Johnny's Burger is Best Bang for the Buck in GTA!

Daniel (while driving): What are we having for dinner tonight? I'm not in the mood of eating proper at a restaurant.
Cindy: Err... that leaves McD's, Hello, and the various pizza outlets around. How about we park the car first and walk?
Daniel (indifferent): Sure...

(Driving along Yonge, just past Sheppard.)

Cindy: How about Johnny's?
Daniel (excited): Yeah! Haven't been there for a long time!

That's how we ended up at Johnny's last night.

Despite its relatively closeness (is that a word?) to both of our homes, especially in the high school days, we never went to Johnny's much--it's a little out of our way. I still remembered the first time we went to Johnny's, we were very amazed at the quality of its burgers. And the price! (We were poor students back then.)

Last night, years after our previous meal at Johnny's, we were still amazed at the price and quality of the burgers. Where else can you get a burger at the price beating McD's and with its size and quality rivaling Lick's? Not as good as the "old" Lick's circa. 2000, but you can buy 2 burgers at Johnny's for the price of one at Lick's! I bought the regular burger at $2.85 and Daniel got the cheesburger at $2.95, then I went back to the cashier and ordered fries ($1.85) and onion rings ($1.95).

On a related note, we went to the acclaimed burger joint Golden Star Restaurant in Thornhill (next to Galleria) two weeks ago. Both of us were expecting burgers comparable to Johnny's, but we were a little disappointed, especially at the price. It's not "bad" per se., just not as good as Lick's (plus, Lick's got good ice-cream afterall). Not even the "best" all star burger. And their fries is less-than-stellar. Maybe we should give the milkshake a shot next time, but honestly, I prefer Lick's over Golden Star.

Update: toronto.com has a feature on burgers around GTA, part 1 and part 2. All the burger joints mentioned on this post made it to the list (except McD's, which doesn't really count).

Hawaii Pictures (Yes Finally!)

In chronological order:

• Honolulu / Hanauma Bay / Diamond Head / Dole Plantation / misc Oahu
• Pearl Harbor
• Waikiki Aquarium
• Kalalau Trail
• Kalalau Trail (part 2) / Waimea Canyon / misc Kauai
• Big Island -- Volcano
• Big Island -- Volcano (part 2)
• Big Island -- Waipio Valley / Mauna Kea / Kona Coast / misc Big Island

Wii Want to Play

I'm officially declaring Wii as the ultimate party game console.

Jeff is back from St. Martin the past weekend, and we hosted (another) Wii gathering at my place.

(If we knew he's staying in T-Dot for another two months, maybe we wouldn't have been as eager to meet him.)

As usual, there isn't much to do at our tiny condo other than Wii--unless reading this week's flyers count, which Pia, Lanny and John seemed to enjoy.

Wii Sports and Rayman were both instant hits, but the Marvel Ultimate Alliance BigHead brought with him effectively bored the whole gang. Fortunately, Monkey Ball was there for the rescue (and served as the source of pain in many shoulders).

It's interesting to know so many people already had Wii... I knew BH has one (and keeps working on his Wii Boxing skills, eyes on beating Pia), but I didn't know Ricky and Ah10 both had one as well. They didn't know about Wii friends / messages -- Ah10 didn't even hook hers up to the internet. On top of that, many coworkers have Wii too: Ben, Danny, Kenneth, Thompson, Pascal, Dan and Steve. John/Lanny, as well as Willy, are also very likely to become future Wii owners, once there's a healthier supply.

On an unrelated note, how come the friend who's supposed to be poorest (PhD student) has the nicest car (SLK)?

Sea of Red

We went to Raptors vs Nets game 1 on Saturday. Daniel, bro (who landed in TO on Friday), Frank and I were all dressed in red. To our (pleasant) surprise, they were giving out free red "Let's be red / Let's go Raptors" t-shirts for everyone in attendance (courtesy of McD's). Bro and I also put on (free) temporary tattoo of the Raptors claw logo on our face.

It was a zoo.

The crowd was chanting at every single possession (even when the score was 4-2). We cheered at all the right moves any Raptor player made. We booed VC every time he touched the ball, even if he immediately dished it out. The boos, along with "VC sucks" and "Carter sucks", seemed to work quite well for our benefits, rendering him rather ineffective. We loved him too much, and love turned into hatred.

