Finally got myself a new chair for my home office. I’ve been feeling strains in my right wrist and forearm for a couple months. I’ve tried to place the mouse at a different spot, tried to use a tablet instead of a mouse, nothing helped. I would think that my last resort would be to get a new chair that has an arm rest (my current one doesn’t). After some searches and price comparisons among a couple stores, I’ve decided to goto Office Depot to get my dream chair.

There were so many selections, I spent about 30 minutes sitting on almost every chair for at least a couple times. I wanted a leather one, but they are so pricy. I almost got this $219 one that I really liked, super comfy with adjustable arm rest and the back tilt is very flexible. However I ended up getting this one that is on sale: $99 -> $69. Didn’t think I should spend three times as much on this. It wasn’t a leather one but it’s got an arm rest, a tiltable back, backsupport (pretty comfy) and it looks like leather…lol. I’d usually rather spend a bit more on quality stuff than to get a cheap one but this chair doesn’t look cheap at all, plus the front side of the sitting pad isn’t sewed up so it wouldn’t break apart as easy (my current leather one has sew lines near the front, and it cracked pretty badly after some usage. I think this bargain will do the job, at least for now. I’ll have to “sit around” for a few more days to tell the difference though.

Today was my 2nd time going up Whistler this season. As usual, went up with Angela, and Daryl joined up this time, so three of us. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go or not last night still but since I got my board tuned up ($30, at Coast Mountain Sport, rip-off ??), I thought might as well go up and see how “good” the board would get.

Went up around 6:30 as usual, taking Angela’s car. We stopped by Mcdonald’s to grab some breakfast, but not sure if it’s because getting too stuffed or if it was that I didn’t get enough sleep, I was getting motion sickness in the car on the way there. I tried to sleep and tried to breath hard but it wouldn’t go away. Well I didn’t puke but it wasn’t too good of an experience. The sky was cloudy today mainly due to the flurry (there was like 2cm of snow accumulated overnight). Well you get fresh snow in return to a dull sky, I was okay with that. The slopes were obviously more powdered than last Saturday, and also my board was in reaaaally good condition, I was just sliding and sliding..! I gained a lot of speed due to that and consequencely I fell quite a bit but surprisingly I’ve almost never landed on my butt - I was able to get back up almost right away after I fell (or almost fell). This was quite tiring though actually, since it was pretty harsh on my thighs trying to stand back up, almost like doing stepmaster… Anyway, I was feeling courageous and I actually went into some tree areas where the track was super narrow but powdery. I hit a tree at one point (lol) but it wasn’t too serious or anything…it was actually quite a lot of fun! I will do more trees next time if I get a chance, have to do it in the beginning though since it takes a lot of effort crawling back up once you get stuck deep in the snow.

I’ve been wanting to empty up part of my garage and set up a home gym for quite a while, but never had the time to do it. So I decided to pick up my mind and start working before I completely forget about it. Since my car takes up very little space, I have quite some space in the front of the garage to fit my bench press gears and some weights.

For creating enough lighting for the garage, I bought this 1000W halogen work light from Home Depot today, pretty cheap just $49.9 and it’s super bright, enough to illuminate the entire garage plus generate enough heat so that I don’t have to get a seperate heater (in fact I bought an industrial heater today as well but realized it requires 240V when I brought it home, lol going to return it tomorrow).

Step 2 would be to clean up the garage. I have quite a bit of garbage - two broken upright halogen lamps, computer hardware, a chair, broken luggage bag….and more. I’m going to get someone to pick them up for $60 tomorrow. After that, it will be clean up time, getting the floor swept and washed. I’m thinking about putting a greyish epoxy coating on the floor to keep it clean and nice looking, but I’ll see. Also will have to place a layer of soft foam flooring or similar stuff at the gym area where I will be working out on. Lots to do!

SCANDAL is a Japanese drama that was shown in Japan around August to December in 2008. I came across this drama out of nowhere really, I can’t even recall where I first saw it and why I downloaded it but I’m glad that I did. I have to say that THIS DRAMA IS AWESOME, and I haven’t been watching such a nice one for quite a while, maybe ever since Karei Nru Ichizoku / ??????. Well in fact, three out of four main characters from SCANDAL had performed in Karei Nru Ichizoku about two years ago - Suzuki Kyoka / ????, Kyoko Hsegawa / ?????, and Kazue Fukiishi / ????. I didn’t really know any of them except for Kazue Fukiishi whom I knew long time ago since her debut drama Tokimeki Memorial / ????????? in 1997. She was considered one of the best looking Japanese teen girl back then as I heard that the main character for Tokimeki Memorial was chosen from 1000 interviewees. Anyway, the 4th character Momoi Kaori / ?????, who is a 57 year-old mom in the story, was very well performed as well and I liked the way she is extremely laid back and funny at times.

