Oh, iPhone – if we lived in Canada, I would make you my bride.

I may have found a complicated replacement for Queen Donair; one that doesn’t even involve leaving town or being in Edmonton. It’s a little too soon to be excited – another field test is in order – but there is hope and dinner plans.

I have a headache, and it is full of mega balls. It has also made me dumb.

Here is another picture instead:

Last night, we were all secret agent super spies on a mission and it was AWESOME.

It was like 24 and Sneakers and Hackers all rolled up into one. Josh was Jack Bauer, Ed was Sidney Poiter to my Jeff Goldblum as we hacked the gibson, Miranda was Rosie, Shan was Uhura and we all SAVED THE DAY.

When I got my iPhone 4, I opted to try out MobileMe for the Find My iPhone feature. Because I have so many iDevices, I wanted to be able to track them down in case they get lost or stolen. After the trial period I decided to pay for the yearly subscription, but in order to get the most out of it, I tried to convince the gang that they needed to install the app and allow me to set it up using my MobileMe account. It would be somewhat risky if they didn’t trust me, because the app allows you to not only locate the device anywhere (awkward when having affairs), but also remotely lock or wipe the data completely. I’d never do the latter unless asked, but I saw a good thing in the former – should any of us lose our phones, I or Ed could track it down easily. This would clearly be useful – Shan lost her Blackberry last year on a mountain, and had to buy a new one because there was no way to find it. I swore on a stack of maps (it was all that was handy) that I would not use this power for evil, and we installed the app on several phones to try it out.

Until last night, the only time the app had been used to locate anyone was when Ed wanted to know where I was but knew I was riding and unable to answer a text message.

Then Josh lost his iPhone.

We were all spread out – Josh at home in North Van, Ed at Sparta, the ladies at I at Heather’s house for an evening of terrible TV. When Josh realized his phone was gone, he used Twitter to send out a plea for help, which was intercepted by Ed and Shan. Ed loaded up the app to locate Josh’s phone, and Shan relayed the message to the rest of us. I had doubts that we would be able to help, because I knew that Josh had turned Location Services off to reserve battery strength. Miranda was having none of my negativity though, and insisted we push forward to try to recover Josh’s phone. Using the Find My iPhone app, I sent two messages and sound alerts to the device (which will play regardless of the volume or mute setting), as well as remotely locking it with a passcode just in case. I then sent the device a coded message on how to locate the passcode number, and sent the information to Ed because he was the keeper. Then .. we waited. Josh needed to travel to the location of his phone as read by the app – several blocks from his house – and see if he could find it.

I’ll let him tell the story from this point on:

@coaxial: that was kind of fun, must have fallen out of my pocket taking out trash, grew legs in the form of a skater tween

@coaxial: he was walking down [the road] and it was making the godawful noise, he dropped it and ran :)

@coaxial: the kid was sufficiently scared. I pulled up in the crazy person van, heard the beeping, screeched, he glances/drops/runs

A translation: Josh drove to the location in his Delica and as he slowly drove along, he heard the warning beeps made by the emergency notifications we pushed to the device – which happened to be in the possession of a little skater boi. Josh stopped the van, the kid looked up, dropped the phone, and ran off: Josh got his phone back as it was being carted off by the kid who found it. HOORAY!

We all celebrated and cheered, feeling really pleased with ourselves. I was happy because this was exactly the scenario I had in mind when I suggested that my friends allow me the ability to track their phones, and it worked PERFECTLY (and also because hello we were totally a remote spy team). Those who were not convinced will likely be setting the app up, and our crew can rest assured that we will be able to track their phones down whether they be misplaced or kidnapped by dumpster yeti.

Pleased as PUNCH. Yeah, I’m paying $100/year for this service, but it’s covering tracking 7 iPhones and my iPad – it works out to pennies a device and is totally worth it if I can reunite my crew with their increasingly important communication tools.

There is no part of this that doesn’t make perfect sense to me:

in the next panel there is danger!

So, you’ve likely noticed that I’ve been tinkering with themes lately. This one is a little stark, but I think I’ll keep it – I was able to make things all orange and stuff. I miss my orange boxes, kind of – this is a much cleaner substitute. Plus, my oranges are back. Now I feel proper.

