Matt has a pretty good whirlwind description of our American Thanksgiving weekend in Canada.

The snow at Whistler was not so great. Before we left, I had grand illusions that there'd be snow right to Whistler village, and we'd be hot tubbing with giant snow flakes flowing through the sky. But on Wednesday night, as we were driving up north, it was raining the whole time, and our prayers that it'd turn into snow didn't come true. In fact, it turned into ice on the hills, which made going down it quite interesting, and falling over hurt just that much more.

Blackcomb was a complete disaster, but Whistler, although more crowded, was better. We skied Big Red pretty much the whole time, and I practiced doing turns. It was still quite icy in many spots. We did make it up Harmony before the virginal snow was completely destroyed by the crowds of Saturday skiers. The wait for the lift was around 20 minutes after the first run, too much for our liking.

Saturday night was spent out in Vancouver. We had some excellent sushi near Andrea's apartment, and hit up several bars in Yaletown, including one (Lucy Mae Brown) where we entered through the back door (very cool feature by the way). We finally ended up at Au Bar where we met up with Robin and Reyna, and I met someone I went to high school with. How random is that? Then I slept on the couch part of the "pull-out" couch at Andrea's, while Matt crashed with some cushions on the ground. In the morning I had a crazy dream where I thought I was sitting down, but whenever I opened my eyes, I only saw the same window and vacuum cleaner (that coincidentally was in Andrea's apartment), but not what I thought the surroundings should be. Even when I moved my eyes, it was always the exact same picture. I thought I was going crazy, until I shook my head really hard, and woke up, and realized that it was all a dream. I don't even remember when was the last time that I had a nightmare.

Sunday morning we went for breakfast at The Elbow Room, where we were verbally abused by our waitress (she bitched at me for being on the phone, called us ladies, and told us to get our own water). Apparently that's their style. Then we did a full afternoon of shopping on Robson St. I actually checked my spending, and only bought a couple of pieces of clothing. Sunday night we went to a really nice Japanese tapas restaurant, where all the dishes were appetizer sized, and we ordered 8 or 9 dishes. The coolest one was the mackerel, which they seared right at our table with a blow torch. We also had some super-chilled sake served in a bamboo bottle. The drive home was long and tiring, but we made it alive, with all our fingers and toes.

Like us Canadians, Americans can no longer smile for their passport photos.

I don't even know why this deserves a newpaper article. Neutral face expressions are the best representatives of what someone looks like, and is probably easiest for imaging software to recognize. Yes, big bro is watching.

Peanut butter on toast with chunks of watermelon on the side. Maybe my culinary skills are impaired, but it just doesn't seem a likely pairing.

I'm off to Whistler for the rest of the week.

Amazon.com has been running these film shorts lately. They're mostly there for product placement of things that are sold on the site, but they all also have a (almost child/fairy-tale like) moral.

I like this week's best so far.

I've seen this commercial a couple of times now, and it's horrible every time.

Scene:

Mom is driving small kid to first day of school. Mom turns to kid and asks, "do you want me to drop you off a block before the school?" (so as not to suffer the embarassment of being dropped off by your mother) Kid says, "No". Vehicle stops, kid jumps out, walks through the "cool kids", saying "wasup". Cool kids turn, collectively say "nice ride", camera pans, shows said vehicle for the first time in the commercial, it's a Hummer.

If anyone buys a Hummer just so they can drive their kids to school, there's something wrong with this world. I'm no enviro-nut, but this is just ridiculous.

