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| Nick van Veen's Daily Happenings 20 most recent entries |
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For all you iPod lovers (and haters) out there.
Good luck to Sarah on her BAR exam today! post a comment
For all the "milestone" birthdays to date (16-18-20-25), I've never really felt that sensation of life change that is often associated with those respective ages. But now, at 27, there's that feeling of change and expectancy. Remember in high school people telling us those years would be the best of our lives? What a load of cr*p! The mid-20's have been where it's at. It's been a year of "transitioning from the autumn of my youth to adulthood" phase, but in all aspects life is pretty awesome. Adulthood brings on lots of life changes and responsibilities, but I've been headed in the right direction for a long time and can still play a mean game of NHL07! Here's to the promise of a great 27th year! N post a comment
Good to know our opposition leaders are tackling the issues that are of the utmost importance to Canada.
Oh man, even ¾ of a liter of Arizona iced tea this morning hasn’t cured a case of the yawns. It’s probably just the dreary weather though… So this weekend marked the 2nd time in as many weeks that I’ve made the trip up to the cottage. It was a little last minute, but given the extreme business this coming weekend promised, it was imperative that my taxes were filed ASAP. This trip really reminded me how much the cottage has transformed in the past few years. Computer w/ high speed Internet, satellite TV, washer & dryer…heck even a touchtone line (I thought dad would never cave). Anyways, it was a good trip up. Watched the hockey game, napped, played video games, played with the neighbors dog, napped, filed my taxes, ate supper at midnight, watched “Into the Blue” into the wee hours of the morning – all in that order ;) Sunday I came home earlier than normal for Sarah’s sister’s birthday. Beforehand we made a stop at the mall and Sarah scored me a random (as it the item wasn't on sale) 30% discount on an awesome work bag. It was an accidental working of our collective strategy of "Sarah will get better service from male cashiers than Nick will." Anyhow, we then went to her sister's birthday and good times were had with a delicious meal and a Sens victory, which rounded the weekend up nicely.
Daaamn...October never seemed so far away.
SFW
My movie list for '06 (Revised).
So as my title states, there's 11 days before Christmas. In between now and then a momentous occasion occurs, specifically on the 21st and 22nd, when I will take my first ever paid "vacation" days at work. The simple fact that I won't have to wake up before 7:30 on a weekday is an awesome thought. Sticking with the Christmas theme, I'm about 66% to 75% done my shopping, with most of the major gifts already purchased. Hopefully I'll be able to "wrap" this up before my days off so I can just kick back and relax hassle free. I also got some very good news yesterday. I FINALLY HAVE AN MRI DATE! I'd been getting very anxious about this of late, so this is really wonderfull news to finally have a set date, and not too far in the future. And finally, some proactive thoughts on changes for the following year. Not to be confused with those atrocious New Years resolutions which I hate so much :) Nick
I was just struck by the thought that as time passes I feel as though I have less and less noteworthy things to post. This, despite the fact that I'm arguably feeling the best I ever have (knee injuries aside). Maybe that's just it...turmoil breeds entertainment. Anyways, here's an update of sorts, filled with jaw dropping news such as... As mentioned, my knee injury is still a factor in life, albeit I'm now pretty much comfortable in my day to day activities. I'm still a ways removed from heavy lifting or sports, but I still feel as though things are getting better, which is a positive sign. I still hope to be skating this winter! And speaking of winter, Christmas/Hannukah/Sarah & Mom's birthdays are just around the corner which means there's plenty of shopping to be done. So far I'm mostly in the idea generating phase, albeit I have secured one standout gift IMO. Hopefully I can get things done sooner rather than later, as I'd like to avoid the mobs later in the month. On to videogaming...we finally did it! This past Thursday 4 of us got together and finally got NHL07 set up properly in widescreen HD. The images are all a lot crisper, while the HD view enabled us to see about half the rink while we played. It's a very different experience and, alas, we got smoked, but had a lot of fun in the process. I also took the time to download the new Superman demo, which I have to say looks to be quite fun. Kind of like grand theft auto, but with superpowers. I do have a complaint about the lack of mortality though. I mean, as Superman, if I club a pedestrian with a streetlamp or throw an exploding oil tanker on them, shouldn't they NOT be able to walk it off?! Anyways, I have to say it's hella fun to pick up a car, fly a couple miles above the city with it and then hurl it back down to earth. Finally, I'm planning on having a Cottage weekend in January. Hopefully by that point I'll be good to go for some physical activity. If you're interested, please reply or send me an e-mail concerning what weekend would be best so I can get going on firming up the details.
This one is all about hockey...
Hey Mullin, maybe it isn't hockey and videogames that made us friends, it was my Scarlett Johansson-like appearance :)
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I planned to include this in Shawn's post, but it vastly exceeded the length you're allowed for comments. Nick
http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2006/10/help_
So yeah, the title really has nothing to do with this post, but it's a cool song I'm listening to, so there you have it.
The weekend was a good one.
