Bao's BLOG!!

Last update, Wednesday night, current update, Sunday night. I didn't want to pick a blog title that draws attention to a particular event, so I'll just leave it pretty generic. Anyawy, lots to talk about. Today's OCRemix blog selections are Final_Fantasy_7_AerisSummerSamba_OC_ReMix, Mega_Man_3_Blue_Reflection_OC_ReMix, Final_Fantasy_4_Leap_Into_The_Darkness_OC_ReMix, and most certainly, F-Zero_BlueVacation_OC_ReMix, one of my current OCRemix favourites. And some other songs too, since 4 songs aren't enough to take me through the whole update.

The last update was up for about 4 days, and only 1 person commented... maybe the update was too short... so you know what that means... Anyway, there's a lot to blog about, mainly the camping trip during the weekend. I'll probably update as I go along, with events update and thoughts updates embedded throughout the document. So here we go.

Anyway, on Thursday, we wanted to have people over, so we invited David over again. Nobody else we asked could make it, and David came around 7pm. It's been a long time, so I don't remember much of what happened. We went back to the other house to eat, watch Jeopardy and stuff.. old episodes now, so no new updates on Ken Jennings. Came back to the new house, played settlers, team game, Duy and I vs Dave and Vinks. Had fun, we won, got 5 points during the last 2 turns, blah blah blah...

One condition that I proposed to David for letting him come over was, for him to watch FMA 15. He can't get too behind, etc, so he agreed to watch it. Not sure what he thought of the episode, since he didn't tell me, but he did his usual afterwards-pondering, and that he should, for such an episode. Now he can watch 16 and 17, which Duy can help with (since Armstrong is just so wicked cool), but then I'll say he'll have to watch 1,2, 8, 9 before continuing afterwards. As for episode 4... well, you never really have to watch it, but you could, or we can tell you a 60-second summary about it. Whatever.

Didn't play any magic games that day. Hmm... are we giving up on Magic? Well... I'm most certainly not. I was just talking to Wen, and like Ricky, both don't enjoy it anymore. So now it's just Duy, myself, Alan, and Jason, as well as David, who enjoys the game but doesn't choose to invest in it. Anyway, I'm still enjoying it, and I guess that's good for me, as long as I have people to play with... anyway, continuing with the update.

Anyway, soon after he left. Then it was Friday. Went to the gym, came back, did some chores, got ready to go camping. My bro and I, and my uncle went camping. From UW, some guy named James Le registered (but we never saw him there), and UWVSA president, Jeff Tran, also came.

WTF? I just copied this document, and then I pressed down (to get to the bottom) and my document disappeared... WTF? Then I pasted and all the line breaks disappeared. Stupid blogger thing. I hate you. Along with Cyclops and a few others, you're my new arch nemesis.

Anyway, UVSA (University? Vietnamese Student Association) sets up a bunch of events, one of which is SongViet, a camping trip for Vietnamese university students. This year was Songviet 8. Somehow my uncle's friend Phu found out about it, since he's McMaster Alumni, and he passed on the word to our mom, and then she made us go. So then we went.

Etc, etc, we leave around... say, 6:20. We get there around, say, 7:30. There were already a bunch of tents there from various schools... pretty much all the famous ones. The larger groups included McMaster, Queens, UofT, Ryerson, York, etc... the smaller groups were comprised of Waterloo, Windsor, Mohawk College, and a bunch of other ones. Sadly, there were only 3 waterloo people there, Jeff, and us 2. Actually, there was another group called Westview, which is a highschool a bunch of people graduated from, 2 of which attend Waterloo. One of them is Mai, 4th year Actsci, whom I've seen walking around before, I just never knew her. So we'll see each other in the fall again, yay.

Anyway, since my uncle and his friends stuck around McMaster, we set up camp in the McMaster area. We became really close friends with McMaster, so it was a very enjoyable experience. The goal of the experience was to hang out with Vietnamese people and to make new friends, and that's what we did. Well, that's what I did at least, Duy did too but I don't think he enjoyed it as much. With Duy, it seems to be !Computer = !Like.

Anyway, as I said, it was fun. First of all, like all camping trips, you can't have a camping trip without mosquitoes. And we have a bunch of nice souvenirs from those annoying guys. Had campfires, saw people eat smores, etc, etc. Made friends, etc, all fun and fun. Met girls :) Girls are cool. Ya know what's not cool? When someone speaks Vietnamese, and you don't understand it. Especially if it's a joke, and then 80% of the population laughs and the other 20% need someone to translate it. Anyway, moving on.

