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 July 1982: on the banks of the Yangtzee, three hours before the Lau family embarks on "vacation" to Canada. |
My Diary Behold, my secret diary for my mine own eyes, and none other than mine own. Not for thine own, for thine own is not the equivalent of mine own. Though the final three letters be similar, (i.e. that of "ine"), the former betrusts 4 letters in total (M-I-N-E) and the latter a mere 5 (T-H-I-N-E). And thus, with such logic, we are entranced to believe that thine spirit should not be on this page. You are requested to leave immediately. For on this page lies the juiciest secrets in the life of myself, Mr.Lau. In the darkest of places, in the scarcest of resources you find what thoughts lie in this world. In what I thought, in what I have said, in all my fantasies, in my love, in my hatred, in what I have done and more importantly, in what I have failed to do. You are not allowed to continue any further. PLEASE LEAVE IMMEDIATELY, OR I WILL CALL THE CYBER POLICE! |
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October 8, 2007: FINALLY an update! Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#oct82007 Well, so finally going to update my blog... I last left off on Wednesday in the last week of June. So Wednesday, we had practice, practice went well, then went out for late dinner with a few or our choir...j/k, I'm not going to update on every single day. Instead I'm going to do this as an FAQ... so I've been getting a lot of questions about the wedding, the honeymoon, married life etc. So let's get started shall we (*let's go girlfriend!*) How was the wedding! It was awesome and thanks to everyone who made the day so special! We held the ceremony at St.Joseph the Worker Parish in Richmond and lots of people were there, there was some incredible energy from the guests, the choir was absolutely phenomenol and I will never ever feel grateful enough to them! Of course, Melody looked beautiful, the bridesmaids looked beautiful, the groomsmen were polished, the reader (Melody's cousin, Kimmy) did a wonderful job, the ringbearer was so adorable. Father David did as good of a job as possible and so many people said that if they had a priest like him, they'd probably go to church more often! The Knights of Columbus looked after the church reception and put out all the food and served the wine. Big thanks to the Nova Scotian crew for helping to clean up!! Dinner reception was a lot of fun starting off with a crazy first course where the staff came in with a whole thing full of flashing light bulbs and paraded around. During dinner, we were serendaded by erin, my sister/my mom, sheena/mai from phaedrus, kristen/mike from language arts, and duncan. Speehes were hilarious, the emcees Yollanda and Mike were fabulous darling! funny, witty, and on time! The dance afterwards was awesome although I only caught the last few bits of it since I was doing my rounds. Lots of people came in from out of town: Toronto, Malaysia, UK, Nova Scotia, San Diego, North Carolina, Seattle, Taiwan, New York, San Jose... actually probably over a quarter of our guests were out of towners but that's what made it cool and I can't thank everybody enough for making the effort! And the most important part of the wedding is our family that were there all the way through. My mom/dad and sister flew in from Nova Scotia two weeks before, my brother and Christina came from Toronto a week before, two cousins and his wife from Malaysia came in the week before, and my aunt and cousinUK, and a few local family June 27, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jun272007 Alright left off on Thursday. Friday, worked on our Father's Day music with Melody, Sheena, Mai, and Rich and Reuben came out too. We started off at Sheena's place, then moved to the schoolyard to start filming, found a cool little spot inside a little doorway with good lighting and it was super warm too since it shielded us from the wind. The weather in Vancouver has been absolutely rubbish. Then moved to Steveston Village where we set up camp on a picnic table outside a bubble tea place where the waitress came out and chilled with us for a bit while we sang. We sang a bit inside the cafe, and then relocated to a parking lot for the final few shots. An all and all weird day. Saturday, worked most of the day, then went to Sheena's place for her birthday party where they were already knee deep in karaoke by the time we arrived. Her dad made a bbq and the mom sliced some really nicely cut vegetables! Sheena had been up since 4 that morning so we left early and Melody and I went to watch the movie "Knocked Up"... really funny! Sunday, church went well. What do you expect at this point, right? Went out to the Commercial Drive Festival on Commercial Drive where they blocked off 10 streets of traffic and it was all pedestrians. Lots of food, lots of people, Kristen's band, Language Arts (language-arts.net) had a gig on the stage there, so we cheered them on. They were very well received. Lots of weird people though. And had the best pizza at this little place called "urban pizza" or something where it was on brown bread... two slices plus coke came to $3.50 or something and you put this white sauce on top. Simple, but so good for some reason. And they were giving away free veggie dogs at the show. Not so good. And the smell of pot whiffed at you from every angle. And that was that. Monday, the weather took a turn for the better so Rich, Eileen and I went to Spanish Banks and ate Zong Zi (rice wrapped in lotus leaf) and drank red wine that I'm testing for our wedding. Tuesday, Rachel finished her exams so Rich, Abdel and I went out to Kingyo Izakaya restaurant on Denman and Robson. Izakaya is basically Japanese Tapas. There's tons of places in Vancouver now, but this one is new and I'd never tried it before. It was good but kind of pricey for the quality of the food you actually get. We had udon, pan seared yellow fin, and beef sashimi (carpaccio). They even charge for tea. Wednesday was choir practice and I picked up a whole car load of people who didn't have rides. We were missing the director that day, so we had a more laid back practice. Ate dinner with Melody at a nearby pub but had to drop her home before the meal came out and then ate by myself. Thursday I did some golf practice and I'm so excited that I'm getting fairly consistent. Friday we had dinner at an Cafe Luxy in the gay district (Davie) with my friend Jeng who's taking off to Boston for a few weeks to be with his husband's family out there. The food was awesome, big portions and no lineup. And that was the night... I was tired. Long freaking day on Saturday which is the worst way to end off the week, got down to Richmond and watched Pirates of the Caribbean which was good, but didn't have as many cool stuff as the first one. Had dinner at Golden Award Chinese restaurant in Richmond which is a mediocre kind of place which serves individual portions instead of big dishes to be shared, and good prices and open late. I'm thinking of places to take my family when they come here. For sure, I want to leave my apartment at about 11pm one night and go out to eat and start eating at a late night place. I like late night food. Sunday, mass went well, acappellas sounding yummy. Sound system still sucks. After mass, Melody and I went to a Ramen house for lunch, and then off to Gastown for the jazz fest. It was pretty cool. Some good bands, some interesting bands. It rained at first, then later, it was super sunny. A bunch of us went out to the Spaghetti factory afterwards and then more jazz, hung around Granville Island for a bit and then off to the Railway Club for Kristen's gig. Rachel (roomate) and Josh (highschool friend) showed up, along with Caroline and a bunch of others. It was a really good show and I finally got a hold of their new cd. They're topping the radio charts out east too, apparently on a station in North York! Go Language Arts! Tuesday, went to Fig Mint on Cambie and 12th with Rich and Daneka for a seminar on personal communication. It was interesting. Met some intersting individuals there. And that leads me to today (Wednesday) where practice was cancelled. And I'm moving out of my old place into a new place on Marine and Kerr (near Boundary). I'll miss this old place and I'll miss my roomates a lot. Cool people...sigh... I've had a few religious thoughts. One in particular was about how we all sit around and praise Jesus for giving us the ultimate sacrifice. Which it is, but some of the credit goes to the father also. It was the father that sacrificed his son. The son willingly accepted his fate, but was told what to do, and did it, which is awesome, but we can't forget when we think about what has been sacrificed for us, that we should be thanking the father if anything. Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac (of course following the instructions of God), but God turned this request completely upside down and is saying, "actually, no, don't sacrifice your son, I'm going to sacrifice MINE." Which is a big deal!!! So Jesus deserves credit, but so does the father - maybe even more so! The other religious kind of thing I was thinking about was with respect to abortion and it's not really an opinion on the subject so much as an opinion on the NAME of the group. People who don't agree with abortion are called anti-abortion. People that oppose these people are called "Pro-Choice"... not "Pro Abortion"... Pro-Choice. They claim that we should not be told what we can do with our body. This doesn't make any sense. Saying that you believe in abortion is not the same thing as being pro choice. By saying you are pro-choice, you are really accepting a whole lot of responsibility for your actions. For instance, you should also be protesting laws that require you to wear a seatbelt since it only affects your body if you fly through the windshield. You should oppose drinking laws that limit the age. You should oppose drug laws that can bust you for possession of crack since if you become an addict, that's your body. You should have that choice (if you're pro-choice)! Some people who think abortion is okay aren't necessarily libertarians and believe in free choice over our bodies. Very very few people believe that the law shouldn't intervene should we wish to kill ourselves. The reason they're pro-abortion is because they believe that an unborn baby isn't a human. That's the issue. It's not about choice bc choice and abortion are two independent issues. If you believe that an unborn child still is a human, then even if you believe in pro-choice, you still might not believe in abortion bc now it involves someone else. So Pro-Choice is a poor name for this group. It's misleading, it doesn't address the real issue, and it gives people an opinion on libertarianism when that's not why they're pro-abortion in the first place. So call it what it is instead of creating this red herring about freedom. If someone believed in killing black slaves, would you call him "pro-choice"? No, because the issue is about the humanity of the black slave, not whether he has the freedom to kill him. June 14, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiarywah.html#jun142007 I can tell I'm getting older and older. The other day I bent down, and I had a hard time getting up again and I was so mad because I'm only 27. Every year, I get weaker and weaker it seems and my memory gets worse and worse. Oh well. Last Monday was rehearsal for confirmation mass. Afterwards, met up with Sheena, Mai, and Jennifer (Mai's friend) for some singing. I just caught the tail end of their meeting but was able to catch a few songs in there. Wednesday was confirmation mass with the kids and the Bishop of Vancouver, Bishop Raymond, presided over the mass, and at one part, he turned around and gave us the thumbs up!!! Total shocker but total awesomeness. Went out for wings at Legends lounge with a whole bunch of church people, including people I'd never met before. Good times. Thursday, met up with Jeng (business friend) and his husband to talk about his curry business and opportunities we might have. We went to a Greek Restaurant on Davie Street which had pretty good food. It's interesting to look back and see how much I've learned as a business person and how I approach problems. I would never be able to figure things out this quickly 2 years ago, or even last year and now I'm the consultant for others. But not to get cocky, because two years in business doesn't give anybody the right to be cocky. Friday was Tiana's (Lonsdale Quay friend) birthday and we went to Ebisu Japanese restaurant on Robson and Bute with Melody and Rich and a bunch of Tiana's friends. I've never seen this place before, but it's really nice, on the second floor so you get that kind of "weird out there" feel sometimes. Interesting times. We went down to the beach at the bottom of Thurlow and walked and walked along the waterfront. It was really nice. Saturday morning, back to the races. I'm starting to get a bit exhausted from work now but it's summer and now's the time to make money. Did some wedding stuff in the afternoon, and then Melody and I went for hotpot and stuffed our faces. Went to Chapters afterwards and I read a book on Barack Obama. Intersting stuff. Then went out for karaoke with Derek/Ria, Ricky, Ian , Matt, Bernice, Alvin (church), and Tara (Ria's coworker) for karaoke at JP Malone's on Blundell and Garden City. Sang quite a few songs and at one point, I got some random dude to take off his shirt, which wasn't that hard, since the last few songs, he took off his shirt anyways, but it was funny to coax him into it and watch him do it. He was hammered. Sunday was a good mass. Fairly easy pieces since we didn't practice on Wednesday. We did an acappella version of the Amen which was surprisingly good!!! Went to Earl's afterwards with the church people, and then met up with Sheena and Mai to play some more music, and then back to Melody's place for dinner with her parents. And then back to North Vancouver to cap off the week. Monday, I did golf practice for about an hour then down to Richmond to celebrate John's (Melody's brother) birthday with Crab, Squab and all sorts of good stuff. And it as my mom's birthday so I called to wish her a hay-pee birs-day. Tuesday went apartment hunting. Wednesday was a quick practice because everyone was so tired, but I stayed afterwards for about half an hour to work with our new lead guitarists, who's a young guy but really really focused and talented. He picked up guitar in Sept. and is already really good and it shows a lot of character to just decide to join the choir and play in front of 500 people when you're still learning. I'm so impressed by him and a character like that will bring you to great places in life. Kudos to his parents. Worked with Sheena afterwards on some piano music. And that brings me to today (thursday) where I did another hour of golf practice today. I have a lesson tomorrow morning and we'll see what the weekend shall bring. Last thurday, we brought in a bunch of sea asparagus and we've been selling it at a few of the high end accounts. It's only available for a few weeks but it's an interesting product. Yum. Kosta did a recipe for his weekly news radio spot on sea asparagus and a bunch of stores are going to copy that exact recipe and they printed them out recipe cards and stuff. Not a lot of money involved in this, but not too much work involved either and it's fun to push products and customers like variety and knowing what's "in", rather than the same old potatoes and carrots. So I feel like I'm doing them a favour and for the amount that we make off of it, it may as well be a favour. Not everything in business is about money although we're certainly not a charitable foundation either. June 5, 2007: What it means to be human Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jun052007 I had thought about this for awhile today. And it's something that's turned a lot of my way of looking at the world around. Because I used to see humans as merely reactions to our environment. Many of you have heard my theory that for any situation, there is a "right" and "wrong" way to react based on your position. That in your position as protector of yourself, your family, church, community, state, world, animal kingdom - whatever your position might be, you must do whatever it takes to defend the wellbeing of those people. And that might come into conflict with what your moral principles might be - don't kill, don't take what is not yours and so on. Not that we need any theory to tell us this - we will protect our family by INSTINCT regardless of what we are told tod do and not do. But it is the control of this instinct, I have come to realize, that is one of the greatest benefits of being human. One quick thing that might throw you off, but hopefully not... I started taking golf lessons recently and the instructor told me that the proper technique should feel awkward. It should feel "wrong", like you're twisting incorrectly and it should not feel comfortable. Then he'll show me a few swings to reassure me it's not and that I'll reap the rewards later on. Going AGAINST the natural course of action is what makes us human. I'll give you a few examples. Somebody violates your wife or daughter and you are angry as hell and the natural course of action is to go on a rampage and kill. Somebody destroys what you saved your whole life for - your natural course of action is to destroy what they have. Somebody takes away your son. Somebody lures you into lust. Somebody makes you feel less of a man by buying a bigger house than you. Somebody offers you something that you've desired for your whole life. The natural reaction to these are obvious. Any animal would do the same thing. But as humans, we are able to be free from this instinct. And the reason may not be obvious but I am sure that to go against this is to live a freer life, a more enjoyable life, a nicer life. No one can argue that if somebody has stolen, then raped, then killed your daughter, you wouldn't want to see them dead. Watch them wriggle as the electricity shoots through their body. Is that good? Is that satisfying? The hate that is in your heart, will be in your heart for the rest of your life still. People will hear it in your voice. You will feel it in your chest every time you meet a person of the same name as the killer. How much more human to forgive them? To have never taken possession of your daughter in the first place but to feel blessed that you had her presence for those years? How much better to remove the hate! How much greater is your life to be spent without bearing the burden of hatred all these years that will eat you every day of your life and leave you weaping so bitterly that not even modern pharmaceuticals can calm your nerves. How much more human to forgive. To "turn the other cheek". And you should also know that your anger and your pride is not only a weakness to yourself, but an opportunity for your enemies! Sun Tzu says "If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant." And I had always believed that anger/lust/greed/pride was something natural and because it was natural, it was somehow justified. But it is not justified. It leads to irrational acts that serve no purpose, not even to yourself! And I thought that because it was natural, you can not control it, or to control is was futile, because you would desire it anyhow - and the desire itself can almost be as bad as the actual action itself. But a friend reminded me of the saints that had turned away from lives of sin and became human. That freedom is not in doing what we like but in doing what we ought. What it means for us as individuals is difficult. What it means is that we can never really feel attached to anything. Attachment, as I see it, is a sure way to lead to feelings of vengeance. The minute you are attached to your mother, father, wife, husband, child, friend, career, lifestyle - the minute you have set yourself up for failure should that person get in the way. What it means is that we have to accept and apply the notion that what makes us the most happy at the moment, is not what makes us the most happy. That satisfying our immediate desires, greed, and addictions, is not good and can not be justified even though we are all just animals at the end of the day. In reality, what it means is that understanding everything what makes us happy is absolutely useless to most people because we are too weak and hardened to ever change. We will attach ourselves to things because it reminds us that we are real. To detach from our families, from our lifestyles, and from our societies, then reminds us of the impermanence of our own selves, because while we can't be sure of the reality of own selves, we can convince ourselves of the reality of everything else at least, and the attachment to one "necessarily" proves the existence of the other. So while we live on this earth, we strive to belong to as much as we can. And we can not do that. Isn't society so real? Isn't life so real? Love? Lust? Isn't money so real? Pride? I feel it, it must be real. And thus we become attached so much so that we lead ourselves down the path to anger, envy, hatred and so much more. And there is nothing we can, or really want, to do about it. Who wants to shatter our reality and thus shatter our perception that there is some permanence to what we are doing in this world? But there are always little things that we can do while still maintaining our frail faith that the world is real. We can unattach ourselves to the familiar. Like Mr. Job in the bible, losing your lifestyle, your children, your power is a disaster. But the disaster amplifies into a lifelong tragedy when you fail to get over it and hold others accountable for, what the happier man would see as, property that was never yours in the first place. If you can do this, you will be happier. In this way, the people that beat you, that outcompete you, that steal from you, that cheat you - the extent of the damage that is inflicted remains contained in a worldly setting and that can always be settled with a deep breath and the realization that something worse didn't happen. And while it is difficult to forgive a man that has killed your daughter, we know that it is possible. And for those that are Christian, we are at least shown by example that even our God forgave those that killed his son. Actually, not only forgave, but gave him to us as a sacrifice. And that we are never expected to do, much to Abraham's relief!!! We are shown that if even though it feels so wrong and so counter-instinctive, we are assured that this is the best way for us. Sometimes we question religion a lot in what exactly it accomplishes for us. We talk about it as a form of oppression of the people, of a way of excluding people, of means to justifying pompous behaviour and self-righteousness. We think of religion as a means to turning us into selfless ants. And yet we fail to see that religion is there for us as individuals - that it should speak to us as one who loves us more than our parents. That in your quest to unattach yourself, to free yourself from anger, greed, and all the vices that destroy our humaness, we have religion as a guide to assure us and reassure us that, yes, you are doing it right even though everyone tells you you're doing it wrong. We'll start with the small things and you'll be a greater person with every step you take. I've hopefully shown that it leads us to a life that might feel instinctively "wrong", but much like a proper golf swing, what we feel comfortable with isn't always what leads to a 320 yard drive. What will you unattach yourself from in your life to make yourself stronger? Afterall, it's only life. June 2, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jun022007 So let's go two weeks back: Two Mondays ago, met up with Eileen (Shad 04) and Rachel (Laychaloo), at the noodle house and just caught up and talked until the staff just left us there and started eating their dinner. But we're long time patrons of there.... so! Tuesday, went to Prima Taste with Rich, Priscilla, and Rachel for some yummy laksa. Wednesday was practice. Thursday, I had a golf lesson. I started taking private golf lessons at a clinic near my place. It's an indoor thing, you hit the balls against the wall, and there's a camera there, and you analyze your shots over and over again. This was my first private lesson and I've been practicing quite a bit. It's not like a driving range in that it's nice and breezy and the sun's coming down. It's indoors and there's not landscape, and it's repetitive and it's analytical, but it's the only way I will go right now. My technique is pretty good. I went to the range with Melody's dad today and he said I'm 1000 times better than last time - but he's also a very diplomatic guy and knows I spent quite a bit on this clinic. Friday, went to Kam's place Singaporean food downtown with Melody, Kristen, Mike, and two of their friends, including one cool guy from Mexico. Went out to Beach down Thurlow Street afterwards and drank tequila and wine (well, I had to drive home so I just sipped) and played soccer in the sand lit up from the beautful Burrard Stret Bridge. Saturday, went to Eat! Vancouver, which is a food exhibition, at GM place where they have hundreds of foods from restaurants, to packaged foods, to grocery stores, to pet foods, to .. you name it... Kosta was doing the Wild BC Salmon booth and they did an amazing job!!! They had a wine garden there and I sampled about 10 different kinds of liquors including a delicious 35 year old reserve rum which was just awesome!!! Went out for dinner afterwards and then Melody and I walked around Steveston for a few hours. Sunday, mass went really well, a bunch of us went out to Earl's afterwards with the church folks, and then ran some errands and then back home for the week ahead. Monday, we had musical Monday at Sheena's (church friend) friend's place. It was a lot of fun - we all came out together for the soul purpose of SINGING. Not for worship, not for practice, not to busk, not to experiment, not to jam... just to sing... sing songs we know... almost like Christmas Carolling, but even less real purpose. Which I think is the closest thing we have, in our age to going over to someone's house to "play". You know how we used to go out and "play" with no real purpose? This is as close as we get, because now, when we meet up, we have to have some food or coffee or distraction to take the emphasis off of "me" and "you"... it's weird... we don't go out and play anymore, or go over to each other's houses to "play"... I guess maybe we do but not really the same... there's generally some higher purpose. I'm not sure exactly what I'm getting at because in fact, sometimes musical mondays has a higher purpose, but in any case, I like these musical mondays and singing at the playground kind of thing! I'm not sure what I'm saying. Of course fruits tend to get borne of this seemingly play time, such as our famous mother's day clip! Tuesday was golf practice and lots of it. Wednesday, we rehearsed with the confirmation kids, basically just ran through all the songs that we expect to belt out at their confirmation THIS wednesday. Thursday, was Mai's birthday party at Sheena's house including full out Karaoke complete with Magic Mike, and cake and some terrible jokes that I can't repeat on a public forum (not like that stops me from being completely offensive in other forums, just not my own). Friday, Night Market with Melody, Rachel, Sean (roomates), and Sean's buddy. It was cool - hundreds of vendor, it's so crowded you have to push your way around, and all around craziness. Saturday, worked as always, went for golf practice, and then down to Richmond for Derek/Ria's son's 3rd birthday party! It was cute! We got him a little djembe which is an african drum. It's actually a full size one for a higher pitch, but it's small enough for Ryan and good because his daddy is our drummer and a passionate one at that! Games, hockey game, lots of loud people. Fun times! Then Melody and I went off to downtown to meet up with Therese (who's back from Edmonton for a weekend), David (her fiancee), Priscilla, Rich, and Victoria for dinner at a Kalypso which is a greek place on Robson and Burrard. Excellent food on a phenomenol patio, and a bellydancer came out to dance later in the evening. Rachel dropped by later and a bunch of them went out clubbing. Sunday, mass was with the Youth Ministry and they were just awesome... clapping and singing and it made a big difference for us to have them there!! Just awesome! Hung out in Steveston afterwards with young Sheena complete with slurpes and Bugles and including a session to plot our plan to put the "A" back into Young Adult Ministry. Basically, we were figuring out how we would get the young adults more involved in ministry at St.Jo's. And then went to the driving range with Mr.Tan and dinner, and then helped Abdel move some stuff from his apartment and now I'm home... Phew.. tired... May 20, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#may202007 Yes, a long time again since updating. I left off two weeks ago on Wednesday. Choir practice was weird because there were so few people, but our small group picked out the songs (something none of us have ever done before) but it went well. Good stuff everyone!! Thursday, Nicole (from McGill) was in town so her, Lan (her bf), Rich and I met up at a Mexican Restaurant on Fraser and 25th which I can't rememember the name, but being the foodie that she is, she picked an awesome place. It was a little hole in the wall kind of restaurant, but there were about 10 types of salsas on the shelf, all made in store, in order of their heat intensity. I had about 10 tacos, absolutely delicious! Friday, Melody and I met up with Sheena and Mai to make a recording for Mother's day. We just did it in a small parking lot in Steveston, funny times, then went out for icecream. Melody and I had greek food at a place near the water called Correlli's. Yummy. Saturday, worked until early afternoon, then down to Richmond and talked with Melody's parents for quite awhile. We went to Golden Szechuan on No.3 and Leslie, which was really delicious! After that, Melody went out with her friend Renee from Seattle, and I hung out at Chapters to wait for them, then met up with Nicole and Lan for some bubble tea place near No.3 and Capstan. Good times. Sunday, Ajay did a cantor at mass which sounded really good. Everything else went really well. Went to Garry Point with Melody, Ajay, Bernice, and Christina for lunch and then ice cream. Beautiful place. Went shopping at Richmond Center for a bit after that. Monday, went out to Sushi Garden near Metrotown with Abdel, Rachel, Rich, and Duncan (and two of his friends whose names elude me). Duncan is an interesting guy who imports and distributes electronics from China and retails them himself too at a booth at the Richmond Night Market and at a store in Coquitlam. Ambitious guy and I applaud that in anybody! I didn't go to practice on Wednesday because I wasn't going to be in Richmond on Sunday. I don't think I did anything exciting the rest of the week. Friday, tried a new Malaysian restaurant in Richmond called Popo. Naw, the food was not good. Not bad, but not Malaysian. The Laksa needed a bit more heat and they used an egg noodle which I'm not used to. And no egg... the Rojak wasn't even Rojak. The roti bread was good though. The next morning, I was down in Richmond by 7:30 in the morning and we went on a ferry ride to Victoria! woot! We met up at Ian's place, dropped off our stuff then headed into town to a vegetarian restaurant called Rebar where where we met up with Nicole. I had an almond burger and a shot of wheatgrass. Yum and Yuck (in that order). Walked around Victoria after that, all around the harbourfront and through the town, then chilled out for most of the afternoon at a coffee shop called Union Pacific that we accessed through a little narrow alleyway lined with boutique stores. Victoria is a really nice town. After that, checked out Nicole's lovely apartment downtown then Melody and I headed off to the theatre to pick up tickets to the Loreena McKennitt show. Had a quick dinner then to the auditorium for an amazing concert. Loreena McKennitt is a Canadian artist of Celtic background who started off the concert by just walking up to her harp and creating this mystical atmosphere. There were 10 musicians on stage and between them, managed to play about 20 differnt instruments. Loreean McKennitt herself played the harp, the piano, the accordian, and keyboards, all while singing hypnotically. The music, influenced mainly by Celtic tradition had unmistakably Middle Eastern, Spanish, Moroccan, and Asian influence and the music itself was clearly created very organically in that there's a repetitive motif, usually no more than 2 bars long and often done by Loreena herself and then the melody goes on top and then layers and layers of instrumentation on top and it almost sounds as if they're improvising it on the spot, but it's actually not because it's the same as the cd, but I'm sure it as through jam sessions that this music was created. Victoria was her last stop and this concert was filmed. Headed back to Ian's place and chilled out with him til early in the morning. Next morning, had coffee at Ian's, then lunch downtown at a pub called Swans, walked around the city a bit more then dropped him off at UVic campus and then back to Vancouver. And that's that! Again, no interesting theories, although I have some new material from the conversations with Ian this weekend and I'll get them up soon. May 8, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#may082007 It has been a very long time since I last updated. And I sincerely apologize... I hope that this does not too adversely affect our relationship over the information superhighway. But I have good reason. So I left off on two Tuesdays ago. Wednesday was practice and afterwards a whole lot of us went out for late night sushi. It was good times. Friday, Melody and I went to Ashianti Indian Restaurant on Kingsway and Clark. I think it's one of the best Indian places in Vancouver. Again, I don't know many places, but I've tried some really mediocre Indian food in Vancouver, even in the areas that appear to be authentic. Anyways, always on the lookout for good Indian Food. Afterwards, took a long walk around her neighbourhood. On Saturday, we met up with Duncan (highschool) and Matt (from Kristen's band) at Kits beach then met up with Kristen and a whole bunch of her friends. We sat on a log by the beach until well after sunset just chilling and drinking boxed wine and discussing "important" issues. Melody and I went for beef noodle soup at a Taiwanese place on Granville and 70th. Sunday was a confirmation mass so lots of kids and their sponsors were at mass. I remember having some weird sound stuff happening. Afterwards, Melody, Sheena, Ajay and I went out to Garry Point, got fish and chips at the harbour and walked (food in hand) to Steveston, for ice cream. Got back to Steveston and found a nice spot on the big rocks by the water and jammed until about supper time. That was a beautiful sunday. Met up with Rich at Sha-Lin Noodle House afterwards to rehash our various weekends and discuss theories on Physics and other such topics (j/k). Got back to North Vancouver to find dehumidifiers and other crazy machines around the rooms. Apparently the water heater broke, so they're drying the place up. So, thankfully, Abdel let me crash at his place on Sunday night. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the landlord put Sean (roomate) and I at a hotel down the street which I must say was pretty comfy. I got to the hotel around 10 pm, there's a Denny's downstairs so I got a Big Slam breakfast and some onion rings for sean, brought it back to the room and chowed down while we watched South Park. My other roomate's room was fine. Monday night, met up with Sheena (church) and Mai (sheena's friend, and now fellow member of our singing ensemble - phaedrus) for some rehearsal and random stuff and songwriting. I'm getting back into this whole singing business and loving it. Tuesday was my birthday, and went out with Rich and Rachel to Chianti Italian Restaurant on Burrard and W4th for the same stuff I have every year on my birthday: Spaghetti Carbonara and Red Wine. Yum! Went to Mondo Gelato afterwards on Robson just in time to find out that the Canucks lost and are out of the Stanley Cup. In fact, you don't need to watch the tv. Basically, you can hear it in the streets. When they lost, you could hear everyone go "AWWW!" on the streets. There were people hanging outside bars, crouching and huddling around the windows watching the game. Some stores decided to pump the sound into the streets so onlookers could still watch. Wednesday was practice and we were supposed to be playing for a confirmation mass, but somehow it changed. Anyways, I also figured out that I can do a whole bunch of deliveries on wednesday on my way down, since I go that way anyways. That's always nice. Thursday I started watching An Inconvenient Truth, but didn't quite make it through. It's a great documentary on global warming by Al Gore (who incidentally, also invented the Internet apparently). Anyways, Friday, Melody took me out for my birthday to Dex's Steak and Grill on Dunsmuir downtown. It was a phenomenol 12oz Rib Eye, cooked rare, on a bed of Spinach and spring vegetables with a nice Argentinian Red. Yum. Then went to Blenz on Garden City/Blundell to do some wedding prep stuff. Saturday, went to Canada Place to see Abdel and Dave Tseng's display at the Design Convention. They were showcasing the use of Mountain Pine Beetle Wood and for their exhibition, they built a set of stairs going up and down using modules consisting of a plank of wood and a rod. It was set up on a seemingly mish mashed and criss crossed pile of planks, but the total design was such that you could walk up and down the stairs because the stairs somehow interlocked with the heap of wood below it although to the unsuspecting eye, it doesn't seem feasible. Very awesome. I think they were photographed for the media and I deservedly so! Afterwards, went to Duncan's place for his birthday party where we had a blind taste test of beers. Everyone brought a 6-pack of a beer and we sampled the beers (without knowing which was which) and guessed what kind it was and gave it a ranking. A prize went to the best guesser and to the one who brought the most popular beer. I got a respectable second place because of european beers (from the time I spent there) and my time in Toronto. Torontonians, I've found, enjoy beers from over the world and the stores pride themselves on the number of beers that they carry. As a result, I got both of the Belgian beers, which some of the Vancouverites didn't know. It's actually very rare out here to find a place that serves a Hoegaarden, let alone a Leffe. But to Vancouver's credit, there are number of delicious microbreweries and while the Robson Street Hefeweizen isn't exactly a Hoegaarden, I would not complain if served one in a frosty oversized mug while chowing down on freshly cut french fries. I got the Kronenburg, having enjoyed that at McDonald's in France (yes, they serve beer at McDonald's). I got the Organic Ale, being the only ale on the list. And I was SO sure about the Red Stripe, but I got that wrong even though I consumed a bit too much of it during my brother's wedding in Jamaica. There was a horribly bitter one called Hop Head that everyone threw out, but I didn't mind it. People from the Valley might kill me for this, but it reminded me a bit of a Raven Ale (or maybe Winter Ale?) from Paddy's and also of a microbrew I had in Whistler with my cousin called "The Coal Miner". But served with an oily batch of onion rings, I bet people would not have had such a poor reaction to it. I brought along an Organic Amber Ale having not been able to find the Chinese Tsing Tao beer at the liquor store down the road and curious as to what a "Organic Ale" would taste like. It was pleasant, not surprisingly. Sunday was mass and I think the vocals sounded great, some nice acappella-ish stuff and some nice softer instruments. Went to Earl's with some of the choir folk afterwards and then went shopping at Lansdowne where ria was dressing up melody with everything she could find. Adam Kaufman (Waterloo friend) came into town so we picked him up from Richmond afterwards and went to the restaurant formerly known as Deer Lake for scallops on greeens, a variety of mushrooms, and fresh B.C. spot prawns (yes, it is B.C. Spot prawn season as of May 1, my birthday!, so for the next few eight weeks, eat all the fresh B.C. spot prawns you can!!!). It was delicious food and a nice "Welcome to Vancouver - Chinese food style" for Adam. I loved the food. I think I'll be a long time patron at that restaurant from now on! Showed Adam our wedding venue (Shiang Garden) but the banquet room was closed off, but we peered in and saw darkness and 4 chairs! Came back to North Vancouver and that was the end of the day for us. Oh, and we watched a bit of An Inconsistent Truth, but then passed out. Monday, Adam and I met up with Sheena (church), Mai, Rachel, Rich, Reuben/Nathan (Sheena's friend) at Calhoun's on Broadway and MacDonald. Had dinner, some beers, then went out to the patio, brought out the guitar (with permission from the staff of course), and recorded some music and did some beyonce, whitney houston, boys II men, Mr.Big, Oasis among other things. Adam rewrote some lyrics to fit the songs and for the sake of it, we had to have a Kokanee beer because we were joking that probably more people outside bc drink kokanee than vancouverites. It's a slightly watery beer to be honest, and what difference does it make that it's brewed in the mountains? I guess lower boiling point and they save money on refrigeration... Anywas, it was good times. Then did some 50's music including such hits as "In the Jungle", and "Lean on Me"... a few of th classics Adam and I use to pull out of the bag in Waterloo when the time was appropriate (or completely inappropriate, whatever the case was). And that brings us to Tuesday. I just got back from a long day at work and I'm going to be doing wedding stuff tonight! I will post soon something more interesting than updates, but in due time my friends. April 23, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#apr232007 So I left off last Tuesday. Wednesday was rehearsal. Will and I got there early and played some 2 on 2 basketball with Ajay and Ben. We won with a death star 3 pointer at the buzzer. Practice was all guys except Melody and the funny thing was, I was just talking about that the other day that guys don't miss practice for any reason, even when they're deadly sick, they spread their germs and everything... maybe that's why we have shorter life expectancy. Friday morning, I was in Richmond at 7 in the morning, lining up for my passport... and I left at 1 pm... that's 6 hours of lineup...crazy... but in that time I read the book "The Four Loves" by C.S. Lewis, which is a philosophical study of human relationships (not just in a romantic sense... that's just one of four kinds that are studied). Afterwards, I just kicked around Richmond, doing random wedding planning stuff including trying on a few nice suits. Went to Emily's film screening at Langara College. Her movies were great, and I really liked a lot of the acting. Went for Indian food afterwards at Ashianti Restaurant on Clark and Kingsway which is one of the good Indian restaurants in Vancouver (among a whole lot of mediocre ones out here). Saturday, worked most of the day, went to Melody's parents place, had Korean for dinner, hung out at Chapters and then crashed while her family watched "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". I was so tired. Sunday, mass went well. We were missing 3 strong female voices so the balance was a bit different than usual, but still sounded nice. As always. Went to Earl's afterwards with some of the choir folk, and then Melody and I walked around Garry's Point for the afternoon. She got some icecream, and then we headed home. I went out to Sha-Lin Noodle House with Rich afterwards to do a play-by of the weekend. Good times. And that leads me to Monday where Rachel, Rich and I watched Vancouver beat Dallas to go onto Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The WHOLE city is into hockey right now. I'm not kidding... young, old, boys, girls, parents, kids... the rich are into it, and even a beggar had a sign saying "Go Canucks Go". Everybody is into hockey which is awesome, bc my trip over the LIon's Gate Bridge was reduced from about 20 minutes to about 1 minute because nobody was on the road at all. Anyways, and that's it... I'm home now. Just watched a show about a bride and groom that hired a crew to "crash" the wedding and catch it all on tape. Pretty funny stuff and very professionally done. April 18, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#apr182007 So what's going on... I left off on last Sunday. I remember being really exhausted on Monday though because it was after the Easter season. Tuesday, did continued the recording for my church song with Duncan. We did the bass track and two violin tracks. And we're almost done. It sounds really nice. I'll let you hear it when it's done. Wednesday was practice and I somehow missed the practice for a wedding rehearsal. Interesting practice and we're doing a tricky song called "Nadie El Sepucro" which we delayed until a later week because of the rhythmic intricacies of it. Thursday, Nicole was up from Victoria, so Abdel, Rich and I met up with her at Pin Pin, arguably the best filipino food in Vancouver. Then we went to Dragon Ball Bubble Tea on Oak and King Edward which has amazing bubble tea and met up with Lan (Nicole's bf). Friday, had dinner with Melody at a Japanese Tapas bar so we could watch the Canucks lose 2-0 to Dallas. Stayed in because Melody had to study for an exam. I stayed over at their place because early Saturday morning, I was at the church playing for someone's wedding. Beautiful church. Nice flowers. The wedding went well, the music was nice. I did some guitaring and some violining. Afterwards, drove Melody downtown to her exam, I went to work for a bit, picked her up again, went shopping at Pacific Center and Robson, then dinner at Prima Taste Singaporean restaurant which is becoming one of my favourite places. Parked up on Granville and Smithe, right by the clubbing area and I slept in the car for about 2 hours while Melody did crosswords. It was really beautiful just sitting there, the sounds of people chattering, an electric organ street performer, cars sliding by, and the night rolling in... went to Ginger 62 Lounge near the Granville Street Bridge to celebrate Derek/Ria's (choir) birthday party. A bunch of people from choir came out and I filled my glass with some nice scotches. Nicole and Lan dropped by for a few drinks. Really cool place. Fun. Sunday, mass was great. We're singing strong, instruments were tight. And really excited about our sound crew who are cutting the setup time of everything from about 25 minutes to 8 minutes which makes it less stressful and the outcome is an even better sound balance. Went out for lunch at Earl's with some of the choir crew, then took walk around Garry Point (Steveston) with Melody. I used to go to Garry Point by myself after choir when melody wasn't here. It's nice... right by the water, people strolling, kite flying, barbeques... I would bring my guitar and play and sometimes lay down and sleep. Came back and watched Apprentice! Monday, went to the passport office at 5 in the morning! And realized the lineup is too long... SO, I'm going to Richmond on Friday to do the same thing... ridiculous! After work, met up with Caroline's (friend of highschool friends) dad at the Orpheum theatre to watch a phenomenol concert with the VSO. A brilliant performance by Yundi Li playing the terrifying Liszt piano concerto. A woodwinds piece by Richard Strauss and then Mahler's Symphony #7 which was big and Mahler and reminded me of Bruckner and it had some quotes from his second symphony. Great orchestra. Enjoyed very much the company of Caroline's father who has had a very successful career in the mining industry. Met up with Michael Walling (NS Violin friend) afterwards for some late night Korean food with lots of sake. He's a hilarious guy and knows how to take the most out of life. Tonight (Tuesday) Melody and I met up with him and his parents at Shabusen Korean Grill for all you can eat Korean Grill and Sushi. It was great to see his parents after so many years. Michael and I have played violin together since we were small, but he went on to study violin after highschool and consequently can outplay me by about 57 thirty second notes per minute (if we had a competition). And that's it. Business wise, hoping for some good deals to go through before summer. That would put us in a great position on Vancouver Island and... I'll tell you more as it happens. April 9, 2007: Easter, Making your Millions Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#apr092007 Wow, long easter week. So Tuesday was the David Suzuki lecture on sustainable fishing. It was very interesting. Sustainable fishing is becoming such a hot topic in Vancouver although, honestly, even the people pushing the idea don't really know what they're talking about. (and by that, I'm not referring to Suzuki or the other scientists. I'm talking more about, say, chefs or certain advocates who appear to know what's going on, but don't really... they're in it just for the publicity). Anyways, it was at the Italian Cultural Center out in East Vancouver. Wednesday was our choir practice for easter. It was a long practice and afterwards, a few of us went out to Earl's for late dinner/dessert. Thursday, really tiring day, then went to Richmond for Holy Thursday Mass. Melody and I had the utter priviledge to sit beside young Sheena who we belted out all the tunes together in wonderful 3-part harmony. Friday, started work much earlier than usual and finished by 11:30, got down to Richmond (doing two deliveries on the way) in time for 1 pm mass for Holy Friday. It was a nice mass. The church is so wonderfully decorated this year. They must have spent a fortune on it and before you pass judgement on how our church is spending money, remember the parable where a woman came to Jesus with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume?" It could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly. After mass, Derek, Ria, Ricky (guitarist from choir), Ian (Derek's tenant), and Father David, Melody and I went out to Dave's fish and chips for, well, fish (and chips too). Yum. Went back to the church and rehearsed a piano piece for sunday's mass for about two hours... long time. Hung out at Melody's place for the rest of the afternoon. After dinner, went out Kristen's gig at a sushi bar in east gastown. Met up with Dunc, Carolyn, Rich, and Abdel and of course the whole Language Arts crew. And met some new folks. It was a weird place for a gig, and they played really well but the sound system wasn't great. There was a band after them that had about 10 people in there. It was crazy. Weird music. Good times. Lots o' laughs. Saturday had a meeting cancelled (I guess I'm the only one dumb enough to believe people want to work on the saturday of a long weekend) so I just headed down to richmond. Went to the church for a bit, then picked up the wedding invitations at Oakridge Mall, bought Melody's shoes, and then back to Richmond. Had crab cakes for dinner at Melody's parent's place and then off to Saturday Easter Vigil at 8 until midnight. It was a looong night but the music was wonderful and although it wasn't my choir that was singing, Melody and I joined in with them because hey, it's better than sitting through 3 hours of service. The mass starts outside in the parking lot where there's a big bowl full of fire just roaring against the dark blue sky and the briskness of the cold just falling upon us. The leaping flames and the dark smell of wood brings out something so primal in all of us that I could almost have preferred having mass around the fire. But we all came into the church and sang sang sang. There were 2 baptisms, a whole bunch of people being confirmed, and then a reception afterwards in the gathering space. We didn't stay too long because a few hours later in the morning, we were back at the church at rehearsal for 1pm mass. I was exhausted already by this point. But something happened. This is the first time since lent that we've sang upbeat songs and everything really came together and we all just sang out there without really caring. It was nice. Went to Earl's at Lansdowne afterwards, then hung out with Melody's family at home, watched a show about innovation in business, dinner with them, and then back to North Vancouver for some Apprentice. There's a whole lot of rich people here in vancouver and when you drive around some of these gorgeous mansions, which are literally blocks away from little small shacks, you can't stop and wonder how these people made all of this money? Of course, there's a hundred thousand ways people make a hundred million dollars, but is there any way we can build a framework to map out how they made their money and which is the most "best" bet if you're young and still choosing your path? So here's one framework I came up with. Money comes from having the capacity to create money. So you can imagine a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum is you and on the other end of the spectrum is people in the world. On one end of the spectrum, your personal bank account will be filled by your body/mind doing things that people pay you to do. On the other end of the spectrum, your bank account is being filled with residual amounts created from the body/minds of others. Example, so say you are a factory worker. People pay you per hour for what you work. You're on one end of the spectrum. Another example: say you have money in the bank and it's invested and it returns more money. You're on the other end of the spectrum because you're not using your mind/body at all to create money. In between example, say you're a dentist. You use your mind/body partially but your dental hygienists do a lot of work also. So where am I going with all of this? Which is better? It depends. I think that if you are very very talented at what you do, then you can make a lot of money using yourself. So sports stars, great authors, doctors, lawyers, actors, singers, company executives, investment bankers - they use their mind and body and people pay them for that and if they're really good at what they do, they get make tons of money and buy those mansions. Now somewhere closer to the other end of the spectrum is the businessperson whose mind isn't necessarily all that large, and whose body isn't particularly able but is able to use other's talents to make money. These are the book publishers, the record producers, the film producers, company owners and their talent is the ability to make money off of others which isn't that crazy a trait, but they focused their life on the capacity of their workers to make money for them just as the athlete focused his life on biceps. And herein lies the difference between the camps of thoughts on "how to get rich" or "how to be a billionaire". Some tell you to enjoy what you do and work hard, no pain/no gain, and show perseverence, study, train, etc. and those people tend towards the personal camp where you are your capacity for wealth (minus whatever investments you have). So the millionaire book author, the millionaire athlete, the millionaire surgeon and the millionaire investment banker really are in a similar category on this spectrum because people are paying them by the job for their mind/body. Other wealth philosophies tell you to make money off of "other people's money" (OPM), they tell you to be an entrepreneur, to take risk and be your own boss. In this way, the millionaire film producer, millionaire restauranteur (if they're not the chef), and millionaire politician are in a similar category because for the most part, their brain and body isn't what's making money. And to be honest, when you talk to these people on this side of the spectrum- side by side with experts - they really aren't that smart. They're sharp as a knife and can harness people, but put them in charge of the whole operation and they're no necessarily going to do a great job. Neither method is better or easier. Making money off of yourself is safe because you have a monopoly on your mind/body and as long as you are able, people HAVE to pay you mountains of cash for your ability until they find a way to clone you. So you're protected kind of... as long as you are able to publish a new book, continue to make great recordings, keep pushing out good acting roles etc. which is reasonable if you're even just moderately focused (but fame has a way of distracting people). Making money off of other is good because it's less dependent on the failings of your body or your mind and has the advantage of growing beyond your 24 hours in a day, and 7 days a week. For an author or banker, they have a set number of hours that they can work to push out material worth billing for. For someone who harnesses people to make money, their capacity isn't limited by their number of hours in a day, but rather by their access to capital and other such business decisions. So if you aren't going to publish a million dollar book any time soon, or you're not going to make a million bucks as an athlete, or if you're not going to climb to the top of your fortune 500 company ladder - your only option to getting into that mansion is to harness other people to make money off of them. How do you get to that position? And I can bet you there's more of those people in the mansions than those that make money off of themselves. I think that's the million dollar question, but it has something to do with the ability to raise capital (or be born with access to capital), to bring deals together, to be persuasive, to recognize opportunities, and an overwhelmingly annoying amount of ambition (but without letting others know you're that ambitious). I think that all of these traits (except being born with access to capital) can be learned from experience given you have the prerequisite amount of "good" qualities so that you can build off of them through experience. For example, someone who has no social skills whatsoever probably won't ever be a good salesperson which is necessary in all of the high level negotiating that goes on (you can't hire people to do that if it's your company). Anywhere along the spectrum, you'll find people who will walk into those mansions. And you'll change throughout your career. You might start off making money off of people, and then when you're famous, you decide to make money off by being a guest speaker. Or some start off using this brain at a company, building up personal capital, and at a later stage in life, spinning off something of their own. But never forget ambition as being one of the most key ingredients. If you have some idea of where you're going to make your millions, now is the time to focus on it. You can change it later, or you can decide not to pursue it, but ambition is a prerequisite. Unless you win the jackpot and I don't play the jackpot because it admits defeat that I don't have the personal skills or the abiity to harness others enough to make it. And believe me, no one plays the jackpot to win the $50 prize. If you're playing the jackpot, you're playing for the millions, and if you need that hope to make the millions, then you've lost hope in yourself to make millions. Which isn't bad, but do you want that to be you? Two sides of the spectrum. And many many greys in between. And a limited number of resources in this world. If your ambition is to walk into a great mansion, how do you plan to do it? April 2, 2007: Update, On Impatience Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#apr022007 So I left off last Tuesday. Wednesday was choir practice and we were practicing for Palm Sunday and we dashed through a whole bunch of material because Melody and I went to meet up with Denise Djokic (NS friend) for cheescake. Denise was just passing through Vancouver on the way to San Francisco. Abdel came out also as he met her before and so did Will from choir because... do we need a reason? Anyways, it was good times, we went to Cheesecake Etc. which is one of the more famous places in Vancouver for Cheesecake... really low key area, I always thought it was closed, but it's actually just dark and I never tried it so yeah. Denise's career is just going nuts - heralded as one of the best young cellists in the world, two juno nominations, a rigorous touring schedule with the best orchestras in the world... and here we were at a run down cheesecake shop talking about sniffing farts while on the toilet. Well at least I was talking about that. FASCINATING STUFF! Friday, went out for modern Filipino food at Rekados on Main and King Edward with Melody, Priscilla, Abdel and Rich. We had satay, chicken adobo, grilled eggplant, mee hoon, mussels in coconut sauce, and large prawns in curry. All not bad, but the seafood was the best part by far. The satay wasn't bbq'ed so that was a shame. The mee hoon was kind of plain, but that's I've come to accept that filipino food is really just home cooking and that's what you have to expect. Went to Therese's place to visit her for the first time in many weeks since she's moved to Edmonton. Had dessert and a few drinks with some others and some of David's friends. It was nice to meet up again! Saturday work as always, didn't get to do any wedding stuff (shucks!) but picked up Melody and went to Pho Viet for dinner. Met up with Renee (Melody's Microsoft friend) for drinks at Havana which is a cool cuban bar on Commercial Drive. We sat on the patio facing the street so we could people watch. It was nice to be up around that time of night, people buzzing around you, a pitcher of sangria and yam fries and watching people. Had a random encounter with Jones (friend of NS friends) back from some rehearsal and it's weird bc he's been doing a gig with another friend of mine from church. Sunday, mass went well after an 11am rehearsal start time that no one, except one member, actually arrived on time. Kinda frustrating but oh well. Nice harmonies all the way. Lunch with Gerald et al. at OHare's afterwards. I don't particularly like the wait staff there. Met up with Rich for Korean Hot Pot at Jang Mo Jib on Denman and for $12, you get so much meat and potatoes it's ridiculous and you don't realize how stuffed you are until you stand up. Good times. And that brings me to Monday... long week ahead. I'll be spending most of my evenings at church. I'm going to a David Suzuki lecture tomorrow about sustainable seafood bc I get asked that a lot and it's becoming such a big topic in vancouver. This should be very interesting. Anyways, that's all. One thing I see in a lot of people is impatience. Impatience for success, impatience for love, impatience for stability, impatience to get rich, impatienece to finish school, impatience to get into school. I think impatience can be a good thing. It drives you and as long as you're impatient, you're pushing. At one stage in your life, you might think, "I've maxed out... now I just milk what I have" and that's fine, but the longer you stay ambitious and impatient, the more your build so that the more you milk. Career wise, many of my friends at 27 and are just milking now... they're happy with what they do. They're carpenters, electricians, students... that's what they do. That's what they always want to do. They're happy. They're in no rush anymore. But some are starting their careers and getting frustrated at road blocks and glass ceilings and are getting very impatient. That's good. BUT it's also bad. It causes people to make bad decisions. In business, for instance, you have to push push push, but in some respects, you have to hurry up and wait. A lot of it is waiting. What do you do when you're waiting? Do you push beyond your limits? Do you annoy people? Do you throw money at things that are stupid just to feel like you're being productive? Sometimes it takes more will power to step back than to be a diligent worker. Which is counter-intuitive to what most of us are taught. We are taught to always forge ahead because really, when you're young, you're always looking up. There's no way to go down. In business as well as in adult life, you can go down. So the strategy is different. You go offensive when you have an opportunity, when there is none, or if you see a 50/50 chance of losing, don't engage in battle. That applies to business as much as it applies to personal life. Impatience is very much a weakness and what might have brought you into success as a young adult might very well hinder you in later life. Sometimes I think of life as this. Some people do their greatest work when they're very young... 26 or 27... they come up with groundbreaking theories and stuff. Some people do fantastic achievements in sports when they're very young... 