In a wonderful bit of last second damage control Rogers Wireless announced today that it’s offering a 6gig data plan for $30/month plan with your new iPhone.

On first blush this all seems well and good – the petitions worked, Rogers caved, and now dancing and fornication can begin on top of a mountain of new Apple products. Except we’re still getting screwed, now it’s just going to be twice as hard to get people to believe you.

The main problem is this magical new pricing is available for a limited time only, until August 31st to be specific. After which point one assumes that the previously announced rate for 6gigs of data goes back into effect – namely $115 for your 2gigs of data and voice.

This is unfortunately not the only point of contention with this newest “deal” from Rogers, in fact it serves to highlight all the things that are still wrong with this company – and the telecommunications industry in Canada in general.

A look at why you should still be vehemently boycotting Rogers and their iPhone after the break

First off, I have to say that sadly the public outcry was probably not enough of a motivating factor in getting Rogers to move even this far. It’s more likely that there’s some truth to rumors surrounding Apple’s decision to divert shipments of iPhones from Canada to Europe in light of the huge customer backlash against Rogers. Whether accurate or not, Cupertino being labelled as “disgusted” with Rogers’ offerings doesn’t send a positive message to potential consumers in Canada or to Rogers itself.
Such a move simply demands some kind of response to avoid completely losing face – which is exactly what Rogers has chosen to do: offer the bare minimum for the least amount of time possible and hope everything blows over.

Except we shouldn’t be so blind as to let them wait this one out.

Beyond the limited time offering of the $30 data plan, there’s the issue of the regular voice plans (to which this data rate must be coupled) still being completely unacceptable.

Plans such as those found here mean that the cheapest possible voice plan to add to your data is $25/month for 250 minutes. Assuming of course that Rogers deems these Value Plans to be eligible for bundling with iPhone data. Which they most likely will not.

Of course, this is the 21st century, and you still need text messages, call display and call waiting so for a bundle, tack on another $11 (so long as you can live with only 125 sent texts a month) or realistically $20 dollars for 2,500 texts (which while excessive for most, is the only other option since there’s no middle ground).

For those not keeping score at home, including your $6.95 surcharge from Rogers and your $.95 911 service fee, you’re now paying $82.90 per month for the privilege of having 6gigs of data at that introductory rate.

Just to put that in perspective, on an iPhone plan with Rogers at $75 per month you’d be getting 300 any time minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends but only 125 texts and a paltry 750 megs of data.
Rogers has us paying more to get less, to get more… But only until August 31st!

For a truly eye opening, if disgusting, look at just how out of step Rogers plans are in general head over to this post where I break down exactly how much more one can get from AT&T for less in direct comparison of iPhone rates.

This is nothing more than damage control of the poorest variety at work. Rogers is attempting to quell public outcry by offering what, under normal circumstances (such as the presence of globally competitive voice packages and bundles not aimed at bilking customers) would be a competitive data package.
They hope quite simply to sucker in early adopters, thereby selling out their now-limited stock quickly and putting them in a postition to spin the Canadian launch of the iPhone as a success. On the back of such a run, they can justify re-raising the data prices at the end of August citing whatever network usage or customer satisfaction propaganda they choose. Meanwhile, they change nothing about how they do business and continue to take unfair advantage of customers nationwide.

Beyond the iPhone specifics of course, gross abuses of Rogers position remain with all of its products:

• 3-year contracts on ANY device on a modern Western telecomm carrier is unheard of outside of this country. 2 year contracts are the international norm and its about time we caught up with them.
• “Evenings and Weekends” still start at 9 p.m. It’ll cost you an additional $7/month to get that down to 7pm or $9/month to have your talk time start at 6. Only in Rogers insane little world can a time which defies the very definition of “evening” be used to mark when you can use your E&W minutes.
• The $6.95 system access fee is still a hidden cost tacked onto every plan. It’s not mandated by the government and, as sure as I’m breathing, it isn’t being used in its entirety to ensure ongoing maintenance and upgrades to the wireless network as Rogers would have you believe. It’s merely a way to charge more for the same services and it has to stop.

