the song i swore to never sing

there's this scene during the princess bride where the lovely buttercup is about to commit suicide by stabbing. she's just so damn heart broken over Wesley having not come to save her -- having lost her one true love not once, but twice -- and now condemned to spend the rest of her life with that darn Prince Humperdinck. she simply can't take it.

with her dagger raised high in the air, ready to plunge deep into her own heart and end her pain forever, Wesley says to her:

"there's a shortage of perfect breasts in the world. it'd be a shame to ruin yours"

don't we just love to take for granted the goods we have?

self-confidence is one thing -- lots of people are assured of themselves. but not everyone believes they are capable of making a difference. so often we think we're stuck in our little ruts, destined to live mediocre and entirely irrelevant lives that will serve only to fade away one day into the recorded annals of 'history that no one cares about'. we give up on greatness.

what a lie this is. and what a tragedy that the biggest liar of all would convince amazing people that this could possibly be true.

not to say we should spend all our time basking in the glory of a perfect set of breasts.

but you know, when things seem to be going not the way you had planned, there's always a bigger picture. there's a point, and an explanation, and as a consequence there will always be another reason to pick yourself up in the morning, even if you got TKO'd the night before.

we're just not meant to win every battle. the war's already won.

it's like Rocky 1, where even when Apollo knocks Rocky on his ass -- Rocky still wins. he wins the hearts of the crowd, the audience, his girlfriend, even Apollo.

some of you may be thinking "hey now, that's loser talk", but the fact is that's kind of how God works, y'know? he sees the bigger picture. and when we believe that us losing is somehow going to ruin God's plans, that's so narrow minded of us. it's placing these limits and doubts on how powerful He is.

who's standards are we measuring ourselves to? what do we expect of ourselves, and where did those expectations come from?

i spent a whole sunday school class talking about this, and it's still in my mind.

time to end the rambling, it's getting incoherent.....

intimate secretary

nothing like a busy weekend to get you ready for a 15 hour night of sleep. that was nice.

it's weird how productive i can be when it doesn't involve doing anything for myself. in fact, i thrive off it. i love running around helping people, it just makes me feel so....alive. i'm so willing to completely destroy myself in an effort to help everyone around me, but i always slack off and half-ass things that are to or for my own benefit.

i should learn to like....harness that dilligence towards my own life.

head for the hills

dear steve nash,

congrats on your MVP trophy. i'm sure it will look nice up on your fireplace next to....last years....MVP trophy.

you are my hero.

sincerely,

me.

p.s. your new sig shoes look swell. please release them earlier so i may purchase them.

volcano

"i know this is where i belong because even when i'm tired going in, i always come out of it energized"

i've been mulling this statement over for the last little bit. my friend uttered those words naturally, as if it was just the way things should be for everyone. crystal clear as mud i guess. nothing ever seems that cut and dry.

then again, maybe life really is that simple.

i just don't know it yet.

on marriage

so in about one months time, me and two female companions will be jetting off to europe for a month of eating and sleeping. mostly eating.

upon realizing that i would be travelling with two chicks, my parents (after i had already told them, and bought my tickets, and had several planning sessions at my house) suddenly had a panic attack about my spending all that time cooped up in close quarters with two girls.

after crying, throwing up, and taking a long cold shower, i responded to their fears in my typically calm and soothing manner. i assured them i wouldn't knock up my female friends (apparently this is a common problem to them), and that i would not return with a porno moustache and a membership card from the international youth orgy club. i then proceeded to rip my eyes out of my head in an attempt to quell the vicious tide of nausea.

i did however manage to leave open the door for me to knock up a random stranger in europe -- that circumstance did not seem to be as feasible a scenario in my parents minds.

i have yet to decide if that is insulting.

slow company

so for a weak willed individual such as myself, possibly the worst place to keep a giant bag of skittles is right on my desk, staring me in the face everytime i sit down.

on the bright side, each serving is 45% of my daily vitamin C intake.

i have officially fullfilled my daily vitamin C intake. times seven.

mmm....like drinking 7 bottles of yop.....

you should be hated here.

it may be a telling sign that i still consider weezer my favourite band.

some people know quite definitely that they are afraid of change. i can't say i quite fall into that category. conversely, i wouldn't say i'm the kind of person who looks forward to change. of course everything in life is situational, but by-and-large i would say i am completely and utterly indifferent towards change.

my apathy has served me well in the past, as my lazy nature may be construed as loyalty in some cases, while in other cases it has allowed me to adapt to new situations with relative ease and comfort.

i cannot help but notice however that something my ambivalence does not take into account is the fact that change is inevitable. i've finally been realizing a lot lately how much is changing around me -- how people, relationships, situations, and expectations are evolving.

it's not for the best, it's not for the worst. it just is the way it is i suppose, which is alright by me.

but i'm enjoying the fact that i'm choosing to acknowledge change at least in that it is significant in our lives, and not something we should take for granted regardless of (ironically) how immutable the ebb and flow of time may be.

it just makes me feel like i'm noticing i'm alive, you know? so i don't miss anything, because not only is everything an amazing blessing, but it all just goes by so....

....damn....

...fast.

overture, holiday

it's kind of strange how you can literally choose how to feel.

you can be having a great day, a crappy day, or a day that ranks among the most mundane in existence -- but perspective is such a matter of personal choice.

learning to harness that power for good rather than evil is the kind of thing that makes normal folks superheroes in my eyes.

sender

it's hard for me to understand how a child could not enjoy gym class. i mean, c'mon. you don't have to be good at sports to enjoy running around in circles. you get to play something -- that right there sure as hell beats sitting at a desk counting down the clock.

how does an entire generation of children develop such keener tendencies? what happened? is this the result of dilligent, hardworking and academic minded parents just overprotecting their kids? don't get me wrong, i'm not saying there's anything wrong with enjoying reading and learning, but what causes a kid to not like running around outside?

i really don't get it. everyone says that children are just too preoccupied with television and computer games and all that crap to play outside -- i just don't buy it. if from the very start you play sports with your kids and take them outside to run around, they will grow up enjoying those things. watch baseball with your kid, play basebal with your kid, guess what? odds are good they'll have a passing interest in baseball. i'm no child psychologist, but isn't that just common sense?

if you're kid is fat and geeky, frankly i fully expect that it's because their parents are too lazy to spend time with them and have delegated the task of parenting to a bunch of screens. i find in situations with children, i pretty much heap 95% of the blame on parents. i wonder if that's fair.

maybe i'm being too judgmental. i've never had a kid.

but i'll be damned if i they don't grow up to like gym class. that just ain't right.

underneath the weeping willow

this is one of the coolest pieces
of clothing i have ever seen.

i want one...





















http://www.socialsuicide.co.uk/

the worst taste in music

a rough recap of my daily routine the past two weeks:

1pm - wake up
2pm - eat lunch
3pm - email/trip planning/surfing/blog reading
4pm - light reading
5pm - watch sports highlights
5:30pm - watch PTI
6pm - more sports highlights
7pm - go play basketball
10pm - eat dinner
11pm - play dota
12am - play guitar
1:30am - dailyshow
2am - colbert report
2:30am - csi reruns
3am - angel reruns
4am - light reading
5am - fall asleep

rinse. lather. repeat.

i have two options: i should either stop feeling guilty and enjoy the chance to relax like a maniac, or i should just wake up earlier and do something productive.

actually, that's not true. i guess i could also just wake up earlier and be equally unproductive.

awesome.

the kid is already breaking

i like to fancy myself somewhat of a connoisseur of MSN display pictures.

there are a variety of genres that most pictures tend to fall into, and i feel they often say a lot about who we are.

the webcam pose, or the "i enjoy looking at myself"
the friends, or "attractive friends make me cooler by proxy"
the candid, or the "look at what i've done and how interesting it makes me"
the couple shot, or "this picture earns me brownie points as well as raising my stock"
the default images, or "MSN is not a pastime. it is a communications medium"
the interests picture, or "these are my hobbies. i think they help define me"
the humourously random picture, or "i'm a non-conformist. i'm also probably ugly"
the artsy photo, or "i am more original than you will ever hope to be"

and of course, there are pictures that do not fall into any of these catagories. naturally there are always exceptions in life, so i will not bother discussing these because they are either too stupid, or too genius for me to comment upon (i.e. pictures of your naked body probably mean you are a whore).

do not take offense if i have captured your essence based purely on your MSN picture. after all, i have a keen eye and brilliant mind for psychological deduction.

swans

my internal clock is so messed up.

the sure fire sign that i've seen too many episodes of 'what not to wear' is that i'm completely amused by dressing my yahoo avatar. so this is what it's like to play with a barbie.

fascinating.

speaking of wasting time, 3:45am CSI is fast becoming something of a ritual. must fix myself.

the quote of the week, taken from time magazine --

[re: the US immigration issue]

"Attrition through enforcement: instead of allowing the illegal population to grow every year, we start enforcing the law inside the country, something we don't do at all unless your name is Mohammed and you work inside a nuclear power plant." (Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies)

i fell off my chair laughing when i read that sentence, hahahaha

it's so rare time prints anything even remotely insightful. usually they have articles like "someone invented a solar powered toothpick that will change the world forever".

damn split runs....

as an aside, i find about 98% of the time i actually type the words "hahaha" i am completely stonefaced.

i'm either a compulsive liar, or i really like to make people feel at ease.

star witness

it's weird how the second you've resigned yourself to not having something, opportunity knocks. and even though you think you've made your bed to forever lay in, God shows up in the way you had hoped, but not in the way you had expected. is that bad? that i'm so cynical? or maybe i've been protecting myself from being hurt -- from getting my hopes up.

i've always been unsure of what's ahead, if it was me or if it was Him. confirmation is a wonderful thing.

