Archive for February, 2008

What's on the radio today includes:

    - Kirstie Alley has been removed by Jenny Craig, um, cause, she's um, well, let's just say she's now planning to market her own weight loss program.

    - Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell are coming to Vancouver to finish Heath Ledger's last film.

    - The Oscars go this weekend. If No Country for Old Men wins, it will set a record. If you need to catch up on your viewing before the show, check out the film listings.

    - Do you shop at FCUK?  Click here and get a 15% off coupon.

    - I like blogging. I blog lots.  Maybe too much.  Gotta be careful, as CNN has just fired a producer for commnets made on their personal blog.

    - In the drama that is US politics, Barack Obama is getting hammered for, once again, lifting his speech text from someone else's speech.

    - The BC Budget came down today.  Get ready to pay more for gas.

    - Get ready for a spooky total eclipse of the moon tomorrow night.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

Unboxing is a favourite geek pasttime. Some might even call it geek porn.

Get something new? Take a picture. Every.step.of.the.way.

I received a new pair of Creative Aurvana Live yesterday, and I thought I’d try my first unboxing.

Sure, it’s not as cool as the Apple IIc unbox, or a MacBook Air unbox, but this is my unbox. Here it is

I’m looking forward to test hearing them this afternoon on the air, I’ll post a review then.

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Leo Laporte is the host of many podcasts, tv and radio shows about technology. His TWiT Network is one of the most listened to online, and he comes up to Vancouver 1 week a month to work on The Lab With Leo.

He loves his gear. He’s usually on the bleeding edge for buying the latest and greatest, sitting on waiting lists until something new is released.

But every now and again Leo waits and buys something a little further down the line, and when he does, it means the item is about to be discontinued.

He’ll buy the HD DVD player the day before the battle is lost to Blu Ray, he’ll buy a new iPod the day before the memory is doubled and the size is shrunk.

It’s called getting Leo’d, and it just happened to me.

I finally received my iPod Shuffle that I scooped on the Future Shop Boxing Day Sale for $59.99. A GREAT deal I thought. Nope.

Today Apple announced the price of the shuffle has dropped to $55, and a new 2 gig model is being introduced for $75.

Grrr.

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Last week I lamented how mainstream media was lagging behind the online world when it comes to getting news to the audience when it happens.

Today, CTV got it’s ducks in a row with the launch of ctvbc.ca.

They even quoted some of the things I was highlighting in last week’s post. For example, as footage of a story is coming in and being compiled for the 6p news, it’s being put on the website. Special feature stories are broken out of the newscast and archived individually on the site.

It’s all about time shifting. We, as an audience, want to know what happens when it happens, and we want the ability to be able to go back and get it if we missed it.

The Province has stepped up a bit too, with more frequent and timely updates to their website and The Newsroom feature. Unfortunately, it’s still lacking a convenient RSS feed for the site. Click on the “Have The Headlines Come to You” tag on the left side of their page, and you get an explanation of how RSS works (posted last July) but no usable link.

Their blog roster has also been chopped from what was a huge list with few updates, to a more manageable dozen and a half that actually have content.

I’m not going to take credit for any of the above, but I will say “I told you so.”

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We found out Jen was pregnant in late Septmeber, 2006. By November, some 6 months before our son was born, we had started to put his name down on daycare waiting lists.

Such is the state of babysitting in 2007. You’re not a human being in the eyes of the law, but you’re all good to be on a daycare waiting list.

We are now on 5 different waiting lists and we’re getting closer to the end of Jen’s mat leave. She’s back in May and we still don’t have a guaranteed spot for Le Grand Monsieur.

We had our first interview yesterday.

Jen was nervous. She’d forgotten her list of questions at home. I tried to reassure her it was just one of those things. You “have a feeling” when you walk in. An instinct will tell you if it’s an okay place, or not.

I mean, how else do you say “I would like my son, the ultimate love of my life, to spend 75% of his waking hours in your care.” It has to be trust. It has to be instinct. There’s no other way to get it done.

The state of daycare is what’s really disappointing. We almost have to take the first space that becomes available. We’ve been on waitlists for 18mos and still nothing has opened up.

Jen and I are lucky in that I work in radio and can be home most mornings, while she is in sales and can do work from both home and the road. So we have the ultimate in flex schedules, but we still need someone to look after him, and at 11 months old, that’s almost like saying “we need someone to raise him.”

She hands us a schedule of when meals and changes happen.

“She only changes them 3 times a day,” Jen says. I don’t get it. “I never let him sit in a wet or dirty diaper,” says Jen. “Will she?”

I’m not sure. She’s got 5 other kids to look after, and my mind immediately runs to Jon and Kate Plus Eight. How can 1 person do it?

The menu includes chicken nuggets. Hmmm. Sounds like Le Grand Monsieur is going to be brown bagging it. I make all of Zacharie’s food. A friend turned us on to Annabel Karmel’s books and I do the boiling and pureeing and freezing each week. It’s dead easy. I don’t know why people buy the processed stuff.

Maybe its easier to throw your child in care when the kids start toddling and can take direction and get around on their own, but Zacharie is just.a.baby.

Ideally, Jen would stay home. She wants to stay home. She loves her job, but she loves her son more. I mean, who can blame her?

