There's ALWAYS Room for Jelly!

Apparently I've forgotten how to drive...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:14:48 GMT

No I haven't been in an accident, but I did look the wrong way while turning onto a busy street and NEARLY caused one. I haven't driven up the wrong side of the road (yet) this time.

When I crossed the border last week after landing in Seattle, we surprised the border guard by telling her at 4am that I was re-patriating. Turns out I didn't need to fill out a form B4, that was only if I had "shipments" of furniture, vehicles, all that sort of thing. If I only had clothes, books, dvds, an Xbox, that sort of thing, then I didn't need to worry about it.

The next day, I started ticking things off my list; I re-applied for Medical Insurance and faxed that in. I went to Metropolis at Metrotown to the Driver Services office there to renew my BC Drivers License...

The queue wasn't too bad so I stood in line and less than five minutes later I was at the counter with one of the helpful, friendly customer service agents. He informed me that since my license had expired more than three years ago, it was now invalid and I would have to re-test and re-qualify starting with a learner's permit. WTF?

I told him I had a Texas drivers license and he got visibly upset with me. "What are you doing with that?"

"Driving?"

"It's ILLEGAL to hold a Texas drivers license! You can't have a BC and Texas drivers license at the same time!"

"Why is that?"

"What were you doing in Texas?"

"I lived there."

"Well you need to surrender that license, hand it over"

"I didn't bring it with me."

"WHY NOT?" (Why was he so upset?)

"Because I didn't think I needed it. All I have on me is my Cayman Islands drivers license"

"You have THREE licenses???" (vein throbbing in his forehead)

"Well I have four if you count my International Drivers Permit."

I thought he was going to start laying eggs or something. "Can I use my Cayman license to renew my BC License?"

"No. You can keep that one, you don't have to surrender it or anything, it might make a good souvenir, but it's worthless here. I hope you're not using it to drive around with, it isn't even valid here." (Note to self: oops)

"Aww come on, man... I've been using it to rent cars here for the last seven or eight years when I come home for a visit."

"You're going to have to re-test and get a learner's permit."

"And then go through all that graduated license BS too?"

"Yes."

"What about if I bring in my Texas DL on Monday and it's expired LESS than three years, can I get my BCDL back that way?"

"Yes. but you have to surrender it, it's illegal to have both" (Seriously, WTF is the big deal)

I left after that, HOPING that I had my Texas Drivers License with me and that it had expired less than three years ago, or I was really going to be up Shit Creek. With a learner's, I would only be able to drive with an immediate family member beside me who held a valid license, and there's some day/night restrictions. Lauren doesn't even have a driver's license, so I'd be screwed there. I don't even know what the graduated license restrictions are, but chances are I didn't want them.

FORTUNATELY I found my Texas DL and it had expired in May 2007, so it was still valid. I put it together with my Cayman Islands drivers license and my International Permit and got it ready for Monday.

I went back to the same office but this time I didn't see the dickhead I dealt with on Saturday. I queued up and was served again in under five minutes. This time I was helped by an older Chinese lady. I told her I needed to renew my license and handed her my birth certificate and my passport. She looked up my name and said "Oh, it's been expired for awhile now, have you been away?" and I said yes I had been away for ten years.

She told me that my license had been expired for too long and I would have to re-test and get a learner's. The difference between her and Captain Douchenozzle from Saturday was that she looked empathethic and he looked like he was gloating that he got to tell someone bad news. I told her I had an International license. She looked at it and said "No, that's an international driver's permit, not a license." What's the difference?

I showed her my Cayman Islands License and said that this one was still valid (but left out that we drive on the left in Cayman) She looked at it, flipped it over and looked at the back, saw that it was a motorcycle license as well as a car license. She took it and went and asked someone else what to do with it, and he shrugged and said "I don't know, look in the book" so she went over to a counter and flipped open a book, came back with a smile and said "No probem." Clickety-click and that'll be $75 please. They took my picture and printed out an interim license for me. I asked her if it was a class 6 (motorcycle) as well as a class 5 (cars) and she smiled and said no, I'd have to re-test for any other licenses I held.

I walked out a couple minutes later with a newly-minted BC Drivers License. I kind of want to go back there and rub it in Captain Douchenozzle's face, but I'm pretty sure that he got put down a lot and picked last in gym class enough as a kid.

Moving sucks.

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:55:16 GMT

Moving? Sucks.
Air Travel? Really sucks.
Moving via air travel? Totally sucks.

