Right on Schedule

Happens every year. April 24th between 2:07pm and 2:12pm, the sun reflects off the ROM right through my window and into my eyes as I sit at my computer.

It's remarkable how accurate it all is. The accuracy of our calendar and clocks are remarkable and how steady the rotation of the Earth and its revolutions around the sun are pretty amazing when you think of it. Few things of what we understand as humans are this consistent.

Dangerously close to summer

9-man volleyball practices started today. Afterwards, I went for lunch in Chinatown and walked around buying fruit off the street, Chinese buns, and bubble tea, all the while with the sun brimming in the sky. If only it wasn't so windy, making it a little chilly, it would've been so close to summer...

Random observations

Actual flight path and door-to-door transportation as recorded by my GPS device
(This is just a screenshot b/c Google Maps couldn't handle that big of a file)

• The taxi driver was giving me career advice. He thought that I should learn Mandarin.


• Cabbie was talking to me in Cantonese. I hadn't heard that much Chinese for a long time.


• It's still harrowing walking through the airport metal detector carrying a cat without a leash or anything.


• Tiki didn't move or make a sound the entire flight. I don't think the woman on the aisle seat knew she was even there.


• During the initial announcement, the flight attendant tried to make a reference to the commercial where the guy thinks he's on a flight to Hawaii, but is actually on a flight to Winnipeg and goes "...going to Winnipeg..." No one laughed.


• When asked who was from Winnipeg, the entire flight went in an uproar. No one goes to Winnipeg at this time of the year unless they are from there.


• The games on the Zune are actually pretty fun.


• Upon arrival, the flight attendant neglected to notify us of the local time (one hour behind)


• When it was announced that the current temperature in Winnipeg was -27, it wasn't a big deal or Earth shattering news.


• While waiting for my luggage, I saw a woman drinking a slurpee. This is why Winnipeg is the slurpee capital of the world.


• I miss the feeling of the cold fresh air in your lungs.


• When driving here, if it's not a big road, you actually drive on top of snow since the roads aren't cleared right to the asphalt and salt doesn't work b/c it's too cold.


• There are 3 cats within arm's reach of me right now as I am sitting on my bed.


• Mi-Mi has reclaimed her spot on my bed and refuses to budge. Tiki is confused. Tiggy is indifferent.


• The fish is big now.


• The dog is big now.

Congratulations President (Elect) Obama!

After months and months of campaigning, it's finally over! And the US didn't screw things up this time around! I know the polls pretty much had called the election for Obama, but I was still a bit worried that something was gonna go wrong. I was impressed by the polling; they were pretty accurate. I was following FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics quite closely and while each individual poll is not that reliable, they are pretty reliable if you average them all together and weight them appropriately (as 538 did).

Anyways, nothing I can say would be anything more than what has already been said by all the pundits and newscasters. Well, except for the fact that even here in Toronto, people are very interested in the election. After volleyball, I went to the Wheat Sheaf for wings and beer, a pub that seems to have a bit of a sports inclination. Even there, the tv's (maybe 6 - 8 of them) were on CNN for the election coverage and when John McCain was giving his concession speech, the place went quiet.

Congratulations President David Palmer.... err... I mean President Barack Obama ;)

Got out of jury duty!

I got summoned to jury duty, but I got out of it :)

I wrote them a letter saying that I was a student and couldn't afford to take time off, etc. The amazing thing was that less than 24 hours after I put the letter in the mail, they called me to confirm that they got my letter and that I was off the hook! I was amazed! Not that I got out of jury duty, but that the mail got to them so fast! I always figured that the postal system was super slow and took at least a few days, even if it's in the same city, since I imagine that it has to go into some huge sorting facility, etc., etc. I was only sending it a few blocks away, but I still didn't expect it to get to them that fast, especially not by the next morning.

