And Now for Something Completely Different

I'll be Home for Christmas

2012-12-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

And by “home” I mean my home. My new* home. The one I just purchased. The final papers were all signed this afternoon so all I have to do now is wait for the keys. Well, and finishing my packing.

Exciting times, for sure! I take possession in a little over a week, on the 14^th, which just happens to be a little over a week before Christmas. What a nice and expensive present I bought myself this year. I hope the rest of my family isn't upset that I spent vastly more on myself than on all of them combined...

It's hard to wait. Last night I was wishing I could already start moving some of my stuff in, to clear out some space over here in my current place. Since the place has already been empty for who knows how long that technically could have been a possibility, but I'll just have to be patient and wait until it's officially mine.

Also, there are so many things I'd like (or need) to buy, but I've been telling myself to wait until after I've moved in to buy anything. Not only because I'd have to find a place to store it in this mess until then, but it would be a good idea to have a few days to let the layout, colors, etc. fully sink in so I can buy stuff that I'll know will look great there (not to mention the possibility of some great Boxing Day sales). But that hasn't stopped me from going to stores and browsing, though.

The one exception was a new box spring and bed frame. Since I'll actually have a spare bedroom now, having a bed to go in said bedroom would be a plus. And fortunately a friend said I could store it along the wall in his garage for a couple weeks, and we even went out in his van to purchase it. Of course, I'll use the new bed myself and leave the old one for any guests I may get. Don't worry, I did also purchase a new foam top for the old mattress so it hopefully won't be that bad... Maybe I should spend a few nights on it just to see how it is before anyone else has to use it. Worst case scenario, I do have a rather comfy air mattress that could be used.

I honestly can't believe how fast things have gone. Now I'm counting the days until I get my condo. And as soon as the actual time of day when I'll get the keys has been arranged, I'll have to start counting down the hours. If I assume, for now, that my realtor and I will meet up as soon as I can after work that Friday, then that means at this moment I only have about 212 hours to go!

* And of course, by “new” I actually mean new to me, not a newly-built condo. I did check out the pricing on one out of curiosity, and found that a smaller one bedroom unit still cost a whole lot more than my two bedroom one. New would have been nice, but I didn't want to pay anywhere near what they were wanting.

Catching Flies, Part 2

2012-09-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

This morning when I got to work I decided to build a fruit fly trap that would hopefully work better than simply setting out a bottle of malt vinegar. Incidentally, the lid full of vinegar worked better than I thought it would. When I dumped it out, I found there were almost a dozen fruit flies that had gotten into it and sunk to the bottom. It turns out that bottle of vinegar also had some liquid dish soap added, which I heard from several places helps in its trapping ability. Apparently the soap breaks the vinegar's surface tension, making it so the fly would actually sink in rather than be able to sit on the top and fly away to safety.

But the downside of something like that is that it still primarily just attracts the flies, and doesn't really trap them. It's only the few that are foolish enough to go right up to the vinegar that meet their demise. Hence the reason for a trap. I grabbed a disposable plastic cup from the closet at the office, then poured a bit of the vinegar/soap mix into it. Next I took a piece of card stock from my recycling box, cut a rough semi-circle from it, then rolled and taped it into a cone shape. After cutting the tip of the cone off, I put it into the cup and put tape around the edge to both hold it on the cup and make sure it was sealed. The important thing is that the only way in or out was through the hole in the cone.

And it worked great! It seems that after the flies are attracted into the trap thanks to the vinegar (I've heard that apple cider vinegar works best though—I'll have to bring some in tomorrow morning) they are simply too stupid to exit through that same hole they entered through. Seriously, throughout the day I watched several of them crawling around the cone inside the cup and go right up to the hole—then turn around and head back the other way. Eventually they either fall into the vinegar or try to land on it. Even if they didn't, they still would be stuck inside the cup rather than flying around annoying me.

At the end of my work day I picked the cup up and looked inside, and counted 35 flies that I could see. Since I could only see what was around the edges of the cup due to the dark malt vinegar, I'm sure there were more in there that I didn't notice so I've been assuming there were around 40. 40 fruit flies trapped, after only 8 hours. In comparison, the filled cap only trapped about a dozen, in 16 hours. Triple the kill count in half the time. Not bad! I wonder what it'll be like when I get back to work in the morning...

Catching Flies with Vinegar

2012-09-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

There's an old expression, “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” Not true; I tried it.

I've had a bit of a problem with fruit flies around my desk at work lately, and even have my bananas inside a storage container to keep them away. This afternoon I noticed the container had a couple dozen fruit flies crawling all over it. They couldn't get inside at the bananas, but that didn't stop them from congregating there anyway.

One of the guys at work recently dubbed an old bottle of vinegar to be a “Fly Trap” bottle so I opened it and sat it on top of my banana box. Then, remembering that expression, I grabbed a plate, smeared some honey on it, and set it up next to the vinegar. Well what do you know, after several minutes there were flies all over the bottle, and only one crawling on the plate (and it wasn't anywhere near where the honey was).

It would appear that whoever first came up with that expression had no idea what they were talking about.

But attracting flies and catching flies are two different matters. It doesn't seem like simply setting out vinegar will actually catch them, and it'll need to be just part of the bait in some other sort of trap. I poured some vinegar into the bottle's lid and, while lots of flies were crawling on it, none actually ventured into the vinegar itself where they would drown. So now I'm worried that, tomorrow morning, I'll have a really massive infestation around my desk thanks to the vinegar. Fortunately I've found several promising fruit fly trap ideas online that I'll have to give a try in the morning...

