Sunday, March 29, 2009

Newness

As seen on the right, I have added a widget thingy to indicate where my last Coca-colas have been. This will not only help you, the reader, determine if I am actually sticking to my claim, but it will help me, the detoxee, determine if I have truly quit, as I believe and claim.

Let it also be on the record that I did not have a coke between that post and now. However, I have been tempted. I brought a few cokes to my desk; however, when the hustle and bustle of work got going, I forgot about my mini-urge.

In other news, I ran the reservoir today. The run itself is a very peaceful, reflective time. During the run, I think of many things that flicker in and out of my head during the normal parts of life. Unfortunately, when the run ends and regular life kicks in, I forget all about them; some of which I do want to blog.

This actually happens a whole lot more than I'd like to admit.

Meh.

Eventually, we'll get to updates by email. Until then, they'll exist solely in my head.

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Song Of The Moment: Wang Lee-Hom - 第一個清晨
Comment: Love that Asian music

Monday, March 23, 2009

Ugh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Eye_w/_Greg_Gutfeld#Mocking_of_Canadian_Military_controversy

It's easy to make fun when you are sitting at home, I betcha.
Too easy to make fun of. Too unfortunate to joke about.

This was probably said in jest, but they simply come off as bitter. Certainly, that will make us want to join the next war effort.

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Song Of The Moment: Michelle Branch - Goodbye To You
Comment: Way back play back.

Some days...

I just don't like people.

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Song Of The Moment: Asher Roth - I Love College
Comment: I do.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Habits

Today I noticed two things while in a meeting room full of people.

1) There are a lot of nailbiters in a particular room. It's not particularly attractive.

2) Many folks drink Diet Coke. Cancer in a can! Maybe I don't understand taste; how can something so disgusting be consumed by so many people? One guy had three cans in three hours. I wonder if he had to pee.

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Song Of The Moment: 吳克群 - 對不起
Comment: No, I am not sorry for anything in particular. :p

Monday, March 16, 2009

Quitting

For the past year or so, I have been working on cutting drastically on one of my many vices. Coincidentally, this happens to one that goes way, way back to the point that this is one of the things people from elementary school remember about me.

That vice is coke. (Coca-cola, not... nevermind.)

I have had this beverage for as long as I can remember. For a very long time, I was drinking (for the most part) a can a day. On stressful/hot/celebratory days, that could be more. There were also spikes where I was drinking more than a can a day.

You might be asking why.

As everyone knows, America generally introduces you to larger portions. These large portions have combined to cause my weight to climb a little bit. While that's a contributing factor, it's not a driver of the reason.

As rumors have it, Coke is consider to be the fizzier of the two main Colas. Again, this is not a reason to quit. (If anything, it's a reason to continue!)

The honest fact of the matter is, my taste buds have changed. One day, I was halfway through my daily coke when I looked at the can and said: "This thing is too sweet." After that, I just drank less and less of it. I have never considered moving to the Diet/Caffeine-free/Zero/Cherry/any other variant of it. There was never a moment I decided to taste Pepsi (because that's garbage).

Maybe I am less OCD than I thought...

It would be dishonest to say I never crave a coke or I never drink it. However, I'm probably down to one or two a week, if even that. To put an actual statistic on it; I think I will try and log every coke I drink somewhere on the page of this blog. We will truly see how much I've really quit.

And we can't finish this story without irony: I started quitting when I began to get Coke for free.

As a side note, I've noticed that I've developed a taste for many things I hated as a child. In particular: pickles and honey dijon (NOT the regular mustard, that's still garbage in my eyes).

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Song Of The Moment: Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Comment: I think this is my 2008 song.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Quick Sports Thoughts

Watched Leafs-Islanders and Knicks-Bucks.

Quick thoughts:

1) Hockey is definitely a multi-person sport to watch. There is no fun to yell out at something that might happen, then look around and realize no one is there to scare or share the excitement with.

2) New Yorkers! Larry Hughes was a huge part of the Knicks game. The announcer kept saying "Eww-ughes". Pronounce the damn "H"! "Eww-uge shot by Larry Eww-ughes!". Really? Really? Gah.

