Fritou Sign Came Down

 Back in April I made an update about how a sub shop that's been open for some 50 years was relocating. There were rumours about what would replace it, with the prevailing theory that it would be shawarma. I was excited by this idea, since it's my favourite type of fast food and while KW is pretty oversaturated for shawarma spots, our neighborhood specifically is a dry zone for it.

Rumours turned out to be right, Belmont Village is now home to Sam's Shawarma! We went there on their second day and got pitas. To be honest, the wrap job was rough, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they just need some practice. They're our only local option and I'd really like them to succeed.

But what's more interesting is they finally took down the Fritou's Fried Chicken sign! For some reason, Big John's had a fried chicken sign on the outside and inside of their shop, which made no sense because they didn't sell it and the shop had been there forever so it seemed unlikely to predate it. When they left they took down their own sign but left up the Fritou's one. At their new location they put up a Crown Cleaners sign, even though it's completely unrelated to their business and wasn't at the location before they moved in.

But Sam's Shawarma finally took down the weird chicken sign that seemed so unremovable.

Big John's has been moving really slowly to reopen, but they recently moved in a drink chiller so that's progress I guess.

Public transit between Kitchener and Guelph finally improved. I used to take a Greyhound bus between the two cities, but as soon as the pandemic hit they pulled their service for an indefinite period of time. Eventually they announced they were done permanently throughout Canada. Despite having a network of buses, Go Transit did not step in to fill the void. There was one Go train with an extremely limited service, clearly meant for a very specific commute that was almost impossible for me to use.

So getting to Guelph and back has been a struggle since the pandemic started. Apparently Greyhound had a monopoly on the route between the two cities, and even though they announced that they were done, they still had to file for bankruptcy before other services could move in, which took awhile.

I haven't used one yet, but they've been replaced by something called FlixBus. The Go Train is also offering regular trips now, which always seemed like the obvious solution.

I mentioned before that we got Finn neutered but I never followed up. Not much to say. We brought him over the light rail, dropped him off and came back for him later that day. The person there called him "Finny" and apologized for it, because apparently some people are sensitive about people giving their pets nicknames, even something as intuitive as "Finny". Not a problem for me.

 I felt bad coming back because there was a lot of construction and people shouting, and Finn was shivering in his carrier. An interesting guy walked with us for a bit, talking about his history with cats, saying he used to be abusive but he changed his ways with God's forgiveness.

 Finn had to wear a cone for a bit

I felt bad he couldn't scratch or clean his face on his own. You can also see in the picture they shaved a square of fur on his foreleg. It looked a little unnatural so I was happy when he grew it back.

He was pretty chill. Even when he was wearing the cone, he would sleep in the bed and cuddle with us. It would have been understandable if he were untrusting after the operation. After all, we put him in a cage, took him away from his home, left him with strangers that drugged and cut him, and then stuck a cone around his neck, all for reasons we weren't able to explain. That was all awhile ago and he's fully back to normal now

Lee-Anne Got COVID

Lee-Anne was in Orlando, Florida attending the NOAH conference last week. NOAH stands for the National Organization of Albinism and Hypopigmentation. If I have somehow failed to mention it, Lee-Anne has albinism, which is a genetic condition that means her body doesn't produce pigment. People with albinism have pale skin, light hair and blue eyes, as well as some degree of vision loss.

The NOAH conference usually runs every other year but last time it got canceled because of COVID. They had virtual activities as a replacement and I attended some of them, but it's just not the same as in person. 2022 was the first time since the pandemic that the conference was able to be held. However, she still got COVID.

She came back last Monday evening, and on Tuesday noticed she had a sore throat. She took a rapid test and it came back positive. Since then I've been sleeping on the couch and we've been wearing masks in common areas. 

Her symptoms never got worse and it has now been five days since she's been symptomatic, which means she should be past her most infectious stage. I took a rapid test today and it came back negative, so hopefully I'm good.

It's surprising that I managed to dodge it, since apparently COVID is currently the most infectious common disease, this new strain outpacing measles for the title. Silver lining is that it's not as deadly as it used to be.

Because it's impossible to track the number of cases anymore, since people are taking rapid tests at home and not reporting results, policies are being decided based on hospitalizations. I don't think I mentioned it, but my organization reopened in its' usual limited capacity for what I think is the fourth time recently.

It's fortunate that she came back Tuesday evening, because I do in-person services Monday and Thursday, so this meant that I didn't have contact with any member afters connecting with her. I couldn't go in on Thursday, though.

There was an optometry conference recently, which we're aware of because Lee-Anne's family is rooted in optometry, and apparently 45% of the people that attended contracted COVID. It would be interesting to see what the results are for NOAH.

Rogers Shutdown

Last week I woke up and tried to say good morning to my coworkers over my work iPad, but found I couldn't get a signal. I switched over to Google chat on my work laptop but couldn't get a signal with it, either. Decided to disconnect and switch to data on the iPad, and still nothing. I went out to the Iron Horse Trail, sat on a bench and managed to connect with my personal cell phone using data, where I was able to connect with a few of my coworkers who were having similar difficulties.

