Plan developed on Wednesday, approved Wednesday afternoon, executed on Friday. "Team building" activity at Wonderland. The forecast was overcast all day with 60% chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. We were a bit worried about the rain, but when we saw that the total rainfall was only 3mm, the plan was a go.
It ended up being the PERFECT day to go to an amusement park. Due to the forecast, hardly anyone was at the park. The longest we waited in line was 10-15 minutes. Most of the time, we just walked right onto the ride. The weather cooperated too. Overcast ALL day, and the thunderstorms that were suppose to greet us never arrived. Nice for a change that we didn't have to melt under 30C weather.
Started the day off at 10:30am. Group photo with Scooby Doo. First ride, Shockwave. I don't know why we picked this ride as the first one in the day. I was half asleep still, and the ride tossed me around quite well. Unlike a roller coaster, you couldn't really predict which way you'd be turning. Glad I didn't eat a big breakfast. The Bat. The Fly (my favourite ride). Thunder Run (A newbie version of Space Mountain). Bumper Cars. Vortex.
Basketball game - $10 for three shots. One shot in the basket nets you a big basketball cushion. LS went first, and he air-balled all three shots. He claimed that the basket is a lot further away than you expected and you were shooting uphill. He ended up chugging the last shot with one arm (like hammer throw in Ultimate). I knew it was a waste of money, but had to try nevertheless. I fell short on my first shot (basket was further than expected). Caught the back rim on my second shot, and missed my third. JS couldn't believe how pathetic LS and I was, so he forked over his $10. Ended up air-balling all three shots. We gave up in the end, and decided the ROI was not worth it for this game.
12:20 lunch. $15 for Teriyaki Chicken Noodles + drink. They don't allow you to bring food into the park for a reason. Next time, I'm packing my lunch and say that I'm on a special diet. It apparently works.
Ice cream @ Dairy Queen. Drop Zone x2. After the Six Flags accident on a similar ride, some of us were a bit uneasy. But what the heck, what are the chances? KL showed up late and exclaimed "You guys went already!?!" Since there was no line, we went again with him. Some scuba diving show. Tomb Raider - Has this ingenious system to elevate the cart.
On our way to Top Gun, we decided to stop and play some ring tossing game where you have to get the ring around one of the many bottles in the center. $10 for a bucket of 100 or so rings. If you've tried before, you'd know this game is impossible. I've wasted many buckets in the past without any luck. We started off sharing two buckets and in a "moment of perfection", VS managed to hit the jackpot. WTFBBQ. No Way!!! OMG!!!! Ended up winning this GIGANTIC blue gorilla.
They brought out our prize and we all got around it for a group photo. Then we discovered a hole in the gorilla, and asked for an exchange. While the guy went to the back to bring out our replacement, we decided to get another two buckets to pass the time. Not that we wanted to win another one, since we had no idea how we'll be able to take another one home. As luck will have it, KP managed to get a ring around a bottle. TWO gorillas. WTF. BBQ. The guy just brought out our first gorilla replacement was told to go back and get another one. LOLOL. Man, all these years of failures, and we hit the jackpot twice. We decided, just for the heck of it, to get another bucket of rings to pass time. The dudes won't let us play again, saying there is a limit of TWO winnings per day. LOL.
Now comes the part where we had to escort the Gorilla out of the park. We essentially had a person under each arm of the gorilla, and a third person lifting its ass off the ground. Got a LOT of looks from people, some even took their cameras out to take a picture.
We brought them to the Tochi Mobile. Since I had reverse parked the car and my RAV4 trunk opens sideways, I moved the car halfway out of the parking spot to accommodate. These freaking Gorillas were a LOT bigger than I expected, or else my car was a LOT smaller than I thought. We managed to literally stuff both gorillas into the car, but I had to fold down my back seats, and push both my front seats up.
Having gone through the tedious ordeal of stuffing the gorillas into my car, we realized that I still have to back up my car! For a second, I was distraught, thinking, OMG.. NOOOOOO! Then we realized I could put the car in neutral and push it back in. lol. I had to reach down to push the brake, while someone on the other side put the car in neutral. I've never really pushed a car before until now.
Back in the park. Top Gun. Italian Job Stunt Track. SkyRider. Jetscream. Psyclone. 3 pt basketball shooting. AB/GL/KL did the bungee jump/swing thingy. Before we knew it, it was 6pm. A long day, lots of rides, lots of fun, lots of loot.
