bleeding love.

Happy Canada Day, yo.

sealion.

The digital age has once again decided to rear it's ugly little head in my direction.

If I want my dear, beloved iPhone, I'll have to pay $75 a month for a plan, plus $15 for caller id and text messages, and then I still have the dreaded system access fee and 911 service fee to pay. My current plan sits nicely at $60.32 a month. To switch I'm going to have to swallow $102.32 a month. Yeah, I'd get an extra 50 minutes a month (woo-frickin-hoo) but that amounts to $42 for a mere 750 MB of data? I'm sorry Ted, but that's bullshit. You're already the second richest man in the country, do you really feel the need to force your way into the #1 position? Jackass.

And I went to the Sony Store because of what happened to my iPod (re: the headphone plug breaking in two, leaving half of it inside my iPod turning it into a useless paperweight). They told me that, even though the product still fell under the 1 year warranty, that it was "physical damage" Because I feel like breaking my headphones and my beautiful iPod at the same time. Morons.

I. Hate. Technology.

broken breads.

So my old 5.5 G iPod was having some audio issues the other day so I tried to troubleshoot the problem through a number of different methods. One of these methods was to repeatedly move the audio connector up and down the audio jack. Well, while I was doing this my hands slipped and the iPod fell through my hand, but in fell in such an unexpected and precarious way that the audio connector snapped it two leaving part of it still inside the audio jack. I tried everything to get it out, tweezers, magnets, shaking, everything. The part that broke off and wound up lodged inside my iPod isn't budging. I'm going to take it up with Sony now since it was their faulty headphones that pretty much broke my trusty iPod.

In any event, I found myself iPod-less, and sadly enough, it made me realize that my iPod was almost like my BFF. I carry it around everywhere and it constantly keeps me company on the train, the bus, the gym, etc etc. So I decided to buy a new iPod after much deliberation (okay, maybe more like a day of deliberation). I didn't want to get one of the new 6G iPod classics because I'm not a fan of the whole split screen UI. I didn't want to wait until the iPhone came out because even at 16GB capacities, it wasn't large enough to comfortably house my entire music collection, and I didn't feel like playing favourites and only carrying around a certain number of songs. I didn't want to go to eBay and buy a used 5G iPod because doing it that way would have been a crapshoot with unknown consequences. So... what did I do? I decided to go for the 6G iPod classic (in silver), but I chose to get a refurbished one from the online Apple store. I've heard nothing but good things about Apple's stringent refurbished product process. They replace the entire casing on the iPod so you don't get someone's finger prints all over it, they test each and every single unit for hard drive quality, audio quality and battery quality, and then they include all new accessories for the pack-ins. So I figured I'd bite the bullet on the new UI as long as I got it at a heavily discounted price.

Regardless of my opinion on how the interface looks, getting a new iPod is always exciting and I pretty much tore through the packaging this morning after the FedEx guy left.

viva la vida.

I was going to attach this to my last blog post, but I felt it warranted it's own entry.

I LOVED Coldplay's debut album Parachutes, and I thought A Rush of Blood to the Head was a decent album. Hype was huge for X&Y and while I enjoyed the record, I felt that they were trying to be something else. They were going for really big arena-rock, U2 covers, and I didn't like that. My favourite track off the album (minus the leaked, demo version of "Talk") was "Swallowed in the Sea" because of it's use of guitars that reminded me of something from Parachutes. With that said, I was really nervous for Viva la Vida or Death and all His Friends, especially after I heard "Violet Hill" and it's larger than life, X&Y soundability. However, since Wednesday I have been listening to the new album and I think it's absolutely fantastic. From tracks like "Life in Technicolor" to "Lovers in Japan" to "Viva la Vida" I think it's phenomenal. A stellar recording all around.

lovers in japan.

I've been a long time fan of Firefox on Windows machines. In fact, I was even using and recommending Firefox before it was even called Firefox (it started off as "Phoenix" back when I started using it at version 0.4). However, when I finally had enough money saved up (and the intel transition was underway) to make the switch to Mac OS X, I realized that Firefox had several shortcomings on OS X. I still use Firefox every time I log onto a Windows XP machine at school, but I have been a Safari user since I switched to OS X. However, this past week Firefox 3 was released and I think I may be switching back. They've taken care of all the bugs that used to bother me about it, plus the speed appears to be quiet the improvement over Safari 3.1 (obviously this will change once the new WebKit gets implemented in Safari).

Anyway, to make an already long and boring story abbreviated - I recommend every one try the new version 3 of Firefox. To slighty modify Superstore's slogan "it's worth switching browsers for."

february song.

Ah, 3G iPhone, there you are.

I now impatiently wait for the 11th of July to arrive in Canada.

oceano.

I'm on a total Josh Groban kick this week and I'm not even ashamed to admit it.
Yeah, my mom likes him, but ah well, so do I.

On a side note, I found the most amazing book by accident the other day at Chapters. My sister and I were just browsing when she showed it to me, only because on the front cover some guy compared it to Pilgrim's Progress, which is a a sweet piece of English literature from the 1600s. Anyway, it's called "The Shack" and it's about a man who's 7 year old daughter is abducted and killed in a remote shack in the middle of nowhere, Oregon. 4 years later the man gets a note from God in the mail asking him to come to the shack for a weekend to get together with him. Anyway, the book isn't preachy or anything, although it does touch heavily on the aspect of God/Jesus/the trinity; but the way the story is set up is amazing. It may not be for everyone, but I really enjoy it.

bird flu.

I work too much. Today is my first day off since last Sunday, and my only day off until next Monday, or 8 days from now. I don't know my work schedule past the 10th of June, but I have a feeling I'll be working straight through until the 14th. So basically I'll have 2 days off out of 20 work days. Yeah, that about makes sense.