萬事勝意! 狗年進步!

謹祝大家萬事勝意, 身體健康, 萬事如意! Today is Chinese new years! I woke up around 8:30 to attend chinese tea with family and relatives. Why so early? Well, there was a big celebration (dragons and such) in the restaurant at 11:00 so we had to reserve our spots earlier - it was virtually packed afterwards, with people standing in line for > an hour before getting a table...

My mom also made lots of carrot cakes, and new years food later in the day; guess i'm going to start my new years' as a fat boy! ha ha.... (pics coming up!)

Mt.St Louis Ski Trip on 年 28....

I woke up super early on Saturday, 6:30am to attend a ski trip! The five of us from Toronto went for an early breakfast and moved out to Mt.St Louis around 8:30ish to meet up with 2 more friends coming from Missisauga.... ok ok, I admit I was a *little* bit out of it and zombie-like during breakfast; but I was charged up as we got to the mountains! To my surprised, the skies were beautiful, air crisp and clean, with the temperature excellent (+5deg) altho there were still snow covering the slopes...

As some of you might have known, I haven't skiied in 10 yrs, so I tried out snowblades (those shorter skiis). I couldn't believe that it was so fun! Not sure if it was due to the blades, or if my recent rollerblading/skating practices helped; I felt I was quite in control, and felt that it was easier than I originally suspected! Thanks for Gary/Miki/Ant for looking out and waiting for me as I tried to adapt to the blades :) I love the frequent 90 stops here and there to do quick turns, ha ha ha... i guess i'll never get good enuf to do it with my skates tho... ke ke....

Towards the end of the day, the slopes were getting icy as the temperature got warmer, and the snow got too compressed and began forming ice... it was dangerous although exciting as I braked on them... creating this cracking -ba ba ba ba ba- noise on the blades... ho ho. Gosh, now I'm really pondering in getting some personal snow boots and blades... ~ ka ka.. (note to self: godda try size 10 next time)

We played till 4:30 where all the lifts were closed and headed back out to TO... Boy! was I sore that nite, altho the sleep was good after a nice workout!

Sat feature: Macross - II (Lovers Again)....

Wohooooo.... It's saturday today; and nothing beats a nice weekend to fully recharge after a work week. As you can see from my title; i'm truly hyped up about finally re-collecting Macross II (Lovers again). This anime was released in 1993 after the original Macross series (although it's in alternate universe)... I had a super hard time finding it! but i'm so happy that I finally found it through emule!

I just finished watching it, and it sure does bring back good memories.... Alot of Macross fans out there don't really like this series; altho I still found it very entertaining... Nothing beats the the straightforward sci-fi storying of transforming planes, love affairs, and great background music. He he, i'm so happy that I'm even listening to the Macross OST when writing up this blog.

Oh... I know it doesn't have much to do with this post, but to all Macross fans out there, here's a pic of my 1/48 VF1S Valkryie that I collected last year... Although I spent close to a fortune on it; i'm still really glad I got it since the details and the full-transformation for this model is just plain... amazing!

Tuesday... interview day

Today is a nice day for me, as I didn't have to goto work.... he he.... The reason? I was scheduled to interview UofT students for our next PEY term. Traffic was better than I expected but I still had a hard time driving since every corner I wanted to turned, all I see were either one-way-streets or no-left-turn... @_@ Good thing that I managed to be on time for the first interviews... whew!

My rants towards the career center - it was virtually like a cell! the room was small and it comprises of a metal door, and worst of all; there were no internet access throughout the building. Eitherway, I'm still satisfied since I met up with someone I like for our group :")

After interviews, i headed to Bloor to shop around.... there's weren't much ppl as it was raining freezing rain today; very slippery indeed. Afterwarks, i met up with Miki and headed out in search to satisfy our growling stomachs... We went to Filet Of Sole for dinner (http://www.filetofsole.ca) which is also a restarant listed in Winterlicious; and as usual, I enjoyed the dessert the most. Since we were full from our main courses, we shared a chocolatey Kaluha, although we didn't finish it in the end too... as it was 'okii'!!!! ha ha ha..... attached is the giant octopus at the restarants' ceiling... scary!

