Road Trip

Today I went on a roadtrip with family to... the mall!
Guess which mall! Here's come pics of the mall:

It might not look too familar to you. Or it looks like too many malls out there. Here's a big hint:

Wow! A Kaufmann's! You don't see this in Canada, eh? And look at this store:

They have these in there:

That's a Sony Ericsson Z500a with a VGA camera.
YES! you may have guessed it, we drove to Buffalo to do some shopping at the Walden Galleria. There were SO many cell phone stores and some other interesting stores that I'll post pics up tomorrow.

Displays

I was at the grocery store the other day looking for junk food to buy and saw this display:

Nice polar express display. It caught my attention but it didn't really motivate me to buy their products. Guess it's aimed at the little kids.

Shopping Before Christmas

This has been the longest blog break for me. A lot has been happening and many pics for you to see. Before Christmas I was doing some Christmas shopping. Parking was not so bad on the 23rd:

That was a spot beside the one I parked in. It was pretty busy inside the mall though. Here is a random picture I took, see if you can recognize the mall:

I love the Christmas decorations. I didn't get a chance to go downtown to look at all the nice Christmas tree lights but I guess this will do:

Cute Friend

Here's a cute little something i got for Christmas:

He looks just small enough to go on my tree? Maybe not.

Winter Driving

With the winter upon us, I was thinking about how driving conditions change so suddenly with new snowfall, flurries, and black ice. Then I look at my car and remind myself, I don't have winter tires, and I realize I don't really put money to wear the only part of my car touches thr ground. Oh wells. I'll drive more carefully. I've already had a few times of slipping at the turn of the green light. At least my car is a front wheel drive. My 4Runner is a rear wheel drive and in light rain it slips easily. Even in 4wd mode it still slips on occasion. Now for real 4wd/awd systems, they will channel power to the wheels that are not slipping. My 4Runner only has rudimentary "move all wheels at the same speed" functionality. This all brought me to look at the Mazdaspeed 6:

It's all wheel drive with lots of goodies. If you want more info check out the mazda.ca web site

Chilly Monday

It was SO ridiculously cold today. When I turned the key to my car's ignition it didn't give me back that preppy engine whirl sound as it normally does each morning. It sounded like it was on it's last cylinder. I had it warming up while I had breakfast and when I got back the car was still cold. After work was the same. Maybe not as bad since I think the morning started off at -22 while after work it was this:

So it wasn't as bad but I warmed up the car for 8 minutes before I got to 60km/h speed.

Restful Saturday

Slept in till 10:45AM today... it was SO good. I got 10h of sleep and it was the first time I've had more than 9h for a long time. I feel so rejuvenated. But I still have very small squinty eyes.
So I had lunch at home, drove my mom to meet up with her friends, and waited at the barber until I got my hair cut.
Then it was work a bit then visit Scarborough Town Centre to exchange a shirt my sis had got me. For dinner, we went downtown to Korea Town to this place called Joon for Korean hotpot. I think the Chinese hotpot I had last month was better. Then on my way back to my sis' rez we drove by Honest Ed's:

Dizzying Week

Sunday night and Monday morning was all work work. I had this to keep up till 5am:

Had a busy week. So very tiring. I'm hoping to get to bed by 11:30pm.
I was thinking to do some work today but my net went down. Only until now. Look at my router, it was dead before:

It's finally back up but it's way too late now.

Sundays

Sunday was one of those days... drive my sis back into rez. I set up her new computer in her room and moved the old computer into the car for transportation back home. We got very hungry and it was 7pm already so we went to swiss chalet

I noticed this:

Yes... it's the upside down ketchup bottle. My sis thought it was a great idea since you don't have to wait for the ketchup to flow to the end anymore since it's standing upside down. I just wish they could make the new "top" a bit better looking.
So anyways, that night I got home at 8:30 and started working on work at 9pm. Stayed up till 5am Monday. This is what I was helping me keep awake:

I got those candies from the Christmas party the Friday before. YUM!

Busy 3 Days

Seems I haven't blogged in a while. Well to make up for it I'll write a bit more about what I've been up to.
Friday was a busy day at work. We had a Christmas party at 8pm so I went out to dinner with a friend at:

I thought it was just the same all-you-can-eat place I went to a few months ago. But it's actually different now. No more buffet and totally renovated interior but same management. There were a LOT of people there when we left. Christmas party was a lot of fun. Didn't leave till 2:30pm I think.
Yesterday was wake up, eat lunch, then run errands. Saturdays always seem to be errands. Tried to exchange a sweater and shirt my sis got me for me. Too bad Markville doesn't have Buffalo Jeans anymore. Dropped off my sis at work then it was brave through traffic to Pacific Mall. Picked up the new computer and my mom called me to buy a card or book gift certificates, which she needed today. So I drove all the way home to drop off the computer, can't just leave it in the car like that. Found a little time to take a picture of it:

Then it was off to get what my mom needed. There was no bookstores close to my house. Very frustrating so I managed to get to Agincourt Mall. They had a Coles there a couple years ago. Guess I was hoping they'd open it up again or was still there... but not to my luck. I wandered into Carlton Card's to go for the card idea but they had really bad designs and cheap paper. So I resorted to Walmart to get a Hallmark card. Managed to get the card to her in time and turns out she just needed the red envelope that came with the card. I wish she told me so I could just get the envelope and not spend so much time figuring out what card was good. So all this driving happens and I end up here for dinner:

I've been spending all my time after that setting up software on the computer. It's so very late now.

