Seriously Tim's

I wasn't f*cking around Tim Hortons. I'm so very close to not buying a coffee this afternoon.

Tim Hortons is Mean

Dear Tim Hortons:

I just drank my 17th cup of your pedestrian coffee this Roll Up season. During this season's run, I have won precisely one doughnut. Your aesthetically challenged red and yellow cup advises me that I have a "1 in 6" chance of winning a "food prize". I like those odds (although I'm not terribly taken with your food, but I am taken with winning in all its forms). I figure that those odds, coupled with the additional prizes, like 40 Toyota Rav 4s, 100 $5,000 MasterCards, 1,000 Napolean Grills and 25,000 $100 Tim Cards, makes my odds of winning something pretty damn good. Yet, in 17 tries, I've won only one "food prize", if you can call a doughnut "food". My abysmal win record runs contrary to the odds you've advertised. Frankly, I'm growing a little discouraged. Are you running a Tim's Casino here, where the coffee house always wins? I know I only paid $1.75 for my half-litre vat of 18% cream topped with middling coffee, but I'm starting to get the feeling that your just f*cking with me.

To be clear, I'm not entirely sure I want another doughnut, or even a $100 Tim Card because how the hell am I going to spend $100 at one of your stores? At your ridiculously low coffee and food prices, I'd be mired in a world of beige-through-tan foodstuffs for a year: it would be awful. But once-in-a-while, your incessant advertising and omnipresent availability gives me hope that, after all these years, it's finally my time for my big win - like a Napolean Grill. Granted, I already have a natural gas grill that I would likely continue to use - it's pretty nice. But man - the feeling of finally winning something that's not made of bleached wheat flour and confectioners sugar - that's what I want. And can you imagine if I won the Toyota? Of course, the Rav 4 is near the bottom of my dream car rankings, or even my practically affordable car rankings... but maybe I could sell it at a steep discount and pay off a fraction of the ever-escalating cost of our basement development. More importantly, I would finally feel vindicated for all the years I've stomached your unpleasantly hot and repugnant brew on a thin vein of hope that my reward was nigh.

So be warned: I'm nearing the end of my rope. I'm only going to purchase one more coffee this morning... and maybe another this afternoon... and probably one on Thursday morning because I'm probably going to be working late on Wednesday night. But after that, and my Friday late morning coffee, if I don't get a reasonable win, I'm going to consider possibly not buying another coffee. I'm serious. I'll go right back to Starbucks in the middle of Roll Up season. Maybe... probably... if I can stomach over-roasted beans at inflated prices with no chance of winning anything... which I probably can't.

I hate you Tim Hortons. I hate you.

Faithfully Yours,

DJD

Nothing to be SAD about

InCivilitis: Nothingto be SAD About

It’s the beginning of March, and shit’s not funny. The darkest months of winter are technically behind us, but the tropical dampness of our requisite hot vacations are even further behind – a distant memory that seems more like foggy a tryst you imagined during a 2:00pm sugar low. All that remains from the tropical vacation is a nagging shortage of cash and a crushing avalanche of court appearances and mediations that you scheduled in the then distant future, well into the future following your hardly-earned tropical tryst.But the future is now, my friends, and the impending rush of ill-considered matters that were punted down the line are rising like warm bread. The last throws of winter are the worst.

It might be possible to deal with all those foul matters we’ve postponed, if Mother Nature, the wretched witch, would see fit to deliver some remotely seasonal warmth. It dampens the day when you wake-up to an impending sunrise, to be fooled into thinking, “it looks rather springy out there in the near daylight of early March”, only step out your door into the face of a brisk minus 20 that cuts through your chest like cheap bourbon. Of course, the delightfully pure whiteness of our December winter-scape has given way to the grey-brown glacial sheets of densely packed ice and gravel blanketing the sidewalks and gutters. Aside from an active lava flow, it would be difficult to devise a surface less friendly to pedestrians (and the hips of seniors) than the late winter glacial cover. Fortunately (?), the icy moraine is periodically broken by the emerging lumps of dog feces that are suspiciously common beneath winter’s cloak. The thawing scats emit the smell of human shame and servitude: the stench of a sick society that hides its worst beneath the veil of winter. Of course, some of the crap is off-set by the sudden appearance of the bright red blight: the seasonal Tim’s Cup, with one piece of the paper lip rolled slightly upward, bearing the season’s most common affront, “Please play again”.

