Japanese Shirt Folding

some of you may have seen this before (like two years ago?). if you have, forgive me, for i am slow at internet.


my favourite part is the Zen Master Wood Flute Motif of Englightenment.

in British:

my favourite part is the girl that folds the shirt.

i tried it immediately after watching the first video twice and pulled it off without a hitch. if someone as domestically incompetant as i am can do this, you can do it too. i just spent ten minutes trying to determine the correct grammar for the previous sentence; i had to edit 5 times with different word combinations before settling on the least awkward.

Sundinless: will Leafs wilt down the stretch?

one period into Wednesday night's tilt against the Philadelphia Flyers, the Leafs' captain, leader in all offensive-output categories, was felled after 8 shifts by a muscle strain and pulled himself out of a must-win game. this was probably the best news ever because a) if we lose two games, the season will be done and we can work our way down to a higher draft pick; b) if we win without the captain, we'll develop the character and grit required for high-stakes games; c) younger players have a chance to step up and build up some NHL experience. win-win-win.

i posted earlier about who i felt which players should be considered the core of the team to build around in the upcoming off-season. my sentiments were echoed a few days later by Damien Cox, a prominent sports columnist for the Toronto Star.

with Sundin out of the lineup, we were given an excellent opportunity to see which players would step their games up. lo and behold, the ones who gave us the win were the ones i listed. click for box score of the game.

note Matt Stajan's stats for the night. with the captain down, who shouldered the heavy lifting? he led the forwards in ice time (21:34), played in every situation (powerplay, short-handed, 5-on-3 shorthanded) and was called upon to take the key faceoffs that Sundin (NHL leader in faceoffs taken) would have, going 17-12 on the night. the previous night, back in Toronto, Stajan went 12-3 in the faceoff circle. when he first cracked the NHL lineup, the faceoff was his weakness. he may not have registered a point in this game, but he was instrumental in the game-winning power play goal by Kubina early in the third period. after winning the draw and gaining the zone, he cycled the puck to the point and went to the net, screening Biron on Kubina's slapshot from the left circle. all Biron could see was ass.

to the eventual GM of the Leafs: if you know what's good for you, keep Stajan.

Earth Hour 2008

8:00 pm March 29, 2008

what happen?

as was my custom, i got to the room half an hour early and mentally prepared for the class by staring blankly at the wall.

about 20 minutes later, she plopped down into the seat beside me, a seat which was normally occupied by someone else; i felt a twinge of resentment because i was a big fan of the person who normally sat next to me. but wait, you say, girls don't plop; they alight gracefully into their seats and do not burp or fart or commit any bodily function that is unbecoming. actually, i know girls who burp and fart and they can do it pretty darn well. she plopped down into the seat; she was the perennially tired-for-class type of person. for sitting beside me, you get a brief nod of acknowledgment, so that was what i gave her.

she pulled out a soup.

"ugh, the line up downstairs was so long." it was the begining of a story. i like stories; it meant that i did not have to contribute much to the conversation.

"it was weird. there were two pots of soup: barley and beef; and vegetable. the barley and beef one was almost down to nothing, but the vegetable one was almost completely full."

"and you got the vegetable one because there was more?"

"no, i got the vegetable one because i love vegetables!" i must have made a face because she followed that up with, "don't tell me, you're one of those people that don't like vegetables..."

i shrugged and made the conscious decision to make a face. "no, not really," as in, i don't like vegetables.

she shook her head and gave a sigh of exasperation.

"ugh, herman! we have nothing in common!" this was a baffling statement; i wondered how i was supposed to interpret it.

"i like potatoes?" was all i could offer while my upper mental faculties spun up their engines to decipher what she was talking about.

she did not speak to me for the rest of the class.

if life were like this, you wouldn't need a Visa

under the right conditions, your mind can wander to exotic places and ponder irrelevant things ad nauseum and ad infinitum, like at the top of mountains, where nothing happens. in such meditative states, we often ask the questions that would stump the common man. we reserve them for God, who being the Creator, knows all things down to the finest detail. in His infinite wisdom, God sometimes answers immediately. it is in these moments that we encounter the sublime and the ineffable.

speaking of ineffable, what would you consider the most ineffable animal? by this i mean, when you see a baby of this species, you think, how'd they do that? what are the logistics? the angles? the procedures?

the animal that comes to my mind is the porcupine; porcupines look pretty ineffable. and one day, at the top of a mountain, i asked this very question, to which i was provided an immediate answer. here's a more thorough answer.

and now you know too, and can share this powerful knowledge with your friends.