Katie Couric on The Colbert Report

I occasionally watch The Colbert Report; the most recent episode I watched was last night's. The guest was Katie Couric of the CBS Evening News and formerly of the Today. Even though I've never watched the CBS Evening News or the Today I knew who Katie Couric was, and was somewhat aware of the media hype produced when she became the first woman to solo anchor a major network evening newscast.

Anywhoo, not knowing much more than that, I was impressed by Couric's appearance on The Colbert Report. Couric appeared relaxed, never at a loss for words, made jokes and sent zingers right back at Colbert. Colbert's interviews are usually my least favourite part of the show, but that wasn't the case this episode.

Of course, Couric's extensive media experience probably surpasses most guests' so perhaps I shouldn't have been so impressed, but I was. Exactly how impressed was I? Impressed enough to sit right down and make this post, anyway. :o)

Pi Day, 14 March

Sounds like a lot of fun--wish I could have been there. I guess there's always next year. ;o)

Pi Day celebrated, published in Nature.

Update 21 March 2007: Oops. I just remembered you'll need a subscription to read the article. Ugh.

Updated 22 March 2007:
Anywhoo, the Nature article was covering the events of Pi Day at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. You can find out more about the 2007 19th annual Pi Day celebration by following this link to the Exploratorium.

Mixed feelings

From the Vancouver Canucks official website:

Roberto Luongo collected his 39th win of the year to surpass Kirk McLean as the goaltender with the most wins in a single season when the Canucks defeated the San Jose Sharks 2-1 in overtime on Friday night.

First, it was another important win for the Canucks. Though approaching the end of the regular season in such a close race, I guess they're all important. Second, great job by Roberto Luongo, as usual. I don't think many would argue that a large part of the Canucks' success this season hasn't been because of Luongo's presence in goal. Congratulations on breaking the record in his first season with the Canucks.

So why the mixed feelings? I think it will only be until Luongo helps the Canucks make a solid run to the Stanley Cup finals that he'll have a chance at replacing Kirk McLean as my favourite Canucks goaltender. But the way things are going, I sincerely hope Luongo will stay with the Canucks long enough to break all the goaltending records.

Visitors in February 2007

Here are the top 5 visitors--listed by country--for February 2007:

1) United States,
2) Canada,
3) Australia,
4) European Union,
5) Great Britain.

I really wish I knew who/what/where "Unknown" means. Are these people who hide their IP addresses or something?

Anyway, here's the full list of visitors for February 2007. Stats for previous months can be found by following this link.

Teaching an old dog a new trick

Whenever I reply in the negative to the question, "Do you know how to ski?", I invariably get the same shocked response, "But you grew up in Vancouver!". Apparently anyone living in the Greater Vancouver Regional District and in the vicinity of Whistler is required to have at least some rudimentary skill at skiing. I wish someone had told me that before I naively moved to Vienna, Austria (arguably the land of great skiers--what could I have been thinking!?) and later to Washington DC without ever having donned ski boots.

Anywhoo, on President's Day I decided to take advantage of the holiday to finally try my hand at this alpine sport. I have to admit that part of the appeal was the opportunity and excuse to take my R32 on a cruise in to untraveled territory while at the same time make use of my Magellan Roadmate 2200T.

The Whitetail Resort is just on the other side of the Maryland state border with Pennsylvania and is a 65 mile trip from my place. It was a fun drive and I passed by two speed traps without incident. The weather was great: sunny, mostly clear skies, and it wasn't too cold.

After paying for the lift ticket and rental, I went to line up to pick up ski boots, skis, and ski poles. It was a holiday so it was quite busy and a lot of time was spent waiting in line. It took me a minute to figure out how to put the ski boots on, but I managed and eventually made it out in time to meet a friend who was also taking a lesson for first-time skiers. I won't bore you with details. Suffice to say that the lesson was about 2 hours and that most of my difficulty was in controlling my speed.

I didn't try this one.

After the lesson I continued practicing on the beginner slopes, and by my last two runs I began to understand skiing's appeal. I was able to look up and around instead of directly at the ground in front, and I spent less time discovering the best way to get up off the ground. I did have one fall where I sat up to discover one of my skis was 8-feet up slope. Oops.

I can easily imagine how enjoyable it would be if I ever became proficient enough to try the longer slopes. The great fun of making large S-turns back and forth was hampered by the short length of the beginner slopes.

This was more my speed :o)

There were a few things that detracted from the experience, however. First, the expense. I guess if I skied often enough investing in my own equipment would alleviate that somewhat. Second, ski boots are not the most comfortable foot-wear. That may be due to the nature of rentals, my inexperience, or what have you, but there you go. While I was skiing I didn't notice it so much, but every once in a while I'd get a reminder about how sore the balls of my feet were. At the end of the day, when I took off the boots, the relief was euphoric. Third, waiting in line for the lift was a chore. The lift for the beginner slopes was quite busy, and waiting in line was made worse by the ski boots (see point 2). From what I could see, though, the lifts for the more advanced slopes weren't as crowded. But that may have been a case of the grass is always greener....

Anywhoo, to that age-old question I can now reply, "Yes, I have skied, thank-you-very-much," and hopefully the invariably shocked response will be a thing of the past. I can't say that I have the immediate desire to go out and ski, with the caveat that if skiing were free I'd definitely make plans to go again (I guess I'm too cheap). Nevertheless, skiing is certainly in the back of my mind as something I'd like trying again, someday.

Scary... but true?

According to an investigative report by CNN most of the major insurance companies have taken a tough take-it-or-leave-it policy when dealing with minor accident claims involving soft-tissue injuries. Here are the highlights of the report (Auto insurers play hardball in minor-crash claims):

• State Farm, Allstate employ consultant's strategy, CNN research finds
• Theme of strategy is "deny, delay, defend," former employee says
• Companies convince juries that claims are fraudulent
• Insurers, institute deny treating claimants unfairly

I wish CNN had listed all the auto insurance companies they had investigated and suspect of participating in this policy. Maybe I'm just cynical, maybe it's an unavoidable consequence of living in a capitalist economy, but I find it all too easy to believe that insurance companies are milking their customers like cash-cows in the bid for ever-increasing profits.

Overreact, much?

Earlier I posted about the city of Boston's reaction to a Cartoon Network (parent company Turner Broadcasting) advertising campaign (see Trouble in Boston). Battery-operated advertising signs--think Lite-Brite toys--caused havok and gridlock in Boston as authorities "defused" these potential bombs.

I found it humorous that these signs had been posted at various locations in several metropolitan cities, including Boston, for a couple weeks before Boston, and only Boston, went nuclear over the signs. Boston authorities, instead of admitting their overreaction, arrested and charged the two Bostonians who placed the signs and began talking about starting litigation against Turner Broadcasting to recoup costs to the city.

Anywhoo, Turner Broadcasting, which in I'm sure was a purely public relations decision rather than the belief they'd lose in court, is going to pay Boston two million dollars. Fine and dandy. But what brought this particular post was this article:

Jim Samples, the general manager and executive vice president of the network, wrote: "I deeply regret the negative publicity and expense caused to our company as a result of this campaign. As general manager of Cartoon Network, I feel compelled to step down, effective immediately, in recognition of the gravity of the situation that occurred under my watch."--CNN

According to the article Samples been with the Cartoon Network for 13 years. On the one hand I guess someone needs to take responsibility for what happened. On the other hand, I think the ones most responsible for the fiasco in Boston are the Boston authorities.