The World Through My Eyes

McDonald's BACK TO THE FUTURE McFLY!

2016-05-19T16:04:00.002-07:00

So I went to McDonald's and almost lost my marbles! AKA blew my top!

THIS IS CALLED A ICE FRAPPE!! OR WHATEVER the spelling and pronunciation is.

I went to order a ice frappe. As for the correct spelling I don't have a French keyboard so its something like this Frappé. For that special e thing.

I asked for a Frappe she said , "We don't have those. We had them only for 2015."
I was like what the hoot is she talking about? I was at McDonald's last week and I had one. I did not jump into a time machine and go back to the Future (actually the past that became the Future).

I told her "Sorry you must be gravely mistaken, for I had ordered the aforementioned drink last week". I should have mentioned more than gravely and replaced it with stupidly mistaken.

She looked at me, "Sir, the last time it was available was 2015".

I was now starting to lose it. The clock had struck 12 (or whatever time makes you crazy when the hooting starts on those old grandfather clocks).

"I ordered it last week, unless I'm completely crazy it was available and I drank it, so what do you mean?"

She looked at me again, "We don't have it, do you want just an ice coffee?"

I didn't know how to respond.

MAYBE F NO! I WANT MY DAMN ICE FRAPPE, the same GODDAMN one I had last week. I am not hallucinating, I drank one!

I responded, "Yes please, unless you can get me the Frappe you know the one I ordered last week without a time machine". And I should have added "AND MY NAME IS NOT MARTY McFly!"

She got me my ice coffee. I was now angry. Slightly livid.
I sent a message to my wife saying they said they don't have it. She said I must have pronounced it wrong cause its a French word with a symbol.
I looked it up on McD.ca NOT .COM so she can't say only USA. It was there. I took her the picture.
ICE FRAPPE. Iced Frappe, Ice frappacino, Iced Frappunici, whatever you want to call it, its listed on the website. My wife has confirmed I am not nuts, so this is what I'd like to order.

"Sir we don't have it!"

She asked her manager. She confirmed they don't have it.
I explained I had it at another Mcdonald's last week and this lady says it didn't exist since 2015, thereby implying I'm slightly (more or less) insane.

She said maybe some other shops have it, but that this location they didn't sell any, so they don't have them. LOL.

I gave up.
"OK, I'll just take my stupid ice coffees then, extra ice so I can pretend its a frappe please".

I left.
My son asked "Dada, they don't have a frappocino for you?"
I smiled "Yes son, they are withholding it".

MOTHER F'ER!

Feel Confident in Cooking

2016-03-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

Whilst walking through a restaurant kitchen I heard the following story and thought amusing and therefore worth the repeat.

A sever stated to a cook that her patron had Celiac disease and requested to make a pizza without any crust/ dough. The cook asked what is the binding agent to hold the meat/ sauce etc together. He's never heard of a pizza without crust or dough.

The server responded, "I dunno lay down some cheese I guess".

The cook responded the cheese will just burn and get all greasy, which the server responded, "I hope you feel confident making it or it isn’t going to work".

LOL. I tried not to pee laughing.

LOL just peed a little.

Understanding Babble

2016-03-06T14:00:00.003-08:00

Its very hard to understand a baby. As you know, they don't really make sense.
In my case the scenario is more difficult than normal, since my son is learning Cantonese.

I never know if he's speaking babble or Cantonese, as they sound the same to me.

"Oh he can talk now", the family said.

Me: "I thought I heard nai nai, what the heck is that."

"Milk", they answered.

Oh boy. The Cantonese language is hilarious.
At least he isn't yelling in babble yet.
Will sound more like Cantonese (oh snap!)

Its only funny cause my wife is Canto, and its true.

Build a What?

2015-09-16T11:08:00.002-07:00

While riding the bus (aka the loser cruiser) I was carrying a gift in my hand. I should mention I would consider it a semi nice gift as it wasn't from the dollar store (my usual shop of choice!)

The gift was a box with two air holes. Look at the pic it should give you an idea.

Looked like this with a little more fur hanging out. I guess my hand was covering the BUILD A BEAR WORKSHOP.
Clearly the diagrams on the side give you an idea that it is child friendly.

There was a guy standing beside me. He kept staring at the box.

Finally he asked, "What kind of animal inside?".

"A bear", I answered.

He backed up, seemingly frightened.

I thought about it, maybe he thought it was real.

"Its a build a bear", I told him.
Looked like he was trying to contemplate what species it was.

Finally after about one minute I told him, "Its stuffed".

He looked at me again "It looks so real".
Not really I thought.

