Lunchables.

When I was younger, there was always this huge sense of competition during lunch time. Soon as the lunch bell rang, everyone would hastily toss their notebooks and writing paraphernalia into their desk and dash outside to their coat racks to grab their lunch from their backpack. After dashing back to our respective desks, everyone would have their lunch bag in front of them.

The first basis of competition i like to call the comparative sickness of the lunchboxes. I remember for the span of junior kindergarden to grade two, i had a red plastic box that i brought my lunch in... it looked like a first aid kit (wownerd). I felt so damn stupid next to all of my friends (My definition of a friend back then was pretty much anyone who would agree with me when i said Charizard was cooler than Venusaur... is that how you spell Venusaur? Can't believe the day has finally come when i've started forgetting how to spell Pokemon...) who had the coolest freaking boxes possible. I to used wonder where they even found them, like if there was some top secret cool lunch box hut store shop retailer guy where everyone went to get their lunchboxes. Honestly, when i looked at the ones that everyone else had, I would just get an instant feeling of inadequacy. What kind of grade 3 gets that feeling huh? One who looks like a paramedic among superheroes. My friends were all honorary superheroes at the time. I know it was true because "the red ranger lunch box makes me an honorary red ranger, so i could beat up your daddy" and "i could climb on walls if i wanted to. See? i have a spiderman lunchbox, it means i could beat up your daddy". What was everyone's obsession with beating up my dad? He's actually really nice guy. Lucky for me though, sometime in grade four, my mom bought me this really freaking awesome Hot Wheels (trademark, copyright blah blah) lunch bag with tire treads on the bottom. That shut everyone up. I wish i still had it...

Immediately after lunch bag comparison followed the relative tastiness of the lunch contained within the super cool lunchbox. I find it really funny that grade fours squabble over who's lunch would be the "best-est-est" when to be honest, it's something they really have no control over. Well i guess that's not completely true. I had no control over it. Everyone else would always tell their mommies what to pack for them, and they would always get it, because they're moms are SOFFTTTT. My mom wasn't soft. If i ever asked her to give me something other than what she had already made for me (usually a PB&J sandwhich. One of the four she had tossed together that morning for her four kids who weren't very appreciative) she'd say "Sure! you can have a roast turkey for lunch instead of a sandwhich... so long as you make it yourself." Obviously i'd take the sandwich. I remember very clearly that the trump card of all lunches back then were the Kraft Lunchables Snack Packs. You know which ones i'm talking about, the plastic wrapped pre-made "meals" if you could call 5 crackers and some toppings a meal. I find it very ironic that plastic would be served in a plastic wrap. Seriously, those things were so bad for you. I don't know if anyone else read the nutrition values or even just the label, but i remember clearly that it said that it contains cheese food instead of just saying that it contains cheese. Wonder why? I'll give you a hint. It's because it's probably not cheese. It's probably a homogeneous mixture of plastic, chemicals and maybe a little bit of cardboard with rat poison to top it off. (PS. if you happen to be a worker at one of the companies i'm poking fun at, just know i'm only poking fun... well not really. It actually did taste like cardboard) Why the hell was this the trump card...

Finally, everyone would scarf down their lunch within seconds and the first person to do so would win, defeating the purpose of fighting over who's lunch tastes the best since no one really even had time to taste their lunch. Oh grade school, i miss you. Who's up for some nostalgia? Let's go buy some lunchables.

Persians

Classical Studies. The bane of my existence.

If you come to my face and ask me if i enjoy (RIFQI SAYS HI. SO DOES NIKKKITA that's nikita with a triple k.) engineering vector calculus, i'll go off onto a tangent and find some kind of disconnected way of telling you that i hate it and that it's raping me in bum. But in the back of my mind, buried so deep that this is one of the few times that i'll actually come straight out and admit it, i know that it genuinely interests me. Vectors are just so freaking cool.

This is where i juxtapose classics and vectors.

Classics is all about wars and Greece and Rome and death and those crazy smart kings and leaders who seized power by outcasting their enemies and eventually having them killed and stuff all in the middle of huge interoceanic wars and the Persians disturbing the shit everywhere. Yeah. It sounds pretty darn cool because in your head you're remembering that scene from 300 where the deezed guy with airbrushed abs runs through some scrawny little dude with a wicker shield (honestly? wicker shields? i don't even trust my chairs to be made out of the stuff, why would you... nevermind) with his huge hundred-pound spear and there's blood flying everywhere and there's testosterone in your eyeballs and the whole thing is really freaking cool. I know because that's exactly what i was thinking when Taylor suggested that we take the course; "Yeah man, Classics? People killing each other and sacrificing virgins to their multiple gods? Sounds interesting" but somehow i manage to lose my enthusiasm in the actual course. It gets diluted so much that i would much rather be in vectors class learning how to turn cartesian into polar. Which by the way i still can't do after having studied the topic in about 5 different courses over the years... it's not that hard jubs.

I think what i want from the course is just all of the really cool details. I just want the prof to stand at the front of the lecture hall and show us pictures and stories of manly men that i can tell myself in my head i can beat up even though they probably would have weighed about three of me and could have taken on about three of me at the same time anyways. I wanted to hear more stories like Oedipus Rex gauging out his own eyes because he slept with his own mother cause he didn't know any better... what an idiot. What i don't want is what i'm getting which is the dry analysis of why every single detail. When learning about the Persian invasion, i'll be honest, i don't care what the bowls they used to wash their clothes were made out of, or what size the blocks of salt used to preserve meat were made out of (who would -_-''). People were fighting for their lives and we're talking about bowls and salt. Focus people, focus.

I remember back in grade 10 when i was studying the world wars, my teacher made it so damn interesting for us. He explained to us military tactics, gun models, carpet bombing accuracy and death statistics, all without numbing the class to the amount of human life which was actually lost during the time and impressing upon us the shittiness of war. That was a good history class.

I really hope my professor somehow stumbles upon this blog and takes the hint.

And i'm really glad i wasn't around during the Persian invasion. I learned that much.

Chapter 2: Party Hats

This is chapter two to the story i started way back in june. I kinda stuck the whole thing on the back burner for a really long time because... i got lazy? yeah let's go with that. Anyhow, here's the very short chapter 2 that i started back in june as well and just finally re-edited. Chapter one can be found here.

"You've never looked more stunning."

With a pale face, huge eye bags, and wearing an oversized hospital gown covered in dogs wearing party hats, it was hard to believe him. I had spent the last 3 days bedridden in this dull hospital room. Even past the recovery process, doing nothing was more draining than I would have ever expected. I had been sleeping sixteen hours out of every day, and in the few hours I was awake all I thought about was when I could go back to sleep next.

"Thanks, I try"
"Dogs with party hats though? Really?"
"Don't even. You wish you had a butt flap like mine."
"How are you feeling Lincoln?"

His face became much more serious now. He was genuinely worried and I could see it, and it wasn't just because this injury would mean he would lose his number one right wing assister. I knew I couldn't lie to him in my answer. Eric and I had known each other since late middle school. Nearly every bit of mischief I had ever been a part of, he had led me into. He could see right through me. I told him the truth.

"It's not going so well. The doctor says I got lucky but I'm still going to have to spend at least another two weeks in the hospital. After that, I might have to be in a wheelchair for a while and go through rehab; they couldn't remove the bullet."
"Come on Link, it can't be that hard to get out. I swear my dad has an extra chainsaw..."

Classic Eric attitude. When things get too serious, just throw a bad joke into the mix and hope everyone can laugh it all off.

"Eric. The bullet is lodged right next to my spinal cord. If they operate..."

He was already still but somehow he instantly became unbelievably statuesque. He was staring at a spot on the wall which was no different from any other spot and no more interesting. We both knew that a bullet next to the spinal cord was anything but good. Eyes still on the wall, he sat down in slow motion. His mind must have been buzzing.

Eric knew there really wasn't anything he could say to make either of us feel better so he grabbed the remot control and flicked on the TV. The news. A mundane reporter was going on about how a serial arsonist had finally been brought in but was pleading innocent. The accused even went so far as to say that he he didn't remember doing any of the crimes he was being charged for. What a load of bull. People thinking that they can cheat the system like that. The only thing worse is that they get away with it half the time.

"So I guess soccer this year is a no go..."
"Well we could always stick you in net. Even if you couldn't move you'd do a much better job than Jacob"
"Fudge you, Eric."

I didn't say fudge.

PEY

gds\\dfzrr\gg\ggg\sdsfRhdfg\dy\65666yzdfgdgfdgzdzssrrzgdwhsr\etrtwzh. gfdsh.

okay so that wasn't me... moving on.

It's just hitting me now that i'm going to graduate alone. Not that i wasn't aware of it a year before now but i'm kinda just realizing what that actually means.

Sadly the rest of my engineering friends are deciding to make the smart financial choice and take a professional year, meaning that in the year during which i would be doing my fourth year of studies, all of them are going to be going out into the real world getting real jobs, making real money and picking up real bitches and hoes, not the digital ones that i download. For some reason, i appear to be the only engineer who isn't convinced that I should take this extra year and so there you have it my friends, I will be burying my nose in super-thick textbooks during a year of fun for my colleagues.

