We’re getting closer. I’ve received tentative support from a few new Ottawa based partners in my quest to get rid of my Blackberry Storm and hop onto an iPhone. Joey’s Shawarma in Bell’s Corners didn’t hang up on me when I mentioned www.chrisneedsaniphone.com, and neither did the Harvey’s on Baseline Road. This is promising, and I’m feeling pretty good about it. Also, Fabricland on Walkley Road said the manager would call me back. Keeping my fingers crossed!

I’m honored and humbled by those of you who have shown your support here. Together, we can get me an iPhone. I’m counting on you. Sign up for the email list, get the updates, and let’s get me an iPhone.

Blackberry Storm update: I received an email from a man this morning who told me his Storm is always on Speakerphone and only stays in Landscape ALL THE TIME.

Dear readers,

About a month ago, I decided to get a new phone. I’ve been an avid Blackberry user for the last 3 years. I’ve been happy with all of the devices I’ve owned, and the added bonus with the whole thing is the fact that a Canadian company was responsible for these addictive little pieces of technology. Blackberry has built a solid reputation on creating – for the most part – excellent smartphones. Until now.

I gingerly waltzed into the Bell Store at the Billings Bridge mall in Ottawa, and explained that I had been using a Blackberry Curve, but that I had dropped it a few times, and more than anything wanted to check out some new devices. I was also complaining that the phone would drop calls a lot of the time, and when you rely on your phone for business, this can be embarassing and frustrating. Did it occur to me that this could be a result of the network? No, because when I’m in the mood for a gadget, logic seems to vanish quicker than the eyebrows that Whoppi Goldberg apparently used to have.

To provide a bit of balance into all of this, I have to say that Bell’s customer service is so superior to Rogers in every way shape and form, in my opinion. They are helpful and knowledgeable, and I’ve found them to be responsive and courteous. I was with Rogers for my cell phone for 3 years at one one point, and currently give them my at home phone service, my cable, and my internet business. A recent exchange with them was an extreme waste of my time, and I endured them sending me a bill for an amount that was accidentally paid online to a previous account I held (totally my fault). After having addressed the issue and being assured all had been taken care of and corrected, they proceeded to send me a bill for 3 months with the same outstanding total. When I called back, I encountered a sales rep named Christine, who was more like the possessed car from everyone’s favorite John Carpenter – Stephen King film adaptation. If there was a picture next to the word “bitch” in the dictionary, she’d undoubtedly be there. ANYWAY – back to the point…

The Blackberry Storm is NOT a good product. I have a feeling as I write this, that there may be some of you who are reading this who may be going – “no kidding!”. It’s been dissapointing on a number of levels. I’m being polite here, because last week, when this phone wouldn’t adjust back to landscape, I secretly hoped that Jim Balsillie would get attacked by pack of coyotes in a rare occurence of ironic revenge for allowing a hastily prepared and barely tested product to leave the desks of BB’s engineers.

I left for a trip to Vancouver only a few days after having purchased this phone, and within 72 hours, found myself wanting to chuck it into the Pacific. This phone has some potential, but the software on this thing is so crap, that you’ll find yourself clenching your teeth as it lags in an attempt to go from your contacts back to the home screen. Good news though, the game WORD MOLE, which I downloaded from the Blackberry App Store, is really fun. On that note, the Blackberry App Store has more tumbleweeds than most Westerns, not to mention the fact that some of these useless applications go for like $30-40 +++. This all sucks. Interestingly enough, the cell clarity tended to be a bit better in Vancouver than it was in Ottawa.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten 5 bars on the phone. I get dropped on the network like a bad tenant. It’s most awesome when this happens and and someone is laughing and walking by me talking about a wicked new free app they just got on their iPhone, OR, they’re fully listening to a shuffled selection of their favorite songs. Great.

