Tag: friends

Congratulations Michelle & Steven!

Yesterday my friends Michelle and Steven got married here in Vancouver. They had a relatively short ceremony in the early afternoon, followed by a reception in the evening at Fortune House Seafood Restaurant. They both looked so happy yesterday, it was great to be a part of the festivities!

Group shot!

Yesterday was also a great excuse for a large group of my friends to get together again. It was just like old times with most of the gang here in Vancouver for the weekend! The wedding was the main event, of course, but we also took some time for lunch and to catch Tropic Thunder. It seems like forever since the last time we took up almost an entire row in a movie theatre. Good times!

Congratulations Michelle and Steven! Enjoy the honeymoon 🙂

Dessert Party

As my Twitter followers all know, Sharon and I hosted a dessert party on Sunday. When Sharon pitched the idea to me (she had been thinking about it for a long time) I thought it sounded kind of neat. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I figured it would be fun anyway. What I didn’t realize, of course, is how much work it would require!

Dessert Party Invitation

Sharon has this book that gives you tips on how to host parties like this. I’m guessing it was written a long time ago, before Facebook came along, because it of course says you should send invites. And so we did! I bugged her a lot about sending paper invites to our friends, all of whom have Facebook and email, but in the end I actually really liked the invitations. I think they looked great!

Over the last couple weeks we did some “practice runs” of the desserts that we wanted to serve. For instance, we made the chocolate cake and the white chocolate tartlets. Turns out that was a good idea, because we were able to learn from and fix the couple of mistakes we made the first time around.

We got started at around 1pm on Saturday, and weren’t really finished until 1pm the next day when the party started! Okay it didn’t take 24 hours obviously, but it certainly felt like all we did was bake. Though the worst part was definitely having to re-wash dishes repeatedly!

CupcakesCookies
White Chocolate TartsPanna cotta

Our final menu consisted of: Chocolate Cake, White Chocolate Tartlets, Panna Cotta with Strawberries, Cupcakes, and Cookies with Strawberry Jam. We also served coffee, tea, and wine.

Sharon had made the panna cotta in the past, so I was pretty sure it would turn out well. It was delicious as expected! My favorite was probably the cookies, but that might be because they were the hardest to make. Piping dough is not for the faint of heart! I learned you need to warm it up a bit to make it easier on yourself. My least favorite were the tartlets, though they tasted good and everything. They were sort of difficult to make as well, thanks to the phyllo pasty.

I think everyone enjoyed the desserts – there wasn’t too much left over when all was said and done. I was glad to have some extra panna cotta and chocolate cake to eat though 🙂

I don’t think I’d jump at the chance to host another dessert party, but it was a fun experience nonetheless. I’m getting better in the kitchen too!

My photos of the dessert party are here.

UPDATE: Sharon’s much more detailed post is now up!

Why does classmates.com advertise on Facebook?

Post ImageI have been spending far too much time on Facebook lately, so I couldn’t help but notice the vertical banner ads for classmates.com that appear on the site. And I can’t figure out why they bother. I mean, I signed up for classmates.com probably six years ago, and never visited the site again.

Well until this week, when I went back to see if it still sucked (so I suppose you could argue their advertisement worked to an extent). And yes, it does still suck. I understand why there are two gas stations on every corner, and why you can usually find a Wendy’s or Burger King wherever there is a McDonald’s. They have really similar offerings. Is this the case with Facebook and classmates.com? I don’t think so.

Facebook and classmates.com just might be the best examples of Web 2.0 and Web 1.0, respectively.

They are almost polar opposites. Facebook is clean and fast. Classmates.com pages are slower and cluttered. Facebook is entirely free, while classmates.com is primarily a premium service. Facebook has features like photos, blogs, and mobile support. Classmates.com has message boards and biographies. Facebook is new and hip, classmates.com is old and tired.

It seems to me that at their core, the two services serve the same purpose: connecting people with friends (and especially classmates). In my opinion, Facebook does a much better job. It’s easier, and costs nothing. Classmates.com appears to be quite successful though, so I wonder if people use the two in different ways.

If they are in fact used for the same purpose, then I wonder if advertising on Facebook is at all effective for classmates.com. I can’t imagine it would be, but perhaps I’m missing something here.

Congrats Violet and Vincent!

Post ImageYesterday afternoon my friends Violet and Vincent were married in a lovely ceremony, which was followed by a banquet last night. Violet looked absolutely gorgeous in her dress, and Vince didn’t look too bad himself! The weather was great yesterday, and I think everyone had a good time.

I’m only 22 years old, but events like this sort of make you feel older, you know? For instance, in between the ceremony and the banquet, a bunch of us went to Moxie’s downtown. When I went up to the bar with our waitress to pay, she asked if we were celebrating a grad or something. I replied, “nope, a wedding.” Now maybe she meant a post-secondary graduation, but I got the feeling she was talking about high school, which is especially odd since it was the afternoon, and it was July. Regardless, I realized that big events for my friends are now weddings and children, not graduations or simple gatherings.

I took lots of pictures yesterday, which you can see here. Unfortunately the ones from the actual ceremony are not great, because the official film/photo crew were hogging all the best places, and at one point, even asked the guests to refrain from taking pictures, which most of us promptly ignored.

If you’re reading this V&V, I hope the move to Calgary goes smoothly, and have a wonderful time on your honeymoon! And Jane et al, thanks for the superb organization, I know the newlyweds appreciated it, as did guests like myself.

Read: Photos

Sharon – proof she's a gamer at heart!

Post Image You might recall that a few weeks ago I posted about how our good friend Sharon is a closet gamer. To refresh your memory:

When Sharon took the controls to play, it was like I had stepped into an alternate universe! She was so masterful at the famous side-scroller, she knew where all the coins and mushrooms and flowers were, all the secret passages, everything. Not only did she know the features of the game like the back of her hand, she had the timing down pat. And her hand-eye coordination was surprisingly good. In fact, she played so hard and so well, that I saw her head bob to the music. It was nuts!

Well, now I have more than simple text – I have a couple of photos! In the first, you can see Sharon is holding the NES controller. In the second, you can see she’s actually playing Mario. Enjoy!

Weekend Parties

Post ImageIt’s been a busy weekend as far as parties go! It started on Friday night as Chu (or Steven) and Michelle had a dinner to celebrate their birthdays, both of which are in September. It was a relatively small gathering, but it was really good! Michelle made almost all of the food, which was very good. May brought an ice cream cake from DQ that was delicious. Good times! You can see some pictures here.

Last night was Yi-Li’s summer BBQ. It was also a “going away” party for Ylz, who left for a four month job in Rainbow Lake today. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, and some amazing steak. We also played Bingo and Cranium, and somehow figured out a game of paper-rock-scissors challenges to finish off the melted green tea ice cream cake (that was a disgusting green goop). Dickson played piano for a while as everyone just kinda relaxed. Here are the pictures. Have fun “up north” Ylz!