Category Archives: Technology
Recapping the #FordNAIAS
I made it safely home! No bullet wounds, no shark bites, no bullets fired by sharks! I went to Detroit and had an experience of a lifetime. Compliments of the great folks at @FordCanada, I had the opportunity to spend 52 Ford filled hours at the media preview of the North American International Auto Show. But not just me, 150 bloggers from around the world were flown in to the Motor City to partake.
The interesting thing about this is that Ford intentionally did not invite any auto bloggers. Instead, the room was filled with design, art, fashion, personal, mom, dad, technology and other non-auto bloggers all coming from places around the world including Australia, USA, Thailand, France, England and a dozen other countries. And damn were we treated well! From getting advanced access to an unopened museum, behind the scenes look into Ford’s innovation and research centre, a special sectioned off area at the Auto Show where we had the opportunity to sit and talk with the VP and CEO of Ford, and fed delicious food at every meal. They spared no expense to make us all comfortable and the experience is something that I will remember for the rest of my life. (Oh, and that’s the extent of it haha. We didn’t get cash or anything… though I did order room service one hehe.)
Ford HQ as seen from my Room at The Henry Hotel
The day we arrived, we were given advanced access to The Henry Ford, a currently unopened 80,000 square foot museum home to some incredible pieces of history including Rosa Parks’ Bus, the limo Kennedy was assassinated in, and thousands of other really cool pieces of history!
Kennedy Assassination Limo
Reagan Car
Rosa Parks' Seat
Did you know Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were friends?
The next day was an early one… 6:30AM we had to be downstairs to get to the Detroit Auto Show for the Ford press conference where they were officially revealing the new Ford Fusion for the first time!
The media swarmed to get interviews and good pictures.
Let me just say… the Ford Fusion is an incredibly sexy looking car. Below is an image of the 2013 Ford Fusion, and below that is an Aston Martin… remove the branding, and it would be a difficult time trying to figure out which is which! While they didn’t give us an actual price point, they did say this car would be competitive with cars like the Cobalt, Golf, Matrix etc… it easily looks significantly more expensive than those cars. Additionally, I was pretty impressed with Ford’s new Plug-In Hybrid engine which gets 100mpge! That was 13mpg better than the nearest competitor, Toyota, who’s engine had 87mpge.
I also was asked to appear on the Jim Richards show on NewsTalk 1010 here in Toronto to talk about the Auto Show, which was a lot of fun. We talked about the new Ford Fusion, the show in general, how electric and mpg was a main priority, and somehow managed to talk about hookers in hotel rooms. Thanks Jim for having me on.
But, this was the International Auto Show… so here’s some of the stunning vehicles that were on display!
Every image was taken with my new Motorola RAZR! So happy with this phone.
My Dominican Vacation
From December 27th until January 3rd I was fortunate enough to have gone on a vacation with the family to the Dominican Republic. This was no small trip (22 of us) and because we were going during a very busy time of the year, it was definitely no small expense to organize. Punta Cana is where we stayed at the Majestic Colonial Resort. A 4 1/2 star resort, so they say.
Now, for me this was pretty exciting because it was my first time to a different country than the US. In fact, it was only the 3rd time I’ve been out of Canada… so needless to say I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. The internet is full of horror stories, enough to instill enough fear in me that I essentially packed an entire pharmacy with me… I wish that was a joke. It’s a damn good thing I trust people more than the internet, because if I did, I would never leave my house. Quite frankly, starring at the wall is actually enjoyable for me. You see, every time I travel I seem to get sick. Vancouver, got a cold. New York, flu that nearly killed me (not literally, but I was with my dad’s asshole bitch ex-girlfriend and her bitch daughter at the time which made it feel like death). Quebec, fevers and debilitating migraines. I’d survive a nuclear war well, my body clearly loves being locked in a bunker.
(Apologies in advance, this post is image heavy. Live vicariously! I’m going to split the trip up into 3 blog posts.) OH! And PS… All the images below were taken with my new Motorola RAZR which I received for being Canada’s Social BLAZR. Truly an incredible camera if you ask me. 8MP photos and 1080P HD video! Click the images to see them in better quality!
Our flight was at 8AM, which meant we had to be up at 4:30AM. Brutal… But after the four hour flight we walk into this…
29C. Sunny and humid. (While there is water on the ground, the only time it rained over the 8 days was at night time on 3 occasions.)
Now… I know that island lifestyle is a little more relaxed than it is in Canada or the US… but we had to wait about an 90 minutes for our bags. Here’s my little brother exhausted from waiting.
