Trudging back to Uni....

....to get my UPass and textbooks. In the middle of first-year orientation.

It really warms my heart to see them in the bookstore, HAPPILY buying EVERY single textbook on their list, and then proceeding out the doors with 2 large, bulging, incredibly heavy, yellow UoA bags. Just like me in my first year. And then like me, at the end of the year, you realize that half of those books are still in their original plastic wrapping, with nary a fingerprint on them, and the other half were opened because that's where the prof gets his/her homework questions from. Ahh.....

I ended up buying only one book.....

Anyways, on my way to CAB to get breakfast, I went through quad, and ironic enough, I got stuck in the middle of an engineering group. xD The one odd thing this year was....THERE WERE NO CHEERS! Whaaaa? Maybe I wasn't out long enough....but I didn't hear a single faculty cheer while I was on campus. Huh. I wanted to hear the nursing one. :(

Fixed the Router

You may have won the battles....

....but I won the war.

:D

"Sorry, it's sold out."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

That was yesterday night at Scotiabank Theatres....when I went to buy tickets for District 9. Gwarjgkhghjkf. Sigh. We have rescheduled to Sunday....at least there's a chance that Ameel and Viet will come now :D But yeah...major-ass bummer for me. Bleh. Second fail on my part? We should've watched G.I. Joe instead....but we went home and watched the Shawshank Redemption again. Damien's never seen it before though. Andy Dufresne = ownage.

So....has anyone seen the ads for a game called "Evony?" They usually go like this:

"Help! Save the Queen!" *insert boobage here*
"Start your journey now, my Lord" *insert image with more cleavage here*
"Save Your Lover!" *woman with eyes closed looking sexy*

Now, at first I found it slightly amusing. Ads aimed at male audiences obviously. But now it's getting annoying. Really annoying. It's everywhere! Ahh! This game used to be called Civony, and it wasn't difficult to find that they've recieved some thrashing for these ads. Apparently at one point the ads were seriously just a pair of breasts. Guwarhghhgh. Dx Go away ads~~~

Why am I on sites with these ads anyways? Actually it's failblog.

>>> failblog.org <<<

I've finally finished reading/watching the entire archive today. Now to sit back and read the daily updates.....and move onto todaysbigthing. Both sites are good if you want some laughs. Gogo!

Mmmmrrah?

Mmm, I'm not a good blogging person. Namely, because I get lazy, and because I usually don't have anything interesting to say. Oh, I suck at telling stories too. Dx

Anyways! I've been "away" for some time now...due to 3 things:

• Camping
  
• Britain mates
  
• Iphone <-- hell yeah

So first up, camping on the weekends. Not much to say, usual slacking around the campsite type business. The first weekend consisted mostly of me and sister painting our Warhammer figures for 7 hours straight...then taking a short break and resuming. Second weekend was me playing and finishing (yay!) Professor Layton and the Curious Village on the NDSL, lent to me by Ameel. I haven't finished the bonuses yet though, so I'll be hanging onto it for a little longer. Sorry! I've had it for like half a year now....

Britain friends! Gyn and Shen, wife and husband, have decided to move to Canada from London, England. They've been living with us for the last 2 weeks or so. They. Do. Not. Procrastinate. Not for one minute. It's been pretty hectic with them around, in a gogo! kinda way. Most of my time was spent talking to them and answering their questions about living here. Gyn is studying in Red Deer next term and they moved to their new place yesterday. Whew. I like their life attitude, but I need a breather every now and then.

Finally, IPHONE. Ahhhh sexy. Black sexy. Fortunately for me, one of the girls at the Fido kiosk was new, and in return for giving her an "A+" on her customer satisfaction survey, I got a free cover with my phone. It's blue! Plans for buying a cover online goes out the window here. I'm still thinking about getting a skin though....but yes. Apps apps. More specifically game apps. Haha, my sister plays more than me actually. Very happy with it though. :D *stroke stroke*

I can't find my camera....and sis has my iphone when I'm not using it, so no pics! Of anything!

Here's my plan for the week:

• Wed, 19th, watch District 9 @ 7:20 pm @ Scotiabank Theatres (wem)
• Fri, 21st, Viv's bday partay!
• Sat, 22nd, St. Albert Farmer's Market in the morning, then Fringe Festival after?

Oh, I want to visit Southgate some time too....must get drivers so I can go out without bothering people for rides....

Fondue...?

:D Apparently the Chiews enjoyed the fondue at Grizzly House enough to buy a fondue pot thing. Pretty sweet. I went over Wed (Aug 5th, '09) to try and recreate the mushroom fondue we had tried. Unfortunately, it was kinda fail xD The batter and the cooking oil we deep fried the mushrooms with were "probably" wrong. Probably as in we aren't really sure either.