The entire agency had been impacted. All our work phones were down. Turns out that one of Canada's largest networks had a nationwide shutdown. Canada is ruled by three major providers: Bell, Telus and Rogers. Even though there are a variety of other names, like Kudo, Fido, and Virgin, they tend to be owned by the big three. Even though I use a provider that is independent from them, it's still reliant on Rogers infrastructure, so I got shut down too. The reason I couldn't get data from my apartment is because I live in a basement and have a terrible connection other than WiFi. 

Our agency and my team sent an email explaining the situation, which is very ironic to explain why the Internet isn't working over email. Even though Rogers should hypothetically impact only one third of the connections, it felt like more than half of the people were impacted. We managed to host our usual group but only me and one other facilitator were able to be there, and I had to be outside and do it over my phone.

I wound up talking to a lot of people that were walking by on the trail. Somebody asked me if the Internet was back. Somebody asked me if I'd witnessed a car accident he'd just been in (I hadn't). Somebody sat down next to me and speculated about Russia attacking our satellite-based services.

I connected with someone from a country overseas (won't specify where, just for vague privacy reasons). They told me the Internet had been lost there as well and that they believed it was a worldwide phenomenon. Since I was just hearing this after that other guy was speculating about Russia attacking satellites, I was sufficiently spooked. Even though I'd been previously informed that it was just one Canadian company that had been taken down.

There were issues with people being able to contact emergency services. Business payment systems were down, relying on people to pay cash. Since the pandemic's initial concern with surface transmission and the subsequent call to get people to stop using cash, not too many people had it handy. 

I had to go somewhere after work, and I wondered if the light rail would be able to accept payment from me. It did, but at first it confirmed me as a University of Waterloo student (which I am, but I'm not attending enough courses to get a funded pass). The voiceover wasn't able to announce when the next train would arrive, but had a generic message about intervals between arrivals. Also, weirdly the machines had spat out a bunch of receipts on both ends. I also saw some electronic bus signs showing weird code instead of bus schedules. I guess Grand River Transit uses Rogers.

People got their connections back in intervals. My mother and brother got theirs back the following morning. We were disconnected for three days.

Canada has terrible service providers. We have some of the highest prices on the planet and we still managed a nationwide shutdown. Rogers has said it was triggered by a maintenance update. I don't know if that's a vague and veiled reason or if it was actually that mundane.

Microsoft New Fonts

This might be old news to a lot of people, but it hasn't been put into action yet. So let's talk about Microsoft's decision to change their default font.

In 2007, Calibri replaced Times New Roman as the default font in Word, and replaced Arial in Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook and Wordpad.  It was seen as an improvement on Times New Roman, the previous default, as Calibri was built for readability on computer screens while Times had its roots in print media, designed for the British newspaper, The Times in 1931. 

Times was chosen as the first default Word font because of its popularity and readability at the time, as well as its compatibility with then-current technology. After advancements in computer graphics, it just made sense to upgrade.

Arial, the other font replaced by Calibri, was developed to mimic Helvetica, a much loved font developed by the company Monotype. Arial was made as a go-around which could be used without having to pay Monotype.

Times New Roman is a serif font, with a robust, solid, and crisp look, while Arial is sans-serif, with softer and fuller curves and Calibri is a sans-serif with subtly rounded stems and corners.

Now, after fifteen years of dominance, Microsoft has chosen to dethrone Calibri. Reasons for the change are up to speculation. The stated explanation is simply that, "while Calibri has served its purpose well, it's time to evolve". Lucas DeGroot, the man responsible for developing the font, believes that the change has more to do with keeping up with contemporary tastes, than it does with readability. While that sounds a little salty, he claims to all for the change, saying that people can develop a distaste for default fonts due to their being overused and misused.

The new default font has yet to be determined. Five new potential replacements have been selected, and the choice will be made democratically. Microsoft is reaching out to the public to vote on which one they would like to see become the new default.

These are the candidates:

Bierstadt: A precise serif font suitable for grid-based typography, but meant to feel a bit more approachable and less institutional, with a "human touch". It is also the only serif font on the list

Grandview: Inspired by German road signage meant to be readable at a distance, this font is supposed to be "mechanical but elegant"

Seaford: The look for this one was inspired by armchairs, and is meant to have a gently organic and asymmetrical appearance.

Skeena: This one is described as being "quirky" with the most varied contrasts between thickness in its letters, and exceptionally high strokes

Tenorite: With exceptionally large dots, accents and punctuations, this fonts' creators said they were "craving something round, wide and crisp" and that they didn't "shy away from going large and circular".

As for my preference, I will say that I'm not fond of that weird typed "a" that Bierstadt and Grandview use (as well as the font I'm using now). I appreciate more consistency between commonly-used handwriting and typing. I guess the "a" is meant to be closer to cursive, but that style has fallen out of use. Makes more sense to model after the printed letter.

Grandview has the coolest inspiration though, and Lee-Anne has given it her vote as the one most legible to her as someone with low vision. While I don't like their "a", as someone who cares about accessibility, this is big points for this font.

Bierstadt gets some extra points too for being brave enough to be a serif font in a non-serif world.

I like Skeena's tilted "e" and it seems the most fun. Default fonts aren't really meant to be fun though.

DeGroot, creator of Calibri, votes for Seaford without giving much reasoning aside from saying it's "strong" and "nice" while not being absolutely neutral.

Tenorite doesn't seem eccentric enough to warrant the carnal description its' creators gave.

I guess my vote is for Grandview despite my misgivings about its' cursive-inspired "a" due to its accessibility.