So we get there, set up camp, and eventually Jeff comes, and we go meet people from different areas. We didn't actually talk to Ryerson, York, and UofT much... we just stuck around with McMaster and a bit of Queens, and our fellow Waterloo Westview people. Anyway, we register, etc, and eventually we find ourselves playing some poker, and then Toan comes around.

Not Waterloo Toan, master poker player, but McMaster Alumni Toan, master poker player, with his nice set of 11.5g clay poker chips. They look pretty nice. So first we played a round of Texas Hold'em, no limit, for pushups; loser does 50, 2nd loser does 40, etc, but I don't think anybody did any pushups. I was 3rd of 5th to go, so I had to do 30, but nobody really cared, and I think it was just for fun anyway.

Anyway, so Toan had 11.5g clay poker chips. 11.5g, heavier than 9g, which is pretty nice. I wonder why I didn't check out other chips before I bought mine... not that I have any regrets. They were pretty nice, with nice colours, and the outer rim colours were nice. Those are the types of chips you see at casinos, and my chips are pretty plain looking, but I fell in love with those ones while playing with Waterloo Toan.

Anyway, so that brings us to my pokerchips. I won them off E-bay more than a month ago, but still haven't received them. Anyway, there were complications from both parties. First, there were no pink chips, so I thought that was half-okay (but if you stack a red, a pink, and a black together, it looks really good, like bordeaux cherries or... something), but I went to the site but the pink was there, but yellow wasn't.

Then there was the issue of paying, where I have to send money order rather than paypal. But I got over that... but then I created another issue. On their site, they offer a feature called 'hotstamping'. Basically, you can choose for them to ... well, stamp (inscribe with gold coloured lettering) stuff on your chips, such as "$1" or "BAO". Anyway, hotstamping was 12 cents per chip, so I thought, 50 chips hotstamped? $6? That's sooo worth it! So I e-mailed them and asked them if I can hotstamp 50 chips, or if I have to hotstamp all 1000, for $120. I'm certainly not hostamping 1000 chips for $120, especially since I bought them for $38 and shipping for $50.

Anyway, they didn't get back to me via e-mail, so I decided to phone them and ask them, and they said yeah, I can specify how many chips I want hostamped. So I did that on the internet site, but when it was time to print the invoice, it didn't give me the option to change the option from 1000 hotstamped chips to 50, so I just made a money order for much less.

After I sent the money order, but before they received it, they e-mailed me back and said NO, you can't hotstamp a portion, you must hotstamp them all. I guess that makes sense... I guess it's too much trouble to customize chips if the customer's only paying to get 50 chips for a mere $6... anyway, so they ninjaed me a bit, so I e-mailed them back about the extra $6, but no response.

So the other day I phoned them, and long story short, they made me a deal - they can't hotstamp the 50 chips, and instead of sending the extra $6 back, they're packing in an extra 100 chips, which was pretty good. So now I'm getting 1100 chips; 100 of each colour, and then another 25 of I think red, white, green, and blue. And then a dealer button and 2 decks of cards. And those plastic chip holders, but no carrying case. Toan (McMaster) had a carrying case, which looked pretty cool. Anyway, the shipped it on Thursday or Friday, ground shipping from Colorado, so it'll get here eventually.

Anyway, the e-bay dude, www.5stardeal.com , is okay. Good selection of casino and billiard items, as well as non casino stuff, such as swords and weapons. I suppose they must be legal, right? I don't think they're real katanas and stuff, but they'll be cool for a collection. Drawbacks are that you have to pay via money order (if you live in Canada), and that their e-mail response time is pretty crappy. I suggest if you buy from them, you can receive e-mails, you can do their online check-out service, but for all questions and inquiries, you phone their toll free number for much quicker response time.

Anyway, back to camping! Played more poker, lost $2, but twas fun. Learned a few things from playing, etc, etc, etc... This was the weekend of Queens. My favourite hand was when Jeff had a straight, with the Q, 10, 8, on the table, so I raised, he followed. The next card was a Q, so I checked, and he went all in. Unfortunately for him, I was holding 2 queens in my hand, so he lost and had to do 50 pushups. Eventually in a future game, I only had 4 chips left, so I went all in, but won with a full house so I got 12 chips from that. Actually, that round everyone got a full house, I just had the biggest, since I was holding a pair of queens, Toan a Q,J, and the other guy a pair of 7s.