Praise the Lord!

burn up the bay

there are some things in life that i just don't understand.

why didn't the gay cowboys from brokeback mountain just move somewhere more tolerant of gay people? it was like the 1970's, do they realize the party they could have had in san fran? it's akin to a polish nazi being scared of being called a racist during world war 2.

why doesn't mike james ever pass the damn ball? does he get a contract at the end of the year based on how many shots he makes this season, and is just going for sheer volume without a conscience?

why make a musical out of the Lord of the Rings? did they hire midgets to play the hobbits? are the midgets good at singing? who can really take a singing midget seriously anyways?

what are the requirements for getting an infomercial to air? it surely can't be the quality of product -- have you seen the q-ray bracelet? it doesn't DO anything. they might as well be selling voodoo magic pills. "Wear this bracelet and it will cure you of every possible human ailment, as well as align your posture and make you more likely to get laid".

what's with girls and pointy shoes? you're literally trying to project a deformation of one of your bodyparts. is it a subconcious effort to look more like a robot? a way to pay respect to geometry? if i were to wear a hat that made my head look like a rhombus, would that be haute couture?

if straight people watch straight porn and find gay porn uncomfortable, and gay people watch gay porn, do they find straight porn uncomfortable? if a lesbian were to watch gay-male porn, or a gay male to watch lesbian porn, would that be like the most confusing and awkward of pornographic viewer/content permutations?

the mysteries of existence.

you're alive

searching for inspiration.

i will write an awesome melody. oh yes, i will write an awesome melody.

european oils

most people would say i'm laid back, but if you have spent enough time around me, and if you've seen me in the right situations, you'd quickly learn that i'm actually a really competitive guy. in my younger days, i'd say it was actually bordering on over competitive.

with time and age however, i've learned to only be selectively competitive. i've realized there are things more important than winning, and now i'm more concerened with effort and doing things to the best of my abilities than i am with the outcome.

lately i've been finding myself unable to get motivated unless i essentially trick myself into being competitive. i make finding a job a matter of pride. i make being self-disciplined a war against the people who have a set idea about the kind of guy i am and what i'm like. at times, it's a war against myself even.

i've approached my spiritual life exactly the way i'd approach basketball -- i'm facing a challenge and doing it for the sake of pride. because i want to win. because i want to prove i'm better than you think i am.

it's a psychological thing. athletes do it all the time. kevin garnett has often been described as psyching himself up so much before games that he wants to kill the other team once he steps on the floor. kobe has thrived on the haters. even when people shower him with love, he somehow skews it in his mind into doubt, and he uses that to fuel his game.

it works for me. it makes me more productive than i could otherwise be. but i don't know if i can keep this up.

can i really WILL myself to love God? can i make it a matter of pride to be devoted? to be strong? to be sacrifical and obediant? do the means justify the end?

i feel like i'm proving to myself that i can do this. when in the end, i should be depending on Him to finish the job he started. and i do. but i'm so scared to take my hands off the wheel -- to fall into the trap of doing nothing at all with naive expectations.

is that really trust? i don't know. no one said it'd be easy, but i know things will happen in time. i will follow through the best i can. what more can i do?

He will replace the shame in my heart with fire.

what's mine is yours

looks like we have a RHF update. head on over and check out what those crazy high fivin' robots are up to now.

so speaking of learning things, although i can think coherently at 4am and get work done, it is painfully evident that the phase of my life where this was my prime productivity time is long, long gone.

what is it about night time that seems to get the creative juices flowing anyways? the only time i write anything amusing during the day is when i've just pulled an all nighter.

exhaustion breeds originality. which in my mind equates originality and stupidity to being pretty much the exact same thing.

clover

is it just me, or are bitter people just flat out more interesting than happy people? i mean seriously, compare your content and optimistic friends to your cynical and jaded friends and tell me who would keep you more engaged in a three hour conversation.

sure, it might make you feel better to hear the words "it's all good" over and over, but come on. everyone loves to hear some dellusional and irrational ranting. it's what makes conversations worth having. it's just so much more amusing seeing people spew forth vicious bile from their souls rather than just gloss everything over with a contrite little sheen, like putting an eric lindros rookie card into a plastic protective sleeve.

we're too hard on bitter people. hell, i only wish i was more bitter sometimes. i do my best work when i'm bitter. those who know me can attest to this -- nothing feeds a hateful heart better than when life gives you lemons. in fact, even when life gives me grapefruits i still find it's more fun to complain than it is to settle for being content. besides, grapefruits taste like crap, they're pink, and they're too large to carry around in a brown paper bag. who the hell wants a grapefruit?

where would we be without the egocentric? the self-focused? the narcissistic?

we'd be bored, thats where we'd be. so give a little love to your bitter side; its natures defence against a mid/quarter/any-sort-of-quasi-dead-end life crisis.

unrelated, but i bought a box of pant hangers today. although i have absolutely no use for them, at 15 cents a hanger, i have no regrets whatsoever about my purchase. if the success of my days were measured in the boxes of pant hangers i amassed, then today would be a great day. a great day indeed.

grasshoppers in honey

you know, life is a lot like a jamaican beef patty. they're cold and frozen to start, but depending on how much effort and time you put into making them, they can either come out kind of wet and droopy, or nice and flakey. and everything is filled with mildly spicy beef.

ok, so maybe life isn't like a caribbean meat pastry. man am i sick of eating patties. on the bright side, a bag of dried mangoes has appeared in the pantry. mmm...tasty.

anyways, the moral of the story is that sometimes you need to just recognize the fact that life is going to keep on keepin' on even if we try to fight it. there's a lot to be said for chasing our emotions, but there's a lot to be said for understanding when to put in work, and when to cut our losses. mistakes are made, lessons are learned. but in the end, it's at the very least a very satisfying feeling when you know that in retrospect, you actually did make the right choices using experienced gained from the past. it's like -- hey look! i'm an adult!

and as everyone knows, that's half the battle.

now that i think about it, maybe life is more like a bottle of yop....

no....no its not.

tonight i'm gone

my desktop looks awesome now. thanks to some help from ry and a spiffy new winamp skin, i must say my computer is more amusing to use now because everything just looks so damn cool. novelty is an amazing thing.

so lessons learned today are that when in doubt, don't trust anyone. if you want something done right you gotta just do it yourself dern it.

i like how maybe becomes half-truths, and things unsaid turn into things said when stories are told.

if i vow to do one thing, it's to be aware of what comes out of my mouth at all times.

also, i hate cammie. foreeeeeeever.

woodland hunter (part 1)

although that last.fm chart says "last week", it actually lists the 3 most recent songs played. i don't know why it says it's from last week, the internet is full of little tricks like that. you gotta keep your head up or you could be the next chump.

it's weird how much can change in the blink of an eye.

despite the saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words', i still think there are many things words can explain so much more precisely than an image. that might sound simplistic, but it's surprising how much visual interpretation we make in a day.

but anyways, here's some simple words -- i want to be a musician....dreams die so hard.

ghostwork

i don't know what's more upsetting -- the prospect that nobody really knows me, or that people know me way too well.

are those options mutually exclusive? oh wait, let me rephrase that; does that make for a good venn diagram?

my friends are nerds. all nerds.

feral children

it vexes me when i have a sore muscle, but do not know how to stretch it. has that ever happened to you? my inner thighs are sore, but i can honestly say i've never felt those muscles sore before. it's a completely new experience, like the first time my butt was sore after a dragonboat practice. in hindsight, it took me an entire month before i figured out how to stretch my butt. i still have time.

the search for a job enters week two after a relaxing and enjoyable weekend on the slopes. i've decided after this weekend to put hot-tubs fairly high on my list of "things that will probably end up getting me killed", right between "fast food" and "chivalry".

i have a long list of bookmarked jobs that i am in the process of applying to systematically. i have ones that i'd prefer to get, but unlike any other job search i've ever conducted, i have to admit that this is probably the least picky i've ever been.

it has been pointed out by some that i (literally) tend to throw money around. and i'll concede that it's true -- i don't have the kind of respect for money that i really should because i've just come by it so easily in my life. be it jobs that i aquired without much effort, or just serendipitous windfalls, money has never been a problem for me.

as a result, i tend to think of it as...not a big deal. i don't follow up very closely when people owe me money, and treat others even when i don't have a steady income. i act like it grows on trees. i haven't decided if this is a bad thing, but i am undoubtedly starting to realize the pragmatic implications of my attitude.

i am....going to be poor. and this is of course by design, as anyone who knows me has probably discovered i have a disdain for being well-heeled. yet....bear no grudge against the well-heeled lifestyle. it's like this conflict, where i don't want to stop treating myself well, but refuse to not feel guilty for it. my hypocrisy makes my head hurt.

maybe the time has come for me to admit that i need to just learn to be thankful for what i have instead of worry about why i have it. maybe i'm not as bad as i think i am. maybe....i should be worrying about more important things?

arc of a journey

it's pretty amazing how different a day can be if you just chug through the initial painfulness. even the worst days can turn around with some luck and perspective.

things i've learned today....

