1. You can buy a nice high-rise condo in downtown Vancouver, mortgage free.
2. You can buy 3 Lamborghinis with that (depending on model and price, but I found one brand new at 133,xxx GPB).
   
3. At the current stock value, you can get over 1,500 shares of Google. (Right now, $515.49)
   
4. Or. You can get this ugly ass logo.
   

Look at it. That’s the official logo for the London 2012 Olympic Games, as revealed on Monday. Since its revelation, here are the results :

• 50,000+ have signed an online petition to scrap it.
• It’s been condemned as “hideous” by the public and politicians, and even the Mayer of London Ken Livingstone said he wouldn’t have paid for such a thing.
• Several members of the British Parliament signed a motion to ditch the design.
• To add, the campaign video contained too much flashing of light, which has already caused 23 reported case of seizures (epileptic).

Yes, $800,000 or so in Canadian dollars can go quite a far way…

A recent survey in Canada found that most Canadians are alert and aware of global warming and say they acknowledge the severity of it, yet they decline to make personal financial sacrifices (such as higher gas prices, toll on local bridges and highways, excess tax or higher hydro fees) in order to help the case. OK, so be it - dishing out cash from one’s own pocket is no easy feat. So let’s look at the little things we can do to help - the very little things. Here’s what you can do to help :

1. Avoid using plastic bags when possible. When I buy 1 or two items at a grocery store, or when I buy a big bottle of laundry detergent etc., I ask them to not put it in a bag when it can be helped. If I can carry it without a bag, I will do so. Also, I re-use my plastic bags to take out small garbage (such as from the bathroom or bedroom). Don’t bother using them as poo-pickup bags for your dog though - a lot of them will already have holes in them and may lead to a not very sanitary scenario at the dog park.
2. Cell Phone Chargers apparanlty use energy while not in use. Yes, I know it’s not that much energy, but while the adapter is plugged in, it still is converting your 110V input to a 3.5V output - you can tell the energy drain by the heat generated by the cellphone/ipod charger’s adapter after it’s bee plugged in, regardless of whether the equpment is on the other end or not. I haven’t been aware of this until today - my Blackberry charger is always in the wall, but I will take it out right now. Besides - I always charge my blackberry by connecting it to my laptop with the USB - I could almost put the charger away!
3. Switch your lightbulbs to low-energy fluorescent lightbulbs. They may seem to cost more, but they last much longer that it’s cheaper to use them at the end anyhow.
4. Plan your day so you don’t drive too much. I always do this, so that I don’t drive more than I need to. I plan a journey that allows me to hit all the spots in the city while avoiding rush hour traffic jams. This not only saves your own gas, and reduces mileage on your car, but it also reduces emissions a lot.
5. Don’t idle in parking lots, or when you’ve pulled over to the side of the street to pick someone up or whatever.
6. Reduce paper use. I write my grocery list on my blackberry. I’m not kidding. Also I rely more and more on online invoicing and billing. Not only for my cell phone bills etc., but also when I bill my clients, I often bill by online invoicing if they’re OK with it. Of course, a lot of them still prefer paper invoices and there’s not a lot I can do about that.
7. Try to turn the tap water off when you can. I know some people leave it on while they brush their teeth (and I’m guilty of it once in a while). But look at Australia right now - one of their reservoirs dried out so much that they can now see traces of the old town that used to exist there decades ago before it was emptied to make the reservoir over it. I bet they wish they hadn’t used up the reservoir water so quickly now!

Now. Some environmentalist/hippies simply go overboard, and they seem to completely lose the sense of praticality in their lives as they simply fall into a complete lack of balance in their lives.

1. No, I will not make my own ice-cream or cheese at home all the time because I don’t want to waste the packaging. Give me a fucking break, I cannot waste my own time for those things especially when I have a business to run. If you’re a David Cunningham-type of hippie loser with no proper job because you “refuse to be part of the machine” and you have 12 hours a day to burn (and another 2 hours to burn weed), maybe. But I’m not making anything at home.
2. Re-using garbage bags? Disgusting. I saw this couple on the CBC news channel, and they empty the garbage, bring back the garbage bags, wash it out, and then they tie it up to an electric fan to dry it. That’s gone overboard, and is completely disgusting, and a total waste of my time.
3. No, I will not get rid of my car. It’s part of my life and my convenience to own a car to have mobility across the city. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s the 21st century. And no, I cannot nor wish to bankrupt oil companies, you short-sighted hippies. I have stocks in them and they drive the global economy. Unless you want to start paying $12 for a loaf of bread instead of $2, let the oil industry survive.
4. I want to keep getting my newspapers in paper. It gives me the freedom to take it to a coffee shop, a restaurant to read it at. Yes, I go to restaurants alone because I’m too busy to ever cook at home (unless it’s a snack) and I’m not some insecure loser who thinks it’s weird to sit at a restaurant alone. Besides, it’s made of recycled paper. Give me a break.
5. No, I will not decline ownership of things, I’m not a communist - I just want to care a little bit about the environment. I really don’t see how it makes me evil to own stocks, real estate (not that I do yet, but if I were rich enough I would) and what not.
6. Not flush the toilet unless it’s #2? No way, that’s gross. I flush each time, and that won’t change. Ever.
7. No, I will not give up take-out food in order to avoid the plastic/styrofoam packaging. It’s part of my convenience and a time-saving (which is ultimately money-making) scheme.

