Heat Interference

In came August, in came a sudden mix of thundershowers, meteor showers and heatwaves. Our city never ceases to amaze us and the past few weeks have just been a good handful amazement.

I managed to go to the final performance (of the four) for the Celebration of Lights fireworks night which was done by some Canadian group doing a tribute to China (why China?). It was a bit strange how they decided to move the event up a week earlier than usual this year so I only managed to go to the last Saturday one. Well, Saturday was a scorching beach day and I got there a bit after noon and met up with Sty and Tofu. Napped, played iPad touch tetris (fffffffffffffffuu - I got to level 13 at least), ate chips, then it rained and scared some people away. Yay for beach umbrellas. Saboo and Steph followed to join us later that night. The performance itself wasn't all that great as it was too stereotypically Chinesey. Finished off the night with the deliciousness of facecicles.

The following weekend was the weekend of weddings. Friday the 6th was my cousin Fan Mei's wedding. They hired a horrendous wedding singer duo that wouldn't stop their loud singing in bad Engrish. We all wanted to die. At least the dessert was pretty:


The day after, Saturday, was Vee+Chris' long awaited day. For some reason, having Lisa with me made me late for every occasion. She must be bad luck as we were late for both the ceremony and reception. Unfortunately it also decided to rain that day, which made communing that much more frustrating. Jess was there as an additional photographer and it was actually pretty neat to see her again since grad. We totally danced it out at the reception dance floor. :3 It was also interesting to experience my first buffet-style reception. The salad tricked me into filling my plate before getting to the meat. D:! Speaking of weddings though, I don't think I mentioned my cousin Jacky's wedding that happened in July as well. I've only had to go to three this year but my parents have gone to double what I have. Sigh, tis the summer of weddings~

So! As summer's winding down, my inner guilt had forced me to look a -little- harder for work. I did some more searching the following weekend, tried at a few postings and lo and behold, I got a call on the Monday for an interview Wednesday. The next thing you know, I was hired on the spot and I began work that upcoming Friday. Hello! I'm now a jack-of-all-trades web administrator! I'll get into that a bit more another day. Thank goodness for office a/c though.

Then... Anime Evolution happened on the following weekend. I coughed out a day's worth of pass money which I completely regret doing but for the sake of just meeting friends, it's worth it *sucks it up*. Thanks to LightningSabre, I got a pleasant a/c'd ride to UBC where we both began dying upon leaving the vehicle. Bumped into Nina+bf on my way to reg, bumped into Jenny on my way to somewhere-I-forget and joined her to the cosplay cafe. The lineup for it was insane so we just took a peek and then bumped into Tofu and his gang. We headed to the cosplay contest where there were some really questionable performances. It wasn't long before we ditched the place and wandered the artist alley.. er villa. I'm really disappointed at their "artist villa" layout as the artists upstairs obviously got the short end of the stick. I bumped into Nina again upstairs as she finished setting up her table. After wandering around aimlessly a bit more, we headed to the Little Tea House downstairs for some cold drinks before making our way to the Final Fantasy photoshoot. I left Jenny to her photo-taking frenzy as I headed inside to check out the Niconico panel. Stepped in, sat down for a minute, stepped out. It was DISGUSTING IN THERE. With the lack of a/c and the amount of people, it was unbearable. It didn't help that they were playing Japanese Ronarudo remixes. As I waited outside, I bumped into the Chen+Ran duo who were waiting around for the Touhou panel. I watched Chen get into her fake nails while the Niconico panel behind us started to do a live streaming feed. We had people sleeping on the sides, playing their psp, or just talking and didn't care for what was being streamed. Then there were the niconico keeners at the front doing their singing and dancing as they knew the lyrics to the medley and catchy meme'd-the-hell-out-of tracks.

Touhou panel was next. The room got even more packed, thus even more disgustingly hot and humid. The presentation was the same as Sakuracon (and probably last year's AE too). People started trickling out pretty fast when they noticed the presentation was just going to be a snore-fest. I'm glad I brought a fan or I would've died in there. There wasn't anything else good to do so I waited around and left soon after the photoshoot.

Me and LS followed to check out the Starcraft 2 tourny but spectator line was undesirably long so we went next door to the console gaming room instead to pass the time. We poked at Katamari and found that 2 player mode isn't available initially, Split/Second and rerealized that racing games only last so long, Call of Duty and just shot a lot and died a lot. After what we thought was enough time wasted, we went back to the tourny room and watched some matches. Sty and Steph soon showed up and joined us on the watching before it was -finally- Tofu's turn. We watched him get his butt kicked :( then we followed to figure out where to eat :b and finalized on 24hr pho. Called it a night after a stomach full of food.

This dreadful heatwave rendered my PC useless the last few days and scared me into thinking that my hdd might actually be dying. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be the case after I turned it back on when the weather started cooling down. Though I did end up corrupting some sectors on the hdd and that messed up the settings of some programs I had open at the time when my computer began hanging under the heatwave weather.

Regardless, I have an external on the way anyway.

Now that I have a job... I can think about that backlog of things I need to get/do.

Fireworks 2009 - Part 2

The fireworks has come and gone. Also means summer is close to its end...

Wednesday July 29, 2009 - UK
I had work that morning so I met up with Monica again at the sky train station after work. We ended up getting White Spot to go again just because we were indecisive on what to eat. When we arrived, everyone was already there so we relieved them from their post to go grab food for a bit. Sty decided to show up this time yay! The evening went by pretty quickly. There was the usual ungrateful bastardous crowd who did not say anything when we purposely gave up some of our beach space to them, and due to the massive crowd that showed up that night, most of us decided to stay standing for the show. Man, standing on uneven ground is tiring.

