Asparagus Mystery

There's something strange I noticed a few years ago while eating asparagus. It was around the time when I had dusted off the Hamilton Beach Grill I had. Someone had brought asparagus to a barbecue I attended and all they did was put olive oil and salt on it to season it.

It tasted amazing so I went home and did it myself.

The strange thing was, for the rest of the evening my pee smelled really gross. Kind of like rotten cabbage. I didn't think much of it until about a few months later, I was over at Pastor Vic's place for a BBQ, and we were all eating kabob's, and I offered Mike some asparagus, and he said "No thanks, I don't want my pee to smell funny afterwards."

Since then I've always noted the smell of pee after asparagus. It's quite a phenomenon. I even told my mom about it but she didn't believe me because it never happened to them.

As it turns out, asparagus has amino acids, whereupon if they can be broken down by your stomach enzymes, one component called "methyl mercaptan" really really smells. And only 40% of the world's population experience this.

Apparently scientists are split when it comes the actual cause of the smell (why some people smell it and some don't). Some believe that more than half the world's population lacks the genetic enzyme required to break down the amino acids to methyl mercaptan, while scientists believe that everyone can do this but only 40% of the world's population have the genes to be able to smell it in the urine.

This is pretty fascinating to me. This means that some scientists believe that two people could be standing side-by-side in a bathroom and one would smell the awful pungent smell of asparagus pee, while the other wouldn't smell a thing..

Does your pee smell especially worse when you eat asparagus?

Blog killer

Can a blog be killed? I think so.

How can you kill a blog? Take the blogger, give him someone better to talk to than a computer. Give him a friendship that lasts forever, someone to hold hands with, someone to love and who loves him back. Someone else to shares his deepest secrets with, his burdens and also his joys. When you can do this to the blogger, the blog dies.

This blog is nearing its end.

Tribute to Brett Favre

Blue Jays Drunkfest

I think they serve too much alcohol at these games.

On Friday we went to the Blue Jays' home opener at the Rogers Centre (it's not the Skydome anymore!) with the small group. Organized by one of the SG members who happens to be a big baseball fan.

The last time I went to a baseball game, it was with Euhan of all people. He had gotten free tickets at work and we went because he'd never been to Skydome before. We left around the 7th inning because it was so boring.

Friday's game wasn't all the different, except we were in the 500 level and apparently, it's all one huge drinkfest up there. Game, what game right? It's so far away from the field you can't really see anything.

They decided to honor Roberto Alomar before the game, which was nice because I don't think I've been a fan since those days. I couldn't help but feel a bit emotional as they played clips from the glory days. Robbie came out in his usual swagger/walk and thanked the fans. It was pretty nice. But then it just turned south after that. In a surprise move Paul Godfrey decided to also honor Paul Beeston. I have utter respect for the guy, but after you just did Alomar was this the right move? It took a little thunder away from Alomar in my opinion.

Before long the game was underway, and after about 3 hours, we were into the 2nd inning and Ina turned to me and asked "Can we go home now?".

Baseball is by no means a spectator sport. In my opinion, they should play the game with no crowd and record the whole thing, and then show it on television, edited to remove the boring parts. Then they could pretty much play it as a commercial because there's probably only about 45 seconds worth of good footage. I wouldn't mind if they played this commercial several times over the day to get plenty of coverage. But to have it on television, for people to have to pay money to go see this snooze-fest..

You find yourself looking at the scoreboarding every 4 seconds to confirm whether the last pitch was a ball or strike. They've got this board letting you know how fast the pitch was, and whether it was a slider, cutter, curveball, changeup, fastball, knuckleball. This was all they could come up with hoping to entertain you. You could have drinking games to the tune of what pitch was thrown. My monies on a curveball next. No I think it'll be a change up. Drink up, losers -- it was a SLIDER What the hell is a slider anyway? Look, it's Jerry O'Connell falling from the sky!

My biggest question about the evening was why they didn't have replay. It's bad enough that something exciting happens every 15 or 16 hours, but to have no replay means that you have to wait that much longer for something interesting to happen. If you missed it because you were asleep, or too busy reading the little tidbits of bio information of the player at bat, you're going to have to wait until essentially next week to see the next great play. Kinda makes you feel like the guy on Polka Dot Door, missing the Polkaroo for the umpteenth time. "The Polkaroo was here???!? AND I MISSED HIM AGAIN!??!?!?!"

I can't count the number of times we were trying to guess how fast the next pitch was going to be, and we heard the crack of the bat hitting the ball, some cheering, and you look down and realize you just missed the most exciting moment in the past 13 hours. In fact from where we were sitting, even if we WERE paying attention you can't see what is happening. The angle was off and the ball disappeared just below the front row of our section. Our reaction was pretty much based on looking around at the rest of the crowd to see how they reacted. They're cheering, therefore we must cheer! YA!! GO BLUE JAYS!!

Every hit looked like a potential home run from our angle. Every pitch looked exactly the same as the last. We just had to trust the scoreboard to be correct that it was a ball or strike.

Around the 6th inning or so, everyone stood up in our section and a few sections over to the left. Something was happening, only it wasn't on the field. A few sections over to the left, some shirtless dude was pounding away on a guy in a suit. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Meanwhile the game is still going on. Some sucker at bat is probably thinking we're all cheering for him -- as if anyone actually cares about the product on the field.

We started seeing rows of people chanting something at the ushers and cops as people were arrested. Then it all died down, and we resumed watching this incredibly boring sport.

About 15 minutes (or what felt more like 30 hours) later, all of sudden everyone was standing again and looking at this same section again. This time, there was a blond with a pink blue jays t-shirt on, standing up, with her hands by her sides getting ready to pull up her shirt. And she did. Boobies. Cheers from the crowd, drunk teenagers all whooped it up, and she pulled her shirt back down and then raised her arms in victory.

Ushers came running again trying to stop it and kick her out, but this time about 2-3 sections were protesting "LET HER STAY! LET HER STAY!". Memories of Growing Pains when Mike Seaver locked himself in his highschool with "Heck no, we won't go!" chants flooded into my head.

Eventually these poor ushers relented, unable to wrestle this girl, who was now hiding behind about 20 of her friends. Then the cops came finally and arrest her, along with several of her accomplices.

From all corners of the dome, people start throwing their "Rally Towels" onto the field. These towels with the old Blue Jays logo and the new logo on it. They gave them out prior to the game and now they had become ammunition for people to throw and protest how boring baseball was. Even the lower bowl got into it, throwing their freebies to the field. You would see an usher go and retrieve one, and just as he turned around to head back to the dugout area, someone else would throw another. This went on for approximately 45 hours.

Then we notice there were 3 ushers in our section, looking around for the unhappy towel throwers, we guessed. We didn't have a bad section with flashers and fighters, but we did have some raucous fans booing anyone who walked up the aisle wearing Red Sox clothing. We also had a lot of "BOSTON SUCKS" and "F___ you Ortize" chants. I even threw in a few of my own "VC Sucks" chants but not loud enough for people to hear, because I'm not a big guy.

Then all of a sudden an usher ran up to a bunch of 13 or 14 year old kids a few rows ahead of us. All through the game we saw them passing this large carton of Tropicana. Being the innocent people we were, we thought "hey look, those kids snuck in a carton of juice to the game, that's smart since the drinks are so expensive here". Turns out it was alcohol. The usher grabbed the carton opened it up and took a big whiff. You could see from his expression it was not freshly squeezed florida oranges in there.

At this point the raining towels were coming down in big droplets of 1 in every 5 seconds. It was really getting crazy.

Then, after another 30 hours of baseball fun, another roar from the crowd. I looked over to the troubled section but everyone was looking down. There were another 2 more morons who had jumped the wall and were running on the field with no shirts. A woman with a bra and a man. These guys are so drunk, they aren't even streaking the right away. The girl got stopped pretty quick but the guy ran out and deked out the guards pretty good. He may have potential as a future CFL runningback. Finally he was tackled by an usher. The crowd was loving it. More towels, bottles and cups go flying.

We put on our jackets and got the hell out of there.

One hurdle at a time

I find that I can't handle more than one big hurdle at a time. There are major things in life that I feel I need to get out of the way before I can do another big thing. Like for instance, a job opportunity came up about half a month ago. I've been just about "okay" with my job and I've been looking for changes. But with the wedding coming up, I feel it's too 'big' of a hurdle for me to jump over while looking for work at the same time. It's a fairly large undertaking to look for a job, apply, get the resume in order and all that.

Another one is planning for Longlac. I've been tasked or asked to lead at least a week of Longlac short term missions for the church this year. I haven't even thought about it for more than maybe 3 hours total in the past 3 months. I just don't have time for it and I don't feel like I can think about it until the wedding is done with.

So for now I'm stuck behind this wedding thing.

There are also different levels of hurdles. Little things would be like if I had to take care of an errand that might only take me an hour to do, but it was something I didn't really like doing, I might put it off until I have taken care of something else that is slightly more stressful. Like if I had to make a presentation at work, I might put off doing the dishes for a week. That kind of thing.

I feel like I need a clean slate before I can perform certain tasks, even if they are simple tasks.

I also feel like I often save tasks to the end, not to procrastinate but rather so that I can do things all together. I find that Ina is the same way when it comes to this. Like for instance I got one of my buddies address so I could send him an invitation, but rather than sending it I'm still holding out for another address. Instead of just mailling it, I want to do them all together. Which is probably a mistake because by waiting this long it will probably be too short notice for the both of them and then neither of them will come.

