There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

Like I mentioned in my last post, I recently picked up a book titled Rich Dad Poor Dad by supposed real estate guru, Robert Kiyosaki. In the book, he explains how most people are educated in terms of professional knowledge but have very little financial IQ. He also explains that he wishes to educate people on how to develop their inner "financial genius" as a means to easy living. Robert, through his company, Cashflow Technologies, Inc., has created several products that he believes will help the masses attain a level of financial freedom. Among these are numerous books, seminars, live DVDs and a coaching program to boot. Most intriguing to me however, are his line of board games, called Cashflow. He has two version; Cashflow 101 (for beginners looking to learn more about investing in stocks and real estate), and Cashflow 202 (a more advanced version that deals with the technical aspects of investing). I recently obtained a copy of Cashflow 101, and to be honest, I wasn't too impressed. After playing through it a few times, I realized that I had expected a lot more, and so was disappointed a bit.

The first thing I noticed about his two games are that they cost quite a bit more than you might expect for a board game; Cashflow 101 (the board game) is $195 whereas the electronic copy is half that price. Cashflow 202 (played as an add-on or expansion of 101) is still pricey at $50. However, Robert Kiyosaki explains away the high price by saying they produce only a limited amount each year. Still, I found the high price unattractive and a possible point of contention for many prospective customers.

The version I recently obtained was the electronic version, and it wasn't quite what I expected. First off, it's huge! Its bigger than 1 gigabyte, which isn't actually TOO TOO MUCH, but considering its just a board game (presumably not a graphics-intensive one - and it isn't)... =(. Secondly, the "pieces" in the electronic version are represented by 3D walking and talking mice. Kind of cute at first, but it soon gets annoying, especially with all stupid sound effects. Also, when playing the game, the cards you pick up (from rolling the dice and landing on either "opportunity", "doodad", "market", "downsized" or "baby", are often very similar. Especially the "opportunity" cards. After playing the game 3 times, I am almost sure I have picked up every opportunity card possible; perhaps a half-dozen different stocks and maybe 5 to 10 properties? I keep finding myself getting the 3BR/2BA card; every single time! Also, the game finishes pretty fast. The site says that a game takes 1 hour to 3 hours to finish, but playing against 3 computer players, I beat the game in maybe 25 minutes! Another point I'd like to make is that although the game does introduce the novice investor to certain concepts - such as buying stocks low, and selling high, as well as the emphasized purchasing of real estate and consequently renting out the property to pay for the mortgage costs - it really isn't too helpful. Sure, it shows us how to purchase and rent out properties but it misses the most important step; finding those cheap foreclosure properties! It also doesn't go into the finer details of hiring a "property manager" to take care of your property either. Lastly, this game isn't very realistic at all. First off, it forces you to buy "doodads" - perks and rewards for yourself that, if you were serious about investing for your future, you'd forgo anyways. Secondly, all the rent generated from properties is enough to cover the mortgage payments, with a little left over. This is nice in theory, but it is extremely rare these days to find a property where, after paying the down payment, the rent money will exceed the mortgage payments. Thirdly, the game can be beaten quickly if you abuse the stocks. When you draw a stock opportunity card, it conveniently shows you the price range, so you know if you're buying high or low. You don't actually need to do any work and or research to find out whether the stock will go up or down; you just wait for it to go up!

With all these detriments to Cashflow, I must in all fairness say that it was an interesting game that has some merit. It introduces the player to the concept of an income statement and a balance sheet; key pillars of accounting and bookkeeping. It also forces the player to manually remove or add items to these two charts. After a couple times through, you get used to recognizing what goes in your income, expenses, assets and liabilities columns, something that is actually useful to know in the real world.

Personally I think I would have been fine without playing this game, but if you've got the dough (and maybe someone who wants to get started in basic investing and accounting) you might find it a good investment (haha) to purchase this game. Although the E-version is cheaper (half as much as the board game!), I'm sure it has been stripped down a lot. Add to that the fact that the board game is playable with friends, I would definitely go for the real deal.

kamster

Happy Belated...

CHRISTMAS (wow that took a long time to write switching colors => LOL! =D)
Well Christmas is once again come and gone and I hope we are all much happier because of it. For me, this christmas season has been well spent with my family and cousins from far-away Singapore, chillin with friends, riding to my sore body's content and just taking in the sights of exotic Chicago. I also got to visit my good friend who I have not seen since he moved last year. All's well I suppose, and I am quite satisfied with the relationships enjoyed and (relatively) cheap consumer goods purchased this year. I've also noted a few things:

• Hotwire is a relatively hassle-free way of booking hotels that can often give good discounts
• I love movies! I really enjoyed watching I Am Legend, Eagle Eye and The Dark Knight (for the ???th time) this past week.
• I love webcams! Err........ yeah!
• I think I have a pinched nerve... whenever I walk I feel this weird pain in my right leg, sort of like a piercing stabbing pain, so not something I would associate with a bruised kneecap or something. Anyone ever had this before? I can walk properly if I don't twist my leg when I take a step... other than that, ow.
• Chicago is way bigger than T.O.
• Minivans are cool again! We rented a recent-year Grand Caravan for our road trip and it turned out to be large enough for a group of seven, all adults over five feet tall. I think. Stow and Go storage is great too.
• Although shopping for last-minute deals in the states are fun, they aren't as cheap as they once were - a loonie is only worth seventy cents in the U.S. ='(
• A book called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki has had me completely engrossed these past two days. I've only just picked it up and already I am excited. Apparently this book on developing your "financial freedome" has been on the New York Times best-sellers list for six years, and I've only just heard of it *slaps forehead*. I need to get cracking!
• Some other stuff I can't remember.

Anyways, Happy Holidays to everyone out there and enjoy the rest of the Winter Break (if you have one 8D)!

kamster

Red tape getting you down?

To be honest, I really don't like being held back by innumerable layers of red tape just to get some information; having to verify, login, clarify, and prove your eligibility just to get your hands on a bit of information. And these annoying restrictions apply to everything, even when looking up an prison inmate's information! Do you need to contact a family member? Get some info on a prospective person of interest? Red tape need not hold you back with the Colorado Inmate Locator. This is site where you can look up inmates by first name, middle initial, approximate age, last name, city, or even state! This quick and easy online database allows you to quickly and legally find information on upwards of 250 million inmates, with the last growing every day! Visit the Prison Inmate Locator and find who you're looking for today.

kamster

Ski Heaven

The Peak to Peak Gondola at Whistler-Blackcomb is opening soon! I sort of want to say I'm excited (and then launch into a long rant about all it's features and stuff for the sake of blogging), but I shan't as I know I probably won't get a chance to experience the thrill of being suspended 400 metres above the frozen ground in the middle of Winter. I can say though that this new express gondola will be one that makes history, as it breaks two records, I think one for longest unsupported lift length in the world, and also the highest lift of it's kind as well.

Sort of reminds me of the express at Tremblant, which is really cool too. One time after a long day of riding, I went up a last time with my pop and my friend, but when I reached the 900 metre high peak after ten minutes of sitting in frosty silence, I realized I didn't have it in me to even begin the half-hour long (Yes I was and still am quite a n00b) descent. So I rode back down, alone with my thoughts of a hot cup of cider warming my hands at the chalet. And so it was a frosty Christmas season =D

kamster

What goes around...

ONE HUNDREDTH POST!!!

Thank you all who have stayed with me these years and faithfully visited Up the Ante, never losing faith in my abilities to impress and amaze. Thank you to all who continued to check back through the times of infrequent posting and when I started blabbering on. Thank you to all who donated money and time to my cause and -

Ok no. What am I, Sarah Palin? Or something? PALIN FOR PRESIDENT YEAAA. Haha but she is dead and over, the inauguration is coming up!

And so is Christmas. For some reason, Chrismas music gets me really down... especially like, Kenny G. He is really talented but his musing tunes are just too much. Although I know I should be really happy too. Christmas is that time of year when I should be looking foward to the next year, looking forward to giving and recieving heartfelt tokens of love and gratitude, and maybe a warm cup of hot chocolate. I still have lots of holiday shopping left to do, although I can take comfort in the fact that we have no such Black Fridays here in Canada... at least not the extent that they exist in America (although retailers have been trying to create such a day here for years now). Anyways, my tip for all you... students out there: buy Second Cup hot chocolate for your buddies this year. I know, you're probably thinking I'm one of those crazy dudes who loves to stand in Second Cup and admire their sexy and pricy stuff like mugs and crap which is really expensive just because of the name. But no. I just love how those little cyclinders of packaged hot chocolate mix are so cute and they come in four flavours, too, only $7.95!

I think I'll buy some tea too.

kamster

Monopoly: Real Edition

I get this feeling that Google is taking over the world. Since their humble start on September 4th of 1998, Google has grown steadily from being a little-known search engine into a world-renowned superpower of sorts, with the Letters "GOOGLE" adorning people's homepages around the world.