I'm in Vancouver this week, doing a scout-ahead before my rollover at the end of August. I was supposed to be heading for Italy right about now, but my parents' plan changed and they're not going til the end of July, so instead I decided to come to Vancouver and bring up as much stuff as I could get away with to decrease the amount of stuff I have to move when I actually leave Cayman at the end of August.

Tickets were ridiculously expensive for this time of year... the CHEAPEST flight I could find was Air Canada from Miami to Vancouver via Toronto for $950. That still left me with getting from Cayman to Miami! American was $1400, Continental was $1250, Delta was $1350 and US Airways' booking engine had me going from Cayman-Charlotte-Las Vegas, stay overnight, then Las Vegas-Phoenix-Vancouver for $1600 (plus a hotel room in Vegas for that night.

In the end I decided to gamble on Continental via Houston on standby. Contintenal's baggage allowances are: up to 62 linear inches, under 50lbs. My footlocker measured out at 69.2" and was only 3/4 full at 70lbs. That means it was a $100 surcharge for oversize baggage (62.1-115 linear inches) and $50 surcharge for overweight baggage (50.1-70lbs). Over 70 lbs and they wont accept it as checked baggage. My suitcase topped out at 53lbs, but they let that slide.

My original itinerary was CO593 from Cayman to Houston, and then CO289 from Houston to Vancouver a couple hours later which gets me into Vancouver at 11:15pm. Not too bad... I tried taking this route one time before, last summer but the flight was delayed and I missed the Vancouver flight. I ended up flying into Seattle and arriving there around 2:30am and waiting around for the ticket counter to open at 4 to buy a ticket to Vancouver on the first flight. I ended up getting into Vancouver at 7am that morning and was a complete mess for the rest of the day.

This time, when I went to check in for the first flight in Cayman, something popped up on the screen saying that the second leg of the flight, the Houston-Vancouver leg had a "weight restriction" upon further investigation, the agent told me that the plane had been swapped out to a smaller one that held 30 less people... and I was one of those people. D'oh!

They re-booked me on the Seattle flight that left about the same time and arrived in Seattle at 11:41. Unfortunately by the time I got my baggage and cleared customs and re-checked my oversized bags at the oversized bag drop (which were tagged to Vancouver) the flight was full, and of all the people on the standby list, I had the lowest priority. I got bumped.

Fortunately there was another flight to Seattle that left at 11:15 and arrived at 1:15am in Seattle (3:15 Cayman time) and there was space available on that flight. My name was called last and I went to get a boarding pass (middle seat... ugh) and asked if my bags had been re-tagged to Seattle and the gate agent said he didn't see any bags for me on the manifest, so they probably went to Vancouver, but in any case, when you get to Seattle and they don't come off the belt, you can file a claim with the baggage agent there. Great.

What to do about getting to Vancouver then? I planned ahead this time and bought refundable tickets from Seattle/Vancouver just in case. I bought about six extra tickets this time from all kinds of places I might end up. They're all refundable, so just ignore the freakishly high credit card balance and whatever I don't use I submit for refund. If I end up carrying the balance over a statement and paying 15-20 dollars in interest, it sure beats the alternative! My friend Michelle was going to pick me up in Vancouver that night, and when I texted her that I was going to Seattle instead she said "I can make it to Seattle for that time." When I hesitated (especially with the price of gas these days) she said "It'll be an adventure!" so I relented. The other thing was that if I had to re-check my bags on Horizon/Alaska/Air Canada from Seattle to Vancouver, I would have to pay that oversize and overweight bagagge penalty again if they even accepted it as baggage on those little prop planes they service the route with.

In the end, I arrived in Seattle at 1:15am and my big oversized bags didn't. Michelle was there to pick me up with a specially-cleaned-out-of-tools SUV to carry all my stuff back and I had my carry-on only. (At least that had socks, underwear and undershirts in it). I COULD have waited around a couple hours, had dinner out of a vending machine and caught a flight to Vancouver in the morning, but it didn't work out like that. We drove across the truck border at 176th street at 3:55am and surprised the border agent with a repatriation.

I spent the last two weeks yea or nay ing everything I own and making up lists. Lists of what was coming with me, what I was selling, what I was leaving for the roommates and what I was abandoning. I didn't have to take everything with me all at once, but I would have to fill out a B4 form and get a case number so that I could show it to the customs agent and not have to pay duty on my personal effects. In the end, the border agent told me I didn't have to fill out the B4 if it was just clothes, books, computer, xbox, wii, and other personal household item. The B4 was really if I was expecting a container of furniture, cars, and all that sort of thing. She waved us through and Michelle dropped me at my (unexpecting) parents' house at 445am where I caught a few hours sleep on the couch with the dog's blankets pulled over me.

