Hello World...

Hello hello... time for me to make some use of the time I have outside of work... and maybe some time @ work too :p What have I been doing since the last time I was blogging? I guess I'll sum it up.

The wall in our front yard has collapsed so we have to replace that.

My sister has moved into the Strathcona area, and I'm very surprised at how nice her block is... among the projects.

We've recently had a death in the family. My aunt had a stroke and fell into a coma, she didn't recover and passed-on the following morning :(

Games I've played:
God of War II
Tomb Raider Anniversary
DiRT
Zelda: Twilight Princess
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Transformers: The Movie

Movies I've watched:
Epic Movie
Transformers (pre-screening)
The Good Shepherd
Hostel II
Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman
Sicko
28 Weeks Later
1408 (pre-screening)
Hannibal Rising
Bin Jip (3 Iron)
Devil's Playground
Jesus Camp
Lucky Number Sleven

TV Series
Dexter
Red Dwarf
Robot Chicken (s2)

Since I've been getting so lazy I'm also getting very restless... the summer has finally arrived, as late as it is, and I'm hoping to have enough motivation to go out and enjoy the sun. The other day I went with AK to a park in North Vancouver. It was perfect out... there was a nice breeze & the sun was shining bright, everywhere but the park that we were in :@ Anyway, we tossed a football around for about 2 hours, my arms hurt :/ Before that we ran around looking for a place to purchase a pair of baseball gloves. I found 2 that I had kickin' around in my house. Problem: they're from the 90s, hence, too small. Problem 2: AK is left-handed so he needs a left-handed glove... shite. Oh well, at least we got to enjoy the evening.

Hmm... what else has transpired? Oh... I attended a Company Golf Tournament on Friday! Haha... what a Gong Show! Drinking from noon... attempting to play 18 holes. Mmm, yes... much tomfoolery amok. We played at the course nearby, Mayfair Lakes. Just by looking at the name I'm sure you can deduce that it's a course with water... too much water :D One of my collegues is reported to have lost 8 balls in the drink :P Fortunately for me, my game didn't suck that bad! Well... maybe I'm lying, but this is my blog and I can make up whatever I want. Heh. Ok I sucked, but only after I left the tee... you see, when I go to the driving range I only ever hit off the tee, never from the matt. As a result, I can't hit a ball unless it's sitting on a tee, grrr. I even have footage of someone getting their golf cart hung up on one of the curbs, how great is that. She won't give me permission to post it :( Maybe if I get her drunk enough I can get her to sign an authorization :D

New Headers...

I've made some updates to the visuals... but they don't FREAKING SHOW UP!!! :@:@:@

Back to XP...

Well... I've switched back to Windows XP professional and curbed Windows Vista for the time being, so I can get back to business!!!

I was soooo close to switching over to Linux or purchasing a MAC.. no, really, I was pissed. Don't get me wrong, Vista as an OS is superior to XP in that it offers alot more, has a fancier User Interface, and nifty little widgets, higher security, blah blah blah.... and I'm sure it runs like butter when you install any Microsoft Product with it... BUT... ALMOST NO THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE IS OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED!!! :@

I was almost willing to just stick it out and bear with it... but I NEED those applications to do my stuff. Something as simple as Winamp is not supported. What did that mean for me? That meant that I was not able to setup my shoutcast server. I didn't even bother to see if there was a hack solution to that problem. I didn't want to messy up my Vista install with bs hackjob solutions. I tried to install Alcohol 120% as well... just so I could make images and burn them for my co-worker... oh, and so I could make a couple of virtual drives... but nooooooooooo... I couldn't install that either.


