Category: General

Because every post deserves a category these posts could be about anything and everything.

My first job was a Credit Card Telemarketer

Question: What industry ushered you into the workforce? Describe your first work experience. How long did you last? My first job as was as a credit card telemarketer for $9/hour. It seemed like a good job at first. The training also seemed very decent. Then shortly after things started to change quickly. It was the Easter long weekend coming up, and they were offering overtime for I think it was Good Friday but it was for a different bank, and credit product, with a different script and a much different “terminal” interface. Just as an aside, most people called them DOS screens just because it was all keyboard operated and text-based. Some people are just totally wrong, and non-technical. Getting back on track, after the weekend ended there was a push on leads for this other bank and since I had done it for a day I was kept on the new campaign and was expected to have results on the leads with out the proper training on the program, just three sheets of paper. To make it worse, just as soon as I was catching on, I got thrown back and forth between the two very different credit card…

I Wish I Were Fluent In French, German, Italian and heck Venician

I have tried many times to try a new language but it is very difficult unless you can immerse yourself in it for a month or two. Despight the fact that learning to speak French much much better would help me find a more decent job, the language I would really love to be able to speak is German. I personally find German one of the most important sounding languages in the world. There is something in the sound of it that makes it feel familure and noble. I also love how they construct larger word putting smaller ones together. I would also live to hang out in a platz over a piaza. That being said Italian would also be cool and more specifically Venician. Venice is one very amazing place that you can very easily lose yourself in.

“Immoral but not Illegal”

Apparently my site traffic has dropped a fair bit in the last few months. This past week has been one of the craziest news weeks that I can remember in quite some time. Four elections, a new premier, a shady closed meeting of the public accounts committee in Ottawa. The Europe economy teetering beyond hope. The City of Saint John not having a clue how to fix its self with the pension. Sarah Palin announcing that she won’t run again, and overshadowed by the death of Steve Jobs that no one really head or cared. But among all that the things that stood out the most happened on Thursday. US President Barack Obama in responding to why the US Wall Street executives that killed the global economy were not jailed for what they done responded with; “what they done was immoral but not illegal.” It is pretty bad when a few can make over a hundred million people worldwide homeless and unemployed. Then be bailed out by every reserve of money available on this planet then… nothing happens. Added note: I had received a comment that it was unclear but, the point I was trying to make was that no…

It is Here!

Although it does not officially happen until tomorrow at 2:16pm; with the look of today’s weather the last day of Spring should be cancelled. So here goes… I now proclaim today Summer! (For those down-under you can still wait until tomorrow for Winter.)

This is crazy, Unions need to go.

This morning I heard the following story on the radio and was practically outraged by what I was hearing. Basically, the Government of Saskatchewan is offering a reasonable 6% pay increase to all the teachers, but the lousy blood-sucking unions are demanding 16%. In addition, who is going to feel bad for these teachers, 6% will make them some of the highest paid in the entire country. Even if the Government is able to pay this amount they should not give in. The money should go to offer better supplies for learning, libraries, I would even hire actual fitness trainers than give in to the greedy unions. I think that this country would be much better served banning unions from the public service.

Maybe I was Wrong

For the better part of my life I always considered nuclear power to be incredibly clean and efficient way to produce a lot of power. With the recent earthquake to hit Japan and Fukushima, perhaps it is now time to consider something else. The question is what else? The thought of going back to burning coal, oil, or even worse Orimulsion. Then there is wind power that kills birds, bats, honey bees, and causes hearing damage. Hydro-electric power that kills the eco-system of a river upstream, even if provisions were made not to. Solar? The sun will come out tomorrow but not today and are very inefficient to have reliable energy in short winter days. I think the most important factor is that although we believe it can be safe, what if nature makes it go wrong. Canadian reactors are supposed to be certified for expected levels of seismic activity. But expected and reality can be different. Like the old expression “Shit Happens”.

The Times They Are A Changin’

A few year’s back I got reconnected to a classic piece of music; Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A Changin’”. Back then was in March 2005. I was a young political supporter taking by first trip by train to Montréal, for the 1st Conservative Party of Canada policy and constitution convention. Back then I thought we were doing something new a great. The vision of make a new party from scratch. Also, strengthening up the constitution to make it more fair and accountable. Fast forward to now six years later, and we are back to the corruption as before but the song is developing new meaning. With recent events that started in Egypt and Tunisia we are seeing once more that The Times They Are A Changin’. In hindsight, it appears that change actually happen quite rapidly. Now that it spreads fast people can compare this turning point in history to the storming Bastille. Where people’s choice takes forefront to prolonged oppression. But of greater concern is that at this point in History the current super-power the United States turns out to be broke, and not exactly globally well liked. Compare them to the Hapsburg Dynasty of Austria that…

