grinthock.com – A World Of Opinionation

Food – Yangs Teppanyaki & Sushi

Posted on February 22nd, 2009 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of Good Eats, Department of rant services..

Since I tried Teppan cooking table type food awhile ago at Yamato (and reviewed it) I decided to start checking out other places.  Prince Japanese is another one on the list worth checking out.

At the recommendation of a friend, I decided to check out Yangs Teppanyaki & Sushi at 3255 Rutherford Rd near Vaughan Mills Mall in Toronto.  The Sushi was good, the teppan was average and the background music was annoying.  Here are some bullets…

Like:

* Sushi…  It was amazing, top notch.  Some of the best I have had.

* Miso Soup and Salad were also quite good.

Don’t Like:

* The entire Teppan experience, the food wasn’t good, Chicken and Salmon and Filet.   Chicken was rubbery, Beef was tender but not flavourful, the Salmon was ok.

* The fried rice was ok, definatly better than Beni Hana, but not as good as Yamoto.

If you want Sushi, this is probably a good place, but for Teppan, you can do better, so avoid the “cooking table”

Comments Off

PC Wild Pacific Salmon Mini Wellingtons – Amazing implementation, horrible product.

Posted on January 15th, 2009 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of horrible food, Department of rant services..

So recently I saw an add for this product, PC Wild Pacific Salmon Mini Wellington     looked like a novel idea.

I am not a “frozen food” lover by any means.  They are mostly a convienence product, sometimes you just want a hot snack or something, and heat and serve sounds like a good idea.   Most of these pastry based products come out either dry, flat or soggy.   This is a perfect example of a product implemented perfectly but just didn’t come togeather in the end.  The strong lemon flavor is overwhelming in the product and leaves quite the strong aftertaste.   The salmon in the product tastes like canned generic salmon and doesn’t taste anything like the salmon found in the freshly made product and as a result leaves something to be desired.

Strangely enough the pastry itself was nice and crispy, not soggy and came out surprisingly well, unfortunatly the filling didn’t meet the products promise.

The product get’s a thumbs down from us.  Why are we reviewing some random product like this?   This is the world of opinionation, we have opinions about everything.

0 comments.

Movie Distributors and Retailers Conning Consumers into purchasing “useless” Blu-Ray movies.

Posted on January 9th, 2009 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of Film, Department of rant services., Toy Box, What's Up Department.

Recently I had a conversation with an assocaite about HDTV’s, he was telling me about his “120hz 1080p 14bgillion:1 contrast ratio hunger saving” HDTV that he purchased over boxing week.

While this was all fine and good, he also mentioned that he purchased a blu-ray player and has picked up a bunch of movie – one of which was “TOP GUN”, and he mentioned how “GREAT” it looked on his TV and how amazing TOP GUN was in 1080p.

He mentioned in the store the sales person was  telling him how “35MM Movies shot in the 80’s are already higher def, they just needed a better distribution format”.    Upon asking others, many have been told the same.  This is clearly deceptive, not to mention they are taking advantage of highly technical issues related to the product to trick the consumer knowing full well they can’t understand this stuff.

When visiting the  store recently I walked over to look at these movies – nowhere on any movie does it say what the SOURCE was, it does not mention that the movie is an upconvert, re-capture, re-digitization.  I know for a fact the movie was not shot in 1080p digital – or in any format that can provide that level of detail – yet the box clearly said the movie was in 1080p resolution.  Well i’m sorry but that a deceptive practice – sure it’s in 1080p resolution – but at the end of the day this would be no better than an upconverting DVD player in my opinion – i’ve seen both, side by side.

Bottom line – the amount of 1080p ACTUAL content out there is limited – purchasing a blu-ray player and movies right now might be a little pre-mature – even now – the content STILL isn’t there yet.   You are better off with a good quality upconverting DVD player for the time being – wait till the blu-ray’s hit $50 a walmart.

