Looks like I've officially become a fanboy...

Seriously kind of unexpected, but welcome (...I guess). Somehow I'm led to believe that constantly having access to the internet will make me more productive at work greatly improve my quality of life...at an extra $30/6GB a month. It's too bad there's not that much selection with Rogers...

Hey sis, have fun with your Torch...sucker.

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Office Life != Thug Life

It's hard to joke around at work. If you've ever had an actual conversation with me you know that I'm a pretty ridiculous person in general I like to joke around and generally don't know what I'm talking about the things I say are not politically correct meant to be taken seriously.

In any sort of casual setting, I really don't change the way I talk to anyone. The way I talk to my kid sister is the same way I talk to my parents, which is the same way I would talk to any of my friends. I like to keep it real and my parents are street like that so they know what I'm talking about. They did have like 27 years to pick it up...

At work though, it's like the sarcasm meter has rusted over for 99% of the people here. Since there are exactly 0 people my age, any sort of joking around seems lost upon them. They assume everything I say (even jokingly) is what I mean, and are probably confused as to why every MS Office Communicator message I send to my co-workers ends with 'lol'. It's a habit... I might be a hypocrite though because I absolutely hate it when anyone uses emoticons with me. They're stupid.

I don't even know why that dumb menu is there. What's it doing in a corporate/business messaging system? I don't know.



Anyway, old habits die hard. Real hard. Let's just say that the lunch time conversations in the cafeteria can get real awkward...

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Anyone can feel like a star...

Boredom has set in. Damn you rain.

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Row-Bots @ Stratford!

...and that's the last dragon boat edit for the year (maybe).

I'm not going to lie, much like the last RB video, getting this one done was like fighting a black bear with a golf pencil. Usually I'd love me some video editing, but every time I launched Premiere Pro for this I felt like Superman getting a shard of kryptonite shoved under his finger nail.

I'll be the first to admit that the RB edits have been rough around the edges, but it's tough to pull something from nothing - a sorcerer like myself can only do so much with like 5 clips. The lesson here is that footage doesn't take itself. I can't blame the RBs though because the helmet cam game is new to them and probably a bit more awkward than they expected. But they wanted it, so I did my best - I never say no, except to your mother.

Banana Boat's trying to get me to throw together a year end re-cap, but I have to admit that I've also gotten ultra a bit lazier, heh. There's a shit load like 4 months of stuff to go through there, so it'll come probably in October (maybe)...

As for db itself, that's pretty much that. BB had our year ender on Saturday night and the RBs did a Thursday night ordeal last week.

Looks like I'm also taking over the BB blog (Naturally. *finger gun*wink*). Time to start recruiting for next year...



Sorry Germany.

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One of those weekends...

Condo rooftop patios are awesome - it just so happens that this one is pretty epic and probably bigger than some city parks...



Magic or trouble just waiting to happen. Your call...



Team building aka flip cup...



Monday here I come...

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Die Mannequin @ Tattoo Rock Parlour

All I can say is the lead singer is definitely living the rock lifestyle, as I think she's got the dirtiest hair I've seen in a long time and you could probably even see the cartoon style smelly lines coming off her body. But in the end they rocked it hard and the music was even heavier than I imagined. Awesome.




Oh yeah, and wearing pants. They were also shooting some movie or something right across the street too - the area was packed with POPO.

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T-G-I-F-Friday

People think I joke about hanging stuff in my cube...Lorenzo Von Matterhorn is a serious man. My medals look more impressive though hanging on the zebra head from my safari last summer.



Die Mannequin tonight. Apparently she performs in her panties...confirmation to ensue.

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Super Harvest Moon...I tried...

What a beautiful fall night for the roundest moon evar.

The Mid-Autumn festival is a pretty big deal in China, but over here it doesn't get much press - hipsters like to scoff at the idea because astrology beguiles them. Me and the fam still had a nice sit down and some moon cake though.



Looks like I gotta step up my night photography game...

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My Devinci Hucker

In case you were probably not wondering, here's what my Devinci Hucker looks like at the moment. I finally got a chance to wash it down and also saw that my front derailleur is kind of rusting already. I guess that's an excuse for a new part...next year. I still haven't installed a new headset yet and dirt's probably getting in there with the seals broken and all, but I'll let future me worry about that...

