This is getting too Silly!

It's been over a week since my last post.......actually, I think it's closer to 2 weeks right now. For all those that didn't know, my brother is now officially off the market. As of this passed Sunday (Sept. 3, 2006), my bro has a shiney ring on his 4th finger....OOOOOoooooo....AAAHHHHhhhhh.....

Well, I wanted to post this piece since two weeks ago because it was just too funny to pass up. There was a man that hijacked a car in the suburbs via the GTA style, run up to the car, open the door, fling the driver out and take the car. For those that don't know about the SUPER-DUPER-contrivertial game GTA (Grand Theft Auto), then you might not quite understand the whole "taking a car" thing. Anyhow, this guy grabs a car, drives it onto the highway, collides into the curb, get's out, attempts to jack another car, FROM THE HIGHWAY (going at 100km/h). After attempting to do so on 5 cars, he finally get's one and is then proceeded by a chase scene with cops, sirens and a helicoptor. Finally the cops catch up and catch the man. And the guilty man pleaded that he was only trying to get to his parole officer..........ok...at this point...I'm thinking.......right....you get to the parole officer in a stolen vehical.............lemme think about that one for a sec............YOU NUTZ?!?!?!?!

In other news, the iconic Australian gentleman ironically died of what he's famous for this passed Monday. The croc-man (Steve Irwin) was stung by a deadly poisonous tail of a ray while he was filming the reefs. A sad day indeed, I will miss him....and all the parody's that movies and SNL makes on him.

In the news today, there were two things that caught my attention. The first is, some mom decided to go on strike after she couldn't cope with her 3 kids. The kids refuse to help with house chores and does not heed to anything the mother says. Ok....lemme see here...........wouldn't her kids just do the same later in life.......if they want something...they'll just go on strike? This world is round.....what goes around.....comes around.

The second piece is some study perormed by the University suggests that scrubbing or cleaning ourselves (with water and soap) actually clears our guilt and sins. Alright.......hmmm......WHOO-HOO...........wait.........I know.....so it's the new confessions corner. Just walk into the privacy of the bathroom, stare into the mirror...and start SCRUBBING!!!!!

That's just silly....this is getting too silly......stop that...........stop it now......

Vulcan's vice grip on the computer

For the past few strips at one of my favorite online comic sites, they've been teaching the community about online ("trash") talk. A few days ago, they were discussing the difference between "newb" and "n00b" For anyone out there, newb's are users that are green to the field and need some lovin. n00b on the other hand are arseholes the love to trashtalk and just needs a good clear view of the backside of my hand. Today's venue was a a discussion about a way that online gamers use to show up other people in online shooter games. This is called (viewers discression is advised) "TEABAGGING". Well, I'd like to draw the attention to the final panel where the dude is holding a cup and dipping away. Yes.....dipping away.........very subtle....but dominates the rest of the panel. *crouch crouch crouch crouch crouch*

Alright, last night, after using my company's "discount" I bought cheap tickets to watch Lord of the Rings theatrical. I got really good seats, 6th row from the front, I was able to see all of the costumes in detail and the facial expression......and the backstage people getting ready.......stage right. There was some singing, dancing, slapstick comedy, lots of flashing things and confetties blowing around. The costumes and the stage was designed very very well I believe. Unfortunately, we only got the understudies for last night's show. They weren't all that good I think. The only really good actor was Smeagol/Gollum, he was at least a 11/10 on my scale. He was the only person that got the entire crowd to scream, whistle, cheer, stand. Legolas was a bit.........on the chubby and non-agile side (I think Orlando Blooms has really gotten into everyone's mind). Oh, I had one really really bad point to sitting so close to the stage. During many "elf" scenes, they wanted to have a bunch of "females" dancing...but I found out that 50% of them were drags.....yes.....guys in wigs and dresses and lipstick and stuff......kinda grossed me out a bit.
The story was very interesting. They did 80% of the first book, 30% of the second book and then the third book they totally just skipped and said that Frodo had the ring at the pool of fire/lava. Well, I guess they had 15% of the thrid book intact.
For anyone who's watched Clerk's 2, the dude did a very good representation of LotR Theatrical.............All in all, I think I'd give it a 6/10 doors for the good decorations and Gollum.

Underworld God being demoted

In recent discoveries, a group of scientists called a meeting with many more scientists to vote on what this decade may be known for..............the demotion of our final planet in our known Solar System.......Pluto. This small, icy mass of land was deemed unworthy of being a plant and has been demoted to a "dwarf planet". Sooooooo...all of our textbooks will need to be rewritten and everyone will need to go through a little phase of reprogramming. *waving hand horizontally while saying "There is no Pluto"*

In consolation to having Pluto demoted to a dwarf, we've gained another dwarf around the size of Pluto. It's the 2003 UB313, formerly known as the thing behind Pluto the ex-planet.

What I don't understand is how people can pay a group of scientists to name a star. How do I know for sure that my star hasn't been claimed by someone else? I'd really love to hear about some court case about verdict B scamming victim A of 20k for naming a star and finding out that someone else in the world has actually claimed that star already. Really........how would that case go?
"I paid this person 20k to name that star...sorry...evidence A.......and we have found out that someone else has named that same star something else. I need 5 billion dollars in compensation for my traumatic experience of losing out on my favorite star......evidence A."
riiiight.....

I just finished Dirge of Cerberus, the "sequel" of FFVII made by Square Enix. It's a shooter game (the first for Square Enix I believe) staring the mysterious character Vincent Valentine. Vincent (if people didn't know) has a daemon in him called Chaos (when released will cause......yes...Chaos........). DoC explains a lot about Vincent's past and how he become the daemon he is. At the beginning when I first heard the English voice actor for Vincent, I thought it was David Hayter because of the deep deep voice. The actual voice talent for Vincent is Steven Jay Blum. He dubbed the voice for my all time favorite Gundam character, Char Aznable. The game itself was ok, it was very easy to control and the customization of the guns was pretty good. All the CG's were in the same style as FFVII: Advent Children. All of the FFVII cast only plays a small role (except Yuffie, which as at least 5 more scenes than the other people like Cloud and Tifa). The ending is already posted on YouTube for anyone that wants to just spoil themselves, but the plot is fairly well written. Overall, the storyline was just below par, character development was weak, and gameplay wasn't all that exciting. I can really only give this a 6/10 doors because it had really kick arse CG and because it was made by Squard Enix. Oh, the voice over talent in English wasn't too bad either, I would've prefered the original Japanese voice as an option and then English subs.

Next thing I'm looking forward to will be FFXII, looks very very promising.

I Scream Day

Today is yet another Wednesday. Every Wednesday since the beginning of August, my company started the Ice Scream treatment program. Our wonderful CTO decided that we should be given a pat on the back and some nice treats on the side. Everyone here in the building get's a coupon that allows us to redeem any product from the ice cream truck below $2.50. I'm saying he's a genius, we may have around 100 employees here so that's $250 a week or a max of 1k a month. That's very little to keep people all energized and happy. People here are all going...AGHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's ICE CREAM WEDNESDAY!!!!!! YEAH!!! YIPPIE!!!! 3-cheers for.........ICE CREAM!!!!! My condolences to those that are lactose intolerant. And there was much rejoicing.

In other news, I was kinda screaming with the rest of the world when I read that the Swedish news program had pr0n shown on it. So how did it happen? Well, some of the workers were watching the "sports" stuff on one of the TVs in the background of the newscast but forgot to change the channel. The same network company actually shows soft core movies on a separate channel during the time when this channel show's the news (so why would people want to watch the news then?!?!?!......). So bascially they had 5 minutes of pr0n showing LIVE on air..........yeah, you got it...all heck broke loose.

Entertainment wise, Hilton, Ms. Scandel 04/05/06, has told the media how she actually chooses friends. I'm flabergasted.......absolutely blown away. She says that she will go to a clothing store, pick out one outfit she likes and one that is ugly then ask the "friend" for an opinion. If the "friend" chooses the ugly one, Hilton will not be friends with this person anymore. Talk about materialistic and anal. But then again, ain't it a 50/50 chance to get it right? Maybe Hilton has a followup question of..."Why'd you choose this one?" and if they answer that "they just liked it...." it would be a basis to also not be friends.........

