Today is Pat’s birthday. We had started with having dim sum at Crystal Mall Top Gun. Although I had heard bad reputation from my friends, I found that place is quite decent. The food is pretty good and not as expensive as I thought. The best part is each of us get a tea set to make our own favour of tea. I walked Charlie in the afternoon while Pat was organizing her WYD photos. Tonight we went to the Oktoberfest at St. Paul with Tammy. Tammy is born on the same year same day as Pat. Before we had down to Richmond, we droped off the birthday present for Brenda, and I took a picture of three birthday girls. I wonder what is the chance of knowing three people have the same birthday.

The Oktoberfest tonight is so-so, can’t compare to the real Bravian food we had in Germany. However it is always good to get together with the WYD team. The most disappointed thing of tonight is how can an Oktoberfest without German beer? We stayed until 11:00p.m., had some folk dance with the church old folks, and I got pushed out to particple in a stupid dancing competition in traditional german way. Then we headed to the Also Louge in No. 3 road to have a drink and cut the cake. That place is quite nice, we had ordered some cocktail and appetizers, both taste pretty good. The waitess suggested flaming lamborghini for Pat and Tammy, said it is the birthday drink. It a pretty smart way pursading us to spend more money, cost that drink is usually the most expensive cocktail on the menu. Tammy is pretty drunk after taking the flaming lamborghini, which is equivalent to 4 shooters. Somehow Pat is still quite awake, probably she has a higher body mass ratio. The girls talk a lot of things which I pay no attention to. I was concentrated in watching an old Charlie Chaplin movie showing on the big screen. I think it is the first Chaplin film I had ever watched, and I think it is very funny. Those old Chaplin really suits the atomsphere, it’s black and white and soundless. What a brillant form of entertainment without bothering the guests. We stayed there until almost the closing time.

Tonight, I went to Grand Ball Room for their friday night dancing party with Pat for the first time. We tried to pick up our dancing skills, but unfortunately I had forgot all the moves I had learnt before my vacation. Moreover I have trouble counting the beats of the songs. No only I can’t count how many beats in a bar, I can’t even tell the genre of the song. The only exception is cha-cha and tango which have easy to recongize features. Thus Pat gave me a special training on counting the rythm. We sat there for about an hour and I had counted the beats of more than ten songs. I found the songs with heavy and simple drums is much easier to follow. At the end, both me and Pat have headache from the beats, so we decided to go home early. On our way back home, I felt there was a hammer keep pounding my brain in a rythm while I was driving. I guess I will see the rythm and beats in my dream tonight.

I went to have dim sum during lunch today at Carefree close to work. We used to go to that place for lunch, but it had changed from a HK style cafe to dim sum resturant while I was in vacation. Before the change, it only serve set lunch in the afternoon, and doesn’t attract too many customers. I found that the place is quite crowded today, I heard that we have to wait in line on a Friday. The dim sum served there is not bad, the taste is good, price is cheap, although the dishes are not as fancy as Kirin in Coquitlam. Since it is the only dim sum resturant in the area, it has a natural monoploy in the market. This is another successful story of surviving in the business world. Poor will lead to changes, changes will lead to prosperity. I wonder when will PMC learn this lesson and make up the mind to brand out into a new sector where there is less competitors?

Two of my colleagues just bought the PSP, the machine had arrived this week and they brough it in to show us. Their version is slightly different than the one my other colleague got on the first day. This version is hacked and can play downloaded from the memory stick. With unlimit supply of games for free, I guess the handheld game machine is a bargain. I heard that the latest version of PSP had fixed the firmware so the hack is no longer valid. I am quite impressed by the graphics, it is comparable to an average PS2 game. The machine itself is a bit too bad, can’t easily fit inside a pocket. Although the PSP is really nice, I don’t feel the urge to get one. I just can’t find any reason to play games on the go, since I can’t think of when can I play it. I rarely take public transportation. I don’t wait in the line often, if I have to, I will probably forgot to bring the PSP. When I’m on travel, I rather read a book so I don’t have to worry about recharging the battery. Most important, most of the games aviable to PSP are just clones of PS2 games. Until I see a truely ground-breaking game with totally new game play, there is no point to playing similiar games of the same genre on a smaller screen.

Today when we went to lunch at Mui Garden, to our surprise it is closed. There is a notice on the door saying it is under renovation for a few days due to small fire in the kirchen. We lost our number one default place to have lunch. That will cause us some headache in deciding where to go this week. So we went to Tofu shop across the road, where we havn’t been for quite a while. While we were eating, we were speculating the real result of Mui Garden is closed. It would be surprise if it is the city order it to close due to hygiene problem. No resturant owner with right mind will post that reason out on its door, that will scare the customers away. I tried to search the website of the Burnaby health deparment, but I could find a list of resturant it had warned. I think the government should let this information easily accessible to the public to give us better protection.