An Evening with Rick Mercer

After what seems like months of planning (I’m sre it was only 1 month), last night, the wiz and I managed to snag tickets to the taping of the Rick Mercer Report down at the CBC. Neither of could have anticipated the packed house for the taping of the show. The crowd was huge. Most of the audience was a wee bit older than us, and even more liberal. It was startling and amazing at once. We were led through the bowels of the CBC to the taping stage, up elevaotrs, through prop rooms, and finally to the Mercer Report theatre.

The show is taped before a LIVE audience, and we had to pay attention to the commands of the production manager and be mindful of when we had to clap and cheer. The 30 minute segment took an hour to tape, and Rick only had to redo a few pieces of dialogue. It was hilarious. In real life, the stage is smaller, Rick is shorter, and watching the cameras is distracting. That being said, he’s hilarious, and witty and real. Likely he has one of the coolest jobs ever. Atta boy Rick!!

If you watch, we’ll be on the telly Tuesday night at 8 on the CBC.  PS. Rick has a blog too

technorati tags:Rick Mercer, CBC

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The Challenges of Data Centres

Data centers are the most expensive real estate that most businesses own. The price tag for a new 50,000-square-foot data center with 40 watts of power per square foot is around $20 million, says Bruce Shaw, VP of worldwide commercial and enterprise marketing for chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices. By 2010, he estimates that price could jump more than 1,000%.

New Challenges For Data Center Managers - News by InformationWeek

technorati tags:Data Centers, Heating, cooling, cost

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Kids and Cell Phones and Driving

New Driver Cell Phone Ban Law Passes Second Reading At Queen’s ParkThursday October 12, 2006

New drivers who’ve just received their licenses are already prohibited from doing things more veteran commuters take for granted - like using the highway at certain hours or being forced to have a licensed motorist in the car with them.So why not ban them from being able to use a cell phone while driving?That’s the idea behind a private member’s bill, which passed second reading at Queen’s Park Thursday.

CityNews: New Driver Cell Phone Ban Law Passes Second Reading At Queen’s Park

I think I’m liking this ban. Sure, I’m old now, much less rowdy and wild. In fact, last night I was accused of growing up. But kids aren’t near as smart as they were 30 years ago. Traffic and driving wasn’t as cut and dried as it was 30 years ago. It’s good to have distinctions. This also ties in nicely to my discussion of the potential impacts of cell phone radiation on young brains. Suffice it to say, we simply haven’t got enough answers, and until we do, likely the less kids use cell phones, the better.

In 2000, just 5 percent of 13- to 17-year olds had cell phones. Today,56 percent do, according to Linda Barrabee, wireless market analyst forThe Yankee Group. If experts don’t agree on whether or not cell phones posea risk to human health, they tend to agree that, if there is sucha risk, kids are more vulnerable, due to the ongoing developmentof their brain at that early age. Parents have much more to worry about, aside from the excessive billing that goes along with kids and cell phone usage, now they also need to worry about potential health risks, including memory loss, headaches, attention disorders…

RFID tagging is a better method to keep track of kids, and to increase the safety factor. Just tag ‘em.

technorati tags:kids and cell phone usage

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Happy Friday the 13th to ALL!

A Friday occurring on the 13th day of any month is considered to be a day of bad luck in English and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe. Similar superstitions exist in some other traditions. In Greece and Spain, for example, Tuesday the 13th takes the same role. The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia, a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a phobia (fear) of the number thirteen.

Friday the 13th - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

May your friday be full of luck, adventure and general, all around goodness. And if that fails, goalie masks are on sale at Canadian Tire now. Wreak havoc as your favourite horror movie hero.

technorati tags:Friday the 13th, goalie

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A Real Pain in the Ass.

Lightning exits woman's bottom
October 09, 2006 12:00am
Article from: The Australian
A woman has suffered severe burning to her anus after being struck by lightning which hit her in the mouth and passed right through her body.

Lightning exits woman's bottom | NEWS.com.au

Tell me, this isn't something that crosses your mind every day from now on. The woman was actually brushing her teeth, and was rinsing her mouth with water straight fron the tap.  Now who hasn't done that?  The lightning hit her building, and if it wasn't for her rubber soled slippers, she likely would have died.

technorati tags:Lightning, Australia

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Snow on October 12 2006

Right in beautiful, downtown Oak Ridges.

Real, honest to god snow.  It wasn't pretty. It didn't stay.  But it came.

technorati tags:snow, october, Oak Ridges

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Cellular Phones with Wifi

Ok. I'm looking in Canada for cell phones with built in wifi capability.

T-Mobile has a neat one, but still, not Canadian

Do the Canadian carriers even carry cell phones with built in wifi? Would that not just defeat their purpose? Are these phones smart enough to transition from cell network to wifi network?

Hrm.

technorati tags:Cellular with Wifi

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Building Visionary VoIP Solutions

How does a traditional telco build visionary VoIP solutions? How do they manage the fine balance between preserving traditional revenues, while generating new revenues and taking an increase in marketshare from competitors?

That's my job for today, determining strategy for VoIP, and the VoIP reseller markets that I am servicing.

technorati tags:VoIP

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Candy Apple Red

IMG_8823
Originally uploaded by julebule.

It looked much better than it tasted. for some ungodly reason, home made candy apples don’t tase near as good as they do when you buy them from an unnamed vendor at a fair. Plus, the fair variety is less risky.  Home made candy apple goop is VERY, VERY hot.  Getting the goop onto the apple isn’t near as easy as you would think. Sorry for the burn, ‘netter. :-(

Toronto Plastic Surgery.

 Made Ya Look, didn’t it?

technorati tags:snappy ads

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Google - First YouTube - next PayPerPost?

It’s curious - that after a few weeks of insane YouTube buzz, all of a sudden there’s a purchase announcement. Now, with the rowdiness of PayPerPost, and the loud ramblings of the blogosphere, could it be next on the Google Train?

Google seems to be good at capturing momentum, and magnifying it. Could Google also be thinking that payPerPost would be an added attraction to it’s advertising arm? Folks are indeed comparing Adsense to PayperPost, why not work out a deal, and improve each model? When it comes down to it, it’s all about ads on blogs, isn’t it? ;-)

I’ve got you thinking now, don’t I?

As an aside…. despite all the negative hooplah, Dave Winer as an interesting tidbit about the upside of PayPerPost - maybe this new merger idea idea isn’t as off beat as one might think…

technorati tags:Google to Buy PayPerPost, Google, PayPerPost

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Extreme Tickle Me Elmo

For Sassy:

It’s the extremest that Elmo has ever been. TMX Elmo………Tickle Me Extreme Elmo!!!!  [Ah ha ha, that tickles!!!]

From the first time I saw him, 3 weeks ago, as he was making the talk show rounds, I knew you had to have him ;-) Yup, he was on the Today show, and on Canada AM!! - the only shows that were in english in Rimouski at 6 am in the morning).  Morning hosts across the country were giggling away with Elmo.  Take that how you want. :-)

He’s new, improved, yet still giggles, and managed to make giggling contagious. And this time he can stand up, and fall over and stand up again! [Could it be Elmo 2.0?]

For all you folks who are on the verge of kids (yes jorge, you too), this could be the one concession you make to consumerism…. you can even just keep him for yourself! :-)  Sharing is not mandatory.

technorati tags:TMX Elmo, sassy

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Google and YouTube....

Google Grabs YouTube for $1.65 Billion Bellwether agrees to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.

RED HERRING | The Business of Technology

And to think that I was convinced the rumours last week were just that. This adds a definitive jewel on the google crown, provided that the Google folks know what to do with it. Matthew Ingram has some good commentary on the purchase.
See what you miss when you have Thanksgiving at the cottage?

technorati tags:Google, YouTube, Matthew Ingram

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The Perfect Cheese?

Funny - what people will come up with to put on a cracker.... spray cheese. An edible product? I'm not so sure any more....

Wired 14.10: START - I

It's perfect on a cracker. Almost too perfect. Explore the secrets of one of the world's most unnatural foods.

technorati tags:spray cheese, kraft

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Tea and Sweets

Something worthwhile, for those folks who like having cookies with their tea, after a long day of work.

