是誰偷走了我的青春

是 Candy Crush 呀！

每次返香港都染上一個遊戲，上次是 Sim Social, 正當剛剛 quit 了之際（是 Sim quit 了我，不是我 quit 了它），竟然就染上這個我一直都抗拒唔玩的 Candy Crush.

最衰還不是小妹，兩次都係因為佢。

可惡的 Candy Crush, 耗盡了我的生命。

Tough Mudder–Completed

Another thing I have completed recently is the Tough Mudder (TM). It was actually done in May. I just haven’t got a chance to write it down.

As mentioned in my previous post, it’s an obstacle course, not a race. It’s something that’s 致在參與. The course itself was very very cool. Unfortunately, my experience could have been a lot better if my teammates could be a little more …. hrm… tough…

Basically, there were 4 of us in a team. One (A) is a personal trainer and she has always been super fit ever since I’ve known her. Another one (B) is a marathoner. She does marathons every year. I don’t actually know her. She was brought into the team by person (C), whom I know from ultimate and she has never been very fit. But C is actually the person who put the team together. She’s actually the one who found out abt TM and asked ppl to do it with her.

First of all, (C) didn’t get herself trained up as much as she promised and as much as she needs to. She’s completely out of shape man. Not even funny. I thought she would work herself harder bcos she’s the one who wanted to do TM in the first place.

The obstacle course was on a ski hill resort, which involves going up and down the slope multiple times (10+ miles) with various obstacles (about 20) in between. She couldn’t even run/jog up the first slope and started walking. Unbelievable. I know it’s 致在參與 but at least show some effort. At first I thought that she’s just saving for the rest of the course, didn’t want to wear herself out too soon but throughout the course, she went slower and slower and slower.

And then person (B) skipped a whole bunch of obstacles. She skipped pretty much all of the water-related ones. I have to admit that it was a cold day (around 11 degrees and we were high up in the ski hill and it was a relatively windy day) for water-related obstacles. But isn’t Tough Mudder about being tough and pushing your own limit and fear and to complete the course no matter what?? If you are to skip like half of the obstacles, why bother participating in the first place??? In fact, she skipped more than just the water-related ones.

The fact that it was such a cold day and bcos of all the water-related obstacles, we were constantly freezing. What made it A LOT worse is that we have to wait for (B) and (C) all the time. They were so slow. Me and (A) were walking between obstacles too after a while (cos it’s not worth it to try to jog since the other two were not jogging) but somehow they were like snails. We walked up to the next obstacles and looked back, they were no where to be seen and we often had to wait for at least 5-10 min before they show up. All the stopping really doesn’t help to warm up my body. And even worse, my muscles cooled down every time and had to start up again.

And at a few obstacles, me and (A) would just go once the two of them arrived cos both of us couldn’t wait to get moving and continue. But after we finished, we would still see the two of them on the other side of the obstacles debating whether to skip it or not. They looked at how other ppl did it for like 5-10 min and then most of the time, they decided that they were to skip that obstacles. So basically, me and (A) had to wait for them to watch other ppl (while we were soaking wet if it’s a water-related obstacle) and then they ended up not going in. Like, holy fxxk , do it or skip it, just make a freaking decision nice and quick so we can all press on. Pissed me off.

More than one time, me and (A) wanted to just ditch them to continue at our own pace. But in the face of the word “team work”, we waited for them again and again. But honestly, we were not doing it ‘together’ anyway. We went at our own pace but only waited for them at each obstacles.

The average time to complete the course is 3 hours. I know we were not going to make the average time even before we start. I was thinking about 4, or maybe 5 hours max. And guess how long it ended up taking us????

FREAKING 7.5 HOURS!!!!

So basically, I was freezing cold for 7+ hours. It just made the whole experience NOT enjoyable. The two of them were probably warmer than us cos they have a lot less stop time and they didn’t get into the water as many times as we did.

To say that I was annoyed and pissed was an understatement. There’s simply no freaking way that I am going to do anything like that with the two of them again, unless they can demonstrate that they are completely fit and mentally ready for it.

