mahjong

Do you ever get a bit obsessed with something? I go through this on a regular basis. If it isn't movies, plants, hair products or gadgets then it's computer games. I'm back into playing Mahjong solitaire. Lately I've crawled into bed with my laptop, read everyone's blogs, write my own then play some mahjong. Since it's webbased - I thought I'd download a copy for the laptop so that I can play when I'm not connected to the internet. Another computer game that I sometimes get hooked on is Sims. It's like playing house with computerized characters.

So what am I doing at home on a Thursday night? It took almost 2 hours to drive home from work (again - was the same yesterday) and I was falling asleep in the car (again). There's so much construction in Coquitlam and the movie that they're filming in Port Moody (Aliens vs Predator 2) has a lot of the roads closed down. I took a different route home. My inability to concentrate on the road became worst - I had to pull over to a Starbucks and get some coffee and fresh air. That rejuvenated my senses and I was able to make it the rest of the way home without killing someone or myself. Good thing I'm driving a big car! Lol - watch out all you little-car-drivers! When I got home, I gobbled down dinner and made an executive decision. I prefer being lazy and will pay for the consequences later. :-) It's all about INSTANT gratification with me. Attendance is mandatory in my course therefore I will have to come up with a "creative" excuse to send to my instructor tomorrow. This is the best part about being school that all of you are missing out on - the art of making up excuses for everything! I forfeited an assignment (that I didn't do and therefore reinforced my decision to stay home - why bother going when I have nothing to hand in!). For that I will have to do really well on the next 2 assignments (to make up for this one). Lol - it's a good thing I work well under pressure.

ZFX

So if you have not been tuned into Z95 lately - now is a good time to start. The ZFX contest is now over $79,000. Wow - that's a LOT of free money! The phone lines will open up tomorrow at 8am and they will stay on the air until there is a winner. So if you hear the ZFX sound and know what it is (this is for Frank!), call 604-280-9595 and be a winner. Imagine what you can do/buy with that kind of money?! ;-P I would splurge it all - forget about being a responsible consumer. I would indulge in spontaneous spending and engage in buyer's remorse afterwards. I like the emotional roller coaster ride associated to shopping! I am a product of the media. :-)

friends

I read an article in the 24 paper this morning about friends. The writer was talking about the definition of friendship. She compared people who seem to have thousands of friends (also listing a few celebrities who have ridiculous amount of friends). She then asked what the definition of a friend is. So I went to dictionary.com and here's what it says:

"...a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard."

The article generated conversation between Robyn and I in regards to who we considered friends. Robyn is a social butterfly and makes friends everywhere she goes. I don't engage in that behaviour but tend to be more select with who I show interest in. I'm quite content with the circle of friends that I have. I would rather know more about less people then less about more people. If you are reading my blogs - consider yourself one of my close friends as we share a common interest....ME! :-P

applying my knowledge

Every once in awhile I'm thrilled by the prospect of applying my knowledge at work to home life. I like what I learn but sometimes feel that it's impractical knowledge. We have the new media pc and wanted to activate the wireless connection so that we can surf the web while watching TV. That being said, Michael installed the wireless card and waited for me to configure it. I came strolling by and he asked me to make the wireless connection "work". I laughed and said that he would have to call up the wireless router and get the WEP from it. I don't broadcast my SSID therefore you need all the settings for things to work. He didn't know how to call up the router. I said I'd think about it. As I walked towards the computer room with an armload of stuff to sew (tonight is "fix stuff" night) I remembered that I don't remember the IP address for the router. I sat infront of the computer for a few moments trying to figure out how to activate the router. I didn't even know what the router's name is! I thought about working on my sewing stuff and doing this later. Then the answer hit me. Duh...the router IP is visable through the default gateway. Don't worry if you didn't understand that - I'm just being a geek (and you're even geekier if you understood what I'm talking about!). I ran an "ipconfig /all" and got the information I needed. From there I sent the information to Michael through MSN. We're pretty bad at home. We all IM each other from different rooms in the house. It's like that Robin Williams movie "RV".

movie mania

On Sunday Chicky and I got up later (as we didn't get to bed till 4am). I had lunch while Chicky took some pictures of his car. He had some modifications done on it recently. After that he wanted to catch a the 1pm show of The Prestige. We hussled over to the theatre to watch it. It was a good movie - made me want to go see a real magic show again. I really enjoyed the one in Hawaii.