The Rockshox Sektor TK (100-140mm Coil U-Turn) is really working out well. While 140mm is more than I need to ride around the burbs, the adjustable feature is awesome, and unlike the DARTs the adjustments actually make a difference (as far as my limited experiences can tell). I finally got around to installing the pop loc switch on the thing and let me tell you it works like black magic as it turns babies into toads and children into ducks, riding on concrete and up hills.

I'm not going to lie, it did change the geometry of my bike a fair bit and it took a long ride to get used to the longer travel, but it's true what they say, the longer travel does seem to make it more stable. I also run an aftermarket 28/38T dual ring setup with a e*thirteen DRS.



I took a few pictures of the pedals and the fork before I installed them...





Single track, here I come...

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Blue Mountain Double Down vs. 5x7 Passes. Time to ski!

Now that dragon boat is officially over, it's time to turn my attention to getting lazy and fat(er) other awesome things...

Lift tickets aren't cheap these days - a single day/night lift ticket at Blue will run you golf style money at $68 + TAX. That's a lot unless you got Game style cash lying around - I'm sorry, I forgot black people don't ski. Anyway, to most people the 5x7 seems like a pretty tempting deal because it's about $100 less if you get it early bird (~$180), but think about the limitations and the days/times when you can actually use the thing. A couple Double Downs are roughly the same price and have no limitations.

My totally awesome ski crew have converted to the Double Down passes in recent years after a fair bit of beer consideration. See if you can follow along with this reasoning/math and judge for yourself...

If you're like us, odds are that you will probably not drive up 2 hours after work on a weekday to ski 2-3 hours, then drive 2 hours back in the middle of the night all tired. Same goes for the weekend - we would never roll up at Blue around 5pm to hit the slopes in the frigid darkness because we actually like our apres ski/shooting the shit about the day rather than drive straight home. Also, odds are if you're gonna take time off to ski at Blue during a weekday you're probably lame and suck. Then there's the whole not being able to use them during the holidays as well.

For us a typical ski day includes rolling up to the carpool anywhere between 8-10am, grabbing quick breakfast/lunch in Collingwood, getting a good day of skiing in and then rolling out for dinner whenever our mangled bodies tell us to. There's no rush during the day and plenty of time to take breaks in the chalet.

Also, ask yourself this: how many times will you actually go skiing for the year?

We will usually get the max 4 passes (~$180) then ski Mt. St. Louis/Moonstone and/or squeeze in a cheap Tremblant weekend trip. That's enough for us considering we usually do a week long trip somewhere out of province as well.

For a quick weeknight stretch (if I'm up to it) I personally will hit up Glen Eden for the $20 special since its only 20 mins away for me.

Here's the breakdown:

5x7 PASS
- 5 days a week, Monday through Friday, from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm (excluding Monday, December 20, 2010 through Friday, December 31, 2010).
- 7 nights a week from 4:30 pm to 10:00 pm (starting December 16, 2010).

DOUBLE DOWN PASSES
- Entitles you to 2 day/night lift tickets, valid any time during the 2010/2011 season.
- You can get max 2 per person.
- Transferrable - it's basically a card with 2 credits and anyone holding the card can use it.

	SPRING RENEWAL (Until April 30, 2010 Prices + 5% GST)	EARLY BIRD (May 1 - Nov. 1, 2010 Prices + 13% HST)	REGULAR (Nov. 2 - Dec. 16, 2010 Prices + 13% HST)
5x7 PASS	$169	$179	$279
DOUBLE DOWN	$79	$89	$99

Think about it, take a second, and I'll see you on the slopes.

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Banana Boat vs. GWN Challenge 2010 Video!!!

The world premiere of Banana Boat's GWN edit has been released to great fanfare...ok, so my sister and I just high-fived as we watched it in my bedroom, but anyway it's awesome and my favorite dragon boat edit ever. The songs might be a little over the top but so is your mother.

3/3 baby, enjoy the show.



I also put together a playlist for the year if you're interested in killing some time being awesome.

Way to kick ass Bananas!

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...and that's a wrap on the 2010 dragon boat season

That's all folks. You can now expect precisely 96.4% less blogging about dragon boat for the next few months as I just raced in my last regatta for the year. That's a lie, I can't predict the future (that well).

