...I'm getting married!! Woo hoo!!Current Mood:  bouncy |
At the moment, I find myself in a strange state: boredom. If nothing else, work would occupy much of my waking hours. Well, it's more like a combination of work and avoiding work (we all know how satisfying procrastination can be). But today is a rare in-between day. There is nothing of real relevance to work on at the moment. I'll be having a little pow-wow tomorrow about our next steps, but that's, well, tomorrow. So what else?
Exercise also normally takes up a couple hours of the day, but today is hot. We've been having a bit of a heatwave for the past week, with high humidity and temperatures hovering around 30C. The heat isn't actually bothering me that much. I guess spending a week and a half in Singapore has prepped me nicely for our summer here. I don't mind working out in the heat (I find I don't notice the heat at all when active), but these muggy conditions have resulted in rather poor air quality. You know, smog. Given past experiences, I'd rather not be outside breathing heavily on a day like this. And besides, it's a well-deserved "rest day" after a fairly active week. That and I'm nursing a slight muscle pull. Sigh.
So let's play some cards. I'm stuck playing with the computer since everybody I know is stuck in an office somewhere. Everybody else has a regular day job. Anyway, I'm a big fan of Spades. Unfortunately, you need at least 4 players. I suppose you can play with 3 as well, but that's boring. Used to play this game a lot with friends. Even had 10 players at once one time. But that was then, during my "previous life", as I like to call it. Today, I played with computer players. I won easily, even on the difficult level. I guess the strategies learned during those late night sessions never go away. It might be interesting to play with real people online, but I usually detest playing games with complete strangers. That's just me.
A game that I'm starting to play is a popular Chinese game called tuo la ji ("tractor"), also known as bashi fen ("80 points"). Like most trick-based games, it requires at least 4 people. That's where the similarities with Spades end. Man, this game has got so many rules, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it. The strategy is more complex because you play with two decks (at least) and you need to work well with your partner. Those who like Bridge will get a kick out of this game. I've been trying to find a computer version of this game, but no luck so far. Actually, I can't find much on this game at all. Or maybe it's just the Chinese sites that have anything. Oh well.
In music matters, Coldplay's new album, X&Y, is very nice. I think I'll actually go buy the CD. For $13, why not? It's my token attempt to relieve some guilt. I kind'a like Bill Corgan's new album, too, The Future Embrace. I was never much of a Pumpkins fan, but this album has a different feel. And oh, F.I.R. rocks. I first got wind of them while in Singapore and I bought their new album because of local TV commercials (I can be quite the slave to marketing at times). They sound great! And it turns out that I've got friends here who're F.I.R. fans. They had their first album so we did a little swap. Interestingly, we all like their first album better.
And oh yes, I learned just last week that Bonnie Pink was here in Toronto back in March...and I missed it! ARGH!! It was only her second time performing outside of Japan. I'm way out of touch with local events. I suck. I told a friend of mine who's a bigger Bonnie fan than I am. She hadn't heard about it, either. She thanked me profusely for giving her the news. Hey, misery loves company, you know?Current Mood:  blank Current Music: Coldplay - X and Y |
On a blazingly eventful news day, we have this gripping headline: Microsoft will drop the "my" prefix in the next version of Windows. That's right, the much beloved "My Computer" and "My Documents" will be history, to be replaced by the much snazzier "Computer" and "Documents". Fancy and daring I say. Can't wait to see how the industry will react. Glad to see the boys in Redmond are keeping the rest of us abreast as to how they're spending their time. They so rock.
I've been working all day and feeling uber-geeky...and restless. Oh well, back to work...Current Mood:  geeky Current Music: Linkin Park - In The End |
One of the new friends we had met in Tokyo will be visiting Toronto at the end of June. No, she's not coming to visit me. This trip of hers was planned well before we met. She's got some history in this city and apparently it's time for a visit. However, she would like to meet up with me and Touzer and "do something". Cool. But...do what? This is a problem that Touzer and I had talked about while we were bumming Asia--if people want to come visit Toronto, where the hell can we take them and what can we do? We weren't able to com up with a good answer at the time.
