Breaking Bookstore Etiquette?

While browsing at a local bookstore, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a book scheduled for release in a couple days (according to multiple online stores) was already on the shelf.  I promptly grabbed a pristine copy and went to the check-out.  After the customary greetings, I asked:

"Are prices here the same as on your website?"

The obvious disappointment and sheer... depression (?) in response to my query made me pause.

"No.  Not necessarily."

I smiled in thanks and returned the book to the shelf, but wow... awkward.  Their reaction made we wonder if I'd committed a social faux pas of some sort. 

Sure, I suppose online book sales cut in to bookstore sales/margins, but this was their own company's website.  Heck, I just went online, ordered the book, and am having it delivered to that very same store for free shipping... oops.

I hope they don't recognize me when I pick it up.  

On this Day: Twenty Minutes on the Road

Miscellaneous observations during 15-20 minutes on the road in the Land of Tim Hortons:

1. A compact cutting in front of public bus.  Putting aside the risk to everyone on the bus, that's what... 1 800 kg versus 15 000 kg, or thereabouts?
2. Automobile on left lane traveling 40 kph in 50 kph zone, and still moseying through a red light.  Heck, even cars traveling ahead of this one easily stopped for the light.
3. Multiple drivers using one hand to talk on their mobiles.

LG Nexus 4 and Google Play Store

My current mobile (HTC S620 Excalibur) is a little over six years old, and has served its purpose satisfactorily.  Unfortunately, some of the buttons on the key pad are getting sticky, and the battery is losing its charge.  As a consequence, I've been looking around for a new smart phone. I've actually been looking around for a long while now, but any mobiles that both caught my interest and met my criteria were way too expensive with no contract.

Anywhoo,  although I'm by no means an 'early adopter' of new gadgets and technologies, when the LG Nexus 4 was announced, its price point and early previews were such that I fairly quickly decided this would be my next mobile and that I'd purchase one as soon as it was released.  Which brings me to today's irritation with Google and Google Play on-line store.

Irritation #1:  Google didn't announce what time on the 13th November the Nexus 4 would be available for sale.  Midnight?  Nine am? PST or EST? This lack of information told me Google doesn't think my time is valuable, and they couldn't care less if they waste it.

Irritation #2:  Either Google is incompetent at selling physical items and running on-line stores, or Google purposely 'under-stocked' the Nexus 4 so they could generate 'sold-out in 20 minutes' headlines and drive up demand.  I find it difficult to think Google incompetent.  Though Irritation #3 may suggest otherwise....

Irritation #3:  The fact that I managed to get past the 'input credit card information/billing-shipping address stage' of checkout, on three different occasions, only each time to end up with an error message and the purchase failing to complete, was extremely aggravating.  I can understand a site slowing down and such due to high traffic (though I thought Google would have been better prepared), but once the item is in the shopping cart, and you've entered all the information requested, and then you get an error!?  Frustrating.

Irritation #4:  Despite providing my e-mail address to be notified when the Nexus 4 was available, to date I never received any such e-mail.  What was the point of signing up?  Maybe they used the number of people who signed up as a way to gauge demand... but apparently not (see #2).  On the other-hand, from my point-of-view, as the Nexus 4 was never truly available, perhaps I should have waited for a notification e-mail and, if I had, I wouldn't have wasted my time.  So... shame on me?

Irritation #5:  This last is not really Google's fault, but I had to mention it here.  The fact that while the Nexus 4 was sold-out on the Play Store, units were quickly being advertised on-line (at a significant mark-up) on sites like E-bay -- this bothered me.  I don't begrudge anyone trying to make a quick profit legally.  If someone is willing to pay those inflated prices more power to them.  I just hope that in turn no one begrudges the fact that I sincerely hope the number of people who are willing to pay inflated prices (instead of waiting for Google to re-stock, or moving on to a different mobile) are few and far between.

Whew.  This post turned out longer than I thought it would be.  So... what now?  For myself it's now a simple matter of waiting to see which occurs first:  whether Google can make available for purchase (by me!) a Nexus 4, or another mobile is released that meets my criteria and price.

Filling Up with Gas

As in gasoline.  For automobiles, not what happens when someone eats too many beans, or gorges on probiotic foods without first working up to it.

Anywhoo, I may have posted before when I was still south of the 49th parallel that I avoided certain gas stations because of issues with filling up.  Even though the tank was still empty the lever on the gas handle would click repeatedly, making it take forever to fill up, and making it uncertain whether the tank was actually full until I started up the engine.

