1.16 - The One about friends

There are 3 things that are really important to me...God, family and friends. The first two are constant...they can never change...but the later...for better or worse can change. I've been blessed to have friends where ever I go. Making friends in the different places I've lived, worked, went to school, and the different places I've visited. Some friends are temporary, some last a little longer, some get close and then fade...and some have been lifetime.

My mom always told me even if you disappoint them...your family will always be here for you. But your friends...they come and go. It doesn't matter how close you are right now...they may move, you may move, or they could let you down and disappoint you. That's a harsh reality...something that unfortunatly is something that I've experienced. Moving away is something that I can live with...you always can go visit...write...e-mail...blog...etc. But one thing I find the hardest to deal with is when close friends disappoint me. I can't say that I haven't disappointed any of my friends...and to those...I'm sorry.

Recently I've heard from a few friends I lost contact with over the years. Two of them, I grew up with. We went to elementary school and highschool until I moved away. To be able to catch up and see where they now is awesome...reminising about the good ole days where we were young and worries were few. It's amazing how we remembered the little things about each other...the good and the bad. Even though we haven't seen each other in years...it seems like we haven't been apart for too long.

That's the good...but then the bad comes roaring back again...this past week, I heard about another friend of mine. We were close at one point in time...but for one reason or another...we drifted apart. I still don't understand how we got this way...but whatever the reason...we don't talk anymore. I've called and e-mailed to no response. I don't know what I'd say or do if I saw this person again...but the news about them...to me at first...I was disappointed. But...I remembered one thing...whatever happens, God is in control. He'd never put you into a situation where you couldn't handle it. So...with that...I pray for my friend and hope that maybe one day things could be reconciled between us.

If you haven't noticed already...all my blog titles have been labeled "The One...". That was taken directly from the TV show 'Friends'. I think one of the main reasons that 'Friends' was such a big hit, was that it showed a side where 6 people, even though they had their differences and quarrels...could stick it out and find a way to remain friends...and not just any type of friend...best friends.

So...to all those who are friends, bestfriends, friends of friends, familes of friends, on and off again friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, imaginary friends...be a good friend to your friends.

word count [friend(s)] = 28

1.15 - The One where I'm officially OLD

Main Entry: ¹old
Pronunciation: 'Old; for sense 9 usually 'Ol
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English eald; akin to Old High German alt old, Latin alere to nourish, alescere to grow, altus high, deep
1 a : dating from the remote past : ANCIENT <old traditions> b : persisting from an earlier time old ailment> old argument> c : of long standing old friend>
2 a : distinguished from an object of the same kind by being of an earlier date old name> b capitalized : belonging to an early period in the development of a language or literature <Old Persian>
3 : having existed for a specified period of time old>
4 : of, relating to, or originating in a past era <old chronicles record the event>
5 a : advanced in years or age old man> b : showing the characteristics of age old at 20>
6 : EXPERIENCED old trooper speaking of the last war>
7 : FORMER old students>
8 a : showing the effects of time or use : WORN, AGED <old shoes> b : well advanced toward reduction by running water to the lowest level possible -- used of topographic features c : no longer in use : DISCARDED <old rags> d : of a grayish or dusty color <old mauve> e : TIRESOME old fast>
9 a : long familiar old story> old Joe> b -- used as an intensive old time> c -- used to express an attitude of affection or amusement old dog> old biceps> old time>
synonyms OLD, ANCIENT, VENERABLE, ANTIQUE, ANTIQUATED, ARCHAIC, OBSOLETE mean having come into existence or use in the more or less distant past. OLD may apply to either actual or merely relative length of existence <old houses> old sweater of mine>. ANCIENT applies to occurrence, existence, or use in or survival from the distant past <ancient accounts of dragons>. VENERABLE stresses the impressiveness and dignity of great age venerable patriarch>. ANTIQUE applies to what has come down from a former or ancient time antique Chippendale furniture>. ANTIQUATED implies being discredited or outmoded or otherwise inappropriate to the present time <antiquated teaching methods>. ARCHAIC implies having the character or characteristics of a much earlier time archaic language to convey a sense of period>. OBSOLETE may apply to something regarded as no longer acceptable or useful even though it is still in existence obsolete>.

Well...that's me...today I turn officially OLD...the big 2-5...the quarter century...the silver anniversary...and so on and so forth. Emily told me the other day that your cells stop regenerating when you turn 25. My brother told me that your don't stop until you're dead...you basically gain a "new" body every 2 years. BUT...if Em was referring to brain cells...that would explain ALOT. So this my 25th birthday...I'm not going to do anything to extravagant...sit back...relax...sleep in...HAHAHAHA...I already had to work at 6:30am. Oh and it's raining here again...I don't remember the last birthday I had that it didn't rain or snow...

