Long hiatus
Haven’t posted here in awhile. I write so much for work I have no desire to write long posts on my own. May look at some shorter format just to get a little across, we’ll see.
Shameful
Fox news is a joke, we all know it but this points it out again.
Update: After reading a little more it appears that this show is meant to be “satire” and runs at 3am. It doesn’t excuse it but I think they may be more guilty of being unfunny rather than truly insulting Canadians. Still not sure why a news network has satire shows though.
Keskerakond always delivers
Estonian politics never fails to amuse me.
My next iPod
I’ve had an iPod for close to 4 years, the same 60GB “classic” iPod. It has served me very well, helped me travel and move multiple times and often been used as a spare hard drive in times of need, it’s fallen in puddles and had it’s battery changed but keeps on ticking.
But ever since last summer when I started using Spotify on a daily basis my iPod’s use has diminished greatly. Not that I don’t use it much, I still use it a lot, just not for music. I listen to podcasts and radio shows for North America that I download but I delete them as soon as I listen to them.
Now there’s a new iPod shuffle with 4GB of space for less than $100. So when my trusty Blackpod dies on me this will be my next purchase. My music has moved to the cloud.
You call this a recession?
Apparently the economy doesn’t suck so bad. Madonna sold out her show in Tallinn in a few days, apparently there are at least 70,000 people in Eesti who have no trouble standing in line for hours to pay top dollar for an aging star.
Twitter as a marketing tool
I’ve started using Twitter at work. It’s proven a good way to connect directly to our users. I find it most useful when there is something interesting that I’ve found which isn’t quite important enough to blog about but still cool enough to let our users know about. I think Twitter also gives users a sense that we’re not an anonymous company but that there are open channels of communication. And that communication goes both ways, I’ve read a lot of interesting comments on Twitter and can use it for instant customer feedback.
Personally however I’m not a big Twitter users or fan. I just don’t have time or desire to update yet another site. Blogging, Facebook and my written journal are enough for me I think.
Fool me once, shame on me…
The car companies are at it again. Just a few months ago they came around to both Canadian and US gov’ts asking for money, promising to change, and they got it. Now they’re back, and bigger than ever. They’re asking for about $22 billion in the US and $10 billion in Canada.
So we dole out money to an industry to avoid massive lay offs, they lay off ton’s of workers (50,000 in the US and about 13,000 in Canada) and then come back for more?
My favorite quote is from Nancy Pelosi. Who said she was hopeful the plans would help lead to the “transformation of our domestic automobile industry into a viable, technologically advanced, and globally competitive manufacturing force.”
This women clearly has no idea how the car companies are run. I think it’s time we let a few of things firms go into bankruptcy and cull the heard a bit.
Rant over
Busy weeks and some hockey.
I’ve been quiet on the blog recently. Work is really busy, I’m busy moving apartments and managed to come down with a cold which didn’t help.
One fun thing last week was that I managed to catch a Swedish Elite League hockey game here in Stockholm. While the level of hockey itself was more AHL rather than NHL the atmosphere was better than most Leafs games. There were about 7000 people at the arena and the home team’s fan club cheered, sang and whistled throughout the game. There was more noise in the first period that you’d hear all season from the platinum seats at the ACC. The don’t sell a lot of food or beer at the games, apparently violence can be more of a problem than in T.O. but it your wallet isn’t so light when you leave which is nice.
Random Musings about Sweden, vol 3.
The subways here are really packed all the time. Stockholmers per capita take public transit a lot more than Torontonians but the actual subway cars are a lot smaller here due to narrower tunnels which makes a big difference I think. People squish in real tight and you usually have to fight your way to get out at your station but it’s nice to see that everyone here take transit.
