Whilst in England in February this year, I got very attached with a MacBook Air. It wasn’t mine but I wished and wished with all of my might for it to be so…

AND SOMEONE ACTUALLY SENT ME ONE!! A MB AIR!!! (CAPS LOCKS ATTACK!) How insane is that? I’m still waiting for a Darlick or a Darma dude or a cylon or Ashton or Jonah Takalua to appear…

PS. If anyone else would like to send me stuff, i still need an iPhone, more M&S Biscuits, and a dinosaur Pez dispenser to match my awesome dino PJs. Rarrrr.

Is it true? Is Canada finally getting the iPhone?

Canadian wireless carrier Rogers Wireless said Tuesday it has reached an agreement with Apple to begin offering the iPhone later this year, putting an end to months of speculation on the subject.

Well. It’s. Aboot. Time!

Now, I can finally ditch my unlocked Fisher Price Skytalker Walkie Talkie which I’ve been using for the last 12 years as a method to communicate with my friends, family, lost polar bears, ice skating beavers, and the Mounted Police within a reception range of 1 - 25m… assuming they have the other Walkie on them… and they turn it on at exactly the same time as me… and the batteries don’t die in the subarctic temperatures.

It’s a crap shoot, I’ll admit. But, you know how Canadians love to be the underdog in a long and arduous, losing battle.

Another great screenshot I see. Sometimes you just can’t win. Zoink.

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Like a typical geeky overachiever, I had a very grandiose plans for blogging/vlogging on my Mayan Riviera trip. I was psyched. I packed all my gear and cables and set off into the sun.

But like the cruel fate of reality, the Mayan gods were against me from the get go. They toyed with my emotions, liquored me up, and booted me off the ledge into a giant sink hole of doom. I know. Intense.

Within 30 seconds of arriving at the ultra modern, lo-tech resort hotel, I encountered my first major hurdle.

Me: do you have wifi?
Reception dude: Que?
Me: Internet?
Reception: No.
Me: No??? *eyeballs pop out of my head*
Reception: Si.
Me: Si? *eyeballs return to head* You have internet? Computers?
Recption: Only in one place.
Me: Donde??
Reception: Down in the bottom of stairs derecha uhh… there you will find computers… you need to pay 7 USD for 30 minutes
Me: zoink.
Reception: Que?

This situation was less than ideal as the lobby was a 15 min walk from my room and carrying that amount of gear in the ridiculous, sticky, muggy heat was beyond lame. Plus, I really didn’t want to spend my holiday in the hotel’s business centre.

Then the worst thing that could ever happened, happened: My blog went down. Crashed & dunzo. All my pages vanished and were 404ing and I couldn’t post. Thanks to all my twitter pals for offering to help, but this problem was seriously tricky. Tricker with 3 pina coladas clouding my mind. Luckily, an uber coding monkey was there to save the day.

So after that fail, I just let go of my vacation blogging plans and headed to the beach with Wired and my iPod. Then I watched Sir Digby Chicken Caeser with my new friend.

If the iPhone Software has a roadmap, why can’t it find Canada? We’re like the second biggest country in the world.

Lo-5,

Mostly Lisa

PS. The Green Arrow is Vancouver, where I am. Feel free to send the first Canadian iPhone there. Much Love.

 
That’s me. Lying on the cold cold ground in the early AM photographing a pair of running shoes. There are no lengths I will go to to take a great photo. Good thing I am wearing my big, fluffy Canadian parka, as it is taking ages to get the flashes to sync because my cheapo Gadget Infinity wireless triggers keep misfiring! Arg!

If you are a recreational photographer or if you are like me and you just started your own home media business that requires a ton of electronic gadgets and creative gear that sees no financial boundaries, you probably don’t have $500 to spend on Pocket Wizard’s wireless triggers. That’s why I bought the Gadget Infinity wireless triggers (Cactus Model) for a bargain basement price of $60 for one transmitter and two receiver to go on my flashes, the Canon EX 430 & 580).

Before purchasing the cheapo version, I had read loads of reviews that warned of misfiring and unreliability, but the Gadget Infinity triggers seriously take the piss. These are the main things that suck about these triggers:

• Flash misfires, often. This totally sucks because it uses up all your flash’s battery power and not only do you have to wait even longer for the flash to charge, but when it finally does, your flash is likely to be dunzo.
• Flash is out of sync with the shutter. This is possibly the most annoying thing ever. More annoying than a late-90s boy band reunion. I know. That’s infinitely annoying.
• Flash doesn’t fire. Period.

If you have a time sensitive shoot or you are dealing with a live subject that might complain more than these running shoes, I recommend renting Pocket Wizards (approx. $25).

Has anyone else had a sucky experience with cheap triggers? Is there a budget solution to make them work better?

Independent Thought:
An ideal deal should take care of everything from airline tickets to the details of rental cars as well as the hotel reservations. Finding cheap flights should not be your concern.

I just sorted all my photo, video, computer and AV gear. These are the casualties. Some are totally dunzo, others still have a bit of juice left, and some are functional, just completely obsolete. So I really had to be really brutal in getting rid of things that I no longer need or use on a regular basis. I kept at least one of every cable cuz you never know when you are gonna need a rare or random cable. It happens almost once every week for me. So I like to keep all my ducks in the basket… a row. I think my smarts are currently disintegrating with every tv season I cram into a 48 period (which is Flight of the Conchords today).

It breaks my heart to bin this stuff. Does anyone know a good charity that I could donate any of the working gear to? Are there any charities that could make use or make money from recycling stuff like old cell phones and their chargers, film cameras, VCRs, an Apple G3 monitors? I may even have an LC475 kicking around somewhere.