At first i was kinda like "hey, that means i get outta university a year earlier than all of them. Oh ho ho, that makes me so much smarter and awesome than them. That means i can start my real life even sooner!" but then i realize now, why do i WANT to start my real life yet? I don't think i do... the day that i have to actually start working in a big company and start making money for someone else; and taking only a fraction of the profits for myself... i think is going to be a sad day. I much prefer pretending that i'm being a very hardworking student (BAHAHHAHAHAHAH) and hanging out in the library "studying" (studying in this context actually refers to busting out multiple laptops with a group of friends and headshotting newbs for 5 hours straight and being obnoxiously loud while the real engineers are nerding it up behind us and deriving delta epsilon proofs). I could "study" for the rest of my life. Life is pretty darn fun right now, minus the odd test that i completely bomb and then tear up and stick into an uncleaned toilet (by odd test i mean every single one, excluding none)(how the heck do the engineering toilets get SO dirty... honestly if you can write organized and clean notes, you should be able to do your business cleanly too.)

The worst part though is that i'm going to have to go through that whole fourth year all by myself -_- There will be no one to share my pain when i get, to put it lightly; ass raped and then executed in my quantum physics class of the future. There will be no one who will share the humiliation with me of being laughed at for listening to Taylor Swift full blast while studying. Who will get sick with me after eating low grade meats from anywhere that'll offer a meal for less than 4 bucks? The answer my friends (or lack thereof) is no one because they'll be busy with their BITCHES AND HOES and lotsa CHEDDAR. I honestly don't know how i'm going to make it through that year alive.

And i know that to some of all of the 3 of you who are reading this post, the idea has arisen in your mind; "why don't you just make new friends with whom the perils and horrors of engineering may be shared?". My answer is short and sweet. Nah. I'm too lazy.

HOWEVER. After all of this complaining, there is one truth that keeps me incredibly comforted. I'MMA GET MY BEAUTIFUL ENGINEERING IRON RING A YEAR BEFORE ALL Y'ALL BITCHES. SO SUCK IT.

Have a good night :D

Pee

I would just like to say that it's really awkward for me to hear grunting in the washroom.

I was going about my business at the urinal today when the men's room door bursts open and a fellow student comes bounding towards the next vacant pee station. His fly was down before he arrived and assumed the position, and the whole time, he was panting as if he had just run 3 marathons. He then proceeded to do his own business while continuing to pant. This was such an awkward occurrence that i actually stopped midstream to wait for him to exit the same room as me.

I feel like people near the age of twenty should have enough experience in bladder management that they do not have to sprint to somewhere before they explode. It causes awkward situations for any witnesses. That said, i am very sympathetic towards this poor soul.

Stinky Pelvis.

I was having a nice time with a bunch of good friends on a nice pre-halloween night this past weekend at the Palms nightclub when a not-so-nice guy decided to come by and cause a kerfuffle.

Now, as I've previously stated, i don't pretend to be anything close to a mastermind of clubbing, and i don't see myself as one who even knows much about clubbing, but there are a few club-etiquette points that i personally believe everyone should know without having to have someone point it out for them. One of these would be the following:

It is ill advised to attempt to force your stinky pelvis in between two matching-costumed-couples who are happily dancing with each other and not even noticing that you exist. It may possibly annoy people. Especially if you are smoking a cigarette just because you think it looks cool and are sporting a stink face.

Maybe i was just born as an enlightened individual and it wouldn't be fair to expect other people to know that this would cause trouble, but I am doubtful this is the case. What is for sure though, is that the individual who tried to stick his stinky pelvis between a pair of my friend couples was not born as an enlightened individual because if he was, he wouldn't have tried that.

Even if i ever did make the mistake of trying this, i like to believe i would have the gall to swallow my pride, and walk away; save face. But this particular child decided against it, and instead tried to overcompensate for his shortcomings by getting in my good friend's face, and shoving him with remarkably unimpressive strength.

At this point i must pause to chuckle because the only friend who was with this guy neglected to offer his support, and laughed at him. I guess that's when you know you're in the wrong. Unfortunatlely, this guy still didn't understand, and it took the glares and close proximity of 7 more of us for him to get the hint. Fortunately, this guy's friend pulled him away so quickly that he was tripping over himself trying to continue looking tough towards us.

I'm not a tough guy and i don't get to look like a tough guy very often so i really enjoyed watching this guy walk away. Or rather get pulled away. I only realized now though that i must have not looked very tough at all in my halloween costume; a blue colour coordinated eighties gym teacher with knee high socks, an old school headband, a tight white tee and short shorts. Bravo, Justin.

pigeon

So... pigeons are really starting to piss me off cuz they're always getting in the way and walking around with their heads bobbing; strutting their stuff like they're all that. So since they only ever fly out of your way if you seem like you're going to end their life, i like to give them a bit of a scare.

Today, as i was walking to school in an exceptionally bad mood because of the midterm that i have this afternoon, i was came across a particularly stubborn pigeon who just stood still in the middle of the sidewalk, not moving with it's ass facing towards me, as if to jeer. As i got closer, my urge to kick it just got bigger and bigger, and by the time i was right next to it, it had still not budged. I launched my foot towards it. It still didn't move, and i had to pull my leg back at the last second so as to not actually ruin its life indefinitely. Angry because i had lost the game of chicken, yet simultaneously confused, i walked in a detour around it. As my viewing angle changed, i realized that the pigeon had only one leg that it stood on, and it was doing so with difficulty, shaking from strain. No wonder it didn't head bob out of my way; it couldn't.

I tripped and fell up the stairs on my way to the library. Karma at its finest.

smugglin

Stupid things make my day.

The other day, Leon, JF and i were studying in the library late at night when hunger started to get the best of all of us. It's funny how i can be working extremely efficiently on engineering economics calculating the net present worth of canada savings bonds, and be completely content doing so, but as soon as JF mentions being hungry, the thought of food possesses my mind until i eat. Suddenly, quantities of Candian dollars don't mean anything to me, and i can't comprehend their size unless i think in terms of "100 Canadian dollars is equivalent to 25 street meat sausages, 10 hot tofu soups, OR SEVENTY ONE POINT NINE FOUR TWO MCDONALD'S BACON CHEESEBURGERS" That's pretty much 72 bacon cheeseburgers minus a baby bite. I'm making myself fiend for a cheeseburger right now just thinking about it... Anyways the point of this paragraph, since i haven't made it very clear, is that once there's food on my mind, i have to have it.

That night, when JF said those night-changing words "are you going to eat?" sushi popped straight into my mind and latched on to my lobes with adhesive ice picks. Luckily for me though, a new sushi restaurant had just opened accross the street just a couple of months earlier. (before, if i had wanted sushi i'd have to take something like a 15 minute walk to find a place in chinatown; not that i wouldn't do it, but it adds to the food wait.) Our game plan was that Leon and i would head over to grab some takeout and JF would stay back to watch our stuff. So we headed out, my face lit up because i was so excited for the food to come.

In my mind, sushi take out looks something like one of those containers that you grab from the supermarket. Small, sweet, and easily stowable under a jacket if one hypothetically wanted to sneak it into the library, out of sight from prying eyes so that he... or she could enjoy it at the second floor studying area in a comfortable recluse of bookshelves with some good friends. So when we ordered 3 takeout bento boxes, and were given an individual takeout box for each of the of 5 parts of the 3 boxes (do the math, that's 15 takeout boxes), i was mildy surprised. We had three plastic bags, each filled to capacity, and ballooning outwards as if they would explode at any second, and Leon and i had to find a way to get them past the all-seeing librarian. I came up with the idea that we would hold the bags with our left hands (the librarian sits on the right side of the entrance) so that we could mask the goods with our respective girths. Even with such a genius plan, i was pretty darn anxious as we approached the library entrance. To our surprise, the librarian was not at her guard post, and we had a small window of opportunity to book it up the stairs with our styrofoam take out boxes squeaking REALLY FREAKING LOUD as they rubbed against each other. The students who were quietly studying gave us death glares. I don't blame them, the gyoza was smelling heavenly.

On the second floor, there are not usually any library staff, but due to the nature of the building, sound carries really easily to the first floor. The three of us proceeded to pig out as silently as possible, carrying out a mid-library picnic with about a dozen fellow late-night studiers glaring at us constantly, probably constructing plans in their minds on how to kill us so that they could dig in to some wasabi-peppered sashimi.

There is something that just feels so right about wiping my hands clean on a napkin while posted above me is a sign reading "love your library, no food allowed" and then tossing away a huge pile of styrofoam into a wastebasket which is not adequately sized for food waste. I just felt so accomplished, like i'd pulled of my own personal Ocean's 11 but instead of trying to smuggle something out of a casino, it was a very conspicuous reverse-direction smuggling.

I feel like this is one of my greatest life accomplishments. My own way of rebelling. Take that, conformity.

Identification.

Since school's just begun, the workload hasn't picked up just yet, and this semester is fabled to be the easiest of all for mechanical engineers, i've been coasting through school so far. The majority of what's been covered has been review and any new concepts have been unimpressive at best. Such an atmosphere has paved the way for many idle nights and so i've been out to the club once or twice recently.

Now I don't club a lot, but i've gone enough times to see a couple of trends.

1. The more you go, the less you know what you're doing (true for Justin Hugh anyways).
The first time in my life that i went to a club (sometime in the middle of last year), i had a generous amount of alcohol in my system and a hefty pair of beer goggles on. I wasn't really walking straight, and my "dancing" made me resemble a kangaroo with one broken leg playing jump-rope. Any time a female happened to pass by my front side, i'd attempt to dance, i mean "dance" with her straight away. My success rate was probably about 3... percent. But i'd just keep at it all night. Nowadays, a year later, there is only ever half the amount of alcohol in me at a maximum, i actually take some time to see people's faces when they pass by, and i now dance like LEON WU which is far less attractive than a crippled roo if you ask me. I actually try to strike conversation with people now before i start "grinding up", with my most clever lines; "hey, dance with me", or "hey, dance with my friend". Me trying to be smooth ends up having a reduction effect on my success rate, bringing it down to about 0.3 percent... :( Don't think too much Justin, just be the babbling idiot that you were before and you'll be more successful... shouldn't take too much effort.

