IAD

My name is Vincent and I have a problem.

I pride myself on not having many of the common addictions. I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I have no craving for alcohol, I rarely gamble, I don't drink coffee, I barely touch pop, I don't do fast food very often, and I rarely resort to cannibalism. Ok fine, sometimes I have a temporary gaming addiction, but it goes away when I finish (or hide) the game. I don't "crave" it. At least not right now. And yes, I watch TV, but not random TV, specific shows and I just get caught up in the story line. At least I'm limited by the number of episodes :p. Volleyball is not an addiction, it is a love.

I am quite sure however, that I suffer from IAD: Internet addiction disorder.

1. Tolerance (markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of time on Internet). CHECK


2. Withdrawal symptoms. CHECK


3. Internet is often accessed more often or for longer periods of time than was intended. CHECK


4. There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control Internet use. CHECK


5. A great deal of time is spent in activities related to Internet use (for example, buying Internet books, trying out new WWW browsers, researching Internet vendors, organizing files of downloaded materials). CHECK (can you say "blog"?)


6. Frequent talks about the Internet in daily life. CHECK


7. Important family, social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced in duration and/or frequency because of Internet use. NO CHECK. YES! I GOT ONE!!!


8. Internet use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical, family, social, occupational, or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by Internet use (for example, sleep deprivation, marital difficulties, lateness for early morning appointments, neglect of occupational duties, or feelings of abandonment in significant others). SLEEP DEPRIVATION, DOUBLE CHECK

The first step is acknowledging that you have a problem.

Ok, I don't think it's a super serious problem, but it's a problem. Like, I get out. I will gladly leave my computer to go play volleyball, hang out with friends (if I had any here in Toronto), etc. But, if I am at home, you know where I am, and that's right here. Honestly, I probably spend like 12 hours a day online, if not more.

It's a waste of time. Reloading Slashdot, Google Reader, Google News, random browsing, checking e-mail a bazillion times, checking stats. Garbage. All GARBAGE.

Ok, there are some good things about the Internet, like keeping in touch with friends and family and blogging. Blogging is good. I enjoy it, it's therapeutic, and will serve me well in the future when I look back at this.

I feel that I could be spending my valuable time much more wisely doing more productive things. Productive coming in many forms - academically, personally, athletically. This (academic) year, I want to put more focus on personal growth.

Here are some things that I will try to do to reduce my Internt activity. I hope that by writing it down for everyone to see that it'll help me to follow them through. I encourage you to yell and scream at me when you see me online. Please do it.

1. No Internet in the morning.
   • This is a bad one. I waste a lot of time in the morning on the Internet. Even when I wake up early, I just end up starting my day late b/c I dick around on the Internet. I never used to do it b/c at least back in Winnipeg, I didn't have a computer in my room or a laptop. This one definitely has to stop.
   
   
   • E-mail is it. I'm going to cave and say that e-mail is ok. But nothing more than that. 5 min. tops to check if I have any meeting cancellations, etc. Everything else can wait until I get to my cubicle.
   
   
   • E-mail in the morning on weekends is ok, but still frowned upon. I should at least do the bathroom things and have breakfast first.


2. Stop checking e-mail 50 times a day


3. Stop randomly surfing.
   • I remember a time when I was so busy that I wasn't able to read every story on Slashdot. I will still read my feeds (blogs, comics, del) and read the news, but try to limit it to not much more than this. Activingly looking for new content (eg. digg and del pop) are a no-no.


4. Stop reloading Facebook to see what's new on the news feed


5. Stop going online so much at home.
   • I can blog. I can check e-mail, but not constantly. I can chat. Chatting is fine, surfing is not. I should be doing something productive while chatting, like cleaning, filling out forms and applications, doing work, etc.


6. Shower at 11, in bed by midnight, up at 7
   • As you can tell from the time stamp on this post, this one is going to start tomorrow.

Video Epitome Talk at the University of Windsor

Video Epitome talk - University of Windsor, Sept. 22, 2006

My talk at the University of Windsor was taped and I put it up on Google Video :). Here is the link to my Video Epitome web page (gotta get that pagerank!)

