Vancouver blogger and self-proclaimed “technologist” Darren Barefoot has a lot of projects on his plate. His day job is with Capulet, but another big part of his life is with Northern Voice. For the latter, he’ll be giving a talk on blogging in February. More specifically, he’s doing a little get together to discuss “Why We Blog.” To prepare for this, he has put together a short 16 question survey for the ever expanding blogging community. If you’re a blogger, I highly encourage you to fill this quick (five minute) survey, not only for the greater good of the blogging community, but also because it gives you a chance to win an iPod shuffle. It’s no iPhone, but it only takes five minutes of your time.

Personally, I started blogging largely because I enjoy writing and wanted to eventually parlay it into a career (which I have). It was also a good excuse to showcase my writing and to promote my freelance writing business. Since then, though, I’ve gone on to meet several other bloggers (local and beyond) who I may not have connected with otherwise. Most notably, there is Ed Lau, John Chow, Dylan Duarte, and Darren Barefoot. Having your own website is not just for big companies anymore: anyone can get their hands on a blog for either very cheap or even absolutely free (Blogger, Blogspot, WritingUp, etc).

Anyways, you should definitely go fill out the survey at Whydoyoublog.com. Who knows, you might be rocking to an Apple iPod Shuffle in no time… and blogging about it too.

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It’s Sunday, and we all know what that means. FOOTBALL! Today, we will see the NFC Championship Game between the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears, the latter of which are up 16 to 7 at halftime (as I type this), but what this blog entry is going to be about is the AFC Championship Game that will follow in a couple of hours. Yet once again, the New England Patriots — led by Tom Brady — are storming into Indianapolis to take on the Colts. It’s a battle of two of the league’s most premiere quarterbacks, and if history is any indication, Peyton Manning is going to lose again. After all, Tom Brady has only lost one playoff game. Ever. Will history repeat itself? Or will the Manning curse be broken? (His brother, Eli Manning, and the New York Giants have already been knocked out of the post-season, in case you didn’t know already.)

Poor Peyton. He’s always been an exceptional player during the regular season, but he’s never been all that great of a playoff performer. I wrote about this exact same subject one year ago, when the Colts went against the eventual NFL Super Bowl XL champion Pittsburgh Steelers (a team which, incidentally, aren’t in the race for this year’s prize.

My brother says that Peyton is probably a closet prick. He says that he wishes Peyton to never win a championship. I don’t know about that, because Peyton is easily one of, if not the best quarterback in the NFL today. He’s got to make it to the big game (and win) eventually, right?

I might report back in tomorrow with my impressions of the Colts/Pats game. In the meantime, the Saints are marching back in against the Bears.

Walk into just about any video game or department store — Walmart, EB Games, whatever — and there’s a good chance that you can leave that day with a PlayStation 3, be it a 20GB or 60GB version. By contrast, it is still surprisingly difficult to get your hands on a Nintendo Wii. I guess I should feel lucky, since I grabbed one during launch week. I didn’t have a pre-order, I didn’t line up outside in the cold, I didn’t phone around like a madman. I just went to a Toys R Us, asked if they had any in stock, and sure enough, they had “a few.” Since that fateful day, I’ve enjoyed vanquishing darkness in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and beating up on screaming bunnies in Rayman Raving Rabbids, but probably where I’ve spent the most time is enjoying some virtual exercise in Wii Sports. It’s very much a pick-up-and-play kind of game, but it takes much more to master. The most enjoyable event is Bowling.

I’ve experimented with a few different strategies in Wii Sports: Bowling. Now, let me preface this by saying that I’m a pretty mediocre bowler in real life, and I’m pretty happy when I manage to break into the triple figures. By contrast, my average score in the Wii Sports version is probably about 160, with an all-time best of about 220. Goes to show you, I’m better at video games than the real thing. But what strategy seems to work the best?

In the video that I embedded below, you will see three different methods that I’ve experimented in with Wii Sports: Bowling. The first is trying to bowl it down the middle, pretty much, performing a late release to minimize the spin factor, aiming to hit just to the right of the front pin. This is my most consistent strategy and the one that I easily use the most. With the second, I put a pretty heavy right-to-left spin on the ball, release a little earlier to let the spin take effect, but put plenty of mustard on it so that it literally flies down the lane. Less consistent, but more explosive results. The third method is where I have put in the least amount of practice and it shows. It’s essentially the mirror image of the second method, producing a left-to-right fade. I’m still not all that good at controlling that spin.

What kind of Wii Sports bowler are you? Leave a comment below and share your tips, tricks, and expertise!

P.S. I still haven’t figured out for sure why one of my Wii Remotes appears to be possessed by the devil. I plan on visiting the Nintendo office in Richmond some time next week.

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It’s days like this that I appreciate working at home the most. Not only is there snow on the ground (which, up until this winter, had been quite a rarity in Vancouver), but it’s also raining. The next result is a whole lot of puddles and more than our fair share of slush. It’s gross out there, but I’m nice, warm, dry, and toasty sitting in front my laptop, watching BET music videos on television while typing up this blog entry. I wouldn’t say that everything in my life is peachy-keen (far from), but it’s days like these that I can appreciate my lot in life. My apologies to any 9-to-5ers out there that I may have offended.

Working from home isn’t for everyone, but at the same time, it’s a quickly expanding in popularity, given how much easier it is to run a small business out of your home. Countless retirees sell small trinkets online, either through their own modest websites or as eBay PowerSellers. You don’t even need to sell physical items: As local blogger John Chow put it in his Content over eCommerce article way back in May 2006, it’s a lot easier to run a content-based site than it is to actually buy and sell things. That’s why his primary venture — The Tech Zone — is so lucrative, and that’s how he gets himself into the hottest trade shows, racking up all sorts of swag.

