I am not a crazy sport fans. I like watching hockey and socceer, but I won’t follow the score of every game in the season. I would start watching when the team is in the playoff or in international tournament. I won two tickets to watch Canucks games, which is the 2nd last game of the season. This year Canucks is having a close call on getting into the final and the game I am going to watch is life or death match, should be quite exciting. I was discussing the chance of Canucks going into playoff with colleagues during lunch. I just couldn’t understand why they can be so crazy about watching hockeys. I can understand watching the game as a social event to have good time with friends. I can also understand watching the game as an entertainment like watching movies. I can understand watching the game to support your national team. But the city teams in the major league are merely business, how can you attached to a company whose solely purpose is to profit from you? The thing puzzle me most is the thrill of unknown when watching the game. What is the difference between this thrill than the thrill from gambling? Maybe I am too logical to be a sports fans, I can only be a sports spectator.

This is a true story happen to a friend of mine. This guy like this girl for many years, everyone knows about this. He had made several attempts but all failed. Here is his latest attempt. He got some hockey tickets from his friend, he decided to ask the girl out for a date. Mistake number one, unless the girl is hockey fan, normally a hockey game is not attractive enough nor able to show your sincereness. A better choice of event would be a concert, musical, or anything that is romantic. Then instead of asking the girl himself, he let a common, although good friend to the girl, do the job. Mistake number two, never let a 3rd party involving in the dating process, unless it is a stunt that you can’t handle alone. The result is quite obvious, he got rejected once again. This time he even got hilmulated by the girl. I really feel sorry for that guy, but I just can’t stop laughting at his foolishness. Sometimes I wonder, why can’t that girl give him a chance? In my opinion, as a friend of him, I think the guy is pretty decent, other than he is a bit boring, not handsome enough and probably have absolutely no common sense on dating tactics.

I brought my Tomy Bitchar-G mini remote control AE86 back to my office. I put it in my cubilce as my new cubicle toy. I have bought it for a few years, but never have any chance to play it at home. The motor of the car is not powerful enough to run on home carpet. I attempted to run it on my desk, which should be big enough to set up a race track, however it’s coverd with document. Fortunately, the carpet at work has much less resistance, so the car can run in the aisle. My colleagues sitting in my aisle seems very interest to my tiny RC car. I let them drove the car for a while and they are quite impressed that this tiny RC car is nicely built. I am thinking of buying a few more Bitchar-G and bring them to work. So when we are bored writing codes all day long, we can have a car race to relax our mind. I will have to make sure the remote runs on different frequence and all the cars has the same motor. Otherwise, it is no fun if one car over power another too much and end up always winning the race.

Today I spent all my morning unpacking the boxes in my new cubicle and setting it up. The new cubicle is located on the east side of the building and because of that I found the temperature is hotter than my old cubicle due to sun shine in the morning. One of the first thing I do is to look for the temperature control and make my side of the building cooler. Alison, whom I went to Waterloo with, walked by saw me fixing the temperature control and made a comment. She said this action is so remarkably Horace such that I am already changing the AC setting before settling in. In lunch time, we were talking about the new Audi A3 a colleague just bought. The A3 has a new gear box system, which has two gears instead of one, so the time between shifting is reduced. How the system is one set of gear controls odd gears, and the other set controls even gears. When the driver shift from 2nd gear to 3rd gear, the other gear already pre-fetch the 4th gear for the next shift. After hearding the explanation, I naturally pose a question on how the computer know which gear to pre-fetch. When the car is runnin gin 2nd gear, how does the system know whether the next shift will be 1st or 3rd gear. The others heard my questions, just assume I like to stress test anything I come across. Apparently, they never thought of this scenario. Sometimes I wonder, am I born too curious or have I been working in verification for too long?

This weekend I am taking CSIA level 1 again. I took it two years ago and failed. After two more years of practice and a lot more mileage, I think I am more prepared this time. Moreover, my instructor last week told me to give it a try. Althought, the CSIA course in Cypress is $150 more expensive than the one in Seymour, it really worth the money. In Seymour, we had only 1 instructor for 20 students. In Cypress, we have 3 instructors for 24 students and we rotate instructor every day so we get to see different teaching style. I have more attention from the instructor and better skill improvment in Cypress. I did pretty good yesterday, the instructor said my balance and stance is pretty good, he can see I have been taking lessons. Today I did not so good. Normally I only edge my shaped ski to turn so I am not good at privoting. That gets me a bit worry about whether I will able to pass. When I woke up yesterday and today, I have a feeling that maybe I don’t not really want to do it, I shouldn’t register after all. I think this feeling came from my fear about failing the course. Since a little kid, I am always good at exams. The CSIA course is probably the first exam I failed miserably. I guess unless I conquer it this time, I will always have a shadow in my mind.