So it's not been a fun day. That is unless you were someone watching me and Oliv from some distance... then you might have laughed your lungs out. Or not.... I'm not sure.

This morning we had a vet appointment for the cat. We put the cat in his basket and since the vet's office is about 2 minutes by foot from our building, we just put the basket in a shopping cart and headed there. We had an informative conversation with the vet, got the cat checked out, and headed back our building. The cat, as usual, didn't like being in the basket or in the street. Cars generally scare him, and so does just about everything else. He was screaming, so we had to stop every few steps, open the top, pet him and try to calm him down... and since we had to keep doing that, we didn't properly latch the top.

Well... halfway to the building, in a completely uncharacteristic move, Mr. Zorbas decided to jump out of the basket, and run straight into the tight tangle of trees and bushes leading to the forest area!!

Well. For the next I don't know exactly how many hours Oliv and I ran around trying to find him, while my heart was stuck in my throat. The area he had jumped into was filled with thorny bushes and tangled branches, but fortunately eventually Oliv managed to spot him. He was hiding in the most knotted part of that messy tangle, and it took some serious acrobatics, but we got him out ok and eventually returned home.

Oliv's arms are covered with scratches. My legs are covered with cuts and scratches. We both have half a jungle in our hair. I had a terrible shock, I was half sure that we had lost him forever, and I feel like all my energy has left me. And the cat is now sitting there comfortably licking his paws.... hmmmm..... yup.

Labels: Cat, Horrible, Life

Last month I started having some really sneaky hardware issues on my main machine, which kept escalating and eventually I ended up consulting a friend of mine who, let's just say,  has a thing or two to do with the VAIO line.

Aside from discussing solutions to the peculiar problems at hand, naturally it also occurred to me that I may have to replace my main machine in some not too far away point in the future. So I asked him what would VAIO have for me. And then he did a double take, stammered a bit, and said something like "uhmm, well, uhh, I thought you knew… VAIO isn't there anymore, at least not the VAIO we knew". To which I nearly yelled back "well I guess I don't receive the internal memos anymore".

Argh. Thought it was a bad joke. Turned out it wasn't.

What the hell? Well, it turns out Sony has officially had it with the PC business, and has sold the VAIO line to a Japanese firm that is now developing it into a standalone brand. They're going to continue producing VAIO PCs, but well obviously they'll have nothing to do with Sony anymore and at least for the moment they'll also not be available anywhere outside of Japan. Well, *sigh*.

So that was that, and since then I've been looking into what I might what I might want to get next. This has also been the topic of discussion with friends and colleagues, and well, it looks like the absence of VAIO is leaving a real hole in the notebook market. Simply put, there's nothing out there with even so much as comparable quality. And that is the state I am in right now, no idea what to get next. I need something powerful, slim, with high quality long lasting hardware. Suggestions?

P.S.: Is it really ridiculous that I feel horrible that I can't get VAIOs anymore? =( I basically never had a notebook that wasn't VAIO!

Labels: Hardware, Horrible, Notebooks, Technology, VAIO

<vexed rant>

Seriously Google, what in the bloody hell?

It's not just that Google launches projects with half-baked concepts, gathers a small user group, and then discontinues the service hanging the users to dry. But it's also that Google launches a good, useful, well developed service, throughout the years gathers a large number of users, and then out of the blue decides to shut the service down and make the lives of all these users complicated. =(

It wasn't just that they recently discontinued Friend Connect that me and some of my friends were actually using. It wasn't just that they disabled my G+ profile and therefore half of my Google services because they thought my name wasn't "real". Now they're going to shut down Google reader, which is probably the single web service that I use more than any others [with exception of my stuff on my own domain]. I'm angry, I'm furious, I'm exasperated, and I'm not the only one.

I've exported my feeds, and I've found a couple of possible replacements. Feedly is the one I've switched to as of last night. The Chrome version looks good and the Android version looks great. And still, there's so much they don't do, compared to GReader.

Ask me again why I don't like Google.

Meh.

