Cheque This Out

My frustration with the global banking system reached a new peak today.

It all began two weeks ago, when I had to order new cheques for the Pub. We had a change of mailing address, because of our move last year, and I was finally getting around to ordering new cheques with the correct address. I went to the Scotiabank and dropped off a sample cheque with the new address information, and they said that they’d take care of it. A week later, my new set of cheques arrived in the mail. Easy.

A few days later, I noticed that my cheques at the Olive Branch were also out-of-date from the move to a new address there eighteen months ago (ok, so I’m a little behind in my work right now). I decided to get new cheques there too, and while I was at it, I figured I should also order payroll cheques, which come on a different type of paper.

I took the cheques to the bank and dropped them off with an explanation of the required address change. A few days later, I got a phone call – the bank couldn’t order them for some reason, because the Davis & Henderson (cheque printing company) website was down, and I’d have to call in the order myself on their toll-free number. I went to the bank the next morning to pick up the blanks that I had dropped off, so I had all the correct account info to work with when I placed the order. No luck – the bank had accidentally shipped my void sample cheques off to Halifax, but I could get them back next week.

So this morning, I picked up the cheques after their vacation in Nova Scotia. I called the David & Henderson customer care number. I started off with the payroll cheques, and got them re-ordered with a relatively low number of questions. They actually had our old order on file, so they knew which number to start off with, and the color of the cheques and everything. They said that they’d have to FAX me a form to confirm the change of address, which I would need to take to the bank to get signed. I don’t have a FAX - that's outdated technology, and everyone should be scanning and PDF'ing these days. So they agreed to email it. I went to check email, and the internet was down. I called back to ask if they could re-send the email to a different address, so I could go down to the University to print it out and deal with the problem. They said that they had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to explain the problem to the lady on the phone, and she said that what I was trying to do was impossible, because those cheques have to be ordered directly by the bank and customers can't order over the phone. At this point, I tried to refrain from screaming. I was only moderately successful.

Eventually, after another visit to the bank, the girls down there were able to help me out, and assured me that my cheques would arrive soon. I’m not holding my breath. Oh, and by the way, the cost for all these new cheques? A bit over $600. SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS.

For any of you would-be entrepreneurs out there, I would strongly recommend that you change your mind and look for a less frustrating career, like teaching cats how to do synchronized swimming.


ETA, September 15th: I just got a call from Davis and Henderson. They said that they just got a call from ScotiaBank, trying to order more cheques for me. The bank wasn't allowed to do it without authorization from me. Unbelievable.

Splitting the DJ Bolivia Blog into Two Blogs

Starting effective immediately, DJ Bolivia will be splitting his blog into two separate blogs - one for music and one for personal thoughts.

Because of the popularity of DJ Bolivia's fan page, it makes sense to have one blog, Soporific Airs, feed to the Facebook page. That blog will deal exclusively with music-related posts.

Any personal posts will remain confined to the previous blog, From The Ridiculous To The Sublime, which will continue to be viewable to the general public and which will also feed specifically to Jonathan Clark's personal Facebook profile page.

DJ Bolivia Career Changes

[Voy a tratar a incluir traducciones en espanol después del inglés, abajo de esta página].

Hey everybody,

This is a very exciting time for me I’ve decided to pursue my music career (as a DJ & producer) more seriously in the near future. Right now, as many of you know, I have several jobs - bartending, restaurant, and silviculture. I’m going to try to separate myself from a couple of them over the next eight to twelve months, to give myself a lot more time to work on song-writing, DJ’ing, producing, and video projects. So here's a brief look at what's happening or about to happen:

First, I just set up a fan page on Facebook a few days ago. The initial response has been absolutely overwhelming, and I’d really like to thank my many friends who have signed up as fans. My challenge now will be to keep adding fresh content to that page.

