Feb 24, 1998, 6:25pm

An observation: is it just me, or is the new Volkswagon Beetle seem perfectly targeted toward the Net Generation? Kinda a bit retro, yet brand spankin new, cutting edge. Kinda different, maybe geeky even. I've been seeing Volkswagon's new banner adverts for the thing too, and they start off with a Mac like download of an "upgrade" then a message saying Version 2 installed, then a picture of the Beetle, Version 2.0 as the label.

Personally, I love the look of the new Beetle, but seeing a picture of the 1999 Convertible model in an Artsy magazine (Graphis, I think) totally, totally blew me away. The convertible is really all that. All That... had to say it twice. I want one... bad.

And on a subject I've put off writing about for a bit, because it hit me so hard - Canada not taking a medal in Olympic Hockey (note, I started writing this right after the Czech loss, but couldn't quite find the right words).

Canada losing. Don Cherry called it nothing short of a disaster. You could see the disgust in his eyes after the Finnish loss. While I agree with some things Grapes says at times, I don't agree with him here. Sure, there's disappointment, there's loss of heart, there's upset feelings, but a disaster? Disgust? Naw. pain. that's what I feel.

I feel pain for Wayne Gretzky... that's right, the world's greatest hockey player ever, and possibly the world's greatest athlete in any sport.. making millions in salary, millions more in endorsements... me feel sorry for him? Feel pain for him? Yes. Let's compare things to the various Dream Teams in Olympic basketball, shall we?

How much do you think the gold medal in Olympic basketball is worth these days? Especially in it's current context, what with the US of A having a virtual lock on it for the next 20 years or more? Not much in my books. There's no real competition, there's no real challenge for the US teams. And to boot, I found, the last two Olympics, that the American players were not exactly the best representatives, at least off the court, and on top of that, it didn't seem to me they enjoyed the whole experience much. Michael Jordan, the game's best player ever, got his gold, and rightfully so. Wayne didn't.

Hockey in the world scene wasn't much different now that the pros were allowed in... why? Because hockey is a sport played in over 60 countries, and about a dozen of those can field gold medal calibre teams, and out of that dozen, 6 would have to be near par favorites to win - that being Canada, Sweden, Russia, Finland, the Czech Republic, and the US. The same can't be said for basketball. Even though hockey has this parity, it was expected that the final would be USA vs. Canada, and Canada had the nod as the overall favourites. But we didn't win any medals, and the US didn't even make the semi-finals. I guess, in my usual winded way, I'm saying that the hockey gold medal really does matter - really is worth something.

And Wayne Gretzky, for the career he's had, for all his Stanley Cups, for all his World Cup and Canada Cup wins, for all the good work he does, tirelessly, for charities, deserved that medal. This was possibly his one and only chance at it in the Olympics (he's 37), and as he said himself, it would crown his career. And you know what? He played like it was the most important thing to him too... I watched every game Canada played (some going as late as 4:30AM PST) and no player on the Canadian side showed more hustle, more boyhood thrill, more thinking that Wayne did on the ice. Off the ice, he was even better - never claiming the gold was automatically his, but always basking in the glow of what the Olympics are supposed to be - the world coming together for the thrill, and the fun of competition. He was a great ambassador (as always) for Canada over there. But he didn't get the gold or any medal - his team didn't win.

I won't get into the poor sportsmanship a few American players showed, but I will tell you that, win or lose, even the bronze medal, Team Canada as a whole decided to stay right until the closing ceremonies at the Olympics (that's why the Finns got their bronze a day before the Czechs got gold - they all flew back to Finland before the end of the Olympics - Team Canada stated they would accept the bronze the same night as the Gold Medal game, if they'd won). When asked why, Wayne simply said "We're here to represent our country, but we're also here for the Olympic experience... we are part of our nation's entire team, and we want to experience it all". He said this after the crushing defeat to the Czechs, one that saw Wayne sitting on the bench in solitude after the game, with tears down his cheek.

That's the sign of a honourable person. A guy I'm proud to have as our representative, win or lose. Wayne, all the hockey team, and in fact just about our our Olympic athletes made me very proud to be a Canadian. So I feel a lot of pain for these guys, because they lost... but no real disgust or anger.

As you can probably tell, I'm passionate about hockey. I think it's the best game played on the planet, even though I've never laced up skates to play myself (though I used to play a mean ball hockey). Most Canadians are passionate about hockey. We see it as our native sport (though officially, Lacrosse is) and most Canadians feel that we produce the best hockey players on the planet, so anything less than a gold would be a disappointment. But disappointment simply isn't fair. Against the Czechs, the eventual gold medal winners, we were up against the best goalie on the planet, one of the best forwards on the planet, excellent centermen, and equally excellent, NHL upper calibre defencemen. We lost to a team that pretty much spanked the US squad two days before. The Finnish loss, I have a bit more difficulty figuring out, but the Finns are no slouches.

Even though I still think we produce the the greatest number of excellent hockey players on the planet (as Don Cherry said after the game, where most hockey countries could field one decent team, Canada could field 3 world class teams or more) we played a team made up of world class players and more importantly, world class people, and the boys have nothing to hold their heads low about.

And in other news....

Over the weekend, I've been visiting a lot of new web sites, and I thought I'd share a few with you. Let's start off with some PhotoShop links:

CoolType
Easily one of the best "how to" sites on the net. I learned a few new tricks here (like the puzzle trick) and it's highly worth a visit if you're into learning new things with PhotoShop or any other drawing, painting or desktop publishing software.

