August 26, 2010

Will you sign my banana?

No bet­ter place for a bach­e­lor party than in the mar­ket, where peo­ple see you in a giant banana cos­tume and assume you’re either get­ting mar­ried or lost a bet.

Before going out drink­ing, they went paint­balling, though this still didn’t pre­clude the groom-to-be from hav­ing to wear the bright yel­low cos­tume in the field.

banana hug

One of sev­eral bach­e­lorette par­ties we ran into that night.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged as Filed under
June 27, 2010

Bobby’s number two

I’ve been itch­ing to play around with some new footage lately cause I love edit­ing and it’s been a while since I had a good story to tell, so when Tiana invited me to Bobby’s sec­ond birth­day party, I couldn’t resist. I also recently pur­chased some new gear in prepa­ra­tion of a wed­ding I’ve been hired to film in the Fall (with a sec­ond one poten­tially lined up), and I’ve been look­ing for an oppor­tu­nity to field-test a new bag, shoul­der strap, and monopod.

I tend to get really shy at Tiana’s par­ties cause I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know any­one else there, but she does a good job of mak­ing sure I’m never left alone for too long and included in most con­ver­sa­tions. She’s also the only other per­son I know to actu­ally design cus­tom invi­ta­tions. This time, how­ever, she was sport­ing a perky new hair­cut, and no longer a veg­e­tar­ian (for now). Such is the power of St. Hubert.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged as Filed under
June 15, 2010

Cranium Party, the Third

So out of the 26 peo­ple I invited to the third Cranium Party, 9 said they couldn’t make it, 13 said they’d come, and 4 didn’t RSVP at all.

Out of the 13 peo­ple who said they’d come, only 3 of them showed up, and one of those was Jessica, who was sort of co-hosting this one with me, so fuck yeah she was there1.

That means that includ­ing me, we had four peo­ple, which is the bare min­i­mum to play Cranium.

To say I was dis­ap­pointed is an under­state­ment. I spent a great deal of time and energy mak­ing the invi­ta­tions, and clean­ing the house so my guests could be com­fort­able. Not to men­tion all the food I bought, most of which went bad because there weren’t enough peo­ple to eat it (and espe­cially when the guests who do show up also bring plenty of snacks).

We did end up play­ing a good game, but it was entirely not worth all the preparation.

Jessica offered to host the next one at her place — very nice of her because that really means she’s offer­ing to shoul­der all the respon­si­bil­i­ties — but I feel like Cranium par­ties are my thing. An invi­ta­tion is not only an invi­ta­tion to play, it’s an invi­ta­tion into my social cir­cle. The guest list is tightly con­trolled; any­one on it is either a very close friend, or some­one I can tell has the poten­tial to be. I want to have all the respon­si­bil­ity, because it’s one of the ways I can show these peo­ple they’re impor­tant to me.

At the same time, some peo­ple are already ask­ing about the next one2, which I find strange because the impres­sion I get is that it’s a low pri­or­ity, never some­thing peo­ple put in their sched­ule and plan around. I’m pretty sure most only go if noth­ing else comes up on that day.

That’s fine by me — not every­one loves doing bad impres­sions of Christopher Walken as much as I do — but when peo­ple say they’re going to be there and don’t show up, it’s a com­plete deval­u­a­tion of my efforts. I’m seri­ously ques­tion­ing if I’m going to host another Cranium party any time soon. If I do, the next invite list will undoubt­edly be much shorter.

At the very least, the day was sal­vaged with some bub­ble tea, Chinese food, and qual­ity time with Jessica.

  1. She’s also the only per­son to make it to all Cranium par­ties up to now. []
  2. I pur­posely don’t make them a reg­u­lar thing because I want them to be spe­cial. []
Tagged as Filed under
May 19, 2010

Audra’s 34th

For Audra’s birth­day we headed to the Savana Cafe, with some choco­late ice cream cake at the William’s res­i­dence after leav­ing the very rude ser­vice we were given.

I also got to meet Jesse’s dad, Jim. He reminds me very much of his son in terms of their intel­lect and inter­ests, and I found it quite novel to talk to an older ver­sion of Jesse with a soft voice and grey facial hair.

Dinner table

Across the table is Jesse, Caitlyn, Ariel, Ira, and Jairus. Jesse’s dad to my right.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged as Filed under
March 28, 2010

Tiana’s 29th

Also fea­tur­ing Bobby Hurricane.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged as Filed under
February 23, 2010

Cranium Party 02

Cranium Party invitation

The sec­ond Cranium Party went exceed­ingly well, even though not a sin­gle one of my core friends was there. In fact, aside from Jess, it was an entirely dif­fer­ent group from last time, and none of the four groups of peo­ple knew each other, but that didn’t stop it from being an awe­some party and every­one got along famously. Through the night, I heard peo­ple ask­ing each other, “And how do you know Jeff?”

