Better Than Your Average Default Manufactured Model Life

This entry seems to be long awaited, although it's only been 2 days. It seems that I am the only contrarian here. I have indeed attracted a plethora of responses saying how wrong I am. Fortunately for all of you, I am going to stand up against your combined intellectual might in movie selection and taste.

The claim that he is relatable simply because he used to have a meaningless life but somehow reformed into a redeeming superhero is somewhat shallow. I find several problem with it. First, the transformation is not convincing. The few lines of dialogue between him and the poor bloke who helped him escape was not entirely indicative the shift in character that he must have to undergo in order to facilitate this life-changing decision. As far as I can see all that he got from the POW camp was a few beatings, and they couldn't even do too much to him because they had to be careful not to disconnect his heart. I mean, his torturers didn't even bother making him the cockmeat sandwich. Now that would make any man rethink his life. Secondly, just because some shallow asshole thinks he's reformed does not make him less of a douche. If Paris Hilton says that she were to change her clothing to biodegradable materials from second hand stores, would that make you like her? One prime example, is how Avril Levigne is no longer a wannabe punk-ass rebel, but still nobody likes her. At the end of the movie when he just goes out to tell everyone he's ironman shows little regards he has towards the people around him, namely pepper. This "reformed" Ironhead left his assistant alone and completely forgets about her, and yet expects her to do him later. I understand people want to think that he has grown that respect-for-fellow-human-being sense through the fighting and the imprisonment, but he just fails. To say he is not lucky is like saying the war in Iraq is not about oil, just too obvious to work. I have to disagree with the being the lonely guy on top thing. You see, Superman as nerdy news guy, relatable, Spiderman is a nerdy loser, that's relatable as well, the hulk has anger issues and unhappy childhood, that's relatable, batman got scarred in the bat cave and has his parents shot dead in front of him, less relatable but still reasonable. V's experience is less common, but the movie spent quite some time exploring his past, in fact the entire movie is about his past, so that one can go too. Now Ironman, just because he inherited a bunch of money doesn't mean that he has to be a brat with an empty life. I mean, how is that different from Paris Hilton, Kelly Osborne, George W Bush, or Ashley Simpson? Just because it does happen doesn't mean we can relate to it. The hulk is so much more than just a regular superhero movie, I don't see how you can compare it to Ironman. I enjoyed the hulk very much as well, I agree with Eugene on that movie completely.

On a side note, I have to say that the romance scenes in this movie are not awkward, which is very rare in superhero movies. Pepper is a good character, I was worried the actress might mess it up, but she didn't. I was actually hoping for some Sky Captain-esq comments from her, but that's missing, which is alright, it works in this film.

You see, when you are a manufacturing giant employing hundreds of thousands of people, you cannot just change your operations overnight. If you could then tomorrow you might expect General Motors to stop making cars and start making organic vegetables. It just doesn't work. In order to start a new production line, new products needs to be developed, tested, redeveloped, and tested again, and then the tools for production has to be made, factories built, people trained, before the very first unit can be delivered to the distribution chain, which would be entirely uncertain compared to the solid government contracts they're used to having. While it might work, it is certain to entail hundreds of millions of lost production hours and opportunity costs and investments which may or may not be paid back. So who is going to compensate for all the workers who wont get paid? Who is going to pay for the Medicare of the factory janitor when entire plants shut down? I am inclined to think that it will not be Ironhead. Now, if you were a reckless Ironhead, this might sound entirely reasonable, but if you're somebody with common sense and a fortune to wager on, then, perhaps, the reasonable thing to do is to remove the Ironhead and continue on your merry way to make money. This way everybody gets healthcare, everybody gets paid, no one is laid off, and things goes along their happy axis. I agree with you that it is his company and his to do as he pleases, but if he just follows his whims without regards to corporate citizenship, pretty soon he start sounding like the Walmart regional manager who move the stores a few blocks away so he can get lower taxes and encourage his employee to go on welfare so he doesn't have to pay so much. I also believe that the capable and the competent should be rewarded financially, however, their rewards should be based on merit, as in how much the society benefit from their excellence, rather than how many government contracts they can squeeze out of taxpayer's money. While our world is clearly moving in the direction favoring the biggest brain, the biggest gun, and the biggest slavetraders and the worst backstabbers, I happen to believe that a human society cannot survive without compassion and considerations for your fellow human beings. This is why we like superheroes so much, is it not? On to the villain. I do agree he is a good villain, but not a great villain. I do enjoy seeing the relationship between him and Tony slowly shift from friends to adversaries, it is one of the best developed human sequences in the movie, in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with his motivations, methods, or acting. It's perfectly understandable that he wanted to take control of the company away from somebody who is unpredictable, and frankly, an embarrassment to the company.

I wasn't saying that The point that I'm trying to make about the corporations is not that they are evil, which they are, it is the media depiction of the corporate elite being larger than life. When somebody who is portrayed as glamorous and fabulous without actually deserving it, it comes down to they are better people because they have more money in their shoes than you in your entire lifetime. What's worse is that the defense industry constantly gets government handouts. So you are pretty much paying for their extravagance. Now this movie, predictably, will side with them rather than the lowly and downtrodden, but guess which group you belong in? Now, what media outlet chooses to sidestep most of the real issues facing the middle east, and instead focus on the rich and fabulous people? You're right, all of them! This is art imitating life. You are all getting Paris Hiltoned, and you 're supporting it like a bunch of Paris Hilton supporters. Seen in this light, I am talking about the message rather than the messenger, the burgerking plug is just a symptom of the overriding philosophy.

This movie shows fighting in Afghanistan, shows people dying in Afghanistan, but it doesn't say anything ABOUT the war in Afghanistan. This is intellectual cowardice, a missed opportunity for this film to be more than what it is because they are so afraid of being Dixie-chicked, if they were trying at all. You may say that they're staying with the comic, but if you're going to use Afghanistan as backdrop for an American superhero while not acknowledging any real issues, then I see a problem with credibility and they might as well use Russia.

I think technology in this movie is cool, and does not have to be entirely realistic. All superhero movies has to have something extraordinary, otherwise it loses its character and becomes just another vigilante story. Batman is the one with the most realistic technologies, but they obviously made stuff up as they went along.

I do not seek to bash technology, I think technology is wonderful. I must say though, that I'm no techno-optimist. You see all the technologies that were once believed to make people's lives exponentially better have and continue to be consistently disappointing. 6 years ago, a very brilliant man, who correctly predicted the arrival of the multiple CPU PC, told me that computers are not smart enough to be stupid. I do not believe the human mind has the capability to create something so complex, nor do I think anybody would go create something like that. The reason is simple, once the emergent system gets complex enough you can no longer test each and every single probability enough to predict what it would do. Imagine if your Wii only operates 60% of the time according to how it feels about the weather, would you still buy it? I am very much prejudiced, and so is everyone else, but that is an entire discussion altogether. I draw the line at robots where tolerance is concerned. Technology is created by humans to shape and better human lives. If the utility value for humans is not there, then the flashy gadgets are useless and won't be created because nobody will invest in creating them. I do not agree that computers can go on becoming infinitely smarter, faster, stronger, and sexier. You see, computers, like everything else, is subjected to the law of diminishing returns. Microsoft spent more than 10 billion dollars on windows vista, it only spent a fraction of that on xp, and a fraction of that on 2000, and a fraction of that on 98. Sooner or later the added utility of a new operating system will no longer be worth the money that will go into it. Same thing with hardware, we've come to the point where the cost of each improvement is getting more and more expensive, and sooner or later it'll become prohibitively high. In an ideal world, maybe the master computer with unlimited system resources that runs on infinite speed will be invented one day, but not on the 3-dimensional spherical planet we live in. I hate to burst your bubble, but with less and less energy and less resources to be mined, the capital needed for investment to improve technology will shrink and disappear.

Perhaps, you are right, that mobile dolls, ahem, unmanned jet planes are better than a manned flight. The shift towards soldier-less fighting is already underway. However, at what point do we stop? When war is dehumanized, both victory and defeat becomes deplorable, and God no longer lends a helping hand. Should people be killed according to some software guy's algorithm?

P.S. Enjoyed that bit about aqua very much. You can be the barbie girl in the barbie world. I think I'll pass.

Alright, I know by writing this I am going to incite a plethora of responses saying how wrong I am, but I will do it nonetheless, the word must go out.

I’ve come to review this movie that just came out. Iron Man is the title.

While I find this movie enjoyable with a lot of funny and cool bits and pieces embedded, I cannot bring myself to give this movie more than a 7. Now, I understand that my tastes may be unique, and to date I have not found anybody who is really compatible with me on facebook moviewise, but I still find discrepancies too great for me to ignore. After all, I wholeheartedly believe that “Ironman may be better than Spiderman” is too erroneous a claim.

First, let’s talk about the villain. He is a good villain. He drives a Segway, he has good motivations for mutiny. He thinks that it’s dumb to leave a large company in the hands of someone who thinks of his robots as family. To a large degree, I’d agree. If you go around making public statements that makes your company lose 40% of its value, pretty soon you put a few hundred thousand people out of work and then Lockheed Martin gets those government contracts anyways, but then our good rich hero doesn’t have to think about the welfare of his employees, does he? He got so comfortable paying himself an extraordinary amount of taxpayer’s money from the government that he could afford to pay for his lab and cars and toys and whatnot. I get it that people tend to identify with winners rather than losers, but he represents the kind of dynastic organizations who takes YOUR taxes so that they can pay for their ridiculous living comforts and girlfriends. Yet I digress, this is about the villain. He is very dynamic, for some old guy to be courageous enough to go up against the Ironman, you gotta give props to that. I think they made a bad mistake by killing him, especially since he looks like Ben Bernanke.

Secondly, I find that this movie has a huge corporatist bent on it. From the military-industrial complex to Burger King, from the depiction of death of grunt soldiers whose only sin is being stupid, to the outright lies in the official stories, nowhere do they stop glorifying what is wrong with the great country of America. The majority of the film is done in the Middle East, yet the entire movie is about nothing but America. Anyone from another country is villains, victims, or people who must die so our hero can escape. Shut up and just enjoy the movie, some might say, and well, I think they are the ones being brainwashed automatons.

Last but not least, there are issues I find with Ironman the character itself. You see, to be a great superhero, one not only must have all the great qualities of superheroes, but also a tragic flaw in character. That way they seem more rounded, dynamic, 3-dimensional, and easier to relate to. Superman has to struggle with his dual identity as a normal human being and being an alien with superhuman powers. The entirety of batman is about his own personal inner conflict, I don’t think I need to go in more depth here. Wolverine is about not being able to know where he comes from and where he has to go. The hulk has to struggle with self-control. Spiderman is all about the great conflict between a selfish college student and the responsibility that comes with great power. Now Ironman, he is just all around lucky, good, funny, and nothing bad ever happens to him. Everything he does is good and nothing can stop him. In this way, he is fun to watch because it is satisfying to have the main character be all those things. However, without the aforementioned conflict within the superhero one cannot relate to him precisely because the flaws are the qualities that make us human. Ironman lacks in character depth, to put it simply.

