Yesterday night, I visited an old friend, The Liquor Dome. You see, The Liquor Dome is a club that was the setting for my first (and only) drunken stupor. It was actually quite fun. I meant to write more about that weekend, but I don't think I ever got around to it. Unfortunately, The Liquor Dome was also the setting for my first (and thankfully only) drunken washroom puking session... not so fun. I went with Dan, Pascal and some of their other friends. It was good times. An odd thing about the whole experience is that at one point during the night, I went to the washroom and was surprised to realize that it looked totally unfamiliar and foreign to me... except for the sink.
Maybe that was a little too much information. :)
On a separate note, two of my favourite actors are probably Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. I came across this article on ESPN: De Niro Vs. Pacino. I just had to include an excerpt because it made me smile.
Three things you need to know about my stepdad: 1) He's 100 percent Italian, 2) his favorite movies of all-time are "Godfather 1," "Godfather 2," "Scarface," "Analyze This," "Goodfellas," "Bronx Tale," and "And Justice For All," and 3) his two favorite actors are Pacino and De Niro. Going to him for a Pacino-De Niro breakdown was like going to Bob Ryan for the definitive take on Bird vs. Magic.
Anyway, I couldn't decide between the two of them, so I turned the decision over to him. Here's what he said:
"DeNiro vs. Pacino? (silence) Oh, boy. I don't think you want to do this. (More silence) Oh. Jeez. (More silence) You have to pick one? (Dead silence) Why would you want to do this? You can't win either way."
(After some prodding ...)
"(Bleep) ... I'd go with De Niro. Most of Pacino's best stuff came out 20 and 30 years ago ... De Niro keeps coming out with quality stuff. But that's no knock on Pacino ..."
(And he defended Pacino for the next five minutes.)

"The world you know is pretty stagnant isn't it?"
Christine Wong

OK, so maybe it's been a while since I've blogged. :)
I've spent a significant amount of time during this past month trying to think of something to get Christine for her birthday. I was pretty stumped and I basically reverted to walking into random stores hoping I would get some inspiration. So I was walking around in IKEA and it was a little bit trippy because when I walked into one of the rooms it totally reminded me of that scene in Fight Club where his room basically turns into an IKEA catalogue. Did I mention I didn't get much sleep? Anyway, amongst a sea of POÄNG armchairs, I had another little delusion. I heard Christine's voice in my head: "I want to get a new watch", "So what are you going to get me?", "I want to get a new watch", "So what are you going to get me?". Whoa, more trippiness. It was definitely a "dental plan", "Lisa needs braces." kind of moment. Sometimes I wonder how I would ever describe anything if it weren't for references to movies and TV. :)

So, I haven't posted in a while. Exams went alright I think. The break between school and work was a nice relaxing three weeks and probably the most enjoyable school-to-work break I've had so far. I didn't really do anything special though except some camping with the engineers. It was good times.
I got to Ottawa on Sept 1. I'm living with Renee, Wen and two people who lived here before: Dan and Pascal. All my roommates are great, and the place is really nice so all is good.
Christine came up with me the first week because she doesn't start working at Scotia until next week. This was a quasi-momentous, bubble-bursting occasion for Christine because it marked the first time she's been anywhere except the GTA or Waterloo since she was about 2. We basically spent the first week checking out some of my surroundings and the main attractions in Ottawa. On Tuesday, we ventured off to Montreal. I think the Quebecois may collectively be the worst group of drivers except for possibly the Chinese. Aside from that, Montreal is a lovely city. It's very nice, and quite beautiful. Checked out McGill and did some shopping. Went to a museum and the planetarium and they were both closed (even though they said they'd be open)! Unfortunately, I didn't get to check out the night life because I had to get up early to go to work so I guess I'll have to come back one day. With regards to work, I'd have to say that I'm on pace to being very impressed with OTI. Most people who I knew who've worked at OTI have pretty much raved about what a nice place to work it is. When I got here, they started us off on a week and half long "boot camp". We also got a lot of presentations about how things work at OTI and how their products work. The OTI people talked the talk, but the impressive part is that they seem to back it up. They have a very friendly atmosphere, excellent software engineering practices and a very nice working environment. Although, this is just the impression of a co-op student who hasn't yet done any real work, so I think I'll find out later how accurate my first impression was.