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Warren Shea

Archive for January, 2010

When internet handles are no longer kool

Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 10:39 pm

I’ve been guilty of a number of internet handles that, over time, just aren’t kool anymore

megasigmax – My first handle, a merging of Megaman X and Sigma (the main villain of the series)

megazeroxx – My alt handle, a merging of Megaman X and Zero of the same series. I thought it was an okay alt handle until my friend pointed out that a “mega” “zero” is actually pretty lame. I abandoned the name immediately, humiliated that I didn’t notice the obvious connection. Also, there are 2 “X”s. That’s just 1 short from being pr0n. I also didn’t notice that. Sigh.

azn_prometheus – Prometheus, the villain of the justice league in Grant Morrison’s run. Named after the Greek god, my spin by turning him into an Asian_Greek_god certainly didn’t make a whole lot of sense
(azn_prometheus – my old website from 2002)

ICQN – My deviantart handle (http://icqn.deviantart.com/). The idea was to make it like ICON, but the O was a Q, like a comic book chat bubble. Inside the Q, was the ICON. It was a failure because it’s too much like ICQ, which some still remember as one of the first popular instant messaging services. Also, is it ICON or ICQN? and why is there so much emphasis on ICON when it’s ICQN. This boggles even my mind.

This sig is on a Supergirl picture I colored hence the icon of the trademark S and the female symbol.

AEGIS – My Initial D arcade handle. Taken from Gate Keepers anime, this one was the most uncringable.

I’ve finally decided to abandon these childish names, of which I realize I was never particularly good at. My handles are now:

warrenshea or xuehualun (my chinese name)

At least it only took 25 years to learn this. In the next 25 years, I hope to learn:
1. How to put the toilet seat down and
2. Something about women. Anything.

****SIDE STORY****
Shea isn’t really a name of Chinese origin. It’s Irish. The story is that when my father came to Canada, they asked him how to pronounce his last name. My father, poor at English, said “Xue”, similar to Shea. The Americans asked him if “Shea” was okay, probably because they didn’t know how to spell “Xue”. My father agreed that it was okay. I learned later that it was one of his bigger regrets but at the time, it probably didn’t seem like such an important decision (?). I’ve sometimes felt like changing my last name back to Xue, not for heritage reason, but because it would be kool to be Warren Xue. Warren X.

Stranger: “Hello, what’re your name?”
Me: “Call me Mr. X”

WAH so kool !!!

I can sense everyone making a -_-; face and in disbelief at what they just read. I never claimed I wasn’t an idiot.

go to me for advice

Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 4:02 pm

at least i make myself laugh.

12 (13 with this) posts in 5 days. I am addicted to writing.

Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 9:36 pm

I’m totally feeling the need to write. It’s almost as strong as my need to play WoW from a few weeks ago. But I think I need to restrain myself to 1 post a day, max.

It’s really getting in the way of my “productive warren” goals which include: catching up on movies, learning asp.net 3.5, relearning and retaining sql, and building my own, new personal website.

While everyone is saying that writing is also productive, because of my new addiction to writing, I’m seeing it as an obstacle to my other goals. Because I don’t see writing as productive. Writing is not, and will never be, one of my long-term goals. My focus is on the web.

Dilemma!

I won’t ask what I should do because I have 0 readers and this is a personal decision. But advice/comments (from my 0 readers) would be appreciated :)

Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia): Eating infront of people

Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 8:16 pm

Everyone’s scared of something. While I’m not particularly “scared” of this, eating infront of people makes me very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to the point of if I had to, I would always choose to eat alone. Uncomfortable to the point of possibly psychologically tricking myself into be full earlier than I would be if I ate alone. Uncomfortable to the point of screaming out “DON’T LOOK AT ME!!” in the midst of eating with others. Okay, I made that last one up.

What I believe to be the start of my phobia occurred in grade 11-12. I was out at a dinner with some co-workers (I worked at Kumon, a math tutoring school). I was eating some ice cream and this girl across from me (co-worker) was giggling. I couldn’t figure out why, I WAS eating in a funny way, kind of to make her laugh, but…when I asked why she was laughing, she wouldn’t tell me. Later that night, while thinking about it, I came to my own conclusion that it was the way I held my spoon. While this may not have been the cause of her laughter, I came to a self-realization. I, for about 17~ years, had been holding my spoons and forks like this:


My parents, who aren’t particularly civilized themselves when they eat, never corrected me and for my whole life, that (the image above) had been my natural way of using a utensil and eating. Even now, at the age of 27, I naturally hold utensils that way as it’s more comfortable.

While I do, when I remember, hold a fork like so:

I don’t think I’ll ever forget my embarrassment and the realization of being 17~ years old and not knowing one of the simplest of table manners.

The issue with this realization was that, for my whole life, I had been doing something incorrectly and never corrected. What other obvious manners have I never been aware of? What other social norms do I continue to break? This has led to a whole level of self-consciousness and while I know I’m self-conscious of many things, I’m very aware of this one. I recognize that it’s irrational but I don’t know if there’s anything I can do about it.

The lesson is: when you have kids, make sure to teach them everything you can. But don’t pass on your unexplained phobias, disorders, and issues. Let them choose their own path in life, just guide them to being good people. And train them in video games because the heightened reaction time will save their lives when the aliens and robots attack.

Didier – Winterlicious – Dinner

Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 12:41 am

**PENDING REWRITE DUE TO SLEEPINESS** – 01/30/2010 – 1AM
**REWRITE IGNORED DUE TO LAZINESS** – 01/30/2010 – 2PM

I’ve gone to a few of summer/winterlicious things now. Only to 3 places for dinner, Auberge du Pommier, Benihana, and today to Didier. While the food was great, I don’t think the food measured up to Auberge du Pommier, but the experience was much better. The staff here was really exceptional, funny, courteous, they made my night.

FYI Benihana was clearly the worst of the 3. It was a regular teppanyaki place, but like, 3x more expensive. yikes. that was a fail of a winterlicious.

If you’re curious, I got a Pumpkin Puree appetizer, Jarret D’Agneau Crécy
(Braised lamb shank, carrot puree) entreé and a Gâteau au Chocolat Chaud
(Valrhona warm chocolate cake, chocolate sauce) dessert. The pumpkin puree appetizer was awesome in both presentation and taste. The Lamb looked awesome but didn’t satisfy my taste buds. Someone else at my table that ordered it thought it was great though, maybe it was just me.
You can see the menu here:
http://www.toronto.com/restaurants/article/647842

One of the koolest parts was that Chef Didier Leroy came out after the meal, asked how the food was, and shook everyone’s hand. I thought that was awesome.

It was pricey, even for winterlicious.
14 for 2 bottles of flat water.
60 for a bottle of champagne (about 5 glasses worth)
and the food, 45/person.
total it was like, 85 including tax & 17%~ gratuity.

Anyways, fun night. I really suck at restaurant and food review. I don’t think I should do this again.

Oh well, it was nice to write something for tonight.