I had this grilled squid for dinner tonight. It looked really good and I microwaved it 30 seconds, poured the sauce on it. It was very tasty, full of flavor, and was pretty tender (surprisingly). But God knows, I had to goto the washroom twice shortly after eating it…:( Not really sure why. The squid looked clean and tasted fresh. Do we not supposed to eat a whole squid at a time?? But since it’s so tasty, I guess this is not going to stop me from eating them in the future….

Was sick for the whole week. I’m not sure if I’ve caught a cold or if it’s my regular pollen allergic reaction during Spring. Felt so bad for the entire week, didn’t do much except work (a whole lot), sleep, eat. My room is so messy as I didn’t have the energy to tidy it up.

Yesterday I felt a bit better so I went out and did a couple things. Went to downtown to get my Easy Park sticker as I’ve applied for the “Very Efficient Vehicle Discount Program” which gives me 50% discount at any Easy Park parking lot =D Of course the program is not available for most vehicles except for a few, and my Smart car is one of them. Got a sticker from the Easy Park office for my windshield.

I also went to Mercedes Benz to redeem a gift that was given to me free for the 10th year celebration of Smart. Nice little paper package with a notepad in it, several pins with Smart related prints on them, and a miniature 1:87 Smart car model enclosed in a display case. Smart periodically hosts events and gives away gifts for free, it’s a really nice (like this event where I won a Smart jacket.)

At night I went to the Maurya Indian Cusine restaurant with Wendy. I actually went there with Davinder last year and I recalled that it was really good, and this year they won some awards at the 2009 Dine Out Vancouver event so I thought it would be a good place to eat. On par with my expectation, the food was really good. We ordered two Starters (Kararlari Prawns, Shyam Savera), and a Main (Chicken Chettinad). All of them were very good, as well as the complimentary papadum (crispy bread) and naan bread. I liked the flavor they have in all the foods, very distinctive but not too strong. I also liked the fried herbal leaves in the Chicken Chettinad, they were so crispy and full of flavor… I will go again to try their lamb racks and dessert…

I went and bought this “Power Gym” pull up bar from Sears today. I’ve been looking for it for some time, last seen at a “As Seen On TV” store but it was selling it for $49.99 which was quite pricey so I didn’t get it. Saw this similar one selling for $10 cheaper at Sears, couldn’t tell myself not to get it anymore so… Anyway I was a bit skeptical to hang it on the door frame…etc. but it turned out to be surprisingly stable/sturdy - I gave it a try and didn’t feel like I would fall to the ground and injure myself. I will now be able to do pull/chip ups at home, yay~ Also able to do a couple nice exercises like push up with different grips. Still need to test it out for a few weeks to see if it falls apart…etc.

Oh and I went to the Vancouver Aquarium last Saturday with Wendy. Took a huge load of pics but not yet have time to edit them. I had my camera in a wrong setting for the entire day without realizing it and the pics turned out to have overexposed a lot =( I really need to thoroughly check the settings every time when I am out for photo shoots….

I came across this little utility called CHDK today, which claimed to be able to add extra functionalities to most if not all of the Canon point-and-shoot cameras. One of the super cool feature was to enable optical zoom in video recording mode. I couldn’t wait but grabbed my trusty Canon SD1000 camera, followed the online instructions (which involved loading some files onto the SD card, and then loading a software up in the camera, pretty straight forward), and it WORKED…! I was able to do optical zoom in video recording mode in addition to the standard digital zoom! The drawback was that the built-in mic picked up huge noise from the zoom motor, which I found was super annoying on playback. Well the optical zoom capability was invaluable though, I thought I would keep it set as the default. CHDK also added lots of other cool options to the camera, like saving files in RAW format (I was in shock pretty much when I got to know this), adjusting video file compression rate on-the-fly, displaying an icon that showed the level of remaining battery (super useful)….etc.