False advertising

...Photoshopping gone terribly, terribly wrong. This cereal is so great, it changes the pigment of your skin!

clever advertising

Coffee experiment: It's over

The experiments are over. I have had two straight delicious, non-leaking perfect coffees, not too hot or cold, no leaking, no dirty looks from the cashier ladies, no defective lids, and yet, no winners.

One thing I have discovered, though, is my co-worker who sits behind me has won 4 times out of 10 on large cups of coffee. I'm at 1 out of 11, for medium. So bigger is better.

Coffee experiment: Parts 5, 6 & 7

I'll try to make this brief.

Part 5 coffee lid wasn't perforated properly. One side opened as usual but I had to tear the other just to lift it. Right away alarms were going off in my head as I knew I would be writing this blog to tell you that I had lost due to a defective lid.

"Please play again"

Conclusion: If the lid is defective, you are going to lose.

Next coffee, I am pretty sure she gave me cream instead of milk by accident.

"Please play again"

Conclusion: If you don't get what you ordered, you are going to lose.

Today's coffee. Looks like they ran out of milk. I got maybe a drop and she didn't bother opening up a new carton and instead just poured the coffee into maybe 1/4 of the milk I should have received.

"Please play again"

Conclusion: If the Tim Horton's server is too lazy to get more milk, you are going to lose.

Coffee experiment: Part 4

As usual we went for coffee and I got my coffee. The thing is my friend was going to redeem his free coffee, so I didn't know if that affects mine or not. I tried to act like I didn't know him when we got to the front of the line, because you never know right?

As we were walking back to the office I noticed that the coffee kept dripping out. Little drops fell into my hand and I'm thinking oh man, this coffee cup is defective. It must be a loser.

I got upstairs to my desk and opened it up, and holy crap it was full right to the brim. The miniscus was all that was keeping it from spilling! What in the world.

I took a big whiff of it, it smelled fine, it wasn't as hot as I'd like it to be but it tasted fine as well.

"Please play again"

Conclusion: If the cup is leaking or filled too high, you are going to lose.

Freebird! Freeeeeebirrrrrrrrd!

I remember listening to Freebird for the first time in my life. I was standing in front of my television with a plastic guitar controller strapped to me. My brother and I had been taking turns on songs to finish up Guitar Hero, and we had done it, we'd finished the game. The game called for an encore and was preparing us for one final big finish song, and they said it was a song called "Freebird". Of course neither of knew what it was, so we were excited. The game kept asking:

"Are you ready?"
"Are you sure you're ready?"
"Are you really sure?"

And we were thinking YES damnit, let's play it!

So I'm playing the song, for about 5 minutes I was there, playing the guitar, and it was a joke. Turns out Freebird is a slow song by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Maybe it gained popularity because of it's lyrics? It's a slow song so it's a little bit anti-climatic. After all the songs we thrashed our way through, to end it all with this soft song, it's nice but it's not what we had hoped for.

So 5 minutes into the song, I'm getting bored and wondering if maybe I can transfer the guitar over to my brother and let him go for a few minutes. But then, hello, it starts to speed up a little bit. It's getting faster. Next thing I know, the tempo quickens and I'm playing a short solo, only it's not a short solo, it's a long song, like 2 minutes. Then 3. Then 5. What's this, a 10 minute solo? I'm going crazy now, my brother is like "what the heck.. does it end?", and I'm like "OMG this song rocks". I'm playing this impossible solo that I can barely keep up with and it lasts forever. It's like a crazy mother of a song, 15 minutes in total and the second half sounds nothing like the first. Just when you think it's over, it starts again. The two of us are going nuts. What the heck is going on, does it ever end?

Finally, the song ends. We erupt in excitement over what has just transpired. I feel like I just ran the marathon. My fingers are exhausted and I'm sweating like a hog. We go from "What the heck is Freebird" to "OH EM GEE.. Freebird is the best EVAR!".

The coffee experiment: Part 3

My efforts to make a completely ridiculous conclusions from Tim Horton's Roll Up The Rim To Win continues. Yesterday I went to redeem a free coffee, being careful not to reveal that I had the winning rim until after they had selected the cup and poured the coffee. Because hey, you never know right?

I opened up the lid to take that initial first whiff. It smelled burnt. It smelled like they had used burnt roasted beans or something, but either way it just did not smell right. Now if you take into account the conclusion from Part 2, you know what I was thinking -- "this coffee doesn't smell right, therefore it will not taste good, and therefore it will not be a winner".

But amazingly its taste did not agree with its smell -- the coffee tasted fine. In fact it was better than fine, it was nearly 90% as good as the the winning cup. So there I was thinking, the coffee tasted fine, but it didn't smell right. As far as I could remember, the winning cup of coffee smelled normal. I mean, it's not like I noticed anything peculiar about it, right? What does this mean?

Conclusion: If your Tim Horton's coffee doesn't smell right, it is not going to be a winner.

In other news, this is what happens to your body when you drink a Coke.

The coffee experiment: Part 2

I'm trying to think of the last time my coffee tasted as good as it did today, and I think the last time was actually when I decided to try some Country Style coffee about a month ago. It tasted sweeter than usual.. like the sweet taste of victory.

Anyway, today's results were rather astonishing because they in fact somewhat contradict my previous findings. The coffee, as I mentioned, was fantastic. But what's surprising was, I didn't even check the result until after I finished drinking. So in all likelihood it COULD have been a losing cup. But it wasn't -- it was a winning cup.

WIN / GAGNEZ UN CAFE / COFFEE

Conclusion: Winning cups of coffee taste better.

Doing fine dot org

If you haven't noticed by now, there's a huge ugly ad on the side bar under "Sponsor". I didn't design it so don't look at me. It's for a web forum, who's advertising agency contacted me to help them advertise. It seems the forum is all about people who are doing fine, which is actually kind of refreshing when you consider the majority of web forums out there are where people go to complain about something, argue with eachother, or sell things.

Anyway, these guys contacted me a week ago and I figured hey, why not. In return (if there are indeed folks reading this blog) they will give me a substantially huge reward, likely in the form of pennies. We're still in test stages to determine whether it is worth it for them -- so click it now!

*By the way, please don't abuse this. They do have ways of knowing if you are abusing it.

Amazing discovery

I made an amazing and shocking discovery yesterday. I'm going to do a little more experimentation, but I thought it'd be interesting to post my initial results below.

As we've always done for the past few months, at 2pm, a co-worker and I went downstairs to get coffee in order to beat the afternoon food coma. We lined up at Tim Horton's as usual, and I ordered and received a medium regular coffee, with milk and sugar. We went back upstairs and parted ways as we arrived at my desk. I put my coffee down on the table.

I took off the lid of the coffee, and poured the coffee into a mug. The reason I wanted to do this was so that I could take an early peek at the rim, to see if I had won a prize. So I rolled up the rim.. and saw the words "Please play again".

Now here is where it gets really crazy. (Warning: Do not continue reading if you have a weak stomach.)

I grabbed my mug to take a sip of coffee..

...and discovered...

THE COFFEE DIDN'T TASTE AS GOOD AS IT NORMALLY DOES!!!!!

Possible conclusion: Tim Horton's coffee loses some taste when you already know you've lost!

Songs that remind me of..

Ina and I were trying to think of good romantic songs to use for our "first dance" at our wedding, but it seemed like every song I came up with, she said no to because that song "already belonged to someone else". I couldn't help but feel a little jealous about this...

Anyway, it got me thinking about how certain songs remind me of things, maybe not people in general, but of moments or milestones in my life. Over the years I could put together an interesting little soundtrack of my memories.

"One and One" by Robert Miles

This song reminds me of my 1st and 2nd years in university. My roommate (and highschool pal) Keith and I would always play this song just before every exam. At first it was more coincidence -- playing mindless dance music was the only type of music that mindnumbing enough that it didn't make us think or lose focus, but also repetitive enough that it kept us alert. But then as exams came and went, we'd play it more and more, until it became part of our ritual.

I heard this in a store a year ago and feelings of exam anxieties came over me. It was pretty eerie.

"Open The Eyes of My Heart" by Sonicflood

As overplayed as this song has gotten over the years, I will not forget this song because it was the song that motivated me into buying a guitar and teaching myself how to play guitar. I'd heard it many times before but there was this one time when we were in Ottawa at The Metropolitan Bible church. Every month they had worship night at "The Met" as they called it. Anyway there was just that one time when they played it there that it struck the heart of me, opened my eyes -- to the wonderful sound of acoustic guitar. I remember sitting in the front row, this guy Geordi or something, he played it, and as I sang and looked up (they had a skylight) I was looking into the sky -- it was pretty amazing. I would be forever changed by that one evening of music. I bought my first guitar a week later.

"Under The Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers

I'm trying to think of a song that I've recited more times than this one.. I can't think of any. First time I heard it was at chinese school at Agincourt Collegiate, some kid had brought his ghetto blaster and were blasting this song in the hallway. It must have been grade 7 or 8. I'm trying to remember how I could have memorized the words to the song without having a tape of it.. but nevertheless I did memorize it and years later I still find myself singing it to myself.

It's one of those solitudinal ballads that you find yourself singing when you're bored, lonely or sad. Which to me seems like something I experienced a lot as a pre-teen and adolescent.

