Canadians. They’re not just for breakfast anymore.
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So, Liz and I didn’t win the Perfect Couple contest. Alas. BUT, on the plus side, it means we can go wherever the hell we want on our honeymoon now! Hooray! Not much else to report, really. Things have been VERY busy the last few weeks with house hunting. I’m very excited to be a property owner, at last! No details at the moment… but once Liz and I decide on a place, I’ll have more to share!
Ok, I just have to thank whomever at Microsoft is in charge of Xbox 360 update feature planning - it’s now possible to stream divx video from your PC to your Xbox 360. This feature is SO AWESOME. Liz and I watch a lot of shows in divx format, for a couple reasons - 1: we watch a *lot* of shows, and often they are on at the same time; 2: some shows are on after 10pm, and we are already heading for bed at that time; 3: sometimes we just don’t have time to watch shows after work, due to social engagements/wedding planning/etc; 4: with some shows (Biggest Loser, and ANTM, I’m looking in your direction) it’s just easier to watch without the commercials and be able to fast forward boring bits (Biggest loser is the WORST for having 1-2 minute recaps after the commercial break. Listen NBC, I know you were stuck for Tuesday night shows, but stretching out all of those episodes to two hours? YAWNSVILLE).
So, all of that to say - thank you, oh Microsoft Xboxy Lords of Evil, for finally adding in this feature. It’s hawesome.
Ok, I know it’s been AGES since I’ve posted anything, but I have lots ot share! Work is going great. Wedding planning is just about all done. I have TONS of photos from our trip up. I got a flat tire coming back from Ottawa on the weekend (changing a tire in -7 temps on the side of the 401 ain’t fun!). Liz and I went to New York and Dublin back in October. Saw Chicago on Broadway, and it was amazing!
And the biggest, most important thing? Liz and I are contestants in the Mississauga’s Perfect Couple competition - it’s run by the Mississauga News, and the winners get a $5000 honeymoon. What with paying for a wedding on our own and buying a house in the next 7 months, that honeymoon sure would come in handy! If you could vote for us, I’d really appreciate it! You just have to go to the perfect couple website, register your email, fill out a stupid questionnaire (I just picked the first answer from every category) and vote for Liz and Ryan. How’s everybody else been holding up over the last 5 months or so?
Yes, this is my big and exciting news… after roughly a month of searching, I’m now employed! It’s very exciting. I’ll refrain from mentioning the company name on here, but suffice it to say that it’s an exciting opportunity at a great company. I’ll be working downtown Toronto… or rather uptown, I guess, which will mean a fairly long commute, but hey - it’s for a great job. And I’m very happy to not have to job hunt for the next week, since I’m not starting till July 16. Phew! I think that’s all I really have to say at the moment… the last month has pretty much been job hunting 24/7, except for the weekend up at the cottage last week for Canada Day. I’ve got a ton of photos to still put up. There’s a LOT that need processing still. But it’ll all come in time 
Right.
So, Liz and I got back to Canada yesterday. She’s now a permanent resident! Holy crap! I’m super excited! It’s a bit strange being home - the whole time I was living in Ireland I had never come back, so it’s been just over 20 months. Things have a strange, familiar-but-different vibe at the moment. We’re settling in, and had a hugely productive day today. Next step, of course, is getting down to the job applications. For that, of course, I have to actually find a soft copy of my resume and update it. NO idea where I’m going to find that. I’m hoping it’s on the external hard drive that I shipped home. Fingers crossed!
The trip was amazing. So many countries in such a short time was an outstanding experience, but I’m definitely glad that I won’t be getting on a plane in the next 2 or 3 days. Being able to unpack my suitcase and leave it unpacked? Man, what a feeling! I’ll have more to report, trying to report on each destination, but it’ll be coming in short bursts. I need to get back into the TO (well, Mississauga) swing of things again!
Ok - I’ve been a pretty bad blogger here, but I *have* been writing up entries about each place (thus far we’ve been in Shanghai, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in Cambodia, and now we’re on our second stop in Thailand, Phi Phi Island, after spending 2 days in Phuket city). We are having an absolutely FANTASTIC time, and I’m taking TONS of pictures. Phi Phi Don island is absolutely stunning, and tomorrow we’re heading off on a snorkelling/sea kayaking trip for the day. We’re kinda sad that we don’t get to stay here longer, but sure, still no regrets as I’m sure our resort in Patong Beach (back on Phuket) will be stunning as well. Some selected pictures are up, but that’s not nearly all of them, and hasn’t been updated at all with any pictures from Thailand or Phnom Penh. Hope everyone is doing well - we still have like 6 more days here in Thailand, then it’s one night in Singapore and off to Australia for the non-asian leg of our trip. I can’t believe we’ve been gone for so long already, but there’s still tons of amazing places left to see!
