Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family Turkey for all! but don’t forget as Largo says:

Let’s get violent for veggies!

I’ll post pictures of our smallish Thanksgiving dinner here in Canada later today

To my bestest friend in the whole world.. Happy Birthday! I don’t know what I’d do without you.. get your damn passport.

Since Day 1

*Update to April 28, 2007 Post “Don’t Mess with my Chocolate“*

It seems they’ve gone ahead with the vegetable oil idea :/ I will put my taste buds on the front line and purchase some “chocolatey” hershey’s products and see for myself if the taste is as bad as reported.

For Dad’s birthday, my mom, sister-in-law and I made:

BBQ’d Steaks au Poirve. We made our own brine for the green peppercorns.

Asparagus & Sun-Dried Tomato Salad. We left out the mushrooms. This was my favorite.

Herb Potatoes au Gratin. We used just 1 cup of grated yellow cheddar and 1 cup of grated white cheddar instead of trying to find grated american, what is that anyway?

I meant to get pictures while we were cooking but there was too much chaos with the 3 of us in the kitchen, the 3 dogs trying to watch for us to drop something & Isabel was having a melt-down. Everything came out very very well though.

This is a response I wrote on a friends blog about iPhone apps. His post is HERE but I thought I’d copy my reviews here. **are apps he reviewed that I haven’t tried but am interested in.

Bejeweled 2 - I love it so much but I was an addict already. I think it looks fantastic.

Tap Tap Revenge - I have it but it only has like 3 songs so it got boring.

Urbanspoon - I love this one, we’ve gone to 2 places based on it’s recommendations. They were both excellent places. Very useful for Ken and I because we’re horrible at choosing where to eat

Facebook - I’ve got it but I’m still waiting for it to update some more. I still use Safari to get to facebook.

**Evernote for iPhone - Don’t have this, I was worried it was too complicated for what I need.

**Midomi - Don’t have this either but I could use it

**Aurora Feint The Beginning - Don’t have it, might pick it up now.

**Units - Have you looked at Equivalence by ApogeeDev or Units Converter by Yuchao Zhou or Units by Ben Spratling.. I haven’t been able to choose between them yet.

I also have:
Dobot Todos by Aria Haghighi - I use it but I’m slightly disappointed with it’s limits.

Voice Notes by GarSoft - I’ve used it once just for fun but I can imagine an occasion where I’d need it and it was free.

Gift Wrangler by Raging Fjord, LLC - I mean to use it but it seems like a lot of work to set up.

Crosswords by Stand Alone, Inc. - Really hard to use, hard to switch between horizontal & vertical lines unless you use the clues window. The latest update seems to have fixed the keyboard covering half the screen issue. There’s now a smaller keyboard at the bottom of the screen.

Solar eclipse of August 1, 2008 (wikipedia link)
The Solar Eclipse that takes place on August 1, 2008, will be a total eclipse of the Sun with a magnitude of 1.039 that will be visible from a narrow corridor through northern Canada (Nunavut), middle of Russia, western Mongolia, and China. It belongs to the so-called midnight Sun eclipses, as it will be visible from regions experiencing Midnight sun.

In Siberia, the total eclipse zone will pass through populated places, including the “capital of Siberia” Novosibirsk, and the cities of Nizhnevartovsk, Barnaul, Biysk. Greatest eclipse duration will be reached near the town of Nadym in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Northern Siberia.

A partial eclipse will be seen from the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbra, including eastern North America and most of Europe and Asia.

NASA Link

Scientific American - (link)
Get your pinhole cameras—and laptops—ready. This Friday, August 1, a total solar eclipse will occur as the moon passes directly between the sun and Earth for the first time in more than two years. For a few minutes, the moon will blot out the sun, casting its dark shadow over a narrow, moving strip of land and revealing the sun’s corona.