WTF? Its in a box, and he can only made of fake fur poking through a cardboard box with picture of kid friendly bears.

LOL.
People are funny. And stupid too.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.

Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

SuperGlue, Superfoo(l)

2015-02-22T12:46:00.004-08:00

Superglue Superfoo(l)

I wish it rhymed better.

So I do stupid things. Incase you didn't already know.

I haven't done that before, although similar.

Things were worse than normal yesterday.

I always promise myself that anytime I use superglue I’m going to put gloves on.

Incase you didn't read my other story, I glued my fingers to my door recently.

The worst part, is that wasn't even the first time I did it. I never seem to learn my lesson.

Yesterday someone asked me to fix the handles on a pair of scissors. I thought perhaps if I used enough superglue it was fix the cracked in half plastic handle.

I covered the crack in glue. I kept blowing on it. I didn't realize my finger and thumb had somehow been covered with superglue. I lost all feeling in my finger and thumb. My skin went hard as a rock.

I wondered if I was going to be able to use my smartphone as my finger isn't really skin anymore, its solid superglue.

After feeling the need to remove it, I read online superglue’s only weakness is nail polish remover. Much like Superman's only weakness is Kryptonite (and magic and the red sun and depending on the comic other colours of Kryptonite, but lets ignore those).

I asked all the girls if they had any, but they only had nail polish. One informed me nail polish removes nail polish so it’s the same (she lied, it’s not the same).

She proceeded to paint my finger and thumb purple with nail polish. In addition to my finger and thumb being rock solid, I now also had a purple-sparkly finger and thumb.

One of the girls told me we had “Goo gone” to remove that kind of thing. I asked is she sure it’s for superglue and she said yes.

I should have remembered she lied to me in step 1 as I was stuck with a purple finger and thumb, but I didn't.

I went and got it. The directions on the back stated for furniture, upholstery and other items. I did notice it said poison on the front, but I wasn't planning to drink it so I figured its fine.

I dipped my finger and thumb in the bottle. A nice bleach skin eating feeling came across me. I guess I should have taken them out, but I really wanted to absorb it.

I had scratched at my skin with my nail and some scissors so the skin was already exposed.

I rubbed my whole hands in the goo gone and kept rubbing the skin. Felt like layers of skin were being removed.

I now noticed on the front the bottle read “DO NOT PUT ON SKIN, THIS IS POISON”.

The back in small print informs to always wear gloves when using and clean hands immediately if any touches the skin.

Now that my hands were on fire, I thought it was a good time to wash my hands.

As I was about to leave the office one of the maintenance staff entered the room.

He said hi and saw the bottle of Goo gone was out.

“Be careful, you don’t want to get that on your skin, its poison”.

I laughed and left the room, my hands dripping with goo gone.

Once home another issue arose which again required the mighty SUPERGLUE.

I contemplated keeping my promise and getting some gloves.

I didn't.

I now have superglued skin on both hands.

LOL. Nothing to do with Superglue. "Super" funny though.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

Whoops ! My bad!

2015-01-16T23:11:00.003-08:00

I had the first swimming class of 2015 with my 2 year old son.
We were joined by two other fathers in the shower with their kids.
The first father had a little girl, about 4 years old.
And he had a swimsuit on so he can change her in the shower.
Then the 2nd father comes in the shower, wearing jeans, hat backwards and a sweater.Then I'm spraying down my son and I realized there is hole in the side of the hose.

The spray is getting quite close to them.
Then I give the showerhead to my son and he's spraying every where and I said, "Be careful". He sprays in their direction and gets the dad's jeans a little bit.
Finally I grab back it and the water from the hole sprays him in the eyes and he's crying so I turn the showerhead away. I forget I had aimed direcly in their direction.
Unfortunately I totally drenched the dad through his sweater, hat and jeans (not to mention his running shoes).
He jumped.
And was like "Ahhhh man!"
Lol.
I said "Shit I'm sorry".
But I realized his jeans and sweater are soaked.
And its fockn cold outside. Like real cold. I pictured him becoming ice (like a pop sickle).
I apologized as he sloshed around in his wet clothes in the change room.
His daughter kept saying "Daddy you are wet!"
I was like ah sh*t constant reminders to him of what I did.
Lol.

Needless to say.
The first dad said bye.
The 2nd dad did not.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

Zipper issues!

2014-09-21T04:34:00.001-07:00

I usually write a summary of NEED TO KNOW for my fellow co-workers incase something happens that is significant at work. Just incase the issue may involve them in the future.

Here is one night's summary.

Tonight the zipper on my pants broke at 9PM and I couldn't fix it. So I couldn't leave the office.

