Archive for July, 2005
Home sweet home.
By Karen | Friday, July 29th, 2005 | No Comments »
Tomorrow’s the day that we truck over to our new place downtown. Despite the lack of furniture, we had our first dinner there tonight. It consisted of Yopo Chinese Cuisine takeout and a bottle of red wine from the local wine store in Yaletown. By chance, we had already brought over the serving tray Kurt’s mom got me as a graduation present and our nice crystal wine glasses.
Return to salsa at the Empire.
By Karen | Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 | 2 Comments »
Just a quick post about the salsa portion of our Winnipeg trip, having just received one of the sought-after salsa songs from Hymie tonight (thanks a bunch!).
Mel and I headed out last Friday to meet Nathan and Curtis for a bit of dancing, since Mel was going to be out rock climbing the next day. It was great to dance with those two again…Curtis showed me a few more moves in bachata, which I swear is a lot more forbidden than lambada. Nathan and I had a fun time trying to “jive” to a salsa song. Knowing it as “east coast swing”, I forgot that Winnipeggers used a different term and was completely lost for a good minute. Too bad there wasn’t a chance to go swing dancing too–it’s been too long!
Ran into Christine from our class with Rommel, which was a very nice surprise. Also got a dance in with Rui (spelling?) who is one of my favourite leads in Winnipeg. It’s also probably because he caters to my penchant for dips and little aerials. Fun!
We didn’t stay for too long since Mel had an early start the next morning, but it as always, salsaing it up with Mel and the gang was a great great time! I miss them and everyone else in the Peg very much. Now if we could find a way to convince more Winnipeggers to move to the West Coast…
New photos from Winnipeg.
By Karen | Monday, July 25th, 2005 | No Comments »
2 new photo albums on my temporary photo gallery website. The topmost is for Kurt’s parents at their recent high school reunion. Browse if you wish. The second contains photos taken at Falcon Lake last Thursday. As the photographer, I wasn’t in any, but who cares? Those MacTavish kids are so darn cute.
Also took a brief .AVI video for your viewing pleasure of Emma and Izzy splashing around on Picnic Island.
This one’s a random Bob-photo taken in Golf Town. Kurt and his dad are encouraging me to take up the sport and invest in a set of Ping junior clubs for $300. At the moment I’d much rather spend $300 on an iPod, but we’ll see…
Life in Winnipeg.
By Karen | Wednesday, July 20th, 2005 | No Comments »
The past few days back in Winnipeg has been blissfully lazy. We got in on Sunday afternoon to survey the devastation from overhead. The farmlands looked almost completely flooded by the rains that have been attacking the Prairies this year. Later we were told that many farms will not be able to produce any crops this year due to the timing of the floods. This is probably worse for the Province than the 1997 flood that I’ve heard so much about.
The ride to the Hamilton household also showed us a number of uprooted and lightning-struck trees, charred black where the bolts hit. They had had a massive storm Saturday night and hundreds of trees had been torn up, including the top branch of one of the trees in the Hamiltons’ front yard. Kurt and the rest of the men happily tackled this problem with ladders and chainsaws in hand.
The mosquitoes sensed my arrival within minutes of entering the household. Currently the bite count stands at a dozen or so. Precautionary measures were taken, such as bug sprays and staying behind the screen doors, but even then the little monsters have found me. Ack.
Watched the Wedding Crashers on Monday. It was a decent movie; Vince Vaughan was definitely the scene-stealer. I kept on getting distracted by how gorgeous the bridesmaids gowns were. Planning on telling my bridesmaids to watch the movie just so they can check out the bridal wear.
Yesterday was the first time going to Grand Beach, with Jared, Kaleigh and her dog Charlie. It was a perfect day for going, and our remote location off the main beach made for a nice walk to and fro. Kurt is now speckled red where his shirt was left open and on the susceptible skin on his feet where his sandals normally protect him. Poor guy. Being less prone to sunburns, I myself got wicked tan lines within an hour under the sun. You can’t get this kind of sun in the West Coast, that’s for sure.
For those of you unfamiliar with Manitoba, I would totally recommend checking out Grand Beach. The sand is white and super-fine, the water is warm and inviting, and the sand dunes make for interesting side activities. We got lost for 15 minutes in the dunes on our way back to our beach site; Jared and Charlie had some fun “dune-jumping” near the end of our stay there. Wish I had had a camera to share the sights with you.
Oh yes, how could I forget? Finished the new Harry Potter book, the best one yet! Wasn’t able to blab about it after I closed the book, since Kurt was itching to get his hands on it and is only on Chapter 10, but luckily Eileen and I saw each other on MSN and had a stealth conversation about the outcomes of the book. Let’s just say that I KNEW IT!!
