More weird dreams

Two nights ago, I dreamed that I was driving horribly on a highway, crossing in and out of oncoming lanes of traffic, except my point of view was like a third person video game perspective, so I couldn't really see everything. It was disturbing during the dream because I didn't want to have an accident. During that dream session, I also flew (my second dream of flight!) and that was fun, but then I also shot people with a gun. They didn't look/feel like real people though. I wonder if that's leftover remnants from my time of gaming right before going to bed, shooting zombies. That was fun. It's always fun to shoot zombies.

In last night's dream, for some strange reason I was somewhere at SFU and for some stranger reason, I met Georges St-Pierre, but the weirdest part of it all was that he seemed to know me (that even weirded me out, during the dream). And for all you fans, he was exactly as he seems to be on TV, humble, gentle, and very polite and personable. He was a lot bigger than actual size in my dream though. Don't know what that means.

Some day, I plan to write out my thoughts about my time at Simon Fraser University, and reflections on the past decade. Y2K was not too long ago was it? It is a good thing to reflect, look back, and learn. After I shoot more zombies.

I'M DONE! YES!

This was inspired by a story from Phil, who said that when he finished his very last final exam at Simon Fraser University, he handed in his paper, shouted joyously, kissed the floor and left the room.

I thought that was near-epic and so I wanted to do something similar, but better. However, as you can see, I think it comes off more silly than anything... someday I'll do this better on a lone mountain somewhere, like on the Chief in Squamish or something....

In case you're wondering, I'm prancing funny because it was cold and windy. I'm running funny because... actually I'm not too sure. I wanted to scream louder and longer (perhaps more in a Dragonball Z kind of way) but I didn't want to attract security. This is relevant because the final exam I just completed was about policing. The things I throw on the ground at the end are noise makers... the camera's mic doesn't pick it up very well. I'm pretty sure I startled a guy who was walking by sipping his coffee and the few people who were within hearing range in Convo Mall thought I must be some mental nut.

Big thanks to Will for filming and witnessing my madness for me.
God is good and merciful.
This hasn't completely sunk in for me yet. But I'm done! Yes! BAM!

Pointless Post #42

Quote of the Day:

Setting: Professor (a former policeman, now turned academic, although he's very down to earth and HI-larious!) is explaining about crime scenes, forensics, and other morbidly gruesome things (they were bad) in Criminology 251 - Introduction to Policing.

Paraphrased quote:

"Real life is never like those sexy gang shootings you see on TV."

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Pointless Post #41

I hate it when I read something, start to daydream or get distracted, and then when I get to the bottom of the paragraph or page, I have no clue what I just read. Serenity now!

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Pointless Post #40

I just finished the last research paper of my undergraduate studies! And most likely my life! And it's a reasonable hour, not the middle of the night/early morning/late morning/must-hand-in-few-hours-from now (aka no sleep before handing it in)! Twenty-two and one half hours before its due! A new Tim-record!

Now I have about 200-250 pages to read (in PDFs) for an in-class final tomorrow.... the same class the term paper was due for. Too bad prof doesn't know how to space things out.

Productivity... yeah!!!

In other Tim-news, my school-related posts will soon cease.

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Pointless Post #39

There's nothing in the world quite like cursing your computer at two, three, and four in the morning. By five you're too tired and focused. By six AM, the work is done.

Productivity, yeah!!!

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Pointless Post #38

Went to the library today. Got some books to start my term papers. Yay. Instead of starting on my work like a normal person, I decided to stack my newly borrowed books according to their size in descending order (biggest to smallest, from the ground up), and then take pictures of them. It's actually quite an impressive pile, sitting on the floor of my room. I stubbed my toe on them a few minutes ago.

And then guess who decided to make an appearance?
He is not so impressed.

Productivity! Yeah!

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Dead bird and ice tea

I have work to do, but I don't want to do it. I could go to sleep now, but I don't want to yet either (partially because I'm not too sleepy).
So I thought I'd write a little something.

Firstly, in the past year, I believe I have never drank so much ice tea in my life. I like ice tea. It taste good. It's also a good alternative to soft drinks because I'm not the biggest fan of carbonate beverages (aaagh my mouth it hurts!). I guess this is a testament to how many times I've eaten fast food this year. And it is a lot. I guess that's probably a bad thing. This is sort of significant for me because usually, I only drink milk, water, and the occasional juice...box. Yes I still bring them to school with me from time to time. I try to be a simple person.

Secondly, last night after taking the dog out to pee before going to bed, he sniffed at something on the ground, and upon closer inspection, I realized it was a bird! I thought it was dead, and was about to poke it (to check to see if it really was dead), until it's head moved slightly. Pitiful looking thing just sitting there, in the rain, in the cold, looking miserable. So finally, I picked it up with some paper towel (didn't come into contact with it) and put it in a shoebox with some more paper towel. Turns out it was injured and bleeding, from somewhere. We could only tell it was bleeding because the paper towel was smeared on some parts. After some googling, the BC SPCA website suggests to leave it alone, and to call a wildlife rehab centre. So... it was past 11pm last night when I discovered the bird, so that means I'll have to wait until morning to call the centre.

This morning, open the shoebox, and lo and behold, the bird is dead. Pity. At least it died warm. Went out to backyard, buried the dead bird. Now I'm out of a shoebox...

I'm dreaming...

...of me standing victoriously over a pile of zombie corpses, with dual berettas in hand, and a cool sword strapped on my back (think future Trunks... except even COOLER). The zombies are a metaphor for swine flu (because it seems to be the top story almost every other day on the news) and the berettas and sword are just cool. Actually that's more of a silly daydream.

I can't help but think about visions and dreams. Yes, they are a way in which God can speak to people (or appear to people), but that has never happened to me. I heard Lance making very soft, muffled yelping noises from his bed. He does that when he's dreaming. I know this because in the past, when he made those noises, I've seen his eyes moving under his closed eyelids. Sometimes he kicks and moves his legs. I can't help but wonder what he's dreaming about.

