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Zune

Read this article for the lead in to my rant.

Alright, so the ‘so-called’ iPod-killer is around the corner. Let’s see what they have to say about it.

Market Forces – Face it Microsoft. You’re the proverbial dodo bird. Dead before your time. Sure, you have a vast market share over the world with all your other products, but it’s going to take some time to crack the stronghold Apple has on the MP3 player market.

Sharing Fever – Hey, now this is an interesting concept. At first I didn’t think Microsoft would go the anti-piracy route and allow you to share files wirelessly. I was semi-right. Upon further investigation, they have a three day/three play rule when nabbing a file off of someone (whichever comes first). I do enjoy this feature regardless because it’s always cool if someone can say ‘Dude, check out this band I like!’. Bravo to you M.Soft. The funny thing about this is that we all know that someone will break the copy protection and this will probably be the main selling feature of the Zune. Much like how I bought an XBox because it could be ‘hacked’.

More Content, Bigger Screen – Uh, did I just read on another site that the videos they offer won’t even be filling the entire screen, they will just be the size of an iPod screen? Oh Microsoft, way to disappoint.

Surprisingly Cool – Yes, as in its not a hot item to purchase. That’s why it’s cool.

I think that if Microsoft released a competitor against the iPod, let’s say, 2 years ago, it could have been a contender. But SOOOO many other MP3 players have tried to compete and it just doesn’t work. However, I must admit that some of the features have me drooling (Wi-Fi? Sharing is cool albeit, even cooler if they get rid of the three day/three play), but we’ll have to see what happens when it comes on the market.

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Saturday – Brockville

On Saturday, Vero and I made the trek to Brockville to see Joe. It has been many years since he moved to Brockville, so after much delibaration (read: guilt) we headed on down the 401.

Unfortunately, the morning started out rough as I had an impromptu night out with Krista at Patty Boland’s after a great supper with Catherine and Amelia at Milestone’s. Never really ate there before, but my meal was SO top notch, I shall return again for the shanghai noodle stirfry. Highly recommended!

So I hop on the bus to Orleans and start walking to the parking lot and realize my car isn’t there! Am I a victim of theft? Nope, just bad memory! The day before my alarm didn’t go off so I ended up parking at another park and ride as this one is full by 8 in the morning.

So there I was, without a car, and it’s parked 4 kms down the road. Unfortunately, there is no bus service out to that area on a Saturday! I hopped onto a bus which I knew would take me closer to it and got off as close as I could and walked the remaining 2 kms. It wasn’t a bad walk – nice crisp morning, birds chirping…but I started to get a headache from the liquids consumed the night before so I wasn’t in the best of shape.

After packing the car and picking up Vero, we headed to Brockville and got there around 2:30. Joe gave us a tour around the town. Brockville is an excellent looking spot! It’s right on the river and the river is beautiful! I can’t say I’ve visited the Thousand Island area at all, so I think I would like to take a trek there one day with Vero.

I love the architecture in the southern part of Brockville – old school flair with the view of the river beyond. You can’t go wrong! The rest of Brockville was decent also, although Joe said the North part isn’t commonly known as the nicer part of the city.

We then picked up some supplies for the night and Joe brought Vero out for a bike ride while I sat at home and watched Enterprise. After some supper and some drinks, we headed out downtown and hit up the newly redone ‘The Brock Pub’ which was excellent times and good atmosphere. Unfortunately, Vero realized she had left her ID somewhere else so we went home to look for it, and she decided to stay home since she couldn’t find it.

Joe and I then continued the trek over to the Phoenix which was the greatest bar in the world. It reminded me of the Empire Tavern back home, coupled with the older crowd from the Sunshine Tavern. Excellent! There was a band playing who were decent (although they couldn’t play us Copperhead Road. Come on guys! The band last night played it at Patty Boland’s!), and I especially loved their one original song called “Universal Asshole”. Ah, the beauty of small town bands and their insightful lyrics. I can’t pick out a favourite part of the Phoenix, but it’s definitely a tie between the numerous older ladies with their eyes on us, or the dude who we thought was at his bachelor party. He was decked out in a bed sheet, a fanny pack, a Frankenstein tie, two different shoes, a cowboy hat with tassles. This man was supreme. I wished I had brought my camera. After 20 minutes of him cutting a mean rug, we realized that no one had come to dance with him or buy him drinks on his bachelor party. After another 20 minutes, he realized that he can’t be at his bachelor party, he must be a freak having a wild time in this great outfit! Kudos to you Brockville Freak Man.