Anything by Mariah Carey

I learned to sing by singing along with Mariah Carey songs. Well.. maybe that not the full truth -- I learned to sing from being part of the T3C Children's Choir. That, combined with uber musical genes from my parents made me the singer I am today. Which isn't saying a whole lot.. but..

I remember many a night, broken hearted or "in love", where I would sit at my desk with my head phones on blasting Mariah Carey songs. Or when I was home alone, I'd belt out her tunes as her CDs played in the background. Showering I find is another great time to sing Mariah.

..

I guess it's just fun reminiscing of old days, and seeing how there's songs that just stick with you when they happen to be playing during certain moments in your life.

Family vs fame

Over a month ago I pleaded with Roger Clemens to just be honest. Be honest to himself, his family, and America. If he had listened to me and done this back then, he might still have a respectable reputation. But now as he sits before a grand jury, with three different testimonies from different people that directly contradict with his own, you realize that it's no longer about his reputation -- it's about jail time. Perjury is a major offense. You can't just apologize and go home to live the rest of your life.

You almost feel sorry for the guy because he really just got in way over his head. He kept thinking about his reputation as one of the best pitchers in the history of baseball -- instead of his wife and 4 sons. That's right Roger, you are better off as a shamed pitcher than a father in jail. Think about it. You shouldn't have to think very long about this one.

--

Had this conversation while watching the movie "I, Robot" with some friends last weekend:

BY: Hey, isn't that the Transformers kid?
JT: Yea.
VP: Whoa, I didn't know he was in this.
[Will Smith comes flying in with his motorcycle and shoots some robot in the head. He tumbles around and suddenly there's a gun in his face.]
JT: Is that Ashley Judd?
VP: I don't think so..
BY: That's the mother of Tom Brady's child. Bridget Mona-something.
VP: What?? The mother of his child? Why don't you just say--
BY: .. the Patriots' quarterback. He's dating Gisele Bundchen now.
JT: Nice.
VP: Oh.

Anyway, this reminds me of the Superbowl. Which was just unbELIevable.

There's something to be said about the New York Giants, the team that I counted out in every round of NFL playoffs this year except for the game against the Bucs, of which I simply didn't care -- to come out and play a nearly flawless game, to beat the mighty New England Patriots despite their all-star lineup, perfect execution of NFL Salary cap exploitation, with the "best" quarterback and defiant cheating coach. And not just that, but to produce one of the highest rated football games in the NFL's history, and the most exciting Superbowl game I've ever seen.

The crazyier thing was I had just finished making a speech about how Eli needed to come out from Peyton's shadow, when he made that incredible scramble, escaping two potential sacks and then converted that incredible play to Tyree. At that moment in a game, to make such an awesome "Helmet Catch", it was simply amazing.

Life

When my parents moved away, my mom left some of her plants at the condo for me to look after while they were gone. There were at least half a dozen, including a couple of trees. At this time there are maybe 2 left of those group.

I'm pretty bad in terms of remembering to water them, and as a result most of them have died.

At work, we had a couple of potted plants, and when this guy Gary moved offices, he left his two plants in my care. I did my best to keep them alive. One of things I found that helped was that since I often get up to stretch my legs and clear my head, I walk over to the plants to give them some water.

Well that was about 2 years ago and one of them died. But two months ago, I was eating some clementines and found one particular clementine full of seeds. Anyway, I took about 8-9 seeds and planted them into the pot where the plant had died. I watered it every day, whenever I got up for a stretch. Sometimes I watered it 2-3 times in one day, just a little sprinkle.

Then two weeks ago, a couple of sprouts came out. It was awesome. I called over one of my colleagues who had seen me planting them months ago. We were both thrilled. Every couple days we've seen a new sprout -- there are 8 total now. The first couple are really doing well, almost 2 inches tall with a couple of leaves each.

This is the most exciting thing I have to look forward to every day when I go to work.

What Matters: WGA Strike is not one of them

From a software developer's point of view, here's how I would explain the reason for the strike from my understanding. Think of it as Oracle or Business Objects. They sell you their product for a few thousand (sometimes million) dollars , and then on top of that they charge you licensing fees per user or cpu. That's kind of what's happened with the writers. They want *more* royalties than before. To be precise, they are looking for 0.6% of DVD sales instead of 0.3%. And that's the gist of this entire 11 week strike.

The thing about the writers going on strike is that people are still getting scripts. If you watch CNN or any news, you'll see the anchor person is still reading his or her lines. Surely he or she didn't write all that herself, so there is still someone writing. If you take a look at the newspapers, you see no evidence of the strike. They are still coming out with pretty good articles, and I haven't noticed any change in the thickness of the papers.

Books as well continue to be published, unbeknownst to the striking writers who refuse to work. Just the other day we were at Mitchell's and there was a new book written by Brett Favre's wife about her struggle with breast cancer and her faith pulling her through. I guess she missed the memo about the strike.

It seems to me that the writers who decided not to come to work on November 5, 2007, are the ones who don't simply don't matter. No offense if you are a writer in the WGA, but in the grand scheme of things, you write about things don't matter a whole lot. I might not be able to watch my favorite TV show, or go see a movie actually worth the full $12, but life goes on.

These are people who write simply to entertain. They're sole purpose is not just to tell you something important that has happened, because if they did they'd be journalists. And they're not trying to tell you an important story, because otherwise they could have written a book. They are entertainers, nothing more.

While I'm not saying that it hasn't affect me -- I'll admit I like to be entertained -- the truth of the matter is the reason the strike has gone as long as it has, is because at the end of the day it doesn't affect you and me. I can do other things. I have options, like spending time with my future wife, reading a book, or playing video games. I could even.. work.

They've got a few actors on their side -- but again, no one cares. If you shave your head or have a run-in with the law, we'll read about you and laugh -- but generally we don't care about you either.

5 years ago public service in Toronto decided if they couldn't what they wanted, they would stop picking up garbage. Within a couple weeks, the public felt the full brunt. We were having a heat wave and you could literally smell the stench in the humid air. Every corner had one of those garbage bins filled to the brim and needless to say it was a germy disaster. We were days away from the Pope coming to town. That's the kind of strike people care about because it affects them directly.

This strike on the other hand, how does it really affect anyone besides the billionaire television network executives and movie moguls? So I have to watch American Gladiators instead of a confusing episode of LOST. I have to watch reruns of Two and a Half Men (I really like this show btw) instead of Heroes. Whoop-dee-doo, life goes on.

Football is over; Learning Mandarin

I've counted out the Giants on several occasions now. First when they played the Dallas Cowboys, I didn't think there was any chance they could beat them and they did. Then against Green Bay in Lambeau in freezing weather, I thought they couldn't possibly win against the mighty Packers and Brett Favre.

Now against the Patriots, another heavily favored team, I still don't think they have a chance. Despite every reason to cheer against the Patriots, including that they are a flawless unbeaten team, with a cheating coach, an abusive wide receiver (or innocent until proven guilty?) and a quarterback who dates a supermodel despite having a bastard child with another woman -- I still cannot see any possible way that the Giants could pull off this upset, even though the Patriots appear to be Satan's team.

On a positive note, you non-sports readers finally get some reprieve. Football is over.. no more football posts.

Lately I've really felt a genuine appreciation for my parents forcing me to go to Chinese school to learn Mandarin. With the influx of immigrants coming here and speaking chinese, it's been such a blessing for me to be able understand and to communicate with these people.

Although I can't say I ever hated learning Chinese, I definitely felt at times like I was spinning my wheels since, in my earlier years, most Chinese people in Toronto were speaking Cantonese. But since about 10 years ago more and more it's been about Mandarin.

I've appreciated the ability to communicate through my limited pinyin with Chinese kids playing World of Warcraft. Or listening intently to conversations on elevators. I remember one occasion of a child speaking to her mother in Mandarin, it was a pretty comical conversation which I had to explain to Ina later. That little girl was very smart. Recently I discovered that there is a mom in my building who verbally abuses her little boy all the time. I never would have noticed that if I didn't know Mandarin. Also having the ability to communicate with some co-workers who; upon struggling to explain something to me in English, I ask to switch to mandarin to get their point across.

Further to this is an added opportunity of ministry being able to speak the language that over 1 billion people can speak. Considering that I'm fluent in both Mandarin and English means I have a possible mission field of approximately 3-4 billion people.

I think that's pretty neat.

Two interesting games left..

I've paid little attention to my Raptors the last few weeks because of the NFL playoffs, but as the NFL post-season winds down, I will slowly shift my attention back to the Raptors.

The Raptors are playing like crap, in my opinion. I haven't paid too much attention to them over the past month but I know that although they've won half their games, half the teams they've played sucked. There is no urgency or intensity in their approach to the game. When you watch a game, they look like they're expecting something to happen, as if the game will just come to them.

This is a really young team that is still learning what it takes to win games. They play hard very occasionally and half the time it works. Well the problem with this is that kids will work hard and if they don't see results, then why work hard? And then there are times where the hard work pays off, they win, and they play an easy game where they didn't have to work hard, and then the effort reverts to the old way.

The next frustrating part of the team is the misuse of players. Here are my suggestions to Bryan Colangelo and Sam Mitchell:

Kapono needs the ball to score. You're paying him almost $7M/year to shoot the ball but no one passes it to him. He's no good as a decoy if he doesn't score first.

Chris Bosh: If the lane is open, do not pull up for a jump shot. That is what small forwards and shooting guards do. You are the power forward. Note that first word "Power"? Your mid-range jumper has become your bread and butter, when it should only be your secret weapon. Use it when they've clogged the paint and you have no where else to go. I'm more impressed when you score 20 points in the paint than 40 points on jump shots. It helps everyone else, trust me.

Bryan Colangelo: Juan Dixon sucks as a point guard. You know it, I know it. I think even he knows it. Jose needs a real backup.

Since I've got your attention, here's another one: It's not that I've given up on him, but you need to sign someone to help us forget about Andrea Bargnani for a little while. Because Toronto fans expect instant success without any growth period, and it'll take Bargnani longer to reach his potential than fans have patience for. But see, if you don't do something now, media will be all over it and Bargnani will hear the word "bust" too often and it will ruin his confidence and eventually, his career.

In terms of the NFL, this past weekend was disappointing to say the least.

First, the San Diego Chargers beat my beloved Indianapolis Colts, preventing the possibility of watching two awesome games:

1) The most prolific quarterback in the past decade (Peyton Manning) vs the best clutch performing quarterback in the past decade (Tom Brady). And then following that game, we'd see
2) The most prolific quarterback in the past decade (Peyton Manning) vs the best quarterback alive ever period (Brett Favre).

Secondly, the San Diego Chargers lost key players LaDainian Tomlinson and Phillip Rivers, to injury, which means the Patriots have been given a free ride to the Superbowl to face the Packers.

Am I being too quick to write off the New York Giants? I don't think so. The Giants are a team that is required to establish the run before they can have any kind of effectiving passing game. Eli Manning is not a great 'under-pressure' quarterback. Unfortunately for Brandon Jacobs, the Packers are one of the best teams in the league at stopping the run. And then moving on to their offensive line, also formidable. The holes that these guys open up for Grant, Jackson and Jones. Unbelievable.

This'll be a great piece to write about next week when the Superbowl matchup has been set in stone, but can you remember a time when Favre has had the kind of talent he has around him today? I can't. Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, Brandon Jackson and Ryan Grant. They're not exactly Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Donte Stallworth and Laurence Maroney, but put them up against pretenders like Antonio Freeman, Robert Brooks, Mark Chmura and Dorsey Levens.. that's a whole new ball game.

The same comparison can be made for Tom Brady who has never really had the offensive weapons that he has this year... although the comparison ends right there when you consider all the offensive records Favre holds while Brady, at least statistically, hasn't had much to offer until this season.

Can the Jags beat the Patriots?

Everyone is saying they can. Last week's game against the Steelers was one of the best games I've seen all year. The Jags almost blew a huge lead but persevered to win it. David Garrard calling his own number and rushing on 4th and out, that was an unbelievable play. But Pittsburgh isn't even that good. Roethlisberger had a great year by his standards, but overall he was just good. Willie Parker had a great year but he was hurt for the game.

One thing that did surprise me was that the Jags didn't just roll over at the end of the Steelers game when Pittsburgh had surged back. The Jags don't have a whole lot of playoff experience and I kind of saw that mini-collapse coming.. but that they stood their ground at the end, I think that builds character.

Next they play the Patriots who have had an extra week to prepare, and Belicheat says betted on the Jags so they focused on them even before they beat the Steelers, so really they've had nearly 2 full weeks to prepare. They've played only average in December but with those 2 weeks I think they'll be right on track again.

Looking at the matchups, the Jags sacked Big Ben a few times, but Ben pretty much led the league in getting sacked so it's not a huge surprise. I didn't think the Jags had a particularly quick pass rush which a few teams have found to be pretty successful because Brady's got to protect that pretty face of his. Do you see any supermodels dating toothless NHL players? I think not.

Secondly although the Jags also intercepted Big Ben 3(?) times, they were either pretty bad passes, most of them were almost like lobs, or they were deflected or batted down. This rarely happens with Brady's bullet-like passes.

Finally there is the run game. With Brady 'struggling' in December --- I use this term lightly --- Laurence Maroney finally showed why he was on this team of excellent players. He showed that the Pats can also run, when they feel like it. However they'r not great at stopping the run. Their rush defense looks like one of the best, the reality is teams just didn't run on them because they were down 2-5 touchdowns. No one runs when they're down 2 TDs.

So I think the key to this game, if the Jags have a prayer, is to keep the score close or low. The Pats do not want a close game here because it enables the Jags to run and I mean, you saw it last week, you can't stop Jones-Drew and Taylor. Either your defense lines up one way and Drew burns you, or another way and Taylor runs through you.

My prediction is the Pats come out with the mindset "Crush" and jump out to an early 14-3 lead, and then from there it's cruise mode for Brady and his awesome defense.

Key matchup to look out for are the Jags cornerbacks and Patriots receivers. You can't really compare Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes to Randy Moss, I mean these two combined aren't as good as Randy. And then there's still that pesky Welker.

I will be cheering for the Jags, but really I think this game is going to be won by the Pats handily. There is far more pressure on them to win because they're the best team in the league. They also want the privilege of trying to crack last year's champions, and get their revenge on the Colts next week. Unfortunately the Pats thrive on pressure, so this one is going to be a Pats win -- 31-13.

Roger

Roger, just admit that you took steroids. We all know you took it. It's not like anyone was surprised. This whole drug case is not something that will just boil over. This is not just a fun report that people will talk about for a couple years and forget all about it. It's a federal case.

Admit you took steroids. It's okay. I still respect you for the amazing things you did earlier in your career -- so what, you stole a few Cy Young's from the league. America will forgive you. See how the media rarely talks about Mark McGwire and only attacks Barry Bonds? The media will be the same way with you -- they will give you another chance because you are white, because you've always been friendly with the media (well, at least most of the time), and because you're somewhat of a fan favorite and feel-good story. Don't be like Barry, digging his hole deeper and deeper.

Just admit what you've done and be over and done with it. You can retire with some dignity at least.

Flood!

whewt. whewt. whewt.

Crazy stuff happening today at Metro Hall. I came about 15 minutes late for work and as I scurried along the PATH, whewt-whewt-whewt-whewt! I discovered the hallway leading up to Metro Hall was closed off, a bunch of guys there were doing some mopping. So I had to turn back and take a detour into the Allstream building instead. whewt. whewt.

This unfortunately forced me to head outdoors, which of course I'm rarely ever equipped for and certainly was not today. Since I hadn't planned to go out I had just my thin black jacket on and a scarf. So anyway I ran quickly outside, whewt-whewt ducked behind as many walls as I could to avoid the icy -15C winds and ducked back into Metro Hall through the side door. whewt-whewt-whewt-whewt

To my surprise I was met by a wall of humidity as I walked into the building. It felt like I'd gone from the arctic tundra straight into the amazonian rain forest. My glasses fogged up immediately and I had to stop dead in my tracks since I couldn't see a thing. silence.

The smell. The smell reminded me of something that I had hoped for a long time to block from my memory. It was the smell of water soaked drywall, water seeping through floorboards, joists and concrete. Over to my right I saw a crowd of about 150 people lined up in front of the freight elevator with another 150 people standing around hoping to wait it out. Over to my left, I saw what had happened. It seems some kind of pipe had bursted, and was now pouring down into the main front entrance of the building. It appeared to be hot water, because it was steaming up the entire foyer. If you've ever seen Metro Hall, you'll know how much steam is required to fill the foyer.. it's huge. There had to be a foot of water, and it was pouring down, like a water fall. Metro Hall had turned into Metro Falls. You'd think with a building full of engineers, someone might have turned off the main valve by now?

whewt-whewtwhewt-whewt I gave my boss a call and he said to just grab a coffee and take my time getting upstairs. The alternative to lining up for the freight was to take the stairs, and I wasn't about to sacrifice my totally awesome physique to 27 flights of steps.

I took some pictures with my awesome 2-megapixel phone and went for coffee. whewt-whewt! whewt-whewt!

As it turns out what had happened is a heating water coil had become frozen due to low flow condition, due to the super cold temperatures. It bursted and unfortunately it was almost impossible to shut off because the leak was right beside the shut-off valve was, and the water was hot. No one could get in there to turn it off without scalding themselves badly. What a mess it turned out to be, I didn't get to my desk until about 10:30am, and the elevator power wasn't restored until about 12:30pm.

During the entire time that the elevators were down, the emergency strobe lights (found every few meters on the ceiling), were flashing non-stop every 3 seconds. Very very annoying. Almost as annoying as the whewt-whewt. They even have these things in the bathroom, so when I was doing my business, the lights were flashing. I felt like a celebrity with paparazzi all around me, taking pictures of me while I went pee.

What's worse now is that the hall leading down to the PATH is completely barred off. Apparently water seeped all the way down there and it's no longer safe to venture down there. I heard one guy say "the whole thing could collapse at any minute".

What a disaster.. I'll have to wear a thicker jacket tomorrow. whewt-whewt

Oreos

The Knack

Pasta Sauce

I had been experimenting the last two times I cooked, on trying to make a meatless pasta sauce. You're probably thinking -- has Brian gone mad? No meat?!

I think generally pasta is kind of a very heavy, filling meal. But if you take out the meat, then it becomes this starchy by light meal if you do it right. I had this idea of making pasta where it was more pasta than sauce, which is something completely foreign to me, having grown up eating spaghetti *drenched* in meat sauce.

