Back in town

We drove back to Calgary on Sunday and the drive was boring as hell. Cody got a Garmin GPS navigator for Christmas and he plugged it in at the Crowsnest Pass. It was telling us to go down this side road off Hwy 22 and when where we got on 533 it kept telling us to take these range roads. The roads would've led us to Hwy 2, but it's not like we are going to turn down a gravel road. I think the thing was trying to kill us. It tells you to turn down a side road and the next thing you know you're going off a cliff in a rock quarry.

Christmas was okay because I got to eat steak and turkey. I was disappointed I didn't get any socks this year because I actually needed some. First year ever without socks! I did get a vegetable peeler and not any vegetable peeler, but a ceramic vegetable peeler. Doesn't much matter because I'll never use it! I'm not one to eat vegetables and if I actually have to peel them, then forget it!

Even though Cody's GPS is for cars you can still take it out and use it as a regular GPS, so maybe we'll try some geocaching once the snow melts and it warms up. If you ever wanted to know the co-ordinates of our couch are N51 01.3211' and W114 09.411'. If you can find it then you can probably find us.

X-mas Eve

Twas the night before X-mas and I was totally bored, so I wrote this blog. As luck would have it Cody and I had the same days off for X-mas, so we carpooled on the drive. Cody drove, so I had nothing to do but stare out the window or look at this the entire drive back.

Roads were okay except through the the Crowsnest Pass and traffic wasn't that bad except through the Crossnest Pass. There was a semi with a huge line of cars behind it, but luckily we were near the front of the line and passed him just after Sparwood and it was smooth sailing from there. We actually got back on Wednesday and will be heading back to Calgary on Sunday.

Remember back when I did my Crave post and said it was too far to get to? As luck would have it they just opened up a new one WAY up 17th Ave that takes like 10 minutes to drive to. I didn't even think there was anything up there, but was surprised by the amount of houses up there. I can remember when that was nothing but fields and I'm not even from around there. I bought a dozen of the mini cupcakes and put them in my freezer so I could take them back to Cranbrook. After dinner tonight we had them and I let Avery pick out his cupcake, he chose the pink one. He took one taste of the icing and said, "This one's my favorite!" Of course all he did eat was the icing and when he was done he wanted another one. He wouldn't eat the actual cupcake part and I don't know why because it was chocolate. What is wrong with kids today?!

Anyway, I'm off and to everyone out there have a very merry X-mas and all that jazz!

Don't fear the reaper.

On Edmonton Trail and 9th Ave NE in Calgary sits a place called Boogies Burgers. It's a funny name I know and it's been there since 1969 before people even had a sense of humour! I ate there once with Elaine and wasn't impressed. The people that owned were like French or something and charged you for EVERYTHING! You want lettuce on your burger? Extra charge! Pickles? Extra charge! Mayo? Extra charge! The French lady was going on about this special fry spice she had just brought back from France which looked exactly like Lowry's seasoning. We were both disappointed, I mean how could a place called Boogies let us down?

Fast forward to now! New owners have taken it over and turned into a burger lovers paradise. Back when me and Cody were searching for burger places to eat I looked at the Boogies website and after reading the menu decided we had go just because they have a burger called Doug's "Don't Fear the Reaper" Burger. It is four patties, four pieces of bacon, 2 slices of cheese, a fried egg and a 100% beef wiener. WTF?! We recruited Dennis and Will to go with us. Cody brought his camera, but he needed batteries and I told him NOT to use the crappy dollar store batteries, but he didn't listen to me. When we got there he went to take a picture and the camera died. Will used his iPhone to take some pictures, so that's why a lot of them look like crap. Sorry Will.

Okay, I'll admit I didn't actually eat a Don't Fear the Reaper burger, I was too scared. I tried a Pizza burger instead, Will got the June's Jerk Chicken burger and since our burgers didn't weigh in a like 20lbs each we also got spicy fries. I liked my burger and Will said his was good, but I was a little disappointed by the fries. They weren't even spicy.

Cody and Dennis did get the Don't Fear the Reaper burgers and drinks to wash them down with. The burger costs $15 alone, but when you consider the amount of ingredients in it, that's not bad.

Doug's "Don't Fear the Reaper" Burger which looks WAY bigger in real life.


Cody and Dennis get down to business.

You ain't done yet.


Did any of that even make into his mouth?


OMG, they did it!

I'll give Dennis some props for polishing that thing off fairly quickly. As you can see by his plate some of the burger didn't quite make it, so he had to ask for a fork to get the droppings. Dennis even said he could've eaten an order of fries if he had to. Cody wasn't as messy, but took a lot longer to finish his, but Cody has always been a slow eater. While we were waiting for Cody one of the "cooks" came out said "You don't have to finish that." and we were like "Yes, he does!" In the end the burger crown has to go to Cody because Dennis doesn't like eggs, so he didn't get the fried egg where as Cody did. They both said the burger was huge, but not that bad except for the wiener was gross. Cody said he couldn't even taste the egg or bacon.

