Oh, right, loonie managed to briefly reach parity with the US dollar recently. I wonder if someone's started a back when I was your age, the loonie was worth 60 something cents compared to the US dollar group on Facebook. So many useless groups...
09/21/07 19:17
Wow, sending things in the mail sucks. I just got a letter that was sent on the 1st of September. Good job Canada Post for delivering a letter in 3 weeks across a distance that takes 45 minutes to drive across.
It seems I've forgotten a lot of what I learned in first year chem. Ah, I can feel the stress and panic building up already.
09/17/07 20:04
I played card games similar to Slap Jack during the break today. My hand was stinging afterwards as half of my hand would invariably smack onto the table. Fun. Made some more crazy drawings in lectures today, one of which was a house made out of a loaf of bread.
Coming home today on the TTC sucked. I missed 2 subway trains and 1 RT today because they were too packed to get on.
Some sad news for fans of the Wheel of Time series. The author, Robert Jordan, died. I'm sure the last book will still be published, somehow, but not sure about the 2 prequels he had planned. Maybe they'll be published like how Tolkien's was. Hopefully the Pattern will spin out another author like him really soon hm?
Some happy news too, the webcomic The Order of the Stick is back from its hiatus. Can't wait to see how it'll develop from here on.
09/15/07 19:41
Stupid UT bookstore is so unorganized. Why the heck was my stats book shelved in the community health section? Took forever to find the textbooks I needed. The course reader for one of my courses is sold out. Like wtf. There's 240 students, it's custom made for the course, it's mandatory, why would they not order 240 copies? I wanted to only buy the orgo textbook and not the study guide because it was optional, but apparently they don't sell it like that. Not all of the histology and anatomy textbooks were availible either. Yeah, I hate the UT bookstore now.
How sad, first weekend, and I already have work to do. 2 of the items were my fault. Couldn't find the lecture notes online so now I have to copy someone else's notes.
Getting so cold...
TTC rides are so boring with no one to talk too. I know 2 people who go the same route as me, but I either miss them after the last lecture, or I've still got an additional class later (damn orgo...).
Say no to electoral reform in Ontario. I would support letting people cast 2 votes though, whereas the first vote gets 2 points, and the second 1 point, and they must be for 2 different parties. If the voter only wishes to cast one of the votes, they have the option of selecting null/void for one them. That'd be the best system in my opinion. Which is always a correct one by the way.
No badminton club for me at UT =( Lectures conflict with the meeting times.
I was thinking of applying for the webmaster position my class council, then decided against it. At first I thought I was just going to have to maintain an existing site, but then realized that since this will be the first year of it operating, I would have had to create it from scratch.
09/12/07 00:09
(Insert whining and complaining about class). And the anatomy/histology prof is mean and evil. I also managed to not only fall asleep in a lecture today (along with 3/4 of the class, the other 1/4 who only zoned out), but also managed to do a page long sketch along the margins during the same lecture. I'm not going to take a photo of the sketch, so you'll just have to see it yourself in person. I'll describe it though. It started at the top, with a "picturesque" scene of 2 people in some sort of flat prairie-like landscape with a road running off into the distance beside them. Along the road runs telephone/electricty poles. It's got also colour in my mind, but as it is, I was working with a black ball-point pen, and not a good one as it is. Anyway, with that done, I decided to make the other side near the margin, some cliffs with water below it. I started, then realized I didn't have a clue how to sketch water. Couldn't even do it well enough for my mind to accept it. So I decided to make it a floating piece of land, like in the first book of the Death Gate Cycle series, or the TV show on Teletoon called Skyland. I sucked at drawing the rocky cliff edges though, so it now looks more crystalline than rocky. Added 2 aeroplanes to it to emphasize the floating in air part, then underneath that, proceeded to draw a space station. So the sketch now transitions from land to air to space. There's a crappy attempt at a planet in the background we should all ignore. Landmassses are hard to do. Should've gone with a hurricane cloud formation, though the edge clouds would've been a lot of trouble. Immediately underneat the space station (in fact, it looks like the the station is resting on what's underneath), is a tractor trailer. The front has some sort of ski thing instead of a cab though. The trailer is resting on 2 rectangular prisms, which are then resting on a pyramid. That has entrances on its sides. With roads coming out of it that's lined with trees. One entrance has a mob of people instead though. This pyramid is on a circular plain that gently slopes down. Under that is a huge bridge (though it looks like it's running beside it, and huge compared to the pyramid-people-trees scale) that spans water. There's light posts lining the bridge with sailboat about to pass underneath one of the arches. There's also someone fishing from the bridge. Underneath that, but drawn to make it look like it's on the bank of the river the bridge spans, is another person fishing. He's wearing a straw hat. There's grass sprouting on the bank. All in all a nice, messed up scene.
Had quite a bit of bad luck after class today. It started pouring rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Then the subway train doors broke at the Younge station so we were delayed for quite a bit. We were ushered out of the cars, then back on, then back out again. The delay was so long that a ride where everyone got seats was turned into a rush hour type crowd. Also started raining again while I was walking home.
09/09/07 19:37
Symantec didn't detect anything, but after scanning, I did get several gigs worth of free space back. Unfortunately, it's shrinking again, so the virus is still there. :'( Still haven't figured out how I got it in the first place, and I don't think I will either. Hopefully all I have to do is keep scanning to hold it back, as I really don't want to have to reinstall/backup/update everything again. I also tend to lose some files I forgot to back up every time.
Elections are coming! And with it, a referendum on the current electoral scheme! Keep it as it is, and bring on the campaigning =) I'll get to vote finally!
Ack, classes starting tomorrow. So frustrating. Still haven't set up my notebooks and other assorted things yet. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've got enough notebooks for all my classes yet! !@#$
09/07/07 23:28
Meh day today. Stocked up on pens and useless highlighters from the clubs fair thingy today. I didn't see any badminton club table, nor did I find any useful info online. They've got a section at Hart House, but no details on it. There was a table tennis club, but once again, that conspiracy that places club meeting times during my class times struck again. Ran into more trouble with the doors in the pharmacy building today. I couldn't open the door that leads into the computer area. After observing the person who opened it for me, I think I need to pull, then push to open it. Also tried to get an exemption for 1st semester orgo on the off chance I'd succeed. No luck there. So frosh week is now over, and I'm already feeling stressed and panicked before I've even set foot inside class. NOT a good sign.
I think my computer has a virus too, because the used space on my OS drive doesn't add up to what clicking on the properties of folders says plus I've somehow run out of disk space on it without having installed/downloaded anything. Useless AVG will probably detect nothing. Fortunately it seems I'll be able to get Symantec antivirus soon thanks to UT. Still got to read the instructions for it first though.
A crazy guy was on one of my subway cars today. I had the bad luck of deciding to stand beside where he was sitting. He was sitting with his back to the wall with his feet on the adjacent seat. When I went to stand beside him and held onto the pole, he then proceeded to "kick" me. I thought perhaps I was standing too close and his foot accidently kicked me while he was adjusting his seating position. That theory got blown away when I moved a bit further away but was still holding onto the pole when he then started trying to kick my hand. Luckily he couldn't reach it and I got away before he realized that if he slumped down a bit more his shoe could connect. Crazy idiot. For the rest of the short ride before I switched lines he alternated between trying to hide his face behind his shirt and pretending the small thin metal strip he was holding was a gun and shooting imaginary targets on the ceiling. The joys of public transit.
Yep, AVG just finished scanning and detected no problems. Why is it always useless against the stuff that infects me, and yet is rated as one of the best scanners around when tested independently by computer experts??? It's another conspiracy against me...
09/06/07 23:49
Such a tiring day today. Spent it at Centre Island. It was nice that today was sunny and warm. Managed to meet a bunch of new people too, yay (and more importantly, I managed to retain more names and faces). Our group overwhelmed the restaurant on the island as they weren't expecting such a large crowd today which meant a long wait for food. It's weird that their appetizers were enough for lunch. Most people in my group just had either onion rings or fries. After that we walked around and then some of us played a game of ultimate frisbee which was what made today a tiring day. Then we went and played with the water at the splash pad thingy they had. It was merely to cool off >_> Spent a bit of time on the sandy beach, and that was basically the day. Just remembered I needed to look up badminton club times.
Oh, and the way OSAP pickup works is stupid. I need to go to one of the approved postal offices scattered around to pick up my money. Why couldn't they just transfer the funds into my university account at the university?
09/05/07 21:50
So, had two days of frosh so far. As expected, I've retained only a couple of faces and names. What can I say, I suck at remembering people. Let me give a summary of what's been going on the past 2 days.
On the first day, we were supposed to show up at 10. I got there at about 9:50, and after kind of struggling with the doors (They need to fix the entrance doors. Requires so much effort to open them. I could do exercise by opening and closing them repeatedly), I walk into the lobby and find... Like 30 people who have also showed up early and are now just sitting on the various chairs and tables looking nervous, lost, and not saying anything. I fit right in XD So after the 2nd years had eveything set up we got our T-shirts (A bright red one, I wish they had made it a grey or black colour. The comedian we had later said our shirts in combination with our seating pattern made us look like a giant maxipad from her perspective at the front of the room) and split up into randomly assigned groups. We then spent the next hour or so getting to know the people in our group and making up a cheer. Then we competed to see who had the best cheer. The winner got to go eat their lunch first (BBQ lunch of burgers/hot dogs and soft drinks. After that was a completely useless speed meeting. You had one minute to talk to someone then you had to move on to the next person. The result was no retention of names and faces, and you just kept repeating the same thing over and over and over again. I did meet the president of the badminton club last year at McMaster though, and she remembered me and my friends. Unfortunately, right now I don't recall her name, and there's a high chance that the face I've attached to my memory, is actually someone else >< The composition of our year seems to be nearly half filled with degree holders. About a quarter I think is from one year of university. Let's see, after that we had a Q&A session. Don't remember that part, and it was boring, so no more on that. We then went to eat dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant called Spring Rolls. We were early though, so my group went to the Eaton Centre for half an hour. Dinner was pretty good. We had to pay for our own meal though :( After that was a comedy show inside one of the lecture halls. One of the comedians had been on TV and stuff, but I thought the other one was funnier. That ended day one. Got home so late. Only had time to quickly scan the blogs I follow and stuff then immediately to bed after a shower.
And now for today. Woke at 6:30am and wanted to kill whoever planned my schedule. It was raining so hard this morning! Was 15 minutes early this time, and spent it talking with someone about his Macbook problems. Ha, it's confirmed, Apple computers suck! His Safari kept freezing up all the time ever and a reinstallation of the system didn't fix it. His screen cracked. Now it won't boot up properly. He was trying to print something from Safari, it froze, he tried to close it from the dock, but the dock didn't show up so he just pushed the power button. Now when he turns it on, all he gets is a grey screen and then a couple minutes later a folder with a question mark. Apple computers are no good! Yeah... Got a little off track there. So, today's activity kicked off with a 3 hour long orientation presentation which managed to scare us about how much work it's going to be and then a long line up for our key cards. Then it was on to a Pharmasave presentation (boring), and then a lunch of Subway. This time I avoided a long line up by sitting near the doors for the Pharmasave thing. Explored the building a bit (it seems really small) and discovered there are ethernet ports for my laptop so no laggy wireless for me =) Then it was off to a tiring scavenger hunt. It was tiring in that we literally ran all across campus to try to be the first to finish. We came in second. And that was the end of today for me since clubbing and pubs is something I'm not interested in.
Got my schedule today. I've got a lot of running to do thanks to my no exemptions. So sad.
09/03/07 22:03
Just glanced at some of the stats Yahoo provided about my page. One of the referral links they listed was... A Geocities page dedicated to the Armenian Catholic Church. There's no link to my page on it, and why the heck would there be??? Whatever code Yahoo is using to generate this stuff is messed.
