Life's Edge

Is the tentative title for the culminating movie project of my group (tentatively named Pointy Hat Grp./Ltd./Wtf.). It's a story that revolves around two brothers, one older and essentially the generic blessed and admired older sibling and the other one who is younger and conventionally jealous of the older brother's success and good reputation.
One summer day, after some harmless sparring in the park (both brother conveniently happen to be martial artists, go figure), the older brother (played by Darren Guo, superstar in queue) suggests that they go for food together. The younger brother (Henry Leung, my doubles partner) brings them to a restaurant he heard about from a friend nearby.
Upon exiting the shady cafe, the two brothers happen upon two mobsters (played by my good friends Kishon M. and Jonathan L.)headed the opposite direction. Some short bursts of dialog follow ending in the older brother fending off the two mobsters and a third one in hiding (played by Alex K.) with a sledgehammer while the younger brother makes a run for it. He is soon gunned down just as the older brother is beaten unconscious.
From here, it only gets better, but you'll have to wait until the final product is out (via Alex K.'s editing). To say the least, there's a lot of revenge and sword busting-out-ing.
I received a (pardon my French) fucking cool gift today from a school friend as a way early birthday present. Amy happened to be at Anime North, an anime convention of epic proportions I'm told, and I had originally asked our friend, Queenie, to pick up something in my stead for ~$20. Neither found anything totally awesome on the first day (past Saturday) of AN. On Sunday, however, Amy had to make a judgment call. Either get for me a bookmark with Fuu (from "Samurai Champloo") on it, a huge pin-up poster of Haruhi (from "the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya"), or a mystery gift. The bookmark, she said, was too girly, even for my tastes. And she feared what I might do to the life-sized Haruhi poster, so she ended up buying a wooden sword for me because it was expected that I'd appreciate something so (pardon my French again) fucking cool. She was totally right.
Here are the pics (click for a larger view):

The sword has some pretty sweet detailing etched into it's smooth black finish (it's wooden, remember?). Click here for a video groping of it.

Note: If you're wondering why, the sword came originally wrapped in gift wrap paper and then plastic cling wrap under to prevent scratching. I didn't wrap it in a huge latex--nevermind.

info @ the P.Pole 05.27.07

Today I woke up with a sharp pain in my right wrist. It felt like the tendon was off or something (like a cracked knuckle gone wrong, if you know what that feels like). I thought it was nothing but I soon found out my grandfather had actually fallen and broken--i.e. completely snapped--his wrist. i think the radius was what snapped. Anyway, this was, without a doubt, many times worse than my fractured wrist in grade eight. I think it was sympathy pains that I was feeling.
The whole family headed for Scarborough Grace Hospital and had him admitted. During the time that I would've otherwise spent at church, I kept my grandfather company as he went through the normal paces of a hospital patient. It was particularly sickening (yet undeniably cool) to watch the doctor and nurse literally pull my grandfather's wrist apart (lengthwise, don't be scared) and put it back together. What was awesome was that my grandfather took it like a man and never made a sound. Or maybe the localized freezing was just that good... Either way, it looked Fing painful. Cool and painful.
That was my morning. I'm sure my grandfather's going to be okay (he's home now, probably watching TV). What was awesome was that moments after getting it wrapped in a cast my he started swinging his arm around exclaiming "Hey! It doesn't hurt anymore. Let's go home." I think that doctor did too good of a job freezing the arm.

French SL Papers 1 and 2

It's been almost twelve hours since I finished my last IB exam paper for this year and I'm still pretty exuberant about it all.

Paper 1
Section A

• There were a whole slew of short readings. The first one was about Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Quebec and their various populations of francophones. The second had to do with some crackpot lady's trip to the capital of Niger. The third one had to do with a woman who crossed the ocean in a single-person boat--how did she go to bathroom (not a perv-question btw)? And the last had to do with plastic bags and their effects on the appearance of the countryside, wildlife, and future waste management problems.
  
• There were also corresponding short answer type questions, including matching the correct endings to beginnings of sentences, matching the right synonym to vocab words taken from the text, and true/false + justification from the text type questions. Those were mostly easy and I'm sure I killed them all (with the exception of one tricky vocab word that I couldn't place until after I handed the paper in). "There's only one real answer and you can find it in there."
  

