Derrick Rose

Not since the days of Iverson and Hardaway:

Firing Sam Mitchell.

It was a bad idea to fire him midseason.

Putting it here on record.

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Song Of The Moment: The Cynic Project - Start the Dance
Comment: None.

NH

Just putting the link here for future reference:



And, like anything, "use it in a sentence". (Yes, he used "pause" instead. That's professionalism.



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Song Of The Moment: Ludacris - One More Drink Feat. T-Pain
Comment: Theatre of the Mind. It's hot. Check out the video.

Quickies

Just some quick thoughts I had today:

1) Urinal etiquette. I don't understand though who have a wide stance. Their toes peek into my area. It makes me want to pee on their shoe.

_______  |  ________
|  1  |  |  |  2   |
-------  |  --------

There is clearly enough space as proven by my drawing above.

2) Bowl games. College bowl games: there are like 30 of them. They get some trophy. But... who's the best? All 30?
Basketball got it right with March Madness. It's time football did one too. I might actually watch!

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Song Of The Moment: Slim - So Fly
Comment: 112!

Happy Hour

From Urban Dictionary
1. happy hour

Where the worst selling and nastiest tasting alcoholic beverages are sold for half price to a bunch of alcoholics too drunk to notice.

---

Happy hour. It's one of those things that is immediately interpreted as an alcoholic's activity. However, one could see it as the celebration of another hard day's work. 10 hours of hard work can be reflected upon with good company and good (well, decent) drinks.

The upside to happy hour: staying late at the office is not a detriment to your ego nor is it a reason to consider quitting. Instead, it's a chance to people "meet up".

The downside to happy hour: staying out late. Come home and it's time to go to bed.

The upside to happy hour: alcoholic drinks.

The downside to happy hour: alcoholic drinks.

The upside to happy hour: entertaining conversations with a bunch of people, some of whom you know and some you do not.

The downside to happy hour: conversation about work.

The upside to happy hour: being social.

The downside to happy hour: having to escape work to be social.

All in all, happy hour is that guilty pleasure. It's a time to boast that you spend way too much time at work in both positive and negative terms. It's a reward for putting in the hours that you do. It's an excuse to get a little more drinking in. It's the reason some bars are still able to operate.

Most important, it's awesome.

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Song Of The Moment: Robin Thicke - Complicated
Comment: Complicated.

In Love!

This post is to profess my newfound love. Oh, it was obvious to all that there was a strong attraction to begin with. I am ashamed to deny it now, but I resisted; resisted the temptation of your love, your protection, and your comforting touch.

You were there every morning to say hi. Wrap me up in a warm hug that, no matter what would happen on that day, let me know that everything would be okay. On days that I needed you more, you would always be there with a refill. It's like you never ran out!

As the days pass by and you let me do some weird stuff with you, I appreciate the flexibility that you exhibit. Your smell, so distinctive, would be enough to snap me out of any funk. With donuts, it's like a slam dunk. I love you, coffee.



(This was a terrible post. I just can't believe that I enjoy coffee so much; even when I am wide awake.)

PS to Jo: Shoes are awesome!

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Song Of The Moment: Mr. Cheeks - Crush On You Feat. Mario Winans
Comment: It was on the winamp.

Bonus!
Song Of The Moment: Raymond Lam (林峰) - 愛不疚.mp3
Comment: Sent to me. It's awesome. Canto-pop is fantastic

November Thought Snippets

Two quickies.

One: earlier in the NBA season, I debated about NBA league pass. Last season, splitting it with Matt made more economical sense. On the last day, I ended up taking the plunge alone.

1.1) Getting every game is fantastic. There is nothing like kicking back and watching a bunch of games simultaneous AND back-to-back.

1.2) This would be easier to enjoy if the looming spectre of the CFA wasn't so large.

1.3) The Raptors are causing aneurysms in me.

Two: I don't understand old ladies and the bus. They clamour to get on the bus first. The nice thing is to let them on. But.... they get on, then they pay, and then they clog up the front of the bus?!?

Isn't the logical thing to let the people who are going to be in the back of the bus get on first. It's a natural flow. Instead, when the people at the end of the line get on, we are faced with a dilemma. Ahead are walkers, strollers, fat people, old people, frail people. Behind are people bumping you, angry that they had to wait. No one is pleasant and everyone from front to back is glaring. All the meanwhile, you are trying to get to the empty half of the bus.

Defies logic. I hate people.

Three: Very random. I just wanted to type.
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Song Of The Moment: Lil Wayne - Mr. Carter
Comment: This album is pretty insane.