In summary; this is not a deal, this is not a cave-in and this is not the time to purchase your iPhone.
Continue to boycott Rogers iPhone and its associated plans and services and Rogers in general until they move to put themselves closer in line with the rest of the Western world. Don’t be fooled by the free this Friday breakfast… you’ll be paying for those eggs for the next three years.

An old friend of mine from elementary and high school is blogging his way through a trip in South Asia.

Part rediscovery of roots and the first year of his life and part completely new adventure, Ryan’s keeping the usual summer vacation log from places no one thinks of as “usual” vacation spots.

Give it a read at ryaninnepal.blogspot.com or check the link on the right

Announced is in quotes because, lets face it, this was as inevitable as fat kids eating pudding.

IGN’s reporting that the official word has come down from Harmonix regarding Rock Band 2’s release this fall – September on the 360 and ”later in the year” on PS3. Wii? who knows.

The article’s a little sparse on interesting detail beyond the usual “its bigger, its badder” rhetoric but the salient points include:

• Full compatibility with your RB 1 DLC
• All DLC works with any version of Rock Band
• “Improved” instruments
• The necessary UI tweaks

Some brief musings on Guitar Hero: World Tour vs. Rock Band 2 after the break 

With lessons learned from the previous Fisher Price Wars; Guitar Hero peripherals not working with Rock Band and Rock Band guitars being notoriously sub-standard at launch, one wonders if buying a Rock Band bundle is going to be the best choice this fall.

If Activision continues to reject instrument compatibility in this second round with World Tour and Harmonix still tries to play nice, then isn’t the best choice for a consumer to buy the Guitar Hero kit and simply pick up a copy of Rock Band 2? Instruments are guaranteed to work and you’re never cut off from DLC.

Of course, this kinda screws Harmonix in the end – there has to be a nice markup on those plastic instruments – and so one wonders just how much longer they’ll keep holding out the olive branch.

For now though, unless Harmonix does something really wild with their Keytar2.0’s it looks like Activision is getting the bulk of my cash this fall.
Not that I like it, it’s just the only way to play.

Don’t you wish you were invited to Paris?
For my part, I have two friends in the city of lights at this moment who have no clue that Blizzard just stroked the game boners of millions of geeks to completion.

Behold, Diablo 3 – The beginning of the end for so many of us after finally breaking free of WoW

Trailer below and gameplay footage embedded after the break.

Oh lord… I remember an ENTIRE summer between 8th and 9th grade where all my friends and I did was play Diablo II. I mean 9am – 11pm. Without fail.
…well, some fail obviously, but we were unaware at the time

Apologies as always for the youtube quality with wordpress… your high def fix can be satisfied at GameVideos.

Trailer: http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/19700

Gameplay: http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/19701

Rogers took this morning to announce their pricing scheme for the imminent 3G iPhone launch in Canada.
Lets get it out of the way quickly – we’re getting screwed. yet again.

Plans for your mainditory 3-year contract will start at $60/month (Rogers or Fido, theres no deal to be found going Fido this time) netting you a whopping 150 minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends (starting at 9 p.m.) and… wait for it… 400 megs of data and 75 sent text messages.

Things scale all the way up to $115/month with 800 minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends and 2 GB of data with 300 sent texts.

Dont forget thats all before your manditory 7-dollar network surcharge (for which a class action lawsuit is currently underway). Gotta pay to improve the network right? But then, whats your bill paying for?

Something seem wrong there? Hell, a lot seem wrong there? Lets take a look after the break.

Edit: Rogers now has a direct link to their pricing
Edit: Thanks to Andy Peating for his handy direct comparison chart 

To begin with, we all need to take a long look in the mirror and address why we dared hope for even a second that Rogers wouldn’t be looking to grab as much cash as possible for the barest minimum of service.
Rumors have been floating around about a flat-fee unlimited data plan from Rogers/Fido for a little while now and many chose to believe them, despite the clear track record of consumer abuse by Rogers inc. I was one of these believers and for my part, I can say that I felt confident Apple would be able to enforce some greater control over Rogers in offering the iPhone if for no other reason than to avoid tarnishing the Apple name along with Rogers.

