Since Aidan was born we’ve been using the FuturePhoto service provided by FutureShop to store our digital photos online. Not only can we share our photos with selected friends and family, we can also order prints, calendars, mugs etc. etc.

It’s been a great service and we’ve ordered prints from it quite regularly.

Unfortunately they’ve just updated their storage policy, effectively crippling the service. Each account now has a maximum 50Mb storage capacity. That’s a pitiful amount, enough for maybe 200 images if you’re lucky. I can store more images on my camera.

I can understand imposing some kind of limit, but 50Mb? It’s pathetic. I would expect an account which regularly orders prints to have a capacity of at least 1Gb. Storage is cheap, especially when you’re a storage retailer.

I emailed them asking if it was possible to increase the limit. Here’s the response:

Unfortunately, once this storage limitation is in place, you will be unable to upload more photos once you have reached your limit.

So that’s it. Futurephoto is dead. Can anyone recommend an alternative online photo sharing site which allows selective sharing and printing in Canada?

Update: I found ShutterFly. Unlimited storage, prints to Canada, selective sharing, and they support Linux. Website seems a bit sluggish but we’ll see how it goes.

As it was raining when we pulled into Vendome train station today, I decided to get off there and take the metro.

I joined the crowd heading for the metro turnstiles and was just about to feed my pass through when there was a scream, followed by a loud bang and another scream. People in blue STM uniforms started running. I knew I wouldn’t be taking the metro today after all.

I walked up to Sherbrooke St and got to the bus stop while the line was still short. As I arrived an ambulance and police car went hurtling down towards the metro. Within minutes the line had grown to a silly size.

Three full buses went by before I finally gave up and started walking. I got as far as Atwater before another bus came along and I was able to squeeze onto it, accidentally treading on a very small japanese lady in the process.

I arrived at work at 9am, 45 minutes later than usual. I still haven’t found out exactly what happened at Vendome, but I’m trying to look on the bright side, it gave me some extra exercise and something to blog about.

The big announcement from Apple yesterday was the new iPod which has a bigger screen and can play video. My first thoughts when I saw it: mmmm Gadget. Shiny. Want one.

But I didn’t go out and buy one, partly because my wife would kill me, but mostly because I thought about it some more. Do I really want this? Is this what us gadget consumers really want? Or is it just what the DAP manufacturers are telling us we want?

There is a fundamental difference between portable audio and portable video. I can listen to music while doing most things. I can be driving, walking, running, biking, climbing, working, mowing the lawn, reading or just sitting and be listening to music at the same time. Out of all those, sitting is the only one I can really do while watching video.

If I’m sitting at home, I can watch video on my big screen TV. If I’m sitting on the train or plane, I can get out my laptop and watch video on there. The quality of any video watching experience is directly related to the size of the screen and the resolution of the image. Why would I want to sit and watch an episode of Lost (and pay for the privilege) on a screen smaller than my hand with a poor resolution when I can watch it in high definition on a big screen tv? Watching a movie on my laptop is acceptable thanks to its 17″ widescreen display, but I wouldn’t want to go much smaller than that. Even the first TV I ever had was 14″.

So why are all the DAP makers forcing portable video on us? It’s not all that innovative, and it’s not very useful. Concentrate on making portable audio better (like making iPods play OGG files!) instead.

Seeing Bush playing guitar while New Orleans was sinking reminded me and others of Nero fiddling (well ok, playing his lyre) while Rome burned. The comparison can be extended by the fact that Nero was reportedly vacationing in his native Anzio when the fire started, just as Bush was vacationing on his Texas ranch.

The comparison ends there though, because Nero rushed to return to Rome and played his lyre while fully aware of the devastation happening in front of him. Bush was playing his guitar many miles away at a fundraising party, apparently completely oblivious to the devastation occuring in the neighbouring state, and didn’t cut short his vacation until two days later.

Nero is also said to have opened his palaces to provide shelter for the homeless and arranged for food supplies to be delivered in order to prevent starvation among the survivors. Bush and his administration were denying aid from many sources and struggling to offer much of their own.

Nero was finally deposed. Let’s hope that’s another comparison we can make.

In Canada you can choose to marry whoever you want.

In Canada it is ok to use marijuana to ease your pain and suffering.

In Canada contraception is ok, whatever form it takes.

In Canada you can burn the flag if you want.

In Canada it is understood that sometimes abortion is necessary.

