Month: August 2002

KIDS THESE DAYS

If I could just slip into my crochety, ornery old man persona for a bit, I’d like to rant for a bit. Thanks.

First year students at UBC these days sure have it easy. Back when I was a first year, I had to walk uphill both… er, I mean… well, for instance, first years will never know the joy of lining up for over two hours in bookstore lineup to purchase outrageously priced textbooks. Back in my day, you had to endure a war of attrition with your fellow students waiting for the line to inch ahead. Woe were you, when you got to the sign that said, “The wait from here is approx. 2 hours”. These days, all first years have to do is submit their class lists to the bookstore. The bookstore then processes the lists, picks the texts for them, packs them into a box, and informs you everything is ready. The students then come, pay, and pick up the box. Done!

If that weren’t enough, first years don’t even have class the first week. They have this week long “orientation”, where UBC gently eases the wussies into university life. They an entire week of just getting used to the campus! Back in my day, we sure as hell had classes the first week! In fact, for three of my classes we had a midterm worth 40% on the very first day!

There’s no excuse for first years to fail now. The exams virtually write themselves!!!

THE GREAT SPIDER HUNT

This morning, before I left the house, I was engaged in a life or death struggle. It was epic, ok maybe not, but still, people shouldn’t have to expend the energy that I did so early in the day.

I was just about to leave and I walked towards the door to the garage. I was about ten feet away from the door when something dropped from a great height to the floor. It instantly caught my eye because it was brown and big. If it can catch your eye from ten feet away, it’s got to be big.

A split second after it landed on the ground, I knew what it was. It was a big-ass spiderTM. It was initially revulsed as it move slightly. However, I knew I had to kill it. This was big enough that given a few days, it might be big enough to take down a small dog.

I assessed the situation quickly. The spider was near a wall but still out in the open. Nearby was footwear, boxes, and a corner where it could easily hide. I had to act fast. I turned on some lights to get a better look. Next, I had to take my eyes off the spider and go get my hockey stick. There was no way in hell this was going to be a short-ranged attack.

When I returned I panicked slightly as I couldn’t see the spider. As I looked closer, I was relieved to see it had just moved a few inches. I readied the stick, positioning the blade so it would be flat against the carpet. Inches above my furry, brown arachnid invader with my stick, I struck… poorly. I thought I had made a direct hit, but the damn thing scampered away towards the shoes and the boxes. It was probably my imagination, but the spider appeared to have repeled my attack by pushing against the blade. Nah.

Now the thing was dangerously close to the nooks and crannies of the storage boxes and a corner where two walls met. My next strike had to count! Again, I readied my blade, and struck for all of humanity. And again, I managed to miss. To my chagrin, its eight huge legs propelled it into a narrow long gap between a box and the wall. It was now several inches away from the open and much harder to reach. This was not good.

I could still see it, but the narrowness made another quick strike impossible. Stupidly, I jammed the blade into the gap, no so much as an attack, but as some futile gesture. The blade blocked my view of the spider, so I pulled the stick back. The spider was no where to be found. Great. I left to get my MagLite, and shone its piercing beam in the gap which was now sanctuary for my little furry invader. I saw nothing. It was clear for all two feet of the depth of the gap. This was not good.

Already late for UBC, I pondered letting my spider nemesis win this round. As I looked at this corner where he was hiding I noticed all the footwear and the three boxes. Did I want him to start hiding in my shoes? What about hiding in my boxes of books? That would be awful. I decided I had to go in and get him.

It was no easy task. For one thing, he could be anywhere now, inside a box, or in one of my shoes. I decided to move the three boxes first, which was difficult. Each box must have weighed between 30 to 50 lbs. and were stacked on top of each other. I spun the first box right around to make sure it wasn’t hiding on the other side. I lifted it off and put it aside. With more space, I examined the corner from above. Nothing. I then removed the second box, fully expecting it to bolt at this point. Nothing. Where was it? I was down to the last box on the ground, this was it. For this box, I decided to pull it away from the corner. As I did so, I initially did not see anything. As looked closer, I saw its legs poking out from underneath the baseboard heater at the bottom of the wall. There!

