michaelkanyo.com V2 - Journal

Metronews.ca and Parentcentral.ca just launched!

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Hey everyone!

Early this morning the super team and I at Torstar Digital, after months of blood and sweat, launched two of our latest creations.

i. Metro News (http://www.metronews.ca) site redesign - Anyone who has rode public transit in any major city around the world has probably seen or read the Metro newspaper. Well, now you can read the paper on your iPhone while on your commute to and from work with no design-hotness lost!

ii. Parentcentral.ca (http://www.parentcentral.ca) - All new site dedicated to giving new and existing parents knowledge on all things to do with parenthood.

Cheers to everyone who worked on these!

Mike

Parents pad for sale and other news

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Hi everyone,
I think it has been over 3 months since my last post...thats pretty sad - but oh well, I am making a post now - so shut up and read it. haha

My parents house for sale.

As some of you might know my parents are planning on moving to a new home still in Bradford - it's a nice little place with no room for me, but that's ok because I am hoping to move to downtown Toronto later this year sometime after my trip to Greece with Hayley (fingers crossed) so this big place is not really necessary for the 3 people that will still be living in the house after I leave the nest. But before my parents can go to their new place they need to sell their current home that we have lived in for the last 17 or 18 years.

The house has played host to lots of good and bad memories over those 17 or so years, and it will kinda suck leaving it (don't worry the fire pit will be coming with us to the new place), but I am sure the new place will be just as nice. Anyways, I guess if you are interested in the place and would like to see some pictures, just check out the mls listing located at the following link

http://www.mls.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?&propertyId=6704716

There you will find a link to a virtual tour/pictures of some of the rooms in the house.

Oh and I guess you might be wondering what's up with me going to Greece? Well, on May 10th at 745 pm I will be hoping on a plane with Hayley and heading off to my first ever holiday where I am actually going somewhere. This will also just happen to be my very first time on a plane - I AM SO EXCITED! The trip is with Contiki and it looks like we are going to have a blast over there.

Ok I am done writing for now, take it easy everyone!

Mike

Toronto's Santa Claus Parade

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0400

My day started off at 9:30 am when I rolled out of bed not really eager to do much of anything on a cold Sunday morning. I then remembered that I was supposed to be at Hayley's and Enza's place by 10:30 am, just to make sure we head downtown and don't get stuck standing in the back of a huge crowd of people wondering what all the floats and people in costumes looked like.

So I sat down in the kitchen, flipped through the paper and made a phone call to Hayley. She didn't seem fazed that I wasn't even remotely ready to head down, in fact she was pretty supportive. She went on to tell me not to worry about hurrying, as Theresa won't be there until 11 so that would probably be a better time for us (Brad, Melissa and myself) to get there.

By 10:00 AM I am still sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper. This time I am eating some Lucky Charms and watching Henry tear the socks that just happen to be on my feet, apart - his teeth are getting quite sharp now so his bites now hurt. 10:20 AM (or shortly before) - I decided I should get a shower and shave, since I felt pretty gross. Then by 10:35 AM - Me and Melissa hop in my car and go and pick up Brad.

The drive down to Hayley's place went smooth, it was not until we actually go to Hayley's place that things got interesting.

I called Hayley when I was about a block away from her place, she told me that there was a parking spot right in front of the entrance to her place, but when I got there Melissa realized that there was a fire hydrant right beside my car and that I could not park in that spot unless I wanted a ticket.

Frig.

So I pulled out and did a few circles looking for an empty spot, until we realized that there was a spot on the other side of the road. I felt pretty dumb.

Hayley doing research on where the parade actually is.

We were in Hayley's place by 11:30 I think, so we made pretty good time. And after staying at Hayley's for a few minutes where we tried to figure out where the parade actually was going to be, we were off to the parade.

Brad, Melissa, Theresa and Hayley walking to the subway

The subway was somewhat packed but I kind of expected it to be much worse seeing that there was an Argo and Raptors game going on, plus a bunch of other events going on in Toronto. Good thing we didn't drive down, because traffic would have blown.

We got to the parade somewhat early, so we decided to get something to eat. I had a single beer which in reality should have been MANY beers, maybe then I would have been to drunk to feel how cold I was (I know thats a bad thing but I am just throwing the drinking in cold weather thing out there for shits and giggles). We left our place of food getting and arrived at our spot (somewhere between Queen and Dundas) where we stood and watched the parade go by.

The parade was filled with tons of clowns and other fun things like that.
Gwilly and his friends

There was even a float with Gwilly! Yeah that's right, our stupid mascot from Bradford made it to the big times... And as you can see he's not just a passenger - he's the one driving! Props to Gwilly not getting bitch. Btw... those Radishes beside him are not wearing seat belts, there's something you should be showing during a children's parade. Hey if the Radishes don't have to wear seat belts, why should we?

Santa!

It was a pretty fun yet freezing cold day. Next time we go we are going to make sure we do the following things:

- Wear warmer pants
- Wear my fur hat (applies to me only)
- Don't stand in the cold mud garden on University
- Bring lawn chairs
- Bring drinks (cold or warm who cares)
- Bring blankets
- Wear warmer shoes

If you missed the parade, were in it or are just curious. You can see all of the parade pictures that I took (300+) by going to the following link: http://www.flickr.com/gp/85632980@N00/49GRV9 or to my photos page: http://www.michaelkanyo.com/photos/

Mike

First Snowfall of the Year!

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Part of my backyard covered in snow

This morning the lucky residents of Bradford, Barrie, Newmarket and well any town north of Steeles Ave where the anti frozen precipitation bubble begins, received their first snowfall of the year!

Wooooooo!

Hopefully this is a sign that this winter will be nicer to all of the snow sports individuals such as myself who live in Southern Ontario and had to suffer through a miserable winter last year.

Cheers,

Mike

Concert and Kitten

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Hello everybody,

This post was intended to be made on Friday but I was not near a computer after work so here it goes anyways:

Last night (Thursday night) Jenn and myself went to the Yellowcard concert at the Pheonix. It was my first REAL indoor concert and I thought it was pretty good even though it was in a small venue.

Waiting in line to get into the Pheonix we were behind a rather muscular lady who was dressed in a super short red dress. She was eating a peach and after she was done she asked Jenn and I if there was anything in here teeth, if her lipstick was fine and I think if there was anything on her face. Now this would seem pretty normal but no only was she using a cane, holding a bag with a wrapped present inside, and dressed to impress at a Yellowcard concert but I did not and still do not think she was a she. She was totally a dude and we referred to her as "Lady in red".

The opening bands were Rise Again (ya I thought it was Rise Against too - who were from Australia but I thought I heard them say Oshawa... haha my bad) and some other emo band who kinda sucked but were pretty funny. Yellowcard was good, wayyyyyy better than what you hear on cd. Pete (bass) noticed Jenn in the audience and for almost every song they played, either winked at her or crotched rocked right in front of her/everyone else in the front left corner of the stage. It was funny stuff. Oh and I guess I should mention we were in the very front, right at the fence. It was loud and I loved it. Wooooo good times!

At the end of the concert the Yellowcard band mates were tossing out all of their stuff to the crowd. Sean (violin/vocals) threw out one of Ryan's (vocals/guitar), and guess who retrieved it?! Not me, but Jenn did! Wooo. It was a really neat memento for me since it's one of my favorite bands and my first indoor concert. I will be framing it and putting it into my rec room soon :)

That was what happened on Thursday, last month during a weeks holiday that I took just to take it easy and do nothing me and my sister got a kitten:

Henry

He is now 8 weeks old I think and just received his first shots.

Night everyone!

Mike

Last Fridays trip to London

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0400

After waiting till quarter to seven at work (hanging out with Chi Chi and D-Ho) on Friday afternoon, I finally headed to Union Station where I would meet Josh and then head up to Yorkdale where our highway adventure would begin. This trip to London had been in the works for almost two weeks now and everything should have went smoothly - so we thought. This is the story of Mike and Josh's extremely good weekend in London.

Our adventure begins on the 401 westbound at 8:14 pm

We depart Yorkdale mall at 8:14pm and head west on the 401 towards our destination - London! We were both pumped and looking forward to what we thought would be a nice and comfortable two and a half hour drive to the lower end of Ontario. We had our music blaring and traffic was moving nicely, then came the chance to gain some time and maybe get to London earlier than scheduled - take the 407 to the point where it ends, which should be the 401...right? Wow was I ever wrong.

Stopping to get gas somewhere between the 401/407 on-ramp and Niagra

We took the 407 for about 20 minutes, which was how long it took me to realize that the 407 does not connect or even get close to the 401. It in-fact brings you to the Niagra region not the London area... so I pulled over to get some gas since I hardly had any left when we left Yorkdale, and check out the map. I could have kept going till I got to the 403 where I would go west again and end up just a slight bit under London. But since both Josh and I know nothing about that area, we thought it would be best to just head back to the 401 and go on the path that we were supposed to be going on. So we headed back to the 401 with some soda and pretzels in hand.

Traffic jam from hell

Driving 20 minutes back to the 401 and then heading a little further down the 401 was a breeze. Then we ran into the traffic jam from hell. I have no idea where on the map it started but we were stuck in traffic for about two and half to three hours. Music can only help so much until you start going crazy from doing nothing. Josh was fine, he had a few naps here and there and was just loving every minute of it. Being insanely bored as I was, I decided to keep track of some stupid pieces of info that kept me awake. Here are some stats that I managed to remember:
- Top Speed (lasted about 5 seconds):50 km/ph.
- Average Speed:10 km/ph - I was not accelerating, I was letting the engine coast along.
- Longest point in time where we did not move an inch:20 minutes.

