Jen just got home from her “Dinner Club.” Her girlfriends get together once a month and have a pow-wow at a hot spot. Tonight it was Jules Bistro in Gastown. Last month it was La Terrazza.
To show you how badly needed this Dinner Club is for Jen and her social life, the nice coat she wore tonight hasnt been worn since last month’s soiree. How did she know? She found someone else’s car keys in her pocket, probably dumped by a coat check or valet.
All that we had was a Volvo fob, and a Tiffany’s charm.
On the back of the charm was engraved a first name, and a company. That’s it. Put them in Google together and we found a matching person who had donated to the Weekend to End Breast Cancer. With that entry we discovered her last name.
Put the first and last name into Google and we discover a bulletin board post she made 2 years ago complete with phone number and email address. Now the email address has expired, as she has switched companies, but we will try the home phone number listed tomorrow.
So… good news / bad news. Google will help you get your keys back if you lost them, but it will also give out a lot of information about you to anyone who has a little bit of information about you.
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
Twitter posts (tweets) are limited to 140 characters, the same limitations of SMS, so you’ll often find people tweeting on the go. Because of the character limit of the posts, they become almost poetic, a new internet Haiku.
I love it. It’s where I’ve moved my social networking. I mean, I still check Facebook every now and again, but it’s not where I spend my time. The quality of user is much more manageable at Twitter.. The Twitter peeps, tweeps, are ahead of the curve, smart, articulate and not into zombie biting. Sweet.
But things might change. I mean, I wrote about Twitter to draw in the unwashed, and now Lee LeFever and his CommonCraft crew are explaining things in plain english.
Get ready to unfollow @superpoke.
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
I wish it was a reference to some acoustic version of Guitar Hero, but alas I’m referring to my connection to the internets.
For the better part of a month, our internet connection with Shaw has been spotty. Not the fastest, and dropping off frequently. The drop off means getting under the table, resetting the modem, resetting the router, waiting. Climbing back up, seeing it’s not working and doing it again. Even once it starts working, 15 mins later I’m crouched down doing the reset dance again.
We’ve called Customer Service a couple of times, once getting a credit for 5 days service because of our troubles (nice!).
BUT… (there’s always one of those)
The last call was resolved with Shaw suggesting we exchange our modem for a newer model, free of charge (nice!). Jen went and did that today, brought them home and plugged everything in.
Dead.
Nothing.
Zip.
She calls tech support and they have her under the desk doing all sorts of cable origami and nothing works. So they’re going to send a tech out to us (nice!).
On Sunday (ouch!). Today is Wednesday. 5 days with no series of tubes connecting us to the world.
At first I thought this would be great. A chance to format the hard drive that is my life. Get off the grid, take a breath of fresh air and re-evaluate how I have let technology monopolize my life.
The problem is, I’m not the only one it monopolizes. Work doesnt phone me when it needs something, it emails me. Friends don’t call, they Facebook. I don’t phone my parents and chat, they get updates on Zacharie through this blog and his photo blog.
With no internets, that all disappears. Gone.
Thankfully we have 2 neighbourly neighbours who leave some ports open so the whole ‘hood can get online. It’s not the most reliable of connections, so it’s nothing I can depend on to get serious blog / audio / video / research work done. Instead I’ll be able to just hop on the open port and get in a couple of email checks to stay in touch with work, but that’s about it.
For 5 long, hard days, I will be off the grid (sorta).
I’m looking forward to it (sorta).
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
Leo Laporte is the host of many podcasts, tv and radio shows about technology. His TWiT Network is one of the most listened to online, and he comes up to Vancouver 1 week a month to work on The Lab With Leo.
He loves his gear. He’s usually on the bleeding edge for buying the latest and greatest, sitting on waiting lists until something new is released.
But every now and again Leo waits and buys something a little further down the line, and when he does, it means the item is about to be discontinued.
He’ll buy the HD DVD player the day before the battle is lost to Blu Ray, he’ll buy a new iPod the day before the memory is doubled and the size is shrunk.
It’s called getting Leo’d, and it just happened to me.
I finally received my iPod Shuffle that I scooped on the Future Shop Boxing Day Sale for $59.99. A GREAT deal I thought. Nope.
Today Apple announced the price of the shuffle has dropped to $55, and a new 2 gig model is being introduced for $75.
Grrr.
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
Many people gathered with friends today at whoever’s house has the biggest HD TV to watch the Giants and Pats in the SuperBowl.
Watching big games with a lot of people may be a fun social event, but you never really get a sense of the drama of the game because of the din of the crowd, and beer spilled in your nachos.
For big events, like the Masters, or the Stanley Cup or SuperBowl, I prefer to watch the game tout seul. Alone. By myself.
Today, Jen is on one couch, I’m on the other. But I’m having a big party - with my twitter peeps. It’s the best of both worlds. I’m chillaxing with the fam, I get to get into the game, and when something big happens, or a cool commercial comes on, I can yak back and forth with 30something people - all the while not disturbing the ass kicking of Eli Manning.
Beautiful. I’m calling it TwitterBowl I.
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
I have long lamented the gong show that is my Boxing Day Sale purchases from Future Shop.
Here’s the short version: I bought an SD memory card and an iPod shuffle on December 24, and I still haven’t gotten them.
I have phoned THREE times to the Future Shop customer service line and each time been told it will be a couple of days to investigate the situation.
When you buy something online, and it gets shipped, you get a tracking number from Canada Post. I’ve tracked my package and Canada Post says they delivered it on January 7. But here’s the kicker - I didnt receive it.
So who do you bitch to?
Future Shop cause that’s who you paid your money to, or Canada Post because they’re the ones “lying” about the delivery?
Apparently I will now know on Friday what will happen with my case. How it will end, is still confusing. I just know I spent $165 in a 3hr online marathon over a month ago and I still don’t have anything to show for it.
As I have said here and here, online shopping sucks.
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
A lot of people found a way to e-commute today. Get things done from home with the kids instead of hiking up the skirt and pounding through the slushy puddles.
That’s fine, but could you do it everyday? e-commute, I mean.
Darren Barefoot does. He has a Vancouver based web marketing company called Capulet Communications. For the past 8 months Darren has been running that company remotely, from Malta and, most recently, Essouira, Morocco.
But you’d have no idea if he was in a trendy Railtown loft, or his ancient riad on the Atlantic coast of Africa.
Pretty cool. I profile Darren in today’s cyberbuzz. I’m working on a feature piece on his efforts for a magazine later this spring.
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
I’m going unplugged. 
He loves his gear. He’s usually on the bleeding edge for buying the latest and greatest, sitting on waiting lists until something new is released.
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