i have grown to admire carlos whittaker, what he stands for, and his influence in the ministry world.

he recently put out this challenge.  you can watch it here.

basically, for the next 30 days, instead of making holiday excuses for the disconnect we feel in our lives, let’s make an intentional effort to grow in certain areas.  mainly:  spiritual, relational, physical.

so here are my goals:

1.  physical – get under 200Ibs (currently 206)

2. relational – hang out with my parents more intentionally (coffee, lunches, etc)

3. spiritual – finish B90x (before 2010) & memorize the verses los puts on his blog.

hope you’ll come along for the ride.

Två boktips baserat på vad som funnits på mitt nattduksbok den senaste tiden:

1. Slumdog Millionaire (Vem vill bli miljardär?) av Vikas Swadrup.

Jag har ännu inte sett filmen, den fick 8 Oscars! Läs om bokens handling här.

2. Människohamn av John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Min syster Kristina tipsade mig om denna bok, hon sa: Du bara måste läsa den. Jag har inte ens läst hälften ännu men denna bok är så sjukt spännande. Sättet denna författare skriver på är oemotståndligt, man dras in i handlingen från sida nummer två och det är helt omöjligt att lägga boken ifrån sig och fortsätta dagarna utan att ha återkommande tankar kring berättelsen om när ett barn fösvinner. Läs! Läs Läs!

November månad och jag betalade mina räkningar igår när lönen kom.

Kul Jul – eller inte. Mina räkningar var på lite drygt 12 000 kr.

Denna månad har jag lovat mig själv att köpa endast ett klädesplagg. Vilket jag gjorde igår men vad det var kommer jag inte visa förrän nästa vecka för på vägen hem från jobbet svängde jag förbi skräddaren som skall göra underverk med tygstycket så det blir både snyggare och mer praktiskt.

Åh vad jag är pank!

Men nästa månad blir det inte lika farligt. Förutom att det ska inhandlas julklappar (eller inte, vem köper julklappar numera, såvida de inte är till barn?!) ska mina pengar spenderas i London. Longing for London. Jag längtar.

Alma & 10th Ave, Vancouver, BC.

Recognizable Items: Milk Crates, Purple Sheet, Purple Patio Umbrella, Plastic Lid for Pennies and Change, Wooden Window / Screen door frame, Twine, Bottles.

One of the hazards of working sets is the occasional unfortunate eyeful, so to speak.

For many years, grips and electricians have loved to wear really baggy shorts – usually of the cargo variety – to work sans underpants. Which, of course, is fine if you like a breeze around your unmentionables (and who am I to say that’s wrong?), but sometimes all of us have to climb a ladder.

Normally, when one climbs a ladder on set to mess with or hang a light one is leaning out over the side of the ladder, thus throwing the load off-center, so one requires assistance in the form of a co-worker ‘footing’ said ladder, which is basically just standing on one of the lower rungs to add some weight to prevent tip-over (which is funny, but usually ends very badly).

The hazards of footing a ladder can include getting tools dropped on one’s head, getting smacked in the face by an overthrown cable (which then swings back towards the thrower and raises one hell of a welt on anyone who happens to be in the way), and looking up at a co-worker who happens to be going commando in a pair of billowy shorts or worse, a kilt.

Lately there has been a dramatic increase in the number of guys wearing kilts to work with no underwear – don’t ask me why. They usually wear Utilikilts, but the end result is the same. A dude in a dress with the family jewels swinging in the breeze. Look up at your own risk*.

I’m not sure which is worse – the shorts, where everything’s squished into one leg so it looks like chewed gum or the kilt, where everything’s got room to swing around for easier viewing by unfortunate colleagues.

When I get the inevitable view I usually loudly mention something about a rash that needs immediate medical attention, but today we were on set and there were important people milling about, so there was nothing I could do other than try really hard not to look up, which made taking the unwieldy Kino Flo from my underpantless colleague much more difficult.

And guys? They really all do look the same. Trust me on this one.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Enjoy your meal.

*Unfortunately, sometimes one has no choice but to look up – such as handing up a light, or a tool (stop snickering. I’m referring to a wrench), or tape, or being handed something that’s coming down out of the rig.

If only the car looked THAT GOOD…

AMC Pacer. Need I say more?

Do I sense a trend here?

