Zenzizenzic

Dream Smoke

2010-07-14T16:38:00.008-04:00

Some games I finished since May, taken from my post in the UTAMA forums:

Finished Lux-Pain recently. Yes, I suffered through the whole thing in english. They really ruined what could have been a pretty good story experience, imo. The artwork, voice acting, and plot was pretty good. They could have had the decency to actually try translating the text properly rather than using Babelfish (which is what their finished product resembles).

Also finished playing through Trauma Team. That game is godly. I especially enjoyed the Diagnostics and Forensics modes. I've been keeping the game's soundtrack on loop~. I liked that the Diagnostics mode strongly reminded me of the things we learned LMP301, and I thought the new game modes was a pretty good success playing off the surgery from previous games.

Trying to play through Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days now, with a bit of Animal Crossing: City Folk.

Now some random Pokémon stuff, due to Pokemon BW hype.

Enough to make a Bonsly cry real tears.

Why is that so creepy. ;_; But Dragon/Poison sounds pretty cool.

All the Gen I-IV (+2 from Gen V) gather for a group photo. Very nice.

Chicken Under a Brick

2010-07-14T14:29:00.006-04:00

Finally stopped being lazy and decided to update with a summary of the Florida trip. Despite there being thunderstorms for a variable amount of time each day, the trip was pretty amazing. It started off somewhat eventful - our trip with Air Transat (or rather, delegated to Canjet for Florida flights) was supposed to depart at 6:20am on Sunday May 30. This ultimately turned into a flight with Miami Air International departing at 8:45pm on the same day.

There weren't any major initial problems with the check-in and security. After spending lots of time waiting, either for customs to open up or in front of the gate, we boarded the plane and I was surprised at the plentiful room available. The plane was barely filled with passengers, and our seats were all along one of the emergency exit rows, which meant extra leg-room. The seats themselves were surprisingly comfy too. The plane then began taxiing down to the runway. After 5 minutes of movement, we found ourselves looping back to the airport gate, and due to "a malfunction with the steering equipment" we were forced to disembark the plane. The flight was delayed for another hour...then two hours...then... Yes, it was cancelled.

The flight that almost happened...

So close... Tempers flared among some other passengers when we were further forced to wait in confusion to reclaim our luggage. We were given the option to either have a taxi take us home, or if our residence was far enough away, get to stay at the hotel in Pearson. Luckily we managed to get the hotel option, and were given vouchers for lunch and dinner. Ended up being a pretty sweet deal. We mostly fell asleep in the hotel room between the meals at "Mahogany Grill". In the end, Miami Air International was recruited to save us from being stranded in Pearson, and we boarded a much less-impressive and significantly dustier plane to Orlando.

View from the Sheraton Gateway hotel room in Pearson.
After procuring a Chevy Impala from National, we drove to Summer Bay Resorts and settled in. Was quite late, so grocery shopping had to wait until the next day.

Chevy Impala, which probably has a higher top speed than an actual impala.
Now for a photo dump~

On the first day, after breakfast at Denny's (you could feed two Canadians a hearty breakfast in under $6 there) and grocery shopping at one of those ubiquitous Walmart superstores, we embarked to Animal Kingdom as the first theme park destination.

Animal Kingdom - because this was the only day of that week it opened until 8pm.

Stone structure in the middle of the lake may contain primates.

Statues spotted while moving ahead in the queue for Kali River Rapids.

The monk whose office we thoroughly trampled through in the queue for Expedition Everest will brb.

Flamingos really just don't care about the humans gawking at them on the Kilimanjaro Safari ride.

Mirrors, such as the one in the line for Primeval Whirl, are somewhat useful for self-taken group shots in lieu of a tripod.

Disney seemed to have changed the FastPass system so that now there is even a delay between getting FastPasses for different rides, greatly limiting their use. I'm not sure if it was like that the previous time I went. Later on that day, it was further reinforced how absolutely dirt cheap fast food is in the US after take-out from Chick-fil-a. Speaking of which, these two flow charts could possibly have been useful had I found them before the trip.

Throughout the trip when we didn't immediately collapse from exhaustion upon returning to the resort, we often indulged in some Dokapon Kingdom, a multiplayer game featuring a Mario Party-style game board with RPG elements. If you can properly recruit a bunch of friends to play this regularly, it quickly gets intensely addictive.

Dokapon Kingdom: the so-called "friendship-destroying game." Ironic, because it really requires a bunch of friends to play it regularly due to lack of online multiplayer and an unbalanced AI system.

EDIT: At this point I left the rest of the post for another day, which eventually became never. (natch) Instead I'll just post up the photos I had previously cropped here and you can visually guide yourself through the vacation without more of my dry narration!

Entrance to Epcot. Don't ever be fooled by the beautiful Florida skies and think that the weather will be nice for the next few hours. It lies.

Look it's that obligatory shot of Spaceship Earth when visiting Epcot!

A taste of Canada, as part of the International Showcase. Surely the tourists all recognize our iconic landmark, the CNChâteau Frontenac! ...Right?

Got to see a lot of those performances around the International Showcase, such as taiko drumming, belly dancing, and even a bar entertainer. (She was a real hit with some students from Iowa.)

It's Universal Studios! I don't remember why I took all these back shots.

The new roller coaster with a vertical drop. Unfortunately we didn't get to try it due to the risk of being electrocuted.

Visited Upham Beach, left with mild sunburn.

This infamous sign from Upham Beach. We dutifully abstained from clambering onto any groins of any kind while at the beach.

The new ride in MGM based on Toy Story. Line wait time was still over an hour, even though it was less than 30min to closing time. Disney attractions are serious business.

This picture is entitled "The Pole".

And of course, we rounded off the trip with Magic Kingdom to see the fireworks show. The fact that it was isolated from the rest of the attractions and accessed via a monorail ride led to insane lineups after the fireworks show.

Pirates descend upon the castle! Instead of shooting cannonballs and incendiary devices at the stronghold, they shot fireworks into the sky. It didn't work too well for them, but the tourists enjoyed it.

Schiggy

2010-05-06T02:31:00.013-04:00

Whoa super blog redesign. Just switched over to the newer "layout" style for Blogger...something which I apparently neglected for a really long time. I actually tried to go back to see an older post and noticed there was no such link available to see previous posts. That's when I realized that I really should have tried to update the layout a long time ago. There's also way more room in the actual blog body now so I don't need to shrink/crop images so much just to post them here. Overall I'm pretty happy with this layout. It's a bit spartan, but at least it's easier to work with than before.

It's a bit sad to see that I have basically made the same number of posts in this blog over my undergrad stint as I did in grade 12 alone, but it seemed that I didn't really have too much motivation to post in the blog. In any case, I'll consider that finally revamping the blog makes up for some of that apathy. I think the fact that I even update at all is a testament to how I'm really using it as a sort of "public diary bank" to store random memories of mine in case I feel like perusing them again the future. In a silly recent happening, it seems I was getting quite a few hits to the blog via a post I made a while back due to the post title (now changed). I only noticed when the Photobucket-hosted images I placed in that post were gaining an unnaturally high number of views. Oh internet... you never cease to amaze me.

Finished with biomedical toxicology undergraduate...four years in the bank, with another possible four more years to come...? Probably the thing I enjoyed most about the university years were the times I was able to stay in residence downtown. Being able to walk around the city and to class without needing to bother with a 4 hour daily commute is rather refreshing. Being able to walk to the local store or fast food place without driving is nice too. Over those years I started to dabble more in cooking and baking (still not proficient though), extended my creative proclivities from iSketch into sites like Sporcle and BPT, and have expanded my anime repertoire. Wow that sounds geeky, but in any case, I think these are the main things that I actually bothered to make some blog posts about during these years.

Lastly, after discovering the Pages gadget thingy I decided to go ahead and make a page for the quizzes I create in Sporcle so I don't need to stuff the end of my blog posts with tons of links as I was doing before. Go ahead and check them out, if you please :) Don't mind the tons of Pokémon quizzes since I kind of got into a frenzy due to playing Pokémon Soul Silver again, but I assure you if you try them that I've tried to make them as refined and enjoyable as possible. >_>

I'm very surprised and flattered that I somehow have three quizzes voted as Editor's Choice. Of course, that's nothing compared to the seasoned Sporcle quiz creators, but it's good enough for me~ I was especially lucky with the latest quiz, Name the Theme - Symbols. I took some time over two days to gather the images and arrange them together, and then posted it shortly after completion. In an unfortunate stroke of timing, just as the quiz was getting its first plays, someone decided to enlist the aid of a second duplicate account and post about 10 quizzes in a row in the same category as my quiz, and thus effectively shoving it out of the Newly Created Quizzes list. (You're normally only allowed to post 7 quizzes/month, to be fair to others.) In a sudden turn, the new editor for the category decided to post my quiz as an Editor's Choice, awarding it with great visibility, (and the credit of being approved by an editor) and so more people were able to try it.

From my observations, the initial phase in the Newly Created Quizzes is really the only way your quiz can garner any notice and possibly become well-played. Normally once your quiz is off the list, it'll only ever be seen if someone happens to search for it or some key terms related to it. If you managed to attract enough plays, it might remain on the Most Played or Highly Rated lists for a while. There's also the Editor's Choice list which has very high visibility, but how long it stays depends on how often the editor posts quizzes up. Usually when Sporcle editors or well-known quiz creators post a new quiz, their quizzes stay visible for a long time. Essentially it's like a positive feedback loop - if you get a lot of plays, your quiz will likely continue to get a lot of plays and thus stay even longer in high visiblity. If your quiz doesn't get enough attention early on, it'll take some luck to get it back on the radar. And that's along the lines of what happened to me. I wish they'd really extend the Newly Created Quizzes list (a scroll bar would be an easy fix) since with so many quizzes being created, it's very easy for quizzes to be overlooked and buried for a long time.

EDIT: Haha wow, just after I made this rant, I go onto Sporcle and find they went and added a way to see a much longer version of all the lists, including Recent Additions. Kudos, Sporcle.

On another note, finally got that terrible desktop computer fixed up with a new hard drive. Some combination of the hard drive being really old and a bunch of other things led the computer into the most ultimate start-up infinite loop ever, where it would continually loop upon start-up, not even letting me into Safe Mode. Let's just hope it manages to run more like a normal computer now, although I'm not keeping my hopes up too high.

Future plans - a trip to Florida with friends in June, for some serious theme park action. Looking forward to it very much~

And yes, check out this webcomic if you haven't already - hilarity is sure to ensue.
Axe Cop

Mockingbirds Know Who You Are

2010-03-10T10:22:00.003-05:00

Extremely busy nowadays - March is always the worse month, I find. I have been averaging probably 4-5 hours of sleep at night... Severe anime backlog too :(

I started drinking coffee for the first time recently. I had never before drank coffee, it was all just tea. I was surprised that it seemed to work as I was no longer dosing off every 5 minutes in lecture, but I don't want to become dependent on it so I'm trying to limit its use to midterm days or Tuesdays (the long day). And wow, Starbucks coffee really does taste burnt, I should have used more sugar... I also want to try McDonalds, which is apparently having a free coffee promotion until this Sunday. Stangely, there aren't any McDonalds nearby the St. George campus except the one up at Bloor, so I would have to make quite a detour to go there.

---

Anyway, another Sporcle update! Rather science-filled~

Anime Blitz: Opening Themes (clips)
Rapid-fire Anime Name That Tune, can you identify the anime by listening to short clips from their opening song? There's also an overlying theme common to all the songs, did you notice what it was?

Eponymous Diseases A-Z
In most of these cases, although it's called X's disease, X never really sufferred from the disorder. It's more of meant as an act of commemoration.

Serendipitous Inventions/Discoveries
The quiz promised from a previous post, can you name the inventions or discoveries made by chance, by accident, and probably by improper laboratory etiquette?

Animals Used in Scientific Research
My tribute to all of those rats that I had to work with over the past year.

"What is this ominous light that threatens to engulf us?!"

2010-02-18T16:33:00.006-05:00

Yesss Reading Week, gotta take this chance to catch up on things because this is the only downtime I will have before March, when all hell breaks loose. This also marks the time when I'm finally done actual experimenting in my research lab, but now need to read up on tons of articles to prepare for my write-up.

I'm only casually following the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, mainly just to see the medal counts and for which events. Apparently, we have broken the "curse" of never winning a gold medal while we are hosting the Winter Olympics, so that is good news.

The exam schedule for April has been released, and interestingly all of my exams take place on Wednesdays. Of course, I'm not complaining; I would much rather have the exams spread out over a longer period of time than to be forced to write all the exams at the beginning to finish early. Cramming for several courses at the same time never works really well, even for things you have been reviewing throughout the semester, because you have to keep switching your focus between subjects.

Distemper

2010-02-18T14:57:00.004-05:00

I guess I'll just throw in a post with some links to my user-created Sporcle quizzes. I've placed a badge linking to the site in the Links section. In short, Sporcle is a site with a bunch of fun trivia quizzes on many topics. Popular ones include:
Countries of the World
NFL Teams
The Simpsons Characters
Periodic Table
Commonest English Words

They enabled the creation of user-made quizzes sometime around September last year. It doesn't have the full capabilities as some published quizzes, but a lot of pretty impressive and creative quizzes have already been made thus far by various users. Ones that are popular enough or really novel may get published by Sporcle as an official quiz.

I am already rather humbled that any of my quizzes managed to garner some level of popularity, but I'm not sure if any of them will be published. The most well-accepted ones so far are:

Shape-Describing Words
How would you describe in a single word something shaped like a cross, or a star? This quiz might help... Definite plus if you know some Latin or Greek vocab, but there are a lot of words whose meanings can easily be inferred.

Look-Alikes: Hidden Objects [pic]
I took a picture from the book Look-Alikes by Joan Steiner (amazingly creative, I read it when I was younger and loved it) and asked you to identify all the everyday objects Steiner used to create the picture. She uses objects in a way such that they "look alike" to something else, such as using slices of bread to create a sidewalk or a lemon juicer to look like a spinning carnival ride, all rather convincingly.

