Canada sucks

The only real advantages Canadians have over Americans is publicly funded health care, and a physically larger country. We don't even use like 75% of the land we have, so the latter advantage doesn't really matter. One of the major disadvantages we have is almost anything to do with media. First of all, we do not have access to things like Hulu, a good version of Netflix, and any other legitimate streaming service. This goes for movies, TV shows, music (such as Pandora radio), and whatnot.

We get Netflix here, but it is something I only use if I feel the need to watch something crappy. The good stuff that gets put on Netflix doesn't stay up. If there's a TV show on there you like, you better watch it fast. Some might argue that you can download this stuff, which I do of course, but sometimes it's nice not to have to scour over the internet to find something, especially when there's the constant looming threat that something you download might not be quite what you were looking for. As well, it's nice to sometimes have some external inspiration. Sometimes you don't know what to watch, and browsing a selection of stuff can help you choose. Basically, our version of Netflix is the retarded younger brother of American Netflix.

One of the things that really bugs me is the denial of access to stuff like Hulu and Pandora radio. I believe that if I had access to both of those services, I could entertain myself for decades. I would even be willing to pay for a subscription. But of course, Canadians are shafted. It's the same as the story with Netflix, except Pandora and Hulu don't even have little retarded brothers.

Another theme as of late is the fact that Canadians are denied access to most of the cool promotions I have seen. For example, Doritos and Mt. Dew have a promotion on for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (which is my new addiction of course). You can collect codes from these products and use them towards double XP time in the game. You can also win prizes and are entered into draws with each code you enter. In Canada, we have Doritos and Mt. Dew, and we certainly have Call of Duty. Why the fuck can't they just slightly expand the shipping radius of these specially marked packages of snacks? There is no bullshit excuses that have to do with media rights (as there are with music, movie and TV streaming), so what the fuck? Sometimes I wonder if they do this shit on purpose just to Candians off. I can't even begin to count the times where I have gone to sign up for some cool website or contest, only to find that they need your address (for whatever reason), but the form only takes American info. Isn't the point of contests and whatnot to promote something? Would it then not make sense to expose a wider variety of people to your product, therefore increasing your potential market? It's not like these are things that Canada doesn't have, they just choose to ignore the fact that Canadians buy things, or we just get a half assed, watered down version of something (e.g. Netflix, the Wal Mart website, Amazon.ca, etc.)

Don't even get me started on telecommunications or media access. During my ranting against the media situation in Canada, I am relatively aware of the source of these problems. All the crap stems from the fact that pieces of shit greedy cocksuckers like Rogers and Bell want to keep their gigantic (almost complete) hold on the Canadian media market. They want to be the ones responsible for telecommunications in Canada because if they do, they have more freedom to continually gouge their customers, and compromise any chance that Canada might catch up to the rest of the world in standards of communication. Basically, we pay out our asses for shitty and minimal services. I briefly looked at the AT&T site (which is sort of the American version of Rogers), and their minimum package (3 Mbps) is around USD $20 (so about $20.75 CAD). Rogers in Canada, on the other hand, charges $38 for the same thing. I know this is far from a scientific evaluation, but the difference is almost double. They don't have to charge this much, since the costs of creating bandwidth are extremely low compared to the mark up. But since it's Rogers, they need to squeeze every penny they can from you. Bell is no better. These are the companies that are holding us back from media liberation. The fight over UBB (Usage Based Billing) was, of course, because companies like Rogers and Bell wanted to implement it so that their competitors couldn't offer unlimited plans. If they did, they might get the leg up since no one wants to pay more just because they use it more. Personally, I am a heavy internet user. If there was UBB in effect, I would likely max out the counter every month. That is unless I pay like $100 a month for a large amount of bandwidth. It's fucking ridiculous the lengths large corporations will go to make sure their CEOs can live cushy lifestyles and wipe their asses with hundred dollar bills.

I could go on about how Canada also sucks in terms of fast food, products like Cherry Coke, and the fact that everything is American centric in general (shit, they even have better weather than we do). But I will not since that would take a while. But on the upside, at least Canada doesn't have as many religious, hypocritical nutjobs. But the health care and and the generally more polite people will keep me from bolting to California for now. I just wish the country had the balls to stand up to the Rogers and Bell cocksuckers.

Whoa...

My poor blog, how I have been neglecting you so. So much has been going on, I can't even decide where to start. So I won't bother, and will stick with what is current.

