May 31, 2007

Canada's team

I read an article in the paper the other day that said Canada had embraced the Ottawa Senators (with 16 Canadian players) as Canada's team because they've made it to the Stanley Cup finals and have a chance to bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada.

The reception for this has been pretty bleak. In years past I have seen us cheer for the Canadiens, the Flames and then the Oilers. But Ottawa it seems, hasn't gained the same kind of support as those other teams did. I'm not exactly sure why this is, maybe because of all the past years of choking so much and failing to meet expectations. Or perhaps because the team is led by an arrogant moron named Daniel Alfredsson. Or maybe because one of their best scorers is Dany Heatley, the man who threw caution to the wind and drove his Ferrari 160 mph into a tree to kill his best friend and teammate.

Last night while lying in bed, I wondered who had won game 2. I heard cars drive past on Yonge Street, honking their horns repeatedly and I concluded that Ottawa must have won game 2 to even up the series at 1-1. I woke up this morning to check the score. Boy was I wrong.. Ottawa had lost 1-0.

Fans were driving down Yonge Street honking their horns to celebrate Ottawa's misfortune.

Canada's team my ass.

If you're trying to decide what team to pick, go with the team that has the most Canadians. That'd be the Anaheim Ducks with 21.

May 30, 2007

More USB

I know you're probably thinking -- oh great, another post about some silly looking USB keys. Well guess what -- they're not USB keys!

These are batteries, and in my opinion quite possibly the greatest things ever made. That's right -- they're USB rechargeable AA NiMH batteries. Plug it into your laptop, XBOX360, Wii, monitor -- whatever has a usb port, you can charge your batteries on. And apparently they can still be charged on a regular battery charger too!

A Wii Retrospective

It's hard to believe that I have owned a Wii for 7 months, because it feels like I haven't played it very much at all. In all honesty I haven't touched the thing in 2 weeks. I'm trying to think of the last time I played Wii by myself, as a form of entertainment (as opposed to a form of entertainING). I believe I haven't played it as a form of personal entertainment since.. well, February when I first got Wii Play.

Hard to believe that such a popular gaming system, one that continues to be difficult to obtain throughout the world, has completely lost its appeal to me. Although I do continue to look forward to Smash Brothers Brawl, my zeal for this gaming system has waned significantly. Yesterday in EB Games, I was lining up to pay for Guitar Hero for PS2. The guy in front of me had just picked up the last copy of Mario Party 8. Heck, I didn't even know it had come out. I could have easily lined up ahead of that guy if I had wanted one. (MP8 is probably one of the MOST sought after Wii games yet).

Now on one hand I'd fully admit that when it comes to entertainment, I am a person who loses interest in things rather easily, going from one thing to another, but to think that a few months ago I was trying to convince everyone how great and revolutionary it was and now, I barely even touch it. It's just a neat little white box on top of my speakers that collects dust.

The other day I spoke to Allan at church, he was explaining to me that the novelty has kind of worn off on him and he hadn't touched his Wii for a whole week.

Mind you, I think the Wii is a fantastic party system. But without company, I think this system is not nearly as great as everyone thinks. I haven't touched my XBOX360 in about 3 weeks either, so it's not like it's any more 'exciting' than the Wii. I have arguably the most popular game for it, Gears of War, and I haven't touched the system in 3 weeks. Think about that.

Meanwhile I haven't gone more than 48 hours without picking up the Guitar controller for the PS2. Guitar Hero games totally rock. All this talk about these next-gen consoles and here I am playing old-gen stuff. Just goes to show you how important graphics and cpu speed are -- not at all.

Just think, had I known all this today and not bought any of those systems, I'd be sitting at home, still playing Guitar Hero 2 (which I got for free), and be sitting pretty with an additional $1300 in my pocket. Such is the life of a gamer..

May 29, 2007

Sitting on an angle

If you're a guy and you're reading this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're sitting down into your car seat, office chair or couch and something doesn't feel right. You reach back and pull out your wallet and sit back down and aaaahhh.. what a relief. After years of sitting on an angle and trying every which way to eliminate the bulge in my right back pocket I found the perfect solution.

It's called the ALL-ETT™ Billfold. I was a little skeptical about the ability to reduce my 1.5-inch wallet thickness to nothingness. Last Friday I had the privilege to see a real spectacle. Frank from my small group had a wallet that was, no kidding, 3 inches thick. THREE INCHES. Thankfully Frank keeps that sucker in a front pocket. I can't even imagine what it might be like to attempt to sit on that beast..

