I am back!! Today has been very interesting. I woke up at 5 am, caught the 6am 7C to Kitchener Transportation Centre to catch the 6:30 Greyhound to Toronto. To my surprise, we arrived at 8 am (the driver did say it's b/c of New Year's Eve, otherwise regularly it's minimum 2 hours, bad for my plan).
Then I just walked around the whole downtown area, both on the ground and under the ground many times to get the feeling. This is my first trip exploring our own downtown Toronto and I am impressed (I think it's way better than Detroit and there are at least people on the streets).
I was acting like a tourist, taking pictures of Toronto like I have never seen it before, and believe it or not, I paid my First visit to Eaton's centre as well and shopped. It's large, like American shopping centres, which is good for shopping but bad for walking. Anyway, spent $50 on clothes, McChicken for lunch @@, then headed home on a full 12:30 Greyhound bus.
New plan is, wake up around 5 am, drive down to Cambridge and park in the mall parking lot (i.e. free), then catch the earliest Greyhound bus to avoid "possible" delays in winter (the driver mentioned that on raining/snowing days, 3 hours is also possible ><). Let's see how this works out on Friday
Ha ha, you people must be amazed at why I would choose option instead of finding a closer place and avoid all those hazzles -> I am poor

So before I realize it, it's 12/31, last day of the year 2003. Wow, another year has past by? I remembered spending last year's New Year's Eve in Taiwan which seemed like yesterday. Sigh, how much have I grown up? how much have I learned? Looking back and I felt nothing. We must have lost track in the UW system, Rachelle as an example :p.
anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of us, you who bother reading my blog, and everybody else

Drove my brother to airport tonight to send him on his way back to Taiwan and China, now I am all alone again, sigh
Gasoline was 59.95 back there while I pumped at 69.7 here @_@ This is not fair, and when I want to fill it up, it's back to 72.9 at Mississauga again. NOT FAIR!!

Have to find time to do grocery shopping, take an actual Greyhounds trip to downtown Toronto, join my friend's new year dinner. Work term starts next Monday, so fast ... but vacation is kinda boring indeed

So, the after-Christmas shopping continues as I surprisingly found out that a Microsoft 802.11b wireless router is $39.99 at FutureShop. Was 1-click away from completing the online order, then decided to visit store to get it faster. Turned out I got the last one (there were two left, but the employee asked me to get him another one for his professor as he found out it's $39.99). So I am quite lucky and ready to give it a try. Sigh, shopping feels good but is not great for the wallet :)

Boxing day is crazy everywhere. Woke up today and decided to do the Canadian shopping at Fairview Park Mall. What a mess, the road is jammed everywhere, lines to wait for available parking spot, not to mention the longest ever line inside the store. Best Buy is way worse than the Best Buy we visited in Oakland Mall, Detroit on Christmas Eve.
It makes me wonder, what is really the spirit of Chritmas? Is it because of the shopping, or the gathering of the family really? It seems like people look forward to the boxing day more than the actual X'mas, which is not the case in States (I like this idea better). Besides, boxing day prices are not that cheap sometimes. Detroit has better prices on things we have here, with lower tax too.
Anyway, purchased a WD 80GB external hard drive, will see how it goes ($179.99 - $50 U.S. Mail-in Rebate = $99.99? and tax)

Back to Waterloo from Detroit. It was a fun 4-day trip. Got a real feel of States vs. Canada and spent 2 days shopping. Will tell details later, right now need to catch up internet

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!!

Day 1 (Monday 12/22)
Took the car to Honda for the vapor control fix, then drove down to Detroit. Visited MGM Casino and drove around Detroit to see the downtown
Day 2 (Tuesday 12/23)
Drove to Dearborn to tour the auto district (hall of fame, Henry Ford Museum), shopped around Fairlane Towncenter
Day 3 (Wednesday 12/24)
Shopping shopping day. Visited the Renassance center inside GM building, then drove up north to Oakland Mall to join the shopping crowd
Day 4 (Thursday 12/25)
Woke up late, checked out and head back to Windsor. Then Casino Windsor (to see the difference), and back home.

So, marks are out (if you count 1/5 courses) and I am going away to Detroit. ICQ is getting emptier as everybody heads off to somewhere or something.