I don't like listening to my own voice. I think it sounds funny. I don't know how you guys put up with it.

Pride & Prejudice

Don't ask why I watched it by myself. Just accept the fact that I did. I would however, watch anything with Keira Knightley in it, next up being Domino, but I would have watched this movie regardless.

I was also feeling pretty sick at the time. I had eaten a MASSIVE pot of pasta right before a couple hours of volleyball and was seriously having indigestion to the point that I wanted to puke and I really needed to just vege and digest. Anyways, I'm getting off topic...

I hadn't read the book since like Grade 12 when we read it in school, so I had forgotten many of the details, but generally knew what was going to happen, although I often only had like a 10 min. foresight (ah, yes, I remember that guy, he's not as he appears to be). I enjoyed the movie. It was one of those "feel good" movies.

The movie understandably sped up the story line, but I thought it did a decent job of translating the book into a reasonably length movie. I probably would have been a bit confused had I not read the book beforehand. The movie made it seem like Liz and Mr. Darcy were so much in love despite not really having spent that much time together, but I guess they did in comparison to say Mr. Collins and Charlotte and other couples that were like semi-arranged. Perhaps it was just the times. Though, I just looked back at this "Pride and Prejudice Summary (Chapters 28-33).doc" file I had on my computer and it became obvious to me that the movie cut out a bunch of stuff...

Another thing is that it's really interesting to revisit the story after such a long time and seeing things in a different perspective, backed with more life experience. I have 1984 sitting on my computer that I've been meaning to watch.

Windsor Recap

Toronto's Union Station

GReunion: Mark, Janna, and Vince

Mark experiencing some Canadian culture

More pictures

Now that I have pictures as evidence, I can post about my trip to Windsor.

As I mentioned already, I took the train. The whole travel experience was quite enjoyable. It started off in Toronto's train station. I don't know why train stations have to be so extravagent and have such high ceilings, but it was a nice feeling. It took me back to a more quaint and innocent time. The whole train experience is so much nicer than the airport. Getting my ticket was a 30 second affair. No security checks. No id checks. Just get on the train and take a seat. Train wasn't too full so I took a window seat and used the aisle seat for my bag. No restrictions on when your seat has to be in its upright position or when I can have the tray table down or when I can use my electronics. I didn't check if I could get it in comfort class, but I know that first class had wireless Internet. More legroom than a plane. I had a comfortable sleep. It was about a 4 hour train each way, a bit longer than my booking said it was supposed to be, but whatever, I was sleeping :p

Had lunch at the university with Janna and Michelle (Janna's rommate). The talk went well. The only hiccup was that my laser pointer ran out of battery like 5 min. into my talk, but I made do. My talk was taped, so that'll be interesting to see if I can get a hold of it. Weird moment of the talk was when one of the guys in the audience took a picture of me. I was like wtf??? He wasn't like part of the student society or anything, I guess my talk was just that impressive :). Funny moment of the talk was when I had a slide that said "Vote for Janna!"

At the end of the talk one of the student society people gave me a free pen (a nice one). After, Janna, Michelle, Jake, and I went to one of the pubs for some dessert and drinks. Then, it came up that Ann Arbor was like 45 min. away... MARK!!! I fire off an e-mail to Mark and leave a message on his voice mail. He calls back. I thought it was going to be a tough sell to get him to come visit us, but coincidentally, he was going to be driving in our direction anyways! He was dropping off Emine at the Detroit airport, which meant that he was like half way to Windsor and without plans.

He meets us at Janna's apartment and we chill there for a bit before going to Casey's for dinner. We drop the car off at my hotel and drop stuff off there, and then start walking the town. Windsor is a sketchy place. All these sketchy looking bars (with people on street corners telling you to go in) and "massage parlours". We walked to the casino. I wanted to do what I usually did in a casino, which is to get rid of all the coins in my wallet, but their slot machines didn't take coins! It was weird. You had to like use tokens, bills, or a card thingy. It was Mark and Janna's first time in a casino, so we looked all around, but we left without dropping any money.

