I searched for perfection

Before I get into the nitty gritty stuff, this past week I had done 3 times what I had previously only done once ever in my lifetime: to go to the cinema for a motion picture by myself.

The first time happened in Halifax, when I felt so disgusted by the monotony of my job that I decided to call in sick to hangout by myself. It was “The Transformers” that I watched, what a mistake that was.

This week though, I watched “The Reader”, “Slumdog Millionaire”, and “Revolutionary Road”. The weirdest thing was that I literally watched “The Reader” in an empty theater. All by myself, as if I owned the place. It was a late Monday night showing though.

In fact during those 3 trips to the cinema, and while I was there, I was very scared that I would get spotted by someone I know. I purposely picked theaters that are slightly less popular, so I could do my best to avoid such a scary outcome. And what all that built up to was me finally deciding that I wanted a weekend where I got to spend all to myself, which is somewhat of a rare thing since I am used to having all these responsibilities penciled in on my Saturdays and Sundays.

So on Saturday morning, I basically ditched my friend last minute after agreeing a week ago that I would go to Seattle with him and his friends, and then I got into my car and drove up to a place I had always wanted to go visit: Burnaby Mountain Park.

The view indeed was beautiful. There was still snow on the drive up. I was anticipating perfection.

Instead, I was left with bitter disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong, like I said, the view was indeed gorgeous. The weather was just right. In fact there was even a blonde girl there, just standing there smoking. But remember, I was looking for perfection! And it wasn’t to be found!

I walked around hectically, hoping to find that perfect spot where I could sit down and enjoy the toasted sandwich I had bought from Subway while looking out to a beautiful view. But every spot I went, either the view was blocked by a tree or some other sort of obscure object, or there were families of immigrants who kept chatting away. Especially the annoying kids.

And so by the time I finally settled down on a bench, my sandwich was already cold.

Perfection was nowhere to be found.

As I sulked in my disappointment, I drove down slowly – only to spot a footy game happening at Kensington Park. The kids were about high school age. I pulled over, got out of the car, and joined the handful of parents who were there cheering for their kids.

God is great, isn’t He?

There I was, watching as the kids played out an exciting end to end game, realizing that perfection is found only in God – and football, the Beautiful Game, is where God manifests Himself here on earth.

And that is the reason why football is now my religion.

Platonic love

I will never, ever understand such thing as platonic love. I am, of course, pointing specifically to the supposedly realistic premise that a guy and a girl can be very close friends without falling in love.

It is beyond my grasp.

Of course, you could say it is because I’m so desperate, and I probably wouldn’t disagree. I pretty much fancy any girl I have made eye contact with more than 3 times, which, as any Cognitive Psych major should know, can happen within a matter of milliseconds (saccades and all). But of course I mean on 3 different occasions.

It’s weird, because my brother is one of those guys who claims that his best friend is a girl. I don’t get it.

Anyhow, I thought I had more to say about this topic. But clearly I don’t.

The closest I have ever been with a member of the opposite sex was in the summer of 2003, when a couple of us high school graduates spent virtually everyday together. Going up the Grouse Grind, running around town, going to Steveston for Canada Day and staying at Gary Point for the fireworks afterwards, etc.

It’s been a long time since I last had a laugh with a girl.

Go away

I definitely suffer from mood swings. Oh, I definitely do.

On certain days I feel really good about the purchase I made in December, namely the VW Rabbit. Yet, on other days, like today, I am filled with disgust and anguish and wish I could get out of this craphole and be gone forever.

On the good days, I love that the car is great looking on the outside, and that VW chose to use Death Cab’s ‘Your Heart is an Empty Room’, from one of my favourite albums, as the tune in the Rabbit’s TV advert, and that it has 170 horses for me to thoroughly enjoy, especially in 2nd, and that it is only the price of a fully-loaded Corolla yet it is a solidly built German engineered car instead, etc.

On the bad days, however, I wish I had purchased a crappy, used vehicle instead, something like a Jeep TJ from the early 90’s, or a Toyota Tercel, and never worry about driving over curbs and bumps, and never worry about hitting the wall in parking lots, and never worry about hitting the car next to me when I have to open the door in a hurry.

