that ring of confidence

The one where I whine about not being able to hold my liquor

back in the days of my youth, before I was fast approaching 30 and when I could hold my liquor, I rarely if ever drank.  Well I rarely if ever drink now, but I'm more likely to have a social beer with dinner if I'm out with friends.  Those halcyon days saw me be able to drink pretty much anything and awake the next day feeling brand new, no matter how much I'd drank the night before.  These days that's not the case. 

A few weeks ago I stopped in at White Spot on my way home from work because the sky had opened up and unleashed a downpouring of rain upon me.  Unprepared for the rain I was in danger of not only soaking myself but the unprotected iPhone in my pocket.  Already looking like I had been picked up by my feet and dipped head first into a swimming pool up to my waist, I ducked into White Spot dripping wet.  Ordering a burger and a beer I waited out the storm.  The next day though that one beer had kicked my ass something terrible.  Even though I'd only had one beer, and had eaten food at the same time, I felt as if I was coming down from a three week bender.

Last night Nathan and I went to the Library Square Pub for drinks.  I hadn't eaten so I had food and a single bottle of Stella Artois [wp], and Nathan just nursed a beer.  After that we went home and watched Iron Man [jks] and played Rock Band 2 until one in the morning. 

Today I feel like someone hit me in the head with a shovel.

As we prepare for Las Vegas

there are only two more sleeps until I go to Las Vegas. If you do the math right, and don't count afternoon naps and the times I fall asleep watching the evening news, that means that I'll be on a plane and leaving Canada for the City of Sin and Celebrity Chefs on Thursday. Though Lydia [iatl] is going for the shopping and a meal at Bouchon Bistro [bb], I'm excited to go to the new Star Trek Experience. (I'd link to its webpage but apparently it's down which does not bode well for getting to have a drink in Quark's bar).

I've got a little money, but I doubt I'll be doing much gambling. The fact is the house always wins eventually and I'm not blessed with enough luck to make up for the fact that I can't be arsed gaining the needed skills. I might play some Blackjack since that's about the only card game that I feel like I've got enough knowledge of to make a game of it. Poker I can play on my iPhone that's about it. I don't understand most of the other games, and as far as I can tell there's no money and no fun to be had from playing the slots.

Apart from Lydia I'm going with the rest of my immediate family. My parents are heading to see Jay Leno, because apparently his nightly appearances on television have not been enough to convince them that the man is painfully unfunny, and Neal and his girlfriend MC are also coming. I don't think they're going to see Leno, so maybe they'll nerd it up with me at Star Trek.

Or maybe not.

One night we're also going to go see the Cirque Du Soleil show Love, which is the one that uses all the Beatles music. I'd been to one of their shows in Vancouver back in 2006 [mbv], and it was pretty impressive. I think the addition of the Beatles music will make it a bit more enjoyable for me. I mean I liked the last one I saw, but I didn't love it.

I'm not quite sure what the blogging situation will be while I'm gone. I've got to find out if the hotel we're staying at has Wi-Fi and depending on that I may or may not bring my Macbook. I will bring my iPhone, but I really don't like blogging on it, especially given that the fancy drop caps that I've been starting every post with is a bit of an HTML workout and with no copy-and-paste on the iPhone I'd have to remember all of it which clearly is not going to happen. If I don't blog before I go, and I don't bring my laptop, I'll do a summary post for the trip when I get back.

Another apology

i t feels like every post I make these days is a post asking for forgiveness after another long period of this blog laying fallow. Each and every entry seems like it's asking for forgiveness for the length of time since I've last blogged and promising to be more attentive to you, my dear readers.  Does it feel that way to you?

Again I've been writing for The Georgia Straight [tgs] and though I haven't been working as much this past week I've been travelling with Lydia.  We took a long weekend and went to Vancouver Island to visit Tofino and Victoria.  Lydia blogged about eating on the island [iatl] and I guess I don't have a whole lot to say beyond that, so I'll leave you with the link. 