Finally they arrived though and we were on our way to the bus and then to the resort where *I* could finally change out of my long sleeve shirt and jeans.
Release the Kraken?
Then we finally arrived at the resort, which was very underwhelming to look at the exterior… but once we stepped inside…
Now at this point it’s about 3PM… our rooms won’t be ready for another 1-2 hours. Brutal. So me and my brother did the only common sense thing, we had our first beer of the day – Presidente is the local beer and it’s actually quite good!
Now, here’s the reality of the Dominican – They don’t care. Everything is very whatever. It doesn’t matter that our group of 22 had spent tens of thousands of dollars, they didn’t care if we had a problem. Here’s what the problem was – when we booked the vacation, we were very specific about a few things. Considering we were travelling with kids, elderly, wheelchairs and our family we needed some of the rooms to be ground floor, close proximity, next door etc. While I didn’t book it, my parents travel agent did and the instructions were very clear on what we needed – we got none of it. Our rooms were all over the place. 4 rooms were in a separate building, our rooms were on different floors and it was just a mess.
Trying to talk to Staff, They Don't Seem to Care
The family spent a couple hours with the front desk trying to remedy this nightmare, to no avail. They didn’t care. They had given our rooms away to others. I’ve learned that in the Dominican, it’s first come first serve.
So, my brother and I get our room key and we go to our room (a 15 minute walk from front desk). Keys don’t work. So we go back to the front desk (another 15 minute walk) and get new keys. We walk back to our room, (15 minutes) still don’t work. So we go back to front desk and tell them… ‘Oh it must be a problem with the door. I’ll send someone.’ How long? ‘Oh, 10 minutes.’ So we go back to our room, double time to meet the person to fix our door (7 minutes)…. 40 minutes later still no one. So walk back to the front desk, furious (15 minutes + exhausted/sweaty). Ask them what’s up, this time they actually radio someone… ‘It will be about 50 minutes.’ WHAT! Ugh. Grab a Cerveza, and 15 minutes back to the room to wait. Finally the guy comes and recodes the door.
“Just need to get new keys from the door and it will open.”
“Okay great. How long will that be till you’re back with the keys?”
“Oh, 15 or 20 minutes.”
“Gracias.”
20 minutes later, no keys… so another 15 minute walk to the front desk to get keys… and finally we’re in our room. At this point it’s about 8PM. We’ve been waiting 3.5 hours to get into our room. No one cares there. You can tip and they still didn’t seem to care. There’s more nightmare stories to tell about the rooms, but I’ll save it for the next blog post. In the meantime, here was the one great part of our room – the view.
Oh and morning Sunrises were incredible. Very different from the yellow, orange, red sunrises we get in Canada. I believe it has something to do with the equator and not having the curve of the earth affecting the sun? Probably also the ocean. Who knows… But morning sunrises were always very dark, and then very suddenly a light blueish colour, followed by this.
Again, this is the first day here… well, actually the first 18 hours. The remaining 7 days I’ll cover in the next two blog posts. So stay tuned!
Also, any similar experiences with All Inclusives not seeming to care?
Notable’s Sponsored Spam
Fresh on the heels of the first ever Notable Awards, for which I called the superfluous awards, I have a new gripe with the curators of Notable young professionals in Canada… this time though, rather than the awards, which obviously required a lot of work and effort, the issue I have is with the ‘love’ I received in my email inbox.
For those who aren’t subscribed, Notable.ca has a newsletter that seemingly is sent out every 5 days with new content. It sometimes has interesting content, sometimes it does not. But what it does do is reminds me of their brand on a regular basis and because it’s not a newsletter packed full of bullshit, I tolerate receiving it so often. Well, that was until I received the latest issue on Monday. Here’s the headline…
My immediate reaction was one of complete frustration. Why the fuck are you all of a sudden selling out your email list to the highest bidder? When did I ever agree to receive some lame sponsored post? But I held my tongue. I realized that maybe the content was actually the same, but that just the title sponsor was there. Boy was I wrong. Instead of the usual Notable ‘You Should Note It’, I get this… and before I go to the image, here’s what it is… it’s an ad. That’s it. A fucking ad. No different than the “You BiggR PENi5 NOW!” emails that I get.
