Encounters with Rantwick, episode sixteen: Friends of the Freak

I mentioned in a recent post that I was gonna try my new camera on my helmet, where most would have in the first place. I must admit that I like that perspective best after all and since I edit all the video anyway, "head sweep" is not the problem I thought it would be.

Having had a camera mounted either on my bike or my person for a couple of years now, I was surprised at how much notice the new camera got. I suppose I shouldn't have been... it now sticks up off the top of my helmet in a conspicious, freakish way. London Ontario, while being a good sized city of 300K+, is not a metropolis where something odd surprises no one, and people have been reacting to the camera's presence.

Some people positively glower at me like they wish me dead. I'm not kidding. Those people, however, are not what this post is about, because I don't like them. I like the people who just shout out "hey, is that a camera?"

If I were participating in a bike race (yeah, right) or out on a MTB trail or something, I'm sure the cam would find greater acceptance and understanding. POV cams are for people who want to record their "recreational" exploits after all, right? Well, not always, and the fact that I'm recording others in the public space is interesting and exciting to some and simply pisses off others. I like the people that just shout out their curiosity rather than shooting me suspicious glances. I'm not trying to "catch" anybody doing anything. I swear.

Hey, Let Your Freak Flag Fly!

R A N T W I C K

If you're like some of these good people and want a camera like mine, check out 

Am I Just Paranoid?

There's a Staples commercial about people being robbed and deciding they need to replace an old computer that the thieves didn't take. For some, the problem with this is that the people's priorities are kind of messed up. I find the commercial kind of funny, myself.

The thing that bugs me is the part at the end where they talk about how the nice people at staples transferred all the files from the old machine to the new one, for free! Wedding video? Check. Baby pictures? Our taxes? Check. In this age of identity theft, am I the only one who doesn't necessarily want to trust a Staples bench tech with all of my personal/financial information? Is it crazy of me to think that not every employee in such a big retail chain operates under the highest ethical and moral standards?

I am a person who really does believe that most people are good, but there isn't a chance in hell that I would just hand over an old computer to Staples or any other computer repair place without making sure there was nothing on it I didn't want to share. Of course, I am an IT guy, so that's easy for me to say because I can take care of these kinds of things myself. What about your average Joe, though? Am I just being paranoid, or should everybody think twice before being so trusting? What about you? Are you cool with trusting others with your computer stuff?

Never mind computers. Go ride yer bike!

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