Category: Miscellaneous

Here are the two designs that I entered into the University of Lethbridge’s Web Information System Name and Logo contest. I like the white one better.

What really goes on in the back rooms of car dealerships across America? What does the car salesman do when he leaves you sitting in a sales office and goes to talk with his boss? What are the tricks salespeople use to increase their profit and how can consumers protect themselves from overpaying? These are the types of questions that undercover journalist Chandler Phillips answers in his informative account of day-to-day experience on the car lots.

Reading this article will broaden your understanding of the dealership sales process and cast a new light on the role of the car salesman. Most importantly it will help you get a better deal — and avoid hidden charges — the next time you go to buy or lease a new or used car.

Favorite quote:

I was an undercover car salesman for Edmunds.com, sent to a dealership, which sent me to a seminar, which sent me to another dealership as an undercover shopping evaluator. I guess that made me a triple agent. Very good lines.

CNN reports that Mike Rowe has agreed to a settlement with industry giant Microsoft. They even threw in an Xbox to seal the deal.

During my trip to Medicine Hat a couple weeks ago, I saw Big Fish at the Cineplex Odeon. I must admit that the hype building up to its release raised expectations and therefore, in reality, the movie didn’t live up to the great movie I anticipated. Tim Burton was heavy on style and light on character development. The main problem of the story was that the main character, the father who tells tall tales, had nothing to overcome in the movie. Instead it was his son, who by definition was the protagonist, that had the problem to overcome. The movie just didn’t have that much impact on me, because the son’s obstacle – or the antagonistic part of the movie – was just learning to understand his father. That being said, the second half of the movie (or even last quarter) did a lot in the way of redeeming the movie because finally the protagonist was featured and (spoiler alert – like you didn’t already know) the son in fact reconciles with his father and consequently comes to understand him.

Tim Burton makes lovely films – and Big Fish is no exception. Even though I saw the film and was somewhat disspointed, everytime I see the ads I can’t help but feel like I want to see it again. It’s doing well at the box office and I’m certain that Big Fish will have a tremendous cult following much like Tim Burtons other films. So if you’re tempted to go (I don’t blame you) take my advice not to sea the movie in theatres, instead get the reel deal by saving your money and catching Big Fish on DVD.

Cheapest Long Distance Service EVER, made possible by converting sound into digital data and sending the information over the internet. They’ve been talking about this forever but now it’s a reality. I’ll be cancelling my phone service with Telus very soon. You should too.

Update: Vonage Canada is coming soon — not available like I previously thought. Well, I’m ready when they are.

I went into the bookstore this morning to take my semi-annual gouging. While browsing the new media books to find the required purchases I noticed a book titled The Animator’s Survival Kit. I own this book. I paid $42 + tax at the local Chapters Bookstore. The bookstore was selling the same title and edition for $80 new and $60 used (of course they didn’t have any used copies). What is even more bizarre is that they had price tags on the back of them for $42. So they mark-up their books right? It’s a free market, why not? Right? Well maybe so, but they have the nerve to display a giant poster explaining why books are so expensive and where percentages of the cost go…. 75% to publishers and the rest of the 25% broken up between the University, the Student Union, the Bookstore, ect. Well even if the bookstore ordered the books through Chapters and got the same selling price as was available the general public (and it’s unlikely they would not get a discount) the most they should possibly have raised the price to would be about $56. That’s $4 less than the price they would sell a used copy for. Sick.

I noticed that for the last few months that IE 6.0 has stopped letting me view source on webpages. I finally did something about it today, if you are having the same problem follow this advice:

1. Make sure notepad.exe is still located in your \Windows directory and is working right. If it is missing or got replaced by a 3rd party app, restore it from your Install-CD. The View Source command does tie into Notepad.exe, with Notepad missing or being defective, it can’t work.
2. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools|Internet Options|General and delete the Temorary Internet Files. While you’re there, make sure you Temporary Internet Files folder isn’t too big, we noticed the problem occurs more often the bigger our folder was. Reduce it in size if you have this problem frequently.
3. If that is still not working, go to the \Windows\Temoprorary Internet Files folder on your hard drive and delete the files manually — incl. the index.dat file.

These steps cleared up the problem for me, at least temporarily.

They are the celebrity judges that will choose a winner from 1 of the 15 finalists in MoveOn.org’s anti-Bush political ad contest. Since the liberal advocacy group started the contest last October they have received more than 1000 ads all recorded in an effort to unseat President Bush.

I’m stranded in Utah. Truth be known we probably could have left this morning. Yesterday morning though, we would have been lucky to get out of the driveway. The snow just wouldn’t stop. Power was out for some of the houses and traffic lights in the valley but luckily the power has been on here except for one or two quick blackouts and then right back on again.

I didn’t want to write about the so called Walmart Stampede where Patty VanLester was apparently trampled by frenzied shoppers. I figured the story was a bit suspicious. Whether or not she was trampled isn’t as interesting to me as the coincidental fact that this is not the first time for something like this has happened to poor unfortunate Patty VanLester and her sister. They should have learned over the years not to shop at such dangerous and negligent stores.

Update: November 29th, 2005, I hate it when newslinks go stale. I’m sorry I never copied the articles and placed them here. Anyway from what I remember about the story (this happened in 2003) she was trampled when the doors opened and customers rushed inside to be the first to purchase items that were on sale for the first [so many] buyers. This same thing happened to her previously in another store where she fell, got trampled and sued.

I don’t know much about the newest Walmart Stampede other than what I saw on the news the other day. It didn’t look like anybody got seriously hurt, but I had to wonder if this new batch went down on purpose in the hope of a lawsuit.