Unfortunately, our beloved team played really poorly, especially in the first half. It wasn't one guy--or even a handful guys--at fault here neither. Because the whole team was sleeping much of the time, both of our point guards were forced to take a lot of shots. The only bright spot was Resho, the guy with most (winning) playoff experience, and a ring to boot. Humps was OK too, although certainly with room for improvement. It was particularly painful to get the Really Bad Joey instead of the Good Joey, as he caused a few of the costly turnovers. AP and CB4 were bad in the first half too, but at least both of them cleaned up their act later in the game. Humps was OK, although with room for improvement.

My pre-game prediction was 96-92 Raptors, which was awfully close to the final score, abeit going the other way (96-91 Nets). I still thought it was a good game though, in the sense that it served as a lesson learned at least for our more dependable players. We'll still need at least one of Good Joey, MoPete, and Juan to show up and put some good stops at RJ. And denying Jason Kidd's defensive rebounds--which easily translate to fastbreak points for the Nets--is a must.

I can't wait for Game 5 tickets to be on sale.

Oh, and mark my words: Raptors in seven, baby.

I Need Wisdom...

...teeth surgery. I have three wisdom teeth (one disappeared for evolutionary reasons I believe), one of which is partially out and is causing chronic pain, and the other two are both ingrown going sideways. I went to the oral surgeon yesterday for a consultation, and he recommended removing all of them.

I have made an appointment to remove all three teeth at once, without putting much thought into it. Daniel seemed a little worried, but then, he always tries to stay as far away from doctors as possible (and further). He went to the same oral surgeon before, but he only had one wisdom tooth removed.

I think I'd rather do one surgery instead of two or three smaller ones -- it's bad enough having to go through all the pain and annoyances for one surgery already, why do it a second time?

Celebration Time!

We had a celebration for reaching 10,000 check-ins for our project today. All people who was involved in the project at any point in time were invited (less those who already left for greener pastures, of course).

Unfortunately, the person who committed the check-in was not in attendance. It was a developer in our India office, which made the whole thing a bit anti-climatic. Nonetheless, it was a good excuse reason to celerbrate, especially after all the pain the whole team went through for the past release.

A Diehard Raptor Fan is You!

... well, not me, but my bro.

Once it became apparent that Raps are in the playoffs, he had been considering flying back home, all the way from the west coast, to watch a home game.

Lucky or otherwise, I somehow scored an extra pair of tickets for game one. That was when he got serious about coming back to TO for a game.

By then, he already knew he would be at a conference in San Francisco this very last week before playoffs. However, the game dates were still unset, as is our opponent.

He decided to take the jump-of-faith (or kiss-of-death, depending on your point of view) and bought the air tickets yesterday.

He's now TO-bound on Friday, with a two-stop flight from SF which will devour his whole day. Let's just hope we'll win the first game. =)

FFXII Auto-Leveling!

I found this FFXII auto-leveling guide last week. My characters were at the "recommended" level so I decided to give it a shot a few nights back. The problem is, I couldn't get that damn monster to spawn! After many tries, I gave up and continued exploring/leveling the usual way.

Last night, I decided to give it another try. For the longest time (over 1.5 hours), I still couldn't get it to spawn. Fortunately, my persistence prevailed and it finally spawned.

I kept watching and passively playing (mainly tweaking the gambit system and using license points) throughout the rest of the night, and left it on since.

I switched characters this morning to make sure all characters are at a similar level. Now I'm just waiting for all of my characters to unlock the whole license board. :)

How Geek Are You?

84% Geek

How can I be that much geekier than anybody I know?!?!

Bro: hahaha... you are born that way
Me: but you have the same genes!!!

Bulls @ Raptors

We went to ACC yesterday to watch the Raptors game. When we bought the tickets early in the season, we figured it would be an important game for Chicago, since they would be fighting for playoff standings by now. At best, we'd play spoilers for them. Little did we know how important this game would become for Raptors as well.

Actually, we weren't aware of this game's another significance until much later -- it was the night of Chris Bosh Limited Edition Figurine Giveaway! (Oh, and I totally didn't realize the game fell on a long weekend.) Daniel and I really wanted the figurine, so much that we actually arrived 30 minutes before game starts. That's a first; we're almost always so late that we'd miss the line up announcement, the anthem, and sometimes even the tipoff. In fact, we were arrived so early (comparatively) that the players were still in the locker room/team lounge when we seated. Fortunately, our hardwork paid off -- of the eight tickets we bought, five of us arrived at ACC at 5:30 and got our figurines. (The three who came late, however, missed the opportunity!)