</vexed rant>

Labels: Google, Horrible, Internet, Technology, Web

So this morning my mom flew back to Toronto. And I'm still very much struggling with the rather large collection of 'full immigration / starting your life from scratch on a different side of the globe' issues. Oh, and back in my birth country people are rioting again, and the government is shooting at them again. And I'm still very much not over the heartbreak I experienced due to the loss of a friend recently. And I already miss my mom.... ="(

To anyone who ever asked me what could possibly sink my spirits down, well, there you go.

Labels: Feelings, Horrible, Life

Late last night I watched the latest episode of Stargate Universe, as I didn't want to wait any longer to find out about the "object" that was coming towards them. I figured things may finally get more interesting.

At the end of the episode I was cursing myself for not having spent that time to watch something that I would have actually enjoyed instead, specially since I have very little time these days.... Don't get me wrong, the whole "other ship with aliens on board" thing was pretty interesting, but I'm beginning to feel that the series' main characters are SOOO annoying, that they're over-shadowing any interesting events in the plot. I'm sorry to say, but not a single one of them seem to be capable of doing anything other than being horribly annoying all the time. As much as it pains me to say, SGU has turned into a soap opera featuring a large group of complete idiots!

Their military leader is a brainless arrogant dictator. Their supposed "brains" guy is an idiotic self centered arrogant b*****d. The entire series is the struggle of these 2, and the rest of the characters are so interesting and important that they could as well cease to exist.

Stargate used to be about a group of people each of whom where important in their own way. Each evolving to something better during the series, while dealing with interesting SCI-FI challenges [not soap opera ones!]. I understand that SGU is supposed to be "different", but so far this difference has been nothing but a severe failure. And by the way, I'm not the only one to say that. Every serious sci-fi fan that I've talked to so far, says the same thing.

If things keep going this way, I will quite possibly stop watching SGU altogether. =(

Labels: Entertainment, Horrible, Sci-Fi, Stargate, TV

I just saw a commercial about a cell-phone company on TV, and the supposed "high-light" of the commercial was that some of their cell-phone models are made partially of recycled plastic. And some teenager girl was shouting about how using the recycled material can help us "save trees". And this was the part of it when I felt a rush of blood to my brain....

So the bloody cell-phone company sells cell-phones that boil human brain cells, and they pride themselves with recycled plastic and saving trees? Giving people cancer and supposedly saving trees?

Is it just me, or is this completely bizarre.....

Hmmmm.....

Labels: Bizarre, Electronics, Horrible, Technology, Thoughts, TV

Oh come on! I mean... seriously? You have got to be joking!

For the life of me, I cannot believe how fast Google is jumping from one useless project to the next! It feels as if it was just yesterday when Google gave us all a not so sweet surprise with the half baked and hardly usable Google Wave. Now here they go again, this time with the Gwitter. How many of the same thing do we need anyway?

There's about 50-billion micro blogging services out there right now, but of course Google has found a way to make the Gwitter stand out. You know what it is that all the rest of those services are missing? Well, they DON'T SUDDENLY MAKE YOUR PERSONAL DATA INTO PUBLIC DATA!! Haha, oh yes! Google's new ridiculous Twitter clone is the only one out there to have a security hole / privacy breach of such magnitude! Upon activating Da Fuzz on your Google account, your connections list is the first to go public, followed by another load of data apparently. And even though you have the option to change that, the default makes your connections list and other pieces of data public without actually asking / waning you.

Of course at the first glance you may not notice the gravity of the situation.. in that case, I suggest you read this pleasantly straight forward article, nicely titled "F*ck You Google", and you'll suddenly get a better view of exactly what's going on.

So, we have a brand new Google service, that doesn't do anything new, doesn't look anything particularly appealing, doesn't involve any sort of innovation in anything except for magnificently breaching your privacy, and yet, people are, and will be, using it. Yay to the brave new world!

Cheers! =)

Update: Thanks to my good friend Knarfoo for sharing this interesting article. Another good description of the current state of Gwitter.

