Jacob's Well is cool, man...

Hey, David L. added me to Facebook - sweet! Also, the Balloons application is or seems to be back. I'm glad I didn't delete it!

Jacob's Well was cool enough yesterday. They know my brother there, so Eric introduced me as "Jon's older sister." It's a nice place, with a good philosophy - lots of people in SRO hotel rooms are their friends. Got home and told Jon about the evening - Eric and I had been wondering where Jeremy was, so I figured he was at the jazz festival. Turns out that his parents are in town, which I'd forgotten about from Sunday night till now. Oops! I could hear Isabel, Nathan, and others in the background at the barbecue - sounded like lots of fun, playing rude Pictionary! (Harmony's heard of THE BELL JAR, for sure) Talked to Steph about Missions on Wheels, and about her dinner with Trish. She doesn't know what time she's going the next Sunday - oh well? Also had a FREE pomegranate bubble tea at Tazza earlier today - whee!

Leslie,
your name's Secret Meaning is...

"An Imaginary Bunny Rabbit"

What's your Name's Secret Meaning?
at QuizGalaxy.com

You are fun and unique.

Your parents should have named you...

Violet

What should your parents have named you?

at QuizGalaxy.com

Three siblings share birthday years apart / May 2008 BBT Tally

Bingos of the day so far:

GOODWIFE (84 points) - against Michael M.
ODDNESS (70 points) - against Matt H.
SUNGLASS (77 points) - against Matt H. [different game]


MONTHLY BUBBLE TEA TALLY, MAY 2008

strawberry-pineapple @ Tri-Ty (Wednesday, May 7)
mango-lychee (and coconut jelly) @ Dragon Ball (Sunday, May 25)


There's been a sixth severed foot found washed up on BC coasts - man alive! Hey, I can play Scrabble at the library now - unlike LAST time! This is cool. Maybe I'll see if I can borrow NAKED LUNCH and THE BELL JAR, too! (Steph better give me back that wedding MC book by Sunday since I kinda need to return it before it's due!)


Here's something from my ArcaMax Weird News:

Three siblings share birthday years apart

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (UPI) -- Three Florida siblings all share a June 13 birthday despite being born years apart, one of their parents notes.

Billy Etkin of Hollywood said all three of his children were born June 13 -- including his new daughter Ana who was born this year -- the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

The 36-year-old, whose wife is still recovering from the recent birth, said the June 13 births of his 5-year-old son Foster and his 2-year-old daughter Sarah have made the date lucky.

Etkin said his children's birth dates were not planned and expects it'll be crazy when all three birthdays are celebrated on the same day.

"I'm looking forward to them getting older and really appreciating it," Etkin told the Sun-Sentinel.

I like this sort of stuff... reminds me of the twins / sextuplets family, too! Emily L. and Mike K. watch the show a LOT - I should too, with my interest in those things!

Let's have multiple desserts while laughing at email proof!

While driving to Golden Ocean, my mom told my sister and me about yoga and how the stretching kinda hurt her. Steph said that it was good, and that I myself should take charge of my health - for sure! My parents' friend Alan joined line dancing and ballroom dancing, but Mom doesn't think Dad would do that... Steph thinks he should, just to keep Mom company. That would be an interesting sight, heh. Grandma offered me cherry Craisins in the back seat, so I took them to humor her.

Turns out that Jon got to the restaurant three minutes before we did, and was trying to figure out our reservation. Uncle Eric had reserved our table at 6:30 instead of 6. Mom's reaction? "I'M GOING TO KILL HIM! GIVE ME YOUR PHONE!" When Uncle Eric and Auntie Brenda showed up later, he had printed out the email as proof of the time he reserved the table for! Hahahaha, we all thought it was pretty hilarious! Then again, Erin's dad knows my mom pretty well: if he hadn't, they'd be arguing all night about it! But my mom accused him of changing the email anyhow, haha.

Talked about wedding planning: Alan and Tracy are definitely getting married next June, and Erin and Ben should have a destination wedding (OTTAWA!) to save money! Steph thinks that everyone should save the date of September 1, 2012 for HER own wedding - that is, if she ever finds a boyfriend! We always ribbed each other in good fun! Then our family got to sit back and observe the Chews try to sort out multiple family dinners - HAHAHAHA! "I thought that dinner was on Friday! No, it's on Saturday! Wait, there's some other dinner on Thursday..." (we talked about Hon and Eva's multiple wedding rehearsals - SIX?! - before Grandma almost fell down the outside stairs since they were the same color - good thing Mom was a step ahead of her!)

