hexstatik

after reading an wired article about the clover, i did a quick google search to find out if any cafes in vancouver had managed to aquire one. luckily, of the only 250 machines manufactured by hand before the company was bought by starbucks, 8 are located in vancouver, 2 of which belong to caffé artigiano.

caffé artigiano is known locally for bringing in world class coffees and cup of excellence winners that often retail for $130/lb or more and over the past couple of years, i’ve tried a few different winners from the cup of excellence awards. it will be interesting to compare those (brewed in a french press) to the el salvador cup of excellence winner #2 i’ll be sampling tomorrow with my team for our morning coffee break. at $5.95/cup though, it’s not something i’ll be enjoying very often. i’ll report the results back here tomorrow.

after over a year of waiting, i have finally become the proud owner of an iphone. while i didn’t line up overnight to be one of the very first to get one, i did end up visiting quite a few fido stores around metro vancouver before finally finding one with the 16GB model in stock.

the cost of my new plan is quite ridiculous, but what the hell - it isn’t known as the jesus phone for nothing.

so far, i absolutely love it;  the interface is amazing, i only carry one device instead of 2, i have a camera with me at all times now too, and with my data plan, i have the internet in my pocket wherever i go. my new iphone (here’s where i make myself sound old) now has more storage capacity and processing power than the very first computer i bought for myself back in highschool and it fits in my pocket.

it’s a good thing i love it though, because i’m going to spend the next three years paying for it.

yesterday morning, shortly after the work day started, a major fire broke out in underground power substation, knocking out power to a large swath of the downtown core. while my office was unaffected, leah was left at home all day without power. poor kid. the original estimate from bc hydro was that power was supposed to be restored by 3pm. unfortunately, when hydro crews were finally able to enter the underground cavern, they discovered the true extent of the damage, meaning the latest estimate is by 11pm tonight if we are lucky. our freezer is going to be completely thawed out, and it looks like another cold shower tomorrow. 

if you tried to reach this website yesterday, you wouldn’t have been able to gain access because the company that hosts this site is located in a building whose backup generator failed. (boo!) anyway, it seems like they have it sorted out now. 

You can get an updated view of the outage here.

you know, now that canada’s wireless auction is complete, i am totally ready to have a total shake up of the canadian cell phone industry, and i think the rest of the country is too. we definitely need it!

what, from ridiculous voice and data packages for the iPhone from Rogers, to getting charged for incoming messages by Bell and Telus, Canadians are being asked to bend over by every cell carrier available.

the best parts about getting billed for incoming messages by your carrier are:
a) they are no longer motivated to block spam from their networks, you’re going to pay for it (in fact, there is now incentive for them to allow it)
b) they have effectively just doubled their profits on text messages because they get to bill you AND the person you send the text too. bastards.

the one positive thing about all this is that the federal minister of industry, jim prentice, has taken notice and is finally standing up for canadians and asking Bell and Telus to justify charging consumers the new text messaging rates.  

like my good friend zameer pointed out, how is it that in a country with 1/10th the population of the united states, our cell phone carrier profits are equal to those in the united states? an excellent question i think.

this was sent to me by a co-worker last friday. unfortunately, i decided to watch it at work and had to explain to a cube mate why i laughing so hysterically. if you’re in IT, you’ll probably be able to relate.

plug your headphones in and enjoy: the website is down