We have friends who have not gone back to work after their mat leave ended, and I don’t know how they do it. Maybe it’s because they got in the housing market 3 years before we did - that means about $250 000 less on the mortgage, and if we had that kind of equity, one income would be doable.

While we’ve been doing fine on E-I since Jen’s been off, not falling behind, we’re not necessarily getting ahead either.

So we will continue the search for care and look for someone worthy of raising our son.

Which is pretty much impossible.

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Sunny and 11. Thank you very much.

Jen wanted to go for our usual walk around the local creek, I like taking the weekends to go and check out something different, bring a camera and take some pics. Our last photowalking adventure was January 27, so it’s been awhile.

Today, we packed Zacharie in tight with his little lion pal, Martin (pronounced the french way).

Jen and I have named ALL of Zacharie’s toys. Leonard is a frog blanket, Sylvester is a teething crab, Lawrence is a blue lion, Reid is his horse, Morrison is his bear, Dixie is a little chicken… we even named the cartoon art on his walls. It makes for interesting conversations when we’re packing up to leave.

“Where’s Eduardo (monkey)?”

“I dunno, but I’ve got Sylvia, Sonny and Cher“ (crab, starfish and clam).
Ahhh the joys of parenting.

We started near the Bayshore, walked around Lost Lagoon, past the beach and down to English Bay. We saw raccoons and ducks and took a ride on the swings. Then we headed up Denman, hit Vera’s for a burger and poutine, before strolling back to the car.

map image and distance tracking from runningmap.com

3.5km. 2hrs. Good times.

Here’s what we saw today:

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

Weekend! Here's what's on the radio.

    - One Year Ago today.

    - My Little Pony is celebrating 25 years with a celebrity designed collection of 25 ponies.

    - Jimmy Kimmel is recording a sequel to Sarah Silverman's Matt Damon video. w00t!

    - James Bond may have had a License to Kill, but legislators in the UK are bringing in what could be termed A License to Die.

    - Paul McCartney is a gentleman.

    - The colour for spring is yellow.

    - I like to blog about food and I've just discovered a new food blog, Food Connect, featuring Dale McKay of Lumiere kicking up your Mac and Cheese.

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Here's all that's loving and wonderful on the radio today:

    - Don't buy into the hype.  Seriously.  BUT …if you forgot the flowers today, blame it on the flower shop that was robbed in Langley. Or just go and get some Cupcakes.

    - If you need a card, send an eCard.  The tv networks have some fun ones set up featuring the cast of The Office, Grey's Anatomy and Lost.

    - Love is in the air!  Nelly Furtado is pregnant - or, yknow, is not pregnant.  We do know one of the belugas at the Vancouver Aquarium is.

    - Meg Fowler, our blogstar, is working up a hate list on this love day - but she giggles through it.

    - If you're not feeling the love today, check out this list of the 5 Best Breakup Songs.

    - Now that the Writers Strike is over, the stars are coming out for Oscar.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

It means giving of yourself. Donating of your time. Doing something to better the experience for others, and thereby bettering the experience for yourself.

It’s giving. Unconditional giving.

Reading to children at the hospital. Bringing meals to the elderly shut in. Walking the dogs at the shelter.

All things that are done to make our community a better place by people who just want to help.

So why then, with the Olympics coming to Vancouver in 2 years, is the government offering it’s employees the chance to take paid leave to “volunteer” for the Olympics?

As part of the plan, B.C. government employees who are accepted by the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) as volunteers will be able to claim part of the time as vacation time, and the other part as paid leave, said Colin Hansen, the minister responsible for the Olympics.[source]

That kind of misses the point, doesn’t it?

Coast Capital Savings offers its employees the chance to take a paid day off work, in exchange for volunteering in the community. You’ll often see the Good Karma Crew at runs and walks and big events helping out. This is great. It’s offering employees a chance to make a difference in their own personal community.

In 2006, our staff generously gave more than 25,000 hours to various charities in their local communities. We are proud to have a very special program that supports our staff in their volunteer efforts. [source]

It’s a private company, giving back to the public. They do this each and every week of the year, it’s not a special “Olympic only” program - it’s part of their corporate mandate to serve the community they do business in.

The government plan is different. It’s a one off. Gordon Campbell is trying to defend the decision by saying the government is trying to help in the same way the corporations are, but when it’s the government workers, paid by the taxpayers, going out and getting paid to “volunteer” at the Olympics, it’s a little different.

The government is already footing a huge bill for these games, they don’t need to go and foot the bill of volunteers on top of that.

25 000 people will be needed to make these games run smoothly. In the first 2 days of applications, more than 10 000 have already raised their hand and said “I’ll help.” You’d think in 2 years we wouldnt have a problem grabbing another 15 000 to join the team.

Some have voiced opinions to local radio stations:

Volunteers should be compensated for out of pocket expenses like food and gas.

Volunteers deserve some kind of a tax break but it’s unfair that only government workers will be paid to volunteer their time in 2010. [source]

Everyone’s missing the point.

We volunteer because we want to help out. We want to make our city a better place for everyone. We do it because we WANT to, not because we’re getting any other benefit than the joy in knowing we’re making a difference.

So go to the 2010 site and sign up to be a volunteer, so the civil servants won’t be necessary to “top up” the ranks.

The government further defends the action by saying similar programs happened in Calgary in 88 and in Victoria in 94.

Well, three wrongs don’t make a right, do they?

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

Some cuteness for your VD.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?