Brontosaurus Ribs!

Man, the past week could not have been better.

The good stuff, I will not share. Instead I will talk about the steak.

First, the crowd: Mike Le's fateful return from abroad and his birthday necessitated a celebration of sorts. Hannah, Melissa, Melissa (not a typo), Ruthson, Matt, Michael and Eric made it out for dinner.

But more importantly, the steak. At Ben & Jack's (free plug). Funny thing, I've been talking about them as Ben & Jerry'; still have work ice cream on the brain.

So this steakhouse, looks all fancy in their front bar and everything. Go into the back and it feels like an old Italian restaurant. Fine. Moving along, we get seated and everything's cool.

Then everything is uncool. We open the winelist and it's depressingly overpriced. Fine, it's Mike's birthday, we'll compromise and get two bottles instead of three. (Last time we went all out at Bobby Flay's, we spent $90 a person). Wine comes, it's decent whatever. (Yes, getting to the steak).

There are a series of steak choice, striploin, prime rib, rib eye. The one that caught OUR eye: a 'Steak for 4'. Jay, Matt, Mike and myself were going to hit that so hard. We had visions of a brontosaurus rib. For posterity, we asked the waiter to NOT cut the meat so we could bask in its meatiness.

Waiter: "No no no, we do the cutting for you, you don't understand, we do it right."

Fine, this steak better be amazing. Precut meat is not something expected. Between the order and the arrival, a waiter comes and put a little sauce plate upside down on the table. Curious, we stare at it wondering (but not touching) the odd placement of this dish.

The arrival.

The meat comes and the dude says the plate is HOT. When he sat it down, it sizzled the table. It was two giant T-bones, all cut up. We get one of each side of the T (whatever they are). It was like 3/4 inches thick and cooked perfectly. Beautiful sear on the outside while maintaining this nice juicy interior.

Steak for 4. Perfect amount for 4 dudes. The rest of the night? We drank a ton at the Park. We all know how that story goes.

And the plate? It was used to tilt the steak dish so we could harvest the fat as sauce. The fat made the night all that much better.

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Song Of The Moment: The Rocker Summer - Colors
Comment: Should be spelled with a 'U'

Misnomer

Random musings:

1) Food Network's Throwdown, we clearly heard them say 'fuck'. Is this a new age in television? 'Fuck' is now okay to say on TV? Is there some sort of rule? Is one boob allowed now? Clearly, there was no memo passed out to me.

2) "Head Over Heels" - Isn't this a misnomer? My head is always over my heels. A little research on the universally (or maybe just socially) recognized authority on languages: Urban Dictionary shows that I am not the first person to have this thought. Just thinking that many songs should go back and fix their lyrics to be, well, correct. At least these guys have it right.

3) Women American beach volleyball players - Branagh/Youngs (one of them) gives the crowd the shush finger in the middle of the first set after an ace. Really? It's the first set! Give me a break! Of course, the Chinese came back to tie the set afterwards. Karma's a bitch, bitches.

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Song Of The Moment: Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy.
Comment: All time fave? I think so.

Where are you now?

The Olympics have been on, in case you haven't noticed. While watching said Olympics, we have been inundated with shots of Americans, i.e. Michael Phelps and George Bush.

With all of these PR shots of the president, it got me thinking. (Uh oh)

Everywhere we look, people are making fun of the guy. However, he was re-elected! Where are the 50.7% of the people who voted for him? Did every member of the media vote for Kerry? This is not to say I support the current regime, but if I was new to US politics, I would be mighty confused.

Recap of the popular vote.
Popular vote
Bush: 62,040,610 (50.7%)
Kerry: 59,028,444 (48.3%)
(From Wikipedia)

Where are you, 50.7% of the people? If you voted this way, defend it. Or else vote differently! How sad would it be, if you voted one way and then derided the result?

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Song Of The Moment: Cassie - Is It You?
Comment: Are you the one that voted?

Another story

Five second story.

Imagine two people walking down the street towards one another.

In Toronto, the protocol (to my knowledge) is to move to the right and let each other pass.

In New York, the protocol (to my knowledge) is to play chicken with one another until one person moves at the last second.

In Toronto, the number of occurrences is quite small.

In New York, this happens for the ENTIRE STRETCH that one walks, whether it be the 10 minute walk to the subway or the 2 minute walk to the intersection.

And you wonder why New Yorkers are angry.

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Song Of The Moment: Mario - Crying Out For Me Remix Feat. Lil' Wayne
Comment: Lil Wayne is funny.

