I forgot my razor in Markham, and got ripped off at Pharmasave due to sheer grooming urgency.

Do you know what's sucky about being Chinese? Unless you're like Shawn, our genes doesn't seem to facilitate a full head of facial hair. It's completely irritating.

Those who hate shaving might think that the slowness of facial hair growth posed by many Asians is a good thing. This is a misconception. Sure, my facial hair, while grows comparatively slower than your average male, grows at a rate that that would be noticable after a few days. This part is fine.

The problem comes when my hormones, or whatever part of the body that promotes hair growth, is unable to grow at a consistent rate throughout my face. This leaves nodes of hair growth at the corners of my upper lips and my chin-- and no where else.

This problem causes me to shave daily; there's nothing more consistent than a close shave. So whenever you ask a Chinese man why he needs to shave daily-- here's your answer. Haha.

Just thirty minutes ago, I had a Hyperdot panic attack. I lost all of Hyperdot's data, including this blog, and my web neighbour, Emily's blog. My heart pumped profusely with nothing to do but just stare at the computer. My forehead was damp, and I sat there helpless.

Because Hyperdot's 'Awestats' web counter has not been working since November, I was told by my tech support provider to follow several simple steps, but because I was all cocky and thinking that I knew what I was doing, I just skimmed the directions.

Then I realized that I ended up terminating my account. Terminating your account means all files on your webspace will disappear. Forever. Because Hyperdot runs on Linux servers, there is no Recycle Bin to recover the files.

I didn't back up the files.

Thank goodness to the folks at getsomesupport.com. They provide ultra-fast responses if you submit a ticket during office hours. They were able to restore the site's files to the server's latest backup. Only a miniscule data (the most recent) was lost.

It's kind of weird that Hyperdot has really become part of my life. It seemed like I just lost my baby during my panic attack. I love Hyperdot. Hopefully, you website owners won't me like me and almost had to learn the hard way. Backup your files!

A few days ago, Bowie and I took a road trip around the Golden Horseshoe to visit our neighbours in Buffalo, New York.

Our mission: succumbing to mass consumerism in the "land of the free and home of the brave." Because of my planning nerdiness, I also had a secret agenda to understand what's going on in the planning world in Buffalo.

Bowie, being an experienced bargain shopper, wanted to directly head to Walden Galleria after checking in at the hotel. Walden Galleria is a regional mall near Buffalo International Airport and is about 25 minutes from Downtown.

Us at Pottery Barn Kids. Geez, kids who own these toys are darn fortunate.

At first glance, I was surprised to see such a wide selection of stores-- they have almost everything that you would find at the Eaton Centre. Having not shopped much at American non-outlet retail stores, I became quite impressed that even malls in the suburbs had such a wide spectrum of stores. To my dismay, though, I realized upon doing further research that Walden Galleria is the epicentre of shopping in Western New York.

It's a shame that the region's busiest mall is way in the outskirts of the city. I guess we can say the same thing for many mid-sized cities in southern Ontario like Kitchener-Waterloo and London.

Here's me at Johnny Rockets, you will find the same at Vaughan Mills. Service was awful.

The mall is quite a retreat. After some shopping, we ate, and returned to shop and then ate some more. The mall is undergoing an incredible expansion, and included in the expansion is this neat cheesecake restaurant aptly called the Cheesecake Factory. The décor is extravagant and resembles sort of a fusion between Disney and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I have not seen so much cheesecake in one place. This place was very exclusive-- we had to way just under an hour for a table.

By the time we finished our cheesecake desserts, it was already 11 pm-- this meant that we spent nine hours in a mall. While we contemplated visiting their 4-am-last-call bars in downtown on West Chippewa Street, we were too exhausted and called it a night and watched quality American television: syndicated Dawson's Creek, and popular "little people" programs on TLC.

The next morning, we dragged ourselves up to head to a non-descript outlet mall near Niagara Falls called Fashion Outlets. This was after some directional troubles; but forgive us, we didn't have coffee yet.

Me at Bob Evans, a homey American restaurant. They made us a specially ordered blueberry crepe. It was good.

I swear being a planner, driving around this portion of New York State is incredibly depressing. I seriously believe that there were no planners when these commercial strips were constructed. It reminded me of an aged Hespeler Road in Cambridge-incohesive buildings structures, large setbacks, no sidewalks, large commercial signs. Below is a stolen picture that best depicted what I saw.

