Snow Trip Status
So far, trip planning is going ok I guess. Hopefully everything gets done soon while preseason deals are going on. Note: If all these trips happen, I'll be at 19 days of snowboarding already for the season lol. So awesome.

• Mont Tremblant Dec 21-23: Room hasn't been booked yet. So far Liza and Rob want to go. Don't know about Mike/Martin/Katy yet. Nobody else has mentioned anything about wanting to go, but they have rooms for 6 and 8. I'm going to take a bus from Tremblant to Montreal after I think (or maybe get dropped off? That'd be awesome.) for Christmas. Don't know if I should take more vacation days around that time and snowboard in Montreal for a bit. Need to make sure I'm not going alone lol.
• Whistler Jan 6-11: I booked my airplane tickets so now all that's left is figuring out logistics like the snobus rides and what else to do while in Vancouver. Francis mentioned maybe renting a car and driving down to Seattle and visiting that area.
  On a side note, Aeroplan is so stupid. I saw tickets priced at 25,000 aeroplan miles in August. But I didn't have enough back then. Then the price shoots up to between 50,000 and 125,000 until the beginning of September for 1 day and I didn't know what days I'd be going yet so I couldn't book. And then I finally I decide when to book the flights and the tickets go back up to 125,000. Finally waited it out and got a flight for 25,000. So annoying.
  • Francis mentionned maybe renting a car and driving down to Seattle and visiting that area (day or overnight trip?)
  • Flight from Toronto to Vancouver: Jan 4th 7am Eastern -> 9:05am Pacific
  • Flight from Vancouver to Toronto: Jan 12 5:40pm Pacific -> 1:02am Eastern
  • Stay in Whistler Jan 6 - 11 (5 nights).
  • Only 2 people confirmed for this trip so far.
  • Need to plan snobus trip and figure out where to stay when I'm in Vancouver, and get lift tickets. I'll probably buy an edge card next week at the Toronto Ski & Snowboard show.
• Mont St Anne Jan 25-27: Don't know cost for this trip yet but it should be the same as last year ($260'ish or something like that). Need to get 25 people from Toronto so we can have a bus chartered and I don't have to drive 5 hours from Montreal to Toronto in the middle of the night again. I think if you're going to do 1 'bus' trip this year, this is the one. Tremblant was a lot of fun last year.
• Jay Peak Feb 1-3: Don't know if I can take all these Fridays off for ski trips, but we'll see. DC Events posted the dates for this trip but no other information, so just mark your calendars.
• Kelowna/Rossland End of Feb?: Need to see who wants to go in on this. Have to hurry up and book this properly because the good deals expire soon. I think there's a 99/night/person deal at Red Mountain including lift tickets. And there's probably somethign similar at Big White.
  • Fly to Kelowna.
  • Drive to Crystal Mountain. Snowboard 1 day (9am - 3:30pm)
    650 ft vertical drop, 24 trails (kind of a warm up I guess). Maybe just not going to Crystal Mountain and just go straight to Big White.
  • Drive to Big White. Snowboard 1 day (8:45am - 8pm)
    2550 ft vertical drop, 118 trails, 500 ft superpipe, 400 ft halfpipe
  • Drive to Red Mountain. Snowboard 3 days
    2909 ft vertical drop, 87 trails, Cat Skiing
  • Drive to Kelowna. Fly out

Preseason stuffs
Toronto Ski & Snowboard Show is next week (Thursday-Sunday). Saturday is the Toronto premiere of Stepchild & Nomis - Child Support and other films. I think they're also screening Burton - For Right or Wrong and Teton Gravity Research - Lost and Found. I need to get bindings and I want to get a new jacket/snowpants. I think I need a new board bag and luggage bag too for the trips i'm going to do this season. Gotta also pick up information too so I can plan my trips properly. Need to get a Whistler Edge Card to save money on the lift tickets on the whistler trip and I'll probably pick up an 8 pack for Mount St Louis Moonstone as well.

Other not so interesting news
Nuit Blanche was kind of crappy. Totally overcrowded so everything you'd want to see had a super long lineup. Kind of wish it rained again this year like it did last year. I think it was something like 800,000 people out on the streets that night, which is crazy... AND more than the population of Edmonton lol. I forgot my camera so that sucked though.
I started watching Intelligence (the CBC show). On episode 6 of Season 1 I think now. It's pretty good. The plot direction looks similar to Deadwood in terms of how everybody is just trying to get their own stuff done. It's probably the best Canadian show I've seen.

