General

It’s a magical day in Canada

Today the iPad went on sale in Canada, the base unit going for $549, $49 more than south of the border, as is the way with Apple’s pricing.

iPad

Apple describes the iPad as “a magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price.” I believe this is the first time Apple has referred to one of its products as magical.

magic:

  1. The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.
    1. The practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature.
    2. The charms, spells, and rituals so used.
  3. The exercise of sleight of hand or conjuring for entertainment.
  4. A mysterious quality of enchantment: “For me the names of those men breathed the magic of the past” (Max Beerbohm).

I’m going to assume they’re going with #4 here, though who knows, perhaps the iPad runs on pixie dust and mystic rituals. Of course, it’s all too easy to bash Apple these days, as they have become a big, juicy target with the popularity of the iPod, iPhone and Macbook. Wait, Macbook? How’d that one slip through? There’s no ‘i’ in there anywhere! (Ironically, the Macbook replaced the iBook.) I’ve walked by local cafes that appear to have an ‘Apple notebook only’ policy in effect, where you may be forbidden entry should you enter without some flavor of Macbook tucked under your arm. When I ride the bus, a good number of people plugged in to portable music players are wearing the telltale white Apple earphones. The company’s products are everywhere.

Popular companies are popular targets and people love tearing down the big guys, perhaps to allow the little guys to rise up so the process can start all over. A circle of life thing for the petty and jealous, if you will.

I own two iPods (the classic and nano) and they work well enough as music players. iTunes isn’t as horrible for me as it apparently is for others and it’s nice that Apple finally abandoned that horrible brushed metal look on its interface. I was worried they would be adding wood paneling in a future version. I do not hate Apple, even if I don’t embrace their vision of a closed-off, proprietary future where all content is vetted by Apple on your behalf but the iPad is a pretty big meh. For me it fills a niche I don’t need filled. I simply have no pressing need to check my mail, view photos or surf the web in a portable format, especially for $549. I’ll admit if it had supported a pressure-sensitive stylus for input I’d have been mightily tempted, though. Having a portable electronic sketchpad is probably too sexy for me to resist, so I should thank Apple for saving me an “unbelievable” amount of money.

There are a few glitches with the Canadian rollout. One of the selling features of the iPad, shown in the image above, is iBooks, Apple’s answer to the Kindle and other ebook readers — except the iBook store in Canada doesn’t have anything you can actually buy on it yet. Oops. I’m also not sure if I’d want to read a book on an LCD screen, even a really nice one, but if someone wants to loan me an iPad, I’d be willing to run some tests, though. In the interest of science, of course.

I was downtown today and while I was in Pacific Centre I went upstairs to see if there might be a line-up at the Apple store. This was around 3 p.m. and indeed there was a line-up. And security! They had (velvet?) ropes to keep people orderly and a big sign for one line-up labeled “iPad purchases”. The other line, not worthy of an actual sign, may have been for iPad lookie-loos or people just wanting to grab some ear buds for their iPods. The reports of the thing selling out will be arriving shortly, no doubt, so kudos to Apple for another successful product launch. Who’d have thought the same company that put out the Newton, the Macintosh “Portable” that weighed 17 pounds and the original iMac mouse which was designed for hands that have never appeared on humans would end up so blazingly successful?

I do wish they’d stop with the whole iName thing, though. It’s as outdated now as the brushed metal look.

This is still not the May weather I ordered

I knew something was up when Environment Canada issued its national spring forecast that called for warmer and drier conditions across the entirety of the country this spring. You know how those things go. They forecast sun, it rains. They predict overcast skies, it rains. They predict rain and it rains.

This is the forecast for the remainder of the month:


Allow me to translate:

Friday: rain
Saturday: rain
Sunday: rain
Monday: going out on a limb here — rain!

When I worked at Locarno Beach back in 1996-98 I was understandably obsessed with the weather. Even now I occasionally recall the days of yore when I prayed for sun so I could open the concession and earn a few meager dollars, even as I loathed opening the concession and actually having to be there.

