one week down, one more to go

half way through my weeks out of freedom. what have I been up to...let's see.

We went and saw Iron man 2. Not exactly a bad movie but then again nothing compared to the first one. I have the same complaint (I know, me with a complaint about a movie...shocking :) ) about this movie as I did with the Spider-man sequels. There are movies that are action and explosions and then there are movies that are character development and all. I mean, I don't want to see the female character from Under The Tuscan Sun pick up a bazooka and assault rifle and take out a Russian tank and 3000 armed soldiers, just as I don't want to hear about Tony Stark whining about his life's choices and how he is slowly sinking into depression. Alright, so he is slowly being poisoned by his suit and is gonna die soon but that is no reason to actually show it. I just thought that they had enough cheesy depression acting to kind of kill the mood of the movie, but they also had enough explosions and all to make me sit through the whole movie and just hope that they went quickly through the cheese. Though they have made enough allusions to sequels such as Iron Man 3 as well as a whole new string of Avenger movies.

We went to dinner theatre at Jubilation's with a A and V. It was Law and Order and we all agreed that it had to be one of the better shows that they had put on. There was a lot more singing than the others and they were all songs that we enjoyed. There characters were great, especially the Donny Do-Wright character that had really over the top acting (which was a selling point for me) and an apparently really 'hot bod' (which was a selling point for the Mrs). Guess this means I am gonna have to start working out in the gym more often. :-) The food was great, though I always go for the prime rib so have no real comparison here but the soup, salad and dessert were far better than the others we have had.

We had dinner with a couple friends at Guru restaurant (http://www.gururestaurant.ca/) which was overall amazing. I am not a big fan on the whole curry scene but these dishes were great. Enough spices to enhance the flavour of the ingredients in the dish but not enough to assault your taste buds with spice and grit. I would go into detail on the items that we had but I really honestly don't know what we ate. All I remember is that we had a goat meat dish, which one of our friends insisted we not even put the dish near her since she wanted nothing to do with it, and we had naan bread which was soft, warm and out of this world. We had 4 different appetizers shared amongst us all and we all agreed that the shrimp pakora (shrimp lightly battered in chick pea and browned) was amazing. Shrimp cooked to perfection and amazingly tasty. We had about 7 different main courses (all ordered and then put in the centre and we all dipped into them) two different rice dishes (saffron rice and coconut rice, with real coconut in the mix) and three desserts. I had the apple dessert which was less than impressive since it was basically just apple rings battered and then deep fried with a simple sugar syrup on it. No real flair or fanciness to it and definitely a weak finishers following the amazing flavours we had already tried. All and all it was a great feast though slightly pricey on the end of it all but worth it.

The Mrs and I went to The Double D lounge and grill on Stony Plain road. The whole story basically went that we were buying a new vacuum and happened to notice that across the street from the vacuum store there was a place called Double D Lounge and Grill. Of course, me being a man made a comment of how that is one place that we have to try. So from then on, every time we passed by the place the Mrs kept asking me if I wanted to go in and try. We were both wondering if the place was named cause the place was a sort of knock off of Hooters where all the waitresses had to be DD cups or what. So finally a couple days ago I had picked up the Mrs from work (she works about 7 blocks from the place) and we were hungry cause it was lunch time so we both thought it a good idea to give it a try and see what it was like.

After walking in and sitting down the first thing the Mrs says is that it is kind of dodgy. I wouldn't say that I agreed completely but it definitely was not the finest decorated establishment. It looked like every other lower end bar that I had been in in my life. Pool table, dart board, typical bar tables and computer printed notices hanging from the walls promoting up coming specials or events in the bar. It even had the added touch of having a couple patrons sitting on bar stools or chairs talking to the bar server like Norm and Cliff would have bantered with Carla from Cheers. We got our menus and ordered a philly cheese steak for myself and the Mrs had the chicken club sandwich with onion rings. It is really amazing how good food can change a person's opinion of a place. The chicken club was good, the onion rings were just the way I like them (battered and deep fried...none of this A&W breaded and baked for the healthy person crap.) and the philly cheese was moist and delicious and it came with a big order of home cut fries. For the price and the serving size of the food it was definitely worth it. Service was kind of slow and I had to take the menus up and order from the bar as well as take our plates to the front bar to ask for take away cause the bartender was too busy chatting with friends and taking inventory of the liquor on the back bar, but we figure you don't go to a place like that for fast service on food. I have no idea what the place would be like for night life entertainment or what it turns in to at night, but for a nice lunch if you are down around 15203 Stony Plain Road in Edmonton then it might be worth your while to give it a look at.

I also asked before walking out the door about the name of the place. It is named for the two owners whose both names begin with D's. I don't think there was a woman in the whole place (patrons and workers) that was a D or higher. So, yeah, mystery solved and good lunch to boot.

Other than that, just basically have been hanging out around the house sick with a cold. I have had a cold from camp for the last 3 weeks and I get out of camp and start to get better but then manage to start to catch the cold the Mrs has had for the last 2 and a half weeks that she got from the kids. I used to have just a stuffed up nose and head but now I have a stuffed up runny nose and sore, dry, scratchy throat. Hoping that I can get rid of it before flying back on the 19th.

Plans for the next couple days are dinner at a friends place, The Gage Cup roller derby tournament (http://www.evillederby.com/), and movies (Losers, new Robin Hood, DVDs at home). So far cooking at home has been a total bust and all. All I have made has been a pasta like concoction and lamb shanks with the bone off and I tried to make a mint wine sauce to go with it. Not really my best work and all. Definitely need more practice on items and all. So far I have yet to make a meal that I can hold my head high and say "yep, I done that!"

Oh, bad grammar, that reminds me of an incident in camp that had the 1st cook and myself laughing and mocking for a few days. Some cause it was a funny thing and also cause we had been in camp for a long time, run ragged and just were going loopy. The housekeeper came to the back of the kitchen and was looking around for her breakfast. Apparently the breakfast cook had made her an omelet and said he put it in the fridge for her and she went looking for it. She couldn't find it so she walked away unhappy. Finally the breakfast cook came in after his morning workout and I said the housekeeper couldn't find her breakfast. So he went out and got it for her. Apparently he meant the fridges out in the dining room for the public not the fridge in the back that we keep our produce and meats in. I saw her about 20 minutes later when her break was ending and asked if she got her breakfast. She looked at me and said "Yep, I finded it". I looked at her and in my usual response of repeating bad grammar in the hopes that the person would pick up on it and repeat it correctly I asked "so you finded it easily?" and got the response "yep, I finded it in the front fridge..silly me" and she walked away. I told this to the 1st cook and he just laughed. After that we kept asking each other "did you finded the salt that you were looking for?" or "I had to make chicken wings for tomorrow, I dided it". Little stupid things that you do in isolation to help the days go by quicker.