Bloody Halloween

This bet is looking more grim by the minute. Third last weekend out here and it happens to be Halloween weekend. In Australia we have no such thing and so I am caught unawares. At every lounge we visit they are trying to have a Halloween party. We were not dressed up and were told to come back later for general admittance. No thanks.

I have now set up a side bet with my cousin. My auntie bought a Rubix cube from the $1 shop and I have become an ace at solving it. My new bet at even money is to:

(a) Cold approach a girl
(b) Start off a conversation with "Hey did you know my special talent in life is solving the Rubix cube?"
(c) Obtain a phone number

The stakes will not be divulged. I think I have an edge because there were no stipulations regarding the attractiveness of the girl. As a side note I won three consecutive bets from my cousin by painstakingly selecting favourable opportunities. I then pushed myself into negative with two silly consecutive bets:

(a) Playing darts I bet that I could beat her using only two darts to her three darts (ironically my best score in this game came blindfolded)
(b) Having lost (a) I bet that I could finish dinner and solve one face of the 4x4 Rubix cube in the time it took her to finish dinner. She beat me by about 30 seconds. Bring on the new challenge!

Yao Ming book review

Weather and circumstance are conspiring to keep me indoors. So I've had time to read Yao Ming's autobiography. In two words "It blows". My next book looks a lot more interesting. Full review below:

A good biography teaches you something not just about the subject of the book but about life itself. Yao Ming's book not only fails to do this but its narrative style is such that the reader is concurrently bored and frustrated whilst trying to reach the end of this rather dull tale.

Yao wrote his autobiography at too early a stage in his career. True character is forged through adversity and at twenty five years of age, Yao simply hasn't had any opportunity to undergo the proverbial trial by fire. Yao omits to mention or only tangentially scratches upon many of the issues that I would consider interesting. How does he deal with the sudden influx of new "friends"? What discrimination, blatant or otherwise, does a 7"5' Chinese man face when stepping out from mainland China into one of the hubs of the Anglosphere? How does his relationship change with his childhood friends and the people that he has grown up with? Although it may appeal to avid basketball fans, my appraisal of the content of the book is that it lacks anything of real substance.

Sadly the structure and narrative of the book fare no better. The book was co-authored with Ric Bucher, who endeavours to maintain as much of the authentic "Yao flavour" as possible. He succeeds in this venture too well and much of the books is written in simple, boring and pedestrian English presumably because this is the way that Yao himself speaks. The book is laced with commentary from key members of Team Yao and this is confusing because the reader has to constantly refer to the "Cast of Characters" in order to place a context around what is being said.

I cannot recommend this book to anyone other than the most devoted Yao Ming acolyte and even then the reading would be for duty rather than for pleasure.

Share the love

My normal phone number isn't working at the moment because even though the phone is global roaming enabled, there is no signal in Canada. If you want to send me a text message, go to:

http://www.rogers.com/english/wireless/sendpcs.html

and send an SMS to:

4164500974

For those not technically inclined, you can copy the number straight from this blog and paste it into the text box, rather than typing the whole thing in.

I hate losing bets

I currently have a bet at 7/1 as to whether I will hook up with a girl whilst I'm in Toronto. Tuesday was one of the rare occasions when I had two other family members at home so I jumped at the chance to head out and settle the bet. I went to a dance class downtown and ended up having dinner with one of the girls. I was pretty sure the bet would be settled in my favour when the girl said "I've never met a guy like you before" followed up with "Ok I'll go out to dinner with you...but only if you promise to walk me home". All I had to do was not stuff anything up. Sound familiar? :)

Toward the end of dinner she mentioned that she was a diver and showed me her PADI license. For some unfathomable reason I then decided to show her the only non-driving related license that I had in my wallet...which happened to be my firearms license. I could almost hear the alarm bells ringing in her head. Once again I managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Flakiest phone number ever

Last Saturday night I was out at Montanas, which is a restaurant by day and a club by night. I ended up talking to a cute girl who was private school educated, which I only mention because it becomes relevant further on. She had a cute friend and sadly my cousin wasn't there to talk to the friend because he had a cold and was lying in bed on death's door. The friend was getting bored and wanted to go so I ask the girl for her phone number. She says "I'm leaving Toronto tomorrow". Not to be deterred I parry with "Great. I'll call you tomorrow". As she's punching her number in, I realise that I haven't the slightest clue as to her name. I tell her "Put your name in too I want to make sure I have it spelt correctly." She looks at me incredulously "You can't spell Jane?" Not having too many options I come up with "Well...I was only public school educated". I think I could have salvaged the situation but for that minor blooper of not paying attention when she introduced yourself. Sadly it's becoming increasingly apparent that I have the attention span of an ADD gnat.

The Vault

By coincidence one of my business partners is in town so I met him downtown for dinner and a drink. His serviced apartment is directly above an unused bank vault. Pretty cool.

The most effective persuasion technique

Some would argue the most effective persuasion technique is the one where the targets are unaware they are being manipulated. I would argue that the most effective persuasion technique is the one where the targets know they are being manipulated but nonetheless are powerless to resist. I am currently watching UFC live and the official energy drink is Xyience. Below is the commercial they played during the intermission between fights. No prizes for guessing the persuasion technique to which I fell victim. Yep...zero calories...gets me every time.

Anthems

Here is a clip of the Australian anthem followed by the US anthem. No wonder Americans are so gung ho. Listening to their national anthem makes me want to run around shooting things.

One is never enough

But sometimes neither is two...nor three...

Just don't do anything stupid

I made the call on Sunday to the girl I met at Devil's Martini. Yes I know it was only one day later. Yes I have seen Swingers and I know that three days is "money". Things went pretty well I had her laughing and we agreed to meet on Tuesday. All I had to do was secure a time, a venue...and not do anything stupid. Surely two out of three ain't bad? Time - 18:00, venue - Latazza Cafe, don't do anything stupid - ummm...for no particular reason I did mention that I didn't have access to a car...about five hours later I get the text message with words to the effect of "I'm working late this week sorry". Note to self...while in Toronto do not mention vehicular transportation or lack thereof...

Do I really eat this fast?

My cousin and I started lunch at the same time.

Night out on the town

I don't get that many opportunities to leave the house, so each outing must be capitalised to its full extent. Saturday night is the only real chance to blow off some steam so my cousin and I hit a local joint called Devil's Martini, which allegedly caters to a slightly older, more sophisticated clientele. The venue itself was about twice as big as Cargo Bar and jammed to the rafters with a large number of attractive women.

The first problem was that the entire area was a dance floor. Why was this problematic you may ask? Well it's pretty difficult to approach women when they're dancing. If anyone has had any success with this, please e-mail me your tips :) The second problem was that we couldn't really leave the venue. After about 10pm, the clubs really start to fill up and to get in you need either a lot of patience or an inside connection at the club. Given that I was in possession of neither, it looked like we were dug in for the night.

I was lounging around at the bar when an attractive girl moves up to order her drink. I start talking to her and start fervently hoping that the bartender takes his time or better yet gets abducted by aliens for the next two hours. It turns out she also has a great personality and I do not use that word in the pejorative sense. The bartender must have taken long enough because before she went back to her friends she happily handed over her phone number. I'll have to ring her up and follow through with a post work coffee date...sadly I don't know any good coffee shops in the area so I'll be flying by the seat of my pants.