A few days ago, my mom got a phone call that she quickly hung up. I asked her who called and she said its someone who says she won a free cruise to the Bahamas and that she has been getting a lot of these calls in the past few weeks. At that moment, I was disappointed because I love receiving unsolicited calls from telemarketers or scammers and just waste there time by making them think I am interested in whatever it is there trying to sell or ask from me.

Fortunately for today, the very people who always try to call my mom and offer this supposed free cruise to the Bahamas called me today! And I recored it for your viewing pleasure!

The guy on the phone said I won this cruise based on some surveys I don’t ever remember taking and asked when I can take this cruise. After telling me how amazing this cruise to the Bahamas on board a ship called the Bahamas Celebration will be and how it won’t cost me anything, He then starts telling me how I should have a credit card on me and that I am on the hook for any taxes or port fees, beverages and tipping the staff on board….. So much for a free boat ride to the Bahamas.

It was at that moment I decided to mess around with this guy by trying to insist that I should get this cruise ride for free because he said it was free without the required taxes or fees. He then tried to tell me how in America, any winnings or prizes from contests are taxed by the U.S. government. At that point, I had to remind him that he has called me in Canada and that our winnings of prizes from contests and even the lottery isn’t taxed! He even put me on hold to find that out for him self. Then he comes back and agrees with me.

Sadly, he would not give me the cruise without agreeing to pay for the taxes and other hidden fees. Eventually, he asked if I was interested. It was at that point I decided to say that this cruise is to surprise the imaginary wife I created in my mind to carry on the conversation and that I want as much information about this cruise before I decide anything.

Eventually, the guy on the phone gives up on me out of frustration and passes me to the manager. The manager basically told me that I should not take the cruise and hung up on me. Seeing the whole thing unfold is kind of amusing to me.

It has been a rough few years for the cruise line industry with many ships being stranded in the middle of the sea because of engine fires needing days to be towed back to shore, or crazy captains showing off to people on land how close he could navigate his ship to shore only to end up in a disaster like the Costa Concordia. I wonder if I could dig up any information about this ship that I was offered to go on.

As I said, This ship is called the Bahamas Celebration. According to Wikipedia, it is not a new ship. It was built in 1981 in Germany for a Norwegian ferry company called Color Line and the original name of the ship was the Prinsesse Ragnhild. Most of the ship’s life was to ferry passengers and automobiles between Oslo and Kiel. In 2008, the ship was sold to an American company called Celebration Cruise Holdings and they renamed the ship Bahamas Celebration.

On July 8 1999, there was a fire in the engine room of the Prinsesse Ragnhild causing the whole ship to be abandoned. One person died as a result of a heart attack. Another engine room fire occurred in March 1st 2002, but was quickly contained. On April 25th 2012, sewage water was backed up causing shower and sink drains to over flow with sewage water inside cabins of the passengers resulting of carpets and cabins stained of sludge and filling the cabins with an awful smell.

All in all, I just had some harmless fun. With all honesty, I don’t see my self taking a cruise anytime soon. I just hear to much awful things in this industry from passenger safety and well being, to unethical treatment of ship employees who work extremely long hours with little pay and hardly any rights to add insult to injury. The history alone of this ship doesn’t make me feel all to appealed to go to the Bahamas on it, even if it was 100% free

Everyone loves panda bears for some reason. They seem cute, cuddly and playful. To top it all off, there an endangered species. Anytime a Panda in captivity gives birth to a Panda cub, media outlets go nuts and people flock to the zoo where the cub was given birth to see the new born.

Turns out that the Chinese who so dearly loves there panda bears and treasures them by giving them a life of royalty, has decided to let us Canadiens house two of there Panda bears for the next five years. In fact, they have arrived today. They would be staying in the Toronto Zoo for a about 2 1/2 years before moving to the Calgary for the last 2 1/2 years of there stay in Canada.

The local media here has talked about nothing but these pandas in the last few days. They talked about everything such as where they where born? Why they are here? Where will they stay? What there stay would look like, What they eat… the list goes on forever. It’s is actually getting quite annoying. There is however a particular topic that it seems the media spends most time on with these Pandas and that’s how they are getting to Canada.

It turns out they got to Canada by FedEx tricking out a plane for them and calling it the “Panda Express”. The plane features plenty of space for them to move about, plenty of bamboo to eat during the flight, other stuff Pandas eat such as apples, and two veterinarians to constantly monitor there well being. It is also said that FedEx will be constantly shipping fresh bamboo every few days. For some reason, the media is all fascinated by this. They constantly interviewed FedEx executives and PR people about the straight forward logistics of bringing two Pandas to Canada. I feel it is getting quite ridiculous.

