Posts

Posted on

A Reason To Fly JetBlue?

In addition to having some of the lowest fares for flying, JetBlue[wiki] hopes that WiFi on their planes will make their airline even more appealing.

JetBlue Airways Corp. won a wireless license to offer high-speed Internet and other communications services on commercial aircraft in a U.S. Federal Communications Commission auction that ended on Friday. [reuters.com]

It seems like there are two types of people when it comes to JetBlue; those that think it’s the worst airline and those that think it’s one of the best. Their record doesn’t help them too much either, but this is a boost for those business travelers out there.

Among 19 carriers reporting to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, JetBlue had the lowest on-time arrival rates in January, according to the Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report for that month. The popular upstart airline landed on schedule just 70.6 percent of the time. Hawaiian Airlines was best, with a rate of 95.9 percent, and other airlines arrived promptly 78.8 percent of the time.

The report is more bad news for JetBlue, which lost $42.4 million during the fourth quarter due to fuel costs, and it plans to raise fares to improve profits. But it did have one of the lowest rates of canceled flights, at 0.2 percent, which could be tied to its many delays. Other airlines would rather cancel a flight than hurt their arrival rates. [abcnews.com]

Posted on

Russia On the Download

Wired.com is running an article about Russian websites where you can download music in mp3 format at rock bottom prices. More so, the concern about it is coming from “U.S. trade and music industry officials” stating that continued operation of the site is a direct obstacle for Russia joining the WTO.

“The United States is seriously concerned about the growth of internet piracy on Russian websites such as AllofMP3.com … the world’s largest server-based pirate website,” Neena Moorjani, chief spokeswoman for the Office of the United States Trade Representative, said Friday.

“Russia’s legal framework for intellectual property rights protection must meet WTO requirements…. In that context, we continue to call on Russia to shut down websites that offer pirate music, software and films for downloading,” she said. [wired.com]

You would think that this would be about oil, or something more precious to daily survival, and not piracy of music. That’s all it takes to stop your country from being apart of the WTO club. I would imagine that the pressure from the U.S. government is heavily influenced by lobbyists for the music industry, working the playground method of a little bullying to keep them from hanging out with the rest of the cool kids. The argument makes sense for both parties, but I keep coming back to this feeling that the music industry needs to stop fighting this and start to undermine these things to take advantage of it in some way.

This also made me curous about another Russian download site, mp3search.ru. The site appears to still be up and running. I gave that a shot and experimentally dropped twenty bucks on the site to see what it had to offer. For the most part, it’s good source with some reservation, but this was just over a year ago that I last did anything with it The selection was still growing, and bit rates of the mp3’s averaged around 192k. However, sometimes you would download a bad rip of an album that had lots of gross errors in the audio. At nearly $.10 a song, you get what you pay for.

Posted on

2010 Riot

I caught wind of this from Daily Vancouver’s 2010 Coverage[post]. Is it evidence of people still having a grudge about the 2010 Winter Olympics coming to town? It’s not exactly clear, but you can find “2010 Riot” scribbled in various places around Vancouver. I snapped this picture at the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal[britishcolumbia.com].

Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal - 2010 Riot

A search[google] comes up with little in terms of any clues, and here’s another photo example.  It’s got me curious.

Posted on

Ethan Hunt: Superman

We used our free passes that we scored from the V For Vendetta debacle to go check out Mission: Impossible III[imdb] a few weeks ago. And yes, I know that I’ve been really bad about posting about things that seem to have happened ages ago, but at least we’re getting caught up, are we not? And actually, I think we saw this before Da Vinci Code[imdb], but oh well.

I’m not sure if it’s just something I’m noticing more and more, but I have never had the feeling that I was watching a big, Hollywood, blockbuster, big budget, star studded, major motion picture movie as I did with this flick. I won’t say that it was a complete waste of time, but that really sums up the majority of the experience. On the other hand, this is a movie with a storyline involving super-secret spy agents, so it’s to be expected.

That being said, this was a really great, free movie. Being the red blooded male that I am, I do enjoy a good action flick from time to time. More so, I like Phillip Seymour Hoffman[imdb] the more and more I see him. He’s got the ticket to ride ever since he got that oscar, but I have yet to be let down by him. I liked him being the bad guy a lot. Movies like this are better seen on the big screen with kick ass sound, but we probably wouldn’t have seen it in the theatre if it wasn’t for the passes.

Even with all the bad press, and good press for that matter, Tom Cruise[imdb] is getting lately, I thought it was a pretty solid role that he played. These days, it seems that anytime Hollywood wants to put out a nice action flick of blockbuster proportions, Ving Rhames[imdb] makes the cast.

