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The people who are fixing the brickwork on the building next door are now working right opposite our kitchen window. It's possible I could have stayed asleep through this, but I couldn't get back to sleep after getting up, even briefly. (I thought about closing the windows and going back into the air conditioned bedroom, but the cross-ventilation is already poor.)
The people who are fixing the brickwork on the building next door are now working right opposite our kitchen window. It's possible I could have stayed asleep through this, but I couldn't get back to sleep after getting up, even briefly. (I thought about closing the windows and going back into the air conditioned bedroom, but the cross-ventilation is already poor.)
I flew from Montreal to New York yesterday. Montreal's airport [Dorval for many years, now officially Trudeau, still and forever YUL] is set up so travelers to the U.S. clear U.S. customs and immigration at the Canadian end. After doing so, and going through security, you're in a long corridor with fifteen or so gates, a couple of shops, and three restaurants (counting the Starbucks). We went to the newsstand, figuring we'd get some chewing gum, and a bottle of water to drink while we waited to board the plane (since the current round of "we'll scare and annoy you so the terrorists don't have to" means we couldn't carry it on board).
The woman behind the counter explained that even though they had a cooler full of juice, soda, and bottled water, she couldn't sell it to us, because she was out of cups, and they weren't letting her sell drinks in bottles, she had to pour them into cups for the customers. Airport newsstands don't normally pour drinks of any sort, so they don't stock cups. Another customer had just returned from asking Starbucks for a cup, and she poured most of his bottle of water into the cup, and he drank the rest before walking out of the newsstand. (I don't know if Starbucks charged him for the cup.)
The woman, who thought even less of this idea than we did, told us to complain to our government—she said this was the U.S. government being annoying, not the Canadian.
Now, there's no sane reason to say "we're going to search everything coming past the gates, but you still can't take the pre-inspected bottle of water onto the plane," but even if I stipulate that they're concerned about someone subverting the search procedure, if an airline terminal is in danger from a bottle of water in a random passenger's hands, it's not going to be safe from the same water and same passenger in a cup, let alone from that passenger carrying a cup of coffee that, as the cup notifies us, is hot enough to be potentially dangerous.
The woman behind the counter explained that even though they had a cooler full of juice, soda, and bottled water, she couldn't sell it to us, because she was out of cups, and they weren't letting her sell drinks in bottles, she had to pour them into cups for the customers. Airport newsstands don't normally pour drinks of any sort, so they don't stock cups. Another customer had just returned from asking Starbucks for a cup, and she poured most of his bottle of water into the cup, and he drank the rest before walking out of the newsstand. (I don't know if Starbucks charged him for the cup.)
The woman, who thought even less of this idea than we did, told us to complain to our government—she said this was the U.S. government being annoying, not the Canadian.
Now, there's no sane reason to say "we're going to search everything coming past the gates, but you still can't take the pre-inspected bottle of water onto the plane," but even if I stipulate that they're concerned about someone subverting the search procedure, if an airline terminal is in danger from a bottle of water in a random passenger's hands, it's not going to be safe from the same water and same passenger in a cup, let alone from that passenger carrying a cup of coffee that, as the cup notifies us, is hot enough to be potentially dangerous.
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I flew from Montreal to New York yesterday. Montreal's airport [Dorval for many years, now officially Trudeau, still and forever YUL] is set up so travelers to the U.S. clear U.S. customs and immigration at the Canadian end. After doing so, and going through security, you're in a long corridor with fifteen or so gates, a couple of shops, and three restaurants (counting the Starbucks). We went to the newsstand, figuring we'd get some chewing gum, and a bottle of water to drink while we waited to board the plane (since the current round of "we'll scare and annoy you so the terrorists don't have to" means we couldn't carry it on board).
The woman behind the counter explained that even though they had a cooler full of juice, soda, and bottled water, she couldn't sell it to us, because she was out of cups, and they weren't letting her sell drinks in bottles, she had to pour them into cups for the customers. Airport newsstands don't normally pour drinks of any sort, so they don't stock cups. Another customer had just returned from asking Starbucks for a cup, and she poured most of his bottle of water into the cup, and he drank the rest before walking out of the newsstand. (I don't know if Starbucks charged him for the cup.)
