blog.erwintang.com

MY BOOKIE’S NAME IS VINNY

Here’s a newsflash: higher education does not come cheap, it’s nowhere close to the definition of the word “free”.

To help the situation, I’ve come up with three options: get a part time job on campus, spend less money on things, or start betting on hockey games.

Obviously, the third choice consumes the least amount of effort and time. Plus, the payoff can be bigger. My venue for betting? Sports Action BC my friend. Nothing like provincial government sanctioned betting.

I feel I’m fairly informed as a hockey fan, but I’d like to know who you’d pick on certain days. Here are a small selection of games over the next two days. My pick to win is in bold. What do you think?

Friday

Nashville at Washington

Boston at Minnesota

Saturday

Minnesota at St. Louis

Detroit at LA

PEOPLE ARE TALKING

Ever enter your name into a search engine? Yeah, sure you have. Who hasn’t wondered if those naked pics of you have wound up on the Internet?

Anyways, last night I wondered how many sites have started linking to mine. Sadly, the results were not that fruitful. However, I did find one messageboard that had a link to my site. I took a screenshot for you all to see. By the way, though it says, “Star Wars nerds”, it does not specifically refer to me as such, though they wouldn’t be wrong either… ha ha ha. By the way, don’t bother with that link you see, I’ve moved the file.

HEY, DON’T I KNOW YOU FROM SOMEWHERE?

So today I’m walking to CICSR to go and sign out a book. On the way there, I cut through a parking lot. At the ticket dispenser, I see this guy. He looks a lot like a guy I used to work with. His name is Doug Smith, and we both used to work at this place called Cypress Solutions. While it was supposed to be a product development firm, it actually was a faithful recreation of the fiery depths of hell.

Anyways, I’m not too sure if it’s Doug. During the summer, I went hiking and I saw this guy who looked a lot like Doug, and I gave him a long, hard look. It turned out it wasn’t Doug, and I just looked stupid. However, this time, this guy is looking at me like he knows me too. I get closer, and I’m sure it’s him. He’s the first one to speak.

“Erwin.”

“Doug.”

We quickly get up to speed on our present situations. He’s working for a small medical products firm. I tell him my story. We don’t mention Cypress. Just as well I suppose. He tells me he’s here to meet with some people over at the Metals and Materials building. I leave him to his meeting, but before I do so, I pass along my e-mail address. He says it’ll be hard to forget an address like mine.

Doug was a good guy when I worked with him. I hope he contacts me. Geez, what if he’s reading this now? Doug, e-mail me.

READING THIS MADE ME SAD

This article let me know I’m not alone, but man, what a bleak outlook!

ROYALTY SIGHTED!

On the weekend, I was made aware of the Queen’s visit to UBC. I wasn’t really sure if I was going to see her.

She was scheduled to visit the campus during the only class I had on Monday, right at 3pm. So, 3pm Monday rollls around. As I walk to class, I notice, the ceremony is literally right next to the building where my class is. I’m thinking it would be a shame to be this close to the Queen and have to miss it because of some stupid lecture that I’ll forget tonight.

I get to class and I sit down with my 310 buddies. Jonathan and Curtis seem lukewarm about seeing the Queen. Chris goes, “Any reason to skip class is a good reason”. The class starts and George, our professor, says, “Let’s leave early to see the Queen”. A good sign.

Half an hour goes by. People are leaving now to rush outside. I see cops outside the window. There are motorcycle cops which probably means a motorcade. Chris and I get antsy. “We’re missing everything!” I say. One girl rushes back into the classroom. Even though I’m at the top row of a huge lecture room, I see her mouth to her friend, “Oh my God I saw the Queen!”.

Chris has had enough. He packs up and leaves, with me closely behind. Outside, it’s a zoo. People are everywhere. Cops are too. One barks at us to get off the road. We do.

We approach this fenced area which I later found out was where Her Majesty had gotten out of her car. Had we been there 15 minutes earlier, we would have been just a couple feet away from her. Now, I’m not sure if she’s still there. Chris is taller than me, and he spots the podium in front of Koerner Library. “Dude, there she is” he says.

I crane my neck to get a better view. And there she is, distant though distinguishable, the Queen of England is in my sight. There are speeches by Dr. Martha Piper (the president of UBC) and our illustrious Premier, Gordon Campbell. Don’t tell anyone, but I think people dislike that guy.

Then the Queen gets up to unveil some plaque or something. Soon after she gets up and I can’t see her anymore. And that was it.

Curtis and Jonathan join us later, but she’s gone by now.

I can now say I’ve seen the Queen of England with my own eyes. Now if I can only say I have all my reading done.

LET’S PLAY “YOU MAKE THE CALL!”

So I’m going through the Internet like most people do, and I stumble upon some girl’s modeling web site, again like most people do.

