Jan-chan’s Tidbits

A couple nights ago I went to Video Games Live with Al. It was held at the Orpheum Theatre with the Vancouver Symphony playing the music. There was a world primiere of the new music from Need for Speed: Undercover and music from Zelda, Mario, World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Metroid, Halo, Metal Gear…etc. I think the best part of the show was how they got us to ask for encore. They had everyone in the audience turn on and wave their cell phones, DS, and PSP. Some guy even took out his laptop! Another favourite segment was when they played music from Metal Gear. Someone dressed as a terrorist came out on the stage and almost immediately after, a guy with a cardboard box over his head/body was following him. It was great because anyone who’ve played the game knows exactly what’s happening. Then the music picked up, like in the game when the terrorist get suspicious of his surroundings and a glowing exclamation mark popped up over his head, just like in the game!

I didn’t bring my camera but here’s a picture my brother managed to take with his iPhone at the end of the show.

[photo credit: David Chan]

Last week I got a chance to talk to Mike about his son Leon. He’s finally big enough to wear the shirt I got him! He looks so cute!

Isn’t he just adorable?! I know what you are thinking…no I’m not having my own. =p My cousin Chrissy is due soon, I can’t wait to see her baby boy.

Alright I know some of you are dying to look at how they turned out so without further delay (or some of you might hunt me down), here’re some of the photos Al and I’ve picked for our album (click to enlarge):

[That's Ah Bu, the photographers dog. He's so cute!]

[Taken at Hycroft Mansion. I really love that house.]

[Fixing my hair, or at least pretending to anyway.]

[Why hello there! That'd be my thought bubble for this picture. Taken in Gastown.]

Ok more pictures to come later. You’ll also find some posted at my wedding planning blog. Let me know what you guys think of these.

So I decided that since I want to do cardio, I’ll take dancing lessions because that seemed more fun that running on some machine at the gym. After checking out a lot of the dance studios, I went with Harbour Dance Centre, which was recommended to my by Al’s friend Wil. I signed up for their progressive PCD Hip Hop for beginners and thought it should be alright since it said “beginner”.

The first 10 minutes was warm up. Basically we follow the instructor and copy her moves. Just from watching the rest of the girls (it’s a female only course) I can tell that 98% of them had taken some sort of dancing before. The next 5 minutes we did crunches, which I totally didn’t expect to be doing. It was nice thought since I got to work on my abs, except I’m not use to doing it non-stop for 5 minutes straight.

The last 45 minutes of the class we worked on the routine to a song. It was interesting and fun. However, everything was taught in a pretty fast pace (or maybe I’m just slow?!) Remembering the steps aren’t too hard, but actually executing them and at the speed of the music is a bit tough for me. I had thought since it’s a “beginner” course it’d be slow so people could follow but I guess not in this case. So my solution now is to just practice before the next class and hope I can follow faster next time.

I have to say though, it was more fun than I thought. And being an all female class made it a bit more comfortable to start out. I’m planning on taking salsa lessons when MH comes back from vacation. I wonder how many times I’ll step on him…hehe.

Just a short post to say congratulations to MC & RW on their engagement! Seems like summer 2009 will be a action packed as there are already 3 weddings (including mine).

Speaking of weddings, I gotta start working on the invites. Yes, I know. I’ve been lazy to start but now that I’ve recruited MH to help me with them I’m sure they’ll be done in no time!