Current Oscar Standings

Wow ROTK is sweeping everything!!!

19. Jeff Wentworth (475)
28. Robert Wang (460)
37. Nelson Hu (440)
71. David Clement (391)
85. Vincent Shiao (376)
123. Matt Chan (323)
144. grace hu (290)
159. Kitty Chan (270)
180. Mike Lim (235)
186. Kevin (218)
203. Keith Mo (184)

Have I left anyone out?

Mac Takes on UT Law...

When I was accepted to U of T law in December, I soon found out that if I went, I would definitely not be alone. It turned out there were seven of us Artsci's in the same boat. Seven! That's more than 10 percent of my year! Although not all of us are going to go, the seven of us took a pleasant road trip down the QEW to check out their open house on Friday (Carol was also there).

I was going to stay at home and study at first, but the rest of them kind of persuaded me to go down together to check it out. We were all kind of one big family in first year, but even now, we still like to do events together. So I was like, what the heck, I'll go down, and leave early and I can still get back to get my work done.

I was glad I went... If for nothing more than just to hang out with some people I hadn't seen in a while. I've been more of an economics student than an Artsci this year (which isn't a bad thing), but it's just been different than what I've grown used to. Law school is a lot less intimidating when you're down there with 7 others. We were definitely the worst-dressed students there -- and we loved it. I think my dressing has gone even more casual than I was in high school -- Most days I just go to class in track pants these days! It was amusing for us to see so many people dressed up and ready to make an impression. Of course, with alumni like David Miller, Dalton McGuinty and Paul Martin, there's going to be a lot of ambition in the room. Although a couple of us swore that law school wasn't going to change them, I think I'm going to need some new clothes... Imagine Dalton McGuinty in sweatpants!

Later at the "schmooze", (where incidentally, the Law School provided an open wine bar) former Artsci's were coming out of the woodwork. We saw several of the people whom we once looked up to at Mac, and who were now upper years in law school... It's just amazing how everyone in the program just keeps running into each other. It's almost like family in a way -- our cultish nature can seem a little overbearing sometimes, but everyone just puts forth so much effort to take care of and mentor the younger ones behind them. Hopefully, I'll be able to do the same. We even met the dean of admissions, who jokingly asked "So, have we left out any of you who applied?"

Needless to say, I think the Arts and Science Programme has been a pretty unique educational experience. In addition to about ten going on to law, I'm confident that there will be 20 people in my year that have gone on or will go on to Med School. I know others interested in teacher's college, or further graduate work. Overall, it's a program that has forced me to think in different ways, using all sorts of different disciplines. I was forced into several courses that ran counter to my interests (namely, bio, chem, physics, stats). I hung out with and worked with an extremely diverse group of people -- although with a 2:1 girl:guy ratio was a little strange at first for me to get used to always hanging out with girls (I was down at U of T with 5 girls and a gay guy). But I know that wherever I end up, I'll be sure to run into an Arts and Science alumni in the years ahead.

Oscar Pick'ems....SIGN UP NOW!

Thanks Jeff for the quick response on the Oscars Pick'em game. This contest looks pretty good. I always had a problem with the Yahoo game weighting all the categories equally. This contests weighs each category differently and it also gives you points to spread across all the contenders in a given category. Looks complex...which I like (but easy enough for anyone to just sign up and finish their ballot in a matter of minutes). If you've ever read about my complex betting strategies with Keith over marks, you'll know what I mean.

So this is the plan.... Go sign up here:


http://www.fast-lane-productions.com/oscarcontest/login.asp?CID=77232

After the Oscar's are over, email/icq your results to me and I'll post them here. Then we'll compare and determine the winner. There will be no prize money (unless you win something off of this site...). This is all for pure fun and entertainment. I want to encourage as many people to participate (it's free after all). Usually, the only people that play are Vince, Patrick and myself (BTW Patrick is the defending champion). So I guess you don't even have to tell me you're participating and just tell me your results after the Oscars this Sunday.

Please signup as soon as possible. There is something about a deadline to make at least a few partial picks by this Fri! SO HURRY!

(BTW, i don't think it matters for anything except for prizes, but i choose the "(EXPERT) The Casablanca All-Stars" team category, seeing how the three of us usually place within the top 10% of the overall Yahoo rankings. Sign up to the same group if you wish).

