This caught my eye because I hope to be doing an Antartica (yes it is a continent, and yes there are 7 of them!) next year. I wonder if this new station will be built before I get there, and should I wait for it to be? :-)

This will be me after exams finish:

It is official, the MBA/IC oldtimers will be taking on (and crushing) the IMP wippersnappers Sunday July 4th at 1PM, location to be disclosed throughout the week. Contact me for team MBA/IC and Raul for team IMP. The taste of victory is oh so sweet!

Yesturday and today is the NHL entry draft, so far the Ottawa Senators have drafted:

1-23. ANDREJ MESZAROS, D, TRENCIN (SLOVAKIA)
2-58. KIRILL LYAMIN, D, CSKA (RUSSIA)
3-77. SHAWN WELLER, LW, CAPITAL DISTRICT (EJHL)
3-87. PETER REGIN, C, HERNING (DENMARK)
3-89. JEFF GLASS, G, KOOTENAY (WHL)

In a relatively unimpressive draft other than the top 2 or 3. Two 67's have been drafted so far, and once again the OHL has the most drafties, proof of its stature as the greatest developement league in the world.

At least I still have time to post some pics from last week in Paris, this is us on the garden lawn having drinks and some eats when all of a sudden the high school's last exam for the summer lets out... what a great night!

Blogging is going to be sporatic until exams are over, but should pick up considerably over the summer. What a great day for a BBQ! Anyone want to take the elevator up to the top floor... the moon!

Looks like China is going to be the stage for another search engine war as Google ramps up in advance of its IPO. Looks like Deutsch Post is going to take the shaft on their IPO Wednesday after the Deutsch bank's mistakenly leaked memo, and finally GE looks like it's putting the "A" back into ambition with their announced retail banking global branding and deployment strategy.

A blog with some thoughts on the Google prospectus, interesting read on some of the topics that we're working on in knowledge management class. On that thought, I can't believe the prof dinged us with a required 40 page report after just wasting 2 weekend days for the seminar... just throw it on the pile!

Here's a site with some stats on the profile of a typical project manager in the US, including some interesting average salary info, I'm looking for some current MBA data now...

And an interesting article on the technology involved in Formula 1 race car steering wheels, the US grand prix is today, I certainly hope it's not Schumacher AGAIN :-(

The practice of paying radio stations to play certain songs to gain popularity, is this legal in Germany?

I just collected all my songs on my computer and put them into one location and now realize that I have over 2000 songs on my computer!

Congrats to my buddy "Pissy Pants" for taking the plunge and getting engaged. Mrs. Kami Pissy Pants, has a great ring to it eh! A cold beer on me when I see ya next, the gang would be so proud!

Avril Update: EURO TOUR!!!

Sun 26-Sep-2004 Munich, Germany Olymphiahalle

Mon 27-Sep-2004 Dusseldorf, Germany Philipshalle

Thu 30-Sep-2004 Amsterdam, Holland Heineken Music Hall

Fri 1-Oct-2004 Brussels, Belgium Forest National

Awsome! I saw her the last time she came to Germany last year and it was awsome (especially since we had a great view of the stage, being that we're about 2 feet taller than all the teenies attending the concert) :-)

Looking for ticket info now, for all of you planning to visit me at the end of the summer around this time be aware that I will be at these locations at those times, shoot me an e-mail if you want me to pick you up a ticket.

Sweet!!!

More on Gmail here, the hype is cuming down as exclusivity diminishes. A great marketing ploy to the geek masses though. Also in geek news is the election of AstroBoy into the robot hall of fame, I uses to watch this cartoon when I was younger (and by younger I mean last year) :-)

In our MBA we've got presentations out the ying-yang, but here's a great blog with some more presentation do's and don'ts that's worth a look.

Wow, Back from Canada not one day and then I was on route to Paris to meet up with an old work friend and to fullfill a promised visit to my international exchange students living in Paris (that I originally was going to see way back in September!).

On Tuesday right after class I jumped on the Bahn and went up to Darmstadt to catch the Germany-Netherlands EuroCup 2004 round robin game. We ended up getting a great seat in a tent in the middle of Ludwigplatz square and had a blast watching the game with everyone. Things took a turn for the worse when later that evening a friend of mine got into a little arguement with a waiter and policeman. He lost the fight :-) and I ended up sleeping on the floor and a couple hard chairs in the waiting room of the policestation for him to get out (so I could go get my stuff from his place for my trip to Paris) which was supposed to be at 8AM. Despite checking with the clerk every two hours, somehow there was a mistake and they had let him out the other door at 5:30AM which means by the time I figured it out and got home it was 9AM and he was sleeping safe and soundly in his comfy bed. I then grabbed my gear and hoofed it to the station for my train.

The trip was a train ride from hell with a never-ending headache and a fat smelly woman who kept taking her shoes off next to me. Things got instantly better after a trouble free hook up with my friends, shopping for picnic supplies and then a trip to the gardens in front of the eiffel tower for some din-din and wine. Little did we know that it also happened to be the final day of exams for the high school and university kids so the gardens ended up turning into a HUGE party. Amazing time (thanks to all my friends for making it happen!).