I’m still pretty new to this whole working from home thing, taking it seriously for about a year now, but John Chow has been in the game for quite some time. He was even there raking in the dough (and suffering the consequences) during the first dot-com bubble bursting. Since then, he has gone to create his very successful Tech Zone website, as well as his more personal blog at John Chow dot Com, the latter of which I visit on a daily (or even more frequent) basis.

There, he expels all sorts of wisdom on creating content and monetizing your site, as well as keeping us all up to date on the world of Digg.com, Google Adsense, WordPress, and so on. In fact, it is through him (and Ed Lau) that I found out about AGLOCO. His advice is highly valuable and I can wholeheartedly recommend his blog to anyone looking to not only make their presence known on the internet (John Chow dot Com recently broke into the top 1000 on Technorati), but also to make a few bucks along the way. For example, John is making well over $2000 a month from his blog, the majority of which he’ll be giving to charity.

Sure, his English isn’t the best — coming across spelling and grammar errors in his posts is far from being uncommon — but those mistakes are easy to ignore. His posts are all easy to read, flow very well, and provide all sorts of useful knowledge and wisdom. He’s also known to post up his fine dining adventures and hilarious hijinks. Despite making all sorts of money (and being labeled the root of all evil by some of his friends), Mr. Chow is as down to earth a person as you’ll ever find.

Good stuff, John. You’re an inspiration to us all. Go, dot com mogul, go!

This post was part of the linkback promo that John’s got going on

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Vancouver is home to a lot of world class restaurants, offering all sorts of international (and fusion) cuisine. We’ve got some great sushi places, incredible steakhouses (Morton’s is my personal favourite), and let’s not forget about all that West Coast seafood (I recommend C and the Cannery). Problem is, some of these nicer restaurants can get pretty pricey, making it more difficult for the average person to get a tasty-taste. That’s why I’m so glad that we have Dine Out Vancouver. The promotion has been going on for a few years now, and I’ve had the chance to hit up Kettle of Fish, Gotham, Bacchus, and other great restaurants as part of this promotion. Last night, I went to Rare Restaurant, which started offering their Dine Out menu a few days early.

It’s a much smaller establishment, having only about a dozen tables or so. It’s somewhere between casual and fine dining, as there are white tablecloths and a premiere wine list, but at the same time, the atmosphere is quite alive with energy: when we arrived, the diners were chatting loudly, everyone was smiling and laughing. But as far as the food itself… I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

The glowing sign outside

Custom menus! (Reservation was under Susanne Shum)

Amuse Bouche
Smoked arctic char, endive, crispy flatbread
Tastes similar to smoked salmon, very smooth and flavourful

Pacific Oysters
pan fried ~ roasted red peppers ~ chorizo vinaigrette
Larger oyster, but not “gross” like how some bigger oysters are. Pretty standard here

Cauliflower Soup
truffles ~ lobster salad ~ smoked steelhead caviar
Lobster salad and caviar serve on wide bowl initially, cauliflower soup poured in after the fact

Veal Breast
confit ~ slow cooked savoy cabbage ~ apricots
Very small portion, flavour similar to beef stew only a touch sweeter, fruitier.

Poached Mandarin Orange with Cinnamon
A pre-dessert to get those sweet taste buds going. Certainly different

Chocolate
strawberries ~ Grand Marnier ~ Michel Cluizel Concepcion
The chocolate on the left is infused with Grand Marnier and is actually a lot lighter (in color and consistency) than it appears. The strawberry ice cream on the far right tasted very “fresh”

Guinness Pudding
anglaise ~ caramel ~ caramel ice cream
I like English-style puddings, so I was an instant fan of this warm pastry-like dessert.

Total bill for two people, including a couple of cocktails ($9 each, doubles), taxes, and 15% tip was $106.

For more about the Dine Out Vancouver promotion, which is officially being held from January 19 to February 4 at a number of Vancouver and Vancouver-area restaurants and bistros, check out the official page on the Tourism Vancouver website. I’m also going to The William Tell Restaurant next week, so look for a picture fest from there as well.

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Like, what the H? I’ve had just about every Nintendo console ever made and I’ve never run into any issues whatsoever with these video game systems, with the exception of the old school NES. Of course, that machine is almost as old as I am, and all the ancient games need is a little TLC (and for you to blow them in the bum… all the NES owners in the audience know about this apparent cure-all). I never thought that I would have any issues with my Nintendo Wii, given that it is essentially a GameCube (which I also own) on steroids. And then this happens… (Video after the jump)

Uh, yeah, like I said. What’s going on here? I’ve emailed Nintendo of America, so I’ll see what they say. Worse comes to worst, I’m going to go pay their Richmond office a visit (when the weather gets a little better, since it seems like it’s going to start snowing again). From what I can gather, there is nothing wrong the sensor bar (the other Wii Remote works just fine), nothing wrong with the gyroscopic accelerometer doo-hickeys in the Wii Remote (I can still play Wii Sports — Bowling, Tennis, etc. — without a hitch, except I have trouble choosing the right Mii and so on), and nothing wrong with the infrared-ness of the controller (in the main Wii menu, as you can see in the video above, I can move the cursor around no problem). My quick diagnosis has the directional pad being “stuck” on either left or right (I think it’s left).

There goes my impression of Nintendo being bulletproof.

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