Facebook has re-connected me with many old friends, or people I used to at least know in some way or another. And while I’m somehow finding all these clowns and adding them to my list, I found a very surprising thing. I was born in 1985, and I am 21 right now, turning 22 in October. My highschool grads are a year younger than me because I got a year behind in the midst of moving from Korea to Canada and what not. A lot of these kids are engaged already, at the age of 20, or even less.

I’m the single bachelor guy living in downtown Vancouver, pursuing my dreams as an entrepreneur of some sort, meddling in many different businesses spanning from web design, marketing, as well as foreign HR solutions for skilled labour etc. I’m very busy handling my business, as well as my health and other personal obligations with friends, and I still haven’t figured out myself yet at a truly spiritual level. They say people don’t know who they are exactly until the age of 25. I try to imagine myself engaged to somebody, and it gives me the chills, and it is such an uncomprehensible reality for me.

Another shocking thing about this is that, from what I observed, it’s mostly the Church-going type of Christians (not the spiritual, self-practising type of religious people, but the people who actually contain themselves more in the realms of going to structuralized church, attending youth groups etc.) that are getting engaged just like that. As much as I care for them and truly wish them happiness, I just cannot see how people have that mentality.

The truth is that it is a trade-off, and from an opportunity-cost perspective, it’s either a sell-out to be married that young, or it can simply lead to a shaky marriage. Maybe it’s hard to understand from my perspective. Getting a decent corporate job that pays $50,000 a year in salary, settling down, getting married, and putting money away into a pension plan is not my idea of life. I want to be more involved in the world, I want to try different businesses, make enough money to allow me to travel as I wish, and live a comfortable life without having to worry about how to make the next mortgage payment. I often worry that these friends of mine are simply settling for what they can get, at the whim and the temptations of romance lasting forever, and rushing into such situations. They seem to think that they need to “seal the deal” so to speak, and do it fast to make sure it lasts.

Oh, also, the no premarital sex part plays a huge role, I suspect. If your rules are to not have sex before marriage, well, unless you want to be a virgin til you’re 30, I guess you’ve got no other option but to get married now.

I see some of my friends living a fabulous happy life. They are 30+, living it up, living free, travelling, having fun, and developing their businesses hard. And then there are the people who are already tied down with the burden of marriage and the kids that follow with it, and not even half of them are perfectly happy.

I guess the 50% divorce rate in this country is speaking of the changes in life that people go through these days. The world is changing faster than ever, and young people are obviously very much likely to go through turbulent changes in life. I honestly cannot guarantee if I will still be living in Vancouver in a few years. You never know any of these things. What you want in life also changes. Your deepest philosophies can change, and your goals in life can change. In fact, they will change. As you grow up (and this never stops) you see the world differently each day or each year, and that pace of fast change does not slow down until later on in life.

It’s not that I wish misfortune upon my friends, nor see them as test rats, but I would very much like to keep an eye on them throughout the years and see what the survival rates are for these type of marriages. I’m very curious how they will turn out.

I was reading my daily fix of the National Post the other day, and a small article caught my attention.

Men : lost in the supermarket

U.S. [also applies to Canada just the same] me are doing more grocery shopping, both for themselves and their families, but retailers are still not doing much to make the trip any more enticing, retail consultants and industry experts say.

“Men do represent a large part of grocery shopping dollars and they aren’t being very well accommodated.  Sales are being lost,” said Mandy Putnam, vice-president at consulting firm TNS Retail Forward.

In a recent report titled Men in Grocery Stores, Putnam said that men shop inefficiently, which leads to missed sales for retailers.

