Dear Mr. Jobs, There is talk about iPhone 5 already. There is talk to discontinue the free bumper program by the end of this month. Lots of upgrades are coming out, HDR photography, iMovie, games that are more fun with gyro and higher resolution. Yet over a month from the Canadian launch day, there are STILL no iPhones available from Rogers. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Well, yeah, at the Apple store, but it’s a 2 hour drive to one of the two stores in the city of Vancouver, and you have to line up at 3 AM in the morning, HOPING that there will be a shipment that day. I can’t waste my time with a gamble like that, I work for a living. I work so I can buy the iPhone 4, which I can afford (subsizided) but cannot find.

I don’t know if it’s a Rogers or an Apple problem. Either way, it sucks.

I don’t know if you know about the situation, and I don’t know if you could even do anything to improve it.

And I don’t know if my email is going to make any difference at all, but hey, venting is worth somethin’.  

Have a wonderful day. 

Karin

Owner of an iPhone 3GS,1 iPad, 2 iMacs, 1 iPod Classic, 1 Apple TV, 1 Airport Extreme and if you would make toaster ovens I’d buy one too, provided I’d be able to find one.

Things aren’t much different in Germany since I’ve been here last, in 2007. It’s been three years, but they still have the same foods in the supermarket, and a few more, and they still watch the same shows on TV, and a few more. The same re-runs, the same American Sitcoms, the same German original content that nobody watches. The yogurts are still the same, the cheeses, the chips. The chocolate aisle is the same length (yes, a whole aisle just with chocolates), but the types are a bit different, a bit more refined, a bit more exclusive. I still would like to eat my way across that whole aisle, backwards and forwards, but I’m still not allowed. There are a few less small stores, because the economy isn’t kind to the mom and pop store at the corner, and a few more immigrants because the economy here is better then elsewhere. There are a lot more ecological products available, Bio-This and Eco-That, even Ikea sells Biopasta on the kids menu. They only Walmart they had went under, and the milk is sold in bottles. The neighborhood looks the same, but the trees are bigger, and the cars all look even smaller. Yes, they have pretty small cars here. Hardly any Smart Cars, because most of the cars I see are not much bigger then those, and cost less. And because there are smaller cars, and the gas costs more, the streets have become a wee bit slower. A wee bit, not much. I drove to Ikea today with Thomas in the backseat, and at one point I made him notice that we were driving indeed 170 km/h, and he was stunned.

“Aren’t there any speed limits here?”

“Not here”, I said. He wanted to know anyhow what the limit was.

“There isn’t one,” I kept insisting.

“So nobody can give you a ticket for speeding?” he wondered.

“Nope,” I said, “not on this Autobahn.”

“I love the Autobahn,” he stated.

After finally purchasing a “serious” barbecue a couple of months ago, we have been trying to grill the heck out of it when the weather allowed, and in the past two weeks, the weather has been perfect. Steaks, check. Pork tenderloin, check. Chicken breasts, check. And that’s where it ended. Boring.

But then Kelly lent us her Barbecue Bible. So this weekend we invited our Argentinian friends over for dinner and we managed to whip up a simple but effective dinner: Barbecued Provolone Cheese on Bruschetta, Steak with green Chimichurri Sauce and grilled oregano zucchini, a green salad with balsamic maple syrup dressing and craisins. And it was FABULOUS! I was so proud of Erik for the great work at the grill, and of myself of course for putting it all together.

We won’t be opening a restaurant just yet, but we’ll continue to try our luck. Can’t wait for the next weekend to come!