21 or 22, sometimes younger. But in a career, in business, and in your personal life, the greatest achievements you have are yet to come - probably when you're 40 or 50... hopefully 60 and 70 you're still doing great. So what are you doing at this stage in your life? You are building a foundation. For your career, you are meeting people, you are getting experience, you are understanding the ropes. In your personal life, you are building relationships, you are learning to resolve problems, you are listening. Your greatest earning ability in your work is probably when you're 50. That's when you cash in your brownie points. If you can be really successful before then, that's a huge bonus, but if you're not considered super successful yet, that's the same as getting 3rd place your an elementary math test. It's great to win but as long as you don't lose too much focus, it doesn't really affect anything. The 1st place person feels great, but you have many decades to catch up. If, after getting 3rd place in elementary school, you decide that everything's unfair and you burn the school down, then that's the equivalent of doing some illegal get rich quick scheme in order to catch up to the other guy. I empathize but wish you would have been more patient. Or gone for a loser instead of a great partner because you were too impatient to get hitched. We build up brownie points now and we cash them in later. Those that are impatient because their classmates beat them at the elementary school math quiz might very well be cashing in their brownie points too soon and missing out on all the interest that they will accrue when they're 50, they have a good career and stability in their community. March 27, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#mar272007 So I left off last monday. Wow, I'm posting later and later in the week. I'll try to keep to my sunday post schedule. So Wedesday was practice and again, I moderated the group. It was pretty cool. We came up with some neat instrument arrangements which were apparently well received. Thurday, super recording at super recording artist Duncan Stewart. We only got part of the track down (two vocal tracks and the guitar track). We'll add the bass, third guitar, and violin later, hopefully soon. What there is of the track so far - I'm pretty happy about. Sippin on orange tasting liqueur helped the song I think. Friday, we ate at Anton's pasta in Burnaby. The concept is three portions of pasta on one plate, which is what's it's been so far. It takes about an hour to get in though. Yum. I had the linguine alla carbonara (surprise). Waited for her parents to return from the cinema, so went to the casino where we betted on live horse racing via satellite. We were betting on horses in australia. It was cool. We started with $5 and ended with $9.75 which paid for drinks while waiting. Saturday, lounged around for the morning, and then leftover pasta for lunch (meal #2 from Anton's), then spent the afternoon at Chapters reading a book called Chindia which looks at the history of China and India as growing economic powers, their strengths and weaknesses, differences, and how they might co-operate in the future. It also draws on history to find analagous situations to try and predict how the future will progress. Very interesting stuff. Met up with Melody's family at Pin Pin Filipino-Chinese restaurant on Main and 45th. We had the sour soup, satay sewers, bbq stuffed squid, broad noodles, thin noodles, bitter melon and then halo halo (shaved flavoured ice on top of sweet stuff on the bottom). Halo Halo translates to "mix mix" and that's what you do. You just mix the whole concoction. Yummy. Went home, practiced for mass, watched SNL with Melody's brother and that was it. Sunday, mass went well and the arrangements sounded pretty cool and I think we pulled them off. Then went to Cactus Club with some of the choir and one of our associates. Good stuff. Went out for dinner with Rich at Shanghai Wind which is a small little restaurant across from the Richmond Center. Probably one of the best Northern Chinese restaurants in Vancouver but you have to get there before 7 or you'll get stuck in a waiting list that always exceeds an hour. I don't know why they don't get a bitter spot. And that's it. It's been a very tiring few weeks at work. Lots of stuff going on. I got my first account selling olives somewhere out in Surrey. Trying to get it into a few more accounts. Should be interesting. And that's it. Today is Tuesday. Have I had any interesting thoughts? One thing recently is that I've begun interpreting my dreams and almost always, the objects in my dreams actually do correspond to things and correspond to worries and once I started realizing my dreams had meaning, I think it started putting out even more and more symbols. It's cool and I'm sure I sound weird, but dreams aren't random. Some things in this world might be completely random, but dreams aren't one of them. And they only really have one input source - your experiences. And only one modifier - your brain. And so the output is a modified look at your experiences, which is not too hard to believe as some look into the future. If you hit someone on the head, you can prophecize that the person will be angry with you. In the same way, if a whole lot of experiences added together might form a pattern that your brain recognizes as him going to hit, but your waking mind hasn't read that output yet, but in your dreams, there it is - the person who will hate you is running around hitting you. And it might seem like magic, but actually it's just your waking brain not being able to forsee something using some kind of analysis. March 20, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#mar202007 Last week had been a fairly tiring one especially because of the time change. For some reason, it seemed to have affected more people than usual. I actually can't remember too well what happened during the week. I remember choir practice on Wednesday was different because Derek/Ria weren't there so I moderated the group which wasn't that hard because everyone works pretty well together anyways. Friday, went for dinner with Erin (Melody's hs friend and pilgrimmage partner), Kernby (Shad 98), and Rich for dinner at a Malaysian restaurant called "Jonker Street" which is based on a famous street in Malacca, where my dad's family is from. It was really delicious food, the roti was great, and the price wonderful. Went to Debbie/Eugene (erin's friend) place in Yaletown afterwards and played Cranium which is the first time I'd ever played that game. Lots of fun! Saturday, worked in the morning, and then met up with Josh Fuller (from high school) at his place in Burnaby. He's rooming with Derek Stapleton who lived about 10 houses away from me when I was a kid, so we played together as kids so it's hilarious to meet up with them. Went out for drinks and then picked up Melody and went for dinner at Hon's and then to the Railway Club to hear Caledonia play - a band from Halifax play. They were really good. Before them was a band that I'd heard at an open mic night on Commercial Drive a few months back. Kristen and Mike were there of course, Dunc/Caroline, Matt/Max (from Kristen's band), Rachel/Sean (my roomates), and Josh/Derek came out. Happy St.Patrick's Day. Sunday, mass was wonderful and Ajay did an awesome job on drums in Derek's absences. He was right on coming in and out of verses, his volume was perfect, his style was fitting for the piece, he ended with us every time - a lot of this might seem like stuff that should be expected but remember, we do six different pieces every week, and we change stuff up in practice and even right before mass, and we really don't have tons of time to practice and even with a group like us where we all kind of know each other, we make mistakes on things like endings and we don't end together, or on codas where we play wrong chords, or coming out of a chorus into a verse and we add an extra two beats, and sometimes we don't come in together. But really happy with how solidly ajay is doing it. Good stuff!!!! And nice harmonies on some pieces. Went to Hananoki Japanese food with some of the choir afterwards, hung out at Melody's place for a bit, and then picked up Rachel and her boston friend, Zoe, from the airport and went to all you can eat hotpot in Richmond. Interesting girl, that Zoe. Reminds me a lot of a friend from McGill. Monday, went to Guu izakaya on Robson/Denman with Rachel. Izakaya is just tapas, so lots of small dishes. Met up with Rachel, Zoe, Sean (new roomate), Rich and Abdel-san. Good times. And that brings me to today. Tired. Very tired. Congratulations go out to: Anu Panu (Shad 98) for getting into radiology at U of A which was his dream for so long! And congratulations to Kristen/Mike for Language Arts being on the charts in Calgary meaning that their music gets played on the airwaves at least once a day! I do expect a Juno nomination and/or award out of this group before the Olympics because they are so talented, they sound so awesome, and they work so hard on their music! March 13, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#mar132007 So just a quick update. Not much happening this week. Wednesday was choir practice as usual. After choir, we went out with the Father David and the visiting priest, Father Bill, for drinks at Earl's. Father Bill is in from Chicago to run Parish retreat, which is a 4 or 5 day long seminar and his particular expertise is on the ancient bible, so he's fluent in ancient greek, ancient hebrew and aramaic. Very interesting guy. Thursday, dinner with Rich at Sha-Lin, hadn't done that for awhile. Friday, saw the movie 300 with Melody and it was an awesome movie! Of course, it's not a deep story, nor does it have great character development. The gem about the movie is the fact that you get so immersed in it and the fighting is so awesome. Dinner at Hon's noodle house, yum. Saturday, I didn't work. I've been very tired recently and in part it's because I don't really have any days off to recuperate. Anyways, got down to Richmond, did some wedding stuff (invitations, suits), and then went for dinner at Red Star Seafood Restaurant on Granville/70th because someone had told me about their fish maw soup which was apparently to die for. It was delicious. Had clay pot tofu/seafood, and crispy noodles with stuff on top. Went to Tom (Rich's friend) party out in Burnaby. Met a whole lot of new people, played Jenga, Pictionary, and then some new people crashed the party and there was one crazy girl that went around asking everyone if they were single. Good times. Sunday, mass went well, Melody for the first time ever, did all the sound system by herself and I think she balanced it really well! We went out for pancakes and coffee at IHOP with Bernice, Christina, and Ajay (choir) and then back home where I spent a whole lot of time spamming my one friend's blog who gave up blogging (and facebook) for lent. yikes. We're at about 130 comments on one post which has been pretty fun because some people I've never met and I have written a whole story (and continue to do so). Yes, I'm cool. And that brings me to today (tuesday) and the time change has really taken a toll on everybody. For some reason, everyone this year seems more affected by the time change than I ever remember. I don't know why but I've been absolutely exhausted at work and my no coffee policy hasn't helped much either. So I guess I have to comment a bit on the coconut question. The question was this: one coconut left on an island. As an arbitrator, Who does it belong to? First come first serve? First touch first serve? Whoever can pull it out of the other's hands? Whoever can add more value to the world by staying alive? Some people believe that for any situation, there is a right and a wrong way to react to it. For the religious, the right way is the way that God prefers. For some very religious extremists, it's the way that the BIBLE tells you. For some social activists, it's the way that benefits the most number of people. For Spartans, the right way is whatever benefits you. For the existentialists, it's all absurd anyways. But for something like this, you end up with this problem: should the deserving person be chosen arbitrarily (e.g. whoever runs their first, whoever sees it first, by random luck) or to be fair, since no one deserves it, should both die? You see how that is a problem. I usually like to see any situation as having as many "right" answers as there are players. In this situation, it is both people's responsibility to get the coconut. To lose the coconut is to fail to keep your responsibilities. So both deserve the coconut. Going up one level, if you were the ruler of the world, who would you give the coconut to? It depends on your responsibility. If your responsibility is to maintain the wellbeing of the world, then you have to give it to the person who will, once returning to civilization, will most greatly benefit your world. But you see how what is *right* and *wrong* can have two completely different actions, but both can be justified, and both are right. The person who is deemed deserving depends entirely on who is making the judgement. And again, both are right. So even if you don't completely wrap your head around how both can be right, let's extend the example to 10 coconuts that will save one family each. There are, say, 10 states, each comprising of 100 cities each, each comprising of 100 families. So there's 100,000 families and 10 coconuts. Who deserves the coconut? As a member of the family, it is your duty to provide for your family and your children, so it is not only what you probably would do, it's also what you SHOULD do, even at the expense of another family. As the mayor of a city, it is your job to provide for your city, so you have to fight for it for your city and then distribute it in such a way that you save the 10 families that will most likely maintain your city the best. So it is not only what you would, but what you should do. As the leader of a state, you must fight for all of the coconuts. At which point, every city will argue that they should have at least one (although they'd take 10 if you gave it to them). And so you distribute the 10 coconuts to maximize the welfare of your state. And as the head of the country, you choose the 10 families to give it to to maximize the welfare of the country. From this example, we can see a few points. First, that there are as many deserving people as there are players. Everyone is deserving because it is their God-given right to preserve themselves and their families. Secondly, conflict is inevitable because not everybody's responsibilities are the same, so who they see as deserving is dependent on if they're a family, a head of city, a head of state, or a head of nation and because they necessarily MUST have different views, of which they are ALL right, this conflict can not be resolved through changing their opinions. Third, we also see the potential of having heads of cities, heads of states, and heads of nations as entering a conflict of interest if they have families themselves. Because if they get the coconut, whose welfare are they supposed to maximize - their families or their states? That's usually two different answers and it takes an uber-human to choose their state over their family. In reality, the people you are responsible also isn't so clear cut. For instance, one might be just a family member, but also feels responsible for the welfare of all nations and races. And therefore, their opinion of who deserving of, billions of dollars of International Aid might be different from the head of a nation, whose resonsibility is very largely to maximize the welfare of their nation, and more subtly, to maximize the welfare of the human race. So you have conflict between activist groups and their governments, and both think the either side is irrational and/or selfish. But in fact, both are correct, they are merely playing out the "who deserves the coconut" script. Or how we should distribute taxes. Obviously the wealthy want lower taxes on dividends, and the lower class want reduced taxes on the low income bracket. Both will use utilitarian arguments (e.g. what's best for the most number of people), but they are both saying the same thing "my family deserves the coconut". And neither is irrational. Sometimes, people say, "there's no right or wrong answer." What they sometimes mean is that it can be argued either way and depending on the facts you use, and what you emphasize, opinion is subjective. I'm saying that in the coconut case, there is a right and wrong answer, many of them, and all are objectively correct. So who deserves the stupid coconut? You deserve the stupid coconut. That is the answer according to my point of view. March 5, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#mar052007 It's March already????? Anyways, the weather is so dark and so depressing now. I left off on Sunday. Monday was our final marriage prep classes and yes, I fell asleep again. I think I've spent more time sleeping than awake at these classes and the worst part is, I think I'm the only one sleeping in the class. But I really can't stay awake. It's after work, I have dinner, then... clunk... went out for drinks at Monsoon on Main/Broadway with Vanessa (church) and her fiancee Patrick. We had spent the last few weeks during breaks laughing at it only seemed appropriate to go out for drinks afterwards. Wednesday was practice. We have two new faces for lent which is cool. An excellent guitarist which frees me up on violin and a new male vocalist, Ajay, who I was good friends with during the Joseph musical two years ago. At the time he was underaged, now he's back and ready to party without fake id. Sweet. Thursday was a potluck at Kristen's place. Quite a few good people came out (and their dogs). I brought along three fresh trout and baked them right there - just salt and lemon. Someone made calzones from SCRATCH right then and there, there were scallopped potatoes, samosas, gazpacho, some other baked stuff, chocolate mousse and homemade wine. Yum. Friday we watched the play Banana Boys with Vic/Dex, Richard and Rachel (lay cha loo). A real tragic play, it opened up with the main character with a chunk of mirror stuck through his chest, pretty much going, "you're probably wondering how I ended up like this?" (kinda reminds you of the movie Casino or Romeo and Juliet and the inevitability of fate, where as the audience throughout the play, you know it will all end sadly). The play is about Chinese Canadians and their quest for identity, but they abstract many of the ideas such as dating, careers, and socializing using war scenes, game shows, and scenes from an operating room where instead of pulling out organs, they pull random luggage out of the patient (symbolizing what's in them). It was a cool play and it was actually written by a guy in the class above me at Waterloo which is why most of it is set in Toronto and actually, it was first performed in Toronto and was a huge hit which is why I knew it would do well. And the cast was phenomenol. Just awesome. Went to Gloucester Cafe afterwards for a 10:30 dinner. Hungry. Saturday, worked most of the day then took a long walk in Steveston Harbour while waiting for Melody to get back from shopping. Steveston Harbous is nice and I ended up at a dog park where owners can let the dogs off of the leashes, so you have all these dogs running up to you wanting you to pat their heads. And it's nice because as you walk, people in the opposite direction always look up and say, "hello". Eventually, I kept my head down, although when I walk, I love to stare at the ground. It's very meditative and it reminds me of my pilgrimmage (or a good 10 days on the pilgrimmage where the ground was about as interesting as the scenery. It was called "the meseta" or tabletop, basically a plateau. It took a whole morning to climb up the plateau, and when you're there, you've got a good two hundred kilometers of flatness, and no protection from the beating sun either except misplanted trees which cast shadows on the wrong side of the path, but I digress. But we met the most people during that part of the journey I think because we were so interested to talk to see each other at the end of the day). Anyways, we met up with Derek, Ria, and Will (choir) at Matsuyama in Richmond for dinner, went out to True Confections dessert on 10th and Alma until we kind of got dirty looks for staying too long and hogging a table, and went out to the Frog and the Firkin on Broadway which was an awesome bar. It was a hilarious time. I don't think I've ever seen Ria laugh so hard in her life. And it was over the same two or three things but she kept repeating it randomly and every time it got funnier. Sunday, Duncan/Caroline (highschool) came to mass and mass sounded nice. We blended well and I liked our arrangements and our song choices were nice too. Went out to O'Hare's for drinks afterwards with Melody, Dunc/Caroline and Gerald. Good times. And back to North Van for Apprentice and sleep. Done. And that brings me to today (Monday). No more marriage classes. There have been some interesting developments in business and you'll hear about them soon enough. I was thinking about something today. Imagine your family and another's family are stranded on an island. Somehow, a lone coconut is found laying on the beach. You and the other family see it. This will allow only one person to survive until the boat arrives. Who deserves the coconut? There is only enough coconut for one person in the family actually. You want it for your wife/child, he wants it for his wife/child. Here's an example where traditional morality fails. Utilitarianism might say that the child that will make the most utility for the world when they return deserves it, but that's too uncertain. I suppose you could argue that with a definitive future, one child is more deserving, but in the realm of the unknown, neither child is more deserving. Some religions might say to let the other family take it, in which case, no one is deserving and both must die? Some theories would say it comes down to survival of the fittest, and whoever gets it, deserves it, but that leaves much to reckon with when it comes to why brute strength determines who is deserving. Some might say, whoever is closer or whoever saw it first (first come first serve) or whoever runs and touches it first, but then "deserving" becomes so arbitrary because why does stronger legs allow you to be more deserving. As a moderator, who gets it? Some theories would say, "who cares?". I think traditional morality fails in this example. Who deserves the coconut? As the moderator, how can you reconcile the facts that no one is concretely deserving and yet the most fair way to deal with the situation would be to have everybody die. Which also makes no sense. Or do you think that brute strength for some celestial reason, determines who is most deserving because that's who the universe will choose in any case. Post and View Responses to this Conundrum on My Forum February 25, 2007: Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#feb252007 Alright, so quick update. Monday, marriage classes. Interesting stuff. Filipino food for dinner with Melody, as usual. Delicious. I love the wait staff there. Wednesday, went to Ash Wednesday mass before work, I decided I'm giving up functional coffee for lent. Functional coffee means coffee for the caffein in the morning, afternoon - basically caffeine to wake myself up kind of thing. Man, was I tired the first day. Anyways, at night, went to the BC Home and Garden show at BC Place with Abdel where Kosta was doing a cooking show about cooking with BC Salmon along with someone that promotes beer. Really engaging show. Awesome stuff. Thursday, went to Emma Slipp (highschool friend's sister) play in North Vancouver. It was Oscar Wilde's "The Ideal Husband" and it was really really well done and Emma did a fantastic job! Went with a bunch of my high school friends and before, Abdel, Dunc, Caroline and I tried a new soup place called Burgoo close to the Quay. Good food and good service. Friday, went to Sheena's (church) place in the afternoon with Mai and we karaoked, then wrote a new song which I'm really excited about because it has a cool feel to it, very Sheena like, and it's basically sounds in a playground, but set to music. Cool concept, we'll see where it goes. Fantastic afternoon. At night, went with Melody to Vancouver Theatre Sports production of Shakespeare Live, where they create the Shakespeare style play right before your eyes, like improv. It was so well done! All the artists were brilliant. Saturday, met up with Parisa (Shad 04) at the quay for coffee for a lot of random conversation. Picked up Melody from Richmond and then went out for Rachel (roomate) birthday dinner at a Hunan Restaurant on Kingsway and Joyce and only now did I realize that we didn't even eat chicken! And it's Hunan food and Hunan is most famous for their HUNAN CHICKEN. No, j/k. Picked up Priscilla and went karaokeing with Rachel and her crew. Lots of good songs and I learned a lot of new Chinese songs. Sunday, early practice, mass went well. Sound balance is really good, and we're playing everything a bit quieter now because it's lent season. New mass parts too. And that's it. Had lunch at Earl's with a whole lot of church people. Met a new guy that likes to talk a lot about cars, computers, and clubs. And that leads me to now. Oscars finished, watched Amadeus, and getting read for a long week at work. I haven't posted anything very thought provoking on here for a good month now. Well, actually there is something I want to post about. I get a lot of updates of my friends from back home and there is a disproportionate number of them that are very successful in all of their respective fields. When someone first goes into a field, it's difficult and usually that person is one of the few people that believes that their temporary mediocrity is a passing phase. You're an acting student - you worship the professional gods. Then they go out, and soon they're the cream of the cream. Or whatever - in law, in banking, in academia anything - the people that believe in themselves do well almost always. Or if their parents have high expectations on them, and they continue to put pressure on themselves, they do well. Some of course, don't, and that's because they lose hope, because they're lazy, because they drop the ball, or because they never really believed in themselves in the first place. People always say, "belive in yourself", but if you have no credibility with yourself, how can you believe in yourself? It's like everyday, you are the employer of yourself and your ego has to show yourself a resume. When you think you can't do something, or you're intimidated by someone, you look at your resume, "I did this and this and this in this year and I'm sure I can do this". But if you don't have a resume in your head, how can you believe in yourself? And no one can blame you for not believing in yourself? What's the point of all this? Some people I can feel it believe that they can do what they're expected to do. Some people feel that their expectations are too high. The difference in this is how you sell yourself TO yourself. To some degree. You can't apply to be a CEO of a company if you've never finished high school, but for the grey areas (which most of us are), you can by persuasion, persuade yourself that you can do it. February 19, 2007: Sperm Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#feb192007 So an older asian lady came to the shop today and was like, "Do... you... have... sperm..." I was taken aback. "What? Sperm?" "Sperm... soup" "Sorry... no... but we have prawns?" "SPERM!" she cried out. I think she was getting mad. Then she pointed her finger up in the air as if in a phallic position "I do beg your pardon ma'am, but I think I should know where sperm comes from!" Then she reached on her tray and grabbed a SPOON from the counter. I never quite figured out how she planned to use that spoon to get sperm but I feel absolutely awful for whoever the donor is. February 18, 2007: Gong Xi Fa Chai Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#feb182007 Happy New Year! Had a wonderful Chinese New Year with Melody's family. Made a lot of money in red pockets. Yesterday (Saturday) had dinner with her family - colourful fried rice, whole fish, prawns, and long noodles. Delicious. And stayed up until 1 am for some superstitious reason although I think Melody was passed out long before then. Anyways, left off last Sunday. Sunday night, watched Apprentice and that was about it. Monday, marriage classes about family planning and everything... interesting... had dessert afterwards at Dairy Queen. Wednesday was choir practice and it was the first time we were piano-less... but you know what? People adapt, that's just how it is. And without piano, we actually instead of scaling up the other instruments, we pulled them out a bit and let the voices come out and it was really good. Thursday, met up with Priscially and Rich for Ramen at the Kintaro on Denman. Yummy. Friday went to Ivan's musical "Very Good Eddy" at the Shadbolt in Burnaby and it was awesome! All the cast were phenomenol and hilarious. Ivan is awesome. Saturday, had lunch with Abdel at Prima Taste on Robson. It's a brand new restaurant (franchise actually) and if you've ever been to Spring Rolls in Toronto, it's a similar concept (price wise, presentation, portions, staff, ambiance) except it's Singaporean food. Actually, Prima Taste does packaged sauces and food kits (Kuew Teow, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Laksa), but this restaurant was awesome and the price was awesome, the food was really authentic (except the presentation, which was on non-symettrical dinnerware). I had chicken laksa and roti, which came out fresh and hot. Best Singaporean food in Vancouver I'd say. Got my haircut, then went to Melody's place for dinner... delicious! And that was that. Sunday morning, had a big breakfast at their house (fatty soup with rice noodles, fried shallops, dried scallops, chinese mushrooms, prawns, fishballs) and then mass went really really well! voices - gorgeous. Missed a few cues, but oh well. Went to the buddhist temple afterwards, lit some incense, walked around a huge buddha statue, went into the temple and sat down and listened to the monks chant which I love to hear. It was so crowded because of new year. And dinner at Melody's place with her parents and relatives and made up a Harry Potter game to play with Kimmy (Melody's cousin). The game consisted of hitting scrabble blocks into goal nets like the game quiddich. February 15, 2007: Dinners Ready Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#feb152007 Okay, I had to blog about this because this concept has been stuck in my head and bothering me. Yollanda found this online and showed it to me in a flurry of excitement because it was so much like my original idea. It's called Dinners Ready, and it's so eerily similar to what I was doing before, if not exactly the same, but they take it one step further and I'll explain. Basically the concept is this: you have all of the ingredients (raw) and it's in a simple package and then you go home and cook it. Just add heat (which is the name of a similar franchise in Oakland). Pricewise, they claim it works out to less than fast food per serving. From a marketing perspective (i.e. how does it compare with it's competition - ie fast food, fresh ingredients, premarinated meats), I wrote up a section on this in my blog a few years ago: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/fresh.htm. And it does make sense. And some of you may or may not know this, but I gambled a big chunk of my young adulthood on this concept. I actually sold my version of a product like this at Lonsdale Quay. There was Jambalaya, Moroccan Fish, and Atlantic Chowder and yes, it was a good concept, but from that particular venture I jumped into my current business venture which is maybe less whacky, but more practical. Dinner's Ready concept takes the fresh ingredients idea, and builds a whole retail store around it and you package it yourself. So here's how this concept takes my idea one step further. First, you package it yourself, which saves huge on labour costs because packaging is a very labour intensive process. Secondly, the customer orders beforehand so you don't carry much inventory. Third, since the customer packages it themselves, you don't need super fancy labels and stuff. They know what they bought. So it's a great concept. But there's a few shortcomings. First, you need decent retail space because your client base might be sensitive to time, so rent is going to be fairly high. It also has to be near a grocery store, so the customer can buy juice, laundry detergent etc. at the same time. Secondly, your staff has to be decently trained - you can't just have some minimum wage high school kid or someone who speak english run it. So your wage costs aren't rock bottom (but certainly not super high either, compared with some grocery stores which use unionized labour). Third, your volume must be enough to cover the rent, and the wages (and all other overhead), so you've got to mark up the product decently high enough, which may or may not make it in the price range of eating out anyways. So the actual price of the meal to the customer might be almost similar to eating out. And I think this is the key point as to if the product encounters direct competition, it won't hold up. Now I looked at the menus and it works out to about USD$28 for a 6 serving meal (which a parent would probably serve for 4 people just so no one is hungry), but keep in mind, you would also have to buy vegetables and drinks, so it might come out to, say $33 for the meal. So all in all, I imagine the price per serving is only about 20% less than eating at a competitivelly priced family restaurant, which is not what they claim (they claim it costs less than fast food). In fact, when i cook for myself, the raw ingredients themselves generally cost more than I have to spend at a fast food restaurant. It's still a great deal, mind you - it costs 20-30% less than eating out, this is considered grocery so you don't pay gst, and you don't have to tip, and you eat at home which is important.It's a great deal for the consumer. For the owner it's good too. I'm estimating that for a $28 meal, their material costs are $14 or so, and there's not much labour involved in processing - mostly in staffing the retail space. So here's the big question: for chopped vegetetables and spices added to a meat, is it sustainable that they can continue to make such margins? Well, they have to make those margins, because they have the retail and staff overhead to pay off, and the franchise fees, but can't someone swoop in and undercut them in price for the exact same product? What makes the most sense is a section in the grocery store, much like a salad bar, where the customer gets a menu card and assembles the meal right there - a bit of chopped celery here, a bit of oregano there, a bag of noodles here - and then pays for that by the gram (none of it is that costly), and then buys the meat, and then buys the vegetables right from the grocery store. Here's why the price of the meal will be closer to what you would pay at the grocery store. First, the real estate is already there and the grocery store is already selling stuff at this price, so all they need to do is order it already cut up (which wholesales will do for them since it's all done in large quantities by machines). And then whatever they can't sell at the end of the day, they give to the kitchen staff to use in soup or whatever. Also, you don't have the super knowledgable staff as you would at an entire retail store dedicated to this kind of thing, but you don't expect it either. And grocery stores have better buying power since they buy in greater quantity. And also, the grocery store has greater selling power to the customer since the customer has to come to the grocery store anyways to buy their other amenities and they might think, "hey, do I really want to drive out to the dinners ready store right now if they offer it right here?". And there's so many opportunities for the grocery store to promote other items through this recipe bar - they get a container of oranges. Why not create a recipe that uses them since they're at a good price now and try to blow out their stock? No one else doing this as a standalone operation could ever compete with that price. But this is all part of the natural business cycle I think. Someone will come in and create a product and because it's the only product they have, all the overhead is being paid off by this one product, so you need heavy margins. And also, you have a monopoly on that consumer space so you can markup that much without anyone noticing. And you'll probably make a good paycheque off of it. The next step is that somebody who's already doing business in a similar market (in this case the grocery store) will notice you and think, "hey, I can do the exact same product and it's almost NO extra work for me and look at the margins they're making! I can do it for even less and still make a good profit." They'll use the idea as an additional source of income and because their overhead is being paid by a hundred different sources of revenue, if they wage a price war with you, you're dead on that front. Of course there's many forms of retailiation for the specialty shop - better customer service, more knowledgeable staff, new recipes using more esoteric ingredients (a grocery store couldn't add ingredients to this recipe bar quickly unless they had a dedicated manager, which then detracts from one of the big motivators in integrating the two operations), you can have a nutritionist on-site... stuff like that. You'd have to be the differentiated provider of just-add-heat meals. This of course ups the cost of doing business but it's also possible that because the grocery store now carries the product, it gets more exposure and the market size is now double what is what. You're getting a smaller piece of a huger pie. In any case, there's lots of questions, but it's my initial analysis of the business with respect to the value to the customer, the current competition, the threat of new entry, and buying power of the competition. It's a great product, I'll watch closely the progression of the franchise that's opening near my place and I'll report back. February 11, 2007: Update on life Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#feb112007 Alright, so, Monday was marriage classes. I ended up falling asleep. Wednesday was choir practice. This was our last choir practice with Charlie who is going on "sabattical" from the choir if you will. Went out for coffee at Starbucks with Melody, Will, Bernice, Christina, and Justin - who's playing lead with us for one mass. Good times. Thursday, went for dinner at the noodle house with Priscilla and Rich and then to i-Cafe for coffee. Friday, picked up Melody from Richmond and had Indian food at a place on main and 49th. Good food for a good price, but they had a buffet and we probably should have done that, but it just didn't look that great and all the Indian people seemed to be ordering a la carte. Went to Kristen's Language Arts concert at the Main with Emily, Abdel, Rachel (roomate), Rich, Duncan (NS friend) & Caroline and Caroline. I actually remember driving by the Main about a year ago with Kristen and she was saying she wanted to play there (actually we were looking for it at that time). So the gig went really well. The audience loved them, the sound was great, they played awesome (as always), they had a new drummer and a whole bunch of new material which was all good. Saturday, worked for a bit, then jammed with Abdel, chilled at his place, then had dinner with Melody at Tapenade Bistro in Steveston. Good atmosphere, good service, but the food was a bit salty. I think it's because we were there later in the evening and when that happens, the sauces have been stewing for a bit longer than at first and maybe the chef went home by then and it's just kids spooning stuff from a pot into pasta. I had a wonderful chicken liver mousse that had some brandy in it and then it was flambed. That was the highlight. Melody's food was a salty also. Sunday, mass went well - sound was good, no missed cues, everything in tune. Afterwards, went out to O'Hares to send off Charlie with Melody, Gerald (previous bassist), Bernice, Christina (choir), Steven (previous conductor) & Virginia, Alex (random polish guy), Justin (lead guitarist this week, previous guitarist) and some guests who popped by. Good times. We stayed until well after dark and then went out for dinner with Melody's family at Tropika (Malaysian food). Yummy. And that concluded the weekend. Business wise, nothing crazy happened in the last few weeks. There is one account we picked up that is important. It's the very first sales call I ever did. Yes, I was nervous then. I probably didn't do so well at that time. I talked to him a bit, tried to act cool but I had no idea at all what to expect. Anyways, I went in last Wednesday, and Kosta came too and actually I'll give him the credit for that sale because he somehow swooped and did it. We acted all cool, and bought a few things, and it was funny, as soon as we walked out we were both like, 'WOO HOO! WE DID IT!'. Again, it's not a huge account (although really, you can never tell until you see the reaction), but it's a great name, and we have no competing stores in that area, and it's a good area to get our product in (Italian neighbourhood) and it's just a big relief to see us come back to where we began. Good times. Valentines Day. Here's my Valentines day post. I was talking with my friend the other day and he was so surprised that the Filipino family structure is very much a matriarchy. Then it was brought up from a different source that acutally many other cultures are matriarchies - Spanish, Italian, Greek... the take-no-prisoners approach that mothers take in these cultures really oppresses the poor husband. In upper upper class, this isn't necessarily the case and I'll get into this. Some cultures are definitely not: North American, Malayisan, many Middle Eastern countries. North American culture is so diverse that it's hard to make that generalisation, but women don't stereotypically wield the iron fist that, say, Italian women are known to have. What gives a woman the power and what takes it away? One of the biggest influences on power is what we call "the power to walk away"... it's the same in business and politics and family. If one party can walk away without feeling much loss, while the other needs to stay, then the power will obviously be in one direction. In some cultures, the man has the walk away power. In pre WWII Malaysia, for instance, the man can marry another woman, so if his first wife isn't acting in accordance to what he wants, he can have another wife, and another... if there's a conflict, he has the walkaway power, because he can ignore her and/or divert his attention to another wife. In cultures where you have to stay in the relationship for religious reasons, family reasons, cultural reasons etc. the man does not have this power. He is stuck with his wife for the rest of his life. He has to provide for her no matter what. But she controls what he eats, where he sleeps, what he wears, what he smells like, and how his kids grow up. It is in his best interest not to make his own life unbearable. Of course, he can always have an affair, another girlfriend, but he'll pay for that because again - she controls what eats, where he sleeps, what he wears, what he smells like and how the kids grow up. And he own sanity, because she can yell all day and he's got no option but to listen to her. So even with the "I'll have an affair" bargaining chip, she can still one up him. And bc he is forced to provide for her, he can't divery too much of his resources away from his family so she'll always be comfortable no matter what and he'll eventually get sick of his affair. In very high class, where the man can afford tailors, chefs, private educators, maids etc. if she doesn't do what he says, he can ignore her and that's her punishment. He can make her life absolutely miserable and she can't do anything about it. But in middle class, if his wife is unhappy, he's unhappy because she controls so much of his life. Doesn't the man also have his bargaining chips? He's traditionally the breadwinner, right? Yes, but what good is meat if it's raw? what good is rice if it is uncooked? what good is a pair of pants with a hole in it? In cultures where you are forced to stay monogamously in the relationship except under extreme circumstances, the balance of power shifts towards the matriarch. February 4, 2007: Update on life Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#feb042007 So I left off on Seattle. Not much happened during the week. Wednesday was choir practice which we came up with some neat arrangements and Christina did a solo. Thursday, my friend Alison came in from Halifax to apply for medical residencies in BC. Went to Banana Leaf Malaysian food with Gerald, Justin (old choir member), Andy/Chris (new faces), and Rich and Danika (Rich's friend). Four of us are Malaysian born Chinese so we decided to celebrate our culture! Friday, started and ended work early and picked up Ali and went to Granville Island, took the boat to Yaletown, walked around downtown and the gay area, and back to Granville Island and then to Richmond Center and picked up Melody and went to Aji Taro for sushi. Went to Tony (Rich's friend) party with Abdel, Priscilla, Rachel and Gerald. Quite a few people. It as cool. Met someone I hadn't seen in several years. Saturday, dropped off Ali to UBC, finished off some work, slept, and then went to the blood donation clinic with Sheena and Mai. I didn't give any blood but I will next time (there was a scheduling lapse somehow). Went out for Bubble Tea afterwards with Melody, Ali, Sheena, Mai, and Reuben (Sheena's friend). Hilarious conversation. Brought Ali to Hon's for dinner - you can't leave Vancouver without having Chinese food! And then off to the airport and that was it. Sunday, mass went well as a choir, but we had some sound system issues. Oh well. Went to Banhu's place afterwards to watch Superbowl on a projector tv system with a pumped up sound system. Good stuff. Last time I started blogging about a business idea. I decided to blog this after my iPhone idea is finally in effect and maybe no one believes I conceived it long time ago and now that it's hyped up, everyone thinks it's so obvious. Anyways, my new idea is to turn a cable company into the largest retailer of digital televisions in Canada. Yes... here's how it works. Along with your cable bill, comes the promotion to buy the televisions. For the customer, you see a high definition television that gets delivered to your doorstep. And with the cable guy right then and there, you have the option to upgrade your package. And the price of the television is 20% less than at any retailer (i'll explain how they can get this price). If you're with another cable company, you get a new television without having to lug it from the store (and 30% less than retail - if you can prove that you are switching from another cable company), and then you get promotion pricing for a new cable package and while the cable guy is there, you can bundle your cable/digital phone/internet and save another 20% on your bills every month. That's a good deal. How does it work for the cable company? Basically, when a tv gets sold, the cable guy delivers it as part of his route, he installs it (something he has to do anyways). How does this change his route? Basically, first thing in the morning, he needs to drop by the television warehouse and the shippers pack his van with the televisions. He then drops them off. If it's a current customer, he offers them a promotion to upgrade their package and/or bundle it with digital phone/internet. If it's a new customer, he gives them the special price on the television and then sets up their cable and of course offers them the promotions to bundle their services. How can they get a lower price? First, the cable company has an incentive to have lower margins bc it gives them a chance to make face to face contact with a current customer, and allows them to offer a very special offer to customers of the competition (so if you're w company A, then you buy the tv from company B and then you get a big discount if you subscribe with company B). Also, you don't have the lease overhead of retail space and the staff overhead that they have to train and pay. However you do need warehouse space, but that can be justified and it's not too expensive. Also, you don't have the shipping costs of online retailers because your staff is going there anyways to set up their cable (if they're switching from the competitor) and also to promote an upgrade of packages. And if they were willing to take the risk, they would manufacture a whole run of the televisions themselves (some other company in China would produce it for them under a private label). And if they can do this, this is the real killer of this tv - you build the tv to only work on your network... it CAN work on any network, but in order to do that, you have to buy a $120 universal adapter, so that once they buy the television, there's a switching cost involved in going to the competitor. That's worth the cost of the television itself, but you're still going to make a healthy margin on the tv. One big problem with this is that if you're operating in a close oligopoly, and the competitor retaliates with a similar offer, you're both basically giving away free televisions and you end up with the same market share as you started, except you just spent all this money on televisions and warehouses, and salesmen, and new vans. But it's a neat idea and there is some part of this that will totally cause the entire thing to fail and you'll figure it out if you analyze it long enough. I have a good way to work around it, so if you want to steal this as your idea at your company, talk to me first so I'll tell you the "key" ingredient or you'll get humiliated at a board meeting. January 28, 2007: Update on life Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jan282007 Well, let's see what happened this week. Monday was wedding prep classes. A marriage counsellor came to talk to us and while he was a good speaker, I couldn't get over the conflict of interest that the better he prepared us for business, the less we would require his services in the future. If he handed out business cards at the end of the talk, I would have upped and left, but he didn't. He handed out cassettes of a recorded series he was starting. Had philipino food at Josephine's and I ordered 3 things, and the server had it on my plate, then the apparent matriarch of the establishment came down, looked me up and down, and started spooning more food onto my plate without even asking. At first, I was a little bit insulted because if I pay $7 for your food, I'm not giving you the right to insult my physical frame, but then again, I actually was really hungry and I'm glad I got the extra because it was tasty and yum. Had ramen with Melody after the session. Wednesday was choir practice and we worked on some really difficult material, but it was fun. Did two violin pieces this week. Friday, I finished work early, and picked up Melody and went to Seattle for the weekend for her friend's birthday party. We stayed with Steph and Mihnea and it was good times. Stopped at the casino on the way down and made a few bucks. The party at Renee's place was fun, lots of people, lots of food, lots of drinks. And that's the weekend for me. I have two friends visiting from out of town next week so in need of some sleep. iPhone - this idea was MINE! If you hung out with me last summer, you might have heard me after I had that revelation that Apple should go into the cell phone market to leverage their brand image into cell phones. I was really excited about it because it seemed to be an investment for them, which required very little extra. A new design of the outside, a few tweaks inside (the electronics probably didn't require any crazy new technology, maybe just fitting everything into the form factor) and they're off. And way back when, iPod sponsored U2, imagine how much that cost.(to be continued) January 22, 2007: Where I grew up Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jan222007 Over the holidays, I took some pictures of where I grew up. So I grew up in small town Nova Scotia, Kentville to be exact. We really did spend most of our time outdoors. In the summer, it was almost entirely on bikes, in the winter, playing hockey or sledding. We had an orchard behind our house which was our main source of income in the summer, other than mowing lawns. In the winter, it was shovelling snow and while the other kids slept in after a snow storm, we'd ring doorbells trying to get clients for our shovelling business. It was a dog eats dog competitive business, I'm kidding. I don't know how many times we actually went out to shovel snow, and also, I don't know how much we actually made because my brother did the accounting and I trusted that I was getting my fair share although in retrospect, he always seemed to have more money than I did and we had the same allowance and he spent more money on hockey cards. How does that work out??? This is my house that I lived in since I was two years old. It's the only house I have ever called home. Downstairs was the living room and my brother's room, my room, and the guest room. Upstairs was the family room, kitchen, dining room, my sister's and my parent's room. Split entry, piano in the family room, violins stacked under the piano, violins on the wall and paintings everywhere (half of them were by us - in fact our art teacher was a pupil of Lawren Harris who is one of the group of seven so in a very loose way, I can claim to be the grand pupil of Lawren Harris). The living room downstairs was filled (two walls) with books - every kind of book imaginable and the firestove was on one wall. I used to sleep by the firestove in high school even though it was always way too hot, I just liked it. There was a utility room in the downstairs also which is where the dog slept and where I practiced violin before everyone woke up. The poor dog would actually sit up and listen because it's hard to sleep with that wailing going on, but eventually he'd fall asleep sitting upright but leaning against the washing machine. Gio was really cute. The back yard had a deck that you walked onto from the upstairs, there was a barbeque and some potted herbs that my mom grew. The patio overlooked a huge orchard and you could actually see the chicken barn if you stood on the top of it. Then the rest of the backyard consisted of two gardens - the big garden had tomatoes, peas, sunflowers, carrots, and the small garden was for the pumpkins that we entered into the county fair. I think I got a third prize once, but really my mom grew them and arbitrarily decided which kid got which pumpkin. Our neighbour, John Mailman, would drive his tractor down the road in early spring and till both of our gardens and as he drove back to his house, the kids would sit in the shovel on the front (until we got too big and it wasn't cool anymore to sit on a tractor's shovel). There was a swingset in the backyard, a clothesline, and a storage shed which doubled a spaceship for our after school games. We grew up in a fairly creative environment and it's a surprise that none of the kids took up the arts after high school. So this was my elementary school. It looks kind of small, there were maybe 60 of us in the each grade. It was a very good elementary school, and the teachers were always very interested in us, in great part due to my mother's politicing with them. So this was the tennis courts. We biked here every day from home. My brother, Kris, Nathan, Evan and I (and maybe Mike, but we usually left him behind). Show up at 8, classes until 9:30, wait for the next classes to finish, and then tennis until lunch. Actually, I had a little coke business going on for part of the summer. I brought down ice cold coke in a cooler and sold it to thirsty tennis players that didn't want hose water or didn't want to walk 8 minutes to the corner store to pay for the same coke at the same price. But the office stopped that business for some stupid reason even though the tennis players enjoyed the cold drink. I think it was young administrators on a power trip. So this was where we would have gone sledding on the school grounds There's actually a park where we went after school, and I have a picture of it (it's called burger hill), but I can't find it. I hope I have it somewhere. So this was my church which is weird because it's St.Joseph's and my church now is called "St.Joseph's the Worker". This is where I was baptised, confirmed, and spent countless hours at Sunday school. This is the view we had as we walked home from school every day. There was a school bus, but walking home was funner and we could actually beat the bus many times (if we ran really really fast, which probably wasn't that fast, but as a kid, you're flying, right?) So this was my junior high school. It's called Kings County Academy. Wow, it looks kind of scary from this picture. I went to a different high school, my mom politicked her way into getting us a transfer even though we weren't really in that zone. So this was main street in Kentville. It's a very familiar sight to me. behind me is the Royal Bank, behind the Royal Bank is the Cleve's Sporting Goods. There's a tim hortons across the street now. On the left of the picture is the town square. On the right of the picture is the skating rink and that's a typical friday night for us. The school hockey games were a big deal, and it's just where people were and if there was going to be a fight, it would happen at the hockey game. Maybe some of the crowd heckled the visitors and so after the game, they'd have a chance to settle it, or maybe fans from the visitor's team would say stuff, or lots of dumb stuff. Strange stuff happens when there's too much testosterone in one place. We castrate dogs to keep them from being vicious but it would violate our human rights to do the same thing to humans so the game of hockey was born to contain the raging hormones into one town block. This is the only Chinese food in the town. It's called Hau's and it's buffet style and I think it's not bad... you'll find such authentic delicacies as sweet and sour balls, manchu chicken, and almond guy ding. there's a delicious moo goo gai pan and the chop suey is to die for. This is Hennigar's where you buy all of your produce fairly direct I mean the orchard is behind you. This is one of, if not the, oldest cemetaries in Canada. A group of six brilliant young soldiers and I spent many an evening in this cemetary, seriously. Just to scare ourselves. How old were we... 19... but that's not that point, it was SCARY!!! and we amused ourselves the entire summer this way. And that concludes the Kentville tour. Some of you think I'm a weird person, but keep in mind I grew up in a different environment than you city slickers so give me some slack and if you meet some of the people from my hometown, I'm not so weird relative to them. Small town is where it's at and I have a feeling, I'll always be attrated to small town life because that's what my whole life has been and that's what's normal to me. Yeah, that's right. Taking turns putting on a hockey mask in the dark and scaring each other is normal, where I come from. This is the rest of the album. ENJOY! January 21, 2007: Update on life Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jan212007 Okay, so update on business: Christmas season went very very well. We met all the orders and I took a holiday without anyone knowing (unless they were actively watching their call display to see I wasn't doing everything from Vancouver). Winter has been a bit slower, but we've taken this chance to pull off some interesting marketing campaigns and launch two new products. I've started pushing the line of olives which I want to put into a handful of stores and figure out how the whole thing is going to work. Kosta left today for Zurich to be part of the Canadian delegation at the World Economic Forum. Lucky guy. He'll get to meet all the big wig heads of states and he just found out he'll also meet with Prince Charles. Prince Charles might not be the most influential person out there by any means, but it's Prince Charles from crying out loud, I mean, that's got to count for something. Seriously though, this is a huge opportunity and a lot of exposure so very exciting to know what opportunities come up. He'll be promoting Canadian seafood to all the countries out there which will probably be interesting because he's joining forces with top brass in Canadian wine which have recently had some spats, I believe, with the EU about wine subsidies. On life: Left off on Sunday. Monday, I had my marriage preparation classes, which we have to take with the Catholic church. Interesting stuff kind of. It's on Main Street, so pretty far away. Actually it's not too too interesting but there's speakers and a lot of stuff about marriage. I have so many opinions on marriage and I don't feel like spilling them out here because they're still in the marinating stage. I wanted to blog about fair trade coffee, but I haven't gotten around to it because it's almost there, but not quite. I've had three written essays on it already and none of them really get to the point. What is the point? What I want to present is, I think, a very new way to look at fair trade and who the *real* villains. I think that my theory most accurately describes how we got into this situation and what options we have to get out of it. I feel that most of the current solutions depend on the goodwill of the consumers, and although that's a huge market, it's not really addressing the fundamental problem, which has to do with the natural business cycle and not the evilness that corporations breed. You'll recognize a lot of the ideas from my previous postings. So that's Monday. Tuesday, met up with Tianna (Lonsdale Quay) and Abdel at Red Tomato. Really good food. Wednesday was choir practice. Our pianist is leaving and I'm really sad so we have to find someone new. Thursday, went to an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) professional chapter meeting downtown and heard Brendan Baker talk about his experience in Senegal. Really interesting!! And met some new friends, and met Sonya Konzak, who was the President of EWB Waterloo after my term. We learned a new African dance. I'm going to join the professional chapter I think Friday, worked until very late and then went for dinner at the Keg with Melody. For some reason I was craving steak. I had my steak rare and while it's really nice, the innermost meat wasn't really hot (obviously since it's not cooked), so I might stick with medium rare from now on. But it was a delicious cut and nice garlic potatoes and some corn salad and a pint of Rickards. Saturday, worked in the morning had lunch with Kosta to make sure everything is in check while he's gone, and then picked up Melody and had dinner at Spice Islands Indonesian restaurant in Kerrisdale which was delicious. I love clay pots because they keep the food warm and it's delicious right down to the last bit, especially spooned over rice. Went to Rich's friend's party right down the street with Gerald. Lots of people were there, huge house, Gerald brought his guitar so we jammed for a bit and I think Gerald kicked around until 3 but we left a little after midnight. Talked with Melody's parents at home for awhile. Sunday, mass went well except I was kind of absent minded because I was still in a daze from a really bad nightmare I had the night before. I saw my face in the morning and I was pretty pale. It's strange how a dream can have such an impact on you. I forgot my capo in my guitar bag and yeah, it was tough, but mass sounded good. The voices were nice, sound balance was nice and I even brought out my violin. Went to Max's noodle house afterwards, and then went to Moore's and Tip Top to look at suits and that was it. And I'm home. I wish I could blog something more interesting right now, but my two topics are - fair trade coffee and what makes a marriage work. A few other things I have comments on are the real estate market and career choices. But the stupid fair trade thing is holding up the pipeline. Maybe I should skip it, but I've spent so much time, written so many drafts of it (even while I was in Nova Scotia I wrote one draft) so I want to get it out there and it will be worth the wait. Don't worry. January 14, 2007: Update on life and Chianti vs. Spuntino Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jan142007 So what happened... Tuesday, met up with Priscilla and George (Priscilla's friend) and ate at Sha-Lin Noodle then checked out her new apartment. Really nice place! Wednesday, my cousin Andre came back from Whistler and spent the night in Richmond, so after choir practice, I brought out a whole lot of people to hang out at Earl's in Lansdowne for drinks. Good times. Thursday, rented a whole lot of movies. Friday, Melody and I ate at Chianti Italian restaurant on W4th which is one of my favourite pasta joints in Vancouver. It's all handmade pastas, service is amazing, and a large plate of pasta is $10.99, which is what pasta should cost and since it's such a packed restaurant, the food is always fresh and it's cozy enough to be a date kind of place, but comfortable enough to be a chill place. Then we watched Pan's Labyrinth which is a Spanish movie about a young girl who moves in with her mom in the Spanish countryside, and out of her boredom creates a whole fantasy world, which in some way is interconnected with the reality of her pregnant mother and her narcissistic military captain of a step father. It was an amazing movie. Saturday, worked during the day and then picked up Melody and went shopping for Chinese food for a dinner with Kristen (NS friend) at Caroline's (Kristen' friend) place with her newly minted Vancouverite friend Laura. Bryan (Caroline's bf), Dunc (NS friend), Caroline (Dunc's gf), and Matt joined us for pictionary later on in the evening. We had to leave before the end of the game, but the first game we came in a very close second place. For dinner, we made Tilapia fish, Shrimp Sui Mai, Stirfry, and steamed rice of course. Lots of laughs. Sunday, mass went well, our sound balance is really working well and I did some violining which I always enjoy. I'm trying to use my violin to imitate a fiddle sound, the whiny kind of slightly off key sound. I like it. It's different from what I'm used to but it sounds okay. Had Spuntino's in Steveston for lunch. Let's compare this with Chianti - a plate of pasta at Spuntinos was $13.99 - the pasta was obviously made from dry pasta (not that I'm a snob, but you can't charge that much if you're not using fresh pasta), the sauce was watery, the wine list was minimal, the service was inattentive, the table was wobbly, and the size of the pasta was smaller. And parking in Chianti is free and right behind the restaurant whereas Spuntino you have to walk awhile. I don't know how Spuntinos will survive. Chianti is so good. I once filled out a survey for Chianti and then they mailed me a letter from the owner, and it was all about his son and how he was doing in school, and then it said that if I brought the letter into the restaurant, he'd give me a free dessert for two. How about that. Oh, and if I get a membership to Burrard St. Cinemas (which is 1 block away from the restaurant), I get 20% off all meals at Chianti. So now a really good plate of fresh pasta in an atmosphere that you could bring a date on - and you're right by the "artsy" cinema and everything else that West 4th has to offer - costs you less than $10. And they bring warm bread and good butter and freshly ground pepper and parmesan. Back to Spuntino's: Spuntino's brings out restaurant blend parmesan (the stuff that's already ground in those little containers and the wait staff spoons onto your plate) and the pepper was just plain black pepper in salt shakers. *gasp*. Again, I'm not a snob, but when you pay $13.99 for a plate of pasta, you'd better give the customer fresh pepper because there's no perception of value for pasta so you've got to ADD value through stuff like freshly ground pepper, parmesan, warm bread. The bread they gave me at Spuntino's tasted like WONDER BREAD spread with Becel Garlic Margarine! Compare these two places and tell me where the value is. And you can get reservations at Chianti if you don't want to wait, but really, we just showed up and had to wait something like 10 minutes AND while we were waiting (because there were about 20 people waiting at the same time), the guy brought out a 1.5 L bottle of wine, cracked it open, poured everybody a glass of wine. Everybody in lineup was sipping on red wine - just a cheap wine but when you're just in from the cold and it's free, it's one of the most delicious glasses of wine you'll ever have. That is how you do business. Impressive. Just compare the two operations and you tell me who won, not just by a marginal, but on every single criteria possible - and won by a LOT. Two years ago, my first birthday in Vancouver, I ate my birthday noodles here. I had pasta alla carbonara and a glass of red. Now that I think about it, I wouldn't always mind eating here but instead of a glass of red, I'll get a half litre of red, which is $14.99 and with my 20% discount, I comes to a little over $12 which I can share with two other friends. Oh, and did I mention that the service at Chianti is highly attentive? I guess that comes through in the "free wine while you wait" policy. Ask me to take you to Chianti some time, please. It would be my pleasure. But I'll give one thing to Spuntinos - they're making astronical margins on my meal. Let's look at the costs: 150g of dry pasta (which was undercooked using unsalted water) + half can tomatoes + 20 g pancetta = $1.25. They marked up over 1000% on that dish. Costs on Chianti: 250 g fresh pasta + 1 egg + cream + parmesan + 50g pancetta = $3. And then of course, they make healthy margins on wine (whereas I doubt Spuntino customers feel any desire to enhance their experience through alcohol) so the Chianti owner is much better off and probably much happier walking around and talking to his customers who will return week after week after week. Back to margins - without wine, they STILL do a very healthy triple up on ingredients and also plus the electricity it costs to warm the plates. And that's another thing. If you're going to spend $13.99 on a plate of pasta, the plate has to be warmed because pasta cools quickly and loses texture. And for God's sake, use a bowl as Chianti does, not a plate (as Spuntino does) so I don't have to shovel the pasta at the bottom of the plate. If I pay $5 on the Spuntino pasta, I'm happy and they're still tripling up on ingredients, and you can serve it to me on styrofoam, I don't care. But if you're getting 1000% markups, invest a little in better plates, warm them up, get freshly ground pepper/parmesan, use fresh pasta (cooks faster too), SALTED water, more garlic, real bread (not wonder bread), and don't please expect me to hail you down like a taxi cab just to get sugar for my tea. Spuntino's is probably a tourist trap - the kind of place that they don't expect return customers because I sure as hell won't return. January 7, 2007: Update and back in Vancouver Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jan072007 Left off on Monday, where we dropped off my brother and Christina at the airport. Got back to the cottage and slept until the middle of the day... watched a movie at night and that was it, I think. Tuesday, woke up late, slept late, watched a movie in between. Wednesdays, same thing. I have never recharged so well in such a long time. It was absolutely beautiful. Actually, there was one little break in this schedule. Tuesday morning, poco woke me up to take him pee. It was around sunrise, so I let him out and the sun was skimming off the top of the still lake, the air had that fresh crispness to it, but was jiggling from the heat of the new sun, there was still a frost on the ground but it was due to melt. You can't hear a single sound in the air even though it seemed as if the light breaking through the leaves in the trees were twinkling with crystals. I almost felt like I had woken up to a sunrise on a different planet, where the rays were coming from a different distance than the usual terrestrial atmosphere. I wrapped up little poco under my jacket (I didn't want him to be cold) and walked down to our wharf and sat on a park bench that my dad had set up. I just sat there... sat... poco was sleeping already... not even wind, and I can feel my right cheek glowing from the heat. I don't know how long I was there for. I would look down at my shoes... aldo... brown polished leather... how impractical they seemed against a floor of rocks and moss. The lake had frozen up for the most part, save for a few feet closest to the bank. I could actually smell little poco every time he rustled to change his position under my jacket. He'd make little squeaky noises, tug himself to get comfortable, and finally let out a little sigh and slept... he stopped and there was absolute silence. A silence that was so silent that it almost screamed because you're waiting for something to break it. And nothing does. Nothing ever does out here. I sat and stared and stared and stared. I can't remember what I was thinking about. I was still slightly tired, my head buzzing from sleep but my eyes soaking the sights of empty space, and my ears bursting from the sounds of silence. It reminded me a lot of childhood. We spent a lot of time as children in the woods. But I digress Anyways, got back to Vancouver, Melody and her dad picked me up from the airport and I had birthday noodles at their house. Headed back to North Van and psyched myself up for the next day where I did most of my deliveries. Friday night, ate at a Kelong Singaporean restaurant (just had chicken rice and laksa... simple...) and then went to karaoke. Saturday, worked all day, picked up melody from richmond and then had a farewell potluck for Therese at Abdel's place with Priscilla, Emily, Victoria, and Erica. Lots of good food. Lots of good conversation, some hilarious things came up and I'm supposed to blog them but I'll do so at another time so as to hide the identity of the actual author (who it would be obvious if I quoted it right now). Sunday (today) church was really fun. Good volume. Guitar, still too low on the sound system. Go choir! And birthday lunch for Gerald (ex-bassist) and Alex (St.Jo's youth) at O'Hares Pub in Steveston along with Melody, Charlie (pianist) and Angeela (Charlie's wife). Good times. And now I'm chilling back home... You might be wondering why I would live such an ambitious life when I've experienced such beautiful bliss at the cottage in Nova Scotia. I can save a few bucks, buy a small house, do small contracts here and there to make money, raise a family out there, and I know I'll be happy out there. In terms of happiness in life, I think I could be set for life. I could live like I'm retired by the time I'm, say 35. Why don't I? For my parents, it's okay. My mom and dad have raised a family, and they have accomplished a whole lot in their lives both personally and professionally. My father's academic credentials would turn almost anybody green with envy. For them, they deserve to live the good life. And they will continue to take on many projects but by and large, they've earned it. No matter if I'm 35 and I've done a lot, I haven't earned it. Somewhere in our lives, maybe between the ages of 1 and 3, you are kind of stamped with an instince beyond your control that tells you what you do in this world. 