2. Gender Balance is non-existent.
There's always a lot more eels rather than caverns. And i've never really had a taste for eel... In my head, when someone says "hey, let's go to a club" i picture me dancing with a cornocopia of females. In reality, when i get to the club with that someone, i see a dozen creepers staring down a single girl who is too scared to even twitch for fear that the creeper posse will pounce on her. That kind of dynamic makes for an awkward party. I try to be more of an observer of this phenomenon rather than involved in it.

3. IDs are useless.
Last year, at the door to the club, i used an ID that could possibly have been but was not necessarily, not me. And the picture of the person who was hypothetically on this ID did not really look like me. Somehow, i never had any trouble whatsoever getting in. It was always a single glance at the card, a glance at my face, and a slight nod of approval followed by me nervously shuffling my way inside. Now that i am using my driver's license as my ID, there has never been a time when i've been admitted without playing 21 questions. The bouncer always looks at the card, then to my face, then back to the card, then back to my face, then back to the card THEN BACK TO MY FACE. Sadly, the person on the card in the bouncer's mind, is not me (even though it IS me) but he SHOULD THINK THAT he's me if he used his discretion. I look down, back up, what is it? My ID IN HIS HAND; the ticket to that place i want to get into. THE BOUNCER IS NOW SKEPTICAL. I'm between a rock and a hard place. (i really hope you read those past couple of sentences in the Old Spice commercial voice, because i most definitely did). But seriously, i get asked my address and postal code nearly every time now, when i'm using my LEGITIMATE ID. Although that could of course be a function of me looking like a vietnamese refugee gangster anarchist when i was 16. And not to mention that one time when i was asked my height, and in my stupor, i replied "7 and a half" instead of "5"7 and a half". Anyways, you get my point.

What a true engineer i am, always looking for trends. Now if only i could figure out how to express a variable success rate as a function of free variables and dependent variables i could skew my results to yield a good night for Justin. Nawt.

Milk.

So i was drinking milk.

The random thought hit me.

"Who the hell was the first person to drink milk?"

I mean ever. I'm sure humans have been drinking milk for a freaking long time but what was going through the guy's head who was the first to try it?

"I wonder what would happen if I pulled really hard on those dangly thingies underneath that large fat animal... hey! stuff's coming out, i think i'll drink it."

Not to mention that nowadays we skim and process our cows milk, and i'm sure that wasn't the case back then. Just imagine what raw cow's milk straight from the udder tastes like. I have a feeling it's sour. Ew sour milk.

After having that thought, i couldn't finish my glass of milk.

i am drinking bodily fluids, i am drinking bodily fluids, i am drinking bodily fluids.

Mysterygunk.

I don’t like buying pants. It’s not because I don’t like pants, or that I don’t think it’s worth spending the money on, or that I dislike shopping. It’s the disappointment that wounds me every time.

When I go looking for pants, I want them to fit properly, which means that I have to try them on, test them out, and ask a friend if it makes my butt look more abnormally small than it already is (seriously, it may as well be concave). The problem is that the tiny little changerooms that stores give you are barely even large enough to turn around in. If you have enough space to take a full stride to see how stretchy your pants are or how much it crawls up your hips when you take a step, then you’re one lucky bugger cause I don’t think I’ve ever found a room like that. The other option is to just step outside of your room, into that hallway that connects all the rooms, and stare at yourself in the oversized mirror that’s inevitably present in all dressing rooms. But this means allowing everyone to see your pant-buying-ritual, it’s exposing… it makes me feel naked.

Fortunately for me a friend was looking to buy a dress shirt a couple of months ago so I tagged along, since shopping for someone else is the best time to shop for yourself; you can just sneak off and do your own thing and no one will notice because they’re too busy trying to find the right size shirt for Joe, or 3 inch, not 2 inch heels for Molly. During this time, I managed to come across a pair of pants that looked decent, and so I split away from the group and tried them on. They were SPLENDID. Black pants that are half jeans, half dressy, and extremely soft and comfortable. Not to mention, they were size 29, which absolutely no one sells, but for some odd reason I managed to find. Of course I promptly bought them and snuck my way back into the shopping group to find a “Salmon, not pink” shirt.

Since that day, these pants have been my absolute favourite. When I wash them, they’re my only article of clothing that I actually take care of and read the washing instructions for. But to my horror, about a week ago, I stuck my hands into my right bum pocket only to be greeted by a patch of sticky white gunk lodged into the corner seam. I have absolutely NO idea what it is, or how and when it got there.

First reaction: “What the…”

Second: “How did that…”

Third: “HELL NO”

Do not make decisions when you are angry, frustrated, or upset, it is a well known fact that you will make the wrong decision 57 out of 59 times. Try it, it’s true. And those aren’t very great odds. What do you do when you have a clothes that are dirty? Throw them into the washer obviously. What do you do when you have a pair of pants that just came out of the washer? Hit up the dryer, no doubt. What I received from the dryer was my favourite pair of pants with no white gunk in the bum pocket. The white gunk was gone, and in its place was a plate of dark grey CONCRETE. If I had any hopes of getting it off, I completely missed the bus because this stuff is going to stay forever. My favourite pants and I managed to ruin them badly enough that it will forever look like I sat on an extrea steamy bird crap.

I know it’s a nearly impossible favour to ask of any of you since this is just something that everyone has to do as soon as they see me but… try hard not to look at my bum over the next couple of months.

Wonderful.

DISCLAIMER: If you happen to be reading this, and fall into one of the following groups;

• One of the Wondergirls themselves
• A fellow attendee of the wonderful Wondergirls concert
• Someone who is extremely cynical and mean and wants to destroy my hopes and dreams

then keep in mind that this post contains extremely high levels of sarcasm and self flattery, neither of which are to be taken seriously... unless you happen to actually be a Wondergirl and would like to give me a private concert, because, you know, i'd probably shoot myself in the foot for a chance like that. Seriously though, don't take me seriously.

Just recently, a young asian male, 5"7.5, 64 kilograms was spotted in a room filled with young preteen girls, with a small camcorder in his hand. Said male was reported to have been filming the 5 incredibly good looking wondergirls who traveled all the way from Korea to Justin's own hometown, just to throw him a concert. This man is wanted for being far too happy to be seen in public, because anyone who sees him would become so green with envy that they would internally combust.

It's nearly a week later now, and i'm still in such huge disbelief that i got to see the Wondergirls live last monday night. Yes, they are comparable to being the Spice Girls of Korea. Yes, there have been many people who've laughed at me, ridiculed me, and disagreed with my music tastes, but i endured all of these things because my love for the Wondergirls is undefeatable

Arriving in the building, it was pretty apparent that Nikko and I were the black sheep in the huge HUGE flock waiting to get into the theatre. At least 95% of the audience was composed of asian girls under the age of 16, and their boyfriends. Sadly, i do not belong to this group of people, contrary to what many people said when i told them about the concert... sticking out like a sore thumb ended up working to my advantage though, since the Wondergirls couldn't help but stare our way the whole time *i only wish it were true D: *

I like to think it went down something like this...

Sohee: "Hey, is that two guys that i see right in the farthest back seats that could possibly be purchased here?"

Lim: "No, you must be seeing things, those two are screaming like 5 year old girls"

Sun: "Yeah, you're right, they just won't shut up, i can't hear anyone else screaming because they're just so loud, they must be extremely excited to see us, we should probably go hang out with them because they seem super-awesome"

Yenny: "Don't be stupid, that's Justin and Nikko, the two people we came all the way to Mississauga for. Oh and not to mention Ria who's going to be the 6th wondergirl in the near future."

Yubin: "Get your own boyfriend, Justin is mine"

This has been one of the very few concerts that i have been to in my life, so it might not sound like much when i say that it was the absolute BEST one... but rest assured, even in the case that i had been to hundreds, i am sure that i would be saying the same thing. The singing made me want to cry with intense joy, and the dancing sent chills down my spine. Congratulations Wondergirls, you've made a screaming, babbling, drooling idiot out of me, but i'm alright with that. Just remember, i may have asked each of the five of you to marry me, but that doesn't mean you have to fight over me, I would be glad to make the sacrifice of marrying all five of you.

Good luck in the rest of your tour, and thanks for the great show!

Laundry.

Winnie has brought it to my attention that laundry is something that deserves blogging recognition. Absolutely correct in my opinion. Good catch Ol' Chap.

You would think that i don't have a heck of a lot to say about laundry seeing as i only learned how to do my own laundry about a year ago. Yeah i'm useless. But i think that my lack of laundratic training in my early years only gives me more to say about it. It's because when i finally learned how to do it, it was like i was being exposed to a whole new world of wonders. Laundry is wonderful for so many reasons.

Mommy appreciates it. When i do my own laundry *this rare phenomenon only legitimately occurs once in a blue moon, and should not be quoted or expected to be continuously occurring* my mother loves it. She seems to beam with pride every time i exit the laundry room, having finished loading my laundry, as if to say "I am satisfied that my son has turned out to be not completely useless and is actually able to carry out a simple, easy task" It must be true that after all of these years, my mom's had to lower her standards so that there will actually ever be times when she can be proud of me. For instance, me doing my laundry for once.

