What's In A (Country's) Name?

Here's something that's always bothered me. Maybe you can shed some light on the subject. Why is it that there are some countries that have completely different names for in English from their native language? I'm looking at you Deutschland. You too Nippon. Don't think I forgot about you Bhārat. Eire, Norge, Italia... you're all on notice.

Maybe the question should be, why don't we call them by their native name? And it's not just limited to English. French has Pays-Bas, Corée, Allemagne to name a few. I can understand, to an extent, when a name is made up of actual words (United States = États-Unis in French, Cote d'Ivoire = Ivory Coast in English), but a name should be a name. If I were to go to another country, they wouldn't start calling me Kodos instead of Matt because that's how they say it. That would be weird... and it's not my name.

I want to single out Germany, because it's case is especially weird. For example... the Olympics, ok? Usually, the countries will be identified onscreen by their 3 letter short form in their own language (NED for Netherlands, SUI for Switzerland) but not Germany... they're GER instead of DEU. What's up with that? Well, maybe what goes on TV screens is out of their control. But then why do they paint GER on their own bobsleds?

Better Late Than Never Playoff Predictions

Yeah, I made predictions for the NHL playoffs before they started. Honestly. So, I'm just posting it late. I'm totally not letting the knowledge of the last 5 night affect my predictions at all. Some of them are already wrong... but I'm still gonna post them.

Washington 4-1 Montreal
New Jersey 4-3 Philadelphia
Buffalo 4-2 Boston
Ottawa 4-2 Pittsburgh

San Jose 4-2 Colorado
Chicago 4-1 Nashville
Los Angeles 4-3 Vancouver
Detroit 4-1 Phoenix

See? Phoenix is already up 2-1 in their series. I can't get that one right now. But, in my defense, how was I supposed to know that Phoenix actually had a hockey team?

Today's Slurpee Conditions: Unnecessarily Frozen and Unofficial

So, I bought a six pack of coke to put in the mini fridge I have in my hotel room. Yep, they're frozen solid now.

CYQG-CYPT-CYQG-CYPT-CYQG and so on

I've been working in a new office since last Thursday.

It's the inside of a Cessna 208 (I think that's what kind of plane it is). I've been doing travel survey interviews (boo!) for people travelling to and from Pelee Island (which, at this time of year is by air). And since it's much easier to get people to participate before they take off, I've been flying in the plane as part of the job (yay!). It's about a 20 minute flight and it doesn't get too high, so you get to see Essex County from a nice aerial perspective. Here's a shot I took of Point Pelee:

The people have been warming up to me as I've spent a couple days there now (everyone knows everyone else on that island, it seems), and the pilot has been super-cool... even letting me sit up front on a couple trips:

Anyway, I'm really glad I like to fly, because it's been a really nice perk of a crappy, crappy job. It almost makes me want to learn to fly myself... but I know that takes a lot of time and money. I'm here for instant gratification, people.

Help Me Help Big Brothers

This weekend is the annual Curl for Kids event, which is a fundraiser for Big Brothers of Sarnia-Lambton. This is my fourth year (I think) of participating. I'd appreciate any help you could throw my way for my fundraising effort.

Click here to go to my donation page.

Thanks.

Geocaching

So, 5 years after signing up on the website, I finally went out and tried Geocaching last weekend when I was visiting friends in Belleville.

For those who are unaware of this hobby, people hide small containers with a logbook in public places and list the longitude and latitude online. Then you use your GPS to hunt it out. It's a fun reason to get outside and enjoy a walk. We were able to find 3 in a conservation area near Belleville, then when I got home I found a couple more in Waterloo Park. While in the park I ran into a couple of really experienced Geocachers and they gave me some good pointers on getting started out.

Anyone else ever try this. I think I might do some more of it, especially when the weather gets better.

Canada Wins The Gold... In Airing Commercials and Pointless Fillers

So, I was actually going to write about how awesome the Olympic coverage has been so far from the Broadcast Consortium. The fact that there are 3 big networks showing coverage (4 if you include OLN, which I don't because it's not in HD) and there is really good online viewing is really great. However, I'm sitting here watching the coverage right now... It's about an hour after Canada won a silver in Snowboard Cross, and on CTV they're showing fluff pieces about the atheletes, on Sportsnet they're showing a replay of the Snowboard Cross final that THEY JUST SHOWED LIVE AN HOUR AGO, and TSN is showing a Women's hockey blowout. I'm thinking, "It's the Olympics... how strange that there's nothing else going on right now". I know the 500m speed skating is coming up tonight (that's one of the oft-played fluff pieces... yeah we get it, Wortherspoon fell in 2002). So I look up the schedule online, and in actuality, the first run of the 500 metres is on right now! It's just that it's not the Canadians' turn yet.

Is that what we've come to? We have a multitude of channels, and we won't show an event live if a Canadian isn't involved. Once upon a time, I remember thinking the American coverage was terrible in 1996 because they never showed anyone but Americans, while our coverage was superior because we gave coverage to whole events... and that was when we only had one station showing coverage. But I guess that's what we, as Canadians, are told we want to be. I'm just waiting for the tape delayed for primetime only coverage that we'll surely be getting in a few Olympics from now.

CTV, you have a chance to show that you're just as good as CBC when it comes to Olympic coverage, but you're quickly blowing it.

And I miss the CBC Olympic theme song.

More 1 vs 100 Fun

With the 2nd season of 1 vs 100 winding down, I finally got to play in the Mob for a real prize today. Me and 37 other members of the mob outlasted the one, and in the process won 80 MS point (about a dollar) and a free arcade game (which this week was Marvel vs Capcom 2... not bad). The only weird thing is that all prizes are virtual, but I still have to wait 4-6 weeks for the prize. I suppose it's for contest verification or something, because it sure isn't for shipping and handling.

Now that I got my 1 vs 100 fill out of the way, I can watch the last half of the Tournament of Hearts. I think it'd be nice to see PEI win in their first final appearance ever.

This is a Dilly of a Pickle

So, the commenting system I've been using on my blog is shutting down. I have 2 options: Switch to another commenting system owned by the same company, or switch back to the Blogger commenting system.

The first option is good because I can keep all my previous comments. The downside is that the interface is quite complex and COSTS MONEY. I've been given a 1 month trial, and that's what is active now.

The second option of using the Blogger default commenting system is good because it's free and relatively easy to use. The downside is that I'll lose all my previous comments.

What to do?

Now THAT'S a Lake Effect!

I drove home today after being in Bright's Grove for 2 weeks. Of course, the day I drove back was some of the worst driving weather I've been through. Highway 402 was actually closed between exits 44 and 69. It took 2.5 hours to get to London. After that, it was fine though. All this after leaving Sarnia with no evidence whatsoever of snow (unless I looked at the Road Conditions website... which I did).