For those of us over the age of 35, the words bring up really bad memories of really bad cars from a really, really bad car maker.  From the late 60’s on it was just crappy car after crappy car. From the Javelin, to the Gremlin (my how appropriately named) through Matador and Hornet, it was the most horrid of line ups.

And somehow, they stayed in business.

Amongst my gear head buddies, we joked that AMC meant ‘Almost Motor Company’. We liked to say they did not manufacture cars so much as made bodies and adaptor plates. This was due to AMC sourcing drive train and accessory parts from the ‘Big 3′ and fitting them together. Thus, when opening the hood, one could be faced with a FOMOCO engine & starter, GM transmission & MOPAR ignition system.

And somehow, they stayed in business.

Then came 1978. Things were rough. The EPA forced AMC to recall EVERY 1976 model year sold in the US, including Jeeps, due to faulty emissions controls. By this point, even the much vaunted, and horribly overrated by that time, Jeep nameplate was not enough to keep AMC afloat. So, in an act of questionable sanity, the board of AMC agreed to a partnership with Renault.

Well. That will certainly make things better eh? Nothing like good old French engineering and manufacturing to save this old crow.  Just reach into that huge bin of well designed and built Renault cars and parts and pull a rabbit out of the hat. Should be a slam dunk.

Breaking News!

We have just received word that, in 1978, Renault has NO well engineered and built cars or parts in it’s lineup. It is currently the French equivalent of AMC!!

Nice!! This is gonna be great. Bring on the Alliance and the LeCar Yahoo!!

Then they gave us the Eagle. Otherwise known as an innovative drive train (AWD) in a Butt Ugly body. Cool!

Kind of on the same track

Things got progressively worse until AMC/Jeep was finally swallowed up by Chrysler (who just wanted Jeep) in 1987.

On to the subject of this issue of auto lunacy.

One of the oddest rides produced in America after WWII has to be the Pacer. In some ways it was very innovative, it was “small” and had a open and airy cabin. The problem was, to create the aforementioned open & airy cabin, Richard Teague seemingly decided a misshapen fish bowl was the best choice. He then chose the front third of a worn out loafer for the profile of the nose. As this came from the man who penned the Matador & Hornet, we will just say he will not be known for his artistic abilities.

A prime candidate for Cash for Clunkers?

The beauty seen above was found at our local home repair center which shall remain nameless but you would have to be an idiot not to recognize the colors eh?

So what is one to think of finding one of these in 2009? Does the driver wear bell bottoms? Listen to Donna Summer? And to top it off, it has been well taken care of?

A 'beauty' to behold?

I have to say, it is really not that much uglier than anything ever created by Lexus. It kind of has a Bean’s Slipper look to it. If not quite so comfortable.

But, how many cars have had such a storied advertising career?

I mean who in the 40 to 60 year old range does not remember Sandwich King? I mean Really..

If you bought one of these, boy were you smart….

Hmmm. Smart is not quite the word I am thinking of…

Now, as they say at the Daily Show, for your moment of Zen:

It's MINT!!! Like the pinstriping?

That’s right, you can own this thang!(?)

Be sure to tell them I sent you….

]]> http://keepons.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/salvaging-a-bad-habit/ Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:38:29 +0000 keepons http://keepons.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/salvaging-a-bad-habit/

I’m not perfect. In that I mean, I watch TV or play video games. I eat junk food. Waste time and so on. But one little trick I have is that I mix the good with the bad. For example, while watching TV when I should be blogging instead, I do a set to 10 pushups whenever the commercials come on. At other times, I’ll have a craving for a can of Coke. I don’t fight the urge, I just put it off until I get something done, like walk down the stairs of my condo for it and then walk back up after I’ve gotten it. With this type of strategy, you can be user friendly to yourself.

I’m not perfect. In that I mean, I watch TV or play video games. I eat junk food. Waste time and so on. But one little trick I have is that I mix the good with the bad. For example, while watching TV when I should be blogging instead, I do a set to 10 pushups whenever the commercials come on. At other times, I’ll have a craving for a can of Coke. I don’t fight the urge, I just put it off until I get something done, like walk down the stairs of my condo for it and then walk back up after I’ve gotten it. With this type of strategy, you can be user friendly to yourself and still have fun.

I actually sat here for a long time trying to think of a suitable title, and then I gave up. So I just wrote in the first line of the chorus of the song I’m currently playing. I think maybe for this whole summer I’ll do just that, and I’ll pick songs from my summer playlist (that I haven’t made yet but I will, and I know this song will be on it).

