I get regular comments on my consumption of diet sodas and the negative side effects that artificial sweeteners could have on my health, but I'm well aware of the studies and have decided that I'd rather be a cancer victim with nervous system damage than a fat diabetic.

The way I know you're new here at the company is not that I don't recognize you at all, or that you look a little lost when coming up to my floor.

The way I know that you're new here is that you've just left your two very young daughters playing on the xbox next to my desk unsupervised on a weekend when there's no one else around.

After hearing of the latest high school shooting, I simply thought...

Teh OLD!

I wasn't all that excited to hear that Old Boy was going to be remade in english, but seeing the original being released in North America is totally awesome (and by totally awesome, I mean sweet).

It's a brilliantly brutal revenge film that is violent, visceral, shocking, and absolutely wonderful. If you enjoy very fucked up shit, it's a must see.

Hyedie makes comment on transit suicides and all I can think of is how much of an annoyance they were when I still rode the rails regularly.

While I'm somewhat sympathetic to those who find their lives not worth living, why should they punish me with a long commute when they could punish the ones that drove them to their deaths with an incredibly cruel and guilt provoking showcase of death instead?

Believe you me, if someone ever breaks my will to live I'll at least cost them a few nights of sleep and a fistful of therapy sessions.

Through luck, I stumbled across the dell.ca deal of a 20.1" widescreen LCD last week and spread word of it like oral herpes at a good frat party.

Being chinese, I was genetically predisposed to buying one at the hell hath frozen over price and tonight I finally sit in front of it. 20.1 inches of widescreen monitor means I just about need to turn my head to see both sides of it. It's a rather gorgeous monitor, but it can't quite push blacks like a good tube.

Movies are only ok on this 16:10 beast. My 27" tv which cost much less money than this thing still looks considerably better, but I can't read text worth shit on that big wonderful low res box.

I should feel lucky that I've only got one stuck subpixel (yes kids, that's 1/3 of a pixel), but some unfortunate backlighting means I get to take advantage of Dell's return policy and tell them to ship my ass another one more to my liking at their expense.

The best thing of all though, is that with 1680 pixels of width I can surf two porn sites at once. Technology is grand.

That the people that live upstairs have hardwood floors is not the problem, but that they seem to be walking around naked dropping loose anal beads out of their asses daily is.

How else would I hear small hard objects falling and bouncing on the ground so frequently and at all hours day and night?

I awoke disturbed from my sleep from a dream that saw me unable to organize and order a meal of KFC for my team at work. With a team of 8 requiring different levels of chicken strips, potato salad, fries, chilli (chilli from KFC? wtf?), and big crunch sandwiches I was left disoriented and confused.

So disturbed was I, that I couldn't go back to sleep despite waking up two hours early.

What kind of idiot puts a 12 year old bottle of Crystal Pepsi for sale on ebay?

If that were mine, I'd drink the shit out of it.

Back on the good old topic of zombies, the russians pioneered the reanimation of the dead back in the old days.

see for yourself

Don't be a shitty ass jerk.

When my regular home theatre dealer left his job, I went to his replacement to get some speakers for a friend. I introduced myself, made him aware of my history at the store and asked for a price. He quotes me a price $20 higher than I've grown accustomed to and tell him so. He tells me wholesale has gone up and there's nothing he can do. So I visit another location in the same chain and ask for a quote on the same product. I hear the number I want immediately. Johnny replacement manager over at store A has just lost himself a customer.

I'm going to fuck this guy over $20? Absolutely. In the two years that I have shopped there, I spent and sent $6000 of business their way. I'm an easy customer. I come in knowing what I want, I don't fuck around and waste the day away with stupid questions. Let me listen to the product alone for 10 minutes, give me a reasonable price and I'll pick up the box and leave your store and not phone you asking how to set things up. I tell all my friends about how you're not a shithead and you're not going to fuck him in the ass for a few dollars.

Me and ceebs walk into a&b sound today ready to drop trou and piss his money away. Sales dude number one (who I will refer to as PTR since he looked like a part time rocker) ignored us all the way; he couldn't be bothered to say hi as we browsed the place. Sales dude number two sees us looking at something, says hi, points out a killer deal that they have. 30 minutes later, he's got a sale to make his day and he's on the list of good people to buy shit from. PTR stands around looking on, not making any commission dollars to further his PTR career.

Lesson: don't be a shitty ass jerk because I'm an even bigger one.

My site traffic reporter (reinvigorate.net) has been down for over a month and I'm not sure it's ever coming back.

So I need something new that doesn't suck and is also awesome. Anyone using anything which is the site traffic tracking equivalent of touching oneself first thing in the morning?

Here's the truth: I make awesome mashed potatoes. Come to my seminar and you can too.

