Lion's Realm

Fat Future Myself!

2010-05-15T10:40:00.005-04:00

The Summer of Andy is in full gear.

My trip down to South Florida with my one and only loved one was a great success. Since I suck at story telling, there's no way I can put how great the trip was in words... Highlights: Spending alone time with Jeannie, surfing, seeing animals such as the white Bengal tiger, a liger (mix male lion with female tiger), dolphins, killer whale, etc., dancing swing on Main street U.S.A. in Magic Kingdom, being immersed in a swarm of butterflies, tanning on the beach, driving an Audi A4 Cabriolet convertible around, dancing west coast swing, relaxing on South Miami Beach, etc.

So David Choi is an awesome musician on youtube! He's greatly involved with the Asian youtube community (Wong Fu Productions and KevJumba).So here is his latest video and another favorite video:

Okay this next video is a super super awesome video!!! Simply because the dude in it looks like a future fat version of myself!

- lionsword

Summer's Back!

2010-04-26T15:05:00.004-04:00

Hi

Remember me? The Asian guy that posted random videos for people to watch? Um, well finals are over and summer has officially started for me, so I guess I'll have time to post some random stuff again!

There's so much I want to say, so many things I've done and accomplished over the year. I feel that I have changed in some way (by writing, it'll help me keep track of who I was and what I've been doing, hopefully).

But here's me in a nutshell: two years of University down, one and half to go, grad school on the horizon, another summer research, hopefully more published papers, gained a few healthy pounds, flying to Florida in a week, and possibly doing a paper presentation at the CAP (Canadian Association of Physicists) in Toronto in June, preparing a second new dragon boat team for McGill, joining an elite Montreal dragon boat team, finally finished the 'last' swing dance class in the dance curriculum, ...

Yep, it's going to be a busy summer, "the summer of Andy".

So my favorite list on my youtube page has more than doubled (up to something like 270) so I have a bunch of videos that I want to share.

Who doesn't love the Power Rangers? Notice how the very first yellow range doesn't have a skirt even though she's a girl (and while the pink one has a skirt). That's because they use the Japanese footage for the fights, and in the Japanese version, the yellow ranger was a guy. Notice how Kimberly is hot too.

Here's an another power ranger footage (embedded option disabled...). A bunch of red rangers all together! Red Rangers!

Okay this next video is just plain hilarious. I crack up every time I watch this XD. I dare you to watch this and not laugh!

Anyways, didn't want to write too much, and hopefully next time I can write something with more content...

- lionsword

And so ends Lion's Realm

2009-10-08T18:30:00.002-04:00

It was fun writing in the summer... but I'm too busy as of now. So I shall stop here and maybe continue next summer! Thanks to all for reading! It was a blast!

Andy

MY GF ON YOUTUBE FINALLY!

2009-09-07T20:57:00.003-04:00

I've been recently invited to join the Golden Key International Honour Society, which invites people based on their grades (top 15% in your class)throughout the world. Apparently, there are a bunch of famous people that are in the society (which is for life by the way) like Adrienne Clarkson, some former U.S. president, an Olympian... So they tell me that if I join, I get possible scholarships, job opportunities... I get to mingle with the high class and can have a great title on my resume... Wow, sounds great! I'd love to join!

Problem.

I need to pay $90. And I did say its for life right?

Okay, so from my point of view, they have access to our grades via McGill (I know a bunch of people, and everyone I expected to be invited were). McGill itself was the first to email me about this society, telling me they will invite me in the near future. And they shower me with praises and stuff like that. Must be legit right? And I get chances at scholarships! And join the ranks of high people!

But problem.

I need to pay $90.

Pay $90 dollars for what? So that they can acknowledge my academic excellence (when surely this should be free)? So that I can pool money for the top 1% (I highly doubt I am in that top 1%)? Put it on my CV even though I know I won't be doing anything in this society (as it is mostly just a prestigious title)? What are the clear advantages of this society besides bragging rights and out of reach scholarships?

Bah, I'll pass this one out. And from what I've read, a lot of people think its a scam also, just like poetry.com... Paying $90, not receiving anything, just a title on your CV. Clearly the GPA on your CV is good enough no?

Here's their site: $90 Worth It?

Anyways, first week of University is done. I'm kind of out of it right now. Having a hard time socializing as I used to (probably because a lot of things seems deja vue, redundant, repeated, almost boring... but most likely I need to push myself back into the whole university thing). Courses (six of them) seem easy enough.

Hold on.

Back to the me not socializing part.

I've always had a hard time expressing myself. And I always blamed it on the fact that I was raised in three different languages. First mandarin, then english, then french was thrown at me from school, and english and mandarin stuck at home, and english prevailed for me with friends... It this the right thing to blame? Or is there something else in my life that attributes to my lack of expressing myself? No idea... apparently I was a late talker also... This is something I've been working on since the last year of high school. I think I've improved. But I still have a long way to go...

Moving on, and after my 6-7 hours rockband marathon and beginning of term house party and hundreds of dollars worth of collectible coins from around the world found at a garage sale (1800 Great Britain, Morocco, Israel, China, Germany, France, Spain and s on)... I FINALLY GOT MY GF TO SING ON YOUTUBE! (although technically, I've already done it... but not officially). I'm hoping she'll hit views into the thousand(s). I will need to do more advertising and more promotion for her (even though she doesn't really want me to but kind of does but doesn't tell me kind of thing I'm sure of it). So RATE. COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, FAVORITE!

MY GF SINGING "YOU ARE MY LIFE" BY MICHAEL JACKSON!!!

And here are other vids I've been recently watching. Voila, the vids of the week:

This guy is a pure entertainer!

Looks good! Sings good!

Epic and Sad!

Looking for some good music? Check this guy out!

- Lionsword

Summer Ends

2009-08-31T11:32:00.003-04:00

Today is officially my last day of summer. And tomorrow, I'm back to university! How do I feel? Quite excited in fact!

I just want to go through quickly my Summer List of Things To Do 2009 and check off what I managed to accomplish:

(NOTE: X means accomplished)
- Travel far far away X (Florida baby)
- Learn a neat trick X (Hmm, a few special knots)
- Learn something smart X (As much as one can learn about memristors, IC fabrication and other electrical devices)
- Learn something practical X (um, learned how ebay and paypal works recently...?)
- Learn something new about my close friends X (always always)
- Learn something about myself X (where i want to go in life and my ambitions)
- Spend quality time with best friend X (hmm i feel it has been pretty good, especially compared to the past 2-3 years)
- Bike to Laval (... grrr... oh well)
- Purchase hybrid bike X (quite happy with the bike :P)
- Get Gold in Dragon Boat (failed by 0.02 seconds)
- Make a YouTube Video (got sidetracked by mj... i have my eyes set on the Zi8 HD pocket camcorder though :P)
- Make a YouTube series
- Take mom for walks X
- Exercise with Jeannie X
- Make a UPPT 09 (hmm?)
- Read a book X (a book by Terry Pratchett for one)
- Finish Snow (hmm... never got around to ask my cousin in LA for some help...)
- Start a new time capsule X (YES! We'll have to wait another three years now aha)
- Spend some time with my sister X
- Beat Carmen's dad at Chinese chess (yea... no comment lol)
- Go to the beach X
- Learn to cook a meal (hmm, I forgot about this one XD)
- Have the most epic summer love ever X ( :P )
- Meet new people X (quite a few actually!)
- Discover something new X
- Help 10 people, in very specific ways X
- Help clean Jeannie's room (still on my to do list!)
- Improve the way my household uses energy (aha...)
- Play tennis X (with my new racket of course!)
- Learn to surf X (I love surfing... yes!)
- Learn the different types of fine wine (this should have been easy...)
- Surpass myself physically X (Upper body is starting to look meaty)
- Watch an epic movie X (LOTR 1,2,3 and the dark knight should do it :P)
- Learn to sing (rockband singing counts? probably not..)
- Go to the casino
- Play pool
- Finish movie script with Jeannie
- Learn sign language with someone (hmm, in the end, I don't want to spend time doing this)
- Learn to take professional pictures X (on a technicality)
- Finish the dance, once and for all (... sniff... i'm too lazy i guess)
- Learn to play the erhu
- Learn to play go
- Make something X (yay, a lamp!)

Anyways, I'm happy to say that my summer has been extremely productive! (Especially with my research! My supervisor says that even his PhD students don't produce as much good results as I do!)

IT'S THE END OF THE SUMMER! ENJOY YOURSELF!

And with that, the vids of the wtv time it is now:

Too awesome!

Catchy tune! Something very appealing in this vid :P

Funny lyrics :P

TenMinMix by good friend DJPhilipps!!

Probably my favorite song of the summer!

"There it is... with all its rage and glory..."

2009-08-11T23:25:00.011-04:00

Okay, where to begin...

Chronological order will do:

SO CLOSE! HOW CLOSE? 0.02 SECONDS CLOSE!

So I failed to bring back Gold (or any medal in fact) from my first year as captain on the McGill Dragon Boat Z team. It's all good really, considering that I ranked one division higher than last year (comparing with my marianopolis team) and that in my final 250m, we went from being in 6th place to crossing the finish line 2nd, LOSING BY 0.02 SECONDS! I have never lost this close before... In any case, as the dragon boat season ends, I have a new wave of McGill teams planned (a men's Engineering team for one, affiliated with DBZ) and will be possibly joining my coach's under23 team, which would probably be the fastest boat I'll be on!

Quite unfortunately, as every year, a bunch of people say they will come and support the team, but end up not coming. It happens every year, and I've learned to expect it. Although, thank you Lee for actually coming! It made me push harder when I heard your cheers in the crowd! I'm serious!

FLORIDA BABY!

