Reader Claire, from the United States, no doubt in response to this note from 2000, writes:

Trying to locate a version of Sinatra’s I’ll Be Seeing You. This is not the Dorsey recording. He made a newer recording of that song. It is a swing version. The version with Dorsey was a ballad. This newer version is also in stereo. Having problems finding the album title.

Since the demise of Napster, research for the musical neophyte like me is much more difficult. I did find this version [3.2MB MP3] by Mark Copeland which, if not swing per se, is certainly more up-tempo than the Dorsey recording.

Can anyone else help? I’m trying to get a lead on ex-CBC recording master David Lennick to help; I’m sure he would know the answer.

From my Stephen comes a pointer to this ad from General Motors:

Stephen says:

I saw a review of the ad which basically said “talk is cheap,” but what struck me is how very different the ad is - didn’t Lee Iaccoca put out non-car ads like this during the whole bankruptcy/bailout debacle at Chrysler? But what strikes me is how (apparently) humble the ad is and the curious use of religious terminology - both “redemption” in the headline but also “spread the Gospel” in the text. Are customers God?

Marney Wallace, and about a thousand other people, send me email every day offering to sell me “Generic Viagra.” They are sneaky, these penis hardening charlatans: often their email to me has a subject line of something alluring like “Did you lose your keys?” or “Long time, no see!” The rest of the time they are less subtle: “Harden up!” or “Pleasure her with your manliness.”

The traditional response to this sort of assault is to complain about the scourge of email spam, and to suggest filters, blockers, or other tools to stop Marney and her peers in their tracks, or at least to divert their messages into a virtual burn pile.

But it’s not working. I’ve got three levels of email filtering installed now, and the penis messages still get through. Proving that, as with alcohol prohibition and grey market satellite encryption, determined disreputes will always find a way over the fence.

So perhaps it’s to to change tactics, to realize that there’s a determined group of marginal entrepreneurs out there who have enough energy to pound, pound, pound at me until my penis is deflated enough to need their products.

Can’t we harness this energy for good? Give these people an income without requiring they assault us with their spam? Obviously some of these people are simply criminal or neo-criminal con-people; but surely the majority can be controlled by some sort of integrated pest management system that converts pesky bugs into useful tools?

Just a thought.

I’m taking advantage of Catherine and Oliver’s sojourn to Ontario to do some [late] spring cleaning. I’ve collected a variety of “pre-read” magazines — most The New Yorker, but also some dwell, Linux Journal, Mother Jones and others — and placed them in the vestibule at 100 Prince Street in Charlottetown. They’re yours, dear readership, for the taking whenever you happen to amble by. Enjoy.

A reader, Heather, writing from Orilla, writes the following:

I would like to know when the “Blizzard” was introduced to Canada.

To which I replied:

Do you mean the tasty Dairy Queen ice cream treat, or the snowy conflagration?

To which she replied:

By “Blizzard” I meant the tasty Dairy Queen treat. The snowy conflagration was around long before Dairy Queen, I believe.

A quick call to Dairy Queen Canada in Burlington reveals the answer: the Blizzard was introduced to Canada in the spring of 1985.

Nutritional sidenote: a medium chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard, according to this Dairy Queen chart, contains 950 calories, and 36 grams of fat. This might explain why when, in the midst of my gallbladder winter, having a Blizzard almost killed me. Another nutrional factoid: the Crispy Chicken Salad, which some might look to as a “healthy alternative,” contains 700 calories, and 51 grams of fat. Contrast this to the Grilled Chicken Salad, which has only 230 calories and 9 grams of fat. It’s all in the details.

JetsGo has positioned themselves as a “discount” airline. But I’ve found, in the two times I’ve flown with them, that their service is better, faster, friendlier than Air Canada’s.

In light of that, here’s an interesting comment from my travel agent:

It seems that everyone is finding Jetsgo better than AC, their fares most of the remainder of the summer seem to be higher than AC and they are still getting the bookings. Hope the momentum carries them through the winter!

JetsGo’s genius, then, is having the perception of being cheaper with the reality of being better. Air Canada can’t compete with that: they have the perception of being more expensive with the reality of offering poorer service.

First there was Viva’s, then the Formosa, and most recently Interlude.

Now comes Out of Africa, a new restaurant about to open on University Avenue across the street from the Dairy Queen, next to QuickDraw signs. They advertise “African” cuisine.

We’re becoming a multi-ethnic food paradise here!

Stay tuned for opening news.

Back in January, I wrote about the iTrip, and then later, in May, I wrote about problem with my iTrip order.

Well, I’ve had my iTrip for a couple of months now, and I’ve been generally impressed with it: it’s a compact, functional piece of technology with an ingenious design.

But I’ve also had problems: when the iTrip is plugged into my iPod, and I’m driving along in my car, and I hit a a bump, sometimes the iTrip goes wonky on me, and strange Star Trek-like sounds start coming out of my radio. Often I’ll go over another bump, and things will jar back to normal. From my laymen’s chair, it sounds like a loose contact inside the unit or something.

So I emailed Griffin Technology and got back the following reply:

What kind of 4 wheelin are you doing Peter? Road rally in the Rockies? Actually it sounds like you have a faulty iTrip. I will be glad to swap it out for you. Did you buy it form us directly? Tell me where you bought it and what your shipping address is and I will be glad to exchange the unit. Let me know and I will make it happen. For faster service you may want to give us a call as the e-mail thing can take a while to get to.

This reply has it all: humour, honesty, and good customer service, all rolled into one.

So today I called, as they suggested, and talked to another chap, explained my problem, and he agreed to do the swap. When he found out I was in Canada, he said it would cost me a lot to return the faulty unit, so told me to simply “destroy it in some creative fashion,” and send them a photo or QuickTime movie of the process.

A replacement iTrip is on the way.

So here’s another example of where “bad” customer service — a faulty product — can turn into amazing customer service — the kind of service that I will take 10 minutes out of my day to write about, tell all my friends about, etc.

So here’s my question: what’s the difference between Aliant, my personal quality purveyor of shitty customer service, and Griffin Technology? What does Griffin know that Aliant doesn’t? Where does Griffin get their good employees, and how do they encourage and allow them to be real, reasonable people? And how does Aliant capture employee souls and suck them out so effectively? I really want to know.

$2,000 budgeted for flashlights and batteries for the City Police. Coincidentally, the same amount is budgeted for ammunition. These are the things you can learn from the 2003 Annual Estimates - City of Charlottetown.

The wonderful thing about the City of Charlottetown’s budget is because municipal government is relatively small, and concentrates on solving practical problems, their budget documents can actually be understood and grasped by real people.

The numbers are large, but no so large as to be incomprehensible.

Note to concerned citizens: the City spent more in 2002 on the Smart Communities project (about $205,000) than it spent for heritage preservation (about $88,000).

A German blog has picked up my Weblogs.com Ping Cacher in PHP story (from the Reinvented Labs site).

When we named “Baby Male Miller” Oliver, we had people tell us that Oliver was “very big in Germany” as a baby name. I am simply following suit.