3) The upper deck of the Milwaukee game was virtually empty. I understand it's the ending stretch of the season. On the other hand, the team has a tenuous hold on eighth spot. Is the economy that bad out in the midwest?

4) Same idea with the hockey game. The quiet environment and some empty platinum seats made me think that the Islanders were at home. Then I see the giant blue maple leaf and was relatively shocked to have empty seats and dead environment to a Leaf game.

5) Watching these sports make me miss playing sports a la university. *tear*

6) As I say all the time: Hockey in HD is awesome!


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Song Of The Moment: Soulja Boy Tell'Em Feat. Sammie - Kiss Me Thru The Phone
Comment: Not going to lie. This is a guilty pleasure song.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

How to fix Tal's Apple Products

As some of you may know, I have been rocking iPods in various forms for a long time.
I own a 4G iPod, 1G Shuffle, 2G shuffle, and an iPhone. After today's events, I have come to believe that these products are, from a functional standpoint, almost indestructible.

My 4G is exhibit A in this conclusion. I have body slammed this phone on two occasions snowboarding. Instead of luckily landing on snow during the fall, I decide to choose an ice patch to attempt ipod-icide. The result: a crack on both sides between the white portion and the metallic portion. However, it was still playing music with no problems.

On my trip to Europe, on a nice patio in Spain, I got up too quickly without realized my ipod was on my lap. The result: the ipod cease to work. This was going to be a huge damper on my trip. As my trip-mates could attest, I would not stop bitching about my lack of music. In Amsterdam, I took it to an Apple store we stumbled upon. The clerks told me that I would have to send it back to North America for repairs. When they saw my crestfallen face, they suggested an off-label remedy. Their experience had taught them that some people were able to fix their ipods by slamming it hard to 'bump' the hard drive head back into place. When pondering the solution, as absurd as it sounded, it was worth a shot. It wasn't working. If I slammed it and broke it, it still would not be working. What do I have to lose. I asked to clerk to perform the procedure. With a SLAM into the desk, the ipod decided to revive!

Now for my iphone. My iPhone took a trip to Whistler. Knowing my ipod experiences, I decided to play it safe and leave the phone in Julian's car. This particular weekend, it was colder than usual in Whistler (-22 degrees C). When we got back to the phone, its vibrate functionality was broken. Instead of a vibration, it made a sound like there was a dead cat in my phone. From December until now, I had put off dealing with this issue; hoping that the phone would fix itself. This weekend, the lack of vibration and missing all my calls was the final straw.

Last night, I go to the Apple store for first line defense. I was told that my phone is out of warranty and I'm S.O.L. Trading my phone would cost me, well, as much as a new one. However, I could try a few repair shops that they recommended. Today, I head down to 23rd to see these guys. As I am wandering around, trying to find the iphone help desk and leering at the sheer amount of Apple products in that store, I realize something. Subconsciously, I had been playing with my iphone's vibrate button. What do you know, the little bugger was vibrating again.

I made the trip down for no reason. Apple's reputation for revival is still strong. Having said that, I broke and fixed the vibrate a bunch of times. All it takes is a good shake. This week will be spent investigating if I can shake this vibrate mechanism back into place. Oh, Apple. How you toy with my mind. I don't understand how you can make products that seemingly fix itself. It's pretty awesome.

Yes, I jsut wasted 5 minutes of your time. You don't even want to know how long I spent writing it!

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Song Of The Moment: Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Comment: This song makes me happy.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

WSF4

This is awesome!



Quick notes:

1) Why do Americans hate their job so much? Why is it so visible that they hate their job? Why do they continue to do it? There was always this concept of the American dream. How come so many look miserable?

2) Shoes are awesome. Pictures soon.

3) The Raptors break my heart. I don't understand why they are so frustrating. Well, I do. I don't understand why I continue to watch them. Well, I do. Bah. Another wasted night.

4) Why are there not enough hours in a day?

5) Why do I bitch so much?

6) Run, run, run, run.

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Song Of The Moment: Chris Brown - You
Comment: I now see Chris Brown songs in a different light.