- i had an inkling, but now it's confirmed: i hate the bus
- winning a free coffee can jump me from content to ecstatic pretty easily
- days where i do not leave my house should forever be banned from my existance
- it takes my backpack about 3 hours to go from soaking wet to bone dry
- my parents are only getting more absent-minded with every passing day
- i'm starting to feel bad when i make fun of them for it

am i getting soft, or is the reality of the situation finally not cool to make fun of anymore? i don't know.

a plain morning

so, does anyone actually remember what life was like before the internet?

i was talking to irene earlier this week and we were saying how naked we felt without our cell phones. so strangely helpless. it's amazing we went half our lives without those little things. how did anyone get anything organized? i don't remember.

anyways, here's an interesting story. i might have mentioned this before, but i've been thinking about it a lot lately.

a few summers ago i got a job selling subscriptions to the national post. so i was doing my thing, out in front of a food basic store with my little booth and stack of newspapers.

this old jewish lady walks up to me, and we strike up a conversation about various newspapers. she says she hates the star, and happily obliges to subscribe to the senior rate.

somehow, we get onto the topic of me, and how i ended up standing in my dress pants in the vestibule of a budget grocery store in the middle of my summer vacation. she tells me she worked all sorts of crappy jobs once, and never regretted any mistake. and she says to me this quirky little quote that i'll probably never forget:

you gotta be young and stupid before you can be old and wise.

i never ever forgot that. sometimes i expect myself to know it all and do it all the way its suppose to be done. i mean, i'll be honest -- i've done a lot of stupid things in my time. but i can't say i didn't glean valuable experiences from them.

am i proud? no. but i learned. i have to catch myself everytime i say to someone "i feel old", because....i'm not. there's this huge margin of error for us to work with. we should probably take advantage of that while we can.

end of freedom

a lot of times people wonder why i'm so attached to my car. i tend to mention that it breaks a lot, not breakdown, but just....break. electrical stuff, control arms, minor details that add up to be annoying and expensive to repair. the maintanence on that sucker is probably more than i should stand(or my family cares to pay).

and yet, i wouldn't trade it in for the world. and if i could have any new car, i'd love to buy a brand new audi/vw and stick within the family.

why? why do i love the hassle? the inconveniance?

because....these cars have personality. they're fun. i can grow close to them. i don't know anyone attached to their corolla, because they're so...utilitarian and sterile.

i love the funky blue lights. the tight and responsive steering. the perfect weight of the perfectly sized and shaped wheel. even the location of the dead pedal.

it all just feels....right.

i've had more good memories in my car than i can remember. it'll be a sad day when i finally have to put it down.

between the bars

there's something poetic in the way that life manages to twist us around. when we feel like things are all figured out, we always get put in our place. we know nothing.

it's the universe. it's god. it's all those things.

we can't pretend to understand why things happen when they do.

"no one sets out to be a great man. just be a man, and let history decide"

what else can you do?

post plethoric rhetoric

i rejoin the ranks of the unemployed with a new look.

comments to come.

the moon is a harsh mistress

there are certain things i've come to take for granted.

i'm going to wake up tomorrow morning.
there will be orange juice, soya milk (and for some reason recently, yop) in my fridge.

maybe it's a stretch to expect myself to take every breath as a blessing. maybe i don't know how to be anything but jaded about cliches like that, and don't (or can't) react to them practically.

alls i know is that there's no reason i should be here. no good reason at least. and yet i am.

there are some days where i go my whole waking hours without once thinking of God. about why i woke up, about why i drank that glass of oj, about why i'm going to work, or reading a book. there are entire chunks of time where i just exist.

often i wonder if that makes me a bad christian. after all, i'm not living for God. not passionately furthering His kingdom. not running the good race, or fighting the good fight. sometimes i wonder if the fact that at times i'm so content just drinking a cup of coffee that God is just shrugging his shoulders unsure of what to do with me -- kind of like rob babcock, overseeing a basketball team.

am i going to be one of those dudes that shows up in front of God and he says "who the hell are you?"

is only knowing what not to do good enough? should i know what i am suppose to be doing?

but i always end up with that sinking feeling where no matter how much i screw up, God still loves me. that's what the bible says. that's what the church says. God will love me no matter what.

i hate that about God. like, seriously. i mean, i get mad at God. i get frustrated, i get pissed. but come on. how mad can you really get at a guy who in the back of your mind you know 100% loves you all the time?

it's so frustrating.

you know that sickly feeling you get while watching the Ernest movies, or inspector gadget, where with baited breath and non-diagetic information you painfully watch the bumbling hero?

that's how i feel sometimes about my life. just one fortunate happenstance after another to such an extent that i cannot even fathom how lucky i am.

not to say that's a bad thing. not everything has gone my way. and there's lots to come that i'm probably going to regret (there's a healthy attitude eh?). but i know that on days where i wake up with a basket full of lemons, God's always there to help me make lemonade.

even if sometimes i want to kill him for it.

is that blasphemy? god i'm screwed.

christ, i cursed.

fudgscicles.

rise up with fists

canadians are a wacky bunch.

we're terrifically demanding and highly critical, and yet characteristically disposed to not getting involved. we love to say. we hate to do.

win more medals. don't whine about carrying the flag.
dominate world hockey. don't run up the scores.

what do people expect? that we crush everyone in the world with grace? that we pick a comfortable and non-offensive margin of victory and simply try and maintain it?

it doesn't take an army of sports psychologists to figure out the reason canadians tend to choke in the crunch: we're afraid to be cocky. we lack arrogance. confidance. the swager that all the best have when rising to a challenge. the belief that we are better than you.

we're not winners. we're gracious losers. and until we realize that, until we stop being sorry for who we are, we'll continue to be just that. losers.

conversely, antagonizing our best when they do perform does nothing to remedy this situation.

******

in completely unrelated news, all the talk on the forum, and the recent passing of valentines day have gotten me on the subject of dating. and i've come to a staggering conclusion regarding how women view the concept of dating.

now, maybe i'm wrong, me being a mere man and all, but allow me to theorize about that mysterious planet venus you all live on for one moment, while at the same time explaing to girls the thrill of........the NBA draft.

yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen. dating for girls, and the NBA draft, are essentially the exact same game. thrilling, dissapointing, and ultimately, hit or miss and full of would have, could have, should have.

what do teams look for in potential draft picks? coachability, athleticism, work ethic, fundementals, background, experience, and perhaps most importantly -- upside.

similarly, we can break down the way girls approach men with a parllel set of catagories.

they seek the exact same quantifiable qualities -- coachability, athleticism, work ethic, fundementals, background, experience, and most importantly......UPSIDE.

sure. as that bitter asian guy site notes, girls COULD go out with the perfectly decent and providing asian engineer who has a good career and stable lifestyle.

but why do that when you could go out with the more attractive guy who -- though kind of a slacker right now -- has the potential (with your guidance naturally) to be so much more. to be smart, providing, an excellent listener, AND better looking, funnier, more adept at sports and various artistic endeavours. the whole damn package. and you can make it happen if you could just work on him.

sure, at first this idea sounds retarded. you can't shape a guy. you can't turn him into something if he naturally is not inclined for it. but this is what NBA teams do all the time.

it's the safe bet versus the gamble.

it's darko vs. melo

and every pick in the draft is made for a reason. just like every girl chooses a guy for a reason.

josh smith is the quintessential guy that girls gravitate to -- you can't be sure, but you just KNOW there's got to be something great in there. look at all that potential! he's smart but doesn't try in school. he's ludicrously well rounded but doesn't have the work ethic. he's pretty good already, but he could be so much better..... and boy is he fun to watch.

tim duncan is the all-around med student who everyone loves but is inherently boring. marry him and you won't be dissapointed, although life will be utterly predictable. boring, but ultimately, always for the best.

lebron is the phenom that comes around once every 100 years. marry him and you're probably the luckiest girl alive. he's tom brady with a PhD and gourmet catering company.

gilbert arenas is like the nerd who eventually becomes rich and suddenly hey -- turns out he's not so bad looking after all to boot.

so as we can see, girls view guys much like GM's view basketball players.

playing the game of life is not much different from drafting for an NBA team. you have to scout. you have to understand the game, and understand what your team needs. it's a dangerous game.

for every kevin garnet there's a jonathan bender. yet no team wins a championship with a lineup full of patt garrity's.

and perhaps most of all ladies, if there's one thing we've learned?

always. always take the best player available.

worms

brazilian bobsled doper

wow. that must be embarrassing on so many levels.

i'm curious -- is it just natural that gay guys go into careers like fashion and interior design, or do guys go into those careers and figure "well, i must be gay"?

also, i keep forgetting, but our favourite ming has started his own little corner of the web. it's not quite a blog, he tends to like to review stuff. as such, your personally and friends have been recruited to help him be judgmental.

www.robotichighfive.com

the fix

a lot of times, we lose sight of the big picture. i'm worried that i didn't dress warmly enough today, and almost missed the fact that the falling snow is absolutely gorgeous.

