In Memoriam

In Memoriam
Victor Yim
July 5, 1937 - April 16, 2004

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They needed a specialist for THAT?!

Over the past few months, I've developed a moderate case of eczema, which is usually a manifestation of impaired liver function or allergies. I bit the bullet and went to a dermatologist in November and was scheduled to undergo a patch test to determine what I'm allergic to. This appointment is booked for December 19th.

I receive a phone call two days prior, telling me that the specialist was going on holiday. On the day of my appointment. While I admit that it was my bad not giving the right phone number, which resulted in a delay in them contacting me. However, I really question the professionalism when they give such last minute notice that they're going on vacation. And, they even tell me that there are no other appointment dates within a day or two of the original appointment date, so I now have to wait over a month.

Flash-forward to January 25th. I'm not really looking forward to this because I know allergy tests involve them scratching allergens into your skin. Then I finally find out that a patch test only involves them taping strips of chemicals to your back and then you come back 48 hours later to see what induces a reaction.

This takes a total of five minutes. This also obviously required the expertise of a specialist, because there was no way they could get just about anybody else from the office to TAPE FOUR STRIPS OF MATERIAL TO MY BACK, because that's just so difficult and requires years of training and experience to do properly.

The upside is that I'll finally figure out what I'm allergic to so I can know what to avoid eating. The downside is that I can't shower until 48 hours after the patch test is administered and the chemical patches are removed.

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1 Guy 1 Bowl

My old supervisor once said that whenever a civilization is about to go under, they start doing all sorts of messed up stuff like human sacrifices, Roman showers, vomitoriums, and cannibalism. Somehow, I don't think we're that far off.

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More (Mis)Adventures In Craigslistland
(originally posted at http://vancouver.craigslist.org/zip/466369142.html)

Reply to: sale-466369142@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-11-01, 6:14PM PDT


Hey, guys. It's me again. However, it seems like the message ain't exactly getting through, because yet again, crap with varying level of usefulness is littered where it really doesn't belong. C'mon. It's NOT THAT HARD. Regardless of its state, there are proper channels to get rid of your crap. If it's not usable, send it to the local dump or recycling facility yourself. If it's still usable, donate it to charity. Heck, even put up a notice on the community bulletin board. Or better yet, use Craigslist. Last time I did this, two out of three items were gone in less than 12 hours.

Yes, I'll admit that some of these items are quite sizeable, and without a car, it makes it a bit of a pain in the butt to cart around. But even still, local charities will actually pick some of this stuff up for you IF YOU ASK.

Look people. Even if your mom does live here (which she might), it's still YOUR responsibility to clean up after yourself. Dumping it wherever the heck you feel will not only raise the ire of your neighbours and the strata, but will also mean that the strata garbage pickup guys will charge us more for it.

Up for grabs is the following.

1. Bookshelf. It might be made out of wood, or it might be made out of particle board with paper covering to vaguely resemble wood. The thing is pretty tall and wide, so it'll hold a lot of books. Or, it'll hold a lot of picture frames and figurines. Or, you can take it apart and use it for firewood. I don't frickin' care, just get it out of here.

UPDATE: The bookshelf is actually made out of aluminum, painted to merely look like wood. But that's kinda moot because somebody already has picked this up, so it's gone. Thanks, Telly! You rock!



2. Cat exercise gym. I'm guessing this thing is used, and most likely has residual traces of whatever cat used it (I won't go into graphic details...this is a family website). If you Febreeze or bleach the hell out of it, it might be clean enough for your cat (but all those extra chemicals might give you cancer). But, you know how finicky cats can be. Failing that, you might be able to turn it into some crazy art project. Spray paint and sparkles not included.





3. Acer CRT monitor. I don't even know if this thing works. If it does, hey, free monitor. If it doesn't, you can convert it into a fish tank or you can use it as a prop in an independent student film if you're doing a remake of "Office Space" (although yes, I know that they used a copier). I don't care what you do with it, really. As long as it's legal (although if you're using it on your computer to download MP3s, I *GUESS* that's okay).


Like last time, I cannot and will not vouch for the quality or workmanship of any of this stuff, nor will I be held responsible for anything that happens as a result of you picking this stuff up. If your cat pulls up a random staple from the cat gym and requires emergency veterinary surgery, that is YOUR problem. If the bookshelf collapses and destroys a priceless China set, I don't care. If you actually attempt to turn the CRT monitor into a fish tank and you forget to unplug it and get electrocuted, lemme know so I can inform the guys who give out the Darwin Awards.