On Saturday night/Sunday morning, part of my dream was that the computer at our church that's used to display songs and stuff in the sanctuary was infected with spyware (and some of it was Korean too.... extra weird) and that someone had uninstalled a bunch of programs that we need to use on a regular basis (eg. PowerPoint). I also dreamed that the computer was extra laggy and to top it all off, my mom was running the computer and in charge of everything, and in real life, my mom isn't the greatest with computers.

After waking up and having breakfast (this is real life now), I get a phone call from the person who's in charge of managing all the visual stuff that day at church and it turns out our projector is not working properly. When I get to church, I discover that the computer will establish a connection with the projector (mounted 50ft? [rough estimate] above the stage) but will turn off after only a few seconds. So the whole service, there was just a blank screen and me trying to troubleshoot what the problem was. Stupid computers. And stupid people for messing around and causing this mess. It was too difficult for me to figure out.

I don't think the dream I had the night before was God speaking to me or a warning of what was actually going to happen, because it turned out to be separate problems, but they're almost related. Also, I think the dreams and visions where God speaks to people (or appears to people) are much more than dreams. The kinds of dreams people in the Bible had are sort of real, almost tangible. I think those are similar to the kinds of dreams members of the persecuted church have (I'm currently reading The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun and Paul Hattaway). Those dreams are meaningful and real.

"Real" dreams, visions, God-given messages and such, are things that will cause feelings to persist. Plain old non-sensical dreams (the kind I have 99.99999% of the time, to my knowledge) usually fade away out of memory. I partially learned that from an Archie comic (Jughead was having some weird experiences) but it's true.

I had a dream once where I was able to fly. It was amazing.
I want to see Zombieland.

Pointless Post #37

Actual conversation on instant messenger, not a few hours ago:

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this is what Tim says:
just a reminder, tonight is daylight savings
put your clocks back one hour
don't waste it, like last year
8^p

Calencairion says:
ooooooh, thanks u saved me 1 hr
woohoo!

this is what Tim says:
hehehe
i thought i should let you know
cause i remember i did a post on this......

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Which can be read here. My life is so exciting.

By the way, about swine flu/H1N1... I'm starting to think that I might have actually had it!
I had a lot of the symptoms listed on the Immunize BC website and so.... yeah... I just thought that was interesting. I guess I didn't turn into a "serious" case and I'm not a statistic. God is merciful to me... but why?

In other Tim-news, I didn't know the answer to a question on a recent midterm, and the prof said we can write jokes down for partial marks (I'm 100% serious), so I wrote a dirty joke. I didn't come up with it, I heard it somewhere.

A white horse falls into a mud puddle.

Thank you, I'm here all week!

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Obligatory mid semester post (and final)

Final because this is my last semester ever, so there probably will never be a post like this ever again. I will graduate (I wonder why it's not "undergraduate") by December 2009. Kind of scary. The unknown lies ahead. Everything is uncertain.

Haven't posted anything in a while, out of laziness, apathy, and I had the flu for a good week a while back. It wasn't swine flu, just regular flu... whatever that means. I just know it sucked the strength out of me for a good 5 days, gave me lots of chills, headaches, and I was sort of useless as a human being, doing nothing. I don't think I've been that sick, that long before. But I'm better now. Thanks for being merciful to me God. I washed my hands a lot that week for my family's sake. And they're all doing fine. So see, God is merciful for keeping them well too.

School is typical, which means its getting boring. Stuff is interesting, but I just keep getting distracted, or things just don't seem relevant enough. There may be some partial information overload as well. My Intro to Policing course (CRIM 251) is pretty awesome though. I think about policing a lot now. They go through a lot of stuff and don't get enough credit. The media distorts things too much. I really want an ASP. Too bad they're illegal.

Lately, I've been trying to give an outlet to what little humour I have, by (drumroll) drawing comics. Ohhhh. Ahhhhh. I'll post them all some day on here. It's called "Little Bits of Tim" (haha its a pun!) and a few have been published in The Peak (SFU's student newspaper). I don't get paid. I hardly get feedback. I just get the satisfaction of seeing my crap printed and published on newsprint. It's sort of a me-thing, for my own satisfaction. I need a real job.

The weather is colder now. Its nice. Canucks are starting to win games. I am still alive and my life is the envy of billions of poor, dirty, sick, and underprivileged people around the world. I am so unworthy of what I have and I take everything for granted. And yet I still want more.

Here's a picture of a little cardboardy/paper dog I folded and glued. You can see its from a design similar to the one underneath it (you cut out the design, fold and glue the pieces together). And below the design is the policing textbook I ignored while assembling the dog, instead of cramming for my midterm. It's actually quite cute! Dogs are cute. Thanks Johnson. It was kind of a pain though. I don't think I have enough patience to do the other one.

Pointless Post #36

I wish more of my brain was HDD, rather than RAM. So much info to memorize in classes.

The bus was so packed and hot the other day, a drop of sweat fell from my face onto a guy's arm who was sitting. I apologized and he was understanding.

Leg still twitching, but hardly as frequent. Maybe 5 or less times a day now. I kind of miss it.

Had a presentation this week. We're encouraged to use humour, so I Rickroll'd the class. No one got the joke. So I called out "FAIL" on myself (I think some people understood that), and then I continued on.

Tim is not funny and is boring.

FAIL

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Pointless Post #35

The muscle in my leg/knee/thigh is still twitching! It's the exact same muscle, but I've noticed the twitching is not as often as it used to be... but it's still a good few times a day that it happens!

Also, one of my profs has 6 digits! Five fingers and a thumb! A classmate pointed it out to me today and it absolutely distracted me the whole class.

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Pointless Post #34

I cycled 18.8 km the other day. Actually, it would be more correct to say that I traveled 18.8km by bicycle, because I coasted ~4km as there was some downhill. It was fun (and sweaty)!

Ever since, there's been a muscle above my left knee bordering my inner thigh that keeps twitching sporadically. Strange.

Also, I've finally wiki'd succotash. I've always wondered what that stuff actually was.
It's a little disappointing.

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Pointless Post #33

Saw gas at 106.5¢/litre today. Yay! Although, I barely listen to Praise 106.5 anymore.