One of the things we did do in Victoria was look at venues for the wedding.  We checked a few places, mostly heritage homes and none of them seemed to work for us.  They were either not the right type of place, required us to use their expensive in-house caterers or had the overall feel of a bingo hall.  After already mostly eliminating Kelowna from our list of cities to get married in, it seemed like we were crossing Victoria off the list as well.

I don't know how it came up, but talk turned to the Heritage Hall on Main Street in Vancouver [hh], and since I had been to Curtis's wedding there I sent him an email asking for a rough estimate on how much he paid.  His reply was surprisingly inexpensive and so we booked a viewing for Wednesday and after looking at it and talking to the woman in charge of rentals we've booked the hall for August 9th 2009.

Which is a huge relief, since now that we've got a date and location everything else can slot into that.  I guess the last really big thing is the caterers, and once that's sorted we're just having to deal with a few minor details like the flower arrangements for the tables and whether or not we're going to ask people to sit through speeches or a slide-show or possibly both.  Lydia's for neither and I'm for both.  I figure if we're feeding people the least they could do is pretend to care about us for half an hour, even if they'd rather be watching a rerun of The Office.

The best merch ever

Radiohead Merch
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson

i am a sucker for a good bit of concert merchandise.  Give me a t-shirt with a cool logo on it and I'll gladly hand over $30 for something that costs ten times less than that to make.  Hand me a poster for $15 and I'll roll it up and stick it in my closet with big plans to use it to decorate the wall in the home office that I don't yet have and may never get.  Hoodies, love them.  I've got Matthew Good soccer jerseys.  I've got backpacks, pins and baseball caps.

My new all-time favorite piece of tour merchandise ever however is now the Radiohead Sigg bottle that I picked up last night at their concert at Thunderbird Stadium [mbv].  I'm a huge fan of Sigg bottles, and I use my two current ones almost constantly.  I took one around as my main source of water in Europe, and I try to avoid using plastic bottles or buy bottle water in stores because of the toxic chemicals that are meant to leak into the water from plastics.  Not only that but cutting back on plastic bottles is good for the enviroment, even if they're recycled.

$25 for a Radiohead Sigg bottle is a no brainer then.  It's metallic so the chemical issue isn't a factor, and its washable so it's not going to end up in a garbage dump anytime soon.

Three out of three agree, Fiamma burger is awesome

  Fiamma Burger 
  Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

After my post about the joy of Fiamma burger [jks] in Bellingham two of my co-workers have since gone and they've both enjoyed it greatly.  I've been trying to come up with an excuse to go to Bellingham so that I can have another one.  I think I'm going to go with a need to buy cheap but high quality groceries at Trader Joe's is excuse enough.  So with this weekend (yesterday and today) booked up with Granville Island and Whistler it seems like I'll have to wait until next Wednesday for the wonder that is Fiamma burger.

If anyone wants to lend me a few hundred thousand dollars we could set up a Fiamma burger chain in Vancouver.  We'd be rich, richer than astronauts.  You know I'm right.

Let's go to Fiamma Burger

It's late, I should be in bed since I work early tomorrow morning at a new job, but I'm blogging about food.  Not just any food, the greatest hamburger you'll find around these parts.  Okay, sure it's in Bellingham but that's pretty close isn't it?  Fiamma Burger is a Bellingham burger joint and probably my favorite around.

That's right, better than Vancouver favorites like Vera's.  Using mostly organic and locally grown produce the meat is great, the drinks are great and the fries aren't bad either.  It's a most stop at for me now anytime I go to Seattle or venture into Bellingham, unless Lydia wants us to go somewhere fancier.

I went down last week with Nathan, and it was great.  The fact that they have good beer, and good ice lemonade is a definite plus.

I feel like this is all really cheesy though right now, so I'd better get to bed before I end up as a parody.