The best was when we overheard this (obviously American) girl say: "My phone says 'Telus', is that a Canadian word?"

We make it back to the hotel and then introduce Mark to the fine Canadian establishment known as Tim Horton's. It was like 11ish and it was bustling. People watching was interesting. There were several couples finishing their evenings at this place. One "couple" was particularly intriguing. There was a mis-match. The guy was totally out of his league. He had a freakin' sweater vest. Then a group of like 4 guys sat in the table next to them. Next thing you know, the girl is like surrounded by these guys chatting her up like crazy. It was pretty funny. Mark takes off to go home after we leave and I go home as I was pretty tired.

Janna and I met up for breakfast at Lumberjack's and then played Gamecube in her apartment until I had to catch the train. The train ride back was uneventful, which is always a good thing while travelling, and that pretty much sums up my trip.

It was really good seeing you guys again! I'm still impressed that Mark managed to meet up with us. That was completely unexpected :). Throughout the whole planning of the trip, it didn't even come up b/c I didn't think that Ann Arbor was that close and that it would be feasible, but it's awesome that it worked out. I think I'm still in California withdrawal :p.

Blogger Beta Peek-a-Boo Comments

Update: There are some issues with this method and using the word verification stuff. Something about security or something. In Firefox, the first time you go to my blog, it would redirect you to the pop-up comments page. In IE, the word verification doesn't work, unless you first open the pop-up comments page. If anyone has a suggestion as to how to make this work, please let me know.

I've done more blog hacking to restore the peek-a-boo (show/hide) comments that I had before. It's similar to how it was done with the old blogger.

The problem with the new blogger is that you cannot access the comments from the main page anymore. What I did was (dynamically) load the pop-up comments window in an iframe and then had that show/hide using Javascript and css. The bonus feature is that you can now comment right from the peek-a-boo comment! IE is a bit wonky and sometimes doesn't like to show the word verification (you can click the "Post a comment" link). IE also partially hides the vertical scrollbar the first time the comments are shown.

One issue right now is that I couldn't get the iframe to resize to the height of the comments. The reason is because I'm loading the comments from an external url.

Here are some code snippets (refer to the instructions for the old blogger as a guide):

css styles. Put this in your style sheet.

.commenthidden {
  display: none;
}

.commentshown {
  display: inline;
}


Peek-a-boo Javascript code. Put this between <head> and </head>.

<script type='text/javascript'>
function togglecomments(postID, commentsURL) {
  var divElt = document.getElementById(postID + "iFrameDiv");
  var showElt = document.getElementById(postID + "TextShow");
  var hideElt = document.getElementById(postID + "TextHide");

  if (divElt.className == "commentshown") {
    divElt.className = "commenthidden";
    showElt.className = "commentshown";
    hideElt.className = "commenthidden";
  } else {
    var iFrameElt = document.getElementById(postID + "iFrame");
    if (iFrameElt.src != commentsURL) {
      if (iFrameElt.contentDocument) {
        iFrameElt.scrolling = 'auto';
        iFrameElt.contentDocument.open();
        iFrameElt.contentDocument.write("<span style='font:small Verdana, Arial, Sans-serif;'>Loading...</span>");
        iFrameElt.contentDocument.close();
      } else if (iFrameElt.contentWindow) {
        iFrameElt.contentWindow.document.open();
        iFrameElt.contentWindow.document.write("<span style='font:small Verdana, Arial, Sans-serif;'>Loading...</span>");
        iFrameElt.contentWindow.document.close();
      }
      iFrameElt.src = commentsURL;
    }
    divElt.className = "commentshown";
    showElt.className = "commenthidden";
    hideElt.className = "commentshown";
  }
}
</script>


iframe code to include the comments. Put this where you want the comments to show up (probably after the labels in <b:includable id='post' var='post'>)

<script language='Javascript'>
  document.write("<div id='<data:post.id/>iFrameDiv' class='commenthidden'><iframe id='<data:post.id/>iFrame' style='width: 100%; height: 775px; border: solid #ddd 1px;' scrolling='yes' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>");
</script>


Hyperlink to do the toggling of the comments. Replace the "# comments" and "Post a comment" link with this code.

