Lei

Lord of the Exchange

*Note: Please read Tsubame, Gambit and Sausalito's most recent entries before reading this one.*

The war wages on for middle blog earth. Men grow weak and evil will prevail. Hearts of men, grow small filled only by the quest for power and fortune. Sausalito is made to stand alone, betrayed by Gambit who sits idle far away in the kingdom of Montreal.

The air is cold and I am alone. All I have left are some cookies from the elves of the western skies. One Peak Frean cookie is enough to fill the stomach of a man and last for a day. I sit there high up on the snow covered peak of Blackcomb waiting for the signal. The beacon which is a call for help to relay back to the other peaks. All which end up back in the kingdom of Montreal for Gambit to respond.

For twenty six straight days stinging cold rain falls from the dark clouds. Bjorn the white wizard flies above in his falcon with no glass. Looking on there is a continuous ceiling of blackness in the sky which clear a path for the armies of the evil capitalist pigs as they march out to the city of SanFran. All hopes lie in Tsubame as he struggles to make his way to Mount Pele. Fire and lava spew into the air signaling the verocity and might of the great eye. In his right hand he clutches the glass lense. With a focal length of 600 millimeters, the great eye seas all through the glass. It is thought that only a few remain on middle blog earth. However, the great evil grows and has already begun to take hold of Tsubame. Cursing to himself, fighting as a normal halfling while crawling on the sharp rocks of Mount Pele. They pierce his skin. He is bloodied in frustration vowing to take the ring while at the same time wanting the photos for himself. For glory. For Vanity. That which a tiny adjustment of the ring can bring all into sharp focus and to him.

Only the rocks formed from the lava of Mount Pele can scratch the ring. The inscriptions remain intack, markings of the words of the great eye, "F4-5, 100-300mm Tokino aspherical lense". The ring must be cast back into the depths of Mount Pele from whence it was made.

Men must unite and the king must rise once again. Carrying the tripod which was broken long ago, it has been reforged by fire from the west and Elven sorcery. There is only one who can wield the power of the tripod and lead all men into battle.

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With a budget of 28 million dollars, the new Lord of the Rings musical opened in Toronto last week. In the days before this, my sister lent me her special extended box set of the Lord of the Rings. I planted myself on my couch and watched every minute of this fantastic tale of elves, wizards, evil knights of death and more, all over again.

It was also my sister n law's birthday last week so we went out for korean food at a place called Jang Mo Jib. There are two locations in the lower mainland. One on Robson street downtown. We went to the larger one in richmond. It was good. BBQ beef, squid pancake and the traditional spicy pork stew. Kind of like a hot pot dish which you cook at the table.

Afterwards I got to see some photos from their Hawaiian vacation in November last year. They go there quite often and this time, my brother wanted to do something "manly" as he put it. So they went shark fishing. The boat could hold up to forty people all fishing if they wanted to. Yet only three people signed up. My brother, his wife and an american tourist. I think it was because the trip left at midnight. They had the whole boat to themselves and the tour operators. Large tuna fish was used for bait and my brother caught himself a Mako shark.

Note:All shark photos have been provided by my brother.

Approximately five or so feet long it was much bigger than I expected when he first told me about it.

Smile. The third tourist helped my brother by attempting to cut the hook or line from the mouth with a giant cutter. Half the hook remained as the shark was released back into the ocean to prey on local surfers. Supposedly, it will fall out eventually.

So no shark fin soup. However, his wife caught a few smaller fish which was cooked and served right on the boat.

Whistler was good this weekend. I went up with two friends and met up with another three. The mountain received sixteen centimeters of new snow for us to play in and play we did, not stopping for lunch.

There was a West Jet company tent set up with staff handing out small packs of Peak Frean cookies. The ones with the fruit centres. While walking through the tent, the people offered me a pack of cookies. I said no at first before returning and telling them that I changed my mind. Then I went back and asked for more. I'd be a fool to turn down those cookies. It also doesn't hurt to ask too.