When we got back from the movies, Carol and them were over. We watched Over The Hedge with Angelina (as Michael wanted to demonstrate the power of a USB key). Carol has the same media pc set up at her house and wanted to see how our system differed from hers. They have better sound quality though as Minh has wired his house souly for kareoke (4 large, 500amps each, surround sound speakers, 5 subs, etc). We think that he secretly wants to be a kareoke king. :-) They even have wireless mics! Lol - some sales guy even tried selling Minh a mic headpiece so that he can dance and sing at the same time (the ones that pop stars use). He was REALLY temped by it but too many people teased him so that's why I think he didn't get it. Watch out Justin Timberlake - Minh is on the move!

After Angelina's movie we had dinner. Chicky wanted to rent a movie - not that we haven't been watching movies non-stop since Saturday. We went out to find Omen but ended up getting the Lake House. Keanu Reeves - not a great actor but this role suited him A total chick-flick. :-) I can't wait for Halloween though - looking forward to watching scary movies!!!

new digs

On saturday night we went over to Charlene and Scott's place for dinner. Charlene cooked some really good mediteranan food. I was very impressed. Our girl is so domesticated now! Scott is an excellent host and was always attentative to our needs - making sure we had something to drink or eat. Their house is lovely and has an interesting piece of art in the eating area. It makes a great conversational piece. Kind of like a Rorschach (inkblot) image. Each of us saw different things - though no one saw what I saw. :-) I've got a vivid imagination. All that movie watching wasn't for nothing afterall!

After Charlene's place we went back to my house and watched Fearless (downloaded). Michael bought us an HP entertainment/media pc. It's like Tivo. Now we can record live TV and play it back later. The remote is a bit complicated but we're getting use to it. My parents could barely load a CD into the DVD player. Now seeing the computer tower next to the TV - they just turn the other way and watch the TV in the other room (or their own room). After Jet Li' Fearless, Chicky turned on 16 Blocks (another movie) but I had fallen asleep then. I was pretty tired as we didn't get back to Chicky's place till 3am Saturday morning (after his company party) and I had to get up at 9am to take my car back to Coquitlam for a maintenance check. Little sleep catches up with me on the weekends and I end up sleeping in as much as I can.

golf course fright night

On Friday night I went to Chicky's company's Halloween party. It was held at Mayfair golf course in Richmond. We didn't end up dressing up but there were many people there in some nice costumes - lots of pirates! Which was great as I got a lot of costume ideas from them. There was even one that looked a lot like Captain Jack Sparrows! :-) How creative. Chicky and I tried our hands at winning 10 grand but failed miserably. The game was to putt a hole in one on this man-made putting green. Of course they didn't make it easy and made the green have slopes, etc.

After that we made our way into the lounge and picked up a few pieces of finger food and chatted with his friends. I couldn't resist taking a look at the door prizes - nothing spectacular. I had my eye on the Disney Princess pencil set though - figure not many people would want it. There were the usualy array of house hold items, liquor and gift certificates. Nothing that really perked my interest. After munching on some food we went into the main ballroom to play some casino games. The company set up a pretend casino and everyone was given pretend money ($10,000 to start). I did fairly well at the poker table and ended up taking out 3 of Chicky's friend's wives. I felt bad so I gave them some of my money to play elsewhere. Then the poker shark, aka Joyce, sat down next to me and smiled develishly. Joyce is Michael's friend that works for Ritchie Bros now. She said she was there to take all my money. I laughed and told her to play at another table. She didn't. :-) I had played poker against Joyce the week before and she won all my money. I pulled out of the game when she proclaimed that she had enough money to go shopping the next day. :-)

