Chapters.ca used to be a good ecommerce site. It’s relatively easy to use (thanks to a heavy amazon.com influence) and your orders would actually arrive. This is no longer the case. The site is still quite good, but don’t expect your orders to actually arrive. Here’s my timeline (complete with pertinent news):

• January 18th
  Ordered two books from Chapters.ca.
   
• January 19th – 29th
  Sat around waiting for my books.
   
• January 30th
  Now disgruntled, I cancelled my orders from Chapters.ca and re-ordered the books from Indigo.ca.
   
• February 1st (that’s only two days later for those of you who aren’t too strong in the maths)
  My two books arrived from Indigo.ca.
   
• Also on February 1st
  Indigo.ca squashes Chapters.ca, rendering my complaint somewhat useless.

Bottom line: Order from Indigo.ca, not Chapters.ca (not that it matters anymore).

I’ve never felt so old in my life*. The Sum41/Treble Charger concert at The UPEI Barn was like being at a junior high sock-hop (only with more piercings and pot). The opening band, Sum41 can be summed up as: Blink 183. They couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old and judging by their appearance, this is what the kids came to see. They actually looked like the audience: spiked/dyed hair, big pants, and novelty t-shirts. To call them unoriginal, while true, would be to miss the point completely. They were fine entertainers. The drummer lit his drumsticks on fire, literally. It was amazing.

Treble Charger’s set was good, as always, but seemed like a bit of an act. They are a smart and quirky pop-rock band. Unfortunately, their latest album and tour find them focusing more on the “pop-rock” and less on the “smart and quirky”. They pandered to the young crowd successfully, but it was transparent. Sum41 can get away with juvenile-behaviour-as-entertainment because they are actually juveniles. Treble Charger, on the other hand, came across like smart old guys pretending to be young and stupid.

That said, hearing the old Treble Charger songs from self = title is always a pleasure. A few years of touring have turned songs like Red and Morale beautifully polished pieces.

What’s this? Eminem and Limp Bizkit on the P.A.? When I was a kid we listen to real rock and roll. I’m going to go listen to Siamese Dream now.

Living in the world of Napster has an unexpected side effect. The Blinking Search Effect (I’m still working on the name – email me if you have a better suggestion). You find yourself staring at the blinking cursor in the search field and draw a blank. You can find anything your greedy little heart desires but you can’t think of a single thing to search for. It’s overwhelming.

This paradigm (well, it is a paradigm, isn’t it?) is not conducive to finding new artists (since you can’t search for something you haven’t heard of).

Thanks to Jevon Mac for breaking me out of my slump with a tip to check out Dashboard Confessional. If you can get past the vocalist’s remarkable similarity to the singer from the Ghandarvas this is a great album. The songs are simple and the voice is always on the point of breaking, but doesn’t. The album is called Swiss Army Romance and I recommend starting with Age Six Racer.

Our logs are a constant source of amusement. Here are a few words that led people to aov through the search engines:

• “Odd Penis”
• “I’m afraid of Americans”
• “Arguments”
• “Athlete advertisements”

I can’t explain the “Odd Penis” but I think the “Athlete advertisements” may have something to do with matt’s affinity with Joanne Malar.

The search engines are always humorously misleading people to our site. View some previous keywords.

me: “I cleaned out my wallet.”
you: “Oh?”
me: “It was in my pants, in the wash.”
you: “I see.”

The following is from NullSoft’s Developer website (maker of the wonderful WinAmp). These guys rule (rather, they “kick the llama’s ass”). Amidst dot-com turmoil, they got rich on a handy little utility that works as it should. AOL-TimeWarner (warning: this is one of those incredibly annoying sites that doesn’t let you use the back button in your browser) owns them and probably doesn’t even know it.

Enjoy their amusing call for new employees:

Yes, it’s true. Nullsoft is hiring. We need someone to bolster our developer relations team. What does this mean? Well, aside from plowing our fields and trimming our nose hairs, our new recruit would get to write official Nullsoft plug-ins both for us and for tutorials for the poor starving plug-in developing masses. You would get the power to make direct changes to the Winamp API’s and serve as another liaison to our coding brethren. Check out the following prerequisites.

TEN MAGIC THINGIES:

1. Thou shalt have experience with Winamp plug-in and/or Win32 development.
2. Thou shalt be willingest to movest toest the Sanest Franciscoest Areast.
3. You kan talk en rait gud, nat laik us. (Excellent expository and documentative writing skill.)
4. Must be able to instantly learn any game after a quick 50 hour warmup.
5. Must be able to speak, read, and write in 1337, but saves it for special occasions, like Canada Day.
6. Easy bake oven experience a BIG PLUS! No, seriously.
7. Must suffer from permanent “case of the mondays”.
8. Must have some sort of “Instant Messaging” experience.
9. Can identify this “quote”: “I’m sorry, I do not know nuthin about the money launderin'”.
10. Skinning experience a very hot, large, sexy, sweaty, “plus”.
11. Must not EVER use “finger quotes”.

If you think you’d make a good fit, send your resume to nsdn@winamp.com.

-Denny, wants to go to Chotchkie’s

Thanks to mastah programma Isaac for the link.

The oil slick in the Galapagos is covers over 300 square kilometres.

I was trying to think of a good comparison to illustrate how large that actually is, but nothing suitable came to mind.

Picture it: 300 square kilometres!

KirbyFerguson (.com) has abused his photo-editing skills and turned what he calls a “dream” in to a horrible nightmare for all of us.

In another flagrant abuse of the tools at his disposal, Kirby may have inadvertently created some prize winning work.