<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/" xmlns:blogger="http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0" version="2.0"><channel><atom:id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334</atom:id><lastBuildDate>Sat, 05 Oct 2024 02:28:51 +0000</lastBuildDate><category>University</category><category>Accomplishments</category><category>Good Times</category><category>Family</category><category>House Flipping</category><category>Fantasy Sports</category><category>Guitar</category><category>Hockey</category><category>Money</category><category>Politics</category><category>The List</category><category>Annoyances</category><category>Lacrosse</category><category>Travel</category><category>Books</category><title>Flip or Fantasy</title><description>My life. My goals. Will I succeed or will my flip flop?</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/</link><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>36</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-8672636724397164208</guid><pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:16:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-07-08T15:51:04.298-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Accomplishments</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Family</category><title>Melissa&#39;s CMT Casting Call Acceptance</title><description>Just in case anyone hasn&#39;t heard, Melissa did manage to win the &lt;a href=&quot;http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/05/vote-for-melissa.html&quot;&gt;CMT Casting Call&lt;/a&gt; after all. But that&#39;s old news now. However, if you haven&#39;t seen her yet on CMT, check out her acceptance as the winner. She&#39;s quite the natural!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;340&quot; height=&quot;285&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/kHlC2HZtjN4&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&amp;color1=0x006699&amp;color2=0x54abd6&amp;border=1&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/kHlC2HZtjN4&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&amp;color1=0x006699&amp;color2=0x54abd6&amp;border=1&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;340&quot; height=&quot;285&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/07/melissas-cmt-casting-call-acceptance.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-3856370222531177814</guid><pubDate>Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:53:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-06-03T16:45:49.085-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Accomplishments</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Good Times</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Lacrosse</category><title>Newfoundland Lacrosse</title><description>A while ago, in one of my &lt;a href=&quot;http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/it-seems-as-though-im-following-paths.html&quot;&gt;infrequent blog updates&lt;/a&gt;, I mentioned that myself and a few others were trying to get a little lacrosse league going. I believe when I first wrote, the league was just starting. I actually don&#39;t know if we had even played up to that point. Well, since then much has happened, so I figure I&#39;ll let you in on what&#39;s been going on:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First of all, we started off playing in the school gym of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.larkhall.k12.nf.ca/&quot;&gt;Larkhall Academy&lt;/a&gt; which was a little small, but perfect for the half dozen bodies we had come out. Then, we finally landed our first goalie, Darren. People seem a little more interested in playing when they&#39;re shooting at someone, not to mention the fact that Darren had quite a bit of lacrosse experience and was able to teach a lot. Eventually, more and more bodies started showing up and we moved to Brother O&#39;Herir Arena, which was much better for playing with more people, other than the fact that many of us couldn&#39;t run the length of the rink. It was really turning out to be something else. James (the other person who was significantly involved with the league) and I were quite proud of what we had accomplished, but it wasn&#39;t done yet. A short time later, we got another goalie, some legititmate lacrosse nets and we started getting anywhere from 14 to 18 bodies out a night. Everyone was improving and it was a great time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, in my opinion, it would have been a success story if it stayed like that. But, it didn&#39;t. More people were interested, and though attendance didn&#39;t grow a whole lot with people moving in and out of the province, there was certainly a small buzz about the sport growing. We even had a girl join us for a while, which turned out even better after we found out she was always up for a few post-game beers like myself and a few of the other guys.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Guess what, the growth didn&#39;t stop there. Unfortunately for me, I&#39;ve been out of the province, so I&#39;ve missed most of it, though I&#39;ve been keeping up to date. James has been in contact with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lacrosse.ca/&quot;&gt;CLA (Canadian Lacrosse Association)&lt;/a&gt;  and they&#39;ve been great to us. They sent down a coach to teach us how to coach at absolutely no cost. So, now we&#39;ve got over a dozen certified coaches in the province with plans on getting kids started with lacrosse. The CLA has also offered to ship us a few dozen sticks so we can have the equipment needed to introduce the sport.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And that&#39;s basically where we stand today... other than the former NLL player that decided he wouldn&#39;t mind coming out for a rec game once a week. Maybe when I get back, I&#39;ll get a shot at catching him running through the kill zone with his head down... or maybe it&#39;ll be the other way around. Either way, it&#39;s great fun!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, stay tuned for some more updates (trust me, we&#39;ve got some more tricks up our sleeves) or you can check out the new website at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nllacrosse.com&quot;&gt;nllacrosse.com&lt;/a&gt;... it&#39;s still under construction, but if anything comes up, it&#39;ll be posted there!</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/06/newfoundland-lacrosse.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-8648537825582409576</guid><pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 16:36:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-05-13T14:16:35.756-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Accomplishments</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Family</category><title>Vote for Melissa!</title><description>So, Country Music Television (CMT) is running a contest to determine who will be a CMT host for the summer. In order to enter, the contestants had to submit a video showing why they&#39;re the ultimate superfan. Then, 16 semi-finalists were chosen from the bunch. I don&#39;t know how many people submitted videos (though I hear it was a lot) but my little sis Melissa made it through to the next round. Now, it&#39;s up to the fans to decide. So, if you get a chance, go vote for her... and keep voting until your fingers are cramped. She deserves it, she&#39;ll be perfect for the job.