Last night we needed comfort food and so went to Fieramosca, where the usual debauchery ensued. Funnily enough CBGB walked in and were seated next to us part way through the evening, even though neither of us had any idea the other would be there. We ate, drank and laughed long into the evening. Consequently neither Nellie nor I got up until after 2PM, which actually works out pretty well, since we’re heading out around midnight to take in some Nuit Blanche exhibits.
Category: Food / drink
Lullaby Haze
Tonight: blogging in delicious bite-sized portions.
- The new Mates of State is very good. Maybe not Bring It Back awesome, but very good.
- We’re going to try to do Nuit Blanche this year. That should be interesting…I’ll basically get home, sleep for most of Sunday and then go to a Leafs game. Yes, a Leafs game. Normally I wouldn’t go but it’s a work thing, so I’ll just have to try to scrub off the dirty feelings and record lots of Canadiens highlights to watch when I get home, lest all the patheticness get lodged in my brain.
- My brother just sent me this link, which made me puke and shit a little at the same time. That’s right, it made me shuke. Behold: lobster ice cream.
- The Economist asked people around the world who they’d choose if they could vote in the American election. The results: awfully blue.
- Paste Magazine reviewed the 10th anniversary edition DVD set of Sports Night. I know I’ve said it eleventy million times, but really…go watch it. So good. Stick it out through the first few episodes when they forced Sorkin to use a laugh track.
- My debate plan this evening: watch the Canadian election debate but keep the picture-in-picture tuned to the American VP debate. If Sarah Palin gets that scared fawn look in her eyes, I’m flippin’.
See? Tasty!
Vindaliciousness
Won’t be writing much tonight. We just stuffed ourselves stupid at Indus Junction with T-Bone. Had a drink at The Paddock first, which was quite cool, except that we were quite literally the only people in the place. Maybe that’s what made it cool.
Anyway, maybe it was the vindaloo shrimp or the vegatable baji or the aloo tikki or the malai kofta or the salmon vindaloo or all the rice & naan, but my stomach is stretched to the limit right now.
Still…want more. Gimme.
[tags]the paddock, indus junction[/tags]
Thick but spritzy-clean palate
Apparently the summer decided to grant us one last beautiful weekend before fall arrives to spoil the party. Yesterday we took advantage of likely the last lazy, hazy summer Saturday of the year: we slept in, picked up fresh vegetables and some dessert at the market, walked over to the Bay and bought some new bed stuff and cleaned up the balcony. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening sitting outside, reading, listening to music, snapping the picture you see up there (note HMCS Charlottetown in the middle-right of the frame…not sure what she’s doing there) and enjoying a Great Lakes Pumpkin Ale until CBGB showed up. Nellie barbecued some rainbow trout, which we ate with maple-glazed carrots, peas, potatoes, two bottles of wine, some Mill Street Belgian Wit beer and the afore-mentioned dessert, an apple strudel. There wasn’t much time left in the evening when they left…just enough for me to pull the trigger on the new computer I’ve been thinking about ordering, and crawl between the comfy new duvet & pillows.
Good day, that.
[tags]last day of summer, great lakes pumpkin ale, mill street belgian wit[/tags]
Pop!
This has been sitting in my starred feed items for a while and I forgot to blog about it. It shows the generic name for soft drinks, broken down by (American) county. Growing up I always called it pop, and I have yet to visit a place in Canada that refers to it otherwise…strange, since all of the northeastern states seem to call it “soda.”
I’m not surprised to see the red…years ago when I was consulting in Texas and going out for lunch with clients, this would be the typical conversation:
Server: “What would y’all like to drink?”
Client: “Coke.”
Server: “What kind?”
Client: “Sprite.”
Server: “Coming up.”
The first few times this happened I was pretty confused. For a while I even thought it was just Chuck — funniest man alive — messing with me. It took me a while to dope out. Honestly, my brain was still busy dealing with the idea that tornadoes happened here. The hotel I was staying in even had “In case of a tornado…” instructions on the door right next to the usual “In case of a fire…” I’m used to seeing.