It almost feels that this whole thing is like free a advertising stunt for FedEx. Need to transport some exotic animals? Just use us and we will trick out a plane for them! Will we start seeing FedEx ad’s plastered all over the city of the Panda bears they helped transport over the summer? I don’t think they are not using this whole opportunity as a big marketing stunt.

The last time we had Panda’s here in Toronto was back in 1985. While they stayed for a year, they where transported by removing a few seats off the back of a regular Canadian Pacific Air Lines flight for there cages. Some Passengers on the flight was seen to be even feeding Bamboo to the Pandas.

As for the current Panda’s who will make Canada there home for the next few years, I do find it interesting that they seem to be treated more human than a regular human would be treated on a long haul overseas flight. While those Pandas had plenty of room to move about in the plane on there way here, a regular human is expected to sit in a tiny seat that hardly reclines for many hours with a library of crappy foods to watch. While those pandas had plenty to eat of what they consider is good food and snacks, we humans are expected to eat tasteless objects that looks horrible and would only make you hungry again in an hour. It is nice to see where our priorities currently stand.

Back in July of last year, I received a random call from some guy claiming to be from the; “Windows technical department” and that they detected my PC has a virus and they called to remove it for me. I must install some software and they would claim to clean the infections. But before that, I must pay them money to get it removed and no one but themselves can clean it. What is funny is how I don’t mainly run windows and instead I use a Mac.

Instead of cleaning any malicious software in a PC that may not even exist on a PC, they install malicious software once they get control of your computer. In the end, your computer is badly screwed up and your wallet is much lighter if you actually paid these scammers thinking there actual Microsoft employees.

When I got this call last july, I recorded the whole conversations I had with the scam artists and even wanted to have some fun by trolling them. I set up a virtual machine running Windows XP on my MacBook Pro and let them have control of Windows XP and do whatever the hell they wanted. Eventually, when they found out that I would not give them any money, they hung up and screwed up the Windows XP virtual machine. All videos of this event is available to watch on my Youtube channel if you want to see what happens.

Fast forward to a few days ago, I got a call again from these guys! They actually called my voicemail and on the voicemail, some guy with an extremely thick indian accent proclaiming he’s from the; “Windows technical department” and that I must call back immediately to resolve a “malicious software that they detected on my PC”. Clearly, this is a scam based on previous experiences along with the hundreds of videos of such recored calls posted on youtube.

Me being the person I am, I like to deal with scammers. I feel that I am doing a service to the general public if I can waste one of these scammers time by wasting there time from actually calling a victim and stealing there money because of there lack of knowledge they may have of this scam, even if it means saving one potential victim. But at the same time, I want to have fun!

After I herd the voicemail, I was thinking what can I do to possibly make this as ridiculous as possible? I thought why not go retro and try and get them to work on Windows 98? It’s an old operating system that hardly works with any current software! I wanted to see how they would deal with that.

To even make the scenario even more ludicrous, I managed to find some old vintage, but classic software that does not work anymore like Real Player, AOL and Napster. Why not stop there? As the icing to the cake, I decided to throw in what was perhaps the most famous (and annoying) malicious software of the early part of the last decade….. Bonzi Buddy!!! If there was any problem that they should detect, It would be Bonzi Buddy!

Anyway, Enjoy the videos below as I recorded how the Scammers worked on my “infected PC”

A few months ago, I saw a really bad low budget movie on Netflix. The movie was called Titanic II. Putting the movie’s lack of quality of production and actor’s performance aside, the story was about some rich guy who wanted to create a replica of the Titanic and named it; Titanic II. The ship is to embark on a voyage that retraces the route of the first Titanic. Ironically, The Titanic II finds her self in a dire situation as her predecessor on its maiden voyage.

Instead of crashing into an iceberg causing water to flow into it’s hull like the first Titanic, a huge glacier in Greenland collapsed causing a huge wave moving towards the Titanic II. When it eventually comes towards the Titanic II, it causes it to capsize and eventually sink. As passengers try to escape, they realize to there horror, the rich guy who created the ship was to cheap to add enough lifeboats for everyone on board. There is a love story aspect to the film just like the famous Titanic movie of 1998. But it does not really matter.

It really is an awful movie in all aspects. the acting was awful, the dialog was very generic, the locations this movie seemed to been shot from was a banquet hall, and what seemed like the basement of a hospital! The only realistic shot was the scene of people boarding the ship. Apparently, that scene was filmed on the Queen Marry. I think the worst aspect of the film was the special effects and CGI that was used. I mean…. James Cameron made the Titanic film back in 1998 with much less technology than we have now. Regardless, he created quite an amazing film that looks extremely realistic. Yet whoever directed Titanic II, the special effects looks like something they would teach in Elementarily school to children these days as an introduction to computer graphics.