Very embarrassing!

But at 10PM it occurred to me to use duct tape to hold it together, which I did.

Problem solved, at least temporarily.

PS If any of you are wondering I wore underwear today.

My Little Ponies (Or Horsies)

2014-08-23T04:08:00.001-07:00

I had forgotten about this story until I ran into a friend I hadn't seen since my High School reunion a few years ago. It had been 10 years since high School, wow!

He asked me if I enjoyed it.

I told him the following story.

Let's refer to the girl as Jen to cover up any traces that anyone might know her.

I saw JEN at the high school reunion.
She was as weird at the reunion as she was 10 years ago.

I asked her how is life?
She said, "I like horsies".

It was a bit weird and really didn't answer my question.

So for followup I asked her what she does for a job.

She responded "Petting horsies".

I felt bad for her, not much had changed since High School, still on level 11 astral-hippie plane atop Middle Earth with some Dungeon and Dragons thrown in.

Lastly, who says horsies?

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

Thor and his Maintenance Hammer!

2014-03-19T20:04:00.001-07:00

Thor and his Maintenance Hammer!

At work I noticed one of the carts for moving heavy items was slightly damaged. A piece of wood was sticking out with exposed nails (not safe at all. And if you didn't know I am Mr.Safety).

I contemplated kicking it back in place, but with my luck I imagined the nails might enter my shoe and into my toes. Trust me I do stupid things and I usually pay for it.

I radioed the maintenance guy.

"Good morning sir, the cart needs a Hulk Smash and it should be good to go, can you come to the kitchen?".

His response,
"What? I don't know what you are talking about, a Hulk what?".

My answer,
"You know, pretend you are HULK and smash it back into place".

His answer
"What? I don't get it.".

He appears in the kitchen.

I said
"Ya so just Hulk smash it and you are good to go. You know who the Hulk is right?"

His answer
"Some WWF guy blonde and bandana?".

Impressive he knew his WWF characters. Now called WWE?

I laughed.
I had to give him props for that, for an older guy he knew that at least.

"No, the green dude who is full of rage and gamma radiation. You know what!? Just give me the hammer and I'll do it. I'm full of rage and probably irradiated (or irritated) by gamma's."

He gave me a weird look.

"I forgot my hammer".

My response
"Thor should never forget his hammer Mjölnir. For it holds the power of a dying star which should not fall into the wrong hands. Its might could be used by evil if befallen into the darkness".

He said "I don't understand you" and walked away.

"I believe in you Thor", I answered as he disappeared.

He didn't respond. I hope he didn't report me for living in a comic book world.

I was irradiated by gamma's like the HULK and full of rage.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

Superglue Super stupid

2014-02-19T19:40:00.000-08:00

Superglue, Super Stupid!

I did something semi stupid today.
What else is new?

I decided to fix my door which had a few pieces of wood detached.

Ah the real power of super-glue.

I actually ripped them off my door myself for Reno in another part of my condo. When I brought it to the store the guy asked why I brought chunks of wood, I said to paint match.

He looked at me bewildered, "It has to be flat and just the paint, I don't need the weird shapes of wood. Needs to be about as big as a twoonie".

OK I thought.

I went home to glue the wood pieces back in place.

They were awkward shapes. I covered them with super-glue and held them on the door.

One slight problem.

My fingers not only glued together, they also glued to the door.

I slowly peeled my fingers from the door, happy I didn't lose any skin (this time).

I decided to then put the super-glue only on the door and push the piece of wood on. The wood was too small and I got more super-glue on my fingers.

I was stuck with three fingers together.
If you have never tried it before, don't bother. Makes life very difficult.

The worst part of this story is my last two experiences with super-glue I had glued my fingers together too and I swore I would never do without gloves again.
I didn't use gloves.

Oh boy!

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

Painter Extraordinaire!

2014-02-12T21:19:00.000-08:00

Whilst painting a wall the other day I told my friend, “You know, I feel like Picasso”.

“What? In what way dude?”

“I’m paining a masterpiece trying to make it perfect”, I retorted.

“Dude, you are using a roller. It’s not even a brush, and you are painting the wall white”.

“Ya exactly”, I answered.

“I think you are more like Vincent Van Gogh, you are mentally ill”, he said.

“Sounds about right. I think I inhaled too much paint”, I answered.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

The Dinner Party

2013-11-17T21:50:00.000-08:00

The Dinner Party

I sometimes wonder why I do things and then end up laughing about them after.
Here are two of those things.

The place: Dinner at a sushi restaurant.
Who with: People all speaking in Chinese only.