The clothes fit nicely. Has anyone else noticed that after you wash and dry your clothes, they fit amazingly? Somewhere in the process of wearing my clothes, I manage to make them all stretchy and baggy, and they start to hang off of me like i got shrunk'ded. BUT after a quick toss in the dryer, my jeans and shirts hug my skin oohhhh so comfortably... and makes my bum look good :D

The smell. This is the single most amazing part of laundry. THE SMELL. I purposely put in something that's probably double the amount of fabric softener that you actually need into my laundry loads, JUST so that when i'm done, and the clothes are all warm and fluffy, and smelling incredible, i can just lie face up on my couch and put my newly cleaned clothes on my face, and just BREATHE amazingness. Such moments make life worth living.

So all of you should do laundry very often. Cuz it makes your butt look nice and smell good.

Utter Confusion.

DISCLAIMER: If you are easily disgusted or do not like reading about gross stuff, TURN AWAY. If not, read on and enjoy :D

The clock strikes 5 o'clock and my head snaps up. Yes, i can leave now. I pack all of my things in a jiffy like I normally do when I'm allowed to leave work because it's really nice to get home and just be lazy.

I pop in my mouth one of those heavenly chocolate mints that Sean so graciously bought me for my birthday, being careful not to bite, and just let it melt there so that it will last as long as possible. Such a small mint can make what would be 5 boring minutes into 5 minutes of pure taste-gasm.

All of a sudden i get the feeling that I'm forgetting something, but try as i might, i can't figure out just what it is. I'm frantically looking around the room trying to find whatever it is i had left behind, when suddenly it hits me. I had to pee. I always pee before I leave.

Mint still in my mouth, i skip happily along to the washroom. All is well, soon I will have an empty bladder, and will be on my way home to watch North Korea win the world cup (i wish). Little did I know the troubles that were in store for me. I entered the bathroom and chose my urinal; the farthest one from the door, you have to give yourself as much time and space to stop mid-stream and button up your pants in the event of a washroom-mugger (this rule holds unless said urinal is overflowing with questionably coloured fluids - happens more often than you'd think). I then proceeded to urinate.

First of all, shut up. Everyone urinates, there's no need to cuss me for being the one to address it. And secondly, this is a very important milestone in the story. This is because, once you've started peeing, and i know this is true for almost everyone, there are few things that will cause you to stop voluntarily (one of those things being a washroom-mugger).

This is the exact moment when the massive confusion hit me. Everyone knows that smell and taste are linked in their own awkward way. It's not quite a direct relationship, but change one, and the other responds accordingly. Not so unlike the fact that if the world was a few thousand kilometres more away from or nearer to the sun, we'd all grow gills or wings, or at least that's what I'd like to believe. Anyhow, at this moment in time, I was tasting the incredible minty goodness of my chocolate patty while simultaneously smelling the rancid stench of old musty washroom and urinal cakes.

I was so confused. On one hand, the usual unpleasantry of the washroom was a little softened because of the joy that the candy brought me. On the other, I wanted to yack because smells were entering my nostrils, making their way into my taste-buds somehow, and pervading my flavour bliss. I was forced to consider my options.

1. Stop peeing and enjoy my now tarnished mint until i finish it, at which point i would resume the urination process, but with the satisfaction of having a minty-fresh mouth.
2. Spit the mint patty into the urinal, eliminating the chaotic simultaneous clash of senses, and cutting down on the time before arriving home, but with the risk of backsplash (ew), and the horrible idea of having wasted something so precious.
   
3. Stick it out like a real man (pshh no)
4. Distract myself by humming and dancing to old cartoon theme songs.

I hadn't ever been so confused and so utterly unable to make a decision since all of the times when a new pokemon installment came out and i had to choose one of the two editions (red, silver, ruby, platinum, soul silver. Yeahbaby). Eventually though, i couldn't put off peeing any longer, i couldn't deal with the risks and waste of spitting out the patty and I am not a real man. I distracted myself with old cartoon theme songs.

My manager's face spelled confusion when he walked in on me shoulder-shimmying and singing "Beyblade" like Stevie Wonder.

rained out.

Every week so far at work has surprisingly come and gone extremely quickly. It's always friday before i know it. Which is absolutely great because my job isn't in itself anything truly exciting. I don't mind really mind the stuff that i have to do but i probably wouldn't be doing it were i not getting paid for it. So the question arises, if I am not overly enjoying myself at work, then why does the time fly? I have finally confirmed my hypothesis today.

Time passes faster for me when i'm looking forward to something. Or even if it doesn't pass faster, at least every moment of something that I'm doing is taking me just that little bit closer to whatever I'm looking forward to. For example, if someone asked me to copy and paste cells from one Excel spreadsheet to another for 8 hours in a day (yes this was actually asked of me), even though repeatedly going through the same steps (click, drag, ctrl+c, click, ctrl+v; rinse, lather, repeat) is incredibly monotonous and not surprisingly has a tranquilizing effect on me, at least every time i repeat that process, the party i'm looking forward to is a couple of seconds closer.

Today, what was helping me through the day was my soccer game. I know, it's nothing all that exciting, it's just a game, blah blah. But sports excite me for some reason, not to mention that watching the world cup games has made me feel as if i'm soccer's superman.

BUT. My excitement was quickly removed when i received an email notice saying that the game for today had been canceled because of the rain. It was barely even coming down today, and the field that i play on is almost never serviced so it's very unlikely the organizers were concerned about the wellbeing of the grass. I'm willing to bet this was a result of the Greek referee sitting on his couch and lamenting the loss of his band of brothers. No one is to disturb him when he's weeping.

All of a sudden, with nothing to look forward to, those measly two hours until the end of the day were not so measly anymore. They were now towering giants barring me from my freedom. It reminded me of nearly every episode of Yu-gi-oh. One second you have something tiny and harmless, next he calls on the power of his Millenium Puzzle which launches him from preschool striaght through the awkward teenage pubescent years and into booming-voiced late adolescence all in a matter of a few spinning scenes with shiny lights. Today someone Millenium Puzzle'd my working hours.

For some reason the end of my day just wouldn't end now because i had been robbed of excitement. I didn't do anything differently in my work, in fact i looked at the clock less often, but every minute had been painstakingly doubled. Eventually though i found a method to cope. I've become pretty decent at Spider Solitaire today...

Chapter One: A Soft-spoken Apology

(You may want to read the Prologue before reading this :D)

Chapter One: A Softspoken Apology

In a city like Toronto, it’s easy to feel like part of the crowd. But I was used to it. Having lived right in the middle of the hustle and bustle all my life, it was just another part of any ordinary day. Being greeted in the morning by the rhythmic blaring of the angry drivers’ horns rather than the relaxing chirp of a song bird was part of the routine.

I walked in sync with the business men and women around me. It felt as if everyone was headed towards the same place, and no one seemed all too pleased about it. It was obvious who was running late as they pranced in and out of the spaces in between the slower foot-commuters. The way to school was a long half-hour walk from my government-given housing east of heart of downtown. But I always managed to keep myself occupied, making the time pass much quicker.

I watched the large groups of pigeons waddling around old food scraps scattered on the sidewalk, imagining the dialogue that must be taking place between the birds, and chuckling to myself.

“Hey tough guy, if you even think about taking that half-eaten Cheeto, I’ma stuff you with it, put you on a plaque and hang you in my living room.”

“Oh shut up Steve, go fly into an inadequately cleaned window.”

“Hey, that’s not funny! That’s how ol’ Paps went…”

I was too busy contemplating whether or not I should make the pigeons have a fight to the death in my head to notice that I was walking faster than the person in front of me; I stepped on the heel of his shoe. The man whipped his head around, the stench of cigarettes following it, and stared me straight in the eyes. I stopped moving, not scared, but not wasting a second assessing what kind of person I had just pissed off. He was extremely scrawny, as if he had spent seventy percent of his life in a bed, and the oversized clothes hanging off his meager frame didn’t help the look. He was wearing a pure-white hat with a symbol on the front of some baseball team he probably knew nothing about. From under the hat, a tangle of greasy hair protruded in every direction.

“Who the hell do you think you are? Give me your wallet, you’re paying for this. Do you know how much these Nikes cost?”

“Actually… No I don’t, but I’m sure you could have gotten a bottle of shampoo or two with that money, am I right?”

I flicked his hat under the brim, winking and smiling at the same time. Half a second later I realized that I had made a mistake when my head recoiled backwards and my noise exploded with pain. Holding my face I looked up to see him grinning, apparently proud of himself for delivering a successful sucker punch.

I am not an angry person, but I do see someone punching me in the nose when I’m not expecting it as an invitation to give him my best. With a quick recovery I collected myself and hit him right back in the stomach before he could react. He bent over for a second, winded, but then he turned heel and ran. I didn’t think before following him right into the grimy graffiti filled alley just a few feet away.

When I turned the corner, he was facing me. He looked terrified now; by the look on his face you’d think he had seen a ghost. As I closed the gap between us I wondered what it was he could be so afraid of. But it soon became quite apparent as he reached into his shirt, withdrawing a shiny black object, and pressing it softly into my stomach.

He looked genuinely sorry, tears streaming down from his eyes now and falling onto his trembling hand. His finger fondled the trigger as if scared of contact with it. He could barely form the coming words.

“Gi- give me y-your wallet n-NOW!”

