Too funny commercial.

My entire life, I've been told how easy Macs are. Last year, I bit the bullet and bought a MacBook for my daughter. What a nightmare. Easy to use my ass. This Christmas, she wanted an iPod Touch. We bought one. I've been trying to get it working on the Mac all day. No error. It just didn't work. I decided to update her iTunes. I had to update 5 other pieces of software. After I downloaded and installed them, I was informed I had to update 6 more pieces of software. I don't know how many times I've rebooted her system or came back to the computer to click a Continue button. Macs are easy? WTF are you guys smokin'.

Update: It finally worked. After about 4 hours of installing software and generally struggling to figure out what to do next. Basically, I needed about a dozen software updates. I have a Bachelor of Computer Science. I can't imagine what some newbie computer user would do. I guess this is how Geek Squad makes money.

For all the shit I put her through, I got her hardwood floors in three rooms on the main floor and took her twice to see Jersey Boys. She's worth it. In a year that re-emphasized cheating on your wife, I made it 22 in a row that I didn't. I never have. Call me a loser. Am not.

Here's my predictions for the year 2010.

1. News of a failed American health care system will snowball. Crappy legislation will simply compound the problem.
2. A new virus will create fear in the American public and generate large revenues for CNN and the medical industry. Review #1. The word of the year will have the definition medical fear mongering. Possibilities include medfear, viralfear, medmongering,...
3. Major advances in environmentally friendly energy. Electric cars will sell faster than they can be manufactured. Everybody chasing the Jones will have to have one. Manufacture of wind turbines will accelerate.
4. Russian oil will become a key bargaining chip in world issues. The U.S. wants the oil. The oil producing countries want Russia to cut production. Russia wants cash.
5. Russian oil money will be tied to political scandals; election fraud, political brides, blackmail, assassinations and more.
6. 2010 will be the year of infidelity. Cheating athletes and celebrities will dominate the front page of every major news website. Getting caught cheating will become a popular fad with celebrities. Be like Tiger.
7. A major earthquake will bring back memories of Katrina and nearly wipe a major U.S. city off the map. The U.S. will create a National Emergency Action Plan.
8. Osama bin Laden will die of natural causes. George Bush will claim responsibility. Something about praying to god and angel dust from his numerous near misses.
9. Focus will turn from Afghanistan to Iran. Whatever happened to Iraq? Is it still a country?Iran will continue to laugh in the face of international pressure. The U.S. and allies will implement major sanctions against Iran, throwing the country into a depression. The Iranian government will accelerate the recession by starving it's own people. Iranian camera phone videos will become regular YouTube hits. Revolution.
10. The President will be assassinated.  You heard it here first.

Should be a fun year, if you watch CNN. Is CNN a Reality TV Show? Or a Soap Opera?

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

http://www.noradsanta.org/

Don't forget to have your kids do their Christmas list online. The list is sent to both Santa's iPhone and Blackberry and he forwards the list to parents.

http://www.hellosanta.org/

"I'll send you $1,000,000 if you send me $500 first." It's the biggest scam going. Instead of falling for this scam, I'm asking you to simply send me as much money as you want. I won't give you anything in return. I promise and I keep my promises, unlike the cons.

Randy Charles Morin,
6-295 Queen Street East, Suite #326 
Brampton, Ontario, L6W4S6, Canada

Why do people fall for these scams? Please send money. I'll use it to fund extra ice-time for 9 yr old hockey players in Brampton, Ontario. That's not a promise. This is a scam. I'm sure I'll still get a check or two.

  In  your 20's: Stop what you are doing.  Shave, take a  shower, blow dry your hair, Brush your teeth, floss, and put on  clean clothes.  Check yourself in The mirror and flex.   Add a dab of your favourite cologne because You never know, you just  might meet some hot chick while standing in The checkout lane.   And you went to school with the pretty girl running The register.

  In your 30's:  Stop what you are doing,  put on clean shorts and shirt.  Change Shoes. You married the  hot chick so no need for much else.  Wash your Hands And comb your hair.  Check yourself in the mirror.  Still got  it.  Add A shot of your favourite cologne to cover the  smell.  The cute girl Running the register is the kid sister to  someone you went to school With.

  In your 40's: Stop what you are doing.  Put on a sweatshirt that is long enough to Cover the hole in the  crotch of your shorts.  Put on different Shoes and a hat. Wash your hands.  Your bottle of Brute Cologne is Almost empty so you don't want to waste any of it on a trip to Home Depot. Check yourself in the mirror and do more sucking in than Flexing.  The spicy young thing running the register is your  daughter's Age and you feel weird thinking she is spicy.

   In your  50's: Stop what you are doing.  Put a hat on, wipe  the dirt off your hands Onto your shirt.  Change shoes because  you don't want to get dog Doo-doo in your new sports  car.  Check yourself in the mirror and you Swear not to wear that shirt anymore because it makes you look fat.  The Cutie running the register smiles when she sees you coming and you think You still have it. Then you remember the hat you have on is  from Buddy's Bait & Beer Bar and it says, 'I Got   Worms  .'

   In your 60's: Stop what you are doing.  No need for a hat anymore.  Hose the  dog Doo-doo off your shoes.  The mirror was shattered when  you were in Your 50's.  You hope you have underwear on so  nothing hangs out the Hole in your pants. The girl running the  register may be cute, but you Don't have your glasses on so  you are not sure.

  In your  70's: Stop what you are doing.  Wait to go  to Home Depot until the drug store Has your  prescriptions ready, too.  Don't even notice the dog Doo-doo on your shoes. The young thing at the register smiles at you Because you remind her of her  grandfather.

