Olympics Envy

Well you have all heard me complaining enough about not being in London for the Olympics so I will can it with the whining and just post all the pics Keith is sending me and pretend like I am there!!! (which will be an exercise in making stuff up as well since Keith is not so good with the details):

Day 1: swimming!
Day 2: water polo!
Day 3: beach volleyball!

 I'm not sure I enjoy those "art" structures in the Olympic Park. One looks like a roller coaster and the other looks like a scrapyard. But at least they've found a way to make those penis logos look cute (what a feat!):

Here's a little interview I did with Keith on his experience so far (via the low budget medium of gmail chat)
me:volleyball good? the pics are amazing!

  i'm gonig to blog them

  here's an interview for the blog:

  what's been your favourite sport so far?

 Keith: hmmm

  let me thin

 me: ok i go loo while you think

  be back in 5 mins

 Keith: the swimming probably

  ok

7:01 PM though the atmosphere and the venue of the volleyball was really cool

7:05 PM me: ah that answers the next question

  what is your favourite venue?

7:08 PM Keith: indeed it does

7:09 PM the swimming was fairly hot, but it was very sunny and and I think the temporary structure was a bit of a greenhouse

  once they opened the vents at the back it was fine

  the waterpolo was boiling though - not sure why they didnt' open the vents for that

7:10 PM apparently the waterpolo is copmletely temporary

7:11 PM which is pretty insane as it has a 25m pool in it

7:12 PM me: so your fav is the beach volleyball venue?

  did it rain today?

 Keith: yeah, the backdrop was awesome

  nope

  at least not when we were there

  it as mostly very sunny

7:13 PM me: nice!

 wow, so the most detail Keith has given me so far on his Olympic experience is about ventiliation of venues.

And a complaint about the Canadian Olympic coverage (cuz what would a post from me be without a complaint or two? or five?) I really wish CTV's Brian Williams would stop saying "here in downtown London" whenever they do their pan of Westminster. There is no such thing as downtown London.
   

Fun Foodie Day Out

Today I asked my trendy cool friend Macrina to take me around town doing what she does which seems to be hunt down all the cool places to eat and try locally produced delicacies from small businesses. Loved it!!!! I use my having been away as an excuse for not being in the know on the Vancouver scene but the truth is even when I lived here I stuck quite close to home and just always went to my fav restaurants. I definitely wanted to stop missing out and try some new things.

Vancouver is becoming a real foodie's paradise , with food trucks popping up all over the place and tons of cool and funky restaurants all around.

But our first food encounter was both interesting and free ! Macrina had seen on facebook that down the street the 3rd annual grilled cheese giveaway was happening today. What is this you say? Well it is pretty much what it says on the tin. Despite GIVEAWAY being in the title of the event, my brain stuck to the old cliche "there is no free lunch" and kept expecting to have to pay a few bucks. But no, it really was a giveaway! I don't know who organises it but some individuals (not any business!) just decided it would be nice to have a mini street party and just hand out grilled cheese sandwiches. There was music blasting and even a mini mattress/picnic blanket on the side shaped like a grilled cheese sandwich (see pics). Maybe i am too much of a capitalist but I just could not understand why anyone would want to give me a sandwich without wanting anything from me - they didn't want cash, they didn't want to brainwash me to to like some corporate organisation with sponsorship, they didn't want 15 mins of my time to do a quick survey to benefit some company. I kept looking around waiting for the penny to drop,but it never did. Eat the free sarnie, chat with some people all hanging out if u like, or not, whatever!!

Awesome signs directing u to event:

Giant cheese sandwich mattress and more signs leading up to yummy grilled cheese:

Macrina being a cool person as I have already mentioned, even bumped into other cool people like herself who had come to check out the event. So we stayed a little while chatting then we headed off to our next food destination.

This time it was macaroons. Check out all the awesome bright colours and flavours! I stopped listening when she said earl gray (the cream colour one with the purple flecks in the back) but I think there were pistachio, lemon, lychee... I can't remember what the bright green and bright blue ones are...