As I mentioned before though, we as consumers and fans fell into the trap of heedless optimism – this time would be better, this time Canadians would have a data/voice package comparable to and competitive with the rest of the Western world. This time however, is once again like every other time.

That Rogers has chosen to gouge its customers in this fashion, especially in the face of a barrage of American advertising prominently displaying unlimited data and excellent voice rates from ATT&T, is not only despicable in its callousness but insulting in its assumption that Canadian consumers will simply pay what Rogers asks becuase ‘thats just how things are up here’.

To make my point clearly and succintly I will turn away from rhetoric for a moment and simply present the data surrounding this travesty. One hopes that upon seeing the figures for yourself you will be spurred into action – and to that end I have provided some links at the end of this article.

Copied from the press release, Rogers iPhone plans look as follows:

<< 
    iPhone 3G Price Plans at Rogers Wireless
    ----------------------------------------
 
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                              Sent      Incoming
                                              Text      Text       Visual
    Price   Voice                    Data     Messages  messages   Voicemail
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    $60 /   150 minutes + unlimited  400 MB   75        Unlimited  Unlimited
    month   Evening and Weekend
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    $75 /   300 minutes + unlimited  750 MB   100       Unlimited  Unlimited
    month   Evening and Weekend
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    $100 /  600 minutes + unlimited  1 GB     200       Unlimited  Unlimited
    month   Evening and Weekend
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    $115 /  800 minutes + unlimited  2 GB     300       Unlimited  Unlimited
    month   Evening and Weekend
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

This of course includes no Call Display, Caller ID etc.
Two value packs are offered with the iPhone. One for $15/month offering the afforementioned Call Display and Caller ID along with WhoCalled (a service that sends you a text message with the number of any call you missed – nigh on useless if you have Call ID and your phone is on, but i digress) as well as Caller Ring Trax, 2,500 call forwarding minutes and 2500 text messages. A $20/month plan features all of the above with 10,000 text messages and evening time starting at 6:00pm.

Now, lets take a look at the plans offered by AT&T:  

All of these plans include

• Three-Way Calling
• Call Forwarding
• Unlimited Mobile to Mobile Calling
• Caller ID
• Call Waiting
• Basic Voice Mail

Unlimited data comes in on your iPhone at $30 more.

Over in England on the 02 network, things get even rosier:

So what does that mean for you as a Canadian consumer?

It means that on the cheapest package, for $9.99 more per month (from the Rogers offering at $60.00) AT&T is giving you 300 more daytime minutes, only 5000 evening/weekend minutes (down from unlimited), no texts (down from 75) and unlimited data (up from the anemic 400 megs). As well as the call forwarding, caller id, call waiting etc. that you would have to purchase a Rogers bundle to recieve.

To put it another way, to recieve a compareable package from Rogers would cost you $90 per month and still not have unlimited data

Meanwhile, 02 makes Rogers look positively criminal with the cheapest comparable plan (by voice minutes) at 35GBP working out to $70 Canadian. For your 10 dollar premium across the pond you recieve: four times the any time minutes, more than six times the text messages, unlimited data and a 1.5 year contract instead of 3.

I’m sure the Rogers PR machine will be in full swing to combat any complaints of price gouging or lackluster service. In fact, I’d almost guarantee someone is going to come out with a press release that says, ‘After careful consideration of the Canadian market, we have found that consumers simply arent interested in unlimited data packages at this point. They would prefer flexible lower sized plans to meet their requirements. Of course, Rogers is always attutned to market conditions and will adjust if necessary.’
After which we should all collectively vomit and chuck our waste directly at their head office.