Money and the lack of money

That's right, I'm going to be on Robson Street in a Mexican wrestling mask challenging people to arm wrestle for money this summer the way things are going.  Between the pay-cut at work, and the upcoming wedding I'm quite a bit poor.  My second job at the comic book store [jks] has yet to start, and I'm pretty much broke.  You know the sort of broke that when I reach into my wallet a moth flies out and tries to eat the shirt off of my back.

It's time to start living frugally, which means that driving is a luxury and public transit is my new pimped out ride.  It means that an eight pound bag of rice is my new lunch, dinner and desert while breakfast is an old box of Safeway house brand Grain Os' that I've been trying to eat.  That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but certainly I'm no longer eating at the food court while at work, and certainly not drinking Starbucks on a regular basis.  I'm even thinking of cancelling cable, and if it had not been for the return of The Office this week I would probably have been making the phone call very soon.

Meanwhile if any of you have a free weekend it would be most appreciated if you spent those free days sitting at your computer and clicking on my Google ads.

Dine Out Vancouver 2008

Lydia and I are using and abusing the Dine Out Vancouver deals that a whole bunch of restaurants have on this month. We've already hit two up and are going to be visiting a few more before the thing is over. I probably won't be blogging much about it here, but I've got some posts up at Metroblogging Vancouver about the whole deal and Lydia's writing full scale reviews over at Meal Max, which enters her into a contest to win $500. Below is links to my Metroblogging posts and Lydia's reviews. If you can vote for her reviews, and comment on my posts we'll both be grateful to you for at least a week and a half. I'll be adding new information to the bottom of the post as I blog more, or Lydia writes more reviews.

Aurora Bistro:
Jeffery's post [mbv]
Lydia's review [mm]

Bistro Pastis:
Jeffery's post [mbv]
Lydia's review [mm]

Turkey stash

I still have some turkey stashed in my fridge from Christmas. If you're good you can have some, it's still yummy with ketchup.

Cooking, a photo essay

I thought I'd start cooking more at home to help save money [jks].  I mean eating out for two meals a day can not be the most economical way of living.  Nor the healthiest, so after a trip to Safeway I whipped this up yesterday.

Step 1, boil some water and add a third of a four dollar box of pasta. At the same time, or if you only have two hands, open a can of $2 tomato sauce and begin to warm over low heat on the stove.

Step 2, add the beef loins that cost $3.75 to the sauce (after cooking the beef properly). Then add that to the now strained pasta.  Mix.

Step 3, plate and then eat while watching My Name Is Earl.  Place the rest in tupperware for lunch and stick that in the fridge. 

I'm going to start cooking

Lydia and I watched The Next Iron Chef last night after it sat on my DVR for a few weeks. The guy who looks like Brian Michael Bendis won, so I was happy. I think Lydia was cheering for the other guy, but what's she know about comic book writers?

Watching the series though got me to thinking that I'd probably better start cooking more. I can't afford to be eating every meal out, even if I skip meals, and it's probably not that healthy either. I've talked about making my own lunches before but this time by Gummby I'm going to do it.

Just you wait.

The best thing ever!

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

I have fallen in love with / become addicted to the ice tea lemonade cocktail made by Starbucks. My Dr. Frankenstein like attempts to reproduce this tasty brew have all failed. I bought a jug of something very similiar at Trader Joe's when I was down in Seattle, but it's running out too quickly.

If I can figure out the right combination of ice tea to lemonade then I can make it at home for pennies a gallon, until that day comes I'm stuck either buying the bottles at the dollar store and trying to mix them while at work, or if I want the real magic going to the Starbucks and shelling out for the real thing.  I can't afford the real thing though, not every day anyway, so I need something that's even better than the real thing. 

Has anyone been able to make this drink on their own?  What's the secret?  Once again, where am I going wrong?  Is there some secret ingredient in the Starbucks drink, something like crack that keeps me craving it?

I am seriously thirsty

thirsty work
Originally uploaded by peterastn.

The goldfish bowl of the store that I work in has sucked all the moisture from my body. I'm seriously thirsty right now. All I need to do is survive another eight minutes and then I can book it to 7-11 for a nice cold beverage.