This is not to say I completely hate the movie. There are good enjoyable things. For one its catchy tunes may make people go into the genre more often, so we may not always be stuck with the number five track on the Aqua CD. The graphics are pretty amazing, and the gizmos and funny bits are very nice. The final bit about the avenger initiative sets the stage for something good to come. This is a solid B movie; it just could have been so much more if it had more depth to become epic.

That has been my full review of this movie. If you can see what I see, then I love you too; if you can’t handle it, well then you can go sing along to the radio and enjoy that burger you are eating, while wallowing in the plethora of problems you think you might be having.

Just recently, I was engaged in a brief conversation with a good friend of mine who has been awarded a substantial number of respect points in the past. I find it a bit troubling since this is a friend who is really intelligent, highly educated, the sort of person whom you'd expect to have a high moral standard. Here she argues that some people, by virtues of their circumstances, or choice, enters into walks of life that are counter-productive or detrimental to the functioning of a desirable society, do not deserve public resource that are put forwards to ensure that all members within this society receives a basic level of protection and rights. The more specific case here, is the right to health. To paraphrase my friend, I think she argues that because the functional value of these undesirables(eg. bums, drug dealers) are too low, they are not worth the public investments that we as a society can bestow upon other, more potentially rewarding ventures(i.e. children.)

I hereby offer my rebuttal. Although I am certain that all my arguments will have been put forth before by some more prominent and articulate members of academia and the press, I opt to do this as an intellectual exercise.

1. The first of my argument is a technical one. Since the process of assigning values to individuals is necessarily fuzzy and arbitrary, one cannot reasonably say with certainty, that helping one person is superior to helping the next. This is due to the fact that life is uncertain, and you cannot conclusively prove that a child is not going to grow up into a child molester, or that a drug dealer is not going to stop dealing and become an international pop sensation. Even if you can show that one is statistically superior than the next, you still cannot convince me that we should write off the entirety of the potential of individuals who some may view as unproductive



2. The second of my argument is more of a fundamental one. If one were to determine the resource one receive solely on the merits of his worth to society alone, we should reasonably expect to legalize euthanasia, stop giving food to all life prisoners, celebrate our honored yet crippled war heroes with a bullet to the head, and kill off any baby that does not have a reasonable chance of reaching adulthood.



3. Even if you do agree that we have to kill off all useless individuals, you still run into the problem of who gets to decide who deserves to live more and who doesn't. If you give authority over life over to individuals or the states, the repercussions will be onerous. Perhaps, the majority of people will decide that people with cystic fibrosis is not worth saving, or worse, people of your ethnicity are not worth saving either. Once the precedence is set, you embark on a slippery slope where people's lives depend on the morality of the majority, and that brought us the Bush Administration.



4. I believe, that drugs and health care are two separate issues, where as drugs is a symptom of societal ills, health care is a moral issue. Many addicts may be disadvantaged due to other factors in a cycle of poverty, and drug dealers may be in that profession because most other avenues of social mobility have been closed off. We should look at systematic issues relating to how bums and addicts come about, rather than just do away with them and let others take their places. I believe, that society is a collection for all individuals, not just certain portions who fit certain criteria. An ideal society is one everyone's needs can be accommodated and taken care of, with everyone contributing in a productive way. Perhaps, perfection is idealism, but giving up on improvements is less than what we should strive for.



5. The last one is a moral argument. I believe everyone, regardless of race, creed, occupation, taste in music, and snobbishness has a right to access of health care. I say this for the simple reason that one day you and I may need to have access to this service, even if we are unable to be of value to our society. On that day, we will not wish for someone to deem us unworthy of medical treatment. For that reason, I will refrain from condemning people to a lower standard of health care service. This is not surprisingly one of the major argument against privatization of health care. How much we deserve to live should never be predicated on how rich we are, or how many jobs we hold, or how good we perform in bed.

These are the things I can think of right now. This is not to say that I agree with dealing narcotics or using mind-altering substances to the point of addiction, and that includes cigarettes. In fact, I deplore people who willfully abuse them(I'm looking at you, a certain former member in my life.) That's it, I hope you were not bored to tears.

I remember, 4 years ago, I wrote in my livejournal about why it is idiotic to oppose the americans in their war efforts in Iraq. Now, many battles and a few articles later, I'd like to come back to this issue, and tell you why blindly opposing the war and demanding an immediate pullout is still a less-than-ideal course of action.

As many of you may or may not have noticed, crude oil supplies has gotten a whole lot tighter. In just a few years we see the price of crude going from 20 dollars a barrel to 100. Seen in this light it should be clear the original objective of the american invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration, being petroleum entrepreneurs, must clearly see the supply/demand imbalance long before we did, and the objectives to going into Iraq very likely involves the black stuff. Like the former chairman of the federal reserve Alan Greenspan says in the book, "...it is unfortunate that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge that the war in Iraq is really about oil(not an exact quote.)"

Since the world is starting to run short of the oil it needs to run its many economies, global power is steadily shifting from the oil-consuming nations of the world to the oil-producing nations. Many countries, like russia, iran, and venezuela has already nationalized their oil industries(meaning, that if russia tomorrow say that no mofo in BC is going to use their oil, we will not be able to buy one drop of their oil no matter how much money we have. So, since we need oil to make things, like cars and toasters, having control of oil is having control of power.

At this point I'd like to interject, one of the things that america relies on is its currency being used as the reserve of the world, meaning that almost all international trading is done in American dollars, this includes oil. So when all the countries wants to buy oil, they have to first buy some american dollars, then trade those for oil. Since supply and demand rule all commodity, and the dollar can be seen as a commodity, this has helped keep the dollar high in value.
A strong dollar means that it can buy a lot of things from other countries, facilitating the americans to consume away, and the american way of life, like Dick Cheney says, is non-negotiable.

So, enter Saddam Hussein, the guy who tried to take oil from Kuwait because they were trying to drill into Iraqi oil. Shortly before the war in Iraq, Saddam Hussein switched the currency he does business with to the Euro. Now America, fearing a chain reaction with the other oil-producing countries following suit, decided that it would be a good time to invade Iraq and do away with the uncontrollable regime altogether. This is essentially a big fuck-you to the Euro since oil being traded for euros would make euros more valuable and dollars less. Hence the reactions of European governments were almost unanimous in denouncing the war as unjust, since there's nothing much else it can do.

By this point it shouldn't be surprising that the very first objectives when americans went into Iraq was to secure the oil infrastructures. The goal of the americans was to set something up so that multinational oil companies could come in and dig oil up and sell them to whoever needs them. Note, that the American-led invasion was not for the Americans to grab the oil for themselves. Although multinationals are mostly based in America, their involvement was to ensure that the oil reaches the world markets, so whoever has the money can buy them. Under this system, everybody, except for the oil-producing nations will benefit since there is more supply in the market, bringing the price lower, evading a world-wide depression. The ultimate goal of the invasion of Iraq should be seen as an extension of our era of free SUV motoring ways, where we are granted some more oil and some more time in our life of consumption before the inevitable shortage occurs. So, as you can see, all the Americans want from the Iraqis is a government who will sell their oil and not use it as a economic weapon against the oil-consuming West. Other than that, they do not care whether Iraq is a democracy, dictatorship, or whatever form of government they might take.

This is all well and good, from our perspective. Under the international free trade structure why shouldn't Iraq sell their oil? Why should Iraq withhold their oil so that we suffer economic recessions and job losses? If the Americans succeed in bringing Iraqi oil to the market everybody wins, right? We can continue living in our suburban homes and buy manufactured widgets as christmas presents and eat cheap food grown with petroleum-derived fertilizers. Inflation due to more energy required to make everything will be ward off for a few years time. The West stays in power, everybody stays happy with the status quo. There is, except, one problem. In order to do this the Americans has explicitly violated the sovereignty of Iraq by simply setting the foot down and taking away their right to not sell oil. Since energy is the currency of economies and power, this is essentially a power grab by the US to maintain the current world order since the US is still the #1 oil-consuming nation. So some oil-producing countries are going to be fairly unhappy, with good reason. However, they cannot overtly counter the US in military strength, so what do they do? They train insurgents to go to Iraq to rock the boat enough so that US cannot make the necessary construction and maintenance of oil infrastructure, knowing that the United States cannot maintain the current size of forces in the long run and will have to retreat, at the same time keeping Iraqis demoralized and the world against the United States. This tactic is working really well.

The Americans now face a few unsavory choices. To either withdraw, and give up the goal of increasing world oil supplies altogether, or stay and face an endless barrage of people who are determined to make their lives difficult. The United States economy is already faltering, faced with some structural deficiencies that are unsustainable. What little support for the war they have worldwide is quickly drying up, and changing course now would be disastrous, because there are so much american assets down in Iraq, plus the loss to the image of America being the hyperpower of the world. I think, what they're trying to do is to just wait and bide their time as long as possible. Sooner or later world oil prices will reach a breaking point where average families in the developed democracies realize that they cannot survive economically the way oil prices keep going up. When world oil production starts to fall a lot of people are going to be disillusioned because hollywood has promised them a middle-class life by american standards. These people, are going to realize, that they cannot care whether the war is just when they cannot afford to heat their mcmansions. I feel like I'm at that point right now, believing that the american way of life is really non-negotiable to most people, so much that they'd go into a lot of debt to maintain it. At that point in time the venture in Iraq will make quite a lot of sense, precipitating in a possible international bailout of the US in Iraq.

When all that is said and done, what should we do now? Clearly, Canada is in a conundrum. Since Canada is an oil-producing nation, our well-being will likely be enhanced by a tighter oil market. On the other hand, thanks to globalization, Canada probably won't be able to sit pretty on top of all these resources when our neighbors in the south and Europe dry up. This is, however, a policy decision question best left to someone else who has an answer since I will not even pretend I grasp the implications of each individual actions. On a personal level though, I think the answer is clear. Right now consume as much as you can as quick as you can, because pretty soon we are all going to have to consume a whole lot less. Families are going to start sharing single rooms to save on fuel for heating, people will bike to vancouver to work. The world will be in turmoil, and most people in third world countries will be dead by the time my kids get in highschool, if I can afford kids at all.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think I am going to do a public service by shedding light on things that will become a huge "I told you so" a few years down the road. People who are smart, like Josh Hamilton, will see what I'm saying and worship me like a true American hero.....NOT.

1. Americans are idiots, and even though I believe Canadians are a little better, we pretty much face the same problem. Anyways, The saving rate in America is below 0%, that means the average American is in debt. Why is this? Cheap credit. By lowering the interest rates, the cost of borrowing goes down, i.e. since when you take out a loan you have to pay back the principal amount you borrowed plus interest. The higher this interest is, the more you'll end up paying to the bank. This is why you mustn't use credit cards that charges 29.8% annual compound interest. As I was saying, since they made the interest rate so low, it doesn't cost very much to borrow money, and as a result, people borrow more for cars houses education anything and everything. This is partly a result of higher-wage manufacturing jobs shifting to third-world countries and leaving behind minimum wage service workers who are in debt and afraid to lose their jobs so they can't get raises. So, the result of all this is that the average American is in debt to the point that they're 5 weeks away from bankruptcy if they lose their jobs. This is fine if the job market is growing and wages are rising. They are, for now, despite the high oil prices. This is, however, going to change. There will be a downturn in the economy, because growth simply cannot go on forever, and people will lose their jobs, and lose their house to the bank, and any available money to credit cards. Result would be chaos, and people are going to blame everything from politicians to China to adolescents. I fear that what social progress we have made over the past few decades may erode, or are already eroding.