Anyways, it's a relief. It really doesn't make sense for students to have to do jury duty because it can really screw with you if you miss classes, especially if the hearing lasts a long time, you could even miss a whole semester and have to retake the entire year. For me, while I don't have any classes or anything, if I'm gone, there's no one that will do my research for me, so it'd have to be totally put on hold and research is highly time sensitive in that it's easy to get scooped. Students are in school to learn, no point taking that away from them.

The little pamphlet that comes with the summons to jury says that "If this is a particularly difficult time for you to attend, because of your employment, business, schooling, or personal circumstances, you can, by a request in writing, ask to have your jury duty postponed to a later date." I know several people that have gotten out of jury duty. Seems like only the unemployed, severely bored, or people not smart enough to get out of jury duty actually do jury duty, which makes me question the quality of the jurors. I hope I never have to rely on a jury...

Lord of the Ants

I now command ants in addition to wasps

My apartment in Seattle 3 years ago

Long time readers will remember my post from almost exactly 3 years ago about wasps coming into my apartment to die. I now have control over ants. For one reason or another, insects are attracted to me in the last moments of their lives. I must be some sort of insect religious figure that they believe they must visit when they die in order to transcend from this life into the next. Maybe these ants are actually the wasps from before, but in their next life...

Nuit Blanche 3

Last week, I went to the 3rd Annual Nuit Blanche in Toronto. It's "a free all-night contemporary art thing". Basically, they have artists put up their contemporary art throughout downtown Toronto, often converting public spaces into art exhibits. Some are cool, some are weird, some are dumb. It goes from sunset on Saturday to sunrise on Sunday.

I went to all 3 zones this year and did a lot of walking. I took my GPS along with me to record exactly where I went and so that I could geotag my photos (automagically putting the longitude and latitude into the photos so that I could put them on a map so you can see where I took each of the photos):

View Larger Map

There were my favourite ones (in order that I saw them):

A dozen mascots dancing in a field to music. It was remarkably amusing

Shipping containers that would shine light spelling SOS in morse code

Dropping and smashing stuff! You can't see it b/c of the motion blur, but there's a monitor and computer being dropped in this photo.

I don't think this was an official installation, but it was cool. Some guy in the back of a truck dressed in a chicken outfit sitting with chickens.

My favourite one. A waterfall coming out of a 3rd story window.

Video games using lights in Toronto City Hall. It's Pong on the left and Asteroids on the right. You control it by calling in to the photo numbers supplied.

More photos

GPS + Photos = Awesome

I got my GPS logger today and I took it out on the water with me when I went kayaking on Lake Ontario.

Basically the GPS logger is a small GPS device with no screen and you can connect it to your phone through bluetooth to figure out where you are. That's the basic "GPS" part. The "logger" part records where you've been and you can then download the tracks onto your computer later and do some cool stuff with it.

I got the QStarz BT-Q100Platinum. It works like a charm, is small, and the battery apparently lasts up to 32 hours. I'm not able to get a signal in my apartment, but once I got onto the street, it worked pretty well, although it made some errors with the tall buildings in the way, but out on the water, it was pretty accurate.

My attempt at hand modeling. If it looks bad, it's b/c the photo is not rotated correctly and I'm too lazy to fix this after having already uploaded the photo

Here's the path that I recorded (I rollerbladed to the place, kayaked to Centre Island and back, then rollerbladed home). The path isn't 100% accurate and some of the tracking is off. My rollerblading is not as erratic as the GPS device made it out to be (I was going straight on the road, but it thought that I had veered off the road a couple times and it also thought I was somewhere west of my apartment when I was in the elevator). It seems to be pretty accurate on the open water, but got confused in the city with the tall buildings blocking the satellites.


View Larger Map

That's pretty cool. It gets even cooler when you synchronize your photos to the path to get the exact longitude and latitude where you took each photo (since GPS inherently has timestamps for each data point). Click on the camera to see the photos that I took in that spot. This is all automatic!


View Larger Map

The long/lat info is stored right in the image file and when you upload to Picasa Web Albums, all the location information is automatically shown there as well (check out the map view on the right hand side).

