Showtime!

In the same box (FYI, it happened to be a pudding box) that had the long expired McDonald's coupons I also found a pile of old video rental receipts.  Way back in day before all the cool kids starting downloading movies for free, they used to rent movies on VHS tape.  We also rented a lot of movies thanks to the "5 movies for 5 days for 5 bucks" deal they ran at 24Hr Video.  I kept most, maybe all of the receipts from the movies I rented on my account.

The deal was we would rent a pile of movies and then hang out at Cam's and watch them.  Even if Cam had to work we would still go to his house and watch a movie and then tell him how awesome it was later and how he missed out.

Ernest, Arnold, and Leslie Nielsen, what a combo.  Of those I flicks I now own Ernest Scared Stupid and the Police Squad: Complete Series.  I'm pretty sure Cody has Raw Deal.  I remember nothing about River of Death, but IMDB tells me Michael Dudikoff is in it.  Suddenly, I'm okay with not remembering anything about this movie.

Two zombie movies that week!  Weekend at Bernie's II, but no Weekend at Bernie's?  We must've rented it prior, I will have to consult my records.  Of those five I know own ROTLD II, Born in East LA and Weekend at Bernie's II.  Don't worry I also have Weekend at Bernie's.

Damn, I now have all  those movies except Detonator.  I have about four copies of Rock N' Roll High School, one old clamshell VHS version, two different DVD versions and the Blu-Ray.  Tell I ever tell you I own too many movies?  Army of One I just got recently on DVD after looking for it for a while.  The shootout in the warehouse is an absolute classic.  I watched it like three times in a row after I got the DVD.  Dolph blows away a ton of baddies with lots of juicy squib work.

I don't remember anything about Iced or Beyond Justice.  I do remember Lifeforce because there were boobs in it.  It is my fav movie evar!!  I always thought Fire, Ice and Dynamite was cool, but that is probably because it's about skiing and Roger Moore is in it.  Probably haven't seen it since the week of Oct 24, 1994 and if I saw it today I'd be all disappointed.  Commando has a lot of classic Arnold one liners and I have the director's cut DVD which has some more gore.  It's good and I won't even bother upgrading to a $5 Blu-Ray because the Blu-Ray is the theatrical cut.  Director's cut on Blu-ray please!

Delta Force 3 with no Chuck Norris?  They try and make up for it by using his brother Mike Norris who is unintentionally hilarious.  Me and Cody always make fun of him and his style of gun control, or lack there of.  Spoiler alert...he dies! I have it on DVD now, so I can watch it anytime and criticize him, "You're not Chuck!  Chuck never would've died!"

After just over 700 posts here, I'm  all about looking for an easy way to make post.  After coming up with the "pictures of pictures" idea I thinking about "movies we rented".  What do you think?  I got all those rental receipt sitting around I should do something with them.  I can see what movies we rented and then remember nothing about them.  "I watched that??"  Funny thing is that we rented Boiling Point with Wesley Snipes three times and I still haven't seen it.

Christmas is over

I made it back to Calgary and the drive wasn't actually too bad.  I drove the south route and the roads were good and weren't as busy as I was expecting.  I got home and unpacked all my goodies, downloaded the latest episodes of Kamen Rider Wizard and Tokumei Sentai Go-Buster and then watched my Blu-ray of The Expendables 2 which I got for X-mas.  I haven't played BF3 in over a week, so I was having withdrawals from guns & explosions.

After Boxing Day I didn't do too much.  I went tobogganing one day and any time Avery came up to the house he wants to either play Monopoly or play hockey.  We got a net and stuff set up outside, so I was out there a few times playing around.  On Friday afternoon I went over to Scarff HQ to say hi and Willie came over too.  Don't feel too bad for Willie about his marriage not working out because he already has a girlfriend.  Damn, he's so smooth.  Teach me, bro!  He brought Cheryl over, so we all met her and she seems cool even if she doesn't know when the hockey game is.  I did know what day the hockey game, so I went Friday night.  The Ice lost, but it was good game which they should've won.  At the game I saw Shane and Brad Patterson as well as Mike Detta.

