Time flies when you're having fun, or maybe it just flies when life is action-packed!

Hong Kong was a good time. I was there for my cousin's lavish wedding.

I ate a lot, shopped a lot (not as much as in previous years. I only came home with 3 new pairs of shoes.), and walked a heck of a lot.

Didn't work out despite my best intentions. It was great to see my cousins. Who knows when the next big family event will be (the joke was whoever was getting married next).

Did well with the jet lag this time. I took this stuff called No Jet-Lag, and stimulated accupressure points as directed.

What did I miss in the last two weeks??

I'm in Hong Kong right now. It's my second day here, and I'm still a little jet lagged. I'll know tomorrow if I have it bad. During my flight, I slept very little, and I took this stuff called No Jet-lag. I also stimulated pressure points to keep my jet lag at Bay. Usually when I get to Hong Kong, I'm up super early every morning. Not this morning, though! And I even had caffeine yesterday!

It's been really nice seeing my cousins, and so far, it's just been shopping, shopping, shopping. But it's ironic that Mr. Nick has been Mr. Big Spender. Usually I practically replace my wardrobe every time i come here. So far, I have barely even been in a shopping mood. And the one piece of clothing I have bought, it's been ho hum.

however, I desperately need to find something to wear my cousin's wedding ceremony. I hate having a shopping deadline. I don't know what I'll do if I don't find anything.

I'm really tired and really dehydrated. The worst part is taht I am all carbed up, so I have no appetite.

The Godmother is always talking about things she *needs* to buy...usually it's some sort of clothing item or another.

She just found out that she will be getting a 20% paycut (but in her situation, she will be able to get some Employment Insurance to make up for some of the lost income). She said, "if I had known this was coming, I would have thought twice about getting the renovations done [to her home]."

I'm going to sound so judgmental about this because I can be smarter with my own money, too...

But she didn't save up for the renovations and relied on a line of credit. For the last several months, she kept talking about how slow things were at work. And she's been dropping a lot of money on clothes as well. $200 for a pair of trendy jeans? "Yeah, but they're so comfortable, and I will wear them a lot! And I found them on sale!" I think she'll cut back on her spending a little, and she plans on not contributing to her retirement savings for a while. But this weekend, she's going to look for a dress. Besides, "it's something I can wear to work." ... if you're going to be working less often, wouldn't you spend less on your working wardrobe?

Right now, I just have a hard time doing the spend now, worry later bit. Maybe it's because I was like that a few months ago...I just don't want her to get into a huge amount of debt!

And she is so anti-marriage right now that I wonder if she is even happy for one of our best friends who just announced she's getting married in the fall! It's one thing to not want to marry and wonder what the point of marriage is, but to be negative and to put down others for wanting marriage just doesn't seem right to me. She didn't say anything nice about it to me at all when we found out. I'm even afraid to get excited about the wedding in front of her!

You know how you're supposed to not send (negative) emails when you're upset. I held off the first time, but this time I lightly unleashed.

I know someone who used to be a friend. (What do you call that person after you grow apart? A friend? An acquaintance?) This person is one of the first people I met through the Internet in the late 90s. I guess we emailed/IMed regularly until he moved to Hong Kong when he got married. (I attended the wedding.) Then our communication pretty much stopped. I didn't see him or his wife when I was in Hong Kong last year. Since I'm going to Hong Kong, he and I have had a couple of Facebook conversations through messages. At some point I told him that Mr. Nick wanted to move in together, but I didn't want to. He made a comment about me "still" making guys jump through hoops for me.

The comment really bothered me, but I didn't say anything. I mean really...like I have an ulterior motive for denying Mr. Nick the pleasure of living with me. Give me a break! Like I'm not allowed to not want to live with somebody.

And then in our latest exchange, he said it was "impressive" that I was bringing Mr. Nick with me [thus meeting my relatives from abroad -- some of which he's already met]. When I commented "hardly," he retorted back with "And then there's the living together thing. Even if it's only for a couple of weeks."

I wrote back to him basically saying that I'd like him to keep his opinions and judgments to himself about my relationship with Mr. Nick since he didn't know anything about our relationship, and that he hadn't been in my life for the last several years. I told him I wasn't the same person I was 10 years ago, even though I should have said 15.

After these conversations, I really wonder what the point of seeing him would be. 

I really don't like the HR head around here. She is just a talking head.