Thursday morning I called Continental and made a report of the missing baggage and got a case number. The baggage agent agreed with me that they were probably sitting in front of the baggage desk in Vancouver, but she filled out all the details anyway, just in case. I then went out to the Vancouver airport and sure enough, there they were.

There's still time, I can go back to Cayman in July and put everything in boxes and call someone like MIracle Brokers or some other international moving company and have them come get my shit and send it to me to try and save any of these hassles!

Kentucky Fried What?

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:47:17 GMT

I was flipping through Maxim a couple days ago, and in the front section where they usually have letters and things like that there was a picture from the Cayman Islands. This isn’t the first time the Cayman Islands have been featured in a Maxim/FHM-type of magazine. A year or two ago someone sent in a picture of a cube truck from down here that has always brought a smile to my face:

Harry Bush trucking. (When I find my copy of the picture I’ll add it in here.. it’s always good for a few laughs)

This last month’s issue had a picture of the front doors of the KFC in George Town with a few chickens in the foreground. The caption was something like “in their hearts, they knew the boycott would fail” or something like that. Even without the caption, it’s pretty funny to see actual chickens hanging around the front doors of a KFC. There are chickens everywhere down here… I would compare them to squirrels or rats in other metro areas.

Everton and I stopped in to KFC for lunch today and in a silent salesman on the counter was a notice that everything that normally had tomatoes in it would not have tomatoes in it until further notice.

Foster’s and Hurley’s both have pulled tomatoes off the shelves as well and the distributors aren’t bringing any more in, either. I can see why, 90% of our imports come out of Florida and they’re one of the suspects of where the outbreak started.

According to the countdown timer on my Facebook profile, 76 days remain until my final work permit expires and I hit the road (the air?) for Canada… At this point, BC Hothouse Tomatoes are just one more reason to look forward to it!

What the deuce??

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:28:26 GMT

Back in 2005, before I bought my Vespa LX125 I was in my Jeep full-time. It took me over 60 minutes each morning to get in to work and 45 to get home at night. it was, how you say… Le Suck? On top of that, the A/C crapped out!

I took it in to GT Automotive and they topped up the freon (or whatever it’s called now) and put some dye in it so they could see over time if there was a leak in the system. They also replaced a relay that was burned out. That relay was the cause of the warm air. The compressor was still working and spinning, but this relay was preventing the air from blowing cold. They told me that the compressor was drawing more current than it should, and that’s what caused the relay to blow.

Less than 24 hours later, I stopped at Foster’s on my way home from work with that sweet, sweet luscious air conditioning blowing cold on my knees. When I came out of Foster’s and started back up… it was warm and stayed warm. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

At that point, I decided I wasn’t going to keep dropping $65 on parts & labor to replace this relay over and over and that it must be the compressor. I waited, thinking that the compressor would be an expensive repair. Then I switched to the Vespa and the Jeep became secondary transportation at nights and on weekends, when it wasn’t so hot or I wasn’t wearing “business casual”.

Of course, last summer I was hit by that jackass in the roundabout and totaled my Vespa which put me back into the Jeep temporarily as my primary and as it turned out permanently. Still, it was fall and winter and the lack of A/C wasn’t that big a deal.

On May 1st, it was like Mother Nature flipped a switch and it got HOT out. Bleah. I had also already made plans to repatriate back to Canada and sell my Jeep, but the A/C was a selling point so I should really get it fixed finally. I’ve been thinking about getting it fixed for over a month now, and was starting to make calls around to see where I should take it.

This morning, after I popped into Paperman’s at the Strand (a 30 second drive from home) it was hot and muggy in the Jeep. Thinking that warmish air was better than no air, I reached down and turned the knob for the A/C which controls the blower and… WHAT THE DEUCE??? COLD AIR??? Surely it must be a figment of my imagination! Maybe it’s just the cool morning air in the pipes from having been parked in the shade… but no! It got colder! It stayed cold! It stayed cold all the way to work!

I’m going to give it a workout over the next week or so and see if it was an anomaly or if I’ve been sweating and feeling all gross by the time I get to work the last year or so!

Update: Well it's not working again. For a couple days I thought I had it figured out: make sure you turn the A/C off before turning off the engine but during my not-so-scientific-method of testing it, I shut off the engine with the a/c on and it hasn't come back on yet. I can't feel the "pull" on the engine when the compressor kicks in, so I think all things considered it's a wiring issue rather than anything REALLY major like a compressor because when it blew cold it was ICCCCCCCE cold! Time to break out the anti monkey-butt powder!