In Canada torture is a violation of human rights. Always. The end does not justify the means.

In Canada you can be an atheist and still be considered a citizen.

In Canada law is secular and religious freedom is guaranteed within that law.

In Canada you can’t have your home taken away for a shopping mall.

In Canada you can take books from the library without fear of persecution.

In Canada the authorities need to have probable cause and a warrant before searching your home.

So I’m confused; which country is the Land Of The Free again?

So the Rotary Club of Chatham, New Brunswick decided to raise some money for a new eco-centre, a place for “promoting education and environmental awareness”. They put their heads together to find an appropriate fund-raising idea, and came up with this. We’re promoting an eco-centre, let’s give away a Hummer!

Idiots. I’m guessing one of the smiling faces in that photo owns a Hummer dealership.

Summer sunshine brings with it a craving for cold beer straight from the bottle. Any meal is enhanced by a glass of good red wine (well ok, except breakfast). A night out at one of Montreal’s Irish pubs isn’t complete without a pint of Guinness or oatmeal stout. There’s something incredibly satisfying about ending the day with a glass of single malt whiskey if I’m feeling flush, or shine if I’m feeling poor.

Yes, I enjoy alcohol. I’m also happy to say I’ve never had a problem with it. I drank a lot in my late teens and early twenties, but thats just what boys living in Essex do. Nowadays I drink in moderation. I can’t remember the last time I was drunk. I never drink and drive. Drinking doesn’t make me abusive or obnoxious. I don’t “need” alcohol, I just like it.

Drinking in moderation has been shown to lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, be good for the heart and reduce the risk of stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, kidney stones, gallstones, arthritis, stress and depression.

On the other hand, alcohol abuse kills thousands of people every year and causes problems for millions more. Long term abuse increases the chances of getting breast, mouth or throat cancer as well as destroying your liver.

I wondered if there was a proper definition of “drinking in moderation”. The generally accepted opinion seems to be two drinks a day for men, or one drink a day for women. A drink being 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of spirits. I fall well below that level as I don’t drink at all on most days and rarely have more than two when I do. Oh and not drinking for 10 days then having 20 beers in one night is not good. It doesn’t quite work like that.

All this typing has made me thirsty…

Whether you think Belinda Stronach was right or wrong to defect from the Conservative party to the Liberals, surely she deserves the same amount of respect as any male politician?

With her ex-fellow conservatives calling her an attractive dipstick, a whore and a prostitute and the National Post referring to her decision as a Blonde Bombshell I start to wonder if it’s possible for women to be taken seriously in Canadian politics.

After fifteen years in a permanent vegetative state, some old curmudgeon was finally allowed to die today in Italy.

I had a quick look around to see who could take over his job (which always seemed to involve waving feebly and mumbling, but I digress). Here are my nominations for the next person to wear the silly hat:

Rosie O’Donnell (she looks good in a hat, and knows how to wave)
Will Smith (the Vatican needs some black attitude)
Martin Scorcese (Last Temptation might count against him though)
Sylvester Stallone (He can mumble!)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (body builder, actor, governor, pope, the perfect progression)

I’m sick. Blah. I hate colds. Instead of listening to me whine, head over to Jen’s place and help her fight for marital equality in Canada.

Why is it so hard for companies to make websites that work?

Two examples:

Jen and I have Air Miles cards. I wanted to go online to see how many air miles we’ve managed to collect (my guess is about 7, but you never know, it could be more). So I went to the Air Miles website. It asked me for a PIN (oh yeah, and asking for a PIN number is redundant). I didn’t have a PIN. There was a handy link to get a PIN, so I went there, filled in all my details, and it gave me a PIN. Perfect. I tried to sign in with my PIN and it took me straight to the get a new PIN page. Out of desperation I filled in all my details again and it gave me a new PIN. I tried to sign in again and exactly the same thing happened. Time to send in a complaint. I headed straight for the Contact Us link, and discovered there was no email address, just a comment form. I entered my details and a long and politely insistent complaint, then pressed the submit button. We’re sorry, an error has occurred and your email could not be sent.

Over at Videotron, I wanted to change our channels to get rid of a few we never watch. Now first of all I have to say that Videotron’s website has some neat stuff on it which has been very useful in the past. This time it was too frustrating though. After hunting through various menus I finally found the list of the channels we currently subscribe to. After more searching I found an option to change our subscribed channels. After going through several pages of options, unclicking the channels we no longer want, I finally got to the last submit button and gleefully hit it. We’re sorry your request could not be completed, please contact a customer service representative.

