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  • And on the 8th day, God said, “Murphy, it’s all yours.”.

    written by

    james

    I should have probably taken the events of last weekend as a hint that this wasn’t going to be as event free a travel year as I’m used to. Shane had to push his departure date ahead a week to deal with a whole new brand of stupid that’s, naturally, since been squished underfoot. That meant we got the pleasure of throwing together departure plans on 24 hours notice–doable, but it took creativity. On the saturday afternoon, he left Petawawa destined for Boston with his suitcase, and a backpack full of technological wonders. On Saturday night, he left Montreal destined for Boston without the afore mentioned technical wonders and little to no chance of ever actually getting them back–for the record, I think we’ve kind of declared them a lost cause. The process quickly got underway to start the replacing of the afore mentioned technological wonders. And as I was packing to leave for my own trip, that process was pretty much everything but complete. So I thought it should go smoothely from here on out. Then I got to Rochester and someone thought it’d be cute to tease me into thinking otherwise.

    As I said in the previous entry, I showed up in Rochester an hour and a half late. Took a cab from the station to the apartment, where Jessica met me at the door to the building with cab money–the thing about having 80 million things to do is almost always, at least one won’t get done. I had time to pass her change off to her, and when I turned back to see if the trunk of the cab was open so I could snatch my suitcase, there was no cab and there was no suitcase. We had a pretty good idea which company the driver belonged to, and were pretty sure it wasn’t entirely intentional–that’s yet another trip related entry for when I have slightly more brain juice. So we called that company, and pretty much got no help from the dispatcher. Not figuring on giving up, the next day we called a few of the direct numbers for drivers we could dig up online. Say one thing for Rochester, there’s no shortage of cabs, be they independant or otherwise. We got a few possibles, and a few nos. The possibles eventually turned out to be very easily ruled out, but this is where it gets interesting. Every single one of the drivers we spoke to directly knew someone, or could point us in a direction of someone who did. Even if the driver was a possibility we found out didn’t have my clothes, the conversation never ended there–it was almost always “Well, I know this guy and here’s his number, see if he’s got it.”, or my second favourite, “I don’t remember driving you, but I know these 6 guys. Let me call them and I’ll get back to you.”. You don’t see a lot of that anymore, anywhere. So that the cab drivers around here were actually willing to do that was freaking amazing.

    We eventually called the original cab company back and got a dispatcher that was a little more helpful. And, wouldn’t you know, we’d been right since the morning of my arival. So I got my stuff back within a couple hours of those phone calls. Meanwhile, the other drivers were keeping a lookout and while I didn’t end up hearing anything back from them, I’m pretty sure if it was still out there, I probably would have. It just amazes me how even in a city the size of Rochester, you can see stuff like this going on–and all it takes to start it is one phone call to the right driver.

    So now, Shane’s getting stuff to replace what was lost, and I got my original stuff back. But I couldn’t help but laugh while all this was going on–not 2 days before I was meant to leave for Rochester, either Jessica or I had made the comment about at least Shane got to Boston with his clothes. And of course, that night, I very nearly didn’t get inside this apartment with mine. Murphy’s law hard at work, kids. Playing with your mind since the mythical day of rest.

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  • The halfway update thinggy from Rochester.

    written by

    james

    Hey, it only took me 4 days–considering my previous record, that’s not bad.

