Anita Mui

TheStar.com - Anita Mui loses fight with cancer

I grew up watching you perform and listening to your songs. You are part of my childhood memories.

This is yet another reminder that life is fragile.

R.I.P.

Medieval Times

To continue the day's festivities, we went to Medieval Times for a dinner show. It was fab! The food was pretty good and the show was quite entertaining. Finally I was free to eat with my hands and not get yelled at for being 'messy'. The best part of the night? Our server. She walks up to us at the table, and proceeds to say, "Hi, my name is Amy. I'll be your wench for the next two hours. You can call me Amy or you can call me wench."

I giggled to myself profusely. (after Evelyn explained to me what a wench was)

Oh and when the princess said, "Blue Knight, attend me." I felt like I was watching some medieval romance story. Heh.

Boxing Day Shopping

Let me just mention how crappy boxing day shopping is this year - to start off, I didn't buy anything. NOTHING. Woke up at 7:00am and drove Evelyn + parental units to Yorkdale for 8:00am (when the doors opened). There was already a huge line-up in front of Timberland, but none of us were interested so we just passed by. Evelyn bought a nice Guess? bag for $15 - she's so proud that she found a bag for that price. Nothing was really on sale for me though, I think they don't even bother slashing prices for guys, because we would buy anything we want regardless of the price. On the contrary, women LOVE their bargains. The more 'worthwhile' they perceive the object, the better its price and they will buy more (even if they don't need it). That's my theory on why Boxing Day Shopping is never really geared towards guys.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to all :) Hope your holidays are filled with joy (and not sickness).

Sickness, again!

I picked the worst day of the year to get sick - on Christmas eve. Here I am, slept for 4 hours already, and barely have any energy to walk down the stairs. I can't sleep for too long though, because I tend to get really bored so being online is the best solution. I think I got it from my brother, since he's just getting better from the flu he got a couple of days ago... I have this stupid fever that's about 103 degrees..

What's worse is that there is no food in my house, and most restaurants/eateries are closed for the holidays. Nobody offered to bring me food yet.. :( home-cooked meals, anyone?

Christmas Spirit

I can certainly say that I feel the Christmas Spirit today after lining up to buy ONE freakin' book from Indigo. Line-up time = 15 minutes. Isn't that insane? I don't even want to start mentioning my drive home, which took 45 minutes (when usually I can make it in 15 if I'm lucky, 25 if it's heavy). I don't even want to think about tomorrow, or Boxing Day.

Which reminds me, I need to map out the mall, send recons, and plan the mission tomorrow.

Please refer to this article for more details.

Still slugging away..

Most people have gotten off their work placements already, and yet I'm still here working away. In fact I'm going to be here for a long while (probably until school starts again). Today is the first day of winter, and as a Chinese tradition, families get together for dinner to welcome the arrival of winter. I wonder why people would 'welcome' the winter, it's so cold!

Lisa's Big Christmas Bash

It was so much fun!!! I would have to say that this is probably one of the best organized parties Lisa has put on (and probably the biggest). Arrived at Lisa's place around 3:30pm, and sang karaoke with her friend Joyce in Lisa's newly-renovated home theatre room for a good 45 minutes before we gave up the room to other people. Lisa even invited friends that DJs - blasting music in her basement, with mahjong tables and pool table waiting to entertain. The food was awesome too.. everybody brought something, and we ended up leaving a lot of left-overs.

Lisa's mom was so nice too - she knew that I was allergic to shrimp (actually all sorts of seafood), so she made me a special batch of salad that had no shrimp in it! I was so touched!!! (there was this incident a couple of years ago when her mom didn't know, and I had a big allergic reaction to the salad..) Lisa also had a draw with presents that she bought.. I swear, she should start charging admissions next year. It was a rocking party, there's no doubt about that.

In the middle of the party, I went out and picked up Evelyn from the airport as she was coming back for her Christmas vacation. I also picked up another friend of mine on the way, as he finished his co-op term down in San Diego. By the end of the night, I had pretty much talked to everybody there (there was at least 50-60 people) and had a great time. I didn't end up leaving the party until around 2am..

