Here are my weekly notes:

• Happy Birthday to Annie and Violet! We celebrated Annie’s birthday last nite with dinner at Joey’s Global Grill. You can see a few pictures she took here.
• Hillary Clinton finally launched her bid for the White House yesterday, via online video of course. Go Hillary!
• Dickson and I were invited to the 2007 Student Business Plan Competition at the School of Business yesterday as returning champions. We sat in on the presentations, and were honored to be able to announce this year’s winner (Flat Out Adventure Racing). Congrats to all the participants!
• I had a bit of a blonde moment the other day. I got home from the office pretty late, and turned the inside light on in my car to get my stuff together. Evidently I forgot to turn it off, and when I went to start the car yesterday morning, it was dead. Fortunately my sister was able to come today to jumpstart it for me!
• All outbound links at Wikipedia now use the NOFOLLOW attribute. This is an attempt to reduce spam, and I think it’s a good idea.
• I guess I was wrong about my parents picking the CR-V…I think they have decided on the Pilot again!
• Apparently there are already black market copies of Windows Vista available in China.

Here are my weekly notes:

• We finally launched an update to Podcast Spot on Wednesday, as Dickson explains. We’ll be turning on new features starting this week.
• This article is interesting, to say the least. Shows you how out of touch the older generations can be.
• Sure the fact that Beckham is going to play in the U.S. is big news, but it’s not like it was totally unexpected. The move makes excellent business sense for all parties involved.
• It seems strange to me that Microsoft would be so flippant about the Zune having gaming capabilities in the next 18 months. I doubt the Zune will play games. It’ll be a new device if anything.
• I forget where I came across this link, but CNN has a story about CBC’s “Little Mosque on the Prairie”. I haven’t seen the show yet, but it sounds funny.
• My Dad is back to blogging again! One of the things he has been posting is fairly detailed recaps of Oiler games.

Here are my notes for the first Sunday of the year:

• I had four classes in the fall term, and until today I had marks for only three of them. I was waiting for fourth one because if I did really poorly, I would probably have to pick up another class this term. Tonight I finally got the mark, and it turns out it was my best of the term! I was worried it would be my worst mark. There’s a message/lesson here…I just don’t know what it is.
• On that note, classes resume tomorrow. Oh joy.
• I really like the redesigned Microsoft.com homepage. Hopefully it’s here to stay and is not just a CES thing.
• Engadget has some pictures of the IPTV interface for Xbox 360. They also have a photo of the Windows Home Server device from HP.
• Who knew Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com had a thing for space? His new spacecraft startup looks pretty interesting. And I like the really personal message he posted (though he should probably have just created a blog).
• The update to Podcast Spot that we’ve been working on is coming along, though not as quickly as we’d like. Should be very soon though!

Mini-Review: Next by Michael Crichton
He’s my favorite author and I had high hopes for his new book Next. And I was not disappointed. The book deals with genetic research and tells the somewhat connected stories of many characters, both humans and transgenic animals. I really enjoyed it! My only complaint, perhaps, is that it’s not long enough. There are a few plot lines that aren’t fully explored or explained, such as the sea turtles with glowing shells. Otherwise it’s very well done. There is even a pseudo corporate site as part of the marketing for the book. And here is the official site.

Ah Christmas Eve, here at last. Here are my weekly notes:

• Sharon’s family invited me over for dinner tonight which was nice! I was the only white guy in attendance…gotta represent!
• It seems the rumor about a new hockey rink in Edmonton just won’t die.
• You may have seen this already, but Richard MacManus’ list of web predictions for 2007 is very interesting.
• Digg launched some new podcasting features this week, and things were pretty wonky when I first took a look. They are working to improve though!
• I meant to participate in Ben Yoskovitz’s group writing project, but I completely forgot. Oh well, you should still check out the posts, there are some really great ones! Everyone had to write an answer to the question, What did you learn this year?
• Iran is moving ahead with uranium enrichment, despite the recent sanctions imposed by the U.N. resolution. That can’t be good news.

I hope Santa is good to you tonight!

Here are my weekly notes:

• Congratulations to Brock and Amanda on your engagement! Can’t wait for the wedding!
• I noticed in the comments of this recent article on An Inconvenient Truth that most people seem tired of hearing about climate change. Granted it’s a techy audience, but still, perhaps a sign of things to come?
• My last two final exams are both on Tuesday. I’ll be so happy for it to all be over!
• The predictions for 2007 have already started to flow in. Here are Mark Anderson’s, who claims a 93.5 percent success ratio over the years he’s been doing predictions.
• On Thursday, Kim and Tom are heading north for Christmas, which means I need to get my shopping done fast.
• I went to see Oh Susanna! late last night at the Varscona with Sharon. It was quite entertaining! During one segment, Larry Yachimec was called up to the stage (along with a friend, didn’t catch his name). For those of you that don’t know, Larry is the guy in the WestJet commercial who can’t find the channel that everyone is laughing at.