UK's performance was really symphonic (and even epic at times) which I really liked but the rest of the group thought otherwise.

Saturday August 1, 2009 - China
Wow August. That morning, Moni and I woke up early to ensure we'd get down to the beach earlier so that Sty won't end up getting mad at us for not showing up on time. On our way out, I was informed that Sty was waiting for Saboo to get ready so ok, they'd get there all around the same time as us - 11:30 was the plan. On our way down to the beach, we picked up Greek to go from Stephos and that was when I got a call from Saboo telling us that Sty was frantically looking for her beach stuff. *headdesk* Either way, me and Moni took our time walking down the rest of the way. We didn't have any camp items (e.g. mat, towels, umbrellas) so we just sat by our designated log until reinforcements arrived an hour or so later. At least the Greek was enjoyable... the bee that kept pestering us - not so much.

I brought out the beach monster and poked at the PSP for a while before more people came. Then the sun just made me sleepy and tired but dinnertime was approaching so me and Mo went for a walk and food. We got ourselves giant slurpee drinks to ensure no dehydration and also found ourselves a hidden gem restaurant which served fish and chips. When we got back, camp suddenly became 5 people more crowded (hm we had 15 people total?). It's good that we always make more space than we really need to accommodate unexpected people.

The night went on with cards and observing this poor guy who met this one girl for 5 months and came up from Seattle just to see her for the weekend. The poor part is that the girl doesn't seem at all interested in him and instead she makes him jealous by being more touchy and friendly with this other guy. But that other guy is not interested in her in a love way so he tries to make her disinterested by talking with some other girl. Complicated? I thought so too.

This year, China was back with vengeance because last year was obviously rigged. Their music lineup was quite unique and unexpected. They featured some orchestral, some tribal-style and yes, that Kung-Fu Fighting song BUT remixed version so it wasn't all THAT typical of them. The performance itself was creative and I even noticed they used some fireworks I've never seen before (or never noticed perhaps?). It was a shame the wind wasn't blowing in their favour that night. The smoke from the explosions mostly remained stationary and didn't move much so it blocked some of the fireworks. China still ended up winning the competition between the four countries so all was still well.

Fireworks 2009 - Part 1

It's that time of the year again! ..when we sit at the beach for long periods of time (up to 10 hours) under the insanely hot sun of summer (up to 30ish degrees) for a 15 (or was it 20?) minute fireworks display four times a year!

Even though we're only half way through, it's already been plenty eventful.

Wednesday July 22 - Canada
I had work in the daytime so after I headed home first to grab my beach bag before busing my way down to meet up with Moni at the Burrard station. On our walk down we picked up awesome White Spot food and joined up with the rest of the beach bum gang who were already there. There were an insane number of people for a Wednesday evening.

The night seemed to go by pretty quickly. Canada's theme was Wizard of Oz so the songs were basically the famous few vocalized tracks which got everyone singing/dancing but then there was a rather long (and boring) evil witch instrumental track. The sponsors for the event also gave out 3D paper glasses you wore during the fireworks viewing and it sends you to some psychedelic high mode where everything looked so trippy it was as if you were on something ('shrooms?) but then not. Say if there was only one firework in the sky, the glasses would multiply it and make 5 more for you and then rainbowitize it and made sure you didn't miss it by spreading them everywhere. Trippy.

Saturday July 25 - South Africa
All week, the weather people has been constantly warning about the heatwave that is to come. Temperatures hitting as high as 33 and up. So Saturday wasn't that looked forward to. I met up with Saboo at 1pm at T&T so we could possibly do some quick snack/food shopping. The T&T at Tinseltown was rather lacking so we didn't end up just getting a snack for the road. We took Robson this time around, stopped by a Blenz for drinks and Subway for food then continued our way down Denman.


We got there to meet up with Ruby and D who were already there not so enjoy the wonderful hot weather. We set up camp with the beach umbrellas and tarp we brought and tried not to move as much because of the heat. We expanded our territory as more people joined us and indeed it was HOT.

However 6pm rolled around and the dark clouds we saw approaching earlier began to tower over us and soon started dripping. We (and mostly everyone on the beach) figured the little trickles wouldn't last long since there was no weather reports of precipitation falling at all. The longer we tried to wait it out, the heavier the rain started to get and then it was just beginning to get annoying.


The next thing we knew, the thunderstorm was officially here - above us. The skies were roaring and flashing. The whole beach (and us too) was all like "whoaaa" when they saw the light flicker across the skies. By then, the beach people were all leaving because none of them were prepared for such a downpour. Luckily for us, we had umbrellas so we hung on there even though we were constantly told to not hide under our umbrellas during a thunderstorm. We started standing when it began pouring and stayed staying throughout the fireworks show. There was also a live band performing there during the last few hours of our wait and they made a song about not being afraid of thunderstorms on the spot. When the fireworks started, more people started coming back and began standing in front of us to block more of our view but the night was already sucking enough already so we left them as they were.

South Africa was not bad 'cept, I swear, Pirates of the Caribbean theme song is so overused. The outdoor shower was insanely packed after the fireworks presentation but we waited anyway so we could rinse off our tarp and feet.

On the way home, I noticed that my belongings were soaked all the way through. My PSP. My DS. My phone. Luckily my gadgets were ok. My DS case was soaked in though and I've yet to test my Tetris DS that was soaked in with it. My wallet - luckily only some receipts were wet. My keys - My stuffed Toro was drenched. A pack of tissue which turned into soggy wet naps. Worst of all... my MANGA.