it's easy to get so immersed and focused on what we have right in front of us that we simply forget how expansive our lives are. yes, there are the small things we often miss -- yet on the other hand, there are also so many things outside of our immediate field of vision that we so often take for granted.

why do we love to limit ourselves? to paint ourselves into these little boxes and assume this box is where my life begins and ends?

it's so cliche, but everyday i feel the need to remind myself what my priorities are. to look beyond my little box and realize that there's more going on out there than just the things right in front of me.

we are so easily distracted. passion brings about focus.

what brings about passion?

the game needed me

Implicit Association Test

it's interesting how stereotypes come to be. i would never deny that due to cultural stigma, due to media coverage, due to social acquiescence i have been programmed to think and feel a certain way.

but when we really explore how deep these stereotypes are buried, how hard they are to ignore despite our best efforts, it becomes not just interesting, but borderline disturbing.

when you realize with horror that you're having a hard time answering the questions all of a sudden, you can't stop yourself. you keep making mistakes. you can't change it. it's such a surreal feeling.

the crazy thing is, getting a "preference for white people" in an IAT doesn't mean you're a biggot -- it means you're aware of the world around you.

there is no discrimination when it comes to cultural bombardment. challenge yourself.

only this moment

i have rediscovered a passion.

television.

it's odd how i just stopped watching tv outside of sports for the longest time, but i can't help but notice that there has been a gradual paradigm shift in the landscape of television shows, emphasising story telling over characters. things are cyclical, but i must say i find the recent wave of shows to be much more worth my time than say, friends reruns or new episodes of joey.

it's pretty clear that the sitcom has passed away. from what i can see, the best shows on tv are all one hour long. hell, even scrubs is an hour. it just seems people have realized that the amount of involvement that can be imbued on a one hour tale is worth more than twice the timeslot. good on them.

i also find that the shows i'm most interested in are all the satirical and darkly witty ones. the shows that are self-depreciating but only so far as life itself is.

well, except for project runway. that's an awesome show, but purely because of the competition and the fact that fashion designers were genetically programmed to be enjoyable characters to watch on tv.

showtime seems to have cornered the market on jaded and compelling underdog female characters that you love to root for. i can't stop watching dead like me, and weeds.

honestly, most everything that's good has already been done. even scrubs is sort of just my new version of undergrads, which in turn was sort of my new version of growing pains meets saved by the bell meets the wonder years.

but weeds....is original. it's outrageous, but real enough that you believe the characters, because they're so...human. also, the premise is awesome. they couldn't have screwed this show up if they tried, but as it is.....best....show.....ever.

i hear lost and battlestar galactica are good too, but there probably isn't enough sexual content in those shows to keep me interested. for example, it helps that the main character in weeds is ridiculously good looking. she plays a mother of two, but who cares. yummmm

yea, i said it. what? what?

this land flows with milk

i should really start sleeping earlier even when i don't have to work. it can't be healthy.

sitting in service this morning, though i was barely awake, i realized how grateful i am that we finally have a pastor again. sure, he may be a bit of a nerd, and kind of likes to draw out those sermon points, but you can tell he cares. and that's more important than all that other stuff put together.

i hope as a church we don't take him for granted, and we should each make him feel appreciated every chance we get. it's the little things that count not just in being a pastor, but in keeping one.

ironically, i suppose that could be said of all relationships. my heads been a mess.

actually, that's not true. my head's in the right place. it's more my heart that won't listen.

completely unrelated, but that whole china rising special on cbc creeps me out. maybe it's just me, but am i the only chinese dude who like, isn't eager to fawn all over china? wow look at how developed they are! look at the difficult struggle of a nation as it tries to balance modern civilization with thousands of years of culture and history! oh the growing pains!

yes yes, it's all very interesting. does it bother no one that china is evolving not like a normal industrialized country, but more like a cyborg developed in a lab to crush it's opponents? it's just not natural.

if china were a boxer, it'd be Ivan Drago. and despite all his fancy shmancy adjustable tread mill running montage scenes and punch-o-meter off the chart recordings, we all know what happened to Ivan Drago.

no HEART!

adriaaaaaaannnnee! yo addriaaaanneeee!

loop duplicate my heart

i've always wondered -- is it more efficient to slowly climb stairs two at a time, or at a more moderate pace but one stair at a time? in my personal experimentation, it seems slowly two at a time appears marginally faster, although i'm not sure which technique is more tiring. they seem about the same. do any of you doctors or pt students study this kind of stuff? write a paper on it, i'll read it.

speaking of simple excercise, is working out cumulative? meaning would i get the same results doing one pushup an hour for 10 hours as i would for doing 10 pushups in a row? i read somewhere that it's the same, but i am skeptical. the internet is full of lies. like that time i read that one of the worlds most notorious terrorist groups won a democratically elected majority in palestine.

what? that's true? oh. well, ain't life a bitch.

i'm sure the irony of the situation is not lost on our friends to the south. you couldn't have written a better story for the West Wing.

way to go jimmy carter. way to go.

not to beat a dead horse, but can you imagine what's going on in isreal right now? they must be wetting themselves left and right. i'd like to be a fly on the wall in one of those defence meetings.

"is sharon still sleeping?"
"i think he blinked yesterdy. it was on CNN"
"what're we going to do? we officially have a nation of walking time bombs now"
"lets just stop all our public transit services, and close all open street markets. then they won't know what to bomb"
"won't they just target other public places?"
"no, i bet they're too cheap to bomb places that aren't cheap or free to access. i mean, we bulldozed their houses. they can't have too much expendible income saved up"

"....wanna go to starbucks?"
"yea, it's the only place i feel safe nowadays...."

recommendation

CBC - Canada Votes 2006

i suppose i would be remiss if i did not say something about our new prime minister, mr. stephen harper.

he is creepy looking.

that's about all i got. to be honest, i think most people saw a conservative minority coming with the last few polls before the election, and things played out pretty much as expected, albeit with the distribution of seats taken a little bit surprising (quebec angry. quebec smash!)

personally, i always had said this would be the ideal result. i predict this government will last roughly 19 months, at which point we will have yet another election, resulting in on overwhelming liberal majority government.

after all. history is cyclical.

i think it's funny that alberta is as dedicated to the tories as immigrants are to the liberals. i may not be an expert, but i'm willing to bet most people in alberta hate ontario. i also am going to wager that if asked why, the vast majority would have no answer asides from "ottawa likes ontario more".

which -- in actuallity, is like saying you believe in God because your parents told you to.

hello rain

ESPN.com - NBA - Recap - Raptors at Lakers

when kobe outscored the mavs solo through three quarters a few weeks back, i think everyone had that little tingle in the back of their minds. what if he hadn't sat the fourth? he was on pace for 80 for god's sake, would that have been possible? would he have made it?

alas, it simply became more fodder and speculation for the talk radio shows.

now there's nothing to wonder about.

81 points.

against the raps last night, kobe dropped 81 in 42 minutes, tallying the second highest total in NBA history. yes, really -- since dr. naismith invented basketball using peach baskets in a Canadian Heritage commercial.

if the stats themselves don't floor you (81 points on 28-46 shots, with 7 treys while going 18-20 from the line) then watch this game again on ESPN classic -- they could replay it tomorrow and it would be fitting -- and notice the manner in which kobe performed during his record breaking 42 minutes.

this was not just a perfect storm of circumstances. sure, the raptors aren't a great team, but they aren't exactly pylons either. it's not as if kobe was just throwing it up, sinking them, then laughing and shrugging his shoulders as if in some sort of magically annointed trance. no, he did this conciously, and the scary part is that he did it with relative ease.

the dallas game and his league leading scoring average only further the evidence that this performance confirms what that mavs game had us wondering but not truly considering -- could it be that.....this isn't simply the case of a player getting ridiculously hot? are we finally just seeing what he knew all along but we refused to believe? are we simply just witnessing kobe in his prime?

watching last nights game, you got the impression that number 8 could go out and do this every single night if he wanted. it was no fluke that he scored 81, every point was earned. and that's frightening.

not long ago, kobe was in the same league as OJ and Michael Jackson -- crazy ecentric rich black guy.

but in 42 minutes, kobe managed to turn himself into a living legend. the way that people now talk about oscar robertson, jerry west, wilt, kareem, and yes -- michael jordan, is how people will now one day remember kobe.

tomorrow kids in playgrounds everywhere will be pretending they're kobe, fading away and raining jimmy's on their friends all over the world. when i'm old, i'll still be able to say to my grandkids "i remember watching that game kobe dropped 81 on our asses, back when toronto had a team".

and i'll tell them about how it looked like he was a video game with a cheat code on, driving at will, pulling up and hitting seemingly every shot he took from anywhere on the court. drawing fouls, breaking down double teams and shrugging off collapsing defenses as if they were school girls trying to tickle him.

do i like kobe? no. actually i hate him as a player. but what he did last night was nothing short of epic. and just in time for his new signature shoes to come out.

most will say that this won't be the last legend written in kobe's storybook career. but it was the first. and anytime you get to witness that unfold -- it transforms from just being a game, into something magical.

in other news, the sixers beat the timberwolves at the buzzer last night on a game winning shot by andre iguodala. the final score?

