Dec 14, 1999, 7:50am

So much to talk about... I'm going to do this one a bit different. I'm going to do a series of mini rants about things that are on my brain these days
Christmas - what can I say - I like Christmas, but the commercialism of the whole thing bothers the heck out of me. I like getting extravagant with my gifts I get for folks, but I don't expect folks to go overboard for me. Speaking of this, my parents bought Jean and I a very cool (and expensive) fooseball table! We have to go to Sears here in town to pick it up, but I can't wait for it! It's our Christmas gift from them, but they had to tell us about it because of the pickup thing.

BC Tel / Telus - or as I like to call them, BC Hell / Smellus. I hate companies and corporations that are hypocritical to the max. It's a very well known fact that BC Hell never gave two shits about their typical residential customer, and while making billions of dollars (and megamillions in profits), they would constantly go to the CRTC, hat in hand, and ask for a dollar increase here, a two dollar increase there. They routinely screwed their customers - the infamous case of billing people for decades for a "rental phone" that the customer never had comes to mind. And, they did all this while they were a monopoly. Now that those monopoly days are ending, Smellus has one of the most hypocritical ad campaigns I've seen - they are doing touchy feelie "we care about you" ads targeted at residential customers. "You aren't just a number to us" they say. Bullshit. Smellus' latest campaign is about as truthful as the IRS (or Revenue Canada) running an ad campaign saying "We Don't Intrude in Private Individuals' Lives".

Smellus (again) - if I was the GAP clothing chain, I'd sue Smellus for everything I could. For the past year or two, the GAP has been running neo-artsy commercials - you know the ones - all white back drops, and artsy kitschy people in the foreground - dancing swing,(khaki commercials), singing songs, reciting poems, etc etc. Well for the past month or two, Smellus has been running virtually identical themed commercials, promoting their Smellus Stores where you can go buy phones and electronics for higher than MSRP. Intellectual property theft, I'd say. But Smellus/BC Hell has long felt they were above any sort of civil laws, so I don't see how they'd have any conscience about stealing another company's advert campaign.

Toughest S.O.B. of the Century (Ottawa version). Earl McCrae of the Ottawa Sun has been running this contest for a week or two now. My Dad knows of (or actually knew) a lot of the people suggested. The most famous of all, Gerry Barber, was babysat by my own Grandmother! AND… his kids were babysat by my Mom's mother (my Nanny). One name not submitted is a guy who was a friend of mine - helluva guy too - J.C. Yelle. He was the manager (and head bouncer, but don't call him that) at On Tap in Ottawa during the late 1980s. Have I got a few stories to share about this guy.

Technology - as each day goes by, I hate Microsoft more and more. Since upgrading all our computers to Windows 98 SE, we (Jean and I) suffer through multiple crashes per day. Before the upgrade, when we were running Win95, one or two crashes a day for me and one or two a week for Jean was the norm. Now it's like four or five crashes a day for me, and about one or two a day for Jean. This is simply unacceptable. Of course, any complaints to Microsoft fall on deaf ears, or the incredibly frustrating "read your TOS (Terms of Service Agreement), sir" when you bitch about lost data and time.

I know the End Luser Agreement Microsnot packages with Win98SE (and all their other software) supposedly absolves them of any responsibility for their product. As far as I know, software companies are the only manufacturer of a product who can even try this. The US is so lawsuit happy, I'm really surprised no one has done a class action suit against MS for providing such a crappy product - regardless of what the Luser Agreement states - in fact, challenge the legal right for Microsnot and other software corporations to even put that bullshit in their Luser Agreements. In my own experience, I probably lose about 4+ hours of work a week directly related to MS's crappy, buggy and bloated software. Is it too much to ask a software vendor for something that freaking works?

Toys for Mark Dept - I've been trying to buy myself a new digital camera all week. After a month of reading, analyzing and deciding, I've decided to buy the Olympus C-2020Z camera. It's brand new to the market. Problem is, it seems like no one has it in stock, and those who do either a) charge exorbitant shipping costs (like $50 for 2 day delivery, when most other places charge $17) or b) don't sell to Canuckians - even though we have a US mailing address for our online purchases, some stores (like www.computers4sure.com) refused to sell to us because our billing (VISA) address is Canadian. Sigh. I'm about to plonk down about $1200 for a digital camera, and I can't find anyone willing to take my money. How freaking depressing.

