We are just tiny tiny beings in the universe.

Dine Out Vancouver is back! Great 3-course meals for $15 or $25. After the holiday credit card statements arrive, it's nice to have fine dining on a budget! Enjoy!

My friend forwarded this picture to me - a Japanese metro train sign. Check out the sign first, then read the first comment in feedback.

I think they need a new artist.

Whee! Spending the weekend up at Whistler with some friends; one of them has a condo there. Nothing really planned - just kicking back, gonna walk around the village a bit. Will be nice to get away from the house. :)

I thought that working in Support for 2.5 years would make me more sympathetic to other Customer Support folk, but this is just ridiculous.

My original question is at the very bottom of the e-mail. Have a scan through their response.

The end of the world has been predicted by many, including the Bible code (which predicts the end of the world in 2009 or 2010). But here's a more contemporary end of the world.

I guess that I am back on the job hunt again, meaning that I'll have to work on spiffing up my résumé. If you're looking for work and updating your résumé as well, here are a few résumé blunders to avoid.

Okay, so it seems that Americans aren't the only dumb ones. Check out this German Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire?

Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!!! My Sony Ericsson polyphonic ring tones were messing up this morning. They started playing at quarter-speed - not a great tempo for Carmen's Toreador. More worrisome, I couldn't find another ring tone that could wake me up!

So I start stressing about having to find another phone, when B tells me to reboot it. "Huh?" "Reboot: take the battery and SIM card out." "Oh."

After 2.5 years in tech support, that didn't even occur to me. I could chalk it up to stress over my project (due Mon), but whatever. Anyway, I have my polyphonic ring tones back. :)

Finally! They admit that they're dumb! The cool thing is that we didn't have to do a thing. Now they just have to recognise that we up north are superior, and we'll be on our way to fulfilling a reverse Manifest Destiny. :)

O Canada!

How much of a nerd are you? Take this digital IQ test. Mind you, I scored 111, so it can't be that accurate.

Hehehe .... There was a little discussion on metrosexuality some time ago. I found another metrosexual quiz. :)

Just caught the end of a capoeira clip on ZeD on tv. Don't think it's the same club that K went to, but it's kind of cool, nonetheless. Check it out.

I watched my first boxing match last night: Tarver vs Jones. I expected to be bored (I brought homework), but it was really interesting! Heavyweight champ Roy Jones Jr. dropped ~25 lbs to answer Antonio Tarver's challenge for the light heavyweight title.

It was really funny: Jones was showboating, making faces, sticking his tongue out at Tarver, but he looked pretty tired by Round 7 (of 12). Also interesting was that the crowd was crazy-cheering Jones on at first, but by the end when they announced Jones the winner, the crowd totally boo'ed the decision.

Came down with bronchitis. Went to the doctor's on Tue, and got prescribed some good shiet. $52 of drugs. (Ouch; it hurts when you don't have extended medical.) But the knock-me-out cough syrup has Codine in it - woohoo! - and I've been sleeping about 19, 20 hours a day the last couple of days. I ain't complaining.

Ever wonder about the wisdom passed down from your parents? Here are a couple my parents have told me:

- Don't go to bed with wet hair: you'll have frequent headaches when you're older.
- Eating sweets when you're sick will make it worse.

Are these based on anything concrete? Like maybe ... research ? What kind of lore have you been taught?

Pretty in pink

Oh yeah! I finally went for a pedicure on Tue (still trying to use up that spa cert!). It was nice!

Here's how my spa appointment went:

• soothing foot bath with cleansers, moisturisers, and a scented oil
  
• cuticle oils and foot moisturisers
  
• filing! to remove any callouses and rough skin on my feet
  
• more moisturisers, a foot massage, and cuticle care
  
• paraffin treatment (hot wax - supposed to be good for the skin)
  
• nail polish: base coat, 2 coats of colour, and top coat

And now my feet are all soft and have pretty pink toenails! :D

A relaxing hour and a half, and my feet really do feel great. :) I'd like to go back every once in a while, but at $57+tax a pop, don't know how often that'll be!

"Sick ... as a dog."

Ugh. :(

Spring forward, fall back. Yes, it's that time of year again. Daylight Saving Time is coming to an end, and on Oct 26, we reset our clocks back to Pacific Standard Time to resume wasting daylight.

In the other hemisphere, though, Australia will be heading into summer soon, and last year, some people were opposed to DST.

Ah, blooey. Our refrigerator broke down again.

No more frozen Skor bars. :(

I got introduced to 2 cool shows on the Discovery Channel : Monster Garage and Great Biker Build-Off.

Monster Garage is hosted by well-known chopper (customised motorcycle) builder Jesse James. Each episode, they're assigned 2 things: a regular car (say, PT Cruiser) and a functional purpose (a wheat harvester). Their task is to combine the 2 so it looks (more or less) like the regular car but works like the functional one - 7 days, with $2,000. Today, it's a 1982 DeLorean that they have to make into a hovercraft.