The iPhone is first and foremost a multimedia device – it’s designed for people who want to be online consistently grabbing media of various kinds. That large screen isn’t just for checking email (your Blackberry is getting lonely – go do that now) its for checking out full featured web pages (news.bbc.co.uk not its mobile browsing equivalent) for watching video streaming to your phone and for moving media (files or pictures)
So, as a final counter to the inevitable spin, let me present one more chart from this mornings press release (its also my personal favorite chart from Rogers in general)

Data Usage - What You Get
    -------------------------
 
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Monthly
    Data Usage   Online Applications
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    400 MB       up to 200,000 text emails or 3,100 web pages or 1,360 photo
                 attachments
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    750 MB       up to 380,000 text emails or 5,900 web pages or 2,560 photo
                 attachments
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    1 GB         up to 524,000 text emails or 8,000 web pages or 3,500 photo
                 attachments
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2 GB         up to 1,048,000 text emails or 16,000 web pages or 7,000
                 photo attachments

    ————————————————————————-

Now that you’ve read the chart, the conditioned response Rogers would like you to have is as follows:
“Sweet jesus! 400 megs is 200,000 text emails? 3,100 web pages? 1,360 photo attachments? Who could possibly do all that in a month – surely even that amount is excessive.”

Let me however adjust your response for future exposure. Somewhere more to the “blinding rage” side of the dial.

At half a megabyte per photo attachment (assuming you shoot from your iPhone and we average out the high and low of JPEG image compression) thats 800 photos not 1,360. This does not include of course the data usage for the email youd have to send along with the photo (however laughably small it may be – but hell Rogers wants to include it so why not) or, more importantly the data used to open up your facebook or flickr page to even start uploading.

Now, With the average web page (that is individual page not the entire site) coming in at 312k, and the average number of objects to be loaded totalling 250K, thats 0.5MB per page view. Do you think you could visit more than 800 average pages in a month? I do. And lets not forget that these figures skew higher should you go to a media heavy site like tmz.com or go scrolling through your latest facebook photo album.

As an aside, you could have loaded up my blog 1000 times this month (just sayin’)

Or how about streaming down a video or some Java app? Now we’re getting into multiple-megabyte situations and youre only looking at one piece of content on one page once.

Should you need more data under the Rogers pricing scheme, you simply move up to the next tier and get more. Of course, should you find yourself at the top tier paying $115 per month and still running out of data… well.. Rogers is happy to have you keep on surfing. Just dont be late paying your bloated bill after the overage charges.
Market conditions, network size, current infrastructure capacity; these are all areas in which Rogers could site reasons (questionable or otherwise) for higher than American prices. However, no reason or excuse can possibly justify the plans they have laid out, not just for the iPhone but all wireless products, in the face of far better pricing and features from almost every other carrier in the western world.

I hope that by laying out all this information in one location, hopefully with some semblance of clarity and intelligence, you my fellow consumers can see just how out of pace Rogers pricing is (and frankly always has been). As one of only 3 major carriers in this country – and the only GSM provider – Rogers continues to act in bad faith with its customers, abusing its virtual monopoly position.

There is absolutely no reason for Rogers to charge the prices it does for the service it provides, to structure its “bundles” in blatantly cost-maximizing fashion and to offer pricing to businesses that far outstrips what it offers consumers.

I encourage you to contact Rogers, the CRTC, your local MP, the Minister of Industry and to simply spread the word to others that this is not how it should be and certainly not how it has to be. Finally, resist the urge to buy the iPhone (and Rogers Wireless products in general) as best as you can – unless the government steps in or big media decides to run with a story for a long time, the only way to affect change with a company is to speak consistently with your money.

That having been said, Fido may be owned by Rogers but their regular plans are comparably reasonable and CDMA is crap – so I’ll embrace the hypocracy there (I already do in fact).

Contacts:

For Rogers Inc. I would encourage you go down to their wireless stores/booths in person to complain. Don’t take it out on the sales guys, but state your case and ask them to pass it along, start with a manager preferably. Real faces are much more effective than a ton of anonymous emails.
You can always call 1-888-ROGERS1 and ask for customer service or email through the Rogers site

The CRTC is not responsible for regulating cell rates in Canada or dealing with wireless business practices. I suggest you contact the CRTC to encourage them to take a more active role in regulating the mobile phone industry in general. Head to http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/contactus.htm

Contact Jim Prentice, the Canadian Minister of Industry at Minister.Industry@ic.gc.ca. Direct complaints regarding the anti-competitive practices of Rogers Inc. and all its subsidiaries and their abuse of near monopoly to the minister. Again, this is not an iPhone related complaint, but one addressing the severe failings of a Canadian corporation.

