"Who's Pope Benedict?!"

Hey, Rosenda added me on Facebook - cool stuff! :D

I've also heard that Michelle Duggar is due to give birth to her 18th child... wonder what J name she'll choose this time! o_O

Took the bus to church, and talked to Johnny / Dylan / Stanley in the basement about guitars / jazz / working. Dylan had a HUGE sandwich that he got from Superstore - of course it was big enough for two meals, so he couldn't finish it! Dawn had a suitably short birthday speech for Jen, Andrea gave us some chocolate caramel Rice Krispie Squares from Derek as a token of his appreciation, Karen gave us a decadent Chocolate Sinner cake with strawberries and BBQ rice chips, and Raymond / Steph / Rich and I talked about the Timothy kids' JEOPARDY performance. They answered all the pop culture questions (SIMPSONS trivia!), and didn't want to answer the Bible questions... even though they'd been studying them for three months! Their listening skills could use some work, though...

*picture of Pope Benedict is shown, as part of WHO AM I? category*
*first three groups answer POPE JOHN PAUL!* ("but he died!") Hahaha.

That aside, it was still an amusing Bible Study. Steph broke out "Let's talk about sex, baby!" (of COURSE she remembers that song!) before we separated into our groups. Jeremy had some stuff to say from his parents' point of view - enjoying a sexual relationship within the context of marriage is one thing, but God doesn't just turn his back while you do that. There was a verse (Proverbs 6:25) about being on guard against adulteresses who try to captivate men with their eyes. Jeremy's translation rendered that as "... or capture you with her eyelids" - when he was reading that, I snorted with amusement. He broke off and commented, "I thought you'd find that funny!" Too right! Certainly an interesting discussion, to be sure! Steph and I went home with Pastor John since we didn't feel like going out with Sam, Ivan, Jon, and others. Talked about the Red Wings / RCMP red / white flowers, our Bible Study discussions, weekend plans, and more - very refreshing!

#9 and Tri-Ty!

I went to #9 restaurant at Lansdowne Mall for brunch with my parents and Vernon's parents yesterday morning. It was nice seeing them again before they went back home, really... saw Mom's friend Flora, heh. Discussed lateral thinking puzzles, Vernon, Serena, satay beef, Sarah, BBQ pork, and why someone might deliberately wet their pants! (avalanches) Went to the dollar store and Langley Farm Market afterwards with my mom - got a mango, bananas, cheese-flavored corn chips, and the promise of socks. I saw this amusing brand name at Smart & Save (near the dollar store) - Hot Kid Boring Pie Rice Crackers. Went home and signed a bunch of birthday cards for April, May, and June... gotta have the next bunch ready for the June general meeting! (and buy the next large bunch at the dollar store sometime!)

Later, T called me spontaneously - I certainly didn't mind going out to meet his girlfriend! It was a fun outing - dating, Chapters, tiny pearls, shaved ice, grape, affection, silliness, waving hands to attract attention, nurses, weird diets, birthdays, anime, LJ, "I thought I added you!" syndrome, Facebook, assumed names, and more. Definitely should do that more often! Got home and relaxed (talked to Lisa), heh. SO GOOD!

Pieces of kids reside in apple trees before they become bile!

Bingo of the day so far:

FLAUNTED (78 points) - against Emily N. [across a double-word score]


I had a weird dream last night when I went to bed early since I was tired!