As the saying goes, "You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but don't EVER pick your friend's nose." AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh....ewwwwwwwwwwwww

Expired

I just realized that I bought a bottle of Pommegranate Juice that is past the due date. Ok, it's only past the due date by 3 days, but that's still quite a lot. I would expect that my local store would check the due dates. I guess it should be ok, as long as I drink it all up by today. I don't really recall the last time getting over due stuff, but I do remember having milk that was WAY WAY WAY past it's life expectancy. Not a pretty sight...smell....or taste.........yeah........

So last night while doing some wedding planning with my co-MC, we kinda sidetracked onto a weird topic. We went through some 80's cartoons and had some questions (which some of them were often asked). Smurfs have been on my #1 for questioning. How in the world did the procreate? Ok, do a search on Google or some other search engine (there is another one?!?!?...really?) for "How do smurfs procreate" and you'll find millions and billions of hits. I really need to get a life I think.

Inspector Gadget, the cyborg guardian. At first, I was wondering how he actually procreated and had Penny.....who was the wife?!?!?....and he's a cyborg...how'd he..........ok...this was all answered after I quickly Wiki'd Gadget. It seems that I was wrong, Penny is actually his niece and hence her calling him "Uncle Gadget"............stupid me. But I'm still baffled by the intelligent dog Brain....."Woof woof bargh woof bark.."......"Yes Brain, Uncle Gadget is being stalked by a 70 foot tall MAD monkey that's a transvestite durian eating dip-SH*T!......OMG Brain........such profanity.....no more splif for you tonight...."............

Wow, I just read in the newspaper that someone in Brittain is actually petitioning against Starbucks from openning a store in his neighbourhood. He calls Starbucks a "cancer". It's spreading like wildfire around the world. They ARE the next generationg McD's I believe. The only difference is that McD's is good for all ages, while Starbucks doesn't have any happy meal toys. So Starbucks, if you're wanting to expand into new domains, start giving out Caffie-Meals with little toy figures of their new kiddie spokespeople, Donald Starbucks the coffee king (has his own card game like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon), Twitch the espresso fanatic, Latte Gals, and much much more.

Riddle me this, riddle me that

For the past LOOONG little while, I've been doing a lot of newspaper puzzles. Since highschool, I worked on daily crosswords, JUMBLEs and sorts. The latest and greatest newspaper fad is the Sudoku. This thing has totally taken a spin of its own. Not only do I see 70% of the people in transit doing on, they're now making them in different shapes and sizes.

A collegue of mine decided that he'd spend a Sunday afternoon to program a Sudoku solver. Ok, my thought on that.......great.....now that you have an AI for that, you can be ranked Gifted Sudoku GOD cuz you've completed all the puzzles in less than 10 seconds. I do applaud for his skills in programming this, but I thought Sudoku's are nice puzzles to let you burn some time and also strengthen your brain muscles. Oh well.

So I was checking something online and saw that Movies are now into the Sudoku world. There are Sudokus that are based on movie themes. WTF?!?!? Ok, this world's commercialism is REALLY out of wack. So basically this version...let me find the quote...."We totally took regular sudoku puzzles, got rid of those safe 3-by-3 squares, and replaced them with "deadly snakes."" So, I'm going to take a while guess that people know which movie this is from. I wonder if Jackson get's any royalties for this.....actually, I wonder if the snakes get any royalties for this. And this puzzle book is called "Snakes on a Sudoku" Splittahs!!!!!!

Survey Says........

Once in a while we'll see these "TOP X of Y", and today I saw one of those on our friendly MSN/Sympatico page. The one I read was "Top 5 reasons your gf wants to dump you". Well, after reading that, I'm pretty much inclined to put up my smirky version.

1. She slaps you and says "We're through"
2. She catches you sleeping with her sister.....proceed to 1.
3. She catches you sleeping with her brother............also proceed to 1.
4. She's sleeping with your brother...............I think you get the picture for that one.
5. She kicks you in the family jewels with sharp high-heels, calls you a bastard and leaves

I think those are definate signs. I think they're pretty clear signs too. If you keep to this guide, you'll always know when your gf is giving you the signal that she wants to dump you.

Conversations with Snakes in Suits

Last night afterwork began with me going to wait for Chris at the usual area in the lobby. We were going to watch a movie called "Conversation with Women(s)". We got to the theatre a little bit early so we decided to go to the local pub around the corner and have HALF PRICE WINGS!!!!! I myself had a glass of Guiness (because they didn't have any Stella). 17 wings, a glass of Guiness and a glass of juice later, the bill came to $18 (tax & tips already there), I think that's pretty good for a meal that stuffed me.

We got into the theatre and proceeded to the ticket ripping person (there's a name for these people right?) . We were told to go straight and it's on the right. So we go forward, see the sign written "CINEMA #1 --->", so we turn right and see an escalator that goes down into the depths of hel.....ok it just goes to the basement. We go down and again we turn right and follow the signs written "CINEMA #1 --->". Finally we reach another sign that writes "<---CINEMA #1" so we turn left and proceed to go forward. At this point, Chris asks me jokingly "What is this? This is strange." We proceed and after another flight of stairs down, we finally reach CINEMA #1. It seems that the theatre only has 2 CINEMA....and we took the scenic route to CINEMA #1. We go in and grab some seats that were a bit far away.

We made it right on time. The ads were rolling and none of the previews were shown yet. Chris goes to the little power room to donate to the porceline god and I sit there admiring the new Johny.ca commercial. Suddenly the screen flickers and all is black. There is still sound, but the screen just is black. A few seconds later, the image appears back on the screen but it's very dim and the light pulses continually. Suddenly a bright *FLASH* and the screen becomes dim again while the commercial comes to an end, another commercial starts, still a very dim screen. Again *FLASH* GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is really annoying. Then something sparks in the back of my mind "Maybe this is some new subliminal message technique? They're trying to brainwash all of us. Or maybe this is like The Ring and after watching these I'll get a phone call and.........." Chris comes back from the powder room and suggest that we move up closer to the small flashing screen. We get up and go to the 4th room and settle in. Some of the people get restless and start leaving the theatre to find someone to fix the machine. *FLASH* The big self-promotion of ALIANCE ATLANTIS is shown on the on the screen. *FLASH* I start feeling a mild headache so I close my eyes and feel the pulsing light on my eyelids. Chris suggests that we leave and refund the tickets, I agree and we get up to leave. As we exit the door, one of the workers tells us that he's there to fix the machine and that everything is alright. Chris and I ignore him and proceed to refund our tickets. And there was much rejoicing **yeah**.

We then rush to the theatre 2 blocks over. We rush through the Indigo store and up the escalators and see if anything good is on. Hmmm.......X3...seen that.......Miami Vice....seen that.....Pirates..........Chris has seen it...................that new 9/11 movie........excellent what time is available.....NOOoooooooooooooooooo....we just missed it by 40 minutes. By now the headache is 80% there to becoming really really painful and unbearable. We meander back down to the Indigo book store below.

Chris starts looking at the photo album for "Wicked: The broadway." I start looking for a chair somewhere to sit. I'm at 85%. We head downstairs to the health/lifestyle and business area. Chris looks at some stretching book and I look at some Shaolin excercise manual. I'm at 87%....reaching critical mass soon. We head over to the business section. 90%....RED ALERT...RED ALERT..........oh my.......a book catches my eye. It's black all around and has the picture of a person, just showing the suit from neck down. The only thing that's weird about the photo is that the man is wearing a snake for a suit. "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work" OMG, wow, that's interesting. Me being a psych fanatic, I picked it up and started reading the inside flap of the book. Chris picked up "The Culture Code". 92%.......reaching meltdown point. We quickly grab the books and look for chairs. We find some seats at the corner of the store, settle in and start reading the books.

I read quite a bit of the book in one sitting. A lot of the information were common knowledge statements. Well, I think I'll try and get some more reading out of that book, it's very interesting. But the key note in the book is, "Don't go around judging people as psychopaths at work because the reader is not trained to do so." Well, I'm not too sure I'm going to go around labelling people anytime soon........*runs to mirror and points into mirror..........psychopath*

Side Note: I did learn the difference between Psychopath and Sociopath though.

The Land that Hums

For the long weekend I went down south the the land of the Hums. I stayed at a hotel called Park Central. It's a fairly nice hotel that's in the heart of South Miami. At first I was very scared of the area due to many news reports and testimonies from friends. The safety there seemed to be......quite interesting to say the least. I just think that when at every block there's a cop car, there HAS to be some issue there.

