MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERBODY!

Susan and I hope you have a truly joyous Christmas and the happiest of New Years! We will be thinking of you and your loved ones during this special time of year.

God Bless and see you all soon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

It was my dad's birthday yesterday!!

So happy birthday Dad! I have no idea how old he is exactly - he refuses to let any of us count his rings.

4 more days till Christmas!!

There are only 4 more days until Christmas?? How can that be?? But I still have a couple things to buy! I haven't bought any groceries for Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas breakfast or dinner! I haven't put up the lights on the house yet! The house needs cleaning! When will the stuff I ordered on-line come?! When will I have time to watch my Christmas televion shows? Can't I just relax? So many friends and relatives to see still! Does this even feel like Christmas anymore?? ARGHHHHHHH!

Wait, calm down (I am a hollow reed, I am a hollow reed, troubles blow through me like a hollow reed. I am a...)

I shouldn't be caught up in all this stuff. Need to re-focus. What's Christmas all about again? Tell me Charlie Brown tell me!

It's not 4 more days of shopping left - it's 4 more days until we celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. Gotcha.

Stop looking at everything as "buying stuff" - tis the season for giving. Check.

Relaxing on my own is great, but I should be celebrating the season with friends and family. Okay.

Christmas going too fast? Take time to stop and smell the pointsettias. Sure.

So what if you haven't put up your Christmas lights up - go take a walk around the neighbourhood and enjoy other people's lights. Fine.

Okay, I feel a little better. Glad I got that out of my system...

On another note, I'm, as always, looking very forward to singing at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. It's always the highlight of the year for me!

You are all invited to come out to St. Joseph the Worker, 4451 Williams Road in Richmond and celebrate with us! Caroling starts at about 9:45 pm and the mass itself starts at 11 pm. It runs until midnight. It's a beautiful celebration and is very well attended so come early! Even though St. Joe's is very big, it overflows during midnight mass every year.

Okay, that's it - hope you're all enjoying the Christmas season!

Good news!

Well I have three pieces of good news in no particular order...

1) My Christmas shopping is finally all done! Finally...

2) My sister-in-law Angeline is back in town all the way from New York City. Let's get this straight - she's her own person. She is not a smaller version of Susan, although everybody who sees the two of them together thinks so. Ange is much more feisty - but in a good way. I'm her FBIL (favourite brother-in-law) in the whole world. Anyway, welcome home Banjo Ange!

3) My oldest friend in the world (and neighbor) Jason and his wife Jo had a baby boy on Tuesday! A little over 5 pounds! Joshua Imoo has arrived for Christmas! Woo Hoo!! We're very happy for them and can't wait to see the new addition to Moresby Drive.

I have to plan out the menu for Christmas dinner! Hopefully I'll get that worked out today.

Anyway, I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season - I know that can be tough to do!

As promised, here are some pics from Vegas...

The Mirage

The Venetian














































Outside of The Paris


















Susan at The Luxor

































My bro and I at the Excalibur


















The Wynn















The 50 ft Christmas tree on Fremont Street


















The Fremont Street Experience


















The Bellagio
































Caesar's Palace

Vegas in review

I have pictures coming so hold your horses. Vegas was, what's the word I'm looking for, cold. Yeah, it was down right chilly. It even rained on our last night there. Felt EGGACTLY like Vancouver. But enough about the weather...

We stayed at the Mirage on the 10th floor and we had a pretty decent view of the Strip. The hotel is getting a bit older now but it was still nice enough. We could see The Venetian and Harrah's pretty well out our window.

We spent most of our time walking around the Strip visiting casinos. My feet and knees were killing me after just 3 days. We basically saw every casino from Mandalay Bay in the south all the way to The Wynn in the north. We made a trek downtown to Fremont Street as well to see the light show there. Lots of free entertainment along the Strip. Some were even Christmas themed. Actually I was expecting Vegas to be a little more decked out...