    The trip itself went amazingly well. So did all the 80 million things I had to get done before I fled the country–with the exception of the post office, but that entry I’ll save for when I have more brain cells to devote to the topic. I’ll leave you with this regards to that, though. Not only are they inaccessible, but they’re starting to inch across the line towards incompitent. Still, we got past that and everything else went smoothely. Hit my bus on time, actually with about an hour to spare, so took it easy around the place. Got into Rochester an hour and a half late through no fault of my own–hi, people holding us up at the border, nice to slap you. That, also, gets an entry of its own when more brain power is available. Jessica has spent the majority of this week sick, so we took it wasy after getting here. She called out from work on Tuesday, and almost slept the entire day away with the exception of being awake long enough to eat and talk for a few minutes with Heather–we really need to get that girl a blog of her vary own, speaking of. Then it was bed and sleep again. She went to work yesterday, I started getting cought u on things. Got a little closer to getting caught up on things today, and she got a little closer to being back to her old self after again taking it easy last night. We’ve got some running around to do tomorrow, then it’s off to see everyone’s favourite new mom and baby on Saturday. Somewhere in between that and the rest of next week, I have a metric ton more mockery to throw up here–including a couple things I was clued in on by Shane on his blog while I was buried in everything else. Here’s a very wee tiny small sampling of the coming stupid.

    • The CRTC gets a federal slapdown, and nobody elle loses much sleep.
    • The next big thing in terror: toy soldiers with equally toy guns–I dunno. Thank the British.
    • Surprise surprise. OC Transpo doesn’t actually have a labour plan. Told you that strike wasn’t a smart idea.
    • My hockey team actually wins. Twice. It figures they be games I’m physically incapable of watching.
    • Speaking of hockey, hi, Ottawa. Still sucking after the all star break, I see. Don’t worry, I have a special blog post just for you. Courtesy the Onion.
    • Breaking Canada, one US politician at a time. Next on the ridiculous meter? Potential visa requirements for border crossings. Because passports just weren’t stupid enough.

    There’s more, but I’m running out of brain juice and well, I do have something very slightly less than screwed up to blog about before I go fall over beside my fiance. Tiny little hint: this is not a good year for traveling if you’re us. And now, back to whatever it was you were doing before I interrupted you. I’ll be back.

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  • It’s the pre-departure oh my God drive me crazy writeoff monday mental checklist.

    written by

    james

    Try saying that 3 times fast. While you do that, I’ll be busy very quickly disposing of a departure Monday. This is more of a “God please don’t let me forget something” exercise primarily for me, but if you’re curious just how dead my Monday is, here’s a hint. I leave in an hour and don’t stop ’til Tuesday. Between now and then, I have a shitload of things to accomplish. In no particular order, I need to:

    • Finish packing things I’ll need to carry with me, IE: foodstuffs
    • Yank my phone off the charger, pocket phone, pack charger
    • Put together the package I’ll be shipping off on my way out of here
    • Hand mother relevant info re: packages to be expected in within the week that will also be shipped out while I’m not here
    • Drop into UPS/Purolator, fire the offending package across the border
    • Stop somewhere to grab something to take with me for supper
    • Also optionally grab lunch
    • Confirm the presence of the card I need to secure my bus ticket
    • Probably, misplace that card at least once–it’s not a complete trip without it
    • Run past the bank, deposit a money order
    • Take out US cash
    • Pray to God I have enough Canadian cash left over after the taking of US cash to shovel into my mother’s gas tank
    • If we’re not pressed, and we shouldn’t be, drop in for a haircut and an excuse to sit on something that isn’t moving umpteen miles an hour
    • Get in to the station in just enough time to grab my ticket and run
    • Barely make the bus–hi, Ottawa lunch hour traffick, nice to not see you
    • Breathe

    Okay, I’ve had a full day just looking at this. Now to actually go do it. Catch you all in Rochester, unless I’m bored. Then it’s roadmail posting. Behave. Or, if you absolutely must avoid behaving, go hang out with these two for the day. Probably enough mockery between them to make up for my absense. If not, I have enough saved. Catch you tomorrow!

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  • Dungeons and Dragons: just another recruitment platform for gangs.

    written by

    james

    Sometimes, I see something that just kinda makes me go “Bwuh?”. Usually it comes out of the US, and usually it’s legal. This one, though, I think is trying to set some kind of all-time record. Kevin Singer likes his D and D. Apparently, he got together a bit of an innmate following for it and well, called it a distraction or something, I guess. Everything was going swimmingly–right up to the point where one innmate who probably wasn’t a D and D fan said that god aweful g-word. Then, out came the lawyers.

