Apple logo carved into Vista ad

David Topping over at Torontoist has a nice write-up and several photos of the Apple logo carved into a Windows Vista ad I saw last week (image above and on my Flickr):

A little over a week ago, one user of the tribe.ca forums found the word “LINUX” carved out of a huge Vista ad at Finch Station. A few days after that, photoblogger Photendo found an Apple logo carved out of the “o” in “Wow” for a similar Vista promo at Queen Station, and now, at King Station by the Melinda Street exit, someone has done the same thing to the same ad, and (someone else?) has added “Wow That’s expensive” below the knife job in green ink. Touché.

I don’t advocate vandalism (or using Microsoft Windows), but this is pretty funny.

Straight back to ’88

Just in time for my poorly named evening of reading (Adults Read Things They Wrote as Kids), a package from my Mom arrived in the mail:

Inside, I found five scribblers.* They were all journals from elementary school at Sackville Centennial. There’s some great stuff inside, and I’m looking forward to reading from these on Monday. Too bad I don’t have an overhead projector, because there are some great illustrations inside.

Thanks, Mom!

_{* If you don’t know what a scribbler is, you may not be from the East Coast. A scribbler is another word for the type of notebook, or workbook, you’d use in elementary school. The OED defines scribbler as: “A scribbling-book or pad.”}

Ketchup on your RRSP

This past Friday, after work, I went to the TD Canada Trust to pick up some cash for the weekend. When I looked down, I noticed an unopened bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup on the counter in front of the teller.

Then I looked down the length of the counter. There were bottles of ketchup in front of every teller.

So I bit.

“What’s this bottle of ketchup for?” I asked.

“So you’ll ketchup on your RRSP,” she replied. It was perhaps the best and worst thing I’d heard all week.

Free over-the-air HDTV in Toronto

On the front page of Digg today, a link to Prick Up Your Rabbit Ears. It’s an article from Newsweek about over-the-air HDTV.

When cable TV arrived in the ’70s, rabbit ears seemed destined to go the way of the polyester pantsuit. So, too, the clunky outdoor antenna, a rooftop fixture that once upon a time signaled the rise of television in American life. But a funny thing happened on the way to the analog dust heap: it turns out that a new generation of rabbit ears and antennas can receive high-definition television broadcasts. And it’s free.

I’ve been picking up over-the-air (or OTA) HDTV for several months now, and I love it. Here in Toronto, with an EyeTV Hybrid and a cheap RCA antenna (stolen from Jenna), I can pick up these channels in HD:

1. CBC English
2. CBC French
3. CityTV
4. CTV
5. SunTV

If I had a better antenna, I could pick up additional channels from across the lake in Buffalo. The picture looks great on my 24-inch iMac, and I don’t miss having a dedicated TV set at all. The EyeTV software is excellent, and it records direct dumps of the HD signal. The built-in electronic program guide doesn’t work for Canadian channels (it relies on TitanTV data), but Guillaume Boudreau developed an excellent free workaround called EyeTV EPG Proxy.

Once you have the gear, OTA HDTV is free, looks great, and is perfect for someone like me who doesn’t watch a whole lot of television.

Here are some Toronto-related OTA HDTV resources I found helpful when getting started:

• Toronto & Buffalo area HDTV Channel Map
• Toronto, Ontario HDTV forum on AVS forums
• ON – City of Toronto Metro Area – OTA on Digital Home forums

And for more HDTV fun, check out Jim Dupree: HDTV Enthusiast.

Filling in on Editor’s Choice again

Angela Misri’s on jury duty for a while, so in her absence, I’m filling in for her on the CBC Editor’s Choice podcast.

You can download individual episodes from the program page, or subscribe to the RSS feed.