Today we went to see Glengarry Glen Ross at my work place – the Stanley Theatre. I have always been a huge fan of the sitcom “Will & Grace”, so being able to see Eric McCormack in the flesh was extremely exciting for me.

Wanna buy some land?

“Tough times call for tough measures in a Chicago real-estate office. In this cutthroat world, four hungry, backstabbing salesmen peddle questionable investments in a contest to become top dog. Slumping sales? Can’t close the deal? You’re fired! David Mamet’s explosive masterpiece of workplace power struggles gone awry is executed with poetic flow by the cast without a beat missed.”

Me with Eric McCormack

With my absolute favourite theatre actor: Vince Gale

another cast of GGR: John Pyper Ferguson

Most talented Josh Epstein from: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and The Producers.

We were lucky enough to personally meet Eric and the rest of the crew after the show and I was so ecstatic! Eric himself was such a humble genuine person which made the experience that much more special for me.

If you get a chance to check out the show, you will not be disappointed…!

]]> http://www.saj-online.com/index.php/wanna-buy-some-land-glengarry-glen-ross/feed 0 http://www.saj-online.com/index.php/3-years-later http://www.saj-online.com/index.php/3-years-later#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:22:19 +0000 Makaveli http://www.saj-online.com/?p=708 Happy Anniversary Tash… I can’t believe it has already been 3 years since that wonderful day.

Love Always

Saj

XOXO

With lots of love from your hubby and the pooches!

Here’s a little song for you:

Check out the gallery for more photos!

That usually leads to a nice conversation of “back home” and common struggles of adjusting to new countries and lifestyles away from that big slab of land often referred to as “Down Under”, or as most Aussies would say “Down Unda!”

For those of us in Vancouver, Australia day is quite a big deal and everyone gathers at the local Australian run pub called “Mooses Down Under”. Other than Whistler (which seems to be an extended state of Australia), I’ve never seen so many Aussies in one place at one time! The pub definitely makes you feel at home with signs pointing to the “Dunny” (Australian slang for toilet) with “Bloke’s” written on the door for Mens and “Sheila’s” on the door for the womens toilet!

It was great to see all the nostalgic memorabilia plastered on the walls, with all the guys donning AFL jersey’s, Cricket shirts, Rugby Union jumpers, and even some local Western Australian Football League tops! There were a few people wearing T-shirts with witty slogans like “Didgeri-doo-me”, and “Happy little vegemite”… but the best dressed person would have to go to this guy who wore a suite made out of the Australian flag complete with the Southern Cross on his bum…

There’s nothing like having a nice meat pie with gravy, CHIPS, and chicken salt, listening to music that we would normally hear on Triple J during Australia day and kicking back with your mates having a few cold ones. One thing we have to work on is getting more local beers imported here… XXXX and Victoria Bitter just doesn’t cut it… It’s only a slight improvement on Foster’s which any true Australian wouldn’t touch even if it was the last cold beer left in the Eski! A local Aussie band did come great covers of classic Aussie songs and definitely got the crowd going.

Happy Aussie day everyone! Feel free to leave a comment and don’t forget to check out the rest of the photos in the gallery… shoot me an email if you would like the high resolution versions.

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!

This year is our second Christmas in Canada since moving here and this year we were invited to spend it with the Tavakoli family. They had their cousin Louisa visiting from Washington with her husband Jalil and Ata had cooked up an amazing double roast spread with baked veggies. Maria had come up with an idea of doing a secret Santa, only we had a slight technical hitch with the system. There was only the four of us participating and the rules were you can’t pick your spouse or yourself. This proved harder than expected because after 5 rounds of picking and redrawing, we still weren’t able to come up with a proper result. In hindsight, we all realised that in order to play secret Santa you need way more people in order to actually have that element of surprise!

Another year, another adition to the clan… little Keanna the Banana was enjoying her very first Christmas. Donning her very new bear ear beanie she was looking especially cute…

After dinner, the festivities continued and we pulled out the Nintendo Wii and some people were taking it more seriously than others… who would’ve known a 4 year old could beat all these old skool cats…

All in all it was a great night surrounded by our surrogate family and friends… Merry Christmas everyone!

I can’t believe I’ve been in Canada for 2 years and not having seen a single ice hockey game live! The stadium atmosphere and size is amazing and you definitely have plenty of die hard hockey fans attending the games. The game was very fast paced and exciting with the Canucks leading very early 3-1 but in a second and third period come back, the Ducks had scored a quick succession of goals to close the gap. The final game score was 4-3 to the Canucks!

Now this wouldn’t be a hockey game without a punch up and throughout our game there were at least 5 altercations between players. You definitely can tell that some of the players are on the team just for this purpose because with their size they can’t move around on the ice very quickly, but they’re always the first to drop their gloves and hockey sticks when their team mates need a hand…

I can see why this sport is has such a die hard following and is the national sport because its a fast paced, heavy contact sport where the energy is always so high.

This definitely won’t be my last live hockey game… Go Canucks! Go!