Yum . I definitely like earl gray in anything, macaroon no exception .

Lastly, we went to Red Wagon which Macrina explained to me served diner cuisine, but with quite a lot of smoked meat featuring on the menu. Between three of us we shared a Reuben sandwich:

And also something pretty cool, the pulled pork pancakes:

And yes I'm talking about north American pancakes, thick and fluffy with some yummy maple syrup. Sandwiched between the 3 pancakes was some delicious pulled pork!! When I read this on the menu I thought oh no that is weird that must taste strange but surprisingly it goes reeeally well together and I am def taking Keith when he gets here!

Fun day out! Can't wait to do it more! Thanks Macrae!

Chinese Food, I'm Over You

I love food but I have never been a big fan of Chinese food. There are particular things that I like a lot, like rice, but that is because I've never met a carb I didn't want to devour. Me and carbs are best buds.

My parents are very traditional in terms of their food tastes. VERY traditional. Like I've been in Zurich with them for a weekend and they insisted on having Panda Express. Whoa vomit. They love cruising and I think they've never been on one for more than 7 days purely because they cannot last that long without some choi sum (I can't believe there is a wikipedia page for choi sum). I think my dad is getting better since he travels so much for work now and I don't think they serve him choi sum in Africa on safari. But my mom and my aunt, uh uh. No way.

So for all of my childhood and most of my young adult life my exposure to Western food (which I like to unpolitically correctly call White People Food) consisted mainly of McDonalds. I'm not complaining, I love McDonalds. Sometimes I get the flyers through the door and I hide them in my handbag safe out of Keith's reach (he will bin them if he sees them) hoping for an opportunity when he's going out that I can sneak a good ol' filet o'fish and french fries. But it meant that I did not regularly eat a lot of foods until I was in my late teens. Dairy products are not popular in Chinese cuisine - the cow is for plowing rice fields, not for the pampering and milking! For example, cheese was something which I never had as a kid - really only had kraft slices (at home and on top of afore-mentioned Maccy D's) and maybe a few cubes of mozza and cheddar on snack plates at parties. Can't remember when I first tried brie but mmm I sure was missing out. To this day, I'm still scared of the really stinky blue cheeses. And I don't think I actually ever tried yogurt until I moved to the UK (at the age of 24) and on a whim decided that yogurt might be a nice snack to have in my fridge.

But I did realize my love for mashed potatoes early on (see? carb!), and bless her, my grandma did try to make me some for dinner quite regularly, but butter and milk are not commonly used in chinese cooking, so she would just boil the potatoes and mash them with water as the sole liquid in the recipe. I always wondered why we could never make it without the lumps at home - little did I understand the power of cream and butter.

Pretty soon I realized that I much prefer White People Food, and when I moved to the UK I knew food would not be a concern at all. If you ask me what I want for dinner I will always say pasta (carb). I truly believe that if you told me I could only have one meal for the rest of my life, I would be happy eating spaghetti and meatballs. But seven years does take its toll, and I started to crave some particular dishes from home that I never have in the UK. Since I've been back I've therefore been indulging in Chinese food but now, after two big celebratory meals (Viv's wedding and my sister's birthday tonight), I've realized that two months and I've already had enough again and can take it or leave it. Which is actually quite handy since I'm still on that diet.

But one thing that I'm still looooving is Chinese baked goods. I take the skytrain and then the bus home (if someone isn't kind enough to swing by and pick me up from the skytrain station) and right at the bus stop is a Chinese bakery. It's literally right outside the bus stop as you can see here (blue bus stop sign and people queueing on the right):

So I'll often go in and drool at these. And then buy 6 because if you buy 6 or more there's no sales tax:

My favourite is the pineapple bun (top row), which has no pineapple on it, and is thus named because the crust they make on the top has bumps and ridges like a pineapple. This crust is made purely of sugar and lard. i.e. YUM. Too bad they are 340 calories a pop. worse than a donut, worse than a bagel, so I often buy them, dream of one day having enough calories leftover in my day to have HALF, never make it, and let other people in my household gobble em up (so I'm just fattening up my parents and grandma, really).