Recipe you ask? Slightly non-existant xD The theory now is that the cooking oil probably should've been butter...seems explanatory. Our batter was coming out light yellow and it's supposed to be golden brown. Butter can make things....golden-brown! After thinking about it when I got home though, how do you deep fry things in....butter? Yes, yes, it's possible but slightly difficult depending on what butter you use since you need such a high temp for deep frying. You kinda need to take into consideration the smoke point of the butter (the temp at which a fat/oil breaks down and starts to smoke = unusable). At least, that's what I know....and I can't cook so I'm probably wrong Dx

The batter on the other hand was soaking in the oil like a sponge. Hey, that's fixable, just let it sit on some paper towels for a bit. Or so I thought. Once I poked my fork into one, a stream of oil would goOoOoosh out. Ahrhghghg. Oh well. It was fun experimenting with the batter. And the mushrooms were pretty yummy. It'll be better next time. CHOCOLATE FONDUE next time! Go go! :D

~
I. Hate. Routers.
Seriously.

A long time ago, someone set up the one I have now. It's unsecure (no pass to connect) and I can't seem to add other machines to it. That someone apparently gave us the wrong password to the router as well. Being an idiot with these things, I never thought of resetting the damn thing. Soooo I bought another one. D-Link. Problem? There was a DEFECT in the one I bought. So after learning that no, the D-Link wasn't working because I'm dumb, but because it's already messed up, I sent it back for a replacement. Problem? When they sent it back, they NEGLECTED to return the installation CD and manual. Oh. My. God. But that's okay, really, I just need to plug in these cables I have here and yay. But no. It still doesn't work. Called customer support and they sent me on a silly goosehunt on things I've done already, but I didn't really mind cuz it's difficult to trouble shoot if you can't see the problem in front of you. After hanging up and downloading what they told me to. It still doesn't work. I've half a mind to just reset the old one and try it but I'm afraid of screwing everything up. Plus the new router is much, much better. If it would only work. Bleh. Customer support, here I come again....tomorrow....maybe....

On another note...IPHONE. Arrhghghgh. I shall call Telus (yes ew) tomorrow to see what I can do with my current plan. So much calling! My bank also failed to send my documents to the Investment Line company so I had to call them too Dx Anyways, I'm going with Fido....plan will probably cost me $55 monthly. There's a sweet data plan offer right now: 1 Gb for $30 is now 6 Gb for $30. Ohhh mans, how do you not take that? I was working on laptops all day today, isolated from my coworkers because my workstation only had one working ethernet cable....which got me sent away elsewhere. Technically if I went nuts I can probably do 5+ laptops at once, so meh, I took this opportunity, and kept one laptop on the bench to browse whenever I had some downtime. I pretty much looked at iphone plans, covers, and skins all day. But....if I get a cover...skins are redundant....or should I just get a skin...hmm. Going to compile a list of the stuffs I want to pimp it out with. HELP ME DECIDE GUYS. :DDD

Yes, I really want this goddamn phone.

Round 2 = Destroyed Again

So. The me-sun relationship is not going very well. This time I got raped in the face. At Heritage Days. Blargh.

We did the Park & Ride thing this time from Calder. Got there around 12 noon, left at 5. We ended up buying 120 tickets....body count: Me, sis, mom, Connie, Gyn, Shen. The last 2 are friends from Britain who moved here. They're staying with us until they find a house they'd like to buy.

Guess we should've told them we're treating, lol, cuz Gyn bought 30 for her and her husband. 150 tickets! Plus everyone besides me and sis ate before they came! Durrrrrr. Lots of yummy stuffs though...I'll know what to FATTEN Damien up with next year! (He had to work today =/) Things were pretty expensive...but in the end like every other year, you kinda forget about it and just blow tickets on everything. In the end Connie found her family and left the party. Shen was constantly leaving the party and rejoining. And in the end it turns out he didn't have much to eat Dx Ai yah. I had already given my remaining 33 tickets to Andi and Gyn had 3 left. He bought a chocolate banana with that. lol. mmm.

Most notable performances we saw were the Japanese drumming, Kenjutsu, and Lion Dance....most notable cuz we're already biased to think that they're gonna be super awesome. And they were! Yayyy. Drumming was interesting. The beat is very simple and repetitive, but they have a lot more SEXY movements which makes it a nice balance. Kinda the direct opposite of ours. I love Japanese weaponry. Kenjustu was a pleasure to watch, but it's much too ritualistic for me to try out. VJ prefers European weaponry, so she enjoyed the Wales perfomance more, though it was more comedy than actual proper use of the weapons.

