Over a year ago, we started on a brave new project: bring a whole new experience to the Rolex brand.

It’s been a tough year. Countless designs. Several prototypes. A lot of lost sleep. (Not to mention some martial discord as a result of working too much.)

I offer you the brand new and improved Rolex.com website.

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I’m in the process of updating the IPs for a whack of domain names and realized something about some of the top-level (and second-level) domains out there. Some of them, at least in English, were chosen really poorly:

• bj
• bo
• bs
• co.ma
• com.et

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Last night, we attended what I can only describe as a typical Maritime house/kitchen party. Except without the screech or incomprehensible accents.

Back in the early 1990s, Canada had a brief flirtation with popular Maritime music. While the Maritimes loved the music to begin with, the rest of us uncultured folk had to wait for the CanCon rules to bring it into the public eye.

Along with Leahy (who hit the big scene a couple of years earlier) and Great Big Sea (who rolled in with the tide a couple of years later), The Rankin Family made up a significant portion of the Maritime component of the Canadian airwaves.

I’d heard one or two of their tunes before. Nice, but I didn’t go out of my way to buy an album.

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I came across an article in Yahoo!’s Oddly Enough section this morning about how an internet protest movement is might drive out Starbucks from their location in the Forbidden City.

Frankly, I’m trying to understand how the Chinese government let it in there in the first place.

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I don’t believe in copy protection, like I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny or Jimmy Hoffa. It’s a myth that people cling to like a squirrel to a curtain, which is to say they have to because they are unable to see any other way out of the problem.

I pity those people. Living under that rock must get awfully lonesome.

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I’m a closet watch geek. Sort of like a closet Trekkie, but without the tendency for pointy ears. I’ve been one for years. I’ve had countless watches, including radio watches, pocket watches (I’ve got seven), dress watches (mostly cheap crap, admittedly), a couple of designer watches, Russian watch (sadly broken), and numerous cheapies (which have been both good and bad to me).

Currently, I have two watches (not counting the pocket watches) that I could wear. One is a six-odd year old Kenneth Cole. I bought it mostly because I needed a good watch (for a change) and I liked the colour. Well, the colour started rubbing off and when the battery gave out, moisture got into the interior and pfbbbbbt!, the whole thing went out of commission. I’ll get it fixed eventually, I suppose. Especially since it cost me over $100.

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There’s just nothing so pathetic as a cat that has to wear a cone.

Asia’s whiskers are capped, her ears are muffled, and there’s this strange thing that she can’t seem to back out of no matter how hard she tries. I feel so sorry for her.

But she needs it.

Because we’ve been a little too lax in trimming her claws, Asia got a little overzealous in scratching her ear. One little snick and (what the vet thinks was) a little kitty litter … instant infection.

So off to the vet (I highly recommend the Alpine Pet Hospital here in Calgary). It wasn’t serious, thankfully, and fairly minor. A cleaning, a swabbing, a deep inspection (which was already not a good thing for her) and Asia was ready.

For her collar.

We have to apply a salve to keep the infection down (mostly it’s going to keep her from wanting to scratch) and keep a cone on her for five days. She looks like a furry megaphone.

A very pissed off furry megaphone.

Poor kitty…