The Liberals, he said, were Freemasons, bad people, wanting to hang priests, to institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of illegitimate children as equal to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the country up into a federal system that would take power away from the supreme authority. The Conservatives, on the other hand, who had received their power directly from God, proposed the establishment of public order and family morality. They were the defenders of the faith of Christ, of the principle of authority, and were not prepared to permit the country to be broken down into autonomous entities. ... they distributed among males over twenty-one the blue ballots with the names of the Conservative candidates and the red ballots with the names of the Liberal candidates ... At four in the afternoon a roll of drums in the square announced the closing of the polls and Don Aplinar Moscote sealed the ballot box with a label crossed by his signature ... That night, while he played dominoes with Aureliano, he ordered the sergeant to break the seal in order to count the votes ... the sergeant left only ten red ones and made up the difference with blue ones. Then they selaed the box again with a new label.

--one hundred years of solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (pp 104-105)

Sounds familiar, except the book was first published in 1967.

Gotta love it when some webdev's test page makes it onto the onlines.

Click to see full detail page.

Most days I buy my lunch from the cafeteria at work. And most of those times I get the made-to-order specials of the day. Sometimes they go on an Asian kick, and give out fortune cookies with the entrees.

The thing I've noticed though, is that 1, the fortunes are not always fortunes, and 2, they're not always good.

Some of my fortunes from the past

You are apt to give too much thought to appearance

You could prosper in the field of medicine

A resort area will be part of your next holiday plans

But today's little slip of paper just tops them all

YOUR JUDGMENT IS A LITTLE OFF AT THIS TIME

I might as well just go home now.

The sky is a beautiful blue with wisks of cirrus clouds standing far atop of the dark, gray, and low hanging stratocumuli. The sun is setting in the lower left corner of my window, and the horizon far off into the west extends 1/5 the of the way up, with clouds rolling off the Olympics in the distance. The trees with their coloured leaves give way to the wind.

A plane passes by, its landing gears down, heading towards SEATAC, a helicopter zooms past, blades whirring ... silence.

Words cannot capture the serenity I'm seeing.

Back to work.

Beta is the new release.

Just like venge is the new brown (because UPS hijacked the name), midnight is the new black (because black sounds so impersonal), and tan is the new beige (because beige is so boring, and something your parents would buy).

The above I learned on my recent bout of furniture shopping. Yes, I am a materialistic person, a merchant's dream, a shopaholic, an impulsive spender who's not so frugal at times. Sometimes I look at the rest of the world, and I think to myself, why do I need a $700 bed with a $500 mattress and cK sheets?

The quick answer is, I don't. And no one really does. This consumerism is a direct consequence of the model capitalist society that I live in (like Kevin, I'm going right to the "source" for all my problems). Now, one can argue the pros and cons of capitalism and socialism (completely different from democracy and communism) for their entire economics PhD thesis, but I don't have enough knowledge to do that.

The thing is, there is a lot of suffering out there, and I'm aware of it. I've seen entire families living in a 8x8 shack beside a river so polluted there's dead fish floating on of the surface of the unmoving water. But this society that we live in, so focused on success, material possessions, and wealth, makes us forget (or maybe blissfully ignorant) of the things that we have managed to leave behind. Sure I can give money to charities, but I'll claim it against my taxes. Sure I feel sorry for the people in warzones, but secretly I think to myself "man am I glad I'm not there". And in truth, as much as I hate to say it, having all this "stuff" sometimes makes me feel good, as though I've achieved something.

Does that make me a bad person?

My car arrived on Tuesday, but the battery was DOA after the three week journey. I almost couldn't get it started in the parking lot, so I thought I'd go and get it checked. It turns out that to do a battery check costs $39.95, and for me to drive down to NAPA and pick up a new battery was only $29.99. So that's what I did. They wouldn't change it for me though (something about receiving too many complaints), so I bought a wrench and changed it myself in their back parking lot. Those batteries are heavy.

My apartment is finally coming together. After a couple of trips to IKEA and Area 51, I have most of the furniture I need. I'm still waiting for the rest of my stuff to arrive, and have a couple of bookcases in the mail. I also still need a coffee table, but I do have it down to a couple of choices. Maybe I'll pick one up this weekend.

Maybe I'm getting too old to be going to concerts, or maybe I just need to get some ear plugs.

