Weekend Report: Poor Gaming Spirit

Food this weekend ->
Ed, Steve, and I went to Ox Head on Friday for vermicelli.  Steve and I destroyed our bowls, but Ed only ate half of his (that's weak man :) ).  It was very good as usual, but the noodle portion did seem abit smaller that last time.  Lots of meat though.

Ox Head Vermicelli.

Made steak with veggies Saturday night with re-heated leftover potato, onion & bacon soup.  The frozen "Complements" mixed vegetables bag from Sobey's is pretty good.  Cheaper than buying broccoli or cauliflower too.

Steak Dinner.

Went to "Fusion Dim Sum & Sushi" for lunch with the family.  The place was packed and the service was very slow and poor.  We had a table of 5, but only got 4 cups of tea.  The 5th cup never showed up (I ordered ginger ale when tired of waiting).  Some of the food we ordered never arrived (I kind of expected this).  Ben re-ordered sesame balls (they are bad.  Not like Bai Du's which were very good) because the first order didn't arrive.  We got his first order and 2nd order!  Took them 1hr to make 2 sesame balls!  I still never got my 2 orders of short ribs (suspicious they happened to forget the money food).  Also some of the beef balls and fried beef wonton were suspect under cooked.  Most of the food was still good, but service has really gone down big time since I was last there.

Fusion Sushi.

Useless Gaming News:
Gaming at Brian's on Saturday.  We started with 3 player Ghostbusters.  Ben and I liked it, but it way longer than suggested.  Supposed to take 1 hr, but it took us 2+ hrs to play 1 scenario.

Ghostbusters Board Game.

Gordon showed up after Ghostbusters and we played Pandemic Legacy and Web of Spies.  Pandemic became a 1 player game (as usual).  It was a fast victory, but wasn't that fun.  Web of spies was better, but Brian gave up after his FIRST spy died (you start with 5) and started playing his ipad.  I wanted to leave then.  It's no point of playing if everyone is not into it.  There's also no point of sending an email to game every week, if you don't want to play!

AKB48 at Kohaku 2015

Dinner today -> Potato and Onion Soup.
Made potato and onion soup today in my pressure cooker.  I made it with chicken broth, coconut cream, some dashi, a couple spoons of pre-made yellow curry left over from Christmas, and leftover roast beef drippings and carrots.  Was going to add some frozen lobster heads for exquisite flavour, but the pot was already full.  I blended it up with my brand new hand blender.  It pureed it really well.

Useless Idol News:
Epic AKB48 performance at this year's Kohaku (NHK's New Year's Eve show).  Graduated legendary members Maeda Atsuko and Oshima Yuko made surprise appearances and performed with the girls.  Yuko still looking good and she hasn't lost a step yet.

Devastation

Lunch today -> Salad.
Went to Farmboy on the way back from Toys R Us and got some salad bar stuff.  I got mostly kale salad with some steak, broccoli, cucumbers, perogies, jalapeno poppers, and an egg roll.

Lunch.

Dinner today -> Steak.
Made a quick steak in the pan with some corn.  Microwaved some instant chicken rice too.

Steak Dinner.

Useless Gaming News:
Got my KickStarted "Trainmaker" game in the mail today.  Simple and quick dice rolling game where you build trains to meet your objectives.

Trainmaker.

Useless Transformers News:
I also got Transformers: Devastation for PS4 in the mail today.  It was on sale at BestBuy during their Boxing Day sale.  G1 based game.

Transformers: Devastation

ili Translator is cool.

Breakfast today -> Farmboy
Got up early and got the breakfast from Farmboy.  I got scrambled eggs, potatoes, potato & cheese mini baked perogies, some sliced steak, and alot of bacon :)  All for about $7 with tax.

Lunch today -> Subway.
Ate a late lunch because I was staying late a work today.  Got Subway's cold-cut trio.  Went to the one by Home Hardware.  It's less busy and the sandwich was made well and fast.

Snack today -> Lindt Mint Chip Chocolate Bar.
Tried out the new Lindt mint chip chocolate bar.  It's very good.  Creamy mint filling that isn't overpowering with a "cookies & creme"-like base.  I'd get it again.

Useless Gaming News:
4-player gaming tonight after work.  Today we played Lords of Waterdeep.  It's a worker-placement game based on a D&D world.  Each player is a lord and hires heroes to complete quests.  The winner is the one with the most points at the end of the game.  It was a 3 player neck and neck finish, but James won in the end because he completed the most quests that matched his lord's bonus.

Useless Tech News:
I need this ili translator.  I was just revealed at CES.  It translates English, Japanese and Chinese on the fly without an internet connection. 
There were other tech reveal too.  The SensorWake is cool, but it's still just an alarm clock.  And nothing beats the smell of fresh steamed rice in the morning cooked with an overnight timer :)

Christmas Haul

Dinner today -> Lamb and Corn.
Lamb is on sale at Metro and got some.  Pan fried the lamb steak with just salt and pepper.  I never noticed before, but lamb has a certain smell to it.  It smells good while I was hungry, but not so good when I was full.  Made a side of frozen corn with a bit of butter and black pepper.

Corn and Lamb.

Useless Christmas News:
My Christmas haul this year :) 

Christmas Haul.

Lego book, Lego-ish items, and video game stuff from Gordon; Machi Koro board game from Gavin; Batman keychain from Brian; Ice Truck from Jeff; Slayers DVDs from Julie; and money from Ben, Susanna, parents, and relatives.  Thank you!

Happy Birthday Andrew!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW!!!

Christmas 2015 and Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The holiday was too short.  I should have taken a couple more days off.

Holiday Food ->
Holiday festivities started at CMC with people bringing in Christmas treats to share.  There were lots of good sweets :)

CMC Sweets.

Collection of Sweets.

Then the Christmas feast with the family and relatives.  It's pretty much all day and night eating.  Lots of appetizers.  I made the sushi and potato/leek/bacon soup.

Christmas Appetizers.

Main courses.  Alot of us were still kind of full from the appetizers.  Ben also brought traditional asian chirstmas food: Kentucky Fried Chicken :)

Christmas Feast.

Dessert consisted of 2 cakes, cherry cheese cake (I made it), cookies, and fruit.

Christmas Desserts.

The family also feasted on the leftovers the next day.  We fried the leftover rice and Ben brought leftover Schwartz's Smoke Meat from Montreal

Christmas Leftovers.

Leftover cakes with a Tiramisu cake from Costco.  I also brought my leftover cheese cake filling.

Leftover Desserts.

Useless Gaming News:
Played lots of games over the holidays.  My new favorite game is "Machi Koro".  Simple and fun game.  Gavin got it for me for Christmas.

Machi Koro.

Another good one is "Coven".  The unique modular board cause alot of chaos and will mess with your plans.

Coven.

A third really good game is "Web of Spies".  Simple deck building game mixed with killing the opponents spies to win.  This is a "must buy" game for me and highly recommended.

Web of Spies.

Another good new game I played just Saturday night is "The Game".  It's a simple card game where the players co-cooperatively together try to play all the cards numbered 2 through 99.  We played 4 players and over 3 games we finally got 0 cards remaining (with some suspect table talk).  The instructions also say "you either play the game, or the game plays you."
Of course, with Gavin in town, we played some good games of Magic: the Gathering.

3-Player Magic.