5:20 today. 5:47 yesterday. There is just no consistency..

Yesterday I met up with Chic after work and just chattered for a bit about work. He asked me what my plans were after my contract ends. I told him blankly "i don't know". I really don't know though, he's been applying for jobs, at least 2 per week. I haven't applied for a job since October. The way I see it is, I applied for about 100 jobs and got nothing. I have friends who have applied for 1000 jobs and is still unemployed. Now my friend has applied for 2 every week since he got a job in January, and didn't get anything, and I've applied to zero and got nothing. So the moral of the story is, TRUST IN GOD that opportunities will arise, because nothing else seems to work.

New song.. well maybe not new, but new for me. Bring Me To Life by Evanescence. I like it, it's got everything, starts out like a lullaby, and goes right into hard rock. The beat is nice, and the vocals' timing's are pretty good, it works well. I dunno if these guys are one-hit-wonders or not, but this song is really good. The lyrics also rhyme.. in fact, (although i'm sure the artists didn't mean it this way) it sounds like someone who needs God in their life; someone yearning for God's love. :)

I guess you could say I am into this type of music these days, aside from christian stuff. I was looking at the charts today and it made me glad I gave up on radio. It's all rap and rnb now, I've heard some of the new ones. In Da Club by Half-Dollar has a nice beat, but the lyrics are a little dumb. I hope young kids don't actually believe the stuff that he talks about! Top 30 is comprised of 80% hip-hop music. Well, hopefully this phase in music will swing back to some better quality stuff. My brother likes m&m, but isn't really into half-dollar, although apparently the two are chums..

That old site I pointed out (http://launch.yahoo.com) sucks now, it plays an ad at every 3-4 songs. It's worse than radio now -- at least radio has those 1 hour with no commercials! things. I don't get it.. as if Yahoo doesn't have enough money already, they had to ruin a perfectly good music service.

After two days of abnormal activity, Dusty was back to his ol' tricks again, waking me up at 5:17am this morning. He's smarter now though, he didn't even bother starting up with the whimpering, he went straight to barking mode. My mom suggested a few days ago to ignore him when he does this, so instead of leaving my room to go downstairs, I stayed in my room to see what he would do if I didn't "respond" to his barking.

30 minutes later he finally stopped for about 3 minutes before continuing on. Needless to say I was a little bit peeved.

Yesterday my couch was delivered to us, I was pretty happy. It's not very soft, nor does it look very nice either, but hey, it's a couch. I can finally lie in front of my TV. It's actually a bit bigger than I had expected, maybe because of the layout of my living room, it makes the room look a lot smaller. I still don't have enough lighting around the room but I think I can finally have people over now.

The last few days I've been looking on eBay for a handheld. Lon pointed out a cool deal where you can buy one of the new Palm devices and trade in your old one for a rebate. That's a sweet deal, except that the Tungsten T is still $600. On eBay I've been watching the HP iPaq 1910, and they've been regularly selling for under $400cdn. Since it's almost June I figure it's time to treat myself again :)

Well, I'm at work. Boss says "just keep working 'til you're told otherwise!"

Dusty gave me a surprise today. I don't think he knew that I was home because I stayed at my old house all weekend. He didn't start whimpering until I got up to use the bathroom, and that wasn't until 6! At 5, I woke up expecting him to start, but he didn't and so I went back to sleep.

My dad was back for the weekend. He and I, with the occasional help from my brother and mom put together a spiral staircase for our attic, and painted it. It's pretty sweet -- it looks really nice, and after 3-4 tries we finally got it to work. Sometimes looking at it I wish we weren't moving because it looks so nice now..

With no confirmation of whether my contract has officially been extended, today is my last day at my job. Compared to other days, this has been a relatively slow day. My boss isn't here, and the project lead isn't here either. The dba hasn't been around, I have no idea where he wondered off too. The new system architect start 2 days ago and is slowly getting up to speed with the project. The system integrator is quietly code behind me. I have to do a major rehaul of the html prototype, but I figure why bother until I know more of whether I'll be here next week?

Dusty woke up right at 4:55 this morning. He started to whimper and I immediately got dressed, grabbed my bible and headed down to the "cards and games" room down on the second floor. Yesterday, I got through 20 chapters of Judges, and today I finished off Judges, Ruth and now am 7 chapters into 1 Samuel.

