Don't you get nervous when someone hollers at you from their window as you stroll along a sidewalk? I've been encountering a lot of these incidents for the past few months, and I don't know what to think.

Today, as I return to the office from getting Tim Horton's, a man in the passenger seat decides to yell out this car window to tell me that I have a nice coffee mug. Mind you, I love my mug, but I found it peculiar that it would attract someone to actually tell me that from their car.

I mean, it doesn't have diamonds on it or anything.

I pretended that I didn't hear him, just because my initial reaction was that he did not have good intentions. But afterwards, I questionned whether he was teasing me about something else, or that he actually liked my mug.

I still think the former is more likely. What? Do I walk funny? Do I look vulnerable? What is it?

Does this happen to other people? Am I just paranoid?

This is why one must equip themselves with an iPod at all times. It puts an invisible shield around you.

It's sad that such 'armour' is necessary.

Doesn't this guy remind you Michael McDonald on MADtv?

I'm sure every Canadian has now well acquainted with Koodo Mobile. If you aren't, you probably live in a hole somewhere.

Koodo has delivered perhaps the most agressive advertising campaign since those darn McGuinty public school ads during the 2007 Ontario general election.

Koodo has been exposed to death on TV, radio, internet, newspaper, billboards, malls, and transit vehicles and stations-- the whole media schbangle. Their motto is that it's Canada's fat-free mobility provider. Their use of Helvetica font plays on the "Nutrition Facts" labels you find on all Canadian food products. I suppose the 80's fitness fashion is just trying to be corny and playful.

Koodo is the result of Telus Mobility's product differentiation strategy, and it's intended to be the youthful and discount branch of the larger cellular service provider. This is Telus' second attempt at marketing to the youth demographic, after a failed attempt with Amp'd Moble. Anyway, Telus is just playing catchup, as all the other major cell phone networks already have established youth-oriented brands: Rogers has Fido, and Bell has Solo and Virgin.

With its aggressive advertising, it seems difficult for me to not listen. From its website, Koodo emphasizes fat-free mantra, with its no-frill, no access fee, no activation fee, no contracts, per-second billing approach.

Looking at their plans, though, I have to say that I'm pretty disappointed. There is absolutely no cost savings compared with my existing Telus plan. Koodo is just a repackaged version of the same crappy and expensive plans-- which is to be expected, since why would they lower prices at the demise of its parent Telus brand?

The only thing slightly different is the "Koodo Tab," which is essentially the 'catch' of having no contracts. Essentially, users can put up to $150 of the cost of a new phone on a tab. Then Koodo will apply 10% of a user's monthly bill toward paying off the cost of the phone. It's really not much different from getting the $150 credit for signing 3 year contracts.

Sadly, Koodo might as well be dumped like TV fitness machines it's attempting to mock.

Enjoy the commercials:
Mobile Diet Infomercial - [youtube.com]
Mobile leg lifts - [youtube.com]

This is not to say that I'm the "beauty."

Executing my thesis research has been a constant struggle. This thesis, which I has been coined my 'beast', is this constantly growing creature that will soon stomp around, tear down cities, and ultimately defeat me.

From what I've heard and what I'm currently experiencing, the hardest part of doing thesis research is not doing the research, but rather determinining what exactly it is that I want to research. I could study pretty much anything I want, and that lack of direction and structure is what makes me feel queasy.

Since starting grad school in September, I have went 180 degrees with my topic and another time after that. I'm expecting to turn about another 90 degrees this month. I came into grad school wishing to examine how Land Value Capture and Tax Increment Financing could be used to finance transit intrastructure such as the LRT proposal for Waterloo Region. As I always am with each topic, I come into a project being very gung-ho, but as soon as I begin my literature review, I realize how much work has already been done on the topic and I become increasing discouraged. Essentially, from what I feel, the revenue generated from these mechanisms do not even come close to paying off the high capital costs of building transit infrastructure. On top of that, I am often asked how will my research fit in and add value to the literature, and I cannot comfortably answer people.

So back to the drawing board. After sifting through Research Needs Statements from the Transportation Research Board, I realized that I'd like to do something related to transportation-GIS decision support, and I thought of the topic of measuring employment accessibilty using GIS in Greater Toronto. I want to understand the travel times to work depending on (1) where one works, (2) where one lives, (3) household income, and (4) employment type, through time. I figure this is a good topic, especially given the fact that the GTA wishes to promote an improved interregional transportation network-- and I produced a research proposal based on this project. Then I realized during the process that Eric Miller, one of the most prominent transportation reserachers at U of T have already studied this topic to death.

So here I am again, hoping take a different spin on things without dramtically changing the overarching themes of my research topic. My advisor has been very encouraging and that's been great. While it would be so much easier for me to just ask him to hit me a topic, I definitely do not want to resort to that right now-- since that would be accepting defeat.

Perhaps I am not cut out for academia?

I'll let you know of my progress.