It was a fierce game but fun nevertheless. Because the money was fake - some of us weren't taking it as seriously. Joyce had the dealer wrapped around her fingers and she dealt some of the games. We had 8 people at the table - the majority of them were good friends of Chicky's. No matter how many times Joyce lost all her chips - she would go away and come back with a handful to play again. I had an asian dealer play for me at one point. Our table was being pretty rowdy. Joyce was dealing, the dealer was sitting in her chair playing for her. Another dealer (on his break) was playing for one of the other girls at the table and the asian dealer was playing for me. Secretly I think all 3 dealers were seeing who was better at guessing the cards. I was pretty nervous when my dealer-guy threw in handfuls of chips at every turn. I kept asking - "are you sure?!". He laughed and said "don't worry". I trippled my earnings because of that game. Wow - if only that money was real! The objective was to get lots of money so that you could bid on the door prizes - no one wanted the cup and tea bag set. It was cool though - the dealers that lost told their girls to come "see" them at their tables (I think that's where they hand out chips to the girls). If you were a girl - it worked in your favor as all the dealers were guys and they didn't care too much on how many chips they were giving out. Some girls really milked it. Even Joyce pretended not to know how to play so that the dealer would "coach" her on each of her hands (while he dealt!).

After poker and beating Chicky out (that was the most important part) we went for late night dinner at Number 9 restaurant with Joyce. She's so small and eats very little. The great part is that she speaks fluent cantonese. So much easier going to a chinese restaurant with someone who can speak the language.

costume ideas

Halloween is fast approaching and the hunt for a "good" costume is on. I like to make my own costumes as it's more fun and economical. I've already perused the isles of Value Village, dollar stores, Zellers and SuperStore. I wasn't inspired. I'm lending my Marge Simpson costume to a coworker this year. For work we're going as a "group costume". This year's theme is pirates. Not too hard - all the props were at the dollar store.

I talked to Frank tonight and he had the idea of being Jack (from Jack in the Box). After some internet research I suggested we do a whole fast food theme. Since I LOVE Macdonalds - I'd be willing to be Rotten-Ronnie himself! It'd be so funny! Now to convince the crew...

winter preparations

I've been freezing my butt off these last few days. Don't know about you guys but I have low tolerance for coldness. Yes - I did grow up in Saskatoon (land of the snow). On top of that the inside of my house sis freezing too. We all have to sit under blankets when watching TV and my most of us have to wear slippers! Tonight I cruised over to Superstore (in search of a Halloween costume) and ended up buying a space heater instead. Now my room will feel just like Mexico!

Other winter preparations include seeding my lawn wednesday night. I started off doing it old-school with my hand and "sprinkling" the grass seeds. When that novelty wore off, I broke out my trust Rona spreader-cart and poured the 10lbs of seeds into it. I always have a great time with that little cart - adjusting the spreading radius with the lever, etc. I had the day off today and when I let Muimui out to go pee - I saw that the birds were eating the grass seeds!!! All that seeding to prevent weeds and now the birds had a big buffet. Now I want to go out and buy fertilizer and cover the lawn with that. Maybe that will deter the birds from eating the rest of the grass seeds.

Jerry

Do you ever think that sometimes you over look people in your life? Those that do not have a direct connection to you? Or those that you deem to be less worthy in some way? Well - that's what I feel like when I think about Jerry.

