I left off with WebTV and MSN Messenger. Eventually, we bought a PC and, of course, I used MSN on there. I was more familiar with it, although I had used AIM, and comfortable as well. Other IM services – such as AIM and ICQ – had a very square, institutional look and, as such, made my conversations feel a bit more impersonal and cold, somehow. Though I’m sure some of that was in my head, the look and feel of an IM program became the atmosphere of my chats and I preferred the softer, rounder, more intimate feel of MSN. Also, it didn’t hurt that I relied on several Hotmail e-mail addresses and MSN Messenger was integrated with Hotmail; admittedly, this integration was (and still is) lacking, but the e-mail notifications were great.

Then, something happened. As usual, Microsoft was still developing its IM program, trying to make it the best there was – the end all and be all of IM software. Its main competition at the time was AIM as ICQ was slowly dying out and only the “hardcore” users still referred to the “Q.”

Soon, my favourite version of MSN would be released: 6.0. Whereas MSN Messenger 5.0 was rather bare bones – there was no advertising on the main window and tabs were few while the chat window itself was bare bones, with only a few menus and the only extra buttons were to change the font, display an emoticon or block a contact – 6.0 had evolved.

6.0 offered a sleeker design which moved even further from the institutional look which AIM was still sporting. You could customize colours schemes, minimize the top menu and the block option was moved within the main chat window, which actually was an improvement as the placement before made it easily to accidentally click.

It also offered a lot of new services which, while not essential, really improved upon the chatting experience. However, if you were just looking for a chat client, MSN Messenger now became too much and I suspect that some people were very unhappy with it. I also remember that the main menus were rearranged slightly, proving to be slightly more difficult to navigate.

As for me, I enjoyed playing games with friends when there was a lull in the conversation and, occasionally, would display my beautiful self on webcam for people like Rian (though audio conversations never caught on with me). (; As a fan of avatars and icons across the web, the display picture feature was awesome, in my opinion, though MSN claimed you could use animated images for both the new display picture and custom emoticon features, which you couldn’t.

Users could now also add backgrounds – images of their own or MSN provided images – and share these with a friend which wasn’t necessary, but helped to personalize the chat experience and, perhaps, to tell friends apart.

MSN also started logging chat transcripts at some point, and falsely advertised this feature with 6.0, though it was not yet available – at least with 6.0. I know I found a need for this some time before MSN finally offered it and that is when I started using Messenger+.

Many of the options which were located within the chat window with the previous version of MSN (inviting a friend, sending a file etc), were rearranged within the chat window, now becoming bulky buttons beneath the top menu, although I believe it was possible to turn off this toolbar (but probably not as easy as it had been in the previous version).

Meanwhile, the main messenger window hadn’t changed much – there were a few more options to access some features directly from that window and, unfortunately, there were now also ads at the bottom – though they were relatively unobtrusive.

Expectedly, all these new features made for a much larger download than the previous version – over a 50% size increase! Also, expected, was that MSN took up more resources and could be a nuisance for some.

Overall, I was very happy with version 6. It offered a little extra, without going overboard.

Then something went terribly, horribly wrong. Microsoft introduced MSN Messenger 7 – Beta which was available to the entire public of the internet but MSN still insisted it was beta which, as we all know, is code for “don’t blame us if it fucks up.” And, fuck up, it did.

I installed it, a bit hesitantly, only to find that as soon as I started the program and opened a chat window, it made my computer freeze. It didn’t matter if I had no other programs open, or 20, it was the same result time after time. If I got lucky and it didn’t freeze, the whole system lagged painfully. I quickly reverted to 6.0, planning to stay there forever.

MSN Messenger 7 also included a couple new features which I found complicated and convoluted. Contact cards were like mini profiles which could be viewed from the main window or chat window. Also new, were MSN Spaces, meant to rival Myspace, I guess. both of these moved away from the profile, making it more difficult to find and less effective without offering improvement.

The main window became much less than advertisement-free. There were several tabs added, most of which highlighted MSN websites and partners, which were mostly space-wasters. Users also had the option to add a personal message – which displayed after their username – and display the song they’re currently listening to, both features which MSN plus had previously offered which made it less necessary as an add-on.