If you’re going to put fancy features on your website, make sure they work. If there’s a chance that your email form might break, publish an email address so people can use their fully functional email clients. If it’s not possible for me to do something online, tell me before I jump through hoops trying. If you have a content-rich website, make it easy to navigate! Why are these things so hard to understand?

I had to have a blood test yesterday, which doesn’t bother me at all. What terrified me more was the prospect of making small talk with the nurse while she bled me dry. The conversation took a bizarre twist so I thought I would share it:

Nurse: So where are you from?
Me: Originally? England.
Nurse: Oh I thought so, you sound like Johnny Depp in Neverland.
Me: Uh, ok.
Nurse: Have you seen it? It’s really good.
Me: No, I like his movies though.
Nurse: Oh yeah, did you see Edward Scissorhands, that one was weird.
Me: Yeah, I like weird.
Nurse: Really? What about that one with Michael Keaton, uhh, Beetlejuice? That one was too weird!
Me: Oh I liked it a lot.
Nurse: Oh no it was too weird for me. Oh and Star Wars…

This is where I wanted to leave, but she still had a needle in my arm, an obvious and cunning ploy to have a captive audience.

Nurse: When I was a teenager I went to see Star Wars with my boyfriend, and he couldn’t understand why I didn’t like it. I just kept waiting for the normal people to show up. Like you know that bit in the bar with all those weird people? I just wanted to give them all makeovers!

If I wasn’t feeling slightly faint from lack of blood I may have punched her at that point. Instead I gritted my teeth, chuckled politely and restrained myself from yelling Cantina! It was a Cantina! And they were ALIENS!! in her face.

We grew up in a minefield of potential injury and death. We rode bikes without helmets. We skated without knee pads. Our rooms were painted with lead paint. Nothing in our houses was child-proofed. We rode in the back seat of cars with no seatbelts. We drank water from streams. We ate mud and worms. We went places on our own. We played out after dark. We walked to school. We did not have cellphones. We climbed trees and sometimes fell out of them. We played with matches. When we got hurt it was our fault, there was nobody to sue.

We drank sugar filled drinks and ate copious amounts of candy, but we didnt get fat because we were out playing. All the time. We played bulldog and runouts. We made up games and new things to do. Most of them dangerous in some way. We had fights. We shared the same glass and did not die.

We had challenges at school; it felt good to move up to a top class, it felt bad to be put down to a lower class; we learned to deal with it. Some of us sucked at sport. We learned to deal with that too. We had toys that required some imagination. Lego did not have a predefined end-result. We read books. Some things on TV were educational. We had opinions and individuality.

If we did something wrong, our parents punished us. We respected that. If we broke the law we were terrified. We did not have ADD, we were just hyperactive kids. There was nobody and nothing to blame for our mistakes except ourselves.

Will our children grow up to be as innovative and creative as our generation was? Will they be independant, critical thinkers? Will they know how to fix stuff when it breaks? Will they know how to take risks and solve problems? Will they feel responsible for their actions? Will they stand up and fight when it’s necessary?

When I was first introduced to Michele, I thought it was kinda fun. I thought it was a nice way to increase my blog audience and find new blogs. I liked her approach better than BlogExplosion, which I have still resisted joining.

Sadly though, I’ve pretty much stopped reading her blog. For someone who writes so well, it’s amazing that she never manages to write anything of substance. She never expresses an opinion or says anything even remotely controversial. She’s just too “nice”. Her blog is a long list of inane questions and silly games designed to produce as many comments as possible. The questions get more desperate every day. How long can she keep this up? Where is the content??

Apparently, not one single astrologer saw devastation, death and destruction in the stars and planets before December 26th. One guy had the gall after the earthquake to say something like “oh yeah, now I look back at it, I see Jupiter colliding with Pluto which predicts the earthquake, I wonder why nobody noticed”; but beforehand? Nothing. No psychics, mediums or clairvoyants had premonitions of 150,000 people dying. Nobody saw it in the tea leaves. Nobody was told by their god to leave Indonesia because he/she/it planned on smiting the place in the next couple of days.

Despite the fact that these charlatans never manage to get it right, people continue to believe and continue to pay them large amounts of money for the right to be scammed.

