Well, other than eating all of the chocolate I received, the holidays are over. I had a good time at all of my events as usual, but also as usual there were too many of them all in a row. I averaged two Christmases a day for four days straight and then more random stuff until New Years.

The biggest news from the break (and possibly my biggest news ever) is that on the Saturday before Christmas, Kim and I got engaged!

Anyway, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Patrick...number 4 in the Secret Santa game at the Chili cookoff

Celebratory champagne served by Patrick, post wedding proposal

My reflection in a Christmas ball on my mom's tree

Flower

Christmas candle

Kim at the Eaton's Centre

Mike at Swiss Chalet

New Year's sausage destined to be currywurst

We're halfway through December and I've already been to three Christmas parties, with another to go to tomorrow. It's lots of fun, but I get too stressed when there is this much stuff all close together. I still have Christmas shopping to do and many places to go. I will have two weeks off this Christmas though so that is nice.

The first party of the year was the CIBC Christmas party with Kim. It was held at the Convention Centre and was attended by something like 5000 people. It was pretty insane. The meal was decent (as much as it could be when it had to happen for 5000 people simultaneously), and there was wine on every table and one free drink ticket for everyone. They also had impersonators of famous musicians including Neil Diamond, Elvis, and Abba. It was definitely an experience.

Next up was the NeoEdge Christmas party, which, although I still don't work there, I have attended every year for the past three years on account of being friends with half of the employees. This year Kim and I were bartenders and it was lots of fun. I got to make up drinks that made people make bad faces.

Finally, there was my party, the Autodesk Christmas party. This one definitely had the best food and drink (real bartenders, open bar), but unfortunately it also had the poorest food distribution system (some people waited for more than an hour). It was a nice venue though and for the first time in a long time we were allowed to bring a guest.

Tomorrow is party number four, the annual wing night Christmas party. This year it's a Chili Cookoff and I'm gonna win. My chili is obviously the best.

After that there's just seven more Christmas events, a New Year's party and then I can relax until next year.

I'd just like to take a brief moment to mention my friend Mike's new iPhone application, iMenorah! It's the perfect app for anyone celebrating Chanukah far from home.

I don't own an iPhone, and I'm not Jewish, but I tried it out on a friend's iPhone and it was really well done. Good interactivity, well polished graphics and animation, and Mike singing the blessings at the end is just classic. Oh, and they are donating some of the proceeds from sales to a San Francisco Jewish charity.

For $1.99 it's a great deal.

I know I'm a bit late blogging about this, but some crazy stuff happened recently in Canadian politics! And by crazy I mean, "wow, a lot of people are really dumb."

I can't say I supported anybody in the craziness that was last week and I think the fact that parliament was prorogued was probably the best possible outcome. It should give everybody some time to come to their senses. Of course the best case would be everyone working together but that clearly wasn't going to happen.

Seriously, what did Stephen Harper expect the other parties to do when he introduced that economic update? Hello! You don't have a majority government! That means you need to avoid completely pissing off everyone else. I mean he could have at least tried to work with them a little bit.

Next problem, what the hell is wrong with everyone who thinks that the coalition was pulling some sort of sneaky, underhanded, "undemocratic" maneuver? A lot of people kept talking about "who the Canadian public voted for." But that was never a question. Each riding voted for their candidate and those candidates went to parliament. That hasn't changed at all. The executive power in government is then formed by the largest group of elected candidates that can agree to work together. In a minority situation (ie. the largest such group does not have the majority of the seats), if the rest of the house loses confidence then it's either time for a new election OR a different group can take over (if asked to by the governor general). That's the way it works! Nobody votes for a party, nobody votes for a Prime Minister. You vote for a candidate to represent your riding. That's it. Statements like "the Canadian people did not vote for a Liberal-NDP coalition" are meaningless. The Canadian people voted for 308 different people to come together and run the country.

Next, and this relates to the previous point, I think that the Bloc Quebecois were treated extremely shabbily in this process. I don't want Quebec to separate but as I mentioned above, the elected candidates of that party were chosen by the people of their riding. Those ridings feel that the members of the Bloc are the best people to represent them in parliament. By bashing the party and its members, Stephen Harper is saying, "Hey, Quebecers, everyone can have democracy except you. Your members of parliament should not have a say in the running of the country and thus you should not have a say." I couldn't believe how many times Stephen Harper made harsh comments about the Bloc in his speech to the country. It just blew my mind. It is irrelevant that the Bloc has a mission (or maybe it's just a vague goal at this point) to separate from Canada. They have legally elected members whose duty is to represent their constituents. Those members deserve as much respect as any other member of parliament. To do otherwise is to pay massive disrespect to all of the people represented by those members.

The last point I'd like to make is that there has been a bit too much emphasis on the leader of the various parties lately. This is not the United States. We do not vote for our Prime Minister. The Prime Minister just happens to be the leader of the largest group of MPs who agree to work together in parliament. A strong leader is important, but I see no need to put them up on a pedestal. They're only human. What matters is your local MP and how they represent you in parliament.

Me this afternoon:

"Hmm, I want to watch a movie, lets see what DVDs I have. Oh, Requiem for a Dream, that's a good movie and I haven't seen it since the first time I watched it. I remember it was a painful and emotionally draining experience when I watched it before, but surely it won't be as bad the second time and I'll be able to appreciate the subtler details of this powerful and evocative film."

Wow, what a horrible idea. That wasn't any easier the second time. I don't think there will be a third.

