Crystal and Tony Didn’t Win the Radio Station Contest. Nuts.

The title says it all: the Vibe 98.5 contest that I posted about earlier is now over, and Crystal and Tony didn’t win. The couple that won sound like they really needed it (the husband has colon cancer), so it’s great that the prize is going toward a couple that will really benefit from it…but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really hoping Crystal and Tony would win it. I emailed the radio station Webmaster and urged him to implement something to block repeat voting next time – I hate to think this, but their voting system was so open it would have been ridiculously easy to cheat; you just never know (I’m sure others would be thinking the same thing if Tony and Crystal won).

I’m deeply grateful for all of you who voted, for the blogs and emails that went out around the world rallying support, and for the donations that were made to help Crystal and Tony – you guys are awesome.

[For the geeks among you: I’ve gotta’ say though, no thanks to the cold-hearted people who read Digg – only 13 votes? Really? Nothing but coal in the stocking for anyone that read the story and didn’t vote for it. Digg is a ridiculous farce in many ways – the premise sounds great, but the reality is so much different.]

Greetings from The Netherlands

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Welcome to the land of tulips, wooden clogs, marijuana, and bicycles!

I’m writing this from the Netherlands! Ashley and I flew into Amsterdam on Saturday afternoon and it’s now Monday morning, nearly 9am, local time. We’re just about to head out for a day-long tour of the countryside. The weather here has sucked unfortunately: yesterday (Sunday) was our first full day here, and we spend it walking around freezing our toes off and getting quite wet. Normally cold weather doesn’t bother me much, but the wind here is relentless.The pictures I’ve taken so far are up in a gallery.

Travel lessons learned so far? Always have your passport on you if you want to use your credit card: most stores will not accept a credit card without your passport. Some restaurants and most taxi cabs will not accept credit cards, because it cuts into their profit margin (more on that later). Customer service as we understand it in North America doesn’t really apply here. A 43 watt flat iron will not work, even when connected to a 2000 watt converter. Always take Jet Lag pills – adjusting to the local time is a killer (last night was the longest night of my life).

More fun later – Mobius, the Microsoft conference and the reason I’m actually here in Amsterdam, is coming up in a few days.

Dell: Come On, Give Me the Info!

It’s a really great thing that Dell offers buyers multiple choices when it comes to laptop batteries: there’s usually a 4-cell, 6-cell, and 9-cell battery option. Dell always lists the watt hours information as well – great!

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But what’s ridiculous is that there are no images, illustrations, or written information about the exact sizes of the batteries: specifically, which batteries will stick out of the laptop (the “hump”). This is a really important thing to know, because when I’m buying a laptop I usually want to get the biggest battery possible, but one that doesn’t stick out. I just ordered a Vostro laptop today (for my church) and was given the choice of three different batteries – yet no indication of which one(s) was actually flush with the laptop.

In general I find that the “More Information” links on the Dell Web site do a poor job of providing the customer with the information they need about the given accessory or feature option. The explanations of screen finishes are equally weak. I’ve posted this over on Dell’s IdeaStorm site, so if you have a minute (and agree with me), please go over there and vote for my request.

When The Systems Works You

I’m usually pretty good at working the system, but this morning I got worked over by the system. Yesterday I ordered a cheap Dell Vostro 1000 laptop to donate to my church – we needed something ultra-basic for registrations and whatnot, so the base $499 model was a good fit. I wanted something with 14″ screen rather than a 15.4″ screen, but the price jumps up by $200 to get the smaller screen (go figure) and I didn’t think it was worth the price jump. I did add in a DVD burner and opted for the six-cell battery, which bumped the cost up to $564. I thought I’d have several options at the $499 price point, but the Dell Vostro was the only one I could find from any of the online stores.

This morning I checked my email and Best Buy had one-day only $300 price reduction on an HP 2610ca laptop, offering it for $599. That was pretty close to the $564 I was spending on the Vostro, but it had a faster CPU, bigger hard drive, and a 14.1″ screen. No brainer. There were about 62 left when I added it to my cart and went all the way through to the end of the ordering process. While I was doing this, I was waiting on hold to talk to a Dell customer service agent to cancel my order. The whole order cancelling process took 19 minutes, but I didn’t want to order the HP laptop until I was sure my Dell order had been cancelled (I’ve had problems with Dell not cancelling my orders in the past and didn’t want to end up with two laptops). Once the Dell order was cancelled, I flipped back to my browser and clicked SUBMIT to order the HP laptop. Nope, sorry, you have to log in again because your session timed out. I did so, and wouldn’t you know it, the system wouldn’t let me order the HP laptop because they were now all sold out. 🙁 So back to ordering the Vostro I go…

The Next Star Trek Movie? I Sure Hope Not…

You have to be a Star Trek geek to some degree to understand how funny this is… 😉

Joy in the Music

I started off today blogging about something that made me sad, but I want to end today by posting something that put a smile on my face and lifted my spirit: some incredible a capella music. An incredible song (Phil Collins is a fantastic song writer) performed by some incredible vocalists. A capella music is pure because there’s nothing but the artist and their voice. Turn up your speakers! Heres the “official” music video.

