30-3!

I don't follow baseball so I didn't hear about this until today.. but apparently on Wednesday the Baltimore Orioles suffered one of the most overwhelming defeats in the history of Major League Baseball. They lost to the Texas Rangers, 30-3. They say that no team has scored this many runs in a game in 110 years!

I couldn't stop giggling to myself as I thought about this, a team losing by 27 runs, how demoralizing that must have been.. hmm.. what's wrong with me.. I'm evil!! Why am I revelling in other people's misery?

I was just asking my cousin about how a team could win like that without feeling bad about it. I mean when it's 24-3 going into the ninth inning, why are you thinking to yourself about the possibility of scoring 6 more runs? Your opponents are demoralized, beaten and battered, why rub salt into their wounds? That's just mean.

Losing like that is the worst. This totally reminds me of when I used to play in the Chinese Christian Softball Association (CCSA), man that I was probably some of the most demoralizing experiences in my teenage life (well, other than being a geek and having no friends). We would lose games just like the Orioles, only it would come EVERY week, not every 110 years. Game after game, slaughter after slaughter, it was awful.

Fried Rice

I made fried rice a couple days ago, it's the first time I've ever tried it since fried rice traditionally contains eggs. I had a craving for it and went ahead and tried it. The picture really doesn't do it justice, I just took a photo of the leftovers which isn't very much at all. I had to take it really close because there was so little left.

Anyway, I was scouring the newsgroups for a recipe that didn't contain egg, and the funny thing is all these white americans wrote in that egg was more of a garnish and unnecessary in fried rice! Most of them rarely used egg in fried rice, or had eggs in fried rice before! Can you believe that? I think it's sad that all these people who are supposedly good cooks have been poisoned by these North American chinese restaurants, of the Ho-Lee-Chow and Manchu Wok variety.

It's not just me

As I've mentioned many times before, I have this thing about bags. I *love* bags. I want to have that one bag that will have just the right number of pockets to fit the many little knick-knacks that I feel I need to carry or else I will die.

Today I discovered I'm not the only one. Lifehacker.com asked its readers to submit their "Go Bag", and a picture of all the items within. The gallery can be found here. It's not just me.

A few years ago I developed a fetish for a good bag. Me and this other guy from work would frequent MEC looking for the ultimate bag. I found it -- in the form of the MEC Pod Sling Pack, but shortly after that I found everyone was getting one, including friends I hung out with. It's important to find that unique look, if you know what I mean. So I had no choice but to move on.

That's when I discovered the MEC Transit 6 Shoulder Bag". I've been using this little guy for the past 2-3 years. It's not perfect, but the fact that it fits everything that went into the Sling Pack, plus a bible and notebook, is pretty decent. It's not exactly the coolest looking bag but it's functional.

There are a few bags out there that are kind of out of reach, such as TUMI bags, which simply aren't available here and well, they cost quite a pretty penny. There are also timbuk2 bags which are also very nice, but again, out of reach for me at this time.

A few months ago I found this bag called the slotBar. It's made by UrbanTool, and it is coming out on September 12, 2007. Due to my own selfish reasons, I've done my best to hide this bag from others because I know that everyone will copy me once they see it. I know how silly that sounds.. but it's true.

Here's a link to what I hope will be the ultimate bag for me.

Lifeline

Thanks to everyone who did wish me a happy birthday yesterday. For those who didn't, don't worry about it, it's not like I celebrate my birthday anyway.

Yesterday I had a conversation with one of my co-workers. He started working for the City a few months ago and is going to be a victim of the cutbacks in the City, he'll be laid off by this Friday. It was really sad to talk to him about it, pretty much anyone who becomes a temp with the City is almost guaranteed to eventually become permanent, and thus are set for life. That's pretty much the route I took with my career at the City.

But talking to this guy you really see how important a job is, especially when raising a family. I think it's something I really far too often take for granted. So we were sitting at the lunch table talking about it and asking him if he was able to find another job, which he wasn't. He mentioned something about doing some hard labor for $10/hour. Then I asked him about if his wife worked, he said yes, but that she didn't make enough to support the family. And then he joked about how he was glad he didn't buy a house. Wow, can you imagine if he had, talk about a family crisis. Then we talked about some of the other temps who are being laid off, most of them were either gone already or still had a couple of months left. Because he was the most junior of the lot, he was getting let go first.

That really sucks.

