The military is checking out my complex!

So much weird stuff happened today that it deserves a blog about it. I was stopped by trains twice in one day, and I saw a black Toyota Yaris with a cool 007 plate.

But the weirdest thing is when I got home, I saw a whole bunch of guys in military uniforms standing around a Cherokee truck. I recognized Aaron from my middle school in the group--I know for sure he's part of army. They wanted to know the owner of the white van next to our parking stall. I had no clue; the only thing I know is that it is owned by someone my mom refers to as the Taiwan "Lo". My brother said we only know it's some Asian guy and Aaron is like "Yeah we know." I asked the other guy what's going on and he just sorta smiled and shrugged. They went on and began going door to door, asking them if they know anything about the van. Cally told me she saw them taking pictures of the van as well.

Weird. Why the military and not the police?

1-23 Federal Election 2006

CON: 124, LIB: 103, BQ: 51, NDP: 29, IND: 1

It was basically what I expected, even though I was really hoping for a miracle Liberal minority. The spread of the seats seem to be pretty bad either. The Cons need to satisfy the Libs or sleep with the damn Separatists. I don't know how they will get anything done. I wonder if any of them got the balls to stop the STUPID GST cut. Everyone knows a lump sum tax cut (ie. income tax cut) is better than a per unit tax cut. And it's a per unit CONSUMPTION tax too! As if Canadians don't spend enough already! Haha funny story:
http://www.src.ca/nouvelles/Politique/2006/01/25/002-audet-tps-rb.shtml

Anyways, the Libs were pretty disappointing in this election as well. Martin was just saying the stupidest things, promising all these ridiculous crap which just made him look bad. Hand gun ban? Changing your mind on head tax? Pay 1/2 my tuition? Get rid of the Notwithstanding Clause?

On the head tax thing, I don't understand why Martin made such a big deal about it. It was such a minor issue. It just made Raymond Chan look like a complete dog of the Liberal party. Sick. I don't know how the hell he got reelected.

Svend. Awesome. Send him packing.

Belinda... WTF. I can see her jump ship to the Cons any day now.

"Get a $500 college scholarship"

Yeah right.

Stop emailing me this crap. Read people!!! US RESIDENTS ONLY!

Also:

"Progressing Markets reserves the right to modify or amend this Agreement at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all, at Progressing Markets's sole discretion. "

More on the election tonight... or tomorrow.

Pen spinning and other pointless endeavours

During Christmas break I revisited an old bookmarked site on solving Rubik's Cubes and got hooked in trying to learn to "pen spin". It's a pretty simple trick: hold pen between thumb and index finger, flick the pen with your middle finger, pen loops over thumb and you try to catch the pen. I can do it about 50% of the time now... depending on the pen. I think the key of the trick is to hold the pen at the right point to get the correct balance. Most of my failures involve the pen not wanting to complete the rotation and sort of "slides off" my thumb instead of going over it. I'm actually quite surprised at how far I need to hold it to make it work consistently, ~1cm from the very end.

So what else's been going on lately? With only three courses, my life actually feels pretty free--though I've been working hard to keep my mind sharp on ACMA. Still no assignment yet but I've been going through the textbook and working on the chapter questions. Yet I still don't feel overly comfortable with all the concepts. There are SO many different functions, RVs, and expected values to remember; they seem to connect in a certain way that sort of makes sense and sort of doesn't. I often need to break things down to the s(x) or f_X(x) level and I think this speed will totally rape me in the exams. I started to meet Annie after lectures to go over the notes; I think it helps. I wonder if I can ever get to the point of finishing all the chapter questions as fast as Joyce... gawd she must have no life haha.

The rest of my courses are not really worth mentioning. Randy cracks me up bad and econ is just boring. None of my TA this semester seem that good--just boringly go over assignments in a linear fashion.

Canucks pwned the Habs this weekend. I could barely believe it when I turned the TV on and it was 3-0 Canucks--first period! The Habs' D were doing nothing as the Nucks kept going in front of Theodore and totally raped him. I was even more thrilled when Linden scored. Of course that made the other two periods relatively benign as Crawford sent people like Brookbank and Ruutu on powerplays.

