Category: Uncategorized

SMALLVILLE

I don’t watch Smallville, though maybe I should. Anyways, I just caught the last three minutes or so of tonight’s episode.

What the hell is up with Clark and Lana? Are they just friends or what? Can some one explain it to me? Anyone?

YOU… ON TV

I’m on a twenty-minute break and I seriously hope it’ll stay at 20 minutes and not a minute longer. I’m studying for a midterm and I want to get in another hour or so before I think about bedtime. I swear I must be the last person to go to bed here at SJC on most nights. I wonder if there would be any way to find out.

Anyways, I’d really like to finish telling the rest of my day two in New Orleans, but that’ll have to wait until after midterm on Wednesday. I’ll need some time to finish up that day.

Well, rather telling you what I had for lunch today (tomato soup with beef ravioli), I’ll indulge you with a thought I had this afternoon.

If you had to pick a TV character, past or present, that you identify with most, who would it be and why?

I’ll start the ball rolling. I guess at this point in my life, I’d identify most with the character Ed Stevens on the show Ed. Ed was a successful lawyer in New York who had his marriage fail and subsequently moved to his small home town to pursue the girl he’s always wanted. Well, obviously I haven’t had that happen to me, but it’s what he’s done since he’s moved back that I can identify with.

Ed is the archetypical “nice guy”. He’s kind to others, polite, and his friends seem to like him. Ed’s also intelligent and funny. Moreover, while he possesses all these great qualities, he still fails to land his dream girl. Well, up to season three at least… heh.

Yeah, I can see myself one day, pack it all in from my apartment in Kits, move back to Coquitlam, open up a Japanese fast-fry place in the food court at Lougheed Mall, and pursue old high school crushes. Um, yeah… ha ha ha… no seriously though, I see a bit of Ed in me.

So, what about you guys? Tell me about your choices! How about the characters below?

JUST DO IT

Rarely, as a student, do you find yourself with nothing to do. I have a big AI assignment to start, a midterm to study for on Wednesday, and a tutorial I need to review. That was on my plate today. I managed to get to the last two, but didn’t get to the first.

I could have worked every waking minute today (which I did not) and I still would have been not finished. It’s times like this you have to realize what else are you putting off because of work.

I’ve learned that because of this spectre of work that always hangs over a student, people can put things aside that might take five seconds to finish. Things like taking out the garbage or phoning a friend. If you’re going to be studying 10 hours for the day, what is five minutes to take out the trash or seeing how a friend is doing?

I sometimes forget that lesson myself. I plan on going to bed at 4am. I could easily study until then. I’m really tempted to. What else, though, am I putting off? Lots of things; things like paying my bills on-line. So… let me go do that….

Okay, just did that. Whoa. What a miniscule balance. Now, I need to go start my on-line loan application…

UPDATE:

Figures… I’m not sure who to blame, our provincial government as a whole or the people running the loan app system.

DAY TWO – NEW ORLEANS

I promised myself I’d finish describing my trip to New Orleans, so here we go, albeit my memory is slightly more foggier now, but I’ll do my best. You might want to back to re-read my last New Orleans post to see where I was.

The continental breakfast ends at the early hour of 9am, so I set my alarm to some gross hour of 8am. Surprisingly, I don’t feel so bad considering all the travel I’ve done and that it’s 6am back in Vancouver.

I turn on the TV and watch it in bed for a few minutes before I go and start my morning ritual. It takes me about half an hour to get decent and put on my clothes for the day. I head on down to the lobby and into the conference room where they’ve set up breakfast. Two tables have been set-up with the food. As far as continental breakfasts go, it’s pretty crappy. There are no croissants nor muffins. There are these tiny, bite size pastry thingies, most of which are too sweet for breakfast. A few are muffin-like, so I grab those. There are bagels, but I don’t go for those. To drink, there is the standard coffee and hot water for tea. I go for the orange juice.

I grab my selection and sit down. I am the only there. Complimentary copies of USA Today are at each table. I take one and start reading and eating. I prefer local papers because I could be one of millions of people in any city reading the exact same USA Today. I imagine it’s cheaper for the hotel to get USA Today though.