Labels: Google, Horrible, Internet, Reviews, Web

The Royal Dutch Airline. Supposed to be a good one. If like me, you travel from the North America to the Middle East [or even Europe] a lot, you’re probably quite familiar with the airline, given that it’s usually easy to find tickets for any time of the year. But honestly, I think my trip to Iran and back, was probably my last KLM experience EVER. I’ve had it with them. The flights always end up nightmare-ish, and there hasn’t been a single time when I’ve been in and out of the Shiphol Airport [Amsterdam] without some sort of a horror story.

Coming back from Iran, as I wrote in the last post, I was in pretty rough shape. I was really hoping for a painless trip, which unfortunately is exactly the opposite of what I had. The flight from Tehran to Amsterdam wasn’t “that” bad, just the usual hassle with the terribly tightly placed seats of KLM. In the Shiphol Airport [aka the bane of my existence] as usual we checked the info boards for our flight time and gate a few times, last of which was about 30 minutes before we headed to the gate.

When we arrived to the gate, the check in line was pretty huge, as expected for that time of the year. SO we stood in the line. First the security checked our boarding passes and passports, and then we entered the 2 kilometer line for having our hand luggage checked. As usual for this bloody airport, they had us empty our backpacks on their checking tables, take off our jackets, earphones, …, all the way down to my boots. The point is, we were in that bloody line for nearly an hour and a half. So then came the final security check before boarding… and that’s when the officer gives us this weird look:
- “Oh uhmm… says here you’re going to Toronto?”
- “Well yes?!”
- “But… but that’s not possible, we’re going to Washington!!”
- “Exactly WHAT are you talking about??”
- “The gate was changed!”

So, well, my eyes went round. Apparently the gate had changed while we were standing in the bloody line [we have a habit of going early!] and NO ONE had made an announcement. Worse than that, the bloody security had CHECKED OUR BOARDING PASSES AND LET US IN!!!!! We ran back to the new gate, but the flight had already left, and NO ONE HAD CALLED OUR NAMES OUT. Imagine that. I mean how incompetent can people be??

Given my past experiences with the bloody airport and the sodding airline, I knew what we needed to do then. We went to the transfer desk, and I had to explain to the less than smart people in charge how they had messed up. They said that there was another plane leaving for TO about 4 hours later, and they’re going to put us on the waiting list for that flight. Of course since it was holidays time, it was quite possible we’d not be able to get on that plane. So then I asked them what we were supposed to do if we can’t get in that plane, and they said we may have to think about a hotel.. ah well, my tiredness mixed with full annoyance and the gas poisoning left me no patience for staying at a hotel for God knows how long… we really had to get on that plane. I was thinking to myself, that quite possibly, I’ll have to start shouting at them like the last time [about which I will write next!], for them to understand the mess they’ve made and put us on the next plane….

Anyway… we were in that airport for nearly 7 hours, after which we finally did get on that next plane. That is of course, after repeating the bloody irritating process of getting checked. The entire trip was about a good 20 hours. When we arrived to Toronto, I was only 10% conscious. Ah well, at least we arrived…

But hey, the back to Iran trip wasn’t even my worst experience with KLM. I had one even worse than that. =P A couple of years ago, when I was going to Switzerland for the Christmas holidays, my plane from Toronto to Zurich was stuck on the ground for more than 7 hours, with the passengers actually sitting in it! Supposedly it was due to the bad weather, except all other flights from other airlines left with no trouble… The 7 hour delay of course resulted in me missing my flight from Amsterdam to Zurich. Me, and everyone else on the plane! So it was a real mess. First I had to walk the length of the Shiphol Airport 50 times back and forth to find out where I should go and who I should talk to, in order to get myself on another plane. And once I got there, it looked like they had NO idea what they were going to do with the crowd of irritated people standing in front of them. What’s funny is that there was NO talk of putting us in a hotel or something, and since again it was crowded and all seats in all planes were fully booked, they seemed to not even have any hopes of getting us to hour destinations any time soon.