Edit: So today I was talking to this guy again, and he was telling me about how he brought his car in for service and they tried to rip him off again, it was all over about $50, but due to his financial/job situation, that's like a week of food for him and his family. Then he started talking about some fruit he bought the other day and how his lunch came out to $8, and that if he told his wife she'd probably kick him out.

That's pretty depressing..

It's just the way and manner in which he carries himself, you really feel for the guy, he's really great at lamenting. I feel so bad for the guy that if I had my cheque book I'd probably give him some money.

Rock

Rock, the executive chef, won Hell's Kitchen last night and order was restored to the universe. My brother and I were sitting there thinking, what would it be like if Bonnie had won. What a disaster that could have been. You walk into the Green Valley Ranch restaurant, and plop down $20 for a prawn fettuccine that even a nanny could have made.

Not to take anything away from Bonnie's signature dish, I'm sure it tastes great, but who would want to spend money on that when you can make it at home in less than 20 minutes? Where's the draw? What's compelling you to go to the restaurant at all?

Of course there was no way she could have won. I think Jenn was robbed a finals appearance and probably could have beaten Rock, but like last season, Ramsey put an obvious winner against a cutesy girl. Why does he do it? Is it for ratings? Me, I'd rather see the two best chefs go head-to-head. I don't need a "Cinderella" story in my book. Had Bonnie won the competition, Chef Ramsey would have lost all his credibility. It would have been a travesty and an embarrassment for the cooking world.

Dinner

Take a wild guess as to what this is.

Anyway, I've been doing some cooking lately, I think Darryl and I have now had home-made dinner for about 2 weeks now, still going strong. I haven't followed any recipes, just made stuff off the top of my head, whatever inspires me.

One thing I've been having fun with is cooking with tomatoes. The tricky thing about tomatoes is that it all just falls apart when you cook it. And that's not a bad thing -- it tastes quite good. I made tomatoe/onion/mushroom/chicken breast dish last week, and quite a bit of it to last, and it actually turned out great, it was the first time I'd ever cooked with tomatoes.

Last night I made a similar one, adding cauliflower and substituting the chicken with a marinated ground beef. I found marinating the beef a lot better than what I'd done with the chicken, which had absolutely no taste in my last dish. What's great is that it's simple to make and cheap too, and it's all you need to go with some rice.

The above picture is a "watermelon steak". It's made from watermelon, cooked at 350 degrees in the oven. It was dotted with butter and has sherry poured all over. I guess it's a dessert. Add salt and pepper to taste..

Spiritual Leadership

Before he left, Daniel encouraged me to step up more a spiritual leader after the first week at Longlac. For me, it was something I was already looking and trying to do, so getting some encouragement was nice. To me being responsible for the spiritual well-being of our team wasn't as hard as I thought it could be. The thing is you're on a missions trip so God is right there with you, it's impossible not to pray for something before you try it in that kind of scenario. If anything, you're even more in-tune with Him than ever. It's nearly impossible to forget about God while doing God's work.

With God working right there with us, almost hand-in-hand, I barely felt any kind of pressure or burden to lead, other than to lead by example.

Lately, I've been thinking more about spiritual leadership from a relationship standpoint. When I get married in May 2008, I'll have to take on a new responsibility, as head of the household. And more importantly, spiritual head of the family.

I feel a lot of pressure with this one, and rightly so.. to have the responsibility to ensure that we as a couple are living the life God intended us to live. I think about my brother and I, and how I encourage him to attend church and read the bible regularly, but when he doesn't there isn't a whole lot I can do on my end. Yes, it's somewhat my responsibility but not really. I advice will only take him so far.. in the end he needs to make his own adult decisions.

I talked to my dad about this and he didn't seem to have an answer. My parents don't pray together, nor study the bible together, although both do it avidly, they also do is separately. I suppose it is, once again, about living by example. Dom mentioned how he and his wife do devotions together every day, and they pray together too.

I was telling Daniel about how I'd read an article from Focus On The Family, about a woman's expectations, which basically said many Christian women are looking to marry the pastor-type or someone pastor-like. Daniel concurred, saying he was rather surprised even of his own wife's expectations on this subject, even though he IS a pastor. It's definitely a surprise, especially for oblivious men like myself to have an expectation like that upon us without any prior warning.

So what does it take? Are we talking about devotions and prayer time? Or setting ground rules like mandatory quiet times (like we had at Longlac)? Or is it more about leading by example (which doesn't always work)?

I'm looking for advice and/or ideas. What do you think it means to be a spiritual leader of the family? What does it take? Feel free to leave me your thoughts.. thanks!