I finish up breakfast and head back on up to get the rest of my things for the day. The plan is to go on a two-hour walking tour of New Orleans. Armed with my trusty travel guide and camera, I hit the street. It’s barely past 9:30am and I can feel the heat already. It is going to be a hot day.

I have to be at this cafe in the French Quarter to meet the tour guide at 10:30am. There are no reservations, it’s just whoever shows up. I have no idea how many people will be there. It’s early, so I make my way to the French Quarter and just start looking around. I go into various shops that feature tacky items, specifically designed for tourists it seems. I find one that is large, slightly more classy than the others, and more importantly, well air-conditioned.

In this store, I find any number of souvenir-type goods. I discover a stack of preserved alligator heads, all frozen in one last open-mouth pose. The teeth are still sharp. $10 US for a small head, $16 for a large. Along a wall, I spy various hot sauces. There are two themes when it comes to the packaging of these hot sauces. One plays up the “fire out of the anus” angle. Here, there’s invariably some cartoon label of some poor dude, who’s consumed the contents of the bottle, with fire coming out of his rear. The second theme attempts to equate the spicyness of the sauce with the sexiness of a girl on the label. Several labels feature erotically drawn cartoon women with large breasts. A few even go as far as working the act of fellatio into the selling of hot sauce.

I browse through the numerous strands of beads in the other part of the store. The more expensive strands feature plastic toys on them; some are mermaids, some are animals, and still others are genitalia (of both sexes).

Time winding down, I head over to Cafe Beignet, to await the massive crush of people who will join me on this tour. I get to the place and there are three customers. As I walk in, they are leaving. Hmmm…. It’s still early, so I decide to partake in my first New Orleans “must-do”. I order some beignets. Beignets are a staple of New Orleans cuisine. There are essentially fried pieces of dough, then liberally sprinkled, nay, covered in icing sugar. My travel guide even goes as far as saying it’s quite acceptable to walk the street with icing sugar down the front of your shirt. Everyone will know and understand the reason for that.

My order of beignets comes up and I go get them. I receive a paper take out container with three square-shaped pieces of dough. It’s covered in icing sugar. There’s also a layer of icing sugar on the bottom of the container. It looks good.

I sit down and take a bite out of one. It’s still warm. The icing sugar hits me. Yummy. I also notice the dough is way heavier than I had anticipated. These are not light and fluffy doughnuts. These are high-density fried goods.

While I’m chowing down, a gentleman enters the cafe. “Who’s here for the tour?”, he asks. I raise my hand. I am the only customer in the cafe and the only one with my hand up.

The tour guide walks over to my table.

“Hmmm… well, we usually take a three people as a bare minimum for a tour. Hopefully, some more people show up.”

I tell him I’m really looking forward to the tour. He tells me that his boss has an unwritten rule that they don’t leave anyone just because the minimum is not met. I am relieved. He also tells me that his boss will lose money on this tour if it’s just me, but that’s the way it is sometimes.

There’s ten minutes to go. We enter into smalltalk in between my bites of my beignets. These things are kicking my ass. They’re heavy and make for the hearty breakfast I didn’t have at my hotel. I manage to finish them right at 10:30am. No one else has come for the tour.

“Alright, saddle up, it’s just you and me my friend.”

Excellent. For the next two hours, I have my own personal tour guide of the French Quarter. I am most pleased.

We go outside and I hand him $10 US for the tour. My UBC student card gets me $2 off. He tells me how the tour is going to go, where we’ll be headed, to get water if I don’t have any (I already do), and to ask questions at any time. With the preliminaries out of the way, we begin the tour.

Our first stop is just across the street. My guide begins his talk. I learn that he used to be a policeman with the New Orleans police department. He was born and raised in the city. He’s personable and friendly. I decide he’s an okay guy.