Anyway it was all a big laugh after watching the film. After all, It’s just a movie! Who in there right mind would create a replica ship of the Titanic. Right???

Well as shocking as it is to me, Someone today did!

As it turns out, some Australian billionaire announced today to the word that he wants to create a replica of the Titanic and name it the Titanic II! He says by 2016, the ship will set off on it’s maiden voyage retracing the route the first Titanic did back a hundred years ago. The ship will feature many features and designs of the ordinal titanic along with many modern things we are a custom to such as air conditioning and diesel engines.

As weird as it may sound, all of this stuff is what the movie reference in the beginning! I wonder if this Australian billionaire has actually seen the Titanic II film. If not, maybe someone should send him the link to the film on Netflix! If anything, its a lesson in bad karma!

Before I can even ask who the hell would actually go on a voyage on this ship, it turns out 40,000 has expressed interest by contacting the company who would be in charge of this ship. Everything just feels very wrong to me about this whole thing!

As if things don’t get worse enough, The ship will be built in China…. A place known for shotty work. On top of that, it will be built by a Chinese company that only has experience in building cargo ships because they never made a cruse liner, let alone an ocean liner. What can possibly go wrong here?

You know, it has been a bad few years lately with cruse ships and all. Just to name a few… Carnival Splendor, Costa Concordia, Costa Allegra, most recently, the Carnival Triumph. Is it really a good idea to build and name a ship of that is known through out the world as the worst marine disaster ever? Also, isn’t kind of a disrespect to all of those who died on the Titanic?

All in all, I do hope one thing for the Titanic II. I hope it has more lifeboats than the first Titanic. Everything just feels wrong about this!

]]> http://somedudeguy.com/?feed=rss2&p=596 3 http://somedudeguy.com/?p=592&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=to-hell-with-bell http://somedudeguy.com/?p=592#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:57:39 +0000 somedudeguy http://somedudeguy.com/?p=592

It appears that I haven’t written anything on this little website of mine since last september. Usually when I don’t write crap on here, it most likely means I haven’t gotten anything I feel thats interesting to write. Historically speaking, usually when I am away from writing blogs on my site, I most often return after a while to write more stuff down. It seems to me history has repeated its self again.

I have however returned with some degree with anger and frustration. In fact, I am among a long list of people who have had to deal with such anger and frustration from a company that many feel is one of the worst companies in Canada.

Bell Canada is one of three major companies in Canada that controls almost all aspects of media and communications such as Television, radio print, Mobile communications and Internet. They, along with Rogers, controls pretty much how we connect to the internet and how we use our phones since they are the main vendors of selling mobile phones in Canada.

Since they have a huge monopoly in the telecommunication infrastructure in Canada, they are infamously known to charge crazy prices for their services with terrible service and support.

I have lost track of how manny times I have gotten angry with both Bell and Rogers over how they charge there services as well as the quality of there service. It also seems that I have an endless amount of anger for them as they always invest very little into improving there infrastructure to better provide world class data communications to us Canadiens. Canada ranks quite low among other western countries in terms of internet speed. Yet average speeds are increasing at an ever slower pace than places like Asia, Scandinavia, or even eastern Europe in terms of Internet speed.

But there is one thing that set off the tipping point with Bell and I that has cased me to quit my internet subscription with them. This issue also reflects the huge problem that Bell and Rogers combined has with there internet subscriptions. That issue is the usage limits (caps) that they put on there internet subscriptions that limits how much use of the internet each month before they start charging you overuse charges that are quite insane.

My former Bell subscription costed me $56 (before tax) and that gave me a 12 megabit /s internet speed with a limit of 50 GB of internet usage. There always was the problem that I always went over that limit no matter how much I tried to conserve. Last year, I almost had it with them and called Bell with a threat that I would cancel my internet subscription because of ludicrous data caps. After negotiation with the customer service rep, they offered me 500 GB usage for one year and I felt satisfied with that. They year passed and without warning, I was charged an extra $30 for my internet (over usage) because I surpassed my original 50 GB usage. Back in September I called them back to implement some kind of similar deal for another year. The customer service rep seemed to have offered me an acceptable offer but I never seen it reflected in my bill. After some months of calling Bell in months of October, November and December, it never seemed to have changed with continued overcharges, I had pretty much decided enough is enough and I cancelled my bell subscription last night. I will not be treated like this as a customer!