99% of the people will live their lives for themselves. Those are the citizens of the world. Their goals are to support their family and to enjoy their lives. But some people are stuck with a nagging ambition inside of them that their life is also about the rest of the world, and even if they've secured themselves and their family, they know they haven't done enough. They know that they have to contribute something, which is why I know I'm safe in life, but my batch number that was brandished on my skull somewhere between the age of 1 and 3, won't let me stay at the cottage for the rest of my life... now I also thought about this. If I had a heart disease or something, and the doctor ordered me not to continue what I was doing and live a peaceful life, I sometimes think that would be a blessing. It would take this burden off of my shoulder and I would just semi-retire in nature worrying about nothing except my family and maybe my dog that's sleeping under my jacket. Sometimes poverty and the expectation of a life where you're a citizen only to your family - sometimes that's something to be jealous of. Expectations are like fitness coaches. They push you to achieve, but sometimes you wish you could just punch them in the face and tell them to f*&k off. December 31, 2006 (part 2): Our second trip to the kennel Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#dec312006a It's about 4 in the morning and I'm tired so I decided I'll explain to you about our first trip to get our dog, which didn't work out so well. I will narrate the story in a novelette format to increase the dramatic effect: "I'll take that little one, way in the back," I said. "That little collie mix?" said the animal shelter guy. "No," I said, "the one behind him." "The gray terrier?" he said. "He's gray," I said,"but way in the back, in the corner." "You mean the water faucet?" he said. I realized then it was a water faucet, but I didn't want to look like a jerk, so I said,"Yeah, that's the one I want." It ended up costing me almost five hundred dollars to get that faucet removed. But you know, I've still got that faucet, and I wouldn't trade it for any dog in the world. December 31, 2006: Happy New Year Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#dec312006 Well, I'm back in Nova Scotia. Happy New Year. Beautiful. Beautiful. So Wednesday spent the day doing deliveries, headed down to Richmond to pick up Melody, unfortunately couldn't meet Yuey while she was in Vancouver to visit her brother, but went out for Hotpot anyways. Yum yum. Got to the airport and took off at midnight on Wednesday night. The flight left one hour late, didn't sleep much on the airplane. I had to change my seat once because I was originally sitting beside a big guy that was hacking and coughing and I didn't want to get sick and get my whole family sick, so I moved my seat. Arrived in Toronto, and because the flight was delayed, booted it across the entire airport terminal just in time to catch the flight to nova scotia where I slept like a baby the entire time. ahhhh! So so so happy to see my family - my mom, dad, Julian/Christina (Julian's wife), and Jennifer/Jeff (Jennifer's bf)!!! I hadn't seen them in 2 years and they were taking pictures of me as I came down the elevator (apparently about 5 minutes before then, my mom thought another guy was me, and was taking pictures of him from afar and his girlfriend, who was beside us, was really confused as to why we were filming her boyfriend.) Had Tim Horton's and then headed to a Turkish Delight Restaurant on Spring Garden Road where I had wonderful lamb and yogurt on rice. Went off to Bridgewater to pick up our new puppy!!!! When we got there, it was a big 90 acre plot of land and the owner greeted us and showed him all of his other adult labs. There were about 10 of them. They bounded out and were barking and jumping around. He herded them back into the kennel, where we went to his basement and looked at the new litter of pups. They were adorable!!! There were about 10 of them, yellow and black ones, tumbling and sleeping around his basement and then he brought out our little baby one, who was the fattest and the most reclusive! Our little baby kind of cowared in the corner while lots of the other ones were hopping about. I picked up a whole bunch of them and when you hold them for more than 10 seconds, they fall asleep in your arms. After playing with them for awhile, we took our little baby and brought it home. At first, the little baby was so upset... he seemed to just sleep all the time and didn't want to say anything. (as opposed to right now, where he just came in from outside and curls up by my feet because my feet are warm and he always wants to be in contact with us humans for some reason). Anyways, the little baby slept in a cardboard box, randomly squeaking to let us know that he wants to go out and pee. Isn't that cute? Maybe it's instinct. (just now, he licked my socks and rested his chin on my foot). We watched a Chinese gangster movie that I brought back from Vancouver and then talked until late at night. We named the dog poco (music nerds will understand this). Next day (Friday) headed to Wolfville for lunch with my brother/Christina, Jodrey and Wesley (my brother's hs friend) and Jenn (Wesley' gf) at Paddy's. I got id'd!!!! Anyways, had nice fish cakes made with salted cod, a raven ale and yam fries. Spent the afternoon at the County Fair Mall, and taking photos of the valley... the church, my elementary school, my high school, my old house, main street Kentville (the mean streets where I grew up). I'll post them up here when I get them. Got dropped off at Just Us coffee in Wolfville and did some reading and waited for Jodrey and we went up to his house and picked up some stuff to help set up for the BURTON ANNUAL CASINO CLASSIC 2006! This is a not-so-little celebration that we have starting in 1999 every year at the Burton's house. The concept is basically, you come in the door, you get chips and there's a bunch of made up games (blackjack, poker, fish racing, horse racing, ping pong tournaments, price is right plinko) and you accumulate chips and at the end of the night there's an auction for prizes that a bunch of us donate. Everyone gets a chance to really dress up to the nines and the betting begins. For many of us, it's almost like a reunion and the age range of the people there are from graduating class of 1998 (that's me) to about 2000 (my sister's year). This year was a lot of fun as always. I made it to the finals of the ping pong tournament and lost a very very close match in a heated battle where I was the heavily favoured contestant, probably not unrelated to the stereotype that all asians are awesome at ping pong even though we've never owned a ping pong table and there's never been a ping pong club in my high school. But apparently the stereotype must be fairly accurate because as you can see, I did pretty well, but I was a tennis player long ago which helps of course. Plinko was the best time ever done, and the new addition was "family feud" where after my team lost, we broke out into an impromptu vocal jam session where I was on bass, Hannah was on "electronica", Brennan was beat boxing and Kristen was rapping. And we were all stomping. It was hilarious. We were called "the Thompsons". The night was a big success and I saw so many people I hadn't seen since high school. Got back around 4:30 am and slept at 5:30 and woke up the next morning at 2 in the afternoon. Bummed around the house all day on Saturday, had "lunch" at about 4 in the afternoon, played music, dinner around 10 pm, and talked with my family until 4 in the morning. I slept at 6 am on the couch, and woke up at 3 in the afternoon on Sunday (today)... ahhhh! good life. I love sleeping on the couch for some reason. Even as a kid, I had a really nice bed, but I always wanted to be on the couch. Anyways, so that's what I've been doing. Bummed around for a bit. Made a big pot of coffee, watched about 3 hours of poker on tv and then we went down to Halifax for Chinese buffet (my dad's favourite!). We just got back, chilled out for a bit with the dog and now everyone's sleeping because we're sending my brother to the airport at 4:30 am (2 hours from now), so I'll probably just chill here for a bit. Anyways, lots of chilling, lots of sleeping, lots of bumming, lots of coffee, lots of tea, lots of cookies, lots of playing with the doggie. And that's pretty much all I've been up to and will be up to for the next few days. CIAO! December 26, 2006: Christmas Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#dec262006 Alright, Christmas is over. I'm leaving for Nova Scotia tomorrow, taking the red-eye flight, and arriving the next morning. So I left off on Sunday. Monday and Tuesday I can't recall doing anything but I could be just stupid right now. Wednesday was a very long practice, because we were essentially practicing for two masses (Sunday and Monday). Got through everything half an hour ahead of schedule. Thursday, went to Circolo Italian restaurant in Yaletown with Rachel (roomate) and John (Rachel's friend). Delicious food in a really nice setting with live lounge piano music. One thing I noticed is that even if a girl has a hard time finishing off her appetizer, struggles through her entree, she can still gobble down dessert and clean the bowl no problem. If a guy is full, and you ask him to have dessert, he'll be like, "no no, I'm full. can't eat another bite". But I think girls have a separate stomach just for sweets so that when their regular stomach is full, they open up their dessert stomach and they're ready to start eating (but only sweet stuff). haha, one more complex difference between the genders. Friday, worked in the morning, then left around noon and went to the Superstore and sang Christmas carols for the Salvation Army with Sheena (church), Mai, Nathan and another person whose name eludes me at the present time. It was a lot of fun and we rocked it out with a rockin Christmas sprit and nice harmonies. Picked up Melody and went for dinner at Water Street Cafe in Gastown (we scored a two for one dinner, sweet). The food was really nice, but I think advertising in the Georgia Straight kind and the 2 for 1 deal kind of cheapens the image a little bit, even though the food was really nice. Met up with Abdel, Erika (Abdel's friend, also from Melody's highschool), George (Abdel's friend), and Priscilla at Tinseltown and watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" which was an awesome movie. It was another one of those promote-the-American-dream kind of movies, where if you put your mind to it, you can succeed (implying that if you don't succeed, you obviously weren't determined enough). Movies in that genre kind of irk me a bit. Let's put it this way: someone could take the story of Joseph (from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat) and technically make a "you can do it if you try, our Egyptian society is about the freedom to rise up against all odds, as opposed to all you primitive caste systems out there" kind of movie if you really wanted. You know what I mean? They take the exception and make it seem as if success is a personal choice. For the geniuses and brilliant salespeople (such as the protagonist in this film), it might mildly resemble that, but a responsible public servant is also responsible for taking care of the 2nd rate genius, and also the retard, much like how a parent is responsible for taking care of ALL of their children. Despite the many democratically-lacking countries in the world, there is still hope (in many cases more hope than in the United States of America) for those that are born into the lower "castes". So save me the bs. Democracy and Freedom and the founding fathers and the pursuit of happYness. Democracy isn't the end-all-be-all of governing systems either. Any self-righteous American that sees non-democratic countries as unjust or primitive needs only look so far as the bible upon which they thump for the clear example where Jesus was executed by the tyranny of the majority. Democracy and American Capitalism for all the absoluteness that these self-righteous charlatans claim, is just one system of many, and is far far far from an absolute pinnacle or ideal towards which we should all strive. Free from corruption, Saddam Hussein or Fidel Castro can run a country much better than any democratically elected politician who masters the art of media manipulation to win the eye of the audience, and this particular skill (which is most important in the election) holds almost no bearing on their actually ability to run the country (which is the most important duty when they are finally elected). End of American rant. Saturday, finished off Friday's work, went Christmas shopping, and then went to Van Dusen Gardens for a beautiful Christmas light exhibition. The line up was about 200 m long, but it took only 10 minutes to get in. Gorgeous. Had dinner at the Shaugnnessey restaurant next door and then went for bubble tea with Abdel and Therese. This might be the last time I hang out with Therese (sad) but it's also very exciting that she is moving on with a new life in Edmonton! Go Therese. Sunday, mass went well. We had a little error at the end of one of the pieces, but no biggie. We have a new bassist! Ben! He's awesome! Spent all of Sunday preparing for dinner - Paella, baked Carp, prawns, roast beef, turkey, fried banana, red bean, and mulled wine. Christmas carols followed and good conversation at the Tan residence, with the aunt/uncle/cousin. Monday, did Christmas mass, that was a lot of fun! Dim sum at thyme restaurant and then headed back to North Vancouver right back to the slave ship at Lonsdale Quay to prepare for a very very long day the next day. Today is Tuesday, I'm done the big day. Long... but finished. I love my crew! They are so awesome and pull through every time. But as the captain, I'm there before everyone, I leave after everyone, and everyone gets one or two breaks while I take little short ones throughout the day. So no one complains about being overworked because I work harder than anyone. Sometimes I say, "go, have a coffee, take a few minutes" and they all say, "no no, let's finish, let's finish". What the hell would I be doing without them? Tomorrow is another big day, but it's mostly about me on the road and then finishing before I leave for Nova Scotia the next day. phew. Tired. I can't wait to be home. I'll update from there. Bye for now! December 17, 2006: Update on Life Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#dec172006 What happened? What happened? I left off last Friday after melody's cousin came in. So Friday night, I got down to Richmond, and we took Eli (Melody's cousin) to the River Rock Casino in Richmond. Nobody won any money. Saturday, pulled a really early morning to finish all of my work by noon and dashed down to Richmond, picked up Melody and brought her to her Religion course test at the SFU campus downtown. Met up with Rich and Karen at Gloucester cafe while waiting for her and then picked her up and met up with her parents at Park Royal in West Vancouver, then went for Yakitori at Zakkusshi on Robson Street. Then we watched "Happy Feet" at Silver City. It was a good movie. Sunday, mass went really well. The whole Amazing Grace theme throughout advent is really working out. People like it a lot. After mass, we went out with Eli (Melody's cousin) to Cactus club with the church crew. He spent quite some time talking with Father David. Good times. Melody and I headed downtown after that to meet up with Therese, Priscilla, Rich and Abdel at Zefferelli's for pasta. A lot of wedding talk. Therese and Priscilla had just gone bridesmaid dress shopping. And that was it. Brought Melody and Eli home and I think they continued to talk until 3 am, but I headed back to North Vancouver right away. Monday, met up with my old roomate, Azusa, along with Katsu, Rachel, John (Rachel's bf), Rich and Abdel at KashCool which is a Persian restaurant. Azusa wanted to eat somewhere in North Vancouver and I know the best Persian food is in North Vancouver, so I got this recommendation from Parisa (Shad 04). THANKS! Awesome food. Lots of kebabs. Went to Mondo Gelato for dessert afterwards. Wednesday was practice. We're now in Advent season. Songs were really well picked this week. Thursday, went to "Hell's Kitchen" in Kitsilano with Abdel, Bea (Abdel's friend from McGill), Darren and Kate (Bea's friends). Cool atmosphere, lots of red in the ambiance, pumping music... good times. Friday, went to Melody's company party at the Renaissance Hotel downtown. Met a lot of her workmates. Sauteed prawns, scallops, crab cakes, rack of lamb, ahi tuna, sashimi, carved roast turkey, a nice Chilean red, complete with a chocolate fountain and an ice sculpture. Saturday, work as always, and then we went to Gyoza King for dinner. Sub-par quality Ramen. The best ramen in Vancouver is Kintaro, and another less known place is this small place near Melody's house called "Osaka Today" where the noodles are hand made. Too bad the location sucks. Sunday, excellent sounding mass. Had a formal meeting and paperwork with Father David (wedding stuff) and then took him to Hananoki in Terra Nova for Japanese food and plenty of Sake. Dinner with Melody's family at Mak's wonton house on Alexandra. Two side projects right now. The first is a theory I have on the causes of injustice towards coffee growers. As you may know, the coffee industry is such that while the multinational coffee brand names make billions, the coffee growers are pinched to levels of income barely above subsistence. (I can just see all the christopherlau.ca readers now leaving the blog. oh well). That's where fair trade coffee comes in. They offer growers a price for their coffee that allows them a lifestyle above what they need to barely survive. The other aspect of fair trade is the villainizing of multinationals "naughty boys! squeezing farmers for all their money". My theory is that the situation has arisen not out of poor business ethics, but as a result of the industry structure, which includes coffee buyers, but also includes the current industry competition. Look at it like this: Imagine you're a coffee grower. You have a whole whack of coffee growers that use family labour and are willing to do whatever it takes to sell what they grow (regardless of price). As an industry competitor with this crazy family farmer offering his beans at a sub-normal rate of return - you are doomed to offer your product at the same price! You have to. The problem isn't only that the buyers have too much bargaining power. That's one big part of the problem. The other handicap in the industry is the fierce industry competition. Dealing with this problem in a sustainable manner requires not necessarily artificial price fixing (i.e. fair trade) which benefits some growers but not even close to a respectable proporation, but rather re-looking the industry. Appealing to consumerism is a small and valiant, but the bigger problem is the industry itself and I am looking at examples of other industries that pulled themselves out of highly fragmented, fiercely competitive, and low-return on investment situations to make recommendations for the coffee industry. This situation is particularly difficult because competition is global and coffee is so undifferentiated (meaning that it's approximately the same regardless of the source) across various geographical regions that a solution in one country might be quickly annihilated because the switching costs of the buyer into another country's coffee supply is negligible. So you might guess that there the recommendation includes differentiating. So you'll see the recommendations when I put them. Here, first, on ChristopherLau.ca The second side project is songwriting. Have two nice song started this weekend. December 10, 2006: christopherlau.ca reader interest Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#dec102006 So being the brilliant young businessperson that I am, I decided to research what makes the christopherlau.ca readers "tick"... what are they interested in. I don't need to ask them in person, because in person, I know what makes them interested. My initial idea for christopherlau.ca was to generate ideas about public policy, economic trends, morality and other intelletual debates. How does have people responded? I took a look at the number of hits, the number of responses, and scaled by the amount of time that it's been posted on the forum to see if my readers were appreciating what was written. I was actually quite confident that the readership would gobble up anything short of Nietzche. Well, what were my findings?!? Not to belittle the readers, but here's the lowest scoring topics: Lowest Scoring Topics: On Capitalism, On Capitalism Part II, Do Unions Hurt the Economy, On Capitalism Part III I was slightly disappointed at this because this happens to be my particular interest and I am assuming most people reading this are my friends. "Well" thought I, "perhaps Economics is not the answer. Perhaps they were more intersted in morality and theology. I had a most engaging conversation just the other day with a friend over an espresso at Granville Island where we came up with ideas that will one day shake the very core of our current paradigms." So I scored it again and looked at the top results. Again, not to belittle the readers, but the following hottest topics took me by surprise: Highest Scoring Topics: what defines a "catch", Guys and Nice Cars, followed by a close third - turn ons and turn offs Come on guys!!! My favourtie essay was "Love, Faith, and Deeds". Do you know which topic beat it by almost 200%? That's right: "The maxi pad invented by guys". Do I even know you people??!?? Are my readers my friends or are they random visitors from outer space? How was "Sympathy for the Nazis" beat out by "Pick up Lines"?!? Well, there's an epilogue to this story: In my spare time, while in conversation or surfing the net, I very rarely engage in anything intelligent because I have better things to do with my free time than "think". Since I never read anything intellectual on the internet I'm guessing that the ChristopherLau.ca readers are similar. But I know deep inside... really deep inside... you wish you could read someone's opinion on whether unions hurt the economy? Admit it. You'll read it one day... I know you will. Actually one person did respond to that post and after I had spent, maybe, a week reflecting on this idea, here's what they wrote: I thought that said Onions! ahha so I prepared a whole essay (4,072 words approx.) on why onions hurt the economy. Just as I was about to post it I re-read this little rant and it's talking about Unions... not onions. BUMMMER. December 8, 2006: Update on life and business Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#dec082006 It's been a pretty hectic last few weeks. First, we didn't produce during the whole water problems (some suppliers did, some didn't - we played it safe), so we shipped out all of our inventory and have busy rebuilding it for Christmas. We've picked up a few new accounts including one in Squamish (near Whistler) and one on Vancouver Island! That was the most exciting because our product is finally leaving the mainland. Our first account outside of the lower mainland was in Whistler (we got about one year ago) and I remember how exciting that was because it was going somewhere that seemed so far away. This is just a small account but very exciting. And actually was one of those moments where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know what I mean? The growth strategy to get you to the next "phase" comes to you in a flash of "YES!". We've been operating at what I call the 200 level (like a second year course) for the last year, but for sure making progress. I think I know realistically how to get to the 300 level without taking ridiculous risks (you can always go to any level of business by throwing down tons of money, but in Vancouver where rent is high, staff is hard, and competition is tough, that could be a stupid risk and you might never see that money ever again). I left off on last Friday. Last Friday, Melody and I tried a new Chinese restaurant in Richmond and while it wasn't that good, the price was amazing for the quantity of food and we did a lot of "wedding talk". Saturday, work, and then took a long walk around Steveston by myself and the Melody and I met up with Therese and Priscilla at Red Robin downtown. On the way home, Priscilla fell asleep in the car and I noted that it was the quietest the car has ever sounded when she was there. She is generally the most outgoing person in any group. Good times. Sunday, music went okay but we had some sound equipment issues because we're trying a new setup. Went to a music ministry workshop afterwards and learned a lot about our ministry and how music fits into the mass and it was awesome. It reminds me that our particular ministry is a very important part of mass and justifies the amount of time and effort that we put into it. Monday, helped Abdel move some couches and met up with Joanna (choir) for dinner at a Japanese restaurant on Main Street. She's in exam mode but was 'gracious' enough to schedule us in for entertaintain purposes. As always, conversations when Abdel is around always turn into things completely random which is awesome. Wednesday, small practice, everyone's in exam mode. We're looking forward to a new bassist! woo hoo! and that leads me to today (Friday), where Melody's cousin from the Phillipines is back (and we can have "talk about money" as Melody says). There's been a few things I've wanted to talk about. First, there's the order of birth and how it affects your relationship compatibility. Second, there is my theory on what makes a successful business person. And thirdly, I wanted to talk about an interesting novel idea that has to do with a Verdi violin concerto. Fourth was another business model in which I characterize the tendencies of Japanese/German, American, and Chinese companies and their tendencies. Since I have to pick and choose one, I'll talk a little about the order of birth and its correlation with relationship compatibility. (I have a feeling the business topics bore people, but my blog is also so I don't forget all my theories later on in life, so it's like a 'log' for me... a Chris Log or Clog - I wanted to trademark this name but realized that the threat of someone commercializing on this name probably isn't that great and also I believe a 'clog' is also a dutch wooden shoe isn't it? I don't feel like naming my website after a fibrous pedantic tool) Is it possible that your compatibility in a relationship is strongly dependent on your siblings and your partner's siblings? Here's what I propose. First, I would suggest that older siblings look after younger siblings of the opposite gender - an older brother doesn't necessarily look after a younger brother, but would be protective of his younger sister. An older sister wouldn't necessarily look after her younger sister, but would baby a younger brother. Secondly, I would suggest that what we know of the opposite sex is learned largely from the experiences with our siblings. Thirdly, what we expect of our friends of the opposite sex tends to mirror how we treat our siblings. The third point is what explains our compatibility. Examples? Of course. An older brother with a younger sister will tend to protect her. Back when Jenn (my sister) was applying to universities, I sat down with the admissions officer in my program so he would recognize her application when it came up, which was strong enough for this program in any case, but why not. In work, I tried to network her a job at my company in San Jose and offended a few people in the process and ended up backing off at the end. I once flew across the country to help her study for a final exam (but my parents paid for the ticket! go mom and dad!). My first fight was in pre-school where someone had stolen my little sister's toy. And to this day I never apologized because I still feel I was carrying out my duty. Poor jenn was probably sitting in the corner picking her nose because she didn't understand the problem, but that might certainly set the stage for our relationship going forward. I remember they even had to call my mom in and I negotiated the settlement to a much-resented hug for the teacher which is far better than an unjust public apology. So I tend to expect my female friends to want my protection - which is obviously far from the truth in reality, but it's my expectation anyways - because that's the perception of females that I learned from my sister. My sister, perhaps, expects guys to be like older brothers and it's their job to take care of her. This is compounded by the fact that she actually had not one, but TWO brothers. Lucky girl. My friend in university, on the other hand, had an older sister and I am sure he was babied. For him, females were the protectors and for his sister, she expected her guy friends to need her to take care of them. Strangely enough, I don't know anyone who is sandwiched in age between two siblings of the opposite gender as them. But the sibling who is closer would probably determine their expectations of the opposite gender (protector or protectee). Another case is all siblings the same gender, or a single child (we can treat this as the same case). In this case, the child would probably use their parents as guides. Moms tend to smother, so the sons might expect that their female friends baby them and do everything for them. Dads tend to be hands off, so only daughters expect men to be somewhat auxiliary in their life. How does this affect your compatibility with your partner? Perhaps you can guess where this is going? If a girl in a relationship expects the guy to baby her, but he doesn't have that instinct, she'll feel that he's useless. Or if the man and woman both expect the other one to need them, then certainly the guy will feel like the girl is too strong, and the girl will feel that the guy is too controlling. The best ones work like this - the guy expects to take care of the girl, and the girl expects the guy to take care of her. Or the guy expects the girl to take care of him, and she gets satisfaction out of taking care of him. The expectations aren't entirely determined by siblings. For instance, a girl might not be too close with her younger brother so she doesn't baby him, but has a strong relationship with her father. In this case, she might expect the guy to take care of her. Or if the father is auxiliary, then this girl, despite have a little brother, will see men as auxiliary. Or a guy might have an super independent (likely overachieving) little sister and therefore he's not close with her, but has an overbearing mother, so he will expect women to take care of him. *Basically, your expectations of the opposite sex are determined by your closest person of that gender growing up, which is generally the sibling, but if they're not close to the sibling, it's the corresponding parent*. Melody has a younger brother. I have a younger sister. I guess we both take care of each other in different ways but I don't get excited when she talks about accomplishments because that doesn't reinforce my expectation that she needs me. That obviously causes tension. Luckily, she is close with her father, so it's okay if I can help her out in situations. Yet, she still sees me as a younger brother - she feels compelled to nag me and scold me and fix my collar and organize my binders and do everything that an older sister would do because she thinks I can't do them myself. We have a strange relationship and I think it'd hard for someone to answer who wears "the pants" in our relationship but I would say that a lot of our tensions originate from the fact that sometimes she is stronger than a little sister and I'm more controlling than a little brother. So to my nemesis out there who likes to contradict my theories (I won't name names)- I'm saying right now that I am a contradiction to this theory. My theory only states a tendency, not a rule. And yet, it's a fairly strong rule if you look at your friends and their expectations of the opposite sex and how they choose boy/girl friends. The toughest ones to predict are the ones without siblings of the opposite sex because you'd have to know their relationship with their parents but generally, girls in this situation generally see men as auxiliary and guys see women as caretakers. Girls in this situation are easily turned off by controlling men and guys in this situation are turned off by women that can't (or don't want to) take care of them. Problems arise when that's not what they expect of themselves and their partners. Interesting, eh? December 1, 2006: Update, snowstorm Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#dec012006 Hmmm... I left off last after the grey cup party on Sunday. Wednesday was the usual choir practice. Fun fun. My brain is losing me right now. I can't remember what happened although I remember it was interesting. Thursday, saw "Fiddler on the Roof" with Melody. I somehow got last minute tickets to that because my friends Ivan and Susan were in it. It was absolutely awesome!!! Friday, saw Casino Royale with Melody's family and then had dinner at Boston Pizza afterwards. Saturday, I acted as "John the Baptist" for a church kids program. There were about 50 kids there, and I burst into the room in a piratey accent and start blathering on about stuff. It was hilarious. Great time. Had tons of coffee beforehand because it was a fairly early morning for me. Melody's cousin from the Phillipines came in. He's a 28 year old guy, working at a Canadian company (telecom industry) at the Manila office. Really fun to talk with, fairly passionate about business, and a good looking guy. Still single. I wanted to introduce him to some good girls I know here but not enough time. This was the first time they'd met since Melody left the phillipines at 11. It's interesting talking to Chinese South East Asians about business because I think it's very engrained into our culture to throw large amounts of capital and re-invent industries. The Chinese own a disproportionaly large amount of capital in many countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Phillipines, Indonesia and it's mainly because of the entrepreneurial drive that they have when they see labour intensive industries and feel a need to mechanize it by throwing large amounts of capital behind it (consolidate or die). Native people, who are obviously comfortable where they are, feel no need to change things, and lose out in the end because their businesses can't compete and they get stuck bidding their labour power for just enough money to sustain their families (oh the irony of China being communist). Lots and lots of industries are now being outsourced to China because of this phenomenom and despite popular belief, it's not only because of the low currency, but because of their ability to find low cost labour (which exists here in Canada too btw! You just have to look hard and train otherwise very laid back cultures) and consolidate operations to lower the cost of production. Now, young and ambitious Chinese businesspeople are going to Bangladesh to set up industries there also because of quotas which have been set in their native countries (and haven't yet taken effect in Bangladesh). It's a gold mine out there for those who know the game. In Canada, the big gold mines now are, well, literal gold mines...and black gold mines (i.e. oil) and other natural resource mines. Too bad it's not fish gold or I'd be rich by now. Saturday was spent mostly entertaining Eli. For lunch, we went to a Taiwanese tea house in Abderdeen where we were served very nice tea on beautifully carved tables and chairs. Dinner, we had Alaskan King Crab, Shark Fin Soup, Sea Cucumber, Jellyfish, roasted squab and a whole assortment of beautiful foods at Sun Sui Wah. Sunday was church and that went very well, and the first snow fall for a long time. Melody made a darth vader snowman. We took Eli (melody's cousin) skating at Minoru park and then we had Malaysian food at Tropika for dinner with all the cousins before we sent Eli off to Montreal for his meeting. He might be back before he goes back to Manila. Wednesday practice was small, but this is the start of advent now and we're doing new mass parts and one very cool thing we came up with is that for the next four weeks, instead of having a happy happy song at the end of mass, we're going to sing "Amazing Grace" with no instruments every week for the next four weeks! Just a contemplative kind of thing. We'll see how that works. There's some cool harmonies we can do in there too if we arrange it properly. Yesterday, had Pho with my roomate and Richard and that brings me to today (Friday). Here's an interesting fake article about the snowfall in Vancouver: Vancouver (Reuters) Day 2 - Vancouver Blizzard 2005 - Revenge of the Commuters Chilled Vancouver commuters faced their second day of winter hell today, as an additional 1/4 centimeter of the peculiar white stuff fell, bringing the lower mainland to its knees and causing millions of dollars worth of damage to the marijuana crops. Scientists suspect that the substance is some form of frozen water particles and experts from Saskatchewan are being flown in. With temperatures dipping to the almost but not quite near zero mark, Vancouverites were warned to double insulate their lattes before venturing out. Vancouver police recommended that people stay inside except for emergencies, such as running out of espresso or biscotti to see them through Vancouver's most terrible storm to date. The local Canadian Tire reported that they had completely sold out of fur lined Birkenstocks. Drivers were cautioned to put their convertible tops up, and several have been shocked to learn that their SUV's actually have four wheel drive, although most have no idea how to use it. Weary commuters faced soggy sushi, and the threat of frozen breast implants. Dr. John Blatherwick, of the Coastal Health Authority reassured everyone that most breast implants were perfectly safe to 25 below. "The government has to do something," snarled an angry Trevor Warburton. "I didn't pay $540,000 for my one bedroom condo so I could sit around and be treated like someone from Toronto." November 21, 2006: Co-operative & Competitive Strategy addendum Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#nov212006 I posted this discussion topic on my forum so you can check if people have criticisms or points to make about it. Click here to view and post comments on Co-operative & Competitive Strategy Here's an addendum: how does this model compare to, say, a franchise. As a franchisEE, you are supplied by the franchisER, who generally makes a healthy markup on the products that they have exclusive right to supply to you, and they charge you a percentage of sales (sometimes in the double digits, but mostly in the single digits). The franchisER also might own the property and they make a healthy return on the lease that you pay. A competitive co-operative model might operate similarly, except you might pay a higher percentage of sales, but the land is financed to you, and the commissary that produces your supplies is funded by your sales percentage fees. You will also help to finance the marketing of the franchise. As a franchisEE your total profit is much greater. The success of the franchise as a whole, though, depends on the intelligence of the people that the co-operative pays to run the whole operation and these people have to be the best of the best, but with the money that is saved from paying dividends to investors, I'm sure there's money to play with. Although, a co-operative competitive franchise itself will benefit automatically for free by resonating with the population that gravitates towards anything leftist in principle. You know what I'm talking about. Another question might be, how do we go about doing this? through a revolution? Do we overthrow the current system by force and then start from scratch. No! Why? Because if we overthrow the current system, we are at the mercy of other countries that can feed our now-engrained consumerist behaviour. A better approach is to create such a company and out-COMPETE the current competition. Say, for instance, you wanted to take on Blockbuster Video. You, and 10 other ambitious business owners, would come together and each decide where your outlets are going to be (there may be some squabble here, and you might end up with only 3 partners at the end, but that's life). You all put down a certain amount of money in order to establish a small head office and a small warehouse. You create all the systems to network all the stores and share inventory, create the graphics, and get a loan. And set up your stores, and while you're 5 stores, and Blockbuster is 500, you can probably still do the "guaranteed in stock" (because you can share inventory) and you may be able to do the "no late fees" thing (but that's not a deal breaker if you can't) and then just start competing right from there. Fun. You will certainly lose on the national marketing, but you can win on the local advertising. You can also win by a LANDSLIDE on the distribution of small films (rentals and sales), and you might be able to charge less per rental because you own your own lease and don't have that overhead. The lower rental fee only applies for new releases - you may or may not be able to compete on the old releases because for Blockbuster, they already own these videos and are just "harvesting" whatever they can from them, since they would otherwise just sit on the shelf. You, on the other hand, have to purchase them all at once and you need to make some financial justification for buying all these videos. But it will still be a good deal (just not as good as 3 for $5 for 7 days, as Rogers Video offers, which you would rarely watch all three films anyways). And you may not have the selection of old videos that they have, but by having 5 stores, you can buy 3 copies of each old movie, and they rotate through the 5 stores (and when they're not in one store, to the customer, it looks like it's been rented, which is fine, but at least they know that you have it in stock). So there you go. 5 other owners and you compete with Blockbuster, and each owner makes more than the Blockbuster franchisee (maybe it's not a franchise, maybe they're wholly owned by the parent company, but if it is, you would make more than they would anyways) or each owner makes more than the store manager. You can always grow from here. This is how you start this revolution. By outcompeting, by guerilla warfare. No doubt, if you start kicking their asses with your lower new release price and your greater seletion of indie films, they will introduce new promotions that a 5 store chain can't possibly compete with, but then you have to adapt at that point. November 19, 2006: Update on life, on business, on co-operative competitive strategy Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#nov192006 So I left off last on my Fall Fair thing. Wow, that was a long time ago. I don't think too much happened in between then. Thursday, met up with Nicole (mcgill) and some friends at Gloucester cafe because she was in town for the day. Friday, went out for dinner/Borat with Melody, Abdel, Priscilla, Therese, Rich, Emily and Victoria. Awesome funny movie. Saturday, met up with Kristen (friend from NS) and her friends Meghan and Zachary. Took them to Hon's noodle house, and then to Abderdeen Center to look at all the Chinese stuff and the Japanese Dollar store for Kristen's shopping and some herb stores where Kristen was hilarious and was like, "COOL! A DRIED OUT REPTILE!" and the staff were so mean there, especially when she asked how much it would cost to buy the entire snake skin. haha! good times! Picked up Melody and then went for dinner at the Afghan Horseman, which is a family-owned Afghanistan food, and you just sit on the floor and eat the food. delicious. Met up at Rennee (Melody's Microsoft friends) house for mango cake with her new boyfriend, Kevin, and played Bingo with Kristen, Duncan, and Caroline. Good times. Sunday, we had some weird intonation problems in choir, but it we got through the whole thing, which is good and then came back this week with perfect intonation. Every problem is an opportunity, that's the way I see it. Went out to Cactus club with the church crew. Met up for a semi-reunion with the Shad '04 crew (Parisa, Eileen, Billy, Doug, ddent) at Moxie's on Broadway. Good times. On Monday, a Singaporean girl, Milly Ng, that a bunch of us met in Langley swing dancing, came up to Vancouver and her, her friend Julia, Rich, Rachel, Abdel and I met up with her at Sha-Lin Noodle. Thursday, Katsu (roomate) had some friends over and we had a nice dinner at home and a few drinks. Friday, stayed at home with Melody's family for a quiet evening, Saturday, lots of work, and then headed down to the church for a children's activity I was asked to do for the GIFT program, which is a program to educate parishoners - this year's theme has been centered about Social Justice and Peace. Anyways, at one point, all the children will congregate in a room and then I'm going to finish off a session, acting as John the Baptist and I have a script, we ran through it. I guess they like my over the top, exagerrated acting style that might work for kids. Went out for quick dinner with Melody at Beef Noodle House Taiwan restaurant, and we went downtown to Buffalo club for Abdel and Katsu's soccer party with Melody, Rich, Therese, and Priscilla. They had a cool band at the beginning (name eludes me right now), some dancing, an awesome cover band (that therese is considering hiring for her wedding). Mass was great today (after some problems last week), went for Greek food for lunch, and then had a Grey Cup party at Derek's place, then Ria and I sang some random songs on their piano. Ria is a wicked singer, and is as enthusiastic about it as she is talented. And that brings me to right now. (Sunday night) Business wise, things are getting interesting. I'm going to pick up a line of stuffed olives, which is a perfect fit, because they fit perfectly into the same accounts, and they don't compete with our existing products, and for us, we can bring their salees up very quickly, and for them, they have a good partner who won't charge them an arm and a leg, and they don't give up all the control. I'm very excited and the product list is very impressive, and they have a few good accounts right now. This should be a lot of fun, and we've met a few times and I think we have a lot to build off of each other. The negotiating is done, the deal is there, now we have to make some money (i.e. the only reason we're all really friends) I mentioned before that I was thinking a bit about something business wise. Here it is in a first draft. I was thinking about how owners and workers all get along. I started thinking about an ideal situation. Here's the ideal situation and I call this the "co-operative competitive business model". Consider this ideal: we are all private contractors and we just operate in a large open economy, where our skills, our time, and our effort are openly traded. Equipment, capital, etc. is collectively owned SOMEHOW and we rent time from it for what we need, or we pool our resources together to jointly own them. But this is not what the model necessarily is. This is where it tends towards. There's a grey area in between where I think it's realistic that we can go. Where's this practical grey area and what does this all accomplish? Usually, in a capitalist society, the progression goes towards the concentration of capital because the greater the concentration of capital, the greater the competitive advantage (economies of scale in production, marketing, distribution, sales, research and development). And it's not to a country's advantage to put a size limitation on domestic companies - sometimes it's nice to have 2 medium-sized companies in a country rather than 1 large company, but short of introducing protectionist behavious against foreign competition, you might get creamed by a Chinese or an Indian company that is four times your size and charges 4 times less than the domestic company. So the natural capitalist tendency is towards capital in a few hands, and the majority of the population being working class, squeezed to the point of minimum wage. How is my the competitive co-operative model different? Say you wanted to enter steel production. In a typical environment, the barriers to entry are really high. You've got to have a multi-million dollar plant, and tons of knowledge etc. In this plant, here's how it would work. You would start off with a few years apprenticing and building up capital. After, say, three years, you would buy a share of the equipment (not the company, not the goodwill, not any of that stuff, just the equipment). Basically now, as a small business owner, your cost to enter the business is, say, $30,000 as opposed to $5 million. But this way you would have to timeshare a small amount. Now this particular steel mill will have a lot of orders. Perhaps it's running at capacity, or running below capacity. In any case, the director of the steel mill (who is employeed by this particular steel mill co-operative) will allocate a few jobs to this individual or maybe if there's a huge order, this owner in charge of overseeing production for say 50% of the time. Now, the end customer will pay this owner and the person who completes the other 50% of the job, and he will have to pay a portion of his sales to the co-operative steel mill. You can see how it's a lot like a co-operative. The co-operative is there to offer you lower cost of entry, and the same benefits of a large organization such as established customer relationships, economies of scale, training, marketing etc. But in this co-operative, your customers don't buy into the organization (unlike grocery or mountain equipment co-ops). Also, when you're a member of the competitive co-operative, you don't just own "shares" of the company as a whole of the company - as a member of the co-operative you own time share of the machine and access to that machine. This kind of model is used in taxi cabs, where the taxi cab drivers are owners of their business (including their car) and they pay a portion of fees to the larger network. It's much easier for taxi cab businesses to run like this because the unit of production is the taxi cab and it's easy to divide a business into nice manageable parcels like that. Machinery is a bit tougher, and if you divide a huge machine into different time slots, then each user can only use it for a small amount of time, and that defeats the purpose of reaping economies of scale, because each user has to set up, and take down. It should be set-up, run for a long long time, and then taken down. So in this co-operative, two or three people can share ONE job, thereby maintaining the cost declines in large scale operation. Let's apply this model to, say, a mall. In a mall, the merchants of each store would be a part owner of the mall itself. If you can't afford to buy that piece of property right away, you would slowly pay it back as you worked. If your business goes under, that's not good, but you would then be responsible for selling your unit (and the next owner takes on whatever remaining financing you had on it). In today's economy, a separate group of financiers owns the real estate, and leases the property to the merchants. To make a healthy return on their investment, and justify the risk in putting down the building, they have to reap above-average returns on their investment. The mall tenants themselves are therefore having to make the real estate owners rich, and then their suppliers rich, and THEN them. That's a lot of people. Why not have the money that otherwise goes towards making the real estate investors rich, why not have that money stay within the merchants. So who, then, will take the effort to build a mall, who would take that risk? A few people - first, the government would (and they would eventually be paid back by the tenants), secondly, a consortium of tentants could, or thirdly, perhaps the mall builds itself slowly, almost like a bazaar, but with more permanence than sticks and a canopy. If the mall makes money, then everyone makes money (which is better than the investors making money and the tenants fighting to break even). If the mall loses money, then each investor loses money, which is okay, as opposed to a few investors losing lots and lots of money each. So we saw how this model can apply to large-scale manufacturing (time sharing, job sharing), to small unit of production services (e.g. taxis, which already use this system), and also through large scale retail (e.g. joint real estate tenant ownership). It can really apply anywhere because in any maturing industry, companies will tend to get bigger as size advantage makes them more competitive. Can you imagine an airline co-operative where the pilots and the hostesses owned one particular plane and they got jobs as needed? They could, of course, also time share with other owners, but you see how this is different than, say, giving your employees shares? Because shares aren't ownership in units of production. It is ownership in any value (and devaluation) of a company's market capitalization including reputation with creditors, customers, etc. which you may or may not have anything to do with and probably don't care for. Or maybe you do, and that's an option for people who want to remain as working class because they're air hostessing as a part time job to get through college or something - share ownership doesn't tie you to production so you can quit at any time without penalty. And maybe you're just trying out a profession and you don't want to necessarily invest. You don't need to be an owner. Some people are happier being in the working class. But owning the units of production, if your unit makes lots of money, you make lots of money. Share ownership - if you make lots of money, everyone takes a small bit of it. You're not directly rewarded. Anyways, that's a lot to think about and I know that most of you didn't even read this, but for those of you who did, you're awesome. But you can really come up with how this co-operative network can make many many businesses profitable and competitive, while directly rewarding owners for hard work and finally having as small a working class as possible. Well, some industries will actually rarely be under siege by the giant capitalists because beyond a certain size, the benefits of having a really large organization diminish quickly, and might actually decrease the value of the company because some business thrive on artistic talent, local connections/networks, and sharing of production capacity won't add cost declines. For example, architectural firms, music studios, graphics designs, small restaurants, hair salons... these kinds of things will continue to be owned by individuals, and in this economy, these are good places to go if you're looking to be an owner. But try being a small playier in the video rental business and you'll get creamed I guarantee because scale matters big time. Could you possibly ever offer the "no late fee" or "guaranteed in stock"? Many of these are actually conscious moves to keep out small family businesses that can otherwise outcompete Rogers and Blockbuster in price because they don't require above-average returns, but now with these guarantees, they can't. Can a video co-operative compete with Blockbuster. Absolutely. I bet you can even figure out how the whole thing would operate. Can you? November 5, 2006: Update on life Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#nov052006 This week was rather quieter during the weekdays other than the usual Wednesday practice. I left off on last Saturday night. Halloween weekend. Went to the Parade of Lost Souls on Commercial Drive with Melody and went to "Latin Quarters" restaurant for tapas. Went to Kristen and Mike's gig (Language Arts) at Casa del Amigos on Main and 3rd and they had an awesome performance. Met up with Karen/Rich/Abdel/Priscilla/Caroline/Caroline. Sunday, mass went well, and then we went out for lunch with Father David to Cactus Club. Good times. I didn't do much during the week. Friday night, went to Mai's place to practice for our Saturday performance with Sheena. Picked up Melody and went downtown with Therese and Abdel to Spice Alley Korean Restaurant and then to Cafe Montmartre on Main Street, which is a place I've always wanted to visit. It's a hippie kind of place, Parisian lighting (i.e. red), bikes hanging from the ceiling, cheap wine and fresh crepes. It was great. Saturday, practiced in the morning and then we did our performance at St.Joseph's. We started off with Bedouine Soundclash "When the night feels my song", in full three part harmony, then did a rendition of an old religious chant (Pange Lingua), which we played against a low string drone and built up a very interesting contrapuntal harmony, "More than Words" by Extreme, we did this one pretty much straight, and then the fourth piece was Let It Be (Beatles), but in a slow female opening, and building into a layering of verses over chorus over skatting, and we made some of the verses run seemingly fugal, although it really wasn't (I learned that technique from a mozart symphony that sound fugal but if you actually read the notes, it's not). It went really well and the fall fair was fun too. And now that we're done, there will be no more gregorian chanting for the parishioners that wish to pray in silence. Very happy about that. And today, I started playing violin in church again and it went well and Melody really likes choir!! that's good. And that brings us to tonight. That's it. Yum. Started talking a little about communism and socialism the other day. I have a few things I want to put down on paper, but I'll get to it once it's all cleared up in my head. As if you're not already bored about (maybe 10% of my forum is about that topic, although no one ever replies to it... oh well) October 30, 2006: I'm a real chinese character Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#oct302006 Someone did my name in chinese for me a few months back and here's what it looks like Hsien Yung in Chinese The first character is "liu" or "lau" (my last name), second character is "hsien" (to reveal, to show) and the third character is "yung" (bravery, courage). It's very nice calligraphy, everyone says that. I like it very much. I can stare at it forever and never cease to be amazed. My mother's mother gave me that name. October 28, 2006: Update on life, Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#oct282006 Interesting little week. Tuesday, finished off the vocals for a recording for Yollanda's wedding. You can now hear it online!!!! woo hoo!!! We did it chez Duncan's studio. Click here to hear the mp3 of Chris's first recorded song called "Everything Worked Out", done at Chez Duncan Studios Inc.!!!! Wednesday was practice and instead of practice, we talked about administrative stuff which I wasn't too happy about, but I guess it had to be done. It's just a very long drive for me down to richmond to talk about that. Thursday, met up with Azusa (old roomate) and Rachel (current roomate) for Ethiopian food at Harambe on Commercial and then right across the street to Kristen and Mike's open mic night gig. Lots of interesting stuff there, and they were able to showcase their stuff for Saturday's concert, which I have a few friends going to and unlike how it usually is at this place, the bar is trying to get them to play more often, as opposed to the usual situation, which is that the musicians have to fight for a spot. But that's expected... these guys are awesome. Check out their website at www.language-arts.net. Tonight, went for Malaysian food at Banana Leaf on East Broadway. Yum yum! And then met up for a drinks with Rich and Karen at his place. And that brings us to tonight. Actually, I also spent a bit of time at church today just playing around with a few things on the piano. Fall fair is NEXT WEEK and Sheena, Mai and I have a lot 'o work to do! yikes! but I'm sure we'll rock October 22, 2006: Update on life, Foodology Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#oct222006 So I left off on Kristen's Open Mic Night on Thursday night which was awesome. I went with Abdel, heard some interesting stuff that night. Friday night, laid low and watched the movie "Click" with Melody's family. Saturday, work work and at night was east coast swing dancing with Melody, Nicole, Lan (nic's bf), Rich, Karen, Priscilla and Abdel and Nicole's co-worker Matt. Good times, learned a whole bunch of new steps, and went to "The Main" afterwards for drinks. It was the first time I'd actually been to The Main... oops, and so I've blown my cover as a cool dude. We also met up with Renee (Melody's friend from Microsoft). Sunday, mass went well. Rehearsed with Sheena first thing in the morning and her friend Mai, who sings really well and we came up with some cool stuff! Can't wait for Fall Fair. Had dinner at Deer Lake restaurant with the Tans and then back home. Monday night, made Middle Eastern desserts with Abdel. These desserts, as I gather, are traditionally eaten during Ramadan and there's a more common Greek equivalent to it called Kataifi, I'm sure some of the food enthusiasts out there would know it. Also tried out his hookah, which is a pipe which filters out the smoke, but allows you to taste peaches and apples. It was awesome. Wednesday, rehearsed again with Sheena and yes, came up with something original sounding for the Chant! It was a big relief and it wow, sounds awesome. We have some new members in the choir (including the famous Melody!) and we're getting pretty big now. Thursday, went to Dunc's place (friend from NS) did a recording of my song "Everything Worked Out", which I played at Yollanda's wedding, but now she has something as a keepsake. Recording was fun. I brought in a bottle of Johnnie Walker and we enjoyed every last drop of it. Friday, stayed in with Melody's family. Saturday, woke up early to do a few deliveries in the morning and then had lunch with Nicole at "Go Fish", near Granville Island, which is a little shack right by the fishing boats so they theoretically buy the fish right off the boats there and cook it in front of you. Pretty cool. I had fish and chips and it was delicious!! Nicole had an Oyster Po Boy. Went for a dinner (cousin's birthday?) at Nando's with Melody and her family and then watched the movie "The Departed" which was really good. Early night. Rehearsed again with Sheena and Mai Sunday morning and figured out our third song "A Beautiful Day" by Beadouin Soundclash. Yay! But we still have a lot of cool stuff we can do, but at least we have the setlist and the style worked out and now it's just getting it together. Mass was good. Melody sings louder :) Rae-Maurice did her first solo. I think we're getting places! Went to a ministry renewal meeting after mass, which was open to all ministers in the church (lectors, eucharistic, barista, music) and then of course led by the ordained minister, Father David. It was interesting and saw a lot of old faces from Joseph. Dinner at Paesano's Italian restaurant in Richmond with Melody, which was our only time out this weekend Oh well. But eating out on Sunday got me thinking about something. I've been hanging out with one particular person in Vancouver who is a fellow food enthusiast. Which is awesome. I love being a snob with her. She can be a very good person to talk snobby talk with. Anyways, while eating at Paesano's (which translated to "peasant") I thought, 'what makes good food', and I thought about all the good meals I had in my life. First, my mom makes the best food in the world. That just had to be said. But when I think of some of the best meals in the world, I think of when I hiked across Spain. In 2004, Melody, Erin, and I hiked 720km across Spain on a Pilgrimmage. We walked every single day from first the in the morning (generally before sunrise) until mid afternoon. We found a place to lay our head for the night (I usually slept at this point), and Melody and Erin did some random stuff like look through the town, and then we'd eat. Restaurants opened at around 8pm. Once, we got kicked out of every restaurant we knocked on in town because it was 7:30pm at the time, and no one opened the doors until 8 pm. So by this time, we were super hungry. We'd sit down, they'd bring out a bottle of vino tinto (red wine) and aqua (water), we'd order our food, and it was always a 3 course meal. An appetizer (veges or potatoes), and then the main course (meat, fish, pasta and something), and then dessert (sometimes just a dollop of yogurt). But man, cutting through the meat, throwing back a couple of glasses of red wine with two great friends, and talking about what we were doing that day and any thoughts we had, often we'd be with some new people we'd met along the way, or with some folks that we'd seen many times before but from all over the world. And we're all in this little tiny town, on the same pilgrimmage, absolutely famished and slightly drunk from the wine, but ploughing back food like we hadn't seen food for a week. That is good food. It was peasant food always, but so good. And we could always look forward to checking out the town afterwards, or just chatting in bed or by a fireplace, or singing songs whatever... when you have all that on your plate, that is a good meal!!! You enjoy that meal like none other. The best wine I ever had in my life: I was in Southern France living in a community for people with disabilities and I went off to a gatherin about 3 hours away for about 5 other communities. At lunch, I sat a table with the handicapped person I was accompanying who was also a fellow musician, my good friend Thomas also from my household, his handicap friend, an annoying French guy who kept talking, an interesting elderly French lady, and an attractive young Belgian girl who was new to the community. While the French dude kept talking to anybody, Thomas talked with the French lady about politics, I (not-so-grudgingly) entertained the young belgian girl who would often roll her eyes at the loud french dude who kept trying to get her attention, our handicap escorts talked amongst themselves... and all in the middle of this, the french dude kept asking for refills in the jug of wine. I remember how sweet that wine tasted in the middle of all of this commotion and even though the more he drank, the louder he got, whenever the filled jug came to the table, how bold it tasted as put it to my mouth. That was the greatest wine of my life and I bet it was simple table wine. there's no moral to this story, just that sometimes for all the money and time we invest in food, there are other criteria that makes a meal or a particular vino outstanding. October 12, 2006: Update on life, What makes one holy? Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#oct122006 It's been quite a long time since I updated. Okay, so I left off on Monday. Monday, I went out with Abdel, Nicole (McGill) and Eileen (Shad 04) to UBC campus to watch and open mic night but after dinner, we realized that the group we wanted to see wasn't playing until 10:30, so we went out to Trafalgar Cafe on W16th instead for coffee and met up with Rich and Karen. No tip that day. Rude waitresses. Wednesday, rehearsed with Sheena some stuff for FALL FAIR woo hoo! We're doing some renditions of Let It Be, a gregorian chant and something else that is still undecided. So far, it sounds very fresh which is for me, the most important especially in doing songs that are so well known and relatively simple. Melody came to Wednesday practice for the first time. Thursday, went to the Film Festival to watch a movie about hermaphrodites in India, it ended up selling out, so went to Sha-Lin noodle with Nicole, Rachel (roomate) and Rich and then to i-cafe... a hong-kong style cafe on Broadway. Friday, went to LANGLEY for swing dancing with Melody, Nicole, Lan (Nicole's bf), Priscilla, Rich and Karen. It was a lot of fun! Met a Singaporean girl who works in Langley doing crisis help lines. Saturday was Body World in Science World where a german scientist preserved real human bodies and exposed to regular air and in weird poses. It was really cool. Sunday, church was a lot of fun then Thanksgiving dinner at the Tan's afterwards. Pan Fried Scallops, curried butternut squash soup, large prawns in tomato sauce, turkey with sushi rice and lapcheong stuffing, and many desserts. We had it paired with a Red Rooster Pinos Gris which was very tasty. Monday was work (no statuatory holidays for this guy), and afterwards went to Kristen's place for Thanksgiving for a whole bunch of Nova Scotians. So much good food and plenty o wine and lots of laughs! Good ol nova scotian times! Tuesday, went to a play at Langara college with Emily called "Irony Satire" put on by Studio 58. Wow, was it well done!!!!!!! The acting, the directing (brilliant timing on speech), I was pretty much blown away. THANKS EMILY!!!! Wednesday was practice, and the first hour, we did a confirmation service instead of practice. I actually thought we were just rehearsing until Father David started doing a homily and then... "ohhh.. this was for real...". And that brings us to Thursday. I'm off in a bit to Kristen's Open Mic Night on Commercial. So, I like to listen to the radio. And sometimes I listed to Praise 106.5, which is the Christian Radio Network. Why? Because I'm Christian. But there is a lot of speakers on there that really annoy me because they talk in such a haughty manner. The most common words they use are "perish" "choose" "righteous" "condemn" "sinners" "non-believers" "hell" "justify" "resolve"... words that on their own aren't so bad, but when used in certain phrases and with a certain tonality in their voice impresses upon me the image that they feel that they are holier than those that are non-Christian. So what really makes somebody holy? Is it being Christian? Is it believing? Is it doing? I have written a lot about this on my forum, but I want to share with you something that I think is very important. What is it to be holy? To me, to be holy is to be loved by God. How do we get God to love us? My first argument is that God does not love us for anything that we do consciously. To put this into a Christian context, the age old debate is whether it is through faith or through deeds that we are justified. I would argue to have faith and to do deeds are both conscious decisions that we make and therefore irrelevant to God in how much he loves us. How is faith a conscious decions? We can decide to look into scripture, to meditate on prayer, to talk with God, to avoid sinful environments, to censor media that might affect our faith... this is a conscious decision that we make every day. This increases our faith. You hear this very often on the radio, "Jesus Christ loves all of us, the good and the bad." (and up to this point, this is correct), and then they continue, "But it's your decision if you want to let Christ into your life" (and with that, they turn faith into a conscious decision). Deeds, obviously, is also a conscious decision. Why can't we be justified by conscious decisions that we make? Nobody creates enough faith to MAKE God love us. Nobody can do enough deeds to MAKE God love us. So up to this point, I say this: anyone you hear on the radio that has devoted their life to God is at the same point as you or me. They might say stuff like, "It's the sinner's fault for living a life in sin" or "I feel so bad for those that haven't found Christ in their life because they'll never see the Kingdom of God". All bullshit. Oh, that must hurt for such a person to hear that because they've invested so much and the so called sinner has done nothing. Some people have donated 10% of their savings to their church since they were 20. Do you think any of them want to hear that it makes no difference? Let's put it this way: I have a brother and a sister. If my sister decided to build a shrine to worship how great I am, she went around telling everyone how great thou art, and spoke of my power to all of her friends, she puts all of her savings into my bank account, then at a moment where I had to choose to save my brother's life or my sister's life, would I favour her because of her devotion to me? No way. Why? Becase my love for my sister has nothing to do with what she does for me or how much she believes in me. Even if my brother at the same time slandered me, and stole from me, I still love him. (editors note: that's not the case for friends. If you wish to curry favour from me, by all means, deposit money into my bank account and I will certainly show you favour one day) So if I'm not easily moved by my sibling's faith or deeds in me, how much more intense is God's love for US, who he created and who he loves even more than a parents loves their own child. Again, at the moment where I have to choose one or the other, I don't even care if my sister's actions made me a very rich man. They are both my siblings and I love them both always. That is like the love of God for us, but much much greater. So you might ask why live a holy life? It's the same reason that if you really love someone, you would treat them well and would always look for opportunities to speak well of them. Why would someone devote their life to God? Because they are so thankful, they love God, they want to glorify him, they want to share him with the whole world. All for free? Yes. When you do this, you are doing it all for free. If you have devoted your life to God, continue what you're doing because it should make you happy and it will make you happy because you are celebrating your belief, but realize you're doing it for free. You hate doing things for free? Then stop doing it. If I have a birthday party, I want my friends to celebrate because they like me, not because after the party I'm going to treat them to something (because I won't). If you're doing it because you're going to get rewarded, I don't want you there. Prayer, church, volunteerism, ministries, charity... all of that is something you do because you love God. Period. Often, people will SAY that, but then add on, "but it helps to open you up to God and see's Christ's light" or some other way to justify 20 years of donations that "non-believers" idly spent. No. All of this accomplishes no more than celebrating someone's marriage. You do it all for free but you are doing it out of genuine happiness. And celebrating God's love makes me very happy! So take care of God's children and come celebrate my wedding for the same reasons. So there's no real reward for doing good or bad? So who goes to hell? I don't think anybody goes to hell. Happiness and sadness, pain and pleasure are all constructs of the human mind because we observe things in the finite. So we can compare different endorphines in the brain to distinguish pain from pleasure, and we can separate 72 years of living vs. 1.5 billion years of the universe existing. We can separate earth from sky, and we can differentiate between a living human and a pile of compost. We can distinguish that two protons is this element, and three protons is that. And therefore, we can conceptualize something like heaven and hell. But in the realm of the infinite, this can't exist. There are no protons and electons and 72 years. Why is there heaven and hell in the bible? I don't know. There is so much in the bible that we can't understand. Does that mean that the bible is perhaps incomplete? Of course. In the human language, we have 1 million words. Are you saying that by some miracle, the infinitely complex being of God is described using a combination of a mere 1 million words. For example, there are several versions of the word "love" in Greek, but in the English bible, all of them are translated as "love" even though they are all different. And in the heavenly language, there are probably 2 trillion types of loves. And somehow the humanly analogy of heaven and hell were used to describe some celestrial concept which perhaps didn't translate too well. And the earthly concept of "punishment", "anger", "reward" "judgement" were used, which are concepts infinitely more complex in the heavenly world. And why are there commandments and laws in the bible? Probably because God loves us and wants us to take care of each other. But doing so, or not doing so doesn't affect his opinion of us, just as if you don't help to organize the birthday party, a *true* friend won't love you any less. But of course because God doesn't want us to suffer on earth, he pleads to us to help each other and out of respect for him and compassion for each other, we will obey in our various capacities. This little dialogue has outlined two points: Firstly, God loves us no matter what (no ifs ands or buts, as people on the radio might add). God loves us no matter what. Secondly, heaven and hell is a human analogy to a heavenly concept, as are "punishment" and "reward". Everything you do on earth is for free and you do it out of enjoyment. And perhaps to tie everything together, I will end with a passage from the bible which describes the perfect relationship between us and God. The word in the original Greek bible is "agape". The English translation is "love", even though "love" is reused in other parts of the bible to mean something else. But in the following passage, we're talking about agape: "Love (agape) is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13:4. That is as beautiful as we'll get, and yet it is God's infinite love in our crude English language. Click here to view and post responses to this dialogue October 1, 2006: Weekend Update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#oct012006 Well, choir is taking on a new format, trying new things, doing vocal exercises and new ways of picking and arranging the songs for the week. It worked well this week. Thursday was Caroline's (dunc's gf) birthday and we started off at their place in Kits and went to Monsoon Cafe for dinner. I had a smoked tofu dish with a sweet almost caramelly sauce on it. Very tasty. I also had the pleasure of meeting her sister who owns a hair salon in Yaletown, voted best in Vancouver many times and won the contract to do this year's Canada's Next Top Model. Very interesting woman. After monsoon, went to Kristen and Mike's place for drinks. Duncan, apparently, was very fond of their home brew! Friday, went for dinner with Melody's family at Shanghai River in Richmond. The restaurant was so packed that even with a reservation, we had to wait something like 45 minutes! But the food was delicious. Met up with Abdel and Therese afterwards for bubble tea in Richmond and a chance to see Therese as newly engaged. Saturday, worked most of the day, and finally got down to Melody's place and we went to see Monkey Warfare, a movie at the International Film Festival. Nicole Tsang (McGill friend) is in Vancouver doing rotations for 4 weeks so her and her boyfriend came out, and Therese, Priscilla, Abdel, and Cheryl (therese's friend). It turns out that Melody, Nicole, and Cheryl were all from the same school but different years. In fact, everyone there was private school trained except myself and Nicole's boyfriend. Went out for drinks and dessert at Earl's afterwards and back to Melody's place just in time for curfew. Sunday, choir was really excellent. I really enjoyed playing at mass and it felt good. Went to Kristen's (ns friend) bday party at her place on Commercial Drive and met lots of new people, lots of musicians especially, and tried some of their homebrewed wine! Very nice! And that brings us to Monday! Sept 27, 2006: Weekend Update and Business Update, Congratulations Therese & David Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#sep272006 So this was the first week that Melody and I lived in the same city since Waterloo (two years ago). It's very nice to have her here! Wednesday was choir practice and we spent quite a bit of time talking about the philosophy of our music ministry. Afterwards, had a quick coffee with Father David and then met up with Melody. Thursday, went to Chef Meets Grape near the Pan Pacific Hotel, where tickets usually cost $55, but I got in for free as a "volunteer". Kosta was the chef for the BC Salmon Marketing Council and he got quite a bit of press coverage, and tons of people came by and sampled the five types of salmon marinated in the same marinade (a polynesian poke), so that they can taste the not so subtle differences. It was fun and I tried so many wines for BC wineries and so much delicious types! Friday, housesat Melody's house while the parents were at the John Meyer concert and watched "Beauty and the Beast" one of my favouritest cartoons of all time. Saturday, so much paperwork (because I was away for so long), and then went for dinner with Rich at a shanghainese restaurant in Richmond and then go-karting!!! woo hoo! I ended up being really good at go-karting, who would've thunk it? Sunday, choir was excellent, but we're missing one member indefinitely so hopefully we'll get through it all! Went to O'Hare's afterwards for some drinks with Melody, Gerald, Charlie and Angeela (Charlie's wife). Good times. And today (Tuesday), went out for karaoke with my roomates Rachel, Katsu-san, and Yosuke-san! Fun! Orders have been a little slower this week as our summer parade is over, but still surprisingly strong. But looking to pick up some new business in the next few days and weeks, both with the current product list and by adding some product lines. We're doing a lot of growth right now just from retailers doing their own research and contacting us, which is good, but I have this obsessive behaviour that if I'm not actively growing the business, then I'm not taking advantage of my position as a young and ambitious businessperson. Letting it grow on its own is something that older people do. But as I always promise, you'll hear about it first, here, on christopherlau.ca where the fun begins to show!! Finally, congratulations to Therese Martinez and David Yu for their engagement! I've known Therese for over eight years now, and she's always been a very good friend, and someone that you can only root for in any situation. It is a big relief that she has secured herself in life in this respect and deserves only the best in life. Go Therese! I've only briefly gotten to know David but I do know him to be a very respectful person, with a strong character, a good heart and a promising career ahead of him. Both of them plan to reside in Edmonton within the next few months. Congratulations to both of you! Sept 17, 2006: Yollanda's Wedding Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#sep172006 Wow, what an incredible wedding that was! I am still in delirium and it's 24 hours ago. At this point, it honestly feels like it was all one big dream although that could have been a result of the combined 6.5 hours of sleep I've had over the past 72 hours. Here goes: Tuesday, Melody and I arrived in Toronto and then arrived at our residence at 11pm. Met up with Drew and Josh and chilled. Wednesday, woke up around noon that day and went for lunch with Drew, Josh, and Emily (Drew's girlfriend). Met Yollie and Bryan at Arcadian Court, which is where the reception would be held. Wow. The Court has the highest ceilings, there's pictures of receptions dating back from the 20's of Toronto's upper crust, and palm trees in the corner! Palm trees... who has palm trees, seriously? It was the ultimate in extravagence. Went to the distillery district to pick up their rings and also checked out WINDA's wedding venue, which I admit, at first, seemed kind of ghetto, but then apparently just in the last week, Morgan Freeman and J.Lo both had parties there. I think it's in how they use the lighting to give it a "retro" feel. I'm excited to see how it looks on her night. Went to Yorkdale Mall to try on the tuxedo for the wedding. All worked out well. Bought a bottle of wine and then went to Drew's place for pesto night. They picked about 10 lbs of basil from their backyard and made a huge batch of pesto with it. Then we had it in pasta, along with a salad and french bread. Very yummy. Jammed with Drew that night and discovered some awesome songs, such as December which sounded really cool that night. Thursday, met up with Winda for lunch at a Thai restaurant owned by the owner of Spring Rolls, a Toronto-hip asian restaurant. Shopped in Eaton's Center and Melody bought some stuff from Mango and H&M. Went up to the church in North York for a rehearsal of the wedding ceremony. Wow, is Yollanda organized. Everything in Excel spreadsheets, mapped out by time, locations... people are all coordinated. It is incredible. So many moving pieces, and everything has to fit within such a short timeframe. Good for Yollie but bad for Melody and I. We walked out of there absolutely intimidated by the enormity of the task in organizing this. Rehearsal involved a lot of walking and listening, rewalking and listening and I felt kind of bad being a male bridesmaid, because I made the walking pattern more complicted - none of the groomsmen wanted to walk down the aisle with me. After that, we went to Asian Legend which is a Northern Chinese restaurant and one of my favorite restaurants (I've been to the downtown one and the one near my brother's work a few years back). It was an amazing meal so delicious and had good conversation with Vince's parents and the wedding coordinators. Got back pretty late and worked on the slideshow starting from about midnight until about 3am. Actually, that was pretty much our routine up until this point. It looked pretty good by now, but it would undego some major major renovations before its final version. Friday, met up with Gabe "the babe" Chan at Golden Noodle restaurant which is one of my favorites in Chinatown, introduced to me by my brother long time ago. Had noodles and fried bread and bbq pork. Yum yum yum. Visited Whole Foods and a gourmet store called Pusateri's to see if our product would fit in. Yes, it would, in Whole Foods, and maybe, it would at Pusateri's (but I know it would be a "yes" if we had it in Whole Foods, because the two stores are rivals - they're three blocks apart and they service similar customer bases). I'll be figuring it out soon, but it might be interesting to figure out how it would all work. Then, we went down to Terrence's place to meet up with Jess to work on the slideshow and after that, we made some major major changes to it. Arrived at Bryan's place by about midnight, looked at his slideshow... gorgeous... jess heard his speech, then we all headed out to Yollie's place and arrived there around 2 in the morning. Continued working until 3:30, doing door games and finishing up the slideshow. Finished off the night listening to Jess's maid of honour speech... okay, onto wedding day which started 3 hours after sleeping Saturday morning, had a delicious breakfast prepared by Yollie's dad including fresh fruit and wonton and fried chicken. Her father had pasted double happiness stickers all over the house, including impractical places like the mirrors, so much so that yollanda and her mom had to take a whole bunch of them off. Okay, so the bridesmaids all got their makeup and hair done by professionals in the house. The groomsmen came over around 10 o'clock and we locked them out. Yup, Bryan had to "prove" that he was a worthy so we first had him carry his groomsmen, matt, up and down the driveway, then we checked the limit on his credit card, then we had him go to a stranger's house, and have the stranger come to yollie's house and convince us, the bridesmaids, that she would be making a big mistake NOT to marry him. Finally, he had to waltz with Kitty, while Terrence sang the Blue Danube Waltz in the background. After much debate, we allowed him in, and he proceeded to Yollanda's bedroom where she was waiting for him, and he presented her a gorgeous gift (a Gucci watch) and lots of pictures were taken. Both were dressed in traditional chinese outfits. Gorgeous. He then poured tea for the inlaws, offered them gifts and they gladly accepted (I mean, it's a little late by now!). Off to the church where we headed out. The boys were already there so we arrived, lined up, all the guests had arranged into the church (we were afterall about half an hour late) and first Bryan's father went down, followed by the ringbearer, then all us bridesmaids (the groomsmen filed in from the front) and then of course, the bride herself, along with her parents. Bach's Air on a G String played in the background, veil on, and she walked down the aisle slowly ad Bryan met her at the end, shook the father's hand and greeted the mother, her mother removed her veil and she kissed her mother and her father. The two of the proceeded to the front of the church and they kneeled at the altar and then sat alongside the groomsman and bridemaid at the front. The mass proceeded, first reading by Bryan's cousin (Corinthians 12:31: "Love is always patient and kind...", Psalm, sung by Sharon Fazari (Psalm 103: "The lord is compassion and love... the love of the lord is everlasting") second reading by Yollanda's former boss (Ephesians 5 "Husbands should love their wives...") , and the priest did the gospel reading (John 15: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you") followed by a homily about how marriage is a holy union. Finally, they took their vows, "Bryan, do you take Yollanda..." and Sharon Fazari sang Bach's Ave Maria and I accompanied her on the violin. woo hoo. We headed out to the main foyer and we blew bubbles ALL over the place as they exited. woo hoo! after that we went to take pictures at the park. It was an absolutely gorgeous park and when we got there, it was just us. Twenty minutes later, at least six other wedding parties were there. I can't wait to see the pictures! Headed back to the arcadian hall for the reception. By this time, I'd been up since the crack of dawn and not even a single cup of coffee, so the first thing I did was go to the cafeteria (decked out in tuxedo), and plopped right down by floor to ceiling windows and sipped down hot black coffee... staring at Queen street from the 8th floor... ahh... Next up, I frantically put up the slideshow and the screen and projector... set up the sound system to do my guitar, and partly through the setup, guests started filing in. Slightly stressful. But then followed one of the most amazing receptions in everness. The floor was filled with tables, all of them beautifully lined and all the table set. The meal started out with the waiter bringing us out a tray lined with a pig, and we then ate the roast suckling pig. After was a butternut squash soup, trout and the most tender veal tenderloin ever, scallops, braised e-fu noodles, and the most moist dessert ever. In between all that awesome food were speeches by the bride and groom's parents, the maid of honour, the best man, and Yollanda and Bryan. I also performed for the first time a song that I wrote specially for this wedding. It was a lot of fun to write it and even funner to perform it. The night ended with dancing and at the end of the day, it was one of the greatest events I had ever witnessed. Congratulations Yollanda & Bryan! Sept 7, 2006: Update on Life, Small business in the economy Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#sep072006 Looking forward to YOLLANDA'S WEDDING! I'm leaving next week and yeah, think I've got everything covered businesswise for that time. Summer's pretty much over, we'll see a normalization in orders. Summer went off without a hitch. We're awesome. We picked up about 10 new accounts and every week, we get more and more efficient. Last weekend, Melody came up. Friday night, while waiting for her, I went to the casino and played about $20 worth at blackjack, and somehow ended up walking out with $125. I just kept playing and wasn't really paying attention. Then the next day, before meeting up with her, I played poker at the casino for the first time, and lost $75. Oh well. Saturday, watched Kosta do a cooking show at the Steveston Sardine Festvial. Wow was he good and he had the whole audience into it and they were all oohing and aahing. Met up with Therese, Abdel, Gloria/Michelle (Abdel's work friends) for Ramen at Kintaro, apparently the best Ramen house in Vancouver. After that, went to Sweet Confections for coffee and dessert and that was it. Sunday at mass, we did a song called "Refiner's Fire" and I worked with Sandra Mae, Ria and Jo on harmonies and it went pretty well for a three part harmony. It's much trickier to do harmonies when only one voice does each part because if there's many voices, the pitch variance kind of offsets each other to get it on tune. After church, hung out in Steveston with Melody, had dinner at O'Hare's and then met at Derek/Ria's place to go clubbing with a bunch of choir people. It was kind of weird to go clubbing with my church friends, but it was fun. We went to a place called Wild Coyotes, somewhere under the Arthur Laing Bridge. Good times had by all. Worked on Monday, and went back down to Steveston at Night to celebrate Melody's cousin's birthday. Excellent food. Okay, and now for my discussion. Which situation is the best for a country: to have a few monopolies or to have a many small businesses. It might seem obvious that spreading out the wealth is more optimal, but why do certain governments allow monopolies to exist? A good example is the agriculture industry, where the small farmers are being outcompeted by large firms forcing consolidation and turning owners into low-paid workers or supervisors. Is the government being negligent? Are they being bribed? Are they hoping to get campaign endorsements? Maybe there's a conflict of interest on the politician's part? Shouldn't the government ALWAYS be encouraging small businesses, unions, increasing minimum wage laws? Isn't this behaviour seemingly irrational? Read on ye eager reader. First, let's talk about why spreading out the wealth is optimal for the health and happiness of the citizens? The reason is that having 10 super rich people at the expense of 1 million people is poor resource management. Being super rich vs. wealthy doesn't change one's healthiness or happiness, so for the sake of resource management for the society at large, it's best to spread out the money of the super rich. And put another way: for the overall health and happiness of the people, it is BAD to have a few large monopolies hiring non-unionized workers at a low minimum wage because this concentrates wealth. So why is the government allowing small farmers and other previously fragmented industries to consolidate? The reason is because we are in constant competition with firms in other countries. Bigger firms can be more competitive. For example, you can bargain with your suppliers better, you spread overhead over more units, you have greater bargaining power with your customers, and you can afford better equipment and invest in R and D to improve quality. And once you've entered the market, bigger capital means you can create barriers to entry (e.g. multinational marketing campaigns, lines of credit to customers, extensive product list) that makes it a big investment for new players if they wish to directly compete. This is the case in many industries. So if the country wishes to be more competitive internationally to penetrate foreign markets and also to ward off foreign firms trying to compete on their home turf, it is in their best interest to have a few large monopolies hiring non-unionized workers at a low minimum wage. Because if, say, they aren't and China is, then when it comes time for potential customers to choose a supplier, then China has a big leg up on them. In some situations it is good to keep an industry fragmented amongst many small owners especialy in industries that do not affect the overall economy of the country because they service only domestic clients (e.g. restaurants, local suppliers, technicians) and are never under threat of international competition. In that respect, it is probably better to spread out this wealth a bit and encourage small business. And it is also in their best interest to encourage small business if they can leverage their local network to outcompete multinationals even at a cost disadvantage by offering better support. In some situations, monopolies are good for the country. In some situations, small businesses are good for the country. My point is this: the government does realize the value of spreading out wealth. They do realize the benefit of having many small business owners. So to answer my original question: WHY is the government allowing the small farmers and other industries to become extinct as a result of them being unable to compete against the giant consolidated firms? I hope I've helped to show that one reason is that while purchasing goods from a local small supplier or farmer is good, they would rather purchase it from a giant monopolist if the alternative was to purchase from Peru or Mexico. And you thought the government was being negligent or only looking out for their close super rich friends! Sometimes, they're looking out for you, but it turns out that your particular business is the sacrificial lamb to boost the overall industry. Sept 2, 2006: The Chronic-what-cles of NARNIA Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#sep022006 I promised a discussion topic, but I haven't quite posted yet, but I had to post this. I saw it on SNL the other night and laughed so hard: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4928316808866776073&q=lazy+sunday+chronicles+of+narnia August 28, 2006: The last two weeks Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#aug282006 Two weeks ago was a quieter week. Monday, my roomate came back from China and so far, most of the time, when I've been awake, she's been sleeping and vice versa. Wednesday, only the instrumentalists showed up for practice so we got some good nitty gritty time. That's my kind of practice. I'm very much a music geek and it sometimes hurts me to run through things over and over again. Maybe the result of Pavlovian learning administered by my mom when I was a young kid practicing violin. Every time I just ran through things, there would be a "knock knock" on my door telling me not to, and to "turn on the metronome!". I hated metronomes and to this day, honestly, I still have a hard time keeping a a steady rhythm. Thursday was emily's screening for her movie and it was AWESOME! Friday, went out for Emily's birthday party at La Bodega Spanish restaurant. Saturday, worked from home during the day and then went to the Night Market with Abdel and some of his friends. I ended up buying a Japanese gangster movie about a member of the Yakuza that starts a new chapter in America. It was pretty good. Sunday, church went okay, but unsurprisingly, we made quite a few mistakes. Went out to Cactus club with Derek, Ria, Jo, Ian (St.Joseph's guy that grew up in Dartmouth) and Will (new guy in the church, also from Nova Scotia). This week was also alright. Monday, tried the new Japanese restaurant, Higashi West, right outside Lonsdale Quay, with Tianna/Sheila (from Lonsdale Quay), Abdel, and some of Sheila's Japanese friends. The food was good, but a bit pricey for what you get. Wednesday, Will came to choir for the first time, good voice. Jo and I practiced the song "broken" for the corn festival on sunday. It went really really well and of course at that point, I knew that it would be good. Thursday, met up with Marc Rizkahallah (waterloo friend) and his girlfriend from Austria at Aji Taro restaurant for amazing all-you-can-eat. Friday, rehearsed with Abdel at Therese's place and then emily came over and we chilled out, which is best for therese - hanging out with friends but without stepping outside of her door. Saturday, practiced with Joanna and Abdel at a park near Langara college, dinner at a ramen house on Granville, and then met up with Rachel (roomate) and Priscilla downtown. Sunday, choir went really well I thought although practice sounded horrible. CORN festival afterwards. Therese and Rachel came down as our official fan club! woo hoo! Both gigs went really well. It was a lot of fun and it was Abdel and my first gig. That's all for now. I'll post something on my forum in a few days. You'll see it then. August 12, 2006: Melody's interview, Anniversary Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#aug122006 Had an even quieter week this week. Sunday, Parisa (Shad 04) came over after globetrotting for the summer and we chilled out and schemed about her future plans. There's some interesting stuff she might be up to next year. Wednesday was choir and a bunch of us hung out afterwards in Terra Nova for tea. Melody came up on Wednesday night, so I helped her prepare for an interview which would be the next day. The interview went very well, apparently, so YAY! Thursday, had dinner with Melody's family and then went to Theology on Tap. Melody was so excited to go because I always talk about it, and she studies Christian history and theology for fun. It was about dealing with Stress in our Daily Lives. A small group, but interesting discussion. Friday, went shopping in Richmond Center in the morning, hung out with Melody's family in the afternoon.... and then: Anniversary dinner. Yes, that's right. Yesterday was our anniversary. We have been together for seven years now! And next year exactly, we will be married. We'll be married on our anniversary. We went to West Restaurant on South Granville, which I have heard many good things about, and whose chef, David Hawksworth, consistenly wins the most prestigious awards in the city. We had seats right near the kitchen which opens directly to the dining area and although it was a little busy at times, we saw everything and watched the chef in his element with his crew of about 5 or 6 young guys. He's a genius for sure. In Vancouver, there's good food, where it's delicious but more standard - You have the striploin, sliced thinly on a dollop of potato puree, and maybe some side garnish and local vegetables. Usually the appeal is in the blasting of the quality of the ingredients which is beautiful. And then you have exceptional food, where there's the element of creativity and a perfection in the balance of flavours that you couldn't alter a single tastebud to make it any better - where there's an overture, a performance, and an encore in each and every bite. West is of the latter variety. Here's a rundown of the menu that we had: LIGHTLY SEARED ALBACORE TUNA ON SUSHI RICE, DASHI BROTH MANGO, GINGER AND CILANTRO it was such a perfectly pink colored albacore tuna and pan seared to perfection. The dashi broth was smoky flavoured and was the Japanese element of the menu. VANCOUVER ISLAND SIDE STRIPE PRAWN SALAD TOMATO GAZPACHO AND ESPELETTE PEPPER OIL a beautiful starter, cold tomato gazpaho, added seconds before it's eaten and very vertical presentation. GOAT CHEESE AND ARTICHOKE RAVIOLI WITH CHERRY TOMATOES AND ORGANIC OLIVE OIL the olive oil they used was so green in color it makes me think that they used coloring. Beautiful buttery sauce at the bottom and the goat cheese came from salt spring island cheese company. I see their drivers quite a bit because we do many of the same stores. Perhaps this was their tribute to Italy winning the World Cup? PAN SEARED QUEEN CHARLOTTE HALIBUT WITH FENNEL MARMALADE, EGGPLANT PUREE Perfectly done halibut. I'm sick of overdone fish at sit down restaurants and this was so refreshing to see it done right. There was a curried rub and the eggplant puree was presented using a technique where you create a three sided dollop by turning the puree between two spoons repeatedly. I've seen it done before, but can't remember the name of the technique right now. PARFAIT OF FOIE GRAS AND CHICKEN LIVERS, GREEN ALMONDS, GRAPES AND ESSENCIA this was the most perfect dish of the night. The saltiness of the foie gras and the sweetness of the apple and essencia jelly lingered on the tongue just in time to heighten the flavour with wine. WEATHERVANE SCALLOP CEVICHE, MANGO AND GINGER enormous scallops, not even cooked in heat, simply cooked in lime (hence ceviche) with such a subtle flavour that only the tanginess of the mango brought out the freshness of the sea. Huge scallops, but thinly sliced and presented in the middle of the plate, leaving plenty of white space. Perhaps this was a tribute to Mexico winning the fireworks competition at English Bay last Wednesday? SOY AND SAKE MARINATED SABLEFISH WITH CLAMS, SESAME, LIME AND THAI BASIL BROTH this was another one of the highlights of the meal. Gorgeous GORGEOUS cooked sablefish, and so perfectly done it felt like it drooled for you in your mouth. The broth was added to the dish right on the table and little field mushrooms gave it a thai, but french, feel. DOUBLE LAMB CHOP WITH CRUSHED OLIVE NEW POTATOES, TOMATO AND THYME JUS this was the "pinch me I must be dreaming" version of lamb where it bounces as you simply drop your knife to cut it. Touch of Australia. WARM CINNAMON PORT BRAISED BLUEBERRIES PEACH BRIE MILLE-FEUILLE AND BUTTERMILK ICE CHOCOLATE I'm a huge brie fan and an even bigger brie with berries fan. The brie was sandwiched between thinly sliced pastries and the creamy chocolate hits you just as the brie softens. SELECTION OF CHEESE with raisin walnut bread we ended up having a provencale cheese (nostlagic for me, having eaten so much cheese while in Provence, France), a cheese with a membrane, but not brie, and a maple cheddar. On the side was a membrio (jelly). Dried up the taste buds right before launching dessert. DARK CHOCOLATE TORTE WITH CREME CARAMEL ICE CREAM RUM MARINATED BANANAS AND SESAME FLORENTINE The best part of this was not realizing there was rum in it, and then realizing it was, in fact, GRAND MARNIER, the ultimate dessert liqueur. Black sesame seeds gave it a final crunch and a Chinese overtone. CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT FRANGELICO CAKE, CHOCOLATE SORBET VANILLA ICE CREAM SWIRL warm ice cream that's just starting to melt as they serve it. Hazelnuts in dessert remind me of eating a celestial version of Ferraro Rocher. Served on a rectangular plate right at the point where you don't think you can eat any more, but it's such a delicate portion that who could resist? I think I keeled over and died and admitted defeat at that point. It was just something else. Food that is so refined that it makes you sit on the edge of the seat while your mouth feels like Carnegie Hall. I loved it. Makes me almost wish I was a chef! August 1, 2006: Last week, camps, priviledged children Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#aug12006 This was a pretty busy week. Monday, went out to Trafalagar Cafe with Kerry DuWors and Denise Djokic, who are world class musicians with the credentials to prove it. www.kerryduwors.com and www.denisedjokic.com. Abdel came out also and it was a hilarious time and the chemistry was just awesome. I can't wait for the next time they come up. Tuesday, went to the Art Gallery with Therese, Abdel (therese's friend from McGill, and now my friend), Priscilla, So (friend from Japan who used to work at Lonsdale), Sayuri (also Japanese friend who used to work at Lonsdale), and her friend Hitomi. It was the Arthur Erickson exhibition. Arthur Erickson is a prominent Vancouver Architect who actually designed SFU campus! A designer campus! It was a great exhibition. Went to Earl's afterwards and had some strange encounters with a guy trying hit on one of the girls through cellphone TEXT messaging. We're in a whole new world now I guess. Wednesday, choir practice went well, and I found out that two of the lead female voices weren't going to be there on Sunday, which we've done before, so it wasn't too bad. Thursday, Theology on Tap was about dating and relationships and Derek did the talk and went quite a bit into love and agape. Met up with Marc (Waterloo friend) and his girlfriend from AUSTRIA which was cool. Had a couple of beers with them. Friday, hung out with Melody and her family. Saturday, watched a few local bands at the Media club with Melody, Therese, Abdel, Priscilla and Emily. I haven't seen Emily for awhile because she's been doing a lot of film work, but her hard work is starting to pay off, and some of her stuff is being showed at the good film festivals. Yay for Emily. Sunday, mass was awesome. We were only two singers, and the two singers that generally are more quiet so I had valid reason to be concerned, but the lesson is that certain people, when given the responsibility, step up to the plate and they make it happen. Yay Bernice and Christina. Went out to Coquitlam afterwards for a bbq at Diana's house. Lots of food! And that ended the weekend. This week has been a bit quieter. Monday, I helped my roomate move to a new place. I have a new roomate. His name is Katsu. He's a cool guy. Kosta actually hired him but then I think it was too much physical work and he quit. Visited Marc at his dad's place on Wednesday after practice. It was neat to see the insides of the houses in Steveston. I've always been curious. The place has been developing like crazy around there. Thursday, Theology on Tap was cancelled but Marc, his girlfriend, and his brother Karim hung out at the Buck and Ear. His brother and I have been teaching each other magic tricks. Last Monday, after the art gallery, Abdel was teasing me that I went to "band camp" - an obvious reference to "American Pie". And then Therese was teasing me that I also went to "business camp" (i.e. Shad). And I got to thinking - I've gone to SO many camps. Here goes: Computer Camp (Acadia '94), Entrepreneurship Camp (Acadia '96), Environment Camp (Acadia '96), Science Camp (Huggins '96), Space Camp (Florida '95) and Space Academy (Alabama '97), Ski Camp 1 (Blackcombe '95), Ski Camp 2 (Panorama '97), Business & Engineering Camp (Shad '98). That's just the icing - I went to band and orchestra camps almost every single year since I was 7 years old, sometimes two or three different camps a summer. And after I got too old to go to camps, I became a councillor (Shad '04). Now that we're older, we call them "conferences", but just like when we were kids, we generally don't pay for conferences out of our own pockets. And that also got me thinking - what I've done in life was in a big part as a result of all the resources that my parents invested in me. I often hear simple minded people tell me that poor people have no excuses. These comments generally come from people with parents that have provided everything they needed in life to give them an advantage, and then claimed it as credit to themselves for working hard or for being smart. I work hard and I am smart, but if my parents didn't have time for me, or only provided me the minimum opportunities to develop, I would be very different. I might be successful - Kwame Jackson is successful - but I would have taken many more wrong turns and there is a greater chance, I would have been happy to fade into the background. Providing the time and resources for your children gives them a real advantage in terms of building experience, knowledge, networks, and self confidence. Here's a simple example: Somebody more qualified than me who applied to Systems Design Engineering at Waterloo on-time was rejected. I didn't even formally apply, but made a few phone calls two weeks after the offer letters to everyone else had been sent out. How fair is that? There is no way life is fair. It's not a meritocracy. July 23, 2006: Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jul232006 Update on life: Melody came up last weekend. Visited her and her parents on Friday nightSaturday, went to Chopsticks Cafe for Beatrice's birthday. Chopsticks Cafe is an Izakaya restaurant, meaning it's Japanese fusion food but Tapas style. It was really good. A few weeks ago, we went to Guu in Gastown. Also really good. Izakaya is really starting to become popular in Vancouver. This particular restaurant's owner is 24 years old. Which is really young to have a place in Yaletown, let alone a licensed restaurant catering to urban yuppies. Sunday, choir was fairly messy. Instruments weren't together, neither were the voices. Ups and down. This week, Theology on Tap went really well. We talked about Stress in our Daily Lives and Clayton Imoo, who's also the director of youth ministry for all of Vancouver, talked about his calling and escape from the rat race. Friday, went to Denise's concert at Summer Combustion and it was SUPER delicious. Heard Martin Frost play clarinet piece that was written for him, in which he combined dance and acting and lighting. Really cool. And heard an amazing performance by Jupiter Quartet of a Britten piece. Saturday, worked in the morning, then went to the gala opening of a new Capers on Cambie Street. Only in Vancouver do people get so excited over the opening of a grocery store. We love our food. Saw a presentation by Vikram Vij doing prawn curry. Then went to Aberdeen with Abdel to check out the Daiso store (Japanese dollar store) where he bought about 15 kg of Japanese food, since he lived there and was commmenting of every article saying "wow, I remember that". Had curry laksa in the food court. Picked up Therese and watched Kerry and Denise at Summer Combustion and it was mostly Mozart, and they played really well, Jupiter quartet played really well, and then a group of others, including the super fabulous Angela Cheng, did a killer final piece. Met up with Priscilla for tea afterwards and debated our various theories on relationships. haha. Oh Priscilla. Church went well today. Yay, except "Everybody sing Alleluia", which needs a bit of work. But we'll be short of many members for the next few weeks. Hope it works out! July 14, 2006: Theology on Tap, Summer Combustion, Nobility Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jul142006 Theology on Tap went really well. Therese, Abdel (McGill friends), Rich, and Caroline (Acadia friend) came along and I'd say there were about 20 people there. We discussed a lot about WHY Catholicism vs. say, Protestantism. Without going into the details, it made a lot of sense. Two friends of mine, Kerry DuWors and Denise Djokic will be playing at Summer Combustion Festival in Vancouver. Go to www.summercombustion.com for more details. In any case, I'm very excited. It's about two weeks of ensemble performances and the two of them will be playing together in many of the performances. I'll for sure be going to a few of them. One thing I've been thinking about is nobility. What I mean by nobility (and is by no means the real definition but please bear with me) is the use of one's life to do something to contribute to society. In general, it is less common to find Chinese people leading a life of nobility than a western person. In fact, many medical schools are putting quotas on the number of Chinese that are admitted because while they get good grades, few of them pursue research activities after graduation in place of a more lucrative career in medical practice. You also find fewer Chinese philanthropists than Western. And in any given NGO, the number of Chinese are fewer. Does this imply that Chinese people are greedier? Does this imply that we are more heartless? I think that Chinese culture and Western culture differ in a the reward system, but the innate self is the same. Society is generally better off if there is sharing of resources, and Western governments and monarchies have tried to encourage this by rewarding such behaviour. Think of who Westerners admire: Knights, Superheroes, Robin Hoods. People who do acts of charity and in response, they get fame and glory and high positions. Maybe not money, but western governments are smart enough to take care of such people and reward them in a way that money can't buy. So in Western culture, doing noble activities is not a truly altruistic act. I know the people who do these grand things. They are no less vain than anyone else, and in fact, all the power and glory that gets showered on them only makes them that much more inclined to seek praise. Think of who the Chinese admire: Li Ka Shing. That's about it. Maybe Bill Gates. Why? Because they're rich. What happens when you're charitable? Nothing. Nobody showers you with praise. So why do it? So what you DO in life does not make you a better person. What you do is strongly influenced by the system of reward and punishment inherent to your culture. What makes you a good person? It's WHY you do it. People do things to make them happy. You can be happy for two reasons: external reasons and internal reasons. External reasons are based on what your environment imposes on you: praise from others, financial reward, popularity, fame, awards. Internal reasons are based on compassion. When another's pain and pleasure becomes yours. So you want to help them because of that. Almost everyone's compassion extends to their immediate family. Some extends to their friends, outside family, neighbours, fellow countrymen, humans... some people's compassion extends to animals that they don't even kill with their own hands. Almost everybody feels compassion when the live creature is in front of you. Even a mob leader might feel hesitant to torture a baby seal. Anyways, that is internal happiness, when you do something out of compassion. I think the noblest acts are those that are done for internal happiness. I think that striving to be rich, and striving to 'save the world' have the same level of nobility, although western governments are more quick to reward the 'save the world" because there is otherwise no reward for them, and helping others within their country or giving their country a good name is certainly in their benefit. It's not because the Western governments/monarchies are compassionate for the marginalized, or that they love the poor in their country. It's because it's for THEIR benefit and they want to encourage others to do this work for them. And is there truly "noble" people? Yes. We are all noble people. Even a mafia lord will feel compassion for others. Are there truly "heartless" people? Yes. We are all heartless. In the attempt to achieve happiness through internal or external happiness, we have to hurt people. No amount of good deeds, be it for external or internal rewards, will change the fact that we are humans and we respond to the reward and punishment system of our culture. On the afterlife: true happiness really only comes from internal happiness. When we die, all of our external happiness is gone. There is no more money to give to charity to make you feel good about yourself. There is no more rat races to win. There are no more awards to recognize your contribution to society. Once that is stripped away, the question is: can you find happiness? Every human has the ability to feel happy through internal happiness and thus every human is welcome in heaven. July 9, 2006: Theology on Tap Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jul92006 This thursday a bunch of people from my parish are trying something new. It's called "Theology on Tap". Basically, we go to the Buck and Ear bar in Steveston and we discuss a particular aspect of Catholicism with Father David. It's not a debate, please don't bring any weaponery. It's a chance to ask the priest some questions and meet some new people - college age to thirty-something. I can't imagine anyone more suited to do this than father David because: he loves hanging out with young people, he loves to have a drink, and he has an honorary doctorate in theology. really smart guy and a very cool concept that has gained popularity in Ireland and starting to in the States. Maybe this is the first in Canada? Anyways, awesome opportunity to learn stuff. Anyways, we're doing it this thursday at 7 pm. There will be many a cool people there including many of the interesting characters you may have heard me talk about from my choir. The first drink is on the parish I believe. Ask me for more information. July 6, 2006: Canada Day, Business Update, Competitive Strategy Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jul62006 Melody came up for a second time. Friday, met her at her parent's place, hung out for a little bit and then headed back to North Van for work in the morning. Saturday, worked a bit then picked up Melody from her place and went to Granville Island for Canada Day stuff. We walked around a bit and then for some reason, I felt like going on a boat. They have this water taxi, called the Aqua Bus, and we lined up, and at first we were going to go to Yaletown, then I changed last minute and decided to go to David Lam park. I didn't know what it was, but it's a park. Anyways, it ended up being a big park downtown, and what was cool was that a big part of the jazz fest was there. So lots of stages, tons of people, a flea market selling mostly hippie clothes and two beer gardens. What a pleasant surprise. And then we met Victoria and Dexter. Walked around a bit, then went to the beer garden and met up with Rich and Karen. Melody and I headed back to Granville Island via aquabus, and picked up the car and met all of them, plus two other friends at the Greek Festival. Beer, Tyropitas, Gyros, and Spanakopita. And then back home. Sunday, mass went well - we're going for a softer and cleaner sound now, which is okay. It sounds good, but I sometimes like to rock it a bit, but I think we were getting messy as we got louder. After church, Melody and I went to Gary Point and pulled together a bbq on the beach. Chorizo bocaddillos. Yum. Then went out for some Szechuan cuisine with melody's family at a restaurant that gave us a private room, our own television, our own water fountain, impeccable porcelain dining sets, and some of the best northern food I'd ever eaten. We went for gelato afterwards and Melody's dad and I talked for pretty much the entire time about business which is one of our common interests (after golf, chess, and physics). Monday, Melody and I went out to Cru restaurant on Broadway. They have a $36 set menu which is really good considering the food we got. Took a walk along Steveston afterwards and then back home. Wednesday was choir and instead of choir, we had a bbq! Now that's practice. Which leads me to now. Don't know what the weekend holds. On business, orders are way up. It's summer, I guess. And we've been adding accounts after accounts without doing too much. People are hearing about us and asking to carry our products, current accounts are adding new locations, and so on. So we're at 30 retail outlets now. 14 months ago, we had zero. I wasn't even sure if what I was doing was a business or a project. Still a small business though, but growing at a healthy pace, and in a way that has so far, not impeded other companies adversely. Thankfuly, stepping on other's toes is not part of our plan. I am exhausted, but in a good way. It always surprises me when people assume I'm doing this just as a side project or they think it's just a little project to keep me busy. I guess my dad thought that also before he came here, but if you think about it, I wouldn't have planned to be married next year if my day job was as a deli guy and I had some side project delivering stuff. I'm reading right now "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter which is one of the landmark books in business strategy. Even though it's mostly about big business, the analysis applies equally to small business. I've actually come across several of the models in the past when I was reading other strategy books. But this is the original book and it's really in depth and I've been reading it on every spare second of my day. Business is so much just like a game, except there's often less communication between players and each move isn't so obvious and there's more guessing. But it's an awesome book, and as I read it, I can understand now why in MBA school, they recommend you have some work experience. If I read the book straight out of college, it would feel more like theory. But as I read it now, everything it talks about is either common sense, I've seen it before, or it explains something I've seen. Which is better than reading some sentence and going, "okay, now I'm going to memorize this in case it comes up on a test" and then coming up with some mneumonic device. Good book so far. June 27, 2006: Parents update Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jun272006 Well, my parents came up this week on Sunday. I picked them up from the airport at 7 and then we went to Hon's Noodle House in Richmond. My mom didn't really like it too much. Here's a brief run down of our week Monday: They came to Lonsdale Quay and tried my products and had crab with Kosta. Then they went to Gastown and Chinatown. I picked them up from Chinatown and we had dinner at Maurya on Broadway. Maurya is Northern Indian cuisine, and it's a place my mom talked a lot about even in Nova Scotia. Tuesday: They came to Lonsdale Quay in the morning and watched production. I think this is the moment where they realized that the business is actually an engineering operation. After that we went to Granville Island, had a cup of tea at the Cheshire Cheese at Lonsdale and took my roomate out for Sha-Lin Noodles where they make the noodles in front of you. Then we went to Nyala becuase my mom wanted to see it. It turns out I know the owner, and so he sat us down, gave us dessert, and then we talked with him and his son until about midnight. Wednesday: They went for dim sum in Chinatown. I picked them up from Chinatown and we walked around Steveston harbour, and had afternoon tea there. Went to Dave's Fish and Chips for dinner, walked around Finn Slough, which is a fishing village that I found once on a long walk, and then to the casino where we all made money on roullette, and then out for tea with Melody because she just got back from Seattle. Thursday: They went to Stanley park and did the trolley thing. I picked them up at Point Pleasant, had a beer and then we picked up Melody from her parent's place, had tea, and went to visit my grandaunt and her family. We went to a very nice Szechuan restaurant, and then came back to their house and chit chatted until late. Friday: Slept in! Very nice. We went to Banana Leaf Malaysian Cuisine on Denman Street, and walked around the area a bit, and down to English Bay beach. We picked up Melody from her place and then we went to T and T, and then Costco, and all the time, Melody and I were checking out wedding stuff also. I think we found a photographer. Then we headed out to Sala Thai on Cambie Street and had dinner with my mom's high school friend, Josephine, who owns a Pharmacy (which drove by yesterday). Then we went to the Richmond Night Market for about two hours, where I bought a dvd of a chinese gangster movie. Saturday: Did an in-store promotion for Whole Foods which went really well. Met my parents in Gastown and had tea with them. Dropped by a food store on Victoria to get fruits for Melody's parents. Then went to Melody's place and had tea with lots of her family, went out to the lawn where the parents talked and the "kids" played a game with a soccer ball and volleyball that I made up. Went for a banquet feast at Sun Sui Wah, with lobster, shark fin soup, quail, and all the good stuff. Went back to her place, and my mom and I played violin/piano. A little recital for the others. Then we broke up into parents and kids and played until about 2 in the morning. Sunday: Church went really well. The vocals came out well, which is nice! There was a guy there that was promoting his cd's, so he did the offeratory and song of praise. He was really really good though. Afterwards, we went for late dim sum at Hon's Noodle House (again) and this time, my mom enjoyed the food. Dropped Melody home, said bye to her family, and then off to the airport and that was that! What a great week! June 18, 2006: Whole Foods Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jun182006 YES! We got Whole Foods! They are the biggest natural grocer in the world, if I'm not mistaken. Or one of them. We only get the Canadian accounts, but if we are good kids, then maybe we'll get more. I did the first shipment to Park Royal on Friday and next Saturday, I'll be in there doing in-store demos. It's been a very busy wekk friends-wise also. Last Saturday, Abdel (Therese's friend from McGill) came to Vancouver. So did quite a bit. On Monday, Winda (McGill friend) came up. Monday, went to Steamworks with Winda, and then on Tuesday, went to a nice bar on Denman and met two former Shads (UBC '98 and a Program Manager for UBC '05). Wednesday, after choir, went to coffee with a few choir members, in which I was the oldest by about half a decade. Deep inside, I'm still a kid I think. If people treat me their age, then I'm happy to be their age. Friday, had dinner at Guu restaurant with Therese, Abdel, Rich, Karen, and Andrea for Abdel's departure, but he will soon return to Vancouver to start his new life as an architect! Congratulations Abdel! Went to Balthazar's afterwards for drinks and dancing. And Saturday was the first day this week I sat down and just chilled. Nice. My parents come today! I have not seen them for a year and a half which is a lot considering before this, I saw them every 3 or 4 months. Bye for now. June 10, 2006: RIP ICQ Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jun102006 I logged onto icq for the first time in over a year just to see who uses it still. There were 0 people on icq. Wow. ICQ is officially dead. I know some people still use Yahoo Messenger, but it's incredible. I use msn now, but I didn't use it until 2004. Weird, eh? How fast things change. Some of my friends that are just 3 years younger than me have never even heard of icq. Or worse, mIRC! How sad, the number of people out there that didn't have to use the IRC command prompt to first create a chat room and then invite your friends into it in order to talk. Or if you want to talk one on one, you'd have to create a new chat room and you're the administrator, and then invite your friend. Oh, those were the days. Gone are the days of three way conversations. In the old days, on irc, you would never chat with less than three people at once. And you don't go on and hope to find people there. If you had a group of people, say Shad 1998, and you didn't know the chat room, you'd have to try every freaking possibility for Shad 1998, like, open chat shad1998, open chat shads1998 and so on until something kind of worked, but it was more than anything a fishing group from wisconsin reminiscing about the 1,998 lb sea creature they caught on Saturday. But if you knew the name, you'd go on, and you'd see who's in the room, and maybe there'd be 3 people, none of which you ever talk to. But you'd still be like, "hey guys! how's it going?"