are you invisible?

or is everyone else just BLIND?!

so again, i'm on the skytrain after work, and i manage to get a seat. WHOO-HOO! these days it's very rare to get a seat :( it's standing room only as we leave burrard station, and there's a young woman standing in front of me, practically standing on my (fading pedicured) toes. so because i'm on the "aisle" seat, i opt to just stare blankly in front of me. what happens next? of course, the young woman starts rubbing her bum. i think she was trying to fix an unfortunate wedgie situation, but then she started scratching. ugh! what the f***? all the while she's chit-chatting w/her friend!?!? hello? i'm staring 3 inches from your ass!!!!!!!! i had a front-row seat to this suffering. thank god i was getting off at broadway.....god only knows how long she was gonna keep rubbing/scratching!

so i know i mentioned ppl doing disgusting things on the bus before, but do these ppl also think they're invisible? when did picking your nose in public become acceptable? get a freaking tissue! BLOW! i don't care what you do in the privacy of your own home or bathroom (so long as you wash your hands after!), but seriously, the public displays are totally uncalled for!

what's also gross is single-occupant drivers.......do they not look around before they wedge their fingers so far up their nose, they need pliers to get them out? it never fails, whenever i'm riding the bus and i look around at drivers, i can almost guarantee some driver that passes is picking their nose. ugh! YOU'RE NOT INVISIBLE, AND WE'RE NOT BLIND!

so much for my appetite

well, the entire weekend was a bust. i had plans on thursday and friday that i had to bail on. but at the last minute on friday, my youngest sister-in-law, clarisse, joined me and chris for some of my world-class cooking. i'm not very good at timing dishes so everything is cooked and ready to eat simultaneously. the rice and lap-cheung (chinese sausage) and beans w/miso sauce were waiting for 45 minutes while i stirfried the dao-miu (snow peatip) w/garlic, and fried up the gyoza. we also had soup w/baby bok choy. for this meal, i opened one of our few remaining unused wedding gifts......the hamilton beach skillet/griddle. it's the only non-stick cooking item i have in the house, so it was perfect for the gyoza. i'm not sure why i didn't use it before!

i spent saturday morning passed out in bed.....i didn't even wake-up until noon :-) we went to milestone's for dinner, and i was very excited about my curly fries w/watercress dip. to accompany the fries i ordered a beef burger (my craving from thurday's post!) with the "california" topping - avocado and bacon - yum! except shortly before our food arrived, my appetite was ruined. well, i can't blame it entirely on this incident, i was still feeling a bit nauseous from being sick. anyways, what turned me off? this man walked into the restaurant.....he was probably about 6' tall, quite heavyset, wearing his cheap plastic sunglasses (he actually put them back over his eyes as he walked through the restaurant - so not cool).....ugh, he was wearing track pants (fine) and a white wifebeater that was probably 3 sizes too small for him that exposed all of his chest hair.....yuck! he was showing a lot of unnecessary cleavage. he sauntered through the restaurant like he was the pimp daddy of all time. ew, ew, ew it was so gross! i have to say that he did attract many pairs of eyes, as mine were totally glued to this horrid sight. if this man had worn a proper t-shirt, i probably wouldn't have noticed him, but it was the chest hair - SO GROSS! to the men out there who have chest hair......i have nothing against it, and quite possibly on the right person, i might find it attractive (?), but when dining at a restaurant, please KEEP YOUR HAIR UNDER CONTROL!

yeah, so that was saturday night. pretty exciting life i lead :P

being sick sucks :(

well, it's thursday night, and i've been suffering through what i think is the flu for the past 48 hours. it sucks to be sick. i slept through most of wednesday, but today, i thought i'd stay awake and watch tv, so i could sleep properly tonight, and hopefully get to work tomorrow. unfortunately, my body has other plans. i haven't felt this horrible since i had the flu that was a precursor to the chicken pox 3 years ago. at least i know i can't get the pox again......what a nightmare that was :(

i haven't been able to sleep properly - i keep waking up in funny positions with a sore neck or back; i can't eat - the nausea is just driving me mad......i managed to have some fish congee......, and now i've got the sweats. i thought sweating it out made everything better, but now i just can't decide if i'm hot or cold. ugh! all i can do is count down the minutes till i can take more drugs......tylenol has become my new best friend.....i need to stock up tomorrow when my mom comes over.