For the next four weeks, I’m still working at my job on Canada’s West Coast, supervising a camp of tree planters. I love the job – it’s healthy, it’s good for the environment, and it gives me a good tan. I always feel like I’m incredibly good health at the end of every summer, thanks to this job. And as you can see from the photo below, which I took earlier this afternoon on a cut block that we were replanting, the scenery is absolutely beautiful. You'd never want to work in an office again. You can see another of our blocks at the base of the mountain across the valley:





During the next month, while I’m still planting, I can’t do a lot of music-related work. However, I plan to be doing some filming of DJ Dan and Dave Dresden on July 3rd in Calgary, for video projects that I’m working on for each of them. I'll have those videos available for the public in mid-August. I’ll also have photo galleries of that night’s show available in early July.

In August, I return to the studio, both to work on DJ mixes and self-produced tracks that I’ve written. To give you a sneak preview, I think that I might put up a blog post in a week or two about some of the tracks that I’m working on, with either lyrics or vocal samples as a teaser. I’m also planning to start a regular progressive house/trance radio show, which I’m going to call the "Five O’Clock Cock Block" show (I kid you not). I’ve also been asked to do guest mixes for a couple of other well-known radio shows, which I’ll tackle as soon as I get back home.

For upcoming shows this summer and fall, I’ve got confirmed dates in Las Vegas, Seattle, Toronto and most Atlantic Canadian cities, and I am tentatively planning shows in Buenos Aires, Australia, and Japan this fall or winter, if time permits.

So that’s what you can expect from DJ Bolivia in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy your summer and keep checking my fan page and website, especially after August 1st.



Hola a todos,

Primero, permítanme a disculparme por mi español malo, tengo mucho que aprender.

Este es un momento que es muy importante para mi, porque he decidido dedicarme a mi carrera musical (como DJ y productor) mas seriamente en un futuro muy cercano. En este momento, como muchos de ustedes saben, tengo muchos trabajos – a el bar, el restaurante y la silvicultura. Voy a tratar de separarme de algunos de ellos durante los próximos ocho a doce meses, para poder tener mas tiempo para la composición de canciones, mezclando música, produciendo y proyectos de video. Entonces aquí esta una breve mirada a lo que esta pasando y lo que esta por pasar.

Primero, hace algunos días lance una fan page en facebook. Los resultados iníciales estan muy excelente, y yo quiero dar las gracias a todos mis amigos que se han registrado como fans. Mi meta ahora es seguir actualizando la página con nuevos contenidos.

Por las próximas cuatro semanas, seguiré en mi trabajo en la costa oeste de Canadá, supervisando el campamento y los sembradores de arboles. Me encanta mi trabajo – es sano, es bueno para el medioambiente, y me deja con un buen broceado. Gracias a esta trabajo, yo siempre siento que mi salud esta muy bien al final de cada verano. Y como pueden ver en la foto de abajo, que tome hace un rato en uno de las zonas de corte que estamos reforestando, la vista es absolutamente hermosa. Ustedes nunca querrían trabajar en una oficina nunca más. Se puede apreciar otra de las áreas de trabajo en la base de la montaña al otro lado del valle:





Durante el próximo mes, mientras sigo sembrando, no tengo mucho tiempo para hacer trabajo relacionado con la música. Sin embargo, tengo planeado filmar a DJ Dan y Dave Dresden el 3 de Julio en Calgary, para algunos video proyectos en los que estoy trabajando para cada uno de ellos. Los videos van a estar disponibles a mediados de Agosto. También voy a tener galerías de fotos de esa noche disponibles a principios de Julio.

En Agosto, vuelvo al estudio, para trabajar en mezclas y canciones producida que yo mismo escribí. Para darle un pequeño adelanto, creo que voy a publicar en el blog en una semana o dos algunas de las canciones en las que estoy trabajando, con sus respectivas palabras o ejemplos vocales. También estoy planeando empezar un programa de radio de house progresivo y trance, el cual voy a llamar el "Five O’Clock Cock Block" show (no se como se dice en espanol). También me han ofrecido hacer mezclas para algunas de programas de muy conocidos como invitado, de los cuales me encargare apenas vuelva a mi casa.

Para próximos eventos en el verano y el otoño, tengo fechas confirmadas en Las Vegas, Seattle, Toronto y la mayoría de las ciudades de la costa Atlántica de Canadá, y estoy planeado algunos proyectos tentativos con una amiga en Buenos Aires, Australia y Japón para el otoño y el invierno, mientras el tiempo lo permita.