And another thing that kinda pisses me is that they called themselves a finisher of TM. Oh my goodness, they did about only half of the obstacles and they considered that as finished?!?!? You’ve got to be kidding me. Shameless!

I mean, there’re other ppl who were skipping obstacles, too. I don’t know many those ppl skipped but I think it’s quite hard to beat the two of them and their snail speed.

---

On the bright side tho , there were a lot of cool people on the course. Adventurous and nice people. Some of them not necessarily 100% fit (it’s not like I was 100% fit either) but they are willing to push their own limit and to get it done. Also there were some really strong guys ready to give other ppl a hand even tho we were not their team.

One of the best obstacles was the “wounded warrior” one. It’s an obstacle that you have to carry a person from one end to an other as if he/she is an injured solider (oh ya, the whole TM thing is to raise fund of wounded solider and their family). When (A) and I arrived at that obstacle, two big guys came over and asked if they could carry us. I was a bit hesitant in the beginning cos I am a lot heavier than I look. But (A) was going for it, so I was, too.

To my surprise , my guy picked me up over his shoulder with me hanging down (like the picture below) and had no problem and walked very nice and steady on the mud. On the other hand, his buddy, who was carrying (A), slipped on the mud and he had to put (A) down to picked her up again.

Best and easiest obstacle ever! LOL.

Talking to (A) after the obstacle (while waiting for (B) and (C) ), I told (A) abt my concern of my heavy weight and (A) said that the two of them would be more than happy to take us cos I no doubt was a lot lighter than his muscular buddy. True.

And the Berlin wall. Much easier than I though. Did it in one go. Of course, there were tons of guys on top of the wall, ready to help us. As I said, lots of cool and helpful ppl out there.

---

The take-away from this experience is that:

Pick your teammate wisely for hard core events like TM.

After I signed up and before I did it, I thought that it’s one of those ‘been there, done that’ thing. But now that I look back, I almost want to do it again just to see how long it would actually take me and exactly how hard it is without having to stand around in the cold.

Well… if you are planning to do it, let me know. Maybe I’ll join you. (well… you better be fit tho. LOL )

Tax

It drives me nuts when ppl tell me that they hate paying tax, that they don’t want to pay tax.

咁你唔好睇醫生丫笨！

好似美國咁咪仲死。But 人家又會話，咁我寧願自己俾錢去買我想買既保險，instead of being forced into a medical system.

But the whole point is that EVERYONE can have access to the system ar ma. I know that to you, who is a higher than average income person, think that this is not fair to you. 人家就是buy用者自付既 system, 咁你日日揸車條路應該就要變成 toll road, 將 toll 到既錢去 pay for the maintenance for that particular road. 人哋其他人住第二度嗰ｄ人ｄtax money 夠唔應該用去維修你用嗰條路啦。

邊有得咁計，this is 群體生活嘛。

I think that tax is good. It helps to equalize the rich and the poor. Of course, that’s provided that the authorities are using the tax money wisely and not wasting them on ppl who 厄綜緩，which, sometimes is too much of an assumptions… unfortunately…

Jacob Club

是我兒時最喜愛的朱古力 bar 之一。

很久沒吃過也沒見過，耐到我連它的存在都忘了，直到最近牧師去完英國買了一大堆給不相的團契和聚會時吃，我一見到就已經忘了形囉，兒時的回憶喲！

還記得當年的廣告是有一隻犀牛好大力咁撞去一舊大 Jacob Club 朱古力，咁都只係撞到一個角跌咗出黎，廣告的意思大概就是說舊朱古力真材實料，犀牛都撞唔散吧，當時很小，都不太明白廣告想講乜，只知道是Jacob 朱古力。雖然唔係好明，但咁多年後我都仲記得，相這個廣告都算成功了吧。

牧師買的只是一大堆橙味的，但我小時候還吃過提子味的，也都很好吃，我也都很愛，上網找一找圖，發現原來唔係提子味，是fruit味，（可是我明明就記得只有提子，well… 提子也是 fruit, 這也不算的講大話）。仲發現原來仲有 mint 都 chocolate 味（chocolate 味的朱古力？！大概是原味 milk chocolate 吧。）

我個人對 mint 無興趣，原味的也興趣不大，但真的很想再吃到提子味。

其實由於我參加多個教會活動，牧師又每組都買了手這，所以我其實吃了很多！！hahahahaha…

There’re some british sweet store around (and some even are brit chocolate store) in TO. Maybe I should check them out to see if they have these.