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Survival of the (Un)Fittest

"Mensa membership exceeding, tell me why and how are all the stupid people breeding."

"The Idiots Have Taken Over", by NOFX

While watching Akeelah and the Bee, I started thinking about the current education system and how much it is preparing children for life outside of school. Technology has had a large impact over education, both positive and negative. Technology means that kids have the potential to learn at a geometric rate (kinda like Skynet), but at the same time learn facts without fundamentals. And, they don't really know how to spell.

During my time on PlentyOfFish.com, between meeting people, I was on the message boards. One particular group was dedicated to profile reviews. Given my current occupation and school background, I took it upon myself to review people's profiles, partly for general appeal to target audience, but more often than not, for grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

The most common spelling mistake I would point out is "a lot." The number of times I was correcting it was highly indicative of several things, one being the low level of spelling skills among an unfortunate percentage of the users on that site. The other being lack of motivation to read and do some level of edits before submitting for review.

I'm not sure if it's just overuse of spellcheckers that have caused this (why bother learning to spell when MS Word is going to automatically correct it for you?). Either that, or it's severely de-emphasized in the school system. However, I can still recall 10th Grade English class, where the teacher was STILL telling us the difference between "a lot" (a large quantity) and "allot" (to distribute or mete out).

Um...isn't that something that you're supposed to have nailed in THIRD GRADE?

Spelling gaffes are a surefire way to blow credibility in anything, whether it be a resumé, visual presentation, or advertisement. I'm still thinking of a public service ad on the bus where they actually used "who's" (contraction for "who is") instead of "whose" (possessive article).

Stuff like this truly makes me feel better about my level of job security, given the fact that there will always be a "need" for it. But, being that no one notices spelling until something is spelled wrong, it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone will appreciate it.

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Previously, I was talking about inconsiderate neighbours who dump their unwanted furniture in the communal garbage area without any consideration for others who definitely DON'T want to have to deal with this crap. The situation finally came to a head when somebody dumped to large pieces of furniture (ie: too large to fit into the dumpsters) by the trash collection areas.

But, evidently, I'm not the only one who had a problem with it, as I found this note posted on top of an old chair that really needed to be re-upholstered.

These pieces of furniture have been there for the better part of a week without the said tenant coming to retrieve them, so I did the Robin Hood thing and I posted it up on Craigslist. Lo and behold, in less than 24 hours, I have 5 responses and they are gone. To demonstrate to the anonymous douchebag who decided to arbitrarily dump his crap there that there are proper channels for getting rid of unwanted crap, I printed the posting and tacked it on the communal bulletin board.

Unfortunately, the exercise bike is still there, while the note that was tacked on the bulletin board has since been removed.

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Traditional male roles are always changing with society, partly due to roles that females take on, as well as influence of the media. This led to an interesting discussion with my coworkers. I work in an office that is predominantly female, which means the editorial staff is all women and the sales and marketing staff is all women. The balance is slightly offset in a few departments, such as graphic design.

But, as a result, I find myself doing a larger percentage of heavy lifting, even more so since the only male editorial intern goes back to school soon.

Technology has also had a fairly major impact on male roles, which has added more responsibilities to the list.

So far, I have it down to:

1. Move heavy furniture
2. Open jars (pasta sauce, pickles)
3. Reprogram VCRs (now replaced by PVRs, DVRs, etc.)
4. Kill spiders (or, if you like spiders, letting them outside)
   
5. Hunt down buffalo
6. Set up internet connections (we have an IT department for this, so I don't have to, although I was asked how to change the view options on Outlook)
7. Assemble Ikea furniture (instruction manuals optional)
   
   addendums:
   
   
   
8. Clean up a woman's plate (ie: the stuff that's left over from her plate after she's full)
9. Replace objects in the shelves that are harder to reach.
10. Install all electronics (instruction manuals optional).
11. Carry groceries.
    

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Please Eat Tasty Animals.

I've briefly toyed with the idea of going vegetarian, more for environmental reasons (ie: lowering my carbon footprint), although that didn't last too long because tofu burgers don't taste nearly as good as the real thing and I really like to be able to get my vitamin B₁₂ without supplementation. My g.f. is equally glad I'm not a vegetarian, due to the social aspects of eating.

Last weekend, we were over at Memphis Blues, a restaurant that serves a lot of meat products. Pork, chicken, ribs...stuff that would cause the average PETA member to go up in arms. But what amused me the most were the souvenir t-shirts they had for sale. One had the word "vegetarian" with a red circle and slash through it. Another said (words to the effect of), "The best racks in town."