After the dinner
A friend's conversation as she wasn't able to come to the dinner.

Her: "How did the party go?"

Me: "Well put it this way, there was so little going on in English I made friends with a 6 year old".

Her: "How did the conversation go?"

Me: "Not well, I mentioned Thomas the steam war tank numerous times, as that was what interested him".

Her: "Do you mean Thomas the steam engine?"

Me: "Whatever, that blue dude that's on tracks".

Her: "You make about as much sense as the 6 year old."

Her: "Well at least how was all you can eat sushi?"

Me: "Terrible. Tasted like it was run through a toilet".

Her: "Oh, anything beside sushi?"

Me: "Ya, they had some deep fried fish full of eggs".

Her: "How was that?"

Me: "I ate the whole plate. I utterly detested them".

Her: "Then why did you eat the whole plate?"

Me: "Cause no one else was, and the lack of conversation was killing me. I kept mumbling delicious since no one was saying anything to me".

Her: "Nice, how did that go?".

Me: "Not good, they ordered another full plate just for me".

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

The Best of My Trip

2013-08-02T20:29:00.000-07:00

I came across one of my old hard drive which contained thousands of digital pictures.

Among them I found my trip to Korea in 2002.
I looked through all the photo's.

I thought this one was the best of the trip.
It really gives a good picture of how my trip to Korea was (and no it wasn't North Korea).

Pretty dark, dreary and unclear. Just like my trip to Korea.

PS I think other people have a great trip, maybe ours was timed wrong due to weather, Fifa World Cup etc.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

An idiotic Conversation

2013-05-14T19:53:00.002-07:00

The background

Whilst a friend asked me which I preferred Subway or Quizno’s.

Me: I like Quizno’s more.

Her: Why ?

Me: I don’t like Subway. They ask me too many questions.

Her: Like what?

Me: What bread do I want, some stuff about flavour of the sandwich, harassment about what veggies and then what flavour of salt and pepper I want.

Her: What do you mean flavour of salt and pepper?

Me: I mean they say, "Hey what flavour do you want?".

Her: Do they actually say “Hey”.

Me: No, I’m giving an example.

Her: But back to my point, what do you mean flavour of salt and pepper? Do you mean sauce?

Me: Whatever they ask, same thing. I’m still thinking about the last 100 questions they asked me so by that point I'm confused.

Her: I'm confused by your story.

Me: Me too. You lost me at which one is better. The answer is McDonald’s is better. The one question is "To here or to go?".

You know I’m simple.

Her: Yes. A simpleton.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

Middle Aged People Are Funny

2012-07-31T01:01:00.000-07:00

You don't even have to be that old to be out of the loop.
Usually senility comes with age.

I went to go see the new Batman movie DARK NIGHT RISES.
During the previews of upcoming movies, there were two middle aged women sitting in front of us.
I would guestimate their ages to be between 45-55 years old.
Me, being the nerd I am have already seen pretty much every preview of all the new movies, especially comic based ones. So for me, all I need to do is see the first five seconds to know what movie it is.
As the preview started a voice saying that this person would be a beacon of hope and stand in the light. That the people would follow him, and he would be a leader everyone would follow.
Obvious enough?
A man wearing a red cape and blue tights shot up into the air.
Can you guess who it is? Common! You know it.
The one lady looked at the other, "What does that mean?" she asked.
The other lady looked at her, "It means another Spiderman movie next year".


What's this the symbol of? You must know, even though its a new design.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

MacGyver Extraordinaire!

2012-05-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

MacGyver Extraordinaire!


Improvise. No light make one, with whatever you have.

A few funny things happened last night.

We went to a restaurant in Richmond for the first time. I don't want to mention any names, but the service was terrible.
Anyways, to top it off I wanted to go to the bathroom after enjoying two cups of coffee.
I get to the bathroom and the light doesn't seem to turn on. I was like Umm, wtf!? I asked an employee who appeared not to speak much English "Power!? POWAAA!?". I was like, "Sorry I don't quite understand".
I looked around the restaurant and it seemed the power was on, plus we had just ordered and she didn't say anything about lack of power.