My solution was to install Windows XP and create a dual-boot system. Easy enough, right? What a crock of shit... apparently Windows Vista and XP don't play nice... If you don't use the Vista boot disc to prepare your HD for an XP install and just decide to use the XP CD... it fracks your bootloader / partition table / don't know what else. :@


I'm no tech guru, but I have enough experience to know how to research extensively and implement my findings. Plus, it's not like I haven't built a dual boot system before... not to mention, I DID graduate from Tech College :)


So anyways, I put in the Vista Boot DVD and then realized that I hadn't partitioned my primary drive... actually, I did, but for some reason it didn't show the secondary partition. Instead of following the instructions that I found online and deallocating some space, I decided to pop in the XP CD and go from there... wow... not a good idea. Even XP couldn't see the other partition. When I tried to boot into Vista to free up some space it would do the POST.. but then just sit there, cursor blinking... fak.


When I used the Vista DVD to boot again, my primary drive wasn't showing up AT ALL!!! I was pissed... now when I used the XP CD... it DIDN'T show up!!!

After fiddling back-and-forth between the two I connected my backup drive to see if it would recognize that. Yes, it did... then when I put in the XP CD... it fracked it again... Either way I couldn't boot into my OS... And when I tried to run Vista Recovery it didn't do anything... there was no drive showing up thus no OS to install...


By this time I was irate.. and pretty anxious because my backup drive contains at least 3 years worth of data filling roughly 120 GB... about 15-20GB just music and a whole smackload of photos from over the years. Yes, I'm a pack rat :p

I remembered that a co-worker of mine had an external HD housing that I could put my SATA drives in so I drove back to my workplace at 9:30pm just so I could swap out my drives and check to see if the data was intact still. I was soooo prepared to pay a data recovery specialist some big bucks if I wasn't able to see the data on the drives... one thing that I was also upset about is that I couldn't remember if I had xferred my parents' vacation photos to my primary drive or my backup drive... that would have been 600+ photos down the drain.


After placing my drive in the housing I plugged it into my laptop and let out a sigh of relief. Everything was intact!... however, when I plugged in my primary drive, it said that it was not formatted, so ya... XP trashed the partition table!


I ended up formatting the drive and reinstalling XP... no more Vista for me, not until a Service Pack or I find out that the majority of 3rd party companies have announced Vista support. Then I'll go and purchase a new tower and build a new Vista PC. Oh yea, I had the same problem with Windows Media Center on the Final release of Vista Ultimate as I did with RC2. Even after installing the Vista Codec Pack and ensuring that my media would play on WMP 11 I fired up WMC, when I went to play the media... it told me that it couldn't find the required codecs. Screw you MS :@

If I didn't only have 1 tower, I would already be playing with Linux... and if MACs didn't cost so much... then I'd consider one of those too!!! If not just because of their awesome commercials :p

PCs are great! :)

That Time Of The Year Again...

It seems like such a short time ago that it was X-Mas! Now... here we are again. One year later...

There are only 4 short days left and I'm STILL not done my shopping! :'( we'll see how it goes. As for the lack of updates... sorry sorry... work has me tired :(

On Call...

I have recently acquired the on-call pager, blackberry and laptop. After having them passed to me I asked around to see what the experiences of others were. It was mostly, "You'll almost never get paged."

On Friday AS decided to stay back after his shift. We had a nice chat, time flew and then we decided to head over to Richmond Center to walk around then grab some grub. there we were enjoying our KFC in the foodcourt when he hears a beeping sound. I'm not sure why.. but when I hear strange sounds I tend to ignore them... for him it was different... it was a sound that he's familiar with. I thought it was funny because his facial expression changed, then I heard what he said, "omg... is that the pager?"

below: now you know why I didn't buy a BBerry earlier

Crap... anyhoo, we made our way back to his car, fished out the BBerry and I called the number back. We made bets as to who we thought it was.. I guessed Singapore, he guessed Australia... we were both wrong :p it was Dubai! Heh. Since we were close to the office we went back so I could jump on my PC. It would have been easier than trying to find an internet connection somewhere else and then VPN'ing into the network. After about an hour of on-call OT we both went home.