I'm assuming that one only comes in women's petite sizes. Or for really, really fat guys.

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How much do I love my girlfriend? Her dog just puked on the floor and the rug and I just cleaned it up. It smells like skunk spray too.

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At one point, Denise suggested to me that I write a gushing, sappy blog post about how much I love her. I said I would do so when I was in the mood, although she took that to mean when I actually felt that way for her. Considering the tone that my blog usually takes, it's more that it's outside of my regular writing style and subject matter than a reflection of how I feel.

Instead, I will tell you how much I love my girlfriend by talking about the things I do. I took her dog out to the back of her apartment for some fresh air and so she can do her business. Lo and behold, she saw a skunk and decided to chase after it. I have spent the last half hour running around town to find a 24 hour Shoppers Drug Mart to obtain 1L of hydrogen peroxide for the purpose of deodorizing the dog.

As I write this, she is in the bathroom holding the dog down while applying the mixture. In a few minutes, I will be called in to assist.

This is how much I love my girlfriend. If there were any doubts, this should clear all of them.

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While on facebook, I posted a question asking about the largest contributor to the problems of the world. Some gave one-to-two-worded answers ("greed" and "poverty" are two popular choices), although someone did say something about apathy, to which is something I can see.

However, for me, it's more of a source of annoyance than anything else, which is why I posted the left image on two common areas in my building.

It seems that people simply do not know how to read or are just too lazy and expect others to clean up after them. On two occasions, I have spotted two items tossed with reckless abandon in the trash disposal areas. I have a big enough beef with recyclable items such as used clothing and obsolete electronics getting turfed, but even more so when they are placed in random areas in the pretense that someone else will find use for them.

In previous years, some municipalities would hold "clean-up weeks", in which people would put out mass amounts of supposedly reusable items like old televisions and furniture, however, it became abused, as items not allowed (old refrigerators, construction debris) was also put out. This may be another holdover from that mentality, which unfortunately doesn't really work.

When charitable organizations and proper recycling facilities exist, it upsets me when they are not used and the onus is placed on people who are ultimately not the ones responsible for creating the mess in the first place.

But then, it could also argue that this is also a form of apathy.

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30.



(birthday roda at the Fintry campgrounds, July 6, 2007)

Yes, I have hit that purportedly painful milestone in my life, where I am now officially in a different demographic. Certain expectations in life really were supposed to have been fulfilled by now, such as marriage, solidly established career, home ownership, level of education, and the ability to pay off bills that are slightly more advanced than a cell phone bill.

Depending on one's scale for "life expectancy" (that is, what one's expected to do in life), I "might" be doing okay, although I'm still renting and I'm not married yet. That, and I don't have a really established career per se, having changed jobs about three times since turning 29, although I really do like the company I'm working with...they even got me a birthday cake when I wasn't there, which we all shared after the fact. They also got me a card which joked about Godzilla being the only one capable of lighting all the candles on the cake.

Turning 30 might not actually be as bad as it seems, as I still don't feel any different than I did when I was 29. Sure, I have more responsibilities and there are certain things that are expected of me. However, the fact that my girlfriend points out the fact that I have more grey hairs sprouting out of my skull than she does is a reminder that I am not "young" anymore. Thankfully, due to the Asian age formula (take the age which you look, add five), I can still pass for mid-20s. Unless I show them my ID.

However, I'm going to fake it as long as I can. Eat properly, no smoking or excessive drinking, exercising regularly, and playing as many video games as my extremely busy schedule will allow.

Easier said than done. I have work to do still!

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"ARE YOU ENTERTAINED?!"


As a result, there's a moratorium on winning anything from The Beat 94.5 for at least three months. If you notice, DJ Flipout is coming up to the karaoke screen to see, if indeed, the "indistinct grunts" are included in the lyrics. Yes, and they're listed as "ARF...ARF-ARF...ARF-ARF...ARF-ARF."

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"Won't someone think of the children?!"

Kneejerk reactions to the perceived anti-social behaviour seems to be the norm these days. Every time there is a horrible event such as the Columbine shootings or the more recent Virginia Tech shooting, there is the long-standing search for answers and reasons and scapegoats.

We all recall the blame heaped on everything from Grand Theft Auto to Marilyn Manson to the breakdown of the family unit whenever stuff like this goes wrong, but this also starts bringing up alarm bells to the point of paranoia.

While I do admit to a certain level of responsibility from the media to inform the general public, all it's doing is promoting fear and ruining lives in the process. For me, it makes me recall a talk that Ian Hanomansing (CBC Newsworld anchor) gave on the portrayal of awful events in the media. As it stands, in the western world, we actually have it pretty good. For the most part, we can walk down the street without fear of gang rape, death by suicide bomb, or attack by Africanized honey bees. But, the news media would tell you otherwise.

