Tag Archives: rogers

Rogers Pushes a LOT Down The Pipe

Celebs and Media, You Stupid Dick

For the last few days our HD channels with Rogers have been not all that HD-y. See the video below:

I know it’s not a faulty PVR because our digital box in the bedroom does the same when you run an On Demand video, not so much live TV. It’s purely the amount of info not being dumped into the player and the buffer not having any reserves to maintain image cohesiveness.

I wonder about Roger’s infrastructure. If they promise HD TV (which is 720p, by the way, not 1080p – their own hardware displays it) then they should be able to transmit that much info all the while offering the internet (here’s where I blame all you BitTorrent theives) and Home Phone to their customers. When we were having issues with our Home Phone, a technician confessed that the junction box out back that services 7 homes was actually split wired for 11 outlets and that might be “the problem”. He also said that if it gets rainy there is standing water in the bottom of the box. Granted we’ve had no issues since the fall with our Home Phone, but the above mess is starting to happen more and more.

Stay tuned, dear readers. I am calling Rogers soon to see what they can do.

UPDATE: I’ve done some searching and found this gem: Rogers Compresses it’s HD signal. While this comes as no surprise, the quality does. Ease up, big boy!

The Lesson: Boil In Bag Bunny Not Included

Personal Bits

At 4 am, I startled awake after sensing a presence in my room, standing at the foot of my bed.

“JesusfuckingChrist!!! What the fuck, Javier?”

Javier (“Hav!” I would call him) and I had been dating about a month. I had given him a key the week before because I felt I could trust him. Plus the apartment I had was massive: it was a long flight and a half to get downstairs to open the front door. My legs are lazy, my heart, not so.

“I missed you. I wanted to be sure you were here,” Jav says, sitting on the corner of my bed. I turn on the light.

“Wait. You drove from Ajax to see if I was sleeping? You don’t trust me?”

Thus began the end of our emotionally charged whirlwind dating. Javier was a closeted Uruguayan, first gen Canadian, testing the gay waters for the first time in his early 30s while living in the basement of his deeply religious parent’s home. At the time I was working the odd bar shift at The Black Eagle while working at Rogers in their iMedia department (yes, Rogers jumped on the “iBandwagon” back in 1998-2001) and would come home on the weekend at odd hours. Needless to say our relationship was moving along at a slow pace, since I had very little free time. Because of my lack of enthusiasm in our love affair, early on in our relationship, Jav accused me of sleeping around and not finding him attractive and that I’d prefer to be with bigger, bearish type guys simply because I worked at a rough leather bar.

I did find Jav extremely attractive: he was one of those hairy Southern Latinos, slenderly well built, well groomed, and playful. He had beautiful eyes and the whitest teeth of anyone I’ve ever been with. And apparently had no sense of boundaries.

“I’ll go,” Jav says and rises off the bed. A switch-whipped puppy couldn’t look sadder

“Oh for Christssakes, Jav. You better stay.”

The above mentioned incursion happened early Saturday morning. Sunday we met up and I called it off. It was surprisingly swift and without incident – Jav accepted that he was being a bit smothering and we parted without drama. I was relieved that I dodged an emotionally crippling bullet.

Monday morning at the office, I get a call from reception as soon as I sit down at my desk saying I had a visitor.

Uh oh…

I come around the corner to find Jav in tears in the middle of the reception area. Like Jav’s tears, co-workers are streaming by us, offering odd sympathetic glances. The receptionist has her head down, ears wide open.

I drag Jav out into the hall for some privacy. He begs me to take him back, he can change, it will change, he’ll give me my space. I stand firm and say that we need to go our separate ways. After a long pause, he leaves.

The remainder of the day I am sent 40 to 50 emails from Javier’s gal pal telling me that I am a horrible person, god will punish me, I’ve ruined Jav’s life, his heart and subsequently his career. I am scheduled to rot in hell and be miserably alone for the rest of my life, according to her. I am a monster who cannot possibly love anyone. I have lost the ability to love when I cut Jav loose. I was scum.

I call IT to ask how to block an email.

My boss notices my distress and after listening to my story, tells me that sometimes our hearts are unbalanced. In both senses of the word.

CP24 To Offer Breakfast Television Some Youthful Competition?

Celebs and Media, Toronto, You Stupid Dick

First, let me preface this post by apologizing to all my non-Toronto readers. Go look at my Flickr account, this post will not interest you.

I’ve steadily been having a big hate-on for Breakfast Television since it’s sale to Rogers and its long, slow departure from CityTV/CTV while remaining on CTV’s news channel. The choppy and awkward station ID/commercial flips between the two has been like trying to track a schizophrenic family member’s conversation who hasn’t taken their meds in months. For the last month or so, any fan of Breakfast Television who watches on the CP24 channel will have noticed that when BT goes to commercial, CP24 kicks in with “More On CP24!” teasers of weather and traffic.

Let’s just get past the fact that the bumper title is dangerously close to “MORON CP24!” if you’re not watching the screen closely…

Besides being utterly maladroit (like that? I have Thesuarus.com open), these extra reports of traffic and weather are an additional assault of already mentioned information (it’s fucking scrolling across the bottom already!!), jazzed up with an odd segment of Cam Woolley driving around town and talking about traffic (different idea but utterly useless: “Here’s a live feed of us stuck in traffic on the DVP!”).

I’ve posted before about how BT gets my ire: particularly Kevin “I Don’t Live In Toronto” Frankish and his need to revolve the show around himself. Even his post-show blog (full of terminology errors – he calls his video posts “blogs”), gets my blood boiling. I’m really glad he’s trying to get on board with the whole Web 2.0, new technology thing but it’s becoming unwatchable, like your parent trying to email a photo off their hard drive (no offense dad!!). I have to admit in the last while, I’ve hopped over to Canada AM and have become dangerously close to accepting their dry, conservative pap as my morning ritual.