After the gang disolved to go get some needed shuteye before work the next morning, I met up with Al (visiting from Canada) and had some midnight steak and pizza. The meal cost an arm and a leg but was quite possibly the best pizza ever and the steak was amazing despite looking like a cow patty :-)

A couple hours sleep and a mad rush to the train station and I was on my way back to Pf. I slept the night through and now have a knowledge management seminar for the rest of the week carrying over until next week, I hope it's amazing because if it doesn't knock me off my socks today I'll be skipping the rest for... some rest.

More to cum, the trip home was amazing and I should have some wedding pics soon. Since I still haven't really been back to Pf for anything but classes and sleep I'm still catching up with everyone, but I should see most of you on Sat at Prinzenbar for the game (they give a free beer to everyone everytime Germany scores!). Oh-ley,Oh-ley,Oh-ley,Oh-ley!

Hey look, I have the same cell phone as Beckham, does that make me cool? :-)

Looks like I missed a ton of stuff while I was away from Pf (and not just schoolwork!). Ladies and gentlemen, the new mouth of the south (Germany), the Irish Pub Band (did you guys make a name?).



Well I missed the inagural showing so you'll totally have to put on a repeat performance especially after I heard how awsome you guys were. Love the hat... classic trucker! :-)

Wow. I can't believe my three plus weeks back home have already gone by. Amazingly fast. Way too little work done (except for wedding preps which I did out my a$$!), WAY too much partying, TONS of hockey (but there can never be enough hockey!) and great times had by all. Thanks to all my posse for the good times (and a place to crash when jetting down to T-dot and the loo) and everyone who flew in to see me while home (it amazes me that I have to fly home to Canada to see some of my friends from europe!).

Anyways, off to the airport. The flight will be over 10 hours in total, the most of which I'll be writting responces to all the e-mails I've ignored for the past weeks, so thanks for your patience yall! :-)

The death kiel has tolled for my long hair. It was a great experiment to grow it, but alas its time is done. For those of you that didn't know, basically I knew that going away for a couple years for my MBA would realistically be the last possible time for me to grow long hair before re-entering "the real working world" and since I've never really had my hair longer than an inch before in my life I decided to give it a go. It was a great shock to the parents the first time I came home in February as they didn't even recognize me cuming off the plane! Now with my sister's wedding however, I have been threatened with everything from a hunger strike (not feeding me) to bodily harm from my mother if my hair wasn't cut for the wedding pics, so off it went. Here's the before and after, and no, I'm not grumpy in the second pic due to remorse of the lost hair :-)

Here's a snapshot of the dedicated MBA classroom from my undergrad university (I scammed it from MBET Blog). Looks like they have internet hookups (which our university only has one per room). Not bad, but I've seen much better (Queen's University Ottawa Campus, Laurier University to name a couple) and I've seen worse, Pf where art thou dedicated room!?!? :-)

At 2:12 AM in the morning, reading this blog post made me smile:

"i just stubbed my toe on the same coffee table leg TWICE. piece of shit..."

A compelling article on the Iraq conflict, more precicely the conflict leaders deal with when the status quo is no longer acceptable and must be changed as well as challenging the current model of liberalized nation state structures. I think this quote accuratly portrays the delema:

"But what happens when you a playing chess with someone who refuses to accept the rules of the game? How do you respond if your opponent begins to jump his knight in all sorts of bizarre zigzag patterns, so that you cannot predict where he will land or what piece he will seize? In a game of chess the answer is obvious: You stop playing with the madman and go your separate way. But this, unfortunately, is not an option in dealing with genuine conflicts arising in the real world."

Why isn't video on demand yet available (legally) on the net? Well NetFlix is looking to providing service next year (I think VOD will be bigger for sports events, television shows and video games since video rentals are readily available almost everywhere).

Also in the "long time cuming" section of my brain is streaming camera angles, replays and ordering at live sports events. This is starting now and I believe will be a "must have" in sports events of the future (hockey scoreboards just arn't clear enough and as much as I like watching screenshots of idiots dancing in the isles, I wantmy replay!).

Some more links I've been hoarding:

We need to enter some of these MBA competitions, bug our admin on this.

I haven't been using my Gmail account much yet, but at least I've reserved the Rossiroo address. Some more info on Gmail and privacy implecations (even more here). Here's a great article on Google in advance of it's IPO.

Sometimes I miss office culture, especially the pranks. Sometimes not, and not.

Thinking of starting your own blog? Some useful discussion of the different clients available. As you can see I use Blogger (now owned by Google) and have no complaints, very easy to set up and use... and don't forget to let me know so I can link to your site!

Need to get a great table in a classy restaurant on an impossible night? Here's some tipping tips :-) I've always tipped above and beyond the norm and it's never failed to cum back in the future (one time the waitress chased my car down the block when I forgot my wallet in the restaurant). Although I've also found that if you attend the same place regularly they sometimes start to expect the great tip without giving the great service for which they recieved the great tip in the first place, case in point the $40.15 McMullin ho's. (insider)

If I give you some chocolate, will you give me your password? How about you just give me some chocolate? :-)

I go to McDonalds in europe WAY TOO MUCH, but if they start offering wireless internet there then there's no hope for my arteries.