After moving to the Land of Tim Hortons, I go to a specific gas station that worked great ie. the lever only clicked once and only when the tank was full.  Until this morning, that is.  The R's tank (62.0 L) was almost empty, though the warning light hadn't come on.  What happened?  Well it clicked at 33 L.  Eh?  While that in itself wouldn't have been so bad, ignoring the fact that half-full isn't what I consider even close to full, the issue was that the lever never clicked again -- even after gasoline was spilling out and overflowing down the paint.

Ugh.

I wonder if something is wrong with the R's gas level sensor or something? 

Driving in a Parking Lot

More pet peeves:

1. Drivers swerving off the lane to avoid a speed bump.  It's one thing when the lot is empty, it's another when there are parked cars and pedestrians (like me) in the vicinity.
2. On a related note, drivers driving through a parking lot like it's a completely empty field despite clearly marked lines, parked cars, and pedestrians (like me -- can you guess what motivated me to post, today?).
3. Pedestrians who insist on crossing at high risk locations.  Not just risk for themselves, but for the drivers.  Many, many years ago by my office a pedestrian decided to cross the street at one of the stupidest locations, at the stupidest time, and in a stupid fashion.  Luckily, he was untouched.  Not so lucky was the driver who was forced to a screeching stop, or the other two vehicles who crashed into him in sequence.  But hey, the pedestrian was fine, so who cares?

Can Being Too Nice Be Dangerous?

It might be counter-intuitive, but recently I came across another example where being too nice might not be such a good thing on the road.  It's ironic, because I'm always annoyed when drivers display a lack of respect or safety for others by failing to signal and such.

There was a car speeding on the curb lane that failed to beat the traffic before reaching some parked cars, and hence came to a stop and turned on his/her signals to merge.  The car directly in front of me, who was leading a line of five vehicles, came to a rapid stop to let the person merge.  I had room to stop, but my first response after hitting the brakes was to glance in my rear-view to see whether the big honking SUV behind me -- with a bumper worryingly much higher than mine -- was paying attention and would stop in time, and the vehicles further down the line.

Anywhoo, everyone stopped in time, but I couldn't help but wonder whether the driver ahead of me, who was just trying to be nice, was perhaps being too nice in this situation.

Thinking Too Much

The other day I was in the kitchenwares section looking at silicone funnels, trying to remember how well silicone stood up to organic solvents, and mildly annoyed at the absence of any glass funnels.  It must have been at least thirty seconds or so before I remembered I don't have organic solvents in my kitchen.

I need a vacation.

Tim Hortons Roll up the Rim to Win

The official odds for this year's Tim Hortons Roll Up The Rim contest was one in six.  Despite a slow start, where I was 0 for 9, by the end it worked out fairly close, at 4 out of 25.  Four wins that included two free doughnuts, one free coffee, and a Tim's card.

Speaking of the Tim's card, it was kind of a hassle.  First of all, naively I thought that I could go down to any Tim Hortons location and claim it immediately since, you know, they offer Tim's cards everywhere and $100 must be a mere drop in the bucket given how busy they always are.

It wasn't quite that easy.  I needed to fill out a claim form (which the Tim Hortons location provided me), mail it to some P.O. Box, and wait for up to 6-8 weeks.  Unfortunately, it didn't even turn out to be that easy.  Six or so weeks later I received a letter stating they had received my claim and requesting I send in another prize claim form. 

Why is that?  Why, it's because the prize claim form provided to me by the Tim Hortons location turned out to be for the 2011 contest, not 2012.  I don't even know why that Tim Hortons location still had year old claim forms laying around.  I wonder how many other unsuspecting prize claimants they foisted those on.

Anywhoo, this time I downloaded the 2012 prize claim form and mailed that off.  Another 6-8 weeks later I finally received the Tim's card.   I guess I'm just relieved they didn't disqualify my claim completely, but even more importantly, despite being out of pocket $20 for sending two registered letters, I still came out ahead by $80.

Star Trek Humour

Earlier this week I read a pretty funny Star Trek joke.  I don't know how long it's been around, but it was the first time I'd heard it.  It was in an article in Car & Driver or Motortrend, can't remember which.  It went something like this:

"[...] as sure as Captain Kirk has three ears, the left ear, the right ear, and the final front ear."

Lazy Language

I decided to take the time to describe two more examples of what I consider to be very lazy and misguided use of language. A couple years ago I uploaded a post of a similar vein regarding a cbc.ca story I'd read. This time around, the examples happen to relate to NHL and NHL playoff reporting/commentary.

