A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

We're going to have dinner with friends this evening. Rather than waiting until after coming home to comment, I thought I'd just see if I could come up with an earlier photograph.

I archive digital photos on several Duel-Layer DVDs. I also keep them on the external drive next to the computer. This affords me a much greater opportunity to actually make use of the data. I found this picture from 2002. I had only gone to a digital camera a new months prior to this fine day in May.



Who's changed more over the six years that've passed since this was taken?

Labels: digital camera

It's a rare two entry day.

Actually this isn't much of an entry. The PS3 world is both abuzz and aghast at a brand-new, pay-for subscription to Sony's online gaming magazine. Qore is a really stupid name. It's supposed to be for hardcore gamers, get it?

My only comment is that I've been downloading the 1.5GB issue for hours now but, at present, I'm only 49% there.

This just goes to prove that high-definition for the foreseeable future is going to be on disc. I'd rather it had been HD-DVD but I'm not a poor loser. The PlayStation network obviously can't handle the traffic and seemingly won't be able to get me the the bytes until I need another shave. I can't imagine ISPs being able to ramp up Internet connections so that everybody can easily shuffle around 25 to 50GB movies. "Sir. I guess I'll take that order on Blu-ray, please!"

What? ... already at 51% ... yawn.

Labels: Internet, PS3

Don't get me wrong, I love getting DVD and Blu-ray discs through the post. We've been with www.zip.ca for a number of years. They have a fantastic selection of not just standard fare, but also foreign and niche titles. Since opening their Vancouver shipping centre, we get very fast service. For the money, we get much more quality screen time for about half the cost of the monthly satellite TV service. I would highly recommend them to anyone who spends more than four or five hours a month watching DVD discs.

Nothing's perfect, however. The people at zip must do some major work on their website. It can be extremely slow. In fact, I cannot think of an example on the Internet where loading a single page can take longer. I'm not just comparing to Canada servers here, but www.zip.ca is often slower than foreign sites on the opposite side of the globe!

I do praise their efforts in going Blu-ray. The number of available titles seem to be quickly increasing. Again, there are problems surrounding the implementation of choosing them on their site. To their credit, there's a way for customers to discuss problems on the site. That's surely more useful than unanswered email to a customer service representative.

Here is a recent conversation:


Me:

I always want the Blu-ray version of discs which come in multiple formats. I've yet to figure out why my ziplist does not show combo selection boxes for most recently-released movies.

When looking through the new release titles and selecting, the standard DVD goes on my list. I have no way of knowing that it is even available on Blu-ray unless I do a separate search only for that title.

This is a major problem but there's no mention of it being 'worked on'. The site can be frightfully slow but usability is also being affected by poor design.

Member #1:

It is because some movies are inserted into the DB separately by format.

Search for Cloverfield, you will get two responses

-Cloverfield
-Cloverfield (Blu-ray)

So it would not have a drop down. I won't deny that Zip needs to fix this, but that is why not all movies have drop downs.

Me:

I generally don't like 'searching' for a specific title. (It takes much too long anyway.) As mentioned above, I usually select from your 'just released' pages. Of course, all end up as the non-Blu-ray version if added that way.

Unfortunately, given by what I've seen, it is not SOME it's MOST.

Of the twelve Blu-ray requests on my ziplist, only 3 are correctly entered in your database. For the other 9, I had to go through searches to locate.

Thanks for your response. I hope you actually have means correct the situation.

Member #2:

Oh, they are working on it, but first they are working on finding a cure for cancer, so hang in there.

Actually, it doesn't matter how many separate entries there are for a title, but rather if the titles are "mated" (joined) with each other or not. If you search for "Superman Returns" you'll get 3 different results but you'll still get the drop down menu on your ZipList because they are "mated" titles. And if you click on ANY of them, you'll only see Blu-ray appear in the dropdown menu window (on your ZipList) if that's what your format preference is set for. Although they may not actually send you the Blu-ray version (even if it shows up in the dropdown menu window on your ZipList) if you happened to click on a different version of the movie (by accident) without realizing it. Confused? So am I.

Me:

Come on, folks, who doesn't enjoy mating?

After reading the thread you provided, I can only revert to my original premise that there are problems with website design and major implementation issues.

Zip Staff:

We mated a bunch of the titles earlier this year, but shortly thereafter a glitch was introduced into the search results for mated titles (Pokerface's "Superman Returns" example should really only have returned one listing in the search results). This is slated to be corrected in the current bug-fixing period, and we'll also be getting some improvements to the tools we use to edit things like this at the same time, and we'll get everything mated that should be put together. Sorry for the current inconsistencies with the Blu-ray listings.