The other night I dreamed I was back at Locarno, arriving rather suddenly, it seemed, and the scene was one of barely-contained chaos. A guy at the counter laughed at me while explaining he was the one who always had some difficult order. It seemed to be whatever it was he wanted — one of those energy bars or something like that — was in one of many boxes in the back. I tried to explain that I didn’t know any of this because I wasn’t there the previous year (or ten). A line-up started to form and I went to the till. An order was rung in for something but I didn’t know what. There was a $20 bill on the counter. I asked the guy if it was his, so I could make change. There was also another separate pile of money on the counter, a bunch of 20s and 10s. Things were cooking. My staff was running about, except they weren’t my staff, they were a bunch of strangers, presumably the staff that had worked there the previous summer. All that was missing was for me to look down and see I was only dressed in my underwear. Just before the dream ended I remember thinking to myself, “At least I’m making some money!”

It was awful. Yech. Dear Brain: No more Locarno dreams. Thanks!

The exciting world of new keyboards

I have a Saitek Eclipse keyboard and the main reason I got it was for the backlit keys. They’re cool in a geeky sort of way and practical in low-light conditions. However, I discovered over time that I preferred not working in low-light conditions on the computer, so the backlit keys seemed less necessary. What was worse, though, was the lettering on the keys being obliterated by my apparently acid-spewing fingers. The E, O, P, A, S, H, L and N keys are all smudged to the point of being nearly unreadable. Awhile back I had bought the Microsoft Digital Media Keyboard 3000 which, as the name implies, comes with a hojillion multimedia keys that do everything but iron your clothes and walk the dog. I pulled it out and remembered why I had not taken to it when I first tried it. The keys are ‘low travel’, which is fancy keyboard talk for the keys not sticking up as much and being scrunched a little closer together. The idea is you don’t need to press down as far or stretch as much, thus saving wear and tear on your fingers, whether or not they spew acid.

I find it makes me more prone to make typos because it feels funny. However, this seems as good a time as any to do battle once again with that unforgiving shrew, Mavis Beacon. Stay tuned!

The London 2012 Olympic mascots -or- Your kid’s nightmare in 2 years

The mascots for the London 2012 Summer Olympics have been unveiled. You can read something about them here. They are unique, all right. Apparently Kang and Kodos were unavailable.

I like this quote from the above link:

“What we’ve got here is two giant, damaged teeth, each with a massive, psychotic eye and razor sharp claws. And the blue one seems to be using bright, friendly colours to draw attention to his genital area.

“So these things – designed specifically for children – are basically lobster-clawed pervert monsters that remind them of the dentist. Bravo.”

(Originally seen on Quarter to Three.)

Brain cancer and spam

When I finally broke down and got a cell phone last year I was aware of all the stories that suggest the devices could cause brain cancer, impotence, itchy skin and other assorted afflictions. I don’t really care about all that since living on this planet appears to be fatal no matter what.

What does annoys me, though, is it only took nine months to get my first spam message. It came from some company calling out of Quebec, peddling their unwanted wares under the guise of me ‘winning’ travel dollars or somesuch. No, I will not press 1 to claim my ‘prize’. Yeesh.

In the Star Wars universe, all telemarketers would be based out of Mos Eisley.

Tweaked, part 2

A few tweaks to the current site design:

  • moved Search from the header to the sidebar
  • changed the background to a slate blue-gray kinda thing (will probably play with it some more)
  • made the site name match other links, color-wise
  • broke lots of stuff while experimenting but fixed everything back up

I will be restoring the writing exercises shortly and continue to fine-tune. To the average person this is about as exciting as watching a pie-eating contest where no pies are delivered for consumption but to me it’s like a pie-eating contest where one of those huge dump trucks from a strip mine shows up with 500 metric tonnes of pie.

/geek

I tweak because I can (site update)

I’ve made some changes to the site. Here they are. Woo.

  • a new theme: Blocks2
  • added jQuery Colorbox to the photo galleries (this makes the photos pop-up all pretty-like)
  • removed a bunch of links from the sidebar, moved some to the Books etc. page and re-ordered others
  • removed the Sections, uh, section. The Sections links are now only at the top of the page. Redundancy is redundant.
  • killed the ‘jogging’ tag as it is now its own category

The biggest change is the complete removal of all of my writing. I’ve decided to take a different approach for now and will only be making a few selections available on the site, though all of the writing exercises will be back, since they are freely viewable on the Martian Cartel forums. I haven’t modified the theme yet but will be tweaking the colors and perhaps adding a graphic at the top of the site.