In what I can only attribute to a misguided and inane attempt to be (tragically) "hip", I've noticed several NHL commentators in both television and radio refer to the city of Vancouver as "Van", as in "the Kings next take on the Canucks in Van". Is it simply a matter of too many syllables, is three too much? Do they then refer to Winnipeg as "Win", Buffalo as "Buff", Montreal as "Mon", Ottawa as "Ott", Toronto as "Tor", Washington DC as "Wash", Winnipeg as "Win", Edmonton as "Ed", Anaheim as "An", and Los Angeles as "Los"? If that's the case then I wonder how they would bastardize Philadelphia with five syllables (apologies if I've left any surfeit-syllable cities out).

I don't want to single anyone out (though I will) because I've heard several reporters (both from Vancouver and not) abbreviate Vancouver in this fashion, but the most recent reporter (and the one that finally tipped the bucket, so to speak, and provided the motivation for this post) was James Duthie on TSN, on a live national broadcast of the NHL playoffs.  Say it ain't so!

The last example for this post is regarding a link on CNN.com, titled "Brodeur blanks Cats, sets record", linking to this story.  Now, abbreviating team names ('Nucks', 'Wings', 'Sens', "Hawks' for example) is nothing new, but this is just going too far.  Brodeur plays for the New Jersey Devils, who are currently in a series versus the Florida Panthers, not the Florida Cats.

Update (25APR2012):  Ugh. Now cbcsports is calling the Florida Panthers, "Cats".

Honking as an Excuse

My first post of 2012 and turns out it's another rant.  Oh well.

My apartment building has multilevel underground parking, which is good; each and every corner, however, is a blind corner, which is bad.  When I first moved in I noticed some residents would honk as they approached a corner, which is good... in theory.  Why only in theory?  Two reasons, one perhaps slightly facetious, the second more dangerous. 

What happens if you're leaving and you hear someone honk?  What do you do, honk back?  Do you both stop, honking one after the other while you each try to figure out which direction the other is going, what level they're on?  Shave-and-a-haircut... two-bits! 

More seriously, though, is that too many use honking as license to drive too quickly in the underground parking.  Just because you honk doesn't mean you can blithely cruise around two successive blind corners at 30+ km/h. 

Fortunately, management has now placed convex mirrors on each and every corner, which is good, meaning that in practice there are no more blind corners.    The bad?  Some drivers are still honking (look at the mirrors, already!) and speeding like if they don't gain a minute on their day they'll lose a million bucks.

Canada Post Can Be Aggravating

Just as this post title says, sometimes Canada Post can be aggravating.

• I'd ordered an item online from Amazon.ca and was following its progress via its Canada Post tracking number.   My order left the warehouse in Ontario and arrived at a Canada Post sorting facility, a mere 40-60 minute drive from my address, on the same day -- where it promptly stayed for two weeks.  Did it fall behind a counter or something?
• After the Canada Post lock-out ended earlier this year, all I received was junk mail for the first week or so before receiving any legitimate mail.
• Another example:  I knew Canada Post had attempted delivery of an order because I had its tracking number.  However, when I returned home there was no delivery notice in sight.  No biggie, since I was still able to pick up the package at a local post office using the tracking number.  The aggravating part?  A week after picking up the package, I finally received the failed delivery notice in my mail box. 
• At my current residence I receive an inordinate amount of wrong mail -- correct address, incorrect recipients (I assume previous residents).  Each time I dutifully write "not at address" on the envelope and send it back to Canada Post.  Aggravation?  When weeks later I receive the exact same letter, AGAIN.  Do I really need to write "not at address" twice? Should I capitalize?  Highlighted in nice red ink?

A Quarter Hour in Traffic

Ever since I stopped commuting to work by automobile, essentially only driving on weekends, I've found that I can accept the sometimes frustrating vagaries of traffic much more calmly (though I must admit my re-introduction to the world of drivers who ignore pedestrians hasn't been without close-calls or risk-free).   Anywhoo, this morning was one of those days where I was actually relieved to return home and out of traffic.  I hadn't had one of these in a long while.

In no particular order:

• I escaped, by less than a minute, being trapped in traffic behind emergency vehicles attending to the aftermath of a vehicular accident (I hope everyone involved is okay).
• I was boxed in by traffic insisting on traveling 10 kph below the posted speed limit, on a sunny, cloudless, dry day.
• A driver took a liking to my right blindspot and decided to take up residence there for a couple kilometers prior to, instead of pulling into the completely traffic-less space behind me, speeding up and cutting me off so she could make a left turn.  A turn signal wouldn't have noticeably lessened my annoyance, but it still would have been a nice gesture.
• A car on a side street with its nose blocking oncoming traffic.  This one I gave a good blast with the horn.

