[[Dan James]] and [[Steven Garrity]] and I had lunch last week with one of their clients, and at one point the conversation turned to Blackberries, instant messaging, email, and other novel ways of communicating. I brought up the fact that there’s an interesting split between two groups of people I exchange instant messages with: there are the people who say good-bye, and the people who don’t.

None of the people at [[silverorange]], for example, Steven included, ever sign off with a “bye” or an “oo” (for “over and out”). They just stop typing. My mother, however, and [[Catherine]], and [[Johnny]], and the folks at [[Yankee]] all do.

Steven mentioned that men of his father’s generation don’t say good-bye the telephone; I wonder if this is related? Or perhaps in the world of young hep-cats, the conversation never really ends, so there’s no need to say good-bye?

I’m so stuck in the mud that I even use the phrase “ring off” from time to time when talking on the telephone — “sorry, but I’ve got to ring off now and get home for supper.” Ringing off is a holdover from ye olde days:

The “Ring Off” is a signal to indicate that the persons using a line have completed their conversation and consists of two short, distinct rings, to be given by each office, except in cases where the telephones are fitted with automatic “call” and “ring off” signals.

This is Pete. Ending the blog post. Now.

Yummy! The kind of thing you wouldn’t imagine you’d ever need, but later find strangely addictive. Link from command-n.

Just to prove that this whole “Pete the ornery” thing isn’t something new, I provide as evidence this Usenet of mine post from twelve years ago:

Users of WinFax Pro 3.0 who want to receive the recently-released “major patch” for the program but who don’t want to bear the cost of downloading the entire thing from the Delrina Tech Support BBS (phone 416-441-2752) at long distance rates can have the patch mailed to them by Delrina.

You have to call the Delrina Customer Service Line at 1-800-268-6082. When the line answers you’ll inevitably get a cryptic voice-mail message telling you to leave a message. If you leave a message you may never hear from them again, so just press ‘0’ to reach an operator and ask for Suzette in Customer Service; she’ll take your address and mail you the disks.

Disclaimer: I have no relationship to Delrina other than as a [disgruntled] customer.

I followed up with this post where I wrote, in part:

Well, today someone from Delrina called me at work; he said that their Sales Line had been inundated with calls for the patch and implied that they were none too happy about this. Their staff had been monitoring this newsgroup and he was contacting me, as ‘instigator’ of the problem, to see what was up.

…and later…

So, I don’t have my problems fixed yet, but at least I’ve talked to someone about them. Cudos to Delrina staff for monitoring this newsgroup and responding to me directly (I hope they follow up on all such problems, not just ones that cause them phone-grief); perhaps now is the time for some input directly to this newsgroup from Delrina? There still remains the fact that contacting Delrina by phone seems next to impossible and/or very expensive; I hope they’re taking steps to deal with this too.

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with Delrina other than being a [formerly disgruntled, now somewhat placated] owner of their WinFax Pro software.

Three years later Delrina was purchased by Symantec.

A benefit concert in aid of Urban Carmichael, currently battling cancer, will be held Sunday July 17th at 7:00 p.m. at Vernon River hall St. Joachim’s Church. Master of Ceremonies is Nils Ling.

With the open day scaling pains over, it’s now very easy to get added to the podcast directory in iTunes 4.9. Here’s the entry for The Rukcast:

I needed a graphic, so I picked this photo from 2004. Appropriately enough, it was taken in the courtyard of The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.

Social Machines is an interesting article from the August 2005 issue of Technology Review:

Continuous computing: the proliferation of cheap mobile gadgets, wireless Internet access for everyone, a new Web built for sharing and self-expression… suddenly, computing means connecting.

ineedsugar.com. very beautiful.

Felix has them. Camera in the right place at the right time. Reminds me of a story my friend [[Jill Abson]] told about taking [[Bill Kimball]]’s car to Toronto one time. Bill was notorious for having old cars on the edge of operability. When they arrived back from Toronto, they pulled into the driveway and all four wheels fell off.

Our cousin Gus Bodnar died Friday. Although we never met, his legendary hockey career loomed large in our family. The Toronto Star described Gus yesterday as “one of the finest gentlemen to pull on a Leafs sweater.”

I remember the day Stan Rogers died in 1983: it was big news in my hometown of [[Carlisle]] because Rogers was born in nearby Hamilton, and all the radio stations covered it. What I didn’t know is that he was only 33 years old when he died. Amazing that someone who died so young could leave such a musical legacy.

I’d forgotten too that he died not in a small plane crash, like many musicians do, but of smoke inhalation on Air Canada flight from Houston to Toronto, along with 22 other passengers.