The only thing that could have predicted the events of 26th December would have been a seismic early warning system built on scientific foundations. Sadly people will pay to have their birth chart done but they’ll be up in arms if they find out their taxes are being used to pay for some “pointless earthquake measuring thingy”.

Ever been sitting in a restaurant when an obnoxious woman (yes, it’s always a woman (well nearly always)) at the table next to you takes a call on her cellphone and starts yabbering away incessantly while you’re trying to eat?

Well the good people over at design firm Draplin Industries have created a wonderful antidote. Take your pick of several cute cards that you can print out from this PDF file. Cut it out, fill in the blanks, and thrust it under the nose of jabbering woman.

Advertisement: If you’re in a jam and need a gift fast. Check out our special occasion gift baskets for more info and get great gift ideas here.

I was having some trouble coming up with gift ideas for Jen this year, so when she opened one of those smelly pages in the magazines she reads and rubbed it on herself, and said “oooh, this smells nice, I like it”, I thought all my problems were solved. I rushed out and purchased said smelliness.

Two weeks later we were wandering around The Bay or Sears or some such smelly store when she decided to try it again. “Oh, it doesn’t smell so good now” closely followed by “No, I don’t like it” meant I was back at square one.

A flash of inspiration gave me another idea. Ever since we saw them in Maxi a couple of years ago, Jen has been talking about getting a dancing hamster toy. They’re cute and cuddly, they dance, and they sing in annoying high pitched voices. So, maybe I can find one of those for her instead. Before I’d even started researching that she came bouncing in from her office one evening saying “I’ve ordered 4 dancing hamsters online!”. Gah. Women.

So now I’m back at square one again, looking for another flash of inspiration and hoping I come up with something before it’s too late.

This quote in relation to banning books with gay characters from libraries made me want to laugh and cry:

“I’ve not read his proposal, and I’m not familiar with him [Gerald Allen], but I do think there are a lot of things allowed in the library that don’t necessarily need to be here, that don’t meet decent moral standards, so I don’t have a problem with some of the material being removed,” says Huntsville’s Kelly Watts.

Don’t meet decent moral standards? Leaving aside the fact that the bible is full of immorality, how many books would be gone with this kind of attitude? Murder mysteries? All gone. Shakespeare? Not much left. Encyclopedias? Full of immorality, burn ‘em all.

That covers fundamental morality; you know, the kind that even atheists and progressive liberals have. If we now include fundamental Christian morality, we start running out of books. Science texts? Gone. Anything mentioning sex outside marriage, or abortion, or birth control, or divorce? gone. Anything discussing alternative religions or witchcraft or the occult or the paranormal? Burn ‘em, burn ‘em all.

Go to your Alabama library today, get your copy of Run Spot Run. It’s all that’s left.

Scene opens on an erupting volcano in the distance, with rocks landing all around. Suddenly a mud-splattered SUV lands in front of the camera, comes to rest, and then drives off. The small print at the bottom of the screen says “Do Not Attempt”.

Do Not Attempt?! Yes, that’s what I’m going to do if I ever get an SUV, drive it into an erupting volcano and hope to get spat out in one piece.

Another less dramatic example. The advert is for a movie trivia game in which the questions are on DVD. It shows a happy family watching TV and answering the questions. The small print at the bottom of the screen reads “TV and DVD player not included”.

Come on, is anybody anywhere really going to believe that the game comes with its own TV and DVD player? Even Dubya isn’t that stupid. Hmm, ok, I think I just wrecked my argument.

I realise these companies feel the need to protect themselves, but I would imagine if someone tried to sue a motor company because their son drove into an erupting volcano it would get laughed out of court. At least I hope it would…

I don’t care what superhero I am, or what drink I am, or what star wars/lord of the rings/harry potter/etc. character I am.
I don’t need a quiz to tell me if I’m smart, or alcoholic, or sexy or canadian.
I have a clock on my computer, I don’t need one on my blog.
I don’t need cute badges, stickers, buttons or banners to express my opinions.
I don’t need to beg for money using paypal (and I wouldn’t even if I did).
People can add me to their blog lists without a narcissisitic ‘blogroll me!!!’ link.
If you want to know 100 things about me, read my posts.
I know how many hits I’m getting, but I don’t need to tell the world.

Did I miss any?

According to this story:

“President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost”

So he’s willing to send thousands of young Americans into peril for a badly planned and badly executed “war on terror”; he’s willing to let the planet suffer from greenhouse gases which the USA output 36% of. But an American losing a job? Oh no, we can’t have that.