We mostly know Google for their search engine stuff but we all know they have expanded beyond that, now venturing deep into the fields of web-hosted mail systems, video services (having taken over YouTube a little while back, I think) and computer software, too (Chrome browser, which I haven't gotten around to downloading yet, although I do think it will be somewhat like Firefox, which Google has practically developed too). What most people don't know is that Google makes most of its revenue not from any of these video, web search or software enterprises directly. It actually makes 99% of its revenue through advertising. Don't you find those stupid google ads annoying? I mean you find them everywhere, and although they are apparently targeted to the readers of the sites that they are placed on, I never find myself clicking on them anyhow. Good thing blogger (WHICH IS OWNED BY GOOGLE =000, I think. At least, I can log into Blogger with my GMail address) doesn't have any ads, unlike Xanga or whatever.

I hope one day I can be SUPER SUCCESS and run a world-dominating company like Google worth like thirty billion or whatever.

But for now I gotta concetrate on keeping my grades up... I really am not enjoying chemistry at all.

kamster

Gas is Good

Gas, gas, gas. This stupid three letter word often causes frustration, anger and long lineups at the pumps. As the price at the pump goes up and down, we can only hope that it will go down and stay down at prices a la the 90s, where gas never, ever, was more than a dollar a litre.

But what causes the price of gas to fluctuate? Gas is produced from crude oil, and to be really specific about it, it's more like the price of crude oil is fluctuating massively, which in turn affects what we see at the pump. Crude oil is extracted I think from all over the place, a lot in Canada and a lot in the Gulf of Mexico, and so when Hurricane Katrina and those other natural disasters tore through that part of the states, they recked a whole bunch of these floating oil rigs. And if you know the least bit about economics, you will understand that when supply goes down, demand goes up, and so does price.

Now, many of these oil rigs have been repaired and so the flow of oil has resumed. This means supply has increased and so there's less demand (remember when gas first dipped below $1.30 a litre? Remember how damn long those lineups were? Look at them now. Even when prices are below a dollar now - as they usually are - the lineups aren't nearly as long as they were). After people got their fillup of gas, demand went down and so prices have gone down as well.

What this means is a really sweet deal for us consumers and SUV-drivers, and a crappy deal for people who have stocks in gas. Too bad, so sad.

kamster

My Odour of Body

Whoawhoawhoawhoa Obama is going to be the new president!!! Hooray for America! Ok so actually won the election like six days ago, and I am kind of slowing getting around to it, but yes, it is indeed quite exciting. For those who have been keeping up with the news since the primaries twenty-two months ago, Illinois Senator Barack Obama is definitely come a long way from being relatively unknown just several years ago to taking centre stage on the American political scene.

Obama's claim of bringing change to America got through to millions of Americans, it seems, and in the end he prevailed over his older competitor, Senator John McCain. This is a pretty momentous decision that the American people have made; this election saw several swing states (Colorado, Ohio, Virginia) turn blue for the first time in many years. I guess Obama's youth, charisma and eloquence was enough to woo undecided voters in the last few days. As well, I believe race played a big part in this election; Barack Obama is the first African American president to have taken office in the U.S., and with slavery but a hundred and a few years ago and the civil rights movement half a century ago, it is safe to say that few expected a black man to take office. For African Americans in America and everywhere else in the world, this is just one more step towards the equality that minority groups seek.

But I'm not going to delve too deeply into these touchy issues. WHAT! I'm not Anderson Cooper, gosh! By god Erica Hill is good looking...

WHAT? OK YEAH THE ELECTION:

This past election has been quite an exciting one; I believe (but don't quite me) that this election had 80% of the US' population out and voting, a record I think. As well, news stations like CNN had, reportedly, their highest ever number of viewers on election night too! To sum it up, this election had the most people tuned in and the most people voting... perhaps 2008-2009 will be the political season when people start caring about the fate of the world's most influential country, what with the credit crunch, oil crisis and worsening foreign relations that has defined the U.S of A. recently.

Lastly, just wanted to say that it was very gracious of McCain to concede like that after the expected loss. When all his supporters started booing, I got kinda pissed but I'm glad he tried to shut them up... otherwise people would hate him even more, hehe. Anyways I'm just glad the young'un got into office instead of McCain, although we won't know exactly how many of his promises he will be able to keep. Let's hope more than less, for the good of the U.S. and all the other countires inextricably tied to it.

kamster

p.s. November 11th; never forget.

Consciousness Re-Imagined

Could machines become conscious? Is it possible that, like humans, machines created by man could attain the same level of intellect, linguistics, emotionality and moral responsibility as the humans? This intriguing question has split the camp of thinkers into those who believe that computers are well on their way to attaining consciousness, and those that believe that computers, no matter how sophisticated they become. Dennett, in his piece Consciousness Imagined makes a convincing case for the possibility of artificial consciousness by pointing out flaws in Searle’s argument against artificial consciousness. In the end, Dennett states that a very complex machine might turn out to have consciousness, although we will never know. This is the main pillar upon which Dennett’s argument for consciousness rests. However, there is in fact, an even stronger, concrete argument for artificial consciousness that lies right underneath our noses. In this essay, I will argue that the concept of consciousness achieved through an extremely intricate, complex machine is possible, and more importantly, supported by man’s evolutionary history that has led, ultimately, to his consciousness.

Dennett’s Consciousness Imagined is really a response to Searle’s piece, Can Computers Think?. But what exactly is he trying to say? Searle states in his article that a computer could never attain real consciousness, as it has syntax – the processes that it carries out under certain circumstances and conditions to achieve a programmed goal – but not semantics; that is, true understanding of what it is doing. Searle uses the example of the Chinese room: a sort of conversation machine that is manipulated by Searle (who has no knowledge of the Chinese language) that can hold a conversation in Chinese. Thus, he argues, a machine might seem to an outside observer as being conscious, but really, it has no semantics, and is therefore not truly conscious. Dennett counters this by asking the reader to imagine – truly – the sophistication and complexity required of a machine to be able to achieve the level of linguistic communication needed to fool a judge; it would have to be “an extraordinarily supple, sophisticated, and multilayered system, brimming with ‘world knowledge’ and meta-knowledge and meta-meta-knowledge about its own responses, the likely response of its interlocutor, [...](Dennett, Consciousness Imagined)”, and so on and so forth. He finishes his argument by stating that when we truly – truly! – imagine a machine that complex, the possibility of artificial consciousness seems more tangible.

But what is the proof that consciousness can be created out of the unconscious, that a machine or program so complex might attain consciousness? The evidence is the human race. How? First we must establish some facts. First, I believe I will raise no objections when I state that human beings are conscious. We are capable of linguistics, emotional expression, moral responsibility, and the like; traits that we often say “make us” conscious. Secondly, we must accept, for the purposes of this paper, that human beings are what they are today because of evolution. We have come a long way since the big bang, some thirteen billion years ago, when we were but sparse organic molecules floating in the soup that was earth’s early environment. Thirdly, we must accept that most animals – that is, non-human species – are not conscious; they do not possess the traits of linguistics, moral responsibility and the like (at least most of them. Some may argue that apes, dolphins and certain “higher” mammals are in fact consciousness, but we shall ignore these exceptions for the moment). With these three premises established I can continue on to my point; that humans are the greatest evidence there has ever been for artificial consciousness arising from a complex machine.

Let us examine homo sapiens, more commonly known as man. What are we? We are simply animals that have come out on top in the contest for world domination that is known as evolution. According to modern evolutionary theorists, man (and consequently all other forms of life) arose from a mixture of various gases – methane, ammonia and hydrogen – that were present when the earth was formed. Surely, these molecules in the “primordial soup” of earth’s first days were not conscious? Of course they were not! I would have to view anyone who believes otherwise as a fool, and so I will proceed. From these substances, over millions and billions of years, life forms evolved – mollusks, crabs, then amphibians, then on to reptiles, mammals, birds, dinosaurs and so on and so forth. Now, were these animals conscious? Was Tyrannosaurus Rex a reflective dino? Was the sabre-tooth tiger a conscious kitty? The answer to these questions, we have decided, is no; they did not have linguistics, a sense of moral responsibility or the ability to express emotion like modern humans do. But when we pry our eyes away from T. Rex and instead focus on the primitive apes and baboons (from which all other species of homo are derived, we are told), we see something different. On one side, we know that humans are conscious, but we also know that humans ( and some of their ancestors) always conscious. But were our ancestors conscious? The answer is yes! Sometime during our evolutionary past, we evolved from brainless molecules to intelligent, rational, emotional beings; only at that point in our evolutionary history did the brains of ancestors became so complex, they gained consciousness: we began to make cave paintings in our dwellings; we realized how it felt to become angry, sad, sorrowful, and we learned to communicate through language, not just through primal grunts and barks.

What are humans? We are simply, like Dennett states, just “conscious sel[ves], whose bod[ies] [are] the robots and whose brains [are] the computer[s].”. And so, it can be said that, like Dennett’s machine of indescribable complexity, the possibility of consciousness is no longer simply a possibility, but a fact that is strongly supported by man himself. One day perhaps, computers (like the one imagined by Dennett) will become a reality, becoming so detailed and intricately programmed, so as to be indistinguishable from a human. And when that happens, we shall know that computers have attained consciousness.

