Diss of the Week

I went to see my dermatologist on Friday for my eczema, since it was acting up for the last two weeks. I haven't seen him in a year and frankly all I needed him to do was just give me some more steroid creams (gimmee the 'roids! I need the 'roids! - I've become a drug addict and no, Ian, it's not crack!). I told him the last non-steroid cream he prescribed me wasn't effective and I'd prefer some cortisoids. Then he looked at me sternly and said - well, some of the other doctors who don't care about your skin and just want you out of their face will give you steroid creams - and give you stronger and stronger ones. But it's really bad for your skin and you shouldn't be using it. So use this other one instead - trust me, I know what I'm doing. Fine - okay - I'll listen and I'll buy this $90/tube non-steroid cream you're prescribing.

He wrote me a few prescriptions. I didn't look at it, but when I got to the pharmacy, I realized that he also wrote me a steroid cream for my arms and legs. Not only that, he gave me 60 refills on them. 60 refills...that'll last me a lifetime!! If that doesn't scream "Get out of my face", I don't know what does..

Crack-Inspired Dream

Well, this weekend was definitely a negative-valued SFT (Sloth Free Time) weekend. I pretty much slept the whole weekend. It's funny how various random thoughts, discussions and events culminate in your psyche....into one mixing bowl of 'stuff'...anyway, I woke up from my nap remembering this very weird dream - it's kinda funny because I can pin-point parts of where the idea originated in reality...haha.

The dream started out with my brother and I looking at some exhibit on a 10th floor courtyard of this building at "San Francisco University" (because he's vacationing in San Fran right now). I can't remember what we were looking at, but there was this crowd of people walking around. Then from the far entrance, we hear this big growl and we see this mid-sized brown bear on its hind legs roaring at these people (not sure why i'm dreaming about a bear, maybe because we're planning to go camping next week). So my brother and I are running for our lives because the bear is now running down the courtyard...and I turn around and realize that the bear is right at my heels! And it lunges at my legs to bite. I never die in my dreams, so now for some reason it freezes and continues in 3rd person narrative.

My brother and I are now re-examining back in time the chain of events that had led to this brown bear running out into the courtyard. So we go back in a bird's eye view to see what this bear was doing before it came out of the far entrance. It was rumaging around this shipping area, but it was filled with flowers and it was eating the flowers (my mom got flowers for her bday). So we went backwards to this other area when the bear was first shipped into the university. It was in this green box with doors on both sides. The green box was stamped - danger this bear is infeseted with lice, has gonorreah and rabies (Today I had a discussion on Hep A and B vaccinations with someone going on a ST trip to China). So naturally, the bear had to be inspected to see if it passed GAAP (Generally Accepeted Accounting Principles) (I think this must have come out of the previous geeky blog conversation). So when the box first arrived (remember, this is now occuring in reverse chronology), the shipping guy was examining it and was having trouble with the locking mechanism for the door. And in 3rd person, we both saw that my brother was helping the guy secure the door. And the shipping guy remembered saw that the locking mechanism was broken and that's when the bear jumped out of the green box.

Then both my brother and I started to wonder why we're alive because the bear had bitten us and probably ate us in the courtyard. While we realize this, we suddenly 'broke-down' because we really were androids and didn't know it (this came from a discussion w/ ebrian about Blade Runner). And I think this whole reverse chronology 3rd person narrative view spawned from watching CSI and CSI Miami.

So like I said, this was a crack-inspired dream.

The Cost of my Sloth

Lately, especially after paying my last Visa bill, I've been wondering what the heck I've been doing with my money. All I see on my bill is - parking, parking, parking, gas, gas, gas etc...

Really, I'm paying some big bucks daily for just being me - i.e. lazy. So I've decided to finally tally up what it costs me to be - me - i.e. lazy.