You got served!

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 01:57:07 GMT

Little holy shit freak out moment this morning... I got a phone call from a 916 number. Some Cable & Wireless cell phone, someone who's not in my address book... tempted to let it go to voicemail, but I answered it.

It was an RCIPS constable. He's got a summons with my name on it.

WTF?

I told him where I was and he came by my office and dropped it off to me. Slight moment of "what the hell did I do?" until i read it: it's a summons to witness, and I'm to give testimony/present evidence on behalf of someone named Regina... (ha ha yes I know it's the Queen) against the guy who hit my scooter last summer. Fucker's been charged with careless driving and they're bringing a criminal case against him!

Then I see the next problem: the court date is September 9, 2008... about a week or so AFTER I leave the Islands for good! I asked the cop about it and he said I would have to go talk to the court clerk. Good plan, I'll grab a sandwich at Fort Street Market while I'm downtown! (If you're ever in downtown George Town, grab a sandwich--the roasted chicken breast specifically-- and you won't be sorry. Best sandwich ever)

I go to the court, have to surrender my Leatherman when I go through the metal detector and empty my pockets and talk to the Criminal Registry. They told me no problem, just come back on Monday and they'll pull the file and get it straightened out. Great... but if it's that easy, why do I have to come back next week?

It might be nice if it works out that I leave on the 31st of August, and then come back on the government's dime 10 days later to give evidence in the case... that way I could come down with two empty suitcases and take the rest of my stuff with me, rather than have to use a moving company or airfreight to get my stuff home!

Google launches new Health website today.. still no cure for Wii Butt

Wed, 21 May 2008 19:54:43 GMT

I think it was today. Maybe it was yesterday, I'm not quite sure. The timing is good, however since I have a new affliction that I wanted to look up. I was up a little late last night and when I got up this morning my gluteus maximuses (how the hell do you pluralize gluteus maximus anyway) were a little sore.

My Wii arrived last night and I hooked it up to that sweet, sweet HP 65" DLP tv in the living room and gave it a whirl. Mario Kart, Wii Sports and Wii play. Suddenly it all made sense! Wii bowling! Taking that step as if I were actually tossing a bowling ball down the lane IS A LUNGE! I only bowled one game to try it out, so ten frames. One strike means I actually only bowled 19 virtual balls... so I suppose that works out to 1 set of 19 reps... and I can barely climb the stairs at work today.

This morning I see the Google Health link and click over there, thinking I can search on health-related things, like having a sore butt. I went to www.google.com/health and in the search box typed "Wii butt" and didn't get any hits. At least not any SFW hits, that's for sure.

Matty & Co. are coming over after work tonight to play a little. This is the Wii that I received as a free gift back in December. It finally arrived in Miami on May 16th and I had someone who was travelling home from a business trip pick it up and mule it down for me. I connected it up and did the updates and connected it to my Wifi access point, so if you want to play Mario Kart online with me, or just connect and have my Mii show up in your games somewhere (when I get around to making one) then drop me a line and I'll add you to my WiiConnect24 address book. I think... I haven't really messed with it too much yet, but i think that's possible.

And note to any prospective Wii owners in the Cayman Islands: Make sure you check United States for residence, or NOTHING ONLINE WORKS. You just get a message (for Cayman Islands) saying "There is nothing for you here. We hope you understand." First thing I'm doing tonight when I get home is try to change that to the US and hope they aren't looking up IP addresses to determine country like Xbox Live does, or I'll be screwed for a few months until I relocate back to Vancouver.

It's so hot I just saw a little guy in an orange robe BURST INTO FLAMES!

Mon, 19 May 2008 19:22:46 GMT

Middle of May... Victoria Day in Canada, Discovery Day in the Cayman Islands and this year, my 35th birthday. Do I get a cane or something issued to me now? Fortunately I don't have the camera handy or there'd be a pretty ugly picture attached to this post.

Last night I was in the bathroom and looking in the mirror after washing my face and thinking "Hmm. I need to shave..." and no it probably did NOT have anything to do with seeing the "party in my nose" Edge Shave Gel commercial thirty times yesterday during the 6-0 bodyslamming of the Flyers by Pittsburgh.

I came out to the sitting room and said to John "I think there's something wrong with the light in the bathroom."

"Which one?"

"The big bathroom" I said.

"Why, what's wrong?"

I smiled and said "Well in that light, there's a lot of stubble in my beard that looks really light... like it's gray or white or something..."