I didn’t know what to do. My body moved without me asking it to, reaching into my back pocket and handing him the cash I had been carrying. He snatched it from me, and looked up at the sky as if someone would tell him what to do next. When no one did, he returned his gaze to me. He looked so pathetic now, I almost felt bad for him though he was the one holding the gun. “Sorry” he said so quietly it was barely audible.

The sickening sound of my ribs collapsing reached my ears before the pain set in. I endured less than a second of the agony before collapsing to the ground. The last thing I saw was the one scuff mark on the man’s heel, tainting the shoe’s perfect white as he sprinted away.

Prologue: Wondering

So the story behind me writing this story is this; I had nothing to do at work and I decided to fill some of the time by trying i repeat TRYING to write a story. I know it might be very cliche and amateurishly written. But that's what makes it fun! Anyways, hope you enjoy. Or hate enough to keep reading :D

Prologue: Wondering

Everyone wonders at some point in time if they are someone special or even; some thing special. Is there something that I and I alone am capable of? Is there some kind of power sleeping dormant within me? Is there something that I was born to do? In these times of questioning, we let fly the imagination which we have come to instinctively suppress every day in our lives. The boundaries of reason are brought tumbling down by our longing to be something extraordinary.

But the train of thought always ends in the same way. We shrug it off as a moment of mental weakness; insecurity. Of course not… Why do I waste my time thinking about these things? But we are not the lone aspirers. We see it all the time; the washed-up artists in the big city vending their paintings in a grimy back alley, the cab driver handing over his paycheck for its value in lottery tickets, the boys at the dirt jumps, bruised and battered, filming each other attempting impossible stunts.

Everyone wonders at some point in time if they are someone special, some thing special. Where we differ is how often we wonder, and I know I’m addicted. It consumes me, pervading my mundane daily tasks, tossing aside any other loose thoughts. The more often it comes about, the more often I must force myself to send it away. The more often I send it away the more strongly it persists. I can no longer overcome my curiosity. I must know what I am meant for.

nuffin.

As of the end of tomorrow i will have completed two whole weeks of my job.

In all honesty, I could tell that for the majority of that time, the company didn't know what to do with me. Everyone else was extremely overloaded with their work and i was sitting at my desk twiddling my thumbs. I bet every one of them would have killed to fill my shoes just to get a break from it all. Ironic how i'm here now complaining about doing nothing.

When doing nothing, i always feel like i need to do something, but i have nothing to do. Do you see my dilemma? Luckily for me though i am so easily amused that i can easily fill my time; and i did. I actually sat down and wrote a story. A story about a handsome young man's struggles with his first few days at a new job which failed to occupy him, and so he wrote a story about a young man. Then when i realized that i had created an infinite loop, i pondered the universe for hours on end. I didn't really come up with anything significant except that if there really were aliens we would probably never know because they've probably been avoiding us all this time just because they know that here on earth we're the fat and mean kids in the playground.

Even though there were a lot of time in the past two weeks that i wasn't doing anything, i actually think i learned a whole lot. Most importantly though would be the 3D software that i was lucky enough to be taught. It's such a powerful software, you can model nearly any object with it; i was having the time of my life creating miniature versions of things around me; desks and monitors. Sadly when i tried to invent my own pokemon i failed miserably. But that's my new goal for the end of the summer so check back and who knows what you'll see. Isn't it great? I'm working at an engineering company and the fruits of my time spent will be a new species of pokemon.

Anyhow, today i finally got switched onto a project that will be in place pretty much until i finish my summer vacation so it seems that i actually will have a steady flow of work coming in. I guess that's good. Just for blogging about being bored, karma is going backhand me across the face. Check back in a couple of weeks to see my bitch about having too much work.

pennies

On the news recently, right between two much more awesome stories (When i say awesome i mean in the surprising fashion, not 'wow that's so cool!' because they weren't cool stories) fell one that most other people would just shrug off, but one that most definitely caught my attention.

"Only hours ago, a child in broad daylight was grabbed by a stranger, luckily the child punched him in the jugular and made his escape"
"The government doesn't want to use pennies anymore"
"The G-8 has become the G-20 and Canada has decided to hand over large amounts of money that they don't have in order to fund security efforts, even though no one really needs security in Canada, and the result of the summit will surely only be that half of the 20 will deny the existence of global warming, while the other half will reject all action plans since all the money they have was used in order to host the summit in the first place"

I could probably talk for hours about any of these news stories but for some reason i just kept dwelling on the penny thing for days afterward. Apparently, as told to me on tv, the cost of manufacturing a single penny is; GET THIS, four cents. FOUR CENTS? Are you serious? It costs four times its worth just to manufacture it? The governement spends nearly one and a half BILLION dollars each year just making these dumb little things. Canada is always complaining about how we don't have money to spend on things that matter like health care or a better education, and they're using more than a billion a year this way?

Personally, I've always thought that pennies were a stupid idea. On any given day, come around and ask me to open up my extremely fashionable, indefinitely functionable, undoubtedly awesome red domo-kun change purse; and i could most likely show you more than 20 pennies. Each of which comes completely crusted in greening copper and a thick layer of years of scum. If you use a penny to pay for something, you probably lose even more money washing your hands of its nastiness after.

As far as i can remember, i've always treated pennies like they were garbage. If i'm bored, i throw them at friends, if my table is rocking, i stick it under the leg and leave it there. Never have i once felt the innate connection with the penny that all the people on tv said that they have.

"I don't want them to go, i'll miss them"

I bet that's a load of bs from someone who wanted to just seem compassionate on tv during their 15 seconds of fame. What they're really thinking is

"Why did i just say that? That was more blatantly untrue than the general public saying they don't like Justin Beiber."

Australia got rid of pennies a longgggg time ago, and i think they've got the right idea. It means much less fumbling, less hand grime, more government funds, and a happier population. Though i do start to wonder what Canada would be like without it. With our messed up 13% tax rate, stores would have a super difficult time making all of their bills land only on multiples of ten. Maybe we could just start doing little multi-cent favours to pay the difference. Any time you get charged, you pay up to the ten cent mark just lower than your total, and depending on how many cents you have leftover ( 1-9 ) you have to do a task with difficulty corresponding with cents owed. Maybe for a 2 cent favour someone could give the other person a sexy wink. Or for an 8 cent favour, dance to "Jump on it" for a full half minute.

Oh i could have fun with that... but seriously Canada; we don't need no damn pennies.

meat.

I love it.

My brother had a barbecue just this past weekend, which was great news for me even though i wasn't there when he had it. Why?

Leftover meat.

No one ever under-buys when they are hosting a barbecue. And this phenomenon roots itself in the need to avoid people not getting as much meat as they can possibly stuff into themselves. Such an occurrence could lead to many different kinds of disasters. I know that personally, if i go to a barbecue, i expect to be completely stuffed and heavily afflicted with the itis after. If this is not how i end up feeling (which has never happened) you could count on seeing me in the foulest of moods. I am quite sure that most other people who attend barbecues are the same. No one wants a house full of foul-mooded people, they might just end up taking their aggression out by wrestling each other and throwing each other into walls, resulting in a foot-sized hole. Oh wait, i do that when i'm in a good mood anyways.

After the barbecue, i took a glance in the fridge. About 24 hamburger patties and 4 beautiful looking steaks. Of course, we couldn't let all of this go to waste. So last night, my two brothers and i made up some half-foot tall hamburgers, with melted cheese. It's just not the same without the melted cheese. Today, we made the four steaks with peppercorn and bbq sauce, topped with caramelized garlic mushrooms and onions. I promise you, my brothers and i have never spent so much time in the kitchen, and have never put so much love and care into a meal.

It was infinitely worth it. As i now type, i am stuffed full with top quality meat and i'm struggling to keep my heavily itis inflicted eyes open. yay good day :D

scarystuff.

More vivid dreams...

It was just me and my dad, enjoying a nice saturday afternoon, taking a stroll in Diagon Alley. We walked into an old antique shop which was known for having the hip new styles for glasses (seeing glasses). It's kind of ironic that an antique shop would have "hip new styles". In real life, i've been thinking about getting a new pair of glasses so i guess that's why i spent the next hour just looking at all of the different frames that they had. Meanwhile, my dad was browsing garden gnomes. He really wanted a garden gnome for some reason... said something about "protecting the house from rabbits"

After my super long browsing session, among all of the Ray-bans, Guccis, and numerous brand names that i have never heard of, i found the one and only pair that i would ever be satisfied with. I called my dad over all excited like, and pointed them out, hoping that he would share my enthusiasm when he saw the beauty that they just emanated. There they stood, the Transformers brand glasses. The frames were the stunning blue and red that could not be mistaken as any other colours but those of Optimus Prime's body. They were complete with tiny headlights on either side of the lenses, moving on their own, probing the darkness of the shop. I felt like this pair of glasses was alive, and meant for me.

Of course my dad wouldn't let me buy them, even though they were on sale for nine Galleons a Sickle and three Knuts. Maybe he was just fearful of the power that i would possess if i had them. But i needed it. And as my dad turned his back to walk out the door, i smashed the glass cabinet with my forehead (This just shows how badass i subconsciously think i am), grabbed the glasses and booked it.

Before i even left the store though, and before i even got to enjoy my time with my new-found treasure, i was grabbed firmly by the shoulder, and stopped in my tracks. I turned around to see an old classmate from elementary school wearing a dementor's cloak, not looking all too happy. He roughly pressed the tip of a gun to my stomach, and even through my clothes i could feel the coldness of it.