So anyway, there were a bunch of events throughout the weekend, including skits, food, campfire, etc, so I won't bore you with all the events... I'll just mention a few here and there, perhaps not in chronological order.

Jeff was supposed to sleep with us, but he slept in another tent with some girls... McMaster girls Anna, Lisa (Lisa's actually from UofT, but she hung out with us), and Michelle (McMaster) I think. The next night Jeff left around 10:30 pm, to go home and then a roadtrip with his bro to Oklahoma to visit some friends.

Didn't rain too crazy until after we went to bed. Some tents got flooded, but most were fine. I went to bed around 12:30, woke up around 7:30, so I had a good night's sleep. I woke up, most people were still in bed. Anna, the McMaster leader in food was awake, as well as some others. Cooked eggs and bacon and instant noodles... it was still a bit wet outside, with some rain...

The website told us to bring our own bowls and forks and spoons and chopsticks and etc, so I did, but I didn't use them. Nobody else had their own bowls or forks or chopsticks or whatever, so I wanted to fit in. The rain was still there, so it was a pretty crappy morning, but it was a fun experience. Putting it in David's perspective and the reason why he liked "Speed", it was about a bunch of people together coping with a certain 'bad' situation, and seeing how they deal with it. Well, it wasn't too bad, but it was still fun, fun.

In the afternoon on the Saturday, we were to play some team games and stuff. We decided to join up with Queens (once again, the weekend of queens!). We joined up with them, did their cheers, etc. Met Megan, I think McMaster's team leader, or at least, the sports team leader or something. She's pretty cool.

Umm... let's see... what else was there that day... I don't really remember. Went swimming around 3, that was fun. Unfortunately, it was just Duy and myself, and Phu, and another Vietnamese guy that didn't really know how to swim. Didn't see too many girls, so that was unfortunate. But it was amazingly refreshing after a long day spent in total heatness...

Hmm... you've been reading for a while now, eh? According to the scrollbar, you're maybe 60% done now, congrats! You should get a reward for reading this far. Hmm... I dunno. I don't want to give away anything valuable... hmm... how'bout, when we play settlers next, when you need Ore, I'll trade it to you for one of something you have? :P Yes yes... that sounds interesting... it'll probably cost me the game, but oh well... Anyway, the codeword is "greenbird"... continuing on...

Went back, and people were playing volleyball. I signed up for volleyball, but I don't think I had a team, so I didn't play, but I did keep score for one round. Talked with Jeff and his friend Lynn, whom he knew since grade school I think. Talked with Lynn's sister, yllan I think. She's pretty cute. I think she was one of my favourites ;) We didn't have chips, so we played poker for handslaps... that was pretty dumb, but oh well.

Uhh... did stuff... had dinner... around midnight, Duy went to bed, I stayed up and hung out with the group. It was a bunch of guys and myself, and the Lisa/Michelle/Anna bunch, and Chuc (sp?), the president of McMaster VSA. We talked, had smores, told ghost stories, jokes and riddles. Around 2:00 am, we proceeded to play a game called "Mafia".

Mafia was a... fun game. I enjoyed it, although it's probably one of those games you'll enjoy doing when there's not much else to do. It's not really a deductive game like clue, but maybe more bluff-ish and psychological and stuff, but not really. But it's amusing... maybe we'll try it one day.

Unfortunately, we'll need a big group. The bigger the better, in moderation. We probably need at least 8. So, these 8 people sit or stand or whatever in a circle, facing the middle. Preferably sitting, cuz it's easier than standing :) In Mafia, there's the referee, or god, or host. Then there are multiple "killers", a "norman", a doctor, and a cop. The host is an outside person of the game, and just... well, is the host.

So what happens is that at the game, everyone (except the host of course) closes their eyes, and the host then picks killers, say, 2, say, by tapping them on their shoulders. Next, the host announces they're picking a norman, and once again taps their shoulder, and then a doctor and a cop.

Everyone opens their eyes again.. well, kinda, and then everyone closes their eyes again. The host then says "killers, wake up" and the killers open their eyes. Both of the killers point to one person in the circle, and the host acknowledges their choice, and the killers go back to sleep. Then the host tells Norman to wake up. Norman is a killer, but he doesn't have to listen to his partner or anything, cuz he doesn't have one - so Norman picks a person in the circle too.

