Iced Tea Explosion/ UT 2004

Tank, Ninja, Beast, are used too much, define, not use them anymore like thing, thingieing

More about cool cooking dinner later. =)

Just some crazy thoughts...

As me and Duy were walking back from the convenience store after dinner today, we heard the radio commerical that ends with: "Coffee time is any time, any time is coffee time!" And so my crazy mathie mind started working, and I thought...hmmm...that can be true in real life, but it doesn't have to be true in say, a programming language. ( like how
a = b is not the same as b = a in C++) But yeah...I dunno...I guess I'm thinking too much about this since I'm taking a course about logic this term. =/ Any math ppl wanna try and find a way to misinterpret their slogan? heh

And also, as we were waiting to cross Philip Street, this crazy though just popped into my head. If someone were to just jump out purposefully and try and tank and get hit by a moving car, and get killed, whose fault would it be? And what kind of charges could the driver face? Manslaugher? Maybe some ppl who've taken law could give some input.

Those were just some thoughts that I had that kinda lead of to nowhere at the moment, just thought I'd throw them out to maybe provoke some discussion. I also finished up to episode 15 of Full Metal Alchemist today, and I must say that I really like the series; they manage to show a lot of the characters in different perspectives, and it's very emotional. (so no Wen, it's not cheesy like digimon...it's good lol.)

Second Sunrise

So...I haven't been updating for a long time, but now that the effects of busyness and other incidents have kind of abated, I guess I'll resume this blog. Hopefully I'll be more consisten this time. Anyways, I was going to post this up yesterday, but fell asleep haha.

Yesterday, I attended the CCF Grad Dinner with Ambrose, and met up with Tim Li and Chris Tsoi when we got there. We arrived at 6:30 like they told us to, but of course it being a CCF event and running on Chinese time, the dinner actually didn't start until like at least an hour later. The four of us passed some of the time by playing some Big 2, I haven't played that game in a long time. I always liked how it seemed really simple, yet there could still some very strategic decisions that one is forced to make during the game. Actually, that's something I could say about a lot of games that I like a lot. (ie: Super Smash Brothers Melee) Even Magic, though at first all the rules might seem confusing to new players, they new rules are actually much more clear, and learning the game is now a lot easier. Once you get into the game, however, there's basically an endless number of decks you can make and strategies you can try.

The food was good, roast beef, ham, mashed potatoes and salad. A lot of the frosh were helping out this year to make the food and serve. Nothing really special happened during the dinner, I didn't really know many of the grads that well, so I didn't really feel any emotional attachment during that night, nor did I understand a lot of the humour that was going on during the slideshows and such. The only interesting thing was that the table I was sitting at ending up being the 'future committee table' :) It just happened that way by chance, but the people at my table that night included:

Helen Tam, Jane Huang, Marianne Heppleston, Tim Li, Sam Ng, Eric Cheng, and Chris Tsoi.

what's so interesting about these people? Well, they're almost all the candidates that are running for CCF committee next year! (except we're missing one person only) Perhaps it's just a coincidence? Nah...foreshadowing of something that me, Simon, Ambrose, or Kevin Leung might do in the future? Maybe...hehe...I did committee back in WAY when I was in OAC, so I'm thinking I should be helping out in some capacity at least in CCF....

At first, I hadn't planned on going to grad dinner maybe, 'cause I was afraid that my clothes weren't appropriate enough (it was supposed to be 'business casual' and all I had at my house here were t-shirts and normal pants.) But now that it's over...I'm sooo glad that I went! Me, Brose, Simon and Chris decided to leave one the standard grad sharing time was over at about 10:45, to go to William's and get some coffee to have our own little sharing group. And we all shared how our life was going with each other, and some 'deep' stuff, and then I learned stuff that night, stuff that I needed to learn. Stuff that I should've learnt by last year at the latest, which would've saved me a lot of trouble. Thanks Chris and Simon for sharing that stuff with me, and also Ambrose for being 'some kind of robot' (I don't think anyone else caught that comment, but I did haha) and for using stuff from games to describe your spiritual life lol. It's cool that I kinda had this night just when I needed it...I'll remember it for a long time.

