Weekend Recap - Small World, Toronto Drivers, UW Logo, Blue Jays

Small World
This is a small world, and Nth post of my love with the notion of six degrees of separation.
This weekend I realized a friend of mine, G, whom I met via Viv, plays badminton with my brother's landlord, W. Imagine the surprise when I saw G's photo on the brochure, ha

More importantly, Pacific Ocean is not enough to separate destiny or fate :-)

Toronto Crazy Drivers
This weekend was shopping at Yorkdale, Pacific Mall, and some better Asian food.
Nothing fancy but a few observations

• Personally I had to honk 3 times because drivers in Toronto did not know how to drive, the craziest sample of this fact happened when a car changed from the lane 3 (so you have Left Turn Lane 0, Lane 1-4 on Highway 7 & Woodbine) to lane 0, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INTERSECTION. He/She was lucky no accident happened. Drivers should anticipate their directions, not react!!!!
• Roots Outlet near Yorkdale sucks
• Toronto Blue Jays beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-1, finally, when it doesn't matter anymore. I got soaking wet walking there, because I only learned about the indoor SKYWALK on my way back to the Union Station (13 years in Canada and not knowing about it [built in 1989], shame on me)
• The new Reminton Center to be built besides Pacific Mall will be HUGE, see for yourself (the bottom horizontal grey box is the Pacific Mall)

Netbook Take 2

Bought MSI Wind U100 for $320

Sold MSI Wind U100 for $360 shipped

Bought ASUS 1000H for $270 shipped - still too small for my fingers, but it will do

Bought Canada Computers 2GB Laptop RAM $33 - $15 MIR = $18

Installed the RAM and faster XP, later on Windows 7 = priceless

New UW Logo = Ugly
http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2009/jul/24fr.html
One more reason to not donate back to UW because they spend money on the wrong place :-)

Weekend Recap, and Happy Birthday to my brother

Saturday
Watched Star Trek - it was really good (I'm a Star Trek fan), gave it 10/10

Dinner at Moxie's Classic Grill SQ1 with friends and brother, using up the $200 Gift Card I acquired earlier for $100 (what a deal). 5 of us, trying very hard, still only managed to eat $180 worth, came home "very" stuffed.

• Drinks - Bellini, Raspberry Kiwi, Ice Tea
• Appetizer - Combo platter
• Entrees - Steak Salad, Sirloin Oscar with Prawns, Land & Sea Grill
• Desserts - Tasting Trio, Bite of Brownie, Blackberry Apple Crisp, Chocolate Espresso Mousse

Sunday
Morning - Tzu Chi park cleaning at Rododandron Gardens from 9 am to 12 pm

Afternoon - Attended the Blue Jays vs KC Royals game, watching Roy Halladay for a complete game 4-0 victory, in 2 hours. Doc becomes the first MLB pitcher to get 10 wins in 2009

World Baseball Classic winners - Japan & Korea

• Sat., Mar. 21 Korea 10, Venezuela 2  
• Sun., Mar. 22 Japan 9, United States 4
• Mon., Mar. 23 Japan 5, Korea 3

Japan is the winner of WBC again, after an awesome 4 hour game last night of back-and-forth.
I did not want to go to bed at 2 am because I wanted the game to continue!

Korea played a great game as well, I was very impressed. Both teams are winners in my mind, and thanks to both team for demonstrating the beautiful fundamental Asian baseball.

Japan's win over USA and Korea's blowout over Venezuela were examples of good fundamentals and efforts that lead to success, not just talents alone. Shame on Venezuela to not play their best and looked down on their opponents.
 
I truly believe Korea or Japan can beat any MLB team because all the players work 200% hard with 1000% heart. I wait for the 2013 World Baseball Classic, and hope that Toronto Blue Jays will make at least one playoff before then.

Blue Jay's Roy Halladay has 20 wins, ER/Smallville thoughts

Roy Halladay, Doc, has won the game last night 8-2 over New York Yankees. His 20th win, 2nd in his career, marks a bittersweet end to a disappointing season by Blue Jays.