The 70s Come to Korea

2012-09-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

I just stumbled across the song and music video “Gangnam Style” by South Korean rapper Psy. I enjoy watching Japanese music videos because some of them are quite... creative. And Korean stuff can come close. I watched this video several times, not only because I found the song catchy, but because I got a good laugh from both his dance moves and the suits he wore in the video.

Once suit in particular seemed very familiar. Well what do you know, that appears to be almost identical to the tuxes that my dad and his wedding party wore. Back in the mid-70s. I guess it's true what they say about fashion, how everything comes back in style eventually.

Run, run, as slow as you can...

2012-07-11T20:48:00.001-07:00

I have gotten quite out of shape over the years. While I was never into sports or other physical activities beyond walking, I did get a fair amount of walking done while I was in school. And then during the times while living in Surrey that I didn't own a car I had to walk to and from the bus when I went to work each day. For a while after the office and I moved to Abbotsford, I even walked or biked to work, which was a good 40 minute walk each way.

After I finally got another car, that stopped but I still made a point of walking to the stores or mall, which are a 20-30 minute walk away, and had the occasional walk at the park or around the neighborhood. Eventually, though, that all seemed to fade away and the extent of my real physical activity became just occasionally moving around boxes and containers at work and any chores I did around the house. But my fingers certainly still got a good workout from all those video games!

But that has to change. I'm certain that most of my health concerns would fade if I took better care of myself. Part of that involves eating better, which is always a struggle for a single person who doesn't often enjoy taking too much time cooking. Another part would be making sure I get any medical assistance that would help improve my quality of life.

But I think the main thing is to finally start getting more active and getting back into shape. Fortunately, it's much easier when it's such nice weather out like we've had here lately, and I find myself looking for any excuse to be outside (for example, I'm even sitting out on my patio as I write this). I started out by taking a good 20 minute walk around the neighborhood each night this week. But even when walking at a faster pace and for that amount of time, it didn't feel like my heart was getting that good a workout. That's when I remembered a nice outdoor track I've seen that I heard was open to the public.

So I swung by this evening to check it out and see what I could do. Well if I didn't know it before, I know now that I'm definitely out of shape. Each lap appears to be 500m, and I decided I'd had enough and switched down to a walking pace before completely finishing two laps (the RunKeeper app I have indicated my "almost-2-laps" was 0.83km and took 5½ minutes). But it certainly gave my heart a good workout! I might have been able to keep jogging a little longer, but I didn't want to overdo it on my first try. Plus I probably would have been completely out of breath before being anywhere near finished the third lap anyway.

So my challenge to myself is to go back to the track every evening between now and my vacation in just under two weeks. And hopefully while on vacation I'll have a chance to do some jogging too, or at least I'm sure there will be a fair number of walks. And playing with my two young nephews is bound to give me quite the workout too.

But since the weather is supposed to continue being really nice for the next couple weeks it shouldn't be too hard to make sure I do it every evening. I'll hopefully see a decent improvement in just that short time. And who knows, maybe if I keep this up, by the end of the summer I'll be able to do 10 laps rather than almost two.

Honey, I Shrunk My iPod (and the price tag)

2012-06-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

April 21, 2001. I bought my first portable MP3 player, a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox. It was only slightly more bulky than a typical portable CD player, and had 6GB of storage space. The total cost including tax worked out to $93.86/GB.

6GB seemed like a lot of space, but as I ripped my music library to my computer over the next while I found I had close to 18GB of music. So, I took my library of 192kbps MP3s and had them batch re-compressed to 64kpbs WMA files. Cutting it down to ⅓ the size let it fit my Jukebox just perfectly. But let me tell you, even with Windows Media Audio files having better quality than MP3 at low bit rates, I could still clearly notice the difference in audio quality but I just lived with it. Until...

September 9, 2003. I bit the bullet and bought my second Apple product, the first being a used Apple IIgs computer I bought off someone a whole decade prior (and it still sits in my closet. It's a piece of history, now)—a 30GB 3rd-generation iPod. That would give me plenty of space to use my original higher-quality MP3s, plus I had heard many good things about iPods. And this was way back before they became insanely popular. In fact, it was almost a year before there even was such a thing as iTunes for Windows. Back then you needed to use third-party software to get anything on to the iPod.

I knew from what I had read about it that it was small, but my mind was blown when I opened the box and it really clicked. This thing was only slightly larger than a typical deck of cards. Considerably smaller than that now huge Jukebox, yet had five times the storage space. But it was expensive—close to $800. Plus, the only expense wasn't just the iPod itself, but I also had to buy a card to add a Firewire port to my PC just to use it. Despite the cost, I thought it was worth every penny, though. Total cost including both the iPod and Firewire card—$30.15/GB.

December 4, 2005. Just over two years later my music library had grown further, and while the 30GB iPod still was able to easily hold all my music and probably could have done so for another year or two, I was itching for the recently released 5th-generation iPod. It could hold 60GB of data, had a color screen, could show photos, and could also play videos, too. A little later Apple even added the ability for a few select third parties to make games for it, of which I bought a handful. Total cost—$9.50/GB.

May 28, 2012. It took six and a half years, but I finally managed to almost fill my now ancient 60GB iPod. There was only enough space left for maybe a dozen albums, at most. Plus, I was interested in using the feature of iTunes Match subscriptions where people could re-download their music at a higher bit rate. That definitely would have pushed me over the 60GB limit. Plus, the screen wasn't doing so hot. A significant number of pixels weren't working correctly anymore. it worked well enough for selecting music, but it definitely wouldn't be good for playing videos or games. Not that I ever played videos or games on it anymore, with me also owning both an iPhone and iPad...

