Last weekend I was doing some house cleaning and I found a file folder inside a dusty box. Inside were many pictures which I drew in my past; some of them were even more than 20 years ago! I took photos of them all, kept a few of my favourites, and I threw out most of the others.
After enduring a 2 hour, early Saturday morning course at my church, I went to get my car and was ready to go home. As I walked closer in the freezing cold parking lot, I saw something very unusual on my front bumper; there was a clean spot that distinguish itself from the rest of the dirt. A look closer, and I realized that apparently someone hit my bumper, try to inspect if there was any damage, and then just drove off. Well, there you have it, my Honda Fit’s first accident. It’s ironic because the course I was attending is title “Men’s Fraternity – The Quest for Authentic Manhood”; all I can say is whoever did it must be sleeping through the course so far…
I recently finished watching “1 Litres of Tears” a Japanese drama about a 15 year old girl Aya Kito, who is just begun high school. She is smart, talented, and had a bright future ahead of her, until she’s been diagnose with a degenerative disease.
I shred many tears while watching the drama, and it’s not because I sympathize her. It is because I can relate to the suffering and pain that she is going through. Although, I haven’t been through a life threatening disease, I can understand the questions she faced: “Why has this happen to me? “, “What purpose does life have if you are suffering through it?”, “Why can I go back into the past?”, “It is impossible to accept this.” I can understand how tough it is to wake up everyday and know that the pain and suffering is still there. I can understand the agony of waiting, and knowing that worse has yet to come.
It’s not because of the sadness that made me want to continue watching the drama. I admire the inner strength which Aya has; the strength which many people would probably lack. She insists on walking until she’s physically not able to, she continues writing until she no longer can hold a pen. She goes through life knowing that something will be taken away from her everyday. However, she still lives on holding her head up even though it is very heavy. She learns to cherish the things that she still has around her, the support that is given to her, and realizing she’s not the only person to suffer. She learns to accept the pain that has become part of her life. “It doesn’t matter that you fall down, you just need to remember to pick yourself up”. It is not easy, and she had to shred many tears, but in the end I can see that she was able to find peace and enjoy her life.
When I first watch this drama, I didn’t know anything about it, I couldn’t even read the title. I just randomly picked something to watch. However, somehow it after finish watching this drama, I felt that a message has been delivered to me, and it has been delivered just at the right moment of my life…
During my trip in Japan I was really attracted to the cars people drove there; they were small but could seat a family, looked very sporty, but at the same time cute. When I saw the Honda Fit 2009, it was almost like love at first sight. I recently came an owner of the Honda Fit 2009 sport, with manual transmission. Here’s my first impression: I’m no car expert, and I won’t talk about the features it comes with; those can be found in the Honda.ca website. As well, most of my opinions are compared with the Honda Civic 2006, because it’s the only other manual car which I have driven before.
The sport edition had everything which I wanted to give it the sporty look: alloy rims, spoiler, skirts, and fog lights. The only thing missing was the tinted windows, but I resolved that the very next day. 
The dashboard looked very sleek, and didn’t look cheap when compare to other cars in its class. Unfortunately, there was no room in the instrument panel for me to put my Windows Mobile phone in (which I use for GPS navigation). The same couldn’t be said about the side door panels, which looked very plastic and cheap. The shift knob looked distasteful and felt like rubbery ball, but I can easily replace it. The seats were comfortable and was able to provide me with the lower back support I needed, and the fabric was smooth.
The clutch for the Fit was very light, and virtually gave no resistant when stepping on it. This made it harder for me find the right acceleration point when taking off from 1st gear, however made gear shifting to be less jerky. When driving, the engine was really loud, and the ride was more bumpy than the Civic, as well gear shifting wasn’t as smooth and a clicking sound could be heard with each gear shift. Of course, making comparison with the Civic was probably unfair since the Fit is a lower class car. However, I found the Fit’s handling was better, and could turn the corners more tightly. I haven’t tried doing any hard accelerations, since the car hasn’t run in yet. Yes, I know I’m old school.
During a week of vacation without traveling, I went on a shopping frenzy, and got myself a lot of new toys. The vacation is almost over, my addiction has settled, but I don’t even want to think about my credit card bill next month. Here’s all the toys I got:
Samsung 21.6" LCD Monitor
My first item was a Samsung 21.6″ Widescreen LCD Monitor from Futureshop. It was glossy black and on sale for $200, and would replace the old Samsung 15″ LCD in my evening room.
Specifications:
Dell Vostra 200 Mini Tower
To go with the monitor I got a new Vostro 200 Mini Tower desktop computer from Dell which I spotted on sale at RedFlagDeals.com. I plan to use the computer as a media center and hook it up to my TV and home theatre system. After doing a few customizations to the system the final price tag came to $359.
Specifications:
Logitech 2.0 Stereo Speaker System
The Dell computer didn’t come with any speakers. I wasn’t looking for something fancy since I already hook up the computer to my home theatre system, so I got the Logitech 2.0 Stereo Speaker System LS11 which was sale for $20 at Futureshop. As expected the sound quality wasn’t that great but at least the glossy black face matched with my Samsung monitor.
Lacie 1TB External Hard Drive
I’m one of those people that collect a lot of stuff on my computer, and previously I owned 320GB external hard drive. However, I constantly find myself burning DVDs because my hard drives are always running out of space. Even though, my new computer had a 230GB hard drive, I knew it would not be enough, so I got myself another external hard drive: Lacie 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive. There was no sale, but was $170 at Futureshop, which was a reasonable price compare other external hard drives, and it was glossy black as well.
Specifications:
Shuttle KPC K45
Getting one new computer wasn’t satisfying to me. I always wanted to replace the old IBM NetVista which I use as a server at home. There is a saying that a server is suppose to be a “black box”, and that is exactly what I got from Canada Computers for $219; the small form factor Shuttle KPC K45.
Specifications:
IOGear 2 port KVM
Finally, since I had two computers but only one monitor I needed to get a KVM. I got the IOGear 2-Port Compact USB VGA KVM with Built-in Cables GCS42UW6, even though reviews say that people had problems switching from PC to PC. I decided to take a chance and get it anyways because it was the cheapest KVM I could find: $20 at Dell and it was glossy black too . I had no major issues with it, however flickering can be seen in the monitor if the screen is displaying black.
Specifications: