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While visiting the CBC's news website yesterday, I noticed a strange story. You can refer to the link above to follow along. Basically, the City of Edmonton is going to be spending nearly a half million tax payer dollars to finance an advertising blitz to "educate" Canadians on the merits of Edmonton. But it may backfire.

The fact that the CBC, and other media, have picked up this story is already educating us about Edmonton, in an unintended way: Edmonton is having an identity crisis. This ad is not helping.

But I understand the dilemma. Edmonton is a world-class city with plenty to offer, but they seem to be frequently kicked in the gut. There was the Gretzky trade, the loss of high profile corporate headquarters including pride-and-joy Shaw Communications, and the biggest hurt of all, being north of Calgary.

A friend from Yellowknife, who moved to Edmonton, then eventually to Calgary cautioned me to never underestimate Edmonton's self-esteem issue. He recalled that whenever Edmonton comes out on top of Calgary in ANYTHING, it makes the front page. Edmonton leads Calgary in Environment Initiatives, would be one headline. Calgary's Homeless Population Skyrockets, would be another. It is a constant battle up in Edmonton, a struggle to constantly validate themselves as a bona fide place in the world.

Here's another headline for you, Edmonton. Nobody hates you! We all take a knock at you once in awhile, but its just banter. In the end, your still a recognized city with a cutting edge University, and great sports fans. Here's what you do....

(1) Rise up against your goverment against this expenditure. There's nothing to advertise. Does Stephen Hawking have to advertise that he's smart?

(2) Do not compete against Calgary. Calgary has a well-known momentum going and is becoming an important hub in North American business, and is enjoying success (and finding challenges). Edmonton and Calgary need to communicate more, find out ways to complement each other. This came up in a meeting here last week, our two Municipal governments should knowledge-share more. We're on the same team, basically. Complement, don't compete.

(3) Advertise indirectly. Entice filming, arts, and other sectors to Edmonton. Encourage them to mention Edmonton, sort of like "product placement" advertising, seeing Bruce Willis drinking a Coke in one of his movies. Seek more festivals: a comedy festival, an art expo, a symphony world's fair. You guys rock at festivals. Keep that going.

(4) Do more stuff JOINTLY with Calgary. Co-host something with Calgary, whatever it may be. Calgary is willing, but short on workers and volunteers.

Calgary is only your rival when its Stamps/Esks, or Oilers/Flames time. In the corporate world, Calgary's more obsessed with kicking the holy hell out of Toronto. Calgary's cross-hairs are on Toronto, not Edmonton.

I'm going to recommend something very therapeutic to you, Edmonton. Go out there and buy a Calgarian a beer. Since the Esks are out of it for this year, cheer on the Stamps. I'm not joking. It will be very cathartic.

Keep in touch, Edmonton.

Am I turning left?

Killing me softly .....

So, as many of you know, I work for the government. The Municipal Government, to be exact. I've always worked in the IT sector, but to give some background, before I worked here, I used to work for a major telecom firm, and before that, Oil and Gas services. When I worked in telecom, and in Oil and Gas, the focus was crystal clear: profit, profit, profit. Thou shalt appease the stockholders. Thy will be done. And as a worker, you get all caught up in the fervor of checking your company's stock every half-day, beads of sweat forming should the stock take a significant dive. You work yourself senseless in order to keep the machine going. Profits or Perish! I admit, I was into it. I would think, "What the hell? Only $20 million this quarter! Geez, I hope we can bang out a $60 million revenue statement next quarter! We need to kick the living hell out of (insert name here)!! "

So, that was then, this is now.

The projects I used to work on were mainly driven around earning more revenue for the corporation. But take a look at some of the projects that surround me now: Low Income Bus Pass, Traffic Detouring, Citizen Call Centre for citizens to call for help. Now the focus has shifted in a very ominous way, my focus is on citizens, not stockholders. My thirst for profits may be permanently impaired. But clearly the theme is that we are spending tax payers money, so citizens had better get value out of what we're doing. We're spending the people's money to better serve the people.

Add to this another thing. The City is in the throws of fund raising for the United Way. You see posters plastered all over the place that inform of just who the United Way helps. Images of the poor, down-trodden, people in general need of help are inescapable. So from the sheer repetition, you can't help but develop a soft spot for these people. I've already doled out 30 bucks for a "jeans sticker" which allows me to wear jeans to work, and I'm probably not done there. Most of us will shell out for something United Way related.