Lion Danceeeeee. White leopard skin lion with red eyesssss. *Drool* Must resist urge to....rejoin?! I don't know yet. Blarhggh. I had already suspected that 2 months off would be enough time to cool me down but mmm. Don't know.....

Anyways. Going backwards! Trip with Damien and family to Banff!

Went with all the little cousins, and grandpa came this time too =D Car ride there = sleep. Lots. I always feel sleepy in a vehicle, except when I'm driving of course. I need to untrain myself from doing that. Hmm lets see.....what did we do again.....?

Oh! River. I can't remember what it's called atm. haha. The one you always go see when you go to Banff....durr....someone help me out here :P Went on the trail there a little bit with 2 little ones in tow. After that we went to a garden....I'm really horrible with remembering places I've been to and what they're called Dx We didn't go very far though; only the front section that overlooks Banff. Everyone agreed that in the resulting picture, the background looked very fake. Very odd. Haha.

After that was town shopping! One of my coworkers had recommended the "Grizzly House" in Banff for fondue. VJ, me, Damien, Ameel, and their mom came with for eats, while the kids wanted McDonalds. Since we didn't want the fast food crew to wait too long, we ordered appetizers only.

• Ameel - escargot and cheese fondue


• Damien - french onion soup and escargot


• EJ - mushroom fondue


• VJ - caesar salad (she wanted my fondue but felt bad for not ordering something)

VJ and I had tried cheese fondue already in a tavern in Switzerland during our Europe trip. This one had a stronger taste of wine. The mushroom fondue was awesome though. Man! I'm definitely going back just to try every dish. They're pretty expensive but come on: alligator, shark, eel, dog, cat, gerbil, ostrich....a ton of exotic stuff. The only complaint I have is this- they have a phone by every table, and they wouldn't stop calling us!! Let us eat! The only important detail was where the washroom was and the free dog/gerbil fondue tasters. Except those never came cuz VJ got confused and told the person it was already on the table.

After that was just shopping through the town....not much, same old tourist things in most shops. We went to check in at our "cottage" after that. Not sure what it's called. Written tour! Right after walking in the door is a bedroom with a double-sized bed, then in the room after is the kitchen stuff on the right, bathroom with shower on the left. Next room is the living room with a fireplace, balcony, tv, and stairs. Up the stairs is one large room with another tv a King-sized bed (it fits 3....is that right?) and a washroom. No shower =( The kids family had another building to themselves.

Now the plan is obviously, parents in the front room, 3 chicks upstairs, and Damien on the couch in the living room. Then we found out that the couch was a sofa-bed! Hmm. Surprisingly, and I really say surprisingly, Ameel's mom kept saying, "you guys figure out the sleeping thing yourselves." She spoke in Chinese of course, and that's my crappy translation, but yeah! The new obviously now is...parents same, Ameel and sis upstairs, me and Damien on couch. Really. Surprising.

Anyways, after that we were just chilling and waiting on dinner @ 7. Damien decided to do a quick rinse....*insert hilarious moment here* lmao =) I won't post it. Dinner was at Bumpers. Their slogan was, "If you haven't been to Bumpers, you haven't been to Banff!" Remember that guys! Salad bar style restaurant. Soooo goooood. I managed to survive to dessert too =D I'm getting so fat. No LD, hap, lots of vacationing and food.

Kids were tired after so they headed home to sleep. The rest of us went to check out Spring Hotel. It's nice up there, but so high-class. Eep. They just ended a conference when we got there and there were guys in suits and ladies wearing formal wear everywhere....while we were in t-shirts, shorts/capris, and sneakers. Kinda awkward haha. We couldn't get to most areas because it was late and cuz of the conference I assume. It was dark when we left. And we were kinda lost for a bit. But we finally made it alive back to our accomodations for the night. We all took turns for showering and crashed. Not sure what time it was....11? 12?

Best. Night. Ever. I kept waking up during the night but I wasn't tired in the morning. We left the glass, balcony door opened a bit and everytime I woke up I could hear the wind coming through it. I just watched "The Happening" the weekend before, and it sounds EXACTLY the same, but the sun was rising and we had a view of the Rockies so it wasn't freaking me out. Pretty calming actually. Plus everytime, Damien was there :D ahhh. At one point he woke up, turned to hug me, then mumbled, "I dreamed that there's a moose in the lawn." and fell asleep again. lol.

I'm lazy. So have fun with reading the text spam. No pictures! Ameel was the camera-woman. I'm not competing with her. Too crazy and much more pro than me. :P Oh! I did take one of me and Snookie, a gift from Damien. :D Ameel! Let me know when the pics are up! Must STEAL 8D