And tonight for my sister's bday there were traditional birthday buns, made with rice flour with a lotus seed paste filling (fav!). I think they are meant to look like peaches which have some significance in Chinese culture in terms of celebration and luck (too lazy to look it up) but I always giggle at them because to me they look like a pimply butt, complete with ass crack:

Pimples and asscrack or not, they are ohhhhhh so delicious.

1 Down, 2 To Go

The summer of weddings has begun!

This weekend was my friend Vivian (who was one of my bridesmaids)'s wedding in Vancouver.

In August it will be my brother-in-law's turn.

Then September, another of my bridesmaids, Heidi's.

I think the three weddings are all going to be very different. Vivian's was a bit of the modern Chinese-Western hybrid, with elements of Chinese weddings like tea ceremonies, Chinese cheongsam, and the ten-course seafood banquet mixed in with the Western white bridal gown, vows, first dance, bouquet toss, and wedding cake. Since I wasn't in the wedding party, I did a little bit of helping out for the ceremony, which mostly involved telling everyone to sit down (even though there weren't enough seats) and shut up (i mean, turn off your cell phone), and then helping signal for the procession to, well, proceed down the aisle. The cute little flower girl (who was bravely wearing a sleeveless little dress in not-so-warm weather), was super cute and was taking about two steps at a time and intermitently toss some petals onto the ground. She was going so slow and the aisle was so long that I had to scurry down and guide her and prod her down the aisle. Strange thing to have to do to a stranger's toddler. After the ceremony my jobs were done and I could relax and enjoy my dinner. I had two teeny glasses of wine (my first drink in 6 weeks!!!) and then didn't realize until I got into the car at 11pm that uhhh.. I'm driving. Thankfully they really were teeny teeny glasses and I'd finished them by 9pm or so, giving me plenty of time to de-tipsify.

Alan and Leanne's wedding in August will be a full-blown London affair, and I am already thinking about what hair accessory I will wear (obviously a must at an English wedding!!) while lamenting that the flowery headband that matches my dress is probably passing through the Panama Canal at the moment. More excuses for a big Macy's spree in New York in my week-long holiday before London? As this is a family wedding it'll be the perfect level of involvement - close enough to the couple to really appreciate the day, not quite close enough to be in the wedding party and therefore no stress.

September will be back in Vancouver again and that will be a Canadian-English hybrid (Tim is still holding out for a keg of ale but I wish him good luck on this one). This time I will be in the wedding party but Heidi and Tim are so laid-back it is just going to be fun. I hope Tim brings his stag-do gear for some photo ops:

Censored in case Tim objects to his Angry Birds look being plastered all over the internet.

Pixar Movies

Last month I went to the movie theatre and saw Brave. When I had first seen the trailer for it (before The Avengers maybe?) I had thought well that doesn't look good at all. But I was bombarded on TV by further trailers for it over here once I got back to Canada and decided I would go and see it.

I think I should have trusted my first instincts because it was definitely disappointing. There was barely any plot, the characters were meh, there was definitely a lack of Pixar magic. It is basically the first Pixar movie I've seen where I did not come out thinking hey I want to see that again or bits of it again. (i am not counting Cars because i never saw those knowing full well i am not in that target audience). I hope it doesn't mean that Pixar is going downhill because they are some of my fav movies of all time. If I had to rank them it would go something like this:

1) Up
2) Wall-E
3) Toy Story
4) Monsters Inc
5) Finding Nemo
6) Toy Story 2
7) the Incredibles
8) Toy Story 3

Up is by far my favourite. I sobbed in the first chunk of that movie watching their life together unfold. And yes i know the movie is a comedy and yes i know they are not real people yea yea yea but it's the idea of two people growing old and going through trials and tribulations together that totally gets me. I've always been weird about old people, i cannot handle even fictional old people going through hardship. I think even on the third time seeing Up I still sobbed - and it was on a plane, too.

Wall-E is just too cute so it def gets the second spot.