My inane posts are, of course, untouched.

Stop not requested

This doesn’t sound good:


My question here is what makes Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights safe? Note that there are also stops only several blocks away from this one that are still considered safe seven nights a week. This is near the downtown eastside (in Chinatown, to be precise, which borders the DTE), so this kind of alert isn’t surprising, per se, but the chosen nights seem a bit broad and like I said, there are other stops nearby. But maybe this has nothing to do with the people in the neighborhood. Maybe Pender & Main gets hit by lightning strikes or mudslides or something.

Tagapalooza!

According to the WordPress Dashboard I have made 314 posts to which I have associated 173 tags. This is approximately 1.8 tags per post.

I know the ‘proper’ use of tags is to use them in a way to facilitate searching and not as witty commentary in and of themselves, but I can’t help it. If I want to make a tag called freakishly big celebrity heads and use it exactly once and never again (what are the odds I’ll find another perfect photo of a freakishly big celebrity head?)  chances are I’m going to do it.

On that note, here are my top 11 favorite tags I’ll probably never use more than once*:

  1. a babe in the 01110111 01101111 01101111 01100100 01110011
  2. Big Brother is mapping you
  3. grocery shopping made hard
  4. manly with a shoulder strap
  5. Mickey gets creepy
  6. pigeons eating pizza
  7. seasons in the schmaltz
  8. skydiving presidents
  9. the end of the world has a big budget
  10. toothpaste madness
  11. Xanadon’t

* technically, I did use #1 more than once, but go with it.

A hair-razing adventure

WARNING! This post contains graphic descriptions of hair removal.

If you like hair READ NO FURTHER.

Several days ago I needed to apply topical cream to my abdomen to address a certain level of itchiness that was making me crazy. I am, as they say, hirsute when it comes to the chest and abdomen so I figured to insure proper application of said cream, I would shave the hair off first, leaving a sexy and smooth surface to work with.

I used my beard trimmer to whittle down the hair to where a twin blade disposable razor could handle the rest. I applied plenty of Foamy and carefully went to work (you don’t have to avoid nipples when shaving your face. At least I hope not). It took awhile and after I was done I observed bleeding in several spots from where I had nicked several moles. Gross. I cleaned up, dried off and applied the cream.

It is two days later and the itching has begun. I am aware of the rich irony in shaving to address itchiness, only to have more itchiness happen as a direct result. There is no question in my mind that I will let the hair grow back. It vividly brings to mind that the people who spend the time preening and plucking at their bodies to make them look ‘better’ could just accept themselves as is and spend that time doing something else that would be entertaining, rewarding or both. Or even just reading the latest trashy novel.

Hair is annoying. It grows the most where you least want it and the least where you most want it. Which reminds me, it’s time to shave my face.

Stupid hair.

The Foamy conspiracy

When I first started growing a beard, it was not intentional. I simply skipped shaving for a few weeks because I was in college at the time and looking a bit scruffy was not a problem. One might argue it was even to be expected. A classmate asked me if I was growing a beard. I had never given such a thing any thought because the most I had managed in the past was a weasel-like mustache. But I hated shaving, so this innocent question instantly translated itself in my mind to “You know you can grow a beard now, right, and totally skip having to shave?” I answered “Yes!” and the rest is (fur-faced) history. But for a bit of madness back in mid-December when I got curious enough to check out how I’d look clean-shaven, I have been beardy since 1993.

As I was soon to discover back then, a beard is not easy street when it comes to face care. Sure, I could just let it grow wild and woolly, but then I’d look like a skinny and crazy mountain man. And neck beards scare me. So I had to trim it regularly and shave around the neck to prevent that hair-carpeting-your-body look. This was manageable. But last year I lopped off the sides for a smaller, neater circle beard. This meant more shaving. I adapted, like the brave soul I am.