Entonces esto es lo que pueden esperar de DJ Bolivia en un futuro muy cercano. Mientras tanto disfruten de su verano y sigan visitando mi fan page y mi pagina web, especialmente después del primero de agosto.

Me disculpo por mi malo español, y le agradezco por escuchar mí. Hasta pronto ...

www.djbolivia.ca

Armin van Buuren Photos

This past Sunday night, I got a chance to see Armin van Buuren in Halifax, Nova Scotia, courtesy of Underdog Productions. I wasn’t actually playing on the bill that night, I just went to relax and take some photos. It was my first night using a new camera (a basic Canon XSi digital SLR), but I managed to get a few decent shots. Here's the link:

http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_armin2009a.html

I owe a big thanks to Armin for being so accommodating with the photography.



Armin has been ranked by DJ Mag as the #1 DJ in the world for the past couple of years. To lend credence to this assessment, consider this: his signature A State Of Trance radio show is listened to by thirty million fans - every single week. Wow. I’ve had my website online for about seven years and I’ve only had around fifteen thousand mixes directly distributed during that time (although I’m sure with pass-alongs, the number is probably a lot higher).

Armin is Dutch. He’s got a law degree, but wanted to give up that career to pursue his love of music. He’s a producer, who has a number of huge hits, both as singles and from the several albums that he has self-produced. He doesn’t use an engineer – he does all of his own production work. He loves his fans, and is always happy to sign autographs and shake hands at the end of his shows.

Some of Armin's well-known hits include Love You More, Blue Fear, Exhale, This World Is Watching Me, Communication, In And Out Of Love, Burned With Desire, Serenity, and Yet Another Day (and a few of the older tracks in this list have only been officially released on YouTube very recently, so they haven't had a lot of views yet). But that's only a very short list of tracks that I could quickly find videos for. For a full look at his portfolio, check out Discogs. The list of work that he has produced is simply staggering.

Check out his website at www.arminvanbuuren.com

Subterranean Homesick Grooves

I just put together a new DJ mix earlier this week, which is now available on my website and MySpace page. Sadly, it's the first mix that I've done in, oh, about a year and a half.

Actually, that's a bit of a misrepresentation. I put this mix together at the end of last summer, around August 24th. I was almost finished and about to put it online, but then I suddenly got distracted with my bar moving into a new building, and the constant headaches and 18-hour days for the next couple of months kept me from getting around to spending the last hour that I needed or so to put it online. Anyway, I just remembered it recently, so I re-recorded it on Tuesday morning to tidy it up, and now it's done. I also kind of regret using the "Looking At The Stars" title for my last mix. Considering the "stars" and "angels" themes of some of the songs on this mix, the titles should have been reversed for my last two mixes. Oh well, too late now - I didn't realize when recording "Looking At The Stars" that there would be several great star-themed songs coming through the pipeline so quickly.

The mix is not the type of music that I'd play in a club, yet it is a great mix of electronica tracks to listen to in your car or warming up for a party. None of these tracks are particularly new (obviously, they're all from the summer of 2008 or slightly earlier) but I found a really good group to mix together. There are several tracks on this mix with female vocals that just blow me away.

Here's a track listing:

01. Solarstone, "Rain Stars Eternal" [Original Mix].
02. High Torque, "Sparks" [Original Mix].
03. Morgan Page feat Norah Jones, "Angels" [Morgan Page Remix].
04. Boza, "Twisted Mind" [Alex Celler Tech Dub].
05. Cream Sound, "Always" [Stereotip Edit].
06. Python, "Expectation" [4Mal Premonition Remix].
07. R-Tem, "Cloud Of Sound" [Natlife Nu School Remix].
08. Kenshin, "Afraid."
09. Bolivia feat Mike Allison, "When I Grow Old" [Prince Avitar Electro Aftershow Vocal Mix].
10. Section 75 feat Penny, "Locked Heart" [Lynx Remix].