09/03/07 21:53
Drats, first day of school tomorrow. Well, not really since there isn't any classes, but still. Missing McMaster already. I could be hanging out with friends in residence right now instead of stuck in my room typing this. Bleh. You know what I realized? Getting into pharmacy right after first year and having done first year at a different university means it'll still feel like first year, although it's my second year of university. And my 3rd year will feel like 2nd and so on. Weird huh? It's like time's been reset. So, there you have it. The secret to becoming one year younger! I really should be sleeping right now to prepare for my early day tomorrow, but we all know that's not going to happen. I wonder if I should bring my backpack tomorrow...
09/01/07 23:42
Oh no, it's September already! But I don't want summer vacation to end! It's been so stress free! i am so unprepared right now =( Still struggling to wake up early, and I still haven't looked up what time I'm supposed to show up on Tuesday. I wish I had this magic agenda that would tell me where I have to be and what I have to do automatically.
So exhausted today. Biked down to Lake Ontario with a friend to see how long it really takes. I had thought it takes around 1.3 hours, but she said it only takes 35 minutes. Turns out I was wrong. A good example of my exemplary time tracking skills. On the way back we saw an ice cream truck and decided to go buy something. The driver had other plans. When we almost reached it, it started driving off. So we followed it around the parking lot. It stopped at another part and right before we reached it, it took off again and stopped... Right where it had been before. So much effort for overpriced ice cream. It was 50 cents more than what it should've been! Oh, and we had to fix a bicycle chain that fell off. Luckily there were sticks nearby so no one had to actually touch the chain and all the associated oil and grime.
After that was tennis. Tennis is a lot more fun now since I've really improved from the beginning of the summer. Didn't have to run after balls that followed an undesirable trajectory as much.
So unfair, Blizzard likes the Horde more. Just look at their quest rewards! At the end of one quest where you return a necklace to Sylvanas that her little sister gave her, you get to listen to an old blood elf song. Or was it high elf? High elf would make more sense since blood elves are a recent thing. Don't remember if sin'dorei or quel'dorei was used. Ah well.
08/30/07 22:09
Wow, I was outside for so much today. Biked to the library to get new books, then immediately after played tennis, then after that soccer. I'll be spending tomorrow recovering.
Finally finished a good book that's not in a series I've already listed on my book list. Been a while, but I had a lot of catching up to do. Going to add it right now!
08/28/07 21:54
Wtf? My schedule just got changed! A lunch break got erased and they added an extra hour of class! ='(
Wow, it's the 28th already. Wasted my summer vacation. Again. Drats.
08/27/07 17:17
Yay for tennis!
Sucks that The Order Of The Stick will be on hiatus till late September. Such a good comic...
I feel like... Ice cream. Yum.
08/25/07 13:10
Just wasted an hour on Cloud. I don't get it. I've got a bunch of white clouds, but sometimes when it goes up against the grey clouds you can convert, it doesn't! So I gave up >< Damn instructions are useless!
08/25/07 11:52
Couldn't remember my password. Took me a few minutes of panicked guessing to log in >< I blame waking up early today for that. That and the fact that I changed my passwords recently. Ugh.
So, what have I been up to these past few days. Nothing much. Found some more web comics to follow, and 2 odd yet addicting games. They're called flOw and Pillage the Village. flOw is... Interesting. Yet frustrating. When I evolved to the circular thing, I had a really hard time eliminating the long enemies. Since I'm a giant blob and my mouth is in the centre, everytime I ate one of their parts they'd snatch one of mine. Maddening. I'm going to download Cloud later. Seems to be a pointless game, but it'll be a relaxing pointless game. If you're wondering why I didn't provide a link to those games, it's because I fricking tired right now! Go google it or something. Must replenish energy...
08/17/07 17:32
Still really windy today. Some jerk almost ran me over too. You want to make a right turn, there's a guy in rollerblades standing at the edge of the sidewalk and looking at the other side of the street. Gee, maybe he wants to cross the road when the light turns green!
A mentally challenged boy tried to hop aboard a moving freight train and was injured. The mother's solution? Remove the train tracks. She also manages to bring the race card into it too. Here's my solution. Teach your kids to not do that kind of stuff. Of course, he's mentally challenged, so here's another idea. Don't let them wander around outside without adult supervision! By the way, did I mention the fact that the kid is 9? Hm, let's think for a moment. 9 year old kid + mentally challenged + railway tracks + fence that is regularly cut to allow residents to cross easily. Does it sound safe to let the kid wander around unsupervised? I say no, but apparently the mother thinks yes.
08/16/07 17:34
I went rollerblading today, which was my first time since I got back from China. Kept being lazy, lol. So much for rollerblading more often this summer. I picked a pretty bad day to do it. It wasn't too sunny, but it was way too windy. Rollerblading against a strong wind equates to massive output of energy, but little velocity.
I switched my primary network on Facebook from McMaster to UT yesterday. So far, I'm not liking it. The load times for UT are really slow, but I've found that it's improved if I log in initially from the UT page rather than the McMaster page as I usually do. However, it still seems slightly slower. If it's still noticeably slower after like a week, I might switch back the primary back to McMaster.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before: I hate you people with transfer credits. The reason is that because I got into the pharmacy program with only one year of university, I have to take all the courses in the program. However, a lot of my classmates have 2 years, or more. Some have their undergraduate degrees. This means they've got a crap load of transfer credits. So while I'm stressing out and moaning about the huge workload, they've got it easy since they don't have to take everything. Huge unfair advantage for them when it comes time to compete marks.
The markets are falling! The markets are falling! The bubble's going to burst and bring recession down upon us all! Noooo!!! And me being stuck with a 12k in tuition. More expensive than living on res at McMaster =/
08/12/07 00:23
xkcd comic #45 is one of my favourites :D
You know what, RTM will suffice. I'm not really a fan of some words. But then, will people get it? Who cares? I finally got through all of the xkcd comics! His sketches while bored in class make mine look so crappy in comparison. Well, mine were never really good in the first place and his are published online, so screw it, I like my sketches of triangles, squares, and other random things. He had the advantage of using pencil...
08/12/07 00:23
And I'd like to add that xkcd is the work of a physicist. Yay for nerds!
08/11/07 23:58
Yorkdale may be a square, but it's a confusing square with passages springing out of the square. And why the heck is there a food court on the second level, but the stores are all on the first level? High ceilings are nice and all, but I'd rather have more shops. After all, more shops equals higher probability of shops I'd not dislike going into.
Been going through this webcomic backwards. Still not done yet. It's called xkcd. I only just remembered I can view the full length of the tooltip by viewing the properties of it (damn you Firefox bug). Now I have to start again, but at least I didn't figure it out at the very end, lol. Anyway, I love this particular one the most (out of the ones I've seen so far anyway), as when I read it, I felt like he wrote it for me XD So, if you've noticed me walking funny and want to comment, refrain from doing so and just think of that comic. Actually, the worse isn't when the sidewalk cracks are out of sync, but when the parking lot lines on either side don't match up and the road's wide enough that you can't see the other side's lines to extend in your mind over to your side without turning your head but you don't want to look like an idiot who's head can't look straight ahead and so while you're trying to make up your mind on what to do you might be stepping on the lines which will bring you bad luck but then you are stepping over half the lines which are the ones you can see clearly so wouldn't the good luck from that cancel out the bad luck but then you want good luck, not neutral luck so what to do??? I'm not crazy.
And RTFM indeed. I resolve to use this as an answer more. Damn niceness in me gets in the way most times, but it's for their own good in the end, really. Either that or it'll bring less idiots into contact with me which is always good, right?
08/09/07 23:09
Just noticed I had 2 entries switched around. Fixed it now.
About half an hour ago, I booted up my computer... And hit a blue screen of death during the bootup! Scary! It was a weird blue screen though, because it only had 2 lines and the 2 lines' length were only a quarter of the screen. The error code was incredibly short too, like 8 digits. This compared to the usual blue screen filled with text and an incredibly long error code. When I restarted, it didn't even acknowledge that an error had occured, that is, it didn't go through what usually happens where it checks the hard drive for errors.
And I'd like to say that Apple computers are not as error free as people seem to perceive. Apple computers suck!
08/09/07 20:07
Got another web comic to follow thanks to a certain hilarious blog. It's called Basic Instructions and it could well be appearing in a newspaper you read soon. Silly newspapers and their strip format and dumbing down of words requirement. I like the wordy and box format better.
As for Inverloch, I'm shocked and disappointed with the latest panels released today. Wtf happened to Lei'ella's opposition to crime??? Like a 180 in her views today. The same result could've been achieved without doing it by having Varden ask her to help him restore the boat. That's what he's going to do anyway, so there wasn't any need to mention thievery. Kind of hard to steal things when you're on a boat with no passengers and just a cargo hold full of trade goods that you own...
Sounds like everyone's started reviewing for the upcoming school year again. Once again, I'm being left behind in this... Why can't you all just be lazy like me?!
08/07/07 22:28
Jerks. I still say we should put a tax on our oil to get back our money.
08/07/07 17:28
Want to know why Horde characters like to gank Alliance characters for fun? This video will tell you why. So next time you see a Horde character, make them eat a pyroblast. Or several. Or something. Just kick their ass. Had to log off several times in the past few days because they kept killing me while I was trying to quest. >=(
You know, when I look at a computer, I still think it's incomplete without a floppy drive. CD-RW's just suck, although I guess it doesn't matter now that flash drives are so common. I wonder how much longer it'll be until they're no longer offered even as an external? Or do they not offer it already? I love flicking back the metal covering even though I'm not supposed to do that. That and the sound the computer makes when it writes/reads it. At least I can still hear the old dial-up modem sounds when I send a fax XD No one else I know except me miss the old computer noises.
08/04/07 14:09
I had my remaining two wisdom teeth removed today. This time around he didn't do as well a job. I think it's because the left side is more akward for him to opwrate on. You know, it's never a good sign when your dentist gets blood on his glasses... Or when he takes an x-ray to make sure there aren't any teeth fragments left... And now my mom is refusing to buy the antibiotics that were prescribed because too much antibiotics aren't good and she doesn't think I need them. Having a parent in the medical field is both a blessing and a curse.
08/03/07 21:47
I've just finished a book of George Orwell's stories. It had Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up For Air, Keep The Aspidistra Flying, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. I had already read 1984 before so I skipped it, and I totally skipped A Clergyman's Daughter as it didn't interest me at all. I read Burmese Days up till the part where U Po Kyin reveals the reason behind his plot, and I read I think half of Keep The Aspidistra Flying and scanned the rest of that story. Burmese Days was interesting to me up till the point where I stopped. I don't know why I stopped reading it. Just didn't feel like it. For Keep The Aspidistra Flying, it's like watching a huge accident that's about to happen. You can't tear your eyes away from it. I kept reading until I finally got too pissed off at the main character then scanned the rest of the story. It had a happy ending, which was nice, but I feel the main character didn't deserve it. Would've been a much more satisfying if he had starved to death or something. Really good story though. Same for Animal Farm, Coming Up For Air, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. They're all stories with a, purpose I guess. Or a message. Or something. Don't know how to describe it in words. Oh, you know how you read Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter for fun? They're really good stories and that's why you like them and continue to read them. There's no message the author's trying to get across. Orwell's stories aren't like that. Yes they're really nice stories, but you don't get just fun out of them. You think about the message or thought or whatever the author's communicating through the story as you read and after you finish reading. I'm too lazy to talk about what I think the author was putting into those 4 stories I enjoyed, but I can say that you should read them. It'll be... Fun. Expand your mind and all that.
08/03/07 17:04
Is Blizzard nuts? Another new expansion to 80. This just means that Outlands is going to be dead like Azeroth is now. I already had enough trouble finding groups in Outlands, and now with Northrend, it'll be impossible. What I personally dislike about it is that because it's Northrend, it'll be overrun with undead stuff. And I don't like undead stuff. The only time I've gone into the Plaguelands was to grab a flight point, and just that one run through was enough for me. I feel Blizzard should've delayed another expansion for a while longer to work out all the issues Outlands has brought, and to let players catch up with all the new content in Outlands.
Going to the dentist tomorrow to extract my last 2 wisdom teeth. So not looking forward to it.
