Back in 2006, I think, I didn't have a part-time job, and was binning full-time; collecting beverage containers and returning them to collect the deposit. There were (and are) a few kinds of containers with returnable value which weren't standard beer, pop, juice, or water. One was a white plastic milk jug, labelled as sold by Wild Birds Unlimited -- the green screw-cap had a sticker declaring it had a 25-cents return value. This was a nickel more than its volume would make it worth if it was, say, a juice container. I would occasionally see these jugs in recycling bins and boxes, and had returned a few -- there was only one Wild Birds Unlimited store that I knew of, and it was in my area.

One summer evening, I was binning in the area of that store, and went down the alley behind it. There were two large city-issued grey garbage toter bins beside the back door. I stopped. Opened the lid of one bin, then the other, just to see. They both seemed to be full of a lot of these Wild Birds Unlimited plastic jugs.

Uhhhh?  I bundled them all up in two garbage bags, and secreted them across the street in some bushes.

The next day, I carried the two bags through the front door of the store, the owner looked in both bags and told me, because I had gone to so much trouble to collect them and bring them in, he would pay me the deposit, but normally he wouldn't take them with even the slightest dent. He explained that they needed to be flawless because they would get sterilized and be filled up again with bird seed and sold. He wouldn't pay for the flawed ones, just take and throw them away (in the grey bins out back).

I wasn't saying a word by this point, maybe not even breathing. But I'm sure I thanked him when he handed me the deposit money. And I never went back. They are now located on West Broadway.

Great Powers are meeting in battle as we make phone calls, surf the Web and play games. The prize is intangible; we can't hold it in our hands, but we can hold it in our phones, and our computers.

It's been said generals prepare to win the previous war. Back in the 1990s Apple and Microsoft had to just sit and take it while any old kludgey third-party software could be installed, and make a mess all over their operating systems. They could only fight back through the mail with floppy disks, and later, CD-ROM.

The rise of the Internet coupled with the powerful generation of cell phones that came after the iPhone in 2007, finally offered Apple, Microsoft, and new-comer Google, the ability to control their destiny.

The iPhone, in my opinion, represents a kind of "before-and-after" moment. It settled the question of what was the "best" form-factor; it finally broke Microsoft's effective monopoly over the Internet browsing experience, and it turned the premium feature of WiFi into a ubiquitous feature, creating the conditions for constant Internet conectivity.

In a world where everyone is increasingly connected 24-7 to a network (the Internet), that world begins to look like a traditional computer network, with network administrators wielding control over the user's access. But in this case, who are the administrators? Are they the the phone carriers who sell people the phones on plans, or pay-as-you go? Technically, yes, but the company’s who control the operating system, hold the greatest power of all. Apple controls the iOS, Google, the Android operating system, and if any phones running the Window 8 phone OS are sold, then Microsoft will control those.

Faster iPhone! Kill! Kill!

Network administrators have to be able to reach into any or all parts of their network to quickly deal with a threat, such as a virus. All the big computer companies have admitted to having such a "kill switch" in their phone and desktop operating systems.

Steve Jobs admitted there was one in the iOS in 2008 (♦). Microsoft has included one in Windows 8 (♥). Google has already used theirs, in 2011,  to delete malware on 50,000 Android phones (♣). Even Amazon, way back in 2009 controversially used a kill switch on their Kindle (♠).

So this isn't the Wild West 1990s, when Apple had to stand by and fume, while Adobe's Flash plug-in caused so many Macs to crash so often. When Steve Jobs slammed the door on Adobe's mobile Flash, with Microsoft nodding in approval, in 2010, this was both a settling of accounts, and the start of setting things right.

Quality and quantity, together at last

Utter control of the user experience is part of ensuring customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty. Plus, Apple, for one, knows a bit about up-selling existing users.

The stakes and numbers involved, between Apple and Google are becoming positively planetary: Apple claims over 500,000,000 iOS devices sold -- that's half a billion. And, reportedly, cumulative shipments of Android devices top one billion. Of course, Mark Twain's observation concerning statistics applies.

So the legal see-sawing all over the planet between Apple and Samsung, isn't; it's always been Apple versus Google, for apparent control of the Earth. No idea who will win, but I Googled all these facts, and sources.

