Alabama Steak

Nothing really going on today (or this week).  Mainly working my butt off for one of my projects, which means alot of late nights at my desk.  I brought my Transformers Movie DVD to watch/listen while working to help keep me entertained.  I also brought my Running Man drive to watch/listen to some older episodes.

Dinner today -> Alabama Steak.
Went back to Loblaws and picked up a 50% off Alabama marinated steak.

Alabama Steak.

Pan cooked the steak and made some carrots to go with it.  The steak was OK.  I was expecting more flavour as it was abit bland.  It did have a slight soapy herb taste.

Dinner.

Max Mouse Speed is Too Slow

Getting alot of work done the past few days, but I got annoyed with my mouse this morning.  I found it moving too slow.  When I checked the control panel, it was already set at maxium speed!?!?  Well, I think Window's max mouse speed is too slow.

Dinner today -> Fettuccine Alfredo.
Stayed late at work today so I hit Loblaws for discount food.  I found a big pack of Fettuccine Alfredo for 50% off.  Nuked it and ate the whole thing for dinner.

Pasta Dinner.

Useless Gaming News:
Peter picked up a game for me from Meeple Mart over the weekend: Mansions of Madness.  BUT he bought the expansion instead of the base game :(  I guess I'll have to order the base game later.

The Expansion.

Weekend Report -> Cobble Hill Santa Puzzle

Food this weekend ->
Went to Little Sheep for Sunday dinner.  I got an individual bowl with just the regular broth.  We started with the free appetizers: roasted backbones, seaweed salad, and slivered potato salad.

Appetizers.

The food came out really fast and we ordered alot of meat.  The sliced lamb was very good, but the lamb balls were even better.  I also ate alot of mussels, sliced beef, and mushrooms.

Little Sheep Dinner.

Useless Toy News:
Went to work on Saturday and Sunday, but inbetween Julie came over to hangout.  We had KFC for dinner (forgot to take pic) and then we stayed up all night watching TV and finishing my Cobble Hill Santa puzzle.  The puzzle was more difficult than I expected because Cobble Hill puzzle pieces are cut in weird irregular shapes.  This puzzle also had alot of black and blue pieces.  I think I will stick to my preferred Ravensburger puzzles.  Plus the quality is better.

Cobble Hill Santa Puzzle.

Dragonzord

Snack today -> Creme Brule Ice Cream.
It was a warm day today and the heat was still blasting at work.  So I decided to pick up some ice cream from Metro.  I got Creme Brule Ice Cream.  It's got ribbons of burnt sugar in it.  It was also 50% off.  I big ice cream cone in the afternoon really hit the spot.

Ice Cream Snack.

Useless Toy News:
Saw this new Power Rangers toy at Walmart: The Dragonzord.  It comes with the Green Ranger.  When you turn the switch on the back, lights and sounds activate, the chest opens to allow the Green ranger to get in, missle hatches open on the shoulders, and after a few seconds the 5 missles in the chest rotate and shot out.  On top of that, the Green Ranger's sword remotely controls the Dragonzord to move on the floor and whips the tail.  If it wasn't $70, I'd buy it.  I'll have to wait for a sale... a big sale.

Dragonzord.

Medium Rare Roast Beef

Dinner today -> Roast Beef.
I made a small roast beef last night and cooked it to medium rare.  It was just seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.  Cooked in the over at 375F for 1hr20.  I let it sit wrapped in tinfoil over night and then put it in the fridge this morning.  I cut it open for dinner and it looked really good.

Medium Rare Roast Beef.

I sliced it up for dinner.  Added steamed broccoli and cauliflower, cottage cheese, grape tomatoes, and mini sweet peppers.

Roast Beef Dinner.

Useless Gaming News:
Played 4-player Imhotep after work today.  This game is so good.  So much strategy impacted by each players limited options.  I can't believe this game was only nominated for best game of the year.  We need to play faster.  Took us 2hrs+ for a 40min game. 

Swanky Ladle

Dinner today -> Texas Flank Steak.
Stayed late at work today and I went to Loblaws afterwards.  I picked up a 50% off Texas Flank Steak.  It was pre-marinated and scored.  Very good.  Ate it with a side of cottage cheese, grape tomatoes, and 1/3 of a cucumber.

Dinner.