“They never ask for help, except maybe from the butcher, but they always say they never had problems finding anything when the cashier at the register asks,” she said. Unlike women male shoppers typically focus more on convenience than price, and retailers will need to cater to that need, consultants said.

Men also tend to bristle at the overwhelming number of choices, Putnam said.

“One guy I thought was going to have a nervous breakdown in the cereal isle,” Putnam said.

 Well DUH.

I could have told you this a long time ago.

I moved out of home at the young age of 18 (got kicked out actually) and since then I’ve been holding my own for shopping etc. I’m 21 now, almost 3 years since I moved out of home (October marks the 3 year period) and I still have trouble at the grocery stores.

First of all, the inefficiency part is completely true. I rarely write down all the things I need, and I often come home and realize I forgot something. Do I necessarily go back the next day to get it? No. I just live without it unless it’s absolutely critical (like milk - I make protein shakes out of milk every day).

Secondly, I still don’t understand why, but I never ask for help finding something anyhow. The only way I get help is when I have a lost look on my face looking for something, and a store assistant feels pity for me and offers help. Otherwise, while I look for that something I need, I get distracted by other things, and then I forget about it.

Third, it is completely true that men look more for convenience than for cheaper prices. I could go to Costco, or the Great Canadian Super Store, which offers goods for a much cheaper price, in bulk. I never do that. The stores are too damn large, it takes me too long to find. I could probably save about $100/mth at least if I got into the habit of going to Costco, which is actually even closer than the Safeway or Marketplace IGA that I go to, but I still shun Costco for everyday goods. I’d rather go to a smaller store where I can get from one end of the store to another within 20 minutes and get it over with.

Lastly, the overwhelming number of choices is irritating. Trying to buy laundry detergent, yogurt, toilet paper, etc. is so fucking difficult you have no idea. I just stare at the shelves full of all sorts of brands and types of product and I am in complete shock. I often do mutter out loud, “why do they have to make 5 different brands?” at those aisles. I remember going to Shoppers Drug Mart to get sunscreen (and once again, Shoppers Drug Mart is much more expensive than Costco), and I thought I was going to freak right out. I can comprehend with that guy having a nervous breakdown at the cereal aisle.

Now, is this something we should blame the retailers for? No, men are just stupid at these things. 

I’m sure so many people have been talking about this, and I will pitch my 2 cents in to this concept which is one of the greatest pinnacles of Web 2.0 - “Segregation of Data and Presentation”

You guys are all going “What…???” if you don’t know much about web design. And even if you do, if have been focusing only on the small stuff like how to make that PNG show on IE or how to apply transparency on objects, you won’t get this right away - here’s an opportunity for you to think bigger and wider.

A while ago when the internet was first developed, data was kept within a website, and not transferred externally very often. And even when it was, it was done thorugh each individual’s own ways of doing it rather than in a universally accepted formet. In other words, data was not transferrable. If you want to read something, you go to that site - there’s no other way. Also, before the CSS2 days, there was a time when modifying the design or controlling the whole layout was such a pain in the ass. Now it’s all changed. And here’s how :

1. XMLXML stands for Extensible Markup Language. It is extendable, self-definable, and most importantly it carries PURE DATA. JUST DATA. It requires external files or parsing to be formatted into a visual layout. Well, that sucks, no? No, it does NOT suck. This gives flexibility. Same data from 1 source can be parsed and presented in a gazillion different ways on a gazzilion different platforms. It’s awesome. It rocks.How do you think RSS feeds work? Blogs all spit out an RSS feed that looks something like this :

   <item>
   <title>The Most Brutal, Most Honest Review Me Post Ever</title>
   <link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JeffKeeConsulting/~3/117634970/</link>
   <comments>http://blog.jeffkee.com/2007/05/17/the-most-brutal-most-honest-review-me-post-ever/#comments</comments>
   <pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2007 06:14:23 +0000</pubDate>
   <dc:creator>Jeff Kee</dc:creator>