Lydia's on me to cut down on cola pops, so maybe I'll grab a lemonaid or an ice tea. You might say that I should get a bottle of water, but I might also point out that like the cat in the picture I can drink water from free from the tap. Not of course in the exact same way as said cat, but it's doable.

Six more minutes. So damn thirsty.

Super Socco :: one is never enough

SuperSocco
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

As you might know I've been looking for Super Socco pictures for awhile [jks] and I've just got another good one thanks to a comment left by a reader named Jay.  So here it is from a Vancouver Canucks program the might fruit drink we know as Super Socco.  Stand back, be amazed.

Also you'd be surprised how many people end up finding my blog through Google when they search for the term Super Socco.  It seems like the drink is one of those things that a great deal of Canadians, especially British Columbians, who grew up drinking it miss for nostelgia reasons and yet because it's a niche thing that only really existed in Canada it has not been tapped like other '80s icons.  You don't see people with Super Socco t-shirts the way you do pretty much everything else as the Urban Outfitters of the world try to tap into our collective social history.

Day one of avoiding the fryer

Lydia and I were talking last night and I discovered that she eats chocolate nearly every day. That surprised me, since even though I'm not the poster boy for healthy eating I really don't eat much in the way of sweets.  Yes I eat nearly everything fried, but candy and chocolate while lovely isn't something I eat a lot of.

So I challeneged her to go a week without eating chocolate, and in exchange I promised to go a week without eating anything fried.  That was last night, and in order to ensure that I'm keeping my end of the bargin I'm going to try to blog everything I eat so that there can be no question that I'm eating right.

Tonight on my very late lunch break I went to White Spot and had the pictured teriyaki chicken with roasted potatoes and veggies.  Right now it's sitting uncomfortably in my stomach because once again I don't have access to a washroom while at work and so I'm going to be involved in a mad dash to the Hotel Vancouver in about forty minutes.

Which is the polite way of saying I really need to visit a washroom. 

For Lydia's version of events visit her blog [iatl].

It's Super Socco time!

Almost two years ago I blogged about wanting to find a picture of the old juice box Super Socco [jks]. Apparently it's been the top result in Google for any search for Super Socco for some time, and oddly enough that drives a fair amount of Super Socco loving traffic to my site.

The juice box was much loved, much loved.

Thanks to an email that I received today, from someone I assume is either a reader or someone whose just emailing everyone about Super Socco, I got a link to a photo of not one but for Super Socco juice boxes. Expo '86 themed juice boxes no less.

So thank you, now I finally have something to back up my high ranking on the Super Socco Google search. It's been nearly two years, but the internet came through for me. First it provided me with a girlfriend via Craigslist, and now a picture of a now defunct juice drink. Huzzah!

I need some rice cooking capability

the rice cookers
Originally uploaded by Nhyrvana.

I need to buy a rice cooker, since I think that would allow me to greatly reduce the amount of money I'm spending on food. See as I mentioned before I'm kind of poor right now, since my last few months of sales have been really bad and I'm bleeding green.

Bleeding green, just like a Vulcan*.

Anyway if rice is cheap enough for the Sally Struthers African children to live off of twenty-five cents a day I figure I might be able to live off of that, with some extras of course. But if I can lower my food budget from $20+ a day to around $6 a day that would go a long way to getting my credit cards paid off and actually getting back to saving money.

* Vulcans have green blood, though one suspects they have good money managment skills.

No relationship blog death

Lydia at coffee
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

Travis on Metroblogging Vancouver used my blog as an example of how blogs begin to die out when the blogger gets into a new relationship [mbv]. So today I'm determined to prove him wrong and blog about something. Of course longtime readers know that there have been periods of quiet before this one, so Lydia isn't fully to blame. I mean she's managed to start a blog since we've been going out [iatl].

