Category: Journal

Flash!

I didn’t think you could get them anymore. When I was hunting around for heatwraps, I stumbled upon what I thought was an extinct species: low-capacity flash memory cards. And they’re cheap!

I found 64MB compact flash cards at Pharma Plus for $7.50. Perfect for the Quickpad. They’ve got bigger sizes too, but you’re probably better off going someplace like Canada Computers for those.

They’ve got smaller xD (only Type M at the Shoppers I checked) and SD cards too, of course. Those might be useful for something.

I’d have never thought to look in drug stores. But it makes sense. My dad’s pharmacy always did photo processing and stuff. So it makes sense.

I just picked up my old 2 megapixel camera from home, and I’m using the 8MB card from that, but I think I might pick up one of the 64MB cards, just ‘cuz it might come in handy. I mean… $7.50! Sure the price per MB sucks compared to [the 4GB+ cards you can get these days](http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=013334&cid=990.437), but I don’t need that space.

CTRL-A Manifesto

Nick’s posted his platform for president on the [CTRL-A forum](http://www.ctrl-a.org/viewtopic.php?p=465#465) and I think it’s awesome. An exerpt:

> When I applied to University, I came across CTRL-A’s website. “Wow,” I thought, “It would be so cool to be part of an actual anime club”. It seemed like such an amazing thing that was beyond my reach. When the acceptance finally rolled in for Waterloo, I was so happy. Not only was I accepted into what I was told was the hardest program to get into, Computer Science at Waterloo, but also, I would be able to join CTRL-A and be part of an actual anime club.

Aw, that made me misty-eyed. That was totally me 12 odd years ago. Except that in 1994, CTRL-A didn’t have a website. But it was still all awesome and shiny and new. And I didn’t know Computer Science sucked yet. But then…

> Maybe I didn’t know what an anime club was supposed to be, or maybe I still don’t, but when I strolled into my first CTRL-A meeting, I wasn’t very excited. Not only was it particularly stuffy, what with people arguing about the constitution, but I felt out of place. From my little knowledge of anime, I suggest some shows for samplers, and was scoffed at, to say the least. The shows weren’t much better. It wasn’t all that exciting to come out to the shows, and I gradually through choice and accident, ended up missing more and more shows as I joined the club for the second time.

As one of the people who likely scoffed at show suggestions, I’d like to apologize. I’m old. It’s what old people do. It’s one of the reasons I’ve gotten out of the way.

Nick is right on the money. CTRL-A *should* be a fun club where anime fans can hang out with their friends. It actually *was* once. I think it could be again. It just takes someone who cares enough to come along and make that happen.

Go Nick! If I were still going to meetings I’d absolutely vote for you. Any UW students out there should go and do that. It’s your club. Make the most of it.

Easter weekend

I’m back in Belleville for the weekend.

We went to my cousin’s restaurant, the Sweet Basil Cafe, last night. I had the special–wild boar–and a spinach salad. The spinach salad came with carmelized mushrooms and croutons–slices of toasted french bread–with goat cheese. Really nice. The boar was served with braised vegetables in a date sauce. It was all really nice. Not bad for a kid who used to drive me nuts when we were kids.

I’ve been mostly relaxing this weekend. I got a chance to see Matt and family yesterday. I met them for lunch a the mall and we hung out for about as long as my back could take it. This morning my mom and sisters (mostly; I helped cut up some mango) put together a bunch buffet. And tonight I’m ordering out for Chinese food.

God, that’s a lot of food.

I was seriously expecting a “What the Chaucer!” joke on Doctor Who last night, but they managed to get enough jokes in to keep me happy. Woo! A vague reference to [Eternals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_%28Doctor_Who%29)!

Virgin inflation

Virgin mobile changed their pay-as-you-go plan a while ago. Used to be you could top up for any amount you wanted and it wouldn’t expire for 90 days.

I don’t use the cell phone that much. I think I’ve only ever had to buy more than the minimum amount of credit to keep the account alive once, and that was for Anime North. I’d just pay the minimum $15 every three months before the expiry date and my account would just keep growing. I didn’t care how much I was paying per minute or any of that. I was paying $5/month to have a cell phone, and I was pretty much okay with that.