So somewhere between monday night and tuesday morning I got sick (stomach/headaches) and ended up having to take a sick day yesterday. My two working theories on how I got sick are as follows: 1. A combination of an actual virus combined with the late nights I'd had recently. 2. The heat & humidity, along with me drinking a glass of milk that was "probably" well past it's prime. Fortunately, as opposed to being entirely unproductive, I did manage to accomplish a few things yesterday. 1. I finally finished the book I'd been reading (The Apocalypse Watch by Robert Ludlum). Given that Ludlum's Bourne series was so good - largely due to incredibly strong characters and writers craft - this book really suprised me. Simply put, the dialogue between characters in this book was the worst I've ever read. So bad that none of the characters ended up being likeable, let alone believable. There was also a bit of a shocker for an end that made me "Fuhrer-ious" as the book had been trying to take itself seriously. 2. I continued "ripping" my old cd's. This has been a laborious and time consuming project that I started a week or so ago. I'm only taking my favorite songs, but as I haven't listened to most of the CD's in ages, I have to skim to establish what I like now. It's interesting listening to some of the old stuff, with the inevitable "Did I actually like this?" and the "Wow, I didn't appreciate this as at the time" moments. So far my work has told me that in overall quality "Underdogs" by Matthew Good ranks as the best album, while the most suprising by far is the two-disk "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" by the Smashing Pumpkins. I remembered it as a hit or miss album with a handfull of good songs combined and a lot of misses, but after going through it it's a very solid album end to end. 3. After reinstalling Age Of Empires II, I gave it a whirl on a 8 person match and played a hell of a game. Case in point: I killed over 1,600 units, razed over 400 buildings and lost 0 military units in the process. It goes to show that 160 english longbowmen and 10 trebuchets go a long way towards world domination. Nick
An update post if there ever was one… Concerning my job: It’s finally been posted AND revised to exclude such curiosities such as “must be a health practitioner” that mind bogglingly went into the first posting while such things as Photoshop skills did not. There’s a lot of people who want me to stay here, and my own fingers are crossed because I want to be here, but I can’t help but feel that it’s almost entirely out of my hands. Concerning my cat: It’s looking as though the reason the cat has been a bit of a handful lately is that she’s going deaf, or at the very least is hard of hearing right now. I almost forget that she’s 17 years old (or is it 18 now) and sadly, but truthfully, she probably won’t be around much longer. I haven’t suffered much loss in my life, and what I have came at an age where that degree of connectivity wasn’t there in the deceased, but the cat has been a part of my everyday life for a very long time and it will be a very sad day when she goes. I’m glad she’s at the cottage now where she belongs. Concerning the NHL: I posted a while ago that I’d make some comments concerning the off-season, so here it goes for the few of you on here that might be interested. - Senators: First off, I’m rather shocked at the amount of people angry with the Sens/John Muckler for getting “ripped off” in the Havlat deal and letting Chara walk. It’s called a salary cap people! They genuinely wanted to keep Chara, but he signed for 7.5 million elsewhere, which they could not match. It’s as simple as that. Rather than have the same thing happen with Havlat at the end of this season, the team instead elected to get some assets in return, tangible stuff that could help now and in the future. Will Preissing (or Corvo for that matter) fill Chara’s shoes? No, but both are pretty good young-ish players at much lower salaries who will go a long way to offsetting that loss. Will the Sens be able to replace Havlat? No, but they have some young players like Eaves who can probably step it up to help offset that loss. Is Ottawa as good of a team as last year? Definitely not, but given the salary cap circumstances they’ve done a very good job to put together a team that will be able to compete for top in the East yet again. It’s just a new reality…if you get too good, you’re going to lose players. To this point, Ottawa has done a very good job coping with that. - Canadiens: While I don’t think this off-season has gone quite according to plan for the Habs – specifically speaking about Elias here, Montreal has nonetheless put together what looks to be a pretty solid team for the coming year. Acquiring Samsonov is a definite 2nd line upgrade over the underachieving Zednik, and then dumping him off – essentially for Mike Johnson – gives them a player far more suited and adept at a 2 way role. As it is now, Montreal looks to have 2 competent scoring lines, a very good 2-way line and a good energy line. The defense is average but got much better towards the end of last year while their strength is in net with Huet, who was the star of the team last year and hopefully should perform similarly, and if not, David Aebischer should be more than adequate. So where do the Habs find themselves in the standings? Probably not - at the top, but probably not scraping for a playoff spot this year. Unfortunately the North East has been a tough division in recent times, but I soundly believe they have a better team than Toronto, Boston and even edge out Buffalo, who have arbitration problems up the wazoo. My gut feeling is that the Habs will place around 6th or 7th, but be closer to a 4th/5th place team talent wise. - The rest of the NHL: I’m happy that my two favorite teams (especially Montreal) are looking pretty good in regards to the salary cap. I can’t say the same about a few other teams. Depending on arbitration, the Devils and Buffalo might be in a tight bind. Jersey still has Gomez and Gionta to sign and are already tight to the cap. Buffalo has 12 or so players going to arbitration after career years. Those teams could get the shakeup, but the question that has to be asked is where these good high priced players will end up. I think you’re just seeing the tip of it now, but I think GM’s in general have overspent and a LOT of teams are going to find themselves in binds in a few years and the asking price of a lot of players might shoot down because there simply won’t be many teams with the cap room/budget to afford them. Anyhow, I digress…to go along with the other 2 teams, Boston is up shit’s creek after their big singings, Atlanta has cap issues and as such Ilya Kovalchuk might be disgracefully centered by Steve Rucchin this season. Toronto has no room for wingers, and their defence is overrated. On another note, I feel bad for Edmonton, who after a good run has lost a ton of guys. They still have a very good young nucleus to that team, but it must be tough to see so many parts of the team leave after a pretty bitching run. |
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Hopeful
Barely Awake
Sick