08/02/07 17:25
Had to go to the UT library to get my student card. UT library = confusing piece of crap. Buildings should be square/rectangular with hallways laid out in a grid pattern. It may not look as nice, but dammit it's a lot more functional and easier to get find one's way around.
07/31/07 21:10
I just got my tenative schedule in the mail today. My reaction was !@#$ when I saw it. For first semester I've got Wednesdays off, but I don't get lunch till 12 or 1, and with my luck, I've got class till 9 and 9:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, right when archery is supposed to take place. There goes that. For second semester I've got classes every weekday, and on 2 of them, I don't get a lunch break. 8 hours straight of classes?!?! Wtf??? *sigh So much to do... Oh, and it's 25 hours a week. Ugh. Second semester is 29 hours a week...`
07/29/07 21:55
I watched Chuck and Larry today. It was pretty funny. It wasn't super amazing, but it was worth the ticket price. I so want to see Rush Hour 3 when it comes out.
I had one of the most interesting conversations yesterday with some of my friends. It was definitely the longest, since we talked almost non-stop for 5 hours. Went to Go For Tea, and it was an interesting experience as it was my first time in a bubble tea place. I can certainly see the appeal these places hold. Pay a couple of bucks and you can hang out in a comfortable (albeit loud) environment chatting with friends for a while. I should have ordered a small though, as I felt bloated after drinking most of my drink. Because it was so loud we went to someone's house and played cards and continued our conversations there. We somehow managed to make several hours go by in a blink. It was one of the best nights I've had in a long time. I really need to stop underestimating travel time though. That and getting lost caused me to be half an hour late >< I need to get out more often. Yeah.
I found this on Facebook, and I just didn't feel comfortable not providing counterpoints to it. Here it is:
"If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?
Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.
Question 2:
It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts.
Here are the facts about the three candidates.
Candidate A.
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologist.
He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.
Candidate B.
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon , used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
Candidate C
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke,drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.
Which of these candidates would be our choice?"
Okay, so the catch is that for the first question, the next kid will be Beethoven, and for the 2nd question, the first two is Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill while the last is Adolf Hitler. I would say that yes, an abortion would be the best choice, because the issue isn't that you might eliminate a genius, the issue is that you're way more likely to produce people who won't contribute as much to society as another person's kid. See, to get Beethoven, we had to get 3 deaf, 2 blind, and 1 mentally retarded kid. That's pretty bad considering the fact that Beethoven's contribution was music, which doesn't really help us. Sure it's nice to have, but I'd rather have another great scientist. And we got lucky that it was Beethoven that came out and not another disabled baby. Plus think of all the other people who were in similar situations and didn't get a genius. Yeah, that should kill that. And don't forget what Levitt said in Freakonomics, that the legalization of abortion was what killed off the massive crime wave in the US. It's pretty convincing as the crime rate drops match for states that legalized early, plus the years match up.
For the second part, that question is just biased. Everyone has good and bad things. I could list your bad things and compare it to choice C, and it'll still turn out the same way. So if this was a valid question, then Hitler's a better person than all of us. I would so like to take a phaser and reduce the person who wrote this crap into a stain on the floor. Then toss that section of flooring into a blue-white star. The sad (and scary) thing is, is that there are plenty of people who will believe this kind of crap. It really helps one understand why we've got all the trouble and idiocy we do in the world today.
07/25/07 22:19
Finally done rebricking the driveway! Woo! The plastic sheets I placed underneath should reduce the plant growth in the cracks.
The night before I finished the last Harry Potter book, I read Freakonomics. It's a really interesting book in that using economics, it reveals to us all these fascinating (and simple) explanations of some things that we usually don't think about or already think we know the answer to. I do disagree with one conclusion he made though, that people can resist unethical acts 87% of the time if they know they can't be caught. This is from the bagel story section, if you've read the book before. See, I say it's much lower than 87% because the people stealing the bagel don't know for sure that no one's observing them. Somebody could walk in at the wrong moment, or for some reason their company installed a hidden camera in the break room. I think the percentage is closer to 1%. Or less. Really depends on how much the person stands to gain.
My reading speed's still good even though I've been reading less for the past year :D Still going at around 60 pages an hour. I wonder if my speed reading pace is still the same though. Probably not. Oh well.
07/24/07 21:39
Went and walked around UTSG today with 2 friends. It doesn't seem that big to me, just a lot of buildings which makes it confusing. I saw the new pharmacy building, conveniently located right beside the subway station. It seems too small to fit 900 something pharmacy students though. What if the other classes are in the old building, all the way across campus??? Noooo... I still like McMaster better. Layout was less confusing, and the food places were bigger. I suspect there'll be really long lineups at UTSG.
I finished the last Harry Potter book yesterday. I liked the beginning and middle more than the ending, as it was in the ending that I noticed the most flaws in the plot (Harry coming back to life was one of them). I know I remembered at least 4 yesterday, but seeing as I can't recall them all, I'm not going to bother saying them. It'd require too much work. The best part of the book was after Ron left and before he came back. Ron's useless, even Neville's better than him! Neville knowledge of Herbology is enough to rival Hermione's. Ron... Won a chess game. And has done nothing useful again. And I'm sure Hermione could've won too. It's chess after all. In my view, Ron's value is his family. It's through him that Harry gets the skills the Weasley's have. If only he had died instead of one of the twins. I should join a Ron Sucks group. I knew all along Snape wasn't evil! Though I hadn't begun to suspect the amount of planning Snape and Dumbledore had done. I thought in this book Snape was just trying to play along and not get killed since Dumbledore was dead. I have to say, the Ressurection stone was a useless piece of junk. The Elder wand and the cloak were good. Drats, can't right any more on the matter, it's sleep time. This is why living on residence is so good. Can go to sleep whenever I want.
07/22/07 11:46
Argh! Library isn't open on Sundays in July! :'( Must wait till Monday to get the book. Dammit!
07/22/07 11:30
I've got the latest Harry Potter book on my library hold shelf :D Going to pick it up after lunch. I thought I was in the 2nd round, but I guess a lot of people bought the book when it was released and cancelled their hold.
07/21/07 00:10
You know what would be an awesome ending for Harry Potter? Hermione kills all the wizards and witches in the world with a super spell she creates through her research and wits then takes over the world. Nerds ought to win sometime, and what better lesson to teach the kids of the world than that nerds should be the ones who get ahead. Who knows, it could revolutionize the next generation's culture and usher in an unending golden age of science and technology. As an added bonus, nerds are usually more environmentally friendly.
07/20/07 23:42
I just saw the 5th Harry Potter movie, the Order of the Phoenix. It was disappointing to me as the movie skipped so many scenes. It was only 2 hours 18 minutes, so it's not as if they ran out of time. They could've made the movie 3.5 hours long like Lord of the Rings, and then release extended editions on DVD! It's like they didn't even try to cover everything. Plus they got some of the details wrong. I don't recall Cho being the one who gave away the secret of the DA, and the room they were practicing in? Completely wrong. The room felt all cold and hard, but in the book it was warm, welcoming, and full of soft pillows to land on after taking a stupefy spell to the chest. In the movie they land on the hard floor and miraculously get up uninjured. When I saw them doing it in front of a fireplace grate full of sharp metal points, I thought, someone should get a nasty gash on the back of the head from that. And the battle at the Department of Mysteries? Blah. Ditto for the George and Fred stuff after Umbridge takes over. So much stuff missing... Would love to kill the writers of the movie. The huge black and white picture of Fudge at the Ministry of Magic was cool though. Immediately reminded me of Chamberlain, lol. Anyway, if you really really want to see the movie, go ahead, but I recommend just waiting for it to come out on TV or borrow someone's DVD when it comes out rather than spending 10 dollars to see it.
07/20/07 17:42
Ahahaha, I think I know what some of the remaining horcruxes are in Harry Potter. And it's all thanks to this nice article from the BBC. A sword, platter, and lance will be one of the remaining ones I think. The cup was already taken care of in The Half Blood Prince. Okay, so the cup wasn't the horcrux itself, but the horcrux was in it, so close enough. Unless of course, there's another cup too :o I was skeptical at first, but then I read what the Swedish title for the last book is: Harry Potter and the Relics of Death. Heh heh heh... Excellent... Just felt like typing that.
Oh, I forgot to mention this before when I was writing about my trip to China. Kaiping's been made a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And... There was something else I wanted to mention but forgot. Again.
07/19/07 21:13
Woo! Got a bunch of new books from the library yesterday. Should be fun. Also been reading a bunch of new web comics. One of them is a story-type where the author planned out everything beforehand. Just a few more and the entire story will be done. The twist near the end was kind of a letdown in my opinion. It's called The Dreamland Chronicles. I did manage to find a pretty funny one too called The Noob. The title says it all.
Something's seriously wrong with the management of the TTC. Toronto's the largest city in Canada, and yet it's facing massive cuts to its service, including the closure of the relatively brand new Sheppard line. Public transit is supposed to improve with time, yet it seems like the TTC is not only not going forwards, but backwards. And another fare hike? It already costs almost $3 for one lousy ride! This certainly isn't the way to go if we want more people to ride public transit. Maybe they should look at the way other cities manage their public transit systems, say, Hong Kong?
Scientists have now managed to program a computer that can either win or draw anyone who challenges it to a game of checkers because it has managed to solve every possible game of checkers that will lead to either its victory or a draw. Proof that chess is better than checkers :)
07/15/07 13:24
Had 2 wisdom teeth extracted yesterday, so now I can't eat any solid foods. The needles were sooo painful. I had 5 shots, many of which were injected into my jaw bone I think because I heard cracking sounds! My gums still bleeding a bit, my lower jaw hurts, and my gums are swollen. Oh yes, and I have to go again next week to have the stitches in my mouth taken out and have to take these huge antibiotic pills >< And people wonder why dentists are feared...
I can watch the Space and Comedy channels now! Somebody was working outside with cables a couple of days ago and for some reason we've got a ton of channels. Even the channels that were full of static are clear now, not that they're channels I want to watch anyways.
07/12/07 16:29
I got from China on the 10th. Feel so nice to be back home. I wanted to give my laptop a hug because I missed it so much, but refrained from doing so since it was all dusty. Went through a month's worth of updating instead. Catching up on a month's worth of security updates, comics, and blogs is no easy task. Took me all of one night and one morning and that's with skipping all the stuff on Worse Than Failure (formerly known as The Daily WTF). So, I'm sure you want to hear about my trip (or not, lol.) and without further ado, I will begin to write about it. Hopefully I haven't forgotten too much.
