Probably about the next two hours were spent training BBEdit to do text replacements the way that I want it to. And it agreed very nicely. And then made me a very nice latte with lots of foam. And rubbed my feet. Holy crap is it nice using software designed to be user-friendly and powerful. I do believe this trial period will end with me paying for a BBEdit License. Unless someone knows of a comparable Mac text editor with FTP capabilities and the ability to totally hack the keyboard shortcuts…

And the last hour was spent doing actual work. Yay.

I do feel like I’m working with about one arm, two fingers, and about 1/3 of my regular brain capacity. I NEED MY INTERNET! Damn damn damn damn damn… I’m crawling out of my skin up here… I can make it though. Landing in Calgary in about half an hour and then I have almost three ours in which to find a clean vein and shoot up some pure grade INTAWEB straight to my central nervous system.

Whoops. Seats up in the full upright and locked position. Gotta go…

…

Awwww CRAP.

Stupid Telus. Stupid stupid Telus.

I’m in Calgary and I have no internet.

I was willing to pay for internet access. I was ready to pay through my freaking NOSE.

But NOOOOoooOOOOoooo… Telus Hotspot Service is “temporarily unavailable”. Phaw. Telus service is a big dodohead an he likes to eat stinky poos. Really stinky poos. Like, when my sisterwhoeatspoofor two eats poo, the poos that come out of her. Poo MADE from poo. That stinky.

Crap.

Oh well. At least I get to recharge.

And drink coffee. Mmmmm… coffee.

…

Later. Still Calgary. (The Rockies! In the distance. Hi, Mountains!)

Telus is up now.

At $10.00 a freaking hour.

Considering that my flight is boarding in 2 minutes… my nose is less willing to be a conduit of payment than it was previously. So, I must wait until Vancouver to pay through the nose.

What is with the whole paying for Wifi in airports? Is it really that expensive for them? Is gouging us really that fun? (“Whee! Let us sing the Gouging Song! Gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge goooooooooooooge… GOUGE! GOUGE! GOUGE! Lovely. Good job everyone. Gerald, a little less vibrato next time, thank you very much. This is a fight song, not The Barber of Seville. Don’t look at me like that, Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. Please don’t cry. Oh, Gerald.”) Just imagine how much happier people in airports could be if they didn’t have bullcrap Wifi fees rammed sideways up their poopchutes.

…

Heh. “Poopchutes”.

…

That’s it. I’m watching Battlestar Galactica on this leg of my journey. I can work later.

…

Well… it seems that Banana can’t suck up the juice too fast. I’ve got about 15 more minutes of juice until I can charge her up in Vancouver. Thus concludes my BSG watching extravaganza. Oh well,

One awesome thing: MOUNTAINS! MOUNTAINS! MOUNTAINS!

Please join me in a rousing chorus of “Woot!”

After gazing slack-jawed for a couple of minutes, I did have the presence of mind to grab my camera to take a picture of the Rockies from above… just as we hit the cloud cover. So. Sorry No photo.

I’m signing off again. For a bit. I got me some podcasts to listen too.

Getting hungry too. Mrph.

…

Vancouver. Fog. Cloud cover. No view. Expensive internet. Should I pay for it?… Nope. The end of the road is near. I’ll log in at the hotel.

…

Review: Harvey’s hamburgers suck.

…

Landed in Prince George. I’m in the complimentary shuttle that the conference has set up, waiting for the slowpokes to get their luggage stowed. It’s 4:40 local time. My body thinks it is 8:40. Supper is gonna be weird.

I want to get in my room. And eat. AND GET ONLINE. YAAARGH.

Nice side effect of the new keyboard — it making me unlearn my pounding keyboarding habits. Maybe I won’t wake up the neighbours anymore.

(Nice Banana. I love my Banana. I would never hurt my Banana.)

…

I’M HERE! I’M HERE! I’M HERE!

Especially if by “here” you are referring to the middle of nowhere.

And for the one person from Prince George that reads this in two years doing a search for “free banana poopchutes in Prince George”, I’m not saying that Prince George is in the middle of nowhere.

My hotel is in the middle of nowhere.

There’s a gas station across the street. And a Chinese restaurant. About half a mile down there are a few tractor dealerships.

Oh, and the hotel has a casino.

As I have on occasion offered to win a bear for My Lovely Wife at the fair and left having spent over $40.00… this could be a bad thing.

Whatever the case… I need sustenance. I’m signing out for now. Will report more later.

