Ratsofrass

Every 2 years I am faced with the usual summer / winter sports obsession known as the Olympics. It’s particular bad this year as since it’s in my country, everyone and their dog is covering the event.

I can live with that. I’ll even put up with the waste of cash that is “own the podium”. Are we that vain that we must worry about our medal count?

What’s got me got me ticked is the media making it look like everyone is going to be watching the Olympic hockey. According to the media, everyone was watching the Swiss / Canada men’s game. Well, for the record, most people I know didn’t watch it, including me. I would say there is a whole third of the country who doesn’t care about hockey, or any other sports for that matter.

So, quite treating the Olympics like it’s news and put it in the sports section where it belongs. The third of us who don’t give a rat’s ass about sports will thank you.

It seems lately that that my neighborhood has been bombarded by Ice Cream trucks. You really can’t miss them - at least by sound. That silly musical bonging playing the same thing over and over and over. The thing of it is, I’m outside working, listening to this thing go up and down one block after another - it must have like a 3 block radius - fading in and out as it goes between the buildings. I could live with it, but I get that STUPID song stuck in my head (there seems to be about 3 of ‘em) for DAYS at a time.

So today, I’m outside sanding my deck, for hopefully the last time ever. I hate sanding. I’m hoping to banish the wood to the pits of hell and get something that does NOT require sanding. Or painting. I hate painting. Anyways, I’m sanding away with a rotary drill disk, and I hear the Ice Cream truck coming. Remembering what happened two days ago when he came by {shudder} I crank up the drill, sanding to the fullest, trying to keep going past the pain that is my spine. Must stop. Hearing Ice Cream truck. Must start again. Sand, sand, sand, ow, ow, ow! Must stop. Still hearing Ice Cream truck. Must start. Repeat about ten times.

Despite my best efforts and a now tender back, I can still hear that Ice Cream truck musac in my head. Damn you Ice Cream truck!

The title sums it up for you non-computer types. For the rest of you, long, nerdy, techy rant follows.
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Farewell emails in this recession era are one of those things where people have gotten bitten by technology they don’t fully understand. First of all, why, oh why do companies give there employees the ability to send globally in the first place? As a rule of thumb, if you can’t remember the name of every employee in your place of work, this probably should not be allowed. Even so, if you’ve managed to accumulate a large address book list, or have many mailing groups you can send to, you can still hit a lot of people with your bridge burning flame fest, or your eloquent touching ’so long and thanks for all the fish’. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it to go for the scathing flame thrower email - you never know when that might come back to burn you (ouch!).

Speaking of recession, “What recession?”, I ask. Home Despot is out of stock on battery operated smoke detectors. The smoke detector shortage, according to one Despot worker, is due to landlords buying them all up after a basement suite fire that resulted in deaths to occupants where said equipment may have been lacking. Everyone seems to be fixing there toilet for some reason, I bough out the last flapper valves, and lots of other items are missing. I have no idea why these are out, the Fed tax credit don’t kick in until you hit a thou, (grasping at straws) perhaps there is a rash of toilet thievery going on - I arrived home on Friday night to find my place broken into. Gone was Six DVD sets, toothpaste, and (wait for it) my downstairs bathroom toilet paper. The thief had discerning, er, taste too only going for the good stuff, and leaving the generic backup stuff behind. Even took the roll on the spool. So, perhaps it’s going to the next level and thieves are stealing toilet parts to kick start plumping businesses. Plumper kickbacks anyone?

Coming back to “What recession?” I note that it is also still stupid busy in a lot of restaurants out there. There seems to be so much excess money to burn in Calgary that it’s taking awhile for the current money pile to smolder down to ash before we notice the downturn. I’m hearing rumblings on the work front about opportunities being way thinner now than a year ago, so it’s coming. Frankly, if you have a good stable job a recession is a great time. Line ups in stores disappear. Fancy restaurants always have an open table for you. Staff are actually available to help you in a store. Parking spaces can be had for less than a king’s ransom. You can hire a contractor, this month, not ’sometime next year’. Incompetent idjits get fired from your workplace. So, it’s all good, as long as you have a job.