... one of them isn't even there, and the other person never even talked to you in real life, and is like, "Oh, hey Chris. Nice to see you" and that would be it. Now you go on, and everybody on your list pops up and you pick and choose who you talk to, and if you don't have their contact information, well, tough luck. You're not talking to them. Oh yeah, and remember the old icq days where if you had 200 people on your icq list, and then somehow your computer crashes, you're lucky if the next time you install the program, you can salvage even a quarter of your contact list, and that alone takes half of a workday and you asking each person, "hey, can you pass me andrew's contact". And if you remember in IRC, to find out about a person you had to type in /uwho. We didn't have rightclick -> profile. All this clicking and double clicking makes me sick! Sometimes when things are too easy, it makes you wonder if it's for the better or for the worse. Probably for the better, but I still feel bad for ICQ (and mIRC)... anyways, that's all for now. Or as we would say in IRC: /QUIT June 8, 2006: Hazen, Business, christopherlau.ca, menus.ca, female facial features, choir Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#jun82006 Well, had a blast with Hazen when he was here. Can't remember all the stuff that we did right now, but it was a lot of fun. Business is going well. I'm looking into carrying other products right now and seeing how we can work it all out. The mussel salad has been taken in by three stores and we'll see how it does, but I'm fairly certain it will do really well. Some of the stores have incorporated the antipastos into their catering menu. Still waiting on one of the big stores, although we've gottent he go-ahead, but we just need all the paperwork on their end. You'll hear it first on christopherlau.ca. Yollanda wedding planning is interesting. I'm helping out with the music right now. Wow, those invitations look awesome. Oh yes, you can now access this site by going to christopherlau.ca. I recently sold menus.ca. Go take a look at it. It's pretty nice. There's about 50 restaurants on there right now. He's a nice guy the founder and I'm happy I found someone that will take menus.ca to a new level. I've had that name for quite some time and I guess I kind of feel attached to it. There's been some controvery on my forum about my post on female facial features and what defines beauty. It's probably the one post that everybody disagrees with but sometimes that's what reassures me that this is a novel theory. If everybody agrees with it, then I have to question whether actually came up with it, or if it's common sense. It's not a simple idea, and probably not very politically correct either, but I guess the long delivery routes given me time to ponder how our behaviour and our qualities can be connected to our primal instinct. At the end of the day, I want to see us as simply animals. That's why I also recently came up with the theory on human mating seasons (see May 25 posting). Choir went well last Sunday. It was a very long day, though. We did two masses, so we went from 11:30 until 5. Both went well, and after the confirmation mass, people were all coming up to us and saying, "wow! that was so good" which really made me feel good because the choir is something that is so important to me because I have been instrumental (no pun intended) in our transition from a "concern" into a real force that gets people singing. Hazen and Duncan came to mass the week before and I hope they enjoyed it. It is a ministry in the church, and for me, it is also a project in my own heart. It's not just volunteer work that I show up, do my job, and then leave. Nothing wrong with that, and the church is always looking for such volunteers, but one of the gifts God has blessed me with is music, and if you heard our choir at this time last year when I joined, and where we are now, I think that is testament that it is a calling. And we have hardly reached our potential. In fact, we've just started to mesh. No need to be modest. We are awesome and will continue to get better. Maybe it's from my mom that I get the trait that even volunteer work has to be taken seriously and you have to work it into the gifts that God has given to you. If not, then let someone else do it. One of my mom's gifts is cooking and all throughout our childhood, she has used that to impact our schools. In grade 11, she pretty much organized 20 parents of different cultures (imagine how difficult that is in rural NS) to cook food for Respect for Differences Day. That was our first year doing that project. She really set the standard. And also, in our elementary school, she took science project to a whole new level when our class bred rodents (yes, in the classroom) to do an experiment on Mendelian genetics. On the other side of the coin, when she's asked to do something that she doesn't want to do, she'll flub it and tell the organizer to screw themselves. I guess I'm not that polar. But even to this day, she uses her gifts to benefit others. At a recent fundraiser where she was asked to cook hot dogs. The problem with hot dogs was that they consistently lost money on the fundraisers, but I guess they didn't have any other ideas. So she did Chicken Mug Pies which is kind of weird, because she was dealing with, again, rural nova scotians that aren't famous for their cosmopolitan consumerism. The result? A profit. That's my mom for you. May 25, 2006: Kits beach, Night Market, Human Mating Season Permalink: http://geocities.datacellar.net/bobcrispypork/mydiary.html#may252006 Not too much to report. Thursday, went to Kits beach with Hazen, Iain, Duncan and Caroline (NS friends). Sat on the beach and drank whisky. Last weekend, went to Richmond Night Market with Rich, Karen and Danika. The Night Market is a public market set up at night and is pretty much packed with people (99% asian). Saturday, watched Poseidon which turned out to be a pretty good movie. Our church group was pretty small, but I think the congregation wasn't too distracted by our size. Well, spring is in the air. Ever think about why spring is associated with love? I was thinking about this the other day, and I came up with a theory. Not unlike other animals, the birth of the offspring should coincide with the beginning of spring in order to provide the greatest vegetation for the first few months of the offspring's life. For instance, if a goat is born in February, it is unlikely that it will grow up strong because there isn't much vegetation at that time. So the healthiest time for an offspring to be born is May/June. It actually turns out that this is true, and that hospital beds are the most occupied in early May because of so many births. Janet's nurse (she just had a child), told her that if she didn't want to have to compete for beds, then the best time is after October. So lets count back 9 months from May. We get August. This is the ideal conception time. An approximate courting time for humans might be anywhere from 6 to 10 weeks. Approximate time from start of marriage to conception... 4 weeks. Sometime within four weeks, the female will be fertile. So, ideally, we want conception in august. Mating starts in July. And two months of courting leads us right back to May. Which is possibly why we associate spring with love. All because we want to give birth the next May. May 14, 2006: Good weekend. Thursday went to Greg Pember's production of Little Shop of Horrors. Wow, was that awesome. His role as Seymour was so polished, as was Audrey, which is why I guess they were both accepted into the top academies in the U.S. Very awesome. Friday, Melody came up. Before that, went to the driving range, and then had dinner at their place. Worked most of Saturday and then went for hot pot with Melody and walked around Steveston. Sunday, choir went well. We had a very small crew, because the bulk of them were at the retreat, but we did some good stuff. One thing that's been on my mind for a bit has been capitalism. As you might know from my forumChris's Chat Room- Your Opinion Matters!***, I think a lot about this issue mostly because I'm coming out of university which carries a more anti-establishment mentality into the real world, and you don't get more real world than doing business. I was listening to Geraldo (I was at home during the day, that's my excuse) and he was trying to defend keeping minimum wage low. Also, I was out with some friends, and one guy was saying that because Canada (to be continued) May 6, 2006: Welcome the world Spencer-Julian Martinez, Birthday, Handicap Friends Big big congratulations to Sean and Janet Martinez on their new baby boy. His name is Spencer Julian and he was born at 12:44 am on May 2nd. Oh so close to May 1st, which is my birthday. On Saturday, Melody and I went to Chianti restaurant on West 4th for my birthday. This is a small but crowded Italian joint featuring handmade noodles, and I needed to have Spaghetti alla Carbonara, which has become for the last 3 years, what I've had on my birthday. The tradition started when I was in Paris in 2004 with my family and that's what I had, with a glass of wine (actually, it was half a litre of red wine) and last year, I had the same thing, and so this year, I decided to have the same thing also. It just tastes so good. Spaghetti alla Carbonara is pasta cooked in egg, cream, and bacon. Why it goes so well with red wine? Don't know. On my actual birthday, I didn't do anything though. I wrote a new song that I'd like Ria in the choir, to sing. We went over it briefly after practice and she really liked it, which I thought she would. Thursday, Emily, Therese, Rich, Karen (Rich's gf) and Dan (Emily's buddy) took me out to Steamworks Pub in gastown for my birthday. The place has an awesome ambiance to it and lots of beers. Friday, worked at night to prepare for a meeting on Saturday, which got postponed. Tonight, I'm not doing anything either. Wow. Very anti-social weekend. Not that I don't have friends. What's strange is that I've always had weird friends. So since I was very young, until I graduated from high school, I always had a friend who was handicapped or a little slow. If you're reading this and you can't figure out who that handicap person was at a certain time, then it's probably you. Even when we moved to Australia for one year, I had to have a handicap friend. You would have thought that I could live without handicap people for one year. His name was Jonathan York. I am SERIOUS. I used to go over to his place and we'd play a game called "smack" and one time I almost broke his hand because he beat me at the game but cheated! I actually make it a point to say that I had handicap friends. Like, I'll mention someone (who's a little slow) and I'll repeat once or twice, that yes, they were my friend and then I'll repeat "I'M SERIOUS!" so that people don't think I'm joking. Some of you know this habit of mind. I always brag about it, because it makes me look all sensitive. You know how white people are like, "yeah, so I was out with black friend Antwone. That's Antwone with a "w". Yeah, the black way, becuase you know, he's black". They say that because white people always have a complex about being racist or something. I think I have a complex about being smart. So I don't brag about my black friends and how black they are. No no. I don't talk about no Antwone. I talk about my handicap people and about how handicap they are. Yeah... so I always tell people, "Yeah, I got this friend. His name is Jack. Jack. He's handicap you know. We went to the bar. He can barely spell. So retarded. He chews his fingers when he's mad. That's how retarded he is." I don't know why I'm attracted to handicap people. Maybe deep inside, I'm retarded. Or maybe it's the retarded people that understand me. Or maybe it's because I'm a chronic liar, and handicap people believe me. This one guy from my childhood is about 3 years older than me. I met him a few years ago and I was like, "So hey, how old are you?" "I'm 24" "have you seen CJ?" "No, haven't seen him"... "Did you know CJ is almost as old as you now?" "Really? He used to be a lot younger than me" "Yeah, I think he's 37 now"... long pause... "how did he get older than me?" "I don't know" Okay, so obviously I take pleasure in this. Then again, I once convinced a McGill engineering graduate that in modern day Catholic Churches, they remove all the pews and put in arcade games, like Time Crisis II and House of the Dead and they have air hockey. We just go to church and play arcade for free for one hour. We go into a booth, drop in a quarter, a pre-recorded priest comes up on the screen and we say our confession, double click on his face and salvation is only 3 hail marys away. Maybe that's why it's Saturday night and no one wants to hang out with me. April 30, 2006: Choir, Racism Well, sunday was okay, but we've done better. The good news is that there were no fatalities and no train wrecks and everyone escaped unscathed. That's good news. Coming out of practice half an hour before the start of mass, maybe I was a little nervous, because I was still unsure of the mass parts and the arrangements on some of the songs, and one song we hadn't even touched. But by the grace of God (but probably more by our ability to wing these things) it all worked out. On racism. Why am I commenting about this? Well, I was talking with my friend the other day and she was saying that someone at the bus station was saying stupid racist things to her (or asked her, "where are you from?" "China" "Oh, so you're from fucking China") Actually, it's not a racist comment, that's just how stoned people talk. But she said to me, "It doesn't affect me. If he wants to be a stupid, that's his fault". So I got to thinking a bit about racism. I'm in an interesting position, being of Chinese ethnic origin, but having assimilated most of the Canadian culture into my behaviour. At the same time, many of my friends are asian and I live in a city where being Chinese gives you the status of a visible ethnic minority, but I can't think of a single place where this demographically is true (except in the upper echelons of publicly listed companies, and also in politics). So racism, I don't think, is a sign of stupidity. It's natural, and there's a few places that it originates from: 1. A genuine belief in ethnic superiority. So whether it's cultural or genetic, some people really believe that being of a certain ethnicity makes you physically and/or mentally superior. This is rare though, I think, and there are very few strong arguments to support such a claim. We can debate this if you'd like to some time though. 2. Fraternity/Team mentality. That's where patriotism comes in. You feel a belonging to a team, and in this case, your team is those of your ethnicity. This is more understandable although again, it's somewhat arbitrary. It's like being on a hockey team and you strongly believe that "we're the best! we're the best!", but had you been on the other team, you'd also believe the same thing. Humans are built with herd mentality and that's why we defend our team. It's a forgiveable source of racism because you're just looking out for yourself. 3. Family mentality. We always have compassion for people that we can relate to (immediate family, cousins, distant relatives etc) The further away they are, the less compassion we feel. So if I had to pick between two strangers - one of my ethnic background and one of some other background, all things being equal, I might even tend towards the one of my background. But this is also a forgiveable source of racism because who wouldn't protect their family? 4. Economic injustice. Sometimes one ethnic group gets stuck at the bottom of the pyramid, and the convenience and lifestyle and income of the other ethnic group relies on the backs of them. So maintaining this racist ladder is paramount to providing your children the lifestyle that they 'deserve'. This source of racism is semi-forgivable because who wouldn't want to maintain a lifestyle for their children and their children's children. Why upset the status quo and then risk your own blood being spilt? But it's also not forgiveable because as human beings, we are called to fight for justice, yes, even at the expense of the luxury of our families. We are not primal creatures and sometimes we have to take risks although these sorts of risks are probably better off in the hands of those who are so powerful that even in the event of an economic reshuffling, your children's lifestyle won't change. 5. Bullying mentality. Some people enjoy power trips. They like the adrenaline, they like the feeling of importance, they like the sense of security of being part of the "in" crowd, they like the social rewards. This source of racism is absolutely unforgiveable. 6. Perception. People sometimes generalize something by a single representative. So say somebody asks you to think of a white person. If your mental representative is a hard working and powerful white executive, that's your perception of white people, and when you see a white person, that's the mould you'll make them fit. But if your imagine is a football player that does dirty work, that's the image you'll have. When you see a high flying executive, you then place him in that image and you have a hard time taking him seriously. Same with, say, black people or chinese people. Some people, when they see chinese (especially in vancouver), they see them in the role of business people with lots of money, and some see the polar opposite. And I, as a member of that group, just fit into that mental image. Their views on the ethnic group is forgivable, because that's not their fault. They didn't pick that, and they don't have any rational reason why they think that. It's just how it happened. Actually, when I meet black people that speaks with a Canadian accent, they automatically fall into the Kwame Jackson (Apprentice guy with Harvard MBA) mould. I just automatically assume they are extremely smart. That's good for them. Most people are racist. For some reasons, it's forgiveable. But the worst reason to be racist is because you want to be on a power trip. Other than that, it's just part of being human and having 1) herd mentality 2) protecting our family But there is always karma. In North America, there is no question that it is a white man's world. Even in Vancouver, where real estate and the big money is greatly controlled by asians, it's still politically controlled by white people and most publicly listed companies are run by white people. But there is a shifting of tides with globalization. Those North American companies that embraced non-whites as business partners, as customers, as employees, as advisors, as suppliers, as consultants... those people stood to make a ton of money. Think of Wal-Mart. They've gone to great lengths to outsource from China, much to the disappointment of their fellow Americans who believe in patriotism and not sleeping with the foreigner. People who can get exclusive distribution on imported cars, people who can serve the Asian population, people who can outsource from India, people who can understand the Asian culture and sell overseas - these people are making much more money than the close minded people that only hire white, and only serve the white community. Even those that feel so tightly knit with "team white man" or "team white canada" will sleep with the outsiders as a matter of survival. Maybe they still feel part of that team, but honestly, when it comes to business, belonging to a team is a hindrance. Bottom line is that people who think logically and optimize the business stand to make more money than those that love their team so much they'll watch the ship sink before helping the other team. And those that you think are part of your team will abandon you if they realize that there's only one team out there - team family and team company, and if they're not thinking rationally (and being racist is hardly rational), then they risk losing all the comforts that your family has, or that your employees enjoy, to someone else who IS thinking rationally. For chinese, as racist as they are, they rarely belong to a team chinese. They look out first for their company and they'll do whatever it takes to make the company successful regardless of race or ethnicicty so racism in business is rarely an issue for the Chinese. I don't think it's even a question of who the business partner is, unless it's from a region in the world where they don't trust the people, and that's a rational decision too. Wherever there's an opportunity to make money, there you'll find Chinese people, even if it's serving their worst enemy. So that's my post on racism. Racism is natural. Racism is forgiveable. Racism is understandable. But racism causes irrational behaviour and irrational behaviour is bad for business. Those that embrace multi-culturalism stand to have way higher levels of success that those who play irrationally and this applies to any industry whether it's seafood, or computer, or music. April 23, 2006: Weekend, Choir vision - as good as they get So, not too too much happened this week. Business is same as usual. I'm trying to step away from the processes as much as possible, so I don't need to be there as much and focus on other things. Lots and lots of stuff happening. I played some of my new stuff for the choir on Wednesday and they like it. Thursday, Rich (Waterloo friend), Karen (Rich's gf) went to Kristin Fung's graduation concert which was a lot of fun. Her and her friend Russell did some classical, some musical theatre, some folk songs. Awesome stuff. Friday, went to Emily's movie screening at Langara College for a short film she did. Hers was about OCD and was supposed to be intense, but somehow ended up a little comical. But just all around professional. Also, lots of other films were being played which were really good also. I've come to appreciate a lot of details about film making. Stuff you would otherwise take for granted in multi-million dollar budget films , such as sound and lighting and color. Stuff which have a subconscious effect on you, but in lower budget films, you can see the impact they make. Went out to Gloucester Cafe, a chinese restaurant, on Cambie and 19th and met up with Louis (friend from McGill) who's in Vancouver for two weeks, until he goes back to Taiwan. Saturday, worked most of the day, then went to Cactus Club in Richmond with Therese and Louis. I love that place. We were right by the fireplace in the patio, which is obviously covered up in the night. Sunday was a beautiful day. We had a very small group today, but managed well. Derek and Ria (choir) and I went to Cactus Club again for lunch and then I played guitar for a bit in a park, and then the three of us met up again at St.Paul's to spy on their choir. They are also very good, but it's different. St.Paul's is the church that Melody is technically in the catch area for. The 6:30 is also a youth choir and they have that youth energy. The concept in our choir is that it's more like a band. All the musicians contribute to the style, bringing their own talents, bringing forward their own ideas, and playing and experimenting, and listening and criticizing, and finding the right "sound" for the music. It's like a band or a quartet. The other choirs are more traditional. They have all the parts there, and the director tells each what to do, and they do it and that's that, and I think I can feel the difference. The way that we operate doesn't affect our technical abilities. Our technical abilities are really good, but can be improved and we've improved 30 times I think, since last year. Our harmonies are working out. We're staying together. But if we want to be exceptional, we need to improve technically a lot. The good news is that we have to raw talent to be exceptional. In a disciplined environment, the group is easier to progress technically and I think they're there, but their environment is also more forgiving because they have so many singers doing harmony, that it can blend. Think of a high school choir, where the individual singers aren't great, but the sound is good. Same kind of thing. But to be exceptional, you need the raw talent - think a professional choir. Our situation is less forgiving because we generally only have two people doing harmony, and both are doing different harmonies, so it had better be right on. And sometimes we're not. And also, sometimes the sound system cuts out the lower range and stuff like that. From what I've heard, St.Paul's choir is usually three times bigger than what I saw on Sunday, but they sounded really good, so I'm sure on a regular day they're awesome. Every week, I realize more and more that our choir can be one of the best in the country for a few reasons. Firstly, the way we operate creates a more stylistic sound that works. So for different songs, they're not all sung in the same way, or played in the same way. We can adapt to lots of different styles, and we enjoy that. The musicians create the music and most of us are very passionate about creating the best sound that we can. Secondly, we have the raw talent. Sometimes it doesn't all mesh together because a lot of us were brought up as soloists, but that's just work, and also getting a better sound system. And finally, because we do our own originals, which sound like music that we would listen to and sing along with, rather than folk sounding or rather than high school band rock sounding, or whiny Christian rock sounding. Our originals are good, and I think people will listen to it first as an aesthetic sound, and then wow, it's about God. If people hear a choir do one piece, and then compare it to another choir doing the same piece, and both are good, then you can only be one of the best in the country if they're constantly working harder than the others or if they have a more educated director. And recruiting harder. Stuff like that. I want to be competing on a completely different plane. If you've got your own originals, then that's what you're judged on. And you're not refining one piece better than a choir in, say, Toronto. You're firing up the originals in your style. And then that's what makes you the best - your songs which sound awesome and which are also performed technically awesome. So anyways, I'm really proud of our choir. We've come a long way, but I want us to become as good as they get. And I think the whole choir all knew this before, but I'm an incredibly competitive person, not in a catty "I want you to suck", kind of way, but in a, "if someone else is better, let's figure out how we can get there". The only reason I wouldn't think this way is if I didn't want to commit the time, but since we're all stuck together for 7 hours a week, and since we have all the talent and passion we need, all it takes is drive and vision to be as good as they get. Honestly, if we were a bunch of losers and we just got together and played once a week, I wouldn't take the energy to see us like this. But we're not, so the sky is the limit. And we're so different - the musicians create the sound, we have such crazy raw talent, and our originals rock. We already are as good as they get, we just haven't tapped it fully yet. But ask anyone, and they'll tell you that we're getting famous at St.Joseph's, which the second largest Catholic Church in Vancouver. That's thousands of people. And for me, the Vancouver dioscese is just the tip of the iceberg for us. April 14, 2006: On Heaven and Hell So Jesus died on the cross for our sins. You hear that all the time especially during Easter. But we get desensitized to it because we hear it all the time. Then we see that Mel Gibson movie, and we're like, "wow, he really died for our sins!" and then a minute later, we're like "so what does this mean for us?". There are two big big questions that I have pondered over about Jesus's death on the cross. The first is this: what is the connection between one person's death, albeit a very important person, and my sins. Why does dying on the cross do anything? Why couldn't he have eaten a hamburger for our sins? Seems a little easier. Death is ultimate, yes, Jesus is the son of God, yes... but why does his death affect MY sins?! Very odd, isn't it? The second question is this: now that my sins are forgiven, what do I need to do? Believe in it? I'm a rational human being and I can't bring myself to believe in something written two millenia ago. I can't even bring myself to believe in a document written in 1995. What do I need to do? Love my neighbour? But I am a human being with emotions and I hate my neighbour's guts. So now that my sins are forgiven, do I need to do anything at all? Very very interesting questions. Here's my responses. On the connection between a death on the cross and our sins - this is from the Jewish tradition of sacrificing male lambs which would have been done by a priest at that time for the synagogue. God takes it one step further and sacrifices not a lamb, but his only Son for the sins of the world and not just that particular congregration. So that's why. It's based on an earlier tradition. And why would the sacrifice of a lamb affect the synagogue? That to me is a mystery, just as why does eating chicken soup affect our health. Maybe it's all just a tradition that eating chicken soup to make us better and it actually doesn't make a difference... and maybe it's just a tradition that sacrificing a lamb would attone the sins of the congregation. If this Jewish tradition was just steeped in confusion or storytelling, then Christianity also is bunk and Jesus died fruitlessly. That's partly where our faith comes in. Now that he died for our sins, what do we do? So basically, he has given every single one of us a gift and whether we accept it or not is our choice. But how do we accept such a gift? I think that inside each of us, lives Jesus Christ. He is within us and he guides us and he tells us what is right from wrong. What is RIGHT isn't right in some utilitarian sense of the word, but rather what will make us happy. We can divide our options into two camps: those that make us happy, and those that give us fleeting pleasure. So, for instance, lusting after money or taking a vow of poverty. I am fully convinced that taking a vow of poverty will make us happy and taking a vow of lusting after money will give us fleeting pleasure and almost certain unhappiness. (I emphasise the word *lusting* after money, as opposed to being rich. It's two different things). Or having a wife versus having beautiful mistresses. Or relieving your anger by taking revenge on people. Most decisions in daily activity aren't so polar, but it's generally clear which ones will make us happy, and which will give us fleeting pleasure and make us very unhappy. Jesus's death on the cross somehow allows us to have a happy afterlife if all we do is choose the happy alternatives later on (i.e. after we pass on). What we do on earth influences our decisions in the afterlife because fleeting pleasure is an addiction. If we completely harden our hearts here on earth, then in the afterlife we will always choose the unhappy choices just to get fleeting pleasure. That, I believe, is like hell. But even if we generally choose fleeting sin on earth, when the time comes, we'll choose wisely most of the time. That's heaven. So what we do on earth doesn't decide if we go to heaven or to hell, but it influences our spirit and makes it harder to choose the right choices in our afterlife. Before Jesus walked the earth, I don't know how the afterlife was administered, but the way I see it, all we have to do now is believe in Jesus, who is in our hearts, and in the afterlife, we will continue to walk with him. Now this raises other questions, particularly how does this paradigm contrast with those of popular organized religions? For many denominations, accepting Jesus is all that is needed. For others, a sort of rebirth is needed. For some, donating 10% of your salary is enough. For some, it's about believing that Jesus Christ died for our sins. For some, it's all just a matter of if you were one of the lucky ones to be born. First, when most people read the bible, they interpret "Jesus Christ" to mean the historical figure, the divine figure, or the mystical figure, however. But it's always some tangible person. So when they read a passage such as John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." they read that you have to believe in some man, and that he died on the cross for your sins. Or they read that you have to believe in some man and then come to grips with the fact that he was the son of God, which should cause some miraculous rebirth. What I read is that God gave up his son as the final sacrificial lamb (no more animal sacrifices), and now Jesus in in our hearts and he talks to all of us every day whether we call him that by name, or just feel it, or call it "conscience". Whoever believes in this voice, and trusts this voice, and follows it, preferably now and in the afterlife, but it only matters in the afterlife, shall not perish but will live forever. "believes in Jesus" doesn't mean "calls him Jesus" or "believes that a man walked on water"... it means believes in the living Jesus, inside our hearts, regardless if you call him Jesus, or you call him, "your conscience" or "something that kept me up all night". Or John 14:6: "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.""This is true, but it does not imply that you have to call him "Jesus". If the most important thing in your afterlife is avoiding fleeting sin, and there is a guide to point you away from that, then that guide walked on earth and you have to listen to him if you want to live with the father. When we pass on into the next world, what we do on earth is so insignificant. The name "Jesus" isn't part of the celestial vocabulary. A man walking on water is meaningless. If one day we get really angry and kill the pope, that's nothing. It's just earth. It's just life. What is more important is the afterlife, and preparing for that. Practicing listening to Jesus in your heart. And whether you're Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, or you just have a really good mother, then you still have someone guiding you in your heart, so believe in it. That's all. Even if you're addicted to fleeting sin, that's forgiveable. Addiction is a condition of our mortal shell. But as long as you can hear the guide, that's good. Once you lose track of it, that's when you'll lose track of it in the afterlife also. Sometimes people laugh when robbers and prostitutes and murderers are religious. People think that's such a paradox. How can someone so sinful believe in God? The answer is that we are not perfect. We are not expected to be perfect, not even CLOSE. We are humans, we are addicted to fleeting sin, and a lot of these people still know what they did was wrong or they feel sympathy for their afflicted. Or sometimes they don't feel bad, because they don't actually understand that what they did was wrong. But if they actually knew the impact, they would feel bad. These people are okay. They have not blocked out Jesus. But some people absolutely couldn't care less for others. Even if you showed them the impact. These people are doomed I think. Summary - the connection between Jesus's death and our sins is a mystery, like chicken soup as a remedy. But I still believe in it. And the path to heaven is by listening to the voice in your heart. Reading scripture will certainly help you to understand that voice, and believing in Jesus the divine man, will inspire your heart. And going to church will exhalt that joy, and following the traditions and ceremonies will make you happy. But they are not necessary. They are there as tools for you to use if you want to use them and I think they are beautiful tools and if you have access to them (scripture and/or church), it is well worth the effort! April 13, 2006: Easter, Whistler, Shout outs, Choir update From last Sunday until this Sunday, Tuesday is the only day I'll not be doing church related things. Brutal. Anyways, last weekend, went up to Whistler for skiing with my cousin Andre and my aunt, Sam yee. Awesome skiing and lots of fun. Stayed at their nice cottage out there. Here are some photos Shout outs to Denise Djokic who was nominated for a Juno and although she didn't win, she's still the only person I know who's been nominated so that's awesome. And shout out to Emily for getting her film selected to be showed at the New York Independent Film Festival. Well, we're soon going to escape from all the slow and sappy lent songs and into some higher energy stuff for easter. Awesome stuff. And we're kicking it off with a wicked set list on Sunday. I really really want some of my friends to come out to Richmond to see us! But most just assume it's going to be a boring mass, and I don't blame them. But hopefully this summer, especially when I'm doing my own stuff. April 2, 2006: New song done! Here's the lyrics to my new song. It was inspired by our priest, Father David, who talks a lot about why God loves us even if we don't deserve it. Christians generally have two camps of thought on how our destiny in our afterlife is chosen. Camp one believe that it's based on all the good things and bad things that you've DONE in your life. Camp two believes that it's based on your FAITH that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. What most people in camp two never realize even when you point it out to them - BELIEVING in Jesus is something that you DO. It is something based on if you DO your studies of Jesus... how can a rational person believe something if they've never studied it? It is something based on if you DO meditation. It is something based on if you DO your bible study groups or DO your own mental brainwashing. So in fact, camp one and camp two are the same camps - just that camp two is a subsection of camp one in that it involves absolutely nothing active. So Father David's premise is that we don't deserve God's love. Nothing that we do is deserving of God's love. God loves us anyways. Many delusional people from camp two always repeat this (because it's in the bible), but then somehow come to the conclusion that your belief in Jesus makes you worthy. Do you really think someone on earth can believe enough that Jesus would be proud?!? Here's what Jesus said: "If you have faith and don't doubt, I promise that you can do what I did to this tree. And you will be able to do even more. You can tell this mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it will." My point is that until I see a mountain jumping into the sea, I can tell you that nobody on earth has faith enough. So we don't deserve God's love, we all fall short, and one's faith is no exception, despite what all those Christian hypocrites at stupid fellowships tell you. That's absolute nonsense. God loves you even if you don't have faith. And those who THINK they have faith are like the hypocrites in Jesus's time that thought they didn't need anything. As father David says, "The church is a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for the saints". Your faith is meagre compared to what is expected of you if you were to earn God's love through faith, so go thump your bible in rhythm with all your other hypocritical friends. I Don't Deserve by Christopher Lau (March 2006) Verse 1: Heaven help me Heaven tell me how to Get back on my Get back on my eet again Given all I've done Given all I've said about you Haven't got a clue Haven't figured out what I can do Verse 2: Jesus help me Jesus show me how to Tell what's right and Tell what's right from wrong and I can barely say Barely say your name in public Fell I'm not okay Fell I don't deserve to be with you Chorus: Forgive me I'm not perfect Never meant to be Kiss me am I worth it? Never knew I had to be Treat me like a friend I am barely worthy of it Can I justify the end if the means weren't even part of all of it There you go again Telling me you love me even when I screw up again I don't deserve I don't deserve your love Verse 3: Father help me Father give me shelter Keep me grounded Keep the walls from falling You are all I got Youare all I really need now Can't escape the thought Can't escape the thought you're laughing Verse 4: Spirit Help me Siriti be beside me Lead inspire me Keep the fire going Keep it oging strong Keep it going all my life long You are never wrong Youare never wrong I trust you Bridge: Just tell me say it to my face I'm your child and you could never hurt me It seems so wrong when you say Be beside me don't hide from me I fell I am right with you when you say I'll take care of you whatever happens to you March 31, 2006: Sakura, Kristen @ the naam, Sean and Therese's Birthday, my song at mass! So Sakura is the cherry blossoms and it's all happening right now and it's so nice!! So a lot to report from this weekend. Friday, met up with ddent, Eileen, Eiston, and Billy (all Shad 04) at the Naam. The Rich joined us, and two Japanese guys from work. I hadn't seen some of the Shads for over one year! So that was awesome. Then Kristen and Mike were on stage and they were awesome as always. Especially the second and third sets. I joined Emma Slipp, Duncan/Caroline, and another Caroline and had a few beers there. We laughed pretty hard. As dunc might put it, we were acting like Nova Scotians. Good times. Saturday, worked during the day, and then went to Therese (McGill) and Sean's (Therese's brother) joint birthday party. We watched Sean and Janet's wedding video and it was a crazy elaborate wedding!!! So many people involved and everything all decorated and perfect. Had a great time. Rich and I got Therese her name spelled out in artwork by a Chinese artist at Lonsdale Quay. I got Sean a bottle of Rioja Wine (2002 Marques de Caceres), which is one that I really enjoyed during my time in Spain. Mrs.Martinez packed tons of leftovers which I ate for dinner. Apparently, women don't trust guys to take care of themselves, even when they're past their mid-twenties. Which is fine by me - free food! Janet is one month away from having her baby! Very interesting. Sunday, I did my song at mass and it went great! The instruments were awesome strong, the voices were doing stuff I couldn't have even imagined before, and the last minute addition of harmonica was perfect. Afterwards, I went to Garry's Point and sat on the bench and tried to finish one song, but struggled for about an hour with the bridge, and somehow stumbled upon a new song, which I finished in 20 minutes and I like alot. I may do this one soon. I know Melody wants to hear me live with the rest of the band. I'm pretty stoked. Rehearsal tomorrow for the easter mass marathon. Interesting week ahead. I'll report more at that time. March 31, 2006: Chill Weekend, Planning for my Parent's weekend Well, last weekend was a very chill weekend. I didn't do anything social at all. I literally went to work and came back. Went to church and came back. That's okay. Tonight, Kristen (high school friend) is performing at the Naam restaurant so got a bunch of nova scotia friends, some shad 04 friends, and some friends from work who are going. Hopefully good times. We're doing my piece at church on Sunday. I'm a bit nervous but everyone likes it. It's more mainstream sounding. I've actually been thinking a bit about doing a recording for the choir. If we do, say, 5 songs - 4 originals and one church song that we do. I'll play around with that idea a bit, and actually figure out if I have time for that. I'll be doing 4 masses around easter time. Wow. That's going to be tiring. Rehearsal is this Monday. I've been getting some feedback on my female facial features post. I hope I don't lose all of my female friends as a result. Of course not. My parents are coming to vancouver in June. Vancouver as a place to visit, is beautiful, but what most people appreciate is the FOOD. My friend James (McGill) came up and his friend planned the entire week around trying as much food as possible. It is just crazy. So here's a few places I want to take them: Malaysian (the one on Broadway and Cambie) Chinese (Shiang Garden, Hon's Noodle House, Sun Sui Wah) Northern Chinese (Shanghai Wind in Richmond, or Sha Lin Noodle House) Indian (Maurya?) Korean (Jang Mo Jib on Robson) Italian (Anton's in burnaby or Chianti on W4th) Japanese (Ramen house on Denman? or Samurai Sushi) Thai (Thai House) Filipino (Galing Galing or Josephines) Vietnamese (one of the places in Richmond?) Lebanese (Habibi's) Ethiopian (Nyala on Main, Addis Cafe on Commercial) Areas we have to visit: Beaches - Spanish Banks, English Bay Shopping - Robson, Granville Island, Richmond Center, Lonsdale Quay Westcoast hip - West 4th, Denman, Gastown Outdoors - Steveston, Stanley Park Vancouver is a nice place the more I think about it. You get alot of everything, so you always have a fresh feel. We can't see everything in a week because there's meals with their friends, with Melody's family, Kosta's family etc. but we'll try to do what we can. For sure, Malaysian food is a top priority and I'll find the best place from my cousin Kiam Hahn that used to live here. I have a few more good songs started that I'm pretty excited about. Good things happening! March 23, 2006: songwriter, business update, female facial features My song is going pretty well in rehearsal. Very interesting. But I'm very excited about the second song, which I've been working on with Joanna from the choir and I'm completely convinced that this could be heard by a wider audience and I also think that she what it takes to go mainstream if she gets a good songwriter, which I hope I am. I haven't updated much on business recently. Orders are strong. We're working on some bigger deals right now, and those take time. We have recently started to fly above the radar and the big wolves out there know about us and are sniffing their territory. We have to tread carefully at this point, but this step is inevitable. I've scooped up two small accounts, one actually that might grow pretty well. Preface to this next section: when Melody first read this next part, she was a bit confused and found it slightly offensive, which is why I'm glad she read over it first before I posted it. Here's a few things to remember as you read it: I'm not saying that the SOLE purpose of females is as a genetic stamp. I'm saying that the purpose of attractive female features is as a genetic stamp. Also, I'm not saying that monogamy is overrated. I'm saying that one negative side effect of monogamy is that is reduces the possibility of passing on superior genes. The positive still outweighs the negative. Also, I'm not saying that genes pre-determine one's level of success. I'm saying that nature wants to push superior genes. In any given line of work, in any society, in any time in history, there are different human characteristics that make one human superior in performance to the next. Some of these characteristics are influenced by genes. The thing about this world, is that there are so many opportunities for different people, and also that education and training make it possible to allow all members of society to be an active participant. So people are not born equal, but there are many roles in society and it is a grave mistake to say that one role is more important than the next, even though certain genes promote superior performance at certain tasks. One thing I've been thinking about is why certain female facial features are attractive. Have you ever thought about that? It's obvious why physical characteristics, like strength, are attractive - it proves a certain level of healthiness, which will increase one's chances of healthy children. Or something like social standing, because that will increase the odd's of your children being accepted in society. For physical and social strength, the attractiveness can be attributed to our desire to increase the odds of our genetic makeup transcending many generations. That part makes sense. But what do facial features have to do with anything? Is there any connection between a female's facial features and the ability to pass on genes? Obviously there is, but it's hard to place our finger on it, or trace it back to some primal instince such as genetic survival. One theory I've come up with is that facial features are like a signature of the genes that one possesses yet cannot be recognized. So for instance, say a male becomes very powerful. He probably has some genes that are positive, but can't be recognized. For instance, it might be intellectual capactity, meaning the potential level of intelligence that he can attain. Intellectual capacity can't be measured because say a daughter has high capacity, the environment that they grow up in might mean that they grow up to be stupid. Yet they still have the genes for very high intellectual capacity (since her father had it). So this successful male might have a daughter that is stupid, but she has the genes that make her capacity high. One scary thought, from a Darwinian perspective, is that she becomes disconnected from the family and then all these awesome genes that she had but no one can recognize, become lost because she'll end up mating with a man with low intellectual capacity. Another hidden genetic trait might be, say, a gene that makes one's personality a certain way. Or a gene that makes one operate quickly rather than slow as a sloth. Some of these genes get hidden by the environment in which the child is raised, and also by the gender of the offspring. So a trait that makes a male successful won't be obvious in his female progeny. So what am I getting at? Basically, attractive female facial features are a sign that she possesses genes from a successful father. In turn, she will have many suitors, and she will choose the most successful, thereby maintaining the superiority of the genes. If not for the facial signature, successful males would court her based on only those characteristics which they can see, such as her current level of intelligence (which has less bearing on genetics), or her physical health. Which traits are attractive and which are not is irrelevant to this discussion. What matters is that there are female traits that are attractive, and the males in the successful class use these traits to put a signature on their genes which can't be easily seen, just we know that their children possess them. So why do successful men have ugly children sometimes? One reason is because of monogamy - if he marries an ugly woman, which then can't be used as a genetic stamp, he still can't change. Unfortunately, this means that his daughters from the ugly wife will have a greater chance of marrying less successful men. Why do non-successful men have daughters with nice facial features? For one, sometimes it's just makeup. But also because the traits are created somewhat randomly. So although this girl has non-successful genes, she can be used as a stamp by a successful man. And their genes, although the offsprings will be diluted by her non-successful genes, will have the facial features to perfect it later on. Good facial features can't be hoarded by one lineage. That would be assured destruction. There has to be new lineages all the time and they need stamps. And also, what constitutes successful genes at one moment in time doesn't mean successful in another. So there has to be markers from outside the "old" successful lineage. So female facial features are a sort of stamp that she holds successful genes, sculpted from hopefully several generations of selective breeding. This theory also applies to guys. Good looking moms will generally have good looking sons. Kids of successful men are sometimes completely stupid. But the genes still have to be maintained. Sometimes I scare myself, because I don't know if if I am completely irrational and people that I talk to are like, "oh yeah, genetic stamps" and are laughing behind my back because it's absurd. Not "ingenius and therefore they can't understand", but more, "something really snapped in his head but let's humour him", and I'll never know if I've snapped. Post your comments on this topic on my forum March 20, 2006: Weekend with Melody, Apprentice, TWO new songs Melody came up this weekend. Friday night, hung out at Caroline's place with Kristen and some of their friends before they jetted off to St.Paddy's day festivities. I headed down to Richmond afterwards to meet up with Melody for a quick dinner. Worked Saturday, and then went down to richmond again and Melody's mom cooked Halibut steaks. Went out briefly to bubble tea with Rich and some of his friends, then came back and hung out at home. Quiet weekend. Mass was alot of fun. I did my first solo, a song called "Nothing is Beyond You" which is cool because it is also one of Melody's favorite songs in the book. This was the first time we did that song and it went pretty well we thought. So I've actually gotten a go ahead to do my own compositions at mass! So in the last month I've finished two songs, and started two more. Here's the lyrics to the first two. I hope to perform the first one soon. We've been playing around with it at rehearsal a few time: Paradox by Christopher Lau (March 2006) Based on 1 Corinthian 18 Verse 1: I once thought I could do it all I once thought I went through it all I then found out that I could not I then found I had lost it all Verse 2: I once thought I was wise enough I once thought I was righteousness I then found out that it was not I then found out that I would fall Prechorus: How can I know? How can I show? How can I ever let it go? How can I boast? How can I grow? How can I ever really know? Verse 3: I once thought I was weak and small I once thought I would always fall I then found out that I would not I then was stronger than them all Chorus: Save me Raise me Take me, say what you want from me Save me Raise me Take me, teach me and be with me Verse 4: I once thought I was always wrong I once thought I could not belong I then found out that I was called I then felt God could do it all Verse 5: I once found out what wisdom was I once found out what power does I thought I knew it all along I now know that it's just faith in God Best Gift in the World by Christopher Lau (March 2006) Verse 1: Step Outside in the cold again and it's Freezing like hell again and I don't See any reason anymore why I should Stay sober any longer and I Can't imagine having friends around me cuz I Can't imagine anythinga nyways it's like I Got another speck in my eye and I Fell on my face again Chorus: I can't know what the Son is saying to me i try to interpret but I can't quite get it right It's undeniable, that it's saying something to me, maybe I can't give up hope or I can't always cope and if I can't get along come and say to me Make my day and help me get away Keep my faith - that's all I've got right now and Get my spirit going strong and move along that's the Best Gift in the World Verse 3: Why do I always feel so broken Why do I always feel so shy Why can't I be like all the other people They always make it look so easy to try Does nobody care about who I am any more It feels like winter but it's twenty five outside What the hell am I doing anyways Who the hell am I trying to impress Verse 4: All in all I'm happy with my life Maybe sometimes I'm just wishing I had something else it's no use speculating all the things that I missed when All it does is make me wish I've been healed by the Holy one I'm so happy I could literally touch the sky I think I got what it takes to be me I think God's gonna be happy about it March 13, 2006: Anukul, CBC radio 3 concert, PCI's First off, the popularity of this blog has gone crazy in the last few days, probably because of the sudden influx of people passing info about the proposal! Anyways, Anu (Shad 98) is up in Vancouver for a week applying for residencies in Radiology. After talking to him about everything, I think the field is actually quite interesting and if I had taken the medical route, I would have probably gone into radiology also. But it's super competitive but he's one of the brightest guys I know, so I have no doubt he'll get a placement in a place that he likes. Friday, went out with him and Nat to Vera's Burger Shack on UBC campus. We went a bit earlier and checked the place out. UBC is a beautiful campus. Saturday, went to a live show at the Lamplighter Pub for a bunch of indie bands. Free cover. Met up with Dunc (from NS), Therese, Vic, and Dexter. I liked the band "Les Breastfeeders" who are from Montreal, and I chatted briefly with a bit before the show while sitting outside. I've been talking with Melody about this, but there's something in my life that has always been a parasite. Ideally, in life, you focus on what makes you happy and you focus lightly on your short term (so you don't die), and invest your energy heavily in the long term. That is ideal. But there is something that holds us back. I call them People Causing Insecurities (PCI's, pronounced "pickies"... I'll trademark that name later when I publish a book on this subject). I know many people that have been pulled down by pickies. They are people in your life that make you feel insecure. You have something, you're happy, but then they question you. They subtly trivialize what you have. They make you think that the things that you have done that are outstanding are actually "just as expected". They make you question that you will succeed in what you do. They make you think that even if you succeed, you're still just mediocre. Do you know these people? Yes, I know of two such people in my life. I know of one such person in Melody's life, and I know of at least one other person in a friend's life. It is so unhealthy to have these people. Why are pickies unhealthy? Because you start feeling insecure, you start getting angry at pickies (because they generally convince you that THEY'RE going to do it when you can't). And as a result, you make decisions out of anger. Remember that ideally you want to focus lightly on short term, and heavily on long term. When you're in a state of anger, you focus on the short term, and generally you focus on trying to IMPRESS the picky. Pickies, themselves, tend to be high achievers, but they're not outstanding people. They are ordinary people that have high ambition, and can convince you that they will one day do something outstanding. But they're not. You might be an outstanding person, but you're stuck doing mediocre tasks because in the short term, that's what impresses them. Example - all through university I was shooting to do "hardware" jobs. I didn't know what the heck hardware was. All I knew is that BOTH of my pickies in my life were always talking about getting the elusive hardware jobs. So I went for them just so that I would get what they wanted. Almost like revenge for making me feel mediocre. That was not so destructive because as it turned out, I made a good salary in the process, but it was a foreshadow of how I might have run my life - always doing things just to get what other people want. I look at my life and I see that I can be very happy when I'm 45. But, if I'm not, I can bet you right now, that the reason will be because I changed my focus from me, to them. Very destructive. Why do pickies try to trivialize what you have? Because they take pleasure in destruction (like little kids torturing insects) and also because it makes them feel powerful. And they do it SO subtly that it generally hits you only about 1 days after you have a conversation with them. Dealing with pickies: stay clear from them. The effects of picky interaction generally wear off after a week. After that, the danger is that you feel good again and you forget that being with these dark clouds is hazardous and you go back. But they can RUIN your life. They can make you spend lots of money and they can make you do things that are destructive to your long term happiness. I have no pickies in my life right now. I have cut off contact with the two that I had. And I have been able to focus on the long term. And on that, I can be proud. March 5, 2006: Proposal! I can dig that! So the proposal went perfectly. Here's the bill of characters: My mother: Agreed to let me use one of her rings as the base of the engagement ring My father: shipped the ring to Vancouver Kosta: helped me come up with ideas on creating the ring Ronaye: Introduced me to her jeweller Wayne Bishop: the jeweller Melody's mom: picked the date for the proposal Melody's dad: told me to let her mom pick the date for the proposal Melody's siblings: didn't tell Melody they knew the date of the proposal Yollanda: helped strategize the execution of the ring Bryan: told me to let Yollanda strategize the execution of the ring Barbara: came up with the proposal idea Therese: created the artwork for the proposal Rochelle: organized the execution on the restaurant end (and offered to help with the artwork) Adam (manager at restaurant): executed the menu drop off and ring drop off Now you might be wondering how I did it. The ring: Basically, I got one of my mom's rings with a nice setting, but the center diamond was set too high and made it unwearable. So she agreed that if I could come up with a better setting for the center diamond, then I could keep the rest. With the expertise of one of North Vancouver's best jewellers and gemologists (who happened to be a friend of Ronaye), we created a clean design to accent the center diamond, which my mom approved of. It was simple and elegant and finally a wearable piece of jewellery. So in place of the center diamond, I put in a high quality 3/4 carat blue sapphire. Why sapphire? Firstly, it is not a standard engagement ring so the cost is slightly less (unfortunately not as much as I expected), but at the same time, it is common enough (in fact, royalty always propose with sapphire, albeit a rock so large that one could double it as a mirror). And secondly, because it just worked within this particular setting. Also, the symbolism of sapphire was nice, as opposed to, say, ruby which would have been my second choice but also would have looked nice. The proposal: We had a nice dinner at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, which is right by Granville Island (Granville Island actually has some significance as it was the centerpiece of my original business plan). I chose this place because I always talk about going there. The food is all prepared by the students at the Institute, and even the wait staff are students. So the quality of the food is great (especially the presentation), but the price is reasonable. The sablefish was a tad, but just a tad, overcooked. And also, because it's a smaller place, the staff totally bought into it, and put us right in the corner of the restaurant, facing the "Granville Island" sign which was above false creek, with yachts bouncing against the moonlight. At the end of the meal, in place of dessert, Adam (the manager), brought out a separate menu that at the top read "Coffee Menu, for Melody Tan". Here's a pdf of the menu. It listed a 5 coffees, each named after the places that we've met at: Shad Valley, then Vancouver (spring break 99), then Waterloo (went to school together), the San Jose (worked together), then the Camino Santiago (pilgrimmage). At the end, it read "the perfect cup", and it described the ring. All she was saying was, "Are you serious? Are you serious?" I said, "Read on", and she apparently was trying to read, but couldn't. I saw one tear come down one eye, then down the other eye, the manager said, "I believe this is a good time to bring this to the table". I took the ring and presented it to Melody. Actually, as I'm writing this, alot will be news to Melody. She says that after reading the menu, it's all one big blank because she was overwhelmed in shock. I made a small speech about how long we've been together, how I want to have a family, how I want to grow old together, and how she is the only person on this planet that I want to do that with. "Will you marry me?" I said, and she said, "yes". And so we closed the chapter of our life together as boyfriend girlfried and we are now onto life as an engaged couple. Melody, Chris's fiancee. Chris, Melody's fiancee. That is life. And I would like to thank every single person that helped out that night. Epilogue: We went out to a play put on by the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre society which was funny but corny, and met up with some friends for midnight sushi on 2nd street. I now owe the jeweller a bottle of wine. I told him that if she accepts, I'll give him a bottle of wine. If not, it'll be a can of beer, but either way he gets liquor so it's win-win, right? I am happy. Now that I've planned this small feat, she'll be planning the wedding. And as everyone knows, I'm staying out of it because I never micromanage... yeah right. February 26, 2006: New abode So I have moved to North Vancouver. In the end, this is what was accomplished: I save over $300 a month on rent, I save $100 a month in gas, I save one hour per day in commute, and no walking because I'm now paying for underground parking at Lonsdale, I'm on a real bed instead of a blow up, and I now have internet and cable television. But for every up, there's a down: I have to live with two people, my room is significantly smaller, and it's a basement instead of the 10th floor. But all in all it's worth it. It's time and money. We are now looking into investing in a refrigerated vehicle. It's amazing what's happened. At the beginning, we used my hatchback, but we soon outgrew that and had to use the pickup truck. Now we're using the pickup truck and we're very quicly outgrowing that. And we have to have something ready in the event that we do. Pretty neat week. Orders are strong. We just introduced the beer prawns into 3 new stores and they've just gone absolutely nuts. Super good. On Wednesday, went to the noodle restaurant with Kosta, and then went to one of his friend's restaurants that isn't opened yet. He took over a chinese restaurant, is gutting the place and then by the first week of March, he's going to open a Moroccan restaurant. It was very cool to talk with him about all the things he plans to do. He's a totally hands on guy and was organizing most of it himself. I have a long long way to go if I ever want to open a place on a budget. Just the horror stories i've heard about the city stepping in, plumbing, electricity, everything... the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. Went to a restaurant auction on Friday during the day to check out used equipment that we can get. Saturday, worked all day, and then packed up my stuff. Sunday, church was good. And then moved all my stuff. And here I am. In my new abode. Playing on the computer and listening to much music. Such a change. I like this place. And now that I'm closer, and there's internet, I think there's lots of computer work that I've been neglecting the last few months. Bye for now! February 20, 2006: Marriage is on the brink? Well, marriage certainly is the talk of the town right now. No, I haven't proposed, but that doesn't stop the in-laws in scurrying around planning half the wedding and worrying about which school their grandkids are going to go through. My thoughts on this: first the proposal, then maybe we'll worry about how the grandkids will get lunch on thursdays when both grandparents have to do their costco shopping - I guess that does present a dilemma... hmmm... okay... Melody and I are going to various restaurants trying out the food, checking out the atmosphere, talking to the managers. There has to be seafood, and chinese do seafood the best (French do it well too, but that's slightly unaffordable and it's just not so fun to scarf back haute cuisine). So it has to be at a chinese restaurant. The top of my list right now is Shiang Garden, which has beautiful tables, and the chairs have beautiful seat covers and it's well known in vancouver for weddings. The July 2007 weekends are already half booked, so we're acting fast. The private room for weddings is perfect and I liked the manager there. The other option is to have it in a ballroom, and then have a chinese caterer, but having catering service means the food is cooked in one location and brought in aluminum and then served. We're talking seafood here. That 20 minute makes a difference and also I just like Shiang Garden for some reason. The price is on the higher end, but considering we don't have to decorate the hall and rent a ballroom, the overall price is good compared to a canadian reception. We talked to the priest on Sunday and will be meeting with him next sunday to go through all the procedures. We've almost nailed one awesome deal. That's good news. It's not alot of money, but it's access to a whole new can of worms...which is alot of money. That's all for now. My friend Yuey is in town and we hope to meet up this week. I'm moving to the North Shore in the next few days. I found a good place up here which is closer and cheaper because I've been taking paycheques from the business and I feel guilty. Lots of businesspeople never take paycheques for the first five years. Here I am writing myself these little cheques. Friday night, had crab rice dinner with Melody's family. I can tell it's a very time consuming dish to prepare because they started with live crab. But it's delicious. Saturday, ate at Shiang Garden with Melody and then had fondue with Therese/David, Victoria/Dex, and Beatrice. Sunday, mass went okay but some room for improvement also for sure. Ate at the Chinese restaurant beside the Radisson... was okay, but didn't get the same warm fuzzy feeling as Shiang Garden. I'm also thinking of having a quick gig setting up a stand at the Richmond Night Market this summer doing oysters. I need a really good partner so it can be mostly hands off for me, but I know it would fly. Been talking to a few good people, but the issue mostly is getting them up to speed before then, which may or may not be possible. Still, it would be cool and an opportunity to test market a few things. That's all for now. February 12, 2006: Singles Mingles Part II The event was a big success. About thirty people came and everyone was really mingling and talking and lots of good stuff. Yay team! No updates on business, although one deal looks good and one looks not as promising. Thursday, went out for dinner with Rich and Danika at our noodle place. Friday, went to a buddhist mediation with my friend Clover, who's an artist at Lonsdale Quay. The monk was one of the highest Tibetan monks and when he chants, you know there's something so beautiful about him. Saturday, didn't do anything social, but ended up writing a new song, which I hope to sing in church some time, maybe during lent because I pulled the verses from a lenten type passages in Corinithians. Sunday, mass was awesome. Went out for drinks with Ajay and Gerald afterwards. Went to the driving range and then met up for coffee with Duncan, a friend from Nova Scotia. He just moved to Kitsilano area in a nice apartment. I'm actually moving soon, so I'm looking around at apartments as we speak. One interesting thought.. some kid on the radio did something good. He gave up his savings for a dog to help someone. The radio station, in return, gave him all the funds he needed to get the dog ANYWAYS... you know, so that the kid has positive reinforcement to do good. But I wouldn't do that. If the kid gave up his money out of altruism, aren't you teaching the kid that for every altruistic move, you'll get paid back in material? That's not good. Further, it diminishes any compassionate feelings he might have felt out of doing sacrifice. If someone does a good deed, thank them. But rewarding them is building a habit of undoing the personal sacrifice. If one day, the kid does something good, and the person doesn't thank him or give anything back, the kid will go, "what the hell? I feel cheated!". Anyways, that's just my thoughts. February 4, 2006: Singles Mingling Rich, Therese, Priscilla and I are hosting a singles mingle tonight. Why me when I'm not a single? Because you NEED non-singles to lower the tension. Otherwise, it's just too stressful. I got the idea from Yollanda, so thank you Yollie. Alot of my friends are going through a quarter life crisis right now. Many in Vancouver are thinking of picking up and leaving? Just as I'm trying to settle in... people need a change of scenery I guess. It was such a windy day today. A wind warning was issued and power was out in a bunch of cities. For some reason, I found it beautiful. 