The click screen is a good idea. If it worked at least 70% of the time on my phone, that would be great idea too. Remember that game “Trouble”? It kind of feels like that. Now imagine if when you popped that fucking set of bubbled dice they had a tendency just to not do anything 30% of the time. I used to play Trouble all the time when I was a kid. Imagine a party with a bunch of pre teens pounding Mountain Dew and eating Doritos, popping that bubble, and virtually every third pop, the dice would sit there like dead mice. You may be able to still hear the “click”, but nothing would happen. That party would turn into a massacre. Yes it would. Parents would be called…pretty sure, because those kids would just beat the hell out of each other in frustration. Hopefully this illustrates the point.

What gives Blackberry? Were you guys in that much of a panic to hurry this thing out that you forgot to design it properly? What makes this worse is that the internet has more negative stuff to say about this product than good things. Also, a software update needs to happen for the thing yesterday, because if I try to answer another phone call, and click the hell out of the window as I see the caller helplessley go to voicemail, I am going to lose my mind. With that said, I am giving up on this thing. However, the $20 a month of a cancellation fee for the recently renewed 3 year term with Bell to get the rebate on the phone is going to be around $720, plus the cost of the new iPhone.

Consider this a social experiment. Donate to the cause, and I am going to buy this iPhone, and then swiftly migrate my entire life to Apple products. We take Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, whatever. Once I’ve raised the sufficient funds required, I will document my ginger waltz into a Rogers store through the video camera on my Blackberry, post to my blog, and then finish this social media pilgrimage of sorts with a final video, also captured on my Blackberry Storm, of me destroying the device in a dramatic fashion. Like really spectacular. Like I’m talking 1,000,000 hits on Youtube spectacular.

As a parting note, your donations would be greatly appreciated, and I’ll make it worth all your collective whiles…

I thought I’d take the opportunity to ACTUALLY examine Father’s Day, and just how many poor men this keeps out of the appreciation circle. I find anything “exclusive” to certain people to be suspect….like Curves.

Father’s Day is a good holiday, however, there are a few recognizable people in our pop culture that it clearly isolates because of their personal situations. Whatever the reason, they’re still DADS, and I’m motivated RIGHT NOW to blow the dust off of this habit we all have of leaving these people out of the opportunity to be celebrated for being the father figures they are, regardless of their personal situations.

Listen. Yes he’s a Sith. Yes, he wiped out a bunch of junior Jedis. Yes, he technically was directly responsible for the death of Mace Windu. Yes, he also telepathically strangled his girl, which inadvertently triggered the birth of his twins….BUT….Annakin Skywalker (a.k.a. Darth Vader) is still a Dad. This is a perfect example of intergalactic baby drama if you ask me. DV, as he’s affectionately called by his friends, is actually a tender, and intended to be involved father. He’s a regular guy like any of us. Pictured above, he was outside after a court appearnace to see if he could get an access schedule that worked for everyone. He’s been working hard to show the family court system that he’s volunteering, he’s learning French, and he’s capable of handling parental duties like cooking meals, and driving Luke and Leah to school in the Sith interceptor. His preparation of a lunch of Pillsbury Pigs-In-A-Blanket with his lightsaber didn’t go over well with the kids’ guardians, and his choice of employer isn’t boding well for our favorite man in black, but geez…he’s trying. When the judge asked him if he intended to switch careers into something a little more suitably appropriate as a role model, he only stammered and said he didn’t have much of a choice, and that the empire facilitated his lifestyle. Maybe not a wise choice in front of a judge….but we should give it up for the man. It IS Father’s Day. What’s a Dad gotta do to have 2 horus alone with his kids. Maybe take them to a museum. Is this too much to ask?

Daniel Hilliard is a good man. Yes he couldn’t hold down a job to save his life, but he obviously went to great lengths to see his children, even if those lengths included dressing up as a woman to be with them, and essentially duping the entire family as he simultaneously earned their precious trust. Yes…it was a doozy when all was said and done and his true identity was revealed, but this man’s admittedly poor series of decisions shouldn’t exclude him from the best day in the world. Think about it, judge. Let the man take his brood to McDonald’s for an afternoon – what do you think? Clear lack of respect for the initial ruling of limited access until he got his shit together? Maybe….but C’MON!?

