Inflation my eye.......

Is it just me, or are cable television fees getting out of control? My monthly bill, in which I subscribe to all but the highest tier of speciality channels, is over $80. In September 2006, I was paying $64. That's an increase of 25% in 18 months.

What am I getting for this extra 25%? Better service? I'm not noticing any difference. I don't (to my knowledge) have any extra channels than I did before. At least - none that I am watching. My cable TV provider is still not giving me the kinds of choices that other providers and other jurisdictions have been offering for many years, such as time shifting on all major Canadian networks in at least 3 time zones. They do offer time shifting on some networks (for an extra $4), but the selection is pathetic - 6 of the networks are only available in one time zone! I could pay $116 and get every channel (adult channels extra still), but come on - almost $120 per month for premium TV entertainment? Many of these channels with advertising? That seems a bit much.

Are drugs about health or profit?

Did you know that a "study by York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development."? Although pharmaceutical companies' claims that patients pay high prices for medications to cover research and development costs, the industry spent $33.5 billion on promotion costs in 2004.

These and other pharmaceutical factoids here.

Best blog tag line read this week

"not so much a blog as it is a bleh"

Cold beauty

Here is a beautiful time lapse video of a year in Antarctica. Dusk and dawn are such marvellous times of day and you'd get lots of it in this place.

Brunch buffet disappointment

We loves us some good breakfast places. OK fine, we loves us some good restaurants - period - but the topic today is brunch buffets. In Calgary, there are very few breakfast buffets worth mentioning (that we know of).

Thompson's (at the Hyatt downtown) - fan-freaking-tastic. Expensive.

Luciano's - not bad while it lasted - now a different restaurant and gone for good.

The Castle Restaurant - the best value - now closed and gone for good.

Kilkenny Pub - used to be good. We went there today after not trying it for a long time. Darlene went for food first and returned with stuff she said was already cold. Not a good sign. Server running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Not a good sign. I ran to the omelet bar to place my order seeing nobody in the line-up. Turns out the reason there's no line-up is because you can't order an omelet at the omelet bar - you have to get an order form and place the order with your server, who then brings it to the omelet bar, where it gets made and waits for your server to bring it to your table. Good luck with that. I told my server I'd save her the trouble and get my own omelet. Once I see that my omelet is almost ready, I mosey over to the omelet bar and pick it up. Then I head to the buffet tables. Great sausages - just how I like 'em. No baked beans. They used to have baked beans. I like baked beans. No potatoes. That's a show stopper. I wait. A kitchen dude shows up. I tell him there are no potatoes. He leaves. I wait. And wait. Omelet getting cold. 5 minutes. Still no potatoes. The universe is trying to tell me something. No potatoes for me today. I skip the potatoes. Total bill for an omelet and some sausages and some sweets and a coffee (plus the few nibbles Darlene had): $32.

I don't see Thompson's as being so expensive anymore. $50 (for 2) gets you an omelet made to order (no forms to fill out); hot ooey-gooey fresh cinnamon buns dripping with icing; lots of home fried potatoes; fruit; oatmeal; baked goods; sausages and bacon; pancakes and/or waffles and/or french toast; a roast beef or bison; quiche; cheeses and so much more. Unlimited coffee and juice. Oh yeah - and enough staff to wait on you hand and foot. It's well worth the extra money. Once in a while.

Making art with hands and feet

Literally!

These are so great!

My new Motivator poster

Product regionalism

Are you aware of any mainstream products that are available in one part of the country, but not another?

I occurs to me that western Canada doesn't sell milk in bags (nor does the US apparently). According to my mom, Quebec doesn't stock Manwich, something I've found anywhere else in the country.

Does Apple own the fruit?

Does the Apple computer company own the right to prevent any other entity from using any kind of logo with an apple in it? They seem to think so, as they are suing the city of New York for their use of an apple in their GreeNYC campaign. Apple computers claims that the logo is "likely to cause confusion, mistake or deception in the minds of consumers".

I don't think the logos look anything alike aside from they both are based on an apple. I really hope some day the laws are changed to make it so bullying litigation like this is punished in a manner that makes folks think twice.

Pronouncing words wrong on purpose

A lot of people purposely pronounce words wrong. Some well known examples:

Internets (thanks to George W. Bush)
Occifer (instead of officer)
Computor (instead of computer)
Aminal (instead of animal)
Muskles (instead of muscles)

I don't know if these are peculiar to our household, but Darlene and I have a few:

Telebision (instead of television)
Bass (instead of bath)
Beeb (instead of breeze)
Pinney-appl-ee (instead of pineapple)

What words do you pronounce wrong on purpose?

All the music you want..... for a small fee

Here's a great article by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Fred von Lohmann on the proposal to pay a license fee in exchange for the unlimited right of consumers to download music, in any format, using any protocol.

I hope this scenario becomes a reality some time soon.

RPM 12

What jazz pianist joked that owing to his middle name he could never be called a 'square'.

What was his middle name?

I love technology

If you're in any way fascinated like me with maps, aerial and satellite views of the earth (a la Google maps), you might want to check out Flash Earth. Some enterprising people have taken the efforts of Google, Microsoft VE, Yahoo maps and more and combined them into one seamless interface. The crosshairs at the centre of the page indicates where you are in reference to the Latitude and Longitude readings that appear at the bottom right of the screen. Better yet, click and drag the compass icon and rotate the view!