TIFF'07
Saw 2 films at the Toronto International Film Festival so far. Still have 2 more to see before the festival ends. Kind of sucks that I had to be in Edmonton all this time or I think I would see a lot more than just 4.
Mongol: Saw this at the Elgin Theatre on Yonge Street. I'd have to say it might possibly be the best film I'm going to see throughout TIFF'07 and I have yet to see 2 films still. It's about Genghis Khan who was a slave before he conquered half the world. If you ever have the chance to watch this, make sure you do.
L'Ennemi Intime: Saw this at Cumberland. It's a French film about the fight in Algeria in 1959 (their last colonial war). I'd have to say the film is convincingly realistic, but the subject matter involves themes of torture and other gruesome depictions. I enjoyed it too, but not as much as Mongol.

Busy Labor Day Weekend
Went up to Coboconk (it's just fun saying Coboconk haha) for the beginning of Labor Day Weekend. Interesting tidbit #1: The name is from the Ojibwa term gakaabikaang, meaning "waterfalls". Interesting tidbit #2: Coboconk is home to Canada's smallest jail on North Water St. Coboconk Wikipedia Page.
It also so happened that a bunch of people from Montreal (Alex, James, Naomi, Lisa, Kenny, Duyen) came to visit and were staying at Foster's for the weekend so I went to meet up with them at Caffe Demetre on Danforth.

Winding down
Project here in Edmonton is winding down so that means I can be back in Toronto again (yay). Hopefully it doesn't get too cold and I can still go sailing a few more times. Haven't been in a few weeks.

Deadmonton
I've been getting a lot of questions lately, but most of them generally fall into the typical 3 questions you see listed here.

• How's Edmonton?
• How's the flight?
• What do you do in Edmonton?

• Ottawa: 278.6 people/km^2
• Calgary: 1360.2 people/km^2
• Waterloo, Ontario: 1520.7 people/km^2
• Toronto: 3972 people/km^2
• Montreal: 4439 people/km^2
• Vancouver: 5252 people/km^2

How's Edmonton?
Boring. The city is too small that downtown basically shuts down after 5pm. I went to West Edmonton Mall and went through the entire mall in about 3 hours. It's basically the same stores as you find anywhere else except for a handful of local independantly run ones. The mall is really only the 'largest' because of the huge water park and other random stuff they put in there for the sake of the record. There's a hockey rink which means half the mall is FREEZING cold and the other half is warm. There's a pirate ship in the middle of a hallway which means you have to walk ALL THE WAY AROUND it to get to a store on the other side. And there's a T&T Supermarket in the mall which is not only wierd, but... ok it's just wierd.

How's the flight?
So far, I've flown 11 times for business to/from Edmonton. Of those 11 times, the plane has taken off on time once, and has arrived at the destination on time a grand total of 0 times. Reasons for delays include:

• Pilots have exceeded their union limited flight time for the day so we need to find new pilots.
• Crew have exceeded their union limited flight time for the day so we need to find new crew.
• Faulty tire on the landing gear requires a change.
• The bridge that you walk on to get onto the plane has mechanical issues and cannot be retracted so the plane can push back.
• The bridge that you walk off of to get off the plane has mechanical issues and cannot extend to the plane so they can open the doors.
• Mechanical technicians for walkway bridges exceed union limited work hours and new mechanical technicians need to be found.
• Not enough ground crew to load/unload the plane with luggage and other things needed for the flight.
• Not enough ground crew to unload the plane.
• Broken windshield on the incoming plane you're supposed to take means it's diverted and they have to find a different plane to service that flight.
• Incoming plane has mechanical errors and cannot arrive on time.
• Incoming plane was delayed before takeoff meaning my flight is delayed.
• Ground crew has technical difficulties openning the cargo doors to unload/load the plane
• Not enough gates at the terminal for the plane to dock (do planes dock?) at.
• Overbooked flights means other passengers require assistance in upgrading their tickets and cause issues with gate attendants delaying the plane from taking off.
• Waiting for a spot in line to take off.

What do you do in Edmonton?
I go to work and then I go back to the hotel, drop off my laptop, maybe change, and then go find a restaurant to eat at. Then I try to kill time by either walking around or going to watch a movie. It's very boring. If anybody ever asks you to go to Edmonton, punch them in the face and then say no and walk away.

Ok what else is up?
I got my CYA White Sail Level III at the end of July. I was going to get my Bronze IV and Bronze V but working in Edmonton is pretty bad for scheduling which means I'd be super tired on the weekend for that course and wouldn't even be able to go to the Fridays of the 2 weekends needed so I'll have to wait till next year to learn how to trapeze and use a spinnaker. I can't wait to do this next year.