Miami Beach is split into the North, Central and South areas. On the far east is Ocean Drive, where all of the hotels and eateries lie. In one block is Collins Avenue that has most of the pricey shoping (only in the South Beach area). One more street in is Washington Ave., this is where the main "clubs" and the Miami Beach Police station is located. A lot of the clubs here have the windows painted black or somehow covered up. As the tour guide says, what happens behind those closed doors, stay behind those closed doors. Makes me just all warm and fuzzy inside. On the far west side is Alton Avenue. Very little lights on that side and it doesn't look like a place I'd want to be caught out after the sun has set.

Well, it seemed that Mariah Carrie was having her concert on the weekend at the American Arena.....centre...thingy there. I was waiting outside Bayside for a bus and since it was beside the arena, all the cars from all directions were headed that way. Traffic was really heavy and some things were quite strange to me. People didn't really signal with lights or honk their horns at all. They'd roll down their windows and point with their arms and kinda say out loud, "I want to go there in front of you." Now here's the funnier piece to it. 1/10 cars there are Hummers, yes, H2 and H3. I don't think they need to roll down any window at all..they just edge into the lane and well, I don't care what car you have, you're going to STOP in your spot and let the hummer through.

Oh, I kinda miss the ability to carry open liquor around the place too........maybe I should've tried to share some with the local bobby.....

Day Three

Ok, it's not the phase in which it's quite painful going cold turkey. The day starts and when people ask questions, my response is..."Go ask Mar...........shit...........dammit...ehmm...gimme a sec there...I'll think of something." After many long moments of glazed over eyes, I'm still at a loss for an answer. I'm left with the only viable option, "I dunno *shrudge shoulders*, I'll think of something."

Today is going to be a big day for me. I'm going to pickup my first car. I've managed to budget myself for a Mazda 5. Phantom Blue....some call it dead man's blue, but I'll call it...the blue that you see at really nice beaches down south.

In local news, it seems that we're in a severe thunderstorm watch right now. I'm looking at the graphs and the satellite images and..yup....storm it is. Right now as I'm typing, the winds are dropping down to a lull (0km/h). The calm before the storm.......this will prove to be interesting. I didn't bring my umbrella today...so I'm pretty much shafted. And I'll be picking up the car tonight...meaning...more so shafted.......dammit.

Last night was very exciting for me. I had a case planned for my SJA fellow members. it's the annual competition. It would seem that my props were not good enough and people tend to not notice things. This will cost them quite a bit for not noticing.

Alright, enough of me typing in a journal style.
So last night on the bus, I got a seat that was beside the door. Some lady (30's, and obese) stood in front of where I was sitting. I understand that it's quite crowded during rush hour and there isn't a lot of standing space. Anyhow, the lady decided to play footsies with me. It wasn't really a game, more of a stampede. As the bus moved, she shifted and stepped on my foot, and without lifting her foot or appologizing, she stood there thinking it was the floor. I'm not too sure, my foot has a definite incline on it, any fool would be able to tell they were stepping on something. So I quickly yanked my foot free. A few minutes later at a red light, the bus jerked on the acceleration and again, the lady ended up on one of my feet. I was fairly sure by the 3rd time that either she didn't know she was stepping on me, or she was just being annoying. I don't recall in my past life that I ever stepped on her toes.....but maybe that's because I don't really remember anything from my past life.........if I HAD a past life. So I ended up with one resolve, it's an eye for an eye..or in my case, a foot for the gas. Yes...I dealt a really nasty one......I appologized really loudly, because I affected the person I sat beside. But the lady did decide to back off a bit. For the rest of the ride, it was nice and calm, and a bit nauseating.

I wanna cry if I want to....

Today is the first day without Mark here. And there was NO rejoicing.

I would like to take the next few minutes in silence as we all share in mourning.








And now a big round of applause for Mark's decision to join his local University's bookstore as the manager. And there was much rejoicing.

Rain Drain's the Brain

This was supposed to be posted a week ago, but I've been way too busy to finish this blog. I feel like just writing something right now. Some really big changes have happened recently in my life and it's quite a twist........well, I might just finish my posting from last week and I'll blog about life changes tomorrow...or the day after....

I've always said that once it rains or snows, people lose the ability to drive.

Although last night wasn't raining, I could say that the gas prices dropped a bit (by 5 cents) and people were swarming gas stations like hungry vultures on carcuses (sorry for the horrible visual/graphical display....but you'll understand in a bit why). So I chose one of the lineups that was shorter and did the gas station waiting dance. Inch forward, turn off ignition, turn on ignition, inch forward, repeat...lather until you get to the pumping station itself. My car was 3rd in line when a blue jaguar pulled into the pumping station I was in line for. The person that was "supposed" to be next got out of the car and told the blue jaguar dude to back off. Everyone in our line had been waiting for 30 minutes and Mr. Jaguar here thinks that it's a do-not-need-to-line-up system. So Mr. Jaguar stands there and doesn't move, Mr. Angry holds onto the pump so Mr. Jaguar can't get his gas. After another 10 minutes and me going to another line, a lady steps out of her car and starts yelling at Mr. Jaguar. Then more people get out of their cars to tell Mr. Jaguar to go away. Finally, after another 15 minutes, I'm pumping in gas, they resolve the issue by Mr. Jaguar cursing and cussing while driving off to another line. People clap. And there was much rejoicing.

Finally...I can post this........

Justice is Blind, and PMSing too

So it seems that there is some labour law that says we can not be relieved of our job because we refuse to do OT. Really? But I guess we just do OT because we're such great team players. The only setback is that we aren't really compensated for our OT. Oh well, I'm just happy I have a job I guess. Many many more years ahead of me.

I've been on youTube lately watching a lot of funny videos that people from different University/College and game fanatics have posted. One in particular has really caught my liking because it has a really catchy tune on it. Viewers/Listeners advised, mature subject matter. It's called "Not just another Love Story". With all jokes and all, I really do think the premise of the song to be oh SOOoooooo very true. With all the weak laws surrounding the internet and all, no wonder it's a huge spawning ground for such piracy. I would like to add that this was a parody of something from Avenue Q.

On a side note to the above, new technology surrounding disc media that stores a lot more. The two competing brands to see the market are the Blu-Ray Disc and HD DVD. BRD (backed by Sony, Disney, Apple, etc.) is capable of holding 25Gigs while the HD (backed by Toshiba, Intel, Microsoft, etc.) will have three different versions, the single (15 Gig), double (30 Gig) and maybe even a TRIPLE (45 Gig......that's the size of my HD a while back). Ok, two points I want to make here, first is.........more space to store "backed-up" **STUFF**.......and second, I just found out that there is going to be one driving factor for which medium will be used commercially (unlike the ZIP drives, BETA, etc.). I would like to thank my gf's good friend Serena for enlightening me on this point. The Pr0n industry actually drives which medium it's going to be. Since they make up a huge portion of the sales for videos, the industry looks towards them for guidance. So here's what I say, Disney and Gates better start visiting the Pr0n lords and enjoy their show, cuz they'll make it or break it. Hmmmm......I'm wondering what kind of movie Disney's going to draw up next? Can anyone say "dōjinshi"? Ok, I'm sorry if I've offended any weak of heart here.

**Mature Flashback Ahead, Read at own risk. You have been warned**
Oh my, this actually triggers a memory of the last workplace that I was at. I used to create weekly newsletters about "What's going on in the company for COOPS." I had people write some columns about their thoughts of their past week and I also had my own comic strip and a column on weekly weird news (that I took from various newsprints). There was a time (also my last posting) that I wrote something about contraceptives and how there was a phone helpline that people could call in and ask for advice on which contraceptive to use. I made a wisecrack about who in the world would call into this because my immature mind went "Aren't all the contraceptives the same? And is abstinence the best from of contraceptive?" Well, after the publication went out, a coop (female) from the Stratford division sent a "complaint" to the coordinator and said that she was heavily offended by my writing. I was immediately contacted and repremanded for it. I was also to give a public appology to this person for my inappropriate action. Well, public appology she got but an onset of emails came in from my readers saying that I should continue but it seemed that my mass email capabilities were limited and that I was now in the bad books in HR. And thus Lady Justice sang and it was the end of my era.