It's exactly one year since I was last "doored" by a car (ran into a suddenly-opened driver-side car door while riding my bike). This was a pleasant Monday afternoon. I was in the process of binning; had just come out of the West end of the two short East-West lanes between South Granville and Fir -- It was the lane between 15th and 16th (This all took place in Vancouver, B.C., BTW). I was North-bound on Fir, on my bike, pulling my trailer. No traffic, clear and dry. I was riding slowly and reflexively scanning the driver-side mirrors of the parked cars on my right -- watching for any sign of movement.

Nothing. ... Nothing. ... Nothing. ... Crash! ... Blank.

The driver, Margaret, didn't hesitate to admit fault. She had been leaning over towards the passenger side, intent on her cell phone, and had reached over and thrown the driver side door open. No movement or "body language" to give advance warning. Amusingly, at first, she baulked at paying to replace my unfixable pannier, insisting (this was so cute) that she would have to pay to have the dent (which I couldn't see) in her door fixed.

[caption id="attachment_393" align="alignleft" width="200"] The City of Seattle, Washington, USA, installed this anti-dooring sign at one intersection on Dexter back in 2007. No word on whether they put up more, or whether it made any difference. I believe we cyclists have the responsibility to watch out, because we'll suffer the most in an accident.[/caption]

After the moment of trauma the body yanks control away from the brain, declares martial law, and sends out all the branches of its armed forces: adrenaline and endorphins to name two. Never try to make a decision in the moments immediately after such a traumatic event. fight-or-flight is the best you can do -- I know this from past experience -- you'll agree to to whatever makes it all go away.

At this point, my brain was regaining control. That pannier was radio-frequency welded, coated Cordura nylon. I live in a Rain Forest climate. I bluntly proposed she either reimburse me for the pannier or go through The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. We marched ourselves ( I actually rode my bike) a block to her bank machine, and I accepted $200.00 from her. The next day I bought an Ortlieb pannier set which was nearly identical to the broken Vaude, for about $140.00. I put the remainder towards a new sealed bearing cassette for the bottom bracket of the bike, which didn't feel exactly right. -- Seattle’s anti-dooring signage

Former B.C. Conservative candidate Mischa Popoff was dumped by the party ahead of the upcoming May vote, so his ranting against the Conservatives, and their Leader John Cummins, wouldn't be too surprising, except he's done it on You Tube ... Okay, still not so surprising, just funny.

The Boundary-Similkameen MLA hopeful Mischa Popoff was turfed by Cummins last week for comments he made to a newspaper criticizing single moms for having children “without a man by their side,” and calling the Missing Women’s Inquiry a “waste of time.”

I wonder about all of us who "act local and post global." According to WikiAnswers, less than one half of one percent of the world lives in Canada, and, according to another Website, only 13.2 per cent of Canadians live in British Columbia, so B.C.'s population probably fits comfortably within the margin of error for the estimated world population. It's amazing that people in Upper Slovonica can take an interest in local affairs in my Lower Mainland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UFj6musCO4

[caption id="attachment_328" align="alignnone" width="497"] Below left: One is a movie dog, one is a famous Italian comedian, and one is sleepy.[/caption]

His owners named this beautiful pure-bred British Labrador Toto, which should be properly spelled Totò, because he is not named after Dorothy's dog in The Wizard of Oz, but for the Italian comedian Antonio De Curtis (1898-1967), nicknamed il principe della risata ("the prince of laughter"), but best known by his stage name Totò.

Totò is now over two-years old, I think, but the picture above was likely taken by his owner when he was less than one-year-old. The picture was  on the SD card of a Canon G10 digital camera the owner has gifted to me (but not the battery charger). I'll try to get a current snap of Totò before the charge runs out -- he's growing up to be a beautiful, well-tempered dog, I think he's a tad lazy, but I'm not one to talk.

Found this yesterday evening. It was beside a condo dumpster in a box with a number of old incandescent tube-lit Exit signs -- there is a slow wave of change spreading through British Columbian buildings. Thanks to BC Hydro Power Smart rebates, higher-efficiency, thinner, T8 fluorescent tube fixtures and electronic ballasts are replacing older T12 fittings with magnetic ballasts, and tubed Exit signs are giving way to a new L.E.D. versions. I can't imagine why the management tossed out such a wonderful enamel silk-screened steel sign.