The first time I tried making it, the result came out completely different from what I had pictured in my mind. I had this idea of the spaghetti being dry, and covered in olive oil and oregano. That part I had down pat. But the sauce didn't work out quite so well. I wanted to have this super strong flavored sauce so you didn't need a lot, and fresh tomatoes cooked, but chopped and sprinkled over the sauce.

Instead, I basically ran out of garlic, for one thing, and then I got lazy and didn't put onions, so it was, in the end, a mushroom and tomato mixture with tons of oregano, pepper and salt. What's worse is I cooked the tomato first and it turned into a mush, and the shrooms shrank to almost nothingness. By the end of it I barely had enough for just one meal, feeding 1 person, me.

For the second try I put the tomatoes in last, but it still ended up a mush. I bought garlic but once again left out onions. I rarely ever cook without onions, so that part was already a mistake. I also picked up some basil and sprinkled that in.

What I had pictured in my mind was totally different, but the sauce ended up being pretty tasty. Ina didn't particularly like it (she likes saucy stuff whereas I had never planned to make my creation saucy) but Darryl and I both thought it turned out decent.

Tonight I plan to try yet again. I have been reading up on pasta sauce and people talking about using canned stuff, just because it makes life easier and it's still possible to make it home-style even with the manufactured ingredients. To me that's something I may try later on, but for now I want to try to make it myself. I'm thinking to add diced mango to add some new flavor tonight (because I have mango in the fridge and need to get rid of it), and of course onions.

Looking forward to it.

Bogged down

On Saturday at 6:30am, I was sitting there in a circle with the rest of the Ishskwaday committee members, and we were sharing about each of our spiritual walks, how we felt Ishskwaday fits into the grand scheme of things, and what it means to us.

It was to me kind of a rude awakening of sorts. We've been going pretty much full on over the past 3 months, meeting every other week and taking care of business as business needs to be taken care of. Promotional kits had gone out to various churches who were interested in promoting the conference, marketing was being done. The website was ready, the video finished. Some of the speakers had been contacted and contracts were being drawn up.

But then we all kind of realized that although we were going full on.. was God with us? So for this week, we all kind of reflected on this and didn't do any administration stuff at all.

What was revealed to me after a bit of reflection, is that I'm totally bogged down by the busyness of life. Spiritually, I am near my wits end, the bottom of the barrel. I think the biggest thing for me has just been that I haven't given God the time of day. I'm stretched thin in different areas serving God, but not experiencing God. I've got this mindset of wanting to help people, but deep down I should be helping myself.

You know it's like you believe in something so strongly, but after awhile you lose sight of it. It's still there, still a goal you strive for, but the meaning behind it is lost.

The Happiest Days of Our Lives

Reading Wil Wheaton's "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" really conjured up so many childhood memories for me. Several reviews I had read said that Wil's book has a nostalgic feel to it, making you think of your own childhood. They weren't kidding. I finished reading it just now, and I all I can think about are the little moments in life that are etched in my memory. He is definitely a great story teller, and because he's a blogger his writing flows as easily as reading a blog.. which probably explains how I managed to finish the entire book so quickly. I feel a little jipped actually.. wish it was twice as long.

I don't know Wil Wheaton nor do I care about him. I don't care about the things he faced or experienced in school and as a child. The truth is I couldn't care less. But he's such a great story teller and the way that he describes everything makes you think about yourself. About all the little things you did as kid, things that were so important to you but might not matter now as an adult. Rules to live by for a kid. And.. and being able to remember the things you really cared about, and mattered, and things you were so afraid of and things that annoyed you to your core as a child. And how innocent we all were, in our own little worlds.

I don't think I knew many kids who were as geeky as Willow Wheaton was. Sure I dabbled in Dungeons & Dragons during Chinese School, and yea I got picked on at school because I was puny. And yea I sucked at sports, and was constantly distracted by video games. I was also great at dodgeball, not so much because of my agility but because more because no one really paid much attention to me. I too, hated to be embarrassed in front of other kids, often hiding in a corner and crying about it. I too labored and gawked at the toy store, staring up at hundreds of action figures that I wanted but could only afford at most 1 per month, and considered saving up for a few months to get a big one. I too got board games for Christmas when all the other kids my age were playing Nintendo.

How do you play board games when you're an only child? You don't. So you develop an overly active imagination, start playing games left hand against right hand, invent different personalities in your brain so that you could pit one against the other. For 9 years, that's what I had to do. For years Wil played D&D all by himself.

I don't pretend to be the same as Wil. We're far from being the same, I was certainly not a child actor, although maybe a pretender. But reading his book really reminded me of things that I really loved and cherished. It's a great, short read and I look forward to reading more.

Star Trek

I started reading Wil Wheaton's "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" today. For those who recognize the name but can't quite put your finger on it, Wil Wheaton played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. If you still don't know what I'm talking about, please go away and never come back. You are not welcome here and I do not want to be associated with you.

It seems that reading paper books is rather laborious at least for me. I don't seem to enjoy reading books as much as reading things online, like on a computer. It's a completely different feel. For one thing when reading a book, I'm usually in a fairly comfortable position, and what do I enjoy doing when I'm in a comfortable position? SLEEP.

So it's rather non-conducive for me to be reading a book while sitting comfortably. And even in uncomfortable arrangements, like on the subway for instance, what would I rather be doing? SLEEPING. No one ever believes me when I say this, but I have fallen asleep several times on the subway while standing. Every time I've done this, it was done while standing against the wall next to the doors.. except for this one time when I tried sleeping while standing in the middle with no support but the pole, which I was stretching out to reach and was hanging on by 2 fingers. When I fell asleep that time, and the subway stopped, I nearly ended up falling on top of someone. That time was pretty bad.

So back to Wheaton's book. His writing is actually a lot like blogs, and in fact a lot like my blog, except he has a way better vocabulary. And he seems to have a far more vivid memory than I do. I may have memories of my childhood, but do I remember the struggles I had deciding which kind of gum I wanted, or which toy I should get given my tiny 25cents/month budget? Actually I guess I do.

In the book he claims actually that all the entries were taken from his blog, and likely were not even properly edited beforehand. So it's almost like I paid $15 for something I could have found online! I've already found several typos. I wonder if that's because he was too cheap to get it properly edited, or did he leave them in there to prove that he'd just pulled them directly off his blog.

I used to hate Wesley Crusher. I don't know what it was about him that I hated, maybe because he was this annoy little kid on one of the best shows ever, he seemed more like a nuisance than anything, and then how he behaved, he was like a deer in headlights all the time, not cool like the other characters on the show. Plus he was just the biggest geek, completely awkward and socially inept. He was goofy. A total nerd and overachiever. I guess there was also a jealousy factor.

I still remember a few weeks ago when Pastor Daniel preached about something.. which I don't remember.. but what I do remember is that he mentioned Star Trek, and the line "Shakka.. where the walls fell." I think it was at that moment that Ina realized I was a trekkie, and that incredulous look she gave me when she said "You're a trekkie?".

It would have been so cool to work on that set.. to be part of that tiny pocket of pop culture, the Star Trek cult classic. To have the opportunity to work with so many great actors like Patrick Stewart, and, um.. right. To see all the neato costumes, or even to wear that awesome Federation uniform. To have met Marina Sirtis. To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life, and new civilizations. To boldly go where no kid had gone before.. vrrooooomm.. dooo do-do doooo, do-do dooo.. do-do-do-do-do doo doo doo do-do-do-doooo.. staar trek.. staar trek.. do do do do sta-a-ar trek.

Heroes

One big problem with blogs I find is that if you don't write often, people stop reading your site and then when you finally have something important to say, no one reads it. This of course changes when you've got an rss feed, but not everyone has that.

Anyway.. Heroes.

Heroes has kind of been really crappy up until 2 episodes ago after creator Tim Kring came on and apologized for how crappy season 2 had been. Since then it's been pretty awesome, right back to how good it was last season. It's one of the few shows where Ina and I have an understanding that we just can't miss this show. Basically our schedules for Monday evenings is worked around the show to ensure that from 9pm-10pm, we are free.

I am really, really confused about Heroes these days. What confuses me is time travel. How one can go back into time, alter it, and what that means for the present day. How can two different times exist. With Back To The Future, Marty always carried around a picture and that would help him to figure out if his action had carried through to make a result in the present.

But with Heroes, because of the nature of the show requiring to show present time and past at the same time, things get confusing because you aren't always seeing the results right away, or even at all.

(Spoilers galore if you aren't caught up.)

Hiro traveled back to 1671 to the time of where his childhood hero, where a legend named Kensai existed. This was a story that his father told him when he was a boy. Circa 1985.

So he goes back and there he sees the coming of age of this hero, who discovers he too has an ability -- regeneration. So that explains how he was able to fight all those amazing battles and not die. He gets stabbed but the wound heals. Kind of like Wolverine without the adamantium. But during this time there is a girl involved and to make a story short, she falls for Hiro instead of Kensai.

Since Kensai is regenerative, his cells never get old and therefore he's immortal. But Hiro doesn't know this. Kensai vows to get Hiro back for stealing his girl.

So fast forward 400 years later, Kensai shows up a rooftop with Hiro's dad and pushes him over the ledge, completing quite possibly the longest lasting "grudge" in the history of the world. Imagine this guy waiting all those years, planning this one day that he could exact revenge on a guy who kissed his girlfriend 400 years ago. Turns out Kensai's name is now Adam Munro.

