Markus’ Blog

Everybody is writing about Rogers and their ridiculous iPhone plans these days. I will, too, but with the slight twist of comparing Roger’s plans to the plans available in Austria rather than the US.

The situation in Austria is different in the sense that the iPhone is offered by two cell phone providers: T-Mobile and One. That alone makes it more difficult for the individual provider to be as stupid as Rogers.

As of today, XE.com reports an exchange rate of $1.60 for €1, which makes things a little more expensive than they would have been even a month ago, compared to the Canadian Dollar.

T-Mobile:

Phone: €49 (8 GB), €99 (16 GB)
Contract duration: 24 months (changes to other iPhone plans allowed)
One-time activation fee: €49
Classic plan: €39/month: €0.25 per SMS, 1000 combined airtime minutes (mobile + landline in Austria)
Supreme plan: €55/month: 1000 SMS included, 1000 airtime minutes for each of the following categories T-Mobile, landline, other mobile carriers, voice mail (that’s 4000 minutes total)
Incoming calls: unlimited
Data plan: 3 GB of traffic included in the above
Data overage: €0.10/MB

One:

Phone: €149 (8 GB), €229 (16 GB)
Contract duration: 24 months (no changes allowed)
One-time activation fee: €0
Monthly fee: €10 for (Sep. ‘08 till Dec. ‘08), then €25
Airtime: 1000 minutes (all of Austria, cell and landline)
Incoming calls: unlimited
Data plan: €14/month for 100 SMS and 3 GB of traffic
Data overage: couldn’t find any information

Bottom line:

Not the greatest, but certainly more affordable than Rogers. From T-Mobile, you can purchase an iPhone for $158 ($79+$79), sign a 2-year contract and pay a monthly fee of $63, and that gives you more than Rogers: $199 for the phone and $115/month for the plan, locked in for 36 months. If you go over your bandwidth limit, it can still get expensive, but not as expensive as Rogers.

At the end of the day, I don’t think I’ll ever get the philosophy behind Roger’s iPhone plans. It’s the be sneaky, screw the customer over, take advantage of our monopoly, hope the customer runs past their bandwidth limit so we can charge even more approach. Customers are going to realize that (and they already have), and they’ll be rightfully pissed because of it. Rogers could have had a instead. Had they offered reasonable prices, they wouldn’t have been able to handle the stampede of eager customers, making good money in the process and not alienating their current and future clients. But no, they need to be stupid morons and try to make money the blunt (rub-it-in-our-face-we-are-the-monopoly) and sneaky (we-hope-you-exceed-your-bandwidth) way. I hope they get what they deserve, i. e. barely any iPhone sales. That’d be fun.

Would I, personally, be getting an iPhone if we had plans like the one offered by AT&T? Yes, absolutely. How about the T-Mobile or One plans from Austria? Maybe. Not sure. It’s on the verge, but still manageable enough that it could, realistically, be a yes. And with Roger’s plan? Hell, NO!

As indicated in a previous post I was scheduled to receive a new Canon Powershot G9. Well, about two weeks ago was the big day. After ordering a display model from a camera store in Toronto, my new G9 arrived.

I took it with me on my trip to San Jose to try it out a bit. The pictures are not too exciting, as I didn’t do very much other than go to the office and go out to eat.

I like it a lot. Not surprising, it’s got many feature enhancements over my good old G1, which I bought in 2001. It’s also a lot lighter.

I am sitting at a table at my parent’s place writing this post (typing on a German keyboard no less — leads to many wrong characters ;-)).

Happy New Year everybody!

Today was another day meeting with family — and saying good bye already. It’s almost time to head towards London already. It was a fun afternoon that went on for way longer than originally thought. My Grandma had tons and tons and tons of food — as per normal. And the most asked question there is “Do you want something to eat? To drink, maybe?” And if it’s not my Grandma asking, it’s my Aunt.

Brigette’s most used phrase these days is “Nein danke.” LOL

Tomorrow will be a shopping day in Vienna, on Thursday we’ll visit some exhibits and we’ll see if we can find some other ways of experiencing Vienna on our last day. Friday morning we’ll leave for London.

Brigette and I had the following slightly odd bet going: if she had passed her CHRP designation exam, she’d buy me a new digital camera. If, on the other hand, she had failed, I’d get her a new Coach purse.

One can tell that she was seriously considering the possibility of having failed. So, that bet would guarantee her one pleasurable experience (passing or at the very least new, pretty purse).

I was fairly certain that she had, in fact, done quite well. I gladly accepted, since I very much wanted a new camera, and I was sure I would get it. lol Besides, I had been telling her that I was positive that she had not failed the test. She wouldn’t listen, so I figured I may as well get something out of it.

Turns out I was right. Of course I was. — You can only be right if you expect Brigette to do well on her exams. (Rule #1: Don’t listen to Brigette when she tells you how she’s not sure she passed.)

So, congratulations to you CHRPy girl, for getting your muchly desired (and deserved) designation. I am proud of you.

And thanks for buying me this fancy new toy from my wish list.