Liz and I made it safely to Shanghai! Woohoo! We managed to make it through our first day without falling asleep TOO early (got a few hours sleep on the plane). I have to say, it’s a bit of a culture shock being here in China… Even just simple things, like ordering dinner, are done completely differently! And a *few* people speak english, but not very many, which makes for fun adventures in pantomiming. Shanghai seems very much like a tourist destination for Chinese people, as opposed to we white folk, but we’re enjoying ourselves nonetheless. One thing that is absolutely *maddening* is all the honking. My god! I think people honk their horns just to say “I am driving!” Every 2 or three seconds, somebody will honk their horn. It really doesn’t seem to follow any discernable pattern. Which sort of defeats the purpose, in my opinion, but whatever. The subway seems pretty good, if crowded, but “crowded” pretty much seems to define the whole city. There’s just people and cars and bikes and mopeds and motorcycles EVERYWHERE. We’re having a blast though! Can’t wait to get some of the pictures up - once I’m somewhere that I can actually upload them, I’ll definitely have them up! More updates soon!
Ok, so I had somehow managed to avoid Battlestar Galactica for the first 3 seasons that it has been on the air, despite the ravings of rabid nerdsfans all across the internets. Then, at some point over the last year I figured “Hey, I might as well download it, to give me something to watch should I ever get bored.” - well, I downloaded the first 3 seasons, and then forgot about them. It wasn’t until Liz went off on a hen weekend (hen == bachelorette, stagette, etc for my North American readers) a few weeks ago, and I found myself without any new Family Guy, Simpsons, American Dad, Numb3rs, or My Name Is Earl episodes that I decided to pop it in. And what a mistake that was! Over the course of that weekend, I blasted through the original (new) mini-series, and the first 8 or 9 episodes of season one. I was officially hooked! My inner geek (who had been a bit deprived since Serenity, frankly) was unleashed, and I was off to the races. I’m now up to episode… 12? 13? of season 2, and it’s still amazing. The ONLY complaint I have about the show, is one that I’m sure has been stated many a time already by geeks across the blogotron already - how the hell does networking your computers together suddenly make them so vulnerable to Cylon virus attacks? That’s the onlything that really bugs me about the show. Everything else is pure, unadulterated awesomeness.
Ok. I mentioned that Liz and I were going on a bit of a whirlwind trip on our way back to Canada, promising more details later. Well, it’s now later. It’s true, we’re doing 6 weeks of travelling through Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand rather than going directly back to Canada. Here’s the list of our destinations:
It’s really going to be the trip of a lifetime! It’s required a hell of a lot of planning, I’m not gonna lie! First off, we got a round the world plane ticket - specifically, a Great Escapade. This covered all of our flights except for Phnom Penh->Siem Reap, internal Australian flights and from LA->Toronto (apparently Canada isn’t included in the Great Escapade). We booked some internal flights for the rest of our stuff… except for half of the route from Phnom Penh->Siem Reap, for which we’ve elected to take the bus (I’ve heard it can be rough, but I’m excited for a bit of rugged Cambodian countryside in an otherwise hotel/plane based trip). We’ve spent a hell of a lot of time on TripAdvisor looking up hotels and such too. I absolutely can’t wait! And don’t worry - I’ll be taking PLENTY of pictures, and hopefully posting some along the way along with trip updates for each place. It depends on what sort of downtime/internet time we have. And we leave a week from today! AAAAAAH!
Rest in peace, you crazy, hilarious man.
So, this is the latest innovation from Google - Gmail Paper! For all those people that aren’t happy with their email being stored only digitally, now you can get it stored in paper format! Excellent! I love how they offset the cost of shipping.
Of course, a quick check of the date will explain how Google came up with this brilliant idea.
Ok, this has been in the works for a little while now, but I couldn’t write about it on here because I wanted to wait until I gave my notice at work, and Liz gave her notice at work. As the title says, I’m on my way back to Canada! Sure, not immediately… We don’t leave Ireland for another month. And we’re going to be doing 6 weeks of travelling through Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on the way back to Canada (more on that later). But I’ve finally given my notice, so I can finally tell the world!
The primary reason we’ve decided on Canada vs Ireland as a permanent living solution is because it’s just too darn expensive here in Ireland. Real estate is absolutely ridiculous, there’s no way we’d be able to afford a house any time soon, and so we’re going to head back to Canada where the interest rates might be a bit higher, but the houses are about 1/3 the price. Just as a comparison, the apartment we’re living in now - which is a nice apartment, don’t get me wrong, in a nice gated estate - would sell for roughly 650,000 euro. That’s getting up into the neighbourhood of $1 million Canadian, for a 1 bedroom apartment! And our apartment isn’t really very close to town, or shopping, or bus routes. It’s absolutely CRAZY over here. So I’m very excited to be so close to leaving - 4 weeks and we’ll be on our way!!
So that’s two huge announcements in less than half an hour! Not a bad start to the return to the blogging world, huh?