The Great Biker Build-Off is a build-off between 2 known chopper builders. They have 30 days to build a new motorcycle (their own design). They ride their final product halfway across the country to a Bike Week event somewhere (different places each time) to show off their work, and there's a vote to determine a winner.

Guess a bit of that geek in me is shining through. :P

Mom and I were looking to buy a new sewing machine. After checking out numerous expensive machines (including a Pfaff Hobby 1042 for $450 - Mom negotiated another $50 off the sale price ($699 -> $499 -> $450) and  no GST!) on a rainy rainy Saturday, we came home to find a Brother LS-1520 for $170 in the Superstore flyer. Just like that, all my shopping around and research went out the window! Mom picked up the Brother machine a couple of days later.

I finally got around to trying the machine out, though. It sucks. And when it advertises "14 stitch functions," it includes a basic straight stitch in 6 different stitch lengths, and a zigzag in 4 different widths/lengths.

We're returning the Brother and getting a Pfaff 1042! :D

Water, water, everywhere

Jeepers, it is P!SSING rain outside!!

My former company A has posted a Technical Support Engineer position at the Vancouver office. It's the same job from which I was let go in May. The successful candidate spends the first month in Melbourne, Australia! I've been dying to go down ever since I started - made a ton of friends in the Melbourne office - but the trip never came through.

Pros and cons? Well, the obvious pros are a job (decent income without having to report your life to the EI department) and the trip to Melbourne. The cons? It's the same job I was stuck at for 2.5 years. Why would I think, with the reduced headcount and increased complexity in the product, that the job would be any better? And, of course, there's being stuck at the office for 50 hours a week.

What to do, what to do. :(

I took Biological Sciences 100 this summer, and because my Master's program wouldn't let me register in the summer, my professor agreed to defer my grade until the fall term. I spent the entire second week of classes trying to get manually registered for the class so that my grade could be assigned, and they finally told me that I was in.

Last week my professor e-mailed me that the current BISC 100 prof couldn't find me on the classlist! Growl! So now I have to hunt people down again to get registered properly, or I'll lose my A+. :(

I have an access card, I have a key. But really, I am an idiot in the lab. I come in here under the pretence of doing preliminary work for my project, but I check my e-mail, surf the Net, and use the free telephone. I sit nearest the lab phone, so I answer with my courteous "Communication Networks Lab". Sometimes it'll be the typical "Is So-and-so there?", but on those unlucky occasions, I'll hear the reply "Who is this?" Yes, the professor that runs this lab is a little blunt. It doesn't help that I don't know all the people in this lab, yet, and so I don't always know the person for whom she's asking.

Today, she asked for a James. The others around me rushed to my aid and fed me all sorts of info to tell the professor. I think I thoroughly confused her with what was going on and who was telling me what, and then I topped it off by abruptly handing the phone over to James who walked in at that moment (and was pointed out by my peer).

I gotta get a login for a machine a little further ....

After rereading the first 4 books, I finally got around to Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix (Book V). It's a somewhat dark and depressing book, overall. My friend and I spent the 5-minute break during class griping about how out of place things seemed (characters not acting like their usual selves), how some events were unformidable, .... I hope J.K. Rowling comes out with Book VI soon!

In the meantime, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is next on my reading list. :)

Been feeling rather aimless in life lately. I feel like a slug. I need to move out. :(

It's been a while since I've been so hooked on a movie (the last was Save the Last Dance). What a Girl Wants has been on the dish lately, and I've probably watched it more than is reasonable. Admittedly, it's a bit of a silly movie, but it's just so cute! :) I'm actually thinking of getting the DVD and/or soundtrack. Oh dear. :)

Men aren't the only ones worried about hair loss. Every day, as I shampoo, a dozen strands of hair that should be on my head end up in my hands. :( And that's just the shower. That doesn't include the hair I pluck from my clothes, from my pillow and my bed, nor the tumbleweed of hair on my bathroom floor! One would think that with all the hair I shed, I'd be half bald.

But at least I don't have a receding hairline. :)

Which do you use? American spelling or British spelling? I usually tailor my writing to my audience, so if I'm writing to my Aussie friends, I will write colour, licence, centre, realise, ar$e ; to the Americans, I'll write color, license, center, realize, a$$.

When it doesn't matter, I try to revert back to the British spelling, only because I think that American is a somewhat bastardiSed version of the English language (I can't stand that words like formulas have become official in the language because kids can't remember that the plural form is formulae. Tsktsk!). But honestly, there are some words of which I don't particularly like the British variant - primarily the "-(i)ze" words like realize and analyze.

I suppose that consistency is the key, and I'd get more scowls from an English [Language] teacher for using half American spelling and half British spelling!

I'm addicted to popcorn. Microwave popcorn.