Oh the technological front, I do believe I will be getting new internet. I am currently with Yak, on DSL, which is supposed to give me 10 mb/s download. When I first got it, I was getting around 13 mb/s, which was exciting and awesome. Nowadays, I only get 8 at the most. I have nothing against Yak or anything, but if I see a better deal I am stupid not to take it. I found a company called Acanac, which offers cable at 24 mb/s around here. I was surprised since I thought I had the only internet that is faster than Rogers or Bell. They must be new, and I was excited that they offered it here. It's around the same price a month as what I am paying now. There are two catches, one really big. I have to pay for the entire year up front. That works out to be over $500 at once. I can do it, it's just a matter of the interest I might accrue over the time before the term ends. The other catch is that I have to buy a modem. The modem, at minimum, by finding one on eBay or Kijiji, will cost around $100. I do think I will do it, since it's better in the long run, but it's a painful decision since I've already spent far too much money lately. Stupid food and toiletries... But it's all better than having my bank account and patience raped by Rogers or Bell. I am hoping that my sacrifices will contribute to the downfall of these two tyrants.

I am currently bidding on a new modem on eBay. I am looking to get a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, since that works best with higher speed connections. I can get a DOCSIS 2.0 for around $40, and my max bid on the 3.0 is $80US, plus $9US for S&H, which is around $92CAN total. Assuming I get it, this is a better price than the $125 that Acanac is selling it for. It's the same model too, I believe. Let's just hope that no one else bids on it.

Spoke too soon....

So that CPU problem I mentioned....it's not gone. I was watching something on my laptop lastnight and it did it right in the middle of it. I was also burning a DVD which I had to abort so I could restart my computer. It's so great to have to interrupt something you're watching to fix something that shouldn't be happening in the first place. I am so fucking sick of this. I really hope it fucking goes away and/or I can figure out what is causing it. Or else I might not have a laptop for long since I will smash it out of anger.

Haven't posted in a while...

I haven't updated for a while. I'm not sure why, I've just been very scattered I guess.

I just installed Google Chrome. I'm very happy with it, and plan to use it as my default browser. It's fast and has basically the same addons as Firefox, plus a few more I've found. The main reason for the switch, though, is because something about Firefox was overusing my CPU and making my laptop over heat. As a result, the CPU load would be almost 100%, and the computer shut down due to over heating a few times. I looked around, and found a post somewhere about how someone had the same problem, and traced it back to Firefox. So I decided to try it, and haven't had the problem in two days. I'm even burning a DVD while posting this, and the CPU load isn't even over 50%.

I'm not sure what else to write. I had an idea of what I wanted to say when I started this post, but then I lost it. I'm awesome like that. I will get back to you when I remember what it is.

Live Messenger; what the fuck is this?

http://imgur.com/AujLl.jpg

Okay, I think Microshaft has gone too far. I always knew I never will like them (unless they hand over their money to me). But this just reaffirms my belief. As this image shows, Microshaft has officially fucked the one thing that they might have had going for them. MSN has always been my preferred chat client, and not only because all the people I know use it (although that was a significant factor). But now they've gone and fucked it up.

I do not know a single person who uses any of the Live Messenger web crap. So in their genius they decided to make this an integral part of using the new MSN. What the fuck? If I want to know what my friends are doing I will check Facebook. Microshaft will never make anything that replaces, or even rivals Facebook, so they might as well give up now. I have never, nor will I ever, look at anyone's MSN profile. No one updates them and no one cares what they say. I did use my real name for my Hotmail address display name, but I can't any more since it will also be my MSN nickname. I guess no one will be using their Hotmail address for business purposes anymore.

Well, since I basically summed it up, I think you can tell I am quite pissed off about this. Here I was thinking that one of the most stable parts of my computing experience was safe...I am now off to find an MSN client that can actually be used.

June update (finally)

Please note my Lockerz link is still down. Please email me directly at <deleted>  AT gmail DOT com and I will get the email right away and will send you an invite. I am not sure if/when my Lockerz link will be up again since it is hosted elsewhere and I have no control over the hosting. I apologize for any inconvenience.

