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.