well, i'm gonna go drink some soup now. plain soup. how boring :( i would kill to have a beef burger with french fries & garlic mayo right about now. on second thought, perhaps i'll go be sick. blah!

it's a tough life :-)

well, we hit "the rock" on saturday night and after 6 hours at the $2/$4 table i walked away +$6. my 4th hand in i won a monster pot - the betting was actually capped pre-flop :-) all i hit was a pair of kings off the flop w/an ace kicker. not bad at all! there were a few hands where it came down to the kicker, and my cards held up :-) i had another monster hand later in the evening....i think i was the button, and just limped in w/my jack/six suited and i flopped the full house jacks over sixes. there was a real dumb-ass guy at my table, and he kept betting into me, so i was raising him. turns out he had nothing.....just playing the board. idiot. i have to admit that i was on tilt at one point......a senior at my table kept chasing his straights and flushes, and he'd get them on the river. he took my money a few times, and i was really pissed, because i had him totally beat up until the river......two pairs, trips, bloody hell! i hated him.

if anyone's actually interested in the bad beat, it's just over $42,000.

we finally walked away from the poker room just after 3 a.m., and mike and chris hit the pai gow table, and then switched to blackjack. i thought i'd try my "lucky" slot machine, but it wasn't in a giving mood. i said goodbye to my $20. then i thought maybe next door would have better luck, and that one took $5. i kept trying my luck, and then an hour later i was down $100. blimey! oh well, it was 8 hours of entertainment......definitely worth it :-)

where's my penny?

you know, the work week always seems to drag, but as soon as it's friday at 4:30 p.m., all of a sudden it's 24 hours later and the weekend's half over! where does the time go?

so last night, i hit the movies w/a few friends......went to see the break up. i admit it wasn't a stellar movie, but hey, it was a light un(?)romantic comedy.....i'm not sure what else to call it. but after watching da vinci code last week, this was a nice change of pace :-) after the movie, i was a bit hungry (apparently, scrambled eggs for dinner isn't very filling), so i stopped at mcdonald's. i figured i'd share some food w/chris when i got home, so i bought the fish meal.....$5.34 after tax. i actually had cash, so i paid $5.35. well, i didn't really want the penny back in change, but i thought it'd be at least offered to me. IT WASN'T! she just took my money, and then closed her cash-till. well, the nerve! i wasn't gonna be a cheap-ass and ask for my penny back, but it just irked me. don't just presume what ppl want/don't want! i hate that!

it's a beautiful day in vancouver, and i spent the entire morning lounging in bed. i just didn't want to get up, and then i'd fall asleep. i did that a couple times today before i finally crawled out of bed. this is what the weekend is all about :-)

i love cupcakes!

so yesterday at work we ordered some cupcakes from cupcakes. these aren't your regular cupcakes from back in your childhood. these are AMAZING cupcakes, that IMHO, are the best ever! the cake is super moist and comes in different flavours, depending on your cupcake order; the icing is smothered beautifully on top of the cupcake, and then the icing sometimes has a little topper as well, be it sprinkles, a candy of some sort, anything!

my absolute favourite cupcake is the lemon drop. i first tried the lemon drop 1.5 years ago. i went to cupcakes in the hopes of hiring them for my wedding cake, but for various reasons, i didn't end up with them. on that day, i met with heather (co-owner of cupcakes) to go over my ideas and see what they could offer me. well, it was the best time of my life! i'm not a big cake fan, so i almost didn't care what it tasted like, but OH MY GOD! she brought out 6 different mini-cupcakes in a variety of flavours and icings. i ate them all :-) from that moment, i was hooked on cupcakes. yes, it may seem pricey ($2.50 plus GST) for a little cupcake, when you could make 2 dozen from scratch for less than $10 i'm sure. i, too, was a skeptic when they first opened, but there's something about them that's so appealing. when you step into the store, and are hit with the smell of baking in the oven and the sweet icing, HOLY CRAP! game over......give me a 6-pack! oh hell, i don't even have to be at the store, i can smell it already!