Section B

• A short writing task of at least 100 words where one had to write an article or argumentative essay that would go into the school newspaper citing the problems associated with using plastic bags for many daily purposes (NEGATIVE EXTERNALITIES IN CONSUMPTION!).
• I remembered reading over the format/structure (worth a third of the mark for writing assignments for IB) of "les discours" in particular (I just had a gut feeling it'd be handy) and so I was well versed in how to write in this style. You're supposed to use exaggeration (OMG t3h b49s 4r3 4tt4ck1n9!), emotion (think of the dolphins and turtles!), and humour (plastic bags are like people with disgusting perfumes, they're grossness lingers even after they're gone) to prove/argue my points. So I did. I even came up with the title "L'attaque des sacs!" for my "discours" and I'm actually pretty proud of coming up with that on the spot (and in French, no less).
• I also used (and slightly abused) idiomatic expressions which score big style points with IB. I'm such a nerd.
  

Paper 2
For paper 2 we were to choose one task from the 4 (or so) given and carry it out writing at least 250 words and using the writing style appropriate to the task (eg: essay, official letter, informal letter, guide, report, journal entry, etc...). Obviously each type of writing has its own quirks, pros, and cons. I took on the first task.
Question 1
Write a page of your personal journal describing your decision to move in with three of your friends and the difficulties of living together.

• I wrote down on my scrap piece of paper all the things I could remember about each of the different styles needed in the tasks mentioned, and I just ended up knowing more (than nothing!) about journal entries than the rest of the formats. I also didn't feel like writing another essay.
• So I started out by drafting my introduction on scrap (I had 1 hour and 30 minutes to write >250 words so I took my time), mentioning how much I regretted my decision to move in with the three friends.
  
• In my first body paragraph I talked about Joe. Joe is my imaginary friend from grade school and he's a big social butterfly. He also likes to bring home strangers and leave them all over the place without warning, so I wrote about how nervous it made me to come home to a random "inconnu" in my room. Perhaps an agreeable stranger (there's only one way to find out!), but a stranger nonetheless.
• Then I talked about Tina, the studious Chinese (implied, not directly mentioned) immigrant who is a complete slacker at home. I complained about how she did all her work from school but never bothered to clean stuff. Frustrating!
  
• Last was Gordo. With a name like that, you can't be surprised that he's the one who eats all the food. I whined about him eating the food I put in the "frigo" (I hope they like slang in journal entries). "DAMNIT GORDO!" I actually ended this paragraph off with the sentence "ZUT!" which, FYI, means "DAMN!" and not "F*CK!"
• In my conclusion I pined on and on about how I've got to be more understanding of people (not entirely untrue for my real life friends/acquaintances) and less impatient. I also mentioned, in a rather emo fashion, that no one would like to be my friend otherwise...

And that was my IB French SL exam! Done within a total of almost 4 hours (7:30 - ~11:30 am). I'm really glad I went to Shivon's place yesterday to review. I also really don't think I would've done as well if his father, during the ride they gave me back home, hadn't challenged me by telling me to think of "someone with average intelligence" as my model to follow. He's a wise guy. "Expect the unexpected. You never know what will happen the next day. No one knows who will die tomorrow." And so I went home and frantically reviewed (but not too frantically) and rested up. Now I'm dead tired and totally satisfied with my performance in the past few days.

Note: You might be wondering why I chose to remember these details from my exams and write them up. It's not because I think most people with find it interesting. It's my way of being done with the anxiety of these exams for good and recording them for future reference/nostalgia. IB exams come once in a lifetime. Savour the nerdiness.

Economics SL Paper 2

Today I wrote the second (final!) paper of my Economics exam and I must say, I'm feeling pretty good about it. It's easy to feel good about doing decent but not exceptional after writing a paper like yesterday's. I answered 3 of the 5 possible questions (don't worry, you're supposed to do that) and I think I related all three to development economics in one way or another.
Before the exam I said to Shivon, "I'm heading straight for the market failure and development questions."

• Question 2 dealt with malaria treatments serving as merit goods (market failure) and African governments encouraged to purchase large scale orders of the treatments (development).
• Question 4 had to do with less developed countries (LDC) selling sugar on international markets (international trade) and inability of LDC firms to compete with subsidized exporters from more developed countries (development).
• Question 5 discussed the effectiveness of the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for improving the standard of life and economic growth in LDCs (development).

So I kept my promise. Three times over. I actually didn't expect that many development geared questions (since there are usually only one or two per year that relate to each section) but some overlap allowed me to have my way (fun!) with the question. As soon as Uganda was mentioned, I knew I could drag in development economics. It's almost sick how I profited from their suffering... Well, not really.
After the exam we had some two-on-two action in the field with four of us guys (we played frisbee). Then Shivon and I headed for SUBWAY for some quick eats (I didn't have any cash on me but Shivon spotted me with his debit card) before returning to school to meet up with Kishon who just finished writing his academic economics exam. Apparently, it was a joke.
With a French exam tomorrow (both papers with 30 minutes break in between) I decided to hit up Shivon's house for some review. We basically spent 3 hours writing practice/previous exams. The ones from 2003 and before are insane. I averaged 80% or so on all of them but then again, they were, in Shivon's words, "F*ckin' hard." So if I can score decently on those (and before bell curve too) then I shouldn't do too poorly on tomorrow's since they've gotten progressively easier over the years. Confidence will either save me or screw me now.