Make Your Vote Count: Help Crystal and Her Family

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[Crystal on her wedding day in July 2007]

I’ve written about my friend Crystal before, and she’s not doing very well – the cancer is laying waste to her body. It’s only a matter of time, and my heart feels heavy when I think of what she’s going through. She’s such a vibrant, fearless, loving person – and the world will be a lesser place when she’s gone.

There’s an opportunity to bring some light into her last days, however: Crystal, her husband Tony, and their seven-month old daughter Mattea have been nominated for a “Dream Baby Shower” in a contest a local radio station is running. There are $50K in prizes, including a $5000 Registered Education Saving Plan that will grow to $9000 by the time Mattea is 18 years old, $5200 worth of grocery gift cards spread out over a year, and bi-weekly house cleaning for a year. When Tony is on his own with Mattea, having food and house cleaning taken care of would be a burden off his shoulders.

Their profile with a brief backgrounder can be read for further details, and voting is done on this page. I’m sure the other contestants are wonderful people, but winning this contest is something that this family needs right now. I don’t think I’ve ever made a request like this before online, but please forward this blog entry to others and vote as many times as you can (yes, you can vote an unlimited number of times) until the November 25th deadline. Thanks for your support – let’s make this happen!

[A technical note for you geeks out there: the voting system doesn’t block multiple votes via cookies or IP, so it seems designed to be a “repeat popularity contest”. I was able to vote 50+ times in a matter of minutes by positioning my mouse cursor over the vote button, clicking it, using my previous page mouse button, then clicking again. Please, no automated scripts though, let’s keep this fair – well, as fair as a voting system like this can be. I’ve also submitted this to Digg, so please vote for it there as well to get the issue more attention.]

Mitsubishi Cross-Border Roadblocks

The lease on Ashley’s Mini Cooper is up in April 2008, so we’re looking at getting a new car in the spring. I’ve always enjoyed the look of Mitsubishi cars, and now that they’re being offered in Canada (that happened a few years back) I’m seriously considering either a 2008 Eclipse or a 2008 Lancer. Given the strength of the Canadian dollar, I figured I’d check into how much the cars are selling for in the US: I wasn’t overly surprised to see a 2008 3.4 litre engine Eclipse, fully loaded, selling for $30K USD. The same car in Canada? $36K CAD. No equitable pricing there. It’s always been less expensive to buy a car in the US though, which is why some Canadians will drive down and buy their cars in the US. There are costs involved in bring a car across the border, and some paperwork hassles, but $6000 is worth a fair amount of effort.

What was surprising to me was the conversation I had with the local Mitsubishi dealership: the saleman informed me that in October of this year, Mitsubishi segmented their warranty. Previously they offered a North-American wide warranty, meaning if you bought the car in the USA, you’d still have the 10-year warranty in Canada. No longer. If I were to buy a 2008 Eclipse in the USA and bring it up here to Calgary, I’d have zero warranty. Worse, they won’t even sell me a warranty – if anything went wrong with my Mitsubishi car I’d have to take it back down to the US to get it fixed under warranty.

I understand that Mitsubishi is under pressure from Canadian auto dealers to stop this cross-border buying practice, especially with the dollar disparity, but the solution would seem to be obvious: make the prices fair in both markets so buyers don’t feel like they’re being punished (price-wise) by purchasing from a local reseller. There will always be price discrepancies in different markets, but when I can drive down to Montana in five hours and buy the car for $6000 less…that seems a bit extreme to me. I don’t like it when companies use their power to abuse the consumer, so this is definitely a strike against Mitsubishi – the Eclipse and Lancer had better test drive damn good for me to continue to want one!

Stuck in My Head: Emmy Rossum

I love music. I really love music. Silence can be nice, silence can be helpful, but when I don’t feel like silence I want to be awash in music. I stumbled, quite randomly (saw it in an Oprah commercial), across a musician by the name of Emmy Rossum, and the clip I saw had something to do with YouTube. I checked her out and this is the song I found:

Enchanting, yes? Perhaps not musically everyone’s cup o’ tea, but I really liked it. The fact that the song feels like it’s all one big introduction, but the song never “starts”, leaves the listener with an unfinished feeling. Lest anyone think that she’s a studio-diva with a rack of auto-tuners to fix her vocal sloppiness, here’s a video clip of her performing live – and her voice is solid.

Chaos Reigns In My Office

The chaos and messiness of my office is directly linked to the number of review items I have on the go at any one time. Witness the disorder…usually I have next to nothing cluttering up my desktop except for the table section on the right of the U-shaped desk. Physical hardware items I’m currently reviewing: two new Zunes, an AT&T Tilt, a 6GB microSD, an iGo Juice everywhere85, a few software packages, and a few other items. I’ve got to stop asking for new things to review – I almost had my review queue empty, then the flood gates opened up…

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More pictures after the break. I hope there’s nothing embarrassing left out. 😉 Continue reading Chaos Reigns In My Office