1) “Losing” an hour of sleep
2) Having to adjust your sleep schedule accordingly that first night
3) Deciding whether or not your cell phone will change its clock no its own and adjust your alarm accordingly (I failed at this on Sunday; ended up getting up late for badminton).

The biggest benefit for me though, which is probably the same case for a lot of people, is that it’s still bright when it’s late. This really helps after a long day of work since i’m able to head home or head out when it’s still bright, even at 6 or 7 pm. Heck, I went for a run yesterday and it was still bright even by 7:30 pm finished.

But what are some other implications of this time change? Apparently, it can also negatively affect people. If people have troubles adjusting to the time, then they’re not as awake. I think there have been studies done to show that the Monday after a time change, drivers are not as alert. That’s pretty scary especially since I was thinking about as I was on the highway on the way to school…

I also think there’s a general lack of awareness of daylight savings. To be honest, I had no idea it was coming up until someone had mentioned it to me. I bet Google gets a significant percentage increase in search results for words like daylight savings, or losing a word, on the few days before and after it happens. Would be cool to know.

Hopefully the implications of Daylight Saving are positive for you and that you’ve adjusted by now. I definitely know how bad it feels to “lose” an hour but once we gain that hour later on in a year, life feels awesome again!

Trattoria Italian Kitchen is a little place near Burrard and 4th. It belongs to Glowbal Group, which is pretty well known for having some classy restaurants in Yaletown that attracts celebrities.

Service was pretty mediocre on an overall basis; it was slower than I would have expected and we weren’t even addressed when we first walked into the restaurant. I think the staff was very engaged with what was going on with the Olympics which is probably why it didn’t meet my expectations as much.

It seems like the place is pretty popular for breakfast as most of the tables around us were having breakfast.

For starters, we were offered complementary scones. These are probably the best scones I have ever tasted. They were very soft and went well with the lemon cream dipping that came with it. I would definitely make sure to try this out if you ever visit this restaurant.

For our starter, we ordered the Beef Carpaccio. This was better than the ones i’ve had at other restaurants and the portions were quite satisfying (but at $13 it better be)! It was cut thin and there was a creamy sauce that went with it.

Time for an entree! I first heard about this place when my sister mentioned their downtown location. One night, she brought home Kobe Beef meatballs, which were pretty good. This dish was the Spaghetti with Kobe Beef Meatballs and it was served with this truffle type cream sauce. Although the portions are not as large as I would have liked, it definitely met my expectations for this type of restaurant.

My sister went for the BC Salmon (?) Eggs Benedict. It looked good; I just tried a bit of the salmon and it was pretty good. Still would prefer having pasta over this though.

Our total bill was approximately $40 after tip, which is on the pricier side for a lunch meal (at least for me). I would recommend this place for smaller parties/a date if you want to try some good quality food though.

Food – 4
Ambiance –  3.5
Service – 3.5
Overall – 3.7

“In these Olympics, Canadians only paid attention to Canada”

Take a read through it if you have some time, especially if you followed the Olympics closely recently. My friend and I discussed it a bit but here are some of my points.

• As with most huge claims, I think the writer of the article might be overgeneralizing a bit. I’m sure many Canadians were very amazed to see some of the performances from athletes from other nations other than Canada, not that the article doesn’t support this necessarily.
• It’s typical for a nation that is hosting the Olympics to be proud of the athletes that come from their nation. Thus, it doesn’t seem to me that we’re doing anything necessarily “wrong”. I haven’t researched very far back into Olympic history but hasn’t this been the case for many nations and host cities before? Correct me if i’m wrong.
• It’s not very fair to compare us to China’s SUMMER Olympics in terms of ticket sales. Maybe on an overall basis as a host city for the Olympics but there are too many other factors that influence this including but not limited to venue sizes and budget set by the host city and the IOC.
• The newspapers and media, particular Vancouver ones, are likely going to be putting information that they think the public want to hear. Of course they want to hear about the achievements of gold, silver, bronze medalists from other nations. But being part of the Canadian culture, we can connect and relate with fellow Canadians that are doing well at the Olympics as well. I think this is why it seems like the media seemed flooded with Canadian related Olympic achievements.

I definitely think this writer brought a good and different perspective so major props for that. I didn’t think too much about it at the time so this was a good eye-opener. I guess you can say I was caught up in the excitement of the Olympics being here in Vancouver as well. But this offers a good perspective to consider. I do think we could have done a better job welcoming the world, at least explicitly , maybe.

What do you think?

What does the title of this blog entry mean? Here’s some background.

Ever since I was a kid, I loved McDonalds. Having it for lunch on Wedns was a highlight of a child’s day. Having it for lunch while at school was even better. As years progressed, I began to eat it less and less but frequently enough that the golden taste of their fries kept tempting me all the time. I still remember the first time I dipped fries into the ice cream. It tasted so good.

