[May 5 2005] Happy Birthday Dee!

It's Dee's birthday (I think I have a few lined up now) all the ones stuck here for the summer made their showing. Congrats on being 1 year older Dee.


It's dee's birthday we we decided that My Thai was a good place to spend it.

Look at all the party people. Food was excellent as usual service was above normal. 

Back in Hamilton

Back in the hammer today good to be back!

Summer's for wimps!




I woke up this morning to rain wonderful rain... wait a minute that's not rain, oh yes hail! So this is what summer's like?! Those are some pretty big pellets.

Summer's for wimps! (2)


That must have been what the guy upstairs was thinking when he unleashed the torrent of pellets today. It's funny I've been in Toronto for what 6 days now and not one of them was it not snowing or raining. I guess the preview of summer is over now it's back to winter.

More Friends

Time to go visit another long time friend of mine. It seems everyday since I've been here in T.O. I've been running around here and there. Well I guess that's because I got alot of loose ends to tie up glad I finally get a chance to do it, abiet 5 things in 5 days... ha ha that's pushing the schedule.

Anyways I'm off again, just got a chance to get sober, prehaps by the end of tonight I'll be drunk again!

Back in Toronto with the Toronto crew, not gonna write to much cause I'm a bit drunk right now. I'll do my commentary tomorrow right now I'm just gonna pass out.

(the next day)

For those that will point this out I'm the extremely dorky looking one on the left (you can't take good pictures all the time)

Well with the usual shinanagins driving around T.O. acting like an idiot hitting up theatres, and getting drunk. It was a fun night, however Me and Quan are really interrested in getting Darpa's autonomous vehicle challenge running. I've tried this year at Mac but wasn't able to inspire enough enthusasm for the project so it turned out to be a no-go. Quan had a similar story, so the Toronto crew is gonna do what they do best, inter-university communicating.

With me working heavily with the profs this summer, and having heavy connections into the SE club Mac can work at the Software end of the spectrum, Quan is working on the Eng Phys, Ahbi has industrial covered, and With a mech side the team is complete.

At the moment it seems like a distant dream but as we the YEI / Toronto crew are well familiar with once you get the ball rolling its hard to tell how far you can go.

No More SkyDome

It's really a sad sight when one sees that one of Toronto's former landmark the "SkyDome" has been bought out by Rogers and renamed the "Rogers Centre". This might be old news to some but for a guy that's been out of Toronto for about a year now I'm completely flabbergasted.

When was it that our national landmarks could be sold to the highest bidder? What are we gonna lose next? Ontario Place gets renamed Bell Canada World?

Really seeing Rogers centre at the side of the building really doesn't fit in my opinon, I guess I've been so used to seeing SkyDome that it is really out of place now. Everyone I know of in Toronto still refers to the place as the SkyDome so it's not a surprise that this little detail slipped right by me.

Well enough of a rant for now going to meet up with some old friends this evening, should have something more interresting to post then.

Why We Play Games

I was just reading this ever so interresting article that analyzes the human psyche an why games are so appealing (the original article can be found here). Anyways basically some of the key thing stated was mainly intuitive but one key re-occuring theme is games satisfy a human need of accomplishment.

Now I personally find this a really interresting statement, and would go to show why some people will sit on hours doing menial tasks just to finish an objective in a game. However to that respect upon analysing my own situation I don't heavily play games to this degree, and when I think about it it might be due to the fact that I already have preset rewards set in the "brain" so the need to suppliment this is drastically reduced.

The other might be value system. I view games as a form of entertainment and anything that is accomplished in games can be accomplished by anyone without much skill. I've notice that some view games as a challenge and will talk hours about how they beat a certain level or gained a certain high score. To me doing such a thing is useless since it doesn't take a really skilled person to learn and play a game.

So games it seems after reflecting seem to be able to capture a very specific audience I guess I'm just lucky that I'm not part of the addicted audience.

(Although I waste alot more time programming, or ripping open electronic toys)

Canada, bought out again!

Today I was in the Eaton's Center in Toronto, and I've noticed that Radio Shack is gone! Admittedly I didn't like the store and I used to call it crappy shack. This does show that Canadian companies are dropping off the map like flies.

First there was Business Depot that became staples.ca (US version is staples.com), then shortly after Futureshop was aquired by Best Buy. Now Radio Shack is bought out by Curcuit City which makes this Canadian Shout "Is there any Canadian Business capable of surviving?"

Finally Back in the T.O.

Well finally back in the T.O. I guess this is what is considered "Vacation time" nothing really to do here aside from my 3 computers humming happily.