Victoria

Empress Tea Room.

I've never understood the appeal of high tea/afternoon tea. Always thought it was never a 'good value'. Ok, I'm really just cheap... but, c'mon... you know what I mean when you're looking at the bill and reflecting on what you just "ate". There is one thing that I'll give to the concept of high tea... it's that the fact that all the portions are so small that it brings itself to your attention. Think about that. You sit there, eating this bite size sandwich and thinking to yourself, "OMG, this is SMALL!" and you continue to think about it... "This tastes {add your adjective here}!" This is contrary to your usual routine of eating, and that's just not really caring and continue to shove it into your face.

So, the phrase "... appreciating the little things in life..." probably came from eating high tea. Well, that's just my theory.

I still think it's a rip off.



Parliament Building


Empress Lobby

Chin-up Tea: Pinkies up!

At the Empress Hotel in Victoria

Thanks for the trip, Cat and Drew!
Thanks for the ride, Drew!
Happy Birthday, Babee!
Happy 2.5 Birthday, Sephie!
Congrats, Cat & Drew!!
Congrats, Mom!!



Click HERE to view the menu


Tier#1

Tier#2

Tier#3

Sephie's personal tier of sandies and cookies.


While we were sipping our unique blend of teas, her majesty, Queen Elizabeth something something, came down and visited us! It was awesome. Came to our table and greeted us and annointed my daughter "Princess"! Awesome. And to make it all so official and stuff, she signed a certificate making it so. Ok, her handwriting is a bit off, but she did get the spelling right. And it wasn't exactly centered. We'll forgive her this time. She's old. (We didn't get a picture with her... said she was a bit camera shy)




Happy 2 1/2 Birthday, Princess Persephanie!!

Bob the Earth (the post formally known as Gaia)

So, I had a thought.

I hear this all the time in movies: A parental figure tells their son/daughter not to worry when they die, they will be watching down on him/her from the stars above.

Sure it's cheesy, I know.. but the thought... "what if it's true?" came to mind. Then the more I think about it.. the possibility gets better.

Ok, walk with me on this...

Our planet has been known by a couple of "names": Mother Earth or Gaea/Gaia, A concept that brings us to believe that the planet is alive and maybe at some level, even sentient. I can see that... there are the trees everywhere and billions of organisms that thrive successfully on it. On a level, not much different than the hair on my head and the germs that live on my skin. See the analogy there? Well anyways, Gaia is a theory created by a scientist named James Lovelock, who worked at NASA doing space stuff. (Well... details of the man isn't important, it's his theory that gets my attention) His theory claims that our Earth, "Gaia", is sentient enough to have a global system that can balance itself. The surface temperature, composition of the atmosphere, and the ocean's salinity. Despite the Sun's increase in energy throughout time, all three variables has remained constant. That's Gaia self-preserving. That's life!

(This concept is in entertainment very frequently: Final Fantasy games and movie, Horton Hears a Who movie, South Park episode: Lice Capades, and even in the new movie, Avatar)

So here's MY thought on this.. what if Gaia is actually a soul? A soul that's inhabiting a form that is a big giant space rock. Why not, right? "Souls" seem to able to inhabit many forms. We see it on many creatures that live on Earth. So why not a planet? Does size matter? I'm pretty sure it doesn't. And to extend this thought... what if ALL the stars we see out there are also Gaias?!? Suns and planets that have souls! I figure once someone on Earth dies, their soul would leave out to space and inhabit a star. When a star is born, that's the moment the soul enters. Then there it can thrive "forever"...or until an asteroid hits it.

So,why not?

Maybe Mufasa really was looking down on Simba. (But not Obi-wan... he was just a cheap 70s hologram)

Random pics

Pro!

The Mirror!

Want answers to our past? Want to know if dinosaurs really had feathers? Or what exactly killed off the dinosaurs? Or if Jesus existed? What did he look like? So many questions...

I once had this conversation with my colleagues about this simple solution and this topic is once again brought up on a blog I frequent. (This is also indirectly inspired by one of the greatest sci-fi movies I had ever had the pleasure to watch recently: The Man From Earth)

I have the answer to get those answers!

The Mirror. Specifically, One big giant mirror in space reflecting back at Earth.



Hear me out:
Working on the same principle that when we look at stars up in the sky, what we actually see is the past of those stars. Given that the light from that star travels many light years to reach our eyes. So...