There was not much to report at the outlet mall. It was bland and full of thrifty Canadians.

We then returned back to Buffalo in the afternoon to pursue my secret agenda. I knew I had planned more than the time permitted, but I tried to prioritize as much as I could.

For those don't know, Buffalo is part of a region informally coined as the Rust Belt. This region of the American northeast first grew as a result of good transportation links with the Eric Canal, and later with great railroad connections. Buffalo was once a manufacturing powerhouse, and it thrived on the automobile industry back in the former half of the 20th century. Because of the impacts of globalization, many automobile manufacturers left, and its population fell considerably from its peak in 1950 at 580,000 to a current population of just under 280,000. While there are emerging economies in bioinformatics, given its well-represented post-secondary institutions such as SUNY, they have been unable to bounce back to its former glory.

Given its lack of economic progress after the war, Buffalo was blessed in the sense that it did not experience the severe effects of modernism that plagued so many North American cities like Toronto. Many of its heritage buildings remains in tact today, and my secret agenda was to visit each one of them.

Buffalo City Hall, a gorgeous Art Deco building at Niagara Square.

Old Post Office now occupied by Erie Community College.

Ellicott Square Building, one of the neo-renaissance structures built in the late 19th century.

After a bit of sightseeing, we took the Buffalo Metro to eat at Anchor Bar. Anchor Bar is believed to be "Home of the Original Buffalo Chicken Wing," and we thought we'd be gullible and go there. The décor was a bit shabby, and reminds me of Coyote Ugly. The wings were quite disappointing; it was overcooked and lacked flavour.

Because we were so short of time, we had to quickly pack our dinner, and rush to get catch the production of Of Mice and Men at Studio Arena Theatre. The show was great, and the performers were very convincing.

Bowie waiting for the train to arrive at Theatre Station.

I really enjoyed having the opportunity to take the Buffalo Metro Rail. While it is called the Metro, it really isn't by definition. It's a metro only in the northern parts of the corridor, and an LRT in the southern downtown portions. The downtown portions are on a dedicated right of way along a pedestrian-only boulevard, but they have to obey signals at intersecting streets.

While Buffalo built the LRT and the pedestrian boulevard as a way to revitalize the struggling downtown, it is believed that it did the contrary. The pedestrian boulevard restricted access to automobiles, and essentially killed the only source of traffic it could've generated. As you can see from the pictures on Main Street, where the LRT corridor serves, it is void of any substantial retail or pedestrian traffic.

Okay, to sum up, as a tourist, I have to say that the trip was fair, at best. Again, perhaps we live in a diversity bubble in Toronto, but it seems to me that we were constantly reminded that we were tourists, and we were stared with such explicit scrutiny. I definitely did not feel like I belonged there.

I felt that it went beyond the fact that Bowie and I were these Asian minorities in a predominately Black and White society. It seemed as though the locals did not know what to do with these seemingly displaced tourists. We were told not to take photos, and while it was apparent that we were tourists, people a bit cold and did not share a feeling of hospitality.

However, as a planning adventure, I really enjoyed this trip. Planners often make field trips to see how cities accommodate for growth and what they're doing right. But I felt that it was equally if not more satisfying to understand how we plan for decline. I suggest all planners to give Buffalo a chance.

After the show, we ran back to the car, and drove back to Toronto.

PS: Canadian citizenship cards are still accepted at the border; you just need another piece of photo ID.

Buffalo - [wikipedia.org]
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
(That's a grammatically correct word!) - [wikipedia.org]
Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority - [nfta.com]
Walden Galleria - [waldengalleria.com]
Fashion Outlets Niagara - [fashionoutletsniagara.com]
Studio Arena Theatre - [studioarena.org]
Buffalo Niagara Tourism - [buffalocvb.org]

The character in the graphic is 'pig' in Chinese. The left part of the character is the suffix for all that is related to meat; the right part is sort of a homophone for the same word.

I love Chinese New Year, it comes at a crucial time in the middle of the Winter to bring in some holiday cheer. I think the way to make Canadians less depressed is to bring in a few holidays during the winter months.

Parliament should impose a February holiday called "Happy Day" or something.

