Wondering what happened to Varun “Vinny” Aurora, David Humeniuk, and Dave Jones? The Alberta Securities Commission has something to say. I quote:

“The Alberta Securities Commission (ASC) has issued a Notice of Hearing alleging Calgary residents Varun Vinny Aurora, David Humeniuk and David Jones breached Alberta securities laws by acting as dealers without being properly registered, making serious omissions and misrepresentations to investors and distributing various Concrete Equities Group entities’ securities using offering documents not in compliance with Alberta securities laws.

The appeatence to set a date for the hearing will be held on October 13th, 2010, at 1 p.m. in the ASC Hearing Room on the 6th Floor, 300 – 5th Avenue S.W., Calgary, Alberta. I’m pondering going myself – I wonder if it’s open to the public? The full notice of hearing document can be found on the ASC Web site, but I’ve also mirrored a copy of it here. (more…)

Being Canadian, and not American, there’s only so much right I have to speak to the issues I see happening to the south of me – but this issue of the “Ground Zero Mosque” has really gotten ridiculous. I’m a right-leaning, conservative Christian person, but the things I see the right doing in the US make me shake my head. I have less and less in common with the radical, polarizing crazies who try to turn everything they touch into something politically explosive. This video sums up my feelings on this issue quite nicely.

Below is an email I received a little over a month ago. I blurred out the name of the person who sent it to me to avoid his further embarrassment, but this was just too funny not to share. Read it and weep tears of laughter…

After reading this email, I started to reply back with basically a “What on EARTH are you talking about?” but I decided since he gave me his phone number, I might as well get to the bottom of this immediately- I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. Right from the beginning of the conversation, I couldn’t get a word in – he was spewing forth a non-stop barrage of anger and frustration. I tried to explain right from the start that Windows Phone Thoughts was a news and reviews site, that we didn’t sell anything directly, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He told me some story about how he bought his son two mobile recharging units for his son’s iPad, and his son was leaving on a trip to China, and how the “damn Boxwave chargers were defective”.

Aha, Boxwave! Once I heard that, the story started to make sense – I tried to break in on his ranting to say that I didn’t work for Boxwave, and wasn’t affiliated with them in any way, and he literally screamed at me “THEN WHY DON’T YOU HANG UP ON ME?”. I replied back that my mother raised me to be a polite person and that I wasn’t going to hang on up him – but that I could appreciate it if he would stop yelling. “I’M NOT YELLING!” he yelled at me. This hilarity went on for another minute or two, and finally he calmed down. I calmly explained yet again that I had no affiliation with Boxwave, though I had reviewed their products in the past.

In a nutshell, this guy used a search engine to find an old Pocket PC Thoughts post mentioning Boxwave and used our contact form to send me the above email, thinking he was contacting the company. He had made several attempts, but they ignored him. He was adamant that he used the Boxwave contact form and that their contact form must be routing all contact email to me. Yeah, right. After some further discussions he calmed down a little more, and I wished him all the best in getting in touch with Boxwave.

Another day, another crazy person. I love being online!

CES: it’s the geek Mecca. This year, for me, it was a train-wrecka (har har!). Join me on my journey of unpacking the frustrations and tribulations of a CES I’d rather forget. I need some catharsis from the five days I spent in Vegas, so this is more for me than you, but perhaps you’ll find it entertaining in a “driving past a car wreck” sort of way.

When I went to CES 2009, I posted quite a few videos of what I saw there. Producing those videos in 1080p h.264 on my Dell XPS M1330 took a long time, so on December 9th I placed an order for a pimped-out Core i7-based Dell Studio 17. Plenty of time before CES, right? Wrong. Despite calling in a favour with a contact I have in Dell’s CTO office, as of December 30th I still didn’t have the laptop – the estimated ship date was January 8th, three days after I left for CES. Switching to plan “B”, I went out and purchased an HP dv7, a $2000 Core i7-based laptop with a 17.3″ screen and a weight of seven pounds. I was planning on bringing this beast of a laptop with me to CES to leave in my hotel room for video production, and I’d carry a netbook me me for day to day CES reporting. Then I started to hear about the security restrictions after the December 25th “underwear bomber” was foiled, and my already rocky start to CES prep got worse. (more…)

I’m not a big fan of PETA or the extremes that they sometimes go to – though this breaks my heart and I’m glad PETA is shining a light on it – but I truly love animals and hate to see any animal of any shape or size mistreated. I’m not an extreme animal rights activist – I eat meat and wear leather – but the idea of going to a circus makes me feel very uncomfortable. The idea of an animal being trained purely for entertainment doesn’t sit well with me.

