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?

robot unicorn attack

It's midnight. I'm in the computer lab in one of the engineering buildings at U of T. Luckily for my friends and I, this one doesn't get closed at 10:30 like most of the other facilities. Nope, it remains open 24/7 for keeners like us who feel they must study the limit comparison rule for determining whether an infinite series will converge or determining weight percentages of solders when the composition happens to be hypoeutectic... all beyond the closing times of the average school library.

It's pretty funny to look around you when you're in the lab this late at night to see the mood that people are in. Everyone is always in the same mood at this time of night, not that it doesn't change, but if it does, it changes all around. First, when you get here at 10:30, right when every has just migrated from the nearby closing library and everyone is logging onto the computers, Everyone has bags under their eyes. We're all super tired, and what's more, we know it. You can tell by the look on everyone's face as they slowly type their utorid password into the computer that they can't believe they're still here at school at midnight, doing homework. But we are.

After about a half hour of silence and extremely hard work, one person will throw a tantrum. Just one. Everyone is silent when that person stands up, throws up their arms in despair and yells "SCREW IT". They then proceed to slack of for an extended period of time. Little does that person know that they have just triggered a mental Hiroshima for everyone in the room. Two people then realize; "Hey, you know what? I'm going to yell, and slack off too". Have you ever tried working hard, being focused and productive when everyone around you is playing games and checking their facebook? Yeah. You know what if feels like. Those three people who have begun slacking off have paved the road for a boat load of slacking engineers.

It's funny how in the minutes after this occurence, what was once a very silent productive room becomes a dota, starcraft, and msn hive buzzing with gaming jargon and gossip.

As per usual, i fell victim tonight. Some friends have been playing this flash game recently; Robot Unicorn Attack. At first when i was watching them play i thought it looked pretty stupid, but when i was slacking, and had nothing much better to do, i decided to give it a try.

WARNING: Please do not try this game if you have better things to be doing, it can and will consume copius amounts of your time and concentration.

I don't even know how to explain how addicting this game is. The music is just impossibly viral. I think i just played the game for an hour, but i don't even know, seeing as i was in a haze the whole time i was playing. If you try it, you'll understand.

My high score is 58k, beat it, i challenge you :D
EDIT: 71k

didn't sleep in

I went to dimsum today with my grandma and some of my extended family. Even though i feel i must have time to sleep in on saturday as much as an inverse x function must have asymptotes at the origin... i managed to get over myself for once today. Besides, making it out to dimsum where i can eat to my heart's content is not a terrible alternative as a saturday morning activity.

And oh my god, i just remembered an extremely disturbing detail. Brace yourselves kiddos because this is some really rough stuff coming. They didn't have dan tarts (or egg tarts for those of you who don't understand my fail chinese) this morning at the restaurant i went to. I am a very reasonable, and lenient person. If you punch me, i will not punch you back. If you make fun of me relentlessly, i will take it without protest. But if you refuse me the eggy delectable morning desert which i crave, then i really hope karma takes your ass down. Seriously, my mood went from excited anticipation to recursive disbelief. Everyone loves dan tart. Who are you to not serve it? Did anyone name you the guardian of the egg tarts? No, because that would definitely be me if there were such a thing.

It must have been make-asian-babies-and-bring-them-day at the restaurant. Usually there's a bunch, but today they were taking over. Everywhere i looked there were baby-fat-rosy-cheeks, chopstick drumsticks, and sloppy bowl cuts.

I think asians make the cutest babies. I guess i would be very biased in saying so, but i don't really care. Something about how all asian babies maintain a constant expression of general aloofness and bliss makes me swoon. I just want to walk around and poke all of them. They look so squishy. I love babies. I love asian babies.

Oh and there was one baby today who had eyes that were very far apart from each other that darted all over the place. Her cheeks were really chubby and red. All of that together made her look like a hamster. I was really hoping that her name would be something that someone would name their hamster, like Dustball. But then i remembered that she's a human being.

Com-poo-ter lab.

I love computer programming.

As a course, i find it extremely interesting, rather relevant, and quite intuitive. If ever something doesn't work out, it's usually my own fault for failing at the logical aspects. In other courses, i find that i just happened to skim over a certain section which happens to be on the midterm in large quantities. Over the trying months of this term, computers has been the one course that i've been able to keep up with. As long as you learn what each function does and how to use it properly, the rest of the course basically comes from your own head.

For these reasons, I don't usually stress out if i have a computer lab to do. I am usually in and out in half an hour, solving the given problem easily shy of the two hour limit we have.