I love the old Atari 2600, we should grab a cheap system off Ebay for our MBA lounge :-)



...of course the new systems are truely breathtaking, take a look at the trailer for the new Zelda video game, absolutely amazing! (takes a while to load)

DVD/VHS rental by mail companines had tremendous growth potential, that was until the market became overcrowded. Here's a lesson in poor customer relations. Don't ever invest in a company who's financial performance DECREASES as it becomes more popular!

So basically eye scanners will provide unbreakable unique identification security for the world, except for all cry-babies :-)

Finally, Avril's new albumn "Under My skin" came out last Tuesday and I'm had to check it out on my multiple long roadies to T-dot and Waterloo, it's AMAZING. This might even be better than her first albumn (although it probably won't be as popular) because you can really hear her singing talent on this one... ok I'm loosing it with all these posts, more to cum...

Added a new sports link to my list. Fox Sports Video is a great site to get short video's of the previous day/weeks top interviews and clips... I love the political Yahoo commercial with Ben Stein too.

Update: Venus has now completed it's pass by the sun. If you missed it go take a look here, or if you want to learn more go check this link out.

The epidemy of concentration: (I think I actually won that game)

A belated B-day shout out to Stevie J and Russia M, sorry but when on vacation I rarely check e-mails or my planner :-) Don't think this means you get out of birthday shots though :-)

Home Depot is a giant that will soon rival Wal-Mart.

The NHL Stanley Cup playoffs ended tonight with a heartbreaking 2-1 to Tampa, I've been away all week getting in some quality liver destruction time in with the lads, been ripping up the lawn and planting new sod, re-bricking the patio and basically just trying to get everything for my sister's wedding all caught up with before flying back to Germany... so please be patient with the e-mails all, I'll be trying to get to most of them sometime late tomorrow night.

For those of you who need something to occupy the increasingly long time inbetween my e-mails and blogspot posts, wake up early tomorrow (North America, for Europe it's all day) to see Venus pass the sun. It won't happen again until 2012. For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge fan of the stars, they give hope, inspiration and provoke thought on our self exsistance.

Some sites I've been collecting over the past couple of weeks and am just getting to checking out and posting now, comments free of charge:

The age of commercial spaceflight is soon cuming. Hopefully it'll cut down on my 8 hour Ottawa-Frankfurt flights!

Another gang Monaco pick, the weather today just reminds me of a couple "Green Dolphin" beers :-) See some of you guys tomorrow night for the BBQ and game and Fri/Sat in T-dot for the rest of ya.



An interesting site on trying to cure aging, and not just with magic spring water :-)

And the winner of most wired campus is... (insert drumroll here)... Pforzheim! Actually no. Our sad state of both hard and wireless connections slash internet speed hardly compares to local public access here in Canada. It would be nice to at least have our pforzhiem university e-mails for life like we have at Waterloo U (which offers the e-mail and automatic forwarding for life).

The NHL has made its new television deal and despite wide ranging critisism (and an obvious cut in premieum) I think it's not only a great deal for both parties, but the way all programming (not only sports) will be done in the future.

A cool device that monitors the amount of beer in your pitcher (very common in north american is to share a pitcher of beer amoung a couple guys at the bar).

A good reference link for those of you looking into buying a new laptop, but if you're going to buy then check out Timmy's or Stephan's sweet laptop deal that they bought a couple months ago.

In Estonia Internet access is now a human right. Interesting.

The increasing use of disclaimers at the bottom or as attachments to corporate e-mails outlining useage policy. This has been gradually cuming for years but I think the high exposure of the Microsoft and Martha Stewart court cases and the vital role of e-mail corespondence to convict both is brining this issue to the forefront.

I'm always interested in new marketing ideas, this idea to put spider man ads on the baseball bases was ingenious but eventually revoked by the league. That guy earned his paycheck that week.

Another trend that's cuming soon is software subscriptions combined with free hardware from the suppliers to access it. No joke.

And finally, here's another pic of me when I had short (normal/regular) hair and not this flattened fro I've been growing in Deutschland for the last year. It'll be great to have my normal hair back, especially for when I'm playing hockey and wearing my helmet, but it'll also be weird that it'll be gone never to return (now that I'm re-entering the "real" world) :-)



I've got tons more to write about, but it's definatly break time...

Lots of good stuff from the past week, but a heartbreaking 1-0 loss on a bullshit Frasier double penalty in the second minute of the game. Oh yeah and Frasier is set to ref game 6 in Calgary too, just f$#%ing great!! :-(

This is HILARIOUS! If you've got some time to burn, check this site out. It's an anti-bush online game that lets you play cool superheros like Mr.T, Hulk Hogan or a fat He-man. Shout out to my man Pissy who got this to me and who's humping it large now that school's out for summer :-)

Today is an e-mail and posting update day...