Useless KickStarter News:
I got my KickStarted Swankys today.  I got 3: 1 white and 2 black.  These are ladles shaped like a swan and they are balanced to stand on a table, on soup, or in the soup.  I like the white one more, but I'm afraid it might stain in tomato sauce.  So I got 2 blacks instead of 2 whites.

Swankys.

Useless Transformers News:
Picked up Wave 3 of the Titan Masters at Bayshore Walmart on the weekend.  Still looking for Broadside and the latest Legend figures.

Titan Masters Wave 3.

Long Weekend Report -> Conan Board Game

Food this weekend ->
Went and got lunch at White Tail Game Meat Grill on Friday.  I wanted a Bison Burger, but they were sold out.  I got a Wild Boar Sausage instead.  It was very good.  Not cheap, but I would try them again.  The cook looks like wrestler Daniel Bryan.

Breakfast of eggs, toast and meat when I got up at 1pm on Saturday :)

Bought a pile of veggies and chopped them up.  I was going to eat healthy, but I felt like 3 McDoubles on the way out of Walmart.  Only 1 made it back for the picture :)

Toasted bagels and topped them with cream cheese and smoked salmon.  Smoke salmon was on sale at Loblaws a fews ago and I defrosted a package.

Lots of discount meat at Loblaws Sunday night because Monday was Family Day.  I picked up a couple packs of quick stir fry beef for 50% off.  Sliced it into strips and mixed it with some vegetables.  Would have been good with rice, but I was too lazy to make it.

Useless Gaming News:
Played 4-player Conan.  It took us 3hrs!  It's a campaign game Ben and Brian wanted to play.  It's a minatures boardgame where each game is a mission and leads into the next mission.  IMHO, it's an offensive minded game.  Sitting back will get you surrounded and killed. 

I wasn't into this game.  I don't want to play campaign games.  I much prefer short to medium time games.  After while, Brian started playing with his phone and started giving up (he was playing the villians).  Not sure why he wants to play these types of games.

Chocolate Covered Banana Gummy Bears

Useless Food Info:
Went to Bulk Barn tonight.  I picked up bags of pistachios, peanut butter pretzel balls, and chocolate covered banana gummy bears.

Bulk Barn Snacks.

The pistachios were just pistachios.  Nothing special.
The peanut butter pretzel balls sounded good, but they weren't that good.  It's not peanut buttery enough and I found the pretzel bit kind of soft and abit stale tasting.  Needs a stronger peanut butter part and a crunchy pretzel.  I don't recommend this.
I was iffy about the chocolate covered banana gummy bears, but they are great!  Tastes just like a chocolate covered banana, but you get to chew it more.  I recommend trying it out.

Pork Crackling Strips

Snack today -> Crackling.
I found Pork Crackling at the Super Walmart.  It's basically pork rinds cut into strips.  These are so good!  Everyone should try these.  Every piece is has really good crunch.

Crunchy Crackling.

Snack today part 2 -> Haagen Dazs.
It was really hot at work today.  Not sure why the heat was blasting so much.  I went out in the afternoon to pick up a package and get some frozen Haagen Dazs Vanilla Dark bars (on sale at Sobey's).  This really hit the spot.

Vanilla Dark Bar.

Useless Gaming News:
After work gaming today.  Only James, Peter and myself tonight.  We played a new game called Imhotep.  This is a great Egypt themed game!  Lots of strategy.  The object is the collect as many points by shipping stones to 5 different scoring tiles.  Each round there are only 4 ships and the ships are of random sizes (cargo hold of 1 to 4).  During your turn you can do 1 of 4 actions: get 3 stones for the sled, move 1 stone from the sled to a ship, move a ship, or play an action card (if you get one).  What you do and when you do it, influences what others can or will do.  3 players was great, but I think 4 players will be even better.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Snack today -> Valentine Chocolates.
Social committee (me) got a huge pile of Lindt chocolates for everyone at work for Valentine's Day.  It was a pretty good assortment.  Surprisingly, I only ate 2 pieces.

Lots of Chocolates.

Dinner today -> French Beans and Steak.
Went to Sobey's at lunchtime and I found a 3-pack of Sterling AAA steaks for 50% off!  I made one for dinner.  Pan fried to a medium-rare and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.  I then made a bag of french beans in the steak drippings for a side.

