Along with my clean-up, my dad wanted me to take a look at some stuff to see they were worth keeping or not. Low and behold, there was a box of Ben's old hockey cards from the early 80's. Most of the cards are no longer in very good condition... getting whipped towards the wall under the blacktop at Nootka Elementary probably took its toll. There's one pack of cards still partially wrapped, and still in good condition. In the bunch, I saw lots of Wayne Gretzky cards (points leader, goal scorer, etc) and a lot of great oldies (Stan Smyl, Tom Barrasso, ...). It's funny to see Mark Messier and Grant Fuhr with hair. Anyway, I'll leave those around for Ben to take care of, but it was nice to flip through them. Brings me back to the good old days when life was less complicated.

I find that when I clean my room(s), they never really end in a state of "clean" but rather a state of "reduced" clutter. I'm sure everyone goes through the same thing. Big steps towards clean are made as you sort through piles of paper, mounds of clothes, and you start putting these things into boxes, shelves, or drawers where they belong. And then, there are those thing you come across that prompt the question: now what do I do with this? It's something you don't want to throw away, but at the same time, you have no appropriate place to put it. It could be a printout of some interesting or useful information that you're sure you'd want to look at in the future, but you just know that if you file it away right now, you'll never see it again. So what do you do with it? Well, you create a new pile on your desk of "special items" that don't have anywhere else to go, just so they aren't spread over the desk. And that becomes your new pile of mess. Then, the next time I clean my room, I see that same pile, look through it, and see that the dates are from 2001 and realize that I'll never look at them again because they're dated... so I chuck them. Of course, by that time, I have new indispensible items that require a corner of the desk.

Yesterday, gas prices hit a new high (as far as my memory goes) -- 99.5 cents/litre. And for a second, I said to myself "How could they increase prices to over $1? The pricing boards only have 3 digits." But I guess if they want to, they'd find some way around it... probably by having a fourth digit hang off the side of the board.

I saw comic Dane Cook on Last Call with Carson Daly last night. This guy is HILARIOUS! I hadn't heard of him before, although some of you may have. He's been around for a couple of years now. Anyway, he has a website www.danecook.com which has some audio and video clips (particularly the Jimmy Kimmel Live one). I recommend spending the time to watch a few. I'm also going to keep my eye out for his DVD "Harmful If Swallowed".

I've found it! For the longest time, I've been trying to find a shortcut to get to the URL / "Address" line of Internet Explorer. I finally stumbled upon it. F4.

Wow, Blogger's new format is very Windows XP-ish. It'll take a little bit of getting used to, then I'll see whether I like the new UI or not. There were certain conveniences (like the two-paned blog editting) that are no longer. Anything you've noticed that are for better or worse?

I am watching the Friends finale and I noticed that Ross Gellar has the same Siemens 2.4 GHz wireless phone / answering machine as I do at home. Yay for us!

My friend LG sent this eBay Auction Item to me for entertainment purposes. I guess the way to really sell a crappy item is to ridicule it and make a mockery of the entire affaire. Nevertheless, I was humoured for the moments I was engaged in the author's words.

I made the realization a few months ago that I am absolutely disappointed at the level of my Chinese. There aren't many things missing in my life, but this seems to be one of them. After so many years of classes and tutelage, why is it I can't read simple common words anymore? Sure, like many CBAs (Canadian Born Asians), we've been assimilated into a Western culture and traded up our Chinese heritage. Realistically, it's because I haven't put in the time in the last 8 years to retain what I've crammed in the 15 years before that. It's hard not to be disgusted with myself when I try to write a simple note in Chinese. 幹, 媽的.

Here's a neat little video clip: Building an [AirBus] A340-600.