Wet books are unsalvageable. I tried to at least minimize the yellow mold damage by drying it as fast as I can with the blow dryer when I got home then combined that with the weight of my computer tower (which I think is the heaviest thing I could think of that was in my room) but alas, it was no use. I lost sight of the little glimmer of hope when I noticed the pages itself were fraying a bit and the ink was melting onto other pages.

I've had slightly damaged manga before (e.g. me crushing it in my bag due to bad placement) but this is the worst it has gotten and it was unavoidable too. I don't think I can live on without having to get myself replacements. Hm, maybe even the library won't even want these.

PS: Post #777.

Fireworks Finale

Me and Mo2 arrived at the beach first to save a spot, picking up Stepho's and extras on the way. We got there around 1:30-2 and enjoyed the sun a bit as it finally decided to clear up today. It wasn't until 3:30-4, Gar, D and Ruby showed up. Saboo joined us a bit later, after Mo2, Ruby and I visited the tattoo parlor for some appointment making. We convinced Shi2 to show up, who also brought Steph and arrived around 7:30. Us four had a classy dinner at Milestones (as opposed to fast food, that is) and then rushed back around 9. Then we had our rounds of DS where we played Mario Kart with a full 8 PC party.

China won people's choice. For some STRANGE reason, Canada, who had the most boringest fireworks display, won it this year. Rigged without a doubt now. Reminds me much of the bitter result of the first season of Dance Crew (wtf Status Quo as runner-up). They also had this documentary-like fireworks display that talked about the history of BC (BC's 150th bday), which is probably another reason why Canada won. Apparently this time's China crew (Pyromagic Productions) is actually from HK unlike the others that were from other parts of China... which explains the choice in music China used.

Oh yeah, we got a new 50 inch Panasonic HDTV. Now there's finally a reason to rip out the PS3! Just gotta get that annoying cable first...

Made in China Fireworks

Third round of fireworks for this year and China takes the stage. Me and Mo2 head down as usual. Gar and Ruby were there already, Saboo, and then Sean, his wifey and his friend Mike show up later. Braman also came for the first time. We had a crave for curry since last week, so we had that for dinner. Also found Mike and Windy on the beach as well. Played Mario Kart near the end with four people plus CPUs and rose above with the highest score (1st place - 148pts!) ;D

For the main event, China started off with their Beijing Olympics theme song (that annoying "We are ready!" one)... I also recognized Laputa's theme song play (while everyone was puzzled as to where it originated from). Apparently there was also Harry Potter and Lion King in there as well. So overall, China was a lot more impressive than Canada and the US. If they don't win, it'll be safe to say that it was rigged.

I got home and it was already late but I logged in to take a look at the updated WAR 3.2. It's slicker indeed, and the colour of my armor doesn't look so gay anymore. I look forward to spending my night on it! XP

Batman, Fireworks, ABDC

My brother finally didn't have OT Saturday so he nagged me to watch Batman with him and dad. However, I had trouble waking up on the wonderful Saturday weekend so we didn't make the early IMAX showing at 12:15. We stopped by to grab some Mexican on our way and watched the next normal showing at 12:45.

So Batman was a GREAT movie. Joker was insanely insane! The CG on Harvey's face was quite believable. Two thumbs! Make it two hand thumbs and two toe thumbs!

After Batman, I headed home to meet up with Mo2 and headed downtown. We took our time down and arrived sometime before 6. Gar and Nina were holding a log until we came with a mat to sit on. Saboo and Sabrina joined in a bit later. I played Tales of Destiny for the most part. The fireworks itself was a lot more interesting than Canada's but we all felt they had one too many songs, making one too many "false endings".

This week's ABDC: Supreme Soul's GONE! Next week's result rankings probably: 1.Super Cr3w, 2.So Real, with Fanny Pak and Boogie Bots going at it.

Fireworks - Canadar

It's that time of the year again! The fireworks have come! Hurrah!

After work, I headed towards Mo2's workplace to meet up with her. We walked down to the beach, picking up some Vera's fast food on the way. We found the usual gang chilling around the usual area and relieved them of their duties so they could grab some food. We spent the evening playing a few rounds of Big 2, then went and learned how to play Dragon. Near the end, we also had a few rounds of Tetris DS with the Tetris Queen ;3

Ok so the actual fireworks performance tried to be epic. Epic with Godzilla. Like, literally epic Godzilla orchestrated remix of the soundtrack movie (or something to that relation). However, they failed to really grab our attention. They had well timed fires, which was nice... but it went with boring marches. They also used one too many annoyingly bright exploding fireworks that obliterated retinas in an instant. Didn't help that I (and probably 80% of the rest of the people) was not familiar with the soundtrack (if that truly was their source).

Well at least when I got home, I was greeted with a new Logitech wireless mouse and my monthly manga loot. My old mouse was having spasms, couldn't understand single clicks thinking they were double clicks and couldn't hold on to anything long enough -- like an old man! But I've only had that mouse for less than a year. I filed a troubleshoot with Logitech and they concluded I need a new one, so here, my new one! It clicks a lot louder than my old one, but it works like a charm so far. No complaints here.

Only maybe that I'm really mentally tired from coming home late yesterday... Sounded like I missed some fun PQ runs in WAR yesterday night too...

Two Months Worth

Depressingly returning to work after an awsome trip (that just felt like a long weekend), things were back to "normal" again. Insanely busy work, only mere hours a day of 'free time' before having to go to bed for the next work day, too tired to do anything big, online shopping......