If I had to pick a favorite track from this mix, I couldn't. Maybe "Twisted Mind" or "Angels," but it's so hard to choose because there are so many good ones. Also, this is the notably the first time that I've ever put one of the songs that I've written myself onto one of my mixes - that needs to start happening a lot more later this year.

Anyway, thanks to the headaches at my bar, I've been pretty delinquent when it comes to music lately, however, I'm going to try to fix that in the next few weeks. I've got shows in Moncton & Saint John coming up in a week and a half, then two or three shows in Seattle the following week, then I'm on a bill with DJ Dan in early March. I also hope to get a few more mixes together this spring, before the summer hits. And of course, now that I have more time to catch up on my life, I have a backlog of other projects that I want to tackle in the coming weeks, including some long overdue video promos for DJ's such as Dave Dresden, Josh Gabriel, & Heavygrinder.







Anyway, my apologizes to Bob Dylan, and I hope you enjoy some Subterranean Homesick Grooves ...

Stupid To The Last Drop

When I first learned about Stupid to The Last Drop, by William Marsden, I knew that I had to read it. Not only did it relate to the oil and gas industry, it specifically focused on part of Canada. And even better, it was about Alberta, a province where I work every summer. In fact, I work in the oil fields (although I work for forestry companies, not for the energy industry). And saying that I work in “the oil fields” is probably misleading or non-instructive, since just about the entire province qualifies for this descriptor.

The product description for this book gives you a good idea of what it’s all about: “In its desperate search for oil and gas riches, Alberta is destroying itself. As the world teeters on the edge of catastrophic climate change, Alberta plunges ahead with uncontrolled development of its fossil fuels, levelling its northern Boreal forest to get at the oil sands, and carpet-bombing its southern half with tens of thousands of gas wells. In so doing, it is running out of water, destroying its range land, wiping out its forests and wildlife and spewing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, adding to global warming at a rate that is unrivalled in Canada or almost anywhere else in the world. It’s digging, drilling and blasting its way to oblivion, becoming the ultimate symbol of Canada’s – and the world’s – pathological will to self-destruct.” Well, at least there is no misunderstanding of the author’s opinion about what’s happening in Alberta.

This book is not really focused on peak oil issues, although it touches on them. Rather, it is more written as a hard look at the current state of the industry, and mismanagement of the existing resources. The book has several separate sections which didn’t necessarily flow into one another, but which rather should be looked at as separate aspects of Alberta’s past and current history:

Thermonuclear Oil Extraction – believe it or not, in the late 1950’s, geologist Manley Natland proposed a plan to extract oil from the sands by detonating nuclear bombs under the sands, allowing them to collapse and collect into a spherical reservoirs, for easier extraction. Ironically, the science behind the plan was quite sound, although Natland was fairly dismissive of the consequences of radiation. The proposal was almost carried through, with the US government selling a test nuclear device to a Canadian company, and the federal and provincial government appeare to endorse the experiment until Diefenbaker’s Conservative government turned the tables by banning nuclear testing on Canadian soil.

The Importance Of The Oil Sands – the Canadian/US energy relationship is discussed, and a number of external international implications are brought into light, in an effort to explain the importance of Canada’s supplies of oil and natural gas. The book makes clear the value of oil to the United States, and talks about NAFTA and GATT implications.

Provincial Politics In Oil – a few chapters are devoted to Jeff Tonkin and a slew of Alberta O&G industry scandals including Stampeder Energy, Westar Petroleum, and Big Bear Exploration. I generally found these chapters to be pretty irrelevant and boring.

Reserve Depletion – everyone knows that fossil fuels will run out someday. Former Geological Survey of Canada geologist has speculated that Canada’s natural gas reserves could run out by 2014, if not earlier. “We have to drill an increasing number of gas wells just to keep up with demand. In 1996 we drilled four thousand productive wells to get 15.7 billion cubic feet per day of gas. By 2001 we were drilling 10,757 wells to get 17.4 billion cubic feet per day. These drilling figures have continued to rise. In 2005 we drilled fifteen thousand wells to get 17 billion cubic feet per day. Coal Bed Methane, which is another form of natural gas, was supposed to be the savior … [Hughes] came out with figures that showed recoverable gas was … enough to replenish our reserves for maybe another eight years at most.” This section made me want to re-read “High Noon For Natural Gas.”