Empty Chairs and Empty Tables

Today is the last day for one of my coworkers. She was hired at the same time I was. She has chosen to continue to study the arts of cutting........gem cutting.....*OOOOOOOoooooooo* *Aaaahhhhhhh*.
Ever since I was very little, there has been some sort of dark aura that surrounded me. I felt as though time had stood still and all that surrounds me just went on.
In elementary school, I went to an extra curricular "cultural" school on Saturdays where I learned move of my native tongue and history. People came and went, year by year, until the final year there, I was the only original left. All my friends left me.
In highschool, I was part of several extra curricular groups. When I joined the groups, they were filled with people that wanted to participate. Especially the Yearbook committee, my pride and joy of my highschool carrier. I was trained by THE "Hannah Sung" (I can't believe she's on Wiki). But as people like Hannah left, the committee became smaller and smaller until most of the work fell upon 4 core people.
As life went on, I was accepted into a University of my choice and again, I joined a group (actually two groups but they were pretty much one). I joined the cultural group that had a radio portion of it. I became the director of the radio division. I was on air every Sunday night. As the terms went on, I saw members come and go, there were some weeks where I was the only one on the air.
Today I'm part of a first responder brigade. It seems so hard to retain people. A few months after I became a member, resignation letters flew in from left right and centre. People left for job opportunities around the world. Some had to return to school out of town.
Is it me? Why is this happening to me?

Defective products, too late for a refund

I'd like to make a formal complaint to M&M's for their defective bag of Milk Chocolate M&M's I bought. Actually, every bag I bought was defective, I've had enough and I really think something should be done. I bought the bag and was very anxious to open up the bag and pour out a handfull of the contents within. To my disbelief, I saw a bunch of defective ones. So I just sucked them in and ate the bag, went back to buy another bag to confirm my suspicion. Maybe I was just so unlucky to buy that one defective bag. So I buy a 2nd one the following day, again I go back to my desk, gently tear open the mouth and pour out the contents..........MORE defective ones. Well, I wasn't going to take this from the big candy corporation. So I pick up the phone and dial their customer's satisfaction line. When I reach the representative, he introduces himself as "Red" and continues to ask me what I called for. I started my complaint "In my bag of M&M's milk chocolate, only 20% were really M's, I got a bunch of 3's, E's and W's. I think I should be fully compensat..." *click* *dooooooooooooooooo*. I can't believe it, he hung up on me. What kind of service is this? Geez, that's just.........gosh......I'm going to try to call them again later..........the nerve of them.......

So I recently got an upgrade for a really really cool address finding system. When someone tells me that I need to go to 555 Redridge Ave it just zooms right into the location by path.....I mean location. The upgrade has a small defect to it, for some strange reason now it finds the address for all the houses on Redridge, and even the the street beside Steepes Rd. Then after getting all he houses, it goes to each house and asks me, "Is this the one you're looking for?" "No? How about this one?" The worst thing is, there is no order to this. What kind of upgrade is this!?!?!?!? I complained to them but I got this from them.

I seem to have really bad luck lately with products. I got this financial tool that allowed me to do all these really funky things like plot 3d graphs, project into the future with random numbers, generate false entries so that when you do bank reconciliations it would be hell, magically complete the tax forms on April 1st of every year then delete the entries on April 2nd while popping a message "SUC-KAH!!!!", and it makes toast with strawberry jam. There was a clause at the bottom, "All the above functions available if you program it yourself". I didn't realize this until it was too late. Anyhow, these wonderful functions, it can't do the simplest of things, it can't add numbers, it can't round numbers to 2 decimal places, it can't even truncate the values. After emailing the company, they told me that no plug-in/fix was going to be issued for this because they just aren't going to give it at all. So I'm stuck with a $499.95 (& tax) OEM product that looks nice and collects dust. I should've just bought a warehouse of tissues.

BTW, it would seem that today is the happiest day of the year.

Listen, and you may learn something

If you talk and no one listens, is there still a point in talking? Sometimes I just feel like I'm talking to myself but the problem is, there is no response......maybe I should just take up talking and answering myself or I can just take up wrestling myself like Graham Chapman in Flying Circus, at least that would keep me entertained until I put myself into a sleeper hold...........
Well, it would seem that Maul doesn't really listen to much then comes back 10 seconds later with the same questions and the same comments that were said already. How many times do you need to confirm something? really....does it need 5 times? "Are you sure this is it?" "What are you sure of?" "Is that really true?".........yeeesh.......waste of time.

So I went to watch the The Lake House last night. The movie talks about a Dr. Kate that tries to rent out her house by the lake (really?....I would've never guessed.....The Lake House....house on the lake...wow....) and somehow rents it out, but to a dude Alex W........and here's the twist *****NOT SO SPOILER AHEAD******** Alex is from the past....2 years in the past to be exact. This movie is supposed to have some paralellism to a book called Persuasion by Jane Austen. The two are unable to meet up but love each other so much. Such a tragedy. As the story unfolds, certain "truths" are told and may get you wondering, why? Hmmmmm. Well, that's for me to know and for you all to find out. =P

Masters and the Apprentices

Lately it's been a bit of a rough ride. The Emporer and Darth Maul have been coming in strong and hard on us. The Emporor keeps using mind tricks on us telling us "It will be done......"...."yes......yes........it will be done....." But I have no freakin idea how. Maul is breathing down our necks every other turn. While Maul is watching the worlds podraces, we were all being strangled by Maul's Death Grip.
On the other side of the world, Quai-Gon and Obi-Wan fought desperately to fend off the peons from the Emporer's wrath. For each wall that Obi-Wan brought down, Maul errected another one.
As the peons struggled to get things in shape for Maul, Leia seemed to want to stay political so she remained neutral and swayed to whichever side had the upper hand on the conversational pieces. In order for Leia to keep her neutrality, she ordered for an open information policy, every piece of info must go before her eyes.
In all this......Jar-Jar just snickered in the corner as life crumbled to the ground.

4 8 15 16 23 42 EXECUTE

**BEEP BEEP** **BEEP BEEP** *BEEP BEEP**
Dammit, the alarm is going again. I'm still at work right now...yes...indeed....and the alarm goes off every 108 minutes I think. Either that or I'm getting delierious right about now. So every 108 minutes, either Mark or I (we take turns) run to the panel and swipe our access card on the black sensor and the alarm resets itself. Is this real? Or is someone just running an experiment on us to see if we'd keep at it not know what the real reason behind it is............dun-dun..........

Have I inadvertently said some evil thing?

I had to blog this piece. This was the weirdest pre-exam.......no....make it weirdest conversation piece I've heard before. All names used are fictitious because I don't really remember the names after my stressful exam.
I was sitting in the hallway waiting for the exam room to open (with the other examinees). The lady sitting in front of me looks in my general direction, slightly tilted to me left. She proceeds to say to the person beside me....

Across - "Do I know you?"
Beside - Look of deep thought on face
Across - "Yes.....I think.......you're Randy's wife Emily right?"
Emily - "Yes, yes I am, and you...."
Across - "I'm Randy's ex." *Huge gleeful smile on face*
Emily - "Ooooo, Randy has said much of you, you're Christine right?"
Christine - "Yes, oh how are you doing?"

By this point of the conversation I was really REALLY confused. Since my exam was in 30 minutes, I decided to tune them out and continue to read my textbook as a last minute attempt to cram one more sentence into my puny brain. I did pick up bits and pieces of the conversation but they were all just "What have you been up to?" "REALLY? Noooooooo....REALLY?" and "What course you here for?.......OH....MY......GAWD........we're in the same course..........WOW" Ok, this is when the examiner came out and told us to go inside and sit down. This is absolutely the weirdest conversation piece I've ever heard of.
For a good reading of thrilling podcast poems, head over to Mark Leslie's page and listen to his podcast. And I'm waiting for the next LOST podcast.....even though the season is over, there is going to be a few more podcasts I hear.

Look Down, Look Down, It's Hot as Hell Below....

