Cosmic Ocean in a Morning Dewdrop

Hong Kong Sumo

2007-06-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

I went to Cityplaza again to check out more of their "Japan festival".

But if you ask me, every day in HK is a Japan festival, since everyone there wants to be Japanese; rather than adopting English names, many girls have opted for "Yuki" or "Rumiko". Also, HK fashion is to Japanese fashion as the Canadian economy is to US economy - whatever happens in the US, or whatever the Fed does with interest rates, Canada will follow suit a month or so later. Whatever. Not even adopting a Japanese name or dressing like the Japanese would save them from being exposed as impostors with blank expressions, when I ask them for directions in Japanese. As part of this festival, they've managed to bring in a sumo stable from Japan to do a demonstration, albeit not as traditional and sacred without all the Shinto stuff.

Nevertheless, it was an eye-opening experience for all the Hongers there, as those among them who know the most about sumo still probably think of them as a bunch of obese guys shoving each other around. The crowd erupted into a deafening waaaaaaaahhhh upon witnessing the speed and agility of the behemoths on the stage - they were even doing the freakin' splits! (But then again, even seeing someone execute a successful parallel park would make Hongers go waaaaaaaahhhh...as if they just did a triple flaming backflip through a flaming hoop or something.)

After the demonstration, they had Miss Iwate in her kimono (or some other prefecture, I don't remember) sing for everyone. I suppose she was pretty, but if she dyed her hair, dressed in regular clothes and kept quiet, she'd blend in with everyone else.

Flattering comment or not, you be the judge.

HK Day One

2007-05-31T22:21:00.000-07:00

I awoke to an overcast, yet visibly bright day.

It's cool to arrive somewhere that you've either never been, or have not been in a long time, under the dark cover of night, then have everything unveiled to you the next morning. Such was the case, as I haven't been to HK in six and a half years. Aside from some visibly new developments, things haven't really changed that much.

Hong Kong is such a fast-moving city that it doesn't even let people sit down for free. The whole metropolis is one giant shopping mall - without a single bench or chair for its shoppers. That's because if you're sitting down, you're not shopping. If you're not shopping, you're a liability to Hong Kong's economy and therefore, you are a piece of shit. You can try to sit on the floor of a shopping mall if you're desperate for a break, but eventually, a security guard will come and tell you to fuck off because of the piece of fly-orbited excrement that you are. The only way you can legitimately sit down in a HK shopping facility is if you're at a restaurant, an overpriced cafe, or the toilet. Wait, forget the latter, as they still use kneecap-popping squat toilets.

That being said, if you're an avid world shopper who detests places with cultural and historical value because they take up space that would otherwise have been a shopping center, then you'll wonder if your plane had just crashed and you've landed in heaven instead.

Thus, I spent the first day Hong Kong going to Cityplaza mall in Tai Koo with my aunt, one subway station (or 15 min. walk) away. I didn't have anything to buy in particular, since nearly everything on my shopping list needs to be acquired in Japan - most are for me and the others in my iaido club. So today was just basically looking around.

Like any shopping mall, there usually is some themed event going on that distracts people from realizing that the crap that they are buying is exactly the same as that day the year before. This time, the theme was Japan and its cherry blossoms. Interested in seeing how HK people interpret Japan (since most of them want to be Japanese anyway - I'm sure I'll elaborate later), I checked out their plaza stage event schedule. There were several traditional dances and koto drum performances listed, but what caught my eye was a sumo demonstration going on tomorrow. I'm definitely going to check that out!

I hope it's the real thing instead of some tournament with those stupid and tacky padded and velcro-fastened vinyl suits, complete with culturally inaccurate hair helmets, that you rent for a birthday party or for crushing your neighbor's pets.

Other than that, the only thing of note in the mall was a freakin' skate rink - something Canadians probably only see at West Edmonton Mall. The people skating there were actually really good, and it's nice to see them dedicated to something other than figuring out ways to financially drain themselves. There were also these badass shirts that I saw at a department store, but those could wait until I come back from Japan after acquiring the more important things on my list.

I met with my aunt at our designated meeting point, and she took me for a quick lunch at some fast food joint. Other than unadulterated shopping with abandon, there is another aspect of Hong Kong which can't be beat - the fast food. Their idea of fast food is probably our idea of a five star meal. Of course, there's always the artery-clogging Western chains like McDick's and KFC that managed to expand their franchises into the rest of the world, regardless of differences in culture and market. But as McDs' are open 24/7, they serve as much as a place to crash and await the reopening of the transit system after a late night out (in which case we call those people "McRefugees"), as they serve as a place to wreak havoc on your circulatory system.

Café de Coral, Maxim, and Fairwood are the three major HK fast food chains that serve really good food. In fact, I'd say the quality of the food is no worse than the food you'd get at a good sit-down-dining restaurant. Only the packaging looks unappealing, but it's necessary to efficiently serve such an overwhelming volume of customers; you would usually find your baked pork chop on rice in a foil container, not unlike the kind you get for take-out Chinese food. But if you're like me, who gives a rat's ass if the food is good and won't make you sick or die? (Incidentally, if you've ever seen the back of the kitchen of any Chinese restaurant, you'll wonder if you've just received a rat's ass...in your food.)

Dinner was much more festive, as my aunt and uncle took me for a birthday meal at a high end restaurant, with its complement of aquarium-size fish tanks where the customers can witness the freshness and vivacity of the sea animals condemned for consumption. Although the crabs and lobsters were pretty big, but the pièce de résistance is a giant bass that's bigger than most of the tables there - the poor thing would have to be eaten in stages. For being taken to such a meal, I promised my uncle I'd take him somewhere if he ever came to Vancouver on one of his business trips. It was a lavish meal, and the way the Chinese prepare seafood is one of the most euphoric of culinary experiences and is unforgettable.

Provided that you forget about the back kitchen as aforementioned.

My first look outside my aunt's window

Four Days In HK...And Into A Long, Anticipated Vacation

2007-05-29T23:44:00.000-07:00

It has finally come to this.

I've been planning this two-month summer vacation to kick off my final summer before work starts. I'll spend the first few days in HK to submit my application for my ID card. While that is being processed, I'll spend a month in Japan. After that, the application should be processed, and I'll spend the rest of the time in HK getting the ID card done and finally for some well-earned dicking around. It took me months to put together the application (with my parents producing the necessary documents), get the tickets, save up the funds, and to arrange the accommodations in Tokyo.

I was surprised that I had no trouble sleeping the night before, given the level of excitement that had been culminating over those past months. I woke up as usual, and my uncle came and picked me up to go. We had some classy Shanghai food in Richmond, and before I knew it, I'm past all those post-9/11 security checks and am sitting down at the waiting area in front of the gate.

I wanted to use my laptop and kill time on the internets, but the shitty battery doesn't even have enough lifespan to boot the damn thing. So it was back to the Stone Age and entertaining myself with less technologically advanced means - Mad and Maxim magazine. To give some sort of indication that I have at least a trace degree of sophistication to the other passengers, I bough Popular Science and Time magazine as well. I considered buying some of the "top-rack" magazines, but finally decided to hang on to my porn budget until I reach overseas, so I can collect them for...uh...cultural studies. Besides, the above mags were more than enough to kill the hour before boarding.

Just as I was about to unwrap and savour Maxim's annual 100 Hottest Girls edition, the announcement came for my ticket group to board the plane. Now my usual luck when it comes to co-passengers is that I end up with a guy who won't take a bath, stop eating, and/or shut up. But this time, not only was there no one beside me, but I also got the frontmost row in the plebian section. That way I don't have to deal with some asshole who suddenly tilts his/her seat all the way back while I'm eating or reading, thereby winding me in the gut with my book/dinner.

Unfortunately, like most things, this was too good to be true. I was awakened from my state of bliss by the stewardess, who introduced me to a gentleman whose in-seat video console wasn't working. This guy's arms were so God-mocked hairy that although his arms were courteously taking up only half the armrest, his arm hairs took up the other half. If his arm ever hogged the entire armrest, I would have no escape from his hair. I thought maybe I'll amuse myself during the long flight by shaving an "Asian tattoo" into his arms, or to shave them completely and make little Chia pets with his hairs while he's asleep. Hirsute limbs aside, the guy was well-behaved and practiced decent personal hygiene, so my grievances shall end here.

Same couldn't be said about this little shit a few rows behind me that wailed his/her way all the way across the Pacific. As I said before, a crying baby is to be expected on an airplane, but one who has the stamina to bawl for almost 13 hours must surely be the illegitimate spawn of Satan. One or these days, I've got to patent a soundproof, fully-breatheable (or maybe not...I'm tempted...) "Baby Hood™". Hell, I don't care if anyone steals my idea - someone's got to do us all a freakin' service. And while you're at it, make a "Pet Hood™" and a "Chinese Mother-If-You're-Still-Single-At-30-Years-Old Hood™" too.

The long trans-continental ordeal concluded, I made my way through Hong Kong International Airport. Even after almost five years, I still managed to find my way through the place to the rapid train that will take me from the airport to Central Hong Kong. The cool part about arriving during the nighttime is that most of the sights are still shrouded in darkness, so when the morning comes, you are greeted with a surprise when the place is laid out in the open, and you try to retrace where you passed the previous night.

I finally arrived at my aunt's place where I'll be staying for the next few days before leaving for Japan. It is a complex of six really tall 72-story apartment buildings. Well, not exactly 72 stories, since Chinese people are so superstitious that they skip over every number with a 4 in it (except all the numbers in the 40's besides 44, since skipping nine levels would be going too far), because the number is almost homonymous with the Chinese word for "death". Yeah, and you thought apartment buildings in every Western country are being silly for not having a 13th floor. I never bothered to understand Chinese or any other phoenetically-based superstitions. If words are a human contrivance, and that the phoenetics of words can directly influence the causality of events in the world, does that mean that humans, through their verbal pronunciation, can directly control everything that happens around them? Hell, no! To believe in such nonsense would really be an act of hubris on the part of humanity.

Enough digression, back to the apartment complex. There are many families from Japan and Korea, probably because the dads have been stationed here in HK for work. Regardless of nationality, most of the families I saw in the common area are follwed by a Filipino domestic servant carrying their luggage or kids. Here in HK, many Filipinos may take up jobs here as servants, but on Sundays when they all get the day off, Filipinos rule Central HK, camping out all over the streets to lounge off the day by eating, listening to music, and playing cards.

My aunt's apartment is really small, and the room in which I will be staying even smaller. It's almost as small as a walk-in closet. Nevertheless, this is a very nice apartment for HK. There is a bunk where my cousins used to sleep, but they have long since moved to Toronto.

After a long day of travel (and mentally accumulated ranting, as you may have noticed), I passed out like a log.

Iaido Test

2007-05-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a year since I've started iaido.

Now a seminar will be held in Victoria, and a lot of high-ranking sensei's will be there from the headquarters in Japan. The highlight of that seminar is the examinations at the end, and I will be taking the test to attain my 1st dan ranking (most people call this 1st degree black belt if there was a belt ranking system).

I've been preparing all year for this, and have practised really hard. Although there are set techniques and we do not fight, each technique requires precision, proper stature, and full control. I don't think my sensei would've approved me taking the exam if it wasn't for my efforts.

I also haven't been going to Victoria in a long time. A long time as in 10 years. This will be a fun road trip, and the drive there wouldn't be as boring as the one to the Vernon seminar (thank God for sunflower seeds). I also wondered how much Victoria has changed over the past decade, as a whole bunch of people trapped in an island would surely get bored and try to make life more exciting. Yeah sure, they have a ferry to the Lower Mainland, which is how I'm incidentally going to get there, but when you have to pay the exhorbitant fares to get your car across, you're as good as trapped.

While parked in the waiting lot for our ferry, we had a nice tailgate party. One of the people in my club brought out some tea and Japanese-style snacks. It was a beautiful day to be close to the water and everything seemed perfect. Too perfect.

When we finally got into the ferry, it was already packed, with the queue to the buffet already encircling the entire cabin area. All waiting to get fat on food that'll make you feel seasick at ridiculous prices. The ride was fairly smooth, with a little bit of rocking. I was disappointed not seeing any orcas or sea lions out into the distance. Poor things probably have been run over enough times to know that it's best to stay away.

After making it to our hotel rooms, we looked around the immediate area, but there wasn't anything much except for a strip mall. We found a White Spot, but got fairly ripped off at the hors d'oeuvre sized portions. At least there was a liquor store so we can get drunk in our hotel rooms.

The next day was the first day of the seminar. All the workshops took place at the gym complex in the University of Victoria except for the last day, which is at a community gym/swimming pool facility closer towards the ferry terminal.

I was surprised at the sheer number of wild hares hopping around the UVic campus. At least if the apocalypse occurs and everyone is trapped on campus, no one will probably ever starve. I've always wondered what rabbit meat tastes like. Probably like chicken, only a little gamier.

The next few days was spent very productively at the workshops. I was glad I didn't have any bloody accidents like last time. We went over all the techniques that I've learned in the past year, with meticulous detail. You'd have to be pretty strict if you want to preserve a martial art that's been around for more than 500 years, and especially if that martial art is being exported far beyond its provenance.

Then the time for examinations came.

It consists of a written component, and then a demonstration component where I have to demonstrate four techniques which I've selected. To be more exact, the actual examination occurs throughout the seminar, as they judge your capability, attitude, and character throughout the weekend; the demonstration is more of a ceremonial role.

I was pretty nervous, but I was more determined not to screw this up. I've failed a 2nd dan kendo exam before, and only because I fucked up the technical demonstration by stepping back with the wrong foot. I know how horrible it felt to fail, so I wasn't going to let it happen again...

...and so I passed. I was very pleased, and so was my sensei and all the senpai's who put in all that time to teach me over the past year. We were talking about it all the way out from Victoria.

The trip back was met with the much more urgency, as we almost did not make it into the last ferry. Being a Sunday evening, everyone was in a rush to leave the godforsaken island to go home for work the next day.

In the ferry, we were met with the same line of the gluttonous, so once again, it was to hell with the buffet. Instead, there was plenty of room in the coffee lounge. For $5, we had all the hot beverages, fresh fruits, and cheese that we could eat. And the chairs were nicer an we had a better view of the scenery, not only because of location but also because the sights were not obstructed with fat people trying to stuff their faces.

I had so much coffee that I could've just jumped overboard astern and paddled the ferry across the Juan de Fuca Strait with the engines inoperative. The only reservation I had from doing so was the fact that this would be a purely voluntary effort, and I would therefore be left without financial compensation for my caffeine-fueled services. Well, that and my abhorrence to providing anything ad gratis to BC Ferries, which is on the contrary gouging anyone on wheels with its exhorbitant fares.

So all in all, it was a very nice trip. In fact, the only heartbreak throughout the whole trip was when my senpai borrowed a $20 bill from me in the car, only to allow it to blow out the open back window because he didn't hang on to it.

As of now, he still owes me that 20 bucks.

Blockbusting Action Bus

2007-05-18T01:33:00.000-07:00

I was on the bus and a couple of punks stepped in from a stop.

No, I don't mean "punks" as in the skateboarding, weed inhaling genre that listen to Bad Religion, MXPX, The Ramones, or whatever. I mean "punks" as in those who not only have absolutely no worth in life, but also degrade the community with their very presence because they feel entitled to do so after their parents fueled their teen angst with shit like "rules" and "responsibilities" - to sum it up, the floating turds in the jacuzzi spa of humanity.

So since these turds didn't pony up any cash, the bus driver asked them to show their bus passes. The quickly flash a video rental coupon or something in a sad effort to fake a bus pass, then quickly went down the bus aisle. You know these punks are trouble when one of them looked like he just got his ass kicked. The driver yells back at them to go back up to the front and pay up, or get out. The punks opted for the latter and proceeded back to the front exit.

Suddenly, one of them turned around and spat on the driver, then they both took off. What a pathetic attempt at being a badass, by copying what another passenger did in a previous incident which landed the news. The bus driver chased after them. Although he was not allowed to leave the bus running and unattended, if I were in his position, I wouldn't let those two little shits get away with it either. Unfortunately, with a sufficient head start, it looked like those two will get away with it...

...until a cement truck driver passing by, who somehow managed to see all the action, pulled over up ahead. What I saw next really made my day. The cement truck driver takes a dive out of his vehicle and spear tackles the punk that spat on the bus driver, nearly cutting him in half!! Everyone in my bus cheered! He kept the little miscreant pinned to the curbside lawn, while the other punk made a pathetic attemt to free his accomplice by screaming hollow threats at the cement truck driver, until the police came and hauled the two away to a place where they won't pose a nuisance anytime soon.

I made sure I issued a consolatory remark to the driver before I got off, seeing how he had a tough day. Take heed, punks. Postal workers are no longer the only public employees you don't want to piss off.

P.S.Sadly, this is a futile message because this blog radiates with so much bushido virtue power that it will make any punks' (and hippies') eyeballs explode upon sight.

Back From Oz

2007-05-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my brother's graduation from vet school at Kansas State University.

The campus is located in this little college town in Kansas called Manhattan, because this little rural patch of obscure land uncannily resembles the bustling concrete district in New York, and also probably because this is a great way to deceive tourists to come to this town. On the bright side, there is plenty of peace and quite here, so long as you avoid the student residence neighborhoods, the pub district, or the campus altogether. Of course I can fit a five-day, four-night trip into one post, because there is really nothing much to do there.

Me and my parents met up with my brother at Kansas City, which is really located in the neighboring state of Missouri, because other than naming small towns after major cities and districts, there really isn't enough geographic ambiguity in this region to generate the confusion that makes the National Geography Contest interesting.

After an hours-long drive to Manhattan, we made it to our hotel.

The next morning, we went to my brother's apartment.

There were boxes and bags all over the place because he was moving out and into our house. Since airplanes still don't let you check in your car with your luggage, he was planning to make a road trip all the way up to Vancouver with his girlfriend, which was also how he was going to celebrate his graduation.

Most importantly, we were introduced to his cat Oliver, which we were charged with bringing with us on our flight because a long road trip would be hell on the poor animal. Fortunately, my brother could easily procure from his vet school all necessary documentation to allow us to bring Oliver home on board the plane. Furthermore, he had one of the vets prescribe some pills for the cat so that he mellows out on the plane. I gingerly stashed a few for myself. Oliver is much slimmer and better-behaved than Fat Bitch back home, and far more active and friendly. I immediately took a liking on the cat.

My brother also proudly showed off his Wii and Playstation 3, both of which probably took him a day of waiting in line at Wal-Mart in the company of the socially inept. The graphics on the PS3 were impressive, but the overall gaming experience was not much different than the PS2. The Wii, however, was something entirely new and fun, and a good indication that Nintendo is about to steal a big chunk of Sony's market share.

I considered strapping the player 2 controller on the cat and see how that would further improve my gaming experience when he runs around freaking out.

The day for the graduation ceremony finally arrived.

My brother was definitely agog to see the culmination of years of hard work, but didn't do a very good job coolly hiding it with an attitude of indifference. The theatre for the ceremonies was packed with family, all eagerly waiting for their kin's name to be called out. Everyone was quietly listening, with the occasional cheer when someone hears the name of their friend and/or family member. Well, that and the incessant, tympanically devastating bawling from what appears to be a nursery in the back rows.

Nevertheless, I wasn't surprised. When you have more than 200 people gathered in any venue, chances are good that at least one of them is a baby. Babies cry over all matters severe or menial, such as lack of milk (or more like the lack of the warm comfort of the mother's breast to satisfy their Oedipal urges), soiled diapers, the need for diversion with toys, unfamiliar environment, the big scary head of some creepy stranger making a pathetic attemt to amuse them, or the unsupervised pitbull gnawing on their faces.

Therefore, the question is not whether there will be a crying baby, but how long the babies cry. The proper metric is the percentage of total ceremony, movie, or trip time, rather than number of minutes spent crying. Nevertheless, the only thought that could divert my mind from contemplating infanticide was the satisfaction that someday, those babies will grow up to have one or more babies of their own, thereby depriving them of sleep and peace with more crying. Yes, just a sliver of hope splintered from the Wheel of Kharma when it hits a speed bump.

In the evening, me and my brother's friend's families went to a celebratory feast at, of all places in Kansas, a Korean restaurant. I had no idea what a Korean family is doing in this state; even if they are stauchly mea culpa Catholic like many Koreans, this region of the US is not a place for Catholicism, despite being called the Bible Belt. I think I overheard from the parents' discussion that some Korean lady married one of the servicemen from the nearby air force base, and this her family that she managed to bring over. The food was pretty good, and I could be pretty damn sure that I just had authentic Korean home cooking. The evening concluded with a dessert trip to Baskin-Robbins.

Aaahh, 31 ways to deliciously widen your ass...

The day to go home had finally arrived.

Time sure flies when you're having fun. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case, as small rural towns are apprarently surrounded by temporal anomalies that makes time stop. After going over all the cat's vaccination and physical examination documents with us, my brother stuffed his beloved drugged-up feline into the kitty tote with some toys and a blanket.

When we finally made it to the airport, we said our goodbyes to my brother and went in. After examining the documentation, the check-in and security staff let us and the cat through with little trouble. So far so good...until I got on the plane.

Once again, as discussed above, I had to spend most of my flight with a crying baby across the aisle from me. As if that wasn't enough to torture the passengers, airlines have the gall to force its passengers to sit through chick flicks. I've enough to worry about sitting for hours in a steel tube hurtling at near supersonic velocity at an altitude incapable of sustaining life, than to have to sit through propaganda made to cultivate a puppyishly and unrealistically naive view of relationships in women as a great disservice to the male gender (or "romantic comedies" for short). My emotional scar resumé from such meaningless crap include Never Been Kissed, Forces Of Nature, Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!, and...oh God help me...The Wedding Planner.

This time, the emasculatory media du jour was Music And Lyrics, starring Hugh Grand and Drew Barrymore. Although it did well to incorporate fun music, like all romantic comedies, the cast and premise may change, but the plot always remains the same - guy meets girl, they bond, some major conflict drives them apart, they somehow get back together to end the movie with a kiss and a tampon commercial.

Fortunately, I do have remedial measures against such a terrible ordeal in aviation - I take off the headphones and try to imagine what the characters would be saying. Thus, a conversation in my ad-libbed version of Music And Lyrics would be something like this:

Hugh Grant's Character: Shall I partake in nuzzling my head betwixt your lusciously bewitching mammaries?

Drew Barrymore's Character: Methinks not. My bosom is to avail not but for the affections of my lesbian companion.

Hugh Grant's Character: Ah, woe is me! O love is save a crimsom dagger to be plunged into the fathoms of a desperately beating heart of lust! Let's go watch nude mud wrestling and solicit the kindness of the county brothel instead.

Because Hugh Grant is British, I decided to give it a bit of Shakespeare's Elizabethan air for the sake of cultural enrichment.

Throughtout the flight, my poor Dad was unwell with airsickness, but would've been alright had the plane not passed through a storm front. Near the end of the trip, he suddenly puked all over the place, the barf bag inconveniently tucked into the seat pocket, so close, yet so far. The cat, however, looked on with drug-induced(?) indifference. My mom asked if he was alright, then chastised him for not heeding her warnings when he downed that greasy burger before the flight. He would eventually fill two plastic bags with his gastric contents. Ironically, we were so worried about the condition of the cat throughout the flight, but in the end, the cat held out far better than Dad. Maybe we should've given Dad the same drugs we gave the cat.

If there is ever a next time that my family goes to Kansas, it's best that my Dad come home in ruby slippers instead.

Escape From St. Andy's

2007-04-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

This was it, Move Out Day.

It only seemed like yesterday that I first moved in. Of course, it always seems like yesterday when you're only thinking of Point A and Point B, and disregard everything in between. Yesterday was an all-out cleaning day, a desperate fight to reverse a whole year of passive littering.

Being the only vacant slot left on the cleaning roster, I was in charge of carpet, walls, and furniture. I thought I lucked out since I didn't have to do the bathroom, nor the kitchen, which none of it is my mess because I always clean up after myself there. Perhaps most ominous is the refrigerator, whose contents have seen the beginning of time. Of particular infamy is the vegetable crisper, whose contents are anything but crisp, but more like a primordial soup. Had the fridge not been cold, I'm sure several new species of multicellular life forms would emerge from there. I thought that was the worst part of cleaning...

...until I started work on the living room sofas. The cushions are always cleaner-side-up, but in this case, they're both equally horrible. I had to scrub off what must surely be cum stains from one cushion; something this tenacious can only be issued forth from a man - only I'm not that man, because I don't really get that lucky. Oh God, I'm sure an entire season of CSI can be based on these cushions alone.

There is, however, something that I DID contribute to in the living room, and that was the Recyclables Mountain, which I took it upon myself to move. That's probably because I almost never cook, but rather reheat things from cans and the like. Carrying a huge garbage bag full of plastic milk bottles with caps intact, I was horribly tempted to stuff it into the already-full trash compactor, just for the euphoria of hearing them explode with an acoustic experience probably reminiscent of fireworks, or the wringing of bubble wrap of an amplitude multiplied by a factor of 100,000.

Sadly, the hippy inside of me told me to put the bag of bottles next to the already-full recycling bin instead. Dammit. We all have some hippy inside each and every one of us, and it is up to ourselves to fight our inner hippies. Otherwise, every country in the world will register a negative gross national product. I have failed and now I'm ashamed.

Among other treasures left behind in my living room are a tall cylindrical traffic pylon, and a roadwork in progress sign with a 30km/h speed limit on the bottom. They've been here all along, so some drunkass predecessor to the suite must've "borrowed" them while stumbling home through a construction site. ("Aaaah dunno, they just follllowed me hoooooome! *HICCUP*")

The best course of action was to leave them at a nearby construction site and hope that the work crew will adopt them, but once again, I was tempted to use the legally-mandated power vested in these relics to my amusement. After all, wherever I place that sign, traffic will be forced to slow down considerably, so the best road would probably be a high-traffic area like Westbrook Mall. Fuck you, Inner Hippie! I won't yield to you this time!!! Screw it, these things are just too heavy to carry that far...but the feeling of power in my hands is just too overwhelming...arrrgh, but somewhere there is probably an embattled construction worker out there wondering why the hell are cars flying past him at 100km/h. And so ends my internal struggle.

