Now that it’s been three months that I have firmly moved out of my apartment and will not return to it nor would I ever consider buying it, it is now an acceptable time to talk specifically about my little abode that I called home for over six years (February 2005 until September 2011)!
On my tiny student stipend, I have no idea how I initially afforded the rent plus utilities like hydro, cable/Internet to pay myself. Rent for my 439 sq.ft. “alcove studio” (i.e., a fancy way to say “bachelor”) …

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Note the name change? Yeah. The original idea was to share our parallel lives, NPY’s and mine, while I’m in Toronto and he’s in Vancouver, 3,400 km away. For me, it’s been pretty fun because I’m this long-time blogger and enjoy repackaging parts of my life in “blog bites”. It’s been more difficult for NPY who hasn’t experienced a change in scenery (although I do not think it is necessary) so I’ll be continuing this with just my photos. I might have something every day. I might …

A friend of mine recently asked, twice, why I stopped running. Paranoid, I wondered if that wasn’t some kind of a hint that I should resume a training regime because I’m getting round or something. Actually, he asked because runners usually have a hard time leaving the sport and I laughed and told him I never liked the physical act of running and I got so intensely bored of training in Vancouver (and getting beat down by the rain).
At the same time, I think a half-marathon 21.1km is the perfect …

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His:

He says, “Dinner at Luda.  Had a few of the more expensive items including this strangely made inside out fried fish. Came to work to find out that two other people and myself had nightmares last night and T says it’s because there was too much MSG.”
Whenever NPY goes to dinner at Luda in east Vancouver, he bellows out, “Looo-da!” Apparently that is the calling card for Ludacris or something….
Hers:

Staying with my sister in Richmond Hill, I’ve had to pick up tokens and fare cards for …

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Did you know that last year around September, I kept checking the Vancouver Magazine website because that was the month during which they had released the 2008 and 2009 Best Things to Eat and Drink in Vancouver lists. It would happen that when I was so diligent, it was the year they skipped.
This year, at least at this time, I do not call Vancouver home but I will be back and so I am still eager to tear apart the 2011 list that I pounced …

During the first year of my past workplace, I kind of followed my boss’ example and was a bit reclusive, aloof. The three researchers (two males, one female) stepped out of the office together every lunch. They walked by my office on their way out but a pattern had been established. Frankly, I was afraid that with the three of them, “shop talk” would dominate and that’s not my idea of a lunch break.
Halfway through my first year, a lot of students completing internships came through my department, some of …

I went through a cleaning fit on July 5 and dug up my Expo 86 passport (which I still don’t know where to stash) and had a tingly feeling that I might be finding this little souvenir exactly 25 years after I wielded it dashing from one exhibit to the next. Not exactly. It seems that my expo visit was on the three days June 30-July 2, 1986.
My mother, younger sister, and I were in Vancouver en route to spending the summer in Hong Kong. We would have gone to …

On a lunch-hour walk between Granville and Cambie on West Broadway, I must have ducked into a half-dozen potential lunch spots: Pizza Cono for cone-shaped organic pizzas, Chiffon Patisserie, Saravanaa Bhavan for $5 4-item lunches, and Whole Foods hot food section. I was just hoping La Taqueria at its new Broadway/Cambie location would be open and worth passing up other good food… but not quite yet.
I was marveling how La Taqueria is going to be able to give Chronic Tacos, a California-based chain that arrived in Vancouver last year, a …

We were talking about April Fool’s pranks over lunch yesterday and the only one from my past that I can remember was one propagated by a local radio station. It was probably c100 with their zany (read: annoying) morning team. There is (until this post) only one Google result for “Hadabesac” and for a moment I thought I had stumbled upon a GoogleWhack, but I was mistaken.
This prank dates back to my high school days since it pre-dated the amalgamation of several municipalities into Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) in 1996. …

Next after Groupon, Living Social (LS) is where I have made the most group-buying purchases. No doubt LS is doing a good business for itself but I’ve noticed they got a fancy new logo (can’t even remember the old one) and differentiating itself with family-oriented Family Edition coupons as well.
I didn’t know about Kreation Artisan Cakes, itself a narrow shop tucked between narrow shops on the west side of Cambie Street between West 17th and 18th Avenue. Their LS deal of $7 for a half dozen cupcakes (reg. $14.25) and …