I am a little late with my weekly notes, but here they are nonetheless:

• The sink in my main bathroom is plugged – seriously plugged. Drano didn’t work. Taking apart the pipes underneath and cleaning them didn’t work. Going to have to call a plumber…anyone know a good plumber?
• On Wednesday I posted about Google Checkout not liking Canada. Two days later the issue I was talking about was fixed.
• This boost in efficiency is definitely good news for solar power.
• My first final exam is Thursday. Needless to say I am not looking forward to it.
• I went to watch Dickson perform at a concert today (playing the piano of course). Even though I didn’t understand most of the songs, it was still entertaining. And Dickson even played some Final Fantasy music!
• I also saw a couple movies recently. Last night I saw Borat (offensive, but hilarious) with Megan and Greg, and tonight Sharon and I watched Cars (awesome because Michael Schumacher played himself).

First weekend of December, and here my weekly notes:

• Dad is in town for work until Thursday, so that means I have a roommate! Along with Kim we went test driving some new Honda SUVs yesterday.
• I know this is just a concept laptop, but I still really want one.
• Turns out the second place votes came in handy for Ed Stelmach. He was elected late last nite as the new leader of the PC party and is therefore Alberta’s premier, succeeding Ralph Klein.
• Sharon and I went to the Festival of Trees on Thursday. It was interesting, but I don’t think I’d go again, unless I had kids. It’s very much a family-oriented event.
• Turns out Apple isn’t trying to protect use of the word ‘podcast’ after all.
• Last day of classes is on Wednesday – hooray!

Just finished reading: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
What a quick, entertaining read! It must have been hard to follow The Tipping Point with another book, and Blink isn’t as good, but it’s still worth a read. It could have been longer, with a better closing chapter, but Blink still left with me with much to think about. It has also made for some good discussions!

Long time no post! I just haven’t been on the computer much. Here are my weekly notes:

• Just got back from dinner at 4th and Vine downtown. Every Sunday they show movies during the dinner, and tonight they showed Who killed the electric car? Dinner was quite good, but the movie could have been better. It felt like an extended commercial, and the people involved seemed like fanatical environmentalists. Oh, and when they realized they couldn’t answer the question properly, they just blamed everyone.
• I also went to the Edmonton Oilers Super Skills competition today. Rexall Place was nearly sold out, it was amazing. There was easily double the amount of people that attended last year.
• All the wonderful technology we have at our fingertips is usually a good thing, unless you’re a bad teacher.
• Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve done trig. All I remember is SOHCAHTOA.
• I was very disappointed this week to learn that the Xbox Live Video Marketplace is only available in the United States. Then with news of all the problems, I realized that it should have all the bugs worked out by the time it comes to Canada!
• An article I read yesterday claims that tweens are the new teens. I would be surprised if this is the first time such an argument has been made.
• Megan invited me to a performance of Macbeth at my old high school on Friday. It was pretty well done, and incorporated professional and student actors. It all came back to me with the line “my dearest chuck” which I incorrectly read as “my dearest chunk” in front of the entire class in high school. Good times!

mastermaq notes

Here are my weekly notes:

• Ever wonder where you’d end up if you could dig a hole through the Earth? Wonder no more!
• A bunch of my friends are really into skiing and snowboarding. It’s never really been my thing. I found this interesting though – the number of “chicks on sticks” and they amount of money they are spending is snowballing.
• Another interesting marketing-related story: cosmetic names are becoming increasingly explicit.
• Interesting article about the creation and production of Lonelygirl15.
• Here’s a cool chart showing Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo acquisitions since 2000.
• Will the 2008 US Presidential Election be all about the senators? Looks like it!
• Former Senator John Edwards was in the news recently…for trying to cut to the front of the line to get a PS3. Wal-Mart’s press release regarding the incident is nothing short of brilliant!

Just finished reading: The End of Poverty by Jeffrey D. Sachs
It took me quite a while to read this book, because I did so very slowly, reading only a few passages every now and then. Despite being an enjoyable read, there’s a lot of information to digest. Professor Sachs at times seems narcissistic, yet at others seems genuinely passionate about his work. All in all the book gave me much to think about, and left me with a sense of optimism.