Philadelphia, one of the many places I’ve been to recently.

This is the usual first sentence of the post about how I suck at blogging and how it has been ages since I posted anything. Now that I got that over with, let’s see what I have been up to in the last 65 days:

• I stayed in New York for two weeks. Went to some House parties with Lola and had awesome food with Jill.
• Hopped on a train to Montréal to hang out with Cat, Bob and Simon for about a month.
• Attended a couple of PodMtl meetups, despite my inabbility to speak french.
• Travelled to Toronto on VIA1 (first class train - veredict, the service is great, the wifi is a complete joke), attended Podcamp Toronto, stayed in town for an extra couple of days with Steve and Jeanine, and saw the city with Dani and Lily.
• Was around for Bob’s 40th birthday party.
• Caught a bus from Montréal to Philadelphia, and stayed there with Linda for two days.
• Headed back to New York, met my mom’s cousin and then boarded a plane to London, to meet two friends.
• Been in London for 3 weeks so far. Met a bunch of people at the hostel, attended a few Tuttle meetups and registered for Social Media Camp London.
• Got inmensely irritated at the shitty wifi at the hostel, and eventually found a lovely cafe to go work at.
• Got tickets to Morrissey at the Royal Albert Hall in May (about friggin time I saw him live!)
• Something else I’m probably forgetting.
• Posted a lot of photos of everything on my Flickr.

So yeah, I’ve been a bit of a busy bee. And now that I have updated my blog I won’t feel bad if I want to write about other things. Such as, say, my latest obsession:

Aren’t they a beauty?

The Brompton. An extremely light and portable folding bike. Biking is a great way to get around London, and one of these I would even be able to take back with me on a flight. Win win situation, except for the £600+ they cost. The lovely chaps at Velorution let me test one, the bastards. They knew I’d fall in love with it. Now I’ll have to get one. Got a few extra quid I can borrow?

Snow over the Jersey City rooftops

Well, technically, hello from New Jersey! I’m at my friend Lola’s place in Jersey, about 20ish minutes away from Manhattan on the PATH. Have I mentioned I actually love the PATH? I love all subways, probably not as much as these fellas, but I do.

It’s so cold and lovely here. Yesterday it snowed all day, and it was gorgeous. I guess the weather doesn’t hate me after all! The sun is out today but everything is still covered in white and looks absolutely beautiful. We’ll see how much I still enjoy it when I get to Montréal and its real snowstorms…

I don’t feel like a tourist here anymore. I haven’t spent that much time here in all my trips combined, but I’ve spent enough time to be past the “oooh look at that! *snap photo!*” thing. It’s the same with Montréal, with the difference that I only speak half of the languages there. So now my routine is get up early-ish, work in the morning, do something in the afternoon/evenings if there is something to do, work if not, have supper, go to bed not too late. I don’t feel like I’m missing out if I’m not out there all-the-time.

There are some things that I do have to do whenever I’m in NYC. Number one: eat! No, seriously. This city is a wet dream for food lovers (and it’s even better if you have a foodie friend like Jill as a guide!). There’s any kind of restaurant you can imagine. The other day I had this huge bowl of amazing ramen with Jill and a friend of hers, in a place somewhere in midtown. Which brings me to the other thing I have to do when in the city: the Nokia Flagship store on 57th ave.

I just happened to be around, but I would have gone eventually anyway. Lots and lots of Nokia toys to go play with! I tested a 5800 and an N810, and I really really really wanted to like them, but it pains me to say that I was not impressed with either. Bummer, because both were in the “I may actually buy this” price range. But what pains me even more is that I ended up going to the 5th ave Apple store around the corner and played with an iPod Touch… and I actually liked the thing, very much. I don’t want to like it! There are many things wrong with it! But one thing is true, and it’s that no one can get even close to Apple when it comes to UI and ease of use.

But enough with the geek toys, there’ll be plenty more about it later. I’m trying to upload at least a photo every day to my Flickr account, so that will probably get updated much more often than this blog. I’ll try to keep this place from growing cobwebs and dust bunnies but I also know that I’m more of a shutterbug than a… um… keyboardbug.

(By the way, if you’re wondering what’s with the “days on the road” thing at the beginning of the post, it’s that one of my goals for ‘09 was to travel as much as possible. Let’s see if I can make it happen!)

1. Claro Argentina (my mobile phone operator)

I tried to send a text message to a friend on tuesday, only to get an error message. This happened several times. I had checked my account balance a few days before so I was positive I had credit. I had more than enough credit. Yet, when I checked my account again it said “credit expired”. Outrage! I plugged my phone to the charger, put the hands-free heasdet on and dialed customer service. About 25 minutes later I managed to get someone to talk to me.

“– I’m sorry, sir, your credit expired a week ago”
“– Um… what? It’s not been 90 days since I added credit. It’s not even been 60 days.”
“– Our policy changed last May. Credit now lasts 45 days for a refill card of that value.”
“– wtf… Ok, fine. I’m not happy with this but I guess it’s my fault for not checking the expiration date.”

(I still can’t bring myself to yell at a CSR, even though I’m always pissed off when I call)

So I got a new card and redeemed it. I noticed two things. Unlike previous experiences, my older credit was completely lost. And my new card expires in 30 days (since it’s a $30 card instead of the $50 I got last time). This pissed me off even more than losing my credit. This company is trying to scrap as much money from me as they possibly can! No, I’m not surprised by it. But I’m still pissed. And I even more pissed about the fact that I have no choice. Their competitors are excactly the same.