I’ve circled the main problems with this garbage (besides it being ‘Sponsored Love’)…
Gift… Notable has the fucking balls to think that sending me this is a gift. A gift… imagine for one second that your boyfriend or girlfriend said “Merry Christmas baby! I got you a coupon for 20% off!” I’d dump that chick. Also, here’s the disgrace in this… RW&Co MANY TIMES offers 25%, 30% + 50% discounts. The exclusive is less than their standard discounts? How sad! (Source)
$85… I didn’t know there was an RW&Co and quite frankly, if you’re trying to get me to at least try your store, I’m not going to drop $85 on product. You want to get new clients? Don’t put a minimum! It’s a percentage not a set dollar figure. If I spend $1 to get the discount, isn’t that better than me spending no dollars because $85 is too high?
Lastly, RW&Co… have you ever been in their stores? I hadn’t, so I checked it out because I didn’t want to write this without having at least been in their store… Notable?! You think RW&Co is Notable? RW&Co reminded me of a knock off H&M. Do you even know what Notable means?? “Notability is the property of being worthy of notice, having fame, or being considered to be of a high degree of interest, significance, or distinction.” RW&Co is not worthy of notice, it’s not famous and it’s certainly not something with a high degree of interest, significance or distinction.
Quite frankly Notable, this was the most ridiculous sponsored email I’ve received in a while. Good to know that Notable is just a name and not an actual principle with your company though.
Next up, Sponsored Love: Notable Members Only: Walmart has the Hottest Spring Fashions Ever!
PS. Having to wait a day (nevermind 2 weeks) to unsubscribe me from your list is a joke right?
I’m a Social BLAZR
If you missed the announcement on Friday, I’m really excited to announce that I’ve been selected as one of eight Social BLAZR’s in the world. Motorola hosted a contest globally to find the people blazing their own trail in the social media world… broken down into 4 different geographic regions – Canada, United States, Europe and Singapore, we submitted our mini-story and then public voting occurred.
So, for winning this contest I get a bunch of great Motorola gear along with the brand new Android based RAZR smartphone (one of my favourite flip phones in its former incarnation) and some cash… Over the next few months, I’ll naturally be doing some reviews on the various pieces of Motorola gear and my experiences with them. I’m such an Android lover, so thank god that the RAZR is using that operating system or I might be disappointed.
I want to thank @Motorola for hosting the contest and to everyone who may have voted for me. I also want to congratulate my fellow Canadian Social BLAZR @Listen2Lena and all the other competitors in the contest!
Oh and to the other Global Social BLAZRs:
United States: @cruiter + @missnormalee
Europe: @angelitama + @paulobrien
Singapore: @mellyandme + Ow Tai Zheng
The Notable Awards, Who You Should Vote For
The first ever Notable Awards finalists are now posted. What are the Notable Awards you ask? Well, based on the finalists… my best description is the “91% Toronto Social Media Awards.” And while I’m a big fan of the folks like @JulianBrass and @JacNicosia at Notable, it seems to me that the awards have become a bit of a social circle stroke. Having read every one of the 112 bios of the nominated, I’m not going to mince words… there’s a lot of notably average people – which makes the clear winners quite obvious right away.
But, whatever… it’s fun and not really based on much so let’s have a little fun with it! I’m going to save you a ton of time and tell you who to vote for. You do it and then we can claim victory as the notable majority!
Deborah Goldblatt
Category: Media + Communications
Winner: Debra Goldblatt – @Debgee
Why: She’s the founder of Rock-it Promo. If you don’t know them, you’re likely not in the loop into the media + communications scene. She has tons of great clients and is definitely notable. Basically, in this over indulged category of about 20 options, she’s the one real standout.
Runner Up: Jamie Thompson, Founder of Adapt Media. Just doesn’t have the same pull as Debra does.
Vote For Debra!
Category: Community Impact
Winner: Alyson Rowe – @AlysonRowe
Why: She’s 100% dedicated to War Child. That’s enough as it is. Some of the others in the category are a little muddled and way to into themselves. She’s just doing the one thing really and not making a huge fan fare about it. Good for her. She deserves the win!
Runner Up: Dr. Teesha Morgan, works with KY Jelly and loves talking sex. As a fan of open discussion, points for her.
Vote for Alyson!
Category: Lifestyle Services
Winner: Nadia Giosia – @BitchinKitchen
Why: Bitchin Kitchen is an awesome name for a cooking show. I’ve seen it and I find her a little bit annoying to be very honest, but she’s hot too so it’s a fair balance. The cooking is good mind you, as a big cooking fan myself I definitely can appreciate what she makes.
Runner Up: Robert Sharp, co-founded a Gay/Lesbian travel company. It’s a good idea really.
Vote for Nadia!
Category: Law
Winner: Michelle Louise Simard
Why: Legal blah blah blah. Does some good pro bono work and donates cash. That’s decent. (My lawyer has advised me against saying anything else.)
