Victor's Birthday

Kevin has a good summary of the weekend events surrounding Victor's birthday celebration. Read that first, and the following are just some extra comments.

Re: Victor's Bday => We planned it earlier in the week, with a million emails - which was fun in itself because the topic was Victor. In University we spent half our time talking about finding Victor a girl (the other half was spent playing Warcraft, Smash and Mariokart), and sometimes it seems like we do it more for our own entertainment, but thankfully he's a good sport about it. We mean well Victor :)

Re: Condo Show => It was fortunate that we were able to preview the Condo Show before paying to enter. I wonder if the design of the Toronto Convention Center actually discourages some people from attending shows, because you can see the displays before going in. As to why there weren't any builders, in my opinion it's because one of the show's main sponsors was Monarch, a builder themselves and probably didn't want competition. Oh well, now we know better.

Re: Bday card shopping => Picking out a card for Victor seriously took 3 hours. We couldn't find anything we liked, so in the end we picked one that is suppose to be for a young (4-8 year old) girl. The card starts out describing a girl with good qualities, and there's a possibility as you're reading it, you might think it's about a girl we are setting Victor up with, but the last line says "she's you". Like Kevin mentioned, it is quite disturbing that all these cards have to boost the self-esteem of little girls. Little boy cards are not like that at all. Which also got me thinking about how card makers determine what type of card they will write. Do they have sales feedback on the most popular types/styles of cards and try to emulate them as much as possible? It's obvious someone somewhere thought all these cards about telling little girls all their good qualities and boosting their self-esteem were successful.

Re: small portions at Italian restuarnts => When I was in Italy dining at Italian restaurants, I figured out that you're suppose to order multiple courses. Usually the menu is setup with antipasto, primo and secondo options and you're suppose to order more than one dish for yourself. I took a quote from the following website if you wanted more details:

Italian Menus

In trattorias and ristorantes, a menu typically has five categories of food:

* Antipasti, which serve as appetizers.
* Primo (primi is the plural), the first course. Typical primi are pasta dishes and risotto dishes.
* Secondo (secondi is the plural), the second course. Secondi consist of a serving of meat or fish or poultry. Sometimes, a vegetarian secondo is offered.
* Contorno (contorni is the plural). Contorni are vegetable side dishes. Vegetables are rarely served with a secondo; you must order them separately.
* Dolce (dolci is the plural). Dolci are sweets - dessert. Typical desserts include tortas (cake), crostata (tart, usually filled with a fruit jam), and panna cotta (vanilla custard type dessert that is eggless and often served with a drizzle of fruit puree or chocolate or caramel sauce).

Primi and secondi portions are generally smaller than what you might expect. However, in Italy, both are considered part of a meal rather than two separate main courses. Contorni portions are generally large.

Re: rockclimbing => I've only been rockclimbing once so far and it was fun. Victorx2, Aaron and Janet go every week! They bought all the equipment as well, so now I'm also considering it. It will depend on how often I go.

Re: Maddy's => Was fun. Good job Charlie and Ben with bringing some girls over for Victor. Unfortunately his game is a little weak.....needs more french/mandarin speaking :) We also managed to sing Happy Birthday to him at both the rock climbing movie and the bar in front of large groups of strangers. Good times!

Re: bbt => Kitty/Janet ended up in Aaron's car and I was suppose to meet them at the Finch station parking lot, but they ended up going to Fairview first to drop Ben off. Then they missed the exit and went to drop chobo off. D'oh. It was ok, cause Richard and I ended up chatting.

Anyway, it was a really fun day and I am already looking forward to next year! I uploaded my limited pics to here. Browsable or Downloadable. Everyone else please upload them as well please. Thanks.