For the past week I’ve had my old primary school friend Rodney visit us from Australia. Rodney and I have the sort of friendship where even after not seeing each other for years on end, when we see each other we’re able to pick up as if it was just yesterday. We had lost touch with each other through high school and it was only just before we left Australia we were able to catch up before my wedding. He promised to come visit us in Canada and followed through…

During his time here it was great to catch up with Rod and reminisce about old times when we were younger and it also gave Tash a chance to get to know him. While he was here we took him around the usual local tourist sights but the highlight would have to be our trip to Whistler. Although the ski season was officially open there wasn’t nearly as much snow there in comparison to the previous year. There wasn’t any snow in the village and only the top half of the mountain was open due to the lack of snow. Rodney had never been in snow before, and he wanted to try snowboarding. Since it was his first time I thought I’d take the opportunity to try it out myself coming from a skiing background. I must say, it is a very different and much, much, much… MUCH more painful learning curve in comparison to skiing! We had a private lesson and before long, and many tumbles and stacks later we were actually able to board down Whislter mountain.

After about 6 hours of pain what better way to unwind our sore muscles than in the hot tubs at the Fairmont Chateau.

We also met up with some of his friends that he had met in Australia who lived in Vancouver and checked out some of the local night life… throughout his whole stay here we drank… and drank…. and did I mention we had a few drinks? I must say… our 10am beer just before our first ever snowboarding session definitely loosened us up and probably softened the blow for us when we hit the ground! Dinner at Coast was amazing… I haven’t had seafood that good in a very long time. The Ahi Tuna sashimi was melt in your mouth and to die for…

It was great catching up with you Rod, and I hope you enjoyed your stay here… I know you’ll miss the doggies trying to climb into your bed while you sleep…

Last night I saw The New Kids On The Block a.k.a NKOTB in concert at GM Place (where the Vancouver Canucks games are held). Lady Gaga and Natasha Beddingfield opened the show for the first hour. I enjoyed Natasha’s performance because she was cool but personally I thought Lady Gaga was abysmal.

I remember when I was 9/10 yrs old, OBSESSION is probably an under estimated description of the stage I went through with NKOTB… (seriously). I also remembered when NKOTB toured to Indonesia back in 1990, I wanted to go sooo badly but obviously that was out of the question because they were in a different city, even if I was in Jakarta my parents would never let me see them. I remember wanting to cycle my bicycle with some church friends just to get to the concert even thought it was actually a 1.5 hour flight from my home town to Jakarta…

18 years later, I couldn’t believe my eyes when they came on stage and I saw all of them there. I couldn’t stop giggling for some reason, and what a great show they put on. They sang all their hit 80′s and 90′s singles such as “My favourite girl”, “If you go away”, “The right stuff”, “I’ll be loving you forever”, and of course “Step by Step”. The lyrics are cheesy but who cares?! We wanted to hear and see the cheesiness of their dance moves. I love them still. They look so good, some seem to age quicker than others but overall they’re still hangin’ tough and DEFINITELY are doin’ The Right Stuff.

I’ve never been in a large concert before so being surrounded by 20,000 people and it was surreal. I looked around and thought to myself, boy these guys are famous! They have the power to control the noise, the cheering, and the build up of anticipation. I can only imagine the energy they feed off the audience, it’s crazy! There were sooo many women and a few men(who were there mostly because of their girlfriends or spouses), and clearly they were having a jolly good time and couldn’t contain their excitement judging from the photo below:

I sat on the outside aisle and the highlight of the show for me was I got to shake their hands! Yes, not 1 or 2 of them, but ALL of them. I remembered Joe Mac actually grabbed my hand and smiled. The 10 year old child in me wanted to scream uncontrollably but at the same time I was overwhelmed and so I was frozen instead. They started walking down the aisle to get to the centre stage to sing “Tonight” half way through the show, and that’s when they reached out their hands to the crowd. The stage was round, it had a piano in the middle where Jordan played and it rotated, so we could see everybody. We had the best view because everything was so clear and close.

There were 2 big screens on both sides of the arena and people could text message to appear on the screen to be in the draw of meeting them after the concert. Some people wrote funny stuff but the best one was “I still sleep with NKOTB dolls.”

I admit that I was one of the many victims that fell into buying their merchandise. I bought a shirt and their HUGE book program. After the show, the shop was attacked by thousands of horny women and a few men who would grab a hold of anything and everything that has either a picture or writing with NKOTB on it. Within minutes, all the shirts was sold out (luckily I bought them prior to the show) and even the program was sold out! People were flinging their dollars up in the air and bought anything that was left on the floor and the shelves. I saw a plastic NKOTB keychain that would only be worth 20c if that, and they were selling it for 10 bucks! People were fighting for it because that was all that’s left. These guys are money making machine. It’s a mad house! I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Who would have thought this girl from Surabaya finally had a chance to see NKOTB live almost 20 years later, not only seeing them but touching them too. Eeek:-) Sad but true!