French Beans and Steak.

Leafy Winter Tree

Useless Tree News:
I'm not sure if there is something wrong with my tree in the front yard, or if it has super powers?  Eventhough all the leaves have turned orange/brown, it didn't drop them in the fall.  Almost all the leaves are still on it today.  It's been like this every year and only drops the leaves in the spring right before it grows new leaves.  Kind of cool that I have a tree with leaves in the winter.

Leafy Winter Tree.

Weekend Report -> Ghost Shrimps feast on Mussel

Food this weekend ->
Peter made roast beef Thursday night and brought me in a sample of his creation.  It was amazingly good.  Perfectly cooked to a medium-rare and well seasoned.  I'll need to ask him for his spice rub.

Peter's Roast Beef.

Made stew on Saturday.  I've been boiling and cooling some stewing meat and marrow bones for a couple days.  I just had to add some mini-potatoes, onions, organic carrots and a couple of eggs.  Most of the beef naturally shredded though the boiling, so there was meat everywhere in the stew.  I made fresh rice to pour the stew over it.

Stew.

I cooked the 2nd half of the mussels I got earlier in the week from Costco on Sunday.  I made it with garlic and black bean this time.

Mussels.

With the broth, I added cooking cream, butter, and some leftover sausage.  Boiled and reduced it, and then poured it over the mussels.

Mussels in Garlic & Black Bean Sauce.

Useless Aquarium News:
I prepared one of the dead mussels for my fish tank.  I half-shelled the mussel and placed it the middle of the tank.  The fish took a few nibbles at it, but it was the ghost shrimps that really feasted on it. 

Ghost Shrimps eating Mussel.

These 2 were eating like there was no tomorrow.  The others came to eat later and some snails also joined the feast.  Only the tongue and abit of the body was left the next day.

Reese Peanut Butter Cups stuffed with Reeses Pieces

Lunch today -> Kanata Noodle House
Went out for lunch today for and SQA Lunch.  We went to Kanata Noodle House.  I didn't know we were going out as I had just eaten a large bag of green beans for an early lunch (because I was hungry since I woke up).  I still order my usual Pho #15, but only a medium.  It was still a big bowl, but I managed to drink all the broth and eat everything in the bowl!

Pho #15 Medium.

Useless Toy and Food News:
Susanna and I went shopping at Toys R Us, Tanger Outlet Mall, Costco, and Loblaws tonight.
No new Transformers at Toys R Us, but I did find a Cobble Hill Santa puzzle on clearance for 40% off.  At Tanger, we found the rare Reese Peanut Butter Cup stuffed with Reeses Pieces!  $2.50 for a 2 cup pack.

Santa Puzzle and Reese Peanut Butter Cups stuffed with Reeses Pieces.

The fire pit was lit, but it was too cold outside to feel the warmth.

Lit Fire Pit.

LEGO Batman Movie Screening

Snack today -> Yogurt & Green Onion Kettle Chips.
Tried out these Kettle chips I found.  The flavour is Yogurt & Green Onion, but the taste isn't very strong.  It mostly taste like salted kettle chips with a hint of onion.  Can't really recommend it.

Meh.

Useless Movie News:
I had 2 free passes to the screening of the new LEGO Batman Movie Wednesday night.  I went with Julie.  I saw Gordon there exiting too, but he didn't see me wave.

Screening Ticket.

The movie was better than I expected, but not as good as the original LEGO Movie.  Lots of action and funny parts.  Halfway through the movie I thought in my head, "Damn it!  Now I have to buy all these Lego set I didn't want to buy!".  I found the ending abit stupid, but it's a Lego ending.

New Games

Useless Gaming News:
Ordered some new games last week and they just arrived.  I got Sushi Go Party!, Escape Room the Game, and Camel Cup Cards.  This Escape Room game should be better than the one we played on the weekend.  It has 4 escapes in it (in increasing difficulty) and it uses an electronic decoder/timer for the escapes.  The instructions also say that the escapes can be reassembled and replayed by printing out the blank puzzles sheets from the website.

Newest Games.

There are also 2 expansions out, which I might get.