-----

If you'd like to read the material upon which this paper is based, Google "John Searle" and "Daniel Dennett".

kamster

You can check out our website at Anderson Cooper 360...

Yeah I'm sure you all know about Anderson Cooper and the rest of the "best political team on T.V.", but seriously what do you think of this guy? Sure, he's young and fresh (sort of), and he definitely has the right amount of charisma to be on primetime every night but does anyone not feel that CNN has gotten just a little too caught up with themselves? What am I saying, I love CNN and all their cool features, however biased they may be in favour of the left. I especially love all their cool little features, like that one they showed last night, "Joe Biden Revealed".


But you know the election is coming up soon, and now people are asking, "Who will it be? Obama or McCain? Biden or Palin?" As it is now, I believe Obama is leading in the polls with like a six percent lead or something like that. Now I don't want to go off alienating the few people who do visit here (haha!), but I really prefer Obama to McCain. Ok so first off, I don't really consider myself conservative at all, and would probably be leaning a bit more to the left instead. However I'm not like some crazy liberal like NDP-liberal, those guys are like too extreme for me, so yeah I think Obama is the better choice in this election. Why? Well it's pretty obvious to me - hes what, almost thirty years younger than McCain? He's a fresh face in Washington, hes go lots of room to improve and he won't rush the US into another war like the Bush administration did. As for McCain, there's no denying that hes a patriot that served his country for many years during the Vietnam War (I think), but the simple fact is he's kind of old and jokes about bombing Iran. Like wtf.

Ok so about the mudslinging - I think it's all unecessary. Especially how McCain's camp consistently tries to label Obama as some kind of terrorist and attaching a negative connotation to him because of his past association with Ayers. Yes, Ayers was involved in a terrorist organizations but those bombings occurred when Obama was what, like eight? And the right still believes this is a legit way of categorizing Obama? Although Obama's side has thrown it's fair share of mud... I think... maybe? I can't think of any examples right now.

And finally the VPs. I really like Joe Biden, I really do. You're probably thinking "You just railed on McCain for being old, but Biden is old too!" Well yeah but he has this crazy smile and he actually looks kind of cool. OK LOL my bias is apparent, but too bad so sad. And plus it's easy to tell that Biden is sincere, especially after seeing him almost come to tears on TV after reading a segment of his book concerning his first wife's death, which is kind of sad. I also like Sarah Palin, although she has certainly drawn ALOT of fire from the media and the left concerning things like how she was the mayor of a town of eight thousand, her autistic child, her pregnant daughter, corrupt spending in Alaska etc. Although I don't think she should be getting bashed as much as she is. I mean she's also young just like Obama, and I think she has room to improve as well. Yeah Tina Fey is the best.

Ok so just like two weeks before the election I got some clips from YouTube that you might wanna look at:

John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd (haha!)
Barack Obama Bloopers
John McCain's ads are lies.

There's a whole bunch more but I'm lazy, goodnight.

kamster

p.s. Happy belated to Quixotic : )

Blue October

Heyyyyy it's October! You know out of the four seasons the ones I like best are probably winter and fall. Fall because it is simply so boo-ti-ful outside, with the leaves changing colors and drifting to the ground, the leaf piles you can make and jump in and and Canadian geese beginning their annual migration south. I just like this time of year when you can go outside and smell the wind, where it's not too cold to make you shiver but cold enough to make you want to grab a nice warm mug of hot chocolate and watch the birds fly by. It's also time to put away all your summer clothing and bust out your winter garments in the form of warm sweaters, hoodies, jackets and cozy mittens.

As the weather gets colder, there are some things that I'm definitely looking forward to:

• First Snow! A while back I joined a FaceBook group called "When I was a kid, Christmas had snow.", or something like that (I believe I'm still in it, actually). At that time I think I was just jumping on the bandwagon of global warming, and adding myself to the ranks of those missing the snow and the Canadian winter. In recent years however (last winter?) the weather has indeed been getting chillier and more ferocious, so I'm not too worried about there not being fistfuls of the white powdery stuff to throw around. Still, it is a thrill to catch that first snowflake of the season. And with snow comes...
• Winter Jackets! Yeah... Don't really know why I'm excited for that. It must be that when I wear just a tee, I feel horribly underdressed, even during the summer! That's why I love to layer up, and the last layer of the year to appear is the thick, furry, down jacket. Mine's got none of that but I love it all the same, hehe.
• Snowboarding! I don't really do that much sports, but the few I do, I love. Snowboarding is one of these sports (Hmm I really sound like a dork. Time to improve my writing skills x_x). I picked up snowboarding after my sister I think four or five years ago after I realized that I wasn't going to get any better at skiing, and I haven't looked back since. Nothing really beats the thrill of "carving" some fresh powder and "catching" some "big air"... snowboarding lingo >.<>
• Winter Break! I kind of wasted my summer holiday, and I am definitely looking forward to a good two or three weeks off from classes this winter. Gives me time to make a little money or maybe catch up on riding.
• Hot Chocolate! You're a freak if you don't love the steaming dark cocoa.
• Vacationing? Don't know yet. Hopefully we'll go somewhere with lots of snow (WHISTLER-BLACKCOMB! O YEAH!) or somewhere with lot's of sun, surf and sand (CUBA SI!). I really like Cuba actually, it doesn't feel communist one bit, especially at the resorts although that's another story T_T.

I also need to keep up my grades. To get into a good university and all. Duh.

kamster

Pass with Caution

I, like many students my age consider myself to be quite youthful; I am still living out my years as a child, as a teen, as a young adult. When adults comment on people like us, they often remark how "full of youthful vigour" we are, and how much we have to look forward to, how much we have ahead of us, and how much we have to yearn for. In a way, they are right. I'm really not that old, I still have years of education to complete, and after that, I have a career to begin, a family to start and endless more important decisions to make.

I have realized however, that, no matter how young and youthful you might think you are, windows of possibility are closing all the time. Each day marks another opportunity missed, an experience never to be felt but in another life, a person never to be met. And that stupid saying that they put at the end of cheesy novels that goes, "as one chapter of your life closes, another is just beginning", turns out to be very true.

Take myself for example. Yes, I am young, and I have very much to look forward to. I have yet to truly discover God, or find true love, yet at the same time, I have been passed over in the lottery of childhood sweethearts. It is, I believe for example, too late for me to pick up a sport and learn it to a competitive level. It is too late for me to pick up an instrument and master it, it is too late to realize that I should have kept in touch with my childhood friends so I could look back in thirty years and say "Remember we were yay-high to a grasshopper?"

Ok so, I wouldn't actually say that but you get my point. Not be a totally pessimist but that is what I find, is that the older you get, the more you realize what you could have done, what you could have made out of your life, the people you could have met and the things you could have achieved. Of course to totally adapt an attitude of having missed the boat would be to simply miss more opportunities that are still open to you.

Just had to say that... you know?

kamster

Flexible Insurance

You know that saying "you should always be prepared for a rainy day?" That is usually implying that one should save up money and resources for when the economy suffers a downturn, or some other similar misfortune. I believe, however, that extrapolating this saying to include insuring against misfortunes that you know may happen at least once in your lifetime (like the theft of your keys). That's where Club Care Insurance comes in.

The Camping and Caravanning Club Insurance company really knows what they're talking about when they talk about insurance. And because they specialize in camping and caravanning, they offer insurance for things that you normally would not be able to obtain insurance for (great if you're an avid camper or outdoors man), like your motor home, scooter, boat and even tent!

What's even better, each different insurance policy is specially designed to maximize your return and get the goods back in your hands. Take key insurance for example: Club Care Insurance ensures that your lost keys will get back to you. They even offer an incentive for people to return your lost keys to you! And of course they offer all the extras too: locksmith fees, reprogramming of immobilisers and a car or transport in the case you are stranded without your keys.

All in all, Caravan Insurance is a great place to purchase insurance for your caravanning and camping equipment.

kamster

September Blues

Classes have started up again everywhere. In elementary, middle and high schools, students are returning to classrooms as they exchange manhunt in the park for laps around the field, Breaking Dawn for Science Power 10, and Warcraft III for MathCircus 4. The annual return to classes is definitely a hectic time of year, perfect for advertisers looking to make an extra money. Indeed, I've noticed some out of the ordinary back-to-school ads this season, such as:

"It's back to school for the kids, so stock up on Canadian Cheese!"

... -.-"

It just reminds me that today's world truly has become so commercialized, so money-driven and that the concept of materialism is the driving force behind many a corporation's PR team. The best thing we can do is... to not shop when you're hungry.