So now I am going to be without internet in a month. Where do I go from here? Rogers isn’t a whole lot better and in this part of Canada, Rogers only provides the cable television lines while bell only provides the phone lines. There really isn’t anyone els to choose from.

While choice may be extremely limited in terms of who’s wires to choose to deliver my internet, I can choose lesser known internet service providers who provides you service by piggy backing off the infrastructure of the big companies. Like Techsavy, While there service may be cheaper with slightly faster speeds and a much more reasonable data cap offering with the options of unlimited, They are of course using the other wired networks of Bell and Rogers and when things goes wrong with speed or quality of service, diagnosing the problem could be a challenge as it could be a he says, she says blame game as to who’s responsibility it is to fix your problem. Is this a problem I am willing to venture into? I am not quite sure with all honesty. What other choice do I have? I may end up going with Techsavy as they offer 10 megabits/s for download speeds and a 300 GB usage cap for $42 a month. It’s better than nothing and well suited for my needs for the time being.

I think the overall debate here is why the hell does the big ISP’s we have set such small usage caps in this country? We are a heavily internet connected society. The internet its self is also becoming an increasingly data intensive network with more and more video streaming websites like Youtube and Netflix becoming the norm as more people are consuming movies and TV shows online. We are also moving towards the trend of putting all are files to file hosting services like Dropbox and other similar cloud services. Yet our data caps remain abysmally low. As for me, I can consume more than 3GB a day and a heavy day would be somewhere up around 5GB. It would be unrealistic for the big ISP’s to think they can continue to offer such ludicrous usage caps and get away with charging the rates they currently sell at as more people like me consume more data online.

To quit my internet subscription with Bell and move to Techsavy, it’s my way of giving the finger to Bell and send a clear message that I would no longer stand up to there B.S. My only hope is that my switch to Techsavy would be a painless and positive experience thereafter. I would keep you posted in future posts.

A fair amount of construction is happening within my area these days. Many sidewalks have been ripped apart along with many detours when it comes to traffic. I have learned the best way to navigate around this mess is through the alleyways. It may not be the most pleasant place to walk, it does however get me by all the construction chaos.

Upon walking though the empty alleyways, I noticed a huge tangle of phone wires dangling from pole to pole. An equal amount of tangled wires sprawls out to the individual’s homes. I then realize something. Not only do these phone lines carry phone call conversations, it also carries internet data connections from people’s homes, to the nearest street side distribution cabinet. I am somewhat intrigued by that.

How new technology overlays on top of old technology, yet it always seems to work for the most part. Even with this huge mess of wires, everything still seems to work for the most part.

I may not be a phone technician or repair man, but I can’t help but feel that fixing that mess of wires does not look like a simple job to fix when things do go wrong.

I also start wondering if this is the best way to connect our homes to the rest of the world. It looks so lazy and sloppy. Is this the only way of doing it? Ether way, without those tangled wires, I would not be able to post this post.

It just so happens that today on the Subway was no exception. I was trying to get home from some time I spent at the Scarborough Bluffs. Apparently, the train stopped for the longest time at Castle Frank because up ahead of the line, some work was suddenly needed in the tunnels between Yonge station and St. George Station. The train driver made an announcement that the train would then be diverted to Museum station and make no stops along Bay. The train would then be taken out of service and we are to wait on the platform for a train to continue west to Kipping station.

Despite the fact that its another screw up, I can’t help but not feel bothered by that because it means the train has to pass through one of the cities most kept secrets. It means we will pass through Lower Bay Station, a subway station that has not been used since the 1960s

After the Bloor-Danforth line was built, Bay station was used as sorts of a hub to connect both the Bloor-Danforth line, and the Yonge-University line together. While the upper part was used just as a regular station For the Bloor-Danforth line, The lower part was acting as the hub between both lines.

Once the Bloor-Danforth line was competed and open, The city’s transit authority (TTC) began running some trains on the Bloor-Danforth line to cross into the Yonge-University line passing the downtown area and make stops in Union Station. Some trains even went as far north as Eglinton.

Lower Bay station was only used for only 8 months since the Bloor-Danforth Line’s opening. If there was ever a Delay or train problems anywhere in the Subway system, The whole subway system would be affected by it. That caused much frustrations by passengers so the TTC went with trains running on each line without crossing to the other. It has been like that ever since.

It was actually quite exciting to see a lost and forgotten station by the general public and get to actually see it.I have herd about it and knew it’s existence, but I never knew I would actually see it. While I may not have walked around the platform of the abandoned subway station, I was lucky enough to actually get an excellent view of the station since I was in the front car of the train.