People brought all sorts of snacks, but more impor­tantly, they also helped me eat them. Of note was Audra bring­ing a tub of green tea and honey vanilla Häagen-Dazs ice cream, which I had never even heard of before.

To make it inter­est­ing, I told every­one that the los­ing team would have to per­form a tal­ent. Some came pre­pared, oth­ers came with the atti­tude that they wouldn’t lose.

Audra’s tal­ent is speech writ­ing, but since she couldn’t per­form that, she did a ren­di­tion of a song she wrote with Jesse three years ago about their cat Zoey. And the song wasn’t just a short jin­gle, it was a full piece with proper song struc­ture and clever rhymes. If only I wasn’t laugh­ing so hard that I kept shak­ing the camera.

Sergei didn’t have a tal­ent pre­pared, but since I knew that he used to study mar­tial arts, I asked him if he could demon­strate what he knew. He sug­gested that he could blow out a can­dle with a punch, and no one was left unmoved.

Shawn brought his beau­ti­fully carved didgeri­doo to play as his tal­ent. Even though he didn’t lose, peo­ple were still intrigued enough that they wanted to try it. And, of course, Jesse added his own flavour at the end.

Tagged as Filed under
January 20, 2010

Night Of Black Magic

Bunny

Thumbnail: Lloyd and Felicetta
Thumbnail: Patti and Chris
Thumbnail: Me and Lloyd
Thumbnail: Mike
Thumbnail: Trying on hat

Thumbnail: Dark ritual

I was invited to a night of black magic (as well as some tasty antipasto), and I didn’t know what to expect. Part of the instruc­tions were to bring a large piece of con­struc­tion paper, a white pen­cil crayon, and a piece of paper with some­thing writ­ten on it that I want to be rid of in my life. Turns out the con­struc­tion paper was to make our hats and chains, and the pen­cil crayon was to fash­ion said hats and chains with our power sym­bols (some­thing with mean­ing to each per­son). I was also given a phrase to mem­o­rize and incant dur­ing the ceremony.

There were glow sticks, good food1, and great peo­ple. I won’t go into details about the rit­ual, for reveal­ing too much, as I under­stand it, is akin to telling peo­ple your birth­day wish. Needless to say, I hope to wake up to some growth down south (aka expan­sion to drilling oper­a­tions in the wildlife pre­serve) one of these days, if you catch my drift.

  1. I got to try some kind of home­made peach juice, which was a thick as glyc­erin, but very tasty. []
Tagged as Filed under
December 4, 2009

Heather’s Birthday Dinner

Feeding Sergey

Thumbnail: Heather, Summer, Sergey
Thumbnail: The Glebe
Thumbnail: Italian market
Thumbnail: Picking produce
Thumbnail: Salmon, red pepper pizza
Thumbnail: Beef, red pepper pizza
Thumbnail: After dinner
Thumbnail: Sprinkling chocolate
Thumbnail: Tiramisu and chai tea
Thumbnail: Raspberries
Tagged as Filed under
November 16, 2009

Birthday Weekend

At The Japanese Village

I prob­a­bly looked like this the whole week­end, cause it was non-stop awesomeness.

The Japanese Village

Last week, Aaron asked me if I wanted to go to The Japanese Village. I thought it was just to hang out, since we hadn’t had a guy’s night in a while, so I didn’t clue in that it was for my birth­day until the day of. Aaron told me I could order any­thing I want, as it was his treat, but I ordered the only thing I ever get when I’m there; the filet mignon cooked medium rare, which I think is the best in the city. It was good to hang out with him and Trolley again.

And, of course, silli­ness is always present with these guys around.

John in town

Chilling on the couch

John’s been work­ing two straight months, with­out a week­end off. The last time was when he came to Ottawa to visit. Between all the activ­i­ties, we only had enough time to watch one movie — American Graffiti — and between the two of us, we could sing every song that came from this film based in the 60s (me cov­er­ing The Platters, him cov­er­ing every­thing else).

I usu­ally only get to see him once a year, so twice in two months was a spe­cial treat.

Cranium Party

I’d love to do games nights on a reg­u­lar basis, but peo­ple aren’t avail­able on the same days, so I used my birth­day as an excuse to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble together for a giant Cranium party. I told them that instead of giv­ing me a present, they should just come to the party. It worked, and we had enough for four teams of three. Some peo­ple also brought snacks, like honey mus­tard pret­zels, car­rot cup­cakes, and freshly baked choco­late chip cookies.

It was the high­light of the weekend.