Happy Pickings!

PS I just took a look at the point distribution, and they weigh the lesser categories with very few points. So the major categories are very important.

Oscar's

Can anyone find an online Oscar Pick'em game? I run one every year and Yahoo! is not running one this year. I need to find one quick, since Oscars is this weekend! They moved it up from the end of March to beginning of February.

Anyone else want to participate? Drop me a line.

Raptors are Sad

I can't believe how many injuries the Raptors currently have.


Vince Carter
Jalen Rose
Alvin Williams
Lonny Baxter
+
Lamond Murray is being an ass
Bosh is playing on a gimpy ankle
+
We had to start someone named Roger Mason.
We just signed a scrub named J. Pargo.
+
Palacio, Moiso and Curry are getting major minutes.
=
Raptors will not make the playoffs in the Leastern Conference


Pathetic

Reading Week Fun

Went up to Blue Mountain on friday for a day of skiing. And it was really fun! Even more fun than I expected! Trying to do the jumps and wiping out in the mogul sections was fun. I decided to ski this year and not try to learn to snowboard. The first time i tried snowboarding I had to stop halfway through the day because it hurt too much. Victor tried snowboarding for the second time ever and I'm sure he was plenty sore. Jeff Wentworth, who read on this blog that I was going skiing, wanted to go as well and even offered to drive the Etobicoke folk. He was even nice enough to drive to Korean BBQ on Hwy 7 afterward. Thanks Jeff. Blogging does have its advantages :) Thanks for organizing Victor!

Being back at home was very relaxing...I just vegged for the few days I was home. I had access to cable TV. I managed to watch some UFC for the first time. That stuff is pretty violent, yet enthralling.

Valentine's last week fun. We went to a local Waterloo restaurant called Rushes. On the way there, I got a phone call from Barry. You know what he was asking? He was asking me if it was possible for me to tape the NBA all-star dunk contest for him. They had a special Valentine's day menu, as many places seem to have, that can be seen here. Did you know that wilted pea sprouts taste exactly like bean sprouts? I guess that shouldn't be too surprising. I've never had snails before and I tried that. It didn't have a very strong taste, but the texture blended really well with the portabello mushroom. The filet of beef topped with chantrelles (which is just another type of mushroom) was also very tasty. A nice touch was having a pianist playing some jazzy pop arrangments in the background. We actually ended up having dinner over a span of 3 hours!

I'm currently watching the NBA rookie game and the All-star game. I downloaded it off of BitTorrent, and unfortunately it is in Mandarin. But I can't complain much, I downloaded 333 megs in 47 minutes! Check out how much I uploaded for the slam dunk contest:


I still haven't been able to download the whole thing...

I can understand some of it, but it's also kinda funny. From what I can make out, they are constantly talking about Yao Ming as if he's the only player on the court. Another interesting point was that Bosh was playing alot at what seemed like point guard. He was dribbling and bringing the ball up the court a lot. At the halftime entertainment, there was a performer call Michael Mcdowell. The chinese announcers pronounced it Michael Mcdonald. And it's always funny when the chinese announcers say BOOZEr. :) Boozer is currently my favourite player. I have him on my fantasy team and he's tearing it up. He also kicked some ass at the Rookie/Sophmore game. Plus, I still chuckle whenever I hear his name....I even changed my team name from "Chairman Yao" to "Chairman BOOZEr".

Midterm on the night before Reading Week?

As fellow Waterloo students know, Reading Week doesn't exist for Waterloo Engineers. We get reading days. Two days to be exact: thursday and friday. And our ECE department had the foresight to schedule our midterm on wednesday night, the night before we go on our "break". Already this week, the campus is practically empty and when we're writing our exams on wed night, I'm certain the campus will be absolutely empty. Anyway, sorry if that sounds a bit bitter. At least we don't have to make up classes we're going to miss on the reading days, which has happened before. :)

I'll be looking to blog again in the very near future once I write my last midterm tomorrow. My housemates are also planning a day for skiing/snowboarding at Blue Mountain on fri. Sounds like fun!

Midterms....suck

Yes, it's true. I had one yesterday, had one today and have 2 more next week.