Twice in my life have I had birthdays at McDonalds. Once was when I was younger. We were all sitting at the mock bar and my dad was ordering food for all of us. We had a great time; I wish I could find some pictures to show everyone of it. Even till today that McDonalds is still standing and i’ve seen it go through many renovations. Does anyone still remember the playplaces in McDonalds?

The second time was when I had a mock post birthday one month later event with some close friends from elementary and high school. I worded it as a get together but it was not as “epic”, if you will, as I had planned.. It was very different; we had all driven there and not everyone even ate much. It still amazes me how much time has passed since our childhood.

Now we fast forward to now. Last week I went to see a doctor and she recommended that I stop having junk food altogether. This was a huge lifestyle decision I had to make. I have been exercising fairly frequently the past few years; this really started to be a regular habit probably closer to grade 8. She also recommended that I cut out a bunch of other things but I doubt i’ll be able to keep up with that (beef included). My heart has been very healthy the past few years and i’m proud of it.

Today, my mom decided not to cook and wanted me to buy McDonalds. I have been sick the past few days and didn’t really want it, but I couldn’t think of much else. So I drove off to pick up lunch for both of us.

The quality of the meal wasn’t much different. 10 piece chicken mcnugget meal with large fries, medium Coke, and McDouble (basically a double cheeseburger with no double cheese but two patties) without mustard or pickles. All with Barbeque and McChicken Sauce.

The feeling wasn’t the same though. These past two years, I have started to feel really uncomfortable after having some food from McDonalds. The feeling is great when you are really craving it and you want it really badly. But today, not feeling up to McDonalds plus the after feeling was the deal breaker for me.

I will not have food from McDonalds  anymore unless there are no other good alternatives given the circumstances.

As a company, I think McDonalds is excellent at what it does no doubt about it. My loyalty towards it as a customer for the past 14+ years must mean something. If I had the money, I might invest in the company and buy some shares. Even after watching Supersize Me, I continued to have Mc Donalds. But it’s time to make a lifestyle choice if i’m going to hit my health goal.

I think this is a good decision for me, for now, isn’t it?

Edit: McDonalds is giving out free Coffee March 1 – March 14. Just a heads up for you guys

I’ve made a move towards the “eat smaller meals but more often throughout the day” lifestyle. Everyone throws this idea around but I don’t think everyone knows the reasoning behind it. Smaller meals are better because this technique keeps your metabolism and digestion working throughout the day and allowing you to burn more calories in that process. Plus, you address that whole hungry feeling that you get that psychologically convinces you that you can eat an entire cow. Unfortunately, this probably leads you into eating more than you should and feeling bloated and terrible afterwards.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to eat big meals; i’m guilty and still have been guilty of doing it quite often. The satisfying feeling that comes with having these large meals comes with a trade off (feeling overwhelmed and nauseous for some people).

However, I do not believe that society on average encourages us to “eat healthier” which in this case would mean smaller meals. Take for example my experience at Subway. Jared’s story did great things for Subway not just for attracting customers but for building it’s image. Before hearing about Jared, I never had Subway because I was turned off by the smell of one store that I went into when I was younger. The idea simply didn’t appeal to me either; when I was younger my mom would make sandwiches all the time so subs just seemed boring to me.

I ordered a 6 inch turkey breast on italian today. No add-ons, no bacon (the story about when I went to Subway at 1:40 am and was offered extra bacon by the sandwich master for unproperly moulding the bread thus making it more like a 9″ instead of a foot long still makes me shiver), no nothing. The total cost without making an additional meal was around $5. I could have made it into a footlong for another $2 more. Financially, this was very disappointing for me.

Credit to Google Images

Although i’m making a huge generalization with the following calculation (assumes I eat Subway 3 meals a day plus doesn’t take into consideration tax etc), I would have to incur…

$7.50 * 3 meals a day = $22.50

$5.00 * 6 meals a day = $30.00

That’s a 33.3% percent increase in my costs/expenses because I decided to split my meals up (I hope I never have that much bread in one day). I know this isn’t the likely scenario that anyone faces, but if you pay attention to how much you pay to opt for a smaller meal but more meals, it ends up being quite costly. Not to mention I was pretty disappointed the time I decided to go fruit healthy and ended up spending around $6 on a small plastic box container of cherry tomatoes. (I also realized that you can buy a foot long sub and save half of it, but not everyone likes to do that especially if they don’t have a fridge nearby).

What is your preference and why?

1. The Mondo Gelato on Robson and Bute has fun chairs; very amusing for the young and the old.
2. The Blenz on Robson and Bute is a great spot for people watching and getting some work done.

After that, I went to try the infamous unofficially named #1 Japanese Ramen place in Vancouver, which is Kintaro Ramen on Denman and Robson.