I kept trying the switch, but to no avail.
Finally a girl popped out of the women's bathroom. "Hi", I said. She had her Iphone in her hand with the flash constantly on, like a flashlight. "hahah, ya the power is only out in the bathroom, the worker told me in Chinese, they don't know what's wrong, at least you can use you phone with the flash, there is an app for that". She giggled and walked away.
I realized I didn't have my Iphone with me it was in my jacket. I walked back to the table and grabbed it.
I contemplated just leaving the door open half way so that I could have a bit of light, but it opened up into the restaurant eating area, so I thought too embarrassing.
I went through my apps and realized that I had deleted the flashlight app a few weeks ago, when I re-updated my phone. CRAP!
I saw the Chinese employee again. "Hi, do you have a flashlight?", I inquired. He just yelled "POWER!! PAWAAA" and walked away. I assumed that was a no.
Then genius hit me. If I used the flash on my phone without the app it could work but I have to keep taking pictures. I hoped I could pee with one hand and take pictures with the other. I hoped I wasn't going to drop my Iphone into the toilet.
I started peeing and taking pictures. My biggest fear was that I was going to miss the toilet and hit the wall or better yet, hit myself.
I took about 30 pictures and flushed. I couldn't judge if there was a bit of water from spray up from the toilet or someone else didn't have the flashlight app and peed all over the flusher.
I cleaned my hands really well (while pressing the take picture button with my knuckles) and got out.
It occurred to me I may want to delete those pictures just incase.
I went through them quickly, all pictures of me mid stream, wonderful.
As I got back to the table my friend told me.
"Dude all you need to do is put the Iphone on video, the light will come on. You don't even need to record the video".

A few hours later we went to a night market.
As we were leaving there was a lady infront of us carrying an infant in a stroller. She carried it a way I've never seen before. I thought it was pretty damn funny so I followed her for a few minutes and took a picture.
She never once turned around to see the child was OK. Maybe that's the way they roll in her family.

Yes, she is popping a wheelie and walking by dragging it! Wow.

Now that's the way to pull a child. You might end up without one if you carry it long enough like this.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

Acupuncture Needles of Pain or Relief?

2012-04-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Acupuncture Needles of Pain or Relief?


If you like I can stick needles and nails in there for you. Just let me know.

So I went to acupuncture the a couple months ago for the first time. I've never tried it before but I've heard good things. My sister raves about it. I saw a show that claims most people who do it, feel pain relief.
Since my neck is still driving my nuts (I snapped it like an piece of wood while doing Judo in Japan years ago), and the doctors have all concluded "Yes, its bad". I figured why not try it.
First off, I went to an acupuncturist school. That means that students are doing it not teachers. Safe? Probably not. I was slightly worried. Puncture a vital nerve, blood vessel and Game Over forever. But, I'm all about cheap deals. And 5 sessions for $15 each is great.
They did a general Q and A with me. How is your sex life? I don't know if that is relevant to neck pain, but good, thanks.
They told me my liver isn't very strong and neither is my spleen. I've heard that before. Chinese doctors in the past in China told me that, and so do all the Japanese ones.
I've also had a few Chinese people read my palm. Lifeline, hmm seems a bit short, brain line, I can't seem to see one they always said. Always something to look forward to I guess.
Is there any merit to acupuncture, I don't know. Although I can say I'm a weak drinker, which may account for the poor liver.
As I arrived there were two students in the room and male and a female. I've always thought of females as the gentler of the sexes, but her needle insertions were more painful. Probably I guessed being pushed against nerves, veins, bones etc haha. Kidding.
I hope she isn't reading this.
They left the room after they had finished the insertions. Suddenly my nose became completely blocked by some magical force and I couldn't breathe through it. I didn't have a cold and I've had no problems recently with my nose so that was weird. Maybe something controlling breathing was needled?
So I kept breathing through my nose. When he came back I told him but he didn't seem too concerned. I think he thought it was a cold I had. It wasn't.
After they removed all the needles my nose became clear.
I felt some relief already, like I could breath again. Breathing is always a bonus. My shoulders felt like some weight has been lifted off them. Great, I thought.
They started discussing about what area to do next. First the grabbed my hand and pushed a needle through the web part of my thumb. Hmm, felt like a searing hot sword cutting through my body. Must be good I thought.
She asked me if I felt pain. Uhhh, well a little yes, on a scale of 1-10 about a 5. I lied, it was a 10. "OK", she said its working.
They asked me to lay facedown again and both of them started inserting needles into the underside of my wrist and into my feet. I thought for a quick moment, I was being crucified. The pain was probably the worst I've ever had. I tried to bite my tongue as she moved one needle in and out of my foot. My gosh, it was like being electrified in a spot repeatedly.
A teacher came in to see their work. She asked them to leave the room with her. Although they had told me previously they were advanced students, I wondered if I was a practice doll for the last lessons, it just didn't feel right.
I could overheard the teacher "You should never do acupuncture on the foot during the first session, if you are off by even a little the patient feels extreme pain". I was thinking, she can say that again.
As I walked out, a large smile came out on my face, I was thinking to myself perfect since I bought a discount pack, I have 4 sessions left, maybe it will get better.

