logloglog

Just got a call from Bell. Not an actual person but one of those automated calling machines. The voice tells me it has a message about my phone number, and to please call this toll-free number to talk to us. Bell wants to sell us something? We’re not spending enough time on the phone? We’re using Jajah too much?

So I called said number. Turns out that someone stole our phone number. And since it is an unlisted number they were giving us the option to get a new unlisted number, free of charge. Of course they wouldn’t pay for new stationary, messages to notice all our friends, relatives and other contacts and all the time it would cost.

So I declined.

After I hung up I did a search on Google for this story and found out that we weren’t the only “victim”, but that someone got hold of 3.4 million telephone numbers, 5% of which are unlisted. That’s a lot of new phone numbers to give away, more numbers than are currently “free” in our area code. So the likelihood we get an unlisted number that was recently used by someone else is very high. And then you get all these people calling and asking for Jean-Marie, Claude or Sophie. No thanks. I previously had that with my cell phone which is of course far worse because it costs me 40 cents each time I pick up the phone.

I’m not too worried about the fact that our number is now in the wild. We mainly have an unlisted (strangely enough it cost money to have an unlisted phone number; you’d think that it would cost less because they don’t have to list it) phone number because we don’t get as much unsolicited direct marketing calls around supper time. If they will increase now, I can finally play out this anti-telemarketing script.

For all readers who wants to read loglog in their RSS reader I’ve now enabled full feeds. You now not only get the photos but also the words, so you don’t have to click through anymore. If there are any problems please let me know.

Update 29 September, 2008:

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I went with a client on a hunt today for a bathtub. He’s quite tall and wants me to make a new, larger bathroom for him, but he has a hard time finding a bathtub that fits his frame, one that is actually big enough for him to lie in.

After visiting a number of stores we both have to pee. But asking “Do you have a bathroom?” in a bathroom store is kind of awkward, and pissing in the showroom toilets is generally frowned upon (apparently it does happen though, at least that’s what I heard). So we head to a Tim Hortons nearby and have a muffin and an orange juice. Coincidentally we order exactly the same muffin and the same kind of juice.

Afterwards we drive the long way home and even though a lot of people are on vacation, there is still a lot of traffic and it takes quite a while. I drop of my client, and when I arrive at home I can’t find my bag. I search the car, but it’s a big red bag and not easily overlooked.

The dogs are barking around me while I try to concentrate and think where I remember I had my bag the last time. I think it was at the Tim Hortons. I get the Yellow Pages, but can’t find them. Wait, the internet! But on the Tim Hortons website there is no restaurant finder. Canada411.ca. No Tim Hortons in Montréal on that street. O wait, Pierrefonds is de-merged and is a separate municipality now. Yes, there it is, in the long list of telephone numbers. I call the number and start talking to the woman who picks up in English. They all speak English in the West-Island so I’m surprised when she asks “French, please?”. I repeat my question (”Have you found my bag?”) in French, she goes to look in the place I tell her I was seating and then she comes back: “Non monsieur, votre sac n’est pas là…”

Fuck.

It now really dawns to me. I lost my bag. My really nice red bag. With my camera in it, and my cigars. And my brand new MacBook Pro laptop.
I thank the woman for watching and give her my phone number just in case. Just before I hang up I ask if there are any other Tim Hortons in Pierrefonds? She answers me that she’s not in Pierrefonds but in Côte de Lièsse. OMG. I called the wrong restaurant! Yes, it is the telephone number just below the one we visited. I get new hope. It’s not even an hour ago since we left. I call again, making sure to call the right number this time.

Unfortunately my hope proved futile. My bag hadn’t been found. I call all the bathroom stores we went to, one at the time. No luck.

Shit.

I call Alison and she has no idea what to say to cheer me up.