Finally I lost it. I was tired, irritated and annoyed as hell. And of course worried about what was going to happen to my luggage. So the next person who gave me the impression that they simply didn’t know what they were talking about, got me shouting. Yeah, that doesn’t happen very often…. I had to scream at them, in order to get them to put me in the next flight and send me to Zurich. My entire trip was more than 24 hours… yeah, fun!

A rather odd coincidence was that there was this old Polish lady with me on the plane to Amsterdam, and when I was flying back from Amsterdam to Toronto I saw her again, she was on the same plane… again! What are the chances of that anyway? Well, she told me that there were people from the Toronto to Amsterdam flight that I was on, who actually got stuck in the bloody Shiphol airport for days, before they were put on a plane to anywhere or given a hotel room to. Very uncool eh?

So that’s what KLM is like. Their security people often shout and scream at you if you so much as look at them wrong, their stewards and stewardesses often won’t bring you a sodding  glass of water even after you ask for it 5 times, their seats are soooo tightly arranged that won’t let you an easy breath, and their food is just… well… I’m not even going to start with that….

Even though I don’t like bashing and badmouthing… I had to write this. Actually a couple of my friends suggested I should do so too.. I guess I’m hoping it’ll save someone some trouble, if they read this and not go for KLM. =)

Labels: Aasemoon, Holidays, Horrible, Life, Travel

So I've been back from Iran for a few days now... and I'm already missing everyone and everything. I've taken more than 6000 photos during the whole trip, and I'm currently busy with selecting the best of them to post to my gallery. So hopefully you'll start seeing the first groups of it appear over there soon enough...

My trip back was a horrible one, and that's putting it very very lightly. =)) The bloody KLM airline put me in a world of trouble again [I'll write the whole story in my next post, about KLM! =P], and that was only after I was already gas poisoned on my trip to Tehran's I.K. Airport. The cab I was on, together with another 50 cars or so, were stuck for nearly 3 hours in between 2 groups of people going the religious "Moharram" mourning demonstrations… at least that's what it was supposed to be [but it was in face everything BUT!]. So now imagine Tehran's level of air pollution that nowadays is enough to give you some serous headache and nausea if you're not used to it, combined with the smoke of burnt "stuff", and other sorts of "unknown" gasses…. for 3 straight hours. I was nearly dead when I finally got to the airport, and the exact same way when I finally arrived to Toronto after a trip that was much longer than it was supposed to be thanks to the horrible KLM. Oh well… had some Vodka, fell asleep and was all better the morning after. Though it took a few days for me to feel like myself again….

On the good side of things, well, New Year is always fun! =D

Labels: Aasemoon, Holidays, Horrible, Iran, Life, Tehran, Travel

My current mood: 

Ok so in the category of terrifyingly silly technical glitches that annoy the universe out of you, can anyone tell me how to stop a single contact from constantly disappearing off of my WLM contacts list? Yes, I literally do mean “disappearing”. =P When I first added this contact on WLM something didn’t work and the contact didn’t appear on my list, so I had to go and try adding him on my WL homepage. That worked, but then after a few hours a second instance of the same ID appeared on my connections list, that was looking permanently offline. So then I made the mistake of removing the repeated ID, which resulted in the working instance getting removed as well. Then I re-added the contact and things were working fine until a few days ago when the current royal mess-up started. Now every time I log out and log back in, that specific contact is no longer on my list. [And this is on my mobile account.]

On the other hand, as I mentioned before, I don’t see the correct online / offline status for my contacts on either one of my accounts. And to top that, some of the contacts that I only have on the messenger and not my profile page, also keep disappearing and reappearing. [Is it now the case that you absolutely have to have a contact on both messenger and the profile page?!] Except I didn’t know that they were going to reappear, so I re-added them, and now I have 2 instances of these contacts, and I guess you can imagine what will happen if I try removing the extra copy. Yeah, the exact same mess. =P

Ridiculous, isn’t it? From what I read on the web I’m not the only one with these issues at the moment. And I have no clue when the darn thing is going to start properly working again. What’s even more confusing is that both my accounts are experiencing the exact same problems with the exact same contacts. I wonder if that’s because the 2 accounts are linked?! A few of my friends [including an MSie, ironically! ;)] suggest that I should create some sort of a back up account, brand new and with no links to the other accounts, and add my connections in there, just in case things get worse!! Well I wonder, just how many WL accounts does 1 person need, and how many instances of me do my friends need to have on their connection lists? =))) But if things keep looking scary, I may as well do that.