And in a kept promise to myself, I killed 2 wasps yesterday (see very end).
Fried them with the bug zapper. They should know better than to come indoors.

Also, I'm not a big fan of corn. Corn on the cob, canned corn niblets, frozen corn kernels, and other corny (haha!) items are not foods I'm very fond of. Processed corn is ok I guess, like tortilla chips. However, I have always loved and will always love popcorn. Beautiful.

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Bachelors of Business Admi...NO! Sociology ftw!

For my Bachelors of Business Administration (BBA) at SFU, I have 112 out of 120 credits needed to graduate (why isn't is "undergraduate?!"). Its a little weird to be able to see the end after... erm, so many years. I think I'm quite sentimental in the fact that I reflect a lot on my past experiences. I reflect a lot on all the awesome, silly, and lame things I do (and say). Mostly lame and silly. Ok, mostly lame. So its no surprise that I've been doing a lot of reminiscing about my experiences of almost everything since I've started my undergrad studies at Simon Fraser University.

I remember being told in first year that for some reason, it takes SFU students a little longer to finish a four year degree than most students from other universities. I scoffed (I literally threw my head back and contemptuously laughed... ok maybe not) at that, but nope, for me it's true (technically, because I’m doing co-op it’s now considered a five year degree… right?). I also remember being told in first year that it's common for SFU students to change their faculty of study to get a degree in something other than what they first started in. I think that mostly applies to Arts students (or, general studies, whatever its called). I didn’t scoff at that, but I have daydreamed about that, if that statement was true for me. In the past few years, I have grown deeply interested in the broad topics of anthropology and sociology. I think, if I may humbly say, it’s because I have been blessed with more wisdom in understanding people and also being able to experience immense empathy from my observations. I never would have understood the things I do now, five years ago.

So why anthropology, but more importantly, sociology? Humans are so freaking amazing. It sometimes amazes me at how one person can do something completely sadistic, torturous, sadistic, and evil towards another person. Nothing else on earth can do what a human does. People are completely jacked up. But then I’m reminded of myself, and the things I think of in my head against other people. It turns out I’ve grown increasingly violent the older I get. I daydream beating people up. Sometimes random people.

There is a yappy girl talking loudly on her cell phone who won’t shut up. The bus is full and she is sitting in a row of two seats, leaving the window seat empty beside her as she sits on the aisle seat. Her backpack is in the middle of the aisle on the floor and she does not care less that her high pitched voice is driving me and everyone else nuts or that her bag is blocking the aisle as people try to step over it, as they make their way to the back of the bus as they try and make more room. I walk over to her and push her bag so that it pins her leg into the seat in front of her as I grab her cell phone and wind up tennis-forehand-style as I slam the phone into her face.

I’m late and running through the Sky Train station to make a connection, but I am blocked by a tall guy meandering slowly through the station as he talks to his two buddies. They are still in front of me as we step onto the escalator. They don’t move to the right, but stand in the middle of the escalator blocking the flow of human traffic. They continue to stumble off slowly, blocking the entire path as I see my Sky Train leave without me. They reek of alcohol and their drunk laughter carries throughout the whole station like hyenas, except more irritating. I size the tall guy up, and imagine my right foot delivering a high kick into his throat, cracking the cartilage in his trachea.

The Bible is so true. Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV) says:
The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?

As demonstrated, I know that too well.

But back on track, humans are so amazing in the way they interact with each other. This is the reason why everyone loves to people watch. It is enjoyable for people, to stare at other people as they go about their business. I think most people have done this in the mall, a restaurant, etc. Little kids are often more entertaining for their innocence and naivety. It’s also amazing (or rather shocking) what little kids know and say to each other, but I think that is because they are just imitating something they heard.

Anyways, regardless of all this, I’m glad I’m still in business, because I’m sure that sociology has tons of reading and papers to write, and in general, I am lazy.

I think the thing that amazes me most about human interactions and relationships is family. God is quite funny. He lets us choose our friends, but He doesn’t let us choose our family. Sometimes we want to choose our family, or find new ones, but we can’t. Sometimes we want to pick and choose different family members and remove some here and there, but we consider God cruel as He won’t let us. This is actually a two-way safety precaution because from the other perspective, our family members didn’t exactly choose us either. So we’re stuck with each other either way. It’s quite astounding the things I do and say with my family, and what they do with me. We accept it because we’re family. If we did the same things with friends, those friends would probably run for the hills, but with family, it’s ok for some reason just because we’re related. Usually. There are exceptions.

I sincerely thank You God, for family. Just please don’t let my friends know I’m related to them. 8^p

Wow this post is all over the place…sorry!

Seven point five months and ongoing with 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless Canada

If this post sounds familiar, its because I did a semi-review kind of thing last September 2008 for Virgin Mobile Canada, but I dumped them in December 2008 (roughly 3 months after my post, hardy har har) because my top-up expired, as well as I found a cheaper provider. Narf and zort!

Back in December 2008, I was quite fed up with the 30¢/minute rate and 15¢/sending text (free to receive) rate of Virgin's because that ate up money quick (and because of how they had kept increasing rates previously). A good friend told me about 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless Canada, which I initially thought was ridiculous at the time because one doesn’t usually think of mobile phones when one thinks of 7-Eleven. Anyways, after reading many websites, forums, and other reviews of other people, (mostly from the awesome: The Unofficial 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless Canada Consumer Page -- http://www.speakoutwireless.ca) I decided to switch to them because they sounded quite legit and reasonable after all my research.

At the time, Speak Out was offering a wonderful incentive for me to switch: buy $100 worth of airtime (what Virgin calls “top-up”) and get a free phone! The super duper Nokia 1208! The worm danced in front of me and I bit the hook. It didn’t hurt. And the worm was delicious. Tasted like molded plastic and 96 x 68 pixels.

The cool thing about Speak Out is that their initial rates are 25¢/minute, but if you buy airtime worth $75 and up, they say that they’ll charge you 20¢/minute! Actually however, they just give 25% more airtime so when I bought my $100 airtime and free phone and activated everything, the system said I had $125 remaining (but the system would still charge me 25¢/minute). I was happy.

