Say hello to my 2000 Acura Integra GS! Not exactly the fastest car in the world… but it’s so much fun to drive. Yeah, I wish I had picked up a GSR or Type-R instead… but it’s unbelievably hard to find one that hasn’t been modded and beat up. Not to mention they were a little out of my price range at the time and co-op pay isn’t *that* great to begin with.  Anyway, there’s nothing quite like gunning down an empty SW Marine Drive at 3am in this little beast. Photo courtesy of my Canon S90.

The interwebs are going crazy right now – and for good reason! Nokia and Microsoft have just announced that they will be forming a strategic alliance which will result in Nokia incorporating Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 operation system in all new Nokia high-end devices.

All I can say is that I’m pretty darn excited about this partnership! I’ve always been a fan of the sleek hardware designs from Nokia, and over the past 2 months – I’ve really come to love my Windows Phone 7 device (Samsung Focus).

People keep asking me why this is such a big deal… so I’ll explain. Apple’s iPhone is quite clearly the undisputed king of the new smartphone era. Google’s Android devices are catching up fast… but they’ve taken a slightly different approach from Apple.

Apple designs and develops both the hardware and software for their one mobile phone offering – resulting in amazing integration into a single power device.

Google on the other hand – is playing the “Microsoft Windows” approach to the smartphone world – and just creating the software – Android, and asking tons of manufacturers to use it.

The result? Apple lovers all buy iPhones – and everyone else is left to choose between Android and a bunch of other sub-par smartphones (including Nokia’s current offerings). Obviously phone retailers have been convincing Apple-haters to choose Android devices because there hasn’t been any other reasonable competitor.

Unfortunately for Android – this game is over. Windows Phone 7 is an amazing operating system – no questions there. Nokia? An amazing hardware manufacturer. Combine them, and you potentially get an iPhone killer – or at the very least, a much sexier 2nd-option for iPhone-haters.

If anyone can put up a fight against Android and the iPhone – it’s going to be this combination: Microsoft – arguably the largest software company in the world – and Nokia – arguably the king of mobile phones until 2 years ago. I don’t really know how this is going to pan out – but I sure as hell wanna find out. I say: let the smartphone wars begin!

You think you PWN3D ME? Say I should GG? n00b, I’ll tell you what – the only thing OP is ME!

hahaha, oh husky – too good. now where are those… banelings, banelings, banelings ohhhhhhhhhh!

You know those videos that no matter how many times you watch em, you still laugh every single time? Yeah, this is one of them! haha, it’s like every time I watch it, I notice something new that he does that I didn’t see before. Brilliant.

So the only part I’m still thinking about is the awesome android user who looks like the pizza guy to blackberry users. Not sure I agree, but mm, must think about this a bit more. I sort of expected the android user to look more like an inspector gadget to a BlackBerry users – who cares more about the simple important features (email, bbm) working flawlessly, and could care less about the million more features Android has over a BlackBerry. Although we know about it. heh

Source: C-Section Comics

Cuz quite honestly – I can’t. At least not in the UBC Engineering program where they force 6-7 courses on you every term and expect you to “learn” something. How the heck is anyone suppose to learn anything when they’re too busy going nuts trying to get the plethora of assignments and projects done while getting nailed with 4 tests in one week. Who came up with this retarded system anyway? What happened to my weekends? What happened to chilling out and making friends? What happened to having a life? In fact, what happened to learning?

The only freedom I ever got from school was during my co-op work terms (aka. internships). Where you’re immersed in practical, meaningful technology in an environment where learning is fun and exciting. Where you want to stay at work till 11pm because you’re really deep into something cool (and something that might affect millions of people!!). It’s awesome. And flexible hours means I can get up and go to work when I want and stay as late as I need to. You actually get weekends to hang out and do stuff. Oh, and did I mention you get paid as well?

Give me one good reason why school is better than work.

I’m sure I’m not the only one when I say that one of my childhood dreams is finally coming true: StarCraft 2. The original came out in 1998 and still has a cult-like following – especially in Korea.

I can’t even begin to image how many hours I spent on the original StarCraft. It was an addiction: I’d go to school everyday, and then race home to play StarCraft on my old IBM with a Pentium 166Mhz processor, nvidia Riva TNT2 graphics card, and blazing fast (lol) 56k dialup internet. And did I mention a 14 inch CRT beast of a monitor? Man, no wonder my eyes started degrading. I really don’t remember that far back – but I think it would be fair to say this cycle went on for at least a year if not more. How do you continue playing a game for a year? I don’t know, but there was something about StarCraft, and Battle.Net (their multiplayer platform) that caused a storm in the world of computer gaming. All those Game Of The Year awards it scored, and making GameSpot’s list of The Greatest Games Of All Time are a small testament to it’s greatness. Or maybe I just had a crapload of free time in my early high school days. Meh, probably a combination of both.