View Album

Get your own

I am definitely going to be doing this on my trips from now on!

GReunion 5.0

Me and Adam! Just like back in the day, I got Adam sunburnt :p

We walked EVERYWHERE! 17km...

I haven't seen Adam since Google almost 2 years ago. He was in town for a bit, which obviously called for a GReunion! We spent the day together with his friend, Beth, who broke the sexual tension between the two of us. It was really good seeing Adam again and we did a lot of reminiscing of the memorable summer of 2006. We walked EVERYWHERE (17km) and saw a good chunk of Toronto (numbers do not correspond to the numbers on the map, which are kilometre markers):

1. Brunch at Over Easy


2. U of T Campus


3. Maple Leaf Gardens


4. Eaton Centre / Toronto Life Square


5. Nathan Phillips Square


6. Fort York


7. Plane / swan / duck watching at the lake front


8. Steam Whistle Brewery (free beer!)


9. Harbourfront Centre (aka Harperfront Centre)


10. Hot dog on Queen Street


11. Drinks and dinner at Montana's (movie ticket included!)


12. Scotiabank Theatre (formerly Famous Players Paramount) for Forgetting Sarah Marshall


13. Chinatown


14. Playing with my pussy and Wii

My prize of the day was swiping this glass from the Steam Whistle Brewery

Couple or just friends?...

Living without a car

Living in downtown Toronto, I've managed to get by without a car. This is a far cry from suburban living in Winnipeg where I started driving at 15 and a half, got my full license (none of this graduated licensing crap) at 16 and one day (my 16th birthday was a Sunday), and I drove everywhere. I could have a car here, but it doesn't make sense practically, financially, or environmentally. I get by mostly by rollerblades, subway/streetcar/bus, and bumming rides off of other people (when going places outside of downtown). I'm actually quite adept at the latter. I got rides from 4 different people today :). I've also been able to get rides from people I only met mere hours before. I guess I have a non-intimidating appearance along with a look of desperation.


Why it's better not to have a car in downtown Toronto:

• Cheaper (no car, no insurance, no gas, no parking, no repairs, no maintenance, no car washes, no having to pay a locksmith to jimmy your car because you locked your keys in the truck). I keep my license though.
  • Money saved now means more money in the future because of the time value of money


• Less stress. Traffic aggravates me and having to find parking aggravates me even more.


• Reduced carbon and environmental footprint


• No need to worry about drinking


• You get to know people when they drive you around (outside of downtown)


• You get more exercise when you have to engage in human powered commuting


• Faster to rollerblade downtown since traffic, one way streets, and turning restrictions are irrelevant and you don't have to find parking or walk to your car

Why rollerblading is superior to biking:

• Cooler


• Funner (sic)


• No need to follow the street rules: do as a pedestrian would do, use the sidewalk or the street or both, no laws about wearing a helmet.


• Smaller profile so its easier to weave in between pedestrian and vehicle traffic


• Going over curbs is less jarring (just step onto the curb)


• Comparable speed when you take into consideration the time it takes to lock/unlock the bike (especially if you don't take off your rollerblades indoors)


• Cheaper and less maintenance


• Pant legs don't get caught in the chain


• Rollerblading inside of stores and buildings is like gliding on air


• You can carry more stuff (like 5 grocery bags in each hand)


• No need to worry about having your rollerblades being stolen (wear them inside, carry them with you, or even sneak them into a club and check them at coat check)


• I'm 5'10 with rollerblades


• Easier to blend in with pedestrian traffic (either on rollerblades or carrying them)


• One way trips are possible, where you rollerblade to the destination and bum a ride back home (subway/streetcar/taxi is also possible)

Tips for bumming a ride and being a professional hitchiker like myself (I can easily count 20 different people that I've gotten a ride from this year):

• Make nice with people that have cars, especially those that live near you or drive by your area