Having left these artifacts at the construction site next door last night, where they can find a new home with a loving family, there was nothing left in the living room of concern. This only leaves the walls and my bedroom. Even though I began the cleaning up process weeks ago, my room still required a painstaking weekend to clean up; the walls weren't too bad, although I was sure they made the walls white to make he cleaning experience miserable.

So having finally done cleaning, it was finally time to get the community coordinator to check my work. He's an alright guy, but seeing how his room is CONSTANTLY spotless, one can only imagine that his idea of socially interacting with others consists of wiping the furniture. In other words, I expected the comco's inspection to be a nightmare since he would probably hold me to the same exact standards of cleanliness that he instills in his own room.

It turned out not to be that bad - other than a few small things he wanted me to fix, like the dust on the blind slats, he was okay with my room. Finally finishing off the work and getting a pass, I was finally free to go.

With my vehicle loaded up, I headed off to a temporary future of living under the dominating eyes of my parents.

Arthur waiting for me to get into the packed car and drive.

Vernon Shall Taste My Cold Steel

2007-04-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

I'm back from a weekend iaido seminar at Vernon.

They certainly picked the right venue - there is nothing else to do in that town that would distract our focus from training, other than winery tours. And we all knew that if we engaged in that activity, it would quickly degenerate into a winery crawl, and it would certainly look bad the morning after when we have to attend workshops instructed by the head of the Canadian Iaido Association. Therefore, such attempts to appease our oenophilia are out of the question. (As a compromise, we opted to knock back beers before bedtime and watch a hilarious satire on the American dystopia called Idiocracy instead.)

I've been practicing iaido for almost a year now. What started out as merely something to complement my kendo has become a deeper look into what it's like to be a samurai. Nevertheless, no matter how much I train, I don't think I can ever be a samurai. It's not because there is too little to associate with present culture and society, but rather because the whole self-disembowelment-upon-command thing doesn't really float well with me. You've probably heard of it as seppuku or hara-kiri. If my boss ever commands me to make a wide U-shaped cut across my abdomen so that my intestines spill out, and then wait for my best friend to behead me as a coup de grâce, I'd cut him down before he is able to finish his sentence.

That, however, doesn't put me down in the bottom of those idiots who watch Highlander movies and think they are the shit when it comes to samurai expertise. For those of you unfamiliar with the movie (and TV show) franchise, the premise is that for centuries, our world has been populated by immortals who can only be killed by beheading, and who must fight with wallhangers until only one is left standing victorious. That One shall receive The Ultimate Prize - a $2 gift certificate to Dairy Queen.

So here I was in Vernon as part of my efforts not to fall into the above category of ignorant fools. Even though we practice with iaito, unsharpened swords not fit for cutting, it can still be dangerous because the tips are still very pointy. I was practicing with my senpai's sword, which has the distinction of not only being the heaviest sword in our class, but also having the blade with the longest tip, which made sheathing it a bitch.

One technique involved turning around and thrusting the blade behind me. Since I had to hold the sword with one hand for this technique, I got careless and allowed weight to catch me off-guard, so that the tip of the blade fell abruptly dropped mid-thrust, and would've went through my thumb had the phalangeal bone not stopped it. It was quite a gusher, and I compressed the wound with a cold wet paper towel for some time before giving up and putting a bandage over it anyway to allow it to clot on its own.

This wasn't the first time this sword tasted my blood, but it was certainly the first time it had such a big drink. Thus, besides improving my iaido skills with more intensive training than usual, this seminar was beneficial towards furthering my study of the samurai in that I have learned to somewhat bleed like one.

If not that, then I've become closer towards perhaps someday getting $2 off my strawberry sundae.

ACF After-Aftermath

2007-04-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

This time, I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of heaving from the bathroom.

Surprise, surprise. My roommate drank too much during the Arts County Fair. I don't understand how people can lack so much restraint as to drink their way to nausea. Isn't the feeling of sickness sufficient negative feedback to tell them to stop? I guess when you're that drunk, not even getting a rusty vinegar-coated screwdriver stuck into your eyeball is sufficient negative feedback.

I've only gone as far as an unpleasant throbbing hangover on a few occasions. The only times I've ever engaged in alcohol-related vomiting was when I was tactfully forced to down a tumbler full of straight vodka for a Russian brother, and when I was stupid enough to down a foot-long cheesesteak into a stomach already occupied with copious amounts of cocktails.

The sound of the shower running marked the reprieve. However, I nearly slipped on the bathroom floor this morning. Can't he dry his feet so he doesn't leave the bathroom like a lake? All you have to do is stand on one foot, hold both ends of your towel, and run the towel across the sole of your foot in the same motion that you use to dry the unreachable parts of your back. Oh wait, if that drunk fool could stand on one foot, he'd probably also be able to pass a sobriety test to avoid being busted for DUI. Worst of all, I was revolted at the sight of dried puke on the toilet, caked on the inner surface of the bowl and under the seat to greet my ass the next morning.

But then again, my roommates are disgusting enough to bring food into the toilet in one form or another.

ACF Aftermath

2007-04-13T02:12:00.001-07:00

I was woken up by cheering from atop of Gage Towers this morning.

I recognized that resonance of merry inebriated mirth, but was surprised it was so loud that it came all the way from Gage. I was even more surprised that the hoopla came so early in the day, when everyone is supposed to be at school.

Then the epiphany dawned upon me that today there is no school because it's he annual Arts County Fair, a huge outdoor concert held at the Thunderbird Stadium featuring homegrown bands and alcohol. Lots of it. As a regular student, I would have had this day marked on my calendar the moment the date was announced, but since my undertgrad days are long gone, it's just not that exciting anymore because I've done it all.

Besides, having names such as Pride Tiger and DJmy!gay!husband! in the performance lineup doesn't really give me much further incentive to go.

Besides the concert itself, this event is marked with the monopolization of alcohol sales by the sponsor brewery, whose product tastes suitably watered-down for a sports stadium venue. This has in turn brought out the creativity of the students towards, shall we say, the breaking of that monopoly.

My friends usually just put a small hole in a juice box or open the box along one of its seams, drain the juice out, and replace the contents with their favorite alcoholic beverage before resealing the box. After all, since non-alcoholic drinks are not prohibited, the security at the gate would not ask you to open your juice to check.

However, I've heard that some people go as far as sneaking into the stadium in the middle of the night, shortly before the event, and digging a small hole in the hills surrounding the field, burying their alcohol, then covering it back up with the divot they just took out. They would then mark their alcoholic cache by the number of steps downhill from a landmark on top, such as the second brick from the ticketing entrance, or say the fifth fencepost from a certain tree.

With so much alcohol on premises, you'd know that crazy drunken debauchery will be a highlight of ACF. You'd also know that no matter how many port-a-potties they set up, it will never be sufficient to handle the onslaught of people having to pee at any given moment. That's why the preferred urinal is the chain link fence atop the hills surrounding the field - for both boys and girls alike. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of urine generated by the sheer volume of people always turns the soil at the base of the fence into urine mud. Even less fortunate for the people who engage in fights in that area, probably over pissing space or accidental cross-streaming of pee, as they usually end up rolling in that urine mud.

If that isn't enough violence for you, then you can check out the mosh pit just in front of the stage, where people regularly emerge in a bloody mess that makes raw hamburger meat look like a block of tofu. As for me, I preferred to sit and watch from my home camp on the hills, while further down, some incapacitated jackass stripped down naked to everyone's cheering, only to have his audience turn on him by throwing beer at the buck-naked guy as security hauls him away.

So knowing the crazy times that my roommates would go through, I shut myself in my hole and braced for the chaos to come when my roommates come stumbling back from the event.

When I finally emerged to see what damage my roommates have wrought after they have swaggered and verbally slurred their way home and settled down, I was surprised to see that things weren't that bad. I guess it helped that the Community Coordinator gave them a lecture, when he came in to bail me out of locking my own keys in my room. Coming to think of it, I should've locked myself out on purpose long ago to tactfully bring up this issue without being a ratting goody two-shoes. I was impressed...

...until I went to the bathroom and found beer bottles in the shower. Not only that, but I've noticed a sudden drop in my shampoo supply, a freakin' 1.18L family size. I don't mind my roommates using some of my stuff, so long as they ask and I don't tell them to fuck off. If only I could procure some radiotherapy drugs to use as an additive to expose their culpability with tell-tale baldness.

At least it wasn't as bad as last night, when I was going to brush my teeth and noticed the corner of a condom wrapper lying next to my toothbrush and toothpaste. I guess I should be grateful that whoever it was had enough modesty to not display the spent contraceptive there for all to see as a trophy of his sexual conquest. (But then again, such a trophy could be generated without 2nd party assistance...) Thus, I should also be grateful that I didn't have to boil or throw away my dental hygiene implements.

Sadly, I can't be glad that this kind of event happens only once a year, because this kind of shit happens more often than that.

Sweeping The Dead

2007-04-06T18:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Qing Ming Festival.

Or 清明節 in Chinese, it is the day when Chinese people go visit the graves of their ancestors because they neglect them the rest of the year. Activities usually include the presentation of offerings and the cleaning of the tombs, mainly by sweeping.

Being Good Friday and the closest holiday to Qing Ming, it was on such an occasion that my mom, uncle, and I went to the good ol' mausoleum to pay Grandma and Grandpa a visit. No, we are not rich enough to afford our own family mausoleum, so my late grandparents have a slot in a wall shared with many other neighbors. For some reason, the mausoleum's permanent residents consist almost solely of Chinese and Italians, so I hope my grandparents have learned to speak Italian since their stay there, although it is kind of amusing to think of them going on language exchange with Mr. and Mrs. Benito Mussolini.

Upon our arrival at the mausoleum, we could see people burning offerings such as hell money in a designated oil drum just outside the main entrance. No, we do not have the same definition of "hell" as Westerners; we basically use "hell" interchangeably with "afterlife". (Coming to think of it, next time that Chinese cab driver tells me to "Go to the hell!", I shouldn't take it so badly.)

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, the Chinese believe that you can give presents to your dead loved ones by burning the paper version of it. Unfortunately, this custom has driven such a lucrative industry that things have gotten pretty out of hand, with paper gold bars, paper cars, paper cellphones, paper iPods, paper pets, paper houses, paper servants and concubines, and even paper Viagra.

Regardless, I no longer see any point in burning hell money, as the ridiculously large denominations (Hell$100,000,000 banknotes, for God's sake!), and the fact that everyone is burning them in huge wads means inflation must be astronomically inconceivable in the afterlife. I can picture Grandpa going, "$75,000,000,000,000,000,000 for a stick of gum!?!? WTF!?!?"

That said, back to my grandparents. Seing how the mausoleum's management has tended to the maintenance of the complex's floors, there was no need to do any sweeping - another tradition that has tragically fallen prey to modern economy and pragmatism. Instead, I wiped the dust from the facestone with a wet wipe, while my mom and uncle cut and arranged fresh flowers to be placed in the attached vase.

Being done before them, and having silently made the necessary communications with my grandparents while cleaning them up, I decided to take a quick tour of the place. Most of the slots on the wall were either occupied, or pre-purchased for future..."moving in". It must suck to be the guy stuck with the section of the wall that has the electrical outlet. I guess they reserve that spot for those who died by electrocution.

I was saddened when I happened upon the resting places of those around my age or younger, who presumably died either of traffic accidents or terminal illness. It was even sadder when I came across the grave of a one year old baby, his grave poignantly adorned with knitted baby booties and teddy bears. It was humbling in the sense that it made me feel fortunate to have made it this far.

Afterwards, my mom and uncle came out with the processed flowers, placed them on the vase, and we made our prayers and took the traditional three bows before my grandparents. The overall experience was rather solemn and grim, but a must in order to pay our respects to our ancestors. I don't think the mausoleum is a place where anyone would want to go - the interior is too bright and well-lit for goths, and the atmosphere is too depressing for everyone else. But then again, such a place really isn't meant for the living, is it?

On the way out, Mom started creeping me out, in the way that Chinese moms always somehow manage to do to their kids. Having bought the slots adjacent to Grandma and Grandpa for the rest of the family, she nonchalantly reminded me how she and I will someday reside next to our grandparents, as if the mausoleum is one big apartment complex. I bit my tongue to stop myself from retorting that if I had to spend eternity, or until the bombs drop, with two generations of Chinese parents (or in-laws to my possible wife) breathing down my neck, it would truly be the Western definition of "hell".

Anyways, that's beside the point - I am immortal.

PS - Sorry I didn't take any photos...God knows if any of the mausoleum's occupants decide to jump in front of my camera and spoil my shot.

Temporal Shift

2007-03-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

I properly woke up in the morning for the first time in years.

By "properly", I mean with sufficent sleep time. This wasn't something I was planning to do, as whenever I plan to sleep earlier, something ties me up into the wee hours (Damn those internets!). This time, I just had no choice since I wasn't getting enough sleep. Heck, yesterday, I went through a morning iaido training session all the way in SFU, then I had to drive everyone home - all on three hours of sleep.

It's like being in an alien world where the Sun appears in the east. And now they start having these morning shows like Breakfast Television and the like. I've never felt so displaced here since I came back from my years in Japan.

Speaking of TV shows, now they have these programs where all these bad things happen to all these 80's style people because of other bad people, or when two good people fall in love with the same person. Oh wait, these shows are just the old version of Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, One Tree Hill, Party of Five, Dawson's Creek, The OC, etc., etc. What are they called? Ah yes, operas of the soap.

What's next, marking this special time of the day with a special meal!?

Strange Korean

2007-02-26T23:54:00.000-08:00

I've been taking Korean classes lately.

Seeing how I want to make the most of my time before my job starts in September, I've decided to do the things I've always wanted to do, but will never get to do it once I begin work. Learning Korean is one of them, because I love to learn about other languages and cultures, and putting that knowledge to use by communicating and befriending people of various nationalities. Furthermore, my hometown of Coquitlam and the rest of Vancouver now has more Koreans than Korea, and some of them don't even speak any English. Thus, I would surely come across Korean clients, and speaking their language would surely improve me and my firm's relationship with them.

And finally, I love it when people light up like a flaming Christmas tree when they suddenly hear you speak their native tongue.

Right now, after spending weeks on writing and pronunciation, we are finally at the stage where we start learning grammar and how to construct basic sentences. Unfortunately, just making our entrance into the realm of grammar means that our capability to carry out an everyday conversation is wholly inadequate. Therefore, I couldn't help but wince as my class practices the downright weird dialogues from the textbook, which translate to:

A: Is this a book?
B: No.
A: Then what is it?
B: It's a bag.

Or little gems such as this:
A: What is this?
B: It's a bag?
A: Whose is it?
B: It's mine.
A: It's very pretty.
B: Thank you (you insincere dickwad).
Oh, trust me. It sounds stranger in Korean.

Now as a former English teacher myself, I know how difficult it is to produce a normal, everyday conversation for the purpose of illustrating the use of very simple and preliminary grammar points to utter novices. In fact, I'm also guilty of producing a few odd practice conversations myself...but nowhere this bad. But then again, one probably should not write off such verbal exchanges as utterly useless.

After all, I never know when I suddenly find myself engaged in a dialogue with a Korean who has severely impaired cognizance.

Starring...the Law Building!

2007-02-23T19:55:00.000-08:00

My residence and the site of my old dorm are situated near the Faculty of Law building.

I used to have so many fond memories of that place. Not as a law student, but as a science student having fun at the expense of law students, particularly when the conduct their evening mock trials in mock courtrooms which ostentatiously sport large windows for all the campus to witness. My old dorm abutted the Law Building through an unlit field, so that at night, if one were to wear dark clothing and lay in that field, he would be completely invisible to the parties engaged in their mock trial from inside their brightly-lit mock courtroom.

And that was what some of us once did...brandishing a pellet gun. Occasionally, the hidden assailant would fire a round into the window of the room where the mock trial is in progress. Being so large, the windows were an easy target, and of course, our pellet gun wasn't powerful enough to damage them.

However, they did manage to emit a loud WHACK! whenever they made contact. This was loud enough to scare the crap out of all the lawyer wannabes inside, who would then proceed towards the window to determine the cause of the disruption, the forensic experts that they are. Tempted as we were, we never fired another round as they were coming near the window, lest they realize that the report is man-made, and not some rogue crow, squirrel, raccoon, or drunk frat boy.

Well now that my old dorm has been torn down, those law students can finally conduct their mock trials in peace - to the sound of jackhammers, backhoes, and bulldozers as newer and more overpriced housing is built in its place.

So today, I passed by the law building on my way home to find that it has been altered by TV production crew, a staple presence when you have a beautiful campus, into a hospital of all things. I don't know what TV show would ever conceive of the Law Building as being a hospital given its oddly geometric design, so it must be for some weird sci-fi program like Supernatural or something.

But here's the thing: Does anyone else see the irony of having ambulances coming to a building occupied by lawyers?

A lawyer's dream come true - a place where potential
clients come to them instead.

Happy Year Of The Piggy!!!

2007-02-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

恭喜發財, 心想事成, 萬事如意, 龍馬精神, and things of that nature.

And if all that above comes out a garbled mess, then your computer's broken and you need to throw it out. Well, if you don't know Chinese, it'll probably still look like a garbled mess to you, in which case you need to throw out your computer anyway just to be safe.

For some, Chinese New Year is a time to get together with the family, have dinner, and buy lots of crap. For me though, I take CNY as an opportunity to educate my friends on Chinese culture (and all the delicious foods that come with it). And to buy lots of crap. I take this extra step because I simply love to contribute to the multicultural education of others, and because I somehow feel obligated to show them that there is more to Chinese people than rudenss, awful driving, and pennypinching behavior.

Conversely, all this crap-buying is mainly because Chinese New Year, like any new year, represents a new beginning, so out with the old and in with the new; some would even believe that by discarding the old stuff, one would also discard the misfortune associated with it during its use. This could include buying new clothes, perhaps new food to restock the fridge, new furnishings and appliances, and if you're a rich Honger or Mainlander, a new house and mistress.

Furthermore, you're supposed to start a new beginning by cleaning the house and sweeping out the bad luck from the previous year. However, if you're one of the aforementioned rich people who buy a new house every year (and actually live in it), that is not necessary, as you can either sell the old house, or burn it down and build a new one on top. Or if you're like me, who would rather deal with the ill fortune rather than to invest the time and effort to clean up my shithole.

Cultural note aside, I spent last night doing what I said I do every CNY, and introduced my friends to my culture at a party at one of my friends' place - through delicious foods like the octagonal party plate full of fried pastries and candied foods sweet enough to dissolve teeth, pan-fried turnip cake, and new year cake, which my Japanese friends recognized as mochi. Unfortunately, everyone came so late that by the time I was done cooking them the turnip cake, taking a well-earned break, and preparing the new year cake, they were ready to leave, so a lot of them missed out on the new year cake. Oh well, their loss and more for me.

And so I begin The Year of the Pig by hogging all the new year cake.

My Bullshit Valentine

2007-02-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

It's that dreaded time of the year again.

But I'm not going to go on the usual annual rant about how Valentine's Day is another fabrication of greeting card and confection companies to generate more business just before their fiscal years to make profit targets, because...well, it's not completely true. Like most Christian holidays, the date was likely set to cover up Pagan holidays; in this case, Lupercalia. So instead, let's just briefly attack the reasoning behind it.

Valentine's Day. The day we're supposed to express our love to the people we love, or at least supposed to love anyways. Why does a special day need to be set for such an occasion? Because we don't sufficiently express love during the rest of the year because we still live in a prudishly conservative society (oh well, at least we're still not as bad as some other countries)? Or is it because we need a break from tearing at each other's throats all the time?

And are we properly expressing our love and devotion by giving sweet, sweet diabetes in a heart-shaped box, paired with a dozen toxic roses made at the expense of third-world sweatshop laborers' health? I guess nothing has changed after all - we're all still trying to kill each other.

After reading my other rant, you're probably just blaming this on my bitterness of being single, so for your information, I'm quite content with having no significant other to hinder my physical, mental, and spiritual development, which I'm pretty well occupied with thank you very much indeedy. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, bitches.

Besides, the kind of girl I'm looking for is rarer than a yeti (and hopefully prettier too). I can be a faithful and loving soulmate for the rest of my life and not see anyone else. It's a tall order to get a guy not to cheat until the day he takes that long dirt nap, but I know I can do it. It's just that she'd better damn well be worth it. Maybe someone like her or her.

Yeah, associating myself with girls carrying sharp objects runs a high risk of emasculation, but I guess I'm a glutton for dangerous adventure and self-punishment for failing to please my mate. Like I just said, I'm a strong proponent of self-development, so I don't take failure lightly. Furthermore, just because I've found my significant other doesn't mean I'll stop making myself stronger in all respects; I will not let anyone encumber or stop me.

Anyways, from the bottom of my heart, Happy Wednesday.

A Hard Week's Training

2007-02-12T02:42:00.000-08:00

This must be another record.

I've spent a total of 13.5 hours of martial arts training this week - 7.5 hours of iaido, 3 hours of another style of iaido I'm trying out, and 3 hours of capoeira (and not counting that 1 hour of music class). I know this isn't much for people who are really into martial arts, but for me, that's a lot.

Combine it with the time I've spent in the gym and that's probably 17 hours of physical training, which is unprecedented for an amateur like me. Oh well, once my job begins, this isn't going to be possible without totally sacrificing my weekends, so I might as well get it done while I still can.

Gotta get that summer body ready...and crawl into a corner in the fetal position and cry.

Singled-Out Sushi

2007-02-08T00:52:00.000-08:00

There I was in another weekly solo foray into late nite all-you-can-eat sushi.

Like any Chinese-run establishment, the restaurant focused more on optimizing customer turnover rather than customer service. Therefore, to make sure that they fill all the seats, they arranged all the tables in my section into single-table-two-chair configurations to accomodate all the couples coming in. The problem is, I was the only person in this section dining across an empty chair.

I don't mind. I've been singled out all my life.

When I was in elementary school, and when we were playing any sport in PE class that requred two designated team captains to pick their team members, I was always the last kid chosen. Well, "chosen" isn't really the best choice of words since I was the last person remaining, so "very reluctantly stuck with" is probably more appropriate diction. Furthermore, whenever an activity requires all students to form pairs or whatever certain size of groups, I was always the one singled out. So by now, I've really stopped giving two shits about it.

Besides, having another person with me in an all-you-can-eat session will slow me down. It's harder to find a table for even two when the restaurant is crowded, whereas if I'm alone, I can nearly always find a seat at the sushi bar. Ordering food would be slower because as I go over each item in the order form, I'll have to check my eating partner whether or not she wants that dish and if so, how many.

Worst of all, dining with another person wastes valuable eating time because I'll have to do things with her like talk to her. Dammit, last call is at 11:30PM and I'm trying to get the most food for my money! I have no time to talk about crap like What's-Her-Name that you met at the mall and how she's gotten fat and bitter over the years, the latest designer brands, relationships, or your periods. I am busy trying to keep myself alive and well by EATING.

I'm not being antisocial - it's just that a strong and fierce lone wolf travels the fastest and gets the whole prey.

Fix Or Repair Daily

2007-01-15T01:48:00.000-08:00

Don't buy American cars!

My iaido senior's roommate is this crazy Hungarian dude ("I cut those gypsies!"). Yet, he's a cool guy, and as a former mechanic, he knows cars in and out. Also, if I ever need a getaway driver, it would probably be him.

Anyways, he was riding in my Ford to my senpai's place when he noticed the engine temperature gauge needle dangerously tickling the red zone. He immediately told me to pull over and pointed it out to me. I was probably minutes or even seconds away from burning out my engine. We then had to wait until the engine cooled down to a manageable level before resuming our journey.

So the entire trip back to my senpai's house was pretty much an excruciating game of hopscotch - driving a couple of km's, pulling over and waiting for the engine to cool, then resuming another couple of km's before pulling over again. Fortunately, it was a cold day, so the engine didn't take so long to chill once we popped the hood open. If it was a hot summer day, this just wouldn't happen, and I'd have to call a BCAA tow truck.

When we finally made it to our destination, we popped open the hood and gave a closer examination with a flashlight. We realized that for some odd reason, the coolant was alarmingly empty. It was getting close to midnight, so I hopscotched to the nearest gas station that was still open for some coolant.

Now the problem should've been solved at that point, right? Perhaps with an import car, but then again, this problem may not have occurred at all in the first place. Unfortunately, I drive a "homegrown" piece of North American crap. Not only did the engine still overheat, but now I have to deal with scalding hot coolant geysering out of the coolant intake compartment like Ol' Faithful. This could only mean the cooling system is clogged and the coolant isn't circulating, so I'll have to leave my car at my senpai's and call the BCAA tow truck the next morning to take it to the mechanic.

So why are American cars so crappy? Why have they not only distanced themselves from being associated with quality for the past few decades, but also allowed foreign competitors to take over, despite the automobile industry being pioneered by Americans?

To me, the root of the issue is simple - an automobile is a complex machine. It consists of hundreds, if not thousands of moving parts which require assembly with utmost care and precision in order for all those parts to function together in a coordinated fashion as a whole unit. Only machines are capable of consistently and reliably delivering such care and precision.

The Japanese realized this, and that is why they say there are more robots in a Toyota car factory than there are in the rest of the Earth. The Americans, on the other hand, see such automation as a threat to the jobs of their workers and their families' livelihoods. That is why they still insist on putting together a good portion of their cars by hand. That is why they form unions to twist the car companies' arms to ensure that they still put together a good portion of their cars by hand. And that is why the Japanese automobile industry have overtaken the Americans in quality and profitability since the 70's.

Why can't the American labourer see that the automation of the automobile manufacturing process can also open up a lot more jobs? After all, machines need repair, maintenance, programming, upgrading, installation, monitoring, and parts purchasing. You don't really think that in the Toyota factory, they just sit back with their conbini onigiri and sip sake while waiting for those robots to churn out Camrys and RAV4's, do you?

I guess it's just that people are resistant to change because they associate the security of routine in their old jobs with the security of employment. Nevertheless, it's sadly ironic that by trying so desperately to cling onto their old jobs, they do otherwise by hastening the demise of their industry. After all, why go on strike to keep your old jobs when you'll be laid off anyway, once your company is no longer profitable enough to afford to keep you?

