Category Archives: Daily Scribble

My random thoughts of the day.

Daily Scribble

Fantasy hockey 2008

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Every year, we have a fantasy hockey pool at work.  Last year, I use pure statistic to select my players and I end up having the lowest score.  I guess performance of hockey players just like stocks, past result does not always imply future growth.  Some of my friends really into hockey.  They are a walking hockey database.  Not only that they know all the players and their teams by heart, they also keep track of who is injured, who has been traded or even who had just become a dad.  Crying baby at night probably affect the game performance.  I believe they hockey knowledge give them an advantage in the hockey pool.  Anyways, I am too busy and lazy to do my own research, so I end up using statistic again this year.  It is much easier to look at numbers than find out everything about the players from sports news website.  Here is my team this year:

Henrik Zetterberg (Det – F)
Ryan Getzlaf (Anh – F)
Olli Jokinen (Pho – F)
Shane Doan (Pho – F)
Rick Nash (Cls – F)
Alexander Frolov (LA – F)
Nathan Horton (Fla – F)
Patrick Marleau (SJ – F)
Mark Streit (NYI – D)
Lubomir Visnovsky (Edm – D)
Jay Bouwmeester (Fla – D)
Bryan McCabe (Fla – D)
Henrik Lundqvist (NYR – G)
Marc-Andre Fleury (Pit – G)

This time we are more prepared than last year when we are drafting the players.  All of us bring our laptop to search the players on line when it is our turn to pick the player.  We have 9 teams in total, it took us almost 1.5 hours to finish the drafting.  The hockey season is starting this week, following our fantasy hockey team and bragging on who is winning would be a regular feature in our lunch coversations.

Daily Scribble

Packing toys: before and after

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This is how my Macross collection looks like in display.

Before

This is how it looks like after 12 hours of packing.

Macross Box 1 Macross box 2

Daily Scribble

Why do people collection stuffs?

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I am moving soon, so I have to start packing my stuff.  Today, I spend whole day putting my toys back into their boxes.  I have already spent a day last week and I guess I may need another day.  I know I have lots of toys, but I still surprise by how many boxes I have.  People love to collect things, just like I like to collect toys.  I have been thinking about why people do collect things for quite some time, but I fail to come up with any good explanation.  Collections are not investments, most of time your collection are just old junks to other people.  Collections are not something you can use daily, they just sit there doing nothing.  Collection suppose to bring you joy, but you only need to have a few to experience the joy.  There is something special about the shear size of the collection.  When I am admiring my fleet of Valkyrie and armies of Gundam, I have a sense of satisfaction.  Where this sense of satisfaction comes from, I have no idea.  It doesn’t make any logical sense to feel happy about something that has no objective value, can’t be used and pretty much just various duplication of one another.

Daily Scribble

Internet discussion

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Internet discussion is very different from face to face discussion.  I have been activitly discussing various issues ranging from politics, economy, environmental protection, animal rights, religion and philosophy in internet for many years.  I found that internet discussion is more in depth.  You can rarely drill on a controversial yet serious issues in face to face discussion.  When you are talking to friends, you phase those issues in a light way to avoid hard feelings.  Talking to someone oppose to your idea make your idea crystallize in your mind.  When you are force to defend your argument, you will have a much better understanding of the issues, so that you can make a better judgement.

Internet discussion is like debating club in school, you can find opponents who defense their view to their last breath.  Unlike school debate, you can choose your side in internet.  You can argue for or against what you truly believe in.  Like in a debate, you are not try to convince your opponent, because people usually won’t admit they are wrong.  You try to convince the by standers who are following the discussion, although you may never find out whom you have influenced.  Unlike debate, there is no judge to determine who win or who lose the debate.  You are the only judge in an internet disscusion.  Although you may not admit you had lost, but you will remember the defeat and vow not to make the same mistake again.  This is a learning process make your argument stronger next time.

Maybe someone say internet discussion is a waste of time.  In some way, it’s a waste of time.  Thinking and arguing about those serious issues is a waste of time.  Time is better spent on making more money then use the money to enjoy life.  Who cares about those serious issues?

Daily Scribble

Election

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No, I am not talking about the US election.  I am talking about the Canadian election.  Something I like about the Canadian political system is the election will not drag on too long.  From the moment the government announce the election, there is only one month before it actually take place.  So we will not bored by the ever lasting election campaign like in the US.  I wonder what’s the point of having pro-long election campaign?  Isn’t that most voter already make up their mind?  The political view of a party won’t change over night, voters should be well aware of what they expect to get from each party.  The candidate themselves are irrelevant, all politicians cannot be trust anyways.  Whatever they promise you in the campaign are lip service.  As long as there the politicians do not make any stupid mistake or involve in any scandals, the voters are pretty much voting for the party.

I used to vote for the Liberal in the past elections.  This time, I will switch to the Conservative, since it is the only party that is not anti-gun.  If I want to keep my toys, I better vote for them.  Other than this factor, the agenda of the other parties are pretty much loads of shit.  The Green Party is a joke, their policy does not make any economical sense.  The Quebecois is really a provincial party, their sole agenda is the independence of Quebec.  Only stupid Quebec people will vote for them.  There are three major party, Conservative on the right, New Democratic Party on the left and Liberal in the middle.  I never buy policy from the left, they always want to raise tax.  The Liberal suppose to be ok, but this time they dig themselves in a big hole by proposing carbon tax.  Tax increase is bad, period.  The Conservative seems to have the best policy with the usual small government and tax cut agenda.  I really admire the Conservative refuse to please the arts and culture group by denying them more money.  The reason is very libertariain, arts and culture are personal perference, the government should not spend tax payers’ money activities that most citizens don’t really care.  They make a very good point stating that those who really care about arts and culture, should just donate to their favorate arts or culture group.  It is unfair asking the general public to pay for their perference.  This kind of sound fiancial policy really win me over as a support for the Conservative Party.