There also had been rumours for the past couple years that this class of iPod, since rebranded the iPod Classic, would be dropped from the lineup. In fact, I recall watching an Apple Keynote last fall where they even went so far as to specifically list the Shuffle, Nano and Touch as being “the iPod lineup” with not so much as an acknowledgement that the Classic still existed. And the Classic line has not received a single update since September 2009, when it got bumped to 160GB. So between the almost completely full iPod and the fear that if I waited until it was completely full the Classic might no longer be available, I took the plunge and finally upgraded. Total cost for this one—a measly $1.75/GB.

So what next? It's quite possible that by the time I've filled the space on this one, if ever, the current iPod Touches and iPhones will be “ancient technology” and we'll be on to the next big thing. We're already seeing the start of it, with streaming audio growing in popularity and services like iCloud/iTunes Match where you could have a device with very little storage and it'll just download whatever you want to hear it when you want to hear it. There's still something to be said for having all your music library in one place though. Someone who's traveling might not always be in a place where they can access their music, whether through a Wifi hotspot or a cellular data connection. Just ask anyone driving through the mountains about their long stretches with no service. I'm sure that's the only reason Apple still hasn't officially killed off the iPod Classic. Perhaps they'll still continue to sell it for years to come, although I find it doubtful that it'll receive any further storage increases. Most likely, as soon as the price of flash storage has dropped to the point where it's feasible for Apple to sell a 128GB or greater iPod Touch, the Classic will be gone forever.

But considering how long it took for my music library to grow 30GB, I think this new 160GB iPod will probably die before I come close to filling it. Especially when you consider that for several years I had an eMusic subscription and as such was getting loads of new music every month, but now I don't have that so my music purchasing has significantly slowed. I don't think I'll need to think about what'll be replacing this iPod for quite some time, if I treat it well and don't accidentally break it.

Backin Up

2012-06-06T17:25:00.004-07:00

I apologise in advance... but thinking about backups has brought this song back into my head.

Backups Are Your Friend

2012-06-05T21:22:00.001-07:00

If I were to provide one piece of advice to computer users, it would be to always have a backup of your data. I can't speak for Windows, but on Macs anyway, it's super easy and convenient. Just buy and plug in an empty external hard drive and Time Machine will automatically do periodic backups of your data. With Time Machine, it even does hourly backups for the past day (then after a day, it only keeps one a day for the past week and then one a week). It's easy to think that you'll be fine and never need a backup, but you'll never know when something will happen and you'll be extra glad that you have that backup, and happy you spent the money on that extra hard drive.

Like if you accidentally delete every album in your music library that starts with the letter "T". Which just happened to me. And yes, that includes "The" as well. One click in the wrong place and it was gone. All gone. Not just the entries in the iTunes library but the actual audio files on the hard drive themselves, too. That's over 60 albums total.

After a moment of panic and frustration that I could have done something so stupid I remembered my backup and began the restoration process. It was 7:40 and my last backup was at 7:06. I'd lose about half an hour's worth of the library cleanup and updating that I had been doing, but it sure beats the considerable effort of rebuilding that part my library that would have been required had I not had a backup handy. Sure, iTunes now lets you re-download old purchases, but not all my music came from iTunes. A significant amount of it is still from old CDs that I would have had to take the time re-ripping (not to mention digging through the boxes in my closet to find them all first), and a bunch came from other digital music stores that I couldn't re-download them from. Plus, I'd lose all the play counts and last played dates. I really like having statistics like that.

And the really crazy thing is that I recently signed up for iTunes Match so I could have re-downloaded every one of those albums (most of which I was going to re-download anyway, so I could get them in higher quality that way) except that, when I deleted it all, I had also checked off the “Also delete these items from iCloud” box. That wasn't an error, since I had intended to check that. The problem was that instead of having one song selected, somehow the entire playlist got selected.

So, to restore my library there were two places I had to go using Time Machine. First was the Music\iTunes folder under my home directory. There were a number of iTunes Library files there that needed restoring. Fortunately, those were small and restored quickly. But then I needed to restore my audio files. I decided the simplest thing would be to restore the entire Music folder. Sure, it meant 65GB of data and 40 minutes of time, but it was far easier, and probably quicker as well, to restore everything than to go through each individual artist subfolder to see if there were albums missing, and restoring just those albums.

After waiting for everything to get restored, I was very glad to see that the process worked perfectly, and all my "T" albums were back and the handful of tracks I played at random did indeed play. Three cheers for backups! Now tomorrow I had better remember to bring home my “off-site backup” hard drive from work so I can update that one too.

Chicken Head Tracking

2012-06-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

Chicken Week Day 5 - To close out the week, here's something a little educational for you...

Chicken Police

2012-05-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Chicken Week, Day Four!

A Japanese Man. Yodeling. About Chickens.

2012-05-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

Kid Scared of Chickens

2012-05-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

Either this kid isn't going to be able to go near another chicken his whole life, or he'll get a job at a chicken processing plant to get even.

Classical Chicken

2012-05-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

It's chicken week! Day One:

This Post May Not Be Suitable for Children

2012-01-15T16:45:00.000-08:00

While loading up the cartoons from my recently purchased Looney Tunes Golden Collection set into my computer, I noticed text similar to the following on the back of all the cases:

“The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 5 Is Intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children.”

What's the deal with that? Not the Capitalising Every Word in the Sentence (although that does make me scratch my head), but that it “may not be suitable for children?”

I grew up watching these cartoons. My parents grew up watching these cartoons. Some of these cartoons came out when my grandparents were in their teens. And it was always considered to be good, wholesome family entertainment. But all of a sudden, it's no longer deemed to be fit for consumption by the next generation.

