Weekend Report: Cheese Cake Dippers

Last regular entry for 2014.  There will be random entries between now and Jan 04, 2015.

Happy Holidays!!!

AKB48's Yui and Rie.

Caroling Party at Teresa and Anthony's place this weekend.  Jeff played piano for the caroling.

Jeff the Piano Man.

While the carolers belted out the words.

Carolers.

Food this weekend ->
For the party, I made a couple "Cheese Cake Dippers" for dessert.  Take a Teddy Graham bear and dip it into the cheese cake filling and/or the fruit, and eat.  Similar to a cheese and crack snack pack.
Cheese cake was made by mixing 1 block of cream cheese + 1/4 cup of white sugar + 1 tub of Cool Whip.  I used cherry pie filling and blue berry topping as the fruit.

Cheese Cake Dippers.

This was the party food.  I only remembered to take the pic after most of it was eaten.  Linda's pot stickers were really good.  I probably ate 10 of them :)  I didn't know there was sauce for them, so I missed out trying that.  The quiche was good too.

Party Food.

I made some cookies Sunday night.  Pillsbury milk chocolate chip cookies.

Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Then I topped them with leftover cherry filling and a couple squares of bacon!  I under cooked the middle of the cookies abit so some of them were falling apart :(

Topping of Cherry and Bacon.

Useless Gaming News:
Played Partini at the party.  Fun group party game.  It's alot like "Who's Line is it Anyway's" mixed with "Cranium" mixed with "skill games".  Win 7 coaster categories to win.

Partini.

MP Bumblebee and Spike

Dinner today -> Spaghetti.
Made spaghetti with the last of the Bravo tomato sauce and leftover ground beef.  I ate it straight out of the pot :)

Spaghetti.

Useless Transformers News:
I got my Transformers Masterpiece: Bumblebee and Spike in the mail today.  Spike's exo-suit transforms like in the animated movie too.

Bumblebee and Spike.

Brushetta and Bread

Useless Food News:
Picked up a box of donuts this morning for one of project meetings.  The winter themed Tim's box is pretty nice.  I should have kept it and hung it in someones cube :)

Winter Donut Box.

Inside was my mandatory Boston Creams (the Christmas version has crushed candy cane on it.) and the rest was assorted.

Mmm... Donuts.

Tonight was the Christmas Party.  I didn't attend, but this was the loot bag: Bruschetta and Bread...

Brushetta.

Useless Lunch News:
Had a free Engineering lunch today.  We had pizzas from Willy's Pizza.  I had a slice of Santa Fe and Meat Lovers.  They were good.  I grabbed a Philly Cheese Steak slice from the leftovers to save for Thursday's lunch. 

Willy's Pizza.

Useless Idol Info:
Hey Gavin.  This Kashiwagi calendar banner would make a great souvenir for my AKB banner collection :)  The Rie or Yui version would be great too.  Might be hard to get as the calendars just got released.

Kashiwagi Banner.

Done Shopping

Took today off work to go shopping.  I'm finally done my Christmas shopping, except for Gavin's present; but he'll be in Japan during Christmas so he can wait for it :)  Bayshore was fairly busy, the traffic on Merivale was nuts, and Costco lines were really long.  The only non-gift stuff I got was a couple of comics from Comic Book Shoppe and a $20 bag of giant lobster claws from Costco.

Dinner today -> Lotus Root and Fish.
I hit T&T today and got some lotus root with pork and a container of steamed fish in soy sauce.

Lotus Root and Fish.

Useless Idol News:
Today was the 2014 AKB48 Kouhaku concert.  There was no live stream so I'll need to get the DVD to watch it.
Mayu's White Team defeated Jurina's Red Team this year.  It was Mayu's and Takamina's 1st win after 3 straight losses.

White Team Wins.

Lining Up

Useless Food News:
I picked up a couple of giant candy canes from Dollarama.  They were 2 for $1.  I started eating one today and realized there is no way I can eat a whole one, let alone 2.  I gave the 2nd one to Steve, and continued to suck/munch on mine.  I probably only ate 1/20th of it today.

Giant Candy Canes.

Dinner today -> Spaghetti with meat sauce.
Made spaghetti with a meat sauce made with ground beef, Bravo tomato sauce, garilic butter, butter, and sour cream.  Topped it with fried onions.

Spaghetti Dinner.

Useless News:
This is how everyone should line up for things: Thailand style.  Found this on Twitter and it makes so much sense, especially for those people waiting at the Post Office at Christmas time.

Lining Up.

Weekend Report: Dead of Winter

Food this weekend ->
Rideau Restaurant lunch with the CMC boyz on Friday.  It wasn't all meat this time.  We had sizzling black pepper steak, salt & pepper pork chop, General Tao chicken, diced chicken with cashew nuts, schezwan beef, and flash fried spicy green beans with ground pork.  Very satisfying meal.

Rideau Feast.