After witnessing the destruction of the Don't Fear the Reaper Burger first hand I know I could totally do it. Next time I will kick that burger's ass!

Craftwerk

Remember WAY back when I bought a bottle of Qoo from the Korean grocery store and said the cap looked cool and it would make a rad fridge magnet? Guess what? I didn't make it into a fridge magnet, in fact I still haven't even drank it yet. It's been in there a very long time and I'm scared to drink it now. But I did make something else into a fridge magnet.

While Murray was here he was eating lots of Old Dutch chips, McSweeney's jerky/pepperoni sticks and drinking lots of Pop Shoppe. I saved the caps and before he left I made one of the caps into a fridge magnet so he could take a little piece of Canada back to Taiwan.

Now I'm going to show you how I did it, so anyone can have one of this cool retro magnet on their fridge. You won't need much in terms of supplies just visit your local dollar store or craft store and pick up some button magnets and some all purpose glue. Then you'll need a bottle of Pop Shoppe pop (flavor of your choice) from your local grocery store. Now to get started.

The first thing you'll have to do is to open the bottle and set the cap safely aside. Don't worry, it's a twist off. Now drink the pop.

It took me a while to get this done because I had bought diet cream soda and cream soda is gross. Once you are finished be sure to recycle your bottle. Now we can really start.

Gather all your supplies someplace where you have lots of room to work. Before you start make sure the inside of the cap is clean and doesn't have leftover pop stuck on it.

You'll actually need two button magnets per one cap. The inside of the cap is too deep and one magnet isn't tall enough so you'll have to use two magnets. First glue a magnet to the inside of the cap and then glue the second magnet to it.

I used some Crazy Glue singles which are just little tiny vials of KG for when you only need to use small amounts. That way you won't use it once and then it the tip hardens over with glue and then you have to throw it out. FYI, Crazy Glue bonds to skin, so be careful. After I had finished I actually read the instructions and you only need a drop of glue per square inch for proper bonding, so I probably went a bit overboard. Doesn't matter because it worked! The glue dried pretty fast and it was on my fridge in no time.

Yes, it is on there.

That is it, you are done! Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Also, Cam, Mike and Willie you guys can probably guess what you getting for X-mas. That's right, a bottle of Qoo.

Mii, myself and I

Just because I have nothing better to write about I will compare my two digital versions of myself. What I mean is my Nintendo Mii Keef vs my XBL avatar DiesEazy. Which one will reign supreme? Who is the biggest bad ass? Why does it even matter?!

Yes, that is supposed to be me, a slimmer, hipper digital me aka DiesEazy. Microsoft introduced player avatars a little while ago. So far they don't really do much, but that is changing with player awards of avatar gear and avatar games in which you play as your avatar. You can create an avatar with a ton of different options to make it looks just like your or like whoever or whatever you want. Since they started the awards they've also added stuff you can buy for your avatar. Why someone would pay money on a branded t-shirt for a digital character is plain stupid. As you can see my dude has some Left 4 Dead 2 gear on which I earned through playing the game. The L4D shirt I got for killing 10,000 zombies and the Depeche Mode shirt I got for saving Gnome Chompski from the Dark Carnival.

It was Nintendo that started the whole gamer avatar with the Miis that been a part of the system since launch. Although, since then there haven't been very many games to incorporate Mii into the gameplay aside from Wii Sports/Sports Plus, Wii Fit and actually I don't any other ones that do. Sorry, I didn't do my research. Your Mii and any other Miis on you system do show up in Dr. Mario RX which I have and is cool. The Miis are really basic and you can't really customize them that much. I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't added an update to the Mii system to make more customizable.

Despite the fact that the Miis aren't anywhere close to being as customizable and as good looking as the XBL avatars I still think that my Nintendo Mii is the one of the two that most resembles me. In the end everybody wins or maybe nobody wins, or better yet I win all the time cuz I know my boyz got my back.

Winter?

"Cold enough for you?" When people ask you that don't you just wanna punch them in the face? Now that winter has officially arrived you'll be hearing a lot. According to the weather channel the weather sucks right across the country. We had a winter storm warning here in Alberta (almost the whole province!) for Friday. That sucked because Friday and Saturday were my days off. So much for going out and doing stuff.

