amazon t-shirt

Got a free t-shirt from Amazon.com today...nice surprise. :-) I've been an Amazon.com associate for a while. Pretty good deal so far. I stick up some HTML links for their books on Inkspot, and I earn a few hundred bucks U.S. (and that's like $1000 Cdn, right? :-)) every few months with virtually no effort.

Went to a dim sum restaurant in Scarborough today with Jeff, Andy, Andrew, and Mark. The food was good, but we had to wait nearly an HOUR for a table, sheesh. If any of you haven't had a dim sum experience before, you should definitely go looking for one. Basically, carts full of small dishes are wheeled past your table, and you pick and choose which ones you want. The waiters all tended to announce the contents of the dishes in Chinese to ME when they got to our table since (1) I was the only Asian at the table, and (2) they assumed I could therefore speak Chinese. Funny thing is, each time I felt more and more embarrassed that I couldn't speak Chinese (and my background is JAPANESE, which I can't speak anyway). The others were highly amused, the cads.

Going out with Allison and Jodi tonight to see "You Have Mail"!

you've got mail

COLD outside! Nose-numbing weather.

Had lunch with Bryan Fullerton (my sys admin) at Golden Thai today. We always have the same thing...he has the pad thai plate, I have the seafood appetizer. Kept my hands cupped around a cup of ginger tea (highly recommended on a day like this!)

One more day left of 1998. I feel as if I should be doing important, retrospective stuff, making New Year's resolutions, reviewing the year. But I'm not. :-)

Had fun with Allison and Jodi last night. Went for dinner at Bayview Village, saw You've Got Mail. Fun flick, though none of us thought the ending was exactly right.

end of year

Questions that 4-yr-old Sara asked my sister yesterday:

"Do things always end?"


"Does the sky ever end?"

Wandered into the old Bakka store yesterday, or rather, where Bakka used to be. Except it wasn't Bakka anymore, it was filled with glittery dresses on racks and Boxing Day sale sweaters. The sales clerk was on the phone with a friend, complaining about the cold. I didn't stay very long.

Hey, Furbies might be banned in some Toronto hospitals! Turns out they might interfere with some life-support systems.

Jeff worked late again last night, didn't come home until after midnight. I brought Thai food over for Jeff and coworker Rick. I got to try homemade mead (Rick made it!) for the first time. It was great! Not what I expected at all. I had thought mead would be sticky-sweet, heavy. Instead, it was sort of like drinking a summer afternoon. Sunlight and honeysuckle.

What will 1999 bring, I wonder?

Speaking of which...make predictions for the year 1999 in blatherchat! I'm going to dig up last year's predictions and see how we all fared.

joke

Got this joke from Jeff (who got it from someone at work)...


A man was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him
and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent
over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke
up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful
princess, I will tell everyone how smart and brave you are and how
you are my hero." The man took the frog out of his pocket, smiled
at it, and returned it to his pocket. The frog spoke up again and
said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I
will be your loving companion for an entire week." The man took the
frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to his pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a
princess, I'll stay with you for a year and do ANYTHING you want."
Again the man took the frog out, smiled at it, and put it back into
his pocket.



Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told
you I'm a beautiful princess and that I'll stay with you for a year
and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The man said,
"Look, I'm a computer programmer. I don't have time for a
girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool!"


randvisit

Fun weekend! I really needed it, too, after my work schedule these past few weeks. Rand visited on Friday and got to meet my sister and her two daughters (Sara-3 yrs old, Annie-11 months). He even played a couple of tunes for them. Annie's favourite Ookla tune is "AGED"...she was bopping up and down to it by the end of the visit (and didn't even spit up on him). Sara seemed a bit shy during the visit, but apparently asked my sister tonight (my family came to our place for our dinner), "Is Auntie Debbie's friend going to be at the apartment?" Ruth replied, "You mean Rand? No, he's not. He doesn't live near here." After a moment, Sara said, "I like Rand."

Did Inkspotstuff in the afternoon, then drove to Thornhill to have dinner with Allison, John, and Jodi. A & J & I opened up our Christmas packages from the Allcocks (we weren't allowed to open them until all three of us were present, and one of the packages had been held up at Customs 'til last week)...cool stuff, including Jelly Belly t-shirt & fan club registration form, interestingly edible paints, sushi fridge magnets, three boxes of Walker's chocolate-covered ginger cookies, other stuff we're saving for a future practice. Thank you, Lissa and Phil!!!!

On Saturday, I hung out at Rand's library (his last day at work! he starts a new job tomorrow) and bugged him all day. I actually got work done, too. Went to a concert by a band called Special Ed in Rochester in the evening (had two members of Rand's old band, Omega Beat), got home very late. Luis was supposed to go, but had to cancel at the last minute. :-( Adam had to go to Ohio that day, but I did get to talk to him on the phone for a bit and hear one of his new songs (which made me laugh so hard I was afraid of the library patrons hearing me and getting me KICKED OUT OF THE LIBRARY just kidding about the eviction part, not about the laughing).

Had brunch the next morning with Tanya and Rand (tried stuffed grape leaves for the first time! very yummy), took the bus home.