Anyway, roughly 60 teams took part at the Stratford regatta and although it's not one of the most competitive, the course is probably one of the best/worst one's I've raced. It's good because it's fairly narrow and spectators are actually really close to the action - at some parts of the course probably like 10m away.



It's bad because the river is actually curved and that in combination with the narrow course makes for some unfair lane advantages...there's only actually 4 lanes. For example there's a sandbar along one of the lanes and its really shallow at the far end. There's also huge swans scattered all across the river that don't even flinch at the sight of a dragon head. I even managed to jab my paddle into a rock. It was cringe-worthy, believe me.



Other than that, there's actually a road and a bike path that are right on the edge of the water. They close it down (obviously) and all the event related stuff if setup there. The camps go in the space behind the street, so the tent city is pretty damn small quite cozy though...



The Row-Bots managed to bronze it up bronze styles with a time of 2:32.10 in the C Division Final. We had a lot of tough battles but managed to squeak out some copper plated aluminum solid bronze out of it for our first medal of the year.



The other good thing is that since it's not an ultra competitive regatta and at the end of the season, most of the top teams don't show up at this one. So in the qualifiers you're less likely to get embarrassed the shit out of get dusted by the Mayfair Warriors or Jetstart.

You can check out the race videos HERE.

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2 days is a lot of dragon boat to edit...

I can't say that there's any lack of footage from the past weekend since it took me like 2 nights just to chop it all up. I've only finished piecing together day one and I'm all ready for a stiff drink.

Thanks to my team for being such good sports all season and I actually think they enjoyed being filmed towards the end of it. Probably not, but anyway I'm serious. Someone other than me had a camera strapped to their head the other 90% of the time. Consider it leaving a legacy...or something like that.





Since I got nothing better to do If I find the time, I just might throw together a 2010 season edit because I have so much damn ridiculous awesome footage laying around. We'll see...

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Hello, super plushness...

You know that saying, measure twice cut once? Yeah I should have followed that. Using a pipe cutter to cut a 1 1/8" aluminum steerer is not fun in the least. Especially if you have to do it twice.

I managed it somehow though, and got fresh grease in my eye everywhere. New fork, purple DH pedals and bash guard/chain guide. The only thing left is to install the damn pop-loc switch after I install a new headset....which will involve me disassembling and cleaning everything all over again. Let me tell you that assembling and disassembling your bike without an actual bike stand is just as ridiculous as you think. Random boxes and buckets to hold up your bike parts don't work that well.

I do have to admit that after this whole fiasco my bike mechanic prowess probably leveled up like 3 points.

Also, turns out that if I don't get out of the forest by 7:45ish nowadays you gotta bust out the lights. Fall is pretty much here. Maybe.

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A break from the everyday...

As I sit and drink a Mill St. Lemon Tea on a cool summer's night...






What to do, what to do? As much as I want to put together this GWN team edit, I also want to install my new fork / pedals and ride. Good thing I'm awesome at multi-tasking...somewhat.

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GWN Dragon Boat Challenge Race Videos and MOFOs Push Up Contest

You know my neck is getting pretty tired from wearing these three medals to work this morning, so I'll probably take them off at some point and put them next to the trophy sitting in my cube after I finish the coffee in it...

Actually watching the videos from the weekend, the final and semi final were much closer than we ever imagined. In the final, our coach actually screamed out profanities in agony ("FUUUUUU" - captured in the awesome video below) because he thought we lost the race by a dragon's hair. It wasn't until the judge's video review that we found out that we beat the other team by 0.04 seconds! Talk about epic.

It seems that Great White North really knows how to rank these heats as all the finals for all divisions seemed to be extremely close, and tons of them went to video review. Going into this regatta we were seeded 66/104 and finished 67th. Me·di·oc·ri·ty at it's best, but amazing for a community/recreational team that just wanted to have fun this year.

Winningest season ever! We were all over the moon. Okay, maybe just me...



The rest of the race videos and also the MOFOs push up contests HERE.

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Mission: Banana Boat vs. GWN Dragon Boat Challenge = COMPLETE

You know that crappy feeling you get when you've been training super hard for something for like 5 months and then it all comes down to one final race and you lose by a split second to a team you've been battling all season and it completely crushes your will to live? Yeah, me neither.

THREE-PEAT BABY!