Fort McMurray – there is all sorts of discussion about “Fort Mac” and the municipality of Wood Buffalo. Fort McMurray has suffered immensely with the problems that face any boom town with a rapidly expanding population and an inability to develop supporting infrastructure in a timely manner. What surprised me was the relatively low financial support levels that O&G companies in the area provide to the municipality. I would have thought that they would want to contribute a lot more funding to improving the city, because of the dividends that it would pay off in managing their work forces more effectively.

Contamination Of The Environment – there are several chapters devoted to groundwater contamination, the deleterious effects of drilling and “frac’ing” wells, and the general environmental destruction that the O&G industry is causing. Specific references have been made to the Rosebud River Valley’s water well contamination problems (water so saturated in combustible chemicals and gases that it will support combustion, right out of household taps), and Wiebo Ludwig, the “oil patch terrorist” who bombed sour gas wells in 1998 due to his belief that they were harming his family.


All in all, the subjects are fairly disjointed, but appropriately, the book has been segmented somewhat into different sections. Being able to identify with a large number of the locations discussed, and the “grass roots” implications of the problems identified, I found this book to be a pretty interesting personal read. However, the book doesn’t seem to have any real editorial “conclusion” to it. At the end of the day, I got less of a sense of “so much for a sustainable future” and more of a sense that “you can’t mess with oil & gas.” I think the book would have benefited from a final chapter that discussed how readers or Albertans could take specific steps to improve the future of the province. Nonetheless, I was glad that I took the time to read it, and I did learn quite a bit in doing so.

Using A Seatbelt

I drive around quite a bit. Between my various jobs, I probably rack up about fifty thousand kilometers a year. Not nearly as much as a full-time truck driver, but it adds up. In my lifetime, I’ve definitely driven more than a million kilometers. And I’m quite proud to say that until yesterday, my driver’s abstract was completely clean and free of tickets or violations or accidents.

I’m a pretty big supporter of the use of seatbelts. The simple fact is that they frequently save peoples’ lives in major accidents, and they also prevent a lot of injuries in minor fender-benders. In my job supervising the camp of tree planters, I have about ten to twelve trucks on the road any given summer, driven predominantly by young males in their early twenties, driving large pickups on dangerous dirt logging roads. It’s a recipe for disaster. I try to force all of my employees to wear belts all the time, because the odds are that some of these vehicles will get into accidents. Over the years, my camp has completely written off about nine trucks. Several of my employees have been killed, although our track record has improved greatly in the past ten years or so. But even this summer, we had a roll-over for the first time in over a decade. Luckily, all five occupants of the truck were wearing their seatbelts, and all five got out without a scratch.

Anyway, last March, I got a ticket in Sackville for not wearing a seatbelt. It was a strange set of circumstances (I’ll explain in a minute). Since I was working out west all summer, my court date wasn’t until yesterday. I wanted to fight the ticket. When I got to court, the crown prosecutor suggested that I plead guilty. He said that if I did that, I could probably get out of the fine completely although the ticket would still go on my driving record. He also said that if I did contest the charge, the judge would have to impose a minimum fine but could alternatively charge a higher fine at her discretion (seems reasonable, as it probably would cover court costs). But I’m stubborn, so I decided that the principles were more important than the money.

I got up on the stand and told the judge what happened. I had been driving at the time (past the RCMP station, ironically) and stopped at the stop sign at the end of that street. My cell phone started to ring, while it was in my jeans pocket. I had my belt on. I looked in the rear-view mirror and there was nobody behind me, and since the car was stopped, I figured that I could answer it. I took my seatbelt off (partly) so I could dig my phone out of my pocket. As I was about to answer it, an RCMP cruiser drove past me around the corner. I had heard something in the news about it being illegal to use a cell in a vehicle, or that such a law was on the verge of going into effect, so I got worried and put the phone back down so the officer wouldn’t see me and give me a ticket. She drove by, then I put my belt back on, then started driving again.