Um, so how’s by you? I really don’t have anything of quality to say. There’s a bunch of little things – I filled out all the paperwork for our cruise, so we’re ready to go on an Adventure even if we end up sleeping on a park bench because I can’t find a hotel in Seattle for the night of the 25th; I’m having a seedy affair with a man in a top hat and he frustrates me nightly; you really ought to follow my App Blog because I’m still posting cool stuff daily; I haven’t seen any of my friends in almost two weeks and I forget what they look like. It’s status quo over here, and I guess that’s okay but it’s times like these that I almost wish someone would ancient Chinese curse me just so I’d have something interesting to deal with.

Oh wait, here’s something. This Saturday will be the 5th anniversary of my dad’s highly suspicious death*, which is weird to think about. I feel like I should be on my knees in the rain yelling up to the heavens, but I’m really not – when I realized the date, my initial reaction was “huh.”. It’s not that I don’t care – I care very much; you all know that – but the grief that kicked me in the balls last year made me realize that if I want a day to celebrate my dad, it’s kind of inappropriate for that day to be the date of his passing. I’d much rather drink a toast to my dad and all his awesomeness on his birthday so I can remember good things; not be soggy with sadness as I remember his last moments. It seems masochistic to celebrate something so sad, y’know? And how long does it go on? Is there a moratorium on yearly grief? Should I be over this, or is it one of those things you never really get over but just learn to live with? So many questions with no firm answers.

I’ll see what Saturday brings, but as of right now, I’m not planning on wallowing in sadness. Dad would have probably told me to stop moping and go outside anyway. I’ll celebrate his life on his birthday; there is nothing comforting about celebrating the unusual circumstances* surrounding someone’s death.

Aww, man. When I read the  headline about the Mafia going green, I was genuinely amused and heartwarmed – I had visions of people being whacked in environmentally friendly ways. Bodies turned to fertilizer for organic gardening; recycled cement shoes. Blood stains washed out of clothing using the cold water cycle only. Waking up next to a horsehead made of tofu. Say hello to my little friend, who runs on wind power. Make him an offer he can’t refuse on energy-efficient lighting. Drive through the Jersey Turnpike in an electric car. You know, a healthy mix of both mob stereotypes and Al Gore. That isn’t at all what the article is about, though – they’re just laundering money through alternative energy companies. Booo! My vision is much cuter than that. I hate it when reality collides with my happy little hilarious world.

This is my first day back at the Lab in almost 2 weeks, and I think I’m ready for another vacation. I had a hard time falling asleep last night because I was actually anxious about returning. It felt like the first day of school all over again – familiar but new at the same time, and kind of scary. It’s not, of course – sure, there were 500 messages in my inbox, but such is the life of being on every damn mailing list in the company: I got to delete 97% of it. Hooray! I have 2 newbies to deal with – actually 1 newbie and two .5 newbies who’ve been away for a while – and two huge projects ahead of me. I like being busy, even if it means being frazzled for the unforeseeable future.

I do have a sneaking suspicion that 1.5 of my newbies – the ones who are sitting in my bubble for the next two months – are read-talkers; people who can’t read stuff without saying it out loud. I might go mad. Just a head’s up.

So busy!

I may never shop at a women’s sex store again.

Um, this update is going to be both TMI and PG-45: reader discretion is advised.

Anyway, ‘nee and I went to a Yelp Elite event at Mis Trucos on Davie Street. It was fun meeting new people and enjoying some fancy times dressed all in white, but it was extremely crowded and warm in there so after an hour we bailed to make room for others – the lure of Davie Street was impossible to resist, even in the rain.

Our first stop was at Priape. I’ve known of Priape for years – as if someone like me wouldn’t know the best place to find an 18″, 20 pound fist-shaped sex toy called a Thunder Stick – but I’d never been inside. Today that changed – and it changed my world.

Sex toys made for gay men are AWESOME! They come in such an interesting array of shapes and colours, NONE of which had faces! I absolutely loathe sex toys with cute anthropomorphic animals on them; something that gay men apparently don’t have to worry about. Also? THE SIZES! Holy crap, where has this place been all my life?

