I’ve been looking for some of the best commercials I’ve ever seen lately. I managed to find some online:

Bell Canada - We are all connected (pictures)

This piece is like artwork. No words are necessary in this commercial, and it is so effective. The music captivates the viewer, and doesn’t let them turn away from the images of images of images. I’ve always wanted to make a video or picture of images in images in images - sort of something that intrigues me. Apparently the music is not public domain, and cannot be downloaded nor purchased on a CD. The song was licensed from its composer and has been returned to him/her after the commercial had its run. More information can be found here. And the sheet music that someone transcribed by ear on the computer can be found here.

Bell Canada - We are all connected (wave)

This commercial instills an emotion in the viewer of unity and intense longing for a positive connected and peaceful world. The people in the video are just ordinary citizens doing normal things but are all connected by this “wave”, including Chinese cooks, grocery store clerks, office workers, and preschool children. It is fitting that the wave ends up at the one place where the world can meet, compete, and set aside differences in culture, beliefs and morals, and celebrate peace, unity, and the striving for excellence. The music also really drives this commercial. It’s a track called “Transatlanticism” by “Death Cab For Cutie”.

It’s kind of neat that many people will be able to recall a commercial simply from hearing the song that was in the background. Shows just how pervasive and influential media is in our lives. Used wisely, media can have a very positive influence on people, believe it or not.

There is a movie named “The Incredibles” that you just simply have to see!!! Another wonderful Pixar film, this movie cannot be missed by anyone. If you don’t see it, your life will not be complete.

Pixar’s attention to graphics and animation detail, character depth, timeless humour, and age-transcending storylines wins my loyalty. The hair, the eyes, the skin, the water, the fire, the volcano, and they way people and things move is so realistic it is amazing. The characters were so well thought out I could not find anything that didn’t make sense. The humour that is included in this movie is pretty much timeless, and won’t grow old within a generation, like most of Pixar’s work. This contrasts from DreamWorks’ animations, as they frequently use cultural references in their humour. The Incredibles also is able to cater to a wide audience, since it’s an awesome kids movie that adults can enjoy perhaps even more.

In terms of enjoyable movies, this has to be one of the best I’ve ever seen. Go see it. Now! It’s that good.

Watch for it: Downloadable “The Incredibles” computer game.

After over 2 hours of working on it, I finally fixed my archives page problem, now they work and old posts can be viewed. Because I don’t host my blog on Blogger’s servers, I had to use a very roundabout way to get my archives to load the way I want them to. The links are now on the right hand side of the page.

Today was one of those days where it was a pretty good day, even if there were some parts that should have dragged it down. But it went very well, and I’m so glad that the week is over.

At morning prayer, we had a good time of praying for each other, the campus, and the world. We continued to pray for Ukraine, since we go through the Operation World booklet. The book outlines what all the countries of the world need praying for, and it has been an eye-opening experience to read about what goes on in these other nations, and that our prayer can make a difference because God hears our prayers.

Work turned out to be a bit troublesome as my data set has so many errors and missing points. I need to go through the spreadsheet and make sure these bad numbers are replaced properly or NaN’ed. I was also relieved the my supervisor let me go to the library to study a bit more for my midterm that was at 12:30pm. I’m really really thankful that he let me do that!

The midterm was OK, but I still don’t know what the heck backing and veering winds are — during the midterm I could visualize the paper in my notes which had those terms on it, but there were no definitions. In fact, even now I can’t find the definition to those terms even in the textbook. It’s gotta be somewhere!

After the midterm, I did more programming and sorting. Sometimes it just has to be done. My co-op work term paper depends on it! Heh… at work I have a screensaver called Johnny Castaway installed, and it’s this dude who is stranded on an island and he just does random things, like fishing for fish, boots, life-savers, sleeping, reading books, exercise, etc. But every so often JC does weird things, although rarely, such as water-skiing behind a shark with his fishing pole, or having dinner with the mermaid, or diving into the water. The thing is when it comes on as the screensaver, sometimes we watch it even when it’s not particularly interesting, because we know JC sometimes does the funny stuff, and we don’t want to miss it.

I attended a seminar on the projects of 4th-year Environmental Science Natural Resource Management students with Steve, and we listened to two presentations on building a marsh on private property, and the microclimatology of certain caves up north. That was pretty much how my work-week concluded.

Needing some alone time, I just spent most of the afternoon and early evening reading (The Silmarillion) and making a bit of food while watching Jeopardy. Liz called me up and we were both bored, so we decided to invite some people out to the UC basement piano room to jam. So Beth and Heather were picked up by Liz, and Liz’s brother Josh joined in as well. It was so much fun to jam with other people again! We did this all last year, every Friday at 12:00noon but it hasn’t really happened this semester. We also had the chance to play and sing a song to some Persian men who were using the piano room before us! The three men had a sitar, violin, and some other instrument, which was pretty awesome. After Beth and Heather left, however, Steph dropped in with her violin! We jammed some more songs, and Steph let me play the violin… Man I haven’t played violin in so long (since last summer, but technically since grade 11), and it felt so good to be able to play.

I love making music. It’s just so much fun, so refreshing, so rewarding and so enjoyable. Whether it be on the piano, guitar, bass, pennywhistle, violin, or with my own voice, music has to be one of the strongest passions in my soul!

Since I haven’t really posted on what has been happening in my life lately, I thought I’d do that.

This past week has been one of the toughest I’ve ever been through, I must say, mentally and psychologically. Last week, I chose to share something really honest with someone and it has undeniably changed my relationship with that person drastically. It has been a little bit awkward each time we encounter each other lately, even though we both admitted that we don’t want it to be that way. My wish is that soon, things between us will return back to normal, and then we can be relaxed when in the presence of the other person. And I want to share how I feel with other people around me, but it has been the toughest thing to hold back all that I’m going through in order to protect my friend, as this is not a matter that can just be blabbered around. Thankfully I do have trustworthy friends who I can share these things without fear that those words will be disclosed to others.

There are a few challenges that I’m engaging in right now. I find that by challenging myself, I am able to reach my goals, even if they’re not long-term or even well-defined goals. I’ll list them and explain them here:

Weekdays Daily Morning Prayer

Every morning at 7:30am at the Christian clubs office in the University Centre, I meet up with other Christians, mainly from Campus Crusade for Christ, to pray. We pray for our campus, our friends, the world, events happening, and personal prayer requests as well. Moreover, we thank God for what He has given us, and bless His name. This commitment requires for me to go to bed a bit earlier, a discipline that has definitely been challenging me. I also need to make sure (or allow others to make sure) I don’t fall asleep when at morning prayer!