one step back

after much thought and discussion with my peers and collegues, i've decided not to do a master degree (right now). i feel that i'll be able to grow and learn through the work that i am doing right now, and once i have my p.eng this coming fall i'll have all the titles at the end of my name that i'll need to progress in the future. plus i looked at my schedule during a normal week, and i can't imagine putting two courses, studying, papers and exams into it. i'm a busy person.

another trip north

in what is becoming a normal event for sunday night a small group of us made the trip to blue mountain for some snowboarding. and trina skied. much fun was had by all as the snow fell from the sky all night long. the poor driving conditions made for short lift lines. we hunted out every little hit that we could find to get some air. dave gillis was the star of the evening as he plowed into shawn, nearly ran into me and his coat is green. possibly next weekend will bring us back to the blue mountains you never know what is going to happen.

my never ending quest

my never ending quest is for new music. i love new sounds and styles, great music by great artists, and stuff that makes my mind work when i listen to it.

recently my roommate decided that she was too lazy to fill out a free gift form from telus mobility. upon requesting if i could take the time (which really wasn't that long jana) to fill it out and use it, i went on a music hunt on amazon.ca with a $25 gift certificate.

normally finding new music is easy, i comb through the local hmv or have that new album that i've been waiting for by one of my favourite bands. but with a free certificate i wanted to get us the perfect album or two. because i would get free shipping by spend $39 or more, i bought three albums. and i do mean albums. i'm an album guy, i like awhole album as a piece of music. i rarely by an album for just that one song that i love. if i do, sometimes it works out (gnarls barkley - st. elsewhere) and sometimes it doesn't (fall out boy - from under the corktree). it took abou

t three days of looking over amazon.ca for the perfect albums.

last night i got these three albums in the mail. one for my lighter listening moments, one for my heavier listening times and one that is from a different genre (sampled music). i'll give each a good couple listens this weekend. reviews to come.

air - moon safari

deftones - saturday night wrist

dj shadow - endtroducing.....

my love of machines

yesterday i spent a good 6 hours sitting at a cubicle at the pickering nuclear power plant doing my cbt's (computer based training's). 6 hours of mind numbing power-point training and quizzes. after about 4 hours of just sitting there i really needed a little sugar boost to keep me awake.
i scanned my chooses in the lunch room vending machine and found one of my favourite snacks that i had not enjoyed in a long time. a crispy crunch chocolate bar, sitting in row C, column 10. this is where it all went wrong.

push C ... beep.
push 1 ... beep.
hmmm ... where is the 0 button????
rrrr rrrr rrrr ... blop.
what the ... i didn't want that.

yes, there is no 0 button. there was a 10 button in the bottom corner. so instead of a wonderful crispy crunch chocolate bar i got ... gum. so sad, so sad.

TVO scares the s**t out of me

conversations on the way to blue mt. are always interesting. sometimes i’m surprised about the topics that we get on during the 2 hour drive. later night was no different. a simple conversation about rainbow socks lead to rainbow bright and then all of the great childhood television shows that we loved. as a little side note, dave gillis has an amazing memory for the details of his favourite childhood shows. one of my favourite shows from way back in the day was ‘read all about it’. before the days of HD PRV digital cable there was TVO, ontario’s finest television channel. it had such great shows as ‘today’s special’, ‘sharon lois & bram’s elephant show’, ‘owl tv’ and the very funny ‘parlez-moi’. that French mime gets me every time. but my favourite was ‘read all about it’. now that i’m an adult (that’s still weird to say) i have very vague memories of the show. so I did some surfing to find a fan site about the show. upon doing so i found the picture below of the evil villain from ‘read all about it’. at that exact moment I felt like being electrocuted. i was truly scared. it was some deep childhood memory of being scared during the show that came back to the surface. completey weird moment.


if you want to enjoy the show again, check here.