Then comes the doctor, who tries to save someone - they point to a person that they might think the killers have chosen, and then they go back to sleep. The doctor can be selfish and always point at themselves, but maybe we'll make a houserule where they can't do that. Lastly, the cop wakes up, and picks someone they think might be a killer, to arrest them.

Then, everyone wakes up, and the host announces the results. The host might say something like, "the cop didn't do their job, but the doctor managed to save one person. Unfortunately, the killers have struck, and (points to some guy) he's dead. Reveal your identity", and then the dead guy says he was just a civilian.

Then comes the nominations... anyone (except dead or arrested people) can nominate another person in the circle, if they think they are the killer. Two nominations are made, and then each of the nominated people gives an excuse as to why they're not the killer, and then everyone (except dead or arrested people) vote, and if there's a tie, nobody wins, but if someone wins the vote, that person dies, and reveals their identity. After that, the round begins again. The object of the game is to win before everyone dies, or we can make houserules or aim for better results or whatever.

Sounds confusing? It really isn't. Sounds boring? Well, it depends how passive you are in the moment. It's a pretty relaxing, passive game, especially if you're sitting. Anyway, once you're dead, you can't vote or whatever, but you can be awake the whole time and see who were the killers and doctors and all that.

Anyway, I had fun with the game. Chuc (McMaster president) and her boyfriend kept dying a lot, so did Rosie (another McMaster), it was pretty funny. We played maybe 5 games (since they're so passive, nobody really disagreed to playing again), and I was a civilian the first 3 times, and then a killer, and then a cop. I wasn't much of a killer (well, we did kill Chuc once), but it was an interesting time being a cop. First round, I decided to go systematically and start with one end of the circle and go around. If the killers were placed randomly but evenly distributed, I would reach one eventually. Luckily, I arrested someone on the first round. The other interesting part was when I arrested the killer that killed me in the same round. That was fun.

Anyway, around 3 the game ended, and then I went to bed around 3:20. Some of the others stayed up, to watch the sunrise, but I decided to go to bed. Not that I couldn't tank it, but it was getting a bit cold and if I stayed up I might've gotten sick. ... so maybe I couldn't tank it, but oh well.

Anyway, I've been writing for almost 2 hours now... with a few breaks here and there, ahhhh...

Umm... Sunday morning, woke up around 9:40, so I had a good 6:20 sleep. Lisa couldn't tank it, so she saw a purple part of the sunrise, but then went to bed. Too bad, she was the one that wanted to stay up the most to see it. On Sunday...well, we cleaned up, and had our big game. They just call it big game, it's just a series of events that you play in your team. This time, us two Waterloo'ers joined up with McMaster. So we bonded even more, and that was great.

Maybe I'll see McVSA when we'll go visit Mac... although Ambrose isn't here this time, so we'll get there in some different way this fall... Umm... anyway, back to the camping trip, there's not much more to say about Sunday. Packed up, went to the closing ceremony, and then left. Stopped by the convenience store to pick up a bottle of pepsi and 7-up, and then left for home.

Got back to Mississauga around 4:00, and the first place we go was Pho'99. Phu wanted to go, so we went. Had my usual 507 and my 979 (Grilled pork chop, chicken, and steamed egg with rice, and Avocado shake). Couldn't finish my 507, my 979 was delicious though. Got home around 5, went to bed, took a 3 hour nap, woke up, watched Simpsons, then went online, talked with Wen and Lorah for a bit, then at 9:03 I started blogging. And that brings us to the end of the update.

So the camping trip was pretty cool. I'll be going next year again, hopefully Waterloo will have a bigger group. It was at the end of July, and everyone who's in school is preparing for exams, so everyone was busy. Jeff will probably get in touch with UVSA and try to get them to move it back to early July or something. Not sure if Duy will go again, but I most definately will.

Didn't get as many e-mail address from girls as I thought I should've :P Well, Jeff knows Lynn and Ylan, so I'll get those from Jeff... got Mai's msn, as well as Lisa's, since I took pictures for her on her camera. So maybe I can post pictures later when I get them.

----

Anyway, as for tomorrow, I'm planning to have friends over. So far Wen and Andy are coming, Ricky's busy with a family BBQ... I think Jason can come, since Jason was planning to go to Ricky's, but now he can't, so he'll have to settle for us. :) Come at the usual time I'd say. Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading.