Diary of a CrazyFrench

It is the new year. We have a tendency to put artificial starting points in time to want to (start to) do things, something like the "new year resolutions". I don't really abide to that because I believe you should do things when you want to, have to or can. You don't need a January 1st or some sort. This year it happens that the new year almost coincide with my timeline. Two weeks into the new house in Montréal, this mean that for once I can use that as the starting point ; or not.

Anyway.

Happy new year, and remember, be excellent to each other !

(picture by somecanuckchick)

Today I took surf lessons with the Surf Sister in Tofino, BC. It was fun, I would do it again, but I'm sore, proof that I really need to get my ass off and get in better physical shape.

Yesterday, I sent an email to Shoppers Drug Mart, a large pharmacy retail chain here in Canada. My complain was solely that they sell cigarettes (in British Columbia). Yes you read it right a pharmacy sell cigarettes. Does that shock you? It does shock me.

I was expecting either no reply at all, or some boiler plate reply, but I think they really exceeded my expectations in term of BullC.

Here is the reply, verbatim:

Hello Hubert,

Thank you for writing to us. The entire philosophy of our company is based on the understanding of care and concern for all of our customers. Our promise is to provide superior customer satisfaction beyond expectation. Shoppers Drug Mart receives a tremendous amount of advice from a wide spectrum of advocates, each with their own value systems, about the many products that a drug store sells. Their assumption is that consumers need to be protected from themselves. Shoppers Drug Mart's position is that it will not allow itself to become the cultural or moral censor for any legal product. The fact that we sell a product does not constitute any endorsement on our part of that product.

One of the great underlying perils of merchandising and retailing, regardless of diligent testing for possible hidden, offensive, or unintended messages, it may be interpreted that a product is unsuitable for the general public. To refuse to sell a product that one takes issue with would clearly be a form of censorship on our part which is a position we will not take.

Tobacco is typically displayed behind the counter, so it is not accessible to children. We hope that you can appreciate our position as a responsible retailer, which is to offer a wide variety of products and services to the many customers we serve.

Thank you for your feedback. We will continue to monitor your concern and make any necessary adjustments.

Regards, Amber Shoppers Drug Mart / Pharmaprix Customer Service

That's right, you read it well. They consider banning the sale of cigarettes a form of censorship, and they hide themselves behind the legality of the product. At least I would have taken "we do it for the money" as a valid reason. But censorship?

March 32nd is over. The usual activities can now resume.

up, coffee, drilling, cleaning, emailing, phoning, reading riot act, showering, walking, reading riot act more nicely in person, book shopping, clothes shopping for teh lady, caffeination, shutterbugging, getting shaved, back home, watching the leafs winning *cries*, groceries, dining, blogging.

and it is spring !

If you read this, then this blog has finally moved. Let's hope it is faster now.

Nothing is better to prevent me from posting something than the laptop that decide to switch itself off when I delicately lift it to move downstairs. I had the feeling I had to save the post. It will have to wait.

Half a decade ago I landed in Canada. Not sure what happened since, but that's surely 5 years.

Sometime the shit hit the fan. Good thing I have the EEE PC. The bad thing is that I might be slow replying to email as I dont have a mail client here, nor do I have my ssh key.

Update: wow this post has the number 666.

I'll do them in reverse order.

• The ugly is that I got downsized. I won't comment on what I read on the Internet when the CEO talks about acquisition, but then lay off his own people.
• The bad is that I only have an aging laptop left with keys that don't work like arrows and return. See above if you plan to suggest I buy a new one.
• The good is that I'll have more time for my projects. See the second item to see if that will really be productive. Can't be that bad.

Nonwithstanding that it was the 3rd hard drive to die in a month, when I went to buy a new one, the car broke down on the return. And by broke down I mean the gear got stuck in 2nd. Fortunately it is a stick and I could safely stop the car to get it towed by the roadside assistance. I'll know more Monday when the dealership is actually open: the car is still under warranty.

Since you can read this, that means the hard drive is back in and he machine back up.

Using Cheese, here is a shot of my forehead after a trip to the ER.

Funny... NOT!

I'm on vacation until new year. That does not mean I'll be un reachable, but just that I have a lot of copious spare time.

Maybe I'll have time to push some new release for exempi, libopenraw and hack on my pet project.

Done recently:

• Read Motoral RAZR with Linux to see what could be done with only USB connectivity. Works great with RAZR V3 and V220. Ended up making a couple of rind tones for my phone. I still hate the software on this phone.
• Experimented with boost::thread. Looks nice although the documentation seems to be a bit vague. I'll talk more about it when I wrangle it better. I like Boost, even though sometime g++ does not help.
• Installed openSUSE 10.3 beta3 on the brand new X60 for work. This laptop clearly blast my personal one.
• Welcome IBM, seriously ! Delighted by Michael's post.
• Saw my workstation being gutted to replace the whole system board due to a fried USB. The Xeon "dual core"^[1] look very small... much smaller than the fan / cooling unit that sits on it.

Back from a ten days trip to Toronto (with two week-ends including the long labour day week-end). Highlights are:

• had a training on OpenOffice.org where Michael transmitted all his knowledge to Jon and I.
• catched up with other folks from the team, including Florian and JP.
• BBQ at JP place, visited a Novell office for the first time.
• went to the CN Tower for the second time and jumped on the glass floor.
• went to the CNE (took a few interesting shots, will post later).
• fixed a bug in VCL where the menu bar in OpenOffice.org was not drawn using the right color... which was very visible with Darkilouche: black on dark gray just does not make it.