Published on Monday, 5 May 2008
in yoga.
I should have written this post over a month ago. I tried Bikram’s again in the afternoon, twice. Both times I drank a lot of water throughout the day so that I wouldn’t feel sick during the class. No luck. I’m thinking that it’s just not for me.
The whole getting yelled at like I’m in boot camp seems counter productive. And considering that my people don’t do heat well (family members have been known to faint because of it) makes me think that I need to find another yoga studio. I just feel miserable and completely knackered for after a session. With other forms of yoga, I feel better and actually have energy after it.
I think I’ll be exploring some more studios in the next little while.
It’s a quirky little movie. If you like British comedies, you should probably see it. Oddly, I can’t see this being an American movie even though David Schwimmer directed it. (I think he’s found what he should be doing in film.) Not being able to get an American producer to fund it was probably the best thing that happened to him. If it was an American film, the “American schmaltz” (thanks to my British friend Paul for introducing me to that term) that producers would have demanded and the scenes they’d want change would have made it annoying. There’s a light touch of schmaltz like they’re embarrassed to show it but they know they should…I call it the “British schmaltz”.
I liked the story - the topic reminds me of About a Boy - and even though the feat that the main character achieves would be rather unbelievable in real life, it’s believable in the story. I enjoyed the relationship between the father and son, and the father and his landlord. There were places where the film could have had better timing and the some of the actors were playing the characters that they typically play. But it didn’t ruin the movie - like the guy from Blacks Books playing a toned down version of his character from the show. And Hank Azaria was good at playing the American asshole. I’m not sure if I’ve seen him in that role before, and there was no accent for him to play around with.
There are certain scenes where I noticed the cinematography/framing/lighting being good, which is unusual for me. But that might be just because I spent 11 days behind my camera on vacation.
It was worth the matinee price that we paid. And it’s the kinda of movie that grows on you - in a good way. I’d watch it again.
Published on Monday, 7 April 2008
in Travel.
Short post. I’m back from Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Even though it was only 10 days, it felt like I was there for a month - we did so much. Had fun, got sick, enjoyed the cruise, zip-lined, saw lots of wildlife and plants, held hands with a monkey, and saw what it’s really like in a developing country. Photos to follow. Tomorrow I start my new job, so the photos will probably come later rather than sooner.
Published on Saturday, 29 March 2008
in Travel.
I think that’s how you say it. Well I’m in Costa Rica waiting for my mom and sisters to arrive. We’re doing a girls only cruise on the Wind Star. Yes, la-de-da. It’s my mom’s big birthday. (Not going to say how old because she may kill me for broadcasting it to the world, but it’s not that old.)
Last night I got in and watched TV - mostly flipping channels, seeing how much Spanish I remember and reading the Spanish subtitles on the English stations. TV doesn’t seem to be much different than what you get up north. It’s a lot of the same exact crap with Spanish dubbing.
The music is pretty good. They have it piped into the hotel lobby. I heard a band that sounds like Blink182, but in Spanish, and they’re now playing something that sounds like your typical girl pop song, but in Spanish. So you could probably say it’s the same crap you get up north, but in Spanish.
I’m typing on a Spanish keyboard, and this is it’s taking me forever since all the punctuation is in the wrong spots.
¡Hasta la vista!
Published on Thursday, 20 March 2008
in Marketing.
Usually when someone puts up a billboard declaring their love for someone, it’s followed by a marriage proposal. But some wacky Canadians (well 2 Canadian-American dual citizens and 1 poor chap without a vote in Nov) felt they had to publicly declare their love for Obama. Looks like it started with the whole almost NAFTA-gate and to promote their documentary - well they know how to get attention. They’re looking for funding.
Canadians Love Barack Obama
This is a picture I did not take of a homeless man sitting at the corner of Robson and Burrard, next to a newspaper box surrounded by army green blankets and a backpack. He leans on his left elbow, smiles a half-toothless smile, and shakes the curls coming out from his worn baseball cap. People rush by trying not to make eye contact, but they take a quick peek at his small sign. And then another. And another. And then a smile appears on their face, and they start to giggle to themselves. The plastic sign is blue with white writing. It looks familiar. Like a campaign sign. And it says, “I need spare CHANGE I can believe in.” No one gives him spare change.
This post was inspired by UNphotographable.
Published on Sunday, 9 March 2008
in yoga.