it's me

i hate photos of me, i am far from photogenic. i feel that the image in my minds eye and the one in the camera lense are two very different things. 'i don't smile like that', 'why is one of my eyes closed' are only two of the many things i think when i see a photo of myself. this is not a lack of self-confidence, far from it. over the past couple years i have become more and more comfortable in my own skin. it is a very important to be happy in your own skin, feelings of discontent can have an affect on all the parts of your life. the truly happy people that i know love themselves and share that love to everyone around them. it's a cool thing to see.

all of this came from a picture (i'm not quite at a thousand words) that i actually like of myself. thanks for the camera dave, and for the shot danielle.

i'm a car pooler

today was the first day that i car pooled with ben. the wonderful rain/freezing rain/snow didn't make the drive much fun, but the passenger did. ben and i spent most of last winter driving together to blue mountain to go snowboarding. seeing that i was unemployed and ben was semi/part time employed we made the 2 hour trip to craigleith ontario many times. with this years lack of snow these adventures have not happen, and now that ben is in med-school i don't see them happening to often. but the car ride to work and school should be great to keep updated on our lives. things seem to happen and move fast in toronto.

in other news, i finally broke down today and bought some lotion. this winter has been really dry and i've been itching for weeks now. so with the advice of a 'happy' little voice i got myself some lotion. the only thing is that i can't reach the very middle of my back. hmmm, what to do?

i'm alive

i've been at a job site all week, and my internet is down at home (aka the free wireless web i've been 'using' stopped working). so that's where i've been. work.

a couple steps closer

i got an amazing email this weekend on saturday. after not talking to any of my professors for the last three years, i emailed my fourth year project advisor (and professor) for a letter of reference to get into a masters program at u of t. so she replied to me on saturday with a yes. that's awesome, step one.

i also got a my official transcript in the mail today. i had so quickly forgotten the marks that i got in university. it turns out that i got some good marks in 4th year. i need a mid b average in my fourth year to get into this program. and i have an average above that in both of my semister's. excellent, step two.

more steps to come.

it has to come back

just in case you forgot, this is what snow looks like. i miss it.

music and it's moods

i've been listening to top-40 hip-hop and dance music for the last month straight. to prepare music playlists for what was 'the greatest NYE ever'. but the night has past, and i don't have to listen to that music again. but i don't know what i want to listen to now. it's happened before. i was listening to lots of emo and punk-rock this summer before going to the warped tour. i think that i may return to what i always do. look for more new music.

i have an addiction. it's music. i consume it like the swiss chalet dinners before the NYE party (man we were hungry). the latest band that i've bought is Cansei de Ser Sexy or CSS. cool band from brazil with a great disco-punk sound. plus their lead single is called 'let's make love and listen to death from above'. death from above 1979 is one of my favourite bands from 2005. it's very sad that they parted ways.

got a band that i should listen to? leave a comment or link.

big word: addiction (9 letters)

the greatest NYE ... and the funniest

i'm pretty sure that i saw all my readers (but ben) at NYE at the castle. i've got to say, it was an an amazing party. at midnight kenneth counted 175 people in the house, and more came in after the midnight hour. so i feel comfortable saying that we made our guess of 200 people. that is crazy, the house was packed.

easily the best part of the night was only enjoying by a small number of us (11 if i remember properly, oh ya plus 2 others). for the 187 people that missed the event, here it is.

the mass exodus from the party started around 2am. the organizers started cleaning up cups and food and some general cleaning. we called for the last two cabs at around 3am. it was going to take 45 minutes for the cabs. so we all went upstairs and started dancing again. around 3:45am, we came back down and waited for the cabs on the staircase. then it happened, a complete random couple came out of the basement (no one was in the basement all night), walked straight for the door and left. we looked in amazement at each other, then laughed loud enough i'm sure the couple heard us. it was pandemonium.

the questions started about what happened. who were they? how long had they been down there? WHAT had they been doing down there? and more importantly, on what? it's a dirty empty basement.

as one person said, 'they so did it down there'

best NYE ever. thank you everyone.

big word: pandemonium (11 letters)