As for the game, it was less than stellar. The refereeing was more than a little iffy at times. ("Why is the Bull player shooting two?!? We weren't over the limit and it was called 2 seconds AFTER he missed!" "Why is that Bull player shooting two as well?!?! It was a loose ball foul and we still weren't over the limit!!!" "That is SO NOT a flagrant II!!!!" "Why aren't we getting the calls the same way Bulls are?!?!?!" "OK I'll be the diversion, you'll bag the ref, and Lou'll beat him up!") Daniel was so visibly pissed during half-time it wasn't even funny. Furthermore, neither of our point guards were at the top of their game. (T.J. had forced too many shots and both him and Jose had their share of bad passes.) Fortunately, we somehow shut down Kirk Hirich for long stretches, and since all their offence runs off him, we got the W, was even up 21 points at one point. And since the final score was 103-89, we all get free pizza slice today.

Needless to say, Daniel was a lot happier after the game than in half-time.

Leafs Hanging On Dear Life

So, Leafs won. I've been so disappointed at the Leafs this season. They've failed to deliver many times already, so, when I went out for dinner, I fully expected the Habs to beat them 6-1 or something. By the time I got home, it was second intermission, 5-4 Habs. (Where's the D?!?!?!)

You see, with the intricacies of NHL tie breaker rules, Leafs needs to win this game in regulation to keep the playoff hopes aliveThat means Leafs had to score at least two more goals in the third period.

They somehow pulled that off. Leafs won the game 6-5, trashed Habs' playoff dreams.

Now, Leafs' fate will be decided by Islanders' date with Devils. As long as Islanders don't win that game, Leafs will be in the postseason (we have the tie breaker).

"Cautiously optimistic" is the phrase.

Loans - Get Some, Give Some!

I signed up at Kiva and lended some money out to people in developing countries today. As I went through the PayPal checkout, I thought about opportunity cost: that's an amount of money I can spend in a heartbeat and it won't put a dent on my finance. Whatever else I spend it on, it may make my day. However, with a few clicks, it'll make someone else's life -- and better yet, I'll get this money back in a year or so (depending on the terms).

That also got me thinking, if someone lends me $1 million right now, and I have to pay it back in 2 years, what would I do with it?

... buy a Tim Horton's or Pizza Pizza franchise. Honest.

To All Testers

No, I'm not even going to look at the issue if you:

1. only give me an unclear problem description,
2. not providing steps to reproduce problem,
3. not specifying the build number, environment, and configuration used,
4. give me logs of two interacting components which are a day apart
5. ...neither of which were captured when the problem was encountered
6. ...and with the actually useful information removed for whatever reason,
7. and despite my explicit request, still not providing configuration, steps to reproduce, full log
8. ...and just reprise the initial rubbish problem description, ask me to call you if I'm still unclear, as if a phone call can magically replace hard, cold data.

Change of Plans... Maybe?

This past weekend, Siu Wai and Siu Yan suddenly decided push their wedding from September to early December. That poses multiple problems:

• I've already told Mom & Dad we'll be in HK in September, and they're planning to celerbrate their 30th anniversary in HK during that time frame. And we can't afford two HK trips in a year.
• Early December is traditionally the busiest time of the year for us working in telecommunications, since many carriers have network freeze in mid-December, which in turn affects revenue recognition. This is especially hardhitting this year because we're now publicly traded.
• Let's say we take 3 weeks off... we'll need to be "at work" on Monday, December 24 (without any work done in actuality, since everyone will "work from home" and/or take off after lunch), and then off again 'til after New Year, which would be absolutely stupid (not to mention expensive). Even if we only take 2 weeks off, there's still one week of work in-between vacation and holiday. Either way it's pretty stupid.

Additionally, there's the question about the trustworthiness of the date -- "if they can move the date once, they can move it again later, right?" Depending on the point-of-view, this doubt may or may not be sound, but the shadow has been casted.

We still haven't figured out how to tell Mom yet...

The Elusive Three Days...

Why did the estimated time pretty much stay constant at 3 days... since Saturday?!?!?! ARGH~~~ THE AGONY~~~~