Highlights

Cytoplasmic Writings - December 2007 Archives

Winter came a little early in December when we were hit with a pretty heavy snowstorm in December. Shovelling all that snow by myself was not the greatest experience. December was lightning quick with a lot of shopping and some days off. Overall, a pretty relaxing month despite the hectic schedule at times.

Monday, December 31st 2007

Had a pretty uneventful day at work. Hardly any calls so I could work on a few of my open cases. It's amazing how quiet Waterloo is without any students and with the holiday season here. Driving to work was like driving in a ghost town. No plans tonight for any special New Year's Eve plans. Just going to scan some comics and talk to Jenn online.

My roommates went to Toronto for the New Year's so it's been really quiet here. There were in Toronto earlier this week as well so I've been spending my time mostly by myself. It has definitely been nice to stay in a quiet house (although cold). However, since I've been scanning comic books all weekend, it has been a little boring. I lent the Wii to Jenn and her parents so I couldn't even play any Wii games.

Anyways, see you all in the New Year and happy holidays!

DRAGONCRYPT 12/31/2007 11:09:35 PM

Sunday, December 30th 2007

Wow, the Leafs lost a blowout against the New York Rangers yesterday night. What I really hated was that the fans booed Raycroft when he got pulled from the game. The Rangers had just scored their fifth goal but they also had almost 8 minutes of powerplays including THREE two man advantages. The penalties were lopsided with Toronto getting 10 or eleven penalties while the Rangers got two? I hate games like this when special teams determine the outcome. The officials made the game fairly lopsided. I'm not saying that the Leafs didn't deserve those penalties, but I'm sure the Rangers had more than a few uncalled penalties as well.

I finally posted some of my cards for sale on Ebay. I opened three boxes of Marvel Masterpieces 2007 and got some good sketches. I'm hoping that I make enough off these sketches so I can open the remaining three boxes. If I can pay off the price of my 6 boxes with these three auctions, I'll definitely open up the last 3 boxes to see what I got. On a side note, the collation on some of the cards was horrible. One box, I didn't get a full set of base cards. Two of the boxes had all the exact same foil cards. So yes, Upper Deck seems to have a cheap-ass pattern to their special cards. It's frustrating getting doubles to all 30 foil cards. Not the best box-opening experience.

I also have one Star Wars 30th card for sale. It's a coloured Jawa by Juan Carlos Ramos. I'm hoping it goes for over a $100. Sketches were hard to come by in this set but I managed to get nine with my 2 cases and some extra packs. I got three Katie Cooks and I don't want to part with them, but I might just sell one to get more money for some of the upcoming sets. Lord of the Rings Masterpieces 2 is looking better than I first though so I might be picking up a case. All depends on the funds I can raise hee hee. For a quick link to my auctions, click on the link below.

Steve's Ebay Auctions

DRAGONCRYPT 12/30/2007 11:14:18 PM

Saturday, December 29th 2007

Spending the whole day scanning comic books. I luckily still have leftovers from the Christmas Eve dinner so I didn't have to cook for the whole day. Just scanning, eating and working out, eating, more scanning. Going to go listen to the Leafs game while scanning. Hopefully it should be a good game.

Noticed in the news a few days ago that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan. The strange thing was that I didn't feel any surprise when I read the news. The events in Pakistan and Bhutto's return almost foretold that some dire events were coming. Bhutto was trying to re-establish democracy in Pakistan following some interesting years with Musharraf as the head. Musharraf's co-operation with the United States on the "War on Terror" provided millions in funding and a blind-eye to some domestic policies. Maybe we should be more worried about Pakistan, after all, it's a country that is nuclear yet still has riots, assassinations and acts of terrorism. Don't forget their wonderful relationship with India. Just another area affected by the Western foreign policies. Sigh.

On a different, but still morbid topic, I found our resident squirrel dead in front of the garage today. I could tell this was our resident squirrel because it had no tail. Brian used to chase it around the house often. The weirdest thing is I found it lying down with legs all spread out (like it was flying). The squirrel was huge and fat and difficult to get into the plastic bag. At least it was still in one piece. I had seen earlier a cat inching towards the corpse. I'm glad none of the crows got to the corpse either. The other day a saw a huge murder of crows. It was terrifying to see so many in the same place. They're HUGE.

DRAGONCRYPT 12/29/2007 7:16:34 PM

Friday, December 28th 2007

I hope that everyone is enjoying their holidays whether it be with friends and family, on vacation or even alone. I find people tend to get too caught up in the holiday spirit and run around with their heads cut off to see and visit everyone. Me? I prefer to sit at home and do nothing spectacular. Maybe have a few friends over to play some video games or such. Of course that the really happen with my holidays as I brought work upon myself.

