Once again my head is shaved. Not fully, not "Bic'd", but close enough. Choy and I both did it on the #3 setting of his little beard shaver. It got clogged with hair often (moreso on me than on him...) but a little clean out with the fingers and we was back in business. It's so much easier having the head shaved. No styling to worry about, I use so much less shampoo and no gel, and it feels real cool when you rub your hand on it. But I do have to worry about burning my scalp in the summer sun. Not a big deal though.

I've been checking out the Special Features on my Memento LE DVD. It's a brilliant movie, and a brilliant DVD to boot. I may never know the extent of all the special features on disc 2 (or maybe even disc 1) because the menu system is a labryinth of psycho-analytical type questions and different answers take you to different places...some just leading in circles. It's frustrating and I do believe that was the intention. Frustrating, yet brilliant and enjoyable. Some of the questions are just way out there, and many do not have a definitive correct answer. One special feature that I came across yesterday was the entire movie, but in a different order than the theatrical release. I won't say much more about this in case you haven't seen the movie. I haven't watched this special order of the movie yet, but I do think that the way it's presented in the theatrical version is the best way it could have been done. Still, the alternate version could offer some new perspectives and insight.

Bottom line: if you haven't yet seen Memento, see it. Check out the website.

Unions and strikes. I think I'd better watch what I say because I have family and friends involved in such things. The Hospital Employees Union went of strike this week. The issues I'm not terribly up to date with, but it involves wages and job security among other things. Now, I suppose I can sympathise a bit with the workers when it comes to a change from the norm regarding their job...and a change for the worse is what it sounds like. But I can also sympathise with employers (although I've never been an employer, only involved in management somewhat on a very small scale) who have unionised employees and who are pushed to the edge by the union. My basic thoughts are, an employer runs the show...if they want to cut wages or lay-off people, or hire new people at lower pay, then they can. It's their call. Sure it could be a mistake, but it's the employer's mistake. Employees who are skilled and valuable to the employer will probably not have a problem. Those that aren't as valuable for any number of reasons...well they may find themselves in a predicament. If they don't like it...don't friggin walk around in front of the place with a sign...find something else. Move on. Make a change. I know change is hard to accept sometimes, but it happens and oftentimes, for the better.

That's all I'm gonna say...I shouldn't get into this anymore cause I don't really know a lot of the details. Just my initial thoughts. I'm not a union fan.

So I've been wall climbing for a week now...I've been four times and I'm getting better each time! It's really quite fun, and a really good workout. I can tell I'm getting stronger with each visit...because I'm conquering walls easier each time. At first my hands would just not grip anything after a couple climbs. Now I'm finding a lot more endurance and strength in them. My arms too. My legs were always good...I've got fairly powerful legs. It's a great sport/hobby/pastime/recreation...whatever you call it. I think I'm gonna buy some gear soon.

Had an excellent week at work...everything went smooth while I was on shift. That's what I like.

Mom and I saw The Passion of the Christ the other day. Good movie, quite well produced and acted and a good perspective on the Christ story. If you don't know, this movie basically (with a few flashbacks) covers the final 12 hours of Jesus' life. It's very brutal and quite bloody, but the movie is trying to make a point. Now, I'm not much on religion...I was brought up going to Sunday School and church and with Christian values, but I got to a point where I started asking myself what I truly thought of all this. Some of it seems pretty far fetched and unbelievable. How do we truly know the bible isn't a work of fiction? Or if it wasn't interpreted wrong? From what I understand, it was written in ancient languages which are not completely known about in this day. I know these questions have been raised before...and there is no clear answer. After seeing the movie, I'm still no closer to a personal decision on my beliefs. I think I believe in some sort of higher being in some sense, but then my scientific side always finds ways to rule it out...sort of. I'm a fence sitter...probably will always be. If there is any truth to the bible and the Jesus story however, then the movie, if it was made based on truths in the bible, has given me a much clearer insight on the suffering that Christ went through to save "us". How he saved us I'm still not quite sure...that was probably explained to me at some time in sunday school, but I don't understand how his life being taken saved us. For starters, what did he save us from?

One main message I took away from the movie, and you don't have to be "religious" to follow this, is to love you friends, but also to love your enemies and wish the best for them (or "pray" for them). This is something I think I can try to follow..I already do pretty much. I don't have many enemies to start, and I don't truly hate anyone. I dislike some people and I've thought and sometimes discussed the harm I'd like to inflict...but I'm pretty sure it's just idle chatter going through my brain. It seems like a pretty good rule to follow.

On to other things.