2. Let us assume the economy grows for ever and we head off depressions like magicians. However, soon enough, many people will enter old age and they will no longer be able to consume like they do now. This is going to set off a cascade of events I will not go into here. Suffice to say, once consumption slows the third world manufacturing bases of China and India will suffer, and suffer huge. a 10 percent increase in unemployment rate may be manageable in Canada, but man, when you throw people off the only 4 cent an hour job they have, there will be hell to pay. They are going to blame the West for making all these problems, and the results are gonna be easy to predict. I will not preclude they will start wars only to vent their populist anger and excess manpower.

extra: I want to point out that if you think you can just go to college and avoid being screwed in the behind you're wrong. While it is true that college graduates on average earn more than highschool grads, a degree in English literature or general science is going to get you not very much. In fact, if more and more people get college degrees and the job market doesn't grow, all that's going to happen is employers will depress wages because there are more people competing for them. You think they're helping you by opening all these spaces in schools and help you take out loans to go to school? Think again.

3. Old age will bring forward another problem. I don't have the statistics for Canada but i am sure we will have problems. American social security exist in a pay-as-you-go system, i.e. people who are working now paying for people who are retired. For awhile it has worked very well because the baby boomers have been able to pay for whatever generations before them incurred. So when babyboomers gets old there will be a shortfall in people who pay and people who receive. Also, the medical system we have worked well back in the day because you don't have to spend very much if people live to 50 and die. Now, however, people live into their 80s and every decade the medical costs increases exponentially. It won't be a matter of if healthcare is unsustainable, but when. You may try and defend this social safety net if you like, like I do, but I am putting my money on it no longer being there when we are there to use it.

4. Very, extremely immediate problem. Peak oil is here, we're sitting on it. You see, the production of oil follows a bell-shaped curve. at first we'll be producing more and more oil, then there will be a peak, then we produce less and less. So here we are, at the peak, with an endless increase in demand and shrinking supplies, you can foresee where the gas prices are going. In the past 8 years, crude oil cost has jumped from 15 dollars a barrel to 80 now, and soon it'll be 100 and then it will be more. One day really soon the world is going to realize that petroleum is shrinking and all company will go in energy-conserving mode. This is good news for us engineers but very bad news for a great many industries. Like, who is going to pay for hilary duff's albums if you can't drive to the record store? The implication for this is huge, we use petroleum for everything. We use it in our food with petroleum-based fertilizers, fuel, plastic, and whatever you can think of that is brought to you by a truck. Alternative energy sources, while there are many, does not come close to match the capacity or cost of oil right now(emphasis on right now.) So the good news is, while we're screwed in the short term, eventually we'll find another source of energy to fill our needs. However, in the meantime, it's gonna cost you $450 a month to heat your house with natural gas(natural gas production in Canada have already peaked and is now falling, which is why they are bringing in LNG importing facilities) and 100 dollars for a trip from maple ridge to vancouver and back.

5. This one will affect us the most, but it doesn't affects us right now, so most people ignore it. We have the greenhouse effect, deforestation, destruction of ecosystems, and all the wonderful things that people have been telling you how we are killing the planet. Well we are, and we can't help it. We have to build roads, we have to grow food, we have to build factories and we have to listen to our ipods. This is the one real thing that will affect us forever because all the stuff above will probably be resolved over several generations, but the Earth stays with us and like Ninjaspy says, we're all out of tampons.

Things are good right now. We have jobs aplenty, high wages, cheap money, nice cars, camping trips, alcohol, parties, and dollar giant. I cannot tell you what the future will bring, if I could I wouldn't have to write this post I would be off getting rich somewhere. I can, however, tell you this advice: party on when the party's still good, it almost will never be this good for us again.

Peace

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who was present at the borathon. I want to especially thank Nick, Eugene, Alexis, John, Alex, I will definitely invite you back next year. The people who showed up will most likely recieve invitation for next year too. I'd like to thank Josh for providing us with his PS2 as usual, Jen and Kelly for coming, and John for paying for some chicken and staying for the whole thing.(so did alex and josh) I found that the people I don't see very often who I met from highschool are usually the one whose company I enjoy the most. A lot of these people such as Alexis and Nick have a pretty calm personality that I can just sit and be quiet with. I think that's why we get along in the first place. The borathon is meant to be a calming winding down event right before the schoolyear starts after the big christmas and new year parties. It's alright some people wished to go to some other hipper gatherings and get shitfaced. As this year's borathon went, the place was at capacity for a few hours and maybe a person or two over, so really I don't think I need any extra persons. This is not to discourage anyone from coming, just to say that people who chose to go somewhere else need not feel bad. I welcome anybody who is interested. By that I mean sarah and jim and meris among others. I'm tired, I'm still sick, I think I'll go to bed.

Ladies, Gentlemen, Friends and Foes:

I come to you today not to praise you, but to put forward a few things that I have observed in my time. Many of you are currently involved, some of you not, that has no bearing on what I have to talk about. What I do want to talk about though, is women, and what *experts* are hinting at, but would never come outright and say it. A lot of female audiences of this article might be offended, they would say “what does he know, he’s not a woman, he’s got it all wrong, he doesn’t know anything.” However, I am convinced by what I see that what I am saying here is absolute, and I will discuss and analyze how these reactions come to be in the first place.

First of all, I’d like to introduce this character J. For many of you, you know who J is and what kind of a person he is based on(To be clear though, I regret making this person an example, J has many endearing qualities and does no great vice.) However, for the purpose of this article, I will tell you a little bit about J. J is charming, funny, quick-witted, and a bit of an ass sometimes. I am not a woman, so I do not know whether he is an attractive man or not. Introducing character M, who is nice, compassionate, easy to get along with but a bit anal about some things and won’t stand up for himself(this character is fictitious, if it resembles you, it is not aimed to be describing you in particular but generalizing a population, like J.) J gets around very easily, being more than capable of charming girls of all age and sizes, he recently was linked to a few hot women and just recently he made out with this friend of mine who is a virgin who has never been kissed, in a room with no real door, at a crowded party. M, however, had no such luck, is single, and is not very successful in many of his life ventures.(Incidentally, to limit the variables, J and M are of the same color of skin)

Now, J, is by no means a bad person, but he is no angel either. M certainly have character flaws, but he tries to suck up to whoever he is trying to woo. Statistics show, that J’s approach is infinitely better than M’s. Why is that? Do girls not like to be treated nicely, to be spent money on, and to have someone they can count on to cherish the relationship? Of course, any girl who is asked this question will say that they do, in fact, most girls will insist that they look for a nice personality in their mate. Is this really the case? Definitely! However, more and more girls now will admit that they want somebody they are “attracted to.” This general term, when used anywhere will mask any predisposition anyone will have on anything. Example: Oh, this person is black, he’s not my type. Oh this person works at Save-On-Foods, he’s not my type, Oh this person has to take care of his disabled siblings, the real reason is I don’t want to be dragged into taking care of the person but I’ll just say he’s not my type and no one can say otherwise. This definitely applies to both sexes, not just girls. People who get away with declaring their type on specific individuals, is not in itself a problem. It is when everyone has the same “type” of people, and this “type” of persons more often than not does not encompass their stated criteria of substance, personality…etc that an interesting phenomenon arises. It would appear that, the criteria are only secondary when it comes to mate-selection. Rock-stars, will always be many girl’s types, for example, and a jackass who has broken fifteen girl’s hearts, will always be more preferable to a nice person who is not very attractive and powerless.

But I digress; this has not broken any new grounds, what I have said everyone already knows. What I wish to confer is the degree and entirety that women in particular behave. Since we established that many women want some things out of their relationships, and insist on them themselves. Why do we see women go after jackasses more? These are the very same people who proclaim that they are into guys with a nice personality and so on. Statistic shows, that people who fit comfortably into women’s “criteria” are often not what many women actually look for. Why is this? Clearly, these criteria are, if not lip service, only come secondary to what they REALLY look for. What do they really look for? Look around you and see the kind of guys who easily gets around. Are they necessarily the best guys around? Not from a man’s perspective no. So in conclusion, women doesn’t go around looking for good qualities in men, they go around with a particular agenda and look for guys they somehow want, and then either hope that they encompass the qualities the girls want, or hope that somehow by some miracle they can effect some change in the guys they bagged. Is it any surprise that some girls get screwed over again and again? Is it any surprise that girls flock to guys who they know cheats and does nasty things?

This is not to say, some people really believe and act according to what they say. This is extremely rare, however, as it goes against human nature. Most girls are simply hypocrites, I’m afraid. *no, hypocrite, not me!!* *no, racist? Not me!!* *I am totally not biased* Don’t give me these claims. They are futile and can be easily proven wrong. Anybody and everybody is biased, just because you’re politically correct doesn’t mean you’re not biased.

I’m sure by now many girls will say, “that’s not fair, guys do it too.” Difference is, guys do not pretend they’re doing anything but, the requirement is easily laid out for you, either you’re young and attractive, or you’re not. Simple as that. Other girls claim that there is one right person for you, like in fairy tales. I say to that, it is definitely possible for it to happen, but it is so improbable you might as well try the lottery. Anyways, getting to my final point, why does girls say one thing and do another? I can offer quite a few explanations. First, girls preach it so that they would believe it themselves. It’s like self-brainwashing. The more they say it, the better they feel about themselves. This is the same way a girl who is with an asshole will rationalize everything she is doing by whatever means necessary(like saying he’ll change, he IS the kind of person I’m looking for after all, despite my earlier insistence that he’s not, it’s all other people’s fault and not mine.) Second, by preaching these values, the more people subscribes to it, the better off they are. This is like praising courage in battle so that every one else goes off and die so you can be a coward and come home and *comfort* all the girls left behind. Third, it is just major rationalization, people who actually finds a guy who they would do who also happens to be nice will just claim this happens because they are right for each other. It’s like, I’m dating a rock star, but no, it’s not because I’m a groupie, it’s because we are right for each other. These people just pretend that there is one person for everyone and they just end up with the good one. *roll eyes* Yes, the good one also happens to be the right one for a great many other people, how do you explain that??

In any case, this is a major incessant rant I just made; I would welcome feedback from guys and girls alike. There is empirical evidence behind my claims, but I do not want to reveal the sources. Also, while some assholes are really assholes, a lot of others are just people in the middle who are slightly in the nasty side of the spectrum rather than the nice. I restate that in no way I am pointing to certain individuals, this is simply a generalization. Also, I do not intend to say that guys are better people, not at all. Guys do different things, but in my experience they are more honest in these matters. When someone says “I look for a girl who I would want to sleep with,” he’s not lying. I simply aim to describe and explain some theory I formulated based on people’s behaviours around me.

