The ugly duckling should have stayed ugly

I just received my new laptop this week. It's a tablet.

Being the type of person I am, the road to mobile computing was long, overdrawn and overthunk (If indeed there is such a thing.).

After much research into laptops and tablets, I had managed to narrow the field to two candidates.

One computer featured better industrial design, but lagged in performance tests.
The other computer was a bit clunky on the outside, but had better computing speeds.

In the lexicon of computer reviewers, one had better "form factor" while the other "offered great performance on benchmarking standards".

In other words, one was prettier, while the other one worked better. A sleeker case vs. a faster computer chip.

I've always been taught that it's what's on the inside that counts. I think I believe that. Or at least I've always hoped it was true. The question was, could I put theory into practice? Could I fight the inexorable draw towards a prettier product?

In the end, I got a different computer altogether. Ask me about it and I'll tell you why. But I'll say in complete honesty that in the end, I was going to commit to the better on the inside, not as pretty on the outside computer. That's gotta stand for something. Doesn't it?

The Elite 8!

Sorry about the delay in posting the scores. I've been at home. It was my Mom's birthday yesterday! We went to dinner with my cousin and my niece who are in town to attend a conference on reflexology.

Notes coming out of the Sweet 16:

Congrats to Steph, who is tied for the lead with my Uncle Ming, the self-proclaimed bracket guru.

Props to Rich who is the ONLY person who guessed that LSU would be where it is. Surprisingly enough, a few of you actually got George Mason right.

Shout outs to Greg, who started this whole bracket thing with the sole goal of beating Sara. He finally caught her!

I'll also break things down by how many teams people still have in play:

5: Greg
4: Steph, Uncle Alex, Kathy
3: Arlen, Crystal, Justine, Uncle Ming, Trish
2: Davin, Rich, Sara, Sarah
1: Ryan, Dad, Sunita
0: Gaby, Mom

Like sand in an hourglass

I'm typing this on my friend's laptop (which is actually, quite similar to the laptop I ordered today... more on this in the coming weeks!), while they(my three friends) are organizing their graduation trip to Cambodia, Thailand and Laos.

I remember very vividly when I first met each of these people. I remember my first impressions of each. And I remember gradually learning about them, their quirks, their peculiarities.

In the past 5 minutes, there have been jokes made about his obsessive-compulsive behaviour, her klutziness, her lack of womanly qualities, his lack of manly qualities, possible room sharing scenarios and who knows what else.

In between, they worry about, where to live next year, what insurance to buy, and returning in time to prepare themselves for their first days as doctors.

I see them from time to time during the week as they prepare for their final exam. And I'll likely play something at their graduation ceremony. And then I'll go to their formal for some final partying. And then they'll scatter like sands to the wind. And soon, I'll do the same.

Blue pill or red pill?

Troubled times.




Made even more troubling.

On To Round TWO!

So as things stand right now, Dickie's holding the lead with 24 points. There's a whole crowd of people right on his tail, so the second round should prove interesting.

Special shout out to Sara, who got 8/8 in the Atlanta bracket, the only person to guess a perfect bracket. (Although quite a few of you came very close.)

Special mention also to my Dad, who was my Mom's bracket advisor. How could you, Dad?

Happy belated St. Patrick's day. Last night, while stomping to the cacaphony of Poor Angus, Trish shouted to me that she is now compulsively checking NCAA scores, despite no prior interest or knowledge of basketball. I wish the same for all of you!

Live and Up to the Minute!!!

Hey kids,

Check the ticker in the sidebar for score updates!

I had to learn some html to do that.

crazy styles.

Addendum: One last minute entry,

Ryan- My cousin! Feisty little guy who inherited most of the rhythm in the family. I have a video of us dancing, and I really didn't think kids learned to shake it like that at such a young age. His Mom had to submit his entry from the library because their internet is down.