Someone with more intelligence and foresight might realise that many of those lost jobs will be replaced by the new industries implementing Kyoto will require. Sadly the “leader of the free world” has no vision.

Bill Buckingham, a devout Christian who rejected a biology text because it was “laced with darwinism” has succeeded in getting creationism onto the school biology curriculum in Dover, Pennsylvania. This sickens me.

Bill wants to “give the balanced view of intelligent design and Darwin’s theory”. Intelligent design is just a fancy name for creationism, a faith based concept with absolutely no scientific grounding. Darwinism, or natural selection is a scientifically proven theory that has survived and grown for 145 years.

If Bill really wants to provide his students with a balanced view, then he also needs to consider the myriad of other creation myths that exist in the world. Of course this material is more suitable for a comparative religion course, but Bill seems to think it’s biology.

To get a clearer picture of Mr Buckingham, here’s what he had to say about the idea of removing ‘under god’ from the pledge:

“America was founded as a Christian country. While we welcome people from other countries, that doesn’t give them the right to change things. If they don’t want to say it our way, they can go back to the country they came from.”

How enlightened.

I promise no Fight Club references in this post. Damn, I suppose that was one.

Apparently we’re going furniture shopping at Ikea tonight. We do that a lot. A large percentage of the contents of our house comes from Ikea. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, Ikea has good stuff, and it’s cheap. It would be nice if their were other options though, like Fly, which comes close.

So yes, we are disciples of the great Scandinavian furniture god, but I have to say their latest advertising slogan is just stupid. Ikea. Fits. Fits what? Those programme announcers must feel very silly saying “This program is brought to you by Ikea. Ikea. Fits.” It just doesn’t scan well. Bring back the thrown out lamp advert.

That title is almost a play on words, I feel so proud.

Last night was the grand finale of Canadian Idol; tonight we find out who won, the silky sounding Saskatoonian Theresa or hobbit boy Albertan KalAn. We voted for Theresa, but I think all the screaming teen girls will sway the vote toward Kalan, sadly.

Last night they had to sing the new song which will be their first single. It is a truly horrible thing and I actually felt sorry for them having to sing it. Theresa didn’t seem to be enjoying it, and Zack made his disdain fairly obvious. Either they should get a better song writer, or give up on the idea of having a special ‘Idol song’.

Kalan’s christian pop song was also very cringeworthy. He can believe what he wants, but I don’t really want to hear about it on a talent show.

I got my first comment spam attack today, which was incredibly annoying. Happily my comment software spotted the spamminess and refused to publish them.

Those of you who know me probably know that I’m rabidly anti-spam, I even have an anti-spam page on my site (not forgetting of course the spammified movie quotes!). So having another way for the spammers to attack me is frustrating to say the least.

I now have an ISP who uses RBL spam blocking. I have SpamAssassin running on my home machine to catch any stray spam emails that slip through. I have anti-spam measures in my blog commenting software. The MUD has code in place to stop chat spam. How much time and effort does this scourge cost us? How many lines of code have been written to save us from the flood?

The offender’s ISP has been notified, here’s hoping he gets a spanking.

Jacob was robbed.

The kids are all back to school now, which means a drastic change in my journeys to and from work. Gone is the relaxing train ride on a quiet train with a seat to myself, replaced with a train heaving with people, including hoards of screaming teenagers who only have two volumes, loud and really loud. And the girls are so high pitched, they hurt my ears.

Of course, I lose the luxury of having a seat to myself too. I try to leave my bag next to me and scowl like a weirdo at anyone approaching my seat, but it doesn’t work. Someone is always brave enough to sit next to me. Maybe I need to stop showering.

To add insult to injury, the train driver decided he didn’t want to go any further than Vendome today. I had my earphones in so I didn’t hear the announcement, but everyone suddenly got up and started leaving so I thought I’d better follow like the good commuter sheep I am.

Ugly signs have been pushed into the grass at both ends of our street, advertising some kind of window treatment. I hate that nearly as much as I hate email spam. To add insult to injury, the signs tell us that this window treatment is a ‘patended’ process. Let me see now, do I want to do business with someone who can’t spell? Uhm, no. Do I want to do business with someone who advertises illegally with street spam? No.

I’m tempted to go pull the signs up. Maybe I will on the way to work on Monday. Maybe I’ll make a plane out of it.