General

This article confirms what I’ve long suspected: most shareware awards are bogus. As an experiment, the author submitted a text file with the words “this program does nothing at allâ€? repeated a few times and then renamed as an executable. The majority of the sites accepted it, and about 7% gave it an award. He even got emails like “Great job, we’re really impressed!â€?.

I didn’t hate them until they refused to stop calling me about taking their survey. I brought my Prius in for its one year scheduled maintenance last week (which was free of charge) and I was happy with their service. HOWEVER, they’ve been insisting that I take their survey ever since.

I started getting mysterious calls from an 800 number with no answer. Finally one time an actual person called me and told me they were from my Toyota dealer and asked me to take their survey. I told her no and that they should NOT call me again because I DON’T want to take their survey.

That didn’t stop them. I’ve still been getting their automated calls every day. I got one a few minutes ago that was a recording telling me to call an 800 number to do their survey.

Message to Toyota:

I do NOT want to take your survey. If you don’t stop calling me about the survey, I will never go to a Toyota dealer again. You just lost me as a customer because you won’t allow me NOT to take your damned survey.

Update: I just got a reply email from them saying that they took me off the phone list. Thanks!

BellSouth sent me a new DSL modem for my DSL Xtreme 6.0 upgrade. It’s a lot smaller than the old one.

I got hit with $189 in roaming data charges on my AT&T bill from my trip to Vancouver. At least I didn’t get a $3000 bill like some people did.

For anyone interested, I have 9 Pownce invites, 3 Skitch invites, and 5 Gleamd invites. Just leave a comment here if you want one.

After every trip to Vancouver, I start thinking about moving there, but soon reality sets in. Everything is a lot more expensive, even taking into account currency exchange rates. Home prices are very high and I don’t want to go back to renting again.

Since Rogers is the only GSM cell phone provider in Canada, their data prices are very high so the iPhone will be a lot more expensive if and when it becomes available there. Finally there’s this: iPods, recording media, etc. include a copyright fee in their price, assuming everyone is a pirate.

Today is my last day in Vancouver. My flight is at 7:45 AM tomorrow morning so I have to leave very early.

When I left the office this afternoon, the BC Lions were having a street party in front of BC Stadium at Beatty & Robson, just outside my hotel. This is probably the last time I’ll see the office at 111 Dunsmuir and stay at this hotel, since the company is moving to a new office on Dunsmuir near Burrard next weekend.

Vancouver is one of my favorite places. I’ve pretty much only seen downtown and the few places I could visit by the Big Bus tour, since I usually don’t have a car when I’m here. I do lots of walking, yet I still gain weight after every trip since there are so many great restaurants. I usually end up eating at Asian restaurants, since there are so many of them around Robson & Granville street where I usually walk most nights. On this trip I ate at two Indian restaurants, Persian, Singaporean, and Asian Fusion restaurants.

Every time I visit Vancouver, I have to make at least one or two trips to Charlie’s Music City and I almost always find something interesting. The other day it was “Barbes” by Rachid Taha. I already have it on my iPhone, along with Gogol Bordello’s new album, which I bought at HMV.

I’m in Vancouver now. Unlike my last trip, my luggage arrived with me this time. My flight from FLL to Denver was delayed 50 minutes because one crew member wasn’t there since her incoming flight was delayed. Thankfully I was still able to make my connecting flight.

The iPhone works here with Rogers Wireless, including EDGE data connections.

I’m leaving for Vancouver early Sunday morning. I’m going for the company’s All-Hands Meeting on Wednesday and I’ll be coming home Friday. I won’t have much time for fun or touristy things. I won’t bother taking my camera, but I’ll have my iPhone.