Bad, Bad Technology Day

Today has been incredibly exasperating.  Somehow I knew this would happen, but it just seemed impossible to avoid the problems.

I should probably start off with an analog problem.  I was going down into the basement to try to measure the belt sander and I saw that over the summer a wasps' nest had been built in the door to the outside.  Obviously, I don't go in and out this way much at all, nor have I been particularly handy over the past couple of months.  That said, it was still extremely shocking!

While I do have somewhat pacifist leanings when it comes to spiders in the house, I do draw the line at mosquitos and roaches and certainly bees and wasps!  I had to go over to the mall anyway for an early morning workout on Sunday, so I stopped off at Home Depot and got wasp spray, along with a board that I'll use to repair the deck (if I can force myself to get around to it this week).  Coming back over the bridge with everything wasn't too much fun.

Sunday itself was not super eventful.  I sprayed the nest, then ran before any wasps came after me.  I'll do this a few times, then try to knock the nest off the door.  I haven't really decided what to do with it, but maybe burn it outside.  I'll also have to look into some foam to spray into the cracks that the wasps came in through.

Then I went downtown to the AGO and then on to work.  I found out that Google Wallet wasn't working, and I uninstalled the app, planning to reinstall it.  Then my phone said I couldn't install Google Wallet at all.  (This led to a very frustrating evening, which spilled over into Monday!)  Fortunately, it wasn't too hard to convince the people at the membership counter to let me in, so I checked out the new video art up on the 5th floor.  Most of it wasn't all that interesting, but there was a compact (for her) piece by Sarah Sze called Disappearing Act.

Down on the 2nd floor, there was an Alex Janvier painting on loan from a private collection.  It was quite nice, and I don't think this was in the McMichael show, but I could be wrong.

Alex Janvier, Smile Shooter (Life's Scrabble Series), 1994

I then spent quite a bit of time at work, trying to get ahead of a big project.  Once again, I did not watch any movies, and I also found out that while I could get Roku working, it wasn't compatible with Netflix.  I think this is because Netflix requires an additional step to verify the account, which this older Roku can't handle.  So this was extremely frustrating.  It either means buying a new Roku (and hoping it will solve this issue) or getting the Bell Streamer hardware, which is sort of a glorified Roku.

I also spent some time looking into the Google Wallet issue.  Apparently, it simply will not work with Android 8 or below, and my phone cannot be upgraded beyond Android 8.  Quite honestly, there really ought to be more laws forbidding this forced obsolescence.

Monday I was still struggling with the phone, wondering if I could still get Canoo to work, since I was hoping to use that to get a free pass to the Aga Khan.  In the end, I was running late, so I opted for a cab to get up there.  (For the near future, I can no longer just take a bus up from Pape Station to the Aga Khan but have to get over to Broadview Station first, which adds close to 15 minutes to the journey...)

The cab ride was $25, which was pretty frustrating, but I did manage to get to the Aga Khan with about 10 minutes to spare before the Kairos Quartet pop-up concert began.  (I actually seen them in a more formal concert at the Toronto Music Garden a week or so ago on the waterfront where they had done Steve Reich's Mallet Quartet and a piece by Vijay Iyer.)  Unfortunately, Canoo only gave me a $10 discount, not a completely free ticket, so the concert ended up costing me $35!  I then found out that they were doing four relatively short pieces (and no Reich), and that they were repeating the exact same set at 1 pm and 3 pm.  Had I know that they weren't mixing things up at all, I could have taken my time (and taken the bus and not cabbed it).  That was a bit frustrating in general but it was still nice seeing them in action, especially as Torq seems to be on hiatus and have stopped performing for the moment at least.  Here is a filmed performance where Kairos are doing Reich's Mallet Quartet.

I did look at the video art exhibit upstairs, which had just opened.  (I had gone over to Aga Khan a few months back to see a play in the courtyard, but that was sadly cancelled due to rain.  The special exhibit wasn't open at that time.)  Here are a few representative pieces.

The downstairs exhibit was still on.  It was the most interesting thing I had seen on my previous visit, so I went down and checked it out again.

Almagul Menlibayeva, Thermonuclear River Basin, 2014

This time I was able to take the bus back, and I even managed to snap a photo of the shuttered Science Centre.  (No idea when they are going to start renaming all the Crosstown stations!)

(And in French for good measure...)

I stayed on transit all the way downtown to the Eaton Centre.  I went over to Hudson's Bay and did find one pair of dress slacks that fit.  Sigh.  I really have pretty much plateaued after some decent weight loss early in the summer, and I suspect the next visit to see the doctor at the clinic will be a drag.  I suppose the only way to really lose the weight is to sleep more regular hours and snack less, neither of which is terribly appealing...  I didn't find any dress shoes that were nice or at least not at a price I was willing to pay.

I ran into the Bell store, but they wanted $80 for this Bell caster, which I thought was absurd.  I'll try to call tomorrow and see if there is a better deal.  I had better luck at Freedom replacing my phone.  However, I made the fatal mistake of upgrading to a Google phone without remembering my Google password.  They generally are not willing to email me the reset codes but are pushing messages to my new phone, which is only partially set up because, you guessed it, I don't remember my Google password.  I think I finally have gotten to a workaround, though they might be resetting my daughter's password, which would be a fiasco.  All of this so that I can reinstall Google Wallet ahead of a few concerts.  So incredibly annoying!  I think the next concert is Thurs., but I can probably send the tickets to my wife, and it is the following week that I absolutely need this back under control.  But there are some other things that I really need my phone working, including this is the only way to get VPN working so I can work from home.  And of course, I now need to transfer over all my contacts, and decide if I really do want to transfer over any text messages, most of which are pretty transient.  It's actually pretty appalling how everything has been consolidated so that without a phone (and sufficient data) you can no longer be part of the modern world.  I absolutely refuse to pay for things with my phone, but there will probably be a further push one day so that it will become next to impossible to opt out.  I now really understand the crank in Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, who goes on and on about missing postcards and postage stamps.  I kind of felt that speech before, but now I am living it!

So definitely not the way I wanted to end (or start) the week...

Edit: I should clarify that the phone does work, and I can make calls and get texts, but without logging into Google Play, then most of the functionality is very limited, and of course the whole point of getting this phone was so I could add Google Wallet back on.

Edit (9/5): There is a place in Gerrard Square that has a pretty big selection of men's dress loafers (and at a fraction of what they were asking at the Bay to say nothing of the outrageous prices Harry Rosen was selling shoes for!), so I'll try to grab a pair over the weekend.