I kinda want them to have them so that I can eat but I’m also worried that if they have them, then I will keep going back to buy more and eat too much. 心情茅盾啊～～

Learning to Talk

小J has been learning to talk in the past few months.

He learned so much during out time in HK and continue to add vocabs into his dictionary everyday.

Sometimes, he surprises us with the stuff that came out of his mouth.

In the beginning, he would all of a sudden blurps out a series of sound as if he’s saying a sentence, altho no one could understand a thing.

Maybe he was speaking in tongue! lol

Anyhow, he doesn’t do that much any more. He’s much better at using his words these days. However, he’s also a very short tempered person (probably takes that after me). So when we have trouble figuring out what’s being said (sometimes we don’t even know if it’s Chinese or English), we have about 5 chance or about 5-10 sec. During this period 小J would repeat what he said (which doesn’t really matter cos he’s saying it the same way everytime) and he would be more and more agitated during this period.

If we failed to guess the right word, then BOMB, 小J usually explodes into a ball of fury and from that point onward, he wouldn’t accept any correct or incorrect guesses no more. And yelling and crying is the end result.

Pretty stressful at times.

But situation is definitely improving as he acquires more vocabs and can pronounce better. Some of our favourite (and sometimes ‘wrong’) words that  小J says are:

meapmall (meatball)
mommymeme
ah-goo (yoghurt)
cottage cheese
油油
買coffee
魔菇 (蘑菇)
Yesh (yes)
aice (it means follow/inside but we don’t know what language this is in and whether it’s a real word or not. 小J  used it very consistently.)
Meemo key (maple key)
1,2,1,2 (in cantonese)

He can say a lot more. These are just some of our favourites.

認真工作

這幾天真的是蠻認真的耶，雖然都還是有做自己野的時候，但相對是少了很多喇。

上星期尾更是天天開足了 turbo 的，是沒有白人工的（老闆：那現在的時間是算怎麼樣？答：現在是等 model run 的空擋時間。）

有很多篇都是開了個頭但又完不了的在 draft box 等了又等。希望有一天我會完成他們，等佢哋可以重見天日。

Ride for Heart 2013

Completed.

The official course I took was 75km. But I’m also commuting to the venue with my bike, so…

Before I handed out in the morning:

By the time I was home:

The longest I’ve ever ridden on one single day.

The weather was perfect for cycling that day. It rained a few times that morning but I somehow managed to avoid all of them except the one on my way home. And even that one wasn’t too bad.

Since it was overcast, it wasn’t too hot but it wasn’t cold either. Just comfortable the whole way. I don’t think that I can ask for a better condition than that. Well… maybe a bit less windy on the way back.

But really, nothing to complain about the weather, especially given my past experience on this event a few years ago that it was pouring rain for at least half of the way. I was soaked before I was 1/10 of the way and was freezing the whole time. Compared to this time, it was a difference between heaven and hell.

Also got to ride with two rather cool ppl from the company for most of the way. A pleasant surprised. They are from the Whitby and St. Catherine office tho and are in different business line so our chance to cross path again is very small but it’s still nice to meet new acquaintance while I was planning to ride alone for the most part. And one of them was a real rider, with a nice bike and very fit (he did multiple loops so he ended up doing 125km that day). He could have ridden a lot faster but he stayed with us to keep us company. Good and bad cos I had to work very hard trying to keep up with his speed. But the good thing was that I didn’t get to slack off so it was a very good training for me.

Come to think of it, their names are James and Ian!!! LOL. 難道我跟這兩個名字的人真的特別有緣?!