During the traffic jam, I noticed that there was this one R/V that seemed as if it were circling us. I could have sworn that I had passed this guy at least 6 times, but he kept getting ahead of me. It was the weirdest thing, and having the guy cut us of so many times was getting on the nerves of both Josh and I. So we flipped the driver the bird and continued on our way, never to see him again.

McDonalds

It was now 12 am on Saturday and we were starving, I had not eaten anything since those pretzels earlier on in our trip and I needed a break. Miraculously a McDonalds popped out of nowhere! I cut off a few people (sorry people) and flew up the on-ramp towards the service stop. This place was packed. There had to have been at least 200 or more people crammed into this building, all lined up or already eating.

We got in line and were in such a happy positive mood that we chatted it up with some very cute women who were lined up just in front of us. One of them mentioned that there was an 18 wheeler on fire some 40-60 km down the road... that was a crappy thing to hear. Then it was time for us to order!

My burger

I ordered a quarter pounder meal and Josh had to be unique and get a stupid custom burger which took forever to make. This McDonalds meal was the first McDonalds meal I have had since November of last year... I was not happy about having to eat it, but it was the only thing to eat and I was sooooooo hungry.

More traffic!

After eating we headed back out onto the damned highway, and guess what we were greeted with - MORE TRAFFIC! Woooo good times. This time we were only stuck for a short time until we were free!

We ended up arriving at Brendan's place just shortly after 1:30 am on Saturday. It was a little over 5 hours of driving... and I was exhausted. I had a beer, chatted with everyone for a bit then went to sleep.

That stupidly long drive on Friday night really did a number on me for the weekend I think but all in all the weekend was great! We played lots of frisbee, played with Brendan and Tara's two pups, played some NHL 07 on Brendan's XBOX 360, had some drinks at some of their local pubs/clubs and just relaxed for once somewhere that I have very little knowledge of. It was great being somewhat new to everything around me.

On Saturday night Brendan and I had some shots called "Polar Bears" at this place called the Frog or something like that. It was Banana Liquor and Mint Liquor - so good!

Next trip should hopefully have a lot shorter commute and I am totally looking forward to doing this weekend or something like it again. Should be fun.

Thats it for the story though, the drive home was pretty uneventful. I drove from London to Oshawa and then to Bradford. I have no clue how many km's I covered but it took me just over four and a half hours to get home. Lots of driving for the weekend, but I did it all on pretty much one tank of gas - Goooo Jetta!

The end.

Mike

Shayne and Julie get married.

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Shayne and Julie getting married

Yesterday I attended the marriage of Julie Kell to Shayne Kanyo (my cousin). The wedding itself was held in a nice quaint church in Gilford, while the wedding party was held on the Barrie lake shore - GOOD TIMES! Congratulations and best wishes go out to the both of them.

In other news, today my family and I celebrated Kristine's 20th birthday!

Happy Birthday Beenie!

Mike

My super awesome weekend recap

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

My weekend began as it normally does with me leaving work and heading out for some drinking and fun times. I took my time to enjoy the nice downtown weather, meet a super kick ass band (ST.ALVIA CARTEL - who were performing a free concert at the Amped Mobile store across from my work) and to listen to music on my iPod while being oblivious to anything and everyone around me. I didn't get to stay and watch St.Alva because I was being forced to walk away to catch my train which I never ended up catching after... LILY! But thats ok, there is always a next time. My Friday night was filled with lots of drinks and good times all around. Woooo

The next morning I had a tee off scheduled for 833 at Innisbrook Golf Course for my uncle, dad and I. Everything but my putting was working for me on this day. We did not get to finish a full round of golf, as the sky's opened up on the 12th hole. It's too bad though because I just finished making the longest drive I have ever made - 309 yards (and yes it rolled...it rolled a lot into the sand at the right of the pin).

Once getting home from golf, I had a short nap - it was great. I was awakened from my nap by my good friend Ralph who traveled far and wide to take part in my non-planned fun ass weekend.

We started off our night with a few games of billiards, where I unfortunately lost all of my games and most of my family members in some bets that I would like to take back. Oh well, Melissa needed to go anyways.

Now for the meat and potatoes of the whole weekend.

Our next planned event was to go watch Transformers with Melissa and Brad, but they wimped out and decided to rent some crappy movie and stay home. Arriving in Newmarket without Melissa and Brad, I changed my mind and thought it would be more fun if we went to the drive-in. So we high-tailed it back to Bradford, got all of our crap (food, lawn chairs and other shit) and then Flash Gordoned our asses to the drive-in. We made it just 10 minutes into the movie (Jenn informed me what actually happened in those 10 minutes that I missed during lunch today - wooooo).

The Drive-In

The movie was freaking awesome. If you have not seen it, and remember watching Transformers when you were younger and even if you didn't watch it when you were younger and really don't remember much of your childhood - WATCH IT you will not regret it. We were a little further away from the screen than what I would have preferred but when you have giant robots and shit flying around, you don't really need to be up close and personal to the screen. Transformers (especially Bumble Bee and Optimus) = Awesome!

Ralph and I with Optimus

On the way home from the movies, we decided to get something from Timmy Hoes since we (me especially) just froze our asses off at the drive-in. Pulling into Timmy's I spotted a truck that look really familiar, almost as if I had just seen it just hours before. Then it hit me (actually Ralph did), it was Optimus Prime!! We quickly jumped out of the car and well the rest is history. Optimus didn't transform or do anything which was a bit of a bummer but hey, how many people can say they bumped into Optimus Prime at the entrance way to Tim Hortons?

Ralph and the Optimus look-a-like

The next morning, Ralph and I decided to get some breakfast/lunch at Husky. Usually Hayley accompanies me during this ritual like meal, but she was not answering her phone that she used to call me only two hours before.

After eating I decided to give Ralph a full fledged tour of Bradford and everything it has to offer. The drive took about 10 minutes and it was done.

Hayley diving for the frisbee

Hayley arrived at my house shortly before dinner. We all ate dinner and had a super great time. Feeling like we all just gained 20 lbs in food, I suggested going out to play frisbee. Once again, Melissa and Brad decided to be a tad antisocial and stay home, so Ralph, Hayley and I made our way to the Lions Park to throw around a plastic disc and take some pictures of us doing so.

After throwing the frisbee around we were all tired, so we headed back to my place where both Ralph and Hayley said their goodbyes to me and headed back home.

It was a super fun weekend that was capped off when I found out that Hayley and Enza are going to be roomies downtown! Weeee

Thats all for now,

Cheers!

Mike

New glasses, strawberry's and Jenn's favorite movie

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0400

You got it, I managed to finally find a pair of glasses that I am willing to live with. Now, I am way too tired to elaborate any more or even take some pictures of the glasses, but pictures will be popping up eventually on here soon.

In other news, my sister arrived home today and brought some strawberry's in with her! I love strawberry's and I totally need to eat fruits more often as my diet has been on a nose dive since I posted about eating healthy for a week.

By the way, Jenn's favorite movie is Titanic. She is a little ashamed of this but I think it took a lot of courage to allow me to post that bit of information so no one give her a hard time about it.

Sorry Jenn.

Mike

Good times digging a hole

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Yesterday Hayley, my father and I went and purchased a tree. But not just any tree, we purchases a Chestnut Tree that is about 15 ft tall and has a root ball on it that is 32 inches wide - its a big boy. Anyhow, the tree farm workers will be dropping it off either Tuesday or Wednesday so a hole needed to be dug for the tree to be plopped into, and I was the one chosen to do this wonderful job.

My hole

It has been a while since I last did any manual labor, but I think I held my own pretty well. The hole needed to be 40 inches wide and 2 feet deep, which is not really that big of a hole except for the fact that I was digging in clay... really hard subdivision clay, which was filled with bricks, wood, rocks and other hard small things that were in the way for every single plunge of my shovel or hoe. All complaining aside, I finished digging the hole in a few hours , got a bit of a sun burn, drank a lot of water and beer, and then went out for dinner with Hayley where I ate some spaghetti dish.

Hayley in my hole

Good times...

Cheers,

Mike

New Wheels.ca launched

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Today at or sometime after 2:30pm today, the team and I at Torstar Digital pushed out our latest project - the redesign and rebuilding of wheels.ca! Wheels.ca is a place where you can find information on just about any car out on the market, past or present. Information that just might help you in your decision of your next vehicle purchase. And if your not looking into buying a new or old vehicle, it's just an awesome place to check out pictures, reviews, dealer maps and news/events from in and around the automotive industry.

This site is one of the best, if not THE BEST place to find information on vehicles, automotive news, and anything else going on in with the auto industry around the world today. It has many new features that will set it apart from the other auto sites out there and I am proud to have been able to work on it.

wheels.ca

Great job team!

Mike

My weekend.

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

My weekend went as follows:

Friday
- Hayley took off on a jet plane to backpack around Europe, no one really knows when she will be back again.
- Met up with Tammy at her place of employment, where we both then headed off to the Irish Embassy where Bradelissa would meet us. Lena arrived shortly after and we all had a merry time.
- At the Irish Embassy, I had my usually Fish and Chips, while the rest of my party had some other stuff that I really don't remember what the dishes were called but they looked really delicious.
- Tammy also let us in on a little secret: Shes getting a car! Wooo. I think she's getting a Nissan tiny car... the actual name of it I can't really remember.
- Leaving Irish Embassy and walking towards Union Station, Tammy and myself were trying to set up a shot of her jumping in the air... we finally got it after 3 shots (my gallery).
- Upon our arrival at Union Station, I needed to break $5 to get a TTC coin. Some sketchy looking guy offered to give me a coin and break my $5. I gave him my cash, he gave me my change and my TTC coin and I walked up to the turnbuckle where I was denied entry until I walked through the "guarded" entry...Im not going to embellish anymore on this part of the story because I think that sketchy guy gave me a fake.

