So today I came back home, and found a letter taped on my door, it was written by one of my neighbours. (Representing the whole floor?)

It said:

909,

Welcome! I know you’re excited that you just moved in but a few of us have been woken up the last few friday + saturday nights by you + your friends on the way to + from the bar.

Most ppl on this floor are elder, have families + are young professionals + do not appreciate not having a good sleep, just as I don’t think you want to be up at 8am after going to bed at 3:30/4am.

Please be quiet in the hallways, not toss out garbage @ 3am + be respectful of your neighbours. We’ve all been here a long time + are a quiet floor this is not a frat house where we need to smell weed in the hallways. Please note next time we are woken up we will contact the board of directors as well as the police as security does’t seem to be enough. Thanks for your understanding. Noise complaints are any time from 11PM-8AM + garbage hours are 8AM-10PM

Thanks.

My response:

To Whom It May Concern:

Today I came home to this letter on my door, and frankly it surprised me very much. You see, it seems like many of you guys have been supposedly woken up by my friends and I in the past Friday and Saturdays while on our way to the bar.

The funny thing is that, this Friday (this weekend) would be my first weekend living in this apartment, as I have a family in Waterloo, and I visit them on weekends. (If you like I will be happy to show you my Greyhoud tickets. Or feel free to ask security to show you films where I leave on Thursday/Friday morning for work and only coming back the next Monday.)

I am glad that this floor is occupied by young professionals, as you see I am the Chief Technology Officer of a multimillion dollar company, and I too, require my good night of sleep. No, I would not be happy if I was awoken by loud noises.

The next bit you mentioned about garbage and respect, I would like to apologize if I developed sleep walking syndrome to travel back to Toronto from Waterloo at 3am to throw away my garbage. I will talk to my family doctors the next time I see them! And since I am hardly ever here, I’ve never met you, but feel free to say “hi” next time we meet. I go to work at 8:40am. (I’m a lovely fellow to talk to, I like technology, politics and cinema.)

I am glad that this is not a frat house, because you see after 5 years of university education, I enjoy my solidarity and quietness. Now this is probably a little embarrassing to say but in 22 years of my life, I’ve never used, purchased or handled marijuana as they are very expensive and my Federal Government Security Clearance does not allow me to use illegal substances. (Also, I just don’t like the smell of it.)

Please note the next time you are awoken, PLEASE call the security and the police, they are here to serve and protect. But chances are you will find an empty apartment, since I will be out of town, (but say ‘hi’ to the boys on the force!)

You are welcome for my understanding.

PS: Thanks for the reminder for the noise complaints schedule

Toronto Police’s Non Emergency #: 416-808-2222

911 for emergencies

Oh Please see: http://tinyurl.com/909tldr

Thanks
For wasting my time.

According to Greyhound I was away:

2013-Jan-24 Toronto to Kitchener
2013-Jan-28 Kitchener to Toronto

2013-Feb-09 Toronto to Kitchener
2013-Feb-10 Kitchener to Toronto

2013-Feb-13 Toronto to Kitchener
2013-Feb-14 Kitchener to Toronto

2013-Feb-15 Toronto to Kitchener
2013-Feb-20 Kitchener to Toronto

2013-Feb-26 Toronto to Kitchener
2013-Feb-27 Kitchener to Toronto

2013-March-01 Toronto to Kitchener
2013-March-04 Kitchener to Toronto

2013-March-08 Toronto to Kitchener
2013-March-10 Kitchener to Toronto

It seems Greyhound does not reproduce past tickets online, however, I have more than enough people in Kitchener and Waterloo that would testify that I was there during weekends, AND I have both credit card and debit card statements for groceries and movies with the family!

For someone in your age group, you should have learned something called respect, because it goes both ways, also in Canada we have something called innocent until proven guilty. Just because I moved in at the end of January does not mean I am the cause of the complaints in the letter, that is a logical fallacy. Because if this was true, I can argue for a whole lot of stereotypical and untrue things about you! So don’t f##k with me, at the end of the day, I don’t want to be bothered and I don’t want to bother you!

On the weekends that I was in town, I don’t recall: going to bar with friends, or getting high on weed… Because you know what? I wasn’t. I was either minding my own business or was at work. My co workers would probably call you bat s##t insane because they would never describe me as what you described me in that letter, not even for a million dollars. (So that they tell the truth.)

Will upload the picture of the letter later.

Dear Apple Genius:

The upside of being a computer science major is that you can’t bulls##t me.

I have a 15 inch MacBook Pro and it has been acting up lately. I checked the machine into the Apple Store, and received a phone call today from the Apple Genius. A couple of things that I picked up from the call, and what the technician noted and genius administrator told me:

I have 32GB of memory, and since it is third party memory, they won’t be able to support it if it is the memory’s fault, fair enough. But, the maximum amount of memory the architecture supports is 16GB. Not 32GB. Nor have I even seen a single 16GB laptop memory before, check on Newegg. There is a big different between 32 and 16… I don’t know how they mixed that up. Did they even “diagnose” my machine?