So I went down to Pompano Beach, Florida with my gf and her family (and my gf's sister's bf). Worst of luck was that our flight to get there was cancelled and they diverted us onto another airline, making a connecting flight through Toronto. We missed the Toronto to Ft. Lauderdale flight so they booked us to Miami where we had to take an hour train northbound, just to end up at an empty train station with no taxi or taxi information... Plus my gf was freaking out every single step of the way :p... actually that last one was the hardest to cope with XD

In any case, I was expecting rain everyday. And it ended up being sunny all the time! With the beach 100m away from my gf's mom's condo! Highlights of the trip were tanning on the beach, learning to surf, buying my first pair of pumas, finding souvenirs for the family and friends, seeing flamingos and peacocks, watching sharkweek on the discovery channel and then jumping into the ocean, doing poses in public, getting my first minor sunburn in years, riding a convertible audi to a swing dance night... I loved it!

So in the past three years, I've been to Toronto, LA, Vegas, New York, Boston, South Florida... Next up are Vancouver? Hawaii? Outside of the US/CANADA? Neverland? One step at a time!

RESEARCH TO THE MAX!

So, when I tell people I do research at McGill, there's a few that are impressed... and bunch others that are skeptical. As in, is it a real job? Research... does that really do anything? I'm a first year, can I really contribute to the scientific community? Well, I'm the kind of guy that would say YES YES AND YES (even though I never done it) while others, well, they would say probably no :P.

Unbelievably, and beyond any of my expectations, my research has been a great success. We've gone through 12 different samples of devices (fabrication and testing) and we've finally got the results we've been looking for! And they are extremely good. How good? My dad telling me not to show the results to anyone. My dad hiding our notebooks and spreading them around so that in case there's a fire, they won't all burn at the same time? Calling me 3 times in the row saying the same thing? Dunno, maybe he's just overreacting, but I do hope it's the real deal. The idea from here on forward is to get a scientific journal publication and a patent going on. I mean, finishing my first year of university and possibly having a patent is beyond anything I've expected!

NUMBER 20

So it was my 20th birthday. Blah blah, I don't feel any different... A custom I hold onto dearly is the happy birthday song :P. My gf takes me out to eat at Reubens diner and I finish half of her Rocky Top Chicken along with my Tuna Melt plus a cheese cake. I come back home, and there's ferrero rocher cake! I go eat OMG SO TASTY AND JUICY AND TASTY bison and shrimp called surf and turf at Les Trois Petits Bouchons on St-Denis with my sister Friday. And I ate pizza for the day after my official birthday D&D session, and pizza during the Saturday friend party, along with chips and soft drinks that day, and the absolute awesome noodle meat carrot soup thing my grandma makes and a strawberry shortcake my uncle got me for the family party. And a jumbo blue slush plus a popsicle during my bike ride Sunday... What I'm trying to say is that I AM FAT FAT FAT AND LARGE and I have never been this fat in my life (weighing at 165 lbs). Imagine all the abs I can convert that fat into :P. (well really, i'm not that fat... but wtv).

Anyways, I am incredibly happy to see everyone (almost) gather together just to have fun! I enjoyed the single tube ride at Bromont where you had to fight your way down (or to stay where you are to wait for your friends :P). I enjoyed opening up the Time Capsule after 3 years... and glad to have another time capsule set up for another 3 years. Thx Lee and Gab for the hot blue tennis racket, I really can't wait to try it out! Thx Kenny and poopoo for world Monopoly :P. Paying by credit card is just like the real thing where you have a hard time keeping track of your money XD. Thx to everyone really for everything! Love you all!!!

Random

Besides everything, I went Bixi biking with my sister. It's really cool, though It would be nice if there were shocks and seat suspensions... Anyways, really excited for school to start again. I've accomplished a lot of what I wanted to do this summer. I hope there's still time to do a few more...

and of course... VIDEOS OF WTV MONTH/WEEK/TEATIME!

It's times like these that I'm proud to be Chinese! Seriously!

This is gay also :P

Okay for the next two vids, you have to play them simultaneously. There's exactly a 20 second delay between both vids (let the first one play for 20 seconds then hit play on the second, if confused about the youtuber, its mychonny's second channel, yourchonny...). My gf showed em to me XD.

LOL at the 3:00 minute mark!

- Lionsword

3rd Anniversary, Lamp, HP and Moonwalker

2009-07-19T10:18:00.006-04:00

Summer interest has gone suddenly exponential!

In short, camping with family at St-Mauricie, 3rd anniversary with my gf, dragon boat festival in a week, florida trip the week later, dboat team bbq the week later later, birthdays that same week, possible publishing of a paper in a scientific journal at the end of summer!

Yea, 3rd year anniversary with my gf! We booked a dinner cruise on the Croisieres AML at the Old Port of Mtl and it was pretty sweet. I was actually on the same boat last year for my birthday, but this time it was different. More high class, jazz music. I ordered the lobster (by myself for the first time!) and I was, how to say, scared to rip its head off? The lobster looked like it could be alive or it could have been cute if it weren't dead... Anyways, after unceremoniously ripping its head off, the rest came naturally. And damn was it good :P! Reminiscing with my gf on our good times and dancing swing on an empty deck were other highlights of the night!

Yea... she's hot!

So I finally finished my gift for poopoo! I made this custom lamp with her own choosing of an alhocol bottle. We used a Rexy Martin XO champagne cognac bottle, some fancy stuff I would suppose! Only real problem I encountered was how to drill a clean hole on the side of the bottle for the wire? Use a special drill bit, apply extremely low pressure, squirt with water periodically to cool the glass and avoid shattering? Well, seems like poopoo and my gf didn't trust me! So I ended up just back feeding the wire and taping it lol. I think it looks nice oh yea!

Saw the 6th Harry Potter in theaters a few days ago and by far it is the best movie of the 6! Lots of love and humour everywhere and just the way it was filmed made a lot more sense than any previous installment. It also helps that the movie was as faithful as it could be to the book. Only problem I have with it is that the end was obviously rushed, the concept of the horcruxes (and Voldemort's fascination with great magical objects) was underdeveloped, and there should have been a fight between the death eaters and the order and professors...

MJ beatboxing for Oprah!

Anyone remember keen? OMG brings back so many memories!

MJ's Moonwalker movie! Highlights are probably the second half of Part 2 "Badder" (the little kid is SO COOL), the second half of Part 8 "Come Together" (love his star quality! the song is actually a cover of a Beatles' song), first part of Part 4 "Leave Me Alone" (Love this song), and Part 6 "Smooth Criminal"! (Or just watch the whole thing!)

- Lionsword

Forever MJ

2009-07-13T20:40:00.007-04:00

So it's been almost 3 weeks since the passing of Michael Jackson. Believe it or not, I'm still quite sad.

Since the past weeks, most of my major projects have been delayed indefinitely. No advancements in my flash movie... I am supposed to be done filming my movie with my sister this week... Photoshop has come to a standstill... I've listened to all of MJ's songs (and only his) multiple times over. It's hard to explain, but I've come to love every single song he ever came out with. Previously, there were some songs I found a bit 'noisy' such as "Invincible" and some lacking interest. But that was because I did not know the context in which they were written or sang. For example, I've only listened to the song "Smile" probably once fully and never bothered with it again until now and recently when I found out that it was a song written by Charlie Chaplin and is Michael Jackson's favorite.

A few days after his death, I found myself among the crowd of, oh what was it? 100,000 spectators? 150,000? at the opening of the jazz festival. Stevie Wonder gave an incredible performance and he gave a great tribute to the King of Pop. I was incredibly happy and slightly consoled to have a real life Motown legend giving his thoughts about MJ. As Stevie put it, "People will try to profit from his death. It's all bull. Just buy his music." He played "Shake Your Body", "The Way You Make Me Feel".. And even more incredible is that it stopped raining exactly when the concert started and started to rain again exactly when Stevie finished singing, leaving the crowd in the rain listening to a tribute medley of MJ songs and ending with "Man in the Mirror"...

Over the past weeks, I've reorganized my MJ album collection, purchased his "BAD" and "Dangerous" albums, collected newspaper articles concerning MJ, dug up his demo music... My gf (as well as friend and aunt) also purchased several tribute magazines which have great stuff about his life and music, watched my "Live In Bucharest: Dangerous Tour" and "Number Ones" DVD...

Last week I watched the Michael Jackson Memorial down in L.A. It was playing live during my work hours, so I'd listen and watch whenever I could, during my breaks. The story told by Magic Johnson about the KFC made me laugh. Once again, Stevie Wonder gave a great performance for his friend, his brother Jermaine blew me away... and MJ's daughter, her words and emotion did it for me...

Anyways, I have a few videos / songs I wanted to share with you guys. As I said, I collected his demo music which only come on his special edition albums and box sets. Here's the link to my youtube account playlist. From my understanding, the playlist is permanent and thus impossible to remove videos from it. Which is why you'll find one or two Jackson 5 songs and one from his HIStory album which are not demos... but still worthy nonetheless!

MICHAEL JACKSON DEMO MUSIC PLAYLIST

My favorite songs right now on the playlist are "Sunset Driver" (OMG SO GOOD), "Carousel" (Reminds me of the 'Girl is Mine' period), "Fly Away" and "On the Line".

Little MJ, Smokey Robinson couldn't belive his ears when he heard this:

"Smile" - Jermaine Jackson

"Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer" - Stevie Wonder

Another video I idolized when I was younger:

Andy

This Is It

2009-06-29T23:22:00.006-04:00

This is it. It is as if a part of my childhood and a great part of my soul was taken from me. I never imagined a world without my one idol, Michael Jackson the King of Pop.

He was to me a true musical genius. He was my jam music, comfort in sad times... he was of my lifestyle, my daily routine, my dance inspiration, even my attitude. For the past 9 years, I've listened to his music... every cd, every song, every concert, every interview. And probably the worst of all is that I started liking him just about when he stopped doing what he does best, when he exiled himself from the continental USA. And I've waited so patiently for the past 9 years, hoping for a brand new album and more concerts, and it seemed like 'This Is It' was the start of a grand new beginning. One of my biggest dreams was to indeed see MJ live in concert... I'd like to take this time to go through my history with MJ in my life.