Saturday
- I am pretty sure I slept in... and then watched a bunch of movies in order to do as little as humanly possible.
- Later in the day I went to Georgian Downs to go bid or some horse races. I WON $5.45! And Melissa won something like $102.00...

Sunday (today)
- Added some pagination to my photo gallery since my collection is getting rather large.
- Painted the spindles on the main stairway in the house... should have taken pictures but forgot.
- Typed this.

Mike

The day two greats did great things

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Tammy

As some of you may know already, our good friend Tammy Amaral has done the unthinkable. She has triumphed over all nay-sayers, abolished all abolish-worthy abolishites...and has gone out onto our scary and heavily weathered/unmaintained roads, to impress the shit out of her driving examiner and be awarded her G LICENSE! This magnificent achievement was accomplished at around 2:30 pm today and was transcribed best by her confidant: "Yay tammy got her G :) she's my rockstar superstar - Lena". Well done Tammy, well done.

After 6 months of turmoil and inconceivable hardship, the extraordinarily fantastic Enza finally got her gig! I am a little late in reporting this but it is such a momentous occasion that nothing this massive should be left to dwell in the back of just a few of her close friends minds. One good friend, scholar, master of the visual arts and proven genius summed up this momentous event by saying: "Brilliant, that was f---ing brilliant. - Anton Pasquarella". I could not agree anymore, well said. Her new job located somewhere on King street west near Spadina - which is less that 5 minutes from where I work, so lunch breaks with Enza will become MUCH MUCH more frequent. Enza - you are awesome.

Stay tuned, for in my next post I will be summarizing all of the greatness and disrepute from the first ever Achiever vs. Achiever - Battle Royale. Where the two lady's noted above will be battling for interstellar super achiever glory!

By the way, my new t-shirt from threadless.com arrived - sweet!

Mike

Eating healthy for a week and stupid buttons in jeans!

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

At the beginning of this week I challenged myself to eat as healthy as I possibly could to see if it would make me have more energy, be happier, and just do nothing but good stuff for me. So during the week I restrained myself from eating any deep fried food or anything that is high in trans fats and other bad shit, and replaced that bad food with salad and lots of chicken and or sushi and some pasta...but not too much pasta. Now some of you are probably saying to yourself, rice and pasta isn't super good for you...well tough - I am better off eating that instead of fries and deep fried stuff with lots of salt.

My overall feeling about my small attempt at a healthy lifestyle is that I do have a little more energy and I do feel a little bit better but I by no means feel like a new person... I think I am going to need to do some running or working out or something else. But I am still happy and thought I put forth a valiant effort in not eating extremely unhealthy food - its all about baby steps.

In other news, last night I went to the Eaton Center with Lily in an attempt to find some new spring/summer clothing for myself - but my main goal was to just find a nice pair of pants and or dark jeans.

We started off at the normal places like the Gap and some other place but I was not really impressed by the jeans and any of their clothing for that matter. All of the clothing just looked and felt so crappy. We then started going to places like Hollister, Abercrombie and other stores, where I started to notice a pattern with all of the mens jeans... They were all using those stupid buttons instead of a zipper for the groin area! WHY?! Personally, I think that is the most inconvenient clothing design ever because unlike a zipper crotch, these jeans take time to come off and well sometimes they need to go down in a hurry (ie Drinking a few liters of water and having to go to the washroom). I know I am making a big deal out of a little thing but the buttons are a pain in the butt to button-up and down due to the tight stitching.

So if anyone out there knows of any decent manufacturers or suppliers of quality mens jeans and or pants, please let me know. This is also open to you people who work for a pants manufacturer, and would like to get some exposure. Just don't spam, and by spamming I mean posting more than a few times saying the same thing over and over... that would not be cool.

Thats all for now though!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Mike

Happy Easter and too bad so sad for the Leafs

Sun, 8 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Happy Easter everyone!

After eating an insane amount of food in the past few days I am now in a very slow mellow state - which is great because it gives me a chance to post something on here and break my month long streak of no posts. So here I go with my rant:

The Leafs were looking like they might get lucky and sneak into the playoffs after last nights win against Montreal but they didn't - oh well. During the game last night, Toronto didn't really play all that solid, they just played better than Montreal who were very inconsistent in their push to win the game and just sucked an awful lot more than the Leafs. Montreal had tons of chances with Raycroft playing one of his worst games of the season (he never did get to finish the game due to his lackluster play) but couldn't pull anything major together. Hopefully Raycroft will either be traded next year so he can progress with another team with less pressure on him or smarten up and play with a little more heart than what he showed last night, come the start of next season.

The final outcome after a year of struggles and injuries for the Leafs was exactly what was expected of them, which was to just get close to the playoffs. They never were intended on being an actual contender, so its not a complete disappointment that they didn't make the playoffs. What was a disappointment was when John Furguson had chances during the trade deadline to pick up some players to help the team get to the playoffs but instead decided to do absolutely nothing and keep the team as is. And funny enough, the team who did do all the trading and picking up of rental players made it to the playoffs just tonight (Islanders).

If anything major needs to be done to the Leafs over the summer, that would be to fire Furguson and get someone else who might attempt to make the team better instead of trading away all of the younger talent coming through the juniors.

Any how, there is always next year.

Hope you all had a great weekend and I guess its time to start cheering for the next best team other than the Leafs right now...Go Calgary!

Mike

Enzas Birthday Celebrations

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Good evening everyone,

Tonight I went with a bunch of my friends out for dinner and then for tea and or coffee. It was fun and great and I am way too tired right now to get into the details, so I will just let you know where you can see the pictures. I will get into details tomorrow when I have some energy to do so.

Without any further adieu, heres the links:

- To view the pics on my site click here
-To view the pics in the Flickr set click here

Have a good night

Mike

Olde Spaghetti Factory with Tammy and Lena

Tue, 6 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Tonight Tammy, Lena and myself went out for our weekly dinner session to the Olde Spaghetti Factory in Toronto. It was supposed to be the Irish Embassy (my favorite pub currently) but I screwed that up by switching the date from tomorrow to tonight. Anyhow, we had a good time. I did not know so much food came with my meal just because I ordered spaghetti...I ended up getting salad, bread, spaghetti, tea and ice cream for dessert. I should have read the menu a little more carefully as the waiter did not seem impressed when I was asking him a lot of questions. Oh well.

I am going to cut this entry short and let you all know where you can see some pictures taken while out about tonight. Heres where you can see the pictures:

- You can go to my photos page.
OR
- You can click here and view my flickr set.

Have a nice warm night everyone and dont eat too much Jesus Cake!

Cheers!

Mike

My super awesome commute home

Mon, 5 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Tonight all hell broke loose on the roads in and around Bradford due to the weather. At sometime this evening there was an 80 plus car pile up on highway 400, along with accidents on highways 11 and 27. All of these accidents put together forced all directions of traffic to redirect their route through Bradford.

Map of my wonderful stupid storm adventure.

My adventure began at the train station this evening where just before reaching the Bradford train station when looking out the windows, I noticed that there was a massive traffic jam all the way from East Gwillimbury to Bradford. I thought to myself that someone must have either gone off the bridge into the canal or had been t-boned coming out of the Beaver gas station. I was super wrong. Once getting off the train at 6:30pm with my good friend Evelyn (my sidekick in this adventure) and after cleaning off my car from all the snow we received, I headed towards Dissette where I cutt of an 18 wheeler in order just to get onto the road. He was being a dick and was not going to let me in so since I had my snow tires on and I had traction, I forced myself into the spot in front of him. I thought the ride would be a short one until I heard on the radio that all major roads heading north out of Bradford were closed. Both Evelyn and I had a good chuckle cause we realized it would be a long time sitting in my car. Even the people on the radio were cracking jokes about how everything was screwed up, it was to be a living hell on the roads tonight.

After waiting 15 minutes or more on Dissette we headed west on Britannia Ave where our goal was to cross highway 11 to get to the north west side of town (Bradford is pretty much cut in half via highway 11, also known as Younge Street and Barrie Street). We thought everything would be smooth sailing once we got off Dissette because there was no traffic in front and behind us. That was until we reached the end of Britannia Ave where there was ANOTHER traffic jam with people trying to head to Younge Street. So being the smart one I am, I drove around the traffic and headed south on Colborne St then west again on John Street where I was greeted by a Pontiac sliding down the hill due to the lack of good tires or decent driving abilities - so I went around him as well because he was taking too long. At this point it is now 7:15 and I am stuck at the stop sign at John Street and Nelson Street and both Evelyn and I are getting aggravated. She calls Tiffany and I call Hayley. Tiffany is telling her that everything is messed up and that it took her 2 hours to get accross town, and Hayley is telling me that she has a cold and that she wont be bringing us a hot chocolate or keeping us company in the car even though she lives only 5 minutes away - we totally understood why she could not greet us with her presence (hope your feeling beter by the way Hayley).

Waiting at John and Nelson for a good 15 minutes more I had finally had enough waiting at this stop sign so I went onto the other side of the road and traveled towards the stop sign at John and Younge Street. I was so happy to be moving, even though I was on the wrong side of the road and there was a cop with his lights flashing behind me. Once reaching the stop sign though, I was faced with a wall of cars. No one was moving an inch on Younge Street. All I needed to do was cross this road and I would be home free. Unfortunately, some dumb ass in his Chrysler was blocking the way from getting across highway 11. This guy had a car length in front and a car length behind him and he could have easily moved out of the way to let people who live in town get through. But seeing as how he is an idiot and thinks he is the only one on the road, he did not move. So we went around him as well.

