Author: Erwin

With about six billion people on this planet, it’s highly unlikely your combination of first name and last is unique. I am not exempt from this fact. There are other Erwin Tangs out there. I even think some of them have come to this site, Googling our name. Tee-hee… our name.

I believe there’s at least one Erwin Tang in Singapore. If you Google my name, most of the hits come back to me: this web site, school related stuff, various restraining orders, and the list goes on. There is one other Erwin Tang that does come up and he’s just not Erwin Tang, he’s Dr. Erwin Tang. Oh how my Mom wish I could be called Dr. Erwin Tang.

Anyways, Dr. Erwin Tang lives and works near the Dallas, Texas area. Specifically, Dr. Tang has a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree which makes him very qualified to be rooting around in that area of the face. From all indications, he’s a terrific and competent dentist.

Dr. Erwin Tang also appears to have a fantastic home life. He was named Plano, Texas’ Father of the Year for 2001. I remember there was a PDF online newsletter which detailed the reasons behind the accolade. In the piece, I found out that Dr. Tang has two kids, I believe a boy and a girl. I think there was also a picture of his entire family: him, his wife, and their two kids. I wish I could find that document again. I bet his house is really nice and he has air-conditioning.

Life must be good for Dr. Erwin Tang. I have no doubt he’s probably Googled his own name. He’s probably visited this site as well. I wonder what he thinks of all this. He’s worked so hard to make a good name for himself in the community and professionally, and everything on the Internet with our name is related to a joker like me. Geez, do you think he’s put a filter on his kids computers’ so that they can’t visit my site? I bet his wife frowns whenever he brings up erwintang.com.

I’d like to meet Dr. Erwin Tang someday. I’m hoping he’s a pretty cool guy.

“In a recent auction, one of the original lightsabers from the Star Wars movies was sold for $200 000… the winning bidder wants to remain anonymous… and a virgin.”

So the office in which I work has windows that face directly along W. Broadway near Maple, that’s near Arbutus for those who aren’t familar with the area. On any given day, there many, many, many super attractive women who walk along this stretch of W. Broadway. There’s also a bus stop across the street from the building. Often, these supermodel types will wait for the bus going downtown.

A co-worker of mine, who shall go unnamed, has his desk right by this bank of windows. He says it’s gotten to the point where he thinks the situation is just crazy. He swears that every five minutes there’s a stunningly beautiful girl that walks by on the street. When you can either look at C++ code or steal a glance at a hot girl, the decision can be hard to make sometimes.

He tells me that there’s a bus stop regular. He’s some guy in 40s or so that buys alcohol from the nearby liquor store. The dude then takes his stash to the bus stop and chats these hot ladies up while drinking. Maybe he’s got the right idea… lol.

Thankfully (ha!), my desk faces a wall and all my neighbours are guys. I have no distractions in that respect. I have nothing to prevent me from just churning out high-quality game code hour after efficient hour. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I visit the my co-worker buddy just to see who’s at the bus stop.

There were two noteworthy things that happened to me this long weekend.

1. From Saturday evening on until about mid-morning Sunday, I accidently left my apartment door unlocked. I slept through the night while any number of criminals could have entered my home. Nothing was stolen.

2. After discovering my door had been unlocked, I went to Safeway to get some groceries. I realized when I got home that my fly had been unzipped the entire time I was out getting food. I’m not talking about half unzipped, I’m talking about fully unzipped, zipper teeth completely wide open, let’s get some fresh air around my boys type of unzipped.

On Sunday, my good friend Patrick Oabel handed in his keys and ended his four-year long stay at St. John’s College. Four years is a long time to live at any university residence but Patrick made the most of his time there. He completed a Master’s degree and started his first two years of his Ph.D at SJC. His time is now up and he’ll be moving in with his brother in East Van. In September, he’ll write his comprehensive exams and then depart soon after for the jungles of the Philipines for field research. For most of us, we will see him only a handful of times before he turns into Indiana Jones again.

Along Chris Conklin, I had the pleasure of dining with Woba at One More Sushi before his last night at the College. I think he was a bit sad at the prospect of moving out. It’s my opinion that the most cherished residents of SJC are those who make the College better because they live there. You don’t have to necessarily volunteer for everything or give a concert every week, but just being a generous, thoughtful, and kind person makes you a standup type of resident. Woba certainly was that type of guy.

As evidenced by the near endless stream of well-wishers that came by his room after dinner, his departure will be certainly felt by many, many SJC residents. Some stayed for a few minutes, while others lingered for much longer. A few even said nothing, content to just watch him clean his room. I’ve heard people say that Woba, in their humble opinions, was the nicest guy they’ve met at SJC.

I left Woba around 10pm to let him clean in peace. I’m always amazed at how different people’s last nights are at SJC. A lot of people viewed it simply as a convenient place to sleep, eat, and take a dump, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t bat an eye when they left. While some found it really hard to leave (myself included). I know my last night at SJC sucked.

Woba and I agreed I’d meet him at SJC at 11:30am the next morning, when he’d hand in his keys and I’d say goodbye. Like an idiot, I played video games until 4:30am. I woke up all bleary-eyed at 11am. I managed to stumble out of my apartment about 11:20am. When I opened my door, Woba was sitting outside at one of the tables in the courtyard.