    Basically, a guy who is serving a life sentence for murder, Kevin Singer, was apparently an avid D&D player as well, and had a collection of D&D books and related paraphernalia. However, it was confiscated by the prison after another prisoner complained that Singer was building a “gang” around D&D.

    …Waupun’s long-serving Disruptive Group Coordinator, Captain Bruce Muraski, received an anonymous letter from an inmate. The letter expressed concern that Singer and three other inmates were forming a D&D gang and were trying to recruit others to join by passing around their D&D publications and touting the “rush” they got from playing the game. Muraski, Waupun’s expert on gang activity, decided to heed the letter’s advice and “check into this gang before it gets out of hand.”

    Singer and the other prisoners named in the letter filed a complaint about the confiscation, and then a lawsuit. Singer got numerous experts to explain that D&D is not related to gang activity. The court claims that some of those experts actually claimed otherwise, but the interpretation here is fuzzy. The court says that these experts disagreed with Singer’s assertions because they claimed that D&D could keep people away from gang activity, and thus it’s “connected” to gang activity. I can’t see how this makes any sense at all. By that reasoning anything that someone does that keeps them away from joining a gang is automatically considered, itself, a gang activity. How does that make sense?

    As always, an awesome question posed by the Techdirt authors. Taking it a step farther, how in the 7 levels of hell is a role playing game, and one that’s been around probably since before there were much more creative ways of recruiting folks to join any kind of gang, in any way, shape, or form related to gang activity? I think I missed that transition somewhere in all the WTF. They try to explain themselves below.

    Muraski elaborated that during D&D games, one player is denoted the “Dungeon Master.” The Dungeon Master is tasked with giving directions to other players, which Muraski testified mimics the organization of a gang. At bottom, his testimony about this policy aim highlighted Waupun’s worries about cooperative activity among inmates, particularly that carried out in an organized, hierarchical fashion. Muraski’s second asserted governmental interest in the D&D ban was inmate rehabilitation. He testified that D&D can “foster an inmate’s obsession with escaping from the real life, correctional environment, fostering hostility, violence and escape behavior,” which in turn “can compromise not only the inmate’s rehabilitation and effects of positive programming but also endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution.”

    So let me see if I follow. Group activities in which there’s any kind of order/structure constitutes gang activity. Possessing an imagination constitutes the potential to escape from the facility, and/or potential gang activity. Put them together and you’ve got one hell of a danger to the public. Hence, ban D and D. Really? And I was always told an imagination was a good thing. Clearly, not if you’re doing time in this jurisdiction. Somebody obviously has absolutely no geek skill whatsoever.

  • The Pembroke/Renfrew area gets its very own call and bitch line. Yay?

    written by

    james

    The big thing that seems to be the default reaction if you live in Ottawa and don’t know something is to call 211. That also seems to be the default response if, as people have a tendancy to do in Ottawa, you simply want someone to bitch to because x isn’t happening the way you’d like it to. Glorious. Unless you were the poor bastard who got slapped with having to take the call. Suddenly, you were doing everything from listening to locals cry because OC Transpo was 10 minutes late to playing city phone book while listening to the locals cry because OC Transpo was 10 minutes late. And my guess is it doesn’t pay very well. And now, they’ve expanded to the valley. Pembroke. And Renfrew. And those little hicktowns in between. All getting a free call and bitch line. I can only imagine. No, wait–I really don’t want to. I do, however, feel even more sorry for the poor bastards taking the calls. Hope they have a love for long conversations–it’s a local rule a phone conversation can’t be less than half an hour. In 4 words, lots of coffee. Now.

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  • Surprise. The recession’s not as over as we said it was.

    written by

    james

    Statistics Canada’s been saying we’ve reached the end of the recovery line since mid-2010. And yeah, we have. Except for that part where we really haven’t.