Here is a 720p capture from TopGun,  film grain clearly visible.  This is not digital compression noise, tiling or pixelation – the pixels are intact – this is film grain.

0 comments.

Canadian Kid on website makes us all look like idiots.

Posted on January 4th, 2009 by grinthock.
Categories: Blogroll, Canadiana, Department of rant services., Toy Box.

Engadget has posted this story about a kid who went nuts when he got a Wii.  Not sure why it’s important that he’s Canadian and i’m pretty sure that they say it for no other reason than to make us look like idiots (again)

Why are Canadians constantly portrayed at weak moronic people?     It’s getting old.

0 comments.

Airport Laptop Power Still Not Abundant…

Posted on December 23rd, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Air Travel, Department of rant services..

So recently on a trip to Calgary, I was stuck (today infact) in the airport for several hours – over 5 to be exact.  Even with the new battery in my IBM laptop, and power saving turned on, there is simply no way I could possibly run for 5 hours (and then on the aircraft for 3 hours).   I started searching for the life juice that is AC power for my laptop.

Sure these airports have power, but they tend to be near signage, near equipment, nowhere near a seating area.     I did find a few people  plopped either on the floor, or in corridors utilizing the power outlets.     This isn’t a familiar sight in many airport.

However these types of activities are short lived, a search will show you many have been told (this writer included) to “unplug” from power plugs due to various reasons “Fire hazzard” is ususally the excuse used, the LiON battery pack is probably more of a fire hazzard than my lenovo power adapter.

So after wandering for 30 minutes, I found a plug, in a wall, behind a row of chairs, plugged in and I was good to go, for now, however then I had to get through security and near my gate.  In that area I found 4 of these…  Not actual photo, you get the idea, but there were 4 of them available for over 40 gates and with thousands of people here during the holidays, getting one was wishful thinking – but I did.

All over the airport here (which for the record is Calgary YYC), there are the following signs…

First — the internet was pretty slow, 500K Up and Down, no matter what I did, it’s also trasparently proxied with various sites being filtered (although TOR project does work to get you around it).   Second — what’s the point of Wifi in an airport, without power!   Nobody wants to board an aircraft with a dead laptop,  people need to charge cell phones, and various devices such as this.  I am sure at the prices they charge they can afford it, so let’s look at it.

Making an assumption that 5,000 people per day, utilize power for 4 hours each, on a laptop that uses a 100W supply (most are 75-90 max), it would cost the airport $6402 per month (assuming a 10.67 cents / KW hour and tax)

That’s nothing!  I hardly beleive 5,000 per day, 4 hrs each and 100W is even realistic, it must be way out to lunch as well.

Bottom line is, the costs are so low, it’s crazy, i’d be willing to drop a twoonie (that’s a 2 dollar coin for non canadians) into a slot to get 4 hours of power, even if that $2 is worth way more than that!

Many airport have added power, but it’s far from enough, there is a nice Wiki where people are adding info the “Air Power Wiki”      this resource is growing, and I would recommend bookmarking it on your mobile device so you can look up info while at the airport.

Good luck and stay safe, and don’t forget to leave those gel’s liquids and aerosol’s behind, because 3oz of gel’s couldn’t possibly be a security risk.

0 comments.

Where did the innovation go at RIM?

Posted on August 17th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of WTF, Department of rant services., RIM.

Many of my friends got “RIM Jobs” back in the 90’s.  I even remember one of them showing up at my place with this little black box…  He said it was the “Blackberry” something that you couldn’t even get yet.  It was the internet in your pocket, email and basic web.

It was a cold winter when I first visited the RIM campus, and saw the “Blackberry 950″ pictured above, it was small, pager sized, but innovative.

Specifically when we talk about innovation

- Mobitex Radio built in

- Small Form Factor

- Innovative Power Management

- Almost impossible to destroy

- Back end technology that made push email ACTUALLY WORK.

