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I guess these may have been more of a hit back in the days of the floppy diskettes. X-shaped rubber bands can be purchased at :
X-shaped rubber bands
Ah, the good 'ol days of the floppy drive and diskette. 720k, 1.44mb, 2.8mb. And if you were dedicated enough you would have bought one of those little contraptions that positioned the 1-sided diskette upside down so you could drill a hole in the casing and make 1.44mb diskettes for the price of 720kb !
I wonder where that little metal contraption went?
About 1 month ago my Nokia 6310 cellular phone started giving me problems. Perhaps it had enough of being accidentally dropped. One thing I have to admit is that it served me well for about 2.5 years. It wasn't the most technologically advanced, it didn't have all the fancy features, but it was a solid phone. It did indeed have perfect reception.
But after the keys started giving me problems I decided it was time to get a new phone. I was never really a fan of flip-phones like the LG and Samsungs that everybody was sporting, and I wasn't too keen on a tiny phone. But somehow the mp3 features of the Sony Ericsson W810i seemed to scream my name since I was in the market for an mp3 player while rollerblading and biking. The convenience of having a cell phone and mp3 rolled into 1 was a big selling feature.
Granted I've been a Nokia-fan for a long time. Something about their simple menu feature and readability of the LCD screen in daytime light kept me with a Nokia phone through several generations. That's where my first problem comes into play when I started using the Sony. Nothing about the menu structure is simple, especially the added movement of left-right navigation with the "joystick" which complicated things tremendously.
Second were the size of the keys on the keypad. I was able to dial the Nokia phones with ease not looking at the keypad at all. The keys were spaced enough apart and big enough to find with my thumb. The little notch on the 5, and a simple up-down/left approach to finding the remaining keys made it simple and quick to dial. With the Sony the level-variation betweeen the keys while tracking your finger across 2 keys is negligible - not enough of a difference to distinguish when a new key is being pressed.
Third, the tiny little hole where you put your ear. At certain positions the caller is barely heard. You have to play around with the phone to find the optimal position it must sit placed next to your ear. The phone might have benefitted if more holes for listening were placed at the top of the phone.
Fourth, the volume switch on the side of the phone is just too small. Seeing as Sony had the whole side of the phone to work with (they had about 1.5 inches of empty space before you reach the camera button) they could have at least made the buttons for volume-up and volume-down bigger. Now during a call, I have to physically look at the phone and press the volume with the tip of my finger to adjust the levels. With the Nokia I could easily increase the volume without moving the phone from my ear.
There are many, many more minor annoyances I have with this phone such as :
- call list displays all received, missed, dialed calls (instead of the default - missed calls)
- the screen is not easily visible in the daytime
- where is a normal phone ringtone?
- dinky cable connections (prone to possible breaking)
And on the plus side I can say quite a few good things about it :
- attractive black design
- good call quality (that may be my local provider, Rogers)
- easily expandable ... comes with 512mb of memory
- great walkman mp3 feature
- fm transmitter add-on seems very promising
Thank you Edmonton Oilers for a truly exciting Stanley Cup playoff run. I have never had so much jaw-breaking, edge-of-my-seat, on-my-toes excitement in any Stanley cup I watched. Every minute of every game was worth watching, both wins and losses.
Although I don't think you "got your groove" until the 3rd period of game #7, and personally I think MacTavish pulled Jussi Markkanen just a touch too early. I still think that if you were given an extra 45 seconds you quite possibly could have tied up the game.
Special mention should go out to Jussi Markkanen for picking up where Dwayne Roloson had left off during his accident before being forced out with an injury.
But one thing bothers me. Perhaps because Edmonton was my favourite, but I strongly believe that the Edmonton players "wanted" the Stanley Cup more than the Hurricanes.
I haven't been a fan of the Mr. Sub franchise as of late. There "was" a time when I enjoyed the foot-long ham subs with lots and lots of their famous dressing, but all that has changed. This was during a time when there was no direct competition to them - perhaps during the 1980s until the mid 1990s. Mr. Sub was the only thing around, and it was damn good.
Then franchises started popping up all over the place and they started skimping on toppings and quality. And what finally made the decision for me was consistently being stuck with stale bread. It's one thing to get home and say, "this bread is stale", it was another to see the bread crumble right before your eyes when it was being cut down the middle in the shop. I vowed never to go back again.
Then along came the wraps, in particular the spinach wrap. A much longer shelf life, and "ideally" a more healthier alternative. But that didn't last too long as everybody became stingy with the toppings on wraps. One thinly-sliced tomato on a wrap? Haha. One piece of thinly sliced chees? Haha again.
This afternoon I visited the Mr. Sub franchise in Hillcrest Mall and the Louisiana Chicken wrap "looked" interesting. It's funny how the mind can put together a delightful imaginary picture with a simple 3-word sandwich. The chicken bits were abundant but very poor quality chicken ... which makes you wonder how many different animal means "taste like chicken" ... hmmmmmm. And the Louisiana sauce was pretty pathetic.
Then came the queasiness and discomfort the rest of the afternoon. No more Mr. Sub for me. I still enjoy the subs at Subway a lot more. And for me and I'm sure many other folks, the cost of a sub is not going to deter me from getting a higher quality, better tasting sandwich elsewhere.
Fernando Pisani prevented the Oilers from being ousted in the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs in game 5 with an overtime goal, and short-handed at that! With their season falling before their eyes the Edmonton Oilers hung on to force game #6 in the 2006 finals between the Hurricanes and Oilers.
Game #6 kept me on the edge the entire time. I was originally hoping for a final match between two Canadian teams but Calgary and Ottawa were disappointingly eliminated fairly early in the finals.
Edmonton has kept me guessing throughout the entire series. When all of their steam seems to run out, they always show me a final trick that keeps me on edge. On an unfair tripping call against Steve Staios (Macedonian or Greek? what are you Steve?) the Hurricanes had a 1-man advantage in overtime. But keeping up with the younger Oilers was getting much more difficult for the Canes who seemed to have run out of energy. Both teams were tired when final minutes of the 3rd period wound down - for Carolina who seemed to show a sudden last burst of energy, and for Edmonton who had to defend against it with an overtired line.
But alas the younger Oilers seemed to rejuvenate themselves over the break - or perhaps it was an inspirational talk by Craig MacTavish?
Way to go Oilers !
Up until game #5 with the Carolina Hurricanes has left me wondering, what the hell is Craig MacTavish thinking about the Oilers powerplay line? What stands out in my mind was a mind-boggling performance in game #4 where the Oilers had 3 powerplay opportunities in a row, the 3rd being a 2-man advantage.
Why aren't there any Oilers standing in front of the net blocking the goalie and to pick up any rebounds? And how come the Oilers don't have any hard shooters? I remember the days of the Leafs with Eddie Olcyzk and his killer slapshot - to the point of earning the title of fastest slapshot in the league. To me it doesn't seem like the Oilers have any juice for point shots.
Which brings me to the next point : why not go for rebounds when you don't have a solid shooter? Block the goalie and pick up a rebound. Too many of the Oilers are out in the outskirts of the zone. Don't pass, shoot shoot shoot ! Then pick up the spoils.
And it seems like too many Oilers are right-handed shooters forcing a quick turn to get a decent shot. But I guess that is not easily fixed.
All in all I think Edmonton has a strong team this year and for the next 2-3. And I think Markkanen is doing a bang-up good job at goaltending.