I was actually really scared. And not just the kind of scared that you see yourself have in third person when you're dreaming. As soon as this happened in my dreams, i some how went from observing to experiencing. I was now in my dreaming body, feeling the gun against my stomach, and I actually felt extremely scared.

Pause.

The dream stood still here for a very long time, almost as if to test just how much fear my mind could take. I was just waiting for the pain to come, and for it to all be over with. But it didn't come. He took my glasses and left.

I woke up shaking with fear. lolwuss.

Anyone know what this means? Maybe that i need to just stop dreaming.

5k.

No, i am not talking about 5 thousand gold in World of Warcraft. I know that's what a lot of you were thinking when you read that. Oh yeah, Allan, i hate to break it to you, but all your talk about WoW, really got me interested, and now i've started up on a private server with some friends. Curse your perfected persuasion ability. I now know what it feels like to kill murlocs.

When i say 5k, i'm actually referring to five kilometres, the distance. Back in elementary school, running was my one and only love (other than sum41 and blink182, what is with rock bands and random numbers? those names probably don't even mean anything). I used to run nearly all the time, whether it was in the middle of a soccer game, for the cross country team in school, or as the anchor leg on the relay team. I'm going to stroke the ego of my elementary self and say; i was a running badass. But no more.

Since those good old days, i've fallen far from my prime. I would have no chance at being the anchor leg... anywhere, and i can barely get myself off my but to even hit a treadmill. But today, after getting quite annoyed with myself for being a lazy slob, i decided to join my brother when he went for a jog. A 5k jog.

Five kilometres really doesn't sound like that much when you say it aloud. And it definitely does not encompass the difficulty, that I, as the lazy slob i've already come to terms with being, would later have to battle with. When someone says to you in passing "Hey, i'm going for a 5k jog, do you wanna come?" I don't know about you, but i don't actually measure out how long 5k is in my head.

Yes, i know, i am rather pathetic, seeing as I am actually writing a full blog on how difficult a dumb little jog was for me. But if you know me, you know that i know i'm pathetic and find great pride in little victories. The day that i finally learned how to bake a betty crocker cake, was a turning point in my life. The day that i realized i actually had friends in high school was a turning point in my life. The day that i first slept a full night peacefully without hundreds of stuffed animals hugging me to sleep was a turning point in my life. I'm quite a simpleton.

So anyways, i managed to finish my little jog, but right now, i'm hurting quite badly. I haven't had any physical activity for an extended period of time, and my poor, aching muscles are proving that they all as annoying as the person that they compose; they're pissing me off oh so much.

Hopefully i take this as a sign that i should continue to get some exercise rather than a warning that exercise is really not all that fun, and leaves you with foot cramps.

Don't ever be like me.

parade.

A couple of days ago sean and i had a man-date :D I know you're all jealous of me.

I told him that it would only take me fifteen minutes to get to the place we were going to eat at (Hong Kong Bistro on Dundas, a small not-very-fancy place that i love to eat at), of course like usual, he made the mistake of actually listening something i said, a fatal mistake, you should never do this. I will let you down.

But this time it wasn't my fault for once! Even though I had probably only misjudged by about five minutes, i ended up being something like fifteen minutes late. Why? While i was walking to the place, i somehow managed to become engulfed in an aboriginal march against child services. Sometimes i really just wonder how i can drift off so much that i don't even realize where I am or what i'm doing. I bet you i was probably concentrating so hard on what i was going to order once i actually got there that when i finally started acknowledging the world around me, it was too late to escape the mass of people around me. So... i ended up awkwardly marching to the beat of animal skin drums, slowly making my way to where i was trying to get.

I'm really bad at trying to mix in. I always stick out like a sore thumb, and even in situations other than this one, where i was the only person not wearing a headress. But even when it's just an awkward social situation, i just emanate awkwardness. And it's not because i'm actually feeling awkward but i think i have a whole slew of maneurisms and habits that make me an overall fidgety person all the time and people just aren't used to it. It draws attention. Boo.

So anyways, after the initial blunder of making sean wait for me in a smelly corner of chinatown, it was a pretty good day because together, we performed an action which we will remember for the rest of our lives. A ritual that runs deeper than a blood pact, and which is more permanent than blood relation. We, as two individuals with a common cause, purchased starcraft 2 beta keys together. And then we looked at manga and gundams. Oh dear what an amazing day.

For some reason this guy reminds me of sean. He's incredibly talented, you wouldn't waste your time in watching each and every one of his videos. I swear he should be famous.

guilt?

After tommorow morning at 10 am, i will finally be finished with my dedications to the first year of university. Fortunately for me though, the presentation that i will be giving tommorow is worth nearly nothing, and so i have about as much motivation to prepare for it as i have for actually cleaning my room for once instead of just taking things from one pile and moving them to the next pile.

Seriously, my room is so incredibly messy, i wonder how i ever get anything done in here, but then i realize that I don't. After many years of having my own full-sized room, living in a 7 by 8 foot den (that's smaller than a jail cell btw) took a bit of adjustment at first. But now i've adjusted; the major adjustment being the reduced number of piles but increased height and girth.

Now that i'm finished all of my exams, I didn't have to head straight to the library right after my quick non-sufficient breakfast like usual, and instead spent nearly the entire day perched on my throne in this chaotic mess. Which is probably why the mess is bothering me for the first time, because i'm actually in my room for once.

I'm not one that hates changes, but one that generally fails at attuning himself to them quickly, and so I don't really know what to do with myself now that i have no commitments right now. I don't have that constant weight on my shoulders like usual or the nagging voice in my head telling me "Justin, you really shouldn't be playing a fifth Dota game, get back to pretending that you're studying". So now that i have all the time in the world to do whatever i want it's quite awkward because i still feel as if i should feel guilty for doing nothing like i usually do. I almost feel like i need to have work to do to make myself feel normal again. Hopefully a summer job will pop out of nowhere and that could be a reality.

Anyhow, i'm going to pretend that i have to go and do something important so that i will stop writing this post, because if i don't i am quite sure i could write forever about my feelings and then you would want to drive some manliness into me even more than you had already wanted to previously. So... i have to go. Believe it.

cussed.

Throughout the school year i've gotten very used to being yelled at by various people. At first, it was quite alarming when, some friends and i were studying at Gerstein, (the arts and science library; in other words, not my turf, and home to some very adamant studiers trying to get into med school and law school and various other impressive schools) and found out the hard way that some hardcore studiers don't generally appreciate a group of four nerdy asian guys huddling around a computer and playing mario kart on a bad emulator while they're trying to study . It probably didn't help matters that we like to scream like girls when the computers beat us.

The guy decided to that he wanted to take his cussing to the next level, and decided to follow me after i had packed up and started leaving, all the way to the elevators, telling me i'm an idiot the whole way. He probably just wanted a break from studying, and me, the small asian kid with a dumb look on his face was just that carrot hanging in front of his face.

But that's not it. Having long since moved out of the Gerstein library, and into the engineering library (where it's generally a lot louder, and less productive) i've still had my share of yells. Usually people just understand seconds after they walk in, the mindset that the people that use the engineering library have. "Hey, i'm probably so screwed for my next test/quiz/lab/(insert some other method of being raped by course assessment here) that i may as well spend more time making paper airplanes and throwing them at the stucko roof so that they get stucko (hurr hurr) than i actually do studying, and i should probably listen to loud obnoxious music at the same time"

But of course, there are the people that just don't have any notable observational skills whatsoever, and so miss out on the red herring. It's generally these people that have been the ones to say to me the following: *these actually happened*:

Justin: *unplugs headphones to lend to a friend, forgetting that loud rap music about sex and drugs is playing on his laptop, music begins to blare loudly as justin frantically hits all of the buttons on the computer that do NOT make it stop swearing and being profane.*
Unidentified voice from unidentified location: YOU KNOW, SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY COME TO THE LIBRARY TO STUDY. GAWD.

Justin: *laughs uncontrollably at a youtube video no one else finds funny*
Scary Chinese Librarian Man: SON, this is a LIBRARY, SHUT YOUR MOUTH or i will remove you.

Nowadays, i'm trying to study in some remote corner of an empty building, and there's older students playing big 2 EVERYWHERE. And they're all but quiet about it. I would rage at them if i wouldn't get my butt handed to me...

Thanks Karma D:

emperorshipness.

My friend Leon and I were on our way back from a late-night mcdonald's adventure one night when he posed a question that sort of blew my mind.

"Hey... wouldn't it be sick if you were an emperor?"
"... huh?"
"Seriously... you could tell anyone what to do, and they'd have to do it. People die if they disobey the emperor."

Isn't that insane!?

Just think about it. In a democracy, there's a whole bunch of laws and stuff that are set out the there to uphold justice, and keep people in order and all of that, but somehow I feel like laws in North America are always broken. Some people just aren't scared of authorities for some reason.

But take a second and think about emperorshipness (I have just decided that emperorshipness is now a valid english word :D ). With the kind of dictatorship that they had in China back when there was large quantities of emperorshipness, the people wouldn't dare step a toe out of line, because the punishment was death for like... everything. They even grew their hair out until they looked like those aliens from avatar... just because the emperor told them to. A whole bunch of the stuff that they did was pretty much for no better reason other than the emperor telling them to do it. And they had to.

Leon went on that night to tell me what his primary rule would be if he was emperor. No one may be taller than emperor Leon at any point in time. This would mean that anyone taller than him would have to walk in a permanent awkward crouch 24/7. Can you imagine a whole kingdom of people walking around squatting all the time while one man just struts his stuff?