Actually I’m still happy.

I talked to Virgin Mobile reps before switching and of course they tried to get me to stay by offering me free top-up, but it wasn’t much. For the most part, Virgin’s customer service is good, but I haven’t had any problems with Speak Out’s. Actually, I think I’ve only called Speak Out’s reps once or twice when I was initially activating my phone and porting my number to my new Nokia 1208. Because my airtime expires after 365 days, I haven’t called since.

One bummer thing about Speak Out is that there is a monthly 911 fee where they subtract 99¢ each month from my airtime, so actually, if I were to buy $100 worth of airtime for one whole year, it’s actually about $113. Maybe another bummer thing is that it cost to receive text, but sending/receiving texts is just 5¢/each so that’s okay. But they don’t charge for voicemail and caller ID. Yay.

So what about the Nokia 1208?

It’s significantly smaller than my old hunkajunk Nokia 6015i and of course is lighter. It doesn’t have a camera or can play mp3s, video or fancy stuff like that, but it has a FLASHLIGHT! So cool! It also has neat converting stuff (weight, length, temperature, currency, etc) which apparently is standard on most phones… so actually, my new phone is still quite lacking and sort of outdated still, but the most important thing is that I’m happy with it, and it’s far unlikely to get stolen. I can even change the background colour and themes! It’s on a soothing blue now. Hmmm, one annoying thing I forgot to mention about this phone is that I can’t change the background text, as it constantly has the words “Speak Out” across it every time I look at it. It’s not life threatening though.

Here’s the only picture of my Nokia 1208. I was comparing it to a gigantic curry puff in Shah Alam, Malaysia during breakfast. Look how gigantic that thing is! It was mainly filled with potato but it did have some meat. It was reasonably spicy and the pastry part was great. Probably fried in dirty oil, but do I care? No. I think my aunt bought it for me from a street peddler. Mmmm. I like food.

Pointless Post #32

A few months ago (maybe two months.... three months?) I signed up to get a free sample of Nutella in the mail, and it arrived this morning! At first, I was hesitant at trying it because from my viewpoint, putting chocolate on bread is a little weird... but I tried it anyways.

It was like eating a Ferrero Rocher sandwich... and I know this because I ate two Ferrero Rochers right before eating the Nutella sandwich. Mmmmm..... I'm a very healthy person.

Interestingly, while writing this, I've just found out that both Nutella and Ferrero Rocher are owned by Ferrero Canada Limited. While you go rush out to buy these two products, I'll be waiting for my endorsement cheque.

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Pointless Post #31

I'm waiting at Gate 21. Another layover in Hong Kong International airport. Earlier today, after going through customs in Penang, I bought a bunch of drinks totaling to RM 9, because stuff is slightly more expensive in HKIA. While going through the transfer mini customs thingy after landing in Hong Kong, they confiscated all my drinks because the containers were all over 100ml. Completely stupid.

I was in a bad mood (I don't like being dehydrated) and had to buy new drinks (to rehydrate) but while at the checkout counter as I paid for my bottle of $10 HKD water, I found a $20 HKD note on a little ledge . The $20 HKD converts to roughly RM 9, or about $3 CDN. So, it sort of worked out, except that in Penang, I had the purchasing power of 1.85L of safe bottled liquid while in Hong Kong, I only had the purchasing power of 1L with the same amount of money (roughly). Oh wells.

Here's a picture of me brushing my teeth in the middle of the airport.
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Pointless Post #30

Here's a picture of me next to an ad in Prangin Mall about internet or something. The turtle is surfing on it's own shell at a high speed with a happy smile on its face, showing you just as how fun and fast you could be experiencing the internet if you subscribed to their service.

The turtle's expression makes me laugh.



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Pointless Post #29 - Tim's Future Wife Edition

Ok, so this happened a few days ago, but I think its still pretty significant. While at HKIA I met this pretty lady and talked to her a bit, but no matter what I said, she didn’t seem too impressed (maybe it was my “accent”).

I don’t quite get what she was shaking her head about, but later…

She seemed to fancy me… that’s right, don’t be shy…

Or maybe I was just taking funny, staged photos with advertisements around the airport… yeah people were looking at me funny, but the end result is a funny picture!
Her size in the ad was just perfect for me to pose along side. You should try it. Taking funny pictures is funny.

And sorry, I can't remember what brand this ad was for.

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Chinese high-heel wearing terrorist...?

I'm in Hong Kong International Airport waiting for a connecting flight to Penang (the actual time where I'm located is June 22, 12:32am). My sister and I are visiting our grandfather and other family members in Malaysia for 2 weeks. It was an unexpected trip due to his health (we decided on coming on this trip literally 1 week ago and everything worked out despite me having an expired passport (had to pay extra for faster processing) by the grace of God).

Anyways, we have a +7 hour layover here and so we're at a laptop station trying to check email and stuff. For some reason, the outlets don't work so we're just sitting here banging away on our computers on battery power. A young lady just walked up to us, stuck a charger connected to her cellphone into the outlet and walked away. I don't know where she went. I'm hoping it's not a bomb.

EDIT: The phone vibrated across the counter, startling us... There's now 1 missed call...

EDIT EDIT: She came to pick up her phone 10 minutes later. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I don't think her battery charged. Oh well. I'm alive and in one piece.

The light... it BURNS!

Know what's cool? The SFSS Health and Dental Plan that was introduced earlier this year. I almost opted out of it, because, pffft, come on... I'm Tim. I'm invincible. And I could have used the extra money for more important things, like crunchy Cheetos. But I didn't, and I'm glad because now I can wander around the house looking like an idiot for the next three hours:

Huzza? Whooza? What was that?!