I tried wall climbing for the first time yesterday. Melinda, Choy and I got a lesson at Crag X and it was pretty fun. It turns out I'm a wimp and I suck at it, but I think I'll keep at it and probably take it up as a hobby/sport. After a couple climbs, my hands just cramped up and had no strength...I couldn't hold on to the hand holds to pull myself up. It was pretty embarassing actually. but, it's a good workout that's for sure...and it seems like a good way to meet people. There was a chick in our lesson group who was pretty cute...I climbed with her a bit and we got along well. I hope I'll see her again. My hands feel better (though not 100%) this afternoon, so I think I'll try again tomorrow.

Picked up AC/DC Live at Donington on DVD, plus the LE DVD of Memento. Both very cool. One of the best Live AC/DC shows I've ever seen, and Memento is just an awesome movie, and the LE DVD is so very cool too. I haven't even gotten to the special features disc yet. My collection is growing...it's looking good!

Wow! It's been a week since I last posted! Crazy. I knew I was putting it off, but I didn't realize I was up to a week. Holy cow, I need to discipline myself. Hmmm, maybe this means I have more of a life than I thought? Or maybe it means I have no life cause I've had nothing to write about...

Canucks...wow, way to tie it up with 5.7 seconds to go in the 3rd Cooke! Unfortunately those damn Flamers gotcha in overtime. Disappointing, but oh well, someone's gotta win. I'm leading my work hockey pool now, so I'm happy. I enjoy playoff hockey, it's pretty fun to watch. Some people seem to get into it a bit too much, or they seem to expect too much from their team. One comment from last night's game that stuck with me, I believe it was uttered sometime during the 3rd period after the Canucks had played poorly and Calgary had been all over the Vancouver end zone, "The Canucks are playing well now, I don't understand". What's not to understand? They're human. Human's are imperfect. It's not a given that if a team plays poorly in one part of the game, that they will play poorly for the whole game. Same goes for if team plays well at times throughout a game. If teams always played well or always played poorly, there would be no point in having games...that's the fun of watching a game.

I kept my mouth shut when that comment was made...I usually come off as an asshole when I reply to something like that. But I've decided I don't care if I'm an asshole so I'll post my reply here. I doubt it will get noticed anyways.

Work has been interesting the last few days. Broken equipment upstairs means that EVERYTHING for VI is being switched through Master Control. Exciting times, but not ideal...especially since we are now master controlling two TV stations and less attention is being given to the bigger of the two stations because of this. Hopefully the problem will be fixed within the next day or so. But even with the added stress and responsibility, it was kinda fun and a good experience. I hope the efforts of all master control operators involved has not gone unnoticed by the higher ups...I would suspect it has not. My only experience was with the 11pm weekend newscasts, but others have been much more involved. I do have the distinguishment of being the first master op to have switched the news out of master control...but I did have time to prepare. Matt got thrown into it mid-cast the following day (when they thought the equipment upstairs was working, but turns out it wasn't quite). Big vote of confidence for Planman when the upstairs crew, upon realizing for the first time that they would have to run the news out of Master Control, found out it was I on shift and they claimed, "it should be no problem then." Not that any other op would have done a lesser job, but good to know that I, the baby of master control, is considered competent amongst the other ops. Many shaking of hands and congratulatory remarks were made between all involved in adapting to the change.

I think that's enough for now. It won't be a week before my next post. I'm sure I'll have more to write tonight or tomorrow. I'm going to see The Passion with my mom this afternoon. I don't know where I stand on religion these days...it's always been a bit of a conflict in my brain. We'll see how it goes.

Choy got a barbeque with his credit card points...it finally arrived yesterday. I put it together today, it looks good. Now we need a longer hose to reach the gas point on the wall, and a cover would be good. But we're set for summer! Choy rocks.

Sometimes I think people go too far when making sure their children are safe. I understand the reason for crossing guards...it works when a school is on a somewhat busy road and there's no light. But I don't get it when there's a crossing guard at a light. Kids are smart, you tell them to wait for the light, they'll wait for the light. No problem getting them to push the button to trigger the light, kids will push all kinds of buttons given the opportunity. The crossing guard at the light just gives me the impression that kids aren't trusted and are helpless. I don't have kids, but I like to put a bit more faith in them than that. Maybe it's not the fact that there's a crossing guard there, but the fact that the crossing guard has a stop sign in hand. It's one thing to be available to the kids, make sure they wait for the light to change and then either walk with them across the road, or just give them to go ahead and let them walk. But to have the light go red, then walk out with a stop sign, making us drivers look like fuckin idiots who don't know to stay stopped at a red light, maybe that's what bothers me most. It's redundant. You get what I'm sayin'?

My sleeping and eating schedule is completely out of whack. I only slept maybe 4 hours last night...not even I don't think. I couldn't sleep anymore past 6am this morning. I don't feel tired. It'll catch up with me sometime...maybe.