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What are you waiting for... &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cmt.ca/CastingCall/SemifinalistMelissa.aspx&quot;&gt;VOTE&lt;/a&gt;!</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/05/vote-for-melissa.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-1786931383646101583</guid><pubDate>Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:30:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-02-22T14:04:30.431-03:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Accomplishments</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Travel</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>Sprechen Sie Englisch?</title><description>As anyone who reads this is probably aware, I haven&#39;t been updating often. I&#39;d like to say that trend will not continue, however, I&#39;m not so sure about that. Actually, I probably wouldn&#39;t even be writing this at all, except I want inform you that MB and I have started a blog about our short-term move to Germany. So, please check it out. I imagine there&#39;ll be a good few posts in the coming week or two. So, keep an eye out. It&#39;s called &lt;a href=&quot;http://mbroningermany.blogspot.com&quot;&gt;Sprechen Sie Englisch?&lt;/a&gt; Hope you enjoy!</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/02/sprechen-sie-englisch.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-8137468510788472080</guid><pubDate>Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:01:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-11-05T18:18:01.866-03:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Books</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Good Times</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Politics</category><title>Michael Crichton (1942 - 2008)</title><description>&lt;a onblur=&quot;try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}&quot; href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBG8YvZ_RIhvwc7tXLZLmQ8Fd3HMNf6IHMomAz89jKTSt40vyyaQZBi6i-kQoNgsaAfzBnify73191gwm09GNEQUt1AjzJ-654TSKiOZdM5OGepiqdady1Wp_oUWSfdZqSDggAoVKcXVfz/&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 313px;&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBG8YvZ_RIhvwc7tXLZLmQ8Fd3HMNf6IHMomAz89jKTSt40vyyaQZBi6i-kQoNgsaAfzBnify73191gwm09GNEQUt1AjzJ-654TSKiOZdM5OGepiqdady1Wp_oUWSfdZqSDggAoVKcXVfz/&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Michael Crichton died yesterday. He was my first favourite author (unless you count Dr. Seuss and R.L. Stine) and I think he&#39;ll continue to be so for a while since I&#39;ve still got a handful more of his books to read. Everyone knows him for Jurassic Park and ER, however, most, if not all of his books, from Andromeda Strain to Next, are worth reading. Of course if you&#39;re not into sci-fi then you&#39;d probably disagree. But for me, he always managed to get my brain juices flowing with the infamous, &quot;what if?&quot;. His stories always seemed to have a feeling of realism to them as if they were actually possible. Even the most extraordinary events in his novels really made the reader ponder the likelihood of such a thing occurring.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not only did he have the ability to make the impossible seem possible, a number of his books really changed my way of thinking. I&#39;ve actually just finished reading one of his older books, &lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;Rising Sun&lt;/span&gt;. Very interesting read about the Japanese influence in American business, particularly the education and technology sectors. Now the technology is a little dated but it still really managed to change my perspective on how I viewed other cultures. It made me really notice how much people from the west expect other cultures to conform to western ideologies.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, his book that really impacted me the most was &lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;State of Fear&lt;/span&gt;. If anyone has any opinion whatsoever on &quot;global warming&quot; this is a book to read. It is super controversial in that &quot;environmentalists&quot; believe Crichton was misinterpreting information and that the novel was hurting efforts to change government policy on carbon emissions. And, although that may be slightly true, I think the main purpose of the book is to simply force the reader to look at the other side of the argument. My opinion on global warming has significantly changed since I&#39;ve read the novel (and I&#39;ll save my rant about that for another time), but more importantly, I&#39;ve learned to look at both sides of any claim or argument. Just because you learn something from one source doesn&#39;t really make it true. There are always multiple sides to every story and until they are all considered, it is almost ignorant to form an opinion. Like I said, the novel is a great read, and will really cause you to look at things, particularly scientific claims, in a whole new light.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Random fact: Crichton was 6&#39;9&quot; tall. I didn&#39;t know that. And, I&#39;ve also got to give thanks to a teacher at my high school, Mr. Grejtek, who introduced me to Crichton. I&#39;ve been hooked ever since.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In other news, Obama is the new president. I was kind of hoping for McCain, but I guess the underdog wasn&#39;t able to pull through this time. Oh well, I guess we&#39;ll all find out what Obama is made of come January.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/11/michael-crichton-1942-2008.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBG8YvZ_RIhvwc7tXLZLmQ8Fd3HMNf6IHMomAz89jKTSt40vyyaQZBi6i-kQoNgsaAfzBnify73191gwm09GNEQUt1AjzJ-654TSKiOZdM5OGepiqdady1Wp_oUWSfdZqSDggAoVKcXVfz/s72-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>3</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-6179075177577683534</guid><pubDate>Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:20:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-06-24T20:06:57.240-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Accomplishments</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">House Flipping</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Money</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">The List</category><title>My New Old House</title><description>&lt;a onblur=&quot;try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}&quot; href=&quot;http://lh5.ggpht.com/pfunk003/SGF1Nb8OE9I/AAAAAAAAAHY/pnxofa4tkpA/house.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;&quot; src=&quot;http://lh5.ggpht.com/pfunk003/SGF1Nb8OE9I/AAAAAAAAAHY/pnxofa4tkpA/house.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;So, I bought a house. Well, actually a friend and I bought a house. I&#39;ve been wanting to buy one for quite some time now, and I&#39;ve put a lot of time and effort into researching the whole process of real estate investing. However, once the ball started rolling it really didn&#39;t take much time in between looking at houses and owning one of them (pending certain things such as an inspection and whatnot).