Pokémon Trainer Classes (Gen I)
Pokémon Trainer Classes (Gen II)
Hopefully if you played Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow back in the day, or even the Gold/Silver/Crystal versions, this might give you a nice nostalgic blast. Can you remember all those annoying trainers from the game who stop you in your tracks, walk up to you to say something completely non-sequitur, and then challenge you to Pokémon battles?

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Here are also some of my other quizzes. There is a bias on Pokemon-based quizzes since those were mostly the ones I started making first before branching out to other topics. I do have some more pending release, like "Accidental Inventions/Discoveries" which I'll release soon...

Classical Mythology Lovers
Identify the lovers from famous classical mythology couples. For example, the woman whose face "launched a thousand ships"...?

Common Drug Delivery Forms
You'll find examples of all of these around the local pharmacy or hospital somewhere. What common methods exist to deliver medicine/drugs into the body?

Pocky & Pretz Flavors
If only I was able to try all of these flavours...Mmm Pocky.

Pokémon by Cry I
Pokémon by Cry II
This was an interesting idea to put together. Can you identify the Pokémon based on the sound they make in the game? Too bad it's not what they say in the anime, since that would make the quiz rather easy. ;)

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And now, all the really niche quizzes/rest of the many Pokémon quizzes.

Non-Evolving Pokémon
These Pokémon defy the laws of evolution. Then again, so do the ones that do evolve since individuals do not evolve. Oh well.

Pokémon Supporting Characters (Game)
No single quiz would be able to encompass all those supporting characters from the anime, so I compromised with supporting characters from the games.

Pokémon Without Footprints
Pokémon by Footprint
Ever wondered what it's like to be a Pokémon forensic podiatrist? ...Me neither. Yet these quizzes exist!

Foreign Pokémon Names
It seems English Charmanders say "Charmander!" while French Charmanders say "Salamèche!". Weird.

Digimon Partners (anime)
Strange that all the world-dominating digital supervillains always seem to show up at Japan first.

Word Disassociation Lyrics
This quiz is flouncy, panicky redundant.

D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel

2010-01-16T23:01:00.005-05:00

I received the deck of Hanafuda cards from Club Nintendo, which are a type of Japanese playing cards. The cards we're used to has numbered and face cards (13 total) divided via four suits. The hanafuda cards are instead separated via the twelve months instead of numbers and face cards, with each month represented by a certain type of plant, and also containing four cards.

However, the four cards of each month aren't just separated into one of four suits, but into a more complicated configuration. Some of the months are unique from the others. Each month has at least one Special card, which features another element like an animal. The Nintendo deck slightly redesigned most of the Special cards to feature Nintendo characters. Pretty nifty. :)

The Special cards from the hanafuda deck. Some months have more than one Special card so there are more than 12 in total.

There are also Ribbon cards which have a ribbon shown in the picture. Of these there are red, purple, and poetry ribbons. The poetry ribbons look like red ribbons but have writing on it. (see the Jan-Mar cards) The remaining cards are considered Normal cards.

The full deck of Club Nintendo's hanafuda deck. The left column from top to bottom is Jan-Jun, the right column is Jul-Dec.
January: Pine [Matsu (松)]
February: Plum Blossom [Ume (梅)]
March: Cherry Blossom [Sakura (桜)]
April: Wisteria [Fuji (藤)]
May: Iris [Ayame (菖蒲)]
June: Peony [Botan (牡丹)]
July: Bush Clover [Hagi (萩)]
August: Chinese silver grass [Susuki (薄)] (Nintendo has it as Pampas grass)
September: Chrysanthemum [Kiku (菊)]
October: Maple [Momiji (紅葉)]
November: Willow [Yanagi (柳)]
December: Paulownia [Kiri (桐)]

Case the hanafuda cards came in.

They do look much nicer than regular playing cards, and it requires you to familiarize with the deck to remember which cards belong to which month. I'm still trying to learn the rules of the game Koi-Koi so I might be able to get someone to play these cards with. :D

"I'll add you to my travel partner list."

2010-01-10T01:29:00.004-05:00

Halfway mark! Unfortunately this semester is much busier than the last, and I'm already worried about some of these courses from the first lecture. I'm also going to the lab in the mornings now so I'm actually taking the GO train. Not used to waking up so early again =_= However, it still feels better at the end of the day when compared to staying at the lab after classes until late. Hopefully my PI will give me a break this semester due to the workload and restricted lab resources...

This Christmas was such a needed break from everything. I tried to indulge in as much gaming as I could to clear some of the backlog before spring semester presents itself. Managed to get some Ogre Battle 64, Ouendan 2, Pokemon Rumble, Band Hero, and Nostalgia. Band Hero's subdued difficuly level is pretty good for GH/RB noobs like me who can only last on Hard difficulty, maybe eke out a few of the easier songs on Expert. Plus the songlist is less boring. Of course, I'm lucky the game supports the RB drum which is the one I had. Somehow I think the RB drums feel a lot better to play on compared to the GH drums.

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New Year's wasn't spent anywhere special, but was enjoyable nonetheless. Have a great 2010, a year which we can finally pronounce again as two two-digit numbers!

First thing eaten in 2010: Turtles chocolate (again, seems to be a theme)
First thing drunk in 2010: Some Chardonnay wine from Pelee Winery
First thing played with in 2010: Band Hero (I didn't manage to get drunk, probably would have been more fun that way)
First thing resumed in 2010 after celebrations: UTAMA foruming, I think

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Just today I finally found a frame for the piece of artwork I got many years ago from Epcot in Florida's Disney World. I think it's called Oriental Letter Art, where you can have someone's name or a message written out in fancy oriental characters which consist of various symbolic elements. They paint using this cool flat-tipped sponge and bright watercolours. I'm pretty sure this purchase was fueled by the tourist's souvenir frenzy but I don't mind having it around. They simply ask you for your name, then you go walk around the park while they paint your name and you can come back to see how it turned out later.

I thought the stand was personally run by the artist herself, but it turns out they have a website where you can even order art online.

There's the design. (Click for larger image) According to the brochure they handed out, the symbols mean:

Sun: hope, faith, and love

Dragonfly: dream

Bird: peace

Ship: perspective (K)

Rainbow: promise, love, hope, and peace

Crane: longevity and noble mindedness (E)

Cactus: patience and hope (I)

Mountain: perseverence and stoicism

Dragon: honour, credit, bravery and pride

I definitely like the birds and the mountain, and I like the Japanese-y vibe of the dragon. My sister actually got one of these done even longer back when we visited Victoria, BC. Her name sports other symbols like dolphins, lighthouse, shrimp (a rather ornate one at that), and some tangle of flowers which I think are orchids. Unfortunately she lost the symbol sheet so we can't know for sure what dolphins are supposed to stand for.

--

I'm dismayed to find that BPT is still down for the count. In the meantime I've assembled a few quizzes on Sporcle, and I'm still trying to get some iSketch in whenever possible.

Clairgustance

2009-11-12T23:46:00.007-05:00

Injecting lab rats everyday is more stressful than I thought it would be, although the source of the stress is less the actual working with the animals and more the other aspects of the lab. Strange inconsistent equipment and shortage of testing chambers create time constraints which result in me having to wait for everyone else to finish before I can use them. The actual testing session only takes an hour, but I don't get to leave until 6pm or later because I have to wait for the equipment to become available. Juggling 2-3 different experiments at the same time, although each not that bad on their own, gets really taxing after a while. I seriously better get a break next semester seeing as I've pretty much overclocked the hours I need to spend at the lab per week.

In other news, I decided to quickly skim through all the files of Pokemon I've played before and see who my main team members were and if the way I name my team has changed at all. Some of these were on the R4 that I started just to get a certain version exclusive or whatnot. Sadly I found that my file on the Pokemon Yellow cartridge apparently got corrupted and the data was gone.
:(

So I guess, like the meme goes, let me show you them:

Blue - Dude

Charming - Charizard

Flitter - Butterfree

QT - Lapras

Thunder - Pikachu

Puffy - Pidgeot

Silver - Ellix

Cinder - Quilava

Gaiety - Eevee

Whoopah - Quagsire

Fleecy - Flaaffy

Lufia - Lugia

Sapphire - Kev (M)

Gex - Sceptile (M)

Torrent - Kyogre

Blitz - Manetric (F)

Gaiety - Latias (F)

Bahamut - Salamence (M)

Ruby - Gingly (M)

Atash - Blaziken (M)

Masa - Flygon (M)

Jasper - Starmie

Ikshu - Gardevoir (F)

Raiden - Manetric (M)

FireRed - Gingly (M)

Piers - Blastoise (M)

Saxon - Nidoking (M)

Flutter - Butterfree (M)

Zhong - Arcanine (M)

Elysia - Raichu (F)

Tien - Dragonite (M)

Diamond - Ellix (M)

Fervis - Infernape (M)

Ethos - Azelf

Zing - Luxray (F)

Brumey - Empoleon (M)

Larch - Torterra (M)

Tatsuo - Dragonite (M)

Pearl - Exia (F)

Sunny - Infernape (M)

Sai - Scizor (M)

Tesla - Jolteon (F)

Cavall - Lucario (M)

Eddy - Blastoise (M)

Loren - Alakazam (M)

Zoba - Garchomp (M)

Platinum - Exill (M)

Wolder - Torterra (M)

Kenzo - Lucario (M)

Wyvern - Salamence (M)

Arroya - Blastoise (F)

Zener - Espeon (M)

HeartGold - Xei (M)

Tomaw - Feraligatr (M)

Qi - Alakazam (M)

Amber - Ampharos (F)

Shiro - Dragonite (M)

Mushi - Scizor (M)

Agni - Arcanine (M)

EDIT: (May 6, 2010) Update~

SoulSilver - Ellix (M)

Jasper - Typhlosion (M)

Liodora - Ampharos (F)

Lazuri - Vaporeon (M)

Machis - Sceptile (M)

Kyan - Metagross

Uluru - Flygon (M)

Why

2009-11-11T22:14:00.002-05:00

Escarpment

2009-10-17T01:21:00.007-04:00

Another photo dump of the nice overnight trip to Niagara Falls shortly before school started. I was happy that I got to go somewhere this summer, and it was pretty fun and at a nice pace for once. Stayed at the Embassy Suites hotel and had dinner at The Keg in the hotel, which surprisingly was also the site of the breakfast morning buffet. Hot breakfast to-order + The Keg seating = very nice. Some generic falls pictures out of the way first:

The Falls

View from Embassy Suites hotel room

American Falls

Horseshoe Falls

Maid of the Mist

Niagara Scow (center right) - the old ship that's now stuck upstream of the Horseshoe Falls

View of some hotels on Canadian side - Embassy Suites at center left

Horseshoe Falls as seen from the Maid of the Mist

Bird Kingdom

Free-Flying Aviary - it's like the Toronto Zoo pavilions where you get to walk around inside where the birds are flying, and there were surprisingly a lot of birds there.

Bearded Dragons and Turtle - Bird Kingdom also had a reptile section where they had a LOT of large snakes and lizards.

Niagara Falls Botanical Gardens

Castor Oil Plant

Tomato Garden - they had a large vegetable garden with squashes, pumpkins, cabbages, rhubarb, carrots, hot peppers and such growing at the time.

Lantana Camara - actually an extremely invasive species and known as a "noxious weed".

Butterfly Conservatory - Part of the Botanical Gardens

Owl Butterfly - seen from the top - the namesake owl eye pattern is seen when the wings are closed up

Butterfree used Gust!

No UPS, you are the demons.

2009-08-25T22:17:00.013-04:00

The Logitech mouse I was using ended up malfunctioning, but Logitech gladly offered to replace it as the mouse came with a 3 year warranty. The e-mail exchange with their service rep was short and brief. One week later, they shipped it off to my address via UPS Ground and said I would not need to send anything back. Sounds good to me, thanks Logitech.

Unfortunately, UPS has had extreme difficulty in finding where I live. In fact, it seems they have trouble noticing that I'm not actually living in the US. I've quadruple-checked that Logitech had delivered to the right address, and nothing is wrong with it. Not really sure what is up with UPS. The supposedly one-week delivery is now an indefinite-week delivery...

I admit it is kind of fun to track the package each day too see what kind of antics UPS is up to.

MEMPHIS, TN, US

8/18/2009
8:20pm ORIGIN SCAN
9:51pm BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
11:43pm DEPARTURE SCAN

NASHVILLE, TN, US

8/19/2009
4:41am ARRIVAL SCAN
8:04am DEPARTURE SCAN

CINCINNATI, OH, US

8/19/2009
1:26pm ARRIVAL SCAN
3:06pm DEPARTURE SCAN

MAUMEE, OH, US

8/19/2009
7:03pm ARRIVAL SCAN

8/20/2009
9:16pm THE RECEIVER HAD NO INVOICE ON FILE AND REFUSED THIS DELIVERY / RETURNED TO SHIPPER

NASHVILLE, TN, US

8/21/2009
10:45pm DEPARTURE SCAN

MEMPHIS, TN, US

8/22/2009
2:30am ARRIVAL SCAN

8/24/2009
6:18am OUT FOR DELIVERY
2:38pm THE RECEIVER'S LOCATION WAS CLOSED ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT. A 2ND DELIVERY ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE

8/25/2009
1:35pm THE PACKAGE WAS LEFT IN A UPS FACILITY / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
10:37pm THE COMMERCIAL INVOICE IS MISSING AND IS REQUIRED FOR EXPORT

8/26/2009
9:18pm THE COMMERCIAL INVOICE IS MISSING AND IS REQUIRED FOR EXPORT / RELEASED BY CLEARING AGENCY. NOW IN-TRANSIT FOR DELIVERY

8/27/2009
12:31am DEPARTURE SCAN

NASHVILLE, TN, US

8/27/2009
4:22am ARRIVAL SCAN
8:24am DEPARTURE SCAN

CINCINNATI, OH, US

8/27/2009
1:43pm ARRIVAL SCAN
1:49pm DEPARTURE SCAN

MAUMEE, OH, US

8/27/2009
5:37pm ARRIVAL SCAN

8/28/2009
1:02am DEPARTURE SCAN

WINDSOR, ON, CA

8/28/2009
8:54am ARRIVAL SCAN
9:32am IMPORT SCAN

TO BE CONTINUED...?