* someone calling a red cab when we were in the middle of hills and graves - I had to be reunited with family and friends, so refused to go (I had NO crush on him at ALL!)
* people bringing me around to various events, and accepting it when I wanted to have downtime MY WAY!
* my mom was teaching a class of six-year-olds in Sunday School, and I got the toddlers - they were crawling everywhere, including inside cupboards and places where they weren't supposed to go (Abigail and Hannah were the worst offenders, heh)
* writing in a book about Michelina, Maureen, Michael, and their ages as far as the number of strokes in their names was concerned (20, 16, 14)
* being seated next to Ryan (in suit and tux) when a bunch of us went to see a play - I didn't want to be there, even though he was nothing but sweetness to me
* having an unspecified natural disaster happen, which resulted in kids being torn to pieces - they resided in apple trees before they died!
* the pieces of kids wanted me to help them with something; when I had, five-year-old Lisa was now a spot of bile! (she'd died, in other words)
* the surviving pieces were patched up again, so the kids were literally patchwork; this created an interesting side-effect, in which they snored at random times

No idea why I had this dream! Maybe some parts of this were just subconscious junk! :P

Let's go hunting for raccoons and ghosts!

Had an amusing conversation with Dawn about complaints and rules, haha. You can't muzzle people's thoughts, and the person does have a right to be cynical about recent events in his life! Also fielded emails from various people about ideas - so cool, haha. Went to the townhouse, where Grandma gave me some Kwan Loong Double Lion trademark medicated pain-relieving aromatic oil - sweet! ("for fast and effective relief of dizziness, headaches, stuffy nose, stomachache, travel sickness, sprains, rheumatic pains, and insect bites - menthol, camphor, eucalyptus oil, chloroform, menthol salicylate, spike lavender oil, light liquid paraffin") Mom also gave me a soup spoon with a dragon on it, yay!

Had spaghetti / tomato sauce, clams, teriyaki chicken, potato salad, broccoli, strawberries, and more with Pastor John and his family. Noah is shy, but he asks interesting questions, such as whether there were ghosts on the third floor: "Can I see a picture of the ghost?" This almost makes me want to bring my GHOSTS book on Sunday so he can see ghost pictures, but that wouldn't really be age-appropriate. Hannah asked who Alex Rios was, Noah commented on various things he saw during the sports highlights / overheard during conversation, and Josiah talked about hockey a bit. Karmie and Mom shared childbirth stories, while Pastor John quizzed his kids about their own birth weights. (two days early, seven pounds, etc.) Steph had to clean her room before the family could see it, so we gave them a house tour afterwards. They'd seen Jon's room when they'd come in, of course - collecting CDs and books is a good use of space, sorta!

Mom commented on the raccoons who had just walked into the strata meeting yesterday, and quickly proved herself to be an unreliable witness as far as raccoon height was concerned. Steph had to look it up on Wikipedia, and we saw some crazy pictures! For some reason, she also had to play Korey's favorite "singing" video for them. *rolleyes* She says it doesn't matter because Karmie knows some stories about me. I should have shown them the "underwear in toilet" picture, haha. (no, I will NOT upload that one to Facebook... but maybe I will since she uploaded that video!) Talked about Eugene Peterson, Marva Dawn, Metrotown, cruises, camping, deacons, 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa, World Vision exhibits, being featured in the newspapers, Moscow, youth orchestra, scrapbooks, and more!

I recommended that Steph take out photo albums - this distracted us from walking to Steveston to get some frozen yogurt from Timothy's, haha. The kids asked who various people were: they were AMAZED when Steph said that those were Phil, Melia, Dad, me, uncles and aunties, a plastic surgeon family friend, Jon, herself, Fidela, Erin, Megan, Michelle, Dawn, and others! Mosquito bite stories, sleeping, family vacations, ballet recitals, being strong-willed, small oyster and pearls, Eric looking the same in kindergarten as he does now, baby pictures, Jon dressed up as a little girl (we have dresses we can lend Noah... *evil grin*), church camps, the checkered floor of the church basement, handwritten OLD church bulletins, etc. - very interesting to look into the past! Man, Steph had HUGE hair back in high school! (it's the FRO, man!) Good times, and definitely a highlight - Noah was quite good at recognizing Pastor Edward!


Mom, on Korey's trip to Victoria: "Of COURSE it's your business if he goes every weekend to Victoria! [he doesn't, as far as I know] You're the boyfriend!" Me: ".... sure...."