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s an old, attached house and it wasn&#39;t very expensive, though it is surprisingly nice for the money. Of course a little TLC won&#39;t hurt it, particularly in the case of the lovely, little design someone kindly spray painted under the front window. But, other than that and a few more odds and ends, it&#39;s pretty much ready to go. Of course now we&#39;ve just got to find someone to rent the place.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-new-old-house.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://lh5.ggpht.com/pfunk003/SGF1Nb8OE9I/AAAAAAAAAHY/pnxofa4tkpA/s72-c/house.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-8789254387732609398</guid><pubDate>Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:15:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-06-23T23:06:21.201-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Family</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Good Times</category><title>Mothballs and Moths&#39; Balls</title><description>&lt;a onblur=&quot;try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}&quot; href=&quot;http://lh4.ggpht.com/pfunk003/SGBLKjeFJSI/AAAAAAAAAG4/He4eNYVxzOk/mothballs.jpg?imgmax=144&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;&quot; src=&quot;http://lh4.ggpht.com/pfunk003/SGBLKjeFJSI/AAAAAAAAAG4/He4eNYVxzOk/mothballs.jpg?imgmax=144&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Last night, which happened to be the evening of my 23rd birthday, a group of us gathered around my parents&#39; fire pit thing. The group consisted of family, friends, and neighbours. And, as it turns out, such a group tends to create fairly interesting and unique conversation, to say the least. Last night was no different, and as usual Melissa was in the middle of the entire thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You see, somehow, the conversation turned to mothballs. As you can imagine, once Melissa got going, no one was talking about mothballs in the traditional sense. Instead, it was the actual testicles of moths that was of interest. Anyway, to make a long story short, Melissa eventually started wondering if a moth does in fact have &quot;balls&quot;. So, I figured I might as well look it up. If anyone knows, it would be Google. I typed in everything I could think of that had to do with a moth&#39;s reproductive system. Apparently, Google doesn&#39;t really know much about the topic either. Then I tried butterflies. There was a little more information on this subject, however, I never did get a definitive answer. A couple of the more useful sites were the &lt;a href=&quot;http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761578331/butterflies_and_moths.html&quot;&gt;MSN Encarta&lt;/a&gt; page on moths and butterflies and some site by a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.butterflyfarm.co.cr/ed/guide_mod1.htm&quot;&gt;Butterfly Farmer&lt;/a&gt;. From what I understand, moths (assuming they&#39;re as similar to butterflies as they seem) have sperm producing organs and a penis. However, as to whether they actually have &quot;balls&quot; is still unknown to me.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/06/mothballs-and-moths-balls.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://lh4.ggpht.com/pfunk003/SGBLKjeFJSI/AAAAAAAAAG4/He4eNYVxzOk/s72-c/mothballs.jpg?imgmax=144" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>3</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-6652646015733585458</guid><pubDate>Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:06:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-04-25T18:13:23.631-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Accomplishments</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Travel</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>&quot;Guten Tag?&quot; My First German Words</title><description>And, I don&#39;t think they&#39;ll be my last. You see, I&#39;ve just been accepted into a scholarship program to study in Germany for five months next year. And, I&#39;m pumped. Except, I know very little about Germany or the German language. Which I wouldn&#39;t really worry about except that my classes are going to be taught in German.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I&#39;m going to have to work through that because I don&#39;t know that I&#39;ll get this opportunity again anytime soon. As for where I&#39;m going, well it&#39;s a city called Mannheim. I guess you&#39;d say that&#39;s kind of in the southwest somewhat. Either way, I hear it&#39;s a cool place. It&#39;s got a population of about 350,000 which isn&#39;t tiny, and it&#39;s pretty darn close to France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Switzerland. Actually, everything in Europe seems to be pretty close to everything else which will make traveling convenient.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Though it&#39;s not going to be all play and no work. I will have to go to school sometimes at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hs-mannheim.de/FHweb_englisch/index.html&quot;&gt;Hochschule Mannheim&lt;/a&gt;. But I&#39;m ok with that. What better way to meet people than go to class with them? Well, that&#39;s my good news of the week.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, and that news is &quot;unofficial&quot; as of now, so I guess nothing is set in stone... but lets just say I&#39;m very confident in it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;iframe width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;350&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; scrolling=&quot;no&quot; marginheight=&quot;0&quot; marginwidth=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;geocode=&amp;amp;q=Mannheim,+Germany&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;t=h&amp;amp;s=AARTsJoOiy0JBZ-5YtHpn5RKzuBlTeH2Kg&amp;amp;ll=49.477271,8.466339&amp;amp;spn=10.000151,18.676758&amp;amp;z=5&amp;amp;output=embed&quot;&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;small&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;geocode=&amp;amp;q=Mannheim,+Germany&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;t=h&amp;amp;ll=49.477271,8.466339&amp;amp;spn=10.000151,18.676758&amp;amp;z=5&amp;amp;source=embed&quot; style=&quot;color:#0000FF;text-align:left&quot;&gt;View Larger Map&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/small&gt;</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/04/guten-tag-my-first-german-words.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>2</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-6073698341129974894</guid><pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:03:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-04-16T22:42:10.710-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Family</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Good Times</category><title>Happy Birthday Mary-Beth</title><description>&lt;a onblur=&quot;try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}&quot; href=&quot;http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v188/44/118/512344646/n512344646_327747_3233.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;&quot; src=&quot;http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v188/44/118/512344646/n512344646_327747_3233.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;And I almost forgot to post that it&#39;s MB&#39;s birthday today! She&#39;s the big 2-1. I think she&#39;s planning a trip to Vegas. Or at least dreaming about Vegas.