To me, Doc is THE team, the Blue Jays, and it is heartbreaking that the team fails him so many times to reach the playoffs. I was fortunate enough to watch Doc almost shut out the Yankees in July at Rogers Centre. Definitely a memory I'll treasure for, and hope for a better next season

Now back to useless TV show reviews

Smallville
I do not know why I continue to watch this, perhaps because they keep saying it's the last season, since season 3. Now two episodes into season 8, it definitely feels like the last season, with Clark Kent working at Daily Planet with Lois Lane, disappearance of Lex/Lana/Martha and appearance of Justice League, I hope they end it well and make Clark fly. Not being a Superman comic fan, I was very confused by the Superman movie, Smallville to which one is the true Superman storyline, if it does exist.

ER
It is the last season, and first episode Dr. Greg Pratt is gone, killed by the ambulence bombing just when everything looked fine in the first 10 minutes. Wow, that was a sad moment as he's been in ER for 8 years, and seems like Abby/Luka will be leaving Chicago as well. They may as well call it a season of farewells.

Farewell, ER, you will remain the memories that accompanied me for 15 years and on.

Another year, same Blue Jays, hoping for another year

Blue Jays had an Insider Club promotion and I received free 500 level tickets to the Sep 7, 2008 Blue Jays vs Tampa Bays game, where we won 1-0. Jason also had free $20 food voucher for our lunch money - however, $20 only got us 2 chicken finger combos at $10 each. Talk about overpriced food and total ripoff at best. Nevertheless, at least next day I redeemed my tickets for free Pizza Pizza pizza slices as there were 7 strikeouts in the game

This post was originally drafted on Sep 10, 2008 when Blue Jays 10 had game winning streak, since then with the 3 losses in Boston, Blue Jays (heartbroken losses as well) has officially ended their playoff chase

I remembered when the season started, I had such high hopes for Toronto teams - Maple Leafs, Raptors, and Blue Jays. How wrong can I be, becoming another faithful Toronto fan, without anything in return

Let's hope 2009 will be a different year, one can only hope

A Weekend With Disappointment of Olympics

• 16.725 China > 16.725 USA? Nastia only won Silver despite having the exact same score as China. This is where another controversy is created, again after 2004 Athens. Why couldn't they just give out 2 Gold medals?
• Phelps did his job, making history - 8 out of 8 for Gold medals in Swimming
• Yani Tseng from Taiwan lost her lead in CN Canadian Open and finished with 3rd
• Only good news is Blue Jays blow out Boston Red Sox in the 2-game series, winning 4-1 and 15-4

More Olympics, more Sports news, and last season of ER

Olympics

• 3rd night in a row, sleeping at 1 am, only to watch more Live Olympics on NBC

• Michael Phelps won his 6th GOLD Olympic medal last night (he is 6-for-6 so far)

• USA women gymnastics tool home the GOLD and the SILVER medal, down to the last rotation. It was a game of deductions, game of perfection, game of decimals of scores. What a night, to watch Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson put it all out on the floor (literally) with no regrets.

In other Sports news

• There were around 5000 empty seats at the Buffalo Bills vs Pittsburgh Steelers NFL game last night in Toronto, and that scalpers couldn't sell the tickets. I actually feel bad for them
• Toronto Blue Jays puts Vernon Wells and John McDonald on Waivers. This was a surprise to me, not that it's unusual for a team to put players on the waiver at this time of the season, but I would not watch Blue Jays if there was no Johnny Mac (and Roy Halladay)

Last shocking news from the NBC commercial - Next season of ER will be their last season (15th season), after 14 years (first episode aired in 1994). I wouldn't know what to do on Thursday night anymore, I have watched ER since Taiwan - Dr. Green, George Clooney, Carter, and now .... it'll all become just memories

I was fortunate enough to get some Stratford Festival tickets for this coming weekend (Saturday for Cabaret the musical, and Caesar and Cleopatra on Sunday). Looking forward to it