Watched LOTR3 at Courtney Park 16 yesterday (went to Winston Churchill, then found out they don't have LOTR3 even it says so on Tribute.ca). It was awesome, especially the whole battle. I guess not knowing the book beforehand helps, except the ending was long in my opinion without knowing the book. I hope this one would win some Oscars that really count!!

On my way out of the theatre, I saw something interesting. About 500 geese are in the sky, then gradually separating into so many reversed V's and fly away. Wish'd I had a camera to take a video/picture of it.

Yeah, I passed CS341 (final mark was BAD, either curved or not, right on the average 52%). But YEAH!!!!! no more 341, and I can sell my textbook. Bye bye zima, not sure I'll miss you or not. Going back to Mississauga today, visit old friends and attempt LOTR 3, offering someone ride to airport as well.

But someone got 99/100, who is that? That is crazy on an algorithm course, they should not be here. It makes me feel stupid :)

Looking at external hard drives now since my brother wants to take the 80GB comic with him to China Maxtor's External Drives Comparison.

Anyway, CS341 newsgroup has been amusing. I think everybody is following up even though it's far off from the original topic. Come to think of it, I'm quite evil in wanting next term's 341 to be difficult as ours so they'll suffer as well. But all is good now, provided that if I pass 341, which means 3B is officially over.

Free at last, what to do now....Basketball tv, watch movies, organize my HDs, life begins again ...

Apple announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 25 million songs from Apple's iTunes Music Store since it launched in April 2003. The 25 millionth song, purchased last Friday afternoon, was “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” by Frank Sinatra.

So, Raptors has lost 3 in a row and I've watched every of them. It's getting ugly after their pretty straight 5 wins. Yes, study sucks (in agreement with everybody else).
What else is new? Our lovely Accord has malfunction light on with emission problems, might cost couple hundred bucks to fix it. What a bad luck!
Then visited FutureShop later. FutureShop has such long refund lines, it's not even X'mas yet. And quite annoying that almost none of the digital cameras are powered or contained memory card. So much for trial and hands-on experience.
Planning to do a 3-day trip down to Detroit (original plan to Montreal is discardes, pff...), and probably take pictures like crazy and shop. U.S. $$ are cheap nowadays that it's worthy doing something with it.

Studying hasn't been progessing normally, it's bits and pieces with lots of downloads and b-balls. Sigh, I want to upgrade to 3M/640 from the current 1.5M/320.
Finished watching LOTR2 Extended last morning, the whole 4 hours, whew~ but that clears about 3GB of space, YEAH! Although BT is consuming space faster than I can unload anyway!
Came across this article PowerPoint Makes You Dumb, claiming PowerPoint makes us stupid and not think, and it's part of the reason Shuttle Columbia crashed!!!!
Could this be a long-long-term destructive weapon created by U.S. with help of M$ to downgrade the world?

4 down, 1 to go. Man, I really hate the CS341 Profs (f-word is in place). They really want to make us suffer, don't they? First time I ever doubted that I might actually fail a final -> fail the course -> re-take 341 -> hell all over again. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!

2 down, 3 to go. Why is that I never had a course that requires no final? Even PACS has a final on Saturday morning 9-12 am, it's an art course, why?

Turns out there's new tv episode to DL/Watch (Jake 2.0 1x11 from Wednesday), and new ER tonight (Dr. Carter is back, loving woman still). I'm feeling alive!!

Computers with internet suck too, because they suck my studying time @@ I visit my computers every 10-15 minutes to check new downloads, forums, etc.
Sigh, I wish today is 12/17 so everything'll be over and I can finally relax!

Computers without internet suck = useless. I had no internet for last 2.5 days because the ISP are consoldating their Toronto servers back to Ottawa. Finally got thru their tech support and was told I can switch to another ADSL ISP and obtain internet immediately. I did, $29.95/month, not a bad deal for the new ISP (5 e-mails, 25MB storage, servers allowed, no cap). But lots of surfing & downloads to catch up!!

Don't miss me too much, I am back ^_^

24 Hours straight without sleeping, sigh, blame to Nachos and 370. Snow is bothering too as I was driving too often last couple weeks (I am at MLK every day, doesn't that sound wrong already?)

Finished watching Enterprise, Alias, and Tarzan. Whoo~ end of term arrives so fast without me noticing, mainly because we have been skipping and hidding indoors for too long (especially after the midterm). But look at the bright side, the worst term is almost over, that's very encouraging and hence new life begins as of now. Ha Ha