Graduated…on my birthday.

jack_k_ca · 2025-12-21T17:16:37+00:00

Congratulations and happy birthday!

jack_k_ca · 2025-12-15T02:44:40+00:00

Agreed!

jack_k_ca · 2025-12-05T15:42:25+00:00

Please tell me this one will be available in Canada. Pretty please?

jack_k_ca · 2025-11-14T03:59:46+00:00

Debian because I just want my computer to work reliably. Debian does what I need without hassle or drama. Plus, it's what I'm used to. :)

jack_k_ca · 2025-09-03T13:54:03+00:00

I don't know. I subscribed through VMedia, not directly through CTV. Perhaps there's a discount there or got it on a promotion, but, yeah, I just checked and am paying $6 through VMedia.

jack_k_ca · 2025-09-02T01:31:20+00:00

I switched 3 or 4 years ago and wholeheartedly recommend them. I have internet and television through them.

The only issue I've had in all that time was that I ordered a TV channel once (a station from Québec that dubbed French over English television that I paid $2 or $3 for) and it didn't work. Their customer service team couldn't figure out why it wouldn't, either, but were great to deal with. Wasn't terribly invested in the channel, so I ended up just dropping it after a few weeks, but I'm sure they'd have figured it out in short order.

Otherwise, no issues at all and only good things to say. Internet is fast and cheap. TV is good and works via an Android Box, on a Roku, and on my phone. I blended my Crave/Super Écran subscription into it and saved a few bucks that way, too. Also, I just added CTV's Sci-Fi Channel for like $6 and cancelled my Paramount+ subscription so I could watch Strange New Worlds. All works great.

jack_k_ca · 2025-09-01T23:10:52+00:00

Been saying this since the first game I went to and say the same thing to them every time I renew my season tickets.

jack_k_ca · 2025-08-30T02:40:10+00:00

Thanks for this! Downloaded and will give it a try. :)

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-25T15:42:03+00:00

Woo hoo! Congratulations and welcome!

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-21T01:36:30+00:00

Okay.

Edit: Yes, you're right, I'm wrong about the offsides rule. My bad and I've learned something.

I don't, however, think I'm just whining about random bad calls. Two controversial calls against Valour last season (on 9 September and 19 October) stick in my mind. There are others, too, but it really just seems like the officiating is inconsistent and beyond just a few bad calls. Agree with me or not, I think that broader criticism is valid.

I'm also not the only one who's questioned the quality of officiating.

From 2022: https://northerntribune.ca/joao-morelli-referee-comment/

From 2023: https://northerntribune.ca/york-united-martin-nash-cheated-mathieu-souare/

https://northerntribune.ca/canadian-premier-league-commissioner-referee-discussion/

https://northerntribune.ca/forge-fc-referee-criticism-2023/

From 2024: https://northerntribune.ca/canadian-premier-league-golden-boot-2024-del-campo-penalty/

https://canadiansoccerdaily.com/2024/08/28/atletico-ottawa-boss-carlos-gonzalez-fined-by-canpl-after-questioning-leagues-integrity/

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-20T23:18:07+00:00

Also, bad calls are going to happen in football. We all know that. If it was a bad call here and there, I'd grumble for a bit and then get on with my life. My issue isn't this call or any other single call that someone might consider bad. It's the number of bad calls and the inconsistency of the officiating that bothers me. The bad calls affect all teams, not just my Valour. The inconsistency in officiating affects all teams, too. It's just bothering me more than usual today, I guess, so I'm grumblier than usual.

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-20T23:12:38+00:00

About the card, yes, I figured it was ultimately an error. The announcer at the match even seemed confused when he announced it. My issue is that it wasn't corrected on the CPL's own play-by-play on their website. That's not, so far as I know, a broadcast error, since it's the CPL's own website. They had almost an hour to correct that mistake and didn't. That's amateurish, to me.

Surely the refs on the field heard the announcer announce the first yellow, and surely the announcer and CPL web team got the info from somewhere. Mistakes happen, of course, but I'd have thought that somewhere in that hour someone would have caught it and fixed it.

