I was pleased to find out this morning that one of my tweets about the Canada Line was published in 24 Hours! This news came courtesy of Rob White- whom my tweet was a reply to

For the rest of this week, the current issues can be downloaded here: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/PDF/

Check out the Wednesday edition and read the second-last tweet aimed @rbostyle

This is pretty exciting news, albeit sort of silly to get excited about  : P

What I find so neat is that they came across my message, and deemed it worthy of print.

It was about how I think the name, “Canada Line” is pretty stupid. I assume they named it this because of the Olympics- something I’m getting tired of. I mean, the Olympics will be fun, but do some things here for the people HERE. All of our concerns are about how we’ll look and how we can extract money from visitors and return visitors.

Wayne, Clarisse, and I were talking about how that’s stupid (naming it Canada Line for the Olympics) and Wayne reminded us that the original name was the RAV Line.

RAV Line. SO much better! It stands for Richmond, Airport, Vancouver. That has meaning! Canada Line doesn’t say anything about it. It’s a short, west-coast connection between two cities and the airport. While it’s shiny and new, it’s an upgrade to our current rapid-transit line, the SkyTrain. We want to get the RAV line name sticking, I think it’s much better.

I rode it the other day and was impressed by the size of the cars and station areas. Although, I think the cars should have many more seats. While I only rode it for one stop, I found it quick and quiet. Overall, useful. But, was it worth shutting down a major street and putting small businesses out of business? I’m not sure. I mean, it cost $2B. I wasn’t aware BC had that sort of money! 3 years also seems like a long build time. In my eyes, construction takes too long these days. I mean, get it done right, but do it faster. Maybe I don’t quite understand the scale of the project, and so I’m not totally sticking to my opinion on the build speed.

Anyways, the Canada Line is a mixed bag, in my eyes. For one, I think there was a lot of money misspent (as usual) and the name is dumb. Oh, and the lack of seats. On the other hand, it’s nice to see transportation progress, the bike/pedestrian bridge under the train bridge sounds neat (should make for some great panorama photos), and the structures that I have seen are of a pretty impressive scale- even though they are being called bland by others.

Last, what were they thinking when they named the exit the way out? We’re not the UK!

Let’s be ourselves! Call it the RAV line, use exits, give people a place to sit. Yeesh!

-adam

Wayne, Clarisse, and I had an interesting chat over lunch today.

Among other things, we talked about how TV and magazines are becoming totally absurd.

Reality TV is the norm, and it’s also ruining peoples’ lives.

Take John and Kate, for example. It’s truly a shame that they became so popular that the paparazzi started stalking them. I think that when you get to this level of exposure, you’re done. Usually. I made the point of saying, “If I were in their situation, I think I would plead with the photographers to leave me alone for one day.” The common reaction is, “but they won’t.”

We started talking about why this is, and concluded that a lot of it is actually viewer demand. The paparazzi, while invasive and bordering on inhuman when it comes to the degree to which they’ll stalk someone, are acting out of need, or desire. There is such a reward for hard-to-get shots that it becomes like a game; one that has a giant monetary payoff. Who makes this drive? Magazines, newspapers, tv shows. Who demands this information from these media outlets?.. We all do

So, let’s stop, wherever we can. I share common curiosities when it comes to wanting to know about celebrities, but we need to remember that these are people! As buyers, we have more say in the content and availability of what we buy than we might think. Let’s start demanding some privacy for others by demanding to know less about their lives.

What are your thoughts, dear readers?

Feel free to comment, I would love to see a comment!

-adam

For any of my blog readers looking to surprise me on my birthday (8.21) : www.drobo.com

The 4-rack RAID machine would be sweet

Available locally (and on sale!) at NCIX, Instant rebate on until August 18

I came across this neat website today - http://drop.io/

It allows you to upload large files, and give them a deletion criteria.

So, say you are a photographer, and you have some pics available for a client. Using this site, you can load them to a drop box, give out the URL to your client, set a criteria to have them removed after a certain amount of time or downloads, then BOOM, your box is cleared for more stuff.