Economics SL Paper 1

Question 2
Part A

• Q: Explain the types of inflation using aggregate demand/supply graphs. (10 marks)
• A: I defined inflation and illustrated demand-pull and cost-push inflation with the New Classical Model. (30 minutes)
  

Part B

• Q: Evaluate the view that governments should treat inflation as their primary concern. (15 marks)
  
• I supported the view and cited inflation being a cause of low future production/investment (leading to unemployment) and growing national debt (due to increased imports and expensive domestic goods). I also described the difficulties to be encountered by governments who want to correct the effects of inflation after it has already been allowed to run its course. (30 minutes)
  

I wasted way too much time on the first part and didn't leave myself enough time to think out my response for the second part. I explained too much about each and every step of the two different causes of inflation. I also had next to no real-life examples to relate the question to. I probably should have done the first question which was more familiar to me (market failure was the focus of that question) but I didn't because it mentioned a term that I wasn't familiar with ("market signals"). Oh, and did I mention that I misused the term "a priori" thinking it meant something like "after the fact"? Gah.
I don't think today's paper went exceptionally well but I don't think I completely ruined my chances of getting that level 7... If tomorrow's paper goes better (and it should since the structure of questions is something I actually practiced more on) and if Messere liked my commentaries then I'll be alright. I'm totally going to choose the question about development economics tomorrow. Easy spawn-kill-esque marks.
...Damn it! Part A, we're through.

EDIT: Out of curiosity I went and looked through some of my Economics notes to find a reading about inflation and its effects/costs to society. Lo and behold, diminished productivity from uncertainty and deficits in the current account (the international trade balance to be exact). And so it turns out the two things I suggested would probably happen with rampant inflation were actually correct and "expected" responses to inflation. And so now I don't feel so insecure about the state of my first IB paper. I got psyched but I'm saved--probably--by Mr. Messere's constant and repetitious drilling of cause-effect relationships into my head. Either that or I lucked out and need to review some more. I'll do that now.

info @ the P.Pole 05.20.07

I've got approximately 18 hours and 35 minutes before I write my first IB paper. I'm not too bothered about it but it is a pretty noteworthy thing seeing as how this paper is Paper 1 (of 2) for Economics at the Standard Level.

3 days of exams for me this week:

• May 21, 2007 (1:00-2:00 pm) - Economics SL Paper 1
• May 22, 2007 (9:00-11:00 7:30-9:30 am) - Economics SL Paper 2
• May 23, 2007 (7:30-9:00 am, 9:30-11:00 am) - French SL Paper 1, French SL Paper 2

I've been reviewing bits and pieces of stuff over the past couple days in preparation for the Economics papers (yeah, Messere's right, that level 7 is too tempting to pass up). As for the French papers, I haven't had a proper teacher all year for the course so I started reviewing and reading more about two weeks ago. I'm not sure what to expect for the French exams (since I've been scoring either drop-dead terrible or fantastic on the practice exams pretty arbitrarily but I'm almost sure I can take on the Economics papers without too much trouble. Messere was and is a great teacher so I'm gonna thank him in advance for whatever my results end up as. I really feel sorry for the other Economics classes which suffered rounds of crappy supplies much like my French class.
I've officially finished all my French and Economics in-class time, and I'm not sure I'm glad. I actually enjoy listening to Messere rant about his "What the f*ck?!" moments on the highway and joking the period away with Yun (and sometimes Amy) in French so it's almost sad that I'll have two spares from now until the end of June.

This Day Has Come

The wait is finally over. It's almost been ten years but Blizzard just released info about their upcoming game (their newest "OMG!"), Starcraft 2. If you've played the first one (and chances are you probably have or have at least heard of it), this is a continuation of that golden formula that got the world addicted (to this very day) in 1998. I've never been a hardcore player but I've always had a place in my heart for this awesome game now turned series. I'm just drooling in anticipation for when I can get my greasy hands on a copy... Click on the title for the official SC2 website (make sure to watch the cinematic movie).

info @ the P.Pole 05.14.07

I was listening to Arthur's sermon yesterday about... I don't exactly remember what it was focused on. Nevertheless I recall topics of a cruise, fellowship through the person of Christ, and discipleship. I also remember distinctly hearing the following sentence:

"If Christ is the center, then we will suffer... for each other's sake."