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;She seems to be having a great day though! And that&#39;s what&#39;s most important! Happy Birthday MB!!</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/04/happy-birthday-mary-beth.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-7454298060976743975</guid><pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:51:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-04-16T22:31:33.344-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>Final Exam - Computer Organization</title><description>My last exam is tomorrow. It&#39;s in a course called Computer Organization. Unfortunately, computer organization doesn&#39;t refer to positioning the monitor, speakers, mouse and keyboard in the correct locations. It also doesn&#39;t refer to sorting pictures in the pictures directory and music in the music directory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actually, I&#39;m still trying to figure it what it has to do with but from what I can tell, circuits seem to be fairly important. So do a whole lot of other things that are based around circuits. There are also some other odds and ends tossed in there too. Surprisingly, I think I may actually do well. Let&#39;s hope I&#39;m right.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/04/final-exam-computer-organization.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-6290950092329700794</guid><pubDate>Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:13:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-04-15T13:06:16.642-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Annoyances</category><title>Banned in Schools, Malls, and even Bars... Why Not a Child&#39;s Presents?</title><description>I don&#39;t know if anyone has come across it, but there&#39;s a group on Facebook (with almost 1500 members) called &quot;Ban Smoking in the Presents of Child.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The group has been around for quite a while now, and I&#39;ve been puzzled by it ever since I first laid eyes on it. See, I don&#39;t smoke, but I&#39;ve grown up around smokers all my life and never have I had a problem with anyone smoking in my presents. They&#39;ve smoked in the same room as me, and with me in the car. Actually, during the holidays, people even light up cigarettes while sitting quite near my Christmas presents. However, I&#39;ve never actually experienced someone smoking IN my presents. Has anyone else had this problem?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Alright, before I take this too far, a guy who posted in the group&#39;s wall had an interesting take on the situation. He wrote:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;&quot;&lt;/span&gt;I am a firefighter. I would just like to say that I have experienced the problem you are trying to ban. It was a quiet day until my pager alerted me of a a possible house fire on Christmas day. I got on the truck and eventually went to the house and there it was....under the Christmas tree.....smoke coming from the presents! It was a dangerous fire to fight because each time I would apply the water, the midgets in the presents would just light up another cigarette. Oh it was terrible!&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;&quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Note that the group owner did eventually catch his error, though Facebook doesn&#39;t allow groups to be renamed, so he was unable to change it. However, with the emergence of social networking websites, I am becoming amazed at how terrible so many people are with grammar. I&#39;m not talking about writing things such as &quot;gonna&quot; or &quot;luv&quot; or anything. I&#39;m talking about dropping the &#39;e&#39; before adding &#39;ing&#39;, or the difference in synonyms such as &quot;there&quot; and &quot;their&quot;, &quot;here&quot; and &quot;hear&quot;, &quot;presents&quot; and &quot;presence&quot;. Don&#39;t you learn that stuff in elementary school? Maybe it&#39;s just ignorance...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anywayz ime gonna quite bitcheing now cuz its probbly geting anoying.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/04/banned-in-schools-mall-and-even-bars.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-4380319682837088114</guid><pubDate>Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:45:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-04-14T00:23:27.131-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Hockey</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>Playoff Beard or Study Beard?</title><description>I have an exam tomorrow at 9:00 am. The Calgary Flames are currently playing the San Jose Sharks at 12:15 am.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve studied... a little.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve watched the playoffs... a lot.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is going to be a problem. Not to mention that this game won&#39;t be over until 3ish at the earliest. Also, not to mention my 2 other exams this week (both of which are early morning exams) and my girlfriend&#39;s birthday which I&#39;m apparently not allowed to celebrate the day after.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I just think it is an interesting, yet cruel, way of scheduling MUN exams, particularly for Computer Science students.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/04/playoff-beard-or-study-beard.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>2</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-6533730885853096324</guid><pubDate>Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:30:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-04-04T17:56:26.626-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Annoyances</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>First post of the New Year</title><description>So, after taking most of December, January, February, and March off from my not so frequent in the first place posts, I&#39;m back. A lot has happened since my last post. I got married, had a kid, bought a house... nah, I&#39;m kidding. Life hasn&#39;t gotten that exciting yet. However, I did finish a semester at university and partially developed a computer game (based on the board game Clue) in the process. I also applied for, and have a good shot at receiving, a scholarship to study in Germany next winter semester. Man, I&#39;m pumped about that. I hear they&#39;ve got some pretty good beer... err, I mean educational facilities, over that way. However, that&#39;s not the point of this post.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur=&quot;try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}&quot; href=&quot;http://lh6.google.com/pfunk003/R_aOk2S06fI/AAAAAAAAAGY/AYLQ11Rqwbo/book.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;&quot; src=&quot;http://lh6.google.com/pfunk003/R_aOk2S06fI/AAAAAAAAAGY/AYLQ11Rqwbo/book.