Yesterday was a world of discomfort, I had food poisoning the day before and the entire day featured an urge to throw up. Never again will I buy the shrimp rolls from that place. I am slowly feeling better, though, and I can sorta eat a little bit today.

I shaved my head at the home show. I ended up getting more than 70 dollars, I hereby thank all of you for your donations. You have chosen a future of hope, instead of a future of apathy. For that I commend you all. By you I mean Alexis(who donated 32.47, in change, no less), Katrina, Melanie, Evan, and myself.

Anybody ever noticed that their puke turned 4 shades of color in one night?

First off I'd like to apologize for turning this semi-personal journal into a full-out political one.

Here's something to read if you have a couple of hours to kill. It's about this poli-sci graduate who goes to work in Walmart and blog his entire experience. If you are a firm believer of walmart, do not read this.

http://workingatwal-mart.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_workingatwal-mart_archive.html

here's an (un)healthy dose of public healthcare argument, for those interested.
( Read more... )

Take a good look at this man

Man, I can't believe I was saying those things yesterday. My deepest apologies to all who attended for making stupid and rude remarks throughout the night like the fat comment. I had a really great time though, thank you for making it happen.

It appears that another three month has passed. With my time dedicated almost exclusively to school livejournal has been less and less of a priority. I apologize to everyone whose journal I've neglected to sign or read, I'll be catching up on them soon, at least I hope.

2004 has been an above-average year, miles away from 2003. School has been less of a headache than same time last year, and the slump I seem to suffer from annually during winters does not seem to have taken hold of me to any measurable extent. Over the course of this year I am glad to have gotten to know a few people better, gone on a few more exciting adventures, turned twenty, and generally having fun when I can.

Being time starved really make the occasional adventures that much more special. Here's a special thanks to everyone who I've done things with, they really are the highlights of my year.

Currently I'm stuck in a dilemma. See, I've refrained from doing anything to my hair this entire semester, and now it's longer than it has ever been. My parents seem to want me to get rid of it, but I'm not totally sure if I want to throw away what took 4 months to grow, not that I have a strong opinion on the subject. Any input on this is welcomed.

On a completely random note, I played pool with Didi and Alexis and a guy whose name i cannot remember, and Alexis beat us at bowling by one point. I almost had an upset but i failed to hit the corner pin twice.

The incredible Magneficent Borathon Mark IV had been fun. This year the party was somewhat more domesticated. Thanks to Meris for doing the shopping with me, and the girls for making the food, and alexis and melanie for cleaning up. Also thanks MouTaMerisAlexisSarahJoshMelanieRyan for showing up. As a result of my complete lack of planning skills, some people ended up cancelling, which made me sad.(I'm looking at you, E, G, and B) This is also the first time it lasted for 24 hours. Everyone, however, fell asleep at some point during the gathering. The list of movies this year consist of The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, Micheal Gondry music videos, annie hall, garden state, pinochio(the italian live action version), the goonies, help, ____(insert movie here), and the graceland concert.

Saw Hero with Kenton a month back. Have to say that I liked the action, but disliked the plot. Why they portray a tyrant bent on taking over the world a saint is beyond my ability to comprehend. The argument that the countries in the world will endlessly fight each other and the only way to stop the fighting and bring peace is to conquer the world is simply ridiculous. That's like saying you must die so that you may live, or destroying a village in order to save it. I respect evil rulers who is bent on world domination, but being hypocritical about it is not the way to go. This movie also suffers from over-dramaticism, with drawn out death scenes, which are often unintentionally funny.

Also saw Harold and Kumar with Kenton. This film made me realize that the teen movie phase of my life is over. I no longer find the ass/weed/fart/gay jokes as outrageously halirious as I did before. This movie, even though loaded with weed/ass/fart/bathroom/gay jokes, was still mildly entertaining.

( Something to rant about )



Memory of the entry: that time we went to school on a pro-D day some time in Spring/summer of grade 11. It was around noon and Josh and I had nothing better to do than hang around in the GP lab taking pictures of ourselves.
Quote of the entry: "sympathy only equals friendship when there's money changing hands"

From last entry: A bunch of crap I did since Feburary that I remembered and didn't finish recording because I got lazy and decided to not write anymore.

Continuing on,

First off, I like to thank everybody who remembered my birthday. As of the 15th of last month I have officially ceased to be a teenager, and with it the ability to get away with juvenile behavior that is most teenager's privilege. Originally I thought it would be an unspectular end to a rather spectular decade of my life. To have received birthday greetings from parents, an aunt, Alexis, China Airlines, Dinora, Melanie, Josh, Sarah, Teresa,(sorry if I missed anyone) and most importantly, myself was quite a surprise since I was expecting next to no one noticing.

On my birthday I did two things. One was to walk into a student association which I had no intention of joining as a dead man just to eat their food. Well one of the things I pretended to do with them there was sing and I'll leave it at that. The other was going off to Chinatown and a store in Waterfront with Alexis and Dave. Twis quite a pleasant day really. I received a lovely meal together with Dinora and something cool from Melanie and a card from Sarah.

Saturday October 2nd: On this day I met one of the most glorious bums I know. Well, maybe not so glorious. He smelled of booze and talked nonsense the entire time. Anyways, on my way to the town center I encountered this man who approached me with his bike and asked me if I get signals in my head. I said no and then he break off into this speech about how he is like the tiger. Often repeating himself and demonstrating how he's like the tiger and that he knows how to do it because he's like the tiger by punching air and stomping. At some point while demonstrating how great and how much like the tiger he is he punched the ground. It must have been about twenty minutes where I just stood there listening to him talk, interjecting with "um" "yes" "exactly" "right" like I usually do. The entire time there were stuff coming out of his nose while he wiped them off with his shirt. Finally Josh came out and rescued me. Upon leaving the guy shook my hand and asked for my name which was kinda gross becaus his fingers were all black. Good thing I had my training gloves on. So I told him I was "Richard" and went off with Josh. We didn't want to get into our cars when he was around so we took a walk around the mall. At the other side we ran into him again and already he has forgotten my fake name, so I gave it to him again. The ordeal was a bit scary, but it seemed to have entertained quite a bit.

Same day: Sarah's B-day gathering. One party where nothing much happened besides a bunch of suger-loaded food and a bunch of people sitting around. Despite of this I found this party to be quite awesome. It lifted my spirits and it was nice hanging out with Sarah again. Also saw Brennan and Nicole there.

Sept 18: Saw Resident Evil with Nick Melanie Jason Eugene, before that went over to melissas on my way home to hang out and mooch off her pancakes. Come to think of it I stopped by on the 16th only to find the both of us extremely tired with very little sleep.

During my volunteering times at my dad's work I was directing the people to their respective locations. However, not knowing very much Taiwanese, left me saying "I don't know, maybe you should check with them over there" most the time. Still it wasn't too bad. I preferred that over taking care of residents who I cannot understand no matter what language they speak.

On a random note, these couple of guys I live with argued about who gets to use the oven this night.

Some time in August: went around Vancouver with Alexis, visited vintage clothing store, the rock shop and seabused over for a meal with Alex.

On my visits to my grandparents house, I found out that my uncle has the crannberries greatest hits cd, which he uploaded to his xbox. Listening to your cd music while playing a video game is one thing, but have the game console play it within the game is even sweeter.

Some time in July, Melanie's birthday Party: a family thing and I felt honored to attend. She seems to like the "have a nice day, you superficial butt-kissing asshole" shirt I got her so that went over well. On a side note, Aidan is 5.

August 13th: Went to see AVP with Nick, Jason, Eugene and Christian. Not a very good movie, but hanging out with Christian is cool. For those of you who don't know yet, Christian is a christian now and does video editing somewhere.

I really don't like the math in quantum theory.

Highschool memory of the entry: When we shut the lights to the portables back in ridge in grade 10 and have the J-man run across blind at full speed into a recycling bin. One of the greatest moments in Portable History.

The Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind:
A different Jim Carrey movie. Not a comedy, but more of a drama. Nicely directed. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet were both spectacular. Kirsten Dunst does an adequate job. I won't give away too much of the movie for the people who hasn't seen it yet. Elijah Woods is also in this film, although for a more minor role. To many this film may seem less Hollywood and more real, and hence more attractive to anyone who wants to see a movie that is not another version of maid in manhattan. Quote:
"How happy is the blameless vestals lot
The world forgetting by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Each pray'r accepted
Each wish resign'd"

New York Minute:(see what I have to sit through to stay awake for the above film)
Okay, imagine the Olsen Twins, think about what you saw in the previews. Think of the worst case scenario of how bad this movie is.

It is that bad.

There is no one redeeming feature about this film. I mean, they picked Simple Plan for their "rock band" appearance. The plot is absurd, simplistic, and not funny. Even Eugene Levy can't save the film. That guy needs to do something better with himself. I mean he's gotta be pretty desperate to be a flat, one note character in THIS film.

Anyways, this lady named Marged called me up one day and talked to me about religion, and started dropping books off. I thought I would share the wisdom by going through it and copying it here. This book is called "You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth." It has been published in 109 languages and totall books printed of all editions has reached more than 60 million copies. So there, enjoy.


Why is it hard to believe that people can live forever in happiness on earth?

HAPPINESS on earth--it does not seem possible to enjoy it even for a short time. Sickness, aging, hunger, crime--to mention only a few problems--often make life miserable. So, you may say, to talk about living forever in paradise on earth is to close your eyes to the truth. You may feel that it is a waste of time to talk about it, that living forever is just a dream.
No doubt most people would agree with you. So, then, why can we be so sure that you can live forever in paradise on earth? Why can we believe that everlasting life is not just a dream?

Wise answer to these deep mind-boggling questions according to this book coming up next.

Quote of the entry:"much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure to make any progress"

Hey, apologies for the absense of entries.  I know no amount of excuses will suffice in this one so I will just skip it over.  This is the first installment of hopefully many to come that will fill the 6 month void. 

I apologize for the rant in last entry, I got a bit stabby.

Tyler's birthday party:(Feb 20ish)
This was also the day the first Katrina's risk party.  Even though I wished to attend this event, Tyler's 20th birthday party seemed like a more important occasion.  For some reason though, I kept calling amber "ashley" throughout this party.  During this occasion many games were played, namely Joker Joker Batman.  It is in this game my famous collision at top speed with Melissa took place.  My knee was in pain for like three weeks afterwards.  This party was attended by Amber, Keara, Josh, Nick, Jason, Troy, myself, Melissa, Christina, John, Ryan and many others whom I don't recognize.  The biggest downside of this party is that since it was planned by Amber, the activities seemed a little bit juvenile even for people in high school.

50 first dates, seen with Josh, John, Matt, and Kim.  Good movie

Kill Bill Volume Two, seen with Josh and Nick and Jason and Melissa I think. 

March consisted of staying at school three weekends in a row to complete Computer science and EE projects. 

RIP Laura Napodi.  Very cool cat.  Sad that she has to die.

