well i think i've finally got stuff together for my bcit application. this is a good thing. i'll be able to send it off (or deliver it in person) by the end of next week.
then it's just waiting for my criminal background check and the personal interview.

cross my fingers.

as for kristin, the month is up today. one month without speaking. that was hard (for me at least) though i did slip-up and send her a couple of text messages which probably just made it worse for both of us. i'm not going to phone her yet though, i'll give it another week. i just want to see where we're at. i still really miss her.

cross my fingers.

i'd like to just see her, and hopefully we can start hanging out again (even if it is just as friends...that dreaded f-word).

i'm still looking for an apartment in south granville. there's one across the street from sister's apartment on oak and 13th. it's a good area, i used to live on oak and 14th before i went to korea. there's a video store, a bakery/deli, a little korean grocery store, a pannekoek house, dry cleaners and it's on a bus route. the landlord is supposed to call me when i can come see it, it's been a few days and he says he hasn't been able to get a hold of the tenant. we'll see.

i'll start my real search on monday, i think. a bachelor suite would be perfect, with a little deck and on the second floor or higher. so if you know of anything, let me know. i'm looking to spend between $600 and $800 a month.

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i have nothing to say...

this past month has been hell...

i'm not having fun...i'm still not getting anywhere. i paint, i watch tv, i go to the gym, i walk around vancouver aimlessly, i play the guitar and learn sappy songs, i drink with friends and smoke way too much and don't get enough sleep.

i'm trying to collect reference letters so i can apply to bcit, but it's hard and it takes time.

i wish i had a printer.

i wish i could talk to kristin. my biggest fear is seeing her out somewhere with her new boyfriend. everytime i think of this it's like someone kicked me in the gut.

sometimes i just want to call her up and reem her out and other times i just want to forget the whole thing...

i miss a lot of things about her. but most of all the friendship. i miss her cooking and the two bottles of cheap red wine we'd share with candles sitting on the floor in my living room. i miss having someone to cook for. i miss making plans to travel together and talking about people we knew, watching independent movies we'd never heard of, going to concerts of bands we'd never heard before too just because...i miss wanting to go to the island and see her beach and her house and the forest...i miss the sappy text messages at midnight or late night visits after work...

she's been around for as long as i can remember, we didn't talk for two years, but she was still there. i let her go years ago, and then she came back, i set her free and she came back, i fought for her, she chose me over someone else and now what?

and i should let this go, but i just can't...
and now it's just a feeling i can't grasp....

And the things you said
Do they still make sense?
Could you mean them now?
Did you even mean them then?
I could torture myself insane and tense
But I don't have the strength...

Ben Lee - How To Survive a Broken Heart (REALAUDIO SAMPLE)

(LYRICS)

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the stupid sun wakes me up every morning at about 7:30 fricken AM.

the stupid sun does not care about what time i went to bed, even if it was 4:30 fricken AM.

the stupid sun does not care that i need to spend more time sleeping so that i do not spend so much time staring at the wall.

the stupid sun does not care that i have closed my blinds. they are plastic and he comes in anyways.

the stupid sun does not care that my room becomes about 45 degrees.

the stupid sun should stop being so hot.

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almost everyone has heard of the game 'six degrees of kevin bacon'



you know, where every fairly major movie star, or anyone who has been in a feature film can be connected to the actor kevin bacon with a maximum of five intermediaries...

in december 2005, there were a total of 9,692 actors on the internet movie database out of 418,468 who could NOT be linked to kevin bacon in six degrees, which is pretty amazing (~2%) AND means that 98% of all recognized actors can be linked back to kevin bacon...

i've read of a sociological experiment that was performed years ago, where a man randomly selected a person (somehow, i don't know the details of it) that he did not know and then mailed a letter to someone he thought might know someone who knows this person...the experiment continued and was repeated and on average, the letter reached the randomly selected target in six degrees or less...

there's another experiment related to this going on on the internet right now called SIM6D. you can sign-up for free and are assigned a random target. your goal is to send an email to someone who you know who you think might know your target or someone who knows them...



the million people page is trying to create a unique snapshot of the world's internet users and show how they are all connected. the homepage shows a snapshot of 100 people, with a pixelated border. the colour of the border refers to the person's country of origin. you can click on each picture and it will reveal the people that person is connected to. (i'm number #173 if you want to use me as a referral.) they are trying to get a total of one million people to join, so go there now and get your own profile, it's free.

so where am i going with all of this...

well, i've been thinking alot about the people i know and people i've met and people i've ran into in my travels and how small the world really is...

i met dominique in gangneung, south korea, then learned he was the ex-roommate of my old boss's girlfriend back in vancouver...

while leaving my hostel in kyeongju, south korea i ran into a girl with whom two years earlier, i had shared a dorm house at st-anne university in church point, nova scotia, canada for five weeks...