Now is it just me or is that really cute? I personally find it amusing to pick at people's words to find out what they may really mean. First of all, it seemed funny that he paused immediately after saying that we would suffer. It's almost as if his thought process stopped there and concluded focusing on Christ naturally leads to suffering (which, I do not deny, probably does and should happen), but it shouldn't stop there. And then I suppose he tagged on the second part about for whose sake we ought to suffer because he realized how awkward the first part of the line sounded. Of course, this would've been a good save if only it hadn't contradicted the first part. Now, I could go hypercritical (or is it hypocritical?) here and start really nitpicking about what this all means, but I'll that for your skills of deduction (or was it induction?).

On a completely unrelated note, I've started using my Vista partition much more lately and that's probably due to my XP boot getting old and cluttered. I like neatness. I also don't mind a fresh look. I've got my sidebar with my drives and clock running on the right, my recycle bin (only icon deserving of actual space on my desktop) in the corner, and my quicklist of progrmas in my start menu. I'm also rocking a Samurai Champloo background that I played with.

(click the thumb for a larger view)

Here are the links to the individual files, if anyone's interested:

• The original (by ~joshgotpsed on DeviantART): 1600 x 1200
• The tweaked (by me): 1600 x 1200
  

Sunday Afternoon

What better way is there to spend such a wonderful afternoon than to take a quick nap as I wait for my F.E.A.R. Combat download to finish? Don't worry, I'm getting it legit this time off of their official site (free multiplayer version up for download here). I just nabbed myself a not nearly as legit copy of pzizz and I'm going to be testing it out momentarily (it's an app that's supposed to help you sleep). This seems a bit sci-fi to me, using a computer to make my body do stuff, but if it works, I think it would be very useful for someone like me who doesn't get enough natural sleep. I'll keep you updated on its effectiveness in a wink.

EDIT: So it's a pretty cool idea that actually kinda worked. I feel more energized and awake after pzizzing but it's only been the first run. I'll probably do it again soon (to rest up between... "study sessions" since exams that actually matter are coming up).

Just Add Acid

Click on the title to be taken to a really cool flash game I found the other day. I was originally linked to the site/its affiliate site (tangerinepanic.com) through Kotaku (also found in the sidebar) the other day. When I first saw the title ("The Pattern Game") I thought it was a lame name for a game. And we all know we only play games with cool names right? Anyway, check it out along with Tangerine Panic too. Warning: these games may be insanely addictive. Addictive like a fox.

Cool Body Facts

So I have a habit of listening to my MP3 player with my left early only when I don't have both buds plugged in. Of course I prefer having both in to just one, but if it's got to be one only (for example, when I've got listen to Mr. Teacher give a lesson or something) I always have it in my left ear. It just seemed natural to me. Having just my right ear with a bud in it always sounded worse to me than my left ear, and apparently, this makes sense. According to a post on Lifehacker, your left ear's better at picking up musical tones.
My hearing's probably not as great as it used to be--due to the large amounts of rock music and BS that I tend to hear--but I can still hear the annoying buzzing mosquito ringtone mentioned in that same post. There are actually kids who turn it on during tests or exams to piss the hell out of other people knowing that, chances are, the teachers probably can't hear it. Hey God, look at the cool things we can do with the brains given to us.

info @ the P.Pole 04.05.07

Click for a funny comic my friend from school sent me, titled "Free Your Mind."
Today Oscar De La Hoya faced off against Floyd Mayweather in what was supposed to be the fight of all fights. I'm not a boxing fan but I got all hyped up from watching the pre-match banter on TSN. Either way, I'm kinda wishing I had pay-per-view so I could've watched it...

In other news, I went to see my doctor today to get a physical and to get some medical advice. I don't know if you know (which you probably should unless you're blind) but I've got quite the acne problem. At first my doctor thought it had to do mainly with stress and relatives thought it had to do with diet. My mom thought it was because I have busy (and I guess bacteria-infested) hands that pick and claw at my face. It turns out, from my doctor's medical opinion, that my skin problems are a result of firstly, lots of testosterone in my system and reinforced by poor sleeping habits--to be interpreted as "Carl, you've got bad skin because you're just too man." Sweet deal, doc. I get to have a cool excuse for having really nasty skin... Does this count as making lemonade from life's lemons? And who doesn't want to just crush those lemons?

EDIT: It turns out TSN might actually broadcast the fight, meaning I'll get my fill of violence tonight apart from raping the computer characters in Tekken with Kazuya.

