March 2005 Archives

Ever since hearing Accordion Guy's rendition of Hit me baby one more time live at the GTA Bloggers holiday party last December, I can no longer sing it with a straight face while emulating Britney's plastic voice. Last night I performed a less girly version of that song in a style that could have only been influenced by Joey (minus the profanities.)

I'm not sure why, but randomly inserting profanities in popular song lyrics will almost always enhance an amateur performance. (Even so, I can't bring myself to do it because I'm a square like that.) Case in point: Simon's version of New York, New York last night was priceless.

"If I can make it there, I'm gonna make it any f*n where!"

And then the room exploded with laughter and cheers. You just had to be there.

The latest and greatest online social networking application is here. I'm not kidding about Yahoo! 360 being the greatest. Yahoo's strength is in its suite of sophisticated online applications, and the neat thing about Yahoo 360 is that these applications are totally integrated. If you're unsatisfied with the minimalist, cobbled-together photo galleries, bulletin boards and messaging engines from the likes of Friendster, Orkut, Yafro, Multiply, etc. then join Yahoo! 360. Your Yahoo! Groups and Yahoo! Photos are at your finger tips.

Yahoo! 360 is different from My Yahoo! Instead of featuring Yahoo! content, Yahoo! 360 features content created by you and your personal network.

My first impression of Yahoo! 360 is, "Why didn't anyone think of this before?" While Yahoo! 360 has the most feature-rich suite of applications out of all the social networking sites, its late entry into the social networking arena may lead others to dismiss it as "just another Friendster." I'm pretty sure the folks at Yahoo! are aware of this - they're employing Google's by-invitation-only marketing strategy.

More thoughts to come...

If you want an invitation to Yahoo! 360, drop me a line.

I have a sudden craving for sweets. I should hit up the grocery store and stock up on cheap chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps!

A bunch of guys in my residence (collectively called "the party train") just came to my room out of the blue, started blaring "Call on me" from a laptop (carried like a boom box), danced around at my door as their alter egos and reenacted a bunch of inside jokes:

• Mike the party boy was wearing a too-small baby blue sweater and blue swim goggles
• Simon was "entranced Simon", dancing as if he was totally zoned out
• Jianan was doing the robot
• Norris was hissing and flailing around on Davin the snake charmer's shoulders, pretending to be a snake

I couldn't stop laughing at the sight! Now, back to studying for tomorrow's Operations Research final exam!

Nothing like spending the Easter long weekend doing taxes!

The grad ball was fantastic. I went all out and got my hair done at Eden Salon and Spa at the University plaza. There were no less than 27 bobby pins in my hair and at the end of the night, I had to shampoo my hair 4 times before I got all of the hair spray out. I didn't leave enough time to get my make-up professionally done, so I mucked about on my own for over an hour. Due to gothic influences, the results were more dramatic than I hoped to achieve. Mike looked really hot in the sexy green shirt and spiffy tie I gave him; so hot in fact, that some girl ran up to him and slapped his butt while he was dancing with me.

The food was decent. The music selection was great (though there were some undancable songs near the beginning.) At one point, the DJ even played Dragostea Din Tei (the Romanian song featured in the Numa Numa Dance!) There was a mini reunion with a handful of girls from high school (they were the guests of a group of guys from my high school.) All in all, the fun factor far surpassed that of my high school prom.

Whenever we visit each other, Mike and I have a tradition of having dim sum the day after we arrive, and this visit was no different. Coincidentally, it has also been a tradition with my friends from WCRI to have dim sum at Crystal Palace the day after a night of dancing. I think my friends were impressed that Mike fancies marinated chicken feet.

After lunch, Mike and I went ice skating at the outdoor rink at Kitchener City Hall, and warmed up with hot chocolate at Williams' Coffee Pub. Then we had dinner at the Bombshelter Pub on campus. We had a couple pints of my favourite beer (Rickard's Pale) and arm wrestled like Barcode did in Microserfs, but I lost.

We wrapped up the weekend with a late lunch at Pho Thai Viet. Their deep-fried Vietnamese spring rolls are the best spring rolls of any type that I have ever tasted.

Here's a photo montage of this weekend's events:

Mike showered me with a bunch of St. Valentine's Day/St. Patrick's Day presents. I didn't have time to check them out until after he left. The best one was a set of DVD's containing all of Mike's digital photos from his college years (including nude photos of his ex-girlfriend!) I got a kick out of the series of photos in which Mike had long hair and bore resemblance to Taylor Hanson circa 1997.

Celebrate Yahoo's 10th anniversary with free ice cream!

Offer valid in Canada, USA (including Puerto Rico), UK, South Korea and Australia. If you're not in the 48 contiguous states, make sure you click on the correct icon at the bottom of the page because the coupons are region-specific.

A few months ago, I noticed that Roots had opened up retail stores in Taiwan. In addition to the 17 locations in Taiwan, there are also 68 stores in Korea. Around the same time, Tom noticed during his trip through Asia that it has surprisingly and inexplicably become quite trendy to wear clothes emblazoned with the words "Roots" and/or "Canada" across the chest. Who would have thought?

As flattering as this may seem, a new annoyance has emerged. I can no longer assume that people sporting red and white Roots gear outside of Canada are also Canadians. At least not in Asia. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against any of this. Economically speaking, this is very good news for Canada. I just find it amusing that patriotism for my country can be packaged, exported and sold in another country.

Fortunately for globetrotting Canucks, not every piece of Canadiana is available in foreign markets. When I'm in Hong Kong this spring, I can rest assured that I can still identify some of my compatriots by their MEC bags.

Okay, the Buddhas couldn't be moved so Alex called up Caritas Lodge and booked a room for Mike and myself. It's pretty cheap, at HK$440 ($56 US) per night plus complimentary breakfast. Caritas Lodge is about 1 km from Mong Kok MTR (subway) station. It's a Roman Catholic hospitality service (not quite a hostel, not exactly a hotel) and judging by the photographs available online, the rooms look quite spacious by Hong Kong standards.

The reservation agent seems either a little scatterbrained, or dyslexic. She spelled Mike's name incorrectly, garbled up my name entirely by making a home row misalignment typo, and swapped a couple of digits in our price quote. I've emailed them about the discrepancies, and expect to hear back from them later tonight.