It's a small world at Superstore! / Hilarious literal karaoke video

Jon and Dallas picked me up at around 6:30, and we were off to the townhouse. We introduced him very quickly to certain family in-jokes, and tried to show him some stuff about Richmond. He was looking up rentals on Craigslist as we watched TV and told him a lot of stuff about surprises... nobody's surprised Jon yet, and that's fine with him! Apparently, Fidela was very sad when she left church today because she thought it would be the last time she'd see certain people (she asked Megan and Cindy to include Vanessa in the "dinner," and got a NO WAY!)... she's going to Urbana at Christmas, so she won't see us then either. Muhahahaha. :P

Steph mentioned that she hadn't seen Benjamin at church today, so she asked his parents (Billy and Stella) if they'd left their baby at home! He was at Grandma's, and Auntie Soo offered to take him overnight too... good thing, since it was Billy and Stella's fifth wedding anniversary yesterday! Then I told them all about how they'd given out their wedding thank-you cards three years late a couple summers ago.. haha, we all thought it was hilarious! Jon said that he and Dallas had seen Sam working at Superstore this afternoon (he put the guitar-smashing video up on Youtube although the photo quality's very poor!), and the Mans (Denise / Brian / Julie / their parents) were behind them in line... what a small world! So then Steph and I had to tell them about the time we saw Joey, Emily, and Chelsea McCooey when we were at Superstore with Terrence last month... good times! Steph also told us that Sarah had yelled at Joe and Daniel to NEVER tell her husband (Vernon) about our church again: as long as we don't cross certain lines, we'll be fine with them.

We rehashed Cindy Yang's telling me about my own birthday surprise (and asked Dallas when his birthday was... he got multiple surprises!), and the "Hey, Ju!" thing when Kate / Rachel / Steph saw Julianna at Richmond Centre once... that was like the DIRTIEST look EVER from another person they'd received! Speaking of Kate, she can drink a LOT of wine... she bought a 1.5-litre bottle of wine to share with Steph over the course of an afternoon once, and my sister was like totally dizzy later! (at the end of the day, she's still Chinese and not Scanadinavian / German / Irish!) Then we got into their acquaintances (like this girl who got confused about chromosomes and sperm :P), especially when Mom saw certain pictures on my brother's laptop screensaver. ("Jon's kissing guys?! Who are all these people?! Jeremy has a friend named Lynn in Toronto?") Good times, haha. Steph gave me three photos that she printed out from both SLB nights: we should totally initiate Dallas this month!

While the three of us were signing birthday / farewell / baptism cards for Benny / Anthony / Mike K. / Mike T. / Rosenda / Nina / Frances / Elaine / Cindy / Jackie / Stella / Joshua / Terry / Erin / Darren / Kevin (some of which got done at karaoke), Steph asked Dad whether the baptisms next week would be during the service or in the afternoon. Citing the board not approving, Dad said that it would be during the service: that's VERY WELCOME news even if there are never any official announcements of these things! Jon assured me that the "Duuuuude!" card for a baptism would definitely suit Anthony, so that's a relief... phew! Next week, I'll be busy trying to find 20 people to give them things... oh well, I expected it. :P (Jon thought that I'd stopped making them sign birthday cards for a couple of years... that was only because they were gone, so now it's back on! :P They also told Dallas and Holly about my memory for birthdays and such, too... ack!)

Everyone also discussed things like parental matchmaking (Dave has a break from that!), dry ice, tomorrow's Stateside / Grouse Grind three times in a day plans, and bikes near UBC (ask Jeremy, not us! :P). We were ready to go to a karaoke place near my apartment with Myles / his sister Holly (the Harmony on Jon's screensaver is their sister) / her boyfriend Peter. It had been a LONG time since Jon and I had done this regularly (Sean used to do this often post-Fellowship at Mike's, a place at Metrotown), but we were willing to go for that. It wasn't food-related (we were SO FULL from dinner!) and it wasn't the arcade, so it was the perfect opportunity to butcher songs and see what they had. Dallas, Jon, and I shook hands with them when we saw them waiting for us in the parking lot, then it was upstairs to our little "Canada" room where we had a good time. ("Sing INTO the mike! Kiss it! Come on, Dallas! You must know SOMETHING! No, your throat's not scratched!")

* Boyz II Men, I'LL MAKE LOVE TO YOU / All-4-One, I SWEAR / Righteous Brothers, UNCHAINED MELODY / Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, UNFORGETTABLE
* Destiny's Child, SAY MY NAME: The video sped up too fast for us on this one, so we skipped half of it to go on the next song.
* Bob Dylan, RAINY DAY WOMEN #12 AND 35: Jon and I had fun with this one!
* The Archies, SUGAR SUGAR: "You're my durian / bubble tea girl... pour some sugar on me!" (Def Leppard)
* Black-Eyed Peas, WHERE IS THE LOVE: Jon had a moral objection to this (and to N'Sync's GONE), but managed to have fun with it.
* The Eagles: HOTEL CALIFORNIA: Hey, it's a Chinese band with weird outfits and great solos! (they made a re-appearance on the video for Billy Joel's UPTOWN GIRL)
* The English lyrics left something to be desired, haha.
* Vanilla Ice, ICE ICE BABY: Billed by Holly as "the most hilarious video ever," it delievered by being REALLY literal with the song title! ("ice" was a bunch of ice shavings, and "baby" was an embryo! hahaha!)

Jon and I also saw Puddle of Mudd, Oasis (songs we don't know!), Black Sabbath's PARANOID, the Rolling Stones' JUMPING JACK FLASH, and many other songs in the selection available. It was certainly interesting, heh. He told us that Jeremy was making his own beer... I just hope it's not as expensive as the time he made his own Pho last summer! (I apparently owe Jon a bubble tea since I told him that Mom was making him treat me to the karaoke... sure...) Now Corey's telling me that GWAR's SEX COW and Ministry's JESUS BUILT MY HOTROD would be great karaoke songs... I dunno, but whatever!

Hey, Jen emailed me and Dylan / Eric / Nathan / Steph / Karen Lew / Vivian / Jon / Danielle! "My mother and I would like to have you guys over for a potluck dinner next Sunday, time to be confirmed. We will be providing the main course and beverages (this is a "licensed" event, but most of you should already know that by now), so it'd be great to have salad, dessert, and light appetizers to complete the menu. Please let me know as soon as you know if you are coming and what you can provide. Cheers, Jen." Nice and unexpected! I'll forward this to Steph, since I doubt she checks her REALLY OLD Hotmail account anymore!