24 Hour Party People wanted

A blog that has moved onto my daily reading list is Torontoist, a daily tally of goings-on in the city of Toronto (home to the2scoops), noting some great culture, lifestyle and general goings-on in the city.

They have a great approach to an article (possibly an ongoing series) in Toronto Life magazine called 24 Hours With..., where the idea is you have 24 hours to spend in Toronto, "a single perfect day on an unlimited budget". Money is no object, plausibility won't hold you back.

Torontoist spends it mainly around the College strip and has some fun, including jamming with local rapper K'naan and new local Mos Def and sharing drinks with Mayor Miller and the cast of Train 48. Torontoist has a great day in a "blow a year's salary in one go" kind of way, without being a complete orgy of gluttony. I'm just going to have to crib the Soundscapes idea though.

Which leads to the 24 Hour challenge. How would you spend your perfect day in Toronto? Who with (plausibility doesn't count against you, so waffles with Al Waxman and Don McKellar would be fine), how much, what would you do? Would it be contemplative, hedonistic, cultured? Let me know, I'll post mine up this week. Email your 24 Hours to me and I'll run a compilation on the blog.

Boing Boing: Cut and shuffle a deck with one hand

Normal blogging will resume shortly, but in the meantime, here is another in a long list of handy skills to master, courtesy of BoingBoing.net.

Instructions:How To Shuffle and Cut a Deck of Cards One-Handed

Someone cobbled together a One Handed Shuffle, One Handed Cuts video using the instructions.

Happy shuffling to you.

Spam, why have you turned upon me...

I've had to activate a spam filter on the blog comment section, just a word verification box that asks legitimate folks to enter in the word they see. What this does is prevent automated spamming systems from adding content spam, that looks like a comment but is linked to a spam website.

Meanwhile we have two tales of spammer payback, sort of. Warrenellis.com - Spammer Beaten To Death In Home: First Of Many was posted in the summer and should drive fear into spammy hearts.

The other item is a letter I wrote to my service provider in reponse to spam in my email, before Rogers et al. changed to better filters:

Dear Service Provider,

I am writing to thank you for the thoughtful selection of spam mail I have been receiving in my mail account lately. It was flattering you would allow 276 spams to be available to me, which was quite a surprise after not checking my email account for 2 days. I feel like I belong to some sort of special club since I have been allowed to take part in these exclusive offers.

Sadly, I must decline however. I have no urge to see what Farm Girl Becky is doing with her farm animals. I am not interested in MILFs or Freaky Insertions. And while I appreciate the thought, I don’t want to see the type of breasts I could have in just 5 days, even after losing 22.5 lbs. in just 3 hours.

My world-view is rather narrow compared to the world Spam has to offer: “Sexy Teen Babes Smoking”, “Hefty Helga”, and “Shemales: A Surprise in Every Package.” Maybe someone more adventurous is more willing to take a chance, but not I.

Alas, I just don’t think it possible for just one man to deserve the benefits of a thick hairline, an A+ credit rating, and a 3-day erection. I can’t cope with the responsibilities of eliminating debt while viewing sexy singles in my area, while aiding Nigerian royalty who wish to transfer their inheritance through a lowly commoner like myself. It’s is simply too many blessings for one person to bear.

In closing, please know that I am unable to accept any of the special offers, because I am just not the pure, good soul who can accept these generous email offers. I am but a man with a webmail account, an obscene amount of obscene email, and undying sarcasm.

Yours in gratitude.

Slashdot | iPod nano Owners In Screen Scratch Trauma

A couple of weeks ago my Ipod crashed. It can happen, it is after all a small hard drive with moving parts. It stopped working and emitted a pained "clicking" noise, like trying to turn over a car. Faced with a weekend of standing in lines at the Toronto Film Festival, I popped into the Apple Store Yorkdale in hopes they could restore the gadget lest I had to scavenge a cd player, which we seem to have none of in our household anymore, an FM radio (*shudder*), or be forced to maintain actual human contact.

The store was like Apple Mecca, a really beautiful place with plenty of hands-on gadgets. They also do workshops for anyone looking to get Mac-savvy. I went to the service desk and made an appointment. My number was called after 30 minutes, and after a couple of attempts and confirming my pod was still under a full warranty (2 weeks to go on it) they replace my ipod with a new one (same model). I was more than happy with their customer service.

Now, while I was waiting, I had happened to be in the store the day they got in the new Apple iPod nano models. They are slim, light, flash drive models of the iPod mini, which they are phasing out. Lighter than a cellphone, thin as an underfed starlet, I swear every person who got a hand on the display model being walked around went and bought one in some iPod induced trance.

My initial thoughts are this is a great looking, highly portable player to take around, marrying full iPod controls and programming with Shuffle portability. But that screen is relatively small for viewing photos and song info. My main concern would be that it's so light I'd have the Nano on me, leaving it in the dirty laundry or between the sofa cushions.

It will likely be another success for Apple, but I would still wait until they smooth out some crinkles like this before investing in one: Slashdot iPod nano Owners In Screen Scratch Trauma. I'll stick to the heft (a pack of playing cards) of a solid iPod.

There is an urge in some of us to get the newest, deadliest gadget, some satisfaction to be derived from being "bleeding edge". The link below is a reminder why I always swear by never buying the initial model of anything, and wait for the cheaper, more efficient second or third edition, when they've worked out the kinks.

iLounge has a good Apple iPod nano review.

Kanye West meets The Beach Boys

Courtesy of a few different sites (whose idenities have been changed and they have been put into a relocation program), we present Kanye West meets The Beach Boys.

Uses tracks from the Beach Boys West Sounds and Kanye West's two albums.

In the spirit of DangerMouse's Grey Album (Jay-Z "Black Album" meets the Beatles "White Album"), grab this album and give it a try before it gets yanked.

A Mac that can run the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs

Courtesy of Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters, we present the Mac Mini-lenium Falcon.

Modding is kind of a "Pimp My Computer" situation, done by putting your computer into a tricked out case. Some get creative and find non-typical computer cases, like this uber-geek who took his Mac mini, and managed to get it into a Millenium Falcon toy, complete with USB port and I-sight camera. Full details and instructions here.