I got my eyes checked today (woohoo covered!) and the optometrist put these drops in my eyes that dilated my pupils, so everything close to me is fairly blurry to me now and I'm super sensitive to light. I had to squint my way home. And I don't have sunglasses, so thank you Cineplex for these wonderful 3D glasses (ps. Up is good, but not worth the money to see in 3D)! They get the job done.
For the two of you that read this, yes, this could have been classified as a Pointless Post, but because of the length and the bonus visual, I thought I'd give it its own post. Trying to change things up a bit. Wouldn't want you to get bored. I'd lose readers and then my sponsors would kill me! That floppy disk guy is a task master!
Saw gas for 113¢/litre. Caramba!.

Scotiabank FAIL

What's a fun thing to do in the middle of a worldwide recession? Sign up for a new credit card that's what! What? You thought I was going to say be prudent and cut back on spending? No, that's too easy. And to be fair, today doesn't feel like a real recession anyways (scroll down to "A Real Recession" for some good reasoning).

Anyways, to be fair, I didn't really want a new credit card, and I wasn't looking for one, but SCENE Visa promised me 2 free movie tickets if I signed up for one, so who am I to say no to that? Free! I filled out the application in late April...

Received my new card in May...

Finally got around to activating my credit card yesterday. And then what happens when I check the mail an hour later? I've received my first bill from Scotiabank about my new SCENE Visa card!

IT'S FIVE PAGES (ahem...technically, 3 sheets of paper)!

It states that I have a payment due on June 25, 2009 for a total minimum payment of $0.00.... here, you read it:

NOTE: yes, I blurred some stuff out    8^p

Completely unnecessary junk mail. Literally and physically. Good job automated corporate computer systems. I think the thing that confuses me most is that I hadn't even activated or used my card yet and a bill was already sent... strange.

Haircuts are fun

A long time ago I mentioned that my sideburns were long.
So for my enjoyment and your disgust, I made some animated GIFS!

This is partly due to the fact that a few weeks ago, some random lady thought I was in my mid to late 20s (which made me feel bad), but then another random lady yesterday thought I was still in highschool (which made me feel good).

Before and after my haircut, I took some funny (or demented?) photos.

I also thought, with a bit of a stretch, when my hair is long, I look more Mongol (good movie) since hair like that seems to be uncommon on Asian people, but then when I'm all haircutted up, I look more Han.

Wow I really do look like a tool.

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 Saw gas a few days ago 109¢/litre. Zoweeee.

Pointless Post #28

When I was in high school, I used to be able to crack an egg with one hand beautifully. Lately, I have been having trouble cracking an egg with two hands... sometimes having to pick broken shell out...Sigh

Also, I put some pants on yesterday morning (no applause necessary) two pant legs at a time (I sit on a chair... I can't do a mid-air-two-legs-pants-on yet) and they fit very snugly around my waist. I thought, "Cool, I don't need a belt today."

Three hours later, my pants had slid down halfway around my butt so that I looked like a suburban white boy who thinks he's fly just because he listens to gangsta rap. I can't recall this happening to me before. *shrugs*


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Pointless Post #27

My sideburns are really long. People at church have made comments about them. That's how long they are. Sigh.

In other news, the joy of my summer life that I met last year is about to return tomorrow!
Yes, I'm talking about WIPEOUT!

Oh Mr. Sweeper, how I've missed you...

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What to watch? Global Doc - "Hip to be Holy" or "Revealed: Hip 2B Holy"

To clarify the topic of this post, there is a documentary on Global coming up entitled "Hip to be Holy" or "Revealed: Hip 2B Holy" or even "Hip 2B Holy." I can't figure it out, but different Google searches turn up different pages calling it different names. It's a little weird that there doesn't seem to be consistency with the title.

It will be airing on Global stations on Monday, May 25, 2009 at 10pm PST/EST (or 7pm if you're in the west and into timeshifting). If all goes well with my tech, I will be recording this program.

Why watch it? Read a few abstract thingys:

From the production company responsible (90th Parallel), they say:

In the race to attract new converts, Evangelical Christians are pulling out ahead – and they’re reeling in young Canadians: particularly, GenNext, or, The Disciple Generation.

Suddenly it's hip to be holy.

Hip 2 B Holy, directed by Karen Pinker, is the latest in the REVEALED series with Kevin Newman for Global Television.

From the GlobalTV.com website (where you should be able to find definite listing times for the show) they say:

Hip to be Holy
Monday, May 25 at 10.00 et/pt

There's a Christian reformation stirring in Canada's Christian churches. Forsaking the traditional pew and altar, these Christians are dropping pop culture references, defying the orthodoxy, and creating their own brands of worship. Suddenly, it's hip to be holy.

And finally, here's a snippet I found on YouTube:




It looks very interesting, and it should be interesting depending on the point of view it will be presented in. My concern is that there will be bias against Jesus/Christianity as there usually is in the news/media/pop culture/world/etc and that half-truths will be told, or that things will be explained or reported in a way that might seem discrediting to the Alpha program and Christians in general. I guess we will see.

Also, I don't know if it's true or not, but I think some portions may have been filmed in2007 if my internet sleuthing is correct. Anyways, in the interest of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the luxury of debatable discussion without persecution (at least from where I'm writing this post), I encourage you to watch it.

EDIT: May 19 - I've been getting a lot of traffic because of this post which shows lots of people are mucho interested in this documentary, as well as the topic. I've found another snippet which has some interview-like dialogue with Kevin Newman and the director Karen Pinker that Googlers might be interested in (btw, if you're reading this, want to buy floppy box from me? Click the link on the top right hand side of the page. 8^D)

Another EDIT: June 1 - You can watch the entire documentary on the Alpha Canada website here. You can thank Lon at Solar Crash for the link.

Hopefully no more EDITS - June 5: You can watch the entire doc on the GlobalTV website, WITH ads, woohoo (note: sarcasm)! If the link doesn't work, just search for it on there. It's there, I saw it.





Saw gas today for a low of 100.4 and a high of 104.6¢/litre. Also, it's been a while since I've done some pointless posting, so watch out for that.

Floppy Disk Pen and Pencil Holders For Sale

(or you can use them to hold candy)

They’re recycled! Makes great gifts! If you buy them, you’re helping the environment (if you’re into that sort of thing)!