Labels: complaints, zip.ca

You can count the number of Broadway productions we've seen on one hand. We saw La Cage aux Folles in NYC, Chicago in London, and Wicked in Los Angeles. Rather than just being a vacation thing, we're going to pay a little more attention to musical theatre as it occurs in Vancouver. Broadway Across Canada does provide a few travelling productions each season. I was checking the site for Spamalot and couldn't find a way to locate season tickets in Vancouver. I did note that the Broadway Across America site also matches up different shows for the season in Seattle. That'd be a good excuse to travel down on a weekend.

As well, of course, there are more-local productions. Even in our own city of New Westminster, shows, such as a recent production of West Side Story, are put on at the Massey Theatre.

As a matter of fact, I just put away my credit card after buying tickets to The Producers from the Arts Club Theatre Comany in Vancouver. We'll go to this Sunday's matinee. We've seen both the 1968 and the 2005 movies but absolutely love the more recent one. It's definitely not everybody's kind of entertainment but it sure works for us.

Labels: musical theatre, Vancouver

Measurement standards are good. I was researching real estate in Sri Lanka and kept coming across the fact that the term perches is used there.

Interestingly, it was used as a measure of length, area, and volume from the times of ancient Rome. Likely, a Wikipedia entry suggests, the term was re-introduced to England during the Norman Conquest of 1066. Since that time, competing measurements have included rods, chains, furlongs, and miles. Unfortunately, few agreed on what the standards really were though. For example, Irish perches were considerably longer than English ones.

A perch was eventually standardized at about 30 1/4 square yards. Or, there are about 160 square perches to an acre. Finally, if you think metric, then consider a perch as 25.29 square meters. Yet just to throw cold water on your new knowledge, as it turns out, perches are an alternate name for rods in the context of measuring area.

Nowadays, we take standardization pretty much for granted. Yet, I'd like to suggest that we still aren't as perfect as we believe. Here, waist sizes are still, of course, measured in inches. The problem is that not all clothing manufacturers agree on exactly what they are. I've noticed this situation especially since I've been shedding a lot of those extra pounds / kilograms / stones over the past year and a half.

If I want a suitable pair of Dickies work pants then I have to buy size 38's. Wrangler, the jeans maker, on the other hand, considers me a size 34! God bless 'em. I think they've got my future business ...

Labels: complaints, weight loss

I once threw some Italian lira into the Trevi Fountain, not the replica in Las Vegas but the real one in Rome. So, holding to the tradition, it is enviable that I will eventually return to the Eternal City and this time Jay can come. We're still bandying about the idea of spending our big, autumn break in Italy. There's nothing set in stone, so to speak. I did pick up a travel guide at the library today. It's one country that's hard to try see in just three weeks or a month. It'll also be hard buying all the overpriced Euros needed this time around!

I tend to want to again see the southern region as in 1987 I knew I'd return to spend a day on the Isle of Capri during my life. I have already seen Naples and the ruins at Pompeii, but 22 years ago I wasn't nearly as smart and worldly as today. I didn't see the Leaning Tower of Piza nor have I been in a gondola in Venice. Turin and Milan are also far afield, so starting to put together an itinerary will be a task in itself.



Click the title banner above to load a PDF file which was published in my hometown newspaper called the Argus-Champion in Newport, NH. It was published when I returned to work in Saudi Arabia after 10 days in Italy in 1987.

The only photo I could locate from that time was an 8" x 10". I think the others may have been lost in a fire when some of my belongings were stored. The old image of Florence is hot off the scanner.

Labels: Italy 2008, Las Vegas, scanned, travel planning

Well, one joy surely doesn't happen to be the weather this year. I lit the fireplace last night and it's still running. It's cool and cloudy outside, so much so that I don't even want to walk uptown for a little exercise.

Then there's another unfortunate thing that always occurs during the beginning of June. I found only one envelope in the post today and it was the municipal tax bill. I went running to the place where we keep old copies just to see how much it'd risen. I found the original receipt from the first complete year in this apartment in 1999. Over the last nine years my local taxes have gone up about 24.5%. I suppose an increase of less than 2.75% per year is reasonable. Yet for comparison, I'd like to know similar information for the whole city. I am aware that there are a lot of factors at play. It'd also be useful to find out about the surrounding cites as well as across the province and country. I know, it's probably all online somewhere. You'd have to agree though, as a society, we surely enjoy talking more about sex than taxes.

Labels: money, New Westminster

I'm feeling lazy today. I don't feel as though I have the energy to write about much of anything. I have made it an absolute necessity to put something here daily though. Even if I'm not within reach of an Internet connection, I scribble down something on the back of a dinner napkin and post at a later point. That's why there's something for every date since September 2003.



I decided to simply look for an old digital photo to post today. I bought my first digital camera in February 2002. The goose above was taken at Burnaby Lake on March 3, 2003 so it must be among my first ever digital captures.

Labels: blogging, British Columbia, digital camera