86-84.

die

sometimes the songs i'm listening to don't really fit the mood of what the hell i'm ranting about, but this time it kind of does......

very few things in life bother me as much as ignorance in people. go ahead and be wrong -- just don't be ignorant. can't stand it.

once again the star's "speak out" section has provided a buffet of stupidity served up by our fair cities very own. i can't believe people would post things like this for the world to see -- it's like painting a giant sign on yourself that labels you as a moron.

I don’t think representing Canada and being asked to carry the flag should be considered a burden. Not with all of the various sponsors some of these athletes have.
Rodney Inches, Brampton, Jan. 19

Disgusting! To turn down the honour of carrying the colours of Canada at the Olympic Games is an insult to our great nation.
Jonathan Lieberman, Markham, Jan. 19

i think these pretty much speak for themselves. when's the last time you personally supported an olympic athelete? when's the last time you made it to the olympics to perform at the highest level of athletics? ok then, so just shutup. no wonder the best canadians so often won't represent our country -- this kind of unappreciative, ungrateful attitude of entitlement. so..angry.....

sometimes i just want to track people down in real life and stab them with a spoon.....

Ageing Has Never Been His Friend

gotta love MLK day. nothing like an afternoon full of NBA games to help the work day pass easier. fantasy baketball at 3pm on a monday. the only that better would be if i was at home watching. maybe i can catch the end of the Nets game if i run from the subway.....

speaking of which, eddie griffin is like my borderline-vegetable state stepchild -- he's just taking up space, but every once in a while he does something that makes me want to hold him tight, and so even through the hard times (95% of the time infact) where he's a pile of uselessness, i just can't bear to throw him away.

i've been working in the office for just over a month and a bit now, and something i've grown quite fond of is the little games i've invented in order to keep myself amused. one particular game that i'm getting good at is "match the shoes". so everytime i'm in the washroom and someone is taking a dump, i like to notice what shoes they're wearing, then later when i'm walking around the office i like to find those shoes so i know who's given birth to some brown babies that morning.

is it stalking? sure, maybe, call it whatever you want. but man, i'll tell you, when you finally find the proud owner of those wine coloured penny loafers, it just makes you want to yell "bingo"!

or something like that anyways....

that thing you do

you know what? i find i'm strangely obsessed with cheesy movies.

i mean, i wouldn't say they're my favourite movies. but i just can't not watch them if they're on tv. or sports movies. i've never seen a sports movie i didn't enjoy. i even liked airbud -- although i haven't seen the sequels.

that thing you do is on the womens television network. i don't know why....but man, i love this movie. and don't even get me started about josie and the pussy cats.....

i wish i was a rock star.

blindfolds aside

NBC.com > Late Night with Conan O'Brien

heeeeey.....conan introduced a new character to the show this year. an evil puppy. which is just a cute little puppy on a throne of darkenss with carmina burana blaring.

you know what? IT'S BEEN DONE! BY JESUS AND FRIENDS PRODUCTIONS!

they stole our idea!! i have the tape to prove it still.....

badminton raquet of justice!

a fond farewell

my mp3 player magically works again! a very pleasant surprise, as its original magical unworking originally had me in commuter hell. the subway is a boring place, made all the more boring by a lack of tunes.

operation leave-phone-number-with-a-random-hot-girl-on-the-subway grows closer to fruition everytime i see a hot girl on the train. it really makes you think about how short life is, and i tell myself "man, what's one more restraining order....?"

anyhoo....

i'm looking forward to helping out karen and vick and them with their worship night thingy. i haven't done a praise night in over a year now and i miss playing and worshipping and just having a great time. i mean worship team is awesome and all but it's nice to worship communally without time restraints and worrying about what people are going to say to you afterwards if you embellish a bit too much. just......play.

still haven't named my baby. i was going to call her danielle, but that idea was shot down rather coarsely. you know what's a stupid name? anything that starts with a 'C' and rhymes with "hammie"

center

you simply said to me:

focus

and i knew i was in trouble.

making something out of nothing, losing ground that took so long to fight for. and in spite of it all, i have to concede the i need to be humble. who am i to argue?

i've felt such a disconnect the last few months. just, this overwhelming....numbness, to all that i wish i cared about, and know that i need to accomplish. all that i am being called to.

it's nice to have friends who really know what's best for you. it's a blessing afforded to me that i often take for granted.

my new baby. she likes the fresh snow.

the magnetic board on my desk has been tainted. you know how i know you're gay? you play with magnetic poetry....

Toronto owed 6.6 billion

i read this article at thestar, and i noticed that Glen Grunwald is the president of the Toronto Board of Trade. really? i mean, i know that the board is really just a fancy country club for the urban power elite, but i mean....really? the guy we have speaking up for our city is the same guy that signed Hakeem Olajuwon?

that's scary.

how great

Howstuffworks "How does the light gun for a video game work?"

Lots of home video games and arcade games use some sort of gun as an input device. You point the gun at the screen and pull the trigger, and if you hit the target on the screen, the target explodes.

To create this effect, the gun contains a photodiode (or a phototransistor) in the barrel. The photodiode is able to sense light coming from the screen. The gun also contains a trigger switch. The output of the photodiode and the switch are fed to the computer controlling the game.

At the same time, the computer is getting signals from the screen driver electronics. If you have read How Television Works, you know about the horizontal retrace and vertical retrace signals used to align the picture on the screen. The screen driver electronics send pulses to the computer at the start of the horizontal and vertical retrace signals, so the computer knows where on the screen the electron beam is located during each frame.

The computer normally uses one of two different techniques to figure out whether or not the gun is pointed at the target when the user pulls the trigger:

* The computer blanks the screen and then paints just the target object white. If the photodiode senses darkness after one vertical retrace signal and then light after the next, the computer assumes that the gun is pointed at the target and scores a hit.

* The computer blanks the screen and then paints the entire screen white. It takes time for the electron beam to trace the entire screen while painting it white. By comparing the signal coming from the photodiode with the horizontal and vertical retrace signals, the computer can detect where the electron beam is on the screen when the photodiode first senses its light. The computer counts the number of microseconds that pass between the time the horizontal and vertical retrace signals start and the time the photodiode first senses light. The number of microseconds tells the computer exactly where on the screen the gun is pointing. If the calculated position and the position of the target match, the computer scores a hit.

clickity clack go the keys and the mice

i haven't eaten lunch today expecting to go home early. i....am still here. i guess there's something to be said for fasting. in my now empty stomached state, i wonder if there's anyone out there that really knows what they want out of this crazy life.

Robotic High Five?

well, because the deadline has come and gone, i am sadly relegated to posting my little list here. enjoy it for the 20hours it is still relevant.

TOP FIVE O' OH FIVE

[1] [bloc party - silent alarm]

what do you say when people ask you “what kind of music do you listen to?”. don’t you hate being painted into a corner like that? if you say indie, you seem like a snob. if you say everything, you seem like you have no personality. and if you say rock….well…what does that even mean anymore? rock is nothing if not a fragmented beast right now, but along comes bloc party to answer the bell. they may not be metal, they’re not very heavy — but one listen and it’s all but assured you’ll nod and recognize real rock as ’silent alarm’ comes along and kicks you in the balls. with one of the best rhythm sections around today, clever writing and raw energy are rampant in every song as everyone tries to keep up with the maniacal machine gun drumming. sure, half the lyrics may be indescipherable, but who cares? did you hear that drum solo? did you shred air guitar with that riff? did you scream your lungs out during that bridge?

yea. that’s what i thought.

[2] [the triangles - magic johnson]

i don’t remember where, but i think somewhere in the guidebook to being an indie music snob it mentions the prerequisites for a great album…..

ah, here it is! “must be pretentious and challenging to listen to, and be ahead of the mainstream sound by at least year. defintions of music shall not necessarily be bogged down by things such as melodies and hooks”. ah, yes. you can tell a true indie-snob by how much they hate pitchfork. anyone who likes pitchfork is SUCH a poseur! anyways, who are the triangles you ask? that’s what i asked when i first heard this album. but boy, that question sure seemed irrelevant quickly. this album is easily the sweetest of the year, with classic male/female dueling vocals that drip of meloncholy yet sugary goodness. drawing from their australian surroundings and ragtag frankensteinian instrumentals (think fellow aussie octet architecture in helsinki), the triangles simply write songs that worm their way into your heart. amazing harmonies and some borrowed riffs from old christian hymns come together to create something not necessarily new — but definitely something gorgeous.

[3] [wolf parade - apologies to the queen mary]

“they sound like modest mouse”. that seems to be the general consensus of anyone i’ve played this album for. and of course, they mean that in the best possible way — after all, modest mouse blew up this year (by indie standards) and even made the cut by joining deathcab and the killers as staples on the OC soundtrack. how quickly our little bands grow up *sniff*. but despite some lilting vocals, perhaps the only other thing modest mouse and wolf parade share are the inate ability to write a perfect melody — and even more impressive, wolf parade boasts two guys who can do it, and take turns doing it over and over on this masterpiece. at first it may sound like another cliched canadian indie-pop/rock album, but further listening reveals an album that works together as a whole, with textures and song-writing that will blow you away. if this is a sign of things to come, wolf parade might just end up being bigger than christmukah. and catchier too.