A list of CHDK’s cool features:

• RAW - CHDK can record raw files, giving you access to every bit of data the sensor saw, without compression or processing. Raw files can be manipulated on the camera, or processed on your PC. CHDK also has experimental support for the open DNG raw standard.
• Override Camera parameters - Exposures from 64s to 1/60.000s with flash sync. Full manual or priority control over exposure, aperture, ISO and focus.
• Bracketing - Bracketing is supported for exposure, aperture, ISO, and even focus.
• Video Overrides - Control the quality or bitrate of video, or change it on the fly.
• Scripting - Control CHDK and camera features using ubasic and Lua scripts. Enables time lapse, motion detection, advanced bracketing, and much more. Many user-written scripts are available on the forum and wiki.
• Motion detection - Trigger exposure in response to motion, fast enough to catch lightning.
• Edge overlay - Detect the edges in a scene, and display them later. Ideal for timelapses, stop-motion, stereography and much more.
• Live Histogram - CHDK includes a customizable, live histogram display, like those typically found on more expensive cameras.
• Zebra-Mode - Displays under and overexposure areas live on the screen.
• GRIDS - Create custom grids and display whichever one suits your shooting conditions.
• Multi-Lingual Interface - CHDK supports about 13 languages, and adding more languages is simple.
• DOF Calculator - Display detailed DOF information on the screen.
• Customizable OSD - Improved display of battery status, free space, camera parameters, and much more. Fully customizable with an on-screen editor.
• Filebrowser - Manage files without a PC.
• Textreader - Display text files on your camera.
• Games - Play Reversi, Sokoban, Mastermind or 4-in-a-Row on your camera.
• USB remote - Simple DIY remote allows you to control your camera remotely.
• Benchmark - Compare the performance of your SD cards.
• User Menu - Edit your own customizable User-Menu for fast access to often used features.

Went to this new (or maybe not, looked quite new though) dessert place “Berry Good” with Wendy in Richmond. It was a tiny little cozy place with nicely decorated interior, stylish wallpaper, color matched table and seats. After we seated I checked out their fridge near the counter where they have a demo of a variety of dessert cakes. I ordered a Noire Blanc chocolate cake, with a Iced Hazelnut Freddo coffee. Wendy got a Mango Cheesecake and a Hot Caramel Macchiato. The cakes came with nice plates and the drinks with nice swirl art on top and a cute stir. My chocolate cake was pretty tasty, not too sweet which was really good. I liked the way they laid the cream at the top, it’s like an array of creamy hemisphere. The Mango cheesecake was good, it tasted more like moosecake to me though. Prices were right, a tad under $9 for cake + drink. I will definitely come back to try more of their cakes, especially the Chiffon cakes which I was almost going to order!

Arrived at Mt. Seymour at around 5pm with Wendy, as girls could get free lift ticket for the night, plus I had always wanted to check it out as I had never been there. It was snowing really hard (pretty surprised at it could snow that hard at this time of the year). The parking lot was covered with snow, I was almost thinking that my little car wouldn’t make it and that I should have headed back. Somehow we found a spot where snow wasn’t accumulated, parked there and got changed, hoping for that the car wouldn’t be immobilized when we get back.

It was snowing soooo much, but the slopes were super super powdery! It’s so soft that you could pretty much hit your face repeatedly on the ground and would just want to keep doing it. The mountain was really tiny though, just one chair lift (as far as I could see) and a couple runs (one green, two blues, and one black, I think) Even though it was such a tiny place, it was packed with people, probably because of the girls free tickets. We did a couple runs, headed for some food (not tasty ><), did a few more runs, and called it a day. I didn't really do anything but the green/easy run today.

My car was covered with snow when we walked back to the parking. Had to scrape all the windows and also had to clear up the patch of ground behind the rear wheel a bit so that I could get the car out (woman next door kept asking if we “need a push”, I was pretty confident and refused for help.) It took us forever to get down the mountain though, as it was snowing real hard and cars were going at 20km/h. Overall it was a fun, soft night out…$34 for two people..how much cheaper could it get.