Current scores

1. Arlen, Rich, Sara - 12 points
2. Uncle Ming, Dad - 11 points
3. Crystal, Greg, Steph, Sunita, Trish, Uncle Alex - 10 points
4. Justine, Sarah - 9 points
5. Kathy - 8 points
6. Gaby - 6 points
7. Davin- 5 points
8. Mom - 2 points

Note: Follow along on your bracket to make sure I score correctly! I'm currently using a sophisticated excel spreadsheet. You know how buggy technology can be.

IT'S ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to the excitement, the drama, the craziness that is MARCH MADNESS!!! (Props to Rich for the above image. You can click on it for a bigger, clearer version.)

Keep your eyes on the ball and your ears to the ground. Remember, every correct guess is worth 1 point.

The participants (alphabetically):

Arlen- From High School. He's been my tech support since grade 9. My parents are very impressed with him and his ritzy computer jobs.

Crystal- My niece! We were supposed to take hip hop together this semester, but the scheduling didn't work out. So now she's getting mad hip hop skills while I... dance a different sort of dance.

Dad- Check out his bracket. Is he lazy or brilliant? And how much of that is genetic? Cool thing about my Dad: from the side, his Adam's apple makes it looks like he's swallowing a Toblerone.

Davin- My nephew! He's a teacher in the GTA. His stories all sound very Kindergarten Cop.

Gaby- Went to Shad Carleton when I was a program assistant. Living it up in Kingston. I once yelled at her for falling out of her wheelchair. It's not quite as bad as it sounds...

Greg- From High School. I think I've biked more kilometres with him than I've driven. I have uncanny luck against him in squash, but he's been owning me at foosball.

Kathy- My niece! We watched Scrubs until 2am once. Would have come partying with my class a couple of weeks back if not for a sore throat. I hope you're feeling better!

Justine- My sister! She was in Daffydil not too long ago. I use to be a better artist than her. Then she turned 5.

Mom- The the first yogi I ever met. Her words to me: If you're not eating, working, sleeping or playing, you're wasting your time.

Rich- From High School. We used to go skiing in grade 10. We'd hide a 2L bottle coke out in the snow, and it'd be the most glorious slushie mixture by the time we needed a break.

Sara- From High School. Her boyfriend found me a place to live when I decided to come to Mac. We share a special bargain store bond.

Sarah- My sister! She's going to be working in Finland this summer. I use to be a better athlete than her. Then she turned 5.

Steph- From Queen's! (and Shad.) We applied to medical school together in third year. They say that friendship is about sharing highs and lows, but that was a year of extremes by any measure.

Sunita- From McMaster! She'll be going to Ottawa to do internal medicine in July. We get into dance offs at clubs. It usually doesn't go so well for me. On a recent night out, someone actually started booing me.

Trish- From Queen's! We lived together in second year in a house that was to become famous for its epic parties. We're taking cooking classes together.

Uncle Alex- For the longest time, my cool, sports car driving, single uncle. Now married, but no less cool. I mc-ed his wedding.

Uncle Ming- Currently in Indiana, so self-proclaimed bracket expert. My aunt Elaine taught his sons to play Risk. She hasn't really been the same since.

So there you have it. Check this space for updates!

Come ON people!

So far, there is only one entry into the March Madness contest. (Thanks Dickie.)

Let's get going people! It's March! It's Madness!

Mom, if you're reading this, how could you not participate in your only son's first ever online contest?

If I don't receive all your entries by midnight on the 15th, there will be a reckoning, I tell you. A reckoning.

Bracketology!!!

Alright kids!

March Madness comes to Simonscapes!

Kay.

1. Click here. And save the image.
2. Open the image in paint or some other software that will allow you to modify it.
3. Fill in the bracket! You don't have to be picky about it. Say you want to pick Southern to win between Southern vs. Duke. Just put and S on the next line. I'll know what you mean.
4. Email me your brackets by March 15!
5. Scoring will be one point for each correct guess.

Everyone play! It doesn't matter what you do or don't know about basketball. Anything can happen in college ball. Guessing randomly might not be a bad strategy. You only lose if you don't play. And you can quote me on that.
Fun prizes! Really.