Our first stop was Beijing after suffering through a 16 hour flight. First thing that hits me when we go outside to catch a bus, the massive air pollution. The sky wasn't blue, it was brownish-grey. Had to wait outside for 20 minutes before our bus arrived. I spent that time coughing, blinking frequently, wishing I was back in Canada, dealing with a runny nose, and breathing as though I had severe asthma. After getting off the bus, we walked several blocks to our hotel. I was amazed by how wide the major roads were, and the fact that to cross them people could go over on pedestrian brides and through underground passageways. That was nice in that then there could be fewer traffic lights, and pedestrians didn't have to wait for traffic lights or risk being hit by cars. Our hotel was in a really good location. It's right beside this night time food market full of deep fried goodies and at the other end of the market to the east is the shopping district of Beijing. Then a couple of blocks west is the Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square. The first place we visited was the Great Wall of China. It's damn impressive considering how far it extends plus the fact that it's built on top of steep hills. My brother and I climbed to the highest point of the wall in the area we were in. My legs were shaking from fatigue after we got down (My mom only made it a quarter of the way up, lol). I'd hate to have been the soldiers who had to patrol it in heavy armor. It's amazing how silly some people can be. On the way down, I had a bypass a whole group of slow movers. They were all wearing high heels... I can only imagine the pain they were in and laugh at their stupidity. The Great Wall also netted me my first utterly useless souviner. The entrance ticket. About half way up, there was a store that sold a souviner card that's like the entrance ticket, except that you have to waste like 40RMB on it. Yes, you can pay 40RMB for a flimsy card when you can buy dishes at restaurants for 2RMB... While I was climbing up, I saw a bunch of tables that were unoccupied. I wanted to sit down and have a drink so I started walking towards them. As soon as I walked past a building corner I discovered why they were empty. The building beside the tables was a washroom and it stank! I almost vomited when I caught a whiff of the smell. It was like my middle school washrooms while the janitors were on strike... Luckily the washrooms at the bottom were super clean. We passed by the Ming Tombs too. I wanted to see them, but didn't have enough time to see them and the Summer Palace area so we skipped it. The Summer Palace area is really nice. The paint scheme on the wooden beams were so intricate (like the ones in the Forbidden City) and we saw some people replanting lawns by hand. Someone was also selling these really delicious green (bean?) popsicles for only 1 RMB. After we bought 1 each, a whole mass of people started buying them. We didn't go up to the buildings on top of the hill though. The highlight of Beijing for me was the Forbidden City. It's been turned into a giant museum full of interesting relics on display. The air inside was also noticeably cleaner though it was still really bad. The place is huge, we spent hours in there and still didn't see all of the areas that we were allowed to see. Not all the areas were open to the public either! The garden inside was just amazing with all the plants and decorative rocks and whatnot. There was also a pool with a ton of koi fish in it. Some kid was throwing bread into the pool and the fish were just swarming where ever bread fell. Afterwards we visited Tiananmen Square which wasn't all that fun as there wasn't much shade there. Of course, right before we exit the Forbidden City and enter the square, I manage to have a nosebleed. Yep, my blood is now splattered on the ground near the entrance to Tiananmen Square inside the Forbidden City. We also went shopping in the shopping district near our hotel. I bought an Olympics themed hat for myself. The way you buy stuff in stores in China is retarded. After you see something you want to buy, you give it to a nearby employee (there's so many there's always at least one a few steps away). They write for you a reciept which you then take over to a cashier somewhere. You pay for it, then take the stamped reciept back to the person you gave whatever you wanted to buy to, and then finally recieve your purchase. Repeat this for every item you want to buy... A vendor was selling this weird toy that I should've bought but didn't. It's like a blob of gel shaped in the form of a fat round animal (one of them was a golden pig). What you do is throw it at something, say a table surface, and on contact it goes splat. Now's the interesting part. The thin film of gel then slowly comes back together to it's original shape so what you see is an animal slowly rising up from goo. Fun. Oh, and we almost ran out of money in Beijing because we had trouble finding a Bank of China to convert our money to RMB (another stupid thing, if you didn't exchange enough money inside the airport, you can only convert currency at a Bank of China. If there isn't one near your hotel...). To get around we walked since everything was so close to the hotel. We did hire someone to drive us when we went to the Great Wall though. Anyways, here's a short summary of Beijing. Lots of stuff to buy (I didn't really notice the prices) and lots of cheap food to eat. Also lots of interesting stuff to see. Lots of air pollution to choke on too. It's also quite hot and humid. Ah, and nobody there speaks Cantonese nor English. I don't want to go back to Beijing ever again as the disadvantages of not being able to read Chinese, not being able to speak Mandarin, no one there speaking Cantonese or English, and the fricking air pollution far outweigh the good stuff. My advice to anyone going there is to bring some sort of filter to breathe through.
Next stop, Guangzhou. We stayed at an apartment some relatives own. Since we didn't have to pay for housing, it became our home for the rest of the trip. Anyways, the flight was 3 hours and I went through intense pain in my ears during landing. Plane rides suck. We hired a taxi to get us there from the airport and so was introduced to the seatbelt-less crazy driving that we were to go through for the rest of the trip. Let's just say I'm glad I didn't get run over by anything or have the various vehicles I rode crash into anything while I was aboard. It seems everyone's used to it though as there were hardly any accidents in the news and I only saw one where a motorcycle clipped a bus and caused a huge traffic jam on a bridge. Odd thing I've noticed is that the police cars always have their lights flashing. That and one driver told us that they don't have to let police cars go ahead of them. Anyway, after we arrive and set everything up, I go take a shower and discover that the apartment has no hot water... Goodbye hot water for 1.5 weeks... Except for the lack of hot water, slowness of bus rides due to massive traffic, and the sweltering heat, Guangzhou's pretty nice. Was quite happy to be back in a Cantonese area. The apartment was on the fringe of Guangzhou, but there were buses to many locations right outside. The buses in China are confusing for visitors as their routes don't follow straight lines since the routes are defined by the stops the bus goes to. This results in 15 different routes using the same bus stop so if you're not paying attention you might miss your bus as it's hiding behind the 4 buses in front of it at the stop... There isn't anything to see in Guangzhou (We did visit my dad's former house and had dinners/lunches with my parents' classmates and our relatives). Instead, there's lots of shopping. Lots and lots and lots of shopping. My mom went crazy and dragged us everywhere. As long as you don't buy international brand name stuff, everything is dirt cheap. I already had enough clothes at home so I didn't buy much. The food courts are nice. If you want to buy food you get a card that you put money onto and then go to the individual stalls to order. It's faster and more convienent in my opinion. A thing I really like about the food courts is that the dishes are all displayed so you don't have to look at a tiny picture (or no picture and just a text description) of what you're getting. Makes deciding what to get harder as you see rows and rows of delicious looking food in front of you. The subways in Guangzhou (and Hong Kong) are so much nicer than the ones here. The trains come more frequently and are quiet, the stations and trains are clean, there's TV to watch (there's also TV on some of the buses too), some of them have electronic maps, the destinations are clearly announced, and the platforms have a glass barrier to prevent people from being pushed onto the tracks (also shows where the doors will open too).
Next we went to Kaiping, where my mom and dad grew up. We stayed at my mom's aunt's apartment. Although it didn't have a TV, air conditioning, or mattresses, it had hot water and the apartment was naturally cooler than the one in Guangzhou (the one in Guangzhou was big and sunny and only had one air conditioner installed which effectively only cooled one small room) so it balanced out. In Kaiping all we really did was visit the buildings my parents grew up in, relatives, and my mom's classmates. Pretty boring. The house my mom grew up in was still in relatively excellent condition. Very nice views and built like a fortress complete with holes to shoot through at bandits, lol. We went shopping for groceries while we were there at a giant market. It was so crowded and chock full of food to buy and somebody with a bicycle behind me ran his dirty front tire into the back of my leg...
Back to Guangzhou for a full day of rest, then off to the best part of the trip, Hong Kong. We stayed in a brand new 5 star hotel called L'Hotel Nina et Convention Centre. It was only 500 something HKD too since it was brand new and they want to promote it. In fact, there was still construction going on roof. The hotel was sooo nice. Free internet access, a large LCD television, and of course, hot water. Fitting that it was here that I found out I had been accepted into pharmacy :) We only stayed for 3 days unfortunately as my mom's feet started hurting really badly. We visited the giant Buddha statue which was quite cold as it was enshrouded in fog and rode a cable car to the top of a mountain on Hong Kong island which provided us with a great view. The cable car was pretty cool with parts of it climbing at like a 45 degree angle. Also went shopping of course. I bought a Swatch watch since my other watch's strap was about to fall apart and a pair of shoes. Finally heard people speak English here too XD In fact, we visited on area called Soho that was full of restaurants and bars and it was full of white people, lol. I'd say that Hong Kong is like Guangzhou, except with English, way less motorcycles, more stores, and more expensive food. It's too bad we didn't stay longer to participate in the July 1st festivities.
We rode a ferry and visited Macau for a couple of hours on our way back from Hong Kong. Macau was utterly unimpressive. All we did was visit the ruins of some church. That and stop by McDonald's for dinner where I discovered that the french fries there taste different in a bad way and I think the Big Mac has less meat. It also takes forever to get an apple pie at the McDonald's there. Getting out of Macau was quite an experience. Imagine a stadium sized room crammed to capacity with people waiting to go through immigration because it's the only point availible to cross back into China. 30-40 minute wait I think. Glad I'm not claustrophobic. Macau: A very crappy smaller version of Hong Kong but with Portuguese instead of English.
Finally, almost 1.5 weeks more of Guangzhou then a 2.5 hour flight to Beijing then a 13.5 hour flight back to Toronto. The air in Beijing was actually much nicer on the way back. The sky was actually blue... Bought a set of headphones with mic in Guangzhou before I left since I found one for about 5 dollars CDN. And that's my trip to China. If I ever do go back, it'll probably only be to Hong Kong.
So, as I mentioned before, I got accepted into the pharmacy program at the University of Toronto. I think I passed the admissions test because of the IQ test and because it was an environmentalist was the one who marked my short story since I'm sure my short answers were totally unacceptable. I'm going to miss McMaster. Living on residence was so nice and I made new friends there. Commuting is going to suck. Going to be difficult to make new friends at UTSG since I'll be living off campus. At least the fact that everyone in pharmacy is taking the same courses and there's only 240 students will make it a bit easier I guess. *sigh If only McMaster had a pharmacy program for me...
06/12/07 22:51
A whole month without my games, news articles, and email? How ever will I survive??? I managed to rush through my 2nd novel today. It was blah. Not good, but not horrible either. Just blah. That reminds me, I need to put all my holds on the inactive list again.
Haha, another ceasefire has been declared between Hamas and Fatah. Oh, but wait, what's this? "But Hamas's military wing says it has received no orders to put down its guns and clashes are continuing in Gaza." Oh the craziness never stops in the Middle East. I wonder who's making the most money from it?
06/12/07 23:14
It seems I had a backup of my iTunes library stashed away. Opened it up and... Discovered errors in it. Dammit.
06/12/07 16:37
3-4 three hour labs every week??? *cries
06/12/07 12:44
Well, it took a while, but I finally caught up on all the The Order of the Stick comics. It's so good. Of course, since I used all that time reading the comics, I'm not sure I can finish up my last novel. *sigh There's never enough time.
06/10/07 18:25
I finally finished one of the novels I borrowed from the library. So goood, and the authors writing a sequel too! Which isn't listed in the library... Drats. Oh well, still a good read, and it wasn't written with a series in mind so it's good. The book's called Singularity and is written by Bill DeSmedt. A miniature black hole and... Other stuff that will give away the story.
Chopping fallen trees up into chunks is NOT fun...
06/08/07 22:41
The storm today snapped two trees in my backyard. And guess who has to clean the mess? Ugh...
One of my friends wrote an article disputing the notion that "nerdier" articles on Wikipedia have longer and more comprehensive entries. I however, agree that nerdier topics do tend to have more detailed articles. Writing a long Wikipedia entry takes lots of time and effort to research all the little nuggets of info and organize them into a well-written entry. People will only write about things they like, as why put in the effort writing about something one is not passionate about when one can write about something one likes? Of course, you can find someone who is passionate about anything, even chairs. This of course, should mean that a slant towards anything should not appear. However, it does. This is because of the demographics of Wikipedia contributors. These people will usually, if not always, be computer savvy. Go to a well-written article, and click on the edit button. Look at all the square brackets and whatnot. An average person would not know what the heck is going on, so you'd need a computer nerd, or at least someone with above average skills, to write good articles. It's one thing to write an article. It's another to write an excellent article with it properly formatted. Now ask yourself, how many of these people would you find that are interested enough in say,
Been reading this webcomic called WoT now?. It's so funny! Don't bother reading it if you haven't read the Wheel of Time series though. You wouldn't get it in that case.
I've run out of books to read at home. Must make another library trip. Unfortunately, the books I put on hold haven't arrived yet so I'll need to root out some new ones.
Unbelievable that it's June already. My summer vacation is draining away so fast :( I swear time skipped Friday as I thought today was Friday, not Saturday.
I started Eye of the World yesterday. It's been so long since I read the series that it's almost as if I'm reading an awesome series I just discovered. Almost. It's unfortunate that I can't wipe my memory of what happens so that I can read it with a clean slate again. Oh well, I've forgotten so much that it's good enough I guess.
What's with this campaign to boycott Petro Canada to lower their gas prices? Insanity I say! Just drive less, or failing that, boycott a company that's not a Canadian one so that we won't lose any tax money. Sheesh, it's like shooting yourself in the foot as you're basically giving your money away to the US. And you know, other countries pay way higher gas prices. So quit whining and use alternative means of transport more. The environment will be better off.