After that I headed across John Street then north onto Church Street where a Hyundai Santa Fe was spinning its all wheel drive tires trying to get up the hill - I went around him as well. After that it was smooth sailing. I dropped Evelyn off at home and then drove myself home as well. I would have gotten home quicker but some guy in a beater was spinning his tires at the stop sign at Northgate Dr and Hudson Cr.

I arrived home at roughly 8pm and my total travel time was approximately one and a half hours from the Bradford train station to my driveway or three hours from Union Station to my driveway. So it took me the same time to drive home from the train station in my town to my house as it took to ride the train to get to the train station in Bradford tonight.

Overall this was a wonderful experience and I am glad I had plenty of gas in my car and wish I had my camera with me. Hope you all had a great drive home tonight.

Cheers!

Mike

The train was a sardine can

Thu, 1 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Happy first of the month everyone!

I managed to finish that book that I mentioned last Saturday and well, it was not that bad. Like any book, it had its ups and downs but it was a good read never the less.

In other news, Toronto and well pretty much all of the GTA was hit by a little winter storm that made the commute home from work a bitch this evening. Leaving work early so not to be stuck downtown due to train delays, I was faced by a packed 4:10 pm train that was literally bursting with would be passengers who were all arguing and bickering with each other in order to force themselves on to the train. It kind of reminded me of the movie Titanic when the ship was going down and everyone was panicking and doing crazy things (jumping off the boat) in order to move to a better place in line or off the ship in the case of the movie. Anyhow, people on the platforms were being incredibly dumb crossing the tracks and just pushing and shoving themselves into a spot where they think the train doors of the train will stop and I missed the 4:10 pm train and ended up taking the 4:40 pm train which was not nearly as packed as the 4:10 pm - so it's all good!

Just before writing this entry, I watched Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. And all I have to say is that it was one funny movie. A little random but very funny either way.

Have a good night and drive safely tomorrow morning if you live in the GTA - the roads might be a little crappy.

Cheers

Mike

Farm cleanup and then dinner and Chapters

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Today I woke up with a bit of a headache after partying it up at the VI last night with Hayley, sister and Bradley Bradley. Hayley and I were having shots of tequila and Banana Popsicles all night and even had the pleasure of taking a few shots with Julie Goy and Tiffany Simpson (I haven't seen them in a while - they were lots of fun).

After cleaning up at the farm and carrying all the heavy shit and not having enough time to take some pictures (the place is a typical old farm where some decent pictures could be taken, so I will eventually get to doing that), I came home and relaxed for a bit until heading out with Hayley, my sis, and Bradley Bradley to East Side Marios and then Starbucks.

At East Sides I ate my usual, accompanied by a few pints of the brew. The whole night Bradley Bradley was using the word facetious in just about any way he possibly could so all three of us - well everyone but me - were starting to wonder what the exact meaning of that word was. So after getting our coffees and cafe mochas and teas at Starbucks, we headed over to the reference area of Chapters to find out what that word meant.

Melissa and Brad researching what facetious means.

fa.ce.tious

1. not meant to be taken seriously or literally: a facetious remark.
2. amusing; humorous.
3. lacking serious intent; concerned with something nonessential, amusing, or frivolous: a facetious person.
(dictionary.com)

So once finding out the meaning to that incredibly complex word, we headed home and said our good byes and called it a night.

On a completely non-related note, some of you have been asking me where I host my photos in my gallery. Well I use flickr and am using the API to grab them and display them into my gallery. My flickr page is located at the following URL (just in case any of you want to comment on my photos): http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkanyo/.

Have a nice night everyone,

Mike

New camera and a book to read on the stupid train

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0400

February has been a pretty craptastic month when it comes to me posting on here. I have no excuses, I have just been too busy to take a few minutes to post something. But things should change as I bought a new digital camera to replace my old one which took a good two seconds to take a picture (thats a little exaggerated but it had a pretty bad response time). So new pictures will be coming soon and with the nicer weather coming, its only a matter of time till the beach shots start popping up.

The book I purchased tonight was Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures - by Vincent Lam. From what I read in the synopsis, it seems like a pretty good book. I will be reading it on the train because my good friend Jamie has decided to stay home for the remainder of the month and probably on to next month as well, and do his work from there. Nick is still looking for a gig but he's a super smart dude so its just a matter of time till he finds his calling. So until one of them come back on the train, I am left to sit by my lonesome and read a book or sit and think about what my place will look like or just plan the day I move out.

Have a nice night everyone,

Mike

I need new glasses

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Yesterday I went with my sister and Bradley Bradley to Yorkdale to look at getting a new set of prescription glasses. We went to all of the stores in that mall and Melissa managed to find a set but they turned out to be the exact same pair she already owns - so she did not get them. Me on the other hand, found absolutely nothing. All of the stores had either all chick glasses or only had a small selection of glasses that I liked. It seems that all of these stores are stocking up on the style of glasses that my old crappy set are styled under - black metal frame with those stupid nose pieces that leave two little red marks on the bridge of your nose. My glasses suck so I will be getting a new set within the next few weeks hopefully.

For lunch we went to Milestones which was yummy. I didn't know that they serve breakfast all day long on weekends... The food was good but didn't come close to Husky's breakfast.

In other news, the leafs lost last night to the Pens, 6-5 in OT. They did manage to come back from being down 3-0 which was the best thing about the night, and Montreal lost as well so that makes everything better.

Have a good Sunday everyone,

Mike

Hump day.

Wed, 7 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0400

It is freaking freezing outside today, and to make matters worse I have had a cold for the past few days which has made me super grumpy. On a brighter note, there is really only two months left till warmer weather arrives. I can not wait till the thermometer reaches 29C instead of -29C...Happy hump day everyone.

Mike

I finally got my Christmas present!

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

After one and three quarter months (Melissa ordered it on Dec 19th) I finally got my Christmas present from Melissa! She unfortunately had to go through a lot to get it and did not even end up getting it from the wonderful people at golfsmith.com who she originally ordered the club from. Now I don't fully know if it was our wonderfully shit postal service, or the US crap postal service that dropped the ball on the shipment, but someone screwed up and didn't know what else to do but send it back to Golfsmith. In fact, one of the phone operators at Golfsmith, told her that it could take up to 2 months to deliver something to Canada from the US... YA FRIGIN RIGHT. Anyhow there is a LOT more to the story and in the end she ended up getting the club from Golf Town who I have never had a problem with and should have gone in the first place.

My new club - Titleist Vokey Spin Milled Wedge 56-14

Today was also my moms birthday! She has asked me not to mention how old she is now so I will just throw a random number out there and say she is now 49!

And in other news, the Leafs beat Carolina 4-1!

Mike

I went snowboarding!

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Ok before I talk about my wonderful day of snowboarding, I would like to talk about last night and well later yesterday in general. Yesterday I went to the doctors and I have to get a whole crap load of tests done, all of which I am not looking forward to. After going to the doctors, I came home and had dinner with my parents, Melissa, Bradley Bradley and Hayley. It was a very yummy dinner and I was really getting into the wine that Hayley brought over. So into it in fact that I didn't want the party to end. We all decided to walk over to my aunts house (also Lolas house) because it was my auts (Lolas mom) birthday. Me and Hayley decided to take our drinks along with us, and instead of making it obvious that it was a beverage that contained alcohol (police officers around here are very stingy on that kind of thing), we put them in our coffee mugs.

Me and Hayley walking down my street with our drinks which are a precautionary measure needed to prevent dehydration.

Enough about last night, today Melissa, Bradley Bradley and myself went to Horseshoe for a fun filled day of snowboarding and skiing. This was our first time this year and I was super excited. I got new bindings last year and aligned them up without ever testing them. So today was a test run for my newish bindings. After riding I realized that I need to fix a few things on the alignment but other than those few things today was quite good. The snow wasn't the greatest... kinda icy in some spots but it was good enough for a first outing of the season.

I did not take my camera as I forgot it at home, but I wouldn't have been able to take pictures because the camera would have probably busted because of the extreme cold.

I am kinda out of shape so I am a little sore now from twisting and turning and use of muscles that I don't use when I am sitting at my chair in the office, so I am going to lay down now and watch a movie on my new plasma... it is gynormous (the tv that is).

Mike

Damn PC's

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

I know this post is super late in the making but it is nothing as bad as my good friend Tammy and her blog: tammyamaral.com. Anyhow, earlier this week my last pc finally died today... for those of you wondering which one it was, it was the "fridge server". After many years of service and torture, this thing's motherboard finally crapped out on me. This is the third PC to have its motherboard die on me, but this time the crapping out period was much less eventful compared to what happened to my parents computer where when the motherboard died, it caused the RAM to catch on fire.

Now some of you are probably saying to yourself "who the hell cares about your computers mike.", but this is major as I am now running on 100% Apple / Unix products and consequently 0% Windows shit. Which is wonderful. As a side note, I do have Virtual PC running on one of my macs still just to test site builds on a PC.

In other news, it is currently -20 degrees celsius (before wind chill) outside right now and has been for the past two days here. Good to see winter is finally here.

Happy snowboarding everyone!

Mike

Leafs beat Tampa!