    Canada hasn’t recouped all the jobs lost during the recession after all, Statistics Canada said Friday in a blow to the federal government’s boast about the strength of the recovery.

    They say the reasoning for the difference in overall results is they had been using census data from 2001 and had just now switched to using that of 2006. Not that the 2001 picture was looking a whole lot better, but hey, we knew this already. And yet, I’m probably one of 3 people who weren’t entirely surprised. Canada’s unemployment rate’s still up there. There’s a lot of places that no longer actually do anything–hi, former call center location in Ottawa who’s future is, I’m pretty sure, still kind of questionable. Job postings are few and far between, and decent ones are at a premium. And we’ll just not touch the fact the US is still kind of hanging out somewhere between pannicky and flatlining. Nope, recession’s not quite as over as they said it was. But who’s actually surprised? Well, besides Statistics Canada.

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  • The CRTC snaps its fingers, and unlimitted internet no longer exists.

    written by

    james

    I’m not one for capped internet connections. Never have been. Not even if I’m only checking email. I took full advantage of one ISP on my way out for reasons of capped bandwidth/traffick shaping policies–that they’re still continuing with, last I’d heard. I ripped into another for offering its own customers an on-demand streaming service a la Netflix and deciding hey, our internet customers don’t actually need a reason to use our service over torrents, so we’ll just count it against their bandwidth cap. I went at them again, this time for lowering their already ridiculously low caps in response to the launch of the offending Netflix in Canada. At the time, while none of the big 3 ISP’s (Rogers, Bell and Telus) were offering unlimitted internet services, the smaller ISP’s TekSavvy, Primus) were. And life was great. I ditched Bell for TekSavvy, who I ended up leaving for other reasons over 2 and a half years later–but that’s been beaten to death over here already, and avoided both issues. Bell decided not long after that that they didn’t much like us playing that game. So they wined to the CRTC. As did Rogers, as did Telus. Because, you know, competitive advantage in Canada just shouldn’t be allowed to exist. This past week, the CRTC agreed. Now, as of February first, even the smaller ISP’s are mandated to piss off their customers by charging them for any and all usage that takes you beyond 25 GB. After 25 GB, your options are to pay $x for every gig over that amount, or pay another price–usually only slightly less–for blocks of bandwidth, some companies (hello, TekSavvy) are calling it insurance, that you may or may not actually end up using for a month–more than likely, you’ll end up using.

    As a general guide, let me let you in on a little hint as to just how ridiculously tiny 25 GB is. If you’re into the whole online gaming thing, even if it’s just one of those games you find on Facebook to kill half an hour on your coffee break, you can blow through 25 gigs easily in a month. If you’re doing anything more demanding than that, for example playing World of Warcraft, even if it’s not for very long at a stretch, 25 gigs goes by pretty quick. Get a lot of email? Use a fair bit of Twitter? Decide you want to install your favourite OS on a spare computer? Or virtually? Do pretty much anything that isn’t your typical half-hour of internet usage a day for checking email/paying bills? Your 25 gig cap waves goodbye in an aweful goddamn hurry. Yep, you guessed it. Youtube, streaming music, random TWAudio or Q-audio things, they hurt too. And don’t even get me started on what any even moderate amount of file sharing of any kind, legal or otherwise, does to the bandwidth cap–which would be the entire reason for the cap in the first place.

    The major players in the Canadian market have been calling the shots pretty much since the advent of the CRTC and the granting of regulatory authority to the CRTC over our portion of the internet. Bell, Rogers, Telus all started throttling traffick, manipulating things in such a way that traffick that fell into specific categories was slowed or otherwise given headaches–we call that throttling, or traffick shaping. The big push from the smaller ISP’s at that time was “we’d never do that to you!”. And, ironically, they were right–they usually never did. So shortly before I officially was to switch ISP’s from Bell to Teksavvy, Bell thought they’d extend a favour to the smaller ISP’s, and do the traffick shaping for them. Nice, no? Naturally, the CRTC was perfectly fine with it–prompting at least two complaints and a petition that didn’t actually end up getting a whole lot of anywhere. And voila, one third-party throttle, served monopolistically. It’s been that way escentially since. Same with the newest issue of usage-based billing.