This weekend, Toronto is hosting its own Just for Laughs Festival. Our hometown boy, Russell Peters, was the host of tonight's show titled "Russell Peters and friends". This was not a show to be missed, so PR and I headed to Dundas Square. Got there at 7pm and it was PACKED. We ended up just standing on Yonge St, with the stage at the far end of Dundas Square.
Russell started off by commenting how they blocked off Yonge Street for this event. This is the first time Yonge Street has been blocked off for something other than a shooting. He was glad to see all the Asians in the crowd. We managed to walk three blocks from Spadina (Chinatown) over to Yonge.
Russell continued on with his jokes, some of which I've heard before. Then he got to the part about Pacific Mall.
A few years ago, I made some fun of Pacific Mall (around 6:30 of this video). So, two days ago, I went back to visit Pacific Mall again. It looks exactly the same, fake purses, pirated DVDs everywhere. I walked into this store, and this Chinese guy stuffs a DVD into my hands. [In Chinese Accent] "Commmeeedy, you like!" I looked down. "Hey! That's my DVD!!" [In Chinese Accent] "Nooo Nooo. Two bucks!" I explained, "Look that's ME on the cover!" The Chinese guy then let out this long GRRRRRRRRRRR. I examined the DVD more closely. "Why the f**k am I packaged with Chris Rock and David Chappelle?" [In Chinese Accent] "I dunno. Coommmeeedy. People like."
On Americans, Russell had the following to say.
People think that Canadians and Americans are so similar. I work in LA now, and let me tell you, we are so different from them. Americans are so ignorant. I was doing some of my Trinidadian jokes, and these Americans asked me what Trinidadian is. I'm like "a person from Trinidad!" "Oh, where is Trinidad?" Just to pull their leg, I tell them it's in Africa. "Where in Africa?" "Just off the coast, just off the coast." They were happy.
Following Russell's act was Jo Koy. Apparently, Jo will be hosting his own Comedy Central show in a few months. From the back of the crowd, all I see is this bald white guy. He mentioned that he was Asian, I'm like.. is that a joke? Only after zooming in with TochiCam did I realize he does look Philippino. The guy started off a little slow, but once he got going, he was very good.
Some of the gems (as best as I can remember):
Mother's day is really special. It celebrates the day girls become mothers. That's a really big thing. Now, I know all you men out there are wondering about Father's Day. Let me tell you, Father's day started with a couple guys in the pub, complaining how come there's a Mother's day and not a Father's day. It's pathetic. If Father's Day is celebrating anything, it's celebrating the day when we dug in too far. That is NOT cause for celebration.
In bed, when we push too hard, we hear "It hurts! It hurts!" But man, that pain is NOTHING compared to the pain in the delivery room. In there, we tell them, "We can do this, we'll pull through together". But there's jack shit we can do. The nurses would tell her to PUSH PUSH! All of a sudden, this head pulls back the curtains of the vagina.... A few more pushes later, this eight and a quarter pound thing pops out. WTF. I never expected it to be that huge. It thought it would just be a ball that rolls out. Not this eight and a quarter pound alien. How the heck do we compete with that thing?!? It has arms and legs! We can never match its size! God really screwed us when he designed our penises. We just can't match eight and a quarter pounds! Especially as an Asian!
Man, I was laughing so hard, until I heard that last line. A quick WTF, then more lololol. I was shedding tears from too much laughter.
Also performing were the Doo Wops, some Italian duo. They sang a few tunes and were quite horrible. I had a hard time following any of the lyrics, and soon lost interest. At first, I thought it was just because I was at the back of the crowd, but in their final tune, when they wanted people to join into the song and wave their arms doing this triangle hand gesture, I saw only two people actually doing it. It must be embrassing for them to see the lack of reception from the crowd.
At the end of the show, I was super hungry, so I didn't stay for the pryo-technical light show from Germany. I heard it was very cool afterwards, but filling the stomach was more important.
I might have mentioned in the past that there are some pretty nifty custom license plates where I work. Two of coolest ones were CHOCOBO and TARUTARU. Really tells you how geeky some of my lab mates are. I've wondered for a long time who owns these license plates, half curious to see what they looked like.
A few weeks ago, as I was leaving a team picnic, I noticed CHOCOBO was parked beside me in the parking lot. So apparently, someone on my team owns this plate! I meant to ask around the next day to find the true owner, but the matter slipped my mind.
So today, as I was driving to work, I noticed CHOCOBO was two cars in front of me! My heart skipped a beat, as I was on the verge of determining the secret identify of the mysterious CHOCOBO fan. I switched lanes, sped up so I was side-by-side with CHOCOBO. Turned my head and voila, it's my coworker who sits in the cube right BESIDE mine. I was so shocked. How come it took me so long to figure this out? This coworker isn't that geeky, totally breaking my perception.