Got an interview this Friday. I would be ECSTATIC if I land this co-op job. Friggin ECSTATIC!

Lesbians in Tiananmen Square

I saw this pic on BoingBoing. Mmmmm... Cute (hard to tell from the angle but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt) Chinese girls kissing in front of Chairman Mao's face... Damn that's HOT! Death to the CCP!!!














More in:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/13/photo_lesbian_kiss_i.html

張韶涵 - 潘朵拉

The first thing on my mind is WTF is “潘朵拉”? It means “Pandora”, phonetically represented using Chinese. Weird title, TERRIBLE cover. Angela’s new album is off to a pretty bad start.

On 康熙來了, she mentioned that the album will focus on a childish innocence theme with a lot of giddy, happy, even hip-hop-ish songs. Bad idea guys. The first three tracks are very bad and I don't think they suit Angela’s voice at all. Track one sounds like it was written in 1991 and the title track 潘朵拉 is probably the worst track on the whole album, barring the rap on track 7. Fortunately, it does get better from track 4--again, barring the rap on track 7. In particular, track 8 and 9 are both quite good; both showcases Angela's ability to hit the high notes well.

The truth is out!

In today's first Acma320 lecture, Dr. Parker said employers come back and tell him SFU Act. Sci. students are better prepared for the workplace than those from others universities. I believe him, though I've only seen UT's Mathematics of Interest exams. They are quite a bit easier than ours.

Wow Dr. Parker really slaughtered those people in Acma310. Passing grade had to be lowered from 50% ;). Official count of Acma320 says 27 people but quite a few of them weren't in Acma310... Or I at least I don't recall seeing them there at all. I'm surprised that I didn't see Joyce today; I hope she made it in. The hearing impaired kid wasn't there either--would've been interesting if he made it.

"OMG most exciting Canucks game... EVAR"

Jan. 7, 2006. This is seriously the best Canucks game I've ever watched. Best 3rd period ever, even with the collapse of Naslund by his bad pass. ARgh this puck over the glass shit is also very disheartening. But everyone was playing so hard, including those crazy Flames (YELLE WAS NUTS! I want a #6 jersey!). I LOVED IT!!!!! I wish I got it taped or capped cuz it was absolutely SEXY!!!

GO CANUCKS GO!!!

Oh and fuck Greg Millen:
1) "When you have an extra man, which you DO on a PP..."
2) "They won the face off because Yelle wasn't on the ice..."
3) "Uh I don't know about that one..."
And after the video replay:
4) "Oh I agree completely!"

And finally:
Millen: "So the Canucks get a bonus point in a hard-fought tie"
Hughson: "A hard-fought...4-3 VICTORY for the Canucks"

THAT'S RIGHT HUGHSON!!! FUCK YOU GREG MILLEN!!!!!

This is Wonderland

Haha I'm gonna miss watching TV when school starts. Last night I saw this show call "This is Wonderland" on CBC and it's friggin' hilarious! Everyone go watch it!

On hockey: Canada wins gold in World Juniors and Canucks FINALLY wins a game! It was 3-2 over Chicago, nice deke by Ruutu in the penalty shot (though I still don't like him), and a really cool and composed goal by Naslund. Good stuff.

Elections Canada / BC

I don't how they operate but it's not very impressive. It all started with the last federal election. My voting card arrived then with a typo in my middle name. Now I admitt it's easy to confuse an 'I' with a small 'L', and not to mention that it makes more phonetical sense. But hey, that's how the Portugese in Macau decided how '叡' should be phonetically represented. Yes, that is "Ioi", not the popular net-slang short hand "Lol".

I told the people at the voting place that my name is mispelled. They directed me to fill out some forms and I showed them my driver's license, and I thought that's that: no more Raymond 'Laugh out loud' Chiang. That's until I got my voting card a while back for the provincial election with the same mistake. No biggie. Provincial, federal. Different enity, poor communication, lousy efficency. This is Canada, what do you expect? So again, filled out some form, and la-ti-ta life goes on, with me assuming everything is now fixed.

So today I got my voting card for the upcoming federal election and I'm still Raymond Lol something Chiang. Idiots.