The woman, who thought even less of this idea than we did, told us to complain to our government—she said this was the U.S. government being annoying, not the Canadian.
Now, there's no sane reason to say "we're going to search everything coming past the gates, but you still can't take the pre-inspected bottle of water onto the plane," but even if I stipulate that they're concerned about someone subverting the search procedure, if an airline terminal is in danger from a bottle of water in a random passenger's hands, it's not going to be safe from the same water and same passenger in a cup, let alone from that passenger carrying a cup of coffee that, as the cup notifies us, is hot enough to be potentially dangerous.
The woman behind the counter explained that even though they had a cooler full of juice, soda, and bottled water, she couldn't sell it to us, because she was out of cups, and they weren't letting her sell drinks in bottles, she had to pour them into cups for the customers. Airport newsstands don't normally pour drinks of any sort, so they don't stock cups. Another customer had just returned from asking Starbucks for a cup, and she poured most of his bottle of water into the cup, and he drank the rest before walking out of the newsstand. (I don't know if Starbucks charged him for the cup.)
The woman, who thought even less of this idea than we did, told us to complain to our government—she said this was the U.S. government being annoying, not the Canadian.
Now, there's no sane reason to say "we're going to search everything coming past the gates, but you still can't take the pre-inspected bottle of water onto the plane," but even if I stipulate that they're concerned about someone subverting the search procedure, if an airline terminal is in danger from a bottle of water in a random passenger's hands, it's not going to be safe from the same water and same passenger in a cup, let alone from that passenger carrying a cup of coffee that, as the cup notifies us, is hot enough to be potentially dangerous.
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The Farthing Party was a small convention (four dozen people), connected to the publication of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersky's most recent novel: people talked about books, and about the rest of the world, and ate lots of good food (she lives in Montreal, which helps). The people who were there were friends who she invited specifically; people who read her LJ; and I think a few people who came with people in one of those groups.
( socializing, in various shapes )
( programming, pottery, and languages )
( pottery, languages, hearing )
( food )
papersky's most recent novel: people talked about books, and about the rest of the world, and ate lots of good food (she lives in Montreal, which helps). The people who were there were friends who she invited specifically; people who read her LJ; and I think a few people who came with people in one of those groups.( socializing, in various shapes )
( programming, pottery, and languages )
( pottery, languages, hearing )
( food )
Tags:
The Farthing Party was a small convention (four dozen people), connected to the publication of papersky's most recent novel: people talked about books, and about the rest of the world, and ate lots of good food (she lives in Montreal, which helps). The people who were there were friends who she invited specifically; people who read her LJ; and I think a few people who came with people in one of those groups.
( socializing, in various shapes )
( programming, pottery, and languages )
( pottery, languages, hearing )
( food )
papersky's most recent novel: people talked about books, and about the rest of the world, and ate lots of good food (she lives in Montreal, which helps). The people who were there were friends who she invited specifically; people who read her LJ; and I think a few people who came with people in one of those groups.( socializing, in various shapes )
( programming, pottery, and languages )
( pottery, languages, hearing )
( food )
Tags:
For the last couple of years, I've had a Virgin Mobile prepaid phone. I use my mobile seldom enough that this makes sense for me: this way the minimum expense is $20/90 days, and I'm probably averaging about twice that.
The phone needs replacing (it's old, the 7 key doesn't work well, and one of the built-in function keys is also getting less and less sensitive). As far as I can tell, my options are to get another Virgin phone; switch to T-Mobile, in which case I'd still need to buy a new phone; or look for a relatively inexpensive contract, rather than one that will cost me lots of money for zillions of minutes I won't use.
The main problem with Virgin is that the Sprint network doesn't give me a good signal at home, and no matter how often I tell people to try the landline first, sometimes I miss calls because they don't. The secondary problem is that it's a US-only network, but T-Mobile would charge me fairly high for calls in Canada, so I I wouldn't use it much, if at all, while up there (which is only a couple of weeks a year anyhow).