Sadly, this eerie, awe-inspiring event—known as totality—will be visible only from remote parts of the Northern Hemisphere: Starting in northern Canada, the moon’s shadow, or umbra, will glide across the Arctic into central Asia. (View the path of totality at NASA’s eclipse Web site.) “It is best to see the eclipse live,” says Paul Doherty, a senior staff scientist at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. “If you don’t want to travel,” he says, “you will wait an average of 300 years for a total solar eclipse to come to you.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t share in the experience remotely. Doherty will be part of an eclipse expedition broadcasting the eclipse live via the Web from Xinjiang Province in northwestern China, near the Mongolian border, beginning at 3:30 A.M. Eastern time through totality at 4:09 A.M.

Hope you have a great day <3

I woke up on Friday around 4pm, Ken was already gone to 151 to work on some issues. He and Nick stopped by to pick me up to go to Mongolian for dinner around 8:30pm. Then we all went back to 151 and I played Sims 2 while they tried to figure out the problem all night. At 3pm we took a break and drove around the city and stopped for snacks. We drove by 3 Roger’s Wireless stores, one near the Eaton Center had a line of about 20 people. One at Davisville & Yonge had no line and the one we wanted to go to at Eglinton & Leaside had no line as well. So we got our snacks and went back to 151 till 6:30am.

Back at the Eglinton & Leaside store there was a line of 2 people. Not too bad! It was raining off and on, and 2 people got out of their car and got back in front of the line just after we got there. The guys who were in front of us said they were really the first people. But that was ok. Then the line started to fill in behind us, and the manager of the store arrived and told us that he had 7 16gb phones, 4 in black, 3 in white but that he had plenty of the 8gb phones. By then another guy had gotten out of his car and joined the 3rd guy. They all wanted the black 16gb phone, #5 (the doctor) wasn’t sure if he wanted the white one or not. But Ken said he would take it. So that left 1, maybe 2 more for the people behind us. Right away several people behind us left the line.

We met some great people while stuck there. We were in line at 7am, there were 4 people in front of us and the store didn’t open till 8:30am, so we all chatted about what plans we were gonna get, what news we heard about how many they would have. Once they opened, they let in 8 people who were purchasing iPhones, that was the 4 in front of us, plus some guy who had been waiting in his car who was with the 3rd guy, so that was 5 iPhones, then Ken. At the time we went in, I was going to try to get my phone from Fido because I have a Fido cell phone now and I have 290 “Fido Dollars” so the iPhone would have been free. So Ken was #6, and the lady behind us, Oedile was #7 and Simon, behind her #8.

The first two people were a couple, they had a small pug dog with them too. Turned out that the girl wasn’t eligible because you could only use an upgrade if it’d been a year since your last phone or get a new account. So she left pissed off. But it freed up another 16gb phone so we started talking about who would get it. Simon wanted it but he wasn’t sure if he was eligible for the upgrade or not and they couldn’t check

After about 2 hours, they had finally gotten the first guy at least paid for, and he could have left and come back later once the activation was working again but he stuck around and after another hour it came up briefly and he was able to leave with his phone but he still had to actually unlock it once he got home and he wouldn’t have been able to because the site went back down again. At least he didn’t need to go back to the store and he had a physical phone in his hand to play with. We took a picture with the display iPhone of the first activation to make it out of the door The iPhone really takes nice pictuers, so we asked the manager to send it to us.

The 3rd guy had the same deal. The guy who was with him (who had been sitting in his car the whole time we were lined up outside) was stuck at the trying to pay part so he stuck around awhile but #5 was a doctor so he had to bail and leave before getting anything. We all felt bad for him, but it’s not like the iPhone is going away. If he comes back next week they’ll have more 16gb phones and he probably won’t have to wait for hours like we did.

So that freed up another 16gb phone, so we decided that instead of repeating the process at a Fido store for me, and possibly having to wait another week or two for the 16gb phone (I’d actually put my music on it) that I’d take it here and we’d just have to lose the Fido Dollars. So I took the #9 spot after Simon.

It was like 11am by then and everyone was getting really antsy, the people outside were complaining that it was getting hot, and we were just tired because we’d been at 151 all night. So Nick and I went on a coffee and donut run. The poor staff hadn’t been able to take a break or eat or anything. So we bought them coffee and shared donuts with them.

