The Name Game

I'm not that good at remembering names of people and places, right? Well, for tonight:

• Donald,
• Chris,
• Megan,
• Carrie,
• Sarah,
• Dean,
• Fuse,
• Hapa Izakaya,
• and a girl that lived all over the US, relocating with her MLB boyfriend, before moving to LA, then Montreal, then Toronto, then Vancouver. Her name I never got to forget.
  

"Ryan"

I had a very pleasant purchase transaction this evening. It went something like this: "I'll just get you to sign here for your credit card purchase, Ryan." I really liked the personalized service that the sales clerk provided by taking the time to recognize my name on the card and then use it when he was dealing with me. It probably won't work for every salesperson, but this guy had a great conversational way of dealing with customers, so it was almost natural that you would want to be on a first-name basis with him.

Now, the poopy part of this story is that this transaction was at the downtown liquor store - the same store where I was (very) wrongly mistaken for one of that store's "regulars."

Good-bye Tuesday; hello Wednesday

On Monday night, I fell asleep watching the Black Donnellys. I am disappointed with myself. Now, I have to wait for the recap next week to find out if the older brother Donnelly had another run in with the Irish mobster, and if the younger brother Donnellys were able to collect money by filling in for the other mobster's booking agency. Apparently, I am not very good at staying awake when tired or remembering names.

On Tuesday night, I piddled away my evening by shooting up aliens (Caution: Do not follow the preceding link unless you have tremendous self-control and/or time to spare), watching this, and smoothing out the filler that I'm repairing my apartment walls with. I was too caught up with all of that to make dinner and instead, had the idea dropped into my mind that I could order food in and therefore, I did.

Tonight, I am seeing the Namesake with Alyssa at the Park Theatre.

St. Patrick's plumbing

My bathroom sink was draining very slowly, so yesterday I poured one-half bottle of liquid drain cleaner down the pipes. This cleared the clog, but it also caused a slow leak in the drain pipe below the sink. I believe that it caused a gasket seal to unseal or something. A trip to Home Depot, some plumber's putty, and a new gasket closed off this leak (though in addition to this shopping trip and all of these parts, it took over an hour of frustrating, slightly wet time to get this DIY project done). At the same time, I repaired the pop-up mechanism on the drain.

I had a plumbing problem with my kitchen sink on Thanksgiving 2005 with the drain getting clogged while preparing the dinner, and then replacing out the garbage disposal (which never worked from my move-in into the apartment) the following day. I never plan too much for the various holidays; however, home plumbing seems to be becoming an important part of how I celebrate.

Vector watch

Jumbo (850 g) packages for $6.98 each at Buy-Low Foods.

Only weirdos ride transit: The drinker

Date: Friday, March 16, 2007, am
Transit line: #84 westbound
Description of weirdo: Small Asian woman, middle-aged, with a red purse
Weirdo behaviour: When the bus came to a stop at Cambie St, the weirdo first paused, then dove into her purse in what appeared a frantic decision. I thought that she heard her cell phone ringing and wanted to answer it before her voicemail clicked in. Instead, she brought out a 1-litre water bottle, full, and drank the entire contents of this bottle in not quite a frat-boy chug, but in a controlled, high-speed drink. The weirdo exited the bus on West 4th Ave @ Fir St.
Conclusion: She was really thirsty or she is preparing to provide a urine sample.

Weirdo rating: One-third of a pickle in a pill bottle

Lazy dinner

The only descriptor I can use for tonight's dinner is "lazy."

One can of Chunky Chicken Noodle soup with a handful of egg noodles and a handful of spinach added, eaten with a bunch of crackers.

Ow!

Some of the material in this post may not be appropriate for all readers, especially those that are squeamish about eyes.

Last night, I threw out a piece of my eye into the garbage. Seriously. When I woke up this morning, I knew that something was not right with my right eye. It felt like there was an object on my eye. I couldn't seem to flush it out with water. I could see a strange shadow on the surface of my eye. I figured that I ripped my contact lens when I removed it last night and that a fragment was left on my eye. However, it was not coming off. That's when I decided that I better see a professional. What the doctor told me is that what was causing the pain wasn't something on my eye, but instead, the lack of the surface skin on my eye. This skin came off with my contact lens. Apparently, this is a known problem with single-use soft contact lenses - they stick onto the eye really well, making them very comfortable to wear, but they can stick so well that when removed they can rip off the eye surface!

The skin on my eye will regenerate within 24 hours. To prevent the constant scrubbing of the owie by my eyelid, I have a protective breathing contact lens in and I am applying eyedrops throughout today and tomorrow. On Monday, I will have my eye re-examined, but there isn't much concern at the eye clinic that this is a serious injury - just one that causes a dull bothersome itchiness, makes my eye look very bloodshot, and is disabling some of my sight this weekend.

