Tribute to San Jose!

Today I pay tribute to Ottawa's brother from another mother: San Jose.
Ottawa and San Jose have a lot in common. We are both high-tech towns, we both have NHL teams that were born within a year of each other and there is a general consensus in both populations that opposes municipal funding of jukebox terrorism (i.e.: Queing up the same ridiculous song over and over on a jukebox.)
Recently the San Jose Sharks acquired Ottawa Senators star trigger man Dany Heatley. Dany had asked to leave at the end of 2008-2009 season stating that his game didn't fit with the new coach's system, but there has been speculation that there are other reasons which I will not get into because I propagate facts only! as you may have noticed with my Jukebox declaration. Dany; you will be missed but you really need to start prospecting for a new exit strategist.

One other honorable mention regarding Ottawa's Twin-Town is that this site has been getting lots of hits and tomfoolery from San Jose. This is good! I encourage city level incest. Actually I would encourage all readers from Jose-town to leave a comment after this post as a sign of brotherly-sisterly love. Also I would like to welcome Jonathan Cheechoo and Michalek, so long as they score lots of goals and are key player in the Sens lifelong ambition of publicly destroying and humiliating the Sharks at every possible opportunity. Peace and Love.

Facebook Update!

Harley's case is now on the CBC as well.

Be mystified by his legal prowess!

Facebook attacked by fellow Fresh Founder

That's right! Ottawa entrepreneurial powerhouse Fresh Founders (previously Young Entrepreneur's Club) member has made a big splash on the international social networking site scene. Fellow Fresh Founder member Harley Finkelstein has found some legal issues between Canadian privacy law, and Facebook policies. Privacy commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart agrees and is ready to take action. Michael Geist commented on it too it gives that extra "this isn't just the government doing their this-technology-scares-us thing" boost.

Watch the video here: Harley on Global

You can also behold of this stunning visual:


Harley does lots of work to help answer the questions that young entrepreneurs have today when thinking about a digital media business.

Read more: AskHarley

Lead To Win in the press

So the Lead To Win program is getting more and more press as time goes along. I'm lucky I got in through the first round because things are only gonna get tougher as more people know about it. I would have to say I recommend it, if you have the means (said in smug high society voice). The Ottawa Citizen did a piece called

Tough times, tough class

Led by a 'cranky professor,' the Lead to Win program gives would-be tech entrepreneurs the tools they need. Bert Hill reports.

You can read all about it yourself, cause I'm not about to baby-step you through it like Richard Dreyfuss would for Bill Murray. "He's sailing, he's sailing!"... That wasn't sailing. He was doing nothing and nobody even called him on it. Anyway here's the article:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Tough+times+tough+class/1791568/story.html

BTW for anyone from Stela reading this, who also went to one of my Content Management Interoperability Services "Show and Tells", one of the guys constantly quoted in the article is doing something that may involve this CMIS stuff.

Lead To Win

Well, it's been an interesting journey. But it's only about to begin. I participated in the Lead To Win program. Here is their pitch:

If you are serious about starting a profitable tech-based business in Canada's Capital Region during the current economic situation, we invite you to apply to Lead to Win (LTW). Ontario’s Talent First Network is pleased to announce the launch of the Lead To Win program for laid-off or under-employed tech workers. The program is based upon a program of the same name that was delivered during the last economic downturn in 2002. Over half of the participants in the 2002 Lead to Win program created a new business in Canada’s Capital Region. These new businesses collectively created over 300 jobs and attracted over $90M in investment.

The program is no cakewalk! As a matter of fact, despite all the FREE great food and cake that they fed us during the program, not once were any of us invited to walk or even take a quick stroll across cake of any shape or form (no African dancing either... do your research).

After at least 3 Phases of filtering and improvements, I am proud to announce that my idea has come out on top. Of God-knows how many application 50 some opportunities made it into phase 1, 40 some make it to phase 2 and 30 some made it to phase 3. Of phase 3 participants 19 are rated Green (ready to go) and of them 7 opportunities have been rated Green by all it's assessors. My opportunity is one of those 7, which is cool I guess. I mean if your into that whole "being the cream of the crop" scene.

Anyway thought I'd just put that out there. That's one of the things I've been up to now that I'm back in the hemisphere. I did some other stuff but I can't remember it right now.

To learn more about the program, or to apply for it, visit their website: www.leadtowin.ca
Tell them I sent you. Unless your idea sucks, in which case I never heard of you and you never heard of me. No, like seriously who are you?

But in all honesty, this program is not made to filter people. The idea is to make better entrepreneurs out of us all and to make jobs. You will improve yourself or your idea drastically during the process guaranteed! I highly recommend the program and especially those who voluntarily put it together in true entrepreneurial style. I owe a lot to them and will be even further indebted as Phase III progresses. Actually I will take this moment to thank them and thank them in advance.

Here are some shots of the graduation: I am receiving my diplomat here from David Hudson:


Here I am celebrating with Tony Bailetti:


For those of you who know me best and know how I like to celebrate graduations: Yes, I did pull a Timon (from the Lion King) style celebration just before getting the diploma.

I'll probably write more about this soon but feel free to ask questions... My press secretary will be happy to address them.

More TV nostalgia

Ok I couldn't resist: two blog posts back to back. See, I was afraid I was gonna forget about this one.

That's right... Dr. Snuggles. Oh, how his amazing adventures brightened our days and haunted even our wildest nightmares with all those talking trees and other unnatural paraphernalia. So I saw the little snipet (which I'm sure you all just enjoyed) and was pondering some of the things that you were probably all thinking too, like "What in the world was that animal wearing overalls?", "How does he expect that shuttle to survive re-entry?" and "No seriously! What is that f&*%ing thing? Its freaking the hell outta me!". But then something caught my attention. "Why doesn't this old geiser ever take that bag of a wife with him?". Then I understood. It was a hidden message. Dr.Snuggle flies up to the rainbow. The RAINBOW! Weird when you think about it. Plus he takes that little god-knows-what in the overalls with him. Kinda freaky really. Anyway, enjoy your distorted memories!

This piece of TV nostalgia has been brought to you but Island Mike.

Yesterday's Special

Yesterday was not particularly special.
But I did clean out the bathtub using some pretty harsh chemicals. (You have to in this day and age with to fight the evil ever strengthening forces of THE ENVIRONMENT (and/or ALISTS)!!!
Anyway, after the battle, I noticed that there were a bunch of ants just hanging around this small part of the tub!? So I was all like: "Excus-ah me-ah mista ants! Whaaaats-ah matta yo moouuuth?", but they completely ignored my cleverly disguised Nicaraguan accent (thinly veiled by a poor man's Italian accent). Those ants did not move! It was weird. So I told them so. Didn't change a thing. So I gave one of them a "middle finger salute" catapult style. That... seemed to work. They all scattered and I concluded that the chlorine must have dazed them. So I guess the moral of the story is that those ants reminded me of the mannequin Jeff from that old TV show "Today's Special"! It also reminded me that I have a poor understanding of morals of stories. Man that Jeff was one hell of an idiot. I was 3 years old and I knew that most of his life's worries could be put to an end if he'd just put a strap on that damn hat.
In celebration of this epic tale, let us all enjoy a nutritious trip down memory lane with a side of badly constructed and confusing metaphors.