I don’t know why the makers of sex toys for females think that all women are delicate flowers who want slender, dainty dildos in pastel colours – sometimes we want a good hard stuffing; something that a “Flora” just can’t do. Finding a dildo of a decent size (anything over 7″) in a woman-friendly sex shop is impossible and would be prohibitively expensive, if the local prices are any indication ($149.85 for 7″ x 1 3/4″?!). I’ve found a fantastic solution for this epidemic of wimpy sex toys in Priape, though – they sell things in there that strike fear deep in places where no fear – or those toys – should ever be.

And the prices! WHY are men’s toys so much cheaper than women’s?! It’s not FAIR. An 8″ dildo with some serious weight to it (yay!) is $19.95 in Priape; the closest I can find at Vancouver’s favourite store clocks in at $159.85. That isn’t a typo; that’s standard and it’s REALLY UNFAIR. I bought a 9″x a lot dildo for $22.95 at Priape; a price difference as unbelievably large as some of the butt plugs they had on display. The dildo is large enough to do some serious damage when wielded as a weapon; something that satisfies my size queen tendencies and also makes for a hilarious story. I have no need to ever shop at a women’s sex store again – not only does Priape have a great selection at ridiculous prices, there are naked men all over the place in there. So much awesome.

I don’t understand how sex toys are priced at all. 9″ is good and all, but they had a 10″ model for $32.95, a $10 difference – but the jump from 8″ to 9″ was only $4. $10 seems like a lot of money for that extra inch, and I am technically poor so I went with the slightly smaller one and used the difference in price to buy some new lube. I didn’t go to Dildo School for nothing.

I learned SO MUCH this afternoon. Now, do I use this knowledge for good or evil?

Everything’s all blue now.

Weird.

Sure, I saw more farms than I could count and spent countless hours bathed in the aroma of fresh manure, but I survived. Funny thing about the back roads of small town America – they all look the same, and most of them don’t get cell service. I wasn’t smart enough to grab myself the map of Washington out of the car before I left the country, so I was very lost for most of yesterday afternoon. My superhuman sense of direction was all that came between me and Spokane several times, but I did discover you can easily (and quite scenically) get from the border to Bellingham without having to take the interstate. Also, Ferndale has a Sonic. Why didn’t I know this sooner? I was too lost to think about stopping, but next time we make a run for the border I’m requesting a detour.

My afternoon in America was actually pretty nice. I eventually made my way to Trader Joe’s and stocked up on enough snacks and trail mix to fill Lola’s bucket. I love, love, love Trader Joe’s. From there, I went to Target so I could pee and get a drink and wander around without an impatient Ed glancing at his watch/the contents of my cart every few minutes and grimacing. Target on a Thursday afternoon is actually very peaceful; it was fairly empty so I had fun taking my time in the aisles. My venture paid off with the CUTEST JACKET IN THE UNIVERSE, and also some shampoo and gum. I loaded up Lola to disguise my purchases, stopped for gas, and headed in the general direction of north.

While making my way through Bellingham, I found myself trapped on a freeway entrance and had to take the I5. It was probably the only time I ever though “well, now I’m going to die” in all seriousness on my scooter, but luckily people gave me a wide berth and I coasted along at stupid speeds behind a semi truck for three exits until I lost my nerve. I promptly got myself lost in rural Washington once more, and had to get back on the interstate once more for a few more exits before the border appeared. I don’t LIKE the interstate. Yes, I can scoot on it – but it’s really fucking stupid to do so. I won’t be doing THAT again any time soon; I’ll memorize the back road routes before I attempt it on Lola again.

The border both ways was funny, because the guards from both countries did not know what the fuck. A scooter? At my border crossing? Why I never! How unusual! I got a barrage of questions not for the safety of either country, but to find out what my deal was. I was allowed to go both to and fro with no issues though (hooray for my contraband bucket of snacks and kettle corn!), and I was back in Canada for the windy ride home.

