Sriracha Pringles

Snack today -> Sriracha Pringles.
Found some Limited Edition Sriracha flavoured Pringles at Sobey's.  They are pretty good.  They taste like Sriracha, but it lacks the heat.  They are 3 for $5 til Thursday this week.

Sriracha Pringles.

Dinner today -> Salad
Had a big Caesar salad with tomato chunks for a late dinner today.  I was going to eat my leftover potato and lobster soup, but I packed it in tubs for my parents and grandparents to try.  It was the best soup I've ever made.

Salad.

Useless Toy News:
Picked up the Splatoon 3 pack from Toys R Us.  I didn't think I would ever find this rare set again.

Splatoon 3-Pack.

I also picked up the remaining Avenger figures I need to finish my Odin-son set.  30% off Avenger toys til Thursday this week.

Odin-son Avengers.

Useless Gaming News:
Moved "Thursday night gaming" to "Wednesday night gaming" at work due to scheduling conflicts on Thursday nights.  Today we played 3-player Wok Star.  It's a fun co-op game where players run a Chinese Restaurant.  Fast pace timer game for players to fulfil customer orders.  Its also a rare co-op game where it doesn't become a 1-player game.

Wok Star.

Mini Pear

Lunch today -> Burgers and Donuts.
Went back to Walmart at lunchtime.  I tried to get a price match for my Marvel figs, but they said they don't match percentage sales.  I need to show a price, and the Toys R Us site doesn't have the new figures on there. 
Anyways, on the way out I picked up some discount sugar mini donuts and a couple McDoubles and a coffee (today might be "coffee day" or Oct 1?).

Lunch.

Snack today -> Mini Pear.
Reza gave me a mini pear from one of his pear trees.  It was really good.  Not too sweet or tart, and has an initial crunch but the flesh is soft.  This is the kind I like.  I hate the crunchy hard ones that "want to be an apple".  Goods snack size too.

Mini Pear.

Dinner today -> Lobster and Potato Soup.
I got 3 lobster heads from T&T yesterday for $2.50 and 5 lobster claws for $5 yesterday. 

Cheap Lobster Parts.

I pressure cooked them with some red potatoes and sweet onion.  Then I blended the tomalley, some knuckle meat, and the potatoes into a smooth soup.  I added some leftover yellow curry potatoes too, for a light curry hint.  It was really good.

Lobster and Potato Soup.

Forgot Receipt

Lunch today -> Pizza.
Drove to Walmart at lunchtime today to get a price match on the Marvel figures I got on the weekend (They are 30% off at Toys R Us this week).  I got there and I forgot the receipt at home... d'oh!  I'll have to go back tomorrow.  On the way back to work, I picked up a pepperoni pizza and a coffee for lunch.

Pizza Lunch.

Dinner today -> Chicken Feet, Lotus Root, and Fish.
Got some discount T&T food on the way home from picking my parents up at the airport.  I got some BBQ chicken feet, lotus root, and fried fish.  Mmm... BBQ chicken feet.  As Steve describes it "like sucking the skin off a baby's foot".

Discount T&T Food.

Useless Gaming News:
Got a package today.  My Kickstarter of the Space Cadets expansion: Away Missions.

Space Cadets: Away Misisons.

Weekend Report -> Curry

Food this weekend ->
Went back to the East India Company Buffet on Friday.  Ed and I were disappointed they didn't have clams that day.  But they did have a really awesome curry mussels.  The sauce was super buttery and was great with rice.  They also had the crab curry.  It was imitation crab in a lightly spicy yellow curry.  Very good too.  I ate 3 plates of mussels Friday :)

Indian Buffet Plate #1.

Made a simple corn and tomato salad on Saturday for lunch.  I made it again for dinner, but I topped it with some leftover pot roast.  Much better.

Corn and Tomato Salad Topped with Pot Roast.

I was in the mood for more curry, so I picked up some chicken thighs, red potatoes, instant curry, and coconut cream; threw it into my pressure cooker.  Needed some salt or oyster sauce, but was good on rice.

Chicken and Potato Curry on Rice.

Useless Gaming News:
4-player gaming at Brian's on Saturday night.  We played Abracada...What?  Similar to Hanabi (fireworks deduction game).  The object is to guess the 5 tiles in front of you, inorder to cast that spell and defeat the other players.  Pretty fun game.  We also played King's Kilt (OK game.  Significant luck based.) and half game of Lap Dance.