Christmas Party

I went to my company's Christmas Party last night! It was a lot of fun, and definitely the biggest Christmas Party I have been to! It was held at The Carlu, inside College Park in downtown Toronto. It had different 'themed' rooms, and many food stations scattered across the entire floor. I would say that there were at least 1000 people at the peak of the party. Food catering was done by none other but Sen5es - the same catering company who did the catering for the luxury car unveiling event I went to a couple weeks ago. The food quality was still excellent - I had a taste of this MINI-Hamburger which tastes every bite like a real cheese burger, but bite-sized! How cool is that? (I had like 9, hehe)

Did I also mention it was open bar until 9pm? I definitely took advantage of that (they gave taxi-checks for all the employees, and I was smart enough not to drive to the station yesterday morning). Drank about 5 glasses of wine and lots of shots/cocktails. Had some smoked meat, dumpling, salmon (it was so good), and tons of finger food. It was really fun chilling with my co-workers! I always knew they were very fun and dynamic, because they were so young and full of energy. Of course, being stuck in an office all day dampens the spirits a bit. However, after a drink or two, the 'wild' side started to emerge and before I knew it, everybody was having a blast!

The rest of the night was spent chatting with co-workers, dancing, and drinking away. Shared a cab to go home with another co-op, and found out the cab driver holds a Master's degree in Economics.. oooookay.

For those who have been to Christmas parties with me, knows about my theory regarding company Christmas parties. I shall not reiterate here since it is seen as 'weird' by some, but let me re-assure that it is the very fact and it happened again last night. Maybe one day I will reveal my theory - after writing a BOOK on it! (hence copyright my idea)

When you feel that your motivation is wavering..

Have you ever had a time when you feel that you are losing motivation? You have an exam tomorrow, but your friends are out partying it up? What should you do?

Fear not, my young apprentice. Follow this and you will succeed.

Genius Advertisement

Take a look at this.. I think this is absolute genius. I haven't really seen such well-orchestrated advertisement in a long time. I figured it out the moment I saw it though.. just goes to show how much of a geek I am! :P

If you can figure this out within 30 seconds of seeing it, comment on this entry. (unless of course you've seen this before, then you'd be cheating!)

Passive Sales..

Since the beginning of November, I always see these World Vision booths on my way to work. They are situated at places that people just cannot avoid - right at the bottom of the escalator, the only pathway between the food court and the other building, etc. I think they are doing the whole sponsor-a-child thing. In any case, I thought they would be really pushy. They are always standing quite far away from the booth, holding their clipboards, and with that look of desperation on their face.

I'm no stranger to these 'booth salespeople'. In fact, I used to be one of them. So naturally, I know how to avoid being approached and put on the spot. "Hi, would you like to sponsor a child in a third-world country?" Who could refuse such a face on the little picture card they show you, and then they move in for the kill. "For only less than the price of a cup of coffee per day, you can feed and shelter this lovely child. You could surely give up a cup of coffee a day, right, sir?" Then you're totally suckered in.

Now I have to make myself clear on this part. I am in no way unsupportive of what they are doing. On the contrary, I really appreciate them trying to persuade people to sponsor and give back to the global community. We should be grateful for what we have, and that we never have to worry about not having water or food. However, giving money has always been a skeptical issue for me, since I can never be sure where that money is going. Besides, I'm a starving student after all. I don't mind volunteering and raising money though.

In any case, day after day I walk by these booths. I walk by them at least 4 or 5 times a day (going to get coffee, lunch, afternoon tea time, etc.). Not once have I seen them approach anybody and talk to them. I have heard some weak "Would you like to sponsor a child?" going towards people that walk closer to the booth, but they have never walked towards anybody to even attempt to talk to them. All they have been doing is standing there patiently, as if they are waiting for people to walk towards them.

They are, by far, the most passive sales I have ever seen. Ironically, I think it's working. Now that I walk by them, I feel a little shameful for not even talking to them. They look so desperate! All these little cards with the child's picture lined up on the booth, and the two people sit there from at least 7:30am (when I get to work) to at least 8:00pm (when I left work one day). I am starting to feel that perhaps it's not so bad to talk to them (knowingly to get suckered in).

