Passivity

I wish I wasn't so passive. I don't really know how to be assertive. Well, sorta. I've learned a lot in the last few years, but I know I still have much to learn.

The most frustrating thing is that I jump too quickly. On a scale of one to ten (one being calm, ten being angry) I'll start off as a one and then continue to be a one and then something is happening where I need to assert myself and I'll jump all the way up to an eight. I wish I could be more gradual, but I always overdo it, and then people around me get upset, and thus I have learned to just continue being passive and bottle it in.

But I'm trying to change that. It's just hard for me.

3D

I saw Up in 3d tonight. The movie was really good (although I think Wall-E is better). I was surprised by how much I liked the 3d though. It really made me appreciate the movie more. I saw another movie in 3d a long time ago and it was pretty good, but this one was amazing with the colors and visuals. Oh, and they have 3d movies at Disneyland, but they're not nearly as good either. Yeah, this blew me away.

But Amy didn't even really notice it. And someone else told me they forgot it was in 3d by the end. I'm not sure how you could not notice it? I guess maybe cause it doesn't jump out of the screen. But for me it was like looking through a window. Sorta. How else to describe it? It doesn't come out of the screen, but it does go into it. Make sense?


Oh well, I loved the experience. I'm sad I didn't get to see Coraline in 3d.

Lost

A few months ago my external hard drive stopped functioning properly. I was transferring some files that Phil gave me onto the external hard drive so I could free up some space on my computer. Unfortunately, halfway through the process it stopped responding and I was forced to restart my computer which completely messed everything up.

This isn't the first time that hard drive has failed me. I should have known better. The first time it crashed was awhile ago, and luckily I didn't have very much on it at the time, but it was a pain. This time however is a different story. I have this obsession with collecting video clips off the internet. I've been collecting them for 3 years now. You can imagine how many videos I've put onto that hard drive. All that effort and time, potentially gone now.

But there was hope. There are a number of sites online that talk about recovering data that is lost. However, all of them charge a fee. I have about 200gb of data stored. That would roughly cost me about $250 to recover (and there's no guaranteeing it will even recover all my files). Was it all worth $250?

For the most part, the majority of the stuff I've found is still on the internet and can be downloaded again, but it would take time. However there are some things I got that either can't be found anymore, or are really hard to find.

Well, last night I decided to make the decision. Do I shell out the cash, or do I try my best to fix it for free? I came across this one program and it seemed hopeful that that could fix it. I knew it was a risk, but I went for it anyways. I honestly didn't think all of it was worth $250. And I got what I paid for. It did not work...I lost it all :(

I can see all my files, but they're all corrupted. You can't open any of them. I've been randomly clicking on them to see if there's a chance and so far I've only gotten one episode of SNL Celebrity Jeopardy to work, haha.

So how do I feel now that all that time and effort was wasted? That's a good question, and it's one that will require another post.

To be continued...

Two Homes

When parents divorce, it sucks. So why do some parents put even more pain on their kids? I don't understand who thought it would be a good idea to have joint physical custody. I know a couple families where the kids spend one week at mom's house and then one week at dad's house. I think that is purely selfish for the parents.

The kids I've seen that have had to live like that are never happy with their situation. Not only do they have to live in a different house every week (what adult would want to do that?) but they also have a completely different set of disciplinary standards each week. Yay! At Mom's house I'm not allowed to watch certain movies, but at Dad's house I am. Man that's gotta screw someone up.

So they get different conflicting parenting each week, AND they also get the joy of being used by one parent as leverage against the other. Yay again!

So what do I say? In most cases one of the parents is really sucky. I say they should realize they suck and let the other parent raise them full time. You can still have a relationship with your child even if they're not living in your house. Unfortunately, the thing that usually makes the person a sucky parent also makes them sucky at considering other people's best interests.

God have mercy on those children...

COLDPLAY!!!!

I think Coldplay is a mediocre band. They put on a cool little show, but I actually thought Snow Patrol was more inspiring.

That's just my opinion of course. You can like them if you want.

G.I. Joe

As a child, I loved G.I. Joe with an incredible passion. Besides Lego, without a doubt my absolute favorite toy! When I became a teenager I decided it was time for me to give up playing with GI Joes so that I could have a chance to grow up. So I put them all in a box and hid them under my bed. Within a couple days I had already pulled them out to play with them again. I realized it wasn't going to be easy for me to part with my friends so I had to throw them all away. I cannot tell you now how deeply I regret that decision...I almost cry everytime I think about it.

So when I discovered they were making a GI Joe movie, I was slightly excited, but I knew it probably wasn't going to be so good. When I saw the first trailer, I really began to lose all hope. Then Dennis told me he was doing some CGI work for the movie. He also told me it was an absolute gong show. Everything was a mess and he was part of the clean up crew.