Cute! Neat! Geeky! Cool! Unique! Hand-made!
Available in BLACK

NAVY BLUE

GREY

One for $5
Three for $12

Shipping to Canada: $1
Shipping to USA: I'll give you a quote

(This is a lot cheaper than the ones I've seen on Etsy.com)
If you buy more than three, shipping costs will go up slightly, but I’ll have to check how much and get back to you.  Also, 75% of everything I make from this, will go to help children in India via Mission of Mercy Canada (I’m still undecided between their clean water projects or school funding projects).

Email me; regarding payment, I accept PayPal.
(And yes I know, my photography skills are seriously lacking.)

I am such an idiot

I have never left a movie theater feeling angry before. Usually I'm happy and sometimes in awe of the great storytelling, until tonight. I just saw Knowing and I left the theater angry.

It is so incredibly stupid, I feel like an idiot for freely choosing to see this movie. I was not coerced, I was just under the assumption that it would be intersting, but KNOWING IS ONE OF THE STUPIDEST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN!!! If only I knew. Sigh.

I wish I could erase the part of my brain that remembers the movie in my brain, because its taking up valuable space. Don't see this movie. If you love yourself, don't watch this movie. If you really must though, don't spend money to watch this movie. Trust me. Read the entry on Wikipedia on it, read forums, read about how much other people hate it. It's really that bad. That's why I'm taking the time to vent about it, because I feel like such an idiot and I need to warn everyone else.

*Spoilers*
Nicolas Cage and the female protagonist (forget her name) yell at each other unnecessarily a lot because Nicolas Cage doesn't know how to communicate and answer simple questions. A bunch of aliens torment a bunch of kids and lots of violin/suspenseful/potentially scary music is overplayed in too many scenes. Every student at MIT who owns a laptop chooses Dell. In the end, it turns out the numbers on the paper are predicting the end of the world, and two children are transported somewhere by the aliens to start the human race afresh. The earth is burned up by the sun. The End. Oh wait, her name was Diana.

I need to go watch TV and try and cleanse this filth from my mind.

Sweet, Sweet Brain Atrophy

I had a term paper due last week on Tuesday, April 14th. I was really looking forward to writing it because I thought I had it all figured out.

So on Tuesday April 7th, I go to the library borrow a lot of books I figure that I'll need for research.
On Wednesday, April 8th, I start a bit of research.
Thursday, April 9th, I procrastinate and play video games.
Friday, April 10th, I procrastinate and play video games.
Saturday, April 11th, I procrastinate and play video games.
On Sunday, April 12th, I start to panic in my mind a little since I only have about two days left and so I start doing (haha "start") my research again. I end up nodding off to sleep during my research.

On Monday, April 13th, (its due tomorrow), I start being really productive by late afternoon, lets say 5pm.
By 9pm, I've spent a lot of time on my introduction. It is really slick and I'm proud of it.
But now its 11pm, oh crap, I still have 2000/2500 words left to write? I've only just nailed down my thesis.

Sure, 2000 words isn't that bad but considering I had a whole week, I'm slightly bummed and now diminishing marginal returns is starting to set in a bit (sort of); as time progresses (or "increases"), quality of writing decreases.

Now its 2am, early Tuesday morning. I've given up on that grade-A paper I was planning on getting.
Sun is starting to peek through my window at 6am... must write... anything...
It's 7am, and I'm nodding off at the keyboard.
I give up at 9am. I've finished a rough draft of my citations. Time to sleep. I'll wake up at 10:30am to finish it.

Sleep through multiple alarms and snoozes. Wake up at 12pm.
After some food, its 1pm and my productivity has amazingly sky-rocketed.
Go to school and hand in paper at 3pm.
Brain atrophy starts to take stronger hold over my body.

For example, while cleaning my room a few days later, I found some maps I've been saving. I love maps. They're fun to look at. I'm easily amused by Google Maps (and before that Keyhole) and looking at countries and where things are located.

So anyways, in the beginning of phone books, there are local maps of the Lower Mainland and I've always thought, it'd be fun to tear them out and stick them all together to make a giant map of Greater Vancouver. So I did that. Sort of.

I had cut off all the side bars and was already 1/3 of the way done taping all the small pieces together, but as I was overlapping them and making the roads and other parts of the maps perfectly aligned, I realized, they weren't perfectly printed and the maps weren't 100% aligned or to scale. Some roads didn't connect perfectly. So I gave up.

I still love maps though. They're fun to look at.

I am such a fool

Warning: this post won't make much sense and will be incredibly boring to you if you're not a Christian.

God's patience is amazing, especially with me. I am such a fool. If I had to deal with me on a regular basis, I’d beat myself up already for being so annoying. And it wouldn’t be last year’s weakling Tim, it’d be future no-quarter-given-Tim who head-butts, eye-gouges, throat-punches, and crotch-kicks all at the same time.

So while procrastinating doing work/research, just a few moments ago, I ended what must have been a good 30-minute conversation (or longer) with a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was so full of pride and confident in myself (cue warning sirens) that I thought, hey, this should be fun! I’ll go talk to them and see what happens!

After many instances where I listened quietly (oh man, they talk so much!) and pretended to be ignorant about some things (which turns out wasn’t an act), I have full confirmation that I do not know my Bible, I do not know where to find things that are central to my own faith, and I really do not know my own Bible. Also, it was a little fun to be on this side than on the other side for a change. But good sunny weather and polite Jehovah’s Witnesses aside, I feel somewhat humiliated, embarrassed, and definitely foolish, for…. yeah…. I’m a fool.

Interesting things to note: they drove a Nissan, one lady (must have been 30s) was Filipino but she’s learning Mando and Canto!? And the other older lady (maybe, late 50s early 60s) was from Taiwan and the older who was training the younger was much more forceful. Also, they really don’t like the idea of Jesus as God. This is one of the key things I learned that I need to know.

On the bright side, it’s a wake up call from God (not the same as the Jehovah Witnesses god that they were trying to share with me about) that He gave me a Bible and it won’t read itself. Also, the war is not against flesh and blood (eg. the JWs), but against the evil spirits who seek to discredit and distort God’s message and anything against God (Eph 6:12). Idiot.. I feel like I’ve just been neutered or something… probably the wrong analogy but I'm going to stick with it for now.

