I gave VIA's new wireless-on-the train service a go last week. I couldn't resist the urge, especially since they had given me a coupon code for a free hour.

I didn't really expect that much out of it, and that's what I got. At least I got to keep up to date with the score of the Senators game that night since I was home late and only got to watch the final period. Anyways, being a sucker for something free – and technological – and asstacular, I knew what I was in for.

Sure enough I connected just as I would to any normal wireless network, only with VIA (which has completely outsourced the service so it's really not VIA at all) you have to login. As soon as you try and go to any website it throws a very ugly, and unfriendly message denying you access. Most people will disregard this with just cause, and continue on clicking away.

I found the spot where I had to put my coupon code and everything appeared to work. It was a little bit flaky, but overall it worked alright. I managed to get some decent speeds downloading a few things, I read a few emails and kept up to date with some news. It was pretty handy, but the downside of the whole thing is the price. Regularly priced at $3.95 for 15 minutes, followed by 30 cents a minute if you fly by your seat; or $9 for a day, or $46 for unlimited monthly. It's definitely not worth that – not for me anyways. I'd be much more likely to use it if it were, say, $25/month or less.

I used my hour, it kicked me off, and that is that.

As far as that goes, work is really all that's been going on. It's been fairly quiet for the last little while, with just little meandering, constant things, but that's about to change. Things are about to explode.

Which is fine, because I like work and I have a serious itch to buy a digital SLR camera. I just can't decide which one to get. Canon Rebel XT, Olympus E500, Pentax *iST, Nikon D50... Canon's kind of on the shit list lately, and the Nikon doesn't take compact flash cards, so I'm leaning on the Olympus. We'll see though. I think I'm going to have to actually hit up a store for a purchase of this magnitude.

The new MacBook's also just made it to my list. But, that won't be for quite some time. Maybe early next year, who knows though. People seem to never understand that when they ask me about computers and I say “buy a mac” I really mean it. We have one at work, which is a little bit older, but it still has Mac OS X. The eye candy, the usability it is just too spectacular for words.

Ah well, c'est la vie. Keg party soon. Trip to Europe (again) soon. Good times on the horizon.