Busy Saturday In Ottawa & More
Not only is Record Store Day on this Saturday, the 12th of April, 2025, but The Ottawa Record Fair will be on from 11am to 4pm at the Carleton-Dominion Chalmers Centre.
Admission to the fair is $5 or $10 for early entry at 10am. And the nearest bus stops, #1902 and #2487, are regularly serviced by several major routes on OC Transpo.
—
Also occurring in Ontario that day are three comicons, the first being in nearby Kingston for one day, at the Royal Canadian Legion from 10am to 3pm.
Admission at the Kingston Comicon will be $5 or free for kids 12 and under. And this venue is serviced by Route 1 on Kingston Transit via its own bus stop and another bus stop across the street. Non-perishable food items will also be collected at this event.
—
The next event of that Day in Ontario will be the Halton Hills Fanfest in Georgetown, from 10am to 4pm at the Halton Hill Public Library.
I believe the event may be free but you might want to contact the library for details. And the nearest bus stops, 102803 and 102804, are serviced Routes 31 and 33 on Go Transit.
—
The last event in Ontario that day will also occur on both the 12th and 13th in Timmins at the McIntyre Community Centre.
Admission to Timminscon is $15 for adults, $10 for kids and free form kids under 2. And the venue is serviced by multiple routes on Timmins Transit, which differs depending on the day you will attend the event, although Route 16 appears to operate on both days.
—
The Atlantic Entertainment Expo will also be occurring this weekend, on the 12th and 13th of April 2025 in Fredericton, New Brunswick at the Fredericton Convention Center.
Click here for this event’s admission information. The venue has its own bus stop, which is serviced by multiple routes on Fredericton Transit.
—
The Toronto/Mississuaga Vinyl Record & Collectibles Show will be held from 10am to 3pm at the Etobicoke Olympium on Sunday, the 13th of April, 2025.
Admission is $5 and the venue is serviced by Route 48 via bus stop numbers 1477 and 1493 on the TTC.
—
And finally, the Edmonton Record Fair will be hosted by the Northgate Lion Recreation Center from 11am to 3:30pm on Sunday, April 13th, 2025.
Admission will be $5 or $10 for early admission at 9:30am. And the nearest bus stops to the venue are 77342 and 77350, which is serviced by Route 54 on Edmonton Transit.
—
Please note that cash may be preferred at these events. And that a free three month offer from Amazon Music Unlimited is available and includes Audible audio books, one of which will be free to listen to every month.
Netflix Canada – Meh!
As readers of this blog know I wanted to give Netflix a try for three months during the holiday period and had hoped that I could get a bonus offer from PC Optimum, Scene, Air Miles or Rakuten on a Netflix Gift Card. But there wasn’t even an offer from Shell for bonus Air Miles or a discount via Amazon.ca from September 2024 to now, which was quite disappointing.
This is why I just bit the bullet and joined in December, thinking I’d binge watch all of the brand new films and television programs. But not only were the offerings sparse but a price hike was scheduled shortly after I joined. And this is why I chose to end my subscription after less than one month.
Former subscribers can attest that Netflix is far from generous with their discounts now.
There were no discounted appeals to re-join before and none when I was going through the process to end my subscription; Only an offer to pause my subscription for up to 8 weeks. But both Paramount+ and Disney+ offer big discounts to subscribers who have been with them for more than a year, the offers I got being a rate of $9.99 per month for three months for Disney+ and 50% discount on a year’s subscription on Paramount+.
Even Apple TV fans can wait until a season of their favourite show ends before resubscribing to binge watch it it’s entirety, with either 14,000 PC Optimum Points per month or with an Apple Gift Card that’s been discounted or obtained with bonus loyalty points. But where are the incentives?
Yes, I can subscribe to Netflix via Apple TV but I don’t own an Apple TV device, iPad or iPhone. And I would prefer being able to use the Netflix button on my Smart TV or cable box remote, like I had for years.
I think I could set it up to work anyway but this is all moot now – The subscription is canceled and I’m only going to rejoin after the fifth season of Stranger Things is up, for a short period.