Toronto is a big city and a great place to live. But dammit, modern Toronto was shaped by bankers and bureaucrats. It's the country's financial and commercial centre, which is why the downtown buildings are real tall, the waterfront is damn ugly, and there's just about nothing uniquely entertaining to do! Hell, Toronto hasn't been a major port for a 100 years and the harbour still looks like it was made to service oil tankers. Ok, perhaps I exaggerate a little, but the appearance of our waterfront is still inexcuseable. They say they're working on it, and occasionally I even see evidence of that, but can we pick up the pace a little? Maybe you can get all them bankers to pony up some money (ya, good luck with that one).
Anyway, back to the problem at hand... I'm just thinking about the sites that this city offers...
CN Tower - Ah yes, still the world's tallest free-standing structure. You can ride one of the world's fastest elevators and then stare at the rest of the city from "way up there". But what do you do after the 10 minutes of coolness is over? Spend $40 on lunch?
SkyDome - I refuse to call it the Rogers Centre. Right at the base of the CN Tower. Mainly a baseball stadium. Unfortunately, the Blue Jays are out of town for the entire time she's here. I don't even know if she likes baseball, but it's a moot point anyhow. Maybe we can catch a (American) football game? *ahem*
Ontario Place - One of the few bright spots along our waterfront. A big recreational/amusement spot. Oh, and then there's...
Centre Island - The Toronto Islands are always a great place to hang out in summer. Ya, maybe we'll try for this...along with Ontario Place.
Zoo - Didn't get a chance to see the S'pore zoo. Skipped the zoos in Tokyo too. Maybe it's time for me to visit the Toronto Zoo?
Theatres - I must say, we do have a goodly collection of stage plays/musicals. But how many of these can you watch, really? Especially given the cost to one of these things, around $80 a seat. There's also the option of going out to Stratford to catch one of those impressive productions. And we'll be in Touzer's neck of the woods.
Restaurants - Oh we've got a good variety, alright, thanks to our multicultural mix. Might be fun... Breakfast in Greece, lunch in Korea, dinner in Italy.
Museums - Zzzzz....
Ontario Science Centre - Haven't been there since I was a kid. Should be a hoot to go again. Unfortunately it's in a part of town with nothing else around...unless you count the huge IBM facility. Oh, my ex-gf lives in the area...wahahaha.
Shopping - Pffft, compared to what I saw in S'pore and Tokyo, nothing here is gonna impress any of them.
Canada's Wonderland - Big amusement park, lotsa puke-inducing rides, and expensive. Just like the big amusement parks anywhere else.
Canada Day - Ooo, she'll be here on July 1. The Festival of Fire is on this year. Cool! The fireworks are gonna rock!
Medieval Times - "Dine in the 11th century with knights and squires". Never been there before, but would be cool to try.
And the list does go on... Hmmm, maybe it won't be so hard to scrounge up something after all...Current Mood:  pensive Current Music: X Japan - Art of Life |
I had a great time reading this Gamers' Manifesto (a long one). It's a list of 20 (ok, 19 really) of the main problems with video games today. I'm not much of a gamer these days and I didn't agree with some of their points, but it didn't matter cause the article was damn funny. It had that finely tuned indignant angry/bitching quality that I hold so dear (maybe cause it's my preferred way of ranting when I get pissy). A sense of humour always helps, even when you're screaming mad (or maybe especially so).
The article does point out some real issues, however. Some should even be taken seriously (yes, let's get rid of the god damn crates already!). Since I found this article via the geekfest that is Slashdot, there have been plenty of comments on this (most geeks do play a lot of games, after all). The most interesting one I ran across was this serious reply by a game developer, though he does tend to fall back on the old "game development is hard" mantra. That and the popular "most gamers are morons" comment. True enough, I suppose.