My friend and I walked there from the Blenz; it took us about 10 minutes maybe with it being downhill. Downtown’s really beautiful at night. I really understand why so many people love the vibe of Downtown. It’s so lively and there’s so much to see just about anywhere you go.

Anyways, after searching around for it a bit, we managed to get ourselves across the street from it and watch the line get even longer. Originally, I had called earlier in the day to book a reservation but was told that Kintaro does not take reservations. Then I asked how busy it would be around 6 pm and the person on the phone said it’s usually not too bad on Sundays and there would be no line.

Once we got there, we were probably #11 or 12 in line. The place is particularly small and was very cramped. However, looking at it from the outside makes you wonder what’s so special about the experience. I was pretty excited about trying this place so the line didn’t bother me too much. Even when you’re in line, you can hear chitter-chatter from other folks in line raving about the food in this place. It’s really awesome.

What’s even better was that we were a group of two so we got to skip the group of 5 in front of us. The total time we spent in the restaurant couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes (we checked the receipt, 6:47pm for our order to go in and by 6:58pm we had finished eating).

Credits to Dinehere for the Photo

We were offered water off the bat and had both taken a look at the menu outside to get an advanced look. It’s so busy that there are groups who stand inside, order their food, and their food comes right when a table leaves so they just sit down and eat right away. We both had the Miso Ramen with medium soup and lean BBQ pork. You can choose between light, medium, or rich soup and lean or fat pork. We were both cutting back so obviously we chose the healthier alternative. They also have a cheese ramen there which sounds really neat. I also asked what the difference was between the Miso Ramen and the BBQ Pork Ramen with Miso and the 2nd has more Pork, just in case anyone was wondering.

Other than the ramen and pork, there’s also bean sprouts, green onions, corn, and other miscellaneous sides in the bowl. The soup was very good but seemed to be pretty layered with oil too. I believe that the soup’s made of pork stock…

All in all, the food was pretty good. Our bill came out to about $16 (we didn’t get any appetizers). I would definitely recommend this place to other people. Although it’s a bit cramped, the ambiance/experience felt pretty legit and the service was very to the point; we were given our receipt before we my friend finished her ramen.  I think this place is much better than the other Ramen place i’ve been to, which is in Richmond near Parker Place (Ajisen?)

If you’re ever in the area, do check it out! The walk back to the Canada Line helps with the meal which is actually quite filling…

Although there are other factors that affect the market, Apple’s stock price has dropped over 5% since the announcement on Wedns.

Aesthetically, I think this product looks great. I used to use an iPhone and it has been probably one of the best phones i’ve ever used. To put that in perspective, i’ve had a bunch of Nokias previous to that and maybe one Sony Ericsson briefly. I’m on the Blackberry Bold 9000 now (switched over for attractiveness of email ability) but I still have my 1st gen iPhone. Also, the weight (approx 1.5 lbs) is amazing!

There are plenty of other sites that discuss the benefits/pros/cons/problems with this product already so I won’t get too much into that. However, there’s a few things that come to mind about this product, especially after a conversation with some friends who are Apple enthusiasts.

Would we carry this around along with our laptop, or bring just this or vice versa?

The consensus was that we wouldn’t bring it along. Even though the product itself is light, it seemed unnecessary for us to bring both around.  I have always valued having something with me that has strong computing/functional abilities, which is why I don’t have a netbook (I know there are many people who would disagree on this with me). On the other hand, I could see myself bringing the iPad to a coffee shop or out to the park to do some light reading/writing.

Is the iPad worth the purchase?

To me, i’ve always enjoyed trying out new technological toys. Before the prices were announced, I didn’t expect the iPad to be overpriced. It seems that the announcement of the price was favourable in the eyes of many consumers. To me, $499 USD for the lowest end model may still be a bit steep. However, I just bought a $700 laptop so this may be affecting my views. I would likely buy this over the Kindle though (the iPad has been rumoured by many to be a Kindle Killer but I don’t think it will).

One last thing that was a turnoff for me was the difference between the Wifi and the 3G versions. As much as I like having internet on the go, I don’t want to be paying more for internet for my iPad in addition to my Blackberry and the internet we have at home. I know I can simply cancel one (ie. the one on my Blackberry) but it doesn’t make sense for me to make that trade off as of now.

Even though it seems like i’ve mentioned nothing but cons so far, I think I would buy an iPad. I may wait for the second round of manufacturing to start first. I do wonder if Apple’s going to be making a bunch of modifications after hearing the responses of so many consumers though.

Are you going to buy the iPad?

This blog will focus on many topics including reviews, opinions, and other ideas that really set the tone for who I am. Originally, this website was created to be a portfolio of my work but the design process led me to sway towards developing a blog platform to showcase this, and more.

If you have any suggestions on topics you’d like me to blog about or anything in general, feel free to contact me. Happy Reading!