Now I start to think, what if it was me who was emperor? There's a ton of things that i could do, and no one could say no. How about this? No one but the emperor may talk while performing another action at the same time. I would feel so special with this rule hanging over everyone's heads all the time. Just think about how often in life you are doing something while talking. It would mean that if someone is talking, and they need to blink, they would be required to pause mid sentence, blink, and then return to speaking. If someone was in a hurry to get somewhere and someone happens to ask them "Hey, where are you going?" Well then they would have no choice but to skid to a complete stop, catch their breath, stop panting, speak, and then head off hurriedly once more. No one would ever get anything done. Maybe that's not such a good thing...

I'd probably end up just having the rule that I must be complimented in the middle of every sentence spoken.
That would be awesome, people would never be able to stop thinking about me. I'd get my ego stroked endlessly :D

"Hey daughter... do you -Justin is fabulously attractive and comical - want some tea?"

"I'm quite tired i'm going to - If Justin were to be compared with an animal, he would be a dragon, for so great is his power and gracefullness that it only myth and fantasy could even attempt to capture his nature - go take a nap."

"GET THE HELL OUT OF - Never was there ever a more emporable emperor for emperorshipness than emperor Justin the ultimemperor - MY HOUSE YOU UNGRATEFUL CHILD."

... yeah this post was really stupid :D

Triple-thick.

I love eating at chinese restaurants. There's a lot of reasons that i do, but maybe a large part of it is that it makes me feel a little closer to my racial roots even though nearly everything chinese is alien to me.

There's this small chinese restaurant named "Kom Jug" that's basically my default late-night eating destination. It's open until around 3 am, and it's really cheap, so it's perfect. Whenever I go, I always try to order my usual order in chinese, in hopes that one day if i practice enough... maybe i'll actually be able to speak a bit of chinese, even if it sounds terrible. Somehow though, the servers always manage to decipher what i'm trying to say even through my triple-thick Canadian accent (I know you, like me, also thought of McDonald's Triple Thick Smoothies after reading that). The thing is, I've been there enough that all of the servers know me and my friends as well as our usual orders. And that gets me thinking that there's a good possibility that they really don't understand me everytime i order my "pei dan sow yook jook" Maybe, they only just had to decode my ramblings the first, second and third time that i ordered it, and have just resolved to smile politely each time that i return, all the while not understanding a thing that i'm saying. I wonder if there really is no hope for me being able to speak any amount of chinese...

Most of my friends in university speak chinese, and even the one white boy that hangs out with us speaks a huge amount more than I do, he only started learning this year too... It's gotten to the point where he can actually hold conversation in chinese with them, as i stand by listening intently for one of the five words in total that i actually understand. I kind of see him as my rival in proving to the rest of the group that I, contrary to their firm beliefs, am quite in touch with my chinese side. Unfortunately, he as long surpassed me in China-man-likeness. Very sad Justin... very sad.

Whatever, i'm sure that all of you love me simply for who I am... right?

eastah

I really miss the easters of the past... I remember back when i was a bit younger and my parents would actually set up an easter egg hunt for us kids; sadly those days are gone. Way back then, i was a champion. The living room would be rigged as the battleground, the place where i came alive. Eggs were hidden in, over, under and around everything; and no one could dig out as many as me. Maybe it was just because no one else in my family had the same driving hunger as i did for the chocolate. They would take their sweet time and lazily stroll around grabbing any eggs they just happen to see. But me, I would pull out my trusty treasure map, kept and kept secret through the ages, marked with all of the greatest hiding places that i had discovered and would be repeated each year. With my trusty map, i would never fail at claiming the regular egg stowed out of sight in the stationary drawer each year. But it wasn't just my map. If anyone ever came close to my eggs, i would tackle them out of the way and stuff them down my pants, claiming it as my own. I'm a nasty egg-hunter. I wish we could go back to our old ways. I miss the chocolate hunting.

I was in Markham this weekend to visit family for easter. On the way to my grandma's house we came to a busy intersection. The lights were just changing, and a middle aged chinese woman was making her way across the road. As she noticed that a glowing red hand had replaced the white walking sign, she began to trot in hopes of making it across the gap in time. Unfortunately, her trot was actually slower than her regular walking, and used more energy . By the time the opposing light had turned green, she hadn't finished crossing, and so began to once again trot back to the center curbed-island at the intersection, where she planned to take refuge from the passing cars. My little brother and I both found it rather amusing that the distance to the center was greater than the distance it would have been for her to complete her crossing. It became even more comical to us when we saw the dejected look on her face as cars passed her on both sides, and she was stranded, having failed. I laughed for a while. I'm going straight to hell.

We got to my grandma's house where i discovered my 6 year old cousin's toys left on the table. Bakugans. If you've ever heard of them you would know like i do how stupid these little toys are. They're basically yu-gi-oh in the form of plastic toys that can fold into a ball shape so you can roll them. When i saw that my cousin had left them out that day, i scoffed and thought to myself how juvenile these toys are, and how any grown person in their right mind would never fall for the fad. I then proceeded to play with the toys until i went home.

villain victory?

SPOILER WARNING: This post may possibly ruin the endings of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Can't say i didn't warn you now.

It's always funny when i'm watching a movie and my parents walk by in the middle of a fast-paced action scene. Of course, they're drawn in right away, they sit down and start watching with me. My mom does her usual shpeel, coaching each individual character; "duck! run! shoot! don't get shot! oh no!" as if they can hear her, and will actually take her advice... which they never do. Inevitably, she ends up very disappointed.

But then, when the smoke clears, the scene ends, and there are incapacitated bodies on the floor with one victor standing tall above them, they realize that they didn't know any of the plot up until that point; and had just cheered the villain to victory.

One of my biggest qualms with movies, video game plots, and tv shows is how the good guy almost always ends up winning. It's not uncommon for the bad guys to take away a couple of the mid-movie fights, or for a super-stud sports jock to steal away the chess club captain's dream girl. But in the end, that bad guy gets beat up, and that dream girl realizes that the football captain has an IQ of ln(1) GET IT!? Yeah, that was a bad one.

For once i really just want to see the bad guys win. I want to see the good guys in a movie actually fail for once, and not be redeemed. Wouldn't it have been super interesting if instead of Harry Potter vanquishing the most powerful wizard in the world in something like two pages of the book... don't even get me started on how disappointing that stupid book was, i mean really? Did you just run out of ideas Rowling? Or did you just want people to talk about how you lost your touch? I'll save that rant for another post though. But how cool would it have been if the "chosen wizard" had been killed by Voldemort instead of the reverse occurring? Maybe i'm just saying that because i never really like Harry's character anyways.

Lord of the Rings. How the hell did Frodo pull that garbage off? That was definitely a fluke. Sauron's fiery-eye-of-doom-tower was like half a kilometer away when he managed to destroy the ring. After all of the times in the trilogy that he was able to find Frodo in the most unlikely of places, he can't tell that he's right under his nose? That's dumb.

I wonder what Voldemort, Sauron and Darth Vader would have done if they had successfully taken over their respective fictional worlds. When there's no good guys left, what's there to do? I don't think villains party. I just kind of picture each of them sitting on a throne, the most powerful person in the the world... playing DS because there's nothing better to do... they already killed everyone.

Hey directors of movies, read this post and take my advice. Kthnx.

sammich

Hi. So i was at subway the other day, not the "i have no time, i absolutely have to get somewhere really fast" subway, but the "i have no time, i absolutely have to get food somewhere really fast" subway. Lately my wallet has been literally falling apart since i usually keep change in it. Apparently it couldn't take the vast amounts of money that i put into it and decided to just rip instead. Anyways, i've since switched to a little red plastic domo-kun coin purse that my older brother bought for me in one of those dim sum vending machines. I understand that it might not be one of the coolest novelties that i own but that doesn't justify the two asian girls at subway giving me awkward looks after momentarily glancing at my domo. I thought it was cool...

So on my way back to the library with my sub, i was singing my "sammich" song and bobbing my head. "I gots a sammich a nice big juicy sammy sammich, aint no salmon in my sammy sammich, it's goin to be in my tummy tumms soonums. SAMMICH". I was too busy singing the song to remember how to open a door, and so i was stuck in front of walberg building for like ten minutes trying everything but pulling the handle. I literally caught myself petting the knob, while people watched me.

I remember one of the most saddening moments in my childhood was seeing this. Bonus points if you can remember which movie it's from. I wish i could act like him....

Oh and i've been taking hip hop dance classes, check out my routine. (I'm the better dancer, the one in the front).

bye bye.

zahut

A couple days ago, i sat myself down in a corner of the library i usually work at for like 7 hours. I was editing some of my writing work for my design course; you could say that i finally decided to pull myself together and help my team out for once. I, being unable to constructively work for any great length of time, got very restless about halfway through the working process, and my mind began to wander. Naturally the first thing that i thought of was food.

"Food is so good, i love eating, i can eat food, i love to be eating food which is good and also happens to be edible."
*A guy walks by eating a hot dog*
"Omfg i love meat. Meat lover's pizzas are the greatest, all pizzas are great, i haven't been to pizza hut in a while. PIZZA HUT."

My mind was now stuck in an infinite loop. No matter what thought entered my head after this point, i continued to return to the thought of pizza hut. I don't know if any of you have had pizza hut lunch buffet before, but that's exactly what i associate pizza hut itself with. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's an all you can eat pizza lunch comprised of the basic pizzas, pasta, salad and desert pizzas, DESERT PIZZAS, DEEEESSSSSEEEERRRRTTT PIZZZZAAASSSSS. If you've had desert pizzas you will understand why my mind is blown. If you haven't then you have not truly experienced all that life has to offer, and you need to get your ass out there and experience it.