1. roast some garlic. (olive oil, salt, wrap in foil and into the oven for an hour at 350F)
2. place peeled and cut russett potatoes into a pot of cold water.
3. Bring the water to a boil and salt it good. It should be about as salty as seawater (or pee). Cook until just tender (10 minutes maybe? keep an eye on it)
4. heat some milk on the stovetop. 2%, whole, whatever.
5. Throw your shitty masher into the garbage and put your hot potatos and roasted garlic through a ricer into a mixing bowl.
6. add the hot milk and butter up in there and fold it together with a spoon.
7. serve with meat and eat the shit out of those potatoes.

It's a pretty low tech recipe but the cold start, salted water, ricer and hot milk make a world of difference.

Typical of when idiots get together in decent enough quantities, we discussed our choice of weapons in case we had to fight off legions of zombies as we watched Dawn of the Dead.

Steve seemed to have trouble decided between a shotgun or a sword before figuring that if in this lifetime he would ever have to fight zombies, he could likely have a shotgun that fired katanas. I thought of the brain smashing mace route myself until steve pointed out that maces are heavy, zombies are plentiful, and I am a wuss. Discussion ranged from magical shotguns (those that never run out of ammo and never kick back with enough force to break your nose), to strapping lawnmowers to your chest and running at the zombies.

I figured given the chance, I'd want to drive this flail loaded de-mining vehicle around making zombie tartare like a french chef from hell.

So have you thought about it? Don't wanna get caught unprepared when the zombie hordes rise from the ground do you?

A shithead kid drags a man to his death while stealing $12 of gas.

I'm at least relieved to know that even if his prison terms are short, his ass will get brutally destroyed while there.

Two years ago on this very blog I called neil, the chef/owner of the Hamilton Street Grill an asshole after an unfortunate (for both of us really) lunchtime incident.

In the time between then and now we, ran into each other at egullet where I became aware that he had read my comments and I read all about the hanger steak and gingerbread pudding he was serving up.

Being one that loves weird cuts of flavorful and textured meat, I let neil know that I might be ready to give his establishment another chance after a very determined boycott of two years. I rounded up the boys and we made our way over for a very nice and anonymous lunch. With a lunch smoothly handled, I was ready to take on a dinner there. With a few private messages sent off, he was prepared to feed us the meat we wanted.

The hanger steak my friends is not a lean, flavorless, soul-less piece of shit steak that merely melts in your mouth (you filet/tenderloin eating asshole). It is a piece of meat that while tender, demands that you chew it. It demands that you taste it and revel in its intense beefiness. It is a damn good steak. Though served a half degree over the rare I prefer it (i am a damn picky bastard), the steak was gorgeous and beautifully charred on the outside. The roasted garlic mash and vegetables served alongside were lovely and the sauteed mushroom side had me moaning quietly to myself.

We ordered the often discussed gingerbread pudding on the side, served with scoops of ginger and pumpkin ice cream. While sweeter than what I generally go for, it was warm, moist, gingery wonderful stuff cut perfectly by the not so sweet ice creams. The last pudding I had being a dry piece of shit bran muffin of a sticky toffee pudding at the alibi room, I was relieved not to have to live that over again.

Neil came by to chat with us, briefly discussing how I called him an asshole on the internet, hot asian girls who can "eat like a fucking machine", and me being too much of a pussy to work in a kitchen.

All in all, a fantastic meal, a feud ended and more cow parts destined for my belly. All is well in ernie land.

If you tried firefox but didn't quite find it shitty enough or found it lacking particularly shitty features that you didn't want or you wanted a shittier interface or just felt it was too damn good for you, you can try Netscape 8 beta.

You fuckin' shitty ass jerk.

On this very rare occasion that I went home for lunch today, it wasn't until after I had finished my meal that I realized that I missed the opportunity to eat lunch in front of the tv wearing only my underwear.

Terrible but funny at the same time. At least, maybe I think this is funny because I'm a bad person.

mental pastiche:

Da Francesco's on Hastings (near slocan) has the best pizza I've had in recent years by far. Thin smoky beautiful crust with a bit of chew and sweet fresh tomato sauce make it worth the trip. That it's only $9-10 for a medium makes it an unbelieveable deal.

My mom switched to telus from fido recently to get a free camera phone, a year of free calls and a plan that's even better than mine (for a 3 year commitment). This just makes me hate telus even more as after four years with them, they didn't offer me anything close to what they offered her for switching providers from fido. The downside was that the camera phone they gave her sucks. Its usability is garbage compared to my sony ericsson and it can't send or receive photos directly to/from me. Then again most of telus' phones seem like something marty brought back to the future with him when the deLorean hit 88mph.

My brother's blog has a reader who seems to think he's a moron but can't stop himself from visiting and getting really worked up over how dumb he thinks my brother is. I think my brother is a moron too but I stopped getting worked up over it years ago.

How come in all sci-fi shooters, weapons in the future suck? You can't kill a guy with single shot anymore. You have to unload like 100 inaccurate laser shots at a guy before he dies. Since lasers don't have any mass, how do they even create recoil when fired? The future is stupid.

Buying a massive HDTV today is like buying a serious stereo system to listen to AM radio with. Today it's hype. Tomorrow that tv will cost half as much. Just hold onto your pants and wait for it.

I know what's best for everyone.