Picotalk Blog Compilation

Asked by philosophers worldwide, I have decided it’s time to reveal the connection to one of the greatest mysteries of the world.

It all started with CBC’s “New Music Canada” program. I posted my first CD to the new music website and after a few months I received an email from Clay Phillips. Clay captains Toronto Experimental Artists - Clay Phillips, which explodes to become the “Toronto Experimental Artists". Clay had invited me to place “In Her Eyes” on their Volume 10 compilation CD.

This turned out to be a good move. This lead to some online interviews, and some local recognition. Back in January Candi McNeil of Indie Talent put together an hour-long interview and song showcase with one half hour covering myself, and the other half featuring Katelyn Dawn. Katelyn Dawn is another artist showcased on the TEA Volume 10 Compilation CD - Katelyn Dawn.

Well for those of us who spend a little time on the tube, particularly watching “Canadian Idol", you’ll recognize Winnipeg’s Katelyn Dawn as one of our top 24 contestants this year. Katelyn is a mild 18 years old and according to the CTV website, has already put out 2 albums.

I can’t say I’ve ever met Katelyn or spoken to her. We’ve never shared a stage or gone rock climbing together. But for a moment in our musical history our paths crossed thanks to the Clay from TEA.

So there you go. Mystery Solved. All ye professors of philosophical nature may new relax and be spellbound by the sheer simplicity of it all.
As for me, I’m continuing recording my next CD, playing live shows, and as time permits, I’ll be watching Idol and watching Katelyn progress through the competition.

Mickael Maddison
www.myspace.com/mickaelmaddison
http://radio3.cbc.ca/bands/MICKAEL-MADDISON

Link: http://www.picotalk.com/index.php?title=sears_is_bass_ackwards&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Last month I wrote how Sears has lost my business due to their backwards business mentality. Today I find their business practices are even further into the stone age than I realized.

Anyone with a website that has an email newsletter list will love this one. Once Sears puts you on one of their email lists (it’s not clear if we signed up for it), try and get off their list. When we replied to their junk mail to ask to be removed from their email lists, we received an email back saying we have to CALL them to be removed from their mailing lists! How ridiculous is that?

I suppose if you want to get off their catalog list you can’t write them a letter and ask them to stop sending you catalogs… you probably have to send a telegraph.

I still find it quite interesting that this company, which has had an excellent catalog based service for so many years, can’t seem to adopt the next generation of catalog shopping through their website. Sure, the size and scope of their business is huge, but surely there are economies of scale to save on should they convert to having the web as the basis for their catalog business.

Oh well… someday they will change or they will be replaced by a company big enough that does get it. We’ll see.

Mickael Maddison

For anyone else out there that took part in short lived PDA revolution a few years back and ended up with the Dell Axim brand, here’s a bit of information that might be of use to you.

I’ve had very few problems with my PDA in general. For about 2 years the device even managed to be moderately useful. At one point I was trying to use it to store all of my contacts and appointments; but as time moved on the slowness of the device became frustrating and I stopped using it this way. After that as I was working on my first CD “Free” I started using it to playback the scratch tracks so I could practice singing along to them. This worked quite well up until I won my iPod. After that, the short battery life and the PPC software couldn’t compete with the ease and flexibility of the iPod. Next as I began working on some music videos, the device became a medium to share my work with others. As it stands now, it’s mostly just a toy used to play a few simple games while relaxing or travelling.

Recently the x30i decided it wanted me to align the screen. Normally this is fine, but in this case, the problem was that any attempts to complete the alignment failed. I was stuck in an endless loop that I wasn’t able to get out of. No reboots or software updates made any difference. Fortunately I wasn’t the only one to have this trouble, as eventually I found a link to a tool that would bypass the systems need to do this and restore access. The good people at Code Factory provided THIS LINK.

So anyone else out there with an old Dell PDA that hasn’t yet gone so far as tossing the device into a garbage salad and has trouble with this “Align Screen” issue, give this a try…

Mickael Maddison

Ok. We already know our health care system is a little out of whack. It can take days/weeks/months/years to get treatment for pretty much anything, that's nothing new. Today I realized something different to all that. As I sit here suffering through a seasonal cold that seems to have resulted in some sort of sinus infection, I find myself trying to find any excuse or alternative I can to avoid going to the clinic. Even worse, I'd like to avoid a visit to the family doctor.

It's not some doctor-phobia that's holding me back; I simply seek to avoid that feeling of being unheard, un-helped, stamped and processed at my own an many other taxpayers' expense. It's not that doctors are all evil or uncaring. It's more about them being overbooked and overworked, or better yet, over-committed...

Of course there's the potential enjoyment of sitting at the clinic for 2-3hrs with the alternative being to wait until Monday morning to call the doctors office and likely be scheduled for an appointment later in the week or possibly even next week. If I decide to wait and see the family physician, that question that comes up "Is this an urgent issue?". I don't know. If I were a doctor I suppose I'd know that but since I'm not do I just hazard a guess? What if I'm wrong?

Then there's the results of the doctors visit. Do I get prescribed some antibiotics? I really don't like taking antibiotics these days, but then I don't like a simple infection turning into a nasty one either. Will the prescription cost me $20 or $80? What are the side-effects?

I suppose I should be thankful that there is a clinic here that's open 4hrs on Sundays... indeed there's many places in the world that only the privileged get to see a doctor for anything. I suppose I should be happy to spend $20-80 on antibiotics that are most likely to cure the infection. I suppose that the emotional costs are worth the return to health that they may initiate. It's easy to complain and we're all so good at it however one thing is unclear to me; What should my expectations be?

Mickael Maddison