  In your  80's: Stop what you are doing.  Start  again.  Then stop again.  Now you Remember you needed  to go to Home Depot.  Go to   Wal-Mart instead And wander around trying to think what it is you are looking for.   Fart Out loud and you think someone called out your  name.   You went to School with the old lady who greeted  you at the front door.

   In your 90's & beyond: What's a home deep hoe?  Something for my garden?  Where am I?  Who am I? Why am I reading this?  Did I send it? Did you? Who farted?

My camera imports videos to my computer as .MOV files. I tried today to use Windows DVD Maker to write a DVD. Error! "Cannot create the DVD. One or more of the files that were added in DVD Maker could not be decoded correctly. Verify that you have decoding software installed on your computer that can decode the different files, and then try again."

Very helpful. NOT! I googled the error message and found that many users are having the same problem and there's a really easy fix.

Solution: Open the .MOV file in Windows Movie Maker, save the project and add the project in Windows DVD Maker.

Update: The solution didn't work. There was no audio on the resulting DVD. I searched online and found that this was a comon problem. The next step in the solution is to use Aimersoft HD Video Converter. Very frustrating. I couldn't imagine how non-geeks to this stuff.

I even tell my kids, "there are no bad words, just bad things to say." Yet, I don't swear much in front of my kids. Why? My wife doesn't like it and I respect her.

I don't swear either in front of the 9 year olds I coach in hockey. Why? Because I respect other people's opinion that swearing is wrong. I can't say the same for other coaches. I've seen coaches thrown out of games for swearing at the refs in front of 7 year old kids.

This brings me to the biggest cheating and lying facing all Canadians; kids hockey. This likely applies just as much to kids soccer, baseball and all else. In my case, I have a 9 year old hockey fanatic. I go to his games. I see what happens. I even got involved and coached kids myself. I love coaching kids hockey. Unfortunately, I don't like dealing with the adults. Most of the adults are fine, but too many are not. These adults are prepared to cheat and are prepared to F-bomb the ref in front of 7 year old kids.

I volunteered my way from water dad to parent rep to head coach and all the way to the BYHA (Brampton Youth Hockey Association) board of directors. I thought I could make a difference, but it turned out that cheating in kids hockey was more deeply rooted than I thought. I've always been naive that way.

At my 2nd board of directors meeting, the VP introduced a rule to cap extra icetime at 60 hours per year. Seemed reasonable to me and others and the rule was voted in. What the VP failed to disclose was that he was doing this to cap the icetime of a competitive team to one he coached and his son played against. A parent had donated 5000 dollars to a team in the VP's league to give the entire team an extra 25 hours of icetime.

When I was told about his failure to disclose the conflict of interest, I was shocked. I started asking around to confirm the truth. Inadvertently, I asked the wrong people and it got back to the league that I was asking questions. This resulted in several members of the board harassing me on a weekly basis. In a stroke of bad luck, the convener of the league I coach was the wife of the VP who failed to disclose the conflict of interest. She was trainer of his team and also a member of the board of directors. She twice called me on the phone and accused me of cheating and threatened to forfeit my games. She never could tell me which rule I violated.

I met with several members of the executive to discuss the problem. They not only dismissed the obvious conflict of interest, but they started attacking me for suggesting this was a problem. We resolved that I would file a formal complaint that would be reviewed by an independent person from the issue.

I filed the complaint and the harassment got amplified. More harassment from the convener and now a reprimand letter from another VP (not the husband). I filed a 2nd complaint against this VP. Then I got a letter from the president of the league dismissing my complaint and asking me to resign from the board. They were clearly resolved to harass me into giving up on my complaint.

I just have one thing to tell them, "You are teaching your children."

I fixed Hello Santa today. It was broken ever since Amazon changed their API in mid-August. That's a three month outage. It's back, just in time for the Christmas season. This weekend is the Brampton Santa Claus parade. I believe Toronto has one too this weekend. 

http://www.hellosanta.org/

Rogers Cadenhead blogged a link where you can get your name in the credits of the movie Paranormal Activity. Go to the link and add your name.

http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3566/theyre-gonna-put-me-movies

Oops. Sorry: the page you requested uses advanced space age technology that we were unable to adapt for your phone.

Prevention is #1. Here's some tips from Ontario Health.

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/ccom/flu/h1n1/public/prevention.aspx

I've also heard that drinking warm/hot liquids and gargling with salty and warm water are good. I'm giving my kids hot chocolate once or twice per day. I can't see liquids and gargling hurting.

Must view video.

Please tell your male friends, etc. Shopping at Home Depot about this scam!  A 'heads up' for those men who may be regular Home Depot customers. This one caught me by surprise.

Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends!  Here's how the scam works:

Two seriously good-looking 20-21 year-old girls come over to your car as you are packing your shopping into the trunk. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex window cleaner, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts.  It is impossible not to look.
When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' and instead ask You for a ride to McDonald's.  You agree and they get into the back seat. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet!

I had my wallet stolen March 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th, 24th & 28th.  Also April 2nd & 4th, twice on the 8th, 9th, and three times last Saturday and very likely again this upcoming weekend.

So tell your friends to be careful.

OpenText is again up to their old tricks. Buy a company, take over their product and lay-off all their employees with minimal severance and termination pay and no owed vacation pay. This time they acquired Vignette. An employee of Vignette emailed me this morning saying that OpenText is now refusing to pay all the money they promised employees who continued to work for OpenText after the acquisition. These guys are true scum.

I use to work for Hummingbird and they refused to pay me my 2 weeks of owed vacation and termination pay. They did this to many employees. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough money for any one person to bother hiring a lawyer, but together we could've organize something. Most employees were simply too lazy and afraid to stand up to OpenText. I think OpenText knows this.