But now that school is back in session, we do have to do some back to school shopping. For university students and some fortunate highschoolers, a brand-spanking new laptop will be in order, and for the rest of us, binders, textbooks, notebooks, lined paper, rules, graphing calculators ($129.99? WTF?), protractors... the list goes on. For me I have to get my own textbooks, many of which aren't cheap. But it's the cost of an education here in Canada, I guess.

Anyways I'm hoping to get back to my pre-summer blogging schedule (Wow I am such a lamer) as soon as I can, although this year I'm going to have to really buckle down. If I don't succeed massively this year, my dreams of a UBC education are spiraling down the drain. I'm sure lots of you guys can attest to that as well ;D

kamster

Draft Dodgers

As you may have noticed, I've recently made some changes to this blog. I've made the switch from a sombre black background to a refreshing white instead... I mean it is winter soon and, well you know... snow is white. Ok, joking that's not the real reason. I just decided that this ol' blog needed a new outfit. Speaking of ol' blogs, Up the Ante's one year anniversary is coming up on October 21st! Ok so it's not that close, but it is somewhat of a milestone, for me at least (previous blogs on Xanga and the like never lasted more than several months).

In sidebar news, My Blog Catalog, FeedCount, PayPerPost and Technorati widgets been removed from their former positions of power near the top. Additionally, I have added a new widget that cycles through some ads, provided graciously by AdGridwork. In return, an ad for Up the Ante will appear on other blogs and sites that target the same audience (click the link if you'd like to register for AdGridwork and have your ad appear on my site!).

Anyways thank you to my readers, hope you all like the "new and improved" Up the Ante, and to those of you who don't... too bad >=D! Just joking. Tell me about it!

kamster

Perfect Fourth

The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics are finally over. These games were a unique one, marked by scandals, politics and frustrations leading up to and continuing on during the games, such as celebrities boycotting the Olympics, accusations of China's underage athletes, and a Canadian medal dry-spell in the first week of the Olympics.

In the end however, good ol' Canada pulled through with a total of 18 medals, 3 gold, 9 silver and 6 bronze medals, our biggest medal haul since 1992, or at least that's what I read in the star yesterday... I think.

I personally enjoyed these games a lot. Why? Well, 4 years ago I was a bit younger and had less appreciation for the Olympic summer games. Now that I think about it (it could just be my um... short term uh memory loss), I don't recall anything from the 2004 Olympics games at Athens, probably because I watched very little of it on TV. Nevertheless, these games were quite interesting, with lots of medal upsets, Michael Phelps emergence onto the world stage as the best swimmer (and some argue, the best Olympian), Adam van Koeverden's tragedy-turned-redemption, and the spectacular opening and closing ceremonies, the scale of which has not been seen in any previous Olympics. Too bad I missed hammer throw... and javelin throw... and long jump and pole vault... and... hehe I'll just wait a couple more years and visit London to see the 2012 games in person!

Some notables from this month's Olympics:

• Simon Whitfield's from-behind silver medal in Men's Individual Triathlon; he was the first man to get a gold medal in this event when it was introduced in 2000 at the Sydney Olympic games, and he scored again this year when he placed second behind a unbelievable Jim Frodeno who took the gold
• Carol Huynh, wrestling for Canada's second (although most people thought it was the first) medal of the games
• Alexandre Despatie, Canada's diving mascot who came back from a disappointing 5th place finish in 3m synchro to take the silver in the 3m springboard competition
• Priscilla Lopes-Schliep's bronze medal victory in Women's 100 Metre Hurdles; she was relatively unknown coming into the games and winning this event was a breakthrough for her and Canada
• Scott Frandsen and David Calder's second place finish in Rowing Men's Pair; these two were the first to bring home a medal for Canada, just minutes before Carol Huynh's silver... We love Canadian rowing.

Anyways watch out for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, right here in CANADA!!!!! Be excited. We always pwn in the winter.

-----

Get a free Wii! Getting a Wii for free seems dubious... I mean come on look at the name! But no seriously. This is the legit thing and to be COMPLETELY honest, you may not get a Wii completely free with this site, at least in terms of you having to put in some work. But you can, depending on where you live and other factors (like how many nice friends you have) get a Wii for say.... 9.95. How is this possible? Well a bunch of advertisers pay this company money, which they use to purchase these Wiis and other "rewards". And how do we, the consumer, earn these rewards? By completing trial offers and other things online! By making us try these different products and services online, the advertisers hope that some of us will get hooked and continue to purchase their product. While this may be true, I'm sure that many of us are in this just to get our free Wii (which, by the way, comes with 1 game, Wiimote and Nunchuk, etc, depending on which prize package you choose), and so we can try some free psychic reader for free (Level A offers, page 4) and be well on our way to getting a free Wii. Seriously this is legit... and for me... I just want a Wii! Yeah I'm like halfway through my 900 points or so required for this, but you may finish much faster than I will... who knows? Oh and, this works best if you have a credit card, although, depending on where you live (I think in the States is best), you can do some non credit card offers, although those haven't worked for me, yet.

So visit FreeWii whenever you get the chance, register (free), do some offers and get a Wii!

kamster

The Red State

Colorado truly is a nice place. I got back from there about a week ago and back from more camping around here just three days ago. I don't really know what Colorado's official motto is (e.g. Texas is the Lone Star State), but I can bet it's probably something like the Red State, as the word Colorado means red in Spanish, or something like that, but I can't quite remember.

During my five day stay with Noah's Ark White Water Rafting Inc., I participated in a different "adventure" each day. The first day a group of us hiked up a mountain (no, really). It took us like, two hours to get to the top with lots of switchbacks, rocky trails and breathtaking views. At noon, we broke for lunch on a grassy meadow near the summit. From there we had a ridiculous view of the canyon below and the surrounding mountains; true postcard material!

Hiking all the way up there was really tiring too; we were at something like twelve thousand feet above sea level by the time we got to the top, and way up there, there isn't much air.

Second day we went rock climbing on "Bob's Rock", a great local place for some real rock climbing and rappelling. There, I completed my first rappel ever. Basically a rappel is a descending from a rock face via rope that goes through a figure-eight carabiner and your fingers. Usually real climbers will climb a rock and rappel down instead of climbing, but we took the easy route and just walked up the cliff. As I walked closer and closer to the edge of the cliff, I couldn't help but look down. My pulse quickened and my palms grew sweaty (maybe because I had put on heavy gardening gloves to prevent the rope from burning my skin off), and all of a sudden, I was on the edge of a hundred foot cliff! Three times I think, I chickened out, saying to my guide "I can't do this, I can't do this GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!", but eventually the encouraging voices of the other guys there convinced me that I wouldn't fall and die. After taking the few steps off the edge, it wasn't half bad. I was sort of sitting in the air held up by my harness and my guide, as I let the rope slowly bleed through my fingers. All the while I was scared that my arms would go and I would fall to my death, even though I knew the guide had me with a secondary line... real climbers have no such insurance. So that was that.

On the second last day we all piled into a flotilla of about ten or so rafts and began to float our way down the Arkansas. On our way to the base camp eight or so miles downstream, we encountered a variety of local sights and of course, rapids with names such as "widowmaker" and "raft ripper" o_o. Boy, was I scared.

Turns out the menacing names are given to scare people like me. The rapids we encountered were mostly Class II rapids (on the American scale), and occasionally Class III rapids, nothing at all dangerous. However the water levels during our stay there were apparently lower than normal, and our guides had told us things get rough when the water rises.

We also saw some funny looking rocks with names such as "the pink panther" and "sleeping indian"... Hmm.

Anyways, arriving at base camp we got into our tents, had some evening activities and settled in for the night. Next day we woke up early, packed our tents, packed the rafts, rafted down another nine or so miles and took a bus back to Noah's Ark.

And that was the end of my trip to Colorado. Well, not actually because we still had one last meal to go, contact info to exchange, flights back home etc. But I did learn some things from this trip:

• Colorado really is red... the soil... the rocks... even the people >.>
• Doing things that normally wouldn't normally be physically strenous such as hiking and jogging ARE strenous at twelve thousand feet.
• Real rock climbing is much more exciting than climbing that wooden tower at Playdium
• The bugs in Colorado are huge! Like, as long as my middle finger huge!
• The bulk of Colorado's revenue comes not from tourism, but from the sale of postcards, the likes of which can be found (and made) pretty much anywhere in the state.
• Sunflower seed husks float.
• Pure mountain spring water isn't really that pure; it's full of animal crap and giardia which will put you in bed for weeks.

All in all my trip to Colorado was pretty interesting as a whole but I'm not entirely sure I'd do it again if I had the chance.

Barack n Roll!

More than 40 million people tuned in to their television sets in the United States this past Thursday to watch Barack Obama, a man with the oratory skills of Martin Luther King and the youthfullness of, well... his daughters, Malia and Natasha. Thursday night was pretty mad actually, with lots of music playing between the speeches by different people in the democratic convention, including vice-presidential pick Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and former governer Mark Warner.