We kept checking the apple websites and different tech blogs from the iPhone demo display To see if there was any news about what was going on. Europe had their release day 8 hours before us and they had no real issues other than they ran out. Which is to be expected. By noon, the people in PST were just jumping in trying to get theirs so there was no chance that the issues would clear up. At noon, the site came up briefly enough for the manager to at least check on Oedile & Simon’s eligibility for upgrades. Oedile was eligible but Simon was not. So he left, and the manager let 3 more people in.

The #4 guy, David, had to leave because he was going away for the weekend, but he’d already paid so they would just keep it aside for him till he came back.

So with Simon gone, there was 1 more 16gb iPhone available, but it was white. The #10 guy didn’t want it, #11 said he might take it, but he ended up not taking it. #12 guy was actually like #20 because the line outside kept shifting, people kept leaving. So he took the last 16gb phone by the end of the day. He was very very happy and I said he should buy a lottery ticket. He said it was actually for his wife though.

Manager Dan got an email from the head of the company saying that he could have people sign the contracts and set aside the phones they wanted and call them back when the system came back online. So that’s what we did and we finally left at 2pm. Drove Nick to his car at his condo and passed out at home as soon as we got there. Hopefully the system will be fixed tomorrow and we will get a call from Manager Dan but at least we have one set aside for us.

**Update** Today, July 12th, 2008, Saturday. Ken and I went to a bead store grand opening at 9am then got to the Roger’s store at 10am. They opened but the manager’s car had been swiped by another car in his parking lot so he had to stick around and take pictures and stuff so he was running late. Raquel and Ti couldn’t open the stock room that had all the iPhones with the already signed contracts so we had to wait. 2 people were already there when we arrived, one of them was #11 from Friday. So they started to process them, but it took almost 2 hours. Meanwhile, #10 showed up again too. We eventually walked out of the store by 12:30 with both of our iPhones. Ken’s is black 16gb and mine is white 16gb. We drove over to Best Buy to see if they had any cases. They had 4 but nothing spectacular. So we went to FutureShop, they had none at all. So we came home, did the registration on iTunes and starting looking through the App Store. I grabbed the Facebook App, AIM App… Then synched up my contacts and email and such and we drove over to Yorkdale Mall to check what cases the Apple Store had. They only had 4 cases as well but different ones. I picked up a clear clam shell case and Ken picked up a leather “sock” type case with a ratcheting clip. His came with a lot of other pieces like a screen cloth and arm band but he ended up not liking his case at all. The face cover kept sticking to the screen and making strange bubbles. Nick described it as “badly applied window tinting”. I did use the clear plastic faceplate sticker on mine since my case didn’t have any kind of cover.

We’ve been playing with them ever since. I’ve spent a good long time creating my mac address book so I can sync it up because I never used it. I also couldn’t import my old SIM card contacts onto the new SIM card so I had to manually enter in all the phone numbers I had stored. Then I added contact pictures for the Call Display feature. Now I think I’m going to nap, since I was up really early this morning.

I ordered some components from Fire Mountain Gems and it arrived on Monday but the delivery person just left a notice on our door even though Ken and I were both home and Ken was awake playing MGS2. The pick-up place was closed on Tuesday for Canada Day and we didn’t get a chance to go yesterday. I finally got my bead stuffs today so I wanted to finish off the 2 herringbone bracelets I made awhile ago and was waiting for clasps.

It seems most of the bead stores I go to here don’t want to carry the longer width clasps. While I was picking which one to start with I realized that I needed to make one of them a bit longer but I’d already finished off the pattern. So I decided to cut it apart and remake it.. About halfway through destroying it I realized that I didn’t need to take the whole thing apart, just a few rows of the end.. It was 5 inches long, I needed it to be 6 inches, I destroyed it to about 2 3/4’s inches and now have remade it back to 3 1/2 inches. /le sigh

p.s. I updated my thoughts on the stories in Everything’s Eventual. Check the books section or Bridge of Birds post.

