This has been a week for media events.

Bobs and Lolo, to whom we are related, had several media appearances this week. They were on the CTV morning show http://bc.ctvnews.ca/ctv-morning-live . This appearance included them performing a couple of songs and dealing with what we’ve come to call “that kid in the pink shirt” who got a bit too into dancing to the music. He flailed around wildly, at other moments he was laying on his back kicking, then grabbing at Bobs and Lolo's ankles,  kicking them and yes he even threw a shoe at one point. Reminds me as to why I try to avoid dealing with kids if at all possible. The other interesting part was when they introduced Mario Vaira (my nephew who does the musical arrangements for Bobs & Lolo) as “Mary-o Viera”. A truly cringeworthy moment. (Note: CTV doesn’t let us link directly to the videos so you’ll have to dig a bit. As of this moment the video is on page four.) The next day Bobs and Lolo appeared on the CBC Radio Show, On The Coast which went much better. http://www.cbc.ca/onthecoast/past-episodes/ They even pronounced everyone’s name correctly. It’s the February 7th Episode and they appeared at the very end so you only have to listen to the last five or so minutes of the show. Lastly Saturday morning they appeared on GlobalTV (http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/bobs+++lolo/video.html?v=2333486435#guests). This one went much better, no funny names, no psycho kids, and a direct link to the video.

Many of you may remember the classic bit of Canadian literature, Anne of Green Gables. It’s a story about a little red haired girl living on a farm on Prince Edward Island in the beginning of the 20th century. It seems that Amazon is selling an “unauthorized” collection of the Anne stories. The stories themselves are unchanged. This isn’t like Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters, or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. No, the big controversy comes from the cover featuring a blonde (!) 20 something (?) pin-up girl (?!?).  http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2013/02/anne-of-green-gables-goes-blonde-in-unauthorized-new-edition.html A great deal of ink has been spilt both actual and on the internet over this “abomination” and “affront to Canadian culture”. I have to admit that to me, it does seem a bit like having Shaq on the cover of The Hobbit.

Here’s a bit of silliness from BC. It seems that a mother in Victoria got a phone call from her daughter. When she answered it all she heard was screaming. In a panic she called 911, but when they traced the phone down they found nothing amiss. It seems the daughter had bumped the phone and accidentally dialled her mother while she was watching a horror movie. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/02/08/bc-pocket-dial-911.html Another good reason to have a full shell case for your phone.

I heard something on CBC Friday morning that made me laugh. They were doing a consumer report on the high cost of hearing aids. Near the end they said: 
"Of course prices will vary. You can get a Cadillac or a Volkswagen and it will affect the cost. You can get just a simple basic hearing aid or you can spend a lot more and go with one with all the bells and whistles."
You know, I’m not sure, but somehow I don't think I’d WANT a hearing aid that has bells and whistles on it. In fact, I kinda think I'd want as little belling and whistling as possible. I'd even expect them to charge MORE for a hearing aid just because it was guaranteed not to bell or whistle. I guess it was a bad metaphor morning.

A bit of news on the computer front. If any of you have an Apple touch screen device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) and want to see something amazing you might try a little app called MyScript Calculator. You enter an equation by just writing on the screen with your finger and it converts it to standard text and solves the equation. It supports trig functions, log functions, roots, powers, and I don't know what else. I've been amazed by how accurate it is. It even lets you enter a formula and then add to it or correct it and it will make the change automatically. I was going to include a screen shot but it's so fast at converting my messy on-screen handwriting into a legible, typed equation that all I can get is a perfect typed formula. If you have any interest in math, or even just fun apps (OK the fact I'm impressed and think this is fun makes me a total geek) give it a shot. It's in the AppStore and it's free. 

Tomorrow is a holiday up here. BC Family Day. It’s a new holiday this year and it’s nice to have a break in the dead of winter. OK we’ve not had as bad a time as they have had back east. They’re just digging out from the big storm that hammered Ontario, Quebec, New England, The Maritimes, and Newfoundland, and of course today another big storm is hitting Minnesota. We haven’t had anything like that but it has been nippy here on the odd morning. It is nice to have a bit of winter break. 

Doug & Marsha

PIX: Fan Mail! We got these thank you letters from the Kindergarten and First Grade classes. They seem to have been impressed with the little song and dance we did on fossils. I was especially impressed by the one that said "You and Doug ar good dinosaur".  It is a little sad to realize though that some of the first graders have better handwriting than I do.



One last bit of computer news. This week at work we got this. It looks like your average 22" LCD monitor right? Well it's actually a 22" touchscreen tablet. It's running Android, has all the Android functions, has WiFi built in, and all sorts of other bells and whistles (there's that phrase again). We got nothing done Friday because we spent the day "evaluating" the new device. A week ago nobody knew what we were going to do with this thing the Manager wanted us to order. After Friday just about every department wants one or more and some are talking about replacing older desktop PCs with these. Addendum: After testing this for a week we found that most of our software won't run, much that will run is slow because it's quite underpowered. It's going to Sales for use in trade shows and we'll go back to what I wanted to look at, normal 10" tablets that DO have enough power.