Thursday night me and Cody hit up Cash Converters to stock up on cheap games, movies, and music. I got some cheap crappy XBox games as well at Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and Disorderlies starring the Fat Boys. I also finally got Seven More Minutes by the Rentals and it was still sealed! After getting the stuff and some groceries I was set and didn't have to leave the house until Sunday when I worked next. Later I realized I didn't have any blood glucose test strips so I still ended up having to go out on Friday. I basically got up at 9am and got dressed, went out and got my stuff and came home and when straight to the TV. At 9am it had already started to snow and was coming down pretty good. I'm not sure how much it snowed because the wind was blowing it around. My car was parked on the street and didn't have that much snow on it. But farther down the street where the school is and there is a field with no wind break there is a snow drift that is like up the my car window. It takes up like half the road, it sucks. It was sunny out today, but still cold and windy. I guess it's supposed to be cold for a while. It's winter, so it's time to get used to it.

It a totally unrelated note here is a link to an article on a giant statue built to scale of Tetsujin 28 in Kobe. Tetsujin 28 is a robot from the cartoon series of the same name which aired in 1963. That thing is massive and rad or massively rad. Cranbrook needs a giant robot instead of some stupid Spirit Tree. Giant robots = cool, but spirit trees = lame.

Tis the season.

On Tuesday I had the day off and decided to actually get some stuff done. I started by organizing the basement and taking in a bunch of recycling. I filled up my car and had to leave two boxes because I didn't have the space. After getting all that done, I checked the calendar and it turned out to be December 1st. Time to put up the X-mas decorations!

My Mighty Morphin Power Rangers X-mas stocking which set me back a whole 50 cents from the Hospital Auxiliary. It's morphinomenal!! How the hell do you spell that?!


May the X-mas be with you! Star Wars holiday themed figures I bought at Liquidation World, or as it is now called LW. They just want to sound hipper that way. These guys totally broke my budget at $7.98 for a package of three. The Vader, Stormtrooper pack also came with Boba Fett. I also have a Chewbacca with X-mas tree, Han with wreath gun and a C-3PO with Santa hat. I took a picture of the other guys, but it looked crappy so I'm not putting it up. Deal with it.

The figures are not specially made X-mas versions, but just dressed up regular versions. The Han and Stormtrooper just have a wreath fitted over their blasters as does Boba Fett except it's lights wrapped around his blaster. Vader just has a Santa hat and the candy cane is just a sheath over top of his regular lightsaber. That is nice because you can easily take any of that crap off, for the other 11 months of the year. Chewie is the only one that is a little different because he lost his bowcaster totally and replaced it with a X-mas tree. He would look weird without something in his hand.

We don't have a tree. I was hoping to find some little crappy elementary school craft project tree at the thrift store, but I haven't had any luck. A few years ago I bought one that was a sparkly green and read pine cone glued in a ice cream cone and was the coolest thing ever! Then I knocked it over and it broke, then I was sad.


The holiday themed sugar cookies from Lofthouse are out now! These cookies are so incredibly good I would punch an old lady in the face just for a bite. They also come with green icing and can be found at your local Safeway.

CRUNK!!!

Sorry, but this is another post about some stuff I bought at Giant Tiger. GT is the go to place when I need something to write about. The fun thing about cheap department stores like Giant Tiger is that they carry the weird brands you've never heard of and the real department stores wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Last time I was back in Cranbrook I was in at GT buying some actual brand name orange juice in the form of Minute Maid. Behind the cashiers they had some drink coolers and one cooler was stocked with energy drinks. As I was leaving I walked by and saw a drink that had a name so cool that jumped right out a me and I knew I had to have it. Energy drinks are full of sugar, so there is no way I'd be able to drink it, but as I walked past the cooler I saw that they did indeed carry sugar free CRUNK!!! When I met up with Willie the next day I dragged his ass over to GT so I could buy this.

I bought it totally for the name alone because is sounds so damn cool. Then again you know it is "fo' reals" because it has not one, not two, but three exclamation points on the can. Three exclamation points = street cred yo! Mad props to the marketing department because it totally worked. Don't let the hip name fool you because it also has mad science y'all! CRUNK!!! contains ashwaganda, ginseng, guarana, skull cap, white willow and epimedium* that all work to invigorate, energize, replenish, stimulate, refresh and arouse.

I bought a can for myself of the sugar free stuff(with pomegranate juice) and a can of citrus for Cody. Yeah, it sounded cool, but I was a bit hesitant to actually drink it. Cody drank his and suffered no ill effects, he said his tasted fine, but mine still sat in the fridge for weeks. I had to work at 5am one day and when I got home from work at 2pm I was tired, but had to go back out to run some errands. I figured it was finally time to crack this baby open and give it a try. It was actually not too bad, it tasted better than Red Bull which is what I drank for breakfast at 8am.


That is me gettin' my CRUNK!!! on. With a cool name like CRUNK!!! you can play it with lots of ways like, "That stuff will CRUNK!!! you up!" and "Hey, baby let's CRUNK!!!", the possibilities are endless. If you see this give it a try just for the novelty of it. I would drink it again, in fact I'll make sure to grab another can next time I'm back in Cranbrook. I'm CRUNK!!!ing!