So quite a bit has happened since my last update. I recently got a job (at least I assume I still have it). It's through a temp agency, and I was told that, after working for a month, things are slowing down at the factory I work at, but they will call me in a couple weeks when they need me again. I hope it's true, because I have recently come to enjoy having money for a change. To celebrate, I bought a $900 laptop from Dell (although this was before I knew about the "slow down" at work). I have only had problems with the wireless card in this laptop. The battery also sucks, and doesn't hold more than a 30 minute charge at a time. I went all out on this laptop. It's got a 9 cell battery and a 500 GB hard drive. I figure I might as well since if I don't, it will be obsolete in a couple months anyway. I figured I'd get a new laptop now, while I have money, instead of waiting for this one to break when I don't have money. The thing that pisses me off is that Dell is super slow building their laptops, and they have the least detailed progress notes on their website. I can log into the Dell site only to be told every day that it's "In Production". I certainly hope it's in production, but I would also appreciate knowing what's being done and what stages of production have left to go. As one might recall from last Christmas, I had a problem with Dell. I ordered a laptop with Ubuntu on it, and they magically cancelled my order. I got pissed off, and just went out and got this one. I've decided to give them one more try, since they were really good to my girlfriend when her laptop started smoking (yes, literally smoking). They upgraded her laptop to a newer, more expensive model. I will update more as I can, but my laptop is expected to be delivered on July 9th as of now. I say as of now because it could change.

Another good thing coming from having money is the updates to my game collection. I got Singstar, Buzz Quiz World, Left 4 Dead 2, LittleBigPlanet, a Playstation Eye, and a controller/game combo package for the PS3 (came with a red controller and Resistance 2). All games I wanted, except for Resistance 2, which was a bonus. I am also going to acquire Mod Nation Racers tomorrow from someone on Kijiji. The guy is a douche who forgot to bring the game today to his work when I was picking it up, but I will go back again tomorrow only because he's selling it for $40 which is $10-$20 lower than the prices I've seen it at.

My Xbox 360 recently red-ringed. Yes, everyone who knows about the Xbox is saying "I told you so". But the fact still remains that it lasted for almost four years, and was one of the original "crappy" Xboxes, the ones notorious for red-ringing. So, I am still pleased with it's lifespan. I got a new console (just an Arcade, took the hard drive off the broken one). I do believe they have updated the components on Xboxes over the years, so this console should have better parts in it. I recently gave my broken Xbox to a friend to see if he could fix it, and he did. Apparently there was some soldering or glue that unstuck the processor from the component it was required to be in contact with. A very simple fix, but something someone would have charged $50 for, unless I ventured to do it myself. I don't think I could have since it took my friend and his friend all day to do it (one of them being very experienced with tools and machinery). I figured why should I let the console go to waste.

Well, it's late, I should go sleeping. Hopefully I will update more frequently in the future. I am pleased with the new layout editor that Google has added to Blogger.

not sure

Please note my Lockerz link is still down. Please email me directly at <deleted> AT gmail DOT com and I will get the email right away and will send you an invite. I am not sure if/when my Lockerz link will be up again since it is hosted elsewhere and I have no control over the hosting. I apologize for any inconvenience.

I am saving up my Lockerz points for a Mac Book Pro, but I don't think I will get it anytime soon, if at all. Lockerz needs to hurry the fuck up and launch because I am sick of competing for redemptions. I don't even try to redeem anymore because of it. But they will launch soon.

I am enjoying my new PS3. I got an HDMI cable and it didn't work. There was an extreme yellow tint to the image when using it, so I think that the HDMI port is fucked. I got a component cable and it worked, which made me happy. Now I have a beautiful picture and it's lovely. I got Burnout Paradise, which is a fucking awesome game. It is so fun and addictive. It goes far beyond the traditional racing/car game. I also got Fairytale Fights (which is okay but could be better), TV Show King (a quiz game that I got because my friend has it), LittleBigPlanet (which is just plain awesome, although severely frustrating sometimes), and the God of War Collection (which includes GoW 1 and 2). I got GoW Collection and LittleBigPlanet for $40. They are usually $30 each, so I got a nice deal (Best Buy had a sale this week).

Other than that, not much new technology wise. Might be switching internet providers since the one we have is using shitty Bell crap equipment and I am sick of being throttled between 4pm and 3am every day, especially since that's my main gaming time. We also only get 5 mbps (when it's not being throttled), which is super lame. The one I am looking at gives us 10 mbps and doesn't use Bell's equipment for more than the last mile of the connection. One of my friends says that they were told it is Bell's equipment, so I will have to ask about that again. We will see.