April 8th:  The arts county fair 13
Since my Computer Science project was due on this day and due to my operating style, I was programming for 16 hours straight before the beginning of the arts county fair.  Hence I was pretty out of it for the beginning.  In an attempt to stay awake for Josh to show up I started playing Risk with the computer, but I fell asleep anyways.  Josh appeared at 2 and we head down to thunderbird stadium.  We missed *theory of a Nickel Grace* High Holy Days, and it was Pilate when we got there.  Afterwards Wide Mouth Mason put on a pretty good show even though I would have enjoyed it more if I didn't feel like falling over in front of the stage.  After Wide Mouth Mason I went to the other side of the stadium, sat down, put my head down and fell asleep.  I was woken by Andrew WK so I made my way back to the stage to observe this very talented, yet greasy performer.  Andrew WK is definitely the best in terms of stage presence and crowd manipulation.  There was actually a decent sized mosh pit in which I took the liberty of raming into Josh.  This entire event took only 13 dollars so I'm going to say I got the better deal than all those kids who'd gone to foxfest.

June 21st, Pig-roasting party at Alex's:
I was 6 minutes late at the ferries, so i waited another two ferries until I got to langley.  By this time my ride was long gone.  I spent a couple hours just driving around langley and calling people for the address before finally finding the place.  The burning of a pig Lord of the Fly style is definitely one of the highlights.  I also enjoyed burning lighter fluids and feeding wood/notes into the fire.  Also, I convinced some guy to call me Lisol when we were doing the circular introduction, which also entertained me.  Hanging out with Meris/Sonja/Tiki/Alexis/Red/Tiana were nice.  The only things that dragged this party down were the mosquitoes and the silly three-legged races and shoehunts.

Some time in March: Hung out with Kerri and Melanie at Ryan's dads.  Kerri is a quirky individual, she would've gotten along with the original clique just fine had we been 4 years younger.

Also some time in March: Long-assed walk with M in maple ridge.  took 5 hours and we nearly froze to death.

Some time in April: Saw Shrek 2 with Sarah

Spiderman 2:
This long-awaited sequel to spiderman does not disappoint very much.  I cannot disclose very much of the plot for the benefit of people who hasn't seen it.  This movie is beautifully directed, has perfect camera angles for spidey swinging shots even better than that of the first one.  Harry Osborne's performance has been brilliant, showing his potential for a full-fledged villian.  Doc Oct's performance is also quite excellent and the movie moves from one part to another with liquid smoothness.  Another character I quite like is the daughter of Peter's Landlord whose only lines were "Hi Peter" and "Would you like a piece of cake."  The lack of big speeches in this movie was made up by the intense action sequences where spiderman and Doc Oct trash each other, recover, and trash each other some more.  If they keep this up I'll be looking forward to seeing thier sequels till Spiderman 20.  Quote of the movie: "I will not die a monster!" -Doc Oct

Collateral:
Although the anti-Cruise movement has a pretty solid argument, I see merit in this film.  Actually, I like this film very much and I'd recommend it for anybody including the ones who has a strong dislike for Tom Cruise.  This is the first time Tom has assumed a role like this and he plays it exceptionally well.  He and Jamie Fox creates quite remarkable chemistry playing assassin and cab driver.  You may think that it doesn't make sense that a killer plans to use the same cab driver to drive to 5 different locations and kill 5 different people, but it works out in the film.  A lot of things he says in the film also makes a lot of sense.  Jamie Foxx did a beautiful job in the cab driver as well, creating his working people persona and doing the remarkably stupid thing of crashing and flipping his cab over.  Quote of the movie: "what? you think I should get to know the people I'm going to kill before I kill them?" -Vincent

Memory of the entry: Back in the day, I used to be in Senior concert band.  In one of this band's great and wonderful field trips we embarked on a journey to Honalulu.  During the last half hour in the hotel, somebody(cough cough* Neil Hauzer) informed Paz that I had a throwing star.  An investigation ensued and I never actually found the throwing star in my luggage so I was told to go through customs at my own risk.  The search, however, caused quite a problem since everything in my suitcase was carefully designed to fit to achieve the maximum carrying capacity due to my excessive shopping sprees.  The things took hours to arrange and that kind of time was not available.  At this moment Laura appeared and offered to sit on the suitcase while I force the zipper together.  Kinda sad to think about it now because her heroic rescue on this occasion is probably one of the few times I actually spoken to her.     

Quote of the entry: "The Department of Redundancy Department" -from one of the office doors at Douglas College.

More to be continued...

Okay sorry for the thing about urinating, I feel like saying that just because. It's only been about 2 weeks since I last updated, kind of short by my standards, and definitely still within the shadows from the greatness of my previous entry. However, the focus of the last entry has created a backlog of events which I must clear before they are buried in the inaccessible reaches of my memory forever.

My last journal my have overly glorified the borathon more than it should as compared to the other parties. Still, it's the second party I've organized in my life and the last one was in grade 11 summer, so I am allowed to get excited over it.

After going back and reading my older entries, I am proud to announce that most of them are quite coherent and are very enjoyable to me at least unlike some other journals that mainly consist of irrational ramblings. One thing I have noticed in recent months is that the focus of the journals has shifted from pleasing myself to pleasing my readers. That, my friends, just will not go. Unfortunately for everyone who reads this just to see their names listed on someone else's record, you will have to be disappointed by the minimal occurrences of the symbol which other people use to identify you. This journal, will, however, contain the words of my enlightened views(self-ego boost here). I will bash many things and many people, so if you don't like the negativity you may skip reading my journal.

I know that I have told some people that this entry will contain a short story about a hero who some propaganda would call the "opposer". However, the book I was given as the source is so nonsensical that I believe no rational-minded people even of that religion will take it seriously. Therefore this story I cooked up in the showers will have to wait until I get through the bible. Speaking of which, does anybody know where to locate one bible in large print? I believe it would be quite a feat for me to get through the bible because last time I tried I quit halfway through genesis. Anyways it is probably pretty unlikely but I plan to eventually to write a story about some part of the book as science fiction. So wait around and see.

This is a formal apology for all my whining and bitching last term. I took too much and I should've anticipated the consequences. Well, I'll probably end up doing the same thing and apologizing next time I break a nail or something, but that's till next time.

Now...let's recap the events in the aftermath of the Incredible Magnificent Borathon Mark III:

Jan 10th: a lot of driving was done today. UBC to Coquitlam to Maple Ridge to Mission to Maple Ridge to Mission to Maple Ridge. On this day I viewed the movie Big Fish with Alexis, encountering Nicole, Katrina, Sarah, and Duran in the theatre.
Review: This is a good move the first time round. This movie brought the facts vs. fiction debate to the forefront and makes its particular point of view make sense in an artsy kind of way. My favorite scene of the movie has to be when Ewan McGregor was on the merry-go-round thinking about music because supposedly his dream girl likes music. Anyways, I was kind of hoping for some sort of a Star Wars reference. I mean, common, there's gotta be something to tell from Mr. Obi-wan Kenobi better than how he got a fish. Quote of the movie: "the big fish gets big by not getting caught" translation in the movie= the old Edward bloom lived a full life because he did not get caught in reality and lets his imagination takes him to places. Therefore sometimes what you believes in your head is more important than the actual objective event taking place etc etc...

Jan 16th: celebration for Matt Lepene's birthday. Nick did not join us this day, and that is perhaps not the best thing he has done. This night did not begin till about 9pm. That's when Josh shows up and we went up to meet up with Ryan, Fraser and the other guys. Around 9:30 we proceeded to the planetarium. We had some good old rock'en roll in the car making the ride somewhat of a that 70s show experience. After reaching Vancouver, we got lost because no one was sure of how to get to the planetarium which we should have seen coming. After searching for awhile and nearly getting into an accident, John got somewhat sulky for some reason. Anyways we managed to reach the planetarium a few minutes before the show and show up right when they start letting people in. The Pink Floyd laser show was pretty cool, it had some nice music and visual effects. Afterwards we went back to Maple Ridge and John dropped me off. Josh shows up about half an hour later and we went out again and met up with Ryan and Fraser. Finally we went to Ryan's house and started watching the family guy. I got through about two episodes before falling asleep. The other guys did too about an hour afterwards. The following morning was weird because I haven’t stayed over at Ryan's in such a long time. After chatting with Ryan's parents for a bit I walked home and concluded the occasion.

Jan 24th: This day was covered in detail by both Nick and Melissa so I don't think there exist a need for me to recap the events in such a fine manner. Anyways here's the gist of it:
1pm, reach metro town, park, call Melissa, find out that she was still in bed, got her out of bed.
1:50pm: Melissa finally shows up, we went to Spencer’s where they were having a 80% off sale for they were going out of business. I acquired a finger armor and a System of a Down wallet. I also got a Dolphin lamp at the glow store for a cheap price since they're also going out of business. I didn't, however, get my Amy Lee poster because somebody got it before I got to it.
2:30pm: went to playdium, played stuff, shot stuff, drove around in race cars, did not touch ddr extreme, watch Nick and Jason blow their money away on 10-pin bowling for little kids.
4:30pm: went to this Japanese place where I got most of my food for the day. Melissa also got a decent sized meal. Jason had a few sushi’s and Nick just sat there because he doesn't like sushi for some reason. We noticed that the waiter could understand me perfectly well while everyone else had to repeat their order.
5:30pm: went to get jeans with Jason, met a lady whose key for a locker stopped working, so we walked around the mall looking for a security guard and finally she found one herself.
6:00pm: left metrotown, saw Melissa's parents, they talked to me, they were okay, but the very fact that they talked to me made me uneasy.
7:40pm: reached Silvercity Mission. Stood around and debated what movie we were watching for 15 minutes before finally deciding on the Butterfly Effect.
8:10pm: sat down in White Spot where they all had more food, I didn't because I was still full from meal I had before. nick got cards and we played. ate, talked, played cards and such until about 9:40pm.
9:50pm: sat down in the theatre to see The Butterfly Effect. We saw Katrina, Shifana, Nicole and the like at the theatre. Been seeing Katrina an awful lot.
12:00~1:15: dropped off Jason, went with Nick to drop off Melissa in Burnaby.
3:30am: finished our big long conversation about nothing in particular.
4:10am: Nick dropped me off home, and so it ends.
Movie Review: The butterfly effect
To be honest, the first reason I wanted to see this movie was because Staind was played in the trailer. At first I was quite worried about how Ashton Kutcher wasn't going to be able to act in a role not involving making a fool of himself. My worries were not necessary it turned out. This movie has a pretty simple plot and is very well directed that it is virtually impossible for anyone to screw it up. Amy Smart did a pretty good job playing all the different roles. This movie takes a linear approach to explaining the chaos theory and time travel. Some people may argue that if the movie really follows the chaos theory, the actions taken by kutcher should have a more significant effect on the world then what was shown in the movie. While this may be true, very little outside of the small circle was shown so there may have been changes it's just that they didn't show it. Moreover, time may act like a buffer filtering out most of the significant change. e.g. Sarah Connor never could stop Judgment day from happening, she just delayed it making the end result the same. Also worth mentioning is that some 13-year-old girls were bitching about how the ending wasn't happy and such, ignoring the fact that they spend the entire movie trying to show that bad things happen when the guy and the girl gets close to each other. Quote from the movie: "I'll send you a postcard when I've made everything perfect"

Feb 1st: Got to play with my camera and took the picture currently on display in my msn messenger. That night my parents took me and one of my dad's colleague’s daughter out for dinner in Richmond, where I noticed that they don't even bother putting the English names on the menu. My parents like her a lot, probably because she's so nice and helpful.