Messed up.

Story 1:

I'm at work.

Going to the bathroom, minding my own business.

A glow emits from the crotch of the gentleman next to me.

I think he... was.. texting. While using the urinal.

I will never borrow his phone.


Story 2:

I'm getting my hair cut.

The barber asks me how I want it.

I say "#2, thin out the top".

He cuts it.

I ask him to thin it out some more.

He cuts it shorter, to the point where my head is essentially a buzzcut all around.

I realize after I leave that he doesn't speak English.

That would have helped at the beginning of the session.

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Song Of The Moment: Boys Like Girls - Thunder
Comment: Good song.

Bye bye Rogers.

For as long as I can remember, I have been making uncool payments to Ted's corporation. This time, it is not Mosby's, but instead, Rogers'.

Starting now, I am no longer tied to a Canadian carrier. About freaking time!

Now about my American contract. I don't want to talk about it. It's not the same. There is email, and txt, and it's more expensive.

*sigh*

I'll be paying some sort of carrier for the rest of my life. Or at least until I am incapacitated.

Weather note: 40 degrees is not cool. I can't function in this weather.

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Song Of The Moment: Kylie Minogue Feat. Mims - All I See
Comment: My summer song. Calling it now.

Baller

Tiger is something else. The link above is SI's Fortunate 50, essentially how the baller-ist athletes roll.

Tiger. Phil(?!) Br0n-Br0n.

Tiger has made $800 million in his career.

First is shock and awe. Second is: how much has Nike made from Tiger?!

Bah.

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Song Of The Moment: Jay Chou - Silence
Comment: Everyone is sleeping. This song seemed appropriate.

Memories

"Now let me take a trip down memory lane" - Nas (actually Biz Markie)



This was awesome. I'm not even acknowledge anything to the contrary.

Fly kicks next.

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Song Currently Playing: Counting Crows - Angels Of The Silences
Comment: Storytellers. Good old Youtube.

Sheep!

I admit it. I am sheep. Seeing other people blog regularly makes me want to do it.

Alas, there is no time. Maybe I will moblog! Probably not.

Quick recap of the weekend:

Saturday: Haircut + beer. At the SAME TIME. What a cool concept. Saturday was a dud. Jay was supposed to meet up with a friend. They went MIA. By the time we figured it out, we lost all notion of leaving the house. Which meant more Madden for all.

Sunday: Basketball. Then a run around Jackie O. Let me tell you. That was death at its most extreme. It was such a great feeling at the end, but the entire act of subjecting myself to a run around the reservoir after that marathon basketball game was something... wait for it... legendary.

I already miss How I Met Your Mother.

Damn OCD.

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Song Of The Moment: None. No time for new songs. My oldie is Cute Without The 'E' (Cut from the team). Deal with it.
Comment: See above.

Awkward

So in stalking my friends blogwise, I find out that I am linked on more than zero blogs.

That's weird and not so cool.

The joke's on them, I never update!

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Song Of The Moment: Augustana - Sweet & Low
Comment: Look, I don't have time for new music. Yet. It will happen soon. I will spend a weekend in central park, with a bunch of allergy pills and my iPod. I will OCD-ily rank all the new songs I hear and determine what, if any, are worthy of eternal existence on the tal playlist. Of death.

New York Update

The city is fucking busy. I always thought that, as the weather warmed up, more people would choose to walk. As such, the subway would then be less crowded. Nope. That's not the cae, whether it be tourists (at 8:30?!), families (damn strollers), or the usually commuters (damn newspapers), something or someone is jabbing something into you. Thankfully, my commute is two stops. At times, it feels like two stops too many.

The Park. This time, the Park does not refer the the bar/lounge that's awesome. The Park is now the park that everyone knows and loves: Central Park. It's freaking great. It's like another world inside the city. Went for a run. Nice calm area (when you finally get to said park). Our run that was supposed to be harder than it was. Nevertheless, I am depressingly out of shape, so this will be required.

Plus, there are a lot of people. We all know, people watching is the new rage in a big city. Especially in New York. Everyone is running the park, young, old, men, women, big, small, smelly, etc. It's nice. Will this be the beginning of the New York City Marathon training? It's one thing on my bucket list...

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Song Of The Moment: None.
Comment: Stupid computer crashed. Listening to boring old music.

Pretty Kind of Sure They Took All Of It

These past few weeks have been a rude awakening in the global world.