We made the ten minute walk over to SJC where he made a last check of his room, stepped out, and then locked his room for the last time. He slipped his keys into the office mailbox and we walked outside. For the first time, we were now both ex-SJC residents.

We had lunch at the SUB and then walked over to the bus loop. We waited for the 99 to arrive and he got on for the long trip out to East Van.

I feel really lucky to have met Woba. I’m not sure what I enjoyed more with him: ogling women, talking about Star Wars, checking out mysterious cars in the parking lot, making him talk in a Philipino accent, or eating fast food.

Well, before this post gets any more gay, I’ll end it here. Woba, thanks for being my friend.

“Martha Stewart finally gets her electronic monitoring ankle bracelet removed in two weeks… thank God… that damn thing always left a red mark on the back of my neck…”

Earlier in the day, I would have thought my highlight of the day was seeing those gaggle of super hot ladies on W. 4th Ave. when I was out for lunch. I was wrong. Then I thought the highlight would have been watching the fireworks at Spanish Banks. I was wrong again.

No, the highlight of my day happened around midnight when I found myself standing on top of a parkade on-campus somewhere with Tomo, Adam, Joel, Tyson, and Tom. It appears that Tom and Tyson have started this two person fight club where they duel each other with homemade swords.

This is how serious they are about it. They go to Home Depot to buy plastic piping material which they fashion into swords complete with custom made hilts. Tyson has a wooden staff that he duels with, a la Darth Maul style.

On the way up to the parkade roof, I was a bit skeptical as to how impressive this whole thing would be but I would soon see the intensity involved. Both Tom and T-Bone started off with a single sword each. They warmed up a bit first but before Adam, Tomo, and I could even notice, the two duelists engaged each other in furious combat. It was a lot faster and dangerous mind you, than I had anticipated. There was considerable weight behind each strike and blow. Was it Anakin vs. Obi-Wan? No, not exactly, but no one would have mistaken this as simple play fighting. Speed and danger were definite elements in this.

Before long Tyson brought out the staff and that seemed even more dangerous than the swords. After battling for a short while, both Tom and Tyson decided to grab a sword in each hand. Four PVC swords were in play at the same time.

I’d seen enough after this, so I decided to go home. On the way down the stairs, I saw a police cruiser heading up to the top floor of the parkade. I had no doubt in my mind the cops were on their way to see what the hell was going on up there. I kept on walking.

I’ve received reports that the cop questioned the boys as to their activities, but left them be, albeit a little perplexed as to why good friends would want to bash each other with swords.

Alright, it’s getting late, I’m out.

I did indeed go see that place I mentioned earlier. I will have more to say about that trip later. Woba, Conklin, and I went out for beers afterwards which is why I don’t have time to write now. Enjoy the sunny day!

Before I graduated, the only thing that really caused me stress in life was school work. Otherwise, I was pretty happy with my life. Now that I’ve graduated and have a full-time job, the only thing that causes me stress is figuring out where I’m going to live in September.

Actually, that’s not the only thing that’s causing me stress. Now I’m also wondering if I can actually afford to live elsewhere in September since I have to start paying off my student loans. I’m going to see this apartment tomorrow night. It’s in a nice location and the building has just gone through renovations and upgrades. It seems very impressive and the people who are running the place have been courteous and professional the entire time I’ve talked with them. As far as the building itself goes, I’m getting a really good vibe from it.

However, I took the weekend to do some really grown-up things like taking a hard look at my finances. I went online and downloaded all my bank transactions for my primary account from January on. I put all the data into a spreadsheet, separating it into months. Man, I was spending money like crazy some months. It was all very irresponsible from a financial point of view.

The point of this was to see what my spending patterns were like to keep me in a relatively happy lifestyle. I then made a budget of what I’d be spending each month if I did move into this new place. I discovered that it’s my loans payments that causing some trouble. If I didn’t have to shell out $450 a month to pay off my debts I’d be fine. That’s not my minimum required payment but that’s the amount I think I should be paying. I could pay less, but I wind up giving the bank more in the end because of the interest. Isn’t it a rule where you’re supposed to pay off your loans as fast as reasonably possible?

Anyways, according to my best calculations if I stick to my own monthly repayment amount, each month I’d have about $1000 left over for food, entertainment, clothes, doctor/dentist, sundries, paper towels, and miscellaneous items. That works out to be around $250 a week. Can I live on $250 a week? I guess I could. I’ve look at some random seven days periods during the last two months. Some weeks I’m under that amount, but others I’m over.

Here’s something to think about: I’m eating most of my dinners at SJC still which costs me about $5 a meal which is a great deal. If I move to this new place, I either spend more on dinner each night or try to eat for the same amount (which I think an idiot like me won’t be able to do). Even if I keep my budget to $250 a week, that would mean every dollar I make a month would be accounted for. Nothing would get saved. Aren’t you supposed to save even a little bit of money each month just in case of rainy day?

I’m getting tired, I report back when I see the place tomorrow.