waiting…

The next torch runner waits for the flame to arrive

Here comes the flame.

The torch “kiss”

The opportunity to see the torch along Deer Lake Parkway outside of Burnaby city hall afforded some nice views of the torch relay. Lots of office workers emptied out of their cubicles to wait in the rain for the torch to pass.

The Torch arrives, and is passed to the next torch bearer.

A heavy Police presence to ensure safe passage of the flame.

The Olympic Flame

And its gone.

This is just a few of the vehicles involved in the convoy. The bus carries torch bearers along the route after their run.

Stay tuned for pics from Day 105 (Feb 11th) and my summary post on the torch relay. You can view more pictures from Day 103 in my flickr stream.

Thousands of People flooding Old Yale Road and King George Highway Boulevard

One of the Coca-Cola Buses that make up the torch relay motorcade

The Flame Arrives

As quickly as it came, the flame passes by.

There are many more photos from Day 102 of the torch relay in North Surrey in my flickr stream, and stay tuned for photos from Day 103, 105 and my summary post.

Photo taken almost a year ago today, December 2008 – Toronto. Honest Ed’s is a must see maze of bargains. It was certainly worth the long walk.

Taken at a concert by Central City Jazz in March 2008.

Vancouver After Dark

First off, the first thing you notice with the Kindle is just how nice the screen is. Amazon designed the kindle so that it would disappear in your hands as you are readying and that is certainly true. The screen is clear, crisp, and renders detail in photos exceptionally well considering it only has 16 shades of gray to work with.

Whisper net seems to deliver books as fast as I would expect it to, purchasing a book from amazon.com on my computer, then turning to my kindle a few minutes later and the book was showing in my list already. Wireless delivery is very handy as I don’t have to search for the USB cable and copy the books manually.

Starting with Version 2.3, the Kindle now supports native PDF reading without the need to convert. There is a catch however, and that is you cannot zoom the text. Most of the PDF files that I read are formatted to fit an 8.5×11″ sheet of paper, not a 6″ screen. You can rotate the PDF and hold your Kindle horizontally, but this only goes so far, as some PDF authors seem to be using 6 and 8 point font as standard text. The solution is to use an application such as “Calibre” (http://calibre-ebook.com/) which is free. Once I converted my PDF files to .mobi, I can zoom the text and read them comfortably.

Compared to the US Wireless version, web surfing is disabled, with the exception of access to Wikipedia. Given the greyscale screen, this was not a deal breaker for me, and I do enjoy getting free, 3G wireless access to wikipedia.

I wish I didn’t have to purchase the leather case/cover seperately, this I feel should have been included with the Kindle, as I would say some sort of case is a requirement to protect the unit. The leather cover is really nice and worth the extra $30 USD.

All in all, I am very happy with my Kindle 2. I was torn between the Kindle and the Sony PRS-505, but I am glad that I went with the kindle. 2GB of internal storage is a lot of storage, and once I have read a book I see no need to keep it in the device unless it is reference material.

If your in the market for an e-reader, I’d recommend the kindle.

If you havn’t sent a letter to the CRTC yet, please do so, you can use the automated form at: http://www.stopthetvtax.ca/email-the-crtc/ as it only takes a minute to voice your opinion.

As of this writing, there are only six days left to provide your feedback to the CRTC! Say no to a tax payer funded bailout of CTV and Global.

Keep reading after the jump….

Since September 1st. The CRTC has recieved 1000’s of letters from upset Canadians demanding that they not be taxed in order to fund a bailout of the big two Canadian Broadcast networks (CTV and Global). On September 17th, the Heritage Minister asked the CRTC to review their decision and consider the consumer in the debate.

With the above said, the CRTC still needs to hear from you! Please send your MP, the Heritage Minister and the CRTC a letter or email expressing your opinion. CTV and Global are lobbying very hard to try and charge you money for a service that is supposed to be ad-supported. (You are actually doing them a favour by watching on Cable and Satellite as they no longer need to build out terrestial transmitters…. think rabbit ears).

Shaw Cable has a great website with sample letters that you can send to your MP in the mail and via email (remember, postage to an MP or Minister does not require a stamp).

Please speak up!

So as a consumer what are you paying for when you support your local station?  Not much, your going to have to pay to recieve those signals into your home, saving the broadcasters from having to build out more broadcast towers, and since you are paying for it, you will be force fed as many commercials as they feel like giving you.  That means we’ll likely see the typical 90 minute movie cut down to one hour and slotted into a two hour time slot.

Its time for Canadian consumers to stand up and write the CRTC asking them to allow us to pick and choose which stations we want! I don’t want to pay for Global, or CTV if they are going to force me to hit fast-forward on my DVR more than I already do. I’m tempted to dump my cable service entirely! As consumers we are paying more and more every month for less and less service.