The sun was out on seventh heaven and at one point we all just sat their on the slope. Ahead of us was a large sunken area about fifteen to twenty feet deep and maybe fifty feet wide by twenty feet long. A snowboarder had fallen in and we watched him struggle to get out. It was futile as he tried to climb straight up the soft wall of snow. After some ten minutes or so, he finally figured out that all he had to do was walk out the side instead of up. When he got out, we all cheered. At that point, he must have felt funny as he looked around before finally seeing us in our group looking at him. He raised his hands up in acknowledgement probably with much embarassment.

More Birthdays

*Revised with additional photos.*

On saturday, Tsubame left for the sunny islands of Hawaii. With his camera gear in hand, he will attempt to get photos of the lava and other supernatural wonders of nature. When he returns, he will leave again for the final time back to Japan.

My screwed up sleeping habits caught up to me late last week as I ended up sleeping in and finally getting enough sleep on the day I was going to head up to Whistler. That was last friday. Saturday I was invited to a small birthday party for three girls at Crush downtown. Photo album courtesy of birthday girl and a friend. Another friend of the party was the girlfriend of the owner of the lounge/club. She got us all on the vip list and reduced the price for all the guys to get in. Women got in for free - of course. It has been quite a few years since I have been to this place. Way back when it used to be the Yale I think. Now, it attempts to be one of those trendy places with a sectioned off 'vip' area, complete with staff to let you in and out, bordered by fat felt rope and chrome posts. The kind you used to see in movie theatre line ups and such. In the mens washroom was an even more pathetic attempt to imitate that of a five star hotel. It was small and decorated in dark coloured walls, counters and floors. At the sink was an array of cologne and other sprays. A man dressed in typical club black stood at the side to turn the tap on for you and hand you a paper towel once you were done. In the middle of the sink was a round frog mouth shaped object for you to throw tips into. The whole thing just seemed out of place. This isn't a fancy restaurant nor Bellagios in Vegas. Everything looked like they were 'trying' to be cool. I have just one suggestion. Replace the sound system. From the frapping mid and bass tones to the not so clear and crisp high's, it was almost enough to make you run from the dance floor. We stilled laughed about it though as we stood there covering our ears and laughing at each other at times. And I don't know about you folks but I can't stand the way some DJ's these days completely butcher the songs. Despite this, everyone had fun still. Enough said.

The group went for Denny's afterwards. Some of them being a little bit tipsy from drinks. One birthday girl kept trying to tickle me and I watched another fumble with her toasted ham sandwich. It took her forever to eat one half and while eating the second half, she had this glazed and lazy look in her eyes as she stared at it. Parts of it started to shift in her hands and she probably could have just fell asleep right there burying her face into her weak hands and sandwich. Mind you these were weak drinkers. Some only having four drinks all evening. I on the other hand only had one rum and coke and lots of water. I'm asian and I was driving. Thats my excuse.

Here I attempt to pluck the light blue and white furry creature from the bin for the bday girl. Note: These two photos have been provided by Roz.

Grab that head damn it!!!! Oops! I'm getting over excited.

My conversational mandarin class ended today. A third of the class was absent with it already being tiny and the traditional restaurant outing at a chinese place was postponed to the first lesson of the next course. That sucked as one fellow student responded by saying that he hadn't eatin for three days. To add to this, I don't know if I will be able to make it to that class because it conflicts with another course which I am interested in.

Uh oh, Someone Spilled Something

*crunch*

*snap*

*ptanggg*

A piece of pasta cracks under the weight of my foot and shoots sideways into a bin. As I walk down the aisle at a local supermarket, It is seemingly almost impossible to walk without putting my foot down on something. There's split green peas, lentil, organic dates, baking chocolate, chicken soup base, smarties, croutons, the list goes on. Maybe there was a huge sale which ended just minutes before I got there? Maybe some couple couldn't agree on what to buy and got into a big food fight? Maybe some kids went crazy and well, just went crazy. I myself grabbed two plastic bags putting one inside the other. To make it more spill proof. Holding the opening up to a bin, I filled the bag up halfway. There was about three kilograms of pearl barley. Resting the bag on some other self serve bins, I put the twist tie on to close it with the bin number already written on it. As I lifted up the bag, the plastic had got caught on the hinge and lid of the bin it was on and soon there was pearl barley everywhere. Two people stood beside me speaking a foreign language and were soon watching me as I stopped the leak with one hand and lifted the bag up to pour the what was left back into the original bin. I went back and got two more bags to try it again. Maybe they shouldn't allow people like me to operate self serve food bins.

