Serena Williams vs. Conan O'Brian

The Man from Mars posted this link on the forums at work and it's straight up hilarious! I think I'm going to have to start watching Conan again...

Freezing My Fingers Off

I can't believe how cold it is out there today... Actually, I don't care too much with it being cold out there as much as it being too cold in my apartment. The Weather Office claims it to be -17 Celsius with a wind chill of -28 Celsius right now and with the leaky windows in my apartment, I'm in danger of losing a few fingers.

Usually, I don't mind my leaky windows since it brings down the temperature to comfortable (the temperature is controlled by the building's management but I'm surrounded by retirees so they like to crank up the heat) but I'm seriously cold today!!

I can't wait to start my vacation at the end of the week and go off to London, England (where it's currently 5 Celsius) and then to Mumbai, India (where it's 24 Celsius right now).

The Superbowl

It's that time of year when everyone in North America huddles around their big screen TV (except me who huddles around my little screen TV) to watch the big football game while the rest of the world doesn't even know what the Superbowl is. And if they do, they still have no idea what the significance of a large plate is in a game called football when it's not even primarily played with the feet.

That's what I used to think some 10 years ago too but I'm quite a fan of the game now, although not so much of today's game. I really wanted to see the Patriots and/or the Saints in there but it wasn't meant to be.

Indianapolis vs. Chicago - They say defense wins championships. Comparing the Bears defense to the Colts offense, the Bears are more than capable of shutting down the Peyton Manning show. The Colts defense on the other had aren't guaranteed to stop Rex Grossman (despite him not being that special of a QB). Logic tells me the Bears should win however the Colts have looked better and better as they've advanced through the playoffs, which is almost reminiscent of the great Steelers team of last year. The bottom line is it's going to be a defensive snore but since I need to pick a team, advantage - Indianapolis Colts.

A Book About Business Strategy

Here's an interesting business article I came across. It talks about strategies to break away from the competition. It doesn't get it to very much detail but it does enough to make me want to read the book the author is promoting - "Breakout Strategy: Meeting the Challenge of Double Digit Growth" by Sydney Finkelstein, Charles Harvey, and Thomas Lawton.

Site: BusinessWeek
Title: Planning a Breakout

Tuck management prof Sydney Finkelstein talks about his new book on how to leave your competitors in the dust

I Want A New TV

I'm planning on buying a spanking new TV sometime this year and I was talking to CJG earlier this week (or was it last week?) about how I know nothing about TVs. He was gracious enough to give me a run down on the technologies which was a really useful since I'm the kind of person that likes to do a little research before buying anything new. And then today I came across this slide-show on the making of a Plasma TV. Pretty interesting stuff.

Feed: BusinessWeek Online -- Technology & Science
Title: Slide Show: The Making of a Plasma TV

If you're one of the many people replacing an unwieldy tube-based TV with plasma technology, you'll want to see what goes on behind the screen

A Change In Career

I don't usually have a lot to say about my personal life but today was the first day I started in my new job. Same company but I no longer work as a Software Developer - I'm a Project Manager now!

It's been over a week since I've known and it took a lot of self discipline to not let that one out. If someone had asked me 3 months ago about being a PM, I probably would have laughed it off but here I am in my new position.

There were a couple of key moments that made me realize that being a PM is what I want to do. Firstly, a certain PM at work planted the seed in my head and then my manager brought it up to me in the same week. They both thought I would make an excellent PM based on the work I was doing (feature-leading but focusing more on the project management activities).

Clearly I liked the project management aspect and the customer-facing role but I also enjoyed the uniqueness of everyday and not knowing what issues I would have to deal with next. I thrived on the chaos. I asked myself - "Would I really want to go back to being a code monkey if I'm no longer a feature lead?" I couldn't see myself doing it so that's how I knew that I needed to jump at the PM opportunity.

In-Car Gadgetry

There are a couple of cool concepts discussed in the following article:

1. The ability to view empty parking spots from your dashboard. I'm not sure if there's a huge benefit here because you could still end up driving over to the spot only to find someone else beat you there.
   
   
2. Pumping tunes at the gas station. Pretty nifty but I'm sure they're not going to have my collection of favourite Hindi songs - not so much use to me.

Site: BBC News
Title: In-car technology drives forward

BBC Click's Ian Hardy looks at the latest motoring technology available in the United States.