It just gets sadder with each day...

Also suspiciously, the "Return to:" address is listed as OLIVE BRANCH, MS, US on the UPS site. The package has yet to make it over to Mississippi, but I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually made a trip there too.

EDIT: I think they've done it. It took a second try and a lot of wasted time backtracking, but I think it's going to make it.

HyperText Mark-Up Language

2009-08-11T14:32:00.004-04:00

I dug up this really old book in my bookshelf called "You Can Surf the Net!" by Marc Gascoigne. It's from way back in 1995, and I don't remember how I got this book, and I'm not sure how much of it I read. I have a feeling it was from one of those bookorders from primary school.

There's a section called "It's the TLAs" which descibes the TLAs - "Three Letter Acronyms". Basically they're acronyms used while chatting, supposedly, although I'm not sure why they used to be called TLAs since most of them are not three letters (the author mentions this too). It may just seem funny because the list was published so long ago and just seems silly today. Some of them seem too contrived to ever really work. It's believable that the more complex acronyms could have been used occasionally but were simply done away with due to their rarity and length. Most likely, the list is just the author's suggestions of possible acronyms that could be used on the internet (in 1995).

AFAICT --------- As far as I can tell
AFK ------------ Away from my keyboard
B4 ------------- Before
BAK ------------ Back at my keyboard
BCNU ----------- Be seeing you
BFN ------------ Bye for now
BRB ------------ Be right back
BSF ------------ But seriously, folks...
BTDT ----------- Been there done that
BTW ------------ By the way
CUL8R ---------- See you later
DYJHIW --------- Don't you just hate it when...
EOF ------------ End of file
FAQ ------------ Frequently asked questions
FOAF ----------- Friend of a friend
FOC ------------ Free of charge
FWIW ----------- For what it's worth
FYI ------------ For your information
GAL ------------ Get a life
GIGO ----------- Garbage in, garbage out
HHOJ ----------- Ha ha, only joking
HHOS ----------- Ha ha, only being serious
IAE ------------ In any event
IMHO ----------- In my humble opinion
IMNSHO --------- In my not so humble opinion
IMO ------------ In my opinion
IOW ------------ In other words
IRL ------------ In real life
ISTM ----------- It seems to me
ISTR ----------- I seem to remember...
ITRW ----------- In the real world
IYSWIM --------- If you see what I mean
JAM ------------ Just a minute
L8R ------------ Later
LMHO ----------- Laughed my head off
LOL ------------ Laughs out loud
MUG ------------ Multi-user game
NALOPKT -------- Not a lot of people know that
NBD ------------ No big deal
NRN ------------ No reply necessary
OIC ------------ Oh, I see
OMG ------------ Oh my god!
OTOH ----------- On the other hand
OTL ------------ Out to lunch
OTT ------------ Over the top
RFC ------------ Request for comments
ROFL ----------- Rolls on the floor laughing
RSN ------------ Real soon now
RTFAQ ---------- Read the FAQ file
RTFM ----------- Read the manual (it seems a word is missing... :P)
SITD ----------- Still in the dark
SYL ------------ See you later
TCB ------------ The trouble came back!
TDM ------------ Too darn many
TIA ------------ Thanks in advance
TTFN ----------- Ta-ta for now
TTYL ----------- Talk to you later
TVM ------------ Thank you very much
VR ------------- Virtual reality
WRT ------------ With regard to
WYSIWYG -------- What you see is what you get
YCT ------------ Your comment to
YHM ------------ You have mail
YMBJ ----------- You must be joking
YMMV ----------- Your mileage may vary

For even more acronym goodness, try these Sporcle quizzes:
Common Chat Acronyms
Obscure Chat Acronyms (A-D)
Computer Acronyms

Lost in Translation

2009-08-11T00:09:00.008-04:00

Attempting to alleviate withdrawal symptoms and my need for a BPT fix, I am posting some random frames that I've drawn on the site. If you want, try thinking of a short caption to describe the picture when you see it. Then after each picture, highlight the text to see the actual caption that I was given to draw a picture of. I also put the actual caption that the person who saw my picture responded with, and you can see if you interpreted it the same way they did. I guess it depends on how well my drawing managed to convey the previous message.

Previous:
|The Queen's gynecologist was just a little *too* happy during her exam..|

Response:
|doctor happy w prank of placing pea under angsty royalty in red|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=59310

Previous:
|The G-force of extreme jumping cause a mans head to rip off|

Response:
|happy head less guy wearing all gray falls outta airplane hes so happy|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=45347

Previous:
|SCIENCE PIE!|

Response:
|Alfred Einstain loves sciencepie|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=56408

Previous:
|Roland and Eddie arrive at the dark tower and eat Spagetthi|

Response:
|cowboys eating meatballs looking at a cactus|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=55966

Previous:
|Morgan Freeman as God smites martians. Tiny man rejoices|

Response:
|black star trek person gets zapped by aliens while happy person looks|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=55197

Previous:
|New Leg amputee had dream of dunking b-ball at NBA game|

Response:
|poor kid remembers the basketball accident that cost him his leg|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=58323

Previous:
|asian man in white suit mad cuz he loses in pacman to a masked frog|

Response:
|Scientist and his devil frog experiemnet beats him at pac-man.|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=58315

Previous:
|A grey Grimace is run over by a ruthless red Hummer|

Response:
|Hummer (the vehicle) happily runs over grey Grimace (McDonalds)|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=56417

Previous:
|A firey three eyed dog is attempting to zombify a sad man.|

Response:
|3 eyed red werewolf mauls some poor guy. Bones n guts showing|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=56365

I hope the site gets operational soon. :\

MLIA

2009-08-10T20:31:00.011-04:00

I found out that I really should have been tagging my posts from the beginning, but I never realized that was what the "Labels" were. I hastily went over old posts and added some tags. I placed drop down menus on the side for the Labels because BlogSpot won't do it for me unless I "upgrade my blog" or something, and I think I would be too lazy to reorganize everything after the switch, so I'm leaving it for now. Another minor thing is that I made a quick link to the main page in the header. If I bothered to learn some decent coding maybe I could make this thing look nicer. =\

For some reason if you try to look up certain labels, especially the ones that have a lot of entries, the page doesn't end up showing all the posts with that label and just stops after a while. I can't seem to find any way to go to a "second page" of posts or anything.

- Rant ahead -

In other news: the styluses that Gateway uses for their tablet PC are horrible and break very easily in a very short time, usually without any apparent reason other than that you have used it. I haven't dropped or thrown around any of the styluses I've used that have broken. Perhaps I'm pressing too hard when I write, or something. In any case, researching online shows that this problem is well-known for other people using Gateway's tablet styluses, not just for me. (The model I have is the CX2724.)

Since Gateway's manufacturer's warranty was only a year, I had to use the extended warranty from the Best Buy in Markville Mall to replace styluses from then on. The first time I tried to request a pen replacement with Gateway, they simply sent a new one over. The first time with Best Buy, the guy wanted me to send in the whole laptop in order to replace the stylus, which upset me greatly because then I had to go backup my data and whatnot. When I returned on a different day, the employees working at the Geek Squad desk were different. The one who helped me said he was familiar with tablet PCs and recognized immediately that the pen simply needed to be replaced. He filed an order for a new pen and I got to take my laptop home, very happy and relieved.

The next two or so times went off without a hitch either. One of the visits was to replace my laptop's backlight which was causing my screen to flash and tint everything a disgusting pink colour. I definitely had to send my laptop in for that particular problem.

I just visited again last Friday to do another stylus replacement, for what must have been the fourth time. I encountered the same Indian guy as from the very first time I tried to replace the stylus with Best Buy. He told a second employee to try to calibrate the stylus with the laptop. Since the stylus was broken, he couldn't click anything with it, although the cursor followed the stylus around. I watched painfully as the employee went back and forth between the Control Panel and Calibration option with the touchpad and tried to use the stylus again, wondering why he was repeating the exact same thing if it never worked. It was clear that he wasn't entirely sure of what he was doing.

After a futile 10 mins he deferred back to the Indian guy, who again declared that I had to send in the whole laptop for "diagnostics". When I demanded to know why, he said that "the problem might be with the pen or it might be with the laptop." I explained that the previous times I've replaced the pen it worked fine after I received the new pen, and that there isn't any problem with the screen. He then told me, "Well, the other guys who replaced your pen are wrong. You have to perform the proper diagnostics." It's unfortunate, but that's just a bad excuse to compensate for the fact that you two employees are completely ignorant of how tablet PCs work, by simply tossing my problem into a service queue. It clearly doesn't mean a thing to you, but it inconveniences me. And then I realized it: this particular Indian guy works on weekdays, and the two times I ever had a problem was when I went on a Friday. When I successfully replaced my stylus before, it was always on Saturday when the other technicians were working there.

Returning the next day on Saturday, I met a different employee who hadn't helped me before at Geek Squad. He told me that he owned the exact model of Gateway tablet PC that I have, and he also knew the problem was because of Gateway's terrible styluses. So like the previous times, he filed an order for a new stylus and I took my laptop home.

Overall, I would not recommend Gateway laptops (especially tablet PCs for obvious reasons) because it is just way too hard to use their products as they refuse to sell parts in Canada. Why in the world are they selling laptops in Canada if they refuse to provide adequate support here? When I needed to buy a larger battery to get a longer battery life, there wasn't a single location in Canada that sold Gateway batteries. I had to opt for ordering from a supplier, at an extra $30 US above the regular price. I never thought I'd run into that kind of problem when I bought the laptop, so I guess it was lack of research on my part.

tl;dr -> if you ever need to visit the Geek Squad at the Markville Best Buy, go on Saturdays and avoid weekdays.

Wo probs

2009-08-09T15:17:00.012-04:00

Broken Picture Telephone is a really interesting game which plays similarly to the well-known game of Broken Telephone. An initial message passes from one person to the next, and when it reaches the last person we see how badly lost in communicaton the initial message became. BPT achieves this by using text and drawing prompts. If you are shown a text prompt, you are given 10 minutes using very limited drawing tools and space to portray that message with a drawing. If you are shown a drawing prompt, you have to type up a message describing the picture the best you can in a limited space. When the whole chain is complete, the frames are revealed to all the players who can see how the game began, and how it progressed towards the end.

Here are two snippets from two different games (click for larger pic):

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=59252

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=44939
(Yeah I spelled it wrong :[ )

Of course, very rarely does the initial message stay throughout the entire course of the game, but it has happened in very rare occasions. Sometimes themes from the beginning of the game become lost, only to suddenly re-emerge again near the end. BPT really lets you see what the most prevalent motifs are in the minds of people from around the world. There is actually a fairly large player base from Europe and southeast Asia, aside from North America. These themes are usually encountered when a drawing isn't very clear, and thus the person defaults to a common symbol or image that they are familiar with. It is not uncommon for someone to draw a pizza, beach ball, or slice of cheese, only to have it described as "Pac-Man". It's also been a common complaint that most people mix up the "peace symbol" with the Mercedes-Benz logo.

Some common motifs that seem to pop up in many games include:

Green aliens/martians
Jesus
Pac-Man
Cats, dogs
Super Mario
Poop
Godzilla/T-Rex
Satan/the Devil
Cacti
Apples, bananas
Barney the Dinosaur
Ninjas
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

And more recently, Obama and Michael Jackson have been popping up. As someone once said in the comments to a game, whether you describe a brown blob as 'poo' or 'melted chocolate ice cream' probably says something about your personality.

Another thing to behold is the ability of some amazing artists who can create such masterpieces even when using drawing tools which are even more spartan than MS Paint, even more impressive when taking the 10min limit into account. It really matters, especially for me since I can't draw very well and thus draw verrrry slowly. The top artists can be seen here.

The unfortunate reality right now is that the site is defunct. The site gained such popularity that the servers crashed and now images don't load up properly anymore, meaning nobody can play right now. It's sad because the site just got a bit more publicity when named one of the top 100 websites of 2009 by PC Magazine, and I'd imagine there are a lot of interested people flocking to the site only to be completely confused when they find that they can't actually play the game.

A single person owns, designed, and maintains BPT, and it has reached a level of popularity that the owner did not expect. Part of the problem is that he is only one who can make changes to the site, but he maintains a rather remote rapport with the fans. The news section (or "Blog" as it is called in BPT) is in a discrete part of the header, and recently he hasn't been updating much. He didn't actually respond until a few days after the site became dysfunctional, and seems sort of ambivalent towards fixing the site. Of course I can't tell if this is really the case since he hasn't updated us since.

During BPT's run it has had its fair share of problems, and there are a lot of ways it can be improved. There are sometimes trolls who post as many inappropriate pictures as they can, effectively ruining the natural course of the game. Most of these trolls are the unoriginal type whose weapon of choice is the tired old "crude phallus drawing". However there were some more original trolls that attacked BPT. One such troll started tons of games with the initial prompt: "Pokemon trainer catching a _____" where each game featured a different Pokemon. Another troll responded to everything with Star Trek. There was a really big push for better administration to curb the trolls' actions, but the owner never really followed up on those. More experienced players know that if they encounter a frame with an inappropriate picture or message, they should just "begin anew" by ignoring the frame and posting as if they were starting a new game.

Despite the occasional trolling and glitches, the site is easily addictive. I first started at the end of May, drawing with the mouse. Stats class made me take a break, but afterwards I returned and started drawing with the tablet stylus. It definitely allowed me to draw faster so that my pictures didn't look as plainly unfinished as it did before. I'm not sure that the quality of my pictures has really improved that much, however. If BPT ever does get fixed up, I'll definitely start playing again.

