I learned an interesting fact in school tonight. According to my textbook and this article Wal-Mart was sued 4,851 times in 2000. That means that an average of once every 2 hours every day of the year. They have been sued for some strange things such as people being abducted from the Wal-Mart parking lot, people slipping on French fries and falling, people having merchandise fall on their head, etc.

The book also states that Wal-Mart doesn't give in to lawsuits, even if it costs less to settle than to fight the lawsuit. They are likely trying to set a precedent to scare of people who think they can cash in with a lawsuit. Most companies use risk management to determine whether it costs less to settle or to litigate, and settling is usually the chosen path regardless of a lawsuit's merit. Recently a large Canadian bank settled an Enron lawsuit for $2.1 billion dollars. They had made a decision that it would be a better business decision to settle and not admit fault, rather than fighting it and risking having a jury settle against it, which is also a risk to a company's reputation.

According to the article I linked to above, the only entity that gets sued more than Wal-Mart is the U.S. Government, which according to the article, estimates indicate that it was sued more than 7,500 times in 2000.

When I was moving into the new place, I was going through some of my personal stuff and I found some drawings that I did back in 1994 when I was 14 years-old.

I haven't really done any drawings since then, so I figured a good way to decorate the new place would be to draw a picture, paint it and frame it and hang it up on the wall.

Here is my first crack at drawing and painting. It's a portrait of my dog Mojo; it took me 3 and a half hours to finish.

Lofts should come with ear plugs. I'm very pissed right now. My brother asked me earlier if he could have a couple buddies come over after work to play XBox for a couple hours. I figured they'd be gone by 2:30AM or 3AM at the latest.

It's 4:15AM now and I haven't slept for 5 minutes. I had to ask them to be quiet multiple times, yet they were still talking loud and sometimes yelling up until 5 minutes ago. At 3:45AM I finally got fed up and asked them to leave, so they have finally left. It doesn't matter where you are in this place, you can hear every word anyone says.

I have an exam tomorrow evening at 6PM and my plan was to get up early to study more for the exam. Well now I pretty much have to take the day off work to study because I definitely don't want to go to work on less than 4 hours of sleep, work all day and then go to my exam.

Tom owes me big time for this. I also spent 2 hours today cleaning the living room and now it is a disaster, so at the very least he had better clean it up tomorrow. Well now I'm going to try to get some sleep in peace and quiet.

A major aspect of my work is dealing with technology, but it's not too often I write about technology on my website. I think my website helps to get my mind off work/technology when I need a break from it. Well today's entry is about technology (sort of).

Yesterday, a Project Manager from work came by my desk and asked me what an iFrame looks like because he wanted to confirm what he thought it was. For all you non-techie people, an iFrame is a square box on a web page that allows you to render another web page within the context of the existing web page.

With a very serious look on my face, I said "here, let my draw it on my white board". So still having a serious look on my face, I took a marker and started drawing it on the white board in my office. Watching me carefully draw what he expected to be an iFrame, the PM was quite surprised when the picture I was drawing turned out to be a big penis and two testicles.

We had a good laugh over that one. It was actually payback because only one day earlier, Malcolm came by my desk while I was on the phone with somebody else, and while he was waiting for me to get off the phone, he drew a penis and testicles on my white board.

There is no stopping this Texas cowboy. He is on a rampage and his global bullying policy isn't stopping with Iraq. Even while Iraq is escalating into a potential civil war, the US debt is reaching an all-time high; Bush is still spewing his venomous threats toward Iran.

Bush preaches using diplomacy to resolve the Iran conflict. Sound familiar? Remember 3 years ago when Bush was "exhausting" diplomacy to resolve the Iraq WMD crisis? At the same time his troops were being deployed by the thousands to the Middle East. Iran is at least 20 years away from developing a nuclear weapon, and even at that point it wouldn't be able to reach the United States. Bush is once again crying of an "imminent threat" by Iran. His pre-emptive policy toward other countries is more of an imminent threat to other countries than any country could threaten the US. If only he had some troops available to attack Iran, they would already be deployed and put on "stand-by" while diplomacy takes its course.