Here's a sample bracket so you know what I mean. (I only filled in one branch. You'll want to fill all four in on your official entry.)

Renovations

I've taken to sleeping in my living room. This is because:

1. The heat there is better.
2. I think the bed that's in my bedroom is short. I can't lie on it normally.
3. I have a futon in the living room.
4. The TV doesn't work, so I don't use the living room for any other purpose anyways.

So what to do with my bedroom?

I'm going to turn it into a "fun room". I've put the mattress up against the wall, to give me space to do things. (What things? all sorts. I'll pick up yoga. Or I could practice all the wacky stuff from dance class. Or whatever.)

Also, I recently picked up an electronic drum set (pretty ghetto but super cheap), and it is now in the "fun room" as well.

Will keep you all updated as I continue to upgrade the fun.

Neverending story

Sometimes I feel like my life is some long quest. And I'm always looking or searching for something.

What is it I'm seeking? What is it I want?

I've narrowed it down to two things:

1. I want whatever I can't have.
2. I want everything else as well.

It's really not more complicated than that.

Dairy King

A couple of days ago, I was at an insurance talk where the organizers had advertised an ipod draw as well as free snacks as incentive to attend.

Now, I was interested in learning about insurance anyways, but when I found out they were going to give me a free ipod, I really couldn't resist.

The snacks turned out to be Dairy Queen ice cream bars. I don't know if any of you have been to any talks lately, but on the hierarchy of free snacks, this is pretty money. I'm going to get spoiled. Soon, I won't be satisfied until I'm being plied with free lobster and mountains of scallops. ah scallops.

Anyways, by some odd twist of fate, i DIDN'T win the ipod!

I had to eat three ice cream bars in revenge.

Fried Rice

There's really no comfort food like friend rice. Well... I suppose there's my Dad's holiday turkey, and my Mom's post-holiday turkey-congee. But really.. we're talking a very select group of foods here.

Frying rice goes back a long way in my family. My Grandma LOVES to fry me rice. Really loves it. When I was in High school, she once promised to fry me rice for breakfast. She went to bed at her usual bed time. At around 11pm, I went to practice piano (This was when I was training for my ARCT exam. Piano was serious business for awhile there.). At around 11:30, I hear the sound of rice frying. My grandma had heard the piano and thought it was morning.

Another time, I had Greg and Dickie over. My grandma fried us all rice for brunch. Greg got through half of his bowl, but Dickie barely dented his (It's hard to describe the quantities of rice we're talking here. Imagine heaping bowls bigger than your head. Easily). I had to explain to my Grandma that white people just don't have the same capacity for rice as us yellow people.

Anyways, my Grandma loves frying me rice so much that she gets kinda upset if I try to do it myself. In fact, it was my sister who finally passed on the art of rice frying to me. Even so, I got very little practice frying rice while living at home.

Which brings me to the reasons for this post:
1. I am currently (yes at 2:00am in the morning) chowing down on some friend rice.
2. I am becoming a grand-master, supa-stellar, rock-the-wok rice fryer.

Seriously. I use to fry the egg such that there were pieces of egg amidst the rice. Now, I do it so that each grain of rice has egg on it. EACH GRAIN!

In conclusion, I am awesome.

Check

I got my first ever bodycheck today in hockey.

As I remember it, I was along the boards, and I was just reaching for the puck...

and next thing I know I'm flying backwards. I landed with a great clatter. I think it must have looked very impressive because play stopped completely to see if I was ok.

I honestly didn't hardly feel it. The equipment does good things.

I've really been pleasantly surprised with my fellow hockey players. They've all been playing since they were wee lads, and I expected some impatience at my lack of finesse. Or maybe there'd be that jock-type arrogance you so often see in the movies.

But they've all been really, really supportive. For example, they'll tell me I had a good shift as long as I skated as fast as I could, even if it was skating in futile circles. Or when I got bodychecked, both benches stood to yell friendly things to my bodychecker about how it was my fourth time playing, and he was a bad person for hitting such a helpless target.

Or how when I got a breakaway, the OPPOSING team's bench was standing up to cheer me on.

