Month: July 2003

NEVER DONE THAT BEFORE

Around 11pm this evening I wanted to take a shower after going to the beach. I was chewing some gum and before I knew it, I was in the shower. I showered the whole time with gum in my mouth. I’ve never done that before.

Who has bathed with gum in their mouth before? Hands up!

BABY I JUST CURED CANCER… NOW WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?

I just found this article about a new study from New Scientist magazine. Rather than re-hash it, I’ve quoted a portion of it:



Geniuses and criminals may not seem to have much in common but they both do their best work in their 30s — and mainly to impress the opposite sex.

When Satoshi Kanazawa, of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, studied biographies of prominent, mostly male scientists he discovered that they made their key discovery before their mid 30s, around the same age that criminal behavior peaks.

He believes the male competitive urge to attract females is a driving force for the scientific and criminal achievements, according to New Scientist magazine.

“They do whatever they do in order to get laid,” said Kanazawa.

Wow. So that’s why I’m in grad school. Must… discover… how to… breed… cats… with… dogs… soon…

SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE

The server upon which erwintang.com resides will be physically moving from its current location (the storeroom of an AOV store in Whalley) to a new location in downtown Vancouver. That means this site and my e-mail will be unavailable for several hours as the server physically makes it way from Whalley to downtown, most likely on a Skytrain and/or a bus. Once taken off-line, the server will have additional hard drive storage installed. This means that I will be able to host bootleg copies of The Matrix Reloaded, Finding Nemo, The Hulk, Charlie’s Angels 2, and Terminator 3. Actually, I’m kidding about that, but you have no idea how much additional traffic I just generated from Google by typing that sentence.

The larger hard drive space gives me more options in terms of the quantity and type of files I can host, but I don’t have any definitive plans for that yet.

I don’t know the date of the move yet. It most likely will occur in August sometime. So, if one day you’re trying to read my blog to see if I had a burger for lunch, and the site is down, you’ll know why.

THE ENIGMA MACHINE

I found this article on-line while I was surfing on my lunch hour today. The topic: how to decipher signs from a girl that is romantically interested in you. I was quite interested in this piece because historically, I’ve required signs as overt as a metaphorical billboard to figure out what the hell a girl is trying to tell me.

When I read the article though, I was dismayed with the various disclaimers littered through out. This sign means this, but then again it might not mean that. I guess that’s understandable and just plain reality, but it kinda reinforces my point of view that women, in general, can be extremely hard to figure out. Also some of those signs that are described are dicey at best. I’ve had several women exhibit one or two of those signs, and I knew for sure she wasn’t interested.

For the five people that read this blog, I’d like to open the floor up for discussion. Failing that, let’s talk about the 13 year-old Indian boy who still has flies coming out of his wang.

I LIKE THE SUMMER

I like the summer. More importantly, I like this summer. It’s probably the most fun summer I’ve had in a long time… ok, ever.

I make this statement not because of one fun weekend or one great night. I make it because of the collective fun I’ve had over the last few weeks. I like my job, I like where I’m living, and most importantly, I’m surrounded by people I like. I’m not telling you this because I’m being boastful, but because I’ve never been able to say those things before. Maybe one of those things were true, but never were they true together. A landmark point in my life. Heh.

The summer will end before I realize it. Let’s hope the fun continues.

On Saturday, Miriam and Rhonda had a huge joint birthday party on the SJC patio. It was probably the most well-attended SJC party I’ve ever seen. I have photos from the party and I’ll be making a gallery shortly. The planning for the party started in earnest while we at the pub about a week ago. At the time, I think I was bugging Rhonda about her disproportionately large big toe, so she wrote on a piece of paper the words HATS and BALLOONS, and told me I was in charge of those things. Then she turned away to the real party planning. Ha ha ha…

So the afternoon before the party, I went to London Drugs and the Dollar Store on a mission to get the best hats and balloons I could get with eleven dollars and forty-two cents. When I got to the Dollar Store I immediately knew that I had to buy more than just balloons and hats if I was going to kick this party up a notch. I bought sixteen party hats which had this cartoon of various animals celebrating a birthday. I also got ten sparkler sticks. Add to that, I bought eight of those blow thingies that roll out when you blow on them. Someone told me they’re called “blow-ticklers” but I think they just like saying “blow-ticklers”. My most extravagant purchase was two confetti “mortars”. They were basically two short cardboard tubes with a knob on the end. When you turn the knob, I guess it releases a spring or some small charge and confetti comes shooting out the either end. I got two, one for each birthday girl. My only purchase from London Drugs was a bag of balloons which were described as “wormy balloons”. When I saw them, I instantly knew these were the balloons for the party. While the balloon designers might have envisioned their balloons to be “worm-shaped”, I can only describe them as “ribbed” and “long”.

