QUICK NOTE

Jordan, it was a pleasure having dinner with you and Lesley (or is it Leslie? sorry!). Like I said, feel free to come by and visit again.

REVOLUTIONS

“I have dreamed a dream… but now that dream has gone from me…

The character Morpheus spoke that line in The Matrix Reloaded, but it seems that many film critics have been echoing the same thing. Gone from them are the dreams of another sequel worthy of or even better than the original Matrix.

From what I’ve seen on the Internet and some print media, the reviews are less than stellar for the final chapter of the Matrix trilogy.

I have not seen Revolutions myself, but I am hoping that I will have a better impression of it than others. Even if the reviews are what they are, how can one not want to see how the story ends? Will the human race break free of their enslavement from the machines? How does Neo awake from his coma? How many more rubber outfits will Monica Bellucci slip into?

Weak or not, if you’ve invested any interest into these movies, I think you’ve got to see Revolutions at least once.

One question I have is whether or not critics are poorly reviewing the movie just to say that they panned a movie that had good box-office. Similar questions were raised when Clones came out. I even remember one Detroit critic panning it for disparaging Hispanics. His evidence? He said the actor that played Jango Fett was clearly a stereo-type for Hispanics. What he didn’t know (stupidly), was that actor was Temuera Morrison, a famous Maori actor from New Zealand. I guess in Detroit, there are only four or five ethnic groups.

Well, that’s all I have to say about that… heh, geez I’m tired right now.

WHAT? MORE TIME?!?!?

I did almost no school work today. Technically, that’s no different than any other Tuesday. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my lightest days where I have the opportunity to do the most work. Somehow, I usually wind up finding a way to piss away the day while at my desk.

Today was different. I consciously made the decision not to do much work. It all started when I went to my AI class. We have (er, had I guess) an assignment due on Wednesday. I was having some trouble with it, but I was looking forward to handing it in and being done with it. It’s possible to spend too much time spinning your wheels.

Anyways, my prof decides he wants to give us more time on it. Great. He first decides to give us until Friday. Then he says, “Well, I’m not going to mark on the weekend anyways… how’s Monday?”

Of course, everyone is cool with it. I was actually a bit disappointed. He gave us almost a week more time. That took the wind out of my sails for the day. After class, I went home, paid my rent and checked my mail. I decided I’d have a day off. I knocked on Patrick’s door. He’s game for anything these days. Having just completed an M.A. and just starting his Ph.D., Patrick is pretty much willing to do anything.

I suggested we go for lunch at Cactus Club. On the way to the bus loop, I started feeling guilty. I was thinking maybe I should have taken another class this term. The thought passed as we got on the bus.

Minutes later, we were on the corner of Granville and Broadway. I had an excellent lunch at Cactus. You know, it’s actually possible to go there just for good food. After lunch, I did some shopping. I went and bought mugs. I came to SJC with three mugs, but broke two of them over the course of the year. A few days ago, Rhonda came over unexpectedly to have hot chocolate with me. I was using my only mug, so she couldn’t have a warm beverage. That ain’t cool.

I went to Cookworks on Broadway and bought two mugs. You know, there are a lot of terrible mugs out there. Some are butt ugly, while others hold like a sip of liquid. I like a mug that can hold enough liquid to last an entire debate on the total number of Jedi in the Galaxy before the fall of the Republic. I found two acceptable mugs today.

Next, it was off to Future Shop to purchase Finding Nemo on DVD. Having just seen the movie for the first time just two weeks before, it was a relatively short wait for me. As always, I passed by the plasma TV section. It’s my dream to hang a widescreen plasma TV over my desk and use it as my TV/monitor. It won’t happen, but a dude can dream can’t he? As I was paying for Nemo, they handed me a Nemo plush toy. Neat.

After that, it was time to go back to the ranch. We got back at four and we both went to take a nap.

At dinner, I had the honour of sitting down with Lloyd Axworthy, but that’s a story for another time. After dinner, I did more dicking around and here we are.

I think I’m going to go to the vending machine for a Coke.

TIME WASTER

Wow, I really did a whole lot of nothing today. I wonder what it’s like to be one of those super-efficient people who do a million things in one day. It must feel so good.

So, it turns out my costume for the party was well-received in general. Tonight at dinner, Carl came up to me and said, “Dude, you made my night.” That was nice to hear. I got a few other positive comments. The weirdest comment came from Rhonda who said, “I’m glad you’re out of costume now, it was kind of frightening.”

Some guy beat my record of consecutive hours in your room without leaving. I previously had set the record of 26 hours last year. I did it from 4pm Saturday to 6pm on Sunday. I thought that was pretty good. At dinner tonight, Tyson told us he spent approx. 36 hours straight in his room. From approx. 2am Saturday morning to around 4pm or so on Sunday afternoon. Now, if I may, I must point out that he was completely wasted by the time he rolled into his room at 2am and he spent a lot of the 36 hours asleep. For the most part, he was trying to recover from drinking. I was working my ass off for most of my 26 hours, so I figure you have to put a disclaimer on his record at the very least. I’m not bitter or anything, he’s got the record for sure. It just means I can get a tub of Hybernol and try to break the record some time later.

I’ll leave you with a treat. My Halloween pics will be up shortly, but here’s another person’s gallery. Thanks Sarah!

GET ME TO BED

Without a doubt, I should be trying to get some sleep right now. I spent most of the day trying to get my damn AI assignment done. I think I’ve got 65%-70% of it done. Of that, I really have no clue how much of it is correct.

I finally had dinner at Burgoo tonight. After hearing about how good it was, Bryan, Sarah, and Chris took me there for a meal. It’s all about comfort food at Burgoo. I had the Kentucky Burgoo. It was good, but I’m looking forward to trying out their other dishes. We had the Dark Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding for dessert. It was fabulous. Warm desserts with ice cream rule.

We had a Halloween party at SJC on Friday night. It was a blast. I had lots of fun. Everyone was dressed up and there were some fabulous costumes! I am trying very hard (hence the late hour) to post my pics. With my digital camera this time around, I took about 90 pics.

Here’s a taste of things to come. If my costume needs explaining, yes, that’s a blonde mullet I’m wearing. Notice the wife-beater tank top and large belt buckle I’m sporting. Yesss! That’s awesome!

ROCK HARD NIPPLES

I came back from a McDonald’s run about 45 minutes ago. It is freezing out there. I think it’s mother nature’s way of saying, “Hey mofos, let me remind you it’s just about November out there.” Did I just type the word mofos?

My heat has been on most of the day. The air is getting really dry now. I can feel it and I can see it. How can I see it? There are quite a few doors here at SJC that have photos adorned on them. When the air turned dry, the photos began to curl out of shape. When I walked down the hall this morning, some photos had curled so much that they peeled off their adhesive and fell onto the floor.

We also have a photo board in the Social Lounge. It shows the picture of every resident at SJC. About 15 or so photos had fallen off. Mine, just to let you know, is still firmly attached.

So dry air is a bad thing for me. I have really sensitive skin and it gets painful when it’s this time of year. I usually have to lather myself with moisturizer every day. On some nights, I humidify my room. When I do so, I’m not shy about it. I turn the air into the Amazon. I know when to stop when the moisture starts dripping off my toilet tank. It feels so good when the air is so moist.

Change of topic, but I think I may get this AI assignment finished in time after all. Notice I didn’t say I’d ace it. Ah well, you can’t win them all. I’m much happier about it than I was a week ago. You know AI doesn’t just stand for Artificial Intelligence. A little birdy that I know, who grew up as a farm-girl, told me that AI also stands for Artificial Insemination. I’m not sure which AI I’d be better at.

Well, I better get on to other things. By the way Jordi, I know you’re reading this.

TRUE LOVE



True love is hard to find. Sometimes you think you have true love and then you catch the early flight home from San Diego and a couple of nude people jump out of your bathroom, blind-folded like a Goddamned magic show, ready to double-team your girlfriend…

WHATEVER

I got my midterm back today. Not since the depths of Physics 153 in first-year, when I was a naive eighteen year-old, have I scored so low on an exam. Well, maybe in third year, but that’s beside the point.

I passed… barely. I hope he scales it. The average mark was 60% or something. I’m below average. Ewww… I’m below average. I’d hate to go through life labeled like that. Say it with me again… below average. Makes me want to shower.

So, I was fairly bummed out when I went out to dinner tonight. I met up with two of undergrad classmates, Johnny and Wendy. Johnny told me it’s ok as long as I passed. Yeah, I guess. I always try to overacheive (it’s a tactic that’s served me well, academically at least), so settling for a pass is hard to do.

Well, tomorrow is another day. I’m going to sleep so I can get to it.

THIS IS GOING TO GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER

Yes, I need to finish my story in New Orleans, but I ran into a bit of difficulty during the weekend. It’s called my AI assignment. Holy crap, this monster of an assignment is due on November 5, and I wanted to start it today. Yeah, I know you’re thinking Nov. 5 is a long time away, but have you seen this assignment?

It was today that I took a serious look at it. My assessment is that I’m in a heap of trouble here. It’s got four problems to it. Each problem has at least three mini-problems to it. I’d say each mini-problem would require about half a working day (four hours) to finish, and that’s if you knew what to do from the beginning… which I do not.

I don’t mind doing lots of work for an assignment. What I don’t like is wasting time and banging your head against the wall because you inherently don’t know enough to do a question. The worst thing about this assignment (and I know this already) will be begging the prof for scraps of info, any tips, or hints he can give us. Just thinking about it makes me want to weep.

It’s too bad I had to read this assignment today. My Saturday was so much more enjoyable than my Sunday. On Saturday, I marked an assignment, got some groceries, someone cooked me dinner, and I watched Finding Nemo at the SUB.

Well, it’s time to go to bed.

COASTING

I’d love to tell you how the rest of the evening went with me and Andy down in New Orleans, but I don’t have the time for it right now. I will finish up my recount sometime over the weekend.

Well, I’ve been slacking off since Wednesday night. Is this any different than any other week? Well, not really, except that I consciously decided to not do anything the last two days. I had a midterm on Wednesday that I did not do very well on. No, I’m serious, I really, really sucked the big one on it.

Anyways, I studied hard for it, so despite the crap performance and all, I decided dumb, old Erwin needed a break.

I am proud of myself for marking an assignment tonight. Sure, it was a short one, but my students will get it back on Monday and they love getting assignments back.

Totally off-topic, but people are still discovering my web site around here at SJC and elsewhere for that matter. My neighbours came up to me one day and said they saw my site and they really enjoyed it. Apparently, another resident told them about it. Two days ago, I had Andrea come up to me in the hallway, “Erwin, I overheard some of classmates discussing your site. I visited it and it’s really funny.” Andrea is in med school and strange as it seems, several 2nd year med students don’t mind visiting my site once in a while. Just today, I was talking with my friend Marcia on the phone. She mentioned that her mom, a professor at UBC, had seen my site and she thought it was funny as well.

I am still amazed that people are finding my site, and are very grateful they enjoy reading it. Anytime someone says they saw my site, I thank them for visiting. I do that because there are literally billions of pages out there to visit. That they would take the time out, even once, to visit my little corner of the Web makes me happy.

So, thanks for coming out and giving me a reason to work on this site.