Not but 1/2 hr later as I was pulling in front of the house the pager went off again! I thought for sure it was Dubai... nope, it was a local number. When I called back I discovered that it was 2nd level calling to let me know that one of the mirror drives had failed... wtf. So I had to call someone else and wake them up :D lol. I opened a ticket and passed on the message. He said he would call me if he discovered it was something serious. I wasn't expecting to get a very good rest, lucky me :) no call! Yay!

Sooo.. the first day that I get paged I end up with 2 calls and 1.5 hrs of OT/on-call pay :p

Having the pager sucks... I'm always worried that someone's going to interrupt me if I'm out... oh well. I'm sure the pay will make up for it :/

Oh ya... the Support laptop blue-screened on me... we later discovered that it's a HW failure. Nice, support needs support :p So now I have to configure a new one. At least it's a brand new IBM T60 :)

Dead Battery...

Yeeeeesss... I had a dead battery today... it wasn't as simple as a dead Blackberry battery or a dead watch battery. It was the car battery O.o

In my old age ;) I find that I'm forgetting more and more... simple things like turning off the car lights are eluding me. Thanks AS for turning my lights off... unfortunately for me, it was too late. I got into the car and put the key in... nothing. I got the buzz from the seatbelt warning but I could tell that something was wrong because the radio wasn't working, and the heating coil light was not on :( grrr.

The last time that I had to use my CAA card was loooong ago so I didn't even have that on me. Good thing the dispatch can look you up via address. All I had to do was verify with photo ID... *sigh* the crappy week continues... If my head wasn't attached I'd forget it somewhere too :@

What A Week...

Photos from JohnHarveyPhoto.com

The week is finally over and the weekend is here...

It has been a long time since I've looked forward to the weekend as much as I have this week. Monday started out blah. The only thing interesting about that day was having to dig the car out of the snow and then make my way to work. The whole city was buried in snow, but the plows DID come out. However, the side streets near my work had not been plowed yet. To top that off there was a flatbed truck stuck on the left side of the road. That made it hard for me to achieve a good angle of approach to get into my work parking lot. Which, incidentally, was the only parking lot in that area that had not been plowed yet, WTF. So I ended up driving around the back streets all the way to the exit with the stoplight... BUT I couldn't turn right because the plow had gone that way and made a left turn (pushing the snow to the right side) :@! I had to make a left, go under the bridge all the way to the next traffic light and turn into the sidestreets there. I had fun rallying around the backroads there before coming back 'round to the main road and making my way back to my work lot.

I was praying that the truck would not still be there when I got back, but lo-and-behold it was. I ended up driving that same route around the lot, under the bridge, and back around @ least one more time while I was contemplating whether I should attempt to drive into the lot full of snow.

Third-time 'round I drove past the truck, into one of the plowed lots, circled around and attempted to drive in a different ramp. Weeeeeeeeee! I made it in. *sigh* stupid... I arrived to work on time and still ended up being 30-45 minutes late. grrr. Oh ya... only 1 manager made it into the office that day... nice.


Tuesday and Wednesday had to have been the crappiest days I've worked since coming to this company. For some reason on Tuesday everyone's computer seemed to be breaking down, argh! I don't mind so much when that happens... it's just that I have to open up a ticket and then log it under my name and wait for the hardware to come in... I have the memory of a goldfish :/ it's going to be hell to remember what computer belongs to who, and what went wrong with it (why they sent it in).

Blah... I don't even wanna rant about work anymore... it's too depressing...

White X-Mas...

Yesterday, AK and I went downtown just to do something... anything. It was already nippy by the time we left my house but it was still dry. In Pacific Center mall, surprisingly, it was not too busy. We were both expecting a little bit of a X-Mas rush but we soon found out why it was so quiet. On the north side of the mall where the food court is located they're renovating. There were NO fast food counters so we had to head outside to eat.