Mighty Goods: Mug with Cookie Shelf

technorati tags:smiles, cookies, tea

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Glencoe Hits the Guiness Book - and the Globe and Mail!!!

Ontario farmer has Guinness-making maze
Canadian Press
GLENCOE, Ont. — For those who enjoy getting lost in a giant maze of corn, Glencoe, Ont., is officially the best place to do it.Guinness World Records confirms the McEachren Farms Corn Maze is the largest corn maze in the world.

globeandmail.com: Ontario farmer has Guinness-making maze

I have to tell you. It's not often that the small village of Glencoe, Ontario gets 2 wammys in one day.  It's made the guiness book of World Records for having the largest corn maze, (that's a maize maze for you smarties), and is mentioned in the Globe and Mail too!

Whoot Glencoe! And to think, I almost wanted to live there once.

technorati tags:Glencoe, Corn Maze

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Kids and Cell Phones?

Children are different

Large studies of adult cell phone users in Denmark, Sweden, and the UK were published in 2005 and 2006. These inquiries concluded that RF radiation from mobile phones is not a cause of glioma, a cancer of the brain’s supportive glial cells. But it’s not quite time to consider the controversy over. Children are not small adults, and several differences could be important in the way they are affected by ELF and RF radiation: * Hormones are at work, causing their bones, brains, and muscles to grow. Growing tissues are at greater risk of cancer, which is basically uncontrolled growth. * They have thinner bones, especially their skulls, which may allow more radiation to penetrate. * Children spend more time outdoors than adults.In late 2005, a large body of research on RF radiation from mobile telephones and ELF radiation from power lines was reviewed in several articles in a supplement to the journal Bioelectromagnetics. The scientists involved mostly indicated that there was no convincing evidence that either type of radiation was doing harm to fetuses or children, but they left the door open by identifying numerous ways that future research could be more sensitive to possible effects.

AboutKidsHealth: News: Electromagnetic radiation and cancer fears

I'm a believer that kids and cell phones don't mix.  Not until they are of driving age, for emergencies (kids and driving and cell phones is a completely different arguement and deserves a posting of its own).

It didn't occur to me, until I read my amigo Tai's, article about electromagnetic implications, that it dawned on me. Adult cell phone use has an acceptable risk associated with it.  A child's cell phone usage must be considered very differently and very carefully.  So much marketing is going into the "youth" generation. Mp3s, SMS, ring tones. So many young people using cell phones. No one really knows the implications of such a move.  10 years ago, no one anticipated that someone under the age of 18 would need or want a cell phone. No one anticipated that the cost would reduce so significantly that families could afford outfitting their offspring.

Are we doing the youth a favour, or a disservice? I suppose we won't really know, not for another 15 years or so, when the Z generation disappears under a cloud of brain tumours.

technorati tags:cell phones and children, electromagnetism, Tai Viinikka

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What Would You Do for Your iPOD?

Man stabbed over iPod
Oct. 6, 2006. 05:57 AMNICK KYONKA AND JOSH WINGROVESTAFF REPORTERS
A young man was stabbed twice in the chest after refusing to hand over his iPod to two armed men at a bus stop in Richmond Hill Thursday night.The victim got off a northbound York Regional Transit bus on Yonge St. near Crosby Ave. just after 10 p.m. when two men approached him, York Regional Police Sgt. Harry Horn said.“He was approached by two unknown males who then demanded his iPod,” Horn said.“A struggle ensued and the victim was stabbed twice in the chest,” he added.The victim was taken to Sunnybrook hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

TheStar.com - Man stabbed over iPod

Would *you* take a stabbing to the chest to protect your iPOD? I am pretty sure that losing digital music should not be a life or death choice.

technorati tags:iPOD Theft, Richmond Hill

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Where NOT to Go...

this dirty bug left sloppy remains all over my traffic logs:

www.1onlinecasino.org/online-casino-review.html

If there was a 12th level of HELL, this guy should be there.

technorati tags:spam, traffic log spam

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No Title Needed.

Paper Napkin: Hello Out There

technorati tags:lurking

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