His role at this time eludes me but I'm sure it'll be answered soon.

But what happens now is even more complex. When Hiro returned to present time, he thought Kensai was dead and when he learned of his father's death, he tried to prevent it by going back a week in time and telling his father about it. But his father says basically that they shouldn't play God and just go with the flow. Fate, if you will.

So Hiro lets it happen, allowing the murder to occur, but he freezes time just before it happens so that he can find out who the killer was. Of course to his surprise it's Adam --err.. Kensai. And then later you see him at his dad's funeral.

You know what I'd do -- I'd teleport myself to NASA, steal an astronaut suit, then go back to 1671, grab Kensai, and teleport myself into space, somewhere near the Sun. Of course I'd be able to breathe and take the insane non-air pressure.. but Kensai would essentially implode on himself, and his body remains would burn into the sun. No more regeneration. Teleport back to 2007. Problem solved.

Or even better still, I'd travel back into time when I first met Kensai, not kiss the girl. Problem solved. Fast forward 400 years later to meet your good pal Adam, in a reunion of hugs all around.

Just doesn't make sense.

Review: David Crowder Bands' "Remedy"

I've gotten a chance to listen to David Crowder Band's latest CD called "Remedy" more. I mentioned earlier that this was a bad CD, as several have pointed out I said "to avoid it like the plague", but after listening to it several times I think I can give it much fairer review. We had been cramped and frustrated in a car, waiting in line at the US-Canada border the first time I had heard the CD, and therefore my previous assessment may have been a little too harsh.

By the way, if you're looking for a more scathing review of the album, check out CCM's take on it here. His review sounded a lot like mine for "A Collision".

I would say the fairest comparison is Crowder's breakout album, "Illuminate". "Remedy" has a lot of upbeat songs and there is a heavy use of computer effects and electronics. Best way to describe most of his songs are that they are "busy". If you listen to track 7 you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. If you're into that kind of thing you'll like this album a lot. They do a good job of not going too over the top with it, and mix it well with the usual band instruments. The first time you listen you might think it's a bit much -- but it grows on you.

One thing evidently missing from this CD are useless tracks of people walking up and down stairs, or whistling, or a phone conversation. That's a good thing. Little interludes like that bring no value to an album and fortunately for us, "Remedy" has none of these fillers. (Remedy is nothing like A Collision).

The music in "Remedy" sounds fresh because it doesn't follow the usual Christian Music formula that all the other worship leaders follow. It's very different and feels "new" -- although not necessarily ground-breaking -- but at least it's not that 'same old thing' feeling with some other bands. The caveat is you can't really play any of the songs at church for worship.

Creativity (8/10) - David Crowder Band pushes the envelope when it comes to creativity. There is no other band like these guys in the Christian music scene. There is a strong mix of electronic stuff in with the usual band repertoire, making their music much edgier than the other Christian bands out there. This however is the bane of the band, as CCM points out, you know these guys are capable of so much more but for some reason they prefer to just make really noisy songs.
Worshipability (7/10) - There aren't very many songs on this album that I could see our church ever using in worship. Personal worship is another story. Even singalongability is low on this album, I'm just starting to figure out the lyrics after hearing the album about 20 times.
Value (9/10) - I bought the CD in the US for $5 less than it would have costed me in Canada. So yea, it was a good deal. It loses one point because of a couple songs in the album that already existed in previous ones.
Longevity (8/10) - One thing I find interesting (or is it more annoying?) that David repeats himself in his songs, several songs he repeats the same line over and over to the point where I want to punch something. I can understand you want to emphasize a point by repeating it, but this is a bit too much for me. I could see myself becoming violent, but thank goodness for FastForward. Due to DCB's catchy tunes, I can see myself listening to this CD off and on for the next few months at least.
Intangibles (9/10)- It's a nice little case, and not a hard plastic one. It's paper but it's sturdy and it's thinner than the average CD case. It's also got a neat cover and a different slot for which the lyrics come out.

Overall: 41/50

Foot in mouth?

I had been talking to Alf about how one of the Vice Presidents of Inter-Varsity Christian fellowship had contacted me, wanting to meet with me over breakfast or dinner -- the short version of this story is that I gave them a lot of money at Urbana last year, and they were hoping to wine and dine me into doing it again this year. I declined (I had given my lump sum tithing, which I supposed was considered a 'large' contribution. But again it was more 'duty' than me supporting IVCF -- not that I don't support them but.. I think you get the idea).

Anyway, Alf had this to say about my recent blogging: "You’ve been blogging about not wanting to tithe to an institution like church. I would hesitate to give to a church that subsidizes working people who can afford to fly to Urbana." Ouch, guilty as charged -- I applied for subsidy to go to Urbana, and thus was a direct contributor to the church spending their income on people who obviously didn't need it. On a personal note I'd call that money well spent, seeing as it helped me to find my future wife. :)

On the plus side it's given me an idea about a trick I can use to divert funds towards where they *should* be going. This is what I love about Alfred though.. he always keeps me honest.

In other news, I was also sadly mistaken in regards to the Patriots-Colts game. Although there was some half-truth to what I said. The Patriots finally showed a little respect to the NFL and its fans by not "going for it" on several the opportunities they had to do so. Apparently "taking a knee" is in Bill Belicheat's vocabulary after all. I guess you can't really mess around when you're playing a real team. The Pats' joke of a schedule had given them a 8-0 start, but I can't say I wasn't impressed by their win against the Colts, even if they were depleted by injuries. The Colts and Pats will meet again in a few months, whereupon I hope the Colts can exact revenge.. also next time, the Colts should really think about dressing more than 3 WRs.

Coming up next, I review David Crowder Band's latest offering "Remedy". The results may surprise you!

Justice

I considered making this another post about the New England Patriots and their unsportsmanlike play of late, and how they would meet the Colts this weekend and face justice. But just as Indianapolis Colts' coach Tony Dungy said after winning last year's Super Bowl, "God doesn't care about football games."

People have asked, in fact I too have asked, how do you know when God's talking to you? I think God's been talking to me, through a series of interesting coincidences over the past few weeks. God's been putting something else, far more important than football in my head the past few days and weeks. The idea of "justice". It all started a few weeks ago when I read (and blogged) about the meaning of justice in Amos 5:21-24, how we should be thinking about where our money goes when we tithe. The idea that God meant for tithing to be used to help the poor, the needy and hungry -- not for the church which is where most of our tithing is spent.

Last Sunday, we had a special guest speaker at church, Ray Barnett. He started reading the scripture he'd be covering and I wasn't even paying attention until I realized he was talking about the same scripture I had just blogged about. Amos 5:21-24. It felt kind of like God smacking me and saying PAY ATTENTION, THIS IS IMPORTANT. So I woke up, and I was riveted by this sermon, about how God didn't care too much about how grand our sanctuary was, awesome worship team, our songs and prayers -- everything inside the church -- unless our church was focused on what was outside of the church. He was talking about Justice.

Throughout the week actually (we had a Missions "Week" at our church), I had been repeatedly bothered by the message they seemed to be saying. They kept saying that if we wanted to help further God's kingdom, we should go overseas. Why do we need to go overseas to help God's people? There are plenty right here at home. It reminded me of this guy I met at Perspectives, who told me his church "trains" their youth for missions, by using Native Missions as a stepping stone to what he called the "real stuff", which was the overseas stuff. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

That's not to say that those going overseas is not doing the right thing, but I think the senders need to carefully consider what the needs are of this country too, and not just focus on people across the ocean. After all, the rest of the world is sending more missionaries out than North America is. Way more. And many of them are being sent HERE.

I think one of things I absolutely love about my fiancee is that she has a heart for people who need God, regardless of where they are in this world. I'm so thankful that Ina and I see eye-to-eye on this and both have this burning desire to help people.

Saturday night, Ina 'dragged' me out to a worship night at Unionville Alliance Church. We had planned to go all along but I was really tired and still a bit too emotional because of the upcoming funeral for Auntie Jean. She thought it'd do us both some good to enjoy some worship time. I remember thinking I should just do this for her because I am such a great future husband, but deep down thinking I so did not want to be there. I think deep down she knew this was happening but maybe God was nudging her to go. She even suggested that we could leave immediately after the singing.. maybe this was to entice me to go. But anyway we ended up going and staying for the whole thing. And it was again God telling me about justice.

Surprisingly, the worship time wasn't the highlight of the night. There was a segment at the end where they had open-mic time, and allowed people to come up and share about things they were thankful for.

One by one people went up. But I thought what was most striking to me was that the subject of justice came up again and again. There was this one guy who serves in a ministry at Jane & Finch, he said he was thankful to be alive, to have food to eat and water. A perfect Sunday school answer but he said it with conviction, indicating that he meant every word of it. This guy reminded me of Shane Claiborne, or perhaps the image I have of Shane. And it wasn't just him.. various people went up and spoke about justice, about the poor and needy and about how we needed to love them.

There was God, again, talking to me, again saying PAY ATTENTION TO THIS.

Grief

For Christians, when a person dies there is two or three things that come to mind. One, is that God has decided to bring that person home. Another, is a wonderment of why God decided to take that person away from you. Third, is the human side, the pain and the grief of losing someone.