A minute later, I got pulled over. The officer had turned around and chased me down (well, it was only about a block and a half away). I figured that I was either in trouble for the cell phone or maybe my registration stickers were expired. I was a bit startled when she said that she was pulling me over for the seatbelt, but of course, it immediately made sense. So off to court I went.

The judge found me guilty, despite the circumstances. I wasn’t really surprised, but as I said, I had to fight it on the principle of the matter. The judge reminded me that she could have fined me a higher amount, but graciously kept it at the minimum. She appeared to be a bit sorry about the matter. The RCMP officer also appeared to be a bit embarrassed, and had been extremely polite when she was on the stand. I didn’t really care about the fine ($172.50) but I was frustrated that I still got the points assigned against my license.

So much for the clean driving record. I now feel like a criminal. I guess that the moral of the story is that you should always wear your selt belt. And of course, don’t answer your cell phones while you’re in a vehicle.

PS: If any of the employees from the Town of Sackville happen to read this, please register my disapproval of the large tree at the west end of Union Street, which makes it almost impossible for drivers to see traffic coming from the north end of Salem. Somebody should cut that tree down. If I had been able to see the traffic coming more than twenty feet away, I probably would not have gotten this ticket. Half of the people in town hate that tree because it blocks the view of the road.

Lehman Brothers in Bankruptcy Protection

A year ago, there was an unobtrusive item in the news about the Bear Sterns mortgage hedge fund crisis. I wrote about that when it first happened, because although it didn't make the major news at the time, it was something that conspiracy theorists quickly jumped upon as the "straw that would break the camel's back" and finally expose the underlying weaknesses of the US financial system. Little did I know just how right they were.

Last week, the US government intervened to prop up Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two mortgage giants who hold almost half of the mortgages in the United States. Quite simply, the government could not allow them to fail.

A few hours ago, Lehman Brothers filed for Bankruptcy Protection in New York. The global financial implications of this are staggering. Lehman is a giant - a firm that is more than 150 years old, and an integral part of Wall Street. The company recently listed its assets as being worth almost $700 billion dollars. Yes, that's billion with a Big B, not million. Compare that to the assets of something like MicroSoft - about $72 billion. Yes, they are different types of companies and assets, but you get the picture. Lehman is/was Big League.

Then, shortly after that bombshell, another press release just notified the world that the Bank of America, after failing to come to a deal to rescue Lehman (as many had hoped), is going to buy Merrill Lynch (another Goliath) in a deal valued at $50 billion. There is little doubt that today, September 15th, is going to be one of the most gut-wrenching days in history for global financiers.

On a positive note, the Federal Reserve is taking extraordinary measures to try to calm markets. They have been wary of intervening too directly, after they got involved in the Bear Sterns mess and were highly criticized. But they are taking behind-the-scenes steps to steady the markets, through changes in debt collateralization rules. But even so, I doubt that they can have as much of an impact as they would like. Today is a holiday in Asia, so the Asian markets are closed, but Europe opens shortly, and when Wall Street opens, some financial analysts are predicting a bloodbath. A lot of people might shrug and say, "Who cares?" but the bottom line is that the fallout from this weekend's events will send ripples through the global economy for months and possibly years to come.

And don't think that this is the end of it. More American banks are going to fail in the next year. The economy will get worse. With the run-up to the American presidential election in November, chances are that the economy will enjoy a temporary two-month "grace period" where the shocks aren't as bad as they could have been, but 2009 looks like it could be a very ugly year. We'll see large jumps in businesses scaling back operations or folding, large jumps in unemployment, and rapidly rising food and gas prices at the same time to deal a double-blow to everyone. The worsening American debt crisis is reaching a global tipping point. It's not just mortgages and energy, it's the entire financial system that is not-so-slowly collapsing. As I've said before, America is an empire in steep decline. As Ernest Hemingway said in 1932, ""The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but brace yourselves ...

