Ipads, cars and FAQs

Yeah, I'm not even giving excuses anymore. Let's just move forward with some things, shall we?

1. I forgot to mention that one of the toys I picked up in Florida last month was an iPad 2. It was borderline miraculous I managed to find one, really. I popped in to the Apple store in Tampa and they were polite enough not to laugh at me when I asked. Instead, they pointed out the store opened at 10 and the line-up to get whatever shipment they received that day normally started at 7 am. Which was too stupid for me to seriously consider on vacation.

There was a Best Buy nearby, and they were laughing too when I asked. But on our next to last day there, I popped in at lunchtime on a lark and they had a few just come in. So pure dumb luck.

So how are they? I admit, we picked one up more for travelling than any practical use around town or anything. But the the damndest thing....I really like using it. If we're out watching TV I'll pop in and grab that if I just want to poke online for a few minutes during commercial. I like it a lot. It's a slick little gadget. It's much better than the iPod Touch, which I was kind of disappointed in. The games are fun, the keyboard is pretty easy to use for writing. I downloaded the Kindle app and bought my first ebook (Espediar Street by Iain Banks, which is an old favourite of mine) and I liked the experience of reading it on the iPad.

On the downside, the auto-correct when typing can be a bit annoying and we had one glitch with the iPad not wanting to switch away from the US iTunes store to the Canada one which meant I had to reset it to factory settings.

My laptop is going to be four years old this fall. I was beginning to wonder, in the back of my mind, if I might not need an upgrade this year. Now I'm wondering if I really need a new laptop as long as I have the iPad.

2. As long as we're talking about spending money, we're also in full car-hunting mode right now. I recently test drove a Subaru Forrester, which is a lovely ride. The downside is they do no warranty work in Nunavut. Which means if something goes wrong, we're totally on our own. Which can get pricy in a hurry.

So back to plan b. The only vehicles that get warranty work done in Iqaluit apparently are GMs, Fords and Toyotas. There's a place in town that sells Fords and GMs, so we're now looking at either a Terrain or an Equinox. They're essentially the same vehicle. The main difference is that I like how the Terrain looks and Cathy likes how the Equinox looks. Place your bets on who is going to win that battle of the wills.

It's not ideal, but it's better than going to Ottawa, going through all the hassle of buying it, going through the licensing and taxes and then getting it shipped up and not having anyone to do maintaince work. This way, we can go into Driving Force, tell them what vehicle we want, they'll order it up here and then they'll call us when it arrives on the sealift boat. Much simpler. Probably a little pricier, but you take a certain price hit for not dealing with a ton of hassle.

And yes, I know, GM. I'm aware of the potential downfalls, although both vehicles are well reviewed. But we shall see.

3. And yes, I'll try to get better with the blogging. If nothing else, I need to start gearing up to revamp the FAQ again, which is an annual thing. I've had no less than three people at work tell me they read the FAQ and it helped them decide to move here. That's always good to know.

Last Five
1. Shaking the tree (live) - Peter Gabriel
2. Road trippin' - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
3. I would die for you - Garbage
4. The long way home - Norah Jones
5. Sodium - Ian Foster