bloggery gone awry: February 2005

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Cool 60's Design

This has been the first time that I've attended a lecture and they've handed out some blog fodder -- a whole CD of cool pics from Expo '67... ...sweet...

After much discussion, it was decided that this chair was never part of any Expo exhibit (as some may claim). Mind you, it's still a good example of Canadian design of the late 60's -- which was the topic of Paul Bourassa's discussion.

I figured that since the 60's had a great influence on my parents and their generation, that it would be neat to attend Paul's talk and learn a bit more about that era... ...and sure enough, I found out a bunch of cool stuff. Moreover, the exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization was much more exciting after learning a bit about the Canadian influence on the designs of that time. It's worth attending just to see the Clarion (Rexdale, ON) and Electrohome (Kitchener, ON) stereos alone! Better yet is the great display about Clarion's "Stereo Party" marketing strategy...

processed for posting at 12:13 p.m. | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Internetoverload

Grrr....

I feel as if I have too much going on in the realm of the internet, and I feel as if it's just the tip of the iceberg and that it's only going to get worse!

Hundreds of different passwords and usernames have something to do with it. Like those sites that say "passwords must be 9 characters long" when your favorite username/password combo only has 7 characters. Argh!

And I realize that it's sinful to use the same username/password combo for different sites; however, is it really realistic to think you can remember all of these things without writing them down? Then when you write them down, where do you put them? Luckily I've been able to keep most of them straight for the time being, but a few more and I'm just going to give up. Come this April, maybe I'll have to hack&slash off some of the fat since this list is just too long:

Emails
~ work alias, old domain
~ work alias, new domain
~ work alias, junkmail
~ junkmail alias - yahoo account for msn etc...
~ isp email account
~ gmail - trying it out, but it STILL won't work with my pop3 :(
~ school - grad account forwarder
~ marketing team - group gmail account shared by team members
~ associations - different forwaders for different clubs/positions
~ blog posting email
~ gallery posting emails
Total: 18 different emails, all with different username/password combos

Other Junk
~ home computer
~ laptop computer
~ work accounts
~ school account (computer logon)
~ school account (registrar account info)
~ wireless Lan admin site
~ dsl internet admin site
~ blog
~ old tripod website
~ old school website
~ association websites
~ photo gallery for blogpics
~ internet banking
~ internet investments
~ subscription services
~ utility online billing accounts
~ online bulletin boards
~ and the list goes on...
Total: 25 or more username/password combos, (and that includes accounting for the fact that some logins and emails are under the same account)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are more, but for now I really want to get outside so I'm headed out to skate the canal.

Regards,
J.

processed for posting at 5:01 p.m. | 1 comments | Post a Comment

NO kidding, I too and finding it exceedingly difficult to remember all of the user names and passwords. For instance, last week I signed up for a Gmail account not only can I not remember my password but I don't know my new email address either. If you could help me out that would be Great!
by:

Anonymous, 9:38 a.m.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Taking one for the team…

Employees of WalMart in Jonquiere, Quebec found out today that they will be losing their jobs when the store closes in May. Walmart Canada blames the closure on the fact that the union demands require increasing workers' hours and hiring at least 30 more people. Apparently that would make it difficult for the store to make a profit.

My question is “How can a company that sells more than TWO HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS worth of goods EVERY YEAR be unable to budget for 30 more staff?”

So I pulled up their annual report and behold, the answer: Each store only nets, on average, $1.2 million. In the big picture, that’s not a whole lot of money…

However, I find it hard to have any sympathy considering that the $1.2 million/store profit is only AFTER they take out roughly $20 BILLION DOLLARS for advertising and marketing! To make matters worse, a majority of that money goes towards advertising their “Goodwill and Charity work” (which was less than $0.16 billion dollars in 2003).

In summary, 190 unionized workers in Jonquiere, Quebec are losing their jobs. Why? One reason is because WalMart wants to continue spending 12% of their net sales to brag about donating 0.06% of their net sales to charity.

Press Release:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20050210-084807-8460r

Oh, and before you even THINK about making a positive comment on WalMart’s behalf, please read the report published by the American Government’s “Committee on Education and the Workforce”:
http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/releases/rel21604.html

processed for posting at 7:15 p.m. | 2 comments | Post a Comment

If they had to hire 30 people, the cost to the company would have been (in my estimate) $750K to the bottom line if the majority of them were full time. That would eliminate half the profit of the store. You need to keep a store profitable in order. Per store profit is a key indicator of the health of a retailer. The only thing I could say against that is that it's absolute bull$#!% that they need to hire another 30 people. Are they really short 30 people right now? How did they end up being 30 people short? Did they hire 30 students and they all went back to school?
Reality check: People shop at the evil Walmart for 1 reason: Price. Increase wages, take away price advantage. They are fighting that at all cost.
If everyone were so offended at their practices then we would stop shopping there. People get the government they deserve and the type of businesses that reflect themselves.
Tesh
by:

Anonymous, 3:11 p.m.

Tesh,

"...people get the type of businesses that reflect themselves."

Well Said!
by:

J.Garlough, 6:28 p.m.