You’d think that by now, I’d learn not to trust anything that comes from Microsoft. After all, last time I accepted one of their WHQL driver updates for my computer it caused chaos. I did it again. This time, however, rather than a voluntary update, they tried to pass it off as being critical. Tell me, please, in what way is a sound driver a critical update? I can’t see it having any security holes.

So after removing the offending driver via the same system restore option I used last time, I updated my BIOS and tried again. Same thing. System Restored again, and now everything is back to being ‘okay’ …for now. Stupid Microsoft. Stupid Asus (the nVidia reference drivers don’t seem to work).

Posted by Ron as Computers at 1:40 PM EDT

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On Friday, I got called back to work for Monday, which, as I’ve bitched about before, is a mixed blessing to me. Anyway, Monday morning, I’m getting ready for work and they called to cancel the shift. I can see already that this recall won’t last… but for now at least, it looks like things are still on for today.

Posted by Ron as Work at 2:29 PM EDT

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Many moons ago now, I wrote a short piece about the joys of the NyQuil-induced coma, using a Denis Leary quote as the title.

That was over a year ago, and I am still getting the odd comment about it. I’ve been wondering why my site keeps turning up in searches for anything containing the trademark ‘NyQuil’ and just today I realised why. I spelled it wrong. In my previous blog entry, I spelled it, “NyQuill” and that extra ‘L’ makes all the difference. Compare, if you will, the results of two different Google searches for NyQuil. The misspelled, and the correct spelling.

One little letter can make a world of difference. The mind boggles.

Posted by Ron as Computers at 2:15 PM EDT

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Once again, the Great Canadian Telecom Monopoly™ that is Bell has fucked up royally. Some Background:

Two months ago, in an effort to save money and get more value from our essential services, we switched landlines from Bell to Vonage, a VoIP-based service, which is working out great so far. Also, we decided to drop our Bell Mobility monthly rate plan in favour of cheaper Rogers Wireless Pay-as-you-go. Bell wanted to charge 45$ just to switch our existing phones to their prepaid service, and our phones were getting a little old. I didn’t have any problems with mine, but the antenna on Meghan’s had broken off at some point, so we figured it would be a good time to get new ones.

Rogers had the best non-contract deal at the time, so we went with that and immediately cancelled our Bell Mobility phones. I was sitting right next to Meghan when she made the call to Bell’s call centre, telling them in no uncertain terms to cancel the service.

On Monday, we got another bill. Turns out that they’d failed to actually cancel the account and automatically re-enrolled us in a 2-year term. After about 20 minutes of dialogue with their customer service (if you can call it that) representative, we find out that a note was put in to cancel the account on Feb 13, but nobody actually did it. They were still going to try and hold us to the contract though, unti lwe told them to check the usage records which would show that we hadn’t actually used the phones during that time. After doing so and (presumably) conferring with a higher-up in the chain of command, we were informed that, yes, they made a mistake and we could just disregard the last bill. Great, but this still shouldn’t have been necessary.

At first, I suspected that it may have been some kind of pathetic, last-ditch customer retention tactic, making it such a pain to cancel that we would just decide to stay with Bell… but I see that it was really just another case of incompetence. Sure they have a huge number of “customers” to manage in their database, and call centre turnover is very high, making that a fairly chaotic scene, but that’s no way to keep customers.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 12:12 PM EDT

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I’ve just recently received a new book from the Sci-Fi / Fantasy book club called “Timelike Diplomacy” by author Charles Stross. The tome contains both “Singularity Sky” and “Iron Sunrise” and comes highly recommended by Luke. So if I don’t like them, I can blame him. In all seriousness, I don’t think that will be an issue, however, as the copy on the inside of the dust jacket makes it sound like a very good read.

This is a bit of a departure, as I don’t read an awful lot of science fiction. When I was a young lad, I read nothing but, however, at some point around age 10, I acquired a taste for fantasy. You can blame J.R.R Tolkien and Gary Gygax for that. I have read a few sci-fi novels since then, just not many; some Frank Herbert stuff (Dune, and Destination: Void), Carl Sagan (Contact), Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey) being most notable. That said, I’m attempting to restore some balance to my reading; too much fantasy will turn one’s brain to much, according to some, and I like my grey matter over-hard thanks.