All of the above events occurred within the span of 10 - 15 minutes.  So, as I said, arriving home was a relief.

A Late Jump onto the Apple Bandwagon -- A Rough Ride

When my Zune 80GB's battery started dying, I recently decided it was time I abandon my personal boycott of Apple products.  I settled on an iPod Touch that was available through AirMiles.

Unfortunately, after being pleasantly surprised for the first week of Apple ownership, the ride turned bumpy as soon as I upgraded iTunes (on Windows 7, 32-bit) to version 10.5.0.142.

The problems I immediately encountered after updating to iTunes 10.5:

• iTunes started hanging whenever it tried backing up my iPod, whether as prepping for the sync process or when right-clicking on my iPod and clicking "backup" with no sync involved.  iTunes also hanged during the backup process associated with trying to update the iPod OS to 5.0.  I once let the backup process go for 18+ hours with no movement on the progress bar, before giving up. 
• My CPU was constantly running at more that 50%, minimum, often jumping up to 100% when opening windows or programs, regardless of whether iTunes was open or my iPod was plugged in.   Apparently the villainous resource hog is "AppleMobileDeviceService.exe" which can be turned off but is required to sync.
•  The iTunes store no longer opened properly.  Even after signing in with my Apple ID, all that would appear was a blank window with "iTunes Store" on it, even after the progress bar had finished.

To cut this short, I'll save everyone from reading a poignant, heart-rending description of all the failed trials and tribulations I went through in an attempt to get everything working properly, again.

Here's what ultimately ended up working for me.  A simple, straight-forward solution I found on the internet; a solution I sincerely and vehemently wish I had discovered earlier rather than later.  It would have saved me a lot of time and useless work.

1. Open the DOS command console as an administrator.
2. Enter "netsh winsock reset".
3. Restart computer.

This is supposed to restore the Winsock catalog to its default state, to repair a corrupted Windows TCP/IP stack (not sure what that is, I'm just quoting).

Anywhoo, this completely solved all three issues I described above.

Odd Goings On With My Printer

Computers can be fairly puzzling sometimes, with a big splash of annoying and often a fairly large dollop of frustrating thrown in.  A case in point, my Brother HL-5370DW printer has been working perfectly with my Windows 7 desktop, connected via an ethernet cable, since the day I purchased the laser printer a couple years ago.  This perfect track record, unfortunately, is now a thing of the past. 

For some reason I can not fathom documents suddenly stopped printing.  The printer was detected, the status light was green, but... nothing.  The only clue was that when I brought up the window that shows the printer document queue, the window title read, "Brother HL-5370DW - Offline". 

I wasted a better part of an hour trying to find a way to get it back "online" to no avail.  Anywhoo, to get it working, again, I ended up adding a "new" printer via the control panel, reinstalling the device driver, and then deleting the "offline" printer.  

Ultimately a simple and straight forward solution, except for the fact that the reason why the printer went offline to begin with is still a mystery.  Hence the large annoyance and frustration.

Just another day in the computer age.

Phishing

In this era of viruses, malware, adware, trojans, hacking, malicious rootkits, worms, e-mail scams, phishing attacks, and what have you, one of the recommendations always given for users to protect themselves is to never click on any suspicious links in e-mails you don't absolutely know is legitimate.

That's why it always irritates me to find links in 'legitimate' e-mails from large, well known commercial companies.   They don't foster good habits when they include links in their e-mails that to my eye, at least, would look suspicious if I didn't already "know" they were legitimate .

Here's just a few recent examples that arrived in my inbox:

http://links.newsletter.futureshop.com/ctt?kn=15&ms=MzY5MDUxNzcS1&r=MzM0NDc2MDA3NQS2&b=0&j=MTA4ODM4MzgyS0&mt=1&rt=0

This one from Futureshop isn't too bad, since "futureshop.com" is in there, but what's with all that gibberish at the end? Is that supposed to instill confidence?

http://lt02.brierleycrm.com/track?type=click&eas=1&mailingid=6086068&messageid=6086068&databaseid=6086068&serial=16777794&emailid=myemail@xxx.xx&userid=xxxxxxxxxxxx=&extra=MultivariateId=&&&6086095&&&http://www.gamestop.com/StoreLocator.aspx?cid=eml_10000269

This link from a Gamestop e-mail only has "Gamestop.com" near the end. Besides, what the heck is "lt02.brierleycrm.com" and all that gibberish between?

To my admittedly non-expert eye these links look all too easy to spoof or mimic for non-legitimate purposes.