I’m OK with zoos though because I think zoos are a vital part of creating a bond between people and animals, and when people care about something, they’ll try to protect it. If someone has never seen a bear up close in a zoo, they might not care about protecting the bear’s natural habitat. In some ways, the animals in a zoo are “taking one for the team” – they’re sacrificing their freedom in order to serve as a bridge between humans and animals in order for that bond to be created. I’m excited about taking Logan to the Calgary Zoo someday, because I want to instill in him the wonder and beauty of the animal world. But a circus? Nope, I won’t be taking Logan to a circus – unless it’s a Cirque-type show where people are the ones doing all the tricks. Animals don’t belong in a circus.

I don’t tend to have an inferiority complex when it comes to being Canadian, but I do find it amusing the way Canada is so often simply not listed when companies list their localized versions. The above screen-shot is from the NVIDIA site – notice how only Mexico and USA are listed as being part of North America? Where did Canada go? It seems pretty silly that Canada isn’t listed, or at least USA/Canada. Would that really be so hard?

Like many Canadians, when the National Do Not Call List was implemented, I went and registered my two home phone numbers, my one fax number, and both cell phone numbers in my family. I think I saw a drop in the number of telemarketers calling me, but it’s hard to say. This morning I as informed, by my mother of all people (I’m usually the one informing her of things like this), that this list isn’t quite what it appears to be. I’ll quote from the Wikipedia entry:

“In November 2008, it was reported that the CRTC had received thousands of complaints from Canadians about the implementation of the Do Not Call List. People reported that they had actually experienced a notable increase in the number of calls since registering for the list, and were starting to get calls at cellular phone numbers that had never received telemarketing calls before. In January 2009, numerous media and consumer advocacy organizations reported that anyone can use false information pretending to be a telemarketer and download the list for a $50 fee. It only took their reporter ten minutes to do so. The list is likely being downloaded and used as a telemarketing list overseas, where there’s little that can be done as the CRTC has no jurisdiction outside of Canada. On February 2, 2009, A Toronto Star headline labelled the CRTC’s do-not-call list a “disaster”, and the article recommended Parliament return to the original version of Bill C-37 by eliminating all exemptions. It further recommended cross-border cooperation to resolve jurisdictional issues and immediate tough enforcement to send a strong signal to violators.”

I had assumed there was some sort of “blind protocol” set in place here where the telemarketers would be required to do a database comparison with the Do Not Call List database, and numbers on that list would be purged from the telemarketers database. That’s the only system that would make any sense – yet it seems the system the government implemented was to bundle up all our phone numbers, hand it to the telemarketers, and say “Hey, don’t call these people, m’kay?”. Talk about naive! These telemarketers can then take that list of phone numbers and sell it on the international markets, or even pass it to their US branches to use as a calling list. Worst of all, they’ll get access to phone numbers that have never been put into the hands of telemarketers, such as cell phone numbers. What a mess.

I don’t know much about cars. I’m one of those guys that, if something goes wrong with my car, I’ll call the AMA and let someone smarter than me figure it out. The most complicated thing I’ve done on my own cars is replace a headlight. So there’s the context for this story.

On Friday I took my 2003 Mazda Protege 5 to Stoney Trail Mazda in Calgary for an oil change, and after 30 minutes a woman came back to tell me that they were suggesting the following procedures for my car beyond the oil change:

• Replace air filter ($30)
• Injector flush ($170)
• Power steering flush ($90)
• Replace broken fog light ($270)

I was expecting to walk out spending under $50, and they were suggesting I spend more than 10 times that much! I felt a bit overwhelmed at first, but I started asking questions because it seemed curious that so much needed to happen at once. The broken fog light, she said, wasn’t just a simple blown bulb – the entire assembly needed to be replaced. The car has 61K KM on it, and had never had any of the fluids replaced/flushed beyond the oil and wind shield wiper fluid, but did that mean that both the power steering and injector systems needed to be flushed? I ended up saying yes to the air filter and power steering flush, but said I’d decide later on the injetor flush and fog light.