[caption id="attachment_292" align="alignnone" width="497"] Papa Emeritus II, second from right, and Ghost B.C. play Vancouver, B.C. on Monday -- Getty Images[/caption]

When I saw that a metal band named Ghost B.C. will be playing The Commodore Ballroom tonight, I took it as read the B.C. stood for British Columbia; apparently though they are from Sweden, which is probably not anywhere near Smithers. They formed in 2008. and their debut 2010  debut album Opus Eponymous, was nominated for a Gramis (a Swedish Grammy). They've even covered ABBA'a I'm a Marionette. Their online petition to have lead singer Papa Emeritus II elected pope garnered 10,000-plus signatures.  -- Ghost B.C. spread doom rock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj2l9q9Y1Io

I Found this HP Pavilion dv6000 in the garbage well over a year ago. I didn't have an AC adapter for it so I left it in my locker, then it went off with Toad, who said he had an adapter; he didn't, and I finally got it back about a month ago. Now I had an adapter so I played with it. The casing was very clean and unmarked. There was no internal hard drive, but it booted a variety of live media. I was pleased it booted Ubuntu with no problem, making it the first computer driven by an AMD proccessor to do so. It still had its wireless card, which was recognized by every distro I tried. It had a much faster proccessor, and about twice as much RAM, as my little Acer Aspire One 533 netbook.

The HP also had a standard ratio screen, unlike the Acer, who's 10.1-inch netbook screen (1024 x 600 resolution) was, height-wise, 40 pixels off standard ratio. I had found that a number of Linux applications, including GIMP, but mostly KDE applications, such as DigiKam, would draw windows 1024 x 640, and somewhat important buttons such as "Save," would be stuck down in the right-hand corner -- in that 40-pixels below the bottom of my Acer's screen.

The HP was more a tank-top than laptop, but I had a bike trailer.

I bought a 250 GB Apple Toshiba SATA laptop drive from another binner for $5, or $10 dollars. I cajoled Toad into helping me install it, which he did with the aid of an adapter doo-dad. In gratitude, I gave him a bag of $13-worth-of-nickels.

The six-cell battery didn't hold more than a ten-minute charge anymore. Research showed that brand-new it was only rated for two hours. Luckily I found Leading Age Computer, a store at Kingsway and Joyce, in the Collingwood neighbourhood of Vancouver, which was selling a twelve-cell battery for a mere $60.00, taxes in. This thing may weigh as much as my Acer, and it's twice the thickness of a six-cell, but it's giving me over four hours of charge.

I installed Ubuntu 12.04.1, because my experience with 12.10 on the Acer made me remember all the better qualities of 12.04. Now that it's installed I'm remembering that it's not without blemishes. But I know I can successfully un-install Unity from 12.04, which absolutely wasn't the case with 12.10.

---

The specs:

OS: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, 32-bit
Memory: 2.9 GB
Processor: AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-60 × 2
Graphics: Unknown (to Ubuntu)
Disk: 240 GB

---

True there is a vertical blue line (sometimes lines) that sits about two-inches in from the right side of the screen, but I knew that was there from the first distro I booted -- I'm told it has to do with the graphics card, which in this HP, is soldered in. Any ways, I believe HPs have poor build-quality by design, so any or all of it could go poof at any moment. So far though, I'm pretty pleased.

On Saturday, the Montreal Canadiens (Can-uh-d'yens) beat the Toronto Maple Leafs quite convincingly; reportedly they wanted to send a message. Had Toronto won, they would have clinched a play-off spot; as it is, their fate seems to depend on other teams now. But, the possibility still exists that Montreal and Toronto might actually meet in the NHL Stanley Cup play-offs, for the first time since 1979. Woo-hoo!

As a 30-year resident of Vancouver, I care about the Vancouver Canucks, but, I grew up in Saskatchewan, rooting for Montreal. To me the Habs are hockey, and always will be.

