My good friend Tyler is a smart guy (pictured here with her hotness, Lisa Loeb, songstress extraordinaire). Really. But he gets himself caught in these twisted bits of info that humour those of us around him to no end (kind of like my apparent ability to wreck bits of machinery inadvertently). I have lots of examples, but today was a great one, via MSN:

FOTW says: (11:08:02 AM)
   dude... need some "Canadian Icons" ... things that you see and think Canada
FOTW says: (11:10:07 AM)
   what's that building in Ottawa called with the big clock in it
Liquado says: (11:10:32 AM)
   um, Parliament?
FOTW says: (11:10:35 AM)
   yeah
Liquado says: (11:10:41 AM)
   lmfao
Liquado says: (11:10:53 AM)
   saving this conversation
FOTW says: (11:11:00 AM)
   d'oh

Tyler's gonna kill me when he sees this. Too bad he has to wait three months to do so.

By the way, if you're looking for video/encoding/DVD/authoring work in Toronto, he's your man. You can find him at tyler.ahhhht.master2dvd.com via email. Or, check out the consumer-type stuff at dvdin3.com.

So, yesterday sucked.
As many of my friends know, I'm a member of the Emo Walleye Classic organizing committee, which, with the schedule I'm working and schooling right now, is about all the volunteer time I have. Yesterday, Sam Visser, who was the co-chair of the committee, and a good friend, died after battling pancreatic cancer for the last six months. He was 55.
Sam and I didn't really get to know each other very well until he joined the committee in 2003, but we had chatted on quite a few occasions. And, they were always about technology.

Sam owned part of Visser Automotive, an auto parts supply store in Emo. The place is like every other parts shop -- shelves stuffed with boxes and junk, and stacks of parts everywhere else. But Sam was a big technology junkie. We'd be chatting, and it would go something like this:
Lincoln: So, I was looking at those 17" LCDs from Samsung. The image is pretty sharp on them.
Sam: Yeah, I've got one in the store right now.
Lincoln: Did you hear about that high-speed satellite connection? Sounds like it's got potential for some of the camp owners around here.
Sam: Yeah, it works pretty well -- I put one in at the shop.
You get the point.
And Sam was never bragging -- he just saw something he thought was neat, and added it to his setup.
And he was a good guy. He loved his grandkids tons, and he loved his community almost as much. Gareth and Rachel are in the same class at school, and played T-ball together last spring, and Sam was over there several times to watch Rachel.
If you want to see a little more about Sam, his web site is at www.svisser.com.
Goodbye, Sam. Clear skies.