Here's the breakdown going course: 1st semester grade/2nd semester grade.
I also just applied for OSAP again. My estimate dropped this year by a thousand dollars :'(
Depressing isn't it? And rain is forecasted for the next 2 days... Joy... Not.
I finished the Temple of Time today. It was way too simple. The cut scene midway through boss fight was funny though. Link: "Yes, another giant evil creature dead just because of me. *does the twirly sword thing Wait a minute, what's that? Ewwww..." I'm at the hidden village now, sniping orcs. It's fun. The setting is like a wild west town, but combined with 007 sniping, Zelda style. Great fun :) I whacked a couple of orcs off their boars on my way there just for fun too.
This is not good. Going more than double the speed limit should make it murder. Damn rich kids and their money...
Contrary to what I said in my last entry, this page did manage to break 100 hits this month. Woohoo!
Well, actually, we got off at Osgoode so we walked a block before getting to the Eaton Centre. We walked around there for a bit, including into a pet store where we encountered a parrot that seemed to bear ill intent towards one of our party and numerous cute puppies. I managed to get accused of being the opposite of normal people for prefering kittens. Apparently cats are "evil," which lead to an image of me being evil and petting a cat like a stereotypical supervillian. I wish I could be a supervillian. Who wouldn't want great power and riches? The world would be better off with me as supreme leader anyways. We then went back to Nathan Phillips Square and picked up a tourist guide and map.
Seeing as how we had no objective to walk towards to, I suggested (rammed the idea through) we head for Allan Gardens because one, we needed an objective or we'd just end up standing around, and two, I wanted to walk outside and Allan Gardens was nice and far, and three, I wanted to look at weird plants, lol. So we headed for Allan Gardens, aided by our little map. We got distracted along the way though, including a weird mime that was trying to imitate a samurai (I'm saying this as he had a curved sword reminiscient of a samurai one and ugly costume and mask. The ugly mask was supposed to scare enemies in battle.) when you donated money but executed the act with no skill whatsoever. Yes yes, slowly twirling a wooden sword around and pretending to slice off the head of an audience member is quite the performance. And then your frozen resting pose is one that would fit King Arthur more. Quite painful to watch. Also spent a chunk of time in The World's Largest Bookstore. I managed to find a couple of Star Trek and Stargate books in there and proceeded to fascinate (bore) the people around me. For some reason we also went into a store that appeared to promise cheap clothing but was really quite crappy. I had to wonder how it managed to pay off its bills. So by the time we reached Allan Gardens, it was closing and we didn't get to go in unfortunately. We started to be hungry by then, but didn't know where to eat. It was suggested we try the entertainment district as there are supposedly a lot of restaurants there.
Only one problem. We were on the opposite side of Toronto. The district was on the south-west area, we were north-east. So we headed south to try St. Lawrence Market and trekked all the way down till we reached it near the lake shore. Turns out it's closed on Mondays >< Since we were already that far south, we headed towards the entertainment district in hopes of finding a decent restaurant. We passed through the heart of the financial district, and marvelled at the huge skyscrapers and buildings named after banks. We also glimpsed the building of the Toronto Stock Exchange too. I could just feel the power emanating from the buildings. All of the major banks of Canada were here. CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia, Toronto-Dominion, the buildings came one after another. I personally thought the Nova Scotia one looked best. At least I think it was the Nova Scotia one. It wasn't anywhere near as tall as the other buildings, but the building had an elegance that its style and age lent it. It seemed to send the message, yeah, we don't need to have a huge skyscraper. We know we're better than the rest of you. The location of powerful businessmen who gather to scheme and plot new ways of stealing more money from us, lol. Sure the major corporations weren't located here, but not that many are located in Toronto anyways I think, so it was good enough to evoke that thought. Oh, and we managed to reach the Hockey Hall of Fame, which was noteworthy because earlier in the day one of us had mentioned that he had never seen the building before. It was like our wandering steps were destined to bring us there for him to see it finally. That or he got lucky.
We stumbled upon a Greek restaurant called Penelope as soon as we escaped from the dark streets caused by the shadowing of the sun by the bankers' towering seats of power and entered with expectations of a good meal. It looked nice and clean and didn't look too expensive. Plus we were all hungry and didn't want to risk having to walk another few blocks before finding another restaurant of comparable quality. We pondered what we should order and managed to get the wine list delivered to us. I wasn't really paying attention to anything other than the menu so I don't know how it got to our table. I think someone asked for it out of curiousity. We obviously looked like we were over 19 since one of the first questions they asked after we were seated was if we wanted anything from the bar. Although I guess they could always check ID only if we actually order something alcoholic. Whatever. The price of the wines were way too expensive for us regardless. We had a complimentary loaf of bread at our table and proceeded to quickly devour the entire thing with plenty of butter before requesting another one. After walking all day, we were ready to eat just about anything placed in front of us. We ordered a plate of appetizers for all of us. It had kalamari, sausage, some sort of spinanch mixture wrapped in what seemed to be a deep fried spring roll shell, a rice/meat mixture wrapped in something green and vegetable-like, and a dip. Somebody managed to scoop out 1/4 of the dip initially and proceeded to be thoroughly addicted to it. I ordered beef souvlaki, while the others had a greek salad, roast lamb, and combo (chicken, beef, and pork) souvlaki. It was quite tasty. There was the beef of course, 2 chunks of roasted potatoes, steamed green and yellow string beans along with baby carrots, a type of rice that I do not usually eat but tastes quite good, plenty of oil, and the aforementioned dip. I had to let most of the potatoes go to waste unfortunately as I was just too full. None of us ordered dessert because, well, we were too full. The dessert called death by chocolate sounded so nice though, but then again, we would really have died from exploded stomachs, lol. After the tip the total came out to be a few cents shy of a hundred dollars. I am now owed a huge chunk of money since some people neglected to bring enough cash.
After managing to drag our bloated bodies out of the restaurant, we headed off to explore the west side of downtown since we had gone through the east side before we ate dinner. We ended up walking north on Spadina and hit College Street after going through Chinatown. Chinatown seemed so much smaller to me than in the past, though it was probably because a lot of the shops had already closed by then and the sidewalk was relatively uncrowded. The place brought back nice memories for me as I used to live in the area. In fact, we took a detour to see my old house. We then headed towards Queen's Park and the subway station there. Strangely enough, as we neared the University of Toronto, we met my grade 12 algeo teacher. Apparently he is taking a securities course there so I think he's working towards getting certified for securities trading and is going to then quit teaching. However, he strikes me as the type to just enjoy amassing knowledge and so it is also likely he's taking the course just for fun, or perhaps to work out a better retirement savings strategy. Since he was walking away from the direction of the nearest subway station, we guessed that he lives in College and Spadina area. Wouldn't it be an odd twist of fate if he's the one living in my old house? We also went into the MaRS building for a glance. The security guard saw us when I poked my head through an opening and was probably wondering who the hell we were and what we were doing in there. We left pretty quickly but that was okay. They had left the old outer facade intact and had newer, and taller buildings behind it. To me, it looked like the new buildings were trying to envelope the old one, as part of the new building filled a gap at the top of the old building such that it was visible from the sidewalk.
And thus my little adventure today ended as we were whisked home via the TTC. Fun times. Speculated on ways to cheat on taxes through business expense claims during dinner too. I hope my feet don't hurt tomorrow. Damn this entry took a long time to write. I should've turned off MSN when I was writing this as it would've cut down on the time required.
The hits on this site neared a hundred this month, but I don't think it'll go over before June arrives. Oh well, I can try for a hundred again in August.
I was reading about the Dungeons and Dragons game on Wikipedia yesterday. It sounds like a really fun game, if there's a good dungeon master. I'm already reading books that are sort of set in those type of settings, if I can control the character too... :) I doubt I'll ever play a game though, as it looks like a lot of effort to set up. Rather stick to the LOTR wargaming.
I've been reading a book on strange weather events for a few minutes at a time here and there, and it's pretty good. It's called Freaks of the Storm, by Randy Cerveny. I wouldn't recommend reading it straight through, but it's really enjoyable in during commercial breaks on TV and stuff.
Well, I've managed to waste one month of summer vacation already. Time goes by way too fast.
Since I finished my fishing goal, I went off into the Gerudo desert and started the Arbiter's section. Damn scary with all the undead screaming guys (now improved with a hugemongous butchers knife as big as my character), the masses of skeletons, and the disgusting ghost rats. At least most of it is resonably well-lit. The 4 poes and their flame stealing were a nice reminder of the Forest Temple in Ocarina, except these 4 are 3 times as tall as normal poes and have horrifying faces. Really spooked me when I first saw it. I really really want to get this temple over with, but it hasn't been scary enough for me to grab a guide to get it over with as quickly as possible. Yet.
Just burned through 1.2k rupees in Zelda today doing a side quest, and need another 0.6k more to get my magic armour. Looks like I'm going to have to go through the entire cave system in Lake Hylia so I can open all the chests I skipped, ugh. I already handed in all the bugs I had to get that 1.2k already so no easy money that way.
I don't get why the Zora and Goron domains got switched in Twilight Princess. Their relative locations are switched from what they were in Ocarina of Time. All the other locations are the same. I haven't seen the Gerudo area yet, but I'm guessing that's the huge part that I haven't explored yet (Didn't know it was there until I had a hidden skill location placed there. I guess that's where Telma will send me when I go talk to her.) and it's in the right place. I wonder what happened to the Kokiri? They should be around somewhere... Same for the Great Deku Tree... But I think I've covered all the forest areas already now so where are they?!
Starcraft 2 is coming out, yay! I can't believe Blizzard is selling a model of a marine for $250. Who would buy that kind of crap?!
Somebody said the guard puzzle was hard, but it was quite easy for me. I only screwed up once, and the other times I had to restart it was because I accidently crushed myself. Managed to solve it in a couple of minutes. It's actually quite easy if you think about it. All you have to do is keep them symmetrical with each other and then move them so you end up with them being on opposite sides of the target squares. It also helps to keep in mind that your character also has to have enough room around him so that he can move freely without being crushed by the guards.
I was surprised that the main evil guy is named Zant, as he's so Ganondorf looking. Besides, this game is supposed to have taken place between Ocarina of Time and Windwaker, so Ganondorf hadn't had the Master Sword plunged into his forehead and turned to stone so he's still around. Plus in Ocarina of Time he got sent back to the other realm instead of being killed off, and these evil things are supposed to be from another realm. It'd make sense that Ganondorf had broken free again.
Another thing that surprised me was that during the scene in the spring in Lake Hylia, it seems like Midna has special powers of her own that Zant doesn't have as he was asking Midna to help him. I also didn't get the part about the shadow realm beings being oppressed by the people living in the light realm. Did Zelda break the barrier between the two realms and send troops through? But the guards of Hyrule are so damn cowardly, plus the attack that brought on the darkness seemed like a surprise attack in the first place. Hopefully there will be another scene later on that explains all this.
Zelda had better come back somehow after disappearing to save Midna! She can't die!
Got some new books from the library again, yay! And it turns out the book I was reading before did suck, and I had already read it before too. I forgot to get a programming book, but I did pick up a book about weather. It's called Freaks of the Storm by Randy Cerveny. The couple of random pages I scanned through at the library were pretty good. It appears to concentrate on weird weather and possible explanations for them.
I wish Apple would display my Shuffle battery status on my computer when I'm charging it. It'd be nice to know what percentage of charge it's at and how much longer I have to leave it plugged in.
Starting to go nuts out of boredom. The novel I just started better not be a bad one like the previous one I stopped reading yesterday. I hate it when I get so tired of a novel I just stop reading halfway through.
Maybe I should borrow a programming book from the library and learn another language out of sheer boredom... But which one?
Oh, I caught a new fish in the Lakeside Temple yesterday. But it was "illegal" or some crap like that and didn't get recorded in my journal. Grr....
