Random Thoughts

I have something of a set ritual every day when I wake up. I try and dodge the alarm clocks. I have an old little analogue alarm clock I set for around 6am. I also have the alarm on the blackberry set to (depending on how I feel the night before) about the same time. I usually don't hear the regular clock for whatever reason. Anyway, one favourite technique of avoiding the alarm is to wake up, pick up the blackberry and head back to bed. I keep the thing deliberately away from arm's reach so that I have to get up to turn it off. Usually, it ends up with me taking the phone back to bed with me and leaving it by my head so I can hit snooze again in 10 minutes. Sometimes, I read the already queued up emails (being on the West Coast of North America means that the Indians, Chinese and the East Coasters have already finished/started their day). I also, if I am up for it, check facebook and the BBC in that order. And so it was Friday morning last week. The headline of course, in cas...

One of the things I missed terribly while I was out of Vancouver was the lacking in my life of interesting events that I actually enjoy. Not the type where someone tries to break into the house... I mean pleasant things. I've done some interesting things in the spur of the moment... and on Sunday, my friend and I decided to drive all the way across town to get a burger. Not an ordinary burger mind you, this is one good burger. Except I didn't get one. Because I had already eaten. Anyway, to Vera's we went. As is usual with most of my friends, we talk about a few staples. I think most guys talk pretty much about the same things. Women. Cars. Sports (if we can agree on what). Money maybe. We somehow ended up on the topic of women. We pulled into a petrol station and there in the next pump was this absolutely gorgeous woman filling petrol in her car and then wiping her windows down. There was something incredibly attractive about that. It helped that she was indeed very good ...

I've been trying to set myself realistic goals for where I want to be in life and trying hard to achieve them for a while now. Bear with me, I am no granola crunching hippie or some kind of new age practitioner or something... I am just a fat guy trying to not be so fat as it were. But what if you're goals are simply unachievable? I mean, what happens if you're goal is a worthy one and your work towards it admirable... but the chance of you achieving it nigh on impossible? This week, His Holiness the Dalai Lama came to UBC and Vancouver for a conference on peace. While I am not one of those people who looks to Eastern philosophy for spiritual guidance (what with me being from the East and all), I genuinely do admire this man and his take on life. Regardless of what the official Chinese government and some others may call him, he is something of a spiritual being... someone a lot of people seem to be mesmerised by. He is no wolf in sheep's clothing as the bureaucrats in ...