Is this a sign of how sanitised and paranoid our society is becoming, where people are afraid that seeing a cartoon duck trying to drop cartoon anvils on a cartoon rabbit will turn children into serial killers or something? Or is it simply not educational enough (I beg to differ... Thanks to Looney Tunes, I know not to waste my money buying anything from the Acme Corporation)?

I guess another possibility could be that some of the older cartoons do portray racial stereotypes and prejudices that would not be considered appropriate to show young children nowadays¹. They tend to imitate things they see and hear, so I guess in that regard it might be good to keep them from seeing certain cartoons...

¹Every disc from volume 3 on even starts out with the notice, “The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in the U.S society. These depictions were wrong then and they are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of today's society, these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming that these prejudices never existed.”

Weirdest Shopping Trip Ever

2012-01-03T21:04:00.000-08:00

I've always found Costco to be an odd store. Primarily, because they charge people to shop there. I find it hard to comprehend that they think requiring a membership to enter the store is good for sales. Wouldn't they get a greater number of people checking them out and potentially making purchases if they didn't have to buy memberships?

But in any case, I received a Costco gift card for Christmas which provided me an opportunity to experience the full Costco shopping experience last week, since using a gift card is one way you can actually get in without a membership or using someone else's. And it definitely was a weird experience.

First, there was getting a shopping cart. They have big carts there. And only carts—no baskets. It's as if the thought that someone might just want to quickly pop in for a few items never occurred to them. But I was fine with taking a cart, since I had no idea what I'd be coming out with. For all I knew, I might have ended up buying several big cases of soup or something.

Then there was actually getting into the store. It felt weird seeing someone at the door checking for memberships. Memberships for some sort of club, perhaps, but not a retail store. Plus I was a little nervous, concerned that the guy at the door would have some issue with me coming in with just a gift card and no membership. But he let me in with no problems, and I got my chance to look around.

Not that it was much to look at, though. What an unattractive store. Even Walmart has a more attractive looking store, even though they do occasionally dump a whole skid of products in the middle of the aisle. Obviously they try to cut costs wherever possible, and I guess rolling a skid under a shelf is certainly less labour intensive than having someone unload it onto the shelf.

One of the things I always hear about Costco is how cheap they are. Well with my shopping habits it was tricky to actually compare, since there are lots of things there that I've never bought and really have no idea how much it costs elsewhere. And there were other things that I have to purchase so infrequently that I couldn't remember how much I paid for it last time I bought it. And to be honest, for most things I have no interest in buying in such large quantities since it would take me forever to go through it and I don't have enough space to buy tons of stuff in bulk. But there were a few staples that I regularly purchase, so I made a point of seeking them out.

Like soup. I love having soup for my lunches, particularly the Campbell's Chunky soups. They have such a wide variety of flavours too. But my choice at Costco? A big case with 4 cans of Beef, 4 cans of Chicken Noodle. And, while the price was indeed better than the regular price buying individual cans elsewhere, it still wasn't better than when I stock up, during sales. And in addition to being even cheaper, I'm able so select from such varieties as Split Pea, Southwestern Chicken and Prime Rib and Vegetable. A lot better than boring old Beef and Chicken Noodle!

It was the same deal with the Pizza Pops. The only option I could see was a big huge box of Pepperoni Pizza Pops. No Hawaiian, no Deluxe. Just Pepperoni. I'd rather pay the extra 25¢ each to have a greater variety. Now peanut butter, on the other hand, appeared to be a great deal. But I'd have to buy a jar of it the size of my head. Which would last me years. And would be stale before I even got ¼ through it.

But I did find something great to use my gift card towards. Close to the start of the visit, actually. And off to the checkout I went, after I had concluded my exploration. When I got to the checkout counter, I put my products on the conveyor and proceeded to push the cart through like you would at any other store. I was told by the fellow manning this checkout that the carts went behind him. How weird.

And then came payment. I can understand needing to get an override code from a supervisor, because I didn't have a membership card to swipe, but what I didn't understand was how they don't take Visa or Mastercard. Yes, in addition to thinking it was a great idea to charge people to shop there, they also felt it was a great idea to limit their customers' payment options. To be honest, I did hear in advance how they didn't take Visa, but I still whipped it out anyway just to have the chance to verbally say, “Weird. This is the only store I've ever shopped at that doesn't take Visa.” Fortunately I also have a debit card, but I can't help but wonder if they've ever gotten people coming through who didn't have one, and didn't know until they were trying to pay that their credit card wouldn't work there.

Anyway... On to the bagger at the end of the checkout. Except he wasn't a bagger. He just picked the stuff up and put it back in the cart. True, I didn't get enough to justify needing a bag, but the thing was, I didn't see any bags around, period. Every store has bags. Many charge for them now, but the point is that they do have them. Yet another weird thing about Costco.

By then it was about lunch time, and I was getting hungry. I thought I'd check out the little cafeteria they had there. Well, until I saw the “Cash Only” sign. See above comments about a large retail store deliberately limiting customers' payment options. Oh well, I could wait until I got home to have something.

Even leaving the store was a weird experience. There was a lady in a Costco uniform standing there, extending her hand towards me. Not saying anything, just extending her hand towards me. When I didn't seem to know what she was doing that for, she commented that this must have been my first time shopping there and that the “Costco Way” was to show your membership card on the way in, and your receipt on the way out. I've been asked to show my receipt on my way out of Best Buy a couple times (key word there being asked, not just extending their hand), but that's a rare occurrence. But Costco, checking everyone's receipt after every visit? How weird.