I've tried everything, from switching from the tri-fold to the bi-fold, leather to cloth and then back to leather, and then removing all non-essential cards like the library card, the Optimum card, Air Miles, PEO card, the letters of the alphabet in sign-language card, Stamp Traveler's Club card, etc.

What ALL-ETT™ has done is, made the world's thinnest wallet with a revolutionary design made from a super thin material. The material actually comes from parachutes, it's super durable and ultra thin.

Look at the difference!

In this photo you see a regular wallet stuffed with 30 credit cards. Then there's the Billfold with the same number of credit cards. Simply amazing!

Review
I was surprised at how thin the wallet really was. It came in an envelope like any other regular mail. By itself, the thickness is comparable to maybe 3 sheets of paper. As I opened the wallet, I realized that this material is really quite cheap. It's very thin plastic paper, makes a crackling noise as you open. Not good. Next, I proceeded to empty out my regular lambskin wallet. I was able to stuff everything I had into the Billfold.

Sure enough, the Billfold with all my stuff in it was significantly thinner. In fact, with everything in the Billfold, it is actually thinner than my old wallet with nothing in it!

May 24, 2007

Who are you talking to?

This thought occurred to me yesterday as I was walking back to work after lunch with Ina. We had street-meat. And that is why Ina is the *best*.

Anyway, there was this guy talking to himself and I thought he was one of those people on the street who have conversations with themselves. I remember when I was little, sitting at the bus station in Buffalo and there was this African American woman talking to herself. She wasn't overly animated but just sitting two seats away from me, I sat there and listened to her entire spiel, and it was actually quite interesting. In her mind she was speaking to a judge, presenting her case and I remember it being very coherent, almost like she had rehearsed this a trillion times (which probably why she was in her state in the first place). I suspected she was probably very intelligent and just completely lost it after some legal trouble.

These are real people, who just happened to lose a few marbles here and there. But I just remember that time in Buffalo (or was it DC?) when I sat there for 10 minutes waiting for my mom or dad to get us some bus tickets. And when my parent came back they felt protective and pulled me away to keep me from this dangerous person who could lash out at me on any moment's notice.

I guess it's kind of sad the way people are treated just because they are having a conversation with no one around them. Nowadays you see people doing the exact same thing everywhere, only it's completely justified because they have this little piece of plastic stuck in their ear with a blinking blue light on it.

May 16, 2007

Jericho cancelled

Damn you all to hell, CBS. You canceled the only show I watch on your network, the only good show remaining out of a seriously pathetic lineup of crap shows. I mean come on, The Unit gets renewed? It's nothing more than militarized version of Alias with President David Palmer instead of Jennifer Garner! Isn't smoking pot illegal in the US? And how about these other crap shows like the Ghost Whisperer, Close To Home, The Class??? No one watches that shat! The New Adventures of Old Christine? I mean what the hell kind of name is that?!

If it weren't for NFL football I would block your channel altogether. Damn you, you stupid, stupid bastards! I spit on you.

May 14, 2007

blogging

Blogging used to be great because anywhere I'd go or see, anything interesting or funny I heard, or controversial, I'd tuck that away in the back of my mind and write about it whenever I had a chance to. And of course I'd always be thinking of what interesting things I could tell the blog world about. My eyes and ears were open and in tune for anything I could find that might be interesting for others to read about.

Nowadays my eyes and ears are closed. And whenever I do see something cool, I tell Ina about it and it ends there.

Speaking of Ina, she and I are gonna do some travelling this weekend, out to Boston and New York. I'm excited. Personally I don't recall ever going on a vacation for myself, aside from going places with family or visiting family. This is my first ever vacation.. kinda cool.

Ina's done most of the planning because she's been there before. But what I do know is that for Boston we're going on the "Duck Tour" (Saturday) and a Boston Red Sox game on Sunday. Personally I'm not a huge baseball fan but given the historical and prestige of the Boston Red Sox organization, I'm excited to go see this. Fenway Park, the Green Monster. The curse of the bambino, and fans that care. Should be fun..

For NYC, I don't think we'll be seeing that much at all, mostly visiting with Ina's friends.

Maybe I'll take some pictures and post them up, if I get a chance?