FRIDAY FUNNIES: One heck of a dog trainer

"Sit," Stay," "Down," "Heel," "Shake a paw," and of course "No!" are all words that my dog can relate to. But never underestimate the brilliance of your canine friend.


The proof is in the pudding with this video as we see man's best friends walking on two legs, forming a conga line and jumping through hoops to name just a few tricks.


Dogs truly can be brilliant and are always loyal to their trainer. Enjoy this funny video to get your rainy Friday started.

PRODUCT REVIEW: Apple's new multi-touch Magic Mouse

Apple has debuted it's new wireless mouse with a much deserved update - multi-touch technology for navigation. Featuring a solid acrylic surface, the new Magic Mouse replaces the Mighty Mouse, Apple's previous wireless with a trackball.


Apple's love with multi-touch is fairly known and is already featured in iPhones, iPod Touches and Trackpads of the MacBooks. The new wireless Magic Mouse that has no buttons and no trackball is ambidextrous.


Magic Mouse carries a "seamless" multi-touch surface that covers its top area and is touted as the world's first multi-touch mouse. There's no need to worry about cords since the Magic Mouse connects to any Bluetooth enabled Mac machine wirelessly. Acting as an advanced point-and-click mouse, users can click as well as double click by tapping a finger once or twice on the top surface. Also, enabling the secondary click in System Preferences will make it function as a two-button mouse.


Multi-touch obsession takes the next step with Magic Mouse that supports finger gestures to navigate on the display. For instance, scrolling in any direction requires simply using one finger on the mouse's top surface. Magic mouse also supports "360 degree scrolling" - smooth up/down and left/right scrolling within a window, just like an iPhone and MacBook trackpads. Apple boasts of a chip that senses finger gestures and responds accordingly.



The Magic Mouse is certainly clever, but the question remains as to how well it will work in day-to-day usage. Will the multi-touch features enhance the desktop experience, or will they annoy users and get in the way?


Magic Mouse comes with new iMacs and also sells separately for $69 CDN today.

2010 Olympic and Paralympic Medals Unveiled

The world got an early peak on Thursday at the medals to be awarded at both the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.


The medals are based on two large master artworks of an orca whale (Olympic) and raven (Paralympic) by Canadian designer/artist Corrine Hunt. Each of the medals has a unique hand-cropped section of the abstract art, making every medal one-if-a-kind.


Another unique touch to the design, compared to medals of the past, is the actual form of the medals themselves. Their unique contours are said to be inspired by the ocean waves, drifting snow and the mountainous landscape found in our region and throughout Canada. The Olympic medals are circular in shape while with Paralympic medals are a squared circle. Their weight varies between 500-576 grams depending on the medal making them among the heaviest medals in the history of the games.


Perhaps the most creative part of these gems is the materials used to construct them. Vancouver metals giant Teck Resources has recovered materials from recycled TVs, computers, cellphones and keyboards that might have otherwise ended up as e-waste. The use of smelted cathode ray tube glass, computer parts and circuit boards are combined with metals from other sources to produce the weighty mass.


The medals have a durable blue, white and green synthetic ribbon that carries the name of the games, Vancouver 2010, and the Games' motto, "With Glowing Hearts," in both English and French.


The medals were produced by the Royal Canadian Mint for the first time since 1976 and have a collective worth of about $1.8 million based on current metal prices.


I believe these are probably the nicest medals we have seen produced for the Games in several years. The fact that each design has a distinct portion of the orca or raven artwork make these unique to each athlete and sure to stand out for many years to come.


To see more pictures, click here.

NEW MUSIC REVIEW: Corey Crowder

Georgia native Corey Crowder is developing an original sound with his unique fusion of country, jazz and folk. His newest album is a fine example of a mature, big production that is a lot more rootsy, country/blues oriented that his earlier recordings.


Crowder has a smooth, but soulful voice that is easy on the ears, and his song writing is top notch. He can be classified as a Nashville version of Jack Johnson or John Mayer with laid-back songs that celebrate the simple things in life. But he didn't really begin to explore his southern roots until the last few years.


His first serious music project was launched in 2001 when he began recording acoustic-pop demos and playing shows across Georgia. In 2005, Crowder released an 11-track acoustic full-length album called "Learning to Let Go - Home Recordings" which garnered a rather large following when various songs were aired on several episodes of MTV's The Real World. Since then, he has been constantly touring across the US, performing at many college campuses and small live venues picking up momentum and a solid backing band along the way.


In 2008, Crowder and band entered the studio in Seattle to record what would become their first real produced band album called "Gold and the Sand." The songs have a strong country feel but tend to be so by way of production and instrumentation more than actual composition. The album has definitely moved this artist into more of an original sound combining his southern influence with hints of jazz and folk of a modern age.