And finally the true impetus for this post was receiving an e-mail from Sony Playstation offering free identity theft protection for users in Canada:

"If interested, please submit your email address by 03/10/2011 at 11:59:59 PM CST at: http://www.playstation.ca/identity-theft-protection/. Please note, you must enter the same email address used to register your Playstation Network or Qriocity account[...]"

This sounds like a classic phishing attack, working on consumer concern regarding Sony PSN being hacked earlier this year, and that Sony had stated previously that they would provide something like this globally (where feasible) and not just the United States.  Sort of like those scams that show up trying to take advantage of natural disasters or real events.

Even worse, when I hovered my mouse over the link in the above excerpt, this is the actual address the link would take you to:

http://playstation-email.com/r?xnlJHTHEcqJqHTEHWTJnTnPPclH

Doesn't match too well, does it, and I'm expected to decide this is a legitimate link/e-mail?  When as of this writing I can't find any official announcement of this offer on Playstation Canada or PS blog?

Anywhoo, latest rant over.  I should say that as far as I know the above link examples are legitimate... just suspicious.

Trouble with E-Bikes

Generally I tend to have a favorable view of e-bikes (electric bicycles), but as an increasing number hit the city streets I have picked up on a safety issue that hadn't occurred to me previously.  The issue that worries me is that most of the e-bikes I've seen appear, to my eye, remarkably similar to real scooters.  The only sure way to identify them is to look for pedals or lack of a license plate.  Unfortunately, I'm not always in a position to have a clear view.

Why is this a safety issue?  When I see a car, bicycle, motorcycle, scooter, or pedestrian on the road I automatically expect certain probabilities of behaviour they may take dependent on what category they're in -- and in response to likely behaviour I can take certain defensive or cautionary actions to minimize the chances of an accident.  The safety issue comes up because it's too easy to confuse e-bikes with scooters.

This wouldn't be so much a problem if e-bikes stuck to one set of 'rules of the road'.  Legally, e-bikes are required to behave like normal bicycles but, people being people, I've all too often witnessed e-bikes driving like scooters one moment, and then abruptly acting like bicycles the next, and vice versa, making their actions appear surprising and startling.

And from a mutual safety perspective, one thing to avoid on the road, whether you're a pedestrian, bicycle, motorcycle, scooter or car, is surprising or startling the drivers around you.

Close Call

I was almost run over on my way to work, this morning.  I'd reached the middle of a crosswalk when I noticed the driver of a car rolling forward had his head turned to his left towards traffic (and away from me).

I stopped, but he didn't.  From at least twenty feet out not once did he turn his head as he continued to roll forward, at a good clip, too.  When did he finally stop looking to his left?  After he came to a full stop well over the crosswalk.  Which, of course, was when the driver, with a look of surprise, finally saw me.

If I had been only half a step further the driver would have nailed me clean before he even noticed me.  I bet we both would have been pretty surprised, then.  Idiot.

Mutual Respect: The Lost Skill of Being Punctual

When did punctuality become a rarity rather than the norm?   I've long grown accustomed to it, but I can't remember the last seminar, speech, or talk that started on time, whether it's late by five minutes, fifteen, or longer.

Being punctual is more than just a matter of courtesy, it's a matter of mutual respect:   the audience's respect for the speaker's time and, vice versa, the speaker's respect for the audience's time.

The most common rationalization I've observed is the 'wait a few more minutes for those who are running late to trickle in'.  Why is *their* time more important than the speaker's or than everyone's already in the audience?  Needless to say I'm not talking about specific individuals or VIPs whose absence necessitates waiting, whether by virtue of their position or connection to the occasion.

There are numerous and legitimate reasons to be late.  I've been late, but not once did I expect the speaker or everyone else to wait for me before starting and I suspect most people feel the same.  So why do it?

Purolator

A few weeks ago I received shipment notification and Purolator tracking number for an item I'd ordered online.  After 3-4 business days there was still no status information on the shipment.  The only information available using Purolator's online tracking tool was "there was a problem with your request, please phone...."

When I phoned Purolator I didn't learn very much more.  All they could tell me was that the item had not yet reached the border (it was shipping from the U.S. to Canada).   Purolator told me to wait a few more days.  Okay, fine.  It was only standard shipping, and I hadn't been expecting to receive a tracking number to begin with.   But here's the rub.  When I returned home the very same day I'd phoned Purolator, lo and behold, my shipment had arrived.

On a whim, a week after having received the shipment, I decided to check the tracking number with Purolator's online tracking tool, and the information still hadn't changed, "there was a problem with your request, please phone...."

Providing tracking numbers that can be checked by customers online is a great convenience.  There's no point to it, however, if the online tracking information is never updated.