This device ran for up to 3 weeks on a single AA battery.  Yes, that’s right – 1 single 2500MAH battery would run this device for an entire week.   Part of this magic came from the innovative charging system.  The AA actually charged an onboard lithium battery, and then the handheld ran off the lithium battery in order to provide the 3V required for the unit, and a stable power supply.

Power management was something RIM spent significant time developing, they wanted a device that was reliable and ran for a long time on a standard battery.  Significant feat when you consider the device contained an 800mhz Mobitex cellular modem inside, 386 CPU, screen and ram.

One of the first handhelds of it’s time, again looking at power management a magnetic read switch turns off the display a soon as it hits the holster, a feature found in all of the RIM handhelds even today.

Form factor was key, we have all heard about the RIM vs Handspring lawsuit related to “a hand-held electronic device with a keyboard optimised for use with the thumbs.” an innovative keyboard design that worked well, provided tactile feedback, was compact but still useable, even by someone with large hands.  The form factor was the best part, to this day I wish my handheld was that small again,  give me something 950 sized, full screen, and have it split it two with a slide out keyboard.

Eventually the 957 (above) was launched, and while everyone wanted the big screen, people like myself stayed with the 950, the size was simply better, many people said they wanted the smaller size .

The 7250 (and others in the same formfactor) became quite popular, with those who longed for a device that wouldn’t cut into your side when you sat down, but still significantly larger than the Blackberry 950.  Sure these are now telephones, but the 950 formfactor could have been saved.

I think if you go back and look at some of the innovative cool things the Blackberry 950 was, you will notice some of the new ones are simply not.

This photo (above) recently posted at engadget outlined someone who apparently dropped the new blackberry “BOLD” and as you can see cracked the device.    Yet another innovation from RIM down the toilet, this is far cry from the “flying” blackberry 950 that i’ve seen fall 6 ft onto concrete, bounce 3 times down a flight of stairs, and not even have a scratch.  They knew that they had to put a bezel on the device that stopped the screen from hitting the ground,weigh the device so it lands a certain way, when it falls it lands on a certain side.

New devices are horrible, I have the “Blackberry Curve” (pictured below)

While I like this handheld, I fear it will die the same death as many of my previous blackberries, one drop and it’s time for a new device.  So I have purchased an OtterBox Defender for the Curve..

With the case above, I think my curve is closer to as durable as my Blackberry 950, but  still not there.  The size of the 950 simply won’t allow that, especially with that massive huge screen that isn’t bezelled.  I like the Otterbox, and if you end up at this article during a google search, YES, the Otterbox is great, I have one for iPhone, and the Curve, and a dozen of my friends have OtterBox’s for their Curve – we all love it and have nothing bad to say.

So what’s wrong RIM?  Batteries that don’t last, devices that hardly last a day, no durability, where’s the innovation?  It’s time to get back to your roots and build us something NEW, INNOVATIVE and GREAT.  Give me the feeling I had when I saw the 950 again, oh and Bold and the upcoming Thunder, sorry, but that’s not good enough.

Rim brought us push email in the 90’s, and that same technology is STILL in use today, and still works.   ActiveSync does not even come close to as reliable, fast and clean as the Blackberry email push system, which integrates with each step of the network.

Until something cool comes along — I’ll be here waiting…

0 comments.

Apple removes FIREWIRE charging support from iPod 3G – Breaks accessories.

Posted on July 23rd, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, Department of rant services., iPhone.

Here we go again…

In a previous entry I had written about how the new iPhone 3G does not charge with existing accessories.  This includes the very expensive BOSE systems, the Apple HiFi system, and many incar systems made by various manufacturer’s one of which being the DiCE electronics unit I have.

So why is this?

Yep that’s right, back to the firewire days.   Apparently many of these charging devices still use the older and depriciated “FIREWIRE” pin’s on the 30 pin iPod connector to charge the phones.   The iPhone and iPod Touch both supported this charging method, and I havn’t seen any REASON in the 3G for them to remove the support, but the bottom line is — they have yanked it.

