Rotundus.com

As I've mentioned before, the iPod Nano that I've got has left me less than impressed. The new guy, whose appearance I'm currently awaiting in the mail is a Creative Zen V Plus. At roughly half the cost of what I paid for my Nano in November, I get:

• double the storage (8 gigs - I want to stick to flash storage for durability)
• an FM tuner,
• a smaller size,
• support for DRMed WMA files (used by both audiobook services offered by several libraries including one that I have a card at - where the iPod is unsupported) without losing support for Audible.com. This means more free audiobooks available
• support for video

On a related note, Sennheiser headphones seem way overpriced in Canada. I have a set of cheap noise-cancelling headphones which really don't work particularly well, and had a chance to compare these to someone's Sennheiser PXC250s and the difference was incredible. The problem: $250 at Bestbuy in Canada vs. less than $100 at Amazon.com.

(You can't seem to order through Amazon.com with a Canadian shipping address for these, so I ordered through JR.com instead. Normally I hate shipping via UPS, but in this case I figure that however ridiculous their fees, I'll still end up saving money with a price difference of this magnitude.)

Superstore has one of these each week on its website:

(usually requires less than a $50 purchase, and frequently it's for some kind of junk food)

Except for photos relating to Ryan and Jen's wedding, I've uploaded my photos from the most recent trip. No sense in keeping folks waiting for those.

I think that I'll do some post-processing on at least a few of the wedding-related photos though as some of the shots - particularly those taken by Darren trackside - were fairly dark. It may be a while before these appear.

Some of you may be aware of my mild Shakespeare obsession, and being in Vancouver I of course had to indulge. I arrived back in Calgary early this afternoon, but while in Vancouver I, of course, wound up at Bard on the Beach. Actually I made it there twice - once for Timon of Athens and a second time for Julius Caesar. (My sister suggested that I should pitch a tent in Vanier Park to save a little time if I were to catch any more shows there).

I already have a Bard on the Beach t-shirt from a few years back, but while down there I once again availed myself of the souvenir shop - this time picking up a Shakespearean insults coffee mug.

Courtesy of one unmentioned "lump of foul deformity" *cough* Roger *cough* who slipped a printout of 160 pickup lines into a pocket of my luggage I've now had the opportunity to test out the mug. Here's a random - and ever so cheesy - sample from the list of pickup lines he supplied:

I'm writing a paper on the finer things in life, and I was wondering if I could interview you.

BTW, I still need to make it to Shakespeare in the Park this season, so if you're interested give me a shout. I'll probably be spamming a number of people with some more info about this sometime in August, but not everyone is on my email list.