YouTube Idol

I will admit that I'm a sucker for American Idol. I was hooked after seeing Kelly Clarkson beat out Justin Guarini to become the original Idol. I didn't pay that much attention to the Ruben/Claiken season, but was hooked to see Fantasia get crowned (and was hugely intrigued by that season's three diva showdown). I watched Carrie do her country-girl schtick to the end, but had no interest in the season that saw Taylor Hicks become the newest Idol. My favourites along the way that never won were Chris Daughtry and La Toya London.

In this newest season of American Idol, I haven't been regularly tuning into the broadcasts; however, there are two standouts in the one girls' night episode that I saw (and from what I've heard and read, the girls are far outclassing the boys). So, every Wednesday night or Thursday night now, I pop over to YouTube and check out the latest performances by Lakisha Jones and Melinda Doolittle. Lakisha's Whitney hit was great; Melinda's My Funny Valentine was fantastic.

Celebrate Research

Today I attended events being held for UBC's Celebrate Research. "Celebrating research touching lives and communities" was this year's focus for these celebrations.

A symposium presented by my Faculty was entitled "Controlling the Spread of HIV/AIDS: The African Challenge." A lot of intriguing ideas were brought forward by a diverse group of guests. Ms. Toun Ilumoka, a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law, spoke about how making inroads into the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa requires giving those nations the power to make decisions for their people. She suggested that power at a national or civic level is not helpful due to the struggles of the developing world, but that at the community level people need to be empowered to make the decisions that affect themselves. Dr. Deborah Burgess of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spoke of the challenges of developing and making available reliable and applicable diagnostic equipment, specifically for use in developing countries. Dr. Julio Montaner of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS closed the symposium that ran severely overtime. He presented a compelling set of data that showed HAART therapy to be effective and if implemented more extensively would lead to controlling the spread of the virus and its eventual eradication. He likened the investment to fund the widespread use of HAART in BC to be the mortgage down payment that needs to be made; to not make this investment is the unethical refusal to control HIV/AIDS, leading to unnecessary victims and extraordinary healthcare costs far into the future.

In the Celebrate Reseach Gala this evening, the over 400 researchers from or associated UBC that have received awards or recognition over the past year were officially celebrated by the university. The long program of award presentations was broken up by performances by the UBC Opera; an excerpt from the CBC documentary profiling Jasper Wood, "The Maritime Violin"; and the University Singers.

My, that is a thin frittata that you've cooked

Tonight I had my first feed of asparagus for the season. It was cooked into a frittata with tomato and cheese, mostly according to Giada's recipe with a few substitutions - there was no fontina in the fridge (not even in the far back corner!) so I subbed in asiago, and the egg carton only contained five eggs so that's all that went in. The other difference in my frittata versus Giada's frittata is that I cooked mine in a larger frying pan. That meant my frittata was thinner. No problem in terms of taste, but it didn't look quite the same as the photo. (Btw, the photo in her book makes it look much more appetizing than the photo posted online.)

Btw2, I like eating brunch at dinner-time.

Btw3, other things that I have done and want to do again with asparagus are to top salads with it, prosciutto wrapped and non-prosciutto wrapped.

Hawaii Five: The Reunion

A flu bug kept one at home resting, but the remaining Hawaii Four gathered on Sunday night for a potluck dinner. A great selection of food -- beer-soaked prawns, spicy poke ahi tuna, kale salad, a black-eyed pea and short-grain brown rice dish, a spinach-mango salad, with pecan pie to finish -- and great company made it a fun evening. Thank you, Jo-Ann, for hosting!

I also got my hands on copies of Ryan's (900+) photos from the trip. Browsing through these photos brings back lots of great memories of warm air and lots of relaxation. <Sigh...>

Where is Custard?

Poop, I left my iPod at home today. Rather than listening to tunes on my busride into campus, I had to listen to the louder-than-conversation-volume girl seated behind me talk at her friend about her brother and his new car stereo, the number of times she presses the snooze button on her alarm, and her favourite snacks.

I typically will gawk around the bus with a superiority attitude thinking that myTunes is a mix of pop music that is as sugary or more sugary, indie music that is as indie or more indie, and electronic music that has as deep a groove or a deeper groove than that of my fellow busriders. Today I gawked around with greedy eyes, wishing I was one of the people that was plugged in with the white earbuds.

Lolita's, Joe, and Mika

Had dinner at Lolita's tonight with Joe. Then I went to HMV and bought Mika's album.

Jule's, Tom, and Fred

Had dinner at Jule's last night with Alyssa. Tom Selleck was in the house. Alyssa made the ID on the looking-as-though-he's-had-a-recent-facelift actor. Then we went to look at the photos of the Herzog exhibit at VAG.