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;The point of this post is to complain about online help forums. As a university student, I have better things to waste my money on then books. It&#39;s like $200 a pop to buy some of these piles of paper which turn out to be about as useful as a warm beer when it comes to teaching me anything about anything. So, as my education continued I&#39;ve learned that Google is as good as, or better than, most textbooks out there. There have been countless projects I&#39;ve completed through searching the information (and sometimes the answers themselves) on Google. Then, as time went on, I noticed that online forums seemed to hold some pretty good information. But lately, I&#39;ve been finding that more often than not, when I find what I think is good information on an online forum, all the replies say, &quot;I have the same problem.&quot; Like, who gives a shit? Why is it necessary to tell the world that you have the same problem? It just forces me to read 10 pages of replies only to find that 400 people have the same problem as the first guy. Anyway, that annoys me, so I thought I&#39;d share my frustration with the world. And, I know, I know... who gives a shit?!</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/04/first-post-of-new-year.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>3</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-1997526985542241300</guid><pubDate>Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:45:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-12-02T16:29:11.539-03:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Good Times</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Hockey</category><title>Southern Shore Cup</title><description>My first time on skates in about two months was this weekend. A buddy of mine, I used to play junior hockey with, asked me to play on his team for the Southern Shore Cup. Apparently it&#39;s a pretty big thing up that way, with community rivalries coming out in full force. I was playing for the Witless Bay Warriors, which was kind of nice since I have relatives from that part of the shore. Anyway, the team ended up going 3-0. We didn&#39;t lose one game... even though at times it seemed as though the odds were against us. We had a hard working bunch, who, for what they lacked in skill, made up for in grit and determination. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, even with our perfect record, and competitive team, we didn&#39;t make the playoffs this afternoon. It turns out that everyone in our division went 3-0 as well. Just as everyone in the other division went 0-3. The tournament was laid out so that each team played every team in the other division. And, a tie in the standings was broken by the teams&#39; plus-minus. So, even with a perfect record, we were last in our division and didn&#39;t make the playoffs, yet two teams in the other division who we beat, and were 0-3, did make it. Doesn&#39;t make sense to me. I think we could have actually won the whole thing, but that&#39;s how it goes and I guess next year will have to be the year the Warriors take it all.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/12/southern-shore-cup.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-8784504673264546267</guid><pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:17:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-11-29T21:04:23.610-03:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Accomplishments</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Good Times</category><title>Master of the MasterLock</title><description>Next on the list of things I&#39;ve done over the past few weeks is crack a combination lock. For years I have had this MasterLock combination lock in my room. I can&#39;t remember what I used it for, but I didn&#39;t use it much, and eventually I forgot the combination all together. So, every once in a while, I&#39;d pick it up and fiddle with it a bit, but to no avail. I even tried listening for the little clicks, but that didn&#39;t work either. Even the internet was no help since the only method I could find to open it was by using a shim. But, I didn&#39;t just want to open it... I wanted to know the combination so I could use it again. Of course, I could have mailed a photocopy of the back of the lock to the company and they would have sent the combination, but I didn&#39;t really care to put that much effort into it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I had totally forgotten about it until the other day when I picked it up again. I played around for a while, but I was still unable to crack it. So, I did another internet search and came across a YouTube video on how to crack a MasterLock... without a shim. I liked the sound of it, but I was still skeptical, so I checked it out. The method actually seemed legit, but there was a possibility I&#39;d have to try 100 different combinations! I figured there is no way in hell I was trying that many combinations... even though in reality it would have only taken 10 minutes or so. It&#39;s also a hell of a lot more efficient than the 64,000 possible combinations it would have been. Anyway, to make a long story short, I picked out some numbers that looked familiar, and a few minutes later it popped. I had the combination! The ease with which I cracked it is actually pretty sketchy all the same. I don&#39;t know if I&#39;d ever lock something valuable up behind a MasterLock again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, if you&#39;ve ever got the need to crack a MasterLock... here&#39;s the combo. It really does work too, but you&#39;ve gotta be patient:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;355&quot; align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/zHXgOxSGznE&amp;rel=1&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;wmode&quot; value=&quot;transparent&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/zHXgOxSGznE&amp;rel=1&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; wmode=&quot;transparent&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;355&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/11/next-on-list-of-things-ive-done-over.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-8064209413447105865</guid><pubDate>Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:55:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-11-28T15:49:54.114-03:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>A little flash and some action too</title><description>Wow, it has been quite some time since I&#39;ve been on here. It&#39;s not even that I haven&#39;t been in front of a computer lately, because I&#39;m pretty sure I&#39;ve spent every waking hour of the past two weeks in front of a computer. It&#39;s just that I&#39;ve had hours upon hours of school work to complete and haven&#39;t had a chance to post anything. There hasn&#39;t been much interesting going on either... though over the past few weeks I have come up with a few things that I&#39;ll get to over the next couple of days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first thing is about that computer ethics class I posted about &lt;a href=&quot;http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/ethics-of-online-gambling.html&quot;&gt;before&lt;/a&gt;. The class is no longer about ethics though. It&#39;s now about usability. But, it&#39;s still pretty interesting, and I guess fairly important since it&#39;s pretty pointless to design a program that isn&#39;t usable by its targeted users. Anyway, I had to design a program to test the usability of an aspect of a chronological forum. I decided to test the task of posting a thread. Therefore, my design is basically just a mock-up of what it could be like to go through the process of determining a date to post to, and then clicking post. It really doesn&#39;t actually do anything. It was quite fun to make though since it was pretty much the first time I&#39;ve ever used Flash... particularly Actionscript. It turned out to be pretty neat to use too. I still suck at it, but after a few web tutorials I was able to put something together. Check out what I managed to do &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.mun.ca/%7Eronaldp/timeline/timeline.html&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; if you want. It&#39;s really not much, and is very pointless, but it&#39;s not bad for a first go at it. Oh, and I do realize that every month has 31 days, but it was a pain in the ass to change it and I was tired. There&#39;s also no back button, which is annoying, but I couldn&#39;t get it to work properly, so I left it out. When I have some free time, I&#39;m definitely going to have another try at making something cool.