He didn't even answer me, just flipped me the bird over his shoulder :)

This morning I slept in because duh it's a bank holiday. I logged on after brushing my teeth and Darlene IMd me:

[10:34] Darlene: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
[10:34] Darlene: Whacha doin today?
[10:34] Mark: thanks :)
[10:34] Mark: just woke up
[10:53] Darlene: you took the day off?
[10:53] Mark: it's a holiday
[10:53] Darlene: haha which one/
[10:53] Mark: Mark's Birthday
[10:54] Mark: the Queen called and woke me up... she forgot about the time zone thing
[10:54] Mark: AGAIN
[10:54] Darlene: LOL

So back to the temperature. It's hot out there, damned hot. I went out to get a coffee at Paperman's Coffee House over at the Strand and then went into town to take care of something. When I got back, the house was hoooooooot. I opened the windows and turned on the fans and opened the doors to get some breeze going but it was sill sweaty and still.

I decided to break out a notepad and a thermometer and see how well (or how bad) the AC works in this house. At 12:30 the thermostat was reading 89f. I turned on the AC and set it for 80f. I took my digital thermometer and put it on the coffee table in the sitting room and the temperature went UP to 90.4f

at 1:30 the temp in the sitting room was down to 85 and the temp in the living room was down to 90.1f

At 2:30 (now) the temp in the sitting room is 82f and the temp in the living room is 87.4f. In other words, the AC is useless, even with two floor fans blowing the cooler sitting room air into the living room. The good part is that the ac vent is right above where my computer is set up, so it's almost chilly enough to warrant putting on a t-shirt here, but as soon as you walk through the archway into the living room... bleah.

I'm going to let it run until 3:00 and record the "final" temprature and use that as a yardstick to measure whether it's even worth the effort and electricity to run the AC in the main part of the house or whether to just retreat into the bedroom for the rest of the summer where the temps are more civilized :)

Update: I popped out for lunch at 2:45 and shut off the ac. The lowest the temperature dropped was 87.4 in the living room and 82 in the sitting room. In the one hour and fifteen minutes that I was gone, the temp in the sitting room went back up to 86 and in the living room back to 90. ugh.

OMSFJ! Orb Mycast finally solves my "problem"

Fri, 09 May 2008 21:34:51 GMT

As long as I can remember, I've been looking for a way to watch tv on the go.
Three years ago I installed a Slingbox at my parents house in Vancouver and then connect to it and stream their tv channels to me down here in Cayman, or on my laptop in a hotel room when I'm on the road (of course, I make sure to check in to a hotel that has free high-speed internet) :) it works pretty good. The main reason I did it was to watch Canucks games, and it works OK for that... My parents' upstream speed is just 512kbps and I find I can get about 489kbps fairly consistently. The lower the bandwidth, the slower the refresh and the blockier the video gets. Not ideal for watching something fast like hockey, but watchable. Upgrading them to the 'extreme' cable modem speed would double their upstream to 1024kbps for $10 month more. I always meant to do that, but never got around to it. Now that I'm moving back to Vancouver it's kind of a moot point. The only drawback is that it's "live" tv. if I wanted to record or time-shift anything, I'd have to buy, set up and configure a TiVo at their house. Slingbox supports a TiVo right down to the remote, but it's another expense and another device to manage.

I've been filling in the blanks with torrents anyway. Widescreen HD streams (although they're shrunk and compressed, they still look better than regular TV) and then watching on my laptop or desktop took the place of watching stuff on TV on someone else's schedule.

Last year when I picked up an Xbox360 and then did the fall update to support XviD, we started using that to stream the tv shows over the network to the TV. Wireless just didn't have the balls to do it though, so I went with a pair of Linksys powerline ethernet devices which promise up to 480mbps throughput. Using Windows Media Connect, it worked great. The only problem that remained was watching this sweet, widescreen, pseudo-HD videos on a shitty 21" TV (at least it has component input) with a nasty overscan.

Not anymore... just after lunch today I took a swing by my US freight/mail forwarder and picked up a new bulb for the tv we got our grubby little mitts on. Tonight, we dine in HELL! OK maybe not... but tonight we watch on an HP 65" DLP HDTV! SO THAT problem is solved, that just leaves.... mobile watching.