Only three days since Welfare cheques were issued, and the lanes of Fairview are already filling up with ... car binners; people who are collecting bottles using cars, vans, and trucks. Sometimes the cars are old, rusty, with only one working headlight, and sometimes they're pristine olive-green Jags, and blinged-out SUVs. More often though, they are average little cars, mini-vans, blazers. The drivers of these vehicles run the gamut, but skew heavily towards immigrants, mostly Asian, some Eastern European, and a growing number of Filipinos. Age-wise, I would guess there are a high percentage of retirees.

Some stereotypical car binner types

Little old ladies who seem to have gone potty. Always a few of them around; a perfect example being one little bespectacled, white-haired lady, who came close to hitting me with her car -- at about that time, she rammed Jimmy's trailer, and he received a cash settlement from ICBC, the Provincial Crown Corporation which looks after car insurance. She used to yell a lot, and declare, in a European accent, that she was "collecting for ze homeless children!" I haven't seen her for years, but two weeks ago I had an encounter with another little old lady binning in a car, who looked and sounded a lot like her, without glasses.

Chinese singles and couples who appear to be unable to speak any English. Perhaps some of these people are actually new immigrants to Canada. Income from collecting bottles is not taxable, and would probably be a legal way to earn some money, even if you were not legally allowed to work.

People who think they can make a quick buck; these people are, for the most part, the least of anyone's worries, as they appear quite clueless.

Some people from the ranks of the two previous types, however, may do well enough that they graduate to become dedicated, professional car binners; They work at it like a part-time job, and probably come to count on the income.

Signs of a car binner

• Driving through every block of a lane very slowly. I now pay attention to marked company vans doing this in lanes, as I've seen three used for binning in the last six-months.


• The back seating area of a four-door car, and perhaps the front passenger seat are covered in clear plastic sheeting.


• Car flags. Odd fact that I know at least six hard-core car binners who fly Canadian flags and, or, Vancouver Canucks flags.


• The driver is dressed over-warmly for just driving.


• The driver is wearing disposable gloves.

Car binning seems downright immoral to me, but that could partly be my self-interest talking. The more concrete issue is that they, without exception, see themselves above all the other non-motorized binners, by which I mean, they will always try to blow by anyone binning ahead of them, and grab what they can.

There is a sort of agreed-upon code of conduct among binners, designed to reduce conflict -- the big thing is binners should not cut off other binners: If you see another binner already in the lane ahead of you, go to another lane. Car binners could care less. This is why they occasionally lose side mirrors, wind-shields, and tire valve-stems.

Two of the main binning environments are apartment lanes, and residential home lanes, or multi-unit, and single-unit. Car binners have been, first, and foremost, an issue in single-unit areas, which have once-per-week recycling pick-up. Now as their numbers keeps increasing -- like water poured on a map -- they are spreading into the multi-unit areas, where they have less of an advantage; most of the bottles are in closed blue toter bins and dumpsters -- but they will grab anything they can see; sometimes they bin in pairs -- one drives, one walks, and checks all the bins.

One might wonder how lucrative this can be if you have to pay for gas? Well the answer is their numbers are only increasing. One shopping cart binner confessed to me that some years ago he helped a buddy car-bin in the upscale area of Point Gray, using a van which ran on natural gas -- very economical.

I know it's legal, but I believe it's wrong, and I agree one-hundred per cent with the sentiments of one rich Shaughnessy neighbourhood resident. After I pulled aside to let a green Blazer pass me in a lane, the driver sped ahead, screeched to a stop, and jumped out, and started literally throwing wine bottles from this one resident's blue box into his little green binner-mobile. As he sped away, the resident came running into the lane. "I don't believe what I just saw," he said. I replied, quite lamely, that the guy might have just been hanging on financially by his fingernails. To which the resident declared, "Well he should sell the f**king Blazer!"

Jonathan says he's currently reading Tom Jones by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. He has recently finished Richard III by some lesser-known English playwright. Jonathan loves playing the guitar and harmonica, and writes his own songs. He's a true resident of all of Vancouver, but is most often somewhere along the Broadway corridor, west of Main Street.

Doctor: "Do you hear voices?"
Patient: "Yes doctor, I do!"
Doctor: "Do they tell you to do bad things?"
Patient: "Uh-huh. They do."
Doctor: "All the time?"
Patient: "No. Not all the time"
Doctor: "Exactly when do you hear the voices that tell you to do bad things?"
Patient: "When I'm sitting in your waiting room, doctor, with your other patients."

