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Archive for September, 2008

Back to the old Word Press theme

Posted By bran on September 22nd, 2008

Experimented with the free theme agregado theme provided by Smashing Magazine. It’s a very elegant design and stylish but a bit too artsy for my goals and diretion of the blog. So I’ll put back the old design that is cleaner and simplier. Sounds like I’ll have to create my own theme at some point, whenever I can find the time. Be on the lookout!

Posted in tech

Bloodsport the Musical

Posted By bran on September 10th, 2008

Greatest animated gif of all time. Period.

Response Time from Toronto Parks and Recreation

Posted By bran on September 7th, 2008

On August 9th, 2008 I emailed access Toronto about a lamp bulb that was out in a park near where I like to walk the dog. Here’s the original email sent to “accesstoronto@toronto.ca“:

Not sure who to email this to but the bulb on the lamp in the “Norman Jewison” Park by Yonge/Gloucester Street needs to be replaced. It’s been out for a few weeks and it’s extremely dark in that one area. It’s the lamp closest to Gloucester Street (South end of park) by the bench.

Please forward to Parks and Rec.

Surprisingly, I got a response 2 days later on Aug 11, 2008

Thank you for your inquiry to Access Toronto, the public information and referral service for the Toronto Government.

I have forwarded your e-mail to the area park supervisor, Mark Emslie, for his attention and response.

I hope this is helpful and please do not hesitate to let me know if you require further information or assistance.

Sincerely,

Ada Bielow

Act. Mgr., Public Information

City of Toronto

Then an email from the park supervisor on the same day:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I will place a work order to have the lamp checked.

I was very impressed with the email response time from the City of Toronto. Almost unbelievable. Well I guess it’s back to reality because as of today, September 7, 2008, nothing has happened. This is what I expected but it was too bad that the emails gave me some false hope.

The Illusive 99 Cent Arizona Ice Tea Can

Posted By bran on September 5th, 2008

You’ve seen it in variety and convenience stores and those glass fridges at take out food restaurants. The huge can of Arizona Ice Tea, 695 ml, and labeled right on it at great price of just 99 cents! Question is – have you ever gotten it for anywhere near 99 cents? Take it out of the fridge and ask the sales person if it’s 99 cents and they laugh at you, and just shrug when you point to the price.

I’ve seen it ranging from $1.59 to $1.99 (guessing tax not incl). I have a feeling it’s illegal to display a price and not honour it but whose gonna argue over around 5o cents?

Good news, found one store near where I live that sells it for $1.25 – tax incl. Pretty close to the advertised price. Anyone have better luck?

EDIT Sept. 6, 2008: Just got it for 99 cents at Canadian Tire of all places!

Google Chrome – the New Browser Killer?

Posted By bran on September 2nd, 2008

Google has just released today its’ beta broswer Google Chrome. Some have already dubbed it the “Browser Killer”.  I’ve been an avid Firefox user since the beginning, making the early switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox and am very curious as to how Google’s attempt at the browser market will be.

So far very impressed. Very clean, simple and this thing is FAST.  Some cool features include:

  • Very clean and minimalistic approach
  • Quick search as part of address bar
  • Unique home page that displays your most visited sites in mini screenshot layouts
  • Incognito browsing, aka Porn View - Pages you view in this window won’t appear in your browser history and they won’t leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer
  • Did I already mention it is FAST?

Missing:

  • Minimal customization and advanced settings (at least that I can see right now)
  • No add ons or extensions
  • Something is a bit off with the scrolling

Overall, very impressed with Chrome in the little amount that I have used it. I still love my Firefox with it’s addons and customization but Chrome is giving me a run for the money as my go to browser. Even in it’s beta stage, it’s already a worthy competitor.  In typical Google fashion, how long will it stay in beta? 1 year or 5??

Note: I posted this via Google Chrome.