It's amazing how God spoon-fed His people all those years. How they would betray Him, somehow get screwed over and ask for His help again. In a way it is much like ourselves in how we take Him for granted, but in their cases whenever they call on Him it is usually in fear for their lives, whereas for us it is exams, or broken-heartedness, or sickness.

I read about the Samson, Ruth and now Samuel. I've just gotten to the part when the ark has been returned to the Israelites after the Philistines took it away from them after a huge battle. I was totally thinking about Indiana Jones each time they moved the ark from different cities of Philistine and how the God brought great sorrows and "tumors" against the people of each city that held the ark.

Anyway, it seems like almost a blessing now that this dog has thrown a loop into my daily activities.

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The Raptors got only the 4th pick in the draft, meaning we miss the top 3, the 3 players who are considered major impact players. It was sad for me, but I did not cry. I'm betting that Mr. Grunwald cried though..

Another day, another wakeup call at 5am. But the jokes' on you Dusty, cuz I slept at 9pm and still got enough sleep.

You must think wow, you have no life, but at least I can say I got a good night's sleep. I'm planning on writing a letter of apology to my boss today, to apologize for the last 2 weeks of unattentiveness, lowered productivity and all round laziness. Now that I have figured out a system of getting enough sleep, I hope to improve on my work and show that I am indeed a good worker and valuable to the team, because quite frankly, the last two weeks have not been so good in terms of my performance.

Blast this dog, I quite honestly hate him now. At exactly 4:55am this morning, I heard his little footsteps (he's got long nails) and I knew he was awake. Anyway second I knew that he would start whimpering. Alas, at exactly 4:57 he started, and he has not stopped since. It is now 5:08am. And he won't stop, until 7am when I feed him. What a ridiculous turn of events for me, living in this really nice place, every who comes over here tells me how lucky I am for having such a nice place, that i'm now "living the good life".

I would rather live in a cardboard box as long as there was some piece and quiet.

Elaine on Seinfeld once had a problem with a barking dog that kept her from sleeping. The only difference here is that it is OUR dog.

That said, I still do believe and realize that somehow this fits into God's plan. It certainly does test my patience, because at times I feel like I just want to run out to the where he is and beat him to death (I'm not joking), but so far I've been able to hold in this insane rage that builds up inside me every morning when he cries NON-STOP. It really pisses me off, but I hold it inside. So that is certainly a good 'training' activity. Second, it teaches me some discipline. I could well just go and feed him now, but I know that if I did that, then tomorrow he would wake up at 4am, and soon I would have to sleep as soon as I got home from work to get a good night's rest. So there, I am learning discipline, and also to fight temptation, and also patience.

Finally, my dad suggested that I now have a lot of time for devotions, and the truth is I haven't been doing them. Maybe this is God's way of punishing me for not doing devotions. I'm going to take my bible now, and go down to the lobby and read.

Good morning, all.

Oh, finally one last thing. Wow, this blogging thing really catches on eh, you do one, and you get your juices flowing again, and all these ideas come popping out.

I do have one prayer request aside from praying that my dog will finally wake up at a normal time.

The Toronto Raptors. Pray that we get a top 3 pick overall. This team.. no, this city.. no this country needs a new leader for our basketball team. Pray that the balls fall in our favor. Pray that the Raptors get first, second or third. We need one of these players (Lebron James, Darko Milicec, Carmelo Anthony). Any of these 3 players will turn the fortunes of the Raptors completely around.

Getting Lebron James, in fact, would probably boost the City's economy. Jobs will be created to follow him around, for the papparazi, the fan fare, the stores selling solely his clothing. Tourism will get a huge boost after that silly SARS thing. Pray for Lebron James people.. Pray hard.

Meanwhile, if we don't get a top 3 pick, don't be surprised to see my eyes soaked in tears the next few weeks.

Oh, one other thing.

