newnumber6 | Birthday and the X-Mas post...

First, Happy Birthday

escap1974! Sorry, I don't think I even got on LJ yesterday.

So yes, as some of you are probably wear, this past weekend was a holiday for many people.

My family was among those celebrating, and how did we do it?

Well, unlike previous years, we didn't do the traditional turkey and (ham or roast), potatoes, etc, etc etc. My stepmother, who normally would be doing the cooking, didn't feel up to it this year, and instead, we all went to Mandarin, an all-you-can-eat buffet. That was fine by me, I haven't been there in years and love their food.

I had three heaping platefuls, with nary a spot left unfooded, and then a smaller plate of desert. This is going from memory, but this is what I recall having:
Scallop (1)
Egg Roll (1)
Chicken Dumplings (3)
Breaded Torpedo Shrimp (8? 9?)
Chilled Peel and Eat Shrimp (5ish, and I don't peel, I just eat)
Lobster Claw (1)
Lobster Thermador (1)
Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls (5ish)
BBQ Spare Rib (1)
Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs
Lemon Chicken
Black Pepper Steak (on all 3 plates)
Spicy Chicken
Curry Chicken
Crispy Fried Chicken
Some other breaded chicken dish
Tofu with Mixed Vegetables
Sauteed Mushrooms
Singapore Noodles
Chicken Fried Rice
Thai Shrimp/Vegetables
I have a feeling there were a couple more things but I can't remember what they are.

For desert:
Pineapple slice
Slice of cheesecake with Cherry Sauce
Cube of Jello (to put to the test the old saying that there's always room for it).

My favorite is, as usual, the black pepper steak, although the spicy chicken gave it a run for its money.

The surprise of the night was tofu with vegetables. I don't know if I ever tried it before, and I know it's got a bad reputation, but it actually tasted decent, with a good texture that was a little reminiscent of meat... not enough to go back for seconds, but I could see myself eating it if it was prepared similarly again.

The regret, aside from not having enough room to go back for more of everything, was that I never got a chance to try the sushi bar. I'm not a fish person in general, and raw fish in particular sounds even less appetizing, but they had a couple choices that didn't actually seem to involve fish, or involved other seafood that are on my approved list, but in my 3 plates I never made it there. Also never made it to the prime rib steak, but I'm comfortable with that sacrifice.

After that, we went home to do gift exchange, where I realized I possibly ate a little too much and came very close to running to the washroom to puke a few times, but I managed to keep it all down. Also, crazy, everybody's got tablets now. Well, not everybody, but there were two there that the kids were mainly using, plus various cellphones including some pretty advanced ones (I didn't realize my brother has an android phone with lots of apps). I dunno, I can see some of the appeal, but I'd still prefer an actual computer with an actual keyboard. But then, I write. Also the games everyone was playing seemed to be variants of exactly the same game with just different graphics (squash the ant but not the bees vs pop the popcorn but not the bombs).

The gift haul:

Money (some of which devoted to a specific thing, which will be mentioned later)
Can of 3 varieties of popcorn (butter, white cheddar, and caramel corn)
Box of chocolates
Terry's Chocolate Orange
Socks
T-shirt
Irish Spring Gift Pack (containing a 5-bladed razor, shaving gel, deoderant, and two different varieties of body wash: Original, and "New, Legendary Classic". Somebody at the Irish Spring Marketing department needs a talking to.)

Normally we go to one of my aunt's house afterwards, and I didn't really feel like it but was going to because, well, family, but we were just out the door and about to go there when they called and said everyone'd already gone home. Normally it lasts a few hours later than that, but apparently my aunt was really tired. Anyway, I can't complain too much, I was happy to go home where I pretty much went straight to bed.

Next morning went to see my grandmother and one of my other aunts at her place, and she also served a bunch of stuff, had (in no particular order) sausages (Greek and smoked), zelnic (a sort of cheese pastry), cabbage roll, feta cheese, some other kind of Greek cheese, an olive or two, a Greek cookie, some honey balls, some hors d'oerves with avocado and proscutto and cheese on melba toast, a rice-in-grape-leaves things, a chocolate, and... I think that's it. We were given some turkey to take home.

After that, watched the Doctor Who Christmas special, which I rather enjoyed, not great, and the first 2 minutes or so annoyed me, but after that, quite charming. Then just a little bit of downtime before bed.

Today, I had to work. However, I had another goal... to stalk the most elusive prey of the concrete jungle... a boxing day deal on a new computer! Okay, I exaggerate. But part of the money I was given was specifically designated towards my computer, which I'd been wanting for a while (my oldest, aside from generally running slow, has been starting to suffer occasional bluescreens after a power failure about a week or two ago). Figured I'd get one Boxing day, saw one in the Future Shop flyer for $100 off and decided I'd go for it. I came very close to not getting it, too.

AFter work I took the streetcar to the Future Shop I usually go to, walked inside and it was crazy busy. Overheard two of the employees talking, and one said 'pretty much all of the Doorcrashers sold out already', and my heart sank because what I wanted was a doorcrasher deal. Looked around, found another similar model but $100 more, figuring that was the 'upsell' one (where they get you when you're disappointed that the cheaper one ran out), heart sank further. Employee asked if I needed help, I showed her the flyer and asked if they had and and said no, they sold the last one just a few minutes ago. So, I figured I'd wander around, get an idea of prices for what I might get otherwise, and then suddenly, between two boxes of other stuff was one lone box of the computer I wanted. Held my hand on it while waiting to get the attention of an employee (because it had a sign attached so I wasn't sure if it was saleable or considered for display or something), but they sold it and I was out of there and in a cab home within minutes. Victory is mine!

It's not setup yet at all, still in the box, because I need to temporarily take one computer off line so I can transfer stuff over from the computer on its way out, and I don't want to do that just yet. But soon. Soon.

For the record, it's a Gateway, Intel Core i5 processer 2300, 6Gig, 1 TB HD, blah blah blah, I think it'll be shiny.