Abracada...What?

Useless Toy News:
Found the new Marvel Build-a-Figure: Hulkbuster wave at Walmart on Sunday.  I got all the figs except for Iron Man.  Someone already took him.  Now I'm missing a leg.

Hulkbuster Wave.

Star Trek and Power Grid Gaming

Useless Gaming News:
Gaming Thursday at lunch time today.  We played 5-player Star Trek: Five Year Mission on Commander level again this week.  We got destroyed in the 1st game.  In 15 mins, we failed 5 missions, completed only 1 mission, the mission grid was full, and everyone was rolling less than 5 dice.
We played a 2nd game and won handily.  Only failed 1 mission because we including a house rule for the Communications Failure missions.  We decided that if anyone communicates with gestures or talk about where to place the dice, we automatically fail the mission.  We think it is a good rule to add and it keeps the spirit of the game.
After work today we played 4-player Power Grid.  With explanation of rules and slow play, we only got to 1 power plant away from Phase 3 in 2hrs.  We had to stop there and James had to leave. 
The game is very different between 3-players and 4-player games.  Resources and money are more scarce and turn order to perform actions becomes very important.
When I got home, I had a package waiting for me.  It was my KickStarter Catacombs game.  It is a disc flicking dungeon crawl game.  Should be fun.

KickStarter: Catacombs.

Useless Idol News:
AKB48's medley performance at the 10hr Music Station Ultra Fes Special this week.  The girls keep adding magic tricks to their performances.

Two-peat Champions!!!

Lunch today -> Nacho Poutine.
Only 1 food truck today.  It was Big D's.  I got the award winning Nacho Poutine.  It's got nachos, sour cream, meat sauce on the poutine.  He gave me a hefty amount.  It was good and I couldn't finish the last few fries.  It just need abit more meat sauce.

Nacho Poutine.

Useless Softball News:
CMC Strike Fighters faced off against Rockwell Collins tonight in the C- Division Championship match.  We were expecting a close game, as per our previous outing with them (we lost 13-14), but we blew them out.  Our defense was on our game and our bats were on fire.  We routed them 27-10, including two 10 run innings (max per inning).  We "Two-peated" as champions!!!

Strike Fighter Hitting.

I hit 2-for-2 with 2 singles, before I pulled myself out of the game in the 3rd inning.  I had re-injured my leg again.  Same spot as last week.

Final Score.

This year we won the June Tournament Trophy, the Playoff Championship Trophy, Molson Canadian t-shirts, and a new Combat bat.

Farmboy Breakfast

Breakfast today -> Farmboy Hot Breakfast Bar.
I had to go get a blood test this morning for my checkup next week.  I went to Farmboy afterwards as I was fasting since 6:30pm the night before.  I was starving so I loaded up on their hot breakfast bar.  I got scrambled eggs, bacon, peameal bacon, breakfast sausage, potatoes and some cherry tomatoes. 

Farmboy Breakfast.

Free coffee was included but it was empty.  There was also beans, fried perogies, and pre-made breakfast burritos available.  This meal was almost $8 with tax.  Next time I'll skip the potatoes and peameal bacon for the beans and perogies.

Dinner today -> Pressure Cooked BBQ Chicken.
Threw some frozen chicken drumsticks and some BBQ sauce into my pressure cooker.  Set it on "chicken" mode and the meal was done in 20 mins.

Pressure Cooked BBQ Chicken.

Vinyl Single

Dinner today -> Mushroom Soup
Made cream of mushroom soup for dinner today.  Added a big handful of sliced brown mushrooms to enhance the soup.

Mushroom Soup with Brown Mushrooms.

Useless Idol News:
Got a package today.  I got the limited vinyl edition of AKB48's Halloween Night.  My first vinyl record.

Vinyl AKB48 Record.

Happy Birthday Everett

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERETT!!!

Your sister is pretty good at duel-wielding the inflatable light sabres, so I hope you learn to use the gifted plastic light sabre to defend yourself fast. 

Weekend Report -> 2 Buffets

Food this weekend ->
Went to the East India Company Restaurant Bell's Corners location on Friday with Ed and Peter for lunch.  This is the best indian food buffet I've ever been too!  I was impress by the sheer variety of food and the quality of the food.  There were probably 5 different chicken dishes, mini samosas, tons of sauce dishes I've never heard of, but the main thing that caught my taste bud was the clam curry.