All were present to hear Obama speak, and to hear others in the democratic party (including formal rival Hillary Rodham Clinton) endorse him. During the convention, many were pressing for more substance, more content, more "real shit". Up until that point many had begun to see Obama as somewhat of a celebrity with little experience in office, and even less foreign policy experience under his belt. Indeed, McCain's plan to make him out as all talk and no action was a smart move, but Obama disproved all of it thursday night.

Obama effectively purged all notions of him being "just a celebrity" with an eloquently crafted speech covering many matters of his platform, including giving set deadlines for meeting new energy standards, budgets for energy research and implementation, deadlines for troop withdrawals in Iraq, and solid numbers concerning other issues like tax cuts and entitlement funds (whatever those are).

The point is, Obama and the Dems are look stronger than ever after this convention, and seem to be on their way to crushing McCain and securing a spot in the whitehouse for America's first black president.

kamster

Snap! Snap!

As we go about our daily lives, we talk, walk, sleep and interact with others. We are constantly making decisions about what we are doing, what we want to do, places we want to go and people we want to meet. After a while, the humdrum of everyday life really gets to you, sometimes to the point where you switch into a sort of "auto-pilot"; coasting through your day with glazed eyes and having monotonous dialogs with colleagues and befuddled peers.

Several days ago I was "auto-pilot-ing" my way through an afternoon of tree planting when something made me snap out of my stupor (ok well not actually a stupor, I'm exaggerating... sort of). Someone had actually called me by my name!

Ok now, this makes me sound like a huge loser ("Haha no one ever uses your name ahahaha.") but it's not really as simple as someone saying my name. It was more the way that she kind of enunciated and said it meaningfully after asking "Where do you want to go now,".

Perhaps this has never occurred to you but it really made me think about how little we use each other's names. Often with friends and acquaintances we are tempted to say "Yo, what's up!" instead of "How are you doing, Joe?" I find that the latter bears much more significance and in a way makes someone really feel like someone!

From that point on I have tried to make an effort to use people's names more often... perhaps there are others out there that think the same way as me.

-----

Off to Colorado in a few days for a week of sight-seeing, hiking, backpacking, rock climbing (on real cliffs, hopefully) and whitewater rafting on the Arkansas river.

kamster

Sand Shrimps

You know what people say about making a good first impression? Well, it turns out that leaving a good impression on someone is actually a pretty sound idea. This is especially true when in your in, say, the food business.

The other day mother and I were hanging around Scarborough and we decided to sit down at a small sushi restaurant called Hanabi Sushi. Hanabi Sushi is a quaint little plaza tucked into a corner of one of those chinese plazas that dot the Scarborough landscape, hehe. Anyways, this is a small little store that we visited; the interior is kinda small and cramped, and there isn't much room to manuever with the tables, wooden partitions and all that inside.

Like many other Japanese sushi joints, the fare they offer isn't very much different from those of other restaurants. You can find at Hanabi sushi the quintessential Japanese lunch box, or bento box that has many little compartments for different food items. At Hanabi sushi, there is also a lunch and all-day special menu where you can choose from a variety of yummy combos such as tempura and chicken teriyaki, spicy chicken, salmon teriyaki, chirashi, sushi, and alot more that I can't quite remember.

When you first sit down, you are given a menu with all of the aboved mention food items. At most restaurants. after ordering, there is a period of time where people chit-chat, often waiting anxiously for the food to arrive especially if you've been starving, and often this period of time can seem very long even though it may be but a few minutes. At Hanabi sushi however, they get right in on the act by serving up some appetizers for you.

First, you get your own little salad with orange-ish dressing which I'm sure you've seen at other restaurants, and some miso soup after that. After you're done with this, they give you even more appetizers (Chef's Service is what the waiter called it) after that! First they gave us some tempura sushi. Yeah, that's like pieces of shrimp tempura rolled up in rice and seaweed. And you know me, I love sushi, but I love tempura even more! So having these two together is really good thing... especially because you can't normally order that kind of sushi, at least where I go to eat. After this, you get a few pieces of crispy fried salmon, and not like the leftover head or neck parts, but like salmon belly, fried to a golden crisp and deliciously melt-in-your mouth kind of-ish! Also, they give you a small little bowl of porridge type stuff, which I was kind of surprised at just because I've never seen that kind of fare offered at a sushi joint. Nevertheless, my surprised sensation was a pleasant one. Later on when you finally get your meal, they may give you even more stuff, courtesy of "Chef's Service"; when I went there, it was a free eel hand roll! And you know hand rolls are those pretty big seaweed ice cream cones with some fish or whatever else on rice rolled up into an ice cream cone shape with seaweed, and so that was a pretty pleasant surprise as well.

My point here is that Hanabi sushi which would otherwise be another overpriced Japanese restaurant left a good impression as me as a first-time customer. And all that Chef's Service has made me think about coming again, and perhaps even telling people I know about it, which I am evidently doing as I type this. So, if you are in some sort of business that involves clients (ok nevermind almost ALL businesses involve clients at some point or stage), it could potentially pay off in the long run if you take the extra step, go the extra mile or simply take pains to make your client base comfortable, make them feel like they are appreciated, let them know you are thankful for their business, or whatever it is you decide to do. And if you don't think that it will pay off, think again. Because the only reason I'm writing this right now is because Hanabi sushi left me thinking "Hmm... that was a noteworthy meal", and now I am writing about it.

-----

U of T residences are small and nasty.

kamster

Do what makes you feel Good!

Another thing that I forgot to mention (actually, that's a lie, I just figured this out yesterday)... keeping your two hands locked (with thumbs and pinky/forefinger of either hand interlocked) helps alot too. For a while I was doing just fine without locking my hands together, but yesterday after having a dismal session at the driving range, my dad told me once again to do this. For me, it feels really unnatural locking my hands together when I grip the club, but I did it, and voila, I started hitting balls to 150 like that *snaps fingers*.

Again I have no idea if that will work for you... but who knows?

-----

Are backyard bonfires legal?

kamster

QQ Tips

I went to the golfing range two days ago and I realize that golfing isn't as easy as it was for me last year. I don't know why but I ended up re-learning all the basics from how to hold the club properly to where to stand. And now that I'm back I think I will just add a little something on how to improve your skills at the driving range:

It is essential that you find the perfect distance between you and the ball on the tee. This "sweetspot" may feel unnatural but you will find yourself hitting the ball alot more when you are standing at this ideal distance from the ball.

Yeah, I'm pretty nooby so this might not work for you. It's just that at the beginning, when I just stood at a distance that felt comfortable, I would keep missing the ball. Then I kept experimenting from that spot forwards and backwards until I found the place where I was able to hit the ball easiest. For me, this spot was slightly in front of the spot where I felt the most natural, the most comfortable. So in my case, it actually felt a bit weird from where I was standing, but I hit lots of balls from that spot. So just experiment a bit untill you've found that perfect distance. If you ask some golf pro, he'll probably cite some complex method or formula factoring in height and club length for this magic distance, but you could always just use trial and error, hehe.

I also went to play softball yesterday. It turns out I can throw and hit fine, but I need to work on my catching. Especially because the captains somehow decided that I would make a good outfielder.

kamster

Fireteam Bravo Go!

If you are someone who has always aspired to be a police man or law enforcement officer, or anyone else who simply wants to look and feel great, LA Police Gear is a great company to purchase real tactical gear, similar to what real police officers use!

LA Police Gear is a company on the web where you can purchase a large multitude of police and tactical gear such as footwear and boots, flashlights, holsters, pants, shirts, hats, bags, Luminox dive watches (the kind U.S. Navy Seals use) and even handcuffs! They've got everything you might want to (legally) purchase! Of course, what is listed here is just a tiny fraction of what they offer on their site. Visit them to browse the full catalogue.

What I like best about LA Police Gear is all the free stuff! By this I mean free hats, free shipping, free coffee mugs, free knives, and so on and so forth. Where else can you get so much more for your money when purchasing tactical gear? So do yourself a favor and visit LA Police Gear today.

kamster

Hit the Windshield

Summer is upon us in full swing. The flowers are blooming, the mercury is rising and our skin is boiling as we head into mid-summer. I'm pretty sure the longest day of the year is coming up some time soon?

Anyways, I haven't had many chances to get out of the house during the winter, but now that the weather is going so good, one particular sport has my attention again: GOLF!

Yes, many view golf as a sport for old, poorly dressed "old chaps", but this is simply a stereotype that stemmed from that fact that many old people did like to play this game with a clubs and white, dimpled balls. Some people don't consider golf a sport at all! The reality is however that more and more people are picking up this age-old game and discovering how satisfying it can be a ball with a stick!

Now me, I used to play lots of minigolf; it was easy to pick up and required little skill to be good at. Then I think one or two years ago, I went to a real driving range for the first time. After taking one of the beat-up drivers from the box, I stepped onto the green (I think that's what it's called) with a bucket of balls and put one on the tee. I took a step back, aligned myself with the ball and swing with all my might. Of course, I missed the ball by about three metres and ended up almost whacking myself in the head with the club on the backswing. So no, I was not born to play golf. Over the past couple times of going to the driving range though, I've gotten a bit better, I think :) and it's probably the result of some good advice from my dad and common sense. So I'm going to share with you some strategies of mine that I find are helpful in getting your club to connect with the ball that will hopefully improve your game (unless you already know what you're doing... then ignore me).

