VSC: India/Pakistan Night.

Wow. The last time I had so much Indian food was when I went to the Diwali Indian Festival on Main Street a few years ago.

I brought some chicken and beef samosas to the pot latch. Gordon brought home made butter chicken which was delicious! Others had brought butter chicken and an assortment of other traditional Indian & Pakistan food to the table. Jay, our token Pakistan, taught us a few words, but I have no recollection of what was said anymore. Strolling in a little while later was someone from India, and she brought a long a whole whack of stuff for us to consume. There was a bit of friendly rivalry between Jay and this woman from India, but it was all in good fun.

LADYTRON CONCERT!

LADYTRON was awesome!

After having a few drinks with Damien and his friends to celebrate his 33rd birthday, I walked up a block to the Commodore Ballroom to meet up with Gordon at the front. Once inside, we were right in front of the stage watching the performance of the opening band "The Presets" which I thought were pretty good. I've never heard of them before.

Gordon and I moved to the balcony where it was less crowded. Though it was further away from the stage, it gave us a birds-eye view of the performance put on my LADYTRON. They were awesome! From "Destroy Everything You Touch" to "Seventeen", they rocked the stage and the crowd of devoted LADYTRON fans.

Thanks Helen, Daniel, Reuben, and Mira for coming out to Vancouver!

Kwantlen Student Art Show.

James Kemp, an old HS friend of mine called me up a few days ago to inform me of Kwantlen Student Art Show opening night at his Kwantlen Surrey campus. He is taking an arts program there and had many of his works on display.

I got James, Jamie, Damien, Kia, Kyle, and Janelle inerested so we all got together this evening for the wine & cheese, and of course, the exhibit. It was good to see James again, though I almost didn't recognise him with his wild hair which looked like it went through the dryer like a mad scientist!

To be honest, the majority of the student work I had exhibited here wasn't all that appealing. They were either too abstract for me to relate to (and I love the abstract), or I felt that the student didn't really put in a lot of effort into his creativity. The pieces done by James was impressive, however. His sculpture was emotive and conveyed a story or a piece of history/legend.

After the show, I still had to make a delivery to a dentist's residence in Abbotsford to make, so James, Jamie, and Damien accompanied me for the road trip to boonieville. It's great when you don't have anything better to do! We had a lot of fun at the Wendy's parking lot taking photos of our feet trying to make it look as if there were more than just the four of us at this "Secret VSC Meetup". There was also a RV compound across the street to which we dressed up a side mirror with a ball cap and a jacket around the arm with a Wendy's drink container hanging precariously to make it look like we had another member in our group for the group photo-op. The picture turned out well, with the "Mirror boy" looking like he was hanging out from the passenger window! What a blast. What deception! What a night. =)

The Super Sexy Sleepover Party.

Kyle, Janelle, Aaron, Kayla, and I, hereto now known as the "Fab Five", got together for a night of drinking at Aaron's. I had decided on making two cocktail drinks for all of us: a "Blow Job" and a "Screaming Orgasm", but only got around to making the first.

Kyle, my artificial boyfriend, couldn't keep his hands off me, and Kayla was all over Janelle throughout the night and while playing drunken Uno with a card that says "Aaron smells like beef". By the end of the night, we were all sleeping on Aaron's double bed cuddling each other, or shall I say, spooning... =p

It was a wicked night, which was made even more great when it was revealed that all of us (not just me) despised Kip and had ex-communicated with him. And yes, Kyle and Janelle are an 'item" now. They make for a wonderful loving couple... with me in the middle. HAHA!

VSC: Poker Night II.

This was VSC's second night of poker but my first night of playing! I had no previous know-how, let alone any skills, in playing poker so I learned as I went along from Scott standing over my shoulder giving me pointers. I soon discovered that skills weren't as important to know in the game of poker than your ability to 'play poker' and bluff. I eventually took posession of most of the black chips on the table and won the first round! Definitely had beginner's luck on that one.

Jen Li came out to this event too, her first VSC meetup!

Apartment Hunting.