Daily incremental cost of driving instead of TTC:
Parking = $10 - $15; say average = $12.50
Gas ($50/week x 80% driving to work / 5 days) = $8.00
Total = $20.50
Less: TTC one way (because if I woke up at 6:45am everyday, I would be able to catch a ride
with my brother): $2.25
Incremental Cost of driving: $18.25 x 5 days x 4 weeks = $465 / month

Daily incremental cost of buying lunch instead of packing a lunch:
Cost of lunch = $8
Less: Cost of materials for a lunch - say $3
Incremental Cost of buying lunch: $5 x 5 days x 4 weeks = $100 / month

Daily coffee costs (need caffeine due to again - my sleepiness; i.e. sloth):
Tim Hortons Large coffee: $1.40 x 2/day = $2.80
Less: No costs; water is free
Incremental Cost of being addicted to Timmy Ho's:
= $2.80 x 5 days x 4 weeks = $56/ month

Monthly gym fees for which any derived benefits are foresaken because I don't go: $26

Eating out for dinner (well, not necessarily sloth, more like hedonism, but I'll just put it under the category of sloth):

$15 per meal x 3 meals / week x 4 weeks = $180

Total monthly cost of my sloth: $827
Annual costs: $9924

All non-tax deductible too, so not even an after-tax amount.

YIKES!!!

MishMash

Hmm, I don't really want to label this a Dorkism of the week because I already had one...I was so dumb today though...

Yesterday, I set up a meeting with a bunch of people, including my manager and the manager of direct costs, and some systems people to discuss business requirements for the new systems they're developing. It was for 1pm Thursday. I remembered in the morning driving down to work. Somewhere between then and lunch, I forgot. Went to lunch. Missed the meeting. Bumped into my manager on my way back from lunch. Manager was on his way back from...the meeting..that I was supposed to chair...oops. Wow, what is going on with me?? That's so unacceptable. My head would have rolled if I ever did this at my old place. Anyway, my co-workers couldn't stop laughing at me all afternoon.

Apprentice 2

I joined an Apprentice pool - this would be the first time I join a pool that I feel like I can make informed choices. In the past, I only did hockey playoff pools, but then I didn't know enough about all the teams cuz I didn't watch the regular seasons. This pool is really intricate...it has a mini-stock market built in it - every week if my picks are right, I earn Trump Bucks that I can invest...

Roddick vs. Johansson

RY - don't read if you want to watch cuz I'm letting it out.
I thought my cheering at home could sway the outcome, though it was a great match. Both were strong servers...Johansson has a really bold 2nd serve. I think he's a smarter player than Roddick (!!!!!!!!!! but Roddick still rules). He kept away from power rallies in the beginning, which was smart because I think Roddick could have dominated if it was a power game.

John Kerry

My brother made this comment about Kerry and now every time I look at him, I can't shake the image. He said that Kerry's face looks like those rubber masks thugs put on when they rob banks. And you know, it kinda does...hahaha, so every time I see him on TV, I keep thinking - he's gonna pull the mask off....any time now.....so bad..so bad...yet it's hilarious...

Sudan

Genocide. Well, the fuss is all there now, but trouble has been there for so long. I feel badly because I've forgotten about Sudan. I recall that DJ Rumble and I used to pray for it in UW during weekly intercessions one term and we learned a lot about the craziness going on there. There's so much pain going on there - the government killing rebels (who were mainly animists and Christians)...slavery - children enslaved and forced to fight for the government; genocide; Christian persecutions; poverty..

I remember once at MissionFest, a baroness from the UK (Cox is her name) who is a fighting voice for Christian Solidarity was sharing about how CS goes in to buy slaves back to free them This was in the news a few years back because they had so much negative criticsm - that they were funding the slave traders by buying them back. But the stories she shared about children being torn from their families and sold to slavery; to war; it was heart-wrenching. Genocide was identified there long ago...and many other issues... Sadly, so many times, these things were claimed to be done in the name of god.

How did I forget about this country? Lord forgive me.

"Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God." Jesus

Dorkism of the Week

Now that we have the Diss of the Week and Bible Verse of the Week updated, we're due for a Dorkism, aren't we?

Well, this must go into the books as one of the dumbest things I've done, although many people will disagree and cite many other dumb things I've done that surpass this one.

Today, a bunch of us went to help Kevin move out of his res room and into his new place. After a day of moving (for me, it was more like hanging out, driving and holding doors), we went over to eBrian's for a Popeye's chicken and Mamma's Pizza dinner and to play with Eric's Xbox (it was really good to see Eric in good spirits lately and right on par with the witty comments! Praise God!)