Overall, the site pointlesswasteoftime is a great place to drop by for some "adult" comedy. Judging by the length of their articles, these clowns have an unholy amount of free time on their hands (They can't possibly be doing this for a living, right? But if so... damn, colour me jealous!). Check out their recent Great Internet Porn-Off. Porn addiction? Nah...Current Mood:  naughty Current Music: F.I.R. - 死心的理由 |
 About a week ago, I peered outside my washroom window and noticed these two birds hanging out on my neighbours' window ledge (pic #1). Seeing as how as it's late Spring, it was fairly obvious that these two were scoping out territory on which to settle down and start a family (at least till next Spring, anyway). Ah, love is in the air. Sure enough, two days later, construction on their new digs was nearly complete (pic #2). Can't say much for the decor, but for a do-it-yourselfer, it's pretty decent. I would assume that a little later the Mr. and Mrs. got a little amorous and went about producing the next generation. Pic #3 was taken two days later, showing the lady of the house keeping her silent and dignified vigil on top of her brood. As expected, the male was never to be seen again. Build a house, have some fun, time to move on...
Unfortunately for the mother-to-be, her choice of location was not ideal. I remember thinking what would happen if my neighbours opened that window. They'll probably scare the crap out of the birds...or maybe it would be the other way around. Regardless, turns out my neighbours are not nature lovers. I didn't see what happened, but today that window ledge is a very empty and lonely spot. Too bad. Had the birds decided to roost on our window ledge, I would've done what I could to keep them happy. Of course, our window gets opened and closed a lot more frequently. *shrugs*
Reminds me of a time from my childhood when a couple of pigeons had taken up residence at the top of our front porch. To a kid, it was very cool. I would check up on them everyday after school. And then one day I came home and the nest, along with its shattered contents, were scattered all over the porch floor. I think some neighbourhood kids had some fun with the birds. There were plenty of nasty little grunts around. Then, as now, I was a little disappointed. I think it would be fascinating to watch a new generation be born, grow up, and "leave the nest" all within a couple of months. Humans really take too long to do these things...Current Mood:  mellow Current Music: Bonnie Pink - Bedtime Story |
For the first time ever, a complete stranger contacted me after viewing some pics in my online photo album. Some dude from Ireland ran across the pics that I took while in Yokohama. Apparently he has an affinity for the city and wanted to tell me how much he liked my pics. He also offered a bit of interesting information about the Landmark Building. He must've figured out my fondness for useless trivia. So I wrote back and thanked him for his comments. Out of curiosity, I asked him how he came across my album. To my surprise, he writes back 30 minutes later with a much lengthier piece of email. He answered my question and then went on to describe the time he had lived in Canada. He also posed some questions of his own. And then he shared his Yokohama photo album with me, which was from the 2002 World Cup. It's a little weird.
Anyway, I haven't written back yet since I've had a very occupied weekend. It's the first long weekend of the "summer". It's Victoria Day, where we celebrate the birthday of a long-dead British queen. But hey, we get so few national holidays, we'll take whatever we can get. It's one of the two holidays that traditionally gets celebrated with fireworks (the other being Canada Day), but because of the lousy weather in the evening, the fireworks were rather muted. However, my friends and I have started talking about plans for Canada Day (July 1). I just wanted to blow things up launch some fireworks, but somehow the the plans got twisted into visiting Ottawa, our nation's capital. I suppose the Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa are fairly extravagant. They might have funkier fireworks to light up, too...
In other matters... For the first time, I bought a gift for an expectant mother. It's the first time one of my closer friends is to become a parent. We're all very excited for her. She isn't due until the end of June, however, and this gift is actually for her birthday. Funny how when a woman becomes pregnant, people stop buying gifts for her and they start getting all sorts of stuff for the person-to-be. Hah, I guess it's just easier to buy stuff for babies. Well, in theory the husband is supposed to get something for the woman while all the friends have fun spoiling the child. Since no one yet knows whether it's a boy or girl, I just got a toy. It's supposed to be somewhat educational, a Roll & Rhyme Melody Block. It's pretty cool--it plays different music depending on which side of the cube is facing up. It appeals to the geek in me. :-)Current Mood: content Current Music: BoA - Konoyo No Shirushi |
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Tagged by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mimbulus.
1) Total number of books owned?
