desperate for change

It was Alice in Wonderland. This was my first time ever using the little red machine (DVDPlay is what it’s called).

And I had to freaking line up for it! Two people in front of us!

Total cost: $2. Return by 7pm the next day. I have seen the future!

I used to get zip.ca (which is a Canadian netflix like service). I loved being able to create a massive list of things that I wanted to watch and be “surprised” when my 50th pick arrived instead of the next DVD in the Sopranos series. What I don’t like is when I get behind in my watching. Life sometimes get busy and I can’t be bothered to keep up with the DVDs. While there are no late fees, there is a nagging thought about not maximizing value of the “unlimited” DVDs per month, which was limited by the speed of Canada Post.

Don’t get me started about Blockbuster.

By the way, your public library is totally loaded with lots of good stuff too, if you don’t need to watch the latest greatest.

Apparently, someone figured out that you can find out a lot about people if you have their real name.

This “stunt” was done in protest to the requirement of having to use your real name, if you want to play on Blizzard’s games.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I would just prefer to hide behind an IP address. But for the information of myself that I am making available online, there is an internet approval committee (i.e. me) that decides if it is safe to put up or not, and it’s not just any old random crazy stuff. (You may beg to differ after going through the blog’s archives, but please humour me.)

As for WOW and StarCraft II players, I think that there is really no good reason to force people to use real names. I mean, I don’t use my real name when I go on plentyoffish for safety reasons, right? There are unscrupulous women who would think nothing of seducing and taking advantage of poor innocent Alfred!

Hacker News suddenly had a drive-by of links about paid newsletters. I was suddenly reminded of the Gary Halbert letters archive. From what I understood, people paid good money to be on this copywriting legend’s mailing list.

So, would you pay $2 a month to get a letter from a fresh MBA?

I think that I am so fatigued from the shallow articles, the ads and the “1 2 3 4 5 next page” links that I might eventually start paying for content.

Today I dusted off the bike that is sitting in my garage. The tires are flat and the brakes looks suspect. The chain is most definitely in need of lubing.

I took it into the bike shop. Busy like heck, but my dazed and confused look definitely got the attention of someone pretty quickly.

“Hi, what can I do for you?” He asked. I detected the urgency in his voice that could only mean that he was probably working non-stop since the store opened.

“My bike’s been in the garage for a while and I am wondering what it would take to make it safe to ride, other than filling the tires and adjusting the brakes.”

He quickly looked at the bike. Squeezed the brakes, studied the cables.

“A tune-up is $50. And we don’t do anything with plastic brakes here, so we would have to replace them with metal ones. That would cost $20 and the labour would be $20. So it would come out to about $100.” I hesitated my reply. In that sliver of thinking time, another customer tried to jump the gun and get the bike shop man’s attention. The other customer was politely told to wait a second. I knew I had to decide quickly.

“Okay, let’s do it. Can you do it today?” I asked.

“Haha, noooo. But we can have it ready for Thursday. Can I get your name and number?”

* * * * *

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig wrote extensively about the satisfaction of being self sufficient in handling any repairs that his motorcycle needed. He had a friend and fellow motorcycle rider who balked at the idea of even learning the simplest thing.

I know I should learn, but I just can’t be bothered at the moment, even though this is costing as much as an oil change for my car, if not more.