All this really boils down to the fact that I think I have bought into the illusion that life living in the suburbs working a middle class job is comfortable and that things are only going to look up from now.

I am quite certain that this is not the life I wanted when I was a kid thinking about my future.

Enlighten me NHL fans

There’s something I need you NHL fans out there to enlighten me on:

After last night’s home game against the Habs, today on the Canucks radio station poll they were asking whether our fans were 1) Annoyed by the amount of folks who were wearing the Habs jersey and cheering for them at GM Place, or 2) Happy with it because it adds to the atmosphere.

Now, I am going to try to put away my bias against the NHL as much as I could……but how could any fan of any sport even start to imagine being annoyed by the fact that the away team has a following, and may I argue a following that is actually more devoted than our home crowd at our home ground? I mean, to say that we were annoyed sounds to me like a little baby whinging about because someone else is doing a better job!

As for adding to the atmosphere, lol, what bloody atmosphere?! “BOOOOOOO”, or “GO CANUCKS GO”, or “YEAHHHHH”. The awesome spirit of the Great White North, eh?

Back on topic.

Or, are they really just getting at the fact that all these Habs fans really are just Vancouverites who are gloryhunting plastic fans who chose to wear the shirt of a more successful team than their own local team? Now, I can see why a Canuck might get annoyed by this.

But then again, even in that case, does it make much of a difference? I mean, the only difference at the end of the day between a “real” Canuck and a plastic Habs is that you are wearing a different shirt and “shouting” “BOOOO” and “GO HABS GO” instead of “BOOOO” and “GO CANUCKS GO”.

Canucks fans are so stupid and fickle.

Rant over.

Ricky: Over the Years

I saw this being done at the online community I frequent so I figured I might as well do one here on my blog as well. Here are a series of photos from when I was a baby all the way to now when I’m a single fatty who had to spend Valentine’s Day fixing up his vehicle:

Here’s me as a little baby, awwww how cute:

Me as a baby

Here’s me along with my brothers and my cousins, yours truly was of course the little boy in blue:

Ricky with siblings and cousins

Another one with brothers and cousins, this time me in the yellow swim ring:

Ricky swimming with siblings and cousins

My brothers and I at Universal Studios in Australia when I was six:

Universal Studios, 1991

Now I’m going to jump all the way to about grade 9, as I don’t have any of the photos of me as a kid in Hong Kong scanned……

Here’s me in grade 8 or 9:

Grade 8 or 9

Here’s me in grade 10-12 dying hair all the time:

Blue hair

Blonde hair

GGGGGGG Unitttt!

And then here’s me in recent years:

Leading worship

Tower Bridge, London

Now, I know that amongst my avid subscribers there are many members of the gender ‘female’.  I’d like to ask those of you who fit into that category to kindly leave a comment along the lines of “awww you’re so cute as a baby, but you’re even cuter now!”.

Cheers.

- Ricky xoxoxoxoxoxo

Asian glow

Well I have learned that my condition of Asian flush can be better referred to as the Asian glow.  Sounds better.

Tonight I went out with my coworkers for the first time.  Been meaning to do it in a while but finally got the chance to stop being a party pooper.  Of course, me as the pimp was the only guy amongst the 5, 6 ladies that were there. The funny thing is I find it so refreshing to chat with these new friends of mine.  I mean, when they talk, they don’t hold back.  If they think someone is, excuse my French, a bitch, they’d call her a bitch.

While I refrain from openly cursing in public, as it is just not something Ricky Pak would do, I have to admit that I do enjoy this kinda atmosphere – where people just spill their guts.

When the conversation got around to talking about me, they started talking about how I was a nice guy, and one of the older ladies commented on how I look like someone who is good with kids.  I of course was quick to volunteer the information that I have always been involved with youth ministries at church, which drew a mixed response from the group, as one of the girls is determined to see me ‘become a real man’ and get drunk and makeout with some girls, etc. instead of what I am used to doing.

I remember when I first started at this workplace I hated the fact that I was automatically associated with the nice guy label, as we all know nice guys finish last, and I really didn’t want people to always make the unnecessary association between Christians and nice people.  But lately, since I have been able to fit into the group more, I have discovered that it IS great to be that nice guy who is just that bit different from everyone else.  Reminds me of how Corey Porter used to tell me how he’d stay behind after work when he worked nights at Swiss Chalet to chat with his coworkers and chat about his faith.