No. I’m done playing. I don’t even like Tim Horton’s and yet the prospect of a free crueler, or better yet, another coffee, somehow compels me to quadruple my TiHo’s intake during Roll Up season. One year, during law school, I won four coffees in a row and by the fourth I was praying that I didn’t win another. But the problem is, since you put everything off during Christmas and then your tropical vacation, you need the caffeine to get through the pile of stuff you adjourned. And since you’re drinking coffee anyway, you might was well get a Tim’s with a chance of winning ‘cause God knows Starbucks isn’t giving you anything for free. And since that vacation, you could really use a financial break. Besides, the TiHo’s is pretty close and the minus 20 weather and the moonscape sidewalk doesn’t invite a lengthy sojourn.  So let’s just get a Tim’s – my last cup asked me very nicely to play again anyway. Late winter is an asshole.

Of course, this year, during the depths of our Seasonal Affective Disorder, my wife and I promptly decided to finish our concrete basement and proceeded, like any brilliant litigator, to employ a contractor on a handshake to get things done. As such, the normal ugliness of the season has been amplified by all the ugliness of poorly detailed construction contract.The notion was that winter with two kids under two was resulting in some serious cabin fever that could be resolved by increasing our space and providing more room for “ripping around”. Of course, winter is nearing its end and we have no finished space yet, a meaningless budget and a thick coat of dust throughout the house. At one point, a “minor adjustment” to the position of the shower drain resulted in a grand excavation that looked more like the search for King Tut’s tomb.

The capstone to this season’s escapades was our quick“in-and-out” voyage from Saskatoon to Calgary to procure some “cheap” fixtures from Sweden’s favourite hex-key furniture hawker. IKEA ate more than three hours of my life and made a mockery of our budgeted intentions. Amidst the labyrinth of showrooms, we managed to avoid the horse-meat delights of the cafeteria, but risked low blood sugar and dehydration as a result. Of course,while we shopped, Mother Nature, in her late winter rage, descended on Calgary,pelting it with Fernie-like powder for hours, which paralyzed the town. We got stuck at a Sandman Inn across the street from IKEA for the extra night – and one more day away from the office, which was extremely helpful during the season of catch-up. If you need cupboards, you should probably just buy them in Saskatchewan.

As my wife and I quietly mulled dinner during the deepest throws of late winter this week, our eldest child, at just weeks over two years of age, continued his Ghandi-esque hunger strike, which seems to be aimed not at the realization of democratic freedom, but at taking his food to the front room. Following a very vocal and physical display of non-violent resistance that saw him writhing on the floor, and our continuing indifference to his tantrum, silence became the room. As we quietly chewed, our child very quietly and purposefully removed his socks. As his mother was turned, attending to the baby, he very precisely and resolutely placed his socks on top of his mother’s food on her plate and slowly backed away. It was the strangest, most curious display of defiance I had ever witnessed. And when my wife turned around, we looked to each other momentarily, and then attempted to contain our laughter.We knew that laughing at our child’s actions was poor patenting – it would only encourage him. But damn it was funny. At that point, we grabbed a pricey bottle of wine from the shelf and tore into it on a fine Tuesday night.

 To date, we have no idea what implored our child to such an odd act of rebellion – it made no sense. But frankly, it was hilarious. And I have to say, he’s continued his streak with our potty training efforts, wherein he decided he would pee in the potty, only because he determined that the Advil syringe he played with in the bath (yes, we give our child Advil, and yes, we let him play with medical implements from time-to-time) was equally effective at extracting his own pee from the potty. A toddler armed with a pee-filled syringe is precisely what we needed. But his acts made us laugh, not only at him, but at ourselves, and our consent to late winter misery. Frankly, life isn’t that bad, despite our climatic depression. Winter is in its final throws and the rush of February and March will give way to spring very shortly, and dreams of summer weekends on the water will come to fruition. The disputes of this month will pass, and the lazy days of summer will be upon us. I just hope our basement is done by then because we don’t have air conditioning and it would be nice to have a cool place to dwell during the sweltering heat. At least IKEA doesn’t make air conditioners.

I’m off to get a coffee… I’m due for a win.

Take the Free Sh*t: You’re Paying for it Anyway

It was an accident. Or so you told yourself as your faded iPhone 3GS crashed to the pavement from your weak, weak grip. Deep down inside, you know that your grip on that phone has been a little loose ever since you “qualified for an upgrade” with your wireless carrier. Canadians wait with bated breath for that special date every two years or so, when their wireless service provider offers an upgrade to the shiniest new device that promises to get you more connected at faster speeds in higher resolution than ever before – all for the measly price of maybe a hundred bucks…. and your sole, otherwise known as the three year contract. Six months later, when Apple smites you with a neven newer model, the cursing begins. Which of your children you wouldn’t give then to cut the three-year chains that define your life of servitude to Big Telecom so you could get your hands on the iPhone 5GS.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently held a public hearing on the establishment of a mandatory code of conduct for wireless service providers. At the heart of public disdain for their wireless overlords is the wretched, universally despised three year service contract, which seems to be the hallmark of Canadian wireless carriers. Although I have limited sympathy for Canadian wireless carriers, I concur with them on one point: the three year contract, itself, is not an evil beast: it’s a purely voluntary election that people enter into freely. You can’t fault carriers if consumers choose a bad bargain. The real issue is that Canadian consumers must choose between a bad bargain and a worse bargain, where the only rational choice is to take the free sh*t.