I don't like cilantro. It's tastes like gross and immediately pops out at me from any dish it's in. Even the spiciest curry or the hottest salsa. A single leaf of cilantro ruins it all. I had heard that there was some research indicating that some people have a genetic predisposition to thinking that cilantro tastes like awful. A quick search on Google revealed nothing conclusive, but it did bring up the site, ihatecilantro.com, dedicated to connecting cilantro haters all around the world. There are even haikus written by the members to express their distaste. I think the haiku is one of the most effective form of expression. Much better than ridiculous limericks.

Kim is visiting her sister in Texas this week so I was on my own this weekend. It was pretty quiet and I spent most of today catching up on Dexter. I'm now all the way up to date (unless you count the episode that aired tonight). It's definitely a good show.

Saturday I went to Burlington to participate in a bouldering competition (local Tour de Bloc event) at a brand new climbing gym, Climber's Rock. The route setting was great and I had a really good day. I feel very happy with my absolute performance although they haven't posted the scores yet so I don't know how I did relative to the other competitors. But for most people (myself included) climbing is not really a competitive sport so the relative performance doesn't matter. I'm just trying to do better than I've done before.

After the competition I went to Matt's house for a birthday celebration which involved the eating of much sushi and cake. The sushi was from Sushi Xtra on Queen street and it was pretty decent. I'd definitely get sushi from there again.

Update: I came in 13th out of 26 competitors in my division at the bouldering competition. I'm pretty happy with that.

I've been a bit busy lately, but I don't want to let last weekend go without a blog update so I'm doing a quick one now.

Thursday night Rob made Pad Thai for myself, Kim, Patrick, Toni, and Matt! It was delicious without a doubt and I learned how to make it so that I can do it myself!! So fun!

On Friday I saw the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, with Patrick, Toni, Chris, John and Alex. I liked the movie, although I don't think I liked the fact that it was a direct continuation of Casino Royale. James Bond movies should stand on their own.

Saturday I went shopping with Kim, mostly just wandering around and stuff. Then we went to Patrick's place for a party with lots of fun happy people! The party was organized by Rob without a specific purpose, but I like to think of it as a going away party for him since he left for Fiji the following Tuesday (does Fiji have good Internets Rob?). We had yummy Indian food from Trimurti for dinner and we had drinks and lots of fun.

Sunday I went climbing and I also watched a bunch of episodes of the show Dexter. I'm almost caught up to the current episode now and it's really good!

Did you know you share your birthday with Leon Trotsky? Does that make you a communist? I'm no political scientist, but I suspect it might.

A short summary of Trotsky's life courtesy of Wikipedia:

Leon Trotsky was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army and People's Commissar of War. He was also among the first members of the Politburo.

After leading the failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing bureaucratization of the Soviet Union, Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and deported from the Soviet Union. As the head of the Fourth International, he continued in exile to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and was eventually assassinated in Mexico by Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent. Trotsky's ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term coined as early as 1905 by his opponents in order to separate it from Marxism. Trotsky's ideas remain a major school of Marxist thought that is opposed to the theories of Stalinism.

I didn't put much planning into it, but my birthday turned out great anyway. It fell on Tuesday last week so I co-opted *wing* night for my own purposes. I selected Mengrai Thai which many people claim to be the best Thai food in Toronto. I have no way of judging Thai food (since I have never been to Thailand...you should have been there Rob!) but it was damn tasty. Patrick, Adam and myself all got the fixed price, four-course menu and it was amazing! Everyone else (Kim, Toni, Jen, John, Chris, Jeremy, Matt and Jeff) all ordered single dishes off the menu and had to be jealous/hungry while we ate our starter courses.

My meal started with a selection of four appetizers, then moved on to pumpkin curry soup with lightly breaded spinach (almost like tempura). For my main course I had the #54 Red Curry Chicken which is one of the restaurant's most famous dishes. It is served in half of a scooped out pineapple and has lychee fruit mixed in with the curry sauce and chicken. For dessert I was given a mini crème brûlée with a single candle. The waiter started singing happy birthday, thus forcing everyone at the table to join in. Good times! The food was all totally amazing, and despite being really full I was glad I got the fixed price menu.

The owner of the restaurant was also really awesome. He came out and talked to us because he recognized where I worked from the caller ID when I made the reservation. He even knew that although I work for Autodesk, it's really Alias and Autodesk just bought us. He was super friendly and although the service was slow, I still felt like he was very attentive to our needs.

After dinner we all headed back to my apartment for birthday cake from Dufflet! I got the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle cake and yes, it was totally glorious. We also had Pumpkin Ale from the Great Lakes Brewing Company and hot chocolate with Bailey's. Eventually everyone went home and I went to sleep.

Oh, I almost forgot the most important part! Presents! Jeremy got me a present!

It was a small golden/platinum coloured heart (it's an alloy) with three "chocolate" balls inside. On one side the heart had the word "Glory" along with Japanese characters and on the other it had a sad/angry face. I think I know why. The "chocolate" was not exactly what you would call "good." Jeremy, Patrick and I each had one; mine tasted like poo, Jeremy's tasted like dirt and Patrick's tasted like petrol. Um...awesome?

I also got some good presents from other people. Kim got me a gift certificate to Henry's (awesome camera store and source of most things I want at the moment), my mom got me a subscription to Maclean's magazine which I love and Jen made me Chocolate Frangelico Cupcakes with Nutella Swiss Meringue Buttercream on the weekend. Patrick and Toni got me a selection of random beers and Matt got me a wind up squirrel! Eeee!

Me with my #54 Red Curry Chicken

Chocolate Frangelico Cupcakes with Nutella Swiss Meringue Buttercream