Pointless Post #26

My life has reached a new low.

I goof off and make lots of lame jokes all the time, but apparently my "personality" was misunderstood (haha shut up) as a gay guy in Convo Mall asked me out today.

For the record, I declined. When the semester is over and I have free time again, I'm going to buy a truck so I can work on it, then I'm going to take up hunting as a hobby, watch even more hockey, and do more manly things.

Sigh...

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What are Pointless Posts?

Pointless Post #25

I just realized that it is almost exactly 10 years ago, that I was in a Power Plant off the coast of the Rock Tunnel near Cerulean City, when I captured Zapdos. I remember freaking out as I encountered the bird because I had forgotten to save the game before engaging in battle. But as previously mentioned, I was victorious.

Aaahhh.... memories. By the way, the link is safe to click. It's not a Rick Roll (or is it?).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlw1FpOCEfo

Oh yeeeeaaaaaaah, I just favourited that video...

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Pointless Post #24

Maybe this is embarassing to say, but I had a good cry today, and I don't really cry that often. Those onions really got to me as I was chopping to them, whew.

I think I get my hair cut about 7 times per year.

Why do birds walk so funny? And they have such skinny legs, haha!

Saw gas for about $1 yesterday and a high of 96.9¢/litre today.

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A Tiring Week

This is a narcissistic post. And the title says it all. I'm pooped (but slightly better after having a full night's sleep).

Aside from a few late night's earlier in the semester and an all-night report writing session two weeks ago, this has been one of the most tiring week's I've ever had.

It consisted of:

-no hockey (playing or watching)
-eating many many many granola bars
-long and frantic research, skimming articles and other things with too many words...
-sacrificing small assignments for bigger assignments
-getting ~5 hours sleep/day for four days (most was 6.75 on one day and least was 2)
-preparing and rehearsing for back-to-back presentations
-ironing a shirt at 1:30am
-doing homework in the library until almost 12am (twice)
-not being able to catch up on sleep on the bus because idiot fellow passengers will not shut up (I don't care about what your hair colour used to be, where you traveled to last year, or how you used to save money by stealing your neighbours fruits/vegetables from their garden! Talk softer! And the same to you cell phone users!)
-almost falling asleep in DG multiple times despite a very intriguing discussion (at least, it sounded intriguing from what I remember of it... all I remember now is that afterwards I kept on thinking of a Mark Driscoll quote, "Culturally liberal and theologically conservative.")

My mind is still in the process of planning for buttloads of work, deadlines, and meetings in the two remaining weeks of school....

....waah, waah, waaah, Tim is such a big whiny baby. Somebody change his diaper and give him his bottle. Good sweet crap you're so annoying with your sob stories of how you're still alive and didn't have to dodge land mines or walk miles for a trickle of parasite infested water to drink.

Point taken. I'll shut up now.

PS - I'm not a schizophrenic.

Pointless Post #23

I washed my headband by hand earlier today because I'm going to need it when I play floor hockey later (I have amazing sweat glands in my forehead! Wait, do I even have sweat glands in my forehead? I'm not a biologist...) Ahem, regardless, whenever I play sports, sweat pours down my face and I use a headband to keep the sweat from my eyes.

So after I washed my headband, it was still really, really wet, even after I had wrung it out. So instead of sticking it in the dryer (which would have been wasteful, all by itself), I tried microwaving it. Three minutes later, it started to smoke so I quickly took it out and success! It was 90% dry!

So now I have a partially burnt headband, our house smells like burnt-something, but it's still useable!

Yes, I'm Chinese. Thankyoubyebyeee! [said with high-pitched nasal Canto accent]

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Pointless Post #22

Internet memes do not work well in real life. Specifically, rickrolling and saying "fail" (or "epic fail" if that fancies you more). Or maybe I'm just too big of a nerd.

Sigh. I should probably get some fresh air.

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My Worst Semester Ever...

...or is it my best semester ever?

Another title for this post could be “Obligatory post about school,” as I always have something to complain about school. Right now, it’s the middle of Week 7. Middle of the semester. Time flew by pretty quickly. SFU’s reading break or “mid-term break” ended yesterday, but I got an email this morning from the prof announcing that today’s class would be cancelled, so woohoo, extra day for me to catch up on stuff! And catching up is not an understatement…

One reason why this might be my worst semester ever is because I’ve fallen deeply behind in my readings. I’m doing three courses. One of the classes I’m all up to date and everything is fantastic there, however, it is an elective class (ASC 302: Selected Topics in Chinese Studies: Popular Culture and Cultural Production in Contemporary China).

Semi-tangent: I took my first ASC class way back in my first semester waaay back in first year, and I fell in love with ASC stuff. Ironic how I haven’t done a minor in it, but I’ve still taken buttloads of ASC courses. They’re great. ASC 302 is great too cause it’s basically a film class. Watch Chinese films, do some analysis, relate it to contemporary society/change/etc (which I already love to do) and did I mention we get to watch movies? Watch movies as homework? Done. It’s actually pretty relevant on a social perspective though. Very insightful.

As for my business classes (the other two out of the three) that I need to take in order to graduate with a business degree, I have done almost none of my readings… In fact, last week I finally took off the plastic wrapping for one of my textbooks in order to skim a case that was going to be discussed the next day. I won’t talk about how much I hate the bookstore or how much I hate textbook publishing companies, but I will say that these books are again, boring (business textbooks… pfft).

Most of the lectures (or seminars as they’re called… hey actually I just realized, all of my classes this semester are officially seminars… interesting) for my two business courses usually end up with me trying to pay attention, but naturally drifting off into daydreams, goofing off, or boredom and confusion. Sigh.

So why might I consider this semester my best? Despite not doing almost any of my readings, I’ve gotten all my work done on time, getting decent marks back on work submitted, and I don’t hate any of my profs! I genuinely respect all of them. I’m quite sure that’s a first for me at SFU.