Today was a different story. The question that we got was quite straight forward; you're given an equation, write a function that will repeat itself until its result acquires a certain percentage of accuracy. It sounds a lot more difficult than it is. Once you start going at it, everything kinda just falls into place.

So i started writing out my code, including all of the basic additions that the program needs to work, then adding in the more intricate details. I finally come to the end, and give a quick re-edit. Confident, i run the program.

"Result: -0"

Negative zero? What the dill? I learned in grade 9 that zero is a positive number, what could this mean? Annoyed, i look through each and every one of my functions once more. I re-evaluate every constant, re-arrange the whole equation, and stick in a test value. Everything looks fine. Cool, let's try this again.

"Result: -0.00"

I'm really really annoyed by now, it's now an hour into the lab, double the time that i usually take for this kind of question, and my result is even more effed up than before. Okay, i'm going to delete my program and start anew. Once again, begin with basic functions, input variables, don't forget the little intricacies of syntax. Finally, 15 minutes later, i finish my code once more. Time to cross my fingers and run it.

"Go screw yourself, i'm not going to work for you"

I had pretty much given up by this time when a friend of mine comes up behind me and gives a seemingly unimportant suggestion.

Friend: Did you try converting your km to m?

Justin: Are you joking? of course I... shit. T.T

Once again, my ego is now in check.

chocolate dreams

Whenever i dream, i dream very vividly. My dreams are almost always so realistic that i wake up thinking that what i just dreamed had actually happened in real life. It's not uncommon for me to wake up crying or shaking, or craving candy really badly. Or even sometimes, a couple days later, something like this happens.

Justin: Oh man, his face was priceless when we put peanut butter down his boxers the other day haha.
Friend: what the hell have you two been doing together... *awkward raised eyebrow*

And then i realize that it had only happened in my dream and not in real life and that i really shouldn't discuss things like this without thinking about it first. But you get the point now, my dreams are really real and convincing. For this reason, when i have a crazy dream, i remember it for days afterwards; all of the moments and emotions, everything.

Last night happened to be another of those crazy dreaming nights.

I found myself in the middle of a huge yard of warehouses. As soon as the dream started i had this gut feeling that there was something incredibly confidential inside these warehouses; each and every one. There was barbed wire and huge walls around each and every one. At first I just kind of walked around aimlessly, trying to get out of the place because it was a bit creepy, but then my curiosity got the best of me. I just had to know what was inside those buildings. I turned to the warehouse nearest to me and just started running at it as fast as i could. You could imagine that i was quite surprised when the giant walls instantly turned into skittles, and came crashing down. I wanted to stop running really badly so i could grab a whole bunch of skittles to take home and enjoy but i knew that what lay inside the warehouse was far more important.

I burst through the door and stopped immediately because i couldn't believe my eyes. I'm pretty sure i rubbed my eyes in real life, while sleeping. Everywhere i looked, everything was made of chocolate. Directly in front of me was a chocolate skateboard with a chocolate half pipe, to my left and right were chocolate fondue rivers, and hot chocolate babes suntanning on the river banks. Surely, this was heaven on earth, being hidden from the sight of the general public.

As i kept looking around, something more incredible than everything i had already seen caught my eye. It was directly in front of me, but about a kilometer away, beyond all of the chocolate obstacles. A purple glowing Mewtwo egg lay comfortably in a chocolate nest. There was a tiny crack on the top, and it was beginning to shake.

There are few things that i could possibly think are more desirable in life than a world made of chocolate, but a pet baby Mewtwo is definitely above chocolate on Justin's fantasy list. I grabbed the chocolate skateboard and started making my way as fast as i could towards the egg; if i didn't make it there before it hatched, if i wasn't the first thing it saw when it was born, i would never be accepted as its master, but if i could make it! Oh how endless the possibilities were.

My ecstasy quickly turned to horror when a jumbotron projector screen descended from the sky. And darth vader's face flickered to life, staring deep into my chocolate-happy-soul.

Vader: I cannot allow you to wield such power. I will remain the sole ruler of the universe. I regret to inform you of your imminent demise.

The screen disappeared and huge heaters suspended by helicopters covered the sky. All of them were running at full power. What had once been paradise quickly turned into a chocolatey hell. I began to sink into the melting earth, my vision the stinging sugar in my eyes. The last thing i saw was the egg sink into nothingness.

I woke up almost in tears, and the rest of my day has been completely unimpressive in comparison.