Davin Greenwell

Some pipes on the Queen of Vancouver.
Maybe some wires too.
I have been working away on various papers, a new mix – which is now done and will air on Proton Radio next Wednesday along with a guest mix from Dub Gnostic on Pacific Front Sessions – and a bit of photography here and there. I have been having fairly productive nights with considerable setbacks to even it out, leaving me close to where I started, but I am – along with a few others – battling through it. I will leave it at that!
I’m hitting the Stadacona tennis courts at 6 PM this evening for some more tennis. We played 2 sets last week and it was great to get back into the rhythm of sets. Hitting the ball around is fun but there is a lot to be said for playing with some structure – you get a fuller variety of shots because the structure of the game forces you do hit the ball in certain ways and in certain angles. And, if there was any doubt that tennis is good exercise, there isn’t any more for me – I was sore for days after those two sets. Thank you to all those who contributed to the bicycle conversation from the last entry. The feedback has definitely helped my information gathering process.
This weekend will consist of a significant amount of planning, writing, more planning, and then more writing. Between blogging on three sites and all this extra-curricular writing I’ve been doing, there’s never been more demand for me to articulate myself. To do this effectively, I’ve been reading more to keep my writing style informed, current, and inspired. Currently I am reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” – full of mini stories about those who fit outside of the norm – which is a fantastic read after having recently finished a 500 page book on consumer behaviour theory.
What are you reading out of interest?

While I was taking this photo on Cook Street last night, a girl came up from behind and started talking to me. At least I think she was talking to me – I wasn’t really listening because I didn’t think she was talking to me. But when I turned around to see what was going on, she had her helmet on and b-lined for this bicycle. So I guess she was talking to me, but I’m still not sure what she was saying. Something to the effect of “my bike is cooler than I am.” That’s what I picked up, at least.
What kind of bike is this? Is it good for city riding? With this spring already being better than the entirety of last summer, I am thinking of picking up a bike for evening rides.
I got out and played tennis tonight for the first time this year and it felt great. I’ve been managing to get exercise in the evening every day so far this week and I don’t plan on bucking the trend so long as the weather lasts. It’s almost 1 AM, and I’m sitting in shorts and a t-shirt on the deck outside – it is 21 degrees celsius. This would be ideal camping weather.
Tomorrow night I have some project work to do, then I am hoping to go for a walk and come back and perhaps do some writing for gdc.net. Canada has a new design magazine which I might talk about, but I’d also like to cover some of those topics that I discussed in my first post so we’ll see what comes to mind over the next day.

Thanks to those who came out to my birthday-show last weekend at Sunset, and also thanks to the performers who did a great job, and Jason @ Sunset for putting it all together. A great way to celebrate another trip around the sun!
Reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest, Outliers right now. Not too much to say other than I find it to be his most interesting book yet, and I enjoyed Blink and the Tipping Point.
There’s a slight change to Pacific Front Sessions and the schedule – I will be doing a set for June and July in addition to the one I just posted last week. Additionally I will be doing a combined set with Formulate in August, and this will serve as our last Pacific Front Sessions radio show. That’s right, after 3 years we have decided to wrap up the show that has aired in every conceivable timeslot on Proton Radio. We think it has served its purpose well – we’ve had a lot of guests on the show from the Pacific North West and pushed the Pacific Front Recordings sound as well as many others – including influential producers for ourselves. I will keep my archive of mixes up in the mixes area and I plan on doing more guest mixes for other radio shows in the future.
All that said, there are still three more shows to go, and next month local legend Dub Gnostic will be joining me, as well as Big Dirt in July. As usual the information is available in the events section on the upper right hand page of this site. (Linked for people reading from an RSS reader.)
Finally one note about an upcoming show – I will be performing a sunrise set at the Soundwave Music Festival in Ucluelet, BC right on the ocean. I am very excited and I intend for it to be the essence of my Pacific Front Sessions mixes, as really it doesn’t get much more Pacific than this. This is the same Ucluelet that I named my Oceanography remix after.
Since my remix / production schedule has cleared right up, I’ve made time to do 2 remixes of Vince Vaccaro as my next music productions. Looking forward to getting into those since Vince has impeccable melodies and a fantastic voice.