Movies
I saw a bunch of movies too. Is it me or do the movies this year suck? Recently I watched The Bourne Ultimatum, Transformers, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Last Legion, Live Free or Die Harder, Rush Hour 3 and Stardust.

The Bourne Ultimatum

Not as good as I thought it could have been. Action was kind of lame and unoriginal. The plot didn't seem to flow together and dialogue was very patchy and not very convincing.

Transformers

This movie makes me mad. It could have been so good but they ruined it. The story had nothing to do with Transformers other than the fact that they could transform. I'm going to just stop thinking about it before I get really really mad at this overbudgetted car commercial. The special effects are pretty though. If only they would actually zoom out a bit so you could see more than flashy flashy blurry lines streaking accross the screen.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

As Harry Potter movies go, this one was probably the worst of them all. I think it's due to the temporary director change. In any case, it tried to remain true to the story, but rather than lengthen the movie to properly express things (including the plot) they'd rather cut out huge chunks of detail and leave you with a movie geared towards people with extreme ADD. I sure hope the next movie is better.

The Last Legion

This is quite possibly the best example this summer of a 'me too' movie. "The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe meets Lord of the Rings meets ultra-watered down 13th Warrior" is probably the best description. You have the child who knows nothing lead by people who know slightly less nothing and make a huge journey to fight a huge battle at a 'wall' with a good sorcerer in WHITE fighting an evil dude in BLACK. Tie it all together with a very patchwork plot with a little bit of the Excalibur mythos to try to keep the 'originality factor' acceptable and you're done.

Live Free or Die Harder

In terms of action movies, this is probably the best action movie you'll see all year. Great camerawork. Great choreography. Very nicely integrated action sequences that flow and actually contribute to the story. Explosions that actually catch you off guard. I think this movie ruined all other action movies for me this year.

Rush Hour 3

They should have stopped at 2. The jokes are old and the comedic style hasn't changed either. The action is pretty lame and not really on par with the action from the other 2 movies, and casting really screwed up in a lot of roles.

Stardust

In terms of entertainment and story, Stardust really impressed me. Special effects were decent but what gets you is the entire story (absurd as it really is). It's actually compelling because you're not introduced to a world that they try to justify. In fact, they push the absurdity level so high that you just have to believe whatever they give you. It's really well done. Go see this one.

Reading
I finished reading a bunch of stuff. Most notable would have to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was ok I guess. Kind of seemed very hackery in terms of trying to get aspects of the plot to fit together at times but it was a decent Harry Potter. Most of the story is pretty predictable (though it's not like any of the other books had big surprises in them other than maybe the 6th one). At least it's over now.
I also got my September issue of Transworld Snowboarding and the Transworld Snowboarding Buyer's Guide. And my Burton catalog came in. Ok when your catalog weighs about 2 lbs and has over 100 pages of full bled pictures it's a bit crazy. In any case, the Burton catalog is really nice so check it out if you can get your hands on one. I'm still waiting for my Rome catalog. I got my Nitro catalog a while ago. It's such a lame way of getting snowboarding pictures to look at but you gotta do what you gotta do haha.

Whistler
Snowboarding in Whistler this winter is going to happen for sure now. Lodging is booked already and I just need to get my flight set but I'm going to fly with aeroplan points I think and I haven't accumulated enough yet but I should have enough by mid-september. If you haven't heard about it yet, then count yourself officially informed. I'm going to try to do more than just the trip to Whistler this winter though. Maybe a trip to banff or a trip down to the states somewhere if it's cheap. All I know is that I can't wait.

I should get around to updating my snow blog. There's a ton of stuff I want to post there but I haven't had time to prep it all. Oh well. Maybe later.

Haven't seen Transformers the movie or Harry Potter 5 yet but hopefully I'll be able to soon. Picked up my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows but haven't started reading it yet. The Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothing Mixtape is pretty good.

Work is sending me to Edmonton for 9 weeks. I'm leaving in a few hours. I fly back to Toronto every weekend though so it's not really a big deal.

Finally sent in my 2005 tax return lol. Oh man, I should have done this a lot sooner but I've been so lazy lately.