My parents were on vacation and were coming back on the 24th and I volunteered to make and prepare the traditional Christmas dinner on the 24th. I wasn't really going to make everything as my mom wanted to do some of the cooking the day of. So my sister, Jenn and I set out to make my mom's famous curry and buy and prep the food for the bash on the 24th. I had just learned how to make the curry a few weeks ago and it seemed simple enough. The plan was the cook the curry on Sunday.

Since I was back Wednesday night, I had lots of time to do my things. Jenn had a half-day at work on Thursday so I met her downtown to go watch The Golden Compass. It was a pretty enjoyable movie and I think I'll write up a review for it. Friday was spent grocery shopping at Costco for the party and also cooking some food for us on the weekend. We met up with Larry, Geoff and Brian (the other Brian) for I am Legend. Had dinner at Congee Wong and heard Larry's story on how he busted his face (ask him if you're curious). The movie was sold out at 9:50 so we bought tickets for the 10:40 show. I must say the movie was enjoyable and scary at times. Not slasher scary but more thriller scary.

Saturday was spent grocery shopping at Oriental and then heading to Jenn's parents for dinner. Jenn's uncle was visiting so I got to meet more of her relatives. We all ended up playing a card game that is very similar to Chinese poker. It was really fun. Since everyone was speaking Mandarin, I had a difficult time following conversations, but it was good because I learned a few new words. There was one time Jenn's aunt said something to me completely in Mandarin and I understood only half of it. I ended up smiling and chuckling...hehehe.

Sunday was the big curry day. But first, we had to cut out the excess fat from 4 kgs of chicken thigh. Ugh. That took 3 hours between Jenn and myself. There was a lot of chicken skin and fat sitting in the bowl. Cooking the curry ended up taking another 3 hours. It's a slow process and at the end of it, the curry tasted slightly off. We didn't know what was missing, but something definitely was. My mom was coming home the next day so maybe she'll figure it out.

Monday was the big cook-off. My mom came home, I prepped the turkey and cooked it. I stole an idea from Mark and covered the turkey in bacon so I wouldn't have to baste it very much. The turkey ended up being overcooked (nobody checked on the turkey when I had to go out for a bit...grrr). Jenn, my sister, my brother-in-law and myself rolled spring rolls as well. It was fast and furious at the house. During the middle of the day, Jenn and I went to visit Dave to drop off his gift. It was good see him since I rarely see most of my guy friends anymore.

So dinner ended up awesome! My mom immediately figured out that I had forgotten to put salt into the curry. Aiya. Simple as that. Woot! Woot! Dinner consisted of turkey, stir-fried vegetables, curry, tumeric rice, sambat fish and shrimp, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sushi and spring rolls. For dessert, my brother and sister-in-law got some crazy ass desserts! So good. It definitely made Jenn happy! My cousin also got a tiramisu cake. Crazy. Definitely a good Christmas dinner.

DRAGONCRYPT 12/28/2007 11:41:40 PM

Sunday, December 16th 2007

Woke up about 30 minutes ago and looked outside and man, it's pretty bad for the snow. I'm not sure if I want to do any grocery shopping today or even go to the gym. The snow shovelling alone will be my workout. The thing that sucks is that it's windy as well. That makes the shovelling all the worse. Bleh. It's definitely gonna be a fun one today.

Besides the outdoor workout, I'm planning to scan comic books all day long and to pack a few long boxes if possible up to take back to Toronto. So far for 2007, I've purchased over 1000 comic books, which is equivalent to 4-5 long boxes. Normally the long boxes will store more but I use 42 mm thick backing boards. I still can't want for the day I put a faster computer with the scanner to see if that will speed up the scanning process, or it's just the scanner itself. It's an AGFA scanner (back in the day, AGFA made scanners) and it's external SCSI. To me, it's a really good scanner. It's just slow when scanning print because of the filters it runs to get rid of the print dots. The resulting scans are great but the process is a little too slow for my liking.

DRAGONCRYPT 12/16/2007 10:19:41 AM

Saturday, December 15th 2007

Staying back this weekend while Jenn is in Toronto. Probably a good idea with this winter storm warning. It's been pretty good so far but the brunt of the snow is coming tomorrow. I'm going to try to make the gym later this afternoon before the snow starts.

