Shopping

All children, except one, grow up

Suffice it to say, today was a great deal more invig­or­at­ing than I had expec­ted. After a late start to the day (break­fast — or brunch, more appro­pri­ately), I headed off to the theatre to watch Despicable Me with L and A. Having bought our tick­ets (and then vacil­lat­ing whether or not we wanted to sit in a dark, empty theatre so as to save the best seats), we headed in and claimed our Real 3D glasses.

I’m hav­ing a bad, bad day
If you take it per­sonal, that’s okay
Watch, this is so fun to see
Huh, despic­able me.
– Pharrell, “Despicable Me”

The movie, by all means, was great. The story was fun, the humour well-​timed and (gosh darn it!) the orphan girls were so sweet! This makes me think that every­one ought to be forced to care for the young. Perhaps we’d have less vil­lains that way? Behind our seats, a whole row was reserved for (what we assumed) was a birth­day party. Hearing the chil­dren giggle with glee behind us wasn’t as annoy­ing as I might have ima­gined — it was quite fun to have them behind us! (Too bad L was thwapped on the head by an overzeal­ous child…)

After a rather long jour­ney to pro­cure a screen pro­tector for A’s (new!) BlackBerry Bold 9700, we wandered over to Chapters where we dis­covered, much to our mutual pleas­ure, that we could have din­ner together. We ate at The Boss (where I learned that I don’t actu­ally know how to order beef in Cantonese…how do you indic­ate how well-​cooked you want the meat?!).

Once full, we left the res­taur­ant to a rap­idly clos­ing mall. We wandered over to a water foun­tain out­side to won­der what we could do. I sug­ges­ted we take a stroll in Central Park (des­pite my great fears of creep­ers run­ning amok in the wooded areas). Off we went.

After dodging incom­ing golf balls from the pitch-​and-​putt and trekking through the verd­ant trees, we sat on a bench and noticed two people appar­ently shout­ing at one another. Perplexed, we gazed on to notice a man in a blue cape yelling to some people fur­ther away. Nosily, we inched closer and closer until…we noticed that it was a pro­duc­tion! Outside! In the park! For free!

All children, except one, grow up 35878 1283880990539 1635540069 645313 746012 n 300x225

Enthralled, we found ourselves sit­ting on the grass (and swat­ting away the copi­ous amounts of vam­piric mos­qui­toes) and try­ing to unravel the storyline. As it turns out, it was a pro­duc­tion of Neverland: Beginnings by Rainforest Theatre, a small local com­pany. We watched with glee as Peter Pan was nearly wed­ded to the daugh­ter of the pir­ate king and as we learned how Captain Hook gained (lost?) his eponym­ous append­age. With subtle amuse­ment, we gazed on as one over­ex­cited child-​spectator inched closer and closer to the act­ors until he was actu­ally sit­ting within the action, gaz­ing upward and ask­ing, “Can I see that?!”

I found it so magical that serendip­ity (and, admit­tedly, a reluct­ance to return home to do read­ings for ENGL 468) led us to a the­at­rical pro­duc­tion in the ancient pulse of germ and birth. I thought I had encountered some­thing out of Midsummer Night’s Dream! (But of course not. My appoint­ment to see Henry V is this Friday.)

It is some indic­a­tion of my great love for the theatre but I adored the way the act­ors inter­ac­ted with the audi­ence and with their sur­round­ings. With little more than some light cos­tum­ing, they cre­ated a world into which their children-​spectators could be drawn by sheer cha­risma. And what is a more nat­ural set­ting for a the­at­rical pro­duc­tion than the forest?

The play fin­ished and every­one dis­persed. We headed over to P’s house to play poker briefly before I was summoned home with great dis­pleas­ure at my waywardness.

And I could wish my days to be bound each to each with such won­der, joy and serendipity.

Sunday, July 18th, 2010 ENGL 468, Friends and Acquaintances, Meditations, Movies, Shopping 3 Comments

hold infinity in the palm of your hands

After get­ting plenty of sleep and spend­ing the day fix­ing my laptop, I am pleased to finally blog about The Best Day Ever™.