Last night Benny and I went to see Les Savy Fav at Neumos.

Their openers were unimpressive.

The first band was a trio of a lead singer who looked like a microsoftie (complete with kakhis, tucked in white t-shirt, and beard), a frat boy drummer, and a bassist with the appearance of a hermit (think big bushy beard). It didn't really fit their screamo band image, and the singer was beginning to lose his voice towards the end (#1 flaw of scream bands doing live shows).

The second opener did a falsetto set, which reminded me of Michael Jackson. Didn't pull it off.

Les Savy Fav was better, but still not my type of music. The lead singer was quite a character though - a chubby bald man, Jack Black with blonde hair. He came on stage wearing a SARS mask, and kept on putting things on his head (scarf, tie, sock). At one point he went through the crowd and jumped onto the bar, singing into the track lighting. There was also a fight right beside where we were standing that ended just as quick as it started.

We're going to try and see Death Cab tonight. Hopefully we can scalp some tickets.

I was looking at cable prices.

Comcast digital with 1 premium channel + high def + broadband = $100/month.

Of course, I don't need high def until I invest in a high def TV.

So the whole crew - with the exception of maybe Cormie - are fans of the OC, and there promises to be Thursday gatherings at Goyer's house every week (so you'd better get that HD working for Fox, Goyer).

But why do we love the OC? Really, it's just a rehash of Dawson's Creek in a 90210 setting with a hint of Party of Five, dressed up with pretty people, doused with overcomplicated drama, and inundated with far too sophisticated dialogue.

We love it because we live vicariously through the characters on TV (*cough* Ben), we love to see the hot girls in Bikinis, and we love the complex yet easily predictable situations that occur - the catfight that ends up in the pool, the enemies that become best friends, the one episode drug habits, the all important sex - has - its - consequences - unless - you - lie - about - the - checkup - and - say - the - baby - is - dead messages that the show brings across. Ultimately, we love it because the show brings us together, in front of a TV screen, drinking beer, watching 25 year-old actors pretending to be 16, predicting the next line, bickering at each other because their foot is blocking my view, and seeing more of each other than we already do. Man, we're an episode of Friends without the laugh tracks.

Disappointment sets in, urge to move back to Canada becomes stronger.

I fail to understand how people in the US can think that Bush is actually doing a good job. Here's a brief description of his presidential accomplishments. Get Supreme Court to appoint him president, riots on inauguration day, failed resolution of Chinese/US aircraft collision incident, opt out of Kyoto, opt out of International War Crimes court, do nothing about warnings of terrorist attacks, vacation, Sept. 11, patriot act, start war in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, corner bin Laden, switch focus to Iraq, UN resolution, builds coalition of 125000 US troops and 3000 foreign troops, invade Iraq, run up deficit, tax cut, run up more deficit, can't find WMD in Iraq, can't find credible evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda but continue saying there's a link anyways, (tens of) thousands of people die, Abu Graib, do nothing about Darfur, North Korea has nuclear weapons, continue pronouncing nuclear "nucular", Iran restarting nuclear program, attempt constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, US weapons inspector reports Iraq had no WMD program, people continue dying, run up more deficit, get reelected.

Bush has continually said that he's a uniter, not a divider. Yet after four years of being president, this last election shows that the US is as divided as ever on pretty much everything. In fact, this whole campaign has deepened the chasm between right and left, even forcing people in the center to clearly choose sides.

What scares me most is that now the Republicans have control of the white house, the house of representatives, and the senate (even more so than before). This will make it even easier for them to pass things like the Patriot Act II. And, with another four years, Bush can potentially choose several new Supreme Court justices (with Rehnquist in the hospital, and other justices like O'Connor getting up there in age) with his right-wing/religious agenda. Justices who might give judgement on issues like gay marriage, abortion, and the bounds on the separation of church and state.

Disappointing indeed.

Anyone from Canada want to mail me a poppy?