5 foot chunks of trees were floating around like giant snowflakes in slow motion. Like something right out of a movie. Evergreen sweeping along the streets against the car lights and crystal roads. I like that kind of thing. Surreality meets the perils of dangerous driving. Fascination takes precendence and I gawked in wonder. Thursday, met up with Kristen from Nova Scotia and went out for coffee with Michael, her boyfriend. We had about 7 different strings of deep conversation. That's what coffee does to you. Then just to balance out the intellectualism, we played bingo. Did party planning at Therese's place yesterday and also got a haircut. This time, I look about 16. Last time I got my haircut, I looked about 17... so I'm getting younger. Younger but cleaner. January 30, 2006: Gong Hey Fat Choy Happy New Year! It's funny how in Vancouver everyone, not just the chinese community, greets each other with happy new year on that day. Weird. Anyways, had a good weekend. Thursday, Eileen and company came up to Lonsdale Quay and then we went to and Italian restaurant on Broadway. Friday, went to C restaurant with Melody and she finally got to eat pan seared foie gras. We'd gotten foie gras before, but it was always in the mousse form. So that was my big splurge of the year. Saturday, had dinner at Melody's place for New Year's. Had all the good stuff... crab, fish... you name it. Sunday, mass went well. Our choired was ministered into the music ministry and the priest said, "this choir is just awesome. And believe me, I've been at many many churches and these guys sound terrific". It made my day! Now back to business. Picked up some smaller accounts but that doesn't excite me as much as it used to. Things are good, but I'm ready to graduate to second year courses. January 23, 2006: Kiam Hann, Seattle etc. So meeting my cousin was absolutely awesome (two weeks ago friday and saturday). Met some of his friends, some VIP like people, and went for drinks. Good times. He met Melody and they got along very well. Wednesday, met up with Parisa, Eileen (both from shad 04) and rich at death by chocolate. Good times. Good laughs. Thursday, had dinner at Kosta's (a winner of a pasta!) headed down to seattle to help melody when she got her wisdom teeth out. Watched the movie Casino on Friday (and ate WONDERFUL home cooked food), Saturday, Pike Place and a bunch of grocery stores (market research), and then Sunday, went to church but the gospel choir wasn't there, which is a shame, because that is why I went to that particular service. I heard them before, and they were awesome, and I wanted to take some ideas back to richmond for our masses. Went to a restaurant in bellevue for lunch on sunday where they had 160 types of beer! Came back to vancouver and had dinner with melody's family. And now starts a very important week. I have to be sharp. January 12, 2006: My cousin, menus.ca So I'm meeting up with my dad's cousin, Kiam Hann, in a few minutes. We haven't seen each other since I was 12 or 13, probably in Singapore... maybe even longer than that. I'm not exactly sure what he does, but it's in the high tech industry and it's business related (I gather this because he's staying at one of the better hotels in Vancouver). So cool stuff a happening. Yee haw. Business going well. Everything in sales in mode, so can't say anything yet. Important news: I might be selling menus.ca to a startup from Winnipeg. SO, if your bookmark for this site is menus.ca, change it. I might use the proceeds of the sale to buy chrislau.ca but I'll say more later. January 7, 2006: Friday Night, Asian Business tendencies, Elections Friday, started off with just Priscilla and I deciding to maybe go to a lounge, but more likely just chill. So, Therese and her friend Simon come along. Good little gathering. Then Emily decides she's up for going out too. Five people... cool. Then Rich finishes snowboarding and wants to meet up downtown... six... but of course with his friend Tak Ming... seven... then Beatrice... eight... then Victoria and Dexter nine, then ten... then Beatrice's boyfriend Jason is up for something... eleven... it was a good time, great conversation, but totally pulled out of nowhere. We went to Opus Lounge in Yaletown and we had our own little private room, kind of. Simon has a cool side business, selling printer cartridges online. He's one of the stronger Canadian players in this market, and looking to expand. So obviously, we had alot to talk about. I find that among the asians, the most business oriented people are the cantonese, and then the taiwanese and then the chinese filipinos. Mainland chinese, I find, tend to be more conservative... preferring academics or secure professions, and tend to pass these values onto their children, or dissuade them from taking risks when opportunities arise. I'm not sure where these values come from, but I've noticed that trend - that if you're talking to a cantonese, they've almost certainly tried to become filthy rich at some point in their life, or are waiting for the opportunity. In fact, at Waterloo, the asian graduate students were almost exclusively mainland chinese even though at the undergraduate level, it was more evenly split. If the graduate students were cantonese, they were cbc or doing something in finance (why else, but to become filthy rich?). Chinese filipinos tend to think alot about doing business, but always look for safe entry points into doing business and unfortunately, safe exit points also. I can't comment much on other Asians, since I'm not too familiar, but I'm inclined to believe that Koreans look for safe entry points (like Chinese Filipinos), but dive right into the business once they're in (like cantonese). Singaporeans are similar to chinese filipinos, but maybe even a little more timid. CBC's tend to be more reactionary, because of the Canadian culture which promotes conformism. So they react to opportunities or threats. For example, much like caucasians, CBC's tend to go into business only when they have nowhere else to turn, when they're sick of what they're doing, or when a great opportunity arises. Who does the best? Hard to say, but cantonese try lots of ideas in the hopes that one will make money, mainlanders in business strike it rich because to take them away from the security, it had better be a great idea, chinese filipinos feel intimidated by their lack of network in canada and often pull out because of frustration or fear of failure, and CBC's are like caucasians - the reasons for going into business are all done on a case by case basis, depending on the environmental trigger. Some kick butt, some are scared, and some build and then maintain. Elections are going on. How the hell did the conservatives get in the lead??!!??? Didn't they predict that last time too, and then the Liberals won by alot. I think the prediction of a conservative might work in the liberal's favour, because of strategic voting - where I would otherwise, say, vote for the NDP, I would vote Liberal just to block the conservatives. But if you anticipate a Liberal victory, then you might "squander" your vote on the NDP instead, even if it won't change anything. I read an interesting article in the National Post about this, and the columnist, Andrew Coyne, used alot of game theory examples and even started the column with something about voting not being linear... he must be trained in the maths. And now crime and violence is a big topic. I don't know about that... alot of young people are killed by guns and I attended an art exhibition for a young vancouverite that was recently shot, but if you really want to kill someone and you don't have a gun, you can use a baseball bat. Or a golf club. You can run them over with a car. You can poison their drink. You can inject them with poison. You can stab them. Oh yeah, and you can still shoot them despite legislation. Maybe I'm heartless, but there's lower hanging fruit to deal with. Not that we shouldn't deal with gun violence, it just shouldn't be a major issue, and honestly, the parties don't have these strong gun control morals that their parents instilled on them and they have been passionately thinking about through their years as a Rhodes scholar. No way. They're in business and economics and politics. They just took a stance in response to the media blitz, and then guesstimated up how much money they could throw at it. Nothing wrong with that as an election survival response, but if you're not passionate about your policy, no one's going to push for it to be legislated. So why make it a big issue when all you know about each party is some improvised position? Gun control is low on my priority list. NDP is doing incredibly well. They're supported just as much by their own party, as they are by the conservatives since I imagine they're often viewed as an alternative to the Liberal vote. But that's good for them, because they want to have that deciding vote in order to have a say. What the Liberals should be pushing for is a majority government. Scare the people into believing that if they form another minority government, it's just another 15 months of NDP bullying. So appeal to the conservative swing voters that a vote for Harper is creating instability, and appeal to the NDP swing voters that a vote for the NDP is a vote for the conservatives (therefore, strategically vote Liberal). The pot at the end of the rainbow is a Liberal majority government, where they can make things happen, not just promise money because of NDP dealmaking. No one really believes there can be a Conservative majority, so just leave out the possibility of a Conservative minority altogether and rejoice if we can have a liberal majority, even if you lean further right. That's how I might view it. January 5, 2006: A New Year 2006. That's our new year. I spent Christmas with Melody's family. The aunt/uncle/cousin came over, as did Merrily (Melody's sister). It was a good time, and we had roasted red pepper soup, and a whole lot of other stuff. I learned to play Chess4, which is four player chess. That was alot of fun, and alot of alliancing and strategizing. Met up with my Grand Aunt. They liked Melody. And New Year's, had scallops, shrimps, oysters... a grand feast! And now back to business. We're building a few good deals that could change a whole lot of stuff. You'll hear it first from this website if they go good or sour. Bye for now! December 24, 2005: Recap of Two weeks and Christmas Eve So a quick recap of the last two weeks. I last left off on Saturday night of two weeks ago. That night, Kristen, Gordon (her friend and founder of lefthip.org) went to an art exhibition of a skateboarder who was murdered a few days ago. Obviously, the crowd was mostly skaters, but it was pretty cool. Lee Mataski, or something like that. Then we went to bingo for the kicks of it, and met a dude called Dave who helped us use our tickets. He even lent us his bingo marker, and after asking us if we want to keep it, he proceeded to tell us that he had just picked it out of the garbage. Great. Anyways, that was a hilarious event. After mass on Sunday, we had a Christmas show that all the choirs put on, and everyone was totally floored by our choir. That's so satisfying because as of six months ago, we were totally considered one of the floundering choirs - dwindling energy and an even more dwindling membership. We're strong now. The week went well, went to the Picasso exhibition again, and went to a fancy lounge afterwards (Bacchus) with my friend Noriko and Rich. Noriko went back to Japan last week. Yollanda and Bryan came up on Saturday. Therese and Priscilla came up to the quay, we had lunch (steamed mussels) and then met up with Yollanda and Bryan fresh off the boat (ie. the seabus that gets you to Lonsdale). We walked around the quay for a bit, then we split up for the afternoon. Yollie, Bryan and I first went to Gastown. We walked around East Hastings, which is as you might know, one of the scariest areas in Canada - everybody it seems is crazy or on heroine, or some combination of the two. They were brave. Then we went to a marijuana cafe and had coffee. We're not THAT cool yet. But they were so weirded out by the fact you can smoke pot in public. It's Vancouver. Then we did a quick run through of Gastown, hit up a lot of stores. We had Japanese dinner in Yaletown. They thought it was the best Japanese food they'd ever had. We went to Club 686 at night with Therese et al. I usually don't go clubbing, but Richard was leaving for Winnipeg, so I figured it'd be cool to hang out with him before then. Clubbing ended up being fun. Sunday, Yollie and Bryan came to mass. Their critique "You guys rock!". Cool. Then went to Dave's Fish and Chips, which is probably the best fish and chips in Vancouver, and I've tried many. They were so happy that they had someone who knew the food scene. Then we went to Finn Slough, which is a fishing village in Steveston. All the people still live on houses on the water, and you can walk behind the houses. It's a weird little thing, and I love being there for some reason. Spent the rest of the afternoon making Christmas cards and then dinner at Hon's noodle house. We met up for the last time on Tuesday at Tojo's, which is considered the best Japanese food in Vancouver. I just tried Uni, which is sea urchin, because it's in season right now, and you can get it fresh (as opposed to frozen). I'd been to many places asking if they had it, but they didn't. It was served right on top of a spiky urchin, which is about the size of a grapefruit. The spikes were still moving, but very slightly. It's something you have to eat once in your life. I'm spending Christmas in Vancouver with Melody's family. Last Christmas, it was lightly snowing and around minus 5. Right now, it's raining at about ten degrees. I can't take too much time away from business when it's still young and especially during the critical Christmas season. I'm glad I stayed though. Orders are crazy and now is not the time to make a mistake. It's crazy how young the business actually is, but it really is that young. wow. My saying for this week is going to be "2006 is going to rock". It is going to rock. BC business is going well. People have money to spend. Let's make a killing. December 10, 2005: Psychology Analysis According to a test, I am ENFP - Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving. Jung Tests These tests are based on the work of Carl Jung, David Kiersey, Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs. They are similar in underlying theory to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Kiersey Temperment Sorter. They measure four bipolar factors, Introversion/Extroversion, Thinking/Feeling, Intuition/Sensing, and Judging/Percieving. Description of ENFP outgoing, social, disorganized, easily talked into doing silly things, spontaneous, wild and crazy, acts without thinking, good at getting people to have fun, pleasure seeking, irresponsible, physically affectionate, risk taker, thrill seeker, likely to have or want a tattoo, adventurous, unprepared, attention seeking, hyperactive, irrational, loves crowds, rule breaker, prone to losing things, seductive, easily distracted, open, revealing, comfortable in unfamiliar situations, attracted to strange things, non punctual, likes to stand out, likes to try new things, fun seeker, unconventional, energetic, impulsive, empathetic, dangerous, loving, attachment prone, prone to fantasy Favoured careers of ENFP performer, actor, entertainer, songwriter, musician, filmmaker, comedian, radio broadcaster/dj, some job related to theater/drama, poet, music journalist, work in fashion industry, singer, movie producer, playwright, bartender, comic book author, work in television, dancer, artist, record store owner, model, freelance artist, teacher (art, drama, music), writer, painter, massage therapist, costume designer, choreographer, make up artist disfavoured careers of ENFP data analyst, scientist, researcher, financial advisor, business analyst, govt employee, office manager, mathematician, investment banker, office worker, computer tech, it professional, network engineer, strategist Good thing I'm ready to become a CHOREOGRAPHER! Would you have guessed me as this, or is this test flawed, or did I answer inaccurately. December 9, 2005: weekend coming And it's the start of the weekend. Yesterday, went to a Lonsdale Quay Christmas party, then went to the Art Gallery with Therese and Priscilla for the Picasso exhibition, although I went for the contemporary art. Today (Friday), went to Tsawassen for sales in the morning and we'll see what happens. I was sitting at the Tsawassen Quay today, listening to two guys complain about life. They were both divorced, one of them had to listen to his ex-wife talk about her new wedding and how his daughter acted up the whole time. The other was listening in, trying to relate, which he could. Tsawassen seemed like a retirement kind of place, but it's a flat flat landscape, and doesn't seem like much develops around there, other than real estate for retirees. It was hard to listen to these people talk about their depressing lives, and their friend's depressing lives (getting laid off etc.), but at the same time, it made me appreciate what I have. On Politics: Polls have shown that people don't put the sponsorship scandal as an important issue. I could have told you that without a poll. Gun Control - Martin is trying to take a stance on something. He is trying to act like a leader and win votes in Toronto. Public Health Care - I'm a little confused about Jack Layton's openess to having private health clinics... if he's so vigilant on universal public health care, doesn't this kind of open the door to lots of other stuff. Child care - what exactly is this conservative plan to put $1000 a year directly into parent's pockets instead of investing in day cares... is he isolating all of the dual income families? If both parents are working, and they have to have a baby sitter, what does $1,000 a year get you? Approximately 3 hours of baby sitting per week. Wouldn't you prefer the liberal day care plan? Oh, I forgot... they're concerned to the already rich. The Kyoto appeal to President Bush... Martin is trying to look like a leader by not being scared of the President and also appealing to the hippies. Did you know Canada has alot to say about our own emission standards. Signing a paper is only a pledge. Pledges aren't going to hold water when you're drowning. The States right now is bleeding red economic ink all over. Do you think they care about global conscience? No, their responsibility is to their own people. Even when their economics look good, they should be protecting their economy. Nobody cares about global conscience, except for politics. Even I, honestly, don't care that much. Things are not so rosy and straightforward in my life that I can just start caring about people one hundred years down the road that I don't know. No way. Anyways, that's my thoughts on the election so far. December 5, 2005: weekend update Had a good weekend. Thursday, hung out with Kristen/Dunc at Kristen's place. Friday, went to a wine tasting on ubc campus with Nat and Rich. Then met up with Eileen afterwards and crashed an international night next door (ended up dancing on stage!), snuck into the Japanese gardens, and then to Calhoun's for drinks. Saturday, hung out with Kristen and Michael, and nothing too crazy, but I was there for moral support... go TEAM. Sunday, mass went well, it was snowing so I headed back to new west and did nothing. I slept by 10 pm... it was nice. Take care. December 2, 2005: December already It is December. It is a great tragedy but I will not be returning to Nova Scotia for Christmas. I wish there was something that I could do, but Christmas is a busy time, and that's the time where you show off that you're a reliable supplier. If we screw up an order over christmas, that's a huge strike. It's just all around bad timing. This week has been pretty good. We have two places taking our new prawn product (pictures are on my website, under the folder 'Vancouver'). Time to market for this new product is under eight weeks. As some people would say, "I'm not bragging, but ttm for this product was x weeks". No, I'm bragging. That's pretty fast. Of course, once we get bigger that time will increase by quite a bit, but that's the beauty of being in small business. Things get launched as quickly as you can make them. On elections: If you ask me, there's nothing pressing on why we should change governments right now. Conservatives keep talking about "a new future" this and that... we'll running a federal surplus, the outlook looks positive, no major unemployment issues or inflation issues, education is great. Why should we change governments? They want to lower the GST by 1%, which will save Canadians something like $400 a year. You're telling me that if we switch governments, you're going to give us $400!? That's all you have? That's not pressing! So they pick on the sponsorship scandal. Scandal is not a function of a certain party. It's a human affliction that we're all prone to. If you're telling me that the Conservatives are immune to scandal, that is ludicrous. Anyways, why not pick on the rising currency that's hurting export. Something like that. Think of how Clinton created a economic crisis and won his election. Something like that. Not "here's $400... vote me in!" November 29, 2005: Jennifer's Birthday Jenn's birthday is tomorrow (November 30)! Remember to give her a shout, because I will probably forget tomorrow. I'm still thinking in election mode right now. I think that I want one of my children to be a great political influence. I think that the foundation that I'm building right now is not to be realized in my lifetime, but in the next generation. I'll hopefully spend my life doing business and that's it. Trying to establish my family in the business world in one lifetime is an impossible enough challenge. I'll be a happy old man if that's what I can get. From that, they can launch a political career. I want them to have a natural compassion for their community (which might extend to as many people as their entire nation), an unwavering pride in this community, and the strong character to know what is right and wrong and how justice can be served through their actions. I want my children to do it right. The fruits of my labour are hardly to be recognized by my generation. November 28, 2005 (part 2): Re-ELECTION We're having a freaking election soon. While I haven't picked favourites yet, I have come to some conclusions on policies. Here in western Canada, conservative parties tend to do better than out east. But to me, that doesn't make sense that the conservative party would do well ANYWHERE. Why? You probably know that conservative policies favour big business over small enterprise, and favour greater class priviledges through lower taxes and less government programs, and favour the centralization of money to a few priviledged families over the opportunities for us all. And you might be thinking, "hey, that benefits me...I work for a big company". But I don't care how many Kwame Jacksons and how many goddamn spelling bee champions are from middle class families. Conservative policy favours those who are already rich. Not labour class rich... wealthy family rich. But all that the average voter will see is that conservative policy lowers taxes and decreases regulation. Will this benefit you? Say we lowered out taxes to a point that government spending made public education like the americans. At this point, if you give a damn about your kids, you're sending them to private school. Private schools cost, say, $10k per year per kid. You've got two kids, so that's $20k a year. Now you've also got to pay for health care. You've also got to pay for the times when you're unemployed (never be too cocky). If they don't get into State College, you've got to pay for a private college, which is up the ass expensive (upwards of $20k per year, per kid). Government does more, believe me, than support food banks for the poor (which isn't all that evil, is it?). Say you're making $150,000 a year. A 10% decrease in income tax is going to save you $15,000 a year. woo hoo. That won't even pay for your kid's tuition, which escalates year after year. Even the folks making $150,000 a year aren't *really* benefitting by conservative policy. And say you get fired and are looking for work. You're not even making $150,000 a year anymore. You're eating into your 401k. My point is that some of us that think we're in the capitalist class and think that it's the lazy bums eating our hard work, and that if it weren't for taxes and regulation, we'd be making SO much more... it's not true. If you're a white collar worker, you're in the labour class. You're not a part of the elite capitalist class that benefits from conservative policy, especialy that which favours big business. If you're a small business owner, you would've been smoked by multi-nationals long ago if it weren't for protectionist behaviour (either by legislation or by local interests). If you were from a middle class, and pulled yourself into the elite capitalist class, then you're both lucky that your interests aligned with the employment demands at the time and that you had a good education to get you that opportunity. The net benefits of paying taxes have been GOOD for all us making less that $150k. Really, low taxes and deregulation benefits very few of you. By and far, you'll either be at the same position, or worse, and more and more likely to never be worth more to society than your hourly labour power. If you think you're in the capitalist class, and you're making under $150,000, think again. Addendum 1: I'm not villainizing the elite capitalist class. If I'm ever there, I'm voting conservative. Every 1% decrease in taxes saves me more money than your entire gross income... times four! Right now, I'm not there, and I have no plans to be there, so screw the rich. Addendum 2: If you're making more than $150,000, you're still not necessarily in the elite capitalist class. If you're below, you're for sure not - both in a historical sense and in a current day sense. But if you're above, it depends on the distribution of your assets, your earning potential through social networks, your net worth relative to your community and your means of income. November 28, 2005: US thanksgiving Had a good weekend. It's US thanksgiving so melody came up on wednesday and stayed til sunday. Wednesday night, had black chicken soup at her parent's place. Thursday, had a really tiring day and so I slept early. Friday, I took the whole day off. We went to Vij's Indian restaurant on 14th and Granville. More on this later. Saturday, worked in the morning, went for high tea in Kerridale, and then Vietnamese with Melody's family. Sunday, mass was so-so, but because it was advent, we had a whole bunch of new mass parts. It wasn't easy. Anyways. So Vij's is fusion Indian cuisine. Basically, it was pared down Indian food for Canadians that can't eat spicy or any pronounced flavours. It's rated as one of the BEST restaurants in Vancouver (in the same ranks as Lumiere and West), and I've read that it's the best indian restaurant in North America . That is not the case in my opinion. I prefer authentic indian food, as I prefer authentic chinese food over any white tablecloth chinese food. Certain foods aren't built to be pared down in flavour or served fancy. Fusion food for these cuisines (especially chinese and indian) are best, in my opinion, french cuisine with asian influence. Not Asian cuisine with French influence. It doesn't work. I would prefer Indian buffet to this. Vij's scored big points in ambiance, service, and meat quality (they prepared the meat well, which isn't hard, but at least it didn't taste mediocre, which I expected after tasting the sauce). The flavours were too sweet and too buttery - again, to appeal to Canadian palettes who've been brought up on mayonnaise and Mars bars. And I didn't exactly enjoy wine with curry. It wasn't bad, it just didn't add anything to it (I had a Riesling, maybe i'll try a Gewurtraminer next time... at least he didn't have any wooded chardonnays on the wine list). But for $23 an entree, it wasn't a big investment, and I've been curious about them for a long time, because I've seen the owner a few times, and he also wholesales his product at some of the same locations we do. November 21, 2005: Weekend Update I have about 2 minutes for this update, so mind the brevity. But I want to post before I forget. Friday, went for Excellent Sushi downtown with Kristen and Rich, then went for drinks at Relish for Victoria's birthday. Good times. Oh, and went to a cultural crawl on hastings street. Saw lots of artists and musicians showcasing their stuff in their own basements. Very cool. Saturday, helped one of my fellow retail workers do an english assignment. It took two hours!! Then hung out with kristen and played nintendo and ate pizza and had to go home because i was exhausted by then. Where did my energy go?!? I want it back. Aging sucks. Sunday, church went well, went out for lunch with Derek/Ria/Ryan(their baby)/Joanna at Cactus Club, went to Kerrisdale and met up with Kernby and Nat before Kernby's death wish trip, then met up with my grandmother's sister! She is 93 years old, she is in great health, and her and her son and I talked. I also helped his son with algebra. I stayed for quite awhile, and we'll hopefully meet up with Melody soon. I have NEVER in my life had extended family living near me. This is the first time in my 25 year existence. She assured me that she wants me to see them as family. It was very very touching. We share the same blood. She is my grandmother's sister. I will get pictures soon. I need to meet up one more time in the next two weeks to secure a level of comfortability. That's how it works. If I don't, then I'll probably never see them until next year. The first visit is good, but the second visit before two weeks seals the friendship. It seemed like a very surreal weekend. Just so many random things happening. November 14, 2005: Two Week Update It's been two weeks since I last updated. Here's what I realized about updating... every three days that you don't update, you lose one regular visitor. People check blogs regularly, and then if you're not updating, they'll eventually stop checking. Speaking of blogs, check out Priscilla's blog. It's got some of the most hilarious stuff on there. She's a cool cat. So updates On Business: going well. We're doing a promotion this week at one of the chains (sorry I don't go into details unless needed). It's costing us a bit, but it's worth it in the long run. Choices is going to introduce our Garlic Beer Prawn at all six locations which is awesome because that shows that we're not just a one trick pony with them, and it proves that we can push products out there by leveraging our current accounts, which is part of our growth strategy (yes, there is strategy. We're not just randomly throwing stuff together). And they're happy to see that we're pushing new products out. It's exciting for them and they're starting to come to us when they say, "hey, one of our customers asked about so-and-so a product. I bet these guys would have it" We've finally cleared the way to launch our product in Whistler some time next week. That's awesome, because we're officially out of the lower mainland, which is another part of our growth strategy. These *baby steps* don't improve sales too much in the short run, but they're hard to make and so of course I'm happy that we get them. But they lower costs by buying in volume and spreading out labour costs, but not a ton. On Choir: Choir is going really well. It's the 1 pm bandwagon I call it. Everyone wants to join now. I'm doing some violin work in the choir now, and it's been well received. On social life: met up with Kernby, Nat, and Erin the other night at Calhoun's for coffee. Kernby is going on some bike tour across Asia, so I want to see him before something horrible happens to him. Played poker on Saturday with some church friends, and I won both games straight, took home $60, and everyone was asking "who invited this jerk?". Went to Cactus club on Sunday for lunch with Derek and Ria. Melody comes up next week. Yay! From Wednesday until Sunday, although as always, she'll be staying with her parents. And Kosta's trip to Nova Scotia went really well, and we might have some interesting business ideas. My parents and him got along really well, which is really good. That's all for now. November 2, 2005: All Souls Day Today is all souls day, celebrated by Catholics for the souls of the departed that are in purgatory. Purgatory is a state for souls before entering into heaven, a waiting room kind of thing. We pray for all the souls in purgatory so that they may sooner rather than later, enter into heaven. If they're in purgatory, they are assured to go into heaven, it's a matter of when. Like most things religious, the idea of purgatory and heaven are human approximations to something much more divine and much more complex... so complex that it is beyond the understanding of the human limits. However, we use terms like "waiting" and "cleansing" and "souls"... which is good enough for someone like me. So on this day, we pray for all the souls of our departed, especially those that we love. It was exactly three years ago that I visited Lourdes in France, which is one of the most celebrated places for Catholics to visit. Hundreds (or thousands) of miraculous healings have occurred from the waters of Lourdes. I was just passing through Lourdes on my way to Barcelona and I took a stroll through the so-called 'Catholic Disneyland'. I was really tired so I took a nap in the church, right at the back, head propped against the wall. When I woke up, they were smack in the middle of communion (near the end of mass), so I took communion and off I went. Outside the small church I decided to look for the grotto, which was the celebrated part of Lourdes, so I randomly asked a nun (presumably, a nun would know where to go, and be willing to help...). Turns out the nun was American, so spoke perfect english...yay! Anyways, we spent the day going through Lourdes, understanding all the things in the area, and she got me into all sorts of hidden gems that only nuns and priests are allowed to go into. We went to three masses that day, and she was so shocked that I didn't even plan on going to mass on all souls day! I didn't even know that day existed... long story short, I gave up my ticket to Barcelona and spent a weekend in a small community, met some interesting people, learned alot, prayed alot, and left feeling clean. You know that feeling? Anyways, that one visit changed alot for me, and I thank Sister Regina for being so kind to me. Yesterday was all saints day, and it occurred to me that for all I know, Sister Regina is a saint. She was very close to Mother Theresa, she is starting her own community in France... and you can feel God's presence when she talks. On a side note, Halloween was the day when people used to dress up as their departed loved ones and then knock on people's doors and ask them to pray for them when all souls day came around two days later (second day of November). That is part of the influence of today's trick or treating. Of course, there were other influences too obviously. Otherwise, if some kid comes knocking at your door yelling "trick or trreeeaaattt!!!", you'd be responding, "Oh so your grandfather was Pokemon? Sure, I'll pray for Grampa Poke on all souls days. Thank you come again"... then you slam the door and the kid is there, thinking "where's my candy... son of a bitch! I got no candy!". Yeah, that is conclusive proof that there were other influences to Halloween than just All Souls Day. More information on All Souls Day October 26, 2005: Dehumanized Employees I had a post on my forum a little while ago about dehumanizing employees... for example creating assembly lines where workers would do a single task. Many people see this as a terrible waste of human life, while others would suggest that if the supervisors didn't suggest this, the employees would suggest it themselves so that they could go home on time. Both valid points. Anyways, someone thought it was a good idea that CEO's participate in the grunt work... what the?! That's a classic example of coming up with non-creative solutions that benefit none of the parties. There are win-win alternatives to assembly lines, but this is not one of them. I actually think that this is lose-lose... take a look Click here to view post on the forum October 22, 2005: A little slower Orders have slowed down a little. Most stores are feeling this early fall slowdown... a good six weeks to chill out before grocery buying picks up again. And also a bit of the initial hype of the new product is wearing off. We might be doing some in-store promotions in november as part of a 20 year celebration for one of the chains. For the past week, jodrey (buddy from ns) has been chilling at my place. It's been fun. We hung out with Kristen (also from ns) a few times, met up with eileen (shad 04) on ubc campus and with therese/priscilla/rich/emily for the vancouver international film festival. He's off in victoria new, hopefully meeting up with hussey. Choir is going well. We sound better every time. And kosta is out in nova scotia now and hopefully going to meet up with my parents. That will be interesting. Everyone is passionate about food, so it can only be good times and good conversation. Guaranteed. And I've been doing alot alot of thinking about feminism. I don't know why. Maybe the people I've been hanging around. But I've changed a bit, but I'll post more later when i've solidified my points of view. I love talking with jodrey sometimes though, because he loves political, social, moral and economic theories as much as I do and we can really pick each other's brains. Until the next time! October 6, 2005: One year in Vancouver One year ago, I set off for Vancouver. Here is the post from that day: October 1, 2004: The big move demain Okay. So the time has finally come. Wow. I'm off now. I feel like one of those old pioneers, going out west to seek something newer and braver. Scary. And I'm still here. And although the plan has changed, the overall mission is still the same - to seek something newer and braver than what life was prepared to give me at the time. I've grown alot spiritually, and as a person in that time. I've made alot of friends, rekindled alot of old friendships, I've gone through some tough times, and some amazing times. I have learned so much, I have matured so much, and I've worked harder than I've ever worked in my life. I've realized how much influence a single person can have, and the power that we yield. I've gone from young adult to a full adult and I've seen how living life is a decision, not a consequence. The world has shrunk, everything seems possible. The sky is the limit. The ground: that's the other limit and whether we like it or not, it will still be six feet above us some day. So we're always ahead. That's a comforting thought, eh? While you're still alive, you're still ahead. I love life. I love being alive. September 26, 2005: Rolling We're doing well. Not great. Not terrible. Just well. Once you get what you want, you don't appreciate it much, except at those brief moments when you realize that you can't be certain to keep it forever (so enjoy it while it lasts), and also when you reflect on how it was before you got what you want. As it stands right now, it feels like we have been admitted into Food Industry University. We've just been accepted, we got past the first semester which is mostly prerequisite courses. Passing the prerequisite courses doesn't mean you graduate. It just means you can move onto the next step. Also, stopping at the prerequisite courses doesn't mean you really can do anything. So we're doing well, but we're still at the 101 level. Maybe 102. We don't need to ace everything. We just can't fail. That's how it feels right now. If we ace it, then that's a bonus. But it doesn't mean graduation. Or a job. Or graduate school. Or anything like that. Does this make any sense? Anyways, in the last two weeks, emeloy, my friend from Seattle came up and we went to the food festival at b.c. place and met emily. We sampled alot of food! This weekend, went out with Rich and Emily to a mexican restaurant, and then Rich and I visited Parisa on ubc campus. Saturday, watched Just Like Heaven with Rich, Tak Ming, Holly (and company). Good chick flick. And Sunday, went to the driving range, and then took a long long walk along the waterfront in Steveston. It was exactly what I needed. Green Day concert tomorrow! September 13, 2005: Good things, bad things Choices is going well. Capers is taking their time to launch the product. But better to launch it well and slightly delayed. Trying to hold on to our current accounts. It's always insecure, but it's good to have many, so that if we lose any, it doesn't kill us. Went to the Vancouver Asian Film Festival last Saturday and big congratulations Emily on your first assistant directorial debut! Watched them film a few scenes for another film that Emily's doing, and my friend Rich is in also. Found out that Eileen, from Shad 04, is at UBC, so we hung out on Friday and Saturday. Made curry at Rich's place on Sunday. Church choir has been getting much better. We're sounding pretty good now. I have a dvd of my musical performance, and I'll send it to my parents as soon as I remember. I am sure they want to see my performance. Melody came up for the labour day weekend. Went to the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) on Sunday. My friend got me free tickets because she has a kiosk there selling lipstick. Met up with my former classmates Drew (from toronto), Lesley (from texas, soon to be boston), Angus, Steph, and Arpan (seattle) on Saturday of the long weekend. They came up to Lonsdale Quay. That was quite the pleasant surprise, although I would have been happier if they'd have stayed overnight in Vancouver. Next time. That's it. Sorry for the delay in posting. It's been a crazy two weeks. Oh, and Yollanda came up to Vancouver for a day. That was a fantastic surprise. Man. I think that made my week. I did write a new song. I don't have words to it yet. I haven't even done much deep thinking lately. I haven't done much thinking lately either. August 27, 2005: Good to go We got two of the big accounts - Capers and Choices, each with 5 or 6 stores. So I think we're good to continue until at least next spring. At which point, we'll have different milestones to hit. But if we couldn't get the big accounts, it might have been depressing to go through the winter. So good things happening. The next step will be moving up to the grocery chains that carry to other provinces, although that will happen after we really stabilize these bigger accounts. We also have some ideas of eatery type chains that might want to carry our products. So what are our options for growth right now? If this were a case study, what would you do? For us, first choice is to sell existing products to new customers (get new accounts with current salads). Next is sell new products to existing customer (so with our existing accounts, have them sell different products. We've started making inroads with this for the accounts that are doing really well with the product, since we now have credibility for quality). Third is sell more existing products to existing customers (increase same-store sales through marketing). And finally, sell new products to new customers (in other words, do a whole new product line targeted at a different customer, for example, a cold product for a bar and grill). Why this order? Mostly because it's the most readily available. Why bother doing a whole new product line for a new customer when we have existing accounts that we have credibility with? But maybe this isn't the best approach either. Maybe we're missing something completely... what do you think? Maybe what we thought were the "big fish" are really just small opportunities compared to something we haven't even thought of... and maybe never will think of. Email me your thoughts. August 15, 2005: Yollie. James. Matt. Melody. Bigger is better A whole string of visitors came to vancouver in the past 2 weeks. First was Yollie from Toronto. Then James for Washington DC. Then Matt from the Yukon. Then Melody, from heaven (and Seattle). It was an awesome two weeks, and every day after work, I was excited to do something cool with someone i don't get to see too often. We are inches away from getting the summer blockbuster big fish accounts. Let's do it! And orders are up all across the board. We're actually getting into more steady orders, so it's good in that we know they will reorder which means we can build production schedules and order materials more effectively and hire staff without having them sit around without anything to do. But it's not good in that we can't rely on increasing same-store sales to create growth. All in all, good things happening. The weather has been fantastic too. July 29, 2005: Stong's "We got the Stong's account." That's exactly what I said at 10:40 am this morning when I called Kosta. It's a very important account because it carries instant credibility - they're a well known brand in Vancouver (since 1931) and they have a reputation for high quality (high priced) food. Stong's was quick to snap up the product because Meinhardt carries our product and they're competitors. In fact, we made our first delivery to them 4 hours after I visited them. And we're on track to close our first "big fish" - big thanks to our Stong's account who is a few blocks away from some of these "big fish" stores. Wheeling and dealing, pitting grocery store against grocery store - that's what I've been doing. I have that luxury because we're the only ones who carry this product. When competitors come in (and believe me, they will), we'll be on the other end of the table and grocery stores will be pitting us against them. But until that day happens, I'm enjoying the moment. July 28, 2005: Gearing up for an august August, I think, will be the make it or break it month for the business. We will be closing deals on the mid-size accounts at that time. If we can't get those accounts, what chance is there of us growing much? Very critical. Matt Jodrey is coming down to vancouver on august 2nd. Looking forward to that. And Yollie is here right now. Not much else happening. Sales at every account is up up up. Our products are flying off the shelf and have been sold out in a matter of days. Bye for now. July 19, 2005: Bigger fish, Vince Fazari Bursary, What defines a *catch* We're going in for the big fish now. The big fish in vancouver, which is a single city, in a single province, in a single country, in our little continent, in this gargantuan world. So that still doesn't make us a good business, but if we can get these accounts, at least we're not a puny little business. Nester's re-ordered. That is a huge fricken relief. We can not lose that account because of their access to Surrey and Whistler. We were about 2 inches away from losing it. Thanks to everyone who helped out, and yes, there's a free meal in lonsdale quay waiting for you. I recently found out that there has been a Vince Fazari memorial bursary set up by his Acadia Shad alumni. Vince just has a way of staying real in any group of people that he meets. And in other news, a few of us over here have been struggling with the question of what makes a guy considered a *catch*... it's tough because you've got to admit some level of superficiality even to begin answering this question without getting incredulous looks from those who are calling your bluff. What makes a guy a catch. I posted this question on my forum. Say something. July 11, 2005: Weekend Not much happened this week. Got the ball started on some bigger things. Friday, went out for dinner at an italian restaurant called "Quattro" on West 4th with Therese and some friends. They went clubbing afterwards, but I was too tired, I had work the next day, and clubbing is too damn expensive. I sound so old now. Saturday, went to Greek Fest, had a gyro, and then watched a movie at Rich's place. Rich, you're gonna be alright. Sunday, choir was good. It was my first time I'd ever played guitar on my own, so that was cool. Then went to Kits beach and walked Therese's sister's dog. My friend, that was going to have a dim sum booth at Kits beach at the folk festival this summer, had to cancel because her dad's business went under and so she doesn't have a kitchen. I told her she should have contacted me because I probably could have figured out a way - maybe shipping all the stuff in frozen, or renting a restaurant kitchen for a day, or something. Oh well. Her loss. But I know she's really hurt about it. That's it for now. July 7, 2005: London Bombing Another terrorist strike, this time on London. There really are no good guys in this whole thing. Everybody is a victim. There are bad guys - both the g8 nations, and the terrorist organizations are bad guys, and you know what happens when you get too many bad guys needing limited resources? Fights break out. Both sides claim to be victims of those who don't believe in higher values such as freedom, divine power, democracy or dictatorship. Both sides claim to be victims of hatred. Both sides claim that they did absolutely nothing to deserve this ("we are just innocent people minding our own businesses"). Both sides want the world's sympathy. I've spent enough time on the playground to know this is little more than school yard politics, that neither side is an innocent victim, and that there are more primal motives (such as money, land, and resources) that are behind everything. It's not all about hatred. Because anyone who's spent enough time on a playground with two competing group knows that it takes two to tango. Click here to give your opinion on this post June 30, 2005: A little research So the sales blitz begins. Got my schedule cleared up alot. The product is selling pretty well at all the locations except Nester's, although they just put it out, and it's a pretty important account because they have branches in Whistler and Surrey. So I've been visiting the managers there often and I think I'm just on the brink of pissing them off. But if my advice makes them sell more, that's money for them. Business. They might hate me, but everyone benefits. I found out that this Italian import is selling at IGA Marketplace and god that stuff is terrible. Now, they just started carrying it one month ago, but we need to get in there before customers get turned off seafood salads forever. Deliveries yesterday. Going to see War of the Worlds today. Bye for now! June 28, 2005: Baby Photos My baby photos are now online. You can go visit them too. Melody keeps looking at them and so I said, "hey, if I'm THAT cute of a baby, then you can post them online...". So she did. At first, I was reluctant, but she got the better of me. I am quite cute, admittedly. Yes, quite a cute little baby. koochie koochie koochie... Sunday, saw Land of the Dead with Dennis. Awesome movie. Sunday, went to Gastown Jazz Fest with Ajay. It was pretty good... wasn't huge huge though. And walked around east hastings... scary stuff. Monday, did a delivery and went out to a Malaysian restaurant (Banana Leaf) with Rich and Dennis. And again, for Melody's sake (not mine... I SWEAR!), here is a link to my baby photos. June 26, 2005: Congratulations to Sean and Janet Martinez Congratulations to Sean and Janet Martinez who got married today in the Phillipines. Apparently they're having an amazing wedding and a great life awaits them. Sean is one of those guys that oozes success. In the way he carries himself, and in the things that he knows. That, and the fact that I know Sean and his family to be extraordinary people, and he's an engineering graduate with business degrees from Wharton and UCLA (MBA), and several years investment banking experience in California. I'm very proud to be his friend and I look forward to meeting his wife when they come back. Friday, did some deliveries, some sales calls, and then went to the Rodin exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was pretty cool. Met up with dennis for dinner at Hon's wonton house. Worked all day saturday, then watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Prettty good movie. Mass today. Exciting stuff in choir... we're doing really well. Went to the Jazz Festival in Gastown. And I'm about to meet up with Dennis for dinner. And that will conclude this weekened. June 24, 2005: hippies I was in north commercial drive today. It reminded me alot of the Annex in Toronto, which is a hip area to be in. I don't know... kinda cool in an escapist kinda way. A guy there from greenpeace wanted to talk to me. "Do you want to know more about our organization"... dogs, lots of dogs. Lots of small dogs. Garbage. Pot. I smelled pot everywhere. No wonder everyone's too lazy to pick up their garbage. A food co-operative - lots of canned products. Canned products in the summer!!! Like we live in a communist state or something. Dreadlocks. Pixie Cuts. Spiked wrist bands. Hemp store. Sex store. Pawn shop. This is getting suffocating. "Wanna buy a rug?". Pawns without a shop. Coffee in a shop. Caffe. Cappuccino. Espresso. The best damn java in town. pink hair. tattoos. Pre-tattered shoes. Smoke. Black Lips. faded signs. greenpeace. dot com. dot org. dot orgy. orgy orgy orgy. pinks and blues and army greens. honk honk honk honk honk!!!! "yeah yeah! I'll see ya next week!" "PEEEAAACCEEE OUTTTT BRRROOOTTHHHAA!!!" I know that company. Wait... I know THAT company too. Wait, I even know THAT company! They started here and now they're one of the largest coffee distributors in the area. And THESE guys were in the snobby ass magazine about the vancouver high life. Homeless guy. No one cares. No justice here. Hypocrites. Goddam hypocrites! fat balding white man with a wrinkled tie... You're a relief. You are a saint. You are my only limb left among these chamelion rats. I take off my hat to you. Salute you. May you be blessed with many legitimate non-step children. I eventually made it back to my car. Unscathed, though slightly stoned from inhaling all that numbing gas called marijuana. Pot... sometimes it makes your mind stick. It makes you hypocritical. It makes you horny. It makes you think the world revolves around whatever axis you choose. Goddam hippies. hypies. hypsies. gypsies. June 20, 2005: getting to know you If you received an email from me called "getting to know you better" or something like that, which is basically a survey asking superficial questions, I'd love to get it back from you. All the responses I've received so far, I've read, and I think it's gotten passed to even more people. Anyways, send it back if you can (filled out, preferably). June 19, 2005: Melody et Dennis Had a nice weekend. Dennis Yang from Waterloo came up on Wednesday, so I met up with him and Therese at White Spot for dinner. Then went to see Batman Begins, which was an awesome movie. Friday, hung out with Dennis at various malls... lots of talking and laughs. Then went out for Japanese food with Melody's parents. Saturday, worked all day... alll day... and then caught a bit of John's (Melody's brother) birthday party. Then went to Kam Do for dinner with Dennis and Cactus Club for drinks. Choir went really well today, I thought. We now have a bassist and a pianist. Met Ardee, Christina, and their daughter Nikki (sp?) from Joseph. It's nice to see them. I'm wondering when we're going to have a cast getogether although I've met some of the other cast members informally. Walked around Steveston with Melody and found a good restaurant called the Charthouse... really good prices too. It was, like, $9.95 for salmon souvlaki and eveyrthing. And then hot tea. That was my day. I'm at the library. Figuring out what to do with the rest of my day. It closes in 5 minutes!!!!! Bye. I don't want to lose this entry bc the computer shuts off... okay, now I'm really going to go...really... ADRENALINE FROM THE RUSH OF NOW KNOWING IF THE COMPUTER IS GOING TO SHUT OFF RIGHT AWAY!!! WHY AM I STILL RAMBLING!! ACK!! I COULD LOSE EVEYRTHING RIGHT NOW!!! BYE FOR REAL!!! BYEEEE!!! June 19, 2005: part deux (walking trail) So I went to look for a place to pick strawberries (yeah, I'm a hick). So I went to steveston which is right south of richmond. Lots of farmland. Anyways, found a place that I'll go to next week or something. Okay, and then I parked my car on really far south on No.3 road. And started hiking along a path called "south dyke trail". It was awesome. totally reminded me of the camino in the various terrains (dirt, pavement, hay etc.). It was about 90 minutes each way, and was right beside the fraser river. I crossed a little fishing town called "finn valley"... it was seriously like a little hick town that you'd see in Disneyworld or something. Little wooden houses built on the river, like almost in the river... boats beside the houses. tin barrels outside. It's actually a little community, and they're not registered citizens or anything, and they're petitioning that the city of richmond can't tear apart their community for residential building since they've been there for about a century. (The original family was "the finns"). Anyways, it was awesome to be in farmlands again. So refreshing. Remember that I grew up on an orchard, so to me that's who I am and where I belong. Life, as I said before, is a balance. When you're all the time in farmland, you think urban life is exciting. When you're all the time in the city, you need the fresh air. I don't think I've really seen farmland in a long time. Like, real real farmland. And not just driving by it, but walking in it. haaaaaaaaaa... that's me taking a deep deep breath. I actually now think alot about where I want to live, and I think I'd like to live near a farm, or near lots of woods. Of course, practicality will dictate where I live, but ideally... I wouldn't even mind commuting, but the thing is, there's places like that all around vancouver, and relatively not that far away from everything in terms of travelling time, because time wise, everything is far in vancouver because of the traffic. But living physically far away, you can still get from point a to a city in 15 minutes because of no traffic. And you can actually have a lawn. And a backyard. And the kids can play outside. And you can actually have a decent sized house. And expand it. Deep deep breath. I like this plan better. Anyways, the day reminded me alot of when I found a beautiful little town in nova scotia. Here's the entry. June 14, 2005: menus.ca Anyone remember my old website, menus.ca? back in the dotcom boom, I tried to jump onto the bandwagon, but about 18 months too late... anyways, I had the name menus.ca and built a site and enlisted about thirty restaurants in downtown Ottawa. It was pretty good. But I had to close it down because I went back to school, and the business environment for internet startups was about as hot as a night in michael jackson's bed with a five-year old. Here is menus.ca, in its original form. Now, it's just linked to my homepage. June 13, 2005: New pictures online I uploaded some pictures of octopus cooking, and other various activities that I've been up to in Vancouver. Here are the pictures! Not much happened over the weekend. Friday, did a delivery. Starting to get into the groove of this. Of course, as things always are, once you get into a groove, something shakes it all up. Which is what makes life interesting. Went to a club on granville called Caprice with Nat and some of her friends from ubc/dragon boating. Good club, good music, cool people, but I had to leave early because I had to work the next morning!!! Worked all day saturday, dead tired, and then went to an all-you-can-eat korean bbq on granville/14th called shabusen. Awesome awesome food. I was so stuffed afterwards, I could barely walk. Sunday was choir. We did pretty good except for one mess up during set-up when I referred to the congregation as "the audience". I think only the members of the choir noticed (they weren't too happy with my use of terminology), but hey, I'm still in performance mode. There's the stage, and there's the audience... you live and you learn. Walked around Steveston afterwards, went to an open house just because. Nice places around there. Alot of opportunity to cater to the Japanese tourists, but unfortunately, I think the traffic is very very seasonal (i.e. not much tourist traffic in the winter). I found out today that Screaming Mimi's was in the Ming Pao Daily newspaper (vancouver chinese newspaper). There's a picture of kosta and ronaye, and then a picture of me holding up a crab. I'll try to get a scanned copy of it if I can. I look like a dorcus. Good thing that crab never clawed me. That would have been a pretty good picture. I'll be working full 10 hour days for the next few days to cover for the high school students who have exams right now. To most office workers out there, 10 hour days doesn't seem too bad, eh? But I assure you, it can be brutal because it's mostly manual labour, and you're dead exhausted after even 5 hours. And unlike lab work, you can't randomly go, "okay I'm going to go surf the web for half an hour" (which usually ends up being 2-3 hours). Sometimes, I need to walk outside every 30 minutes just to clear my head. Everything's a balance. Once you've been doing too much sit-down work, you want to do more moving around work. But when you're doing too much moving around work, you want to do more sit-down work. Which is why when I leave at 7, but spend 3 hours on the computer, I don't feel that tired. Life is balance. My parents are out in Barbados right now on a cruise. I am 100% sure that my dad is playing bingo right now, or playing the slots. "Bingo Ming" was his nickname on the last cruise. That is all. June 10, 2005: Sing a new song Finished a new song yesterday. My pace is really slowing for song writing. Met up with _pdot and Steph on Tuesday for Japanese. Tried a baked oyster with bechamel miso sauce. I think it complicated the oyster a bit too much. The texture matched pretty well, but you lose quite a bit with so much stuff around it. We're going on another sales push. We figure that given that we have to do production anyways, may as well make a bigger order. Almost the same amount of time. Just more all at once. Rehearsal went well on Wednesday. Went out for drinks with Derek and Ria to Cactus Club. Went to Kosta's to fire off some rounds on an air pistol. We tied an apple to a rope and hung it in the air, then took turns firing away at it from about 25 ft. bang bang bang. I've got a fairly good shot, because I used to use air rifles when I was growing up (but this is the first time I'd used a semi-automatic hand rifle). That is my life in a nutshell. Now it's the weekend. Going clubbing tonight, although I have to come back early because I have work the next day. Next week, I'll be pulling some long shifts to cover for the high school guys who are on exam mode. And here's the lyrics to my new song: Older Boy Verse 1: He felt so wrong like he didn't belong with his feelings when she brought her boyfriend along and he felt her mistake was an obvious one that she knew she screwed up but just had to play on Refrain: And when she said it, he couldn't admit it, forget it, she let it go on without setting it straight she hadn't told him she's holding some older boy's coat when she strolled with him, told him go on and go on Verse 2: They talked from time to time on the phone he called up when he's drunk and the boyfriend's not home and they talked like they're friends that don't wanna go home til she mentions his name and he knows he's alone Verse 3: He since moved on, found a girl not too long ago soon they plan to move into his old room again Then that old girl calls up she just broke up she wants to meet up hook up, but he's got plans June 6, 2005: Rest In Peace Gio Gio passed away today. We thought he was going to pass away a few days ago, but he hung on. His last few hours were quiet and he died peacefully according to my mom and dad. He was a good dog and will be remembered for having the most cute head in the baby world. He was a good dog. Steph W from Shad 04 is in town now, so met up with her, Parisa, Billy Lin and Daniel Dent at Milestone's on Robson. Met up with Steph again today and walked around Jericho beach. Jericho beach turned out to be much nicer than Kitsilano and is much much longer and has a nice restaurant with a patio that faces the water that's open until 10 pm, so a perfect place to have a late-night fries and coke. But apparently they're strict about parking. I didn't get a ticket, but I was late by about 15 minutes. And back to Gio - baby boy shall be missed by his brother Coda, and his dear family. Rest in peace, mr. cute head. Rest in Peace. June 5, 2005: Third Account, Joseph, more Gabriel, David And our third account is Nester's in Yaletown. And that should pretty much keep us busy for awhile. Nester's has a branch in Whistler too, which we might hit up, just to say we're distributing to Whistler. Had a Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat reunion on Friday at Caesar's. What a great group! We're the big obnoxious group. The owner knows us there and is always worried because we take up tons of seats. Saturday, met up with Nat, Erin, Gabe and Joanne at the Richmond Night Market. Gabe and Joanne were pretty excited to see so many chinese people. Then we met up with Therese and David (her bf) and some of David's friends. I'd never actually met David before, but all I have to say is that it seems like everyone's boyfriend is called "David" and everyone calls them "Dave" except their girlfriends... who call them "David". I assume that Gabe's gf will call him "Gabriel", except his gf, who might call him "Gabe the Babe"... or maybe "Hot Gabe"... Gabe and Joanne pretended they couldn't speak english when they met Therese's friends. For the record, I encouraged them (THERE I said it) although the idea came about because Joanne was telling us about how she did that for 3 days to a new friend she'd just met. Although, I must say, baby-back-rib bubble tea ROCKS the house! Ciao. June 3, 2005: Second Account, Gabriel, Yollanda and Gay Marriage We got a second account. A fine foods store on Granville and 14th called Meinhardt's. I knew we were going to get that account. It's a smaller order than Duso's, but two different products. But it's an important account because it shows that the first account wasn't some fluke. So Gabe from Shad came into Vancouver this week for his friend's wedding. He stayed over at my empty apartment on Tuesday. Tuesday, went for dinner at a place called Inferno's with Nat from Shad. Then went for bubble tea with Erin and Kernby. Wednesday, choir practice and then met up with Gabe, Erin, Joanne (Gabe's sister), and their friend Grace at a dessert place. Thursday, went to Kosta's for wings, chops, pasta and beer. Then went to Erin's place to play poker. Yollanda has set a date for the wedding!!!! WOW! awwwww... ANYWAYS. I keep reading about these great young people from Engineers Without Borders (EWB) that are doing awesome things with their lives (the most recent is a Rhodes Scholar who's going to Uzbekistan). Man, EWB kicks butt. The two founders are part of the Top 40 under 40 list that the Globe and Mail publishes every year. They're sending out their biggest batch of interns this summer... 