Rewards

I've been using my RBC Classic II VISA card ever since the beginning of university. I used it to buy textbooks since I never carried enough cash to afford $200 textbooks. So I look at my VISA bill and see on the top left that I have a couple thousand points. So I figure I should look on their web site to see what I could get with my points. I was thinking it'd be a yo-yo or a toothbrush kind of reward. Found out I could get movie tickets! So I got those and they finally arrived:

Since my mom's been paying my VISA bills when I was in university, she deserves the tickets... I hear she's going to watch Alexander.

I hear it's not a great movie from RottenTomatoes. But it's alright. English Patient was rated a good movie and I didn't like that.

A Gasy Winter

Since I forgot to take a picture of my neighbourhood yesterday, here is a pic of it when I got out of the house:

There was a thick layer of ice covering the windows of the car. It took a short while to get off but with the car window heaters on, it was no trouble.
Was very tired at work today because of working so long yesterday. That's all.
After work I was got some gas since prices were still low:

I didn't need it but I might as well fill up before they go up again. I hear on the news that Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, are getting together to decide whether or not to decrease oil production since the price has plumeted so quickly. It's easy to extend this belief that gas stations also get together to set prices. But they say they don't do that and it's all based on competition.
Hmm... I can't believe it's 10C, according to my car's thermometer. Just a couple hours ago it was freezing and snow was on the floor.

Big Snow Day

It was the first big snow fall of winter 2004-2005. The show covered my car as fast as I could wipe it off my car. No, I'm not that slow in wiping my car. So after going around my car once, I figured that I would be wiping forever if I tried to clean it all off. Traffic was slower than usual and I was driving slower than usual. i think the top speed I got to was 70km/h. It took me double the usual time to get to work today. But I made up for it since I stayed past 9:30pm at work today. Now it's starting to look like this will be my first post without a pic... but no! BAM!

Can you guess what that is?

New Computer

It's been a little break since I last wrote in my blog. There hasn't been much happening in my life outside of work. I'm glad it's the weekends again. I decided to go to Curry's today to exchange some art paper for my mom. It was not a great idea. So after dropping off my sis at work, I drove down to Steeles thinking it's be faster than turning left on Kennedy. I was very wrong. Steeles is under construction around Kennedy. So we took a detour to get there and ended up turning left into Pacific Mall. After doing the exchange, I decided to go visit pmall since I needed to look at a new computer for my sis and her comp goes to my dad.

Went into Canada Computers, got a piece of paper and pen from a sales person so I could write down what i wanted. Here's my computer specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 939

Corsair Value Select 512MB DDR400

MSI K8N NEO2 Platnium

HD Western Digital 160MB S-ATA

1.44 Floppy

LG 16X DVD-ROM

Pioneer 108 8X Dual Layer DVD+-

ASUS 9200SE 128MB

KINGWIN KT-11

Enermax 350W w/ fan control

Since I haven't had very good luck putting my computer in the past (you probably know if you've heard about my A7N motherboard story) so I'm paying them to put it together for me. My case and every external component is black so it'll be pretty different than the beige I'm use to. I know in a few months time, I'll be crying about how much things have dropped in price. But these things can't just wait forever on.

Christmas Tree is up

Today we put up our Christmas Tree up. It looks exactly like it did last year. Only this time it doesn't blink.

Easing into Sunday

Yesterday I spent some of my evening here:

Then I took a nap at home and messed up my sleeping schedule.
Sunday was woken up by my sis to visit the Nike Store. This was all I got:

Everything was so expensive over there.
Next was yum cha with family. Then off to Futureshop to exchange something for this:

This is SOOO great! Makes any computer wireless so I don't have to drag a network cable from my basement to the 2nd floor anymore. I got it for $65! What a good price! It even came with a USB extension so I put that on my old computer downstairs so my dad doesn't have to reach to the back of the computer to put in his USB key hard drive.

Errand Filled Saturday

Today has been a super busy day for me. First it was driving my sis for her tutoring, visit markville to find this candle for my mom at Hallmark, visit the Hallmark at Warden and Hwy 7 since Markville didn't have it, visit Curry's to pick my mom's art supplies and chatted to an old friend there, pick up my sis from tutoring and drive her to work, finally rush to my dentist. After visiting the dentist I'm a lot more free so I drove to North Acura to look at the TSX. Seems the 2004 are very limited. I only got to see a 2005 they had on display:

That's the only 2005 TSX they had in stock so I didn't get to try it out since it wasn't registered yet.
Next it was off the Treatz' Rogers store:

There I took a look at the MOTO V551, Nokia 3220, and Samsung E316. Nothing was interesting at all. I did get to see Treatz' Nokia 6230 and his Blackberry 7100r. Pretty cool phone. I liked the Nokia 6230 but it was just so plain. I still like my T616 menu.
Next it was off to Acura in Markham where I got to see more TSX. They had:

Then I went test driving in a 2005 TSX white colour. It was great handling. A lot better than the 2005 Honda Accord Sedan. It feels a little better than my 2004 Corolla in steering wheel feedback and connection but it was a LOT better in terms of handling characteristics since it was wider and lower to the ground. Bad thing was that it felt a lot heavier than my corolla. So we ended up talking numbers and the TSX is very affordable. I even got to see the new 2005 colours since they had them in stock.
Abyss Blue:

Graphite Grey:

The standard silver car:

I really really wish I could have bought a TSX on the spot.