The first time I ever listened to Michael Jackson was in grade 6 when my mom got me his 2001 album 'Invincible' (which is still my favorite album of all, even though it sold the least). I love his songs "Unbreakable", "Whatever Happens" and "You Rock My World". "Unbreakable" was one of the first songs I learned to 'sing' (I still remember singing it in the shower). "Whatever Happens" became my study music in secondary 2 for my history final (I listened to it around 50 times). And "You Rock my World" most likely influenced my so-called 'romantic' poetry.

I then learned that my best friend also liked MJ. I still remember the day we were talking on the phone and he was asking me if a certain song was on my Invincible cd. I placed my headphones across the telephone and played all of the songs (the song he was looking for turned out to be Billie Jean). I found MJ's Thriller album (cassette form) not long after and I fell in love with practically all the songs on it! Except for the song Thriller which I found too long and unconventional. It was not until a little longer that I started to enjoy the song. An acquired taste.

I have other memories of me and my best friend discovering MJ's concert videos and his moonwalk! The most memorable videos I have of MJ is his "Billie Jean performance at his 30th Anniversary concert", his "Billie Jean performance at Bucharest", his "duet on The Way You Make Me Feel with Britney Spears at his 30th" and his "1988 Grammy performance of Man in the Mirror".

I remember kaka and poopoo giving me this awesome birthday card with MJ in it! I remember doing the moonwalk in secondary 1 during la periode d'etude for the surveillante, learning by heart the Billie Jean dance sequence, dancing MJ in religion class in sec 4 and 5 (which involved humping directly in front of the teacher), recording a song called Tesser which was a spinoff of Beat It for a sec 2 project (amz and chiu forced me to sing!), doing a dance off in Kenny's basement, redoing the Thriller video clip for a sec 3 english project (however, the video is lost forever...), having an MJ dance scene in both of my Halloween movies, teaching the moonwalk at my swing dance practices in Cegep, my gf and I buying the Thriller 25 album for each other without knowing so for Valentine's day...

I think MJ made me strong also in the sense that I've taken some insults towards MJ personally but held my head high. I've been intrinsically linked with everything that has to do with MJ. Whenever some new gossip came up, people would talk to me about it. Even more surprising is all the support I received from friends when they learned of the King's death. A lot of my friends tend to insult MJ, calling him a pedophile (probably the most common) and commenting on his nose or whatnot. And I know that most of them don't do it with anger or anything, but just to tease a bit. But in any case, I didn't let any of these comments ruin my image of him or destroy my passion for him. In fact, all of the hater comments probably made me stick closer to MJ, defending him as much as possible and trying to show people that even though he has a different (and perhaps weird) lifestyle, his music is of the greatest in the world. I've learned to defend what I love most in my life the hard and only way. Get knocked down here and there and just keep on coming back right up.

As of today, my two favorite songs of all time are "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Break of Dawn", both by MJ. If you ever get the chance to listen to these songs, please do. I find that there's so much passion in his lyrics and his voice that it just blows me away every single time I listen to them!

Michael Jackson is my hero and will forever be the true King of Pop. I don't think there will ever be someone like him. His charisma, his charm, his voice, his moves, his sales, his global impact, they are out of this world. I can promise you that for the rest of my life, I will always listen to Michael Jackson's music. For me, his music is much more than pop, it's the elixir of creativity and love. And I will always look towards his music for inspiration in everything I do in life. I might feel that part of my soul has gone, but I know that bits of MJ's soul lies embedded in his music. And as long as I (and we) listen to his music, MJ can live on inside all of us. May you rest in peace. You will be dearly missed Michael.

Andy

D&D, update on summer and photoshop

2009-06-22T22:38:00.010-04:00

Well, I've been keeping busy.

First of all, I had my first dose of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) at Tam's house the other day! Total nerdage to the max! I had never played it before, and trust me, I was not expecting what I saw that day.

First of all, the game is purely in your head (and paper). The players each come up with their own characters and their backgrounds and how the band of heroes came together (we were four players, me, kenny, pa and lee) while the dungeon master (tam) makes the story up and all the events. I was basically a slightly dimwitted 5'11 barbarian half-orc wielding a double orc axe who was abandoned and left for dead by his clan. The halfling rogue (lee) finds me by the road and the elf fighter (kenny) generously gives me a healing potion, and so it came to pass that I owed my allegiance to them. We met the gnome mage (pa) along our path while he was being attacked by a band of half-orcs. We saved him and he thus joined our fellowship :P.

Anyways, yada yada, Kenny and I were hard headed and wanted to attack a camp of 20 lizard like monsters. And obviously, we got slaughtered while lee and pa were able to run away... BUT yea, very interesting game, has its charm. It's really hard to get into because you have to constantly make up your story and all your events. Rules are a bit iffy, probably because the dungeon master doesn't tell you everything.

And yea, it's been a while but here are the Vids of the month!!!

man, love this guy, makes me laugh so hard

Interesting voice :P (if you get the chance to see her new music video with all the props moving around, I really really hate the last 5-10 seconds that fades out...)

Great story! Great voice! Great song!

And so a quick update on my summer: Played several hours of tennis and getting better at it, teaching my cousin to drive here and there, Princess caught a little mouse the other day, finally cleaned my room, reorganized my personal time capsule, started building the memristor in the lab, climbed mount royal with my research buddies, went to the Cat's Corner's masquerade, biked, started playing around with Flash and restarted working with Photoshop, one week before my first dragon boat competition and cant wait to kick some ass (and the team is getting closer together!), saw the fashion festival with friends (Fritz Helder & the Phantoms performed and damn they are great performers! Google them! They way they are formed reminds me of black eyed peas! also got a bunch of free yogurt there :P sweeet), gf left her car lights on all day and we had to boost the car (first time I saw this happen lol), finally started working on the script for my milk movie (hopefully it'll work out...), going to go gab's chalet in a week (cant wait!), Florida trip delayed till end of July, read a great book from one of my favorite authors Terry Pratchett called "Only You Can Save Mankind" (fantasy, please check out his discworld series!!!), have a potential dragon boat logo (THX TO VIVI HONEY), planning a camping trip with the family (lac Monroe, Mont-Tremblant, same old place), and... yada yada yada...

View from mont-royal

Author Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series

My gf photoshopped a la comic book style

And before you leave!!! Type "Tiga: in the search box on Facebook and click on the page with the musician (around 26000 fans). Scroll down and hit the play list. Some hard core techno music :p. "Lower State of Consciousness" is good. Kind of gives you a headache after a while though lol.

- Lionsword

TOUR DE L'ILE AND UPDATE ON SUMMER LIST

2009-06-08T23:46:00.006-04:00

Well, another year, another 35000 bikers, another 52 km, another tour de l'ile.

I swear, I've been looking forward for this event ever since the end of last year's tour de l'ile! I went with Cod this time and we decided to take as many poses as possible and I have to say, it's fun being creative on the spot and in public :P. It's one of my thrills in life! I strongly believe that in life, you need to be spontaneous at times and not worry about being weird in front of other people. You just got to do it and think to yourself that everyone else wants to do the same, but they're just too shy to do so!

There's something about biking around thousands of people and passing them one by one that just makes me feel great! The wind in your hair, zooming past other bikers, speeding down hill and climbing up hill on first gear! Besides passing people, and doing poses, tour de l'ile is all about getting free milk and free soap! And as much as possible :P. Me and Cod got each 4 bottles of milk, and two bags of dial sanitary stuff :P. Yea, that's the good life.

Today, I visited my old Marianopolis dragon boat team (named Descendants of the Dragon, DOD for short). I was super happy to see a lot of the old members still on the boat! They make me so proud. My successor, the new captain, reminds me a lot of myself when I first started dragon boat, the way he leads his team and the way he encourages everyone, and the traditional hip rotations that he makes everyone do that has been passed down for 3 generations :P! Chances are, my new mcgill team is going to compete against DOD and I'm pretty confident we'll cream them. Didn't see very good timing at today's practice from DOD...

Anyways, update on my summer so far: played tennis with kenny, jessie, marty and i'm slowly improving :P, succeeded the tour de l'ile, had 3 hours of dragon boat practice on three different teams in less than 24 hours, started planning for a movie that i'll post on youtube if it works out (something to do with not having milk with cereal for breakfast :P), finally purchased a new school bag that I simply love (old one had holes in the bottom, and the new one has many many pockets :P), played drums and sang on rock band for the first time and loving it (need to get it for guitar hero...), saw terminator (terribly disappointing), taking care of mom, selling chocolates for fundraising, planning a flash stick figure youtube series, played penumbra (a horror video game)and yada yada yada...

And before I stop writing, wanted to share with you guys a video that is probably the most stunning and most epic nature/environment movie I have ever seen... might be even better than BBC's Earth! It's an 1h30, but definitely worth watching any day! Make sure to hit HD and full screen!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU&feature=channel_page

- Lionsword

Picture Time! & Summer List Update!

2009-05-31T21:39:00.005-04:00

I am a professional photographer!

Okay, maybe I'm not a professional photographer... but the way I see it is I can become a professional/amateur photographer two ways. Either one, buy a damn good camera and take classes, or two, just go out there in the real world and take some damn pictures!

I pretty much know the basics like the rule of thirds, and exposure and how to focus right, how to keep the hand steady, and what girl looks pretty enough for my photos :p.

But yea, I've decided to merge two things I truly enjoy, BIKING AND TAKING PICTURES! Just bike anywhere anytime and whip out my camera every two seconds! And that takes care of "Learn to take professional pictures" :P.

On that note, I've successfully completed 9 out of my 43 objectives on my Summer List! Another 12 or so will be completed within, say, 2 weeks. After that... all the hard stuff are left (surf? erhu? a youtube series? beat carmens dad at chinese chess?...). I've actually considered asking a street performer to teach me to play for a few minutes... dunno if that's socially acceptable or not!?!

Love the concept in this dance!

Anyways, had a great weekend! It was my cousin's bday, my bros end of year concert (some rat ratted me out cz he thought I was filming the concert, when it was actually spinach girl :P lol), oversaw the french conquest of the 13 colonies and moscow, finished reading twilight (finally, under my gf's pressure lol), finished reading my first james patterson book (terribly simple, easy read, nothing more than a money making book), had some quality mom/son time, slept in, went to my gf's end of year house party, biked after the cool rain and... i have no idea???

- Lionsword

My GF is terribly obsessed... with my hair!

2009-05-24T22:11:00.008-04:00

- "With all it's rage and glory..." Something my math teacher would say while pointing at the gibberish he wrote on the black board...

So here's a video I found on TED and my god it's so good and funny! I've watched it twice! The story of the dancer at the end really really inspires me!

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

I've always noticed that whenever my gf ordered food at the counter (fast food for example), she'd always get nervous and tense up as if the person taking her order was testing her. She'd always prepare what to say and get irritated if I interrupted her. And whenever she actually starts ordering, she never looks at the person but always stares at the menu on top... So yea, I have fun making fun of her :p. I don't know, but I try as much to look at the person directly and give a smile at the end. Just trying to be polite I guess.

Anyways, went to get some ice cream with my gf Friday, and I challenged her to order while looking straight at the girl working there. Amazingly she succeeded! But she ended up cracking up and hitting me in front of everyone...

Had the most uneventful relaxing weekend in the longest time ever! Spent most of my time playing Empire Total War... I just conquered France, Spain and Russia all in one go (that's what they get for declaring war against me at the same time!). I've been trying to apply as much wisdom from Sun Tzu as possible, and it seems to be working. My empire has spread to pretty much all of continental Europe, North of India, and the Caribbean... All that stands in my way from global domination is the English, of course.

Anyways, enough of my 18th century achievements :p. Remember how I regretted showing that Big Bang video to my gf? Well, now I'm getting really worried about the sanity of my gf... She's been constantly watching the same video over and over again (and its her exam period!), trying to learn the exact movements of the dance (from the finger twirling down to the facial expressions)..., and she's been constantly eyeing my hair as if she's trying to imagine me with some real asian almost fob hair... then she corners me and has those huge puppy eyes... She probably played with my hair every day of the week! Anyways, just wanted to say she's obsessed :p.

So... the vids of the week:

This vid is terribly good! It gave me goosebumps when the razor started :p. Make sure you use earphones! Or else it wont work.

Still lover her voice!

And finally, KevJumba is back! In the form of another channel, but he's still back!

- Lionsword

I'm BACK IN IT !!!

2009-05-18T21:54:00.005-04:00

What a busy weekend indeed. BIKING AND DRAGON BOAT!!!

First things first, I biked with the_poopoo and pa for the first of summer! We left at 7:30 - 8:00 am (freeezing! had to come back and dress warmer!) and we wanted to bike from Brossard to Chambly... but pa got a flat tire, so we had to stop short. We still ended up in st-hubert after getting a bit lost in Longueuil which ended up being a very big detour. We ended at around 1:30 after having done around 40 km. So with the large breaks that we took, maybe around 4 hours of biking. That's three short from last year!

The map is approximate since there aren't any bike paths on google maps... at least not to my knowledge.

My bike, finally tested, is terribly efficient. Compared to my old bike, at the same speed, I don't feel tired at all riding Mr. Bacon. And I can hit higher speeds and better acceleration with it :P.

On the same day as biking, I had my first dragon boat practice as the new co-captain of the McGill dragon boat team!!! It was still a bit chilly, but it ended up being a success, i think! The coach wasn't late, there was a good turn out from the team (about 16/20), the workout was demanding, and we even got a prototype for our team cheer which is basically all of us saying "kamehameha" in a crescendo and pointing the energy blast into the sky!!! Even my gf managed to enjoy it even after she was nervous for the past two months about not being able to survive the training :p. Anyways, I hope the team gets better and better and that we win gold when the festival comes!

And I was thinking about dragon boat... I think the reason why I love it so much is that I can be very good at it and be the leader of the team. I think I have this fascination for leadership... probably why I am considering a minor in management... dunno...

Anyways, this weekend has really pumped me up and has further made me want to accomplish the things on my to do list! And here's some a few vids that are really cool :p!!!

This one was sent to me by my dboat coach back in 2007... and I still look at it for inspiration! Probably one of the best inspiration speeches you'll ever hear!

And this is a vid from a korean group called big bang... I looked into their other songs... but only this one is good :P. (and i regret showing this to my gf... cz she's going crazy for the dude and wants to cut my hair herself so that it looks like the dudes in the movie! lol...)

And here's some real talent!!! Check out the channel also! A bunch of really good talent here!

-lionsword

Memristors, Lindy Hop, Totar War & VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

2009-05-09T22:00:00.005-04:00

Well, my first week of research was a lot better than what I expected :p!

I think I must have read over 20 papers/articles on memristors (my research topic), another 20 wiki pages for more fundamental learning and a whole book on semiconductor properties... and I followed 2 weeks worth of a 5th level university course! I spent most of my time in the library so I discovered a few books during my small breaks. One is the USSR Math Olympiad book and another science book from Amir Azcel, a personal favorite author :p.

Anyways, yada yada yada, my goal for this research is to be the first team (we're three students in the same project) to build a memristor at Mcgill! That would be the such a great accomplishment. People would come up to me asking advice on memristors and then they would realize, oh shit, he's an undergrad!

(If you want to know something about a memristor, you can read this article. It's an easy read: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec08/7024 )

Anyways, last night I went back to Cat's Corner for the first time in a very long time. And it's been even longer that I danced so much in one night! I think I was picked up by 4 or 5 girls in a row lol... which has never happened to me! (yea... I should be the ones asking them for a dance... but they didn't give me a chance :P). Surprisingly, I felt very much at ease dancing and I think I might have even improved by not doing anything at all! In the past, I always felt I had hit the glass ceiling and that frustrated me very much...

My gf and the Marianpolis Swing Dance Club (MSDC) performed also last night!!! They were incredible! I'm still proud of MSDC.

Here are the vids from last weeks performances at the Marianopolis Swing Dance Show that I promised :P:

Besides swing and research, I've been playing Mirror's Edge and mostly Empire Total War! My god, its such a great game! Basically, you control hundreds of 18th century units and lead them across Europe, America and India for global domination. I even got my Art of War book out on my computer desk :p. Had a good friend of mine come over and help me install more memory and a used but much better video card than what I had before. My comp went from a 3.0 rating to a 5.0!

Anyways, besides all of this, still have yet to bike far (its raining all weekend... ARGH), finished reading the whole series of dragon ball with my gf (had to go out and buy the last one :p) , got my mom some flowers that you can plant outside and that comes back every year (im a good boy), finished my kung fu classes, ate sushi with my electrical friends (tokyo sushi, new place, on ste-catherine near concordia, great place!), excited for dragon boat in a week and of course the videos of the week!!!!!

Damn good song :P

Best cello song ever... never liked yo-yo ma till I heard this song!

"I'm not a pokemon! I'm Chaotzu! Chaotzu!"

And I bet you've never heard this song before! (and that's another good thing about youtube... instant music playlists :P)

- Lionsword

First Week of Summer Vacation

2009-05-01T22:45:00.005-04:00

Well, score for my real one and only week of summer vacation!

First things first, I purchased the hybrid bike that I've been wanting since last summer! It's pretty sweet, 700c thin wheels, aluminum frame, front and seat suspension, great acceleration. It's pretty much a standard hybrid, but it still outclasses my 10 year old mountain bike any day :p. Too be honest, I have yet to ride with it on far distances... it rained the other day, and the other other day I had to go to downtown Montreal for some business... And yea, just had to take a shot of it in the sunset. Last thing to do is to find a perfect name. My old bike I baptized it Reg after my friend, and she called her bike Andy. Yea, pretty lame, but that was a long time ago... Either I keep the old name, because it kind of grew on me, or find a new one. Got a suggestion for Mr. Bacon which has something to it :p. Anyways, I will meditate on this.

Besides my bike, I learned the alphabet and the 10 digits in Morse code. I also learned to tie a bowline, an 8 knot and a 'knitters' knot which is the name my gf came up with. Why did I learn this? Bah, I was bored i guess... and now a joke!

.-- .... .- - -.. .. -.. - .... . ... . .-. --. . -. - ... .- -.-- - --- .... .. ... -- . -. ?
.. .--- .- -. - .-- .- -. - - --- ... - .- -. -.. .... . .-. . .- -. -.. .-.. --- --- -.- .- - -- -.-- .--. .-. .. ...- .- - . ... !

Yea, was practicing while my gf was trying to sleep lol. My skills are primitive because you can learn whole words instead of spelling them all out. (.-.. --- .-..)

Today I went to my old cegep's Swing Dance Party! There was like 14 performances (dance, song, random) but they were all mediocre besides the swing dance performances, of course :P. I'm terribly happy and proud to see the club me and a good friend of mine started back in 2006 still living strong. I think it might be the last year for the club though since there probably won't be anyone to take the reigns after our successor moves on to university. But in any case, the MSDC (marianpolis swing dance club) went out in a bang. Four solid original funny routines that just blew my mind away! I'm uploading them on youtube as I type, so I'll put them up on my next post.

Looking back, starting the club and meeting new people was definitely worth all the troubles. The thing I regret the most is being a lazy ass co-exec... i dunno if i ever said sorry to you amz... but anyways, I will never forget MSDC and the people that made it just that great.