Hungry, we ate at Kitto Japanese restaurant just taking our time, catching up on stuff and complaining about work & life in general :p To our surprise when we got back out onto the street it was snowing! Up to this point I'm pretty sure we haven't had any snow. Maybe some ice rain, but not snow. Futureshop was a short half-block away so we walked over to see what new gadgets have been made available. When we came out it was snowing even harder. AK and I then decided to take a walk down Robson... it had been awhile so why not? We ended up going into Starbucks to grab some hot drinks :p Lucky me, I was dressed for the weather... Thick corduroy jacket with furry collar and scarf. AK had a singlet and light jacket :D I took a pic with the Pearl, but it pretty hard to see how nice it looked downtown with the snow coming down.

Later on we took a drive over the bridge into North Vancouver, there was snow up there too, but it wasn't too overwhelming. There was enough for AK to have some fun though lol. Finally we went back to Burnaby... we had planned to go watch Casino Royale but realized when we arrived that the theater was busy as hell... it was ridiculous. X met up with us too and we took a walk around the mall... wow... going to the mall was a bad idea. I ended up spending close to $200 O.o grrr. ~$100 on a wool zip-up from Guess and ~$80 on a new Samsung Bluetooth headset (which I'll write about next).

After the mall AK & I dropped by Bubble World for some BBT to go. On the way back to my house he decided to goof around in the snow... I was sms'ing Jacq, but I knew was was happening. We were sliding towards a sidewalk and there was no way that we were going to avoid it :p CRUNCH! Ah well, he was pretty choked cuz it wasn't his car lol, it was a rental... For the most part I don't have much of a reaction to those sorts of things (ask AK) if it's going to happen it's going to happen, as long as everyone is unharmed and we're not stranded then things are going ok. Anyway, he assessed the damage and it wasn't too bad. No bodywork will have to be done, just a new rim replacement. I surprised myself by not being an ass and rubbing it in :p I'll leave that for another day ;)

AK ended up crashing @ my place for the night just because the snow was really piling up. Before we went to sleep I took a couple of shots outside the front of the house... just to give you an idea of how much it had snowed during the course of the day. After I woke up I took some more shots... it looked like we had over a foot of snow overnight. AK spoke with his dad in North Vancouver, they only had about 3 inches... wth.


We checked the roads this evening and it looked like it was ok for him to make his way back home :p He apparently drove all the way home in 2nd gear :D Here's how NOT to clean snow off your car :p And YES I just stood around and watched while he dug the car out :) What? There was only one shovel... =]



I always say, "If it's going to be this cold, it might as well be cold for a reason". But when it comes down to it... snow is a byach!

It's Shitting Rain...

That's right, shitting not pissing! Yesterday the heavens decided to open up and dump down on Vancouver. In this city when it rains everyone forgets how to drive. Last month or the month before we had our first downpour in awhile. What happened that day? There were accidents on all the major routes AND all the bridges! What's up with that? Does the low pressure swell your brains?! Is it that much harder to drive when the roads are wet?

Yesterday was a disaster. I'm lucky because my shift starts at 5am which means that I'm on the road by around 4:30-4:45am == NO TRAFFIC. Regardless, I could tell that traffic was going to be retarded that day. On the way to work the roads were already beginning to flood... there were spots on the highway where water had pooled and made hydroplaning hazards.

Later in the day the winds picked up and the rain was going sideways... THEN there were power outages ALL OVER the city. Traffic lights were out everywhere so everyone had to use the 4-way stop procedure. You can imagine what the arterial routes looked like...

At one point the police were advising that people avoid taking HWY 1... one of the main routes for people commuting out of Vancouver back to their homes in the suburbs. I had to laugh... I thought to myself, "Those people with flying cars sure are lucky!"



By the end of the day it had rained 38.8mm, trees had fallen all over the place, today we have a warning informing us to boil our water... and this morning we also had a Tsunami watch as a result of the earthquake in Japan...

Jacq's Gift!!!...

Well, Jacq's gift finally arrived at her doorstep a few days back! :D Her brother was home when the delivery guy reached but he didn't answer the door. The package was already belated as it was :( not enough hours in the day to do everything :( and now it was going to be even later.

The fact that her work is being shifted over to a new location / new company isn't helping either. What that translated to is that she wasn't able to pick up or even receive the package. She has to wait another 2 days.