Ok… I’m aware that it’s been a small amount of time since I last blogged. Hey, a month and a half isn’t THAT bad. But to be fair, I’ve had a lot going on in my head over the last month and a half (and longer, I suppose) so it’s been a bit hectic around these parts!
But here’s the big news: Liz and I are engaged!!! Yay!!! Now, I’ve actually been planning this for a few months now, but it’s all finally fallen into place. Liz and I had actually started looking at rings a fair while back (under the pretext of “having an idea” of what she liked “when the time came, if it came”). Thus, I knew exactly what ring she wanted… Unfortunately, the ring got sold! So I had to talk to the jeweller about getting a ring of the same design made. Luckily, they had a design book so I could pick out the exact ring. And it came out PERFECTLY! Then it was just down to trying to find the perfect proposal… And since we’d already been trying on rings, I *knew* I’d be hard pressed to surprise her! I couldn’t just suggest “Hey, let’s go for a romantic sunset stroll down at the pier!” or “Hey, let’s go out to a romantic dinner… no reason, really!” Thus, when she suggested that we go for a walk yesterday, I knew that it was the perfect opportunity - it was *her* idea, she’d never see it coming! We made a few laps around the park before we were alone in a secluded bit of woods… I pretended to stop to tie my shoe, with the idea of ending up on one knee - but then Liz just kept on walking! I said “Hey, wait, come back!” and she playfully responded “No, you have to catch me!” and started running away… I knew that my sneakiness just wasn’t going to work, so I ran to catch up to her and caught her. Some mushy words were said (Hey, some things are private!) about how much I loved her, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. And she said yes! I mean, I never really had any doubt, obviously, but it’s still never 100% until you’ve got the rock on her finger! She was *totally* surprised, but very excited! And of course so am I! We spent most of last night telling everybody.
Of course, now the scary part - the wedding! Ahhh! But, of course, there’s some other news that means the wedding planning will have to wait just a bit longer…
So, if you’re a dude, and you want to propose to your girlfriend, what do you do? This guy decided that he would setup up a web page to raise a million dollars and get an ad during the Superbowl, because they are both HUGE football fans. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out… he managed to get some sponsorship, and almost got his ad in (apparently he at least talked to CBS about it, but they decided against airing it). So, after failing that, he decided his next best option would be to get an ad played during her favourite show… Veronica Mars. Here’s the commercial he made: “My Super Proposal” - and here’s the video they took of her when it played “Geraldine’s Response“. Very cute! And congrats to the two of them!
Ok, just to avoid any spoilers (although seriously, if you don’t know about this now and you’re in an area that gets CBBUK on TV, how you avoided it is beyond me) I’ve put my comments in the more inside:
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I finally finished processing and uploading all my Cyprus pics this week… Only took me like a month! Hehehe…
Ok, this whole Jade thing has gotten REALLY ridiculous. Yes, she is a huge bully (along with her two cronies, Jo and Danielle, who seem to be escaping most of the anger out there), but I think it has a *ton* more to do with the fact that Shilpa is classy, and successful, and dignified, than the fact that she’s Indian. The only reason people are screaming racism is because Jermaine brought it up. It’s out of control, but it should be interesting to see what happens when Jade and Shilpa are up against each other in the elimination. I was really hoping that Danielle would be up as well, but I guess you can’t win em all!
Ok… so, you may recall that back in July I got a new camera. And in my Year in Review I mentioned not getting the 18-200mm VR lens. Well, as I’m sure you can guess by now, I finally got it! I used my Christmas money, and and some anticipated birthday money, and voila! Sexy new 18-200mm lens. But not only is it amazing, with the VR goodness, it also has the crazy AF-S internal focusing system, which is SO fast and SO quiet. It’s quite a shocking upgrade from my previous. But really, it’s all about the VR. Check out a quick sample I did…
Taken with my old Sigma 70-300mm lens… 70mm, f/4, 1/6s:
Taken with the new hotness lens… 70mm, f/5, 1/3s:
Now, I know that the second one still isn’t perfectly sharp, but bear in mind that the general rule of thumb to avoid camera shake, at 70mm on my camera, is that the shutter speed should be greater than 1/105s. So, this shot is basically *5 stops slower*, with an additional narrower aperture as well. I am absolutely blown away by this lens.
So, I took a few days off. Obviously. I just never got around to writing about BB this weekend. But the basic gist of things, including last night, is this: Danielle Lloyd is one catty little bitch. Oh, and Jade was MUCH less annoying when her mom was in the house, and she was acting like an adult. Now she’s gone into full-on combative mode, which is really annoying. I’ll be happy to see either of them go. Preferably Jade, but I’m not picky. The way that the 2 of them, and Jo (who appears to be a bit of a double agent) are ganging up on Shilpa is really irritating. We’ll see what happens if one of them gets booted. Nominations are tomorrow, but we don’t see them till Thursday… dammit!