My brother, his wife and their 2 kids were just here visiting with me. We had such a great time! It was their first real time in Toronto (or Canada for that matter) though they were all here for my wedding reception in 2006. That was just a weekend though and they didn’t get to see much of the city.

June 24th - Tuesday
They spent all day in Niagara Falls and didn’t arrive till after 7pm. We went to Memories of Japan for a tappanyaki dinner. The kids seemed to really like the food and the chef did some egg juggling and an onion volcano! My brother and his wife went out to check out a bar nearby, Scruffy Murphy’s. The kids stayed the night with us and we played Rock Band all night.

June 25th - Wednesday
Took the kids to our indoor pool to swim for a little bit but we were all hungry and the building was having water issues AGAIN. We went to Licks for lunch then took the subway to Union Station and walked down Front Street to the CN Tower. We purchased tickets through Airmiles so we had the full package and express elevator. They seemed to think it was cool. Especially the glass floor!

We found the skyway back to Union Station and met up with Ken to go to dinner at Pappas Grill on the Danforth. Isabel had a minor melt-down before dinner but DJ took her outside for awhile and she was fine after. We had a noisy bunch of teachers having their end of the year party at a table next to us. They were quite rowdy but it was funny to watch. After dinner we drove around the city a bit and Ken gave a mini-tour. Then back at our apartment we played some more Rock Band and Daemon played some Assassin’s Creed. Isabel didn’t have an extra pull-up with her so she went back to the hotel with DJ & Missy.

June 26th - Thursday
We woke up late, my brother had been trying to call but he had been using my cell phone number and I didn’t hear it. I drove Daemon over to pick them up so he could get changed. Then because of the time we just went to the Science Center, had lunch in their cafeteria and spent a good 3 hours looking at all the stuff and chasing after the kids. They especially loved the Science Arcade, the Giant Mouse Trap (like the game) and Isabel had to be dragged away from the Kid Spark area which had a stage set up with working lights and songs. Then at 5pm we saw Roving Mars in the Omnimax Theater. So cool! Everyone had a great time, though I think my sister-in-law had the best time there :p

Then we picked up Ken again for dinner and went to Pier 4. The kids didn’t really seem that interested in all the naval decorations but it was such a pretty view on the water and they loved the food. My brother & his wife shared a huge seafood platter for 2 that had everything you could want, if you like seafood that is!

June 27th - Friday
Picked everyone up at the hotel and we met Ken’s sister at the Pickle Barrel for lunch. Afterwards we took the kids to the Toys R Us store to browse. Managed to make it out without buying a THING! Then we hopped on the subway again, this time to Museum station and went to… wait for it.. the MUSEUM (Royal Ontario Museum)! They had a great Dinosaur exhibition going on. Pretty cool actually. Then they had a bunch of art and artifacts from different regions, China, Korea with some gorgeous mother of pearl inlaid furniture which is my favorite, Europe: Themes and collections with suits of armor and such, Europe: History of Style with displays of Victorian & other outfits and home decor, Africa, the Americas & Asias Pacific, Middle East & South Asia, Africa: Egypt which was the coolest of course!, Cyprus, The Bronze Age Aegean, & Greece which had the best jewlery display next to Egypt. We spent a long long 6 hours there, but only had one Isabel melt-down.

Ken picked us up after, and we drove to the Mandarin chinese buffet near our apartment. They are huge fans of chinese buffets so everyone loved it. Lots of variety there. We were all extremely stuffed! My friend came over after dinner and my brother entertained us all with stories and videos from Iraq. Then he and his wife went back out to the bar for their last night together. Daemon played more Assassin’s Creed. Isabel had a short melt-down when she couldn’t watch Meet the Spartans because we have it on Blu-Ray and that can only be played on the PS3 which Daemon was using. After some threats and some alone time in a bubble bath she calmed down and we watched her movie later.

I miss them already and I hope they can come back again this summer but I doubt my brother will be able to join them for awhile. My sister-in-law and the kids are staying witih my mom and younger brother in Virginia for awhile and my older brother will be in Florida doing some training.