We caught a Cirque du Soleil show at Treasure Island - now called TI. Got discount tickets too so that was good. There's nothing better than watching circus freaks. I mean that. It was an amazing show. Very bendy people. Very muscular people. Very little body fat.

We saw some wildlife too - we saw the white tigers at the Mirage, looked at Flamingoes and saw a couple lions too.

Susan and I watched the Bellagio Fountain show TEN times! It's by far the best free thing in Vegas. It was so majestic and so beautiful. Speaking of the Bellagio, they had these amazing Christmas displays inside their Conservatory. There was a family of 3 bears each with thousands of hand placed carnations as fur. There was a field of pointsettias amidst a fountain with dancing spurts of water. There were 100,000 cranberries floating in another fountain. There were giant reindeer covered in 600 pounds of whole pecans. It was pretty spectacular in there.

Oh and the food...man - we tried three buffets while we were there. I'm still a little full.

Cravings at the Mirage - great snow crab legs, big hand tossed salads, huge shrimp cocktail, good sushi

Le Village at the Paris - it was like eating in the middle of Beauty and the Beast ("little town full of little people..."), nice selection of french food, wonderful desserts and yummy leg of lamb!

The Carnival Buffet at the Rio - 300 items!! the food line went on and on and on and on and on. I've never seen anything like it. That was impressive. Complete with champagne too! Best prime rib ever.

Vegas has really changed a lot since I was there last. Lots of new things to see. The shopping malls/arcades were pretty neat to visit as well although we didn't buy anything.

So did I win any money? Well, no. We lost a little. My mom won $100 though - at the nickel slots!! So she was pretty happy about that.

On the way home, we stopped at the Premium outlets outside of Seattle and bought cheap wine and cheap clothes for me. Nice way to end off the trip.

All in all, it was a good trip. Now it's on to Christmas....

Pictures to follow soon!

Hello Las Vegas!

We're heading down to Las Vegas today! WOO HOO! Where else can you go from ancient Egypt to New York City to Paris to ancient Rome to Venice and every other place in between in just one day?

It's been 8 years since I've visited Sin City. Susan and I last went in July '98 and well, it was SMOKIN' HOT - like a jet engine was blasting us all day long, except when we went into the exceptionally cold casinos. Anyway, it's about 12 degrees right now so it should be much more comfortable this time around. Since we were there last, a lot has been built in Vegas. We're just going to walk around town and see the sites, eat some buffets, and just lounge around. But there are definitely things I want to see and do such as:

1. Watch the Fountains at the Bellagio at night
2. Stroll the Canal Shops at the Venetian (complete with singing gondoliers)
3. Witness the rain storm in the Desert Passage at the Aladdin (although I've seen plenty of rain in my life)
4. See the Lions at the MGM Grand, the Tigers at The Mirage, and the Flamingoes at the Hilton
5. Browse FAO Schwarz when it's decked out for Christmas at the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace
6. Put in my two bits at the Preview Studios at the Venetian and the CBS Research Center at the MGM Grand
7. Eat at Le Village buffet at The Paris, followed by a visit to the Eiffel Tower
8. See the 12.5 million lights on Fremont Street
9. Eat cheap subs at Capriotti's
10. Watch Susan eat yet another cheap shrimp cocktail
11. Check out the dueling pianos at The Bar at Times Square at New York New York

Well have a good weekend everyone! Be back on Sunday!!

What was I doing a decade ago??

As we approach the end of 2006, I was lying in bed last night thinking about what I was doing 10 years ago. 1996 happened to be a pretty exciting year for me. I was in third year university at Queen's University in Kingston, ON, but I actually wasn't at Queen's...



I actually went on an international exchange. I attended the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland for a year.

I remember arriving to my flat at 8 pm and feeling like I was totally lost. I couldn't understand a thing anyone was saying (it took me a week before I could fully appreciate the Glaswegian accent). I shared a flat with 5 other guys from Malaysia who were all great guys. This is when I developed my love for spicy food. They put chili sauce on EVERYTHING. I have to admit, it does bring out the flavour though and we still do use a lot of chili sauce these days.

