Chan's Personal Blog

In the midst of looming deadlines, final exams, and assignments, it's good to take a time out and vent some frustration in a constructive way like floor hockey. Tonight was another floor hockey night at church.

The evening started off a little short-handed because some of the regulars were late. So, we were playing 4 vs 4 for about the first half with no replacements. Lucky for us, Adam was on our team and we made short work out of their defence. As crappy of a player as I am, even I made a goal.

For the second half, a bunch of people showed up, so we were playing 5 vs 5, and they had some better players switch on. We were largely on the defensive for this period. It also gets a lot more physical when certain people show up . Near the end of the game, the other team caught up to us, and we were tied at 10-10. Adam had a break away and scored another point. In the last minute of the game, I intercepted a pass while on defence, and 3 of us switched to offense, and went towards their goal. I passed to Adam, and he scored another. Chalk up another assist. Their goalie had no chance because there were three of us, and he had no defensemen because all of their players were in our zone.

The one nice thing about having Adam on the team is that the other team checks him with two people usually. If this was World of Warcraft, Adam attracts a lot of aggro. Good for the rest of us, bad for him. In either case, a lot of us can wander into the other zone without attracting much attention because everyone's busy trying to stop Adam. So, crappy shooters like me can score a few goals because no one pays attention. Keeping a low profile rocks!

In either case, we won the game, 12-10. I contributed two points and probably two assists. I think Adam probably put in at least 6-8 points?

Good game overall. I didn't get high-sticked in the face as usual by a certain someone because that someone was on our team. I've got all my teeth, so I walk away happy.

Next floor hockey night is on April 21, 2006, 6:30pm at North Douglas Church.

So, it's end of term madness right now in the wonderful world of academia. I'm having to constantly remind myself to hang in there because it's just a few more months and then it's over. In either case, I'm feeling quite ready to finish off this master's degree.

This sets the stage to a funny conversation I had with my parents about a week back. So one of my childhood friends, Scott, is also doing a master's degree. He's your typical asian that blew through school without a problem, and has a stellar GPA to prove it. In either case, he's about two years older than me, so he entered university earlier than I did. Somehow, we're nearing the graduation finish line, and I've caught up to him. Not bad on my part.

Anyway, my parents were talking to his parents, and they were saying that Scott is going to do his PhD. If you know anything about asian parents, you'll know that they're super competitive about their child's academic abilities. So at dinner, my parents were telling me that my friend was going for his PhD. I thought to myself, crap. I know where this is going. They're going to try to prod me into doing my PhD.

So, they began by subtly asking how long it takes to finish a PhD. (On average it takes maybe 4-5 years.) Then they began asking if UVIC had a PhD program for computer science, and how much it cost, etc, etc.

Thankfully when I first signed up to do my master's, I knew that my parents would pull the PhD card when I neared graduation. Luckily I had planned for this. In my master's program, there's two tracks. A thesis option and a technical project option. People that are intending to go on to a PhD have to do the thesis option. People who are happy with a masters can do a thesis or a technical project.

Yup, you guessed it, I'm in the technical project track which effectively destroys all chances of me going for a PhD. Muahahaha. This was the academic poison pill, and it basically stopped my parents in their tracks pretty quick after I explained this to them. Chalk one up for the win!

I figure, I never intended to do a master's in the first place. So, hey, getting a master's and not getting a PhD, I say that's a fair compromise. In addition, I'll probably hold the rank of highest level of education from my dad's side of the family when the dust settles, so that's good enough for me.

So, let it be known, there will be no Dr. Chan in the future.

This week, there was some good news in Iraq. A few months ago, 4 Christian peace activists were taken as hostages by terrorists in Iraq (two of them Canadian), and this week they were freed thanks to a military raid involving American, British, and Canadian forces. What caught my eye was that the Pentagon announced that Canada was involved in the raid.

The CBC has an article that talks about the successful rescue operation which involved JTF2 (Canada's special forces) and the RCMP.