So this song is:

Kids In Love – Mayday Parade

Sorry, Mai, but you inspired me to do this.

The downside of me doing this, of course, is that at a glance you wouldn’t know what the post will be about, just (if you happen to like my type of music) what song I was listening to.

This post will be a photo post. I just cleaned out my study and decided to take pictures of stuff I discover hidden away in piles of paper and books. Since in my study I basically chuck everything that I come across during the course the year (and, apparently, last year and some from the year before) I thought it would be a fun memory lane trip thing. (It also means that the page might take a while to load for people with slower internet. Although I’ve compressed all the pictures, they’re still over 100 kb each.)

That’s what I started with.

The crap I had in front of my computer. Note the 3 cool gadgets, in size order.

My English teacher needed to learn names. I thought the Joker thing was really snazzy.

Ah, I couldn’t bring myself to throw out the folder of notes from Jack’s. It’s actually really heavy now.

Omgsh, 31/50, FAIL SAC!

Here’s a visual of what I was writing about a few weeks back. April, as you can see, signed her name very “bigly”.

Oh, Pooki, Eunice, if you still read this…I still have it.

My lack of mid-year exams.

Just. Plain. Awesome. Also, ignore the huge scratch on my screen protector.

I love it. I forgot what was in the letter (I didn’t re-read it) but I remember it was nice.

See those blanks? They were me walking around the library making people talk to me.

12I = the entire known physical universe.

See, proof that I’m hardcore. Highlighted in bright pink are my misdemeanors.

Was tempted to write “FAil” like I did last time but no.

Haha, April, remember this! This was at the start of Yr 11. The packaging made me rofl.

I drew this way back in 2007. Carmaine had sprained her ankle, and I drew this small comic depicting what would have happened if I had to move her because she couldn’t do it herself. Everything is to scale.

Do you see the “hand up brief” one? It made the entire class chortle. That’s what she said.

It’s blurry, but that message got me through some pretty rough Methods class.

Look what I found! This was end of Yr 10, 2007. When I took the picture of the picture, my camera recognized our faces.

Dom, Carmaine, remember these guys? I still haven’t opened mine haha.

Just when I thought I finished, I turned around and saw this.

I cleaned out that pile of textbooks that I couldn’t/didn’t sell. What do I do with them now? Seriously, someone tell me.

Sorry if I just capped someone.

Well, it was a pretty good trip down memory lane. There were heaps of stuff I chucked out that I didn’t take a picture of, for example the stuff we wrote for English at the start of the year that was meant to be about us. That wasn’t used.

2 favorite things I found were the comic of Carmaine and the photographs.

Alex.

     A self-portrait for my art class.

A massive flood of junk has inundated Cindy’s magical world, and she needs your help to save the Flooded Kingdom! Cindy has found the Miracle Mirror in the castle, and will travel throughout the land using this mysterious item to clean up the mess. Help bring Cindy’s world back to its former beauty! Addicting Match 3 gameplay, impressive power-ups, and clever minigames await in Cindy’s Travels: Flooded Kingdom!

Addicting gameplay

Cute graphics

Help Cindy save the day!

System Requirements:

OS: Windows XP/Vista

CPU: 1.0 GHz

RAM: 256 MB

DirectX: 7.0

Hard Drive: 86 MB

It Takes Just A second To Say Thanks,

It Takes Longer To The Work On This.

Cindy’s Travels: Flooded Kingdom

差多每天都收到垃圾來電，包括賣保留、借貸、減肥、手電服務、寬頻服務、問卷、酒店可謂各適其適應有盡有。不像電郵你可以不看，電話推銷硬要你聽推銷員的歪理、謬論顯得更加騷擾。很明顯政府完全無力監管，市民如果不想被騷擾還是各安天命！
在Windows Mobile、Symbian有不少類似的程式，在iPhone上好像沒有，可能是Apple沒有容許電話本的插件。
最近看見有心人編寫了一個非常簡單的HK Junkcalls iPhone程式。用法很簡單，它可以為你的電話本加入一個Junkcalls List，裡面已包含已知的香港垃圾來電號碼。下次有垃圾來電至少可以選擇不接。

不過當然要配合定時更新，因為推銷手法五花百門，道高一尺魔高一丈！

Facebook | 廣告電話黑名單(香港)

Jag köpte mig en adventsstjärna på inredningsbutiken Village på Kungsgatan i Sthlm efter jobbet!