We headed over to the Keystorm Pub which was DOA so we packed it up and headed to the O2 Nightclub for another brew and memories of childhood (aka the younguns out at the dance club dancing to the beat.). After that, a necessary slice of pizza entered our bodies and we headed home for the night.

Hey, the Pumpkins played on a rerun of SNL that night! That was random, especially since I had seen that EXACT performance on a live video I downloaded the week before. Random.

All in all, an excellent time in Brockville with Joe! I highly recommend visiting the place, and I know it won’t be my last time there. I am hoping that next summer, there are some cool festivals we can hit up.

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Reviews

Random Reviews

Yesterday provided me with ample opportunity to sit down and relax. With school starting up, this is a rare occurrence so I embraced it with what I enjoy the most. Sitting myself down on the couch and checking out some TV shows that I downloaded. Keep in mind that I may have subconsciously left a school assignment on my desk at work so I wouldn’t be able to work on it this weekend. 😉

I could probably have an entire entry dedicated to a review on the TV shows I’ve seen, but I’ll just keep it short and sweet.

Star Trek: Enterprise – Hey, I know this has been off the air for a few years, but I somehow missed the last six episodes so while at Joe’s this weekend, I popped in the finale and took a look at it. AWESOME finale. I really loved how they tied it into Star Trek: The Next Generation. Do I enjoy the Enterprise series? Heck yeah. It was great. Too bad it got cancelled.

Jericho – New TV show here revolving around the town of Jericho and they see a nuclear blast in the distance which hit Denver. Joe, Vero and I watched the second episode of the show so the only thing we had as a recap of the first episode was the two minute recap at the beginning of the episode. The show seemed alright…part of me is intrigued to see who is bombing the States, part of me is saying that the show is kind of boring considering it’s revolving around a town trying to find shelter from the fallout. Nonetheless, it is an interesting concept and it has everyone’s Johnny Depp lookalike; Skeet Ulrich! After seeing one episode, I would say I’ll watch a few others and see if it picks up a little more. Sounds like they may be using the Lost formula in keeping the watcher in suspense.

Grey’s Anatomy – Well, I got into this show over the summer – really enjoy the characters and the stories. I was a fan of ER for years so I enjoy the hospital dramas. The good thing about the setting of a hospital is that it brings forth some interesting stories. Oh, what’s that? You have a tree that went through your entire body? WHOA! I also laugh at how every patient that comes through their doors somehow has a metaphoric mirror image life to one of the cast members and they say one line that helps out the cast solve a troubling problem that they have been trying to deal with. Quite amusing. Anyhow, I watched the first two episodes and was impressed with the season so far. Get into this show!

Heroes – Maren had suggested this because she knew I am a fan of the comic books. She called this ‘a believable X-Men’. It started up really good and I could tell that they really had the comic book in mind when filming the series with the quick pans to action and the focus on character’s faces. After watching this show I have to say it’s probably my fave of the new batch of shows for the season. This show is AMAZING! It’s not geeky, it’s a good drama that would rope the comic book hater in. It all revolves around how geneticists say that humans are evolving and they don’t know how (aka into mutants), but they’ll have random powers like teleportation, the power of flight, etc. There is a solar eclipse in the first episode which may or may not be the catalyst for these super powers. An interesting part of the show is that on their website, they go a little further into the story (making it MORE than a show) as they have some graphic novels showing what happened to some of the characters before arriving on the show, as well as a blog of one of the characters. If anyone has the time for it, the high interactivity level of TV shows is impressive nowadays. It would be like getting a phon call from Carol Burnett telling you what she thought of a certain scene. I highly recommend this show. I will be watching it faithfully this year.

The 4400 – I can’t say I know much about this show other than Joe and Trish recommended it to me. I think it’s in its third of fourth season right now. It starts off with a slew of people being abducted (perhaps by aliens?) over the past 60 years and then they all randomly (4400 of them!) show up one day from this mysterious ball of light. I’ve only watched 20 minutes of it, but it seems interesting and we’ll be wondering what did happen to these guys. I can’t say much more about this show. 20 minutes of it was intriguing, but we’ll wait to give it the Palmer stamp of approval once I finish watching the pilot episode.

