April Challenge - Day 18 - 24 Bad Weather + Working Lots = Sick

Well, this week hasn't been great for my exercise regimen. After being knocked out with a bad cold for 5 of the past 7 days, I haven't hit the gym as much as the weeks before. Here's a brief overview:

Monday - weights
Tuesday - 7km run
Wednesday - Friday - the worst of my cold days
Saturday - 17km run
Sunday - Weights
Monday - 4km run and abs

I'm hoping I can get back into the groove this week. With the 10k run on Sunday, and my rest day on Saturday, I plan on running at least another 10k this week and a smaller run on two days. Fingers crossed on no injuries!

March Challenge - Day 24: Election...2008?

So this first week in the election has seen some new (albeit not so great) campaign promises, but also a lot of old rehashed campaign promises from parties from the 2008 and 2006 elections. While it's important to reuse and recycle, regifting campaign ideas and calling them new is terribly unappealing.

Take the Liberal's universal daycare promise for example. They've been promising this since they were in power in the 90s. Has it happened? No. Will it happen? No. Their plan this time, to share the burden with the provinces. Have provinces committed? No. It's like telling investors you have plenty of business partners willing to help fund your idea, but when the investors contact your partners, the partners haven't the foggiest idea.

Then there's the NDP tackling the oil sands issue. It's totally expected of the NDP to put this on their agenda. But let's be honest, even if Canada experiences an orange sweep this election season, Layton would be hard pressed to try to touch the Oil Sands considering the troubles going on in oil rich regions of the world. There is demand - oil sands make money for Canada. Touch that and you risk damaging Canada's economic growth.

As for the Conservatives - minor moves and shifts this campaign - nothing too out of the box considering they want to hold onto their lead. This is the dumbest idea ever as they are slowly watching the Liberals gain more support. It's time for bold action in order to inspire voters to go out and vote and perhaps choose a majority government that has a vision for the country in the next four years. Talk of stability is fine...but stagnation is just around the corner if we don't start making some big moves soon.

February Challenge - Day 24: Chocolate Covered Strawberries = Overrated

Chocolate covered strawberries. The idea is great and slightly romantic. However, to eat one of these things is nothing but messy and highly unromantic.

My co-worker Amber was kind enough to share some of her strawberries (she had an entire box of them - from a secret admirer no doubt) with me tonight. They were very pretty - large strawberries with a thick layer of dark chocolate and a light drizzle of white chocolate to top it off. I couldn't resist, so I took two (FATTY, I know.) I quickly plowed through my dinner (stirfry, again...) and then started to eat my reward...I mean, dessert.

After one bite

It all went downhill from the moment I touched the chocolate-covered strawberry (CCS for short). First off, there was no stem to grab a hold of, so my fat fingers tried to grasp the leafy parts but they fell off quicker than a prostitutes clothes. Fine, I thought, I'll get my fingers messy and grab the chocolate part. The chocolate immediately started melting an

d the CCS became uncontrollably slippery. FUCK! I silently screamed, as I was only able to eat half the berry and the rest of the chocolate went flying EVERYWHERE. Thank God I wasn't wearing a white shirt...or white pants.

So after picking up all the chocolate bits, I attempted to bite into the second

CCS, with even worse success. Strawberry juice squirted everywhere, the uneaten part of the berry fell out of my hands and landed on my desk. A total bucket of fail all around in trying to enjoy a nice dessert. It makes me wonder, do people actually find these desserts romantic? It's nothing short of messy and cumbersome. I guess the only upside to it is that you'll get to lick the chocolate off the person you're with afterwards, but that just takes so much extra planning and cleanup efforts that I find these desserts a big waste of time and money.

January Challenge - Day 24: I did not break!

Today was the day. The day of the big Yahoo! party. The moment came to see if I was going to break my 28 day challenge on Day 24. As the title gives away, I did not break!

I credit this to many things: understanding co-workers and media colleagues who did not pressure me to drink once (some gave me props for not breaking), I replaced drinking with yummy food, and I danced my ass off.

So, there's nothing funnier than seeing drunk people around you making a fool of themselves. There were several examples tonight including:

- a guy at the photo booth dancing like an overweight Michael Jackson

- a girl at the photo booth dry humping the overweight Michael Jackson from behind

- that same girl falling over and taking people down with her

My co-worker, Jean George and I were totally egging these two on. Giving them directions at the photo booth like "you're a tiger!" or "do Charlie's Angels!" or "ride him like a cowboy!"

Man, tonight was fun. Proximity peeps - you know how to party!