After playing Halo (for me, it was more like playing 'sitting duck'), we started to play this 4 player Rally Car driving game. I did ok the first time around, driving the Mitsubishi Evolution. Then when it was my turn again, I chose this other car and didn't really remember what it was. Since it's a 4 player game, there are 4 quadrants. So given Kevin's controller, I started to play and started noticing that - boy, this car really isn't responsive - I can't get it to go where I really want it to go, or it's so slow in turning. I should have chose the Evolution again....

For 5 laps, I was trying to control this car in the Bottom Right quadrant, while complaining to the group that the car I chose had poor manuverability. Meanwhile, Eric was saying in the background - "whoever is stuck behind those signs should hit the 'white' key to reset their position". I thought to myself, well, can't look, just gotta keep on driving this car...

At the end of the race, everyone was looking at the Top Right quadrant, where this car was still stuck somewhere off the tracks, in between two signs, still on it's 1st lap of 5. Someone asks - Who's car is that???

And then finally we figured out it was MY car! I was looking at the wrong quadrant all along, thinking I was controlling the car, when it was really Nancy's car, which was being controlled by, surprise surprise, Nancy.

My tummy still hurts from laughing at the utter dorkiness of that....what a knob!!!

Sigh...

Bible verse of the week

As disses of the week were infrequent, so were the Bible memory verses.

So I've got Joshua 1:8 down pack, but am still having trouble remembering what 1:9 is -verbatim.

The Rudie has joined me in re-memorizing the verses we had known back in 3rd year....yay!

Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.

Romans 12:1

Especially as we were studying A.W. Tozer's "Whatever Happened to Worship" earlier this year, this is a good verse to remember every morning - to remember that we are living sacrifices; also that our physical bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Republican Convention....

I watched it - Arnold's speech - sadly comprised of rhetoric of feel-good rah-rah-fluff. I was disappointed at how he recanted his story about meeting a brave soldier who had lost his leg, and was impaled through the chest and suffered other injuries while fighting in Iraq. And how he was probably not going to make it back, but he had the courage to continue to fight and was planning to get a prosthetic leg and go through therapy. Then he ended it by saying - the soldier said - "I'll be back".....

I have to wonder if the soldier actually said that, or if Arnold was just using his life - apparently his sacrificed life (since he said himself that that he probably wasn't going to make it, but never did confirm it before using him as an example, so he must have just assumed that he was going to die) as a vehicle to deliver his punch line "I'll be back". And the Republicans fell for it! They went gagagagagaga over it. It just took away all the meaning of the soldier's sacrifice - all summed up in a stupid movie punch-line.

I did laugh at his comment about pessimistic economists thinking that the US economy will be overtaken by other countries - he called them 'economic girly-men'. It was funny, but yet again stupid. And the Republicans fell for it! They have buttons with that saying. Like pumping iron and being a macho man will really grow the US GDP and give them competitive advantage over rapidly industrialized countries like China. But they went gagagagagaga over it.

Well I guess he accomplished his role as the head squad leader of the cheerleading pack...

Then on to the Twins.....

Horrible speech writing coupled by horrible delivery- all the commentators said it too. And you can feel it in the crowd. Trying to be 'hip' and cool, yet so awkward. And so they alienated the young cool crowd because of their 'uncoolness' (well come on they got booed on MTV) and then they alienated their convervative old-schoolers. They spoke as if they were teenagers still in highschool, instead of Yale graduates. If I were the dean of Yale, I'd be embarrassed. Truly.

Laura Bush's speech was good. It brought out the personal side of their family - driving car pools, watching her husband agonize over the tough decision to go to war. It helped dispell his image of a cowbow yeee-hawwing his way into Iraq.

Though despite this nauseating display of blind republicanism, I do admire the American's patriotism. I really wish Canadians were more patriotic, enthusiastic about their country. Not just during Leaf games, or sporting events, but about politics, about Canada as a great country, smart people, green grass, tall wheat, fiesty geese, plentiful moose...

I feel like breaking out in song - to sing...Land of the Silver Birch...home of the beaver...

I digress...

It's late! Bedtime!