I guess the surprise was spoilt because DHL called her to inform that they tried to deliver but there was no response.

Anyway, Jacq finally received her gift on the 19^th

I happened to be online with her when the delivery came in :) she turned the cam so that I could see the guy hand it to her :p that was cool. Finally her gift was in her hands!

2006/09/19 11:07 Delivered
2006/09/19 09:46 On vehicle for delivery
2006/09/17 14:06 Attempted Delivery - Receiver Unavailable
2006/09/17 13:19 On vehicle for delivery
2006/09/17 13:13 Shipment In Transit
2006/09/17 10:17 Left INT'L POINTS INTERNATIONAUX
2006/09/17 05:00 Cleared Customs at INT'L POINTS INTERNATIONAUX
2006/09/17 05:00 Shipment In Transit
2006/09/17 04:54 Shipment In Transit
2006/09/16 18:55 Left INT'L POINTS INTERNATIONAUX
2006/09/16 13:01 Cleared Customs at INT'L POINTS INTERNATIONAUX
2006/09/16 08:41 Shipment In Transit
2006/09/14 20:02 Left INT'L POINTS INTERNATIONAUX
2006/09/14 14:17 Received at Shipping from SHIPPING of CANADA POST 349 GEORGIA ST W VANCOUVER BC

Here's the kicker. Jacq examined the package and told me it looked like it had been tampered with :( After opening the ennvelope she pulled out her card and it was crinkled, then she told me that it looked like the package was wrapped in another envelope inside. At this point I was beyond words. My whole mood had changed... My heart felt like it was in the pit of my stomach... I was almost certain that someone had gone and taken what was inside. Jacq pulled out the package, and the wrapping had been torn open on one side. Wow... the worst part for me is, she was doing all of this just off cam... I could see her, but I couldn't see what she was looking at.

When she finally showed me 2 small boxes I felt a little more relieved. When she opened them up and showed me what was inside I finally felt relief again.


That whole experience has left a bitter taste in my mouth. Why was the package opened? Why did she have to spend almost an hour untying a knot that was put into the necklace? What the fuck?! If it was customs that did this, don't they have equipment that allows them to see inside the package less intrusively? That was the first time that I have sent anything like that overseas, and I'm not impressed. People have no respect for things that don't belong to them... argh.

Forgive me, I"m tired and I'm agitated...

Is Blogger Beta Worth It?...

What the fruck?! Since I've moved over to blogger beta I'm no longer able to comment on other peoples' blogs if they're not on beta?

I hope they work all this stuff out soon... it's getting a little frustrating, so many features missing... :@

Pleasant Surprise...

Yesterday afternoon while I was crashed out as a result of that stupid hangover a package arrived at our door...

Since I was passed out in my room, my dad received it for me and paid the postage due. He then woke me up (thought I was awake already) and gave it to me. I'm so happy :D It's a bird-day gift from Jacq :D What a sweetheart!

It's not even my bird-day yet! O.O So that means that I'm going to keep it closed until that day comes ;) She wants me to open it now :p but I'll wait, hehe!

I mentioned to Jacq that we had to pay postage due upon receipt and she seemed pretty shocked. I guess it's more common here than it is in S'pore? Or... maybe I'm just wierd? Anyway, here's the breakdown:


It's all a little bit ridiculous as our portion almost added up to the amount she paid to post it in the first place... wth. She also mentioned that Canada is not on S'pore's list of insurable destinations... wth??? Are we both not Commonwealth countries? (ya, that last fact doesn't really have to do with anything but... come on... we're brethren :p)

I'm so excited :D Haiz... I miss her <3

Me = Weak Sauce...

Today was sorta 'hit & miss' for me... well, more miss than hit, but ya ;)

I woke up this morning thinking that it would be another typical day. I had planned to go to get a haircut, go for a jog / workout etc. You can probably guess that none of those things happened :$ haiz.