<script language='Javascript'>
  document.write(" | <a class='comment-link' href=\"javascript:togglecomments('<data:post.id/>', '<data:post.addCommentUrl/>')\"><span id='<data:post.id/>TextShow' class='commentshown'>Show</span><span id='<data:post.id/>TextHide' class='commenthidden'>Hide</span> <data:post.numComments/> comment" + (<data:post.numComments/> != 1 ? "s" : "") + "</a>");
  document.write(' | <a class="comment-link" href="<data:post.addCommentUrl/>" onclick=\'<data:post.addCommentOnclick/>\'>Post a comment</a>');
</script>
<noscript>
  | <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 comment<b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>
  | <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>Post a comment</a>
</noscript>


Use at your own risk!

Please update your feeds

Because of my bug report, the comment feeds issue became a known issue and now it is fixed! Recent comments on the sidebar now work, and there are new feeds for both the posts and the comments.

Please update your feeds.

On another note, I am currently in Janna's apartment in Windsor and Mark is gonna be here in like an hour and a half!!! (from Ann Arbor, Michigan) Super GReunion!!! It's almost GReunion 64!

GReunion in Windsor!

Janna-Lynn Weber

Thanks to Janna, I'm going to the University of Windsor to give a talk. Hey, free trip, I'll take that. Plus, it'll be the first of, what will hopefully be, many GReunions!

My talk is in 12.5 hours... and I haven't even started making my presentation :p. Plus, I gotta pack, sleep, eat breakfast, travel, and have lunch before the talk. It's ok though, it should only take like half an hour to mod an old presentation and I have given this talk, or variants of it, so many times (close to like 10 times) that I don't really need to prep for it, or at least I hope :).

I'm taking VIA Rail, which is exciting b/c it'll be my first time taking the train in Canada. It's just over 3.5 hours each way. Anyways, if I don't blog tomorrow, then it's either b/c Janna booked me into a shit hotel without free Internet or she took me out onto the town for so much fun that I was so incapacitated that I couldn't blog.

4 different sports this week

5 if you count rollerblading (downhill on Bathurst is way more fun than uphill). 6 if you count beach and indoor volleyball as two separate sports. The others were ultimate, ping pong, and tennis. I don't play tennis, as evidenced by the blister on my hand, but I had fun anyways. Try new things, that's the new motto.

The end of summer volleyball

To me, the end of GSU pick-up volleyball signals the end of summer volleyball and the start of more organized volleyball. I first started going back in like 2004. Tiny gym, like there's no more than a foot and a half between the end of the voleyball court and the wall. Low ceiling. No air conditioning. No fans. It's literally a sauna in the summer. Like just going inside makes me sweat profusely. But, it's really good volleyball and the small gym means you don't have to chase down balls :)

I still remember the first time I went. I had read about it on the webpage and was like, sure, I'll give it a shot since I lived close by. I had low expectations. I get there and there's like only 2 or 3 other people. I warm up with Rod, an old, round, short-ish guy. He's got good ball skills, I am impressed. I later find out that he's a coach of one of the high school teams. Many of the people that go there are like varsity, ex-varsity, coaches, ex-junior national, etc. There are players that hit the ball so hard that it bounces off the floor, the back wall, and then bounces back over the net! It's like some of the highest level volleyball I have ever played. By far the best pick-up volleyball.

Even though I played throughout high school, I'm like the least coached player there (most played club, which we didn't really have in Winnipeg), and often the worst player there (well, not worst in every respect). It's great. It's how you become better.

So ya, today was the last one this summer. It kinda sucked this year (at least Sept, which is when I was here for). People didn't really go. At least not a lot of the regulars. Mostly the young kids. We would often play with less than 6 and I prefer playing 6's indoor so that you can run a proper offence.

Oh well, the GSU league starts up next week and that should be fun. I've put together a fun team this year. We won't win, but we'll have fun. Intramurals start soon as well.

Arrr... thar be treasure me matey!