I watched Matrix Revolutions this morning...what a hunk of poop. Maybe it's cause I had to have the volume low, but I just couldn't seem to follow it. The plot seemed distorted to me. Yes the people of Zion wanted to end the war, yes Neo had to fight Smith, but I didn't quite get some of the other stuff going on. It seemed pretty scattered to me. There was one, maybe 2 cool effects shots, but dollar for dollar they did a way better job on the "small" budget they had for the original Matrix than they did on the $300 million they spent on the sequels. Maybe I need to see the sequels again...I needed to see the original twice to get it.

My culinary efforts are good, but I'm realizing I keep making the same things over and over. I don't have a wide range of things I make. I'm not very creative I guess. I know how to do about 5 things well..Stir Fry, Pasta, Pizza, Wraps, Pancakes. Maybe a few other things, but mostly I just rotate through these. That, and I eat out too much.

Oh, and I don't watch Reality TV on purpose, but since I work at a TV station I do watch bits of the ones we air. We are airing the Bachelor which premiered on Wednesday. I didn't pay close attention, but I caught the jist of it, and I'd just like to put my money down and say thet Katie is the spy...it's quite obvious to me. If you watch it (which I don't expect any of the readers of this do) then you'll know what I'm talkin' about. That's all.

I go to Dairy Queen the other night on my way to work. Got me a banana shake cause DQ makes a damn good banana shake. While I was there, I saw one of the staffers bring in a couple crates of hamburger buns and put them away on the shelves. The bags the buns were in had A&W printed on them...the logo...big. Are Dairy Queen and A&W owned by the same company? Or did this particular DQ just happen to run out of buns and buy some from A&W? I should have asked what was going on, but I didn't. But now it leaves me wondering.

The moral? Banana shakes at DQ are awesome.

NHL Playoffs begin tonight. Very exciting...5 out of the 6 Canadian teams have made it to the first round. Of course the only one that really matters is Vancouver. Canucks play the Flames tonight at GM place, and you can be sure as dog stink that I'll be watching it. Because of an earlier post I made about not being so into hockey like my friends, Choy thinks I'm not a true Canadian and that I don't care about hockey. It's not that I don't care about hockey, I do. I just can't be bothered to remember all the regular season games and to watch them. Playoffs is totally different. I'm there for my team.

I got 3 Canucks in my work playoff pool. I'm pretty happy with my picks, here they are (in the order I got 'em):

1. Naslund
2. Hejduk
3. Recchi
4. Modin
5. Spezza
6. Tanguay
7. Fedotenko
8. Ohlund
9. Johnsson
10. Chubarov

I picked 12 overall, out of 14.

Langford is crawling with cops tonight...holy cow! I musta seen at least 5 cars out on the prowl. I don't know if they're looking for someone specifically, or just on a big drinkin' drivin' campaign. Whatever it is, I took it easy and not a one batted an eye at me (for speedin', not drivin' drunk).

Man we've had some beautiful weather here all week...too bad I've been sleeping and working most of it.

Ah, I don't have much more to say tonight.

You ever been listening to the radio and they announce a song, but the DJ wasn't really clear in the introduction of it and you're not sure which is the title and which is the band? Of course it pretty much only happens with bands that are new to you. Like driving home tonight, this song, which has been playing for quite a while, comes on. It's introduced like this: "Brand New, Sic Transit Gloria". I don't know which is which. Yes, they've playing it for a while, but I've never clearly heard which name is the band, and which is the title of the song. I finally found out tonight cause I checked on the website and the band is Brand New, the song is Sic Transit Gloria. This has happened on a few other songs/bands as well in the past. Then, of course, you could get stumped on "Nerf Herder, Van Halen". It ain't Van Halen doing a song called Nerf Herder. It's a band called Nerf Herder (which, btw, is something Princess Leigha calls Luke in Star Wars (or one of the Star Wars films)) doing a song called Van Halen, which is about Van Halen the band. It's actually kinda a cool song...funny.

Speaking of Van Halen, I heard they were teaming up with Sammy Hagar again and doing a tour. Van Halen with Gary Cherone went nowhere, so I'm glad that's over. Sammy Hagar, I have to admit, I like him fronting the band. I like David Lee Roth too. I got into Van Halen quite late in their career, so I took it all in a once. I didn't have Roth first in my life, although my first Van Halen album was 1984. Roth had some wicked songs with Van Halen: I re-visited the debut album today and I just love "Ice Cream Man". Hagar had some good songs too...particularly "Right Now" and "Amsterdam". I probably have to go with Roth if I had to choose a favourite, because he is the original.

I have similar troubles choosing between Bon Scott and Brian Johnson for AC/DC. Both are/were excellent front men.

I do prefer Edwin as lead singer of I Mother Earth. That's one case where I can clearly choose the original. Maybe it's cause I "grew up" with Edwin as the front man.

Enough about bands. Work is going well, I am a barcoding and ingesting machine! Got saturday off, havin' a potluck!