From the article entitled, "Ottawa's JTF2 commandos part of Iraq hostages rescue":

So here's another blog article about World of Warcraft (WoW) because so many of my friends play this video game. Alternatively, this game could be called digital crack because it's so addictive. In either case, here's a funny WoW video and explanation care of my boss' guild webpage. It explains part of the WoW subculture.


Apparently the people that made this video originally used this as a recruiting tool for their guild. Sure enough, it worked... a little too well. Now Leeroy Jenkins has a cult following. Internet fads are kind of wierd and random eh?

After mulling over the Tim Hortons' (THI) IPO (initial public offering of stock), I have decided to throw my hat into the ring, and I'm all in. I've been following the news around this IPO very closely in the last few days, and in the last 48 hours alone, a ton has happened.

The biggest development was on Monday, the Tim Hortons' IPO got a huge endorsement by a very influential stock analyst. The guy's name is Jim Cramer, and he has a very popular show on CNBC called Mad Money. Over 500,000 people watch his show every night for his stock picks. (I'm one of them.) In the first part of his show, he issued a triple buy on Tim Hortons.

Hours after he made his endorsement, demand for the stock surged even more, and Tim Hortons decided to increase the price of their IPO. It was supposed to trade at $21-$23CDN per share, but now they've moved it up to $23-$25CDN per share, and the stock hasn't even started trading on the public markets yet. They boosted it because of the insane amount of demand they're getting on the stock.

In either case, I'm just getting some pre-game jitters right now because it's the night before the big trade. If the stock market had a Stanley Cup playoff, or a Superbowl, then this would be the playoffs.

I'm planning on getting up tomorrow at 6a.m. to get my order in for THI shares. It's also more nerve wracking this time because some of my friends are putting money on this stock based partially on my advice. The only thing worse than losing your own money in a stock is losing someone else's money in a stock. I sure hope I'm right about this one. But, I've done the homework on this stock, and I think the arguments I've presented are sound, and Jim Cramer cited a few sources that I covered as well.

I've also had a few people tell me that I'm crazy for following the hype on this stock. Some people say that this is a super risky move on my part because no one knows where the stock price is going. I hope I can prove this unbelievers wrong.

Anyway, tomorrow's trading day is going to be absolutely crazy. Hopefully I can bag a few shares of THI before it blows past the $30CDN per share mark. Time for bed. Gotta be up early for this one. The early bird gets the timbit!

Note: To anyone who hasn't talked to me directly via e-mail about THI, be aware of the strategy. Buy on the first day, wait for it to peak in a few days, and sell it all off. Wait for the price to come back down to normal prices, and buy into it again if you're in it for the long run. The first week strategy is a TRADE and not a long-term investment. I don't want anyone buying this thing tomorrow morning at market price, limit your orders to at most $29-$30/share. You've been warned. I don't want anyone coming to me in a few months complaining about how much money they lost because of this blog article. I'm not responsible for any money you gain or lose on this investment, and this does not qualify as financial advice. This was written for entertainment purposes only.

I've been dreaming about this coming week for a long time now. What we are about to witness is a defining moment in Canadian history. Is it a potential new Liberal Party leader? No. Is it a Canucks game? No.

I am talking about Tim Hortons finally issuing its stock to the public! This is called an initial public offering (IPO), and they're issuing 29 million shares to the public. The stock symbol will be THI, and the starting price will be between $21-$23 CDN. The stock will trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE), and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

I previously talked about this in an earlier story entitled, "Never Doubt The Might Tim Hortons."

I owe this article to Pam who sent me this picture. Her e-mail to me was hilarious. It read, "I found this on the net, and it reminded me of you, you'll see why."

Here's the picture that was attached:


I had a good chuckle with this. Then I thought to myself, my goodness, is this the vibe I give off when I talk to people?

Dang commies. Since we're talking about communists, I had a funny blog article entitled "P2P Propaganda" and it relates to commies.