A localized version of David Seah’s compact calendar.
The changes:
* populated calendar with Canadian public holidays
* populated calendar with provincial and territorial holidays (even Orangemen’s Day)
* fixed typo in titles of both Sunday versions to say “Week Starting Sunday”
Because while we think the United States is a very nice country, we don’t celebrate the 4th of July. We celebrate Canada Day:
Download 2007 Compact Calendar Canadian Version (English) (zipped Excel files)
I got a Soligor tripod with quick-release everything and an institution-sized bottle of Bailey’s. Then came the electric blanket (surprisingly comfy), an electric razor (meticulously researched on Amazon), and a stainless steel desk clock/thermometer/hygrometer.
Finally I was down to one gift bag, which curiously had two wrapped boxes inside.
My wife insisted I open the larger one first – “Then you’ll understand the second box,” she explained.
Inside the package was a Xbox Live one year membership and a Xbox Live Vision webcam. In the other box was Test Drive Unlimited to play it on! Whatta sweetie.
People are starting to see how modular and extensible the web actually is, TIME Magazine aside: YouTube played a part in a murder investigation when the Hamilton Police posted the security video of a fatal stabbing on the popular video sharing site. Apparently 34,000 people viewed the clip before the suspect turned himself in to the authorities.
Perhaps he was shamed by the comments, all which were most likely variations of “What a looser!” and “FAKE!”.
Let me say this now: the Nintendo Wii is the first gaming console where my business associates will spontaneously talk about – and this is without me first broaching the subject of my glorious video game collection.
Maybe it’s because it’s a physical manifestation of Nintendo’s embrace of disruptive innovation and blue ocean strategy. Or maybe it’s because it’s freakin’ cool. It is everything a typical game console is not: it’s small, quiet, and uncomplicated.
I took several co-workers to check out the live Wii demonstration at Toronto Eatons Centre, and several came away saying that if they ever touched a game console, this would be it. Check this kid out playing a boxing game on the Wii:
People are getting so excited play this thing, there are reports worldwide of people accidentally breaking their television sets, fixtures, and even bystanders’ faces. I couldn’t help but notice that the Wiimotes at the demo had a thicker camera strap backing up the standard, thinner one:
Darling Google has released Google Patent Search. This is an incredible boon for patent agents and intellectual property professionals searching for prior art in the USPTO database, because USPTO’s website frankly isn’t terribly good. For starters, the search engine didn’t dig very deeply into the documents themselves.
It’s so bad in fact that a cottage industry of patent search companies and services has sprung up. Our own law department retained a ridiculously expensive piece of software for the sole purpose of extracting patents from the USPTO for perusal.
Wired comments that this is definitely a search that caters to a very niche and exclusive audience. Perhaps this is yet another initiative, like eco-friendly power supplies, that Google hopes to reap externalities from. After all, now that full text searching on filed patents is fast, accurate and free to all, Google has just made the patent system a lot more transparent, making it more difficult for patent trolls to thrive.
UPDATE: Dennis Couch of Patently-O weighs in. The general consensus is that it’s fast, but not as accurate as they would prefer.
This will be my first bachelor and bachelorette auction. I assure you, however, that everything was above board and in fact for a good cause – specifically to build a school in Nepal, and grant 10-year scholarships to 6 Nepalese girls.
You see, after our work team saw John Wood speak at Power Within three months ago, our manager became empowered to help form the Toronto chapter of Wood’s charity, Room to Read. This fundraising auction, held at the ritzy Dominion Club, was a direct result from this formation.
My awesome friend Space Cadet graciously volunteered to be on the auction block, and as you can see from the photo, her twins were working the crowds that night. She was a bit nervous and I had to promise to be an “angel investor” should the auction not go well, but as you can see, she sold without any assistance for a respectable $850, the third highest hammer price of all the lovely lots. Heck, even James Wood put in a bid, threatening to “steal your Canadian women”.
Probably the only thing amiss was that Space Cadet’s “intro” song wasn’t Rage Against the Machine. Oh, and that 60lb gift basket full of chocolate at the silent auction that went for $300. That was just wrong.
On old flames:
“She’s not Satan, she’s just confused.”
“Yeah well, Satan’s confused, too.”
On growing up:
“Don’t say that’s your minivan. Tell people it’s your motorcycle trailer.”
On numerology:
“Good things always come in three – except breasts.”