That's a tight race there in slots 3 to 5. And I think I don't rank Toy Story 3 anywhere near as high as most other people because I saw it so late and everyone was like its the best movie ever!!! And i watched it at home all distracted while doing other stuff.

Ratatouille was also disappointing but at least I'd watch it again if it was on TV.

So really the only good thing about Brave was that we saw two preview for animated films coming out later this year that I want to see:

Monsters University - a prequel to Monsters Inc

Wreck it Ralph - about a baddie in a classic arcade game that wants to be the good guy! Totally targeted towards 80s babies who played Super Mario and Street Fighter etc. awesome!!!

More pottery painting

So I am basically obsessed with pottery painting. I have now been 3 times in two months!!! Last week was with my friend and her two kids (one of them a 3 month baby so he basically sat there and drank milk the whole time)

This weekend it was as a bday treat for my sister. But can it count as a great when u are so engrossed in it yourself that u have to send your sister and niece away so that u don't feel rushed? Yep... For the last hour I was just sitting there by myself. And there were no other customers so i was literally by myself. I need friends...

Anyway check out my works of art! From last week, a ladle rester for the kitchen, and from this week , a set of 3 chip and dip bowls , with a platter.

Now if only I cooked... Or had a home to entertain friends with with my chip and dip bowls ... Or had friends...

Haircut, Japanese styles

More everyday activities that I voluntarily turn into a blitz of cultural confusion.

I hadn't had a haircut in a while - like I mentioned, I decided to grow out my bob last fall to take advantage of my last long-haired years and therefore only got my brother in law's mother (who is a hairdresser) give me a few layers so that it would grow out without looking like, well, a grown-out bob. Since she did that in October, I haven't had a haircut.

Do most people harbour the same fear/dread/awkwardness I have of hairdressers, whereby you feel a sense of nervousness heading into the appointment? I definitely have that. Something about putting your whole appearance into the hands of a semi-stranger freaks the crap out of me. And yes, I do think hair makes your whole appearance. It really really makes you look different, and can really take you down a few notches on the superficial attractiveness scale. I once told Keith that he would be one cool dude if he would only stop wearing his hair like a lego-man, and that his lego hair took him down from a good 8.5 to a 6. He said I was mean. True as that may be, I stand by what I said. And don't you all start judging me either. I can name a half dozen of you at least who have said to him or me since he started having a hairstyle how much better he looks. I merely voiced, as his Partner of Honesty, what y'all were thinking. In fact I should get a medal.

Anyways, I do think it is nutso that we let someone have that much control over us who we don't know at all, cannot be certain shares our tastes, cannot be certain has any skills whatsoever (there's no certification in hairdressing is there?) and cannot be certain will listen to us or even understands our instructions on what we want. My fear of hairdressers also probably derives itself from never having had a regular hairstylist, as well as some pretty bad hair experiences in my most self-conscious teenage years. I absolutely remember when I was 12 the hairstylist giving me a bowl cut and then cut my fringe (bangs! I mean bangs!) so it was a good two inches above my eyebrows, which I'm sorry, always makes you look a bit mentally challenged. (Wow this post is getting less and less PC by the sentence). When you're just about to become a teenager that is NOT the style you're going for.  I totally remember during that haircut the woman also SLASHED MY FACE with the scissors and I was too cowardly to make a fuss (I was 12! I sat in that chair and did what I was told, including suffering injuries without comment!) but definitely got an angry red mark on my face afterward to prove it, which even scabbed over slightly afterwards.  When I was 23 I also got a perm, having gotten bored of having long-straight hair for 10 years. While I liked it at the time, everytime I see a pic from those old days I wonder what the hell I was thinking. I looked like an ugly step-mermaid.

So the last few times I've tried a new hairstylist I have always gotten recommenations from friends. In London Taryn introduced me to her hairstylist, a Chinese guy called Jay who was brilliant, he gave me my first graduated bob and I really liked it. He really knew how to style hair to suit your face shape. Too bad he disappeared and stopped cutting hair, Taryn, her mom, and I were all devestated. After that I used Kate's hairstylist at Clapham Junction Rush - nothing to write home about. I also occasionally engaged my bro-in-law's mom's services (once in a cruise ship cabin bathroom, when during a family holiday she couldn't handle that my straggly hair was almost down to my waist), but she's mostly retired and I thought with me being permanently based here it was time I got a proper regular hairdresser. So I asked Stef for her recommendation and she directed me to Misako Hair Salon and her hairstylist, Mako.

