quoperative

Ok, so Chris doesn’t NEEEEEED an iPhone but he really dropped the ball on his latest smartphone purchase, opting for the poster child for why it’s important to test products before releasing them: the Blackberry Storm.  Yes, and it’s been downhill ever since he got it.  And yes, he really regrets buying the iPhone “wannabe” instead of an actual iPhone.

So I took pity on the guy and we hatched a micro-site to help him raise the money to a) get out of his current contract with Bell and b) purchase a new iPhone.  Sounds suspicious, you think to yourself.  Why give some wanker money for buying a shit phone?  Good point.

Here’s the deal: you give Chris a little money towards getting the iPhone and he’ll give you something in return — he’ll smash the hell out of his Storm in whatever ridiculous way his supporters (i.e. you) suggest and videotape for all of the interweb to enjoy. I think it’s worth a small contribution.

When the baby’s born we’ll eat steaks and bacon, high-five each other, and laugh at jokes like this…

I just experienced some of the worst customer service ever from Tiger Direct. Congrats, guys — you’re even worse than Rogers!

It takes a real visionary organization to deliver — on top of complete and utter incompetence in helping a customer with their problem — service that makes the customer feel like a moron for not understanding the ins and outs of running a business based on drop shipping.  Obviously when I want to cancel my order with you, Tiger Direct, it’s my responsibility as the customer to cancel it with the anonymous drop shipper as well.  Why didn’t I think of that? Thankfully, the gentleman I spoke to in customer service was only too happy to deliver this message in a completely unnecessarily rude and condescending manner. Reminding me yet again why I’m just not smart enough to be working in a call centre. Boy, I wish I had gotten that young man’s name.  I would have loved to have included it here.

So, Tiger Direct… the ball is in your court.  Contact me if you’d like to salvage this blunder.

Art installations in big box stores in France. Lots of good stuff here. C’est tout.

I’m imagining the 67 year old semi-retired guy at Home Depot encountering this… “Son of a gun! The manager’s going to kill me when he sees this!”

We saw this dance party literally explode out of nothing during Santigold‘s set at Sasquatch, but I had no idea it started with ONE GUY. The awesomeness of this is off the charts.

This is absolutely incredible.  Wolfram Alpha is a “knowledge engine” launching this month. It’s being dubbed a Google killer and even though its’ creator says it isn’t, it’s getting tonnes of (deserved) attention.

Check out this screencast posted last week to see Stephen Wolfram take Wolfram Alpha for a little test drive and show off what it can do.

Ok, fine… it probably won’t *kill* Google, but considering that people are turning to Google more and more to look up dinky facts and definitions because it’s such a damn good search engine, Wolfram Alpha stands a good chance of biting a serious chunk out of Google’s mind share when it comes to settling useless trivia disputes.

This is such a totally fresh and radical approach to using the internet — I can’t imagine this not having a massive impact on the everyday user in the next 3-5 years.

At least, that’s what some people maintain.  Including me.

If you’ve got a couple hours to kill you can read that article or I’ll just draw your attention to Exhibit A below.

I submit, for your listening pleasure, two songs…

The first is “Since I’ve Been Loving You”, a song that appears on Led Zeppelin III and was released in October 1970.

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The second is “Never” by Moby Grape from Wow/Grape Jam, a double-album released in April 1968.

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This one is definitely Page/Plant tag team thievery — Plant clearly borrowed big chunks of lyrics word-for-word and even though the song is a pretty standard blues jam I’d say the slinky feel of it combined with the stolen lyrics makes Page just as guilty.  Shame on you guys.

Word on the street is that Led Zeppelin reached an out-of-court settlement in 2005 on this one, paying Moby Grape’s Bob Mosley an undisclosed amount of money… but still no writing or arrangement credit on the song.

Yes, these are business cards made with two things: meat and lasers! What a fucking brilliant idea.

“Hey man, great to chat with you today. Let’s keep in touch.”

“Oh, your business card is made of meat? That’s odd.”

“Not really.  Grab my contact info and then enjoy the snack.”

“Is it safe to eat the ink?”

“It’s not ink, my friend.  It’s seared into the meat with lasers.”

“I know I only met you 15 seconds ago but I’m going to offer you our CEO position right now.”

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted so here’s a recap of what happened…

I went to Toronto for FITC… and we won an award! Also got a super cool gift from Relish for the whole famn damily. Gosh you guys are clever.

I became an uncle. I just missed meeting Dylan Matthew (no Facebook profile to link to yet) by an hour and change. He was literally born as I my plane was taxiing on the runway to head back to Vancouver. To be honest, I’m kind of mad that my sister couldn’t push him out sooner but I’m sure I’ll forgive her in time.

Mish and I went to see night #2 of the Weakerthans and Constantines 2-night stand of the Rolling Tundra Revue at the Commodore. That was a seriously good show. It’s probably been 5 years since I’ve seen the Cons play (I’m pretty sure it was with the now-defunct Royal City at Babylon) and they quickly reminded me that they are a smoking live band. Huge sound and tight as hell. Even though I think I’m an album or two behind I forgot how many of their songs I knew.

Monday night we went to the Showbox in Seattle to see the Shins. I find those drive-there-and-back-the-same-night shows always sound like a good idea on paper when you buy the tickets but not so much when you’re jet-lagged and have to hit the road at the end of a long work day. All that aside, the show was great and it was super sweet to see the band in a cozy venue like that. It was all ages and Mish and I ended up standing next to David Bazan (who is – or was – Pedro the Lion) and his little daughter… who was dancing up a storm. The set finished at midnight, which was decent, but the drive back was especially painful. Since I was tasked with driving I loaded up on a concoction of sugar and energy drinks designed to keep me awake for the required 2 hours. I think my sugar buzz was just trailing off as we entered Vancouver but I managed to hold it together and not launch the car off the road into a ditch. Lesson learned… stay in a hotel room next time, cheap ass!

Last night we went to see a screening of the documentary film Objectified at the Rio, which is a great old (recently restored) theatre in town. The director/producer Gary Hustwit was there and answered questions afterwards. Pretty good film all in all… it’s a nice overview of the massively huge topic of “design” and how it fits into our everyday lives. Obviously he featured designers from great brands like Braun and Apple but there’s a notable absence of any kind of analysis into the IKEA phenomenon — “high” design at low prices that basically falls apart if you ever have to move it. Mish was going to ask him why he basically glossed over IKEA but was way too chicken to put her hand up and ask it in front of everybody. Fortunately somebody else asked a simliar question and his response was basically that IKEA is a bit of a touchy topic in design circles and he didn’t want to take sides. Fair enough. Here’s the trailer… enjoy.

I celebrated the 2nd annual Record Store Day today with a trip down to Zulu Records in search of some vinyl.  Let me tell you, I was not disappointed.  I made 4 wonderful new friends (pictured below).