*Epimedium aka horny goat weed aka rowdy lamb herb aka fairy wings, or as you and I know Ying Yang Huo, is a herb that can act as an aphrodisiac.

New Sloan is go!

A while back I posted a link to get a free song from the upcoming Sloan EP which is now officially out. It's a digital EP called Hit & Run, so you'll have to head over the Sloan site to download it if you want it. You can preview the entire EP before you buy it, it's five tracks and comes with artwork and lyrics for all songs and priced at $3.99. That is $3.99 US!! The title, Hit & Run, must come from the fact that someone ran over Chris Murphy while he was riding his bike back in the beginning of August. Everyone's a critic.

The artwork from the "booklet" are pictures taken of t-shirts that were hand silk screened by the band. During the first week of sales a person will be chosen from everyone who bought a copy of the EP that day and they'll win one of the shirts. If you want in on this contest make sure you buy it this week or it's too late for you.

I downloaded my copy just now and it's pretty easy to do as long as you have Visa, Mastercard or PayPal to pay for it. I did via Paypal and then downloaded it which didn't take very long, the zip file is 31MB is size. You can chose from three different audio formats, mp3(320mbs), Apple lossless, or FLAC files. I'm not sure what a FLAC file is so I just went with the old trusty mp3s. I can play mp3s on my tape deck right?

Zapped!

Today Cody and I went over to the brand new Best Buy they opened by our place over in West Hills. Before if we wanted to go to Future Shop or BB we had to drive to Northland mall in the NW. Now we don't have to drive as far to spend our money which is nice. We didn't find anything, but I did see the huge boxsets for both Transformers and G.I. Joe cartoons. I think the Joe set was $110 which isn't bad considering it is 18 discs. I'll put it on my list to Santa.

After that Cody wanted to go Winners to buy a sweater and I had to go because he drove. I went to check out the toy section to look for stuff for Logan and Avery but ended up getting stuff for myself!

A Futurama Zapp Brannigan space gun with faux destructive sparkling action! The best part is that it was only $9.99. Stupid Winners had price stickers on the front, but luckily they peeled off pretty easy. It was like NM in box, but then I opened it and started using because I wanted to check out the faux destructive sparking action.

I did manage to get something for Avery, so it wasn't all about me. With the exception of two small things I've gotten for Avery I've barely even started my Christmas shopping. I have no clue what to get anybody, but I want to get it done and out of the way ASAP. Giant Tiger gift cards all around? FYI, you know that Zapped! is a movie starring Scott Baio, Willie Aames and Heather Thomas right?

Burned

Last year my parents went to Disneyland and brought me back a Star Wars shirt. They have Star Tours there, so of course there is Star Wars merch. Anyway, it shrunk a bit and ended up a bit on the small side, but I still wear it as an undershirt or I just sleep in it. I took it off it the other day and noticed that it had a burn hole in it and I was like, "What the hell?! How did that get on there?" Looking at the front of the shirt you can't really it which is probably why I didn't notice it. Once it's inside out you can totally see it with the black charred edges.

That's hole on the inside and I guessing it's from the dryer as the burn mark is right on the print. I thought you are supposed to wash printed shirts inside out to prevent that and that's what I do. Either it doesn't work, the shirt sucks, or my dryer is way too hot. But this it the first time this has ever happened to me, so I blame the t-shirt and the people of Bangladesh for making it. I think they made my underwear too, so I hope they hold up better.

I guess I probably shouldn't even wash it anymore because that hole will probably just get bigger. I suppose I could air dry it instead of putting it in the dryer, but that is such a hassle. It would just be easier to back to Disneyland and get a brand new one. Why can't I have nice things!!

Chocolate Mork

Na-nu Na-nu

chop chop bang bang

If it's November 17, 2009 then that means Left 4 Dead 2 is officially out! I worked 8-12 today and was going to pick my copy up after work, but they got a single copy in so I bought it on my break. Apparently, they also got something like two copies of Assassin's Creed in AND it's in this week's flier. Cody wanted to buy it, so if they sold out he was just going to go across the street to Best Buy. He is still working of Modern Warfare 2!

I've already played the first two campaigns and it's better and harder than the original L4D. There are tons of weapons and items and the new special infected are jerks. I think they also made the Boomer a chick? Weird. When I played I was Ellis, the hillbilly, and now he is my staple character. He gets all the funny dialogue like when he picks up the katana he says "Picking up this cool ass ninja sword.", but says it with a twangy accent.

And speaking of ninja swords, the new melee weapons are sweet. I've already got the achievements for decaptitating 200 infected and killing 100 infected with the chainsaw. On the second campaign there is a part where you slide down this hill and once at the bottom a horde moment triggered where the zombies all run at you. They were sliding down the hill and I was at the bottom of the hill with the chainsaw slicin' and dicin' as they as the came down. Awesome!