Inspired by Stix, a seeker after Golden Corners, who says he does, and that they do -- all the time. See also A home for Stix.

This collage of my bike and trailer involved propping it up against a parkade post to get the brightest light behind the shot. I used my laptop in lieu of a proper camera: Position, Snap! Slide over, Snap! and-so-on. Colour-correction was hacked: sample a specular highlight for the new white point! Awful, but Websites can get away with it. I composited in GIMP (aka not Photoshop). without concern for  dis-alignment, which is part of the effect.

I currently sleep blissfully well in a parkade. I'm sure people in many parts of the world will understand the term, but parkade is recognized the world-over as a Canadianism, a uniquely Canadian term, for a parking garage, especially in Western Canada. (*). At some earlier point of my life I was given to believe the word, a portmanteau, or blend, of parking and arcade, was coined by The Hudson's Bay Company to refer to covered parking garages connected with the HBC department stores. It seems to have been the out-of-print Gage Canadian Dictionary which strongly suggested this. (*) These days it is said to have likely originated with either the HBC or Woodwards (*), a now defunct family-owned department store chain on the West Coast of Canada.

Estee is a "morning person." She is effervescent at a time of day when most are still trying to wake up, and she has worked the breakfast shift at the McDonalds at Broadway and Granville for as long as I can remember -- which is nothing compared to how she can remember every regular customer's order!

I gained a follower, And went to their web site by following a link to one of their posts: "Can we draw the image of God?."

I enjoyed reading the post. The writer is earnest in their belief, and their use of English is so endearingly awkward that it achieves the cadence of poetry. I'm not being sarcastic -- it's like taking a soothing bath in someone's belief.

I am neither a theist nor a deist. I am strongly negative where organized religion is concerned, and for the rest, I'm agnostic; I do not believe or disbelieve in the existence of god(s). The question is irrelevant to me the way the old Coke/Pepsi Challenge was to a root beer drinker.

When I was young enough that being a smart-ass could still be "cute," It actually occurred to me that the question was not, "Did I believe in god?" but rather, "Did god believe in me?" And I thought my existence rather answered that question.

Thinking about it as I left a thank-you comment on my new follower's site, spurred me to Google my glib adolescent theory -- I expect I'll find any number of past thinkers have tilled that ground, but nothing yet.

In the meantime, I will leave any interested readers in the more-than-capable hands of the late British author Douglas Adams, and his Babel Fish Argument for the Non-Existence of God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=fmpP73-SHPQ&feature=fvwp

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the Word, the Truth, and the Light.

[caption id="attachment_201" align="alignleft" width="150"] A brass monkey in the hand[/caption]

The day after Welfare Wednesday. Many binners still have something better to do. The Fairview alleys are as free of traffic as they will ever get. My big chance.

I bestir myself to find $20 worth of bottles, and a brass monkey. I go to my storage locker, change, and wash my hands. I go off to find a plug-in and trim my hair.

Back on South Granville, with coffee and WiFi, I note a character orbiting my locked-up bike and trailer. There. Gone. There. Gone. Then beside me in the restaurant. "Is that my trailer, and would I like to make $10?" His large rolling luggage blew a wheel and he needs to get to the MPA, a community centre and apartment complex for clients of the B.C. Mental Health system. Sure, $5. Outside the restaurant we load the small luggage, onto my bike trailer; he gives me $4 and change, and he'll meet me there. Takes me all of three minutes. He arrives, finds a mate, and takes delivery of the property. looks are exchanged, "have you asked him?"

[caption id="attachment_202" align="alignright" width="150"] The beginnings of a bad haircut[/caption]

Seems they've a whole shopping cart full of bottles. They'll split it with me, if I cash it in. Why not? I wheel around to the parking garage, and a shopping cart appears, full of wine bottles and garnished with two bags of mixed glass, plastic and aluminium. I load it onto my trailer. and consider: It's 4:15 pm. I'm almost equidistant from two bottle depots. Ten minutes later I'm at the Westside Encorp bottle depot at Blenheim and West Broadway; not just Kitsilano, but Little Greece.