BOOBIES! (Thanks, Diane...)

Let's declare moratoriums!

Eric picked me up at 6:45, and we were on our way to the novel experience of having a committee meeting in a mall food court. Discussed curry beef, interview / flying out on Thursday and coming back Saturday, Bible Study guides / money, staple food items, Dylan, Debbie, barbecues, family life, planning, Starbucks (when the food court closed before 9), Yaohan, Scrabble, EXIT, spaghetti, going on escalators (off / Granville), worry, safety, and more. Drummers in Resonate and trips were cool subjects: issues with bitter personal stuff, maybe not so. Next time, we meet at Yaohan! Hahaha. I like Dylan's new rule for speeches: MORATORIUMS! Five minutes MAX, and no personal gifts! It's going to make things more efficient... complaints about that? Oh my. (discussed this with people - NOT my "visitor" person!)

Mice love construction, but no home for you here!

Bingo of the day:

CITATORY (64 points) - against Pat K.


I just had the closest Scrabble game ever - I won by two points against Rachel W. (271 to 269)

I've been hearing mice all day, so called Barry to see what I could do, then called Hester to advise her of that fact. My one glue board that I got some time ago has indeed been "used" - there's a dead mouse on it, presumably from last time! She says there are traps / poison outside the apartment building, so I told Barry that. He said it's a common problem now, with all the new construction around - sure, the rodents need homes too... BUT NOT HERE! Their building called in an exterminator / pest control person a while ago, and they haven't seen any recently. We'll see what happens... great. Shockwave Flash just performed an illegal operation, and now I have to restart Firefox... like it hasn't been crashing all day anyhow! :P (at least the computer itself hasn't restarted since Friday or so!)


Edit: What do you know. Ten minutes after I posted that, Firefox crashed on its own, and the computer restarted right afterwards. The computer also restarted at least once more while I was in the shower! *sigh*

A surfeit of strawberries and smegma, oh my!

The Richmond Crew crashed at Eric's for a bit while we waited for him to finish making pasta salad - we got started on some birthday cards. I better remember to take the next batch to the June membership meeting, for sure! We joked around in the car about keg parties, saying "You're my boyfriend!" when K says he loves me next time (I did that just now, to some confusion), BCAA trucks, telling Eric that I loved him since it's one of those things you have to say to a significant other when you end a phone call with them (auto-pilot), and other things. Talked about training, Auntie Beatrice's proper English accent, the funeral tomorrow, the Parisienne, hockey, dinner on Tuesday (I'll see a lot of Pastor John - this past Friday, Sunday to Tuesday!), and more. Got to Jen's, and talked about smegma with Nathan / Jeremy / Jon / Eric - I have NO idea how that was brought up! We figured Chuck would know about the cheesy stringy discharge that's seen in uncircumcised children's foreskins, but this potential doctor didn't - Ivan did, as a general family doctor! Karen showed a distinct lack of listening skills when Auntie Beatrice was offering us coffee or varying kinds of tea (decaf, caffeinated, Earl Grey, chrysanthemum) - filtered water from the sink was NOT on that list, haha! (LISTENING 101, indeed!) Discussed Elaine's church in Hawaii - they have dancing in the aisles of the sanctuary!

Talked about dessert wine, being red, ice wine, vodka / Scotch and high alcohol content being good for storage, wine not good beyond a couple days after you open a bottle, special properties, Jen's sister Alison, Auntie Beatrice's interesting trips, tolerance, personality, Nate taking the fall when the room was silent, surgery, residency, not getting a lot of sleep, sparing Vania's innocence, Vania's cousin Christine getting active in IVCF in Victoria (Eric became a Christian there!), beer, Rail Ale, bitterness, India Pale Ale, hops, Steph's RCMP ambitions, Auntie Beatrice remembering my name and Eric's out of everyone's, Oregon being a forward-thinking city with free public transportation in the downtown core, and other subjects. The dachshund dog Hamlet was walking around, too - he's deaf, and Steph played "hard-to-get" with him. Once she was talking to the dog, and Nathan thought she was talking to Chuck - HAHAHA! It was an alcohol-fueled discussion on smegma based on what Nathan learned in his Biology 11 textbook, hahaha. Auntie Beatrice showed us some pamphlets on sexuality / culture / singleness talks being held at Tenth - it all sounds very interesting, and Jon's Michigan friend Matt is one of the speakers!