I left sunny White Rock to rainy Vancouver looking for apartments and condos in the west end. I followed up on some leads I found on craigslist.org but two of them were gone already and the remaining ones didn't return my calls after I had left messages. It wasn't a complete waste of time though because combing through the neighbourhood gave me a better sense of the neighbourhood. I also took notice of vacancy signs posted outside and took down numbers for me to inquire about.

I gave Karlo a surprise visit after making my rounds. His sister, Katherine, buzzed me in while he was still in the shower and when he came out and saw me sitting at the table, he nearly dropped the towel around his waist!

I was starving at this point, so I went to the McDonalds just around the block and chowed down two Quarter Pounder's to satisfy my hunger. After meeting up with Jamie and James around Lost Lagoon, we walked to the corner of Davie and Granville to a hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant called "Excellent Sushi". With a name like that, it's hard to take them seriously, but what surprised me was that the 22 pieces of assorted rolls I had ordered which also came with a bowl of miso soup was only $4! FOUR BUCKS! Granted, it wasn't the best sushi I've had, but for a couple of twoonies, I couldn't complain. And it made me full.

Jamie and James followed me to Future Shop afterwards where I was going to pick up my bluetooth headset for my RAZR phone, but then there was another snag. According to the sales guy, Mike, I wasn't qualified for one as there was a slight discrepancy between "new activations" and "renewed activations". I went over this the last time I was at this Future Shop when they were all out of these headsets and I thought it had been dealt with. Now, I'm supposed to wait until Tuesday for the manager to give me a call about this matter as Mike was not in the position to give me the damn headset I should have got at the time of renewing my contract with TELUS and purchasing a RAZR V3c on the last day of February. I'm not going to put up with much more. I'll make a scene in the store if I don't get what I want.

Back at J & J's, we socialised some more about ways to defeat the system. James offered me a glass of Indian Pale Ale, Brewed in Esquimalt, BC. I've never had IPA before and found it to be a little bitter.

I met up with Alan outside the doors to the Odyssey before leaving town and gave him a big hug for I hadn't seen him in a while. I'm not sure if my eyes were deceiving me, but he looked a little more toned then the last time I saw him. Hmmmmm.....

VSC: Pizza Night.

Mmmmm..... pizza, Pizza, PIZZA! =D

Being one who loves Italian from pizzas to pastas, I couldn't afford to miss this event in making home made pizza from scratch! We baked eight different kinds in all, each of us creating our own creation of various toppings. After tossing our dough in the air trying to make it round and flat like a professional, I coated the top with lots of tomato sauce, then sprinkled on loads of cheese in between each layer of olives, pepper, jalapeno peppers, ham, sausage, and yes, even boiled eggs. I've never had boiled eggs on pizza before, but it turned out pretty good! Of course, the taste of it (and everything else) was quickly replaced by the sensationally hot taste of the jalapeno peppers to which I didn't bother taking the little seeds out of. Oops! At least most of us only had one hot pepper on their slice, but poor James had about six burning in his mouth! I felt so bad but couldn't resist my laugher either. I layered everything evenly so how could James find six hot peppers on his slice?! =p

Jen had to work today at the bakery so she didn't join us until the rest of us came back from walking off our pizzas around Stanley Park and English Bay to the Inukshuk to make our remaining four pizzas.

To end the night, we went to a cafe on Commercial Drive to which we thought was a jazz club, at least according to Jay and his friend who told us about it. The live band in performance called themselves "Ghettoblaster" and they were really really loud. Their theme song, aptly named "Ghettoblaster" was just as loud as their other numbers, but only consisted of the word "Ghettoblaster" repeated over and over and over like a broken record. I was quite happy when they finished their performance and got off the stage as it was hard to conduct a conversation with the person next to me, let alone with persons sitting around the table.

Jen and Jay's friend (the "what's my name?" guy, from when we were playing BuzzWord earlier) were pyromaniacs infatuated by the candle sticks on our table. They made quite a mess after melting down candles and dripping wax all over the solid wood table, to which we got an earful of complaints about from the manager when we walked out of the cafe. Jen looked at me with her evil eyes when I called her Kip.

