Heather and I are proud new owners of a Panasonic Lumix FZ7-a 6MP, 12x zoom, image-stabilized wonder. You can read all about it here, here and here.
I recorded the whole unpacking process and have a album with all the photos.
Behold the money shot…
So, VoIP seems to be the newest way to save a buck or two and screw over Bell (or Rogers in my case) at the same time. There are a couple of routes to go if you’re interested in calling over the Internet. For the moment, I’ve decided that I’m not ready to throw in the landline towel become a Vonage customer (Ted Rogers is breathing a sigh of relief, I’m sure).
I have, however, been turning the screws slightly on Ted’s stranglehold of my telecommunication options. I found a website where I can get the benefits of cheap long distance without getting rid of my phone. You see, if you’re interested in VoIP and not interested in Vonage, there’s the computer alternative of Skype or the like. The problem with that is you need to be attached to your computer with a headset. IMHO, there’s nothing more geeky than speaking to someone using a boom mic. Can’t really place it, but I have to imagine there’s some genetic reason for it.
OK, so back to this website. Entering your home number, the number you want to call and clicking OK causes your phone to ring. You pick it up, and a nice silicon sally announces you’re being connected. Quality of the connection is great–on the whole better than Vonage and Skype (and other software solutions I’ve tried). Rates seem to be good too. A call to an Ontario number is 0.0140 euros a min. That works out to ~ 2 Canadian cents. I’ve used it for over an hour of calls and owe about 1 euro, or $1.40 CAD. Additionally, you don’t pay prior to using the service: you get a bill based on use. Haven’t experienced how easy it is to pay, so can’t really comment. But would a company make it hard to pay them? Naaah…
Heather and I are dog-sitting Katie and Lee’s Herbie (or Herbie’s Katie and Lee, depending on your perspective on who “owns” who in human-dog relationships). So far so good. The only down-side is that Herbie’s a double-dumper: two shits a walk. It either means you burn through plastic bags at a rate of two per walk, or you attempt to pick up the second dump while keeping the first in the bag. A hard task, and one that I have little practice with. Max was never a double dumper, but he had his moments of a second poo on a walk or two (usually associated with some kind of GI distress), so I’m somewhat of a seasoned veteran (and I guess that seasoning would be shit).
I must share another weird thing Herbie does when he takes a shit: he backs his ass up against some object so close that the poo often smears down the wall (if it doesn’t have the right consistency…FWIW, Herbie’s first dump is usually quite firm and the second, well, not-so-much), or ends up on the bench of the picnic table. I’ve read my share of dog-behaviour books, but I don’t have an explanation for this one–perhaps Wolves do this sorta thing (which seems to be the ultimate explanation for every dog behaviour).
Katie and Lee also shared this theory with me about Herbie and the couch. The theory goes something like this: the dog isn’t allowed on the sofa without being invited up. This way the dog won’t go on the sofa without an invitation first. Agreed, a nice idea, but IMHO difficult to implement. That and I’ve never been one to care if a dog is or isn’t allowed on a sofa–Max is all over the furniture in Guelph. So, Heather got up early this morning and Herbie wasn’t in the bedroom. She snuck around the corner and the dog had slept on the sofa. Too funny. I think Herbie knew that he had been busted and made the move back to his bed, so when I woke up, it looked like he had spent the night there.
Inviting the dog up on the couch theory: 0, Herbie: 1.
So my first trip to the American Association of Geographer’s Annual Conference went off without a hitch. We left on Tuesday and got back early Sunday morning. I presented a post-structual analysis of a recent sighting of a Barn Owl on the Ontbirds listserv. It brought down the house.
We did get some weirdo show up to our panel and ask us if our work “counted” as geography. It was a funny question as for part of the preceeding week, I was wondering out-loud if I could really consider myself a geographer–I don’t. However, there has been more work done in recent years on Animal Geography and our panel fits right into that work. So perhaps I need to add Animal Geographer to the Environmental Educator and Environmental Philosopher behind my name. Or not.
Just added a little script in the sidebar that lets you know what I’ve recently been listening to…gotta love content that updates itself…
Also kinda cool is the green arrows to the left of the track. Click on it, and you’ll hear a short sample of the song. Now you get to enjoy my bad taste in muisc textually and aurally!
While I’ve never hated going to the dentist, I’ve always found the social setting to be excruciating. Part medical gravitas, part used car sales, I always feel like anything the dental hygenists suggests is really just a way for the dentist to make more money. They compliment you on your teeth, get you feeling good, and then drop the bomb on you: If you don’t start doing X (which in the past has meant getting plastic caps on all my teeth, for example), all your teeth will fall out. As well, I’ve always been suspicious of their knowledge. At one point in my past, a dental hygenist told me that I was flossing too hard (she could see marks on my gums). I had to tell her I never flossed.
So far, I’ve never had any serious dental problems: no cavities (knocking virtual wood here), no wisdom teeth extracted. Like I said, I never really had a problem with a visit to the dentist. As well, for the majority of my life, I’ve been under the coverage of private health insurance that has paid for all of the dental work. That’s probably why during my brief tenure as a non-student (2000-2002) I didn’t visit the dentist: I felt as though they were shysters and I had good teeth anyway.
The good times may be over, however. It seems as though I have stage two periodontal disease: I have gum “pockets” 4mm deep in places and bleeding gums; the doom here is that as pockets increase in size, more bacteria get in, eventually causing all teeth to fall out.
OK, I’ll accept that diagnosis. However, they want me to spend $900 on a solution. This is where my used-car shyster alarm goes off. They want me to come three weeks in a row. The first two weeks, they freeze one side of my mouth and then clean the hell out of it. They’ll also give me a toothbrushing apparatus called a rota-dent (some magical toothbrush only available from a dentist). The third week I think they just look at the results of their work (and inevitably, compliment my on my “beautiful teeth”). They call it “scaling and root planing.”
I can’t help but think it’s all bologna. First of all, my dentist’s literature suggest that periodontal disease can not be cured: “it can only be managed or controlled.” A convenient way to ensure that you always need your dentist lest your mouth empty of its teeth. Is it too much to expect more than management from a $900 procedure? The rota-dent is suggested as being some kind of gift from the oral gods: the posters on the wall show how a rota-dent is superior to any other mouth-cleaning object.
Regardless, I’ve put in a request to my health insurance to see how much all of this would cost for me to have fixed. We’ll see if I take the bait.
Update: I posed my question on AskMeFi.
Angelica
I recently came across an article describing how ill-placed apostrophes drive this woman crazy. I have to agree, and I make my disgust vocal, much to Heather’s delight, I’m sure.
If you’re considering a moving company, let me suggest that you do all that you can to avoid Magnum Moving: this story isn’t over yet, but we’ve experienced nothing but poor service, misrepresentation and over-charging by the company. At the moment, Heather has been charged over $700 for a move that was quoted to cost $177 + GST. If things aren’t cleared up, there’s no doubt we’ll be going to small claims court. Fun!
Based on personal experience, if you’re in the process of looking for a moving company, here are some red flags that should act as a warning.
Early warning signs:
1. No one answers a phone call
2. No one returns phone messages
3. No address provided in the Yellow Pages Ad (or elsewhere)
“It’s hopefully not too late to bail” warning signs:
1. No call the preceeding week by the company confirming moving date and time
“You’re already fucked, but here you go anyways” warning signs:
1. No company logo or name on side of truck
2. You don’t get a copy of the contract that you’ve signed
3. Moving company workers dressed in “street clothes”; no uniforms
4. Moving company mover asks for tip in cash