But I survived the trip. I honestly can't say I was all that impressed, and I have no desire to actually pay for a membership for the “privilege” of shopping there again. But I did get a great box set of all the Looney Tunes Golden Collection volumes that I admit was an amazing price even before taking a chunk off thanks to the gift card, so I definitely wouldn't say it was a wasted trip. Just a weird one.

Baby on Board

2011-11-17T17:26:00.000-08:00

You can fairly frequently come across a car or van with a “Baby on Board” sign in the window. Homer Simpson even wrote a song about them. But I frequently wonder what's the point?

Seriously, are people going to go, “I was going to accidentally rear-end that car, but OH NO! There's a BABY ON BOARD so I guess I can't!” Or maybe it's just a type of bragging. “Look at me, I have a baby and you don't!”

Just as dumb, in my opinion, are those decals I've been seeing more and more lately with stick figures of all the family members. Although I admit I found it hilarious when I saw one that was one stick person and a whole bunch of stick cats.

In the event that I ever have children at some point down the road, there are not going to be any signs and decals on my car...

Not Exactly Nail Trimmers

2011-11-15T21:20:00.000-08:00

A number of years back I bought a big box of Q-Tips. I don't know what manicures have to do with Q-Tips, but this box included a free bonus manicure set. There were some tiny tweezers (I still can't figure out what tweezers have to do with manicures), nail clippers, a couple other things I had no clue what they were for, and a pair of scissors with a curved blade. I've always assumed that they were for cutting fingernails, probably for getting more clean and precise cuts than the clippers would provide.

Lately, the screw holding it together wouldn't stay tight so I decided I should buy a new one. While out at the store I checked out all the nail care supplies they carried. I found them, but was surprised to see them labeled as cuticle scissors. One package even specified, “For trimming cuticles and hangnails. Do not use on fingernails as this will dull the blade.”

I don't know what exactly a cuticle is or why you'd want to cut it. I'm not sure I even heard the word until a few years ago. Obviously it's nothing terribly important or obvious, like hair or fingernails, as I seem to have survived the past 3+ decades without ever trimming my cuticles. Maybe it's one of those things that only some people ever do (like guys shaving their chests. I find it funny how boys are told things like, “Eat your brussels sprouts and it'll put hair on your chest,” and when they do actually have hair on their chest they feel compelled to remove it), but there's enough of them to justify including one of these in all manicure sets. Like those other strange tools also included that I can't figure out how they're supposed to be used, but obviously someone out there knows.

But I figured I could save myself a few bucks and skip buying a new one, since apparently I was never supposed to be trimming my fingernails with those scissors anyway. And it gives me an opportunity to do a short research project, to answer the question, “What are cuticles, and why would I want to cut them?” Hmm, my Google search for "why cut cuticles" brings up pages with titles like, “Is it bad to cut your cuticles?” “Is cutting your cuticles healthy?” and, “Should you trim cuticles?” I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the answer is “Don't bother.”

Ready for 2012!

2011-10-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

This evening while out for a short walk, I decided to pop in to the dollar store by my house. Unfortunately I didn't even find what I was hoping too, but I did find a 2012 calendar. And it was only a buck twenty nine. And it was of cats. How could I resist? Last year I didn't even get a calendar until near the end of January, and this year I already have one mid-October. And did I mention it's of cats?

Only question now is, do I use it here at home or bring it in to work for all my co-workers to enjoy too...?

468

2011-10-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

I'm #468! Hooray! Well, I assume Rogers has separate queues for each iPhone type, so if that isn't an overall position, then at least of all the Rogers customers who reserved a white 16GB 4S this morning, I'm 468. Reservations from Rogers started at 3AM local time (other companies started at midnight... I wonder why the difference?) and what do you know, I just happened to wake up in the middle of the night around 3:30 and made my reservation since I was up anyway!

Of course this doesn't mean I'll get a new iPhone on release day next Friday. Even if they get 1,000 so I get one from the first batch, I think they're going to have them go to the stores a day or two later. They'll be busy enough with people lined up, and getting a cell phone is a little more complex than popping into the store and buying any other electronics. It'll probably be better, actually, going in later when they're not swamped. Much better service when they're not focused on getting as many people through quickly as possible and dealing with a huge crowd that all wants the same thing. And I didn't reserve an iPhone 4S just to try and ensure I'd get one on release day, anyway. I got one to make sure I could easily get one without having to spend hours in lines, running around to different stores all the time, and/or waiting weeks for stores to actually have it in stock.

I, for one, am looking forward to having a new iPhone, in spite of all the hate the 4S got when it was unveiled. I'd wager that all the people who were loudly complaining about it either already owned an iPhone 4, or weren't going to buy one anyway regardless of what was changed and just like to nitpick about everything. I saw pretty much the same thing after the iPad 2 was announced—loads of “It's not good enough. No way I'm getting one to replace my iPad!” whiners. I read an article earlier this week that I think hit the nail on the head. Sure, there's no massive hardware changes between the iPhone 4 and 4S aside from it being faster and having a better camera so iPhone 4 owners will be less likely to want to upgrade. But iPhone 4 owners are not the target audience.

People with an iPhone 4 are most likely still in the middle of their contract, and would have to pay a lot extra to upgrade their phone now. Instead, it'll be owners of older models, who are no longer in a contract as is the case with me, or those who don't own one at all who are most likely to get it. Sure, there's the handful of people who would pay anything to get a new Apple product if it was a whole lot better, but the majority of people will wait for the end of their contract before getting a new phone.