Other new features which I was not fond of were the nudge and the winks. The nudge made your window “shake” when a chatting partner nudged you, an increasingly annoying occurrence when you found yourself busy or attempting to ignore someone who is online. Winks were sound animations which you could send to users. If you wanted, you could also purchase packs, though I’m not sure what those are. Both of these features imitated features Yahoo!IM already had in place, and I already despised.

Meanwhile, Microsoft used MSN to push its other services, such as Internet Explorer and MSN search. Installing MSN 7 often resulted in reset settings in IE and MSN search was incorporated into the chat window.

Even for those who loved these so-called improvements, MSN 7 was even more of a resource hog than previous versions. It probably didn’t help that display pictures of your buddies now appear in the pop ups alerts as well. It seems I’m not the only one who loathes MSN 7.

I managed to avoid upgrading for a while and floated happily along the internet without needing to deal with 7.5 which Microsoft deemed important enough to be a release of its own; however, the only new features were voice clips (record 15 second messages and send them to your friends), dynamic (aka animated) backgrounds and.. more bloat (partially due to showing display pictures of you and your friends everywhere).

Then, came the unthinkable.

To be continued…

The web has Transformers mania. Me, not so much but I still think it’s cute to see Rian get all excited. ^_^ In homage to Mr. Optimus Prime and the crew, I’ve checked out all the articles about various Transformers related crap phenomenon (actually, there’s so many articles than you just can’t avoid it. I’ve probably read a dozen lately because they’ve been featured on my Google homepage). The coolest thing I’ve come across so far is this: an actual transforming robot – if not quite as large as the characters – which goes from wheels to walking! And, in true Cole-Youtube-hating-style, I won’t show you the actual video. ;)

Also, a few weeks or so back, I joined SiteNeighbours and am not sure if I told you all. It seems like a great new project to find new websites on which to comment, with which to affiliate and to gain some traffic of your own.

It would also be well worth your time to check out the Dissection of a WordPress Theme, if you’re a WP user or looking for a blog/CMS script any time soon. It certainly is a helpful resource for anyone struggling with WordPress theme customization. All in all, UrbanGiraffe offers a 4 (multi-page) part look into WP themes. To me, this is much more helpful than the codex ever was!

I suspect – I’m not sure but I strongly suspect – that this may ring true with others. I am more comfortable with technology, like computers, than my mother. She tries her best, but we often have conversations like this.

Me: Mom, did you get my e-mail I send you?
Her: Yes, and I replied.
Me: Are you sure? That was like 2 weeks ago. Did you hit the right button? Do you know the right address?
Mom: Yes I replied I sent it to [email address which doesn’t even exist]
Me: -sigh- Well, I didn’t get it. I’m going to e-mail you again, make sure to reply. I never get them.

I have no good theory for this. There may be electrical gremlins somewhere along the line between her internet and mine. Rian may have it out for her and delete every email she sends before I get it – I don’t know. Perhaps, every time she e-mails me, Thunderbird has a hiccup.

But it certainly isn’t her fault.

My little sister is adorable. A-freaking-dorable. And dorky. On the phone the other day she informed me of several things:

Samantha: Cole, I’m going to sell your cat.
Me: What?!
Samantha: Just kidding. Hahaha… I’m going to hammer him with a hammer.
Me: You’re going to hammer him?!
Samantha: No, I love him.

And, later, when she thought I was hanging up on her (which she always thinks but I never do):

Samantha: Cole, are you playing tricks on me? Stop playing tricks on me.
Me: I’m not.
Samantha: Cause, if you are, I’m going to kill you.
Me: You’re going to kill me?!

Ah, out of the mouth of babes.

On Tuesday, I thought the alarm on the phone was set but it didn’t ring so we slept in until 10 or so. We showered, dressed, claimed everything we needed and headed down to eat breakfast in the family restaurant on the first floor of the hotel. The food was yummy and the prices were awesome!

We bothered the desk clerks some more for some maps and such of the subway and headed to the Hiro subway station where we bothered the attendant there with all sorts of questions of “How does this work” And “Is this ticket right?”