One of my friends discovered Desktop Tower Defense, a game I wasted hours on during exams when I should've been studying. But he managed to beat the hard difficulty and got to level 75 on the challenge mode. I only finished up to medium before going off to study so I'm going to try to get to level 75 too as I'm pretty sure the challenge mode is set to hard difficulty. I'm going to have rethink my tower layout though as so far it's failed pretty quickly.
I'll continue fishing after I do the water temple. Maybe the fish will get bigger afterwards.
I went rollerblading today instead of bicycling, so I'm going to do that tomorrow. Tomorrow should actually be better as it will be partly cloudy so my chances of being sunburned will be less.
I wonder... I wonder how names for people came about. "Okay, this random string of sounds don't mean anything. This will be your name then." Now obviously some names came from professions, but a lot don't. So how'd they come about? And now I'm off to think about other random stuff. It's fun.
Here's another example I just found of why the UN sucks: "Zimbabwe's candidacy is reported to have broad support within Africa. Zimbabwe's Environment Minister Francis Nheme is being tipped by UN diplomats to be elected to the post on Friday." This is for the post of heading the Commission on Sustainable Development. Zimbabwe is a shining example of sustainable development, if by sustainable development you mean 2200% inflation, huge unemployment, civil rights abuse, a dictatorship, and now electricity rationed to being available only for 4 hours a day (except for wheat farmers of course so that they can irrigate their fields). Oh, and famine.
Super super bored. If only I still had my TV channels... For some reason I feel like folding a ton of paper airplanes and chucking them off the balcony. But I won't. That'd be littering and a waste of paper.
It sure sucks to be a car owner in France. I wonder how much deploying the riot police helped? Ah yes, in case you're wondering what I'm talking about, riot police were deployed during and/or after (not sure about during) the voting process in France in case if Sarkozy won rioting would break out like last summer. Well, Sarkozy did win, and rioting did break out. So far over 1000 cars have been burnt in 3 days of rioting along with UMP party offices and a car showroom. Again I must comment on the stupidity of the rioters. You're just hurting yourselves as all the damage to public property will be paid out of state funds reducing the amount of money availible for state services for yourselves, and I think all this rioting is actually driving in more support for Sarkozy as it validates his views. He was right to call you rioters scum last summer as cars are expensive and people rely on them for many things and rioting does nothing constructive. While reading this, it occured to me that it'd be quite easy to get some money from insurance companies. Just insure an old car that has a very low trade-in value and park it in one of those troublesome neighbourhoods. Then collect tons of money from the insurance company when your car gets destroyed :)
There's also a bit of controversy going on about Sarkozy taking a vacation luxury yacht right after winning the election. I see nothing wrong because no taxes are being used to pay for it, and if he can afford it, what's wrong with him taking his family on a little 3 day vacation before taking over from Chirac? His term doesn't start for a little while, and when he does, there's not going to be much vacation time for him for the next several years. He's also worked for several years already so 3 days of vacationing when he's paying for it himself? Don't be stupid people. But that's too much to hope for. Expecting a glimmer of intelligence from people who like to unlawfully destroy people's property? Yeah right.
I managed to get a nice staff for my mage today as I luckily got invited into a high level group that wanted to do the Ring of Blood quests or whatever that ring in Nagrand is called. We kind of cheated though as we actually had an extra player helping us, but we deserved it dammit as the damn elites kept resetting! Bugged I tell you, bugged! One of them resetted 3 times in one fight resulting in a couple of wipes. And it wasn't even because we pulled it out of the ring. It resetted twice while in the middle of the ring! But we managed to finish it so I ended up leveling, getting a ton of gold, and a ton of potions.
Why does the Taiwanese parliament keep descending into fistcuffs? Shameful I say! But then again, it's nice that their politicians actually care THAT much. Plus I'm sure it makes for great entertainment. Who wouldn't want to see their local representative beating up the representative of another riding??? Take this for diverting funds from my riding! My constituients are way more important than yours! Lol. Okay, I'm sure they don't say those things or fight over stuff like that, but it's still funny to imagine it in my head. I wonder if Jon Stewart will mention this. After all, he did for the rioting Pakistani lawyers! Middle-aged and bespectacled people rioting in fine suits. Puts the other rioters to shame with their ragtag clothing and disreputable air. Lol.
The weather today is awesome. It was warm enough that I could go rollerblading in shorts and a t-shirt. I wish someone would get rid of the roadkill along my path though. I keep almost running over the carcass.
I wonder if my physics prof will email me my mark if I ask him about it? That's the only course I'm waiting for now, besides the stupid non-credit one. Oh, got an 11 in psych. If I had only gotten just a few more questions right and I could've had the 12. As it is, no 12's this semester, but maybe I'll get one in physics if my prof marks easy again?
Figures that the library would call me to say I've got books I can pick up right when I get back instead of before I left, lol. Guess I better finish up my remaining novel I borrowed from the library. The book I'm currently reading is actually 2 novels in one book, and I'm on the first of the two right now. It's not all that good, but good enough for me to feel like reading to the end to find out what happens. If the second novel is much better, I'll list it on the book list. For some reason the appeal of the Sword of Truth series has disappeared for me. I went a couple of pages into Phantom and then stopped. The weird thing is that I'm not the only one who has experienced this as some people in a Facebook group I'm in has mentioned the same thing too. Odd, maybe Goodkind's lost it. Oh well.
Sarkozy's won over Royal, which will be good for France I think. From the articles in the BBC I've read, France already has way too much in social assistance and needs a more right-wing government. Sarkozy says he'll sort of abolish the 35 hour work week, but when I think about it, I don't see how extending the work week to 40 hours will help boost employment as wouldn't that mean an employer would now need to hire less employees to cover all their needs? Anyways, I think Sarkozy will be better for France based on a comparison of their policies by the BBC here. Okay, in the salaries, benefits, and pensions section, for Royal, raising the minimum wage with such high rates of unemployement? I don't think so. It'd just put more strain on small businesses and force them to cut back on the number of people they hire. Also, raising the basic state pension would just put France in even more debt. Jobless to recieve 90% of salary in first year of unemployment?! If was suddenly jobless, that'd make me want to take a long vacation before I start looking for work again (Well, not me actually, since I'd worry about how fast I could get another job after the year passes, but I'm sure lots of people would. Hm, I just thought of a way to cheat the system. While recieving the unemployment insurance, work out a deal with new employer or employer who just "fired" you where you'd work for a reduced wages and not have it reported as you working so that you can recieve income from both the government and your employer. Both wins in this scenario. Heck, if you know your employer really well, they could give you a big raise for while, then "fire" you, so that you could get a whole ton of money from the government while still working. The extra money could be split between employer and employee). For Sarkozy, I've already said a bit about the 35 hour work week. Adding on to that, why make it totally tax-exempt? I'm sure a 1% tax wouldn't really matter THAT much. But it is more appealing to voters. Allowing workers to retire when they want will also result in less jobs for those just entering the workforce I think because then you've got a slew of jobs that would be vacant due to retirement, but not anymore. Potentially remove benefits from those who turn down work. I like the sound of that. Why should the state give people money when they turn down offers of employment? That money is supposed to help people who can't find work, not lazy people. I'll skip the international affairs section as for those points I don't know much about them. New EU-led middle east peace initiative? Bah I say. One side will always reject whatever's proposed, or in the rare case both sides accept, it'll soon breakdown in a flurry of accusations of broken promises. For housing, for Royal, build a ton of new council homes every year. Again, more debt for France. Allow councils to claim properties that have been empty for 2 years. Sounds like infringement of property rights to me. If I buy a house, I should not be forced to live in it. Maybe I want to take 3 year vacation or whatever! Capping of private rents, again seems like a violation of rights to me. If I buy a property to rent out, the whole purpose is for me to generate as much money for me as possible. Why can't I charge what I want for it? If people are willing to pay more for it, why can't I charge more? If it's too expensive, then no one's going to rent it anyways so I'd have to reduce prices. No need for the state to restrict how much I charge for rent. Caps on rent increases I can understand since it's kind of not fair for one's rent to suddenly double or whatever without giving one time to adjust or find new accomodations, but caps on the actual rent? No. Guarantee of lifelong houseing? Fine, I'll just not pay the rent. You can't do anything since I'm guaranteed housing. In other words, seems like a stupid policy to me. For Sarkozy, providing assistance to those in council housing to buy their own property. Not sure on this, as the state would lose the income from the rents, but then are they losing money in subsidizing it and maintaining the property? So if it gets bought, they wouldn't have to maintain it, but I think the property tax they would recieve from it is less than what they recieve in rent. No person forced to sleep rough within 2 years of being elected. I think this means either no homeless people, or no people living outside on the streets. In either case, it seems impossible to completely solve the problem unless a ton of money is spent in constructing housing which means more debt for France. On energy, environment, and agriculture, for Royal, reduce dependence on nuclear power. Screw you I say. Nuclear power is a safe, clean, and viable alternative. Any meltdowns happen recently? No? So stop being scared of nuclear power. It's part of the solution to the environmental mess we're in right now. 20% of energy from renewables by 2020. That's good, renewable energy is always good. Reform EU farming subsidies to favour environment and smaller farmers. Favouring environment is good. But smaller farmers? It's good as it'd mean more employment, but it's bad in that this is because of lower efficiency. For Sarkozy, promote nuclear power as a clean source of energy. Yay! Support of nuclear power! Watch out for terrorist attacks on the plants though ;) Increasing amount of tax on pollution is good as the environment is important. Industry is going to whine though. Can't comment on the other point as I don't know enough about it, but it sounds good. On economy and taxes for Royal, no increase in general taxation and lower tax burden on companies that create jobs is good, but having companies create useless jobs just for a tax break isn't a solution, assuming they do that. Sucessful companies will create jobs anyways to fill their needs so reducing their taxes would lose the state revenue. Don't know about 35 hour work week. For Sarkozy, 4% drop in taxes is... I have no clue whether good or bad. If it stimulates the economy, then yay, as revenue will increase anyways then. Exempt more people from inheritance taxes? Depends who's exempt I guess. If the rich aren't exempt, then yay. Already said something about the 35 hours thing before. On immigration, law, and order, for Royal, residency papers for people who meet certain criteria. Illegal immigration is bad, don't encourage it. Immigration is good, but not the illegal kind. Military-style training camps for young offenders? So that they can come back better organized to commit crimes? No... I prefer jail... Or better yet, hard labor! For Sarkozy, reduce illegal immigration. Yea. And how are you going to do that? Selective immigration is good, but make sure they can actually easily work in their field of expertise or they'll be pissed. Minimum sentences for repeat offenders and tougher sentences for juveniles is really good. Criminals should not be let off easy. How to pay for it, Royal, financed by economic growth of 2.5% every year for 5 years. Yea... That's not a financial plan... That's hoping the economy does well enough in the future to pay for it all... For Sarkozy, cutting of civil service which accounts for close to half of the government budget. Eliminating useless jobs is good and public sector jobs are always really cushy, but where will they now go work? A better plan than Royal, but there's going to be a big backlash if the economy doesn't really improve as then it'll just be the same, except with higher unemployment.
Yes, I was that bored. But then again, commenting on their policies was fun for me. Not fun for you to read perhaps, but fun for me to write.
Reached level 65 today, so one more level before I get new spells including pyroblast :) Starting to run out of quests though I think which is going to suck. Got a new helm that looks ugly (Who in their right mind wants half a wolf's head sitting on their head?!) but has better stats.
I got the bow in Twilight Princess today. I had so much fun sniping orcs in the Goron Mines. Still got my OoT bow skills :D Unfortunately, it seems I still got my OoT spin attack skills too, i.e., I have to hold down the damn sword button and wait a whole second which means I'm dead meat if I really had to use it. I've got like a 50% chance of doing the spin attack on demand if I'm running in a straight path, but like 5% if I'm attacking something. Weird. Oh, the shield bash is fun as now Link automatically brings up his shield when L-targeting something (which is how it should be as why would you not use your shield for protection when fighting something?) but I'm still used to pressing the R button when fighting to bring up my shield so I actually end up attacking the enemy instead of defending myself which is actually better XD Funny thing happened today in the Goron Mine. An enemy killed itself for me. It walked too close to the edge and just slipped off while I was just standing there watching. Hilarious. I didn't even attack it or anything.