This time last year, I found myself seeing only red and white Canadian. Since then, my travels have included Europe and settling in New York. Now, I have since completed my US Federal taxes, NY State taxes, New York City taxes (really?!).

In trolling for information to find what very select, painful group I fit into, I stumbled upon a number of blogs and such of people extolling their own financial goals, dreams and aspirations.

There were many that had their savings goals, debt goals and other financial indicators proudly posted to track progress. If this many people had surely taken the time to plot their financial arc, why is North America (the United States in particular) so vulnerable. Yes, North Americans are tempted by shiny things, but all in all, do we buy that many of them? If so, how are there so many blogs tracking their finances? I'm not even entirely sure of my point here.

Personally, I'm very scared as to what camp I fall into. Am I a big spender or not? It terrifies me to run an expense report on the last 3 months of my life to see, in fact, where all the money has gone.

After doing my taxes, I can't be sure that it hasn't just all gone to the governments of Uncle Sam and Joe Canuck.

I swear, the next one will make more sense

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Song Of The Moment: John Mayer - Say
Comment: New York Metro recently called John Mayer the artist you'd love to hate, but can't. On a personal level, I remember when Continuum came out and I didn't want to like it. But I did, and I enjoy it probably the most outside of his acoustic album. The same applies for this song: I don't like it now. I'll probably end up loving it. The story of my John Mayer fandom. Always late.

NYC Night

Tonight was interesting.

It's almost 4 AM, so it's going to be short and sweet. No bar type story. At least not as I plan this entry in my head. If my fingers end up typing out the full story, so be it.

To lead off: Kill me now. Vince Carter a leader? Really? (Channeling his reaction to the MVP chants of Chris Bosh in last year's playoffs)

Second hole: We went to a bar called Fat Black Pussy Cat. I thought it was funny. More interestingly, the McDonald's at the corner has 6 McNuggets for $1. You read that correctly. After the bar, I prompted bought 12 nuggets. The deal was so good, I had to double check by asking the poor wait staff serving the many drunkards.

Third spot: Skinny jeans + men = something not right. While enjpying the tasy morsels of 'chicken', I was people watching. There was a disturbing number of New York males who are on the whole skinny jean fashion trend. First, not a fan. To make matters worse, some wanted to maintain their street cred by wearing the jeans low. So, in summary, we have these men, wearing tight jeans low. This results in the tightness showing off the lower body while the lowered jean position allows them to show their underwear choice. Which is fine, if it didn't look so weird, boxers all bunched out of the pants, since they had no place to go, given the tightness of the area below.

Cleanup: West 4th is an awesome area. It truly is one of the areas where the city never sleeps. Irony: Walking two blocks east to try and catch a cab, we hit an area that was absolutely quiet. The city changes dramatically in a number of blocks.

5th spot: NCAA tournament is not as fun without a bracket.

6th: Leafs suck. Again, I am not a hater of the Blue and White, but rather the team as it is currently constructed. As usual, I will bring up the glory days of Pat Quinn and their 'defense' consisted of CuJo with no help. Those were funs games to watch.

7,8,9: Fuck it, I'm sleeping

Tal

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Song Of The Moment: Augustana - Sweet and Low
Comment: I can't wait for the album. And when they come to NYC. This time, I will not miss the concert.

Work On The Weekends...

... pretty much equals a 16 day week.
The problem is not:

• the disappearance of all physical activity


• the lack of proper nutrition


• the propensity to drink


• the now mythical social life


• the unhealthy dependence on caffeine

Instead, it's the never ending stench of work that is around you. You can't carry on a real conversation without drifting your thought back to work. I was making a todo list in the shower. I woke up this morning thinking of different ways to improve what I currently have.

I am not bitching about work. In fact, I quite like it. What I had never expected to experience was the college/university phenomenon known as "bringing work home". Hopefully, this project will have shed a lot of light on work/life balance that I once laughed at.

On a more amusing note, I love New York weather. First, any snow that might fall will melt in less than 4 hours. No matter the severity of the storm. Essentially New York is a giant heater with all the buildings, subways and vehicles. This means that snow is reduced to a rumor. Sure, there is still falling from the sky; but the evidence is largely gone. Unfortunately, this negates one huge advantage of living in an apartment: no shoveling. There is nothing to brag about when the infrastructure takes care of all the snow.

On an unrelated note, I have yet to board this season.

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Song Of The Moment: Michael Stipe - In the Sun Feat. Chris Martin
Comment: I stumbled upon this while on the interweb. It's so different from the original (which is still awesome), but I find myself playing this a lot more.

