D&D live at the RIO

A few months ago, (and every month since) Bry-man and I had a nice date night break to alleviate my major project deluge and took to the Broadway and Commercial area for dinner and a show.

Dinner needed to be nearby the Rio theatre (our entertainment venue for the eve) so we headed to St. Augustine's pub .... This isn't just ANY pub! It boasts 40-odd craft beers scrolling on a large screen TV, displaying how much of each keg is left. So you know before you order if your choice is available.
 

They have the most impressive selection of IPA's that I've ever seen on tap (with Toronado's in San Fran, the title holder) and most of them, if not all, were from the west coast. Bryan and I dove in. I had a light, jasmine-infused beauty from Seattle first and a second from Oregon that claimed to have all sorts of flower and spice essences, but yielded a standard but delicious IPA flavor.

They have some pretty incredible nachos (but Bryan's are better) which we elected to add the pulled pork to. Damn fine choice, and I can't believe we finished them!

Spitz takes it in the face--AGAIN!

At 7 we headed to the Rio Theatre to enjoy a D&D live improv event called the Critical Hit Show. Joanna Gaskell (Edda the Barbarian) from Standard Action was present, along with her co-stars "the players", namely: Shaun Stewart (Thrask Hellbeard), Allen Morrsion (Spitz Lube'n), Ian Boothby (Benoit the Anointed), Lauren McGibbon (Grima Windwords) and the DM: Eric Fell. Each played out a D&D character armed with toy weapon and power reference cards.

The show was interactive, and audience members were brought up to play the villains! It was a hilarious night, and is fun for anyone that does or has ever play D&D.Though haters be warned, they play 4th Edition. I could easily see this becoming a dress up event as popularity grows!

The Rio is licensed and offers wine, beer and some cocktails! Some decent beer selection too! Local Granville Island selections and Red Racer were available.

Be sure to check out the next Critical Hit Show, happening the last Wednesday of the month. Good fun for $8 bucks!

Morrissey Pub on Granville ~ ambience and good value

I ate at the Morrissey Pub tonight for the third time. Drawing me there was the availability of Whistler Brewery Chestnut Ale (seasonal!!! and not available in BCL). If you are a fan of Granville Island Winter Ale, this is like it's tougher big brother, it's delicious!  There is about a month left on their keg, so head there soon before they run out!

Anyways, to the food. My first visit there with Bry-man we splurged and pigged out on the Gruyere cheese fondue with cheesy bread. It was phenomenal! Really, truly awesome. So awesome that only it, and the chestnut ale can be recalled about that meal, despite having had mains afterward.

Now tonight I tried out their Hippie chick burger (see their menu and description here). It was AWESOME. Priced at only $11.00 I decided to upgrade to the 1/2 fries & 1/2 salad option. For those of you going to visit on my recommendation, please don't bother with their salad. It's just a small piling of lettuce. There is not a single bit of vegetable on there, and was a serious disappointment, even for a side salad.  The fries were good though I would go with this option.

The big bonus was when the check came. They didn't point it out but my burger was only $6.00... because it was Wednesday?... I think?.... but I was quite pleased by the surprise. Overall, the ambience is very cool and eclectic, and at night it's candle & lantern lit adding a bit of romantic sway. The menu is brief but satisfying and quite delicious.... but don't bother with the side salad. Enjoy :)

Crap...am I really writing about Twitter?!

Here I sit.... I have NO idea what to write about. I think this is what I like about Twitter really. The thought comes to you, and you tweet it.

I also get to follow all of the random famous people that I usually enjoy from a distance. Not in like a creepy stalking kind of way (well, except for Alan Tudyk -- major heart on for that fella) but like we are good friends, sharing thoughts and photos.

Before I met Bry-man, I ignorantly hated Twitter. Mostly because a friend of mine couldn't peel his eyes off his phone when we arrived in Edinburgh, due to his desperate need to 'tweet' about what we were doing or seeing, or JUST did.

So I decided to shun Twitter, like I had IRC, and anything to do with Yahoo.

I shun these things usually out of a basic need to not further complicate my life. I have plenty of 'things' cluttering my mind, and requiring my attention why add another??

But my BF didn't use any other form of social media, so I decided to follow him on Twitter when we first got together, so I could see who I was getting involved with.

Well, that was successful, and so much so that I now follow our mutual favorites: The Bloggess, Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Patton Oswalt... and then I added my own tastes in : Krafty Kuts, Neil Patrick Harris, Kevin Smith, etc.... what a slippery slope. Thing is, I can't stand those crazy Re-tweeters and those people who tweet about what they are watching and tweet like 20 times in a row (really people, this is what a blog is for!). The WHOLE IDEA is to get your thought across in 140 characters max (why this number I'll never know). Succinct, specific, short. I like it. It's a great exercise in self-editing... "Is everything I'm trying to type REALLY necessary?"...usually no. Hell, sometimes you'll completely give up on the "tweet", because the moment's passed.

Thank you Twitter, for kicking Facebook's ass because you don't allow people to play stupid barn-yard animal games on you, thereby not creating reasons to bother your old schoolmate from 20 years ago to 'play with me'.

Incidentally, follow me on Twitter if you like! @JCurllz. ;)

Monday .... monday

Ugh. I DID NOT get enough sleep this weekend.

Friday Bry-man and I hosted a friend of ours to a night of board games and drinking. And BOY does he drink. Impressive really. Not that I would be interested in keeping up with him. But it's quite entertaining to watch it occur before your eyes. Until he picks up the sword.... luckily no one was hurt, including my sword.