…

One more note. I tried to take a picture of the view from my hotel room, but my camera turned itself off in protest. Sorry. The view really is that boring.

Let’s be very quiet. My Lovely Wife, totally doped up on cough syrup, is 3 feet away from me snoring gently. She needs her rest. She’s go the flu and so we all have to be very nice to her. So let’s be very quiet.

Have I mentioned that I LUUURVE my new computer. To quote Stacy — (ahem) — “IT IS TEH R0X0R!!!!!!111111111″ It’s fast and pretty and shiny and I’m lounging on the couch in the dark and it’s on my lap and the keys are all glowy and I’m working in Firefox on OS X while in the background Windows XP is updating in Parallels. That’s two operating systems running! At the same time! Did I mention that it is shiny? Really shiny! Unostentatiously shiny!

And did I mention that My Lovely Wife did not express one single tiny reservation about my purchase of my new computer? She did not. She agreed that I needed it and that anything that can help me in my work is a good thing.

But she did get a very important responsibility.

It was her job to name it.

So what did My Lovely Wife name my new Apple MacBook Pro?

“Banana”.

It’s sorta perfect.

…

The one dark spot? I do believe our the Large One and the Small One are developing a deep abiding hatred of Banana.

You see… it takes up a certain very valuable piece of real estate.

Dad lap.

I am being very careful to keep them away from Banana.

‘Cause they are two mean vengeful bastards.

I expect to wake up one morning with Banana’s LCD screen waiting for me under our bedsheet.

[Shudder.]

[Runs around room in blind panic, until a random gust of air bows hair off of the screen.]

Oh.

Sorry. Still a little touchy.

Where was I?

[Pause.]

It was important, wasn’t it?

[Another pause.]

Damn. I hate it when I do that.

I’m spouting off some truly remarkable thoughts, real earth-shattering crap, and then I freaking lose my train of thought.

[Oh sweet Jesus even one more pause.]

Oh well. At least you learned a little bit of earth-shattering crap.

Whatever it was.

Never mind. I’ll make it up to you.

Go have some pie. You deserve it.

This is gonna take a little getting used to.

This is my first post from my brand new MacBook Pro.

The one thing they don’t advertise in the Apple ads?

That feeling that you might throw up after shelling out that much cash.

Urp.

As of right now, I have no idea how to do anything on this thing.

And yet I have installed two programs and taken three pictures.

I’m in for some interesting adventures.

If any of y’all are Mac users and have beautiful tips and tricks for me, shout em out, baby.

I am puttty in your hands .

[Drinks the Kool-Aid.]

For Christmas, Jason’s Dad bestowed upon his firstborn son boxed sets of the 1st and 2nd seasons of Battlestar Galactica. (Well, actually the 1st season and season 2.0… but I went out and got season 2.5 three days after Christmas. Yay me.)

I had been told it would rock. I was fully expecting it to rock. And guess what?

IT FRAKKING ROCKS!

(My Lovely Wife has also tasted of the Kool-Aid. Her standard reply when I ask if she wants to watch another episode? “I need to know what happens to my Starbuck!”)

But this post is not about how much BSG frakking rocks. Oh no.

At the moment, My Lovely Wife and I have 6 episodes left of the second season to watch and find ourselves at a critical juncture. Currently, one half of the 3rd season has aired on television and the second half of the 3rd season will start on January 21.

We need to see the first half of the season before the 21st so we can actually start to watch the show along with the rest of the world and I can stop reading the interweb without a constant ulcerating fear of BSG spoilers around every corner. EVEN ON MY OWN SITE. (Ugh.)

So, credit card in hand, I boogied over to iTunes to download season 3.

There I made an very interesting discovery.

Seeing as I reside in Canada, it seems I am not allowed to download from the U.S. iTunes Store. I can look at it all I want, nose pressed up against the plate-glass window. I’m just not allowed to give them my money and get a product from them in return. I guess they’re all scared of my Canadian cooties and run away like little crying babies. (No slight intended toward actual babies. Please don’t kill me, mommy bloggers.)

Instead, I am redirected to the Canadian iTunes Store.

WHICH! DOESN’T! HAVE! TELEVISION! SHOWS!

AUGH!

AUGH!

AUGH!

…

Boy.

I just wonder what I’m going to do now?

[Sound of dripping.]

Please excuse that viscous liquid pooling under your monitor. It’s just sarcasm. It’s biodegradable and should harmlessly evaporate.

It’s also nice on toast.