Last night we played in the semi-finals against the team primarily made up of my old highschool teachers. It was probably the roughest game we played all year...lots of whistles...bad calls going both ways...and technical fouls given out to the most unlikely people. Although we lost Gary and Mike as they both fouled out early in the second half (cheap fouls I might add)...we stuck it out and won 67-61. WE'RE GOIN' TO DA FINALS!!

Party on Wayne. Party on Garth...Calvin...Hobbes...(lack of brain cell regeneration....)

1.14 - The One with the state of emergency

As of 1500hrs Monday until 1200hrs Tuesday, Cobourg, is in a state of emergency. Horizon Plastics, the second largest employer in my town caught fire and burned for hours with smoke billowing up 500+ feet in the air. I was sitting at my brothers computer in the kitchen when I looked outside seeing an odd looking cloud. When it started to turn black and rising I realized..."that's no cloud". This is the view from my house...

and this is Horizon Plastics as she burns...

The Mayor declared a "State of Emergency"...schools were shut down streets closed, we lost power for approx. 1hr, and people were evacuated from their homes. In a town of 15,000+, something like this is HUGE news...if there's an upside to this...no one was injured and all the employees escaped from the blaze.

1.13 - The One with all the clicking

I found this while surfing around...


click to your heart's content

1.12 - The One with the solo

For the past two days, our church choir has put on a Spring Cantata called "Lift Up Your Eyes". I had a solo in the cantata, I sang Forever by Chris Tomlin...one of my all time favourite songs.After it was all sung and done...I was exhausted...oh well..it was all worth it

1.11 - The One with Amanda's car

Amanda decided to go to Toronto for the day to visit a friend...then the unexpected happened...

Now...that's not her car...and that's not the truck that hit her...but you get the idea. You can read her account of what happened here.

1.10 - The One with the wristband

It broke...WHAT?!?! How did it break? awww man...

5 seconds earlier

I'm taking off my LIVESTRONG wristband after getting home from work...and *SNAP* it breaks. WHAT?!?! I still can't understand how it broke...I wasn't too impressed...good thing I bought more than one...OH...but I gave them all away...so now I have none.

On a high note...my The Art of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith book came from amazon today thus completing my collection which I started way back in grade 11. It looks really good...can't wait for the movie though...but not as anxious as those in episode 1.08.

1.09.5 - The One that is inbetween

For those who are keeping track...we won our basketball game tonight 89-59. I finished with a poor man's triple double - 8 steals, 6 assists, 5 rebounds and 2 points. Next game we play the team that is made up of my old highschool teachers. Its always a fun game to play...but those teachers are dirty and they get all the calls. Oh and it finally stopped rainning....

1.09 - The One with all the rain

After really warm and sunny skys for the past 2 weeks...it decides to rain today. I don't think it has stopped raining at all today and it doesn't look like it wants to let up. I guess its April showers right? Well, we need the rain...the golf courses look terrible and I want to go golfing...but not on rock hard brown grass. Talking to D-Ray (who's in England right now), he's saying that they get 3 outta 7 days of cloudy and crappy weather...but the other 4 days are nice...now why is that? And if you goto Bermuda or even Cali, its nice for weeks upon end...with no rain in sight...maybe it's cuz of the ocean...why couldn't Lake Ontario be an ocean? We could call it the Ontario Ocean...the big Double 'O'.

WHAT!?!?! says Lil Jon...if you don't know who Lil Jon is...he's a rapper (with lots of metal in his teeth) that tends to yell out WHAT!!! YEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!! in every single song he does. Why does he yell out WHAT!!! all the time? Perhaps cuz he's curious..and when he says YEEEEAAAHHHH!!! that's when he get's the answer. OR maybe he's just hard of hearing...from all the partying and loud music. The metal in his teeth must interfere with his hearing aids...it creates some sort of radio/electrical interference in the atmosphere causing all miniature electrical devices within a range of x meters to deactivate or malfunction and subsequently refuse to reactivate. [this theory brought to you by the Legend that is D]

WHAT!?!?!

1.08 - The One with a month to go

05.19.05 - mark that date on your calendars boys and girls...the final chapter of the epic Star Wars prequel trilogy opens worldwide. That's right, Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith...the movie slated to be this year's biggest box office smash hit has already started to sell out in some theatres. Now I'm a big Star Wars fan...but this is getting ridunkulous...check this story out:

Advance 'Star Wars' Tickets Selling Out - Monday April 18 10:14 AM ET

LOS ANGELES - As Yoda would say "Sold out, the first shows are" for "Star Wars: Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith" at a cineplex in Hollywood. Tickets for the 12:01 a.m. May 19 showing of George Lucas' latest installment of the "Star Wars" series have already sold out for all four screenings at the Arclight. Tickets for the new "Star Wars" movie went on sale Friday at many theaters across the country and at online providers like Fandango.com. Fandango represents about 70 percent of the country's movie houses that have remote ticket sales. "Star Wars" ticket sales figures from the weekend aren't yet available, but Fandango CEO Art Levitt said in a statement that "for those theaters already listing show times, the appetite for tickets is huge."