At least “Swan’s” in Inglewood is still not too busy. One of the few genuine pubs in town that doesn’t try to also be a sports bar on “Flames nights”, so I can actually go there with friends and expect to chat all evening, rather than having to yell over the game volume. Probably my favorite outing place in town right now - good food, good service, fair price, and some of the colorful character you would expect out of Inglewood, so don’t bring the kids. Oh, they know how to pour a Guinness. ’nuff said.

And so it begins:

We will let you know by email after each item in your order ships. If you ordered multiple items, you may receive separate shipments with no additional shipping charges.

I had just ordered a Mac mini to be the first component in what will ultimately be my new multimedia entertainment system, plus a wireless Apple mouse and keyboard. I ordered the keyboard mouse despite some misgivings about the quality of the keyboard versus the price, but the old school techie in me still thinks that you can’t have an IBM keyboard touch a Mac device (the Mac would be dirtied). I *know* better, but sometimes emotions will cloud the judgment of even the most die-hard spec-comparing-component-configuring- geek. Who am I kidding - geeks are just as ruled by emotion as anyone else. I wanted a “pure” Apple system, and by Jobs, I was going to have one!

Sure enough, as the order acknowledgment warned, my keyboard and mouse showed up this last week, a good week before my Mac mini (base model, with 1GB RAM upgrade for you scccg’s out there).

Now, you have to understand where this next part comes from. I’ve always liked Apple computers. The first computer I ever used was a black Apple ][. When I was young I wanted an Apple ][, //, //e, //c; I was really close to buying one until my Dad offered to pay for 1/2 a computer because he needed one to help run his business. You can guess what we ended up with. When I grew up and had to use computers for a living, I always wanted to buy an Apple computer, but could never justify the extra cost of a Mac, especially for something that wasn’t mainstream for the kind of computing I was doing - games, spreadsheets, and databases. Now, finally, I have both a reason and enough spare income to justify this little extravagance - I mean, it’s going to be mostly to watch bitto- I mean legally downloaded videos and streaming stuff off of the ‘net upstairs away from my “work” computer.

So, I’m just a little bit like a kid opening a Christmas present, my first Apple component of my very own. First the box it came in was *light*. We are talking so light I was wondering if Apple just shipped me an empty box to fuck with my mind. I open the box. Inside are two iWhite smaller boxes, that also feel like empty boxes that Apple shipped to me to fuck with my mind. I start with what would be the mouse. Lo - a mouse is inside! Part of the reason it’s so light is that it comes with Lithium AA’s - should last a long time, and feel like they’d float away compared to regular AA’s. The mouse iWhite, with that understated design that just looks like something organic. It feels pretty good to click, the whole mouse actually pivots forward when you click, so I have no idea how it picks up left vs. right click. I’ll need to use it to actually see how good it is.

There actually was a keyboard in the box that looked like it might hold a keyboard. I wasn’t sure at the time because the box was so darn small, and you guessed it, so is the keyboard. It was one of those times where shopping online just doesn’t prepare you for what you are getting. Yes, I saw a picture of it from the top and poo-pooed the chicklet looking keyboard, saw the side profile and went, oh it’s kind of thin, but I didn’t actually look at the dimensions. My first reaction was ‘holy crap - it’s small!!!” Oh, and if you didn’t guess, it’s light too. It’s a solid little sucker, being made of actual anodized aluminum frame, and iWhite chicklet keys. I’m not expecting to actually have to type more that www.blahblahblah.com on this thing, so I wasn’t too worried about the feel, but it’s actually pretty good, not the full travel of a real keyboard, but pretty good feed back, an actually a bit clicky versus mushy. Also none of this binding you get with some cheap keyboards if you don’t hit the keys right on the center. Oh, when I say it’s small, the keys are not small, it just doesn’t take up any more space that it has to for a query set of keys and a set of function keys on the top plus the option / modifier keys on the bottom. I opened up the battery component and was again impressed with the solidness of the components. Apple started with a solid piece of round steel bolt for the battery cover, then machined out the grooves and the tensioned ball bearings that keep the cover in place. I showed the thing to my Dad, and even he said, “oh yah, dat is very nice”. So if an old German thinks it’s solid, it’s *solid* let me tell you. It’s very pretty too, the shiny anodized aluminum with the white keys looks very stylish. But I’m a sucker for solid simple design too.