My computer is overheating because of my third party memory. I had no idea that my third party UNDERCLOCKED memory could cause my machine to heat to 90+ degrees when I am browsing the Internet.

Since they “did test over night” and it seems like everything is working. If that is the case, then I wouldn’t bothered to:

1. Bring my Mac Mini/Monitor/Keyboard to work from home.
2. Check in the MBP (which I use for work) to get “fixed.”
3. Purchase a Mac Air in the meantime so that I can still have a machine on the go. Which I am going to return the machine once I get my old MBP back.

I see they also ignored the description of the problem that I gave them. Because they must have a procedure to test the entire addressable memory on the GPU.

The Apple store I went to:

Eaton Centre
220 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario M5B 2H1
(647) 258-0801

Over the past 4 years at University I collected a few pieces of electronics namingly:

• Mac Mini
• PS3
• 2 File servers (20TB each)
• Logitech Z5500
• 42 inch TV
• Android tablet, and phone
• and few other things

And I created an integrated media center in my tiny apartment.

Mac Mini

After comparing all the all in one HTPC solutions nothing was powerful or flexible enough than the Mac Mini (well no s##t Sherlock, since it has a full fledged BSD operating system.)

The machine also has TOSLINK and HDMI output for my TV and speakers.

I installed XBMC on the machine, and it is serving as my AIO HTPC media center.

PS3

Other than gaming, use this for Netflix or use the Mac Mini for Netflix.

File servers

I used cheap desktop hardware for the system, the base components came to less than 400 dollars. Then provide your own hard drive.

I installed Ubuntu on these machines, so I can run programs that requires a screen. All the drives are formated ext4.

No point for RAID. These are mainly media that can be replaced if anything happend.

All the media are stored on these and are streamed to the XBMC on the Mac Mini.

Logitech Z5500

This set of computer speaker is powerful enough to fill a small room, in my case, my bachelor apartment :) (5 meters by 3 meters.)

42 Incher

Kinda self explanatory

Android Tablet + Phone

I use these mainly for XBMC remote, ssh client, and VNC.

Tips:

• Subscribe to unlimited Internet, in my case, I’m using Teksavvy. I’ve used about 300GB in 2 days. (Sorry)
• Make sure to use high quality router and Ethernet cables, in my case, everything is connected with Gigabit Ethernet cables. I avoid wireless like a plague. Wifi will struggle with HD contents.
• Make sure to use S/PDIF for Audio, and HDMI for Video. There has been debates on the price of cable vs quality of AV. I just picked up moderately priced cables.
• The Z5500 only have 1 set of optical/RCA inputs so I had to get a splitter. (Good enough for non audiophiles without spending a lot of money)
• Enable Airplay in XBMC and WOL on the MacMini. So that I can stream my music to my speakers anytime and anywhere.
• Install XBMC remote, ssh, VNC client on the Android phones/tablet. Now I can control everything on my phone.

With this setup I can stream music to the speakers through Airplay. My Mac Mini/XBMC also has access to over 30TB of contents on the file servers.

CIBC in a nutshell:

• OH you want to take money out? I will just swipe the card you gave me and I will give you the cash without you providing your password.
• OH I will decide to cash some checks but not others depending on my mood.
• OH I will provide the s##ttiest customer service ever and trouble you with everything that I possibly could.

CIBC just lost a customer. Not long ago I opened a CIBC account because I was working in Ottawa and the area that I lived at didn’t have a RBC branch. The experience with opening the account was pretty s##tty, I would have went with another institution if I had a choice. Regardless, after all that trouble of opening an account, the bank manager at the Ottawa branch photocopied my IDs, employment letters, which I expected to be placed file or noted on my account that I am “Bill Li” but the branch manager didn’t.

I stuck out with CIBC because they didn’t charge me a fee since I was a “student” and there is a branch close to work. (RBC is about another 50m walk.) For the past 5 months, the CEO of the company wrote personal checks to pay me. Every time CIBC cashed it without a problem, every single checks made out to “Bill Li,” every single check was handwritten, and by my standards, some of the appearance of the checks were considered as “sketchy”. All in all, I cashed about 40k worth of personal pay checks paid out to “Bill Li.”

So now, my parents sent a check of rather large amount, the check was made from my dad’s name, (which we share the same last name,) it clearly stated “Money for student loan” and was written with the neatest and cleanest handwriting, but this time, CIBC absolutely refused to deposit it for me. Because “I am not Bill Li, and they can not and would not consider my RBC’s ‘Xin Bill Li’ Visa and Debit card as valid ID, also the past pay checks made out to ‘Bill Li’ would not help as well. Interestingly my account did not state that ‘Bill’ was part of my name.” The customer service was unhelpful, and inconsistent. I understand the need for security but banking shouldn’t be this hard. So I left and deposited it in my RBC account. I also took out my CIBC account and switched back to good old RBC. You get what you pay for.

Branch that opened my account: GLOUCESTER CENTRE, Unit 146, 1980 Ogilvie Rd, Gloucester ON, K1J9L3

Branch that made me go back to RBC: LIBERTY VILLAGE BANKING CENTRE, 120 Lynn Williams St, Toronto ON, M6K3N6