Speak to your local Member of Parliament, with the Parliament in summer recess your MP’s will be back home in their rididngs and its the perfect time to talk to them face-to-face. A list of Federal MP’s can be found at webinfo.parl.gc.ca

The good people at Web Site Optimization provided much of my data

Preying on the fact that consumers don’t know they’re getting screwed isn’t licence to back up the lube truck.

Regardless of how you might feel about Jordan as a state, about monarchical governments in general or about the potential hypocrisy in the ultra-elite championing a dialogue of equality, one thing is true here:

Queen Raina is using YouTube, and the general internet, for a purpose too rarely seen these days – as a vehicle to attempt to affect change and foster a sharing of ideas.

I say general internet because beyond the closed circles of academia and open source projects, the internet of today is a lawless mess of rolls and girls with cups.

If this plays out as I hope it will, the Queen’s program will be succesful in at least being a test case for future users to attempt something similar, royalty or no. 

One that I’m going to have trouble grasping for the next week or so.

Procrastinations a bitch…

I say this every year, but if only I could just start earlier I’d be fine… Except I’m lazy, and probably have a little ADD. Plus I keep pulling this shit out of my ass so I don’t learn my lesson.

As soon as I can get this term work done I can get back to the important stuff

Talking about the Louis XIV and Foo Fighters concerts of the past few weeks and finally getting down to business with writing out my thoughts on Pownce and Socialthing.

Oh, and theres this book I’ve been meaning to read for a while now… I’m kind of embarrased to even admit to having bought a copy, but having been promised the potential of life changing revelations I’m gonna give it a shot.

Until then…

The good people at SEGA ON (“Who?” You might ask; well Das SEGA Magazin apparently) are reporting they have leaked in-game scans, concept art and.. hold on to your rings now… video of the next title in the Sonic franchise.

If this is in fact leaked footage and not an Easter weekend hoax job let us all begin by being cautiously optimistic – lest we forget the mountain of borderline shovelware thats plagued us since Sonic Adventure – then proceed to throw that out the window and get a raging 16-bit hard on.

Some of those camera angles do look nigh unusable though. And if the camera fails, this whole game does too.

Waking up drunk the next day is an experience I don’t relish, but it is a decent bellwether of win levels experienced the night before so I guess one shouldn’t complain too loudly.
It’s also infinitely preferable to the next step down the ladder – the blackout.

Luckily (or not so much depending on who you ask) there were no strangers in my bed this morning to constitute a true ‘morning after’ story. Also, I didn’t soil my sheets with any excess of green beer and chicken balls, nor did I wake up not knowing where I was.

All in all a pretty tame night one would say.
There are however a few points I’d like to highlight that bump the night up from ordinary so grab some coffee (as I plan on doing) and check it after the break:

So moving right into this mixture of cock swinging and info dump…

• I pulled an all nighter sunday and so hit the bar on afternoon-nap-catch-up-sleep

• My cab driver on the way there was a crotchety middle aged white guy rocking a Tilly hat and what can only be described as the kind of parka you find on bear hunters. He proceeded to ream out his dispatch for being a “fucking idiot” most of the way there and announced to me as I was getting out “fuck this gas, I’m quitting… In fact, I’ve already quit. I’m going back to flying.”

• 3 of us consumed enough beer to constitute a 200 dollar bar tab in a few hours.

• After being queried about just how much we’d had our nice waitress delivered, unsolicited, the following; that we in fact ‘didn’t look drunk at all’ despite the amount of shit we were pouring into ourselves.
  I cant help but be immensely proud of that.

• My friend Elliott got back up and was at work for 6 am. I wont call him out any further than to add that he operates machinery. We are all still drunk this afternoon.