This shot is of my block, taken from the perspective of 'north is down'.

Picture vs reality

Advertised product versus reality. A study in the difference between what you see on a product package (or ad) versus what you get.

Brutal.

Orange you glad?

Entertaining photos of food.

Where is it - Edition 43

Been a while, huh?

Guess the city. Click the image for a slightly bigger version.

I will divulge this much - the view you see may not be the exact centre of the city.

Iconic parody

You've probably seen a few parodies of the Last Supper painting by da Vinci. But have you seen them all collected in one place? The Soprano's one? The Star Wars one? Etc...

That's Suddenly Last Supper.

Where in the world is Chuck Norris?

For a little chuckle, go to the Google search web site and type in "find chuck norris", then click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

Enjoy.

Courtesy my good friend Ernest.

Competing for jobs

A clever video sending up the idea of immigrant workers.

Do as we say, not as we do.....

In a grand twist of irony, Sony - one of the organizations who scream the loudest about how unauthorized copies are "theft" and "piracy" is destroying their industries just got caught making unauthorized copies themselves.

Sony has been caught in a Business Software Alliance (BSA) raid with unauthorized software - up to 47% of the software at their offices. If it's true, Sony has some explaining to do. For a company so adamantly against piracy, it seems hypocritical that it can't follow its own mantra. Considering that the RIAA has been pushing for Congress in the US to increase the statutory fines for copyright infringement, perhaps Sony would like to set a good example and pay at the high end of the range of fines which should be levied against them?

Manonce

Found on another site.

Priceless.

Browser / mouse tip

I'm always on the lookout for new tips for the computer user and this weekend I found a great one that applies to both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

If you have one of those mice with a scroll wheel, chances are the wheel can be clicked (as well as scrolled). There is a very cool use for this feature. When you scroll-click a link on a web page, it opens that link in a new tab, while still maintaining focus on the original tab. This is great for when you're Googling something and want to open a few of the results for eventual viewing. But even more amazing is that if you scroll-click a tab in your browser, the tab closes! This is so much easier than moving the mouse pointer precisely over the X.

I did a quick survey at work and few if any knew of this pair of tricks, so it is my duty to pass it along to you.

Luxury movie watching

Gold Class Cinemas is building 50 new luxury style theatres in the US, with leather armchairs, valet parking, and chair-side waiters who serve freshly prepared food by on-site chefs. Tickets will cost $35 (not including the food). Each theatre will feature 40 reclining armchairs with footrests, digital projection as well as a lounge and bar serving cocktails and appetizers. These high end cinemas already exist in other parts of the world. Here's an example of a menu.

Looking ahead to the future, we can expect that for $200, a movie facilitation team will come to your home, throw on the latest feature while a team of 'chore reduction experts' cook up a batch of popcorn and do the laundry.

I'm kidding...... the workman's compensation ramifications would be daunting.

For $35, I could buy the DVD, with money left over to purchase some snacks, then watch the movie in the privacy of my own home, meaning I could dress up in my furry outfit with my fellow furries and...... aww crap, I've said too much already.

RPM11

Q.: What late guitarist adorns a button on Neil Young's guitar strap on the back cover of Live Rust?

"... haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"

No idea if this is a true story, but assuming it is.... I salute Julio Diaz, a social worker who took his mugger out for supper at a favourite diner. The story is uplifting. Julio may be crazy, but we need more people like him.

They saw the light!

Waaaay back in July 2004, I blogged about how I wrote the organization that provides the digital music channels on our cable system and suggested that they should publish an online playlist so you could find out what that last song was on a specific channel, in case you missed the title on the TV screen. Their response was less than logical. But it seems they've seen the error of their past ways, as they now list the last 10 songs from each music channel.

Smart.

What it all comes down to...

Presenting my second song chart:

You want less? That'll be more....

Sony continues to pull little stunts that only serve to irk their customers. Their latest - they'll not put all the crapware and trialware on your new Sony Vaio computer if you pay them an extra $50.

Travel tip... red eye

I took advantage of a seat sale to get to Montreal and back for under $525, the trip to Montreal was on the red eye flight late Thursday night (early Friday morning). I was thinking, I could sleep on the flight and feel somewhat chipper on Friday.

There I go...... thinking again. The 3.5 hour flight provided approximately 40 minutes of doze time. I was just too damned excited about attending my mom's surprise party. The 4 inches of recline-ability of the seat didn't help.

..come from the land of the ice and snow...

Just got back from my original home.... Montreal (more specifically - Deux Montagnes), where I sneaked into town to surprise my mom at her surprise 70th birthday party.

A friend of mine on Facebook asked me, "How do you like all the snow we just got?", referring to the 3 or 4 cm that fell in Calgary during the last 24 hours. DUDE! You want snow? Feast your eyes on these snowbanks, which by the way, have already shrunk 25% since a thaw began. You can't back out of a driveway without taking your life in your hands, because you can't see what's coming down the street. You may also note that the street width is reduced by half due to the mounds of snow. Some folks who live in single story bungalows are able to walk onto their roof.

I didn't get a chance to get a shot of the snow mountains in empty fields built from dumped snow removed from city streets... but they're a good 5-7 stories tall and the size of a few football fields - each!

I feel for these people, because when all that snow melts, it's gotta go somewhere..........