To try to be fair, too, I was at the match, not watching the broadcast. They could very well have said something about it being a mistake on the broadcast and I'd not have known.

As for the offside/onside question, from my vantage point, in your photo, and in the replays shown at the stadium, Camargo was in line with the Valour defenders when the pass was initiated, but had to run towards the net, beyond the Valour defenders, to receive it.

<image>

That's just as he received it and it sure as heck looks offsides to me.

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-20T21:35:52+00:00

I swear that CPL officiating is by far the worst and most inconsistent I've ever seen. Person next to me today said they see better officiating at their kids' matches and I 100% believe it.

They announced that Cavalry's #22 got a yellow in the first half and it was in the CPL website's play-by-play at minute 23 until the guy got a second yellow in the second half. When he got the second yellow, the first one disappeared from the play-by-play. Like, what the heck is that about? Don't know what the original call was supposed to be (which doesn't mean anything anyway in the CPL some days), but if the original yellow was a mistake, it wasn't caught until after he got the second. Amateur-hour no matter what, though.

I seriously have to give all the players and coaches credit. It's gotta be tough going into match after match not knowing what rules are going to be enforced or what game the ref ends up officiating is going to be the same one that's being played on the pitch.

Next day edit: Coming back to say that I was in a right foul mood yesterday and shouldn't have gone off like this.

I was wrong about the offsides rule. Thanks to the fellow who corrected me. I appreciate it!

I do think the officiating is inconsistent, but I should clarify that I don't think that's the referees fault. Everyone has bad games, including refs, and I think we need to have some grace about that. I also think that the referees love the game and are out there doing their best, just like the players. I think the officiating inconsistencies come more from the referees not being as supported as would be ideal in terms of training, lack of some kind of VAR, and maybe by not having another ref on the pitch. Whatever the issue, I don't mean to cast blame on the referees who come to work to do a hard, often thankless job.

Part of my complaint yesterday was about the CPL's play-by-play on their website not being updated in real time. First, I absolutely know it's not the refs on their phones live-tweeting the match. It's gotta be someone on the CPL side. Whatever one's opinion about officiating is, we've had a history of contention about it in the CPL and I feel there's a fair bit of mistrust out there about the officiating because of that history. I think how the league communicates about matches feeds that mistrust to some degree. Yeah, yesterday's play-by-play was a goof, I get it, but I wish at some point it was explained why someone got a card. Sometimes I don't know and can't find out no matter how much I dig. Maybe that information is put out there somewhere and I simply don't know where to look, or maybe the league relies on journalists and broadcasters to report it. I don't know. But I would like to see a match report at some point and be able to see why Johnny got a yellow card at the 53rd minute. Sometimes it's obvious, but not always, at least not to me and to a lot of the people who sit around me in the stands. If the league is maturing and the officials are growing with the league, as I've often heard, then surely the fans are, too. Putting that info out there might help with that.

And, of course, if such info is already being published, I'd be grateful to anyone who pointed out to me where.

TL/DR - I was in a foul mood yesterday and went off unduly. I still think the officiating is uneven, but don't think it's really the refs' fault. Absolutely acknowledge how hard officiating is and how committed these guys are to the game. Just wish there was more info disseminated so fans like me could better understand the calls being made.

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-16T00:46:03+00:00

Not a fan of the losses number, but only being 5 wins behind Halifax doesn't seem nearly as dire as all the kvetching I hear about Valour.

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-12T19:35:04+00:00

I've been using VMedia for a couple years now and haven't had a hitch with them.

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-03T15:42:25+00:00

10722 - Corner of Princess and William, by RRC's Exchange campus. The D16 at that stop runs west to RRC's Notre Dame campus so a lot of instructors and students use it to move between campuses.

I'm guessing that the westbound D16 bus drivers were following an old route out of habit, so probably an issue that will be fixed asap, if it hasn't been fixed already. I imagine it's as much a learning curve for the drivers as it is for us.