So for the past little while it's been around 28+ degrees celcius. I really like the weather being nice and toasty. The only problem I have is that the building I'm in has this temperature gauge that will adjust to the external temperature (my guess). This is because it's FREEZING HERE!!!!!! It's like an ice box here. I fear that I may catch a cold sooner or later.
So we're in a new age of PodCasting. I've been listening to some podcasts here and there but the only ones that have really perked to me are only by Wil Wheaton and my good friend Mark Leslie (writer/blogger/soon-to-be podcaster). I used to be part of a local radiostation when I was in University. I guess I could say that I did somewhat of a podcast....because it sure felt like a podcast more than live radio. The radio station was in a very very remote area. You had to first trek on unpaved dirt/little rocks road. The surounding are uncut grass, a huge pond, and traintracks on the other side. You walk on the unpaved road for around 1.5km and finally reach an area with high trees surrounding an old warehouse with rusted windows, some wooden boards over some windows and a huge signal tower on top of the building. This.........is the radio station. This place is one of the most fearful places I've been to in my life. For 5 years of my University career, I would trek to this isolated location every Sunday at 1700h, and leave around 2000h. Let me try to paint the picture (because I can't find online a picture of the building). The building is built with huge grey slabs of concrete, it runs 50m long and 25m wide. The forest acts as a barrier of some form (from what 3v1l that lies beyond the line on the ground in front of the forest entrance). Ravens and Crows all perched on the tree branchs, cawing happily in chorus while staring intently on the activites of the building. There are two entrances to the building (actually three), and I would randomly choose one. The western entrance leads you to the office area and the southern entrance leads you strait into the "library". Normally I would enter the southern entrance because it is the faster route to the broadcast studios. As you open the rusted door with the "I-have-no-idea-how-the-knob-still-works", a strong musty smell overwhelms me. Everytime I open that door, I have to hold my breath and let the dust settle. Once inside, there is a door on the right. There is a huge chain on the door with a pad lock that looks like it came from the 40's or something like that. Passing by the door always gives me the shivers. Cobwebs have formed in front of the doorway and no one every cleans it. I have asked maybe people that worked there and no one seems to know what is behind the door. This is the weirdest thing, the building as I said is 50m long, but the entrance is at the 10m mark, and this doorway leads to the back of the building somehow which would be the remaining 80% of the building. But no-one knows how to get in or what is in there? Wouldn't someone want to know? I hope that it's just some storage room for old equipment, but the chain and old padlock really scares me. Anyhow, I might finish up my description of the warehouse, but the bottom line is, sometimes during broadcasting, I hear funny noises from behind the door, maybe mice, maybe something else, I'm not too sure. But I'm happy that I don't really have to trek there in the winter anymore.
Ok, a couple of things.....I'm a Lost fan and have been perked on the mission to decypher the Dharma Inititive password. If anyone knows, please enlighten me. I've also been investigating the Hanso Foundation website. It's very very interesting and lots of easter eggs. Anyhow, I'm also listening to the podcast and I find it's really really funny. I only have 5 more podcasts left from Lost, what will I do after I've read them all?!?!.......

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

The phrase of last week (and the week before) was "Low moral, then get more ale"......in a sense that was what it was.
Some time last week when I was heading into work, there was a jerk (yes a really really big jerk) decided to stretch his legs out over three seats in the subway. This was during rush hour when people are juet jamming into the car. I'll call him stupidhead for short (cuz his long name consists of vulger profanity that I will choose not to display). So Mr. Stupidhead just sits there and as people glare are him, he makes this "What are YOU looking at?" glare back at people. Finally a fair sized woman (I'll call her Angrylady) asks him to move his legs and Mr. Stupidhead just glares, acts stupid and disregards the request. Angrylady starts telling Mr. Stupidhead how unright he is and how he should be allowing people to get the seat. Someone yells (I'll call him Loudmouth) "I'll call the operator!!". Mr. Stupidhead just continues to sit there and doesn't move an inch. Loudmouth yells again, "I really will press the yellow emergency thing." Mr. Stupidhead yells in response, "This is NOT an emergency so F*** off." This really get's on Angrylady's nerves and well, she just goes to sit down on Mr. Stupidhead's leg. Finally Mr. Stupidhead retracts his legs and starts yelling, shouting, screaming vulgar words. People clap, mr. Stupidhead get's off at the next stop and I shut my eyes to continue my dreams of how I might've just got up and rip Mr. Stupidhead's legs off. In the end, Loudmouth was just loud and didn't really do much.
Something has been bugging me for the longest time and I just wanted to share with the world. Why in the world to people continually move injured spots saying "It really hurts when I do this....".......you know what.........STOP moving it then. I'm a medical first responder and people tend to get injured, walk up to me and go "It really hurts when I move....." and well, my thought is...."Just stop moving it you doof!!!" but I can't say that aloud. A joke did pass me this weekend pertaining to heart attack or asthma. So if someone walks up to me complaining about heart pain....do I tell them not to move the heart?...hmm...that would be quite an interesting conversation piece with my superintendent. But for other injuries, I really really suggest, don't move that spot instead of moving it around going "It really hurts...."
I just can't wait for this week and next week. Major movies galour. The Da Vinci Code will be out this week followed by X-Men: The Last Stand. Considering everyone in the world must have had contact with The Da Vinci Code in one form or another, I think there will be really high bars posed for the movie. I just hope they do a good job of it. As for X-Men, is it really the final movie installment? The Last Stand...hmmmm.........I guess it's just a title and I'm reading too much into it. I can't wait to see the major battle scenes. I have yet to watch Silent Hill. I guess I might have to wait for the DVD to comeout and rent it to watch.
So how did people spend Mother's Day?
I would like to publicly congratulate my coworker Jack and his wife with their 2nd child. He is very healthy and doing well (as I hear).
As a head's up, I have will be getting my new camera later this week (fingers crossed). The Canon S3 IS, so hopefully I can talk more about this later and post some pics that I took.
So I will end this post with something I find very very foolish and a total waste of time. I.T. costumer support for I.T. people. You DON'T ASK OTHER IT PEOPLE THE GENERIC "did you plug in the computer" QUESTION and WASTE VALUABLE TIME. "Just to be sure" is very over rated.

Fortication under the what's a who? *READ AT OWN DISCRETION*

WARNING: READERS DISCRESSION IS ADVISED

So this past Friday, Chris and I went to watch a documentary called "F*CK" written by Steve Anderson. We went to some old run down theatre to watch it. The place was totally packed. I had no idea what I was going to watch because Chris bought the tickets and I didn't bother to look at the synopsis online. I didn't want to spoil the surprise for myself. With no expectations of the movie, I couldn't drop any lower. The documentary was in an interview style with excerpts here and there. Steve interviewed a total of 35 people including both Conservatives and Democrats. Some of the more well known people are: Billy Connolly, Drew Carey, Miss Manners, just to name a few.
******SPOILERS*******
The documentary is around 2 hours long and goes through various topics surrounding the word f*ck. They started with the history of the word, or could be the lack of history. There doesn't seem to be a known "inventor" of this word. Different people have different POV on this subject. Some say it's from the word "frichen", some say it's a acronym for "Fornication Under Consent of the King", but the bottom line is that f*ck is mainly used in sex. There are many different usages for the word in sentences, it can take the form of a noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, etc. A very very versitile word. There is a political aspect of this in which the speakers have a certain point of view about the use of the word. A lot is debated over the "freedom of speech." Some people find that there is a fine line between freedom and CHAOS. On one side, we have some that say if we are not able to speak freely, then we are not free at all, what kind of democratic place is this? The other side says that there is a fine line and by being a potty mouth, we've stepped over the line. Both sides have their points, but I'm siding more to a side of we should have freedom of speech, but in front of certain audience, we must clamp down our mouths and lock away the toilets. There is one thing that I'm 50/50 on, in today's world, especially the entertainment world, most movies and some sitcoms have vulgar words spoken (some even try to out-potty-mouth other movies). I'm not sure what I'm for in the realms of Hollywood. Finally it was very very interesting to see Ron Jeremy (major Pr0nstar) and Miss Manner's in the same interview. Over all, I believe that this documentary was very entertaining and also informative.
*******SPOILER OVER*********

This weekend zoomed by like a breeze. I went to watch MI3 on Saturday, it was good. 8.5/10, Cruise can actually act (Sorry to all the Cruise lovers out there, it's how I feel). After MI3 my friends and I all went home to play Settlers with the expansions. Wonderful evening of rage and fraustration. Technically I sat there and rolled the dice all night long.
I would like to congratulate Mark Leslie for making it on the C-List for Blogerity.
I would also like to congratulate both Ant and Shirley on their engagement 4 days ago (which I just found out). It is such a wonderful thing, being engaged, planning for the wedding, getting all worked up. Then *BOOM* in 24 hours time of the wedding day, all the sweat and blood that was poured into it comes and goes. Weeeeeee.....lots to look forward to.
This morning coming into the office was a nice walk in the sun because NO STREETCAR IN SIGHT!!!! I'm quite fed up with the transit system here. The continually increase in cost and the lack of transit things.....cars......busses.........this is some vicious downward spiral I think. They don't get enough money, so they can't provide the service, so they raise the price, people are driven away because of the price and because we aren't given the service we want, so they get even less money.......so it continues...this is really really...REALLY pathetic.
I would also like to mention that I'm now officially a Corporal (in training) of my St. John Ambulance division. I'm really really excited.