In calc 3 this morning, we were learning about triple integrals (integrating volumes in 3-D) an our prof was writing up an example on the board, and told us to sketch the area that we were goign to integrate and find the volume of. So I was lazy/tired, so I figured I'd just let someone else do it, when all of a sudden Jason beside me says "whoa...du fromage!!" And I look at his page, and there is a graph of what looks like a block of cheese in 3-D hehehe (it was basically a triangular prism like thingieing) and then later we had to do another example with the cheese, only this time it was flipped around. It was the highlight of the class haha.

Must start working on last PMATH assign now...thought my ECON exam was this wed as well, but good thing it's next wed. And oh, if you're wondering what else has been going on over here...you can look at Bao's blog , since he decided to do an update for me one time hehe. Hopefully we won't burn down the house tomolo....or give Betty and Vanessa food poisoning...haha....

Sorry for the lack of updates, haven't really been in the mood to post anything of substance recently, but I will pick it up again soon. I did want to post this though:

"He who controls the past, commands the future; He who controls the future, conquers the past." - George Orwell, 1984

It's final. From this day onwards, my past will no longer hinder me, I've moved on, and am trying to become a better person.

AHHHH!! dang Arthurian Legend Project! taking up so much time, no time left to study for stats test tom =/

...though it is cool to be able to make Magic cards for marks... =)

will probably upload all the card images somewhere once we (me and Duy) are done

Passion of Christ = was a really good movie, in my opinion. It was very realistic in showing the suffering that Jesus went through. That sums up my view of the movie for now. =)

Arthurian Legend Midterm: went ok. There was a good Culhwch and Olwen question, but the Tristan questions weren't that good, the one I did had to deal with courtly love...didn't really study much of that...

:: accountability check = passed! hehe ::

awww...I wish I'd have thought of saying that...

Whoa!...Arthurian Legend midterm tomolo at 2:30...gotta read more about 2 of the major stories so that I'll at least know enough to be able to write the exam haha. Which I should've been doing much of yesterday...oh well. I think I'll be reading more about Tristan and Isolde, and also Culhwch and Olwen...heh, if anyone knows where I could find good information about Arthurian stuff, I'd be most grateful if you could tell me...though I doubt anyone does. =/

Scrapped Princess is a cool anime.

Mars apparently used to have a lot of water.

ahhh...what an amazing weekend...kinda hehe

Tournament Results:

VSA Poker Tournament: I was the 14th person to be knocked out - last person before the second round began =(. I was playing super conservatively until one game when I decided to go all in. Oh wells, I didn't really expect to win anyways. For more details on the event, and lessons on the perils of going all in, you can visit Bao's blog.

UW SciFi Club's Darksteel Sealed Tournament: On the otherhand, I thought I had an ok chance of actually winning something here - in the end, I only managed to win comments from ppl telling me that I did good considering it was my first sealed deck tourney ever, and also first time playing with Mirrodin block. I had 3 match wins, and 2 losses...I could've easily been 4 and 1, but I kept forgettting to do stuff during one game, against this Chinese guy name Nick Cheng. And I might have possibly been able to win my first round if I had shuffled better and not been mana screwed...there were so many tie-breakers needed at the end of the day that the tournament organizer had to check the opponent's win percentage for each player to decide who gets the prize. I'm not really complaining much though, it was still a really fun day, and I hope to be back next time, which I'm guessing might be a Control-Control-Control sealed event =)

well...that's all I'm going to write for now, I'm pretty sure a lot of the ppl who read this don't understand Magic, and I wouldn't want to bore everyone by explaining how to play poker here. The reason I'm updating at this hour is because I couldn't really sleep and woke up at like 5:45 am. =/

:: accountability check [Saturday] = passed [Sunday] = started to slip somewhat, I guess maybe 'cause of such a busy weekend and not having time to do much else...hopefully will be back on track today. ::

Schedule for Yesterday

Just going to post a record of what I did Friday, so i dun forget haha. I had a really eventful day, but can't really go into all the details about it otherwise this would end up being a super super long post.