When I picked up a PSP a couple years back I had visions of watching tv via WiFi dancing in my head. It never materialized. Sony released the Location Free TV which had a PSP client, but it was $200, and then the client for the PSP was another $30, and then the inevitable nail in the coffin was of course no one knows what the IR codes are for the WestStar custom tv boxes. If you have a learning remote, you can program it to control your WestStar box, but that's it. I went so far as to use PSPVideo9 to automatically convert and sync every video that came down to the PSP, but with a 1gb Memory Stick it filled up pretty quick. I was hoping to be able to watch a show or two on my lunch break the next day, but it never worked very well. Consequently, due to my impending departure in august, I'm selling my PSP. The details are at the previous link on eCay Trade, the free classified ad website down here.

Last year I picked up an iPod Touch and stopped using the PSP for watching video on the plane. Yes, I'm on planes enough that this was something that needed to be addressed. It's an hour and five minutes from Grand Cayman to Miami, which is about 45 minutes of time when you're allowed to use your electronic devices. As it turns out, a 60 minute tv show minus it's commercials is about 42 minutes. Coincidence??? I now had 16 times the amount of storage that I had on the PSP in a device a lot smaller and with an almost comparably sized screen. The iPod's screen is way crisper than the PSPs somewhow, even though it's .1" smaller and slightly less resolution (I think).

It turned out I still had the same issues though, I had to plan ahead and convert videos using Videora's Ipod Touch converter which takes practically real-time to convert from xvid avi to an iPod compatible MP4. As of today, that's no longer a problem. Today I read an article on Lifehacker called OrbLive Streams Live TV to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Excuse me? JACKPOT!

I clicked over to Orb's How-To page and gave it a quick once-over. It seemed easy enough, install the streaming server on your computer and then whatever clients you choose can stream your data (videos, tv tuner, webcam, photos, documents, games, music and even youtube and other online video sites) including the Xbox360, PS3, Wii, Sansa and the iPod and iPhone. They went a step further in that if you have a jailbroken iPhone or iPod you can download a native app to connect to the server rather than a web-browser based interface. Slick.

I used Remote Desktop on my lunch break to log in to my computer at home and download the server. I installed it and created a username in about five minutes and pointed it at my Incoming folder.

Then on my iPod I went to the installer app, updated the sources list and then from Multimedia selected OrbLive. It downloaded the 1.8mb package and then installed it and restarted. After that I had a new OrbLive icon on my screen. I clicked it, entered my username and password as I had set up on my server and... it connected! I clicked Video, and then Folders and there it was: E:\Incoming-BT I clicked that and it brought up a list of the videos in that folder! Slick! I clicked on jPod S01E10 and after a few seconds of Connecting... and Buffering... there it was! it was streaming the video from my computer, over the internet to my iPod via Wifi! SWEEEEEEEEEEEEET! Everton and I then went to get a bite to eat at Cimboco and where we were sitting was within range of one of the C&W Hotspots of which I now have a working username and password. I tried streaming from there and while it worked, it was kinda chunky and stopped to buffer a lot. It was kind of like trying to watch ANYTHING on Real Player (buffering...) I switched to Photos and clicked through the stack of photos to some baby pictures of my brothers and I that Steve had going on a loop at the guestbook table at his wedding. Nice.

If I had a TV tuner and an input going into my computer I could stream Live TV to my Ipod or watch recorded TV in addition to everything else! In addition to the cool-as-shit iPod/iPhone app, the web interface is pretty cool, too. It looks like MediaMonkey and allows you to stream anything you've set to stream to another computer via the web interface, which then invokes your default players when you click play on something. And for some reason it's all free? It would be worth it at TWICE the price!

This should be an interesting spin...

Mon, 05 May 2008 22:02:42 GMT

Earlier this morning I was preparing for this very post (since I decided that I hadn't been typing enough for the past few months) when I was sidetracked by the horrific blue iguana slaughter that started making the rounds and this one got sidetracked.
The Caymanian Compass had a front-page story about a visitor who was detained over the weekend for a public display of affection... with his same sex partner. Some people at the bar didn't like it and ultimately he got a ride downtown to the police station before they realized that there was no crime and let him go. I was wondering what, if any, fallout there would be from it.
First up was the RSS feed from Cayblogger who as usual has a terrifically wicked rant. Seriously, do yourself a favor and read his blog archive.
About an hour ago I tried to send the link to the Cay Compass online edition story to a friend of mine back home, but for some reason I was unable to connect to the site and neither was she.
A few minutes ago, Giles sent me this link to Perez Hilton's site which explains the website outage at CayCompass. "The Digg Effect" as it were. At first glance I had no idea who Perez Hilton was. Was he Paris' little brother? Who knew? As soon as I clicked it and saw it was a celeb gossip site, I realize why I'd never heard of him before: I go out of my way to avoid this type of stuff like the plague!
I'd like to see the website statistics for the Caycompass.com website for today just for shits & giggles!