First Snow Fall of the Season

I woke up to find the ground covered with a thin layer of snow. It's winter time so dress warmly when you go out. I had to dust off my car. I forgot a before picture so here is an after picture:

Hmm... yesterday night we were at Vivo and the TCBA Junior Chapter was there. Very interesting. LOL. Not very descriptive eh? Just a mental note for myself.

Car in the garage again

I dropped my car off the Toyota dealership again. This was the 6th day I have been there in the last 2 months. I guess I wasn't expecting much. I figure the airplane like sounds would still be there after I picked it up. So it was the usual, their shuttle came to pick me up from work at 5:15pm, chatted on the van ride, then dropped me off at the dealer. Quickly got my car back. Started the car. Then shifted into drive and slowly manuveured out of the dealership. I didn't push on the gas too much because my car was still cold. But I could already tell it was a lot more quiet than before. I went back to the office to the gym downstairs and worked out. The drive back home was very very good and soft sounding. It felt like I was driving a new car!! I love my Corolla!

Sumo and Clubbing Friday

Yesterday was a fun filled day of Sumo Wrestling:

We even got popcorn to eat while watching the fight. I can't believe how emotional some of these matches became as the match progressed.
At night I went to the U of T Profac (Professional Faculty) club night at Bamboo Cabana:

It was just like any other club, which was great since they planned normal music instead of caribana beats. It was surprisingly packed at 11:30 when we got there and it was small so it looked so filled. Had a great time. Seems I'm up for clubbing again.

Test drive at Parkway Honda

I got off work "early" (only in comparison to my usual) so it was 6pm and prime rush hour traffic so I dropped by the nearby Parkway Honda

When I went inside, I took a quick glanced, quickly took a look at the front of a new 2005 Civic Si Coupe. With the body kit, it looks nice. Then quickly went to the main target. The 2005 Honda Accord.

I was quickly greeted by Katy, the receptionist there, and we chatted for a bit. A sales person arrived a bit later since none were around at the time I was taking a look around. Quickly introduced himself to me as Rick and we got to discussing what I was looking for and what cars would suit me. We talked about driving "feel" so we quickly got to arranging a test drive. Before going to grab the license plate, he showed me the Accord EX but I wasn't into leather and what it offered. He came back and we were off in a new 2005 dark grey Accord automatic. He took me around the back industrial area and told me that he would also let me try the highways but it'd be at that time. We went for a couple circles and even got me doing acceleration and breaking tests. Needless to say, I was not use to slamming the gas or breaks on a real car. We came back talking about the feeling of the car. He showed me his office, quick numbers. Talked about what I really wanted, showed me this spyware his computer had, and we arrived to the conclusion I wanted an Acura TSX. It was 7:45 when I left and I had been there since 6:15. It was a great experience. Never did he pester me to buy the car or some other Honda. If you're looking for a Honda I recommend Rick at Parkway Honda. My next car will probably from him if the price is right.

Eric's Corner

Busy day today. Had a LOT of work and deadlines today. After work I had dinner at Pickle Barrel. I don't know about you, just because ketchup is difficult to get out of the bottle, did they have to make it upside down?

Sorry it's a bit dark. Bad lighting at the restaurant.
After dinner we watched The Incredibles.

It was a good movie. A good wholesome movie for the family. Nothing memorable though. I think watching too many cartoons in the past has made super hero shows very forgetable... or perhaps my memory is already giving up on me.

Very Hot Sunday

I didn't end up going to Church today... yes... bad me... I slept in and worked at my office. Look at what a mess it is:

I didn't get much of my work done cuz soon after I set up, I had to go for lunch with my parents. Later that day I went to pacific mall to pick up the mini cruzer that I said I'd get. I ended up getting a 256MB on for $50. Not too cheap but reasonable price at the time.

Then it was off to hot pot with friends at:

It was very good! We had crab, squid balls, oysters, shrimps, beef, lamb, egg nog stuff, veggies, cuddlefish, mussel, and dumplings. I am SOOO full as I'm writing this. I don't know how I'll sleep with such a full stomach or even work this food off. We then took a short walk around this mall:

Let's just say that no walk could clear my stomach. Not sure if your recognize what mall this is. Too bad everything was closed.

6 Day Week!

Today was another day at work. Things have been super busy at work and I haven't had time to live the lap of luxury. Let me see... I've been meaning to go to Pacific Mall to pick up one of these:

I didn't end up going because of work but I did end up here:

Can you guess where I was?