I just hope that Wallace & Gromit‘s latest film will be released on blu-ray and not be a Netflix exclusive. I’ve put off buying the previous complications on blu-ray to buy a boxed set and not having “Vengeance Most Foul” on disc would be annoying.
Anyhow, I was once happy with Netflix Canada, for years, but now it’s overpriced and bland, mainly because Hollywood is quite satisfied regurgitating trope collections in lieu of films with imaginary plots and three dimensional characters. And innovation in foreign language television like Dark, Rita, Trapped and Bonus Family has dried up.
They’ll need more than a few documentaries to keep me as a subscriber for more than three months.
Prime Day Has Begun
It’s midnight Pacific time and that means Prime Day has begun at Amazon.ca.
Personally, I look for deals on CDs/Vinyl and Blurays first and then browse my wish list to see if anything i’ve added there dropped in price. But you should note that deals will be offered randomly throughout today and tomorrows so it may be worth your while to pop into Amazon.ca every six hours or so.
What i’ve observed it that the majority of savings are in their miscellaneous Amazon Basic products, which can be quite useful, Amazon devices like the Fire branded tablets, televisions and streaming devices, and Blink indoor and outdoor games and doorbells. But I also like to browse their electronics store deals.
I believe a free month of Amazon Prime is currently being offered to new members and the $9.99 (plus taxes) monthly fee may be worth it if you are considering a big ticket item. But other offers are also being added to sweeten the deal, like a free 12 month Doordash Dashpass membership, on top of the usual subscriptions to the Amazon Music and Prime Video streaming services, Prime Reading eBook service and Prime Gaming, which includes access to Twitch.
As i’ve mentioned in my previous blog entry, students ages 19 to 24 can also received an extended free tryout period, an additional 50% discount on membership and deals on products students use, which is also quite useful for parents with kids off to college and university.
By the way, the aforementioned Doordash Dashpass membership offer is available to all current members as well, until 06/06/2025. And you should keep an eye out for discounted Doordash Gift Cards at your local grocery, pharmacy and gas stations, or bonus loyalty point offers given with the purchase of these gift cards at those retailers.
On a side note, new Prime members should know that Air Miles members can get 50 Bonus Air Miles by renting discounted films at Prime Video via airmilesshop.ca until the end of the 17th of July.
Enjoy.
Prime Day Is Coming (July 16th-17th)
I believe an offer for a free 30 day Amazon Prime membership should be available to new members at Amazon.ca today, the 15th of July, 2024. And Prime Student is also available free for six months for students aged 19 to 24, with a special deal for students in the province of Quebec.
Prime Members who also like to stream music also have an option for Amazon Music Unlimited, which will be free for 5 months instead of one until the end of Prime Day, or 3 months for free for individuals that aren’t subscribe to Amazon Prime.
Netflix Canada (Enter Rolling Eyes Here)
Basic plan subscriptions are now $6.50 more expensive. And quite frankly, I am far from impressed.
I pay less for Disney+ and get UHD and 4k films, saving on the long run by pre-paying for a year’s subscription. And I can easily just get a gift card, preferably with bonus loyalty points, and binge watch whole seasons of whatever Netflix Canada has to offer in less than three months, so where’s the incentive to have a long term subscription?
Amazon Prime may be offering older films on their Prime Video service but it only costs $2.99/month to go add free so Netflix Canada will need to step up their game for me to consider resubscribing to any of their services for more than three months.
I’d rather just buy film downloads or blu-rays than to just throw money at Netflix Canada hoping they’ll add something I like. And Stranger Things is heading into their last season so what could there possibly be on there that I couldn’t binge watch in a short amount of time?
I am keeping a watch of the “Best of Netflix” articles and reviews but nothing really stick out for me anymore, making me wonder if the streaming service is past its prime.
Bye Bye iPod
Apple has decided to discontinue the iPod Touch and re-direct its customer to other products that provide access to Apple Music according to a press release that was released today.
The first iPod had been introduced on October 23rd, 2001 whilst the first iPod Touch was introduced on September 2007 but most consumers have recently shifted to listening to music via other Apple products, like the Apple Watch and iPad so they decided to stop manufacturing them.
The remaining stock will we sold at Apple stores and online, including on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com.