Anyhow, the whole point of my convoluted entry is that I am starting to feel really bad about walking past them each day without even giving them an acknowledgement. A smile, a nod, or even just a glance. Heck I do that to people who serve me coffee! (but I do visit them a whole lot) Maybe that's their tactic - guilt. Maybe that's why they are so passive. Mmm..

Sickness

I got sick today - decided not to go to work since I feel dead and my limbs are all out of control. It sucks because the project at work needed me there to verify that things are still okay, but I couldn't do it. Sent an e-mail off to my boss but received no reply, hopefully that's a sign that everything is taken care of, and not that I've been fired. :(

It was great being home though, since I had a lot of time to think. For those who know me on a personal level, should know that one of my biggest compliants about growing up is the lack of time to sit down and think. Perhaps I should blame my social life - now that I'm no longer isolated as I was in high school, I always have somewhere to be other than in my own home. In result, I don't really reflect on my life and other things I have done.. which leads to my poor temper and lack of patience towards life.

Asked my brother to get food for me - turned out that he still hates me and only doing it because he feels obliged to. I admit that I haven't been treating him well myself, and I just don't know how to fix that now. I've tried being nice to him, only to be snubbed and talked down to. Doesn't stop me from trying though.. although sometimes it gets discouraging. I guess you can't really 'make up' for your mistakes..

Snow.. what a crappy day

I'm sitting at work right now, because I have to work through the weekend. The project I was in charge of went live this weekend, and now I'm here waiting for a file to reconcile the implementation. Fun stuff.

First real snowfall of the year here in Toronto proved to be less fun than I thought. On my drive down to work, I was averaging about 40 km/h on the highway, and kept 120% of my concentration on driving. (I even turned the music off!) I had so many close calls for an accident.. took me about an hour to get downtown, which would have normally taken me about half an hour.

I can't even begin to imagine my drive home.. ugh.

歌詞 Part 2

記不起 甚麼驅使我喜歡你
看在眼裡 看你熟睡多麼美
圍著這裡 柔和天氣
我願隨風 無聲遠飛
仍相擁 也不等於我了解你
決定放棄 再去接受自已
曾做錯了 仍然不生氣
臉上還有希冀

若是我記得你 亦是無須緊記
習慣一個人 沒有傷悲
而無論舊時說愛多美 再過半天你便記不起
若是我要等你 亦是無須等你
遺留下這個世界向著前飛
縱愛理不理 縱隔千里
誰預知將來 或再一起 再戀上你

歌詞

當初喜歡你　其時你有別人
完全都因為我　才完結過去拋低了他
下個他　不過接替我當天那位置
情外情　轉了對象　別要太驚訝

沒有他　都會有別人
你我避免不過　混亂間將彼此錯過
有幾多故事最後　愛人仍然同一個　看清楚
誰都背叛過　誰亦曾被騙過

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也許該反省　不應再說話　被放棄的我　應有此報嗎
如果我曾是個壞牧羊人　能否再讓我　試一下　抱一下

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藍褲子很殘　也許它就快爛
這幾年來的撕磨　它終於沾滿汗斑
從前多得你　給它補上花瓣
但是褲腳並未破爛　愛已經不對辦

還可以　著甚麼 你我之間差了甚麼
有一天你若和誰亦是著它　它記得我
如今你　著甚麼 我已不必跟著甚麼
但要是來日竟偶遇我 願你沒有嫌它　穿不破

Google-bomb

I love these google-bombs.. "Miserable failure" in Google and hit I'm Feeling Lucky, then proceed to laugh out loud.

Heh. True dat, true dat.

Avoidance

So I thought some problems went away.. but it didn't. Somebody just got really good at hiding it. Not that I didn't know either, but I think I chose to ignore it and hope it would go away. Sort of like hiding under the blanket, and secretly hoping that when I wake up, it will be all gone. Only if life worked that way, I'd be much happier.