Gick sedan till Åhléns city, köpte en concealer (Cover All Blue) och ett rouge (Blusher Lush) från Make Up Store, de ser ut såhär:

Mötte Kristina som hastigast (och det var faktiskt hon som fick mig att börja använda dessa sminkprodukter, rekommenderar dom varmt, sjukt snygga), vi luktade på parfymer innan vi skildes åt och åkte hem.

37 dagar kvar tills jag är till London!

The ‘Web User’ Magazine officially dislikes Facebook apps like Farmville, Cafe World and Mafia Wars for clogging up the news feed with pointless updates, but has anyone ever noticed how much rubbish people put on there themselves?!

Let’s start the week with some inspiration! Bethan’s just stumbled across Sadie Olive, a lovely blog written by Sara Duckett, a Californian photographer. Her love of vintage lace, antiques and all things pretty means every post is a visual treat.

This makes me want to rush home and tie pink velvet ribbons around my vintage cutlery too! At the moment, we store it all in French Cassoulet tins – practical, but not half as pretty!

What a lovely start to to the week! I love the vintage scales above, and the beautiful styling in these shots. On closer inspection, it turns out Sadie Olive is not just a blog – it’s a whole empire! Sara runs three shops – she sells antiques, postcards and prints of her photographs, does graphic design and sells collectibles…is there anything she doesn’t do?! She’s also on her third blog. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. – Ellie

I was ransacking my things days ago (see previous entry) and I came across this Vision Board I made when I was still studying. It was an assignment from my Christian Living sort of class, I don’t know what the course was called exactly because I never paid attention to religion themed courses, but the whole thing was about how God made everything and how we should live very saint-like christian lives. Yes, I am exaggerating. You know how I feel about religion. Anyways, we were asked to create our own Vision Board, meaning what we think we will be having or what we want to have five years from that day. We had to cut pictures and stuff to make a collage and put it in a 1/8 illustration board. Very highschool, *mumbles* Christians. This was what I came up with:

After five years, hopefully.

• I didn’t have enough materials with me when I was making it because most of our old magazines were either thrown out or sold to junk shops. The only ones left were the ones in my room which was bought years ago. I remember having those back when I was still in grade school.

• I am a huge fan of Elliott Yamin (E). I have been since his American Idol days, he was only able to take the third place but you know how talented people are. They still get through the industry. And I have such dislike for ‘artists’ who only cater to tweens using their faces as products. He has Diabetes and one of his ears is impaired. He made me want to be a singer more than how much I wanted to before I watched him.

• There was a point in my confused adolescent life when I wanted to audition in a local singing competition, disregarding how crappy they are and disregarding how I am relatively less talented than most, and possibly make it and sing. I was deluded. But now that I think about it, that doesn’t seem to be a very bad idea. Hmm.

• I think I am enjoying these bullets. This is the second time I posted an entry using them.

• New York = Broadway. Someday I will go there to watch my favorite musicals no matter how much they will cost me. I am such a cliche. Of course I have to make money first. I just got inspired to perform a bank heist after writing this.

• I love dancing. Or I love seeing other people dance.

• Of course, everybody’s dream. Own a car. Do road trips, visit unsuspecting friends and ruin their Sundays. Go wherever like you have no work to get back to. Life is beautiful.

• I have an interest in photography but photography hates me. When I get rich I will enroll in a photography class and finally learn how to click those buttons. Seriously, I never imagined it was that hard until I got close enough to a camera.

• I always wanted to become a teacher. One of the reasons why I want to have my MA after a few years of graduation. I am not sure though if I will be a good one. You know how teachers are? Sometimes they know a lot but it doesn’t reflect in the classroom so the students sometimes think that their teachers are stupid? Well, I’m afraid I may be like one of them.

• And of course, I wanted to do this eversince I learned how to write. Publish a book. Who wouldn’t want leaving a piece of one’s mind in this fucking world after one died?

+++++

It has been a year and I am still as broke as a.. well, a typical Filipino. I hope four years would be enough for me to achieve all these.

How about you? In five years or so, how do you see yourself? What do you want to have? Go share. I’d be glad to hear from you after you put up with the crap I just wrote above.

Vem är brunast på jobbet idag? JAG!

Jag ska fan sola solarium från och med nu för att behålla min bränna. Skiter i om det är farligt.