Back home Americans are beginning to see through his policies with all time low approval ratings for Bush. His tax cuts can only gain so much support. What good are tax cuts when the federal debt limit has been raised to 9 trillion? The US economy will pay the price a few years down the road. The debt has been raised 4 times since Bush took office, going up by 3 trillion. His Iraq war is costing 7 billion per month, and the estimated total cost is already around 250 billion. The current federal deficit is around $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States of America.

Before Bush took office, Clinton had a budget surplus from 1998 until 2001 inclusive. In 2000 the surplus was 236 billion dollars. Since Bush took office, there have been staggering record deficits of 158 billion in 2002, 378 billion in 2003, 413 billion in 2004, and 318 billion in 2005. Bush's tax cuts might give immediate relief to Americans, but are sending the country in a downward spiral.

His imperial wars in the Middle East will only cost Americans more money and make more enemies. When all of the troops are tied up in Bush's wars, his offensive capability will be diminished and other countries will take advantage.

I'll leave you with a lovely quote regarding the invasion of Iraq from Stephen Hadley, Bush's National Security Advisor:

"Obviously, we didn't have the intelligence we needed in that particular instance," Hadley said. "In some sense, those countries that pursue weapons of mass destruction in secret also learned an important lesson; that there are risks of that kind of behavior and that kind of activity."
Stephen Hadley - Bush's National Security Advisor

Sources: Congressional Budget Office (www.cbo.gov), National Priorities Project (nationalpriorities.org), CNN, CBC

Looking back over the years that we've been together,
I can't help but wonder...
"What the hell was I thinking?"


Congratulations on your wedding day!
Too bad no one likes your husband.


I must admit, you brought Religion into my life.
I never believed in Hell until I met you.


Happy Birthday, Uncle Dad!
(Available only in Tennessee, Kentucky & West Virginia)


Congratulations on your new bundle of joy.
Did you ever find out who the father was?


I've always wanted to have
someone to hold,
someone to love.
After having met you ..
I've changed my mind.

As always, every Monday in my accounting class, my mind is wandering. Today I was thinking about a revolutionary idea in Online banking that benefits both the customer and the bank. I was thinking about how a relatively simple change in Online Banking could allow customers to easily separate their cash into separate "logical" buckets. These virtual or "logical" buckets appear as separate bank accounts and are named by the customer to cater toward their regular expenses.

Think for a second about how a company manages their Accounting records. When a large purchase is made such as purchasing machinery or the purchase of a building, the cost of that asset is amortized throughout the length of time that the asset is used to generate revenue. (Sorry for the lame accounting lingo). When you go shopping on the weekend and end up spending $500 on clothes, it is a fairly substantial one-time hit to your bank account. When you have these types of purchases, it's hard to create a budget for yourself and stick to it. Wouldn't it be easier to stick to a budget if you were able to amortize the cost of those clothes throughout their useful life? Well it's not practical to estimate the useful life for a pair of jeans, so my 21st century banking idea basically meets the same objective, but with a much more simple process.

Your bank account has a separate logical account called "Clothes". Every week you have an automatic transfer from your regular bank account where $20 is moved into your logical "clothes" account. So if you're the type of person that only goes shopping every few months, your clothing account will add up to around $240 after 3 months. You would then transfer the money into your regular account and go to the mall and spend this money. You can have as many of these logical accounts as you like. One for automobile repairs, rent, beer fund, or you may even have your strip club fund. ;). Since the accounts are logical, the bank doesn't need to officially open a new account for each one. Technically your account could still be in your chequing account, but logically separated via Online Banking.

This concept allows you to budget your pay cheque and assign it to buckets to help you manage your money and stick to your budget. I know this would help me out, and the banks would also prosper from this concept because people would manage their money better and the banks would presumable charge fees for this convenient service. The alternative solution is to take money out of your account every time you get paid and put them in separate envelopes, but this is also not practical, so I think it's time for the banks to implement this idea.