All in all, Corey Crowder is an excellent artist that anyone who likes a blend of diverse styles will be sure to enjoy.


Check out his myspace page to hear some of his tunes: www.myspace.com/coreycrowder


Here is his most recent release "Look How Far We've Come"

All the single babies!

Move over Beyonce, there's a new babe in town! Cory the baby is giving her a run for her money with some sweet dance moves on the ever popular hit song "Single Ladies."


Cory now has his own website featuring his dance videos amongst others as well as pictures, a biography and links to his own facebook and twitter sites.


Cory is also now famous around the world for his choreography receiving news coverage from many global news stations.


Have a look at this cute and funny video to get you going on this Friday morning. It'll be sure to put a smile on your face to start the weekend.


Check out his website: www.singlebabies.com

Google takes to the streets in Vancouver

Just when you thought the internet was a scary place where personal information can be viewed by millions, Google releases it's application called Street View where now everyone can even see whether you keep up on your yard work or not.


Launched in 2007 in the United States, Google Street View offers you a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view from street level of many major cities from around the world. And as of this past Wednesday, you can now add 15 of Canada's biggest cities to that list.


Google began acquiring images in Vancouver and surrounding areas, north to Whistler and east to Chilliwack in early '07. Images are also available in the Greater Toronto Area, Ottawa, Hamilton, Kitchener, Waterloo, Calgary, Banff National Park, Montreal, Quebec City, and Halifax. The photos are representative of what someone would see if they were driving down the street.


When the plan originally surfaced for Google to begin photographing Canadian streets, Canada's privacy commissioner raised concerns that the service might not comply with Canadian privacy legislation, because it would include images of identifiable people that were collected without their consent. However, the company has tried to address the privacy concerns by adding privacy features, including the automatic blurring of faces and licence plates to avoid identifying people and cars. The technology doesn't always work as expected and will sometimes blur faces on statues, billboards or even animals but completely miss a human face. However, you can easily submit an online form to have your photo removed should you find yourself while playing a game of "Where's Waldo?"


All in all, when you look past the politics, Google Street View is an amazing tool allowing you to tour foreign cities but it can also be fun to take a spin around your own city too.


Give it a try for yourself:
Go to www.google.ca and click on Maps in the upper left corner of the window. Type in your address and hit enter. Then click and drag the small orange figure that appears above the zoom control on the left side of the map to where your home is located. Scroll around and enjoy!

It's the most wonderful time of the year

The night's are getting darker. The temperature is getting colder. The leaves are falling off the trees. It can only mean one thing. The start of the MLB playoffs. That's right, after a short 162 game season, 8 out of the 30 teams are now qualified to start playing some real ball.


This is the time of year, for me, where baseball is actually fun to watch. There is always a difference between the regular season and the playoffs in all sports but personally, the World Series is to me like the Stanley Cup is to most Canadians. Mostly, I think that is because I remember when I was growing up, my parents and I would come home from work and school, make some deli sandwiches and soup and sit in front of the TV for the evening to cheer on our favourite teams.


For me, the New York Yankees are my pick every season. Not solely based on the fact that, sure, they can even afford to buy God to play on the team, but because they have real talent, real management, and real fans. More so this year than ever, they have a young team that has worked their tails off to make it to the top once again.


For my mom, she always picks the underdogs. While she may not know who that is right away. She quickly finds the team she likes and roots for them until they are eliminated. Then she moves on to the next underdog.


Then we come to dad. I think dad's enjoyment of the playoffs isn't so much that he has a favourite team to root for or that he even knows who's playing. More so, he cheers for any team that comes up against the Yanks. I think he gets a kick out of how much he can try to get me going about every little thing my team does wrong or every little play that doesn't go our way. And I'm not saying it doesn't get me going. But he'd even go so far to say that a perfect game winning home run by my team "wasn't fair because they probably bought some crazy wind machine that blew the ball out of the park." Or, the perfect strikeout only came about because "the umpires were being paid extra on the side." But it's these little comments that probably made the World Series playoffs the most entertaining TV time with the family.


Now I'm all grown up and living away from home. But I'll still come home every night, make my sandwich and soup, and sit down on the couch to watch my team play ball. It will probably be a lot easier without someone balking in the background at every pitch. Question is, will the phone be ringing every 5 minutes with some other excuse as to how my Yankees managed to "cheat their way" to another great win. My guess is probably. But that's ok. You can root for your 7 teams old man. I've got my 1 team and we're already planning the parade.


Play ball!