Doubloons from me's Christmas LA trip

Plundered doubloons from de summer

Me homemade treasure chest!

Me life's trea'shur

Ahoy! I be meanin' ta post this fer a while, and wit' today bein' "Talk Like a Pirate Day", 'twas perfect!

Arrr, I always gets me flatten doubloons in me far away travels 'fer me ta remembers them by. Aye!

The theory holds true

Early courtship with Michele

Jenny liked to come from behind (she's not that short nor am I that tall)

Michele showing off his flirting skills

Nebojsa has this theory. Something about being in your last year of phd attracts women, women that want to marry you. It's like they smell success. It's all kinda shaky and uncertain up until that point b/c they're not sure if you will ever finish or if you will make anything of yourself.

Despite all my efforts to come in between them, Michele and Jenny are engaged! Michele, whom I thought would be like the last person I know to settle down. Shocking how true that theory is. I am truly happy for you guys! Congratulations!!!

First Mike and now you guys... what a crazy summer! I think you two (Jenny and Michele) should be thanking Adam for getting you two love birds together.

Michele had a good gtalk status message today: "Working for us".

I don't have any external pressure for me to really push myself to do work right now. But apparently if I get within a year of graduating, I will get a girl, so I better start working :p

Story time and reflection

Same key as last time.

Show encrypted text

Canadian Idol Season 4 Finale

Me and Emily with Eva Avila. Winner of Canadian Idol Season 4.

Melissa O'Neil. Winner of Canadian Idol Season 3.

I <3 Elena Juatco. Canadian Idol Season 2.

Fellow Winnipegger Rob James. Canadian Idol Season 4 and also from McMaster and James. A little bit of asian glow :p

More pictures

I am not a Canadian Idol fan. I did not go watch the finale of Canadian Idol Season 4. I did not go to the after party. I also didn't stalk the idols nor did I chat and take pictures with them. I did not get kissed on the cheek by Eva, oh wait, I did :)

The rest of this post is encrypted to protect myself and others from repercussions.

Decrypt text using the "friend" key (ask me for it)

Happy 16th Birthday Mi-Mi!

Sweet 16!

Mi-Mi has a licence to drive!

More pictures

Mittens turned 16 today (well, technically yesterday, but perhaps even more technically on the 14th, we're not quite sure, we kinda forgot whether it was the 14th or 15th and there was some debate as to her exact birthday way back when).

Random!

The picture on the top right now randomly rotates through a couple different photos, as before.

Today's new feature is the "Random Post" link at the bottom and/or top of the page, depending on where you are in the blog.

Here's a code snippet.

Put this between <head> and </head> (this loads the post urls into an array):

<b:section class='random' id='random'>
<b:widget id='BlogArchive2' locked='false' title='Blog Archive' type='BlogArchive'>
<b:includable id='main'>
  <script type='text/javascript'>
    var randPostNames = new Array();
  </script>

  <b:include data='data' name='interval'/>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='interval' var='intervalData'>
  <b:loop values='data:intervalData' var='i'>
    <b:if cond='data:i.data'>
      <b:include data='i.data' name='interval'/>
    </b:if>
    <b:if cond='data:i.posts'>
      <script type='text/javascript'>
        <b:loop values='data:i.posts' var='j'>
          randPostNames.push('<data:j.url/>');
        </b:loop>
      </script>
    </b:if>
  </b:loop>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
</b:section>


Then put this code any where you want the link to a random post (this randomly samples from the array of posts and creates a link):

<script type='text/javascript'>
  /*<![CDATA[*/
  var randPostIdx = Math.floor(Math.random() * randPostNames.length);
  document.write("<a href='" + randPostNames[randPostIdx] + "'>Random Post</a>");
  /*]]>*/
</script>


The one thing about the random post is that it will link only to one of the latest 50 posts because of how blogger is doing the data tags in the hierarchical archives.

Secrets...

You can try and message me for the key.

Decrypt text using the "E" key

Reminder: Sarah owes me

Sarah, I taught you Google Reader and because of it, you won a $500 gift basket. You owe me.

Won a shirt!