I'd like to see them hopscotch to work in my Ford.

I See Dead People

2007-01-13T16:06:00.000-08:00

I got up at freakin' 5AM this morning.

Because it was sold out during the good hours, me and some friends had to settle for the wee morning to check out the Bodyworlds 3 Exhibit (What happened to the first two?). This exhibit and its treatment of dead bodies has generated much controversy, particularly from Bible-thumpers and other religious rabble-rousing groups. But then again, The Church has always been hindering scientific progress with their accusations of heresy, so it isn't surprising. That such is the desire of the cadavers' previous owners is probably the only reason such an exhibit is happening at all.

Personally, I think this is a wonderful educational tool because, unlike the next best thing which is actual dissection, these corpses can be displayed over and over again in their plastinated state instead of requiring burial. Each body was presented artistically with beauty, grace, and dignity, yet they allow the observer to clearly see its anatomical configuration and how each body part contributes to its pose and function.

Too bad none of the exhibits could explain why my back suddenly got so damn itchy while viewing the Nervous System section of the exhibit. Or why it always seem to happen in the most awkward spot where you cannot reach. To make things worse, I still had my heavy coat on because I couldn't find the coat check, and even if I did, it would probably cost money. It was totally driving me nuts, so I was at my wit's end in utilizing my innovative faculties to come up with an immediate means to kill this itch.

That was when my eyes widened epiphanically at the arm of one of the exhibits, whose fingers were curled up in a rather effective scratching position.

I suppose it would not be an act of desecration, since the deceased had donated her body for philanthropic reasons, it would surely include her anatomical gift being used to relieve someone of their torment. In the end, I wisely decided against it because I didn't want my fascinating time to prematurely end by being hauled out by security. Instead, I managed to find a nice protruding corner of the wall to cat-rub against.

Unfortunately, no photographs were allowed in the exhibit. Instead, I've found more than enough photos to give you an idea in the official website.

No problem, glad I could lend a hand!

Happy 2007!!!

2006-12-31T16:22:00.000-08:00

It's finally arrived!

Another end to another year. It felt only like yesterday that I joined some high school buddies to raid the party at the house of some guy I don't know. Wow, time really does fly, but it only seems to fly when people think only about Point A and Point B in time, and not of all that happened in between.

And a lot certainly happened between this and the last entry, but once again, I haven't been updating. My excuse this time is that I've been battling a nasty Christmas flu. It seems to be an annual tradition now. I was hoping I'd be immune to flus and colds, as I've pretty much caught every possible strain of them.

But being violently ill did have its good points. All that hacking and coughing to clear my lungs have scared away whatever roommates that are left who initially decided not to spend the holidays at their respective families' homes. One even had the courtesy to clean up the kitchen before he left, and now I have this place all to myself and it's not getting messier anymore! Shit is no longer piling up in the kitchen, dishes are no longer being left all over the place, and a roll of my hard-bought toilet paper is not being eaten up each and every single day like popcorn!

With the New Year starting on such a good note, I wish everyone the trifecta of good wishes - Health, Happiness, and Prosperity!

I guess one out of three isn't so bad...

Overloaded And Overdosed

2006-12-11T23:44:00.000-08:00

This exam was for the toughest course in my final term.

Yup, good ol' Advanced Financial Accounting. A course of unprecedented difficulty merits unprecedented measures. Not only was I going to require the (legal) performance enhancement of an energy drink, but TWO energy drinks. I went to the campus pharmacy and chose the Rock Star brand of energy drinks because it was cheaper than Red Bull and because in 500mL cans, it was also in greater quantities. Okay, so a liter of energy drink might sound over the top, but according to this website, it would take 74.65 cans of it to kill me, so I was well within the fatal limit.

I took my seat in the examination room, proudly standing my two not-so-secret weapons before me, feeling rather brazenly confident that I'm well-prepared. The professor walked in with a young man who was aptly sporting a fedora, and annouced that due to a meeting, he must be absent for most of the exam and invigilating in his place will be his son, the aforementioned gentleman crowned like a certain whip-cracking archaeologist.

It was then that my classmate sitting above me noticed my Rock Stars and suggested to me that beer would've been a better examination potable; even though it relaxes you, if you can get a 50% pass on an exam piss-drunk, then they should give you another 50%. Yeah, brilliant idea. The last thing I need is to get shit-faced, jump on the table with my shirt off and twisted into a rat-tail and snapping it around like a whip, all the while slurring out to the invigilator, "Heeeyy Indiaaaana Joooones!! NA-NA-NA-NA! NA-NA-NA!!!"

The exam started not long afterwards, and so I cracked open my first can and took a few swigs. I felt very good, and the burst in caffeine-initiated energy gave me the confidence to tackle the deluge of information contained in the financial statements that come with the questions. I was on fire, consolidating subsidiary with parent company financials and restating foreign subsidiary amounts into local currencies left and right as easily as if I was eating popcorn.

A few of questions later, the side-effects of the caffeine kicked in.

My body started feeling cold, my hands were already starting to shake, and I had already taken a couple of bathroom trips generously accorded by Indiana Jones. I could feel myself slowing down and the questions were starting to seem longer. There was only one thing I could do to mitigate the situation - crack open the other can of Rock Star.

For a moment, all was better again, and I was breezing through the next set of questions. But it was inevitable that by the last question, my writing has become rather erratic and uncontrollable and I was breaking into cold sweat, to the percussion of my kidneys throbbing under the dehydration and diuretic stress. I was probably fortunate to have put the two cans of Rock Star visibly before me, as Indiana Jones probably thus acknowledged my situation and kindly allowed me two more bathroom runs. While I was frantically writing the last question, even resorting to using my other hand to stabilize my writing hand, I noticed a caveat on the can at the corner of my eye.

Do not exceed 500mL per day.

Although shocked to the extent that half the class heard my "Oh shit," I figured that now that I'm already half-way through the second can, I might as well take it all the way so that I can finish off this last question. Besides, it will take 72.65 more cans to die and if I don't do this again, the damage would surely not be permanent.

That did nothing other than to make my writing more like a preschooler's, and my kidneys scream louder for clemency. Furthermore, whenever your body temperature is down, drinking an ice-cold drink, even an energy drink, does not help. At this point, I have totally decided to forsake whatever residual performance enhancement and madly chug down my sports bottle of water (which despite the folly of my actions thus far, I was wise enough to bring).

I left the exam with the feeling that I've missed something important during my struggle with my metabolic maelstrom, which was corroborated by a post-examination chat with the professor. Let that be a lesson to you all to read the fine print before consuming anything that messes with your bodily processes.

I hope I did well on the exam because now I need an organ donor.

Another Crappy Campus Blackout

2006-11-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

Here I am unnecessarily taking refuge in my parents' house.

Last night, the power went out all over campus. Again. Although this doesn't happen often in the absolute sense, it's still intolerably frequent as far as campus-wide power outages are concerned - whether or not it is planned by Plant Operations. I think it's because UBC is stubbornly maintaining their own power utilities, rather than using the apparently more reliable municipal power grid. I guess it's the University desperately trying to establish itself as an independent community where knowledge can flourish...all sponsored by Coca-Cola.

Well, so much for that idea; this is the second time this has happened to me, and at the worst time. It's snowing and cold outside, and the last thing we need is our lighting and heating dying on us. Once again, the building right across the parking lot from me, which runs on the city power grid, is bright, warm, and laughing at us.

This morning, I realized the power was still dead because I woke up to sub-zero temperatures. Thank God I took that candlelit shower before bed, as the hot water was surely gone by the morning. Without power to the computer or the internet servers, I had nothing else to do but roam around outside. With the campus shut down, it was a ghost town out there and the perfect opportunity to take some scenic photos of the white landscape without annoying people getting in the way.

When I came back after a highly productive photography run, the power was still dead. With little hope that power will be restored before the campus residents die of hypothermia, I decided to bus all the way back to my parents' house to ride out this infrastructural disaster. The bus was well away into the trip when my neighbor called me.

The power went back on.

Go figure. These two words pretty much sum up my life. Upon hearing the news, I felt like the whole campus held a huge party after I left. These kinds of things happen so often and so consistently that I would not be wrong to think that power was restored because I left campus. Yeah, that's it. I selflessly and stoically left campus so everyone can have their power and heating back.

I took it for the team.

More powdery white stuff than a celebrity house party.

First Snow Of The Season

2006-11-25T23:18:00.000-08:00

The campus blanketed in white and silence.

That was the sight which greeted me when I left the library after after working on my IT project. I know it does snow occasionally in Vancouver amongst the rain, but I didn't expect it to happen so soon.

I didn't know which surprised me more as I breached the door into a world that has changed; the abrupt serenity of the Earth relentlessly forcing its deaf silence upon those who roam its white expanse, or the sudden loudness of my thoughts finding themselves desperately trying to assert their presence lest they become muted.

I walked home quietly struggling.

Those who roam the snowy night in front of Koerner Library.

Never Live In A Quad (Or With Anyone, For That Matter)

2006-11-18T17:39:00.000-08:00

I've about had it with these people.

Today has been one of too many times I had to empty out all the clean dishes from the dishwasher, because everyone else is too "busy" do so, leaving all the dirty dishes to pile up beyond the sink over to the counters. But this is only the tip of the dirty iceberg.

Like the rest of my roommates, the engineering guy is really cool personality-wise, but tidiness-wise, not quite so. But what really annoys me is how he uses our quad living room as a Motel 6 for his drunk friends, with whom he throws shit like instant noodle packages and Kraft Dinner cheese packets all over the place. I'd kick their asses, but that would hurt my relationship with the people I have to live with for the rest of the year. Also, they're too drunk to feel any pain, which would detract from the punitive value of an ass-kicking.

I know they all have to go drinking every weekend, but if they can't even make it back to their own respective place of habitation, a change in drinking habits is in order. We are already doing a good job fucking the place up, and we certainly don't need further contributions from outside parties!

The blond girl, she can be just as bad...as all of the drunk friends put together. It's nice that she bakes herself a cake once in a while (Bake, bitch, BAKE!! Mwahahahaha!), but then she leaves all the baking utensils, ingredients, and stains sacrosanct all over the fucking counter. Put her and the above together, and you have absolute bedlam; the living room would look better if an all-out rival ninja clan battle scene broke out in there instead. Hell, if one happened right now, the living room could only end up cleaner.

Finally, the opera singer is the least messiest of them - perhaps only because he isn't home much in the first place to mess it up. However, he still does leave remnants of his morning rituals on the kitchen counter to add to everyone else's mess, which would stay there until he comes home late at night - if he chooses to clean it up when he comes back.

Thus, what makes it difficult to get my roommates to clean up is that they're rarely in at the same time, so I can't get everyone together to clean it all up at once and get it over with. Instead, I have to go after each person like some cleanliness gestapo. The only mitigating factor is that they do manage to clean things up when I ask them to, but I can't come home and face this shit anymore.

I really have to vent here. I want to move out into my own studio apartment, but then I'll have to clean up the WHOLE place first, i.e. THEIR mess. I'm really tempted to just say fuckit and give up my security deposit altogether if it means I won't have to clean up the place only to have it revert to its chaotic state in a matter of hours, an act of futility that can only be metaphorically summarized by Wile E. Coyote putting up a tiny umbrella against a falling anvil.

Even though the first round of roommates was really nice and tidy, they will eventually move out, and new messy roommates will come in so that things will eventually degrade to this state. The Second Law of Thermodynamics holds truest - the entropy of the universe is always increasing, all will deteriorate to a natural state of chaos. If you cannot learn from example, then at least heed this scientific proof that you should never to live in a quad. Unless you enjoy cleaning up other people's messes.

Well, I'll just have to do the next best thing - incite an inter-clan feud between a bunch of ninjas.

Why This Blog Is So Stale

2006-10-26T03:53:00.001-07:00

It's been a crazy month.

It's recruiting season in the accounting profession, and here in Vancouver, all the firms must follow the same schedule in their recruiting process. I've been going all out trying to get application forms, cover letters, and resumes out to firms. I know I have a huge backlog of entries I have to do, but my professional career comes first. Once I get a job (IF that happens, actually), then I can revert my energy to this blog.

And if you're wondering, my job hunt so far is sadly lacking game...

Where Were They When I Needed Them!?

2006-10-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

Here's something I came across.

A cell phone that screams when stolen.

Well, that could've been brought to my attention TWO MONTHS AGO!!!!

No Reaction! PIE HELL!!

2006-09-18T03:53:00.000-07:00

I saw this really hilarious TV show when I was in Japan.

It was an episode of a comedy show called Gaki no Tsukai wa Arahende or something like that. I laughed so hard that I would've puked had I not been too busy laughing, and my entire midsection was cramped and sore for the next day.I thought I would never see that particular episode again.

That thank goodness God created Youtube, as like a long lost love, I am finally reunited that episode. WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK! (Don't worry, the English subtitles are comprehensible!)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

And don't think the gags get old because if you keep watching, you'll see that things get worse and worse for the victim. You'll know what I mean.

You've all been warned!!!

Teed Off

2006-09-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

I never really liked golf that much.

They call it a sport, but I define a sport as an activity with a risk of injury due to the athleticism required. In golf, the only risk of injury is getting hit by a ball or an errant golf club, and that risk is pretty much eliminated by hiding behind your golf cart or your caddy. But then again, ESPN and other TV sports networks also call poker a "sport", even though the only possible risk of injury is if your dealer happens to be a ninja and accidentally slices your jugular with a card when dealing out your hand. Screw that. Golf and poker are games. But in my case and in the case of anyone who will dabble in white-collar jobs, it's also a career skill.

That is why my school program, or at least the student club, organized its first golf tournament at a course near the campus. A lot of people from the big and medium-sized accounting firms will also participate, so that the timing of this event during recruiting season makes it a great way for students to get to know their potential employers at a leisurely and casual level, and for the recruiters to gauge how valuable an employee their potential hires will be from their golf skills.

The team play rules were called "Texas Scramble". Everyone in the team starts off at the same position, and the ball lands in the best spot will be "used" as the starting point for the next stroke, and so on until a ball goes into the hole. To make sure this is a team game, the team has to "use" everyone's drive at least three times. Oh great, my team will have to deal with setbacks on three occasions because of me.

I was teamed up with a guy from Ernst & Young, a female, and a male classmate. In the first few holes, I sucked as usual, and the girl was also struggling to get the ball up; it was evident that the other two guys will be holding up the team, the Kobe Bryants to our Lakers, if you will. However, in the middle holes, I was on fire, making a series of solid, straight drives, and actually more than holding up my end of the team.

That is, except for the hole designated to be the Men's Longest Drive Contest. Go figure. No, I certainly drove that ball high and far, but it hooked so bad that I think I killed a horse in the stables across the street. Or at least gimped the horse so that the stablehands had to shoot it. Either way, that poor horse was doomed to die by my crappy luck. More glue for everyone!

Anticlimatically, the last several holes was highlighted by nothing more than my reversion to my usual crappy gameplay. I guess the sun was going down and my superpowers faded with its light.

The tournament finally ended and everyone celebrated with a BBQ and door prizes at the clubhouse. On the way back to my car to put my clubs away, I spotted a Nissan SUV parked next to the course with two golf ball-shaped breaks spiderwebbed across its winshield. HAHA! Bastard probably thought he got a better parking spot than anyone else. Well he got OWNED! (or P\/\/I\I3d!!111 in that geeky virgin online gamer 1337 lingo).

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera because anything expensive, me, and a golf club is a disastrous combination. Fortunately, the lovely ladies at the student club were in charge of that, so if you want to see us being a bunch of asses, go here.

During the BBQ, the tournament and contest winners were announced. We scored -3, and tied for first place of 1st annual tournament. Unfortunately, the student club (or more like the school that financed them) was too cheap to put both teams on the trophy, so we lost to the other team due to a lousy tiebreaker ruling by the pro shop, which decided by performance on the last 9 holes. Come on! We were so tired, they surely can't expect us to ace them! It doesn't matter. In our hearts, we all knew that we rightfullly co-won the prestigious first DAP Golf Tournament.

I scored a ton of food because everyone was too busy chatting and drinking, and even won a couple of door prize packages! Wow, three more times a winner! A nice KPMG recruiter also handed out some spare beer tickets, although I had to heartbreakingly pass a lot of them up because I had to drive home.

When I made it home, I was greeted with the sight of my engineer roommate's drunk drinking buddies all over the place - one in the couch and one slumped over next to the toilet (luckily not the washroom with the shower) - with my roommate nowhere in sight. He stumbled in drunk off his ass minutes later. He slurred to me that they were passed out since 10PM. Undergrad lightweights...although not without amusement value.

I should've given them my golf clubs and watch them try to drive each other's balls.

Spiritual Days

2006-09-09T22:01:00.000-07:00

Well, the past couple of days was a break from "normal" life.

Yesterday, I went with a classmate to the Dr. Sun-Yat Sen Garden for a performance of their Enchanted Evening Concerts, a series of performances consisting of fusions of ethnically diverse traditional music. Last night was a duo consisting of a Japanese flute master and another musician versatile in Indian string instruments. It was the perfect opportunity to soothe my soul and explore its connections to a higher power, and also to use these free tickets that I won at a school BBQ.

The weather was perfect for an outdoor concert in a Chinese garden, a miracle in a region where it doesn't rain until you have a camping trip or a picnic, and then it rains even more. The performance was serene and mesmerizing; your conscience just harmonizes to its complex tones, in an environment that is totally conducive for spiritual and self-enlightenment. Me and my classmate had a wonderful time.

Good thing her boyfriend was cool about her coming to the recital with me.

Today, me and a couple of neighbors went to see the Dalai Lama on a rare visit for one of his talks called Cultivating Authentic Happiness held at GM Place arena. This is the second time I've been an audience to the Dalai Lama, the first time being when he visited my university in Miami. What can I say? I just can't get enough of the guy.

As expected, the neighborhood around the arena was packed full of people. Good thing we bought our tickets online. This would probably be the same size of crowd that would gather around when there's a Canucks game, but this time with more Buddhist monks and nuns who aren't in it just to see the big body checks, colorful exchange of words, and fights. Or maybe they will if the Dalai Lama gets heckled.

It took an half an hour to get in, and another half hour to get to our seats, given that a lot of Tibetian merchandise and Non-Profit Organization booths were set up in the lobby hallways and crowding up the place.

After we finally sat down, the event began with performances of traditional Tibetian folk music and dance done by these adorable little Tibetian kids (or Canadian kids of Tibetian descent) in costume. This one little guy had the total demeanor of a rock star on his some sort of traditional Tibetian string instrument, much to the delight of the audience.

After that, the mayor, the Dalai Lama, and a trustee of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education were announced. However, the emcee was then informed that they have not made it to the stage yet, and in fact were still en route to the arena, leaving the poor guy with a long awkward silence. And what do Canadians do when there is an awkward silence?

We all sing the national anthem.

Have you ever seen that one special episode of South Park which was entirely about Terrence & Philip, foiling a plot by Saddam Hussein to take over Canada? Remember at the end of the episode, when Sadam Hussein has been stopped and T&P saved the day, all the Canadians with their plastic-Easter-egg-shaped heads started singing Oh Canada? They were right about us!

It was totally surreal. Imagine being in a musical, where the whole stage usually breaks into song spontaneously. Now imagine that the musical is about an entire arena audience, and every song in the opus is the national anthem. Unlike other normal Canadians, the unprovoked singing of Oh, Canada felt rather awkward for me, but I just sang along anyway to avoid feeling left out. Besides, if this was the US, I'd be branded as a non-patriot and lynched.

The Dalai Lama finally emerged, and the first item on the program was the presentation of an honorary Canadian citizenship to the Dalai Lama by one of our Minister of Immigration or some bigwig like that, then a speech by a trustee of the Dalai Lama Center recounting his experiences in Tibet and China.

At last, it was the Dalai Lama's turn to speak. He started with a gesture of humility by amusingly chastising the trustees for naming the Dalai Lama Center after him, when he could think of a hundred better names. He then cracked a few jokes like that he is happy to be an honorary Canadian citizen, but once they ask him to pay taxes, he is fleeing back to India. Fun Dalai Lama stuff.

Then he cut to the chase and imparted his wisdom. Unfortunately, because his English isn't too good, he couldn't convey his deeper views, but his words still bear a lot of weight nevertheless. I guess he would want me to spread the word, so here are a couple of things I managed to take home.

In order to stay happy, you must not let traumatic events and hardships affect you too greatly. You are like an ocean. For example when your best friend dies, of course you will feel grief, but only the surface of your ocean is turbulent; your innermost depths, however, should barely be disturbed at all. One corollary I managed to get from that was that in order to remain calm in the face of adversity, make your ocean very deep. How do you do that? Add water. Lots of water...

In order to bring happiness to others, you must first bring happiness to yourself; don't try to altruistically and stoically make other people happy if you yourself are unhappy. If you are not happy, then when others express their happiness to you - such as when stranger waves, smiles, and says hi to you - you would only receive it with suspicion. How can you spread happiness if you are unable to even reciprocate it?

After his talks and a little Q&A to the e-mails he has received, it was time for the Dalai Lama to say goodbye. The audience then gave the warmest farewell that an arena full of Canadians could give. We walked out of that session feeling a bit wiser, or at least like a wiseass.

Well, that's everything I want to say.....Yup, I'm finished......That's all.......umm.......err.................

~Oh, Canada! Our home and native land...~

The view from the nosebleed seats behind the concert.
Thank God I'm not sitting here.

The New Batch

2006-09-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

Well, the new undergrad roomies have moved in.

The two guys and a girl are nice, albeit sloppy, which is expected of undergrads. So it wasn't as bad as I thought, which stands to show that when you're as bitterly cynical as I am, everything will be good news.

One guy is your usual undergrad engineering drinking buddy - tall, complete with flannel shirt, jeans, and hiking shoes. Even though this description closely matches that of an English major, he is not one, and the difference is that he actually uses his hiking shoes to go in the woods, he never has a cup of coffee in his hand, and he has an actual future. Besides, he's a really cool guy and easy to talk to.

The one girl is a tall blonde, perhaps taller than me by an inch or two. I know what you're all thinking with those dirty little minds, but it's my policy not to date roommates, coworkers, my students, nor my relatives. As the old expression goes: Don't shit where you eat. But then again, all this talk is just a round of self-flattery, as it is under the assumption that I have the charisma to initiate a relationship with any member of the opposite sex as desired.

The other guy is a aspiring bona fide opera singer, so aspiring that he even sings in the toilet. Well, whatever it takes to hide embarrassing noises when you're dropping off your brown kids at the pool. Unfortunately, he also applies his vocal fortitude to his snoring, and he sleeps directly on the other side of my northern wall. However, that's not a problem because I already sleep with earplugs on every night on the account of The Tower of Babel being built next door to my building. He's usually not around for most of the day, probably because he has rehearsals and recitals left and right.

Oh my God, I'm living in an episode of The Real World.

It's Not Because Of The Cold...

2006-09-04T15:36:00.001-07:00

I got bored and I found this in the news.

Polar bears' genitals are shrinking because of industrial pollutants. I don't know who would make a living studying polar bear schlongs, but here it is.

That would certainly explain why more and more polar bears are driving exotic sports cars.

Crikey! I'm Dead!!!

2006-09-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

It's finally happened.

Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin, the man who shares his passion for nature by making a living kicking the Grim Reaper in the balls, has finally succumbed - surprisingly not to a crocodile, but to a stingray. It's as if God decided to rub him out in a strange twist of fate just for shits and giggles, seeing how he has time and again defied the natural flow of life by going against the current.

Every Australian friend I know thinks he's an idiot for doing what he does (especially when he waved his baby around one of his crocs), but if through wanton acts of perilous stupidity one can foster awareness in animals and nature, then I think it is just as noble as it is moronic, and that's why I still harbor sympathy towards this crazed fan of Mother Nature. That and he was always fun to watch when he appeared in late nite talk shows like Jay Leno, David Letterman, or Conan O'Brien. But then again, when you've spent all your life hand-catching crocodiles for your zoo, you'd probably get a little too comfortable around them. My thoughts and condolences certainly go out to his family.

This time, I'll end this not with a possible epitaph or last words, but a more-than-appropriate personal quote from Steve Irwin himself:

"I'll meet my match when I'm dead."

Batizado Fire!

2006-09-04T01:07:00.000-07:00

It all came down to this weekend.

My capoeira school held its annual workshop, culminating in the Batizado ("baptism") ceremony where people who passed their tests received their belts, and those who started with the academy get their official nickname.

As a bit of an aside, I have come to learn that nicknames in capoeira are also a tradition maintained since the time capoeira was associated with criminal activities and banned in Brazil; they are a way of hiding the capoeira practitioners' identities. It's basically the same reason why the Sith in Star Wars have a "Darth" name - i.e. "Darth Vader" for Anakin Skywalker, "Darth Sidious" for Palpatine, and "Darth Revan" for that 38 year old guy that works in Taco Bell, drives a Pontiac Firefly, and lives in his parents' attic.

Anyway, the real highlight of this event was that capoeira masters ("mestre's") from all over the Americas were invited to teach at the workshops and participate at the ceremony. My capoeira master knows them well, and they go to each other's workshops/batizados held at their respective academies. One was from Toronto, San Diego, New York, and another, I believe from my mestre's hometown in Brazil. Furthermore, the one from New York is one of the few female capoeria masters ("mestranda's"), which was really cool.

I did almost all the workshops designed for my level, and learned a lot from each of the masters. They each taught an aspect of capoeira, whether it's the footwork, takedowns, movements, or music. To play capoeira with them is an even more vivid experience, as each of them have their own distinct style of play. This one master in particular plays with surrealistically fluid movements, so it's like playing against an octopus, or Dhalsim from Street Fighter 2.

So it all came to a climax at the Batizado ceremony, which would be the finale of a Brazilian extravaganza show open to the public at a church gymnasium. They must've hired bat-wielding goons to pass around the collection plate, because this place was decked out with lavish, brand-spanking new facilities.