Oh Sleep! It is a gentle thing

So I did the thing I chuckle at on subways when I see it last night. As I was dozing off on the subway ride home, I did the bad 3v1l thing. Everynight when I head home on the subway, I sit down, hug my bag with my arms crossed behind the backstraps, tilt my head down and drift off to the land of OZ. Last night, like any other night, I drifted and found my yellow brick road. Seemingly like an instant, the Wicked Witch of the West flies down and smacks me on the head, I hear a screetching sound of the brakes going off and I am tossed to the left where my head lands comfortably on something soft. I slowly open my eyes and look at the soft cusion that I landed on, there he was, a buffed up gentleman that glared at me as I quickly retracted my head from his shoulder. I mumbled my sorry, and quickly shut my eyes in hopes that I can find my yellow brick road again, hopefully Dorthy's there waiting still.....cuz I think I'm the scarecrow now.
Two of my WoW buddies will be leaving tomorrow morning as of 9am. It is a sad thing. I feel like there's a hole inside me now. But things will be ok, they will be fine.
Ok, this is the second time in my life that I've been called upon as a reference. This is the first time that a person has actually called me to ask me questions. Wow, it really seemed like they were interviewing me instead. "What are his strengths and weaknesses?" "Why do you think he would be a good candidate for the company?.......yadda yadda...ha ha ha......shouldn' t I just apply for the job right there?....oh wait...I already have a job.......I think.

There is no old age, There is, as there always was, just you

It's been two days since my date of birth.....something another mumbling.....can't sing like barenaked ladies........mumble grumble. I don't feel any different. People have been asking me, so how does it feel to be another year older? You know what? Since I see myself everyday, I don't really notice much difference....it's not like the moment that it hit midnight I suddenly spin a cocoon, incubate for a few seconds and spring out anew. But I guess it's the thing to ask.

It twas a sad day yesterday. I received news from my coworker that Mister Bunny had kick the can. After 11 years, Mister Bunny finally was too old to continue. Mister Bunny guest starred on Darth Tater, and was a crutial part of the Leslie family. After Mark told me that his son tried to feed Mister Bunny a chip, it brought about a bit if a rush of tears thinking of how innocent little Alex was. How to break it to Alex? Mister Bunny......has gone to a far off place, where there is a luscious grass field and boxes of Cherios all over the place. But I smiled, and laughed off the tears before they could escape the clutches of my eyelids. Yes....I am emotional. I get touched by such things. My condolences.

In other news, this morning during the rush to get to work. It felt like the longest ride ever. As usual, I get on the subway and find a corner seat and fall asleep. I usually wake up a few stops prior to mine and wait to depart. Today, I work up every single stop. I have no understanding why......it was weird. Then at the bus stop, waiting for the streetcar, I stood at the edge of the sidewalk waiting for the streetcar to stop. I walk up to the streetcar door and wait for people to depart. All the people leaving got off the steps and I was about to move forward into the streetcar. A young lady barges through and charges straight into the streetcar. She rams into me and I slam into the pole getting onto the streetcar. She looks back and gives me this "You're in my way" stare. Everyone mumbles something, an elderly lady asks if I'm ok. I proceed onto the streetcar to my stop, three blocks to the west.

Destiny is no matter of chance

This weekend was a nice relaxing sunny..........who am I kidding....it was total CHAOS. But that's for me to know and you to find out. Had a b-day party on Saturday which was also a farewell party for two friends that will be going back to Hong Kong to permanently stay there. This would mean that the spine of our group is gone and also the spine of my WoW group too.

The really hillarious thing was last night's dinner at a Steakhouse starting with a B and kinda sounds French because it has this accent thingy on it. Anyhow, we're greated with a really perky waitress "Joyce" telling me that the wait will be 20-30 minutes, maybe less. Since it was getting late already, I decided to wait. In that period of waiting time, the chef came out and told Joyce to erase one of the specials of the day because they're out. I had a bad feeling already.
So we headed on in after only waiting for 15 minutes. It was really good. We sat down in a "car-seat" spot. Our server's name was Vincent and he reminds me of a friend I once knew in HS. We started off with some crunchie oily croutons and bread. While waiting for my brother and fiancee to arrive, a group in the middle of the restaurant bursted into a chant of "Happy birthday". They clapped like monkeys after performing a trick after the singing.....and the "Oo Oo Ahh Ahh" too.
Well, finally my brother arrives and we start to place our order. As a usual, I go for the 24 oz. Prime Rib, Vincent then says "Oh, I forgot to mention that we're out of Prime Rib", alright then "Can I have the Steak then?" Vincent continues with "Oh yeah, we're out of that too....."........OKIE DOKIE.....we're at a steakhouse and we don't have Prime Rib or STEAK!?!?!?!......WTF?!?!?! Ok, this is when I got up with my BFG and shoved it down the waiter's throat and eyed him 2 inches from his face, breathing heavily on his face and bluging my eyes out so that he could see how bloodshot they are.........ok, that didn't happen but I was thinking that. We said "Could we have a few more minutes then?" When Vincent went to serve another table, we had a discussion of leaving the joint because.....yeah....no Cow.....no stay. We ended up staying and had pigs and aquatic stuff......should've gone to Bed Bobster's instead.......
So throughout dinner, people were singing Happy B-Day left right and centre. Then I hear from behind me....someone singing Happy B-Day......to me......?!?!.....What the? Turns out...someone with my exact name...and b-day sat behind me........what are the odds of that happening. Maybe he's some evil twin of mine from another dimension...hmmm....should I turn around and meet him? Or do I dig a hole?..........Option #2 it is.......so I whimpered away......I wish I met him now...it would've been an interesting conversation...or openner "Hi, I'm YOU...and YOU'RE ME......happy b-day."

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself

I've been working from home yesterday and today. It's a very nice calm and relaxing environment where I can just hum to myself and get some work done. The scary part of it is that I'm all alone in this house. All I here is the humming of my harddrive and the occational pigeon that decides to give my window a make over.
There are two things that the birds annoy me with. One would be the window make over and the second is ramming full speed into my window. I don't know if I should feel sorry for the bird or laugh at it for conking itself on my window. It happens at least a few times during each summer. I'd be happily doing something in my room and a loud *THUD* would hit my window and freak the bajeeziz out of me. I would run downstairs and open up the backyard door and step out to see that the bird landed in the grass and is in the process of getting up. By the time I reach the bird, it's taken a flight to slam its head into someone else's window. I'm impressed it doesn't have some kind of mild concussion or something like that. Good thing it didn't start thinking I was its mommy.
So as I was walking back into my room, my doorbell rings with a quick urgent *ding-dong ding-dong*. I run from the hallway down to the front door (this was only 2 seconds or so) and already the gentleman in lightblue was walking back to the truck. It was the postman. I don't get this.......do they have some kind of clause that says they have to ring the door bell? Cuz I think there's no point in doing so if he's just going to ring it and turn around. Anyhow, I got my package. To my surprise, this package was ordered yesterday from Indigo. So I take the package up to my room and unravel it. I ordered two books as a present to my cousin "Think" and "Blink". They are opposites of each other. One states that crucial decisions can be made in a blink of an eye, and the other says you can't. The only dissapointing thing I have about the books are that they are slightly smuged in some sort of ink and is a bit bent. Since it's a gift for my cousin, I guess I don't have to care too much over it, but I would still prefer that it be in mint condition.

Travel is only glamorous in retrospect

Nothing really special has happened in the past little while. The newest thing about my life would most likely be, I'm watching LOST (TV series) with my girlfriend from Season 1 Episode 1.