Dim sum with my dad

John and dad at dim sum

On Friday, my dad called me to wish me a happy birth­day, and told me he was in town for 10 days. We made plans to have dim sum. John came too, which is always inter­est­ing to see his reac­tions to what food is as the token white guy. I had a phoenix talons for the first time1, because I was feel­ing adven­tur­ous, and I have to say that they weren’t bad, but I didn’t care for them either. They’re too hard to eat, and the sauce wasn’t to my taste. It was strange to see both John and my dad at the same place, and in Ottawa instead of Toronto.

I told my dad he could prob­a­bly sit and observe one of my Tai Chi classes, so he could see what I do, but he wasn’t inter­ested, and I’ll admit that the indif­fer­ence hurt a bit. Afterward, I asked John what he thought as a 3rd party observer, and he told me I had a good rela­tion­ship with my dad. I’ll take his word for it.

I needed this

I needed this week­end so much. To recharge. To stop think­ing about things. To get com­pletely wasted. It felt like it was my birth­day the whole week­end, and I won­dered what I did to deserve it all.

  1. It wasn’t the taste, but the look that has always pre­vented me from try­ing them. []
August 2, 2009

Bobby’s First Birthday

Tiana playing hostess

Thumbnail: Chillin
Thumbnail: Fragrance oils
Thumbnail: Smelling oils
Thumbnail: Fruit kabobs
Thumbnail: Pug in cage
Thumbnail: Sandwiches
Thumbnail: Large owl cake
Thumbnail: Serving cake
Thumbnail: Small owl cake
Thumbnail: Bobby pokes his birthday cake

Bobby nom nom nom

Hard to believe that it’s been a year since I’ve seen Tiana. The last time I saw her was when we did her preg­nant photo shoot, and I’d never met Bobby.

Tagged as Filed under
July 13, 2009

Vegetarian Pot Luck

Drinks over dinner

Thumbnail: Tofu, salad, and tourtière
Thumbnail: Salad
Thumbnail: Candlelight
Thumbnail: Dessert
Thumbnail: Dance

A chance to try new recipes and share them with oth­ers. Also, a chance to learn some dance moves so you may not feel so out-of-place the next time you’re at a Jewish wed­ding. I wish I had started tak­ing pic­tures sooner instead of get­ting dis­tracted by all the food, because there was so much of it. We sat around and ate and con­versed until the sun went down, then ate some more.

I love meet­ing inter­est­ing peo­ple. People with some­thing to say (in beau­ti­ful accents), and new per­spec­tives to offer. People who are as curi­ous about you, as you them.

Tagged as Filed under
July 1, 2009

Tom’s Birthday Barbecue

Pulling a Lynndie

Thumbnail: Cheese and hummus
Thumbnail: Conversations
Thumbnail: Tim explains
Thumbnail: Fried peppers
Thumbnail: Helbotica t-shirt
Thumbnail: pasta
Thumbnail: Pork chops
Thumbnail: Potatoes
Thumbnail: Roast beef
Thumbnail: Dinner table

For Tom’s birth­day, we gath­ered at Tim’s for grilled chicken breasts, pork chops, roast beef, and some pleas­ant con­ver­sa­tion. I always find it inter­est­ing that the top­ics we dis­cuss are so dif­fer­ent from the ones at par­ties. Subjects tend to be more intel­lec­tual, whereas con­ver­sa­tions at Pat’s house, let’s say, are much more jovial and carefree.

May 29, 2009

Goodbye Karaoke Party

Frédéric, Misun, and the boys are mov­ing to France to explore a new busi­ness ven­ture. To say good­bye to every­one, they rented out a karaoke bar and had a party. The night was a cacoph­ony of sound, for the kids were given free reign of the dance floor and ran around in cir­cles, while the adults took turns singing and eating.

This is my first “5x5”; a video of five vignettes at five sec­onds each. It’s a help­ful guide­line for putting together footage that doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily have a con­sis­tent theme. It’s also very restric­tive, as five sec­onds is barely enough to see what’s going on in a par­tic­u­lar clip, and that means you really have to find the essence of action. I gen­er­ally don’t make 5x5s because I always have a story to tell, but in this case, it’s fun just to see how peo­ple sing. This is very dif­fer­ent from the Chinese karaoke par­ties I was wit­ness to as a kid, where the adults take their singing very seri­ously, so every­one is very quiet, atten­tive, and quite rehearsed.

The one who stole the show was Akio, who had heard Frédéric, Misun start­ing a duet of Ne Me Quitte Pas, took the micro­phone from Misun, and started repeat­ing the line he had just learned.

I told Frédéric, “It’s amaz­ing that you’re not ner­vous up there”, and he told me, “I just said to myself that I want to have fun, and it wouldn’t be fun if I didn’t sing, so I wasn’t ner­vous.” I wish I could do that.