I star­ted by rolling out of bed (lit­er­ally rolling off my bed and onto the floor) at around 9:30. Groggy and bleary-​eyed, I turned on my laptop (doesn’t this tell you a lot about me?) and then I ate a quick, small break­fast. A then phoned me and informed me that we (A, N and me) would be meet­ing at Burrard Station at 11:30 to watch Harry Potter and the Half-​Blood Prince (of which I have only re-​read 50%). Quite hap­pily, I set off (wear­ing appro­pri­ate attire for the assuredly hot day) and arrived exactly at 11:30. Of course, this meant that I was awk­wardly on time. A and N arrived shortly there­after, gently remind­ing me of how I have a tend­ency to induce guilt in oth­ers by being pre­cisely on time. I must remem­ber that for the future – I will earn­estly endeav­our to arrive fash­ion­ably late, saun­ter­ing into the room with a grand entrance.

It was decided to pur­chase the tick­ets first at the Scotiabank theatre and off we went. I felt slightly crest­fal­len when I noticed that A’s ticket actu­ally prin­ted her name on it while mine was name­less. Curse my cash­ier for not know­ing advanced func­tions made to impress friends and foe alike. Curse her.

After first vis­it­ing the Burrard loc­a­tion (at which we were turned away due to full capa­city), we arrived at the Robson loc­a­tion of the Cactus Club Café and sat down for lunch. We had much delib­er­a­tion over the menu and I got the J.D. BBQ bur­ger (which was juicy and yummy! but not really my style, to be hon­est). We noticed the sheer num­ber of staff our loc­a­tion seemed to pos­sess; at every turn, a new staff mem­ber strolled by duti­fully. N sar­don­ic­ally remarked about the reces­sion and labour wages. I concurred.

After lunch, we headed to watch the movie. After read­ing the book in pre­par­a­tion for the movie, there were cer­tainly some things I liked and dis­liked about the cine­matic experience.

I liked…I dis­liked…
  • reten­tion of sev­eral canon­ical scenes of interest (par­tic­u­larly the bird attack scene)
  • comic relief scattered throughout
  • appro­pri­ate screen-​time for char­ac­ter development
  • mod­er­ately impress­ive FX
  • mem­bers of the new cast (par­tic­u­larly Stroma and the hil­ari­ous fin­ger lickin’/dragon balls scenes)
  • Broadbent as Slughorn (and accom­pa­ny­ing musical score!)
  • the por­trayal of Bellatrix Lestrange
  • poorly transitioned scenes
  • reli­ance upon viewer know­ledge of the novel
  • sev­eral crit­ical changes to canon­ical events that have yet to be reconciled
  • omis­sion of the Battle of the Astronomy Tower

I was gen­er­ally unim­pressed with the movie but felt like it did the job. It was adequate but not much more… As much as I adore the movies and the books, I can’t say that Harry Potter and the Half-​Blood Prince will be a par­tic­u­larly mem­or­able cine­matic exper­i­ence. It’s a shame because I had had high hopes for David Yates’ dir­ect­orial vision.

After the movie, we ven­tured around down­town and ended up in Sears at Pacific Centre. Excitedly, I skimmed through the sta­tion­ery sec­tion, glow­ingly apprais­ing the Montblanc pens and Moleskine notebooks.

We then heard the announce­ment of a life­time. “Attention shop­pers. We will be hav­ing a free giveaway on the fourth floor today, for shop­pers only in the store right now.” I paused and looked to N and A, who were listen­ing with rapt atten­tion withal. I gingerly replaced the Moleskine note­book I had been thought­fully caress­ing and we set off towards the fourth floor.

Needless to say, it was a dis­ap­point­ment. We got a dinky orange little fruit juicer (the effic­acy of which I sin­cerely doubt) and waited the whole present­a­tion to learn that we could have a free filet knife…with pur­chase of 29.99. We left.

As such, A and I were hor­rendously late for din­ner with C and D at Thai Spice. I ordered Tom Yum which, admit­tedly, is a weak­ness of mine but I was rather dis­ap­poin­ted with the lack of fla­vour. A’s pine­apple rice was only pass­able. Happily, though, we played Sorry dur­ing din­ner which (albeit dis­plays a thor­ough lack of table man­ners) enlivened our din­ner much more than the food would have done.