The show began with the always upbeat and colorfully spectacular Brazilian dance and music segment held by our master and the more senior members of the academy. When it finally came to the ceremony, most of the "outsiders" in the audience left, leaving only the parents, relatives, and a few "fans" in the seats. One cool thing about the ceremony was that since it was in a church gymnasium, there was a crucifix bearing down upon us, as if Jesus Himself came to bear witness. Yeah, right. As if He'd come and watch from the comfort of his own cross.

It took a while to go through everyone who attended the capoeira academy. We started with the kids, then went to the adults starting from the lowest belt rank. At that point, I really had to pee after sitting in the bleachers for so long, but as my luck would have it, my name got called while I was in the midst of making a stealth run for the toilet.

So here I am with the honor of playing capoeira with a visiting master from Brazil, in front of still a sizable number of people, with a thoroughly sore body from days of physically demanding workshops, and a rupturing bladder. I think I did alright given the aforementioned circumstances. My first belt and nicknaming ritual came right after, and I would've relished it more had my eye not been fixed on the door to the toilet. That was okay, since I had one of my seniors take a few movies with my digital camera. After my turn in the spotlight, I ran straight to the toilet and nearly put a hole through the urinal.

With all the spectacle concluded, all bodies hugged, and all tears of joy shed, we packed up and returned to the academy for our own little party.

Well, that's the Batizado ritual in a nutshell. With all that brouhaha going on in my life, I've realized that I have lost touch with the eccentricities of HOME home. On an anticlimatical note, I just learned that my mom started taking up yoga. Specifically, she has taken up Bikram Yoga, which involves doing yoga while baking yourself in a really hot room for hours so that you sweat out your fat, and eventually your vital organs. I don't know whether she took it up to truly reap its health benefits, or as an act of retaliation against my dad for taking up long hours of absence to feed his golf obesession.

Either way, once she masters the art of stretching her limbs and breathing Yoga Fires, I guess I'll end up challenging Dhalsim after all.

My feeble attempt at a flying kick called "martelo cruzado".
Notice arms flailing like a sissy.

Last One Gone

2006-08-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

My German roommate moved out on Tuesday.

He's going on a 10-day Western Canada road trip before coming back to visit for a week, then leaving for Germany. Until then, I'm alone in the quad until the next batch of roommates move in. Every inch of the suite now seems so empty. My eyes scanned an area of blank wall where he used to hang his Canadian flag with all his friends' signatures on it. Fortunately, we here in Canada aren't "patriotic" enough to arrest him for defacing our national flag, along with all those who have named themselves by contributing to the desecration.

The flag...DAMMIT!! It's been hanging there all along and I forgot to sign it myself!! My only hope now is to wait until he comes to visit and pray that he didn' bury his flag so deep in his luggage that he can't take it out without having to pack all over again.

Until then, I'm bracing to see what comes through my quad door.

I Ate Skippy!!!

2006-08-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

Another first for me today.

My comrades at the iaido club invited me to their weekend practice at Simon Fraser University. I had to decline because it's too far and takes too much out of my study time for next week's final exams. However, it was the after-event that merited my presence - exotic meat burgers.

The venue was this place called Stormin' Norman's Spirit Grill on Commercial Drive. They also operate at Wreck Beach but I never noticed, probably because I was too focused on the sexier of the nudist fare there. Alright, so I admit it, but as long as they voluntarily expose themselves, I'm not technically a pervert. Incidentally, the restaurant website also has photos of Wreck Beach if you're even mildly curious at seeing a bunch of naked people at the beach.

I was the first one there, and waited an hour for those other people to come. Well, they finally did come - just about when the waitresses there were starting to believe that my "friends" were really imaginary. After the menus were passed around,I looked through it and sure enough, there were all sorts of animals listed. The most prominent offerings were buffalo, muskox, caribou, elk, venison, wild boar, ostritch, kangaroo, and alligator. To me, the latter two were the most exotic, but since I've already eaten alligator during my time in Miami, I opted for the kangaroo burger.

It reminded me of a TV show I used to watch as a little kid called Skippy The Bush Kangaroo. Don't ask me how we end up getting an Austrailian TV show from the 60's aired over here. My best guess is that the Commonwealths share their television programs very openly.

Anyway, the basic premise is that the eponymous kangaroo befriends the park ranger and his son in a national park or some sort of reserve. Not just any kangaroo, but a highly intelligent kangaroo, who would help her human compatriots protect the park from the likes of rustlers, criminals, hippies, and other evildoers. Skippy demonstrates her intelligence each episode by doing stuff from simply going over to the ranger house to recruit Dad's help, to flying in a helicopter to pick up an injured hiker.

One of the quirks of the show was that the boy would make this long whistling sound with two leaves, and Skippy would drop whatever the fuck she was doing and hop straight to his aid. It taught me at a very young age that animals are sentient beings and would make wonderful and helpful friends with people. It brought so many fond memories.

So I made it a double kangaroo burger.

When food finally arrived, the waitress directed us to the toppings and condiments bar where we can further customize our meals. In my enthusiasm for the eminent tasting of this delicacy, I hummed, in a sick form of irony, the chorus to the song Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport - another childhood memory.

Once all that is done, I finally chomped on my Skippy burger. It was pretty damn good! The texture was quite like a regular beef burger, but I suppose that as long as you grind it up into a patty, anything would have the same texture as a regular beef burger, including cardboard (which I suspect is the reason why McDonald's burgers often taste like their containers). The taste was more or less similar to beef, but milder and less "musky", which is the best way I could describe it. All in all, it was a great meal for under $10.

I'm definitely going to come back to taste the rest of the zoo.

Double Skippy patties with bacon, cheddar cheese, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, olives, and a side of poutine.

Scourge Of The Berliner

2006-08-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

It's just my luck.

Every German person I've met so far is cool. Every gay person I've met so far is cool. What are the chances of me encountering someone who contradicts both? What are the chances of having such a person as a roommate?

Better than I would think.

I've been getting neurotically senile old people shacking in the same suite as me, but as far as unpleasantness is concerned, he may be middle-aged, but this guy takes the top podium. From my German roommate's conversation with him, he is also German, and from Berlin. Therefore, to avoid further confusion with my German roommate, I shall henceforth refer to him as The Berliner.

He never explicitly said he was gay, but he'd do things that tips the gaydars off the scale. One day, the Berliner walked in with a bigger man, both naked from the waist up. Without a word of greeting, they headed straight into his room and locked the door. At that point, I begged my imagination not to go any further.

But don't get me wrong, his homosexuality is not the problem.

He's actually been here for a week and moved out today, and he's been quite civil, saying hi whenever he'd pass us by. His problems didn't become apparent until the day before yesterday. I was heading back home from class, and when I passed by the building administrator, she called out to me. She told me that The Berliner has been complaining about the noise I was making the night before, and told me to keep it down. I figured that it must've been when I was playing Star Wars: Battlefront II with my friends in my room.

Now I don't have a problem with keeping things quiet for others. But what really pisses me off is that The Berliner didn't come to me first and asked me to quiet down. He went straight to the administrator. Furthermore, it didn't make sense for him to do so; if he approached me right away and told me I was too loud, I would've been more than happy to turn down the volume for him - problem solved right away. Instead, The Berliner had to put up with my noise into the wee hours until he had the chance to tell the administrator.

He has finally moved out this morning, but not before leaving an unpleasant note on the door of another temporary roommate, adjacent to his room, a Korean girl:

Goodby my little, noisy slamming-Queen! I hope someday,
someone will teach you how to use the door handle properly.
Go to Hell!!!

To which my reply would be:
1) Who are you to call other people a "Queen", poofter?
2) Go to Hell? No thanks. You've done more than enough flaming for all of Hades.

In a blatant display of his gayness, he wrote the note with girly-curly writing and drew exclamation marks with cute little triangles and circles. I suppose the reason why he didn't dot his i's with a heart is because this is a hate letter.

This guy is so socially inept that he is uncapable of consulting directly with other people to work out any problems he may experience from them. I've had it with this place being turned into a hotel for assholes during the summer. Good riddance that he moved out.

Actually, I hope he moves back to Germany and leaves Canada a little bit more of a pleasant country.

Testing Times

2006-08-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

Certainly a trying day today.

My capoeira belt test was scheduled for today, so I rushed to the campus ATM before going to get cash to cover the testing fees. The master really tested my knowledge of all the moves, as every move has a name and he just calls them out and I perform them. Some of the moves I don't know at all so I had to look them up on the internets. What made the test even tougher was that I went to one lesson yesterday to get in some more practice before the test, so I was really sore today. I think the master was satisfied with my technical and musical abilities, seeing how this is my first belt test, and he gave me advice on how to improve my capabilities. My brand-spanking-new belt will be presented in a special ceremony in September called a batizado, or "baptism".

I left feeling good...until I felt a certain emptiness on my waist. It wasn't because these last two days made me lose ten pounds there - it was my empty phone pouch!! It was a poorly designed phone pouch, as it was loosely fastened with a magnet, and the clip allowed the pouch to rotate fully 360 degrees. If the pouch with phone were to somehow turn upside-down and one is to accidentally brush the fastener, the pouch will open and the phone is gone.

I looked all over the capoeira school and the ATM and their surrounding neighborhoods, the only possible places I could've lost it as I distinctly remember setting my Bluetooth headset to my phone just as I left my building, for driving safety. I even asked nearby stores if the phone was turned it. When it didn't look like I was getting my phone back, my heart just sank and said hello to my colon. It was a nice black Motorola V3 RAZR phone, but more importantly, I had a lot of friends' contacts in there. Some heartless and selfish motherfucker just picked it up and decided to keep it.

I always hated the Finders Keepers "rule" and think it's downright wrong. Some asshole simply made it up to justify theft. If I ever find something, no matter how valuable, I always try to find the owner, or at least turn it in to a reliable lost & found. I will not stoop so low as to salivate over finding and keeping other people's precious belongings, something that might mean a lot to them. (Okay, maybe if it's The One Ring to Rule Them All). If Finders Keepers was the prevalent rule, what keeps me from going to some poor schmuck and saying, "Hey, while you were away and I found your house, car, and beautiful wife laying around. They're mine now."

Without further agonizing, I cursed the phone and now the thief will have a horrible rash spreading from his/her hands.

My Preeeecioussssss!!

Matsuri At Powell Street

2006-08-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

Network building, picking up girls, call it what you like.

I decided to volunteer at the Powell Street Festival, an annual weekend festival run by the Japanese-Canadian community there. Spending three years in Japan myself, I was hoping that my experience and fluency in Japanese would be of help.

The first thing we did was set up the whole place on Friday. There was a lot of work to be done in terms of erecting (heheh) and arranging the smaller kiosk tents, putting up the large event tents, and setting up the main stage at the baseball diamond. There was about 30 people to do the setup, but fortunately, the festival wasn't that big, taking up only a neighborhood park. And best of all, a lunch consisting of delicous food in Japanese bento boxes was provided!

The hardest work was driving down these huge, 2 and 3 foot-long iron tent pegs with sledgehammers. Normally, I enjoy hitting more compliant objects with a sledgehammer, such as walls, uncooperative electronics, illegally parked vehicles, and human heads. In this case, the ground was tightly packed, particularly at the gravelly baseball diamond. We would also hit the occasional rock-hard object somewhere in the ground, which probably explained why someone in the neighborhood won't be getting any water or natural gas - or is still wondering where Grandma is buried.

The next day, Saturday, the festival opened, and I did my part by doing a demonstration with my iaido class. Due to the tight space, I stopped short of stabbing one of my classmates. Although the swords that we use aren't made of carbon steel and don't have an edge, they still have a bit of a point. Well, it's not my fault that unlike karate, you don't look at where you attack until you actually attack in iaido. Fortunately, my superior contol over my sword throughout the thrust saved her life and no one noticed the near fatality. Then again, it would've validated the effectiveness of the technique we were demonstrating.

After the demonstration, we all scattered and I was left to look around the festival, shop, and try the various fare at the food stands that broght me a sense of nostalgia of going to an actual festival in Japan. I was also planning to wear a men's kimono the next day, so I needed something to carry loose change, since, unlike women, men do not carry a special purse when wearing a kimono - that would be too gay. Rather, guys stash their stuff in their kimono sleeves. Still, loose coins isn't the best things to keep in your sleeves, unless you're doing some magic trick like pulling a quarter out of a poor kid's ass.

After shopping around all the kiosks,I finally found the perfect coin purse - a small one closed by drawstring with, oddly enough, designs of a bunch of angry-looking owls. I thought it was very kawaii and a bit mysterious, as it made me wonder what is making those owls angry (Is it because the White Man took away their land?). Also, both the color and design was consistent with the mood of the angry dragons on my kimono. A great buy for $4!

The last day of the festival, Sunday, was going to be the busiest. Not only was I going to be volunteering all day, but I also had to help with taking everything down once it was all over. I started by hosting the events at the Japanese Language Hall, which included a Japanese archery demonstration, Hiroshima atomic bomb expo, music & dance shows, and a musical poetry reading. I ended up using my Japanese after all, as some of the older people were actually from Japan, rather than 1st or 2nd generation Japanese.

My evening shift was spent guarding the door to the makeshift performer's change room across the street, space kindly donated by some Filipino community center. Fortunately, I had a clear view of the main stage, so my watchdog shift wasn't so boring as I caught the last spectacular taiko drum shows and the closing ceremony. I didn't have to use my iPod after all.

The end of the festival and the ensuing cleanup finally came. Some locals and even some homeless people came and helped out, as dinner was being provided at, oddly, a Chinese restaurant not too far away from the festival site. If I just saw these people out in the street, I'd probably wouldn't talk to them at all, so it's another benefit to the community that this festival has brought us together. Although the setup took all day, the cleanup only took a few hours, and we were off to enjoy some delicious Chinese food.

Well, the story doesn't end there. There was a Gay Pride parade going on at Davie Street, at the same time as the Powell Street Festival. Although I specifically told my mom that I was volunteering at the Powell Street Festival last weekend, she still somehow manages to get it into her head that I was trying to tell her something by participating at the Gay Pride parade.

So she called me to make sure I wasn't volunteering at the gay parade. I told her, as I have done before, that I was volunteering at the POWELL STREET FESTIVAL, a Japanese festival going on at POWELL STREET, not Davie Street. At that point, she was probably picturing me in my men's kimono and carrying around that special kimono purse. Before I hung up, I reassured her that our festival had nothing to do with homosexuals (even though they are welcome to attend the festivities), and that it was strictly about the Japanese community there.

Then I ended the call by telling her that I had an absolutely faaaaabulous weekend.

A Japanese balloon fishing game, where you keep what you catch.Probably the closest thing your dad will ever do to taking you on a fishing trip.

McAdvice

2006-07-31T22:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't eaten there for ages...

So I decided to eat at McDonald's for once, since it wouldn't be unhealthy to eat there only once in a while. I laid it on heavy with a Double Big Mac and Supersized fries and drink.

That stuff went right through me.

It was already coming out of my alimentary canal within an hour. That was a stupid idea to suddenly go on a grease binge. I can't stand McDicks' breakfast either. Even if my digestive system is adapted to a daily intake of lipid-rich food, having a meal that is greasy enough to float on water first thing in the morning will make my stomach very angry. So from now on, if I ever go to McDick's again, I'm going to start with something lighter.

Like their salad.

Liquid Potatoes

2006-07-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

I finally brought out the rice cooker today.

I have been cutting out rice from my diet as part of my ongoing war against flab, towards a sliver of hope that I can get well-cut washboard abs before the summer ends. Now I really miss the delicious fragrance of jasmine rice. To hell with Atkins! If his diet was so special, how come it didn't save him from dying? Telling Asians not to eat rice because it's full of carbs...while you're at it, why not tell Americans not to eat hamburgers because it's full of fat!?

So anyway, since the toaster's always out, we never really had any other reason to open the designated small appliance cabinet where my rice cooker is stashed; the only other thing in there were the hot water kettles, and now is not the season for hot water. The moment I opened up the cabinet, I was overwhelmed by this revolting, moldy yet slightly fecal reek that waged an all-out full-perimeter siege upon my nostrils. Evidently, someone was stowing more than just small appliances in here - a bag of potatoes!

That explains why no matter how many times I've cleared the garbage can under the sink, and Lysolled the cabinet where it was stored, that moldy smell still lurked in the kitchen! (If you live single or in any college establishment, Lysol is a MUST!) I gingerly pulled out the offending sack of offending tubers...and this foul, repugnant brown liquid dribbled all over the kitchen floor. As damage control, I quickly put the sack into the sink while I find a plastic bag to contain the biohazard.

I managed to throw out the evil sack of potatoes, soak up the brown liquid with paper towels, mop up the floor with my Swiffer, and sanitize the cabinet with ample Lysol. Later tonight, I'm going to have a little talk with my roommate when he comes back. Damn, that brown liquid shit was so nasty, it might as well have been diarrhea. I hope you're not eating while reading this.

Actually, I kinda hope you are - whatever doesn't kill you can only make you stronger.

A Taxing Midterm

2006-07-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

My brain has effectively disintegrated into oatmeal...which should yield a teaspoonful.

I just crawled back from my income tax midterm, which is effectively a 1.75-hour memory dump. Well, except for one question that wants you to apply Common Law for tax purposes, but nevertheless a feeble effort to justify that this exam cannot be written by a monkey - that is, a monkey with superhuman memory. I thought my English exam was bad, with all those long essays within 3 hours. But at least if you've made an outline first, actually writing the essay is mere hand exercise.

At the introductory level, income tax is all memorizing and no thinking. I don't think I handled the memory dump too well, since I skipped many sections that I've deemed low-priority because of their mark value. Yep, as always, I didn't have enough time to finish the exam. This reflects real life, where your clients require you to do all their personal and business income taxes, and any possible conflicts with the government, and any resulting court rulings, in a time span of less than two hours. So if you're ever someone's accountant, don't bill by hours. I'm pretty damn sure I fucked this one up, so I have to re-evaluate my studying strategy, and drink off the bad taste of this exam when I go to The Plaza with my buddies tonight.

Why does the government need so many goddamn rules to decide how much money they should steal from hard-working people!?!? The Canadian Income Tax Act started out as a pamphlet - now it's thicker than a phone book! The government would've probably taken away our firstborns to sell and raise revenue, if it weren't for those firstborns growing up to possibly become productive Canadians to steal even more money from. Besides, they're probably content with all the arms and legs they've collected. Interestingly, I heard that income taxes were historically introduced as a temporary measure to fund The War.

Regardless, this exam has led me to sympathize more with anarchists.

Note: I said ANARCHISTS, NOT antichrists! Learn to fucking read!!!

Bringin' Down Da Haus!!

2006-07-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

I was rudely woken up by such banging and crashing.

Wood splintering. Glass smashing. It sounded like someone was tearing down the house. Then I looked out the window, and well, they WERE tearing down a house! Ever since the real estate boom, they've been wanting to demolish the old places in my neighborhood and build brand-spankin' new ones in their place, and charge exhorbitant rents, even though the reason that my building administrator would cite is that the old buildings were not earthquake proof. So now, I have to sleep with earplugs on every night because they're building the freakin' Tower of Babel all around me.

For the love of God, why can't they just blow the damn thing up in a controlled detonation and get it over with right away!?

**MUNCH MUNCH** Yum! Good building!

The Ghost Next Door

2006-07-07T02:07:00.000-07:00

One of the old fogies shacked up at my place are really getting to me.

The creepy old guy in the room next to me only constantly mumbles to himself very loudly, but also moans like the undead in his sleep. Because he (fortunately) doesn't come out much, I keep forgetting that he occupies the room next door, and I subconsciously think that the room is still empty since my Chinese roommate moved out. So when he does moan, I momentarily deduce that it must've come from a ghost. Consequently, I scare the crap out of myself at night.

Fortunately, the nightmare doesn't last long, because I keep getting woken up by that same old guy, who also has a habit of blowing out his sinuses REALLY loud when he gets up at 5 in the morning. It's so loud that it doesn't matter if both the washroom door and my door are closed.

Speaking of the washroom, it might not be him, but one of the old guys has the balls to put their grey pube-covered old people soap on my soapdish!! On top of my own bar of soap!!! If I'm not creeped out, I'm absolutely grossed out!! I'm going to have a talk with the administrator tomorrow morning.

This is not a hotel or a nursing home, it's a STUDENT RESIDENCE, dammit!

Poor Germany

2006-07-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

Poor German roommate.

Germany was eliminated from the World Cup by Italy's drama team. For a bunch of guys coming from a country whose culture values manliness, toughness, and even machoism, they sure acted like a bunch of pussies out there in front of the whole world. In one instance, this Italian player falls down on the field clutching his leg in what seems to be agony, so the ref sends him off to the bench to have his injury assessed and treated. To aggravate his poor acting, the Italian player just happily gets up and runs off to his bench.

As shown by their beautiful first goal against Germany, Italy is a very good team, but they would be even better if they relied on their soccer skills, instead of their acting skills. It is totally unnecessary and downright disgraceful, and that's what pisses me off about the Italian World Cup team. As if it isn't bad enough that the Italian soccer league is now tainted with a referee scandal.

It would've been really cool if Germany won the World Cup, because my German roommate looks uncannily like German squad member Michael Ballack (#13). He knows it, and all his friends and relatives know it. Thus, I wondered why he wore a generic German team jersey rather than Michael Ballack's jersy. He cited his reason as being the high cost of the same jersey, but having a player's name and number emblazeoned on it. I couldn't blame him.

But he could've been swamped by girls asking for autographs once he landed home at the airport.

Hail To The Stawamus Chief

2006-07-02T22:41:00.000-07:00

I conquered a mountain today.

Me, my German roommate, and a French neighbor from downstairs were supposed to meet up with the Scottish girls from the party at a campsite near Squamish. But the only girl who has a phone left it at home, so we couldn't find them. At the time we discussed joining them, they haven't decided on a campsite, and it was uncertain which campsite they would go to since it all depended on whether or not it was already full for the long weekend. So we searched a few campsites in the immediate area of Squamish. One particular campsite, Cat Lake, was very brutal to drive to because the road to there was hidden, unpaved, and full of rocks lying around, and I could've sworn I lost a lot of air pressure in my tires. No luck.

Once again, I get to deal with unreliable chicks.

We finally gave up, but rather than head home, we decided to make a day out of it. My German roommate suggested we climb the Stawamus Chief, this huge famous landmark that that is pretty high up in the list of the World's Largest Rocks, and we went for that.

You know it's going to be a tough trail when the entrance is a rock climb. I suppose it serves as a warning that if you can't even manage this, you shouldn't be on the trail at all. Even though there were stairs that are either man-made wood or naturally-occurring rock formations, the gradient was extremely steep. Wearing jeans, I was ill-dressed for the hike, but this hike was a last minute decision.

It's probably not a surprise that I'm pretty dense and heavy for someone with my proportions, so it was very difficult hauling myself up the steep rock. I was whining all the way up, but that's how I deal with hardship - I whine on the outside, but inside, I'm constantly pushing myself to find my physical limit and linger in the realm of extreme that lies beyond. All my friends know me well enough not to take my whining seriously.

Near the top, the terrain went from dense forest to bare rock. Therefore, climbing to the top involved negotiatin a series of chains and ladders built into the rock as part of the trail. After hours of climbing with only a few stops, we finally made it to the peak. It was cool and breezy up there, and we took off our shirts to dry off our sweat. There were some girls up there to impress with our manly physiques, so that last sentence didn't sound completely gay.

The valley that houses the town of Squamish snaked around us, ending in a fjord bordered by a legion of mountain peaks, an awe-inebriating reminder of how great it is to live in BC. Surprisingly, there were chipmunks way up there, and they weren't very shy because they were probably given food often by the hikers who made it up all the way. Fortunately, I brought my camera with me and took a lot of photos. I even took out my phone and took a picture so I could use as a wallpaper and a testimony of my victory over the rock.

After a couple of hours of chilling, we finally headed down. Althrough it is expected to be easier to go down than up, it was still difficult because the trail was so steep, and so we had to descend carefully lest we become part of an avalanche. It only took us forty minutes to make it all the way down. After that trip, we stopped at Shannon Falls on the way, another beautiful view.

We concluded the day back in Downtown Vancouver at Kintaro Ramen, the same place I went with my friend after snowboarding. The boys were very hungry, and were not happy that we had to line up to get in as usual. But once they saw the Japanese waitresses and finally tasted the noodles with the deliciously seasoned pork, I was vindicated.

Coming home, we realized that the two guys have moved in - old guys. They came from a theological college nearby and were only staying for a week or two. So it appeared that my quad is being used as a hotel. At least it meant they will probably hermit themselves in their rooms rather than hang around the place and "olding up" the atmosphere. Well, if they ever complain about me walking around the quad in nothing but my underwear, I can knowledgeably counter that back in their day, the great Joe DiMaggio would not hesitate to greet the media completely nude in the locker room showers. But then again, the primary form of media back in that era was radio.

So even though we were stood up by Scottish chicks, and we found out that our place is becoming a nursing home, we still had a pretty good and constructive day. Now I have a new wallpaper for my phone, too. Even though the picture of sushi that came with the phone was kinda nice, I needed something more personal and uniquely mine.

At least until I get a photo of myself being hounded by hot girls (as if).

The beautiful town of Squamish down below.
Now if only I brought a golf ball, a tee, and a 1-driver...

Goodbye Dutch Girl

2006-06-30T17:12:00.000-07:00

Half of my prediction has been confirmed.

It will be indeed a sausage fest with two guys moving into my quad, according to the housekeeping staff that dropped by this morning. I hope the other half doesn't come true that they are assholes, like those Americans downstairs who recently moved out (Thank God. They smoke outside downstairs and it wafts up into our windows. They once even asked my German roommate if he liked Jews!) Could my German roommate have said the same about me when I moved in? Of course not. I was the equalizing factor, and he sorely needed me. Without me to back him up, he would've been bullied by three girls, among them a Latina and a Honger.

The Dutch girl next door is leaving today, so yesterday, we went to see her on her last trip to Wreck Beach, a clothing-optional beach (i.e. nudism is legal). Usually, some rather unattractive people and men exercise their right to go around like they're in the Garden of Eden. One interesting sight was this buff guy in the buff parading himself in front of some indifferent girls. How pathetic. What do these testosterone-fueled guys think they're trying to accomplish with their, "Pardon me ladies, I'm just passing by...very slowly...and naked..."? Yes, of course you've worked hard at forging a rock-hard, well-cut body, but if you want girls, you'd better work on other things - such as your EGO!!