Academy Award Predictions

Actor in a Leading Role Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech” Actor in a Supporting Role Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right” Actress in a Leading Role Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole” Actress in a Supporting Role Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom” Animated Feature Film “Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich Art Direction “Alice in Wonderland” Production Design: Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Karen O’Hara Cinematography “The King’s Speech” Danny Cohen Costume Design “I Am Love” Antonella Cannarozzi Directing “Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky Documentary (Feature) “Exit through the Gift Shop” Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz Documentary (Short Subject) “Killing in the Name” Nominees to be determined Film Editing “The Fighter” Pamela Martin Foreign Language Film “In a Better World” Denmark Makeup “The Wolfman” Rick Baker and Dave Elsey Music (Original Score) “127 Hours” A.R. Rahman Music (Original Song) “I See the Light” from “Tangled” Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater Best Picture “The King’s Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers Short Film (Animated) “Day & Night” Teddy Newton Short Film (Live Action) “God of Love” Luke Matheny Sound Editing “Tron: Legacy” Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague Sound Mixing “The Social Network” Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael…

Golden Globes 2011 Predictions

Edit: Bold predictions were correct. 8 of 25 (32%) Best Motion Picture – Drama The King’s Speech Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama Colin Firth – The King’s Speech Best Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Tied: Alice in Wonderland or The Kids Are All Right Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Emma Stone – Easy A Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Jake Gyllenhaal – Love And Other Drugs Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Amy Adams – The Fighter Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Michael Douglas – Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Best Animated Feature Film Toy Story 3 Best Foreign Language Film I Am Love (Italy) Best Director – Motion Picture David O. Russell – The Fighter Best Screenplay – Motion Picture Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko – The Kids Are All Right Best Original Score – Motion Picture Danny Elfman – Alice in Wonderland Best Original Song –…

Santa as Blackmail

In the sprit of the holiday season I would like to make this rant about the blatant misuse of Father Christmas by millions of parents world wide. Throughout this highly commercialized world of Christmas. The sweet jolly old man has gone from the symbol of joy and happiness, to be the evil judge of goodness that has in recent years has never cut any kid off that I know of. Face it people you don’t really need it! Hasn’t our generation learned yet from Disney’s The Little Mermaid that things don’t matter as much as experiences. Then again, experiences are the reason that every parent will get most kids anything they want. You may deny it but for the same reason that you all use Santa to blackmail the kids in the first place you buy them anything. You are self-centered! Using Santa as an incentive to behave provided you benefit. As much so a joy on their faces Christmas morning. So in closing, happy holidays, and get over yourself. Stop being self-centered you are not as important as me.

LED vs. LCD

This week I was looking into buying a new TV. I know for sure that I’m not looking at a plasma. When the sales representative was explaining the different TVs she started describing LED TVs as better TVs. This led to the question, isn’t a LED TV a LCD display. The answer I got was no it is better than a LCD, that it worked like a LED stop light that the LEDs change colour. This is wrong! All LED TVs are LCD TVs but all LCD TVs are not LED TVs. What is LCD? It is basically like the old fashion calculators, as an electric current hits a liquid crystal (the LC in LCD) it rotates the crystal changing the wave lengths to make a RGBK {Red, Green, Blue, and Black} (or in a few RGBYK {adds Yellow})  to the back light. Then what’s the diff? The difference is in the back-light. A TV referred to by the store as a LCD TV is in-fact a lit in the back by a fluorescent back-light. This back-light will last a ;long time but will eventually burn out.  This is similar to the monitor that you are likely reading this on, like a laptop or cell phone screen (most…

BarbBarbBarb

Like most of you my readers are aware I am a huge WordPress enthusiast. I also like to write about local Saint John affairs too. While I would like to promote a site that is local and very interesting. It is (update as of 2020 this link no longer functions). I came across this website as a suggested person to follow. (@barbbarbbarb) This site is focused on fashion and is very well written. To tie it back to WordPress this site is running on an older version of WordPress 2.8.3 and is using a modified version of Kuuler I theme made by stratus, a well-known WordPress developer. Give the site a good read I’m sure you will enjoy it. Also, next weekend is WordCamp Montreal 2010. It is going to be a blast.

Exchanging links with CEFM.ca

Quite often lately I get comments that get always mark as spam and e-mails asking permission to exchange links. Generally, the best approach is to write great content and you will get linked to. If you like content from CEFM.ca than link to it. Just remember all my content is protected by the Creative Commons license, except the portfolio which is not creative commons. I do approve and show all trackbacks to good articles that link me. I also generally check the sources in the logs of sites that refer traffic to me. Currently wordpress.org and saintjohnshawn.com are the biggest referrers. My most popular posts are my 2008 Saint John Idol photos and the NB Sports Sites List.

Community Tags

One of the best things about my website and what WordPress is capable of is the Gallery and the tagging. I used to use Gallery2 which was like fighting for the limited benefit. WordPress allows it to be so much cleaner. Since a lot is not documented well I am going to post my experiences here. The most important part of the was the plug-in Matt’s Community Tags plugin. However, I had to make extensive changes to some of the code to make it do what I want. In the interest of GPL and community here is a copy of my modified plug-in. Plug-in Info Description: Very beta, in this version the intention is for this to allow a moderated community to aid in tagging primarily photographic content, image attachments and such. This is a GPL derivative of Matt’s Community Tags version 0.3. Admin menus enhanced and the custom taxonomy improved.Version: 0.3.1Requires: WordPress Version 3.0 or aboveDownload now Note that I no longer use this plugin and my images are now strictly using built in WordPress functions with a few minor theme tweeks to display native information and I no longer tag people in the photos.