I googled all Toronto pizza hut locations and began systematically calling them one by one to see if they offer lunch buffets. I called like four of them, all were just delivery or take out locations. Each time i was rejected, i died a little inside, and had to contain my rage at the receptionist for working at an inadequate location. Honestly, who starts up a pizza hut franchise that does NOT serve lunch buffet? Fools. That's who. My apologies to any pizza hut franchise owners who are currently reading this and do not run dine-in locations; i meant no offense, you are just as welcome here as everyone else and you should become a follower for my blog :D.

The information that i uncovered only rendered my previous hope futile; there is only one dine-in Pizza-Hut location in the downtown region. And this location happens to be on Dufferin, otherwise known as "unreachable street". Now hopefully, all of the intel that i have gathered to this point is just seriously flawed, and there's little flourishing pizza huts all over the place that i just don't know about. If that IS the case, readers, please share your knowledge and make my life just a little brighter by telling me about another location.

Pizza Hut, if you are reading this, I am very disappointed in you. More disappointed than i was by the empty ice cream tub that greeted me the other day when i came home. YEAH.

dream no.2

WARNING: This dream has caused me to be paranoid all day long and probably will not have the same effect on you, but i figured i'd warn you anyways.

This post will contain violence, profanity and nonsensical occurences. Reader discretion is advised.

Seriously though, it might be a bit disturbing.

It began as five of us in a car at a McDonald's drive through in the middle of the night. I was driving with Nathan in the passenger seat, and Arthur in the back with two of his friends from mac (not actual people from real life, but yeah.). We pulled up to the giant speaker menu thing that drive throughs always have.
"How may i help you?" spoke a pleasant girl's voice. As we tried to put in our orders, there was a crackle of static and the microphone stopped working. We didn't want to miss out on our cheeseburgers so we drove right up to the window.

I remember being a little surprised when the teller at the window ended up being a 300 pound man who looked something like an ogre. His beard was all tangled and had bits of french fries and cheese in it. Really disgusting. I bet in real life i made the same disgusted face i made in my dream.

"Hey, can we have uh... an extra-salty cheeseburger with extra cheese and a condensed milk coffee?" (I don't know what an extra-salty cheeseburger is, but i remember that being the exact order i made in the dream... It was Nathan's order, gross Nate.)
"Fuck off, i'm watching porn"

At first, we chuckled at what we thought was his idea of a joke; everyone knows ogres have bad senses of humour. But then we realised.... he was serious. He actually planned to not serve us because he was... preoccupied. I don't know why we still wanted him to serve us food, seeing the extreme opposite state of sanitation he was in. But we persisted. Nathan pulled out his cell phone and leaned over me to catch the ogre red-handed.

"You'd best get us some food or your manager's going to see what you're doing at work... and by the way *points to the screen*, 'Milfs and Cookies' is a let down, i've already seen it."

Arthur followed suit.

The ogre was not pleased. He picked up what i assume to have been a rancid head of lettuce and pegged me right in the side of the head with it. It burst and splattered everywhere in my car. All of the pieces of it started emitting the most disgusting smell that i'd ever smelled, so we got out of the car right away.

Hell no. Nobody throws a rotten lettuce at me and gets away with it. I walked up to the window, ready to give the guy a piece of my mind, but he was gone. At the same moment i heard the roar of a powerful engine starting from behind me. Out of the darkness came a huge monster truck with shark teeth grills, gunning it at full speed right at my car. I caught a glimpse of Arthur's face which was stricken with horror right before he screamed out; "Samantha, move!".

She moved. But she didn't move fast enough, and moments later, what lay before me was my once beautiful car which now looked like it had been through a giant blender, and Samantha who now looked quite similar.

I will pause right here and remind everyone how vividly I dream. During my dreams, i'm always extremely convinced of every occurrence being completely real, and so i can become very much emotionally involved. At this point, if i had been conscious, i would have urinated myself.

The truck stopped, and the ogre hopped out. "Don't fucking bother me." What was extremely disturbing was how widely he was smiling, as if he had just accomplished something. But the smile faded as quickly as the sharp end of a broken sign post was thrust through his chest. He slumped to the ground. Behind his crippled form, Nathan released his white-knuckled grip, dropping the post to the ground.

We all rushed towards the place where Samantha lay, but before we could reach her, something else did. An eight foot tall, demon landed abruptly next to her, folding his giant spiked wings behind him. His tail curled high over his head like a scorpion's, stinger at the ready. Before we could even comprehend what was happening, he began to gag, and from his mouth came a blood red centipede which took it's place on the back of samantha's neck, digging it's legs into her skin. Her veins began to pulse, visible through her skin, and her body picked itself up, head hanging to the side, and eyes empty.

We must have not noticed, having been hypnotized by what was happening in front of us, but as from behind us, nearly a dozen bodies covered in blood were walking towards us, each with the identical centipede latched onto their bodies.

We all backed away, except Arthur's other friend. She walked towards the crowd, veins pulsing heavily. Her eyes were filled with fear as she screamed. "It's controlling me!". The bodies continued their advance, and the friend continue to whimper, trying to regain control. Before long, the three of us found ourselves backed into a corner.

The crowd split, and the demon approached us, his tail waving, and his wings spread. "You should not have come. There is no hope".

I stood up, fists raised, though i knew there was nothing i could do, and scared shitless. A hand appeared on my chest, as Arthur pushed me back. He quickly nodded to Nathan, and then leaped straight at the demon. The tail flashed through the air striking Arthur in the stomach, and with a grunt, he fell to the ground. As the demon tried to remove his tail, Arthur grasped it, and held tight with all of his might. He only delayed the removal for a split second, but long enough to render him vulnerable. Nathan, with the reattained sign post, plunged it into the demon's neck. As the demon fell, he flicked his tail, which met with Nathan's back.

The centipedes exploded, and the bodies they controlled keeled over. I was surrounded by bodies, and i was all alone.

***

I woke up crying this morning, and shaking like mad. Arthur and Nathan are my heroes.

ell

I got my first ninety in university... on a calc exam! They must have mixed my name up with someone else's...

So i've been working on super big design project recently as a majour part of my engineering design course. In a nutshell, Toronto Public Health has asked my design team to create a system which will introduce a new environmental bylaw in Toronto. They basically want us to think of a way to spread the word to as many people as possible, in a way that makes the bylaw fun, not boring (yeah....). Today was our team's second last meeting with our client.

Knowing that this meeting was quite paramount in the process of our design project, i made sure to dress to impress, and reminded myself to act as professional as possible. I arrived ten minutes early, pulled out my black notebook, and had my pen at the ready for any important details.

The super professional and serious mood was slightly tarnished by the fact that our proposed solution was to implement a mascot as the spokesperson for the new bylaw named "ELL" The environment loving leprechaun, a happy-go-lucky small man with a giant green hat and a pot of gold to go along with it. He could have been twins with the Lucky, the magical cereal leprechaun.

Our client started the meeting off by failing to maintain a straight face when we asked him for feedback on our solution. He then continued to explain how he had made his rounds with the pictures of ELL which we had provided. He showed them to nearly all of his coworkers, and the pictures were apparently received every time with a howl of laughter followed by a "We can't actually use this... can we?"

Apparently the government is a afraid that the Irish community of Toronto may be offended by ELL. We have the "good to go" for a mascott in general though, we just have to change what it will look like. Personally though, i don't think any other creature would be as effective as a good old grinning leprechaun. He has a funny hat, and cute little booties...

wish i had a tv

There's a ton of things out there that i wish i could have, and make do without. I'm not going to go through them all right now because it would expose the greedy diva i keep locked away inside, but there's one thing that's been on my mind.

A tv. I don't have one here. Actually, i don't even really need one particularly badly, i don't even use my tv that often when i'm at home anyways... if you don't count how addicted i was during the olympic weeks.

When i eat, for some reason i can't just simply eat and not do anything else. If i ever do that i feel uncomfortable the whole time, and i can't even enjoy my meal. That's where having a tv comes in, because i can accompany any meal with some the news, bad cartoons, or even just informercials. It doesn't really matter as long as i have some background noise. All i have to do is push a button, and i don't have to worry about an uncomfortable meal.

It's a bit harder at my place in Toronto since i don't have a tv.

There's plenty of days that i awkwardly eat my meals alone at the kitchen counter fiddling with my food uncomfortably... i'm weird. Does anyone else have this problem?

Even a newspaper would suffice. Actually i really enjoy having newspapers around. The unfunny comic strips make me laugh more than the funny ones. I love how you can always tell when the artist left it to the last moment to write his strip and just spewed out some unfunny garbage. Kinda like my blogging...

I was at dim sum with family.

Aunt: "What happened in Chile was so sad..."
Justin: "wot?"
Aunt: "What happened to the people with defective toyotas is so scary"
Justin: "Hein?"

I am apparently apparently clueless and ignorant. It's interesting how detached from the world i can be when you simply remove newspapers from my life. In fact, take away the news from everyone, and for all they know, all the other continents don't exist.

You know what? That gets me thinking, i've never actually been to Europe or Asia. They probably don't even exist. I bet you Europe and Asia are a lie. They're just an elaborate conspiracy that the government uses to fluctuate prices at will. Yeah. You're thinking it too now aren't you?