I was talking to him afterwards, and he mentioned that he doesn't like to drive. Whenever our team goes out, we never take his car. I jokingly asked if he was "ashamed" of his license plate. It's such a cool license plate!
On a semi-related note, new Ontario license plates are of the form "ABCD 123". They finally got to BXXX, and the most interest four letter sequence I've seen so far is "BAKA 123". :-)
Tutti Matti. Summerlicious stop. A block away from MEC. This Italian restaurant is located in a single story rectangular building wedged between two high-rises. The exterior really reminded me of a shoebox. As you enter the restaurant, you immediately notice two things: 1) the restaurant seating is essentially the front area and one long row of tables down the length of the restaurant, and 2) the open concept kitchen emanating the most wondrous of aromas.
Our reservations was for a party of 8 for 6:30pm. Two peeps ended up bailing on us last minute. When we told the restaurant staff that only 6 people will be coming, they were not very pleased. I bet they turned away some Summerlicious reservation requests. To make matters worse, D came late and did not arrive till 7pm. We sat around for 30 minutes without ordering anything. The waiters must have been annoyed even more that we were holding up the table.
Anyway, moving onto food. Summerlicious has two flavours - a $25 dinner and a $35 dinner, depending on the restaurant. Come to think of it, I have always attended the $35 variety, so Tutti Matti would be my first $25 sample. The food from the kitchen smelled so good, so I had high expectations.
I settled on the following three course meal:
Carpaccio di Trota
cured rainbow trout carpaccio served with fresh red onion and beet vinaigrette
Talapia
oven roasted talapia wrapped with potatoes and served with seasonal vegetables
Bubu
warm chocolate cake with caramel and vanilla ice cream.
The appetizer was Carpaccio di Trota. I was told the name just means slices of raw trout, which was exactly what was served. I have never had raw trout before, unless it was part of some sashimi that I was fed. The trout was fresh, but quiet bland. I liked the red onions and vinaigrette. However, after my disastrous effort at making vinaigrette once, any vinaigrette that tastes half decent earns high marks in my books.
The main entrée is Talapia - its main ingredient is a fillet of talapia. Yeah, that's the name of the dish. Who names their dishes so simply at a fancy restaurant?!? Despite the shortcomings in its name, this dish was damn awesome. Very thin strips of potatos laid on top and below a huge fillet of talapia. The potato wrapping was roasted till it was almost crispy (aided by a flame torch, I'm sure). The potato somehow held the flavour and juice of the fish intact. As you cut into the fillet, a strong fragrance just envelopes your senses. I can almost taste the fish before eating it. I eat fish quite a bit, and I have not had such a FRESH, well-prepared fish in a long time. I'm not sure if they spiced up the fish in any way, but if they did, they only brought out and fortified the richness of the Talapia. Everything was almost perfect with this dish, the texture, aromas and the flavours most of all. I don't know how else to describe it. You have to try this dish to understand.
For dessert, the Bubu (not derived from Yogi Bear) was not really spectacular - the warm chocolate cake was nice, and I liked the fact that it was not too sweet. The name was the best part of the dessert - for once, it was something kind of unique! Though Bubu was definitely the better of the two dessert options (other being some weird looking meringue).
Overall, the meal was better than I expected. The talapia was so awesome - this dish alone makes it worthwhile to come back for a second visit. I am going to go to the supermarket, get some Talapia fillets and try my hand at making Tochi's version of "Talapia". Tutti Matti gets 4.5 / 5 Tochi Stars. Lost 0.5 stars for some stupid dish names.
Smart cars have been around for a few years and have been quite popular. Cute, easy to park, awesome gas mileage, people cannot stop looking at them. Even the Toronto Metropolitan Police got a couple for their parking enforcement officers. Imagine, getting ticketed by a Smart car.
Anyway, one of the major concerns with the Smart car has always been safety; last year, a smart car got stuck like a "rock" in front of a truck, because the truck driver couldn't see the Smart and ended up rear-ending it for miles on a freeway.
I mean, a car that small cannot possibly take any type of contact. Well, it seems like we have nothing to worry about..at least the steel reinforced cage should keep people in one piece.
Smart car survived 70mph crash (or 35mph head-on crash with another 35mph car). :-)
Now, let us compare that crash test with the following crash test of a Chinese car (not sure how fast) :
The cage just crumpled. As one commenter mentioned... let the patriotic Chinese try out their cars for 10-20 years first. If you see one heading your way on the roads, RUN!!!