The one dumb thing about this ride was the company photo. It’s retarded. We did a photo on route but the location is about 3-4 km from the start line so we had to wait for the slow ppl. I wasn’t against the slow ppl but they were doing only 25km so it’s ok to be slow. For me, I just wanted to get going and get done so that I could go home and chill and rest.

And, we had to wait for this one lady who really was the ‘team captain’ (I think she’s in HR. As far as I know, all she does is to organize events like this and to get corporate discount for events/attractions and to ask ppl to do payroll deductions for charities). For one thing, she was late. Second, she was slow. Third, she showed up at the photo location and then positioned herself right in the front of the pack, TWICE. (yea… did TWO photoes. Super dumb. We had to pretend to ride together and then had a photo and then go back and then do it again. Super retarded in my point of view. So fake. More like a company PR stunt than anything.)  Despised.

Not that I wanted to be in the front of the pack but I just didn’t like the way she had to make sure that she could be seen in the picture, as if to show ppl the ‘work’ she had done and that she actually did ride with the rest of the team, not just an organizer.

Really, I don’t actually know this person cos she’s not in my office (altho, it sounds like we are going to be in the same office before the end of the year… Another story… maybe in some other post). So, I don’t really know what her intention was, to be in the front of the pack but that was the impression that I got anyway.

I was so impatient about the picture that as soon as I was done, I started riding away and leaving those silly ppl to eat dust. And that’s when Ian joined me and the start of a pleasant ride.

All in all, it was a good day (altho I got rained on a bit on the way home). And I thanked all my friends and colleagues who donated to the good cause (actually, I was surprised by how hard it was to raise $300, which was my goal this year. Anyway, not trying to complain anymore here. Wanted to stay positive on this post.).

Twitching

My right eye has been twitching since last week.

It seems to only happen at work when I look at the computer for a long time.

And starting monday, my right arm triceps started to twitch as well. 

Super annoying!

The eye twitch is probably linked to the lack of sleep. Normally I don’t mind any muscle twitches cos it usually doesn’t last for long. I even find it fun from time to time. But NOT THIS TIME! It has been quite annoying. My eye twitch makes my eyes feel even tireder and makes me want to close my eyes at work, which, isn’t practical.

The arm twitch is just non-stop, even after I get off work and is no longer using the computer. It happens whenever my arm is in a relaxed position. But then, the twitching is stopping my arm from relaxing, no?

I wish they will stop soon. Time to load myself up with bananas!

洗燥

(This post has been in process for a long time. I have totally forgotten about it. I found it just now and thought that I should complete this post before I forget everything about this show.)

老老實實，不太喜歡。

但可能是 similar to 兒童不宜，I thought it wasn’t very good at first but then when I watched it again on DVD a few years later, I like it better.

So, I’ll have to wait for the DVD to come out and watch again. Maybe I’ll like it better then.

And maybe I wasn’t in the right mood that day. (details refer to the previous 近況 post), but honestly, I think 娛樂圈血谷史ＩＩ正好多。

I found that the show this wasn’t very 貼題，normally 子華 do a very good job with it but this time… hrm… felt like it’s only 貼題 in the first little bit of the show.

After the show, while I was lining up in the washroom, I heard this 年齡界於師奶and阿嬸的女子同佢個朋友講話個 show wasn’t too good, 講黎講去，都係講番以前講過嗰Ｄ嘢。有少少衝動想打個阿嬸。

The best part of the show, I thought, was when 子華 responded to the audience’s question/串，顯出了他的急才。

This time, I went to get a picture with him after the show. His assistants and security were as annoying as ever, kept saying that 子華 wasn’t going to take pictures with me. 好開心地，子華最後都好好人咁有同我影。Really don’t understand how come the 食蕉咁緊張，又唔係好多人，得另一個女仔淨係想簽名，同我淨係想影相之嘛，literally 一分鐘搞掂。而且，睇 youtube 明明就見到子華同香港Ｄfans 又影相又簽名又傾偈，又站喺度俾人影單人相，點解多人多唔得？好偏心！！唔通多人多真係凍得咁緊要一定要即刻衝上車？？

不過，其實佢都同我影咗，多謝！