35 students. Canadians do care that much. Hopefully meeting up with some Joseph cast members tonight. Steph Wong from Shad 04 is coming to Vancouver, so hopefully meeting up with her and some other folks on Sunday. Parisa from Shad 04 is to be the next Shad Alumni Officer for BC!!!!!!!! If she decides to stay at UBC. I think she will. And finally, I've been having some interesting discusssions on my forum about Gay Marriage. Check it out!. May 29, 2005: Gio's health Gio's health is ailing and as of this time (4:16) he may be on his way out. I was thinking about how if this were a human we would say a prayer for him. Then I realized how ridiculous this sort of self serving prayer is. Someone is dying. We turn around and ask God to sustain his life. Is God going to suddenly say, "Oh, yes, that's a good point. Maybe I will sustain his life", or say, "Gio... Gio... oh I forgot to include him in my fountain of youth list". I often pray such self-serving prayers. But prayers shouldn't be self-serving, other than our need to feel satisfied for serving others, or our genuine happiness in celebrating God. Those are good forms of self-serving and prayers in these ways are good. But praying to keep Gio, or some human being, alive is questioning God's authority. So I can pray for Gio's soul. I can pray to keep him alive if I have enough faith, and he would stay alive, but only if that serves some greater purpose. We should only pray for things that serve God, and we can pray to avoid death if and only if it serves God. We can pray to get a job promotion, if and only if it serves God. We can pray for a hamburger for crying out loud if it serves God. And our prayers will only be answered if we are faithful. We can move mountains if we are faithful. Some people say to be careful of what you pray for. I really think that 99% of the prayers, God will say, "What the hell are you talking about?! First, you don't even really have faith, and secondly, why in the world would I do that?! You retard." Actually, he wouldn't call us retards, because the diasbled teach us that every life has value. Oh, I can tell my attention is ailing now, just like Gio's health. Weekend was good. Went to Earl's on Robson on Thursday for Cheryl Foo's bday, Richmond Night Market on Friday (Melody came back but we couldn't meet up), Floata Chinese Restaurant on Saturday, and I might go to the beach today. Bye for now. May 27, 2005: Fantastic Weather The weather is absolutely fantastic right now. Just so warm. I think it's over 30. I feel so good when it's so warm. I get so damn excited. Melody comes up this weekend. But I'll see her a total of 4 hours because she'll be staying with her parents. Yay for long distance. I met Craig/Hazen's (NS friends) little brother at Earl's yesterday. That was hilarious. He was like, "igor!"... anyways, he's a camp counsellor this summer, I invited him up to Lonsdale Quay. Gabe Chan is coming up to Vancouver next week. Totally excited. Melody is bringing up a spare mattress in case he needs a place to crash. Be prepared. Yeah, we'll be prepared... for what? For the death of the king! what, is he sick? no, you idiots, we're going to KILL him! yeah, who needs a king... NO KING NO KING LA LA LA LA LA LA... IDIOTS! THERE WILL BE A KING.. but you said... I WILL BE KING! STICK WITH ME AND... can you guess which movie that comes from? that was entiredly from memory. That's scary. There is no trait more attractive in a guy than someone who can recite disney scenes on cue. I saw these two people on a date yesterday at earl's who were on, what I believe, to be a blind date. Or a lavalife date. I suddenly appreciated so much NOT having to do that because it just seemed so stressful. I meet alot of people now, and honestly, 95% of them, I couldn't care less for. But now imagine, you're stuck, sitting across from them with no other distrations than your random, "yeah, that's totally a bad thing" type witty banter (followed by a *sip sip sip* on cocktail) that you have to pull off in fear that your date's mind will just totally wander off into a "I wish I was with that other hot guy" state of boredom. Which I saw a few times. Poor guy. Poor girl. I am so happy I don't have to do that. I know of a few people in vancouver now that are actively looking for boyfriends and girlfriends. Friends try set them up, and friends try keep them together. God forbid I ever have to do that. That's why god invented business. So that two people can go together, never meeting before, and fill in awkward silences with "hey, how can we make millions of dollars" and "do you think we're going to regret it when we're finally masters of the universe?"... you know... the usual stuff business people talk about at luncheons. May 23, 2005: Julian's promotion and my re-order Congratulations to my brother, Julian, for his promotion to MANager!!! (and the caps are mine) That was his five year target, and he hit it. It must feel so good to hit your goals. We got a re-order. That is more important than the first order because it proves that it is selling. So now we've secure one almost guaranteed source of orders (until we get outcompeted). That is important. It drives down costs and makes things more predictable. So we're on to our second sales push. Get that second account. That account will also be important because that will show that we can recreate our success. Then it's just a matter of continuing to rack up and keep accounts, and voila, that's what the wholesale food business is - a series of solid accounts, and the capacity to meet orders. Then we pass that onto someone else and my job here is done. If only. I mentioned a few weeks ago about a company called 'The hot chick spice company'. It turns out that it's one of my coworker's aunts. It was cool. This morning him and I made breakfast. He starts at 10am, but somehow I convinced him to come in at 9:15. He brought some eggs, I brought some bacon, we cut up some potates, rolled them in spices (in case you're wondering - garlic powder, onion flakes, dried basil/thyme, salt, pepper, oil, brown sugar). It was awesome. Layered on the ketchup and just sat down and chowed. Good times. Joseph is done. It was just awesome!!!!!!! I made so many new friends. I feel more part of the community now. Vancouver rocks. I'm the new guitarist in the church choir. Still trying to feel the groove. Oh, here's some pictures from Joseph. And I might do some busking next saturday on my break. Met a violinist last week, and I'm going to bring my guitar and we'll duet during my 30 minute break. And on another note: I was on cbc! See the clip! And in other news, Yollanda, one of the people I admire the most in all the world, came to Vancouver last week... we talked about all sorts of stuff. It's, like, 4 months of stuff all compressed into two outings. I'm going to Bryan's (her fiancee) groomsman at the wedding. WOW!!!!! May 11, 2005: Mother's Day In today's individualist obsessed world of careerism and consumerism, it's hard to be a mother. Mothers are devoted first and foremost to their family and not to their individual self. Their career is their home, and their consumerist spending are limited to the funds brought home by their working husband. In our world, mothers have lost their status, and along with it, the perceived importance of one of the greatest influences on society. The great people of this earth have studied different literature, seen different experiences, met different people, and fought different battles. Yet every single one had a mother. Their mothers influenced their thinking, their actions, their morals, and their ambitions. What went wrong? Where did we fail to show respect for our mothers except for one bloody day of the year, created by a greeting card company?!? Anyone who's known me for long enough knows this to be one of my greatest annoyances with today's society. Every able woman should have the opportunity to exercise her motherhood without the fear of persecution by the feminists, by their ambitious colleagues, and by the liberal media. So here's my tribute to mothers. A list of verbs to describe what mothers do on a daily basis. This is just not mother's day thing. This is something I have always believed in, 365 days a year: Care: Mothers care about their family. They watch over their health, over their spending, over their education, their leisure, their friends. They care for others. They care for their friends, for their communities, and they even care for people that they barely know. That's a mother for you. Sacrifice: Mothers sacrifice a life of vanity through careerism to instead ensure the well being of their families. Labour: Mothers never stop working. Even when the chores are done, mothers still have to be on call ready to spring to action when the kid wets his pants, needs a glass of water, had a bad dream - it's all the time. 24 hours a day. They cook, they clean, they pick up the kids, they drop them off, and then they pick them up again. They fight for the best for their family, especially for their children, and they will fight to the death. Only the best for their children. Worry: Mothers always worry. Even when they're fully grown adults, managing hundreds of workers and millions of dollars of capital, mothers still think that their babies might not be getting enough sleep, working too hard, starting to get sick, or worst of all - forgetting to eat breakfast. Mothers always worry about their family because if they don't, who else will? Love: Mothers always love their family. No matter what their family might say, do, think, and feel, a mother will always love them. No matter what criticism is brought upon them, the mother will always have hope for them because in her heart, they are still hers. She always cares for them, sacrifices, labours, worries, and loves. Is there any career in this entire planet more fulfilling than motherhood? A mother has no boss except for her conscience, no fighting for credit - in fact, her children always did it themselves even if she did 99% of the work -, no promotions except those she bestows upon herself, and no compensation except the satisfaction of leaving behind an army of children to continue her legacy. And yet we have managed to take all of it for granted, the way we are blinded to air except when we gasp for air. To all the mothers that can say they've spent their lives caring, sacrificing, labouring, worrying, and loving other human beings as your livelihood - you are what keeps the world afloat. May 2, 2005: Excellent concerts Had an excellent Saturday and Sunday concerts. Melody and 9 other members of her family, Kosta and Ronaye, Therese and Emily. We went to Caesar's afterwards and had lots of non-alcoholic drinks. The staff there knows me now because I've gone there a few times. I had my birthday yesterday. All I got for my birthday was a cake from the Joseph Cast, but that was enough. I generally keep my birthday pretty much under wraps. Watched a documentary on enron (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) and had pasta carbonara, same thing I had last year. April 29, 2005: Opening Night and First Production run Opening Night was awesome. That is the magic of theatre. Opening night. Just hearing the music pounding out loud, and you're sitting backstage thinking, "This is not rehearsal. We've done this a million and one times in practice, but this is not practice anymore... oh my goodness!" You run out on stage and there's four hundred people staring at you and the lights are pounding into your eyes. Feet clattering across the stage. You are so acutely aware of every sound and visual detail. Your first note comes out just as it did in rehearsal. Everyone looks the same, but now we're drenching in strobe lights, filled with a rumbling bass line. It was awesome. The cast and crew is so awesome. They are all so into it. We sold all two thousand, four hundred tickets! We're opening up 22 more seats per show (we're able to fit in a few more chairs by distributing the seating better). Anyways, the tickets are only available through cast and crew members so contact me if you need them. Thanks to everyone who came to opening night. We did our first production run and did the delivery yesterday to Granville Island. Everything ran very smoothly. It was pretty scary to see how much seafood we got delivered. But it's awesome. Maybe we'll try to get another account. Who knows? Or run with this account for a little bit. I'm getting excited to do more, though. Go for the jugular! They'll be displaying the product this weekend. April 22, 2005: First Account!!!!!! YES!!!!! We got an account with an italian company that does pastas, sauces, and have a pretty extensive disribution network within Vancouver. But our account is only for their retail outlet in Granville Island, but it's a good start. Very good start. It feels good to have something that's a real business. We'll probably stick with this one account for a while until we're really solid on production. Something real. Went to eat Vancouver, which is a food show and I saw Rob Feenie and Bob Blumer. Was pretty cool, and saw some pretty cool products. Check out www.hotchickspicecompany.com. That's it. All-day Joseph marathon on Sunday. From pre-breakfast to post-dinner. We're getting pizza for dinner. April 17, 2005: Sales is a going. Joseph is a going. Waterloo Pick up lines Sales is tough, but trying to get something going. Did a few visits already. Interesting game out there. In the past two weeks, I met up with Therese's brother Sean and Rich (Waterloo friend)at Earl's to talk about business and just shoot the poop. He might be going into the food business too... it's people like him that go into food business that make the playing field so difficult. Joseph is going but it's getting tiring because of all the dancing. At the end of the scenes, I can actually feel myself panting for breath, unable to finish singing without the necessary air to bleed through my throbbing lungs. Four concerts are sold out. Only a few left for opening night and the second Thursday. Saw Sin City last week with Therese and Cheryl (who Melody knows through high school). Kickass film. Went to Kosta's place for some lamb chops and I brought some Spanish red wine that didn't end up tasting anything like the wine we had in Spain. Oh well... Hot pot last night with Melody then went to one of my favorite coffee places in vancouver called "La Cuisson" in Richmond. It's all served in such nice bone China, and the price is pretty good too. Had crab for dinner with Melody's family two nights ago. And had drinks with a guy who supplies fresh curries to Whole Foods Grocery Store in West Vancouver... Here's his website Just posted an article on Waterloo Pickup Lines that I recorded. Pretty pathetic... judge for yourself... Click here to read the pickup liness Click here to post and views comments on the pickup lines April 4, 2005: Back on track Alright. Back on track. Going to do another sales push in the next few weeks. Joseph is really getting good. Two concerts are SOLD OUT! man... claziness. We're looking much better too. Exciting stuff happening. Oil prices are booming high right now. OPEC says they're going to see if they can increase output. I actually don't get it. They're a cartel. Doesn't that automatically imply that they're undersupplying? Do they really have to see what they can do? I guess on an environmental scale it's good because it creates opportunities for alternative energy sources and energy reduction habits. But on my personal scale... oh man, I can't afford this. I'm sure all those SUV owners out there are prettttty unhappy about their investment right now. Over a dollar a litre, and talk now of some super spike - crude might go over $100/barrel (it's in the mid fifties right now). Stupid OPEC. Yeah, they'll see what they can do. I bet. March 29, 2005: The Waterloo Spirit There is a waterloo spirit in engineering, and you can only appreciate it if you work in the absence of waterloo engineers. Because when you're on campus, everyone is like that. So you start to think that's just how university students are. But not everyone is like that. In fact, most people aren't like that. Waterloo people think the whole world is like that because their co-workers are mainly fellow alumni. But over the last 3 months, I've worked without engineers, especially of the waterloo variety, and only today did I actually appreciate it. What is this spirit? It's a mentality that you can do anything. Not because of your education, but something more intangible than that. It's just because you are you. It's about never being content with what you're at if someone is above you. It's about knowing that anything can be done (especially technologically). It's about no one being able to do something that you can't eventually learn. Did you realize that 99% of the population doesn't think that way?!? This is news to alot of you out there. I've been working with the more conservative type of people and there is a huge difference. Common wisdom on innovation: "Don't invent a new product. Let someone else do the groundwork. Always be the second" Waterloo wisdom on innovation: "First movers advantage is everything!" Common wisdom on entrepreneurship: "Go into established industries. Compete mainly on quality and capacity. And go into businesses that you know well" Waterloo wisdom on entrepreneurship: "New industries are exciting and sexy. You can learn everything on the fly and then can sell the business for millions of dollars after a few years! " Common wisdom on ladders: "Make manager before you're 40" Waterloo wisdom on ladders: "Make manager before your classmate makes manager!" Common wisdom on building a business: "Save up money. Build it one customer at a time" Waterloo wisdom on ladders: "Somehow money will come. Somehow..." And the Waterloo spirit sometimes works. Prem, a friend of mine, is getting lots of interest from casino managers for his product (www.tangamgaming.com) and Kev, from the class above me, is also kicking some butt (www.nulogy.com). And here in Vancouver, tons of the conservative types are kicking butt too (considering it's mostly conservative types). It was actually like a big flashback meeting a waterloo alumnus today (class of '91). Highly driven, killer-instinct kinda guy. It reminded me about my last 5 years... the good, the bad... and the ugly... yes... the very ugly... yuck yuck yuck! and slimey and gooey, but slightly crunchy on the inside. Like peanut butter. Worked most of the weekend. Went to Caesar's with Melody on Friday. Hadn't seen her in a long time so that was awesome. I miss red wine too. Went for dinner with Melody's family on Saturday. Good conversation but not enough jamming with John. Comme toujours. IHOP and then a good walk with melody on sunday. Worked on an essay about Nazism (just for this website), which I'll post after a few more reviews. Sorry, I have to be careful with this one. Monday, watched the movie "Raise the Red Lantern" with therese... it was an awesome awesome movie about a fourth mistress to some rich guy set in 1920 China. Some of the themes included objectification of women (obviously), the absurdity of life (existentialism), ghosts, insanity, capital punishment, psychological control. You should watch it. Kosta came back from Japan today and I got a bottle of sake. I am pretty stoked to get moving again (and drink the sake). That's all. March 22, 2005: A criticism of socialism I am very excited about this newest article. I know many of you on here are socialist, and one is communist (even though I don't think he actually comes on here). So you may be offended by it a little bit. Please read it with an open mind. Here is the article Here is where you can post your opinions March 21, 2005: Daaaaaaancing! 0 I suck at dancing. I'm not bad, but I can never remember the stupid steps, the sequence. But we're doing crazy amounts of dancing. That's all we're doing for Joseph right now. Just dancing. I wish we could go back to singing. Or maybe if it was just a choir production of Joseph, and we just sit and sing on steps. Much easier. Much less effort. And much less embarassing. Tickets are half sold already! That's 6 shows... so ticket sales are doing pretty well. And if we still have some left, we're doing a gig at Richmond Center on Sat. Apr. 23rd, I think, near the food court. I totally want in on that, but I might be working. Whoops... sorry, I'll try to get you tickets asap. Please contact me to remind me. I want to get you the tickets you want. $15 adult, $12 student. Yee haw. Had a whole day off on Friday but I had some phone calls to make, sipped on coffee, played guitar, went to the library, made a nice dinner... that was it. What a good day. Worked Saturday, Rich and Justine came to Lonsdale but we only met briefly cuz I'd gotten off work already, and then went out with Therese et al for coffee at Blenz, walked around Robson, dinner at a Japanese noodle house, then saw Robots (which was awesome, even though I never heard of it... I live in a bubble... a bubble of love). On the way home, we saw a bust or something (police cars popping out of nowhere). That was weird. Sunday I had a Joseph dance marathon (a marathon of love), and then pizza afterwards, which was fun because we got an underage guy drunk. What can you expect from a rowdy group of Catholic Choir Adults... okay, I guess it's kind of weird. That's it. March 16, 2005: Spongebob Squarepants I watched spongebob squarepants the movie last night and while there wasn't much of a plot (well, maybe kinda), there were some hilarious moments. All day today, I kept repeating quotes from it and then laughing. Here's a few scenes... Evil Plankton: I've tried every plan in the book, from a to y! and nothing worked! from a to Y! ALL THE WAY TO Y! Y! Sidekick: What about plan Z? Evil Plankton: plan Z... plan z... plan z... w,x,y...Z? Oh my god! I forgot plan Z! (whips out plan Z) OH! IT'S BRILLIANT! I like plan Z (king neptune attacks crabbie who's been framed for stealing his crown) King Neptune: YOU! YOU STOLE MY CROWN!!! Crab: No, I didn't! King Neptune: YES YOU DID! YOU ALMOST GOT AWAY FROM IT EXCEPT FOR ONE PIECE OF KEY EVIDENCE THAT YOU LEFT BEHIND! (holds up a roll of paper). EXCEPT THIS ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE! (opens paper and it says in bad handwriting, "Dear King Neptune, I stole your crown. Signed, Crab". Crab: that wasn't me! Sorry... one more... King Neptune: And you think you can stall me? Mindy (played by Scarlett Johannsen apparently): Well, I don't know... King Nepture: How exactly do you plan to stall me? Mindy: I don't know. But I'm not stalling you... King Nepture: It won't work. You could never stall me... (changes scene and then comes back 5 minutes later) Mindy: I'm... not... trying... to... stall... you... King Neptune: Yes... you... ARE trying to stall me oh yeah one more scene: (spongbob and sidekick starfish are about to cross the county line) Gasboys: You'll never last in your car 10 seconds into this land... Spongebob: Yes we can, come on starfish... (they walk past the county line. Immediately, two guys on motorcycles come by, beat them up and steal their car...) Vrrroooommm... Spongebob and starfish are silent They look at each other... starfish: How long was that... gasboys: uhhhh... 12 seconds... spongebob and starfish: IN YOUR FACE!!! HAHAHA! YOU SAID 10 SECONDS! HOTDIGGITY! We proved you wrong... (scene cuts to them all tired walking slowing and dying, but still celebrating how they proved them wrong). Other good scenes include them trying to weed the kids who've infiltrated a bar, so they play kiddie music and watch everyone's mouths to see if they can resist singing. And riding on David Hasselhoff's back... haha, oh and spongebob and starfish being tricked into thinking they grew mustaches bc they had weeds stuck to their noses. ahhhh... March 13, 2005: The villainization of liberals and conservatives So there's a little section of a street in vancouver that is very famous - apparently it's the most filmed street in all of Canada. Why is it famous? Because of all the heroine junkies. I feel bad using that word, but that's how you describe these people. 'junk', because they are dressed and walk like junk. 'ies', because as a society, they are part of some indiscriminate mass of almost worthlessness. This was the bottom of Vancouver. Therese and I went there on Friday. It was crazy. A whole different world. Masses of zombies, dangling about in their own universes. Reality heaped upon reality intersecting other's twilight zones only when they physically bump into one another. And the real phenomenon, I think, is that not one street down are ritzy stores selling expensive handbags and cookware. It is truly something else. Then I talked to a friend today who's father was totally against tax money going to help these people. As you might expect, he's also against animal rights activists, gay marriage... yes, a conservative type. Heroine junkies don't need help, it's better a monkey dies than a human, and gay marriage will lead to humans screwing monkeys. Everything you don't want to hear at a university. As far as he's considered, animal activists and the sort are just "stupid young kids who haven't grown up". University students tend to hate all that is conservatives, because they are "ruiners of our world, who have grown up". On both sides of the tables, there are horrible propoganda depicting them in exaggerated caricatures lined with anecdotes of injustice. Neither side can take the other side seriously. University students think conservative types are just out for money and absolutely nothing else, and conservative types think that university students are troublemakes, out to make a fuss about absolutely anything, with or without reason. It's not just perception. Both sides are pissed. Conservatives are pissed because years of research, and millions of dollars of hard earned money have been destroyed by dubious causes. And students are pissed because people at the bottom of the foodchains suffer injustice. There will likely never be any agreement between them until they realize that the other party isn't irrational. That's my rant about how neither party is portrayed accurately to the other party. Saturday, worked most of the day, went out for dinner with Therese, Emily, and some of her friends at a nice bistro called "aurora". I had rissotto and fried oysters which were both very well prepared. And then we took a walk along English Bay beach at night, which was beautiful. Apparently they've never heard me so quiet. Then went for tea at a tea lounge called "infuze". The ambience was really hip and I had a lavender tea which was awesome. Joseph rehearsal. Dancing... oh, I get so tired dancing. And we hired the same band that did the Donny Osmond production!!! How cool is friggin that! So they're super good, obviously. Pressure on me... I don't want them to say to me afterwards,"ooohhh... could you, like, sing better. We're having a hard time performing." March 11, 2005: Nothing big happened Yes. This was a week of nothing big. It's scary. Sales efforts are frozen for a few more weeks. I'm dying o' anxiety. Made rissotto this week. aaaahhh... so good. Went to Kosta's place on Wednesday for smelts, buffalo burger and beer. Went to a food show with Kosta on Monday at BC Place. It was fun, lots of exhibitors, but nothing concrete came out of it. Not that we actually thought it would. Read a book on capitalism and I borrowed Plato's "The Republic". Melody has to put up with me talking politics now. When my brain is not focused on business it forces itself to focus on other things. Like politics and economics. My baby brain hates to be idle. March 6, 2005: Les Miserables I saw the Crofton Production of les miserables with Melody, Cheryl, Merrily, and John. Kudos to Madame Thenardier and Javert. Had lobster on Friday, courtesty of Kosta. Delicious. Merci beaucoup. Joseph rehearsal today. I was thinking of one of the downfalls of capitalism and market pricing is that, who looks after the people who can't contribute to society? Maybe they're mentally unable to be hired, maybe they're physically disabled, maybe they're old... should the state look after them? Should they get paid a wage where they don't do anything to help society. This is where capitalism falls short. If one day I lose both of my arms, should I be forced to sit on a treadmill bicycle and generate electricity in order to justify an income from the state? Food for thought... who looks after the disabled people? In a purely capitalist state, shouldn't people who can't contribute to society be given no money? Talk about it on my forum In other news, I wrote a new song! Sing a new song unto the world. First time in awhile that I've sat down for songwriting. My Own Again Verse 1: "I've got to leave by tow" she says without a bargain "Gotta catch my ride back to my town" I had to hear it once again And suddenly my world has changed around me, stopped entirely I'm on my own again, don't wanna Prechorus: be here alone, don't wanna eat here, the cold gets me so angry I don't wanna even leave my place again Chorus give me one more hour and I'd take you out for coffee for that time give me one more day and I'd spend it playing games with you inside Verse 2: I'm getting tired of all this boiuncing, it's like wine inside your head it's got me thinking I've done something wrong, I don't know what though incessant pounding at my door, anticipating you'd be there But I'm on my own again March 3, 2005: Self-righteous development work I was going through pictures of some overseas volunteers in Africa today, and something really annoyed me. I don't know this guy, he's more or less a stranger (I may have met him once). So there were pictures of him, and the people he was helping, but there was something so superior about the volunteer there. The volunteer was smiling bright, but had his arms around the local guy's shoulder. He was standing big and tall, staring directly and intently into the camera, while the local was leaning on a faming tool, staring at something on the ground. Argh! Why is he so superior?! Where is he getting this ego? I know his intentions are right, and I'm sure that his work is helping this old farmer, but it just seemed like he felt so friggin superior. Way too cocky. Because he was born in a rich Canadian family gives him this right to feel superior? And the farmer seemed too submissive, when it should be the other way around. The farmer knows his land better than the volunteer, and the volunteer should be the humble one. The volunteer is the farmer's humble servant. And the farmer is the grateful recipient of the volunteer's hard work. Friggin self righteous rich-born volunteers who will go home and shower their walls with awards and scholarships. I hope this is just my interpretation of the picture and not the way it actually was (or is, I don't know). March 2, 2005: Capitalism Well, seeing that sales pressure is on hold for a little bit, I've had time to think about things for a bit. Particularly capitalism and some of the concerns that people have about it. The association of capitalism with a free for all orgy. Anarchy. What?! I don't know... anyways, I've tried to defend capitalism the best I could on my forum. See, for instance, Does Capitalism Imply No Taxes. Went out for dinner with Rich on Tuesday to a diner style restaurant called Normandy. Something you'd see in NS. And congratulations to Parisa for getting into UBC. She always worried about not getting in anywhere... the smarties in my class never worried about that, but I guess spaces in universities are filling up faster than before. Or parisa just worries. I put a link to her website from here so all the pervs from my website can slime over to hers. So slime away my perverted friends! SLIME AWAY... MUWAHAHAHA! February 28, 2005: Hold on there, horsie! So it looks like, due to poor circumstances and unfortunate events, our sales efforts will be on hold for another 3-4 weeks. Well, hey, what can ya do? We didn't get any sales yet anyways. In the meantime, we'll refine what we have right now, but how I longed for something more tangible. But what keeps me going... the fact that I have faith that this will work out... why? I don't know. I can't pinpoint it, but I know it will. Suddenly, I'm doubting myself. I'm thinking to myself, right now, "Well, hmm... if it doesn't, then what do I do next?"... okay, so that was a glimpse into how I think on a daily basis. That roller coaster ride of "thumbs up", to "one thumb up, one thumb down" happens about 3 times a day. I can't be "two thumbs down", otherwise I wouldn't be here right now. But if I ever seem emotionally exhausted, it's because of that. I don't know... things will be not bad. NO THEY WON'T! THEY'LL BE AWESOME! GIDDDDDY UP HORSIE... okay that was an exaggeration. So the weekened went well. I saw the Vagina monologues with mdot, Therese, and Emily. Great play, I loved every monologue except one. It's a very feminist play. Went to the Bread Garden afterwards for some mac and cheese (seriously!). Friday, met up with Mdot for tapas and brew on Friday night at a bar in New Westminster. I gave French lessons to a Japanese lady on Friday, which is weird, because I just turned down an opportunity to tutor. But when you do this for free, they work on your schedule which is niiiiiice bc I can't be bothered to add more scheduling to my life. February 25, 2005: Guy and Girl humour When something is funny for a guy, they can fixated on it. They say it once, then repeat over and over again, and each time, it's funny. That's why guys always re-enact funny scenes from movies, and they do it more than once. Girls, on the other hand, laugh once and that's it, but they're more like, "Yes, it was funny the first time. And it's funny with a professional actor. Not you" kind of attitude. I just noticed that the other day. That's not entirely true, but the whole re-enacting, retelling and finding it funnier each time thing is definitely a guy thing. Want to hear more differences? I put a list on my forum: Are we compatible?. So what happened this week? Not much. Working on some possible sales. Oh, and congratulations to Therese for not getting just one but TWO job offers! Go Go Go Therese you know what they say... hang on now therese you'll make it some day... sha lah lah T dot, you're doing fine. You and your dreamcoat ahead of your time. Went for dinner at a Malaysian restaurant (Banana Leaf) with Rich on Wednesday. It was really good price for the food. Got my car serviced today for FREE... wow... that's cool... I guess the first one is free. I was ready to fork out $54. My Joseph part is going well. And tried a wonderful coffee today while waiting for my car. It was using a Syphon method, which boils the water with a flame, lets it steep, and then as the vessel below it cools, it sucks it downward for a perfect brew. I had a blue mountain blend (I guess pure blue mountain would cost too much) and it came to $4.85... but served in a fancy china cup and saucer, and the decor in the place was pretty nice too. Most expensive coffee I've ever had, but well worth it. Anytime I do something that I'll remember two years down the road, is another layer to add to the experience that helps to comprise who I am. I'll remember this place. I hope it does well (it's only been opened for 4 months). And I'll be seeing a very good friend today (M dot). And I've been helping a friend make some sales doing custom made cards. C'est tout! Bon weekend! February 20, 2005: Weather Man, the weather has been great. What a change since January. Is it winter? Every day, double digits and sunny. I am almost cured from the horrible January weather which caused me to have Seasonal Affective Disorder... We'll see what this week brings. So I got the part of a gay French man in Joseph. But that's the part that I wanted (seriously! Not because it's a gay frenchman, but because it's a pretty neat part). I would like to be a better actor. One of those talents that I can do, but not well. So last week, went to a photography show with Therese and her friend Emily. They're turning out to be my bridge into the more artistic things in Vancouver. No developments in business to report. Hung out at Kosta's house on Saturday, ate amazing buffalo steaks. When done right, it's just buttery and it looked really lean, and I'm a scared of a cookin a lean meat. Watched "Hitch" last night... SO good... first time I'd been to the New West cinema in a long time, but I just felt like watching a movie. Oh yeah, went to Melody's Place on Monday. Brought a nice cake and talked for a while with her parents. So, performance dates for Joseph: Thursday (8pm), Saturday (8pm), Sunday (3pm) - Apr.28, Apr.30, May 1 Thursday (8pm), Saturday (8pm), Sunday (3pm) - May.5, May 7, May 8 Call or email me for tickets. February 13, 2005: Valentine's Weekend Orchids: $x Dinner at the Wedgewood Hotel: $1xx Two tickets to the ballet: $1xx Tapas and drinks on Granville: $20 Knowing your minimum wage boyfriend still has class:...priceless There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Mastercard. February 8, 2005: Hay-Pee New Year Gong Xi Fa Chai! Weather has been great in Vancouver the last couple of days. Had a good weekend. Went to a musical version of Crime and Punishment at the Roundhouse on Saturday with Therese and her friend Emily. Then went to a Foundation (vegetarian bar) and ate a sandy tasting veggie burger. I don't see why they don't just broil a portobello or something. Sunday was Joseph rehearsal, then went for dinner with Therese and our mutual friend Dave Lee (who I'd met up with earlier in the year). We had a discussion about how important it was for a guy to drive a nice car... here, I'll post it on my forum. Your Opinion Matters - Reply to this topic on My ForumTell me what you think. Went for New Year's dinner with Rich at Golden Something, good food, and then dropped by Melody's parent's place with chocolates. Today went to Ash Wednesday service and saw two of my fellow Joseph cast members leading the choir. Cool. There's a lady who comes into the deli about 3 times a week. A little small lady, very old, but she always dresses very nicely, with full makeup. She orders a small meal, always with a smile and always very nicely, and then waits so patiently. There is nothing idiosyncratic about her, in particular, if that's what you're waiting for, but that's what's so intriguing. Just an old lady, but I am so intrigued by her past life. What was she like? She must have been pretty. I gather that by her attention to her dress. She must have had alot of friends, I gather that by her mannerism and her charm. But perhaps she's lonely now, and a part of me wants to innocently flirt with her, just to make her feel young again. Just a teasing kind of flirt. I give her her food, and then she takes the money, slowly puts it into her purse, and then takes the food, and then looks up, pauses, and says, "thank you..." What are her aspirations? What are her dreams? Seven hours behind a stall will make you wonder many things you wouldn't have ever cared about before. February 7, 2005: The Camel and the Eye of the Needle Here's what I kept thinking today: Is it true that it's harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than a rich person to go to heaven? I'll give you a scenario: you own a large factory and you have achieved a certain level of luxury. However, your industry is highly competitive and in order to stay in business, you have to exploit your workers (whatever your definition of "exploitation" is). Failure to do so will result in almost certain failure with your current clients who would switch to the lower priced competitors. If you want to be ethical, you have to give up your luxuries! This is not a far cry from the decisions that many Canadian businesspeople face. Why am I thinking this? Partially because I was watching a documentary the other day on Wal-Mart. They face that exact question. Can we blame these execs for their unethical labour and trade practices, when it's been stated very clearly that it's harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to go to heaven. Adherence to ethical practices puts them at a risk of being trampled by K-Mart and Target. Should we be that tough on these executives, really, or should we understand that they are, really, no different than you and I, in that we have all failed to give up all of our possessions and follow god? Your Opinion Matters - Reply to this topic on My Forum February 4, 2005: No fish yet No deals closed yet. Patience, my young grasshopper, patience. Met up with Rich on Wednesday for dinner at a Persian Restaurant downtown. It was okay, but I think it was just reheated. I talk to a Persian lady at Lonsdale, who was like, "oh, no you HAVE to eat at a good Persian restaurant" and wrote down a few dishes in persian and told me to order at a *real* persian restaurant. haha. I've been eating alot of Greek food, because there's a nice greek stall at Lonsdale, so I've been progressively going through their menu. From what I'm gathering, they like to go for the tender textures, more pronounced flavours (cumin, oregano), not too sweet, and olives. Always olives. Joseph rehearsals. STILL don't know what my part will be :P Internet seems to be more consistent at home. Argh, and no friggin composition. I can't compose anything anymore. Or I don't bother to. It's not writer's block. It's writer's inertia. c tout. au revoir. January 30, 2005: Weekend was good Had a good weekend! I took Friday off. So I met up with Cheryl and Merrily (Melody's sisters) on UBC campus in the morning. Had coffee, they had lunch, and caught up on life and chit chatted. Then met up with Nick Schofield (High School Friend) and went to Granville Island. Damn those seagulls! Swooping down and eating my food. Got a haircut (boy do I look good), then met up with codename M for dinner at a Greek restaurant in New West. Worked Saturday, went out with codename E for coffee at Starbucks, then met up with Erin (Melody's friend and fellow Spain hiker) for a stop that was much too short. We could have talked much longer. In fact, we've talked for pretty much one month straight, minus sleeping, so 30 minutes was WAY too short. Okay, then met up with Kristen Cudmore (high school friend), her bf, Mike, Nick Schofied (high school friend), and their friend Trudy, who knows my sister. We went for all-you-can-eat sushi on granville and 61st. We laughed so hard for about 2 hours straight. A picture is up in My Pictures in the Vancouver folder. Good times. Sunday, went to Joseph rehearsal, went for bubble tea with Therese (McGill friend) and had Japanese Green Tea slushie... they'll make slushies out of anything nowadays. And finished up some stuff for business, and now it's bed time because I'm waking up in 6.5 hours. January 25, 2005: Bowling Friday night, Melody came back and we ate at that new chinese restaurant in Richmond Center. Then on Saturday, we ate at Sammy Peppers (delicious cold beer!), and then went bowling. I suck so badly. Especially after I lose my concentration. Sunday I had Joseph Rehearsal. Oh yeah, for those of you that don't know, I'm going to be in the musical of Joseph and The Amazing Technocolor Dreamcoat. I'm going to be one of the brothers, I don't know which one yet. Sunday night, went for dinner with Louis (McGill friend) and Therese (McGill friend) and went to Yaletown Brewery (excellent beer) and then to Death By Chocolate, where they dimmed the lights on us again, and suddenly I felt Louis looking at my chest voraciously. Thanks Therese for reminding us that we're not gay. And it wouldn't quite be a good weekend without some personal problems, which have since escalated, yet for me, it has escalated to the point of "i give up! it makes no difference in the end. it is all so absurd". I am an existentialist yet again. Nothing happened on Monday. I realized one kind of sad thing, though. When we are young, we think we can do anything if we put our mind to it. That what we were told. But I see certain people that have finally realized their limitations, and to avoid facing that reality, they play the lottery. I overheard a guy talking about how the lottery was up to $x million this week. I feel kind of bad, because the lottery is their antidote to facing the reality that they are limited in life. It's their glimmer of hope for a extravagent lifestyle because what's within their own control has since deteriorated to what their boss dictates. January 22, 2005: Car! I'm actually writing this on January 25th, because I erased my January 22nd entry. Anyways, met up with Rich (Waterloo friend) and Parisa (Shad '04) for dinner one of those nights. Got my car towed. Damn. Met up with Adam (Waterloo friend) the next day... left my keys in my car. Damn! That's it. Loan situation looks good. Damn, I can't remember what else I did. That's why I need a journal. Oh yeah, it rained all week and it's really getting to me. Things are going well, but I can't feel good at all. It's an actual disorder, called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and I think I'm suffering from it. January 14, 2005: Casino Went for dinner with Rich on Wednesday. He drives a nniiiiccee car. Then went to the casino, played some poker (I lost $10). One thing I hate is when in a restaurant they dim the lights... I'm sitting there with Rich, just talking, chilling like the guys that we are, and suddenly the lights dim and it's all romantic. So I brush back my hair, he licks his fingers, and I feel his foot jingling the coins in my pockets. I'm kidding, but you know what I mean? Then I looked around, and everyone in the restaurant was either friends or families. Why do they need to make it a romantic getaway? January 12, 2005: I am a big, black loner Wow, has it really been a week since I got back?! Anyways, alot has happened. Working retail is okay, but I guess I can't be a chooser right now. We might have a pretty nice deal coming, which would be very exciting depending on the terms of it all. I'm finally closing in on a business loan, although I won't really be needing it since my business partner has most of the equipment etc. I've actually moved out of the catering place. Sorry I'm talking in such vague language. I went out with Therese (McGill friend) on Tuesday to an architecture lecture and then to Vineyards on West 4th. West 4th has some really hip places. See, since I haven't gone out alot, I didn't even know that. But now I do. Then I met up with Nat (friend from Shad '98) for lunch on Sunday and then went to the Japanese dollar store. And I was a loner every other day, though honestly, I think this week was pretty good in terms of going out. But Melody comes back on Friday. Oh, no, I wasn't a loner- I went to a Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat rehearsal... no wait - during break time, I pretend to practice my part so no one would disturb me, haha... which, I guess, makes me a loner. I bet they're all thinking "why is that Chris guy so stand off-ish". When I lived in rez at Waterloo, the student council made that one of their items on their agenda, because I, apparently wasn't being part of the community. I'm not kidding. January 5, 2005: Shucking Oysters I may find myself shucking oysters in a few days to help make ends meet while the business is still in a state of limbo. Such is the life of the entrepreneur. Sucky is the life of the entrepreneur. Shucking is the life of this entrepreneur. However, things are moving forward with the business. A partnership agreement is coming to some sort of concreteness, and a real business is beginning to emerge from the ashes like a Phoenix. January 4, 2005: Back to Vancouver tomorrow And back for round 2 in the business. I've been getting anxious to get this going again. And my friend Rich will be there working full-time, so I'll have yet another friend in Vancouver. Yet another friend who I won't hang out with. No no, I'm going to make a conscious effort this term to go out with friends a couple times a month. Sorry to all of you who I have been a loser towards. You know I'm not always like that, right? uhmm... how come no one is responding... if this were a movie, you'd hear a cricket in the background. Anyways, bfn! January 3, 2005: Congratulations to Yollanda & Bryan! Alot has happened in the last few days, but nothing quite compares to Yollanda Zhang now being engaged to her sweetie pie, Bryan Mo. Yollanda is a long-time classmate/friend/partner-in-crime from Waterloo - a rare gem that I am always so proud to call a *true* friend, not only because she knows her priorities, but because she is one of the most competent individuals at Waterloo. And Bryan is one of those guys that every guy fears to introduce to his girlfriend, not only because his devotion to cater to Yollanda, but because he is a highly-intelligent and upwardly-mobile professional. His good looks don't help his position much either. Just like that, the have roots been planted for a wonderful future together. And if it's true that every good tree bears good fruit, then the world is no doubt now a better place. December 30, 2004: Casino Classic The Annual Burton Casino Classic was fantastic. Everyone was dressed absolutely fabulously (can I sound ANY gayer now) - it was truly a who's who of the Annapolis Valley. It is so nice to see all my friends again, to chat, see what they're up to. I realize that my school produces some very high caliber students. Like, sometimes, coming from a small town, you get this kind of feeling that everything is done on a small scale. But not at all. I am more impressed with my classmates today as I was when I graduated high school more than half a decade ago. Well done Horton District High School. Went out for lunch with Ian today, talked alot about Fair Trade and his organization. It is going to be exciting. We're pretty similar people in alot of ways - we're dreamers with Ritalin deficiencies. But he's way more of an idealist than I am. It's funny coming from Waterloo where you think you're slightly far leaning and realize it's just bc of the ppl you're around. Had I been at any other school in Canada, I'd actually have been considered moderate. I still would have been a loser, you can't take that away, but in other aspects, I would have been more normal. December 27, 2004: late nights Christmas day, the family played poker until 6:30 am!! Okay, and then the next day, we stayed up until 8 am, just sitting around and talking. It was really nice. But then I passed out on time yesterday. Watched "Last Man Standing" with Bruce Willis (i.e. he wasn't in the movie, rather, we watched it together, him and me... best friends forever) and the night before, we watched "The Bachelor" with Renee Zellweiger and Chris O'Donnell. Oh, Renee was so funny. She wanted to pat my dog, but my dog kept running away. Oh dear me. December 25, 2004: Merry Christmas It's very nice to be back home in Nova Scotia. It's a good to be home to clear the air a bit. Everything being so icky in Vancouver, with the business and everything. And the weather. Anyways, Christmas was awesome. I didn't really get any presents, but I roasted my own coffee and man does that taste amazing. I forgot how much I love it. It just hits the nervous system. And then played poker for most of the day with my brother and dad, and played piano and now my brother is on violin, and my sister on piano. Christina is sitting on the green couch reading cooking books, my mom is doing the dishes and my dad is on the can. The two dogs are sleeping, because my brother was beating them up earlier and they just ate dinner. I am on the computer, updating my journal (it's 9:38 pm). We had turkey and the most excellent roast vegetables for dinner. Now I'm feeling a bit over stuffed because I'd been eating cashews all day. Actually, last night I was eating so many cashews I started to feel sick. I had to put them out of sight, but then I kept leaving and eating more... ick... I'm sick of cashews, for the next ten minutes. December 23, 2004: J-tizzle I'm at J-Tizzle's room right now as he jams on his electric. What a guy. I had a good day with Melody. Ran lots of errands, had japanese for dinner and then I packed to go back to NS. I'll be back in NS tomorrow. Cool. J-Tizzle rocks the house. December 22, 2004: Melody returns today Yup. Haven't seen her in about a month... sucks. But still better than not seeing her at all. Anyways, Whistler was a blast, even though through a series of mishaps, Parisa couldn't join us - but we were able to crawl out of our depressive state and continue. Anyways, went tree skiing, right beside a running stream, which was terrifying because I didn't want to fall in. Then there was a rocky section under the chairlift, and I said to James, "I bet I could ski that..." hmmm... well, I got about half way down, maybe less, kicked my ski off of a rock, my ski came off and I rolled down, trying to avoid hitting the rocks, which probably would have had more serious implications than the little cut that I had. Well, it looks like I had a problem with the razor, but that's all. Moral of the story is stay on the marked trails unless you've got your bindings set tightly. Not much new in the business. We'll likely see some changes in the next few weeks to the original plan, but you'll hear about them as they come up. That's all. December 19, 2004: Whistler Tomorrow? Bloody expensive, lad. Well, with all this major cash flow from my business, it should be no problem at all to pay off. Oh boy, I am RAKING it in! or not. James from McGill is passing through Vancouver and I'm picking him up tonight, and then going with Parisa, from Shad '04, and Chay's twin brother, who I never met. Chay's another friend from McGill. December 17, 2004: who am I? I hate to doubt myself. I actually hate to write like I'm writing right now. I was just reading friendster profiles, and so I'm in the "friendster" kind of mood, so I'm writing like that. It's stupid. Anyways, I'll try to write normally. Entrepreneurialism is not for the weak of heart. It is very easy to be discouraged and to start thinking, "man, there's better things I could be doing with my time." And it's failure after failure after failure. I think back of when I was trying to find someone to lend me their kitchen. It was constant failure, all the friggin time. But you're the new guy, who the hell wants to help the new guy? Anyways, so I'm getting lab tests organized for the products, to determine shelf life, especially considering the risk of botulism due to the vacuum packing procedure. I also decided to create a line of rice products. So it's just like rice-a-roni, just throw in the pan and it fluffs up into ethnic rices. Of course, all fresh ingredients. No preservatives, yadda yadda, but it's all rice dishes. I noticed that many of the products out their organize around product category, so like meat (e.g. shake and bake or hamburger helper series), starches (e.g. sidekicks), soups (e.g. Knorr, Lipton). It's easier on the consumer so they know immediately what your product is. My product was more like a restaurant menu - some fish, rice, pasta, and chowder. So I'll try focus it more. This change wasn't from customer feedback, it was from observation of other products, so it might not be the wisest change to make, but that's another thing about starting a business. It depends so much on gut instinct and assumptions because you don't have the quantitative tools at your disposal. Coming from an engineering background, that definitely doesn't drive me mad :P j/k The last 8 weeks have been a success and a failure. A success in that I got the product to actually be able to sell. The failure is that it doesn't. I'm not selling product until the new year. But Thomas Edison tried over a thousand times before he made the incandescent light bulb. His famous quote was that he didn't fail that many times, he just found that many ways that don't work. I often think that I'm just a big loser and I'm wasting my time, forgetting that other people also fail. I've only tried 3 prototypes. I've got many more to go. Even the people at Lonsdale Quay are still surprised that I'm coming back, because they're thinking "Buddy, you know it didn't sell, get over it!" although they don't say that to my face. This is one of the most emotionally exhausting experiences of my life. December 15, 2004: or not... I'm trying vacuum sealing the product now. It's looks much better, it's more familiar, but now it requires more tests, since other bacteria thrive under anaerobic conditions. So probably no sales until after Christmas. Sometimes I feel like just throwing stuff because it's so frustrating. I know product development takes time, but frig... it's annoying as hell. I hate being left up in the air - does it work? are there any showstoppers? will people buy it? So far the answer is: yes, it works, there are no showstoppers, but people will not buy it. AAAAGGGHHH!!! Frig. That seems so long away. After Christmas. I hate feeling stagnant. Like, I know that I'm not being stagnant, but I hate that feeling like I am. December 10, 2004: Prototype III next week STILL not working. What is the consumer thinking? A few problems: the container makes it look like a reheatable sauce/ready-to-eat food. People that want that, aren't interested in this. But this is a throw-in-the-pan meal, like Uncle Ben's rice or Knorr powdered Soup, and those don't sell much at Lonsdale and plus, the packaging makes it look like a ready-to-eat food, so those potential customers (if there are any at Lonsdale) wouldn't focus in on the product because of it's container. And it's big and bulky. It's so hard to understand consumer behaviour. There's so many factors, and no single equation to say that "if all these factors add up to over 35, then this particular consumer will buy it". You have certain reasons why you don't buy certain products, and a certain selection process, but it's very difficult to articulate it. So I'm just hypothesizing why. It could also be that people aren't used to seeing throw-in-the-pan foods in a fresh form. But there's nothing really inherently wrong about the product, just that the factors don't add up to "35" or whatever. So I'm going to change the container into a bag, so that it immediately says "I am a throw-in-the-pan meal" and then make it smaller so that it fits the form factor that consumers are used to, and then drop down the price. And if there are any customers that would otherwise buy the powdered equivalents, we'll see if they want this product. It could also be that Lonsdale customers just don't want Uncle Ben's style products - maybe there's a reason why others don't sell them. And I'm going to try the Jambalaya rice instead of chowder. And make it 2-servings. But I still haven't figured out how to make prototype bags, without investing in heavy equipment. I'm also talking to lots of people who are in the industry just trying to get feedback. Lots of people are stumped - it's so hard to figure out consumers. I heard a neat anecdote about cake mixes. It was originally "just add water" and they couldn't sell. Then they found out that in the minds of the consumer, it didn't seem credible that you just add water and the cake will taste good. So they changed it to "just add water and 1 egg" and then people believed it. Props to the marketing department for figuring that out. I'm sure people were just like, "eww... I just don't think it will taste good. I don't know why, but it just won't". And from that, they have to extract exactly what the problem is, and then test various solutions. My ability to isolate the problem has so far shown to be short of competent. I've been talking to a guy at Granville who sells Thai sauces, and he's doing really well. But his product is a bit different. Consumers are used to seeing reheatable sauces, but his product is absolutely delicious, and even just standing there for a few minutes, he gets about 5 or 6 customers. He sold about $800 worth yesterday. I am impressed and he has dreams of having his own factory. And he'll make it. He's been doing this for 4 years, and it's a matter now of making it happen. But I'm now focused on my product, the dud, and what it takes to make it work. I guess you can't expect to introduce a new concept and get it right the first time. Or the second. Or the third. Or the fourth... what was I thinking when I decided to do this? December 10, 2004: Prototype II tomorrow New packaging, better product, and free samples. Tomorrow at Lonsdale. We'll see how this works. If it doesn't, then I have to find out why. Perhaps public marketplaces just aren't the place to attract people who buy packaged foods. Or my last study didn't correctly isolate the problem and there's yet something else that's wrong with it. Or maybe the Fish Store isn't the place to be. I've printed off the labels, which are super expensive since it's printed off at Kinko's, but I'm still testing the market right now and can't commit to *real* labels until I find out what the customer wants. Maybe that's why they say that the designer should never do the test, or even plan the tests. Because to them it works fine, but to someone who is unfamiliar with the product, it's unusable and unappealing. Round 2, tomorrow. I might get knocked down, but it will not be a TKO. December 6, 2004: Product Launch turned Product Test I could not sell a single item. It was tough. There are many factors that influenced it, but when it comes down to it, the packaging had to change. It's a very typical engineering mistake to build a product with great guts, great capabilities, but can't sell a single thing because it's just too hard to use, or the customer doesn't know what the heck to do with it. So I put it on sale at a fish shop, in a good location and people would just pick it up, and then put it right down again for some reason... so I changed a few things - before there were a few things you had to buy, including stock, cream etc. but now it's just add milk and seafood. Second, it took 55 minutes to cook. I dropped it down to 30 minutes, and now I can drop it down to 15, I just tested that today. Before the instructions were about 100 words long. Now it's about 20 words. Pretty much, throw in a pan with milk and seafood and boil. The lid had about 100 words on it before, now there's about 20, and it's stuff like, "COOKS IN 15 MINUTES", "NO ARTIFICIAL PRESERVATIVES OR FLAVOURS" and "JUST ADD MILK AND SEAFOOD". Stuff you might have known if you'd read the package, but no one reads the package. You have to flash it in their faces, pretty much. In a way, it's good that I didn't sell a thing because it forces me to redesign the product, with a more user-centered approach. Assume the user to be stupid and lazy... they're not, but after a hard day at work, no one wants to learn something new, especially cooking, so they're happy to be spoonfed. And another thing is samples. Next Saturday, the fish store owner and I are going to be giving out free samples and seeing how that affects sales. So with the newly designed product, simpler interface, and free trial, maybe that will get people to understand the product. If I ever thought that I was out of engineering for good, I was wrong. This is everything I learned in class, and more, with a battlefield that takes absolutely no prisoners. If the customer doesn't like your product within 1 or 2 seconds, then they won't buy. It's not like they'll be nice, or they'll give you an 80%... they've got to want it want it and you've got 1 or 2 seconds on the label to convince them to put it into the bag. And a great product might make them come back, but it sure as hell won't make them buy it. I'm half way through grade 1 of The School of Hard Knocks. Many more to come. Keep watching. I forfeited the rest of my lease at Lonsdale to spend this week redesigning the product to sell through the fish store, which makes more sense anyways. Bye for now. November 24, 2004: Product Launch... Monday Yikes... yikes, yikes, yikes... what do I do? So alot of it is up to the health officials right now. To see if they approve my permit application by Friday. Picked up all the packaging today, which is pretty cool, because it all fit into my ol hatchback. Yay for the hatchback. hhhhhhhhh... that's the sound I make when I'm tired and frustrated... hhhhhhhh... and thanks to Charlene the Cross Dresser for signing my guestbook... that night at Club Tranny November 22, 2004: Congratulations to Chad Schmitke Soon to be a Ph.D, but I won't address him with the title Dr. because I think his wife, Stephanie, called dibs on being the first. Chad was my former TA for Fluid Dynamics and we were PA's at Shad this summer. And we crashed his class he was teaching during a ceremony last year and started playing music, and to our surprise, he just burst of laughing and starting singing along... haha... not the usual response professors give, but he's not a normal professor either... 