    Bell and Rogers began instituting, and later lowering–hence those first few links at the top of the entry–bandwidth caps. They started out mildly reasonable and didn’t hang around there long. Instead, prices went up, bandwidth went down, and–at least on DSL–speeds escentially stayed the same. Suddenly, we weren’t getting what we’d call our money’s worth. Once again, up comes the smaller ISP, this time with an unlimitted bandwidth offering and a promise of “We wouldn’t do that to you!”. And, once again, they’re usually right–they, specifically, wouldn’t do that to their customers. And once again, Bell, Rogers and Telus, who the smaller ISP’s have little to no choice but deal with if they want to be able to offer internet service, volunteered to do them the favour of instituting bandwidth caps for them. And once again, they did it with the complete backing of the CRTC–poof, usage-based billing is born, the unlimitted internet is dead. As before, there’s a mass amount of appeals underway to try and convince the CRTC to see reason, but so far, it hasn’t done much but take up space in the news. And once again, the CRTC is stuck in 1995 or 2000, in the land of the barely above 56k. And just like that, like the land of barely above 56k, the CRTC snaps its fingers and unlimitted internet no longer exists. Now if we could just see *improvements* to our internet services come through as quickly as hinderences. Well, can’t have everything. At least someone’s seeing some quick progress.

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  • Canada Post gets a hard lesson in accessibility. And they’re about to get another.

    written by

    james

    Carin over at the Vomit Comet already laid good into Canada Post for this one, but since I’m procrastinating with this whole packing thing anyway and a little backup never hurt anyone, they get a friendly little reminder from me.

    In December, I decided I had 30 seconds between the other 80 million things I was trying to get done that last week or two before Christmas to actually fire off some cards to family and a couple friends. You’d think an effort that’d take a grand total of 30 seconds, right? Last year, yes. The year before, definitely. This year? Yeah, no. What should have taken 30 seconds instead turned into a moment of temporary oh shit.

    As part of their move to supposedly “improve the customer service experience”, Canada post had at some point late last year decided it might be fun to go all touchscreen, all the time. Their reason for doing so? It’s a requirement to deal with the new chip-equipped debbit cards. Much like Carin in her experience, postal chick and I went a round or two over that one. Not only could they have easily gone with another, more accessible model, but–in my case in particular–the unit I was staring at was stuck to the counter, which was roughly chest height for me (I’m 5’11 or so). Which meant, in simple terms, not only could the blind/low vision not do anything whatsoever with it, but lord help anyone who came rolling on up in a wheelchair. I’d of loved to see just how the local post office was going to handle that one. They weren’t doing a whole lot to handle this one, in any event.

    Lucky for me, as you quite literally can’t get to 90% of what’s available in this town without wheels, I just so happened to have a pair of eyes handy. Equally lucky for me, they’re eyes I actually don’t mind knowing my PIN–hey, sometimes stuff has to get done and I’m busy. But I’d of been in much the same boat Carin was otherwise. And the explanation of such to the postal employee? Prompted the much anticipated and not at all favourable–for her–standard responses of, “You’ll just have to make sure you bring someone with you, I guess.”, and, “Well, there’s an ATM not far from here. We still accept cash.”.

    As if she didn’t probably already figure she maybe shouldn’t have said that–I probably should give her a tiny benefit of doubt, here–she got a good dose of education from both myself, and my wheels. There was no actual reply, and we went on business as usual.