Anyway, in unrelated news I watched Spellbound last night (instead of studying). It's a documentary about kids competing in the US national spelling bee. Does this sound boring? Well, it's actually quite good. Not super exciting or excessively hilarious, but very compelling. You can tell that these kids will grow up to be keeners....except for the one guy who really couldn't care less (not that there's anything wrong with that...). And it's pretty scary how much some of these kids studied for it. All those hours spent on a virtually useless skill. Speaking of spending hours frivolously, I watched this documentary between 12 and 2AM last night when I should have been studying! Good thing the midterm wasn't too difficult today. whew...

The reason I watched it was because I just downloaded a BitTorrent client and was "testing" it out. When I had finished downloading it (at almost 100mb/hour) I had to "test" out the file. You can guess what happened next...

When did Kill Bill Vol. 2's release date get pushed back to April? Why? Bah! I was really looking forward to watching it after midterms were over. Now I have to wait until I"m done my final exams, because I happens to land on the day of my last final. Can't wait...

Valentines is coming up! If you want to get out of the house on sat try this. I've got plans already...the restaurant looks expensive, but appears quite good. I'll have more info by the weekend.

Here's a commercial for hair. Don't all you girls want to buy this product now?

BTW for those who have watched Spellbound, the definition of Euonym is a good name or appropriate name for a person, place or thing.

Wow, this posting is really random and disjoint today. I didn't even bother to bullet these random thoughs. So I'll continue on more random thoughts.

This weekend is the basketball all-star festivities. Since I don't have a TV I will probably be missing a lot of it. Plus, it is also valentine's, so I'll definitely be missing that....unless the restuarant has a TV...... JUST JOKING. That would be something NOT to do on Balentine's. If I did, I might have to use my Bud Light "Let's make February 15th our Valentine Day" card that Tim so thoughtfully gave to me for secret santa.

Here's some thoughts about Vince Carter that Charles Barkely voiced. I completely agree:

"When you have that much talent, you don't get to say 'I just want to blend in.' That's not the way it works. It's up to the great players to make the other scrubs better. It's up to Vince to put his teammates on his back and carry them. That's the responsibility of being a great player. Kevin Garnett can't just say he wants to blend in with the other guys. Shaquille O'Neal can't say that; Allen Iverson can't say that; and Tracy McGrady can't say that. Great players have to play great and they have to lead. You're not one of the guys -- you're better than everyone else. That is why you're an All-Star and you get the highest salary. If you just want to be one of the guys, then cut your salary and make what the other guys make. They don't pay you a lot of money to blend in. There's a reason Shaq makes $20 million a year. You can't just blend in! You have to lead the team." -- Barkley, on Toronto guard Vince Carter saying he'd rather just fit in with the rest of the team instead of being "the man."

Come on Vince...be "The Man"

I'm winning in my basketball pool....yay.

Maybe I'll download the the basketball stuff off of BitTorrent. I'm currently downloading the first few episodes of Survivor: All Stars. I hope someone uploads the bball stuff, because someone even bothered to upload the Lingerie Bowl on BitTorrent. That sounds like a plan. (The plan is downloading the basketball stuff, not the Lingerie Bowl, especially since my roommate already downloaded it...and promptly deleted it because it was so bad). Maybe I should download NBA Live 2004. I hear from multiple people that it's good.

That's it for today.

Catching up

Midterms are coming up and I'm so far behind in my work, i probably shouldn't even be posting this message. So I'll stop here.

A Day at the Theatre

So I finally managed to watch Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. It has already be in theatres for almost a month and a half. I'm glad I went to see it, because it's worth seeing in theatres. Luckily, I didn't have to go see it alone. My roomate Aaron hadn't seen it yet...actually he hadn't even seen the second one before this weekend! To solve this dilemma, my other roomate (Victor) helped me download the second movie off of BitTorrent. It was a really speedy download: 2.8 gigs in only about ten hours! After much convincing, Aaron was ready to watch it. Now it was just a matter of getting there and back. It was decided that the best way would be taking a taxi. It cost around $7 bucks one way and the movie cost $8.50. But like I said, it was money well spent. Thankfully I didn't have to go see by myself...Thanks Aaron!