The accommodations at Birkbeck Court were pretty pathetic but liveable. Each building was four stories with 6 people sharing a flat on each floor. There was only 1 phone for the entire building and it was situated in the stairwell so that everyone could hear you. The people who lived near it had to run to each person's flat and tell them they had a call. There was a small tv with only 4 channels. Civilized society my ass! I had to walk into downtown to go buy my groceries at the Tesco Metro each week. I spent about $20 per week on food. I had $1 haircuts at the barber's college up the road. The budget was tight but that's okay because I was saving up to travel anyway.

I got to travel all around Scotland that year. Every weekend I visited a new town by myself. I went to the Highlands to see Loch Ness, Edinburgh, Stirling (to see the real Braveheart sword), St. Andrew's (to see the Old Course - world's oldest golf course), and plenty of other places in between. Glasgow was a great city to be in - I loved walking around the city. There was soo much to see and do. It was a surprisingly nice city. And the people were very friendly all over Scotland.

Susan came out to join me after her classes ended and we backpacked all over Europe. From Glasgow, we went to (let's see if I can remember this): London, Brugge (Belgium), Brussels, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Vienna, Geneva, Venice, Rome, Florence, Paris, Disneyland Paris, Berlin, Fussen (Bavaria), Copenhagen, & Billund (Denmark). 16 cities in 10 countries in 24 days. Anyway, it was an amazing trip! We slept on trains, rarely showered, ate canned cheese, snuck into hostels to use their facilities - it was full of good memories. So we plan to go back and see Spain, Greece and spend some more time in France but I think we'll do it in a little more style.

It's amazing how quickly a decade goes by. What were you doing 10 years ago??

I watched a lot of tv this weekend...

The lack of college football these past couple weeks has forced me to watch other things. When there isn't really anything good on tv, a good bet for me is to flick it to channel 47 to see what they have on. If you're not a regular viewer of TBS, well you really should be. This weekend I watched School of Rock with Jack Black and Mean Girls with Lindsay Lohan. I've watched School of Rock many many times and I laugh each and every time. Jack Black is a funny dude.

I watched Mean Girls for the first time on Friday and it was surprisingly good. Clever writing (script by SNL's Tina Fey) and good acting by Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams.

The beauty of TBS is that they'll replay one movie 5 or six times over the course of a weekend. So you can watch the whole thing or catch bits and pieces of it throughout the weekend. So this weekend, in between naps, I watched these movies three or four times. Susan and I agree, Mean Girls is right up there with another teen classic of ours - Bring It On.

We feel a little stupid watching these kind of movies as we're pretty sure we're no longer the target audience for these movies, but I think every once in a while it's good to give the brain a rest and watch something fairly mindless. However in both these cases, the performances were good and the scripts were entertaining so I guess we don't feel that guilty.

Oh and if you're in the mood for bad made-for-tv Christmas movies, look no further than the W Network. If you don't know what the true meaning of Christmas is, these movies will pretty much shove it down your throat until you do. Movies starring the likes of Vanessa Williams, Mary Tyler Moore, Peter Falk and Seinfeld's own George Costanza.


What else did I watch on the weekend? Oh yeah, I watched this 2 hour documentary on a sperm whale on Discovery Channel. I know what you're thinking but this was a really entertaining doc! I won't bore you with all the details, but here's what I learned about our friend, the sperm whale:

1) they can live to be 80 years old!
2) when diving deep, they can reduce their heart rate to 1 beat per minute!
3) their rib cage is made to collapse when they are in deep water and their organs secrete this mucus to keep them from sticking together when under the immense pressure of the sea!
4) they have big teeth but they don't chew - they let their stomach muscles do all the work!
5) they can dive down 3 kilometers and hold their breath for 2 hours!