I went to my second class, last week. This time I went first thing in the morning without eating anything. That was a bit of a mistake for me. I’ve always had a weak stomach in the morning and this was putting me over the top. I felt so nauseous that I couldn’t lie on my stomach when necessary. And I spent more time on the floor than I did the first time. So morning classes are not for me.
But I’m learning that the whole drill-sergeant instructor is pretty much part and parcel for this type of yoga. This time positions were accompanied by the yelling of “push, push, push”. I felt like I was in a birthing room, and nearly started giggling. But she’s a good teacher and came over and made sure I was doing things properly.
I’ll have to go at least twice this week in the afternoon to really start getting into. Hell, I bought the outfit for it (and I give the sales guy at Lululemon a ton of credit for not even batting an eye when I said that I don’t want to fall out of my top when I’m upside-down).
Published on Sunday, 2 March 2008
in Madness.
I was writing an email to my friend, and got an incredibly wrong grammar correction. So I typed it into a new email to take a screen shot (without the rest of the personal stuff), accidentally left out some words, and got this lovely suggestion. If you can’t see it in the screenshot, it says that “you is welcome” and “you’re welcomes” are the correct ways to say that phrase. You can’t make this stuff up!I’m running Windows Vista, and my language is set to Canadian English. I used to flip between U.S. and Canadian English all the time in XP and never came across this bug. I guess Vista left out a rule or two in the grammar check.
Published on Friday, 29 February 2008
in Stuff.
I cut the umbilical chord today and cancelled my U.S. mobile phone account. We didn’t know that all calls would be charged at 69 cents/minutes, and had to pay over $200 this month. So I found it kinda funny that they tried to upsell me to a North America plan where I’d pay roaming fees if I went outside of Vancouver. Thankfully I won’t have to pay the $175 early cancellation fee as long as I fax them proof of residency in Canada. Yay! But if you’re trying to text or phone me at that number…who knows who will answer it.
Published on Tuesday, 26 February 2008
in Marketing.
At NorthernVoice on Saturday, Matt Mullenweg gave the keynote and spoke a bit on the naming blandness that goes on in software companies. He said that you’d never see companies like Procter & Gamble name their products the way tech companies do…and well, sorry Matt, I disagree. One example he gave was Tide’s Simple Pleasures. According to Matt, if it was named by a tech company it would be called Procter & Gamble Purple Laundry Detergent. Tide Simple Pleasures is just a step above that, but is essentially doing the same thing that Matt doesn’t like.
Well, P&G has a bit more brand clout in Tide than most tech companies have in their products. Here’s one of the first Tide ads that I found on Flickr. It’s not called Procter & Gamble Tide, but they sure are coming close to saying that. They’re using the P&G brand to help consumers trust it.
I understand what Matt’s getting at…we do choose some pretty bland names. He mentioned Amazon MP3 store as one tech name that should have been called something else. But it’s a fairly new industry with brands that are fighting to be top-of-mind. And when they do have that brand recognition, they shouldn’t jeopardize a product launch by calling it something completely new without the parent brand name and URL. There are only a handful of tech brands out there that your average, non-Silicon Valley person knows. (Matt and NorthernVoice attendees are not your average person.)
And we have to be super careful to ask ourselves if we’re naming a product or a feature. The MP3 store - that’s a feature, not a new product. The product is Amazon. The new feature is a portion of the site that sells MP3s. It doesn’t deserve a new brand name. And they already sell CDs. Anything like Amazon Music or Amazon Tunes would just cause consumer confusion. (I would hope that they did some focus groups on this to back up the decision.) And it would cost a lot of money to get brand recognition for the non-Amazon name.
Procter & Gamble doesn’t just mean laundry detergent anymore. Maybe once Amazon’s been around as long as P&G (and have the soap money), they’ll find that they’re going into many verticals and need to diversify their branding. But until then, they just need to conquer going from Amazon=online store to Amazon= personal store.
I think Automattic should be careful when naming their products, keeping a more holistic view of what they’re offering. Down the road you might have some brand architecture issues. And just because something has “press” in its name doesn’t mean that it came from Automattic, but other people may use it to catapult their product. This might cause you some issues down the road. You don’t have a trademark on “Press”. And we’ve seen other products using it already. bbPress might be better off being called WordPress BB.
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Tags: branding, marketing