Last night, I came home exhausted at 9pm and laid down on the couch to relax and watch the World Series. My mom has been in town for the last 3 weeks and will be here for another week. She's been such a blessing for Darryl and I, we've had home cooking for the past 3 weeks. You wouldn't believe how much money I've saved on food. Not to mention the food is just better. I wonder if 30 years from now my son or daughter will come visit Ina and I and be grateful for our cooking. I find that really hard to believe. Neither of us can cooking particularly well. And yet "great home cooked meal" seems to be a constant for all generations. I guess that means my cooking skills are going to improve drastically in the next 20 years... Anyway, about my mom, she was planning to take a trip to Syracuse for the weekend, to visit some old college friends that she hadn't seen in a few years.

Boston had just taken the lead on a two-out double by Mike Lowell and I was pumping my fist in celebration. The Leafs had just beaten my Penguins and I needed something to lift my spirits. Mom couldn't understand what I was celebrating about, and went back to her room to do whatever moms do. After a little while I heard her say "Oooh!". I called out to her "What happened?", and then I heard two words. "Jean died.". There was a crack in her voice.

Brian: "Oh." Brain: "OH!".

It took about 3 seconds to register and that's when I jumped to my feet and raced over to comfort my mom, who was sobbing by the time I got there.

I remember as far back as age 6 or 7, when our family used to go over to Uncle Albert and Auntie Jean's home for fellowship. My parents were in a cell group with a few other parents that I probably wouldn't be able to name, but all of whom are likely going to be at my wedding next spring. At that time their youngest daughter Ruth probably wasn't even born yet. Rachel was around my age and her older sister Lynn was around a year or two older.

My parents went to visit her when they were here back in March. I guess they had given Uncle Albert my phone number, because after the car accident in May, he called me up to see if I was okay. He knew all about it I guess through my parents, and also even asked about how Ina was doing. It really took me by surprise because the last time I had talked to Uncle Albert was probably about 7-8 years ago. Probably one of my fondest memories of Auntie Jean was just how she always remembered things about me. All of my parents' other friends would ask me the same old things like how's school, how's your brother, things like that. But Auntie Jean always picked out specific things to ask me and so you could tell she wasn't just talking to me because I was my parents kid, she actually cared about me and how I was doing. As we got older we saw that family less and less, but whenever we did visit she'd remember me, and talk about the old days, she was a very nice lady, very kind and very loving.

Auntie Jean was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago. But I guess because I hadn't seen them in so long, it didn't affect me the way it might have, had it been someone who was 'currently' close to me. I prayed for her off and on, but most of the time I just forgot. Sometimes you just forget, when there's so much in the world to pray for.

I don't know about you guys but when I see either of my parents cry, that is a real tear jerker right there. Nothing can really prepare you to see your parents cry. I guess we are just wired that way -- we're so close to our parents that, when they feel something you feel it too, even if you shouldn't. Seeing my mom devastated by the news made it a whole lot worse for me than it really was.

You just know that none of that is helping her emotionally, because you've also lost a loved one before and none of those statements helped you feel any better either.

After hugging my mom for about 5-10 minutes, she finally stopped crying. I never know what to say to people when they're crying and dealing with grief. Crying for physical pain is a little easier to comfort, or because you hurt their feelings, that's all about just saying sorry and hugging them. But for grief, a loss of a life, that's hard. There's always those token phrases that you know just doesn't help at all, like "She is in a better place.", or "She died peacefully.", or "Don't worry we will all see her again some day.."

Mom muttered something about how she had wanted to go see her but Jean had asked that no one come visit her because she wanted them to remember her as she was, and not as she is. Then she sobbed some more and then told me how they were expecting their first grandchild in 2 weeks. Damn.

When I got back to the couch and started to think about how close Jean and Albert were to her and what it might be like for me, how could I understand or wrap my head around how she was feeling. I really wanted to empathize with those affected by this huge loss. I thought about some of our (Ina and I) closer friends, like Stan and Yee Lee, Nancy and Duncan, and how it might be like if one of them died. We've known these people for on average 5-6 years, and have grown really close to them over the past year, but my parents had been friends with Jean and Albert for 25 years. Imagining the magnitude of friendship from that standpoint fast forwarded me to the reality my mom was dealing with.

It also made me think about Jean's 3 daughters and husband, and 2 son-in-laws, and how they were feeling at this particular moment. Jean was expecting her first grandchild, due in 2 weeks. She died peacefully, with her husband and youngest daughter by her side.

These emotions stirred inside me as I prayed the night away. Grief.

And now a word from our sponsor

Are you Stressed?

Are you tired of the same old thing??

Hi, my name is Brian and I am here to tell you that I have discovered the way to beat your stresses and your depression. As the joys of summer ended I was in dire straits and in need of a pick me up. And I found it.

A few weeks ago I discovered that cheering against the Toronto Maple Leafs brought great satisfaction. I'll tell you what: At first, it felt so unnatural. I had been an avid Leaf fan since the age of 7, so the idea of cheering against the team I loved so much was truly difficult. But boy has it been gratifying.

Satisfaction Guaranteed
The Leafs are not only a bad team, they will break your heart -- they will take a big lead in a game only to relingquish the lead and eventually lose. This makes for fantastic drama, because everyone around you is foolishing cheering FOR them, you are almost guaranteed a good laugh by the end of the game.

This does not mean I hate the team -- on the contrary, this team I love so much will only start to improve if they have a truly horrible season, whereupon a stupid, idiotic and moronic assclowns like General Manager John Ferguson gets fired. This is the only, only way. As a 22 year fan, I have been through some very dark times indeed and some good times, but one thing I have discovered is that signing players who are 3 and 4 years past their prime is not the way to win hockey games.

Laugh at your friends!
Why is Bryan McCabe making 6 million dollars? Why do they still have Mats Sundin? Darcy Tucker? Wow, they got Jason Blake? Too bad it wasn't 5 years ago! Did you know that Wade Belak was a 12th overall pick? Why is the team pretending to have two starting goalies, when both aren't even as good as most teams' backups?

These are questions you can use when you make fun of your friends as they cheer on this lowly team.

Testimonial 1
Two nights ago I came home late, exhausted after a night out. I walked in wanting to head straight to bed but, lo and behold I see my brother sitting at the television. He says "shoot-out!". If was my Atlanta Thrashers, the worst team in the league, playing against his beloved Leafs. As I stepped in and sat down, Ilya Kovalchuck went in and scored, the winning goal. As I wooted and cheered my brother looked down at his feet, dejected. Do you see how great that was?

Testimonial 2
About a week ago I was sitting in a restaurant in St. Catherines, and the game was on. The restaurant was rustling and bustling as the game was on, patrons were excited that the Leafs were up 3-1 against the Chicago Blackhawks. But I knew better. As an avid Chicago Blackhawks fan, it was only a matter of time before we came back. Next thing you knew it was 3-2. Then 3-3. As the groans mounted in the restaurant, I raised my arms in exhuberance. Oh baby, we are coming back! Minutes later it was 5-3 Chicago. I was elated!

No commitments
The greatest thing about this is, there are no commitments! I turned from a die-hard Chicago Blackhawk fan to an Atlanta Thrasher fan in less than a week! You just go from team to team and cheer for the team that is playing the Leafs. Even if your team loses, you can still laugh at your friends by pointing out that their last Stanley Cup win was in 1967.

Win-win
So as you can see, this is a win-win situation. I hate to hate the Leafs, but it has to be done. And you can have fun doing it.

Go Penguins!

Money not well spent; Crocs aren't all ugly

We went to Buffalo on Saturday to take advantage of the strong Canadian dollar and cheap US prices. I ended up spending a whopping $67.

The first place we went to was Target, where I made the bulk of my purchases. I bought a Nelly Furtado CD "Loose", which I can tell you, has 2 good songs on it and not much else. I got a great "deal" if you think about the price I paid compared to how much it would have costed buying in Toronto, but overall not a very good buy at all.

The second thing I bought, was kind of a double whammy. They had two David Crowder Band "Remedy" CDs left, so I grabbed them both and gave one to my friend who was with us. So we both bought it. Again, overall according to my calculations we saved $6 each on the disc. I opened his up so we could listen to it for the remainder of the trip. Boy did it suck.

What in the world has happened to David Crowder Band, after promising albums like "Can You Hear Us", and "Illuminate", this band has completely lost it. "A Collision" was a total disaster, and for a second I somehow thought maybe they would get back on track with this one. Never again will I waste money on DCB. Avoid this CD like the plague, if you haven't already made the same mistake as I did.

The other purchases I made were wedding cards. Both were bargains because I paid the US price.

We then headed over to the fashion outlet where I bought some "Crocs" slippers. Amazingly this was the best purchase I made. Crocs are super comfortable, even if they are ridiculous looking. I got the kind that look like slippers -- open-toed, slippers. These slippers are not ugly, they're just slippers. No silly looking plastic clunkers, just regular slippers with fantastical soles. They are easily the most comfortable pair of shoes/slippers I've ever worn.

Why the Pats are so good, or why the NFL salary cap sucks

Personally I've never been a fan of the New England Patriots. Cheering for them is like cheering for Tiger Woods or Roger Federer -- but none can deny that this is a franchise that has figured it all out. They have figured out the intricacies of the NFL Salary Cap, and built a team that has stood the test of time. Few franchises in professional sports have enjoyed the success that the Pats have attained, and their appears to be no end in sight. Watching last night's game was a great indication to me why the NFL salary system is flawed. The Pats completely dominated the game, in every facet of the game.