I hang up, and I don’t know what to do. I haven’t even paid off my credit card bill of the new laptop and I already lost it. Visa will be happy. Then I remember that my bank just recently upgraded me to a new credit card that included an extended warranty or something. I frantically try to find the leaflet that came with it. Yeah, there it says: “The Purchase Security Plan protects most purchases made with the card for ninety (90) days from purchase.” I quickly try to find the line that says what is meant with that word most. I’m sure I will find a line saying that “computers are excluded”. But there is no such line. I call the toll-free number, and someone takes my card number, address and the value of the item I lost. Thanks to Apple’s online invoices I can still find that information. She’ll send me a form that I’ll have to complete. Wow.

For the first time in an hour I can sit and calm down a bit. There is a possibility I didn’t lose a huge pile of money, but just some.

I eat a cracker with cheese and try to recall what I’ve lost, what haven’t I backed up yet.
Some photos, obviously. But for the rest I just lost the changes I made today and last night to the drawings of my client’s bathroom. Just a couple of hours to re-create those, so that’s not too bad. A good thing I worked on woodworking projects the past week and that I make regular backups. But not daily, even though I bought a new hard drive just for that purpose. But I haven’t had time to set it up yet.

I even manage to look at it from the bright side: I now have an excuse to replace my 6 year old camera.

What do you do when you are in the U.S. and Apple just introduced a new gadget?

You head to the Apple store and let your inner geek out. This photo was taken with an iPhone by myself so it’s a bit wide-anglish. I then mailed it to myself because that is the only way to get stuff of the phone.

iPhone itself is quite impressive. If I was into cell phones, had money to burn and lived in God’s own country, I might have been seriously tempted to buy one. But neither of these pre-requisites are met so I’m safe. But still it was nice to play with the thing for half an hour.

In the store there was a big table with 15 iPhones all logged in to the Wifi network so the connections were fast. The internet browser is absolutely fantastic and I can see you can actually read whole web pages. You can easily zoom in and out and scroll over any webpage just with your finger tip.

Christmas came early here. No, actually it came very late. Alison gave me a Wii as a birthday present on April Fools. For the uninitiated, a Wii is a game console; a box you attach to your TV and play games on.
These boxes however are really in short supply and it took us a couple of months to acquire one. Unlike in Europe, were friends of my, just put their name on a list and received their Wii [link in Dutch] six weeks later, here you have to visit the shops every day and ask if they have Wii’s. Or buy one on eBay or Craigslist for 100 dollars above the normal price.

We didn’t do that, because we are cheap, patient and not very close to a electronics stores. So we scoured the Internet, put the Wii product-pages of a couple of internet shops in our browser’s bookmarks and reloaded them every day a couple of times. And lo-and-behold, after many, many weeks, Tuesday one of the shops (I’m reluctant to tell you it was Futureshop, since I try to avoid them as the plague) had Wii’s in stock. Sixty of them when I started my order and nervously punched in my credit card number, and they had only 15 left after I received my order confirmation.

This morning the letter carrier (I can’t use the word “postman”, Alison will flog me) rang twice and handed me a big box. Inside was a much smaller box and I’m dying to open it but I’m going to wait until Alison returns from Toronto tonight.

After all, it’s my birthday present from her.

Update: she came home, tried to wrap the box, I stopped her because I knew that access to the wrapping paper was kind of blocked (that part of the basement is still a mess) and then she sang me Happy Birthday and the French equivalent.

And then we played boxing, bowling and tennis for a couple of hours. It was fun! Even though Alison beat me at bowling.

Can you believe it that this is the first game console I ever owned in my life? And that I used to make all my money making games?

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

Poupoune heeft z’n hoofd vol met buckminsterfullereen.

Dit voetbalvormige molecuul is genoemd naar de amerikaanse architect Buckminster Fuller, die ook in Montréal zo’n koepel heeft gebouwd. Ik berichtte er al eerder over.

Toen ik dit chemische model, bestaande uit 60 koolstofatomen, ergens op Internet zag kon ik het niet laten om het te kopen. Credit cards zijn soms gevaarlijke dingen om te hebben.