For the third time, I readied the hockey stick, hoping this would be the final attempt. I struck and to my surprise, my aim was true. Rather than scampering, the spider balled up in defense. I struck again to be sure, and the spider was turned into a brown smear on the carpet. Spent, I pushed the last box in and stacked the last two back on.

I then left for UBC. Perhaps one day I’ll clean up the mess.

ROAD KILL

Well, as expected, I did not wake up in time to attend any of the talks given on graduate student orientation day. I managed to get to UBC by 11:30am, but the information fair was still going on, so I didn’t miss everything. I managed to receive a few bits of info and picked up the graduate student’s handbook. Having been a UBC student before, I think it was less important for me to go to this thing compared to students completely new to UBC.

While I was driving to and from UBC, I managed to see some really weird road kill related things. Having lived all my life in urban and suburban Vancouver, seeing road kill is a fairly rare occurence. Today, I saw road kill all over the damn place. When I was getting on the onramp to the highway, I saw what used to be a fairly large sized animal. All I saw was flat mound of fur and a splash of pink, this was no squirrel I assure you of that. It appeared to be the size of a housecat. If that wasn’t enough, when I got to around the Grandview Highway exit, the entire left lane of the highway was covered in fish! I’m not taking one or two small trout. It was if someone had painted the lane with a coating of fish meat, guts, scales, and skin. It smelled really bad. I was luckly enough to avoid the slick mess, but I can just imagine what the tires look like if you had driven through it. I later found out that a fish truck had lost its load. They had to sand the area to keep it from being too slick. Now I thought this was the last of the road kill for the day, but I was wrong! As I exited the highway, this bird flew awkwardly towards my the right front of my car. I’m pretty sure I missed it, but it was awful close, and I haven’t checked the front of my vehicle yet. Ew. Finally, as I left UBC I was driving on 4th Ave. when I saw squirrel flattened to the height of a pancake. It was just a platter of fur, ringed by a pink stain. Poor thing.

I saw a lot of animal carnage on the road today. Which will probably mirror the human carnage that will inevitably exist on the roads this Labour Day weekend. Only stupid people don’t wear seatbelts! Buckle up dummies!

STUPIDITY

In a few scant hours there will be a grad student orientation seminar starting at UBC. It starts at 9am. There’s no way in hell, I’m going to be there at 9am. I’m tempted not to go, that’s hella early. However, I’m afraid something important info will be dispensed (highly unlikely) at said seminar. So, I’m going… a bit later. The events will be repeated, so I’m going to skip a few, and catch the ones I want to hear.

This, unfortunately, does not mean I can roll out of bed at 11am and get my ass down to UBC by 12:30pm. I still have to wake up around 8am, which by my clock is less than 6 hours away. Which begs the question, why aren’t in bed yet? Well, because I like staying up late, and going to bed early (before 12am) goes against every fibre of my being. That’s good and all, but I’m going to be one hurting individual when I do get up tomorrow.

I really should go to bed now, but I’m guessing I’ll go to bed around 3am. I know full well, I’m being stupid. Yet, I’m ok with that.

MY LUCK

So today, my father and I went to the insurance place to change ownership of his car back to him. I’ve been to this insurance place many times before. Everytime I’ve gone, it has been staffed with friendly, older ladies. Going on this assumption, I decide to leave my less than coiffed hair and put on a wrinky t-shirt to go to this place. So of course, when I step into the insurance place, there’s an absolutely stunning hottie sitting at one of the desks. In a way, I wasn’t surprised, but I was at the same time. She was fit, tanned, toned, and beautiful.

Thank God, she wasn’t the one my father spoke to earlier. The agent that did saw and us, and we sat down at her desk. So now I’m regretting have a million wrinkles in my t-shirt. I notice I have toothpaste residue on my hand, and I’m wondering if it’s on my mouth still. Perfect.

I’m almost certain aspects of life can be distilled into mathematical equations. The level of hotness of that girl today was directly proportional to the level of messiness I was in. Such is life.

STUFF

Today I went to Linen ‘n Things in Coquitlam to pick up a few more household goods for my new place. It’s a very nice store. I’ve never been to a Linen ‘n Things before. I was impressed. They have a very wide selection of goods to fill any new home.

Seeing all the stuff made me want to be rich and have a new home to furnish. I needed a toothbrush holder. I saw one that was $40, it was made out of silver and it looked like a candle holder. I settled for a chrome toothbrush holder and it still cost me $18.

