goodbye old faithful

after four years of faithfully being by my side and taking picture after picture despite being dropped, pointed directly at the sun, and used in the rain and snow, my old faithful has decided to crap out on me - i guess enough was enough. :(

oh well, it was probably time to move on anyway. i've since decided on which one will be my new faithful: the canon sd850. it will never take the place of my old faithful (since it was my first ever digital camera and i'm sentimentally stupid like that), but at the end of the day i'm happy with my choice. and ready to take pictures. and done with this pointless post. bahahaha.

p.s. big ups to jon and nevin (dude, you gotta update) - i made it to their RSS feeds! :)

the fraser and the fitzsimmons

i went to see brooke fraser at the el mocambo this past wednesday and i must say, her voice is just as good and as beautiful live as it is on her cds. she put on a good show - her guitar playing, piano playing, and singing were all solid. not bad for a first-time concert in toronto. it was a great show for under $14 so really, on the music front, i can't complain at all.

william fitzsimmons opened for brooke and although i know a lot people will disagree with me, i thought that he did a pretty good job. his guitar playing was really impressive (at least to me since i can only dream of playing the guitar half as good as he does) and his voice was nice, breathy and soothing. yah ok, i'll admit his songs were a little depressing and maybe too relaxing for an opening act, but all in all i thought his music was pretty good. well, what i could hear of it anyway thanks to the rude people who comprised about 3/4 of the concert crowd. i honestly couldn't believe how incredibly annoying and moronic some people at the concert were, which leads me to...

...concert etiquette.

ok, if you're going to go to a concert, here are three things you should keep in mind:

1. Talking when an artist is playing.
This would be a HUGE no-no. When an artist is singing or playing, you stop talking. This is done out of respect to the artist and out of consideration for the people around you. Honestly, even though the really good ones make it look real easy, artists practice like crazy and put their hearts into their work, so show a little respect and listen. I don't care if you think their music is too sad and depressing so you decide you don't like them - when an artist is doing their thing, you shut your mouth.

2. Pushing your way to the front when clearly you were there last.
To all the people who think they can show up later and just push your way to the front, please get over yourselves. It is not ok and nobody appreciates it. This is especially true for groups of 3 or more people. It is not other people's faults that your lateness caused you to have to stand at the back or behind the pole with no view. It's first come first serve so back off.

3. Being obnoxious and loud in general.
This is just plain annoying for everyone around the obnoxiously loud, so if you're one of these types of concert-goers, please calm down. There's no reason to scream every two seconds or laugh like a bloody hyena on crack, so take a few deep breaths and at least try to be normal. And no, holding an alcoholic beverage does not mean you can be annoying.

so yes, if by chance you happen to be going to a concert, then try to keep these things in mind - i'm almost positive the people around you will appreciate it greatly. :)

s w o l l e n

after a year of being swollen-eyed-free, this happened again on sat, completely out of the blue. i was completely fine for the whole morning, but in the afternoon things went a little crazy. one minute i'm in the car driving to the mall with an itchy left eye, the next i'm in the mall and then driving home while blinking and trying not to rubba-a-dubb-dubb my eye as the itchiness spreads to the right and the swelling starts, and the next i'm lying on the couch with both of my eyes swollen beyond belief.



it was worse than the last time it happened in that while it took a couple of hours to get from the first picture to the fourth and it only took about 45 mins this time around. two days later, the swelling is almost gone and i'm starting look less like cristina yang and more like myself again.

i still have no idea what allergen i was exposed to that caused this bad of a reaction which makes me nervous. i've gone over the morning again and again, searching for something, anything, which may have been the cause. so far i've been unsuccessful, but for now i'm just thankful that the massive swelling has gone down and life is getting back to normal. here's to hoping it doesn't happen again.

so slothy

so far, today has been one of those days - lazy, unproductive, and slothy. i've been trying to get working on my case study, but i've had such a hard time focusing. motivation is at an all-time low, which is unfortunate seeing as i really need to get this bloody accreditation file done so i can move on to bigger and better things in life. sid the sloth may be cute (in a really ugly and demented sort of way), but slothiness is nothing but fugly to its core. must get past this hurdle and out of this hole.