wow! i got side-tracked from my lemon drop cupcake! anyways, it's a lemon cake with lemon butter cream icing, topped with a candied lemon wedge. heavenly! i tried to savour it and make the pleasure last, but seriously, once i took a bite of it, i just shovelled it right down. so yum! sidenote.....it wasn't quite a real lemon drop......they didn't have the lemon cake, so it was just plain vanilla cake, but still, there's so much icing on top, that you get the lemon-y taste every time. yikes! i'm starting to drool.......

so today, we celebrated a milestone birthday in the office, and i had ordered a cupcakes cake. it was the mocha motion cake......3 layers of chocolate cake, 3 layers of espresso butter cream icing, topped with little pink flowers and pink piping. wow! it was so delicious, and went really well w/my iced latte from starbucks. oh good grief, what a yummy 2 days i've had!

my 2nd favourite cupcake is mint condition. it tastes just like mint chocolate chip ice cream. how can you go wrong?! if you surf over to the cupcakes website, one thing to note......they don't always have the flavours listed on their website, and they do have "seasonal/promotional" cupcakes that aren't advertised online. so if you're doing a same-day phone order, it's always good to check before you ask ppl what cupcakes they would like!

free coffee!

this morning i passed on my usual morning starbucks because the line-up at royal centre was quite possibly the longest line i'd very seen there. mental note: 8 a.m. is a bad time to go at. so i opted for the coffee shop in my office building. i ordered a medium mocha w/whipped cream and a very yummy rice krispy square (since i can't make them properly myself!). as i was yawning while waiting for my coffee to be made, the barrista asked if i would like an extra shot in my coffee. i actually thought she was making a cute remark about my sleepiness, but she actually had a shot that she was going to toss out anyways. so i said "YES, please!" now, i don't know how coffee's work in non-starbucks establishments, but i saw her pour two shots, and then she grabbed another two shots and dumped them in my medium cup. hmmm, a grande latte at starbucks only requires 2 shots. so off i went w/my 4 shot medium mocha and rice krispy square. i have to admit that the coffee's a bit strong for my liking, but since i've been up since the crack of dawn, i am definitely appreciate for the extra boost in my step today!

monday's off to a good start :-)

what would you do?

if you saw domestic violence in a public place? would you run and help the victim? would you just stare and do nothing? would you confront the abuser? well today, i opted for staring and doing nothing.

it started out strangely. chris and i were at a mcdonald's eating lunch, and i was just staring out the window toward the parking lot. i noticed a car in the parking lot, with a man standing beside the driver's door. he was just standing there for a while, and i asked chris if he had noticed anyone inside the car. he confirmed there was a woman in the driver's seat. the window was open about 4-5 inches, just enough for the man to be able to reach inside and grab something.....i thought he was trying to get something from the backseat. because we were inside i wasn't able to hear the conversation, but he appeared to be yelling at the driver.

a few minutes later, he walked around the car, towards a cement pillar, grabbed a mcdonald's drink, and just blasted it at the passenger door of the car. the woman then took off in the car, leaving the man still yelling at her. he huffed around in a couple of circles in the parking lot, and then he started to walk away. chris kept an eye on his whereabouts, but then all of a sudden the guy came into the mcdonald's and ordered a meal to go. i tried to avoid eye contact w/him, in case he wanted a piece of me and chris, because he saw us watching the scene unfold outside. while he was waiting for us order, he tried calling someone on his cell phone, who didn't answer his call. his woman perhaps? after he grabbed his meal, he stomped out the door and headed on his way, wherever that may have been.