[4] [why - elephant eyes]

it’s hard these days to find music that isn’t “like so-and-so, but with a mix of yadda-yadda”. music that can be considered original, creative, and yet not so challenging that you want to go put your head in a toilet just from trying to listen to it. Rapper Why has accomplished something that not too many other MC’s can lay claim to — he has crafted a brilliant indie-pop album. is it rap? yea, i guess. is it pop? yes. is it jangly folk-rock? you betcha. so what does it sound like? that much i can’t really describe. and all for the best, because with lyrical gems like “i’m fucking cold like a dq blizzard/you act like a slut but you’re really a freezer” half the beauty of this album is discovering every little detail on your own for the first time.

[5] [common - be]

common has always been like the cool friend that you want to hang around with. you know, the one that you would dress like a carebear for if he did it first. his last album being a bit hit-or-miss, common has come back with a vengence on a wave of cross-genre pop magic conjured up by his fellow chicago mc and collaborator/producer Kanye West. Cuts like “the corner” and “go” are literally instant classics, put together with a concious meticulousness to the art of hip-hop. recalling jazzanova rhythms and 70’s beats, “be” is an album even non-hip hop fans can get into — a classic Kanye trademark. Not to say that Kanye is what makes this album great. But when you add two guys as talented as this together, what you end up with is an album that’s greater than the sum of its parts. and that’s pretty darn tough to top.

now that i know

boxing day shooting

this is sad on so many levels.

if nothing has made you want to take accountability for your city -- to pray for toronto, to help your neighbour, to pull together for our community -- then this should be it.

this needs to stop. and it starts with each and every one of us.

the sounds of the office

why do people hate todd bertuzzi?

everyone's up in arms over the fact that he accidently fell on someone. and lets be clear on this -- did he intend to hurt steve moore? probbaly. did he intened to end his career? of course not! he probably didn't even intend for him to miss a single game. that's just how hockey is. you go after people all the time.

i don't understand how someone who claps after a hockey fight can say they don't support todd bertuzzi. and for those who want to ban fighting from hockey.....well....you're stupid. even baseball has fighting every once in a while, and everyone just sees those bench clearing brawls on ESPN every so often and says "hehheh, that's awesome!". hypocrites.

i don't get how a country that doesn't support capital punishment, believes in a reformative system of incarceration, and protects their criminals as citizens and people, can judge one man so harshly for one mistake.

people make mistakes. surprise! the next guy who says "i won't support canada because they selected todd bertuzzi" should look in the mirror. should their friends support them for stabbing them in the back? for not standing up to them? for taking the easy way out? lying to them?

if this were biblical days, bert would have been stoned to death a hundred times over by now. and we all know how jesus felt about stoning.....

your grace is enough

blogging at work makes me feel like i'm getting away with slacking.

then i realise that if i'm not blogging, i'm on the message board anyways, so really, there's no tangible difference. so away we go.

i've had some (i wouldn't say hard), but at the very least, thought provoking choices to make of late. i like to believe that i'm making the right decisions, and not trying to cheat the system by martyring myself. i can't fully say i completely believe this is the case, but i'm trying to figure things out as i go.

sad as it seems, i'm still reading jeremiah. i've been reading this book for like, the past 2 months. well, mainly because when i say i've been reading it, i mean i've been reading it once every 6-8 days, hahaha

but anyways, it never fails to amaze me how faithful God has always been. even in the face of an ignorant chosen people, even when his anger is burning and he has come to witts end, he always gives us the option of setting things straight with him.

and that's reassuring, you know? i think one of the hardest parts for me lately hasn't just been trying to do the right thing, but moreso trying not to do the wrong thing. and you just can't live that way. i mean, sometimes you just gotta go with it, and if you screw up, well -- lesson learned.

after a while, i figure i'll have failed enough to be able to see it coming.

or maybe not. maybe this is just the way things are, and growing means learning to live unafraid of our own flawed nature.

but hey -- there's always a choice. everyday is a choice...

let us love and sing and wonder

i like the soft fluffy snow. not the wet kind. even when it's coming down like the world is about to end, soft fluffy snow gives me this serene, comfortable feeling.

it's crazy how caught up with shopping people get this time of year. it makes even the strongest people feel weak at the knees with the urge to consume consume consume. all those sales signs, holiday offers, advertisements, the thrill of the bargain hunt -- it's enough to drive a guy into the trees.

i've decided i'm not going to do any boxing day shopping this year. i'm just tired of it. i'm so tired of that feeling of wanting.

luckily, all this snow has me in a festive mood, and i have tomorrow off. precious precious sleep, how i havemissed thee. i like how people are generally more chipper during the holidays. well, when they're not in the mall. once they're in the mall it's every man, woman, and child for themselves.

but at the office and stuff, everyone just seems so excited -- so childlike-- about the whole thing. i guess at heart, everyone has a soft spot for christmas.

except jews.

but that's ok, they actually get the best of both worlds, so i'm sure there's no complaints there. this got real random real fast....

i am your valley

have no fear, i am in fact still alive.

my extended absence from the online has been a product of equal parts apathy and dullness.

working a 9-5 job is....well....not terribly exciting. i mean, i can honestly say it's pretty enjoyable because of the great friends and co-workers there, and i know i'm lucky to be able to say that much.

at the same time, it's nothing to really write home about in terms of how i've been spending my time. i mean, really. i'm just.....working.

i have made a few observations however from my unique vantage point about this whole working experience. it has offered me a glimpse into a world that i previously had no knowledge of, but feared. naturally, my fears have all been confirmed, hahaha

the morning commute is something that truly straddles the line between hillarious and depressing. the morning stares are all around as people on the subway can pretty much all be lumped into 4 groups -- there are the readers (the metro, books, newspapers, whatever they can get their hands on), the sleepers, the morning zombies, and then there are the awkward eye-contact avoiders who are stuck in morning commute limbo -- they have no book, usually can't sleep because they're standing, and will read every ad in the train before trying to find somewhere safe to look at without staring at another person.

also, my cubicle directly faces the washrooms. this provides an entirely different vantage point for the quirkiness of the office envronment.

anyways, more to come. i was spurred to blog by a few people, but i've decided to come out with the light stuff instead of diving into the deeper workings of my brain lately.

almost christmas! i can't wait until they start showing charlie brown on tv. dum di dum dum dum dum dummmm dum, dum di dum dum dum dum dummmmm dum, dummmmm dummmmmmmmMMMMMM!!!!!!

(i'm doing my little peanuts-quick-foot shuffling dance as i type)

yuma az

for some strange and unexplainable reason, my body has been popping up uncomfortably early for an entire week or so now. and by early, i mean around 6:30am. it's quite perplexing.

at the same time however, it's also been quite nice. watching the sunrise in the mornings, getting lots of reading done, enjoying a nice coffee in the morning and brunch while getting all my errands done before late afternoon hits. it's refreshing, this being awake-during-the-day business. i feel more productive.

that may have to do with the fact however that all this time has made me.....well....more productive. i'm whittling down my to-do list quickly every day, and i'm enjoying every morning.

i think i'm officially addicted to coffee. on tuesday i had 4 cups.

before lunch.

i really can't get going without a cup in the morning it seems, and all this waking up early has resulted in a pattern of unavoidable early afternoon naps. i wonder if things will get worse when i actually start having to like.....do stuff....when i wake up. man that sounds tiring. i don't know how people live employed, running a morning routine. it's my darkest nightmare.

the downside of all the pretty snow outside is that as usual, my parents have decided to try and freeze me into submission. living in the basements has it's cons, and having to wear mittins when i watch tv is probably one of the biggest ones.

i feel like a hobo.

except without an oil-drum fire.
i've always wanted to huddle around a flaming oil-drum.

center

it's pretty special waking up in the morning to a world of freshly fallen snow.

it makes the world seem new again. it reminds me of so many things -- christmas, calvin and hobbes, uh....christmas.

sure, the realization that i'm going to have to trek through it at some point slowly dawns on me, and i realize i should probably buy some socks that don't have holes in them now that my feet are going to be cold and wet.

but hey! it's the first (real) snow of winter! who can complain? it's so nice and.....wintery

so many things to be thankful for amidst all the confusion.

sometimes we gotta stop trying to figure out what's going to happen and just trust that things will happen by themselves for the best.

and everyday is a fresh start. free from sin, free from guilt, free from mistakes. we're FREE.

praise the Lord.

buick to the moon

sometimes i struggle with the idea of grace.

nothing of value comes without being earned

it seems difficult for me at times to reconcile the idea of unconditional love and mercy, with the fact that i can't just rest on my laurels. that i have to earn everything i'm going to get out of life -- except life itself.

it seems like such a catch-22.

if i'm going to run the race -- to put in the hard work, discipline and effort required of me by God, then is it really.....a gift?

i'm having a hard time seeing the bigger picture. accepting the fact that what's going on here -- now -- isn't what's important at all.

sometimes it's hard to trust

and yet faith is all we have. faith in what you have experienced. faith in what you know to be true. faith in what you feel, and what you know.

all we have is faith.

faith in yourself. faith in others. faith in God.

what more is life but a test of faith?

i hope as i continue to grow, i can learn what it really means to be faithful. because it's as exciting as its ever going to be right now. everything i may be going through, i mean.

it's hard.

but it's fair.

in a radio song

.....but wait, there's more!

sometimes i like to stay up late and just watch informercials. it's pretty amazing what people are trying to sell. i assume that the target demographic of insomniacs and stoners are easily parted with money.