-tanked calculus to study for pmath 330 midterm, and I actually did use that time to study, btw

-went to pmath midterm feeling nervous and expecting to do really badly, but it was like super easy (well, it would've been had we been a bit better prepared) but anyways, I think I got at least better than my calc midterm =p

-still on a rush of adrenaline after the exam, went to grab newest mathNews with the Waterloo Bros, and then tried to decide where to go eat

-remembered that Ambrose was coming over for lunch, so went back home and had fun with SSBM.

-Ambrose arrives, eat lunch at Phat Cat

-go down to basement to Melee some more, feel like I'm getting better than I used to be, but I still suck...oh well

-at 3:30, went to SLC to roleplay as Dr. Newheart, d20 game this time was mostly all roleplaying and racing and no fighting, but was still really fun

-whole d20 group plus Ambrose minus Andy dinner at Taj Palace, in the end, only me, brose, and baomon deicde to go to Lifesong, we end up making it just before the show starts

-Lifesong was alright...the play was cool, had more actual evangelistic stuff going on than last year though. meh, and the speaker there was Tony Costa =)...I kinda forgot who he was, but I know he spoke at WAY a few times back when I was there, and he was a good speaker. So seeing him there was kinda "from where?!"

-after Lifesong, most of my CCF friends go out to eat and play hockey and etc, Ambrose goes with them, Bao leaves, I stay back to try and talk to ppl, but not really successful, so I go home

-get home and practiced 2 hours of Texas hold'em poker with Bao and Duy, in preparation for the VSA poker tournament today at night...hope it goes well...

-tried to talk to other ppl, but no one was online except for like one person, but that was still cool

-Ambrose comes back at like midnight from eating with ppl, didn't want to go play hockey. we play a bit of original smash, I leave the basement early 'cause I'm not as good in that game and etc.

:: accountability check = passed! yay ::

so thus were the events of my day. At first, I didn't think it was as 'boring' as my auntie's day...haha, but now that I think about it, the way I described it probably made it seem that way. The rest of the week still promises to be very eventful, however, I just hope I dun get too tired for the Darksteel event tom. Anyways, gtg to Mel's soon, and then later get a ride to poker from Mel...haha...

Argh....PMATH 330 midterm tomolo morning at 10:20....so screwed...*sigh*

Dang old profs, can't write proper notes and says that the website is updated when it isn't. And doesn't even give the right assignment solutions...blah

A day of learning, though not in school.

Wow, I never knew how much info on limited and even sealed Magic you can find on Wizard's website alone. But I did know how easily I can become distracted while reading stuff like that, it was like I was studying for the Darksteel event more than my midterm on fri for a while tonight. =/ Oh wells...guess I'll just have to make up for it tomolo...good luck to everyone else who has midterms left! (Like you, Vanessa..heh, and your 'counterpart' over at my church). Also had a good talk today, in which I found out that I'd been a bit too overzealous in trying to talk to ppl over the net...it's alright, I needed to cut down anyways. And also, we forgive and forget, right? 'cause He forgave us.

Lastly, even though I'm really bad at giving encouragement to ppl, and wish I could be better at helping my friends, I'm going to post this quote up that I found kinda interesting. Read into what you want...though I think its meaning should be pretty self-explanatory:

"Spring follows winter. -Elvish expression meaning 'all things pass'"
~flavour text from Weatherlight's and Sixth Edition's Nature's Resurgence

Woodlands is now your friend!

Midterm on Friday, and a lot of weekend activities planned, so I guess I'll only do a short update of some "interesting" stuff that happened to me recently. (Well, as interesting as things over here can get, anyways =p)

Recently, I got another friend request form someone on Friendster, I thought that was kinda weird, I figured that it had basically died out among ppl that I knew. It's pretty much like AsianAvenue, except this time non-Asians won't feel so weird joining, and you can't customize your page as much. I joined it a few months ago, added a bunch of friends to my list, and then kinda forgot about it. It's got some humourous stuff you can do, like suggest a match for your friend and someone else...and how you can write "testimonials" about your friends, and that you can only add ppl if you're "sure that you're really friends with so-and-so." I also found it funny how ppl set up accounts for stuff like schools and even cities -> I was checking out some persons page a while ago, and he was friends with Mississauga lol. And I finally found the Woodlands page a while ago, and I added it, so thus Friendster sent me a silly email with the title that you see above. All in all, it's not really that useful of a program...as one of my friends put it, "You can make friends....or you can make FRIENDS!! =)"

Got 2nd stats lab back today...could've gotten perfect, but then we forgot to talk about bi-as for three sampling methods...so ended up with a 70%. Oh well...and I found out that my Arthurian Legend midterm has been pushed back one class...so yay! more time to study after this totally jam packed weekend.

