Verb Form - たりする

In Japanese, the て form is used to connect multiple clauses in a sentence. However, I'll give an example that demonstrates the limitations of the て form.

明日はテレビをみて、宿題をする。
Tomorrow I'm going to watch TV and do homework.

Sentences like this suggest that watching TV and doing homework are the only two things that I plan on doing, and that they'll be done in that order. If I want to be more broad in my statement and list TV and homework as just examples, then there's a special verb form I can use.

[verb A] り  +  [verb B] りする

A couple things to note:

• Verbs A and B must be in past tense plain form
• する is conjugated to indicate tense and politeness

This results in a sentence such as the following:

明日はテレビをみたり、宿題をしたりする。
Tomorrow I'm going to do things like watch TV and do homework.

A bit of an awkward translation, but that's the meaning being conveyed with this form. I'll do a few more practice sentences to make sense of it.

先週の週末友達とレストランで晩ごはんを食べたり、カラオケを歌ったりした。
Last weekend I ate dinner at a restaurant with friends and sang karaoke, among other things.

日本に行った時に、お寺を行ったり、友達に合ったりした。
When I went to Japan, I did things like visit temples and meet friends.

夏休みに、阪神に務めたり、隣人の子供に教えたりしました。
Over summer break, I worked for Hanshin and taught my neighbor's kids. (But why?)

ゲームをやったり、辞書を読んだりするのがすきだよ。
I like things like playing games and reading dictionaries. (But why??)