   <category><![CDATA[Stupid People]]></category>
   
   <category><![CDATA[Comedy]]></category>
   
   <category><![CDATA[Cool Websites]]></category>
   
   <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.jeffkee.com/2007/05/17/the-most-brutal-most-honest-review-me-post-ever/</guid>
   <description><![CDATA[While a lot of the PayPerPost items force you to be postive about a product in order to qualify for the payout, Review Me does not ask for that. You can be completely honest with any kind of reviews for anybody, and I found one that made me laugh at the end.
   Who did this? None [...]]]></description>
   <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>While a lot of the PayPerPost items force you to be postive about a product in order to qualify for the payout, Review Me does not ask for that. You can be completely honest with any kind of reviews for anybody, and I found one that made me laugh at the end.</p>
   <p>Who did this? None other than a fellow blogger, and also my client (one of the bigger accounts!), <a href="http://www.johnchow.com" target="_blank">John Chow</a>!</p>
   <p>He was asked to serve up <a href="http://www.johnchow.com/seven-day-system-for-making-money-online-but-for-who/" target="_blank">a review for this scam of a pyramid scheme</a>, and he cleanly exposes the dark sides of it - about how ONLY the guy who owns the website will leech off your efforts while chances are you won’t get any back!</p>
   <p>This review is a MUST-READ, just so you can read the last sentence on John’s review - and I won’t reveal it here! <a href="http://www.johnchow.com/seven-day-system-for-making-money-online-but-for-who/" target="_blank">Read for yourself about this scam</a>!</p>
   
   <div class="feedflare"><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/JeffKeeConsulting?a=ux3UbqQ8"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/JeffKeeConsulting?i=ux3UbqQ8" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/JeffKeeConsulting?a=8F2o8VPA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/JeffKeeConsulting?i=8F2o8VPA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/JeffKeeConsulting?a=0qrO7oFl"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/JeffKeeConsulting?i=0qrO7oFl" border="0"></img></a></div>]]></content:encoded>
   <wfw:commentRss>http://blog.jeffkee.com/2007/05/17/the-most-brutal-most-honest-review-me-post-ever/feed/</wfw:commentRss>

   <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.jeffkee.com/2007/05/17/the-most-brutal-most-honest-review-me-post-ever/</feedburner:origLink></item>

   OK, I know this just looks like gibberish. But this file defines the data. This files defines the title, link, date/time, author, content, categories of my blog post. Based on this XML, any engine can display this any way it wants to, without any security risk to my actual data on my server!

   This is also the backbone of how aggregator sites like Technorati works. It collects the XML data from selected blogs (such as your favorites) and displays it all together in the Technorati-crafted format! How amazing is that?

   Newspaper websits now offer this. You don’t need to visit the actual site to get the news - now you can put the XML feed, or more commonly known as RSS feeds, on your RSS reader/aggregator and you can get it all!

2. AJAXThis has more emphasis on the performance and presentation within a website. AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. AJAX works like this :AJAX is a technology that allows you to interact with the server using minimal amount of data (just the data that you need to send in) and then get the results back without refreshing the whole page. Usually, to indicate success, or for the functional purpose, the AJAX code includes scripts to update a part of the existing webpage that you already have open on your browser. That way it reduces the amount of time you spend waiting for the whole page to reload when you input a comment, or fill out and submit a form etc. It makes things go faster, easier, and also it reduces bandwidth for mega-sized websites like Facebook. I already raved about how much I love and respect Facebook because they follow the Web 2.0 trend with AJAX and all.
3. CSSUsually a lot of Web 2.0 pitches do not include CSS, because it is not as new and fresh as XML and AJAX technology. BUT. Why is CSS important?You can build a website out of purely DIVs, with content in it. By itself you’ll just have DIVs after DIVs piled up in rows. However. With CSS, you can define the presentation of the entire website!!! Check out the CSS Zen Garden for more details on how that works, if you’re not sure.What does this mean? Well, that means, once again, the data is segregated from the presentation. While this is different in nature from XML parsing, this still gives the web developers option to design the same content in many different ways. This means that when you want to re-design your website, you often don’t even need to touch the HTML files - you just modify your CSS and all the elements can be defined (if you’re savvy enough with CSS!).

   While this technology has been available for years, as it developed from CSS1 to CSS2 and what not, this is becoming more and more prominent of a technology as computers are no longer the only devices that surf the net. My Blackberry can surf the net. So can Palm Treos, and cell phones, and, well, of course, computers. These devices have different screen-size capacities, as well as different functionalities (my Blackberry cannot run Javascript). Obviously, to spit out the same website layout as you would on a computer wouldn’t look too good on any other platforms, nor would it work very well.

   <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="screen.css" />
   <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print" href="print.css" />
   <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="handheld" href="mobile.css" />

   Here’s how the multi-CSS works. Basically, when this code is inserted, the same bloody page will render differently in different type of equipment it is being read by. When a printer tries to print it, it will display it based on print.css. When it’s from a hand-held device with limited screen size, and processing functionality, it will use the mobile.css presentation.

That’s Web 2.0. Segregation of data from presentation gives flexibility, transferrability. It makes data transparent. It makes data fluid.

The internet revolution has barely begun.