Got my calculus 3 midterm back on Monday. Good news = I passed. Bad news = I passed with a 50 =\ Jason got a 70...he beasted both me and Duy. A funny thing was that this time, the marking TA took the time to respond to stupid EVERY comment I made on the front of the exam. Okay, starting from like elementary school, I've always liked writing responses/comments to things on tests and quizzes if I'm finished them ahead of time. And these are things that usually shouldn't be responded to, like the date of the test, of a misspelled word on the cover page. Or adding weird in stupid and ridiculous answers to some questions in a mutiple choice test. (What is the largest planet in the solar system? a) Jupiter b) Mars c) Mercury d) Pluto e) The Death Star ) So this time, on the cover page of the calc exam, I wrote a ton of stuff - there were instructions like "No Aids Allowed." and so I put beside it "not even water?" and then the TA wrote in red pen "air?" haha

Played more Smash again today, this time it was only Melee...some funny stuff happened, like Bao rebounding off a chimmney in Onett whiel in roll our and dying, or ppl getting KO'd by bombs from where!? I was stupid and kept getting my attacks Roy countered near the start.

whoa...I actually rambled on for a quite a bit...wonder if ppl would actually understand any of it lol. Anyways...back to studying.....=\

so...Jason is over...has been over since like 1 o'clock. Been playing massive smash...original and also trying out d2x leveling up mode in stamina. He's busy studying for his CS 134 midterm at the moment, and I'm trying to help him, although I should be studying for my own midterm haha. Oh wells...going out to eat again tonight. It was funny, I went to Sphigel's Classical Algebra class with him today and evaluated the colours for Mirrodin and Darksteel for the upcoming sealed deck event the whole time..hehe.
I guess I'd better get back to work now. Cya. =)

Played WAY too much smash today haha

By the order of Supreme Commander Wen Zhang....

Hmmm...I've got about 4 hours to kill until I'm supposed to go back to Waterloo. We planned to meet Duy at 8, which means we'll probably be leaving at around 8:30 at the earliest. I was going to take a nap, but since Wen suggested it, I figured I might as well blog some stuff and at least make some productive use of my time.

So church today was kinda weird; with like all of WAY and half of JOY gone on their respective winter retreats, and a bunch of doing Junior Worship, the kid's section was EMPTY when I walked in. There was like an average of one person per row. (each row is like 8 seats wide....and we have like 9-10 rows...?) It felt weird to be sitting there, considering how packed it usually is, and the speaker wasn't that interesting either.... I think around the time when he started speaking, two of the Junior Worship ppl came in and sat down in our section, and then a bit more ppl had come in by then...but it still mostly vacant. Also made an interesting discovery that two of my friends use the exam same kind and colour of notebook, and it'd be really really odd if they got switched one day and ended up reading each other's....Oh well...next week it'll be back to normal.

Unfortunately, Bao's Scrapped Princess cd's that he lent me wouldn't play properly on my old 233 MHz garbage comp - the sound works, but the images go at like 0.0001 frames a second. So yeah...I guess I'll have to watch it when I get home. From the one episode I saw last term and the anime event, it seems like a pretty good series though. (The main character has an interesting name, Pacifica) Although I've heard from Wen and Jason that's it's only ok...I still wanna watch it for myself and see.

