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| Just watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Dead Man's Chest. Movie
was awesome, especially every scene with Keira Knightley. Guys,
if you have a girlfriend, please take care when you see the movie with
her. Do NOT drool while watching the movie. 
My thoughts are a mumble jumble of quips and phrases right now (rightly
so, since I just had a couple of gin and tonics). That's what you
call a vacation! Haven't had a vacation in so long, I actually
don't know what to do with myself.
Anyways, POTC2 is worth $8.50 and 2.5 hours of your time. Go see it.
JC
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| Dang, I'm supposed to be studying for yet n'other exam and I'm on Xanga
checking out my friends' blogs...seems like my habits haven't changed
since school.
Hey, anyone from ATI can tell me why the new PCI Express cards cost
upwards of $300? What are they used for, besides cooking eggs
with their heatsinks? I'm trying to assemble together a new PC
for myself and I'm astounded, ney, outraged, that Moore's law seemed to
have kept up with the price of video cards better than computer
processing power. WTF? I thought things get cheaper when
they are mass produced...
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| I was down in New York for a couple of days this past week and on the
way down, I was actually on the same flight as Kelly Chen. For
those of you not familiar with that name, she's a pretty famous HK pop
star.
I didn't get to talk to her directly, as she was sitting in Business
while I was in Coach, but I did make some general conclusions about her.
1) She's got a big posse. The 2 rows of seats behind me
were filled with her posse; 3 guys and 3 women. None of them
looked familiar, so I guess they must be the stylists, or whatnot.
2) She's not that tall. When you see her on TV, you get the
impression she must be supermodel height. In fact, she was a
pretty normal height. Maybe tall for a Chinese, but clearly not
the impression she gives in the media. I estimate she's around
5'7 or 5'8? Very thin though, and pretty stylish. (She was
wearing a brown mink coat with jeans and leather boots)
Anyways, another story to go along with my Yip Lau Suk Yee story.
J
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| This past week while I was in New York, the Canadian Government finally decided to release the taxes they had been withholding for the past year. All I see now are $$$ and all I can dream about now is how I will spend that money.
But this actually brings up another point. Why is it the government gets away with an interest free loan from every tax paying citizen every single year? Imagine throughout the year, they had accumulated $X of your tax money. It is up to you, the tax-payer, to figure out how much of that you should get back. Guess too low, and Revenue Canada (or IRS) gets away with a portion of your hard-earned income. Guess too high, and you invite the bean counters from the government to scrutinize your taxes and generally make your life miserable.
In the rare event that you do your calculations correctly and arrive at exactly $X of tax refund, the government will give you exactly $X back. Not a cent of interest. I know that interest rates are extremely low right now (try talking to pensioners living on their savings...you'll find lots of people reminiscing about the 80s and the double digit interest rates), but c'mon! Assuming your money is accrued at a linear rate for the year, then it spends on average half a year in Revenue Canada's coffers. Let say on average, the tax return is 10% of taxes payed (easily achieved with RRSP deductions.) Even at 2% interest, that will still be a ten dollars per average tax payer. Say 15MM Canadians participate in the labour force, then the government has withheld 150MM of taxpayers' money! Where has that money gone? Has anyone ever asked?
J | | |
| Damn...tomorrow I have a 7:30 am meeting...things are getting super
crazy at work. I mean, who the heck is expected to work at 7:30 am?
The problem is, we have to call the stupid jerks in London, and since
they run 5 hours ahead, we have to accomodate them and CC at 7:30...god
damn it.
Enough complaints about my job...since inherently all jobs suck. Just
this morning, mom and dad have boarded the flight to Hong Kong and
their biannual Asia tour. I wish them all the best...hope they have
lots of fun and take lots of photos. Their agenda is first Hong Kong,
then Australia, then China, and then Hong Kong again. Sounds fun.
Personally, I have never been to Australia, so it would be nice if I
can go there one of these days. Did you know it's been over 6 months
since I took any vacation time off? It's not because I'm addicted to
work, it's because there's too much work to do. Yes, there I go again,
complaining about my job...
J | | |
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