zombie survival map

do you know where the nearest hardware store, outdoor store, campground or radio tower is in your city, should the sh*t hit the fan? i do.

this ingenious survival map, created by doejo, will come in handy in the zombie apocalypse.

nerdgasm at EA

wanna see a nerd swarm?

then park the dark knight's batmobile tumbler outside EA's phase 1 building!

everyone received an inter-office memo about this sudden surprise:

the batmobile was built by andy smith, a local cancer survivor who received his treatment at the BC cancer agency in vancouver. andy is an engineer, stuntman and special effects veteran in the film industry. andy has made the batmobile accessible to employees at EA burnaby as a thank you for hosting a VIP reception for the BC cancer foundation.

andy has also offered his time to talk about the creation and use of the batmobile in the dark knight and the dark knight rises on wednesday in the big picture at 11am and 1pm.

suffice it to say, there was a steady stream of geeks coming out and taking pictures with the batmobile. work? what work?! i mean, c'mon, it's the real batmobile!

and the media turned out in full force too. it even got featured in the vancouver sun.

sometimes my job has perks.

for more batmobile pictures, press play for the slideshow or click here for my flickr.

curling up

the picture is an iphone self shot, therefore, horrible quality. but i couldn't resist taking this picture of charlie curled up in a foetal position, sleeping right by my cheek.

bless.

you're getting very sleepy

tick tock. tick tock. tick tock.

it would be so hypnotic watching charlie's tail flick from side to side, if it wasn't so darn cute.

three cats i've been a human to and not one of them ever laid like this.

this is how charlie rolls.

chinatown delights

happy obscura day!

i think that everyday should be obscura day. surely it could be celebrated more than once a year. i mean, c'mon a day to discover unusual places, back room tours and explore hidden wonders in your hometown. or anywhere else.

last year, the vancouver police museum held a special forensics tour. although i find the museum small and there's not a lot to see, the special events the museum holds are pretty cool. i had a lot of fun at their past ballistics and pathology workshops.

this year, the sun yat sen classical gardens offered tours exploring their grotto beneath ting mountain.

and had we not gone to chinatown a couple of weekends ago, i may have signed up.

but not only that, sean and i had fun walking all around chinatown, absorbing all the sights, textures and of course, the unmistakable smells.

when i was a child, i spent many a weekend in chinatown. it was where my mom did her shopping and where we went to eat dimsum. but like most cosmopolitan cities with a large chinese community, chinatowns are often run down. i like how there have been efforts in the past few years of trying to revive ours with trendy asian fusion restaurants, bars and lounges, upscale furniture store and art galleries. but it takes time and will be years before it doesn't have that DTES feeling anymore.

still, if it was completely cleaned up, then it would be richmond now, wouldn't it?

the chinese business owners didn't mind that sean and i were taking pictures of their stands filled with strange delicacies. the most perturbing thing i saw for sale? dried silverfishes! how do they get so many silverfishes enough to fill an entire pail? buy them in bulk!

one cool photo i got was inside an herbal store. we were buying something, so i had hope the purchase would buffer any sort of resistance. but the owners seemed to be cool with it.

i was conflicted and yet fascinated at the same time checking out these preserved seahorses.

had they not reminded me of HR giger's artwork, i think i would've been more pertubed. as it were, i found myself appreciating how they look in their preserved state. is it wrong that i found them to be quite beautiful?

dance the night away

it's not always classical music at the vancouver symphony orchestra. in an effort to attract younger audiences, they put on a special series called VSO pops where the orchestra also performs broadway, jazz or pop classics tunes.

a couple of weeks ago, i went to let's dance!, a special symphony pops concert created by conductor jeff tyzik and choreographer carla heiney. heiney is the 2010 national jitterbug champion and choreographer for so you think you can dance. (love that show)



heiney wasn't there, but the professional dancers whom she choreographed were there dancing swing, waltz, latin, ballroom and tap, all while accompanied by the VSO. a novel and fun idea, i thought. i only wished that the dancers were given more stage to traipse around on. they had only the front edge, while the orchestra took up most of the space. it probably was sufficient room but from where i sat, it looked like, at any moment, the dancers might grand jetee themselves into the audience.