    On my return home, I’d put together a little something and sent it via Canada Post’s less than well-organized website into, what I’m going to guess, is their customer feedback black hole. As of yet I haven’t heard or seen anything resembling a response, and when the roommate and I went to fill out a money order for the apartment that wasn’t (more on that in another entry, if I remember), things hadn’t changed. Of course, anyone who’s done this dance knows exactly what comes next–a longer letter. Which will more than likely get dropped on someone once I touch down in Rochester. And hey, this time, I’ll have a month to go find regulations with which to beat postal people around a bit. One would suspect I had too much fun doing this. And yeah, they’d be right.

    The moral of the story? for the love of cheese, get with the accessibility program already. You’re a federal agency, bound by federal laws. This includes federal accessibility laws–which, I’ll admit, the actual government’s having a hell of a time following but that issue’s already been beaten to death on every blog but this one. Get your shit in order. Or, hell, better yet, hire me and Carin–we’ll do it for you. I expect this from the private sector–rant on that coming probably when I hit Rochester. After all, they don’t make much money off us blind folks. But really? Canada Post? They don’t make much money, period. Let’s half some equal playing field up in here, and maybe they’ll make a little more. In the meantimie, where’d I put my regulations?

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  • In honour of my upcoming trip to the US, my tribute to Starbucks.

    written by

    james

    On my multiple trips south of the border, one thing almost always hits me. You guys down there love your Starbucks nearly as much as, if not more than, we up here love our Tim Hortons. I’ve yet to actually figure out why, specificly. Well, okay, beyond the fact that in the late fall/early winter their gingerbread and pumpkin lattes are freaking amazing. But seriously, aside from that, what draws people in nearly insane masses to the store? Is it the $5 for a large coffee? Is it they have their own, fancy shmancy words for things like, y’know, large? Is it that if you ask really, really nicely and they like the way you’ve thrown yourself together that day, you can help yourself to a tiny little pastry thinggy to go along with your $5 other word for large coffee? Genuinely curious minds would love to know. Well, either way you slice it, for whatever questionable or not reason, yall are madly adicted to Starbucks. In honour of that, and in honour of the fact the entire month of February will be spent in the land of $5 other word for large coffee, I’ve dug up this other word for short tribute to $5 coffee. Enjoy. And please, if you can spare some time for that other place what’s trying to move in on Starbucks’s territory down there–no, I don’t mean Dunkin Doughnuts, throw a dollar or two in that direction. Your wallet–and the unfortunate Starbucks newbie standing behind you–will thank you, for vastly different reasons. And so will I.

    My Starbucks tribute.

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  • The-jdh.com turns 5, and my incitefulness takes a walk.

    written by

    james

    Back in 2006, before I had much of an idea I’d be getting into this whole regular blogging thing, I thought it’d be kinda neat to try out this whole having your own web address thing. I did the registration process, the configuring, and after a while, I even started shoving my email over there. Hey, I was 22–that was a big thing for me. Then later on came the first incarnation of the blog, and I actually got into a sort of semi-regular habbit of at least throwing, er, something up there. Even if it wasn’t overly entertaining–it was considered my very own answer to Blogger and LiveJournal. I’d throw something at it, and maybe it’d stick. Or maybe it’d be one of the myriad useless little quizzes I’d post out of boredom. That was what it was here for. Then I got serious about it.

    I still didn’t do it with the expectation of milions of readers and thousands of comments–good thing, as I think I managed maybe half a dozen at one time, but I did it because it was there for something to do. 5 years later, I still post whatever comes to mind–or across my desk via RSS feeds. And I still do it for something to do. I’m not expecting 80 million readers, though when I write something that catches on I don’t exactly shake my head at it. I do it because. And hey, sometimes, I actually offer something up that other people don’t know. And sometimes, other people drop by and I learn a thing or two. Okay, so maybe that’s why I do it.

    I keep trying to invent something inciteful/witty/whatever, but I got nothin’. Not a very impressive showing for 5 years. So instead, have 5 of my favourite posts from all 3 incarnations of the blog.

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