But in all seriousness we only won by 0.04 seconds and we battled like savages all year for these medals in very close finals. Congratulations Banana Boat!

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The back of their shirts say CANADA...they must be pretty good.

So we finished Day 1 of GWN and it was b-e-a-utiful outside. F Division semi-final here we come...



In other awesome news I managed to catch the end of the Federer vs. Djokovic semi-final (which was equally as intense) and I just wanted to note how awesome Novak's dad is for sporting an awesome t-shirt of his son wearing an awesome t-shit of an amazing eagle while holding a racket, doing a fist pump and staring intensely at some poor opponent. I'm probably going to have to buy that.

In other not so great news, tragedy befell myself today as I managed to pick up a parking ticket...well like 52 of us did as the meter maid went on a merciless mass rampage in what would probably slide on any other day. In attempt to save $20 it cost us all $100. FAIL.

There goes my beer money for this week, I'll just have to turn to crack...

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Let me show you the final Getsuga Tenshou.

Other than the fact that school's in session and the CNE has run its course, the third main indication that summer is coming to an end is that dragon boat season is also finishing up. Let me tell you that dragon boat becomes significantly less fun when the water is freezing.

Tomorrow Banana Boat takes on the GWN Challenge in what's sure to be a 2-day strugglefest, and then a week later the Row-Bots go to Stratford to battle a bunch of thespians. This season has been filled with a lot of new teammates but we've managed to be mildly successful so far. Last year BB placed 5th in the D Consolation Final, lets see if we can destroy that.



I guess I'll have to go back to trash talking 18 year olds on the volleyball court @ the Y or not get leg cramps step up my biking game to entertain myself after the next 2 weeks...but it's even getting too dark to ride after work nowadays...



Enjoy the weather while it lasts, ski season is almost here. Booya!

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GoPro Firmware Update = WIN

Finally. I can't believe how long this shit took to come out. It basically said that they were 99% complete for like a year then 99.99% complete for another 6 months...at least the install was dead easy.

I guess they were more concerned about marketing than product updates, but I have to admit that their Crankworx coverage was pretty epic - they were basically all over the place.

Upside down mode and live streaming here I come!

Only a geek like me would get excited over something like this...

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Biking the Ganaraska Video...now featuring more hip hop

Here's the video of the punishment we went though the other day. It was raining a lot more than it looked.

As for the Ganaraska Conservation area, admission is a little steep at $12/person but there's a lot going on there. Hikers, bikers, hunters and motorized vehicles share the different areas of the park and if you wanted to you could get a season pass for like $60.

There was lots of wide fast double track and several long loops (where there was no turning back). The double track terrain was pretty hilly but the single track had a good mix of hills and flats to recover on. When the rain got onto the trail though it got pretty damn messy. With the downed branches and the fallen trees the trail was hard to see at some points (on the single track), and as per usual there was poison ivy everywhere.

Just wanted to note that Giant seems to be a pretty popular bike as 3/4 of our pack essentially had the same Giant Yukon. The only thing that I can say about not having a Giant is that my bash guard slides over logs like butter!



Looks like we still have a long ways to go until we're actually ready for a REAL mountain biking adventure.



The 4 day weekend is over, back to work...

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Epic Fail @ Ganaraska Forest

What's a worse biking experience than riding in the freezing rain, though tons of sand and then catching hardcore leg cramps? Nothing.

The theme of yesterday's ride was shame (for me at least). It was a severely degrading ride as I begged for mercy like all day long trying to deal with lame leg cramps. What started off as cool weather turned into rain and cold. It's probably because of my poor nutrition and fat ass I don't know what it is about my legs + the cold these past few days but it's been like insta-cramp pain sauce. I experienced double full leg cramps, it was pretty intense. Funny, but intense. I need steroids bananas.

Anyway, the point of the journey was to see if we could ride the Ganaraska in preparation for the enduro race Kevin and Jon are running in 2 weeks. By my broad estimation, it would have taken us 4-5 hours to cover the 30km since it took about 1 hour to cover 7 km or so right off the bat. I'm not sure how much distance we actually cleared but we didn't even make it to the halfway point before I begged them the weather caused us to turn back. The ride got severely less fun once the rain came down.