There's low, then there's scum-sucking scourge of the earth low. Who would kill Blue Iguanas?

Mon, 05 May 2008 17:20:15 GMT

I've been winding myself up and trying to think of some clever words to write about a gay man who was ~~arrested~~ detained for having the audacity to kiss another man while dancing with him, but I received this copy of a press release through two separate Facebook groups practically simultaneously a few minutes ago. I'm just going to paste it in here, and I can't really even think of anything to say at this point other than I hope they find out who the low-life cock smokers were who did it.

It hasn't hit the National Trust' website yet, but I'm sure it will be there shortly.

Update #1: Here's a link to the Recovery Program's Website with the press release.
Update #2: After a few conversations about what a suitable punishment might be (casting aside the obvious) I came up with the following idea, should the douchebag(s) be caught: A pole erected in front of the Royal Water Cruise Terminal, formerly the site of Historic Fort George. Tie the sum'bitch to the pole and have a public stoning... ok maybe not stones, but at least rotten fruit and veg in the noonday sun. And because I'm not a CRUEL person and I realize you can get dehydrated in this environment, hose him(or her) down with a firehose every now and then.

PRESS RELEASE
5th May, 2008. For immediate release.

SIX BLUE IGUANAS MURDERED IN BOTANIC PARK

Six critically endangered Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas were killed by unknown persons late on Saturday evening, in the QE II Botanic Park. The crime was discovered by volunteers with the National Trust’s Blue Iguana Recovery Programme, shortly after 9am on Sunday morning.

The iguanas appeared to have massive internal injuries, as if they had been stamped on violently and repeatedly. Some were also cut and partially dismembered. Three were found dead inside their breeding pens, two had been carried out of their pens and left in the tour area outside. The body of the sixth is still missing, but entrails on the trail outside his pen are a grim sign of his fate.

Department of Environment enforcement officer Carl Edwards was on the scene almost immediately, fast followed by the Royal Cayman Islands Police who began forensic work and have commenced an investigation. Dr. Colin Wakelin from the Department of Agriculture closed a large gash in one of the surviving victims and began making arrangements for an autopsy to confirm the causes of death, which will probably take place later today.

Dead on Sunday morning were the adult breeding males “Yellow” (sponsored by Caribbean Publishers), “Pedro” (sponsored by Websters Tours), “Digger” (sponsored by Simon Hicks), and “Eldemire” (christened by Kent Eldemire). The grand matriarch of the captive facility, “Sara”, was also dead. “Jessica” had been thrown out of the neighboring pen and was in shock, but still moving. Both females had been preparing to lay eggs.

The effort to save Jessica’s life went on into the night, but despite specialist advice by telephone from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Dr. Wakelin’s resourceful and determined attempts to stabilize her, she passed away during the night.

The persons responsible may have broken into the Park after closing hours, and found a way into the fenced-in captive breeding facility. No motive is known for this act of extreme violence against these unique and much-loved symbols of Cayman’s natural heritage. Anyone with relevant information is asked to contact the Royal Cayman Islands Police.

It ain't easy being green

Fri, 02 May 2008 16:45:33 GMT

I've been searching www.Wired.com for a link to an article I read the other week in their print version, but I can't seem to find it so I'm going to loosely paraphrase from what I remember. It was talking about Toyota and how in the light of the Prius and the environmental factors behind selling cars and purporting to be green. It seems that the Prius doesn't make them as much money as they'd like, so to offset that, they've changed the engine in their pickup truck (in the North American market it's the Titan, I think down here, where we get the General Specification versions known as the Hilux.

Just to go off on a bit of a tangent, I didn't know there was such a thing as General Spec. vehicles. Basically what it means is that it's the un-modified versions of the cars that come off the assembly line. Things like Daytime Running Lights, which are required in Canada, or the California Emissions Package which we all grew up hearing about on The Price is Right are things that are added on after the fact for a specific market. Down here where really anything goes, you can buy a right hand drive Nissan Skyline GT-R with a 3.5l engine that's been modified and can put out hundreds of horsepower over a stock vehicle. You can also buy a left-hand drive car in Miami (like I did from autotrader.com) and put it on a ship and send it down here. There are some dealerships in south Florida that actually have "export sales" people who are familiar with the ins and outs of shipping and specialize in people who are buying a car to export.