How could they even make a movie about GI Joes anyways?!? It's not like the GI Joes had any special powers or anything. Each one specialized in one thing. One guy was good underwater, another guy was good in the snow, this other guy was good with a crocodile, and finally one of them was Native American. As a concept it's lame. There's no way you could make a serious movie about them.


I mean, I loved the cartoon and I read many GI Joe based books, but the thing that made them fun was that it was ridiculous. Seriously, did you know one of the GI Joes main thing was that he was a football player? They took an actual football player and made him into a member of the GI Joe. What could he possible contribute? Oh, and they also added a WWF wrestler...yeah. It's that amazing!

So the movie is coming quickly upon us, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Ha! In fact, I've already had two dreams about it. One dream I was watching the movie and thinking, "This is kinda good, I wonder when it's going to start sucking." But then I woke up and realized my dream was nothing like the actual movie. The second dream I remember thinking, "This is more like the cartoon. Yeah it's not great, but I kinda like this!" Then I woke up and realized once again, nothing like the actual movie is going to be.


Hmm, I still have to see it in theatres anyways. Uggh.

Fire David Letterman!!!

Last night I was watching David Letterman and he kept making these jokes about a protest down the street that was calling for CBS to Fire Dave!

I thought it had to be a joke, cause why would people protest David Letterman? Surely they were being silly, something to do with Conan O'Brien now or something...I don't know.

So then as I was catching up on the media news this morning (which I do everyday actually, is that sad?) I discovered that there actually was a serious Fire Dave! rally outside his studio. People were actually angry at Letterman and it's all because of jokes he made about Sarah Palin's daughter. I think it's all ridiculous and people didn't really understand his jokes, but here are a few comments people were making at the rally:

"At least Jay Leno had interesting people; this schmuck has nobody! You know what ’schmuck’ means in Jewish?"

"Is someone making jokes about his child? Especially when, you know, he had a daughter out of wedlock himself."

"How dare he? When he has a bastard son, and a slut for a wife."

"Keep children safe from David Letterman’s mouth! He will rape them with his mouth! He is a child abuser! He is a verbal pedophile!"

Seriously, I can't believe people are that upset about Letterman's comments. Even Conor, an adamant Letterman hater, wouldn't stoop that low.



Poor crazy Americans. I hope they get over it. Actually, can I start a new conspiracy theory? Let's just say this is Sarah Palin's attempt to stay in the media spotlight so she can become a contender again in 4 yrs. This article points out that Leno made an equally distasteful joke about Sarah Palin's daughter back in September and no one got pissed off then...

I Don't Get It

I don't find Megan Fox attractive. Am I the only one???


She looks completely fake. Maybe that's why guys like her? They fall for her because they've been conditioned to lust for photoshopped models or they are no longer rooted in the real world and don't appreciate real women. She's a terrible actress as well, but everyone knows that.

Language is Powerful

Let's say there's a guy named David. David is from India. In India, David was a respected doctor for over 20 yrs. That was until political pressure forced him to flee from his home. Now he's found his way to Canada to start a new life. However, David does not speak English fluently.

When I worked at Walmart an Indian man came in trying to get his stereo he had just bought to work. I could see his problem and tried explaining it to him, but he could not speak English very well, which left us both very frustrated. In my frustration I remember thinking, "This guy is so stupid, he's living here so why doesn't he learn English?!?"

It dawned on me after he left: For all I know, this guy could be much smarter than me. Even though David was a brilliant doctor in India, here in Canada people would think of him as a moron because he wouldn't be able to communicate with them.

Language is powerful. You cannot truly know what's going on inside someone's head or who they are as a person, if they are unable to communicate with you. Imagine what it would be like to be mute. There is a guy in my church who has lost the ability to speak coherently. You can see the frustration on his face as he tries to tell you something funny he just thought of. I don't really know him, but he is probably incredibly funny and brilliant. I wonder if anyone can really know him now.

And then there's Patty from Peru. A girl I had a brief relationship with who spoke hardly any English whereas I spoke hardly any Spanish. I realized fairly soon there was no point in us trying to make things work out, because I hardly knew her as a person due to our language barrier.

So today I did a message on Science & the Bible with another guy named Pete Tait. I find preaching challenging enough as it is, because I struggle to find just the right words to communicate the concept that is growing inside my head. It was especially difficult today, because I have such difficulty communicating smart things, haha.

There are many books on Science & the Bible that are intelligently written, but I just can't word it the way they do. Not only do I fail at communicating deep and complex matters with scientific terms and in an intelligent fashion, but I also struggle to communicate things that are complex in a simple and easy-to-understand way.