Everything was fine until I hit Knight Street, where an asshole in a small red pickup truck almost sideswiped me while changing lanes, then yelled at me for existing. I was extremely tense over the near-miss, and I actually hurt my throat screaming obscenities at the driver. We told each other a variety of fuck off fuck you learn to fucking drive you almost hit ME so why don’t you go fuck yourself for an entire stoplight, amusing and/or scaring everyone around us. One more near miss (not as close this time) with an Oldsmobile, and 205.5km later Lola and I were safely at home to an Ed making sloppy joes for dinner (timed perfectly courtesy of Find My iPhone, which allowed him to track my every move – scaaaaary).

Oh, and I stopped at the Duty Free shop on my way into the US. I’d never been in the fancy new Peace Arch one, and I now know that I’ll never be in there again – I can’t AFFORD to be in there. Duty Free shops usually have a good array of stuff at lower prices, but this one was extremely high end – they had a 50% off special going on for some fancy purses, which started around $1200 (only $600 on sale!). They DID have a very (very) nice sprawling acre of booze, each with a themed wall made of glass and stone and the tears of noble children:

wall o' gin!

choose your backlit poison!

.. but as I don’t drink, it didn’t do much for me.

I did buy a small bottle of Jagermeister, though. I thought I might need it for the ride home – and I did, but only after I was in Vancouver city proper.

It was a good adventure, but I was awfully glad to be home.

Well, I’m in America now. I may never leave, actually. There’s Mexican food here, and the air is pretty calm. That’s the whole reason why I would attempt to stay in the US on $19.05 – I don’t want to ride back to Canada. The wind will get me, you see.

I got bored this afternoon and started stressing that I hadn’t been on any Adventures on my week off. It’s a gorgeous afternoon, so I decided it would be a great idea to ride Lola to the States. It’s really hard to get people to come with me at the best of times, so I thought I’d just go for it and have some fun with my remaining $19.05. It’s either that, or play 8 hours of Dragon Quest then feel guilty all night long.

I strapped my saddlebags onto Lola, and we were off. I had a full tank of gas and a pocket full of quarters; let’s ride!

I was NOT counting on making a new enemy on the ride down.

Did you know that the highway is WINDY? And that, in the grand scheme of things, I am very small?

I am usually not a small girl. In fact, I am a hulking brute of a latch-key kid; the product of mixed messages and food punishments going back as far as I can remember. Lola is a very, very solid scooter – with me up there, we’re like a small tank of sassy near-nudity. I don’t feel SMALL on Lola; I’m a friggin’ Amazon up there. Nothing to fear.

Except, now, I hate the wind. Why is it so strong? Why is it trying to blow me off course and into fields of manure? I’m a fan of blow jobs as much as the next person, but riding Lola down the highway to America was kind of awful. I’m not looking forward to the ride back. I may just stay here for a while; soak up some local flavour and get to know people. I can make a new life here – they have Diet Coke and it isn’t windy. Who needs the highway? Not me.

I think I’ve conveniently talked myself out of going to Victoria. There are several reasons, each more valid (as an excuse) as the last: I don’t have keys, my mom doesn’t know I was thinking about coming, the ferry is expensive, I just did groceries and want to cook delicious meals. I still need to go to Victoria at some point .. just not this week. I don’t wanna pack stuff and live out of a bag. Life is HARD.

I still have an entire day ahead of me, though, and two more to follow. I think I’ll go for an Epic Scoot – I haven’t ridden Lola in a week, and I feel like going somewhere ridiculous. I wish my camera was working – by the way, my Pentax is totally hooped; it won’t read batteries – I’d go take pictures of stuff. I suppose I’ll just have to use one of my other 50 cameras (okay, 3), but I really need to get this battery issue sorted out. I don’t like it when my toys stop working, and I’m out of things to sell so I can upgrade to shinier, newer toys. Also, I have no money. I’m officially putting a stop to my Summer of Insane Spending – I have a vacation to save for, and I’m not going to get to Mexico on Sephora sprees alone.

Good thing a tank of Lola gas is still cheap, though. Let’s ride! Maybe I’ll put my tank bags on so it looks like I’m hardcore. That’s a good way to spend my vacation: pretending I am hardcore. Yesterday I did hardcore groceries and made a hardcore jerk chicken spinach salad; today I will go for a hardcore scooter ride and follow it up with some hardcore tilapia for dinner. YEAH! WOOOO!

So, does anyone know how to fix my camera?