After she walked away I started searching online for articles related to the topic, and found a good one on injector flushing. I also found a bunch of forum threads where people were discussing the same topic, and the general consensus I found was that unless there’s a suspected problem with the injectors, there’s no need to flush them. It seems that telling customers that their vehicle’s injectors need flushing is an easy money-maker for the auto shop. I’m glad I said no to that. As for the power steering flush, that seems to be more of a mixed bag – some people say it’s good to have it changed every five years or so – which means my car is due – but in general unless you’re having problems with your power steering, the fluids don’t need to be touched. As someone who does computer consulting, it looks like most fluid flushing is right up there with me telling someone the SATA ports on their computer need defragmenting, or their WiFi signal needs cleaning because it’s dirty.

Here’s what ticks me off about this: I took my Mazda back to a Mazda dealership rather than taking it to Mr. Lube or another quick-change shop because I wanted, and expected, by-the-book Mazda maintenance. Meaning that unless Mazda themselves recommended a certain procedure in the owners manual, the Mazda dealership wouldn’t recommend anything different. When I went up to pay for the procedures, I told the woman at the desk I wasn’t sure I’d ever come back to this dealership again for servicing. I wasn’t rude or angry when I said it. She asked me why, and I explained that after some research I didn’t believe that they were giving me sound advice about what really needed to be done on my car. She replied that merely relays what the technicians tell her.

The kicker? When I drove home and pulled into the garage I turned all my lights off and on, including the fog lights, and they all work just fine. I find it hard to believe that Stoney Trail Mazda would be so bold as to tell a customer a light isn’t working if it is, but on the other hand I’m baffled as to why they thought it wasn’t working.

So, any car experts out there care to weigh in on this?

Last night I had one of the most unpleasent dining experience in my entire life, and I’m creating this entry solely for the sake of someone Googling the name of the restaurant (Il Centro) and perhaps finding this blog entry. I won’t go into the boring details, but the short version is that the pizza is really tasty, but the restaurant staff is awful.

The one female waitress that was working last night was incredibly rude and gave us terrible service throughout our visit. The food was excellent – we tried the Calamari and three different types of pizza – but I’d never step foot back in that place again. It was insufferably hot even though it was cool outside, and we were completely ignored until I caught the waitress and asked if we could order – and she looked at me like I was a stranger on the street accosting her. My advice? If you’re interested in tasting the food at Il Centro, order take out. Their pizza is great, but it’s not worth the awful dining experience required to get it.

I heard about this commentary on the Fox News “Red Eye” show early this morning on the radio, and I’ve been stewing about it all day. I know, I know, they’re just a bunch of idiots trying to be “funny” – but as someone who married into a family with a military history, I take this personally beyond simply being Canadian. I have a cousin who has served two tours in Afghanistan, and thankfully she’s come back safe and whole both times. Below is what I emailed to Fox News (yourcomments@foxnews.com) – it pretty much sums up what I feel about this subject.

As a Canadian, I’m used to having my country poked fun at – and most of the time, I laugh right along with the joke. Friends can do that with each other, and there are no better friends amongst the nations of the world than Canada and the United States of America. We share a common culture, and many common values.

But…

To poke fun at our active soldiers, fighting alongside your soldiers – arguably in the more dangerous parts of Afghanistan than your own troops are fighting in – crosses the line from humour to insulting attacks. Let’s not forget that the single biggest reason that the Canadian Army is in Afghanistan is because the your country was attacked on 9/11. 116 of my fellow Canadians have died, with many more hundreds wounded, fighting against the groups that attacked your country. To mock their sacrifice is deplorable and reprehensible.

This type of “comedy” is on-par with the worst type of racism, and I expect Fox News to treat this matter with the utmost seriousness.

Jason Dunn
in Canada

I sent a variation of it to Greg Gutfeld (the host), and Monica Crowley. Bill Schulz only has Twitter as a communications method so I couldn’t send that message to him – instead I opted for a Twit that suggested he belittle the American soldiers fighting alongside the Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and see what happened. I’ve noticed that the people with the biggest mouths tend to be the biggest cowards. The last panelist, Doug Benson, has his MySpace profile locked down to only receive messages from people on his friends list, so I opted to send him a simple Twit that informed him I was Canadian, and that I thought he sucked.

I should point out that, unlike some of the 10,000+ YouTube comments on that video above, I in no way take the opinions of these four people to represent those of Americans in general. Amongst 303 million people, you’re going to have some nutjobs. The question is, how do so many of them end up in the media?