Watched the guys play Dutch Blitz, and got Jon to ask a favor of someone who was already washing strawberries. We took carrot cake / Nanaimo Bars / salad / other stuff home - the Irish stew was pretty good, for sure! Nathan had a washroom fiasco when Karen walked in on him as he was washing his hands - she's married, but at least he wasn't doing anything else! That reminded Steph of Moises Alou, who's publicly gone on the record as stating that he pees on his hands before games to make them softer so he can catch balls easier... EWWW! Discussed Dawn and her "maybe" response on the Evite - Auntie Beatrice opines that there's a generation gap with the nuances of "probably," "might," "possibly," and "maybe." (giving a reason, as opposed to "probably" meaning YES - set deadlines before MAYBE becomes a NO!) Sure, you might not treat a business partner like that, but we can do it to our friends for some odd reason! (then there were the politically-themed inscriptions in their guestbook - Jeremy wondered if he HAD to date his comment like everyone else did, haha!)

We talked about cocaine / heroin / speedballs / uppers and downers / crystal meth / a documentary Jeremy had seen about a woman who took differing strains of marijuana over thirty consecutive days. She decided to go back to alcohol as it was more predictable: the varying strains of pot had vastly different effects on her! (being giggly, being paranoid, being totally mellow, etc.) Chuck said that he was very sensitive to caffeine, and more so now as he was older. Jeremy says that he has to cut himself off at noon, otherwise he'll get jittery and can't be productive! One of his drivers may be on the green as he has a LOT of nervous energy, heh - the people I know who have been on it seemed very mellow! Cannabis can be interesting, that's for sure!

Eventually, people got going since they had to work - Jer took the day off, which is good. Auntie Beatrice congratulated me on my engagement - it's unofficial, but liking to talk a lot isn't a bad thing! As Jon was telling his friend on the phone earlier, it's technically not true, but it is in all but name. ("I haven't asked her yet, but...") Then he told us what his friend said: "If you become one of those boring married people whom I only see on Sundays [increasingly bound to happen to couples if they have kids], I'll go over to your house and SACK you!" Talked about epic hockey playoff overtime games (Dallas / San Jose), Dallas' stuff, saunas, white men, music, Sarah Swann's dad being a pastor, Steph's friend Hermia keeping in touch on birthdays only, Jessica Lam, underwear / Fruit of the Loom / Ms. Pellegrin and "cottage cheese in your vagina" (yeast infection description to a Grade 8 kid) / "moves" as "boobs" on the way home. ("I can't control my MOVES [when buzzed]" is NOT boobs! :P)

CRAP - THE RATS ARE BACK HERE AGAIN!

Incest perpetrators should be cut into pieces!

Man, the Internet Explorer on my mom's computer is frustrating. When it works, it's cool - when it doesn't, it takes FOREVER to get it working again on the wireless connection since it seems to KNOW when it's going to go kablooey! *mad*

My parents told me about how I could come over for the two weeks of their European cruise ("don't invite people over to stay under any circumstances!" - I'm not THAT stupid / disrespectful!), and said that the funeral for Vanessa's grandma is tomorrow at 10. I know my grandma is probably thinking when her turn will be, since her close friends are dying a lot lately. Later, Vanessa told me that her mom isn't taking it well... yeah, that happens even if you're kinda expecting it. =/

