Apirl is the tax season of the year, and people are busy in preparing their tax returns. With only 1 week left before the filing deadline, I finally started preparing my tax return tonight. I have been a loyal customer to Quicktax for many years. Filing tax return using computer and internet is really convenient. I’m so used to doing tax electronically hat I can’t even imgaine how can I do it with pen and paper. After subtracted all my debuction and contribution to the retirement fund, my actual tax rate is only 20%. People always say Canada is a tax heavy country, but my experience found that it is not so bad. Maybe it is just me who don’t make enough money to qualify for the normal high tax rate. Sigh…
Category Archives: Daily Scribble
My random thoughts of the day.
facial
Lately, I’m getting in touch with my feminine side more often. Today I had tried my first facial treatment. Pat had bugged me to have facial treatment with her for quite some time. Today I finally gave in and go with her. Luckily, the beauty shop she usually go to is a home bussiness, that save me some embrassement. She had her treatment first, then I had my turn afterward. In summary, facial treatment are just regressive steps of applying different cream or solutions to your face, then wash them away with sponge. I think I’m the most ignorance customer the facialer ever had. I kept asking her question about the effect and material of each step. Other than all those cream, there are some other interesting steps such as: My face is steamed with hot vapour, which makes me feel like I am a BBQ pork bun. The dirt and oil clogging the pores at my nose are squeezed out, and it is less painful that I expected. An ultra-sound treatment to iron out my winkles and push nutrition deep inside my skin. At last, applying a mask is the last and most important step like all facial treatments seen in TV. It was so relaxing that I fell asleep for almost 20 minutes! After the facial treatment, I think my skin is softer and shinnier. Pat said my skin is even better than hers! Well… that’s the end of my exploration in facial treatment, doing facial is a female stuff after all. Man don’t need to do facial, so trying it once is enough for me.
food festival
This weekend the annual Eat! Vancouver food festival is taking place in BC Place. I went to the first day of the show after work with Pat. The ticket price is $12 regular, $10 with a donation to the food bank. So I bring along some old canned food digged up from my self that I will never eat. There are many free food samples in the show. On top of that, I bought some tickets to try larger sampling plate and alcohol drinks. The best part of the festival is the Food Channel cooking show hosted by Iron Chef winner Rob Feenie. His show is quite funny, I am not bored for hour long show. Best of all, I get the chance to try his dishes after the show. Most people just left after he is done without expecting they can actually taste the dish. Me and Pat went to the front to try our luck. Only a few people was standing there and we were just looking at the dishes at first. Somehow I’m brave enough to ask the host whether can I taste it. Out of my expectation, the host cut up the steak and fios gras, bring out four forks, and tell us to help ourself. Obviously they are not prepared to share the dishes with the audience, otherwise they should have prepared more folks. Pat also bought a recipe book written by Feenie and have him autographed. The food festival is definitely a good event to be to have a date with your girlfriend. Tasting the dish prepared by the Iron Chef is my highlight of the day, I guess I will have a good dream tonight.
badminton
I havn’t played badminton for the past two weeks, today I found my skill level had dropped alot. The weekly badminton game has less and less player, Jason, Edwin and Anson havn’t came for a long time. I can only play with those Mandarin speaking folks, and we can’t even fill two courts with double games. Although, I had played mostly badminton in P.E. lesson when I was in Lasalle days and served as a director of the badminton club in the university, yet my skill is pretty weak. I have to say that I picked up most badminton skills in past year playing with this group. The key for a better game is to position your body and arms before the birdy arrive at the striking point. That’s something no one had taught me in all these years.
surf web
Havn’t surf web for quite some time already. I usually only go to a few websites that I familiar with. Today when I was reading an article from PC magazine introducing top websites of 2005, I clicked through some of the links to visit them. I found that the web had changed alot since I first started using internet. Back then the internet is more true to its name that websites are interconnected by links, and people discover new sites from links to links. Nowadays with the increased complexity and rate of change, maintaining a list of link manually is no longer feasible. Search engine had replaced a web of links as the default mean to access different websites, and make people less likely to come across unintended yet interesting sites. Now the hot site reviews of PC Mag serves this purpose. I had discover many new and interesting sites today, probably I had wasted too much time sucking up all the new information. One of my favourate is Orisinal, which has many adorable mini games.