Despite that, unlike my undergrad days, the clothing optional population has vastly improved. Granted, we still get mostly men and fat old people to whom gravity was unkind, but now there's sexier fare from countries where the practice of tanning au naturel is widely acceptable (i.e. Latin America), because getting a complete tan is much more important than some bullshit prudish family moral values (Usually with a certain religion mixed in. I'm not going to say which religion, but let's just say that it rhymes with "fristian").

After that, my quad ended up hosting her farewell party. In line with the Dutch theme, the Dutch girl decided that the main fare would be crepes - entree crepes for dinner and sweet crepes for dessert. The food and liquor provisions ran out fast, so being the only one with a vehicle and sober, I volunteered to go on a liquor and grocery run. Among the party's guests, these two lovely Scottish lasses decided to tag along. The lovelier of the two was only here on a short visit from Scotland (go figure).

The lasses were rather cheery, and I doubt that it was the effect of alcohol but rather it is their nature. To express their cheeriness, they decided to sing Scottish and Gaelic folk songs. I managed to recognize some of the songs from my frequent trips to The Blarney Stone, so I sang along and threw in my own Scottish accent, which I learned from my Scottish friends and from watching Groundskeeper Willy from The Simpsons. Hey, it's not everyday that I have a pair of lovely Scottish birds in my backseat singing in the mirth of their heritage, and it is even less often that I find people willing to accompany me in singing "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)".

The party was a blast, and I was once more re-enlightened as to how many people can fit in my quad. For good measure, someone brought in a Twister set so we had our own little Twister tournament. Aftwerwards, someone presented the Dutch girl with a large Canadian flag, and we all signed it, regardless of whether it is considered defacing the flag or that doing so may be unpatriotic or illegal.

I signed the flag, accompanied by a picture of a squid and a chicken. There's a funny story behind that. One day, me and my German roommate went with her to Stepho's, a popular Greek restaurant in the middle of Vancouver's gay district. After an entertaining display of a flaming leather-clad couple whipping each other out in the sidewalk, accompanied by a delicious calamari, she exclaimed, "That's the best chicken I've ever had!" to which we cracked up. I mean, do chickens in the Netherlands have tentacles? What kind of problem are they having with nuclear waste there!?

That story aside, the party was soon over and I just saw her off this afternoon. It was a sad farewell, and as you can see, there were many fond memories to be had. I'm sure that she'll bring home a life-enriching experience, and has learned a lot of new things during her stay here that she couldn't learn back home.

Such as telling a squid and a chicken apart.

All kneel before the Twister Queen!
Unequalled in the Bending of Limbs in Exotic Positions!
(sounds dirty, heheh)

Dim Sum and Splashdown For Europeans

2006-06-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

My Dutch neighbor is returning to the Netherlands soon.

It's all the better reason get her, and my German roommate to try something new - Sunday morning dim sum. It's also a good occasion because my roommate's friend, also German, came for a visit. They don't really get this kind of thing in Europe, or at least they've never went out of their way to try it.

For those of you who have never left your trailer park, dim sum is these little à la carte Chinese dishes, usually steamed, which are really good. It is customary for families to eat dim sum on Sunday mornings as a brunch. Traditionally, these ladies cart a bunch of these dishes, in stackable steaming baskets, around the restaurant, all the while yelling out what they've got. If a customer likes what they hear, they order from the cart lady, and the cart lady puts a stamp based on the dish's size on a card that each table gets. The stamp count determines how much the customer pays.

Sadly, to slash costs, the cart lady has been replaced with an order card, and you just mark down what you want and hand over to the waiter, and they carry out your order. At least they didn't "outsource" the cart lady job to less-than-minimum-wage Mexican or Indian workers - that would be very awkward. Nevertheless, the job market just got significantly harder for middle-aged Chinese women who don't speak a word of English.

I managed to take them to Floata, this restaurant in Chinatown that is probably the largest Chinese restaurant in the country, but more importantly, is also one of the very few in Vancouver that still employs cart ladies. Those Europeans were taking their bloody time to return a rental car from a trip they took the day before, and we would've missed our reservation had I not called the restaurant to push it back. But sitting at the table with lots of food and a lively atmosphere quickly dispelled all that frustration I had built up.

I set them up with the dishes that I usually order, which would be new and exotic to them, but nothing so alien to them that they wouldn't eat it. That is, all but my favorite dish, which is the real reason why I wanted to bring them to dim sum - Assorted Cow Parts. That's what I called the dish that I grew up enjoying, that most other Westerners would find repulsive. Its contents are pretty much the way I've named it - cow tongue, spleen, tendon, stomach, (sometimes) lung, and (although not technically a cow part) chunks of radish - all stewed in this delicious sauce.

I kicked myself in the ass for getting carried away and proudly describing the dish to them before they tried it. It would've been much more fun if they ate it first, I told them what they ate, and they retch. The Dutch girl and my roommate's friend made a feeble attempt to get the smallest bit of cow stomach down.

My German roommate, however, was a sport and he pretty much sampled one of each cow part. His rationale was that Germany is famous for its sausages, which are pretty much the same cow parts that was set before him. The only difference is that the Germans mush up, spice down, and stuff those cow parts into intestines so that they can't tell what they're eating by looking at it or tasting it.

Now all that's left to make them gag is preserved (aka 1,000 year old) egg!

Later in the afternoon, we met up with a bunch of other fellow fun-pursuers and went to Splashdown Park, a waterslide park, to take advantage of some late bird discount admissions. I don't think they have this kind of thing in Europe. We had lots of fun, and if you've ever been to the waterslides, or able to envision a day at the waterslides with your friends, then it's pretty much like the kind of fun time that we had.

Well, except that your friends scream and curse in a foreign language when they think that they're about to be launched off the edge of the slide.

How do you think the cow feels about you eating her stomach!?!?

Unfresh Fruit Of The Loom

2006-06-24T02:47:00.000-07:00

Today, I went to buy underwear at Zeller's (the Canadian equivalent to Wal-Mart, but with less corporate bullying, old people, illegal immigrants, blah blah).

It was necessary because I've been doing laundry way too often due to underwear shortages. Not just any underwear, but briefs. I've spent my whole life enjoying the crotch-hugging comfort of briefs. I've spent some time with boxers, but they are way too drafty, and with my vital areas dangling loose, I get the feeling that they just might wander off somewhere when I'm not paying attention. And I'm not just buying any briefs, but colored briefs. That's right, I'm making my life more exciting by reinventing myself. I already have colored underwear, but those don't count because they started out white.

With my purchases complete, I left the mall, and I have just pulled my car out of my parking space, this old couple pulls up to my car (their LEFT side!) and blocks my way! I honk them, but they just cut in front of me to quickly shove their vehicle into the parking space I just vacated, the very parking space that I would've left for them anyway. Fucking elderly. If I ever get old and become a hazard on the road, I'll be more than happy to turn in my driver's license. I guess they are in such a hurry because they don't have much time - whether they have to go to bed soon or they have to check in to the Underground Hotel soon, I don't know. But just because they have one foot in the grave doesn't mean they are entitled to drag us all down with them.

Without further incident, I brought home a 6-pack of Fruit of the Loom briefs of assorted colors (They come in TEAL, baby!). I was about to open the package to fill my underwear drawer, when I notice something written at the bottom:

Reclosable Bag
To re-package: Place garments
neatly inside bag. Fold inside
flap over garments.

What the hell is Fruit of the Loom thinking, packaging their underwear in reclosable packages!? Did they expect that someone's going to try them on for size, so they decided to make it easier for that person to put it back into the package if he didn't like the fit!?!? It's really grossing me out to think that the underwear has been pre-worn. I'm glad I have a habit of picking merchandise from the back of the shelf or rack.

And some lucky girl's going to have fun guessing what color I'm wearing. **SOB**

WORLD CUP!! Stanley Cup?

2006-06-22T03:25:00.000-07:00

It's ON!!!

It's been so exciting these past weeks ever since the FIFA World Cup started. My German roommate is even more pumped, and has his Team Germany jersy on standby for any games played by Germany ever since. This event has really helped root out all the different ethnic groups that come to UBC, as you can see them filter out into the student pub whenever their country is playing. This is nice, because for the rest of the time, I'm starting to think that 75% of the entire student population is Asian and the rest are White.

Oh wait, there's a Stanley Cup going on, isn't there? Oh, it was Edmonton vs. Carolina. Well, Edmonton isn't playing that well, so there goes my hopes that the Stanley Cup is going home to Canada. Well now that the World Cup is going on, I'm more excited about that, as it's the only truly international sporting event other than the Olympics. It's certainly not like Major League Baseball, which calls their playoffs the World Series - by "World", they mean they have one Canadian team in the league, and a bunch of players from Japan and Latin America.

But most of all, the fans of the female persuasion are much hotter (e.g. wear less clothes) in soccer!

Finals Up The Arse

2006-06-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

If I was too busy to post on this blog, now I'm even...uh...too busier to post?

I've already had a huge backlog of entries that still need to be typed up before posting, and so by the time this entry actually gets posted on the blog, it will be weeks - or even months - after it has been typed up. Have I just confused you? Try going through the crap I have to study.

I have two finals - financial and cost accounting - back to back tomorrow and Tuesday. At least they're not on the same day like my midterms. My last will be commercial law on Thursday, right after which I'm going to get sooooo drunk. Until then, I'm studying sober.

So don't worry about cutting me some slack, I won't need it by the time you read this.

Half-Empty

2006-06-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

Both girls moved out at 4:45 this morning.

We had a last meal last night, followed by one last outing to The Red Room for Latin night. Damn, it's awfully quiet here. No more loud Spanish coming from the room of the Venezuelan girl when she is spending the 40% of her day on the phone. No more squealy cheers when the girls both get excited about something and start holding hands and jumping up and down the way girls always do.

At least they'll be back sometime during the next academic year, but by then, my German roommate would've already moved back to Germany, so this was the last time all four of us will be together. Me and my German roommate told the girls that we've spoken to the building administrator, and she's replacing them with two hot blonde chicks. But that was a lie to get them jealous.

So sad that good things never last, but bad things cling to your ass like a soiled diaper.

The Last Supper of Room 202

To Middle! To Tits! To Balls!

2006-06-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

Parties have never gotten as crazy as this in my quad.

The two girls are moving out very early tomorrow morning, so last night, we threw a huge bash for them last night. The roommates and some of our neighbors first went out to a pub, but I elected to stay behind and finish up my last accounting assignment of the term due today. Well done, Procrastinating Me. Hopefully, I could be done by the time they come back for the real party to begin.

They came back before I could finish it, and oddly enough, my German roommate walks up to me and gives me a hug and a kiss in the cheek, in that affectionate, non-homosexual way that Europeans do. Well, nice to see you, too. That's a sure sign that they've done a lot of pre-drinking for the party that is about to ensue.

I could just give you the first and the last photo of the unfolding events, and label them "before" and "after" respectively, but it is more fun to see the gradual decline from vertical and decently buzzed, to sprawling around on the floor. Earlier in the day, the girls bought some very special (and very potent) exotic liquor, one was some raspberry-flavored vodka, and the other was a bottle of Alizé, which is a delicious mix of passionfruit juice and cognac. The latter tasted so good that, if they were pretty drunk coming in, then this stuff really hammered the nail into the coffin of sobriety.

Then, my German roommate decided to spice up the party by trying to teach us a German drinking song. I used the word "trying" because it took him quite a lot of effort to do it through broken and slurred speech. Anything German, or European, for that matter, may seem weird to us and this song is no exception, but it turned out to be really fun.

What follows is his translation of the song. It's a song where you have to perform the gestures being sung, so it's just like kindergarten, except it involves less alcohol:

Hand on the table, hand on the table
Oolalee oomp sasa
Hand on the table, hand on the table
Oolalee ooh
Hand on the table, hand on the table
Oolalee oomp sasa
Hand on the table, hand on the table
Oolalee ooh

To middle!
(everyone raises glasses together to the middle of table)
To tits!
(raise glass to your breast)
To balls!
(lower glass to your crotch)
To the German Air Force!
(everyone returns their glasses together in the middle)
Oooooooh!

Don't be afraid! Hallelujah!
Oooooooh!
(everyone drinks)
Hands on the table...
Foot on the chair...
Feet on the chair...
Lift up the table...
Put down the table...

Then, you basically work your way backwards from there. Since you have to drink a glass each verse, you should give yourself a pat on the back for being able to survive the entire song...if you're still coordinated enough to find your back. This would've bene manageable if we drank beer, but with the mixed drinks we had, we were just staggering around the apartment, until we all ended up passing out on my Chinese roommate's bed. No, there was no sexual activity, you perv.

Oh, and I managed to sober up just enough to get my assignment done.

Rise Of The Kokanee Warrior

2006-06-11T01:02:00.000-07:00

Man, it's been a while since I was this wasted.

We were all supposed to go clubbing last night, and the reason being that my friend's friend, a sorority chick, is celebrating her birthday at this club called The Plaza and wants us to come. Even though we prepared by getting ourselves on a guestlist, we still ended up waiting in line outside for hours.

Then the sorority chick calls my friends about a change in plans, and that the party is actually going to be in another club. So we waited there outside for another hour while my friend tries to call the birthday girl. No answer. Maybe she's busy being tipped upside down on a beer keg or having her way with a frat boy. We gave up and decided to take our party home.

What is it with me and unreliable girls all the time?

To make matters worse, last night was the night UBC planned to have a massive power blackout for the entire campus. Something about maintenance on their powerhouse or some other bullshit. We were pissed off at our building administration for giving us notice about this at the last minute, as they obviously didn't think of the consequences it would have on the food in our refrigerators; some of us who just bought groceries were even more pissed!

It was creepy seeing the whole campus grounds as pitch black as the forests around it. Fortunately, some of the streetlights were still working, as they were part of the City's power grid. As expected, my building was totally dark except for the emergency floodlights in the hallways, and even those weren't expected to last long.

Oddly enough, our friend Sam's building, just next to mine, had its lights on and was perhaps the only building on the campus grounds that did not have a power blackout. Probably because it was on an independent power line than UBC's. So we decided to take our party there.

Oh, and by "party", I meant drinking games, as that was what we unanimously agreed upon, since we found that it can be a culturally educational experience for my German roommate and the Asian members of our group. We first played Have you ever...? which is pretty much the same as I never..., only that the prompt is different. Unfortunately, that game didn't last long, as the Asian girls were a little too shy for the sexually outrageous and scandalous questions that eventually floated around.

So the next game we played was much simpler. I don't have a name for it, but we just took a deck of cards and wrote down a list of actions/forfeits for each card value. Don't ask me what they were, as I don't have a sliver of a memory of that event. All I can remember is that most of them involved drinking. Anyway, this game is simple enough, which is good because a complex game would be impossible when you're piss drunk. We just passed the deck around, drew a card, and followed the instructions on the piece of paper.

Too bad we only brought one case of Kokanee. It ran out pretty soon, and so we had to switch to the harder stuff. As you may know, unless you're a pussy, a cup of mixed drinks will always have more alcohol than a cup of beer. We were oblivious to that fact. Hell, we found mixing too tedious, so we just gave up and poured the whiskey straight into the cup.

Bad idea.

We were so wasted, when my roommate asked me to pass the Kokanee box so he can put the empties away. I put it on his head instead, then took a picture. Soon everyone around the table wanted to put the box on their head, to the point where I wanted to do it myself. Being impaired in my motor skills, I ended up pulling my head all the way into the box, and the holes that make the handle of the box for carrying also made a good visor.

Thus, the Kokanee Warrior was born!

Oh yeah, baby. For the longest time, that photo will be my profile photo on MSN Messenger. That's all I remember about the events that unfolded at Sam's place. As for after that, I walked some of the girls home across campus just to be safe, even though the sun was coming up. I ended up passing out on my friend's couch, so she stuck a note on me explaining who I am and why I'm on the couch, to avoid freaking out her roommates.

Ugh, now I remember why it's been so long since I got this wasted.

Fighting to defend the rights of the alcoholic and fashionably challenged!

My First Blade

2006-06-10T19:57:00.000-07:00

It's about time I get a sword for my iaido practice.

As mentioned before, the blade of an iaito may be metal, but it is some rust-proof alloy and cannot cut; it doesn't even have a sharp edge, although you may want to be careful where the point goes. The blade of a shinken, or a real sword, is made of carbon steel and can rust if you just breathe into it, so it must be constantly oiled.

Not only are there a huge selection of shinken being sold out there on the internet (some good and some crappy, caveat emptor), but also iaito. I can't wait for an iaito to be made and delivered, so I buying it online is out of the question. No, it's not that I'm buying on impulse, but I am really pressed for time. Next summer term, I can only attend one iaido practice a week because of night classes - in the fall term, I can't attend any practices at all. It is imperative that I learn as much as I can before I am unable to attend practices. A wooden sword is still useful, but doesn't give you any idea of the weight and dimensions of a sword, nor can you practice drawing from a scabbard. Furthermore, it is always good to get a feel of the sword before you buy it, as having a proper sword is important to develop good technique during the early stages of learning.

So where do I go to buy one? Fortunately, one store, Aoi Budogu, set up a booth during the iaido seminar, complete with their wares, and I like their quality. I got the necessary dimensions from the sage advice of my sensei, so my only personal needs are that the blade be heavy to train myself for the weight of a real sword, and that the tsuka maki, or the hilt wrapping, be leather. No, it's not because it looked cool in Kill Bill, but leather gets nice and sticky for that steady grip, so I don't have to be afraid of my sword flying out of my hand and impaling some poor bystander, whether or not he deserves it. The only tradeoff is that leather is thicker than cotton or silk wrapping, so it might be tricky to handle the sword at times.

Since the seminar was long over, I had to go to the actual store to buy the sword. It's tucked away in some industrial park, but they have a showroom totally decked out in traditional Japanese style. It was samurai pimped-out, but I was more interested in what they have in inventory. Unfortunately, they didn't have a sword that meets my exact specifications, but they did have one that came close, only that the blade was lighter. An iaito being a significant investment, it took me two hours to decide on that sword, since I realized that developing technique is most important, and that a lighter blade will help me focus on that objective. When I'm ready for a heavier sword, I can have it custom-made to my exact specifications without being pressed for time.

I'm still happy with my decision. The sword feels very well-balanced, and the blade makes a nice whistle when I swing it properly. I'm not going to say how much I spent, as my parents will kill me. Especially since they're Hong Kong Chinese, who are notorious for their adverse reaction to large expenditures. Besides, I have more than enough people trying to blackmail me for other things.

Now I am one step closer in my quest to fight back the Western Devils, HUZZAH!

Legal Problems

2006-06-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

I just got my law midterm back today.

It sucked. It was totally lower than I expected. Sure, it's a "B" grade, but it's total crap when I am aiming for an "A". I cannot afford to have a "B" in any course, not if I want to gain the attention of recruiters. This program is my last chance to get the job I want, the kind of job where I can put my best skills to use. Now, I've effectively screwed up half the course. Maybe I should give up and stop caring. After all, I'm going to be an accountant, and even if I get 100% in law, I'd still need to consult a lawyer for legal matters anyway.

Participation's not a problem, as I've given the prof ample discussion about cases I've read before class. It has gotten to the point that now, even if I haven't read the case, I'll still put my hand up and the prof will give me credit but pick someone else to discuss, instead of calling my bluff. But then again, I do back it up by asking and answering a lot of questions in class.

If I ever want to express my indifference, when the prof talks about the final exam in class, maybe I'll ask if calculators are allowed.

Goya Chanpuru

2006-06-04T02:44:00.000-07:00

I love Okinawa.

It is an island/prefecture of Japan so far down south that you can see Taiwan from there on a clear day. The people, biome and modern culture there are very similar to Hawaii, and I even had a Hawaiian colleague validate that when I went there with him. The traditional culture, of what was once the Ryukyu kingdom, is a rich mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean elements, with their own nice Okinawan touches. Okinawa was so fascinating that I even went aside to learn one of their musical instruments and their cooking.

The aroma of Okinawan cooking reminds me of Chinese food because the miso used in the dishes smell quite like black bean sauce. One particular dish really grabbed the attention of my tastebuds - goya chanpuru in romanized Japanese. Goya is basically a bitter melon that looks like a wrinkled cucumber that you may find in most Asian supermarkets. Despite its tremendous health benefits, goya alone is...well...pretty bitter and not very pleasant. However, like Hawaiian cooking, Okinawan cooking also employs Spam. In this case, the Spam doesn't counteract, but instead nicely complements the goya's bitterness, making it very good to eat AND healthy. Maybe that's why Okinawans have the longest average lifespan of any people in the world.

So I found a nice recipe on this blog that turned up after looking up the dish on Google. The difficult part is acquiring the bitter melons, as my closest source is a supermarket in Richmond, and I hate driving there because none of the Asians there (mainly Hongers) can drive or choose to drive. The goya's come in twos or threes depending on size, in a styrofoam tray and the package wrapped in cellophane just like meat. The first time I bought them, I was shocked at how quickly they grew moldy in the fridge, and how colorful the mold could be. This is a stupid packaging idea, and I don't know why they couldn't just sell the bitter melons like any other produce. Maybe the people working there are colorblind, and to them, a wrinkly bitter melon looked like a strip sirloin. That would explain the huge pile of raw meat next to the radishes.

Anyway, I had to make a second trip to Richmond to replace the lost goya's. This time, I had only kept the goya's in the fridge for one day before cooking my goya champuru. Unfortunately, I only need to use one, so I had to throw the other one away due to its short lifespan. I hate wasting food, but I can't just eat it straight and like a cucumber. It took an hour to chop up all the ingredients, and I am reminded about why I usually reheat instead of cook.

The result was a little too salty, but that was because I found the term "heaping tablespoon" to be quite subjective. I guess a big chunk of miso is more than just "heaping". The other problem is that I may have used too much chili paste, as its taste is a little too prominent. Nevertheless, the Spam really did enhance the flavor of the bitter melon, just like dish I tried in Okinawa, so I did succeed in what I believe is the most important aspect.

And now, for the final evaluation - I've been invited to a friend's house for a potluck. Some of the guests included Japanese exchange students, and when they tried my goya chanpuru, they all agreed that it tastes exactly the way it tasted back in Japan, which was authentic and very good. Either that, or it really tasted like shit and they were all just being polite. Well, since the non-Japanese guests didn't complain, I'd consider it a job well done.

So get the candles lit, bitches - you now have an Okinawan cook!

The Blarney Stone Revisited

2006-06-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't been here since my undergrad days.

We all went to The Blarney Stone, an Irish pub close to Gastown, but not before I stuffed my face at The Old Spaghetti Factory, even though I ate a TV dinner just hours earlier back home. The Blarney Stone has a dark, wooden interior like a lot of Irish and British pubs, along with coats of arms hanging on the walls. There's a big stage, and a Scottish or Irish band would play upbeat traditional and modern tunes for everyone to dance to.

Things haven't changed since then, really. The atmosphere is nice and lively and everyone is dancing and having a good time, as if to celebrate a victory against the British or something. I remember some of my undergrad friends getting so piss-drunk that when they do that twirly dance while linking arms with someone else, they accidentally flung themselves into another crowd, or on the floor.

But I'm much better behaved this time.

Happy Birthday To Me, So Gimme My Free Meal Bitch!

2006-06-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday.

So my roommates, neighbors, and friends took me to The Red Room, because they just started this event called Wild Out Wednesdays or something like that. When we got there, the place was depressingly empty. So empty, in fact, that it was just us, two girls on one table, and all the waitresses/dancers on another. The two girls left soon enough, probably because they saw me and got more depressed.

It was just us sitting at a table, knocking back regular-priced drinks. You'd think that being the only people to grace their event, the club people would give us some special discount as a token of appreciation. Cheap bastards. Then, a couple of voluptuous girls walked up to our table and told us that it was their "first night", so they'd like us to have a good time, and then they went backstage. Now when we heard them behave that way, we started to wonder if those girls were strippers or what. Or maybe it's just another alcohol-induced group mental diarrhea. Fortunately, it was the girls in our group that had the balls to inquire, as if it were the guys, they'd either get kicked out and/or leave with palm prints on our faces.

It turned out that the voluptuous girls were actually the event organizers, and it looked like they didn't do a good job of promoting the event. In fact, no one else came to the club that night, so we just ended up shooting pool and feeding loonies into the table. You'd think the manager would open the table for us to play for free just to keep us there (and buying regularly priced drinks), but nooooo, still a cheap bastard.

Well, it turned out that the manager did do something after all, and that was put the club out of its misery for the night and closed early. They apologized for kicking us out, but just as well. The universe would be thrown in utter chaos, if not completly obliterated, if I were to have a good time on my birthday.

We were pretty hungry at this point, so we decided to scrounge around for food. Then, someone had the brilliant idea to go to the nearby Denny's, where they offered free meals to the birthday boy/girl. I'm all up for that...

...and once again, life denies me another pleasure. It turned out that there is no manager on duty at that time to authorize the free meal. The waiter, this elderly Asian man, was very apologetic, and instead offered us all a free dessert. I was so grateful to him for going against the laws of nature and doing something to make my birthday happier, that I got us all to give him a big tip. God bless him.

So that's how I spent my birthday with my friends. In an empty nightclub, approached by girls who were disappointingly not strippers, and denied a free meal at Denny's.

But as long as I have a crappy time together with my roommates, friends, and neighbors, I'm a happy man.

Midterms...Oh,God...Midterms...

2006-05-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

So much crap to go through.

That's the problem with taking three intensive summer courses. It's been pretty much two weeks and I'm already swamped with material to cover for the exams. I have to skip a lot of fun things that my roommates are doing, so this sucks twofold. Oh well, it's either suffer through this and get good grades to gain the recruiters' attention, or have fun now and get ignored by companies, as always. Hmmmm...I'll pick the former.

Wise choice? No, I decided on the flip of a coin.

I'm Hooked Up! (Call Me.) (^o^)_d

2006-05-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

Fido sucks.