Plate #1

On plate #1.  I tried to try a bit of everything that had meat in it.  The butter chicken was superb.  The lamb was very good too and had large chunks of meat.  The clams were big and spicy.
I was getting full, so plate #2 targeted the money food: Clam Curry.  I think these were cherry stone clams and they were huge!  I ate a dozen with rice.  So good. 

Clam Curry!

They also sometimes have crab curry, but it wasn't there today.  The waitress said it very creamy, but not spicy.

Made sliced blade steak with brown mushrooms for dinner on Saturday.  The blade steak was chewy, but that's the way I like it.  Ben wouldn't be able to eat it.  Added a blob of garlic sauce too.

Steak and Mushrooms.

On Sunday, we celebrated my mom's birthday early.  We went to the Chinese buffet on Merivale.  I was in the mood for seafood since the clams on Friday, so I got alot of mussels.

Plate #1.

I made my usual congee mix bowl for the 2nd plate.  Topped the congee with mussels, fish, green beans, baby octopus, mushrooms, fried wonton, bacon and green onion.

Congee Mix Bowl.

Plate #3 was more mussels, chicken feet, chicken wings, and misc dim sum stuff.

Plate #3.

We meet up at my parent's house afterwards.  My mom said she didn't want cake.  So it ended up she buy a cake by herself, Susanna buying a bunch of mini-french pastry cakes, and I bought a red velvet cake and watermelon! 

Lots of Cakes.

Susanna showed me a new way to slice watermelon, so that it makes watermelon sticks.  Just cut it in a grid and makes it easy to eat

Watermelon Sticks.

Useless Gaming News:
Gaming at Jeff's place on Saturday night.  We played a couple rounds of Tsuro with the kids, before moving on the 5-player Star Trek: Five Year Mission.  We lost on Commander level with only 12 missions completed.  Then we played my new game River Dragons.  It's plays similarily to Robo Rally were you plan 5 moves ahead of time, but this game's objective is to move your villager from your start village to the opposite village.  Do this by playing/removing stones and different sized planks.  If you make a mis-step, you fall in the water and have to start over.

River Dragons.

I like this game.  Pretty fun with strategy and some luck involved.  The only flaw with this game is the plank have a tendicy to fall off the stones when removing or placing them.  If the planks were made more rough, they would have some grip.
We finished the night with a couple games of Biblios.  Jeff lost both games due to not having the tie-breaking "A" card.

Strike Fighters Advance to Finals

Useless Softball News:
CMC Strike Fighters defeated Anonymous tonight.  We won 24-18.  We now skip the semi-finals and advance straight to the finals on Wednesday night.  It was a close game with both teams hitting well, but our defense was slightly better.
I re-injured my right calf in the 1st inning.  I pulled a muscle in it.  Same spot as during the June tournament.  I couldn't run but I still hit 3-for-4 with 3 singles.  I had to stop at 1st and get a pinch runner each hit, but if I wasn't injured it would have been a single, triple, and a double.  I couldn't score any RBIs as Jeff (who was hitting before me) cleared the bases with home runs.

Useless Gaming News:
Gaming Thursday today.  At lunch time we played 5-player Star Trek: Five Year Mission.  We failed this time.  Couldn't get the right rolls on the dice.
After work we played 3-player Dungeon Fighter.  A dice dexterity game.  Pretty fun, but hard!
Finally we played Power Grid.  I lost due to tie-breaker as I had less money, but it was a good game.

Power Grid.

Janken Tournament

Lunch today -> Farmboy.
Went to Farmboy at lunch and picked up Caesar salad, kale Caesar salad, and other veggies.  I was going to go the healthy route, but I decided to top the veggies with a small rack of ribs :)  There's some new items in the hot buffet.

Salad and Ribs.

Dinner today -> Soba.
Made a quick simple dinner.  Just cold soba noodles in soba sauce.

Soba Dinner.

Useless Idol News:
Today was the 6th AKB48 Janken Tournament.  I woke up early to watch the last few rounds.  The winner after about 4 rounds of ties where only "rock" was played, was Fujita Nana of AKB48 Team K.

Winner - Fujita Nana.

Mayu's costume was cute...,

Mayu's Costume.

but the details of the back side!

