NorthGeek

The NorthGeek HowTo Series: Play guitar like Slash

We at NorthGeek feel bad. Why, you ask? Well, we feel bad because we have so much darn talent, and it’s tough for us to share it all.

Enter: The Internet. Thanks to this relatively new invention called The Internet, and a small property on this Internet called “YouTube” – I know, funny name – we can share our talents with you – the world. Here is chapter one:

How to give a great wedding speech

This post is re-published with permission from TheWordShow.com.

Here’s a speech I gave at my good friend’s wedding party a short time ago. Names have been changed to protect their identities, if you really want to know who’s who, I’ll probably tell you.

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Everyone, if I could please have your attention, my name is Dan Reitman. You may remember me as one of Richard’s groomsmen. If you attended the wedding but don’t remember me as a groomsman, you may remember me as the lanky guy at the party attempting to breakdance at 1am. I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is, no, I’m not a professional dancer, it’s just talent I like to share.
For those of you who could not make it to Aberdeen, rest assured the wedding in Scotland was spectacular. It was a wonderful melding of Canadian and Scottish families and culture, Francine was a beautiful bride, and Richard looked amazingly presentable.

My official responsibility, as groomsman # 3, was, as Richard and Francine told me, to hold on to this set of keys [hold up plain set of keys], and make sure they did not leave my sight. I’m still not sure what these keys are supposed to open, and I have the distinct impression that Richard and Francine gave me this task because they didn’t want me to feel left out. That’s the mark of true friends.
Anyhow, I’m thrilled to be able to stand before you today, on this, the one-month anniversary of their wedding – I’m not sure if they’re planning on having one of these every month, but you guys should know you are only getting one gift from me.

I’m going to say a few words about Richard and Francine; why I think they’re good people, and then I’m going to wrap it up, because I probably will have been rambling for quite a while, In fact I’m probably already doing that now.

I’m honoured to call myself a close friend of both Richard and Francine. Richard and I have known each other since grade 7, and I like to think I know him pretty well. Richard is a great friend. His enthusiasm and motivation in all things is infectious, and he brings out the best in people. He is also a man of contradictions. On the one hand, he’s a competitive athlete who loves sports, especially football and hockey, but this aggressiveness is nowhere to be found when he is confronted with, say, the common pigeon. It’s true, he is absolutely terrified of birds. Francine, on the other hand is a lover of animals. Especially cats. And unicorns. Try to explain to Francine that unicorns do not actually exist, and it’s your funeral, my friend.

Anyhow Richard and I have had some great times together with our crew of idiots. We had it all figured out in our mid-20’s, and then one day Richard realized that he needed to take some time off from the busy rat race – so he moved to Australia. We got e-mails from him detailing his exploits, about meeting Francine and their travels together in their rusty Toyota jeep with the funny name.

When Richard came back from Australia, it was clear that the unforgiving Outback and all the kangaroo meat he had ingested had changed him. He had fallen in love with two things: Australian slang, and [point to Francine] surfing. Richard would strain to work Australian words into his sentences, saying things like “arvo” instead of “afternoon”, or “chuffed” instead of “excited”. Luckily that wore off. But in all seriousness, while the surfing and aussie-speak were new interests, it was Francine that occupied most of Richard‘s thoughts.
When Richard returned from his Australian odyssey, he and Francine then endured a tough year of long distance phone calls, and then Francine decided to bravely make the voyage across the Atlantic to come live with Richard in Montreal, where she would live with us in our apartment on Terrasse St. Denis. It was an unbelievably gutsy move, and I could just imagine what questions were swirling in Francine’s mind as her plane crossed the Atlantic: how cold was Canada going to be? Will things work out with Richard? Are Richard’s roommates crazy? Do they have unicorns and kittens in Canada?

Francine had nothing to fear, though, because it was clear right from the get-go that Francine, whether she liked it or not, fit right in. She was, for lack of a better term, an instant hit with our group. Francine is an incredibly thoughtful, sensitive, caring person, with a wicked sense of humour, but then anyone who has spoken with her for even a few minutes can tell that right away. Possibly my favourite thing about Francine is that she laughs at all my jokes. Even better than that is how much this aggravates Richard.