T-Mobile claims decent signal strength to my apartment, though less once I get into Inwood Hill Park, but I have no idea of whether that's true. Since I'm between two ridges, one of them a city park, with a river and then a cliff to the north, I suspect nobody has really good signal here.
If you've had really good, or really bad (or really weird) experience with T-Mobile, or have opinions for or against the phones Sprint or T-Mobile is currently offering for prepaid, please pass them along. Ditto if you like your mobile phone company and they have a contract that seems to suit my needs.
The phone needs replacing (it's old, the 7 key doesn't work well, and one of the built-in function keys is also getting less and less sensitive). As far as I can tell, my options are to get another Virgin phone; switch to T-Mobile, in which case I'd still need to buy a new phone; or look for a relatively inexpensive contract, rather than one that will cost me lots of money for zillions of minutes I won't use.
The main problem with Virgin is that the Sprint network doesn't give me a good signal at home, and no matter how often I tell people to try the landline first, sometimes I miss calls because they don't. The secondary problem is that it's a US-only network, but T-Mobile would charge me fairly high for calls in Canada, so I I wouldn't use it much, if at all, while up there (which is only a couple of weeks a year anyhow).
T-Mobile claims decent signal strength to my apartment, though less once I get into Inwood Hill Park, but I have no idea of whether that's true. Since I'm between two ridges, one of them a city park, with a river and then a cliff to the north, I suspect nobody has really good signal here.
If you've had really good, or really bad (or really weird) experience with T-Mobile, or have opinions for or against the phones Sprint or T-Mobile is currently offering for prepaid, please pass them along. Ditto if you like your mobile phone company and they have a contract that seems to suit my needs.
For the last couple of years, I've had a Virgin Mobile prepaid phone. I use my mobile seldom enough that this makes sense for me: this way the minimum expense is $20/90 days, and I'm probably averaging about twice that.
The phone needs replacing (it's old, the 7 key doesn't work well, and one of the built-in function keys is also getting less and less sensitive). As far as I can tell, my options are to get another Virgin phone; switch to T-Mobile, in which case I'd still need to buy a new phone; or look for a relatively inexpensive contract, rather than one that will cost me lots of money for zillions of minutes I won't use.
The main problem with Virgin is that the Sprint network doesn't give me a good signal at home, and no matter how often I tell people to try the landline first, sometimes I miss calls because they don't. The secondary problem is that it's a US-only network, but T-Mobile would charge me fairly high for calls in Canada, so I I wouldn't use it much, if at all, while up there (which is only a couple of weeks a year anyhow).
T-Mobile claims decent signal strength to my apartment, though less once I get into Inwood Hill Park, but I have no idea of whether that's true. Since I'm between two ridges, one of them a city park, with a river and then a cliff to the north, I suspect nobody has really good signal here.
If you've had really good, or really bad (or really weird) experience with T-Mobile, or have opinions for or against the phones Sprint or T-Mobile is currently offering for prepaid, please pass them along. Ditto if you like your mobile phone company and they have a contract that seems to suit my needs.
The phone needs replacing (it's old, the 7 key doesn't work well, and one of the built-in function keys is also getting less and less sensitive). As far as I can tell, my options are to get another Virgin phone; switch to T-Mobile, in which case I'd still need to buy a new phone; or look for a relatively inexpensive contract, rather than one that will cost me lots of money for zillions of minutes I won't use.
The main problem with Virgin is that the Sprint network doesn't give me a good signal at home, and no matter how often I tell people to try the landline first, sometimes I miss calls because they don't. The secondary problem is that it's a US-only network, but T-Mobile would charge me fairly high for calls in Canada, so I I wouldn't use it much, if at all, while up there (which is only a couple of weeks a year anyhow).
T-Mobile claims decent signal strength to my apartment, though less once I get into Inwood Hill Park, but I have no idea of whether that's true. Since I'm between two ridges, one of them a city park, with a river and then a cliff to the north, I suspect nobody has really good signal here.
If you've had really good, or really bad (or really weird) experience with T-Mobile, or have opinions for or against the phones Sprint or T-Mobile is currently offering for prepaid, please pass them along. Ditto if you like your mobile phone company and they have a contract that seems to suit my needs.
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