Misako is an all-Japanese run hair salon, and I can't decide if it is trendy or not. On the one hand, they are all Japanese. Tick on the trendy side. On the other hand, they are not based in a fancy location. Tick on the non-trendy side. Then, their shop is quite low frills - no receptionist, no computer booking system, unfinished concrete floor, one long mirror on the wall rather than a bunch of little stations, and each of the stylists wear their tools on themselves in different ways - Mako had a little cross-body purse, while the girl next to her had what looked like a toolbelt, and yet another had what looked like a fanny pack. I couldn't decide if this was low-key or deliberately minimalist trendy. Tick on both trendy and non-trendy list. Anyway Mako gave me a very nice haircut (I wasn't asking for anything crazy) but along the way a few points in the process made me giggle as usual. First, while she was washing my hair (I love getting my hair washed and my head rubbed by professionals), she held the ends of my long wet hair and then slapped them against the top of my head repeatedly. Wap wap wap wap. It didn't hurt but I felt a little bit abused. Then, when we sat back down in the hair-cut chair, she said "You like massage?" and I was super confused. Is this the small talk bit? Is she offering me one? Where? Here? On what part of me? Huh? So I just giggled and said "uh.. yes?" and then she proceeded to massage my heck and shoulders. Again, damn these little Asian women have strong hands. The massage ended with her holding her hands together like she was praying and then slapping the fist onto my shoulders. LOUD. more WAP WAP WAP. I almost giggled again. Overall very happy with Mako's work and will definitely go back for more wapping in 6-8 weeks!

Side rant: why on earth have we cultivated this expectation that we need to become best friends with our hairdressers? Why do they insist on prying our life stories out of us and telling us theirs, resulting in awkward small talk while they wield scissors around your head? You don't need to where I live, work, and play to give me layers and an overall 1-inch trim off the length. I don't really want to know about your life either. Just get on with it in silence.

An Evening Well Spent

I'm very new at being a full-time aunt, rather than a twice-a-year-I'll-take-you-for-icecream-every-day aunt. It's summer holidays so my niece and nephew have spent a few nights sleeping over at my parents' house this week. Too bad I've been working 11 days straight and getting home dead tired!

Tonight however, I got off at 6 and was able to spend the whole evening with them. My nephew was right away on the ipad games all night, and unfortunately rather than wrestle it from him and having two of them to deal with (which 100% of the time leads to bickering, pinching, fighting, and toys breaking) I just let him do what he enjoys while I drew pictures with my niece. Things were going fine and dandy when we were drawing animals, mine were very cartoony but nothing to be ashamed of. But then Kaylie insisted we draw pictures of each other. So we did, and both spent ages trying to perfect it, and while what she produced, I'll keep forever, what I produced, I suspect will go straight into the fireplace when her mom gets her hands on it:

The funniest part was when Kaylie said to me "Is it ok if I draw your freckles so it looks more like you?" Sure Kaylie, sure they are freckles. Not age spots on my poorly-taken-care-of-skin. Not at all.

Then she drew a picture of her brother. The likeness is uncanny:

Oh no! I've forgotten my sister's rule on not having her kids' pictures on the internet! I better make some alterations:

Chinese Ladies Can't Have Long Hair

Conversation overheard in the kitchen between two Chinese women, one in her early 30's, one middle-aged (too scared to guess and later be found out to have guessed wrong).

Younger Chinese Lady: [Name], did you get a hair cut?

Older Chinese Lady: No, I didn't!

*May at her desk furrows her eyebrows in confusion as she had also thought that OCL had gotten a haircut

YCL: Oh really?

OCL: No but I need to colour it. All the grays! But also need to get haircut, need to keep it short!