ETA, 15 hours later: The Dow Jones dropped over 500 points today (biggest point drop since 9/11), the TSX dropped over 500 points today, and other markets around the world are also reeling. In the US, my bet is that Washington Mutual will be the next giant to fall.

Google Turns Ten

Ten years ago today, Google was incorporated as a company. At the time, it didn't appear to have much for assets: a $100,000 bank account, four computers, and the ingenuity of its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. However, since then, Google has gone into the history books as being the fastest growing company in history (taking in $20 billion in revenue this year).

Google's search engine has always been the core product for the company, but as any computer geeks know, Google has expanded into many other niches – Adwords/Adsense advertising, GIS offerings with Google Earth and Google Maps, the purchase of YouTube, free Gmail email accounts for the world, and hundreds of other examples. In fact, Google has become so ubiquitous that it has become the de facto standard for people trying to check if their internet connections are working. If Google doesn't come up, the internet must not be working.

However, it isn't what Google has accomplished in the past that is important, it's what it will accomplish in the future. Management at Google have some pretty lofty goals:
- Digitizing copies of all of the world's books.
- Further improvements to its search engine, so it can fully understand questions in "plain human language."
- Providing software to businesses over the internet.
- Fully extending their data platforms and applications to cell and other mobile devices.
- Leading the change from fossil fuel reliance to alternative energy sources (this one seems to be a bit of a tangent, but do some research, and you'll be surprised at some of the investments that Google has made).

The company is not without a sense of humour. For its IPO several years ago, it picked a seemingly random number to value as its initial float - $2,718,281,828. Wall Street scratched their heads. Geeks everywhere instantly recognized this number as "e" – the complex number that represents the natural logarithm. And if you go to the Google Pranks page on Wikipedia, you can read about a lot of their other practical jokes and April Fool's Day pranks. One of my favourites was the fake "Google Romance" application in 2006. Their splash screen introduction was a classic: "Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance." And of course, another classic joke happened on April Fool's day this year, when Google rickrolled the world.

Happy Birthday, Google! And happy birthday to my nephew, Evan, who also turned ten on Friday.

The OhMiBod Vibrator

Watching the growth of the iPod over the past several years, it’s been amazing to see just how pervasively it has entered and affected many peoples’ lives. And speaking of “pervasive entry,” I’m going to introduce a neat little iPod accessory today that some girls have already heard of: the OhMiBod.

The OhMiBod is a vibrator that hooks up to your iPod. Turn on the music, and the unit pulses to the beat. What could be more simple? For the girls who enjoy music, and who also enjoy sex, this is definitely a winning combination.

I meant to write about this several months ago, but I got distracted at the time. However, the well-known vocalist Marcie emailed me last night about something else, and it reminded me of a certain OhMiBod commercial, since she did the vocals for the music in the commercial:

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6oYmSG-ccs



If you want to buy the track that accompanies the commercial above, here’s what to search for:

Tyler Michaud feat Marcie – Dirty Girl (System Recordings, 2007).

Beatport has a package of five different remixes available – search for Tyler Michaud and then go through his library.

I’ve gotten some feedback from female friends of mine who use the OhMiBod. It’s been suggested that albums like Madonna and Nine Inch Nails are good. Music that has some variation is more interesting, so house or trance music with a straight four-four beat wouldn’t be that great. But some heavy drum ‘n’ bass music might be very stimulating. The volume of the iPod controls the strength of the vibrations. Music that has been heavily compressed with a hard limiter would have an almost constant output, so tracks that have been compressed that way wouldn’t be that great. Of course, if you aren’t intimately familiar with music production, you’d have no idea what that means, and it would be tricky to sum it up here so I won’t bother. I’ll just say that sticking to classic rock would provide much more variation than heavily over-produced dance music. As far as the product itself, one of my friends said, "It’s obviously very much a novelty vibrator, and does not really compare to the more 'complex' ones such as the Jack Rabbit, but in comparison to other vibrators, the power is great. The different pulses are very interesting - teasing perhaps."

And if this isn’t enough to intrigue you, check out the company’s new vibrator that attaches to your cell phone. It’s designed to add a whole new dimension to phone sex …