Who is Jerry? :-) If you ever drive on Hastings Street. Jerry is the old man that stands on the corner (well - more on the meridian) of Hastings Street and the Cassiar tunnel. He's been a part of my daily commute for the last 5 years. I see him everyday, rain or shine, on the way home from work (North Van). Now that says a lot as it was over 6 years ago that I first saw him. I never really paid much attention to him until this year. Yes - I'd have the same kind of curiosity as any other on-looker. He was a pan handler and usually I try to avoid that type (you know...don't make eye contact...pretend to play with the radio buttons as he walked by, etc). Over time I developed more courage and started waving to him as he walked by. He never came over to ask for money - which reinforced my waving behaviour. The "good" thing about him is that he picks up the garbage on the street and usually waves at the vehicles that drive on and off Second Narrows bridge. When I stopped working in North Vancouver, I didn't see him very much (only once in awhile when I'd have to travel on Hastings in the middle of the afternoon or something like that). But this year I drove more (being bad and not using my bus pass). For Valentine's Day I had made little cookie gift bags for everyone at work. On the way home I stopped as per usual at the light. I saw Jerry doing his usually parade up the meridian and thought to myself: "he's such a nice bum". So I rolled down my window and offered him a bag of cookies and wished him Happy Valentine's Day. He was really happy and expressed his gratitude. The light was still red so we chit chatted a bit. I asked him for his name - as I felt it was rude to be refering to him as the bum on the Cassiar Tunnel. It's a good thing that I don't harbour any inhibitions and can ask strangers all kinds of things. He asked me what nationality I was and I said Vietnamese - so he mustered up a mangled "cam on" (thank you) in Vietnamese; I grinned and chuckled. It was very sweet that he could come up with the phrase, I was touched, and so began our relationship (I'm not saying we're best buddies now but we do talk more often then before). I told him that there were a few times that I didn't see him on my way home from work. I was genuinely concerned as he's old and I've seen my share of cars that have flown over the meridian. Who knows - he might become a casualty of a car accident. He sports a reflective vest on cloudy/rainy days - I think someone gave it to him. Jerry said he has cancer and that he was sick for a period of time so he couldn't come out to say "hi" to everyone. I think in some ways Jerry has very little family or friends so he enjoys the attention he gets from the drivers. Those weeks that he wasn't there - an intruder came. I call him an intruder because he was a punk-ass-kid-pan-handler-with-a-North-Face-backpack (I can't even afford a backpack like that!!) who was pretty aggressive (ie. knocking on my window and holding out his empy MacDonald's cup for "donations"). I really dislike those types as I figure they are all fakes. I've seen the documentaries - where a midclass kid would make tons of money pan handling!

Last week I was passing Jerry by and gave him my big chocolate chip cookie (still in its original packaging) and he happily stuffed it into his backpack. I smiled, waved and wished him a good weekend. Jerry - the not-so-well-known Cassiar Tunnel icon. Now you guys know him. ;-)

paper airplanes

At work today we kicked off the United Way 2006 campaign. Our company thoroughly supports this non-profit organization. In the past the company would coerce you into donating but in the recent years they have been more laid back about it. I always like the annual kick off. It involves a whole wack of people on multiple levels throwing paper airplanes onto a target on the first floor. We have to "purchase" the airplane paper (basically making a donation) then we get to fold them into what might resemble an airplane. I discovered that I have very BASIC paper-airplane-folding skills. I saw some of the people beside me and marvelled at their aerodynamic forms. :-) And that's why I'm not an engineer! I had my handy dandy camera with me so I took some quick pictures of the crowd and of course - the big TOSS. :-) It was really cool to see hundreds of paper airplanes in different colors float down from various floors. I was on the 4th floor and one of my planes (the chubby one with too much wing span and not enough body) floated onto the 3rd floor balcony and got stuck. The good thing is that my other 3 designs made it to the ground on the 1st floor (though miles away from the target).

On a side note. Have you seen the new campaign posters? They're hilarious! It's probably inapropriate to laugh at because they carry a "message". Anyhow - my favorite is GI-Joe standing over Barbie with a bat (message was about domestic violence). I think this years campaign is targeted at kids as all the posters have this sort of theme to them (toy figurines). It's like those porcelien figures on the Life Network (you'll know what I'm talking about if you watch that channel)...the lady with the cats or the guys with his hands sawed off.

no excuse!