The old adage stands true as always: a dog bites a man, that's not news. Man bites dog...

When events like these occur, it's always a national tragedy that reaches the hearts of everyone. It also puts a lot of unnecessary fear into them, and then the people in authority start instituting excessive and ineffective measures, just so it looks like they're doing something important. Racial profiling isn't necessarily new, but somehow nerdy Asian guys are suddenly the object of scrutiny.

With the Virginia Tech shootings, it's in your face and in your homes all the time, unless you make a point of ignoring it altogether. But, when you have a kid that makes a CounterStrike map and modelling it after their school, this somehow indicates that they're a walking, ticking time bomb. There was somebody that did that, and because of somebody's over-reaction, he doesn't get to graduate with his high school class. Oh, yeah...and the kid was Asian, just like the Virginia Tech shooter.

During my teenage years, make-work assignments to fill class time would happen every so often. Sometimes they got creative, though. One involved the story exercise where you write one portion, and pass it to the next. Some of what we wrote depicted some very sick stuff. Somebody else started a story with me as the protagonist, where I was trying to kill the English teacher's cat. I ran with it, as expected.

Writing it back then? We all have a few laughs. Writing it today? I get removed from my school and I don't get to graduate with all my friends.

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The whole universe at her command.


Pfft. Is that a warning or a promise?


"The conveyor belt was moving too fast! What else was I supposed to do?"


"Hey, is this the right way to the men's room?"



"Oh, pleasedon'tdropmepleasedon'tdropmepleasedon'tdropme..."



I promised Denise that I would come back after hours. I sure hope I remembered to disable the security cameras.


After all that chocolate, it was important to check my teeth.


Chillin' outside. It was a really nice day out.

Last Sunday, I went on a geek date. I have found happiness. Maybe for the next date we should go to a comic book convention.

Denise put forth the suggestion to go to ChocoBites: The History of Chocolate, presented at the Telus World of Science. That's where we learned all sorts of interesting factoids and information about chocolate, its preparation, and its varieties. And of course, we got to sample some. Twice.

And I also learned that the large hilly area outside of Telus World of Science is made possible through the magic of Styrofoam, which is evidently a legacy of Expo '86.

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After reviewing my blogs, all of them, I have come to the realization that I've become incredibly negligent in my blog posts, outside of posting links to self-indulgent YouTube videos (next up: see how fast it takes me to solve TEN Rubik's Cubes!). Strangely enough, this coincides with me finding a new job. Hence, no posts in the entire month of March.

These past few months have reminded me of how incredibly fortunate I have been. After years upon years of struggling to find myself, I've managed, seemingly through no fault of my own (note the qualifying adverb "seemingly"), to find somewhat fulfilling employment (more on that later) and end up in a very fulfilling relationship with someone who actually "gets" me and supports me in the stuff I do and actually makes me feel good about myself.

About the job. It's been a matter of a fit, which I haven't exactly found even after 6 weeks on the job, for which I'm probably a lot more willing to let slide than I should (refer to blog post on 2007 New Year's Resolutions for more details), although my significant other (Hi, Denise!) agrees that my talents are best suited for a different type of environment. So, lo-and-behold, when I receive the "this-isn't-quite-working-out" speech, the following day, I receive a phone call from an HR manager from a company which employed me last Fall, recommending me for another position.

I interviewed today, and ka-ching, I get it. Sometimes stuff just falls into place.

Life is good. Not as good as some, but better than most. I'm not sure who I'm supposed to thank, though.

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In memoriam:
Victor P.K. Yim
July 5, 1937 - April 16, 2004

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It's been a while since I've posted. But I don't feel like writing right now. So how about I show you this...

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Given my lack of formal training (regardless, I'll give it my all and have no regrets), I was especially shooting for the "Most Entertaining" award. I woulda won too, if it weren't for that walking wardrobe-malfunction-just-waiting-to-happen. She won the top $300 prize, Dre in our group won runner up.

However, I did much better on my improv rendition of "If I Had $1,000,000" with my karaoke cohort Peter. The hostess asked if we knew each other. We played dumb.

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Today, I just had an epiphany: I am incredibly lucky. The fact that I just landed a job and recently met somebody who accepts me for who I am might have something to do with it. So, just to see exactly HOW lucky I am, I decided to go out and buy a lottery ticket.

If I win, first round of drinks is on me.

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