the lack of malware. At least, not anymore according to Symantec. They say they believe they've discovered the first ever Mac botnet. According to the article (geek.com), it's supposedly already infected several (I think the article said thousands?) of macs, which are apparently being remotely controlled by a third party, though not necessarily the person(s) who created the malware in the first place. This sort of walks all over one of the major supposed benefits many mac users throw up in the faces of anyone still using Windows, that being the lack of any real need for antivirus/antimalware software. If Symantec is able to actually confirm the report, folks are gonna have to find a new excuse to switch from Windows. At least, if they're not switching to linux, who still remains malware free to this point.

Apr. 17th, 2009

We got your snakes on a plane right here.

Probably the headline title that went through someone's head after getting the initial report of 4 pythons that managed to escape containment aboard a flight in Australia. Now, sure, they might have been babies, but come on. How many people just sat there right now and said "Yep, saw that movie."?

Apr. 16th, 2009

Not a meme, but an update.

I know Shon ([info]thecrazykiwi) tagged me for some meme-type thinggy earlier, but to be blatantly honest, I don't even post consecutively in 8-day strings so it's just not getting done. that having been said, the day was not completely devoid of win. I got up this afternoon (yes, I slept until late afternoon. Sue me.), and found this email in my mailbox.

Hi James,



Please call me when you are available and we can schedule an interview.



Best regards,

Natalie


So, as soon as I can get this chicky to actually answer her phone, I'll schedule my interview for this coming Tuesday (it's when my wheels will actually be able to be my wheels). So to answer the unasked question of at least one person as to why I would dare to be so ungreatful/insensitive/whatever as to not change my return date so I might be able to stay in rochester longer (someone actually tried giving me that lecture before I left), that's why. Get over it, and yourself, plz. Kthx.

The interview is for a temp agency that Trish actually dropped my name in for reference purposes with a couple days after I fled the country. I've been trying to get a steady line of communication going with them since then, and they just now managed to respond to my email. tomorrow means phone calls, scheduling, and hopefully, god willing, employment. Or at least another door to open. Oh yes, and putting my foot in the asses of certain nosey people whom I barely know and who should, for that and other reasons, stay the hell out of my business. But that's for a whole other rant when I actually feel like ranting.

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