When we got there, I was actually quite surprised to see that the movie theatre was almost full! I would say that i was at least 3/4 full. I thought I was the last person to go see it...i guess there were a lot of others in a similar situation as myself (unless they were going to see it for a second time). The people behind me were very annoying as well. They kept talking throughout the movie and the person directly behind me kept kicking my seat. Since I know my Seinfield very well, i used the half-turn. Then another half-turn. Then, I was forced to use the full-turn. Luckily, I didn't have to resort to anything worse.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

How was the movie itself? Excellent. I enjoyed it throughly, even though it did drag on near the end. I thought they did a good job with the spider. Quite a few people in the theatre I was at were audibly squirming. The battle scenes were just tremendous. And Gollum was incredible. I really liked Gollum in the second movie and he's just as good if not better in the ROTK. How did Lucas screw up Jar Jar in Star Wars so badly?

Just a few minor quibbles: The undead army that Aragon summons was a little cheesy. I don't know how it was written in the book, but I didn't think it played out too well in the movie. The other quibble I have concerns the hobbits and their gayness. Someone mentioned this to me before I went to see ROTK and it was fresh in my mind while I watched. Although it didn't ruin the movie for me, it was undeniably present (the gayness, that is). Especially near the end when the Hobbits are in bed together or whenever they gaze into each other's eyes. To further illustrate, here are few quotes from movie critics:

Perhaps it's the Jungian cornucopia of homoerotic symbolism (the swords! the staffs! the towers!) and the endless moony, moist gazes between members of the all-male Fellowship as they gird their loins for battle. There are times in Return of the King, as halfling faces halfling or king faces elf, when you want to stand up and shout, "Kiss him already!"

Set on its two giant legs of the towers, the "Eye of Sauron" looks unmistakably like a big, angry vagina in the sky. (No doubt there's a good graduate-school thesis to be written about homo-erotic bonding and the fear of the feminine in The Lord of the Rings).

Here's a quote for Tim Ho, a noted Philly Eagles fan:

Philadelphians can take particular delight in the ecstatic cry offered up in Return's third act: "The eagles are coming!" Alas, the magnificent, digitally rendered birds that swoop down to pluck exhausted bravehearts from a molten flood bear little resemblance to Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and the fellowship of the Linc.

***END OF SPOILERS***

Enough about LOTR. This weekend is the SuperBowl!!! This is the first time in a very long time that I haven't watched it. The reason for this is because we don't have TV in Waterloo (which is for the best). As I'm writing this, they are tied with time running out in the fourth quarter. Looks like I missed a competitive game, which is rare for the SuperBowl. The sports writers have been writing about the SuperBowl nonstop this week, but this article takes an interesting angle: SuperBowl weekend is the absolutely slowest weekend for weddings in the entire year. So if you are ever planning a wedding, remember not to schedule it during SuperBowl weekend...unless you're really cheap.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

I haven't watched this movie yet!!! I somehow missed seeing with all of my friends and now even my parents have watched it before I have! I'm considering going to watch Return of the King this weekend before it's out of theatres. It's gotten so bad, that I'm considering taking a taxi to the theatre, watching it alone and then taxing back. That's how desperate it is. So if there is anyone in Waterloo that wants to go see it and has a means of transportation, give me a shout.

If anyone is bored out there, they should check out the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business of 2004. I like number 62, which I know my roomate Edmond contributed to. Keith and I were also going to do our part, but by the time we finally settled our marks bet, the promotion was over. Lucky for Red Lobster.

But the best part about that list is #3. It's Ghettopoly, a board game like Monopoly, but set in the Ghetto. Yes, it appears racist and has created a lot of controversy, but the creator has a long rebuttal to those accusations titled "A Message to the Haters". Just imagine the hours of fun it can provide. Why would you ever play the original when you can build crack houses instead of normal houses and be a machine gun instead of a top hat. For those that know him, couldn't you imagine Ryan Brown enjoying this game? Remember playing Ghetto Scrabble back in high school? Anyway, I hope no one is offended...

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention: there is one special player token just for Matt Wong. As everyone knows how much he likes this stuff, I just know Matt would choose the 40 ounce bottle of Malt Liquor to represent himself. I mean just look at the pictures I posted. It's a natural fit. :)


Now Matt can drink a 40 AND be a 40.