But now it seems the more I shave, the more I need to shave. It is curious how the body, as it ages, begins growing more hair where you least want it (eg. face), while shedding it from where you do want it (eg. top of head). My current theory is that the shaving cream has a hair growth agent in it, insuring that I need to re-supply regularly. I further theorize that the Foamy can is designed to splooge approximately five times as much cream into your hand than you actually need in order to empty said can five times faster than would happen otherwise, further necessitating frequent refills. Either that or I have a hair-trigger finger because I swear, all I do is tap the button and FOOM the can explodes a grapefruit-sized ball of foam into my waiting hand. I’m not that hairy. Yet.

Technology bad!

The area I live in has been without a large grocery store for many years. Long ago there was a Safeway at the corner of Knight and Kingsway but it closed down and the building there was turned into a flea market. The kindly folks at Safeway put a covenant on the property to insure that no other pesky grocery stores could be built there, to keep people in the neighborhood loyal to the not-very-convenient Safeways 20 blocks or more away. A curious strategy, one might think, but retail is a curious business sometimes!

Fast-forward to last year when, after years of planning and construction, the shiny new King Edward Village opened up on the site. A deal was arranged whereby the covenant was lifted in favor of granting an extra floor on the main residential tower, increasing it from 16 to 17 stories. The area now has a PriceSmart Foods, which appears to be a Save-On Foods with shorter hours and the pharmacy surgically removed (by the way, I’d like to offer a hearty hello to any HR people who are using Google Alerts to flag stories on the web containing the names of the businesses they work for, such as Safeway or PriceSmart Foods). Another difference I noticed is that each of the two entrances/exits to the store only have a total of two regular checkouts. They have many more of the self-serve variety, however, a not-so-subtle hint to maybe not bother those pesky cashiers who must be paid for their work when you could be having fun bagging your own groceries.

I have conspicuously avoided using the self-serve checkouts because if some nice young person is going to bag my stuff for me, who am I to stop them? Today, though, as I stood behind a man slowly lifting a watermelon out from under the baby stroller he was pushing (which appeared to be baby-free) and then eyeing the person in front of him puttering about trying to find money or courage or something and then finally glancing at that gleaming and line-free self-serve checkout stand just a few feet away, I gave in and figured I would give it a shot.

The first thing it does is ask me to scan my Save-On card. I do so and the machine chirpily acknowledges this. I take out my cloth bag and place it on the spot where a plastic bag has been stretched out, awaiting the scanned items. I use a cloth bag because I’m environmental and all that jazz. Plus the handles on plastic bags dig into your hands if you are carrying something heavy like potatoes or a Steven Erikson novel. The machine asks me to scan my first item. I do so and it reads back the amount it costs then tells me to place it in the bag. I do so. This is easy. And faster than waiting behind watermelon guy.

It then asks me to scan the second item. I again do so but this time when I put it in the bag, it reports that there is something invalid on the scale (which is what the plastic bag is stretched over) and it asks me to remove this object, whatever it may be. You see, the scale calculates the weight of every item scanned to make sure you aren’t scanning one box of brownies and then stuffing 10 of them into your shopping bag. Keeps people honest or forces them to eat the other nine boxes of brownies while they stand there. I remove my ‘invalid’ cloth bag with the two scanned items. A girl comes over to help me and advises that I put my bag on the floor. This allows me to continue, but now I have nothing to put my items in. The cloth bag is on the floor, which is invalid and putting it on the scale is also invalid. I look over to the wall near me. They are selling cloth shopping bags for $1.38. Bags that will not work with their self-serve checkout.

I could just use a plastic bag but who knows what would happen if I place the previously scanned items back on the scale. The system might think I’m trying to steal brownies. A manager magically appears. I mean this almost literally. I have no idea where he came from, he was just there. Maybe the girl pushed an unseen button that sends a priority “Someone can’t figure the self-serve checkout” signal. The manager enables some sort of override on the system, he scans the last two items (I only had four in total) and I’m able to complete the transaction. By this time watermelon guy is long gone.

To recap, using the self-serve checkout:

1. Took longer than the regular checkout.
2. Required the help of two store personnel instead of none.
3. Got terribly confused by me ‘going green’ with a cloth bag — which the store itself sells mere feet away from the checkout.

Maybe there is a way this sleek and modern machine can be made to understand you are using a cloth bag and to take that into account but it didn’t seem like it. I can’t say I’ll be trying the self-serve checkout again anytime soon to find out, either!

Technology bad.