I recently axed all the features from my Rogers cell phone plan. No data plan (internet is a bit of a joke on this Sony Ericsson phone really), no voicemail, no caller ID, no evening and weekends, no texting plans or bundles or value packs or anything like that. Just me, the system access fee, and $25 a month for their cheapest student plan. Honestly the only thing I miss is the caller ID, but what perplexed me a bit was that I was still getting phone number IDs for people when they were texting me, but not from the same people who were calling. So people would call, it would show up as “Unknown” and then they’d text and let me know they called, and their number would show up at that point. I know that texting and phone calls are two different protocols, but aren’t we at the point that caller ID is just a standard way of doing things? So I called Rogers to ask them what the scoop was. The representative I talked to was a nice man named Kim. He said “Honestly, I don’t know – no one’s ever asked why numbers will show up on text messages but not the calls. Maybe it’s so that you can text people back.” I asked how this doesn’t apply to making phone calls (which they make money off of, obviously) and he had no answer for that. He then went on to point out that caller ID doesn’t work everywhere and cited the example of Thunder Bay not supporting it.. 15 years ago. It’s been a while. He then added that Alabama doesn’t support caller ID. Is Alabama’s allegedly antiquated phone system really what Rogers plans on standing behind on this issue?
From what I understand, no one charges for caller ID in the US. I understand there is more competition there, but perhaps they understand a couple simple things which go beyond competitiveness and reach towards basic business smarts and understanding of consumer behaviour:

1. People use their cell phones more when they know someone has called them ($).
2. People do not call people who show up as “Unknown” because it’s impossible and it means nothing. (Less usage = less $)

If you still don’t think Rogers is missing the mark on this one, consider that it is likely that Rogers is suppressing the phone number unless you pay a fee. Then imagine if your internet service provider (Shaw for me) decided they were going to hide the senders names from all the emails you receive unless you paid them $8 more a month to find out who was sending you email. In the year 2009, it is the exact same thing. Just because caller ID hasn’t been around forever doesn’t mean that people expect to pay for it in this day and age. We live in a world of connectivity, of identification as a basis for community, and they’re still trying to monetize something that actually encourages use of their system. How come we are expected to pay for that?
I understand that there is inherent value in caller ID, which is why Rogers charges for it. I know there is value because I have used it for free on Skype. And I also know I will have it for free from a cell phone provider in the future, whether its Rogers or another provider, because it makes business sense and because its just the way things should be done. I was just tipped off via Facebook that Virgin provides caller ID for free in Canada – thanks Ed. I don’t have a lot of attachment to Rogers as I have a very minimal plan, but I think they can do better so I’d like to give them a chance to do so.
How do you feel about being charged for caller ID? Do you think it should be a standard feature (like it is in the US) or do you feel like it’s still pretty cutting edge technology and is worth paying extra for? Leave a comment – I’d be interested in reading. Or if you feel like doing a post about it, leave a link in the comments area and I’ll check it out.

I appear to have a spare moment so here I am. Pacific Front’s new release is out on promo on Beatport now. I’ll be posting shortly about that with some details and samples. Anand is coming over tomorrow and we’ll be jamming on some new Tiebreaker material, which I am thinking is going to sound a lot different than anything we’ve done in the past. I sent over the parts for Emily’s China to Justin earlier this week so we may see a remix of that at some point in the future, which would be very interesting to say the least.
British Columbia had an election this week and I am not too sure what happened. I voted but the majority of eligible voters did not – only 48% did. STV got shot down in a pretty serious manner – in 2005 it garnered 57% in favour, and in 2009 it only held 38% in favour. I am not too sure what happened but the facts are there – people don’t want it. Except for in Victoria – Beacon Hill, 62% of people were in favour. Only one other riding had that much approval for STV and it was one from Vancouver. The next closest riding was down around 55% and that was also in Victoria, but almost everywhere else was much lower, hence the results. For STV to be approved, a 60% “supermajority” of the popular vote was required, and needless to say it wasn’t even close.
Why is British Columbia so apathetic when it comes to voting? Was anyone else surprised by the results?