Tag: Christmas

Russell Stover Cookie Dough Confection

Russell Stover Cookie Dough Confection

This is the first of an eight-part weekly series that I am going to try out unusual foods and review them. This week’s item is from Russel Stover Cookie Dough in Milk Chocolate. It was about a dollar from Giant Tiger. It consists of one 28g piece of candy. Nutritionally it was (past tense since I have already eaten it 😉)130 calories, has 5g fat, 17g sugar, 3g other carbs, 1g protein, and 2g other. As I open the package the item is a weird shaped glob without the pre-told story of the packaging is not anything corresponding with Christmas besides reindeer guano. It was nice and soft to bite into but the glob of cookie dough became overwhelming and hard to finish. I would not recommend this flavour, I would suggest solid chocolate or marshmallow varieties. As it is a marshmallow world at Christmas time.

The Path to Freedom

After the Christmas party, I was pumped and the goal wasn’t to just walk but to get out. The next weekend I went to a movie with a friend. The main goal that I needed to go home was to go up my front steps and to transfer onto a shower bench. After lots of practice, I was managing a few steps of various height with the hospital physiotherapist. The next step was going home for a home visit to see what was needed for me to go home. When I arrived at the house that I hadn’t seen for months, it felt familiar but didn’t seem like home. I couldn’t even see half of it. Waking up the steps into my house was the hard part. My rails were too low to give support. When I got into the house, I tried sitting on my couch and it was still too low to get up from without help. I also needed a walker still to get around. The walker also didn’t fit well through doors. That night my sister brought me to the Dolan Rd Irving and then went back to the hospital. The next weekend was my trial…

The Life of the Party Must Be At The Party

The Life of the Party Must Be At The Party

On the spur of the moment I came up with a wild goal of getting to my work Christmas party on January 21st. I then told my Physio and OT that this was going to be my goal right after the Christmas holiday. Step 1: The Car Transfer Up to this point , I was barely able to slide on a varnished board but I gave it my everything to be able to do that. However, in doing that my muscles started to build more rapidly and I was moving on to being able to stand using a two-wheel walker, and walking a little with it with a physiotherapist. We had arranged an afternoon with my step-father that had a higher vehicle to get into to try with Physio to get the okay to go. The day I picked turned out to be a quite warm day for January and in one try I was able to get in and place myself in the sea. I couldn’t get my own seat belt on myself but it looked promising. Step 2: Arrange tickets My coworkers were visiting me in the hospital regularly and I got them to arrange to get me…

Starting Rehab

After lunch, on November 23rd I was wheeled down the hall to the next tower. I had escaped the mean nurses and now entered the rehabilitation program floor. I remember the weather was overcast or raining it was dark. This isolation room would be my final prison for the next 3 months. I had remembered being told the ESBL treatments were for a week. I was told within a few days that the isolation was to be permanent due to hospital policies. The first nurse I saw went through the riot act that made me fear that the poor treatment from the last floor was going to continue. I spent the rest of my night in the room just listening to what I could hear from the hall. The next day involved being assessed for what I was capable of. It was also more just waiting around doing nothing. Over the next few weeks, I tried really hard and progressed to sitting up and sliding on a transfer board to a wheelchair with help. It was lots of long nights and days. Typically only a little over an hour of physiotherapy and occupational therapy. I was always excited when the…

Planning and Superstition

In August 2015, it was like Christmas! The Summer 2016 flyer came out and I drooled over every page. Vacation planning is not something I do a lot of, it is more of a familiarization of options. As I reviewed my options, let’s face it, maximizing the number of new countries was the main option. There resulted in one tour that became the only one that worked for dates to take my mother to Europe, and her need to user the Labour Day weekend to make it work, and the need to still hit Oktoberfest with Tony. That tour was the Trail to Rome starting September 9, 2016. It would leave London, then go to in order; Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Krakow, Budapest, Ljubljana, Venice, and Rome. This was it or bust!I have always booked these trips through the tour group directly, as it was just easier. Since the past trips, I took some cruises and booked them through a particular travel agent. As a few weeks passed, the trip date after the one I wanted went completely sold out and my trip was limited availability now. So I went online and booked the trip directly with Contiki. Since the…

More Christmas Foods that Need to Die

After my last article I decided to review a few more items to see it there was something that could top the last two atrocities. Guess what! I found them. First on the list is Soy Wonderful Noël Nog. This was thicker than the Almond version but had a very bad after taste. In addition after only a week it congealed into a tick lumpy mass of disappointment. Much similar to the beverage version of lumps of coal in the stocking. The second item was the Gingerbread Man Peeps. These little gems were not only disappointing but the taste like regular Peeps with only a small hint of Gingerbread. Though I did find a few positive items this time. The first is a local gem Mrs. Dunster’s Candy Cane coated donut bites. These like many other Mrs. Dunster’s products was simply to die for. The next item that is amazing is from Starbucks. The Cranberry Bliss Bar is an amazing choice to compliment any coffee but the Gingerbread Latte is the best compliment to it. From Tim Horton’s the biggest disappointment is the Gingerbread Muffin it almost makes you gag from the over strong spice that burns your mouth as…

The Two Festive Items So Wrong It Could Ruin Christmas.

The Two Festive Items So Wrong It Could Ruin Christmas.

