TD bank is giving out free iPod shuffle to any customer switch from another bank. The 512MB iPod shuffle cost about $120, and it is attractive enough for us engineers to go thru the troubles setting up a new account. Since most of us has a main account with lots of payments, credit cards, investment and obviously we don’t want to touch it for merely a hundred buck. We defeated the original purpose of this promotion scheme by first creating a new account in a third bank, then let TD close the newly created account. So this afternoon I first created an account in BMO, and walked over to TD to setup yet another account, while my true main account in CIBC is untouched. I feel sorry for the poor guy working in BMO, wasting his time serving a non-customer. The good thing is I even get a 100 air miles points with the new BMO account. At the end of the day, TD didn’t get real market share, but I get a free iPod. I really doubt anyone actually fall into this promotion and switched their main account. Maybe a 60GB iPod photo could move me to do so, maybe.

Tonight after dinner, Jackson and I try to teach Chris and Jason how to pay bridge. It seems that Jackson had tried to teach them before and they said they are scared by the complexity of the game. I was wondering how hard it is to teach someone bridge and get they start playing right away. I said 5 minutes should be enough, and start explaining the rules. While I was explaining, Jackson had a lots of says and I realize why Chris and Jason had the wrong impression of bridge. Jackson tried to dump too much information in one go. Instead of teaching them the basic rules and start having fun, Jackson go into details on the bidding and playing strategies. No wonder they thought bridge is boring. My method of learning is always by playing to gain experience. The more you play and the more times you lose, you will then realize you need to learn some orthodox techniques. In this way, you are eager to learn more in order to win, instead of forced to absorb lots dry materials that you half understand.