Besides my new bike and swing, I started my Summer Research at McGill. I've already learned quite a lot on memristors (the newly discovered fourth fundamental circuit element, to be joining the resistor capacitor inductor trio. application of the memristor? think turning your computer instantaneously for one). I finally know what I'll be doing for the project (yes, finally lol) and that would be spending a full month documenting and learning everything possible about these memristors. After that would be to attempt to actually build a physical memristor. After that, do some valid critical tests on the functionality and distinct properties of the device... and so on... I simply can't wait. And it would seem I'll be working pretty close to two friends who are on a similar project.

Besides all of that... met up with some of my high school friends and had a long night chat with them :p.

Anyways, planning on having a great weekend, so we'll see if it comes out to be so!

- Lionsword

Summer List of Things To Do 2009

2009-04-28T20:32:00.007-04:00

So yea, schools finally over! And here I am, doing my very late spring cleaning. I got like a full garbage bag of junk to throw out. But yea, I also did the 'cleaning' of my computer... put stuff in order and deleted useless junk... And while I was doing that, I found my old summer list of things to do! And I have to say, it was quite useful because I got to actually make the mural and the time capsule I always wanted, which by the way needs to be opened this summer after 3 years! A few things I failed though...

Anyways, here's my new list for 2009. Below you can find my old lists, fully commented( Bold == fail / non-Bold == success )! And yea... I was pretty lame back then... (probably still am lol)

Summer List of Things To Do - 2009

- Travel far far away
- Learn a neat trick
- Learn something smart
- Learn something practical
- Learn something new about my close friends
- Learn something about myself
- Spend quality time with best friend
- Bike to Laval
- Purchase hybrid bike
- Get Gold in Dragon Boat
- Make a YouTube Video
- Make a YouTube series
- Take mom for walks
- Exercise with Jeannie
- Make a UPPT 09
- Read a book
- Finish Snow
- Start a new time capsule
- Spend some time with my sister
- Beat Carmen's dad at Chinese chess
- Go to the beach
- Learn to cook a meal
- Have the most epic summer love ever
- Meet new people
- Discover something new
- Help 10 people, in very specific ways
- Help clean Jeannie's room
- Improve the way my household uses energy
- Play tennis
- Learn to surf
- Learn the different types of fine wine
- Surpass myself physically
- Watch an epic movie
- Learn to sing
- Go to the casino
- Play pool
- Finish movie script with Jeannie
- Learn sign language with someone
- Learn to take professional pictures
- Finish the dance, once and for all
- Learn to play the erhu
- Learn to play go
- Make something

Is it too ambitious? Bah, we'll see once the summer's over!

Summer List of Things to Do – 2006

- Learn Chinese (and I still can't... though I made a significant effort in the fall of 08 :p, had a note book and all)
- Learn to drive (learned with reggie!!)
- Learn piano again
- Read a minimum of one book per week (totally epic summer)
- Write a poem everyday
- Teach brother how to bike (yes yes, with the help of carmen and jess :p)
- Train physically
- Run for one hour non stop (made it to something like 38 minutes... kenny did the full hour though lol)
- Summer romance (turned out to be a 3 year and on going romance :P)
- Party
- Make a mural (still on my wall!)
- Clean room
- Make a time capsule (to be opened sometime during the summer)
- Watch a blockbuster movie
- See a shooting star
- Go cloud gazing (went cloud gazing with reg!)
- Learn a good acoustic song (back in the days when I used to play...)
- Have a ping pong tournament (this was the first of three ping pong tournaments... will need to hold a UPPT 09 soon (underground ping pong tournament).
- Have a Risk night (if i remember well, EVERYONE backstabbed me... lol)
- Go camping
- Swim training
- Solve one Ottawa math problem (ya... epic fail... wonder if I can do them now)
- Watch fireworks

Summer List of Things to Do – 2007

- See a shooting star
- Sleep
- Go biking around Montreal (YES, went with carmen all the way to the end of lachine canal, from the south shore!)
- Travel (WENT TO LA, my god what a beautiful place)
- Work (made microchips in my dad's lab... and guess what, the technique came up in my final :P my answer was super detailed!)
- Be 18 (guess that wasn't hard...)
- Read HP 7
- Go to many festivals
- See friends, especially best friend
- Take care of mom
- Make a movie (was trying to bring back the glory days... never happened... multiple failed attempts followed also lol)
- Do a Starcraft tournament (dunno what happened... it just failed lol)
- Teach Jeannie to wink (she still has trouble doing it aha)
- Teach Jeannie to whistle properly
- See Jeannie more than once a week (and now i see her daily aha)
- Finish time capsule (was supposed to bury it... screw that)
- Complete 5000 words for Snow (actually, got like 7000 words for the poem now! tried to reach 10000 words, but people wouldn't write in it anymore :(. Once it reaches 10000, I'll send the final version back to everyone who wrote in it. Some good stuff in there actually!)
- Write massive anthology poetry (don't know what this is...)
- Meet many cool new people (WHO?... no idea aha... guess not cool enough! lol joke)
- Practice guitar
- Drink (my alcohol tolerance is pretty lame...)
- Buy lottery ticket (and I win... another lottery ticket... aha)
- Cloud gazing
- Clubbing (first time was at... 737... nice view)
- Finish gift for Jess (damn... I don't even remember what it was supposed to be... only know it was highly unique and original...)
- Give Felicia CD Got a cd for her bday... only gave it to her this year aha
- Remove dust off computer
- Have manly barbecue (and they were manly !)
- Run 1 hour non stop (yet again... fail)
- Work out (sets)
- Do cracker thing with Carmen (some crazy idea of carmen's... but she's a wuss)
- Make dance with Carmen (sigh... its too hard for real lol)
- Take Jeannie biking
- Paint room (bah, my room's just fine)
- Refresh personal time capsule (wat does this mean...?)
- Learn about future job possibilities
- Learn about future university possibilities
- Watch all fireworks (as in every single firework display throughout the summer!)
- Help the world in any way (wonder what I did)
- Plant a tree (damn... this one wasn't hard!)
- Learn a Michael Jackson move (I can't dance anymore...)
- Observe people psychologically (umm... waaaht?)
- Do Dragon Boat (I LOVE DRAGON BOAT)
- Explore (guess that's what biking was for)
- Go to the library (too boring i guess)
- Hold Jeannie as often as possible (cheesy... :p)
- Learn 1 piano song
- Go play sports with Levan (too bad...)
- See Xiao at least once before school (the guy grew on me during cegep lol)
- Have mega birthday party with Amanda (oh it was mega... barbecue, beach, resto, pool, all in one day)
- Get information about Chinese school applications (AHA was still trying to learn chinese...)
- Finish a video game
- Rest
- Summer Love (yea yea... all year round love lol)
- Go to my second prom (:D)
- See Steph if she comes to Canada (she hasn't spoken to me for ever... and i just found out she wrote a terribly similar poem to my A Summer's Lament)
- Hang out at park and drive with Regina (we grew apart...)
- Have a philosophical conversation with JP (xD now that's random)
- Read (okay... this list is getting long...)
- Learn (learned what?)
- Be better as a person (did I really?)
- Keep motivation for the small things (ah yes, the summer i started to say 'if you can't do the small things, how are you going to do the big things in life?!?' I was referring to recycling water bottles)
- Use less water (hmm, how did i keep track of this?)
- Use less electricity
- Drive least possible
- Use less AC (getting green aren't I)
- Get sunglasses
- Make lemonade for Jeannie (XD, yea, she bugged me about that)
- Answer my mom on first call
- Hang out with brother more often

I don't have a Summer List of Things To Do - 2008 :(...

- Lionsword

PRACTICALLY SUMMER & Videos of End of Semester

2009-04-23T15:46:00.005-04:00

Well, summers almost here!

Five of my six classes are officially done. All that's left is this terribly random materials engineering course where we learn useless stuff like Miller Indices and why a metal table is preferable over a wood table and yada yada yada... Of course, it doesn't help that the teacher's been absent for the past 3 weeks... and that I haven't been going to class forever because of my design/robot class. No wonder why I feel like we haven't learned anything.

My predictions from the beginning of the semester are pretty much dead on, a lot harder than the first semester, but still doable to get all the A's. Met a lot of new people and got closer to the people I knew from cegep.

Anyways, I'm off to relax! Here's some great vids I found! Enjoy!

First video needs no introduction. Just say Susan Boyle and you get the idea. 41 million views in less than 2 weeks... My gf tears up when she watches it! And yea, its incredibly motivating to see someone rise up against all odds! Too bad it had to happen so late in her life. Do also check out her rendition of Cry Me A River for some charity album from 1999, terribly passionate.

Actually, the embedded option has been disabled for the exact video I want... so here's the song.

Second video is my study music for the past two finals. Beautiful classical piano by Debussy, Clair de Lune, and the video is visually mesmerizing. I'd love to learn to play this song one day.

The next video is the first concert by the youtube symphony orchestra at Carnegie Hall. It's pretty long, but definitely worth watching :p. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, go straight to the second video, Act Two at 16:00 minutes. The asian pianist is fantastic! There's also a pretty scary Cage piece in the second act... with a impro singer doing some scary things... lol.

And last video is from my recent obsession, BoA. I like her new mv. Dunno why, but its visually captivating. Which is why I just had to do a detailed comment about it!