So back to Toyota. They've changed the engine in their best-selling (worldwide) car--the pickup truck-- from a 3.5l V6 to a 5.4l V8 in order to compete with and retain market share from people buying F-150s instead. Funny though... Toyota's known for the Hybrid Synergy Drive and gets all this "green cred" when they've gone the other way with their higher-selling cars(trucks). "Look at this hand, look what it's doing, never mind what's going on behind the curtain!" Hopefully, like another well-known magician they'll be saying "I've made a huge mistake" :)

The whole point of this story is that it IS hard to be 'green' especially down here. I can't remember how old I was when we started recyling paper at school. Then there was the "bliue box" distributed by the municipal government for your recylables and now there's the yellow bag, the blue bag, the green bag, the blue box and then the garbage as well. Even "old dogs" like my parents have learned the "new tricks" (no offense, Mom, really.. it's just an analogy) and sort paper from glossy paper, cardboard, glass from plastic and put the boxes out on the right days for the recycling trucks. I was pretty well-trained too in 1998 when I left.

When I arrived here in Cayman, I was at first horrified that people just threw EVERYTHING in the garbage cans. Then I noticed a big green bin around the side of the Lobster Pot that said "aluminum only" and was full of cans. I felt better about it, slightly, and then was horrified, saddened and lost all resistance when I saw the Department ofE Environmental Health truck (garbage truck) pull up and dump the whole thing into the back of the garbage truck. What's the point?

Over the next few years, I gave up all resistance and forgot everything I learned about recycling. It still bugged me when I heard (more than saw) the garbage bags being changed behind the bar that were 30-40 lbs of empty beer bottles being taken out and put into the garbage bin and from there to the landfill. Finally it culminated in my trip back home in May/June of 2000. I went to a housewarming party at some condo down on the border of Yaletown. It was BYOB, but they had mixers there for everyone to use. I went into the kitchen to pour myself a drink, killed the bottle of Coke and chucked it... the 2L plastic bottle... in the garbage. The music stopped. Everyone stopped talking and gave me dirty looks.

"Oh. I'm sorry, did I finish off someone's Coke? I thought the mixers were sort of communal?" No one answered me and then the party just sort of resumed and I was cold-shouldered the rest of the night. As we were leaving, I said to my friends who I went with "What the hell was that all about? Why did everyone get so mad at me for finishing the bottle of Coke??" It was then that someone piped up and said it was because I threw the empty plastic bottle in the garbage. Oops.

Now, 10 years later, there's at least a lot of lip-service being paid to recycling in Cayman. The head of the Dept of Environmental Health has been vocal in the newspaper about raising funds to establish a proper recycling plant, and for people that go to the effort of taking their stuff out to the landfill, they do have separate bins and a separate facility for oil, paints and things like that. HazMat Jenny even went so far as to start up a Freecycle group down here and got some corporate sponsors on board, but general apathy from the public doomed it to failure before it even really got off the ground. I still get the emails from them with the guidelines and etiquette rules of the freecycle program every other Sunday, but have only ever received offers once or twice.

There was even a mention in the paper of a glass-recycling plant on the island and they've managed to grind up a couple container-loads of glass for export and recycling. This one seems like the no-brainer of all the plans. The sheer amount of beer bottles and liquor bottles from all the bars and restaurants alone would make this one feasible.

I don't know the ins, the outs, the what-have-yous about recycling and shipping, but the scuttlebutt I've heard over the years is that it's not profitable to recycle down here because it's costs more to ship the recyclables back to somewhere they can be made use of. I would believe that to be true, but it can't be THAT high. Not compared to the huge pile of garbage just upwind of George Town "lovingly" referred to as Mt Trashmore. Ships bring containers down here, I can't see them being that full going back to Miami/Tampa/Port Everglades. The containers have to be sent back, and I don't believe they're all full heading north (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Would it really cost that much to fill some of those containers with, say, ground-up glass? I think the difference in the cost of fuel from sailing a ship with 200 empty containers vs 180 empty and 20 full containers would be less than the goodwill generated by advertising that XYZ Shipping is supporting a cleaner, greener environment for Cayman. Perhaps that cost, once it's quantified could be "given back" to XYZ Shipping by the Government in the form of rebates or duty-free allowances pour encouragez les autres?

Of course, I could be completely off-base and talking out of my ass (as has been known to happen from time to time) but surely something can be done to preserve the island for the future? The whole reason I've brought this up is of course my impending departure in August or September. I'm going to have to re-learn all the little nuances and rules of recycling and what goes where. Compared to remembering to drive on the right, I think it just might be the one hardest thing I have to re-adapt to!