Microsoft has started this thing where you can earn awards for you XBox avatars which is just basically crap your avatar can wear. Believe it or not you can actually BUY clothes and items for your avatars, but only some kind of unbelievable moron would do that. Not that many games have avatar awards yet, but L4D2 does. A couple can be unlocked from playing the campaign and a couple are done online. I just want to kill 10,000 infected and get my L4D avatar t-shirt, but it will have to wait because my hand is cramping up.

Finally!!

I got my cupcakes! I was in Kensington today and walked down to check out The Rocket because they were having a sale. I was going to get a Cookie Monster shirt made that had Cookie Monster on it and said "Me want cookies", but of course they didn't have it. I ended up going with a Super Grover shirt instead. I headed over to the toy store where Mike got Cam's Bender figure, but didn't find anything cool. Across the street from that place is Crave the cupcake place Cam tipped me off about via Cara.

Crave has a couple locations in Calgary and I've been by the Kensington location before I just never bothered to go inside. Today I thought I'd better check it out because tomorrow I could get run over by a dump truck and be killed, then I'd be like "I wish I had tried a Crave cupcake."


I went all out and forked out my $17 for a half dozen cupcakes. Yep, $17 for six cupcakes! Some bored looked hipster chick in a toque took my order. Why was she wearing a toque inside, it's not even cold. Anyway, the first couple I ordered by name, then I started ordering by colour. "I'll take a blue one." I can't even remember which flavors I got but I think I got the following; Va Va Vanilla, Crave-O-Licous, Peppy Pattie, Lemon Lime Twist, and two Princess cupcakes(one vanilla and one chocolate). They all looked pretty good, but I wished I had got a Dirty Blonde and/or Velvet Elvis. The package came tied up with a shiny brown ribbon. I actually untied it from the package instead on cutting it off. Maybe I can reuse it for something, though I have no idea what for.


The first one I tried (for my lunch) was the green one, Lemon Lime Twist. I liked the actual "cake" part, the icing wasn't all that hot. I picked it for the colour not the flavor which was a mistake. Later on after dinner I ate a chocolate Princess which was way better. Cody had the Va Va Vanilla and it received a thumbs up from him too.


Crave cupcakes are hand made from scratch with no preservatives and taste way better than anything you'd get at an actual grocery store. The price of $17 for 1/2 dz might seem high, but it is really isn't. Still it is something I won't be running out to get all the time, but next time I do I'll be getting the Velvet Elvis.

Having it my way.

A few years ago Burger Team teamed up with Microsoft and came up with three Burger King themed games for the XBox 360. At BK you could get a combo and for an addition $5 you could one of these games. Two trips ago in Cranbrook I picked up Big Bumpin', the bumper car game, from Giant Tiger and ended up ordering Sneak King, the ultimate stealth game, from Giant Tiger online. Since I'm part OCD I had to get the third game to complete my collection, that and the final game PocketBike Racer was supposed to be the best one.

The first BK game I got was Big Bumpin' and I hate it! I totally sucked at this game and played it for 15 minutes max. I bought it for $5 and thought I'd give it a try for the achievements, but after my 15 mins with it I gave up without unlocking a single achievement. A lot of the achievements are online and nobody plays it online...at all! I also had major problems with the controls and my bumper car not going where I wanted it to go. I won maybe one race and that's only because I got lucky. The rest of the time I just lost very badly. Onto the shelf!

My second BK game which is like Metal Gear Solid where instead of Solid Snake you are the King and instead of killing people you sneak around surprising hungry people with delicious Burger King meals. People have a blue cone of vision in front of them which you have to stay out of it. You can simply sneak up on people and hide in barrels, piles of leaves, or the back of trucks and jump out to surprise hungry people for more points. Once you present a meal you can present with a flourish meter and the high the flourish the more points you score. I played Sneak King for probably 20 minutes and actually managed to unlock a couple achievements. Still it requires a lot time to complete all the missions and achievements. Hiding and waiting for hungry people to walk by and sneaking around requires too much patience and that is something I don't have.

Finally, there is PocketBike Racer and this one I actually played and put a few hours on time into. I ended up getting this on eBay and about week after I ordered it I saw it a HMV. Damn! Anyway, what's not to like about a game that involves racing pocket bikes with The King and Whopper Jr? You also get to race as BK mascots Subservient Chicken and Brooke Burke. Brooke Burke is a BK mascot? Who is Brooke Burke? You can pick from 50 cc, 100 cc and 150 cc bikes and race them through four different game modes on five different tracks. It is similar to Mario Kart as you can fill up a weapon gauge/boost bar to use weapons on other racers. Of course it's nowhere as good as Mario Kart, but for what it is (cheap!), it's fun. Although it can be frustrating to get hung up on things like traffic cones. Since when are traffic cones immovable objects? I hung in with the game long enough to unlock all offline achievements. You can play online, but NOBODY is on there, so it's pretty useless.