We didn’t have any major plans for this long weekend, certainly no travel plans of any kind. And I have to say it turned out really well.

Saturday

We went grocery shopping to Granville Island Market. While the number of cars trying to get on the island was stunning (well, just regular Saturday traffic, really), it turned out to be a nice experience. After buying our food, we moved the car from the one hour spot we had been able to secure to a three hour spot and wandered around a bit. We looked at artsy and crafty stuff — and I got lucky at Granville Island Brewing. They still had their Oktoberfest special beer, and I immediately bought three bottles. lol

Sunday

We went downtown to the Circle Craft Fair, one of the biggest if not the biggest pre-Christmas craft fair in the Vancouver area. It was busy, but we saw lots of nice stuff. After we’ve had enough, we went for coffee and hot chocolate to rest our tired feet, before heading for the bus stop.

As we were standing there, waiting for the bus, directly across from Steamworks, I said: “Mmmm. Burger and beer. I’d so like to go there for dinner.” It took about 10 seconds from that moment for us to decide to do just that: go there and have dinner.

Since we couldn’t order steak till 5pm, we ordered some yummy appies (tandoori chicken skewers and edamame) to tide us over the 30 minutes till Brigette’s steak would arrive. I decided to have one of their pizzas instead of a burger.

Needless to say food and beer were yummy and we went home satisfied and happy — and just over an hour later than we would have otherwise.

Monday

Not too much happened on Monday. Some cleaning, some studying (for Brigette), taking a little walk in the afternoon (for me). It was still a good end to a good long weekend.

My schveetie just sent me this YouTube link about a cat doing its wakeup routine in the morning. (Click here if the video doesn’t show below.)

It’s hilarious and so freaking true. That’s totally me every morning. As far as I can tell, though, there hasn’t been a bat involved — yet. But only because I am too easy a victim, I would imagine.

Queen Calli Boo the Kitty has tried on occasion, however, to suffocate me with her long fur. She curls up next to my head, her fur ending up in my nose and mouth. That usually happens during the night, though, not in the morning.

Update:

Looks like this animation was created by a guy named Simon Tofield. More of his stuff is available at Tandem Films. They even changed their start page to advertise the kitty animation. They are also saying on their home-page that this was just the beginning of a series and that we can expect more along the same lines.

Labour Day long weekend is around the corner. Well, it’s basically here already (Friday evening). Yay for long weekends and yay for road trips.

Victoria, here we come.

We’ll celebrate the beginning of the weekend with some nice Japanese food (this is just the beginning of a weekend full of good food, I am hoping). Late morning tomorrow, we’ll leave for the Tsawwassen ferry terminal and over to the Island we go.

We are planning on relaxing, having a good time, exploring the Greater Victoria area, have some fish & chips at Barb’s Place and, finally, see the Titanic exhibition and documentary. — Did I mention that we’ll have lots of good food? lol

Stay tuned, pictures will be forthcoming. There also might be posts from the Island if we come across an Internet cafe and take the time to sit down and post.

On Monday, for our one year anniversary, we went for dinner at Le Gavroche. We had the four course tasting menu with wine pairings. It was fantastic. We’ve already decided that we’ll be back for more.

• Escargots (special, not on their regular menu!)
• Mushroom soup
• Elk steak (special, not on their regular menu!)
• The dessert trio

• Crab cakes
• Onion soup
• Beef tenderloin
• Bread pudding

Delicious food, delicious wine, awesome company. Life at its finest!

Yep, it was “Joshie Time” again. This time for real (=double pack). Last Friday night we went to see him in Vancouver at GM Place. We had great seats (maybe 2 meters away from the stage extenders). The concert was good, but unfortunately waited without success for him to come out after the show and give autographs. Apparently, there was no room to accommodate waiting fans on the sidewalks and GM Place is surrounded by busy roads. That’s what the security people said, anyway.

On Saturday, we drove down to Seattle (it took four hours to cross the border!) and saw him perform again (at the Key Arena). The seats, this time, were not all that good, but he did come out afterwards to meet his fans. So, Brigette did get her autograph after all, which made her happy.

Photos of the event are now up, including a big grin after successfully securing an autograph. There are several shots of Josh, too. Some of them are a little blurry, but some are quite good.

Brigette, I have no doubt, will describe the two concerts and the strategy behind choosing the seats we got, etc. in more detail.

After attending Bard on the Beach only a short while ago, we decided to give the “other” open air stage performance another shot. It was our second time seeing a Theatre under the Stars performance.

The first one we saw was Footloose in 2004 (see also Wikipedia for their past plays). This time we watched Grease.

We started out the evening (afternoon, actually) with an early dinner at The Fish House in Stanley Park. It was delicious. The stroll from the stage area to the restaurant and back was lovely as well. The performance itself was only “so-so”. We remembered that the conclusion three years ago, about Footloose, had been very similar.

Unlike Bard on the Beach, which we totally loved and want to do again next year, Theatre under the Stars will have to wait for at least another three, before we give it another try.