GO WEST

Never look back!!! www.wtssc.com

I subbed in for a 4's beach volleyball team today. Played with Ron, Rob (the Toronto engineering version), and Ashley. They were short players as the regulars couldn't make it and Ivana is in the UK now.

When I was asked to play, I was told that it was "playoffs", which I assumed meant that we were like gonna play quarter or semi finals or something, but no, it was the entire playoffs. Quarter, semi, and finals! First game we won by default b/c the other team didn't show (it was cold and windy). Semi's we won pretty easily, ditto with the finals. I was pretty disappointed in the competition though, it wasn't much of a challenge. It was best of 3 to 15, but I don't think any team got more than 10 points in a game.

The beach was pretty bad. Like the worst conditions I've ever played. The beach was really narrow. The water was so close that balls would roll into the lake. The sand was rough and had lots of rocks. And I don't mean pebbles, I mean like rocks bigger than toonies. It was also cold and really windy. Plus, we were playing the finals pretty late and it was dark out, fortunately, the lights from the boardwalk were sufficient to light up the court but were kinda blinding. It made for an interesting game (where's the ball??? where's the ball???).

I love that I won a shirt while only coming for the playoffs and didn't have to pay the league fees :). Whatever, I was there when it really counted :)

We went to the nearby restaurant (right beside the boardwalk), for food and beer after the game. Called Ivana to tell her the news. Ashley only had a minute on her calling card, which wasn't quite long enough for her to cry, though it was close.

Got that deja vu feeling

For the report on this weekend, just look at last weekend, but replace "Eaton Centre" with "Yorkdale" and "9 hours" with "5 hours".

Quite windy on the beach today. I felt like a retard b/c I kept missing the ball. I'd like go to where the ball *should* go, but I'd be like 3 feet off :s. It was quite frustrating and I played like crap most of the day. Depressing really.

Made my world famous (everyone that has had it has loved it... all 1 of them) chicken noodle soup today. I tried to make my own noodles this time like I said I was going to, but I failed miserably. They were indeed noodle shaped, but tasted like shit. Just tasted like flour. I'm quite sure the problem was that I made them too thick. Next time I'll roll out the dough much thinner. Ya, so I just tried to cook them longer, which made it just bad. The outside was overcooked, while the inside was still undercooked. I conceded defeat and used fuseli instead.

Clear sign that school has started

You go to the grocery store and you find that key things are sold out or in very low quantities:

• 2L bottles of pop of all varieties


• Cereal


• Pasta and pasta sauce


• Taco stuff


• Anything remotely on sale


• Canned soup


• Laundry detergent

Also, there are people in the grocery store at midnight on a Saturday.

Always goodbye and never hello

Goodbye Google interns.

So long Winnipeg friends.

Have fun in South Korea Mimi.

Good luck with Master's in UK Ivana (her going away party was at the Madison tonight).

I'll visit you in Seattle Sarah (leaving in a few weeks).


*tear*

Ok, I can blog again

Now that I have pretty much finished with the redesign of my blog, fixed a bunch of bugs (archive, navigation, spying/stalking aids, line height of post paragraphs, trackers, and feeds), browser/platform compatibility issues (Windows IE and Firefox, OS X Firefox and Safari), and added features (navigation between newer and older posts, labels to past posts, and random pictures), I can now return to blogging.

Still need to re-examine the colour scheme of my blog, change the bullets, and do some minor formatting, but pretty much the layout is set and done.

There's still an issue with the comment feed and I believe that because of my submission of the bug to Blogger and posting on the Google Group, it is now a known bug:

Comment feeds are only showing the earliest 25 comments, and pagination (the start-index parameter) does not work.

Once that gets resolved, the new and improved comment feed will go live and the recent comments on the sidebar will work again.

Starting fresh

Before

After

In several respects, I'm starting fresh back here in Toronto. My blog now reflects this with a brand spanking new redesign, which has been a long time coming.

The layout and background images are generally what I'm going to stick with, but there will be some minor cosmetic changes in the next little while. I only realized when redesigning my blog that it looked like crap on IE, but you should be using Firefox anyways :p.