The UK's got it's own Quebec now, and it's Scotland. The Bloc Quebecois is the Scottish National Party. At least they only won by one seat and don't have a majority yet.
Fun day today :) Visited my high school again and did all the associated stuff. Thought I was going to be late so I ran most of the way there and got there right on time. Turns out someone else was 25 minutes late...
06/08/07 13:32
Slowly getting through my novels. Will probably pull a couple of 6 hour long reading sessions to finish them.
06/04/07 18:46
I finished the Cave of Ordeals today. It was longer and more difficult than the Ganondorf fight. Knowing how to kill all the monsters in each room doesn't really help when there's a whole mass of them coming at you all at once. I didn't count how many rooms there were, but there were a lot, with no hearts to pick up. The most annoying fight wasn't the last one, but one where I had to take on I think 6 armored lizards and a poe at the same time. I couldn't get the wolf to target the poe so it made attacking the lizards really difficult as the poe would take a whack at you when you went for the lizards. Oh well, I passed it without dying, and that's what matters.
06/03/07 20:36
Finished rereading Eye of the World today. *bounces off the walls in anticipation of The Great Hunt
06/02/07 21:30
I finished Twilight Princess today. The boss battle in the Palace of Twilight was fun! The last part with Zant was funny when he just flails about like a madman trying to cut you to pieces. The final battle with Ganon was tiring on my L-targeting finger. The last part dragged on for so long as the camera angle made it hard for me to make Link roll behind Ganondorf. It was fun nonetheless. All I have left to do now is check out the Cave of Ordeals. No way I'm going to try to find all the bugs and poes. Too damn difficult and time-consuming. I'm at 17 hearts and 2 pieces right now, so I missed 13 heart pieces along the way. The Twili were creepy with their misshapen bodies and red eyes. Reminded me of redeads way too much.
05/31/07 00:38
My grades and program application results for McMaster has all been released now. I got accepted into all my choices, and will go for Biological Chemistry. It'll be interesting to see how the 2nd year chemistry is broken between biological, synthesis and structure, and analytical. I hope biological is the smallest one! So, the grades. I've got an 11.1 overall right now as 2nd semester completely ruined my average. I didn't get a single 12 2nd semester :(
Bio: 11/11
Chem: 12/8
Physics: 12/11
Psych: 12/11
Calc: 12/11
05/29/07 19:12
I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End today. It had many illogical things in it, but I didn't mind, it was funny. I can see why people said it sucked, as I doubt it was originally intended to be comedy, but that's what it was to me. I was cheering for the British while I was watching. Screw the pirates, because, well, they're pirates.
05/28/07 23:02
What a fun day today was! Was wandering around Toronto with friends all day today. Although we had planned on only going downtown, we took a detour up to Yorkdale first (I can't remember the reason. Do we really need a reason?). We wandered around the mall and visited stores, including the Apple store where my view that Macs were of inferior quality was further rammed into the folds of my brain. Its game section was just one shelf shoved into a corner at the back of the store which was pathetic, and it didn't help that there was an EB Games store right across from the Apple store. Haha, Macs suck. Lol. Anyway, then we had lunch at the food court as we were hungry even though we had all eaten lunch before we left. After lamenting the fact that no Taco Bell was present, I settled for A&W. We each ordered our respective meals and proceeded to get thoroughly stuffed. After that we almost went to see Pirates 3, but decided against it (Sitting in a movie theatre for 3 hours straight? Not all that appealing. It appears I'm being forced to watch it tomorrow though. At least I'll get a tennis game out of it beforehand.). The fact that we would've had to wait 45 minutes for it start may have factored into our decision. A lot. We're just not all that patient I guess, and not all of us were enthusiastic about watching movies to say the least. So we hopped onto the TTC again and went to the Eaton Centre. Half of our party somehow managed to fall asleep on a noisy subway train. Amazing how some people can sleep anywhere.
05/27/07 15:45
Ewww, it started to rain just as I started rollerblading :( At least I made it home in time before it started to come down a lot.
05/26/07 14:28
Sucks that it's going to rain soon. I was so enjoying the sunshine before. Cloudy days just sap the energy right out of me. It'll also cause a growth spurt in the grass which means more lawn mowing for me, ugh.
05/24/07 23:53
For any Wii owners out there getting frustrated by a lack of a keyboard when accessing the internet, one could be coming out soon. Even if Nintendo themselves don't make one, I'm sure some people will come up with one soon enough. Either that or they'll release an update to so that the DS can be used as a keyboard, though for people with bad handwriting/printing (me), the DS makes frequent mistakes.
05/24/07 22:46
Snowpeak Ruins boss intro sequence is scary! The way the face just turns and screams right at you... I flinched when that happened... On a more positive note, the snowboarding game is FUN! Beating the two yeti is easy, so now I'm just trying to beat my personal records. I got the highest score possible already in the fruit popping game. Still got to try to get on the rotating platform in the cucco flight game. Oh, and I got the sinking lure today (finally, geez). I actually prefer using the other lures. Using a sinking lure is no challenge at all and the thing sinks off the screen too. Next up on my list of things to do is find that cave with the Great Fairy Tears that Jovani mentioned when he gave me a bottle of it. The entrance is probably what the bridge in the Gerudo desert was hiding as I think I saw a hole there when it got lifted up and I didn't notice any cave in the western desert the first time I was there. After that I'll continue the Temple of Time. For some reason I found it funny when the bird things ran ahead of me into the temple.
05/23/07 21:31
I finished Arbiter's Grounds today (yay, the undead dungeon is over with), and am right outside the "boss" room in Snowpeak Ruins. I say "boss" because I got the compass and map but there's no boss marked on it, so maybe I get to get away without having to fight a boss. The fights are fun though. The mini-boss in Snowpeak almost killed me though. Kept getting hit when he twirled the damn metal ball around. It was easy enough avoid when he threw it though. The 3-block puzzle where you have to get a block to stop in the middle stumped me for a while though. Then I got the idea of playing it out on my chess board first and solved it really quickly after :) Chess, now fun and practical.
05/22/07 20:03
I caught the damn fish finally!!! I caught the damn frigging loach finally! Also managed to snag a new bass record too, 21 inches. Still haven't gotten the sinking lure, but w/e, I caught the loach without it :) It took a while though, as while I kept casting in the right area (it likes frogs, there's frogs by lily pads, it has to be there), I wasn't casting far enough in. As soon as I moved the boat closer after wasting like an hour, I got it on the first cast :) So happy.
05/21/07 22:14
Why does it seem like everyone else has more exciting lives than me? Oh well, I've still got the internet and Zelda. Though the fishing is starting to piss me off. It seems like I caught all the record breaking sizes the first time around as for the past 2 days none of my catches have been record breakers even when they're huge. And I still haven't gotten the damn sinking lure or caught the adult loach yet. I know they're both out there somewhere... Okay, I don't know if I can get the sinking lure, but it's on the wall and it was obtainable in Ocarina of Time so it should be in here somewhere too. Grrr... Stupid fish... I think I'll just continue on to the Gerudo desert tomorrow instead of more fishing.
05/19/07 19:12
I went bicycling with my uncle in Edward Gardens for several hours today. I wish I had bicycle trails that nice near my house! There were so many trees and stuff that made the scenery so good, and along a big part of the trails there was a river. The temperature was perfect for bicycling too, not so cold you couldn't wear shorts and t-shirts, but not so warm that you'd get soaked in sweat after a little while, and no wind either. It was so fun! We were planning on going all the way downtown, but we got lost for a long time after we took a wrong turn at the beginning so we ran out of time. But next time we won't get lost!
05/18/07 23:45
Just got the Master Sword in Twilight Princess today. It was nice being able to hear Saria's Song again as it was my favourite song in Ocarina of Time. I had given up hope on hearing it after it didn't show up initially in the forest in the beginning, but then, Sacred Grove? Yes! There's still a forest part! Another run through the Lost Woods, but this time, instead of following the sound of music, I had to follow a Skull Kid, and they're even more annoying in this game, as they summon giant freaky puppets to attack you.
05/18/07 17:29
Just finished playing some civ. Oh the memories. My friend and I were just about to invade Genghis (well, actually him since I didn't bother building up an army) when the game crashed ><
05/17/07 13:15
I don't get art. Why do all these paintings sell for millions and millions of dollars? I mean like, this painting by Warhol of a car crash sold for like 71 million dollars US. And then there was this ugly painting of Marilyn Monroe that sold for 23 million I think? Like wtf? Those paintings don't even look nice! Artists and the people who collect their works are crazy... I can think of much better uses for the money.
05/17/07 11:09
I could only laugh when I read the news today. Sure it's not good news, but it was the type of funny you get when watching videos of stupid criminals. The head of the UN's commission on sustainable development has just managed to reach 3,731.9% inflation, up from 2200% in just one month. And the other item, Hamas is threatening to renew suicide bombings after Israel launched air strikes against them in response to continued rocket fire into Israel. It's totally ridiculous that Israel be expected to just sit there and let the rocket barrages continue, but that's them.
05/16/07 23:57
Plastic, what would the world be like without them? Give it some thought, just for fun.
05/16/07 13:59
Got a call from the library today saying they have a book on hold for me. I think it's the next book in the Company series :)
05/15/07 13:58
I got back from a, as always, painful teeth cleaning session. Turns out all the sugary drinks at university also netted me a cavity too. But that's not the worst part. I have to get 4 wisdom teeth removed soon in a very painful process. It was already bad enough when I had 4 canine teeth removed. Canine teeth are near the front and aren't attached as strongly. Wisdom teeth on the other hand are at the very back of the mouth, are quite firmly attached to one's jaw, and, in my situation, they're lying on their sides... So the dentist is going to have to remove the gums coating before it gets removed... And it's a very long procedure... And it'll take me at least a week to recover... And I need go through this twice to get them all out... *cries
05/14/07 20:36
From the BBC: "Rival Palestinian factions are reported to have agreed a truce to end fierce fighting in the Gaza Strip." "However, past agreements have failed to hold." That's quite the understatement. Let's go on to see what the end of the article says. "Since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the strip has seen a wave of infighting, armed robberies, deadly family feuds and kidnappings." But you know, I think Israel's been better off since the withdrawal. The Palestinian area however, has just gone downhill. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusion from the last two sentences. Which brings us to the mess in Iraq. Perhaps the US administration should look at this and take a hint. Either that or go read Scott Adam's blog entry for today for a better idea of what to do. It's basically what I've suggested, except that he makes the profits help Palestinian children or w/e, which I actually hadn't thought of. It's a brilliant improvement on an already brilliant plan.
05/14/07 18:00
Had some fun in the Arathi Basin battleground today. I think I'm improving with using a druid considering in one bg I managed to get 2nd most damage dealt and most hks. And most bases defended. And 3rd most assaulted and only 5 deaths :D Got a bit of healing in too. We won that round by only 40 points, so it was the most fun AB round I've ever had.
05/13/07 17:21
Took a 3 hour bicycle trip to Lake Ontario and back. I got lost twice on the way back after taking two wrong turns. It was fun :) It didn't seem as tiring this time around though, probably because it was a lot cooler today than the other times I went. I love going down that giant hill to get down the bluffs. I don't see why they never put in a sidewalk, so I had to ride down on the edge of the road where the asphalt was crumbling or had turned to gravel and filled with potholes. Unfortunately, it was either ride there, or get killed by a passing car, or fall into the deep ditch on the side. Still fun even though I was thinking, gee, I hope I don't die going down this road. I did meet two jerks on the way back though. I'm guessing they were in grade 4 and 6. It was these two fat white kids. One of them tried to toss a twig at me as I was going by and the other pretended to try to whack me on the head with his skateboard and laughed. What those two need is for someone to beat the crap out of them. Oh yeah, my bicycle chain slipped off the gears the second time I was lost, so now I've got faint oil marks on one of my hands. That part was not fun, as I knew that if I couldn't fix it, it'd be a loooong walk back. Like maybe 3 hours of walking? Yeah. Good thing I got it back on. Oh, that reminds me, my kickstand looks like it's about to fall off too. I'll have to remember to tighten the bolt on it next time so that it doesn't fall off or tangle my wheel causing me to fall and injure myself or wreck my wheel.