I broke the "Button 1" on my laptop mouse thing so the piece of plastic kind of comes out now. Kind of annoying that every once in a while the button comes up and flies out after i press it. Don't really know how it broke either. Just popped out one time I used it. I guess it shows the aging of my laptop even though there's no real reason why it should be aging. Still runs fine for me at least. I'm pretty impressed by how well the keys on the keyboard are holding up at least too. The other keyboard I have has holes in the keys already but this laptop keyboard is pretty durable. I wonder how long laptops usually last before people just give up on them and upgrade? Because I'm pretty sure I could use this system for another 5 - 10 years.

Tommy Emmanuel
I can now say that I've seen the greatest fingerpicking guitarest in the world play live. He's so good. If you don't know who Tommy Emmanuel is, you better hit up youtube. In fact, watch his performances of Amazing Grace, Guitar Boogie, Over The Rainbow, probably his most famous: Classical Gas, Beatles Medley, and my personal favorite: Green Thumb (always reminds me of mozying along a beaten trail or something lol). So good.

Then we went and lined up for tickets to the Lee Chin Crystal openning at the ROM, and after lining up in a huge line (no seriously, it was pretty long), got tickets for 3:30pm the next day.

Sunday
Went to Niagara Street Cafe for brunch, then headed over to Queen's park and checked out the Drum Festival. Then headed over to the Lee Chin Crystal opening preview. Being empty there wasn't much to see other than the architecture, some of which was pretty cool, but you could tell it's really not finished yet. A lot of stuff has to be done before the inside of the building is even ready to hold anything. Anyways, it was quite cool. Houston has a few good pictures I think. Then we went to Yorkville and checked out the robotic robot at Roots. It's actually the same chair as this Youtube video that was released a while ago, but it's actually pretty impressive watching it live in person.

Sailing
I signed up for sailing lessons at Queen's Quay Sailing and Powerboating. First lesson is July 13th, and then there's intermmediate dinghy 2 weeks later and then advanced dinghy later on. So hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be done with the CYA Bronze Sail certification. Can't wait. You get to learn how to sail backwards, and use the spinnaker in advanced dinghy lol. Flying with a spinnaker looks so fun.

Recentish stuff to link to and talk about
Some of this might be unrealistically brief for their actual value and importance, while some other things in this list might be just brief enough. As well, events are not in any order (though they may seem to be in reverse chronological). This might be long... brace yourself.