Friends – Why did they have to cancel this show? 😉 Only my favourite show ever. I downloaded Season 10 and was having a good laugh with Mike yesterday when we watched the episode where Joey visits Monica and Chandler’s new pad.

I hope this gives you a little heads up to the shows people are talking about so you can get a better sense on whether or not you wish to check them out for yourself!

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Privacy Concerns on the Internet

I was surprised to read that there are rumours that the criminal (please read the article here before continuing) may have learned the hostages names via myspace.com.

Fast fact -> Myspace.com is a site where you make your own personal profile and enter your interests into it -> music, movies, whatever, as well as make postings (ala blogging). You can also identify yourself via where you live, what high school you went to, etc. Danny and Carol showed me Myspace.com when I was up there visiting and it was neat to see how many people went to our old high school. Also, the big thing about myspace.com is the linkages between friends that you can make. There is a list of who you consider your ‘friends’.

Other than that, I don’t know much about myspace as I haven’t really used it before. I prefer my own blogspace for my rants, whereas some people just like to use myspace!

Back to the point of the story, if the rumours are true and the killer found out the identities of these young girls via myspace.com, this will unleash a MAJOR backlash in terms of privacy issues on the Internet. The Internet has long been a place mixing anonymity (think nicknames, chatrooms, etc.) with highly personalized information (myspace.com, blogs in general, your photos on-line). Granted, it’s the user’s choice as to how much information they provide, but I don’t think that the users of the Internet are really informed on how much privacy there is out on the Internet.

I have had a lot of experience dealing with privacy issues and youth. My job (as I started out) as a moderator of a message board of youth across the nation. There were always privacy concerns, and we ensured that there were no personal information exchanged on this message board for the public eye to see.

There needs to be more information drilled into the youth, and even us adults as to how much information we should really be placing on the Internet. Even I start thinking about what information I should be putting on a blog. At no time do I ever put someone’s full name on my blog. Not even my own. But if someone really wanted to dig down and found out where I lived, it would be extremely easy considering the landmarks I speak about, the restaurants I go to, etc. Or, I bet they could figure out what my first name and last name are by reading a few dozen posts even though I never place the two words together.

We, as bloggers, should be more conscious of what we place in our entries and, even though it goes against the whole concept of the Internet, should learn to censor ourselves. I read somewhere that someone once said that you should never post anything on the Internet that you couldn’t tell your own mother. 😉 This handles the whole ’embarassing picture’ scenario, but what about someone saying ‘never post anything that could lead someone to your home.’ This is a serious matter.

I had an interesting call the other day from Holly in which she wanted us to change a blog entry on a sister site because it used her full name and someone had discovered the ‘I heart Hollyisms‘ site via Google one day. Sure, it’s fun to have a few laughs, but what if a potential job employer decided to Google Holly’s name and found out all the funny things she has said over the years. It could affect her job. Or, at the very least, get her the promotion as everyone will see what a great person she is. 😉

I don’t think it will be the last we see on this subject. I think in the next coming weeks there will be a major retaliation against the Internet and its privacy amongst youth. What we should focus on, my faithful readers of Palmer’s World, is to think about how much information you post about yourself, and if you are comfortable with it. I personally know that I am comfortable with what I post about myself, but if I ever mention any of you and you feel that you are not comfortable with the amount of information I have relayed, please let me know and I will edit accordingly.

As this moment though, I’m thinking of a few things that I’m going to continue to do:

  • Not post anyone’s full names.
  • Not post anything about specific mailing addresses or phone numbers, email addresses, etc.

Other than that, I’m sure there’s a SLEW of things I should do to increase the amount of privacy on this blog…but at the same time, I am comfortable with people knowing that my favourite bar is the Heart and Crown. 😉

I’m not writing this to scare anyone, but perhaps everyone should take a step back and really look at what information they are posting on the Internet. If the rumours prove true, and a girl was shot in the head because of her information on a Myspace profile, then everyone has to stop and think for a moment. If you have children who are on the Internet, talk to them about this and make them realize that by typing in what high school they attend, what could be the consequences. It’s an extreme example, but it’s an extreme case that just happened.