I don’t mind paying more for a good product or good service. That’s why I buy my phones unlocked and I have a pre-paid line. It costs more but I can spare myself from a lot of the bullshit involving having a cell phone. Anyone wants to join me into starting a no-bullshit mobile operator? “We’ll charge you more, but you won’t feel like we are raping you from behind”. Sigh, one can dream…

2. Apple

I’m in the market for a new laptop. I’m a Mac user, which means I don’t have much to choose from. And that’s ok, because even though Apple thinks that consumers only want small screens and professionals only want big screens, I still get the choice of a good pro-spec machine. It costs more, but I was considering going for a Macbook Pro with it’s larger, matte screen.

Well, till last tuesday.

There are new Macbooks. And I most likely won’t be buying one. Not because they’re a bit ugly in my opinion (that’s not gonna affect my decision, positively or negatively), but because Apple removed the matte screen option from its professional line. This in itself doesn’t affect me much; I don’t need *that* much color acuracy for my work (my desktop monitor is VGA, for pete’s sake). What affects me is that Apple seems to be abandoning the professional market and focusing on the consumer market.

WTF? They show a computer editing video with a huge reflection on the screen? Wouldn’t that make color and contrast correcting a pain in the ass? Apple used to believe that:

MacBook Pro offers an antiglare widescreen display that’s perfect for color-minded professionals. For a more immersive viewing experience, you can configure the MacBook Pro display with a glossy finish. This gives everything you see a richer, more saturated feel.
— archived version of the Macbook Pro page on Apple.com

while the copy on the new page seems aimed to the consumer market:

The moment you open your MacBook Pro you’re greeted by glorious, full screen brightness. But that’s only one gleaming quality of the glossy LED-backlit widescreen display. The picture is brilliant and sharp from corner to corner. And anything you view — including the ultrathin display itself — is a spectacular experience.

“No matte = no buy. I’m looking at Windows laptops now. I can’t trust my business to a company that clearly abandoned the professional market for the consumer market.”. That’s the feedback I gave to the company that makes a tool I like about why they may lose me as a customer. I don’t like Windows as much as OS X, but I’m starting to look at Dell Precisions and Lenovo Thinkpads.

15 minutes and almost 50 pesos after entering the store I was out the door carrying 150 grams of tea*. And that’s because all I had on me was those 50 pesos. But my god, the Chocolate Chai blend has an aroma you would not believe. Mmmm.

*As a reference, that much money will buy you over 500 teabags of a regular brand here. A teabag has about 2 grams of tea.

1. I’m extremely easy going. I don’t snap often, even if things don’t go my way. And even when I do snap I’m not the kind to bitch and moan about it a lot. People whose only reaction to a problem is complaining annoy me to no end.
2. Driving is one of my favorite things in the world. Yet I’ve never owned a car. And if I had to buy a vehicle right now I’d probably buy a small scooter or a moped.
3. I used to love writing when I was a kid. I’d take the family’s old typewriter and create silly short stories (my mom may have a few saved, but no, you can’t see them!). I don’t remember when I stopped but I’m regretting it.
4. Much like writing, I love music but I cannot generate it in any way. I’ve long ago given up on the idea of playing more than a couple of chords on an instrument, and I most definitely don’t have a voice for singing.
5. I went to a bilingual elementary school: regular spanish classes in the morning and english in the afternoons. And twice a week we had an hour of french, but I hated it and never learnt much. However, I must have hated it less than my classmates because I got a prize for finishing among the top of the class. Now I signed up for a basic french course which may come in handy since I seem to end up in Québec at least once a year.
6. I used to drink insane amounts of Coca-Cola. I’ve gone down to normal levels now, maybe once a week when I get together with friends. My new drink is tea. I have enough tea to last me for a few months, yet I keep buying more.

Now the rules say I have to tag 6 people. Let’s see… Rob, Lola and Jill, you guys haven’t blogged in a while, so get to it! EvilScienceChick, cuz I’m sure she has a lot of evil science random things to share. Laurent, because he’ll do it in french :). And Ahmed, because for a guy who’s online so much, there aren’t many random facts about him out there!

These are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog(or sending an e-mail).
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Go take a look! SnowyDayDesign.com

Taking a train from NYC to Montréal. It’s a 9-10 hour ride, so you have to be creative to keep yourself entertained. The video isn’t much in itself, other for than the fact that it was shot, edited and scored on my Nokia N82 cell phone. Ahh, the possibilities are endless…

The song is Blah Blah Blah by Say Hi To Your Mom.

Formats available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4) Flash Video (.flv)

Yesterday I found a bunch of mix CDs I made before I even owned an mp3 player of any sorts. I played this particular one on a drive to downtown, it’s called #7 (yes, I numbered them - #1 I think was a mix tape) but it might as well be called “The early days of podcasting”. Tracklist:

1. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Upon This Tidal Wave
2. Jonathan Coulton - Ikea
3. The Honorary Title - Bridge & Tunnel
4. Freddy - Apart
5. The Porcelain Gods - One And a Half Years Ago
6. Superbeing - Conversation Piece
7. Hydrofoil - Stamina
8. Plain White T’s - Take Me Away
9. The Bloody Irish Boys - Drunk Tonight
10. Greg Dulli - Cigarretes
11. Statistics - Another Day
12. Betablokka - Scared - The Difference Between
13. Becoming Wheels - Pipedreams
14. 13 & God - Men of Station
15. The Domino Parade - My Sleeve
16. Christa Couture - Day 04

Click To Play

A BBQ with friends, in a minute.

The song is Struttin’, by Tryad, under a Creative Commons license