blog.erwintang.com

A little over a year ago, my sister moved back in with my parents. About five months ago I did the same. At the time, I thought we were probably in the minority. According to an article published today in the Vancouver Sun, it turns out I might be wrong.

The article is based on a study by Stats Canada. Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

“In fact, nearly half of Vancouver-area parents with children in their 20s and 30s — 46 per cent — have at least one kid still living under their roof.

That’s well above the national average of 32 per cent and just behind Toronto at 54 per cent.”

In both Vancouver and Toronto, half the parents in those cities still have an adult child living at home. That stat is amazing because I just don’t know that many people who are in the same situation as I am. Granted, I know a lot of grad students, so by definition, they’ve travelled to Vancouver for school. I can only think of one other person who lives at home still. Where are all these people? And is there a support group for us?

The article also tries to explain why kids are staying at home. One reason is the high cost of housing in Vancouver. As many of you know, it costs an arm and a leg to even buy the crappiest of houses in East Van. The second reason given is cultural:

“Indeed, Turcotte’s study found parents born in Asia were three times more likely to have adult children living at home than parents born in Canada were.

Of those parents who immigrated from Asia since 1981, 82 per cent had at least one adult child living at home.”

One stat that speaks to my sister and I specifically is that 25 percent of parents have “boomerang” kids. These are children who have left, only to return after whatever reason, eg. failed marriage, bankruptcy, WoW addiction, etc. I did not realize a quarter of all parents now have at least one these kids. That again, is amazing.

Here’s one last quote from the article and this is perhaps the most eye-opening one:

“The Statistics Canada study found income and education levels appear to have no impact on the likelihood of an adult child sticking around.”

Really? You’re telling me that if a child makes $35K a year or $70K a year, that won’t factor into the person’s decision to stay at home. Hmmm… I dunno… that’s the only reason I’m sticking around. Well, if I were making $70K a year, I might stick around for a few months to save up but nothing long term.

Alright, the stats don’t lie. I know you people are out there. Don’t lie to me! Who else still lives with their parents? And don’t give some crap about not cooking with cheese.

Not ten minutes ago, I was in the kitchen to get a drink after eating some chicken and sausage gumbo. It was tasty but I needed something to wash it down. I would have preferred a small quantity of non-caffeinated Coke but we were out. I had to settle for a glass bottle of Sun-Rype orange juice.

The OJ usually has sediment that settles on the bottom so I was twisting the bottle in my hand, much like those painter mixers do at the paint store. I’m not sure how it happened but the bottle flew out of my hand. I didn’t just drop it, the bottle was flung out of hand. As my brain tried to process what had happened, two things were clear: I wasn’t going to be able to catch the bottle and it was going to shatter into a million pieces on the linoleum.

One outta two ain’t bad. The bottle landed on the linoleum with a loud and solid thud that usually is reserved for things made out of metal. It was intact. I quickly bent down to grab the bottle. I inspected for damage. It took some effort but I saw a tiny hairline crack near the bottom of bottle. Otherwise, it was fine. I was amazed.

Not wanting to take any chances, I poured all the juice into a glass. The amazing little bottle then went into the recyling bin. I then remembered to look at the linoleum tile on the floor. There was a one inch long dent in the tile. It looked like the linoleum had liquified for a split second and parted where the bottle edge had made contact. And the tile wasn’t exactly soft either. Crazy. I wonder if anyone will notice?

And that’s my post about dropping a bottle of orange juice on the floor.

The TV execs have spoken and I’ve been renewed for a sixth season! I’ll be going long on the cheezy sit-com gimmicks this year. Look for me to adopt an adorable child from Ethiopia to drive up the ratings.

But seriously folks, my registar answered my request for support. Apparently, they “pushed” my domain renewal through and all is good for another year. The question remains whether or not they charged my credit card. Renewals don’t cost that much, so it’s not a big deal either way.

Speaking of renewals and domains, I’d like to direct everyone’s attention to a friend’s site. Good old Garrett Knights and I have been friends since my tester days at EA. Garrett’s had a site for many years now but he previously only used it to showcase his talents as an artist. Recently, GK has revamped his site into an easily digestible blog form. I invite you to visit garrettknights.com and tell him I sent ya!

I tried to renew my domain tonight so that I can continue this little dog and pony show for another year. After I entered all my credit card info, it came back with an error message. Apparently, the server which handles all this renewing business was down.

I’m going to try it again tomorrow morning when I get to work. Hopefully, the server will be back up by then. I have until Friday to renew my domain. If I don’t, interesting things will happen.

I’m usually wary of movie promotions done over the Internet. More often than not, it’s just a way to get your e-mail address so they can spam you later on.