I’ve woken up extra early on certain times to get work done among other things, as well as stayed back after classes to again, get things done. Before, my intention was always to sleep in as much as possible, get up and rush to school, sit in class, and then rush home as soon as prof dismisses to crawl back into bed (figuratively). In this being my last year as an undergraduate, I finally feel like a real university student… I’ve even bought food to eat while on campus out of necessity and scheduling, because before, I always used to bring my own food because it was so expensive. Now, prices have become reasonable thanks to new services, but a word of warning: Chartwells, your day of reckoning will draw near. I’m serious.

I’ve also been doing a lot of reminiscing. In some ways, I can’t believe this is my final year at SFU. I think a lot about who I used to be, what I used to do, what things were like when I was a first year student and what kinds of things first years experience now. I sometimes stare at buildings and think, “that used to be a parking lot,” or at renovated places on campus and think, “this actually looks nicer now… too bad I didn’t get to enjoy these facilities before they replaced the disgusting 40-year old carpet.” I sometimes wonder if all my previous years were wasted, if I could have done more… in everything. But that might just be wishful thinking. Or it could be true too. I think it’s a little of both.

I miss sitting in big lecture halls, specifically the big science ones you have to enter in the South AQ hall. Poking my head in there makes me feel nostalgic, because 3/4 days this semester, I’m in the same, tiny, seminar room with crappy, broken, squeaky seats in WMC 3250. The other day (which would have been today), I’m in RCB 6136, which is also another tiny room with several annoying concrete pillars that can block your view depending on where you sit. I also got lost trying to find that room during the first week of the semester. A silly place to put a classroom, right on the end of a hallway full of offices.

To wrap this obligatory post about school up, Simon Fraser University is a good university, but compared to almost every other university (maybe?), I think it is a bad university. I’m quite apathetic to what happens here, because of poor administration, poor student politics, poor management, and too many bad experiences in classes that should have been enjoyable. I’m proud in one way to say that I go to SFU, but in another way, I’m ashamed at how it’s not the most student-friendly place in the world. I blame poor money management. I can’t imagine how much is wasted due to poor choices by the idiots who are given the responsibility to steward funds.

I used to hate UBC so much, partly because I didn’t want to go there, partly because it’s so far away (but my parents made me apply there anyway and they denied my application so hurray, another reason to hate UBC), and partly due to the SFU/UBC rivalry (which come to think about now… does one even exist?). Now I see how foolish I was.

As weird as it sounds, I’ve already planned out my decision for when future students working part time call to ask me, as an alumni, donations for SFU. My answer? No. Stop calling me.

Go UBC!

Please Note: This post was mainly about my feelings related to my educational/student experiences at SFU. I may post in the future about how my time at university has been the best, most valuable growing experiences I’ve ever had, aside from all the cool people I’ve met, and what God has done in my life.

Pointless Post #21

While washing my face, I thought a gigantic pimple was starting to form near my eye because it was sort of sore there, and then I remembered my glasses cut me when I got hit in the eye on Monday with a hockey ball. I'm so forgetful.

I have about three good posts I want to get up, but they're very time consuming and require me to think critically. Probably won't happen for the next few weeks.
Sigh, sorry, today's post wasn't funny. It was VERY pointless though, so extra points there. And I win!

Gas has been in the 80s range for awhile, but today I saw it at a low of 93 and a high of 97.9¢/litre.

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What are Pointless Posts?

Pointless Post #20

So many useless things to say, so little time. And I'm supposed to be taking notes in class right now... I was good during the first half, but my productivity and concentration dipped after the prof gave the class a break.

In other Tim-news, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT watch funny Super Bowl commercials in class if you want to maintain your dignity and be respectful of everyone, especially the one lecturing at the front of the room... kekeke... 8^D.
Hey dummy, I often dream of punting small animals... not punching.



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Pointless Post #19 - CNY Edition

This is so punny! Happy "Niú" Year!
Niú is the pinyin romanization for cow/ox in Mandarin and this Chinese new year is the year of the ox! Ok get it? Now read this.
It's funny because it's a cow! It's so cute! I love puns!
I could go for a good burger right now!
Om nom nom nom!


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Pointless Post #18

Sandwiches are great. I have no problem making a sandwich at home, plopping myself in front of the TV and then eating it (hopefully, with something interesting on, otherwise CTV Newsnet wins by default). The problem with sandwiches manifests when I pack them into a bag, put them in my backpack and bring them somewhere, 99% of time to school. By the time I get around to eating them, they are usually partially squished. I could, of course, carry them in some sort of hard container, but then I hate carrying around empty containers because they make my bag bulky. Bulky bags are a problem when you have to transfer 2-3 times on public transit. In summary, yellow mustard is a fantastic condiment.

I saw gas at a low of 90.9¢/litre and a high of 95.9¢/litre today.

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2009 feels like 2008

Happy 2222, as per this post. Haha, my jokes were even lamer 2 years ago...

School is started. For some strange reason, I feel like I haven't been to school in a loooong time, although it's only been a month. Very strange. Maybe it's all the snow.

Speaking of snow, I am very close to hating it. The movie The Day After Tomorrow will always be more meaningful to me now because of how many kilometers I've trudged through snow this past month. I am so glad however that it's all melting away... slowly. The rain keeps coming down as if we live in Seattle or something (sarcasm), but I am ultra thankful that it's not snow, even though it has been very messy the past few... days... no wait, weeks.

By the way, if you live on a street that has street drains/catch basins/whatever they're called that are buried by snow and you want to clear them up to allow water and melted snow to flow down it, check out Google Maps or Microsoft's Live Search Maps to try and aid you in finding those things. Worked for me, so I thought I might mention it.

Kind of pointless to mention (but not pointless enough for it's own post), but I've been starting to get behind in reading and replying to emails (not to mention all my feeds in Google Reader).... and I just realized todat that my SFU email has not been forwarding to my regular Yahoo email because of a system switchover that happened recently. I have lots of tedious stuff ahead of me now... and course information to catch up on, yikes.

Happy New Year from Lance