I went to a seminar this afternoon. It was a bit of a last minute thing. I'm not sure if I mentioned that I'm being nominated for the "Help Desk Analyst of the Year" award. It's quite ironical as I'm in the midst of trying to escape the department. It's a program that the Help Desk Institute (HDI) has been sponsoring for awhile. What does it all mean? It means that every company that is affiliated with HDI (which is an international company) is allowed to nominate who they think their best agent is. The agent then competes against other agents in the province to win the provincial award. After that they compete against other provinces to win the Canadian award. Finally they get to go to the states to compete for the North America distinction. So realistically the only reason why I agreed to jump through all the hoops is that this could possible lead to an all-paid trip to Vegas (staying at the Madalay Bay) to compete in the North American trials. Apparently it's a pretty prestigious title to win. :-) The thought of the Vegas competition is a bit unnerving though. Nothing like being videotaped during your testing (on both technical and customer service skills) and then having that video blown up across 50 foot screens so that 2500 attendees can "critique" you. :-) Talk about pressure! But realistically I have to make it through the provincials before I can even think about that. I'm dreading the day they call me for the preliminary tests!

So what was I talking about before?! Oh yah - going to the seminar. My supervisor thought it would be a strategical move if I attended one of the seminars put on by HDI. The keynote speaker at today's seminar was Jay Rifenbary. He's a motivational speaker and very dynamic. His topic was "No Excuse! An Action Plan for Success". His key points were core values and personal accountability. Many of the things he said hit home - such as you are the person who decides how you feel/act or feel at any given moment. You can't blame anyone but yourself for your lack of personal or professional success. I felt very alive and energertic after the seminar. Ready to conquer the world!

Thoughts to ponder about from the seminar:

• What do you want to be remembered for?
• Why do people follow you?
  

haunted walk

On Friday night I went to the Burnaby Village Museum for their Haunted Deer Lake Walking Tours. I went with my coworkers and Tanya. I would give this tour a two thumbs down - like under my butt kind of "down". I was quite disappointed in the low budget production. I was mislead to believe that the tour would involve walking around the lake and listening to ghost stories. What we got instead was a historical lesson on 5 old building in the museum. Interesting but not worth $16/person. I'm sure these "facts" can be found in a book or on their website. Some of my coworkers tried to escape the painful narration (by these 2 old ladies) but we didn't let them out of our sight. What I do recommend instead is the Vancouver Haunted House tour - much better narration and better locations too. The funny part was at the end of the walk, the ladies provided us forms in which we can provide feedback on. Unfortunately for them - I'm a pretty critical person who is not concerned about being a polite citizen and providing fake feedback. :-) My coworker and I gave them "truthful" ratings and wrote in the comments section. They wanted feedback - so they got it!

procratinator

I've been feeling a bit burned out lately. Actually - I'm almost at the crispy state. Time to take me out of the oven. It seems that every weekend there's something happening. This week has been a bit harried. I've got a midterm on Thursday (which I have dedicated zero hours to studying for), a company Halloween party on Friday (which I haven't made any costume for) and Charlene's potluck on Saturday (which I do desire to create a dish from my own kitchen instead of the getting something from the master chefs at Save-On-Foods). To top it off I have homework, an oil change on saturday and the big brain masher is applying for another job on wednesday. I'm going to dibble into the world of education and apply for an instructor position at ICBC. It's only a 6 month assignment but it's something...anything to get off phone work for a bit. I've become a bit resentful of my job as of late. The knowledge and experience I've gained is unquestionably more valuable than many of my other jobs that I've held. Yet the everyday quirks are starting to drive me nuts. I can work with rigid people. For goodness sakes - I'm probably the most rigid and "box-like" characters in the group! Yet I yearn for the luxuries of variable lunch times or break time, not having to tell my supervisor where I'm going and why every minute of the day ("I'm going to the bathroom" - my favorite after-lunch phrase) and not having to work shift work. As much as I love starting work anywhere from 6am to 12pm - it gets a bit tedious over time. I don't know if I will qualify for the position though as my teaching experience is pretty minimal (kay - let's be honest..it's zip). Doesn't hurt to try though. Worst case scenerio is that I have to continue being a call agent. With my track record - you never knows what happens. I've been all over the board in terms of "career" choices. :-) If you told me 5 years ago that I would be an IT tech I would probably have laughed in your face - as I was a "therapist" then and didn't forsee any future unles it involved psychoanalyzing people. Plus I thought IT was for geeks! I'm totally NOT a geek. Diagnosis: self denial. But here I am today - pretending to know a lot about nothing. :-)