We had ourselves a very amusing family dinner while talking about how we'd roast Erin at her wedding banquet and such, haha! The younger set went to Dragon Ball later, where the lady thought that Jon was a strange and good customer - we met Kristen there! (Ivan got a strange combo last time he was there, and Jon got papaya / pineapple / peppermint... I stuck with lychee / Chinese pear. We didn't want soap, garlic, soya sauce, peanut butter, and pearls together! Discussed no Grouse Grind, too.) After that, we went to Erin's place. Overhearing conversations is funny, too... "Grace said that she and Phil were kinda busy when Melia knocked on their door during a family vacation.... EW, HAHA!" Melia doesn't know how Grace expects her to react to this TMI! (she's her SISTER-IN-LAW!) Some people are way too open about this sort of stuff, hahaha... now they're recalling that Thanksgiving 2006 dinner where we had to define "libido" for Mom. HAHAHA!

Just like Dilys, there can only be one SHIMMER!

Bingo of the day so far:

GLADNESS (83 points) - against Pat K. [on a triple-word score]


At least I know what to do now!

Michael M. played ZA off my ZAS - yay for quirkiness!

Steph saw Alan's cousin Shimmer at her physical - haha, there can only be one person with that name out there! Yup, she goes to Alan's church and looked familiar to him. Speaking of people looking familiar, I saw Brock from Seaport on the bus coming over to the townhouse. I didn't say anything to him, but it was fine!

Since I need to get Hanson out of my head, I loaded up Children of Bodom on Youtube. Barely a minute into the song, my mom made a moue of distaste. Twenty seconds later, she asked me in a horrified tone of voice: "What kind of music is THIS?!" Then I had to laugh a lot, which Mom was afraid would wake Steph up. Hahahaha! A bunch of Matthew Good (Band) videos are no longer available, so I'll go with the Smashing Pumpkins instead for now - DISARM, 1979, and more... here we come! Mom, on TONIGHT TONIGHT: "Is it a kids' song?" Um, not exactly... o_O

Asked my mom why she was looking up cemeteries in Surrey, since I saw graveyard-related stuff on her desk. Grandma's talking about death now, so wants Mom to look into it. At least she's kinda open to discussing the subject - her friends have been dying a lot recently, so that'll do it.

Talking to Corey about antenna boosters made of cardboard and foil, which do absolutely nothing in terms of bettering a wireless connection. He suggested the Cramps before he went to get his hair all cut off - time for a shower to get the annoying loose hair on the back of your neck OUTTA THERE, baby!

Corey says: well, tell it to work better
Corey says: you can do what I did and make an antenna booster out of cardboard and foil and then watch as it does absolutely nothing! :P
Flami says: hahaha, sure
Corey says: I had my wireless connection fixed in my room (I have a second router in my room that operates as a bridge... basically, it just gets the signal from the other router (wirelessly), and then passes it on to other computers, but they have to be on a network cable. that works WAY better than the antenna on my laptop
Corey says: I did that to get my Xbox 360 online without spending $100 for Microsoft's wifi adapter, which is ridiculously expensive, but it also fixed the wireless connection to my laptop, which was a nice bonus
Flami says: hey, that does sound like a cool bonus!
Corey says: so go buy extra wireless routers that are flashable to DD-WRT firmware, and have them talk to each other to give you a better signal :P
Corey says: I also learned a bunch of ways to break someone's arm today (I haven't gotten to the leg and neck stuff yet), so if you need anyone's arm torn out of their socket, let me know

Grandma, on hearing me laugh at the above lines: "What happened that's so funny? Did you find your FRIEND?" No, I didn't... it's too complicated to explain to her anyhow. :P

A random port night sounds really good!

At Father's Day dinner on Sunday, we talked about feisty crab - it was still fighting when Mom took its shell off! No wonder there were broken claws! We discussed memorable names in sports: Homer Bailey, Albert Pujols (pronounced "poo holes"), Milton Bradley, Coco Crisp, Angus Reid, etc. Steph retaught Mom how to email pictures using Outlook, which my brother and I have never used before. On the way home, the ug randomly invited me to port night at Jeremy's - since I'm always up for a good time these days, I accepted. Fielded calls from Jon H. and Nathan on the way there: why am I not surprised that my brother left a durian bar at Nathan's?