The crown jewel of the even­ing was really watch­ing Les Miserables. It was spec­tac­u­lar. If you haven’t watched it yet, I assure you that you are miss­ing out. The cast­ing was won­der­ful; per­en­nial favour­ites Jonathan Winsby and John Mann gave breath­tak­ing per­form­ances while new­comers didn’t slacken at all.

Here’s what I thought:

  • Murphy (Valjean) dis­played mas­ter­ful skill at singing with a par­tic­u­larly strong voice and diverse range; he was a little wooden at times but his singing was spot-​on flawless
  • Cournoyer (Javert) was a per­sonal favour­ite; Javert doesn’t get much vari­ety in song but Cournoyer did a com­mend­able job at con­vey­ing Javert’s character
  • Hosie (Fantine) was a strong pres­ence but her wig was very offput­ting; I’m usu­ally a big fan of Arts Club cos­tume design but here is one case where I was rather distracted
  • Lipman (Mme. Thenardier) and Mann (Mr. Thenardier) offered won­der­ful — won­der­ful — comic relief but Lipman’s vocal strength was not what I would have expected
  • Winsby (Enjolras) was, of course, incred­ible and power­ful; his per­form­ance is almost so strong that it is over­whelm­ing, actu­ally, threat­en­ing to over­shadow the per­form­ances of others
  • Victor (Marius) had a per­fectly respect­able per­form­ance though he was really over­shad­owed by Winsby at times
  • Talbot (Eponine) was a sur­prise star; I was really impressed with her per­form­ance and vocal strength!
  • Harwood (Cosette) gave a good per­form­ance through­out but I can’t recall any moments where I was floored by her
  • Ballard (Gavroche), Matchette (Young Cosette) and Withers (Young Eponine) gave great per­form­ances, par­tic­u­larly at their ages! I bet I’ll be see­ing them at the Arts Club when I’m much older

I par­tic­u­larly enjoyed “I Dreamed a Dream,” “Master of the House,” “Stars”and “Drink with Me to Times Gone By.” Unfortunately, “One Day More” was nowhere near as strong as what I would have liked but ç’est la vie!

All in all, a mar­velous day. I just hope A doesn’t tire of my company!

Sunday, July 19th, 2009 Food, Friends and Acquaintances, Movies, Music, Shopping, Technology 3 Comments

Or, after dark, will dubious women come

After hav­ing brunch with my fam­ily this morn­ing, I came home to pre­pare for a quiet day of house­clean­ing and relax­a­tion. Of course, it was not to be so.

L phoned me and asked if I would like to go to Oakridge. Intrigued, I acceded to her pro­posal and off we went, pick­ing up A along the way. I later found out that a cel­eb­ra­tion for the open­ing of the Cambie Street – 41st Avenue Canada Line skytrain sta­tion was being held. Our tour guide, T, was on duty at the time.

T. Liu, hard at work

It was a rauc­ous affair, fea­tur­ing a main­stage and sev­eral inform­a­tional booths. At the time I went, some youth dance groups were performing.

Dancing to Lil Mama's "G-Slide"

Dancing to Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat"

After being amused for a while, we decided to des­cend the stairs into the Cambie Street – 41st Avenue sta­tion. I was impressed by the clean­li­ness and bright­ness of the under­ground sta­tion; it was really quite nice! Unfortunately, it reminded me of the “No Mercy” cam­paign in Left 4 Dead, spe­cific­ally in the sub­way level. Can any­one who has played Left 4 Dead blame me?

A New Canada Line Car

Down the Rabbit Hole

After spend­ing a few more minutes appre­ci­at­ing our tax dol­lars at work, we left the sta­tion and returned to the fest­iv­it­ies above ground. T took a moment out of work to watch the main stage, black tresses trail­ing behind her.

T. Liu pauses, black tresses trailing

Re-​entering Oakridge, we took a quick walk­about before T had to return to her post. On our way, a dark stranger whispered some­thing mys­ter­i­ous in T’s ear…

"Come into my parlour," said the spider to the fly.

Just kid­ding! It was just A, talk­ing to T. We ended up walk­ing through Oakridge without much incid­ent so we left. Thanks to L, A and T for mak­ing an oth­er­wise quiet day into one filled with fun times.