True, the iPhone 4S may be physically identical on the outside to an iPhone 4. Loads of people were complaining about that. But to me, that's actually a huge plus. The second I walk out of the store with my new iPhone, I can go practically anywhere and buy one of probably hundreds of cases and/or screen protectors available for it. When I bought my iPad 2 on launch day, there was just one choice. Apple's Smart Cover. And since I did not want one of those, I had to wait weeks for the first third party case to make an appearance, and even then, there was only a handful to choose from. Fortunately the first batch of iPad cases included one that was exactly what I was looking for.

So now, I have to patiently wait for the arrival of my iPhone. Maybe a week, or maybe two. Hopefully it won't be long before Rogers starts sending out the status emails they promised. But until then I guess I can pass the time browsing the case shelves in the stores!

***BREAKING NEWS!!!***
I just checked again out of curiosity, and now I'm up to 463. I guess 5 people canceled their reservations since this morning.

Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!

2011-10-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

Over the summer, I paid closer attention to the temperature inside my apartment. Mainly, because I had the patio door open as much as possible, but made sure to close it before the temperature outside surpassed what it was inside. I have two thermostats—one in the main part of my apartment and one in my bedroom. I soon noticed a curious phenomenon, where after spending more than a few minutes in my bedroom, the temperature there raised by 2-3 degrees.

Very curious. I know that when you pack a whole bunch of people in a room it can get quite warm and stuffy, but I didn't think just my body by itself gave off enough heat to warm a whole room. But that's what appeared to be happening, and only in my bedroom. I figured the rest of my apartment was large enough that the heat I gave off wasn't enough to raise the temperature noticeably there.

Then finally, sometime last week, I came to realise what the real cause of the apparent heat gain was. What was I doing all those times I was in my bedroom? Doing stuff on my computer. Which can give off a fair amount of heat when it's working hard. And is located about half a foot from the thermostat. Mystery solved! And here I thought maybe I was just such a super hot guy. Oh well.

Indiana Jones and the Search for a New Doctor

2011-10-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. It's been almost a decade since I last visited a doctor. Well, I did go to the Emergency Room once about a year ago and I have a vague memory of visiting a nearby walk-in clinic maybe 7 or 8 years ago. But that's it. I know for a fact that I definitely haven't had any other doctor visits since moving to Abbotsford.

It's not that I'm afraid of doctors or anything; I just hadn't felt a pressing need to go see one. I did see them regularly when I still lived with my parents, but that was probably primarily because it was my mom making the appointments. I guess that's one sign of a good parent—being extra careful about their children's health. But the other thing is that several various ailments simply stopped after I moved out. And whenever I'd go over to visit, they occasionally would resurface until I went back home. I like to joke that I must be allergic to my mom.

But in any case, in recent months I've been really feeling that regular doctor visits is something I need to get back into. It's important to take care of your health after all, especially so once you get into your thirties like I am. But that's easier said than done, it seems...

There's what looks like a nice little clinic by my house, with doctors listed on their sign as “Family Practice.” So I made a point of adding a visit to the errands I was going out to do one Saturday morning. Well, they were closed and the sign they had put up said they were open again on Tuesday as it was a long weekend. The next weekend I had company and the following weekend I didn't get around to it, so it was three weeks later when I returned and once again saw a “Closed—Open Monday” sign on their door.

I made sure I went back on Monday on my way home from work. Fortunately, they were open this time. That's when I found out that finding a new doctor wasn't as simple as walking in and asking if I could start visiting one of the doctors there. The lady at the reception gave me a phone number for somewhere at the hospital that I could call to find out which doctors in Abbotsford were currently accepting patients. Well, I have a bit of an aversion to calling strangers, so I took to Google instead. That lead me to the web site for the College of Physicians & Surgeons of British Columbia, which has a convenient “Find a family physician” feature. In all of Abbotsford, there are apparently only ten doctors accepting patients. I initially thought that wasn't much, but actually, all that shows up for the next closest cities of Mission, Langley and Chilliwack combined is only a whopping nine doctors. Wow. I guess I should feel lucky to have ten to choose from.

So, I picked one from the list and decided I'd go by that office after work one day. Google Maps appeared to indicate that the address was inside a small mall in town. I didn't remember seeing a medical clinic inside, although I've seen a dental clinic there so I figured I just missed it. I looked around, and found no medical clinic anywhere. I did a quick drive around the block, in case it was on the other side of the street or something. No luck. When I got home, I double-checked the address in case I was looking at old information, and confirmed the address was indeed correct.

I was bored, and one web page indicated they were open later that day, so after supper I went out for a drive to give it another shot. Well what do you know, I found it this time. I wasn't actually in the mall, but attached to the grocery store next door. Same lot, but not physically connected to the mall at all. Glad to finally have found it, I parked and went inside, eager to sign up to be a new patient there.

I should have guessed it wouldn't quite be that easy. Finding a doctor who's accepting patients is only the first step. Apparently, one also has to talk to the doctor for a few minutes to see if he actually wants to accept you as a patient. When I visited an optometrist a few years ago (actually, I see from my records that was four years ago. Probably time to make another appointment...) all I had to do was walk in, say I'd like to see an optometrist, and shortly after left with an appointment for a couple weeks later. I'm not sure why physicians would need to screen their patients, but other medical professions don't.

The next evening the doctor was in (since I didn't think it was worth booking time off work just for a short chat), I came in and asked at the reception if it looked like he'd have a chance to meet with me about accepting me as a new patient. Unfortunately, there were already too many walk-in visitors so he wouldn't have a chance. But she did point out that they now had copies of the clinic's October schedule available to take home, listing when all the various doctors would be in.