It's been really great times.

Coming up next week: my first fight!

This year.

So I'm on an enrichment year right now. And I'm doing my gosh darndest to live it up. It's odd. On one hand, I have more freedom than I've EVER had before. Like.. I've not been this relaxed since primary school. On the other hand, I KNOW I won't be this carefree until the day I'm in diapers in a retirement home, so there's a real sense of NEEDING to do things, a real sense of urgency. Like I'm a camel, and this is my last dip at the well of freedom. And I need to fill my hump (my lump, my lovely lady lumps) with as much freedomy goodness as I can, 'cause I ain't seeing anymore of the good stuff for a looooooooong while. Holy crap, I'm so poetic it makes me wanna cry sometimes.

Food

I went through the student centre on my way home from dragon boat practice this afternoon. As part of a quit-smoking event, they had free cotton candy and popcorn. I don't know who thought up cotton candy, but that stuff is crack on a stick.

I bought scallops at the grocery store for the first time ever, and sauteed them for lunch. I don't think my cooking classes are gifting me with any magic culinary skills, but I think they're making it more likely that I'll try new things. Plus, since I've discovered sushi, I'm really not that concerned about undercooking seafood anymore.

The climbing club is having some sort of event at the campus pub tonite. There's free food apparently. Tonite's cooking class got cancelled (Instructor hit with strep throat.), so I think I'll go there instead.

Somewhat nebulous thoughts on a nebulous topic

We, all of us, envision a future. It'd be impossible to live any other way.

You think about tomorrow, about what you're going to wear, or what you'll eat. Or even more concretely, you think about when you'll shower, about whether it'll fit around that television show you want to catch.

That's some concrete envisioning.

When we idealize, stylize or just plain romanticize our visions of the future, we're dreaming.

And I think that's what makes a lot of the unpleasantness we deal with on a day-to-day basis bearable.

I have many thoughts on the substance, the necessity, and the dangers of dreams, but my point today, is a different one.

When we're talking about dreams that can realistically occur (Not the fanciful filigrees normally associated with the word "dream".), the human mind can only handle one possibility at a time.

As an example, say you're given the choice of several cities to live in (As my friends just so recently were). In making this decision, you dream. You imagine your life as it would be in each city, and subconsciously or no, one of the dreams becomes more compelling than the others. It becomes the ideal. Your 'ideal' vision of your future. It becomes 'the' dream.

Remember in "Back to the Future", what with the parallel universes and parallel timelines and the possibility of multiple futures? Neurons may be wired in parallel, but I think your brain really holds single thoughts at a time.

So let's now say that for whatever reason, someone decided that you weren't allowed to go to your first choice city, you must go to your second choice.

You feel bitter disappointment. But you're not disappointed at something you've lost! You never even lived there. You had nothing to lose.

You're disappointed because this ideal life you've constructed for yourself in this city is now impossible. You're disappointed at the death of your dream.

The reality of the situation may very well be that both cities would objectively provide you with equal opportunity for happiness and fulfillment, but the human mind has arbitrarily chosen one for you to dream about. It is the nature of the human mind and it is the nature of dreaming.

It is wrenching to have a dream die. Consider carefully what you dream about! And realize also the ease with which the human mind starts to dream again.

Hoop Dreams

Click on the video on the right.

It's pretty shameless in pulling the heartstrings, but it really is quite a compelling story.

It's neat to see how excited his teammates get on the sidelines.

Good times.

I just came back from hockey. No goals this time. Was still good times.

This afternoon, I bought 1kg worth of animal crackers. This will be very good times.

This morning, I sewed up someone's scalp. It's about time I get back into clinical medicine. Very, very good times.

This past weekend, my whole family went to see my sister in a musical. She was stellar. Very, very, very good times.

The night before, I had gone with my sister to a cast + upper years party. It was held at a Polish community centre. Very, very, very, very good times.

The night before that, I went on an overnight snowboarding trip with my soon to be doctor classmates. I'll miss them when they leave, I think. Still good times though.