My sister and I got my mom a new deep freeze because the old one is beat to hell.  The new one is a stand up freezer, so it will take up less space.  The area where it goes is up against a concrete wall in the basement and my brother says that's why it's cold down there because it's not insulated.  We pulled everything out of there which meant I had to take all my boxes off this giant shelving system so we could pull it out and my brother could put in a wall, insulate it and then dry wall it.  He also had to tear down some old cabinets to do it.  I looked in a couple of my boxes as I was taking them out and found some old treasures and more pictures.  Yep, get ready for more pictures of pictures.  But not yet...

I was looking in a box and found some old report cards from Parkland and Mt. Baker, but you aren't seeing those cuz I'm a dummy.  I also found a bunch of McDonald's gift certificates.

Coupons for free cookies, triple thick shake, regular fries, regular hamburger and hot cakes.  Sounds awesome until I read the back of the gift certificates.

Expires 1981!  Damn, that's old, so I guess it's not good anymore.  We have some pictures at home of me having a birthday in that room at the back of McDonald's.  I'm guessing I also got these birthday treat coupons as part of the deal.  I would try and redeem them, but I think McDonald's stopped selling cookies twenty years ago.  My next birthday party is going to be at Arby's.

Quit playing with yourself

As previously mentioned today Cam, Cody, Willie and I met up to check out the amazing Boxing Day deals in Cranbrook and the good news is that we survived!  The bad news is that this is still Cranbrook, so there are no good places to go!  We gave it our best and went to the Tamarack Mall, Wal-Mart, Superstore, LW and Bulk Barn.  Of course, this was after we ate at BK.  I'm still feeling the whiplash.

In terms of buying crap Willie would be at the top with a bunch of movies from Wal-Mart and Superstore plus chips and gum from LW.  Yes, you read that right...gum.  Cody got movies from Superstore and pork rinds (two bags!) from LW.  I got two TV show DVD sets from Superstore and Cam would be at the very bottom buying absolutely nothing.  Boring, but way to be thrifty Cam, and since he just bought a house maybe he's saving some pennies.  Also we all saw stuff at Bulk Barn we would've liked to have eaten, but nothing we'd buy.  Next year we all want Bulk Barn gift certificates so we can get candy and bulk peanut butter.

Me and Willie spotted something in the toy aisle at LW.

Thanks Santa

Hope everyone had a holly jolly Christmas and got lots of cool loot and ate a bunch of turkey.  I got a bunch of stuff I didn't really need like video games and movies and got some stuff I did need like socks.  Then I ate a bunch of turkey because it is the one time of the year that I actually get to, so I filled up.

Socks for Christmas is a classic Christmas gift because even though nobody actually asks/wants socks for Christmas you still always end up wearing them.  I also got other holiday gift classics like pajama pants and lottery scratch tickets.  One of these years maybe I'll even win something on the scratch tickets.

We made it!

Makit a Merry Christmas

Last Saturday while I was checking out Candylicious I was also checking out Chinook Hobby West for some Christmas themed Makit & Bakit kits.  I went for the fancy licensed sets and got a Disney Christmas themed kit. 

They had all the sets shown on the package; Pluto, Noel Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Santa Mickey, Daisy, Uncle Scrooge and Mistletoe Minnie.  As you can see I got the Donald kit, but if you were really ambitious and enjoy inhale plastic fumes, they had a box set which contained all the kits.  That is a lot of making and baking.  The package had a copyright date of 1981 which official makes it "old school".

WIP

Why did they give me such a big bag for the black and light blue pellets?  I think I only used like ten black pellets, it seems like a waste.  Donald had some pretty "technical" parts on him as some of the areas/gaps to fill were pretty small.  Damn it, it is too hard!