For the next two hours, we walk around the French Quarter. I get a complete history lesson of the city. It’s better than any book could have described it. At key points, we stop on the sidewalk and he tells me an important anecdote for that street or for a particular building. I take pictures along the way. I see Tennessee Williams’ home where he wrote A Streetcar Named Desire. While he describes this to me, a streetcar rumbles by us. This tour was a good idea.

I am taken all over the French Quarter, and before I know it, the time is up. My guide wraps up his history lesson and description of the area. I thank him for his time and effort. I shake his hand and we part ways. I get the feeling that was the best $10 I will have spent in New Orleans.

I make my way back to the area near my hotel. I haven’t had lunch yet, so I duck into this restaurant that was recommended by my travel guide. I order this pasta dish. It has crawfish, mussels, and shrimp. It’s pretty good. I make a note that I still haven’t had jumbalaya or gumbo.

After lunch, I go back to my room and shower. Feeling refreshed again, I examine my choices for the late afternoon. I decided to head towards the Riverwalk Marketplace. Hailed as a premier shopping venue, Riverwalk is also right next to the aquarium and riverboats. If it sucked, I could easily find alternate plans.

While the walk there is short, the heat is stifling in the late afternoon. By the time I get to Riverwalk, I feel like the sun is specifically directing all its rays towards me. At Riverwalk, I amazed at how close it is to the Mississippi riverfront. Before I go in, I walk into this plaza area with fountains that overlooks the river. It’s beautiful. I go right up to the railing and look at the river. I cautiously put my hand on the metal railing. It’s hot enough to cook the proverbial egg.

I decide to go into the shopping complex. The blast of A/C welcomes me with great relief. I browse through all the stores. It’s a decent mall, and I’ve certainly been to worse. Having a view of the Mississippi at all times isn’t bad either. In the end, I don’t wind up buying anything because of the exchange rate. At the end of the mall is the food court. It’s rather large and reminds me of Granville Island. Huge bay windows give diners a view of the river. I’ve just had lunch a few hours ago, but when I pass by a Popeye’s Chicken, I cannot resist.

I order up a meal deal thing and sit next to a window. I’ve always wanted to try Popeye’s fried chicken. It is… disappointing. With my meal done, I decide I’ve had enough of Riverwalk. I notice that I’ve missed the last riverboat tour time already. The aquarium also closes soon. Damn. A quick flip of my guide reveals there’s another shopping mall that closes at 9pm.

That mall is about 14 blocks from Riverwalk. Too far to walk. I’ll need to take a taxi. Where to find a taxi though?

TO BE CONTINUED…

WIZARD NEEDS FOOD BADLY

If I don’t go to Safeway this weekend, I may come down with scurvy or some other malnutrition related ailment.

I have no tangible amounts of food in my room right now. I’m outta Coke, cans of soup, bottled water, frozen food, vegetables, and fruit. I have some chocolate and instant noodles. Gross.

I’m tempted to make some instant noodles right now, but I don’t want to walk all the way up to the kitchen.

Hey, I wonder what Sea-Monkey food tastes like…

MURPHY’S LAW

All UBC residences that fall under the jurisdiction of UBC Housing have a standard set of amenities. These include weight rooms, laundry rooms, and most importantly (in my mind), convenience stores. St. John’s College, where I live, is technically not part of UBC Housing. Unfortunately, we don’t have a little store to get things like milk and juice.

Fortunately, we live right next to Place Vanier, which is under the jurisdiction of UBC Housing. They have a fabulous little store called Hubbard’s where you can buy almost anything you can get at a 7-11, and the includes Slurpees ™!!! Since I lived in Vanier before, I knew this place existed, but many of my fellow SJC residents did not. A lot of them probably thought the Village was the closest place to get supplies (at least a fifteen minute walk).

In light of this, I sent out a mail last night to the SJC distribution list explaining to everyone I’d take a group of people over to Hubbard’s if they wanted. I got several positive responses, so I felt like there would be some participants. At 9pm tonight, I arrived in the lobby area to find five people waiting for me to take them to the store. Dana was one of them and he even had a digital camera to record the event. Um, ok.