Feb 6th: went for a workout at the leisure center with Josh. I chose this day to leave my student card at home and the lady there was such a b*tch. Anyways the workout was nice and I look forward to having more of these in the future.

Feb 13th: black Friday, after school I went and met up with shifana, who was sitting at the Chan center for an hour and a half waiting for Alexis to show up. She bashed my finger armor for no better reason than she "thinks it look stupid on me." Anyways Alexis found us as it turned out, and they had subway. It's strange because when I'm with people I'm rarely hungry. Anyways Shifana, acting like the great friend that she is, ditch the concert that Alexis was playing in. The concert was pretty great. Listening to the UBC Symphony Orchestra and Kwantlen Wind Symphony is a welcome change and it reminded me of my days in band. I met with Mr. Lee, Arley, and Tiffany Glover at the concert. I must say, Mr. Lee is a pretty cool guy when he's off the podium. I take back most of the things I said about him back in the day. The way Alexis walked accross the stage slowly in her socks carrying her bass was awesome, I have done the same thing back when I was in band, but then she did it on purpose which makes it even greater.


Often I write about things, especially about books, movies, music, television...etc, I usually add in my own commentary as if I actually know things about popular culture. Well, I do, but not to the extent which I may be perceived as from my comments and criticism. I understand that I have about 30 month of real cultural influence, which limits my knowledge somewhat as Mr. Barrie Blatchford points out: "you see, you like popular music because you haven't delved deep enough to get to the good stuff! in the case of the music industry, the cream stays at the bottom and gets ripped off by the top." This is not to say I'm not trying to learn the ways of what people pickup from their childhood because I believe that in order to be a opinionated asshole my opinions should be backed up somehow. In the mean time though I'm still going to be bashing things and saying stuff about things that I don't necessarily understand, because bashing for the sake of bashing is fun and I like my opinions simply because they're mine. ("yeah excuses excuses, MouTa why don't you just admit it you have terrible taste" "SHUT UP")

RANT

This next section is quite negative, even though I'm aware that people do not respond well to negativity I am inclined to put this up since it was inevitable from the first day I got this journal. So if you don't like to see my bashing someone behind its back, skip this section(even though I doubt that any will) and continue on your life believing that everyone loves you. Now, the person I'm talking about has minimal, if any, originality. It simply stomachs all the propaganda that we as a generation are subjected to and broadcast the same brahmin excrements as if it actually believes them. Moreover, it is so convinced of its own intellectual and mental superiority that it takes itself so seriously as if what it says are actually as important as it think it is. To add to the absurdity, it frequently display childish behaviors and makes excuses and rationalizations and expect other people to accept them. Now, I myself may sometimes be subject to my own accusations but I can say that I'm aware of who and what I am and my limitations so as to act humble when it is appropriate whereas it contiues on believing that it is the world even though it is painfully obvious to anyone with any significant depth that it does not have what it takes to back itself up. Furthermore, it is oblivious(or in denial) to the fact that it is just another rat in a cage running in its wheel and pretends that it is an actual unique individual when in reality this minimal insignificant uniqueness is forced and artificial. I keep up the facade of being friends with this person despite the fact that I haven’t liked it in more than two years simply because I wish to avoid a conflict. However, this is proving to be draining and is requiring quite a bit of effort and patience for it displeases me from time to time. For those who already know who it is, try and not ruin it for the others; for those who don't, you're probably not supposed to anyways.

RANT OVER

Highschool memory of the entry: That time when Tyler, Dan and Shahram and I went up to Metrotown for no apparent reason. It was the first thing I've ever done with Dan Tyler or Shahram. It was a fun-filled day; Dan and Tyler had a salt eating contest. (what idiots, but awfully hilarious)

Praises for everyone who likes Creed. That means Praises for me because everyone else laugh at me for liking Creed.

Question of the entry: Is Abba classified as a "rock group"? My Introduction to Microcontrollers teacher insists that it is, but really, "Dancing Queen?"

Quote of the entry, brought to you by despair.com: "On Sacrifice: Your role may be thankless, but if you're willing to give it your all, you might just give success to those who outlast you"

Welcome to my world. Feel free to grab a drink and a piece of pie before indulging in this milestone entry.

Sitting here, on this particular night, I am full of thoughts. Nostalgia, along with the intricate revelations that only occur on certain emotional nights dominates this particular era of my senses. I know that most of my readers like to see their names on this journal. I also know that most of my readers like to learn glimpse of things that they think is the side they don't see in me in person. Well I'm going to have to disappoint everyone if that is their goal tonight. This entry will have little emotional value despite my current mood. I know I could talk about school, and how I'm coping. I could talk about life in general and my perspective as a wannabe egotistical asshole. I could talk about how great my friends are especially the one named Nick. I could talk about one of the greatest girls I've ever known and what has happened in the last few weeks. Indeed, I could talk about a lot of things.

but no.

This entry will focus on one thing, and one thing only. This entry will be about all the gatherings I have attended during a 3-week period. So if you'd like to hear about all the things mentioned above, please check back later.

The three weeks of my so called Christmas Holidays came with numerous occasions of celebration, not for christmas per se, but just friends hanging out. First of all though, I need to acknoledge the less major events that are nevertheless very enjoyable.

• Viewing of Lord of the Ring: Return of the King #1: As mentioned in the last entry, this film was viewed with Nick and Jason and Tracey at midnight in SilverCity Mission. So far it is still true that any movie seen with Nick must be a good movie. We saw some guy named Adam in the theatre who turn out to know us even though we have no idea who he is. Despite the 1 hour+ waiting time and the poor seating choices this is still a pretty enjoyable movie. Review: As the final installment of one of the best cinematic performance of our time, this movie did not fail to deliver what it promises: Spectacular battle scenes, stupid fat hobbit, crazy animated character, hero shot of Aragorn, elephants, giant spider, nazguls, big rocks flying around, and...did I mention elephants? The numerous scenes of men and orcs slashing at each other certainly provided the much needed violence. Smeagol's performance, I have to say, is incindaire. I absolutely loved the reflection of his face off the water after he said he'd claim the ring "for me." Aside from that the catapults used in the war is nothing fancy, but strangely satisfying. Also worth mentioning was the scene where the riders of Rohan washed over the orcs like a wave of water washing over ants. My favorite scene from the movies, however, has to be when the elephants trampled on the riders. I have to give the director Peter Jackson some credits for making the Lord of the Ring an astounding epic movie. Even though seeing this movie has been quite a fulfilling experience, there are some imperfections which could have been improved. For example, the incredibly long scene at the end when they were trying to wrap up the story, the scene where the hobbits were rubbing each other with Gimli making that stupid laugh, and the fact that we were sitting at the second row making the movie out of focus and our necks very sore. Quote of the movie "There may be a day where the courage of men fails, but it is not today. There maybe a day where we abandon our allies and run from our enemies, but it is not today. Today we fight, People of the West!!"
  
  
• Viewing of Lord of the Ring: Return of the King #2: Saw the movie again with Juice, Matt, Kim and John. They got pretty annoyed by the end when I got very impatient with the ending and started making fun of it. On our way home there was a prick cop who was riding John's ass for a few minutes and after John didn't speed up rudely passed us to tail the car in front of us, causing them to speed up, and promptly pulled them over for a speeding ticket.
  
  
• Shifana's night out: Also mentioned in the last entry. Shifana likes doing these dinner things, so it could have been better if she didn't call me right after I had dinner. Alex, Shelby, Casey, me, Katrina, Shifana, and Nicole all went to the Earles in Coquitlam. Some of them ordered food, I ordered my first beer. Unfortunately I disliked the taste of it and only had 1/3 of it for the duration of their entire meal. Afterwards we went over to Alex's and played in his rec room. Rhonda and her boyfriend joined us at Alex's house later that night. Also, this might be a good place to point out that I am seeing Katrina very frequently lately, some of the occasions are coincidents too.
  
  
• Christmas Eve at John's where we had pizza and he got me a whoopee cushion
  
  
• Snow and movie with Matt and Kim. Around 9:30 on the 27th Juice Matt and Kim showed up and invited me for a ride. we had a little warmup of a snowball fight. Afterwards we drove down to Casey's street and tie a sled to the back of Josh's car. All of us got to ride in the sled and be dragged by the car to and fro until some kids decided to start hitting us with snowballs. We retaliated but was hopelessly outnumbered. Kim just hid in the car, Matt didn't do much, I took on most of the assault initially, but soon the kids turned on Juice and creamed him good. I also took the opportunity to hit him with a few snowballs seeing how he was being surrounded by kids and couldn't do anything about it. Then we went over to Kims and saw the movie Donny Darko. It was the first time I've been in Kim's house and her dog was afraid of me.
  movie review: Donny Darko
  Being an independently produced film, Donny Darko presents an original story with original characters. The entire plot was coherent, despite the way it was portrayed. I also like the fact that it touches on predestination and religion without having a huge philosophical debate on it. This movie is more scientifically plausible than the butterfly effect in my opinion, and is worthy of the title of science fiction instead of just fantasy. The acting of the guy who played Donny Darko and the girl who played his girlfriend both did the parts quite well. Also, Drew Berrymore did quite a nice job in her role as the only teaching staff in the school who isn't a hypocrit or a square. Quote of the movie: "what do you want to do right now?" "play hungry hungry hippos"
  
  
  
• Long walk at 12:30am with Miss Melanie Illy(formerly known here as M). It has been a year since I last seen Miss Melanie Illy. She actually have hair now. Anyways one night we were both bored and decided to go for a walk just because. I finally got to see all her piercings. we walked all the way down to 232 and then back, and spoke about her family and random things. It was quite strange, but I didn't mind it that much. Trips like these are most nostalgic.
  

That wraps up the less important events, now on to the major gatherings.

Note: by no means do I consider any of these parties bad. In fact, I enjoyed all of them very much. This is just a reflection of how well each party do compared to the others. You can see the trend, the more times a party has been thrown, the better they get.

5th place: Alex's MRC game's night
This is the first official get-together of the MRC message board. Among people who attended were Darci, John, Casey, Alex, me, Shifana, Robyn, Yupper, Sonja, Josh, and Dave. The pool table and all the television sets and games provided much of the needed relaxation from finals. Mario party was pretty fun. Britney's dance moves(a ripoff version of ddr) was aptly played by robyn. One legendary mariocart doubledash game was shared in the waning hours of the gathering. Also, it was nice to see some people who I havn't seen for ages. The reason I rated this party last is because despite the wonderful rec room Alex have, I found myself bored and playing ffx at more than one point in time. Even though the party has been planned for a long time, it could have been organized a little better.