In the past few days, I've found something very interesting about the station parking lot. For every minute I am early, there is one more column of parking space. For the station I'm going to, one column is around 10 car spots. It also means cutting down around 10 seconds of walking.....OOOOOooooooo. The only problem I find is, the entire parking lot is built under a a lot of hydro....HUGE hydro stations. The moment I step out of the car, I can hear the low humming of the wires as the electricity passes through. *bzzzz*

It seems that my friend Mark had a little Apprentice run-in earlier this week. Go to his blog and it'll be much clearer what I mean. But the gist of it is, Mark goes in with his team and instead of backing Mark up, they all keep tight lips and he was just banged up pretty hard by Mr. Trump. Foo R YIRED!!!!......ok, it's not that serious, but still, when he needed support the most, there was none. Kinda gives you that feeling of rushing the front lines solo while your comrades stay in the bunkers.

I have this thing called the metropass, it's supposed to give me unlimted usage of the transit system here in the city. There is just one minor problem, if there are no streetcars in sight, what am I paying for??!?!? In the past year or so, I've found out that getting to work and going home from work, I'm walking from my building to the nearest station (a good 10 minute walk). Not that I don't like the good excercise, it's just that one days like today, all dark, dreary, wet, I would prefer to NOT walk the 10 minute and get splashed by cars rushing through the streets. A lot of times I walk to the station, look back and all I see is a transit supervisor looking at his watch, but no streetcar in sight. Now they're raising the price of the metropass to around 100 bucks a pop. So wait, I'm not really getting full service but I'm paying money for it? This is absurd!

Very interesting event that just happened a few hours ago. I was driving home from the station on this dark, dreary, wet night. As I turn onto the small street, I see a car turn around the corner and is coming at me. The car did not have their headlights on so I found them really suspicious. I didn't head too much attention to the car until I turned into my own street, it seemed to slowly follow me onto the street. I hang a left and a quick right onto my driveway. I reach up for the garage remote and depress the far left button. A loud "WHRRRRRrrrrr...*crack crack crack*....whrrrrr..." begins and my garage door opens up. I drive into the garage and turn off the ignition. I glace at my rearview mirror and find that the mysterious car packed on the opposite curb. The silver car (Grand-AM maybe...) had turned off its ignition but no one stepped out. I proceed to my curb to pick back up the recycling box and place it neatly in my garage. The silver car was still there and no one stepped out. I close the garage door "WHRRRRRRrrrrrrrr....*crack crack*...whrrrrr...*boom*" and proceed to enter the house. I drop off my bag, hang my jacket and head upstairs to the master bedroom. I sneak to the window and peak outside, it was still there. I thought "maybe the car is just waiting for someone...." But if so, why drive with no lights? This was getting more and more scary by the moment. A quick flashlight shined on the driver side and turned off. Did that really happen? or were my eyes giving? I stand there for a minute or so and the car owner makes a mistake. *red flash* it seemed that the driver accidentally hit the break peddle. They gave away their pressence. I return to my room and switch on the computer. My room is filled with a low whiring noise. I visit the little clown's room and proceed back to the Master Bedroom. A quick white light flashes and I realize that the silver car was going into the "D" position. I continue to monitor the car while my hand gripped firmly onto my cell. The car slowly pulls away from the curb and drives off........or did it? I just checked and it is not outside anymore. I wonder what the car was doing here? Was there really a car?

Have money in your head, not your heart

So a couple days ago on the return trip home, I once again saw my nemesis in clear site. The big red monster that eats money, and then in return will spew out magical tokens used to get into the station. Again, Mr. Red was winking at me, his eye glowed of the words "Out of Service." I was about to turn and walk off when I see a lady flirt with Mr. Red. Mr. Red wasn't being responsive at all, actually he was rejecting the lady's kind offer of coins (maybe she wasn't paying him enough to get a response.....). After a few more tries, the lady stares up and looks at Mr. Red's winking eye. She looks back down and continues to try to get a response from Mr. Red. Out of the corner of my eye, a man quickly walk towards the couple. This man (I'll call him Bob) pulls from out of his pocket a magical token. *Is this guy for real? Scalping tokens?!?!?!* So he gives the token to the lady and asks for the money. The lady gives him $2.10 because that's how much a token is worth, but Bob is not satisfied, he wants $2.75 because that's the price of one non-token using trip. Didn't really make sense to me, but the lady gave him the extra 65 and went off to the booth to enter the station. In about as much time as I had to think "What the heck?" Bob already zoomed over to one of the side entrance booths where an older gentleman was having trouble with putting in the magical token into the slot. Bob whips out from no where a metropass, the all you can eat station pass, and he swipes it on the system to allow the man to enter. After the man thanks Bob and goes in, Bob reaches into the excess dispense spot on the machine and retrieves the token that fell through from the old man. Wow, this guy is impressive. Bob then looks around and walks towards the exit, I follow. As Bob reaches the exit, looking all around (maybe he's being followed by a station guard with cattleprods), he quickly swings 180 and walks straight for Mr. Red again. I smirk and quickly exit the station to my car that's parked under a hydro poll that keeps buzzing like an electric fly killer.

To follow up with the above, I was leaving from the station last night and lo and behold, Bob was there again....in the same blue jacket and today's newspaper. Wow, he's very persistant. I wonder how much does Bob makes?

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege...

Yesterday I went back to visit my University. The first stop was actually a market place just a bit north of the University grounds. The market had 2 floors and lots of fresh fruits and veggies. Although the temperature was supposed to be 9 degrees celcius, plus the 50km/h west winds, it was more like -9 degrees. A lot of the vendors were actually outside in the freezing wind selling their goods. Since it was near the end of the day, they were trying to sell off everything. I ended up buying enough food for 2 weeks with $15. Unfortunately, I don't think I can eat all that food on my own. Fool am I to the bargain grabs.......

The group ended up at the University around 3ish. The first thing we did was pig out at a buffet place. We stunk of the greese and herbs there. After eating, we went to the central library, aka the Dating Centre. Much has changed in there. It used to be row after row after row of individual cubicals, but since there was such a high demand for group study areas, they took down a lot of the cubicals and turned them into long tables. We were amazed to see that 9/10 people there had laptops. It used to be such a rarity for someone to own a laptop. I guess people realized that since they could spend a few hundred more dollars they can be portable, why not? Oh, the other thing about just having tables is the open concept and the ability to be very very social in there. Further enforcing the "Dating Centre" motto. They're really defeating the purpose of going to a library to study..........

Our tour continued with my old building and a few other hangout points that we used to go to. Nothing too spectacular. Everyone was in "finals" mode, so all I did was disturb them in their trances of checking out other people in the study halls, or responding to MSN/ICQ messages. I actually found something strange, I myself do this too, but people seem to be messaging each other at the same table. I noticed 2 occurances of this, someone would type something like "So what chapter you at?" then they'd nudge that person and say "Did you get my message?" What the heck?!?!?! Ok, I did that in first year with my room mate, but I didn't follow up with a "Did you get my message?" Anyhow, FOOLS!!!!! Actually, I'd upgrade that to IDIOT status.

I returned home all exhausted and had a great game of Settler's with my friends.

Alright, who's bright idea was it to invent Daylight Savings Time (DST)? I was totally oblivious to it this morning. I woke up at 7:30 thinking it was early, but lo and behold it was actually 8:30. Big bad news for me. By the time I realized DST was in effect, I was too late already. I think I was crowned King of Stupidity for just about 10 minutes there.

Secret to Life: Replace one worry with another

Alrighty, I should have posted this yesterday (March 30th, 2006), but I got too lazy and too fraustrated to type about anything. It really seemed that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, litterally. For people that know how my bed is situated, the right side of my bed is plushed up to the wall, so I technically only have one side to get off every morning........hmmmm....that leads me to conclude that I'm always waking up on the wrong side of the bed....either that or I smack my head on the wall.
Anyhow, I woke up 30 minutes earlier than normal. As normal, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, drank my cup of H2O and started the car. It was 10 till 7 when I drove out my garage and onto the main street. It was 10 past 7 when I realized I have forgotten my metropass, no worries I thought, I'll just pay my 2.50 at the parking gate and be on my way. Well, new fact for the day, they just bumped up the fee to $6. So great, I need to look for 3.50 more in change. I look in my coin purse, and realized that I only have another 1.50. I'm missing 2 bucks. I panic. Usually there're some coins in the change compartment. I open it and to my surprise.....Canadian Tire money......what good's that going to do me?......dammit. The people in the cars behind start getting impatient. Another minute has passed, the sound of David Usher still blaring out my car window. I look all around the car, in the seats, in the cup holder, in the glove compartment, coat pocket, floor under the mats, floor under the driver's chair............OMG...what do I feel here?........a toonie....a big slimy toonie..eeeewwwww. Anyhow, I quickly put in the coins and proceed to park the car.