Talked to Auntie Esther before heading into church, and then said hi to Mei Lin - Julie's back too, yay! Discussed running / the gym / beer / homebrew / Jen's dinner tonight / Scrabble and online lookups / gum in Ziploc bags / the June membership meeting to affirm Phil as a pastor / asking the wrong people for gum / working / being tired / birthday wishes with Christon, Jeremy, Raymond, Danielle, Megan, Cindy, Grace, Johnny, and other people. I shared amusement when I discussed CAVING with people, haha. Waved to Joshua and Keenan, wished Karmie a happy anniversary, and told Bob to stop picking on his brother Heyman as his other brother Johnny slid under the pews to get to his spot. "The floor is clean!" Yeah... that's because YOU'RE cleaning it with your clothes, kid! During the sermon, Pastor John brought up the evil Amacon management "raising rent / renovation / evading law" techniques - my sibs pointed to me, and Grace / Phil asked me about it later.

In the back parking lot, Raymond and I discussed his afternoon plans of going to the gym, the Darfur rally last week after the Benjamin meeting, and his ambivalent feelings on the latter. Sheena, Chalaine, Christon, Lincoln, Karen, and I discussed zippers: Dylan said that the only zipper we could zip up would be on his fly, and we were SO not going there! Instead, Karen contented herself with her boyfriend's zippers, heh. Discussed Karen Choo, working, new jobs, meetings, birthday dinners, and more. Asked Eric if he'd heard me on the phone yesterday - sorta, but then it had to die. Oh well, I'd heard what he had to say in any event!

Said hi to Daniel, Stella, Benjamin, Kevin, and others. Wished Brian a happy birthday after his sister Julie said hi to me - he can always count on me to remember, for sure! Told Nathan that it would definitely be one of those good things said about me at my funeral.. his reaction was classic! "That's MORBID - what about at a birthday thing?" That too, but he knows what I mean! (we hugged Ricky hello again!) Facebook wall comments are convenient too, since it only takes two seconds to leave one, especially with reminders on your home page in the sidebar! J-Mak and Chalaine talked about GIRLICIOUS - I didn't know they watched that, just as I didn't know Lucas wrote visual poetry! (nothing wrong with that, haha - even I've written some!)

At Sunday School, Eric brought his little brother Arthur - there was another new kid, whose name is Watson (I refuse to acknowledge THAT as a first name! :P) - he's the son of Auntie Ping's landlady. After that, I played around with the kids in the basement - an uncle was scaring Christal, Wilson, Rosanna, Samantha, Gwyneth, and Evelyn. Went outside to talk to Jeremy, Jon, and others - Chris, Melia, and I noticed a crying Sean on the stairs, where his mom Ada was trying to talk him down. Eventually, he DID come down from the rail side - then I went to Pho with Grandma. She thought that I shouldn't have ordered Vietnamese coffee with my #24 (spicy noodles / pork hock / banana leaves) because "the only thing that goes with coffee is bread [subs]!" Then again, she tried another duck-based dish - #31 instead of #32!

I saw Karmie, Josiah, and Noah in the restaurant before Calla, Christon, Jeremy, Johnny, and another guy came in for a table. ("How can people get out if a store is closed?" "A back way, Noah!") Apparently, Big G thought I shouldn't have left her alone, but it's okay. Talked about reffing, basketball, baseball being boring for Josiah, golf being boring for me, Hannah being at her cousin's dance recital, our bills, what we'd had for lunch, vermicelli, and waiting around for the ministy re-alignment meeting to end. Shouted bye to Calla and the rest when I left, then talked to William at church about Facebook / Internet time / doing homework before he went to go talk to Darren near the drums. (when Darren went by with some hickory sticks, I hoped aloud that it wasn't his lunch!)