My profile

Telephone
Broken Telephone
Chinese Whispers
Arab Phone
Whisper Down the Lane
Gossip
Stille Post

Early

2009-08-09T13:36:00.013-04:00

Last year I made this post where I commented on finding a bird's nest in my front yard. Well this year it turns out that the nest became occupied (or a new nest was made in the same place) by a family of robins. Unfortunately we were too late to catch seeing the eggs, but we were able to observe the robin mother as she was brooding until the eggs eventually hatched, the babies developed into fledglings, and then left the nest. When I read up about the nesting habits of robins online, it matched rather well with what I observed happening with the robin in our front yard. Since they decided to reside in the lilac bush right beside our window, we were able to spy on the nest frequently, probably to the chagrin of the birds as they often stared at us when they noticed our presence.

Initially, we mostly saw the robin mother sitting in the nest, so we suspected that she had eggs in the nest. She sat there for most of the day, always awake with eyes open. I admired her ability to do that without getting insanely bored. During this time I never really saw the robin father come to the nest. The mother is shown in the hidden nest here:

Soon after the eggs hatched to yield three babies, and the mother began to make occasional trips to find food. The babies were still really small and most of the time were covered by the tall sides of the nest. Only when the mother returned would they immediately pop up from the nest, straining their necks to get at the food. This is a shot of the baby birds shortly after they hatched.

Eventually the babies began developing some plumage. Their characteristic red bellies began to show too. At this point the mother was still brooding during the day and especially during bad rainy weather. However, the birds eventually grew larger, to the point where it was almost comical since the chicks were all barely wedged into the nest. By then I rarely saw the mother near the nest again, except at night. However both the mother and father showed up at various points in the day to feed the fledglings.

The mother sitting on the fledglings:

Fledglings when mother was absent:

After about 2-3 weeks fom hatching the babies will have developed enough to be able to start learning to fly. Eventually they will leave the nest out into the world, mildly assisted by the parents as they try get independent at flying around and finding food. This matched with what I saw on the day when the fledglings finally left the nest. It was then when I was able to actually get a good look at their feathers.

Fledgling perched beside nest, ready to leave:

Fledgling on the front porch as it was leaving:

I was a little saddened when the robins were gone, and hoped that they would be ok. The survival rate of robins in the wild is understandably low. I was glad that all three chicks survived long enough to be able to leave the nest, at the very least. I managed to get some shaky camera footage of one of the fledglings that was perched beside the nest on the day they left the nest. Two of the fledglings left the nest around noon, but this one in the video stuck around until 6pm. Not sure why it did that, but I hope the parents didn't forget about it.

Apparently robins may nest twice in a single year during the summer, but at two different nesting sites. I found the robins in our front yard in mid-July, so this was probably the second time in the summer, if it had nested before. I'm glad I was able to observe something like this so closely, and it reminds me of the duck family that also lived in our front yard a few years ago. I guess there is just something about the front yard that birds really like? The website I read states that robins mainly determine their nesting site by judging the ability of the spot to support the nest from below, which is why they often nest at the base of places where branches fork out. It also explains why the robin I saw last year at Wonderland would nest immediately below the tracks of The Bat. There sure is a lot of structual integrity there, but I would still think sitting under a roller coaster all day would be detrimental to the robin...

Most info I read about was from this site: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/robin/

Early to bed, early to rise
The future is for those who get up early
He who arrives first, stays better
Morning time has gold in its mouth
He who sleeps doesn't catch any fish
The early bird catcheth the worm

Esculent

2009-08-09T12:27:00.010-04:00

In the past while I've dabbled in a bit of baking, mostly as a way to kill time. None of them are really all that impressive, but for things I just made for the first time they turned out pretty good. Luckily, they were all at least edible, some were even delicious! Most of them came from the same dessert cookbook so there are a lot of 'chocolate' recipes, not too much variety.

Chocolate Almond Cheesecake
The first cake I ever baked, it was actually pretty simple to make. Unfortunately since I didn't know the nuances of cheesecake-making, the cake came out of the oven looking wonderful but as it cooled it developed a humongous gaping hole across the middle. My sister then decorated over said crack using the almond whipped cream. It tasted good, in the end.

Neapolitan Cheesecake
This one was a bit of a failure. Although it tasted ok in the end, it was supposed to have three distinct layers on top of the crust. The bottom pink strawberry layer failed because I didn't drain enough water from the strawberries and the puree was too watery. This caused some of the layer to leak out of the pan when it was baking. The crust was also much too hard due to the recipe calling for the use of cocoa. If I ever attempt this again I'll use a crust from another cheesecake recipe.

Chocolate Amaretto Cheesecake
This one is my favourite of the cheesecakes I've made. It tasted the best and was probably the most easy to make due to the fact that it doesn't involve baking. It uses gelatin so after you blend everything together you simply let it set in the fridge. I hijacked the almond whipped cream from the Chocolate Almond Cheesecake recipe. Since I didn't have a pastry bag of any sort, I just dabbed the cream over the cake. It might've looked a bit neater if I had piped it instead.

Choco-Almond Fluff
The recipe for this one was really short, but strangely involved a lot more effort and surveilance than I expected. Admittedly it was supposed to be a Choco-Orange Fluff, but I couldn't be pressed to spend $5 on a tiny bottle of orange extract which I would probably never use again. I just used the almond extract we already had from making the previous cheesecakes. Not much variety to be had, but again it tasted ok, and was indeed fluffy.

Collector's Cocoa Cake
I decided to move on to a cake that was not a cheesecake! And luckily it still turned out ok, none of the sticking-to-the-pan problems I've heard of. There were two choices of frosting you could make in the recipe, this one being a 'buttercream frosting'. I was afraid the frosting would be too sweet but it was fine, and the cake ended up being pretty tasty. The cake didn't seem as fluffy as other cakes, but it might have been because the recipe called for baking soda instead of baking powder.

And here's a close-up on the frosting. Yum...

The cake slice reveals how the cake layers weren't very flat, but it definitely turned out better than I was expecting.

Cupcake Bouquet
My sister did most of the work for this one, as a Mother's Day gift. I just assisted with making the cupcakes. She then arranged it into a bouquet and hand-painted the pot. Turned out looking really charming. The cupcake frosting was actually pumped out via a Ziploc bag with a hole cut in the corner, again citing the lack of a pastry bag.

Ham and Spinach Quiche
This is not a dessert, but a quiche. Again, rather simple to make, with all the work coming from the prep where you have to cut up the ingredients. The recipe originally called for celery and onion only, but I found the celery didn't flow with the texture of the quiche so the next time I replaced it with mushrooms, and added ham and bacon too. If I ever feel particularly adventurous, maybe a homemade pie crust next time...?

Other undertakings included a pasta pie, chili con carne, and gazpacho.

Compunction

2009-08-09T03:27:00.003-04:00

It didn't feel like it was that long ago, but I seemed to have neglected this blog for a long time. I guess I'll just use this opportunity for a photo dump and to distract myself from the fact that I'm not sleeping at a proper hour.

This summer I've been preoccupied with Broken Picture Telephone, which I will elaborate on in a different post. Of course, the habit has been mercilessly routed due to the site having fallen into a state of disrepair. Another event of note is the first time in a while I've actually attended class during summer for school. I never went to summer school during high school, but thought it prudent this summer to take the statistics course that I didn't have room for during the main term (which was already over average course load). It worked out for the better, and I appreciate being able to eat dinner at a time earlier than 10pm again.

I reluctantly admit that earlier this year I did a lot of posting on the Gaia Online forums. Although the overwhelming population of users on that site is definitely...of a younger age group, the only place I ever post in is the 'Word Games' Forum. For some reason I have a real penchant for those silly 'Word Association' or '4-Letter Acronym' games, and since the Gaia forums are so active, it effectively feeds my obsession (and devastates my productivity). Another plus is that most the users who frequent the 'Word Games' forum post rather sensibly and intelligently. It wasn't surprising to find that many of the regulars are actually a bit older than the general population, attending college or whatnot.

The way this website hooks onto younger users is kind of devious. They offer daily promotions where they force you to watch a trailer video for a recent movie (usually the likes of Mall Cop or 17 Again and their ilk) in order to gain an item you can dress up your virtual avatar with. Not to mention that they constantly push their 'Gaia Gold' upon you, which are like cash points you can purchase from stores or online in order to be able to buy more virtual merchandise. Of all the things you can buy, I consider this one of the most useless. Perhaps if a lot of people know you on Gaia and you want to impress them, you may drop some cash to make your avatar look spiffier, but there isn't really anything past that. And of course, it's an extremely transient moment of enjoyment, at best. On the other hand, I can understand if someone was really enamoured by the avatar system and just wanted to buy themselves a nice avatar. Personally when it comes to paying for extra 'features' in games I usually forego the minor cosmetic updates.

On another note, I just recently started an account at My Anime List, which really does seem to have a very Facebook-esque interface. Not sure how regularly I will update the site (hopefully not like how I update this blog) but it's a good way to keep track of all the shows you've watched. It also reveals my pathetically long to-watch list of shows. Currently I'm indulging in Canaan, Zetsubou Zan, Umineko, and Natsume Yuujinchou, in those times between PCAT studying sessions. As the deadline for studying approaches, these anime-viewing sessions are quickly becoming endangered.

Finally, due to some sort of self-imposed obligation, here is the exam schedule for the spring term of 3rd year. I was very relieved when I found that it was much more reasonable than the monstrosity that was the Fall term exams.

Exam Schedule
BCH370 - 04/07 - 3-4pm - MS2378 - Biochemistry Lab
GLG110 - 04/20 - 7-9pm - EX200 - Geology
PCL362 - 04/23 - 2-4pm - BA2195 - Toxicology
PCL365 - 04/28 - 9am-12pm - BN3 - Toxicology Lab
PSL302 - 05/01 - 9-11am - EX200 - Physiology

Photo dump to follow, soon.

ALL OTHERS WILL BE CRUSHERD

2008-12-21T15:08:00.007-05:00

Most intense exam schedule ever. I had to do my first ever true all-nighter. I think I've always had some sleep the night before an exam, even if only for a few hours. Compounding the problem was that they were all cumulative exams covering content from September. The "plus" side was that I ended rather early, allowing me the luxury of having more time to mourn the senseless deterioration of my brain.

Exam Schedule
PCL365 - 12/04 - 9:30am-12:30pm - GB304 - Toxicology Lab
PSL302 - 12/09 - 9am-12pm - BN2N - Physiology
PCL302 - 12/10 - 9am-12pm - EM119 - Pharmacodynamics
CLA204 - 12/10 - 7-9pm - East Hall, UC - Classical Myth
LMP363 - 12/11 - 9am-12pm - RW229 - Pathobiology
BCH370 - 01/13 - ? - ? - Biochemistry Lab

The three day chunk officially doesn't count as a conflict. As well, all of the tests (except for physiology) were short answer format, not MC. Unfortunately, unlike the spring term exams, there is no studying week beforehand. However starting next year a modified schedule is being implemented which allows for a few days of studying before the fall exams, but taking some away from the week before the spring exams to compensate. There's also this strange November break added in which I guess would help for the midterm crunch. A lot of these new breaks also count the weekend, so 5-day breaks are really more of 3-day breaks. I guess the weekend breaks apply more for university staff than students.

I would say although this was the most stressful semester by far, with six courses and some type of evaluation every week since the end of September, the content of the courses learned seemed more satisfactory. It's probably because we're starting to learn more about new content that we haven't been taught in detail about before. The courses are beginning to overlap somewhat too.

I took classical myth as an elective, and I would say that the learning experience is much less enjoyable and impressionable as it was in high school. The whole course was to essentially memorize everything in this textbook and then spill out names, terms and essays in a short amount of time. Perhaps I'm just not as used to this style of learning. I was surprised because this course is apparently in high demand, and for this past semester the waitlist in September after classes started had about 100 people. A lot of the myths that I was more intimate with from high school were glossed by in a very bare-bones manner. Of course the text was very informative and contained all the necessary details about the myths, but didn't seem to give much importance or emotion to the stories. But I guess you can't really demand much more in a university setting.

Anyway all of that is done now. There is another week or so to do non-school stuff before preparing for January midterm and labs.

"Non-school stuff" includes:
iSketch
osu!
Sporcle
FAILBlog

Also to remind you about all the shovelling you had to do:

Approximately the amount of snow that fell so far this weekend, according to my backyard table.

Sockets in the socket pool

2008-08-22T01:05:00.014-04:00

One of the above is real and the other is in fact a candy dispenser. I thought it was pretty good for simply being an imitation toy, down to having the removable battery cover. In fact, you press the B button down in order to shoot the candy out from the front of the remote.

Last week I had my three wisdom teeth removed (I apparently don't have a fourth wisdom tooth) and it seems I had a lucky recovery because I didn't experience the massive swelling and pain that a lot of people get. It meant that I didn't need to take any of those painkillers prescribed. Aside from the disgusting taste left by the stitches in the wound the experience wasn't bad at all.

The recent propane blast was a bit unsettling to me due to its magnitude and having been awake at the time to feel and hear it. It's good that very few got injured in the incident. It served as a wake-up call to the fact that there was a volatile storage facility surrounded by residential areas. This wouldn't have happened in SimCity, where if you build residential and commercial areas too close to industrial areas, even if you were only trying to give them power and water, the citizens will only give the illusion of moving in but then quickly disappear in droves leaving blackened, rotting plots of land behind that will never recover again no matter what you do even if you tried moving the factories away man I was bad at SimCity.

When I visited the Toronto Zoo this summer the butterflies were actually out in the Indo-Malaya Pavillion so it was interesting to see them flying around everywhere so closely you.

While cleaning boxes of old schoolwork I found that poem I did from Gr.12, which reminded me of the awesome Doppelganger poem:

Self-Reflection

I woke up from my dream
at last.
The world still seemed an illusion.
Surrounded by tunnels,
the lobby was silent and still.
I was almost unnerved.
The seated black-cloaked man
pointed towards
a symbol above a door.
I went deeper,
but it wasn’t my preference.
A creature pointed to a green door.
I ignored it
and wanted to go another way, so
I shouted,
but a force drove me into the door.
I was uncertain,
walking deeper into the dark.
I was compelled to turn back but kept
moving to a random direction.
I ran
at last of my own will,
and there a great entity
was guarding something.
I realized that I

had found my portal.

