Over the last several weeks I've been accompanying co-workers who go downstairs and outside for smoke breaks. I've been calling it my time to "second-hand smoke" a cigarette. In reality, I just enjoy taking a few minutes of the day to go outside and get out of the studio for a few minutes. It also helps that there are undoubtedly lots of pretty girls walking around our area of downtown Vancouver.

For non-smokers, we don't have these type of breaks. The cigarette gives smokers that excuse to go outside and light one up. Do we non-smokers need an excuse to go outside? I suppose not but it sure helps people get into the habit leaving the studio a few times a day.

I also like the social aspect of smoke breaks. The acting of smoking seems to chill out the smokers, so the conversations we have are nice and interesting. Sometimes we'll continue to talk about work-related stuff but just because we're outside makes it seem way better.

I believe non-smokers should come up with some sorta alternative break to smoking. Maybe we could have a doughnut break. There would be like three dudes standing around, just eating doughnuts. I'm going to work on that idea.

Lastly, the topic of the non-smoker being at the smoke break was explored in entire episode of Friends where Rachel had to join smokers outside for the sake of her career.

0 Comments

If you happen to find yourself at the newest Elephant and Castle pub at Burrard and W. Pender, do consider the turkey cobb salad. I had one today and it was the tastiest salad I've had in a while. The turkey was tender and moist while the bacon bits were delicious.

Also, I finally get my hair cut again after more than six agonizing weeks. I look ridiculous with this hair. I would take pictures but there's not enough room to stand that far back from the mirror.

0 Comments

So on one of the evenings of my vacation in Hawaii, it was my turn to pick where to eat dinner. My traveling buddy John was gracious enough to let me decide. Ron, our newly married friend was going to join us later after our meal.

I chose Ciao Mein, an eatery that purported to skillfully mix Asian and Italian cuisines. Since I am Asian and John is Italian, it figured to be a safe choice. Ciao Mein is located in the Hyatt hotel right off Waikiki Beach. Upon finding the restaurant, the host asked me a series of questions. First, was if we had a reservation. No. They secondly asked what name they could put down for our table. I answered, without pause, with "Bob Wong".

If you know me personally, you might already know that I give "Bob" or "Bob Wong" as a name whenever I'm asked for a moniker that's purely for reference purposes. Such occasions include giving a name for take out food, table requests for restaurants, or orders of a non-food variety. The reason is quite simple. After decades of giving out my real name, I've just gotten tired of repeating myself at least once more, then having to spell it out, letter by letter. All of this effort, for what really? So someone can differentiate my order of twenty hot wings from some other dude's calzone?

It didn't used to be "Bob Wong". At first, I had real fun just choosing different names. I remember I was once Rudiger but that didn't really make it easier for the person on the phone. So over time, I evolved my "reference name" to something that was the easiest thing I could think of. The name had to be short, pronounceable, easy to spell, and easily distinguishable from other names. "Bob" was an obvious choice. Later, I encountered times where I was asked for a last name. I briefly toyed with choosing "Smith" but only in certain lighting conditions do I look like a "Bob Smith". Using the same criteria, I chose "Wong".

So here I was at Ciao Mein, having just given the host my name as "Bob Wong". We were asked to wait as they needed to prepare our table. After a few short minutes, we were taken into the dining area. Once seated, our waiter for the evening came by to greet us.

"Hello Wong party, it will be my pleasure to serve you tonight."

Dinner was uneventful, yet delicious nonetheless, with John and I choosing a set dinner course. If you're ever in the area, their Petti Di Pollo is excellent. Anyways, when it came time to pay the bill, it was my turn since John had paid for a meal previously. As I pulled out my Visa card to pay, John reminded me of one thing.

"Your real and full name is on that Visa card."

Hmmm... in all my years of using "Bob Wong" I had not encountered these exact set of circumstances, namely (no pun intended) using my credit card with a person that knew me as "Bob". I looked into my wallet and I did have enough cash for the meal. I did, however, want to save my bills for strippers for convenience store runs over the next few days. I debated over it briefly before I came to the conclusion our waiter probably hadn't really paid all that much attention to my name and probably wouldn't pay attention to the name on my Visa card either. So with that, I gave my Visa to our waiter. Soon, he returned to our table with my card and the slip.

"Thank you Mr. Tang, I hope you have a pleasant evening."

As he left our table, I had a blank expression on my face as this was the first and hopefully only time that "Bob Wong" had backfired on me. John thought it was pretty funny and wondered if this would wind up on the blog.

Since that evening at Ciao Mein, I have continued to use "Bob Wong" but I am now acutely aware of circumstances that limit Bob's effectiveness.

2 Comments

While some people might have boozed up too much this long weekend, I am guilty of eating horrendously for the last three days.

On Friday evening, I had a regular prime rib dinner from The Keg. Keep in mind, I had the exact same thing just on Tuesday.

Then on Saturday, I had five awesome pieces of KFC chicken for dinner. On Sunday morning, I ate two more pieces of KFC chicken for breakfast. I kinda skipped lunch.

For Sunday dinner, I ate slabs of raw tuna and salmon. That might have been fine except that on my way home that evening, I got hungry and decided to patronize the A&W drive-through. I only wanted a single Teen Burger but the girl inside the tiny voice box convinced me to get two since it was two for $6. I went home and ate 1.5 Teen Burgers before I realized I was not respecting myself.

On Monday morning, I decided to skip both breakfast and lunch, instead I decided to consume two Powerbars. Then I went to play several hours of tennis which was good. Unfortunately, we wound up at a Ricky's Diner afterwards where I had a strawberry milkshake which had a mountain of whipped cream on it. I didn't finish it but that certainly didn't help. For Monday dinner, it was my father's birthday. We took him out to The Boathouse. I got a lobster tail, wild rice, and roasted vegetables. This all seems healthy but then I dipped the lobster in this amazing drawn butter. After all the lobster was gone, I dipped the remaining bread in the butter until it was all gone.

It's gonna be all sushi and salads this week.

0 Comments

It's a long weekend here in British Columbia and aptly enough, the Monday holiday is called B.C. Day. The staff here at et.com are enjoying their time off by either being with their families or eating Doritos.

We'll return tomorrow with a new post.

1 Comments