A number of years ago I went to a place called Crankpots with my sister. She was making a ceramic plate with a sailor moon anime picture on it. I walked around the store looking at all the other projects on display from other customers in various states of progress. On one wall was a half done tiled plate by the girl who plays Lana on the hit tv show Smallville. Then I spotted a tumbler with a simple design that I liked. And so I made the same thing except I didn't use pink or as feminine colours as what was on display. I coloured mine green and painted small images in the form a stars, saturn, and the moon all in black. On the bottom of the cup was a fish. That being my astrological sign. After having the cup fired in the oven to get the glaze, everything was, shall we say, set in stone. And during the multiple times that I went back to the shop to work on the cup, I always saw that half completed tiled plate from the Smallville actress. It always looked the same with the tiles scattered around the edges and I never found out if it was ever finished.

I only made one of the tumblers and had ordered three more of the cups to paint. I wanted to have a set of four but never got around to starting on the other three. Today I accidentally knocked my cup over the counter and it broke into three pieces after hitting floor.

"Hi. This is Ron from the Surrey House. Yeah, the sink in the laundry room is leaking underneath. Could you come and take a look at it?" I deleted that message from my voicemail and went to the rental house next door that day. After a quick inspection I found out that the aerator had been removed and with the way it was designed, water ended up running down the tap inside the body and through the gaping hole at the base of the faucet. It was old so I decided to replace the whole thing. As I did, another person walked by.
"Hey... you the landlord?"
"Yes, what's up?"
"Umm, the sink in the washroom over here is leaking underneath. I think it needs to be looked at."
"Hmmm. Ok. I'll look at it after I get this one done."
The sink in the laundry room didn't take long. Just fifteen minutes or so but enough time that someone else in the house passed by.
"Hey... Lei? Has anyone told you about the leaking sink in the washroom here?"
"Yep. That other guy just told me."
"Oh... how about the water from the bathtub? We tried really hard to make sure the shower curtain is pulled over enough to keep the water from running out but it still does all the time. I think the pipe or bathtub faucet needs looking at.
I paused and gave him a half-concerted look before replying.
"I'll check that out too."
So what else is going to go wrong? I went over and looked at the washroom sink first. The aerator on that one had been removed and put back improperly. I cleaned it out and put it back the right way stopping the water from leaking like the one in the laundry room. Then I looked at the bathtub. The tenants had installed a handheld wand and cross-threaded the hose onto the pipe coming out of the wall. Whenever it was turned on, water would spray back towards the wall and out onto the floor.

While sitting on the chairlift heading back up the mountain, it was just me and two Blackcomb officials with their radios on.
"Is anyone riding up Solar chair right now?" Followed by static.
The two mountain workers just sat there and continued there conversation.
"...on a day like today, we can't do much. We're supposed to keep the jumps and stuff in the terrain park in working condition but with all this fresh snow coming down, its impossible...." said one to the other.
"This is a perfect day for us. We don't have to worry about doing maintenance and can just board on the hills..." replied the other. Then the radio broke in again.
"If anyone is near tower eleven, we have a skier down. Could someone get to them?" asked the radio again.
The two mountain workers continued to sit there and chat away. We were on the Solar chair and at tower seven fast approaching tower eleven. Not much later I could see a small group of people sitting on the slope. One person was lying on his back and not moving.
"I'm on my way down to the person. Which tower was that again?" said the radio.
*static*
"Tower eleven, thanks" replied the first voice on the radio.
Then I saw a mountain rescue worker skiing down pulling an empty stretcher and wearing a red jacket with the red cross symbol.
"A lot of accidents today on the slopes" I said to the two officials beside me.
"Yeah, its the end of the day and everyone tired. But they still try to do crazy stuff and end up hurting themselves."
He was right and I knew this already. I too was busy trying to get as many runs in before the lifts were shut down and every run was back in to the terrain park. Despite this, the staff comments did not deter me.