This particular depot is little also. It's naturally jammed full with four people. One of them, a shirtless aboriginal, is dominating the room and most of the sorting tables. "What do I want," he asks. "A table," I tell him. He obliges, as best he can. But there's a lot going on with him, I can tell.

I sort my bottles in this circus, with just one fellow who counting the customer's bottles and running the touch-screen computer which tabulates and spits out a detailed receipt. The counter guy's spitting out a steady stream of complaints. Out on the side walk, the aboriginal is playing in a heap he's collected along with the bottles. Thanks to the counter guy's complaints, he's covered the debris with a pale pink blanket. Inside, the counter person is complaining about the aboriginal, particularly his lack of a shirt.

Vinnie's bottles, for all their weight and volume amount to only $18.10; that's how it is with wine bottles, they look rich but they're poor where it counts. Ten minutes later I'm at the MPA reception negotiating to leave $9.05, and the detailed receipt, with them for Vinnie, which is what he told me to do. It feels good to help, and I found a monkey.

Ps. Notice how one complete stranger twice trusted another complete stranger where amounts of money were concerned.

Jimmy is a long-time bike-and-trailer binner; currently semi-retired; He doesn't really need the money, but he still likes going out riding and finding cool stuff. "He's well-respected and a crazy son-of-a-bitch."

Marylin apparently works 27 hours a day -- morning and evening shifts at two different McDonalds: Broadway and Granville and South-West Marine Drive -- at the same time! She's actually sound asleep in this photo -- but she can still fill the orders perfectly. What a pro!

I like these new pedestrian countdown timer signals being installed through the City of Vancouver; there's nothing wrong with a little extra certainty where traffic is concerned. Even better would be if The Coast Mountain Bus Co., aka Translink, would put a similar countdown timer on the rear end of all their transit buses, so a driver, or cyclist, would have an idea how long a particular bus planned to sit at a bus stop; sometimes it's stop, drop, and go, and other times it's 5 minutes -- you never know, and they can pull away from the curb quite quickly. A little more certainty wouldn't hurt, but getting hit by a bus would.

Gosh I'd love to able to have a shower each and every day. I know a few homeless binners who nearly manage this, but, in this regard, I am obviously not nearly as good at this gig as they are. And now that summer is coming, the absence will be that much more telling.

No one likes to be grubby, but you proverbially need to get your hands dirty to earn money. And given the linear nature of human existence, you have to choose: go find a shower/do laundry, or work and make money; basically spend or earn. The priority is to work when the money is there to be made, and then clean up -- that's what people normally do at home, after, or before work. People without a home have a logistical problem: shower and laundery availability is nowhere twenty-four hours, that I know of.

It's something for me to get better at managing, but until then, if you see me bombing around Fairview, whiskerey, a bit fragrant, and grubby, chances are I'm flush with cash for food, repairs, and to put aside (for things like laundry). If on the other hand I'm sparkling clean, well-groomed, shiney in the shoes, pressed in the pants, and smelling like a fresh breeze through rich people, then I'm likely poor and hungry. With luck I'll be somewhere in between.

After cashing in bottles, I rode back Westward, my trailer flaunting it's Creamsicle-orange butt in the bright spring sunshine, to the Waves coffee house at West Broadway and Spruce. My coffee order is too predictable: Large dark mocha, extra-hot, with a slice of banana loaf. The owner punches it in, then laughs, "Ha ha! It came out as 'extra-hoot.'"

New owners at a formerly favourite restaurant means a new bad attitude which has left a bad taste in my mouth.

About a year ago, I would have told anyone who cared to listen to run, not walk, to the little Best Burrito restaurant at 195 West Broadway, in Vancouver, B.C., across from Mountain Equipment Coop. The restaurant was little but served huge burritos full of freshness and flavour, at a very reasonable price. I ate there almost every day last summer but didn't go there all winter.

Returning last week, after a season's absence, I could see it was somewhat different. Certainly the hands-on owner I was familiar with wasn't there. New owner I was told. The burrito had slightly different ingredients, and strips of beef rather than shredded, which I prefer, but it was good and still fresh and hefty.

The staff who prepared my burrito, gave me a new loyalty stamp card. The next day I ate there and the same staff stamped my new card a second time. Realizing I had a loyalty card from the previous owner which was shy but a single stamp, the staff member insisted I use it next time to fill it and they would honour it. I had the old card stamped and thus filled on my next visit.