1. Make sure you have enough tees to last through your session. Nothing is more frustrating than having two buckets of balls left and realizing that you're out of tees. Unless you want to practice with the wedge, having tees with you is essential. Make sure you have more than just a few because breaking and losing tees is very common. Some driving ranges now have rubber stands that you can put balls on but at the same time, many don't.
2. Get a club that's the right size for you. You shouldn't get a club that's too long or you'll find yourself leaning forward to get it to be straight with the ground. On the other hand, if your club is too short, you'll be holding it too close to your body to get a good swing. I'm not really an expert on figuring out club sizes but just experiment the first few times you go driving to find out what feels comfortable for you.
3. Know the significance of how far in you push the tee into the ground (if at all). If you put the tee deep into ground, then your ball will obviously rest a little closer to the ground. I don't usually do this because I find it's too hard for me to hit the ball. Of course, if you are using a wedge, putting the tee in deeper might be a good idea. Even better, don't use a tee at all if you're practicing with the wedge. If you find you simply cannot hit that ball, raise the tee higher so that it sticks out of the ground a good 4 centimetres or so. This will make the ball much easier to hit.
4. Square your shoulders with the ball. What this means is that you should be facing the ball directly, either from the left or right (depending on whether you are left or right handed). The ball doesn't have to be right in the middle of your two legs, but your legs should form a line roughly aiming at where you want the ball to go (parallel to your trajectory); this way your swing will curve more naturally towards the ball... I think.
5. Bend your knees slightly and keep your back straight. If you've done kungfu, you'll know this is sort of like horse stance. Your knees should be bent a little bit but you shouldn't be leaning over like a sumo wrestler. If your upper body is straight then you should be fine for hitting that ball... usually when I forget about this I end up missing and hitting the grass or something (come to think about it... I end up doing that whether or not I keep this position or not xD).
6. Keep that position throughout your swing; don't arch up when you pull the club back or during your backswing. Doing this will usually cause you to misjudge the position of the ball on the tee. Especially if you're coming down during the middle of your swing, you might end up hitting the dirt a foot behind the ball instead of hitting the ball itself. And yes, it is VERY difficult (if you're a noob like me) to hit the ball square in the centre of your driver every single time.
7. Take a few "practice swings". By this I mean pull your club back and pretend you're doing a swing, but stop before you hit the ball (obviously). If you find that the middle of the head isn't matching up with where the ball is sitting on the tee, you know either your swing, position or club is "out of whack"... or whatever they say. Anyhow, make sure you correct this misalignment before you swing or you'll probably just miss the ball.
8. You don't need to swing that hard. Unless you're planning to join one of those long driving competitions (300+ yards? Are you KIDDING ME?), you don't need to swing as hard as you think you do to hit the ball far. I'm a pretty lean/skinny person, and without putting a lot of arm strength into the club, I've hit the ball almost two hundred yards. What matters most is that you hit the ball right in the middle of the head two get a straight shot, and your ball will FLY.
9. Ignore the rules. You know they have signs telling you not to pick up balls on the green? This rule is for two reasons: It lets dumb people know that walking out into the green while there are dozens of people hitting golf balls towards you is a foolish and potentially deadly thing to do. The second reason for this rule is to prevent people from picking up balls that have accidentally rolled a few feet in front of them onto the green. By putting this rule in place, people have to buy more balls to replace those they've lost and technically cannot pick up, even if they are within 5 paces of you. So be safe and use your head. If the ball has rolled down the slope (that exists at some driving ranges), don't rush down and take it, cus you might also be rushing towards a quick trip to the hospital. If it's right in front of you however, or anywhere on the green where the risk of you getting hit by a golf ball is very minimal, go cautiously, pick it up... and run back. This is not a good idea if there is some crazy dude next to you that is hitting balls left and right like mad.

That's all I can think of now, I might add more later. Just make sure you don't FOREget to wear sunscreen!

kamster

Frontrunner

Senator Barack Obama has finally clinched the democratic nomination:

"WASHINGTON – Barack Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination today, becoming the first black candidate to lead a major party into a campaign for the White House. Vanquished rival Hillary Rodham Clinton swiftly signalled an interest in joining the ticket as his running mate.

Obama arranged a victory celebration in St. Paul, Minn., at the site of this summer's Republican National Convention, an in-your-face gesture to Senator John McCain, who will be his opponent in the race to become the United States' 44th president.

The 46-year-old Obama outlasted Clinton in a historic campaign that sparked record turnouts in primary after primary, yet exposed deep racial and gender divisions within the party.

In a campaign of surprises, Clinton's comments about joining the ticket rated high.

According to one participant in an afternoon conference call among Clinton and members of the New York congressional delegation, Representative Lydia Velasquez said she believed the best way for Obama to win over Hispanics and members of other key voting blocs would be to take Clinton as his running mate.

"I am open to it," Clinton replied, if it would help the party's prospects in November, said the participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the call was a private matter.

Obama sealed his victory based on primary elections, state Democratic caucuses and delegates' public declarations as well as support from an additional 22 delegates and "superdelegates" who privately confirmed their intentions to The Associated Press. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination."

You know, we all saw this coming. There really wasn't any doubt that this would happen, especially in the past few months where support for Obama had been increasing steadily while Clinton's attack ads against Obama were simply not convincing voters. Perhaps Obama's "no dirty politics" policy was a good one.

It's partially true too; by fighting against each other in this race, the public's image of the democratic party has been dirtied up. I say it's best to just combine won delegates and throw all support behind one candidate instead of fighting through all the democratic primaries to determine Obama or Hilary.

Hmm... Wikipedia hasn't update yet, I've always wondered how quickly they update their pages after a major event like this?

kamster

It's all about the PR

No, not PageRank, I mean public relations!

Yesterday was Free Hamburger Day at Harvey's, where they were giving out one free hamburger per person at participating Harvey's locations across Ontario. At the Harvey's location I went to, the line stretched back to the door, with probably 50 people lining up for their free hamburger. After I lined up, the line immediately started getting much larger, reaching probably another 50 feet out the door, into the parking lot, too!

The point is Harvey's burgers taste great. I think it's safe to say that they have the best tasting burgers in the whole fast food market, trumping competitors like McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King easily. And I also think that yesterday was a great marketing idea for those top officials at Harvey's HQ... I'm sure they've attracted a lot more new customers as many undoubtedly got hooked on that great Harvey's taste.
Aside from that, I must applaud this corporation greatly. When we deconstruct the financial aspect of this free hamburger promotion, we can see the massive amount of money they must have lost through this promotion. Think about this; how many burgers, cheeseburgers, chicken burgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets does a typical Harvey's location sell in one day (most people would have decided to go with a free hamburger than pay an extra 4.59 for a slice of cheese)? This effect of losing sales is even further compounded by the fact that many people would forgo their preferred cheeseburger or double hamburger, instead choosing the free hamburger. The point here is that each Harvey's location lost a huge amount of money that day. Multiply this large (theoretical) sum in dollars by the amount of Harvey's locations in Ontario, and you see the fortune in sales that they lost yesterday.

That said, one day of free burgers is a HUGE hit for Harvey's, or any other fast food company that would decide to do this. True, they are probably making millions per day across Ontario, Canada and the rest of the world, but one day of lost sales on this scale can have a massive effect on the financial state of this company... it may seem that these companies can roll with the punches but you must also realize that their annual revenue does not include the salaries it must pay it's thousands of employees, or the cost of purchasing the raw materials for their famous burgers, or leasing the land their restaurants are on, and so on and so forth for all things that concern maintaining a huge fast-food chain; you can see that the overhead is truly enormous.

In this, like I said before, I truly applaud Harvey's for taking that big gamble and giving us all free burgers for a day... I'm sure this act of goodwill (and improving PR) will pay off for them in the future! It's simply karma (or more people buying Harvey's burgers!).

kamster

Here little Fishies, time for Din-din!

I went to a nursery (not the baby kind) today and did some fish shopping for the two ponds we have in front and behind our house. Years ago, we had lots of koi (a species of Japanese fish that are considered premium... they have whiskers too), some up to one foot long! Then, they slowly started disappearing. One by one, the numbers of koi and goldfish in our ponds would drop. Some days I would walk around the side of my house to see the remains of a goldfish... torn fins, a skull and scales scattered about. We realized it was probably a cat or some sort of badger-ish type thing that hunts for fishies in ponds. By that time, it was too late, and almost every single fish was gone.

Of course a few of the smaller ones (small enough to evade the cat's paw) survived in the front, and they have been doing ok. They were tiny before this past winter but now theyre about as big as my pinkie, and growing all the time. However the back pond, up until this point was completely empty :S, except for frogs, and mosquito larvae, of course.