The finished product turned out pretty good with only one bubble in it and no cracks.  I did use too many white pellets on his hand, but it's not too bad.  I will actually keep this kit and take it home with me to Cranbrook and hang it on the Christmas tree.  "Mom, look what I made all by myself!"

The back of the package had the instructions which I actually followed this time.  I watched the time and it didn't leave in too long unlike last time.  The back also showed a bunch of different kits that are, or were available.

I wanna make the crocodile one and a rainbow one!  Also, next year for Hanukkah I want to make a Jewish Makit kit.

Shalom!

Christmas is coming

If you just quit your job and gave away all your material possessions in anticipation of the end of the world you're kinda screwed because it didn't happen.  Sucks for you because you've only got three days left to get all your Christmas shopping done.

As for my Christmas schedule it is...work!  I have to work everyday even the 24th then drive back to Cranbrook after that.  I start work at 5am and work until 1:30pm, go home load up the car and start driving.  It's cold, it's supposed to snow, it's gonna suck, but I gotta do it.  Then on the 29th I'll have to drive back just in time to work for New Years.  I know Mike will be in Kamloops, but Cam and Cara will be back in Cranbrook.  I'm sure I'll see Cam and if I have to Cara too.  Cody is already back in Moyie and Willie will be around, so I'm sure we'll meet and tear sh*t up.  Or not, you can never tell what we'll do cuz that's how we roll.

Sodalicious

While visiting Liquidation World aka LW aka LDub I found the Holiday Gift Pack from Jones Soda among their awesome deals.  I knew it would be a good Christmas related blog post, but it's regular soda, not diet, so I'm not supposed to drink it.  No problem I can just make Cody drink it!

The Holiday Gift Pack contains four different Christmas themed sodas, Candy Cane, Sugar Plum, Pear Tree and Gingerbread.  What no turkey?  I do think they do or did a turkey soda once for Thanksgiving though.

Cody drank them and I asked him what he thought about each flavour, if he would drink it again and to pick the best and worst.

Sugar Plum: It's okay, similar to cream soda.
Would you drink it again: Yes

Candy Cane: Smells like mouthwash. Not as bad as I was expecting.  The first few sips aren't bad, but then it turns nasty.
Would you drink it again: No

Pear Tree: It was okay.
Would you drink it again: Yes

Gingerbread: Smells like gingerbread and tastes like a combination of root beer and cream soda.
Would you drink it again: No

The best: Sugar Plum
The worst: Candy Cane

Cody said they all tasted a bit like cream soda and I'm not big fan of cream soda, so it looks like I dodged the bullet with not having to drink any of these holiday drinks.  I can tell you I would not want to drink the candy cane soda based on the picture on the label alone.  It's creepy.

"He sees you when you're sleeping"

I want (more) candy!

I went back to Gummi Boutique today to pick up a few more last minute Christmas gifts.  I wanted to get some crazy soda flavors.  Some of them are crazy and some of them just have crazy names for drinks that aren't so crazy.

Now these ones are crazy!  The PB&J soda is for Avery and Matt gets even more bacon goodness with the bacon soda.  Haha, there is an old man on the label!

My sister gets Kitty Piddle and Logan gets Zombie Brain Juice.  These ones sound crazy, but the zombie one is just strawberry orange and the cat pee one is orange pineapple, so they're not that crazy.

I was kinda bummed because they don't have any of those flavours in diet/sugar free which is totally unfair.  I still got my sugar fix with gummy versions of Gumby and Pokey.  I also asked about sour alien heads and they didn't carry them either.  Lame.

Christmas past

I was doing something the other day, it certainly wasn't cleaning, when I found a black Lego stud underneath my dresser.  It's a left over from last year's advent calendar.  I'm not sure what to do with it I don't really have any Lego, so I guess I'll just throw it out.  Anybody missing a piece like this and need it?

