February 27, 2008 - The ACC witnessed history on Tuesday night, not in terms of a sports championship, but in the final concert of the Spice Girls reunion tour. Last night, Eric and I sat, stood, screamed, yelled, and sang our little hearts out for about 3.5 hours (including 1.5 hour of waiting for the show to start). It was loud, colourful, and most importantly, lots of fun. It was definitely one of those once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Eric and I sat at the 100 level, which provided pretty decent views of the stage. We really didn't have too much trouble getting tickets though we weren't sure how some people managed to get floor seats, as us too, logged onto the ticketmaster website before tickets even went on sale. Anyway, surprisingly, we were generally surrounded by people above the age 15, and the crowd behaved for the most part. There were even a few straight guys too - accompanied by their girlfriends of course.
After waiting for 1.5 hours, the show began at 9 pm with "Spice Up Your Life". The crowd leaped to their feet and we stood non-stop for the next two hours. I thought the reaction to "Stop" was the best - as everyone sang and did the whole dance routine thing with the hand. The Spice Mamas were totally emotional and kept emphasizing that they will probably likely never do this again. There were many group hugs, tears, and lots of thanking to the fans.
The group belled out over 20 songs, including solo performances by all except Posh, who did a fashion catwalk thing - but still managed to get the loudest screams. I thought Geri's "Raining Men" was pretty hot (and no, not because of the shirtless men prancing around) too. Another interesting note is that Geri did not join the other girls for the songs that were recorded after her initial departure. I guess they didn't have time to rehearse and rearrange the vocals.
In the end, it was actually Posh's son Cruz that stole the show. Some of the Spice Children (Posh, Baby and Scary's) came on stage during "Mama". Cruz Beckham, wearing a t-shirt that says "Posh", showed off his breakdancing skills. The fans went nuts of course.
A final group hug ended this incredible reunion tour, one that many didn't think would happen. The tour also made the Spice Girls hip again. For many in the arena, including myself, the tour took us back to a time when things were a bit simpler. It's really hard to believe 10 years have gone by already. I can also say that I have never felt any gay-er than when standing there singing "Wannabe" with the 13 year old girl sitting in front of me.
Definitely a cool experience - now maybe other late 90s bands would reunite. Perhaps N'Sync would be next?
February 25, 2008 - For those that travel on the TTC on a regular basis, you might have seen these strange ads for a pill called "Obay" - designed to make teenagers listen to their parents. Obviously the ad is tongue-in-cheek, but it totally made me question what the ad is about and who is behind the ad.
Well the speculation is over - apparently "Obay" is the Ontario Colleges Association's (OCA) new campaign to tackle the majority of parents' attitudes towards colleges. The OCA claims that the majority of parents would rather their children attend universities, and not colleges, as colleges are deemed as more "second-class" post-secondary institutions. Obay is designed to encourage students to not overlook the opportunities that colleges provide based on parental stereotypes.
My opinion is that it's definitely a clever campaign (any ad campaign that generates buzz is awesome) but how effective it is in changing this decades-long stereotype of universities are better than colleges remains to be seen. Personally, I think my parents would have flipped if I had told them that I would rather go to Seneca College than U of T. For people in my parents' generation, universities are more of a prestige thing - mainly because not everyone got to go. For people my age, universities, especially undergraduate studies, is simply an extension of high school. You go to university and get your degree because it's now a basic requirement to get a job.
What is probably not discussed widely is that the chances of you getting a job after a college diploma in a specialized trade is probably HIGHER than getting a job with a BSc or BA from U of T. Sad, but true. What do you do with a life sciences degree after graduation (if you're not going towards professional school or grad school?) or a degree in history, or a degree in English? Yet, the benefit of having a college education is that it teaches you the technical skills you need to know to get a job and make a living.
I don't regret getting my universities degrees, but now that I'm looking to upgrade my skills, I don't even hesitate but look into college programs. Both colleges and universities have their own merits, but you gotta admit, sometimes, you just don't know why you're spending so much time/money/energy/stress on things like optimization in calculus or organic chem mechanisms when clearly they don't contribute to your job search, your salary, nor the skills you need to land a job and be good at it one tiny bit.
February 24, 2008 - I want to rant about winter.
Is it just me or has the month of February just been dragging on, mainly because of the crappy weather that we've been getting?
It's hard enough that the day is still short and it's below -10 for much of the time, but do we have to get one storm after another? I mean, is this our way of paying the price for the warm winters of the previous years? Already, we've had more snow than the past 2 years combined.
Sure, it's great for skiing - but it's hard to get to the resorts if the highways are not accessible (not to mention it's no fun driving in blizzard like conditions). Of course, it looks like I might miss out on skiing this season once again - this time, due to my prolonged cold-turned-asthma-turned bronchitis.
I'm so tired of walking on uncleared sidewalks, trying to cross brown slushy streets (especially around intersections), and wiping the white salt mark on my shoes. Sure, I don't have to shovel snow on a regular basis, but trust me, I do my fair share when I'm in Markham on the weekends.
Now, I know I live in Canada and winters here are supposed to be long and brutal. But have we not suffered enough already? How much longer will it be till I see some sign of spring?
So yeah, I don't know if I can keep my sanity much longer if this winter drags on. If anyone wants to hop on a plane and go to someplace warm, let me know and I am so so there (provided you pay for my ticket and accommodation of course!).
[as I'm writing this, the Weather Network is predicting 15 cm of snow for Tuesday with yet another storm later on in the week.]
February 21, 2008 - So my computer has been out of service for the past couple of weeks, mainly because I have been experiencing the infamous "Blue Screen of Death". My computer would crash randomly, with a blue screen that says a problem has been detected and Windows will now be shut down, followed by a "physical memory dump". So after unsuccesfully trying to fix the problem myself, I finally took it to the shop to get it fixed. Two weeks, three trips to the shop, and two hundred plus dollars later, my computer seems to be finally working properly. But the strange thing is - we still don't really know what caused the error. Weird eh?
Damn you NDIS.SYS error! but it's good to be back!
February 3, 2008 - The folks behind Monopoly, one of the most-played board games in the world, are now creating a "World Cities" version, where cities will take the spots currently held by Broadwalk and Atlantic Avenue!
Voters can choose the 20 cities from a list of 68 that they think should make the board. Voters can also nominate their own cities, and the two with the highest number of votes will also be part of the game. That means that Walla-Walla could possibly be placed right next to London and Paris.
Because fans vote for their top 20, the leaderboard so far is a bit weird (Riga over Berlin and Amsterdam?). With Canadian cities, you might be surprised to hear that Montreal currently ranks #1 in the leaderboard, ahead of the "no-brainers" like London, Paris, and New York. Vancouver is currently ranked #13. Toronto is just out of the top 20 at #21.
Here are my votes for the top 20:
London, Paris, New York, Berlin, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Sydney, Athens, Rome, Cairo, Istanbul, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Beijing, Rio de Janiero, Dubai, Madrid, Los Angeles, and Toronto (sorry Vancouver, but of course I have to vote for my hometown!).
Vote for your top 20 here and be sure to vote for Toronto so that 3 Canadian cities can make the board!