So after having played with this thing for about ten minutes, I got to the next stage: lets fire this wireless puppy up and connect it to the iMac… Drat. I want to play with this thing - it’s not just a tool that sometimes gets in the way of getting stuff done - this actually might be *fun* to use, something I haven’t really felt for some time with computers now.

I can feel my Mac weenie growing already.

So last week I flew Westjet east to Ottawa and returned west on Air Canada. That sounds like it’s backwards, but hey, it’s the way it worked out. The situation being such that Westjet didn’t have a flight at a time I wanted, it’s been a while since I’ve flown with the airline. I hadn’t seen the leather seats and in-seat-back screens they have been harping about, but I had an experience with an early version of Air Canada’s screens - which favorably impressed me.
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Calgary has the distinction of being one of the few places in the world where you can go “WTF?” when reading a weather forecast. I give you tonight’s forecast:

It would seem that from the -18 C we are right now, it is going to rise to +2 C by midnight, with a wind chill of -25 this evening, then the temperature is supposed to fall to -11 C by Tuesday afternoon. Sometimes the weather in Calgary is so ass-backwards I don’t even know what the hell is up and I’m born ‘n bred here!

Occasionally, a politician does something so monumentally stupid that with a single act, they kill any hope of their being elected. Sometimes they just do something to honk me off and permanently loose any chance of getting my vote. I don’t know quite where this falls yet.

I first heard of Alnoor from his attention grabbing posters at LRT stations talking about building west LRT now, not years from now. Smart move, promising LRT improvements and talking about it in the exact location where people would be sympathetic.

So I check out his web site Seems pretty reasonable, not too much detail at the time, but this was early in the campaign. Perhaps some reasonable alternative to vote for come election day.

Then I start hearing about his previous business dealings in Kenya - not exactly a shining “Business Leader”. Furthermore, his line on his site “A city is no different than a business: it has an annual operating budget of $2 billion, 12 thousand employees and 1 million customers.” doesn’t exactly strike me as very compassionate - so as a “business” should Calgary kick out anyone that is not paying there way in this city?

The final straw is he’s just honked me off by leaving a phone spam message on my answering machine, showing a total lack of respect for my private phone line, which I don’t care to have turn into an auditory spam repository like, say, email these days. If that’s how Alnoor runs things when he’s trying show how great he is, I don’t want to even contemplate how he’d be if he was running the city. As far as how big a mistake this is, well, then depends on how many phones he’s left his message on - anyone out there get one of these on their cell phone?

I’m browsing my way through the B5 stuff at Future Shop when I run across this little gem:

” In 1994 Star Trek had to take a backseat to this science fiction series, created by Michael…”

Uhhh, I don’t know what you guys are smoking over there, but pass some over to me, ‘cuz that’s some fine tripp’n you are doing over there.

Oh, and prices have dropped on the original series now: $68 per season, finally cheaper than when purchased originally. But when is the 5 season set coming out?

So there I was on the 5ish pm train going “WTF? why are there so many people on this train?” We were packed in like sardines, which doesn’t tend to happen so much in the summer. Thinking on it, I noted that it had been a really long wait for a train, so naturally, it was packed as a result. Oh well, it’s a short ride for me out to Barlow Max Bell Station.