0:11 Great hip action!
0:19 That zoom up somehow just works beautifully!
0:38 The dance seems so asian like
1:15 Man... that's even more asian lol
1:29 Cool chair stuff, but you can barely see anything... I mean what's going on?!?
1:42 Ooh chair to hat... lol
1:45 OMG MJ
1:54 YES I SEE MJ IN THIS
2:06 Chipmunk!
2:13 Now that's hot!
2:15 Even hotter!
2:28 Now that's an ugly shot... no matter how wet
2:29 They seem awkward now... the water ruins the whole thing
2:34 Oooh she seems so happy in slow mo... yea... toooo slow
2:36 Okay, the most awkward move in the whole clip, random rough kick to the water lol
2:44 MJ DOES THIS

- Lionswatch

Feeling Relax & Videos of the Day

2009-04-11T10:19:00.004-04:00

Hey guys... I've been currently in a state of recovery from all the hard work the past few days, so I spent a bunch of my time just watching YouTube videos, reading and playing video games. But the sun's out and finals will be over soon... and then I'm off biking! I usually go biking with the_poopoo,and our next objective is to go from the south shore all the way to laval across the island of montreal. Hope that works out.

Anyways, I just wanted to share a few vids I found recently that are pretty cool.

I found the following video from poptub (a youtube video series that talks about youtube videos!) and it's damn amazing. You've probably already seen the BBC nature series Earth (and if you haven't... omg go watch it, it's breathtaking!) and the video is exactly like that.

This second video I also found via poptub. From the director of Step Up 2, an epic trailer for an online dance revolution LXD (i just love the way its filmed... the camera angles, the lighting, the emotions!).

Another dance video, has some pretty interesting ideas :p and like 3 references to MJ so yea baby:

The next two videos are from my childhood... and I swear these videos have really made a big impression on me. First one is from my old favourite tv show Bill Nye the Science Guy!!! (Remember that one :p???) And the second one is from my all time favourite comedy movie ever, Ace Ventura.

-Lionswatch

Finally, ITS OVER!

2009-04-10T17:09:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm finally done with my design class! I still can't believe that I won't have to work on that robot anymore... So the results are in, and my team won first place! In the first round, we managed to pick up a ball and successfully dropped in the the drop off zone. In the second round, we made our robot faster and it managed to pick up two balls! And in the final round, there was no time limit, so we changed our code to adapt. But we accidentally switched an 'and' statement with an 'or' statement... and that made our robot pick up balls more than it was capable of storing lol. Unfortunately, there was only another team that successfully picked up and dropped a ball...

Anyways, here's the videos for the first and second round.

After the competition, a bunch of people from the class got together and decided to have some fun. We built a wall using all the batteries that we used over the semester and then we rammed it with our robots! The reactions of the people are just hilarious!

An update and the videos of the month

2009-03-21T17:20:00.007-04:00

Wow, been an eternity since I've posted anything...

So update: my robot for my design class is coming along, got over 1000 lines of code so far. I still have to finish reading Twilight... I stopped after a while because it got just so repetitive... Today is my bro's bday... and I'm still thinking of what to get him... I've been play Rome Total War for PC! Love it! Do check it out when you have the time. I've submitted all my forms for my NSERC USRA summer research at McGill, so that's a plus! Summer is coming, and with that, an updated wish list: hybrid bike, iTouch, new laptop... And I got a real urge to just go biking as far as I can! I might be going to Florida during the summer. My gf got accepted for the admission test for pharmacy at UDM! (She was also accepted for other programs at another distant university). Um, I also experienced DOTA thx to a good friend of mine... and yea, and i admit, its fun... and yada yada yada...

Here are my videos of the month:

LOVE this song! Love the voice! Love the camera work! By far, one of youtube's best hidden secrets:

The next video is some crazy dude doing some crazy montage / music. My bro showed me this one:

I've listened to some of her videos (communitychannel), and yea, they're not bad. Didn't really have a favorite, so I'll just post one at random, and you can go through her other vids. She's definitely one of the better vloggers out there:

Another vlogger is mychonny... he's uh special i guess... not as good as kevjumba, but he's still funny. Check him out:

And to celebrate MJ's 50 comeback concerts in London this summer, I dug up an old favorite that I found a while back. There are not alot of people who know of this video. I posted the 2nd part only, its the more exciting one. You can go ahead and watch the first one too. So yea... this video makes me move :p!

- Lionswatch

Geometry and Physics - Online Video Games

2009-02-22T14:17:00.007-05:00

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything. School has been a real killer... I don't think I have ever worked so hard at school in my life... and I'm loving it!

I wanted to share with you guys a few online video games I've found in the past three weeks.

The first one is crayon physics deluxe. Think drawing with those waxed crayolas and the law of gravity. Basically, in the game you get to draw anything you want and watch it transform into real objects that interact with each other on the 2D paper. The objective is to get the ball to the stars by whatever means possible. I simply love this game! My 'trademark' design was this complicated pulley system that lifted the ball to whichever height. But yea, the only problem with the game is that you need to pay 20 bucks AND it's kind of short and easy... But it's still fun the first time :P if you want to just mess around with your imagination, then go try crayon physics deluxe :P.

crayonphysics.com

An alternative to crayon physics deluxe is fantastic contraption. My friend was showing this to me in the McGill lab right before our midterm, and I have to say, it's wildly fun. Much more difficult than crayon physics yet just as simple to get. The goal of the game is to get the designated object (circle, rectangle, wtv) from one point on the screen to the other designated point. Although you can't build anything, you can use different objects at your disposal like rotating wheels and rods. Moreover, the designs or the so-called contraptions can be way more complicated. Check it out :p!

fantasticcontraption.com

A third game I wanted to share with you guys is actually a subset of games, or clones of the real microsoft game. The real game is called geometry wars, an old school arcade game where you control a little spaceship, fly around in a rectangular grid shooting down everything that moves. What's attractive about the game is that the more you advance in the game, there are more things that they throw at you. The game can become quite chaotic and it's up to you to keep track of everything in every direction with both your eyes and both your hands. And the cool thing about it is that the grid that you play over warps due to your extreme firepower or the black holes that try to suck you in... mindboggling! The problem with the game is that you'll need to pay 5 bucks for the game... so that's why there are other versions of the original, the so-called clones. There are three of them that I found pretty decent, Grid Wars, Echoes and Grid Assault. Have fun!

Link to the Clones

And here are some other lame games I found... desktop tower defense, bubble spinner and the world's hardest game! Pretty much self explanatory.

Desktop Tower Defense
Bubble Spinner
The World's Hardest Game

- Lionsplay

Lack of Sleep, but Intership, but Rage, but xkcd

2009-01-30T22:50:00.007-05:00

Well, I predicted wrong about this semester at University... a hell of a lot more work than I would have thought...

Besides having 6 classes, all my time has been concentrated in this one class, Design Principle and Methods. Basically, the course is about using the lego MindStorm Kit to build a robot and you have to program it to do several tasks, for example, figuring out where it's positioned, keep track of its movement, move around obstacles, pick up balls, communicate with another bot... Okay, sounds simple enough... but I just spend roughly 12 hours this week figuring out just how to keep track of its position and orientation... It's to the point where I think about it over breakfast and in my dreams and averaging out to 6 hours of sleep per night.

But besides it being life consuming, I love this course! I get to actually build something from scratch and really think about the different aspects of the problem and find solutions on my own. And not only that, but I've met a bunch of new people already! We've been set into a random team of 6... and pretty much all the teams are always in the lab, so I get to mingle.

O, and another topic, I've been granted the opportunity to do some research on memristors at McGill during the summer! So yea, going to be doing my first internship :p! I'm totally excited! And I'm working with a young chinese professor that doesn't have much knowledge on memristors (they're actually quite new so... yea, its the fourth fundamental circuit element besides the ones you already know, resistor, capacitor and inductor). Can't wait!

And yea... earlier today... I had a sudden feeling of anger towards stupidity in life (not the 'i'm not good at school' stupid, but the really retarted disrespectful pointless stupid...). I hate people who can't drive on the road... someone was literaly going at 100 in a 70 and nearly crashed into me from the back... and others that just don't signal when trying to cut me off... stupid people... and then you have this group of guys in my class that keeps on talking to each other super loudly when the teacher can barely make a sound... and when I had the misfortune to sit next to one of them, he wouldn't stop moving and talking and looking in all directions and bumping into me with his arm and legs...

Anyways, enough of me talking about me. Here's a comic that i read in cegep, xkcd. If you love nerdy physics jokes, DO READ IT! I was surprised how many people didn't know of it, considering its been around for a while... so yea, I recommend to read through the whole thing :p. Here's a sample:

Link to xkcd

- Lionsword

Simply Happy

2009-01-25T22:22:00.001-05:00

October 4 2007

Quite simply I am happy (well) simply happy
I am not mellow (dear no) nor am I snappy
Nope, I am just happy to be happy you see
Because why be solemn; I hope you agree

I am ecstatically emotionally jubilant
No, I haven’t really triumphed over any ascent
Nor have I spent my time (all the time) in the present
But I can say (at least I think I can) that I am content

I have happiness; (ah) there’s a thought
Yes, why always ‘am’ and not “have”, I ought
Ask myself this; bah, now I am in distraught
I ought to remain “‘am’” then have (maybe) all for naught

O my, do my happy make you glad
Or do my happy make you sad
Tell me so (!) I do not want you to be mad
I am a good person (I believe); I don’t want to be bad

But really, and simply, I am happy
Not because I have worries I avoid smoothly
Nor because I am great and so decidedly free
Nope, I am happy because I choose so (wee)

- Lionsglory

It's good to be LOST again

2009-01-18T14:42:00.005-05:00

LOST IS BACK for its 5th season this coming Wednesday, January 21st, and I just can't wait!

I remember the first episode of LOST that I watched. It was a recap of season 1 and a bit of season 2, and it was this crazy fast resume of all that had happened during the show so far. It got me hypnotized and eager to find out what was coming. And since then, I've faithfully watched LOST every week, biting my shirt in suspense and happily awaiting new developments.