I’m not sure how to start about talking about the story..lol. It’s really such a complex story with loads and loads of twists, mysteries, surprises, and comedies. I would say it is a mystery type of comedy. The story begins at the wedding of this girl where she’s invited four of her friends to the ceremony (these four ladies are the main characters of the story). After the ceremony 5 of them went to a bar and the girl asked her four friends to play a game of nanpa (dating guys) since it would be the last “chance” for her to date any guy once married. Each of them has to date a guy anywhere in town and bring him back to the bar, the ones that couldn’t do it will have to treat everyone else drinks. Oh by the way, these four girl friends of her are all married, ranging from age 28 to 5x. Most of them aren’t willing to play the game since they are all married but the newly wed girl forced them to. The four ladies basically haven’t seen each other before. So each of them began the search for a guy, and this was where the story began.

Each of them were able to find a guy except for one of the them. Eventually they returned to the bar but the newly wed girl did not return. She’s gone missing. The entire story is basically about how these four ladies try their best to find their missing girl friend, and how they got to know each other very well and became very very good friends. During the search, they have uncovered lots and lots of mysteries behind the real cause of the girl’s disappearance - mysteries involving each of their husbands, their friends, even themselves. I can’t even remember how many different miniature stories have been told in the plot. As the mysteries uncover, it gets very exciting and will definitely keep you watching. A character based mystery show with an excellent cast and writing. Everybody has some to hide, and it’s the revelations of these secrets which drives the plot, but at no time does it feel forced. The ending was a little anticlimactic, but satisfying. While watching it I actually learned a lot about relationships between housewives and husbands, and that between males and females.

Here is a short intro from dramaplot.com

Another story about family life, four married women from different generation. From their days of living, they seem so blissful, peace and so harmony with their family. But underneath that their days are strewn with betrayal, misery and deceit.

Takako is one of them, from outside she look like a perfect housewife. But her family life is a mess as she deals with a rebellious daughter and an unfaithful husband. At the wedding party she meets her co-friend worker Risako, and three other women with same trouble with her.

When Risako suggests they play a “game” to see who is the last to pick up a man at a bar, the women get caught up in an incident that brings them together as friends.

This is just too good to miss. You would just want more after watching each episode. I finished everything in about 3 days, lol. This is a MUST watch, highly recommended drama.

Went to the Chill Winston bar/restaurant in Gastown last night with Benny. Originally we had a reservation at the Figmint Restaurant but when we got there they were closing so had to look for another place to have some chomps on.

The place was quite nice, spacious and good ambiance - perfect for a nice night out with girls. There wasn’t too many people so it was really relaxing. Most of the items on the menu were tapas, with a couple entrees and sides. We ordered the Beef Tartar for appetizer, which was some raw grounded beef mixed with seasoning and onions…etc topped with a quail egg, served with some crispy French bread. The chef made the beef into a “heart” shape, it was really awkward since it was just two of us guys but anyway the taste was good even though I wasn’t really used to eating raw beef… I ordered a tasty drink called The Devil’s Fruit, which was some Kahlua mixed with espresso vodka and topped with coffee beans - interesting and tasty. For the entree I got the Sablefish (black cod). It wasn’t bad but wasn’t good either. The skin of the fish was a little crispy which I liked, but the texture of the meat wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be (I had better ones elsewhere, like at 14981) but anyway it was totally acceptable. I think Benny had a duck breast, which IMO was just so so since it was almost fully cooked and tasted a bit plain and the meat was a bit dry; it was acceptable though, strangely. Also ordered a pizza called “Surf”, made with lemon cream sauce, smoked salmon, clams and spinach and feta cheese. This one was a yummy surprise! It’s not greasy, crust was thin and crispy, taste of the smoked salmon was great and the clams were tender (surprisingly).

Overall I think it was a good eat. The service was awesome (very attentive while not being too buggy) and the price was right. It wasn’t top-of-the-line but I would definitely come back again for the above average food and the great ambiance/location.

I was upgrading my internet speed from Shaw’s “High Speed” to “Xtreme-I” today, supposingly going up from 5Mbps downstream to 10Mbps. Also accidentally uncovered the truth behind my snail internet speed by connecting my PC directly to the cable modem instead of through a wireless network - an almost 4Mbps discrepancy. I was getting 6.3Mbps throught my wireless network connection after the internet speed upgrade while I was suppose to get 10Mbps, so I grabbed my Macbook and connect it directly to the cable modem, the speed jumped to 10Mbps - I was so mad.

So I have been using a SLOW router and USB adapter for about two years where almost 50% of my bandwidth was “eaten up” by them. I’ve been using a D-Link wireless G router and a Linksys G USB adapter and I thought that would have made a decent pair but in reality it sucked. So today I couldn’t wait but to get a new router/adapter pair from Futureshop.

I bought the D-Link Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Wireless Router (DIR-825) and the D-Link Dual Band N USB Wirless Network Adapter (DWA-160). I’ve been reading some reviews on both products online and they were greatly complimented. Tested them out and so far the speed is extremely fast. I’m downloading about 50 files from the EMule network, used to be getting about 100kb/s now I’m getting 300kb/s! I think I’m able to utilize my 10Mbps internet connection speed fully now, but I will monitor the speed/connection for a couple days more to see if it’s reliable.