YCL: Haha, is that why women keep their hair short? To make it easier to colour the grays?

OCL: No! It because long hair on old women makes you look even older!

YCL: I never knew that! Does it really?

OCL: YES. You know why. It drags your face down. You know, when you are old, your face is droopy. Long hair drags the face down and makes it even droopier. Must have short hair.

YCL: Hahahaha! You face is not droopy. But I better cut my hair too then!

OCL: No you still young. You enjoy your long hair.

YCL: Well I better cut it in 5 years then.

OCL: Make it 10! Make it 10.

May's conclusion: I was right to grow my hair out again while I still can, in my 30's. Much as I loved my bob and actually mostly miss it, I know that my long hair days are numbered. I don't want my face to sag with my saggy hair.  Who was it that laughed at me when I explained this to them last year when I said I was growing my hair again? Oh yea. ALL OF YOU non-Chinese non-understanders.

Vindicated.

Terracotta soldiers

Working 8 days in a row means that there’s not a lot of exciting news to share. However I it does mean that I have been walking the same route from the skytrain to the office everyday, and I have been passing a particular painted terracotta soldier for a month now. I have noticed painted terracotta soldiers all over the city – I have no idea what they are for, but I would guess that the travelling terracotta artifacts that China has put on exchange with museums all over the world must have visited Vancouver at some point and the city must have heralded the event with its own set of painted terra cotta soldiers and decided they liked them so darn much they’d plop them all over the city.

I myself did not see the Terracotta soldiers when they came to the British Museum a few years back, because I’d seen them already, strangely, in Malta. Keith and I were there on holiday (our first holiday together as a couple!) over Easter 2007 and we had massively failed in accounting for the fact that Malta is a fairly Catholic country and therefore over Easter there was nada open. The heritage museum (quite tiny, much like the entire country) was open though and they were hosting the travelling Terracotta soldiers! I was beyond excited because I’d always wanted to see them, and if there’s one place in China I’d like to travel to (and probably the only place, except MAYBE Beijing for the Great Wall and the Forbidden City), it’s Xian for the Terracotta soldiers. I love archaeology – I’m not very knowledgeable about it or anything, but something about digging up long lost treasures from a lost time really captures my imagination (I guess it does for everyone else as well and hence all those Indiana Jones movies - that fourth one with the crystal skull was horrible). That’s why I would count the Acropolis at Athens as a top travelling experience (despite the rest of Athens seeming to be a bit of a sh*thole), and am still gutted that I haven’t made it to the Giza pyramids or Valley of the Kings in Egypt yet (but I will, I swear I will!).

Anyways as usual I digress.  So this one terracotta soldier I keep passing, I had noticed had lots of animals on it. But today I finally noticed the giant rat on the leg:

And I thought – ew! Why would you choose a rat to paint? They are gross! Then I realized… that they are all the animals from the Chinese zodiac! Of course, my sign, the monkey, features prominently, because that’s how COOL I am. Monkeys are the best. Only elephants beat them in cool-ness  but elephants are not part of the Chinese zodiac.  Here’s the back of the statue so you can see all of the animals.

Seeing the Chinese zodiac animals reminded me how this year is year of the Dragon, and a lot of crazy Chinese people (which is most Chinese people) have been gunning for a baby this year because that would make their baby a dragon baby. Dragons are considered very good luck and are associated with celebration – at all Chinese weddings the head table / stage is usually decorated with a dragon and a phoenix (representing a groom and a bride, respectively). We are one superstitious race.  Besides my new niece Eloisa, I know three dragon babies imminently arriving this year – Taryn will have to renege her Saffa culture for a millisecond and celebrate her dragon baby when little baby Selvon arrives in August. Gasp, and Karen has been struggling to agree on a baby name with her hubby – how about Dragonball???

p.s. i can't figure out what the animal on his front right leg is. is that a komodo dragon or something, because the artist felt a need to use real animals and dragons aren't real???

Sunday Treat Rejected

7th day at work in a row - with 5 more to go... hmm... usually need less weekend days for a Sky year-end.