So back to what I was saying... today we visited this nursery and chose some koi to replenish our non-existent stocks in the back. We ended purchasing 8 good sized koi for the back and 3 smaller ones for the front... It was quite an interesting trip.

Of course when we got back we put them back into the ponds, and for that there is some sort of delicate procedure; you have to float the bags for half an hour, add water bit by bit then slowly using your hand or a net slip them into their new homes. After doing this it seems the fish were quite traumatized, hehe! It was like they couldn't figure out what to do with themselves, sitting there on the bottom staring blankly with eyes wide open (I don't think fish have eyelids, actually).

I hope they're doing ok.. and that they won't get eaten by a hungry Garfield tonight.

kamster

PayPal Money!!!

You might know that I do some get-paid-to stuff.. mostly with PPP where I get paid for my certain blog posts. Problem with that is is that there are very few open posts available and when a few do happen to free up, they are snapped up within seconds.

A few weeks ago I discovered another site where it's possible to make $5 or $10 within 15 minutes... no joke, hehe. This site is CashLagoon.com, where you can complete simple surveys or "offers" (where you have to buy, test or sign up for something), get your account credited and cashout via PayPal within 24 hours! In fact I got my first $5 today, so I guess you could go ahead and see what they have to offer you.

kamster

Great Tactical Clothing

Do you have an inner policeman, the one that is constantly calling on you to don your bullet-proof vest, tazer and tactical gear, and answer the call of those in need of justice? I don't think you can become a policeman by simply going online but you sure can suit up just like one.

5.11TacticalOutdoors.com is a site where you can shop for all kinds of tactical police gear; pants, eyewear (NVGs?), knives, polo tops, shirts, tactical gloves and much more. They've even got some sick shades... so people won't know who you're staking out! Just visit 5.11 to see the full catalogue (you can get your stuff shipped to your door via UPS).

kamster

The Truth Is...

If you've ever read this blog before, you'll know that I often start off my posts with a "So I've been really busy lately..." (indeed, I'm doing it right now!), as an excuse to explain why I've been to lazy to blog. In actuality, I'm usually not as busy as I say I am, and instead am doing something like reading EncyclopediaDramatica articles or checking my email in lieu of blogging.

This time however, I really have been soooooooooooooooooo busy the past while. If you are or ever were enrolled in any educational institution in north america (or any other place in the world) you'll know that now and the weeks before and after the end of May are the busiest of the entire year. High school students have "exam week", entailing endless hours of preparatory cramming and college and university students are also wrapping up their exams, although they may still have some to finish at this point.

I am no exception. These past few days I have been absolutely cramming, staying up to finish those last couple bars (composing... wtf) or sentances, or getting those long biology terms firmly engrained in my mind. And it really sucks. I'm just looking forward to the annual visit to Centre Island and finally some respite from all this work.

I also saw Iron Man and Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay this past weekend, two fantastic movies. The first, of course is based on the famous Marvel comic written by Stan Lee ages ago... the movie directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, the multi-billionaire weapons tycoon who becomes Iron Man through the course of this film. As an action film it's a success... I don't have too much to criticize it for. Actually I really loved the music... not the track by Black Sabbath but theme... it's so catchy!!!oneone11!1!!

Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay was a pretty hilarious movie too. It concerns two stoners who get mistakenly labeled as terrorists on their way to the pot-legal city of Amsterdam. They of course are sent to Guantanamo Bay but promptly escape. Oddly enough, the section of the movie in which they are actually in or around guantanamo bay is very short, I'd say less than 10 minutes. The large part of the movie follows their exploits as they search out some uncle in Texas (I think?) who can get them passports or whatever so they don't need to continue leaving lives of fear. Hehe. This movie is full of laughs but is also pretty crude (although, it's not that much worse than Superbad, considering what has become acceptable in today's media)... expect lots of profanity, racism and general hilarity. OH AND Neil Patrick Harris is in it too! OMG NEIL PATRICK HARRIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111

kamster

Quick, find the carotid artery!

Dissecting pigs is a dirty, dirty job. Sort of like that discovery channel show, Dirty Jobs, except for real this time. A few days ago some of us were given fetal pigs (taken out of a mommy pig's womb!!?!?!?) to dissect. "Just take the scissors and slice it open from chin to tail! Have fun!", was what they told us. After getting over our initial disgust, we did just that. I was kind of looking forward to saying "Pass me the scalpel, quick!", but it turns out scalpels aren't used in this brand of dissection.

When we looked down at the dissection tray, we saw a small, shriveled innocent looking thing, pink with translucent hairs dotting its 9-inch long body. We felt a little bit cruel and sad at the beginning for cutting open this seemingly innocent creature, but then the stench of pig and formaldehyde made us forget our previous sympathies... and so, we butchered the thing.

Actually, we were just looking for most of the major organs in the pig like the lungs, heart, kidneys, stomach etc. After getting the academic part of the assignment done, we decided to have some fun with the pig. Yup, I totally went to town on that sucker. I sort of... sliced off the muscle on its left arm (to get better access to the neck), butchered its heart and circulatory system (to see the arteries better) and broke most of its ribs (to drain its abdominal cavity of fluids, of course!)... which is probably why we're screwed for our evaluation tomorrow... kidding. After this, we cut out all its organs (stomach, liver, lungs, heart, intestines... although we were actually sort of supposed to do this)... examined them... and cut them up some more. We even got to look inside the pig's heart, which looks somewhat like a sponge with like 10 compartments.
Anyways, we came back to the lab 2 more times, each day the stench getting worse (we didn't have enough room in the refrigerator to store 20 fetal pigs, although I supposed to smell of formaldehyde is preferable to that of rotting tissue) to further slice 'n dice the little piggy that went to the market.

I guess all in all it was a pretty fun experience, getting to poke and probe at the viscera of an animal eerily similar to ourselves (not the pig, but how the makeup of it's insides is almost the exact same as a human's). More importantly though, it made me realize that taking biology and more specifically, agreeing to get my hands dirty was not a bad decision; I had this idea from the beginning that I would not want to participate in the dissection at all! Turns out, I ended up doing most of the cutting and not feeling squeamish in the least! I guess that just proves that you shouldn't be closed minded... especially with food. I can't even express how much I missed out on by not eating

• crab,
• lobster,
• mushrooms,
• shrimp

and other generally expensive seafood in my younger years... what a waste (*blargh*).

kamster

Silly Putty

Lumines is officially the best game ever invented. Lumines: Puzzle Fusion was created by Japanese game maker Tetsuya Mizuguchi, released in North America in March of 2005. It's a little bit like tetris, but way better and with way cooler graphics. You might think releasing something similar to tetris for the PSP would be a rip-off, but this game's simplicity just adds to its entertainment value.

Like tetris, multi-colored blocks fall from the top of the screen where they come to rest at the bottom. Unlike tetris, the blocks aren't rigid; if you put half a block on another raised block, half will break off and continue to fall downwards. Additionally, you can't get rid of accumulated blocks by filling up one row; in Lumines, you must "delete" blocks by creating 2 x 2 squares of blocks of the same color. This might seem to be just as boring as tetris, but the game also incorporates lot's of cool special effects, sounds and lights when you get rid of blocks or beat a level. As well, they have some intuitive features such as shuffle mode, challenge mode and even boss mode (where you have to survive longer than a CPU).

However the best part of Lumines is the music, OMGSH the music! Lumines has a huge host of "skins" (different backgrounds either animated or static), each one with it's own playlist of great music! They often feature hot artists like The Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani and The Chemical Brothers, just to name a few... it's sort of like DDR; the louder the music the harder you want to play, hehe.

Anyways, I recently got the phone version and although it is slightly "dumbed down", it's still just as addicting as the PSP version, and there's even cool music too by some dude named... Mondo Grosso, although he is apparently quite famous.

kamster

Secretly, Furtively

Heyyyyyy peeps!

I went to see The Forbidden Kingdom the other day. I had heard from some of my friends that it was pretty lame, but I decided that I would ignore their advice and go see it anyways. It turns out... it was a decent movie. The movie has gotten so much media attention as of late because it marks the first time that Jackie Chan and Jet Li have appeared onscreen together... ever! As you well know, these two characters are huge azn kung-fu movie stars, and I'm betting that many people went to see this movie just to see which of them would win in a fight. Turns out that they're not actually fighting each other, and that both of them play a secondary role to Michael Angarano who plays a geeky white boy named Jason Tripitikas.

I won't totally spoil the movie for you (if you're intending to see it) but I will divulge the fact that the movie is based loosely on the Chinese legend of the Monkey King; a fabled warrior who wielded a staff and could summon monkey minions by plucking out hairs from his head. Yeah. Anyways, Jason is magically teleported to ancient China where he finds himself burdened with the task of returning the Monkey King's staff to... the Monkey King (who has been imprisoned in stone by the Jade Emperor). And so begins his journey. Sounds kind of like LOTR right?