On Saturday, I made some breakfast when I got up at 2pm.  Eggs, toast, and mock chicken.

Breakfast.

After a day of shopping with Ben and Susanna on Sunday, dinner was #15XL Pho from KNH.  I destroyed the whole thing.

Pho Special - Little Bit of Everything.

Useless Gaming News:
Went to Brian's and did 5-player gaming.  We tried out Dead of Winter.  A unique zombie survival game where survivors die alot and each player has a secret agenda to work towards a group goal or could be a betrayer with his own objectives.  Took us a long time to figure out the 1st game.  It was fun and the group lost, but Gordon won his secret objective as he was the betrayer; so he won.

Dead of Winter.

Christmas Lunch

Lunch today -> CMC Christmas Lunch.
The annual CMC Christmas Lunch was today.  There was turkey (light and dark meat), stuffing, veggies, mash potatoes, bread, and spinich salad.  This year the turkey was really dry, including the dark meat.  It needed lots of gravy.  The salad was very good. 

Christmas Lunch.

Also, this year the desserts really out did the main course.  I didn't take a pic, but there was lots of cookies, 4 kinds of pie, short bread cookies, mini cheese cakes, lemon squares, mini cupcakes, and cake squares.

Useless Idol News:
Itano Tomomi's new single "Come Party!" is pretty good.  I like the video too.  It supposed to be a Girl's Day (KPop group) song remake?

Turtle Van DVD Box

1st snow storm today, but it doesn't look too bad.  Let's see how it is in the morning.  My stupid neighbour is parking on the street.  She better not be blocking the snow plow from doing a proper clearing on my side of the driveway.

Dinner today -> Chow Mein
Beef Brisket and Daikon on Chow Mein.  Got it from T&T last night.

Beef Brisket on Chow Mein.

Useless DVD News:
Picked up the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Turtle Van DVD set from Costco when I was there last week.  I didn't know there was 10 seasons of the original TMNT series.

Turtle Van DVD Box.

Feeding Frenzy

Dinner today -> T&T Food.
Susanna and I went to T&T tonight.  We were there early so the discount stuff wasn't out yet.  We had to wait and wait.  When the finally brought the 1st tray out, all these asian people swarmed it.  It was like a shark feeding frenzy, as people were grabbing packs of food.  It was pretty funny.  Anyways we missed the 1st tray. 
When the 2nd tray came out, they swarmed it again, but Susanna and I knew what we wanted and we sniped the choice containers.
We got alot of food, including: fried squid, a couple trays of popcorn pork, fried dough sticks, and a couple types of potstickers.

Some T&T Discount Food.

Useless Food News:
Susanna got me some Birthday Frosting filled Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies.  I don't know how these will compare to a Jes's chocolate chip cookie stuffed with an Oreo cookie.

Frosting Filled Cookies.

How Cookies are Filled?

Dinner today -> Sushi.
Went shopping at Bayshore and picked up some dinner there.  Mac's Sushi had 30% off sushi at 8pm.  Pretty good sushi.

Sushi.

Useless Food News:
This is how cookies are filled!?!?

Elf Hard At Work.

Useless Idol News:
Dec 8th was the 9th Anniversary of AKB48.  A special performance was held at the AKB Theatre with all the members.  General Manager, Takahashi Minami, also announced her graduation next year on this date too.  She appointed Team K Captain Yokoyama Yui as her successor as the next GM.  Good choice.  Tranlation of Takamina's graduation speech here.
(Credit to TKMN World)

Takamina Adding 9th Pink Band.

Weekend Report: Corner Gas Movie

I went to the theatres and watched the Corner Gas Movie.  The theatre was more packed than I thought it would be.  I didn't know there was going to be a pre-show before the movie.  It was fun.  The main movie was good too.  A few laughed out loud scenes.  It felt just like watching another episode but longer.  I'm definitely going to get the DVD.

Food this weekend ->
Made a quick stir fry with shrimp, green beans, and mushrooms.  Ate it with rice and candied smoke salmon.

Made the stir fry again but ate it with steak this time.

Also made some dry-rub ribs.  Rubbed it with salt, white pepper, ginger powder, garlic powder, and onion powder.  They came out abit salty.

Salty Ribs.

Useless M:tG News:
Picked up the limited Magic: the Gathering Duel Decks Anthologies set on Friday.  I didn't get it from Miraj Trading as they couldn't hold one for me, so I got it from Kobold's Korner. 

M:tG Anthologies.

Alfredsson

Today was Daniel Alfredsson Day in Ottawa.  Alfie came back and retired as an Ottawa Senator.

Alfredsson in Pre-game Warmup.

Snack today -> Christmas Snacks.
Bob's wife made an amazing Christmas spread for everyone at CMC today.  I got in to work in the morning and found this awesome sweets buffet!  I tried to sample everything :)  It was all good, but the peanutbutter squares and the banana walnut bread were the best.  Thanks Bob!