while sipping a sangsom bucket on had rin beach, kohphangan, thailand, december 26th, 2004, and watching the boats bring partiers across from koh samui for the full moon party, i ran into a guy whom i had met 5 years earlier at college, had borrowed his id at the time so i could drink, had never given it back to him, and had then found out a few years years later that he was dating one of my ex-girlfriends...

while becoming highly intoxicated on absinthe at a bar on santorini island, greece, i was surprised to see a face i recognized at the bar, but was thought there was no way. her friend approached me to talk, i asked about the girl at the bar and found out she WAS from vancouver...and there she was, kellie, a girl i had worked with and partied with in surrey, canada, maybe three years earlier...i later stayed with her in belfast, ireland...

there are more...

so if these happened to me, all over this giant planet...how big can it really be? not that fricken' big at all...

which means that when you meet someone you really get along with you should really stick with them...i mean, if you've happened upon them in your life, out of 6.5 BILLION people, that you LITERALLY have a REAL chance of meeting...that's pretty amazing...i mean, how often do you really make new friends?

real friends, friends that you'd call regularly or see regularly...not that often, i'm guessing, maybe ONE every TWO years or so...and a lover, how often do you find someone you could actually get along with for a long time, really fall in love with? even less often, maybe ONCE every FOUR years...

and SO in the years where you're actually looking, 18 to 30, you'll be lucky to meet even three or four people you could actually have a meaningful relationship with...

think about it...if you have someone in your life, cherish them...

don't play that game...

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it all makes sense now. it's here...saturn. it's not just me, it's a huge planet pulling on me.



what is the saturn return, you ask? well saturn completes its revolution around the sun every 28-30 years...so every 28-30 years, saturn returns to the position it was at during your birth and this causes all kinds of problems...

the first saturn return is the hardest and happens in you late twenties. it marks the end of youth and the beginning of the productive adult years of life. the mid-life crisis most people experience is the second return of saturn in your late fifties and if you make it, you'll hit it again in your late eighties.

the first return of saturn is usually accompanied by a sense of urgency to accomplish everything you've ever wanted or said you've wanted. if you are not in a definite career, you'll feel a push to settle in one.

this can also be a time of satisfaction and achievement. relationships that start now are usually 'fated' or 'destined' and usually are better for you and different in a good way than anything before...

it's also a time to get rid of the old. often people feel like getting out of old life patterns, stop the clubbing, stop the binge drinking, stop the drugs, stop wasting life and do something more fulfilling. settle down.

this time in life reveals to people what they really want. often you'll get to know yourself better. i'm lucky i had the chance to travel, i've spent a long time alone, i've seen and experienced a lot of things people can only dream about and i feel like i DO know myself...and i'm starting to realize what i want from life...

i really am heading in a new direction and it's all thanks to saturn...

on the other hand, this could all be a bunch of new-age hooey...

you can read up on the SATURN RETURN here...

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it's times like these you learn to live again
it's times like these you give and give again
it's times like these you learn to love again
it's times like these time and time again

---times like these, the foo fighters

i don't know and i don't know why can't seem to feel better about my situation with the ex...we still haven't really talked (as per our agreement), it's been almost three weeks, and i can't stop wondering about her...i really miss her. i know (well i'm pretty sure) that she's seeing someone else right now which makes it even worse.

i find these days long and boring and i have too much time to think about WHY my days are long and boring and so it doesn't help...

this week has been extra long, i think. i had a difficult and grueling interview on monday morning for a biotech job...it was an hour long, on the phone and i had to answer all these questions about the technical aspects and the steps involved with several different microbiological laboratory techniques...

i graduated in 2002 and haven't really had much exposure to this stuff since then, so it was hard recalling it all...i did my best, but i guess it wasn't good enough because they didn't call back to set-up a second interview...

i actually don't really care, because on tuesday i finally heard back from the program advisor at BCIT, who informed me that because i already have a degree, i can complete a specialized forensic program to earn an Advanced Certificate in Forensic Science. it doesn't require the 6 month work experience before admission...which is good...

so that's what i'm going to do, i'll start in september, but still have to go through a lengthy admissions procedure, including a personal interview, and collect reference letters and a criminal background check...

on wednesday, i hung out with a friend from work, we had coffee and then walked around gastown and i took her to my favourite gastown shop, this cool antiques place. in the basement they have an apothecary's chest, maybe a hundred drawers, each one filled with different weird things to buy...

then we went to canada place imax to see 'deep sea 3d' and then out for sushi...she's cool, i like hanging out with her...BUT she has a boyfriend and i always feel weird about calling her, she always seems to be up for it though...should i feel this way?

i've also been wandering around south granville, looking for a new apartment every once in awhile. i'd like to move out for august 1st. i saw a studio for rent in this sweet-ass building on 11th near hemlock. i think it would be perfect, but i haven't been able to get a hold of anyone there to ask questions yet...

that's it for now. OH YEAH! misty (from korea) wrote me and said she'll be in vancouver sometime in august and wants to hang out, so i'm really looking forward to that...



misty, on gyeongpo haesuyokjang, gangneung, south korea

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in a press conference this morning George W. Bush said these to a reporter,
"Are you going to ask that question with shades on?"
"I'm interested in the shade look, seriously."
"For the viewers [at home], there's no sun."



but what he didn't realize was that the reporter was legally blind.

i mean c'mon, i just can't believe that anybody could be that stupid...and then bush goes and proves me wrong...

