Is it just me, or did anyone else notice how ridiculously commercial the Easter holiday is becoming? It seemed like there was this huge emphasis in all the advertising flyers for parents to buy their kids ’stuff’ for easter, as though it were another Santa Day. When I was a kid, there were egg hunts, and chocolate, and maybe some minor trinket, which was already un-easter-y enough, but now… well, suffice to say it was a disgusting display this year.
This isn’t just about Easter, since I don’t really give a crap (about that: I didn’t care back then, since I was ‘only’ a kid, and I don’t care now, since I’m not christian). It just sickens me to see all this commercialism trying to invade all facets of everyone’s life. Where does it stop? Sponsored banners on peoples’ coffins / tombstones? Enough is e-bloody-nough already.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 2:26 PM EST
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Awesome; the Dear Friends tour has decided to pay a visit nearby in Detroit, MI. I’m going. That’s all there is to it. If any friends of mine would like to come along, you’re more than welcome, just let me know.
For those not in the know, the Dear Friends tour is a symphonic concert performance of the semi-well known music of the Final Fantasy series of video games, scored by Nobuo Uematsu. Laugh if you will, but he was midpack (IIRC) in the list of ‘Innovators’ in the ‘Time 100: The Next Wave of Music’ in Time magazine.
Posted by Ron as Games, Music at 12:21 PM EST
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Got the VoIP adaptor working properly now. It seems that they’re very ping-sensitive; when I first had it hooked up, it was plugged into my main router whose appropriate ports were all nicely forwarded to the static IP that I gave the VoIP adaptor. It worked, but it was really spotty. I dorked with it a bit, but never got it working quite right that way. Now, I have it set as the first router after the cable modem, with my other router plugged in using a DMZ IP address. Works like a charm. Dials and connects every time, crystal clear voice reception, no bills coming from the Authorised Monopoly of BellŪ.
Posted by Ron as Computers at 11:36 AM EST
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I decided to bring my VoIP box with me to the Sault to try out at my parents house to see if it worked any better than at my house in Windsor. Also, that way, while I’m here my parents can call my sister in London all they like and likewise, since I have a London number attached to it, she can call us for free.
It works perfectly here. No glitches at all since I plugged it in Saturday morning, and I’ve been making all my phone calls while here on that phone. It dials and connects every singe time. Now, if I can get it working that way back in Windsor, then I’ll be a very happy camper. I suspect that the biggest problem I have there is the fact that my physical cable line sucks; the house is old and the cable has likely been spliced a few times, in addition to it also being just plain old. So I’ll try a few things and see, then I’ll try tech support; if I can’t get it working properly, I guess I’ll be stuck with bell for a while longer.
Posted by Ron as Computers at 12:33 AM EST
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Fuck, this is turning quickly into the trip from hell. Back home in the Sault for a visit, and just, ugh.
First there was the fun getting here; I wiped out my car spectacularly (even better than that time on Pine street, Luke). I smoked a snowbank on I-75 while I was cruising along at about 100km / h or so. We were all fine, the car is fine; didn’t even need a tow. But still, it was sickeningly close to NOT being fine; missed a rather large signpost by centimetres.
The real fun was tonight. I received a fucking parking ticket for– get this: for parking in Meghan’s mom’s damned driveway. Yep, pulled into the end of the driveway, parallel with the street, inside the width of the snowbank as I always had, but this time, I got nailed.
Could be because I’m from out of town. Takes like 2 seconds to run the plates, and BAM! “Out-of-towner, eh? They won’t be back to fight this…” Easy money. And it’s not the money that pisses me off, no, I don’t give a damn about the stinking 15$; it’s the principle of the matter. How can they just dance around handing this shit out like some kind of ticket faerie? Where are the checks and balances? It’s just the officer saying, “yeah, this is how it was.”
There’s no intermediate arbitration; you either pay up or you go to court. I’m glad I get to have experiences like this to remind me why I hate authority so much. Goddamned authoritarian thugs. Even if I fight it, I’ll probably lose because it will be my word against theirs, and I didn’t go to piggy school after all, so what could I possibly know?
