Spotted on the Subway

'Poodles' magazine. And yes, it's about the dogs. Doesn't look like many people are working today - little traffic, few commuters.

It all seemed so innocent.

For lunch yesterday I met Karina, Neal and the folks at the Duke of York. There we were, having a nice relaxing luncheon when suddenly I found myself trapped in a discussion that I am far too idle at work! Everything seemed to be going along so politely and then WHAM! The daggers are out! For the record, I am not sitting with my thumb up my ass at Infoware! If I have an issue at work, it's an issue of prioritization not overall activity

Holiday Report

I'm not sure how it impacts my status as a blogger, but I haven't been a very active author of entries over the holidays. Oh well.

It's so far been a very pleasant and somewhat relaxed holiday season. Friday night Karina and I headed up to the folks place for Xmas Eve dinner and evensong. The choir again succeeded in destroying hymns and amusing the boys. Xmas morning was very nice and peaceful ... we were able to sleep in some and then opened presents and ate breakfast before heading back to the city for more presents and Christmas dinner. The after dinner game of trivial pursuit went well (i.e. my team won) although we were rapidly losing players by the end.

Boxing day saw Karina and I again heading to Caledon for the annual Dinner with the Claflins - this year we had it at the 'rents and were joined by J Austin. Baby news was the order of the day. The weather certainly left something to be desired, but wasn't so terrible.

On the 27th we had the 9th Annual Sub-Heaven Dinner with Graham, Aash and Itch at Café La Gaffe. Lynn and Preeti also made it out. The food was a little disappointing and Aash and I failed to get Graham very upset, but it was an excellent night nonetheless.

Yesterday I watched the Liverpool v. Southampton match (we won) and had drinks with the rest of the Exec (sans Cashin). Looks like we are set to move the Club to Scally's.

Morientes or Anelka?

As Liverpool preps for the second half of the season and the Champiosn League knockout round, they are looking to beef up their striker force. Apparently Newcastle is to join Morientes race and the club is also perhaps chasing Nicolas Anelka. Exciting times indeed!

AS I write this, I'm already late to meet with Nenita at the AGO. She's visiting the GTA for the week and staying in Oakville. The tenative plan is to have dinner with Nenita, Graham and Karina tonight at the Bombay Palace some time after 5:30.

I am way, way behind on Xmas gifts - hopefully I'll be able to knock off a few today (Nenita being patient I hope).

Guess I had better run!

Liverpool, Liverpool, Liverpool

Mark Lawrence is saying that an in-form Harry Kewell is like a new player for LFC. Well I think we should wait and see... he's disappointed all too often.

These Happy Busy Days

I'm happy to say that things on the work front are much improved - I'm very busy fielding new business inquiries and more importantly am cutting invoices. I'm also working on a couple new partnerships and trying to prep a January mailing and updating our website. I think trips to Ottawa and Alberta are in my future for the first months of the New Year. Yikes! Just remembered that I have one more proposal yet to finish!

Despite incredibly optimistic comments that I am close to having all my Xmas shopping complete, I will have to admit that I'm not really even started - although I do have a good idea what I'm getting everyone. My problem now is that of timing.

Graham and Nenita are both in town next week, so it will be good to see them!

The Days of Karina

Had a great night out last night with Karina & many friends. After dinner we had headed over to Fionn Macool's to hear Matt play - he was very good to play many of Karina's requests. Later in the evening we headed to The Jester where we had some b-day cake. Flowers and present were well-received.

No Hockey this Year...

As reported in The Globe and Mail and all other Canadian media channels, the NHL Lockout looks here to stay. Sigh.

I am in real trouble getting things done today.

Scott Peterson to Die?

A California Jury say that the wife killer should die. I am still curious to discover what it is about this fellow that made him once so warm and apparently loving a partner to and then so cold and disconnected a murderer.

Give him a break..

He's just an old man! But it's true. Donald Rumsfeld's fig leaf is falling as his comments about the availability of armor for HUMVEES last week may not have been true.

More of the same from Bell

I spent the better part of this morning troubleshooting my high speed
internet connection at home and on talking to Bell Tech reps. Our
conversations went much better after we established that static
could be used to describe a situation that is unchanged. It also took
them 20 minutes to find my account (unfortunately the bills still find
me). Conclusion? There are breaks on my line and they'll have to call me
back. I have found that if I disconnect my filtered phone, I seem to
have no problems (but why this issue suddenly started is a good
question, no?)

Reds Ascendent.

Late last night I did manage to catch the Liverpool-Olympiacos match and it was indeed a fantastic match to watch. I tricked Karina into thinking that I didn't know the scoreline, but in the end I think even she had a passing interest in the resukt. The KOP sounded amazing. Cashin was talking to Ron Yeats today and apparently there were still people on the field at Anfield an hour after the game.

Karina is today gone to Vegas...

Happy Times Come to Anfield

Oh, this working thing can be such a drag... especially when there are headlines like HEROIC REDS THROUGH IN ANFIELD THRILLER! I managed to catch the last (and key) 15 minutes on the internet and am very disappointed to have missed out in actually watching the match. Got to get me one of those Gerrard jerseys! What a hero!

Oops!

Ok, Ok, a few minor mistakes and unheld promises yesterday. I didn't get a chance to email Neal as I had said I would, I didn't get my Christmas cards out, I was wrong and the Olympikaos match is today and Liverpool must win 1-0 or by two goals, and I didn't get my marketing budget complete (this was a promise to myself).

Karina is headed to Vegas very early tomorrow for a quick holiday. She's going with a friend and the agenda for the weekend includes blackjack, gourmet buffets, shopping and a flight into the Grand Canyon. Disappointed that I'm not going, I guess I'll have to soldier on for these few days .sniff. Actually I think I once announced that I never would visit that desert city in protest of its poor urban population planning. A major city in the desert - this is an affront to viable, environmentally responsible development.

Snow and a Show

A winter storm today with enough snow falling at the right time to make the morning commute a mess. Eventually making my way to the subway and making my way to the front car, I was amused to hear through his open door that the driver was obviously having some serious problems with the ladies. I don't think our car needed to know what we now know about the drivers failings in the dating arena.

Greek teams travel as well as Retsina wine

An excellent article featuring an interview with Former Red Gary McAllister highlights the frustration and promise that seems to surround the current Liverpool Squad. LFC tied their weekend match against Villa (which should have been won by all accounts) and play Olympikaos tomorrow. They must win 2-0 to the advance to the next round of the Champions League.

Sushi will not be Frozen

Karina and other sushi lovers will be happy to hear that the requirement to freeze fish used in restaurants has been more or less taken off the books. Hiro is apparently much relieved.

Feeding the iPod.

There are now more than 700 songs on my iPod mini. I still have more than a gig of hard drive space available, which means (for the uninitiated) I can still likely squeeze about 300 more songs onto the drive - it's amazing that I can carry around 70 albums of music in a space twice the size of my business card holder. Never has so much Tom been so available! It is easy to understand how this technology is predicted to the killer of pop radio.

Having an iPod has relit my interest in music - or rather, it has returned music listening to my everyday routine. Having 700 songs at my fingertips means that I have many days of music before a repeated selection - or it means that I can facilitate the entire range of my eclectic musical tastes.

I really haven't played that much with the playlist features but can see myself constructing some monster mood mixes. Right now I'm occupied with converting all my CDs to MP3s.