05/12/07 19:12
3 straight hours of badminton equals great fun. Of course, it did mean my bicycling plans were postponed again. I'll do that tomorrow.
05/11/07 22:53
And Zimbabwe gets to head the United Nation's commission on Sustainable Economic Development. And to answer the ambassador's question of ""What has sustainable development to do with human rights?"" my answer is nothing. It has nothing to do with human rights. But it has everything to do with economic progress, and Zimbabwe has gone backwards, way backwards. From being one of, if not the most, the most economically successful countries in Africa to the worst. 2800% inflation, electricity rationing, huge unemployment, your country sure is a model of sustainable development that we should all aspire to. Congratulations to the United Nations for allowing this to happen, and congratulations to the African nations who supported Zimbabwe for this position for selecting such a highly qualified country to head up this commission. Here's the BBC article that had that lovely quote from the ambassador.
05/11/07 20:12
Fishing in Zelda = Great fun. I love how there's a picture of the fishing guy from OoT on the wall as the master fisherman. I wonder what the remaining fish is? I've caught 5 so far, and there's only one spot remaining. Going to try out the frog lure tomorrow as I just got it today.
05/11/07 15:06
I'd like to share something I found funny today. I was stuck in traffic and a shiny new car (a 2006 Hyundai Accent I think) pulls up in the other lane (it ended up almost a car length's in front. The front windows were all rolled down with rap blasting out of the car. Now normally this would just be annoying, except for one thing. The car was bouncing up and down due to the driver dancing to the "music." I know it was doing that because of the driver as he stopped momentarily to check something on the passenger seat and the car stopped bouncing up and down. The bouncing resumed when the dance resumed. It's hard to describe the movement pattern the driver was doing, so I won't attempt to, but it was funny, especially since the driver looked like the main character from the Blade series. The sunglasses were larger and wraparound though. If only I had a video of it...
05/11/07 14:28
I'm predicting a full day of fishing for me in Zelda today if I manage to find the fishing hole. Fishing in Zelda is always fun for some odd reason :)
05/10/07 17:03
I just spent the last 4 hours reading. Woo! 300+ pages in one hour, not bad :) I'll have to put the next Company novel on hold now.
05/09/07 23:03
I'm so bored right now. I think some several hour long bicycle trips are in order as soon as the bad weather passes.
05/09/07 13:17
Didn't bother finishing the novel I was reading and went to the library today. Got some new books including a new one in the Company series by Kage Baker. Should be awesome.
05/08/07 23:38
Argh, have to get used to a new attack system now that I've gotten both pyroblast and ice lance. Also had to move around some of my spells to make room >< My system's all messed now. Before it was (at 41 yard range) fireball, fireball, arcane blast, then if target had low health then either fire blast and wand to death or arcane missile then either fire blast or wand to death. If I'm low on health then replace wand with arcane explosion. If less than 41 yards away then move to 30 yards, fireball, arcane explosion, then repeat for 41 yard range. Now it's pyroblast for first spell, fireball and arcane blast, or just arcane blast depending on range, frost nova, then ice lance while hoping it doesn't crit (weird that I find myself hoping my spells don't crit so that the target doesn't get unfrozen) then do whatever I usually do to kill it. I keep hitting the wrong buttons too as the spells are moved around. I see a problem with the frost nova/ice lance part though. As I get my critical hit percentage higher, I'll do less damage in this area as one crit will only net me about 1.7k damage right now and then the target's most likely unfrozen. So do I wait 6 seconds for a pyroblast then? Or go for an arcane blast then arcane missile (though this means I'll have to wait for cooldown on arcane blast to go before using frost nova)? Frostbolt is so useless to me now, I haven't used it in such a long time... Long cast time, low damage, and the only benefit is lowered movement speed. But by the time I cast it, the enemy will be out of range, meaning I'd have to waste a Presence of Mind to use it, but I could just spend it on a pyroblast as I'm assuming I'd be using it on a low on health fleeing enemy (the only exception being flag carriers but I don't do battlegrounds often...). Anyways, I'll stop boring you with newbish thoughts on a game you probably don't even play. Congrats, you just lost a part of your life you'll now never get back thanks to me >=) I wonder if ice lance spamming is better than wanding? Need to look up cooldown time between spells...
05/08/07 21:13
Nothing the smell of a good deal on delicious food to bring people together. Today was Pizza Nova's annual pizza sale for charity, with medium pepperoni pizzas going for $3.99 so of course I went to buy some at the local Pizza Nova for dinner as we have for quite a number of years. So I was standing at the back of a long line up and I'm looking around for something to distract me from my boredom momentarily. I glance back and then turn to see if the line had moved yet. Then I thought, wait a minute, that face behind me looks familiar... It took me a few seconds before the though fully processed because I was like no way, what are the odds of them being right behind me in a line up to buy pizza??? I ended up meeting 2 friends I hadn't talked to in a while, one who was just passing by and another who was also buying pizza! It took 50 minutes before we got our pizzas, but it sure didn't feel that long as time passes by really quickly when you're chatting away. I wonder if anyone else I knew also stopped by today.
05/07/07 23:26
My email account was down for a while. Suffered a bit of anxiety as a result of that. Good thing I had another email account to check and then retreated into a computer game for a while. It's like being isolated from the world, though not really since I didn't have any email messages to send. I just don't like it when my stuff doesn't work. I am so addicted to technology ><
05/07/07 16:50
Oh, and about the World of Warcraft Visa deal thingy, CIBC offers something similar to it for their Dividends card, except that you need to spend over $3000 annually on it to get the 1% back. The WoW Visa appears to be a good deal for people who know for a fact that they'll be playing as it just translates into free money. I don't know what the value is for an equivalent amount in reward points for other programs, the most common being air miles, but how many of us really use our air miles (assuming we have any). I wonder if any site will post up a comparison of relative values between earning air miles and 1% of purchases back. Don't forget that the WoW Visa has no annual fee.
05/07/07 16:26
I find it amazing how fast tulips bloom. Just 2 days ago all of the ones in my backyard were still all green, and now, almost every single of them have opened in a riotous display of colour. Maybe I'll take a picture of it soon. Or not, depending on how lazy I am. It looks best from my window, but then there'll be a screen mesh all over the picture though. The grass is growing pretty fast too. Ugh, that'll mean I'll have to cut it soon. :(
05/06/07 14:21
Just finished rollerblading for the first time this summer. Fun and tiring. The road conditions in the area that I rollerblade appear to be the same as last summer so that's good.
05/04/07 23:46
It's nice that Zangarmarsh and Terokkar Forest are about the same levels, as since I've done all the quests in Zangarmarsh except the dungeon ones, I'm right on the upper limit of Terokkar. That means I don't have to worry too much about dying as I'm questing, and there are a TON of quests in here, non-dungeon, non-elite, which are my favourite type of quests :) Had to abandon a bunch of grey quests to fit them all. Just accepted one that will upgrade my helm when I complete it.\ :D I expect to again at least 2 levels by the time I'm through which means I'll have my pyroblast ready for the next area AND I'll be 2 levels higher than the recommended starting level so once again, it'll be easier for me to quest. Fun fun fun! What wasn't fun was me camping in Everlook waiting for the Runecloth Gloves pattern to spawn over the course of 1.5 days before finding out it got turned into a trainable pattern. At least my tailoring's in the 300s now so I got rid of the netherweave that was eating up bank space. Making the bolts meant I got to replace some of my bags with netherweave bags too! Got my fishing up to 200 so now I get to use a graphite fishing pole that was formerly owned by a little kid and gives +20 fishing and +54 stamina for some reason. Hm, leveled up my enchanting a few levels (almost 280 now) and tried Eye of the Storm for the first time. Alliance got owned sooo badly as we were outnumbered 9 to 15, but I still snagged highest damage dealt with 20k more damage than the next person :)
05/03/07 23:38
I have now finished my first novel of this summer's vacation. I'm surprised it took so long, but I was distracted by all my games and stuff. Also didn't start the day I borrowed it. Oh, right, the book was The Graveyard Game by Kage Baker. Super awesomeness. I need to look up on the Internet whether the series continues further or not. I'd really like to find out how the Silence turns out. Well, got 2 more books waiting in my backpack. Which one should I pick... Decisions decisions...
05/03/07 18:14
Just started second temple. Combat on horseback was FUN! And I managed to collect enough heart pieces for a new container today :) Now, 5 more pieces till the next one! I wonder why a giant skeleton that looks sooo evil is teaching Link new skills? Seems odd. And the wolf turns into the skeleton O_o
05/02/07 23:46
I hope this Doan thing comes back and bites the federal Liberals, Bloc Quebecois, and NDP in the ass and tears a chunk off of them. Glad to see the Green and Conservatives party not getting sucked into this. Politicians should be required to take a course on checking facts before blabbering. Ugh. As for the Chamberlain comment by May, I don't see a problem with it. There wasn't anything wrong with the analogy she was trying to draw as she was going for the failing to realize a critical threat thing.
05/02/07 23:06
Chem marks just came out. I managed to get an 8, so I'm super happy right now :D Physics and psych still not out yet though. Grrr...
05/02/07 20:14
Chem marks still aren't out even though they should've been by today. I'll send an email to the registar's office tomorrow if I still don't see it up.
05/01/07 22:40
From a recent BBC article: "The huge rise in the price of maize comes after inflation in Zimbabwe reached 2,200% in March." Ouch. Those land reforms sure worked... And yet Mugabe remains in power...
05/01/07 10:34
Okay, so I searched up the two times I died and it turns out I didn't have to die. The one with Midna I just needed to wait a couple of times and then she'll jump down to help. That means I've missed a cutscene/conversation :( The one with the hawk, w/e. Should've just ran out of the area and then try again without entering the light. But of course, if I had done that I would've missed the cutscene of the guy spotting me :)
04/30/07 21:29
Tried Twilight Princess for the first time today. I've just reached the entrance of the first temple and it's pretty good so far. Haven't found any heart pieces yet though :( Midna's starting to piss me off though. I wonder how she and Zelda met. The horse is much more difficult to control unfortunately, and it seems that I won't be able to summon it in the field whenever I want to. If I want to call it over, I need to find and pick up some horsegrass. Either that or go back to where I left it and mount up. The hawks are not the brightest. You call them with another type of grass and then can aim them and they'll fly straight towards whatever you were aiming at, even if it's a wall or the ground. The chickens in this game must be on steroids or something. Even though your character's an adult, the chickens will still make you glide. I haven't tried attacking them till they get mad, though I will later to see what happens. Already got some goats pissed off. One thing I really don't like in this game is that it seems in some situations you HAVE to die and restart the game. I've already died twice. The first time, you have to take down a group of creatures at the same time because if there's only one left, all the others get revived. So that meant I had to use a special attack that Midna does. BUT the first time I encounter the group, Midna goes you can handle these yourself or something like that, and then disappears, meaning it's impossible for me to take them down. So I die and restart and then she appears and tells me that I have to use her special attack to take them down and helps me out. So death was unavoidable there. The second time I got attacked by an unkillable hawk. In retropect I guess I could've survived by running out of the area, but the first time around Midna says deal with the guy who sent the hawk so I was running around trying to find a way up while being attacked by the hawk. With only 3 hearts, you don't get that much time before you die. It was only after a restart that a cat comes up and tells me what do. Ugh. Oh, I almost died a stupid death once. I kept jumping off the tower/ledge while attacking a bird in wolf form. Took me two falls to learn to draw the birds back to the middle of the tower before doing a jump attack. Can't wait till I go through the first dungeon tomorrow :) Forest ones were always fun.
04/29/07 22:44
I picked up Twilight Princess on my way back from the library. Haven't had a chance to try it out yet though. It was so nice being able to bicycle to the library today. I missed my books :) Got 3 books to start off, will be searching up the internet