Tori Spelling makes a visit to Calgary!
Heard the tip first from a BT viewer (thanks Viva!) and rumor has it the ex 90210 girl made a stop in the T2P yesterday with family and camera crew. Tori & entourage hit up the Telus World of Science. She was later spotted at the Flames game.
BIG UP to the soldiers in the 41Brigade Group who showed me the ropes at the Mewata Armoury this morning!
I was treated to a military breakfast. Yum.
… let’s take a closer look….
It’s an omelet. In mushroom sauce. With a very firm bun.
Cpt. Steve Charest’s ham steak looked and smelled about the same. The other soldiers say there’s a hot dog and bean dish that’s pretty delish. Really? Guess when you’re serving overseas and you’re hungry, who’s complaining about the food?
Respect to the guys and we had an awesome time hanging out. You can meet our soldiers and learn all about the Canadian Forces this weekend. The open house goes down February 28-29 10am-3pm at Mewata (801 11th Street SW). www.joinreserves.com
Will Jillian be the next Bachelorette? I had the chance to ask her this morning on BT and she told us that she “has not officially been asked” to be the next Bachelorette. She promised to keep us posted. What a sweetheart!
I <3 Jill!
Jill also told us her Grandma from Peace River gave her the stamp of approval on the hot hot hot tub scene. Fire runs in the family Bachelor fans! My kinda Granny!
Listen, delete, even respond to emails using only your voice.
Do you text while you drive? C’mon be honest. Truth is many people do, whether they admit to it or not. Now a Canadian company feels it has found a way to get people’s eyes off their cell phones and back on the road — with iLane.
When paired up with a cell phone, iLane will allow users to listen to, delete, even respond to emails in their vehicles without using their hands…only their voice. Sound too good to be true? Read on…
Setting up iLane
You will need to setup an online account with iLane to get things started. This is basically to tell iLane which email account it should look in to pull your email. Once that has been done the next step it to sync up iLane to your phone and Headset. It’s all done through Bluetooth. While my Blackberry had no trouble finding the included Bluetooth headset, it did have trouble syncing up with iLane. After fiddling around for about 10 minutes I finally got a connection and I was ready to test it out.
Navigating the system
Once you are up and running everything relies on voice commands. Want to check your email? Simply say “check messages. ” iLane will read your email to you. To delete a message…say “delete.” To forward an email…say “forward.” You get the gist. The voice recognition software doesn’t seem to have any major issues understanding your basic commands. The key here is to use the exact commands. If you say Check email…iLane may not understand what you say. Thankfully a cheat sheet is included with the device to get you acquainted with the commands.
Replying to email
There is only one way to respond to an email…with your voice. Once you say “compose email” or “reply” iLane will record a voice message and save it as an MP3 file. That file will then be sent out as an attachment. Now here’s the catch. Whoever you send the “email” to must have a cell phone that can play MP3 files. if their phone does not support MP3’s…then they will not be able to listen to your email.
Other features
You can do more then just deal with emails on the road. iLane will also let you to respond to sms messages (text messages). This is done through voice as well. Other features include checking your calendar, and listening to news headlines as well as weather updates. News is broken down into general, sports, business, technology and entertainment. Each category has 4 to 5 headlines. These headlines seem to refresh once a day. As for the weather updates, they seem to be quite accurate and easy to access. Just say “check weather” and iLane will spew out the 3 day outlook for whatever city you choose. You MUST pay a $8 monthly fee to enable the news and weather updates.
Limitations
While iLane works fairly well for the most part, I couldn’t help but feel some frustration at times. Syncing up iLane to my phone and the Bluetooth headset became problematic. When you leave your vehicle iLane is supposed to go into sleep mode. When you come back iLane is supposed to sense the bluetooth headset and wake up so it’s ready for use. This never happened for me. In fact every time I left my vehicle I had to re-sync my phone and Bluetooth headset to iLane. iLane always had trouble finding my phone and it often would take up to 10 minutes for me to get connected again. It got to the point where I would leave my phone and Bluetooth headset in the vehicle so they would not lose the connection. I checked my phone to see if a setting was the issue but I was never able to figure it out. Painful!
I also want to point out iLane does not work with all cell phones. Currently only Blackberries (8000 series and newer) work with the device. They also must have OS 4.1 or higher. Intelligent Mechatronic Systems, the company behind iLane, says more phones will be supported in the near future.
Bottom line
For the most part iLane does work, but it does have its share of problems. Price is one of the biggest. At $599 its quite expensive. The fact that the voice recognition system is not perfect and the syncing was a continuous problem kind of turned me off. For $599 the bugs should be all worked out and it should be near flawless. Bottom line, it does work…if you have patience and take the time to learn the commands and get to know all of iLane’s quirks. If you expect everything to work perfectly out of the box…iLane may not be for you.