Not the gross movie-style butter-me-a-heart-attack microwave popcorn, but old-fashioned kettle corn. A little bit sweet and a little bit salty, and not too greasy. I typically polish off the bag (by myself) before my movie or tv program even starts, because it's just way yummy when still piping hot!

S doesn't like the sweetness on his popcorn (yet, he likes caramel corn - go figure), but I think it's the best flavour since ... microwave popcorn. :)

Here's a weird spirally whatchamacallit for you to stare at. Someone said it's supposed to relax your eyes, but my eyes feel more strained than relaxed!

It seems that San Franciscans are dog-lovers. And need target practice. Try your hand at clay kitten shooting. My best round was 8/10. :)

I got a U-Pass! Yay! Free transit for SFU students. It passed the student vote (back in Nov 2002) by a mere 33 votes, so now all students get to pay an extra $92 per term. But, all transit is free. $92 / ($2 per ticket) = 45 transit trips to break even .... Oh boy, I'd better start soon! :)

So how clingy is too clingy? Two friends of mine recently split up. One of the reasons was because she was too clingy, he was unresponsive (not returning calls quick enough, not answering e-mail, ...). So, how clingy is too clingy? Velcro? Saran-Wrap? or Post-It? :)

Price for pleasure

My friends know I don't really splurge on myself, so they got me spa certificates for my birthday. I have to use them soon, so I've been calling around for info (I'm a spa-virgin) and available appointments. Well, I tell ya, that frugal mentality is hard to break out of for a day!

The Eccotique pamphlet I have lists an express pedicure ($35), a luxury pedicure ($40), a French pedicure ($47), and then there's the paraffin treatment! Uh?? So I'm talking to Tracy of Eccotique Metropolis, and she explains:

"The express pedicure is 45 minutes, and it's a foot bath, plus nail filing, and cuticle work."

"Mm-hmm ..." ... uh, that's it?

"The luxury pedicure ..." that is it!?!, "is an hour long, and it also has a massage and polish."

And then it's an extra $7 to add the little white strips for a French mani/pedicure. Wow.

The next topic was eyebrows. I've never tweezed my eyebrows before, but maybe I should let the pros do it the first time, since I have a wedding to attend on the weekend. Then I checked out their website ....



Hmm .... Maybe I'd better think this over ....

Got a light?

Edmonton has a new anti-smoking bylaw now. Basically, to confine smoking to bars, smoking is allowed only in licenced bars, casinos and bingo parlors.

The issue comes with The Keep It Simple Club, which caters to recovering alcoholics; they provide a bar ambience without the alcohol. With the new bylaw in place, they'll have to buy a liquor licence.

I love Alberta Premier Ralph Klein's comment about needing a "stupid rules committee" to deal with situations like this.

The idea of the bylaw is pretty good, though. The Keep It Simple Club, being a singular exception, could just not serve alcohol. (How much does a liquor licence cost, anyway?) Or maybe the City could just give them a liquor licence, or provide one hugely discounted.

Raise the red planet!

Mars is near! Mars will be closer than it has been in thousands of years. On Aug 26, the red planet will be beautifully viewable with the naked eye. Apparently you get a nice view only every 15 to 17 years.

Here are a couple of articles from Sky and Telescope:
Mars at Its All-Time Finest
A Mars Record for the Ages

So get out your picnic blanket and flashlight, and head into the fresh outdoors for a viewing!

I really admire how some people go for what they want. I don't mean saving up for the latest and greatest digital camera, or even a car. I'm talking about Life.

I just got an e-mail from a university friend of mine. He's solid as an engineer and brilliant as a comic. After pursuing a minor in Contemporary Arts (after his engineering degree), he has now set up a company Genus Theatre with some of his theatre friends; they'll be performing an original work at Video-In Studios next month. (Check their website for info on the group, show, and how to reserve tickets. I'll definitely be going.)

So, my question is: how do you know that you should pursue your "real" dream? What are the guidelines for how much risk one can afford, or what makes it all "worth it?" When do you reach the point where you shake off a traditional [Asian] upbringing and trade in a stable job for one that may not be financially rewarding - or even feasible - but for which you have a passion?

Cop a feel?

Okay. Today, wanting to get out of the house, I joined my friend at SFU Daycare for her toddler's birthday (ice cream cones and shortbread cookies - yay!). As little A is tearing around the yard with a toy stroller, another mother wearing a spaghetti-strap tank top comes to pick up her daughter M.

As soon as M gets picked up, her right arm plunges down her mom's shirt! I'm standing there, listening to the conversation, trying not to gape/laugh, because for all I know maybe it's normal behaviour (?!). Finally, one of the staff care-givers comments on how M just reaches into anyone's shirt! One person commented that whenever she passes by that daycare and that little girl is in someone's arms, her hand is always down their shirt! HAhAhah.

Connected!

Oh my golly, I've got a blogspot now!

In the last few days, I started joining an outdoor volleyball group (2, in fact!), joined Friendster, and created my own blogspot! I feel so ... social! Much to the chagrin of my parents, of course ....