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

After biting the bullet against Vancouver, the Leafs were looking pretty crappy coming into tonights game. Raycroft has been completely off his game as of late, and really is not getting much help from the rest of his teammates. Tonight was a completely different story though, Raycroft was amazing and in my eyes was the best player on the ice tonight. He made some amazing stops and actually looked like the guy who was Rookie of the year just a few seasons ago. The rest of the team actually played like a team and ended up tallying 4 goals to beat Tampa 4-2.

Next up are the Panthers who I feel should be an easier opponent, but thats what everyone thought about Vancouver after Toronto manhandled Buffalo.

I will be out for dinner on Thursday night but hope to catch some highlights of the game.Will post some pics of the night out though :)

Mike

Apple iTV $299 in Apple Canada Store!

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

So I was searching around this morning when I thought I would check out the Apple store to check out the new iPhone (Freaking hot - I will be getting one) and the new iTv which I was never really sold on because I currently do not download any movies off iTunes due to my slow ass bandwidth. I went the the US store homepage first and they were selling the iTv at $299 US before taxes, and I did not really think much about it. Then I went to the bottom of the page, selected "Canada" as my country and waited for the page to load. When the page finally loaded I was surprised to see that there were two feature images for the iTv... one image was stating that the iTv was $299 and the other was just saying buy now. Now I knew right away that this was a screw up because there were two feature images on the same page, and Apple does not usually do that...

And when you clicked on either of the images you were brought to a page that was not the same as the home page - it was actually selling for $349...bummers.

Now I know this is not a big deal or anything important but I just thought I would post what I noticed this morning because I thought it was kinda neat in a weird way...wow I am bored.

In other news, the temperature dropped to -6 here last night and the weather dude said we were supposed to get snow... well we didn't - SUPRISE.

Mike

Winter came and then went

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

On Wednesday most of Ontario was blessed with seasonal temperatures of -4 or something like that, accompanied with rain which turned into snow due to the cold. Bradford received about 5 cm of snow which is really not much but seeing as how this winter has been insanely warm, that much snow is more than welcome. That snow is all gone now due to the temperature turning to 6 degrees and rain which really blows. The weather dude is saying that we are supposed to have a snow storm on Monday which is awesome.

Seeing as I am talking about weather in this entry, I was at my grandparents house this evening and they had the 2007 Farmers Almanac. In the almanac there are articles on what the weather, crops, and basically everything will be like for 2007. One of the articles was explaining how global warming is a good thing, which made me laugh because the points they were saying were completely materialistic and really one dimensional. For example did you know that global warming is melting snow and providing more water for everyone, which for the almanac is a great thing because more water means more rain, and more rain means that their crops will be watered all the time and they wont have to water them as much using giant sprinklers - but what about the polar bears?! These almanac dudes obviously did not think about the more detailed reasons to why global warming is bad - if ya want to know why just watch An Inconvenient Truth, it goes into more detail.

If we manage to get a snow storm I will post some pictures for all of you to see. Have a good weekend everyone.

Mike

My rambling on hockey...

Sat, 6 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

After watching the Toronto vs. Buffalo game for a total of maybe 10 minutes or after the second goal in 2 minutes from Buffalo I changed the channel then left the house due to complete crap play of the Leafs tonight. Surprisingly they came within one goal of tying it up but were not going to talk about that right now. Instead, were going to talk about Buffalo's newly designed logo and jerseys.

To start off I just want to say that the logo and overall look is better than their past logo which uses the colors: black, red and gray, and is way more modern looking than their original blue, gold and white logo. I prefer the original logo and jersey design over the last two 'modern' looks as I am a fan of old logo and jersey design. I have also noticed that the new Sabres logo reminds me a lot of the St. Louis Rams logo design, who both use the same arched animal (deferent species of course) and thick strokes as each other, just to name a few similarities. One could argue that the Ram logo is more detailed, the Sabres have a 'hair' sticking out the back and the colors are different but I think thats where the differences end, so we will end it at that.

As a hockey traditionalist, of course I hate change. I hate when old teams change their look. I hate when schedules get screwed up so much that original 6 teams don't play each other for 3 years at times. I hate when older teams need to get moved as there is no money in their current home. But as anything else, without change things would become stagnant and eventually come to a halt - which would suck a lot. So on that, I guess it is good that the Sabres have changed their logo, but when it comes to the schedule that the current NHL uses - something needs to change. Here is what I propose:

- Let every team in the league play each other at least once a year.

- Let the same division teams play each other twice a year.

- Same conference teams play each other 3 times a year.

This is just a rough though without any thought put into how many games would actually be played or how much traveling would be involved. But what this would bring to the table is a somewhat 'round robin' schedule style where all teams will cash in on the original 6 teams, who lets face it, do bring in a much higher cash flow than the newer teams.

Until my next rambling,

Mike

Canada Wins GOLD!

Fri, 5 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

The Canadian Juniors will be bringing home gold after having a huge win over the Russian Juniors today. After scoring 3 goals within 3 minutes and following it up by one more in the second period, the team went on to capture their 3 straight gold medal. WOOOO Canada!

In other news, I went out for dinner tonight with my good friends Tammy, Lena and Rodney to Lonestar Grill in Toronto, where I filled myself with wings and beer (It was Corona night or something like that so it was only $5 a bottle!). Rodney ordered Calamari which made me think about the conversation me and Nick had on the train this morning about giant squids which can reach lengths of 150 ft or something huge like that. Of course giant squid would probably not taste anything as good as mini squid but it is still neat to think about how huge those things can get. To make things crazier, Sperm Whales eat those ginormous things! I watched some show on the travels of some whale, and the things apparently go thousands of feet under water to eat squid after bashing them on the sea bottom for a while...Anyhow dinner was super and hanging out with those guys was fantastic, hopefully this weekend will be filled with super fun interesting things.

Here's to the Canadian Juniors, Cheers!

Mike

Canada's Juniors are going for GOLD!

Wed, 3 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Today the Canadian World Junior's beat the US in a shootout during the semi-final match of the IIHF World Juniors Championship. It was an extremely nervous situation as it did not look like they were going to pull it together and get a goal, then came the shootouts. Both teams were matching each other shot for shot during the shootout and the winning goal was a major relief for everyone in the office today.

Congrats to the Juniors and best of luck on bringing home the gold.

Mike

The happenings of last week & New Years

Tue, 2 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Good day everyone!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Years to you all.

As you may have noticed, I have left a mighty large gap from my last posting to this one. Last week was a time for me to relax and party with family, friends and complete strangers. So enough of the dilly-dadling and let me get started with a review of what happened last week:

Christmas came and then went, I ended up finding a cat for my sister but it will not be coming around for another month or two in kitten form. All presents were great but the present that my sister ordered me still has not arrived (it is a Titleist Vokey Spin Milled Wedge which was ordered on Dec 19th). It is no big deal that it is still not here, but the fact that it might take a month to ship something that weighs 2 lbs is pretty silly.

On a note about golf, on the 29th Brad, Lola, Uncle Chris and Aunt Cheryl decided to go to a driving range seeing as it was a booming 6 or 7 degrees outside.

The range complete with gas heaters and a little snow on the ground

Lola was as excited to be at the range as myself! WOOOO

The place was called Launch and is located on HWY 7 and 400 and was a tremendous amount of fun as they do serve drinks to help your swing out. The alcohol helped a little but after pumping out a ton of balls, we all went home to relax. When I woke up the next morning I was extremely sore, and realized that I was really out of shape. So it may not be of a surprise but my resolution is to get in shape and or play hockey again and be more active and play more sports other than snowboarding, golf, and couch-boarding..

About snowboarding... THERE IS NO FRIGIN SNOW ANYWHERE. December has come and gone and I would say that we have received a total of 2 inches of snow in the past two months. Now I love golf but I love snowboarding just as much - and if I can only go a total of 3 times this year that will suck an awful lot.

Seeing as there was no snow and I can't actually do a full round of golf without going on a road trip, nothing else really post worthy happened (if you spent time with me at all last week and I am forgetting something comment it in).

New Years
The gang and myself spent our new years at the Liberty Grand Entertainment Complex where we were to be served a full course dinner and be serenaded by a bunch of DJs at the biggest party of the year. I will explain in more detail about that night but ill first tell you about the pre-party / getting ready time at Seneca Res where we later stayed the night.

We were under the impression that we did not have to be at the Grand until 6 pm where we would be able to eat, and we didn't plan on drinking massive amounts of booze if we would be eating right after. So we only brought a few beers and some Vodka coolers. Well it turns out we were wrong and we would not be allowed in until 8 pm, and instead of having 2 hours to sit around we had 4. So I drank as much as I could and was feeling fine when we left. Everyone was looking super spiffy, as you will see in the photo bellow:

Shortly after taking this picture we headed out to go party. We waited at the bus stop for a bus to bring us to the Finch station where we would transfer and get on another bus for more public transit fun. When I got on the bus I paid and went to grab a transfer because I knew we would be switching buses. When I did that the dick head of a bus driver slammed his hand down and said "Don't touch my shit" once he said this I was like WTF dude... Anton just kept pushing me through as I was not impressed with this guys professionalism at all. Now I have met some awesome TTC drivers but this guy was just a dick and is the type of driver that gives a bad name to public transit drivers everywhere. Moving through the bus and sitting down I was not a happy camper as the night turned sour on the account of a mean driver, but that was not going to crush my spirits, I still planned on having a good time. We got to Finch station, wait more for another bus and then after getting on that bus, arrived late to the party by about 15 minutes. This turned out the be a major issue as there were hardly any seats available for a couple not to mention 7 people who would like to sit together. We did not all get to sit together, I sat with Lola and her friends while the rest of the gang sat with complete strangers. For a $40 meal, I at least expected there to be some kind of organization in regards to seating arrangements, but that was obviously not the case. We all ate and then gathered at the same table where we then moved to go dance and have some more fun.