• Reduce the inconvenience imposed upon the driver (they should be going your way and if the ride is not for the immediate circumstance, you should be punctual at the pick-up location)


• Have no shame in asking for a ride (it's a common occurrence for me to ask everyone in the group if anyone is going downtown as we are about to leave to go home)


• Looking a bit hopeless or desperate helps


• Play hard to get by being a bit reluctant if it would overly inconvenience them (you need repeat drivers :p)


• Be good company in the car


• Show gratitude


• Don't think about how you're gonna get back, just get to where you need to go and figure out the next ride later (backup plans always include subway/streetcars/night buses/taxis

In all fairness, when I am driving, I do my fair share of giving other people rides, even if it is out of my way.

Still the same after 11 years

Around this time way back in Grade 10, the usual suspects (John, Kives, Kevin, Matt, and Tim) would come over to my house after school every day and we'd play Mario Kart 64. Our favourite was Battle Mode. There were only 4 or 5 different tracks for Battle Mode, but we'd play them over and over. It wasn't boring though because the more we played, the better we got and the more sophisticated our strategies. For me, video games has always been a social activity. Video games was however, far from our only source of socializing. We were a well rounded bunch. We did well in school and played video games, but we also played all kinds of sports together and spent countless hours playing cops and robbers on bikes (even with girls!) throughout the neighbourhood.

Fast forward 11 years and things are eerily similar. I just got Mario Kart Wii last week and I had some people over to play and then we went to go play basketball. Even stranger is that the new Mario Kart has a lot of tracks from the older games in the Mario Kart series, so that just really brings back the memories. Sometimes it's just great being a kid again.

Random sustenance shopping blurbs

44lbs of cat litter that I carried while rollerblading

My brand new shopping cart that I can use instead of being a mule on wheels

Lugging a 44lbs (4 pounds was free!) bag of cat litter while rollerblading is pretty tiring. The people at the pet store looked at me funny as I rolled away carrying the stupidly large bag. The funny thing is that now I know what it feels like to carry 44lbs of stuff while rollerblading and I've definitely carried a lot more than that before.

Side note: I use organic, non-clay based, clumping, flushable cat litter now.

I typically procrastinate grocery shopping and will go only when I have to. This means every 2-3 weeks and I'll spend $100 - $150... and carry it all by hand by myself! I go prepared. I bring a large duffle bag and a backpack! I tell you, that's way heavier than 44lbs. 44lbs is a walk in the park compared to carrying groceries. When I go grocery shopping, the first thing that I think about when I see a product is not the price or it's healthiness, but rather, it's weight and size.

But no more! I finally bought one of those shopping carts from Chinatown! You know, the ones that the old women push, but I got the large, manly size. I've been thinking of getting one for a while, but just have been too lazy to do so. I tell you, it's amazing! Of course, the first thing I do is buy a 18lbs bag of rice and a bunch of groceries from Chinatown. Now, I can go grocery shopping without thinking about whether I can carry it back or not :). People look at you funny when you are rollerblading and pushing a shopping cart though. I had one guy in my apartment building audibly laughing.

In my shopping in Chinatown, I made some interesting observations:

• If you're shopping for a shopping cart, they speak to you in English


• If you randomly stop at a fruit stand and quietly pick mangoes, they speak to you in English to tell you to pay inside


• In the Chinatown TD Canada Trust, despite all their Chinese signs, Chinese tellers, and Chinese customers, they speak to you in English by default. I think the only non-Asian in that building was the security guard.