Some of the fancy things I added (hacked) to my blog are no longer working b/c of the update to Blogger, such as the peek-a-boo comments, recent comments, and the comment feed is messed up. The random picture feature will make its reappearance in a day or two. New features of interest are the labels and the new archive display, which shows counts for the number of posts per month :p. If I get around to it, I'll go back and label my old posts (all 366+ of them).

I'm open to any comments or suggestions you have about the redesign.

9 hours of beach :s

Hit up good 'ol Ashbridges today and played 9 hours of beach volleyball! INSANE.

Damn Yue told me that we were leaving at 8:30 am. I was like, that's hardcore, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice. I call him this morning just before 8:30 and he was like, no, I said 9:30. He totally did not say 9:30. It was ok though b/c it gave me time to make spaghetti and use the left over sauce for a hearty breakfast.

Got to the beach just after 10 am and left at 8 pm. Yes, that's 10 hours, but I didn't play volleyball the whole time. I had to take breaks :p

I was playing 2's all day, which was particularly tiring as you have to touch the ball at least once per possession and you have to run around more.

Our group had like 5, but our 5th came when one of our original 4 was tired and stopped, plus some of his friends were there playing on adjacent courts. They were a pretty big group and had 4 nets to add to our 1. In total, I counted about 30 courts. Not bad for a pretty cool and cloudy day.

It was actually an amazing day for volleyball. No wind. No (minimal) sun. Not hot. No mosquitoes (until dusk, but even then just a few). Damp sand from Saturday's rain meant no dust, not hot sand, and you could jump higher :). Soft sand.

I was pretty pooped for the last couple hours, but oddly enough, I was actually playing better. I played some coed 2's on like a women's height (it was saggy) and was ripping them :). I think that gave me the confidence to play better when we went back to the men's height. I wasn't actually that tired, but my legs were giving out. They were like semi-cramping. I think I needed more electrolytes.

It's funny when I meet people and they find out that I'm not from Toronto, because the next instinct is to guess that I'm from Vancouver (I was talking to other Chinese people). It was cool, I met a fellow prairie Chinese, this girl from Edmonton.

I'm so done right now. The rest of my evening will be sitting in front of my computer and then rolling into my bed. Ultimate practice is gonna be interesting tomorrow. Hopefully I can walk...

My day as a girl, or at least, a gay man

My day started off with the motivation of going shopping. And by shopping, I mean clothes shopping. For those of you who are even remotely familiar with my shopping habits, your jaws probably just hit the floor.

I have never, and by never, I really mean never, have voluntarily gone clothes shopping, and heaven forbid, by myself. How, you may ask, do I have so many clothes then (for those who have ever seen my closet, I have a lot of clothes). Well, reader, this is how it works. My sisters and my mom drag me to go shopping. I follow them through the shopping mall standing for hours in womens' clothing stores and occasionally sneaking off to Electronic Boutique, book stores, etc. When we are however, in a store with both a men's and women's section, I follow them around and when one of them are done, follow them around the men's section as they pile clothes on my arms for me to try on. Recently, I've been told to wander in the men's section while they go through the women's, but I'm just kinda wandering until I receive some help from my professional shoppers. My function there is just to be a mannequin. The alternative, which occurs periodically is when I just get clothes, particularly when my family goes on vacation without me, eg. HK & China, factory outlet malls when they visit me when I'm on internships, but I'm at work, etc. They know my size and taste, since the consensus vote between them is my defined taste anyways. In short, I don't go clothes shopping.

So, you may ask why I don't shop, even in instances when I'm there anyways. I have a theory, but I've shared enough embarrassing things in this post already. This recently invented theory is like my own universal theory of everything. It explains everything from my own personal social interactions, musical aspirations, language, shyness, pickyness with food, and reluctance to change in some instances, but not others. I think that I have pinned down the root of all of these, but it's something that I'll blog about some other time.