In most cases in any sport, you will have a team that dominates offense or defense, but rarely both. Last year's NFL champions were the Colts, a team that dominated offensively. They beat the Chicago Bears, who had the NFL's best defense that year. Even if you look at years past, what helped the Pats win championships in previous years was their stout defense. But this year, the Pats are dominating on both sides of the ball. Their defense is excellent, but now their offense is also excellent.

The analysts talked about how Tom Brady is having such a huge year, now having been surrounded by a cast of very talented receivers. Starting with Randy Moss who is one of the top 2-3 receivers in the league, Donte Stallworth who was the Eagles' #1 WR over the past 2-3 years, and Wes Welker, the all purpose wonder-boy from Miami last season. Adding to that they also have Laurence Maroney, a budding young superstar who's only flaw is probably his injury woes, and a top tight-end in Benjamin Watson.

The scary thing about the success of the Patriots over the past 5-6 years, is like I mentioned, the fact that this team was already loaded with superstars on the other side of the ball -- on defense. Guys like Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison, Asante Samuel, Rosevelt Colvin, Ellis Hobbs, Mike Vrabel. Heck, they even have Junior Seau! It's a wonder how a team loaded with players like these could afford to load up on superstars on the offensive side too!

If there is one thing that the Pats' success over the years has shown, is the flaws in the NFL's salary cap and collective bargaining agreement. In no other league with a cap can you load up on the amount of talent that the Pats have on their roster.

The fact that you can go and front-load a players' salary with a gigantic signing bonus that can be pro-rated over the contract length so that it doesn't hurt the cap rating, and then structure the deal so that it is back-heavy. With non-guaranteed contracts teams can 'conveniently' say goodbye to awful contracts. This is something the New York Knicks (who are $75M over the NBA cap) can only dream of. The ability to restructure contracts, or the fact that contracts are not guaranteed would help Isiah Thomas not look like the buffoon that he is.

The NBA has minimum salary wages, based upon a players' experience in the league, his average pay and the league's average pay. You wouldn't be able to go out and get a Randy Moss and give him a substantial pay cut, because of the rules behind salaries in the NBA. And why wouldn't you take a cut if you could get yourself on a team full of all-stars and not worry about some kind of minimum salary sliding scale. If the NBA were built like the NFL, the Boston Celtics would have no problems adding a solid, if not very capable bench behind Garnett, Allen and Pierce. They'd even be able to restructure each of these superstar contracts and go pick up a Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash or Lebron James for added measure.

You also wouldn't be able to give up essentially nothing to trade in a guy like Moss, because there are trading limitations, based on percentages of salary cost on the players changing teams.

NFL teams also have the ability to create an entirely incentive-based contract, which allows the amount of money counted against the cap to be fairly minimal, depending of course on the types of incentives.

Simply put, there is no way that a team like the current 2007 New England Patriots -- a team that could likely represent the AFC in this years' Pro-Bowl -- could ever be assembled under the NBA Salary structure.

I used to think that the NFL was the great pro-sport league in the world. I still believe that. Yes, the cap system is seriously flawed, but if all teams could figure things out the way the Pats have, we wouldn't have to sit through these blowouts between teams that have the same record but are clearly in completely different leagues.

The NFL is a well-oiled machine that makes a ton of money. There is no league that has sustained its popularity the way the NFL has over the years. Everything about it, from the 16-week grind, to the 80,000+ seating domes, to the fact that at any given play you might break your neck. Football is just awesome, plain and simple.

Some might blame the system but I blame the GMs. Look at a team like the New York Jets. Why in the world do they even use Chad Pennington? After years of inconsistency. The Jets have stuck with Pennington for 5-6 years and he is hurt all the time and sucks. Why do you stick with a guy like that. Why did it take so many years until you drafted a new QB? What if Clemens sucks, will you wait another 5 years of mediocrity before drafting another? And there are teams like this all over the league, making horrible personnel decisions over and over again.

Change

I'm usually pretty good at calculating change. I like it when I have just the right amount such that when I pay, they give me a perfectly even amount with no pennies. Lately though, I've been noticing that I've been getting the wrong change. I have calculated it in my head, but when I look down I see a different amount that I was expecting. It's less. I hate being cheated.

Ever since the value of the Canadian dollar surpassed the US dollar, I have noticed that more and more of the change in my pocket is American currency. I feel like I'm being ripped off. What the heck --- that isn't the Queen! Why is there a White House on my nickel? What's this? An eagle?! Yo, that's not 25 cents. That's like... 24.6 cents.

I want Canadian change please. None of these American 'pesos', thankyouverymuch.

Is there a difference?

What's the difference between shows like Entertainment Tonight versus shows like Sportscentre?

Embezzlement

I've been reading this essay and found it really interesting. Basically what the guy is saying is that the early church gave nearly all of the offering and tithings it received to the poor. Not just to be nice, but as a principle.

I'm not about to say what's the right or wrong way to do things, I'm fully aware of the cost of running a church in terms of the building, rent, taxes, electricity.. all that stuff that comes even before paying the staff.

But I do find it interesting that the early church made it priority to give back to the community first, before worrying about their staff, whereas today's church makes it a priority to look after all its costs first, then whatever is left, may or may not go to the community. Today's tithings and offering benefit the church whereas before they benefited the non-church.

You can take one page out of the tribes of Israel's book. The Levites were assigned to take all the offerings and tithes and give them to those who needed it, ie the poor. The bible says that the clergy were to be entitled to a tithing of the the tithing, which is basically 1%. So we are looking at 9% for the poor and 1% to the church of the total 10% tithe.

If we were to pick a side without knowing the big picture and past history and how these early churches arrived to the decision to give back to the poor.. I mean if i were to just throw caution to the wind, I would tend to agree with the early church. It's really hard to argue against some of these historical leaders and clergy such as Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Augustine, Irenaeus, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Aristides. Not that I know really who any of these people are, but I have heard of them and I do know that they did great things.

I'd arrive to the conclusion that indeed all that money *should* go to the poor. As Shane Claiborne once wrote "I'm convinced that God didn't mess up and make too many people and not enough stuff."

What I'm really talking about here is justice. We need to bring justice. As I mentioned I am fully aware of what it costs to run a church. But if there is no justice, then what's the point of church?

Here's what God has to say about church with no justice, from Amos 5:21-24:

"I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

I can't pretend that I have come up with a grand solution as to how our church could survive if all tithings and offerings were given to the poor. I can't and I won't. Back in the days, they used candles and maybe their sanctuary was outdoors, maybe they lived in countries where there weren't 6 months of winter.

So to sum up:

God is telling me that tithing should go to the poor, and God is also telling me I have to tithe to the church, and the church is spending the tithing on itself.

As Christians we must tithe, and if tithing was meant for the poor and isn't going there, then I must give 9 percent to the poor. If I give my money to the middle man, he or she may put it all into the electricity bill instead of giving it to the poor.

Therefore I need to skip the middle man and give it directly to the poor.

Dear Google,

Are you ever more forgiving of one thing over another? For example, maybe you have one sibling who has an annoying habit that you complain about every time he/she does it, but then someone else in your family has the exact same annoying habit but you look the other way? Another one I can think of is how I am ever-forgiving of Nintendo for not coming out with any good games for the Wii, and continuously tell people that the Wii is awesome even though I haven't played the thing for about 7 months.

What I've been finding is that we're a little like that with Google Mail. When Gmail came out it was the coolest thing ever. It was fast. It had conversations. It had chat. It had POP access. It had 2 gb (and counting) of disk space. It had auto-complete for emails. It had a chat log. The search tool was fantastic. It had great spam protection. It used Ajax so it was quick and functional, no annoying page to page screen loadings. I told everyone I knew about Google Mail and encouraged them to join.

3 years have passed and all the great features are still there. The unfortunate thing is, everyone has caught up to them and surpassed them. That's what happens when you sit around and twiddle your thumbs. Yahoo Mail has every single feature except for the conversations feature. It has chat, it has POP, auto-complete, Ajax. The search is there, and spam protection. It's all there. And it's fast, which is something that can no longer be said about Gmail, which seemingly has slowed down to a crawl. I dunno about you guys but I'm tired of clicking on something in Gmail and seeing that "Loading.." thing popup, and you can't even cancel it, you have no choice but to sit there and wait for it to load. On any other application, if you want to cancel, you press Esc or STOP. With Google mail, you wait. And you wait. And you wait.

Why is it taking so long? Is it wrong to assume that opening an email should be faster than the Google search tool which datamines the entire internet and comes up with a result in less than a second?

Did I mention Yahoo Mail has *unlimited* space? And the spam protection has been upped to a notch where I no longer receive as much spam as I do on Gmail. Did I mention Yahoo Mail has a built-in RSS reader? 1-button to erase all my spam?

3 years is an awfully long time for an application to sit in Beta testing. If any other company put out something that sat in Beta for 3 years, they would have gone out of business by now.

I'm ready for an upgrade, Google. I think we deserve one. Years of us telling people how great GMail is, but now I look back at Yahoo! Mail and see a far superior web-based email application. We need something to back us up on our claims that Gmail truly is the next best thing. I don't want to be called a liar.

Help me be honest.

Yours truly,
ebrian