And in the, I-Wouldn't-Want-To-Meet-You-In-A-Dark-Alley category, there's a squid even larger than the giant squid. It's called the colossal squid and it has the body the size of a car and swiveling hooks on its tentacles.

Anyway, it was a really good show. Really.

PS - On CBC tonight there's a string of great Christmas shows beginning at 7pm. I think Frosty, the Grinch and Rudolph are on tonight!

zzzzzzzzzzzzz..zzzzzzzzz...

...just had a big lunch...feeling...sleepy...must stay awak....weekend...coming....soon...so...sleepy...

Things you didn't know about Santa...

Susan asked me the other day if Santa Claus was real. I think what she meant was, who was the real St. Nicholas. At least I hope that's what she meant.

Saint Nicholas was a bishop from Myra (modern day Turkey) who used his inheritance to help out the poor, sick and down trodden. His legend grew when a poor man, unable to support his 3 daughters or provide dowries for marriage, was about to give his daughters over to a life of prostitution. Saint Nicholas gave them gold and cookies enabling them to turn back from a life of prostitution and marry.

In Dutch, Saint Nicholas is Sint Nicolaas. This became contracted to Sinterklaas, which is the Dutch name for this legendary figure. The Dutch, Belgians and Germans commermorate his death with celebrations on December 6th (or on the night before). As English immigrants moved to New Amsterdam (present day New York) in America, the Dutch name was mispronounced Santa Claus.

But in a lot of other places, the term Santa Claus isn't used. The image of Father Christmas predates Santa Claus in many parts of the world. If your travels happen to bring you to a far off place for the holidays, here's what you'd call Santa instead:

Afghanistan - Baba Chaghaloo
Albania - Babadimri
Armenia - Gaghant Baba
Brazil – Papai Noel
Bulgaria - Dyado Koleda
Chile - Viejo Pascuero
Denmark – Julemanden
Egypt - Papa Noël
Finland - Joulupukki
France and French Canada - le Père Noël
Germany – Weihnachtsmann or Nikolaus
Greece - Ayos Vasílis
Hungary – Mikulás
Iran - Baba Noel
Ireland - Daidí na Nollaig
Italy - Babbo Natale
Lithuania - Kalėdų Senelis
Malta – San Niklaw
Norway – Julenissen
Portugal – Pai Natal
Romania – Moş Crăciun
Russia – Ded Moroz
Scottish Highlands – Daidaín na Nollaig
Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina - Deda Mraz
South Africa – Vader Kersfees
Spain - Papá Noel" or "San Nicolás
Sweden – Jultomten
Turkey – Noel Baba
United Kingdom - Father Christmas

My Christmas Traditions...

Ever wonder how the Tse's spend their Christmas? Probably not. But I'm going to tell you anyway!

Many of our traditions started when we were young and we've pretty well carried them through until the present day. Other traditions started when Susan and I started dating. And yet other traditions, if you can call them that, started just last year.

Susan and I usually start decorating the house towards the last part of November or just before December. We have a fake tree but it's decorated with all sorts of things we've picked up over the years. This year we added some Disney Christmas balls and we put on those energy-saving LED lights - which aren't as nice in my opinion but then again I am helping to save the planet, so it's a toss up. We place wreaths and garland all over the place and try to create different displays in each room of the house each year. It usually takes us a couple days to decorate everything.

By the time December rolls around, we have already been practicing with our church choir for weeks in preparation for Midnight Mass. So the Christmas season begins pretty early for us in the Tse house.

For the past 10 or so years, we've hosted a party for our friends where we'd cook them dinner and play some Reindeer games. We did a Murder Mystery once, a Survivor themed party, and an Amazing Race party. This year, we're going to Vegas, so we're not having a big party. I guess it’ll be a nice break. We'll re-tool and come back with a vengeance next year.