I realized that I
was guarding something.
And there, a great entity,
at last of my own will,
I ran,
moving to a random direction.
I was compelled to turn back but kept
walking deeper into the dark.
I was uncertain,
but a force drove me into the door.
I shouted,
and wanted to go another way, so,
I ignored it.
A creature pointed to a green door,
but it wasn’t my preference.
I went deeper.
A symbol above a door
pointed towards
the seated black-cloaked man.
I was almost unnerved.
The lobby was silent and still
surrounded by tunnels.
The world still seemed an illusion.
At last,
I woke up from my dream.

Mochahontas

2008-07-18T23:03:00.004-04:00

I tried a masala dosa for the first time (above) and it was humongous and delicious. And also humongous.

For Summerlicious I went to Quince and Pan. Quince had really good food, and Pan had good food with large servings. Favourites were the chill tomato soup from Quince and galaktoboureko from Pan. All in all a great experience.

Starting driving school related stuff next week.

Gastroenteritis

2008-07-04T17:38:00.002-04:00

The book Mistakes That Worked outlines the stories behind well-known inventions that were created or named by accident, such as with Coca-Cola and penicillin. It has a section on Silly Putty, which is way more versatile than I thought:

It stretches. It bounces. When whacked with a hammer, it shatters. If it is pressed against newspaper comics, it will pick up the imprint. Silly Putty is truly amazing. It is now over forty years old, and was one of the first "fad" toys in America.
It has been used by athletes to strengthen their hand and forearm muscles. It can level the leg of a wiggly table or clean typewriter keys. It removes lint from clothes and animal hair from furniture.
The astronauts on the Apollo 8 spacecraft played with Silly Putty when they got bored, and they used it to keep tools from floating around after they left the Earth's gravity.

It was used by the Columbus Zoo in Ohio in 1981 to take hand and foot prints of gorillas.
- Mistakes That Worked

On another note, I can't believe I was incorrectly saying it as "just desserts" up to now.

Galaktoboureko

2008-06-22T23:44:00.014-04:00

Yummmm...

Ended up going to Wonderland: Behemoth was very high but it somehow felt more secure than it looked. I think it's the highest coaster that I've been on so far.

Speaking of bird nests (from last post), while lining up for The Bat we spotted a bird's nest tucked on the supports directly under the roller coaster track. There was a robin settled in the nest, apparently unaware that a coaster cart is noisily speeding by 15cm above its head. Eventually the robin flew off, revealing that there were actually baby birds in the nest. Hopefully they won't have hearing problems later on.

Also, saw The Incredible Hulk. Yes, it is better than the first one.

Currently trying to make plans for Summerlicious. Winterlicious was great, so hopefully Summerlicious is ok too. It's nice getting a set dinner for $25 when the restaurant lists that a usual dinner for two people is $100-$150.

I found this fun tool called Wordle from Sandwalk (who found it from Expression Patterns). It takes a block of text that you enter and makes a little visual cluster out of the words, with the size of the words changing according to their frequency in the passage. I plugged some stuff I had to write recently:

It's addictive for a while :P

Finally, fun summer weather = hail

Things Happened

2008-06-11T22:04:00.003-04:00

Most of which are not very interesting.

Highlights:
- 2nd year was dealt a finishing blow
- FeMan, 404 Forbidden Kingdom
- Darwin: The Evolution Revolution @ ROM
- WiiWare -> Dr. Mario
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- The damage of the game disc of said Brawl
- Finally finished Tigana
- I found out that I liked crosswords, but am still terrible at them
- Started playing iSketch again to find that all the regulars are now using crazy pseudonyms and are all "teehee I won't tell you who I am"

Also, found a nest in the tree in the front yard:

It looks very well made. Reminds me of the duck nest, except back then the duck was still there. That was when I found out that ducks made loud wheezing noises to make you go away.

Future forecast?
- Visit to Wonderland, which is now exponentially less paramount
- Victory of Eagles
- Trauma Center 2 (!!!)

Exam Schedule
CLA201 - 04/22 - 9-11am - SEEL
BIO250 - 04/24 - 2-5pm - VAN
CHM247 - 04/28 - 9am-12pm - VAS
HMB265 - 05/02 - 9am-12pm - VAN
PCL201 - 05/07 - 9am-12pm - VAS

4/5 exams in the same place, therefore I did not get lost.

Glasses Case

2008-02-24T20:02:00.007-05:00

I am still playing Animal Crossing: Wild World fairly consistently nowadays, but somehow today I felt compelled to revisit my Gamecube file for Animal Crossing.

It was rather nostalgic. Apparently I hadn't played the Gamecube version for 28 months, also evidenced by the fact that I'm standing in a field of weeds. I was pleasantly reminded of the roundabout chores that the animals gave you such as retrieving the glasses cases or organizers they've lent to others, for whatever reason. I also confusedly ended up asking Blathers to explain to me what the museum was until I realised that you had to mail fossils to the museum rather than have Blathers personally appraise them (a change I'm glad happened in AC:WW). Meeting the old villagers was nice too.

Also, sometimes Animal Crossing is not quite rated E.

Haha, Chuck is awesome.

Now back to human bio. Reading Week was so short-lived. :(

Better-Veiled Xenophobia

2008-02-10T21:57:00.003-05:00

VGL last night was pretty amazing and was different enough from the first time to still enjoy. Note to people who want to get picked for going on stage in a few years when VGL comes back to Toronto, make a sign (that's important) and wave it around madly during the selection. They seem to like the signs, or are too lazy to pick other less obvious contestants.

Now for some excerpts from Our Dumb World:

The United States: The Land of Opportunism
The United States was founded in 1776 on the principles of life, liberty, and the reckless pursuit of happiness at any cost - even life and liberty.

Massachusetts: Covered in ivy
Home to hundreds of prestigious colleges and universities, Massachusetts is where the nation's best and brightest can't afford to go.

New Mexico: Unexplained
Though a retired police captain claimed to have seen New Mexico one night in 1947, researchers and government officials maintain to this day that the state was merely a weather balloon.

Alaska: Needlessly unspoiled
Alaska is the country's last frontier of untouched disposable consumer goods, with vast forests of potential napkin products stretching as far as the eye can see, and mountains of two-liter E-Z Chug bottles waiting to be processed.

Canada: For the United States, see pages 9-22
Living in the shadow of its southern neighbor, the nation of Canada will never be as great as the U.S. so long as it continues to burden citizens with universal health care, refuses to drill for oil in federally protected wildlife reserves, and neglects its duty to blindly support unilateral invasions of Middle Eastern states.

Honduras: A lush and diverse crime scene
With over 900 distinct types of rapists, 600 varieties of cold-blooded murderers, and all 18 members of the feared Hernandez-Garcia family, Honduras boasts a startling array of criminal life sure to take any visitor's breath, wallet, and often both kidneys away.

Jamaica: True Rasta no develop country
Jamaica is home to dank nugs, kind buds, ganja, and a crumbling infrastructure, which the country will get around to fixing right after this joint.

Brazil: People at their most beautiful, humanity at its ugliest
Boasting some of the sexiest people ever to be stabbed repeatedly at night, Brazil is home to perhaps the most attractive victims of carjacking, robbery, and violent assault in the world.

IL NOSTRO MONDO STVPIDO

2008-02-08T22:57:00.002-05:00

Somehow this week has managed to be the culmination of almost everything that I initially feared could go wrong with taking public transit during winter. Compared to this, the fiasco on Friday could be a mere passable event.

Highlights of the week include:
● Almost being late for a midterm
● Being late for a lab session
● Being trapped on a VIVA bus for over three hours
● Almost missing Chinese New Year's Eve dinner
● The most hours ever spent studying on a public transit vehicle in a single week
● Writing a midterm for the worse course I have ever taken

Initially, I thought that the storm this week would be way more mild than last week, with less snowfall but a chance of freezing rain. As a lesson learned I immediately registered the Winter Storm Hotline into my cellphone. Sadly, the storm ended up being very wet and voluminous...

Wednesday morning provided a little scare as one of the ever fragile subway stations decided it would lose all power, grinding the whole line to a halt. However this is not all that unusual, and luckily that was the only interruption that morning. I normally arrive over an hour before the start time of the miderm, and I managed to arrive before the midterm started.

Later that day, there was an optional review session for the pharmacology course from 5-6. Initially I wasn't going to attend due to the professor being notorious for creating more confusion and havoc in her "clarifications", but in the end I stayed...for a reason best left unbiased by hindsight.

Because of this, upon reaching Finch station at 6:59pm, there ensued a great one hour wait in the snowstorm, by now at its peak. At least I had practice from last week. But the reason for the delay was that there was apparently some major series of accidents north along Yonge, causing a blockade immediately along the VIVA route. No buses arrived until an hour later, during which time amassed a sizable amount of snow on the platform, people in the station, and water in my shoes. Although during this time I was able to see flashes of lightning in the sky, which is apparently really rare during snowstorms.

Since the whole Finch/Yonge intersection was literally frozen in place, the bus driver headed up normally along Yonge, but reached an impasse at Clark station, where we too remained immobile for an hour. In addition to freaking about about having a lab the next day and a midterm on Friday, there was a man onboard who seemed to be suffering from a mental disorder which caused him to scream shrilly every now and then, effectively scaring the hell out of everyone on board.

There eventually formulated a plan to divert the bus through some residential streets and connecting to Bayview via John St., before turning back towards Richmond Hill Center. Awesome, let's inch along the road faster, please. Unfortunately, the plan, although with very good intentions I'm sure, involved driving into one-lane roads and over a very steep hill. This effectively amounted to being trapped in the bus for a further two hours.

During this time the atmosphere on the bus instead grew rather relaxed as we all accepted our fates in the blue-coloured tomb. Everyone grew accustomed to the random wailing of the aforementioned fellow. However, another dilemma was still present, which was that today was Chinese New Year's Eve. The tradition says that on Chinese New Year's Eve, you must dine together with your family in order to ensure good luck for the new year, a rule that my family adamantly abided by. It's either that or be cursed for the rest of the year or something. As it was currently about two hours from the end of the day, you can see why the frequency of stressful phone calls I received from home was increasing.

My father was previously stuck on the roads too but eventually reached Richmond Hill Center and we drove home. After spending about 5 minutes charging back and forth up the driveway which by now was covered in a foot of snow, our family had Chinese New Year's Eve dinner at 11:15pm.

The following day involved arriving late for the lab, rushing in short-breathed followed by a few other stragglers, but understandably we were still allowed to write the quiz normally administered at the beginning of the session and granted a zero if you were late.

Friday was a whole different dimension of stress. This involved the pharmacology midterm. However, this was no ordinary midterm. It was also no ordinary course. PCL201, up until last year, was effectively a bird course (well, as bird-course-y as life sci courses can go at UofT). This year, there was a new professor. And she decided to do things her way. This includes:

● Being excessively rude towards her students. She seems to view every reasonable request as a threat to her position or status, belitting us for wanting things that every other professor willingly provides.
● This includes lecture slides which she provides in a format which requires a magnifying glass to read without permanent damage to the eyes. When students made the request to change the format, or at least provide the Powerpoint so that the students could do it themselves, she outright refused.
● The lecture slides consist of cut and paste from what seems like Google Search images.
● She makes many, many mistakes during her lecture. She mixes up very important terms such as "hydrophobic" and "hydrophilic" which can totally change one's understanding of a concept, as well as mixing up drug names (Digoxin? Dioxin? Didroxin?).

Obviously the last straw came when marks were directly involved, as is always the case in UofT, it seems. The class average on the simple 10 question MC quizzes were dramatically low. They were the kind of quizzes that are simply supposed to "make you review" and allow you to get 10/10 on for almost every one. Most of the more adamant students appealed to the student council for pharmtox and they actually held a student meeting for the issue. Now that the midterm has passed, no doubt there will be an even greater source of enmity towards the professor.

As of yesterday, over 50 people had dropped the course. Which makes one sarcastically wonder what retake % this course will receive at the end of this semester.

Luckily on a much lighter note, tomorrow is the day of the VGL concert in Toronto! Hooray. As well, I just bought Our Dumb World today which is written by The Onion, and it is basically the best book in the world on the world.

On a more grave note, there is an organic chem midterm next week. Owch.

Winter Storm Warning

2008-02-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

Scenario: Must get down to campus for 11:00am Scientific Terminology class

7:00am
- Wake up

7:45am
- CP24 announces that there are no delays for subway routes

8:00am
- Get a ride to Scarborough Town Center

8:30am
- Radio reports that UofT Mississauga campus is closed

9:00am
- Arrive at Scarborough Town Center
- RT is delayed; wait in packed RT platform

9:30am
- Arrive at Kennedy station

10:15am
- Arrive at Spadina station

10:30am
- Arrive on campus
- Get internet access
- Discover that UofT St. George campus is closing at 11am

10:45am
- Finished sobbing
- Depart for home

11:25am
- Arrive at Finch station
- Wait 25 mins for VIVA Blue

12:15pm
- Arrive at Richmond Hill Center
- Wait 20 mins for VIVA Purple

1:00pm
- Arrive at Enterprise
- Walk down to Unionville station
- Wait 10 mins for Kennedy bus

1:30pm
- Arrive home

1:45pm
- Type whiny post
- Cry about lost time and tokens

Aaroniero Arruruerie

2008-01-12T01:26:00.000-05:00

I just realised how sad it is that the names of places in Toronto that I actually recognize are being replaced with forgettable generic sounding names for the purpose of advertising. Paramount became Scotiabank Theater, the Hummingbird Center is now the Sony Center, and even Skydome became Rogers Center. We might as well start calling it the iTower now so that it will be hard to differentiate between whether it is a tall free-standing communications structure or a tall free-standing music CD rack.

Coulomb Explosion

2008-01-01T02:21:00.000-05:00

Admittedly the content from both biology courses so far seem to interest me the most out of all my courses. I can better understand the experiments outlined in scientific articles and such. We just finished off a term in which talked about experimental methods such as using reporter genes, and surprisingly the ones we learned about are actually used in real life! This is especially exciting since we're used to being taught "dumbed down" or "incorrect" versions of the facts in school. (This probably still happening to a certain degree regardless.) We mentioned Craig Venter as well, which I guess goes under the category of "hot topics in recent news".