I walk into the station and realize that I only have one token left. No worries, I'll just buy some more at the machines. I proceed to a big red robot that has a sign on it "Out of Order"....damn, just my luck. I move on to the 2nd machine, there is a lady there fiddling with the machine. In my mind I'm thinking "Lady, welcome to the 21st century, just insert your bill there and magically it eats it and poops out tokens." After a few more seconds, the lady finally gives up and moves out of the way. I quickly step up to the red robot and eagarly feed its hunger with my 20 dollar bill. Nothing happens. Red didn't want to eat? Was red not hungry? Maybe I didn't feed it correctly. So I retract my bill from Red and straighten out the corners and proceed to try for a 2nd time. Still nothing. Red doesn't want to eat anything. After a futile third attempt, I realize that the lady wasn't from the past, but she was just not liked by the big Red....

I turned to go to the station operator. There is a lineup, no worries, just a few more minutes and I'll get my tokens. After 5 minutes, it was finally my turn. "Excuse me sir?...may I have $20 worth of tokens?" The grumpy old man responded with a "You're only allowed 2." WHAT? Are we rationing tokens now? Then I realize something, it was the 30th...the end of the month. The transit people like to ration out tokens at the end of the month, especially before they jack up the price. So I get my 2 tokens and proceed to the trains.

It is 8:10 when I finally arrived at King Station. There was a "technical malfunction" en route so I was held up for 15 minutes. I walk up to Red's brother, Red @ King. R@K greeted me with a bright red flashing sign saying "Out of Order." Great....JUST GREAT!!!! What is this? Big Red and its union decided that they weren't being paid enough or something? So again, I go to the station operator. Same story. 2 tokens. No worries, I just need to last the day then I'll have my metropass again.

The day's highlight was that my girlfriend bought tickets to a showing. The Arab-Israeli Cookbook is a documentary style play. The actors/actresses portrayed different characters that are part of the Arab-Jew conflict in Israel. They would start each character off with a recipe of sort and then they would move into a touching story. Right at the moment that things turn for the worst, they shine the light on another character and they begin with another recipe. While they introduce recipes, they're actually cooking food on the stage. Unfortunately they were not serving the food to the audience. I was deeply touched by several of the stories. If people have the chance to watch this play, I highly recommend it. 8/10 doors.

Brought to you by the number 4 OR 6

In the past week I watched two new movies, V for Vendetta and Inside Man. They were both pertty well done.

V had the dark Matrix-like feel to it. Maybe because Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith) was playing V. Or maybe it was because V was produced by the Wachowski Brothers? So I did a bit of research prior to watching the film around the Guy Fawkes incident. Doing this 5 minute research let me enjoy the movie so much more. At least it brought a bit of understanding of why this "V" person wanted to blow up parliment. I don't want to give too much away, but this movie is pretty well done, story, character development, music, action, and even a bit of romance. 8/10 Doors.

The second movie I for Inside Man is a wonderful cop and robber thriller. I don't want to spoil anything at all, hence all I am saying is, it's a 10/10 doors.

Speaking of movies, I managed to live through a movie called Adaptation by Nicolas Cage. Just a really strange drama about screenwriters trying to come up with good script. There is an underlying plot around an author of a book that the screenwriter is writing about. I find many of the scenes with Nicolas Cage bare chested in bed, dreaming of certain fantasies very VERY disturbing. I'm not sure if females find him attractive and sexy that way, but I really REALLY found it way too disturbing. In the end, I didn't really find much out of the movie other than, I just watched Nicolas Cage pace around for 114 minutes. Actually...I could say that I watched him for 228 minutes because he played twins. 5/10 doors, I would've just gave it a 3, but because I like Nicolas Cage, I gave it a +2.

Only constant in Life: Change

Alright, this was weird. I was still logged into another blog that I have while I wrote this thinking it was for Door's Rant and Rave. I'm now transfering this blog over here. This was for yesterday (Monday, March 27th, 2006). *siggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Yet again the weekend has gone and past and I'm left with another memory to stack and lock into the vault. Once in a while, a stray memory slips out of the vault and decides to run a marathon in my grey matter. Depending on the content, I either chase/beat it down and lock it away again or let it run its course and enjoy the brief company.

It is strange how we know for sure that something IS for a fact. 5 centuries ago, everyone KNEW that the world was flat for a fact. 5 decades ago, everyone KNEW that after the war ended, peace was going to set in place forever, 5 years ago, everyone KNEW that the States had the tightest security. Very much with the story of many lives, we all KNEW the facts, before the truth was brought in front of us. This "truth" made us think, rethink, question ourselves, and finally accept these new facts until futher notice.

My life has been simular to this. At 5 years old, I KNEW that my house was the biggest one ever built, at 10 years old, I KNEW that all girls had kooties, at 15 years old, I KNEW that I wanted to go into computer science and program for a huge gaming company, at 20 years old, I KNEW that the dot com boom wasn't going to go *BOOM*. As time progressed, I knew one thing for certain, there was nothing I could say I knew for certain.

C'est La Vie! eh?

Ill Deeds Are 2x w/ an 3v1L Word

A guidance councilor from a school I taught at once told me, "there are two types of drivers our there in life: morons and idiots." Morons are those people that speed past us, and idiots are those that drive slower than us. This is because the world revolves around us.

So why bring this up? Just that this moron this morning almost caused a major accident with me as the costar. Anyhow, en route to work this morning, we were on the slow lane doing 60 km/h and on the far lane (the 3rd one from us) has a car turning into the middle lane, suddenly out of no where a camry speeds right in the middle swirving as it went past the outter lane care and my car. As he was swirving and trying to cut me off, a truck with the brake lights on stops right in front of the middle lane casing the moron to quickly hit the brakes while swirving into my lane. All this happend in like 3 seconds or so. *HONK HOOOOOOOOOOONK* "DAMN MORON!!!!!" *waves fist in air*

I finally reach the station and kindly "stand behind the yellow line." As the train pulls to a gentle halt, the sea of people waiting in front of the doorway part to allow for the passengers to disembark before entering. As the mass of passengers leave the train, the sea of people wait impatiently and wait for the last person to disembark so that the "William Tell Overture" can begin and the magical chairs game can start. Out from the corner of my eye I see a lady, slightly chubby, with hair as dry as Harper's promises, tries to swim upstream into the train to bypass the rest of the sea. In her silly attempt, she was knocked back and sent back to the Ocean. As the last person leaves the doorway, you can hear the sound of *BANG* and "Off we go". The sea of people charge in the door with "William Tell" playing in the background as people rush in, quickly look left, then right 'AH-HA' they exclaim as they proceed to charge at their desired seat. The seats are littered with Metro News talking about some budget issue "BAH". Some people pick up the paper to read. The litter of Metro have just found a new home, the wonderful lucious salted floor. People just pick up the paper and tuck it neatly under the chair as if someone in the near future might want to read it afterwards. The chimes ring, the doors slowly closes while the voice from the booming PA screams "STOP LEANING ON THE DOOR!!!" The doors finaly close and off in the distance William Tell says "see you in 20 minutes."

First Time Again

I think I've created and attempted to maintain at least 5 blogs in the past 2 years. I just can't seem to get myself to blog everyday, or even every other day for a matter of fact.
So here I am again, attempting to create a blog. I still have to search for my point for this "new" blog. I've had a psuedo thread posting during my University years that were based off of latin phrases. I've had a personal blog for just about what I read or watched. I have a blog that I just bizatch about life. I think each blog began and died during my different phases of life. I wonder what phase I'm going through now? Maybe it's the Oral/Anal phase that Freud described.
The main reason behind me wanting to blog again is a certain friend/co-worker I have. Mark, who is also a writer, has a wonderful blog markleslie.blogspot.com, and has published a wicked short stories/poem book One Hand Screaming. Mark's blogs gave me a little push, but the main reason was the Wil Wheaton readings that he linked me to. I've listened to the entire reading and loved every bit and piece of it. For people that don't know who Wil Wheaton is, he is an actor that stared as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG. He has a blog WWdN or http://www.wilwheaton.net/ (it's temporarily down, but he has links to other spots where he updates daily). So after hearing his reading, and reading his posts, he's inspired me to start posting again.
I am still in search of something to post about. Mayhaps it shall be as the title suggests, a ranting and raving area.