At least I didn't step on it, but if I did it wouldn't be so bad as it's just a little stud, not of those stupid square blocks.

For Cam

I want candy!

While I was "out and about" as they say on Saturday I went to the candy store.  No, not that candy store, the other candy store, Candylicious.  I found a new candy store quite a while ago, but just yesterday got around to visiting it.  I'm not sure why it took me so long as it is located on Macleod Trail down from Comi-kazi and a block before Chinook Hobby West, so I've driven past it more than a few times.  The location for it is a little sketch as it's in this crummy little mall with a sex shop and "Bongs and Such" just doors down from it.  Something for the whole family maybe?

I went in and was the only customer there and it was weird because the kid working there kept looking at me and waiting for me to buy something.  I felt obligated to buy something because it is a candy store and everyone loves candy.  It was harder as the selection wasn't as good as Gummi Boutique and they didn't even enough weird candy.  No toys or anything and they didn't even have a single bacon flavored item.  What the heck? !  I still bought some junk though.

That's all I got.  The Power Poppers are for Logan and the Garbage Can-dy are for Avery.  I bought the Pal-o-Mine just because I thought the name was funny, it didn't taste too bad.  I however did not like the Heath bar which is similar to a Skor bar.  I think it's a crap British chocolate bar.

They did have a lot of Pez, almost the entire wall behind the cashier was covered in Pez.  I asked the kid if they carried sour alien heads and he said he never heard of them.  FAIL!  Most of the store was candy, but one side also had a coffee shop called...wait for it...Javalicious.  I sense a theme here.  Nobody was in the coffee shop, that goes for customers and employees unless the one kid does both.

I checked online, but they don't even have a website.  You can see a commercial for them on YouTube or check out their profile on Yelp.  Through Yelp I found about another candy stores in town with one in Kensington called The Candy Kid, and one place on 17th called Freak Lunchbox.  I'm sure I'll be visiting them sooner or later, although Freak Lunchbox sounds like a hipster candy store.  Damn hipsters, I liked candy before it was cool!

All the cool kids are doing it

I ain't Lion!

Today I went and checked out the candy store over in the Glamorgan shopping center to look for some Christmas stuff and maybe something for me if I saw something that caught my eye.  I've written about this candy store before and how I only bought a few things, but it was a pretty expensive trip.  Even though the sign outside the store simply says "Candy" the place is actually called the Gummi Boutique.

Since this was only my second time there I felt I should buy something (but no $16 cases of Diet Coke) and it's not too hard to find something to get as it is a candy store.  I still needed a couple small things for Matt this Christmas and got him some bacon gum because everybody loves bacon.

The amount of bacon products they had was crazy.  They had bacon lip balm, bacon mints, bacon breath strips, bacon fizz tabs, bacon frosting, bacon lollipops and the list goes on!  It is a bacon renaissance.

This will go good with my Hello Kitty advent calendar plus they sound pretty awesome.  Of course, they taste nothing like cupcakes and I was totally disappointed.  They should've just made them bacon flavoured, you can't go wrong.

This chocolate bar just looks bad ass.  I have no idea what it's supposed to taste like, but the name "Lion" is cool and sounds tough.  My chocolate bar can beat up your chocolate bar!

Outside the store on the walkway they have a wooden teddy bear character stand up with the top half being the bear and the bottom half being a chalk board that they write the specials on.  While I was waiting to pay some dead beat burden on society walks up and starts yelling the bear stand up and gets into an argument with it.  WTH?  The girl at the till tells the other guy working about what is going on and the guy goes the door.

Candy guy: "What are you doing?  The sign is expensive just leave it alone."
Skid row bro: "What are you gonna do call the cops?"
Candy guy: "Yeah good idea, I will call the cops."
Skid row bro: "Hey, come on man, it's Christmas!"
Candy guy: "Then leave the bear alone."

It was only 3pm, but the crazies were out getting an early start.  What a shame, even candy stores aren't safe anymore.