Oh, and as a completely random aside, our girl moved from out west to Toronto in order to study design. Thats the plan anyway. Having said that, why is she working at a pub in suburbia? This puzzles me immensely.

There’s likely a logical explanation, but the possibility of her having cheap student housing downtown and then having to trek up here for work is still so depressingly plausible in this city that I want to know for sure.

Posting anything else would just be me putting up content while buzzed out of my head at quarter to four in the morning.

Not a good idea.

See you in the morning – hopefully.

The BBC’s reporting that the Video Appeals Committee has upheld their decision to let Manhunt 2 hit UK shelves – well, the edited version at least.

After taking their politically motivated censorship fight all the way to Britain’s High Court, ostensibly because no one else would think of the children, it looks like the BBFC’s finally had their dicks proper slapped.

Oh, and they aren’t happy about it, and I love it. From the article, David Cooke the director of the British Film Classification Board responds saying

“However, the Video Appeals Committee has again exercised its independent scrutiny. It is now clear, in the light of this decision, and our legal advice, that we have no alternative but to issue an 18 certificate to the game.”

Q-Fucking-Q. Next time maybe don’t waste British taxpayers money. Especially on a pretty tame property like Manhunt… that sold mostly on hype from this type of crap… that isn’t even that good!

Fresh off the wire, Trendhunter and hell, just about everyone else are talking about robot tech coming out of the EU’s Symbrion project.
Search and Rescue! Space Exploration! Medicine!
Results by 2013!
Well shit, looks like mom was right – that Roomba was just a waste of money

You ever notice that robot news is cyclical?

It seems we’ve started another swing towards swarm technology on both the macro and micro scale. This generally occurs after Robot Uprising talk and before the man’s-best-friend stuff.

Strangely no one considers the uprising when they talk about new cuddle bots. I still say it’ll be hybrid Elmofurbys that eventually enslave us all. But, I digress…

Read a little further though and you’ll notice that they don’t expect *anything* useful for at least 10 years. Do a little hunting around and you’ll further realize you’ve seen all this before. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a special on Discovery HD running along with that killer bee fight around the clock.

The point I’m not doing a good job coming to is that while advances are made by the fine people at the JPL and elsewhere (Carnegie Mellon for one – but they dont get a link for having a web page circa Geocities in ‘98) they take time and they happen in tiny steps.
Yet it seems every time someone gets ahold of a research paper, the internet goes apeshit about how the future is right around the corner.

Sadly, it isn’t, and even our brave researchers aren’t saying so. The problem is the aren’t not saying it either – they still desperately need their research grants and “soon the robots will escape a maze by working together” isn’t quite as sexy as “one day, the robots will battle on television in a faux Roman coliseum for our amusement. A lesson will be learned about the nature of slavery and Christianity will be included in the end for no reason” for getting investor’s panties moist.
[Bonus Points for knowing precisely where I'm stealing that theme from]

The majority of the population – people happy to ignore robots so long as they aren’t being exterminated by them – only catch the science news thats pushed to the top of the page, and when what they see is this; more of a status update then a breakthrough well they’re happy to skim right on by. And we all know the biggest danger to public scientific research is an apathetic population.

Being excited about advances in robotics and AI gets my approval. Robots are freakin’ sweet. But as lay-geeks, enthusiasts and scientists; those interested 365 days a year, we need to temper our reactions to this kind of news and the way we spread it.

In the end we’re only blue balling ourselves anyway. This is still where we’re at with the swarm and its been like that for a while.
Don’t expect robozerglings to be doing fire rescue any time soon. But don’t stop believing… Now I’m gonna go watch AI and cry a bit.

I’d make some witticism about torpedoes, but forcing a Das Boot related pun is probably a disservice to humor in general.

Twing

Ever been searching for some obscure drivers or maybe help getting your washing machine to work without the virgin sacrifices? Ever notice that its weird forums that give you the best advice?

Well then, forget about google, these kids have developed a forum-only search engine, so get out there and find out just how to get grape juice from your rabbit furry costume. you sick fuck.