Jeremy used his favorite CHIMAY mug - I like its shape! Tony called Jon to say that he wouldn't be coming... too bad, since he missed out on a hilarious discussion related to funny names for Jon and Harmony's future children! "The middle name has to start with a P! How about Phineas? It has to be German! Hmm... Hertz P. Ng!" "She says that she's never talking to you guys again!" "Spidergirl? Spiderlady? Nah, it would be weird calling a two-year-old girl LADY, and you can't call a forty-year-old woman GIRL..." "Spiderette!" (me) "Hey, that's a good one!" (Jon H.) Then Nathan broke out his videocamera to record dedications to Eric H., who he'll be seeing shortly in Hong Kong. When he told me to sing the teapot song OR Sunday School songs, I went with a Barney the Dinosaur impression: "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family..." That got laughs from the guys, haha. They said I was wise when I mentioned Fay, not missing / forgetting us, and doing it for her if not for us! It's good to have positive attention and affirmation. :)

We hung out in Jeremy's room for a bit to discuss the international jazz festival, various acts, and his parents coming down that weekend. (Cowboy Junkies, Improv Power Play, etc. Choose accessible acts at cheap or free prices, dude!) Jeremy mentioned banking another day off, and then remarked that there were beers with 20% alcohol - that is CRAZY! Jon H. noticed the Linux penguin by Jeremy's bed, and remarked that it wasn't even of his FAMILY! Jeremy told him that it was embroidered (which I hadn't noticed before), and that he had to do it for art class. Discussed middle names, initials, amusement, and more prior to Jon H. and Nathan leaving. Good thing Nate didn't turn purple! That was definitely a good time!

Yesterday, I had to correct my mom's grammar. Steph overheard, and reinforced the concept that "me and ___" is wrong by telling her that her grammar was horrible! At least she hasn't confused hugging with making out recently! (now THAT was an awkward conversation...) I'll see Erin, Derek, Darren, and their parents tonight at dinner, so it'll be GOOD TIMES!

Grandma will scold you if you don't have "manners," you know!

At church, I met Jeremy's cousin Justin - then I talked to Raymond about yesterday's happenings. THE PRODUCERS sounds like good times, with Calla / Johnny / Martin and snacks! Said hi to Grace, who wanted to go to the beach on Car-Free Day... it's great weather! Raymond and I laughed over Jon's "confusion" while introducing Phil as his friend: are you SURE he's your friend?! Later, Jon said that he was going for a word like "colleague." (Christon went to Vegas, and is starting a new job tomorrow!) Speaking of confusion, we were all a bit like that when Phil started his sermon since he said he was someone else and had four kids. Grace said to warn people that he was doing this, but Pastor John said to go straight into it - yikes! Angus and Melia did their wedding announcement, and were confused about the time!

Saw the kids in the back parking lot - they're so cute! Joshua dropped an orange star on the ground, oops. Talked to Karen about her pregnancy, and Anita thought that it would be a great thing that we'd hopefully have more space at the new church: thirteen or fourteen kids already, and three more in October, oh my! (you can't stop them from moving or making noise after a certain age...) Frances gave me a thank-you card with pictures of Micah, Nicholas, and Gabriel inside: YAY! Bantered with the kids about rocks, talked to Johnny about his week, and looked for Alan / Kevin to no avail. Said hi to baby Allison, and told Danielle about this hilarious laundry video - she's now seen it, and thinks it's very amusing! :D

After Sunday School, I talked to David / Auntie Ping / the kids. Eric came down to the basement, and told me to control the kids - their moms were there, so I didn't have to! Jeremy and I talked about flavored water usually meaning JUICE - if he serves that at the next Sunday Dinner, we'll figure that his culinary skills have gone WAY downhill, and never grace his apartment with our presence again! (haha) Talked to Ian and Sean about gummi bears, Goldfish, raisins, and more - Priscilla and Samantha also wanted some gummi bears, so they got it.

Outside, Eric recognized the Chinese words for "Louis Garden," so we jokingly invited him for lunch! Told Natalie that she had the same jacket as my brother - she gave me a Natalie look, and was NOT impressed! Saw Gabriel at Mui's, and Chung / Karen / Uncle Y.C. later! Discussed crab, lobster, cost, City Fresh, rings, Harmony, Holly, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, WALK THE LINE, wedding planning, auspicious dates, and more. Laughed when Grandma didn't have anywhere to go when we went out of the car - the tree was in the way, heh. Steph and I quickly went to City Fresh to buy some crab: only $17.63, yay! Danielle and Vanessa came over to the townhouse later to discuss Cindy's brother's wedding / dresses / "scandal" / Grandma's potentially scolding us for "no manners" (slippers!) / ironing / steaming / Viva Java coffee / fake rings / Minoru Chapel / allergies / proposals / Citrus leaving / registries / hiding / colors.