It's a pay-as-you go kind of cellphone plan, and it requires you to put money into your account, with prepaid phone cards, once a month. Otherwise, they will take away all the money that you have in your cellphone account. That's right, Fido packs a nasty bite. I, like all humans, forgot to put in money one month, and Fido took away the $50 I had in my account! I held and still hold a grudge with them for that.

If your customer, like all people, forget to fill up their cellphone account once in a while, do you punish them by stealing all their money? Hell, no! At least not if you want to keep your customers. At most you'd freeze their account until they remember to enter money, and then you reinstate the funds in their account. To make things worse, the usage rate is a whopping 30¢ a minute! One of my classmates called me with a question, and that used up all $20 of the money in my account!

That was the last straw.

So today, I had one of my neighbors who worked at an electronics store hook me up with a new cellphone, which includes a Bluetooth headset for free. The headset is perfect for when I drive. My new phone is a neat little number that is real thin and called the RAZR, because the silly Mortorola people can't spell "razor". With unlimited evening and weekend hours, I can field as many questions from my classmates as I want them to know shit. But I'm not dumb enough to put my number on here.

I have enough people pestering me for cheap Viagra, software, penile extensions, and a "good time" from Debbie.

Victory In The Sheathed Sword

2006-05-28T01:37:00.000-07:00

I have taken up iaido to complement my kendo experience.

Unlike kendo, which is the Japanese analog to fencing, iaido focuses on drawing a sheathed sword, rather than beating each other up with bamboo ones. Of course, if we sparred each other with real swords, the club membership will deplete fast. Even though we go through our techniques with an imaginary opponent, we don't use real "live" blades. Instead, we use iaito, practice swords with blades made of a rust-proof alloy rather than steel. They do not have sharp edges and are not suitable for cutting, even though the tip of the blade can still be dangerous. Although still cheaper than real swords, they can still be pretty expensive, so I haven't invested in one yet.

But why focus just on drawing the sword rather than fighting with it? Historically, a sword duel can be as fast as a Western gunfight. As with guns, that first moment when the sword is drawn is perhaps the most crucial - first blood could also mean last blood. This is especially true for surprise attacks, when the enemy is close to you.

So in my first class, the sensei taught us, right off the bat, of the expression saya no uchi no kachi, which means "victory in the sheath" in Japanese. It is a philosophy of iaido and can be achieved through practicing iaido. Basically, this means to defeat your opponent withougt having to draw your sword. This is kind of like Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which describes supreme victory as when you make your enemy submit without a battle, without shedding a single drop of blood. So why are we still learning how to draw a sword for a quick kill? Kind of a paradox, isn't it?

I rationalize that if it is necessary or inevitable that the sword must be drawn, then it is better that the opponent be dead and me alive. Or, because he (or she, as we're in the 21st century!) is no longer worthy, unable to wield a sword because of a sudden limb shortage. Or better yet, no longer having any limbs at all, yet still showing an amusing Monty Pythonesque tenacity to continue the fight by attempting to bite off my kneecaps. Anyway, if you live long enough as a samurai, then you could earn a notorious reputation (spawned by the help of all those armless people you just made) that would discourage anyone from fighting you. If that's not victory in the sheath, then I don't know what is.

So background aside, yesterday was the second day of an annual weekend iaido seminar, which includes skill-ranking examinations. The keynote figure was a high-ranking master of iaido from Japan, probably second only to the headmaster of the entire martial art. He has attained 10th dan ranking which is the highest skill level attained under the Japanese ranking system (which doesn't just apply to Japanese martial arts, but other skills like Japanese calligraphy). This makes him pretty old, but he seems to be in good shape to teach us. Being the vice-president of Japan's iaido federation is another item he has in his impressive resume.

After the seminar, there was a social event at The Old Spaghetti Factory, a nice and spacious Italian restaurant in the Gastown district. We had people coming from Victoria to as far as Boston for this seminar, so this was a good chance to mingle, even though each class sat at their respective tables. Dinner was from a set menu, so everyone pays the same price and so no one will have to bicker about the check, or suspect the restaurant of padding the bill (This has actually happened to me before in a Japanese pub. Even though my colleague was good buddies with the owner.).

Unfortunately, the set menu didn't include their delicious sauteed mushrooms. So I had to keep complicating things by begging the waiter to add sauteed mushrooms and put it on my check. The waiter was kind of hesitant, because their usual policy of not allowing additions to the set menu. It was a bit of a hassle, but I assured the people at my table that the sauteed mushrooms were worth the pain. They were skeptical, and some were even drunk enough to show their annoyance at the lengths I would go to get my bowl of sauteed mushrooms. What can I say? The Old Spaghetti Factory's sauteed mushrooms are fucking good.

My co-diners finally got sick of my persistence, to the extent that the guy sitting across from me made up an excuse to the waiter that I came here all the way from North Vancouver just to eat their sauteed mushrooms. Fortunately, the waiter was a nice German guy, and so he at last made an exception for me. When the sauteed mushrooms finally came, everyone could smell the wine, herbs, and spices that the mushrooms were sauteed in. I let them all have a try, and the moment the mushrooms went into their mouths, they agreed that it was worth all the trouble.

Thus, I basically got an entire table of people skilled in the way of the sword hooked on The Old Spaghetti Factory's sauteed mushrooms. And I won them over without drawing my own blade.

Victory in the sheath.

Echo Bitch

2006-05-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to wonder if there isn't one in every class.

Every time my prof in law class today asked a question and I answer it, this chick behind me repeats me, only desperately louder and faster to tune me out. I guess she wanted participation marks so badly that she's trying to snatch it from me. Well, she's certainly doing a good job of annoying me. It's like having an amplified echo hit you from behind. No wait, she sits behind me to my left and up a tier, so it sounds like a fucking chatty parrot sitting on my shoulder that cuts me off with its cacophonic mimicry.

You might think I'm a fusspot, but this professor assigns a good portion of our final grade to class participation, and this mirror-speaking moo-cow behind me was attempting to inequitably capitalize on this through vocal repetition - but only of my answers. So I beg your pardon if I'm taking this a bit personally. Actually, no I don't. Screw you, you have no right to judge me.

Next class, when the teacher asks a question, I should mumble, "Your mother's a turd-bucket, tea-bagging crackwhore!" and see if she echoes that out reflexively.

Shrouded Tendered Nuisances

2006-05-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

I'm getting used to having classes here.

One sure sign is that even the smallest things are starting to annoy me. Every time I hand in an assignment, I put it on the pile with the other students' assignments. And that's when I see them and wince.

Cover pages.

Why do people overzealously use cover pages on mere homework? If it was a report or a paper, it would quite appropriate, but a few questions from the textbook?!? If every student in UBC used a cover page, that would be about 43,000 sheets of paper gone to waste, or two 1,000 year-old trees. And that's just for one assignment. One single assignment.

Why do some students feel so compelled to put an extra sheet of paper in the way between the prof and the homework he is grading, when the upper margin of the paper would more than suffice for identifying the student and his class? Any professor with the right mind should deduct points for redundant cover pages on the grounds of wanton interference with the student work evaluation process.

And any students using those report cover folders on their homework should additionally get their asses kicked by treehugging hippies.

The Red Room

2006-05-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

It was Latin Nite last night.

Me and my roomies were going to The Red Room to enjoy that Latin American fever. So, as promised, I called up my new Yugoslavian friend that I met earlier this week and told her what was going on, and if she would like to join us. Understandably, she was nervous because she thought that my roommates were all guys. I explained to her that there are at least as many girls as there are guys in our group, and she wouldn't feel out of place because we were from many different nationalities - German to Iranian to Dutch to Chinese.

At this point, if you're a girl and you still don't feel comfortable about coming, you'd just politely say no and I'd politely back off after a little bit of desperate coaxing. But not her. She starts insulting me by throwing this really lame excuse:

"I have to go all the way to Burnaby to get my satellite dish fixed, and I don't know what time I'll be back."

I knew this was bullshit, because if this was really an issue, she would've brought it to my attention right up front before expressing her anxiety of walking into a sausage fest. She tried out the sausage fest excuse first, and when that didn't work, she decided to throw in the Burnaby satellite dish excuse because she deemed it would be more effective than the sausage fest. And so it turned out that she is one of those people that is just a total waste of my time to know.

And so I delete her number from my phone, and we shall speak of her no more.

Later at night, we made our way downtown to The Red Room sans Yugo bitch. My Venezuelan roommate signed us up on the Guest List and printed out some VIP tickets online, so we got in without waiting. After paying our cover and checking in our coats, it was time to hit the dance floor. The DJ didn't disappoint, and we were treated to some really nice Latin music, with the occasional track that was perfectly suitable for me to work my crash-course meringue, which my friends taught me in ten minutes in Miami.

But it was only going to be good for an hour.

For the rest of the night, the music degenerated to regular hip-hop (not that it's bad, but we were expecting LATIN music for Christsakes), and any Latin song the DJ played, it was repeated from not too long before. And so the DJ ended up playing Shakira's Hips Don't Lie four times during the night, which really pissed, I mean PISSED off my Venezuelan roommate, who walked up to the stage and made her grievances clear to the DJ. Just as we were leaving the club, the real Latin music starts coming on again.

Go figure.

Outside the club, my Venezuelan roommate explained that this DJ is usually very good, but it was those whores dancing on stage that flirted the DJ into playing hip-hop music so they can shake their saggy tits and flabby ass in front of everyone. She was pretty worked up and said many things that not even I would dare recount on this blog, and it would've also been a total disappointment to me had it not been for that glory hour. My Chinese roommate, who is her best friend, managed to calm her down somewhat.

In all my time in Miami, I may not have been able to learn Spanish, but if there ever was one useful lesson in life I brought back from that beautiful and culturally enriching city, it was this: Never piss off Latino chicks. They will eat you alive and pick their teeth with your rib bone.

She had enough time to cool down as we waited for the late late night bus, sitting under a large display window, overshadowed by plastic limbless people clad in the latest fashions, a mute and desperate consumerist plea fallen on the deaf ears of a city in quiet slumber. That is, a silence peppered with the occasional odd creature that dwells the shadows.

One such creature stumbled down the gently inclined sidewalk towards us, bearing a flower surely torn from a municipal flower bed. He was wearing the tartan of a flannel jacket, jeans, and a baseball cap. Nevertheless, he appeared to be a well-shaven young man, and not too creepy at all. Or perhaps it was just too dark. He swaggered up to my Chinese roommate sitting beside me, and spoke in a foreign accent (or was that just a drunken slur?).

"I give this to you and only to you. It is the rose of my heart."

"Uh....but....this is a tulip..."

Then, the piss-drunk casanova broke the long awkward silence with delusional insistence that it was indeed a rose and that it was, indeed, of his heart. Satisfied that his job was done and that he has saved the day for some damsel's heart, he zigzagged across the street - and nearly into a moving bus. My Chinese roommate thought he was sweet, albeit a bit lacking in the sobriety department.

And so, that tulip became an addition to our flower vase in the living room. Despite the disappointing music, I guess we could say that we still had a good time because we faced that disappointment together. Of course, it would've been more fun if we had more people (i.e. the more, the merrier). So any of you out there are welcome to join us.

Just don't fucking tell me that you're getting your satellite dish fixed in Burnaby.

Making Connections

2006-05-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

Textbooks - another way universities milk the student cash cow.

Buying at the UBC bookstore is the last thing I want to do. The markup pricing there is ridiculous, all based on a faulty belief that the bookstore is a monopoly, which is untrue because there are other alternatives to get a cheaper textbook. However, textbook publishers are just as guilty, changing around the page numbers, adding a few extra words (such as "the" and "a"), and calling the textbook a whole new edition and justification to charge another ludicrous premium.

So if I'm sure I exactly what textbook I need to get, I go to Amazon.com and look it up. But I don't buy directly from Amazon itself; I go to that little link that tells you how cheap you can get the same textbook, from an independent dealer listed on Amazon Marketplace with a pretty good user rating. You can usually get a brand new copy of your textbooks for cheaper. And if that's not cheap enough, you can get the "European Edition" for even less, where the only tradeoff is that they're usually softcover, and there is no color. Oh, boo-fucking-hoo, my Boston Consulting Group Strategic Business Unit Positioning Matrix only comes in black and white.

If I'm still not so sure exactly what textbook to get, or if I don't want to wait for it to be shipped, I go to the "used" textbook store in The Village plaza at the edge of campus. They sell used & new textbooks for much less than the UBC Bookstore. In fact, I have no idea why so many people are dumb enough to still shop there. I can tell by their textbooks that they're not clueless first years, and most of those textbooks are also sold in the "used" textbook store. Rich kids.

So today, I did just that, going to the The Village to get my financial accounting textbook. As expected, what could've been a $110 textbook sold for $100 brand new, but I one-upped and found a used one for $70.

After making my purchase and leaving the checkout line, this (bleached) blonde Yugoslavian girl, who was waiting in line in front of me, suddenly turns around and tells me that she has a copy of the same textbook, and offered it to me for $50. I was very surprised, not only because of my luck, but also because girls usually turn around to mace me. So I found myself waiting at the front door of her building, which was right next to the "used" texbook store.

A few minutes later, she comes down with the book, and we make the exchange. Before I know it, we were chatting, and I told her that me, my roommates, and our neighbors were going to this club called The Red Room on Friday for their Latin Night, and asked if she'd like to join us. She said that she'd be glad to, and we exchanged phone numbers and parted ways.

Now comes the task of returning the other copy to the "used" textbook store - not even fifteen minutes after I bought it.

At the store, the lady at the checkout asked me why I was returning it. Even the UBC Bookstore asks this question, and I guess they're trying to keep statistics for quality control purposes. For some reason, I felt a twinge of misplaced compassion, and didn't have the heart to tell her that I found another copy for way cheaper, believing for reasons beyond my understanding that it would hurt her feelings. Thus, the following awkward conversation ensued:

"What is the reason for this return?"

"Um, it wasn't the right textbook for my section."

(Interfaces with her computer a bit.) "But there is only one section for this course."

"Uhhhhhh...would you believe it if I told you that I leafed through the textbook and didn't think that this course is for me, so I'm planning to withdraw?"

At this point, she either gave up, or got sick of seeing my pathetic grin (probably both), so she just shrugged, processed the return, and let me on my merry way.

After finally getting every texbook need out of the way for the term, it was pretty much time for me to go to my first cost accounting class. Yesterday, I had my first commercial law class, taught by this lady who seemed to be quite experienced as a lawyer, and my first financial accounting class, taught by the token crazy east Indian guy, which every university apparently is required to have. Nevertheless, they are pretty good profs, and I was pretty happy with the way classes went.

So after the cost accounting class, I realized I could very well be the only person in the class to have a thick copy of the prof's notes, which he wanted us to print out and bring to class. Suddenly, everyone wanted me to go to make copies for them at the Staples store in The Village. So I took some names down, collected the cash, and even phone numbers.

While the copies of the 150+ page notes were being run through the copiers, we all had a pretty good "copy room" chat. So that was it. I now know more than half the class right off the bat.

Give me a couple of more months, and I will run this campus.

Meet The Roomies

2006-05-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

My other two roommates finally arrived this afternoon.

One is a German guy, and the other one is a Chinese girl. I have never met a German who is an asshole, and he is no exception. I wonder if every German is this easy to get along with. The Chinese girl is as outspoken as the Venezuelan, but she's pretty nice, too. They welcomed me warmly to the quad, and I felt that it would be indeed a pleasure to live with these people.

This isn't right.

I can't possibly have the luck to end up living with nice roommates. How could this be happening? It's just too good to be true. Then, I find out that they're only going to be here for a couple more months. There. That's my answer. Two months is what it's going to take for the space-time continuum to correct itself and stick me with an asshole sausage-fest.

Oh well, I have to make the most of my limited time with these pleasant folk. Now that the quad's together, they introduced me to other people they know in the residence. One is the Dutch girl next door, and another is this tall Iranian-American guy and a local girl living in the townhouse quads. They are also pretty cool.

Now I have a crew to go out to town with.

Empty Cage

2006-05-07T01:07:00.000-07:00

This is it, I'm moving into UBC.

I'll be calling a quad (a suite for four with private bedrooms, and common kitchen and bathroom) in St. Andrew's Hall my new home. It's not the first time I've lived in this residence; I've spent most of my undergrad years here. So I know a few things about living in a dorm.

For example, if you know when one of your roommates is moving out, be sure to take all the stuff that you own, including pots and pans, and lock them into your room because you know he'll be helping himself to a few "unconsented parting gifts" on his way out.

Which brings the issue to my roommates. I don't know who the hell they are. Along with my assigned room, dorm administrations tend to surprise you on these kind of things. But with my luck, I know I'll probably be set up with assholes. And if I'm lucky enough to have girls living with me, bitches.

I finally managed to drive all my crap to the place in one trip, with a little help from my folks in a separate vehicle. Since this is the weekend, I had to get my keys from the community coordinator living in one of the townhouse buildings. Armed with the key, I was shown to my quad, which is on the second floor and facing another building. I was hoping for a higher floor (so my room's less accessible to mosquitoes and burglars), and facing the view. But then again, that side will have a lot of construction going on, so this is just fine.

Unlocking the door, I took a deep breath and readied myself to meet my new roommates. I faintly hoped for a "Welcome Vincent!", but expected more of a "Fuck, you're the new roommate." So which is it going to be? I slowly nudged the door open, those few seconds unbearably stretched to eons so that the tension of the moment is excruciating...

..and not a soul in the place.

Why does God withold answers from me so? Oh well, I'm sure they're just out for the day. So I unlock the door to my room. Not bad. In pretty good condition and quite liveable. Most of all, it doesn't smell. And surprisingly, there are no vomit/blood/unknown fluid stains on any side of the mattress. Well, none that is visible anyways.

It took me a couple of hours to unpack and set up my TV and computer. After dinner with my parents, I was left to settle into my new home for the rest of the year. Not bad. I think I'll like it. Especially now that I have access to a vehicle if the bus cannot accomodate my transportation needs. But with gas prices these days, it would be to my financial interest to use the bus as much as possible.

Midnight. And yet, not a single person has shown up. I felt like a rat placed in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by scientists beyond my sensory range diligently studying my response to exotic stimuli. Then, I heard a key sliding into a lock and the quad door open. The experiment has ended, and I anxiously braced for the figure emerging from the blandly colored portal.

A very pretty Venezuelan girl made her way in and introduced herself. She seemed quite nice. She told me that she just came back from the airport from a trip. The rest of my roommates are out in the Okanagan, and they will return tomorrow. I wanted to say, "Well, technically today," but with first impressions being important, I don't want to spend the rest of the year living with a roommate who thinks I'm a pedantic asshole. I'll leave it to later for her to figure out that I am one.

Well, beyond all expectations, this is a pretty good start.

Moody view outside my window.

Last Mushroom Day

2006-05-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

Well, this two-month stint really flew by.

And to contribute to the fast pace, I'll be moving to my new rez in UBC tomorrow (or technically, later today), where class will start on Monday. As a farewell dinner, the girls in my office took me to Milestone's. We ate, drank, and reminisced about the good times...and expensed it on the company.

It is unfortunate that the construction of the office still hasn't been completed by now. From what I saw in the blueprints, it would've been real cool. Not to mention that we'll have an espresso machine set up. No matter. I promised to visit them again when all construction has been finished, not only to sample the espresso, but also to pick up my paycheck.

I'll be keeping an eye out at the mushroom section next time I go grocery shopping.

Test Drive

2006-05-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

The automatic floor scrubber at work wasn't scrubbing very well today.

So not only did the vendor send someone to look at it, it was apparently the owner himself who came in person - in his Mercedes-Benz SL600 convertible. An old fat guy in a grey pin-striped suit emerged from it, with an Italian accent and a slightly unsavory, sleazy demeanor.

He was met by one of the girls at my workplace, who was in charge of operations in the mushroom farm. As they looked at the scrubber, the vendor owner inquired about her sister, who also works in the office with me.

"How is your sister? If she like, she sit with me in my Benz, and I take for test drive, yes?"

"The car or my sister?"

Warehouse Antics

2006-05-01T21:20:00.000-07:00

One of the boys working the warehouse cooler is at it again.

They found it quite funny that one of the guys posted a sign at the cooler entrance door that read:

BEWARE OF WIFE
(THE DOG'S OK)

As a (albeit temporary) member of the management, I felt obligated to step in and tell him that signs like that do not belong there.

It should be posted at the front entrance.

Vietnamese Wedding Reception

2006-04-30T01:32:00.000-07:00

The son of one of my dad's Vietnamese clients got married today.

My family was invited to the wedding reception, Vietnamese style according to the bride and groom's families. A Vietnamese style wedding reception is quite similar to a Chinese wedding reception, in which both share a common anthropological and social origin resulting in a similar culture, and in which both are heavily westernized. That, and the reception was held in a Chinese restaurant.

Both the bride and the groom have huge families, so the reception was attended by about 700 guests - and that's with a lot of absentees. It was like a massive family reunion, so everyone was chatting away at other tables. Thus, it took so long to get everyone together, sitting down, and paying attention that we didn't actually start to eat until about 9PM. That was worse for me, because I pretty much knew nobody in the wedding, so I felt very uncomfortable and out of place; the more festive things got, the lonelier I felt. Therefore, all that I was focusing on and looking forward to was the food.

Then, my mom started giving me shit about not socializing enough. What am I to do? Start randomly going around tables and chatting up/annoying people that I probably won't be seeing again, because they mostly come all the way from Abbotsford? Besides, everyone's already going all out on the wine, and will be too drunk to remember me anyway.

But that was probably because my parents both got a little bit drunk on wine, too. Once, they never even drank one drop of alcohol. I guess taking up being winos was part of the sweeping changes they have implemented on their lifestyle when they went through their mid-life crises. Because they started their foray into alcoholism so late in their lives, their capacity for alcohol is worse than a 14 year old on a trip to Tijuana.

And speaking of getting drunk, when the time came for the groom to carry the bride around the banquet area, this one red-faced uncle sitting at my table wouldn't stop shouting, "CARRY HER WHILE YOU STILL CAN, BEFORE SHE GETS FAT!!!"

I'm just glad my mom didn't get so drunk that she started to randomly go around tables inquiring with girls on their interest in being a bride for her son. That would be a new low point in my life, although, as I said before, I probably won't be seeing any of those people again. Nevertheless I do wish the bride and groom a happy life together.

And most of all, the food kicked ass.

Ignorance And Bliss

2006-04-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

The weather this weekend was just amazing.

We've earned it after an entire season of getting soaked. I can feel it. The air has that "warmer" fragrance, charged with sunlight and blooming plants, just like the way that fabrics laid out in the sun have that distinctive smell of freshness. With this, I also feel the pressure from Mother Nature/God to get fit and shape up sooner or skip the beach altogether.

Speaking of getting fit, today was also the annual Vancouver Sun Run, a 10k run through downtown sponsored by our local newspaper, the Vancouver Sun. My friends wanted me to join them, but there is no way I have the stamina to even run to the fridge to get a slice of cheese, let alone run 10 km. So I opted to give them moral support from the distance of my home.

This year, like pretty much all other years, the winners of the Sun Run for both the men's and women's categories were from Africa, Kenya this time. I asked my mom if she noticed how it's always African people that win first place in the Sun Run.

"Of course! They get so fast from chasing all the animals around when they hunt in Africa!"

I was horrified, and also guilty for finding myself suppressing laughter at such an ignorant and silly comment. Fortunately, we were at home. I immediately warned my mom that she can't say those kinds of things.

Don't misunderstand my mom. She isn't maliciously racist; she actually thought what she said was true. Even if it is somewhat true, I don't think it's a very pleasant stereotype. I'm sure at some point in our lives, our parents will say something racially outrageous. You don't have to be a first generation; as long as your parents grew up and lived in a monocultural clique, chances are they will know nothing about other cultures. Ironically, this can be the case regardless of your race.

Feeling sure that my mom will exercise caution when opining in public, I decided to spend the rest of the lovely Sunday doing what anyone without available friends or a life would do - hang out at the greenhouses of home gardening shops. I first became interested in plants and home gardening when I moved into this house. The contractor that was hired by my home's developer did a fraudulently crappy job at landscaping the property, so me and my mom had to spend a summer doing some heavy gardening to overhaul the flora.

I find the fresh air and the quiet atmosphere to be quite relaxing at home gardening shops, other than the clamor of bored kids wheeling themselves around in plant carts waving cacti around. The variety of plants grown there are actually pretty cool by my geeky standards. This time, however, I also had a specific purpose for going there. I was looking for a particular plant - the Fragrant Olive, known as Osmanthus fragrans var. aurantiacus to horticultural nerds.

When I first arrived in Japan six years ago, it was during the fall. While exploring the streets of my town, a sudden waft of sweet, seductive fragrance captured my heart and has not released it since. It was later that I learned, from a Japanese teacher at a school I taught at, that the aroma came from a plant called kinmokusei in Japanese, a wonderul smelling member of the olive family. I have been looking for it ever since I came back to North America, hoping that a potted specimen would bless my room with its natural perfume.

Fuck Glade, this is the real shit.

So it would figure that a plant I covet so much is not available at any store that I went to. On the advice of one staffer I talked to, the plant would probably be in stock during the fall, when it blooms.

Well I can't wait that long. I want to acquire my fragrant olive before it blooms, so that I can enjoy the plant in all of its olfactory glory, through the tragically brief lifetime of the scent it grants me each year. Since I need a plant in my room anyway, I might as well get it now. An inquiry with the Botanical Department of UBC would perhaps be the solution.

At least I'll be able to run faster from chasing all those botanists around.

My Purple-Haired Mama

2006-04-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

It has begun.

She is becoming one of them. I sort of got the hint that this kind of thing was going to happen when she came home from the hair stylist with red highlights in her hair. Now it's starting to tint towards the purple end of the spectrum. This is it. My mom will join the ranks of nearly all Asian women at her stage in life.

Why must they dye their hair purple? Is it an attempt to resolve their mid-life crisis through the re-enactment of adolescent rebellion, in hopes that their delusional state of youth will somehow avert the complications of old age? Or is the purple hair simply a diversion from their faces, which they find hideous because the first wrinkles have begun radiating from their facial features? Or could it be denial, in its purest form, of the inevitability of graying hair and old age?