Former Yugoslav leader Slobadan Milosevic died in his prison cell on Saturday not long before his trial was to end. This is reminiscint of other disgraced leaders have escaped justice, by choice or not, sometimes retaining some of their dignity before giving anyone a chance to take it away.

Such examples are Adolf Hitler's suicide on April 30th, 1945, Josef Stalin unusual death on March 5, 1953, and the likely upcoming execution of Saddam Hussein.

Did any of these leaders actually face justice for their crimes? I don't think justice was served in any of these situations. In the Milosevic case, we'll never even know what the outcome of the trial would have been.

Is execution even really serving justice? I think execution is putting a lost person out of their misery and giving them an easy way out. It does put the matter to rest and allow the affected victim family members a chance to move on, but to me it doesn't serve justice for society. On the other hand, I don't know if locking someone up for the rest of their life is serving justice either, but at least they can be humuliated while alive rather than being dead.

What's your opinion?

Walking to work today I discovered how I've become immune to homelessness living in the city. A younger guy wearing a hooded sweater and unshaven face walked toward me this morning. Before he even spoke I was about to say "Sorry, I don't have change", as my default response to the many panhandlers I encounter every day. But I didn't say anything and he asked me if I knew where Spadina street was. Good thing I didn't respond before the question was asked.

I've realized that every person deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Practical jokes are no stranger amongst my brother and I. Living at the new loft with the open concept layout has only increased the temptation to play a practical joke on Tommy. Typically my practical jokes on my brother involve gay men, because gay jokes are always funny. The first day we moved in, Tom setup his computer and I browsed to a gay male website on his computer. He was surpised when he turned on his monitor to find such a website displayed.

My buddy Mike and I always have fun in our Accounting class, so this week Mike was browsing through a muscle magazine he picked up at a local nutritional suppliment store only to find a hilarious picture of a muscle dude wearing a purple g-string. We thought that nothing would be funnier than to tape the picture of the guy on Tom's ceiling directly above where he sleeps.

I can't wait to see his reaction when he notices the g-string guy staring down on him while he sleeps.

On the streetcar this morning, a very obnoxious guy in his mid-to-late twenties was having a loud conversation on the phone. The first thing I heard was "Hey man, can you lend me fifteen hundred or two thousand? I need to buy some stocks but I'm flat broke right now." He was on the other side of the streetcar, so I wasn't intentionally trying to eavesdrop but it was hard not to hear him.

He was Italian and he had his slightly long hair greased up and slicked straight back, almost forming a mullet. He looked like a member of the Mafia with his trench coat and suit and slicked hair.

Based on his conversations, it sounded like he was a stockbroker. When the person on the other end of the phone asked him where he was, he replied "I'm on the streetcar. I didn't have any cash for a cab, so I had to take the streetcar. I only have US $100s. He then continued to tell his buddy about how he had a crazy night the other night and didn't get home until 5:30AM. He ended up at For Your Eyes only (strip club) and ended up taking 2 girls back to his buddy's place. He couldn't wake up in the morning to get to work, so he missed the morning at work.

In my days in Toronto, I've met several stockbrokers who make a ton of cash. Most of these guys are raking in 400,000 a year and up, some of them over a million. But they blow all their money on living the lifestyle, and a large portion of them are heavily into Cocaine and other drugs. They live the lifestyle, but they always want more. It's still never enough. Thousands of dollars get blown at the strip clubs, but they're never happy. Sometimes when you're younger and less mature, you crave that lifestyle because you think about how fun it would be. I think the novelty would probably wear off after 6 months and you'd probably be more conducive to depression. I find that people who fall into this trap bring everyone else around them down with them and eventually nobody wants to be around you anymore. I've seen the opposite effect as well, but I think the majority of people fall into the trap.

What is the moral to the story? Money can be the devil if you let it control you.