Why Curling Is Cool.... And You Aren't

I love Curling. Curling is cool, Curling is fun. I used to curl back in my highschool days. I even skipped the SCITS team for 3 years. Not that we were much good, but we did make the playoffs for a couple years. I don't curl much anymore, which is too bad because I miss it. It seems if you want to join a local Curling league, you have to already be in a team, which of course, I'm not. I don't even know anyone else that curls. Anyway...

So, being played this past week was the Scott Tournament of Hearts... which is the Canadian Women's Championship. In the past few years, Curling has been shown on TSN, but this year, CBC won the exclusive rights. This is good in some ways, because it's network TV, but the CBC didn't want to show live curling in prime time, so they shifted the evening draws to their digital specialty channel, CBC Country Canada. This angers me. Of course, I happen to be lucky enough to be able to have CBC on the television during the day and then lucky enough again to have digital cable so I could order CBC County Canada. But there are probably lots of Curling fans shutout because they're at work in the afternoon, and then don't have digital TV for the evening, which means, no live Curling. I read somewhere that before curling started CBC Country Canada averaged about 500 viewers at any given time. So, in order to prop up their failing digital channel, they're screwing Curling fans. As soon as the Curling season is done, I'm totally cancelling CBC Country Canada.

On the bright side of this year's Tournament of Hearts, a lot of the teams are recent junior champions, and quite the lookers. Last night, it was a match between Ontario and Saskatchewan. A couple of teams that are mostly in their mid-twenties, and lookin' good! Yes, another reason I miss curling.

Woo Hoo! New Video Game!

So, I did something that was quite out of character the other day.  I bought a brand new video game as soon as it came out.  I usually wait until I can pick it up used, or it drops in price.  But this one I couldn't wait for.... Gran Turismo 4!  It's probably the most in depth, realistic driving game out there.  Of course, after picking it up on Wednesday, I actually haven't played it all that much.  So, I have to buckle down and make sure that I play more video games... not just for me... but for the good of mankind!  What?

My How You've Grown!

Alternate Caption: "Why do you keep insisting on taking our picture? Leave us alone!" 

2 Steps Down, 1 To Go

So, you may remember that I wrote an exam last December to get licenced as a Professional Engineer.  The results are in... I got a big fat PASS!  Awesome!  I wasn't sure that I would pass the Law portion of it, but there you are.  I am totally happy that I don't have to study for it ever again!  In fact, I don't think I'll have to study for anything ever again!

 

There are 3 steps to becoming a P.Eng... Academic Requirements, Passing the Professtional Practice Exam, and Experience Requirement.  I've got the first two, now all I have to do is not get fired and I'll have the other one in less than 2 years.

A New Look!

I bet you it "blue" you away when you saw it!

Stick A Fork In It

So, finally, the NHL cancelled the 2004-2005 season. It's not that big of a surprise and, quite frankly, it's about freakin' time. While I generally agree with the owner's side of things, with the players earning way more than what they should relative to how much the league makes, it's Gary Bettman's fault that the NHL is in the sad state it is in, what with all the expansion and moving of clubs to places like Miami, Phoenix, Nashville, Raleigh, etc. Gary Bettman is the scum of the earth and as long as he's running the show, I'm hoping the the NHL will crumble to pieces because of this so something better can come about. Ideally, my fantasy outcome is that the NHL comes back playing next September, but popularity would have fallen so far in places like the ones mentioned above, that about 6 teams fold, and two more move back to Canada. Gary Bettman is the devil, and we must stop him!

Why I like not having to drive to work in the morning

Matt's Got A Brand New Cap

So, I read online today that Rogers is now introducing a bandwidth cap on internet usage. This is an outrage! I mean, how can I possibly stay under the ridiculous limit of 60GB per month? Seriously! If the cap was in place last month, I would have almost capped out! I squeeked through by using 4GB last month! So very close! oh wait... no it's not... So I suppose this won't affect me at all. So.... meh.

Black Monday

So, Happy Valentine's Day, to those who celebrate it... I guess. It's the day where you tell that special someone that you love them, because a greeting card company told you that you have to. And while you're at it, let everyone else know that you have your "Special Valentine", because we all care. No, really we do.

Matt Brouwer is Stupid?

So, I got some more interesting information from that stat tracker. It seems that some people are finding their way to my blog via google. Right now the most popular search topic is thanks to my blurb about bebo.com. Apparently, I'm not the only one who doesn't trust them. After that, the only other search topic that has popped up is "Matt Brouwer is Stupid". That was an interesting one to find...

This is not a CD review....

... but I don't know why it took so long for me to buy it. It was released back in 1999. I Mother Earth's Blue Green Orange. 

Web Stats Ahoy!

I've signed up for a new counter/stat tracker which I think is pretty cool. It's called StatCounter. It actually works best on websites where you have multiple pages, so you can see how people are navigating through your site. I'm using it on my website... wait a minute... you didn't know I had a website? GO THERE NOW!!! Anyway, it also keeps some interesting stats (like most counters do, but I find these ones to be just a bit more detailed), so I made a separate stat tracker for my blog. Why am I telling you this? I've discovered a few things about my visitors in the last couple weeks it's been active... First of all, what country are people coming from...

No big surprise here. Mostly everyone is from Canada. A couple random hits, but nothing significant.

How about Operating System?

Alright... who's the wiseguy using Linux? I'll have none of that here! 11% using Mac? Not bad... but we can do better.

And how about Browser?

Most people are using Internet Explorer and haven't jumped on the Firefox bandwagon like me. And there's that 11% again.

This stuff is only interesting to a geek like me. There's your update!

A great loss to us all...

A bitter sadness fills my heart today, as I learned that Star Trek Enterprise will be cancelled after this season. This breaks the recent tradition of Star Trek series running for 7 seasons, as this is only the 4th. This show really captured my attention last year as it had a season-long story line, which made it kind of like a 24-part episode, which was really freakin' good. Not to mention is was broadcast in HD. I'll be buying the DVDs when they come out, for sure. That's saying something, as I haven't bought TV show DVDs before... they're kinda expensive. But Enterprise is definately worth it.

For anyone who's interested, it's shown on CityTV, Fridays at 8pm.

bebo.com? It's all the rage apparently

Alright... Enough is enough. This week I've gotten four separate e-mails which say something to this effect...

Hi

I am updating my address book and it would be very helpful if you could click on the link below and enter your contact details for me:

http://www.bebo.com/

I am using a service that keeps contact details current, just update your own contact details and then the changes appear in selected friends' address books. When I update my contact details you will see them in your address book.

Thank you for helping.

[Someone's name here]

You know, maybe I'm a bit paranoid... but I don't trust these websites that graciously offer to hold thousands of people's contact information for free. It seems to me to be pretty shady.

Now, I have nothing against keeping in touch. But if you want my contact info, just ask me. I'll give it to you. I'd like to keep in touch. When I got these four e-mails (and I expect more to come over the next few days, because these internet fads spread like viruses) I just gave them my address, phone numbers, etc. in a reply e-mail.

I did a little searching on google for bebo.com hoping to find out more, but not much came up in the way of reports of shady things happening with them. Still, I'm not convinced, and probably won't be. But then again, I may just be paranoid...

More Ads

Ok, here are a few more of the commercials that were winners at the Advertising Festival. Some of them you'll recognise...

Toyota
Evian
Soken
FedEx
BC SPCA

Once again, they'd probably work best if you saved them to your harddrive first.

Happy February