In addition to enjoying my mother's home cooking, I also managed to get out while I was in Montreal. In all, I visited nine restaurants over the course of my stay. No favorites like Au Pied de Cochon or Garde Manger this time, and still no luck getting a table at either Kitchenette or Joe…
January 3, 2014: Au Revoir Montreal!
Final day in Montreal. I am Vancouver-bound tonight! This morning I woke up to this... My mother used one orange and three tangerines for this single glass and it was delicious. I don't understand how some breakfast places can get away with calling their orange juice "freshly squeezed" when the taste is so damn different.…
January 2, 2014: The Change-up! Jazzycakes Cupcakes!
No sooner do I finally get used to writing "2013" in the blog title instead of "2o12" than I have to start writing "2014". 2014! It just feels like yesterday the world was supposed to end - back in 2012. Or at the end of 1999. I've got to stop selling off my worldly possessions…
January 1, 2014: Our annual marathon New Year’s bash! Parenting tips! Worst of 2013!
Yep, that's about how I felt this morning following last night's raucuous New Year's Eve celebration. Our guests were prompt, arriving by 7:30 p.m., as requested (or we were eating without 'em). We had dinner, dessert, did the dishes and were done just in time for…10:00 p.m.! We still had TWO HOURS to kill! Now…
December 31, 2013: Blog Year in Review!
Another year, another 365 days of blogging, bringing the grand totals to: 2 625 posts! 140 000+ comments! And 10 000 000+ all-time views! Among other interesting stats compliments of WordPress: On to our annual countdown of this blog's most prolific commenters. Who were they? Well, counting down the Top 5 of 2013: DP, congratulations…
December 29, 2013: Cookies and Canines! Soliciting your literary opinions! Your Top Reads of 2013!
Seriously. If I had to narrow down these holidays to a single theme, it would be Cookies & Canines. Okay, technically TWO themes but they do occasionally converge. Like earlier tonight when I came across mom's dog, Caramel, chewing on a molasses cookie that apparently fell off the kitchen table. Let's just say that dog…
December 29, 2013: Old Montreal!
There were three certainties I could look forward to n every one of my elementary school years: 1. Compulsory phys. ed. class, usually comprised of such sterling athletic pursuits as dodgeball, the parachute, and the trampoline - which yielded one sprained neck, four bruised fingers, a severely broken arm, but no greater appreciation for the…
December 27, 2013: The entire holidays seem to revolve around food!
Either we're preparing a meal, going out for a meal, or sitting down to a home cooked meal. For the past couple of days, mom has put us to work in the kitchen. The day before yesterday, Akemi and I were layering lasagna. Yesterday, we were cleaning mussels. Today, we were making frittata... We went…
December 26, 2013: Akemi’s superhero breakdown!
I asked my Japanese girlfriend, Akemi, to identify some of comicdom's most famous superheroes. How'd she do? Not bad. Not bad at all... How'd YOU do?
December 25, 2013: Merry Christmas!
Traditionally, people open their presents Christmas morning but, when we were kids, we just couldn't wait. My cousins and I would gather around the tree, shaking gifts for any hint to their contents, holding them up the light in the hopes we could discern some a word or phrase through the thin wrapping paper: "robot"…
December 24, 2013: It’s an All Dog Christmas!
Akemi commemorated the first Vancouver snowfall by making her very first Canadian snowman. Check it out, above. Not exactly button eyes, carrot nose, and stove pipe hat. But okay for a first effort I guess. Fortunately, she's better suited to working with flour, chocolate and sugar than snow as evidenced by Sunday night's kitchen creations:…
December 21, 2013: I miss ’em already! Snow Monkeys on the verge of another championship!
As much as the dogs miss us when we're away, I think I miss them even more. Especially at night. After a while, you not only get used to sleeping like a contorted magician's assistant in one of those sword-through-the-box tricks, but you come to draw comfort from their pudgy, snoring, encroaching presence. As crazy…
December 18, 2013: News of note! And a mailbag!
Rex Reed picks his best films of 2013: Rex Reed: The Best Films of 2013 | The New York Observer And his worst: READ REX REED’S PICKS FOR THE WORST MOVIES OF 2013 In other important movie news, Yahoo casts the rumored Gilligan's Island big screen reboot: http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-news/casting-gilligan-island-movie-josh-gad-203025069.html Michael Cera as Gilligan. Hmmmm. Maybe. Kelsey Grammar as…
December 17, 2013: Snow Monkeys win! Possibly! Top 5 Bitterest Losses of All Time!
Hmmm. Well that was a little too close for comfort. My Snow Monkeys won their semi-final fantasy football playoff match-up by a score of 109.30 to 109.10. Yes, that's right. They won by a whopping 0.2 points. Rather than celebrate, however, I'll be on the edge of my seat until Thursday morning when the NFL…
December 13, 2013: Stargate: Extinction! The comic book?!
StellaByStargate writes: "I’m curious as to who (person or organization) “owns”–for lack of a better word–the scripts for the SGA and SG-1 movies? So many of us would love to see those novelized and made part of the Stargate canon…is there any way we could launch a campaign to make that happen? Who would we…