• If you buy esoteric dried food products, such as 茶魚 (tea fish), from a small shop where they only have signs in Chinese, they speak to you in Cantonese


• If you ask for Chinese vegetables (菜心) from the guy that grabs them and puts them in a bag, they speak to you in Cantonese


• If you're reaching to the top of the shelves for a whole box of instant noodles, and there are 2 boxes above the one that you can reach, they ask you in Cantonese if they can help


• If you're staring at the multitude of options for rice for 5 minutes, they speak to you in some language I don't understand (Mandarin?), and you reply in English

Earth Hour

Makeshift candle using the lid of a jar and about a dozen birthday candles

Makeshift candle engulfed in flame

Downtown Toronto on Feb. 20, 2008 during the lunar eclipse

Downtown Toronto during Earth Hour

A disappointing showing by Robarts and Grad House during Earth Hour

I think the whole Earth Hour idea (where you turn off your lights and appliances at 8pm for an hour on March 29, 2008) was a bit of a gimmicky, silly idea. Sure, electricity demand dropped by 8% for a brief period during that one hour, but that doesn't make any difference. Congratulations Toronto on reducing your power consumption by 0.0009% for the entire year by turning off some lights for an hour on one day!

As for raising awareness, people that were environmentally conscious before Earth Hour, will continue to do the small things to reduce consumption, while people that weren't, won't change their habits. My roommate continues to leave unnecessary lights on despite sitting in the dark for an hour on Saturday.

I did however, participate, because, why the hell not. Blackouts are fun! I was rather disappointed by the participation levels as there were still many lights on outside. The big thing, comparing my pics of the Toronto skyline from the lunar eclipse and Earth Hour, was that the big office towers turned off their signs and they had fewer lights on. Other than that, there wasn't much difference. In fact, it's quite a bit darker out right now (2:30am) than it was during Earth Hour, though the Bank logos are disrupting the darkness.

Here's what I did during Earth Hour:

• Used my Forever Flashlight.


• Realized that I didn't have any candles.


• Created a makeshift candle using a lid of a pasta sauce jar and about a dozen birthday candles.


• Thought about what to do if my table caught on fire from my makeshift candle that erupted into a massive flame.


• Put away my laundry.


• Put away my Christmas tree.


• Gave up on the idea of stargazing b/c the sky wasn't fully dark and there were so many lights on.


• Stood on my balcony and took photos.


• Turned on the kitchen fan after I turned on the lights because my apartment was really smokey.

Commonly overheard

Conversation commonly overheard while in line for a club:

Bouncer: Manitoba!?!? Haven't seen one of these

• for a while
• tonight
• before

Me: Ya...

CN Tower Climb

It's been 11 days and I've had over a hundred hits to
my donation page after just having it as my status message for GTalk/MSN Messenger. I always wondered how many people actually click links in peoples' status messages. Surprisingly, I've managed to raise $100 so far without actively pursuing the issue. Now, I'm taking it one step shy of mass emailing and seeing how much I can squeeze of out blogging about it. This also has a reverberation effect because this post will also be automatically imported into Facebook.

Anyways, on Saturday, April 19, 2008, I will be doing the CN Tower Climb, where I'll be walking/running up all 1,776 steps (a total of 144 flights) from the bottom to the top of the CN Tower to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund to help protect our oceans and coasts, our freshwater and forests, and wildlife everywhere.

Please sponsor me

(The page is slow, so please be patient while it loads)

Oh David Phillips...

I love this quote from my weather hero, Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips:

"My sense is that, in many ways, people are seeing this as our badge of weather courage. They want to say we got through it ourselves without calling in the army."

The reported total of weather-related car accidents from this one snowstorm stands at 1,700.

Bad drivers

Quotes from OPP Const. Dave Woodford, as reported in The Toronto Star:

"There have been 600 collisions on GTA highways since the storm began yesterday, including more than 200 since 6 a.m. today."

"Unacceptable. People just have to learn how to drive."

6 more to go

It's been over 2 years since my last blood donation. There was a clinic at MedSci, so I went today. All the registration and screening people were all impressed that I had a blood donation card (Canadian Blood Services sent me the card after my second donation).

Nothing special to report. It was boring donating at MedSci. The ceiling wasn't very interesting. I usually donate when they have clinics in the engineering building and you can see up the crappy atrium thing and see people walking around on the 2nd floor.