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/11/little-flash-and-some-action-too.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-1167077125347772969</guid><pubDate>Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:46:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-11-05T11:50:43.243-03:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Good Times</category><title>Mardi Gras on George Street</title><description>&lt;a onblur=&quot;try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}&quot; href=&quot;http://photos-869.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sctm/v158/52/91/503596869/n503596869_174242_3831.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;&quot; src=&quot;http://photos-869.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sctm/v158/52/91/503596869/n503596869_174242_3831.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I&#39;ve been waiting to write about this forever... well, for a week. But, I just couldn&#39;t do it without a picture. I really need my own camera so I can take my own pictures without having to rely on other people. Anyway, I finally came across a picture of what I looked like for George Street&#39;s celebration of Halloween. That&#39;s me, Mary-Beth (Ghostbuster) and MB&#39;s friend (little red riding hood). I&#39;m supposed to be a Geico Caveman. I think it worked out alright.  Apparently people recognized me, though I&#39;m not so sure. I spent more time that night pretending I heard what people said instead of actually hearing it. I think I look more like an ugly dude who needs a shave and to cut his hair... and lay off the fake tanner. Not much different than a regular day in my life... minus the fake tanner. But if people figured out I was a caveman, I&#39;m happy. Mardi Gras is definitely one of my favourite nights downtown. Can&#39;t beat thousands of drunk people dressed up in costumes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for my costume, lets just say it was an easy costume that was hard to make... and hard to get off. Most of my friends were cavemen too, and at first (when sober) we really wanted to make it look good and even had some fake skin to give us more of an authentic caveman look. Unfortunately the fake skin stuck more to my fingers than my face and we ended up scrapping that idea. Of course, the decision was made after I had my eyebrows covered in wax. I ended up having to cover them with make-up to offset the waxy, white colour. Everything else went pretty straight forward. Just a bit of brown make-up, a wig, and gluing a beard on my face. In hindsight, that turned out to be a terrible idea. Gluing a beard to my face! I already had a freakin&#39; beard and I glued another one on top of it! Anyway, to make a long story short, I got home at some point in the night, loaded drunk, and had to shave off both my fake beard and my real beard. Pretty sure I destroyed a brand new blade in the process too. Though I did only nick myself once. Which I thought to be pretty impressive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, that&#39;s my Mardi Gras story. Oh, and in case you don&#39;t know who the Geico cavemen are, here&#39;s a little clip. I think we had a resemblance going:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;355&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/o5JV0Fs_GE8&amp;rel=1&amp;color1=0xd6d6d6&amp;color2=0xf0f0f0&amp;border=0&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;wmode&quot; value=&quot;transparent&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/o5JV0Fs_GE8&amp;rel=1&amp;color1=0xd6d6d6&amp;color2=0xf0f0f0&amp;border=0&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; wmode=&quot;transparent&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;355&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/ center&gt;</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/11/mardi-gras-on-george-street.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-3229370896155893640</guid><pubDate>Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:52:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-10-26T11:44:48.855-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>I love MUNdays&#39; Friday</title><description>Today is another &lt;span class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot; id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_0&quot;&gt;MUNday&lt;/span&gt;... no not Monday, it&#39;s actually Friday... I mean a &lt;span class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot; id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_1&quot;&gt;MUNday&lt;/span&gt;. Trust me, it&#39;s not so bad when reading it, but when you hear it, your schedule can get totally thrown off. Anyway, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mun.ca/mundays/index.php&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot; id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_2&quot;&gt;MUNdays&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a promotional thing Memorial does that encourages people to participate in many different events, ironically from Tuesday to Saturday. The events involve things from health, to drinking, to community service, to drinking, to public speaking, to... well you get the drift.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, today just happens to be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mun.ca/mundays/kindness/index.php&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Kindness Friday&lt;/a&gt;. It&#39;s basically a day to do what the name implies: be kind. For instance, my prof brought our class in cookies, people in the cafeteria were treated to free coffee, and any student is given the option to print off 50 free pages of whatever they like (usually they cost 5¢).  I enjoyed the cookies, don&#39;t drink coffee, and am too lazy to walk all the way to the library to print the pages that I really don&#39;t need anyways (I&#39;m being kind to the earth). However it&#39;s the thought that counts, and I really appreciate being given the opportunity to do these things that would have &lt;span class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot; id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_3&quot;&gt;cost&lt;/span&gt; me no more than $2.50 to do in the first place.