4th place: Nick's new years party(Mark 2)
This is the second new years party held by Nick. This party involved a short list of invitees: me, Nick, Jason, Tracey, and Josh. The very fact that this party wasn't rated number two is indication of how great the others were. Indeed, this party did have its moments: the close Phase Ten game, the re-enactment of Bill&Ted(Josh&Tracey) VS the Reaper(aka me), getting tracey to drink bad booze and then have Josh hit on her, beating Nick at Lotr trivia, jumping down a whole floor with nothing to absorb the shock besides a couple of couch cushions. However, several shortcomings prevented this from being higher up on the list: the list is a tad short seeing that Jason didn't show up till 11, Drunk people coming in at 2am, and Nick not letting us get more alcohol to get Tracey more drunk. I look forward to the improvements next newyears.

Tied in 2nd place: Katrina's games night(mark 3)
This games night was in my opinion superior to Alex's games night. The participants include: me, Sarah, Duran, Nicole, Kat, Alexis, Leigh, Nick, Jason Branden, and Dallas. Again, it was nice to see Sarah and Dallas after so many months. As far as party dynamics go, Katrina's got it nailed and I felt extremely at ease among her friends. I have to commend her on her outstanding people skills. It parallels my own and that is the highest compliment she can get because no one can possibly go above me. We didn't do much in this party besides boardgames and videogames but instead of changing games every half hour we actually got to stick to one for awhile. I liked the card game we played and having done better than Nick at Lotr trivia pleases me very much.(Nick is never going to stop hearing about this) The only shortcoming I can think of is the fact that we were kicked out at 2am when we were having such a good time. Definitely one of the best parties in 2003 and I very much look forward to games night mark 4.

Tied in 2nd place: Alexis' cookie painting party(my third time going)
This party rise above the previous two cookie painting parties I went to. Judging from size and quality, this party should have been rated 1st. However, since there is no way I'm going to rate her party over mine this will have to settle for one of the greatest parties of 2003. There were at least 25 people who attended the party. Some people I recognize include: me, alexis, katrina, tanya, alana, greg, leigh, amanda, sonja, meris, dee and tiki. Cookie painting is fun, especially if you paint a finger on one. Then we proceeded to play Mr.X in which we caught Alana Vosper. She had no chance against the chief, who was alexis, except if it weren't for me we wouldn't have caught her(egoboost here). Afterwards we went on to play trivia where Greg slaughtered us like he was a walking encyclopedia. Finally this party ended with a hockey game which was tied 4-4, not a bad one to watch. Overall this was a kickass party. The only unfortunate imperfection about this party is the size. For a party of this magnitude, more control would have been needed to keep it in order. In this party the people just splitted into groups and very few inter-group interaction occurred. However, with the charisma and skill Alexis has shown through bring such a large group of people together, I see potential for even more spectacular parties when they are properly managed.


Thanks for reading everyone who has gotten this far.


On the entry to come: find out about Big Fish, the Butterfly Effect, Melissa's Birthday, Matt's Birthday, and more!

quote of the day: "love, what a motherf*cker" -old school.(sometimes you cannot help but appreciate the genius of simplicity)

Good day, this is MouTa reporting in on the day many people around the world celebrate as Christmas day on which some 2003 years ago some guy who may have some importance was born. Anyways I meant to update a week ago but my internet connection shuts down. I know I don't update enough and I keep saying that I'll update more but I never do so I guess you'll just have to deal with it.

It is that time of the year again. Normally if I were the 98% individuals in this country, or rather on this continent, I'd say merry Christmas and yap and yap and yap about how much or little presents I had, and how great my Christmas was and such. However, seeing that I am not really a believer of Christ nor a practitioner in this tradition, I'm just gonna pretend that I feel sad that I don't get to have Christmas so people would feel pity for me. One of these years maybe I'll start caring or people will just have to get it through their heads that Christmas doesn't mean a lot to me other than just another holiday, no offense to anyone who supports the holiday.

School has been sluggish for the past three months as I suffer through rock bottom of my academic career. Instead of boring all of you with the details, I'll just say I'm going to do what I can to fix it next term.

Has anybody ever had that phase when the brain just shuts down and you say really stupid things that piss people off and then realize it a second later, and then you say something else stupid. Well I've been having one of those phases and I want my brain back.

Words cannot describe the relief I felt when I found that "matt goode" isn't really "matt good" in that movie Chasing Liberty. Thank the flying giant space jellyfish that Matt Good isn't whoring himself in such a stupid film.

It is time for recapping 2003:

December 23rd: Went to Earls and had a third of a beer. I paid for all of it but I had to let 4 dollars go to waste because I find it gross. Among present were Shifana, Shelby, Katrina, Casey, Alex, Nicole. Later we went to hang out at Alex's joined by Rhonda and her boyfriend.

December 22nd: The cookie painting party Mark III with Alexis Rossi. If Games night were a B, then this is definitely an A+, but then again I may be favoring it because it was thrown by Alexis. This party outdone cookie painting mark I and mark II by a long shot. I showed up half an hour early thinking that I showed up 2 and a half hour late thanks to Katrina. There must have been more than 20 people present. We painted cookies as we did in the previous years. Also worth mentioning was the board game where we caught Alana Vosper as Mr. X. Excellent strategist, I must commend the chief. Afterwards we saw the canucks game which was a 4-4 tie, not a bad game to watch, as far as hockey goes. This party is one to go down in the books, it will be pretty hard to beat. Among present were Katrina, Alexis, Meris, Sonja, Didi, leigh, Amanda, Greg, Alana Vosper, and a trillion other guests.

December 19th: Games night at Alex Youngs. Among present were Sonja, Robyn, Josh, Casey, Yupper, Dave Balfour, Alex, Shifana, Shelby, John, and Darci. This was an exceptional night for this group of people. Robyn taught me how to play two chords. Alex's pool table is definitely a great asset. Josh and I had an incredible game of Mario cart Double Dash where we finished second when in everything else we finished last. An above average party, definitely enjoyable.

December 16th~17th: Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King with Nick and Jason and Tracey. We got there more than an hour early but the theatre was already packed. We sat in the theatre for an hour before seeing the movie. We sat in the very front which made the experience slightly aggravating, but overall it was good. (Unfortunately I will not be doing a review for this one this entry. Sorry Nick, maybe next one)

December 2nd~16th: exams

November 19th: The math test wasn't so great. Didn't have time for it but it didn't matter because it didn't count.

November 18th: Me and my group in Applied Science 201 did a kickass presentation. We got dressed up in suit and ties and everything. The visual aid was amazing, thanks to me and my printer, and we were the only group who keeps our presentation within the time limits. Pretty kickin show I tell ya.

Rest of November: Matrix Revolutions

October: Halloween at Meris was good, so was Kill Bill Volume 1. Other than that it was a pretty depressing month

September: My birthday was pretty good, so was John's. This was the month when all the bad things started to happen beginning right around my birthday.

August: Biology was stupid. Waterslides were good.

July: Got both wisdom teeth pulled out. Visited my families in Taiwan.

June: Completed English 110. Wrote the term essay on Star Wars. Saw the hulk with my cousin

May: Best month of the year.

April: Exams, Arts County Fair 14

March: Matrix Reloaded.

February and January: nothing memorable enough for the purposes of this journal

That's a wrap for the year. This year begun looking pretty good. Reached a peak right about may/June, and slowly falls till September, where it totally went down the drain. The end of December shows signs of recovery, but it will be some time before I get to feel like my old self. Thanks to everyone who's been there for me though, and by everyone I mean my readers and the people who invites me to their parties. Of course this also includes the people who talks to me on msn.

The Incredible Magnificent borathon mark III will take place in January. Updates on that will be made next entry. I'd appreciate people to not talk about it outside of this journal since this is an exclusive event. I did mention that people who read this journal are automatically entitled to an invitation, however, those people must let me know that they read it before I will grant them admission.

Anyways, I believe it is time for everyone's favorite section of the update:
Movie Review:

Stargate SG-1:
Most people have already forgotten about the existence of this movie, but since I proclaim myself to be a movie critic, I dug it up at John's house and saw it for the first time. I must say, for a movie 10 years ago, it was pretty amazing effects. I especially like the part where the go'uald see the nuke go off right in his face. The interaction of SG-1 and the miners in that planet when during first contact reminds me of myself in grades 3, 8, and 9. It was pretty much similar except I didn't find anybody worshipping me and I certainly wasn't given a hot woman as my wife. This brings me to the one bug I find in the movie. If you were the elder guy for the miners, would you order someone to marry him simply because he was wearing a stupid necklace? If I were him I'd shoot Daniel Jackson and take the bracelet myself. Still, after all is said and done, this movie is pretty enjoyable if you like science fiction.

Underworld:
Despite what I thought of this movie before I saw it, this turned out to be pretty good. I like most the characters and Kate Beckensale is one hot chick. We get to see him in tight leather all film and that can't be bad. The only bad character is the one vampire/werewolf hybrid who either can't act or is told to act stupid so Kate can look good. Those blade that extend out the arms are my favorite type of melee weapons and I'm glad they actually have them do something. Oh and one more thing, only people who dress in dark clothing gets to be turned into vampires for some reason. Or vampires just all have black leather fetishes. Either way, this movie is better than blade and is the best I've seen of its genre.

RANT

Okay, so I think everyone here’s heard of the notion that one is comfortable of performing or expressing homosexual acts or ideas because one is comfortable with his/her sexuality. Well I used to use that notion in my conversations with various people until it hit me that I don't even know what I was saying. Personally, I believe that particular notion is complete and total BS. The very fact that it was used in American Pie 2 is reason enough to question its validity. Think about it, if you were secure in your sexuality, wouldn't it be logical to assume that homosexualism will not turn you on and will probably disgust you because you are not gay/lesbian? The very idea of this dichotomy is most likely a giant mind game those power-that-be are experimenting on the poor and helpless public souls such as you and I since we are believers of the "if Sean William Scott says it, then it must be true" religion.

RANT OVER
Kudos to Britney Spears for filling the girls of our youth with sexual images.

High school memory of the entry: the time when I sprayed Nick with a ketchup packet in grade 9 when he slaughtered my bear. Plus the time I tried to choke Mike because he did the same thing.

Quote of the entry: "engineering is an art of melding materials whose property we do not fully understand, into structures whose characteristics we cannot predict to withstand forces that we can not properly assess while at the same time have the public be content of our ignorance"

Oh and excuse me for the music selection, the upbeat soft music really dulls the pain like free beer......urg I'll admit it I'm in love with nelly furtado..............'s baby

Hey my readers, thank you for not abandoning me with my lack of updates. It's been awhile, I've been very busy, but I've finally found time to do this so let's get to it.

-Happy birthday to Tiki Krindle, we have made plans to dine together at some undetermined point in the future. That will hopefully make up for the malnutrition I've been suffering from eating burger every day.

-Speaking of food, I've been eating a ridiculously large amount of cookies with the usual supplement of pop.

-This must have been the eighth straight week of exams. I can feel my mind getting weaker as each late nights go by. Fortunately I'll have 13 days of exam-free period to study for my finals.

-Mr. Howard Lee has finally decided to move on from Maple Ridge Secondary to some very high paying job in the states conducting some world class band. It's about time, good job Mr. Lee.
"RANT"
-My term so far in electrical engineering has yielded so far less-than-optimum results. I'm used to getting high Bs and now I'm just doing average. I find this being the results of several factors(or excuses if you might want to call them). They are as follows:

1. The sheer load of the courses. 8 courses has been taken this term while the optimum being 6. Arts students takes 4 on average. each course requires a significant amount of mental effort and time, which are no longer sufficiently available taken everything else into account.