I think that's crazy...I know it's Star Wars, but to start selling tickets a month in advance and to have it sold out? I went to Episode II on openning day and I got my tickets online that morning...and I thought I was crazy. Well I'm sure I'll see it openning week...see how Anakin really becomes one of the best villans of all time...

1.07 - The One with the game which thought it was a movie

I love to watch action films, especially if they star my fellow Asian brothers (Jet Li, Jackie Chan, etc.). Now SCEA made a game for the PS2 starring Jet Li called Rise to Honor. The game play is totally different than any other button mashing action game. Instead of using the "normal" butttons to punch, kick, etc....you get to use the right analog stick (which is the joystick on the right side of the PS2 controller). You "slap" it to the direction of your enemy to preform a random attack...so you find yourself tirelessly "slapping" this thing into submission while beating up all the bad guys. Now to make this game less repeatative (and more annoying) the gamemakers decided to put some "stealth" missions into the game where you sneak around, hide and avoid the beam of light which come out of the flashlights held by the ever dangerous security guards. You can stand in front of the guards, but as long as you're outside of the light...he can't see you. That would be a neat trick to have had when I was a kid playing hide & seek.

The game goes on varriying between fighting, stealth and shooting for 66+ levels...thankfully they are short and is driven by a pretty good storyline. But the difficulty level becomes ridunkulous by the end. Rise to Honor would have made a better movie than a game. It even includes a behind the scenes look at how they made the game along with interviews with Jet Li, the producers and other actors. I think I'll pop in Romeo Must Die...

1.06 - The One with all the waiting

Here's the situation:

• Reservations for 15
• Fine Dining restaurant
• Birthday Party for Rebecca
• not very many tables full at the restaurant
• Starting time (please take note): 7:30 pm - 14 show up
• drinks & apps being ordered @ approx: 7:45 - 7:50 pm (water, wine, beer, nothing to hard to get)
• 14 drinks show up @ approx: 8:30 - 8:40 pm
• food orders taken @ 8:50 pm
• 5 apps show up @ 9:10 pm (it just Caesar Salad)
• Bread comes upon request @ 9:15 pm
• food comes @ 9:30 - 9:45 pm
• refills on drinks arrive @ 9:50 pm
• Lesley arrives @ 10:10ish pm
• bills paid @ 10:30 pm

total time waiting: tooooo long...it wasn't like it was a busy night for them. Nadine thinks that it was age discrimination...serve to older rich looking folks before sering the younger less rich looking kids. I've never waited around for a waitress for that long before. Its like driving in a car with 300+ horsepower to get one a horse with 1. This my friends was truely ridunkulous (if you don't know what that means, check out episode 1.03 - The One with the missing extras)

I'm sure Rebecca had a wonderful birthday dinner and everyone did have a good time despite the lag time.

Oh and before I forget...today was D-Ray's birthday...Happy Birthday playa...

1.05 - The One with the new van

First off...check this out..Tiger at his best
AND
Happy Birthday to Rebecca.

My parents bought a new van today...the 2005 Honda Odyssey. Its a real nice van with tons of cool features in it. They've never bought a new vehicle ever and no they decided to get one. I like how all the seats fold down into the floor ending the days of lugging the seats out and finding a place for them...or going somewhere with no seats then needing seats.

Tonight at youth group I we played a new song during worship...well new to most people. Majesty (here I am) by Delirious. It's gotta be one of my favourite songs of all time. For the first time playing it it sounded awesome...not many people sang with us...but the instruments, singers....it all came together.

Here I am humbled by your Majesty
Covered by your grace so free
Here I am, knowing I'm a sinful man
Covered by the blood of the Lamb

Now I've found the greatest love of all is mine
Since you laid down your life
The greatest sacrifice

Majesty, Majesty
Your grace has found me just as I am
Empty handed, but alive in your hands
Majesty, Majesty
Forever I am changed by your love
In the presence of your Majesty

Here I am humbled by the love that you give
Forgiven so that I can forgive
Here I stand, knowing that I'm your desire
Sanctified by glory and fire

1.04 - The One with all the stuff

Oh my goodness...how can 1 person accumulate so much stuff? I decided to start cleaning out my office for my big move...throw stuff out...less stuff to move. So I begin with the stuff around my desk...lots of papers...most of that goes...then stuff in my filing boxes. I had stuff from highschool still...and not where I graduated from...but from BJMHS (I went there for grade 9-11, then I moved across the country and ended up at CDCI West)....why would I keep all the stuff? In any case...I started picking through it...gave some notes to my brother who thought that some of this stuff would be useful to him. Most of that useless stuff went into the recycling...man I had lots of stuff.