Umm...we talking only fiction books? On my shelves right now there're about 40 books, but a bunch of them are text/reference books. Then there're all the books stored away in the basement, which will probably bring the total close to 100. I used to "own" many more novels, but that was another time and it's a sad story... :-)
2) The last book I bought?
Was in the bookstore two days ago and bought Kushiel's Chosen (the sequel to the book I just finished) and some book called Kingdom of Cages (it was the hardcover edition for only $6.99 so why not, eh?).
3) The last book I read?
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey, the prequel to the book mentioned above. Not my usual type of book but it was dirt cheap when I bought it oh so long ago. The protagonist is a "religious prostitute" who has been thoroughly trained in both the body and the mind, thus making her a very effective spy. Political intrigue is the main theme, supported by a large cast of characters (mostly royalty and nobles). There isn't as much sex in this book as you would think--it gets glossed over half the time.
4) 5 books that mean a lot to me? * As usual, the first book that comes to mind is Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Having first read it in high school, it has always stayed with me. It was a story experience that has not quite been repeated since (I was far less cynical back then, though). Last year, over 10 years since first reading it, I went out and bought a copy of it to finally re-read. I was not disappointed.
* The A Man of His Word series by Dave Duncan. Also from my high school days. There was just something magical (no pun intended) about these 4 books. Thinking back now, the series does seem to be a little childish, but it was certainly marvelous at the time. I think this series began my shift away from science fiction and towards fantasy. There was also a sequel series, A Handful of Men, which was pretty good but didn't live up to the first. It's too bad Dave Duncan is spending his time these days writing those horrible King's Blades novels. Blah...
* ST:TNG: Vendetta by Peter David. Going back to high school yet again, this was the first novel I ever bought. I can't say that it's a great book (though it was real fun at the time), but this was the book that started me reading for real. After this book, I found myself inside libraries a lot more. I read nothing but Star Trek novels for a while, but eventually branched out into more intelligent titles (honestly, ever since the mid-90s, most Star Trek novels have been nothing more than mass-produced, shrink-wrapped products).
* The Honor Harrington series by David Weber. Some are going to laugh at me for liking this series so much, but I don't give a crap. Inspired by the high seas adventures of Horatio Hornblower, this series is a military space opera--plenty of space battles and one-dimensional characters with barely a story to hold them together. But it's great when all you want is a mindless sci-fi yarn. And I love military stories, so it's perfect. Weber does a great job of describing battle tactics in space, where you're fighting in 3 dimensions and must deal with the limitations brought upon by the speed of light. I've read all 10 books so far and am eagerly awaiting the 11th, At All Costs.
* Modern Operating Systems by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. Yes, it's a textbook. I used the first edition of this book for my 3rd year operating systems course at university. That was the most memorable course I had taken during my time at UW. The amount of discovery and revelations that occurred during those 4 months was amazing. The book itself is exceptionally well-written and it's funny as well. Tanenbaum is known for his sense of humour and his book is sprinkled with droll comments and anecdotes. A couple years ago, I picked up this book again and began reading the more interesting sections just for the heck of it. I got some raised eyebrows at work for my choice of light reading, which is understandable I suppose. :-)
5) I'm tagging:
Anybody else who wants to do this, I suppose.
In other matters, I got this from Mimbi as well... Make yourself a South Park character! Here's me:
It's not quite what I wanted, but good enough. :-D
Current Mood: geeky Current Music: Kelly Clarkson - You Found Me |
I've got a couple hours before the Ultimate (frisbee) season starts and I'm thoroughly disgusted with what I'm working on right now, so here I am typing up more ramblings...most likely my last travel ramble. I'm looking around here, seeing some of the stuff I bought while over there, and I realized that I didn't spend nearly enough on myself. Well, not in terms of merchandise, anyway (food and transportation certainly evaporated a lot of money over there). As is typical of me, I ended up buying stuff for others. I've given out most of it already and everybody was very appreciative (as expected--they're a great bunch). Tallying it up, I've handed out 23 gift items so far. There're still 3 or 4 people in Kitchener that I should give something to (and I think Touzer was too lazy to get them anything). And oh yes, everybody gets a keychain! The gift shops in Singapore conveniently sold them in packs of 6, so Touzer and I bought 36 keychains, 18 each. I've already given out 10 and another 7 are earmarked for people (and that's on top of the aforementioned 23 gift items). Hmmm... I hadn't thought I would run out of keychains... But that's ok, I've still got Touzer's keychains (they were packed in my luggage). I'll just dip into his stash, haha!