Using the net for as long as you need it: very clever

-adam

I forgot to update this here this morning, but I did manage to Tweet it:

This morning, while on the bus/skytrain, I solved the cube in what had to be 40 minutes or less!

My first non-stop mix-then-solve!

-adam

This one goes out to my latest fan: Tanya

I’ve become somewhat of a Riddler at work, posing questions to my co-workers and watching them struggle as I laugh with the answer.

Do yourself a favour, and don’t Google search it!

Here goes:

Three businessmen are travelling and they get into town rather late. Needing a place to stay at the last minute, they venture to a hotel and ask for a room. The manager says, “sure, we’ve got one left, and I’ll give you the ‘last minute rate’, that will be $30”. The businessmen then each hand over $10 to cover the cost of the room, and settle in for the night.

Shortly after, the manager realizes that he overcharged the businessmen for the hotel room; the rate is actually $25/night, at the last minute. He promptly gives $5 and the room number to the bellboy and asks him to give the money back to the three businessmen. Realizing that there are three of them and $5 to return, the bellboy decides that, in order to keep things appearing fair, he will give each of the businessmen $1 and keep the remaining $2 for himself.

Now, after receiving $1 back, each of the businessmen has paid $9 for the room.

9 X 3 = 27

27 + 2 (from the bellboy) = $29

Where is the extra dollar??

-adam

Solved again!

I think this is solve number 8, but I can’t quite remember.

Getting better! Now, if only I could solve it within minutes…

-adam

Ok, so it was weeks ago that I originally posted about this, but here’s a little more:

Turns out that corporate accounts are monitored really closely at Bell.

My plan was to switch to a regular account/plan, and then terminate that plan because it would be cheaper than the flat rate for cancelling a corporate account ($299). First of all, that is ridiculous- $299 to CANCEL a phone account? I get that they want the remaining money in the contract, but when I’m paying ~$30/month, $299 buys me ¾ of a full year! I’ve only got until January 1^st, 2010 but even that is a ways away. I want an iPhone asap.

At the same time, I don’t. You see, I don’t want to pay for it. I’ve only got a few weeks left with Bobj and then I’ve got to look around for work. Dropping $60 minimum, per month, on a cell plan is absurd! Unless I use it to the max..

Yesterday I started reading Wired magazine. I read their website, but had the chance to pick up a mag that was sitting around at work. I looked into subscribing, and it’s around $65 CAN for a year. I thought that was too much, but was somehow able to justify that much PER MONTH to have and use an iPhone?! So strange how we justify costs.

Oh, yeah, Bell. I learned that their marketing department monitors corporate accounts because they’re the ones that set up the deals. If they suspect that you are pulling some funny business just to end your contract early, they’ll “audit” you in an effort to get more money. The supervisor that I talked to on the phone said that HE doesn’t even talk to them when I asked if I could. You see, he told me that it was highly likely that I would be audited if I switched my account and then closed it. I thought this was a threat at first because he was talking loudly, quickly, and sounded vicious and angry. He calmed down when I reinforced that I was sick of being tossed around on the phone for an hour and just wanted an answer to a simple question.

Anyways, he asked at the end why I wanted to leave Bell. I told him I had wanted an iPhone, to which he replied, “oh, really? Did you know Bell is getting the iPhone soon?” This made him sound like a liar, but he assured me, after a Google search, that this was the case. He also gave me his number and said to call him down the road and he would either help me close my account or give me a wicked deal on an iPhone. I won’t believe it until I see it, and I’ll still switch providers. My one hope is that competition brings down the price of the rate plans. I doubt it though. Bell is likely chomping at the bit to sink their teeth into the iPhone market. They love charging for every little service, as the majority of providers do. Oh, and locking in for 3 years? Ouch! I really hope that bit changes.

Man, I wish there was a good way to bring these issues to government… Money and greed are truly awful. Why do such symbols dictate our mindset?