Depending what is easiest for her/the company, I'm treated like a contractor or a permanent employee. She is not consistent. I've been denied certain benefits because she called me a contractor. And the whole reduction in pay and hours...I was asked by her (and pressured) because she called me "pretty much a permanent employee."

My position is a contractor here; however, I am supposed to get all the benefits that a permanent employee gets. I am basically a full-time employee with an expiry date.

I needed some clarification about the reduced hours/pay. I talked to my boss yesterday who then talked to his boss about my situation, i.e., whether I am eligible to participate in the reduced workhours/pay thing. Turns out my boss' boss and the HR woman had ALREADY DISCUSSED my situation when he was in town LAST WEEK. They had AGREED that I would not participate for the rest of my contract. So yesterday, she turns around and pressures me to opt in?

Anyhow, if/when my contract gets renewed, there will be definitely a change in the salary rate; however, I'm not sure about the hours. I would prefer reduced work hours if I'm getting the reduced pay.

On one hand, I'm relieved that I'm not losing any pay, but on the other hand, I was looking forward to a couple of extra days! However, I have decided that I am going to stop with the organic food for while except for meat. I'll probably stop the naturopath visits for now, too.

Oh, and I just found out that I have to pay a year's worth of my net income to cover my dad's taxes. One last gift from dad. I knew I was going to have to pay taxes. I'm not sure why I didn't mentally budget for it. This will put a damper on my next home purchase!

So the cast is in town getting to ready to start filming the next Twilight movie. The guy who plays Jacob has been grocery shopping...at Choices!!!!! I shop there often, but I just don't know which he has been going to. I was also trying to identify where Robert Pattinson has been hanging out by looking at the photos he's in. But I'm not obsessed, really. BWAHAHA Just a mere curiosity.

But I should be avoiding shopping for anything organic, I guess...or only buy hormone-free meat.

It looks like I might be taking a 10% paycut. We got an email from our CEO last night. There's going to be a meeting in about 25 minutes discussing the latest news. 10% less income is still more than what I was making last year, so I guess that is not too bad. But if I want to keep up my current lifestyle, I am going to have to find a way to supplement my income. Otherwise, it's back to being a little more frugal. And then all those extra healthy things I have been doing will have to take a backseat!

Oh, with the paycut, we'd be working 9 days out of 10. It'd be nice to have that extra day of time, but it's also an opportunity to make some money! I need to see when we get that 10th day.

They say this paycut is voluntary, but seriously...I think you'd be the first to get cut with the next round of cuts if you didn't take it!

When my colleague was still working here (before he got cut during the last round), the company told him that he would have to take a paycut if he did not want a particular duty added to his job description. He said anyone's pay can be cut anytime without permission. I guess that makes sense since you're never asked if you want a raise??

I'm not a fan of comics, but I often like the movies. I was looking forward to seeing Watchmen.

I even saw it in the IMAX theatre. I thought there'd be some good action and excitement at least. Maybe I would have felt differently if I had read the comics.

I thought movie was boring and long and plotless.

I barely remember the characters' names. I thought there was going to be a point to the movie, but all the flashbacks (which were cool) kind of confused things. Also, with all the flashbacks, it was great history of the characters, but I wasn't sure how they lended significance to the plot.

Good things about the movie were The Comedian (Denny on Grey's Anatomy woooo) and Rorschach (the child molester in Little Children). I liked some of the special effects. Okay, and it was neat to be brought back to a few decades ago. Oh, and one of my favourite anchormen has a spot in the movie! He played a newscaster! YEAH!

The sex scene was totally gratuitious. The actress in it...does she have to get naked in every single one of her movies? She already bared her boobs on Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. I expected better acting from her, too.

Actually, the best part of the movie was the naked blue penis. I kept trying to figure out it was circumsized or not and how they modelled that body...and was that character all CGI? That occupied my mind instead of the movie.

That show is one of my guilty pleasures. At least the premier episodes are not as boring anymore.

There's one girl on the show who was scalded as a young child and now has a lot of scars. It reminded me of the show Kink. One of the guys on the show used to own one of the body piercing places in Vancouver. He was turned on by scars.

I was thinking that this girl, if she wanted to model and have people accept her scars, she could totally pose for fetish sites and magazines. The show uses her as "oh, yes...we want all sorts of people on the show...not because we want to share their stories, but it makes the show unique and garners more viewers!" So...for their first runway walk at a real fashion show, she wore a business suit. All the other girls wore skimpy bathing suit like outfits or skimpy dresses. I'm not sure North American television is ready for something so "different."