Need a 5 second encapsulation of what it means to be a UofT student?

… After I Broke in and Changed All Your Answers to “Masturbation”?
Student: Yeah, she said ‘good luck’ to me. [Friend rolls eyes and shakes head.] I know. It’s the University of Toronto — she doesn’t mean ‘good luck.’ What she really means is ‘I hope you choke on a toothpick and die so I can get your spot in the program.’
Friend, sighing: It really is a shame this school has to be so competitive… How’d you do on that last test?

University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario
Canadia

Overheard by: A+
via Overheard Everywhere, Mar 6, 2008

Yeah… enjoy your stay.

Vampire Weekend
Lets call it new wave meets ska with a poppy (in the best way) punch. Bedouin Stroke-clash maybe? The Ramones at the beach?
All I know is it works for me

Now, going the completely opposite direction…

Villains
Electro remixers from L.A. Played SXSW this year too, so indie cred confirmed.They were part of a badass lineup at CiRCA pretty recently too… too bad no one goes there.

CHICO LOVE
More electro goodness. For some reason all the tracks, save one, on this myspace music player are all over the place.
Scroll down to “Television Loves The Nation” to get a feel for what this guy can really do and avoid the rest. Hard beat incoming.
Dimitry Fyodorov
They call it Death Metal Electro. It’s kinda true.

Public transit.

Only a few rules apply; it’s never going to be run on time, you’re always going to pay too much (or feel that you are), and never ever put anything down anywhere for more than 5 seconds without keeping your eyes on it.

Guess which one I ignored yesterday?

It seems some unscrupulous bag of human waste took advantage of my lapse in good judgement (yes, idiocy is probably a more appropriate synonym but get off my balls here, I’m still feeling the loss) and taxed my gloves and toque off the seat beside me when I put them down to do god knows what.

Those gloves were sweet and that hat I’ve had for years. Any toque wearer can appreciate how one gets attached to a cap that wont quit and looks good.

I miss them immensely already.

I mean its cold as satans balls this morning so I know it’s kind of hard not to miss having warm hands, but even if it was a balmy 0 out I’d still feel bad

www.romesnowboards.com/product/gloves/sanchez/

I was going to bag off tomorrow and go snowboarding (well “go” should be replaced with “fall down on my ass”) and I cant afford to replace ‘em at the drop of a hat… shitty times.

I opened a savings account with the good people at PC Financial – A direct banking subsidiary of RBC Financial! Because at the time they had the highest interest rate savings going and I needed to park my money while a few things happened. Not least among these was the creation of a new E*Trade account to replace my BMO Investorline one which at 26 or 28 bucks a trade was simply too much anal pounding to take in one go.

Anyway.. with the account set up I go to fund it from this PC holding tank. You know that disclaimer before every transaction where they tell you it can take up to two business days for anything to get done? The one you ignore because shit goes through instantly 99% of the time?

Yeah, PC Financial doesn’t fuck around. You better take your two days. Oh, and everything needs to be post dated by at least a day – EVERYTHING. So, its more like 3 days to do anything with your money.

I guess when RBC decided to back this operation they gave the PC kids whatever parallel gerbils-on-spinning-wheel powered servers they had in the back room.

Either that or you really do get what you pay for…. those bitches.

Basically.

Set dicks to hard mode.

I was always a zerg player back in the day… Kerrigans voice for this clip annoys the shit out of me. If its the same voice actor, ugh i dunno, maybe its a case of rose coloured glasses on my part but I remember her sounding a hell of a lot cooler than this.
Still… hydralisks baby, hydralisks!

Special thanks to wordpress for not allowing embedded objects from GameTrailers

At 12am when I dont want to work and need to avoid entering into the all night time-vortex that very specific msn usage will result in. Not that that’s a bad thing. Personally I love it. But, I’m fucking beat so its just not a good idea and as I have no impulse control, without something else to do its sure to happen…

So, a slightly photoshopped (and I do mean slightly) piss poor photo taken with my T-11.

I need an SLR… but thats a post for a whole other time.