Even though the show has been a hit sensation in North America and overseas, I'm sad to say that I don't know many people among my friends who do watch it... So basically, the story goes as so: Oceanic Flight 815 crashes somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and miraculously a bunch of people survived the incident and ended up on a mysterious island. Among the survivors are Jack, the doctor who becomes the leader of the group, Locke, the crippled who upon arrival on the island was healed, Sawyer, the con man, Kate, the runaway convict, and many many more... The survivors find out that they are not alone on the island... roaming around with them are polar bears, some weird smoke monster and the Others. The Others are the initial inhabitants of the island and they are testing the islands special properties. A war eventually occurs between the Others and the survivors and blah blah ... the survivors try to get off the island... something to do with time travel and its constants and a secret code that saves the world every 108 minutes and a supersonic defensive wall and hearing creepy unknown voices and a creepy invisible dude and lots of bullets and seeing dead people and bigger unknown evil powers and some romance and love triangles and family feuds and mind games... yea its a somewhat complicated story, but I have just the thing to fix that!

Here's a super quick fast paced recap of Season 1 to 3 that I simply love. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any good recaps for Season 4 yet... Anyways, enjoy!

And here's another video, just for fun :p. A little parody I found earlier today. Hilarious!

- Lionswatch

Aggressive Expansion

2009-01-13T22:03:00.006-05:00

I stumbled upon my old poems today, and I realized that the last time I did write something was half a year ago... I wanted to share with you guys the last poem I wrote back in the summer of 08. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking when I was writing it though...

Before you do read my poem (and if you do), I have to say something that I've come to realize during my poetry days. A lot of people tell me that they can't analyze poems, or can't understand poems... they think it's something else beyond anything they've seen... when they "read" a poem, their minds becomes a blank and nothing goes in, and more so, their imagination just stops working. I guess school did that, putting poetry in a somewhat bad light... or it could just be that they simply don't want to read it and use the "I won't understand" card as an excuse...

So what I've been doing with my new (now old) wave of poems is that I always ask the people who read them what they think about them. I ask them what's their take on it. How do you see it? What did you think it means? What did you not like about it? And I ask this always with the reassurance that there are no wrong answers... because everyone is afraid of getting it wrong. They rather not try then get it wrong, right?

Anyways, here's one of my poems I decided to share with you guys. I took the words of the Joker for the title of the poem. Anyways, enjoy it or not, just don't read it without reading.

Aggressive Expansion

There is an aggressive expansion at my doorstep
All that I have come to believe is nothing but the happy lie
I have become the ever so all and all misstep
And now I am filled with a burning desire, I cannot deny

Time and time again, dirt has been thrown my way
I’ve been inappropriately spoiled with vile language
And now, pushed to my limit, I am ready to tear down today
All that has gone wrong here in this amalgam of fear and rage

This aggressive expansion has cornered me into a desperate standstill
And now, it has made me into the one thing it fears most
The one enemy it cannot dare to face or fulfill
I have become shadow; I smile like a ghost

This belligerence is but a five finger exercise, I am the full symphony
The eyes of the world are wide open; time is suspended in the rain
And all heartbeats have stopped, listening for the first notes of my decree
The line is drawn in the ashes; it ends here and I deliver my pain

- Lionsglory

My Cousin a Movie Director: "You, Only Better"

2009-01-11T20:41:00.007-05:00

Okay, so show's I've got a lot to write huh... I've got something really important to talk about... so open your eyes write now! (or at least, try your best if your asian, like me...)

My cousin, April, from Los Angeles is, guess what, a movie director. For those that know me, this might come to a shock to find out that I do have two cousins in L.A. that are not in the science/engineering field (like everyone else in my family). I haven't really talked to her much over the years, the distance between Mtl and L.A. does that, but I got to talk to her through facebook a few days ago.

I'm about to get sidetracked here because of facebook... I used to say that I would not use facebook because I didn't want to waste my time, always saying "I have a life!"... But I decided anyways to just try it out, because I'm a guy that likes to try things right? Turns out I got into contact with my other cousin in L.A. with whom I have also not spoken to in years. And because of that, got a trip planned to L.A. with the whole family during the summer of 07. From that time on, I trusted facebook with finding old relationships with past friends and whatnot!

Anyways, back to the main subject... so I was talking to April and she told me that she was finishing up her first featured length movie titled "You, Only Better"! I was totally surprised and had no idea she was working on one at all! In short, its about "five up-and-coming life coaches (who) attend the 2008 Global Coaching Federation Conference and Summit where they are vying for the coveted Emerging Visionary Life Coach of the Year Award". More info here: You, Only Better . I guess the reason why all of this affects me so much... is that I've also dreamed of being a movie director. I mean, I love to watch all kind of movies and analyze them (except maybe horror movies... wtv). And I've even done some minor film projects with friends for fun.

So here's the full trailer. I hope I get to see it one day. And I do hope it works out for my cousin! Good luck!

-Lionsword

What? Twilight? Me? Definitely!

2009-01-11T20:14:00.009-05:00

I've started reading Twilight.

Wait what? I'm reading Twilight? Isn't it the supreme little girly book? Well yes... they say that 13 year old girls and their something 30 year old mothers only read the series... But I highly doubt that only girls read this book. I mean, get this, little teenage boys have a relatively good read and a way of figuring out how girls think! I mean, that's the key we've been looking for no? Not only that, but the book seems to portray the high school girl like guy, guy like girl, too shy to do anything all awkwardness and cheesy romance stuff pretty well! So who wouldn't want to read this and feel like a small high school girl?

Okay honestly, I still haven't finished the first book yet... but my gf blew open the door to her imagination and has been letting swarms of pages flowing in... Good gift on my part :p. For me, so far, it seems pretty good! And I don't see why a few millions readers would get it wrong anyways. Apparently, the series gets pretty weak in the second book... but I'll tell you if it does. Anyways... what I really wanted to say is that I am not ashamed to tell everyone that I am reading Twilight. I loved the movie! (And I consider myself a pretty damn good movie critic... maybe I'll give you guys my insights on Quantum of Solace and Dark Knight one day... and not only recent movies but classics too, like Two For the Road and Cinema Paradiso!) The girl, I found, was cute and did her role pretty well. The dude was really well done! The plot is pretty thin, but that's not really the point of the whole thing is it? It's just having the impossible situation of a mortal and a vampire falling in love that's so fascinating! And in these days where vampire fanatics have been on the rise, why shouldn't this catch on? Anyways, I'll just shut it and read the book...

On a more negative note, a few of my friends did read it... and they really liked it, finished all four books, but can't stand the main character... apparently she's too normal and uninteresting and way too girly... And everyone criticizes Stephenie Meyer's writing of being too simple and underdevelopped... Words out that Meyer is the new J.K. Rowling... I highly doubt this... but I'll say more about this when I'm actually done reading the book... (by the way, I love HP... read the books at least 3 times each... and a few more than that...)

- Lionread

Back to University & Addicted to Guitar Hero

2009-01-06T20:08:00.010-05:00

So my first week at McGill seem to have gone very well... So far, it seems like I will not be taking any notes for 5 of my courses (only need to take some for advanced calculus, obviously)! I barely have any complaints about any of my teachers... just that the one that seems most competent seems incredibly tough... and I have him twice for two hard courses... damn... And guess who I have as professor for my mining engineering course!?! A genuine Asian hippy! He dresses with tight tucked in colorful shirts with a big shiny belt and ring. He's got the wide and big glasses with the thick frames and he's got the thick lush hair... But what's best about this guy is his accent... something I would call a mix of British and the hippy accent. Okay, if that didn't help enough... just think of an Asian Austin Powers that says during class "If you think you're beating the system, then you're being very naughty..." and while demonstrating with a box full of ping pong balls with some of them falling out "I need to pick up my balls"... Ah yes, worth staying till 6 pm just to see him!

Okay, besides Mr. Powers over here, I've met a few guys over a match of bluff or cheat or wtv you may call it and another guy who's a friend of a friend. Hopefully, I'll meet more people this semester than last semester... Reason why I didn't meet a lot of new people last semester? Partly due to the fact that I knew a lot of people from my cegep that went into my program... probably also due to my laziness... anyways... I predict it's going to be a great session once more (but probably a lot more work this time)

Okay, beyond university, I've been spending a lot of time playing my guitar hero and spore. I'm totally addicted to spore, a pc game created by the same people of sims... Basically, in the game, you start off with a single cell in the ocean and you evolve by eating other creatures or leftovers... and then you evolve to a land creature where you can interact with other species... and then you evolve even more to a tribal species and even more to a civilized species with cities and cars and airplanes... and finally you blast off into space to conquer other star systems... What's most interesting about the game is that all saved files correspond to a planet in the one same galaxy, so you can potentially find your brother's empire somewhere and create alliances... or just destroy his colonies! What you can't do is destroy his whole empire to try to delete his file... Want a game to play? Get spore now! (Even my gf plays!)

Guitar hero is addictive too... I love it when you hit a solo, tilt your guitar to get star power, fall to your knee and play like a maniac! Okay, guitar hero is really about having fun and just going all out when playing the songs! I jump around and yell out and do the peace sign quite a lot! Many people concentrate a bit too hard on hitting the notes and play without any enthusiasm or energy, which is just fine at the beginning, but when you bypass the stage of learning to play, it's time to let your soul come out and become the guitar hero that you are! Does guitar hero teach you anything about real guitars? Not really... but it does make you think about the different parts of popular rock songs, and it's really fun and interactive. Next thing on my to do list, get a microphone and a drum set for the game!

- Liongame

Videos of the Month (Dec)

2009-01-01T22:34:00.006-05:00

During my exam period, I somehow had a lot of free time for myself. So I'd spend my time checking out random videos on youtube... And I have to say, I found quite a lot. So here's my catch of the month.

First video I want to share with you guys is from ronaldjenkees, a really special dude who just wants to have fun while showing us his crazy phenomenal talent with the keyboard. Okay, so when I first watched this video, I was like, wow... this guy is crazy! His beat just got stuck in my head. I loved it so much that I listened to it at least a few dozen times.

