We’re off to the competition for today, I’ll tell you all about it later tonight. Wish us luck!

So we made it to Calgary without any major issues or problems. There was lots of fog on the way down, so visibility was dismal at best, but other than that, the drive was the same as always – straight and boring. Dickson drove the first half while I worked, and I drove the second half while he worked. We’re so efficient! Next time we shall bring a generator.

We are staying at the Holiday Inn downtown, and it’s a pretty nice hotel so far. Dickson brought a wireless router, so we’ve got that all hooked up nicely. When we walked into the room, it was quite warm, so we set about trying to open the sliding door to the porch to let in some cool air (okay, its also because there is no fridge and we want to keep the Coke cold). There is a sticker on the door that says locking mechanism at the bottom, and we checked, it was unlocked. However, the door wouldn’t open! So we figured it was just frozen, and I pulled and pulled. Eventually it started to give way, and we thought we had succeeded.

Turns out there is a latch behind the handle that we didn’t see. The door wasn’t frozen – when it started to give way, it was because I had bent the metal latch! We couldn’t stop laughing! Anyway, we got it all sorted out now. Check out the gallery I have started for this trip for pictures of the door and hotel room.

I will post again later but for now, back to work!

In a couple of hours, Dickson and I are leaving for Calgary to compete in the CTC Programming Competition. We participated last year as well, and while we didn’t win, we didn’t finish last either! This year we are feeling much more prepared, so we think we’ll fare quite well.

If you look at the competition page, you’ll see three different problems for the Creative part. We chose to do the planner, and I think that was a wise choice. Although, we haven’t been sleeping much this week! The second part is the same for everyone – tank wars! Hopefully we can work on it when we get to Calgary.

Alright have a great weekend! I’ll be blogging from the competition and over the weekend so stay tuned!

If you’re like me, you tend to press snooze one too many times. Well, it seems some students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (never head of it either) have developed an alarm clock, dubbed the Sfera, that solves this problem:

The clock itself actually hangs from a string, and automatically raises itself a little bit higher off the ground every time you hit snooze, in turn forcing you to actually get up out of bed if you want to turn it off.

Interesting idea, though I can see myself whacking it with a pillow after a while. Maybe it would be better if instead of raising itself up, it shot you with water. That would definitely wake you up!

Read: Engadget

Microsoft just released their latest financial information, and revealed that the division containing Xbox has reported a profit:

Buoyed by strong Xbox sales, The Home and Entertainment unit posted an $84 million profit on revenue of $1.41 billion. A year ago, the unit saw losses of $397 million on sales of $1.27 billion.

Looks good for Xbox2 now!

Read: CNET News.com

I have not met Murphy. I don’t know anyone who has met Murphy. I doubt I’ll ever meet Murphy. But I do know something about Murphy. He’s one aggravating son of a bitch! And if I ever meet him, I’m gonna tell him exactly where to stick his law.

As if they didn’t have enough things in beta already, Google has launched Google Video – a service for searching through TV shows. The results show the title of the show, a brief description, the network, the time, and a screenshot. Here’s a USA Today article on the new search.

I’m stuck up in Edmonton, but at least the weather has been nice! In Seattle for the last two days the Blog Business Summit has been taking place, and they already are planning the next one. You can find out more and fill out their survey here. In the meantime, check out Technorati results and Feedster results for the conference.

According to a U.K. psychologist, today, January 24th, is the worst day of the year:

[Dr. Cliff] Arnall found that, while days technically get longer after Dec. 21, cyclonic weather systems take hold in January, bringing low, dark clouds to Britain. Meanwhile, the majority of people break their healthy resolutions six to seven days into the new year, and even the hangers-on have fallen off the wagon, torn off the nicotine patches and eaten the fridge empty by the third week. Any residual dregs of holiday cheer and family fun have kicked the bucket by Jan. 24.

Hope your day is excellent!

Read: MSNBC

Here’s a story on podcasting from MTV.com. It’s about time they mentioned something!

In less than six months, more than 2,000 podcasters have sprung up, and though [Dave] Winer said it’s hard to measure how many listeners are out there, he thinks the technology is limitless.

In my opinion, that is one of the most important things to know about podcasting – determining exactly how many people are listening is difficult. You can tell how many people subscribe, and maybe even how many download your audio file, but its a different story when you try to find out how many actually listen.