I’ve not yet begun to delve the pages of this book though, so I will write more about it when I’m finished reading it.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 10:14 AM EDT

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This weekend, I went to see a production of operatic excerpts put on by the Music Theatre Workshop of the University of Windsor. I wouldn’t normally have gone to such an event, but my good friend Iain was the lead tenor, and told me I would regret not going, so at his behest I attended.

I did not regret it indeed. Simply put, the production was astonishing, considering it was put on by students and only the result of 13 weeks work on a shoestring budget.

It covered quite a spectrum of works, including a scenes from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and “Cosi fan tutté,” Gluck’s “Orfeo and Euridice,” the Engelbert Humperdinck arrangement of the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel,” and a favourite of mine from childhood, the “Flower Duet” from Delibes’ “Lakme”.

The remainder of the performance covered most of Gilbert & Sullivan’s apparently famous work, “Mikado.” It’s a very light-hearted take on Japanese culture, and proved quite amusing. Thankfully there were no tentacles in sight.

A good time was had by all, though I regrettably forgot to bring my camera, so I have no pictures of the event, unfortunately.

Posted by Ron as Music at 10:13 AM EDT

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In less amusing news, I’m locked out of my car.

I went to get in my car yesterday to pop the trunk, and the keyfob wouldn’t work. I figured it just has a dead set of batteries, so I tried the key in the door, but it wouldn’t turn! Same with the passenger door. (I can get into the trunk but that doesn’t help me very much, outside of what I went in there for in the first place.)

Going into the trunk also tipped me off to the fact that the alarm didn’t sound at all, as confirmed by the lack of blinking LED on the dash. So I’m guessing dead battery. No lights were left on at all, nothing plugged into the cigarette lighter, and I’ve left it sitting longer than this (2 weeks) before and no problems.

I think she’s just mad at me for neglecting her. Or maybe she just hates me. Guess it’s a good thing I opted for the roadside assistance plan…

Update (14:59 EST): The tow truck driver from the auto club got into my car, albeit with great difficulty. I don’t even think anything got damaged The battery was completely dead, to the point where it wouldn’t even jumpstart when hooked up to the beefy towtruck. So I have it on a trickle-charger now and I’ll try starting it later tonight.

Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 11:08 AM EDT

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Erebus Odora, the label that Arcana now publishes on, had a spring sale; 30 percent off… I couldn’t resist.

I picked up the two most recent releases, which hadn’t made it to the filesharing networks I use as of yet. Normally, I wouldn’t want to rip off artists I like, but they have stated in the past that if you can find their stuff on the internet, then go right ahead. That’s how I discovered them, actually, while searching for the OST for the old SNES game ‘Arcana’.

The first of the two discs that I ordered, The New Light was co-published with Canadian label Cyclic Law, and features several unreleased demo recordings, alternate versions of released songs, and a few songs that were written a while ago that just never made it onto any albums. In short, it’s like a journey through the musical past of Arcana, but more behind-the-scenes than a ‘greatest hits’ type record. A real treat for the fans.

The second on the order was ‘Le Serpent Rouge’ which is Arcana’s official experiment with ‘middle-eastern’ sounds. Still very good in its moody ambience, but perhaps a little overt for my tastes. I absoultely love the feel of it though, being very reminicent to me of some of the tracks on The Tea Party’s second effort, The Edges of Twilight, but at 50% speed and no up-front vocals. One other nice touch is that they’re hand-numbered; I have number 408 of 500, from the 3rd pressing.

Overall, 140 Swedish Kronors well spent.

Posted by Ron as Music at 11:04 AM EDT

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Last night I had a very strange dream. I dreamt that I was the target of a sniper, and so I was watching over my shoulder everywhere I went. I even narrowly avoided the bullet during one dream segment.

The only origin I can come up with for this dream, besides random neuron firings, is that I have this irrational fear lately of open windows. By open, I mean unobstructed. I keep thinking that someone is watching… and by watching, I mean through the scope of a rifle. My mind plays back all kinds of scenarios.

I know nothing about it makes sense. Nobody has any reason to shoot me, unless it’s some time-traveller from the future come back to stop some horrible event from occuring that I may set in motion. Like, maybe I’ll spawn the next Hitler, or the Second Coming™. Okay, probably not, I’m probably just paranoid.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 11:38 AM EDT

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Holy crap! Check out Google Maps new satellite maps feature. I can see my old house from there!

A word to the wise: be careful when you pick your nose when out of doors, you never know when a satellite may be snapping a picture of you.

Posted by Ron as Computers at 12:28 PM EDT

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