from bus/trains to automobiles

Well the day has come. After fullfilling my one year contract with WestCoast Express - I have been released from the shackles of the commuter-commonwealth. As of November 30th - my bus pass is over. Realistically I've been driving almost daily the last month or so. I have justified this with the idea that gas prices have gone down significantly and I can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on gas. :-) I do seem to forget that while I fill up at the pump, my account is automatically debited for a pass that I don't use. On the bright side - I drove out to Abbotsford on Saturday night (on my way to Carol's house) and got some gas for 81.4 cents!!! That's absolutely spectacular considering the "best" price in Coquitlam right now is 98.5 cents. Carol says it's only that strip of Abbotsford (near her house) that has cheap gas - everywhere else is the same as Coquitlam. It's a good thing she lives so close to them as she drives a gas-guzzler as well.

so happy together

Congratulations to Charlene and Scott who got engaged at the end of September. They have tentatively booked their wedding for middle of March next year. :-) Too bad as I will be in Malaysia then but I'm super happy for the two of them. Looking foward to the wedding!

big birthday bashes

Tonight Chicky and I went to my coworker's son's 1st birthday party. It was held at the Riverside Banquet Hall. His son's birthday party was bigger than my wedding will ever be! There were 350 guest, videographer, photographer, DJ and an open bar. :-) Some people splurge on the strangest things.

So we started off the day late as we had a poker game the night before that lasted till 1am then the 4 of us decided that it was a good time for congee. Late night congee at Green Hut it was then! After Green Hut - Chicky and I were recharged with food so we weren't sleepy anymore. We decided it was Dynasty Warrior time. We didn't turn off the PS2 until 7am. By this time I've been awake for 26 hours straight. I got up at 1pm and relized that we didn't have a gift for Justin. After indulging in some left over lunch and a few rounds of Dynasty Warrior - we headed to the mall in search of a good gift for a 1 year old kid. We ended up at Zellers. Chicky and I were awed by the many interesting toys available to kids these days. I was more interested in the Vtech learning toys while Chicky was into the dragon models. I think we will have conflicting interests in what our children will play with. After 20 minutes of walking the isles - I ended up picking a big Tonka dump truck. If nothing else - Justin can sit on it. It's the most durable toy. The Fisher Price stuff was in the right age range but the plastic looked flimsy.

The birthday party officially started at 6pm. My white coworkers arrived at 5:45pm. I got the "inside" scoop and was told that it would probably start late (Indian time). Chicky and I got there at 7:30pm - after taking a detour to the Riverside Ballroom (where another East Indian function was, we felt silly standing at the door to a wedding with our birthday gift in hand and trying to figure out if I recognized anyone in the room). When we walked into the birthday party - I was blinded by the videographer's light. I saw the camera and saw the receiving line and immediately went to hug my coworker and his wife. The party was pretty fun. It even had a pinata. The theme was circus and clowns so all the tables had balloons and popcorn. We really enjoyed the popcorn machine. The only downside is that dinner didn't actually start till 11pm. By this time everyone was hungry and some of the guests had already left. I basically grabbed my food, gobbled it down and left (within 20 mins). :-) There was so much Indian music that after 6 hours of sitting infront of the speaker - I swear I could sing some of the songs (as the DJ repeated many of the music videos over and over again). What I really like was everyone's clothing - so colourful! Many beautiful fabrics and jewlery too. Makes me want to buy a sari too - if only they were "affordable". :-)