Speaking of online shopping... online shopping is such an exciting activity, is it not? The other day I finally bought clothes online! All this time, through my online shopping adventures, I've been over-worried about sizing and style. Clothing is one of those things you usually have to try on and see how well it suits you. This time, some of the stuff I've been eyeing for the longest time were on sale (!) so I decided to take this chance to take a chance. XD It arrives save and sound and to my surprise, they fit perfectly (minus two that were labeled "one size only" which turned out to be a LARGES D: -- might wash it and see if it shrinks on me). Now that I have clothes buying experience, I think I'll be doing more frequently in the [near] future~

You would think I'd stop buying so much after coming home from vacation and bringing back two suitcases packed full with good stuff.... hahaa.. that doesn't apply to me. :b

More on the topic of online shopping... MY LAPTOP! Finally decided to get one because I'll need it for work. I ordered my very first laptop the other day, ETA 2nd week of August. I totally spent too much on it! As my first AND just a laptop in general. But there was no way I'd go for something that I wouldn't be proud of lugging around and using. The two companies I drilled down to was Toshiba and HP. Toshiba mainly because of their comfortable touchpad I've used before and loved, decent builds, AND because it's 'Toshiba'! For HP, I have gotten a few negative comments about HP from a few of my friends, but I won't let that stop me. HP has more than just a few exceptional laptop builds... especially with the better GPU choices available and included, on top of good sound speakers (Altec Lansing!). That in itself is already a good enough reason for me to go HP. Built-in things won't do for me. So it was a nice try, Toshiba. Within HP, I had a few choices. However, still relatively limited for the Canadian market. My original choice was the dv9420ca from HP Canada. I tried to do some research on this model, but there weren't any reviews or comments on this machine at all. I also found myself looking at the expensive pretty stuff like the Dell XPS but was upset to see the value in price. By the end of my long journey around the online globe, I finalized on a dv9500t CTO notebook! I'll give my customized specs and my personal review when I finally get it. X3

Now onto the backlog...

Thu July 5 - Company BBQ in celebration of our successful commercial release (which I wasn't even here for cuz I was in Cali at the time! :b)! We closed down the office at 2 and headed down to Waterfront to catch the Seabus to the CEO's house out in North Van. I got chosen with another co-worker, DK, to join the CEO and the COO in their car for a joyride to their place instead of taking transit. And wow, go figure, it's North Van.. his house was big, new and pretty. We got to meet the rest of his family (wife, three boys and flip maid!)... We started off with chips and beer.. then I moved onto the lemonade. It wasn't until a few hours in we began finally getting the actual BBQ part. Then the water fights began... One of the boys had the insane supersoaker (with the backpack of water!) and he totally owned us (versus our manual hand-pumping action guns). I got to the point where I got ahold of the backpack supersoaker too and attacked a few people. They had a trampoline in the backyard and we had drunk Jeremy jump in it. Kinda scary to watch actually lol... There was also a waterslide which was called BANZAI MOUNTAIN rofl! Me and DK left at the same time (around 7ish) and took the transit back together. Wow, long time no Seabus for sure.

Fri July 6 - Long time no All-You-Can-Eat sushi @ Richmond Sushi for Trevor's bday.

Sat July 7 - Franky's 22nd Birthday at no other than Mike's place! So we have our usual rowdy group of the Liquids, Franky's work friends, Mike's work people (my work people too I guess) and lots of booze. Franky is such an adorable weak drinker XDD... So it's his birthday... the birthday boy has to drink unreservedly, of course. I had my first Flaming Lamborghini... recommended by the bartender (aka. Eric Chin XD) when I requested something 'different'. XD Then our "boss" (aka. Mike) tricked us (co-workers = me, Jeremy, Paulo, Matthias) that our toast shot was Tequila but turned out to be a friggin' 151. Destructively burning it was. Gross and disgusting surprise lol... Bastard Mike :b The soccer tournament between France-Jeremy and Brazil-Paulo was pretty amusing to watch (on Winning 11 lol~). Tried to get Matthias to join in (as Germany of course! XDDD) but he wasn't into games, boo. So after rounds of strange liquids, I had to start sobering up to drive home so I hid myself in the gaming room and tried to nap. I was accompanied by Franky who was completely out of it... *patpats* Poor guy... he wanted to stay sober to help clean up and be responsible but how could he, it's his birthday! :B

Skip two weeks...

July 16 - Registration for courses. Omg it's that time of year already?! School's back in a month...!!!!

July 18 - Flare & Sakura: k it took us weeks to convince these people to come out of their cave in Langley, for serious. Two people who were part of our #Digimon channel way back when... Flare came to visit Sakura so duh, we're nearby, come visit us too! We decided to meet up at Metro at 7. I drove us to White Spot so we can enjoy the awsomeness that is the burger and their BLUEBERRY PIE! We didn't think about bubble tea until hours later and realized it was probably too late to grab bubble tea so we rescheduled for Saturday. みんなすごっく妙なやつだった。考えたよりすげーオタクくさい…