I don’t know why I like this shot, its just flipped blurred and slightly recoloured to cover up the lack of actual focus in the original (…god damn T11 I despise you for this kind of shit).

All and all its quite below average objectively. Maybe its the focal point at the end of the tunnel and the natural lines in the scene drawing you in.

Maybe I’m retarded.

Scratch the maybe.

Or a scarcity, for those of you not inclined to development of your lexicon. Yes I did that one on purpose.

I’m talking more specifically about the insufficient quantity of intelligent persons on campus. This can however be broadened to a comment (or commentary perhaps) on the dearth of the aforementioned just about everywhere these days.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not talking about “intelligent” as a synonym for raw brain power – although thats obviously a necessary, and sadly it seems sorely lacking, component in avoiding moving through life like a lobotomized chimp. (Also, one wonders how you made it into a university having intellectually castrated yourself – yes, even among the illustrious ranks of us fork using York kids.)

I mean ‘intelligent’ as a package of brain power, common sense and emotional maturity that recognizes the need to act like a human being. Even then I’ll give a lot of leeway…

You don’t have to be highly intelligent IQ wise, just put the effort in… hell at this point put any effort in and I’ll meet you 75% of the way. But now that I’ve let you off the hook, please for the love of christ, don’t use all the extra time you now have to bitch to me about how hard shit is!
I know how hard shit is! You know how I know? Because I’m carrying your ass and listening to you bemoan the fact while I do it. Go back to your colouring book… if you stay inside the lines we’ll have a nice cover page to hand in!

You don’t have to have a lot of common sense or experience either. If you’re ignorant about whatever the situation is, fine, I can deal with that. All I ask is that once we’ve established you don’t know what’s going on, you take the opportunity to shut the hell up. Maybe even listen? Might be helpful balancing out point #1 above.
If you do want to contribute thats great… just don’t go telling me what I just told you 5 seconds ago. Surprisingly enough, I remember what I said. Oh and your inventor tone? You know the one where you say what I said but with an inflection better suited to declaring you’ve cured cancer and simultaneously found a way to travel through time with naught but nutella and a pinecone? Yeah. Not working.

You don’t even need much emotional maturity. All I’m asking is that you cover the basics of human civility. Whether you went to preschool finishing school or your crackhead mother played the soft spot on your baby-skull like a bongo drum we all went to real school somewhere.
And if there’s one thing we all got taught it was the basics of sharing, listening and waiting your turn. Shit, Sesame Street should have taken care of that even earlier… but as I included you crack babies I’ll let it slide. Should you be lacking these fundamentals I suggest suicide as a viable and socially beneficial solution to the problem of your existence.

So after a long day and a long rant lets summarize this down to the tl;dr version with a nice open call for group members/fellow classmates/school friends…

Male student, 22, seeks male, female or transgendered students to form a society and live accordingly. Must possess the following characteristics:

• not be goddamn retarded

Socially normative bathing and grooming habits appreciated, but at this point not required as applicant is desperate

Take it with a grain of salt now. I’m kidding.

…Well.. I’m not, really.
But if you’re freaking out you probably didn’t pass the test anyway.

Turns out groundhogs are lying bitches, Texans cause bad weather and living in Canada means one thing for sure – just when you think it’s done, the snow pulls you back in.  

no one can escape the power of a winter wonderland.  

I want to go snowboarding quite badly right now. Or at the very least go play in the snow.
Unfortunately I live in suburbia and my neighbors consist of young families and assholes. If only my friends lived in walking distance… I probably wouldn’t even be writing this. Hmmm.  

Oh well… I’m sure shoveling out my driveway will prove just as exciting.
Either that or I’ll have a goddamn stroke. 

I figure I talk to myself enough as it is.

At least this way I can practice writing while doing it.   

If I don’t have an outlet for my burgeoning deep seated insanity, chances are my premonition will come to pass and I’ll end my days making inappropriate comments to friends and strangers dressed in naught but a bathrobe and ninja turtle slippers. 

 And so this blog among billions of others is created