And it was clear that they were truly great together. Francine has absolutely changed Richard for the better: where previously, Richard was known to saunter around our apartment in nothing but a skimpy bath towel for hours on end, clapping his hands enthusiastically at the TV in order to rally his beloved Habs, with Francine around, he did less of this. That was a good thing. There are probably more profound ways Francine has improved Richard that I can’t see, but they aren’t as embarrassing and satisfying to describe as Mr. claps-his-hands-loudly-in-a-bath-towel. But in all seriousness Richard and Francine are true complements to each other, and it’s wonderful to be able to celebrate their marriage.

I thought I might end my little speech with a quote. Because I’ve heard quotations make people sound smart, even if they aren’t. I wanted the quote to encapsulate how I feel about my two close friends, Richard and Francine, tying the knot, and how excited I am for their new life together. I thought it would be appropriate to use a hockey quote, so I spent about 3 hours online, looking for some interesting stuff, and I found it, but then I realized that I had gotten seriously sidetracked, and they were asking me for my credit card #, so I spent another hour, and I found this, and if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to read this, a recent quote from Hockey Legend Don Cherry :

“When you skate along to the blue line, and you’re about to take your shot, first you need to stare down the goalie. Get a read on his mind. Then look at the penalty box, it’s empty, that represents the risks in your life, where all your mistakes will be visible. You look up at the score board and the scores have been replaced by Scottish flag overlapping a Canadian one. Then look over at your bench, and your team is composed of one person; uour life partner. Francine . You take the shot, you score, and the crowd goes wild.”

I’m going to be honest with you, that was not from Don Cherry, I made that up 2 hours ago. What’s worse is I don’t know anything about hockey. But I do know that I’m so thrilled and excited for Richard and Francine, and I want you guys to know I love you both and wish for you a lifetime of happiness together. Thanks very much.

How to download an entire website

If you’re looking for a way to download all the files from a website without having FTP access, here is your solution!

Sitesucker:
“SiteSucker is a Macintosh application that automatically downloads Web sites from the Internet. It does this by asynchronously copying the site’s Web pages, images, backgrounds, movies, and other files to your local hard drive. Just enter a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), press return, and SiteSucker can download an entire Web site.”

Travel the world on a $20 million lottery win

What would you do if you won the lottery?

You hear stories about lottery winners squandering all their winnings, never feeling comfortable in new social circles, becoming depressed from the paranoia and misunderstanding of the amount of money, etc.

This guy won $20M and traveled the world. He is trying visit every single country. He seems to have taken the right steps to ensure his sanity and have a good time. He helped out family and friends, entertained many company investment opportunities, and bought some quirky decorations of course. He also set up multiple teams to manage his money (you don’t trust anyone with that kind of cash).

Some interesting bits from the Reddit conversation:

Relationships: “No, we were just not right for each other. Winning does make me paranoid when I meet someone interesting. It translates into nervousness, something I wasn’t with women before.”

Dating: “Yes, I mostly date trust fund babies now.”

Arriving in a new country: “Hostel for first night, look into renting a place for a month if it is interesting to me. Once bored, start looking into neighboring countries to repeat.”

Craziest travel stories: “Craziest travel story: I was hiking through Nepal and suffering from oxygen deprivation (I didn’t realize it at the time). By the middle of the week I was hallucinating and thought I saw a yeti, Jesus, and Elvis. Reading through my travel diary for that month scares me. I was shot at in Somalia by a child carrying a pistol that should have been too big for him to carry. The bullet passed through our windshield and missed us by a few inches.”

Words of advice for other people aspiring to win the lottery: “It is dumb luck. I was buying ramen at 4 AM at a gas station and didn’t want change back, so I asked for a lottery ticket since it was a buck. I didn’t even check the numbers until a week had passed and was cleaning out my pockets to do laundry.”

Happiness: “An unfortunate consequence of living in a hardcore capitalist/consumer society is that most problems end up becoming money related. “I have to pay off this student loan, I have to pay for medical bills, etc.” It freed me from that stress in life and has given me the opportunity to travel without much restrictions, so in that sense I am happier.”

How to ensure you don’t squander it: “I moved most of the money into a trust that doesn’t allow me to withdraw over a certain amount every year ($95k). Even if I don’t make any interest on the investment that withdrawal amount is enough to keep me happy and won’t run out in my lifetime.”

What things did you buy: “Comics, action figures, video games, and Porsches.”

Supporting tech: “I’m a Linux user so I support open source. I contacted a few developers on sourceforge who created programs I couldn’t live without and offered them money for their hard work. Most declined.”