On the Tuesday of reading week, Jia, Ambrose, and David Nijjar came over, and Jia and David slept over. That day, me and Duy and Jason had our calc 3 exam, which we had to study for, and it didn't go that well =(. But we still had a fun day, going to Mongolian Grill and eating tons of noodles and meat in the buffet, showing David around Waterloo (while he marveled at the campus, and kept calling UTM crap...haha) and then just hanging out and playing a bit of Smash afterwards and in between. From midnight until like 4 am, me and David stayed up talking about serious stuff, and I ended up speding about 3.5 hours telling him a long story about me and miscommunication hehe...that went well. Though what happened afterwards didn't go so well...*sigh* hopefully one day, this will all get resolved. But for now, let's not talk about it.

Thursday, I stayed up until 4 am helping to fix my sister's blog...hehe, it wasn't really a big deal, just took a long time to actually figure out what was going on, and then had to redo and copy a lot of code. But all in all, it was a good learning experience =). That day, however, combined with staying up just as late on Tues, made me super sleepy on Friday. It wouldn't have been a problem since there wasn't any fellowship due to the double retreats, but I had wanted to do something with the ppl who were left behind, but A) I didn't know who was left and B) the ppl who were left that I could contact, had already made other plans. Same thing happened on Saturday, when my friends were either gaming at the Waterloo Bro's or eating dinner with old high school friends, while I was stuck at home alone...haha. And then it turns out that Betty had wanted to have a Book Study Club meeting that night too, even though Andrew wasn't here. Should've checked my email sooner haha.

Thus ends my pretty eventful reading week - I mean, days. A lot of times I was really tired that it felt like a dream haha. Whoa...I think this is the longest entry I've written so far, and I still have to write about the highlights of our d20 games...hopefully Bao and Duy can remember some funny stuff. *Duy signs in* hmmm what a coincidence....oh wells, I guess I should stop talking now. Thanks for reading. And you are a ha gau, sit down.

Dang, reading week is over already?? *sigh* Oh well, at least I can look forward to the VSA Poker Night (where a PS2 is winnable) and the UW Sci Fi club's Darksteel Sealed Event. Those should be fun...and right after my PMATH exam too...but then there's Arthurian Legend...ack, haven't even started on that Magic exapansion project for that course yet....

Crappy old 233 MHz comp...so slow...thus haven't been updating much recently. I know I said I'd do a real update today though....=\ Dun worry though, will start to update again once I get back to 'loo...

awww...I finally get to come home for Reading Days, and now most of my friends are going off on Winter Retreat/ JOY Retreat. Oh well...perhaps I could use this time to catch up on PMATH 340...now if I could only remember where the course notes were....

hmmm....quick reminder to everyone reading this: if using blogger, save a copy of your template every once in a while...you never know what could happen....

"Duy writes an exam with calculus questions with a pencil."

Was just checking the news today, and I found something pretty humourous. It's been a while since I've seen something like this, so here it is:

Headline on cnn.com ~ "Grenade in car closes US border crossing."

This is what the story was really about:

(CNN) -- Canadian Border Patrol officials Monday found a grenade in the glove compartment of a car that was trying to enter Canada from the United States, Canadian authorities told CNN.

And this was the actual title of the article:

---

Canada stops car with grenade
'We don't take chances at the border'

---

[Canadian border guard] Oh no! A suspicious looking car is trying to cross our border. What do we do? Throw a grenade at it!!![/Canadian border guard]

thankful for some bit of comic relief before my exam =)
(for reference: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/02/16/border.grenade/index.html)

since that double post screwed things up, I've decided to make another short post before I do battle with calculus tomolo. First of all, to everyone who hasn't done this before, try it:

http://www.datacraft.co.jp/takagism/index_e.html

it's an interesting flash "mystery puzzle thinger" where you have to escape from a locked room. If you think Engrish is funny, you'll probably love the subtitles. (too bad Season doesn't read this..haha) Some parts of it are kinda annoying,and I did get stuck and couldn't solve it without help...but yeah, it's still fun.

and lastly, I guess I'll end with another quote...since I've gotten inspiration from Joel's blog, and various other ppl's as well. (he doesn't read this either, but oh well)

"Worship the ideal, not the idol." - Serra
~ flavour text from Urza's Saga Worship

anyone care to tell me what this quote is trying to say? 'cause I'm not sure at all what it means....