I really like this new cereal I'm eating: Oatmeal Crisps. They're like cornflakes on steroids. They've got crunchy oats and dried apple chunks, and the flakes are covered in a brown sugar coating which keeps them noisy in milk. I've got a box under my desk at work, and a 4L jug of milk in the fridge. I no longer go hungry in the mornings.

The last two cereals I dug were Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. I don't think C.T.C. had much in way of nutrients, but it was loaded with sugar and cinnamon, and that was alright by me. A.C.C.'s were great tasting, looked healthier, and kept its crunch. But I'm on to new and better things now.

I saw The Rundown last night, and enjoyed it as a good action movie with some comical moments (as all movies seem to have these days). It wasn't until the very end of the movie when my buddy Joe pointed out in the credits that one of the actors was Ernie Reyes, Jr. For those of you who don't remember Ernie, he was The Last Electric Knight back in the old days. Ernie played a Brazilian rebel who has a battle with The Rock. The dude is ripped (Ernie is)!! Given that most of the movie took place in Brazil, it was also fitting that they put some Capoeira music of the berimbau and the atabaques in during that fight scene and had some Capoeira-like moves. I wondered about where Ernie had been all these years, so I did a quick search on him on Google. I didn't realize he was so old already (born 1972). His official website is erniereyesjr.com, which didn't seem to work here on my work computer. Might need to upgrade a plug-in or something. Also interesting is that apparently, Ernie recorded a Hip Hop CD called "Asia's Last Dragon". Go figure. And I didn't realize this either, but Ernie's Filipino, and not Chinese. Who woulda thunk it? He was so pale as a kid.

They're everywhere now. Teenagers and people in their 20s working street intersections hoping to get money from the drivers passing that way. I can't stand them. It's like a full time job with these people. Over the course of a few months, the same person will occupy the same intersection, sometimes walking between cars when the light is red, sometimes reading, sometimes sleeping, sometimes eating... a lot of people have moved to the "Travelling but ran out of money" approach. Well it's your own stupid ass fault you ran out of money, ISN'T IT?! The same guy has been "travelling" around that intersection for a whole month now. Idiot. Between work and home, I literally pass 5 intersections (3 before the freeway, 2 after). I passed Boundary and Grandview Hwy last week, and there were 3 panhandlers at that very intersection, each working a different spot. I wonder if they ever lash out each other for working their section of the cross... like whores on a block corner. And then I saw another guy "travelling" at Rupert and Grandview, not 1 min later. Unbelievable. I wonder how much money these kids can make in an hour. I wonder if people's generosity is enough to provide these kids with more than minimum wage. If a traffic light changes every 2 mins, you have a refresh of cars every 2 mins. 30 refreshes an hour. If you can get a buck in every 5 tries, you get $6/hr. Question is, is that realistic? I'm not sure.

Makes me want to run a test. I've often (well, not that often) thought about finding my rattiest clothing, heading out to an occupied intersection, and try my hand at Intersection Panhandling. It could be a week-long experiment. I could try different things on different days:

The first day, I'll have no sign.
The second day, I'll have a sign with "I'm a freakin' moron that doesn't know how to make a living. Please support me."
The third day, I could dress well, have a neon sign saying "Working on a Masters degree in Engineering. Please help with tuition costs."
The fourth day, I'll have a "Give me money or I'll kick your car." and so on.

Heck, maybe one of those days I'll just go to an intersection where someone is already and see if I can make more than him.

Water is fun. I like drinking water around the office. We have carpetted floors and spilling water isn't an issue because it just soaks up and then dries from there. Our Director of Engineering will talk with us by our cubes, and then squirt a little water on the floor from his water bottle. It's hilarious. Sometimes I feel like filling my mug with water and then sprinting down the hall. Just because. Water is fun.

I am now an officially ranked foosball player! You can find my stats on the Vancouver Foosball website under any of the Doubles links.

I like business travel. There's something about eating well, staying in nice hotels, going to foreign places, and all on someone else's dime that makes those trips enjoyable. I collect 12,500 Aeroplan points each time I travel too! Granted, I've been to the same Chinese city 3 times (and no where else), with a 4th time coming up in the next month. And sure, I don't have much time to see much else while I'm there; I wake up to an annoying loud sharp buzzing alarm at 6:30am which freaks the hell out of me and has me shaking the moment as soon as it goes off; otherwise I wake up 5 minutes earlier simply in anticipation and fear of hearing the alarm. I check my email over a slow and inconsistent Internet connection as I prepare for the day. I quickly get some food into my belly before I head out the hotel doors. I work through a grueling day of answering questions, sitting with customers, and having meeting. Then I go for dinner, sometimes with the customer, sometimes without. And finally, I get back to the hotel and email updates and questions to the people back here in Burnaby, which usually takes me to 12:30am, tired from the day I just completed and stressed about the day that's awaiting me in another 6 hrs. And to do this for 5 days takes the life out of a young man like me. It's because of this that I hate business travel.

I'm not a complete idiot. Some parts are missing.

Want to learn a new skill? Check this page out. It tries to teach how to beatbox. Very cool sight. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get anything other than the "high hat" down. But I'll work on it, and it'll come eventually.

There are a lot of colorful unofficial terms in the English language that are conceived simply through the vivid, flexible, and contorted imaginations of those around us. I heard a good one yesterday as I was talking to my buddy at work. He told me about his friend who once said "I have to go home first and drop a deuce." I couldn't help but to laugh my ass sideways when I heard this, so I've decided to integrate it into my vocabulary.

Do you have any colorful terms to share with us?

Here's a very interesting article for eBayers. Good read, good knowledge. Scams must be fun.