[via Strange Maps]
[tags]generic names for soft drinks, strange maps, chuck kirby[/tags]
Falling off the wagon. Into a pit of grease.
I miss chicken. Ever since I stopped eating meat (except fish, which I don’t even really like) last year I’ve found the toughest thing to replace was chicken. Not because I enjoyed it more than any other meat — I believe that distinction would go to sausage — but because it was such a big part of my diet. I ate it in salad, I ate it in burger form, I liked it stir-fried, barbecued and on pizza. So I miss it.
Recently I’ve discovered that veggie faux-chicken burgers taste just like the cheap-ass chicken burgers I used to get from the canteen in my university dorm, which is great for sentimental value, but they’re nothing like the real chicken burgers I used to get.
So I’m both excited and horrified that the new KFC unchicken burger is, apparently, fantastic. Even PETA thinks so, for chrissakes. PETA, by the way, seems to be relatively ok with KFC now that (in Canada, anyway) the chickens are killed much more humanely, but still…I wouldn’t have expected love for any of the greasy crow’s foodstuffs.
I want to try one, but I think the general ambient smell inside a KFC would make me vom. What to do?
[tags]kfc, unchicken burger, peta[/tags]
Now what?
Ummm, yeah. So I’m done blogging about the MBA. And TIFF is over for another year. So what the hell do I talk about now?
Well, last night we got the remnants of a hurricane. Which was fun. And this morning the American financial system fucking melted. Happy trails, Lehman Brothers. You too Merrill Lynch. Say hello to Bear Stearns for us. Here’s hoping AIG can get up off the mat. Me, I spent the day trying to catch up at the office and wondering how the ass balls I can tame my inbox.
And here’s what’s coming up: Canadiens training camp. A Mogwai concert. A Toronto FC game next weekend. Volo’s cask days. Drinks with two friends and a cousin (all at different times…they don’t know each other) that I’ve been putting off for a while. Dinner with T-Bone. Long overdue blog template redesign. The “some day” category on my RTM task list. PVR annihilation, especially the stuff recorded back in December. Listening (finally) to the following:
- bonnie prince billy . lie down in the light
- coldplay . viva la vida or death and all his friends
- frightened rabbit . sing the greys
- kings of leon . only by the night
- lightspeed champion . falling of the lavender bridge
- mates of state . re-arrange us
- mgmt . oracular spectacular
- mogwai . the hawk is howling
- nick + norah’s infinite playlist . original soundtrack
- okkervil river . the stand-ins
- spiritualized . songs in a & e
- tv on the radio . dear science
- walkmen . you & me
- witch . paralyzed
- wolf parade . at mount zoomer
Reviews:
- I watched a few minutes of J.J. Abrams’ new show Fringe and that was enough. I liked Cloverfield and all but I want nothing to do with the dude’s shows.
- The jury’s still out on the new HBO show True Blood. Alan Ball: good. Vampires: boring. Anna Paquin: less hot than I expected. Rutina Wesley, who plays her best friend: my new girlfriend du jour.
- Bon Iver: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
[tags]tiff, lehman brothers, merrill lynch, canadiens, mogwai, toronto fc, volo cask days, fringe, cloverfield, true blood, anna paquin, rutina wesley, bon iver[/tags]
Doot doot plot
Random-y thought-y-ness. Yay-y.
- This is the most excited I’ve been about the TIFF in a good long while. The prospect of shutting down my life (I’m taking six days off work) to watch this many films, and get this into the festival, feels pretty awesome right now.
- I feel like our Canadian election cycle — the Prime Minister dropped serious hints about an election last week and we’ll likely go to the polls in mid-October — makes so much more sense than the American election cycle. First, two months of bleating, braying political ads is quite enough. Second, as Naomi Klein explains in a recent AV Club interview, having a constant two-year cycle of elections & midterm elections makes politicians afraid to actually do anything lest they hurt their upcoming election chances…and with a constant, two-year cycle an election is always upcoming. Not that Canadian politicians are fearless & efficient, but at least the irregular, unpredictable nature of dissolving parliament and calling an election limits the degree to which that plays on a politician’s mind.
