Highlights

Cytoplasmic Writings - Month Archives

To be honest. I don't remember much of what happened in April....

Thursday, April 26th 2007

Ouch. The Sabres overpowered the Rangers and the Ducks trounced the Canucks in what seemed to be two one-sided games. That's to be expected I guess. My bet is that it will be the Sabres versus the Ducks in the Stanley Cup Final. That is, if the Sabres can stay healthy and not repeat last year's playoffs. Don't count the Rangers and Canucks out yet, they'll go down fighting but Buffalo's four line offense and the Ducks' defense is just too much. For the other matchups, I think it's gonna be New Jersey over Ottawa and Detroit taking out the Sharks.

Had my interview for the Escalation Team yesterday. It was a very short interview and apparantly it can go both ways. I'll know by the end of the week if I got the position. Let's hope for the best! Woot Woot! Man, I hope I didn't just jinx it....oh well.

I shut off the heat over the last few days because it was so nice. Now it's frick'n cold again in the house. Showers for the next few days and the weekend. How utterly gloomy that is going to be. At least the car will be washed. I've always liked the look of my car after a car wash or rain. Well until I get to the door that's slightly off coloured. You can barely notice it at times while it's glaringly obvious other times. That reminds me, I have to schedule car maintenance soon.

Anyways, off to go work out. Hope you enjoyed the Bench Warmer scans from yesterday. I forgot to finish up the checklist so that link goes to the Star Wars Evolution Update checklist. Oops. I'll put the checklist in once I've completed it. Bench Warmer is notorious for variants and cards that are not in the regular set. It's very frustrating for collectors. Almost as frustrating as Topps and Upper Deck never releasing information about their card releases in advance.

DRAGONCRYPT 4/26/2007 10:58:59 AM

Monday, April 23rd 2007

No Wii Yet

Went to Future Shop today right at opening. They didn't have any Wiis in. They did get an order of Wii Plays and Wii Nunchuks. My co-workers who were also looking for the Wii were unable to find it at another Future Shop in Kitchener. Even went to the nearby Zellers and EB. Nada. Oh well, I'm gonna call Future Shop every morning to see if they have the Wiis in stock. If they do, Whoosh! I'm gone.

Ebay changed the way the post auctions up. It's a lot nicer but it's more difficult to post multiple auctions up now. I'm a little annoyed but at the same time relieved. I was going to post my Star Wars Miniatures up but I just realized that it may have been a bad idea until I did a little more research on the market. Still haven't decided to sell my Bettie Page autograph. With only 100 it's really tempting to keep it. Maybe it's better to sell my Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), and my Ovechkin and Malkin rookies.

Really windy today. The washroom door keeps closing on me which scared the shit out of me especially when I'm supposed to be home alone. Yesterday a stupid squirrel with a damn cookie in his mouth crawled to the window ledge outside my room and started by the half-choking, half-dying noise. It was calling out to another squirrel. It wouldn't leave! So goddamn annoying. I was forced to wake up for a bit. Today, a goddamn pigeon flew to the same ledge and started cooing. WTF?! Jenn calls them my friends from nature. Sigh....

DRAGONCRYPT 4/23/2007 1:35:44 PM

Sunday, April 22nd 2007

The weekend is almost over again. The weeks are just flying by here. I can't get over that it's already near the end of April. Tax season is almost over and we've got our first real spring/summer weekend with temperatures over 20 degrees. With such warm temperatures, the university students are all coming out of the woodwork to party and lounge in the sun. My neighbours had a party until 6 in the morning. I could hear some idiot shouting Fire! Fire! at around 5:30 (which woke me up). Of course it was a total prank but nobody found it funny. Yesterday, there was this huge lawn party across the street. I could hear the buzz of the crowd from where I was. Crazy. I guess everyone is celebrating exams and such.

Spent most of yesterday trying to get some Harry Potter checklists up on the website. I can't believe how many subsets Artbox makes for the Harry Potter sets. Although I would rather have a large abundance of chase cards then to have no chase cards at all. I think that's why I like series like Benchwarmers, some hockey sets, Rittenhouse Archives and Artbox cards. There are always a ton of chase cards to go for and the base cards are amazingly well done. I enjoying having 1 out of every 4 packs have some special card. I don't even mind if it's a high number with some more foil on it. That's the fun part about buying a box of cards. Too many packs with just base cards isn't fun at all.

