Terrorist Powerball

Yesterday Robert Gates flew through confirmation hearings in the senate. I, for one, welcome our new ex-cia overlords... and hope he's not the same as the old boss... but we shall see. I'm glad the hearings were short - the grandstanding potential was so noxious that escaping after a mere 8 hours feels like we dodged a bullet. Once he came clean with the idea that yes, america is losing in Iraq (which is rather painful for some to hear, i know, but better that than W's continued bizarro world approach to the conflict) there was almost nothing of substance to the affair. Bird was an embarrassment with his 'say it for the record - Osama = bad' spew... Ben Nelson's 'weekly bounty increase' idea was worse... god help us if these are the ideas the dems bring to the table in a democratically controlled senate. But of them all, one series stood out. Hillary Clinton took the cake.

SEN. CLINTON: Based on your experience, which goes back quite a ways in this
town -- do you believe the president, the vice president, and the existing
secretary of Defense are intelligent men?
MR. GATES: Yes, ma’am.
SEN. CLINTON: Are they patriotic?
MR. GATES: Absolutely.
SEN. CLINTON: Do they care about our men and women in uniform?
MR. GATES: Absolutely.
SEN. CLINTON: Do they believe the decisions they have made for the last five
years have been in America’s best interests?
MR. GATES: I have not had that discussion with any of them, Senator.

That was the soundbite... which totally missed the POINT of her jab - which was the follow up:

SEN. CLINTON: So therefore, we have this conundrum. We have a president and a
vice president who will ultimately decide -- as the president is fond of saying
he is the decider -- about the direction to pursue going forward in Iraq, and it
is quite frustrating to many of us to see the mistakes that have been made, some
of which you have enumerated, and to wonder whether there is any change that
will be pursued by the president.

See... Clinton has to be smarter than this... she came off as a total bitch. All the clips showed her being a total prick to Gates... made her look nasty. She's demonstrating the reason Obama will look so good in about a year (and Edwards looked so good 3 years ago) - that the more you open your mouth as a Senator, the more crap gets shoveled into it. She's going to have too much baggage to win in the current political environment - even if it's because of media miscues.

Why...

I mean really. Who needs this? Who sees this ad and makes a beeline for the phone? Can I get that list of people? and can we all agree to devise some torment to inflict upon them?

Its been snowing for 2 days... there's about 6 inches of it in the courtyard outside my flat now. It's not pretty... it's cold and wet and slippery and annoying. After tonight - everything will be icy tomorrow morning - and they'll coat the streets in salt - which will begin the seasonal 'ruining of the pants'... Once you've been through a miserable montreal winter - you really never miss snow ever again. The heater in the flat doesnt seem to actually do anything other than make noise - so i've turned it off... the halogen lighting seems to have more impact on the ambient temperature - so i just leave all the lights on.
On weekends I try to do things that feel like home... i watch the nfl... giggle at wolf blitzer... and find myself enjoying CMT (yeah, odd, but for some reason i only seem to like country music when i'm not in it). No time for making friends or doing social things - yet - but that's pretty normal for me on these projects. I like my coworkers - just too much work to do to hang out with them - though we have lots of holiday events in the queue. Some of em will turn into long term friends I think. Good people.
My world always gets 'work focused' at times like these. That's ok by me - i'm having fun.

NSFW audio... but worth it

I fear they'll regret this...
reminds me of the 'make your own tahoe commercial' problem...

So i've been watching Heroes... and my mother got me hooked on Studio 60 (which is better than it gets credit for... though i cant remember ever admitting that my mother was responsible for any particular media affectation)... there's only one problem.
Save the Cheerleader - Save the World.
WTF is that.
Why is is always the cheerleader? Oh sure, i married one, so who the hell am i to talk... but still.
And hell - they SAVED the cheerleader last week - so SHUT THE HELL UP already.

Next season i wanna see 'save the gothapotamus - save the mall'
hot topic can pony up for the product placement cash...

Cheerleader as Savior is NOT something we need.

Oh I might could do better... but why... this is good enough.
Glenn Beck should be hit by a bus.
and then backed over...

happy thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving

This thanksgiving I'll be spending the day alone...
reading Michael Porter's "Competitive Strategy - Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors"

give thanks that you're not...

;)

Winter has come to montreal...

today is the christmas parade, and gathering along St Catherine are thousands of mothers and fathers shepherding many thousands more tiny little bundled up children - all dressed in holiday hats and giant padded coats that make them look more like colorful marshmellows than not. The weather is brisk and breezy, and only the obnoxious francophones and their aggressive homeless friends make the event less than it could be.

This is one thing I dont miss about austin... winter can be a wonderful season.

In the mean time, things are going well at work. A bit of drama - but as I'm the CIO at the parent company - drama is part of the job. The model is huge... we have relationships in place with huge players... and it's all remarkably well positioned. Oh sure, a kick ass PMM would be nice - someone like my ex - but then again there arent enough of those to go around.

My flat is nice... an easy place to stay... though the building is into the 'rip the residents off for the phone service' business (i know that one... i helped put some of those together back in austin for the west campus dorm/apt community - so i guess karma's a bitch). I'll probably end up somewhere else when i come back to mtl as a result... but we'll see. Right now there's so much going on I still cant be sure where i'll be in a month. I sorta hope to be here through the holidays - simply because if i'm NOT then that means i'm buried with work in some country where the english-speaking crowd is even less pronounced. Then again, maybe I could be the man to bring Festivus to China... (i can see it now... 'no mr customs person... it's an aluminum pole, not an aluminum tube...')

"It takes place on the night of June 12, 1994, and it concerns the murder of my ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her young friend, Ronald Goldman. I want you to forget everything you think you know about that night, because I know the facts better than anyone."

The release goes on to say that the book will provide "for the first time ever, a bone-chilling account of the night of the murders, in which Simpson pictures himself at the center of the action."

Just go ahead and think about that one for a minute...

ok... it gets better...

The lady conducting the interview is the publisher, not a reporter, making the special 2 hours of infomercial. Regan books, the publisher, is OWNED by newscorp... Fox's parent company...

In montreal...

not cold yet... but it's coming.

new company is interesting - well positioned. off to china soon.
really enjoy the company, the people, everything up here...

funny - i'm sitting here thinking 'i need someone who understands what an MRD is and can build out a proper competitive matrix'. God but that's something i miss about the ex-wife... she was awfully damned good at what she does. then again... i dont miss some of the other stuff ;)

For the love of god...

i'm flipping channels... minding my own business... when suddenly there on 'the insider' is a closeup of Anna Nicole's C-Section. C'mon people - i'm trying to eat dinner over here... leave the slunk to Pat 'you're so hot let me do some more coke' O'Brien. I'm gonna be ill.

A nice old woman and I had a fine conversation as we waited our turn to do our civic duty - and the line was filled with high-school kids who were almost excited to get to participate (not that i cant imagine why... what with a WAR and all). For all that I bitch, it's nice to be able to go do something like this and not worry about reprisals (though i wish i felt confident they'd actually count them properly).

Resveratrol

So they did studies...
on mice...
and gave them some of this stuff- and they get thinner and more energetic and live a lot longer - and in theory this activates a system in your body that basically fends off everything from cancer to diabetes

the problem is... the dosage. for mice, it was 22mg/kg per day

so if i bought some suppliments - that were, oh, 50mg of the stuff (with a bunch of other healthy crap my colon would appreciate thrown in for good measure), i'd only need 1500mg a day... so 30 tablets... or half a bottle of pills. That'd run me about $15 a day... which is still expensive, until you factor in the whole 'fending off cancer' thing.

it'll be nice when they start growing the compound with bacteria in vats...