I just picked up these games just for the cheese factor and the hopes of boosting my gamer score a little bit. I wouldn't recommend Big Bumpin' or Sneak King, but I found PocketBike Racer fun enough. Although, Cody laughs at these games and wouldn't even think about tarnishing his gamer score with any of them. Now that these are out of the way, it's on to another advergame, Doritos Dash of Destruction. It's got dinosaurs and monster trucks, so I'm loving it already. Plus it's free! Cam I know you love Burger King and Doritos, so you need to XBox 360. Also, I need someone to play PocketBike Racer online with, I'll even give you Cody's old one. Thanks buddy!

Maxin' and relaxin'

I haven't worn a pair of sweat pants in like ten or eleven years, yet when I was leaving work on Wednesday I was like "I need a pair of sweatpants." I went next door to Zellers to get pair of those Roots Canadian Olympic sweats, but they didn't have my size. They had zippered pockets on them and everything, that's like the Mercedes-Benz of sweatpants. I settled for a pair of cheaper Wilson sweats and I gotta say they are soft and warm. They're black with sporty white piping down the legs. Sporty!

Sexy!

Love that elastic waistband, it grows with me. After coming home from work it's nice to put these on because I'm tired and can't be bothered with bothersome buttons and zippers. I wear them around house, but would never actually wear them outside. Maybe to throw out the garbage, but that's it! And what's a new pair of sweatpants without a new pair of matching slippers!

I say they are matching slippers because they are also black. My old slippers were falling apart and I finally decided to get some new ones. These guys are black suede with fuzzy black stuff inside. They also had these corduroy ones with a skull and cross bones on them which looked cool except for the corduroy part.

I know you probably came here expecting to read something interested, but if you did then you should know better than that.

New release Tuesday

If it's Tuesday that means it's time for new movies and CDs! For music November 3rd is the release date for Nirvana's remastered Bleach and Live at Reading. I went to HMV and got Bleach for $12.99. It comes in a digipack that folds opens up with the 56 page book in a slip cover in the middle and the CD slipped in on the right hand side. The book is pretty much all pictures, some I've seen and some I haven't. The book does throw in some cool stuff like a copy of Nirvana's Sub Pop contract. Getting the book in and out of the sleeve takes some finesse which I lack as the corner of my book already has crinkle in it. As for the music I haven't really listened my old copy of Bleach in a long time, so I'm not sure if the remastering makes it sound any better or not. The live stuff does sound pretty good, but biggest complaint is that the put the album and the live recording on the same disc. That sucks because they should've been on separate discs.

Also, today Live at Reading came out on CD, DVD, and a CD/DVD combo pack. HMV had the CD for $14.99 and a slot for the CD/DVD($24.99 I think) pack, but it was empty. I was planning on getting it anyway, but All Music gave it a 5 out of 5 which means I'll probably get it sooner than later.

After the horrible Red Album, Weezer is back with their new album and even though I hated the Red Album they've got me interested because the new one has cool name, Raditude. Again All Music rated it favorably saying it is more like old Blue Album Weezer. I haven't gotten this yet, but I probably will. I like Weezer and will give Rivers another chance, so he better not let me know. There is also a regular edition and a special edition with bonus disc and tracks.

Today G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is out on home video as well as the animated G.I. Resolute. Resolute originally aired online in short 5 minute segments and then later aired on TV as single program. Luckily, it has nothing to do with the live action movie and is sorta based on the original cartoon. It was done more for the fans and by fans I mean old guys who used to play with the toys and watch the cartoons. In Resolute people die, good and bad. It's a pretty good story with lots of action and the Snake Eyes vs Stormshadow fight is way better than what passed for a fight in Rise of Cobra. It's animated in an anime style and looks pretty good, but why wasn't it released in HD?? Anyway, try and see this or rent it or steal it (okay no stealing) because if you're a Joe fan then you'll love this.

Spooky stuff kids!

I drove back to Calgary today just in time to hand out candy to the dozen kids that came begging at our doorstep. That is marked improvement of last years dismal turn out of two kids. We didn't buy as much candy this year, so left over will be sparse. But I messed up when I thought I was buying a split pact of Kernels popcorn that had half white cheddar and half buttery, but turns out the entire box was white cheddar flavor. My plan was to hand out the white cheddar first and then eat the buttery flavor leftovers myself. Now I'm stuck with white cheddar which I don't even like!

The pumpkin pictured above is one Logan made for me and I brought back from Cranbrook. I guess now you don't actually put candles in pumpkins anymore because you can get battery powered lights you just put inside them. After we turned off the lights and declared Halloween officially over I immediately threw the pumpkin in the garbage bin. I didn't want to supply any troublemakers with potential ammunition.