Today I was in for a shock -- this is what I've written on the Google+ review feature for Best Burrito:

I loved the original owner's burritos, but there has been a change of ownership and attitude, They started me on a fresh loyalty stamp card, but i was told on my next visit I could complete the old owner's stamp card which was shy just one stamp, and then redeem it, I had it stamped on my next visit. However today when I tried to redeem the fully stamped card, a staff member told me, quite loudly and brusquely that that was the previous owner's and they didn't have to and wouldn't honour it. I tossed the old card and left the partially-stamped new card for whomever wanted it. I won't go back there, I really do not believe that is the right way to treat a customer.

Don't mean to rant, but I have provided customer service -- I'm not happy about how I was treated and I wanted to share that.

 

Jezibelle Knucklez. a South Granville prospector -- she knows secrets, yes she does!

Another Jezi post ►

Nearly 16 months without a cigarette. I quit in late December of 2011. What's my secret? Respiratory-related illnesses. Indeed, when I would have something like the flu, my cravings for cigarettes would diminish in proportion to the severity.

I had previously used a bout of flu or bronchial-whatever to quit smoking at the end of 2007 -- I held out for eight months. At the beginning of 2008 I started working at the Vancouver Masonic Centre, doing custodial, event set-up, etc.. In some aspects, I found it to be a poisonous workplace. I used stress as a excuse to start smoking again (if we allow that to happen Timmy then the terrorists will have won!). I didn't try again until the end of 2011.

I only started smoking in my twenties; I was a wee-young graphic designer, in the middle of a fairly nightmarish magazine roll-out, which turned was a scam, BTW. Out for a stroll with a co-designer -- we were sooo tired, and playing the game, "I could so fall asleep on ..." that concrete, that car, etc.. She piped up that she had something that would perk us up (like bad dialogue from Reefer Madness!). She gave me an unfiltered Gauloise cigarette -- kind of an Adam and Eve moment; we ended up living together. I recall it sure did wake me up then, and I continued smoking for nearly 30 years -- ouch!

My lung power will never entirely recover, but I'll take what I can get. Sure I miss hacking my guts out in the morning, who wouldn't? But I don't smell like a human-sized ashtray, and I save some money.

Shown above is my black Sansa Clip Zip + music player. It has 4 GB of built-in storage, and takes micro SD cards. By itself it's an okay music player, but it's real strength is that it's one of a number of digital music players whose  firmware can be easily replaced with a third-party, opensource firmware called Rockbox. Many people would say that a Sansa running Rockbox is better than an iPod:



Rockbox is almost too configurable, in both look and sound. There are walk-through installers for Windows, Mac, and Linux, The site offers a wealth of information including which players are supported. If there is a drawback it is that the supported players are older hardware, and increasingly hard to find; the SCZ+ is one of the newest players supported.

The Black SCZ+ shown above was a replacement for a white model which was rendered read-only one day. I attribute this not to the player but to Linux/Ubuntu, as I've had this happen permanently to a micro-SD card, and temporarily to an external hard drive. I managed to restore the micro-SD by getting an SD card-size adapter, which had the physical switch to toggle write-protect on and off. I have also managed to un-bork the white SCZ+ by reformatting it on a Mac which naturally still saw it as write-enabled.

"I do like a lot about Ubuntu, but I find the same thing: too often when you are up against a roadblock, a google search shows that the answer is to bring up the terminal and type a string of random characters."

Posted by: Merlin, on Aug. 31st, 2012 to macobserver.com

This is my friend Marnie. She's just appeared behind me at McDonalds. She says she went to church service, and she just ate at Tim Hortons: chili, 7-up!

I don't know if storage locker beats shopping cart in the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but I believe, from personal experience, that it does in real life.

I was lucky to get a storage locker within two weeks of becoming homeless in late 2004. I had some cash from selling my Mac hardware on consignment through The Mac Market, a wonderful shop, and, I think, the only one of its kind in Vancouver, but I couldn't find a company willing to rent a locker to me; I made no secret of my situation and, it turns out homeless people are not always generally known for paying their bills or keeping their lockers in good order. I was also a bit appalled by the poor security and shoddy construction I was seeing: plywood and chicken-wire, dim-to-no lighting, and not cheap at that. Finally I found a brand new company on West 7th; they still had lots of available lockers, they were willing to give me a try as a customer; I could afford their rates, and they were set-up in a concrete building, with two levels of lockers constructed of aluminum and steel -- some with lighting and even temperature control, and overall clean, well-lit and secure.