Black Gold and Black Death

Everyone has got their panties up in a bunch over oil nowadays. Environmentalists like Al Gore are finally complaining about its burning on our environment (even though he never actually did anything about anything while he was still the Vice President...). OPEC nations are bitching about profits and tightening their valves (causing those of the rest of the oil-dependent world to tighten our belts). And bandwagon know-it-alls (yeah, you North American teenage boys who think you've got everything figured out) are hating on Bush for starting a Vietnam-esque war over in the Middle East for oil. Everybody loves oil.
Here's another problem to tack onto oil that's probably not nearly as obvious: the poverty and desperation of LDCs can also be linked to oil and the greedy buggers in the market. Something I learned about in Economics from Mr. P. Messere that I found extremely interesting was what are called "Petrol Dollars". What happened was, when the OPEC nations struck it big a few decades ago, there were huge profits for a very small number of fortunate individuals. Fearing economic and political instability to which those nations are generally prone to, these vast fortunes were deposited in foreign financial institutions (i.e. American banks). With such huge inflows of capital (economics babble for moolah) and nowhere for it to be spent, these banks grew promiscuous and daring in their lending to other countries. This ultimately led to a huge boom in borrowing done by LDCs that went towards paying for consumption rather than development/investment.
What happens when you spend all your money on, say, food and going to movies with friends? You're left with no money left for more... lasting pleasures (like a pair of socks or an external hard drive!). Similarly, countries like Mexico and some South American nations borrowed tons on money and spent it in ways that would not pay off much in the long run (eg: buying an ass-load of strawberries sure is tasty, but buying a tractor to farm them will yield more results in the long run). So what happens when the debt matures and it comes time to pay up? There are no more strawberries. Now we get governments forced to cut back spending (goodbye welfare and social strawberry programs) and even screwed to the point of defaulting on debts (which effectively screws over future prospects for getting new loans).
Oil seems to do a lot of cool stuff (like fry my bacon and stuff) but has really caused a lot of problems for people all over the world. If you haven't caught on already, I'm trying to get myself in the Economics exam writing mood, and I'm starting with the more interesting section of Development Economics. I've got to write this beast of an IB exam in about 2 or 3 weeks. I don't want to get raped. I also don't want to do bad on the exam. O.o

info @ the P.Pole 04.26.07

Just one item for today's list.

1 restaurant I might actually have to eat at from time to time that I hate the most:

• McDonald's

Most people who complain and whine about McDonald's probably do it because of the "nasty food" there. Not "nasty" as in "tastes bad" or "made of fecal matter and newspapers" sense, but more in the "it'll make you fat as the Halls of Hell" sense. I personally don't take issue with their food too much. I'm not overweight, nor do I eat there a lot. I don't watch my weight or try and manage my diet too much. On top of that, I'll eat anything that won't kill me so I don't mind McDonald's for those reasons.

What I do take issue with, though, is their terrible advertising. Not really "terrible" in a "what a terrible job that was" or "she looks terrible" sense, but more of a "f*** the unfortunate" kind of way. I'm pretty sure I need to explain.

If anyone reading this has ever driven northbound on McCowan (a tiny ways after Sheppard) in the past couple months, I'm sure you've spotted the McDonald's billboard with a slogan on it. It was to promote one of their breakfast wraps and it read something like this: "Toast is just cooked bread." Now, that might not seem like a big deal (and I'm trying not to make one out of it) but really, doesn't that line sit just a bit left of proper with you? Just cooked bread. "Just" cooked bread! I don't know about you, but there are people out there with no bread at all, and McDonald's thinks we're going to buy food just because it's more than just cooked bread?! What kind of a person would actually be motivated to go out and pay good money based on an ad like that? Well, maybe it was just a blip. It'll be changed in a bit.

The sign was indeed changed recently, to another McDonald's ad. This one wasn't much better (or better at all, if not worse) than the last. This one was advertising a chicken wrap of theirs, if I am not mistaken. The board read: "Lunch and dinner are so far apart." Damn right it is, but for people starving in LDCs. Lunch and dinner for us is approximately 5-7 hours apart (depending on how late you like to eat) but at least we get to eat. For some people out there, there is no lunch. Just dinner, which is their one and only meal a day.

I don't know why, but something about all this doesn't sit right with me on a personal level. I feel almost as if it's my fault that this kind of hyper-consumerism mentality could even be targeted by marketers. Is it really that our society has gotten so fat and full of itself that it doesn't even bother us that this is how companies think they can get us to buy their stuff?! Does this bug anyone else at all?!