From Discover:

Biologists Perform Genome Transplant

In June, biologists at the J. Craig Venter institute announced that they had successfully transplanted the genome of one species of bacteria into another bacterial species. "This was the ultimate in identity theft," says Venter, a biologist well known for his private-sector contribution to the sequencing of the human genome. "The chromosome [genome] took over the cell completely, and any characteristics of the original species were lost."

The transplant team took several steps to be sure the transfer was complete. First, they added two genes to the donor species' chromosome: one that made the cells resistant to the antibiotic tetracycline and one that made them turn blue. By dosing all the post-transplant bacteria with tetracycline and looking for blue colonies, the scientists could identify which cells had the donor DNA. Next, they tested all the blue, tetracycline-resistant bacteria for any traces of the recipient species' genome. When they found none, they knew the bacteria must contain only the donor species' genome. Finally, they found that all the proteins manufactured by the new bacteria were characteristic of the donor species.

This is a critical advance in Venter's quest - which he has been pursuing for a decade - to create a fully synthetic life-form. Now, he says, it could be just a matter of months before a living cell stocked with a synthetic genome becomes a reality.

- Jocelyn Rice

The Discover magazine website also has weekly podcasts of Vital Signs articles. Vital Signs is usually my favourite part of the magazine. The articles are all written by doctors who relate one of the previous patient cases they worked on, which often involve unusual or uncommon disorders and diseases. They then outline their thought process on confirming the condition and how to treat it. For example, the most recent Vital Signs article published in the Jan. 2008 issue talks about narcolepsy and cataplexy.

Blanc de blancs

2008-01-01T02:03:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year's! I wish everyone the best of luck in 2008.

First thing eaten in 2008: Piece of Hershey's milk chocolate
First thing drunk in 2008: Martellini's sparkling apple-cranberry juice
First thing played with in 2008: Pokémon Diamond (Hatched Phione at 12:03am :D )
First thing resumed in 2008 after celebrations: Hatching Phione

Secretariat

2007-12-26T03:02:00.000-05:00

Santa recently decided to go Boxing Day shopping, and got himself a spiffy new GPS device.

Rudolph is now on welfare.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! / HAPPY POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!!

Immunoprecipitation

2007-12-15T16:02:00.000-05:00

In lieu of the impending snowstorm today I went into the Wii Weather Channel and saw a weather icon I hadn't seen before. It turns out that Rankin Inlet is experiencing diamond dust. Wow, that sounds pretty intense. Are there sharp crystallic fragments of ice blowing around outside? What did they do to upset Shiva?

As it turns out, diamond dust is kind of like fog, but instead of being a cloud of water droplets, it is composed of a cloud of ice crystals.

Diamond dust is similar to fog in that it is a cloud based at the surface; it differs from fog in two main ways. Generally fog refers to a cloud composed of liquid water (the term ice fog usually refers to a fog that formed as liquid water and then froze, and frequently seems to occur in polluted valleys such as Fairbanks, Alaska, while diamond dust forms directly as ice). Also, fog is a dense enough cloud to significantly reduce visibility, while diamond dust is usually very thin and may not have any effect on visibility (there are far fewer crystals in a volume of air than there are droplets in the same volume with fog). However, diamond dust can often reduce the visibility, in some cases to under a mile (1600 m).

Source

The sunlight reflecting off all of the tiny ice crystals into your eye causing glittering flashes of light results in the term "diamond dust".

On a related note, it turns out that Rankin Inlet was competing with Iqaluit to become the official capital of the territory of Nunavut, but we all know how that turned out : (

Preproinsulin

2007-12-14T23:31:00.000-05:00

Dec 4:
ANT253 Language and Society
- Midterm, Essay

Dec 10:
BCH210 Introductory Biochemistry
- Exam

CLA206 Ancient Astronomy
- Exam

Dec 12:
BIO250 Cell and Molecular Biology
- Exam

Dec 14:
CHM220 Physical Chemistry for Life Sciences
- Exam

Finished...really need a break now...and sleep. Started drinking a lot of tea in the past few weeks, but managed to not drink a single cup of coffee or can of energy drink.

Main thing I leave these courses with:
Anthro - Zipf's Law is the answer to everything.
Biochem - Blueberries are high in antioxidants. Eat them. Also, COX.
Astro - You succeed in science by stealing other people's works and theories. Sadly this goes back even to Ancient Greece. Nowadays you can even get a Nobel Prize if you pull it off well enough.
Biology - I still need to do this next semester. Lab nights suck because I get home at 11pm and don't feel like studying afterwards.
Phys Chem - Kill me if I need to take another phys chem course ever.

Time to catch up on animé and reading.

COX

2007-11-11T21:56:00.000-05:00

The following was inspired by those poems I saw while taking the TTC.

Fragments

.......Poetry is
............taking English sentences and
.breaking them into
....................fragments

"i left when he started talking...about HI HI HOW ARE YOU"

2007-11-04T18:39:00.000-05:00

In light of an astronomy project, I went up to Aurora last night and went stargazing. Retreating to as dark an area which could be found, I looked up and saw what I believe were the most stars I have ever seen. This may be due to the fact that I have never stepped outside at night in Markham during one of those legendary "clear days". Even so, trying to find Polaris was disconcertingly hard, as all the stars around the general direction of "north" were either absent or engulfed in a huge mass of clouds. This leads me to conclude that the skies of ancient Mesopotamia must have been absolutely lucid because I can't comprehend how it was they could spot things like Saturn every day in the sky.

So the effort of braving the 5 degree night to find Polaris wasn't quite rewarded. Howeer, I did manage to get a glimpse of the "stars" which are so very hard to see.

Well that is, unless the star exploded a few million years ago, in which case that star isn't technically there...

Also, it was the "good" daylight savings switch today, the one that gives the illusion of gaining more time. :D

GER PICK-UP

2007-10-31T23:04:00.000-04:00

So right now is way past the time when you realize university isn't fun. The first sets of midterms have already passed, and the next set starts soon. I have a biology writing report which demands you stuff information found in a ten-page scientific article into three single-sided double-spaced pages. An astronomy project expects me to be able to fully identify constellations in the sky...we are in Toronto, and it seems the professor hasn't noticed the little quirks about Toronto's sky, which is that there are no stars, only smog.

Earlier this month someone had a seizure during a phys chem lecture, which obviously caused a big clamor. Right after that I went to astronomy, and someone shouted "Call a doctor!" after the guy beside her "fell unconsious" and dropped the bottle he was holding. Personally, it just looked like he fell asleep, not unconscious...

In regards to commuting, I have sadly witnessed a sharp increase of subway beggars, who jump to and fro between subway cars pushing their Tim Hortons cup into your face as they pass while you're sleeping. I guess it is very effective as all the people around you have already been concentrated into a small area for you.

Also recently, the revelations about finding high levels of lead in products is really confusing to me. A few months ago everyone was happy with their toy cars and building blocks, and then suddenly everything has too much lead in it. It's as if quality testing just realized "Holy crap, we forgot to test for lead" and then found out everything had a lot of lead. I wonder if this was like when we found out that saturated fats were bad, and that everything actually had saturated fats.

This month is also Nintendo freebie month. They sent me a spiffy pack of DS Lite styluses a long while ago for my Brain Age 2 purchase. They're also sending out some Wii Remote jackets for people who actually still have problems not treating the remotes like a javelin.

However the change in publishers for Nintendo Power I do not like as much, as they no longer give you the option to choose a free gift when you resubscribe to the magazine, only a barebones website which forces you to get a player's guide you really don't need.

Also, contemplating SSBB:

This is what happens when I wait too long to post.

Doing Jap

2007-09-18T22:40:00.000-04:00

Man, weirdest RT ride ever. The two people to my left were avidly chatting with sign language, the lady sitting across from me had these huge scratches along her chest and one huge red mark down her face, and the old man sitting to my right kept twitching. Worse 15 mins ever.

In other words, second year is hardcore.

Japanese-style

2007-09-10T23:33:00.000-04:00

First day of commuting...and to think I complained about riding on a school bus for forty minutes in high school. Investing four hours a day to staring at the floor of a public transportation vehicle doesn't sound particularly appealing but the excitement of going downtown to learn is quite...well, not effective. The adaptation phase begins.

Doctors and Nurses

2007-09-10T00:27:00.000-04:00

Back to classes today. I have to go downtown for a one hour lecture, or more importantly to get a syllabus and book list. But I guess I can also go around hunting for places to hang out in between classes, other than the library...

Foreign Customs

2007-09-06T20:30:00.002-04:00

I ordered a new laptop battery two weeks ago with a longer battery life as I can no longer go back and recharge the battery after every class session. Sadly, it required spending waaay more than the battery normally costs because Gateway refuses to send things to Canada. I had to go to Mundo Corp in order to get it, where I was charged with huge shipping and customs fees. I'm sure there are many reasons behind it, but Gateway's reluctance to ship parts across the border is frustrating.

Ironically, a few weeks ago I called Gateway's tech support because my tablet PC's stylus wasn't working (a very common occurence with that specific type of pen) and my warranty was running out soon. Less than 24 hours after the tech session they shipped a new stylus directly to my door. Hurrah! But then why can't they do that with their other parts...

Speaking of rush deliveries...

Hmm, two weeks doesn't seem that rushed to me... But to be fair, last weekend was the Labour Day weekend. However, I expected it to arrive before the weekend. While tracking the package online, I saw that by last Thursday it had crossed into Canada and cleared customs. Then there was no word on it until yesterday. I went to an appointment and was out of the house for a mere forty minutes only to come back and find that the courier had come and gone... Wow, they're good.

So the package was picked up today, just in time before classes start again...

Do they not do the styrofoam swirlies anymore? :(

Mania

2007-09-06T12:20:00.000-04:00

Sturdy Hoe

2007-08-27T01:35:00.001-04:00

Rune Factory plot update:

Ooooh mysterious.

Also, got Brain Age 2. The games do seem harder but in general more fun than the straight-forward math problems in the previous installment.

Myriad

2007-08-21T00:56:00.000-04:00

This year's edition, Guiness World Records 2008, had this to say about the font used in the book:

This year's edition is set in Myriad Pro, a beautifully proportioned and highly readable humanist sans serif typeface designed in the early 1990s by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly (both USA). Humanist fonts are those that embody the cleaness and purity of a modern, "grotesque" typeface with the natural, organic feel of hand-drawn letters; sans serif refers to the lack of serifs or flourishes - such as the small feet on a serified n or i - common to the "roman" typefaces.

That was...s-so beautiful. *sheds a tear*

Although admittedly I didn't know that bit about the sans serif.

I searched for "Myriad Pro" and it turns out that for $35 each you can choose from a whole myriad of styles of Myriad Pro, such as: Regular, Condensed, SemiCondensed, and SemiExtended, not including all the Bold, Black, Italic, Light, and SemiBold variations.

The website also adds:

Myriad also has subtle geometric shaping and monotone color, balanced by varying letter widths and open counter shapes. A readable and friendly face, Myriad works well for both text and display typography. A headline font and the playful "sketch" and "tilt" versions add versatility.

This is clearly the BEST FONT EVER.

I think I haven't had enough exposure to the world of "professional font-making".

Expirty

2007-08-20T21:57:00.000-04:00

Today I took a crazy adventure with public transportation. In one outing I experienced for the first time YRT busing, VIVA busing, and TTC busing. (Having only previously taken TTC streetcars and subways) Yes...somehow I haven't taken the YRT until now. I learned that:

1) VIVA Purple doesn't go straight (realized once the Hwy 7 bus whizzed by)

2) You pay when you get OFF a TTC bus?

Recently I've been playing Rune Factory, although getting it was hard as its existence in Canada was very vague and uncertain until recently, even though it was apparently everywhere in the US and they didn't know what to do with all of them. I finally found it by asking an EB rep in the store. (They hid them in the storeroom and didn't feel like displaying a single game box)

Anyhoo, my favourite character so far is the pastor, Wesley.

No doubt he bathes with holy water as well.

Celebration

2007-07-29T20:59:00.002-04:00

Got back from a satisfying but tiring vacation. Mainly, it was a theme park rush with a bit of shopping in between. I don't think I've ever needed to line up so long for rides. Each attraction would take at least 30 mins, although it's usually around an hour or more. Especially in Universal Studios where their lines are usually outside and without consistent cooling fans, it was pretty hard to bear. It also seemed like Camp Week or something as there were groups of identically dressed kids everywhere, taking up big chunks of queue lines at a time. Everything from kayak camp to children's camp to bible camp.

The airport/airplane part of the trip was surprisingly smooth. No delays, security issues, etc. It actually went relatively fast, and the lineups were pretty short.

Epcot was generally a good experience, with the exception of Soarin', a new ride. That ride took over two hours worth of standing in line, half of the time on sloped surface, and the ride itself was terrible. The pretext of the ride was that you would "soar through the skies on a hang glider". Thus I was under the impression it would be a roller coaster similar to Tomb Raider at Wonderland. It..wasn't. In any case, never again will I go near that ride.

The new ride at Animal Kingdom is pretty decent. It's a pretty good idea to get the FastPass. However overall the best theme park is still Islands of Adventure.

Finally, see the nice fireworks from Epcot:

Haha...I don't remember hearing that random scream at the time...

I never got around to finishing that book, which I'll do very soon.

Friendly Fire

2007-07-22T00:06:00.000-04:00

My course selection is in capable hands and now I'm off to Florida for a week on a chartered flight. Maybe I'll get hot towels on the flight which I've never had before (on a flight). Let's hope there isn't a nutcase in the airport/plane who tries to spoil that book for me.

This post is the bom

2007-07-20T17:26:00.000-04:00

Excerpt obtained from Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss about Shaw's recommendation to remove the second 'b' in 'bomb':

I can scribble the word "bomb" barely legibly 18 times in one minute and "bom" 24 times, saving 25 per cent per minute by dropping the superfluous b. In the British Commonwealth, on which the sun never sets, and in the United States of North America, there are always millions of people continually writing, writing, writing... Those who are writing are losing time at the rate of 131,400 X x per annum...
George Bernard Shaw on Language, 1965

And this was in 1965. Can you even imagine how much time has been lost since then? (Apparently 131,400 X x...) Although, it does seem to take less time to type 'b' than to write it, so maybe our losses have been alleviated...