Either way, the new StarCraft 2 trailer above is so, totally, badass! It’s like a movie-trailer… except it’s for a Real-Time Strategy game! Impressive, immersive, and has done something I thought couldn’t be done: made me even MORE stoked for the StarCraft 2 launch on July 27th, 2010! 

Oh, and I’m buying the game for Blizzard, the company I wanted to work for when I was growing up. And thanks to that jerkoff Bobby Kotick – the company I will never want to work for in the future.

Well Apple sure hopes you can! What a surprise it was (well, not really), when I logged on to my university co-op website today, to find a new job posting from Apple! And not just any regular job posting… a very, VERY important one: Antenna Intern! Yes, that’s right. And internship fully dedicated to fixing that iPhone 4 antenna “problem”, because well, full-timers at Apple don’t have time to do it. =)

Okay, fine – maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit – but it’s nice to know Apple has decided to hire a bunch of interns to get cracking on what apparently is not really a problem. But hey – I’m sure Apple doesn’t want to spend $175 million on those free bumpers again. Sorry guys – but Apple news has always been my favourite news. Heh.

I’m a gadget enthusiast, and I understand why people like the iPhone. But please, just please don’t proclaim godly status to a device you don’t even understand. Now for those sensible, mature, technology addicts – ping me, I’m always up for a debate.

And yes Apple – I give you props for your awesome marketing. It’s Steve Jobs and your marketing team that made these fanboys in the first place. RIM, HTC/Google, and Microsoft – please step up your game.

Considering how easy it is to get free music online these days – it’s a big deal when I actually choose to buy an album! Man, spending my hard earned money on (essentially free) music, means I’m doing it for a reason. Typically, I buy an album for one of 2 reasons:

1. I really want to support the artist. This usually applies to new, less-popular, and relatively unheard of bands. One band that comes to mind – Meg & Dia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlEiNmVX82Y). I bought their album not only because I really like their music, but mainly because they could actually use money from album sales, unlike those filthy rich artists driving lambos.
2. Their music friggin rocks! In other words – I know they’re going to be at the top of my playlist, I’m most definitely going to be listening to their album well over a hundred times, and my form of respect of awesome music, is buying the album. One artist who fits in to this category for me (and actually sort-of #1 as well), is Kaskade (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raUpjfiWRps). Man, I can’t imagine how I’d get through my work day without him (FYI, his music is brilliant programming music).

Now back to the subject of this post – clearly, Eminem falls into the latter. Mind you, his last 2 albums didn’t quite make my “friggin rocks” list (god damn accents) – but I still ended up buying a track of two – like ‘Beautiful’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgT1AidzRWM). Fuck that single was amazing… almost at ‘Stan’ level.

So – what about Eminem’s new album, Recovery? gold. real, frickin’ gold. I only listened to a few tracks online, but those were enough for me to whip out my credit card and buy it. Recovery is great, not quite Marshall Mathers LP, but most definitely better than his last two albums. Is Em *back*? Who knows, but at least it wasn’t another album of silly lyrics, and middle eastern accents. Recovery brings back the soul, the (real) anger, and the Eminem that we remember growing up with. Lyrics that mean something.

I don’t have time to run through the entire album, but here are a few of my favourites:

Space Bound. Man this song rocks! Chorus is actually decent for once, and it’s been a while since I’ve heard Em rap about someone (kim?!) with soul and passion. And when you listen to this track – it feels like there’s more to just the words. Something deeper. Anyway, even though I’m not sure we’ll ever see this as a single – it’s solid.

Love The Way You Lie (ft. Rihanna). Do I need to explain anything here? This track was leaked early as well, and it blew up all of the web – for good reason! This track is HOT. Rihanna provides a *solid* chorus to Eminem, again rapping about a past love.

No Love (ft. Lil Wayne). Alright – I’m not exactly a Lil Wayne fan – but he’s tolerable here. His lyrics are decent, and I think it goes well with the song/theme. Not the mention that Haddaway remixed background is HOT. How in the world they turn What Is Love into a serious rap beat is beyond my imagination – but I love it. Eminem just rips it up in the second verse. Jump to 2:10 if you’re a Lil Wayne hater.

25 to Life. Another one similar to Space Bound and Love the Way You Lie. Just listen – it’s good.

So Bad. Man this song is brilliant! If you listen to the lyrics carefully, you’ll know what I mean. I listened to it the first time cuz I loved the beat (beats by Dre baby), and only the second time did I actually pay attention to the lyrics – god damn – this song is funny!

Not Afraid. ‘nuff said. This shit is smokin’ hot.

Anyway, I’d ramble on more – but I gotta get some sleep. Just wanted to get most of it written down somewhere so I don’t forget. Two more good tracks I don’t have time to talk about – Cold Wind Blows and Talkin’ 2 Myself.