It was an unfortunate incident with Jack Torrance. He admits it. The fact is, Danny has an amazing ability, and he thinks that maybe if he could just get some time with his son, that they could start a business maybe, get some cash together….maybe clean up his act, and put the whole thing behind them. It’s all about looking to the future right – both literally and figuratively.

These are but just a few examples of perhaps what we should look at as considered exceptions… everyone deserves a fresh start sometimes. Maybe not Torrance…but the point has been made, I think.

In an effort to simply observe and report what is active and prolonged cases of extreme bad taste in individuals in the media spotlight, I’ve started a new category on the Five O’Clock Track Tream. It’s called “Douche Alert”. FYI…when the post says “Xtreme Douche Alert”, it requires you to quite literally put down whatever the hell it is that you’re doing…like I don’t care if you’re getting surgery…and check this out.

Criss Angel. Arguably a good magician, but agreeably by all of humanity, caught in a vortex of thinking he’s in Motley Godsmack, and at this point, a douche in the form of a mid 40’s looking dude to lay as many Playboy bunnies as possible before teleporting himself back to “joisey” to retire as the old Greek man that he will become. Is he an entertainment liability? Yes….but his existence is required to ensure we have a visual reference for reasons as to why our children should at least get their high school diplomas and not get caught up in the popularity game in high school. If my parents had shown me this, there is a good chance I would not have quit University to pursue a career as a drummer in a rock band.

Just watch this video – hurry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTVFvavwNdg&eurl=http://azizisbored.tumblr.com/

Hello track teamers,

This post is going to unite us in a way unlike anything we have ever experienced before. I was introduced to the Angry Video Game Nerd recently by a friend, and felt as if a waterfall (a la Duran Duran’s video for The Reflex) of understanding hit my head, as an early thirtysomething former regular Nintendo fanatic. James Rolfe’s video pieces on the most frustrating games made me realize just in fact how much of my early childhood I spent obsessively attempting to perfect certain areas in Nintendo games that were near impossible to figure out. I’m now convinced that they might have had illiterate morons programming code in 16 bit for some of the shit I owned. Like Castelvania 2. I saw this video and had to hit the kickboxing studio to lay out some frustration.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesNintendoNerd

This was a mistake and it’s no secret in Hollywood circles. This sleeper of a 1994 film was not only widely panned, but also generated some massive anger from fans of Raoul Julia, who had to deal with this being his last film role. This was at the tailend of JCVD’s popularity, and even he admitted that he thought the movie was terrible.

Hard to believe that’s Mickey Rourke, eh? Yes…he accepted roles like this when he REALLY needed to crank it up a notch to get blow. That included doing movies where brand placement actually seeps into the title. Harley Davidson’s subsequent “Marlboro Choppers” was not that well received in the motorcycle market when dentists who wanted to ride hogs on the weekend saw this shit house movie. The first time I was saw this, I was 13, and having a sleepover at my friend Brian’s house. We managed to rent this movie, even though it was rated “R”. We sped back to his house, with 2 big bags of Cool Ranch Doritos, anticipating the greatest action blow up fest of 1991. After playing about 2 hours of Super Nes, in an effort to build up the excitement of what we assumed was going to be awesome, we almost firebombed the video store for allowing us to leave their premises with this peice of shit.

This waste of a movie from 1988 was a blatant rip off of E.T. Get a load of this for those of you who haven’t seen it though. 75% of the movie takes place either in a McDonalds, or heavily promoting McDonald’s products. The title must have been a coincidence. This movie would have been better if the kid became friends with an actual Big Mac for an hour and half. Sucked.

Are you people insane? Don’t mess with the magic that is Universal Soldier 2! Geez.