Dear iTunes,

Whose brilliant idea was it that you can't buy iTunes gift-certificates from Apple Canada unless you've installed iTunes and opened an account yourself? Yes, I realize that in the US you can buy certificates at Staples or other stores. And yes, I realize that you can buy 'used' certificates on ebay.ca. But seriously, Apple is being uncharacteristically dense regarding the Grandma market. I'm leery of buying those from ebay, and I'm pretty savvey.

Oh, and it looks like you can't use US gift cards in Canada, either.

Grumble.

Sincerely, Me.

(no subject)

I have gotten spoiled. I was nearly ready to be incensed that my new credit-card wasn't in the web payment system used by my regular bank, thereby requiring that I physically pay a monthly bill. Using a stamp and a check. Every month! Then I found the other name that the credit card was listed under, and set everything up automatically. Yay, integrated banking systems.

This evening I dropped d. off at choir, then headed over to Canadian Tire for a little Christmas shopping. Is that lame? I can't decide. I mean, Dan's mom asked for something that I found there; and I found something small that I think his dad will find useful, that I wouldn't have found elsewhere. So I'm happy.

In the Future, will all children roll around on shoe-skates all the time? I saw one kid zoom through the Canadian Tire parking lot, then he hit a big puddle and switched to walking/splashing through it, and back to skating when he got to the other side. Then at the grocery store, I saw another kid rolling around in the aisles. I do wonder whether these kids will grow up expecting to coast everywhere. I mean, really.

This last weekend, I hooked up my old zip-drive to my computer and restored about 4 disks worth of old stuff dating from University days, including some journals I had forgotten existed, which were in AmigaDos disk format (thankfully they were plain-text, so they are now raw data on my disk). And a pile of multimedia projects, which I'd like to keep but they are in SuperCard. This stuff really doesn't hold up well at all. The physical media are fine- but what the hell am I supposed to do with SuperCard?

And this data is only a decade old. What is going to happen in fifty years when our younger friends and family have to go dredging through our posessions when we die, to find the valuables and keepsakes? It won't be stock certificates stashed in books that they'll have to worry about-- it'll be bank codes and ssh keys and proprietry formats from ancient word-processors and photo-album programs. And zip disks.