Why yes folks now that Hallowe’en is over and Remembrance Day is soon to be forgotten, it is now the season that is supposed to bring the sparkle in every little child’s eye. Like most good things that are once good and holy bring out the worst in those that try to modernize and monetize classics. In this post I am going to focus on food items that are not only symbolic to the festive season, but flavours that you would not think could go wrong. Let’s start with the first item egg nog. This is my favourite holiday drink and each year the shelves are filled with thick, over sweetened, dairy goodness. That has its own still enjoyable light alternative. Warmed with rum and nutmeg makes a nice snack on the early winter night. If you think that they could not ruin that you would be very very wrong. This is where Earth’s Own comes to town with their Almond Fresh Nöel Nog. This festive joy comes in at 100 calories per 250mL serving. That assumes that you can actually stomach this. This tastes like almond milk with the hint of sweetness and nog  spices but is thin and…

GlymmMan Box December 2012

GlymmMan Box December 2012

My December GlymmMan box arrived on Christmas Eve. There was not as much in it as there were in past months. There were 6 items, the 7th item was replaced with a $20 gift card. The missing item as Joico Ice Spike which I would probably not have used anyway. Most of the items were from a brand êshave a 15g bottle of pre-shave oil, a 30g container of shaving cream, and a 30g container of after shave cream. Then from Lys Parisien Professionnel, there was a 60ml bottle of moisturizing shampoo and, balm (Argan Oil conditioner). Then there was 2 2ml O2 Anti-ageing treatment. In my last post on the issue, I had promised to give feedback on the items in the box. The Atelier Cologne was really good and I still have some left. The Vitamine & Sea Mineral Clay Mask smelled truly terrible I never finished that. The Bentaberry G-1 moisturizing Face cream made my skin feel much better. The Evolvh UltraShine Moisture Shampoo and Conditioner was some of the best I have ever used. The John Allan’s Slick Water made shaving better. The La Fresh Body Soother stung very badly when it got in my eyes in…

Santa as Blackmail

In the sprit of the holiday season I would like to make this rant about the blatant misuse of Father Christmas by millions of parents world wide. Throughout this highly commercialized world of Christmas. The sweet jolly old man has gone from the symbol of joy and happiness, to be the evil judge of goodness that has in recent years has never cut any kid off that I know of. Face it people you don’t really need it! Hasn’t our generation learned yet from Disney’s The Little Mermaid that things don’t matter as much as experiences. Then again, experiences are the reason that every parent will get most kids anything they want. You may deny it but for the same reason that you all use Santa to blackmail the kids in the first place you buy them anything. You are self-centered! Using Santa as an incentive to behave provided you benefit. As much so a joy on their faces Christmas morning. So in closing, happy holidays, and get over yourself. Stop being self-centered you are not as important as me.

2009 with 300 Movies!

2009 with 300 Movies!

As we are wrapping up the year, I have seen a movie in the theatres 300 times. The record for this year for most is Star Trek x 6, Twilight: New Moon x 5, and The Reader x 4, and many 2 and 3 timers. Here is the list of 2009 releases that I have seen (I took a list of 2009 movies and filtered it, there are some missing that I added, but I forgot every movie:) 17 Again, 2012, Adventureland, All About Steve, Angels & Demons, AstroBoy, Bandslam, Blind Date, The Blind Side, Bride Wars, Capitalism: A Love Story, Confessions Of A Shopaholic, Couple’s Retreat, Dance Flick, Did You Hear About The Morgans?, Disney’s A Christmas Carol, Drag Me To Hell, Doubt, Duplicity, Earth, Everybody’s Fine, Extract, Fame, Fanboys, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Fast And Furious 4, Fired Up, The Fourth Kind, Funny People, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, Gigantic, The Goods, The Hangover, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Harry Potter And The Half, Blood Prince, The Haunting In Connecticut, He’s Just Not That Into You, Hotel For Dogs, Ice Age 3, I Hate Valentine’s Day, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, I Love You Beth Cooper, I Love You,…

And the holidays are done! or are they!

So I haven’t had the opportunity to update this page in a while. It has been really busy lately. I spent many hours this past month working on the 12 Daytimes of Christmas on Rogers Television. The final two episodes are going to re-air on January 1-4th (11am, 4pm, and 10pm.) Also another note of something to watch was the locally shot “Sticks and Stones” 8pm AT Jan 1st on CTV. Now getting onto some of my movies, the pilot episode of the “Badger Hunter” is almost edited for it’s February release date. We are working on it’s website this weekend. On Boxing Day, I learned that the Toronto Film School is closing which now is gonna change my plans for a October move to Toronto. Tony and I have been looking now at the Toronto Film College but have not heard much about it, also Toronto apartment hunting seems like a daunting monster, even harder than the actual move.

Welcome to White December

I don’t have much time to make this post but doesn’t the ground look nicer when all the imperfections are covered by a soft fluffy white layer of freshly placed snow. To day before work I’m going to bring an Acer laptop back to The Source because the wireless does not have good reception to my network and that it is impossible to network it properly with only Windows Vista Home Basic on it. Also when you dim the screen so it doesn’t take your eyes out in a dark room it forgets it after several minutes and blinds you. It also does not have easy a find in the dark volume keys. Otherwise it was an okay laptop. I guess that is it for now. I’ll post back soon.

Daytimes of Christmas

Daytimes of Christmas

These elements were created in Corel Draw 12, Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Photoshop CS, and Adobe AfterEffects 6. The goal of this project was by changing a few basic elements to an existing show design seamlessly blend in a holiday theme that still made the show look like the original. This project was first conceived on a Friday and needed to be ready to go on air live the following Monday morning. About 12 hours went into this project. The project consisted of re-editing the end of the existing show theme in Avid, a 10-second Bumper, a themed moving background, and a plain background for credits. And changes to the show CG elements of a logo change, a new bug, and show and remove animations. Logo Show Bug Bumper The images above may not be reproduced on any site other than cefm.ca.