I am so used of the train departing Yonge Station, to Bay Station. You can see and hear the train passing over the track switches that leads to another tunnel and goes downward to lower Bay. But this time, The signal lights displayed a double yellow notifying the driver of an upcoming switch and the train passes over those switches with a lurch to the left. The train is about to enter the tunnel that leads to lower Bay Station.

As the train entered the station, it slowed down and cheeped along the abandoned station. I pulled out my iPhone and took pictures of the remains of lower Bay. I do apologize they all seem burly and crappy. Apparently, it’s not good taking dark pictures. But here they are!

After a quick 20 or so seconds, the train passes the station and now goes into the tunnel that leads to Museum Station.

While the station was hardly used and abandoned by the general public since the 1960s, The TTC has found other uses for it. It’s primary use is for new train driver training and moving trains between both lines. It’s secondary use is for film and television requiring scenes of a subway station

Lower Bay Station has been featured in such films as; Johnny Mnemonic (Crappy film by the way), Bulletproof Monk, Mimic, and Don’t Say a Word. The Station was actually converted to look like a typical New York city station for that film. The station is also used for filming TV commercials and Music videos.

Until recently, The TTC has started to give the general public the opportunity to visit the station on special events like Nuit Blanche.

All in all, I think it was pretty cool to pass through the station and see what very few in the city has seen. If anything, it looks like Bay Station that is more or less run down. The platform seems to be used for storage and some parts of the station still has it’s Bay station signs on it.

One fun thing about the internet is that you get to see weird and random stuff all the time on it. This would be a endless blog post if I where to list every single random or weird things I find on the internet. One notable thing thats currently gaining my attention on the internet is what appears to be some live physic call in show coming out of Ireland.

From my understanding, the show has been airing for a little more than two months now by the Irish TV3 network during the wee hours of the morning. So called, “professional psychics” are live on the show encouraging viewers to call in and take a physic readings to questions relating to there life. Calls cost 2.44 Euros per minute and the show also lists a bunch of other psychics you can talk to who are supposedly back stage ready to take your calls. When a caller calls in, the caller is then put on live with the physic and the physic does a live reading.

Various video clips of the show gets posted on Youtube. Some of them are quite funny to watch as most psychics on the show deals with callers who mostly intend to troll them or expose that the psychics are phoney. Youtube channel; spookwoman, has quite a large collection of video clips recorded from the show.

It’s a kind of show I wish was available here. A show thats nothing more than a circus of callers calling in to make the physic look like fools and those who actually believe in the psychics are the fools by calling in and taking there advice. If there is ever a night I can’t sleep, I just turn on the television and hope to get a few laughs in before I attempt to go back to sleep. If I feel like wasting money, just call in an Troll the psychics.

First references of this Irish Physic show started to appeared in mid June. On what was perhaps the first episode of this call in show, A Psychic by the name of Wayne gets a caller who pretty much describes the story of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Wayne doesn’t appear to get on with the story and goes ahead and preforms the reading. It wasn’t tell the end of the call when Wayne realizes whats going on and then tries to play along well realizing what a fool he just made him self look.

One of the most popular and most colourful psychics on the show is someone by the name of Physic Flathan. I seem to really have a hard time figuring out the sex (or preferred sexual preference) of Physic Flathan. All I know is that Flathan has a hilarious personality with a German accent from Switzerland. Flathan also seems to be most popular with the Trolls who call in. One of the biggest annoyances clearly expressed by Flathan on the show is when people call in and don’t turn down the volume on there televisions. Because of that, there is a delay between what the caller hears from there phone vs the delay being played out on the TV.

After doing some digging, I found out a bit of interesting things that questions the legitimacy of the show. First of all, at all times a display on the show states that it is an ENTERTAINMENT SERVICE. That alone should tell viewers that any advice given on the show should not be taken seriously. Also, some resourceful Irish folks on the internet found out that the list of back stage psychics most likely aren’t real at all. They looked at the pictures of the listed back stage psychics and managed to track down there original sources from a stock photo service such as iStockphoto where people can buy pictures and use it for media. It is really quite hilarious that people manage to find out these things.

Another interesting thing about this show is the fact that TV3 isn’t producing the show. A 3rd party company in Budapest Hungary called; Telemedia InteracTV actually produces and broadcasts the show from Budapest and sends the signal to the Irish broadcaster to distribute it. These are actually the same guys who are in charge of those cheap call in late night game shows you may see on TV through out the world where the host encourages you to solve a question or game and win some money. They Apparently higher people from all over the world to come to Hungary to do these game shows for there countries. Now they do the same for psychics.

If there is one thing that say it all about the true legitimacy of the show, watch this video where Flathan goes on to explain that the show only employs true psychics. The studio staff ends up laughing in the background.