But yea, stayed up too late playing games, and couldn't seem to sleep in Saturday morning. :( I REALLY love sleep, I do, but sometimes when I know someone else is in my house (such as a drunk friend staying over) I can't be entirely comfortable. I'm always listening to see if they are up. So, I lay awake listening to Bry-man sleep. We bought this insane air mattress for when we have guests over. It's like having a queen sized bed in our living room. I discovered just how comfy it was as I took a test drive on it after we let the sucker blow ITSELF up! :) It has a built in motor. It says we aren't supposed to use it outdoors, but this thing WILL be going into my tent when I go camping. Yay luxury.

Managed a wee bit more shut-eye, before I joined the ladies in my immediate family for a quick outing to Costco. Man-alive I could wander the aisles of Costco for hours. And often do. SOOOOO many bulk items. So many different THINGS I never knew I HAD to have! For instance, there were some beautiful place mats that would match our dining room table (and protect it) 8 for $11.00.  *yoink* and then we came across these Chef mats for the kitchen. I stood on one quickly and BAM, instant relief in my knees and legs. It was blissful, so *yoink* $24.99 and it has a pretty decorative pattern on the waterproof surface that goes nicely in the kitchen. As every trip to Costco does, the bill added up quickly.

We headed to Ladner to play board games with my sister later that evening. And when we got home, I was so tired.....but couldn't sleep.*sigh* Bry-man said he wasn't tired at all, and then proceeded to fall asleep in about 2.5 seconds and I'm sitting there thinking DAMMIT. I wish I could sleep like that when I'm NOT tired. Poor guy was getting sick though, so some snoring kicked in in full stereo. It was about 12:50am before I resigned myself to not beating him up for a window of quiet to slip into my much needed coma. It's not nice to beat up the people you care about.  So I walked into the living room, and set up on the couch. At about 7am, I couldn't sleep all scrunched up any more, and I could still hear sickie through the door, so I watched the final 3 episodes of Battlestar Galactica. So good. So sad it's over. Kara Thrace, and William Adama, and Sol Ty.... I heart you.

By the time Bry-man was up on Sunday, I was starving so, we had some deeeee-lish Sausage and egg sandwiches from Starbucks, and got our lazy on. TRY Starbucks sausage breakie sandwich. I'm hooked. They kick McDs' sandwich in the snatch.

Not that I'd ever complain about having plans, but I truly love a good Sunday off.  We walked to the grocery store and I picked up some ingredients I needed for dinner. I was going to cook Indian again so that we could use up some lovely chutney's I'd made the previous weekend.  I use this wonderful cook book put out by a local Vancouverite : "Everyday Indian: 100 Fast, fresh and Healthy recipes" by Bal Arneson. I've yet to find a single thing in it that ISN'T delicious! It always makes me feel like a Gormet Goddess (which is what my apron says I am) to make homemade roti's first thing in the morning from scratch.

After cooking a huge feast for two, I proceeded to finish our bottle of wine and I completed the campaign (on easy) for Modern Warfare 3. Kicking ass at 'completion'!

And now it's Monday. For a weekend of 'nothing' I'm knackered. Good thing we're going to Vegas this weekend! ;)

My Home is a Library!

As of late, my home has resembled a used book store.

We had to move all of my living room furniture to accommodate a new TV, and in order to move my 3 book shelves, they had to be emptied.  For you Vancouverites, imagine MacLeod's Books re-locating to your living room! Impossible to know what was in there, and a daunting re-org task that required attention.

It's nuts! I love my books, and every summer I herd a fortune of books into my house from Garage sale-ing (yes it's a verb) all summer. Naturally I have found myself with some dupes, which require me going to another of my favorite used books stores to re-sell them.  A step I'd rather skip by avoiding the dupe purchase to begin with!

I tried to catalogue my bookshelves manually, writing each book in a wee notebook by author. I lost my steam after awhile though, and in the end always forgot the frakkin' notebook at home.... resulting in more dupes. 

When I bought my iPhone last year it was the big fix I was looking for! A way to catalogue my books electronically and always have the list with me! I don't leave the house without my phone... because like many people I love my iPhone... it's everything I've ever wanted in a device, and I NEVER get lost with it! (whoops, tangent)

Wouldn't you know it though, another hurdle presented itself. I couldn't simply type the books into the notepad. That's a waste of time, and so far as I know you can't 'sort' or 'search' a note.  I've been looking for approximately a year for an appropriate app for me to catalogue my dang book collection. Ideally it would also catalogue other items, DVD's, PS3 games maybe? I didn't want to be greedy... after all it's the books I'm concerned with not duplicating. 

Well the wait paid off. I've found this app 'Home Library' (http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/home-library/id399196568?mt=8)

Home Screen - 'Home Library'

The app is only $0.99 cents! A far cry from some of the $4.99+ apps that seem to offer only one option for cataloguing. Best part of this beautifully designed app is that I can scan just about every book in my collection and it will (just about) instantly input the book into my collection with a picture of the cover (if available; applies to every option), a brief description, cost, publication date, etc!!! Information I never thought I'd actually care about! Alllllll there for me to reference! Manual entry is an option, and if it doesn't find it by scanning you can do a keyword search.

I've scanned 200 books already and it proposes that my collection is worth approximately $3,000.00 ?!?! Holy crap. That's only two of my 5 book shelves.... I'm certainly rich in book.

The cherry on top is being able to keep track of what I lend out, as well as e-mailing an excel spreadsheet to myself to back up my collection. WOOT! I just love this frickin' app. There are bugs to be fixed up, and it crashes from time to time, but my info is always there to greet me upon re-opening the app. (Understandably I'm over working the poor thing).  This thing's only gonna get better, and then it's gonna get more expensive.

I found it, I love it, I recommend it if you are a collector and want to centralize your content for referencing! :) Happy scanning!