I was thinking about some of the unpleasant people I've crossed paths with in my life.

I'm not sure how it came about...I was probably thinking about what goes around comes around.

A long time ago, I was on website called MatchDoctor. I don't know if it's still around, but anyhoo, some guy across the country wrote to me saying that I was too nice to be on the site and to meet people other ways. I went to visit my aunt on the other coast, and I ended up meeting the guy. We met up at some mall, and he drove us somewhere. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have gotten in his car. Even locally, I always made sure I met people in public places. [When I met the J man for the first time, he offered me the opportunity to park in his building's parkade and I even declined that.]I thought with your communication, there was a level of trust.

So I guess this guy that I met wanted to teach me a life lesson or something. He wasn't very friendly, but he was saying things like, "don't you think you should be less trusting? You don't know where I could be taking you. I could have knives/rifles/guns in the back." I think he did have some sort of weapons. Anyway, nothing life threatening happened to me.

But as we were about to turn into some mall, he didn't see a car coming from the opposite direction, and he turned right into it. Not only did he damage the other person's car, but he also damaged his shiny new red Mercedes.

Jerk. I was quite happy at that point. Needless to say, I never heard from the guy again!

They were in a backpack!!

He was accompanied by Sock 1 and Sock 2 as well :)

I was reading some chick lit yesterday (the more chick lit I read, the more I find that I dislike it. Hold on -- I'd rather read Twilight than chick lit?). Anyway, the main character made some comment about "joe jeans," and I asked myself why that sounded so familiar.

It's because I have a pair. Or had?

Then I realised I hadn't worn the jeans in a really long time, and a mental scan of my closet showed that they weren't there.

When I got home, I looked for them, and they weren't in my closet. How do I lose a pair of jeans?!?

I'm eating shrimp right now. The package said it was fresh, but it sure doesn't taste very fresh. It needs lemon juice or something. Or a lot of mayo.

I'm going to make meatloaf this weekend. Is there a suitable substitute for breadcrumbs? I'm trying to avoid bread.

I got that comment 173 times!!

What a nice way to be greeted upon logging into tBlog.

It was a very exhausting weekend. 

Friday night was schnitzel night. I really don't like eating it because it's so greasy and it's breaded. But I was there to see friends. It's schnitzel night at the Vancouver Austria club every weekend. People can buy a schnitzel dinner for $10. They raised their prices recently. Anyway, the accordian players come out, and there is a lot of German beer abound!

Saturday, I went to a birthday party for 1 year old. I guess these kind of birthday parties are more for the parents than the kids. Since this one was baby #2, it was less of a production to watch him eat his first birthday cake. His grandmother bakes the (cup)cakes for all the birthday parties, and they are absolutely disgusting. Who screws up cakemix cake?? I've learned to not eat them anymore.

After the birthday party, I checked out some more condos. I guess my goal of buying something before I leave the country is not looking very likely. There isn't much out there that interests me right now. A lot is still out of my price range.

After looking at condos, I had to hurry and eat dinner to get ready for my exciting night of dominoes. It was my first time playing, and it was a lot of fun! Unfortunately, it was a later night than I had expected. I knew I had to get up early Sunday to meet up with my cousin for brunch.

Brunch didn't really fill me up. Seeing Princess was good. She didn't seem very happy. She recently moved here and is still looking for a job. She is somewhat dependent on her boyfriend right now even though I think they're on the verge of a breakup. It sure gets messy when you're living together. It was my first time meeting him. From his photos, I thought he looked like a douchebag. Meeting him in person didn't change my opinion. 

After a few hours with them (when he showed up, things got really awkward.), I had to leave to go meet up with He Who Must Not be Named. You know, that is too long to type. I'm calling him Voldemort from now on. I was planning on only a two hour coffee get together but he ran late, and then I didn't feel like cutting our get together short. We sat at a Starbucks for 3 hours. There was a young girl reading Harlequin romance novels. I remember reading those in junior high. It was a good chat...very comfortable. Hard to believe I hadn't seen him in 3 - 4 years. He lent his wii, which was nice!

And that was my weekend. Because of all the activities, now I have more errands to run during this week. BLEH! And I could really use some rest.