Anyways, everyone was real excited for my tour and I was glad they were so enthused. The walk took less than five minutes and Dana was taking pictures all the way along. We passed by the windows of all-girl dorm and I was afraid some of us were going to get into some mischief. Thankfully, no pervy problems arose. We all entered the commonsblock with me in the lead. As I walked towards the store, I immediately, saw the lights were dimmed and the sliding glass doors were closed. WTF?

We gathered in front of Hubbard’s and I read the sign that was taped there. The person running the store that night was sick. Son of a bitch! The one friggin’ night I decide to lead a group over and the store is closed. This is the sorta luck I’ve had all my life! What are the odds! I apologized to the whole group and through the glass, I pointed out the various food items they could have purchased if they hadn’t been victim to my bad luck.

I felt really bad for everyone on the way home. On the walk back, I saw one of my students from my tutorial. He called out my name and I said hi. He probably thinks I live in Vanier now. I bet that has him confused.

If you’re interested, there are some really bad photos of me from our trip on Dana’s web site.

LAMENT FOR A COAT

I feel like I lost a game seven today. I feel like I was Indiana Jones coming this close to a valuable artifact and then having it slip away. Why? Let me back it up a bit.

I’ve written about this before, so if it begins to sound familiar, bear with me because there’s more to it now. I used to own this beautiful three-quarter length black nylon coat from Banana Republic. I loved that coat. Yep, the same one that I got over 50% off the original price, the same one that I was wearing when some dude tried to pick me up in Pacific Centre (I politely declined, but hey, a compliment is a compliment right?), and the same one that even caused Garrett Knights to give the coat a thumbs-up (and if you know Garrett, it’s once a century when he comments on anything fashion related). If you’ve been reading erwintang.com, you know I’ve written about this before and how much that coat meant to me.

Now, you might also know that one day in late spring I just realized I didn’t know where the hell my coat was. It was simply gone. I had no memory of the last time I wore it. It was gone from my closet. I search high and low for it. Other people’s rooms. Lost and founds of my regular haunts. I found not a trace of my beloved coat. It was puzzling and it was frustrating.

For many weeks, I did not know what to do. As the weather turned warmer, the thoughts of my coat went away. As September rolled around and the days got cooler, I was reminded of how nice it would be to slip on good old Betsy again (I think I just named my coat).

A look at the local BR stores revealed none of their current coats would do as a replacements. The one that came closest was $350 and it didn’t even come in my size. A look at other stores quickly led no where. It was becoming clear that I needed to find another coat of the exact same style to satisfy my yearning.

To that end, I turned to one thing that could possibly help me in this situation. The Internet. More specifically, I turned to eBay. Since the end of September, I have been searching eBay for Banana Republic coats and jackets. For weeks, all my searches were fruitless, only yielding items that were not even remotely close to what I wanted.

Then four days ago, among the many useless items BR, my eye caught this description “NEW BANANA REPUBLIC RAIN/TRENCH COAT JACKET S”. Could it be? Perchance? I clicked on the link for more info. As the page loaded up, my heart skipped. The picture looked promising. It seemed like my coat. I scrolled down to view the other pictures of the item. Yes, yes… yes, this looked exactly like my coat. The buttons were the right size and shape. The pockets were in the right place. There were a list of dimensions for the coat. I nervously copied them down and denoted the item for tracking. I logged off and waited to borrow a tape measure the next day. There was a sliver of hope in my heart.

The next day, I checked the dimensions against a jean jacket that fit me perfectly. The coat on eBay would fit me fine. This was it. The first tangible and real chance for me to reclaim my coat, albeit a different one. The auction was to end on Thanksgiving Day at 10:08am. It was three days away. I didn’t bid right away. Whenever I bid on eBay, I never bid until minutes before the auction ends. It’s just my strategy.

Over the next few days, I checked the item for new bids. The night before the auction end, there were a total of two bids since I had found the item. The bid was stuck at $31 USD. It was too good to be true. Would I get the coat for even cheaper than my original? Now, at my parents’ place for the long weekend, I carefully set my alarm for 9:45am.