Work

Work is a funny thing. It's like the saying about women: "Can't live with them, can't live without them"

Work might well be a woman. You don't have a job, you are a bum and it sucks. You have a decent job and it sucks your essence. Maybe it's just me. I think about my job constantly. Is that even healthy? Personally, I'd rather have a job than no job; too much work then no work. Of course, I'm also crazy.

Within work, there are the lulls. The days that never end. The days that don't have enough minutes. The days with too many minutes. The deadlines that come too soon. The projects that go nowhere through no fault of your own. The projects that go nowhere because of you.

That's what makes life, and your career, interesting.

If you like it.

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Song Of The Moment: The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
Comment: Damn UPS commercials. Your music and whiteboard have me rapt at attention. Too bad I don't ship anything.

That CD

Happy Chinese New Year.

This post is about that CD. Or those CDs. Or, those songs.

This is about that set of music in your collection that doesn't get airplay because you played them out once in your lifetime. Maybe twice. You can't bear to get rid of them because, well, they brought back an entire era of your life back. Yet, for that very reason, it doesn't not rank high on the playlist. Who wants to always look back. Live moves forward after all.

This morning, as I was late for work again, I randomly picked a song to set the mood for the day as well as the 'getting ready' stage of my day. Ironically, I was humming some Dashboard Confessional, and I thought, "Hey! I recently got my hands on Remember To Breathe." So I played it.

Simply by loading Dashboard, the entire theory came into focus. There are too many songs. They fit in several categories:

1) All Time Greats - songs that should be at the fingertips. There should be like maybe 10-20 songs here. Among my songs, Wonderwall always stands up.

2) Dominant In An Era - Songs that you thought would be an all time great, but didn't stand the test of time. These are also the songs that bring you back to said era. - Dru Hill's How Deep Is Your Love For Me.

3) Situational - The Gym Song (D12 - Fight Music). The Running Song (Real McCoy - Runaway). The Basketball Song (The Game - This Is How We Do). The First Date Song (John Mayer - My Stupid Mouth). Etc etc. My favourite situational song: my Van Wilder song: Michelle Branch's You Got Me.

4) Current - The current hits that you hope make it to all time great, but you'd settle for dominant in the era. Right now, that song is Fat Joe's I Won't Tell

There are other categories. It's 1 AM. I only think of the theory. Fleshing it out and putting is on paper is hard. Let's call this The Song Categorization Theory.

I wonder why this happens. Some songs end up being timeless (U2's With Or Without you), others speak of a very specific time (Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby). The same song might mean different things to different people. Gwen Stefani's The Sweet Escape is my happy-go-lucky song while I know of very specific people who would gladly pay money, real money, to punch me in the face when they hear this song.

I KNOW this is why I have a song of the moment at the bottom of my blog. Going through the archives of previous generations of posts, I see that my musical tastes have changed, ebbed and flowed. Maybe it's a reflection of my personality. Maybe it's a reflection of my mood. Maybe I'm just too tired to comprehend what music means to me.

Hi-Tek has a great song called "Music For Life" (with an insane beat.. it has a flute!), where the artists try to express what music is to them.

Unbelievable. A post about songs that you love but don't listen to any more because a whole speech about what music means to me. Next post, I want to fine tune this whole music categorization.

Just because I can.

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Song Of The Moment: Chris Brown - With You
Comments: BET recently crowned him as music's #4 best dancer. And named James Brown 1 and MJ 2. And Janet #5. What kind of list is this. No list of this nature can have Michael Jackson at anything but #1. He brought us the moonwalk.

Busted!

I've been found!

I can't believe someone found this. Heck, I can't believe I'm still being linked to by anyone. Nevertheless, when reminded, I realize that I used to really enjoy posting on here. As mentioned earlier, everything here will be drama free so nothing about anyone will be posted. Yes, it's boring. Too bad. You all know who you are that ruined it.

So, I see that I lasted posted in August. This corresponds to the exact time that work took over my life:

August - October: Training. i.e. boot camp i.e. crazy work that took years off my life. Oh, and the excessive drinking while getting to know the city.

October - December: Work. Work. Party. Work.

January: Detox. Work. Work.

I think I need a work detox.

The best part about my job is the cultural benefits. I get to go to all these museums. The little kid in me has begged to go to the dino-museum time and time again. It's awesome.

Wow. That was a boring post.

Too bad.

A bad post is better than no post at all! (I wonder if that's true)

T

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Song Of The Moment: Fat Joe Feat. J. Holiday - I Won't Tell
Comment: I swear, I won't tell.