Coolio.. Mike-o has filled out a comment! Yay.. this is so fun, no? Well, I find it fun/neat.

BTW Mikey, the reason that the page says "Sorry, but there were no matching entries" is that the script by default checks today's date for any entries.. and so, every morning (starting at midnight) that message will appear on the page, until I add an entry for that day. It's just the way I wrote the thing.. I may change it since it's a bit confusing I agree.. but the code is more elegant without me putting some extra "if this is default" check in there. Ah... I guess I'll sacrifice the elegancy for a bit more clarity.

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Hey, Hellcow updated his page AND he updated his blurb about me. Assuming he won't mind, I repeat it here:

Ever the innovator in web design, Hwan now has a text-based page which you can leave little comments on. A bravely open policy these days, but hopefully he won't attract undesireable elements.. "Where did you get this great crack?" "Oh, I picked a phone number up from www.hwan.com!"

Hmmm... true, this page is a bit open to abuse.. but I ain't giving out any phone numbers! Geez.. I guess that's the sort of thing I should've expected from an IT Security Engineer *chuckle*. Every time I see the word engineer, I think of those little C&C dudes saying, "Engineer!" Hehehe.

Okay, I'm watching A&E's Jerry Seinfeld Biography.. later dudes.

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Actually, this entry isn't really about Angela per se, it's more to do with me having little to do. I was trying out EgoSurf, a search engine that specializes in finding info/mentions of names. Anyway, a search for "Angela Ludbr00k" garnered two interesting links, both containing the same text about XENA of all things.

A News-Times article from January 31, 1996.

And this XENA: MEDIA REVIEW #13 paper, which shares much of the same text.

I've been trying a lot of names.. I found a kgl hit on professor jones.. apparently she won a $10 HMV gift certificate. Her homepage didn't come up. Hehehe.. a search on hellcow's name came up with this Two Weeks with Hanson Part Two page. Hmmm.. and here's a Heidi Klum page, something I came across on a search for pop's uid.

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Yo.. Mikeo got to my place around 4 or so with louder. Showed them the ending to Deus Ex, then played a little counterstrike (which louder hasn't seen before). QYV came over after work, we played some Virtua Tennis.. went to Kelsey's with RbBntn, picked up a2chow and saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yeah, third time for hwanboy... ah, it was ok.. this time I ignored the subtitles and just tried to listen and watch -- you can miss out on a lot of details when you're busy reading subtitles.

Plans for tomorrow are unknown.

Party next weekend, a housewarming for some phys classmates. And another party the weekend after, Growl's bday party.

Oh yeah, and my bday is coming up to, but I don't know what to ask for.. there's little in terms of materials items that I'm looking for, now.

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Got up around 11:30 or so, made some scrambled eggs and toast for Mikeo and myself. Played some dreamcast, waiting for people to call back and Louder to drop by. Went to BK then to the Pacific Mall to find some Dreamcast hardware for me, but it was a fruitless quest as the store(s) that had what I really wanted were closed until 5:30 or some such mad hour.

So we headed downtown to kill time until QYV and RB got off work...