On Christmas Eve last year, we started the new tradition of having a BBQ! That's right, we made mouth watering slabs of baby back ribs with corn, mash potatoes and other fixin's. It was a little odd to be barbecuing in the winter, but those ribs were pretty tasty and well worth the effort. My brother and sister-in-law seemed to enjoy themselves. There was no talking - only eating.

At around 8:30 pm on Christmas Eve, Susan and I get all dressed up and head over to our church to set up while our dinner guests lie on our couch digesting. They meet us at church later on. Our choir starts caroling around 9:45. We sing a lot of traditional songs of course, but there are a lot of really great non-traditional Christmas songs too. We sing for an hour and a bit and then mass begins. The church is beautifully decorated and the lights are dimmed with candles flickering around the altar. We end mass at about, well you guessed it, midnight. Thus midnight mass.

We go home and then head off to bed pretty quickly.

Well actually, when Susan is asleep I creep downstairs and fill her stocking! She fills my stocking sometime in the morning I guess. That way we never see "Santa" filling each other's stockings. My mom and dad continued to give my brother and I (and then Susan) stockings right up until a couple years ago. Susan never had a stocking when she was young! So, we're making up for lost time.

On Christmas morning, we get up around 9:00 and Susan and I run downstairs and dump out our stockings. We have to hurry though as we have our parents and siblings and their significant others over for breakfast. Everyone brings something different. We have eggs, waffles, assorted salted pork products, and egg nog. My family loves egg nog. We drink that stuff like it only comes out once a year. Wait... Susan's family? Not so much.

After breakfast, we open PRESENTS!! Our families usually bring over all of their gifts too so we have a giant present opening extravaganza. Susan, being the control freak that she is (I mean that in a good way), doles out the presents. We take turns opening gifts and ooing and ahhing at what everyone gets. As each gift gets opened, we crumple up the wrapping paper and throw it at my mom, who is carrying a large garbage bag. She is the keeper of the trash. My dad is usually filming the festivities so he can relive it later that day.

After all the gifts are opened, we clean up a little and then kick everyone out! We make some phone calls to say thank you for gifts and call some of our out of town friends to wish them a merry Christmas.

After a quick lunch, we start cooking for Christmas dinner! Susan and I generally cook all the big feasts - Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, special birthdays, Kwanzaa etc. It's just sort of a thank you to our families for all they've done for us in the past. We usually get my bro to pay for the turkey though. You'll see why in a second. Susan and I spend most of the afternoon preparing for dinner. We always have a turkey with gravy and cranberry sauce but we try to change up all the side dishes so every meal is a little different. It lets us be creative in the kitchen.

At around 6:30 guests start to arrive. We have between 12-35 people. It varies year by year depending on who is around and who has displeased me over the course of the year. I'm kidding about that last part...or am I? After dinner, my brother takes out his bucket and starts loading up the leftovers. I've actually weighed his bucket, and he takes home on average about 7-8 pounds of leftovers. He's actually made this a tradition at every large meal. It just wouldn't be the same without THE BUCKET. After dinner, we relax, eat dessert and then get fat.

It's a crazy time of the year but it always ends up to be fun. We have a lot to be thankful for and we're truly blessed to be able to celebrate Christmas so fully each year.

So that's it!

Merry Christmas!

It ain't Christmas without these...

I was just watching "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" last night. It's one of those old Rankin and Bass stop-motion television specials starring Mickey Rooney and Fred Astaire. Anyway, here is my "It ain't Christmas unless I watch these shows" list, in no particular order:

1. Home Alone - how can you not find that Culkin kid even a little bit cute? Hey, what does little Kevin have in common with the US Vice-President? They both shoot people in the face with pellet guns. Too soon?
2. The Christmas Story - speaking of pellet guns, who wouldn't want an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model BB rifle with a compass in the stock? Peter Billingsley sure did. A classic movie shown 24 hours straight on TBS on Christmas Eve.
3. Dr. Seuss: How The Grinch Who Stole Christmas - The cartoon was WAY better than the movie. Who doesn't know that famous song? All together now: "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch..." Okay, actually those are the only words I know.
4. A Charlie Brown Christmas - perhaps the saddest show ever. That Charlie Brown can't buy a break. I have a 12-inch Charlie Brown doll at home who plays 15 different sayings from this holiday classic. They're all depressing though. Charlie Brown should be kept on suicide watch. Poor kid.
5. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Wonderful songs, touching story and that crazy Animagic they use. Just great! Not to mention the Humble Bumble, Yukon Cornelius and Hermey to round out the cast (I have all these figures in my house too). But what's with the high pitched noise when Rudolph's nose lights up?
6. Frosty the Snowman - Creepy magicians will always make great villians. Catchy song and great animation make this a must for me.
7. It's a Wondeful Life - I don't think there was a better role Jimmy Stewart ever played. Just a fantastic movie with heartwarming performances. I just love this movie.
8. Mickey's Christmas Carol - This is my favorite rendition of Dicken's classic story. The animation is just sooo great. Scrooge McDuck, Goofy as Jacob Marley, Mickey as Bob Cratchit - how can you go wrong?
9. Mr. Bean's Christmas - I'm not much for British humour, but this guy is funny. What's funnier than wearing a giant turkey on your head? Not much.
10. Polar Express - I just watched this for the first time last week. It was pretty great! The animation was a tad creepy but seeing thousands of elves gather around Santa was pretty neat...creepy, but neat.
11. Elf - Will Ferrell was dang funny in this. And I loved the "Baby It's Cold Outside" duet with Zoey Deschanel.
12. The Santa Clause - The first movie was good. The sequels weren't so good. Tim Allen made a very good reluctant Santa. The instantly growing beard, the clever play on words - it was a solid warm hearted Christmas movie.

Did I miss anything??

They make you repeat it for a reason...

I went to a wedding this summer and during the vows the minister asked the bride to repeat the usual "'til death do us part" line. Normal right? Sure. Except the bride didn't exactly repeat that line verbatim.

Minister: "Repeat after me...I will love you in good times and in bad, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health 'til death do us part..."

Bride: "...I will love you in good times and in bad, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health until you die..."

Wait. Did you just say "until YOU die"? Err, that's not usual, is it? I was laughing very hard last night thinking about that slip up. And that's why you videotape your weddings people!

You're not really going to sing that are you?

On Saturday, Susan had a baby shower to go to - it was all the way across the street. I went to our dodgeball playoffs. Yes I said dodgeball. Yes I said playoffs. We got killed. Just annihilated.

Later that night, Susan and I went out to Surrey (yes, we left Richmond...on purpose) to Chad's (Tevye) place for our final Fiddler cast party. It was my first karaoke party with musical theatre people. Let me just say, there was no waiting for people to get up and sing. Susan and I aren't big karaoke people but we did go up and sing a few. I did a duet with Connor (Joy to the World - not the carol), one with Jenn (Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong - we got some grumbles at our choice of song) and finally one with Amanda (All I ask of You from Phantom). It was a lot of fun. Those guys are all so talented and amazing and they make me feel very self-conscious.

We got home around 2 -ish after a stop at Wendy's on the way home. I had their $1.39 super value chicken sandwich. That's a solid product right there. I could become a fan of those.


Anyway, we had lots of fun with the cast. THE best thing about being in a show is meeting all the great people. I think (I hope) I've made some more good friends through Fiddler. I'm suffering from withdrawal a little bit to be honest...

In other news, it's only 10 more days until we head down to Lost Wages! I'm pretty excited to go see the hotels all decked out for Christmas! My brother is excited to go eat buffets, cheap super footlong hotdogs and $2 shrimp cocktail. I better remember to pack the Pepto.

A380 at YVR

The A380! The World's Largest Airplane!

Arrived Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 730 am from Sydney, Australia. It left later that day to fly back to Toulouse, France.