July 20 - Point Roberts. Requested that I got off work early (2AM) to head down to the states early (to beat the Friday afternoon/evening traffic). There was already nasty traffic forming on Knight street which delayed me a lot. I asked Tek to come with me (paranoid to go anywhere far by myself) and had him wait at Aberdeen so I can pick him and some bubble tea(!) up. It was relatively straightforward... got to see a lot of nothing. I was starting to panic when we got to the border. Gah I'm talking to the border guy not someone else like it usually is like! Tek was under suspicion both times there and back :b... We were there to sightsee... which is exactly what happened. The border guy on the US side had a stern face on the whole time... He paused a lot after our question and answers... then when we said it was our first time here, he suddenly got up and walked into the office. He came back a few seconds later, he gave us a map of Point Roberts and let us through. O_O!! Well.. sightseeing is one thing, our first and most important stop (and the whole purpose of the trip!) was to visit TBS Shipping to grab myself my own number for my nummy packages from the states. The place was a house.. which was why it all makes sense and put some light on how things worked. Grabbed the number and yay, mission complete! We took the opportunity to take a tour of the rest of the little town. The beach. The lighthouse which was NOT a "lighthouse" but was a mini reflective tower! We didn't see any WHALES! NO FREE WILLY! We stopped by a cafe for dinner that was by the marina and had, of course, seafood! We also visited the border obelisk (which had exact coordinates on it :0!!), saw some impressive mansions (with tennis courts, basketball courts, etcetc), some poorly painted houses, and then visited their convenience store (we were wondering where people bought their groceries!)... They had a number of products that have been discontinued here in Canada (lots of childhood favourites -- cereals, etc). It was getting late so we headed back around 8-9ish... the weather was crappy and we pretty much took a tour of the whole town already so we made our way back. Now I know Point Roberts from the back of my hand! Ask me anything! XD

July 21 - Flare & Sakura PT2: Aye. Metro again that evening. Walked to Crystal Mall. Was pissing rain like fack! Had bubble tea, oy full. Sakura even had two O_O! Unfortunately everything was closed by the time we got there except for a few. They ended up buying stuff from the stores that were open. Metro was still open at the time so we walked by the Metro and visited the arcade. A few rounds of bad guitar playing and a few expensive mario kart games. Flare had to start packin' so we disbanded early.

I got home... prepared for AU22. We tried it... 5 times? 75WHM 75RDM 73PLD... and once we got sooo close (1 frickin' percent left!); it was super depressing. It was already late by then (um 5AM?) so I decided to give up for now.

July 25 - It's that time of year again for FIREWORKS! I got off at 5, headed to Monica's work at Burrard station by 5:45ish. We ordered ourselves a party tray and more and headed off to 7-11 for some snacks. Headed back, grabbed our order and made our way to English Bay. As usual, all busses were full no matter which street you tried so we walked the whole way there. We arrived as the relief party for the other members who then went to grab their food. We start off with Spain this year... doing Star Wars and Iron Chef. It was actually quite well done~ We'll see how the other two countries do though. That is, if we plan on going next Wednesday and have to go through this whole after work rush thing again. XP I must admit, I was tired. And it was hot too, so it didn't help one bit. :[

July 28 - I woke up late so I told Mo2 to go first to meet up with Shi2 at McDix. I arrive a few minutes later, had some awesomely good greasey breakfast and then we finally headed downtown. We were all kinda tired so we laid around and cooked. I was lazy to put on sunscreen so I tried to protect myself with the umbrellas. Unfortunately it didn't work as I went home red and itchy. But anyways, the time flew by pretty fast. Other people started joining us around 5ish~6. I am known as the beach monster btw. The sun's radiance is a nuisance to my PSP gaming. I will finish Gurumin soon enough.... We had Fat Burger for dinner. It was not fat. They lie. But anyways, Canada's jazz-themed performance was pretty good. The synchronization was excellent but jazz is not my thing so it was good but not as good as Spain's.

Got home. AU22 again. This time we got another RDM. Hella easy with a fourth lol.

Aug 1 - Holy crap it's August already. Only a mere month left before the start of school again.. I look forward to it, to be honest. Full time work is hella boring. So CHINA. I met up with Mo2 by the Burrard skytrain again. We couldn't decide what we wanted to eat so we made our way there and walked down Robson to do some quick window shopping. We were in a lack of time so we decided to hold it off until Saturday. We picked up Triple-O's on the way (yay!) and ate our soggy fries at the beach. So China gave off this insane war-like angry emotions. I heard some people left feeling scared. I felt their performance was less all pretty stuff but more figurative and deep. Well, they called their performance "The Time Machine" so I'd imagine it was something related to their history :D. To us chinese though, it was to signal for us that it's time to take over the world. The chips that were implanted in our head when we were babies are finally resonating. Becareful.

Aug 4 - The Finale. Me and Mo2 went down around 12ish and walked down Robson to do some shopping. We got to the beach around 1ish and had ourselves some hot dogs we wanted since day 1 (the evil aroma that lures us in when we walk by to the beach everytime!). We then meet Shi2 who was standing there on the beach figuring out what to do. My latest delivery of manga came the other day, so I brought some to read. Karat! is magical girl on crack. It's super messed up and super fun to read lol~ Later that night, we had Fat burger again. And again it fails! And around 4ish, other people finally started arriving. The finale. Was boring, as expected. The opening portion was out of sync and dumb. And for some reason Canada won this year. Canada wasn't as good as Spain, but hey, they allowed spectators to vote this year so no wonder everyone voted Canada. Biased I tell you.

Was going to do AU29 but I was too exhausted from the long day. Apparently the PLD didn't even show up on time anyways.

Long weekend! Went to the states on the Monday. Did some good ol' shopping yay! Visited the Daiso at Bellisfair. The place is puny compared to our giant two floor. However! They sell things at $1.50usd and things over $2! Even "designer" bags for like $14usd lol... Another good thing is that there's a lot of stock of everything! Not many people know about yet so I still got first grabs! AND $1.50usd IS cheaper than $2cnd so yay!

Aug 11 - AU29. Tried twice. RDM died during convert. Second time I died when we won.