[Edited: Buckminister -> Buckminster]

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

In ruil voor een heerlijk diner (een lauwe salade met portobello’s en pasta met gorgonzola), help ik Dorothée, een vriendin van Alison, met haar computerproblemen. Haar nieuwe printer/scanner weigerde dienst. De oplossing was eenvoudig: de USB kabel zat er niet goed in. Ik geef haar ook nog wat verdere instructie; na meer dan een jaar deze imac te hebben, vind ze computers nog steeds eng.

Ik heb ook nog even een foto van haar, direct vanuit mijn camera, geprint. Eerst print de printer een lijst van alle foto’s en dan kan je aankruizen welke foto’s je wilt printen. Dat vel leg je vervolgens op de scanner en de aangekruiste foto’s worden geprint. Simple comme bonjour.

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

Twee weken geleden hoorde ik voor het eerst een raar geluid onder de motorkap.
En een paar dagen later reed Anne op de snelweg toen plotseling alle lampjes aangingen en er de motor een vreselijk geluid voortbracht.
Zij mij proberen te bereiken, maar ik was niet thuis. Ze bevond zich namelijk vlak bij de plaats waar we de auto hadden gekocht. Maar ze wist niet precies de naam, en kon die ook niet vinden in de telefoongids. Enfin, uiteindelijk heeft ze de auto naar Montréal laten slepen (50 km) en toen ik heb de volgende dag de auto weer terug naar de garage laten slepen. Gelukkig zijn we CAA (de Canadese wegenwacht) lid.
En gisteren kreeg ik een telefoontje van de garage dat de auto klaar was. Ze hadden de hele motor moeten vervangen door een (nieuwer, maar wel gebruikt) ander exemplaar.

De rekening: 3500 dollar!

Gelukkig had ik toen ik de auto kocht twee maanden geleden, er voor drie jaar een uitgebreide garantie erbij genomen. Voor vrij veel geld, maar ik ben nu al ruim uit die kosten. Want ze betaalde alles. En de garagehouder hoefde zelfs niet mijn eigen risico, want hij had de rekening iets opgehoogd met een bedrag voor huur van een vervangende auto.

En de auto? Die rijdt weer prima.

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

Kleine rampen:

• Ik kreeg een parkeerbon omdat ik vergeten was de auto te verplaatsten. Twee keer per week wordt de straat geveegd en dan mag je een uur lang niet parkeren. Voor de veegwagen uit rijdt een wagen van parkeerbeheer en die deelt bonnen uit. 42 dollar per auto, dus dat vegen betaald zichzelf. Ik ben namelijk niet de enige die dat vergeet. Al komt het bij mij doordat ik de auto altijd achter ons huis parkeer, maar daar staat nu de andere auto.
• Het formulier dat ik nodig had om namens Alison de auto te verkopen was niet correct ingevuld en ik stond dus voor niks met de koper bij de SAAQ. Nee, het rijbewijsnummer klopte niet, dus ze kon niks voor me doen.
• Op de weg terug begeeft de ruitenwisser het, terwijl het giet. De bui trekt gelukkig snel over, maar het voorspelt niks goeds. Ik kan het gelukkig zelf repareren met wat kruipolie.
• Gisteren de deal, met een nieuw formulier, uiteindelijk gesloten.

Grote rampen:

• De koper belt net op dat de auto veel olie lekt. Hij sprak van een lier olie op de grond. Dat deed ie niet toen ik er nog mee reed. Zou de eerste proefrit met de meneer die vergat te ontkoppelen dit kunnen hebben veroorzaakt? Wat te doen? Ik voel me vreselijk schuldig. Maar het is nu zijn auto… Hij gaat nu naar een garage en belt me terug.

Update: het bleek dat de oliepan (?) doorgeroest was. Ik heb de helft van de reparatie betaald (ik ben te goed voor deze wereld) en hoop dat nu alles goed is.

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

Nou, dit is hem dan.

Hij rijdt lekker, is de meest luxeuze auto die ik ooit heb gehad, met Airco en cruise control, ABS en 4 wiel aandrijving. En hij is tamelijk veilig en daar ging het me om.

[voor de autogekken: het is een Subaru Legacy Outback uit 1998. Met 175000 op de teller, dat wel.]

De buren doen nu opeens heel anders tegen ons.