Costume Details!

Useless Transformers News:
Picked up Wave 4 of Combiner Wars at Centrum Walmart today.  Got Sunstreaker, Prowl, Mirage, and Ironhide. 

Transformers: Combiner Wars - Wave 4.

Strike Fighters Advance

Useless Softball News:
Due to rain delays and bad field conditions since Saturday, CMC Strike Fighters finally played our 2nd playoff game tonight.  We played FP Edge Kut'rz. 
We started the game short 1 girl because Margaret got lost looking for the diamond.  But it was OK as we scored alot of runs and only gave up 1 run while she was missing for 2 innings.  Dave hit his 1st home run of the year too.
They made it a close game because we had 1 bad inning, but we won 17-15 in 6 innings.  We scored another run in the 7th, but then the Umpire called the game due to time.  Next playoff game is Thursday, but we are guaranteed to be playing in the Semi-Finals or Finals next week, depending on the outcome of Thursday.
I hit 2-for-3 tonight, with a sacrifice out, triple and a double.  I think I scored 3 RBIs too.  I'm hitting alot of triples lately.  Good time to be "on fire" :) 

Pulled Pork

Lunch today -> Pulled Pork Sandwiches.
Re-heated some of my leftover pulled pork from ribfest to make some pulled pork sandwiches.  I kept it simple.  Toast and mayonnaise.  Also made this for dinner (and probably for lunch and dinner Tuesday too).

Pulled Pork Sandwiches.

Useless Idol News:
Got AKB48 "Halloween Night" CD Types A, B and D, and some AKB magazines in last week.

AKB48 Stuff.

Weekend Report: Unbelievable Come-Back

Food this weekend ->
Ed, Steve and I went to Ox Head on Friday for lunch.  We all got the best dish in the place: the Ox Head Special vermicelli.

Ox Head Special.

Went to Kanata Rib Fest on Sat evening.  I got my food from Brick Yard BBQ.

Brick Yard BBQ.

I ordered the Belly Buster for $28.  It includes 1/2 rack of pork ribs, 1/2 jerk chicken, 1/2lb of pulled pork and 2 sides.  I chose beans and rice.  It was lots of food and really good.  The ribs were perfectly cooked and NOT "fall off the bone".  Exactly the way I like it.  The jerk chicken was actually better than the ribs.  Well cooked and juicy.  I want to call it "smooth".  The pulled pork was standard as was the beans.  The rice was cooked well too.  No clumps and light.

Belly Buster.

I went back on Sunday afternoon to get another Belly Buster.  Not as good as the night before as the ribs were more "charred".  I was also given 2 leg halves instead a 1/2 chicken.  Still very tasty.

2nd Belly Buster.

Useless Softball News:
Most of the softball playoffs was cancelled due to rain this weekend, but the CMC Strike Fighters did get our 1st round game completed vs Lockheed Martin.  We had all the calls called against us by the umpire and we were losing 7-18 going into the bottom of the last inning.  We made an unbelievable come-back scoring 12 runs and won 19-18!  Round 2 is Monday night.
I hit 2-for-2 with 2 singles and a walk.

Kanata Rib Fest 2015

Lunch today -> Ribs.
Went to the Kanata Rib Fest for a late lunch today (around 2:15pm).  There were 5 rib cookers there but not that many people.  The location is at the Walter Baker Park, but there is no walk-by traffic there.  They are also behind the big hill, so cars just driving by won't see it.

Crazy Canuck Smokers.

I got a half rack from Crazy Canuck Smokers.  It was saucy and smokey, but not very sweet.  Some of my ribs were dry and the meat didn't have much flavour.

Louisiana Bar-B-Que.

I got another half rack from Louisiana Bar-B-Que.  This was not as smokey and had a sweet honey flavour.  After a couple ribs the sweetness turned into a honey orange marmalade flavour with a hint of something odd... almost like a Chinese orange candy.  It tastes like orange, but not exactly orange.  Anyways, I didn't like it after a couple ribs.  I gave a couple ribs to Susanna and she said it was too sweet and had a orange flavour too.

Louisiana (left) and Crazy Canuck (right)

Useless Gaming News:
Went to work on my "staycation" at lunch time, just for today's gaming lunch.  We played 4-player Star Trek: Five Year Mission.  Lots of fun with my work group.  We barely succeeded at Commander difficulty level.