I finally saw Matrix 2 last night. I give Reloaded more credit than others might. It had just as much action as the last movie if not more, and way cooler graphics. They had many a scene that rivaled even the hotel lobby scene from the first Matrix. I thought the most exhilarating part was the highway scenes and I also liked the when Neo had to fight all those Smiths' in the street park. That scene when he used the tetherball pole was really neat, a lot like the time when I watched my pal Ed practice his Wushu at the Mezz @ Mac. In fact I think it was probably the same routine, as they were taken from the stuff that Jet Li does.

Many people gave this movie a good review but felt disappointed with it. Some people probably thought it was a little boring, because Reloaded circled around a love story between Neo and Trinity. There was a LOT more character development this time around, and there was sex. There was no sex in the first movie -- well, it was more subtle the first time.

Another thing that made the action slightly less exciting was that we all knew Neo was "the one", and thus the audience was never as captivated by his fight scenes, because we all knew he was going to win. I doubt that anyone in the audience felt like he was going to even get hurt, unlike his fight scene with Smith in the subway station in the first movie, where we were all holding our breath hoping he wouldn't get killed.

Finally because this movie was a sequel with third on its way, it was a lot like the Two Towers of LOTR. LOTR2 was also an awesome movie. But, it left a lot of loose ends untied, just like Reloaded. Reloaded even ended with a light cliffhanger, making it even more frustrating. Also, LOTR2 was less disappointing because I already know what's going to happen, having already read the book.

I wonder if the movie would have made sense if you hadn't seen the first. Probably not.

It's been a while since I last blogged.

This past weekend I bought a new couch and a gamecube. The couch was quite cheap, we went to Bad Boy Furniture (Nooooooooooobody!). They weren't kidding in the commercials, they had by far the cheapest stuff, and we checked just about every place else (Sears, Idomo, Ikea, Leons, The Brick). I got an L-shaped section sofa, for under $800. Anywhere else, sectionals cost at least $1200, so there! I also picked up a GC, along with Metroid Prime and Super Monkey Ball 2. I haven't mentioned much about the GC but i've actually done quite a bit of research in the last week or so.

The dog: I've finally figured out a way to beat the dog (no, not physically, though I do think about it sometimes!). Firstly, on the weekend I sleep on a couch back home so I can get a full nights rest. This past long weekend featured me getting 28 hours of sleep in 3 days. That, compared to the 21 hours I got all of last week because of the dog..

Tonight I went to bed a 9:30pm, and the dog woke me up at 5am! Ah-ha! 7.5 hours! Eat that, stupid dog! Also, I've given him less water so that I don't wake up and have to clean up a puddle of his urine every morning. Did I forget to mention he did that every morning last week? I'm sorry but I am not going to wake up at 4 in the morning, get dressed and take him downstairs for a walk! Stupid dog!

Ah, on Monday I tried to install Windows XP, but something stranged happened. I picked the Upgrade option, and yet the thing installed XP onto my D drive, and now I have a triple boot system. I already deleted Win98, but the PC still thinks I have it. Sigh.. i'm going to have to reformat real soon..

Dogs have no concept of time. This week Dusty has woken me up 1 half hour earlier every day. At first I thought it was because it gets brighter outside so he wakes up because of the daylight. Today, at 4:30 (yes, it's still dark outside), the frigging dog woke me up. 4:30! What is wrong with this animal? Yesterday, for the first time I actually started wishing the dog would just die. I wish that one day I woke up, and he was dead. That would be the perfect gift to me. For me to get a good night's sleep I would I have to sleep at 8pm. It's ridiculous, and I don't know how much more I can take of this. Pretty soon I'll be waking up at 3am in the morning, and going to bed at 7pm.

Damn damn damn damn damn dog.

I found a pretty neat site. Here it is. And here, though completely unrelated, is another really cool site. Actually this one is cooler than that other one. Very very cool.

I am looking for a new bag. I want a one-strapped bag for the shoulder but I want it in backpack form, like a sling-pack. I checked out MEC's selection a few days ago but couldn't find the right size. They're either too big or too small. I want something big enough where I can fit a bible and notebook, plus an umbrella, but not a fat bag. A mesh pocket for a water bottle would be nice. I'd also like it to have a neat little pocket on the strap for my cell, though that's not a major requirement. I find that the trouble with MEC bags are that they have way too many straps hanging down that we never use.