So, a thought occurred to me, a thought that caused me to shudder: "Am I turning into a Liberal? Am I being enticed by the sweet serenades of Jack Layton and Paul Martin?"

If I'm turning left, should I seek a cure? Or just hang my head and let it happen?

The Next Big Format War

If you're a gadget freak, an announcement was made this week that might affect our world. In our blissful world of consumer electronics, format wars are nothing new: VHS vs Beta, LCD vs Plasma, iPod vs The Rest, Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD, and on, and on, and on....

DivX, that pesky little company out of San Diego, is going public with an IPO. Until now, DivX seemed happy on the sidelines, offering quality video compression for storage, sending, clips for video production, stuff along these lines. Then YouTube and Google Video come along. Video compression and streaming are suddenly two married concepts and are hotter than a burning Pope doll.

Working against DivX is a published business model, or in this case, a total lack of one. But this is not to say that they do not have vision. Analysts close to DivX head honchos indicate that its their vision to create a "multimedia ecosystem permeating your home". This is significant because (1) they have big plans and (2) they have the technology to make a legitimate play for what they want.

A format war could be headed off if Apple buys DivX, or RealNetworks scoops 'em up, or even Microsoft may diverge from their normal practice and actually purchase them. I realize that they will be a strongly held public company at 27% public, but some feverish negotiations (read: threats) might encourage them to throw in the towel.

Then again, as you peruse the aisles in your local electronics store and notice the DVD players, alot of them are DivX enabled. In the first six months of this year, DivX collected $27.3 million in sales. Add this to the $460 Million from the IPO, and they just might have enough clout to engage in battle.

Streaming does seem to be gaining steam though, and you have to hand it to DivX, they seem to know what they're doing. So keep your eye out for DivX, gadget freaks. You'll be hearing alot more about in the coming months.

Good thing he apologized.

With this whole pope thing, here's the sequence of events as I see it...

(1) Pope quotes 600 year old text: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".


(2) Muslims protest this quote alleging that Mohammed brought evil by burning pope in effigy.

One prominent Islamic body, the Mujahideen Shura Council, says "(May) God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money..."

(3) An Italian Nun is hunted down and shot dead by protestor

(4) Muslim protests escalate worldwide, churches in West Bank attacked.

(5) Pope offers apology, stating his true wish that he did not intend to offend, rather engage a wider discussion of religion and violence.

What was that quote again?

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached"

Good thing the Pope apologized for quoting that text, because that quote was way off!

Simple cure for "terrorism"

9-11 has us all thinking about terrorism. It's like a new "Remeberance Day". We all turn our thoughts to New York City, think of where we were on that day, then we usually think about this "terrorism" thing on the whole. There's an assortment of news specials as media companies compete for your attention.

What do the terrorists do when they see western coverage of "terrorism"? I believe they think to themselves "Mission Accomplished". This is not to say that we've capitulated, rather its a question of have we inadvertently given them a source of pride?

Meriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law has a good definition of terrorism: violent and intimidating gang activity. So there's two key parts there. "Violent", which is a given, terrorist acts involve bombing, shooting, beheading, which you can safely assert to being violent. "Intimidating", this is the part that I think gives unintended comfort to the bad guys.

So, when we throw the word "terrorism" around there, our antagonists must really be thinking, "look at us, we're intimidating them, we're casting a cloud of fear over the infidels, they feel terrorized. Mission Accomplished! Who do we bomb next? Let's keep this going".

So, my cure for terrorism is this: stop calling it terrorism. Find a different word, something that's synonymous with what they are: cowards who stick and run, will not fight you face-to-face. At their core, they are weak and without honour. Can't we exploit this by giving these acts a different term?

Any ideas?

All Fear the Cascading Evaluation

Tryouts, day 2

The worst part about tryouts is the feared and dreaded Cascading Evaluation. What this type of evaluation does is bring in about 6 skaters at every half hour increment. Once on, you are grouped and you play a series of minigames. As you play, you are constantly being "traded" around as evaluators attempt to put you in like skill groups.

But it's brutal.