Edit: Changed the "About" section slightly.

In a good way

2007-07-06T01:00:00.002-04:00

:-(

Aw man, missed my obligatory Canada Day post.

Making a timetable for university is going really badly as so many of the half courses have only one set of times for lectures, making the placement of labs at a reasonable time nearly impossible. The organic chem course had the brilliant idea of making us choose one of two lab times: 8:30am-12pm or 6:30pm-10pm. Brilliant.

Ryuu no PUREETO

2007-05-24T21:29:00.001-04:00

I've been playing Pokémon Diamond recently, and I actually managed to stumble upon two shiny Pokémon, which are basically just extremely rare (somewhere along the lines of 1 in 8,192 chance in each wild encounter) and have different colouring than normal.

I found my first, which was a shiny Onix, at Iron Island. It was really tricky to get because it was in a double battle where I was forced to fight along with Riley and at first I was really annoyed because I thought you weren't allowed to catch Pokémon in double battles. (Which is true, but if one of them faints and the other is left you can catch it) On the first turn we basically knocked both the Onix and Golbat into red health, and I think the Onix summoned a Sandstorm. Unfortunately I had to knock out Riley's Lucario which would have otherwise tried to faint the Onix, and the sandstorm took care of the Golbat. Then I proceeded to put it to sleep and it was caught.

EDIT: I didn't realise it was so unclear in the pictures but basically the Onix is greenish-brown coloured.

Just recently I found a shiny Staravia (but now a Staraptor as pictured) in the Trophy Garden while trying to get wild Eevee.

I wonder if the encounter rate has been increased? Otherwise I'm just extremely lucky. Although, the shiny state doesn't really affect status or anything as far as I know.

Yam Cake

2007-05-05T18:00:00.001-04:00

First year is...done? Nice. And now's it's time to move out.
Having an almost four month summer vacation is different, and the year DID seem like it went by faster. Now it's time to slow way down and relax a tiny bit in the summer. :P

Digging through old receipts I found out that I actually went to a lot of movies this year, at least to me. I don't usually go to movies too often, but being able to walk to the closest movie theatre really helps :D I'm definitely going to miss being downtown and able to walk to so many places nearby.

Sep 11: Borat
Oct 02: The Illusionist
Oct 23: The Prestige
Nov 02: Manufactured Landscapes
Jan 15: Pan's Labyrinth
Mar 15: 300 IMAX
May 05: Spiderman 3 IMAX

PS: OMG THE DUSTBALLS THEY'RE EVERYWHERE.

Manufactured Landscapes

2007-04-15T18:15:00.000-04:00

Alphabet City

Punyaan

2007-04-07T21:50:00.001-04:00

Just went and saw a recital by an aquaintance of Dennis', and she was really good. Opera school is next for her.

It's kind of odd having an extra two months of summer vacation, and I'm sure there will be a lot of forgetting involved. <_>

And as coincidence would have it, I'm out of town again during course selection so I'll have to figure that out.

Lake Titicaca

2007-03-23T16:15:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday I went to see 300. Yay 300!
It was in IMAX. Yay IMAX!
We sat in the second row from the front. Yay neck injuries!
I guess it was wrong to guess that going thirty minutes beforehand wasn't enough. If we went any later I wonder if we would've even been able to get in.

IMAX's little sequence thing before the movie was so hilarious. It felt like I was in some motion simulator ride in an amusement park.

Before the movie we ate at Milestone's, which was pretty good. More expensive than usual of course but it was rather filling too.

Today's weather is really nice, which is lucky because I had to walk over to Indigo's to get something anyway. On the way back I passed by some singing monks. They were pretty good.

Whetted Curiosity

2007-03-02T10:19:00.000-05:00

Last night there was much hopping through deep snow. This morning there was much wading through deep puddles.

Bottom of pant legs...so wet...

Snow Night

2007-03-01T14:56:00.001-05:00

It just started snowing like crazy an hour or so ago. So apparently all class after 5pm today are cancelled.

Urban warming got beat and we managed to get a quarter of a Snow Day. Oh burn.

Now about getting to the restaurant...

The toilet over there will bring you luck

2007-02-26T00:49:00.001-05:00

~~Reading Week~~

Recently I've gone on a massive soundtrack downloading spree. Satisfying in the end, I guess. Also, Shippuuden began which is pretty cool. Also need to finish Ergo Proxy and Ragnarok.

I finally managed to procure a Wii console, with much luck. Most amazingly, it didn't involve sitting outside a store overnight in subzero temperatures. Needless to say, getting the Wii was unexpected and the amount of procrastination was harder to control. There was a significant portion of time designated to Twilight Princess and Trauma Center.

The next holiday is Good Friday. After that are two term tests and an unfortunately arranged exam schedule.

Rollerbeetle Grand Prix

2007-02-18T19:01:00.001-05:00

Valentine's + Chinese New Year = Lots of red

Finally it's Reading Week, and I'm looking forward to all the procrastinating waiting to be done.

Happy Chinese New Year's!

Disastereomers

2007-02-10T00:36:00.000-05:00

It's back on the hunt.
Unrelenting. Unforgiving.
It wants your marks.

Dead.

The Revenge of Physics

02/13/07

Bond of Freedom

2007-01-17T12:50:00.000-05:00

Today we had a special Mardi Gras themed lunch in the caf, and it was really good. The reason we're having a Mardi Gras themed lunch at this time of year is unknown. I mean, it's definitely a Mercredi.

Slush! Luckily air pollution will keep us from having a Snow Day. :(

Egg Bagel

2007-01-14T21:07:00.000-05:00

It's going to be real cold!

Also, linguistics is interesting. And maybe I'll see Pan's Labyrinth tomorrow.

And now I can set my cellphone to tell me to stop forgetting the laundry.

Mr. X

2007-01-07T23:11:00.000-05:00

Back in rez and back to school. :(

School, man, wtf?

I finally beat the last level in Sweatin' mode in Elite Beat Agents. Just had to get past that one annoying part of the song. I never want to hear Jumpin' Jack Flash again ~_~ But there's still Hard Rock mode so chances are I'll have to hear it again. :(

Woooooo physics lab tomorrow >_>

Northern Lights

2007-01-06T14:50:00.001-05:00

Had sushi at Maison du Japon, which I found was actually pretty good. The restaurant was larger than I expected, and the meal includes drinks. Then saw Children of Men, which was a pretty intense movie.

I got a book called Human and it is rather complete about everything human. Goes from origins of modern humans, to the human body, human mind, life cycles, cultures, economy and power, society, religion and language, all the different peoples on Earth, and addressing future issues.

They even have a section of Communication. Now I know to never expose the soles of my feet to anyone in Thailand.

Historical Insults
Certain insults have ancient origins. One is the Greek 'moutza', in which an open hand is thrust in someone's face. This gesture dates from Byzantine times, when people used to push excrement into criminals' faces. Another is the British V-sign, thought to come from the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. French soldiers would cut off the first two fingers of the English bowmen; archers who still had their fingers would wave them in defiance.

Grape Shot

2007-01-01T02:28:00.000-05:00

Had the New Year's thing at Saké. Lots of sushi before the countdown. Got sprayed by champagne :( There was also some fun four-way wireless DS-ing, followed by a lot of card playing.

Weather was dim and foggy, perfect for minimizing auto accidents on New Year's Day.

First thing eaten in 2007: Turtles chocolate
First thing drunk in 2007: Random wine thing that tasted better than champagne
First thing played with in 2007: Cellphone camera
First thing resumed in 2007 after celebrations: Playing card games

Example: My existence is exciting.

2006-12-30T21:31:00.001-05:00

I found my book called The Pocket Dictionary of Signing. Learning sign language seems fun, but probably less so if you're forced to learn it as a primary means of communication.

Do Not Pass Go

2006-12-29T02:22:00.000-05:00

Today was a lesson taught the hard way.

Newmarket: 18
Richmond Hill: 8
Markham: 14
Scarborough: 11
Scarborough 2: ~~100~~ 8

Basically, it's go at 9pm or go broke.

Tamago

2006-12-26T08:23:00.002-05:00

Boxing Day! The day to post after a strangely long hiatus.

As well as a lack of posting, there is also a lack of snow. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a little odd nonetheless. It's like being stuck in November.

Had the annual Christmas ritual at my cousins' house. There was food, Wii, and off-tune karaoke. (D:) Sadly for me, there were also two dogs and two cats. By the time I left I was already starting to have partial laryngospasms. Currently, one of my nostrils is defunct, resulting in my not being able to sleep, and the reason I'm posting this early anyway.

Finally got a new cellphone. Not bad, but then again almost anything is better than my old one.

Hopefully you all had a fun break so far and good luck with any of your ambitious holiday shopping endeavours. o_.

Edit: Blue!!!

Dupe

2006-11-01T22:30:00.000-05:00

Deceived by physical and chemical cues, the wasp Campsoscolia ciliata tries to mate with the orchid Ophrys speculum. The labellium, or lower lip, of the flower has roughly the size, shape, and fuzziness of a female wasp; male wasps apparently cannot distinguish between them. As a result the orchid is pollinated by wasps that visit one flower after another searching for a mate.

D'oh.

Only halfway through mid-terms. Darn...

Perap

2006-10-25T23:08:00.000-04:00

<'ThePug> You can't get your music to play eh?
<'ThePug> That is a shame
<[Trin]quack> yea.. maybe you could help me
<'ThePug> Help eh?
<[Trin]quack> pweez?
<'ThePug> Have you tried like....playing the file?
<[new]gosha> yeah double clicking it would help
<[Trin]quack> yes. it come up on my itunes but now even my music i had on there before doenst play
<[Trin]quack> i'm a girl
<'ThePug> I would have never guessed
<'ThePug> Do you have your speakers turned on?
<'ThePug> Do you own speakers?
<[new]gosha> is the computer on?
<[New]HouseofLo> do you have a soundcard?
<[Trin]quack> yes i have considered all technical possibilities i know of
<[UTM]Count> what is the file type?
<'ThePug> Try using winamp....or even wmp if you must
<'ThePug> Just something that "doesn't suck" (i.e. itunes)
<'Minerva> TheSuperunknown loves baby turtles.

EERTST

2006-10-16T17:48:00.000-04:00

We're doing a bio "lab" this Wednesday on Population Genetics. Each person will be assigned a genotype and then you will "mate" with your classmates and produce offspring, flipping a coin to simulate meiosis. For scientific purposes:

4. Choose any student in the class to mate with. Mates need not be of the opposite sex. You are completely promiscuous and cannot reject any suitor.

Metastasise

2006-09-30T16:11:00.001-04:00

New College fell apart temperarily this week. First was the mysterious power outage on Friday. Then the replacement of regular plates and cutlery in the caf with plastic plates and cutlery. Then was the failure of two of the three washrooms on the floor, with the third one having 2/4 toilets working. Then the strange loss of cable and internet. Luckily, everything has been ameliorated now. (Except the T-Card system is still wonky)

Fix our window, you silly maintenance people.

Korean BBQ was delicious, and so is Baten Kaitos Origins.

Speaking Chinanese

2006-09-15T21:43:00.000-04:00

Residence life is good so far. Being able to walk around downtown is really nice. No more "I can't go because I need a ride" sort of thing. Still getting used to communal showers. Need to continue to find the showers that don't periodically spray boiling water, spray water across 180 degrees, or make you feel as if someone was sprinkling you with water through a drinking straw. :( Also going to need to use the laundry room soon :O

So far I've attended at least one of each class. Only problems arise from Calculus. If we weren't just covering review material, I would have no idea what the professor is saying in his lessons. Textbook-learning time.

It's not busy yet, but eventually when practicals and tutorials begin I don't think there's going to be much time to do anything anymore. Sadness.

Objection!

2006-09-04T00:48:00.000-04:00

VGL was pretty awesome and it exceeded my expectations. Mainly because I never expected the "Video Game Pianist" to be there. Yes, he is good enough to be *The* Video Game Pianist.

And so about now, many people are starting to move into university residence. I'll be joining the movement later today. I also ended up bringing a lot of things...but I usually end up doing that anyway for things like vacations. I guess it's how I approach change.

Oh noes no more home. I'll be at UofT St. George New College.

Stanley Bing Is a Pussy

2006-08-30T16:34:00.001-04:00

Oops where teh updates?

Well now I am equipped with tablet PC and mini fridge. Random stationary to come.
Jason's party was full of delicious.
VGL on Friday = will be awesome.

I've basically been watching lots of anime borrowed from a prolific anime archivist :o

Note: Sun Tzu > All

Time is tissue...

2006-08-18T22:10:00.000-04:00

SoaP was just so silly. It's like buying a bar of Mexican Goat Milk Loofah just because it sounds silly.

Also, you crazy scientists should leave Pluto alone. Pick on a planet your own size. >_>

Mr. BS Pilot

2006-08-11T20:58:00.001-04:00

As I was reading The Science Book, I quickly realized that I've lost all memory of what we've learned the previous school year...again. Familiar names and terms kept flashing by...but I could never exactly remember what it was about. I guess it's good to be reminded of them so that the start of university will have less of a negative punch to it, with the new experience of lectures and whatnot. Orientation might help lessen the tension too.

"The Aristotelian name of the tomato, for instance, had expanded into Solanum caule inerme herbaceo, foliis pinnatis incisis, racemis simplicibus (Solanum with smooth herbaceous stem, incised pinnate leaves and simple inflorescence). This name is less convenient than the Linnaean name Solanum lycopersicum." - Naming life

"What's more, electrons, previously regarded as particles, sometimes behave like waves. We seem to need both models. As Sir William Bragg quipped in the 1920s, 'On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays light behaves like waves, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays like particles, and like nothing at all on Sundays.'" - Wave nature of light

"There were three obvious clues. First of all, Uranus had until 1822 been accelerating, but had then become retarded." - Discovery of Neptune

The Dutchess

2006-08-07T00:28:00.002-04:00

The comics here are just soooo good. My schedule for the next hour has just been booked full. (Click for actual comic.)

