Leasing It

When I leased the car there was a deal where you could reduce the interest you paid on the lease by putting down multiple damage deposits. What happened was for every damage deposit you put down they would reduce the interest by 0.15%. Doesn't sound like much, but for putting down $3500 in damage deposit, I lowered the interest on the car by 1.5%, which saved me $38/month. If you do the calculation on that amount, that means that I was getting about 13% interest on my $3500.

Anyway, since I actually wanted the damage deposit back, I negotiated something called the Mazda WearCare which allows you to return the car with up to $3500 of damage without being charged for it.

Returning The Car

I was worried that even with the WearCare that I was going to run into issues with some dents to the car. I spoke with a neighbour who happens to work for Mazda, and he had a quick look and concluded that I would have no problems. I got the damage report from the lease inspection and it concluded that there was $1496 of damage to the car. Sounded like I was in good shape. A few days later I get a check from Mazda for $2,859.15 some $640.15 less than I expected. I quickly phoned Mazda and was told that it was due to an improper repair. So what was the repair... well remember this: INCIDENT!? After a few calls to Mazda and having them say that if I had just not had it repaired by the towing company IT WOULD BE COVERED, I finally got them to make some kind of concession.

While they wouldn't refund the entire $640, they were willing to put in half. For a difference of $320, I am more than happy to avoid having to go to small claims court. I will on the other hand be phoning the towing company to attempt to get some more cash out of them. If I can find some time and energy, and actually feel like thinking about this again, I will post to let everyone know how this ends.

Well I haven't been writing much lately, and this is why. A little over two weeks ago a new member joined the family. Her name is Eleanor and she is a 12 week old Bernese Mountain Dog. She is awesome. She is tiring. Last week she had a bit of a stomach issue which kept her going out about every 1.5 hours. Alanna handles the hours from 5am-730am, and I get the (oh joy!) hours between 12am-5am. Everything in between we split, anyway. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep.

The last few days she has been doing very very well. Her stomach is all cleared up, which means that now she generally sleeps between 12am-5am, which makes my life much much easier.

The reason that I am able to write this is that she had her first set of shots at the vet today, and to put it plainly, she is pretty effin' stoned. It is amazing how much bigger she has gotten. When we got her two weeks ago she was 16lbs, now she is 24lbs. Anyway, hopefully I can find time to write again sometime in the near future.

Memoirs of a Scanner (Martinibomb Version) from Damon Stea on Vimeo.

2011 seems like a longways off though.

The problem

It seems that the Ikea in Ottawa is always out of stock of everything I could possibly wish to purchase. I recently sent this email to Ikea:

I am very dismayed by how poor the Ottawa location is, particularly the stock situation.

In the past year I have had to return (in some cases numerous times) to attain the the following items because they were perpetually out of stock. In some cases I have not been able to purchase them at all:

Benjamin Stool
Ribba Frame (black) 70cm x 100cm
Lerberg Wall Shelf (Black)
Lagan Counter Top (96 7/8 ")
Vika Furuskog (78 3/4 ")
Vika Byske
Vika Fintorp
Vika Lindved

The following items I am interested in, but are not even carried at the Ottawa store:

Vika Leif
Alve secretary
Jonas secretary
BÖJA Pendant lamp
RUTBO Pendant lamp

I must say that my experience with the Ikea in Ottawa has been horribly sub par, and is no where near the service that is provided at other locations I have visited.

The response I received was this:

Hello Tyler,

Thank you for contacting IKEA Canada via email. In regards to your inquiry, please note that our products selection may vary by store. Furthermore, please know that IKEA Ottawa is the smallest of the eleven IKEA stores in Canada. Given the store's restricted storage space, the managers have to be selective about the items the store carries. The store reviews its product selection regularly based on popularity and customer demand.

Please note that your comments will be shared with the appropriate department for review.

If you have additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for choosing IKEA for your home furnishing needs.

Best Regards,
IKEA Canada Customer Service

Basically they admit that Ottawa sucks, but how badly does it really suck? I intend to find out.

The Experiment

I have picked one product that I would like to consider purchasing and I am going to track its availability according to the Ikea website in each of the Canadian stores. I have picked the Vika Fintorp desk leg. It is a $10 item, and it is carried at the Ottawa store, it is just out of stock. Ikea will tell you on the website if a product is not available at a given store. (See: Alve Secretary)

I do not expect to remember to check the stock levels of every store everyday, so I am using a new feature of Google Reader where it will track a page without a feed for you. So I have added a feed for all Canadian stores stock page for the desk leg. I will track it it here: Vika Fintorp Leg Availability.  Notice that the page does have a feed if you want to track it. I will also post updates on my Twitter.