Ivan, Mike, Emily, and Stanley were talking about the Awana TruthScripts (Psalm 1 and 23) - I commented that my sister had told me even our mom had beat us to it! Mike was looking at the list trying to find her name, but we made fun of him since he couldn't find a name which was #5 or so, haha. We ribbed Pastor John because his daughter Hannah had beat him to it, while Ivan tried offering McDonalds fries to Noah - HE ran away since he's shy. I offered some Life Savers to Josiah, who said that it was okay. Melia came upstairs after some people had left. Discussed Chinese people having four characters to their names ("they're married!"), whoever Shun Kin Wong was (maybe one of my grandma's friends), how I should REPRESENT since I'm a secretary, little Ryan doing the verses already, Sarah / Mike having weird places on the list considering they recited it WAY early, Auntie May, Auntie Helen, change at Awana, losing kids, Fellowship, moving chairs to the new church, time changes, our not knowing Christon's Chinese name ("siu mai!"), Joey's surprise birthday dinner at the Lansdowne Earls tonight, and more.

When the meeting finally ended, I chose to go with the English-speaking car after Eric / Dylan told me about the lunchtime decision to have committee meeting tomorrow night by the fountain in Aberdeen. Fair enough for us Richmond people! Maybe Dylan's new girlfriend will force him to become more familiar with Richmond, unlike the time when we went to ping-pong and he had to ask for directions to #9 restaurant, haha. We discussed hockey, the Red Wings, dinner, the lards' cruise, offense, tomorrow's funeral, church stuff, the meeting, bringing yogurt and a flat of strawberries to Jen's, our grandma's ideas about food ("rice is only a dinner food!"), Johnny being surprised by our toughness (Jon did bop Andrea on the nose really hard once when he was running around at a CRU meeting - she hurt for the rest of the day!), and more.

Got home and promptly was invited to a dinner on Tuesday night - of course I'll go since it's Pastor John and his family! (being on time at 6 should be quite doable for me, heh) My grandma just confused a pear and a lemon, aiya! =/ (and she locked the bathroom door while exiting, oops) I'm also taking the rest of Dallas' stuff to consolidate it all in one place, which I actually don't mind. Heck, I *like* the "Whoa! Where'd all this stuff come from?" reactions I've been getting! :D (Mom, on that Austrian pervert who was found to have seven kids by his own daughter in a concrete basement: "They should cut him into pieces!" As Steph said, they should castrate him - we're talking about MEN and their sex drive here! He should at least be castrated!)

ZEE quirkiness! / ComedicSalmon

I played ZEE off Ron C.'s ZEE last night - how quirky! :D

Just posted a comment in Julie's journal listing seven songs I'm into right now, and BANG! I got Salmoned! YAY! :D


[08:42:19] ComedicSalmon: The factorial of 42 is 1405006117752879898543142606244511569936384000000000.
[08:42:33] AlenaBrolxFlami: Is it now?
[08:43:10] ComedicSalmon: Oh, this is one of those LJ things that get two strangers to talk, isn't it? I just got a message from you that said "The factorial of 42 is... "
[08:44:44] AlenaBrolxFlami: I got the same one as you, and you probably see my name as ComedicSalmon.
[08:45:01] ComedicSalmon: I do indeed.
[08:45:11] AlenaBrolxFlami: Yeah, it is... go look up t h e m i s s i n g h a t @ LJ.
[08:45:26] ComedicSalmon: Fascinating phenomenon. At least you're nicer than the other person this happened to me with. They just accused me of lying.
[08:45:37] ComedicSalmon: Which actually turned out to be rather humorous.
[08:46:17] AlenaBrolxFlami: I've been Salmoned a few times by now... and hatted a few times too.
[08:46:35] ComedicSalmon: Yeah, I had the hat last time.
[08:47:23] ComedicSalmon: All right... well, you have a nice day then. Sorry to inadvertently bother you.
[08:47:43] AlenaBrolxFlami: the Salmon are different... look up the thing I told you about, and go through the back entries... there is an actual project behind this
[08:47:51] AlenaBrolxFlami: you too... and that's okay
[08:47:54] ComedicSalmon: hm... all right, I will
[08:47:55] ComedicSalmon: thanks
[08:47:59] AlenaBrolxFlami: no problem