I must have looked out of place at the store. Twice, the same store associate came up to me and asked if I needed any assistance. I guess they don’t get many under-30 heterosexual males who go into their store alone. This is Coquitlam after all.

In the end, I also got a bathmat, wine bottle opener, and a shelf for a shower.

It’s a neat store. If you have lots of $$$, go make a visit. By the way, if you’re a guy and your gf/wife drags you along, don’t worry, LNT hires many young and hot looking women at their stores.

MORE TECHNICAL NOTES

As many of you (as in the five of you) have noticed the comments systems has gone wonky again. This is out of my control as it’s in the hands of enetation.com. They were re-writing the code base for the comments and it won’t be back on-line for a few more days yet. This isn’t really a big deal since most people don’t comment anyways.

To make up for this loss of usuability on erwintang.com, I will give you a treat. Here’s a link to a web site about mullets.

THE TIME MACHINE 2002

I just finished watching the 2002 movie, The Time Machine. It was awful.

I’m not sure how this movie became so bad. It had Guy Pearce in the central role. He’s a great actor, so you’d think that wouldn’t be a problem. The special effects were done by ILM, Digital Doman, and Stan Winston Studio. Those are three big name, capable companies. So that shouldn’t be the weak link. The whole thing was directed by Simon Wells, who incidently, is the great-grandson of author H.G. Wells, who wrote the novel (which this movie is based on) The Time Machine. You’d think he’d want to do great-gramps proud with this film.

I think the root of this whole mess begins with the unfulfilling and pointless climax to this movie. I’m not sure if we can totally fault screenwriter John Logan because apparently last minute reshoots were ordered by director West based on some of his new ideas. You know there’s a big problem when the bad guy in the movie shows up right at the end, and he’s on screen for less than five minutes. Worse still, in those five minutes, he does nothing of importance. The whole ending made no sense! I usually don’t write about films I see, but I just had to this time. When a movie’s ending makes you go, “Why the f*ck did he do that? I’m so angry now”, it makes you want to get your money back.

I guess part of the reason I’m complaining is that I love movies about time travel. Time paradoxes are very cool plot devices. Also, as a child I saw the original The Time Machine movie from 1960. It was very good and I was hoping this new incarnation would live up to its predecessor. Unfortunately, it failed miserably.

If you want to see it, get someone to pay for the rental.

DON’T GO TO DENNY’S HUNGRY

On Friday night, I went to Denny’s (hey, what else is open at 11:30pm in Coquitlam?) to meet with my friend Trevor before he left for his trip to South Africa.

I made the mistake of going to Denny’s while I was extremely hungry. I will admit Denny’s food isn’t the greatest, but when you’re hungry everything on that menu looks really appetizing. They had this new Big Texas BBQ Burger that I had never seen before. It was basically a chicken burger but in the burger was a mound of onion rings, cheddar cheese, and slices of bacon. All that with a side of fries. This particular menu item was the definition of dietary excess, yet it was calling to me. Also calling to me was the Country Fried Steak. Here we have two ground beef steaks, deep fried with a crispy coating, and then smothered in country gravy.

Somehow, restraint took over and I managed to order a Two Egg Breakfast, which consisted of all things, two eggs (scrambled), two sausage links, two pieces of bacon, a large mat of hash browns, and some toast. I ate that pretty quickly and here’s where the stupidity took over. Knowing full well that the human body can take as much as 20 minutes before it knows it’s full, I decided I wanted two more scrambled eggs. There’s something about the way Denny’s makes their eggs. I swear they must melt butter on them because they smell so good when they’re done.

Well, my two additional eggs came, and sadly they were slightly overcooked to my liking. After I ate those, I was beginning to feel quite a bit full. Ignoring the obvious signs, I began looking at the dessert menu. After Trevor, decided he was going to get a slice of pie, I too decided to take the plunge and ordered a Coke float.

I nearly finished the Coke float before the rest of my body began to overrule the impulse to consume mass quantities of food.

After wishing Trevor a good time on his trip, I somehow made it back home. For the next few hours, I just sat around waiting for the bloated feeling to go away.

The next time I go to Denny’s while hungry, I will attempt to show more restraint.