But the bastards changed it on me. Now, if you only put in $15, it expires after 45 days. $10/month instead of $5. Ouch.

They didn’t warn me about this. I just found out the last couple times I topped up. I made a mental note to look into it.

Top up time again and [checked the web page](http://www.virginmobile.ca/site/en/pricesAndFeatures/html/topup.html). They have a sliding scale for expiry now, based on the amount of the top up. If I top up at $25, it expires after 90 days. That’s $8.33/month, which is better than $10. That’s the best option. $100 expires after a year, but that’s still $8.33/month, and you’re locking up more money than you need to.

I’m pretty sure cell phone companies just don’t want me as a customer. Or at least they don’t see my usage pattern as something they want to bother with. (If somebody were to offer some sort of decent data plan, they could probably milk me for more, but data in Canada universally sucks ass). At least Virgin comes reasonably close to offering something that I can live with without substantial amounts of anger and hatred.

* * *

I am currently living on my easy chair, alternating between the cold compress and a heating pad. My sister (who does sports therapy stuff so deals with things like cracked ribs a lot) says this is potentially a good thing. I’d rather stick to the heat, but she says the cold compress is what I should be doing at least until tomorrow.

I can’t sit up straight for any length of time, which makes doing my job rather difficult. I’m going to try bringing the computer into the living room to see if I can set up an easy chair workstation. This could be fun. (It’ll just take a while. I think I’ll use my desk chair to wheel various components back and forth. Lifting and carrying stuff is bad).

Winter’s final crushing blow

So I set out on my walk to work this morning and I got to a nice little path through the forest behind Cedarbrae school. I like that path. It’s nice. I saw blue jays there last week. I was listening to [Red](http://www.bigfinish.com/drwho_main/bf085_red.shtml), which wasn’t off to the most promising start, and I was steadfastly ignoring the goddamn snow.

Anyway, I got to the path and I knew it was icy. So it wasn’t really all that much of a surprise when I fell on my ass.

I laid there for a minute or two trying to assess the damage. It hurt. I couldn’t breathe very well, but I’ve had the wind knocked out of me before. I pulled myself up on a fence and I still wasn’t breathing very well. So I decided I probably wasn’t going to work today. So I went home.

I got home and I was in a bit of a bad way. I decided I should probably call my doctor. But when I got to the phone, the most prudent course of action seemed to be to call 911 instead. So I did that.

I could stay standing, but my legs were getting a bit weak. Sitting down was kind of hard, but once I was down, it was okay. Still in pain, and still having a hard time breathing, but okay.

The fire truck came first. I was pretty sure the dispatcher said that an ambulance was coming, but the firemen were nice and gave me oxygen and made sure my spine wasn’t broken and I didn’t have a concussion. Then the ambulance came. One of the paramedics fell on the ice in front of my house, so that helped me feel less stupid about things.

I’m pretty sure she was okay.

They were nice too and weren’t too upset when I nearly threw up on them after the firemen took their oxygen away. What missed the baggy mostly ended up on my carpet anyway. I was okay when they put the oxygen back. And I got a lovely trip in the ambulance.

They apologized for taking me to St. Mary’s. But it didn’t seem that bad to me. I got to hang around with a young lady with a penchant for prescription narcotics and a couple people which what I’m pretty sure was undiagnosed whooping cough, although I’m not a doctor. Things settled down to just a dull pain after a while and I wished I’d brought a book to read or something.

I had lots of tests done and eventually i got x-rayed and I was told that I had a fractured rib but nothing else serious, so I was discharged and made my way home.

I never got my health card back, though. I’m a little peeved about that. It was one of the red and white ones that never expire. I hope it turns up, but I’ve probably better let the government know soonish or my identity will be sold to credit card fraudsters or Syrian operatives.

Now I’m at home, drugged up but still in pain and lying on a bag of frozen blueberries. I’m quite happy I can type like this. I’m going to take tomorrow off, though, as sitting up isn’t a whole lot of fun. So I’ll probably just watch DVDs or something. It’s a distraction if nothing else.

In summary: I hate winter and I want it to fucking end already.

That’s all I have to say.