Tagged as Filed under
February 6, 2009

Sunday Pot Luck Brunches

Gathering in the living room

Thumbnail: One of my smoothies
Thumbnail: Tim cooks bacon
Thumbnail: Wooden trivet
Thumbnail: Pancakes
Thumbnail: Fruit bowl
 

Tim is, as he puts it, cut from the same cloth as his uncle, inso­far as they both enjoy enter­tain­ing. They also live in a four-storey house, which is per­fect for such a thing.

So every Sunday, peo­ple come together for a casual pot luck brunch, where guests are invited to bring food, the idea being that it’s be eas­ier to bring a dish some­where and share with every­one than sit at home and make break­fast for your­self. Last time, I got to try fancy smoked bacon, and a pancake-batter-cooked-in-bacon-grease experiment.

At this point, enough peo­ple know about it that no one has to men­tion ahead of time whether they’ll be com­ing, but there’s enough food for all.

Tim described this pretty well in a recent e-mail:

Dear Everyone,

I’m fas­ci­nated by coor­di­na­tion problems.

Coordination prob­lems are sit­u­a­tions where all the actors involved are more or less on the same side, but there is imper­fect infor­ma­tion. Everyone wants the same gen­eral out­come but isn’t sure how every­one else is going to get at it.

Driving is a solved coor­di­na­tion prob­lem. No one wants an acci­dent so we all want to drive on the same side of the road, but there is noth­ing spe­cial about choos­ing the left or the right side. How do peo­ple pick?

In 1958, Thomas Schelling ran this exper­i­ment on a group of uni­ver­sity stu­dents in Connecticut: “Imagine that you are to meet some­one in New York City at noon, but you don’t know where and you can’t get in touch with them in advance. Where do you go?”

Without con­sult­ing one another, the major­ity of them picked the same loca­tion. I won­der if you can guess what it was (where would you go?).

Every week, we solve and re-solve a coor­di­na­tion prob­lem with brunch. Everyone wants a good and var­ied brunch spread. Different peo­ple come every week and no one RSVPs, so you can never be sure what other peo­ple will bring. We don’t con­sult in advance, I don’t assign dishes or types of dishes. The only infor­ma­tion we have is what was at brunch the pre­vi­ous week and my writ­ten sug­ges­tion about fruits, which is mer­ci­fully ignored by most of you.

Yet every week brunch has a wide range of deli­cious foods. Isn’t that amazing?

I think it’s amazing.

Hope to see you on Sunday,

Tim

If I was par­tic­i­pat­ing in Schelling’s exper­i­ment, I would have cho­sen to meet at the clock in Grand Central Station; it’s always stood out to me because of the way it was promi­nently fea­tured in the fan­tasy waltz sequence done by Terry Gilliam in The Fisher King. I had no idea that this was also the infor­ma­tion booth, and it’s this place exactly that most stu­dents chose.

And it goes with the peo­ple at brunch as well. When one per­son eats, another will get up to cook. When every­one is done eat­ing, the dishes are all put away, the pans are all cleaned. With the wis­dom of crowds, noth­ing needs to be said.

I think it’s amaz­ing too.

January 15, 2009

Documentary Night

Picking vinyl

Thumbnail: Banister kitty
Thumbnail: CD rack
Thumbnail: Playing Wii
Thumbnail: Tree piece
Thumbnail: Stealing kitty
 

A cam­era to mask my shy­ness, a lens to hide behind.

At Audra and Jesse’s I felt like I was back in uni­ver­sity. Meeting peo­ple, learn­ing names, throw­ing in for some pizza. Except this time, I wasn’t being dragged, kick­ing and scream­ing to the party. Maybe I was just feel­ing social, because I hadn’t seen my own friends in so long.

I learned that play­ing Punch Out on the Wii is as nat­ural to you as it was back when you were in your room back in ele­men­tary school, cry­ing because you were no one’s best friend. That watch­ing Air Guitar Nation — when it’s hard to tell how seri­ously the con­tes­tants take them­selves — is much more enjoy­able with sar­cas­tic com­ments applied lib­er­ally from the audience.

I want to know these people.

I want to find out what dri­ves them. I want to know why they cre­ate, why they’ve cho­sen their medi­ums. Why they hang out together. Why they stud­ied what they stud­ied. Why they have the jobs they do.

They’re well-read, edu­cated, opin­ion­ated, cos­mopoli­tan. I felt some­what out of place. Topics of con­ver­sa­tion weren’t even close to my inter­ests. Concerts aren’t my scene. Politics con­fuse me. Things are hap­pen­ing to other friends I’ve never met. But when there’s this much to learn, lis­ten­ing is just as good as tak­ing part.

It was past mid­night by the time I got home, but I had hard time falling asleep. My brain was buzzing, try­ing to take in every­thing I had just experienced.

Tagged as Filed under