So, rather than fight it, which would just be a total waste of time, maybe I’ll just pay the cocksucking whores and include a scathing letter with diagrams. I wonder how I should start my scathing letter? Dear Authoritarians? Useless Beaurocrats? Corrupt Constabulary? All of the above? But there would be little point in that as well; I’m sure the poor secretary that opens it is only going to think it’s funny anyway, and it will become the object of office humour for 5 or 10 minutes, then unceremoniously discarded, so why even waste my time?
I hope society crumbles into dust while I’m still alive, or maybe just this rotten, stinking town.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 5:02 AM EST
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I’ve been interested in Voice over IP technology for some time now, though I never really bothered looking into it much because, when I heard about it, I still lived in Sault Ste. Marie and had no illusions about it taking its sweet time being implemented there, that being the day after never, or so.
Fast forward a couple years, now I live in a more technologically advanced area, infrastructure-wise, and I have my own phone bills to pay as well. Needless to say, I got sick of paying to support the monopoly of Ma Bell in Canada pretty quickly, and the other long distance providers pretty much offered more of the same; you get preferred rates after x o’clock, or xxx number of minutes, blah blah blah. I wanted something different.
So, after spotting a promotion in the Staples flyer, I decided to give Vonage a try. They have a money-back guarantee, after all.
I have to say that it works pretty much as I expected, which is to say, not at all as advertised. So far, it works, but sometimes I don’t hear anything when I pick up incoming calls, other times I have to dial several times before an outgoing call connects properly. Annoying, and again, not unexpected; the internet and computers in general are glitchy. When it connects, call quality is good, but it’s the ‘when it connects’ part that I have a problem with.
The domestic rate plans available are nice though; something that the conventional competition sorely needs to play catch-up on. Long distance charges within the same region, province / state, or country is merely gouging as far as I’m concerned, so this is a welcome change. Though I admit, the international rates are merely acceptable.
There were a few other niggles. For example, there were no local Windsor numbers available, so I had to get a London one. I could have got a number anywhere they had open, but London was the best choice for now, as there are no 705 numbers available yet.
It’s a very promising technology, and I’m going to keep using it for a little while longer, maybe try a few more “tweaks” to see if I can get things to improve. Geeks like me may be willing to do this, but it needs a little more work before it is actually ready to replace the conventional copper telephone network for the majority of potential customers.
Posted by Ron as Computers at 11:49 AM EST
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Amidst the chaos surrounding the recent RCMP tragedy, Ralph Klein, a man I’d sooner laugh at as he gets pies smashed in his face, actually used the opportunity to bring up a good point.
I remember back when the gun registry was first being pushed through, and the controversy surrounding it. I was still in high school in rural Northern Ontario, where support for gun control is lacking at best. When I go up north to visit, I still see the rotting remains of bumper stickers on old pickup trucks that defiantly read, “Remember Bill C-68 when you vote.”
I don’t remember what my position on it was back then, but the more I think about it, the more I have to agree: When guns are outlawed, only the outlaws have guns. Situations like this simply underscore that fact. This could have happened anywhere. Even Kynoch.
Posted by Ron as Politics at 10:56 AM EST
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Not much has been happening this week. Layoffville seems to be my new place of residence, and usually I have a lot to blog about during such times, or maybe it just seems that way when I’m actually working. Anyway, I found an item in CBC’s business section that points to the cause. Kind of craptacular that despite the boost in Canadian sales figures, my job is more tied to american numbers. In any case, I’m not terribly upset about it. A further note about CBC: their search and archiving of articles is terrible; I had to use my url-bar history to find the article because CBC had already removed it from the main page, which made finding it again via site navigation nigh impossible.
Also, Luke has announced the public release of a Delicious-like live bookmarking tool, cleverly called ‘insipid‘. I’ve been using it for a little bit now, and dig it completely. You can check out my bookmarks here. I think I’ll add a link to it in the main page as well, just for fun.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 3:24 PM EST
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