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The point of this post is not to brag about what luxuries my school is offering me though. It&#39;s to promote the idea of being kind for a day. That&#39;s it... you can all go back to being asses tomorrow. But today give a stranger a helping hand,  toss a &lt;span class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot; id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_4&quot;&gt;loonie&lt;/span&gt; in the charity box, get your husband/boyfriend a beer, or even ask him what he&#39;d like to watch on television. There is no such thing as an act of kindness being too small or too large. The idea is to just do it with a smile on your face, knowing that you&#39;re putting a smile on somebody &lt;span class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot; id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_5&quot;&gt;else&#39;s&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:webdings;&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/i-love-mundays-friday.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>2</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-1813643895549908618</guid><pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:05:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-10-23T11:45:29.341-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>Ethics of online gambling</title><description>Today, I&#39;ve got to submit a project for my computer science ethics class concerning the ethics of online gambling. To do so, my project partner, Josh, and I created a blog. It is only small with a few posts, but it can be worth a read if you&#39;re interested in online gambling. The posts focus on basically whether it was right or wrong for the U.S. to ban online gambling back in 2006. So, check it out if you want and feel free to comment... maybe you can even score me some bonus points. Here&#39;s the link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.mun.ca/%7Ejoshuag/gambling/&quot;&gt;The Rise and Fall of Online Gambling&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, this was also my first experience using WordPress to create a blog. I enjoyed that. It seems as though a lot more tweaking can be done than for a blogger blog. Now I&#39;ve just got to brush up on my web editing skills... or actually get some web editing skills in the first place.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/ethics-of-online-gambling.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-7924395696592241261</guid><pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:16:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-10-22T12:11:38.761-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Lacrosse</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">University</category><title>Big plans for Newfoundland rec lacrosse</title><description>It seems as though I&#39;m following the paths of many other blogger wannabes: blogging faithfully for a few weeks and then blogging less and less as time goes on... and then blogging about not keeping up with blogging. I think that&#39;s always a bad sign when a blogger has to blog about not being able to blog. I guess writer&#39;s block really starts kicking in after a while. Unfortunately my life just isn&#39;t as interesting as I&#39;d like to believe it is, but really, whose is? Even Britney&#39;s shenanigans are starting to get old to me now. So after getting out the few weeks of stories that I do have, everything seems to come to a halt. Personally I think it&#39;s because last week the university profs all got together and decided to put all their tests and assignments on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but they&#39;d never admit to that. Either way, I&#39;m going to make it a point now to have something interesting to say at least every second or third day. Sure, sure, every blogger says that, but I&#39;m going to make it happen. I really am.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Like today for instance, I am going to write about an attempt by a friend of mine and myself to start a Newfoundland Rec Lacrosse League. Being our national sport (or formerly national sport) one would think that lacrosse would be available to play in every province. I guess Newfoundland just got left out of that being the last province to join Canada in 1949.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Luckily, I got the opportunity to play when I went to high school in Ohio. I loved it. It really works the body to the extreme. It&#39;s like sprinting a marathon with people whacking you with sticks the whole time. It&#39;s really great. My friend, who also played in Ohio, and I finally realized that it&#39;s about time to get a league going in Newfoundland. Actually, it was him, but I jumped on the bandwagon early on. So, we started a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5045883673&amp;amp;ref=mf&quot;&gt;Facebook group&lt;/a&gt; and the interest has been amazing so far.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We&#39;re going to play a version called box lacrosse, which is basically an indoor version of the outdoor game. It requires less people so we figure it&#39;s the best way to start. We&#39;ve got big plans for the league though, and really think it could catch on and maybe even expand to women and younger players. But that&#39;s all just hopes and dreams at the moment. For now we just want to get out there and throw around the ball a little, or at least watch people try to throw around the ball a little.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here&#39;s a little clip to show you what it&#39;s all about:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;350&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/GOTh8x9gkY0&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;wmode&quot; value=&quot;transparent&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/GOTh8x9gkY0&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; wmode=&quot;transparent&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;350&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/it-seems-as-though-im-following-paths.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>4</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-7358247819207301596</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:27:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-10-19T16:32:20.797-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Politics</category><title>Colbert 2008</title><description>Well, now that the Newfoundland provincial election is over, the world can shift its political focus to something that just may turn out to be a little more of a race: the 2008 United States Presidential Election. I&#39;m sure most people, even in Canada, have at least a clue as to what is going on down south regarding their political situation. It may not even be out of interest, but simply because all the good TV stations (except The Score) are American. And if you happen to be one of the few who hasn&#39;t followed anything American since the 60&#39;s, well, Kennedy was assassinated, there have been eight presidents since, a whole wack of scandals, at least one sexual encounter, and no sign of any nukes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, with the coming election there have been a ton of names thrown around as to who the potential candidates are. Most notably is are Obama (that&#39;s Obama not Osama) and Clinton (that&#39;s Hilary not Bill) running for the democratic candidacy, and, well, no one cares about the republicans anymore. That is until recently, a man announced that he will run for (at least in South Carolina) the office of the President of the United States. That man is Stephen Colbert. So, when the time comes America, vote Colbert as your candidate for 2008. Us Canadians will truly enjoy the humour in it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here&#39;s the clip of his announcement:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;embed flashvars=&quot;videoId=118597&quot; src=&quot;http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml&quot; quality=&quot;high&quot; bgcolor=&quot;#cccccc&quot; name=&quot;comedy_central_player&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allownetworking=&quot;external&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; pluginspage=&quot;http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer&quot; align=&quot;middle&quot; height=&quot;316&quot; width=&quot;332&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/colbert-2008.