return to the north

canada is the 'true north' indeed and in his follow up story to the white stripes' show a few weeks back, ben rayner from the toronto star lightens up my day with a smallish profile of the capital of nunavut.

i tell you this - i'm a city slicker, born and bred. you put me out in the country and i start getting twitchy fast. but, there is something about nunavut that has called out to me from the first time that i ever heard about it.

iqaluit

crown city rockers part deux

tracked this one down after watching the video for 'b-boy' again this morning.

fresh for you all it's called 'slam'

lacrosse - it's not what you think

here's a nice write up on how the 'canadian summer sport' of lacross is uniting native communities in north america.

the article focuses on the oneida who live both in upstate new york and in canada and how they are coming together united around a sport that is a diversion from the community ills that have plauged first nation peoples for the last five hundred years.

obligatory wikipedia entry:
lacrosse - 'official entry'

new york times article
'indians widen old outlet in youth lacrosse'

outsourcing your life

this seems to be something as one interviewee in the wsj.com article indicates as being 'coming out of the early adopter's phase'.

the long and the short of it is that firms in india, canada, and the far east are beginning to offer personal assistant services at reasonable rates to ordinary folks. i discovered this by accident while reading a blog entry that pointed to tim ferriss' book '4 hour workweek' where he (tim) talks all about outsourcing the 'mundane' parts of living to an overseas 'virtual assistant' for a fraction of what he feels his time is worth.

i think the last part of the last sentence is the telling point alright - how much is our time worth? what do we consider it to be? is it only the hours while we're at work? could we 'do more'? for instance, if one were to calculate what they feel their time is really worth as opposed to what their boss pays, then would the cost of a personal assistant seem more worthwhile?

i don't know but i found a whack load of sites in my mini research mode.
who knows? perhaps i'll be emailing a virtual assistant fragmentary ideas for blog posts and having them research for me and provide a precis.

nah - that would be too much like the management.

on to the links:

outsource your life @ the wallstreet journal online

brickwork india - a knowledge workers outsourcing firm

tutorvista - an outsourcing location for online tutorting

four hour workweek - which seems to be a pointing spot for many of the blogs i found that referenced it

get friday - great slogan 'got work? get friday'

get friday reviewed at firstpost.co.uk

"knowin' the (b) in b-boy stands for break"

i'm feeling this one right here.

white stripes play iqalquit

600 folks turned out to see jack and meg pound the 'icky thump' in nunavut.

for nunavut that's pretty good folks.

iqalquit opens white stripes with open arms

when sci-fi grew up

the funny thing is that for any serious reader of the genre it's been 'grown up' for a long time.

i suppose what the guardian's article means is when 'tv' grew up about sci-fi.

the new sci-fi

on a side note - i hope they bring 'life on mars' over the lake. i'd like to see a show about a time traveling policeman.