Category: Uncategorized

Actor Ryan Reynolds came back to his hometown of Vancouver this week for four days to visit his family and to renew his Canadian passport. He did not come back alone as he brought his current girlfriend, Blake Lively with him. I have to say, normally Reynolds doesn’t get a lot of attention when he comes back home. He was back earlier this fall and no one made a big deal about it as it’s not unusual for him to be in Vancouver as his family still is in the area. This time, however, he seemed to have a lot of photographers around him almost every step of his visit. They even trailed him to Nanaimo on the island where his brother lives. You can see the pictures here.

Normally, I don’t have much sympathy for famous and rich actors. In this case, Reynolds is worth millions and has dated (and married) some of the most beautiful women on the planet. I also have a coworker who went to high school with him and according to him, Reynolds was a bit of an asshole back then. So you’d think I wouldn’t really feel bad for Reynolds. I guess I don’t actually feel bad for him because his life is still pretty damn awesome, photographers notwithstanding. I do think, however, that’s unfortunate that he trailed everywhere from the passport office to even his brother’s workplace. He couldn’t even get some privacy visiting his family. I bet he wouldn’t have garnered so much attention if Lively wasn’t with him. People love seeing celebrity couples in the public.

Ok, now that I’m done with that, remember there are some real problems in the world, like the food crisis in the Sahel region of Africa.

Welcome to another edition of “Did You Know?”!!! Did you know are several playlists on YouTube that feature videos that are ten hours in length? Yes, that’s right! Here is one example. I’m not sure why anyone would want to play any of these from start to finish but they are interesting nonetheless. I have selected one above for your pleasure, it features Epic Sax Guy.

This Friday, the new ten screen movie theatre below my apartment will supposedly open for business. I expect there will be high potential for a gong show of an opening night. For one, they’ll be coming in extremely hot as construction is still being done as I type this and it’s already Tuesday. I’ve tried looking into the windows and it appears that some drywalling and painting still need to be done. At the least the sign outside is up. Second, because the theatre isn’t really finished, I don’t think the new staff will have had much training by the time the theatre opens. I’ve seen this before as many of the new shops have opened up below. A completely new set of employees are thrown at the public and it takes them a few weeks to get their bearings. I remember when the Safeway opened up, no one at the deli knew how to make a sandwich. Everything at the Safeway is fine now because months have now passed but I do remember those early days when it was very apparent that people were new to their jobs. I expect the same for the theatre workers.

Now things wouldn’t be that bad if the theatre opened to a small number of people but I don’t think that will be the case. In the municipality that I live in, there are currently no theatres for people to go to the movies. With a population of close to 70, 000 that’s a lot of people who have to go to neighbouring areas to see a flick. With the Avengers being extremely popular at the box office, I believe Friday will be a very busy opening day for my home theatre.

Will the paint be dry yet? Will your cashier know how to punch in a large popcorn? Will the projectionist know how to start the movie? It’ll be an interesting opening day for sure.

So I’ve been frequenting the new pizza place below my apartment quite a bit. It’s really good pizza and I have to pass by it on my way up to my apartment whenever I come home. That’s almost an irresistible combination. The pizza is so good that I actually prefer the all veggie ones there. Anyways, there’s a guy who works at there who has served me almost every single time I’ve come in. He’s courteous and friendly but there was something really familiar about him that I couldn’t place at first. Then I realized today what that thing was. Dude looks a lot like Alex Ovechkin.

I wonder if anyone has told him that. I’m tempted to mention something to him the next time I’m in there but I’m uncertain if he’ll be offended by my comment. Perhaps it’s best to just keep it to myself, don’t gamble with those who serve your food.

As your favourite geek will tell you, it is Star Wars day today as the date is May fourth. Go and kiss the nearest scruffy nerf herder.

It’s been over a month now since I’ve started my new job and I’ve derived some pleasure in finding new places to go for lunch. I recently discovered The Noodle Box which is just two blocks from work. You gotta try their BBQ brisket chow mein sometime. I do love my stir fry.

The one place that’s escaped my discovery was a decent sushi joint. I enjoy sushi because it’s delicious and relatively healthy, especially compared to that McChicken meal I had yesterday. Today, I decided to pop into this small sushi place right by the Vancouver Public Library. It was past 1:30pm so the lunch time crowd had dissipated and I had plenty of room at the sushi bar for myself. It seemed that the place was run by actual Japanese people which is a rarity these days with sushi restaurants.

I ordered a sushi combo which consisted of a spicy tuna roll, a chopped scallop roll, and four pieces of tuna sashimi. It was all very delicious, especially the sashimi. The service was good too as my cup of green tea was kept full at all times. I was quite delighted to find this place. I might even go back tomorrow.

Is it self-serving to show a video of your name in the credits of the last video game you worked on? Yes, I guess it could be but I’m always amazed to see my name on the screen like that. It’s always an honour to be associated with those other names, people are who are so talented and smart.

I’d just like to let everyone know that I’ve been flossing more regularly in the last six months or so. In fact, I have never been this diligent with my flossing. In that time span, I think I’ve missed just two or three days of flossing. For years, my dentist has been bugging me to floss daily. I just never really took it seriously and would floss perhaps once or twice in a week and then completely forget about it. Considering the gunk that I’ve dug out of my teeth at times, it’s kinda gross to think that before, I was just letting all that stuff accumulate between my teeth.

Here’s to good dental health!

There is currently a growing crisis in Africa and once again it involves food. There is a drought in the Sahel region of north Africa. This region of the continent consists of a huge swath of land extending from the Atlantic ocean to the west to the Red Sea in the east. The lack of rain in the area has led to an increasing shortage of crops and thus food. You can read more about the crisis here but as in many such cases, children are the most vulnerable and most affected.

I am ashamed to admit that I’ve become almost numb to the flow of bad news coming from Africa. Between the famine, civil unrest, or military coups, I’ve just been accustomed to the less than pleasant news coming from that continent. As some of you know though, I started to sponsor a little girl from Africa about a year ago. She is about four years old. Unfortunately, she lives in Niger and her hometown is within the affected region. My last update about her was from December of 2011. At the time, there was no mention of any hardships. I’m not sure what her status is right now. I hope she is ok and is receiving enough food every day.

There is apparently a $200M shortfall in aid money, which would assist the people who are affected. There hasn’t been a lot of high level news coverage on this crisis and I can sort of understand why. It seems like there’s always a crisis going in Africa. People get what’s called “donor fatigue”, having to always donate money so often for what appears to be the same problem over and over again. Starving children don’t make for very sexy news stories.

I know this sounds really cliched but consider donating some money to assist in this crisis. It’s tax deductible and you can donate whatever amount you wish. Visit this link to get you started. I know your money needs to go to a million other different things including other charities, your mortgage, and your kids, so I won’t make a big deal out of it. I donated a small amount myself and I’m just hoping it makes a difference.

Random people find my blog all the time. From above, you can see how one particular visitor used Google to find this special place. First, it’s awesome that someone was that interested in determining the temperature on that part of a donkey. Second, it’s more awesome that Google put my blog so high up in the search results! Another feather in my cap for this classy organization. One final thing to note, whoever this person was, they were using a computer in a school which is part of the United States Department of Defense Dependents Schools system. These are schools for the dependents of US military personnel who are serving overseas.