Workers at Bell Mobility (TSE: BCE) client care department in Mississauga yesterday were ordered to a unionization vote by the Canada Industrial Relations Board. The actual vote will take place December 2 and 3. They have been assisted by the largest telco union in Canada, the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union, since November 2008. This union already represents 25,000 Bell employees.
Press Release
Borderlands Update
After having Borderlands for the past week I am happy to give it my own little review. The game has really pulled me in and captured me. This is a first of its kind for me; a FPS RPG. I continue to get the urge and play the game to search for loot and complete quests. I even started a second character to try the game from a different perspective. My initial character is a soldier and I just finished all the quests in the Arid Wastelands. There just feels like so much to do in the game and it doesn’t feel old or boring at all. The amount of variety in guns, shields, items and the whole online coop experience really puts this game above the rest. For a game I just decided to buy on the spur of the moment last week I feel I made a great choice. It really makes me feel like I am back in the Diablo 2 days where I would play for hours and hours online dungeon crawling and questing. If you still haven’t heard of the game yet I urge you to look it up and check it out. Come find me online and it will be a lot of fun. I would give it a perfect score for sure.
If you still can’t find the game (I know there are more than a few of you), keep looking and don’t give up this game is worth it. I have been checking for the past week and it has been crazy. In Regina, Saskatchewan, there were no copies at Best Buy, Future Shop, Wal-mart, Zellers, EB Games, HMV, Toys-R-Us, Blockbuster, and Rogers Video. Talk about short shipping a game (or incredibly amazing sales). There was even a response from Gearbox (developer) in regards to the shortages. I hope they can get their supply chain issues sorted out because this is a real winner they have on their hands.
Borderlands
On the spur of the moment given the opportunity to save I picked up Borderlands for the Xbox 360.  As had already been seen once before with the launch of Batman : Arkham Asylum, Borderlands was introduced at a very cool $39.99 (Canadian Dollars!). Wal-mart Canada appears to have started off this (limited time/limited quantity) pricing strategy but have been matched by Future Shop and Best Buy. This kind of launch will not only spur a whole lot of sales but may also bring about a new way to release games. The traditional model of the past has always been to release the game for a lot, and then after a long while slowly bring the cost down possibly in the form of a greatest hits packaging. With the huge commercial success of Batman, which is sure to be followed by Borderlands, a new model has been created.  Reports are coming in across Canada about the game selling out and stock moving very fast across store shelves.
Lets not forget about the real winner of the day, Borderlands! The game is actually very well done and seems fresh. The game can be quickly described as a Action FPS RPG. The game takes the shape of the traditional FPS but puts together a string of tasks and weapons that follow the structure of an RPG. The game is said to contain 100’s of thousands of unique weapons. The game can be played solo but from most opinions it is best played with 4 friends in online coop. Early reviews are giving the game an 8 – 9 out of 10 which is fair. I won’t make any critical remarks about the game until I can put a little bit more time into it but from what I’ve seen so far I have enjoyed.  If you can still manage to find the game for sale before October 27 at the sale price I would say to go for it. Even afterward I am sure the game would be worth the full price at $69.99.
Air Canada releases Blackberry App
Air Canada (TSE: AC.A) became the first North American airline to release an application for the Blackberry platform. The new application brings more real-time information to customers and allows them to check-in, board, and obtain flight details for Air Canada flights. The application is available for download from the Blackberry App World or directly from the Air Canada mobile site. The new application is launching at the same time as a revamped mobile site at http://mobile.aircanada.com for other mobile device users. The application for the iPhone is also available for download as well.
Google Street View Comes to Canada
Google Street View became available to a select number of Canadian markets today. When you visit the Google Maps site, you can drag the little man standing on top of the zoom status anywhere on the street. The major centres which now have the Street View enabled include: Vancouver+area, Calgary, Ottawa, Kitchener, Hamilton, Toronto+area, Montreal, and Halifax. I know it wasn’t too long ago when I saw them driving around in Saskatchewan so I imagine more areas will becoming online soon. It seemed like not too long ago when doubts were being raised whether it would ever come online due to the privacy laws here in Canada.
Low Flying Planes
Just driving home from Regina today and noticed a smaller plane flying very low over Emerald Park / White City. The plane kept circling over the entire area.  I imagine it is being used to take pictures. My guess is an expansion for the “birds eye view” at Microsoft’s Bing Maps.  Better keep my eyes open to see myself driving around once the new maps do come out.
Motorola Rival A455
I just received my Motorola Rival A455. I won it in a random draw at work for completing a Motorola etraining course. It is a very sweet prize indeed. I ended up getting the purple Rival, a weird t-shirt and some strange card game. The prize is alright but I was looking forward to the silver model. The phone itself is kind of cool for text messaging with its side sliding full keyboard. Telus is selling it right now $399 no contract, $349 on 1 yr, $299 on 2 yr, and $99 on 3 year. I wonder what mine would be worth on the open market? I have to thank Motorola again for such an awesome contest and the great prize. I doubt I will be using it as my primary phone is still holding strong but I am sure it will find itself being used sometime.
Digg removes ‘Blog This’ feature and I only notice now
Well one of the features I really liked about Digg is no longer available. I often used the ‘blog this’ feature to add news articles that I felt were interesting and worth sharing on to my blog. I know that the feature wasn’t used very often by a lot of the visitors of digg but it made my life easier for sharing links. After trying to post an interesting article to a 2009 NHL Free Agent tracking site I had to research the lost feature. It turns out that the feature was removed on May 26 according to the digg blog. I guess it makes sense for the removal of the feature if I use it less than once every few months but I don’t know who it hurts to just leave it and let it be unused.
Graduation Day
After years of long hours and hard work, the payoff has finally arrived. Yesterday, I walked across the stage, not once but twice, to receive my degrees. My main degree was the BSc Computer Science with Coop and my second degree was a BA Economics. I believe having both degrees will be very beneficial in my future careers as I will be able to see problems from more than one perspective. Congratulations to all the other grads and now good luck in finding jobs.
20 Bizarre Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Toys
Hmm, after looking at this site with bizarre TMNT toys I see that I actually had a few of these. Seems strange now but those were some awesome action figures… Actually, I am pretty sure I still have them somewhere….
The site focused on the far more bizarre and obscure of the TMNT toys released anywhere from 1988 till about 1991.