On this day, I seemed to notice more people falling than usual. While on another chairlift with some other people, we had all watched a man for some reason just fall down sideways. It was a slow fall and we couldn't help but laugh. While waiting to get onto a different chairlift, I looked up at a run and saw another skier lose control and wipe out. Legs spread out and skies flying in opposite direction. Another funny looking fall.

In the terrain park, I saw a person down with rescue people helping him. Farther down just outside the terrain park, I noticed someone else splayed all over the hill not moving. Then to add to this, during that chairlift ride up with the two maintenance guys, close to the top of that lift was another person being helped by rescue workers. It was a day for thrills and spills and that included me. On one of the large jumps, I came down and sprained my left wrist on the hard packed landing. That was my spill. I bought a set of wrist protectors afterwards. This was the same wrist that I hurt skating boarding as a kid.

A Portrait

We have here a photo of a person taken with a 35mm film camera. This low resolution scan does not accurately reflect what I see in the actual print I have before me. The Yashica T4 Super camera with its razor sharp Carl Zeiss lense proves once again its ability to render well saturated colours and display great contrast. The T* coated lense also helps to reduce flares from stray light sources.

Here we have our test subject in a provocative pose all be it a little too far to the left.

Following the rule of thirds, each part of the picture is on the thirds with the subject in the middle. From the foreground detail of brightly lit snow to the deep blue sky, you get it all with an aperture range up to F22 on the fixed focus 35mm glass. The programmed aperture exposure and focus lock worked wonderously at times when I was not even conscious of its function. I did not need that small viewfinder for the camera itself was like a third eye fixed to the end of my hand. All I had to do was hold it and point it in the general direction without evening looking and *snap*.

The Yashica T4 Super was discontinued the year that I bought it being the only one remaining in the London Drugs display case. These days, I wait endlessly for a digital point and shoot to replace it but have yet to find one adequate to the task. My Yashica T4 cannot last forever. I've fallen off a horse with it and crunched it in my pack numerous times. The plastic weatherproof body is already cracked and I dread the day that it becomes unfixable and unreplaceable.

And when that day comes, I will mourn the passing of the prized piece of technological marvel in all its perfection and operational simplicity. There is no other.

The Brazilian Festival at the Commodore

Two hours of sleep wasn't enough from the previous evening. However, when I got back from whistler on saturday and took a shower, I felt rejuvenated to some degree and that was that. I went to the Brazilian Festival down at the Commodore. Home of the famous bouncing dance floor.

I found out on Friday at the CakeMakers birthday dinner that her friend Luiza managed to get us tickets for this event.

There were a number of songs which the people in the crowd seemed to know. I didn't recognize any.

In the photo directly above and standing second from right, Luiza is wearing a traditional brazilian outfit known as a Baiana. The white dress, long necklaces and colourful headband. Both her and her mother were dressed alike as well as a number of other partygoers.

There's a whole lotta shakin going on. Shake Shake Shake... Makes you want to hop on the plane and go down to Rio De Janeiro for the carnival.

During the last song, the singer from the live band came down from the stage to run around on the floor. I managed to hold him up enough to pose with the weekend birthday girl.

Weekend Wonderland

After almost five days of being sick, I finally shaved and got out of the house. And get out of the house I did. Friday it was the cake makers birthday dinner at a great little mexican restaurant owned by a friends uncle called Andale's.

The cake maker was so happy that day. A birthday dessert with a sparkling candle to blow out! But where's the cake?

After a few watery sangria's and marguarita's, she was right in it enjoying herself. Here she pay's respect to the mexican-chinese sun god. The rest of her birthday photos can be found here.

Happy birthday Cake Maker!