Posted on

Adventures On the Sunshine Coast

Venturing through the woods on the Sunshine CoastAs you might have heard on the podcast, we took a day trip to the Sunshine Coast[wiki] over the weekend. This was my first time making the trek, but Rebecca is a seasoned pro. And anytime you have to take a ferry to get somewhere, I’m pretty excited, fear of sinking or not. Is that because in Iowa we don’t have ferries? Yeah, you’re probably right, but we do have some nice boats you can ride on down the Mississippi while you gamble.

Our time up the coast was a super awesome good time. Rebecca spent a lot of time in this area while growing up and speaks about it highly. This was my chance to check it all out, and I have to say that I can see why. It was very apparent, as with nearly all of the lower mainland, that the area is developing a lot. Ocean front homes are the thing to have, and people are building them where they can, as big as they can.

Horseshoe Bay ferry terminalI heard someone say that living in B.C., it’s hard to not become a lover of the outdoors. I can say that is oh so true. I had fun playing soccer and what not while we were there, but I wanted to keep exploring the woods and just see what was out there. There were some trails that we went around, but with my hiking shoes on, I could have stayed out there for hours.

I uploaded a series of pictures from the day to my Flickr account. Check out some of the shots from Horseshoe Bay[flickr] and the Sunshine Coast[flickr] if you’d like. I have a feeling we’ll be back there again in the future.

Posted on

The (International) Noise Conspiracy at The Plaza Club

The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Vancouver, BC - May 20, 2006This is a completely late posting, but we checked out The (International) Noise Conspiracy[wiki] at the Plaza Club when they swung through Vancouver on May 20th. Rebecca was faster to the draw on her post about it, but let me elaborate.

If you have never seen them before, they put on an incredible show. And if you are some one who has had that opportunity, then you know how awesome they perform. For myself, this was the second time that I got to check them out. The last show was in Brooklyn, NY, and I got a drumstick in the face at the end of the encore. I left this show with better luck.

The Fever opened up the show with a very solid performance. Coming all the way from New York, the four piece band boasted a setup that is not of your normal rock and roll band make up, but is becoming less unusual. Singer, guitarist, drummer, and keyboards. When their set started, I thought the lead singer was standing on top of a box while singing into the mic on top of its stand. Getting closer, it became clear that he was freakishly tall and kept the mic low. It was a neat effect for his sometimes, Tom Waits-esque voice. Continue reading “The (International) Noise Conspiracy at The Plaza Club”

Posted on

It Might Be All Too True

The Onion posted a sports article recently that might actually be closer to the truth rather than the statirical humor we’ve all grown to love and enjoy. The headline reads, “Royals Hire Tom Emanski To Teach Them Fundamentals Of Baseball“.  Now we all know that The Onion runs news that is fake, but this one might just be pretty spot on.

I realize that being a Cubs fan, I don’t have a lot of room to talk right now.  However, the Royals haven’t had the best record for the last few seasons.  KC fans are some of the best fans out there, and I have family in the metro area that are a true example of this.  But if anyone sees my grandma, I never wrote this and I don’t know you.

Posted on

RadioZoom Episode #94

Episode #94 of the podcasting is up and ready for download.

A packed epsiode that started on the Queen of Coquitlam ferry as we made our way back to Vancouver from the Sunshine Coast. I did some brief soundseeing on the ferry as we came into Horseshoe Bay on that Saturday, but Rebecca and I didn’t finish this episode until Tuesday where we recap the running events we participated in over the weekend. We finish with some Hockey Talk about the Stanley Cup and Memorial Cup. [radiozoom]

Posted on

How To Pirate a Vinyl Record

The Reverend sent me this link yesterday about how one goes about pirating a vinyl record. The whole process takes some skill to set up and materials that can probably found at your local mega-hardware center. And naturally it’s not a perfect replica that you are left with when the process is said and done, but I think this goes to show that you can pirate nearly anything if you really wanted to.

I’m not too sure that you’d want to do this to just any record though. Dumping a bunch of silcone that you didn’t mix properly might spell the end to your original, not re-released, Frank Zappa[wiki] albums.

Posted on

The First Fan Into the Hockey Hall of Fame

I know that I am far from being qualified for this, but the contest is on for the first fan honored in the Hockey Hall of Fame. This is the first time that the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto has ever put a fan into the ranks of hockey legends, but it seems that this could be a one time thing depending on the outcome of this inaugural contest.

Check out part of the description for Brigette Mcilmoyle, a Canucks fan who has made the list of finalists.

I paid the ultimate tribute to all our Canadian hockey teams with my hockey themed wedding, complete with the wedding party each in a Canadian team jersey (including the bride) and a pastor in a ref’s jersey. An exact replica of the Cup as our cake headlined the decorations, and I walked down the isle to [the theme from Saturday night’s national hockey telecast] (to name a few of the highlights). Make no mistake, I was more excited about the theme than my husband. Girls CAN be even bigger hockey fans than boys! [tsn.ca]

I totally voted for her, but at 8% of the vote, as of today, her chances look slim.