Here is the latest temptation sitting next to me in the kitchen.

Cream-filled donuts rolled in sugar! They are supposed to be more "light" but I don't see how if they are full of cream. I am no donut snob and good ol' Timmy Horton's is good enough for the common man and it's good enough for me. So thankfully I am not really tempted at all. Is it gross though that I picked one up and sniffed it?? (I PICKED IT UP WITH THE TONGS!!!)

It's brilliantly sunny outside and going to get up to the mid 20's today in Vancouver!! You would think that would depress me since I'm at work but actually since I'm not very outdoorsy but appreciate sunshine through the window, it is actually putting me in a good mood.

Back to the sub-consolidation that won't sub-consolidate. Bleh.

Food Coma, and Life Possessions on the Sea

Holy moley.

I've only been eating healthy (really only just healthier, it's all relative) for about 3 weeks, but I guess your body gets used to your changes pretty quickly because today was a BAD lunch day, and i'm paying the price. Badly.

It was sandwiches from Hubbub, and it was oh-so-delicious but much too heavy for lunch. I had a pulled pork sandiwch and I didn't even finish it, but I also had more than half a chocolate chip cookie (mmm gooey and delicious) but now I'm really feeling the effects on my energy, which is at level zero if not negative. It's only 1pm and I'm feeling so sluggish 5:00 feels like it's three days away.

Another nice thing about these free lunches at work is that they often order in from various eateries that are close by downtown and are frequented by adventurous lunchers. I intend to introduce Keith to quite a few of these once he gets here. Our Real Life, when will you start? I despair.

Besides Hubbub, the free office lunch has introduced me to Steamrollers, which are burritos which are allegedly healthier because they are steam cooked, American Cheesesteak Co, which also has a hilarious little webpage here, as well as a myriad of Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican, and Chinese (although I rejected the Chinese food, it was lemon chicken. Lemon chicken is not, I repeat, is NOT, Chinese food) eateries. I can't name those because the intranet lunch menu did not deign them worthy of shout-out.

I don't know who decides the menu but I may suggest they order one day from Holy Perogy, which is a food truck serving perogies that, despite one effort made so far (whereby I forced Stef to walk with me down to their truck spot only to find they weren't there that day), I have not yet tried.

In other news, all our material posessions have now made it out of a warehouse in London and onto the seas! 6 weeks or so before the arrive and I get to worry about dealing with bloody [shipping company name withheld, due to excessive anger and no desire to be sued] to get the goods released and make sure nothing's broken! Oh and then deal with Canadian Border Customs Agency to clear all the goods from any taxation... wait the dread that comes with the prospect has just cancelled all my glee of seeing the 20+ pairs of shoes that I'm waiting to wear again.

Rock Band

My weekend adventures have further demonstrated to me that I have zero coordination.  I played Rock Band with my friend Elg on the weekend, which we somehow managed to do for 5 straight hours, only stopping when I basically was like, I should go home, it's 1am!

I used to be really good on DDR (that's Dance Dance Revolution to you gaming ignants) so I thought that on a similar rhythm game I'd be decent. I was ok on the guitar, and that was tons of fun (especially Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer and [artist forgotten]'s Smoke On the Water). But in the last hour I thought I'd have a go on the drums and I was DISMAL. particularly, I just could NOT get the hang of alternating between hand and foot. the foot petal might as well have been on another planet. I even tried AFTER the song with zero pressure to alternate Right hand, Foot, Left Hand, Foot, and somehow I kept on trying to do my left hand at the foot petal at the same time. It's almost as if my left hand was like - em, I usually go after the right hand, why isn't it my turn yet? What's going on? Which just goes to show me that I do absolutely nothing that requires coordination of my arms and legs. It makes sense because I play no sport, and even when I drag myself off to do some sort of exercise, it's running. It's also making sense to me now that even when sometimes I try the stair climber machines at the gym, I find it hard to get into the rhythm. My arms and legs simply refuse to talk to each other!!!!

I wonder if that is a dormant part of my brain which, from lack of use, is causing me serious mental harm from the cobwebs that seem to cover it?