Aug 18 - Anime Evolution is still major weak sauce. Met Shi2 at the Joyce skytrain SUPPOSEDLY at 11 but she showed up a half n hour late. Got there around 12ish, found a place to sit down and we had our Subway we bought on the way. We visited the dealer's room next. We had to wait in line for NOTHING. We went in, went around the puny room and thought, "That was IT??" So we walked around the room twice. Everyone kept crowding around the KH3 trailer... dudes, I thought you've already have seen it by now! After we went out to leave and lo and behold, there was an extension into the mini cafeteria. The Code Geass fan was very tempting... what's better than Lelouche looking hot on the fan :D? I ended up not getting it and kept wandering around. There were a few stores that sold lots of seriously fake shit. That really upsets me. I picked up a Haruhi artbook and wondered why the pictures were all kinda dark... Failed to find any publication information (e.g. ISBN, publication date, etc) Turn it around and see that was published by a Taiwanese company. Ouch. The place makes me shake my head. After that garbage we decided to visit the new Copperstone area and wow it's beautiful. It's like a community! We had bubble tea that was as sweet as fuck. We lounged around a bit and headed back a bit before 4 to make it to the VGcats guy's panel. It was pretty amusing. Though, as usual, there were the annoying stupid questions like "Pirates or ninjas!?"... and eventually there was another stupid girl that kept playing video game ringtones. Sigh I guess that's everywhere. Or just a lot here at this convention. After the panel we walked back to Copperstone and visited Prem's place. And wow, the place is nice and cozy! He even had one of those mini floor cleaning robots! I couldn't help but stare at it clean the whole time XD... We hung around until we were hungry and then we went out for Pho that Shi2 was dying to have for the past few days. After food, they dropped me off and I headed to meet up with Matt and his friend Daniel (?). I made in just in time to watch some G.I. Joe chant parade. o_O Then we went to the BACK-ON concert. And wow... Japanese artists ceast to amaze me. Their concerts are always crazy fun and really enjoyable. Speaking of concerts, they tried to sell $1 glow 'sticks' that were those bendable cheap thin weak ones rather than the thick, bright ones. Total ripoff :b~ After that insanity, me and Matt went to line up to grab their autograph. They're really cool people :D I had them sign their 'Chain' CD I got. And HEY surprise! I also saw Jenny too! Apparently she was volunteering as a translator, assistant, liaison person. She was busy with them so I couldn't stop to talk at all... :T And that ended AE 07. Look out Scon08!

When I got home I did AU31. Weak sauce. I can't carb pull even if my life depended on it.

I'm working hard on Alchemy lately. I am slowly getting poorer than before... I feel I won't get anywhere with it... oh well.

AU39 or something the following Saturday - we died, oh, only just abooout 5 times before we finally managed to pull it off. We were pressing it to finish it for the update the following Monday.

Monday rolls around.. update comes around... NEW GRIPS. Finished up the Lamia.13 assault later that week and got my hands on some hot Paluhwan Khazghand (sp XD) body.. daymn... I need to hurry up and lvl up RNG so I can show it off more. I considered getting the Yigit head but meh, the heads I have now for my mage jobs are better imho. Next round of assaults goes towards some Yigit pieces!

Oh yeah, I tried Einherharjarbargarharjar just for the hell of it with a pickup party-alliance. Lawl. You can imagine how that's like. But it was an interesting experience nonetheless. The lasted two runs until the co-leader decided to decide another time for us, confusing everyone which was then followed by the breaking of the shell. That was the end of that.

This week flew by rather quickly. School starts next week. I think I've prepared... mentally... materialistically... maybe. I need to clean my room.

Catching up on the gaming news...
Slim PSP has CLEAR BUTTONS! WTF! MINE'S 100X MORE GIMP THAN BEFORE! D:
It also has TV-out, it's lighter, loads faster... however the battery lasts less longer... which is, wait, the ONLY DOWNSIDE D:

I cry. Inside.

Hrm. Mini-Work Rant/Random.

Domain Renewed. Booyah.

Fireworks Wednesday with China! Pretty but boring China! Yay to smiley faces. I wonder if they even attempted to syncronize their shiny explosives with their music...

Yay I got my KH: CoM back from Mo^2~ I get to finish it now :33

Um, Starbucks MMCF is good.

Work's been weird. The manager guy at this branch all of a sudden told the main front desk lady that I replace her for a day (or more :X). Mmm, where's my long delayed raise after probation assholes?! Sometimes I really detest working with Chinese people... they don't tell you what they plan on doing or why they do it. They don't give a reason why and they just order you to do it. I bet the front desk lady feels bad. :[[ I don't want to replace her... she's cool. D: She's like the only person I'm able to [almost] speak [all of] my mind to. Yes, I rant a lot about work with her and she rants right back. It's lovely and harmonious (sp?).

I feel permanent work location transferrage so far. They haven't exactly told me yet *coughchinesepeople NEVERtellyou anythingcough*... unless I go up and ask. And even when I do, they're all umms and uhhs and give an uncertain answer that I end up feeling confused still. Aaanways, enough putting down my own race... that reminds me, I spotted a cool ad in the paper.. better try applying. I need to ditch and I need to ditch fast.

Wow, it feels like it wasn't long ago since I last said that LOL. Damn, I'm such a job hopper.

I noticed everyone (lots of people) will get to take Japanese in the upcoming semester. Man I feel jealous. ;[[ I want Japanese tooooo~~ Uguuu... *shakes fist*

Not to mention... I wanna make a new layout.. or two. Or three... four... more. five... six..ty.. *needs better time management*

[for my own reference - soon to buy list]
- Air Gear 11
- Hot Gimmick 11
- Radiata Stories (sept)
- Host-bu 6
- Bushi Lord 1
- KH 2 (Q4)
- Magna Carta (Q4)
- Romancing SaGa (sept smthn')
- Sengoku Basara (Devil Kings / when? o_o)

I can't wait to feel rich again [which unfortunately won't be anytime soon] and blow all of it.

