Four days of snowboarding means I'm wiped out. My legs are achy, my feet hurts, my arms are sore, and I'm lacking sleep.

It was beautiful up in the mountains.



We skiied exclusively at the Whistler mountain, mainly because Blackcomb's been open for two weeks with no new snow, and was icy and bare. The conditions were pretty good for early season, with plenty of power at Harmony and Peak, although some runs were a little icy.

But skiing wasn't the only thing we were doing. Aside from the hours spent in the hot tub, we also went to dinner at Hy's on Thursday,



broke a bone on Friday (not mine),



danced all night long Saturday,



and finally finished off a good day on Sunday.



We'll be back in a couple of months.

Googled introduces click to call, googlewhores all over the internets rejoice. Little do they know, companies like Amazon.com have had this for a long time. In fact, I just searched for my favourite pizza place, and got amazon to call them so I can order a pizza.

Heading to Whistler tomorrow, hopefully they'll get some snow.

Some of you may have heard about the sony rootkit fiasco, where a DRM'd music CD from Sony would auto install a rootkit on your computer that phones home with an ID, but could also allow certain virii to hide behind it. After much complaining from consumer groups, Sony has finally pulled the CD's.

Now, it seems, Amazon.com is contacting customers who bought the aforementioned CD's and offering them a refund, regardless of whether the CD is opened or not. This proactive approach is what I call a good customer experience.

Some people are too nerdy. This is something you'd expect out of the comfy lounge.

I find it hard to keep up with Canadian politics when I'm living in the US. It could be because it's just ... well ... less important.

But yesterday, in Quebec, a young and boisterous André Boisclair became the new PQ leader. He's Harvard educated, past cocaine user (hardly surprising considering the Ivy League connection), gay, and most of all, nationalistic (for Quebec). He's vowed for another referendum on Quebec sovereignty should he become premier.

I've never really understood why Quebec feels the need to separate. It's not like they're being forcefully oppressed. In fact, they even managed to pass Bill 101, which was somewhat draconian, and had to be modified to fit within the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

These notions of separation are concocted by far-left academics, fed to the undereducated or overly religious to garner support, and in the end, benefit no one except those in positions of power. The economic impact would be devastating to Quebec as businesses fearing political unrest move west or to the US, and the Hull region loses 25,000 jobs (federal civil servants). The rest of Canada won't fare so well either, as the other provinces become increasingly weary of Ontario (now with 50% of the GDP), and threaten secession or join the US (Alberta would probably be the first, then BC).

Quebecers need to do a cost benefit analysis, and realize that they're unlikely to better protect their culture after separation, especially from the American entertainment industry's prying eyes. Are they really ready to say goodbye to the cushion that is Canada?

The Barenaked Ladies releases, well, a USB stick with 28 songs, photos, etc. Their news page even says that

the 128mg USB flash memory drive ... is a fast and easy way to share music, videos, pictures and other data.

(emphasis mine).

It's great to see some artists (Canadian, for that matter) embracing new technology rather than conforming to the larger industry's backward thinking and unwillingness to move forward. Welcome to the 21st century.

via BB.

I had this 2 years ago.

In Ontario, we have the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario), which controls the sales of beer, wine and liquor in the whole province. Pretty much the only place to get alcohol is at the Beer Store, the LCBO outlet, or some wine sellers. Since we can't just pop into a corner store and pick up beer, it usually required a little pre-planning, and sometimes ended up with a last minute rush to get to a beer store before it closes.

Now, someone has come up with this brilliant app based on the google maps API. Go check it out, it will help you get drunk.

Firefox, while still possibly the best browser I've used, is now the bane of my existence. I'm running 1.5 Beta 2, and it consistently uses up twice, sometimes even three times the memory usage of Outlook (the next big memory stomper). If I leave my computer on for a couple of days, the memory usage usually climbs to be around 150 - 200 MB. I usually have 2 windows open with about 5-10 tabs in each window. I do open and close tabs a lot, and have only a minimum amout of extensions in use. I've tried setting things in about:config to try to limit memory usage, but nothing seems to work. I just can't stand waiting 3 minutes+ every morning when I get into work for firefox to page into memory.

So I'm looking for a new browser. Here are three things I absolutely need:

1. tabs
2. search as you type (on the page)
3. keywords (and %s replacement)

So far, I've tried Opera (1 and 2, and very limited 3 - no %s replacement, which is very important to me), and Maxthon (1 and 3, but because it uses IE, no 2). Is there any unknown browser out there that will save me?

I've always wondered why a lot of cab drivers can't be bothered to invest $5 on a headset for their cellphone.

I mean, I'm not bothered by the fact that they talk on their cellphone (although I do think it's unprofessional), or even by the safety factor. It's more of a matter of convenience for me. If I were driving for 10 hours a day, and were talking for 2 of those hours, I'd be a lot more comfortable if I had a headset.

Just a thought.

Sometimes I'm amazed at what we sell here on the website.

I was playing around with the Gift Central site (that Natalie worked on), and found that there's a gift guide for Country Boys and Cowgirls, which led to this detail page: Women in Waders Calendar 2006.



Update: Strangely, a local publication the Stranger featured WiW's 2005 cover girl on their cover in July of last year.

I buy a lot of things on Amazon.com. It's not because I work for them, or that things are much cheaper than anywhere else, it's mainly because it's just so damn convenient, especially with Amazon Prime. I buy anything on the website, and it shows up at work 2 days later, whether it's a toothbrush, or a CD, or a mini-fridge (someone I know actually did "prime" a mini-fridge, twice). It's with this convenience that I usually end up buying things on Amazon a couple of times a week.

But today is a special day. Today marks a full month since I've last bought anything from my employer. My "amazon" credit card is sitting at a balance of $0.00, and my new cubicle is free of Amazon.com branded boxes.

Does this mean that things will change for me? That I'm a new person weary of shopping online, and tired of endlessly clicking through useless links to find the right type of toothpaste? Am I off online shopping?

Probably not, I just got paid, so let the shopping begin.

Anyone good in geography? Is there a technical term for a network of rivers/tributaries?