the whole turn of events happened in about 7 minutes, and i really wasn't sure what to think of it all. i can't help but wonder what set him off and made him so upset? where was he going to go now? will she take him back? it's very disturbing to see events like this transpire in public. i can only imagine what goes on behind closed doors at home :-( personally, i can't imagine anything getting so bad as to want to cause harm to another person. but i guess that's just me, because somewhere in north america, someone is a victim every day, every hour, every minute.

babies everywhere

so we all know that big headline when brooke shields and kate holmes babies' were born on the same day, in the same hospital, apparently next door to each other. and then earlier today we heard that gwen stefani had a baby boy. and finally, the news everyone's been waiting for......angelina and brad have a daughter, shiloh, who earlier in the day headlines were saying would be named by an african governor, mayor or leader of some sort? who flipping cares?!

now that all these celebrities have had their babies, what else is there to report on? ah yes......how much the photographer will get paid for catching the 1st picture of baby jolie-pitt. it's disgusting that it's rumoured to fetch multi-millions of dollars. good grief!

there's the latest rumour that jennifer lopez is pregnant now. i read that in my $0.25 in touch magazine today :-) and of course everyone knows that britney spears is pregnant again. yuck. i just don't even want to imagine anyone doing anything with that kevin federline. eeewwww! someone needs to give that guy a vasectomy. do we really need 4 federline babies in this world?

now, what do celebrity parents do w/the money they make from selling their photos to magazines? do they set the money aside for the baby's future, in case their own celebrity-status takes a downhill spiral? do they go out and buy the newest and hottest car or tech gadget for themselves? upgrade from a $5 million mansion to a $6 million mansion? ah, to have dilemmas like that......i can only dream!

prelude to a headache

with the rising price of gas (i can't believe i saw $1.27/litre on thursday night!), i decided to take transit to kerrisdale for dinner on friday night. it required taking 2 skytrain lines and 1 bus. from home to broadway station was uneventful. when i hopped onto the expo line, there was a couple on the train who seriously needed to get a room. it was bad enough to see them going at it, but do we all need to HEAR it?!?! yuck! thank goodness i was only on for 3 stations.

then i lined up for the 41 UBC bus. there were quite a few ppl waiting, but i managed to get a seat :-) unfortunately, after i sat down, a young man who was talking on his cell phone sat in front of me. he was on the bus until just past victoria drive, and he talked the entire time.......seriously, i don't think the other person got a word in edgewise. he kept talking and talking and talking. i think he was speaking tagalog......except every once in a while he would say "EXAAAAACTLYYYYY!" for goodness sakes! it was really grating on my nerves, and i couldn't focus on my magazine. i kept reading the same paragraph over and over. after a while i just gave up and stared into the back of this guy's head.

so this older asian woman (i think chinese) was sitting beside me, and she was quiet the entire ride. due to my inability to read, i would occassionally look around, and i caught her picking her nose on more than one occassion.......she was really digging around! eewwwww, gross!!!!! mental note......don't touch anything on transit!

then to top it all off, there was a man standing behind my row (right by the rear door) who had a distinctly gross odour about him (i'm pretty sure he wasn't homeless either). it was enough to make me gag. i tried to discreetly cover my nose, but i just couldn't. the only fortunate thing was he only stood there for about 3 minutes. i felt absolutely sick at this point.

when i finally got to my stop, i booted over to london drugs (i had some shopping to do) and used their washroom to sanitize my hands. of course, the bathroom there was less than ideal, and it had a strange odour to it as well. i just can't catch a break!

anyhow, i did my shopping, complete with advil and a bottle of water for my now-throbbing headache and headed to dinner. it was at dinner that i noticed that the In Touch magazine i had just purchased only cost me $0.25! it almost made my transit adventure worthwhile. almost. not quite. i still had to spend $7 on advil and water that i really shouldn't have needed in the first place.

to summarize.....

• if you talk on your phone on transit, use your quiet voice. i don't care what language you're speaking, it's just not nice to hear every detail.
• don't pick your nose in public. we all have nose issues, but seriously, that's why a really smart person invented tissues and bathrooms.
• take a shower once in a while! AND USE DEODORANT, DAMNIT!

ugh, just re-living last night is enough to make me want to vomit.