And Online Shopping is EVIL.
I'm going to get custom taxed like a bitch.

Reminds me of a mangaka that wrote about how he was addicted to online shopping instead of focusing on his manga [in one of his tanks]. Heh--SEE IT'S EVIL!!!

Ok, gone for the weekend. BBL.

Deal = NO GOOD!

The container hauler guys didn't like the deal that was put forth... MORE STRIKING ENSUES!

Soo... I had a fun week at work at the other branch. I like this side a lot more because it's cleaner, more spacious, washroom is more easier to access, brighter, and the list goes on... BUT I don't have my own computer, this branch location's too far [getting to and from work sucks], the annoying guys from the other divisions keep comin' in to bother us... mmm... I've been told to work there Tuesday so far [and probably the rest of this week as well...] or at least until the strike's over.

The strike should end because I need my monthly/weekly dose of manga and magazines.

The strike should not end because work will be busy like mad again... madder, even.

Oh I'm so horrible... all the businesses are suffering because of this silly strike.

So our accountant (from my original branch) apparently QUIT. Aww man, gives me less of a reason to stick around... she's like the only other around my age. Old geezers bakka... She quit while I got transferred (temp) to this location. Boo... And upon arriving, I also found out that Cathy, an elementary school friend that worked at this branch, ALSO quit only a WEEK AGO TOO (right before I transferred in). Gah!

Anyways! Fireworks!

Wednesday and Canada. Not bad... I wasn't paying full attention though.. I was too lost and lonely to care XD! Then I mad flashed everyone with my led light afterwards.

Saturday and Sweden. The clouds were so interesting that day. Sty and I made collab artworks. We rock. :o The show started good and then ended meh. Weird mixxxage.

Oh... Friday: Had dinner with some elementary school friends, Phyllis Andy Cindy Amy... We went our separate ways right after. It was quick. o_o; Night marketed afterwards though... Iwase's not there anymore (aww I wanted to check it out). A number of useless junk tempted me. RESISTED RRRRrrgrg--!

I'm still quite poor right now... I gotta renew my domain soon too.

Butterflies Have Invaded

My mom's on holiday this week. Sick of seeing me jobless, she followed me job hunting. It was the strangest thing...



I dropped a few resumes in Richmond. All of a sudden while visiting Costco, my mom suddenly talked to the guy at the door and asked where to drop resumes and made me drop one there. Knowing there's no chance to work in such place, I didn't really care too much... That is, until they FRIGGIN CALLED ME >_>;; Costco's SO not my place.. -_-;;



I never finished filling out the ones for The Bay... maybe I won't need to... I hope I won't. No chance there too, I would think. Yeah, I'm pessimistic about big companies. Which is why Costco's such a SHOCKER.



So, changing winds... Fireworks last Saturday! It was Sweden! I went down with Jo and her relative late afternoon. Sty treated me to subway and slurpee for dinner XD... well more like she "owed" me money, or so she claims, though I have no memory of the incident anymore. The fireworks were good.. yes, just 'good' (that's because.... details later). Got a ride from Eddie afterwards, yey, thx Ed.



Fireworks again Wednesday! This time, Spain! We (Jo, Sty and Ed) met at Langara. Sty arrived late. We got Downtown and decided to park at Stanley Park. We arrived at 1... the skies were still rather cloudy then so the beach was EMPTY and our LOG was EMPTY! That is until old wrinkly lifeguard man with old wrinkly "nice ladies" wanted a bit of our log and runs off after leaving their tarp. Keh. And so it begins to rain and we huddle together under our umbrellas on the beach. We try and play Crazy 8's and I win surprisingly, even though I hate the game. Eventually the rain stops and Moni gets here. Then we build Cradish Island. Gar gets here and we play MORE cards. Then Rudy comes. And even MORE cards. The sky keeps its gloomy look throughout the rest of the day/night as we wonder if it'll rain or not but it can't make up its mind. Luckily it didn't after all. Boom and giant group of other people come. Saboo and Nina come a lot later. Lack of SGers. All the beach space we save up gets wasted. Then THE COOLEST FIREWORKS DISPLAY EVAR! (imho) 'Cept the blinding pop-pop fireworks that hurt everyone's eyes.... and my hand kept shaking so I couldn't take any good pictures. Yey so Spain, I hope they win, even though I won't be able to make it for the Finale. Oh, Eddie drives us home again. Go Eddie!



So I got an interview tomorrow.... which explains the title. I'm such a wuss. (what a henachoko I am...)



Then I'll be gone for the weekend. Off to Abbosford for a retreat. Gotta live through tomorrow morning first.



Can't... sit... still... >_>



Can I even sleep......?

Summer's going by so quickly, I already forgot what happened last week.





Fireworks on Wednesday. Chile was it? Interesting, I liked the ones that had colour in the outside and then suddenly big poofy gold-coloured cloud of fireworks will explode, making it sorta look like a flower. Meh, bad explainer. I got there late to meet up with Shi2 and Mo2 because of my fag driving instructor that decided to change driving lesson dates. My parents being total pricks force me to take lessons last minute anyways. So I arrive late, everyone there including Stephen Inglis and Eddie (haha funny) and the SGers. Lots of time wasting and conversation, like the usual.