Saturday, June 27th, 2009 Photography, Shopping, Travel 1 Comment

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read s4 e07While oth­ers are con­nois­seurs of food or fash­ion, I devote myself to a more schol­arly vice – the com­puls­ive pur­chase of books. Beginning last sum­mer, when I first watched “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” I have begun my des­cent (ascent?) into Agatha Christie’s works.

I’ve pur­chased and/​or read the following:

  • The Mysterious Affair at Styles
  • The Murder on the Links
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  • Murder on the Orient Express
  • Three Act Tragedy
  • Cards on the Table
  • Death on the Nile
  • And Then There Were None
  • A Murder is Announced
  • Hickory Dickory Dock
  • Dead Man’s Folly
  • 4:50 from Paddington
  • Cat Among the Pigeons
  • The Clocks
  • At Bertram’s Hotel
  • Third Girl
  • Hallowe’en Party
  • Nemesis
  • Elephants Can Remember

I also intend to read or pur­chase at least the following:

  • The A.B.C. Murders
  • Lord Edgware Dies
  • Death in the Clouds
  • They Do It With Mirrors
  • Curtain
  • Sleeping Murder

I’ll end up read­ing all of the Poirot nov­els, then neatly trans­ition into the Marples. I’m iffy about Tommy & Tuppence and I’m not at all enthused for the books fea­tur­ing ran­dom detect­ives. If any­one has any good recom­mend­a­tions, please leave them in the comments!

All this murder, mys­tery and may­hem really pro­pels me to want to join in the National Novel Writing Month this year, writ­ing a murder mys­tery. I’d like the irony of hav­ing a serial killer murder pop­u­lar (fic­tional) mys­tery writers…

How excit­ing that the Sherlock Holmes movie comes out soon! L has already expressed dis­in­terest in watch­ing it, but I already assured her that she’d be oblig­ated to come with me if I was forced to watch My Sister’s Keeper.

Friday, June 26th, 2009 Literature, Shopping 1 Comment

The day the music died

Today was a good day, all in all. I slept in, hav­ing fin­ished my hours at work, and when I woke up, I ate break­fast while reclin­ing leis­urely on the sofa, watch­ing tele­vi­sion. L and I had our impromptu trip to down­town today for two reas­ons: the Chapters Indigo Summer Sale (Buy 3 books, get 1 free) and the lure of Japadog.

We dropped by Chapters first, per­us­ing for 2 good hours before finally pur­chas­ing our books (I pur­chased Elephants Can Remember, A Murder is Announced, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and 4:50 to Paddington in case any­one was interested):

The day the music died 2009062520090625IMG 0134 thumb

The day the music died 2009062520090625IMG 0136 thumb

On our way out, I noticed that two book cov­ers looked strik­ingly sim­ilar. I won­der why? (Publisher fail?)

The day the music died 2009062520090625IMG 0137 thumb

After leav­ing Chapters, we hunted down the elu­sive Japadog stand and enjoyed the fruits of our labour.

Cheese Terimayo (left) and Okonomi (right)

L and I had pre­vi­ously had Japadogs when they came to UBC as part of a char­ity fun­draiser, but I still had the urge for them. I had the Cheese Terimayo while L had the Okonomi (which I would totally get next time).

Next, T invited L to her house (which neces­sar­ily included me by social con­ven­tion). As per L’s decision, we took the 22 MacDonald…in the wrong dir­ec­tion. Luckily we hopped off at the ter­minus at Dunbar and merely needed to switch to the handy 49 Metrotown Station. We saw T and A!

T. Liu

A. Ng

Of course, I was delighted to see Pocky, T’s lov­able, lick-​happy dog!

Pocky

We spent the time remin­is­cing, chitchat­ting and hap­pily ensconced at T’s house for a while.

L. Ng

While T and A were mak­ing straw­berry tarts…

Strawberry Tart

I was busy play­ing with Pocky and tak­ing ran­dom pictures.

The Oculus

All in all, a rather good day.

Thursday, June 25th, 2009 Food, Friends and Acquaintances, Literature, Shopping 2 Comments

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