I've had my locker at Guardian Storage for over eight years now. My rent generally coincides with the increased panic binning the week before Welfare cheques are issued; I try to pay early to beat the rush, as I did this week, but some times I just have to gut it out and work extra hard again the increased competition. It's massively worth it, as far as I'm concerned. I'm grateful that they took a chance on me, and I recommend them highly for their facilities and their service.

Saturday, April 20, Surrey, British Columbia was the place to be for over 200,000 people attending the 12th annual Vaisakhi Parade. Vancouver, wasn't much to anyone in particular, until the evening, perhaps, when the Vancouver Canucks beat the visiting Detroit Redwings.

I'm one of the many homeless folk who seriously use computers. At this moment I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on an old HP Pavilion dv6000 - not so much a laptop as a tank-top.

I've been an Apple Mac user since 1990. In 2012 I turned to Linux, only because my MacBook Pro had been stolen. My older PPC G3 iBook couldn't cut it. I'd read how Ubuntu could revitalize an old computer; I tried it on a junker PC laptop; the results were impressive.

Ubuntu was not the daunting Linux I remembered from 2000. The live CD was a great idea. Ubuntu seemed to blend best practices from a number of operating systems.

My first serious install was Ubuntu 12.04. I played with all the Unity bells and whistles, but eventually settled on the Gnome Classic environment. Unity was a hog and not so flexible. I found a semantic launcher like Synapse was so much faster than the Dash or the H.U.D.

I've tried a variety of other desktop environment and Linux distros. But whether Linux Mint with Mate and Caja, or the cool Puppy Linux, or Fuduntu with it's lovely Gnome 2 DE, I have always come back to Ubuntu.

One reason is software availability and compatibility - Ubuntu gives me more freedom to install more software that works than any other distro I've tried. The other reason, it turns out, is the file manager.

How Nautilus tricked me into liking Linux

Turns out the reason I Liked Linux in the first place was first-and-foremost because of Nautilus, the Gnome file manager used by Ubuntu. As a long-time Macintosh user, I was impressed to see Ubuntu mounted volumes on the desktop and used an expand/collapse folder toggle in directory windows, just like Apple's so-called "disclosure triangles." I was more impressed by Nautilus' Mac-like touches, when I saw how Windowsy the rest of the Ubuntu interface was.

Imagine my surprise to discover that Nautilus was originally created by Eazel, a company full of former Apple employees. The original Nautilus icons were designed by Susan Kare, the legendary designer of the core Macintosh icons. No wonder I like Nautilus!

Thanks to Nautilus, I actually kind of prefer file management in Ubuntu over Mac OS X. I love the F3 split-screen view in Nautilus. Boos and hisses to Gnome for doing away with that feature in Nautilus 3.6, and cheers to Canonical for sticking with the older 3.4.2 version of Nautilus for Ubuntu 12.10.

Many historians and writers consider the Canadian victory at Vimy a defining moment for Canada, when the country emerged from under the shadow of Britain and felt capable of greatness. Canadian troops also earned a reputation as formidable, effective troops because of the stunning success. But it was a victory at a terrible cost, with more than 10,000 killed and wounded.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge, running from April 9-12, 1917, was part of the larger British-led Battle of Arras, along with the French Nivelle Offensive; all together one huge effort to break through the entrenched German positions along the Western Front in France. Trench warfare, stymied military tactics of the day, which taught battles of movement and flanking. Faced with unmoving German positions fortified with barbed-wire and machine-guns, the tendency was to throw waves of soldiers at the machine-guns, and hope for the best. The huge military effort of April 9-12, employed new tactics and technology, but it still came down to four divisions of Canadian soldiers who captured the Ridge. The victory was hailed as a signal Canadian achievement, but ultimately the entire effort was for naught as the Allied advances were lost and the area reverted to stalemate.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge is one of the things which can be brought to mind whenever I see a blood-red Canadian flag.