I have mostly given up on material goods, keeping an attitude of “I should only buy something if I really need it, not because I want it or it would be cool to have”. It certainly has helped me keep my finances in line, that’s for sure.

So when Boxing Day slowly approached, I told my dad that maybe we should get a new printer now. Our old black and white laser printer, the long-lasting NEC Silentwriter 95 that isn’t really all that silent, finally broke down after a good 10-15 years of use. Attempts to revive an old Epson Stylus Color 800 that we did not use for at least four years failed due to us avoiding to buy new ink cartridges instead of refilling them. Turns out old used catridges would have its ink solidify.

I’ve also managed to pursuade my dad to avoid the stupid irrational consumerism that happens when big sales go on, buying things that are just cool to have but aren’t actually all that necessary, such as LCD TVs and all those other fun, nice to have, but not all that necessary gizmos. He still got some stuff from NCIX nonetheless, but at least those had some good reasons as to why he wanted them, namely hard drives and a keyboard/mouse combo for one machine (my server) that doesn’t have any input devices on it. Yes, I can ssh onto the box and all, but when I restart, it needs a keyboard attached and there’s no BIOS option to disable that check.

So we woke up at around 10 in the morning, long after the initial rushes of Boxing Day that my dad and I had gone out for during Boxing Days past and went to Future Shop to get ourselves a new printer. We ended up getting a Minolta PagePro 1400W, which I have been spending some good amount of time trying to get working with the network via CUPS and samba. Still working on it now, but I think I’m almost good on getting it working.

Of course, I did not end up empty-handed without getting something for myself.

If you are thinking that I bought myself a DS Lite, you’re wrong. Yes, it is one of those things that I would like to have. However, at the same time, I know that if I got one, I would be failing everything because I’m one of those obsessive types when it comes to playing games – and when a portable system comes into play, I’ll be screwing myself over big time.

Besides, they were all sold out at the Future Shop I was at. They were selling at $129.99 after all.

Rather, I found myself deciding between two strategy game collections, both selling for $49.99 and both extremely epic games in their own way.

• Sid Meier’s Civilization Chronicles, which consists of Civilization I through IV with all the expansions except for Civilization IV: Warlords, as well as a Civilization card game and various other things.
• Total War: Eras, which consists of every single Total War Game and their expansions. Also came along with the Limited Edition of the recently released Medieval II: Total War.

A tough call really.

I ended up getting the Total War collection. The battles of the series are absolutely impressive.

Christmas. What’s it all about?

Personally, thinking about this very question irritates me. Simply because of how our society works these days, Christmas is an extremely materialistic event that seems extremely forced. Honestly, it all seems quite fake.

Why do I think that? To answer that question, I ask you to answer this question: Why do people need to be all nice and happy and cheerful and generous during ONE time of the year? Why can’t they be like that throughout the entire year?

And when we all try to go out and be extremely generous with the gifts and stuff, the businesses make big bucks; hence the “extremely materialistic event” bit.

However, when you think back to the real reason why Christmas is celebrated (if you don’t know, the answer’s below), we all do have a reason to be happy.

But back to the main question. What’s Christmas all about? Is it about giving and receiving gifts? Is it about Santa Claus? Is it all about family get-togethers? Is it all about being able to make a crapload of money?

No. Why Christmas exists is is because it celebrates the birth of Jesus, who came down and died on the Cross for our sins.

Now I’m not exactly saying that we should all be just not having fun or not giving gifts not do all that other Christmas-y stuff (besides celebrating the birth of Christ), but rather, remember within us why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

Unfortunately, most people (myself included) forget the true meaning of Christmas. Let me share an email I got from my mom. I believe it nails the point home, especially if you are Christian like myself.

Something to think about? Definitely.

Especially if you’re Christian.

So yes, I repeat myself from my last post. Merry Christmas! And don’t forget the true meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate it!

I would like to wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas.

Hopefully, it would be a white Christmas instead of the grey, wet Christmas we are most likely to get in Vancouver.

I don’t know what to do.

Here’s the thing: in January, I’m thinking of going to CUTC, the Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference held in Toronto around that time each year. However, there are several things that have recently come about to make me second-guess my decision:

• My CGPA has been dropping ever since I declared my major in Spring 2006.
• No one else I know is going besides myself.
• I’ll be missing eight hours of instruction time: two hours of CMPT 307 and CMPT 471, as well as 4 hours (ie. the entire week) of JAPN 100.

I guess the point is, I haven’t really been best at focusing on school all that much. My dismal grades, which averages C+ (2.333…), doesn’t really cut it for Computing Science, which requires an average of 2.4 to declare your major. The big question is, will I be able to catch up with my classes? Sure it may be “just the first week of class”, but still, lots are covered during the first week of class, especially with the language classes.

I just don’t know..

We’re back!

Well, kinda. Slowly getting things back together after the “big hard drive crash of ’06″, which wasn’t really all that big. Still, I’ve managed to lose over a year’s worth of posts, so it’s really time to start anew.

I’ll be working out some of the things as time goes on, but there’s work to be done here, at work, and on the projects during this between-semesters break.

To-Do List (for here):

• Reskin the WordPress
• See what kinds of things I’ll need with this
• Create new sections which are not going to be related to this section (mainly for work-related purposes)

Ah yes. One more thing. If you want linkage on the blogroll, let me know via comments on this post.