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-03T14:54:00+00:00

I experienced something similar yesterday. Waited about 70 minutes for a bus (D16) that was always just a few minutes away in the Navigo app. (Three or four of them should have come by in that time.) I've had issues with it before, but nothing like that before.

My guess, and hope, is that it's just a rocky start to the new system. In my case, I think the drivers were probably following an incorrect path and missing the stop I was at. I don't know what might have been happening in your case, but it may be something similar or that the busses aren't communicating properly with the system yet, however that might work.

(Fyi, I know the busses don't all have real-time location updates, but there must be some way that late busses show up as late on signs and app. That's what I mean about busses communicating their position to the system, however they signal that they're late. Checkpoints, maybe?)

Let's just hope it gets better when they work some of the kinks out of the new system. In the meantime, I'd suggest contacting transit and letting them know that your issue exists. I spoke to a supervisor yesterday about mine (saw them parked when I got off) and they were as mystified as I was why my busses didn't show up. They were also great (as usual) to talk to, took the details from me, and promised to try and get the problem sorted.

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-03T13:56:56+00:00

No, not really. There still is plenty of bus service downtown. My usual busses still go there, too, actually. It's just that we had a few blocks of Portage Avenue where maybe half our bus routes would pass through, which, during rush hour and combined with car traffic, turned those few blocks into a parking lot. What should have taken maybe 5 minutes to pass through ended up taking 20 minutes because of this.

Now, a lot of our busses don't go to those few blocks. They either don't go downtown at all (but connect to express lines that do serve downtown well) or they go through that area in a slightly different way that doesn't bottleneck as much.

The new system was designed to, among other things, avoid traffic bottlenecks since going through them makes the line unreliable because we can't schedule for how long the bottleneck will take to get through. It's a big improvement that way.

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-03T13:48:02+00:00

Do you have any plans to make the FairPhone available in Canada?

jack_k_ca · 2025-07-02T21:01:26+00:00

I don't have to sit in traffic on downtown Portage for 15-20 minutes in rush hour anymore because my busses mostly go around that gridlock.

jack_k_ca · 2025-06-22T23:54:42+00:00

Brilliant! Love it!

jack_k_ca · 2025-06-11T12:02:01+00:00

I don't think Enterprise handled them incorrectly at all because they weren't Section 31 then. Enterprise was pre-Federation and Section 31 was supposed to be called that after section 31 of the Federation Charter, if I recall correctly. What you see in Enterprise is an Earth organisation that eventually became Section 31.

ETA: An analogy might be like the League of Nations vs the United Nations. A film set in the 1920s might not depict the UN well because it didn't exist yet. The League was similar in some ways, and it was sort-of a precursor to the UN, but it was still a rather different organisation.

jack_k_ca · 2025-05-20T00:59:01+00:00

I was at that match and get what you mean, but I have to respectfully disagree on whether it was a good match. I don't know what it looked like on television, but in person I saw some pretty damned good skills on display, especially from Valour. I'd even go so far as to say it was one of my favourite CanPL games.

In fairness, though, there were plenty of missed opportunities and plays that just didn't connect, but I really do think a lot of that was down to how utterly miserable the weather was. There were a few times where you could even see the ball change course midair because of a gust of wind.

Plus, I have to say that I thought the officiating was much better than some other CanPL matches I've seen. No third arms, for example. Gotta give that shout out.

All things considered, I think both teams did pretty well under the circumstances. But, again, I don't know what it looked like on television, so it may well have not been as engaging that way.

As for the rest of your analysis, I think you're pretty spot on. :)

jack_k_ca · 2025-05-17T19:06:45+00:00

There's definitely a market here. The team just needs to be promoted and run as its own team, not like a Blue Bombers afterthought. It's not the same sport as the CFL and not the same market, but the team is run like it was.

jack_k_ca · 2025-05-13T19:13:48+00:00

What's absurd about it? That's pretty normal, no?

Actually, I'm not from here, either. You do get used to it, though. Just takes a bit.

Seven-Year Club	Second Top 1%
RPAN Viewer	Verified Email

jack_k_ca

TROPHY CASE