Jay’s Life

Happy Halloween everyone. Happie got dressed up. Staysea and I did the pumpkins, hers is the more complicated one on the left and mine on the right. I did Happie’s war paint, I think he’s an Ewok.

Halloween day at work. Brought the order of the Crescent Moon to the good people there. Also a basket of candy apples that Staysea and I made, and she so perfectly packaged up. Thanks to Spencer for the fog machine for my cube, it added that nice extra mystery.

I’ll see if I can update with a clearer picture later on today.

I hate the CRTC with the burning furry of a thousand suns. Why is it that as consumers we are very often left behind in fair and competitive offerings from our broadcast services (Internet, Television, Phone)?

The US FTC announced last week that they would allow the transmission of internet over power lines and that fiber optic lines could be run to residential buildings. The powerline technology is starting a trial in New York and will provide DLS speeds. Internet over power would completely transform rural areas, allowing for new services. Think about it, you wouldn’t have to run a phone line to your cottage, you could use VoIP technology, and take your home phone with you to the cottage. Rural areas like where my parents live could have internet available in schools and offices, allowing them to keep pace with their metropolis counterparts. The fiber technology is being rolled out by Verizon to residential customers with speeds of 15 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up for $40. That is 10x faster than current offerings in Canada, 5x if you’re paying for a premium for high speed. They believe they will be able to get the speeds to 30 Mbps soon. I can’t even get Bell to update my neighborhood so I can achieve their lowest speed offering, and I live in the middle of a city with 600,000 people.

And how about cellular service? Well, lets see, I can go with Bell, Telus, Rogers or Fido Rogers. What about our neighbors to the south? Invariably more choices with plans that include nation wide calling, free calling between family members, better signal strength (thanks to regulations allowing more powerful towers) and number portability. Never heard of number portability? Say you actually want to switch between any of the holy trinity of cellular providers, and keep your phone number, YOU CAN’T! Keep your phone number? Who would want that?

I really like playing my XBox. In fact Staysea has refered to it as the ‘other’ woman. However, since I got Tiger Woods Golf, it’s been difficult to get time to my XBox, since it is being constantly occupied by Staysea. Apparently, the XBox is not so evil and stupid as she once thought. I think I even heard her complain that her thumb was sore.
I even came home the other day to her and my buddy Mark playing together. I had to WAIT till they where done! (I got some groceries, pizza and beer). I’m not complaining as much as I’m adjusting to this new development. She is definately full of surprises, and isn’t that what we look for in a happy relationship? I do.

Last week I started using Google Desktop. It is an application that brings the searching power of Google to your local machine. It changed the way I use my computer. The download is very small, so even people on dial-up can use it. It requires a gig of hard drive space to install, which is my only complaint, and will index just about all of your office files, email and AOL messenger (if you’re one of those who uses it).

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Had a wonderful weekend with Staysea’s parents in town for the holidays. Also was able to catch up with John, who was down from Ottawa and Aman is back from his trek across Africa.

Cristopher Reeve died on the weekend too. Superman has always been one of my favorite heros. I believe that he absolutely exemplified Superman in both his actor’s portrayal of the hero and in his own life dealing with his accident and lobbying for research to help others in need.

After all these years of thinking I was impenetrable I discovered that I have an allergy….I am allergic to horses.
We were up at Janine and Glenn’s place this weekend and a friend of theirs came by on a beautiful horse named Lily, now my left eye is swollen shut and soooooo itchy. Your mother always said not to touch your face after petting an animal… tsk tsk.
The good news is Jason, Happie and I had a great weekend up in Peterborough with the McLeods’ and Mark and I got an extended weekend!
I’m now deep into my weekend cooking plans, including a never before attempted dessert…. Crème Brule! Oooooooohhhh aaaahhh!
I’m very excited to see my parents who are coming in on Friday, as well as Paul and Melissa who are staying over Friday night too!
Enjoy the long weekend everyone! It’s a long haul after this one before Christmas.