Material wise I like the MEC bags because they are waterproof and are of pretty good quality that you kinda know it'll last 15-20 years.

mother's day
What kind of society do we live in that we need a day called Mother's Day? In our household, we strive to have Mother's Day every day. So suffice to say I see no point in this so-called Mother's Day 'special day'. Just the same, what the heck is Father's Day for? Isn't it sad that we live in a world where we need a special day to remind us of how much we love and appreciate our own parents?

The other day I never understood was St. Valentine's Day. Here is a day that you remember your significant other or spouse and treat him/her (i believe this is a bigger deal for guys*) with something special, err.. romantic. If this is the big day for romance, then the relationship must be pretty depressing. To think that one day could make up for the whole year.

*And yeah, while this is only a guess, I do think this ends up being bigger for the guy than the girl. You always see the poor guy running down the street in a panic looking for flowers or some candy. But for whatever reason, possibly the way God made us, the woman isn't scrambling around for something because either:

a) they don't need to do anything because it's the guy who really needs to come up big because they've been a lazy bum all year
b) they're more sensitive and have been planning this for months ahead

Anyway, the point is that if both people in the relationship are pulling their weight, there doesn't need to be a Valentine's Day. And that obviously applies for Mother's Day or Father's Day as well.

I suppose that God has a reason for giving us this kind of weather and that we should just be grateful that it we aren't have giant balls of fire falling from the sky. Maybe it is geologically or meteorologically impossible for the whole world to have nice weather so it is our turn to have the crappy weather that we have been having. Nevertheless, I am suffering greatly from it. My dog doesn't cry all night long, but as soon as day breaks he begins to whimper. Today at 5am he started and went out and yelled at him. At 6am he started again, and again, I yelled at him. 6:30 again, so i woke up then, fed him and took him out for a walk. It's cold outside, and you know what it's like when you go outside the wind and rain just after you woke up.. it's that feeling you normally only get when you're out camping. Well, I've had that feeling now 5-6 days in a row, and it sucks!

I just watched Phone Booth.. what a dumb movie.. if anyone hasn't seen it, don't waste your time!

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie as well, having seen the trailers for it. It was disappointing. Colin Farrell has had quite a few releases, this year being a breakout year for him. I hope that for his careers' sake the other movies are better!

Today I went up to my boss and asked him straight up, "Pete, what's the deal with my contract?", and he said "Well, I signed it, and Pete signed and it's down at financing now." (Pete is also his boss' name). So that's that I guess, he said that they signed me up for another 6 months under the same job title (no pay raise). And he said if finance were to reject it, they would have called him. So I'm gonna still go to work on May 24th, and see what happens..

Last night's Survivor was a little disappointing, Rob, the player I felt played the game the best, didn't make the top 2, and the eventual winner was one of those do nothing not all through the whole show but win anyway contestants. So it was disappointing to say the least. A 21 year old spoiled swimsuit model wins 1 million dollars. I felt a little cheated, but it's just a show.. and I was pretty entertained by this season's Survivor. The next one will be in Panama, apparently.

There's a funny smell in my kitchen. I didn't know what it was until the morning when I actually stopped and sniffed around for it. You see, we have a pine shelf from IKEA, which my dad had me stain with polyurethane (or was it polyethylene?). Anyway, the combination of the lovely smell of pine mixed with the stain produces a wonderful wet dog / urine smell. I just wonder how long this smell will last..

I started to download movies again. Yesterday I watched Anger Management, which was really really funny. The Matrix Reloaded is already on the internet, but I don't want to see it just yet.. Today I watched Spirited Away, the japanese version with english subtitles. It always gets me, the way the japanese draw their different characters. It's certainly unique from the way North Americans make theirs. The movie was alright, I could see why there was so much hype around it, it was quite good. I think I liked Princess Mononoke better though. The witch in the movie freaked me out a little, her head was pretty huge!

I forgot to mention that I saw X-Men 2 the same evening I passed my road test. The deal was that if I failed, my bro had to pay for himself, and if I passed, I'd treat him.