We all figured that the place would be packed as we were expecting about 5000 people to be at this party, so we knew it would be busy. What we did not realize was that there were only two rooms available for all of those people to party. These rooms could not hold nearly that amount of people, and to make it worse to drink you needed to line up for tickets then get in another line and wait for your drinks which were extremely limited as the bar tenders could not mix to save their lives (and they were using shooter glasses instead of shot glasses, so we were being screwed on the amount of booze we get in mixed drinks). Drinking and having fun trying to get your way through thousands of people who were stupidly rowdy to the point where they were actually braking stuff in the Grand. People ended up injured and in rough shape as the stupidity was escalating more and more, so we left at around 1:30 am because of the amount of dump people and lack of females at the party (which was a wienerfest after 12:30). All in all it was a fun night, a little disappointing because of the amount of let downs we had but there is nothing that can be done about that.

Well that is a small description of what I have been up to last week, once again hope you all had a good holiday.

Cheers,

Mike

Looking for a cat.

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

So my sister has been talking about wanting a pet cat, dog, turtle anything with four legs for the longest time. So I have been looking into getting her a pet cat. She apparently wants some cat called a Ragdoll Cat that apparently when you pick them up they go all limp and literally hang there in your arms. Personally I think that it is just a big fat cat (they get up to 25 pounds) that does not play or do anything which I I don't think is fun at all. Never the less I will keep looking into this lazy furry animal.

While doing research I noticed that I like cats but I want the following two dogs but they do not exist: Miniature German Shepard and a Miniature Newfoundland or Mini Saint Bernard. You are probably wondering why I want a mini dog, well when I move downtown to a condo or loft that I get, having a huge dog would be the worst thing ever.

Hooray for animals!

Mike

Two days till Christmas

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Hey everyone so as you may have realized by now, there are only two days till Christmas - including today of course. So if you are like myself and have not really started your Christmas shopping, I suggest you get off of your computer (read my entry later) and go buy some things as fast as you can. Now the key to last minute shopping is to follow these simple steps:

Upon arriving at a place of purchase (also known as a department store, super store, outlet store or just a mall) just park anywhere. It does not really matter where you park as long as you remember where you parked.
When selecting that perfect gift use 80% gut feeling, 10% what the sales lady says, and 5% long serious thought - if at all possible.
Pay with VISA or some other quick pay system that wont take the newbie cashier 10 minutes to count out you exact change - this is great since your in a rush.
Try to find everything in one or two stores, or if your in a mall try to find everything you need there. This limits the amount of driving you will have to do, which could cause you to be stuck in a traffic jam.
If you are stuck in a traffic jam on your way to the shopping destination of your choice and know you will be stuck for a while, call a friend or a store and try to get them to help you get a gift while you are stuck in traffic. Do this only in desperation, most sales people will not help you out.
If you have 5 or more gifts to gather, wrapping these presents could pose a problem. So if the line up is small at the mall present wrapping station go there and get them to wrap your stuff. They will do a much better job of wrapping that you will (this is true in my case) and will get it done much quicker.
If you did not do the above option, when you get home find anything that looks nice and colorful to use as wrapping paper and wrap like you have never wrapped before. I like using newspaper because there is always an abundance of this. Another suggestion would be to place a bow onto the present as it will add some much needed color.
Now if your starting tomorrow at 5pm or something stupid like that I suggest that you save yourself from being overly stressed and get a gift certificate. I personally love these (especially if they are for BestBuy or Futureshop) as they let your receiver pick exactly what they wanted. Do not get one of these for your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend or anyone who expects a little more thought put into your gift.
As with any gift make sure it is accompanied by a nice card. I like getting funny cards or cards that have nothing to do with the holiday and personalize it. It makes both myself and the receiver laugh.

Now those are just some of the things you should think of or maybe start doing while you are out and about shopping for all your gifts.

Happy Shopping

Mike

Major screw-up by moi

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

So I got home tonight and thought I would check how my site is doing. I logged onto my site and did the normal looking around when I noticed that my site did not validate to the W3C XHTML Transitional standards, which is a major thing and I can not believe I screwed up on some of these tiny little things that were causing errors.

I started going through page by page making sure everything is working properly without backing up before hand. So I was deleting old bloated code, fixing things that did not work the way I wanted them to, and just fixing everything up in general. When I got to my brand new photos page which took me a few days to think through and make (which I even now realized was done stupidly), I accidentally wrote over the live server version with a 3-4 month old version. Did I mention before that I had no backup? So I started scrambling looking for all of the stuff where I could have possibly saved a copy. In the end I was using a PHP include to bring all of the things needed from an external page so I did not have to do any more work than what was needed - I was super happy.

I can not wait till the OS X Leopard comes out because that Time Machine app will be a life saver! For those of you who do not know what it is, it is a little thing running in the background that say you deleted or changed a file and you want it back or want it back to the way it was when you first created the file or when ever, you can now do that. So you theoretically will never loose or screw up a file again.

WOOOOOO

Night everyone

Mike

thestar.com is LIVE!

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Hey everyone!,

It has been a long time coming but the redesign of thestar.com (Toronto Star) has finally been launched at around 3pm today!

This was my first major project to work on since joining Torstar Digital at the beginning of October, and am super pleased with how the site turned out. The team and myself worked our butts off to make this super kick ass site, which will be put on steroids within the upcoming months with updates and improvements, so make sure you stay tuned.

Go check the site out at: thestar.com

Cheers

Mike

Lazy Sunday indeed

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Today I woke up with the goal of getting a hair cut, it is not even close to the impressive length it has reach in the past, its just messy looking and I want shorter hair again. Unfortunately the place where I get my hair cut is closed on Sundays, so I am stuck at home with crappy looking hair and nothing to do for the day.

The worst part about it is that it is extremely nice outside - 13 wonderful degrees on a nice December day. I would prefer it there was at least 2 feet of snow so I could go snowboarding or do something semi-athletic. Anyhow, I am going to go hit some balls in the backyard since it is so nice out.

Cherio

Mike

New photo viewer finally

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Hey everyone,

As you may have noticed my photo gallery has been getting a must needed upgrade. Well that time has finally come. The first step in my little upgrade is up and running. Some things that will be coming include:

A newer better way of displaying feature images.
Rating and commenting capabilities for everyone, not just Flickr users
Addition of video capabilities
And much much more

Mike

I won $100

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Earlier today I found out that I had won $100 from the Princess Margaret Lottery. Even though it is the same price as what the ticket was it is not a loss, so all is good I guess. I will be buying another ticket with the winnings with the hopes that I will win something a little larger, even if I don't win next time the money will be going to help Cancer research, hopefully.

Cheers

Mike

Christmas Tree fun

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Today Hayley, Melissa, Brad, Kristine, my parents, my aunt and uncle and myself went to go cut our Christmas Tree down. It was the perfect day to do so as well, at 8 degrees it was a super great day to be outside.

We started off with our drive up to Drysdales Tree farm, in the car it was Hayley, Melissa, Brad and myself. I was driving and seeing how I am terrible with directions it was decided by everyone that I would follow my uncle who would be driving the lead vehicle.

Upon arrival to the tree farm we headed straight to the bush and started looking for our tree. Kristine "Beenie" was quick to point their perfect tree out and even had the treat of being the one to cut it down. Then it was up to Hayley, Melissa, Brad and my turn to find our tree. We found 3 trees that we thought would be an "ok" choice, but all of them had issues - broken branches, ugly bare spots, or dead branches all over the place we just some of the issues some of these trees had.

We decided to start walking closer to main buildings where we thought we would find more cleaner looking trees, we were very wrong. We ended up going back to the spot where the other tree was previously cut down. In fact our tree was the sister tree of my uncles.

Our tree was a little large so we ended up cutting it at the halfway mark of the tree - or at just below my shoulder. It was a little heavy for just one person to carry so both Brad and myself decided to carry it. We lugged the tree all the way back to the checkout area and didn't once stop for a break. Our tree cost us $40 while my uncles cost him $55 because his tree was over the normal height requirement and it was a fur or something like that.

After loading the tree onto the roof of my uncles truck we all headed out for lunch. We went to 3 different restaurants and all of them either did not serve lunch anymore, or were having a party and could not feed us. Our final choice - Montanas - was very good and filling. After lunch/dinner we all headed back home to go put our trees up. Hayley was running on only a few hours of sleep so she headed home to crash.

We decorated ours while having a few drinks, but my uncle was not having as much good luck as us. Once taking his tree of the roof of his truck, all of the needles of the tree started falling off. He ended up having to go back to the tree farm and cut down a new tree.

All in all, it was a good tiring day.

Mike

The Leafs sucked the big one again

Sat, 9 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

So I decided to give the Leafs another go tonight with the hopes that they would break their dismal 6 game loosing streak and would start to play some good hockey that they are more than capable of doing. That was not the case tonight where the Leafs played the Detroit Red Wings who were on a 3 game winning streak before the Leafs showed up and increased that total to 4.

The Leafs played like crap the entire game with very little drive or eagerness to win. In fact they deserved to loose by a much higher margin rather than 5-1. Now I am not saying that the goal tending is what kept them in the game because although Raycroft could not see some of the goals for tonight, some of the goals seemed pretty weak.

Raycroft is the least of the Leafs worries though. On paper the defense core of the Leafs was touted as being one of the better ones in the league before the season started. That has quickly changed with the leagues highest scoring team (for a short period of time) being in a massive slump where they are only able to get a maximum of 2 goals for and a minimum of 3 goals against. Using simple math, anyone can figure out that 2 is less than 3 and the team with the lesser will inevitably loose that game... Maybe someone should point that out to the Leafs as they seem to not be able to score any more than one goal per game but allow 3 or more with ease.