Of course my smarty pants friend xo tells me something like “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s this thing called Google Talk…”. =))) Well d’ah, I know there are other messengers out there, but how am I ever going to get everyone on my rather lengthy connections list to switch to another messenger, just so that the other one will also at some point mal-function? =P Specially since neither me nor anyone else want to switch to GTalk or Skype or any other messenger from WLM, due to the fact that the other services simply don’t have the WLM functionalities [on a good day when WLM actually functions. ;) ]

Honestly, Microsoft’s decision to make Live services unavailable to a number of countries including Iran, makes the thought of abandoning WLM all the more appealing right now. Well, perhaps gradually I will…..

Labels: Horrible, Messengers, Microsoft, Web

My current mood:

Windows Live Messenger never fails to surprise with all sorts of new and improved bugs and glitches. But as of this morning, I’ve ran into a problem that’s much worse than anything I had ever experienced before. In the morning I noticed that somehow some of the people who I usually see online during those hours, appeared offline. Then near noon when I logged on again, a friend who was looking offline to me, started a group conversation with me that included another friend who was also appearing offline! Well this was obviously quite odd, since offline people don’t even get listed in the group conversations on WLM, but they were both listed, with an “offline” sign in front of their names. And one of them, was talking to me!

Then I started testing around and found out that a good number of people who appear offline to me, are in fact quite online. And as for trying to communicate with them, it works quite randomly. As in, they may or may not receive my messages, and I may or may not receive theirs. Of course I did try logging out and back in a few times, with no change. Then I got on my Palm Pilot and logged onto my mobile WLM account, and guess what, the same people look offline over there too! Also shortly after, I started noticing that people’s nicknames don’t show up correctly, and I see their email addresses instead. And to make things worse, I know 1 contact which has disappeared off of my mobile account so far.

So, since the same issue is repeating on different clients on different systems with different accounts, well, this is obviously not a local issue. I have to mention that the 2 accounts are linked, but…. well I don’t know if that’s even relevant. Honestly, this makes absolutely no sense to me. It’s the oddest thing I’ve ever encountered on WLM. For now, I’ve told everyone that I’ll be available on Skype… but I have no idea what to do if this problem doesn’t somehow resolve itself. Any ideas anyone?

Update: Boy do I hate Microsoft and do I feel like completely boycotting Windows Live altogether right now. While looking for news on the issue [which apparently is not just mine], look what I found:

“Microsoft has shut off the Windows Live Messenger IM for users in the countries embargoed by the US, hence Microsoft no longer offers Windows Live Service in those countries.”

That of course includes Iran. Enough said I believe.

Labels: Grotesque, Horrible, Messengers, Microsoft, Web, Windows Live

Ok so I just wanted to take this opportunity to say this is bloody PAINFUL. So I have to wait until February – May 2010 for a new season of LOST, and then guess what, it’ll be the LAST season. I am NOT happy right now. =P

“Lost Season 6 is scheduled to be the final season of Lost. It has been confirmed in an ABC press release. [1] It will air from February-May 2010. It was originally intended to include 16 episodes. Due to the 2007 WGA strike, it will now comprise 17 produced hours.”

Season 6 - Lostpedia - The Lost Encyclopedia

Labels: BlaBla, Horrible, Sci-Fi, TV

Labels: Grotesque, Horrible, Web

Labels: Grotesque, Horrible, Iran, Selected Posts, Web

Labels: Grotesque, Horrible, Scary, Selected Posts, Weird

Labels: Horrible, Iran

Labels: Horrible, Iran, Thoughts