Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Went for Bus and Boat tour around city, and saw the islands from the boat. Apparently the city concealed the “clothing optional” beach with weeping willows. One bus the mic didn’t work so they used a megaphone. The guide was at high risk of overhead cable-neck damage.

Went to fringe show called “Big Sexy” with Kelly and Tracy, and had a sub after, similar to lunch. Ate lunch on campus in sci-library cafe which was probably on low gear for the Summer. Got some free Internet time to check the forecast, and hopped on the bus again.

Met CC, Buckets, and some other bloggers and a podcaster after supper. www.godlessradio.ca is the podcast. Bought CC a beer on College St. near the CFI.

Got a free Viva ticket on the way home, woo hoo, and got to bed by 1:00AMish after an evening walk/jog.

Met with bloggers at CBC, went to Jack Astors, waitress drooled over baby and made fun of my “I’m Kind of Big Deal” t-shirt, 3/4 of s knocked things off table onto ourselves, found a lost health card on Queen St. I did some shopping, and stopped at Kelly and Tracy’s office before heading back to Richmond H. to have All Stars wings with cousins. They have wings at that place that you have to sign a waiver for. Watched CSI and then The Mentalist, wrote this, went to bed. Early morning tomorrow to catch the GO!

I didn’t post a Day 2, yet.
Canada Day, I hung out with Kelly and Tracy downtown. We had middle eastern lunch, did some window shopping, strolled through the Eaton Centre, and down some trendy and cultural streets. The weather was perfect because I brought an umbrella. I left the XO at home base today, it would have broken my back. I left a little room to pick up a book and some trinkets. I’ll probably do more shopping tomorrow after meeting with some bloggers at the CBC. If you want to join the tiny group, leave a comment or email to get the details.

We’re headed to the beach to look at the Ontario Place fireworks. There was a stage off Dundas Square that had entertainment. OP is run by the province, so the city couldn’t cancel it because of the garbage strike. Most people I’ve talked to are not in favour of this strike, they don’t feel employees paid by taxes should have the right to strike or ask for pay better than non-unionized workers.

Waking up at 4:35AM wasn’t so bad. I got to the airport fine, and didn’t get extra attention from security. The flight was smooth, and I watched most of “Defiance” [8/10] a moving movie about the Jewish resistance in Belarussia.

Ben got me at the airport, after I pickedup a stowed bag, and the one I checked. We had sushi at Hockey Sushi, which was busy even at 3:00 PM.

Playing XBox 360 soon, and learning a bit about XAML graphical programming right now.

ADDED: Yeah, I needed a nap, which isn’t surprising. Watching some Law and Order, and about to have a burger for supper.

And God Tweetethed it, and it was so. Or, some guys and gals made some things, and put them together and stuff, so celebrities can better entertain us.

socialbooknerd: Pretty sure that going through an interview with a name dropper is even more annoying on the second listen.

saskboy @socialbooknerd: I was talking with Peter Mansbridge about that once, and Rick Mercer totally agreed with me. har har

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Hat tip to Alec

Well I had a good time, and so did the other two people to show up, but I guess I’ll have to rethink the whole BBQ gathering idea for bloggers if I expect other people to find it, and come out. I may go out and have a BBQ again sometime because I like the location and there’s plenty of Summer left. If someone else is interested that time, I’ll even give GPS coordinates next time. The weather was perfect, despite the looming clouds and threatening forecast (darn you Environment Canada *shakes fist in mock outrage*).

Anyway, I learned about some new blogs to check out, taught Monty that it’s possible to get crazy-low interest for a mortgage through a broker, and ate some tasty food that I brought. The BBQ potluck turned into a plain BBQ instead.

The trees were not totally filled with these caterpillars, but there were quite a few at this time of year.

Spam and botnets are the allergies of the Internet. Recently the FTC in the US shut down a rogue ISP that was helping to clog the Internet with viruses, scams, and spams. So the Internet, email, and the Web are breathing a little easier. I wonder if this will spur the scammers to become more resilient, or if this will make a semi-lasting impact.

If only the FTC could shut down the Conservatives’ and Liberals’ 10%er mailbox spam too…

We can all use fewer ads. CanWest is workin’ on it.

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Of course, the supposed professional good guys aren’t much better than the crooks who make fake Anti-virus programs. If you have to pay for something on the Internet, and you don’t get something to hold in your hand as a result of payment, 99/100 it’s a scam or you don’t need to pay for it.

Are you getting spam message from your MSN account contacts in Messenger (now called Live Messenger)? You should let them that they need to change their MSN Live Messenger password (from within Hotmail’s Options), and do a virus/spyware scan of their computer in case it has been infected too. I am guessing these messages come from some unscrupulous service that promised to do something nifty for someone if they only give up their MSN username and password. The scummy service then uses the password to access the Microsoft Live account and send spam for weight loss sites and porn.

Here’s an example of the message you’ll get from a compromised computer/account:

FInally after all this time I found the only way to lose a lot of weight in just a few weeks and not have to diet or excercise. I seen it on Oprah and the news, ordered it and lost 36 pounds in just a few weeks and still losing, they have it now for only five dollars order it at http://scamsitehere.com

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It’s poop from Apple like the following, which makes me consider if I really want to buy an iPod Touch. If another mobile MP3/Web device was as popular, and had as big a screen, I’d probably go with it, especially if they didn’t use Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).

Apple has rejected Eucalyptus, an ebook reader that facilitates downloading public domain books from Project Gutenberg, because some Victorian books mention sex (many of these same books can be bought as ebooks through the iPhone Kindle reader or purchased as audiobooks from the iTunes store). It’s amazing to think that in 2009 a phone manufacturer wants to dictate which literature its customers should be allowed to download and read on their devices.

And here’s a great comment on the subject:

posted by cd in canada, May 22, 2009 8:20 PM

All I can say is thank God that Apple is taking a moral stand, and doing their part by refusing to let smut propagate thru the App Store.

I applaud the discerning application of their policy, by blocking access to salascious texts of so-called “classic literature”, while ensuring that our children have full access to wholesome and artistic content such as Wobble, Suicide Girls, Bikini Fart and other masterpieces of modern decency and good taste.

I need to get back to my game of Urinal Test.

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Hat tip to Alec C.