A few comics have mild nudity and other such content. They're not too distasteful or anything, but if you're worried, just a head's up. Ignore those and focus on the other comics >_>

As well, Improv Everywhere

Seriously, I'm just getting all of these stuff from JohnQ Blog*. That place is pretty much the closest thing to heaven you can get. It's updated often, and with so much intriguing content, all of which are paired with some intelligent and comprehensible commentary and opinions. It's becoming part of my daily routine.

* It's linked to the "Stuff From the Internet" category. You can find the other categories in the bar on the left.

Press any button to begin, n00b! LOL OMG

2006-08-06T18:27:00.001-04:00

Here -> Fabulous -> Calgarian* -> Here

* - Actually from Banff.

I arrived back in Toronto on Friday morning. Seeing as I'm unable to properly put together and organize a brief yet coherent summary of the trip, I'll give you random tidbits of it.

- My chance of getting lung cancer has probably increased 60% thanks to the casinos.

- NEVER bring put anything fragile into the Fragile cargo of Air Canada. While I was "deplaning" into Toronto I watched from inside the plane as our "fragile" box was jerked from the conveyor belt and tossed unceremoniously into the cargo trailer, where it landed on its side, and remained on its side even when we went to pick it up. Luckily the only casualties were a few slightly smushed cakes and muffins.

- And speaking of food, Vegas had lots of it. (The first pic was from Bellagio's buffet.) I was quite happy.

-Got some awesome books, including (finally): Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I even visited the Calgary Public Library, which has an unnecessarily phallic logo.

- I also picked up this pretty bismuth sculpture from Banff. You can't really see its true colour due to the orange light from the camera, but it's pretty and metallic.

- "The weather in Toronto is currently about twenty-two degrees, with a flu - Excuse me, I meant a few clouds." - Flight Attendant

Finally, a clip from one of Bellagio's fountain shows. It was really amazing, but we only watched two of them before we dashed off for some air conditioning to brush off the forty degrees celcius sweat. Although I heard it was pretty hot in Toronto too.

That's all I care to post about right now.

And also:

Unnecessary Censorship

Baby Got Bible

Mr. Lobe

2006-07-22T00:54:00.001-04:00

Here -> Fabulous -> Calgarian -> Here

See you in some time.

Electroplankton

2006-07-20T22:54:00.001-04:00

Summer is the best time to go bug hunting and fishing in AC:WW. The range of varieties available is extensive. Fishing becomes most exciting because you can catch things like seahorses, blue marlins, clownfish, and even:

Sharks! :o It's cool because when you see their silhouette under the water you actually see their dorsal fins.

On an even cooler note, tonight I just saw another one of these dorsal fins sticking out and caught it expecting another shark, perhaps a hammerhead. But instead this thing came out:

The huge thing at the top left, bigger than the coelacanth beside it. It's an ocean sunfish, and according to Wiki, they do often get mistaken for sharks because they often swim close to the surface, so the game got it right to that aspect.

Apparently the sunfish also occationally breach from the water, and sometimes the float sideways near the surface so that birds can come down and pick food off it. The breaching is probably a method of expelling more parasites from its body. :S

Signet of Recapture

2006-07-16T13:18:00.001-04:00

PotC2 = strangely cheesy plot elements carried out entertainingly well.
Pickle Barrel = wtf crumble top apple pie
University courses = chosen, unofficially. Because the actual registration hasn't happened yet. Which brings up another problem, which is that I'll be on vacation during the registration day, so I'll need to find a computer and hope that I haven't left any information behind.

I ordered from Dominoes on the Dough Raising Night (Jul 13) and I'm thinking it wasn't as profitable as would have been expected. I spent quite a bit of time reminding the cashier what the Dough Raising Night was about, and he kept doubting my assertion that I was ordering the $23.99 combo from the Dough Raising Night specials and NOT the $22.99 special they had going on normally. At first he thought I was making up a combo. :( Oooh well, I'm sure MDHS has more than enough money. X_x

Hello, Master Togo

2006-07-07T16:56:00.001-04:00

Factions has the sweetest eye candy ever. In fact, I have so many pretty wallpaper shots from Guild Wars they got designated into their own folder. Guild Wars is the awesome-wallpaper-maker.

The first one is from the Monastery Outlook, which is the little tutorial area in the beginning, and the other two are from outside Cho's Estate, which is a mission I haven't done yet.

Actual size are of too large to upload and I'm too lazy to save it as a smaller size. :(

I'm attacking Cyrus the Unflattering!

2006-07-05T16:46:00.003-04:00

Since I'm going to be receiving a copy of Guild Wars: Factions pretty soon, I had to sift through my huge screenshot folder in a feeble attempt to clear out some room. About half the pictures were of my character dancing with other random characters/guildies, in formation or scattered about. I guess I was really camera-happy. I think it'll be the same this time around >.>

The Bloodstone and its shiny magnificence. Because Hablion is cool.

A guild event: attempt a synchronised jump. Something Zaheer refused to do.

Because everyone likes sucking up to the Mad King.

runnign to granite citadel 1k u pay firts

The scourge of Northern Shiverpeaks missions.

Zaheer's partay on Sunday was full of Strikers and Tetris. That's a good thing.

Edit: Today's dictionary.com Word of the Day is Apotheosis :O

Reunion

2006-07-01T19:05:00.001-04:00

> I beat Lv. 139 of Canada.
> The end guy is hard.

It's nice to be free from being totally governed by Britain, those silly Alaska-yielding fiends. I mean friends. The Americans didn't even appreciate getting Alaska. They just wanted it for the heck of it.

The news of the British North America Act, 1867, was nervously received in Washington, DC. It would create, on July 1, 1867, "one dominion under the name of Canada," and this led to expressions of "grave misgivings on the establishment of a monarchial state to the north" in what Canadians then called "the republic to the south." (See McNaughton's Short History of Canada.) U.S. Secretary of State William Seward thus urged, and the United States Senate thus approved, the treaty authorizing the purchase of Alaska from Imperial Russia for US$7,200,000 on April 9, 1867. The United States took possession and the American flag was raised over Alaska on October 18, which is commemorated as Alaska Day.

The purchase was unpopular in the United States, where it became known as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox." Alaska celebrates the purchase each year on the last Monday of March, calling it Seward's Day.

$Sold$

Raymer's Wood

2006-06-30T18:20:00.001-04:00

Went to get report cards today. Was a mass of non-air-conditioned fun. I was confused because the "A-F" line wasn't visible from the back of the line, so I kinda tagged onto the "G-L" line. Later I learned that if I went in from the other entrance there was an easier chance to cut a lot of the line. Oh well.

Player's Best Long

2006-06-29T09:20:00.000-04:00

Monday's was Frankie's. It was very Italian-y, and it was generally agreed that the calamari was the best. As opposed to the singing Frankie on their website.

Yesterday was officially the last day of high school. Buuut nothing really special happened. Except maybe when Arthur showed up with a box of popsicles. Went to Zaheer's house afterwards.

Denouement

2006-06-23T15:17:00.000-04:00

Finished.

Two month wait until university begins. Exciting.
My brain is too tired to think about anything to type right now.

For future reference...

Jun 2 - Algeo Summative
Jun 7 - Biology Exam
Jun 8 - Physics Presentation
Jun 13 - Calculus Summative
Jun 15 - English ISP Presentation
Jun 16 - Physics Exam
Jun 19 - Chemistry Exam
Jun 20 - Classical Civ Film Review
Jun 22 - Algeo Exam
Jun 23 - Calculus Exam

Mathematical Induction and Physical Conduction

2006-06-11T22:25:00.000-04:00

School. Lots. Sucks. Busy.

How To Cage A Lion

According to the Schrodinger Method, I might not be in the actual school during my physics exam. Or something.

She Sells Seychelles by the Seashore

2006-05-29T19:04:00.000-04:00

Summer was all, "Oops, it's my turn," and so now it's all hot and sunny. Yarr.

In the World Desk Reference (2004) I have, you get the hard facts on the state of some countries of the world. And it's usually depressing.
I mean, just economy-wise:

Afghanistan
Strengths: Very few, apart from illicit opium trade. Revalued currency issued in 2002. Overseas assets unfrozen from 2002.
Weaknesses: Decades of fighting: infrastructure, agriculture, and industry in ruins. Communication links damaged by earthquakes and devastated by bombing. Aid slow to materialize.

Somalia
Strengths: Very few. Export of livestock to Arabian peninsula resumed in the north. Inflow of money from Somalis abroad. Growing market in stolen food aid.
Weaknesses: Every commodity, except arms, in extremely short supply. Little economic potential in the south. Livestock destroyed by drought. Banditry, extortion, and kidnapping hamper aid agencies.

And the like. Meanwhile, back in Canada:

Weaknesses: Problems of competitiveness: higher taxes, more regulations, low productivity relative to NAFTA; other threats from globalization. Vulnerable to price fluctuations for raw material exports. Brain drain of professionals heading south.

Eeps, we are losing our brains to the U.S., and that's pretty sad. :(

On another note, from India's economic weaknesses:

The prestige of Bollywood has been damaged by allegations of underworld connections.

I had to look up the definition of "underworld". =\

I have pressure!

2006-05-27T00:32:00.000-04:00

Lots and lots of crap coming up basically every day these next few weeks. I hate you so much, most of June.

In terms of the movies I saw the last week, I felt that The Emperor's Club had really good casting, and The DaVinci Code had not-so-good casting. The Emperor's Club also reflected the concept of karma consistently throughout the movie.

...yeah.

Glasses Glasses

2006-05-21T20:36:00.001-04:00

I just watched all the clips of the Breakfast Club episode of X-Play. Sooooo good. ._O

I started playing Kingdom Hearts 2, borrowed from Arthur.

Prom was on Friday:

It was decent. Food wasn't.
Spiffy formalwear.
Slideshow was decent. Stupid chandelier.

I didn't know why early on the DJ kept interrupting songs instead of waiting in-between songs.

*music playing -
DJ: EXCUSE ME, COULD THE OWNER OF A RED TOYOTA PLEASE COME TO THE FRONT DOOR, YOUR CAR HAS JUST EXPLODED, THANK YOU.
- best part of song finishes*

"TV Ears saved our marraige!"

2006-05-15T21:46:00.000-04:00

Projectors and Overheads + Lights off + Biology = Oblivion

Floral Ninja FTW

2006-05-14T22:35:00.000-04:00

|omg||lol|sinΘ

Derived from the link from Celine's lj :o

The Trojans never had any Wiis.

2006-05-12T21:32:00.001-04:00

The Classic and Shooter Styles are both insanely breathtaking.

In other news, an editor decides, in a fit of angst against the "Wii", to do a humourous article where he changes the word "revolution" with "Wii".

The editor needs a Wii amount of practice in his grammar skills.

Some exerpts:
Chinese Cultural Wii
Chairman Mao's massive Wii forever changed the face of China.

The Industrial Wii
It may sound like an uncomfortable Wii, with its assembly lines and interchangable parts, but all Wiis are a little painful, and the Industrial Wii flooded the whole world.

#6 says: "...even though it sounded like a bunch of guys revolutioning on sheet metal."

Eeps.

Also, it was Mayday today, which was awesome. I had some good fruity smoothie O_O

Wii Love Katamari

2006-05-11T20:10:00.000-04:00

*awe and slow marvelled breaths ensue*

Cubyrop

2006-05-08T16:52:00.001-04:00

And so, Conference '06 is done.

Here's the Mad-Lib P.10 made. You could tell which group chose which words. ._.

In the beginning, there was poop, which was a dog of dark and endless puffy buttocks. Then one day, miraculously, a flamboyant unibrow appeased from the vortex and broke into two sandwiches. When it broke, the light that radiated from it blew away the clouds, gyrating the Earth underneath and the Heavens above.

The golden unibrow was the Creator, Monica Lewinsky, and when she shattered into two parts they each became a deity: Zaheer, the god of the emptiness, and Sally the goddess of hairbrush. They coexisted peacefully. One went up to the Heavens and the other stayed on Earth. Eventually they began to thrust between where the Brokeback Mountain between the Earth and the Heavens lay. The god of the heavens said that he deserved to have a jucier kingdom because the dragonflies needed to fly freely across stretches of thong. The goddess of the land said that the land provides the potential for life and should be allowed room to defenestrate.

The two deities eventually began to party. Each one attempted to expand the cubic centimetres of their rugs. The great god scattered his naval across the wind, and each seed grew into a being of free-thought and lust. The benevolent goddess shed some of her blood and let it fall to the ravishing earth, and when each drop landed a being full of life and misery sprouted.

But throughout the squabbling of the gods, they did not expunge that some of the seeds mated into a puddle of the shed blood, and from that combination ostracized man. The gods finally took notice of this being, and decided to solve their dispute. The deities all decided to live in the heavens, and man and his fellow dogs could thrust on the fertile earth.

Hmm, "thrust" was used twice by two different groups.

"I can't, I'm busy all night talking with my girlfriend."

2006-05-03T18:43:00.000-04:00

clas·sic (klăs'ĭk)
n.
classics The languages and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. Used with the.

con·fer·ence (knfr-ns, -frns)
n.
An assembly of clerical or of clerical and lay members from a particular district in various Protestant churches.

I'll be there.

Good Job Rats

2006-05-02T21:59:00.000-04:00

The Matrix Rectangular - Coming [200|7]

2006-05-02T17:01:00.000-04:00

Done...until next week. The torture will be fended off until the Physicalculus test.
Then the rest of Classical Civ. And then Algeo.

Conference from Thursday to Sunday = Fun and food. And masses of people draped in bedsheets. Speaking of which, I need to find a bedsheet. And figure out how it works again.

Can't wait to see if the I EPLACE L UNGE has been fixed.

From May 2005:
"It's Conference time tomorrow...off to four days and three nights of fun. I feel less prepared for anything than I did last year. Darn."

Doesn't look like much has changed. Darn.