April 2009

All articles posted in April 2009.

Editorial: Vancouver is not a bad city

  Frederick Linsmeyer • April 7, 2009 • Editorials, News
Coal Harbour and Stanley Park

Coal Harbour and Stanley Park

Since the beginning of 2009, there has been a scar ripped across the face of this fair city, and it’s frightened a few people. International news agencies are proclaiming that Vancouver’s recent rash of violence is a turn off for tourism. I’ll say this right now — it’s not. But it’s only worrisome if you’re a gangster.
The shootings that have a lot of people worried are between rival gangs, not random targets. Sure, there haven’t been any innocent victims, but it’s a chance you take with being outside. It’s like walking across the street. You don’t know if someone’s going to run the red light and send you flying through the intersection. Always be aware of your surroundings, just like you would in any city.
I visit Chicago quite a bit, and they have a bad rap for being the home of organized crime with random homicides and attacks. But you know what? Chicago is still an amazing city with great people. So is Vancouver.
And with the US Dollar higher than the Canadian Dollar, it’s still a decent price for US tourists. So come up and visit Vancouver. I guarantee you’ll like it. Good weather, good food, good people. We’d like to see you.

Apple Failpod

  Frederick Linsmeyer • April 4, 2009 • Technology
The Troublemaker

The Troublemaker

I bought an iPod Classic 120gb last October to replace iPod Photo that fell to its demise and have been relatively satisfied with the iPod Classic’s performance. This past week after upgrading the firmware for the iPod to version 2.0.1, I started noticing some incredibly strange goings on: songs would stop playing half, or a quarter way through, album artwork went missing, and videos would not play. After following Apple’s instructions on resetting, restoring, reinstalling and so on, the problem had gotten worse. Incredibly worse.
After restoring the iPod, it would say that there is no music, photos or videos on the device, despite me spending 35 minutes watching iTunes copying the music over. Upon performing this six more times, iTunes froze whenever the iPod was connected, sometimes even killing Windows Explorer.
So I checked Apple’s support forums, and it looks like I’m not the only one with this problem.
Thank you Apple for giving me a $250 paperweight. Can we get some decent products here?

April 6, 2009
Since my iPod is under the one year warranty, I called up Apple Canada and was actually pleased to find that their support is pretty decent. You know how when you call up support, for lets say your ISP, and you tell the tech on the phone that you’ve done the basic troubleshooting, but they have you reset your equipment again even if you’ve tried three times before? Yea, this didn’t happen. I explained what the problem was and they were very friendly about getting the iPod replaced if it’s not serviceable. So that was pretty good of them. In 7 to 10 business days, I should have a new iPod Classic.

April 7, 2009
The box to send the iPod back to Apple arrived today. It came with instructions, padding, tape and a baggie for the iPod. I called up FedEx and they’ll be by shortly to pick it up. That’s pretty damn awesome.

April 15, 2009
I got an email stating the iPod reached Apple’s service centre. I guess shipping the player back via FedEx wasn’t the fastest, but it got there. But twelve hours later, I got another email explaining that the iPod was not repairable, so I would be sent a brand new one at no charge. Sweet!

April 16, 2009
Just as I got home from work, the FedEx truck returned and the iPod was back in my hands. And it works amazingly. And just like Apple said, it was between 7-10 business days.

. . . .

  Frederick Linsmeyer • April 2, 2009 • Gaming, ROFLCOPTER
Golgo 13

Golgo 13

There are some pretty bad games out there, and Japan’s professional assassin, Golgo 13, is not immune to this. In 1988, Vic Tokai published a game based on the series called Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode for the NES, and it turned out to be a pretty big mindfuck.
Let’s Play, a site that does commentary on video games — both new and retro, did a run through of Golgo 13 and it’s pretty damn hilarious. The commentators rip into the game scene by scene with complete screenshots and character dialogue excerpts. Golgo 13 is so bad, but the scuba gear, and the comments make it up and justify your time spent reading.
If you’re looking for a good laugh, an uproariously bad game and an epic pause screen, Let’s Play Golgo 13 will deliver.

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