Last night my family and I went out for dinner with some family friends. We went to the Keg Steak House in New Westminster. The reason I didn't blog about it is: 1) I'm not a big fan of the Keg. & 2) I didn't have my camera. That being said, the pictures you'll see in this post are not taken by me and are just here for the purpose of illustrating my story.

Dinner was nice although it seemed a little dark where we were sitting. The parents needed assistance in reading the menus because the room was so dimly lit.

For dinner I ordered the Steak and Half Lobster. The steak was a Tender Sirloin Steak cooked medium rare and the lobster was... well, a half lobster. Along with my dinner I had 2 cans of Guinness Draft. Why cans? Because I didn't have a choice :( They didn't have Guinness on tap. The Steak was done nicely, the rice (wild rice) was a nice change from the everyday Chinese white rice that we usually eat. The Lobster was as lobster usually is RICH AND DELICIOUS! I don't know if it's actually the Lobster taste itself that gets me or if it's the melted butter that I bathe the lobster in. I don't know about other Chinese families, but THIS Chinese family almost never has butter in the fridge :(

Dinner seemed to go off w/o a hitch... the bill was $300+ which is not too bad considering there were eight of us.

Anyway, the whole purpose of this story is to tell you how much I suck. It hasn't even been 1 month before the last time that I had consumed beer and this time... I woke up with a splitting headache :( how embarassing. I only had 2 beer and end up with a hangover... psh... yes, I am WEAKSAUCE...

The result? I chatted with Jacq for less than 2 hours... then had to crash again because I felt like my head was going to explode... grrr. No haircut, no jog, no workout, no nothing... just one collosal waste of a day.

It's Not Fair...

*sigh* it's not fair :'(... My sister and my brother-in-law are going back to S'pore / M'sia for 6 weeks. I wish I could go back with them too... I'll just crawl into the corner, curl into a little ball and wet my cheeks O.o

Downtown & Stuff...

Jacqueline's take on makeup:

JACQUELINE says:
they like patching their face like those contractor patching the cement on the wall

---

Today AK called me up and asked if I wanted to go join him for some dinner, we ended up in DownTown Vancouver. It's been awhile since the last time I took a walk down here and some things have already changed. One of the most noticable changes for me is the fact that public traffic is allowed on Granville street between Robson and Smithe... it used to be reserved for city vehicles only. Meh... another thing that REALLY blows me away is the fact that the McDonald's on Granville and Smithe is now a Footlocker, WTH... have you EVER heard of a McDick's picking up and leaving from ANYWHERE?

Anyway, we ended up eating @ Kitto Japanese restaurant, one of our usual spots. It seems that this place has changed too... I'm pretty sure it's been awhile, but I've decided to rant about it today. It used to be that this restaurant was authentic... how authentic depends on what YOUR definition of authentic is. But, it used to be owned by Japanese and run by Japanese. Now if you go in, you'll hear Mandarin and Vietnamese... that kinda ruins it for me. There are a couple of employees who are Japanese, but it seems like the original staff are all long gone *sniff*. Is it just me or do Chinese / Vietnamese chefs in a Japanese restaurant NOT make it feel authentic anymore? Especially when you're sitting at the Sushi Bar and the Vietnamese woman who's handling the asparagus for the asparagus rolls picks up a noodle container (vat, bin, whatever) while STILL holding the asparagus which is now touching the outside of the bin rubbing against it... not only does that not feel authentic, it's frickin' disghusting. If you're going to do that, do it somewhere out of sight... no no, wait... how about DON'T DO THAT AT ALL!!!

Blah... we had our food, then we went for a walk.

Today I was on a mission to get a picture of the Darth Spirit Bear and the Batman Spirit Bear :). Apparently there are 200 of these things kickin' around all over Greater Vancouver. If you're wondering what they're all about, you can read about them here.

