On a separate note, Avril Lavigne is performing at the Metropolis parking lot RIGHT NOW. If I had nothing better to do, and if I liked her music more, I might be there. But I do, and I don't.

Quote of the day:
"He came to us asking for help, and we lit him on fire!!"
- from the movie Cabin Fever

About a month ago, I caught a show called "WWE Monday Night War". It was a documentary-like WWE program talking about the feud between WWF Monday Night Raw and WCW Nitro - the race for ratings. It was really a bit of an eye opener, because it gave some visibility into the behind-the-scenes politics of professional wrestling. I was intrigued by the show, not being a big fan of wrestling myself while having some familiarity with WWF. So I decided to look up some stuff on what happened to all these wrestling characters. I came across a fairly informative site called WrestleView.com, where they answer some questions (under the FAQ section) about certain wrestlers: what their real names were, why they left, why they came back, etc. Anyway, all said and done, I'm a better man for it. Somehow.

Yesterday was a great day. I woke up late because I was out until 3:30am losing $20 in Texas Hold'em. I had to decline an invite for tennis with friends, but decided to go to Windermere Secondary by my house to hit a few balls off the wall since I hadn't played tennis in about 6 years. It felt really good though, and I think playing volleyball has helped my serve a tremendous amount. Then I hooked up with DL for a quick stop at Costco, bought a Braun 5610 + battery shaver (i.e. two shavers) bonus pack, and went down to Science World to rollerblade. Along the way, we bumped into IC & SC who were blading around False Creek as well. We split momentarily (since we were heading in opposite directions) and eventually met up with them again. Then we decided to go to dinner, and went to Samurai Sushi. I don't know many sushi places owned by Vietnamese... the food was good, the price was good, but the service wasn't. It was kind of funny though, because we had all of $30 in cash amongst 4 people, in a Cash-Only restaurant. But we managed.

It's been a long time since I've had a full day out, and it was awesome. This is slightly different from playing volleyball and then going home, or going to a party at night, or going to the beach in the afternoon and then home afterwards. It's nice to be out and active through the course of an entire day. I think I'm going to do that more often now that I have the time.

STOP! Someone from the City of Vancouver has come around my neighborhood and sprinkled STOP signs at every intersection. I've lived here for some 22 years, and we've never had STOP signs. But since three days ago, someone has been paid too much to disturb the flow of traffic in our residential area, and has dropped two signs at each intersection within this 4 x 9 block area. Chances are, they've contaminated other areas too. Some of the signs aren't even fully there yet, just posts. I guess it's for our own safety... but it still sucks.

I love being impressed. I get a real kick out of it, and it motivates me to look for more related things to impress me.

Some things that impress me:
- artistic talent: I can't help but always want to see more of my friend Cynthia's artwork. She's very good at what she does, and I love looking through her portfolio in awe of her abilities. I draw too, but I don't impress me.
- musical talent: Roger and Joe are two people whose musical abilities never cease to amaze me.
- success: Guys like Fred and Vince who can build up a million-dollar company impress me. Their business sense, motivation, and diligence have turned some well-deserved results.
- physical abilities: People I trained Capoeira with who can do crazy flips and move their bodies in ways few people can, impressive. Also impressive was a guy Newell I knew in high school would won 4 golds (including overall) at the B.C. Games gymnastics competition in grade 9. He was a bit of an idiot, but not many people can bench 180 lbs in grade 9.

Some things that don't impress me:
- anything I think I can do better, doesn't impress me.
- anything I think I can do, doesn't impress me.
- intelligence doesn't impress me, unless it's an abundant amount of intelligence. So much, in fact, that smart ooze would have to leak out of the person's ear.
- people who have something worth being impressed about, but aren't modest about it, don't impress me. Or people who try to show that they know a lot, or can do a lot, never impress me... and I would never look entertain the thought of being impressed by them, just to spite them and show "big deal".

Putting some thought into it, I think the things that impress me most are those that I wish I could do or would like to do. I'd love to be able to draw, to play the piano, to build a financial empire, to do crazy flips and bench crazy weights.

So what impresses you?

Not two days ago, I made a comment about how the Colorado Avalanche website had a poll. Here's what I wrote:

"I visited the Colorado Avalanche website yesterday trying to find out what time their game started, and saw a poll:

Who will the Avs play in the first round of the playoffs?
The choices were: Calgary, L.A., St. Louis, Edmonton, Nashville and Vancouver

WHERE'S DALLAS? What, they don't think the Canucks can pass them in the standings? We're only 1 point behind and they're still playing like crap."

I tried to get an account on their website, but the activation email didn't get to my mailbox. I wanted to comment about that.

And today, the Canucks overtake the Avalanche in the standings. I just checked their website, and it looks like they've noticed (or were made aware of) their oversight. Dallas now joins Calgary, Edmonton, Nashville, St. Louis, and Vancouver as poll choices. Idiots.

What's your Pimp Handle?

Keep it real.

- Professor Truth K. Jazz

This is SFU Engineering Ryan Beech's brother, I assume?
NHL.com Article

They come, they hang around for a while, and then they disappear. There's something about online communities that spark people's interest but rarely keeps it. A lot of people want to meet others, or want to get in touch with friends in different ways; and in the past few years, online communities have been an effective medium for that kind of action. But their novelty seems to taper off rather quickly. People tend to get bored with being in the same chatrooms. What's the longest standing on-going active membership do you have with an online community? But weren't they so cool when they first came out? Here are a few that have entertained me over the years.

EdNet: the School Board's BBS, which closed shut down in my first year of university... many moons ago
Six Degrees: they started, they had success, they died, they relaunched, tried again, died again. According to their website, they're relaunching soon!
eCircles (Adobe): similar to Six Degrees, but with photos. Their site no longer exists.
College Club: still doing well - 149,449 members online, I just checked.
Asian Avenue: apparently still alive and kicking, but I can't log in because I don't remember my account or password - where's WhipCream?
Friendster: ah, the newest of the bunch. But let's face it, friendster's a bore. It was only fun when you had new people to add all the time. The fact of the matter is, while the website was conceived as a way to meet new people, getting messages from people you don't know on friendster makes you think they're desperate. I wonder how long this new "fad" will last. I happen to log in once every month at most, just to see that nothing has changed.

Any other "hot and happenin'" communities you'd like to share?

And then, there was a time when disk space sites were the newest thing. Some of them would give you 10MB, 50MB, 100MB (!!) of free online space. But somehow, these companies came to realize that there were actually quite a few people out there who WANTED free space online and that it would be expensive to accommodate them. So they shut down.

So what's the next killer online app? More interactive Internet games? Video (non-XXX) chatrooms? How does one keep an idea going so it doesn't suffer the fate of some of these other online communities? How do you attract people while continuing to get paid for your work? Will banners and advertisements really do it? I wonder.