1 week until product launch. dang... oh, and I helped Parisa (Shad '04) with a Physics question today. I hope I got it right, otherwise, that would reflect pretty poorly on Waterloo's Engineering Program, eh? "Give me my coloured coat, my amazing coloured COAT!"... can you name tht musical? November 21, 2004: Pool hall Went to play pool with an old friend from McGill who is quite the pool shark... got my bum hole whooped. Sunday today. This week is going to be tough... so I need everything in place by Friday... like, ah man... wow... if not, then I lose my deposit. But I needed to try to get that in place, and it was a gamble, that depends on people in the health department. Now, as a former employee at Industry Canada, I am fully aware of how fast things move in government. When something arrived on my desk, I got on it... I picked up the phone, started calling people, holding meetings, driving out to meet the person and then getting feedback to make sure it was what they expected... wait, no I didn't... I usually finished my game of solitaire... play one LAST game of solitaire, checked me email... lunch, coffee, checked my email... one game of solitaire before starting work... bathroom break... checked my email... then I looked at the task, made a task list, checked my email... wrote an email... played an internet game because my boss had left for the day (3:30 at this point), the did item #1 on the task list, and it was 4:45 by that time and I had to catch my bus. I guess this is what we call Karma. November 18, 2004: Surveys Done So friggin happy. I never want to do that again, although I probably will have to. And I put down a deposit to get a booth starting Monday, November 29th... which is fast approaching. There's quite a lot to get done in that time, including all the health permits. And I talked to the store that sells Okanagan wines, and they're interested in putting up some sort of "recommended wines" for each of the dishes. Cool! My friend, Ian, signed my guestbook, and is starting an organization for fair trade: http://www.uft-uce.org/. It's really cool and it's something we can all believe in. Yes, and I finished another song just a couple hours ago. I'd been playing around with a few chords, but finally got a tune to go with it: Hide Your Face by Chris Lau Verse 1 When I grew up, they shut me down, They told me don't go playin around But I knew there was more to life, than what they all thought was wrong and right, I said... Chorus Show me what you've done today and tell me where you've hid your face, yeah don't you think there's another way to live my life today Verse 2 When I thought I had figured out They told me what life was about, But I knew there was something else I looked to God to get some help, and said November 17, 2004: Seattle and Bridget Jones That's right. I saw Bridget Jones. It was a great movie. And I saw Shrek 2 and a documentary on Alexander Zehr Great. It was vundehrfuhl. Why do I think I'm german when I'm not? Ignorant Canadian. Tomorrow, I'm off to do a survey at Lonsdale Quay. I am seriously, wetting my pants. I hate this stuff. I hate asking people for a minute of their time or whatever. I can perform in front of hundreds of people, leap out of an airplane at 13,000 ft., I can fight deadly cobras... no I can't. But I'm terrified to walk up to people and ask them for a minute of their time. I hate zis. I am going to be so so so so so so so so happy tomorrow afternoon, when I come back, and I can put all the data into the computer. And zen write eet up in zehr planifaction of bizniz. No more of zis sheizen. Anyways, g'nite November 10, 2004: Small is beautiful Right now I'm reading a book called "small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered" by E.F. Schumacher which proposes the idea that as a business grows, it hits a point where it must diminish the human workers as well as its environment. He sharply criticizes exploitation of humans into mundane chores, such as pushing buttons on a machine all day long. In Keynsian economics as I'm led to understand, individuals are encouraged towards greed and envy, at least for the time being while we strive towards universal prosperity which leads to the promise of universal peace and happiness. In this quote, E.F. Schumacher says that this is essentially bunk: "I suggest that the foundations of of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modern sense, because such prosperity, if attainable at all, is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man. It could well be that rich people treasure peace more highly than poor people, but only if they feel utterly secure - and this is a contradiction in terms. Their wealth depends on making inordinately large demands on limited world resources and thus puts them on an unavoidable collision course - not primarily with the poor (who are weak and defenceless) but with other rich people" November 6, 2004: I do have a retail place Lonsdale Quay. So that was a big big relief. Huge relief. Because as of last week, I only had a product. No production site, no retail site... a few options, but they were all unknown, and I still didn't know anything. Whatever. Some other stuff in my life that is pissing me off like hell. But that's beside the point. November 4, 2004: I do have a production place I found a really nice kitchen to work in with high ceilings, very clean, 24 hour access. I can use all the equipment, even the walk in coolers (4 of them!!!). Good price too. That was a huge relief. Next step is securing selling. I have my meeting tomorrow at 3 pm in Lonsdale. Gonna do my pitch. Yee haw. I'll let you know how it goes October 29, 2004: Maybe some places Yes yes yes yes yes... I might have some places at a caterer or at a church with a certified kitchen. I've called over a hundred people and just a couple of responses. yes yes... production might have a home... if I can secure production, then I'll try to secure where I can sell it. Marketplaces are good, because low initial investment. Halloween on Sunday. Met Billy Lin, one of the Shad '04's, this afternoon when I went to his school to ask about doing a presentation. That's about it. October 27, 2004: Where to produce? Big thing on my mind now is where to produce. I think I know what I want for packaging. It was a big shock at first, prices and stuff, but I've since overcome the initial shock. The customer will absorb have the price and I will absorb the other half. Now I need to find a place to prepare the foods. So it has to be in a certified kitchen, and your residential kitchen cannot be certified. It can only be used to store foods for the purposes of the business. Now I really have two choices - a permanent space, such as a warehouse, retail, or office space. Or renting space in a kitchen from a church or caterers. A permanent space in the best case scenario, has a 1-year contract, requires installation of a two sink wash basin, and I'll need to get it certified. The shared kitchen, in the best case scenario has the problem of storage of raw materials and finished goods is a pain. Now in the worst case scenario, which I hopefully wouldn't have to settle for, but who knows, the permanent space will require a 3-year contract, lots of renovation, and will take up to a year to set up. The shared kitchen, in the worst scenario will require me to get it certified. After much talking with Melody's dad, I'm leaning towards the shared kitchen, because of the flexibility of it. But I need to find a kitchen that wants me there. It's not been easy. I called 20 churches, and only one positive response. And that kitchen isn't a certified kitchen, so I'd have to get it certified. I've called about 10 caterers/restaurants, and none so far. Most people are like, "What? yeah right! We're so busy as it is". But I'll keep calling caterers. All I need is one. Another thing about sharing a kitchen is that I can concentrate on my business and my product, rather than on the administration of setting up the place, which is definitely not my forte. I just need one place. October 11, 2004: Thanksgiving Very nice thanksgiving dinner. An awesome turkey with fantastic stuffing. I made the gravy. Yay for me. haha. Melody's family tried my jambalaya recipe today and really liked it. Encouraging. Thinking, thinking... so many options. Alot to sort out in my head, actually. I need to create a more focused attack plan. Still trying to get money. I'm not so interested in the money as the people who invest who might understand the Vancouver marketplace better. That's all for now. Haven't met up with anyone who lives in Vancouver yet. Maybe I will later, when I get my car (hopefully tomorrow) October 5, 2004: Vancouver Yay! I'm in Vancouver now. I'm living with Melody's parents. They are very cool. I have to learn quite a few new house rules, like wearing sandals everywhere, nothing touching the tablecloth, and locking all the windows. I'll adapt eventually. Car shopping, etc. October 1, 2004: The big move demain Okay. So the time has finally come. Wow. I'm off now. I feel like one of those old pioneers, going out west to seek something newer and braver. Except I don't have a wagon and I have a comfortable home to stay in when I arrive. But NONETHELESS! Met up with some high school friends on Wednesday. Watched "Trainspotting" and then went to a bar and had a fantastic brew. It was just absolutely delicious. Met up with another high school friend last night. Watched "Without a Paddle" which was great, and then went to the old cafe that we used to hang out in high school, and talked. Alot about socialism and stuff. He's starting an organization that has to do with fair trade coffee, and it's very exciting. Went boating this morning. My dog, Coda, swam up to the boat when we were a good 20 yards out, because he didn't want to be left alone. That's it. Leaving tomorrow. Exciting new things. September 25, 2004: Chili cookoff My mom competed, and it was at Dolore's place, or "the rich american" as everyone calls her. She has a really nice cottage, and a house down in Florida (so they're just waiting to see how the hurricane turns out). Lots of older folk, mostly grey heads for the guys... haha, but good laughs and good beer. Yay for beer. Played Bacce (or Petoncle or whatever you wanna call it) and sampled the chilis. Yum! And good homemade bread too. That's about it. One week until the big move. September 24, 2004: Company Name, high school friend, Malaysian Curry The hunt for a name continues. The name is a marketing tool, and I only recently realized that the name is not necessarily used to simply describe the food. It's not used to make the food sound appetizing. It's really there to differentiate itself. For some companies, the way they differentiate themselves is through superior distribution, or excellent locations, and in this case, they don't need such a great name. But I've seen too many "gourmet" words in packaged foods, and no one really believes it anyways. A more powerful way to communicate the brand to the customer is through the use of imagery, like "The Ford Explorer", "Jungle Jim's", "Nature's Valley"... etc. which for each brand, evokes an image of what makes that particular brand unique in the vast ocean of brands that are out there. My top choices right now are: Mortar & Pestle, Nostalgia, Pilgrim's Inn. The name, in conjunction with the tagline, in conjunction with every strategic decision should promote (or at least not hurt) the image of being: authentic, international, and restaurant-style. Went down to Kentville for shopping and a new hairdo and I met an old high school friend, Nate Young, who looks really really different now. I didn't even recognize him at first. But he still acts the same, i.e. wandering around downtown with headphones on. And we did Malaysian Chicken curry and it was awesome. But some changes to be made, including less lemongrass. But that's it. September 22, 2004: Third song written since coming home Which is pretty good, but I'm pretty happy with all three of them. I just finished the lyrics to the third song. Here they are: We Choose by Chris Lau Verse 1 Imagine all the people we know / Surrounded us at once in a circle / Imagine life was like that always Imagine Christmas morning again / Surprised to see what Santa had sent / Imagine every day was a gift Prechorus It could be true / It could be you / It could be soon if you want to Chorus Joyfulness, for all us / But we choose emptiness / Cut off, sent off to war Peacefulness, here on earth / But we choose something worse/ Cut off, sent off to war Let inspiration guide you Verse 2 Imagine listening into the sand / It passes slowy out of your hands / Imagine us as this if you can Imagine understanding this song / Conducting life as it went along / Imagine nothing ever went wrong Bridge I don't wanna spend my life no longer / doing meaningless things Things that kill the simple things that make my life worth living September 21, 2004: Goats and Maritime Seafood Chowder Went to a farm today to pick up sausage casings (i.e. you pump ground meat into them, and then tie them off at either end and that's a sausage). Then I met a kid, about 8, who showed me around the farm, like llamas, goats, sheep, and roosters. Then he showed me a park that was built in honour of his grandad who died of lung cancer. Cute kid. Tested Maritime Seafood Chowder. 60 minutes from start to finish, but absolutely awesome. Like, just gorgeously full of flavour, and gorgeously tasty, great textures, great all around... Gio is getting really old and has a hard time walking... I feel so sad to see him. September 20, 2004: Travel Fair and Casino Went to a fair for travel agents today. My dad told them I was a "businessman" and they let me go along. It was fun. Went to a 'power seminar' on closing sales - actually pretty beneficial for my business if I ever need to deal with larger clients (though not likely for awhile, but the knowledge is still good). Then at the booths they had free wine, so I ended up drinking 4 full glasses of red wine (well, 3 and a half) and got a little bit drunk, then went to the casino, and won $30 on a $40 bet... pretty good. Got lucky once. But I played for about 3 hours while waiting for my parents to get out of a meeting. Met some new people at the table. Lesson: never take advice from ppl in a casino. These ppl were giving advice to everyone, and ppl were following it. But I've done some research online and the advice was just... bogus... like I don't know where they come up with it... but it was fun anyways. Good times. Polished off a beer at the table. Good times all around! September 19, 2004: Exhibition Fair Finally got round to trying to actively contact people who have gone on overseas internships. And, then updated the site for people if they wanted to start an AWE club at their school. So hopefully, the organizations that I contacted will contact their returned interns, and then they will contact us. That's worked pretty well in the past, so we'll see how it works now that we have a site up and running... although the site is slow as hell... stupid Brinkster... alright, naming naming naming... this is pretty but I'm learning alot. Went to an exhibition fair in Windsor today. Played one of those games where you win prizes by throwing stuff into a hole of sorts. I won a little lamb. And then played a game where the guy spins a wheel and you bet on which color comes up. I ended up winning $12 on $2... which is prrreetttyy good, I'd say. Although I saw the guy cheat me once, i.e. he didn't give me as much as he should have, but I didn't complain bc I wasn't sure... whatever... I ended up with extra money and a little stuffed lamb. September 17, 2004: Sumatran Green Okay, so I'm a bit behind schedule (i.e. the schedule that I drafted three days ago... whatever!)... I need to finalize a name. It's not down to 6 names, and I think I can eliminate a few. I get the feeling, I'm trying to choose the one, though... like I'm skewing the results so it seems like the one I want is the one that everyone else likes. Tot a whole lot of Sumatran green coffee. I asked for a pound, and they gave me about 3, but charged for one pound. Sumatran is really nice and light - low in acidity so I'm mixing it with a Kenya to give it a bit more bite, although it was very nice just on it's own. It might seem like I'm a big coffee snob, but I still enjoy Tim Horton's and other cheaper brands. Kinda like how I still enjoy DickDonald's or Wendy's or whatever. Wow, it's friday. Didn't even realize that. September 14, 2004: Business Plan Looked over a few business plan guidelines online, and started revamping mine so that it'd emphasize more why this product is a good solution, and why it is better than the competition. It was always in the business plan, but now it's more explicit and shows up strongly in the first few pages. Went through some old high school stuff. Wow. I've really changed! Went through the yearbook... wow, so many people that I haven't thought about for so many years. September 13, 2004: Weird Dream! Had a very weird dream that I was at a high school hockey game and I had my violin there for some reason. Then I saw some guy going by and looking inside my violin case, and I'm like, "If you even think of taking anything..." then he took out my rosin. So I get him in a headlock and start punching him, he's trying to get out and I get a few more shots in there. He's pretty pissed. Anyways, somehow we become friends and we're in downtown toronto. And then there's an epidemic, so we have to leave town, so we literally hop on the first bus. We go in one direction, and then the bus starts going back to toronto. The guy I met at the hockey game is like, 'well probably he just drove us in a circle so that we know how to get to and from town when we actually do leave town.', but I'm like, 'I want to leave NOW... there's an epidemic and the streets are getting pretty crowded already!'... alright, so I talk to the bus driver and he says, 'oh, no we're going back to town, we're going to wolfville, oh and we're just going to the mall', but I didn't recognize the mall. So I'm like, "Which mall is this?"... actually, we were in the underground parking lot of the mall, and he's like, "Well, it's the one with the Vinegar Hill store..." I had no idea what that was or what mall it was. For some reason, I kept picturing Montreal, and I was like, "Are we near the VIA Rail station?" My mom was on the bus for some reason. Oh yeah, and I got some purple smarties from a gumball machine or something. And the bus driver took some. And there was a lady beside him, and she was eating green smarties, and just to polite, I'm like,"Smarties?", and she gives ME the rest of her smarties... okay, whatever... so then I'm trying to figure out if I should go to Wolfville or not. Or maybe I should just go back to Toronto, go into my room and never leave, although I might run out of food. Or go to my brother's place. I think I woke up then, while the bus was still parked in the parking lot. September 12, 2004: Third taste test and pretty houses Third test went really well again. Fajitas were just tasty, and then french potatoes. Oh excellently tasty, except most of the flavours of the potatoes stayed on the outside, instead of really sinking into the potatoes, so I'll modify the recipe to poke holes into the potatoes. Went to Chester today, which is a sea side community in NS. I was actually headed to Lunenburg, but missed a turn and I thought, meh, I'll check out Chester, since I'd never been there. I first went to a coffee shop where someone gave me a map of the town and said that I should check out the museum and some other places. So I did. The museum was basically an old house with old stuff inside of it. But in the museum, I found these two self-guided tours of the town so I went on them. Saw lots of houses. Man, the houses were absolutely gorgeous. All different architectures: Southern U.S., Gothic revival, Second Empire, Late Georgian, Cape Cod, Victorian, Greek revival, New England colonial... there was a haunted house, a playhouse, yacht club, cannons used to fortify the town, cemeteries, churches, wells. The weather was beautiful, everyone said "hello" as I passed (or "bonjour"). It's pretty old, Chester was founded in 1759 and many of the buildings are from the 1700's. Then I had a wonderful seafood chowder for dinner. It was piled high with shrimps, and plump mussels, scallops and the baby claw of a small lobster. The scallops were a little overcooked but hey, it was awesome. Accompanied with a Jost chardonnay (Jost is a Nova Scotian winery). Excellent day. September 9, 2004:Jambalaya Second test went really well. Jambalaya was fanTAStic and my dad is really really taking a liking to cooking! Jambalaya took 68 minutes, which is more than I expected, but in my sleep last night (yes I dream about my business) and figured out how to cut the time down by about 8-10 minutes, AND cut down packaging. Sent Jenn off to school today :P September 8, 2004: The Marthas et al. What new has happened? Hannah, Hazen, Martha, and Sandy came out to the cottage on Sunday. Good times, as always. Was going to do my first 'real' test of my products, but then I forgot to bring my list when I went shopping, so I tried to remember but forgot a few items. And Sobeys and Atlantic Superstore were both out of basil. What's up with that? And not much more... oh, I figured out how I would package the product. Not vacuum sealed anymore, it'll come in plastic containers. They're sturdy, waterproof, easy to pack, reusable (microwaveable), and cheap. And I figured out some tax things. I don't have to charge GST until I make more than $30,000 in profit... and I don't forecast that until at least 4 years... I think one of the great things about having your own business is that you don't pay much taxes - no, you're still taxed at the regular rate (for a sole proprietorship), but since you don't make much, you don't pay taxes! Went to Halls Harbour by the Bay of Fundy yesterday and ate lobster... vert good! That's it. Jenn leaves for Waterloo in 2 days. September 6, 2004: The best brew, better than Parisian cafe I just made the best brew I've ever done. It was about a half Colombian, and then a quarter each of Peruvian and Ethiopian. And then dark roasted them to about a French Roast (I'm not an expert so I just had some pre-roasted French roast beside the pan while I roasted and stopped when it was about the same color). OOOOOHHHH LA LAAAA! It's absolutely brilliant. Absolutely brilliant! If you get the chance, try roasting your own coffee. They say online that doing it in a pan gets an uneven roast... frankly even if it does, I'm happy with the results and that's what matters. But I don't think it's noticeable. If I had this cup at ANY cafe, even in Paris, I would have been blown away. September 4, 2004: New Dog New dog! We got a brand new doggy today. The pictures are up on the site under 'coda'. We got him for free too :) haha... and I've been using freshly roasted coffee beans... it's actually alot of fun to do. September 2, 2004: Freshly Roasted Coffee One month until the big move. Feeling a bit nervous. Quite alot to do in that time, although I am very happy with my progress so far. Anyways, I found some green coffee beans this morning and decided to roast them myself on a pan. Freshly roasted coffee is fantastic. It is seriously in a league of its own and I was completely surprised that it worked out, although I read how to properly do it later, and I think it'll be better tomorrow. And apparently, green coffee keeps for up to a year. I realized I haven't been doing enough exercise. I just sit in front of my computer most of the day (or play guitar), so I decided I'll take some time to walk. I haven't been very hungry recently either. Maybe it's because of my sedentary lifestyle, or maybe that's bc I don't watch foodtv as much as I used to (don't really want to hear about food on my time off). August 30, 2004: Dunc's BBQ Had an excellent Saturday night. Dunc's last night in Wolfville before heading back to G.U. (i.e. Guelph)... beer, burgers, bocce, poker, fighting in the corn field, apple war... it was like we were kids again. Especially the apple war part! We cleared his house of alcohol... boys will be boys... until they become men, but that part can wait. Back to business... product testing time from now on... and keep working on business plan too, of course. August 27, 2004: Weird Dream Had a weird dream last night. I dreamt that Melody and Drew were in a band, and they had this wicked good tour across Canada, and I was listening to the cd's and they were really good. It was alternative-type music, and I was "oh man, that PEI concert was wicked good!". Funny. I just uploaded some pictures of the cottage, so feel free to check those out. Turns out my friend'd dad in Vancouver is also in the food business, so I'm really hoping we can open up some lines of communication. And these bees keep getting into my room for some stupid reason. I don't know how they get in, but they do. August 25, 2004: Chicken wings Not much happened today. Played a bit of guitar. Worked on business plan, of course. Met my buddy Rich online, who's in Singapore for a few days. And ate lunch with my dad, and went to some home renovation type stores. Then helped my mom cook chicken wings in the deep fryer. Nice dinner. Watched two minutes of Canadian Idol and it lost my attention, although from what I hear there's tons of ppl voting. That's all. August 24, 2004: Finished a new song! Pretty much solidified my product line for my food business yesterday, and started organizing packaging today. Fairly uneventful otherwise I must say. Jenn's friends came over, and I had to make small talk, as much as I love doing that :P Oh yeah, I finally finished a new song. That's the first song since April, I think. I started about 3 of them since April, then I went to Europe, then Shad, and then I just couldn't get back into the groove. But it's all good now. August 22, 2004: NO CAMPING!!! Guess what? Didn't go camping! Oh what a crappy thing to happen. Anyways, we (they) decided that we shouldn't go to Moncton on Friday bc it was going to rain on Saturday, which it did. So that was a good call. Anyways, so I crashed at a Jodrey's place in Port Williams that night. Well, it was a good night. We met up with a bunch of high school friends at a pub, and had a good night. Anyways, in the morning, I had the weirdest dry feeling in my eye. It eventually developed into something where I could barely open my eyes. So Jodrey had to drive my car back to Windsor cuz for sure I couldn't drive. We picked up Dunc on the way and I had to ask his parents for contact solution bc it was driving me insane. I just hope they didn't think I was stoned or anything bc my eyes were half shut all the time. Got to Windsor, and I figured I'd just wash out the contacts, rest my eyes a bit (I figured it was just cuz I slept w them on or something). But lo and behold, and hour later it was the same. So I didn't want to risk it, so I stayed behind, which was a good idea since I was pretty much crappy eyed all weekend. The doctor said it was just imflammations in the cornea due to something getting caught under the contact lense. Today (Sunday) it got better so I can actually function normally, although this morning as I was playing guitar by the lake, I was doing it with my eyes closed. Well, that's that I guess. Watched "The Perfect Score" and "S.W.A.T" with my family tonight. That's it. August 20, 2004: Gone Camping Gone camping! August 19, 2004: Visitation for Mrs.Jackson Plan on going to a visitation for Shirley Jackson. Last night, went to Martha and Hannah's place and chatted with them and their parents (who are just so cool, like really cool), and played with their puppies. Drove Ankur back like in the old days. Ahhh... nostalgia feels good sometimes. Anyways, probably going camping this weekend up in Moncton. Still hoping to visit my Shad buddy, but we'll see how our schedules work out. Crossing fingers though. Business planning is going well. Man, now I know why people work at companies. You get paid so much more. I think by my third year in this business, I'll be making as much as I did on my first work term. But I still have to believe that my value to society is more if I follow my own dreams than if I help to make some shareholder's dreams come true. I have to believe that, otherwise I may as well quit right now, and work at some lame place doing lame work, where the weeklong cruises and the weekend cottage retreats make it all worth it. No, I am worth more to society than what a shareholder will pay for my soul. August 17, 2004 (part 2): Mrs. Jackson passed away Shirley Jackson, mother of my high school friend, Elizabeth Jackson, passed away yesterday. This is the second cancer death in 6 months for me. This is crazy. Man. Cancer, it's crazy. I remember her from high school. She was such a nice nice lady. Two cancer deaths in 6 months. Two cancer deaths in six months. August 17, 2004: Met up with my buddy Ian last night. He's the first guy that I've met since I got back 2 weeks ago. Oh, living out far aways from everyone isn't easy. I just don't feel like making any effort to get out. But hopefully this week will be different. We just went out to play some pool. By the end there, we were just nailing the balls, we had no idea who was stripes or solids. Hilarious. He's a hardcore fair trade activist, so his ideals are very very interesting to hear and discuss. Considering going to Fredericton on Friday to see a Shad, Steph K., play a little gig. Should be fun. August 15, 2004: Auction Sold a trumpet at the auction today. Wow, it was neat to see auctions work. These little things that I would sell for $5, $2 at garage sales are going for $50-$60! It was nuts. The trumpet went for $205. Going to hook up with two friends at least next week. Finally decided to get out of the cottage once in awhile ;) oh well. August 14, 2004: Sarah Massoud! Internet scams... good try! Big highlight of the last few days: met up with Sarah Massoud. It was so awesome. So short, just an hour, or as we call it in Shad - extended lunch hour! just kidding. We always had enough chill out time at Shad. Anyways, just went for coffee, went through pictures, talked. Again, I am always so damn amazed how cool high school people are. It's nuts. I was such a dork in high school compared to these Shads. Anyways, other highlights, moving furniture to an auction, working on my business plan, secondary market research in Halifax, going to a seminar on how to get super rich off the internet (it included free dinner and a pocket organizer). This seminar was a big big big scam. Like, building a site and bringing in visitors will not bring you in that much cash flow. If it does, the essential skill is not building the website, it's getting people there, finding the right service, and managing your expenses. Not signing up for some thousand dollar web hosting company and then... I don't know. Scams piss the hell out of me, and it took an entire car ride back to convince my parents that they could not make 'multiple cash streams' by doing this. Essential business, people, is not about a website. Essential business is the same as it was 3,000 years ago. Treat your customers right, give value for their money, be smart and work hard. Doing some stupid website for someone and then trying to get it high on search engines does not cut it. You can make a few hundred bucks maybe, if you're good a few thousand. But shoot me if you need these asses to teach you how. August 5, 2004: Shad Valley Waterloo 2004 Hey all. Just finished Shad Valley Waterloo 2004. My God, that was the best job ever. Like, I didn't even feel like it was a job. Every morning, I was so excited to just get up and see all the eager Shads. And they were all pretty mature, which made it so much cooler to, just, chill out and talk with them. How would I compare it with my Shad? I'd say that it was more organized. Like the groups that hung out at night were larger. There were tons more people that hung out in the caf. In my year, it was just my crew. But it was so good to see everyone intermingle, even though there must have been cliques, but everyone felt cool hanging out with people. Comfortable. Totally a great environment. Our Shads still talk alot, I mean, there have been about 4 emails in the last two days. I still see my Shads all the time, and I am 100% certain that these people will also see their Shads all the time. I really hope to see the Shads too. I really missed them. Which is odd. I keep thinking that I'm too old for that, but everything was so cool. They were really really neat people. Funny how a day after Shad, I hung out with some people that were 8 years old than me. From 8 years older to 8 years younger. People old enough, technically, to be their parents. But everything felt the same, like the same level of comfort. Age is meaningless. It really is. From the day you're born, you're stuck in a moving train of years going by, and no matter how hard you try, you'll only get one year older every time your birthday comes around. Your age - one thing in your life that you can't change. I can change everything about me, but not my age so I don't consider that part of me. I can't change the fact that I pee my pants, so that's not part of me either. So not fair... haha... March 11, 2004: Quick update I know there's been a few new visitors. Anyways, I'm still in Waterloo, but about to graduate. Looking at a few options, nothing solidified yet (the way I like my diarrhea). I've been doing lots of music, lots of whatevers, and lots of friends. Trying to live up to the dream. That's about it. August 6, 2003: Recipes I just lost a whole bunch of great recipes! Agh! I'll try again Spicy Pita: Mix a pound of ground beef, toasted cumin seeds (med-low heat for 20-30 sec's), tbsp of dijon mustard, salt, pepper, one egg. Form 8 hockey puck shaped balls about the diameter of a pop can. Bake for 30-35 minutes at 475. Mix a handful of chopped parsley, an equal portion of chopped onion, equal portion of chopped tomatoes, and the juice of half a lemon. Add salt/pepper, and maybe some chopped raw garlic (YUM!). Right before serving, heat the pitas for one minute, then stuff them with 2 patties, and some of the parsley mix. REALLY tasty! Israeli Eggplant: This isn't an authentic recipe, but was inspired by a dish I had at an Israeli restaurant. Marinade slices (about half an inch thick, and cut in the direction to yield shoe insole shaped slices) of baby eggplant in salt and fresh lemon juice. After half an hour, coat them in flour, and cook at medium-high heat until brown and slightly charred, and then do the same to the other side. Crispy on the outside, and soft and moist on the inside. Can't go wrong! Eggplant Pasta with fresh sage: Brown one large eggplant that has been cubed. To brown it, don't toss it too much in the pan. Only shake it every minute or so. Cook 250g of pasta. After draining the pasta (and shocking it in cold water if you like), use the hot pan to melt 5 tbsp of butter. Add 2 tbsp of finely(!) chopped garlic and when it starts to boil remove from heat, and add the warm pasta. Add 2 tbsp of chopped sage, and toss. Try not to break up the eggplant, but if a few do break, it's nice because it coats the pasta and makes a nice sauce. Add salt as desired. July 24, 2003: Center Island It's been, yup, more than one week since you heard from me (*music in background*). Went to center island, seen quite a few movies, and cooked some good food. I remember I ate out quite a bit last week. It just so happened that alot of people that I wanted to meet up with, all converged in one week. Anyways, here's some good ones Mac and Cheese - deluxe with 4-year old white cheddar: You can not imagine how badly I was craving this when I bought the ingredients. It's basically starts with a bechemel sauce - 2 tbsp butter, add 4 tbsp flour when melter, wait til it is brown in color, and then add two cups of milk/cream, and reduce until it is thick as gravy. Then add a pound of 4-year old white cheddar cheese. Why 4-years old? Because it has a bit of a stronger flavor? Why white cheddar? It just tastes so good, but feel free to use any cheese - mozzarella, gruyere, maybe try a blue cheese. Add cooked macaroni. I used fresh sea shell pasta, b/c they didn't have macaroni. I also added white wine. It was nice, but took away from the mild cheese flavor a bit. Pan-fried chicken breast with blueberry sauce: This dish was inspired by a dish I had in Seattle - it was a white fish (halibut or cod... can't remember now) with a blueberry sauce. I was really happy with this. Basically, put a pint of blueberries into the microwave with a centimeter of water at the bottom of the bowl, for 2 minutes. Mash the blueberries into a paste with a fork. Pan fry the chicken breast on both sides until fully cooked, but not dry. (salted, peppered, drizzled with olive oil, and fresh lemon juice, if necessary). You can add finely chopped shallots and garlic here, if you'd like. Continually add water into the pan when it gets dry, to avoid burning the chicken juices. One thing about cooking chicken is that it's best if you're confident about it being not old or anything. If you're worries about it being old, you'll have to overcook it so that you don't get sick. But if you're not worried, then get it just moist and yummy she down. So remove the breast, and add the blueberry sauce into the chicken juices. Warm up, and at the last stage, add a tbsp of freshly chopped sage. I added less than a tbsp, and the flavor wasn't really coming through. So I'd say a tbsp, or a little extra, if you're feeling generous. You could probably use this sauce on pork, but it's a bit mild for beef. But it was so so good. Beef slices with cumin sauce: On mild heat, toast a tbsp of cumin seeds for 5-10 seconds. Add a strip of NY Sirloin (or any good cut). Pan fry on both sides (pan covered), and avoid burning the juices in the pan by adding chicken stock. Take out the meat when it is medium rare (you press the meat with your finger, and it slightly springy, not too much resistance). Remove the meat. Into the juices add a cup of chicken broth, and a tbsp of 5-spice powder. Reduce, and then add corn starch mixture to thicken(1 tsp of corn starch in 1 tbsp of water). So tasty, and exotic! July 14, 2003: Hip hop musical, Leo, and harbourfront Had an excellent weekend. BBQ Ribs/Blues fest on Fri (though it rained), hip-hop musical on Sat., and nice conversation w/ friends and brother and his fiancee. Dim sum w/ long-lost friend from Waterloo, Leo, on Sunday. Chilling out by harbourfront and falling asleep in the shade to the music of street performers and the buzz of tourist families. Here's my recipe for Sunday night Sirloin Beef Slices on Banana Sherry Sauce: Oh man is this good! The flavours just mixed so well together, and was so 'accurate'. This was a combination of two inspiring moments at the grocery store, and then later while walking around. This is one of my best recipes. Basically, grill a banana (I sliced it in half and put it on the grill for 5 mins each side, or until I had burn marks). Chop two sprigs of fresh or dried rosemary. In chopping dried rosemary, I usually find that the pieces fly everywhere because they are so brittle. Try mixing some oil or water into the leaves and it will stay still. Mix this with the bananas in a bowl, and mash into a paste. Add salt and pepper. Marinate a steak in lemon juice, salt and pepper. Pan fry the sirloin steak to desired finish (poke meat with finger and test springiness. The more springy, the more well done. I did mine rare. I actually wanted it medium rare, but it came out rare b/c of misjudgement, and I liked it better, but you should do it as you please). Add water to pan to ensure that it does not burn. Remove. Into the pan, add a cup of sherry, bring to a boil, then add finely chopped shallots. Boil for a minute, and then add the banana sauce. If the sauce gets too thick, add more sherry. The consistency should be a little like apple sauce. If it is too clumpy, then add more sherry. If it is too watery, then reduce. Mix well, and add salt/pepper/sugar as desired. To serve, slice the beef thinly after it has been sitting for 5 minutes. Put a coaster sized layer of sauce in the middle of a plate, arrange the meat on top of it, and then garnish with parsley, chives, or cilantro. July 10, 2003: SMACKDOOOOWWWWNNN!!!! Been another week since updating. This week, went to WWF Smackdown with Winda. Went to the outdoor theatre fest with Jenny. Karoked with Phoebe and Cheng. What else? Went to two plays with Yollanda and Bryan. Met a whole bunch of ppl from my class for Sunday lunch - Steph, Swapna, Kitty, Tamanna. And then met two knew people from IBM - Helen and Fran. Cool. Anyways, here's a few of my recipes Roast Beef: It was just beef roast with salt, pepper and rice vinegar. I roasted it for about an hour at 350. I then made a gravy out of the juices Papaya Salsa: Mix half a papaya (cut into half inch cubed), cilantro, shallots/onions, peppers, rice vinegar, salt, and pepper Burger With Dill Sauce: The burger part I modified from a Jamie Oliver recipe, but it's pretty standard. Mix a pound of ground beef, one slice of bread (broken up), one egg, one clove of garlic, salt, pepper and a tbsp of Dijon mustard. Cook at 450 for 25-30 minutes. The sauce: Mix a handful of chopped dill with half a cup of mayonnaise, and 3 tbsp of balsamic vinegar. Variation - add Dijon mustard into the sauce. Would've added a kick. Assemble the burger between two buns, and top with vegetables Ostrich Carpaccio: This was definitely one of my favorite since I got here. Carpaccio is meat that is almost raw on the inside - actually, it is. I partially cooked mine, because I've had ostrich carpaccio before, and it's a bit irony tasting. But according to the butcher, you should not overcook the meat, or it gets really tough. I also noticed that it was very lean Marinade about a pound of the meat in salt/pepper and rice vinegar (came to about $12, but I didn't want to get a small portion that was too thin, or I would risk overcooking it) . Heat a pan to hot, and cook on both side for about 5 minutes each. Touch the meat and determine when it's a little bouncy. Again, if it's raw on the inside, all the better. Take off from the pan, and set aside to cool. To the pan, add about a cup of wine, or a layer about half an inch high (Unless it's a hug soup pot. In that case, stick w/ the one cup). Add finely chopped shallots and a 2 tbsp of butter. Reduce by half. Taste for salt and pepper. Slice the carpaccio as thinly as possible with a very sharp knife. To plate, pour sauce on plate first, and then add slices neatly arranged. Sprinkle with cilantro. Butterful Pork Chops in beer and bell pepper sauce: This was amazingly tasty. Cook two pork chops rubbed with salt and freshly ground pepper.(mine had no bone, but feel free to use the traditional one with a bone in it). When it is cooked, remove and set aside. Add a cup of beer (I used Grolsch, but in the future, I'd use something cheaper) and two bell peppers, chopped into quarter inch cubes. Reduce sauce by half. You can add 1-2 tbsp of butter two. If the bitterness of the beer comes out to much, counter it with sugar. Add salt/pepper as desired. To thicken, add corn starch mixture (1 tbsp of corn starch dissolved in 2 tbsp of water. Adding corn starch w/o dissolving it first in water may result in clumpiness) To serve, put on pork chop on a plate, and generously spoon the sauce. Oh, it's good. June 30, 2003: Seattle! Been a week since updating. Well, I went to Seattle on the 26th, so not much cooking going on this week. Had a great time with Melody. MSFT campus is gorgeous. Yeah, so here's a few recipes from last week (no, this isn't just one big meal) Almond crusted Pork with Maple Syrup: The stickiness of the maple syrup held the walnuts together, and formed a gorgeous crust. Rub pork loin (sealed with String) with salt, pepper, and maple syrup. Stuff with rosemary and butter. Make 1/8" cuts through the fat on the outside. Cook at 375 for an hour, and maintain a liquid at the bottom of the pan. Do not let burn, so that the liquid can be used as a sauce. Vodka Ribs wrapped in prosciutto: This was okay, but I couldn't taste the vodka (I guess that's the nature of vodka anyways, especially after cooking). Marinate ribs in vodka, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Wrap in prosciutto and bake at 350 degrees for an hour. All in all, I prefer ribs in a sauce. Plain ribs just look weird. Also, prosciutto didn't bake too well, since it is already dry, and just crisped up like chips in the oven. Prosciutto spaghetti: Heat 4 vine-ripened tomatoes over medium heat, and add chopped garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Vine Ripened tomatoes have sugars and taste better, but you can use regular tomatoes adding sugar yourself. Stir w/ wooden spoon. When it is nice and soft, add a tbsp of butter. When melted, add 5 slices of prosciutto ham, cook for no more than a minute, add a tbsp of finely chopped rosemary and salt and pepper to taste. Yummy! Put this on top of cooked pasta. June 23, 2003: Concert at Skydome Great weekend. Saw 'Bend it like Beckham' on Friday, went for a really nice 'yuppie' style italian dinner on Yonge and Eglington (aka, Young and the Eligible), went to the big concert w/ Swollen Members, Sum 41, Our Lady Peace, Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies, and the Tragically Hip. And I saw Ashanti on the way home, by Much Music. Yesterday, went shopping, and had a dinner w/ Dan I. (roomate's bf), and his sister and fiancee. They cooked such an, oh so lovely, dinner. And here's my dinner from Friday, and it was really good!. Penne in a smoked salmon cream sauce: Cream (essentially a bechemel sauce): Heat 4 tbsp of butter over medium heat. Gradually add 4 tbsp of flour. Stir until it is slightly browned, then add a cup of milk/cream, and stir. Wait until it thickens, and if it takes too long, add another tbsp of flour. If it gets too dry, add more milk (as you can tell, I lost the real recipe somewhere, but this trial and error method has worked well for me in the past). Add salt/pepper to taste. Cook noodles. Stir fry 3 small zucchinis (chopped into pieces about the size of AA batteries), salt, pepper and olive oil. Cut 3 slices of smoked salmon into small pieces (size of toonie or loonie). Toss the cream sauce, noodles, and zucchini, and then at the last minute before serving, toss in the smoked salmon. Note: I put my smoked salmon in when it was still really hot, and I let it sit for a few minutes in the hot pot (I used the noodle cooking pot to mix). As a result, the salmon came out a bit cooked, which isn't the effect I was trying to get, since it became a little flaky. Variation - use bacon instead of salmon. Salmon is pretty costly, and you can get a similar smoky flavor out of bacon, although it won't come out as light and refreshing. June 19, 2003: I saw a movie called 'Far from heaven' last night, about a perfect american family, that turns out to be not-so-perfect. The father is gay, and the mother falls in love with another man (a black man - *gasp*). The movie kept me thinking all the way through. I made this meal because it was very fast to make, and I made rice noodles b/c I wasn't bothered to wait for the rice to cook Grilled Chicken with Bechemel Sauce:Rub the chicken breast with salt, pepper and rice vinegar. Cook over a very hot grill for 5-7 minutes on each side, or until burn marks are evident. The chicken, apparently, wasn't completely thawed, so I had to put it into the microwave for 2 minutes afterwards. Let sit for 5 minutes. Cream: Heat 4 tbsp of butter over medium heat. Gradually add 4 tbsp of flour. Stir until it is slightly browned, then add a cup of milk/cream, and stir. Wait until it thickens, and if it takes too long, add another tbsp of flour. If it gets too dry, add more milk (as you can tell, I lost the real recipe somewhere, but this trial and error method has worked well for me in the past). Add salt/pepper/white wine(room temp) to taste. My white wine was straight from the fridge, and it just shocked the mixture, turning it into a gritty consistency. Slice chicken breasts, and ladel sauce over it. Grilled Asparagus: Line salted asparagus over hot grill for 5-7 minutes, rolling over once Light Beef Rice Noodle: This kind of dish would be really nice on a hot day. Cook two handfuls of Rice Noodles. Drain, and then put back into hot pot, slowly add half a cup of beef broth, a little soy sauce, salt, pepper, and sesame oil right at the end. Stir well, and add beef broth when the noodles get too dry and start sticking to the bottom of the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes. Variation - add dry sherry and chopped ginger if you have time June 18, 2003: This was a very good meal. The sweetness of the maple syrup went perfectly with the saltiness of beef, and the tanginess of nice salsa with an asian twist to it. Rib Eye with Maple Syrup MarinadeMarinade the fully-thawed beef in maple syrup (5 tbsp or more), rice wine vinegar (or lemon juice)(2 tbsp), salt, pepper, and canola oil. Cook it on a hot pan, on one side for 5 minutes, and on the other side for 3-5 minutes (or until it feels springy when you touch it). Let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Add a tbsp of butter to the juices in the pan, and melt, then add salt and pepper. Add maple syrup to the sauce, if the cooking causes the flavor to fade a bit. Slice beef and drizzle over the sauce (variation - try using red wine in the sauce) Mango Salsa: Cube 1 mango, finely chop handful or two of cilantro, cube one small tomato, finely slice one shallot (or small onion), chop one jalapeno pepper (can remove seeds if too hot). Mix together in bowl, and add rice vinegar (or lemon juice), salt and pepper. Variation - add chopped lemon grass, grated ginger, soy sauce, and/or a touch of sesame oil to make it really asian. June 16, 2003: Lemon and Rosemary Roast Chicken with Star Anise: The Star Anise added a cinnamony/licorice flavor to the chicken. Use a drumstick with attached thigh, and use fingers to separate the skin from the meat. Stuff butter, rosemary, salt, pepper, lemon zest, and a few pieces of star anise under the skin. Rub salt and olive oil over the skin. Line apples around the dish. Bake for an hour at 375, turning over half way through Spinach Noodles with Ricotta Cheese Sauce: Boil the noodles and shock with cold water. In a pan, melt half a cup of butter and then add chopped shallots and garlic. Cook for a minute, and then add a cup or more of riccotta cheese. It may taste a bit metallic. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and lemon juice, and balance out the metallic flavour. Add half to a full cup of white wine, and more if it starts getting dry. (maybe use cream or milk if you don't have wine)Finally, add finely chopped cilantro and serve on top of the noodles, which have been rerinsed in warm water. Variation - try adding thyme, and tell me how that tastes June 13, 2003: Shanghai Noodles with Italian Sausage: You may recognize this as a variation on a typical chinese restaurant dish. You can buy the noodles from any chinese grocer in the fridge section. Boil noodles. Cook minced sausage meat, with shallots, garlic and ginger. Mix in the noodles, and add soy sauce, beef stock, hoisin sauce, salt, pepper, rice vinegar, and dry sherry. Add sesame oil before serving. June 12, 2003: Modern Theatre/Dance I went to a modern theatre/dance/music show last night. It was interesting. After the show, my friend said, 'The themes were quite obvious, weren't they?'... my response, 'Yeah, I guess so...' but in my head, I was thinking, 'what themes? There was a theme? Why didn't anyone tell me? Very pretty music at times, although the best music was that created by other composers Soy Sauce Chicken: This is a fast version of a chinese recipe. Put four chicken thighs into a soup pot, half cover the chicken with water and soy sauce, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to low. Add garlic, ginger, five spice, and dry sherry. Simmer for 45 - 60 minutes. Stir Fried Bean Sprouts: Wash two handfuls of bean sprouts. Heat a pan on very high and add oil and the bean sprouts. Add salt and pepper and cook for 1 minute, adding a tsp of sesame oil at the end. Variation - can try using green onions, shallots, chicken stock. June 11, 2003: Revivial in Toronto Hi, how's it going? I decided to revive my diary, and maybe start keeping a journal of the foods that I make. I've been in Toronto for a month and a half now, and I've done quite a lot of stuff. I wish I kept better track of it! Oh well... but in short, I've been to museums, parks, nightclubs, lots of classical music concerts, sightseeing, I saw Treble Charger, and snow, and I'll be seeing a whole string of great musicians in a few days. Yesterday I went to a stand-up comedy night, and last weekend I went to a street festival, the movies, and Indigo. I go to Indigo very often. Anyways, here's the first edition of 'le menu': Grilled Chicken Breast With Mustard and Rosemary Sauce: rub chicken with salt and pepper and grill on both sides until cooked (note: came out a bit dry, maybe should consider wrapping chicken in bacon, or using chicken with skin on). Reduce one cup of broth (I used beef, but can use chicken also) by half, and add a tablespoon of mustard. Continue to heat, and then add corn starch mixed in water. Boil gently until thick, and then add a tbsp of chopped fresh rosemary. Drizzle sauce over chicken breast. Squash Puree- This was originally supposed to be a soup, but came out a bit dry, so I just called it a puree. Cook a third of a soup pot of peeled and chopped squash (butternut/cup) with half a cup of spring water. Add a chopped tomato, garlic, salt, pepper, and sugar. Cover for a half hour. When it is soft, use a wooden spoon and beat it well. Add 1/2 to 1 cup of butter, and mash well. If too dry, add white wine or water. I didn't mash it enough, so make sure it is done very very well, or you'll get little lumps in there. The buttery and sweet flavor of the puree goes very well with any white wine (no suggestions, I only have one type at my place) April 22, 2003: Last Exam!!! I just finished my last exam! *big breath* Yeah, so I finally got a new pair of shoes, since I lost my last ones, and it was a pretty good price. A very kind lady cleaned a spot off my coat today, a spot that's been there for three months. I was so happy to be in Canada where people are that nice to do that kind of thing for free. So I have my concert tonight. I get to play a little solo, so I'll have to practice, I suppose. Tonight, I'll get to watch the Wangcouver Canucks. Well, and I'm heading home to NS tonight... cheers March 9, 2003: Fourth year! wow, has it been a long time since I last updated! Anyways, I'm finishing up my last term of 3rd year, gonna be going onto the big 4 dot 0... yeah yeah... other than that, will be in Toronto this summer, living near Union Station, apparently a pretty nice apartment... dunno... we'll see. If you're in the area, gimme a shout, and we'll bathe in the Torontonian sun together! Cool! January 3, 2003: L'Arche update Hey y'all... for all you boys and gurlz who be checking out this pages... werd y'all... sup... anyways, I'd like to tell you a little about what happened in the last few months of my life. I be in France doing volunteer work with an international organization called L'Arche (the Ark). For three wonderful months, I lived in a community in France alongside people with disabilities. We did chores, workshops, made music, cooking, walks, and pretty much lived like a very large family. There were 12 of us in our house- 7 with disabilites, and 5 assistants. Upon arriving at L'Arche my impression was more that we'd be there to help the people. Though that was part of the job list, more importantly was interacting with them... having fun with them, laughing, talking, praying, eating, drinking and dancing with them. And all in French too. So, seriously, my French doesn't suck anymore. It is really weird, but for some reason, growing up, I had alot of people with mental disabilities in my life. In Australia, one of my best friends was like this, a childhood friend from the block had a mental disability- I don't exactly know where I picked up this trait, but it's there, so L'Arche was a natural place for me to be in. On a personal note, I had alot of time to myself. Time to think about myself, my future, who I am, who I was, and the man I'd like to be, I had time to pick up the violin again, learn juggling, cooking for large groups of people, I travlled a bit around the south of France, and enjoyed the French culture- baguettes, wine, cheese and coffee :) Please contact me if you're interested in working in a L'Arche community. My particular one was in a small town in the South of France, but there are over a hundred communities all over the globe. And I hope to post some pictures up soon to let you see what's up... anyways, take care, and werd to yo moms July 22, 2002: France/Bermuda bound I just wrote a big long email to someone, and my email session timed-out, it's lost, the back button didn't make it work, and I'm pissed off! Oh well. So, as for an update on my life, I am currently looking forward to taking a break in France for the next 3 months. I will be in a small southern town called Hauterives, doing volunteer work. I finish exams in August, and I am going on a cruise in Bermuda for a week. I will be in NS for several weeks, something I look forward to. Waking up late, and sleeing late, and drinking beer. Yup. March 5, 2002: Wolfvegas If anyone needs the proof, then here it is. I am the Jodrey character (textbook) on Wolf-Vegas, and (Answer to Mystery #1: the invitation of love) Matthew Jodrey inadvertantly gave me notice of this site by allowing people to access the site through Wolf-Vegas- I track where visitors come from! March 4, 2002: Homework in Cali What's up my main bros and sis's. What a boring weekend. Doing an assignment. The worst possible way to spend a weekend in Cali. Anyways, work's been going okay. We'll have to see how everything is by the end of the week. Not much to report. Hope all is well with you February 20, 2002: Feeling Priviledged The theme of the day is to feel priviledged for what you have. Take a second and think what that means for you. Feeling 'priviledged' means feeling that you have something that you don't necessarily deserve. If you don't agree with me, then tell me why that's not so. But how much of our life has chanced upon us? Sure, you can argue that for example, by choosing to go to university, we opened up doors and allowed opportunities to present themselves, but then what prompted us to attend this institution? Think about that, and think about who in your life gave to you, and try to conceptualize how much of your style was from your own doing... neat, eh? February 14, 2002: Valentine's Day HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY... to one and to all! And Melody's taking me out for a Valentine's dinner tonight! Just kidding... haha... we're going to a Chinese restaurant that I like. Anyways, I'm really glad to see that people are coming to this page. Probably because I asked people to go! Like pulling teeth, dammit! Anyways, send your loved ones a big hug or kiss! February 8, 2002: Montreal Update on myself. Montreal was great! I absolutely loved meeting up with my old friends. Every day was awesome. That's what I love. Can you believe I'm in work on a Saturday... I got here at 9 in the morning, for the love of God! Ahhhh... life in Silicon Valley. It's weird here that high traffic is AFTER 5, not at 4:30 or whatever, like in Canada, where everyone just gives their 8 hours and then quits. Later guys, thanks for checking my page. It means alot to me :) January 11, 2002: TGIF! TGIF! Finished my first week of work. It's going to be a pretty cool term, I think. Got some good stuff goin on here. Got some interesting people to work with. I'm going to Montreal in two weeks... or less... yeah... can't wait. Ciao! January 1, 2002: HaPpY nEw YeAr Happy New Year! I'm going to California in a few days. Woo hoo! December 25, 2001: mErRy ChRiStMaS 1:30 am. MERRRRRRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL! Yippee! I love Christmas time! I got lots of great gifts! Thanks everyone! :) December 18, 2001: back in Nova Scotia Helloooo... I am back in Nova Scotia, and I am jus chilling out right now... enjoying myself... just watched UFC and drank a tad bit o brew... yum... I hate your guts you loser. heh heh heh... what're you gonna do about it? Put entries into my guestbook? Well, go right ahead... be my guest! December 2, 2001: LABS!!! stupid labs! make them disappear! It's fuckin 2 in the morning and I'm still at the lab working on a lab. I have exams in three days, and I have alot of shit to do. And I'm tired right now too... ah well. Good luck. November 26, 2001: Wisdom teeth Hey. School is almost over. I am returning to NS on the 16th of December. That is less than three weeks away. It's a Sunday. When I go back, I'll be having my wisdom teeth out, though, so I think that I'll have to go a little easy on the drinking there big guy... wo ho ho.. and a bottle of ... hello operator, give me number nine... exams start next week. That's a great idea, hey? Maybe I should start studying soon. J/k. I've been progressively getting there. For those of you who don't know, Melody and I will be going to California this winter. That's going to be fun. Get away from the cooooold... brrrrrrrrr.... brummmmsky! Have a great day! October 17, 2001: quick update Hello. I am now in the computer lab in Waterloo. I have been having a very nice term. Very interesting courses (minus one- I won't say which one) and very nice people. It is very... pleasant. So how are you? I haven't heard from you in awhile. Tell me how you're doing. Send me an email at I-dont-give-a-shit-about-your-crummy-life@notevenonebit.com August 25, 2001: office on the weekend I am at the office again on this beautiful Saturday. Tom is here with me. Do you have anything to say, Thomas Thomas Moore has a big cock. and he is the sexiest bastard in the world. Thank you Thomas. That was very enlightening. You are greeeeaaaattttt! August 4, 2001: Verbal diarrhea and skydiving! Whaddup y'all. Y'all ready for this... give it to me baby! That's all I gotta say. Then you give me a left and a right and pop to the left cheek. YO GANGSTER! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? What I just experienced was called 'Verbal Diarrhea'. It is a Saturday afternoon, I am at work, and I am slightly tired right now. I am going skydiving tomorrow, and it will be fun! It will be totally fun! I'll tell you how it goes. May 27, 2001: Sweet Home California! Yo, I'm in San Jose California right now. For those of you who don't know, I'm working at Cypress Semiconductor in the Specialty Memories division. I work on Multi-Port memories, and FIFO's. I love it! San Jose is alot of fun. Lots of cool people here. You're cool too. I love you. February 13, 1954: Back in time It's weird. Time went backwards today, and wound me up in a spiral, whirling me half a century to 1954, where I am right now. I don't know if my surroundings are current or past. They are all the same as before. I'm typing on a computer, so presumably, this is a modern computer. But I know that it's long ago. AnD rIgHt NoW I'm tYpInG lIkE an AsIaN AvEnUe PerSon WhO HaS hAlF tHe LeTteRs In CaPs AnD hAlF nOt In CaPs. Well, that's that. Have a good half century. I'll meet you in 2001. February 2, 2001: SCUNT SCUNT is tonight. SCUNT is not a dirty word. Right now is an Iron Chef type of thing. It is very fun. Anyways, I will go. Bye January 28, 2001: The Mantonese Man Was at a bar yesterday with some buddies, and one guy meets a guy in the bathroom and he comes out and the guy starts talking bull... and then he starts making up stories about my buddy. He's like, "Your friend here was in the washroom, and he's like, 'I hate Gwai Los. Except you, man. You're the only gwai lo that I like!'" And then this was the part that cracked me up. He goes, "Now, I may not know Mantonese, but I know what a gwai lo is!" What is Mantonese? Mandarin and Cantonese? You can speak both at once? You want a cookie or something for that? And then he starts saying, "Oh I'm in CS at U of T. Yeah, I'm a nerd". I think to myself, "No you're not, you moron! You're an idiot. You want a cookie? Hey?" Anyways, so he was hitting on Melody too. That's kinda why I didn't like him also, so yeah, I'm sure I'm a LITTLE bit bias. He can make pubic salad and eat it if he wants. January 8, 2001: No one is reading this page! Nobody is reading this page. I can tell by the counter on the bottom of this page. Therefore, I am talking to myself, just like a schizophrenic. Hey, since I'm schizophrenic, I may as well sing like one. The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! He can talk really fast and he can bite you! He spills and he can kill and he rocks like a road lizard The chicken cow! The chicken cow! The chicken cow! December 31, 2000: New Year's!!! It's new millenium eve! This, as you, my dedicated web site visitors (i.e. me and me alone) know, is because of some reason that I am not aware of. Off by one error is my best guess. I'm watching My Fair Lady right now. la la la la la December 30, 2000: SIGN MY GUESTBOOK! Hello. I am still waiting for Melody to sign my guestbook. I am waiting for ANYONE to sign my guestbook. December 29, 2000: heading back to the 'loo Well, still have one more weekend in Nova Scotia. I will be in the city today. The city means "Halifax". I am talking to myself. If I am not talking to myself, sign my guestbook and assure me that I am not talking to myself, okay? I see Melody on Tuesday. We are very excited. I hope there isn't a snow storm, or I'll be screwed, cuz I have to go to school the next day. But I had to take this late flight for her sake, so that she can cab with me. grrrrr... oh well. December 28, 2000: Christmas is over Here I am, Christmas is over. It was a very nice Christmas indeed. I got alot of clothes. Clothes are nice. Had casino night last night. That was fun. I am at the cottage right now. My parents, brother and Christina (brother's gf) are discussing the ethics of hitting children. I'm on icq waiting for my sister's bf to message so that they can talk using the web cam. My dog just came in because it's nice and warm in this room. It really is warm. The rest of the house is kinda cold, actually, because we haven't been here for a week. I've got two ducks in the oven. Delicious! I love duck! And that's about it... yummy. My dad just came in to give me a can of root beer. Sometimes in life I feel guilty. Why do I feel guilty? Because of my lack of guilt in areas where I SHOULD feel a piercing pain. Such as how my dad is so great and I do not return the favor. December 14, 2000: SIGN MY GUESTBOOK! For all of you dedicated people who constantly return to my page day after day after day, have I got something that will show my appreciation for you. I have, before me, a link to: My web page! Okay, that was stupid. But I have an even better present for you: My guestbook for you to sign! But this is secret so don't tell anyone! December 7, 2000: GENESIS 1:1 It is on this day that I have created this diary. Today, I shall talk about what I am doing. For those who are listening, and that probably includes Melody and only Melody, if even, I am now in Fort McMurray Alberta. I am enjoying myself quite so up here. I have just eaten little tiny bagels with tomatoes and mmmm... cheese. I am all by myself, and feeling isolated. But I will be watching anime at Chrisian's place tonight, because Christian, let me tell you this much, is a really great guy, and I like him alot, because he's in karate, and karate is good for the heart and good for the soul. Please sign my guestbook because I don't know who visits my page any other way. It is, doggoneit, the only thing we have to track you, and we won't let it go. Not for the sun, and not for the moon. And not for you, cuz I don't give a rat's bunghole about you. |