I have to find a better way to update everything. I'm getting so tired trying to keep up. Then again, I'm a lazy bastard so maybe I'm not trying really hard to keep up. Anyways, just finishing off this post and seeing what else I can put up.

DRAGONCRYPT 4/22/2007 1:50:36 PM

Wednesday, April 18th 2007

Food Poisoning Sucks

I'm still recovering from a nasty bout of food poisoning from Monday night. I decided to buy some Thai-style burgers from Sobey's as it was Buy one, get one free. Either I didn't cook it long enough or I may have cross-contaminated the cooking area. I came down hard with stomach cramps thirty minutes after consumption. I managed to go to work Tuesday but ended it getting a slight fever, headaches and even more stomach cramps so I had to go home. Slept most of the day and drank lots of fluids. I'm feeling much better today but I'm around 80 percent right now. My stomach isn't the best right now and I have the occasional headache. It was a scare because I thought I had E. Coli or some other deadly strain. The good thing about this is that I won't look at a burger the same way ever.

Didn't get the Wii over the weekend. The Superstore had 15 people waiting in line when we went and they only had 8 in stock. We rushed over to Toysrus which didn't open for another hour and there was a line-up of 20-30 people already there. Wow. Jenn and I just gave up and decided to open the boxes I got from Open That Box Day. Jenn got a Veruca Salt Autograph so the box was well worth what I paid (which was a good price anyway). We also opened a box of the Corpse Bride cards from Japan. These cards are absolutely gorgeous and it's a shame cards aren't done this way here. I'm still contemplating whether I should sell my Bettie Page autograph. I could probably get 600 US for it but I wouldn't know what to do with the cash. There are some great sets coming out soon so I can save and spend on those, but then again, only 100 of these autographs were created. Sigh. Maybe I'll raise funds by selling some of the other things I currently want to get rid of.

Staying in Waterloo this weekend so I should be able to get some work done. Still need to finish off taxes for this year and also meet with an accountant for the corporate stuff. That stuff is gonna cost my a small fortune just to do the taxes. Sigh. I'll prolly go looing for the Wii again and see what kewl sales are on from tomorrow's flyers. I'll be having the Wii soon! This will be the first time since my SNES where I was up-to-date with the latest gaming hardware. Sniff...

DRAGONCRYPT 4/18/2007 11:08:06 PM

Thursday, April 12th 2007

I had to go to work early today to cover a shift for the project I was working on. One of the guys got sick so I'm dead-tired. Looks like I'll be waking up early again tomorrow to cover again. The good thing is I get to go home to Toronto!

This Saturday April 14th is "Open That Box Day" over at the Non-Sport Update Card Talk community. This is an online community of non-sport trading card collectors. It's really a tight-knit community that share a common interest. I'm glad to be a part of it (although I don't post much). So "Open That Box Day" is a new annual event where forum members will open a box of cards they've been saving or wanting to open. We share our box breaks in the forum. I've manage to convince Jenn to open a few boxes with me. I bought a few Charlie and the Chocolate Factory boxes from the States (for cheap) and also a Corpse Bride box of cards. It will be fun to open the cards. I'm really itching to buy another few boxes of Benchwarmers 2006 Series 2 but I shouldn't. I still need to post the 8 boxes I've opened and also the Charlie boxes after this weekend.

I really dislike it when I predict bad things happening and then watching them come into fruition. I usually wish the best for all those who work with me but sometimes you see things and predict that the behaviour will produce certain results. And they do. Sigh. Anyways, I tried to help but there's nothing you can do when people choose not to help themselves. Not my problem. Yes I'm being a little vague but since I'm on Facebook, I need to make sure I don't offend too many people. Hehe.

Gonna go Wii shopping this weekend. Most of the stores are going to have limited quantities in stock so Jenn and I are going to try our luck at one of them on Saturday. Wake up early and line up I guess. Saturday's gonna be one busy day!