Yeah, right. It was a weird day on the train. Normally, people get off and hardly anyone gets on, so the lack of breathing room tends to clear up relatively quickly. Not today. For the first two stops out of downtown, one person got off, two people got on. That doesn’t seem like much, but we are already packed in. Oh, I didn’t mention that today was my day carrying the laptop which is a huge case on top of my small backpack, so I can’t so much as turn without wacking someone with either my backpack or laptop case.

So we get to the Zoo station where a young lady talking on a cell phone get on. Annoying loud talker type, but whatever, I’m getting off next stop. We don’t move. We still don’t move. An announcement comes over the barely audible PA: Warbel frebre door ipfre foerry. Someone is blocking the door. We still don’t move. The next PA announcement is slightly more clear to the effect of hold on while I get out and check the door.

The train driver comes walking past and I notice that the door in question is the one next to where I am squished in. They spend about 5 minutes playing Homer Simpson’s favorite game “Door goes open, Door goes closed” I don’t get it because the door seems to close. But hey, maybe I’m missing something because I’m having to crane my neck over to near breaking to see what’s going on since I can’t turn around with laptop and backpack in tow.

The train driver walks back to the front. “Good”, I’m thinking, “he got it fixed and I can finally get out of this sardine can and away from loud talker cell phone girl who hasn’t even figured out why the train isn’t moving yet because she’s concentrating so hard on her phone. Then the power goes out on the train. Oh shit. Then the power comes back on. Whew! Seems that power cycling the train is one tricks they try to get things working again. Wonder if they use M$ Windows on these-Nawww.

So now the driver comes on the PA again saying there is still a problem with the door, going to try to override it manually, sorry for the inconvenience, blah blah blah. He comes walking back again, and plays round #2 of Homer Simpson’s favorite game. Cell phone girl is still blabbing on the phone going on about how it’s just stupid that this train hasn’t gotten moving yet and she has no idea why. Meanwhile another girl opposite me is text messengering someone: “My train is broke”. Heh, heh - not everyone on the train was a total idjit.

Finally, the train driver goes walking back to the front. Comes on the PA saying that he can’t get the sensor to confirm that the door is closed, so he will have to take the train out of service and remove the train from the main track in emergency mode, so all the other trains backed up behind can get moving again. We can all get off the train and wait for the next one or two or three that it will take to fit all of us on there.

I say, “screw this” and start walking the long convoluted path to the Barlow Max Bell station. Three trains pass me while I’m walking, but I don’t care - I’m out of the train. Besides, I gots to pee - If I can’t hold it I can find a convenient bush along the way at least. I make it to the Barlow station, and as I’m passing through, the PA comes on: “Your attention please, warble mble smrset south mble themb ten minute delay mble thwe wthrn dom north east mfboe mnt delay mboe ” Well, you get the idea - evidently Calgary Transit was having other major train delays along the whole system. Evidently, the echo in the Barlow station is so sever you can’t understand dick on the PA - even though it’s loud enough in there.

So to really rub salt in my wounds, I have to make a pit stop at the Family Foods along the way (not to pee - still holding that in). Need food so I can eat tomorrow type of shopping. I get to the checkout counter, no line up (yes!) and get my stuff rung through. “I need a price check on till #1″ Great. “This is gonna take a bit” says the clerk. Shit. The kid who comes to do the price check looks like, twelve and doesn’t come back. The clerk send another kid, who at least looks like he’s 16 after kid #1. I finally get my groceries and get the hell out of dodge.

Lessons learned:

1) Being stuck on a train in rush hour is worse than being stuck in traffic.

2) Pee before you go home if there is any doubt.

3) Calgary Transit PA systems suck.

4) Walking between the Zoo and Barlow takes longer than you’d think

5) Next time, take the bus, err, walk, err I guess there is no good way to get around in Calgary anymore.