naughty or nice...

we put up our christmas tree this weekend.
before...

after...


as you can see, santa claus has already dropped by & has left some gifts under the tree. he was also kind enough to label the gifts so that we don't get confused/fight over them.

i had a quick peek through all the gifts but i couldn't find anything with my name on it. :(

dejected, i was ruffling around in the kitchen and guess what i found... my label.

don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing. on one hand, it could mean that santa just hasn't put my name on anything yet. i mean, he still does have 2.5 days of shopping. on the other hand... hm... i'm pretty sure i wasn't THAT naughty this year...

come to think of it, i can't remember what i got for x'mas last year!!! did i even get anything???

still love the white stuff.

my aunt & uncle are away for another week or so for my cousin's graduation (stella's a doctor now!!!).

so after yesterday's snow storm my brother and i went over to their house to shovel their snow. before...

and after...

:)

toronto: the good & the bad.

the GOOD.
starting around thursday night, we got 15cm of snow. it was a white out! we're expecting another storm starting tonight at midnight. yay!

the GOOD.
toronto police are now the best paid in the province. by 2010 a first-class constable will earn $81,249. good for them. in my opinion, they put their lives on the line day in and day out and are deserving of every penny. if david miller wants to talk about not having enough money in the budget, we can start looking at cutting his $163,040 salary.

the GOOD.
last night went to go see toronto symphony orchestra's rendition of Handel's Messiah. i enjoyed it very much. it was made sweeter by the fact that through tsoundcheck i got $79 tickets for $24 each!

the GOOD.
after the concert, i drove my date home. the roads were a mess, but that just meant that i had an excuse to drive slowly. :) just as we got to her place, the car in front of me got stuck on the mini off-ramp. so i grabbed my shovel and gave him a hand. he was stuck pretty good, but while we were digging out, 2 other cars stopped to give a hand. it wasn't even their exit, just good samaritans that stopped to help out.

the BAD.
besides the 2 cars that stopped to help out, another guy in a black gmc jimmy (i should've taken a mental note of his license plate) stopped and offered to pull out the stuck driver... for $40. come on! what a jackass. if you want to help someone out of the goodness of your heart, that's great. if not, just keep driving. just keep driving man.

mount st louis moonstone...

mi hermano finished his exams on monday so we decided to hit the slopes. had a great time, took some great pictures. the weather was perfect, and best of all, it was SO EMPTY!

you can't see the ground, but i assure you that i got some air in this pic!

will you...

pass the gauze?
:)
i had one of my wisdom teeth removed the other day.
it was actually not as bad as i had imagined it to be. just some local anesthetics, a big wrench-looking tool and some gauze.

i've pretty much been limited to congee for the past few meals but it's alright. i'm just glad it's out.

check your brain!

as previously mentioned, my buddy punster is overseeing a bunch of psych research that's going on at the local university. one of the projects involves an fMRI machine, some simple response tasks and a willing volunteer. on tuesday, I was that willing volunteer.

things didn't go quite as smoothly as initially planned. the MRI technician was over an hour late because of traffic. and if that wasn't enough, there was a very brief power outage that left me stuck in the fMRI machine.
:(
but all's well that ends well. in the end i got paid a decent amount of money and even better, got to keep my scans!

i wish i could show you all the scans but that would require a software download and a whole lot of work.

pretty cool huh???

rugby? who needs rugby?!?!

so on saturday, the leafs held a news conference to announce their new general manager and president Brian Burke.

i gotta say, so far, i'm impressed. i was particularly impressed with his 3 "mission points".
1. exciting & entertaining brand of hockey
2. financial prudence - it's not his money that he's spending, so he'll be careful when spending it.
3. community service - Burke says that his players will be more involved in the community than ever before and if any player is unwilling to fulfill his "civic duties" he can find another place to play. i especially like this one.

bottom line is that regardless of how exciting the leafs are, how much he spends on the payroll or how much his players give back to the community, UNFORTUNATELY brian burke's time here will be evaluated based on only one thing: the number of wins - and ultimately a stanley cup win.

*****

went to church with my friend jenn today and then chilled with my cousin justin in the afternoon. we decided to go check out a marlies game. had a great time. it was an entertaining game with the marlies winning in a shootout after the 7th shooter 4-3 over the rochester americans.

you know what the BEST part was though??? captain crunch was in the house!!! by complete chance, wendel clark was at the game signing autographs. what what!!!

best idea justin's come up with in about 6 years i think.