Team Canada

In the wake of the Canadian men losing 2-0 to Russia, many Canadians are disappointed, including myself. However, I will be first to go against the critics that blame Gretzky for our defeat. Sure, he selected some players that weren't having as good of a season as some others, but they did have the experience winning past cups and olympics. My only critism would be that Sidney Crosby was not on the team. They guy is sitting 12th in scoring in the NHL with 65 points. Its not a question if he will play in the next olympics. He will be there. But why not give him some more tournament experience now?
Either way, since Gretzky took over Team Canada, they have won the 2002 Olympic gold medal, ending Canada's 50 year Olympic gold medal drought. Since then, Team Canada has won the 2004 World Cup. Gretzky's not the problem. One thing that many Canadians underestimate is the fierce competition and the talent that other national teams possess. In my opinion, either Canada, Russia, the Czechs, Sweden, Findland, Slovakia, yes and even the US, could have won the tournament.
On the bright side, we have a killer Women's hockey team!

Days to the wedding: 79

Reading Week

So this weekend was the first shower that I've ever been too. I know showers are for women, but the perk about me going was that I was able to get some garage/shop presents. Needless to say I wasn't disappointed. Karen's family were really generous. I'd give them a shoutout, but I'd doubt that any of them would ever read this.

In case you hadn't noticed, I added a couple of more blogs to the site. My buddy Joel, who will be the MC at the wedding, and my fiance's brother in law, Brandon. Both these bloggers usually have interesting things to say, so it would be worth a peak if you find mine a waste of time.

I'm also changing the layout slightly. No longer will I have a wedding day countdown in the title. People, including myself, have found this to be confusing if the blog isn't updated for a few days. So, the title block will now include mind stimulating quotes and the wedding countdown will now be placed at the end of every posting.

Cheers.

Days to the Wedding: 82

Hey! it Snowed!!

Well, I can finally come out of my cave for the time being. In case you haven't heard from me, I've been studying for midterms. I feel pretty good about them too.

Valentines day has come and gone. Karen and I went to the Failte Irish Pub in Mississauga. It was a nice evening, although our waiter wasn't. I guess pubs don't like Christians because we don't drink that much. Sure an occasion beer here or there, but in reality they aren't making that much money from us. So to punish us, he put another couple right beside us so we could share our conversations. Upon eaves dropping we learned that they were getting married too. I thought that was pretty interesting. We talked and made friends.

Our Policy group made our first decision yesterday. We blew our competitors out of the water capturing the top market share in 3 out of 5 segments. We are looking forward to our next decision so we can get big fat bonuses!!!

15Mb vs 2.6Gigs (You do the Math)

Google is now offering email accounts to Universities by hosting them through school domain addresses (google). It will provide large storage (does not say how much, but I imagine it will be atleast 2.6 Gigs). The ramifications of this is huge because most communication between university students is through MSN Messenger. With Gmail also adding the new chat feature, I anticipate many students using it to "chat" instead of MSN or in conjunction with it. Searching for information in saved chats is instant through Google's indexing.

I figure McMaster would never go for this offer. I really think they like limiting student email accounts to a whopping 15Mb. This was adequate for the 80's and 90's, but now? I can think of many occasions where my email account was full because I didn't clean it up for 2 days and missed important emails from professors and fellow classmates. Hopefully this matter will be resolved soon.

This would be a really good campain strategy for upcoming MSU president candidates. In fact, if I wasn't graduating this year, I might have run.

Superbowl

Is it me or is the Superbowl overhyped? The first half once again sucked. Just like the 3 of the last 4 Superbowls. At least the commercials were once again good. Thanks to Eric for picking up the Buffalo feed so we could watch the American commercials. Even though Budweiser paid way too much for their advertising, they had some really funny commercials.
They can be view here: (most of them were really funny. Follow the link to "Ads from the big game"Bud
At the top of my list is the CareerBuilder commercials. In case you missed it, you absolutely HAVE to check these out: CareerBuilder
This will definitly be added to the "Monkeys" section of the blog.
Other great commercials were from Ameriquest Mortgage. Both of these commercials are worth the view: Ameriquest
Don't bother wasting your time watching the pepsi commercials. They were horrible.
Anyway, back to the Superbowl. The second half was a great game. Pittsburgh pulled it off 21-10, in a turnover infested game. If the NFL changed the rules to CFL rules, then NFL would rule. You can quote me on that one.
Hope you enjoy the videos!

Yes, I'm a Geek

After spending 3 hours going through tutorials and papers on making decisions for a company based on marketing, production, finance, and R&D information, I'm ready to take over any company. I'm pretty confident that our team, "Monopoly" will prevail and take the top 3 overall companies this semester playing the Business simulation for Policy class.

Yes, this is how I spend my Friday nights. Reading financial statistics, cash flow statements, production information, balance sheets, income statements, and market share analysis statistics.

Only if I can spend more time concentrating on Operations Management for an exam next week. (Not to mention digital communications). Does communicating with digital signals sound interesting to you? How about if I add quantization of signals, pulse code modulation, intersymbol interference, pulse shaping, equalization, partial response signaling, synchronization? Does that still interest you?

700th year Anniversary

So, it’s February 2nd. While some may be ranting on about how it’s Groundhog Day, a handful of people know it’s also Kiwifruit Day. I think this amazingly tasty fruit deserves some of our attention.

A little bit of a history lesson about Kiwifruit:

• Kiwifruit originated in China
• People have been eating it for over 700 years. (This date may be off by +/- a few years).
• Its real name is Actinidia Chinensis
• Also known as the Chinese Gooseberry
• After it reaches full size, it takes 2 months to ripen.
• The ripening process is accelerated by bagging them with bananas or apples, or ethylene gas.
  

So, that’s all I know about Kiwi. I bet you learned something you didn't know before. Now, I wonder if Wiarton Willie likes Kiwifruit.