Mozilla - Oh Netscrape, we hardly knew ye. I've been waiting some two years now for Netscape to release a new version of their browser, and 1.5 years to see the new Mozilla engine incorporated into a browser in a stable manner. Mozilla, in case you don't know, is an open source (ie, anyone can program for it) attempt to craft a new, fully standards-compliant, fast, and SMALL web browser. Now, after much frustrations and crashes, the Milestone 11 release of the Mozilla browser engine is up online for testing, and finally, it's stable enough that it rarely crashes. Table effects are buggy in display. Animated GIFs sometimes don't work. Fonts are not interpreted properly (actually, this might not be a bug, as HTML 4 does not support the FONT PROPERTIES tag), but overall I am really, really impressed. Javascript is lightning quick and bug free (so far in my limited testing). Java is wickedly fast. Page draws are instantaneous. Page REdraws are almost as fast. And the entire package, including bug checking software, email and news components is a svelte 5mb! Supposedly an alpha will come out in January, and a beta in February - I can't wait - I hate IE's "let us show you how to do it" functionality. I want my Netscrape!

Okay, listen up. I'm definitely going to have one more rant up before I put up our X-mas greetings message. It should be here next week (Dec 19 or so), so check back. I got some real doozies to share. :-)

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Mixelania

Photos from Algonquin Park
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Making Snow for the Fortress
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Webiffied

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iMark's iTunes and iPod isn't iPlaying anything right iNow.

Most Recent Songs

Fiddlers Green by The Tragically Hip

Around The Bend by Pearl Jam

Here With Me (Rollo's Chillin' With the Family Mix) by Dido

With arms open wide by Creed

truffle pigs by Matthew Good Band

In the News

Burundi and Beyond - NY Times
Great article by Peter Meehan - provided some background.

St. Petersburg Times
Side mention in an article about good machines

AP Story on Espresso
Background and information provided

NY Times - Grinders Article
Especially proud of this one - got the reporter to focus on grinders

Globe and Mail
LOL - showing bad reporting, dude says I'm an American-based site!

The Olympian, WA
Talks about my love for the El Sal Siberia Pacamara

Seattle Times - Clover
Interviewed for comments on the Clover brewer

NY Times - How it Works
Background and information for various espresso machines

Time Mag Article
Just a brief mention, article about roasting beans.

NY Times
Front page article about consumers getting into specialty coffee.

Washington Monthly
Quoted reference to what I wrote in an article at CoffeeGeek.

USA Today - Barista Jam
Intereviewed for my thoughts on what the epitome of espresso is.

WSJ Article
The Wall Street Journal has interviewed me 3 times. This is the first time my name got in a story.

Reuters Interview
Interview with Reuters, Jan 2 - this is the USA Today version.

My Other Stuff

CoffeeGeek
Launched Dec 22, 2001, this is THE online community for espresso and coffee fanatics.

CoffeeKid Website
It's all new, as of March, 2002. My personal coffee obsession site.

WebMotif Services
My company's site - needs an update!

Amazon WishList
Hey, if you feel the need to buy me something, check here!

Daily Visits

enGadget
Great gadget site run by the guy who used to do Gizmodo.

Google News
This is how I get my daily news fix.

DPReview Forums`
The most active forums for digital photography online today.

Daily Zen
Need my Daily Zen fix!

Jalopnik
A blog about car stuff. Vroom Vroom.

MoCo Loco
An industrial design blog. Very cool stuff.

Friends and Family Plan

Beata Blog
Beata's got her own blog! She updates it most days.

Riddla on Flickr
Matt Riddle's flickr account, updated regularly

Irdy Photos
Irdy, my friend from Jakharta, on Flickr

Recent Acquisitions

Canon EF 24-105 f4 L Lens
The best lens I've ever owned. Super sharp and quick.

Canon 5D
A full frame dSLR, with luscious colour reproduction.

Alzo Digital Lights
Some amazing florescent cold lights for product photography

Canon Xsi dSLR
Amazing technology and image quality in a tiny package.

Canon 40D
Latest prosumer camera from Canon - a much better upgrade than the 30D

Fujitsu P1610
Great 2.2lb computer that does most of my travel / writing needs

28mm f1.8 Lens
A great lens for closeup work and full picture photography

Foodsaver Advanced
Finally got the right tools for freezing green coffee.

Canon 50mm 1.4
Most amazing lens I've ever owned. Produces stellar photos.

Canon 10-22mm
Super wide angle (full frame fisheye) zoom for my Canon 20D