like that sauna belt that makes your abs sweaty? are you for real? i could do that by putting a few sweaters on and going for a jog up and down my stairs. i particularly love how in weight loss informercials they always have the before picture magically transform into a thinner after picture. including better hair, makeup and lighting.

amazing!

there are however a few infomercials things that i actually do want, even though i have no use for them. in these cases the product actually seems really cool, only because the show did a good job of selling.

like, a little giant ladder, hahahaha

i saw this thing with herb originally when we were still in school, and i still want one to this day. what do i need a ladder for? nothing really. but boy would it be useful if i ever did need a ladder one day.

i also kind of like the drill doctor. not that dull drill bits is a huge problem for me. but at least i can assure myself that they never will be.

for FOUR EASY PAYMENTS OF 39.99!

always

the continuing adventures of sherman and teresa.

so as some of you may or may not know, this entire week has basically been spent getting our house organized after the renovations. essentially we are doing a room a day.

i started with my bedroom, then the living room, dining room, and today my dad wanted to conquer the garage.

this was no small feat, as it was a mess of not just our stuff, but leftover junk from the previous owners, as well as all the crap that the contractors had left behind when they finished renovating.

towards the end, when we had finally organized everything, sorted through it, and thrown out what we didn't want, we were impressed with how much work we got done.

so, he started cleaning the floor. like, as if he was planning to live in the garage.

have you ever seen that episode of tiny toons where hampton is in the woods with a dustbuster trying to vacuum all the dirt from nature?

yea, something like that. he managed to fill a garbage bag purely with dust.

i asked him why he didn't just sweep it all outside, where it'll just blend in with all the other dust in the world.

his reply was to hand me a broom.

your hand in mine

extreme home makeover makes me feel all warm and fuzzy everytime.

i can't think of another television show that so regularly makes me want to just grab someone and hug them.

if only all television shows could be about helping people in need, we'd all be better off for sharing in people's joy instead of laughing at their misery.

hunted by a freak

even moving from one room to another in the same house, i find i am confronted by the fact that i'm eventually going to have to throw a lot of stuff away. i just don't have room.

there's a lot of stuff i hold onto for sentimental value, but in reality i know i've got no reason to keep, and that i've (mostly) outgrown.

like my hockey card collection. i don't know why i still have it, but part of me is so hesitant to throw it out. it seems like such a waste.

or my box full of EGM's. like, literally 50 odd editions. i don't know why, but i keep convincing myself to keep them in the corner for camp value. who knows? maybe they'll be a conversation piece one day?

or old books. you know you're a packrat when your copy of hobbes' leviathan is next to a bunch of garfield and family circus collections. hell, i don't even like family circus.

lets have a moment of silence for my marvel cards, coin collection and baseball signed by the 1994 blue jays.

we grow up so fast.

alive in this moment

i keep telling myself i will be asleep come 4am tomorrow morning.

and yet here i am, awake yet again. this has to stop.

i've been realizing how much i really need to learn how to love.

i feel like i'm generally a pretty good guy, but when it comes to love, its like a foreign concept to me sometimes.

i'll do things because i'm responsible, or obligated, or because it's the right thing to do. i will be a good friend, i will do the right things. but when it gets down to the nitty gritty details, i just don't think i cut it when it comes to relationships with people. i don't show much love in actions, in words...i dunno. it just doesn't seem like something that comes naturally of me.

i can take care of people, but i'm not sure i have the slightest idea what it means to love them.

conversely, i think the hardest thing in the world at the moment is just ltaking care of myself, let alone learning to love myself.

it seems like i'm always kicking myself, or beating myself up for so much of my problems, and the struggles that i'm going through. as if i deserve nothing but the bad, and totally am not worthy of being blessed by God when it happens (and it happens often).

why? why can't i just be grateful, or appreciative, or humbled by love? why must i be so damn cynical? so judgmental?

and i want so bad to be able to give it all up. i wish at the end of every day that i had given more up to God. that i had trusted more, that i had just stopped trying to take things into my own control. to let go of everything i'm holding onto dearly -- to allow myself to be broken.

i want all the benefits without putting in the effort, or the time. and i hate myself for it.

i mean, the truth is, i'm not in a terrible situation. i'm unemployed, but i've had plenty of chances to work. i'm fed, i'm clothed, i have all the creature comforts and doo-dads a guy could ask for. in short, i'm living the life.

but -- and this isn't a recent realization -- this just isn't what i want.

the reason the past little while has been the hardest period i think i've been through since first andsecond year, is because i feel like i did in second year. i feel like i'm disonnected from God.

i can't worship, i can't pray, i can't bring myself to listen or follow or trust or love.

i don't know who i am anymore.

i keep saying the words "it's going to be ok".

and i know that sometimes, we have to go through trials, and He never gives us more than we can handle. but sometimes it feels like i've already reached that point. where'd i want to just concede how much easier and happier i'd be if i wasn't spending my time trying to please a God i can't seem to know, or see, or hear or reach. of trying to satsify these expectations and standards -- or setting this bar for myself that i will never reach.

i want to say it can't be done, and live my life ignoring it because if i could just do that, i'd have money, and friends, and a nice car, and i'd be so much happier.

but i can't. i just can't, because i know the truth. i know i won't feel complete. i know slowly a hole will grow in my heart that will gnaw away at my insides until i feel as if i am completely hollow inside -- devoid of humanity, purpose, meaning or life itself.

and i know where the only place i can turn to fill that hole is.

and despite my failures. despite my struggle, despite the fact that right now there really isn't a light at the end of the tunnel....i just have to keep on going. because i know that it's worth it. i know in that moment when things become clear, and God says "hey -- you did good". and in that moment, i will realize again that i.....am loved. that someone loves me so much more than i deserve, with a love that is so much greater than i can wrap my head around.

and not only that i am loved, but that i am deservedly loved.

and i know i'm not just going to be able to say it, but i'll be able to believe it again -- at some point.

and there will be no dark days, no long nights, no self-doubting moments that can ever overshadow that knowledge.

because despite it's intangible nature, that moment will be more real than the very computer i'm typing this on, or the desk that supports it. and all i can do until i get there, is try to be the best me i can be, even of in the meantime that seems like not a very great person.

but there's a reason. there's a plan.

and my only goal right now is to see that plan through to the end, no matter how hard it is.

don't save us from the flames

man, what happened to halloween?

my childhood memories were nothing but good times -- dressing up like a goof, hanging out with friends, lots of free candy -- just a whole night of sugar filled adventure.

it seems there just aren't as many kids out nowadays though, i'm not sure if its just my neighbourhood or what, but trick-or-treating doesn't seem nearly as popular as it used to be. maybe the kids are all inside, playing video games.

on the other hand, i did notice that most of the kids i saw out were being driven from house to house by their parents.

come on.

is that really necessary? are you so lazy that you don't want to walk to your neighbours with your child? you feel the need to idle your car for an hour while you drive a grand total of two clicks? lazy bastards. i vow never to drive my child trick-or-treating unless i live in the boonies or something, and even then i might still just walk with them.

what's with our society's obsession with safety? with sheltering children from reality? safe parks, safe toys, safe foods, safe sports, safe everything.

how are they suppose to learn anything about the world if we just protect them all the time? aren't we just ill-preparing them for a world that (to put it mildly) isn't all that safe and cozy?

let them scrape some knees. let them go exploring their neighbourhood on their own. let them use some imagination to create their own worlds, instead of providing everything for them because we thinks its in their best interest. let kids be kids man.

halloween used to be exciting because it was like a treasure hunt. what candy did i get? who was dressed as what? can we scare people? can we find the house that gives the best loot? which street has the most generous people? who should we egg?

i hate talking about "back when i was a kid", but gosh darn it! it just had to be said.

i'm so glad i wasn't born any later, or i'd have been stuck with crappy plastic parks and healthy granola bar treats for halloween.

ew.

remember to breathe

darn. a gorgeous weekend only to be followed up by more of this dreary greyness. whhhhhyyyy? autumn is being ruined!

i blame el nino.

in other breaking news, it's easier to catch up with classes when you're only taking one i find. much love to whoever invented online courses.

this week is going to consist of watching basketball and hopefully going to karaoke one of these nights.

don't let me down irene!

little round mirrors

everything is just so darn simple when you're a kid.

i remember how an autumn morning used to be a brisk walk to school, stepping on dry leaves and twigs to hear them crunch underfoot. or finding piles of neatly raked leaves to destroy with one swift kick.

how lunchtime used to mean forty minutes of alligator, or cops and robbers, handball, redass, doctor, soccer baseball, football, basketball or finding out who was kissing by the portables (or possibly even being that person).

how afternoons weren't spent wasted watching people renovate their houses on television when in reality i could just walk downstairs and see the real thing -- but instead were full of hours playing tag at the park (including its various permutations, such as lava tag, freeze tag, et al) or walking home with friends and observing girls begin to learn the concept of "gossip".

how trick-or-treat actually meant it was the chance to get a crapload of free candy -- not worry about whether or not you bought some to give away.

and i love how you get lots of "first" moments.

first report card.
first sports team.
first science project left undone.
first kiss.

i'm starting to realize life is all about living for firsts. and when you start feeling like it's all been done, is when you should start to take a long hard look at what you're doing. maybe not knowing where things are going, but at the very least that they're going.

i must say it's kind of exciting.