Day 1: Results

One of the reasons that I picked this item is because it is available at all Canadian stores and has been out of stock in Ottawa for a while. Knowing my luck it will quickly become available in Ottawa, but I will track it for a while and see.

Boucherville: 52
Burlington: 27
Calgary: 15
Coquitlam: 14
Edmonton: 40
Etobicoke: 12
Montreal: 25
North York: 33
Ottawa: 0
Richmond: 17
Vaughan: 10

Here is something that I may try to get me a speed boost for a few hundred dollars:

Now I find out from a semi reliable source, that the Dell u2410 will be dropping in price this Wednesday to a very low $419 as part of Dell's March Madness promotion. That is a helluva lot less than the $800 that I am waiting for the 2711 to drop to.

An interesting comparison based on the 16x9 aspect ratio of the 2711 and the 16x10 aspect ratio of the 2410.

The screen height is actually very similar between the two:

27" (16x9) vs 24" (16x10)

So the question is more about the 1920x1200 vs 2560x1440 and whether that is worth waiting for the better aspect ratio to drop to double the price. I think I am going to jump on the u2410 on Wednesday.

I know that it does have some documented issues, but not many of those seem to be reported by North American users. If its an issue I will simply return it.

TeuxDeux

Alright, so it has a stupid name. TeuxDeux.com should not (and for me will not) be pronounced ToDo. Anyone who has spent anytime around the French language knows that deux (which is the number 2) is not pronounced do. It is pronounced something more along the lines of d-ugh, which I am guessing that it is not what the creator of the site was going for. Anyway, misname aside I will give a brief review of the site.

The site does exactly what you would think it would do, it creates a list and lets you cross stuff off. Having said that, it is missing many things that a fully functional ToDo app needs.

What it does

• Lists item per day or 'someday'
• If an item has not been completed by a given day, it moves it to the next day
• Provides you with a simple and attractive layout that makes it easy to manage items
• Easily lets you drag items from one day to the next

What it lacks

• Scrolling through days of days is tedious adding a '>>' (jump week) to the '>' jump day would be wonderful
• Adding notes to items would be most convenient
• Multiple lists would also be great
• A mobile solution (the FAQ says one is coming)
• Setting a specified time to an item is a must in my book
• As well it needs notifications (email/pop-up)

Verdict

I love the minimalistic feel, and there is supposed to be many more features coming, but for the time being it doesn't fulfill all the required needs of a good ToDo app.

Dell u2711

It is time for me to get a new monitor. My 22" at home is pretty beat up. The amount of backlight bleed is terrible, there are several stuck pixels, including a green one right smack in the middle of the panel that drives me nuts! As well there is real image consistency issues. All this to say I need a new panel.

There are a few that I am considering but I would really like a >=27" IPS panel, with resolution greater > 1920x1200.

When you get into this space, there is really only a two.

There is the new Dell u2711, which has great reviews, but is very pricey for what you get ($1250 regular price).

The other option is actually to buy the new 27" iMac from Apple. For the first time they added a display input to it, so it can be used as both a computer and an external display. I just noticed one on the refurb site (and based on the issues so far, there are going to be lots of refurbs coming) for $1550.

Now I figure that I will see the Dell go on sale (at some point) for about $899, yet that is just a guess. Right now between the two I get an almost identical panel and for $300 extra with the Apple I get a decent computer slapped on the back of one.

Still dropping this kind of cash on a monitor is tough.

One final option is the Dell u2410 which is very similar to the u2711. It is regular $750, but semi frequently goes on sale for $499, which is quite reasonable. Still the 1920x1200 resolution leaves me wanting in comparison to the 2560x1440 of the 27" panels.

Now one of the reasons that I am looking for such a large screen is because I miss having a true dual monitor setup when using my MBP. I could go for 2 24" panels and go with this hacked together version of dual monitors for the MBP: MacBook Pro with Dual Monitors.

At the moment I am leaning towards the iMac, since being able to cluster video rendering would be pretty awesome, but the price tag is kinda tough to swallow.

Now if the u2711 drops to say $799 I am all over it, but I fear that I will probably just purchase the u2410 the next time it falls to $499 and consider a second one at some point. Please feel free to tell me why I am stupid, and what I should do to be smarter about all this.