Sometimes, evaluators don't get a chance to get a good look at you so you stay on the ice and play. Or it could be that they just don't know about a kid and want to pass him down to another evaluator to look at. The kid is just supposed to play where he's asked. From the kids perspective, its chaos. At the end of it, Ryan was on the ice for two hours, and he was bagged. Just barely enough gas in the tank for a birthday party he was to attend later on that day.

My strategy was this: downplay this tryout. We knew that this would be the major part, and performance would dictate which division. Not that we want him to strive for mediocrity, we just want him in a lower division so that he can get some puck confidence, maybe score a few, maybe learn a bit more about the flow of play, know what I'm saying?

Throughout all this, he still is having fun: lots of friends, super cool volunteers, and a chance to show some independance. If only it weren't so damned expensive!

Evaluation session number 3 goes Tuesday night.

#83, now calling #83

Tryouts Underway ....

Day one of tryouts provided more surprises than I thought:

Misconception #1 - I'll see alot of familiar faces.

We walked into the Indus arena and proceeded to the coordinators table. "Beauty", I thought, "I know this guy!" I'm thinking that this is a sure sign of how the session will go. The coordinator handed Ryan his tryout pinny: #83. I struggled to think of a famous Number 83 in any sport. I came up empty. We walked into the dressing room. We knew no one. Not a soul. I got Ryan changed and headed to the bleachers. I knew no one, again! What the hell! But after a few minutes, a familiar parent did wander in. Whew!

Misconception #2 - exactly the same routine as last year.

Not sure why, but this year's day one routine was quite different. Last year they tested very specific things: forward speed, stopping both directions, backwards speed, wrist shot. This year, they had the kids in some relay races with and without the puck, backwards, forwards, the focus was more on fun. I'm sure Ryan didn't realize he was being closely observed by evaluators with clip-boards.

Misconception #3 - Ryan will be passive during the scrimmage.

A major miscalculation. While he was one of the bigger kids, he didn't go around rubbing kids out. He actually showed some good puck possession during the mini-game. Some good confidence with the puck. This really surprised me. Last year he trailed the play quite a bit. During the puck handling relay races, Ryan frequently lost control of the puck and had to scramble to get back into the race. During the scrimmage, in contrast, he held onto it pretty good, showed some razzle-dazzle. I guess its true that some players are so-so during drills, but during scrimmages and games, they crank it up a notch. Evaluators are not present to see the scrimmage.

As I said before, there are about 10 divisions, some have the same number but with an "A" side and a "B" side. Also, as I said before, we're having a blast. As a family, we talked and laughed about it all night long.

Next session is Saturday. Very curious to see where he'll end up....

That's it! Summer's over!

Only Christmas Morning is more exciting than the start of hockey season to this 7 year-old. Last week we got the call for tryouts, they begin tomorrow. On Thursday, at 7:15pm, Ryan will once again try out for Bow Valley hockey. But this year is different.

Flashback, September 2005. We got the call about tryouts. No big deal. I had taken Ryan leisure skating with his buddies Aleksandra, Ethan, and another unidentified person. He seemed to move himself around okay. When it came time for evaluation session number one, something went horribly wrong. When he stepped on the ice, he couldn't skate anymore. I don't know if it was because of the equipment, holding a hockey stick while skating, distraction, or whatever, but the only thing he could do was "walk" on the ice. He was unable to do most of the drills.

As I saw this, I was terrified. "What have I done!" Here he is, the most impressionable years of his life, and look what I'm putting him through. He's going to be in some clock tower at 18 years of age, mowing people down with a sniper rifle while yelling "Damn you, Dad! Damn you and your lousy hockey!" It was one of the worst feelings of parental betrayal a Dad could possibley feel. I thought this until he came off the ice. As we were getting changed, he had this super huge smile on his face. "Dad, did I make it? Did I make the team?" At that moment, I knew he was a bona fide rink rat. Hockey would be good to him. By January, he was a pretty fast skater (in a straight line), definitely room for improvement, but he had scored his first goal by then and was now genuinely comfortable out there.

So this year is different. He won't stand out by having amazing skill, or by not being able to skate. He'll be the one out there having a ridiculous amount of fun. Bow Valley has about 10 divisions. I'm really curious to see where they'll put him.

Stay tuned....