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE...

READ THE STORY HERE...

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cheng kwee yay, jagshemash, my friend borat from khazakstan, bing bing ding-ding-ding diga-ding bing bing ding ding-ding ding, make new site
nice! i like. it very good...
please go to see it! www.borat.tv

here is the official BORAT MOVIE trailer...it will probably get pulled in a bit, because the studio has asked every site to take it down, it was probably leaked, but if you get to see it, it is fricken hilarious! i can't wait for the movie..

new borat movie coming NOVEMBER 3 to picture house near you...

and borat also includes his rebuttal to the recent accusations from the khazakstani government...


NOTE: if you do not know who borat is and you want to laugh, you have to see his web page, there are some clips on there from his show...

the Unofficial Borat Homepage includes descriptions and photos from all his shows...

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last weekend i went up to chilliwack lake to go camping with a bunch of friends from highscool, some i see every day, some i hadn't seen in years...it was full of booze and ridiculousness...we went on a 5 minute hike and then turned back...other than that we sat around the fire and drank...good times...

six guys, one girl, 180 beers, 40 ounces of old english, 40 ounces of appletons dark rum, 48 hot dogs, 15 cans of chef boyardee, one bottle of water...hum!



a small creek near our campsite that joins into the vedder river...



a great canadian forest....



our cooler...there are some hot dogs in there somewhere...



brad, mike and scott on the five minute hike...



we were hacking and a dog came and stole the hack...just laugh...



enjoying the great taste of olde english...



the burning man...



deven attacking people with a chunk of wood...



brad cooking hotdogs...



playing poker...

six guys, one girl, 180 beers, 40 ounces of old english, 40 ounces of appletons dark rum, 48 hot dogs, 15 cans of chef boyardee, one bottle of water...

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these have to be the coolest shoes ever made. the asics onitsuka tiger. they are low profile, comfortable and come in a huge variety of colours. the ones above are the mexico 66 version, a pair that i had years ago.



the new version of the tiger is the onitsuka whizzer. they were worn in yellow and black (the tai-chi version) by uma thurman in kill bill, by johnny knoxville in the ringer and also by charlize theron in aeonflux (in blue and white).





i miss my "mexico 66" version tigers. right now i'm sporting a black and white pair of onitsuka whizzer's called hyperblack.

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i wandered around downtown today taking some photos. i got the idea for these scrabble pics from a postcard i saw in pai. they were all taken down hornby street towards false creek and along the seawall towards stanley park in vancouver. they've all been photoshopped for effect.



Beach



Tree One



Fountain



Garden



Hornby



Wood



No Dogs



Street Music

this photo was of some piping hanging above the entrance to the parkade at the paramount on hornby and smithe...



Buildings

the building on the left is mine, the one on the top right is its twin and those are cool lofts in the bottom right hand corner...

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as you can see, i'm creating a new template...

i coded the entire thing from scratch so the html is a lot cleaner...

hopefully i'll have less compliance problems with mozilla now and will be able to start an rss or atom feed...

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i just found out that the author of the 'korea life blog' and 'china life blog' (see the sidebar) took his own life on may 23 by jumping from the roof of his apartment building in beijing.


i read shawn's blog regularly in korea, but hadn't kept up with it when he moved to china. he deleted all the archives, pretty much the entire blog, so there isn't really anything left now.


i didn't know him, but it's still sad news. i hope that he finds peace.


you can read the whole story here.


if you've read my blog regularly, most of you should know that i've been kind of going through some weird times right now too. i guess you could call it an early-life crisis. i'm doing better now. it was just a matter of making some solid decisions in my life and sticking with them. it's hard. i thought i had everything under control. i was happy with my life, but something happened a couple of weeks ago that changed everything. it was like pulling out the foundation from underneath me and suddenly i didn't really feel good about anything. i realized that i have to stop running away and that for me, at least right now, going back to korea and travelling, would be just that. and in a year and a half or two when i got home, i would really be in the same position again.


yes, i miss my girlfriend. she kept me in line. she's been around at pivotal points in my life and has always been there for me, during the last four years, even if only in spirit. we decided to not speak for awhile, i erased her number, i don't really have anyway of contacting her. that was hard too, and i still think about her often. i hope that she's happy, i hope that she figures out what she wants from life.
for now, for me, i'm just going one day at a time, planning for the future and trying to create some balance in my life.


this too, shall pass...

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looking back through some of my old travel photos i found these and they made me smile...both from laos...



on the door of my hostel in vientiane...



on the door of my room in luang prabang...turn off the FUN! please



same same, but different...

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