sometimes you just need to rant

dear mr. neighbour,

kindly tell your kids to stay off our property (which means no more flying kites, running around or playing catch in our yard), please stay off our property yourself (which means no more playing catch in our yard for you either), stop using our water supply and hose to clean out your own eavestrough, and stop being the biggest jerk to ever live beside us.

thanks ever so much,
sharon

a touch of green

^ photo taken somewhere near the opera house

the days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, and neighbourhoods all over are becoming spotted with little green flecks. spring has arrived - and not a moment too soon.

edumacational goodness

instead of surfing the net because you're bored and looking for something to do, check this out. for every word you guess right, they'll donate 20 grains of rice through the UN to help end world hunger. (yes i took that right from the website.) i know 20 grains of rice doesn't really seem like much at all, but the number of rice grains donated will grow exponentially if everyone pitches in. plus you get to broaden your vocabulary. and it's fun! well, in an erudite kind of way. :P (oh take that gre prep!)

so hurry up and get on the free rice edumacational goodness bandwagon! everyone's invited. :)

best buy, you suck

best buy has the worst customer service ever. i guess that's to be expected when a company hires a bunch of gits to work for them. what does this say about the company? it's the biggest and dumbest git of them all.

how to uglify an electric

i don't know what's more disturbing: the fact that a guitar company is actually manufacturing an electric guitar with that on it's face, or that people are actually buying it.

the hello kitty craze is so annoying. someone please, make it stop!

fullscreen vs. widescreen

i've always thought that widescreen dvds and fullscreen dvds were the same except for those black lines which on square tvs just made the picture smaller. i figured full screens were for square tvs and widescreen were for, well, widescreen tvs (makes sense, no?) apparently i was wrong - turns out they are not the same. at all.

don't believe me? see for yourself.

i was shocked at the difference. oh well, most of my dvds are in widescreen anyway except for *looks through dvds* hoodwinked...and all my harry potters. mama nooooo!

i wish someone had told me about this earlier, but at least now i know. and now, so you do. :)

complete randomness



today one of my coworkers casually told me that he was friends with a christian singer. ok whatever, was my first thought.

then i found out that his friend was mark masri. apparently they grew up together and are actually really good friends. (he even showed me his facebook as proof. haha.) i was expecting him to name some completely random unfamous dude so i was actually kinda impressed. mark masri is actually kinda famous. kinda. liz has his cd (from way back) and i remember justis used to sing one of his songs at the top of his lungs. :P

then he said he also grew up with another christian singer, hiram joseph. ehhhh not as famous as mr. masri, but ok. still kinda pretty impressive i suppose. i heard him sing somewhere sometime once or twice. he seemed like a nice guy with a pretty nice voice.

BUT THEN HE PULLED OUT THE KICKER.

coworker: "you know who tarzan dan is right?"
me: "yah! the radio guy that was in that metal camper thing on the Hit List!"
coworker: "yah...well, he's my brother."

WHAT????!?!?!?!?!?! :O :O :O

you know you're an 80s baby when you think that the fact that tarzan dan is your coworker's brother is totally cool. haha.

confessions of a swollen-eyed girl

ok, i confess: i'm one of those people who itch their eyes when they're itchy. i know i'm not supposed to do this, and i try my best not to (i really do!) but sometimes i just can't help it. :(

...NEVER again.

so yesterday, when i was at work, my eyes started to get itchy. i tried to ignore it, blink hard, or do something other than scratch, but sooner or later my finger found its way to my eye and began doing its thing. at first things were ok...then things got bad. really bad. it kinda went like this:



lovely, no? anyway, it's been almost a day since this happened but for some reason my eyes are still puffy (aghhhh). wierd thing is, i've never looked more asian in my life. the puffiness made my double eye-lid fold thing disappear, shrunk the size of my eyes, and now i look like cristina yang.

lesson learned. don't rub your eyes.

sidenote: today i went to work with puffy eyes, but oddly enough, the only person to comment on the puffiness was the only other chinese girl working there. it's like the others didn't even realize they were puffy at all...haha. :P

oh well, hopefully the swelling with disappear by tonight. i'm watching shrek 3 with the girls... ;)