I may never understand marketing

UPS has a new series of commercials which are fine except for one thing: they are set to music by the Postal Service. Why would UPS want me to think constantly about the Postal Service during their ads? It has to be on purpose, but it doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

life | link | 2007/Jan

New job, and observations about Canada

I haven't posted anything about this to the blog yet, but I took a new job in Vancouver, Canada at Smallthought systems. Our product, Dabble DB was one of my favorite Web applications almost from the moment it came out, and I am thrilled to be working on it and with Smalltalk. The transition to another city and country has been difficult. I like Vancouver a lot, and I like the job and my coworkers, but I find myself missing my friends and family at home, and of course my girlfriend Ariel.

Some observations about Canada, in no particular order:

• Prices are confusing between the sales tax and currency exchange. At home, I know what things cost and what it means, and in Canada it's just different enough to confuse me. The US dollar is on the upswing again, which makes it even more confusing.

• Canadians are as nice as people say. I am accustomed to being uncommonly nice, but this is not true here.

• Canada is much more progressive than the US in general of course, but there are some of the same political problems. I read a letter to the editor in a local weekly which was all about how HIV is not a real virus, implying that the AIDS epidemic had supernatural causes. It just shows to remind me that there are crazy people in every country.

I'll try to keep posting as more exciting things happen. Please come and visit! You can reach me at ben@matasar.org.

life | link | 2007/Jan