Its a good thing I had a basketball game tonight...or I'd be stuck riding my room of stuff. Our team was in a 3-way tie for second in the league with us having one game remaining. All we had to do was win our final game and we would have sole possession of second. It was probably the wierdest game we played all season...we were quickly up by 12 but no one could hit a layup. We could hit all our jumpers but if we got within 3 feet of the net...nothing would fall. Oh well...we won the game and ended the season with a 14-7 record. Let the playoffs begin...

word count [stuff] = 13

1.03 - The One with the missing extras

When movie studios first started to put out DVD's as opposed to the old school VHS tapes, the coolest things about them were the extra bonus features that they stick onto the DVD's. They will put the movie trailers, behind the scenes look at how they made the movie, Director and/or actor commentaries, and so on. They even have an extra disc now to cram all those extras on it...in the case of The Lord of The Rings series...director Peter Jackson went to great lengths to put together an Extended Edition of his movies. From 30-60 minutes of extra footage that never made the theatrical cut. Usually the bigger the movie, the more extras they put on the DVD. Not in the case of Warner Brother's Ocean's 12. The sequel to the ever popular Ocean's 11 starring some big time actors and directed by a big time director. So you'd think that a movie that made over $125 Million at the box office would put out a good DVD with tons of extras?

nope...

I know its heist movie and all about misdirection...but this is ridunkulous (pronounced re-dunk-U-lus. adj. beyond ridiculous). All you get is the theatrical trailer...the trailers for The Aviator, The Phantom of the Opera, & Million Dollar Baby. You don't even get the ever useless teaser trailer. Even Ocean's 11 had a behind the scenes feature and audio commentaries. Lucky for me I bought my copy at WalMart...it comes packaged with the Ocean's 12 BONUS DISC. An extra disc with its own case and cool looking jacket. But all that is on the "bonus" DVD is a 13 minute HBO First Look Special...which doesn't really do much but show the trailer and shows you a couple behind the scenes things. Mostly Brad Pitt being very sarcastic and the big Hollywood stars having a good time joking around while filming the movie. But the movie is very good...not as good as the first, but it can hold it's own. So...who stole the extras?

1.02 - The One with all the Nonviolence

so I'm dreading going to my CPI course today cuz it just seemed sooo boring, but when I get there I sit at the table in the back with Rick, Ginny, and Sharon...it seemed like a fun table...as the course gets going we start to joke and laugh...and get loud disturbing the class. Its a good
thing that I'm pretty tight with our instructor and that she has a good sense of humour. We survive through the day with much fun and laughter...but at lunch...that's when we dragged Shelly into the mix and we lost it from there...and I thought that it would be boring...tells you how much I know. Oh and btw...if you don't know what CPI is...it's Nonviolent Physical Crisis Intervention (why isn't it NPCI? it is...but the course is called CPI...why? I dunno...I just work there). Fresh from training...I know ALL the answers...just as long as I have my book.

I'd like to take this moment and give a shout out to my main man Tiger Woods who claimed his 4th Green Jacket yesterday. That chip for birdie on 16 was crazy...too bad he followed up with 2 bogeys. Anywayz...congrats to him and the jacket. But why do they give out a jacket at the Masters? Every other tournament you get a trophy...but nope...this one is different...you get a jacket...and to cap it all off...it's green. I suppose when your tournament is called The Masters, you can give out whatever you want to the winner. I think if I ever had my own golf tournament I'd like to give out a guitar or something that's not related to golf in anyway.

1.01 - The Pilot

well well well...this would be my first post for my new blog. After months and months of hype from Lesley telling me I haven't lived until I've blogg'd...I'm here. Now oddly enough this isn't my blog...my first one isn't really a personal one...it was more of a test to figure out a new program for another site...which as you see...I used a blog program to post everything.

Now what is a blog? I'm guessing its an acronym in this world of short form and webglish...so let me try to see what it is....

Bionic Laser Organic Gerbils

ok maybe not...upon further research marketingterms.com a blog is - A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links. or a weblog.

so basically they took a page right out of Calvin and Hobbes in creating this fabulous word blog. Just like Calvin made his club calling it G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS) to keep Suzie out...we get the word blog. Who knew Calvin was a genious?