After watching tonights game I feel like I need to take a break from watching the Leafs, as they do not look like a progressing team with a promising future.

Heres to at least one win in the next 6 games - its a long shot but weirder things have happened.

Mike

Stupid Audi

Fri, 8 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Today was a pretty good super day,

The train ride down to Toronto today was ended with a wonderful display of excellent driving skills by some dumb ass who thought he was far enough back from the oncoming train. Instead, he was way too close and when we drove past the guy in his car the train warning bar was sitting on the roof of his car. Odds are it left a nice dent. What a bone head.

For lunch I had Pat Thai for lunch today and it was very good. For some reason I always thought that Thai food would be really spicy but Pat Thai is nothing even close. Anyhow, did lots of work today, booked my ticket for New Years at Liberty Grande and froze my ass off today. It was -13 this morning without the windchill - brrr.

Mike

What am I doing?

Wed, 6 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Hey everyone,

So the holiday season is one hell of a busy time for me and finding time to write what I am doing on a daily basis is starting to become a bit of a challenge but I will try my best to keep you all up to date and eventually post the movie and photos of me and Hayley when we in Peterborough. Until then, work is good, nice and busy... I have put all future CMS changes on hold due to a more important matter - my crappy photo gallery.

Initially, this was intended on being a replacement for my flickr usage, but I quickly realized that using flickr is much more than a place to store my photos, its a place where I can get more attention on myself - hence why I have no posted any images to my site in a long long time. So I am learning how to properly integrate XSLT with PHP along with the Flickr API to display all my stuff (with some features) on my site. Sounds like fun doesn't it?!

I am as excited as you are and can not wait to post it when it is done - which will hopefully be soon.

Mike

New Jeans

Sun, 3 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

About a week ago I asked my sister to go out and buy me a pair of jeans for my birthday (it is a little late buy I could not think of anything else), so I told her where to go and what size I thought I would be. She went to American Eagle and purchased a size 32x32 Low Rise Boot Cut pair of jeans that were WAY to big for me - so I brought them back and tried on a smaller size. I tried on a 30x32 which I usually wear and for some reason the pockets on these pants were super low. Know I know these are low rise pants but all of my other pants had the pocket where they should be - on my ass not the back of my thy.I did not buy anything at the time of bringing those pants back and was given a Gift Certificate worth the price of the jeans to use on what ever else I wanted to buy.

So today I went back to American Eagle to try my luck again, and look for a new pair of pants for myself. I went there and they were all out of 30x30 in all kinds of dude pants that they carried... that totally sucked. I would have purchased a sweater or a t-shirt but everything was very plain looking. I guess I will have to wait to buy something.

So I guess what I am wondering is if there are any other jean stores or clothing stores that are in your minds, better than American Eagle - and I am sure there are a lot of better places out there.

Thanks for reading my super off topic rant on jeans for this snowy sunday.

Cheers,

Mike

Trip to Peterborough with Hayley and Theresa

Fri, 1 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0400

This post is a little late (it should have been posted on the 26th of last month), but it was a fun even and I thought I should share it with all of you.

At around 3pm Hayley and myself decided to go to the mall to bring a pair of jeans back to American Eagle which were way to big for myself. We did that and then headed back to Bradford to bring Theresa to the Scarborough bus which will bring her to Trent University in Peterborough. When we got to Hayley's place the plan was just to bring Theresa to Scarborough and thats it. The plan changed when a New Orleans style restaurant was mentioned which had awesome food apparently. To make a story short, I talked Hayley into driving us to Peterborough where we will get dinner and then come back - if its not too late.

The drive was insanely long and I had not ate since breakfast that day so I was starving and very quiet for the drive there.

The restaurant we went to was Hot Belly Mamas and it was very good! I had their Brown Sugar Chicken and it was awesome, I recommend this place to anyone who likes good food in a small cozy place.

I will be posting more images of that night including a movie that Hayley and myself shot on the way home tomorrow.

Only 24 days to Christmas everyone!

Night everyone.

Mike

Go-Transit sucks a lot

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Seeing as today is the final day of the month, it is time for me to go out and purchase a monthly pass to ride the Go-Train from Union Station to Bradford. It is the biggest waste of $247.00 CAD that I can think of - I could purchase an iPod every month for that kind of cash. For all the benefits that the Bradford Go-Transit line gets, I really see no reason why riders from Bradford station should be paying this amount of money for a ride that is rarely on time and our station has taken 2 years to renovate (it is not even done - that was just the parking lot). Other trains have internet access, televisions, and or something to keep riders occupied (I have only heard of these luxuries, I have no proof).

All trains, including the CN Rail trains have the right of way over the Bradford trains. There are only 4 trains that ride the single track from Bradford to Union and back, so scheduling these trains in should not be difficult - obviously it is as passengers on my train are always stuck waiting for other trains to pass or move out of the platform we are to be using.

I am writing this out of frustration obviously from the amount of BS that myself and other riders have to put up with on a daily basis. Tonight the Bradford station was the only station that was not open for riders to purchase monthly passes, every other station was open later than normal so their riders can purchase their tickets so not to be charged for illegal riding of the train. Maybe when the Bradford station is done - in the next 2 years - things will be different. Until then, the both the line and station suck, and I hate it a lot.

Mike

Bad trip planing and a warm bus

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Hey everyone,

If you read my journal on a regular basis your probably wondering to yourself "why has Mike suddenly stopped posting?", well in the past two weeks I have been kept busy with stuff at work (new site launch coming soon) and other extra-curricular activities. I have just had no time at my personal computer to write any of my stories or ideas down. Ill try to keep things coming on a regular basis from now on as some people have been voicing their concerns through emails - thanks by the way.

On to my feature entry,

Tonight I was out and about downtown and I was unable to catch any of the 4 total trains heading to Bradford from Union station tonight, so I took the bus home tonight. I usually never take the bus because it can sometimes take up to 2 hours to get from Union Station in Toronto to the bus station in Bradford - which is way too much time to spend in a sardine can of a bus.

Seeing as how I have not taking a bus in a while, I first had a problem just finding the platform for the buses. For trains at Union, the platform numbers are easily displayed for newbies like myself who are not public-transit lovers. So after 10 min of looking like a fool and walking around looking for any sign, I finally found it and hopped onto the bus.

I then made the mistake of walking to the back of the bus where it is absolutely BOILING when it should not be hot at all. I am wearing a light collard shirt with a blazer on top so I am not layered in clothing at all. To top it off, it is about 18 degrees outside - not the warmest of weather, but for a Canadian at the end of November it is scorching.

So the bus was on its way and the commute north was going great - I was ahead of time by about 15 minutes, this was turning out to be better than I thought. I called home to tell the parents I will be home in about 15 minutes as I was just pulling into Newmarket station and noticed a majority of the people on the bus exiting. I didn't think too much about this as I heard a lady sitting in front of me mention to one of her friends that she is going to Barrie which is north of Bradford - so I figured that I needed to stay on this bus to go even more north to Bradford.

The bus took off and stopped at the East Guillimbury stop where the driver made an announcement: "This is the last stop of the trip, everyone please exit the bus"... I was floored, I could not believe my ears. I am not even close to Bradford to even think about walking and a taxi would still cost about 25 dollars. So I got off the bus and made my way to the bus stop building thinking that it would be warm inside and food for me to buy as I was starving. The door was locked. So in desperation I called home again and my sister came and picked me up 15 minutes later.

The night could have been much worse but I still managed to get home at 10 pm. Next time I am going to ask when I need to get off the bus or maybe even plan my trip better.

Night everyone.

Mike

Campers at Futureshop

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

On my way into Futureshop in Newmarket today to see if they had the computer part that I needed in order to set up the PVR for my Dad so he is not completely bored all day for the next 4 months at home, I noticed that there were 5 guys sitting on lawn chairs with sleeping bags and other camping equipment at the entrance of the store. Now I know that the PS3 has already been released and that the rush for those systems have already calmed down but the Nintendo Wii is coming out tomorrow and I assume thats why these guys are camping out at the entrance all by themselves... which seems a little stupid seeing that there was no one else doing the same thing. The whole thing about guys and girls lining up for video game consoles seems a little overboard, I like playing games as much as any other person out there but I see no point in waiting in a fictional line for 2-3 days just to get a system that I am almost guaranteed still to get if I wait 2-3 days after the release date. Like who really cares who was the first to get the system and play a game? I see no real benefit to waiting in line for gaming consoles other than the joy of not being able to go into the store in order to go to the washroom in fear of loosing your spot in line. If these guys were smart they would have their systems already on ebay for sale with the hopes that they will make as much of a profit on their systems as the PS3 has made in the past few days on ebay, then with the cash they make on the sale of their first system they could go out and buy one Wii, PS3 and a XBOX 360 to complete the full gamer package. Thats just what I would do if I was a hardcore gamer - but I am not.

If you are a gamer who waited in line for a PS3, Wii or an XBOX 360, why did you do it? Did you do it to sell that system on ebay? Or did you do it to brag on your blog or to your friends? Why in the world would you wait outside a store without a port-a-potty, shower, change of clothes, or any other hygienic apparatuses at hand?

Good luck to all those hardcore gamers in line at electronic stores everywhere.