Darth Bear I had come across awhile back when I was walking downtown w/ AK... unfortunately, at that time I didn't have my camera on me (heaven forbid). As you can imagine this bear gets alot of attention... IMO, I this is the greatest :D. AK seems to like it too... but I'm sure if we found an Incredible Hulk Bear he'd prolly soil his pants :p

Batman Spirit Bear I had no idea existed until I saw a piccy of it in Nando's Avatar :D It's actually on Burrard street as well, just 2 and-a-half blocks North (across from Burrard Skytrain Station). This bear is another one of my favorites too (obviously) although upon closer inspection AK had to point out that, "It looks like it's got Dookie in its drawers!" ... I had to admit... he's not lying :p

From there we walked back to Robson and headed over to the Kombiniya on Robson (past Bute). Dunno... I had a hankering for some Japanese stuffy-stuff. We ended up exploring the WHOLE store and discovered alot of junk... they even have an internet cafe in the back, one which I've never noticed before regardless of the fact that I've been in the store numerous times. It looked kinda like a little Japanese sweatshop :D. When I went to the counter to check out I stumbled upon...


Inset is a picture of a CalorieMate 'in-game'
The first time that I had heard of Calorie Mate was in Metal Gear Solid 3. I figure if it's good enough for the main character 'Snake'... then it's good enough for me :D. Anyway, it should be interesting...

Here's the script from after you consume a CalorieMate and then call Para-Medic (Snake's Medical Correspondant):

Para-Medic: "I see you have a Calorie Mate."
Snake: "Calorie Mate?"
Para-Medic: "The thing you're holding now."
Snake: "Oh, the little block that looks like a cookie?"
Para-Medic: "Try it. It's pretty good."
Snake: "Okay. But what is this thing? I've never seen anything like it."
Para-Medic: "Calorie Mate is an energy supplement that contains all the
proteins, liquids, vitamins, carbohydrates and minerals needed for
a balanced diet. It is a well-balanced food. Because of that, it's
just perfect for giving your body the nutrition it needs in
combat."
Snake: "It sounds like a space-age food."
Para-Medic: "Real astronaut food is not very good, but that should taste fine."
Snake: "Yeah, and it will help balance out all this jungle food I'm eating."
Para-Medic: "It's easy and quick to eat, so it's perfect for when you are
running late for an important mission in the morning."
Snake: "I've never been late for a mission."
Para-Medic: "Really? Aren't you always keeping people waiting?"
Snake: "?"
Para-Medic: "It's easy to keep track of your calorie intake and receive the
nutrition your body needs, so it's good for losing weight too. All
of the geisha girls in Japan use it for watching their calories."
Snake: "Is that why they're all so slim?"
Para-Medic: "Right. And any diet where you eat nothing at all is bad for the
body."
Snake: "I see. You seem to know a lot about Japan don't you?"
Para-Medic: "Yes, I love Japan."

Time to see what it's all about O.o... At the Kombiniya there were 3 flavors of CalorieMate Block to choose from: Chocolate, Cheese & Fruits. I chose Chocolate. Upon opening the package I found 2 baggies and inside each of those 2 CalorieMate blocks... they reminded me of the ShortBread or ButterCookie sticks that I used to get during X-Mas time... interesting. I sniffed the block just to get an idea and uh... it smelt kinda like cardboard with a hint of chocolate. euh. *sigh* oh well, now for the moment of truth... Not surprisingly, it tastes like it smells... and it has the consistency of, um, dirt? Ok, not that bad, close to a butter cookie, but not... maybe dry playdough? You get the idea. I'm a little disappointed because in the game it says: "It was unbelievable tasty!". Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Snake, after all, in the conversation that he has with The Boss he reveals that he can't smell a thing... which would then lead me to believe that he can't taste anything either... wth. Now I'm confused... grrr.

I'm still curious as to what the other flavors taste like (minus the cardboard taste, of course).

---

Before I forget... on the way back to the car we saw:

Ferrari F450

Lamborghini Gallardo

BLING BLING!

BTW, that yellow Porsche (first picture)was parked behind the Ferrari... if I were him, I would have parked somewhere else :p zzzzzzzing!