I'm pretty sure that if I entered this race they would have their first fatality on the course ever. We have yet to ride this long a distance all year so the race will be a serious test of physical and mental fitness for the both of them. They are better bikers for I than entering it - I can't wait to see the results.

Since we're pretty n00b to the biking scene in general, one of the hardest parts of a ride like this is setting a pace. With zero experience in this field we usually stop as needed, which just happens to be pretty often. There's no real idea of how fast to go, how much water to conserve or when to eat to successfully finish a ride like this (and not finish dead last/DNF). Other casual weekend warriors like us would probably not normally participate in something called an enduro...

Anyway, about the ride... lots of fast wide double track and single track in this forest since its shared with dirt bikes and quads. With the loops, there's no turning back once you get into them. The rain was not helpful at all.



Always make sure your quick releases are tight unless you don't mind flying over your bars into poison ivy. That could have been tragic, especially this far into the forest. We probably weren't even that far.



When the rain and mud gets on your discs, stopping is hard. Real hard.



The weather was definitely harsh as it kept pouring and got super cold. The current weather or storms from the day before engulfed the trail with fallen trees. Surprise!



It's a good thing we found this service road to bail on. On the way back my body was pretty much in 100% survival mode to make it back to the lot. Funny though, how as soon as we got back the outdoor center the weather got beautiful. Thanks Gaia for mocking me.



And as per usual, seems like everywhere out East is covered in poison ivy. The Park recommends you hose off well afterward. No problems with that.



Until the next leg cramp adventure.

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Panoramic Photos & Paul's Dirty Enduro

So we're attempting to ride 30k in the Ganaraska Forest today as Kevin and Jon are training for Paul's Dirty Enduro. I would have loved to join and throw down a DNF, but I'm at my last regatta of the year with the Row-Bots that day.

I went for a ride yesterday and I should have probably worn some warmer clothes. After I ran out of water I caught calf cramps like wildfire and had to take a break at the top of the big hill at Erindale Park. At least I was able to take these awesome panoramic photos with my cell phone that are stitched together with free Microsoft ICE. My iMac hates me.

This one made from 12 photos landscape style.



This one made from 24 photos portrait style.



So I'm also attempting to tune my own bike these days since I've added/modified some parts to it and figure it would be good get a little more experienced with the mechanics of it all when things go wrong. I have a few more parts to install so I'll leave the big reveal until then.

Enjoy the long weekend and get outside!



PS: There's like 30 images now at the side, lol.

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Notice something different?

This has been a very long week - in other words I had to earn this 4 day weekend (in blood). At least go karting was fun but the drama and lack of sleep was not.

I think I might have to avoid T.O. all together this weekend and try to get in as much nature as possible. Last weekends downtown excursion was a bit too much effort...or something like that. I just really want to relax to the max not inside in front of a computer or tv.

I finally got my bike back but didn't even get to ride it once. I spent last night installing parts, tuning it and also realized I don't actually know how to align spokes. September should be a pretty epic ride - the air is getting crisp, the bugs are going away and the families should be off the trail and back in school.

Weekend here I come.



So there's 10 song quotes and 12 30 images on the side, both should be randomized. See if you can...see them all...

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I got 99 problems but a...

Being the lady kryptonite killer that I am, I'm probably not there's a slight chance that I'm not the most qualified person to say anything on the subject...but man, lately it seems that when people I know are breaking up it's like Forgetting Sarah Marshall minus every single happy part (and the fact that they don't hookup with Mila Kunis at the end). It's a real downer seeing anyone like this and all I can really offer is some company and distraction...and getting you drunk.

Going into isolation and growing that breakup beard is one thing but when you get into accidents or randomly quit your job without giving any notice then that's some real bad medicine.

I can honestly say that I haven't found "the one" yet (surprise!), so when it happens and she throws my heart on the floor and punctures it with her blood red pumps, you can expect me to go on a several day whiskey diet during which I will not bathe or talk to anyone. This will be followed by me going hulk and shaving off all my hair. Then I will travel to Banff and take a solo cross country bicycling journey into the Rockies during which time I will roam the land naked, become one with nature and find myself.

The world is a cruel place but there's gotta be someone out there for everyone right?

On a more uplifting note, turns out Go Karting is awesome.



Sorry for the crappy picture, s'all I got...

Also, best of luck to Eric on his move out West. You new crib will be Ski Central this Winter. Believe that.

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