Anyways, back to shopping, or lack thereof. The problem now is that I'm in need of clothing. One of my favourite pairs of jeans has a massive hole (to which you can check if I'm wearing underwear or not) and another has been worn out quite a bit and I just don't really like the rest. And I'm getting bored of my t-shirts. And I need more athletic socks. And more underwear. And a new pair of shoes. And a new fall jacket. Ummm... when it rains, it pours.

So, the plan today was to go to the Eaton Centre. Yes, it's still called the Eaton Centre and not something like City Centre (like how Winnipeg renamed Eaton Place to City Place). It's a big ass mall.

First stop, get my hair cut. Went to L'Attitudes. A step above my recently usual $12 cut at Top Cuts, but less than my adventure at Toni & Guy. It's a good compromise. It's not the first time I got my hair cut at a place like that in a mall. The guy used the typical razor on the sides and back, but instead of using scissors on the stop and then using the hair thinning one, he used the hair thinning scissors the whole time on the top. It was interesting b/c it gave my hair a lot of layers. Girl point #1.

Next off, I went shopping for like 3 hours. Went to like every store. Surprisingly hard to find jeans in my size. Either the waist is too big (I wear 30 with a belt) or the length is too long (over 30 I start tripping). I found a nice pair at American Eagle that fit nicely. I wanted to get a second pair, but didn't find anything. I didn't find anything that fit and I liked in terms of t-shirts, but I found a really nice long sleeve shirt/sweater at Abercrombie & Fitch. Oh well, it's fall season any how. Also no success on the other clothes necessities. I'm considering going to Yorkdale tomorrow for more shopping. Girl point #2.

I stopped by Dominion's on the way home to get groceries (finally). Girl point #3.

Then I cooked dinner. Spaghettini Bolognese. Girl point #4.

Then I cleaned (the dishes and kitchen). Girl point #5.

Then I watched The Notebook. Girl point #6.

By myself. Girl point #7.

And liked it. Girl points #8 - 10.

I'm feeling philosophical

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original

-- Sir Ken Robinson

There's this conference, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), where people (such as Al Gore) give varying talks covering a wide array of areas. Many are fascinating and present some intriguing ideas. Some of the videos of the TED talks can now be found on Google video.

The quote above is from a talk about the importance of creativity in education. I'm kinda sad that I stopped doing art. I enjoyed it, I was decent at it, and it provided balance to my life. I've considered starting to sketch again, but haven't been able to get myself to do it.

I've also been thinking about something along these lines for a while now. The idea that people have the potential for many things, but never succeed at these because they don't put their full effort into it or stop entirely because of a fear of failure. I see how that applies to myself in several areas, esp. wrt language. I think it's also relevant to one of my previous posts about regret.

Another interesting talk I watched was one by the father of the life-coaching industry. I first heard about life-coaching when a life coach came to give a talk at U of T earlier this year. I thought both talks were fascinating. The story is basically that you need to decide what you're good at, decide what you want, how to satisfy your needs, and then how to do it. Not just professionally, but emotionally, physically, and spiritually. You need emotion. Passion.

My last little bit of recent philosophical trend has been with Aesop's Fables (link to Google book search, where you can now download books out of copyright for free! I printed it out 4 pages to a side, double-sided and it's only like 30-something pages)

Aesop wrote hundreds of fables, many of which you have undoubtedly heard in one form of another, with morals such as:

• Look before you leap


• Slow and steady wins the race


• Don't cry wolf

There are some really good quotes in these fables and are generally good words to live by:

• There are many silly people who despise what is precious only because they cannot understand it


• Skill and patience will succeed where force fails. Necessity is the mother of invention.


• Every truth has two sides; it is well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either


• Persuasion is better than force

I've done a lot of reflection this summer and I hope to continue that personal growth through this year.

You can call me Dr. Cheung

Snippet of an e-mail I got today:

Hello Dr.Cheung
  I am a graduate student of Virginia Tech.

*Blah, blah, blah. I'm asking you about something that isn't your research. I don't know how to read and I'm too incompetent to find the right source. Please help me*

I guess I'm done my PhD now that I'm a doctor. I guess my application for an honorary doctorate went through.

I get off the toilet when my laptop runs out of battery

See title.