Scaredy cat Wendy made me go first through the electronic ticket readers, even though we didn’t know how. Of course, I looked silly when I didn’t put my ticket in and the “gate” closed on me. Oh well – practice makes perfect, right? So, once we figured out how to get into the station, we went to the right platform and waited.

We were both nervous. This was my first subway experience and hers, too, I think; however, it was awesome! It was quick and I could see someone with a sensitive stomach becoming sick but it was very convenient and pretty cheap. Frequent, too. I definitely see why many Japanese people don’t have cars or use them often. (That, and walking and biking are both much more common than in the States. Some say because there’s simply no parkign space.)

We found our stop easily. It was the next one, as someone had instructed us and there were electronic marquees above all the subway doors as well as an overhead announcement. We departed and got to go on the fun journey of figuring out how to get out of the station, now, and find the train station to get to Harajuku.

We finally figured that out, but mistakenly purchased tickets for the subway again. I figured we could use them for the trip home, and we did. So we got to the train station which was slightly more confusing but a nice man helped us out, we purchased tickets and found our platform. A short wait later, we were on a train which was significantly more packed than the subway. And shortly after that, we arrived at Harajuku.

According the the map the hotel gave us (this map exactly), the train station (JR Harajuku) was right near one of the main streets of Harajuku, which it was. So we crossed the street and were in the shopping district.

So we headed straight and covered about 7 blocks of Gothic, Lolita, lingerie, book and shoe stores. Wendy bought a lot. I did not. It was hot and the stores were small and cramped, even without the hundreds of people we passed by. And, after a point many of the stores started to look exactly a like.

We took a break to have some crepes which were great. I’ve had crepes in Japan before and while I’m not sure why a French dessert is so popular here, I’m not complaining.

Unfortunately, clothes shopping for me in Japan is virtually impossible. I did actually stop into a bunch of lingerie stores but nothing would fit. Their band sizes don’t even go up to what I wear, which is pretty common and although their cup sizes are supposed to be the same, they’re not. I was falling out of a cup size bigger than what I normally wear. -l-

A lot of the stores have knick knacks and trinkets of the store you might find at a garage sale, specialty store or comic shop in the USA. Much of it was used, and you could tell. In the back of the name brand clothing store, it wouldn’t be surprising to find Disney characters or Star Wars toys; it was quite bizarre.

I did particularly like Pin Cross and the Mad label which many of the EGL stores carried. I’d link but neither store nor label seems to have an official site. Pin Cross was where Wendy bought her Creepers, which was one of the requirements of things to do in Harajuku.

At the end of that street, we turned left and headed to Book Off which was one of the few things Wendy wanted to see. We hit Book-off and H Naoto, both places Wendy was dying to shop. About this time, I was becoming tired and cranky so we browsed around the building H Naoto was in, including a J-rock CD store – the first of which we found, btw; J-rock seems to be rather underground here, even in Tokyo – and headed back the way we came.

It took 5 or so hours for us to go less than a mile with the number of shops and people. I was definitely all shopped out and, by that time, we didn’t have time to see anything touristry. I would have loved to go sightseeing and see something like a temple. -sigh- Alas, I’m here for more than a year, still.

We wrapped up the trip by stopping by a shop we’d passed on the way down and I purchased some Gizmo slippers I had my eye on! They were super cute and just another example of the niche that American cult-classics seem to have in Japan.

We headed back via the train to Ebisu where we transferred to the subway to Hiro station where we departed and headed back to our hotel. Unfortunately, I was a little disoriented and mistakenly assume we were on the wrong side of the street and headed the wrong direction. >_> We figured it out after a couple blocks and reversed route back to the hotel, stopping at Mcdonald’s on the way.

We ate at the hotel, stopped downstairs at the bar and each had a Strawberry margarita. IT was a bit exciting because it was my first bar drink. -laughs- We hung out in the hotel room until we decided to order room service because, dammit, we were in a hotel and we could! We finished out the night quietly but it was fun.

Wednesday, we rose early to board the bus and head back. It was mostly uneventful, no octopus tentacles this time. We arrived back on base earlier than expected, again, and the girl across from us drove us back to our apartment which was nice of her. I felt bad because I’d never caught her name. Oh well.