Death Star destroys the Enterprise May 9, 2009
Posted by jphebert in General.Tags: death star, enterprise, Funny, kirk, ncc-1701, spock, star trek, star wars
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’nuff said – enjoy
Please someone fire Bettman May 7, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Business, hockey.Tags: arizona, balsillie, bettman, blackberry, coyotes, hockey, nhl, research in motion, rim
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I’m your average hockey watching and playing and coachign dad, but also a business decision maker. When I see egos get in the way of product/service quality and most importantly the customer it drives me nuts.
Seeing that Jim Basillie is offering a mountain of money to take a team which has filed chapter 11 in a non-natural hockey market to a place it can be profitable and create a strong following in record time makes a whole lot of sense to me. Yes I’m in Canada and would love to see a 7th team here. I’d prefer Quebec City but Hamilton is in a hot market for this product.
Now seeing good old Gary get all defensive on this is shameful. He said that he does not abandon markets, but when attendance is 10-20% of capacity, once has to ask the sanity of moving the Jets from Winnipeg to Arizona. I love Arizona by the way – phenomenal state. But seriously, who cares about hockey there as the best way to ensure attendance is to build a franchise in a market when people “get it”. Nobody plays recreational ice hockey there (lack of rinks, staff, coaches, etc.), and other sports are stongly entrenched.
So why keep Gary? He wants to put teams in the US to “expand” the audience and create growth. Not a bad idea at all, but secure your core markets first. Since he does not get it or his ego prevents logical decisions, the govenors should fire him. He’s costing the league millions and the NHL can barely make it on occasion on NBC and nowhere on the ESPN grid. Shameful.
For the future of hockey and its growth, there you have it, sending a team to an owner who will not be a fan in a dead market or to a passionate billionaire fan in a hot prospect market. If I’d behave like that I think I’d get fired.
Hockey Quebec Goalie Gear Rules are dumb April 16, 2009
Posted by jphebert in family, hockey.add a comment
I’m sorry to rant, but I think this is completely stupid. Next fall goalie gear will need to be of the new “NHL-based” specs, which means the goalie gear owned by local hockey associations and parents will be “illegal” on the ice for games. To be fair to Hockey Quebec, they might be following Hockey Canada.
I understand and appreciate the idea behind normalizing gear to standards but they’re doing this for all levels of play. So novice (7 to 9 year old players) and atom (9 to 11 year old players) will need new gear. Since parents and associations (unlike some believe) are not made of money and therefore this rule should apply to players starting at a certain level of play (pee-wee or bantam) since they have a more serious outlook on the game.
What this will likely cause is a shortage of goalies, where gear will be less abundant and cash will be an issue. Most importantly, this will discourage parents from dressing up their kids as goalies, hurt the sport which is in decline and will not help anybody play any better at all.
Music worth buying: The Decemberists April 7, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Music.Tags: cd, folk, mp3, Music, prog, the crane wife, the decemberists, the hazards of love
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The Decemberists just released last week a new CD named The Hazards of Love
The new album builds on the same sound but somewhat louder (guitars) and is a concept album where the tracks are technically separated but listens like one long track.
This band with this album crosses British folk with prog influences, which makes it a very nice and different piece of music to listen to these days. Highly recommended if you’re tired of the usual crap which is thrown our way by record execs.
Google Docs to manage kids’ presents April 6, 2009
Posted by jphebert in family.Tags: b-day, birthday, parent, parenting, parties, party, x-mas
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As a parent every time there is an occation (X-Mas, B-Day, etc.) I get asked what the kids would like to get as a present. I do the same to people, it just makes sense to not go in blind and get something which will be off-mark.
Since last X-Mas, I’ve been using Google Docs‘ spreadsheet to manage the “present process”. We just had my son’s birthday this weekend and we listed a set of suggestions we thought our monkey would like and all the parents used this to get suggestions and most importantly let the others of what they got. And herein lies the trick, this document can be edited by all invitees. Otherwise a simple email would do – so we had no gift duplication, the monkey was really happy with what his buddies got him, we controlled the present list so we avoid as much as we can the stuff he’ll never touch and simplified the process for other parents.
Goodbye Last.FM, Hello Deezer March 27, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Business, Music.Tags: deezer, last.fm, Music
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Last.FM announced that if you’re not in the US/UK/Germany, a subsciption to listen in will be required. Therefore I say goodbye to Last.FM which was my best friend at work when I’m not on the phone or in a meeting. Therefore I’m switching over to Deezer, which is free but the system I find is as good so far.
I think this represents a failure to monetise a great idea, where Last.FM has not been too keen on advertising relying on music sales. If they would strategically put ads in both the web site and the client (which I was using), things would be different.
Now they’re loosing tons of users daily and once the customer is lost the re-aquisition cost is high since loyaly is now elsewhere. Let’s see where all this will go.
Credit Card Security Wisdom February 22, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Business, General.Tags: amex, credit card, credit., fraud, mastercard, visa
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I’d like to share a quick and easy secrutiy tip for your credit card: add “ASK FOR ID” by your signature. That simple. Why do that? Because if your card gets stolen or you leave it somewhere, the cashier should look at the signature prior to giving back the card. I know odds are against oneself, becasue cashiers do not check the signature in most cases.. Which is very furstrating not only because they are not enforcing security policies but they’re leaving money on the table. I think every credit card issue has a reward program for fraud prevention. One can only hope!
Oil industry: bail out the car industry January 30, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Business.Tags: auto industry, bp, car industry, chrysler, exxon, ford, gm, oil industry, shell
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It just hit me like a ton of bricks after seeing Exxon’s profits of US$45B, these guys are there namely because of the car makers. Gas fuels cars, pretty simple thought procress, while not neceserally the bulk of their income per say.
Nonetheless, since they are investing into clean energy sources (as per their ads), with the money they’re making should they not buy into GM, Chrysler and/or Ford? Not only can they fuel the current generation of vehicules, but the next as well. Sounds simple to me and would be good business for the short term and the long term.
Music worth buying: Tale of Diffusion January 26, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Music.add a comment
This band is one of those “Last.FM” finds, where you put in an artist and they play similar outfits. So am at work, typing away and this band come along which kinda sounds like “80’s King Crimson” mixed with “psycheleia-free Ozric Tentacles”, and I go woah – I need to buy this stuff. My similar artist criteria was “Gazpacho“.
The band and I have been in contact (I’m in Canada, they’re in Poland) and I ordered their CD which is released today and they will mail me copy of their demo (the one on last.fm). Super nice guys and I assume they’re having a kick at a guy an ocean away wanting to buy their demo cd.
You can listen to the demo here on Last.FM. Enjoy!
Kiva – it works – try it January 18, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Business, Society.Tags: help, helping, kiva, kiva.org, microlending
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I’ve tried the microlending system Kiva and it works. I lent a total of 50$ to two Cambodian entrepreneurs (term used almost loosely, most like people trying to feed their families than becoming a wall-street crook).
So I dropped that money to see what would happen – and both groups I lent money to have started repaying the loans (7% and 8% respectively, each getting 25$). Quite honestly if I never saw the money come back I would not have cared much because it would have helped out people who can’t get credit (you need money to get money paradox).
Now that they’ve paid pack a part of the loan, it makes me beleive in the system and I know I helped out someone with what is here almost pocket change these days. Of course, I will re-lend the funds to others – and encourage you the reader of this post do the the same.