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Memory

Memory: I Mother Earth and the Poser Scene

I remember the time that I was over at Carol’s and they had I Mother Earth: Scenery and Fish playing (a kickass album) and I didn’t think too much of it. I don’t know what was with me but back in those formative years of the early 90s, I didn’t really care to listen to much that was POPULAR. I think this stemmed from two things – one, I didn’t feel like being part of the mob of people following the same popular bands, two, I wasn’t that popular to begin with and I think I had some weird thought of if I listened to what was popular (or wore clothing which was popular, or read books of what was popular), then I would look like I was TRYING to be integrated into that scene and people (those harmful high school cliques) would point me out of a crowd and yell POSER!

Anyhow, back onto the music (I love how my memory posts go on random tangents encompassing everything I was feeling at the moment) – the last track of the album (Earth, Sky and C) started up and wasn’t too into it until the fateful guitar solo came screaming out of the speakers and I was blown away. Turns out that this was their homage to Carlos Santana, whom I picked up their greatest hits album but never really got into it.

That day changed my musical direction and made me realize that I should give everything a chance. I was automatically dismissing I Mother Earth, Our Lady Peace, all these great bands coming out of the woodwork around the time of the mid-90s because of how I felt about the whole subject of ‘hopping on the train’. This day changed me in many ways in terms of my views towards music and the hundreds of albums along my walls proves that it’s been a long journey. I remember getting into a slew of more music back then. It was mainly the popular stuff on MuchMusic and whatnot – the alternative scene was my scene.

When I hit college, things changed as I had access to something different in the land of music – radio. Sure, some of you are saying “Wha? You didn’t have any radio stations?”. Well, sure we did, but they didn’t have any GOOD radio stations. I think when I left Kapuskasing, it was a country station whereas now it’s a Top 40 station. Hitting up Ottawa, I was introduced to a variety of new rock, but more importantly – OLD rock. Classic Rock. Who were these bands I had only read about but never really listened to: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Clapton? Even now, I slowly get myself introduced to these bands as I like to saturate myself into them. I don’t like picking up a Greatest Hits album and saying “Alright, that’s what Clapton is all about.”. If I did that, I would not be impressed considering his latest greatest hits album is all his newer mellower stuff.

It’s been a long and winding road in the land of music, but I’m glad that I have an open mind to listen to anything, whether it is heavy metal, jazz, rock, hip-hop (heck, alright, there are a few tunes that are catchy but you won’t see me going all out and solidifying my hip-hop CD collection here. That’s just wrong.), or anything that comes my way. Having an open mind towards anything in life, as well as trusting your friends when they toss an album your way can open up the doors to better places.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, anyhow, that was just a random memory I had last night when the radio was playing ‘Another Sunday’ by I Mother Earth and then I thought back to the time I was introduced to them.

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$2 Pad Thai

One of my loves currently is not packing a lunch on Thursdays because there is this little farmer’s market set up down the street from my building every Thursday where they sell Pad Thai for $2. You can’t go wrong!

Unless you go to the tent yesterday and it’s pouring rain out and they have decided not to set up shop. That’s plain mean.

Hopefully they come back next week, as $2 for any meal is a steal of a deal.

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Concert Reviews

Review: Eric Clapton at ScotiaBank Place

Mike, Joe, Trish and I went out to the Scotiabank Place last night to check out the greatest of all guitar players left on this Earth – Eric Clapton. Traffic was hell going there and back (curse you construction after midnight!) but otherwise, we managed to get there in time for a beer before going in to find Joe. I definitely didn’t want to be late this time considering I have heard through the grapevine that “I am always late.”. Hey, I don’t really care if I’m late once in awhile, but to be deemed ‘always late’…that’s just a low blow! 😉

After perusing the merchandise table and reminiscing the days of $20 t-shirts, we headed down to the floor to check out Robert Cray. This guy was great! I had never heard of him before and he put on a solid blues performance. I shall definitely pick up one of his albums. Trish and Joe said they had a few of his tunes and they dug him.