She seems pretty serious about modeling. As I peruse through her portfolio, I notice one of her sections is labelled “vintage”. Intrigued, I take a look. The section contains a few pictures of her that date back a few years, but most of them seem very recent. I start to wonder why she would call them “vintage”. I go back to her portfolio and look at some of her “other” sections. Then, I go back to the “vintage” ones. It’s then that I notice something. For your convenience, I’ve taken a “vintage” image and placed it next to a “recent” image. Click on the comparison image for a closer look.

Do you see what I see? Now, it’s true I don’t have all the facts. There is a chance in the realm of possibility that she might have experienced a sudden, um, natural “development”. I don’t have all the facts, so it is a possibility. Then, there are other “possibilities” that might be attributed to this impressive “development”. However, I’m going to keep this classy (ha ha ha) and leave that up to your imagination.

I’ve been taking this course in fuzzy logic, where inferences are made based on incomplete data. It might be a stretch to apply those concepts here, but I’m going to make my own inference. What’s yours?

UM, THANKS, I THINK…

So after being filled with rage because of not having the chance to sign out that textbook, I decided to head downtown. I needed to grab some dinner and pickup my pants from Banana Republic.

I go downtown, eat, and pick up my pants. I decide to buy some aromatherapy candles ’cause I don’t want my room to stink like a guy. So, I’m standing there paying for my stuff, when some guy walks up to me. He goes, “Excuse me, I really like your coat, it’s nice… what do you call it?”

I’m wearing my black three-quarter length coat, it’s made of polyester, nothing special. I respond with, “I dunno, it’s a three-quarter length coat, I got it at Banana Republic…” I point down to the end of the mall where BR is located. The dude kinda looks confused, and I figure he might be out of town. He adds, “Oh thank you, that coat makes you look really handsome.”

With that he walks away, and I’m left standing there with the cashier. I finish paying and I go to take the bus home.

While I’m walking to the bus stop, I’m thinking, “Wait, did that guy just hit on me?” Maybe he did like my coat, but most guys don’t say to other guys, ‘you look handsome’, well maybe they do, but only if they’re gay.

There are a million hot looking chicks out there and I get some dude who compliments me on my coat.

I guess it’s better than receiving no compliments. However, my parents probably think I’m gay, and if they read this, they’re not going to be too pleased. Ha ha ha… but seriously Mom, I’m not gay… really, no really…

GREEDY PEOPLE SUCK AND SHOULD DIE

I’m not in a good mood right now. Here’s the story. I have this class where the text has been reserved in the Computer Science Reading Room. There is one copy of the book that you can sign out for a one day loan. The prof has been very considerate in doing this, as we don’t reference the text all time, only some of the time. Buying the text isn’t necessary in this case, as a lot of our readings come from the web.

Well, a few of the readings this week have come from this text. Today at 4pm, I go to the Reading Room to sign the text out for the weekend. It’s out. I look at the card in the pile and I find out that the book was due on the 2nd of October. It’s the 4th today. This book can only be signed out for one day. I tell the librarian and she says I should e-mail the person since the borrower’s e-mail is on the sign-out card.

So, I sit down at a terminal at the RR and e-mail this direct yet polite e-mail to my lazy, greedy, thoughtless classmate of mine. The librarian takes notes of the e-mail address and she says she knows who the student is. “She’s been here for years”, she tells me.

Now that I’m home, I’m thinking I should have swore up a storm in my e-mail, or at least been not so polite. What the hell do I care? I don’t know her, nor am I going to do any group projects with her.

I think I know who she is too. She was actually at class today. If I knew she was hoarding that book, I would have a few words with her. It really bothers me that stupid, greedly, selfish people can get away with this stuff.

I hope she returns the book soon and then fails the course. Honestly, I do.

FOOD SHOPPING

I went grocery shopping for the first time since the beginning of school. Yeah, I know, it’s sad and suprising at the same time.

The only reason I went is because Nic and Marcia got a car for a few hours. We went to the liquor store first, and I picked up a few bottles of wine. I’m planning having wine on Friday nights to melt away my troubles of the week. That sounds either really sophisicated or really gay.

Next we headed off to the Safeway on 10th Ave. I haven’t been to that Safeway in years! It’s changed a bit since I was in there. To be honest, I think the Safeway at Lougheed Mall is a bit better (except the girls are still hotter at 10th Ave). I couldn’t find any decaffeinated green tea, nor could I find an apple pie. Nonetheless, I bought tons of food, even a roasted chicken. I swear food shopping takes on a new significance when you’re a student.

LOST ARCHIVES

Blogger has recently experienced some serious problems in how they let people post their entries. In my case, it’s causing my archives not to display properly. Notice how the archives are there for the first week and the last two, but nothing in between. The odd thing is that blogger still has all my posts, but the archiving process doesn’t recognize it. Also, I still have all my archives posts stored locally on my web server.

When I have time, I am going to have to manually add the lost archives back in. It’s going to look a bit odd, but it will have to suffice until I figure out a better way to fix it. After all, I’d like everyone to revisit the time I nearly sliced my thumb off.