Today the Vision, COPE and Green municipal parties announced an agreement on co-operating with nomination votes:

"(VANCOUVER) The COPE and Vision executives are announcing a tentative agreement for cooperation for the 2008 election. Both organizations feel that the agreement is an important step to create the kind of campaign that can return progressive government to city hall." ( www.francesbula.com )

The most appalling thing to happen so far in this year's race to the bottom, er, 'Canadian Federal Election' is encapsulated in this quote from the consortium of broadcasters:

Every born-and-bred B.C. kid I know grudgingly likes White Spot, if only for the glowy childhood memories of Pirate Packs. People who grew up elsewhere detest White Spot and are puzzled with its continued success. In particular, the excessive use of Triple O sauce on the burgers is generally reviled. I always thought this was a particular BC thing, but recently ran across a curious analog with Chicago's famous pizza pie chain Giordano's.

Dear faithful readers ( all 3 of you ),

I am ashamed to admit I still do not have an iPhone. It is, as they say, 'in the mail'; I am not strong enough in the Force to endure the gauntlet as Travis did. I can however affirm every last indignity suffered by the fools who lined up at the Rogers Plus store at Broadway and Arbutus to maybe get a phone, at least those I experienced prior to leaving at 9am. A brief synopsis of my own experience:

I finally got around to calling Rogers and seeing what my options were for an iPhone plan. The call of course was largely spurred on by the jaw-dropping shocker news that Rogers was offering a 6GB data option for iphone bought this summer for $30/month:

Continuing on with this week's impromptu blog revival and series of posts about why I'm going to get a 3G iPhone this week, I thought I'd take a closer look at the alternatives to my potentially foolish decision to run squealing like a little fat kid after an ice cream truck on the hottest day of the year into the arms of not just Steve Jobs, but Ted Rogers as well.

So what other options are there? Let's look.

1. "You've got the touch!"

In which I discuss why I'm going to get a 3G iPhone on Friday ( or soon after ), and somehow try to still feel good about myself.

In preparation for the big day, I've been doing some research, crunching some numbers, comparing this and that, and generally trying to rationalize the purchase to myself and my fiancee. It's a whole lot of reading fine print gibberish and boring spreadsheet work, so I won't get into details, but I do have a conclusion.

When I see things like this, it is clear to me how different the iPhone is from any other 'smart phone':

Some background: I am currently a Roger's customer, but am out of contract and ( being a mostly-enthusiastic Mac user ) have been looking forward to seeing a legit iPhone in Canada. Even though I signed the Ruined iPhone petition, I'm probably still going to get one this Friday, but more on that later.

After some period of frenzied activity activity in other parts of my life things are slowing down and perhaps even getting a bit more organized. I feel like I have things to blog about besides Komodo. More on this later once I re-install ecto and start flexing the fingers.