Well, I try my hardest, and I hope for the most part I accomplish my mission. It's just sad to know that a lot of what goes on in my brain cannot fully be expressed to others. Actually maybe that's a good thing...

Taxidermy

When I was a kid, it confused me what stuffing animals had to do with driving a taxi. I don't think that sentence was grammatically correct. Feel free to edit it for me.

When I was a teenager, I thought they should stuff famous people after they die. Then we could visit them in a museum.

Just now I realized that I would like to learn how to stuff animals. I've always wanted to pose them in funny positions. Anyone willing to teach me?

Thoughts From Lent

So lately I've been thinking about this past Lenten season. I always give stuff up for Lent, but this year was unique for some reason. Even though it is months later, I find myself stopping to think, "Oh should I be doing this?"

For example, one of the things I gave up was watching movies by myself. So I'll start watching a movie with Amy and think, "Good, I'm not watching this movie by myself..." and then realize, "Oh, it's not Lent anymore. I could be watching this alone if I wanted to."

Or I'll go to drink a pop and I'll think, "Don't do it, it's not good for you, and you know you don't really want to. You gave it up so easily for Lent, just put it away!" But then I drink it anyways. And then it makes my throat all gurgly because I don't know how to burp.

I'm trying to think more and more, "Why do I do the things I do?"

Why do I watch so many movies?

Why do I avoid people?

Why do I laze around when I could be more active?

I kinda wish Lent was longer.

White Spot

I have a long and deep love and appreciation for White Spot. Whenever we went there as a kid, it was always an excited adventure!


One thing we used to do was guess the number of the next waitress to be called. On the ceiling there was this box that had numbers that would light up to signal something to the waitresses and we would each pick the number we thought would light up next. That was fun.


And I loved getting the pirate pack!!! Actually I remember at one time it was a treasure chest. I'm not sure if that was before the pirate ship or if that was just something special for that time. It always amazed me how they incorporated the meal into the pirate ship. There was a special compartment for the burger and the fries and the drink and the ice cream and the gold chocolate coin. But I especially loved how they used the straw as the mast!!! Ingenius.


The thing I loved the most about White Spot was their Triple O sauce. That stuff was amazing! It always oozed out the back of the burgers giving me a chance to attack it with my fries. So good! I loved Triple O sauce so much that for the most part, everytime I went to White Spot I would have to have a burger. I could get all the other food on this menu somewhere else, but Triple O sauce? Nope, I could only get it there.

But something happened...

I think it was on the ferry to the Sunshine Coast...

They always have White Spot on the ferries...


I ordered the BC burger, as usual...

And something wasn't right...

My burger

tasted

like

cigarettes!!!


I was absolutely disgusted! I couldn't finish it.

And there have been a number of times since when I've eaten a White Spot burger and tasted a hint of cigarettes. I don't know why that is? Is it just me? Did something in my taste buds change or did something in their burgers change?


I still like Triple O sauce, but then by the time I near the end of the burger I start to feel sick. This isn't necessarily because of the cigarette taste, but just something about the Triple O sauce isn't agreeing with me.


So I had a BC burger on the ferry back home from the island last weekend cause I was craving the sauce. And for the last time I felt sick. Yes, the last time. I am giving up on White Spot burgers. I'm sure this will only be a phase, but for now we need to break up.

I smelled cigarettes yesterday and immediately thought of White Spot burgers. I have definitely made the right decision...

What is a Post?

According to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:

"something (as a message) that is published online."

The More You Know.

New Post #2

I am still on the island.

New Post

I am on the island.

And the Winners Are...

The Mutual Friends Competition has come to a close and here are the runner-ups:

7th Place (tie)


Shane Tarnow - 76 mutual friends

Shane came out of obscurity to make it into the top 7, but his trip to Asia took away his focus. Amazing work nonetheless!


Jordie Roste - 76 mutual friends

Either he didn't know about the competition or didn't try.

5th Place


Andrew Learmonth - 77 mutual friends

Yeah, I don't think he reads my blog.

4th Place


Matt Castle - 79 mutual friends

Nor does this yahoo...



And now we come to the top three!





2nd Place (tie)


Jaclyn Sweeney - 83 mutual friends

Jackie and Shane were really the only two who actually put effort into this competition. In a month and a half Jackie jumped up 11 friends. Well done!


Megan Hazelton - 83 mutual friends

I don't think Megan tried very hard, but she did manage to keep the number 2 spot from going to Jackie.

Because there was a tie, there will be no third place prize, but instead both Jackie and Megan will get snacks and a movie on me!

And now the winner...

1st Place


Tyson Kliem - 120 mutual friends

Not surprising, no one had a chance to surpass the great one! Concert and dinner is on me buddy...

(I'm pretty sure Tyson won despite not even knowing he was in the competition)