1) We make a giant mirror
2) Send it out to space.
- Place it 1,000,000 light years from earth if we want to see Earth 2,000,000 years ago
- Place it 1,005 light years from earth if we want to witness the birth of Christ
3) Aim that mirror back at Earth
4) Setup telescopes on earth to the mirror
5) Sit back and "reflect" on our past!

See? Easy-peasy.

Forgot what you had for breakfast a year ago? No problem!

* And for those of you that are picky about details regarding my picture above... the answer is "no", there isn't a reflection of a telescope in the mirror. Remember, the past will not have anyone looking back! Duh.

Happy 27th month Bday, Sephie!

Lunch with the Sumi, MukMuk, Quachi, and Miga

Olympics are in town!

Mmmmm.... chocolate

Ahhhh! I've gained weight!

With all the events happening Cat and Drew's wedding, Olympics, Chinese New Year dinners ect... I believe I've gained some weight. I dare not step on the scale but just want to go on the treadmill. In fact, I should do it now.

333 days to go

(What?!! it's been almost month already!)

One Solution to the World: The Straw!

The world we know it is officially in a state of emergency. The wars we have are mostly due to religions or lack of land (Japan.. ok, that's an old story of WWone, but, c'mon, look at them.. they're stuck on a tiny island. They need space!). And, if you think about it, if we had more land, Religion wouldn't be an issue either. Like Lex Luthor said, "Real Estate is ALWAYS in demand!"

Then we have Global Warming. All that ice melting, threatening to turn Los Angelos into the next Atlantis. (I'm not feeling the beach front resorts in Minnesota.)


the solution: The Big Straw.


Ok, hear me out...

From the ocean, build a giant straw up to space. siphon some of the Earth's water into space. Not all of it, just say... 20% of what we have. Didn't need all of it. We have too much of it anyways. "75% of the Earth is water?!?" Not like human population is THAT thirsty. C'mon. Like I said, we need land. Ok, so, who's gonna suck the straw? Mother Nature! (Wait. on a side note... does she live in space too? or just confined to Earth?!?) Anyways... back on topic. Space is a vacuum. It will do it automatically. Genius, right?! No need for anything mechanical. Nothing fancy. Just a tube. We can regulate the amount of water transferred. Once we feel it's a good amount we pull the straw out. Done. It's literally a giant cylinder from Earth to Space.


And it's cheap to make! If the government(s) aren't willing to invest in such an awesome idea, the people can do it. Use the drinking straw. Sure, it's smaller in diameter, and it might take a bit longer to suck up the water, but, it's free!


Here's how we'll do it:
- A typical McDonald's drinking straw is 9 inches long.
- And each McD's probably has about 1000 pieces in stock at any given time.
- That's 9000 inches of straw in each restaurant.
- (According to Wikipedia) there's over 31,000 McDs worldwide.
- That means 279,000,000 inches (or 23,250,000 feet) of straw in all of McDs.

Our goal is the exosphere, which is only around 2,500,000 feet. So, we're definitely good. (Even with the overlap you need to connect the straws together.)


That's it. Simple, eh? World's problems all solved (well, except taxes).

Bonus: Wouldn't it be cool if we used those bendy straws instead!?

Ok.. I gotta stop smoking.

On the road to better living...

So I woke up this morning and found a book " Chinese System of Food Cures". I've decided I'm going to incorporate some chinese dishes and make up some of my own. I need these dishes to be healthy, easy and cheap. So our first meal for today is: brown rice, broccoli, carrot, turkey breast, orange and water. Tonee and Sephie is also getting the same meal just different portion. The one is the picture is Sephie's portion. Mine is a bit more and Tonee's the most. I forgot to mention about the sauce. I've made it tasty (ginger, oyster sauce, cornstarch, oil, black bean sauce).

360 days to go.

Lina's Weight Goal

During grandmother's 100th birthday banquet four days ago. I had made a promise to lose weight within one year. I'm not sure how in the world I'm going to do this but it has to be done! I've also setup the counter to motivate

Happy New Decade!

Xmas feast: Turducken!

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This is a Turducken. If you don't know what it is... it's a culinary beast of perfection! And when I say beast.. I mean THREE freaking beasts in one!!! What you see here is a whole de-boned chicken... INSIDE a whole de-boned duck... INSIDE a whole (almost) de-boned turkey!!! (only the wings and drumstick are left behind). Awesomeness.

The turducken is alongside the traditional turkey on this table. Andrew did sneak some bacon into the turkey though. And it was delicious!

Pineappes and Ham, spaghetti, 'tatoes, veggies, and cheesecake finished off this feast.



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