What's on your desk?

This is what's on my desk. I think every item down to the smallest scrap of paper has some small, albeit perhaps insignificant, story behind it. I've catalogued everything I have on my desk so that I can one day look back on this post and see a small snapshot of my life. This is largely for my own benefit and will most likely prove exceptionally boring for everyone else. But regardless of that minor detail, what's on your desk? Show me some time.

1. My phone. I got him from a Chinese store in Markham back in March at 50% off the retail price. My Chinese neighbour told me the small boy is a spokesperson for some type of candy that is popular in Asia. I was just amazed that the thing opened up to reveal a phone. And before you ask, yes, it does feel oddly disturbing talking into the torso of a small boy everytime I make a phone call.


2. Pants (the monkey) and his favorite platypus. Pants, who I received for my birthday last April, is so named because he wears no pants. These days he seems quite happy spending his days hugging Miffyboo, his pet platypus, which Tiffy had "won" at the CNE. Sometimes I think Pants is choking Miffyboo, but the platypus has thus far shown no signs of protest or resistance to his advances.


3. My external harddrive, modem, a business card, and a Chinese stamp etched with my Chinese name. The later was a Christmas gift, and I have since used the image from the stamp to create a series of legal tender Canada Post postage stamps bearing the image of my name--vain, perhaps, but also quite practical...and showy. Oh, I got the business card from The Clay Room on the Danforth in early May when Ames, Tomlin, and I went to paint ceramics. I think I made a mug or some such but it was a lot of fun despite my meager artistic ability. Let's go again some time, guys!


4. One of my Monsoon speakers. I bought these four years ago when flat panel speakers with superb sound in the upper ranges were all the rage. These days consumers have decided as a whole that treble is overrated, and the market is now dominated by 5 speaker setups with subwoofers that can destroy bunkers in Iraq.


5. My Acer LCD monitor. This was a recent purchase from Staples that I had to make out of neccessity rather than frivolity--when you bring a computer from Vancouver and realize you don't have a monitor, you are left with very few choices. I didn't pay top dollar for this monitor because it didn't have the fastest response time on the market, but since my eyes can't tell the difference between 14ms and 12ms, I didn't particularly mind.


6. My Logitech webcam. I bought this last fall to keep in touch with family and friends back home. In its hayday this thing was called into action almost on a nightly basis. These days it sits mostly unused, serving largely as a pretty (and expensive) monitor ornament


7. My iPod, and some TTC tokens. You can read more about my iPod here. As for the TTC tokens, I believe they are quite self-explanatory.


8. My Shuttle box. I must say I really like this small computer. It's whisper quiet and has all the power and functionality of a larger machine. I ripped the CPU, HDD, DVD-burner, and RAM from my old computer back home and installed them in this thing over the summer holidays. Do you know how hard it is to find a Shuttle box with support for socket 487 CPUs in stock in Vancouver? For those of you interested in PC hardware, come by sometime and I'll show you the heatpipe in this thing--fantastic design, and I'll bet it's probably bigger than yours too.


9. My small collection of Peek-a-Pooh doohickeys and two Kindersurprise Smurfs, one of which was a gift from Ames. I used to have another one but that one was given away--I hope it's not in a landfill somewhere because I really liked that Smurfette.


10. My one and only mug (besides the guest mugs). I got this in Disneyland a year and a half ago and so far it has served me well. This mug has a nice weight to it and holds most fluids in a solid, unclumsy manner that few mugs can emulate.


11. My laundry card, Sickkids employee badge, and spare change. The laundry card was given to me by someone after I lent mine to Tomlin last year. Jon, if you're reading this, gimme back my card--it's worth five bucks! :-p


12. My pen, pencil, eraser, and pad of sticky paper. The later isn't actually mine, and I will have to return it to its rightful owner soon (I hope you're not reading this, Tiffy). I bought the pencil and eraser at the Grand & Toy in the Eaton Centre about two days after I moved in last September. They were among my very first purchases in Toronto. The pen...looks suspiciously like the ones we use in the lab...I should probably bring that one back at some point.


13. My Rogers Pay as You Go cellphone. I bought this shortly after my Nokia froze on me--it stopped responding to keypad input and refused to turn off while on Loud mode--right before I went to a TSO concert. Had I been more popular I would have been in a tight spot at the Roy Thompson that night. In any case, the new phone is "MuchMusic enabled" which means I can download short clips of Ed The Sock berating me for paying $1.50 to download a short clip of him berating me. I love capitalism.


14. My Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse combo. I bought this two years ago at Costco and brought it back with me last month. The setup was quite cheap but it's the upkeep that gets me: the mouse takes 2 AAs every two months or so and the keyboard takes 6(!) AAs twice a year. And it's wireless because I need the mobility...yeah you can stop talking right there.


15. A photo of me, mom, and dad in Hangzhou. This picture was taken three years ago and I can still feel the insane humidity by the West Lake that day everytime I see this picture. I miss mom and dad :-(


16. A postcard from Paris from Vivs (write me when you get settled in!). Maybe one day I'll get a chance to visit.


17. Tammy!!!! Tiffy and I found her discarded on top of a Pokémon vending machine in a Chinese mall in Chinatown this summer. It seems the vending machine was stuffed with these swimmer/mini-whore dolls instead of Pokémon toys as advertised, and my guess is that some poor child threw her on top of the machine in disgust when he got Tammy instead of Pikachu. Actually, we're not sure if her real name is Tammy, but she definitely looks like a one. Once I find her a mini-trailer she'll be right at home.


18. A ticket stub from The Wedding Crashers. Great movie, even better company. If you haven't seen this, you have no excuses. Seriously, you don't because they are selling them for $5 in Chinatown. And if that's too steep for you, I'll lend you my copy.


19. Calling Card. No, seriously it's called "Calling Card". But who cares what it's called, I call it $3.75 for eight(!) hours of long distance calling to Vancouver. Honestly, I have a sneaky suspicion that this card is the creation of some sort of money-laundering ring, but who am I to judge.

Your Favorite Jerk