Christmas Dessert Spread.

Useless Food News:
I picked up some Finger Limes from Loblaws.  They were a surprise find in the exotic fruit section.  These Finger Limes were expensive.  A box of 12-14 limes for $10, but totally worth it.  The box calls it "Cirton Caviar" because when you cut it in half and squeeze, the pulp gushes out in little balls like caviar or flying fish roe. 

Finger Lime gushing out.

When you bite and "pop" them, it's like a burst of lime juice.  I put it on some shrimp I defrosted.  Tastes great.  Good by themselves too, but it's an expensive fun snack.

Finger Limes on Shrimp.

Useless Idol News:
AKB48 members performed at the FNS show yesterday.  They performed a bunch of songs, but I liked KFC the most.  I don't think Rie was there.  Too bad.

Chicken instead of Ribs.

Lunch today -> Scores Rottiserrie
Ed, Steve, and I went to Scores for lunch.  We all got chicken, eventhough we were talking about getting ribs before going.  It's all because of the free salad bar with the chicken, that we switched.
I got the 2 leg meal with fries.

Should have gotten Sweet Potato Fries.

Ed got half a chicken with fries.

Half-Chicken Meal.

Steve got the 2 leg meal with sweet potato fries.

Steve's Grubby Fingers.

Went to Tim Horton's afterwards and got a double-double in a Christmas cup.

Tim's Christmas Cup.

Useless Idol News:
I got a box full of AKB48 stuff today.  A couple magazines, White photobook, Kibouteki Refrain CDs, Not Yet Concert DVD, and Yuko's Graduation Concert DVD Box.

AKB48 Stuff.

3 Mini Cherry Cheese Cakes

Dessert Today -> Mini Cherry Cheese Cakes
I used Anikka Cheese Cake recipe to make 3 mini cherry cheese cakes tonight.  It was fairly simple to make, except I don't have blender to mix the cream cheese and Cool Whip together.  I had to do it by hand with a spoon and it was tiring.  In the end, they look really good but the cheese cake filling part was a bit lumpy.

Mini Cherry Cheese Cakes.

Happy Birthday Yuto!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YUTO!!!

Useless Gaming News:
I picked up a couple games from Comic Book Shoppe on Friday: Munchkin Loot Letter and The Three Little Pigs.  Loot Letter is just like Love Letter, but in the Munchkin universe.  The Three Little Pigs is a quick game of building building houses.  It's an Iello game, so it should be fun and good.

New Games.

Useless Food News:
Susanna wanted a banana hanger, but the could be a flaw in the design as seen below.

Banana Hanger.

Weekend Report: Happy Birthday Susanna!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUSANNA!!!

Susanna went to the US for Black Friday, so we celebrated last week.  She probably faired better than me.  I went to the new Tanger Mall on Friday.  It wasn't very busy.  I went to get the shoes I wanted.  I picked up the Air Pegasus from Nike.  The whole store was 20% off.  Then I went to Addidas to get the SpringBlades as the sign said the whole store was 50% off.  So I tried them on, got in line for 10 minutes and when I got to the cash, the cashier told me the SpringBlade shoes were not included in the Black Friday sale.  There was a tiny little star with exceptions, and the exceptions were the shoes I wanted and another pair of shoes.  So annoying!  So I didn't buy anything from Addidas.

Food this weekend ->
Went to Urban Turban on Friday for lunch with Ed and Quashif.  Their lamb is really good.  Lots of pieces with marrow :)  The fresh Naan bread is great too.

Urban Turban Plate.

Made steak with mushrooms and green beans.

Mmm... Steak.

Picked up some BBQ wings that were on sale at SuperStore for Grey Cup weekend.

BBQ Wings.

Useless Gaming News:
Friday night was 6-player gaming at Anthony's place.  We started with Tsuro and then King of Tokyo.

King of Tokyo.

We finished the night with a long game of Robo Rally.  In the weapon filled make with only 4 flags, I didn't pick up a single weapon and barely touched the 1st flag before the game was over.

Chaotic Robo Rally.

Saturday night we played at Brian's.  Started with Scarbrough Fair.  The instructions read like it was a good game, but it really isn't.  It was a throw-in game from The Captain is Dead, which we played next.  This game is similar to Pandemic where everyone has to play their role or we lose.  It also felt like it was a 1-player game as the group decides your moves.

Meh Captain is Dead.

Then we played Nobel Treachery.  This game is great and uber fun!  I need a copy.  It's a simple card and dice game, but every player's turn can change the result of the round dramatically.  There is so much chaos it's fun.  This is a one of my new favorite games.  I'll need to call Kobald's Korner and Comic Book Shoppe to see if they have the KickStarter versions.

Must Get Noble Treachery.

Useless TV News:
SPOILER ALERT!
OMG!  Walking Dead Finale!  I should have met Emily (aka Beth) at the Pop Expo!