Going south on Highway 404, approaching the 401 exits.	Looking south on the 404, with the Lawrence exits to the right. Over the far hill and to the right is the Ontario Science Center.	South on the Don Valley Parkway (DVP, which is what the 404 is called south of the 401). You can read Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion for some light history on that bridge.
Looking west on the Gardiner, just after coming off the DVP. I STILL can't believe that the city is going to tear down the Gardiner.. it's such ANNOYING MADNESS, I tells ya! Like traffic isn't bad enough already. Please, someone do something! Gah.	Ominous way to get into the city. You see this sign on a church on your right from Richmond, just after getting off the DVP. It's been there for as long as I can remember, which is quite a while.	Still on the Richmond ramp, heading downtown. You can see the CN Tower and the Canada Trust building (the one with the big red light). I think the reddish building is the Bank of Montreal tower, or maybe that's the grey one.
The Canada Life insurance building, as seen from looking north at Queen and University. The lights at the top are supposed to give you an indication of what the weather is going to be like, although I forget most of what the light signals mean.	Queen and Spadina, looking south towards Spadina. There are two designated lanes usable only by street cars running north and south along Spadina, which you can barely make out in the picture.	Looking east from Queen and Spadina. Lots of chic fashion shops (including the new Caban, Club Monaco's home shop), tiny restaurants and cafes, and quite a few oddities.
Mikeo getting some toiletries. It was a strange drug store, definitely not a chain store. They had something like 10 people working in that tiny place.. well, 10 people dressed up as pharmacists. And the place smelled like a barbershop.	Louder and Mikeo walking eastwards on Queen, just past Spadina. That "Open Kitchen Restaurant" joint has been around a long time. The Kathouse is a relatively new addition.	Again looking east on Queen. I've never been inside the Bamboo, but it's often busy. The white speckles are snowflakes which my flash has overilluminated, which you'll see a lot in the next few pictures.

Met up with a2chow at Nathan Phillips Square, by the ice rink. There were some ice sculptures, but they were pretty lame. Andrew remembered that there used to be a console place on the outside of the Eaton Center, on Yonge Street so we gave it a try but again to no avail.. the construction moved all those stores away. The Yonge street side of the Eaton Center is a now a ultrabright parkade of oversized advertisements, blinding your consumer senses with vague wording and beautiful faces.

Anyway, the store was no longer there but there was a Toys'r'Us across the street.. no deals either. Argh. Rushed back to where Louder's car was parked, headed north along the congested DVP to my place. Met up with QYV, went to a sushi restaurant, where Mikeo, QYV, and I shared a 70 piece maki/sushi/sashimi boat. Not bad, though not completely fresh *makes face*. Well, it was sorta late.. we ordered around 8:30 or something and the place closed by 10. We were the last customers. Louder had to drive back to KW, so it was just the four of us to play some pool at Challengers (and catch the last few minutes of the Leaf game).

So, what do you think of my hair?

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Yo.. the boys (qyv, a2chow) were here again this weekend, this time accompanied by Mikeo and Niels. Uhm, let me backtrack a bit first.

Friday after work I met up with Dale, an old friend of mine back from my Montreal '95 days (where I had a blast, Montreal is a great city for yoots). I saw him earlier this year where we bumped into each by chance at the CNE. Funny/crazy story to go with that -- he had rented a hotel over in East York, near Danforth and Moberry or something. He left his car parked on the street, and when he came back he found it being vandalized by a trio of kids.. about 10-11 years old! They had punctured the tires (so that it now sat on its undercarriage, crushing the muffler among other things), made numerous scrapes and scratched to the paint, and ripped off the hood ornament. He actually caught them on a return trip, coming back to do even more damage. And this was on a public street, during daylight hours!

Dale made the kids take him to their parents, where they got an earful. The insurance company said they never heard of anything like this in Toronto (and frankly, neither have I, it's SO bizarre) and paid for half of the repair costs. They sent a letter to the parents, asking to pay for so and so amount too. The police said they couldn't do anything to the kids, as they're minors. But isn't it freaky? Man, that's just too weird.

Ok, so ANYWAY, I met up with Dale at the Eaton Center Friday night. Yes, the night of our first snowfall this December, and the highway was a complete MESS. Fargin' heck, it was terribly slow. So I got there quite late, and then we were to meet outside a store called Sirens.. unfortunately, there are TWO such stores in the Eaton Center, and, you guessed it, I waited at one and he at the other. So we didn't meet up until an hour or so after our arranged time. Buh.