So Apple now is only supporting power through the USB interface on the device.  Even the iPod Touch which cannot be sync’d via FireWire can still be charged via it.  Personally here I put the blame on 2 people, first, the manufacturers of the devices they should have been supporting the new standard — and infact both USB and Firewire standards to provide both backward and forward compatibility.  This day was inevitable, so why they waited till now, we have no idea.

The bottom line people have hundres of dollars in charging accessories that simply don’t work now, whats the solution?  There isn’t one currently.

What needs to happen is, pins 19 and 20 have 12V, that’s the old firewire method of charging.   That needs to be reduced using some sort of regulator, 7805 or something similar, and then inserted into pins +23 and Ground on 16.

This could be accomplished by a simple Male/Female Apple dock connector with the electronics inside to complete the task, but nobody makes such an animal.  While I’m not electronics GURU, i’m tempted to build something except that stupid Apple proprietary cable is a pain in the ass, i’m not really willing to cut one right now being that they are quite expensive, and i’d need a dock connector as well which means sacrificing a $20 cable and $30 dock.  Ouch.

Bottom line?  This is stupid, Apple never should have done this, even if he had, he should have explained why.   Bullshit, that’s what I say.

0 comments.

The Apple iTouch Shipping Debacle

Posted on October 1st, 2007 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, Department of rant services..

2 Blog posts in 1 DAY!

Well I wrote about the shipping issues associated with my iPod Touch 16GB unit not even a week ago — the story continues!

So while I was away for the weekend I got a “Shipment Notification” from Apple and a tracking number from FedEX saying my iPod had finally shipped on the date they said it would, and was “On it’s way”.   When I got home and was able to investigate to see where the shipment was I found out some news that pissed me off.

China started a holiday called “National Golden Week”  on October 1st, infact it actually started at the end of last week, as of the weekend, pretty much everything in China is shut down for an entire week.  As it appears, Apple tried to get all the orders through customs out of China and onto a FedEX aircraft before weeks end, but AGAIN, they put other people (Who ordered after me AGAIN) on the aircraft FIRST, meaning my iPod is now STUCK in mainland China for an entire WEEK.

This is out of Apple’s hands now, and FedEX is responsible for delivery, as it appears, speaking with FedEX (Who is more than happy to give me all the information) the unit’s themselves have not shipped out of the country to due “Golden Week” and will simply not arrive until MID NEXT WEEK.

Sorry Apple, this is a  national holiday that has existed since 1999, it’s no secret.  They launched a product 1 DAY before a holiday, and you think it wouldn’t affect it?  You did not see this coming?

Bottom line, is this….

1)  They filled orders — OUT of order — people who ordered 2 weeks after myself have their product IN HAND (same make/model/options/engraving/shipping)

2)  They fast tracked my order into “Prepared for shipping” state, knowing full well once it was in that status, I couldn’t cancel and was now STUCK with this order, they kept it IN That state for an entire WEEK holding me and my money hostage, unable to go into an Apple Store to simply get one off the shelf — discount or not.

3)  Missing the aircraft before a national holiday in China my product is delayed YET ANOTHER 1.5 Weeks from when it was promised.

When you PRE-Order a product that ususally means you are plunking down cash to ensure you are the FIRST to have it, PRE-Order, that’s the meaning — i’m now the LAST person to get it — not the middle, the VERY LAST, stores are FLUSHED with stock at this point.

As a very loyal Apple customer, this makes things very difficult for me to support them as a company, adding to that their recent 1.1.1 update on the iPhone product line causing users phones to be “Bricked” I see this as simply unacceptable.   My next PC at home will probably now be a white box machine, running certain operating systems.

To be totally honest, I hardly even want the iPod Touch now.  Simply because the glam, and fun of having this great new product is infact lost.  I’m no longer interested.