2. My mind is not disciplined enough to take on the 60-hour week workload. The 60-hour week requirement can only be achieved during high-stress exam times. Usually 45 hours is a typical week.

3. There has been some emotional disturbance which I am at a loss to understand(for details please refer to the previous entry). That may have an effect on my concentration.

4. Electrical engineering, while takes heavy use of physical and mathematic concepts, are mostly methodologies that can only be mastered through repeated practice. The lack of time means that the learning effectiveness is reduced.

5. The overcrowdedness of the program. This program has opened up to 100 seats this year while it was half this size two years ago. To conpensate for this the university has expanded several sections. However, UBC did not allocate enough resource for students' needs and therefore most students are left in the dark trying to learn everything by themselves. The TAs and teachers are not very enthusiastic in their work and teaches very little. What they do teach are usually poorly presented. Given the difficulty and amount of the work, it is difficult for students to master and excel the concepts on our own.

"RANT OVER"

-On to better things, the incredible magnificent borathon mark III is undergoing its planning phase. If you are reading this, then you may expect an invitation. If you do not receive an invitation even though you do read the journal, it will be made available upon request. Admission will be made only to people with invitations only this time. Bear in mind that this is an event that occurs approximately every twenty months and only few carefully selected may participate, so consider yourselves special.

-speaking of the borathon, I am interested in acquiring Monty Python: The Search for the Holy Grail. If anyone would be kind enough to help me locate a VHS or DVD version it would be much appreciated.

-Meris' Halloween Party was cool. I have to commend everyone who dressed up for the occasion despite the fact that it was freezing cold outside and with very low visibility around a dying fire. Among present were Alexis, Meris, Sonja, Tiki, Alana Vosper, Greg Lane, and numerous misc people from the Kwantlen University College Music Department including one guy who choose to call himself sir penatron. I have noticed that music students tend to be quirky in their own ways. I have never seen people singing for so long without any sort of outside motivation.

-encountered tanya durmail somewhere on campus

-My furnace is no longer functional, therefore before I get it repaired I'm gonna avoid living there.

-Staying at the MCLD 322 building circuits for 6-8 hours on end has become somewhat routine. One would never have thought simple circuits would take so long to build.

-After reviewing the previous entry, I have to say that I am greatly puzzled as to what have caused me to sink into that sort of a melancholic mindframe. "I believe I'm a horrible person and a sick psycho, someone with an enormous ego to compensate for the even larger inferiority complex" Was it actually me who said this? Oh my god, what is going on? The very fact that it is possible for me to become that depressed is very depressing. I promise this will not happen again for at least another year.

-On the day of viewing the matrix, I went out of my way to invite an acquaintance to see it as well. Well long story short this person's father answered the door and told us that she's asleep. I'd have to say it has not escaped our attention that it is slightly unusual for someone at the age of twenty to be asleep on a friday night at 9:30pm.

Game review:
Fallout: This is 1997 RPG game of the year. In this game you can actually create your own character and play yourself. Every level up you may upgrade whatever skill you choose by something called "skill points." The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic holocaust wasteland, where you are one of the decendents who took shelter in a vault. However, the water processing chip in your vault has broken down, and you have been chosen to go out of the vault to search and retrieve it. One thing fascinate me about this game is the dialogue options. You may enter dialogue with many characters in the game and what you say and what you do determines how your game will go. For example, if you like to be a thief you may upgrade your "steal" skill and steal people's weapons before shooting them while they're defenseless. Also, if you like to talk your way out of things you may upgrade your speech skill and you may avoid most of the fights. Game rating:A highly recommended.

Movie review:

Kill Bill: Volume One. The plan of the night was to see Scary Movie 3, but that was full so we went to this instead. Boy was I glad that Scary Movie was full. This film simply blows my mind. "The dialogue are funny and the actions were awesome" I must say I agree. The gory details of the fight scenes with many different filming techniques involved will bring out the lust for carnage from even the more mature audiences(by this I mean male audiences) This is by far lucy Liu's finest movie yet. By the time I walk out of the theatre I have firmly concluded that the producer of that film is crazy. However, this film works precisely because it is an insane artistic creation. The only thing bad I have to say about this movie is that it has a two-bit plot, but this can easily be overlooked seeing that it is not intricate plot development this film features, it is the action and the carnage. Uma Thurman is hot for someone her age. memorable quote from the movie: "wiggle the big toe"

Matrix: Revolutions. The much anticipated third sequel is finally out to finish the trilogy. Unfortunately, this addition also fails to stun its audience as the first one did. Granted, the action scenes are revolutionary from all its predecessors and the giant battle of Zion can only be described as ultra-cool. Moreover, the performance by Smith was stellar and he plays the villian character very well. However, they put too many cheesy moments in and characters uttering lines of virtually no significance like they actually mean something. Also, Trinity's death was too long. They stretched out what should have been 20 seconds into 4 minutes, which is completely unacceptable. Also, the happy ending is disgusting for a movie like this. Keanu Reeves looks pretty good for 39. Also deserving mention is the chinese guy who plays it so cool. Memorable quote from the movie: "over my dead body"(security guard), "so be it"(chinese guy who proceed to beat him up)

High school memory of the entry: the prank calls in highschool from "Heinz Ketchup" to various people. A mass calling spree should be in order.

Quote of the entry: "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."
Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

My readers, thank you for your patience. I have been under quite a bit of stress lately with midterm: batch one going for three weeks.

-I've noticed that emotionally I've been on a slow downward spiral since June. I think I am hitting bottom again in this yearly cycle of ups and downs. If I'm acting like a mafuee, please be patient. You shall have your glorious MouTa of Portable Posse back at the latest by christmas or spring break.

-Midterm: batch 1, part 3 with digital design and multivariable calculus on wednesday. Two subjects, end to end. This shall be some more arduous labour.

-The final fantasy 7 movie is apparently coming out next summer. It looks so insanely fantastic I almost shit myself when viewing the trailer. Sephrioth wasn't as cool as in the game, but he is still so incredibly hardcore. He is, to this day, one of my biggest idols and that movie is just simply going to be great.

-More on final fantasy: If you don't hate RPG, definitely buy ffX. The plot includes the deconstruction of an entire religion and you get to be the one revealing all the bullshit. The guys at squaresoft really knows how to please.

-My english teacher is trying to fail me.

Movie reviews:
The school of Rock:
This is one of those movies that impresses you greatly even though it is meant for all ages. This movie is Jack Black's latest and finest piece of work yet. Words cannot describe how much this movie kicks ass. The best I can come up with is "in the truest spirit of rock and roll" but this movie is just so much more. Don't get me wrong, by no means can I refer myself as a hardcore rocker(well, perhaps among these hiphop/rap/pop/Jpop crowd) but i think it'd inspire the rocker out of anyone. If you see one comedy this year, this is your movie because i'm pretty sure it slew every other one I've seen.

The League of extraordinary gentlemen:
"Unfathomable balderdash." -- Megan Lehmann, NEW YORK POST

"It's not brazenly bad or heroically bad or stridently bad. It's bad in all the old, dull ways of being bad: poor performances, absurd story, dreary special effects, witless dialogue and the excessive length of someone taking himself far too seriously." -- Stephen Hunter, WASHINGTON POST

"Outragously vapid." -- Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"Extraordinary is the very last adjective that comes to mind." -- John Patterson, LA WEEKLY

"Quite awful." -- Richard Roeper, EBERT & ROEPER

"Wild Wild West meets Avengers bad." -- Bill Muller, ARIZONA REPUBLIC

This movie was seen with Kenton and Victor. After seeing the movie I have to say I agree with the critics. This movie took a few one bit ridiculously powerful heroes and a forth-rated villian with a painfully uninteresting plot. The producers even took the trouble to kill off all the good characters besides Sean Connery(he was killed too). It's like they are trying to make this movie the biggest mistake in the comics-turned-movie genre. The villian in this movie is undoubtably the most weak and pathetic bad guy I have ever seen. The henchmen are such imbeciles it makes you wonder why they even bother fighting since it would've been easier if they just shoot themselves and get it over with. One semi-okay character worth mentioning was this pirate fellow who is crazy with the beshido blade. I can't believe he took the time to say "I can't kill him, he is too strong" when he should've been running cuz some ripoff of the hulk is trying to smash him in the wall.

-Today was my heroic adventure: So anyways, I did this philosophy quiz in the afternoon. On my way back from buchannan, I decided to take a stroll. I saw this trail and though I couldn't see where it led to, I just followed it. After about ten minutes of going down hill I found myself in this little cozy place called the wreck beach. Anyways, long story short, this beach is inhabited by people that show things that should never be seen in public. I know, you all want this journey to the nude beach to end in "...and it was the best sex I ever had", but I'm afraid that the people that inhabit these parts are just a tidbit unsuitable.(50 years too old, maybe?) So after a few of these encounters I became very uncomfortable so I just looked for the first opening in the thicket that might have became a trail and made my exit.(by the way rumor has it that some people have sex in those bushes) After about 30 feet, I found myself staring at a whole bunch of ferns and moss and wet leaves and mud and no sign of a trail. By that point even if I had tried to go back to the beach I would've had to walk down a very steep hill which probably means that I will slip and roll down the entire hill and get impaled by a branch.(not to say that I don't deserve it) so what would've been a 10 minute hike turned into a 40 minute tread in this very unsteady ground and I could probably have fell and be injured a dozen times over. Fortunately for me I will live till another day and go there in spring break. *whistle* *grrr*

-For the past three weeks, it has been really dry and dull after the viewing of the School of Rock. I think when the mind stops being stimulated from exterior sources, it start looking for things to be worked up about from within. So as you will soon see, I have been worked up about matters which I will find laughable some time in the future. Yet since I am at a lack of better things to say, you will have to bear with me:
As you know for every person there are some things that he does not wish to think about. Usually the thoughts are simply tossed aside and repressed. But eventually, over months or even years, when enough of these feelings and emotions build up in the back of your head, you will start feeling strained from carrying the emotions around. One day, when you are by yourself, one of these negative thoughts will enter your head, then another, then more coming faster and faster. Struggling to keep it away only makes it worse. It is like sinking in quicksand until you're completely overwhelmed. This process can occur intermittently over days and weeks but in the end you will have to face them. Nevertheless, facing your worst thoughts is hardly an easy task and some people chooses to not deal with it and run away. This may work for some more months and years until they catch up with you with greater magnitude and intensity. Still, it is very attractive since letting all the emotions run through your head and the feeling of agony may last for months and months until you emerge in a new equilibrium and have fun again. But for the duration one can believe in very strange things. For example, right now I believe I'm a horrible person and a sick psycho, someone with an enormous ego to compensate for the even larger inferiority complex. Anyways, I apologize for all the pointless and dumb shit I just laid upon you. Do not worry, this "mood swing" or "spell" can only last for so long. The demi-god known as MouTa will be back before you know it.

Quote of the day: "what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us" -name of a person off msn