• Duyen & Kenny got married this past weekend. Congratulations to you two. Awesome wedding and good times. Got to see a lot of people I haven't seen in a while too, which is always fun. I don't have any pictures because, well, I don't have a camera anymore and as usual, I'm going to just leech pictures off everybody else.
• Howard, Alfred Mui, James Ng and Vanessa had birthdays. Congratulations all of you.
• Cheanne are still travelling (we miss you guys back here) and went to a sumo wrestling match while in Japan. Check out the video (youtube) Chi put together. It's pretty good.
• Kenny had his bachelor party. Went white water rafting. It was pretty good. Especially since I didn't drown. Here's a picture of James falling into the water on the first hit. I'm in the 3rd row on the starboard side. Click the picture for a bigger version (stolen from facebook, sigh).
• Saw Spiderman 3. It wasn't that good. Haven't seen Pirates 3 yet but I finally saw Pirates 2, which also wasn't that great, but that's probably because its only purpose in existing is to lead into Pirates 3.
• Preordered my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Man that book is expensive. I got 10% off, used a gift certificate and still had to pay like $30. If Harry doesn't die an epic death in this book I'm going to be sad.
• Finally got to try Barberian's Steakhouse (Yonge & Elm). It's pretty good. Nice restaurant too. I heard there's a group table in the wine cellar so you can eat surrounded by wine. Had the Chateaubriande. A chateaubriande is cut from the whole tenderloin (thick center cut), after the whole tenderloin has been removed from the short loin of the cow. Thank you everybody that came out. It was really really good.
• Saw a Belgian movie Man Bites Dog (starring Benoit Poelvoorde). It's quite wierd. About a film crew doing a documentary following a serial killer, who shows them the tricks of the trade, etc. Anyways, it's quite funny and worth watching (French with English subs).
• Listenning to a lot of mashups lately. Found some really good ones at The Hood Internet. The best ones are the TI vs Fujiya Miyagi, Jim Jones vs Daft Punk, and the Feist vs Lloyd mashups.
• Videos on the web you should definately check out:
  • "Why is my girlfriend mad at me?" (Japanese)
  • Peter Line Snowboard Mix Peter Line is so progressive. The best are when he butters into jumps (never before seen) in True Life (2001).
  • Forum Youngblood Eddie Wall and Devun Walsh talk about the Forum Youngblood
  • Forum THAT Teaser The teaser for the Forum team video THAT (released already) with Stevie Bell. Wish they had put this complete part into the movie as well. It's pretty funny.
  • Bachelor Cooking Ep 1, Ep 2, Learning with Logan, Ep 3 and Ep 3's Learning with Logan are hilarious.
• Air to Ground A-Seven makes 45,000mm 16,000 g/m2/24h Goretex Denim Snowpants. Sick
• According to NSAA (National Ski Areas Association) Snowboarder Participants 2005-1990 Season Surveys, the average snowboarder spends 9 days a year snowboarding. 74% of whcih are male, 62.7% have household incomes $50,000+, 73% younger than 24 years old. Average age for men is 21.3 years, 23.0 years for women. 41.2% of which are frequent boarders (10+ days a year). Are you above or below average?
• I made a wintermeter to help cope with the lack of snow. It's not really helping but I still check it everyday every few hours.
• Thinking of learning to sail. Looks fun and you get to learn all these terms like spinnaker and stuff. Avast matee!
• I'm looking for more snowboarding videos. If you have any that _aren't_ on the following list, please tell me.
  • [Absinthe Films] Futureproof 2005
  • [Absinthe Films] More 2006
  • [Alterna] Intransit 2006
  • [Analog Films] The Heiki Sorsa Project 2006
  • [Blank Paper Studio] 91 Words For Snow 2005
  • [Burton] The Process 3 2004
  • [Chunkyknit Productions] Last Winter 2006
  • [Cinemaseoane] The Shaun White Album 2005
  • [DC] MTN.Lab
  • [Defective Films] Derelictica 2006
  • [Factor Films] Over It 2006
  • [Forum] That 2006
  • [Isenseven] Prediculous 2006
  • [Kidsknow Productions] Burning Bridges 2005
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] Chulksmack 2004
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] Follow Me Around 2006
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] Jumping With Jussi 2006
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] Nixon Jibfest 2002
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] People 2006
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] Pulse 2002
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] Technical Difficulties 1999
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] The Resistance 2000
  • [Mack Dawg Productions] True Life 2001
  • [MD Films] First Descent 2005
  • [Park City] City Park City 2006
  • [Pirate Movie Production] Lubedence 2006
  • [Red Bull] The Gap Session 2006
  • [Robot Food] Afterbang 2003
  • [Sandbox] Flavor Country 2006
  • [Standard Films] Draw The Line 2006
  • [Standard Films] Lost In Transition 2004
  • [Standard Films] White Balance 2003
  • [Teton Gravity Research] Anomaly 2006
  • [Think Thank] Patchwork Patterns 2006
  • [Todd Richards] Trick Tips Vol 1 Park and Pipe Basics 2005
  • [Todd Richards] Trick Tips Vol 2
  • [United American Video] Apocalypse Snow 1998
  • [Volcom Stone] Escramble 2006
  • [Whiteout Films] Wear It Well 2006
  • [Wildcat Films] Return of the Wildcats 2001
  It's a lot I know, but there are a lot of films I still want to watch that I haven't seen anywhere. HELP ME OUT HERE!
• "You can tell the real burton riders. All they talk about is how much money they spend on their board. How much they really want to ride but never ride. Come on. The B in Burton stands for Bandwagon." lol. So true...
• I started reading Moby Dick. Can't believe I didn't read this earlier. It's so good. Go read it if you haven't. Serious.
• Amie & Houston bought a Nikon D80 DSLR. Just thought I'd mention it because it's kind of cool. I too, am in the market for a Digital SLR camera. Except I only want to spend $200 for body + lens. Come onnnnnn you know you want to sell me one for dirt cheap.
• McDonalds Chicken Snack Wraps are pretty good. I just had 3 of them with my Jr Chicken combo.
• Thinking of going to LuminaTO which is coming up. There's lots of live performances and displays and exhibits and stuff to watch and listen to. Who else is in?
• Started Tennis lessons again (2nd time doing Welcome to Tennis at the Mayfair). First lesson was yesterday. Right arm is sore.
• I bought a pair of inline skates on sale at Sport Chek and started blading along the lakeshore bike path. It's pretty fun.
• Heroes (the NBC tv series) season finale sucked. The show in general is 'so-so'. Watch HBO's Deadwood, or Carnivale. Those are good. Too bad they got cancelled.
• Rob Chan recently got a 12 year old or so MR2. Still haven't seen it but I heard it's dope. When we going blading man?