Cranbrook was thrill-a-minutes as always! On Thursday afternoon I went by Willie's place and we hung out a bit. He was slacking off/not working/sleeping in while his wife was hard at work. Then on Thursday night I went by the Scarff household to say hi and drop off some goodies. On Friday night I went to the hockey game with my parents and was shocked when the Ice actually won the game! Every other game I've been to they lost, so I wasn't expecting much.

They are trying to beautify downtown Cranbrook by adding some art sculptures and a new sign. If you'll seen any of the old pictures of Cranbrook then you've seen the one of the old sign that led into town. It had pillars made from round river rocks on the outside and a curved sign that said "Cranbrook" that stretched of the road. They are re-creating this sign on King St as you drive into downtown. They are still working on the pillars, so I'm not sure when it'll be done.

On Thursday they had the official unveiling of the two new art features in downtown Cranbrook, the Spirit Tree and Cranbrook Ed. The Spirit Tree isn't a real tree, but some metal thing that looks tree-like. I think it's pretty lame and am rarely wrong.

Next up is the scupture of Cranbrook Ed, the elephant. I grew up Cranbrook and not once heard the story of Cranbrook Ed until a couple years ago when I read it in the Townsmen. The story goes a circus was travelling through Cranbrook and some of their elephants escaped with one living in the Jim Smith Lake area. One day some bandits came to rob the town and the townspeople all yelled for the help. The elephant heard their cries (cuz he's got big ears) and came running into town. The elephant beat up all the robbers and sat on them until the Mounties came and took them away. Cranbrook mayor, TM Roberts, poured champagne on the elephant's head and christened him Cranbrook Ed. Then he said "Let's get totally wrecked!" and everyone got hammered. The end.

You can check out the Townsmen paper online for the full story and see a picture of Cranbrook Ed. They said the elephant is interactive so you can climb on him and stuff which is cool. I was driving by and saw some fat chick sitting on him and some other girl taking a picture. Then the fat chick tried to get off which and it was scary. The end.

Back to BC

As you can see I'm back in Cranbrook. It has already snowed twice in Calgary, so I figured I should come back so I can get my winter tires put on. I think I also need a oil change, so might as well get it all done at once. Other than that I don't have any plans while I'm back other than drop some crap off for Cam and Mike at their parents and go see Willie. I'm sure I'll visit Giant Tiger, but other than that I don't have any plans.

After dinner I went down to my sisters to give Logan his birthday present and on the drive down I had to stop/slow down four different times foe deer crossing the road. On the way back just up from Kootenay Orchard school there were two elk in some guy's front yard. I usually see lots of deer whenever I'm home, but never elk, so that's weird. The whole wildlife in our backyards is getting very strange, I don't remember it being like this when I was kid or even before I left Cranbrook. I'm sure everyone has heardthe news about the girl killed by coyotes in a Cape Breton park which is crazy. I always figured coyotes would be scared of people, but to attack and kill someone is pretty scary. From now on I think I will carry two machetes just to be safe because coyotes are the new bears.

Swaggy

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but having company around has been getting in the way. Last Friday Todd was in town and ended up staying at our place. Normally, we're not used to having anyone over at our place, but with Murray, Eunice and now Todd we were running out of space and blankets. I felt kinda bad for Todd because he had to sleep on the floor with only some crappy camping foamy for padding and I ran out of pillows so he had to use some plushy Spider-Man thing. Todd stayed Friday and Saturday nights and Murray and Eunice headed back to Taiwan on Sunday morning, so the place is nice and quiet now. Now I can go back to dancing around the house in my boxers to Katy Perry.

Last week I bought a Huevos Rancheros 7" record off eBay and it turns out I bought it from the Mintmall which is the Mint Records eBay store. Mint Records is a record label in Vancouver who rose to fame with The Smugglers and Cub back in the 90's. Anyway, I got my record (red vinyl!) which came in a huge package. Props to the guy who sends the stuff as it was wrapped in cardboard like four times and then put in a bubble envelope. When I opened the package I found a ton of free swag.


Yes! I got four stickers, three buttons, a CD sampler, a Mint "Hooray for bears" patch and a pair of Mint Records sunglasses. Getting cool free stuff unexpectedly is always awesome. My order wasn't even that much $5 record + $3 shipping plus all the bonus goodies. I bet the shipping had to be more than $3 especially knowing Canada Post prices, plus I had it in like three days. I'm bidding on another Mintmall auction for a Riff Randells 7". I had bid on another copy previously, but lost that auction at the last minute to some jerk. Hopefully, I'll win this one and some more free swag. If I get enough free swag then that will help with some of my Christmas shopping.