Slated for the rest of the week–
Today: Don’s Photo visit and desserts with Jonny & Jane
Tomorrow: Falcon Lake with the MacTavishes
Friday: visit with Aunt Edna, dinner with Nicole & friends, salsa at the Empire
Saturday: photography meeting with Curtis, Blockbuster night
Sunday: Kaley’s play at the Fringe, i-am-bored.com
Monday: dim sum, then the flight home
Numa Numa dance.
By Karen | Saturday, July 16th, 2005 | 1 Comment »
Here’s another oddly fascinating piece of webstuff. Some guy lip synching to the Romanian song “Dragostea Din Tea” by the band O-Zone.
It’s gotten so popular that other videos have been circulating in tribute to the original. Check it out:
BigBoys.com Tribute
Explanation and Lame Tributes collection
The song itself is actually pretty catchy! Thanks Ivy.
A bit of Google fun.
By Karen | Saturday, July 16th, 2005 | 3 Comments »
Some passing-the-time fun with Google Bombs. Type these searches in. You may need to hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.
- miserable failure
- more evil than satan himself
- Weapons of Mass Destruction
- French Military Victories
- gastrointestinal dysentery
- out of touch executives
More bombs available here. Oh and this one’s funny too: How Google Ranks Its Pages
Odd offline questions.
By Karen | Friday, July 15th, 2005 | 2 Comments »
Net connection’s on the fritz so I am composing this in Notepad until it can be C&P into Movable Type. Ah, Notepad. Makes you feel like a hardcoder, even when writing in English.
If InNotepad(Writing)==True {
Author = Geeky }
Else {
Author = !Geeky }
Set strKaren=='total nerd';
Yikes. Even my pseudocode is rusty. Okay okay…on to the ramblings.
Why do you laugh when you feel tickled?–
Had an assisted stretch session at the gym today in my quest to get flexibile enough to do the splits. Gotta get to the point where I can touch my toes, first…anyhow, back on topic. So an assisted stretch consists of the fitness instructor plying their body against yours to stretch your muscles to the limit. An a-erotic entanglement of limbs is what it may have looked like to the coworkers walking past us (we were right against the glass wall, in full view of the 2nd floor and the outdoor courts). One of the stretches were a progressive massage of the quads from kneecap to groin. Despite being on my best behaviour, I could absolutely horrifically not control the spasms of laughter that erupted from me as I squirmed. I was mortified. How embarrassing it was to make my instructor’s efforts seem ludicrous! But I couldn’t help the giggle fit. The instructor assured me that it was very normal during this exercise to feel ticklish…and that’s when I started to wonder. Why DO we laugh when we get tickled? I understand the need to scream in pain. It seems obvious to cry in times of distress, and laugh in times of joy. But laugh in times of …intolerable pressure? WTF?
Why do I want to kick stuff?–
So I’m a sadist. You should know by now that I can’t be left alone in a room with a toy dog. The urge to drop-kick it like a football would be too great to resist. Sorry to those of you who are proud owners of little puppies (you know who you are…and in any case beagles would be an exception to the rule). But that’s where I thought my streak of mischief ended. Not so. A woman suddenly stopped in front of us to retie her sneakers. A woman wearing flawlessly bright, white jeans. Bending straight from the hips. Her butt spanned half the sidewalk. Oh my god. It took nearly every iota of willpower in my system to keep my left arm, with its heavy, swinging load of bag, from winding up for the pitch and launching said bag smack into the white bullseyes that were her back pockets.
What’s with the ESL?–
Although born in Manila, I cannot remember a time where I didn’t speak English as my native tongue. Took a university course called Filipino 104 and not a bit of it stuck. Why, then, must I constantly be viligant in not saying, “Close the light” or other silly Filipino trip-ups? It’s even more pronounced when speaking Spanish. Always messing up the F’s for P’s and V’s for B’s. Luckily, that part hardly ever happens in English. Another side effect is the humiliation that ensues when I try to use a figure of speech. It winds up being a funky combination of two very different expressions. Even a term as commonplace as “packrat” often gets confused in my mind, and I wind up accusing someone of being a “Rat Pack”. Frustrating, I tell you.
Countdown Updates.
By Karen | Thursday, July 14th, 2005 | 1 Comment »
Till HP6: 1 day, 2 hours, 35 minutes
Till the flight to Winnipeg: 2 days, 9 hours, 30 minutes
Till the move downtown: 15 days, 12 hours, 30 minutes
Not to mention:
Busco canciones de salsa.
By Karen | Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 | No Comments »
Help? Looking for these songs and having no luck thus far:
Oscar De Leon – Melao De Caa
Frankie Ruiz – La Cura
El Gran Combo – Que Te Debo
Tributo a ‘Rafael Cotijo y su combo’ – Plena Libre
Leave me a comment if you know the album these songs come from or where I could get an .mp3 of it. Legal methods are more than welcome =P I’ve already searched with no luck through iTunes…
The disadvantages of preordering.
By Karen | Monday, July 11th, 2005 | No Comments »