When I got to the party, I had my bag of goodies with me. I decided that I should let the people have the stuff in small increments, to draw out the fun. I handed out the hats first and they were a real hit. A birthday party isn’t a birthday party without stupid pointy hats. Then came the “wormy” balloons. Those got an interesting response. One comment was, “Oh, balloons ribbed for everyone’s pleasure”. Next came the “blow-ticklers” which people had fun blowing in each other’s faces. I think I gave Rhonda her confetti “mortar” next. It was surprisingly impressive. Then came the sparkler sticks. It was here that I made a critical purchasing error. The ones I bought did not last very long, to which Rebecca said to me, “They were too short and it didn’t last long enough”. Make up your own jokes because everyone else sure did. Last but not least, I gave Miriam her shot at the confetti and she showered the patio with it.

I must admit, I had a lot of fun buying that stuff and seeing people use it. At the next party, I hope I’m in charge of buying the party accessories!

MORE MUSINGS

Did you know that blogging on blogger with different browsers will give you a different feature set and options? That’s crazy. Some of it doesn’t even make sense. In IE, you have this option to e-mail people everytime you make a new post. It’s basically a text field where you enter in addresses. In Netscape, this option is nowhere to be found. Why? Netscape can handle text fields and I’m pretty sure the e-mailing is done server-side and not client-side. Mysteries of the world.

I had dinner at the Macaroni Grill downtown tonight. It was Kiyoko’s farewell dinner. The turnout was impressive. What was even more impressive was that no one had to take the bus. We had enough cars to take everyone. A rarity to be sure.

I must admit, I’ve had better meals there. Tonight’s meal was missing a certain level of quality. The linguine with clams in a white wine sauce was severely lacking in flavour. I was looking forward to it, but it just disappointed me. The rest of our paisano-style meal, however, was good. No one left our table hungry. In fact, we were quite full.

About half an hour ago, a huge moth flew into my room. It was probably the largest moth I’d seen in years. When it flapped its wings, I’m pretty sure I heard a discernable woomp, woomp sound. Anyways, it landed on my armchair. Instead of killing it, I captured it in an empty glass container. Usually, I would try to shoo it out my window, but I’ve learned a new trick. Do all your catching and releasing in the hallway.

It works wonderfully. I placed the container outside my door and the thing took off like a C-5 Galaxy loaded with Bradleys. It went down the hall three or four doors hovering near the ceiling lights and then it took a 180 and headed straight towards me. I went back into my room and closed my door.

I hope it doesn’t happen, but if I catch a mouse, I’m letting it loose in the hallway too.

Well, I need to go to sleep for about ten hours. I’ll leave you with one of the more interesting blog posts I’ve read in a while.

CAMPUS MUSINGS

Like most days, I’m spending my lunch hour at home. It certainly is pleasant to have your work five minutes away.

At noon, I was tired and hungry, and I managed to stumble out of the Ag Sci building to head on over to the Barn. As I made my way, I noticed a girl on a bike riding towards me. I didn’t really pay that much attention to her, but when she rode past me at the last moment, I realized she was a former high school classmate of mine. I swear she saw me. As she passed, I wanted to say something, but I was too tired. Weird. I wonder if she recognized me.

It’s another beautiful day on campus. There are a lot more people here in the daytime now. Term 2 of the summer session has started. Most term 2 classes are held in the daytime whereas term 1 classes were held at night.

Holy crap I’m tired, I think I’ll nap for a few before going back to work.

WEB CAM WORKING AGAIN

After breaking for an extended period of time, I got my web cam working again. I took a snap shot of some flowers I bought yesterday.

NAKED LIKE WILL FERRELL

We had a super-duper Canada Day BBQ at SJC yesterday. In my excitement, I rushed home from softball to gorge myself on charred meat. I did, however, shower first. Unknowingly, I left my door unlocked while I cleansed. I also had my bathroom door open slightly.

While I showered, I distinctly remember hearing a loud banging noise coming from the vicinity of my door. It could have been one of my neighbours’ doors closing, or it could have been my door closing… after someone had come in, peeked at my naked, wet body, and laughed and/or shuddered in revulsion.

It’s weird to think someone at SJC has seen me naked. Weird I tell ya!