DRAGONCRYPT 4/12/2007 11:28:57 PM

Wednesday, April 11th 2007

Afternoon Edition

I've been so used to waking up for morning shifts that I wake up at 8 and I can't sleep in. I ended up going to the Sobey's to pick up some goods. Dammit, they ran out of the Mesquite Burgers!! Grrr! Stupid students buying all my burgers! I'll try again later tonight or tomorrow. I did end up picking up some fresh strawberries and some plain yogurt. Jenn suggested we have plain yogurt with fresh fruit over the weekend and it's awesome! I've been eating that after my workouts every night this week. I've got mangoes, bananas and now strawberries! Woohoo!

Finally applied for some new positions at work. My six months was done March 11th and I've only now decided to update my resume and apply for other positions. I have yet to apply for a position within my department. I want to see if I get any interviews with any other groups before applying for jobs within my department. It's good to know that several people do think I'm qualified to go to the next level. Comforting indeed.

I didn't post this earlier but my heart-felt condolences go out to the families of the six Canadian soldiers who were killed and 2 wounded over the weekend in Afghanistan. After a fairly quiet winter, Canada has again been hit with casualties. I'm glad to see the military honouring the families' wishes and not permitting media to be at the ramp ceremony when the soldiers' bodies arrive. I'm sure there will more political commentary on how Canada should withdraw from Afghanistan. If there's one thing I like about the Harper government, it's there stance on Afghanistan. Canada is committed. Period. Our troops are doing good work there and it's the rest of the NATO nations that are dicks because they will not send their troops to Afghanistan to support the NATO troops already there.

DRAGONCRYPT 4/11/2007 10:22:17 AM

Sunday, April 8th 2007

Better luck next year

What a weekend for the NHL. The last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference was played in dramatic fashion over the last two days of the season. On Saturday night, the Leafs and the Habs played. Montreal had to win to ensure a playoff spot while Toronto had to win to keep their playoff hopes alive. The game had almost a playoff atmosphere as the crowd was really into it. Toronto took a 3-1 lead early in the second and then Raycroft let in a soft goal which Montreal took advantage of and exploded with 4 goals. Down 5-3, Raycroft was pulled and Aubin was put in. In just as dramatic a fashion as Montreal's comeback, the Leafs score 3 unanswered goals to win 6-5 in regulation.

I wasn't able to watch the game, but heard most of it on the radio. This was the playoffs for the Leafs and Habs. I think this game will be more exciting than most of the first two rounds of the playoffs. Both teams had really bad moments and in the end, Montreal was elminated from the playoffs.

Now to part 2 of the drama. The New York Islanders had to beat New Jersey on Sunday to oust the Leafs from the final playoff spot. Leading 2-1 again the Devils, New Jersey pulls their goaltender and scores with 0.9 seconds left to tie the game. Yep, 0.9 seconds left. Awesome. With nothing decided in overtime, the game was decided by a shootout, which the Islanders won. So that was it for the Leafs. Wow.

I'm not upset that the Leafs didn't make the playoffs. When they lost the 4-1 lead to Buffalo two Fridays ago, then barely beat the struggling Flyers, Toronto was done for. When they could have clinched a playoff spot by beating the Islanders, they instead lose 5-2. The Islanders did what was necessary to make the playoffs. They won three straight while the Leafs played themselves out of the playoffs. Honestly, it doesn't really matter because they most likely would have been elminated from the first round (they were facing Buffalo).

Now die-hard fans can say that the Leafs had tons of injuries...I totally agree. I'm surprised that got this far with all those injuries. I cheered them on until the very end but I realized that the only people that would benefit from the Leafs making the playoffs would be the owners and shareholders of Maple Leaf Entertainment. Not the fans and not the players (though they might have had some bonuses). I think the Leafs have a great time. They need consistent goaltending, offense and defense. So I hope that the Leafs make some good additions next year or keep some of the players (like Peca).

Overall, a good season by the Toronto Maple Leafs. Thanks for playing and better luck next year. Fear not, Maple Leaf shareholders, the Raptors clinched their division. There is still playoff money to be made.

DRAGONCRYPT 4/8/2007 11:13:56 PM