Anyways, Chinese New Year is this Sunday, February 18th-- and this is a very critical time for me, since most 1983-born children (February 13, 1983 - February 1, 1984), such as myself, are Pigs under the Chinese Zodiac. It's actually quite depressing, since it has dawned on me that I am turning 24.

As you might be aware, the Chinese Zodiac runs on a 12-year cycle of animals, so this upcoming year of the pig is yet another age milestone.

Just as a cultural tidbit, it is considered taboo to ask people what Chinese Zodiac they are. This is because one can easily guess what age a person is by their zodiac. For example, because I am born a pig, you know my age is a multiple of 12. And as you are aware, I do not look 12, and I hope to never look like I'm 36. Anyway, just like how you would not ask a lady how old she is, you would not ask what zodiac she is.

Although I question how the Chinese are able to associate traits for all people born within a particular year, it is stated that pigs "don't talk much but have a great thirst for knowledge." They are also "quick tempered, yet they hate arguments and quarreling," and they have "tremendous fortitude and great honesty."

Haha, I should write these qualities in my personals.

If you are interested in your own zodiac, vist the Chinese Culture Centre of San Francisco website.

Chinese New Year - [wikipedia.org]
Chinese Culture Center's Zodiac Page - [c-c-c.org]

As some of you may be aware, there were some issues with the site with regards to 404 File Not Found and 403 Forbidden messages.

I attempted to upgrade to the latest Movable Type publishing platform (Version 3.31)-- since I'm currently using version 3.15.

For some reason, whenever I rebuild my pages, it always screws up the recursive CHMOD properties.

I have given up, and I have reverted back to the original version.

I think this is a sign of aging, first it's the inability to work with a functional upgrade, then the next thing you know, I will be one of those older technologically incompetent people that I have grown so impatient with.

I am taking Management Sciences class called Organization Design and Technology, and our teaching assistant is a very cool guy-- and the tutorials are always interesting.

Anyways, the point of this entry isn't about him being cool, but rather, he sounds just like James Blunt. Haha.

Sometimes, I close my eyes, and it impact is even greater. I swear, he has the same raspy British voice. One day, I will ask him to sing "Beautiful."

I better not, he might fail me. I don't think such a comment is very flattering, since he and that song is so annoying.

Children of Men is a must see.

This is what happens: The year is 2027 and the human race loses the ability to procreate-- which causes society to go into chaos. Similar to V for Vendetta, the movie is set in London and plays on our paranoia about the fate of our future.

Theo, played by the radiantly handsome, Clive Owen, is placed into a situation to protect a woman, Kee, who is shockingly pregnant. No pregnancies have not been reported for 18 years. I find these movies very frightening-- in fact, I'm more frightened by these movies than actually horror movies.

I think it's because these movies really hit home. With my uncertainty about the broad future, I wouldn't be surprised if an incident like this actually happens. I found the movie to be very realistically depicted, and I was able to take in the horror that was going on. I felt for them.

PS: I want Clive Owen. I think it's his ruggedness that really gets me.

Children of Men - [chidlrenofmen.net]
Children of Men - [imdb.com]

I have been stressing over scholarships and admissions for the past five months now, and I finally get a good note today that made it all worthwhile.

No, I did not get an offer of admission, but rather, the application has been received in its entirety. That in itself is a big accomplishment, methinks.

U of T has a way more intelligent applications system than UW. It actually tells you exactly what components have come in, and which one's have not. Thankfully, I have the planning ladies on the third floor to bug to ensure that all my documents are in for my UW application.

For those who might not know, I'm hoping to pursue grad school. I have applied to the Master of Science in Planning program at U of T, and the Master of Arts - Planning program at UW-- both where I hope to specialize in the field of Transportation Planning. The applications were due last week, and I can finally carry on with my life now that all this work is over and done with.

I guess now comes the easy part: waiting. I will not speak of grad school anymore, as I don't wish to jinx myself.

I do love milk, but I normally buy the original Neilson 2% in the solid blue carton. Last week however, No Frills had those 'Dollar Days' for the premium Trutaste brand.

I noticed something interesting this morning. As indicated in the red swirvy banner, the carton actually holds 2% milk that "tastes like homo."

... or what I'd like to call it: closeted milk.

If you're curious, the milk tastes pretty good, but it isn't any better than 2% milk that tastes like 2% milk.