electric relaxation

Just a brief one today. I’m too lazy to write up my thoughts on those other promised topics and I want to exercise a little more caution given that a lot of people seem to be reading these without necessarily parsing them completely, and I don’t want to inadvertently offend anyone. Actually that’s a lie, I love inadvertently offending people, but only if I don’t like them, and if you’re reading this I probably like you.

Also only my tech friends will care about many of today’s items so be forewarned.

• Toronto seems to be quieter – at least there aren’t so many goddamn motorcycles.
  This is pretty topical given the recent South Park episode. I hate Harley riders. I realize it’s completely hypocritical of me, since the old Z used to set off car alarms when I started it up and the subwoofer definitely wasn’t neighbor-friendly, but hey, that’s why it got stolen right? Justice was served – I did the time for my crime. The point is, these fricking d-bags are so pervasive in San Francisco that I didn’t even realize how much more pleasant a city could sound until I got out of there. Of course for an apples-to-apples comparison I’d need to live on a lower floor right off of Queen St. So this is really only useful as a justification in favor of moving out of the Mission.
• Music and media streaming services don’t work or cost money in Canada.
  No Hulu, no Pandora, no Last.fm. Fortunately, piracy still works just fine, or so I’ve heard. I guess I should toss Google Voice into this list too, though that’s really more of a fundamental problem with GV (what the hell is it good for if it can’t ring international phones), and anyway I suspect that it will get fixed sooner than the media stuff.
• Cell phone data plans suck.
  Apparently my crazy SpeakOut wireless EDGE data hack – blackra1n plus blacksn0w plus SpeakOut $7 browsing addon plus iPhone connection profile (thanks again Eric B) – is even more of a deal than I originally realized, because it’s pretty much the only way to get unlimited data in Toronto. Unclear if this will ever get fixed. I suppose I should also figure out how much data I really use on my iPhone in SF though, since maybe 5GB really is enough?
• Online shopping is not nearly as cheap or prevalent.
  Apparently Amazon Canada is not nearly as well stocked as the mothership. Also, nobody’s ever heard of Zappo’s, you sometimes have to pay import duties on stuff (?!), and people actually buy computers and TVs in stores here because online prices aren’t much better.