To pass the 15 min. while the blood was being pumped out of me, I was just looking around. Small little asian girl that had to stay an inordinate amount of time in the chair because she was looking pale after donating. On the other side of ther room, there's a first time female donor with her 2 friends supporting her. Lone guy donating for the first time takes the little asian's place. Random students walking around inside and outside. Boy do they look young. I haven't spent an extended period of time in non-graduate areas on campus for a while. Nurses walking around, periodically asking if you're doing ok. Volunteers walking around. Donators sitting and drinking juice and eating cookies afterwards. I'm still squeezing the paper towel ball in my hand. Trying to see the pump and my blood bag, but I can't. Ceiling's still pretty boring.

This was my 4th time and I have to donate 6 more times to get the next pin...

At my pace that's going to take a while. I'd do it more frequently, but whenever I see the clinic on campus, I come up with excuses like that I have a volleyball game that night and you're not supposed to exert yourself after donating. I'm also too lazy to find out where the local CBS building is and to book an appointment there instead of just going to clinics on campus.

Not so fresh bread

So, I bought some bread online at Freshbread.ca.

I specifically woke up early this morning in anticipation of my fresh bread delivery, but there was nothing outside my door at 7. Nothing at 8. Nothing at 9. I got an email saying that my order was waiting for me downstairs and shortly after I got a phone call from the super that he had bread for me (he was kinda chuckling at it). Apparently, they just left it at the front doors of the building and not with the super or in front of my apartment door, as they advertised that they would (like how I used to get the newspaper right on my doorstep). That's pretty dumb to just leave it out in the open in the lobby.

The bag was a lot bigger than I expected. I got a baguette, a loaf of bread, 2 chocolate croissants, and 4 bagels (which turned out to be 6). Total including delivery was ~$15 (delivery was $1.50, but the items themselves were a little pricey).

Once I got back to my apartment, I eagerly ripped a piece of the baguette off and bit into it. Wow, that was disappointing. It wasn't stale, but it wasn't particularly fresh either and it tasted just like the baguettes you get at regular grocery stores. The croissant was pretty tasty, but I wouldn't say it was baked fresh this morning. The loaf wasn't anything special either. I haven't tried the bagels yet.

I'm not sure if it's b/c I ordered it Friday afternoon after the cutoff time for a Saturday delivery and they made it Saturday and just let it sit around until today to deliver (since they didn't deliver on Sunday), but it sure tasted like it. I was expecting fresh bread, just hours from the oven, as advertised.

I gave it a shot and was hoping for some mind blowing bread orgasmic experience, but ended up with just overpriced typical grocery store products dropped off at the front doors to my building left unattended.

I have to make a trip to Cobs Bread around the corner early in the morning some time and try that out. I'm also gonna try and make my own bread some time.

Are you prepared? I'm not.

Do you have what you need in case of an emergency?
Avez-vous ce dont vous avez besoin en cas d'urgence?

Is your family prepared?
Votre famille est-elle prete?

I heard on an ad on the radio this morning for getprepared.ca and I would totally be screwed in an emergency. 72 hours of food? I don't think so. I wait until the food level in my fridge and cupboards gets really low until I get groceries, then I'll make a big run to Loblaws or Dominion's (or T&T if I have a car) with a backpack and a duffel bag and carry $150 of groceries by myself :p. Summer is easier since rollerblading home from Dominion's is easier and faster than walking while holding a bunch of grocery bags in each hand.

Right now, I don't have nearly enough canned and dry food and I never have bottled water on hand. At least Tiki would be fine. On the other hand, I would be surviving on vitasoy and granola bars...

List of dangers here in Ontario that I'm supposed to be prepared to be self-reliant for at least 3 days immediate after or during:

• Blizzard


• Earthquake


• Flood


• Hazardous material spill


• Industrial accident


• Infectious disease outbreak


• Power failure


• Severe Weather (heat/cold)


• Terrorism


• Tornado


• Transportation accident


• Wildfire

At least they don't have "monster attack" like in SimCity.