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.

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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