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-7286751279530979617</guid><pubDate>Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:37:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-10-09T20:38:59.229-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Politics</category><title>Sorting through the PC&#39;s</title><description>Deciding who to vote for was a difficult task for me. Not because I didn&#39;t know which party I wanted, but because I didn&#39;t know which person from which party was in my district. I must be right on a border line or something because if I go left at the end of my road there&#39;s a sign for Beth Marshall of the PC party and if I go right there&#39;s a sign for Terry French of the PC party. Then if I walk around a little more, sometimes there are places where the two signs are right next to each other. Anyway, I figured the best way to find out would be to go down to the voting station and see who was on my ballot. When I got there, I saw the Beth Marshall was indeed the PC representative for my district.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now I didn&#39;t necessarily vote for Beth Marshall, though I am in favour of Danny Millions. But, for one thing, I&#39;m a student, and the NDP seems to have good things in mind for students, so I could have voted for Kyle Rees, who is actually a fellow student. I also could have voted for Cynthia Laydon-Barron and the liberals because I like red and their signs are red. It&#39;s not really important who I voted for. What are important are the results, and I imagine I&#39;ll find those out later tonight.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/sorting-through-pcs.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-212638199038217988</guid><pubDate>Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:04:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-10-09T17:44:11.137-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Money</category><title>I love GST... cheques that is</title><description>Yep, I was sitting down in front of my computer just then wondering what I could post about next. I was actually there for quite some time when the idea pretty much fell on my head like Newton&#39;s apple... actually it was passed to me, but you get my drift. It was a GST cheque. Woo hoo! It&#39;s almost like Christmas. Well, more like Boxing Day for Walmart, since it&#39;s really just money being returned to me. But, who cares if I actually owned this money in the first place. There&#39;s really nothing like a reunion anyway. Especially a reunion like this. Of course this reunion is hardly enough to pay for anything substantial, but if it&#39;ll get me a few beer, I&#39;m happy! Anyway, I just wanted to share my joy of receiving &quot;free&quot; money with everyone. It&#39;s a great feeling!  Wish I could do it more often.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/i-love-gst-cheques-that-is.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-5215118843851434319</guid><pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:50:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-10-08T16:40:12.395-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Guitar</category><title>I&#39;m thankful for... Guitar Hero!</title><description>Well, of course I&#39;m thankful for other things as well: family, friends, a roof over my head, good....er.... alright food, etc. Guitar Hero really isn&#39;t even near the top of my list, but a friend of mine did lend me the game last night, and lets just say I&#39;m only typing this because my hands are too tired to strum. (By the way, I do realize the irony in that, so keep your smart ass comments to yourself, haha.) (And, my hands are too tired from playing so much. Sick people.) (Playing the GAME!) Anyway, the game is really addicting and I don&#39;t suck at it nearly as much as I do at real guitar and that makes me feel good. Come to think of it though, Guitar Hero probably isn&#39;t something to be thankful for, since anything else I could have hoped to accomplish today is pretty much up in Smoke on the Water. Damn, I can&#39;t get that song out of my head. Anyway, I actually don&#39;t even know why I&#39;m writing about this, I mean, Guitar Hero is old news to most people. But if it&#39;s not old news to you, definitely give it a try. It makes you feel like a real rockstar! Whammy board and all. Rock On!</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/im-thankful-for-guitar-hero.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6332890879671298334.post-9127238893792684720</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Oct 2007 18:32:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2007-10-06T16:13:24.502-02:30</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Fantasy Sports</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Hockey</category><title>And the 2008 Stanley Cup goes to...</title><description>Definitely not the Toronto Maple Leafs. I love the Leafs mind you. They&#39;ve been my favourite team as long as I can remember, and I know it&#39;s only two games in, but they just can&#39;t seem to pull it together. They lost to arch rival Sens in the first two games of the season and it&#39;s not even because they played poorly. I actually thought they played quite well. The top line of Sundin, Blake and Antropov really seemed to be clicking. I was very impressed with Blake, he really seemed to be skating well, and it was nice since I was a little skeptical of the contract he was offered. The only problem with the Leafs is that they wouldn&#39;t be able to hold on to a lead in a peewee game. It&#39;s hard to watch when you can see it coming every time. Which is why I haven&#39;t yet watched an entire game. It seems as though things are going alright when all of a sudden with under ten minutes left in the third, the other team just scores a goal. Same thing every time, and boy is it annoying. Tonight they are playing the Habs, with whom they are even bigger rivals. Maybe this will be the point that they start to turn things around, but knowing the Leafs, that&#39;s pretty unlikely.</description><link>http://fliporfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/10/and-2008-stanley-cup-goes-to.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ron P)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item></channel></rss>