Don't mess with perfection

I was getting a few groceries at Safeway yesterday and was walking past their display of Christmas candies when I saw a Cadbury set-up with a weird version of their Creme Egg.  I picked it up because: 1. Creme eggs rules, no matter what Cara says and 2. It was GREEN!

I threw it in my basket and when I got home later I was looking at it closer and noticed that it said "Screme Egg" on it and thought that was a weird name for a Christmas egg variant.  Then I also noticed that it had mummy type bandages on the package and it finally clicked in my head that this isn't a Christmas version of a Creme Egg, its just left over from Halloween.  That makes more sense because it was only 32 cents.

I was expecting it to taste minty as the inside goo is green.  Even though its green it tastes exactly the same as the regular "egg" goo in the normal Creme Eggs.  It still isn't the same though.

Gonna find out who's naughty or nice

Happy Christmas 2012

Christmas "special"

'Tis the Christmas season everywhere you look, even on your TV.  Christmas and holiday themed shows are on and you can't escape them, so why even try?  In previous years I've written about watching old TV cartoon holiday episodes on YTV to enjoying the beloved classic "Ernest Saves Christmas".   You can check out the YTV holiday programming on their website, but they are missing a bunch of the older cartoons they've run in previous years.  But if you've been itching to see the ALF Christmas special you are in luck, although it gets a pretty lame time slot at on Dec 17 at 12am e/p time.  What up with that YTV?

Tonight I watched the Power Rangers entry into Christmas specials with the direct-to-video holiday special, "Alpha's Magical Christmas" which was released at the height of Power Ranger-mania in 1994.

It's Christmas Eve and Alpha 5 is stuck in the command center with Zordon as the Rangers are out helping Santa get ready.  Alpha is feeling lonely stuck in the command center all alone on Christmas, so Zordon surprises him by getting a Christmas tree and teleporting (kidnapping!) in kids from around the world to spend Christmas with him.

They do activities like make Christmas decorations and make Christmas cookies all while singing festive Christmas carols.

Alpha cuts a rug to Jingle Bells.

Alpha hands out gifts to the children and they sing even more songs.  As a viewer I'm not liking where this is going.

A gift for me?  I hope it's better than this Christmas video!

A message comes in on the viewing globe from Santa and the Power Rangers and Santa says he is almost ready and will be leaving soon.

When Alpha handed out the gifts to all the kids he said they had to wait until Christmas morning to opening them.  Now we are shown a montage of kids playing with toys while they sing another song.  I guess they can play with the toys, but don't get to keep them?  That one kid looked pretty stoked to be getting the bike, too bad he won't be taking it with him.  That's a real dick move Alpha.

Don't get too attached to those toys kids.

The kids go tell Alpha they got him a Christmas present, but he has to guess what it is.  Here is a hint, it doesn't need batteries, it will never wear out and you can take it where ever you like.  Can YOU guess what it is?  It's "love" stupid!  Next time Zordon should teleport some kids whose parents have money, so they can get a real gift.  Zordon then informs Alpha it's time for the kids leave through the magical portal, but not before one last Christmas song.  NOOOOO! 

Go into the light kids...go into the liiiiiiighttt....

With the kids now thankfully gone, Alpha is alone once more in the command center.  The alarm goes off and Tommy, Kimberly and Billy teleport in to wish Alpha and Zordon a merry Christmas.  Alpha has one last trick up his sleeve as he makes it snow inside the commander center.  Now that's what I call Christmas magic!  The Rangers and Alpha sing one last Christmas carol.

Watching "Alpha's Magical Christmas" was an extremely long 22 minutes, most of the running time is godawful singing.  I bet kids watching this video back in 1994 were expecting to see the Power Rangers, monsters, some fighting, Zords and that good stuff, but instead were stuck with Alpha and some dumb kids singing crappy Christmas songs.  A lot of kids must've had a disappointing Christmas with this video which is a big old lump of coal...wrapped in a turd.  Merry Christmas and peace on Earth!