I have, however, been participating in one particular Mission: Impossible 3 contest. Yes, I know it stars Tom Cruise. We all know how weird that dude became the last couple of months but, the trailer for the movie does look damn good.

So what’s this contest? It involves an Internet scavenger hunt. You sign up for an account and every Monday, you’re given a new clue. Armed with this clue, you have to search the Internet looking for the Mission Impossible badge to click on. Once you find it, you’re time is clocked and points awarded. Points are awarded for speed, among other things. For our US readers, this can translate into prizes won.

It’s actually kinda fun and challenging to figure out where you’re supposed to point your browser based on the first clue. You can still sign up now. Time doesn’t start until the clue is revealed to you, so it’s possible for someone to do six missions all today and catch up to everyone else. You can give it a try here. It’s worth the sign-up!

Over at official NBA web site, they’re having a little online contest to determine the favourite NBA dance team. It’s setup like the March Madness tournament with teams facing off in successive rounds until the final matchup. Voters are supposed to exercise due dilligence and pour over photos from each dance team and then vote.

Normally, I wouldn’t link to something like this but if you’ve been reading this site for several years, it will seem somewhat familiar. Click on the image above if you like female team morale boosters!

I’m going to comment on a few different things here. The first is that this domain expires next Friday. I better renew it before I forget. Odds are that I’ll leave it for a few more days before I go to do that.

The Flying Swan Cafe is a pretty decent place for food. An extensive menu, coupled by reasonable prices makes it a good place for lunch. Where else can you get breakfast, burgers, Chinese food and much more?

In last two episodes of 24, they’ve killed off a lot of important characters. One guy I didn’t mind because he deserved it. The last guy at the end of Monday’s episode though was a decent character. He saved Jack’s life more than a few times. There aren’t that many more characters left to kill now.

And in the ever popular trend of self-diagnosing using the Internet, I’m pretty sure I have what’s called delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS). For as long as I can remember, my body has commanded me to stay up late and sleep in until early afternoon. I was not aware there was a disorder to describe it. Apparently you can treat it. The question is, do I want to? The only reason to is to conform to the rest of society. If I get my eight hours, I’m just as awake as anyone else. DSPS isn’t life threatening nor does it cause direct harm to me. Well, at least I know the name for it now. All this time, I’ve been calling it Harvey.

I’m sure some of you are aware that a large portion of Vancouver was without power tonight. I was caught in the blackout as well. I had just left work around 8:40pm and was waiting for the bus at 4th and Fir. All of a sudden the street lights went out as did the lights in the surrounding buildings. The only lights were from the headlights of passing vehicles.

I knew my bus was coming at 8:47pm but I forgot if it was an electric trolley or a diesel. I also forgot if the trolleys were on a separate electrical source than the business/residential customers. Not wanting to risk it, I decided to hoof it up to the bigger bus stop on Granville and 5th. I knew that stop had diesels for sure and maybe walking just one block up would be the difference. As I walked into that little park by the foot of the bridge, I could see that it was lights out for several blocks in every direction. Downtown was still twinkling though. To reach the right stop, I had to cross Granville, so I decided to use the underpass. That was not to be. As I got to the underpass, it was pitch black and I was afraid there might be giant spiders in there. It was clear navigating the underpass was not an option. I started to walk up Granville on the wrong side of where I needed to be. All of Granville was dark, except strangely enough, the Starbucks was still serving up coffee in their lit up store. I was waiting for a chance to cross the four lanes of Granville in the dark. There wasn’t a break in traffic, so I thought I’d have a better chance to cross higher up the street.

I got to the intersection at 6th where I waited with a cyclist. We both watched waves and waves of cars go by us.

“This is gonna be fun.”

As he nodded, the traffic stopped as they suddenly obeyed the four way stop rule to let a vehicle cross Granville. We sprinted across along with the car. A trolley had just passed us and was still waiting across the street as I got there. I ran aboard to find that the trolley still had power.

The bus trundled across the darkened bridge, leaving behind what I thought for certain was the beginning of the zombie invasion. The lights were bright and alive as soon as we got downtown. I’m not even sure the patrons of the Cecil even were aware of what was going on outside. Though, I guess you could say that about Cecil patrons at any time.

I was downtown Saturday night when I walked by Smallville actress Allison Mack. She was with what seemed like her boyfriend. The dude had his arm around her. If you’re wondering how good looking you need to be to date an actress, he wasn’t a male model type at all. I’m guessing then he probably has a huge personality and/or bank account.

Now who would be reading my blog from a computer at my office, 22 minutes past midnight on a Friday night (or Saturday morning)?