Runner Up: Jacinta N Kanakaratnam, supports Yonge St Mission, Brickworks, Sally Anne and more.
Vote for Michelle!
Category: Culture Curators
Winner: Anwar Mekhayech
Why: Director/Partner/Marketing at Design Agency. Was a co-host on Designer Guys, Arthouse and a few other things. Best of all, he supports the Sick Kids Hospital which is the main charity that I support. So that’s a good enough reason.
Runner Up: Adam Kirkman, he works with Toronto Fringe. That’s pretty cool.
Vote for Anwar!
Gail Ordogh
Category: Sports + Entertainment
Winner: Gail Ordogh – @gailgabrielle
Why: Well if you haven’t met Gail, you’re really missing out. If you do meet her, you’ll understand why she’s the only notable person on the damn nomination form. Everyone who’s met her, never forgets her, and not just because she’s hot. Sweetest woman ever. I’m not even including a Runner Up, because it wouldn’t be fair to them.
Vote for Gail!
Category: Entrepreneurs
Winner: Jeremy Gutsche – @JeremyGutsche
Why: I’ve had the priviedlge of working with Jeremy at Trend Hunter and know the great work they’re doing. Compared to a lot of other heavy content based sites, Jeremy is by far the most useful, interesting and fun. And with a much better office than the Runner Up below, that’s a good reason too.
Runner Up: Brandon Koffler, FanXchange co-founder. I’ve never used the site, but I’ve heard about it. Unlike the other nominees.
Vote for Jeremy!
Category: Future Builders
Winner: Dallas Gislason – @DallasGislason
Why: Helps young people with a leadership curriculum and support consultancy. It sounds like it’s something really good and helpful to the future, and god… seems we’re really going to need some help in the future! So, yeah, encourage this guy by giving him some votes.
Runner Up: Sunny Verma who owns TutorBright, and our idiot childrens need sum tutering way 2 much. lmfao.
Vote for Dallas!
Category: Finance
Winner: No one. This is me throwing my support behind the #Occupy movement. You finance folks are into some shoddy games and you’re all on notice until the global economy is back on track!
Gillian Black
Category: Best Personal Brand
Winner: Gillian Black – @TheRealGillianB
Why: Well… I’m not going to lie. I’m recommending voting for her because she’s ridiculously hot. She’s a health/wellness/yogabooty/workout etc woman, all notable things… and clearly it’s paying off! She needs to consult every woman ever. Just vote for her guys, girls… just do it. Go ahead.
Runner Up: Nat + Marie, sorry girls… I’m such a sucker for blondes. Go watch their show on Wednesday nights at natandmarie.com!
Vote for Gillian! (Bonus image if you voted for Gillian.)
Category: Architechture + Real Estate
Winner: Matthew Slutsky – @iSlutsky
Why: Well, BuzzBuzzHome is a pretty cool idea. Seems a little notable so far. We’re not going to get into any specifics because basically it seems that both Matthew and our Runner Up, Cliff… are basically the same people in that their nomination forms are basically the same. And compared to the other options, they win.
Runner Up: Cliff Peskin, See above.
Vote for Matthew!
Val Stachurski
Category: Social Media
Winner: Valerie Stachurski – @ValTorontoGal
Why: Let’s call a spade a spade, I have an investment in Val. Our web radio show is hopefully launching next week, and being able to make fun of her for winning a superfluous award which doesn’t mean anything but that she seems to be taking slightly seriously will make for great radio. Just do it!
Runner Up: Me! I’m not on it nor would I want to, but if she wins, I win and then you win. So we all win by her silly win.
Vote for Valerie!
Dave Coleman
Category: Internet Startup + Technology
Winner: David Coleman – @DaveColeman
Why: No contest. The guy is involved in a very cool startup and from what I understand, keeps helping the company advance. That’s what this is all about right? Yeah it is. Also involved in some other cool projects, basically the guy knows Startups.
Runner Up: Tera Dargavel is community manager with Kik. Smart girl, I know her a bit. Worth a backup vote.
Vote for David!
PS. To Notable, the layout and inconsistencies isn’t congurent with the great quality you typically put out. The bitmappy pictures, the varying sized images, the spelling mistakes, the inconsistent number of nominated finalists (which leads me to believe you just accepted everyone – some have 5 finalists, others have almost 20,) all need to be remedied.
PSS. Where the hell are the god damned links guys?! No Twitter? No link to find their business? No Facebook? Come on Notable! If these folks are notable, give me a link to click on to learn more about them!