Going to take the opportunity to work on the site a bit and update some of the outdated sections. I don't know how much I'll be able to do. The other day I was trying to write something up and I got writer's block. Dammit. I'm a crappy writer and I still get stuck. Arrgh. Well I should be able to get some things done. There are already pics for the new 2008 LEGO sets and also more information for more non-sports card releases.

My Marvel Masterpieces boxes just came in and I opened only a few of the boxes. My first box had a full colour Sarah Wilkinson sketch of Mary Jane, which is awesome. The second box had a much-sought after NAR sketch and the last box had a mundane Spider-Man sketch by Blair Shedd. I'm going to be selling all three sketches and if they fetch a decent price, I may or may not open up the other boxes to see what sketches there or just sell the boxes off.

The Leafs have been on a roll lately, winning 6 of their last 7 games. I wish I could watch the game tonight against Montreal. These games are always entertaining to watch. I'll gladly settle for listening to the game over the radio. I love the fact that you can listen to all the Leafs games online for free. I tried to do that for a Raptors game and there wasn't any available free online broadcasting. I haven't tried recently, but hopefully MLSE has gotten the rights do it. Speaking of the Raptors, they're starting to pull away from the .500 mark which is good. I don't really enjoy watching basketball too much but Raptors games are fun to watch for some reason.

DRAGONCRYPT 12/15/2007 1:45:21 PM

Monday, December 10th 2007

Had a pretty good long weekend. It was nice and relaxing. I didn't do too much during my time in Toronto. Jenn and I spent a lot of time wrapping people's gifts and running those errands in Toronto. After all these years, I haven't lost my touch when wrapping boxes. They're simple and easy to wrap. There was one present that was shaped like an xmas tree so we decided (after some failed wrapping attempts) to use a gift bag.

On Friday night I watched the beginning of Waterworld with Kevin Costner. Yes, it looked like The Postman on water and a mix of Mad Max and Pirates of the Carribbean with seadoos, but I must say it was somewhat enjoyable to watch. I didn't get to watch the entire movie, but I wouldn't mind finishing to see if they ever reach "dry land". There's a whole slew of old movies I need to watch and get Jenn to watch. Then she'll understand all those movie references I make and I won't look as stupid when she looks at me weird...

I also saw the new 2008 LEGO sets coming out. Stormtrooper and Rebel Trooper battle sets!!!!! Awesome! They even come with a vehicle. I can't wait to get a ton of these to build my armies of destruction! Which reminds me, I still need to build my UCS Falcon. Gah! That thing is gonna take me forever!!!!! There are some other great sets coming out as well. I hope it will be small year (yeah right). I still need to get the TIE Crawler and Hoth Rebel Base. There was this insane sale on Toysrus.ca but everything was sold out fast. Besides, I need to sell a few things before I can make some purchases. Still contemplating whether or not to keep a few of the Marvel Masterpieces boxes or to sell them all. I'd make a pretty decent profit on them which would fun my payments for other boxes coming in the future. We shall see.

DRAGONCRYPT 12/10/2007 9:23:14 PM

Wednesday, December 5th 2007

Phew. For some reason, I have been feeling really tired lately. Maybe it's this new schedule with Jenn commuting to Toronto for work. We both have fairly long days due to the snow and traffic delays. I don't think it's that though. I recently have not felt very motivated at work so it has become a little...boring again. I don't know how to put it. I'm getting tired of the same old stuff over and over again. So whenever I get home from work, I do not feel like doing anything. Gah. What a terrible cycle to be in. Must break out of the funk.

My UCS Millennium Falcon is just sitting the in living room. I haven't even touched it to make sure all the parts are there. When going through the bags of LEGO, I noticed that one of the parts was damaged. Rather than call LEGO for every part I find that was defective, I'd rather call them once to get it over with. Has anyone else ordered the free Nintendo Jackets for their Wii Remotes? Mine shipped 4 weeks ago and I have yet to get any. I'm hoping this season isn't too bad for all the shipping that's happening. I'm also expecting 6 boxes of Marvel Masterpieces. Hopefully that is coming in soon. I wasn't too impressed with the sketches that have shown up on Ebay. Let's hope I get better luck than those guys.

The Leafs won their 3rd straight game despite being out shot 35-15. Vesa Toskala was keeping the Leafs in the game. Looks like Toskala will be the Leafs' #1 goalie. Poor Raycroft only got a year to try to prove himself. The Leafs face the New York Rangers tomorrow to see if they can make it 4 wins in a row. Let's see if the Leafs are able to maintain their confidence. Go Leafs Go!

DRAGONCRYPT 12/5/2007 10:28:57 PM