But these conjectures don't explain why these women have unanimously chosen purple for their hair color. Why not green, or pink? Could it be an evil cadre of hair stylists plotting to turn every Asian woman into clowns? Well, unless the conspirators can find a way to convince them that purple hair would make their skin prettier, or their figures slimmer, it's not likely that the otherwise practical Asian woman would opt for the California Raisin look.

Ergo, there's only one logical explanation - genetics. Just as every woman has a gene in their X-chromosomes that kick in at around 40 years of age compelling them to get a perm, Asian women has an additional gene that compels them to dye it purple once they hit around 50 years. This would make perfect sense, as not every woman does this to their hair, which is because their expression of these genes are not as strong as in others.

So let that be a lesson to all of you punks: The next time you think you're a badass, take a walk in Chinatown!

Deathly Silent Easter

2006-04-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

My aunt came to visit from Hong Kong last night..

So the first thing we did today after lunch was to go visit Grandma and Grandpa at the mausoleum. My mom wanted me to talk to them, but I felt rather awkward talking aloud to a vault occupied by the dead. After all, my grandmother can't hear me because her ears are no longer functional now that they're embalmed, and my grandfather can't hear me because his ears are now ash.

Instead, I spoke to them in silence, through that ubiquitous connection that binds to the common provenance all that was, that is, and that will be in the universe. In other words, I communicated to them the same way I communicate to God in my prayers, when I need Him to give me the strength to stand up when I fall, to give me the determination and resolve to fulfill my goals, and to keep my parents from finding out that I got the dog really drunk.

Being the Easter long weekend, there were a lot of people at the funeral home/cemetary complex. One thing I noticed, though, was that nearly all the occupants of the mausoleum were either Chinese, or Italian. I guess that some from other ethnicities and cultures would rather have their deceased relatives under six feet of dirt, to keep them from coming out and exacting their wrath on their living kin for blowing off their hard-earned inheritance on beer and potato chips. Or perhaps for getting the dog drunk, too.

After the solemn visit, we took my aunt to Metrotown Centre for some shopping. Being perhaps the largest shopping mall in the Lower Mainland area, we weren't surprised to find the mall open, but we were appalled to see all the stores closed. Yet there were so many people wandering around the mall with no place to go.

This is really stupid. In fact, why don't you follow me through the cognitive path of the successful businessman's mind? Yes, you can do it. Trust me. Follow me as I ask you these simple questions:

(At this point, if you think I should be saying "businessperson", then please fuck off. You damn well know that I don't mean the male gender in particular, so I don't need the likes of you to confound my language with political correctness bullshit.)

If everybody's on holiday for the long weekend, would you expect more, or less people in your shopping mall?

If there are more people in the mall, would you expect more, or less business?

If there will be more business, would you want to open, or close your store?

I hope you reached the right conclusion, assuming you want to make money. And no, you cannot cite the Easter long weekend being a religious holiday for not opening your store. Religion has been used as an excuse to justify things from skipping final exams, to blowing people up.

And certainly don't blame Jesus if you don't make your quarterly profit forecasts.

It's Better This Way...

2006-04-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

Well, the Vancouver Canucks blew it.

Their loss to the San Jose Sharks this Thursday put the nail in the coffin, and for the first time in six years, my team is not going to the playoffs to vie for the coveted Stanley Cup. Oh well, at least it'll save them the embarrassment of crawling their way into the playoffs, only to be eliminated in the first round with the whole world watching.

It's not just this season, it's not just these players, nor is it just this coach. The franchise has been constantly plagued with inconsistent performance. One game, they could be playing brilliantly, and in the next game, they could suck hairy balls. And all the time, they could be ahead in the game, only to blow their lead and let the other team catch up.

And to pile up more guilt on the Canucks for screwing it up, their failure will also gimp Vancouver's economy with a gaping hole estimated at $5 million per game they would have played. And that was just the figure for regular season games. (Source)

Sad to say, but this season, the Canucks got...

Liberated

2006-04-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

The local media have been all over this for over a week.

Actually, they were all over it because of what they couldn't find out. This young guy called Graham McMynn, who comes from a rich family, was kidnapped from his car at gunpoint. What was so weird about this case was that the kidnappers never contacted the family for any demands.

All this time, the police kept quiet about the incident and their investigation, until today when they finally rescued him in a 14-house raid. Arrests were made, but a motive for the kidnapping still hasn't been established yet. Despite facing lots of pressure from the media to cough up some information, the police admirably stuck to their guns and kept their mouths shut for the sake of Graham's safety.

Sometimes the media gets overzealous and uses the public's entitlement to know as leverage, in order to pry out some news regardless of the consequences. We, as the public, are not entitled to know everything, and unless it has a direct and immediate impact on us, some things are best left alone. Just like accountants and CEO's, journalists also have to abide to a code of ethics, or else their actions will demean themselves to the lowness of a bunch of paparazzi filling cheap tabloids with dirt.

As a member of the public, I want to know, but certainly not at the expense of the victim's life.

(Source)

Super Capoeira Awkward Nickname

2006-04-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

My capoeira class at Simon Fraser University has just ended its term.

Since the next class will be at the Student Rec Center at UBC in September, and since I have the misfortune of having an accounting class at the exact same time as that capoeira class, I decided to take my classes at my mestre's (master) studio on Broadway. I went there today to talk to my mestre so he could tell me which level of classes I should take.

Now before I go any further, I should probably let you know that Brazilian people have this custom of giving each other nicknames. My guess is it's because they have so many words in their names. Names of famous Brazilians like Pele and Ronaldinho are actually nicknames (with the latter meaning "little Ronaldo", to distinguish from his teammate Ronaldo, who also happens to have the same first name). In capoeira classes, instructors also keep to tradition by giving nicknames to their students.

Some nicknames are characteristic of the person. Others are downright unflattering, as was the case with Mestre Bimba, one of the "founding fathers" of modern capoeira, with "bimba" being a word in Brazilian Portugese for the male genitals. This was given to him at his birth in 1900, and you have to hand it to the guy for sticking with the nickname all through his life. The story goes that his mom made a bet with the midwife that she'd have a girl, and Mom was wrong. Let this be a lesson to you all about the dangerous effects of your gambling addiction on your children. Why can't she just stick to betting on the horse track?

Okay, with that aside, back to the present. I went to my mestre's studio today, but he wasn't there. Instead, there was a class going on, and I believe the instructor teaching it is nicknamed "Superhomen" ("Superman"), on the account of a Superman "S" tattooed on his chest. On one wall of the studio, he has a photo of his baby daughter, also with the Superman "S" on her chest (drawn or tattooed, or genetically inherited, I don't know).

Superhomen has taught at a couple of my SFU classes, and he's a really cool guy and it's lots of fun when he's teaching. I suppose you could also describe him as "super". Unfortunately, he doesn't speak much English, but we can usually figure out from his body language what he wants to say, or a student in the class would know a little bit of Portugese (or has been working on pick-up lines for Brazilian girls) and can translate.

He likes to greet me or express pleasure at my progress with really big bear hugs. Such was the case today, as upon seeing me again, he literally swept me off my feet with a big, vice-like crush of his mucular arms. After I regained consciousness, I asked him if I could join his class. Not only did he let me, but before I could finish my request, he happily shoved me into the washroom to change into my capoeira gear.

The class was a little bit advanced for me, especially when compared to the SFU class, but I managed to keep up. Noticing I was able to do so, Superhomen rewarded me with another rib cage crusher. But then he interrupted the class to have this really weird conversation with me.

"You know boloyo?"

"Huh?" I went with my trademark confused face.

"You know, boloyo. He is Chinese movie star!"

"Huuuuh?" reiterated I.

"He know Tai Chi! Really big! Grrrrrr!!"

"Oooooh, you mean Bolo Yeung!"

"Yes. YES!!! YOU ARE BOLO YEUNG!!!"

So that was Superhomen's nickname to me. He didn't really bother to know my name, he just referred to me as Bolo Yeung henceforth.

I don't think it suits me to be nicknamed after the great Bolo Yeung, who was best known as the bad guy in the movie Bloodsport ("You are NEXT!!!"). After all, if I ever stood next to "The Beast from the East", I'd look like a broomstick. If it had to be a Chinese action star, why not one of the less hulkier varieties like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, or dare I say, Bruce Lee? I guess it was the only one that came to Superhomen's head at the time, and only time will tell whether my mestre will also use this nickname. That's a helluva tough nickname to live up to.

I mean, we're talking about a guy who swam from China to Hong Kong in order to dodge commies, for crying out loud!

"My chest is bigger than your mom's!!! GRRR!!!"

Learning To Hate Mondays

2006-04-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

Dammit, Garfield is right.

I'm starting to think that no matter how much you like your job, Monday is the day you look the least forward to. At least for any healthy person who's not spiralling his life down the workaholic drain. Whatever's got you pumped during the weekend, Monday's guaranteed to dampen it, a big dry sponge in the aquarium of life.

The fact that I lost an hour, because we all had to set our clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time, didn't really help me get out of bed either. The things that we go through to save electricity and money. It's also caused a lot of confusion in the US, where not all states have adopted DST. Indiana has only just started to join the 20th century. Until now, chronic drinkers in adjacent states would risk life and limb to stagger or drive(!?) into Indiana to get that extra hour of alcoholic consumption, because Indiana refused to to turn their clocks ahead.

Although I don't have a hangover to deal with, getting up with one less hour of sleep is still a chore. My only reprieve came in the form of the regular trip to Tim Horton's for a coffee and bagel on the way to work. However, this is one of those Mondays were that reprive feels hard-earned.

It seems that the white chick working the sandwich and bagel station hates her job more than anyone else. She wasn't afraid to let the whole restaurant know, as she came short of blasting the Indian trainee for entering the order wrong, and short of beaning me with my bagel.

Granted, I never liked Tim Horton's lack of a system to assign a number to each order, so that people don't end up taking someone else's food by mistake. At every franchise that I go to, the number of angry customers due to the order mix-ups must be nerve-wracking. Nevertheless, she's lucky that she decided to vent her multigrain rage upon me, and not one of the dozen disgruntled office workers and truckers patronising the small establishment, all of whom are probably more than happy to snap, jump over the counter, and beat her with her own toasted pastry products.

With that obstacle out of the way, I was finally able to enjoy the coffee and bagel that was nearly flattened against my head only minutes ago. So far, work is good, but some little things in the environment are starting to eat at me. Our boss is cool enough to let us listen to the radio on the internet while we work, at a reasonable volume level, but this is turning out to be a mixed blessing.

This one girl at work, which I get along well with, always has her computer tuned into Z95.3. Now I understand, as a local hit radio station, they have to play hit songs over and over again. But the reason why this radio station sucks is that although they are obliged to repeatedly broadcast hit songs, the do not change their song list for months. So if you play this station for the whole work day, not only will you have listen to the same songs over and over again, but you also have to listen to them over and over again everyday for months! Within such a long timespan, someone surely must have written/cookie-cut a "new" chart-topping pop song that is worthy of broadcasting.

I swear if I ever hear about me being someone's "dirty little secret", or Pink whining about how she doesn't want to be someone's "stupid girl" one more time, I'm going to go down to the radio station and beat them with their own toasted pastry products.

Coming home from work wasn't the end of it, as this Monday had another surprise waiting for me.

More accurately, a surprise left by my cat, which I nearly stepped on. Of all the days, it has to be today that she misses the litterbox for the first time. I conjected that it was less likely for her to miss the litterbox since she does her business completely inside it; it was more likely that the turd stuck to her ass and fell off on her way out. She'd probably notice she still has a turd stuck to her ass, but being a cat, she literally wouldn't give a shit. God, I need a way to vent my Monday stress.

Maybe I'll beat the crap out of someone with a toasted bagel.

Agaric Anarchy

2006-04-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

You thought I'd update yesterday? Haha, April Fools!

Okay, seriously, it's been a busy week. It appears that we also have retards on the other side of the supply chain. One of our distributors was scheduled to send a couple of trucks over to pick up a huge shipment of mushrooms Tuesday morning. As you'd expect, not a single driver came that day.

So what happens when you're running a mushroom farm that churns out a thousand cases of fresh picked mushrooms a day, and none of it is going out the shipping dock? It's like the Apocalypse, only mushroomier.

Our coolers are already filled up, so we had to line up all 32 pallets of mushrooms along the main hallway. The owner/president of the farm, the Mushroom Monarch himself, saw what was happening and was pretty pissed off at the distributor for not dispatching their trucks as scheduled. Never had I seen so many fresh mushrooms lined up to the horizon.

We phoned the crap out of the distributor, and found out that they had only two trucks scheduled to be available that day. Two. And they were both tied up on hours-long trips to pick up smaller shipments of mushrooms from far-away farms. They were too dumb to look at our harvesting forecast, a copy of which they have, and see that we're scheduled to pick a big load for them. (I'd call them incompetent, but I'd be giving them too much credit by implying that they have intelligence, but not aptitude.) They were too dumb to figure out that they should put their priority on us, the bigger and closer supplier, so that they can get all the mushrooms they need to sell sooner, with time being of the essence on a perishable product.

At the end of the day, the trucks finally came, and we made a thorough check through the whole mushroom shipment to see if they were still fresh. Luckily, it was a cold day, so the mushrooms were still in surprisingly good condition. We knew if this was summer, all the mushrooms would be trashed, and the distributor would have to compensate us for the screw-up as per the contract. Although we were financially covered for any loss, it would still be heartbreaking to see so many fresh delicious mushrooms go to the garbage, when they would have been feeding many starving, poor suburbanites.

So that's the latest episode, from this hectic week in the ultradynamic, cutthroat world of the mushroom industry. I'm glad I could cap it off with a trip to the gym, and to afterwards make up for all that healthy exercise I did, some all-you-can-eat pizza with one of my best buddies at the Flying Wedge Pizza down the mountain (CAD$10 plus bottomless drink? How the hell are they making any money!?!?).

I was certainly relieved that my pizza wasn't short on mushrooms.

Pallet Pandemonium

2006-03-23T23:01:00.000-08:00

Okay you bitches at Shipping, listen up!

This is a pallet.

This is a pallet on drugs.

Okay, okay, I'll be serious now. Let's go back to the picture of that pallet.

This is your standard run-of-the-mill wooden pallet used to haul stuff around with a forklift. Look at it closely. Notice how it's longer at its length than at its width. Notice how the slots on its width are larger and can accomodate all sizes of prongs, whether you use a forklift or a hand-driven pallet truck. Notice how the slots along its length are much smaller, and only the smallest size of prongs could be inserted into them. If you were a shipper that gave a shit about your customers, or have even an iota of common sense, which side should you have facing out when loading the truck?

Correct! The width of the pallets (also known as the front) should be facing out so that they are accessible to whatever equipment we have to haul them. Unfortunately, one of our suppliers wasn't as smart as you are when they sent nearly 15 pallets of plastic containers to us, under the assumption that we had a forklift with small prongs.

This wasn't the case with us. Our forklift wasn't even working because we haven't finished construction to build a charging station for its batteries. All we had to haul them were the larger-pronged pallet trucks. So whoever the retard was who shipped the pallets facing the wrong way, the poor driver had to come all the way here from California only to find out that we don't have the equipment to unload his cargo.

It also didn't help that the retarded supplier scheduled the driver to arrive during everyone's lunch break. I had to run all over the place to find people to help unload it. Since none of us were able to even handle the pallets, the pallet slots being too small, we had to manually turn the fucking things before our pallet trucks could get to them. That's right, we (or at least, two of the strongest guys) had to turn nearly 15 fully-loaded wooden pallets 90 degrees by hand.

Okay, you people at Shipping. To be fair, I understand that sometimes loading the pallets sideways is the only way to have all the pallets fit into the truck. If you're going to do that, CHECK WITH THE CUSTOMER TO ENSURE THAT THEY HAVE THE EQUIPMENT TO UNLOAD THEM!!!! If, like us, the customer cannot unload pallets that face sideways, book a different truck to ship them facing the right way.

You were lucky that the plastic containers were light enough for us to turn them by hand. If it was denser construction materials like bricks, concrete blocks, or elephants, we would've had the poor driver send them all the way back to you to fix the problem. If you really care about your customers, you do not make any assumptions about them.

It's like having me send you your mail-order bride wearing a chastity belt, and I assume you have the key.

Jobless No More! (For Now...)

2006-03-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

Now I have a real reason to say that I'm too busy.

Since classes begin in May, I've found something to do until then. Well, in truth, it was my dad that found it, since it was one of his clients who needed my help in setting up a mushroom farm. That's right. It's quite an unusual job, but the good thing is that when you work for a startup business, your job covers a variety of areas in the company. Currently, the weight of my job is on helping to devise food safety operating procedures, and to comply with HACCP requirements.

Unfortunately, it's way out there in Abbotsford, so I have to wake up before the crack of dawn to get to work. Fortunately, my dad also works in that town, so I get to carpool with them. No, it doesn't look cool to still have to be picked up and dropped off by your parents, but I think it's cooler than being a complete dumbass by paying twice as much for overpriced gas when you don't really have to. And it's certainly cooler than getting killed, maimed, or paralyzed in a high-speed accident on the Trans-Canada Highway because you're only half-awake at the wheel.

The sudden early wake-up calls are totally screwing up my circadian rhythm. It's already bad enough that I can't keep any other type of rhythm, which you can tell when I'm on the dance floor, in music class, or at the organ during funerals. I'm always so tired after work that I can't focus my mental energy and wit to post on this blog, and trust me, my wit could use all the focusing it can get, especially if I am to entertain a funeral. I'll try to readjust my sleep cycle with the help of sleeping pills, but I should dose myself carefully, because a little bit too much would make it way harder to get up in the morning. Anymore and I'll go Marilyn Monroe.

I'll post more often when I can get used to sleeping at the same time as old people, and waking up at the same time as farmers. Don't worry, I'm working on it. I won't be able to live with myself if I leave you with nothing to read in the toilet. Well, maybe I am, since it does bring a certain amount of satisfaction to know you lost your appetite if you read my crass and disgusting rhetorical excrement anywhere besides the latrine. Anyway, expect new posts if I have an interesting story from work.

And remember, mushrooms are good for you and will make you sexy!

This Is It

2006-03-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

It's all come down to this.

The exam for my CGA financial accounting course was at UBC tonight, and I had no expectations of acing it. This was because I learn by asking questions; I can understand and remember things much easier if I know how things work. Unfortunately, without any classroom or teacher, I had to accept the course material as is, without really understanding it.

Essentially, this exam was the culmination of a three-month exercise in rote memorization. To improve my chances of passing, I went to UBC early in the afternoon to spend time doing old and practice exams. At this point, I thought that a damage control strategy would be appropriate, and I'll be aiming to obtain at least partial credit for all the questions. Fortunately, the CGA posts the percentage weights of each subject on the exam, so I could focus on the most important subjects.

Now the exam is out of the way, and I think I could make the 61% minimum that I calculated to need in order to pass the course. Of course, I was totally clueless on the questions involving the subject areas that required the most memorization, but not being the kind of person to go down without a fight, I pulled several numbers and account names out of my ass in hopes of getting the much-needed partial credit. That's right, being able to pull numbers and shit out of my ass is where the real accounting test is.

Pulling shit out of my ass!?!? EWWWWWW!!!

Oscar And Kirby

2006-03-06T23:30:00.000-08:00

I had all-you-can-eat pizza last night.

After a long session at the gym in the evening, I was very hungry after burning up a lot of fuel. There is this really nice local pizza chain called Flying Wedge Pizza that has All-You-Can-Eat Sundays. As the promotion name suggests, they offer all-you-can-eat pizza, and even a bottomless drink, for $10 (Canadian!). Okay, so their pizzas are a little avant-garde, as in Texas BBQ, smoked salmon paté, and feta with squash sort of avant-garde. They also offer the occasional traditional pizza, like pepperoni, so there's enough of everything as not to bore my taste buds. Perfect.

What's so nice about my nearest Flying Wedge was that they have two tables up against the wall, where each table has its own flat panel LCT TV hooked up. It's not a big place, so the whole establishment is able to see what's on. Best of all, they let you control the TV.

But last night, there was no disagreement as to which channel to watch, because we were all tuned in to the Oscars. I was thinking that Brokeback Mountain would get all the big awards, since that kind of sweep is what gets a lot of people watching the Academy Awards. I was so proud of Ang Lee for winning Best Director, but when they announced Crash as the Best Motion Picture, this prompted a, "What the fuck!?" from around the whole premises. None of us in the restaurant saw it coming. After all, everyone in all forms of media was talking about Brokeback Mountain. Although Crash seems to be a good movie in its own right, its plot format is not unlike Magnolia, and no one has really heard of it let alone talked about it.

Perhaps the Academy is trying to reel in viewers with this kind of shocker. After all, the Academy Awards has been lagging in viewership lately. But then again, who am I say, when I have never seen the movie for myself? The whole establishement agreed that we should rinse off the shock of the Oscars with some Family Guy.

But today, what happened was a different kind of shock. I just read in the news that baseball great Kirby Puckett has died from his stroke. I first knew Kirby (not personally) when I was collecting baseball cards, specifically the Upper Deck 1991 set, and I would find his card many times. I guess I rembered him distinctly because his photo wasn't an action shot, just a big guy in the bullpen with a big smile.

So now I can't believe that the big guy is gone so soon. Although I don't know him enough to really grieve, I can't help but feel a twinge of guilt for wondering how much more all those copies of his 1991 baseball cards that I have is worth now that he passed away. After all, not only artists and authors, but anything that comes from celebrities are worth much more when they're dead.

Although if I REALLY wanted to make money from celebrity deaths, I should've joined a celebrity death pool.

Trashcan Slalom To Education

2006-03-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

It's such a windy day today.

I have to go to UBC today to submit the rest of my housing application, and also find a nice quite place to study for the CGA exam this Thursday. It turned out that I didn't get exemptions on some of my MBA courses, so I'll have to stay in UBC until December.

Because the garbage truck makes its rounds after everyone has gone to work, there were a lot of trash cans left outside, only to be blown onto the road and become a hazard. Hmm...that does sound kinda funny...the road being "littered" with trashcans. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic on the road at the time I left, so I could easily use the oncoming lane to bob and weave my way out of the neighborhood.

Once I made it to the highway and hit 100km/h, I could REALLY feel the wind trying to throw my chunky, aerodynamically challenged SUV off. Oh great, as if the mileage on my SUV wasn't crappy enough, and as if gas wasn't horrendously expensive enough.

Once I made it on campus, with no surprise, all the lots were full. I was finally able to find a space, but only because no one else wanted to wedge their vehicle next to a poorly parked Civic with Sanrio stuffed animals wedged against the back window. Damn inconsiderate Asians. It's not that their parking (and driving) skills are so crappy, but it's that they don't make any effort to straighten out their vehicles, so that the people next to them don't have to do the the Car Door Mambo to try to get out without denting their expensive daddy-bought BMW's, rice burners, or in my case, brand-new Civics.

So once I managed to mambo my way out of my vehicle, the first thing I had to do is get a reference letter from my ex-Japanese professor, to vouch for my character as part of my on-campus residence application (I'm so glad he doesn't know about this blog!). He is pretty much my favorite teacher. He's the nicest guy and he never gets angry, too strict, or too pushy on his students. He actually cares about his students, both in and out of class. I usually don't have kind words for teachers, nor would I promise to invite them in the highly unlikely event that I have a wedding, so he really is that good.

So once my residence application is out of the way, it's off to study. Like I said before, I don't like this CGA course because I'm totally on my own, other than online forums with tutors. So, I downloaded from the CGA website a set of review questions, with answers so you could check them. However, one of the questions is missing a solution, and I really want to check my answers to be sure that I did that type of question right. So I turn to the forum tutor for help, for once. She suggested that I check the online lecture notes and old exams for that particular question, and I tell her that the solutions on those are incomplete, which they are. She then gives up. God forbid that the tutor works through a question to help out a student!!!

Oh well, at least I didn't have to dodge trashcans again on my way home tonight.

Your alcoholic dad could naturally wobble his car through this.

My First CGA Exam And Other Trials Of The Great White North

2006-02-28T22:53:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately.

The exam is next Thursday, and I'm sorta in Panic Mode right now. Well, maybe not that bad. But for a course that's supposed to accomodate a full-time job, I'm instead taking full-time to study for it. As you may have heard before, I've been having trouble with this financial accounting course, since I'm rather on my own without the classroom setting. So now my strategy is to do as many of the practice problems as possible. That is, the practice problems with solutions to check answers. There's no point in doing the other problems.

There's probably a lot of attention from you folks towards my city of Vancouver, from the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turino, Italy. (Well, my city's actually Coquitlam, but since nobody knows where the hell it is, I just say I'm from Vancouver.) I caught a glimpse of the ceremony, when they were unveiling Vancouver as the next Winter Olympic site, and I was amazed at how accurately they depicted our city. Yes, we are indeed a bunch of eskimos that occasionally emerge from our cozy igloos to go ice fishing. Fortunately our igloos have sufficient electricity to run my computer to post to this blog; I just have to plug it into the snow. How convenient is that?

Unfortunately, the Olympics people didn't show the whole picture of Vancouver. Ice fishing is the only way we sustain ourselves. When the Penguin Spirit tells us that a long, severe winter storm is coming, we hunt polar bear to provide enough food to ride it out in our igloos. I still have the scars from that parting swipe that big sow took at me when I downed her just before the Big Blizzard of 1997.

I'm glad the person who arranged the ceremony got to the TRUTH. I was afraid that he/she would have bought into the lies of that money-grubbing Vancouver Tourism Board, who try to lure in unsuspecting tourists by falsely depicting us as a flourishing metropolis, set between the majestic Coastal Mountains and the vast blue Pacific Ocean in a pleasantly moderate climate. Don't fall for it! That just isn't the case with us Vancouverites!

Okay, I think I've beat that dead horse to a bloody pulp, so back to the Olympic closing ceremony itself. Near the end of the show, our mayor was honored with the Olympic flag. You can't help but notice the irony of the Winter Olympic flag being waved by a man bound to a wheelchair from a skiing accident. But still, I'm proud of Sam. Handicapped or not, I sure hope he does a good job running our city, since we've only elected him recently. But then again, any Causcasian person who manages to fluently speak Cantonese has got to be good.