VSC: German Night.

German Night was a huge success! We had about a dozen people show up for this VSC event and many brought traditional home-made German food and drinks with them, in addition to German phrase books. Jamie made currywursts, Sigrid brought potato salad, and Jen and I brought our pfeffernussen's we baked together the night before along with her bottle of peach schnaps and Jaggermeister. We even had several native German speakers in our gathering and many others with only an elementary level comprehension.

This was VSC's first ethnic gathering in a series of Language/Cultural Nights. Looking forward to the Indian/Pakistan night!

Antics on authority II | Sushi night!

Not even 3 weeks had passed from when I played my first antics on authority, did I receive another chance do do so. This time, I was on my way to the Vancouver Art Gallery to meet up with friends for the Brian Jungen exhibit for the third time. Being vigilant this time around, I stood by the doorway at the front of the train so that I could scan the SkyTrain platform for anybody in uniform that may give me grief for not having a valid ticket as the train pulled in. I was doing quite well until the train I was on pulled into Main Street Science World, just two stations away from where I would have got off. Somehow, the police officer who stood before me escaped my peripheral vision, and when I noticed him and got off the train, it was already much too late to be conspicuous. Sure enough, officer Dummkopf (false name used to hide his real identity but to accurately portray him) stepped off the train with me and asked me to produce a valid fare.

There I was acting out a scene I had practised not long ago of searching for the ticket I knew I didn't have. When I couldn't produce one, he asked for my name, and like the first time, I used "Christopher Lowe" as my pseudonym. Learning from my mistakes from my first experiment, I was careful not to tell him that I had any ID with me or to give him any lead that may be verifiable. That meant that I had to assume someone who was only travelling in the area, so I gave him my made-up address in Tacoma, WA. I guess I need to work on my lies though, because he accused me of lying after I said it. "I could tell by your body movements and broad generlisations when asked a direct question" he said. I stuck to my guns and insisted that I was Christopher Lowe.

But unlike my first experiment in which I was only given a ticket, I was asked to turn around with my hands on my back. Not a moment sooner, I felt the cold metal bracelets around my wrists, and was escorted to the interrogation room which was also the janitor's room. This was nothing like my wild fantasies I dreamt of on occasion involving police officers, hand cuffs, and the utility room. Along the short journey down, the officers used several tactics to get me to confess by saying things like "you don't want a criminal record now do you?", "we'll have to fingerprint you", and "we could keep you detained for as long as we want". My eyes were rolling so much, I felt dizzy.

I felt that my rights had been violated when one officer searched through my bag and pockets while the other tried numerous times to extort my true information from me. When I told the officer that he had no right to search through my stuff, he responded "I'm doing it now." as if he had all the right to. I was shocked, of course, and will have to look into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom to see if they violated me (that sounds dirty too, yech). I was astonished with what I think is a misconduct when the officer proceeded to search through my contact list on my RAZR mobile calling people to verify my identity. Fortunately, the few numbers that he tried didn't connect or went to a voice mail.

Officer Dummkopf #2 finally found my wallet in my bag which wasn't very well hidden in the first place, and pulled it out like a rabbit from a magician's hat with an "aahhaa!!" I would have clapped my hands if I wasn't still hand cuffed. Now they had all the true information they needed and proceeded to write me out a ticket for $173 for "FAIL TO PRESENT PROOF OF PAYMENT" only. Then they let me go.

If I hadn't been detained by the officers, I would have got to the VAG on time, but by the time I arrived, I caught the tail end of the tour. I was in a sour mood, so when I was denied entry through the doors on donation night, I dug up a penny at the counter and told her that this was my contribution for the night. She gave me a look of disgust, but had no choice but to stamp my hand and grant me entry.

I was in a better mood by the time we got together at Tanpopo's for sushi. Jamie and James had a German couple Kerstin and Alex, couchsurfing for the night and they came to join us too. They were super nice and were a pleasure to talk to!