Until this morning there was a ray of hope…

This morning during a CP24 bumper, in between the weather and traffic, there were two young somethings chatting amicably about their fantastic weekend and how great the weather was. I missed their names and the segment lasted only a minute, but they got my attention… They were young, well dressed, good looking, bright, smiling, energetic and so NOT like the current Breakfast Television crew, that my heart beat faster.

Is CP24 going to cut loose BT and have their own breakfast show of goodlookings 20-30somethings? I’m hoping that CP24 is grooming young bucks to offer a breath of fresh air from curmudgeonly Kevin “I’m Old and at no way at all a Metrosexual” Frankish? Can Dina transfer over to that show if they do? She’s the only reason I’ve hung on so long.

Rogers Steals My Traffic (And Yours Too!)

Tech, You Stupid Dick

Looked at my stats since Sunday and wondered what I did to piss off my readers. Then I remembered that was when Rogers started their search page redirects. Before, a lot of people were viewing and/or hitting my site through searches.

Now, as you can see, I’ve dropped by nearly 50%

Rogers Hijacks my views

Rogers Hijacks my views

I wonder if I can get a slice of that lost revenue pie…?

As a reminder for my faithful: my RSS feed link is here. Clicking on “Subscribe Now” for Firefox users get all my post sent to them with a lovely scent of pine.

Rogers – So Helpful

General, Tech, You Stupid Dick

This morning, Rogers never showed for an appointment to fix our cable. Full details over on SharkBoy.ca.

While we were waiting, SharkBoy calls me over to see that his website wasn’t coming up. After a few manual tries, it worked. But not after seeing a couple Rogers/Yahoo search page result (none of which had his site listed…)

Today, Torontoist reports that this is a new feature! So Helpful! You don’t need to be told you’ve typed a URL in wrong from the server you were trying to reach, no. You need to see shitty ads and crap search results!

Thankfully Rogers subscribers can turn it off after jumping through a hoop or two:

One: type in this.sux.extremely into your browser. Just like that. Ta da! Rogers search page:

Two: Scroll down. You’ll see a little “What. The. Fuck. Is this?!” text link at the bottom. Click it:

Three: The next page, you’ll find another text link to turn it off:

The next error you get will be directed to a Rogers page, but weirdly (ironcially?) it displays an IE style error page with broken images. Funny to see on a Firefox browser. Ha. ha. ha.

Thanks Rogers! Eat diseased razor blades and gimme back my web, YOU STUPID DICKS

Rogers Giveth…

iPhone

I know I’m going on a bit but this is news: Rogers offers a 6G monthly plan for $30/mo.
(via Gizmodo, of course)

SharkBoy and I combined use about 6G between the two of us at home, so this sounds better.

But it’s still a “promotion”. You have to sign the three year contract before Aug 31. And don’t forget to “bundle” that with oh… call waiting or some such free-ish feature you take for granted.

One For Rick Mercer

Improv/Comedy

Exterior, day. Long shot of a ferry boat in Toronto Harbour.

We see two gentlemen looking over a laptop out in the open deck of the ferry. The one with the laptop is an awkward looking, 30-something guy, his over-the-shoulder friend is silent yet looks inquisitively at his friend’s screen. “Also Sprach Zarathustra” starts to play.

Laptop guy: You have to wait for the last moment before placing your bid.

He hits ENTER on his keyboard. An error sound “DONK!” is heard. “UPLOADING” flashes across the screen and a loading bar graphic creeps slowly along the top window.

Laptop Guy: Come on…! Come on!!

He fiddles with the laptop broadband aerial. Time is running out! Suddenly “Also Sprach Zarathustra” stops abruptly when we hear:

Handsome Laptop Guy: Alright!! Playoff tickets!

Medium shot through the crowd. Background extras clear the way to reveal Handsome Laptop Guy sitting with Hot Lady, across from Awkward Laptop Guy – an almost mirror image. Except, of course, they’re attractive.

Handsome Laptop Guy notices Awkward Laptop Guy. Handsome Laptop Guy waves and says:

Handsome Laptop Guy: Hey!

Awkward Laptop Guy pauses. His eye twitches. He rises and approaches the couple. POV shot from Handsome Laptop Guy’s seat – upshot of Awkward Guy looking right into camera: his face red with frustration.

Medium side shot of Awkward Guy bringing his laptop down upon Handsome Guy’s head. Brains and blood everywhere. Hot Lady screams and the crowd scatters as Awkward continues to bludgeon the man with his laptop with inadequate connectivity.

Awkward Laptop Guy: Damn you! Think you’re so smart with your fucking gadgets that work and shit! Die! I should have killed you back at the airport! My life is ruined because of you!

Rogers logo crawl.

iPhone Saturdays

iPhone

Articles that made me laugh this week:

The reason why SharkBoy got me the iPhone. 85% less sedatives? This is probably why I haven’t quit my job lately. (via Gizmodo)

• “The Cow Says Copyright Infringment!” (via Engadget)

• Is this the Second Coming of the Jesus Phone? The back looks like the template leak, but I don’t see a user-side camera… I would say mmmmmaybe. (again from Engadget)

• Erica Sundin, the iPhone goddess, confesses to not using her phone part of her iPhone. GASP! (via TUAW)

Do you think Rogers will do this when they come to Canada? SNORT! Not on your life. (via ComputerWorld)

• No buttons, No Reception, All Ego. A parody ad easter egg in GTA IV (Via TUAW)

• Still one of my favorite groups on Flickr: iPhone Effects. Raw images out of the camera.

• And finally, R2D2 as video projector, yours for $3K (nothing to do with the iPhone, I know. But it’s FRAKKING COOL!)