Update.
It didn't.


How bout I stick a nail in your foot. It might be good.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

HP Touchpad Buy Or Not?

2012-03-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

HP Touchpad Worth all the Hype?

WebOS on HP Touchpad. Android ICS now possible.

So if you haven’t heard HP sold their tablets at fire-sale for an amazing price of $99 for the 16GB version and $149 for the 32GB version.
A friend of a friend who works at Bestbuy bought one because of the amazing price.
By the time I had found out about this great deal, everywhere in town (Vancouver) was sold out.
When I called different Futureshops and Bestbuys I got laughed at. One guy actually responded, “Dude, you are way too late to the party”. I’m not sure that is professional but he was right!
After looking nightly on Craigslist and Kijiji I finally found a guy selling a brand new sealed in box 16GB Hp Touchpad’s for $200. It was $100 more than the firesale price, but I felt that it would be the last slim chance to get a deal.

So why would I, or you want a Hp Touchpad?

1) Price
Every time a company is losing money on a product and costs them more to produce it then they sell it for, you feel good about it. I pride myself with getting the best deal.
The touchpad retailed for $500 US dollars and fire sale price of $99. They say the hardware is worth about $296 and costs $10 to put together. They are losing money, yes!
2) Technology
I think it’s safe to say most people want a smartphone or a tablet these days. Instead of getting a laptop or a netbook, the convenience can’t really be matched. Although a tablet can’t do everything a netbook/ laptop can, it comes damn close. I love my smartphone, but a tablet is much bigger.
3) Cheap
I don’t mean the price I mean you. You are cheap like me and don’t want to shell out the $650-$700 for the Ipad 3 after taxes. Yes you are used to Apple products like Ipods or Iphones but you don’t like the prices.
4) No Lockdown/ Has HTML and FLASH
Yes, unlike Apple products you are not locked to Itunes! You can simply plug into a computer and drag over. Make your old folders pop your music into them, drag your Ebooks and the OS seems to be able to find them regardless of the directory. Youtube and some other sites are fully accessible as well instead of limitation imposed by Apple.
5) Multitasking
This is great. As you know Iphones and Ipads do not have true multitasking. What this means is essentially the app or game you are playing goes to pause mode and closes until you reopen it.
With the Touchpad the app is truly still going. I love playing a youtube video and read the news on another page at the same time.
6) The Operating System
For me the WebOS operating system is unique and kind of cool. I realize it is not for everyone. It has a card type system where when things minimize they become a card as in playing card shape. You can have multiple cards open at once and they are easy to control, want to get rid of it? Just throw it off the screen (by either pulling it up and it disappears or slingshot style by pulling it down and releasing).
Since I was used to Apple Os I couldn’t understand where the cards were going when I threw them off the screen. I felt like I had 20 cards open somewhere and didn’t realize till after I had closed them. A few of my friends tried WebOs and were disappointed, they said it was hard to control and difficult to understand. Of course since they were all used to Iphones they didn’t understand it. Its a small learning curve, but most people are put off by it after a few minutes of trying to grasp it.
7) Android
Until recently Honeycomb was ported to the touchpad but it was quite buggy. Personally I didn’t even bother to do it. Now, there is a very good, I would say nearly perfect port of Ice Cream Sandwich. After using it for one week now, and downloading plenty of apps I’d say only the camera and A GPS doesn’t seem to work. To be fair the camera is very low quality and I’ve never used it within WebOS except to take a few pictures, and they all look terrible. Or it may have been me. I’ve read there are a few ways to hack the GPS so that it will function somewhat. It seemed to work through wifi on WebOS, but when I tried it on Android it doesn’t seem to be accurate.

Ice Cream Sandwich. Super smooth!