Fireworks again on Saturday. Canada's turn. I followed Fish and the gang this time because their group shrunk from 10+ to 2 people. Sally calls last minute to join up. We park somewhere far, but not as far as the spot on Wed, made out way down and found a pretty crappy spot. I urged them to merge with the other group but being anti-social that they are, they decided not to. I visited the other group every so often (somewhat far, considering the journey crossing numerous people were tiring like hell) while I joined the smaller group in playing gameboys. Amy and I both brought two gameboys, so each person got to play their own. We wasted our time playing those 54/80-in-1 type games going "Oh yeah I remember this game! Oh I remember that too; how do you play it again?" The fireworks for Canada sucked anyhow.





Went to take a Japanese placement test today at Langara and I suddenly bump into Irene! Seems like she's going to be taking similiar courses and going into the same major. The placement test ended up surprisingly hard (crazy kanji everywhere) and ended up taking 117 (I think?). We then gotta visit again tomorrow to have an oral conversation with the head teacher @_@... we also went to check if we could take Chinese 115, and surprisingly we could. Now I have a dilemma this semester -- take Chinese or Japanese? ~_~

Fireworks - South Africa

The story: Our meeting destination was the Virgin Megastore. Arrived a half n hour early so I went to browse. At 3, which was the proper time of arrival, I looked down from the second floor to find Eleanor and the other three jap guys. So I screamed down the level to catch her attention and ran down. Their names were Yuta, Takuro, and Kentarou. Eleanor did all the complicated talking because she knows them best. Soon enough, Jo, Flor, Viv, Simon and Der arrived too. So then we headed off, making our way to Pacific Center. We window shopped and went to Eatons.Kentarou wanted to buy a pair of sunglasses so the group temporarily split up. Eleanor, Jo and I were with the other 3, checking up on sunglasses. We either replied with: "Okay", "Daijoubu", "Chotto Ooki" or just bursted out laughing. But he finally found one he liked which was good. ^^

We headed off again, going down Robson street where everything is located. Hours were wasted there, looking in shops like Off The Wall or Gap. The 3 jap guys wanted to buy a soccer ball, so we searched around for a Sport Mart. They were satisfied afterwards, so we kept walking around. We had a pit stop at Starbucks, buying all kinda of coffee related liquid. After a while, we all stopped to think of what to do, what to eat and so on. The 3 guys wanted something other than Japanese so we just thought about going down the street to see what we find. Meanwhile, we also planned about going to Richmond sometime next week for some hardcore Karaoke and Arcade! Yea!~~ XD

And so, the walk down the street continued and check out places like Cows. We spotted a Viet place, so we decided to dine there for dinner. It was around 6 by then. The majority of us weren't hungry so we shared among a few of us. After ordering, we took out 2 packs of cards and played Big 2. We didn't know what Big 2 was in Japanese so we just said "Ooki ni".. heheh. ^^; Okay, so they didn't understand that, and instead, we explained the game and then they knew. We played a few games before the meal came. The total came to $72 something! We gave them a whole handful of coins (to make it seem like there's alot of money) and kinda gave them less than 15% tips. Viv and Flor left drunk. =)

Walking down the wonderous number of streets we finally spotted the beach! We found ourselves a nice spot by a sign and a log, slightly off center. Now by then, we had lots of hours to blow. We took out the cards again. The 3 jap guys, Eleanor, Jo, Flor and Viv played Slap Jack while Der, Simon and I played Big 2. We took turns winning a few, and Der kept bugging me about getting him some cotton candy if he won a few games. Of course I wouldn't agree to that. But finally, I gave him the money but he was too lazy to buy it. -_-;

Der gave the money for Flor and Viv to buy. At the same time, Elie and the 3 jap guys went to the washroom (?). The rest of us, hung around doing whatever: listening to music, playing gameboy, yadda. Everyone returned with the goods as if it was hours later cuz it took them so long. Then we took pictures and all. Later, we played Truth or Dare (which was weird o_o). Weird truths and even more weird dares. I got dared hugging a jap guy and another was saying aishiteru to another. Others were taking off the sock of Der (which was really hilarious XP ), blowing in Simon's face ^^;; and bopping the guys' head like a bongo. When it was almost time (half n hour or so), we began to snack on some junkies like Crispers and Onion Rings. Then it began to drizzle a bit. A long conversation started with the jap guys about jap culture, music, stars and I learned some slang and cuss words too.

At last, after a few test fireworks the real thing comes. Returning to my spot, I find it soaking and sandy. -_- Which was annoying because I didn't have anything to dry up the mat nor find a better place to sit. So I was pretty much forced onto my location. Either way, the fireworks were great! Some of them were very pretty like those who went wiggly up and down, then up again. And those that glittered after they blew up. And other nice ones. However, one thing that was disappointing was that it rained in between, leaving us even more soaking. >_< As always, the last performance was the best. I guess South Africa's pretty good, but I want to go see the Spain one, that's for sure.

Afterwards, it was difficult to leave but we did. We held onto each other, making out way through the little gaps of the crowd. The walk back was horrendous since it was so far, wet and crowded. o_x We fled to Virgin for a leakage but the mofo upstairs said he had to close right when it was our turn. So we made our way downstairs, only finding the washroom closed as well. We were seriously ticked off. =_=Our last destination was Chapters, where our rides were to pick us up. We finally said bye to Eleanor and the 3 jap guys, hoping that they'd make it to the Richmond trip. The rest of us got a ride from Simon, arriving at his house at 12:30 and getting picked up there.

So to end off this long entry, I'd like to say that I'm tired and I wanna go to sleep.