The Blork Blog

I‘ll skip over the obvious reasons why Leonard Cohen must not die any time soon and cut to the matter at hand: Leonard Cohen must not die because people are ignoring his request for a moratorium on the song Hallelujah. Worse, most of the people who “interpret” the song seem hung up on a single [...]

I have a sore back. It’s something that hits me once or twice a year due to a problem with lower back spasms. This time it’s been going on for more than a week, which is unusual. Today I was almost completely incapacitated, which is very unusual given that two days ago I thought I [...]

I once worked in an office environment that was a vast array of cubicles, and every cubicle had a name plate to identify the cube’s inhabitant. There were two kinds of name plates available; one type was a free-standing A-frame of the type you see on executive desks that say “The Buck Stops Here” and [...]

Don’t get me wrong; I love the Opus card. It has made using public transit in Montreal a lot easier, at least in terms of buying and using tickets and passes. The single, rechargable “chip” card makes a lot of sense, and I’ve had no real problems with it. Well, except for what I’m about [...]

Microsoft has never been known to be particularly good at designing software, particularly from a usability point of view. Sure, they try, but every new “improved usability” trick they reveal ends up being a kludge that most people hate. I am constantly swearing at Microsoft Word and Outlook because of their stupid designs and incomprehensibly [...]

Let me begin this small rant by stating that I’ve been a hardcore fan of CBC Radio since before most of you were born. It’s not just the lack of advertising (which can make listening to commercial radio — especially in the morning — downright torturous) that makes me a fan. It’s the high standard [...]

My American (Express) journey (nightmare) continues. Remember the famous one-cent credit that existed on my AMEX Gold card after I canceled the account? How AMEX kept sending me statements every month, listing the credit, until I finally phoned them and said they could keep the goddam cent? That was quite the silly story. It ended [...]