Anyways, the acting isn't the greatest but it's not nearly as bad as Kenny said it was. I'm guessing that Kenny was biased because, being azn himself, a film about a white boy by a white director would not interest him in the least. So go see this movie... it's worth it. Sort of. But you know, you could just watch it online for free because as we all know... only suckers pay for movies =P.

-----

As you may have noticed, I have added some music to Up the Ante. The song playing is You Don't Miss Your Water (Until the Well Runs Dry) by Craig David. I have no idea why I chose this song... probably because I heard it on someone else's blog one day and decided to put it on mine. Anyways, I am well aware of the fact that having music playing incessantly on a blog can be incredibly annoying (especially if you hate Craig David... RAWR), so you can go ahead and turn that off right at the bottom of my blog.

kamster

p.s. it is interesting to note that the actor who plays Golden Sparrow in The Forbidden Kingdom, Yifei Liu, is the same actor who plays... the main character in The Return of the Condor Heroes, a truly good azn movie.

Some Real Food For Thought

Today I visited The Space Turtle, an awesome blog where you can find some interesting stories and funny content that is different from stuff you would find on many other blogs. Since the internet became much more accessible a few years back, people have been creating lots of random sites about stuff they like, don't like, hobbies and whoever knows what else. This means that there's lots of great content floating around out there, and lots of crap too.

The Space Turtle is different from many blogs today in that you can find quality short stories that are guaranteed to make you laugh. For example, I was reading a story on The Space Turtle called "The Killer Coder". It's actually not that long, but it was quite entertaining to read. I love especially the descriptive imagery that the author uses at the beginning of "The Killer Coder". The short story is about a ninja-avatar-hacker menace that infiltrates another computer in a quest for some treasure. The story goes on, describing the ninja's battles and encounters, and finally culminating in an epic battle with a cutlass-wielding pirate. Of course, our ninja-protagonist prevails, and finally claims his prize on the shores of a sandy beach.

One thing that irked me slightly was not knowing what the prize was, but that wasn't too big of a deal; the story was too well written for it to bother me for more than 5 seconds!

kamster

Absence

Ok recently I have been having a love affair. And you see, I'm really not that much of a romantic guy. Smoothly seductive words don't flow from my lips and I'm not always guaranteed a date for friday nights either. But you see, this time, my lover has been sending me vibes, positive vibes, vibes that are screaming "I want you to take our relationship to the next level."

And so, you must know that I have fallen in love with the acoustic guitar. O, the acoustic guitar. What a beautiful creation. The way it's six strings work together to create tunes and melodies in ways that no violin or piano ever could. Plus, all good bands have acoustic guitars. Actually, electrics are much more versatile, it's just that I don't own one at the moment. Lately I've learned how to play:

• Qing Tian (Clean Sky) by Jay Chou
• Tongue Tied by Faber Drive
• and Puff, the Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul and Mary (originally written by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow)

Of course, I'm not really that good... especially if I never learn to use power-chords or learn to sweep pick, like all those crazy pros on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube, here's another video from the magical realm of online videos. Featured in it is my good buddy Jipooki playing some Crooked X.

If you like it, feel free to subscribe to Jipooki's videos. In fact, he should be uploading some more videos very soon. At least that's what he told me (he's already made like... 15 original compositions).

kamster

If Only She Had Known

A while ago my good buddy Jon referred me to a video that he had created with some of his peeps for an English assignment. At first I was skeptical; had I not created numerous immature and poorly-edited video projects with my friends in the past? Of course I had. I was not eager to watch this video, assuming that it would be poorly-made and a waste of a few minutes of my time. But what am I saying? I was convinved to watch it and it was, surprisingly, pretty good. There were no hints of poorly-covered-up laughter and the filming (by Chris) was quite steady and innovative at times. Below is the video; take a minute to check it out.



If you like what you see, feel free to subscribe to Jon's videos.

kamster

p.s Messenger Plus just doesn't do it for me. Sure, Messenger Lock is one of the handiest features I have ever encountered for MSN but I've had bad experiences with this addon in the past. Before my anti-virus program kept telling me I had adware (even though I declined the offer to install the sponsor program), and now it simply lags my computer like mad... even when I'm not using MSN. In fact, I just un-installed half an hour ago, and my computer instally sprung to life as if a heavy burden had been removed from it's proverbial shoulders. But it could just be my ancient computer... who knows?

quod erat demonstrandum

Today I encountered an interesting brainteaser in the form of a proof that somehow shows that 2 is equal to 1. If this proof were logical and true, I would be the Queen of England, but unfortunately it is not true and is instead fatally flawed. I don't really know how to lay out the premises and all that stuff in the proper mathematical way, so I'll just give you the proof right here with nothing added (it flows from top down... try to figure out where the proof falls apart):

• a = b
• a^2 = ab
• a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2
• (a - b)(a + b) = b(a - b)
• a + b = b
• Subbing in a = b, b + b = b
• 2b = b
• Subbing in any non-zero value , 2 = 1 (or 4 = 2, or 8 = 4, etc.)

See if you can find the flaw in this proof without cheating (NO GOOGLE!). This took me about 10 minutes to figure out... First person to get the right answer gets a prize! Just leave you answer as a comment.

kamster

p.s I am really loving Sara Bareilles right now. Her song "Love Song" has got me hooked. She has a sound sort of like Chantal Kreviazuk... maybe a tiny bit less scratchy but that's the closest I can compare it to.

p.p.s Sorry the formatting is messed up... I wanted the equal signs to line up. It works here when I'm writing this but it doesn't appear properly when I post. And I'm too lazy to create a gif.

Inference to the Best Explanation

Fast food chains are always trying to create new and exciting products in hope of getting people hooked on them, telling their friends about it and coming back again and again for more. A good example of this is McDonald's Value Menu. Prior to it's inception, a meal from McDonalds could put you out 10 bucks and still not fill your stomach. Now, you can purchase two double cheeseburgers and an chilling ice coffee for 5 bucks less 30 cents (although the ice coffee isn't on the value menu), and actually get full!

On the other hand, there are some chains that attempt to do what McDonald's did a few years ago but fail miserably, like KFC (Killing Fulfilling Comestibles). Recently, they re-introduced (?) "Chicken Bowls", with "Layers of Flavour". The picture on their website and on the coupons I have show one of said bowls deconstructed, with cheese, pieces of chicken and corn magically floating above a black plastic bowl filled with mash potatoes and gravy.

Obviously, this was meant as comfort food. I mean, what's more unhealthy than fried chicken on mashed potatoes covered with melted cheese and gravy? So today I visited the local KFC and purchased one of these bowls, hoping to experience the euphoria usually associated with dumping a bucket of popcorn chicken in one's mouth.

Turns out, the chicken bowls are a big disappointment. They don't look half as appetizing as they do on paper, and there is a mysterious absence of cheese as well (my bowl did not have nearly as much as cheese as the bowl pictured above has). There isn't enough chicken either, and the potatoes are bland and tasteless, even when slathered with gravy. And most of all, it just doesn't work. You know how some things taste great together? Like pepperoni pizza and garlic seasoning? Chicken, corn, cheese and gravy just don't do it for me.I definitely won't be buying more chicken bowls any time soon.

kamster

p.s. readership has climbed to an all time high of 9 readers via FeedBurner, a jump of 3 from... yesterday. How exciting!!!111

p.p.s p.s does not stand for "please see", as most people assume but rather is derived from the latin post scriptum, meaning "after text", or "after script", usually placed at the end of a letter or article.

Jump the (smoking) gun

I'm not going to lie. I wasn't too tired to post about Washington, I was just too damn lazy. Right after I got back I was so tired and stuff and I went straight to get some ZZZ, promising myself that I would blog after I woke up. I guess I was just being to stupid.

But yeah, Washington DC was a SICK trip. We did so much crazy stuff, visited some sick places and did some fun stuff. We toured lots of famous places like the Vietnam memorial, Korean war memorial, Washington monument, Lincoln Memorial and Jefferson Memorial, just to name a few, although there were lots of other places we visited that I can't be bothered to remember and type out right now. We did do lots of other fun stuff too though, hehe. We toured some of Washington's lesser known districts like Alexandria (old Washington) and Georgetown where we did some shopping (although I didn't buy anything, STUPID ME!) and got some nice food as well. We also went on a three hour boat cruise on the Potomac, which was a nice touch on the last night in the hotel =(.

There wasn't too much work we had to do (thankfully) and as a result, a lot of bonding occurred between unlikely people... yeah. Although I am sorta annoyed that we didn't have too much time to chill in the hotels... if you get my drift ;).

Also you can probably tell that I'm being super lazy in writing this... although there is one thing that I can say for sure. I won't run around saying "America is a piece of sh*t" anymore. Yeah, after being in the capital of the US for 4 days, I realize that America and perhaps Americans as well have a sense of... how do I say this. Triumph? Maybe, or maybe it's just that they know how to commemorate their founding fathers and others who have influenced their long history. We don't have nearly as many monuments as they do ><.

That's not to say Americans don't piss me off. They do.

kamster