As for me, my main souvenir from Singapore is Baby Taz. See, I've got this thing for the Tazmanian Devil (it's currently my cellphone wallpaper) and when I saw this big-ass stuffed Taz for only S$40, well, how could I resist? Actually, I did resist at first cause I thought it would be too difficult hauling the thing home. But we ended up returning to Bugis Junction a few days later and Touzer was blabbering away with comments like "You know you want it!" so I caved and just bought the damn thing. And yes, packing it was a challenge. It took up 80% of my large trunk, so I bought a Reebok gym bag to hold the rest of my clothing. The large trunk ended up holding nothing but gifts and souvenirs. And, you know, I hadn't even realized that there was a Baby Looney Tunes series. Huh, the things you learn while overseas...
I'm also a Gundam fan and, of course, Japan is the place to get Gundam merchandise. I certainly saw a lot of Gundam stuff while in Tokyo, but I wasn't inspired enough to buy anything at first--we can get most of it here in Canada, especially in Toronto. Then I came across this Rick Dom action figure for half price! Sweet! Looks like they had too many in stock, so I quickly scooped one up (well, right after my friend Jimmy spent a few minutes picking out the best-looking box). Here it is posing with its big-ass bazooka and looking very dignified I must say, haha. See, it even comes with a display stand!
That's it... I gotta go prep for the game...Current Mood:  blah Current Music: Elva Hsiao - U Make Me Wanna |
Ok, my previous ramblings turned out a lot crankier than I had originally intended. Heck, I hadn't even planned on writing about O'Hare when I first started typing. So today, the topic is far more benign: sunrise and sunset. In Singapore, I didn't witness a sunrise--there was no way I was getting up that early while on vacation. The closest I came was the night of the Devil's Bar when I finally put my head down around 6am. Had I held out for another hour or so I probably would've caught sunrise...and gotten some breakfast in the hotel restaurant...but that didn't happen. So that leaves sunset...which is a different experience in the tropics. I've read about it and others have told me about it, but it's still kind'a weird to witness, when the sun just "disappears" around 7pm or so. There's no such thing as "dusk" in the tropics. Ok, not entirely true, but I swear, dusk must last a good 5 minutes or so. Here in these northern latitudes, sunlight struggles on the horizon for a good hour or more after the sun "sets". Like today for instance: sunset occurred at 8:30pm, but at 9:30 there was still a hint of sunlight in the western skies. I'm sure it all has to do with changes in the amount of light scattered by the atmosphere due to differences in air density as one's position on the Earth changes, but you know, I really can't be arsed to find out the details right now. In fact, right now I'm wondering if sunrise is just as instantaneous down in Singapore. Well, I guess I'll never find out first hand for myself...*yawn*
And how about the sunsets in Tokyo? Well, they're not much different from here, actually. Tokyo is at 35N, so sunset is pretty much the same as Toronto (at 43N). However, sunrise was surprising. Ironically, I witnessed a Tokyo sunrise because it occurred early enough. See, I'm a bad sleeper and I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night...around 4:00am, say, at which point the sun was threatening to jump into the eastern sky. Yeah, that's right, during this time of year, sunrise occurs at 4:30am in Tokyo. Here in Toronto, sunrise occurred at 5:50am today. I suppose the main explanation is that Japan doesn't do the daylight saving time thing. Had they shifted their clocks, sunrise would be at 5:30am, which makes more sense. And then I looked at this map and realized that Japan isn't in the most appropriate timezone...or maybe it's more like Japan's location makes it difficult to slot it into one timezone (but they insist on doing it anyway). Japan is at GMT+9 (green), but if you look to the north and south (into Russia and Australia), you see that those parts are at GMT+10 (blue). Ehh...whatever.Current Mood: complacent Current Music: Secret Garden - Reflection |
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