In "Curious George: Remembering the dotcom era."

I was still in undergrad during the boom, at its Canadian hub (Ottawa - think Nortel, JDS). I remember taking the long, hard road to a degree in mechanical engineering, while my software eng friends were being encouraged to quit school early and offered giant signing bonuses. I can tell you, when the crash came, I enjoyed a little bit of shadenfreude.

In "The next fifteen minutes will destroy you."

I was warned, but I thought "hey, I can stop anytime I want". Damn. I loves me some rate-controlled games though. Did anyone else find the some of the "hard" levels easier? I did much better with negative gravity (for whatever reason), and the last few levels with the evil squaria were a cinch - i just hovered around, and then dive bombed the target when the time was right.

In "Curious, George"

A local dessert restaurant had this in their window, and I'm sure there's a good name in it: "Life is short. Eat dessert first"

In "Those wacky geniuses at Google are at it again: Google Sets"

"Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, OS X Rocks! An homage to You" This is better than the OS X dock! One of my biggest peeves about dock zooming (and the reason everyone I know has it turned off) is that the icons move as they're scaled, making the click target no larger than it was for the small icon. Googlex does it right. They zoom an icon once, and keep it stationary, and large until the user moves to the next icon which then zooms and takes up the space the other leaves as it shrinks. Big click targets, but unobtrusive icons. Nice job Google.

In "Curious George: Life in Ottawa"

Oh dear me, I can't believe I forgot the world's longest skating rink. How many other cities let you skate from school to downtown? Good times.

I recently moved from Ottawa after completing my 6th year of my (4 year) degree. Which school is your friend attending? I know good hangouts near each. Things to check out in the general city: - All the wicked cool museums, notably the museam of civilization (with the best view of the parliament buildings in the city) and the museum of science and technology - The Byward market for dozens of alcohol dispensing institutions, some of which are frequented by the PM and pals - Get yourself a student discount for the National Arts Centre, where you can see the best live theatre in the country for less than the cost of a movie - Speaking of movies, the Mayfair and Bytowne theatres are great for catching second run movies for less than five bucks. - Ottawa has a http://www.octranspo.ca/>Bus Rapid Transit system which is reasonably quick. The 95 and 97 travel the busways every five minutes. Monthly passes are about fifty bucks for students. There are lots of other cool hangouts I could tell you about. Send me a note. PS, did you see the CBC political drama H20? Man did that ever make Ottawa look alot sexier than I remember!

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