Satisfying donation: “I gave money to a school near one of my properties in Brazil, it felt good to see them using books that were more updated than the ones I used in grade school.”

Porsches: “I have a collection of Porsches: 550, 944, GT2, GT3, 964, and a Cayman. All but the 550 are regularly driven.”

N.B. NorthGeek does not endorse playing the lottery. Of course we all know it’s just a tax on the mathematically challenged.

How to tether on your Fido iPhone OS3.1

Has your iPhone stopped being able to tether (ie. connect your laptop to your iPhone data network) on Fido since you upgraded to OS3.1? Are you pissed about that? Please enter your comments on this below or at Fido customer complaints (like we did)! We’ll keep you up to date what we hear. This is an outrage!

Dear Fido,

I am an owner of a Fido iPhone 3G. When I purchased the iPhone and signed a 3 year contract, the best data option was 500MB as the 6GB promo was not available at that time. Up until updating my iPhone operating system to 3.1, tethering with my iPhone was an important feature for me. However, now with OS3.1, I am unable to tether, unless I change my data plan to one greater than 1GB. I am perfectly happy with paying for my 500MB plan for both iPhone browsing and tethering. I am not interested in changing the plan I chose under a 3 year agreement for a later added feature which excludes a 500MB plan for absolutely no apparent reason. 500MB is sufficient for my usage, and when I signed my contract, I was not told there would be any difference with a larger or smaller data plan other than data usage.

Please consider allowing people with a 500MB or any data plan to use tethering, until at least December 31, 2009, at which point you have announced changes may take place.

We have paid for the usage, we have signed contracts to do so, and should not suffer for choosing an appropriate plan before tethering option was defined later.

Thank you,
Noah Bloom
Fido customer since 2001
(This letter and replies may be documented at NorthGeek.com)

Best tips to stay cool in summer

It’s that time of year.

And if you don’t have air conditioning (because you only have a few sweltering hot days a year where you live, or to save money), you could probably use a few tips to stay cool when it’s hot. You can stay cool without air conditioning! Here’s how:

Cool your body

• Put on wet clothes or a washcloth/bandanna on your head
• Take a cold bath or shower
• Place ice on your pressure points: head, neck, wrists, back of knees, ankles
• Breathe slower, relax, purse lips to breath in cool air and out through nose. Think Yogi.
• Put your feet in cold water

Cool your house without AC

• Go downstairs (heat rises)
• Create a draft by opening multiple windows. If you have a fan, point it outwards to encourage that draft, not inwards to pull outside air in — it won’t work as well.
• Keep air flowing with fans
• Blow a fan over cold water, ice, or frozen water bottles (with a bowl to catch the dripping water)
• Turn off electricity, lights, and kitchen appliances
• Close off unused rooms
• Darken rooms during sun exposure hours and especially towards the south and west with blinds (preferably white)

Eat and drink

• Staying hydrated, whether you feel thirsty or not, will keep you cool. Ideally the water is not too cold as your body will have to expend energy to warm it up.
• Eat spicy food: it will make you sweat and maybe keep your mind off the hot temperature. It’s no wonder cultures in hot climates eat hot food.

Dress properly

• Wear less clothing, remove hats and shoes
• Even better, wear nothing
• Wear lighter colors as dark fabrics absorb more heat
• Don’t exposure your skin to burning

Mind over matter

• Think about cold things, read a book, look at pictures of winter and cold mountains, watch a movie set in the winter

And if that doesn’t work, and it’s the middle of the day, consider going to the mall, pool, movie theater, library, or hockey rink!

Lifehacker has some other hints from their readers. What are your tips?

How to avoid the swine flu (H1N1)

The single greatest tip you’ll receive today:

DON’T DO THIS:

The business card guru: Your card is crap, mine is the best

Is this guy for real? I certainly hope not! Thanks to Ariel over at AOL Fanhouse for the tip.

Fox Racing Shox: So many adjustments!

A quick look at the Fox Racing suspension products on my Ellsworth Epiphany. A couple things to note – the shock is actually a Float R, not an RP23. Also, I refer to all products as “Fox Racing Shox” when in reality I’m showing a fork and a shock… Sound good? Well then, on with the show!

Also, a post-ride reaction:

How to take a nap at work…and yes, Qik has audio