Academy Awards Viewing Party at Dickie's

Perry and Dickie organized a potluck dinner at Dickie's house on Sunday. We were going to watch the Academy Awards on TV there. Ellen Degeneres was hosting this year. She's really good.

As usual, I said I'd bring dessert. Normally I look for a store bought pie since I can't cook. Before I could go out and get it Perry called me and said, too many people were bringing dessert. He suggested I buy a veggie platter instead.

We had a good turnout - 15 to 20 people. I believe most of them were either from Perry's church or Dickie's church. There was a fair amount of food. I noticed hardly anyone touched my veggie platter (baby carrots, celery, broccoli and cauliflower with dip). Bad choice, Perry! Nobody likes healthy food (wink, wink).

Perry had his traditional Academy Awards quiz to see who could pick the most category winners. This year he provided a "cheat sheet" with the Las Vegas odds on the favourites for each category. It helped for some of the more obscure choices (like best animated short or best foreign language film).

I hadn't seen most or even any of the movies nominated this year. So I relied heavily on the cheat sheet with a few hunches thrown in. Turns out it was a good way to pick. I ended up tied with Perry for most correct answers. Out of the 24-25 questions we both only got four wrong. It made watching a bit more interesting. We were on edge as each award was given keenly checking our answers.

It was good to meet up with everyone again. I don't see the guys that much. Probably only 2-3 times a year whenever we meet for birthdays or other holidays.

New Year's Eve @ Dickie's

Lawrence, Sue, Jennifer, Linda, Perry. Dickie and Catherine in front.

Dickie and Perry organized another New Year's Eve party this year. Dickie opened up his home to everyone again. His mother made a huge tray of noodles, Perry made his yummy salmon and other people brought various food items.

The guests consisted of two main groups - The church folks from CPC and RHCCC and Sue's Mandarin-speaking friends.

The activities were pretty much the same as last year. Perry brought his Rock Band video games for the Xbox. Other people kept themselves entertained watching DVDs on Dickie's big screen TV before the countdown. And there was a ping pong table in the basement for those who were so inclined to play table tennis. New this year was a Karaoke machine upstairs that Dickie either found or was given. It was a little hard to operate so I don't believe it was used too much.

I arrived sometime after 7:00 (if I remember correctly). Dickie's place was already quite full. I discovered the Karaoke machine in the computer room when I went upstairs to change. Linda came up shortly after and we tried to figure out how to work it. We managed to sing a couple of songs before it was time for dinner.

I watched a bit of Men In Black III on DVD, but most of my time was spent playing Rock Band. I really like it. Singing is fun. So is playing the guitar and bass. The drums are more challenging, but cool too.

People dropped by throughout the evening. At midnight we probably had around 20 folks watching the countdown on CityTV.

Happy New Year, everyone! All the best in 2013!

Sue's Party

The English-speaking group (mostly) - Steve, Dickie, me, Jon, Donald, Perry

Perry's friend, Sue, helped organize a dinner party on Saturday. It was out in Mississauga at someone's condo. They rented out the party room on the top floor.

There were two distinct groups in attendance. Ours was the English-speaking CBCers (for the most part). Sue's group was mostly people from China who spoke Mandarin. So there was an interesting dynamic to say the least.

Most of the music was in Chinese (except for when they played Gangnam Style, then it was in Korean). And when the organizers spoke it was in Mandarin as well. One of Perry's friends, Linda, translated a bit. There was a Karaoke machine. But, the interface was in Chinese. And I believe almost all of the songs were Chinese too.

Perry drove me with his friend, Linda, and her daughter. Dickie drove Big Jon, Donald and Steve. They came a bit late. We all waited for them before starting dinner. They were waiting for their Little Caesars pizza to be made. It was potluck.

There was quite an assortment of food for dinner. Of course there was the typical Chinese fare of rice and noodle dishes. Someone brought pasta, and Dickie's group bought pizza like I mentioned. I went to Metro and got an apple pie. That's what I usually bring to potluck dinners - pie.

After dinner they did some games. One was musical chairs. The rest were in Chinese. So we just watched.

Afterwards they played some music. Some of it was regular, uptempo music that you could dance to. But, it was in Chinese. Other times the fellow in charge of the music would play waltz or other ballroom dancing music. I guess some of them know how to dance to that sort of music. The sound system was awful I must say. It wasn't very clear and there was no treble (only bass for some reason).

Still, it was a good opportunity to meet some new people. I think that was the main objective for both groups.