"X2" as everyone seems to be calling it, was a lot better than the first, um, ..X1? The mutants teamed up to defeat a human villain, the apparent 'father' of Wolverine. I kind of wish we could have seen a fight between Mystique and Lady Deathstrike. Mystique would've gotten her ass kicked though, and then she wouldn't have been able to break into the compound for the rest of em. Still, during that office scene I was really hoping for them to fight. That would've forced me to raise this movie by at least 10 points.

From what I've heard (I never read the comics myself), Deathstrike and Wolverine had been lovers. I'm sure they could have easily integrated that into the story. Supposedly Wolverine forgot everything, so I think they could've added their relationship into his flashbacks. That would've given the movie a double-lover's quarrel. Better yet would have been nice to see Wolverine spare her, so that she could make a return in the next movie.

I suppose Pyro will have more screentime next movie too. And let's not forget about Gambit, who was given honorable mention but never appeared in X2. Who could they get to play Gambit, I can't think of anyone right now. X3 will be even better I think. Since it'll probably take place in space, I think we'll get to see some crazy mutant battles, maybe to a grander scale like the Jedi battle in Star Wars 2!

I'm a little embarassed to admit this, but I watch The Bachelor. I've been watching this season's edition every week and cheering for a couple of girls the whole way through. Last night, both my picks made it to the final 2. Eventually I'd like to think that the bachelor, Andrew will open his eyes and realize if he's any bit serious about the show he'll pick Jenn.

Originally when I first started watching the show, and realizing that these the relationships in these reality shows never amount to anything lasting, I felt Andrew should just make his picks solely on good looks. How often does a guy get to choose from 2 dozen beautiful women. So naturally I was hoping Andrew would make those types of decisions, at least if anything to boost my interest in the show, not to mention the rest of the men watching this show. So far, Andrew has not disappointed, by picking hot-stuff! Kirsten as one of the final 2. The scary thing is I think Andrew had sex with all 3 of them, they even recorded the sounds from his night with Tina, before he promptly booted her off the show the next day..

Not that I condone this behaviour, but it's all good in the nature of reality television. TV at its best.. lol

blasted dog

Dusty behaved relatively well last night. He didn't start whimpering until 2am, so I got a good 2 hours sleep before he woke me up again. I had purchased some earplugs that evening but they were not good enough as I could still hear the yelps. Finally at 2:41am I realized if I didn't get more sleep I could be in danger of risking my health. So I put on my jacket, and left the condo. I walked back to my house, crept in quietly and parked myself on the couch upstairs. I finally had a decent night's rest. Final count is 5.5 hours of sleep in the last 2 days, which is still not my worst ever. But I think the difference is, in school you feel the affects a lot worse, because we'd get these 5.5 hours in 2-day span, but those would be sandwiched between two weeks of 4 hours per night. Plus we'd be studying or working.

Thinking about the last two nights has reminded me how glad that I finished school, and grateful that I don't have to write an exam today.

My dog Dusty moved to the condo yesterday, and he did not like it. He probably thought we were going on a trip somewhere, and were just going to leave him there by himself. Last night, he cried all night, I didn't sleep more than 20 minutes. My first all-nighter since my thesis in 4th year..

Anyone who knows me well knows I cannot stand driving. I would prefer to take the bus than to drive. I would prefer to walk, even. Driving is boring, and it forces me to stay awake while in a car. I like to sleep in a car, not drive. Driving is not fun.

Well, this morning I could not sleep at all. I woke up at 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And in between those hours I woke up 3-4 times each. I just could not sleep. I dreamt of passing my driver's test about a million times. Then, finally the time came and I went back to the house so that my mom could drive me all the way to Oshawa for my test. I took a day off from work, a day of unpaid leave.

From the get-go things already did not look good. Mom took 401 West by accident, the opposite direction of where Oshawa is from Toronto. Then, as we reached Oshawa, she almost missed the exit. Yes, "the" exit -- Oshawa is not very big. We ended up being almost an hour early and I waited in the car for 40 minutes biting my thumb til the point of bleeding like I always do before a test, exam, whatever. I suppose I will chew my thumb clean off my hand the day I decide to propose to my future wife. I will need a medical team standing beside me when I stand at the front of the church waiting for my bride to walk down the isle. Hah. Mom complained to me that all I need to do was pray. And I did, again, for like the 1243978125th time.

The test went relatively well. I drove extra cautious, almost too cautiously at times. But I did everything right, just like last time. With a Windstar, once again the tester took pity on me and didn't make me parallel or reverse park. Which does sorta suck because i can do it quite well. Towards the end of the test, I was still nervous. The tester told me to just part anywhere. We stopped, she turned to me and told me I had passed. Having never heard those words before in the last 3 tries, I didn't know what to say, I just muttered "thank you" and she left.

I stepped out of the car and went back to the building a lined up. I was shaking. It's funny that the last 3 times when I failed, I felt a lot more relaxed than that moment after I had passed.

On the way home, Mom let me drive, for the first time on a 400-series street. I drove 125 km/h, easily the fastest I have ever driven. It was fun.

I haven't been watching Alias as religiously as I have John Doe, but last night's finale was awesome! So many twists and turns and a crazy crazy ending!!

Yesterday we had our final segment of dealing with conflicts and personal relationships. We filled in another survey. I focused on my work relationships, I guess because I've been engulfed by work lately -- which is kinda sad, I never thought I'd be that kind of person..

Anyway after the survey I learned that I was an "avoiding" type of person, who withdraws from all conflicts. My second trait was "accomodating", which is someone who gives in to keep everyone happy. And my third was "collaborating", a person who looks for the best solution. The other two traits which I scored very low on were "compromising" and "forcing". All 5 were represented by animals, though I'm not really sure the connection or reasoning behind having animals at all. Perhaps to illustrate a compability with other people? Anyway, Forcing was a Shark, Collaborating was an Owl, Compromising was a Fox, Avoiding was a Turtle, and Accomodating was a Teddy Bear.

Our small group, though there wasn't much sharing going on was pretty well balanced out throughout, as I was able to sneak some glances at everyone's sheets.. (hehehe). Both our small group leaders were turtle/teddy bears like me. Dandaman referred to himself as a pushover, and for some reason that pretty much spread through the whole group, because no one volunteered any answers for the rest of the way. I guess everyone scored marginally high in those two categories too, so everyone started feeling a little self-conscious.

The Bible study was good though, we learned about how conflict is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a matter of being able to deal with those conflicts in a timely and correct manner. Jesus said in Matthew 18:15-20, about how if you had a conflict with a brother, you confront them, and if they don't listen you bring a few witnesses, then bring them to the church, then finally stop being their friends.. This only applies to certains types of conflict though. I mean, I believe it depends on who is the "church" in your argument. Say you're in disagreement with someone about who is better, Vince Carter or Kobe Bryant. Well, you wouldn't go to church to settle your arguments, you'd end up going to the stat books to compare the two for the final word. And plus, such a disgreement isn't really like your brother sinned against you, it's just an opinionated conflict, which is the case for most personal conflicts nowadays.

Anyway afterwards we went to Kenny's Noodles, I had some bubble tea.

I've been to bubble tea 3 days in a row now. I went to the Ten Ren downstairs on Thursday and Wednesday with different friends!

I find that I have a little bit of time to post something today. I've been neglecting the blog lately, but I also noticed that many of my friends have also stopped blogging. Maybe it's the beautiful weather we've been having, or maybe it's because of exams, or people finishing school and moving home. Anyway, life has been pretty good.

At work, things have been going alright. I have been working hard and finding that working for the government might be detrimental towards my working habits. The thing is things are so relaxed here. You get your work done sure, and there's a little bit of urgency to meet deadlines, but the feeling around here is that if a deadline is missed, it's no big deal. When we started on this project, they were saying it would be done by June. We're still waiting for the software we ordered 2 months ago. The j2ee programmers are being hired just this week and next. It's looking like it won't be done til August.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing for me. It heightens the chance that my contract is extended, the longer this thing drags out! :) My boss filed for a 6 month extension, and said after this it'll buy them some time to create a full-time position for me.

I got my tax return a few days ago, it's not a lot of money, but it's enough for me to get a new pda or maybe an xbox, or ps2, or an electric guitar. Or maybe I should get a couch so I have somewhere to sit. I bought a Sanyo 27" tv this past weekend, it's really enhanced my living experience since I still don't have internet yet.

[EDIT] I'm getting internet tonight! [/EDIT]