After a 30 minute set, we meandered around the complex and ended up back in our seats just as the house lights went down. Beauty timing on our part, eh? The touring band seemed like an army coming on stage. There were two guitarists besides Eric, a bass guitarist, two keyboardists, the drummer (who seemed gargantuan compared to this mini-me sized drumkit), and two backup vocalists/percussion shakers. What a crew!

They came out a-rocking. Very minimal stage setup – two vid screens for the closeups of some guitar solos. I must admit that I refrain from watching these screens as I feel that I paid good money to see the concert, not watch a screen that could be in my living room. However, it’s very tempting to watch them as you can see the amazing fingerwork over the fretboard!

They stuck to the classic tunes which was great for me – I enjoy the older Clapton; the newer, mellower stuff – not so much. It’s still good, but leave that for an intimate club setting, not a stadium tour! They had a three song accoustic session in the middle of the set which was excellent. Robert Cray came out for Old Love which was all around goodness. Everytime we looked at Mike, he looked like he had tunnel vision on the stage and stood there with his mouth open in awe. It was a truly awe-inspiring experience! Actually, I just read on Wikipedia that Robert co-wrote the song with Eric. Neato.

The set ended with some Layla, Cocaine and an encore of Crossroads with Robert Cray up on stage again. Four lead guitarists on a stage! Brilliant! My fave part of the show was what Trish deemed ‘the guitar-offs’ where one guitarist would go into 5 minute solo, then the other, and then Eric would nod to them with some telepathic message saying “Oh yeah? Watch and learn boys.” and then he rips into a solo only Clapton could pull off. Even the pianists had their time for extended solos. I think the last 30 minutes of the night were entirely solos. AWESOME.

All in all, two thumbs up for the performance. Boy, I hope someone bootlegged the concert.

And now, an open letter to the people sitting on the floor at the Eric Clapton concert:

The floor area is for one thing: to show the band how much you are appreciating the show. Also, to rock. The band don’t usually look up in the bowls of an arena to see the fans reaction. They can probably only see 20 feet in front of them.

Being in the 29th row last night, I was dismayed to see that everyone sat down for the concert. Blasphemy! This is Eric Clapton here!

I proceeded to stand up when Eric Clapton took the stage along with my cohorts in crime. A gentleman came to me and indicated to me that because I was standing up, some people could not see the stage. I shrugged my shoulders and he left but then I flashbacked to the time this guy was holding up an acoustic guitar at Bluesfest during Sam Roberts and we couldn’t see. Also, when we were at Tulip Festival and someone’s umbrella was blocking the way. Taking this to heart, I said “Let’s just stand in the aisle guys so we can allow everyone to be happy.” because there was no way I was sitting down at an Eric Clapton concert which I paid $130 to go see. The security detail kindly asked us to return to our seats and said that we are allowed to stand up if we want to at our seats and we should! When we returned to our seats, the gentleman who had come to me earlier went to the security guard and asked if we could sit down but she said that we have every right to stand up in our assigned area for the remainder of the concert.

So there we were…4 people out of 20 that I saw stand up for the entire show. Sure, they crowd all stood up for After Midnight, Layla, Cocaine and Crossroads, all appearing late in the set. In a sea of 1000s of people on the floor, it was pretty lame. Once again, the lame Ottawa crowds have risen from the dead and they stand predominantly in my mind. I will take Montreal over Ottawa any time, any place!

Do I feel bad for making people stand up to see the concert? A little. But the following options popped into my mind, some snarky, and some legitimate:

1) If someone wishes to ensure a great view of a concert, they should AUTOMATICALLY try and get concert bowl seats, and not the floor seats. They are structured so that even if someone in front of you is standing up, chances are, you’ll still see the show since the bowl is in the form of…a bowl. 😉 Floor area is a hit and miss. You may get a tall person in front of you, or you may not. He also may be a bastard and stand up all night and ruin your night which you paid $130 for. I just spoke with my colleague Kathleen who is a faithful concert goer and she agrees. She usually picks up bowl tickets because she is a little shorter so it’s her own problem if she gets floor seats and she can’t see well.

2) Perhaps the security detail could have been a little more lenient in their rules. Perhaps they should have allowed the four of us to stand in the aisle (which is…8 feet wide at least). That way, we would be happy, and everyone else would be happy.