Long Weekend Report: Puzzle Day

I took vacation days for Friday and Monday to have long weekend, to be lazy, and not think about work :)

Julie came over on Friday and we had a "Puzzle Day".  To celebrate, she wore the puzzle necklace I got for her at Christmas.  It's got etched puzzle pieces inside the big puzzle piece.  Very cool imho ;)

Puzzle Necklace.

We got dishes from T&T for dinner: Singapore noodles, sweet & sour pork, tofu with mushrooms, veggie and black fungus, lotus root (there wasn't enough lotus root so the lady gave another item to top it up) and green curry beef with fried tofu.  Also got a large hot & sour soup and large white rice with the meal deal.

T&T Meal Deal.

We stayed up til 9am Saturday morning finishing two 1000 piece puzzles while watching TV, Lego Movie, and He-Man episodes.  It was a long but fun "Puzzle Day".  It's very calming and relaxing working on puzzles too.

Puzzle #1.

Puzzle #2.

Food this weekend ->
I slept in and then did some grocery shopping on Monday.  I picked up some mussels at Costco.  I steamed them in caramelized onions, chopped garlic, and 1/2 cup of water.

Steamed Mussels.

Then I scooped out the mussels into a bowl.  In the remaining liquid in the pan, I added cooking cream and butter, and boiled it down to make a cream sauce to be poured over the mussels.  It was very buttery and good.

Mussels in Cream Sauce.

Useless Transformers News:
After taking Julie home Saturday morning, I went to Walmart and picked up the new Transformers Gordon emailed me about.  I got the 4 figures from the latest deluxe wave of Titans Returns:  Twinferno, Hot Rod, Breakaway, and Triggerhappy.  Didn't find the Broadside or the new Legends: Gnaw, Kickback, and Bumblebee.

Newest Deluxe Transformers.

Useless Gaming News:
After sleeping all day on Saturday, I got up to go to Brian's for 4-player gaming that night.  We played TIME Stores Marcy Expansion first and finished it on the 4th try.  I don't know why our group insists on doing "exploring" games.  I would prefer to finish the game with the least amount of tries, a-la-spirt-of-the-game.  That way we can get a better end game bonus.  I was getting annoyed that Brian kept wanting to read/explore every card in the game.  You don't have to read/explore every card!  You can leave cards as unknown now and to be explored next time; or just read them after finishing the game!  I felt like getting up and leaving at one point.
With TIME Stories done, we played Ben's "Escape The Room - Mystery at the Stargazers Manor".  Basically a 90 minute escape room in a box.  A good game for beginners, but we are veterans at this so we finished this escape game fairly quickly (probably less than 30mins?).  The puzzles aren't very hard, but it almost became a 1 player game with Brian trying to take control (and insisting his answer was correct when it wasn't at one point).  The game allows up to 8 players, but more than 4 and it gets difficult to share the puzzles.

Escape the Room Game.

We finished the night playing "Roll for It" for a few rounds.

Happy Birthday Mark!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!!!

Mystery Snacks

Snacks today -> Mystery Snacks.
Someone dropped off some home-made treats at work Thursday morning.  It was some extremely good snacks: Mini-butter cookies, chocolate fudge, and sweet & salty soft brittle.  The soft brittle was unbelievably good.  It had a sweet caramel base topped with chocolate, walnuts, pretzels, and a light sprinkle of salt.

Mystery Snacks.

I found out at lunchtime that it was Dave's wife who made and traded for these snacks.

Blocked In

Was late to work this morning because the city was clearing the snowbanks on my street.  The workers decided to plow a long line of snow/ice and blocking me in.  Then they decided to take a 15 minute break! 

Blocked In.

What the heck!  I waited for them to clear it, while my neighbour a couple houses down, shoveled a hole to leave.

Lunch today -> Roadhouse Chili.
Clearing out my cupboards at home and brought some cans of Roadhouse Chili to eat.  It's pretty good.  Very filling.  Lots of meat too.

Chili Lunch.

Useless DVD News:
I ordered the box set of Psych on DVD on Sunday from Amazon.  I got it today.  I should have waited, as I found out on Monday morning that HMV Canada is closing, so I could have gotten this set on a closing sale.  It's too bad HMV is closing as I like to get DVD sets from there.

Limited Edition Psych DVD.

Useless Puzzle News:
Been working on my Ravensburger "What If" puzzle #8 for the past 3 nights.  It took me about 8 hours to get this far.

Puzzle Progressing.