He was in again Monday evening, so back I went, directly from work. I get off at 4:30 and he was supposed to be in until 7:00 so I figured I'd have a good chance even if I had to wait for over an hour. Then I saw the “Closed to walk-ins” sign on the door since they were already completely booked up. Oh well. I guess people with immediate medical concerns are definitely more important to see, anyway. But it wasn't a wasted trip, since I had been craving an egg nog latte all afternoon. I had previously heard from a reputable source that egg nog was once again for sale and conveniently, as I mentioned earlier, this clinic was physically attached to a grocery store.

So, what next? I don't really want to keep driving out every few days only to get turned away each time. In the two times I spoke with someone there, it was never suggested that I could make an appointment so I'd always just be in the queue with the walk-ins. I guess I'll have to check out the offices of a few others from the list and make the rounds, going to a different one every day and cycling through them all until finally I get the chance to see one of them. And hopefully, he'll actually agree to have me as a patient.

You know, as Canadians we pride ourselves on having free universal health care. But now that I actually have the desire to make regular use of it, I'm finding the whole process is a huge pain. Well, I guess you get what you pay for.

Our Fantastic, Reliable Postal Service

2011-09-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

Spoiler alert—That title is just sarcasm. I'm actually quite ticked off with Canada Post and their lousy service lately. And so begins our tale...

A couple months ago, I had redeemed some Airmiles for an iTunes card in preparation for purchasing fall TV shows. It finally arrived, a month after I made my request. But to be fair, I have no idea when my order was actually shipped, just that previous redemptions usually showed up in a couple weeks. For all I know, it may have been finally shipped only a couple days earlier and it was delivered really fast.

Next up came an online Best Buy order. It showed up two full weeks after being shipped. That's twice as long as it should have. It only should have taken two weeks if it had been shipped from a small town in Newfoundland.

Then came an Amazon order. I have all my Amazon orders shipped to my work, as they frequently use UPS. That way, someone will always be available to sign for the package, and in the event that Canada Post was used for that order it'll just end up in our mailbox instead. Since I always just use their “Free Super-Saver Shipping” option I have no way to predict what shipping method they'll use. This order was shipped using Canada Post. When tracking it one day, it showed that it was forwarded, and delivered, to our office's alternate PO box downtown rather than the one down the street. Not something that should have happened, but it wasn't that big a deal. Until I went to the post office after work and found the parcel was not actually there.

The next morning, however, tracking it again had a new line saying a card had just been put in the box for me to get the parcel from the counter. I went back again that afternoon, and found that contrary to what the tracking notes said, there was no card and the parcel itself was actually in the mailbox. But at least I got my parcel, and didn't have to wait in the long lineup for the counter. I still had to make two trips to the post office though, since they previously said it was delivered but it wasn't. Actually, I wouldn't have even needed to make the second trip if they didn't say it was carded. I only went because they usually ask for ID when picking up parcels at the counter and as such one of my co-workers likely wouldn't have been able to get it.

A week or so later my next order was shipped from Amazon, something I had preordered a couple months prior. About the time it would be delivered, I tracked it and noticed it was out for delivery. A few hours later I tracked it again to confirm delivery, and was shocked to see the line, “Recipient not located at address provided. Item being returned to sender.” I have no idea how the Canada Post employee in question went about determining that I apparently no longer worked there. The timeframe between the two notes was too short for it to have been delivered to the wrong person and for them have taken it back to the post office. I doubt any of my coworkers placed a note in our box saying, “Mike doesn't work here anymore.” At least once the parcel gets received by Amazon they'll give a full refund on it. But not until they get it back, and Canada Post is taking their time getting it back to them.

Then came the big one. My Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray set that I preordered eight months ago, the very moment I learned that the Star Wars Blu-rays were available for preorder. I was hopeful that it would be shipped using UPS, as my Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-ray set, which is about the same physical size, came via UPS. When I got my shipping confirmation email last Friday, I immediately scrolled down to the part in the email where they say how it was shipped. I saw it said Canada Post, and the first thought that came to my mind was, “Oh crap, I hope I actually get it.” But, I was also thinking that Canada Post's service couldn't be that poor that they'd make the same mistake twice.

I was wrong. When tracking it this morning, I saw the same notification that it, too, was being returned to Amazon. The weird thing is the time stamps. At 5:59 AM it said “Out for delivery” and at 6:00 AM, “Recipient not located at this address.” Obviously, they didn't even attempt delivery. And last weekend, when the set was released, retail stores were selling it for the same price I was getting from Amazon, so the thought did cross my mind that maybe I should buy a second copy just in case, and if/when I get my order in the mail I can just return this one. Too bad I didn't, since everyone's prices have gone back up.

Maybe it's just bad luck that I had two parcels in a row that never got to me. But I do see how frequently it happens at work where I ship something to someone and it gets returned with a sticker stating that the recipient had moved, but we did have the correct address and were able to confirm with them that they still do indeed live there. The really sad thing about this is that it'll hurt online retailers like Amazon more than Canada Post. I'll be less likely to order things online now, because I'll be worried that my parcel will be shipped using Canada Post and I'll end up not even receiving it. If it weren't for the fact that nobody else can come close to matching Canada Post's prices, I'd be seriously looking into switching from them for the parcels I ship at work now.

But I guess I should look on the bright side. At least these parcels were all just for movies and TV shows, not important medication or other things vital to my survival.

HD or Not HD?

2011-09-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite TV shows, Castle, began its fourth season yesterday and today it appeared in iTunes to purchase a Season Pass. My big dilemma has been whether I should buy the Standard Definition version like the last three seasons, or buy it in High Definition this year. I now have a larger TV, so I'm sure it'll look great in HD. Also, this season it's only $12 more for HD. I don't know if the lower prices this year (last year was $45 for an SD Season Pass, and only $28 this year) are because they simply want to drum up sales, or because it's planned to be a shorter season. Hopefully, the former. It's a great show.