I awoke the next morning at the appointed time and logged on with fifteen minutes to go. I spent the next few minutes checking news and sports sites, occasionally re-loading the item page. There were no new bids. This was a good sign. I kept on reading when I did one last re-load. Auction ends : 1 min 54 secs. Whoa, it was getting near the end. In hindsight, I probably should have waited a bit longer, but I was nervous. I clicked on Bid Now and put in a bid one dollar than the highest bid. I was rewarded with the message, You are the highest bidder. I stepped away from the computer momentarily. Was I less than two minutes away from my months long goal? I came back and reloaded the page. A problem came up. I had been outbid. It was now at $42 USD. I wasn’t going to let ten dollars let this coat get away from me. I quickly put in my bid for $42.10, only there was another problem. Instead of me being the highest bidder, I was at a confirmation screen asking me I wanted to increase my bid. Someone had more than doubled the bid. I would have to enter in a bid of $87 USD. I froze from shock and indecision. What the hell? Who was doing this? $87 USD was $115 in Canadian funds. Add the $30 CAD in shipping and I was looking at about $150 in total, way above what I paid originally. Time was scarce and the seconds were slipping away. What to do? What to do? I coudn’t do it. I couldn’t pay that much for it. It just didn’t seem right. I let it go.

It was over like that. I wasn’t sure what to feel. I felt deflated and disappointment. It didn’t turn out the way I wanted. I just didn’t want to pay that much. It seemed ridiculous, especially since I’m a poor student now. I had come this close. The more I thought about it, the more dejected I felt. My sister took me to IHOP and bought me breakfast. It was a nice gesture which I appreciated. Afterwards, I told her now at least I felt full and dejected, whereas before I was hungry and dejected.

So, my search continues. Later, to my surprise, I found two of the same coat in another auction. The only problem? They were a medium and a large. They only come in small, medium, and large, and this auction had every size… except the one I needed. Instead of being downtrodden though, that auction gave me a small amount of hope. There were two more coats out there! Maybe there’s another small out there too.

I will keep looking. I am reminded of the various TV shows which all centered on a acheiving a single, arduous goal. I am Marshall, Will, and Holly looking for a portal back to their own time. I am the crew of the Battlestar Galactica looking for the mythical planet Earth. I am David Banner going from town to town, looking for a cure for the gamma radiation. I am Dr. Sam Beckett, trying to leap one last time into his own body. Hey, incidently, most of the shows I’ve listed have kick-ass themes.

Anyways, I’ve got to keep looking and fighting the good fight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get my backpack and head down the only road out of this small town. As I stick out my thumb to hitchhike, the soulful sounds of a piano will play me out.

Ten points to anyone who knows what I’m talking about!

WHOOPS!

The students in my tutorial have a quiz on Wednesday. I promised them I’d mark their last assignment and leave it in the classroom so they could study from it. I told them I’d put it there at the very latest on Monday. Today, Sunday, I thought I’d be early and return the assignments now.

I walked over to the Civil/Mechanical building, went upstairs only to find that the classroom was locked. Damn. I looked around a bit, hoping to find a janitor or something. No luck. In the seven years I’ve been at UBC, I don’t think I’ve seen a janitor once in that building during the weekend.

I thought about leaving the assignments outside the door to the classroom, but the hallway is well-traveled and I can see some goofball scattering them all over the place. There are no boxes outside the classroom either.

I could have constructed some sorta folder-thingy and then taped it next to the door, but I was short on time and had to go to my parents’ place for dinner.

In the end, I took the assignments back with me. I can either figure something out on Monday or wait until Tuesday when the classroom will open for sure. If I wait until Tuesday, I hope my students won’t be mad at me for delaying it a day.

You know I wonder what they’ll put down on their TA evaluation forms when the time comes. Every TA gets evaluated at the end of the term. I don’t mind constructive criticism, but I hope I don’t get something mean, unless it’s so outrageous, it’s funny. That I won’t mind.