Mike

Fish & Chips for dinner

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

So I am sitting on the train talking to Melissa my sister about what were having for dinner tonight. We both recommended things and then finally agreed upon Fish and Chips at the Fish and Chips restaurant in the old Newmarket plaza (I have no clue what it's real name is). I could have sworn that she said that she would pick me up at the Newmarket train station and we would both head over to get some dinner. Instead, I get to the Newmarket train station and no one is there... I call both my sister and mothers cell phone, but since they are in the hospital they have them turned off. So I then call Hayley because I invited her out for Fish and Chips with me and Melissa since she will be working tonight. Hayley agrees to come pick me and bring me out for food since no one is there. Right after I hang up with Hayley my uncle pulls up and tells me to hop in - the fish and chips have already been bought and are being gobbled up by the family in the hospital cafeteria. So to make a long story short, I ate my fish and chips and they were very yummy. Not quite as good as how the Chat and Chew used to make them but they were good still.

Visiting my Dad, he received a bunch of flowers with Mr.Potato head figures - some of the guys call him Mr.Potato head because he has a large head. I thought that was pretty funny as did my Dad. Hayley and her mom got him some nice flowers yesterday too, hospital rooms are so drab without stuff like that - thanks Hayley and family :D. And to cheer up both him and all the cute nurses I wrote a little message saying "I am ugly" on a piece of paper and stuck it on a picture of my sister - ahhhh good times.

I need sugar or something I am super tired and typing stupid stuff. Later everyone.

Mike

Dad is doing well and NO spam

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Hey everyone,

It has been a few days since I last posted and usually I would just go back a few days to recap what I did on a day by day basis, but I am way to tired to do that.

As some of you may know my Dad had to be immediately rushed into quad coronary bypass heart surgery after suffering some major heart attacks late in the afternoon on Sunday. It is one crazy operation that the doctors did but hes Superman strong and will make a Flash Gordon style (fast) recovery. My family, and friends like Hayley and Bradley Bradley, and I are visiting him everyday to cheer him up and keep him company along with doing anything to keep him comfy so that he makes a uber rapid recovery - in the last few days he has improved in health 10 fold which is totally awesome. He is not liking the Jello and soup that he is getting but thats ok, lots of the nurses in his ward are VERY cute too which is good for both him and I - mostly me though cause they are around my age (sorry Hayley but I had to say that).

Now I am not going to talk much about my spam situation because I don't think those spam bastards deserve any attention, but as of updating my site slightly on the 11th I have received a total of 0 spam messages on my site. Looks good on those dicks.

Anyhow, just to recap - Dad is doing good, will hopefully be home in a weeks time. And spammers lost another battle.

Mike

Husky and those damn spammers

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

This morning Hayley, Sister, Bradley Bradley and myself went to Husky for breakfast. It was probably the best breakfast I have ever had there, it was so tasty. I had a Western Delux (western sandwich, fries, coleslaw) with a side of sausage - oh and a tea to drink, which was really weak even though I kept the bag in the whole time. Good times either way.

I then went home to work on a new filtration system for the damn spammers who have been spamming my journal to death. I have received 1086 total comments in my journal since I have posted my new site at the end of August. There have been 20 actual comments not spam posted which means that I have received a total of 1066 spam messages posted on my site since August 24th. In the past 24 hours I have received 337 spam message postings. I have been doing live monitoring of the postings but with that many messages being posted live monitoring was not enough at all, I needed something new to slow them down or stop them completely.

So I have posted a new feature that you will see when you use my comment tools, which should slow the spammers down for a bit until a newer more thought out system is rolled out hopefully for next weekend.

Cheers,

Mike

Drinks and good times

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

So after getting home after work today both my good good friend Hayley and I were in need of some refreshing beverages which most certainly would contain alcohol. So we weighed all of our options and decided to go to Newmarket to check out Sneakers... Oddly, once we pulled into the parking lot we lost all reason to even go into the sports bar so we changed our mind and decided to go somewhere a little bit bigger - Shoe less Joe's which is in Aurora beside St.Andrews College. For some weird reason the two of us we both extremely cynical this night - mostly Hayley but I was in a bitter mighty bitter mood as well. Now I am not going to mention what we did or said because some of it is not quiet blog material, but it was fun times never the less.

Shoe less Joes was pretty empty, and they did not have any Kieth's so I had to settle with Rickards Red - which I do not mind, its just not my drink of choice. I should have had a Guinness or something different - oh well.

After Hayley finished her wings and I finished my drink we headed off towards Bradford in search of more to drink and or do. We took Bathurst St home which might I add is insanely scary and fun at night, the hills make it seem like your going to fall into a hole after reaching the apex of the hill. And if you go fast enough you could get a little air borne. Once we arrived in Bradford though, we were all tuckered out and not feeling as bubbly as we were at the beginning of the night, so we did a drive by at the VI to see what was happening, and from what I could see it was dead. So we decided not to go in and call it an early night.

After Hayley dropped me off at my place, I was in need of a shower and then maybe do some work and or watch a flick. I took my shower and noticed a message on my cell phone. It was Hayley calling me to tell me to get my ass to the VI because it was not empty, in fact it was a decent night. So I got dressed as fast as I could and headed over to get more booze in me.

People were lined up a little bit outside the pub/club/watering hole and there was a live band inside playing from what I could tell outside, decent music. Once inside the bouncers checked my pockets and id - which I find really weird because I do not look underage and yet I am always carded. Anyhow, I tracked Hayley and the sis down, had a Keith's, mingled with some people I have not seen in a while and then realized that it was a pretty crappy night there because everyone was extremely young, the live band was gone and the DJ was playing music from 3-4 years ago. So we all headed home with plans to go to Husky for breakfast in the morning.

Night everyone.

Mike

Drive to Windsor

Sat, 4 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Today was one hell of a loooonng day - I went on a trip to Windsor Ontario to go do some shopping at the Colombia Winter Apparel Outlet and go visit my cusin Lola (which I found out means Grandma in Philippine - info from Miami Ink so that might not be very accurate) shes not my grandma though, shes 21 I think or 20 and ya my cousin.

So moving on, the drive was 4 hours both ways and it is a mighty good thing I brought my laptop because I would have been bored out of my tree if I did not bring anything to work on. For example here is a picture timeline of the boredom my sister faced during the drive to Windsor:

This is 10 minutes into the drive and a shot of an old barn in Bradford - the boredom has not quite set in yet.

This is a shot of hidro-lines an hour into the drive - she is getting a little bored.

This is a shot of the Milton water tower in Milton - which is I think 2 and a half hours in or something like that. Either way she was occupied with something else so she did not take any pictures. This picture illustrates how bored she became during the commute.

If you do not find those pictures as being a decent indication of how boring a drive it is to Windsor take a look at these two videos I took while taking a break from the work I was doing on my comp.Both videos are without audio because all that is heard is the hum of the tires on the road.

Video 1 - watch - This was taken while driving through London on the 401(sorry about the thing on the lens... I don't really know what that is)

Video 2 - watch - This was recorded an hour after that first video, I have no clue where we are except for the fact that it looks exactly the same as it did in London.

Once we arrived in Windsor we went to the Colombia store bought our stuff, got out of there, went to another outlet plaza where I became a human popsicle because all of the stores were girl stores and had nothing for me to look at inside. After that we went to Lolas work where we ate and chatted with Lola, then we left and headed home.

On the way home we stopped at a Tim Hortons and I got a tea - not steeped, just a one shot of milk with tea, bag in - the lady put a LOT of milk in the tea so it was weak from the start. About an hour after drinking that tea, I started to feel like crap. I think the milk was sour or something... it was not fun. We got home late and I sent a message to Melissa on myspace asap and then went to bed... I was freaking exhausted.

Cheers,

Mike

Dinner at Baldwin's

Fri, 3 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Happy Friday everyone,

Today was one heck-tic day, it seems like everything bad that could happen happened today - until tonight that is of course. Lots of things to fix and figure out at work made a busy busy friday, which is pretty craptastic. For lunch toronto.com supplied us with sandwiches and cake which were super yummy and this time I only ate one piece of cake with no extra icing, this way I prevent myself from crashing an hour later due to a serious sugar high and monstrous sugar low. All and all it was a good lunch and thanks toronto.com :D

About a week ago I made plans to go out for dinner with my good friend Melissa (not my sister) who rides the train just like myself. And at around 5:30 or so tonight, we headed off to our yummy dinner destination Baldwins Steak House and Bar, which sounds kind of like a Keg or cheesy bar kinda place but this place was swanky. Like super posh and nice, not a place where I usually go but seeing as how we both wanted to try the place out and I wanted to take her out for dinner, I thought why not. We both had steak of some kind, I had my usual Filet Mignon (just called something different) and she had some sort of steak which was just a little differently than mine, I think it was called Gorgonzola. And we had wine which was selected by Melissa which was not that bad after I got used to it. Then for the first time ever, with the advice and gentle persuasion from Melissa I tried Escargot (i think thats how you spell it) and I liked it. Usually I hate food that looks gross because I just get the taste of grossness in my mouth after looking at it, but this time it did not look gross and I just put the stuff in my mouth and chewed. lol And then did that a few more times after. She also tried Horseradish for the first time and apparently thought it was fine so it was a win win situation - we both ate something new tonight and liked it, even though I liked mine more than her liking the Radish.

Dinner was over all very yummy and the place was not packed at all, very small and quiet. Unlike the Keg or other blockbuster restaurants out there where they are overbooked to the point where they forget to sit their guests.

Thats my little tidbit of information on my day hope you all had a keeper, I will post pictures of upcoming travels and events to Windsor tomorrow and on any excursions me and Melissa go on (as long as those are ok - I am not sure if they are quite yet).

Night everyone - that includes you damn spammers, go to sleep!

Mike