lots of recognizable musical pieces during the concert. i think i pretty much recognized all of them. the night went a little something like this:

bernstein/peress - west side story
strauss - blue danube waltz
charleston / shimmy
gliere - russian sailors dance
50s medley (blue suede shoes, i've got a woman, johnny b. good, twisting the night away)

intermission

swing dance medley
saint-saens - bacchanale from samson and delilah
scent of a woman soundtrack - tango
cute/sing sing sing - tap

and they closed the evening with what else? the music and dancing from dirty dancing. but of course. it was uplifting and recognizable in its radio-friendliness to young and old members of the audience. the couple of dancers did the lift, sans running start.

a bit cheesy to be honest, but it might be that i'm not as cynical as the toe-tapping, hand clapping audience who really seemed to enjoy it.

one highlight of the night was tap dancer alex dugdale who performed right before the closing number. a young tap dancing wonder from america, he really gave it that night, much to the audience's delight.



overall, i think it was a entertaining night, but i would love it if the VSO were to put on a swing only concert. love the dancing and syncopated music. now that's a dance class i could get onboard with.

the fab four!

happy 4th blogoversary to me!

how has it been a year already?!

so i'm celebrating with a new look! a blog re-design that will better showcase photos of my life. more creatively, i hope. stick around and let's see what i come up with.

thanks for reading and for your interest in this little life of mine. here's to another year of blogging!

don't go into the woods

omg, go watch cabin in the woods. sean and i went because we're both huge joss whedon fans (yay buffy!) and we were not disappointed. at all.

the less you know about this gem of a movie, the better. for once, the trailer does not give away the story. in fact, the movie is nothing like the trailer.

a rare thing, but it seems that everyone who've seen it, is keeping mums on the details (no spoilers!). the less you know about it, the better the movie experience.

seriously, it was the most fun i had watching a horror movie in a long time. i screamed. i laughed. i jumped. i cheered.

and yes, some days i wish i had a purge button of my very own.

sakura fest without the sakuras

it was that time of year again. the sakura festival at vandusen botanical gardens but with hardly any cherry blossoms. our winter was long and wet and as a result, the first cherry blossoms were rather disappointingly paltry and sparse. however, there were many other blooms to appreciate.

then something neither sean nor i ever saw at van dusen before. from across the lagoon, a bale of turtles just sunning themselves. we went around and had climbed down so that we could see them up close. it's not like i've never seen a turtle before. i used to have one as a pet. a small little turtle that i called puck. but puck never got as big because of the small hexagonal tank i had him in. these turtles are pretty big and hardly cared that we were there.

and then of course our visit is not complete without saying hello to our beloved minotaur, who still to this day, is missing his companion, the hare.

i wish vancouver winters wouldn't be so long or so inconsistent. hot and sunny some days, cold and damp the other days. it really does bork up cherry blossom trees.

sleepytime charlie

i would be that kind of mom. i mean, i'm that kind of human already. i could watch kidlets and animals sleep all day. and take pictures if given the chance.


doing the twist

have you ever seen that tumblr, cats in front of macs? charlie always plops himself down on my macbook pro. i should totally submit a picture.


he's an apple kitty


bunny feet!


i love trying to catch charlie yawning. not easy!


sleepy charlie

animals are the next cutest thing, beside kidlets, when it comes to sleepytime.

afternoon at nitobe gardens

one sunny weekend, we found ourselves at nitobe memorial garden at UBC. and although we were a week too early for the cherry blossoms to bloom, we still got to marvel at this lovely spring. got to capture some nice pictures too.