kind of like the first time you ever hit someone in the face with a snowball.

untitled-1

i honestly have to say that, despite being able to sympathize with many of the "CBC" culture clash cliches, i don't feel i can totally empathize with them.

i'm not sure, but whatever the reason, i always kind of just chuckle and say "oh yea, i know what you mean" when someone makes a funny about tofu containers or something. i mean -- i get it -- but i can't relate.

one area where me and my parents really do differ however is the concept of work vs. efficiency.

case in point, is it better to wash dishes right after a meal, or maybe sit for a bit then wash them later? heck, maybe even let a few pile up then throw them all in the dishwasher and save yourself some time and effort?

naturally my parents think it's not just better, but necessary to do everything as soon as possible.

i bring this up because earlier today, my dad wanted me to go down and help him vacuum the basement, even though renovations are still going to continue at least another day or two.

i asked him why he doesn't just wait until they're finished, then clean it all at once. after all, after we clean it now, it's just going to get dirty again tomorrow. and my dad simply said something along the lines of "every speck of dust cleaned helps"

translate that as you will, i'm not even really sure what he said.

anyways, crawling around the basement with a dustbuster (he has dibs on the vacuum of course) i naturally felt like a chinese labour camp prisoner doing some ridiculous sort of work project -- like moving a pile of rocks, then moving them back or something.

but i mean, let the folks be the folks, quirks and all right? so i kept crawling along, dustbuster starting to choke under the rigours of sucking up sawdust (i don't think they're made for that).

in the end, we basically cleaned the basement out. and tomorrow, i am going to watch a bunch of crazy chinese guys in overalls come over and make a mess of it again.

does it make sense to me? not at all. but much like gum flavoured ice cream and pog, it's just another little idiosyncrasy that reminds me life doesn't always have to make sense to be amusing.

transatlanticism

i am going to be uncharacteristically personal.

a lot of times, when someone asks you "hey, how are you doing?", we have a pre-programed answer ready and waiting.

"oh, i'm fine. yourself?"
"aww, same old...same old, y'know? yourself?"
"i've had a bad day. [insert long anecdotes about a work]. how about you?"

but you know those stretches where when someone asks you how you're doing, you actually want to explode? yes, that's pretty much where i am right now. i am the picture of instability and anxiousness, and it is completely not where i am comfortable being.

I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.

H.P. Lovecraft, January 1929

i have a billion things to say. in fact i wrote down like, a 15 page blog post. but it really isn't all that coherent at this point.

to paraphrase my midnight manifesto, i basically want to look myself in the mirror and say "screw you".

then i realize that maybe i should be like, learning stuff and growing and crap. then i reconsider cussing myself out. then i'm all confused and thinking myself in circles towards the inevitable brain aneurysm (or more popular 'mug-in-the-head').

and so, in the end, knowing that i will never cease to wrestle with the wrestlyness of existence, i conclude that i am tired and will simply do some light reading and go to sleep.

i keep telling myself i'm going to wake up early and go to the gym someday.

i really hope today's that day.

*i have censored myself.

the new american apathy

it seems like i haven't seen the sun in forever. it's just been....grey...and wet....and cold, for the whole week, and i think it's finally getting to me.

my head feels like it's going to explode. guess that means its time to go for a run. nothing a little sweat can't fix i suppose.

so.....i should probably figure out how to do this whole resume thing huh? who wants to help? i am sooooo lost, haha

day one

so to be totally honest....it's kind of sad how long it took me to throw this new site together. like, almost a full day. and i mean that as 24 hours put into it, not a day of "simon time", which as we all know is closer to 6 hours.

anyways, on the bright side i learned alot about CSS. yay? trying to teach myself things from scratch was much harder then i remember it being. i guess my learning ability is starting to slow down with age.

things i would like to learn before i go senile still include

- time travel
- italian
- grade 12 math

the even sadder part is this page was realy more a personal excercise....i don't even like it that much. hopefully the next one will be....more impressive, haha

only in dreams

i hate when this happens, but i actually.....need...to go shopping.

i wish things were cheaper. stupid....clothes and furniture....

top ten closing tracks

10. the beatles - a day in the life
09. built to spill - broken chairs
08. M83 - lower your eyelids to die with the sun
07. radiohead - street spirit (fade out)
06. explosions in the sky - your hand in mine
05. the mars volta - take the veil cerpin taxt
04. broken social scene - it's all gonna break
03. system of a down - aerials
02. oasis - champagne supernova
01. weezer - only in dreams

is it possible to bottle the feel of something epic? what would that be? epicness?

tea for the tillerman

he would often sit at his desk late into the night, trying to distract himself from the rush of darkness seeping into his mind. webpages, video games, books, music, friendly small talk through instant-messaging. all as a means to try and keep the fear at bay -- the dense fog that inevitably would consume him regardless of how he was feeling that day.

it was as if the night stripped him of his own dellusions, reflecting only the barest realities. truth and secrets that during the day were kept buried deep inside, safe from the sun and anything the sun could touch.

no, the darkness inside him was where the truth would hide. and at night, when the sun went to bed and night spread over the world, the secrets inside would be free to come out. the truth would roam free, weighing down the cold air in his room that he was filling his lungs with.

and like someone caught under an avalanche, he was unable to move, to see, to get up or out from under this incredible weight. he was defenseless.

without even the freedom to breath, every moment of the dark and cold night became a struggle to survive. a fight to live.

he could barely make out the shapes and outlines of his room as the world began to fade away, replaced by guilt, hate, remorse, regret, and all the other emotions that human beings hide away in their darkest places -- as far from the sun as possible.

he put his head in his hands, slumped over with his eyes closed. defeated.

for despite all that he felt, he knew as he was fading away that he was not being taken from the world. instead, he was walking away, by his own conscious will. by his own volition.

he wanted to disappear. and it was himself, not the room around him, that was starting to concede to his own futility.

the outlines were getting more vague as the projection of reality began to recede around him. it was as if he was walking backwards through the history of film.

things were becoming grainy, outlines became blobs became concepts. was this the golden age?

colours drained away, replaced by the soft glow of black and white hues (his own existence glowing a dull grey. how appropriate). perhaps pre-technicolor?

the world began to slow to a stop. it was coming in jilted series now, and fluidity ceased to exist. life became a series of snapshots, and a lone voice permeated what once was the white noise of consciousness. could we now be in the talkies?

then the slideshow began to slow down. gradually, taking excruciatingly longer than it should, the pictures began to grind to a halt, each one starting to stay long enough that he could almost make out the scene...

it was so familiar.

if he could just recognize what he was seeing. it was at the tip of his tounge. he could almost see it in his mind....

it was so familiar.....

so familiar....

so...

....familiar......................................................................
...................................................................................
..........





you ever notice how the more attention you pay to a word, the more wrong it seems to look?

english is funny like that.

none but shining hours

with all the time we spend on the internet, i think i have safely come to the conclusion that our internet bookmarks reveal just as much about us as our clothes and language.

so...outside of email and perhaps your own website (if applicable), what are your top five favourite sites?

for me, it's pretty simple. in order of visits per day my top five websites are:

5) www.Gizmodo.com - it's like cnet. but funny.

4) www.Mocoloco.com - gizmodo's artsy sister.

3) www.stylusmagazine.com - a music site thats not pretentious.

2) www.ESPN.com - essential for breaking news and updates.

1) www.niketalk.com - i check it compulsively. really, it's sick.

naturally, these are not the only sites i visit. but they are my favourites of each genre. various tech sites, design, music, sports and shoes....not to mention cars and real news, and yadda yadda yadda.

of course the sites i visit most are other people pages. blogs, xangas, live journals and all that crap. if quantity is in any way associated with priority, i suppose that means you're all more important to me than the fact that the j.kidds are back and on NikeID no less.

trust me -- that's more special than you know.

mmm...zoom flight fives......

cream and bastards rise

i normally ignore these xanga/blogger disease like chain letter posts, but because its from dora and she never talks to me otherwise (oh snap!) i'll appease her.

rules of the game: post 5 weird and random facts about yourself, then at the end list the names of 5 people who are next in line to do this. also leave a post on their xanga/blogspot to let these people know.

1) i'll put on socks even if i'm not going out. i just like wearing socks. they keep my feet warm and clean.

2) when i was younger, i used to hang out with a bunch of girls. and when i mean a group of girls, i mean i have been to parties where i am literally the only dude. it's a mixed experience at best.

3) i once read an entire book while on the toilet. like, a novel. my legs were pretty numb afterwards.

4) i hate eating with my hands if it will be messy. even things like shellfish or chicken wings, i'll use a fork because i don't like getting my hands dirty.

5) i have to squeeze toothpaste from the end. if i find that someone has used it and squeezed from the middle, i will meticulously squeeze it from the end until it is neat and all up at the front again.

now i think i spam five more people. i'm too lazy to actually go toy our sites, so i'm going to choose people who read my blog fairly often.

red rover red rover, i call herb, irene, ivan, dustin and cam over.

it's all gonna break

my car is my fortress of solitude.

i prefer sandwiches with the crusts left on (and cut diagonally of course).

autumn is my favourite season.

don't you love when things come in threes?

in the beginning

The Call of Jeremiah
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,

5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew [a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

6 "Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."

7 But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.

9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.


no excuses.

just trust.