In closing of my open letter, I suggest that every band take a little lesson from big bands who have general admission on the floor, such as Green Day and U2. With no seated area on the floor, you are free to move around wherever you wish to obtain the best view possible. There are no seats, but you automatically can judge for yourself when purchasing tickets if you feel like sitting or not, whereas when purchasing tickets to a seated floor, like I said – it’s a wild card.

Also, in further closing – live a little. It’s a rock concert. It’s Eric Clapton. Come on. The GOD of guitar. If you want to sit back and relax, go home and put on a compact disc, or even better, a little vinyl action.

PS – This post is dedicated to Mike from work who is against any man who wears a pink shirt. I just phoned him and he said he would STILL kick his ass for wearing a pink shirt, Clapton or not.

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Success with Black’s Photography

In perfect timing with the Ontario government push for no expiry dates, I received a letter from Black’s Photography last night!

I brought it with me to the Barley Mow Pub to open it in front of Mike and Krista and lo and behold, a nicely written letter was inside along with a card for 50 free 4×6 prints! This was a surprise as I had only asked them to reimburse me for the 35 that were missing.

Score: Writing Letter Campaign: 2

Overall, I think the letter pretty well said what we thought it would say (ex: Accounting fiscal year-end balancing, yada yada yada) but I can’t really recall as we were swayed by ONE CENT WINGS!!! That’s right people, we stumbled upon the motherload of wings at this pub unbeknownst to us.

Unfortunately, the hot wings were insanely hot and my stomach fought back in turmoil against this chili pepper conconction (which resembled spaghetti sauce with chili peppers). I could only manage to eat 1 pound of the wings which sucked since I had not eaten any dinner yet and had to wait until 8PM to eat these wings.

Can I complain too much about ONE CENT WINGS? Not so much. 😉

However, in a moment of moronity, I forgot my letter from Black’s on the table along with the gift cards! Thankfully, they managed to find the letter and I will pick it up today. Perhaps tomorrow considering we’re going to see ERIC CLAPTON tonight!

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Party at Jen’s!

Hey hey, we all know Jen is anxiously awaiting a review of her shindig on this blog so without further adieu…

Saturday night brought us to a little Carling Hi-rise apartment action. At first I was thinking this was a place where I will come out and my car would be jacked, but it turned out to be a decent spot (at least once we got inside and not in the dark, dark parking lot in the back!). Jen’s new apartment is pretty wild. I enjoy the window connecting the kitchen and living room – always a must.

THE VIEW! The view is pretty cool. She is right next to the Queensway and on the 21st floor so you get to stare at the traffic. But the city is a cornucopia of bright lights, haze from the outlying suburbs (hello Orleans!) and just an amazement to marvel at. I heard it’s even better during the daytime where you can see the entire city with the Gatineau hills running along the edge. Beauty! Who says the world isn’t better from the top?

Lot of treats to fill up on so this guy was feeling pretty bloated after a few hours of gorging. I chatted tech talk with Duncan and Matt for a bit and then I was introduced to one of the finer game shows in this world – Deal or No Deal. AWESOME! So simple, yet so beautiful. The makes of a great show, and Howie Mandel can do no wrong. We all love Howie. “Oh, this is a really good first deal if I must say so.” Do say so and let everyone laugh at the lowest possible deal there ever was!

I also stumbled upon Episode II on a French channel which still didn’t earn the appreciation of Vero. So I switched it over to Terminator 2 which I haven’t seen in years but could quote every line from. After 30 minutes, we decided to call it night.

Pros: Awesome food, great company, excellent hostess (with the mostess!)
Cons: Matt having to leave because he is lame and had to go to bed around 9.

Thanks to Jen for the wicked cool door prize gifts on our way out! They will make a great addition to the house! To those who couldn’t make it to the party – suckas. We got the goods…what do you get? Nothing.

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Update: Black’s Photography

Update from my previous post here.

I haven’t heard anything from Black’s Photography yet, but I wanted to share you an important article that my friend Maren sent me.

Click here to read it.

Essentially, the provincial government of Ontario is looking to ban expiry dates on gift cards/pre-paid cards from stores as they screwing the customer. Alright, I’m paraphrasing here.

I find it surprising that something that affected little-ole-me is actually a giant issue within our provincial government. I can only say that I support them in their venture to abolish this practice.