I would also like to know if anyone knows of any organizations that recycle any electronics for parts or safely dispose of batteries and other environmentally toxic materials.

Thanks for your comments!

I’m guess I”m pretty wired. I’m probably the most wired person I know. So I’m probably the most wired person you know cuz I have over 200 friends on facebook (and I know at least 10 of them in real life). Yeah whatever, I guess you could say I’m pretty popular.

Being wired means being connected to a something bigger and better, someone who knows everything the world has to offer like Wikipedia. What? Wikipedia isn’t one person? Whatever.

The point is wired things > wireless things. Wait? That’s not true. Wireless things are way better. In fact, I hate wires and cables and plugs. Just look at them all. I’m practically swimming in the things. I’ve lost my momentum now. I’m not even making sense.

What was the point again?

I’m popular?
No, not that.
I’m good looking?
Well, that’s obvious, but not the point of this post.
Making myself look cooler by bragging about how many gadgets/gear/puters I have?
Closer.
And cuz I spent all my money on gadgets/gear/puters, I can’t afford to go to Macworld and that makes me feel left out and kinda lonely to be honest.

Now it’s all coming out. Buck up! There’s more to life than seeing Stevie J’s keynote live.
There is?
No, I was lying to make you feel better.

Mostly Lisa’s Favourite Top Gear:

1. My MB. It’s ace. I love it. I’d choose it over a MBP any day.

2. My Canon Rebel Xti or D400. This SLR has literally changed my life. I got it last November and started shooting for both pleasure and for my multimedia company guided by photo manuals and Strobist. The day I got paid for taking photos was a beautiful day. That’s when I thought, “You can get paid for doing something this cool, seriously??”

3. My Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. I am passionate about this lens. It truly makes *magic* happen.

4. My 2 Canon HV20 Digital Camcorders. The bread and butter of my business. It has been an excellent camera. It’s portable, HD picture quality is great, and the 24p mode is l33tne$$.

What are your favourite gadgets? I will accept all comments. Even those with PC-based answers. I’m that open in my love of gadgets. I will now lie back on my ibook pillow, put bjork on, and stare blankly into space transcending time. Huh? My point exactly.

I can’t say I’ve always relished in people saying, “Wow Lisa, you are suuuuch a geek.” Which has happened quite a lot in my life. Especially in high school when being smart was stupid and the term “geek” sounded a lot like “you’re super lame but i’ll cheat off in science class”. Back then, even an allegiance to apple computers lead to harrassment and even disiplinary action, like when I was 8 years-old and I got kicked out of computer camp for slagging off PCs and refusing to use one.

But now the world is starting to recognize the power of the geek and the sex appeal of a smart geeky female with a Boba Fett Fetish, a quirky, yet informative twitter feed, and a vast knowledge of transformers, php, 20 sided dice, SLR cameras, BSG, Assassin’s Creed, CS3, FCP, gadgets, Top Gear, xkcd.com, Leo Laporte… aaand if she happens to look like a model with a perky set of… MBPs… that wouldn’t be the worse thing ever. We wouldn’t want to throw the balance of the world completely off kilter. Let’s face it, the majority of power geeks are still men.

And it was one of these geeks, an uber coding geek, that told me that I could not rightly call myself a geek. Seriously? After all the years I spent pining away in the Ivory Tower waiting for geeks to be cool…and the day finally comes and apparently I’m not “geeky” enough to be part of the club.

But… but… i own like 4 Mac computers and the entire series of Buffy aaaand Angel… i watched the entire Aliens Quadrilogy with special features in one go and I have a Harry Potter poster stuck to my bedroom door…i know a plethora of geeky film trivia and I’m an all-star on mininova and i’m connected to every 2.0 social hot spot and I scrobble the latest indie anthems to lastfm like a hot damn aaand I have more drawers and cupboards dedicated to SLR, video, lighting, music gear and bags and cables and plugs and snoots and gobos than clothes aaaaand I know how to use them. Especially the bags. Put stuff in and go. It’s as easy as pie.

The point is I think I’m pretty geeky. And my hypothesis is that everyone is kinda geeky as well. And so I ask you, my lovely blogging audience:

What kind of geek are you?

Define “geek” for us Wikiworld!

The definition of geek has changed considerably over time, and there is no longer a definitive modern meaning. Here are some of the many definitions:

1. A person who is interested in technology, especially computing and new media. Most geeks are adept with computers.

So computering — check, new media — check, tech/gadgets — check, 2.0 shizz — check

2. A person who relates academic subjects to the real world outside of academic studies; for example, using multivariate calculus to determine how they should correctly optimize the dimensions of a pan to bake a cake.

Well as not every geeky girl is good at maths and cooking, i’m gonna have to pass on the supreme geekiness that is combining multivariate calculus and baking. I will however provide something equally geeky in my mastered academic subject of linguistics where I hilariously intertwine syntactic trees with sustainability, Denis Quaid, Nim Chimpsky, and Gervais’ monkey news. Now that’s geeky.

I also developed an equally quirky system for organizing clothing using RGB and HSV which I call: Lisa’s Optimum Visual Outcome Method (LOVOM). Now that’s even geekier!

3. A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest i.e film geek, iPhone geek, web design geek or like MAx Fischer, a multi-genre geek.

4. A performer at a carnival who swallows various live animals and bugs.

Oh wikipedia you are full of so many delicious things… But that would be a definite no to swallowing live bugs.

So with so much sweet sweet geekiness to choose from: What kind of Geek are you?