Pros
-Flash. I can watch pretty much everything now. On my Iphone I get some emails delivered I cannot view and it drives me insane. Youtube is not the same experience on an Ipad/Iphone.
-You can dual boot Android or WebOs. For Android fans or most tablet users that is a nice catch. Why be locked down to one Os when you have the option of two operating systems.
-Android Ice Cream Sandwich is very very smooth. I’d say more smooth than Webos that it was designed for.
-Open software. Until recently the software WebOs was not open. HP had it locked down. It has also sent out too updates which have greatly improved WebOs over the two months I’ve owned it. In the future, nobody knows if HP will continue to send out updates, but since they have released code and opened up the system to developers, some programmers will continue to tweak the system.
-The hardware seems good. This is a pro and con. Since Android runs so well that tells me that WebOs not the hardware is at fault. Specs wise the Touchpad is pretty good. Its somewhere inbetween and Ipad and Ipad2. It physically resembles an Ipad as well.
-The homebrew community has done a lot with WebOs and it seems HP is open to it. There are a lot of apps which allow the system to be overclocked, the ripple pointer to stop and other to raise the volume of the speakers. Is it very simple to do this.
Everything I’ve read implies that Android runs smoothly and most people are amazed at how well it runs. Andoid fanboys or I guess fangirls as well, suggest getting rid of WebOs the first chance you can get and put Android on it. Some even suggest just consider it an Android tablet since WebOs is not good and to get this amount of hardware for an Android tablet at this price is amazing.
-The power of Facebook App. I read a few rumours online that claim Apple wanted to have the first tablet to have an App specifically designed for it. However, the Touchpad became the first one to do so. I do enjoy the App and it has a few extra options in the way you view things which is kind of neat, but it’s more a gimmick than anything.

Cons
-The Usb cable. What the heck? Its a cable that you can plug into your computer and you can copy stuff to the tablet but you can’t recharge off of it? That’s ridiculous. What the heck HP?
-WebOS support seems dead. Yes there was an update recently which fixed a few things, but hard to say if there will be anymore support. The future is grim in this respect.
-Slow. The WebOs lags a bit. Yes the updates have improved a lot of things, but it’s no Ipad. If you have used an Ipad you know how fast and smooth the Os is. With WebOs you can feel the lag and notice it even after the newest update.
-It is no Ipad Killer as some people have claimed. It lies somewhere between and Ipad 1 and an Ipad 2 in many ways, but it is still not as smooth on any level.
-Lack of Apps. Supposedly 1,000 Apps are in the store built specifically for the Touchpad. There are 6,000 Palm Pre apps I read that are accessible and most usable I read (which I’ve never tried). They are not made for the Touchpad so they may upscale themselves and not look as good.
-If you run Android, camera, microphone and AGPS will not work unless future updates by the port are fixed.
-Its a magnet for fingerprints. I don't think the Ipad is as bad, but when I look at the screen after a few mins, I can see tons of oily fingerprints.
-Battery Life. I thought the battery life was pretty good on most smartphones and tablets these days, but I guess not. Even my old Iphone 3G after using it for half a year the battery started to die. It would run one day at quite a bit of use. The touchpad seems terrible. Its possible I just got a dud. Some websites report 8 hours of usages. The percentage by just playing music or leaving it on its draining like its water from a hose. When I used the Ipad 2 I was playing Angry Birds HD and after 5mins the battery hadn’t drained even 1%.

Bottom Line
Did I make the right purchase? For me, yes I did. For you, you need to decide yourself.
If you are looking for your first tablet this may be the one. Especially if you buy it used from someone you may be able to get an incredible deal. Firesale was $99 but I don’t think you can find that deal anywhere anymore.
If you have to pay full price or close to full price I’d say stay away.
A lot of people are put off by the Operating System. You can always replace it with Android. Or according to rumours wait a bit and Windows 8 may, not 100%, but may work on it.
If you can get it for $99 I don’t think you can go wrong, if you need to pay more than that, decide if you are willing to experiment or would rather spend the money on a tablet you know is great.
For me this price, the ability to dual boot and the power of the tablet makes it worth it. Even though I paid $200 I feel like I got a deal since it used to be $500.

Mother Knows Best

2012-03-27T21:26:00.003-07:00

Mother Knows Best

I've always liked that saying. It turns out its true, at least according to statistics.
Another popular saying is to relay on a women's intuition.

After a friend recently became pregnant we started to hear all the opinions of many people telling her what sex the baby was going to be.

Since I reread one of my favourite books FREAKONOMICS recently, I decided I'd do a little investigation of my own to see what is an Old Wives' Tale and what wasn't. And by the way, if you haven't read Freakonomics, its great, I highly recommend it. Authors kindly pay me for my endorsement. HA!

As you know there is always a 50% chance of being right, since a baby can only be a boy or girl, although I guess technically a few have both sex organs, but let's not complicate things.

Here's what I found.

The way the baby is held in the belly high or low.
Carrying low its a boy, carrying high its a girl.

Bull. A number of factors play into how the baby carries, but there is no data that suggests this is true.

Urine colour.
Bright yellow means a boy. Dull or clear is a boy.

Bull. But you should probably be drinking a lot of water if its dark.

Carrying extra weight.
If carrying extra weight it must be a boy.

Bull. Studies show that it can still be a girl, weight gain has nothing to do with sex of the baby.