Uh oh, Penguin Spirit say we have another gale-force blizzard coming, so back to hunt for me.

Back to School...For Real

2006-02-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

You're all probably sick of me bitching about my fruitless job search.

Well, seeing how with my MBA alone is probably going to keep being this useless, I've decided to do something about it rather then to continue bitching. I've decided in a change of strategy and REALLY specialize in accounting. So I'm going back to school to get a Diploma in Accounting, and get hired by an accounting company while I work towards Chartered Accountant (CA) certification.

So today, I went back to my old university (before Miami), The University of British Columbia (UBC), to submit my transcript from my MBA. Some people nickname it "Coca-Cola University", on the account of UBC selling out to Coca-Cola, and vending exclusively their products on campus. Nevertheless, the campus itself is a beautiful place to spend a summer with my nose stuck to a textbook.

Knowing that I committed myself to being a student here, it certainly felt more nostalgic than the last time I stopped by. I also had more time to walk around campus and visit my old dwellings and haunts. The feel of a campus community gently wafted back from my memories. Especially when I went to have a bite at the pub's burger bar, and came across the tip jar with a quirky note taped to it, scribbled with the words: Please help us send our manager to Oprah so he can promote his gripping memoir of sex, drugs, and burgers.

There were a lot of new buildings, some of which were still having their foundations poured when I was an undergrad. Conversely, while passing by the Student Union Building, I saw another building which I faintly remember, being torn down by a bulldozer. Upon the toppling of a support beam, I let out a cheer, perhaps coming closest to fulfilling a childhood fantasy of witnessing my school burn down.

Classes will start in May, which is when I'll move into campus. The only concern is that single housing is not available during the summer, so I'll have to at most share a common suite with other students in a quad. Since I don't know anyone who's going back to school, let alone living on campus, I will be moving in with total strangers. Hopefully, my indication of preference for co-ed roommates on my housing application will diversify the risk, so that rather than ending up with hermits and complete assholes, I could end up with bitches, hermits, and complete assholes. I can't wait to relive my college experience!

Well, I certainly can't wait to once again stick it to The Man by keeping my own personal stash of Pepsi.

A rare moment on this popular lookout at UBC
when there are no couples making out.

Screw Valentine's Day

2006-02-14T15:54:00.000-08:00

Here we go with another "special" day.

That is, in the same manner that you call the kids in special ed "special". It's just another day supposedly dedicated to another dead Christian martyr guy, tragically forgotten amidst the commercialism and consumerism. After all, who says "Happy Saint Valentine's Day" anymore? It's another day devised for greeting card companies, confectioners, plush toy manufacturers, florists, jewellers (especially the notorious DeBeers cartel), and the retailers to make an extra buck by ostentatiously hawking their crap under the guise of love. At the expense of making the single majority of people in the Western world depressed.

And why do we need to dedicate a special day for love anyway? Is it because we, as a society, don't love enough the rest of the year? If love in our lives were to be plotted in a graph against time, would we just see low-level "background noise", and then a spike where the it is February 14th on the horizontal axis? Or worse, is it because there too much hate going on? If either of those is the case, then that makes two ways that this "special" occasion has pointed to something disturbingly wrong with the world that we live in.

And so, that leaves most of us, including me, asking, "Where is the love?" Or the next best thing, "Where the fuck is Cupid, the personification of love?" He's certainly not there for me, which leaves me to conjecture that he's been either killed by bird flu, or "accidentally" shot by Dick Cheney on a hunting trip. And so, here I sit, alone in the house and typing away, watching the sun set in the sky and my life, while the rest of the world start to couple and hug, kiss, spoon, screw, ballroom dance, make crepes, or whatever the hell they do in their mushy, amorous ways.

Although I seriously doubt hunting would be among the activities.

Six Degrees Of Jürgen Prochnow

2006-02-10T13:58:00.000-08:00

I lack the gift of instant slumber.

Unless I am absolutely exhausted mentally and physically, I actually lay awake, sometimes even for hours, waiting for sleep to claim me. During that time, I am lost in thought and hoping that soon, those turning wheels in my head will dissolve into cloudy abstractness that marks the blurred frontier between the living world and the dreaming world. Perhaps it is my subconscious, but when I approach that stage, what seems to be totally random thoughts materialize.

Last night was particularly the case. For some reason, my train of thought led me to the mental exercise of linking actors Jürgen Prochnow and Malcolm McDowell in the same way you play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Don't ask me how this happened. In the same way that you don't recall what you dreamt once you wake up, I have no memory of that strand of thought - only of the weird places it led to. Anyway, here's how I solved the conundrum:

Jürgen Prochnow was in Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone.
Sylvester Stallone was in Assassins with Antonio Banderas.
Antonio Banderas was in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams with Ricardo Montalban.
Ricardo Montalban was in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with William Shatner ("KHAAAAAAAN!!!!")
William Shatner was in Star Trek: Generations with Malcolm McDowell!! BA-DA-BAM!!!

Oh great, now all that thinking has put me back to square one.

Finally Some Sun!

2006-02-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

HOLY SWEET MOTHER OF CRAP!! A HYDROGEN BOMB JUST DETONATED OVER MY CITY!!!!

WHAT THE...!? It's just sitting up there...what is it?? I think I remember... A huge-ass meteor? No, it's not falling. An alien spaceship? Probably not...it should've been gone to take Tom Cruise back to his home planet. Wait a minute, I think I remember! It's... It's...what did they call it? Ah yes, THE SUN!!! Holy crap it's finally out!! Sorry about that false alarm, to Christian and non-Christian people alike.

It's been piss-raining for more than a month. There is an old French expression, which I came across in the French dictionary while looking for names for private parts when I was an elementary student. How did it go again? Ah, yes. Il pleut come une vache qui pisse. Which literally means "It's raining like a pissing cow."

Yes, that pretty much described last month's weather. In fact, we broke a record for the most rainfall in a month, and would have broken a 50-year-old record for most consecutive days of rainfall, had it not been interrupted by a couple of hours-long sunny breaks. Way to go, God.

Well, You can at least make it up to us by generously providing us more of this lovely weather, so we and the corpses of all the drowned wildlife have a chance to dry out. Yes, I know it means the nights will be colder and the dry wind will bite harder, but that's why You created lip balm, right? Well, that and for the purpose of looking for cute girls with chapped lips (on their MOUTH, you perv!), and offering them the lip balm on your own lips because you forgot to bring the rest of the stuff with you.

Oh look at me, I'm mumbling to God now.

Saturday Night Idiocy

2006-02-05T01:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, now I'm going to gripe about a popular sketch comedy show called Saturday Night Live.

Tonight's show had Steve Martin as a guest, so it was funnier than usual (or actually funny at all). But that's not the only thing that's special about this particular show.

Regular cast member Fred Armisen has an "okay funny" recurring segment called The Prince Show, whe he plays artist Prince. Tonight's show also featured this particular sketch. However, not only was Steve Martin the guest cast member for tonight, the show also had the REAL Prince as the musical guest!

Now if you were the writer, and you know that the real Prince is going to be doing a gig as musical guest, and you are also going to slot The Prince Show segment into tonight's show, how are you going to connect the dots and seize the opportunity to make for an unusually exciting and hilarious comedy sketch? That's right! You feature the real Prince into The Prince Show with Fred Armisen, generating huge laughs and cheers in an offbeat, self-deprecating role.

Did the writers get it? NO! The Prince Show went by as usual, totally ignoring the fact that the real Prince had just played his gig in the previous segment before the commercial break.

Now I'm not saying that I should be among those writing for Saturday Night Live. In fact, this kind of idea is not new at all to the show. Back in the last decade, when the show was at its peak of its funniness, The Rolling Stones was the musical guest in one particular show, if I recall correctly. So on their Weekend Update segment, they had Mike Myers play Mick Jagger, and the real Mick Jagger play Keith Richards!! THAT was funny!!

Perhaps the writers did ask Prince to appear on The Prince Show, but he declined, even though I think he would be cool enough to accept the invitation. If that were the case, they should never have put The Prince Show segment on this show at all. It just leaves viewers like me angry and wanting answers!

These people couldn't even write a funny sketch if they were given a monkey that smells its own farts.

New Synonym For "Retard": "European Newspaper Editor"

2006-02-04T19:15:00.000-08:00

What the hell were they thinking?

It wouldn't be so bad if they published cartoons of the generic Muslim with a bomb for a turban, but one of their most revered figures, second only to God?? At the very least, this is an act of ignorance, specifically of Islam's strict forbiddance of any depictions of their holy figures. Sure, you could cry First Amendment, freedom of the press, blah, blah. But freedom of the press does NOT constitute freedom from the responsibility to publish with respect towards other people and their religion. (Incidentally, how about freedom of religion?) And now, the whole world's going to hell even faster with the entire Muslim population pissed off.

So what does the editor of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that started this all, has to say for himself? "[The purpose was] to examine whether people would succumb to self-censorship, as we have seen in other cases when it comes to Muslim issues." (Source) Oh great. So you're telling us you were testing the waters in a bloody shark tank!? Don't get the rest of the world involved, dumbass! We've got our own problems to deal with!

Ironically, Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher, pretty much sums it up when he says: "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."

To make things worse, the rest of the EU is now following suit in publishing those cartoons. But the one country that I'm going to single out among them is France. No, not because I share the Americans' view that they're a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Remember when most of the North African community in France rioted last year, because of the accidental deaths of two teenagers from the Arab/Turk/Black community while being chased by police? You'd figure the French government would know first-hand what it's like to have a pissed-off Islamic population. Non, monsieur. I guess they'll need a recapitulation to learn their lesson. Instead of "Death to Denmark!", Muslims all over the world will be chanting "Death to (insert European Union country here)!"

The next time I see someone trying to push open a door marked "Pull", I'll say to them, "What are you, a European newspaper editor!?"

Happy Year Of The Dog!!

2006-01-29T01:33:00.000-08:00

Another Chinese lunar year has gone by.

Seeing how this is Spencer's year, he has decided to kick off a year of achievement milestones by becoming stinkier than ever, even though my mom gave him a bath on earlier today. No one in the family can explain his horrific body odor. My dad postulated that his shit must be still stuck to his fur. We'll have to take him to the vet to find out.

The evening started with a Chinese New Year's Eve dinner at home, with an unusual selection of dishes based on homonyms for "year", "fortune", "health", and other good things in Chinese. Then we headed to a special Chinese New Year event at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE). It's basically a stage with several different shows, and booths from big companies to small businesses selling things. Did I mention the smothering of Chinese tradition by commercialization through the ubiquitous shameless advertising and pandering...er, promotion?

Speaking of smothering, the crowd was horrific as expected. All the while, I was thinking how the avian flu virus would love to be here to join the festivities. But at least things could be worse. I could've been in Hong Kong Disneyland at this time of the year. What a fiasco! How could Disney not anticipate the thousands of people from Mainland China coming in? How could they miss the fact that Mainland Chinese have a longer holiday than Hongers? This oversight comes as a surprise, considering how Disney demonstrated their thorough understanding of Chinese people and culture in their feature-length animated film Mulan. (Yes, in the actual centuries-old story, there really was a small talking dragon with Robin Williams' type of humor!)

Despite this rocky start, I hope this year will bring good fortune to all (and me a job). We're all going to need it. Oh, and let's not forget health, since the avian flu is just around the corner.

All that has happened so far, we can certainly rule out this year as being the Year of the Mouse.

My Hairstylist Is Trying To Turn Me Into A Jedi

2006-01-27T17:24:00.000-08:00

I decided to get a haircut today.

It's all part of tradition for the upcoming Chinese New Year this Sunday. As a new year is regarded as a fresh start, you have to tidy everything up before new year's day, like cleaning your house, taking your annual shower, and getting your hair cut.

The hairstylist I usually go when I'm home is a nice Chinese lady, and I'm usually satisfied with the job she does. We usually just have a casual chat when she does my hair. This time, the conversation subject was a little different. The hairstylist wanted to introduce me to her Qi Gong master and recommend his class to me.

That was when she started creeping me out.
For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of "qi", or "ki" in Japanese, it means "energy". Its Chinese character literally means "air" because it is believed that energy flows like air through everything in the universe. I'm sure this is among the parts of Asian culture influencing George Lucas when he made Star Wars (lightsaber=katana, Jedi garb=men's kimono, The Force=qi, etc.).

So back to my story. It doesn't sound unusual for her to simply introduce me to a Qi Gong master. After all, Qi Gong is widely practised, with significant benefit to physical and mental health. But then she went all out saying that this master is so good, he can do all these neat tricks, and how I just missed him demonstrating his skills at her salon the day before.

Apparently, his qi is so powerful that he can conjure up electricity. If you turn the lights off, he can produce sparks at his fingertips. He can hold a flourescent tube and light it up with his bare hands; my hairstylist showed me a photo of him accomplishing that feat in an info booklet she conveniently had with her. The master's qi is not only good for saving on power bills, he can apparently have near telekinetic powers. He can brush people aside like dry leaves with a brush of his hand. He can draw people closer towards him for a personal conversation. With his hands alone, he can transfer his qi energy to heal patients.

Then her awestruck conversation went to the Qi Gong master's son, to whom he has taught his Qi Gong skills. His son could also close also his eyes and see through several walls. Although both the master of his son are apparently well-connected in their homeland of China, the son is particularly relied upon by the Chinese police for his special skills in solving crimes.

Then my hairstylist tells me of a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet the master. Since he has schools in China, California, and here, he is making a visit tomorrow, and the school will meet at some guy's house. The master has accepted the owner of the house as a student, on the condition that he finds nine more people to join! And once you do opt to join, it's US$600 up front!! To further corroborate her claims, she says that a woman from the yoga class next door, who met the Qi Gong master at the salon yesterday, will (conveniently) be back for a visit and can testify about the whole thing.

Not too long after my haircut was finished, this white lady comes over from the yoga school

At this point, if any of you have any common sense or survival instinct, a few red flags would pop when something like this happens to you. The intense reverence expressed by the hairstylist to the point of worship, the wacky and incredible Jesus tricks the Qi Gong Master can perform, the hefty membership fee in cash up front, the recruiting method reminiscient of a pyramid scheme, having another member come and reinforce the pitching process. I smell a cult.

At this point, I might as well call it a load of phooey and leave it at that. But I wanted to see for myself what this Qi Gong master can do. After all, I can refrain from carrying any cash with me, and I will keep telling myself to walk away. But more importantly, I wanted some answers, not for quiestions about the master or Qi Gong, but about life. Are our minds merely limited to what our science has been able to adequately delineate? Are we part of something greater in the universe, and is our gift of sentience able to understand that connection and unlock its powers? If a cargo ship full of tampons sinks, would the entire ocean get soaked up?

I told my mom what happend with the hairstylist. She told me that the hairstylist has pulled this stuff on her and my uncle before, which is why she now gets her hair done by some Korean lady near downtown. Despite my mom's skeptical rebuke, my curiosity is still keeping me undecided as to whether I should go to this meeting.

To get me off the fence, I decided to Google up the Qi Gong master's name. After all, if this guy can pull off such cool tricks, he surely will be famous enough to turn up a lot of search results. Nada. I even looked up his name in Chinese. It only shows in a few directory entries on some Chinese web sites.

So I decided not to go to the gathering, depriving you all of an even more interesting story to tell. I have doubts, and I'm still a bit creeped out about what happened. Who knows what would've happened there. Maybe they'll all put on Nike shoes and black clothes, drink cyanide fruit punch, and go to bed so that they can be picked up by an alien spaceship.

Or worse, they could be a bunch of loony scientologists.

Pick Your Dick

2006-01-23T21:11:00.000-08:00

It's that time again for all Canadians.

The time to democratically choose between burning at the stake, draw and quartering, or death by 1,000 cuts. Three major political parties stepping on a bunch of minor, wimpy ones, and none of them desirable. Let's see what we got...

The incumbent Liberals have been in charge for 13 years, never made good on their original promise to get rid of the infamous Goods & Services Tax (GST), which doubled our sales tax to 14%. That was the very promise that got them elected in the first place. Then there's that sponsorship scandal. Their campaign is spent most on covering their own asses and throwing the occasional cheap shot towards the right to divert attention. I'm pretty sick of them.

Then there's the Conservatives, the very party whose government rewarded Canadians for their support by slapping us with the GST. But then again, since I'm sick of 13 years of Liberal lies, I just might go for several years of Conservative lies. And that's exactly what the Conservatives are banking on with perhaps the strongest campaigning among the three parties. But still, they're too right wing for my tastes, and the fact that their policies align with the US Republicans (aka United States of Bush) isn't very comforting either.

Then finally, there's the New Democratic Party (NDP). When I think of them, I think of their illustrious history in BC way back in the last decade - Mike Harcourt, Glen Clark, and the Bingogate scandal. However, their campaign seems to be aimed at marketing themselves as a viable alternative to the above parties, rather than any solid political platform. Yes, unlike the Liberals and the Conservatives, we at the NDP offer a unique and refreshing brand of corruption.

So who won?

The Conservatives won with a minority government, and the Liberals drop down to become the opposition party. Perhaps it's the best outcome, the least of the evils. The Liberals are no longer on top with their stale goverment, and if the Conservatives should ever decide to infringe on someone's rights, introduce another sales tax, and/or kiss George W. "NAFTA-my-ass" Bush's ass (not necessarily in that order), they have the Liberals breathing down their necks.

All in all, I'm looking forward to the new parliament in Ottawa that will be spending another term ignoring my province.

Mr. Fruity Head

2006-01-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

Okay, now for my gripe of the week.

Whenever I wash my hair, I have to use a bit more conditioner than shampoo. It just has to be that way. So naturally, since I've purchased the same brand and volume of shampoo and conditioner, I run out of conditioner first. So now that I'm empty on conditioner, I've decided to buy a larger volume of conditioner to adapt to my disproportionate use of shampoo and conditioner.

The particular brand that I use is Herbal Essences®, because I like the nice floral smell. Yes it's girly, but I'm secure enough about my heterosexuality to use it. Unfortunately, the availability of this particular brand in larger quantities is quite limited, and with my hair and scalp becoming quite arid, I'm in desperate need of conditioner. Specifically, the only Herbal Essences conditioner available in larger size at Real Canadian Superstore (where I also have to buy groceries) is their Fruit Fusions® sub-brand...in pomegranate-lychee-persimmon blended "flavor". Not only does this shit smell fruity, but I swear it smells like strawberry Jell-O mix! Having no other choice because I don't want to make another trip elsewhere in this shitty weather we're having lately, I mustered my aforementioned heterosexual security to put up with being a fruity-head for half a year.

So should I blame Clairol for rewarding my brand loyalty for their Herbal Essences hair products with a more vicious affront on my masculinity through even more effeminating aromas? NO! I know my usual shampoo aroma exists in a larger size. I place the blame squarely on the retailer - Real Canadian Superstore. If you're a real fucking superstore (and probably not even Canadian, since it's likely some rich US motherfucker bought you out), you'd make more Stock-Keeping Units (SKU's) of Herbal Essences available. And even if shelf space is scarce (which is highly laughable considering your 10-hectare premises), you have completely neglected the male market in your selection of SKU's to put for sale. If it weren't for people with my degree of tolerance, you'd have lost half your shampoo/conditioner customers already!

And if you ever dare come up with a conditioner that smells like Jell-O Pudding Pops, I'm going to draw the line.

Deadly, Yet Ironic Hajj

2006-01-13T17:35:00.000-08:00

Physically and financially able Muslims have the duty to go on a pilgrammage to Mecca, or a Hajj.

With millions of Muslims around the world and a huge portion of them gathered into one city, even if the Saudi royal family decided to expand the holiest mosque to envelop the entire city, the crowd's still going to be more packed than New Year's celebrations at Times Square. This is a process flow nightmare.

And if you've been keeping up with the news, you've probably heard that the nightmare did come true - 363 people have been trampled to death because someone decided to leave their luggage on the ground. Well, all I have to say is that there is a certain irony to it.

You go on a journey to become closer to God, and you end up getting the one-way trip to meet Him in person.

P.S. Happy Friday the 13th everyone! Please avoid people in 70's hockey masks.

Accounting Is Bad For The Bowels

2006-01-10T20:19:00.000-08:00

Reading for accounting is such a pain.

I've been reading what feels like volumes for a financial accounting course that I'm taking towards Certified General Accountant (CGA) certification. More accurately, it's not the reading itself that's agonizing. It shouldn't be a problem to stay on schedule for the periodic quizzes if I spread out the reading over each day. What really busts my balls is trying to follow the numbers in the calculations made by the professor/textbook author. Especially when it comes to the preparation of financial statements.

Revenue $50,000...okay. Costs of Goods Sold $35,000...I see. Gross Margin $15,000...yes, that works out. Accounts Receivable $121,468...what the fuck!?!?

What really exacerbates the situation is that this is a distance education course; everything is done online from home, so you're on your own reading and understanding the material. There won't be anyone on hand to answer any questions. The best thing you could do is try your luck on the online forums, but it gets tedious for all parties asking questions every time a number doesn't seem right. So when I come across a numeric quantity from which there's no telling whence it came, there can be only one logical and inevitable conclusion.

The professor must've pulled the number out of his ass.

Yes, he just up and pulled it out just as a magician would pull a rabbit out of a hat. In fact, I've even come across such phenomena in my accounting courses for my MBA. Think about it. You have the professional and academic title that bears the credibility of an expert, as well as the responsibility to back it up. If you are an authority in the field of accounting and you can't figure out why your numbers don't balance out, you just can't leave it like that. It would damage your reputation. Asking someone else for help would also undermine your pride as an expert. So what else can you do other than to fudge it? Just pull out that magical number out of your magical anus that will make it balance. Then you try to fit your magic ass-number into the financial statements by putting it into an offsetting account - which you've probably made up as well and would usually have the word "Deferred" in its name.

Or for a cogent and less esoteric analogy, imagine that you're contracted to build a really nice house. Everything goes fine, until you realize that you don't know how to make the stone archway. If you sub-contract the job, you'll feel that people will no longer recognize you as a fancy home builder. So what do you do? You go for the jerry-rig and fashion a makeshift archway completely out of plaster, and paint it over to look like rocks.

So why do I want to make a career out of accounting, if there are so much bullshit as it seems? I'm confident that once I get the learning part out of the way, accounting could be way more interesting when I know how everything works, and I could finally put my geeky number skills to use. Well, I certainly don't want to go into academia and become an accounting professor.

My colon just isn't big enough to fit all those numbers.

Happy Belated New Year!!!

2006-01-04T13:09:00.000-08:00

Alright, so my first entry for 2006 is late.

Well, I've been trying to spend more time with my visiting brother, since his girlfriend left a week ago. He just left today before school starts again for him. Well, that's my excuse and to hell with you all who don't buy it (I bet you're the same kind of people who insist on saying "Happy Holidays").

To the rest of you, wishes of happiness, health, and prosperity as always! I need you all to be in tip-top shape to read my blog and its inconspicuous product plugs. (Preparation H!) No, seriously, all of you take care of yourselves. Especially in a world that's starting to go to hell in natural disasters.

If any of you still haven't had enough of the countdown festivities, I found this neat website that has 360-degree panorama pics, complete with sound, of 2006 countdown parties in several major cities around the world. The centerpiece is Times Square in New York, where you get to see yourself stageside with Mariah Carey. You're going to need Quicktime to view these panorama shots. Yes, the same Quicktime that keeps harrassing you to upgrade to Quicktime Pro, under threat of killing your dog, whenever you open the program. If you already have Quicktime, then go to the website here.

Well, it certainly feels like New Year, except at my house. If you ever passed by our neighborhood at night, you know which house is ours. It is, without exception, the very last house to have Christmas lights on. My parents insist that since the Magi visited Jesus on January 6, the lights should stay on that long. Even inside, the decorations remained unchanged, including this 3-foot-tall annoying fucking plastic snowman with fiber optic trim, that plays a looped segment of Silent Night for an excruciating five minutes at the slightest bump. I really want to beat the shit out of this fucking snowman, but that would only encourage it to play partial Silent Night even longer. Crap. Foiled by a plastic snowman. How do I defeat a fiend that is electrically powered? Hmmm.....

If you want to go somewhere that feels like New Year's, go to the gym on the first day of the year that it opens. I went to the gym at the aquatic center down the hill, and the place was packed. Not only the swimming area, but the gym too. In addition to the regulars that I see there, I saw several new faces consisting mainly of middle-aged white men. I think it's safe to assume that all these extra people are trying to fulfill their new year resolutions of losing weight. I'm not too worried about not being able to use the bench press, because I expect this place to be extra-packed for only a couple of more weeks, the length of time people usually uphold their new year resolutions. Especially resolutions that involve physical work in a continent of fatasses.

As for resolutions, I certainly hope that this will be the year I get a freakin' job. Although it took my neighbor three years to find one, I already think that this bullshit has been going on too long. I'm sure I've come into this year with some aces up my sleeve. I've got a couple of professional recruiters on the trail for me, but I'd like to think that this one website, mkt10.com, will be the one to finally sink the ball into the cup. It's a highly elaborate job search site that offers a closer match to the appropriate job, at a level of detail far greater than anything Monster.com or Careerbuilder.com could offer.

How it works is that you spend a bit of time filling in a highly detailed questionnaire involving your background and skills that you've used in past jobs. You'll have to select the specific skills (e.g. data analysis, forecasting, communication) that you've used in each job, and prioritize them on how much you've used those skills. Employers have to fill in a similar questionnaire for the job openings that they're putting up. So the detail put into this questionnaire will theoretically provide the best job match. OH LOOK!! mkt10.com has sent me an e-mail with a job that has a 9.2/10 match factor. It's...a Mary Kay independent beauty consultant. Fuck.

And so, we're all probably going to go through a lot of hardships, as well as joys this year. We all have to keep our chins up, put on a brave face (or your poker face if you're playing poker), yet grit our teeth to meet whatever challenges that arise this year. I'm sure that with the proper attitude, we'll all pull through another year and end up better than the last. If even a jobless middle-aged man who lives with his parents like me can be this way in the face of difficulty, then so can you!

And if any of those difficulties result in facial scarring, I can offer you some of these quality Mary Kay products to mask it.