The pair of us headed to Kelowna my weekend, which unlike most weekends is Tue-Wed, where we stayed in my parents place and did some typical Kelowna touristy things. So that means no hanging out at the Sev to see if the Rutland boys are going to come down for a fight, but rather going to the Mission Hill wine tour, and going to the local newspaper to extort them for my paycheck.

Okay so the last thing isn't that typical of a tourist experiance.

Tuesday night we went to Mama Rosa with Chad and Kara [ttin] where we had wonderful pasta and chatted with yet another one of my now married friends.

Afterwars we walked along the lake walk that runs from the Fintery Queen to the Grand. It was windy so Lydia's ears started to hurt, so we made our way back to my car double quick and didn't get a chance to blow all of our money at the Casino.

The next day we slept in, then headed to the Kelowna Daily Courier's office for money making. Then it was off to Mission Hill [mh] for the tour and then back home for rest and full cable fun.

Lydia's so impressed by full cable, I think if I get it when I move into my new apartment she might keep going out with me. We watched Iron Chef America and were amazed when the other chef (not the iron chef) only finished two out of five of his courses and totally lost. Who did he think he was? Me during a math quiz? You can't suck like that and be on Iron Chef.

Lydia wanted to find a German resturant and because I kept saying that there were a lot of Germans in Kelowna, there are totally, she expected me to produce one. However I don't know of one, and after asking both Chad and my mother I still couldn't find one. So instead we went to East Side Marios, which is an Italian chain sort of like Montana's is a western chain.

Lydia consented to go to the chain resturant because she used to eat there back in Ontario and felt all nostelgic about it. Now if only I could get her to be nostelgic about White Spot...

Anyway that night I had to write another article and when I was done we made out like bandits, and sadly had to wake up at 6 am the next day. I'm still exhausted because I drove back to Vancouver and had about five minutes at the apartment before I had to hop in my Skytrain and go to work until 9 pm.

Right now I should be leaving for work again. I'm behind because I'm blogging... but at least the blog is not dead.

Disneyland and the Atkins diet: or how I did one post on two seperate topics

Thanks to an opening on the company's trip to Disneyland that came up I'm going to be getting to go to the "Happiest Place on Earth"(tm) for a few days in March.  It's a quick trip so I'll be gone from March the 2nd for awhile. 

It should be good, I haven't been back either to LA [bla] or Disneyland since the grade eleven band trip back in 1996, so Disneyland should have a decade of new-awesomicity to provide.  Hopefully I won't get lost while trying to find a McDonald's again, because this time I won't have Karen Wilson [kc] to protect me.

Meanwhile in poor transition between topics news I've started back on the Atkins diet.  Hopefully I won't be doing too much boring diet blogging here, but having it recorded online helps me stay faithful to my burgers, cheese, bacon and diet sodas.

I just found I was getting too fat again, and that the slimmer jeans and pants that I had bought after my last Atkins go around were starting to get uncomfortable and tight.  Besides I was being really indulgent as of late, having one or two large white chocolate hot chocolates a day from Starbucks.

Bad bad Jeffery.

Day off #1: why can't Seth be happy?

Today was my first of two days off of work and so far I've wasted it gloriously. I've only left the house for a quick trip to the nearby Safeway for a week worth of food. The rest of the day I've spent in front of the television watching the O.C. except for brief breaks to wash my sheets and plug in my old video camera for charging.

I'm selling the camera this week to my mother's friends Julie and Craig who just had a baby and thus would like to video tape the baby for future blackmail purposes. Any sale of a video camera requires time spent in front of the computer as I copy all of the video files to my iMac so I don't lose anything. I'll then erase the tapes and sell the whole bundle.

Currently I'm watching scenes from a movie that Nathan, Jeff and I were working on. We really didn't have any plot or ideas but so far we've got a car chase and some stuff of Nathan dancing and walking around his house.

Also a great deal of extreme filter usage. Next camera I get will have no filters, and if it does I'm going to break them somehow and do any sort of special effects in iMovie as opposed to in camera.

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