But there's a lot of debate out there over whether or not iTunes' HD videos should technically even be called HD. Or to quote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” With a full 1080p HD video, you get six to seven times the number of pixels compared to 480p SD video¹. In contrast, the 720p videos you'll find in the iTunes store and many other online video services only have 2-3x pixels². That's a considerable difference. Granted, any 720p videos I've seen (such as Netflix' HD streams) still look nice, but if I'm shelling out an extra dollar or so per episode for HD video, I'd rather get full HD.

Also, even with 1080p there's still a big difference between what you might find online and what you'd get by buying a Blu-ray Disc instead. A BD has a considerable amount of space on it for storing extra data, so in addition to the high resolution the picture has an increased bit rate (meaning even more detail in the picture) plus higher quality sound. When my brother bought a BD player to replace his dead DVD player—and he doesn't have an HD TV yet so he couldn't compare image quality—his first comment was how much better the audio quality was when comparing the BD and DVD of the same movie. Someone who's downloading a video isn't going to want to wait hours (or even days) to watch it, so audio and video quality has to be sacrificed to make for a more manageable download. But since modern encoding methods can get an SD video to an acceptable file size without significantly compromising quality compared to the DVD, choosing an SD video file over the DVD doesn't have the same loss in quality compared to HD files versus Blu-ray Discs. If you want HD video, you're far better off getting a Blu-ray.

Fortunately for me, I'm used to watching SD TV shows. True, the picture isn't as sharp and detailed as with my Blu-ray movies, but I don't seem to notice as much when it's a TV show and not a movie. I'm slowly upgrading my movie collection to Blu-ray when I find good sales on them (I'm hesitant to pay more than $5-10 to re-buy a movie, unless it's one I really like and have gotten my money's worth out of the DVD already), but I'm perfectly happy having DVD-quality TV shows. Well, part of that is because I like ripping my TV shows into my computer to watch via my Apple TV, which I couldn't do with a Blu-ray because I don't have a BD reader for my Mac.

But back to Castle. Since all my TV shows (aside from some newer Anime purchases) are in SD, and as I said I haven't had any complaints with the image quality even on my new TV, I think it's safe to save the $12 and stick with the SD Season Pass. Maybe I can use part of what I'd save to instead buy Barbie: Princess Charm School! Uh, yeah, no thanks...

¹1080p video has a resolution of 1920x1280, or 2,073,600 pixels. 480p video is either 640x480 (307,200 pixels) or 720x480 (345,600 pixels). Technically, widescreen 480p video is displayed at 854x480 resolution, but it's only stored at one of the other two resolutions and is stretched horizontally when displayed.
²720p video has a resolution of 1280x720 (921,600 pixels).

What an Omazing Singer!

2011-09-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

Make sure to listen to the whole thing, or if you can't stomach it at least jump to 2 minutes in!

The High-Performance Tablet

2011-08-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

Since a while back I signed up for the Disney Movie Rewards program (that's where there are points inside their movies that you can accumulate and spend to get various rewards), I've been regularly receiving their emails. Most of which I don't care about, but occasionally there are offers I find interesting. The other day, an email went around with information on a contest they're running over the summer.

The email detailed the prizes that can be won—Free admission to every Disney movie in 2012, an Epson projector and screen, a High-Performance Tablet, and a million Disney Movie Rewards points. Note the third prize? A "High-Performance Tablet." It's as if they're embarrassed to say what tablet they're giving away, but I'm willing to bet it isn't an iPad.

Could it be a Motorola Xoom perhaps? For which initial reviews said it felt like an incomplete product? Which indeed it was, as it shipped with many headline features that weren't available yet, to be added later via software updates, or by taking it to a store later to physically add the necessary component when they finish making it.

Or perhaps the RIM PlayBook? Which has been the brunt of many jokes? At one point, if you wanted a cell phone that you could check your emails on, you couldn't do any better than one of RIM's Blackberries. And yet, that same company somehow thought it was a great idea to release a tablet that couldn't check email on it's own. You'd need to either link it with a Blackberry, or hope you could check your email using a web site.

Maybe it's the HP TouchPad. Heard of it? I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't. Sales on that were so poor that Best Buy (no idea if this is just US, or includes Canada too) only sold 10% of their stock and is demanding that HP buy back their well over 200,000 units of excess unsold stock. And just today, word got out that HP is going to can their entire tablet and smartphone business. Only weeks after launching, the TouchPad is already obsolete.

Another possibility could be the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Assuming they're allowed to sell it, that is. Legal proceedings are currently underway in various places worldwide to determine that. Apple alleges that the 10.1's physical and user interface design are a direct copy of the iPad and is actively pursuing injunctions against Samsung.

But most likely, the prize is some cheap tablet that I haven't even heard of, by a company I may not have heard of either. And by "high-performance" they mean it's from someone who thinks specs are everything. Throw in some high-powered chips, and hope people think that's what makes a tablet great. Sure, the software may suck big time, but it's faster.

Of course, there's a chance that the prize actually is an iPad, but I doubt it. Aside from the fact that the picture clearly shows a stylus resting on it, which an iPad does not include or need, if the prize was something as wildly popular as the iPad, they most definitely would make it very obvious. I'm 100% certain that telling people they could win an iPad would greatly increase the number of entries in the contest. But, who knows what strange logic goes though the minds of these Big Corporation marketing gurus...