0 comments.

You know what 10-4 means – stop your whining…

Posted on October 1st, 2007 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of radiocommunications., Department of rant services..

This is starting to get completely out of hand, and yes i’m ranting within the first sentence of my blog entry.

Previous weekend I had the chance to do a bit of DX, that’s long distance amateur radio operation, while camping we did some DX with various countries. In one of my DX contacts with the USA this ham gave me shit for saying “10-4″ saying that “10 codes are illegal in amateur radio and he didn’t know what 10-4 meant” that is simply complete B.S.

The law in Canada and as far as I know in the USA simply states that you cannot “Obscure the meaning of the messages” which means you cannot speak in code, or encrypt your conversation (albeit there are arguments there, but we won’t get into it), well in a world where i’m fully allowed to use IMBE / P25 coding over the air, I think using a UNIVERSALLY known 10 Code like 10-4 (which means affirmative in ALL 10-4 standards, including the APCO standard) is more than fine, it’s not “Obscuring the meaning of the message” in anyway.

So to the HAM who decided to complain, (and I have his call sign, and yes I should post it, but that would require effort looking it up in the logbook) you can please screw off. I could say OK, Roger, Affirmative, QSL, 10-4, Yep, Yes, Ya, Ja, mmmmhmmmm, sure, gotcha, or various Morse code versions of the same — you would still know what I meant.

So to all the ham’s pissed because I use 10-4 and perhaps the occasional 20 / 21 please do us all a favor and sell your radio equipment, because all you are doing is pissing off new ham’s, and showing the entire world what a bunch of idiots you are.

0 comments.

Smokers and Smokers attiude…

Posted on September 9th, 2007 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of rant services..

This post by no means condemns smokers as bad people, or the 5% of the smoking population that are considerate to those around you.

If I we are sitting at dinner and I decide to dump a HUGE fart beside you, it’s considered “rude”, or belch loudly. However why exactly is it acceptable within society to Smoke at a table with others? How has this become socially acceptable.

In business Smokers can use Smoking as an excuse to take 6-8 breaks a day, and most people don’t even question it, however I as a non smoker don’t have any viable excuse for a break – if i’m seen surfing facebook, or reading up on my various JeepKings forum posts, i’m seen as slacking because i’ve chosen to take my break at my desk and away from the blue cloud.

At the same time Smokers don’t seem to realize, when you go outside for a smoke, and then return — YOU STINK. Your clothes stink, your breath is worse, and even if i’m 10 ft away — we can all smell it, and it’s sick.

Besides the obvious medical issues caused by smoking like, emphysema, heart disease, lung cancer, mood and anxiety disorders and more not to mention that non smokers were recently found to live 10 years LONGER than smokers.

Parents commonly smoke while pregnant or while in the presence of their children – even in enclosed areas such as automobiles. We want the best for our children, and with the massive effects on children by smoking near children or in an enclosed vehicle any parent who is doing this is acting extremely irresponsibly. This isn’t a matter of 1% chance of damage – it is certain that smoking near children causes harm.

It’s mostly the attitude of smokers towards non-smokers that pisses me off, their blatent disregard for the fact that THEY are the cause and affect of health probems in non-smokers, and that they are dragging others into their nasty and disgusting habit. I don’t appreciate having to walk through a discusting cloud when entering my home or office because you chose to smoke right in front of the door. We need a federal law forbidding smoking within 50 METERS (165 feet) of any public building or office building entrance

For all those smokers who want to quit – bravo, get off your ass and do it. For all those who actually have or are trying, good job, and good luck.

For all those smokers who take their habit outside, AWAY from entrances, and keep it out of my face — you are a good person.

So as I close out yet another article that will probably piss off 50% of the people I know – remember, this is grinthock.com and it’s my world of opinion. We are now recruiting for other BLOG writers, so contact me if you are interested!

0 comments.

Older » Next Page »