Shopping turned out empty for me, I couldn't track down any of the things I was searching for. Aigh. Two fast food meals too, ugh. On the drive back home, I was able to make good time (although the van slid through a particularly slushy stretch of road under a bridge, which was pretty thrilling). Saw LOTS of goofs in ditches, goodness me. Even saw one guy on the Hwy 7 exit off the 404 spun around, facing oncoming traffic. The fool left his lights on, and his car was on such an angle that he was blinding everyone that passed him. Guh.

Saturday I got a haircut from Ken, my stylist in the chinese mall across the way from my house. It's an alright cut, not as great as last time but still not shabby. Shaggy maybe.

Went to the Pacific Mall afterwards to find some more presents, but could only track down one. I had to then pick up my sister at Finch, but the traffic situation in the Pacific Mall parking lot was MAD-NESS. It's SO poorly laid out -- there are like only 4 exits for a 3-400 car parking lot? That is not very many. And only one of the exits has traffic lights. Factor in the "oh, it's a parking lot so I don't have to apply street rules" mentality, and you can just imagine the carnage.

My sister made dinner for the three of us (my dad, her, and myself): rice pasta with pesto sauce, salad with strawberry vinaigrette, garlic bread and chocolate ice cream cake for dessert. Just as I was finishing that qyv and a2chow came by with their hardware. Mikeo and Niels dropped in around 11 or so. I was hoping to get a Diablo II lan game going, but Mikeo's laptop has one of the crazy fuse-included British plugs, and we didn't have a convertor. So instead we played Starcraft: Brood War late into the night.

Ok, I'm almost done this entry. Today, Sunday, we went to see Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Eh, it was alright. I have, up til now, been successfully avoiding the Harry Potter phenomenon.. I dunno, I just didn't want to get caught up in it. But I really like J.K. Rowling, she seems like a super great gal. Well, from what I've read about her, and from a TVO interview she did some time ago. The film wasn't bad, not bad at all.. though I sort of did expect a little more at the ending. Or rather, I expected a bit more travel in the film. My peeve about the film -- the main character has a weird smile that he uses way way too often. And for too long a period each time. Interesting thing about the film -- it made me really hungry.

Uh, last paragraph and then it's time for bed. After the film, we met up with Kyle and Jenn at the Fox and Fiddle for dinner, and lots of chatting (Segway/"SHT", cricket, martial arts, guitars, PDAs, cars). And finally, we came back to my place for a few games of 2 on 3 Starcraft, though the Niels/Mikeo/Hwan team lost all three times. Or two times. I forget now.

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2010/08/03 Hwan I won't say that all is well (for I don't believe it to be so), but I am better. Thanks to all for asking!
2010/07/20 QYV Expected range for Creatinine for guys is 60 - 110 umol/L
2010/07/20 llamariffic Hmm, macrocytosis here as well, but to be honest I've had it since before I truly embarked on drinking as a proper hobby. Similarly, stopped drinking entirely, and it didn't go away. Just one of those things, I think.
2010/07/19 girl ack!! It's weird to think that I am now a parental unit. It was nice to see you hwan!
2010/05/21 Hwan I recall trying earplugs well back in my undergrad years, to mixed results. My sleep was troubled by feelings of claustrophobia. I also have a, perhaps unfounded, fear of not hearing the essential alarm in the mornings. However, I may give these another go, thanks.
2010/05/21 llamatron Have you tried sleeping with earplugs? My flat faces out onto a main road, so I've started using the standard foam plugs. It took a few nights to get used to them, but they make a big difference.
2010/05/21 girl The original swedish title: "Men who hate women". I'm not sure if it's the fault of the translation, but I never liked the reporter dude.
2001/03/07 Hwan Damn.. it seems Unweb has since died. http://www.gamegrene.com/node/183
2001/03/07 TY SHARDEL YOU CAN TRADE WITH THE UNIVERSE AND ENABLE SOCIAL NEEDS, OR PERHAPS POST WISH LISTS, HUG THE GLOBE LIKE A BIG OCTOPUS... TY
2010/03/24 Hwan I am amused by the John Irving comparison. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Irving#Recurring_themes