At the advent of cellular service, Canadian (and U.S.) carriers, decided that, in order to get more people hooked on using their services, they would essentially finance the capital cost of handsets for new customers. Carriers ensured they recovered the cost of the handsets by locking those customers into long-term service contracts at minimum rates. Customers really seemed to like the idea of a “free phone” up front, and they needed a carrier for their shiny new phones anyway: it was a win-win. Then, newer, shinier faster phones that connected you better at higher speeds in greater resolution than ever before started showing-up more frequently – almost annually. But customers and their phones were locked to their current carriers under iron-clad contracts buffered by digital locks on phones. In response to customers’ unfulfilled desire for shiny things, carriers ingeniousely introduced the mid-contract “upgrade” – get the new device that gets you better connected at higher speeds in greater resolution than ever before for a couple hundred bucks… plus another three year contract. And the cycle continued, mostly because people like shiny thing.

The problem with the Canadian wireless system is not the length of service contracts. The problem is that, somehow, the financing of phones got tied-into the wireless service rates. When a person takes a cheap phone on promotion with a three year contract, there is no financing charge on each monthly statement – the cost recovery of the phone is simply tied into the overall service rates. As a result, wireless rates don’t reflect the actual cost of wireless service: they reflect the cost of wireless service and the cost of a new phone. If I show up at any Canadian carrier with my rickety, unlocked iPhone 3GS that I’ve already paid for, the carrier will charge me the same rates as the sucker who took their free phone deal, even though my phone is already paid for. Thus, I wind-up financing other people’s phones by paying the same inflated rates as all the free-phone-takers. As a result, the real suckers in Canada are people who don’t take the “free phone” deals offered by carriers, because we’re all paying for a phone anyway!

When cellular phones were first introduced, it seemed intuitive (or at least, not strange) that the wireless carriers also sold the hardware that worked on their networks. You might recall that the land-line telephone system initially required you to rent or purchase your phone from the service provider. Regulators eventually forced carriers to permit the connection of “third party devices” (ie. a telephone from Radio Shack) to the land-line systems. The availability, selection and price-points of landline phones flourished and telecom providers had to beuild their businesses based on providing service, not financing hardware. Does anyone enter into a three-year landline contract with Bell? In fact, does anyone still get a landline?

Today, you would likely find it absurd if the telephone company sold you a telephone, your internet provider sold you a computer, or your television provider sold you your television. Do you think Shaw owes you a television for free because you subscribe to its services?

The current wireless system is akin to Shell providing you a new Cadillac for $4,000.00, provided you buy gas exclusively from Shell for three years at pre-established minimum rates (which might be a little, or a lot higher than you would expect to pay for gas otherwise), with significant penalties for early termination. Also, your Caddy won’t run on Petro-Canada, Esso or any other gas you might like to try. If it breaks, you’ll need to keep buying Shell gas anyway, and we’ll offer you a replacement Caddy at the fair market price of $40,000.00… unless you qualify for an upgrade Caddy for only $6,000.00 and another three year contract tacked-on to your old one (you’ll be buying Shell for your natural born life) . It seems kind of stupid….although I might be onto something here (process patent pending, Shell).

The simple solution to this whole fiasco is not to ban three year contracts – banning things is the timeless solution of the idiot. Instead, CRTC should mandate that carriers must separate phone financing costs from actual wireless service costs for customers. Then, if I choose to buy the newest Android straight from Google, I know I will actually be paying for wireless services, not phone financing, when I go to a carrier for service. If someone wants a “free phone” from his carrier, that’s fine, but call it what it is – financing – and charge him for it accordingly, and separate from the actual provision of service. The carriers have trained North Americans to believe that new cell phones cost $100.00, instead of the actual $500.00 to $900.00 price tag. And we’ve sacrificed mobility between carriers and fair service rates for the “good deal”. It’s not that we’re all stupid, but that the only rational economic choice is to take the free phone, because you have no choice but to pay for it through inflated rates anyway.

Permitting carriers to support the “free phone giveaway” by hiding the capital costs in their wireless rates ensures everyone will be hooked on the three-year contract cycle like a bad drug. I’d like to get off the crack and would be happy to pay at least a few hundred dollars up front for my phone if I knew I could switch carriers at any point without penalty, and that the service rates I was getting weren’t inflated to pay for everyone’s shiny new phone. Forcing carriers to segregate phone financing rates from service rates is the simple solution that provides consumers with real choice respecting phone purchases and service providers. I think I’d hold onto my old iPhone 4 a little tighter in that world.