poker stars

On Friday night Chicky and I went to play poker with Michael's friends. One of his friends was hosting a tournament at his office. The friend turned out to be Jason Low - an old friend of Cindy's. I laughed as I seem to run into Jason everynow and then - the last time I saw him was when he came over to the house. There were 18 players and we knew half of the group - all friends of KA and Michael. Basically their whole bridal party was there. The game was fun because there was no buy-ins (so basically the maximum amount you could lose is $5). We played at Jason's office - he's a financial advisor so I thought that it was funny he was hosting a tournament in his office. I guess he could "advise" us when it's time to quit and cut our losses! The good thing about having your own office is that there's so much room to do stuff - we played in his presentation room. Basically locked the office and set up shop for the evening. One of the people there was Chicky's coworker. She's a friend of Michael's and just started with Ritchie Bros. She was doing a lot of trash talking at the table and won the first game. She wants in on the company game that Chicky plays in on Friday nights - he's too scared to take her as she's a pretty agressive player. :-) We invited her to come to one of our "family" games. We found that Chicky, Michael and I didn't take the game very seriously. The skill level varied - from people who never played before to the sharks-in-hiding. We didn't want to be rude and take their money the first time we came. Plus Jason was scarying everyone with talk about having played one of our "family" games and barely surving it. It's going to be a poker weekend though. We have poker night at Michelle's house on Sunday (after the turkey dinner) and on Monday night (my house - after our turkey dinner). My house should be fun as the whole family is going to be here (meaning 14 core players). Some days I think we have an addiction.

warrior in training

So my sister and my niece stayed over at the house on the weekend as Minh was out of town. Angelina and I amused ourselves with video games, computer games and cartoon channels. The funny thing is that we share a genuine interest in all 3 things (especially the cartoons!).

I broke out the PS2 and she set it up. For a 6 year old she's pretty proficeint with electronic devices. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she's exposed to many electronic things daily. I don't know any other 6 year old that has her own laptop (VTech), pc and tv/dvd room. Isn't it great to be an only child, only grandchild on our side of the family and to have young parents with lots of friends?! Lol - many aunts and uncles with disposable incomes! We figure she'll be a computer programmer or something geeky like that when she grows up. I popped in the game and started it. Angelina was comfortable on her pillow, had one of the controllers in her hands and was ready to play. I couldn't figure out how to start the game. I had one of the "fancier" controllers (wireless) and was trying to figure out if the problem was with the USB adaptor, the controller or me...it was me. :-) Baby (Angelina's family nickname) was already navigating through the menus and I was a bit confused by the screen changes. It gave me a false sense of hope that my controller was actually working - so I continued to press buttons. Took me a few seconds to realize that Baby had the first player controller which meant she was the one doing the screen changes. :-) Ah - how can you tell I don't play PS2 often? I finally gave up with wireless controller and negotiated taking turns with Baby on her character. Dynasty Warrior is one of those "kill-everything-in-sight" kind of games so it doesn't take much skill - just a LOT of button pressing. After awhile Baby and I started really enjoying the game. We were cheering each other on and I was teaching her how to use the "map" in the top right hand corner of the screen - not that I'm qualified to teach her how to navigate through these games. Baby found that she wanted to play more and didn't want to participate in the whole "sharing" bit - so we were struggling over who got to use the controller. Thank goodness Michael came home from work and brought out another controller that plugged in for me. :-) Now Baby and I could play together. Chicky came over the next day and found himself dualing Baby for maximum number of kills. The game is addicting. Chicky and I played on it and nearly missed his family dinner. But in it's defence - playing PS2 is much cheaper than going to the movies!

The other night I found myself bored and procrastinating so I fired up the PS2 and tried to level up my character in the game. Before I knew it, it was midnight and I had to stop - not because I was worried that I needed more than 4 hours of sleep before work but because my hands/fingers were so cramped that they hurt. Lol - guess what I'll be doing this weekend?!

"so others may live"

On my way home today I stopped by the pier to look at the Korean battleships that have been docked there for the last 2 days. I have to admit that the reason I decided to stop by is that Lonsdale Quay was full of Korean sailors. :-) Mmm...men in uniform! Lol - if only they were older...some looked like they were barely 18. Having watched The Guardian movie on the weekend, I've had a mild interest in the naval forces. The movie really glorified the life of a US coast guard rescue swimmer. When a ran a Google search for a hyperlink to the movie I found an article that said that there were 18 real coast guard rescue swimmers, 4 Olympic swimmers and a couple tri-atheletes in the movie. How cool is that?! I really enjoyed the training sequences - very detailed. The movie was a bit too long though - approximately 2.5 hours long - which isn't so bad except we saw it on a week night and I work super early (bad combo). Oh well - who needs sleep anyways!