Archive | PermalinkFamily Reunion in Belle River - Addendum

Check it out! Whooooosh!

And please note that at the end of the day, there were reports that the slide was starting to fall apart. We (and I include me in this) did enjoy going down that slide!

Keywords: family_outings,vacation,video

Archive | PermalinkFamily Reunion in Belle River

July has been a pretty eventful month for Vin and me, I have all kinds of things to blog about. But it has also been a pretty busy work month, so it hasn't been too conducive to blogging. But before we finish out the month of July, I wanted to reflect back on our trip up to Belle River, Ontario earlier in the month. A family reunion was held at Vin's cousin Liz's house. This is the maternal side of Vin's family - Vin's Auntie Vera settled in Canada and we were happy to be included in the gathering. This was my first time meeting everyone other than Joanne, so forgive me if I make any mistakes naming all the family members! On the day itself, luckily we had name tags.

Keywords: family_outings,vacation

Archive | PermalinkIrfan's First First Cousin

Today begins a new era in Irfan's life.

He is now officially a first cousin to another human, in this case the less-than-a-day-old, yet nameless newborn son of Kak Nor & Abg Kie.

He's a pretty handsome, but quiet and sleepy dude. Which is better than the poor girl in the cot beside him, who seemed to be having a nightmare. What nightmares can a 3-hour old baby have anyway?

We'll go and visit Irfan's new cousin again tomorrow and see if we can get better photos. The nurse gave Cik Emma a hard time today for taking pictures in the ward.

The sleepy one:

The sleepy one turns the other way:

Irfan decides to join his cousin in the dreamlands:

Keywords: birthday,family_outings,irfan

Archive | PermalinkGary's Book Nominated for 3 Ennies

Congratulations to Gary Astleford for getting the book he co-wrote for Black Industries, Children of the Horned Rat nominated for 3 Ennie awards. The nominations are for Best Interior Art, Best Writing and Product of the Year.

Product of the Year is a hell of a big deal, of course, but I am very proud of him for the nomination for Best Writing. I seem to remember a conversation with Gary a long time ago. It was on how gaming products nowadays focus too much on rules, or intersperse rules with fluff on the campaign world... as opposed to try not breaking the fourth wall and write the book as if it was genuinely from that campaign universe. Then finally have all the custom rules for the book and such be an afterthought but easily accessible and indexed when required.

Now, going by the subtext of the Best Writing award, which is, "Awarded for the book containing the best prose and descriptive text (ie."cream" or "fluff")", I'd like to think Gary had a lot to do with it.

Congratulations, man.

Skavens are cool.

Was Brown Jenkins a skaven?

Keywords: friends,rpg,star_wars

Archive | PermalinkNixon in China: Minimalist Rant on an Awful Opera

Last summer, Vin and I started going to the Cincinnati Opera where we enjoyed 3 wonderful operas last year. This summer, with great excitement, we subscribed to the entire season (Cincinnati Opera is a summer season, they produce 4 operas each summer).

We enjoyed Faust in mid-June, then had to miss Cosi Fan Tutte due to an unexpected death in the family. We gave our tickets to our friends who said they very much enjoyed the performance. The third opera this year was Nixon in China. We went to see it on Saturday night.

Now begins the rant. Better not continue reading if you object to profanities because I'm afraid I can't contain myself on this one.

Archive | PermalinkChocolate Lemon Bars

Thanks to the birthday presents from Lilian, I have had some more fun experiments in the kitchen. One of the recipe books contains the recipe for Lemon Bars, which is a sugar cookie-esque base topped with a tangy lemon custard. I decided to up the ante and top the custard with a layer of melted chocolate.

Well. Who can blame me for wanting to add chocolate, right?

Keywords: food

Archive | PermalinkFantastic Four: Meme Redux

Another meme arrives and since my fellow bloggenstein who happens to also be my sister has tagged me... Wait, are there any rules about tagging your fellow blogmate based in the same weblogsite? No matter. I shall give this meme a whatfor like it's never been given a whatfor before.

A blog whatfor!

A blorgthwthfor!

Keywords: meme,music

Archive | PermalinkFantastic Four: A Meme

Since Selena (my preciousssssss pearl from PlanetKambing) tagged me for this, I figured I should get to it before I start procrasssstinating! Before any Silver Surfers start rising, here goes:

Keywords: meme

Archive | PermalinkBest Wiki Disambiguation Page Ever

Before this page disappears off the face of the internets, I would like to bring your attention to why wikis aren't the best source for you to quote your argument or college paper.

However, having encountered the same damned error over and over again on the net, I have to applaud this wiki's writer's spirit in getting the point through to the reader.

Keywords: funny,the_internets,transformers