I think this is a great start.

Spiritualizing everything

As a semi-lame Evangelical Conservative youth leader, I used to be pretty good at spiritualizing everything.

We could watch a film and I could think of some questions to direct our conversation to the Gospel and spiritual things.

We could screw around and play a card game and there could be some sort of biblical lesson to be learned.

So here I was thinking about my current workplace……and all of a sudden I thought of a great biblical lesson to be learned!

God is good and God provides and God is faithful and you just have to be patient and wait.

What do I mean?

Well, do you remember about 3 months ago when I first started my current job, I complained and cried about how my workplace all the way in downtown Vancouver had zero caucasian girls?

Well, guess what, because they decided to take on this new project (namely, Elections BC), about 15 new staff have walked in in the past week or two.  Amongst them are plenty of blondes and caucasian ladies.

You see what I mean now?

God is a God who provides.

And what’s even more amazing is that today I actually said hi to one of the blonde girls, and guess what?  She actually smiled and said hi back.

It was totally a spiritual experience.

Individualism

[Rant]

If there is one thing I can’t stand about North American culture, it’d be how individualism absolutely reigns supreme.

The easiest example I can think of is how folks say crap like “Oh it doesn’t matter if you’re overweight, as long as you are content about yourself”.

Excuse my French, but that’s the biggest load of bollox ever. If you are fat, then you are fricking fat!

Do you know who says crap like that?

Lazy fat people who are too “big-boned” to actually go out for a walk or utilize the least bit of self-control to eat less.

I am a fatso myself and even I have absolutely no sympathy for fat people.

It’s exactly this kind of attitude that is leading to all the political correctness crap everywhere. I mean I was reading in the news somewhere that they are taking “Drunken Sailor” out of little children’s songbooks because it is inappropriate for kids to be singing about drunken men.

And then the whole overreaction to the Michael Phelps smoking a bong thing.  “He’s going to set a bad example for the kids”, yeah right.

Crazy, crazy.

In times like these I wish I had a automatic rifle and could line all these people up……

[/Rant]

Football Education

This year has started fantastically well when it comes to my football education.  Going a few posts back I had talked about how my hopes for this new year is that I would finally get out of the whole (Chinese) Christian bubble, and, more importantly, to invest this year into the Whitecaps so I can become a proper supporter.

I got to hit 2 birds with 1 stone last night as I attended my first ever Southsiders gathering, where the supporters group for the Vancouver Whitecaps gathered at a pub downtown with none other than the championship winning manager himself, Teitur Thordarson.

This is the beauty of the USL and supporting your local side – to be able to meet these folks up front like that and put them on the spot with some tough questions.

It was definitely a great opportunity to get out of my bubble, as I was the only non-white person there.  I also got to chat with 2 very knowledgeable men, one who is a younger lad who is actually currently writing a book on his 1 year of experience being a supporter for a football club in South Korea.  The other bloke is a older man who is actually making a film on the history of footy here. So he was able to answer all my questions about the good ol’ Whitecaps and 86ers from back in the NASL days – when the likes of Alan Ball, Grobbelar (lol) and Peter Beardsley played for us. The good ol’ days of when Vancouverites were actually fans of the beautiful game, instead of this boring stuff they call the Canucks now……

I was glad I was able to share some of my wealth as well, taking out the latest “textbook” I have been using from my backpack, Gary Imlach’s “My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes”.  Great book that puts the game back into perspective.

We even got the chance to clear our throats and sang a few chants, for me that was immense already.

I can’t wait till the season finally starts.

Going to be heading down to Portland with the lads for the away game there, and I might even fly out to Montreal for one of the games there, as I’ve always been meaning to visit that beautiful city.

And let’s not forget about going with the Leeds away supporters to a game at Colchester when I head to the UK in April.  Wootttttttt!!

One thought that came to mind, and I wish to discuss next time, is: do instant replays and highlights ruin the game? (reason being that the goal is no longer a special moment, but a dissected piece of junk painted by all the crap the pundits say)