- Mill Street Belgian Wit Beer is good. My wife’s homemade pizza is excellent.
- I’ll miss the Mars Phoenix.
- Colin Farrell’s a pretty good guy, apparently. Just ask Stress.
- In mid-September the LCBO will once again carry the Great Lakes Pumpkin Ale, among others. Between this and the Winter Ale, Great Lakes is fast becoming my favourite seasonal brewery.
- Every time I listen to Mississauga Goddam by The Hidden Cameras, I’m surprised all over again just how good it is.
[tags]tiff, tiff08, canadian election, mill street belgian wit, colin farrell, great lakes brewery, lcbo, hidden cameras[/tags]
Wake
Another beautiful morning in Halifax, my last on this trip. In an hour I’ll have breakfast with Stanzi (in town temporarily herself), then head to the airport.
Last night I met up with friends at Salty’s for a few drinks on the waterfront. Somehow I ended up with a bottle of Moosehead…tragic. Anyway, some of us left there and had a fantastic dinner at Il Mercato. Knowing I’d have pasta the following night I stuck to seafood (never a bad choice in Halifax) and had shrimp & salmon…both fantastic. We knocked off a couple of bottles of Chianti Rufina (and a glass of white for my fish) and ordered decadent desserts. One of our party may have over-extended himself, but he recovered quickly.
Feeling poetic, we decided to finish off the evening at The Bitter End. It wasn’t a long night for me by any means though. One friend hit the wall and left early. My glasses of Macallan lasted me ’til around 11, but I needed some solo recharge time. I walked back to the hotel alone, suddenly reminded of how quiet Halifax streets (those outside the downtown core, at least) are at night. It felt peaceful. It felt right.
I was done. It was time to go home. Home home. I know I talked about Halifax being my spiritual home, if there is such a thing, but home is ultimately wherever Nellie is, and that’s where I feel like I need to be right now. I feel like a little chunk of me hasn’t lived there for the past four years…it’s lived in a text book or the computer or a hotel room during a week away on course. It’ll be nice to have that chunk back, and for Nellie to have it all there too, since she’s done without it for the last ~1400 days. What’s more, she’s been amazing about it. If she were anyone other than herself I probably wouldn’t have made it to yesterday.
One final, funny note: last night, sitting at The Bitter End, they were playing (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis. Odd choice, since it’s an old album…then I remembered something: after writing the last exam of my undergrad — which happened to be the very same subject as the one I wrote yesterday — I met some friends at the campus pub to celebrate. That day in the pub they played the fairly recent Oasis CD (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? and we discussed the ridiculousness of the lyrics to “Wonderwall” over celebration beer. Twice in my life I’ve had that particular celebration, and each time I had the same soundtrack. The world’s funny, if a little precious.
[tags]halifax, mba, salty’s, il mercato, bitter end, oasis[/tags]
"It makes me aerodynamic, for fighting."
We saw Pineapple Express (imdb | rotten tomatoes) yesterday. I guess I liked it…I wouldn’t say it’s a great movie by any means, but it was very funny at times. I probably would’ve been confused by the movie’s style had I not known David Gordon Green was the director. He injected some of his style into an otherwise typically Rogen/Goldberg script, which worked for some scenes and made others feel odd. It gave the movie a pretty uneven feel, but the funny moments were good enough to make up for it. Some surprisingly prolonged fight scenes too.
After that we met up with CBGBLB and some of CB’s family for dinner at beerbistro. Much tastiness ensued…for the second straight night. I watched a little Olympic action and then slept like the dead, fortunately nowhere near all the explosions. Check out the pictures and video of that at Photojunkie.
[tags]pineapple express, beerbistro, toronto propane explosions[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 