AndyArt Photoshop tricks and more
Neat, eclectic and funky (though a tiny bit dated) design, chok full of photoshop tips at the link above. But don't stop there... link through the site to find out the other goodies, including gobs of free clipart, animations and more.

Glover.com
Though Jeffrey seems a bit ego-laden to me :-) His site is pretty cool, and it took me a while to figure out how he managed the javascript rollover and seamless animation on the front page (hehe done with CSS). His rules about sucky sites are bang on (especially the Muzak rule, one of my own!) and the sucky to savvy section is worth visiting if you need tips on improving your web pages.

(Editorial note - when I added this archived rant to the current site (Sept 21, 2001), I checked the three sites. Guess what. Cooltype is turned into something very ugly, with nothing to do with Photoshop. Andyart is gone. And Glover.com has a static page for Hasbro computer products??!!? How the Net has changed).

A quick update. I got a few emails from some of you concerning my experience with that whacked out loon I wrote about last time round. Thank you for your good words.. some of the emails about online "friendships" show I'm not the only one to be the subject of a blindside by someone with a few screws loose. One e-mail struck a particular chord, because it kind of mirrors my situation. It described how a woman online started playing little mind (word?) games trying to turn other friends against each other. This is kind of happening here, what with my loon telling me certain things about another online friend that, if true are pretty bad... but I don't believe them. And I'm sure the loon is telling that friend various lies or fabrications about me. I only hope he can see the game that's being played by the loon. :-)

Hey, I'm trying not to build up another webopera... and that's why I haven't even bothered discussing this aspect (and what was said about him) with my net.friend, who feels he's caught in the middle (and also why, out of the 3500+ words in these past two rants, less than 1,000 of them mention this). But over the weekend, I had to decide if I was just going to sit by while he's poisoned by one deranged side... and decided not to, so the little paragraph above is that attempt. And, I promise, it's the last time you'll hear about it :-)

Well, that's about it for today, but before I go, if you haven't done so yet, pop over to my Name That Beanie page and fill out some suggestions. I've gotten a lot of responses so far, but could use some more...

Se ya next time! Thanks for stopping by!

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Mixelania

Photos from Algonquin Park
Photos from my trip to Algonquin Park this fall with my Mom and two brothers.

War Stories

Making Snow for the Fortress
One of the worst jobs I ever had... till I got out.

Webiffied

Tools I Use
The tools I use to build websites and lead a tech life.

iPod and iTunes Offline

iMark's iTunes and iPod isn't iPlaying anything right iNow.

Most Recent Songs

Fiddlers Green by The Tragically Hip

Around The Bend by Pearl Jam

Here With Me (Rollo's Chillin' With the Family Mix) by Dido

With arms open wide by Creed

truffle pigs by Matthew Good Band

In the News

Burundi and Beyond - NY Times
Great article by Peter Meehan - provided some background.

St. Petersburg Times
Side mention in an article about good machines

AP Story on Espresso
Background and information provided

NY Times - Grinders Article
Especially proud of this one - got the reporter to focus on grinders

Globe and Mail
LOL - showing bad reporting, dude says I'm an American-based site!

The Olympian, WA
Talks about my love for the El Sal Siberia Pacamara

Seattle Times - Clover
Interviewed for comments on the Clover brewer

NY Times - How it Works
Background and information for various espresso machines

Time Mag Article
Just a brief mention, article about roasting beans.

NY Times
Front page article about consumers getting into specialty coffee.

Washington Monthly
Quoted reference to what I wrote in an article at CoffeeGeek.

USA Today - Barista Jam
Intereviewed for my thoughts on what the epitome of espresso is.

WSJ Article
The Wall Street Journal has interviewed me 3 times. This is the first time my name got in a story.

Reuters Interview
Interview with Reuters, Jan 2 - this is the USA Today version.

My Other Stuff

CoffeeGeek
Launched Dec 22, 2001, this is THE online community for espresso and coffee fanatics.

CoffeeKid Website
It's all new, as of March, 2002. My personal coffee obsession site.

WebMotif Services
My company's site - needs an update!

Amazon WishList
Hey, if you feel the need to buy me something, check here!

Daily Visits

enGadget
Great gadget site run by the guy who used to do Gizmodo.

Google News
This is how I get my daily news fix.

DPReview Forums`
The most active forums for digital photography online today.

Daily Zen
Need my Daily Zen fix!

Jalopnik
A blog about car stuff. Vroom Vroom.

MoCo Loco
An industrial design blog. Very cool stuff.

Friends and Family Plan

Beata Blog
Beata's got her own blog! She updates it most days.

Riddla on Flickr
Matt Riddle's flickr account, updated regularly

Irdy Photos
Irdy, my friend from Jakharta, on Flickr

Recent Acquisitions

Canon EF 24-105 f4 L Lens
The best lens I've ever owned. Super sharp and quick.

Canon 5D
A full frame dSLR, with luscious colour reproduction.

Alzo Digital Lights
Some amazing florescent cold lights for product photography

Canon Xsi dSLR
Amazing technology and image quality in a tiny package.

Canon 40D
Latest prosumer camera from Canon - a much better upgrade than the 30D

Fujitsu P1610
Great 2.2lb computer that does most of my travel / writing needs

28mm f1.8 Lens
A great lens for closeup work and full picture photography

Foodsaver Advanced
Finally got the right tools for freezing green coffee.

Canon 50mm 1.4
Most amazing lens I've ever owned. Produces stellar photos.

Canon 10-22mm
Super wide angle (full frame fisheye) zoom for my Canon 20D