We went to SpeakEasy on granville street afterwards for drinks with the Philipino clan. That proved to be a mistake as I ended up getting only two hours of sleep before leaving for Whistler on saturday.

I went with Tsubame with taking photos in mind. However, as luck would have it, the skies did not clear up until we had to leave. So no photos as I carried Tsubame's SLR in my backpack as I slid around the mountain. Going over jumps felt a bit strange with that extra weight. Luckily I fell down on my stomach instead of my back. The following photos are from a previous day on the mountain.

Taking the plunge!

Woohoo!

These and other photos can be found here.

I went on three dates with the blind date. So by then it couldn't be called a blind date anymore as Tsubame has pointed out. The end result is that it's a no go. There was no spark and we both admitted that we thought that something would develop if we just spent more time with each other. So we move on.

A Date with the Toilet

*hoooouuuueeeeehhhh... hoooouuuueehh*

"hehhh...hehhh... hehhh..."

Slowly I breathed to settle down and relax again. The saliva from my mouth tastes awful and I couldn't smell anything. This is rather fortunate because I didn't want to smell what was in front of me.

Everything I ate for the past day or so came out. Despite how little it was, it seemed like it would never stop. As the process went on, all I could think was - I hope this never happens again. At least its just a flu. That's what the doctor thought when he made the housecall.

*hooouuuueeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Dr. Yan has been our family doctor for many years. To this day, he still makes house calls for us despite my mothers over reaction whenever I get sick.
"Oh he's got a fever. Do you have a flashlight?" he asked.
I pulled out my small LED lamp and he used it to look inside my mouth.
"What is Lei doing these days?" asked Dr. Yan to my mother.
"He just helps out with the family business. I clipped out this engineering job ad for him. I thought he could apply for it." replied my mother.
"Oh I didn't know he had so much free time. Does he know how to fix boilers and other mechanical stuff? I have a mushroom farm that needs some work on its boilers."
I hesitated before responding.
"Well, not quite but could probably figure it out. You should probably just get an engineer who specializes in thermodynamics." I told him.
"Oh he can fix the hot water tank. I'm sure he can help you with your farm" my mother assured him.
Dr. Yan scribbled out a prescription and started to leave.
"Well Lei, let me know when you get better so you can get your flu shots. Then you can come and work on my mushroom farm. There's lots of work there. Enough for full time."
Not exactly the type of work I envisioned myself doing. I didn't respond and just sighed. I picked up the piece of paper with the prescription and tried to read it. I couldn't.

I've been looking at the toilet too much lately. I'm tired of it. It is so disgusting yet my body is constantly drawn back to expel content into it. Why should I respect it so much. I cleaned it today. Antibacterial bathroom spray, bleach, pinesol, the whole nine yards. I cleaned it because it deserves to be respected for doing what it does. Taking away all the garbage and crap that we don't want to remove ourselves safely. Yet I will not put my head in it and hug that bowl the way they do in the movies. Would you? This sick person wouldn't.

During this time, I haven't bothered to shave. So I have wondered what people in the stores would think if I went to one to purchase an electric shaver. However, I did do a bit of grocery shopping and now I feel a bit dizzy. Left to my own devices what could possibly happen.

Last day I mentioned that I would watch the last episode of the bachelor. That was a huge mistake as I think it just made me more sick. Two hours of endless dribble from Moana. She kept dodging all the questions being thrown at her by the bachelor and his parents. Thank god thats over. I wonder what happened to all the other bachelor couples from previous series?

At dim sum with my family, my sister looked at me and said "Lei, is something wrong with your skin? It looks like it's dry." Nobody else at the table seemed to think so and neither did I. A week later she showed up with a Dermalogica skin care package for normal to dry skin. How utterly metrosexual of her to think of me. In it was a gentle cream exfoliant, multi-active toner, intensive moisture balance, special cleansing gel, skin smoothing cream, hydrating masque and everything else a woman would want for their skin except for actual make up. Like I'm going to spend my time going through skin revitalization rituals. I think I just need to shave first. Anyone need a Dermalogica skin care package? It comes with a vinyl pouch with a see through top so you can see everything inside.