Wedding ring over belly.
Put your wedding ring on a string or a lock of hair throw it. Swing it and if it moves back and forth, its a boy and circular motion its a girl.

I smelt bull before I even looked at the stats. Not true, this isn't Harry Potter land. Bull.

More hair and growing fast especially on legs.
Since boys will have more male hormones perhaps the male hormones will cause the mother to grow more hair.

No its BS.

Morning sickness.
Really consistant morning sickness means its a girl. Little or only in the 1st trimester means a boy.

Nope not true. BS.

Severe Acne poor skin.
If you have really bad skin, and lots of oil its a girl. No bad skin means a boy.

Nope its Bull.

Cold feet.
If you have cold feet you are having a boy. Normal is a girl.

Nope, its BS.

Have the mother guess!
As I mentioned previously mother knows best.

According to statistics, women who guessed, were 71% right when asked what sex their child was.
Since anyone can guess 50% of the time, 71% is pretty good.

As I one article I read pointed out, if one person gets the guess right, then they think based on what they said must be true and then start telling people that old wives's tale and spread it across the land. The other part of that fact is the other person that was wrong, only lost a 50% 50% chance. It can only be heads or tales.
So based on this information the only thing I can tell is that women guessing had a better than 50% chance.

The moral of the story, next time I play poker I'm asking my wife which cards to go with ;-)

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

Bullying

2012-03-05T21:04:00.001-08:00

BULLYING
There is tons of news today the last week about bullying.
In the world full of internet keyboard warriors, I can't help but laugh. Everyone is suddenly the tough guy.
Anyone can hide behind a keyboard or monitor and these days with how the world is becoming everyone seems to want to be. Look through half the videos on Youtube and you'll see some outrageous comments.
How do bullies sort out who to bully? They look for someone who they think won't fight back, someone weaker or disadvantaged.


Crush it man! Crush it!

Its not a good thing, but life is a struggle most people get bullied a some point in their lives.
Its part of life. Only the fittest survive. The lion goes after the gazelle. Most gazelle's run, but the odd one kicks the lion in the face. Actually I made that up, but I will look through National Geographic when I have some time.
I'm not sure why but for whatever reason, perhaps due to me having my birthday in a few days I've been thinking a lot about the past. Although most of those times were good, they were sprinkled with a little bit of bad. That's probably true for most people.

I was thinking about a few times I was bullied and how and if I would change them if I could jump in a Time Machine and go back.

Here are the two more prominent stories that still irk me.

FIRST STORY
I remember grade 6 I was in middle school and on the basketball court minding my own business. I hope (although I don't recall, I may have been wearing sweat pants). Not cool back then. Two cool kids come up to me and spat in my face. I was like oh man, dude..... They started laughing and walked away.
I haven't seen those two in about 12 years, to them it was pretty standard to do that to other kids and they were considered "cool". They are cool now though yes? Or not.
I know one of the guys got in trouble with the law and was under house arrest for a few years, the other I'm not sure what happened to him.
Either way, I wish them a terrible life. You bastards!
If I could jump in my Time Machine with my mindset now, I'd come out swinging. I wouldn't say "Oh dude, that's not cool". I wouldn't say anything like WTF. I'd go after them like there is no tomorrow.
If anyone has a time machine kindly assist me in kicking their asses!

SECOND STORY
When I was in grade 5 I was at this kind of friends house. He wasn't that nice to me, but I thought maybe he would get nicer to me as time went by. I still meet him time to time and we get along now. When I was at his house he asked me, "Wanna play a game?". I was like, "Ok SURE!". I was too innocent and gullible.
He said, "Let's play 52 card pickup! He threw a deck of cards everywhere. PICK THEM UP!". I was like "Ohhh ;-(", I then proceeded to pick them all up. Its not that bad, but I still think about it. Mentally it was some major bullying.
If I could back in time I'd throw him out the window (Don't worry he wouldn't get injured too severely, he was only on the second floor).

Big and intimidating? Clock him in the face, kick him in the shins. I highly recommend it.

Moral of the story, beat the crap out of the bullies and they won't pick on you. If you live in California or other places where kids carry guys or knives, you may want to suck it up for a few years, or get together a few of the bullied and beat the heck of the guy.
Don't do what the Japanese kids do. I read stories about how the kids that get bullied on go to the dollar store and buy hammers. They take care of the bully permanently, that's too far. Giving them a taste of their own medicine is one thing, finishing them off is too extreme.

I hear people saying violence isn't the answer, but I disagree. Beat the crap out of a bully and not only is he not going to mess with you anymore, he will think twice about bullying others.

My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/