love the sunrays

reflections

a lone acorn

my very own suedehead

me shooting sean, shooting me

laying on the grass, with this as our view

we're a shady couple

it may not have been cherry blossoms, but beautiful all the same

cloudbusting

i love this. vancouver doesn't normally get fluffy and dramatic clouds. almost all the clouds here look like pulled apart cotton candy covering the sky. this cloud reminds me of the clouds found in the UK.

spring. my favourite time of the year.

animal rapport

it may have still been a little early before the cherry blossoms bloomed, but that didn't stop sean and i from going on a photo walk at QE park a couple of weeks ago.

the flowers hadn't opened yet, so we made our way to the duck pond. normally, ducks and geese are pretty skittish, unless you have a big bag of breadcrumbs.



however, these geese were sleeping and surprisingly, allowed sean to get pretty close to them.



and as i was watching this happen, i couldn't help but...



smile because, not only does my fella loves animals, but they in turn, seem to love him back.

naptime with charlie

one of my favourite things about lazy saturdays and sundays? hanging out with charlie and watching him nap.







too cute. makes me wish there were more than just 2 days in the weekend.

hockey night in canada

anyone that knows me know that i'm not a hockey fan. i don't watch it. i don't bandwagon it. and i don't pretend to make it a part of my life, if the guy i was with, happened to be a huge fan. girls who dress like barstars at a game, i'm talking to you.

you wouldn't find me at a game...unless, it was for a work thing. as part of our christmas bonus, our team got treated to a hockey game a couple of weeks ago. complete with penthouse suite and catering.

i declined the invite because a hockey game, like a buffet, would be wasted on me. but i was sweet talked into going because it was team-bonding and it was to celebrate all the hard work we put in the past year.

yea, i can't turn down that reasoning. but to be clear, i went strictly for the food. feed me.

the penthouse suite was sweet, it was so high up, that i had to let my eyes adjust as i sat in our two-tiered exclusive box seats. we were at 5 stories height, watching the game.


the whole NFSW team takes over the penthouse suite
photo courtesy of gary


box seats in the penthouse suite
photo courtesy of gary


the media team were our next door neighbours
photo courtesy of gary

i could care less about the game, but enjoyed the in-between period activities, with little kids playing a quick game of hockey, zambonis coming out to refresh the ice and the laser lightshow that precedes the start of the next period.



and to be honest, once i got a taste of the penthouse suite, i can't imagine watching another game (if ever) sitting in the pedestrian seats below.

then there was the jumbotron kiss cam/dance cam. with my luck, i would be caught on the jumbotron, stuffing my face with food a la george on seinfeld. and if THAT happened, i would run out and buy a lottery ticket the next morning. cuz really, what are the odds that the biggest anti-fan in the house that night would wind up on the jumbotron?

the night wasn't a total bust. it was fun chatting it up with my coworkers and not have the topic of conversation to be about "work".


jersey wearing canucks fans
photo courtesy of gary

but even that didn't make me stay past the 2nd period. cuz as much as i don't like hockey, i don't enjoy crowds more, especially as we would compete with getting cabs after the game.

canucks ended up beating the avalanche 1-0. woot?

double time in the dark

sean and i almost missed participating in earth day! even though i was reminded with EA's bulletin at work, and reminding sean it was coming up, we nearly missed it.

we had come back from a lovely dinner at indian oven, after a long arduous afternoon of driving through 7 (yes, 7!) suburbs of vancouver, only to realize that it had already started. in fact, there was only 15 minutes left. drat curses!

and we've been so good about it too! participating faithfully in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

we blame the clusterf*ck that was the coquitlam interchange, which caused us to forget. to make up for it, we did double the time in the dark. and it was so nice, we may have to "forget" next year.

above the clouds and over the mountains

i love how the world looks when i'm in an airplane. from my seat over the wings, i always take pictures of what the landscape looks like below me. i must have been a cartographer in a past life.

here's what it looked like on my way to whitehorse last week.


it was my first time flying over the snow-capped coast mountain range


looks like a meringue pie. or coconut cream pie.


white powder heaven

nature is stunning.