I want to go a little off topic here to talk about a habit of mine, and that is listening to one song on repeat for a few hours during my studies for a final exam... I remember the first time I did this was for my history class in secondary 2 (grade 8). I listened to Michael Jackson's Whatever Happens on my old CD player for a whole night. Any reason for this habit? Not really... I guess it kind of makes me focus... Anyways, that's what I did for one of my finals this semester. So, here's the video, and please do enjoy it, and his other works, because they really are good!

Another video I found was a parody of the song 'American Boy' by Estelle which is titled 'First Asian Boy', performed by TimothyDeLaGhetto2. Asian dude singing super funny lyrics with a white girl with him... something I can relate too! (I'm asian and my gf is half portuguese half quebecoise if you were interested in knowing). But yea... I can't sing for life, but my gf thinks I could if I made the effort. Don't know, maybe she's right. Anyways, follow the lyrics while watching the video. I just love this video!

And last video I wanted to share with you guys is another parody/spoof of the song 'Whatever I Like'. The spoof song is sung by Alphacat (who has appeared in the first ever YouTube Live show). I found this video through BarelyPolitical (I got a lot to say about this site, but I'll put that in my next post...) and I simply got hooked onto it. I was again in my exam period and every time I took a break from studying, I just had to put this song up! I listened to it so much that I had the song stuck in my head during the final exam! And I even learned the little dance that he does at 3:17...

Anyways, hope you all enjoyed the videos! There are other great videos, but I put the three that I thought were my favourites.

-Lionswatch

Trip to Boston

2008-12-31T11:04:00.009-05:00

Okay, I got so much on my mind right now, but I got to keep this post as single subject as possible :p (the rest of my ideas will follow up as soon as possible...)

So I went on a trip to Boston with my girlfriend and two close friends and I got to say something to all those people who said that there is nothing to see in Boston, because seriously, we did not have enough time to see everything we wanted to see. And not only that, we discovered so many other stuff that we could have potentially visited, but ran out of time in the end!

Boston is a great historical city with a bunch of great museums worth seeing: the museum of fine arts, the museum of science, (didn't get time to see the museum of natural history)... Boston has so many schools and universities that I could have sworn I could have felt the positive brain waves when walking on the streets (as opposed to New York when I visited last winter... which is probably due to the super sized advertisements and entertainment and food and pretty much everything else that was super sized).

We visited Harvard University, oldest in North America, and we got to touch the shiny shoe of the statue of John Harvard! Words out that if we go and touch his shoe, our grades go up! Superstitious a bit? Dunno, but it might just work! The Harvard campus is pretty good looking! It's separated by a few big streets at a few points, but a good portion of it is within its own walking ground. The buildings themselves are in good shape, with a real old style vibe which I just love! And a lot of trees and vegetation which are clearly taken care of.

My favourite attraction when I went to Boston had to be the New England Aquarium, just because I have never been to an Aquarium before. I saw these really kick ass sea horses, probably the weirdest thing I saw that day. There were swarms of exotic fishes and sea turtles. And a 4-5 story central cylinder tank with rays, sharks, blowfish, and this yellow eel/fish/blob. I think we just stood by the window watching fish after fish passing by for a good 45 mins... it was truly magical for me :D.

Other interesting things we saw at Boston? Prudential's SkyWalk, a 360 view of Boston on the 50th floor of the Prudential Building. Simply gorgeous. What else can I say? We also ate at the Union Oyster House, the oldest restaurant in North America. Again, simply gorgeous. Their ChinaTown is quite small, with nothing interesting to see... barely any good shops to look into... Took a stroll in the Boston Common, there smaller version of Central Park. And of course, Swing City, Boston's swing club. Live band, great vibe, great people (although we were clearly the youngest over there).

And last thing I wanted to talk about was our trip to Salem, about 45 mins north of Boston by train. Salem is the village known for its witch hunt (real witch hunt, yes). Salem is like based on tourists coming to see stuff about witches. There are so many 'witch' shops, it's like, you can buy real wicca garments and brooms and herbs and stuff. Really fascinating!

Anyways, that was my trip to Boston with friends. My long term plan is to travel basically everywhere, one step at a time... hope it works out :D!

- Lionsglory

University and KevJumba

2008-12-20T13:10:00.005-05:00

EXAMS ARE DONE! And I'm hitting the grades I wanted, so I'm good :D. My first semester at McGill University was just as I expected... from the amount of workload to the amount of effort needed... from the people I expected to meet and see at McGill to the words of wisdom my dad gave me every single day...

"Do all the practice finals! When I was student, I was top student, so you can be one too! I went to talk to teacher to get extra points all the time! Show your face to your teachers so that when he grades you, he'll remember you and give you more points! Ask questions, don't be shy! People who cut their hair become the smart one!..." Whaaat to the last one?!?

Man, I love university and I hope my second semester will be just as great!

Anyways, I wanted to share with you guys something I've been watching for the past few days. If you haven't heard of KevJumba yet, start packing and hop onto the bandwagon... cz this guy is a genius! KevJumba is this asian YouTube comedian who satirically rants on just about everything... from girls and m&m's to college, from his dad to learning to drive a stick shift...

This guy is like the 6th most subscribed channel ever on YouTube and he's even been invited to YouTube Live. And what impresses me the most about this kid is that he even got Jessica Alba to respond to his stare challenge. I mean wow... So if you still don't think this guys is great, check out his videos on his channel:

KevJumba

Peace out

- Lionswatch

"It's a Size 10!"

2008-12-16T09:40:00.005-05:00

I was reading the Gazette (Montreal's daily newspaper) yesterday morning and I read an article that said that Bush was attacked... by a shoe! Apparently, a journalist wasn't too happy with the war in Iraq and just couldn't resist taking off his shoes and throwing them at the president's head! The incident occurred while Bush was visiting Iraq in an attempt to show that security has indeed increased... but not from flying shoes apparently! Bush's reply to all of this? "It's a size 10!" XD

- Lionswatch

Ailee

2008-12-15T10:59:00.006-05:00

Okay, so I was in my post-ComputerFinal time (which was also the end of all of my finals at McGill University, excluding the easy ones... math and math...), and I decided to watch YouTube videos for a few hours. I ended up watching the 10 part series of "Funny, Stupid and Banned commercials". I recommend watching them, and any other funny Asian commercials :P. Some of them were pretty funny, a few completely stupid however... and even one was racist (at the beginning of part 8 or 9...)...

Anyways, what I wanted to talk about was this video of Ailee, a korean amateur singer turned semi-internet celeb thx to YouTube and myspace. I thought her voice was pretty good and she had a star quality in her expressions which I find quite good compared to other amateur singers on YouTube. Her myspace songs are of better quality and I simply love her rendition of "Stand Up For Love" from Destiny's Child. Hope you enjoy listening as much as I did!

Ailee's myspace

- Lionswatch

So You Think You Can Dance Canada

2008-12-14T14:32:00.006-05:00

So I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance Canada since the beginning of the season, and I got to say, I am impressed with the number of great dancers this country has to offer.

First of all, props to Nico from Montreal who took the title of Canada's Favourite Dancer! He was my favourite since the beginning and I'm super glad he won!

So what was my bet for top 4 since the beginning of top 20? Nico, Arassay, Vincent, Allie... I was half right and half disappointed. (Nico, Allie, Miles and Natalli are top 4).

First of all, Arassay was booted off the show way to early. She had the attitude, the looks, the moves... and powerhouse performances week after week. And I'm truly sad not to have seen her perform during the top 4 show. Reasons why she got voted off? Probably because Canada thought she was safe and that other people would vote for her.

And for Vincent, well, I was split between choosing him and Miles for top 4. Vincent had better technique but a lack of emotions and theater quality while Miles had great tricks up his sleeves, but was weak on some of the routines (contemporary for example). Canada chose Miles, and I guess I have no problem with that!

The show itself was actually really good, and a lot better than I had expected, not like Canadian Idol which is just boring with no real talent (except maybe Eva Avila). It had a more professional feel to it and a better host! I find Leah Miller great, although she has her flaws. She lacks the ability of saying something interesting or important. She always rambles off about wanting to share the Mercedes Benz with her and she's always shoving the microphone into the dancers' faces, which I find quite annoying.

The judges are okay too. Luther has really nothing to say, but that's okay because his routines kick ass. The problem I have with the judges is that they pick their favorites and neglect other dancers or even pick on some of them. Like Jean-Marc who cried and begged Canada to vote for Natalli (who ended up in top 4 by the way). I find this very unfair...

And lastly, the finale result show could have been much better. With the lack of new routines and a swarm of half meaningless words to the dancers, I was slowly falling to sleep...

My favourite routine? Arassay and Nico's dark angel contemporary routine!

Anyways, overall, a great and fun show with a wide variety of styles and dancers... I'm definitely going to be watching next season!

Enjoy the videos :P

Top 18 - Arassay and Nico
Top 14 - Kaitlyn and Izaak
Top 12 - Lisa and Vincent
Top 10 - Arassay and Vincent
Top 8 - Natalli and Nico

- Liondance

Welcome to the Lion's Realm

2008-12-12T22:41:00.007-05:00

Hello World!

So here I am, sitting on my all but ordinary rotating chair (with arm rests i might add), pondering on what I should be doing this holiday, and what came to mind was, yes... you guessed it... blogging! I've had the habit of throwing myself into unknown (sometimes difficult) situations, trying just about everything that comes to mind (the right mind that is).

Call it a passion if you will.

Like figuring out photoshop, or randomly wanting to snowboard... or even Swing dancing at the same time as managing a Dragon Boat team while doing Calculus and logic problems in my head... It's all fun and games and it's a way of pushing myself beyond my limits. So here I am, writing this blog where posts of randomness and emotions and recommendations for great sites will find its place.

Withouth further ado, I hope you'll enjoy whatever finds its way onto this blog. I welcome you to the Lion's Realm.

Andy

(aka Lionsword)