In the bag

With Christmas approaching that leaves one dreaded task I'm not very good at...wrapping gifts.  Today I hit up Dollarama to get some gift bags, so I won't actually have to wrap anything.  I was getting bags and realized that I still haven't finished buying gifts for everyone.  Like I have two small things for someone, but I still need a third thing to round it all out, so I'm not sure how big of a gift bag I will need.  I went ahead a bought gifts bags anyway, so it might make the rest of my shopping easier or harder as I now have buy gifts that will fit in the bag.  Luckily, packs of gum don't take up much room.

Oh yeah, a kitten gift bag with fuzzy handles!

Speaking of kittens I think the Spice Kittens are all getting adopted out soon.  What will I do for my kitten fix?  The #KittenCam from the Pet Collective is back up with a new litter of kittens.  The are still pretty small and there are a lot of them!  It has the white mother cat and her litter of six kittens which are all black and/or white.

Rewind

Yesterday, I did a post about the Christmas countdown, but now I'd like to confuse you and go back in time to Halloween.  This is one of those posts I was going to do, but didn't quite get around to it.  I've just been putting it off because it is just not that interesting.  Here it is anyway!  Hooray for filler posts!

A couple years ago I went all out at Halloween and made some cool goodie bags, but unfortunately all my hard work was for nothing as only eight kids showed up.  Last year I was still all bitter about nobody showing up for my rad goodie bags so I turned off the lights and played BF3.  We had candy, we just didn't give any out and ate it all for ourselves.  Even the M&Ms with only thee pieces(!) in a bag.  Time heals all wounds and this year I decided to hand out some candy again.

I bought a small box of mixed chocolate bars with Coffee Crisp, Smarties, etc.  I also had bought a variety pack of Old Dutch snack sized chips.  I ended up eating most of the good flavors and leaving Sour Cream 'n Onion to give out.

I only gave away a few bags, so I still have some left overs.  I don't want to eat them!  

We had about 12 kids show up which is an improvement over previous years.  It was cold out, so most of them had jackets on and you couldn't even see their costume.  I swear some lazy ass kids showed up begging for candy and they weren't even dressed up and were using old Wal-Mart bags for their candy.  A few younger kids showed up that were dressed up cute and stuff, so they got chips AND chocolate bars AND lip whistles!

I bought a bag of lip whistles from the dollar store just for a little something extra.  The whistle part actually spins when you blow into it and makes a whirling whistly sound.  You give a kid a chocolate bar and he eats it and then it's gone.  You give a kid a lip whistle and he can have lots of fun with it, well until his parents take it away.  If my lip whistles annoyed just one parent out there, then I'm happy. 

And now back to the Christmas crap!

Countdown

Well, today is December 1st and that means the Christmas clock has officially starting ticking so get your shopping done!  AAAAHHHHH!!!!  I don't have that many gifts to get as being unsociable has it's perks.  I have a few gifts already with a few more to still to get.  I was going to get everyone gift cards for Giant Tiger this year, but that idea fell through.  I'll have use my plan B, gift cards from Liquidation World.  Usually, I end up buying almost as much stuff for myself as I do for everyone else, but this year I've cut back a little bit.  It's come to the point where I own so much crap that I don't need anymore stuff.

Bad news as this year I am too poor/cheap to spring for another Lego Star Wars advent calendar.  I'll have to start saving up my garbage quarters to get one next year.  Don't worry though, I've still got some holiday themed blog posts to come.  None of them involve fruit cake.  Come to think of it I've never actually had fruit cake.  Maybe that should be one then!

Instead of spending the $50 on a Lego SW advent calendar I went the much cheaper route and got a $2.50 Hello Kitty advent calendar.  The good thing about most advent calendars now is that they don't just go to Christmas, they go all the way to the new year, so it's 32 days of chocolate flavored chocolates.