The Good:
Listen, delete, respond to emails using only your voice
Allows you to keep your eyes on the road
News headlines and weather on demand
Software updates available free of charge
The Bad:
Expensive at $599
Monthly fees to unlock news and weather features
Voice recognition system not perfect
Experienced issues with syncing
Will not work will all smartphones (Only newer Blackberry phones)
Sends outgoing emails as MP3’s, not in text form
For purchase information visit www.ilane.com
According to Chris Harrison’s blog on www.ew.com, he is having a “tough time” with all the rumors surrounding this season of The Bachelor. (**possible spoiler alert below!**)
Chris is referring to the whole “Jason-picks-Melissa-then-changes-his-mind-and-picks-Molly” rumor. The switcharoo means (you guessed it) the most DRAMATIC BACHELOR ENDING TO DATE! It’s so good, it almost seems like the producers planned it that way.
Here’s what Harrison says about the gossip on his blog:
“…we are not responsible for, nor have we ever scripted, the ending of this show. Let me re-type this slowly so all of you can read this: We do not, and have not, decided the ending of any of our seasons…we have not shot the second “After the Final Rose” special yet! I gotta be honest. It’s going to be really hard to go back and edit a show we haven’t even shot yet.”
The final episode of The Bachelor airs on Citytv Monday 9PM.
Check out this photo of Chris Harrison (host of The Bachelor) at a celebrity event Citytv attended in Disneyland a couple years ago!
At the time Season 10 of The Bachelor just wrapped — remember Andy Baldwin and Tessa?? At the time I asked Chris if he’d received a wedding invitation from the Lt. to which he replied, “It’s in the mail!”
Chris is still waiting.
But it made me wonder… what ever happened to Lt. Andy Baldwin anyway? Did a little googling and came up with www.andybaldwin.com. Very comprehensive.
I especially like the photo section.
Hellooooo new screen saver! Lt. Baldwin is still a doctor, a triathalete, and an all around good person.
My girl Jillian from Peace River Alberta will be chatting with us LIVE on BT Wednesday February 25th! Tune in at 9am MT.
I am so excited and have sooooo many things to ask her. Where to start? How about “Are you the next Bachelorette?!” She has my vote!
Who else can wear a pink dress and get away with saying a line like “You look like you work in hasidic meth lab”? Ben Stiller’s mockery of Joaquin was pretty edgy for Oscar and Natalie’s deadpan made staying up late worth it.
PS How stunning is Natalie Portman?? She is so pretty in pink in a Rodarte gown.
In case you’re wondering what Natalie has been up to… she has 2 movies coming out in 2009 – one with Jake Gyllenhaal and the other with Lisa Kudrow. Can’t wait! It makes me feel like renting Garden State. And Beautiful Girls. SO GOOD!
Is this Atlantis? (credit: Google Earth)
We all know some people have way too much time on their hands. This story proves it! A British aeronautical engineer was playing around with the new Google Earth 5.0 (which shows the ocean floor) when he noticed something strange off the coast of Africa. About 600 miles west of the Canary Islands, he discovered a strange grid pattern which kind of looks like a street grid. Could this be the legendary Atlantis?
Google has now rained on every one’s parade releasing this statement:
“What users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.”
is Google telling the truth? Could there be more to this tale? Conspiracy theorists get to work! What is Google hiding?
Want to check it out for yourself? Download Google Earth 5.0 and enter the following coordinates:
31 15′15.53N, 24 15′30.53W.
The test of a great performance for me lies in how long I continue to think about the show when I leave the theatre. I am HAUNTED by Downstage’s presentation of Judith Thompson’s “Palace of the End”. The show previewed last night at Motel (across from the Big Secret Theatre) and………wow. Unforgettable.
“Palace of the End” is a about the horrors of the Iraq War and it’s effects on three characters created from real people. The play is a trio of monologues revealing three disctict perspectives on the Iraq war. We hear from a female US soldier who faces court martial for abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib, a former UN weapons inspector, and an Iraqi mother representing those who watched their children tortured in front of them. The play is presented by Downstage and is showing at Motel (across from the Big Secret Theatre) until March 7th.
Palace of the End is one of the most gut wrenching and challenging pieces I have seen in a LONG time. Ntra Curry’s embodiment of Nehrjas (the third monologue of a mother and activist tortured under Saddam Hussein) will be permanently seared into my mind.
A show not to be missed – but keep in mind the content is graffic and intended for a mature audiences.
More info at www.downstage.ca