A fun weekend... coming to a close already!

Wow, another weekend comes to a close so soon already! Eitherway, it's been fun - although it was pretty cold and windy over the weekend. The weather network measured that today was -18 degrees with windchill! Overall, it was a very nice weekend where I definately spent too much $$$ unexpectedly; as I got a windbreaker at Zara, a new pair of retro 'Converse' shoes (that is similar to Will's in i.robot), some sports equipment, and endless meals and snacks...

For Saturday night, I met up with the HS folks to celebrate Pig's birthday at Grand Island; the highlight of the meal was the chocolately rich Tartufo... (pics courtesy of Mr. Ka, thx!). After that, it was another night of B5 alright... gosh, I need to remind myself in creating a B5 post in the future. After this weekends' fully packed schedule, and only several hours of sleep on Fri and Sat; I admit that it was a bit tiring - so I 'm going to head to sleep earlier tonight to recuperate and recharge for the upcoming week.



Another good news was that I finally collected the final two episodes of あいのうた starring the very cute and down-to-earth かんおみほさん. Ever since Rogers cut the newsgroups, it was pretty painstaking in downloading stuff off the net. --- Anyways, you can read about the warm and funny series here at http://www.ntv.co.jp/ai/. Speaking of Jdrama, the Winter 2k6 season is about to start; and with big titles like そんごくう, NURSEあおい, and UNFAIR; all Jdrama fans are bound to be excited :)

Date with the Ice Queen...

Woooo... Wuz this? I'm spending so much time on ice lately - skating, and now today curling. There was a company event for us today, we went to curling. Although it was the third time that I went curling already, I still basically suck. Either i throw the 'rock' too hard and create this hugh BOOM sound where everyone will turn and look, or too lightly where my rock gets disqualified... ha ha. eitherway, it was fun altho our team lost :P

Afterwards, we went to 'The Fish House' for dinner - company treat :) My Linguini was kinda oily, but I still did enjoyed good company and my triple layered 'chocolate caramel comfort' as dessert. Gosh, I'm so full now... not to mention soreness all over my body as I think I definately spent too much time on ice lately... oh well, time to catch up on TV now, as another workday starts soon :-\

Weekends... Where'd all the time go?

The transition back to working mode was slow after the holidays, so this weekend was a highly anticipated one.

Didn't do too much, just chilled with friends, hung out for a while, and played games most of the time... On Sunday; we went skating, and I think my balance is getting a little better although I still cannot hockey stop, nor I am fast enough to bodycheck Fi-Cal (>_<)... Miki also gave me a souvenier she got from LV too... 三木さん、ありがとねい！I'm glad that today was a fun and sportive day for us, as i definately needed some excercise after all those food from x'mas :)

Another good news is that my buddy found season4 of B5 at First Markham Place... Woohoo! In case you are wondering what I am talking about; 'Babylon5' and is a CG created, philosophical sci-fi series. We've seen it since High School ages, but we've been rewatching the entire series lately; altho it's very hard to find. I even had to order it from eBay for earlier seasons - so I'm glad that we are going to add season4 to our collection :)

Mixed Monday News

Monday, one of my most feared days in the week as i have to drag my zombie-like body out to bed to goto work. Even worst, today was the first day of work after 2 weeks of X'mas vacation; i was dead tired today, and I think i am one step closer in mastering the art of sleeping with my eyes opened... >_< Reading through Danny's 'Destination' article didn't make it better either (you can read it in Danny Choo's Blog) - a site where I check up regularly.

The good news for today is; my buddy told me that I can check my marks from my Japanese course online. And thanks to Yamamoto sensei, I got an A+! Woohoo... I know I got away lucky since I had previous experience with Japanese101; so it will be much harder for Level2, but nevertheless I'm still a bit fired up :)

Dust eater from Bandai

あぶない！かじをします！
Came across this new gadget just released from Bandai in Japan. This automated sweeper looks pretty useful as this chubby looking robot goes around the house hunting for dust. Bandai is one of the companies well known for its' releases of model cars, robots, toys; and this sweeper might be one of the the very first experimental electronics geared towards houseware uses... cool!