Morrie the Toupee Salesman

By Owen Byrne

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Entries from January 2008

The screech of a modem

January 31st, 2008 · No Comments

I heard it twice in the last 24 hours. Both while paying money to the Government of Canada. Blast from the past, not at all welcome, especially in Point of Sale systems.

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Fascinating fact about bags…

January 31st, 2008 · No Comments

Ah, CBC, how I missed you… I’m currently watching a documentary about the history of plastic bags. One amazing factoid is that back before we discovered how to mass-produce paper bags (precursor to the plastic bag) bull scrotums were actually widely used in the same role. I repeat, <pregnant pause> Bull Scrotums!
Note that the site […]

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Google Day!

January 31st, 2008 · No Comments

It’s google earnings day today. Tech investors await pensively. Update: missed by a penny or two. Nothing terrible, but it’s another event that might have turned around the stock markets, but didn’t.

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On Poker and Entrepreneurship

January 30th, 2008 · 3 Comments

I’ve been watching some poker on tv lately - it’s probably fueled by my addiction to ujogo.com. What I find really interesting is how bad the “professional” poker players are. They constantly make rookie mistakes, pay to see the flop with really bad hands, chase straights that they have little hope of getting. Add to […]

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Tags: Entrepreneurship

Pigs want their trough back…

January 29th, 2008 · No Comments

An entertaining article in the Financial Times today. While I have gained some sympathy for the rank and file who might see their job threatened by the decline of the music industry, I have little respect for the braying of the bigwigs. I love the apt simile chosen by the speaker talked about in this […]

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Tags: Intellectual Property

Just plain wrong…

January 28th, 2008 · No Comments

I found this piece by Jason Calacanis to be an interesting mix of entrepreneurship theory, “Crossing the Chasm” and self-promotion… and I was left with the conclusion that the real message of the piece is “tireless self-promotion is the key.”  I’m sure that message was unintended, but it’s probably a more useful lesson than the […]

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Feeling good…except for the cognitive dissonance

January 28th, 2008 · No Comments

Workopolis.com, a leading Canadian job board, has this good-feeling commercial on TV where a soothing voice tells us how great it is to be a Canadian, good times are at hand, the Canuck economy is rocking! Only thing is that soothing voice belongs to an Australian (born in Nigeria). Now I’m not one for jingoistic […]

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The final indignity

January 28th, 2008 · No Comments

Certainly watching the way the description of my role at digg go from “co-founder” to “we hired a guy to build a beta version” (after the first round of hiring programmers) to “” (after the second round) was a nightmare.
Now I can’t even avail myself of the free for founders accounts at thefunded.com, because it […]

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Friendo…

January 26th, 2008 · No Comments

Watching No Country For Old Men go through it’s Oscar run is kind of fun. For all those who missed it, the Coen Brothers & Cormac McCarthy plant the seeds, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem deliver a monster movie.
The scene shown in the preview with the shopkeeper and our favorite psycopath is a showstopper… but […]

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You had me at…

January 26th, 2008 · No Comments

Slave!… Wipe!

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