i have always considered myself to be an apple evangelist.  i've been using apple computers and technology since i was a small boy playing with the apple ][ at my elementary school and in my mind, there has never been a better, more consistently successful purveyor of elegant and effective technologies in the history of computers.  that having been said i am incredibly angry over the launch of the 3G iPhone in canada.

last week, my beloved iPod Touch was lost/stolen.  i had it thursday night, and i packed it with my work gear friday morning as i always do, and by the time i travelled through the subway to work friday morning, it was gone.  i don't know if it fell out of its pocket in my bag (which has never happened to me before) or whether someone willfully liberated it, but it is gone.  so now, i am left without a lovely, fashionable, sophisticated device to browse youtube videos, check my email, or listen to music by the pool.  the absence of the Touch demands a replacement in my life.

so today, more than two weeks after the launch of the iPhone, i thought i would try again to procure one.  i waited for 20 minutes at a canadian phone company provider booth in eaton centre to see if they had any in stock.  there were about 15 other people milling about, but i was encouraged that one of them was purchasing an iPhone and i thought to myself, "this is it - i can definitely get one here."  20 minutes later, zero people had advanced through the queue, the three staff members working had not addressed anyone else's requests, and the sweat that had soaked through my t-shirt and dress shirt (from the heat, humidity and my 20 minute walk from work past two closed canadian phone company shops) was starting to really annoy and embarrass me.

i interrupted a sales representative of the canadian phone company and asked if he had any more iPhones in stock.  he said he had two, but that they were the 8GB models.  wtf am *i* going to do with a paltry 8GB iPhone, when i had just lost a 16GB iPod Touch???  i walked off in disgust, sweating and fuming in spite of the eaton centre's overworked air conditioning.

i have NEVER had problems acquiring apple products - even highly sought after ones - before.  i have NEVER seen apple do something as childish and disrespectful to a national market as diverting stock intended for a long-awaited launch to some other country to retaliate something as pernicious as monopolistic rate plans - punishing and irritating customers to the brink of madness.  i have NEVER been so dissatisfied with the management of a canadian phone company to the point where i would  totally give up on my preferred product choice and go with a competitor like research in motion JUST to deny a canadian phone company my $125 a month for an outrageous personal data plan.  i am INCREDIBLY LIVID about this... but i am still without a touch-driven iPod and that's a very difficult thing for me to deal with right now.  thank goodness that i have my cool black notebook and stylish fountain pen as a fall-back - while they don't play music or browse youtube, they never disappoint me with being out of memory or out of stock.

iPhucking hate some canadian phone companies.

- g

song of the day for seething with rage:  "hooker with a penis", tool