Finally, tonight I watched a movie called The Tournament. I had never heard of it until reading about it last week and then seeing some ads on TV for the DVD/Blu Ray release. It's basically a shoot 'em up/blow 'em up that has assassins killing each other for title of number one while rich jerks watch on CCTV and bet on the proceedings. Not the most original script, but I wasn't watching for the story or acting. For some reason this went straight to DVD while much worse action flicks get released in theaters. How can you not like a movie where not one, but four bodies get blown up?! The effects are practical and not CG, so when a body is blowed up and blood is being sprayed around it's all "real" and not cheesy CGI. And Kelly Hu is in it, so check it out y'all!

Is it 2010 yet?!

Because I just bought the awesomest calendar ever and I want to put it up now! I was at Wal-Mart with Murray and Eunice and saw this calendar and had to have it. Each month features a Chuck Norris "fact" and my favorite would have to be, "If at first you don't succeed, you're not Chuck Norris." The calendar is actually endorsed by Chuck Norris as proceeds go to his charity the Kick Start Foundation. It's for the kids, but if it came down to it Chuck Norris wouldn't hesitate to roundhouse kick those kids into next week.

Before we went to Wal-Mart we stopped by the Goodwill and I bought a 7-11 shirt and a CD. When the lady rang it through she asked if I wanted a bag and I said yes and was expecting a plastic bag, but instead she put it in one of those reuseable fabric bags.

Now I can truly express my feelings about sewing on my bag! It's actually a Fabricland bag that someone obviously donated, but it seems like something that should be bought and not given away. Total score!

Tonight we went and saw Zombieland because zombies are cool. Zombie killing is even more cool, although Cody was disappointed by the lack of zombie killing. I was disappointed by the lack of gore. It's already rated 18A, so why not put in some decent gore of some exploded zombie heads/bodies/limbs/ect? Give the fans what they want! I'm not saying I didn't like it because I did. It wasn't scary, but it was funny. There is an awesome celebrity cameo who star as themselves. I won't give it away, but you'll love it. The main character played by Jesse Eisenberg just reminds me of Micheal Sera. Maybe they couldn't get Micheal Sera to do the role and went with this guy. Though at times the character seems like a real wuss and you wonder how he managed to survive in a zombie apocalypse. Rule #4: Double tap.

Catching up

Since you are all dying to know, the turkey actually turned out pretty good. I got lots of leftovers in the fridge still if anyone wants them. I don't like the drumsticks, so they'll be sticking around for a while. I have LOTS of leftover gravy, it is actually kind of scary.

Also, here are the abbreviated versions of a couple posts I was going to write, but never did because I'm lazy. First of all way back on October 4th was the fall comic show. This is super small which is nice because it's not as busy as the big one in the spring. I took stuff to get signed by Kaare Andrews, Craig Rousseau and Norm Brefogle. Norm Brefogle signed an issue of Mr. T and the T Force that he drew and it's AWESOME!

I got a sketchbook and a Captain America sketch from Craig Rousseau. I bought a couple hardcover trades and some of the homemade chocolate pops. I already ate the chocolate pops as I didn't want a repeat of leaving one lying around for nine months then finding it and eating it and then almost dying.

Then last Saturday I went to Vulcan with Murray and Eunice. Murray had told Eunice all about it and she looked for it online and found some Chinese blog with a story about it. She thought it sounded cool and wanted to go see it. We made it there and she took a bunch of pictures. I actually forgot my camera, so no pictures for you guys. Sorry! Since last time we were there they put up a board with various Star Trek characters on it and their faces flip down so you can put your face in to take super dorky pictures. Somebody had unscrewed a couple of the faces and stole them. Eunice took pictures of me and Murray with our faces in the characters. We just stuck our faces in the holes that had the faces stolen, I wasn't even sure what character I was. After she took the pictures I walked around to the front and after looking at the board I was like, "I was the chick!!" Turns out I had my face in the Seven of Nine face from ST: Voyager. Dammit! Then well we were outside some guy pulls up on the road and starts taking pictures of the ship and us with our faces in the board and says something to us in French. Jeez, buddy you drove to the middle of nowhere you should at least drag your fat ass out of your car to get some decent pictures.

We moved in the "Trek Station" to check things out. They have also fixed this place up since last time we were there too. They have this weird hologram game thing, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it was broken, so we couldn't even try it. On the game board there is a button for "Light Speed". Somebody should out to them that "light speed" is from Star Wars, in Star Trek it's called "Warp Speed". Anyway, they also have a mock command bridge filled with Star Trek stand ups where you can sit and take pictures. They also have Star Trek uniforms you can put on for your pictures. It was cheesy, but cheesy cool.

Of course they had various souvenirs, but I wanted a magnet for my fridge. I ended up having to buy a magnetic poetry set just for the Vulcan, AB magnet which was in it. There weren't even any swear words in it, where is the fun in that? I also got some CSA (Canadian Space Agency) stickers which were free.

The Trek Station was surprisingly busy considering it was the long weekend, but the rest of town was completely dead. Not that there is that much there anyway. We checked out the V&S where I bought a hat. The end.