Review

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The Pink Tax

Posted on by Charles F-M

I have a great new item to review and this is a super overpriced chocolate bar. I bought this at Sobey’s for $2.99. It is the Pink Cocoa Kit Kat bar.

This bar was a little bit smaller than the typical flavoured Kit Kat bars. It was a weird shade of pink to make it have the appearance of being natural. It tasted a lot like white chocolate but with an unusual sweet berry side favour. My rating is 1.5/10. Like most pink items it is overpriced for what you get. If you are considering it, go for the green tea version. You won’t regret it.

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Charlotte Amalie and the Prairie Dog💩

Posted on by Charles F-M

As I had been to this port before, it was no big hurry to get off the ship. When I did there was the typical Caribbean band and warm welcomes. It was sun and rain periods and humid, so even though it was not the greatest, it was not that bad either. When I made it to the Main Street, I considered trying to find a bus to the other side of the harbour and instead just kept walking.

The island looked familiar but very different to last time. Which due to two hurricanes, was not surprising. Many of the building had roves that were replaced with blue tarps, or red metal roofing. Then there were the chickens, no whyin the world have I ever seen more chickens then I did in Charlotte Amalie, and the ear piercing bellow of all the roosters.

Along Veterans Drive, there is a lot of construction work to improve and build a multi million dollars project to build a veterans memorial causeway that will look incredible, especially to visitors. The sight of which is just following the Extreme Tsunami Risk Zone. It is a real shame given the number of hurricane destruction on the islands, and neighbouring Puerto Rico, that so much money is being spent on this project.

About 2km later I made it to Emancipation Garden where I grabbed some water to drink and rest before continuing on to my goal for the day Blackbeard’s Castle. I actually changed my mind As I looked up the steep hill and I was totally exhausted and it was too sunny and warm, so I just stayed in the square for an hour. Getting a taxi back turned out to an ordeal as most of the taxis only wanted to go to the beach or to cruise terminal. I wanted to go to K-Mart, which I eventually found someone that would take me. I really didn’t want to walk back.

As I entered, the store was much more rundown than the last time I was there, there wasn’t what I was looking for there so I grabbed water and walked back to the ship.

I ended up going to the buffet and then various events that were going on. I ended up getting really drunk that night, and had a really late night.

The next morning, I was really hung over and went to the buffet for breakfast and then my stomach felt really bad, like explosive bad. The washroom by the buffet was closed for cleaning and I really had to go, so I went to my room. And guess what happened, my keycard wasn’t working! I go to the stairwell and call customer service, and what do they say, come to customer service. Down the elevator, across the ship, I make it and they replace my card. I then go back across the ship and up the elevator, back to the room, swipe, swipe, swipe, Nothing!!!! I go back to the phone, call again and they send security. As I wait, I start doing the Prarie Dog Dance, in the worst pain ever! The guy finally arrives and opens the door with a key and replaced the dead battery, and reprogrammed the lock. Then I finally used the toilet, even though the prarie dog had partially freed itself by that point. I then showered again and grabbed my sunscreen and headed back up to deck 18 to escape and relax.

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Russell Stover Cookie Dough Confection

Posted on by Charles F-M

This is the first of an eight-part weekly series that I am going to try out unusual foods and review them.

This weeks 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 beside 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.

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MoCo Downtown– The Best Italian Style Restaurant in New Brunswick

Posted on by Charles F-M

The following is a repost of my review for MoCo Downtown that appears on TripAdvisor.

I was there for the first time on Saturday and I was floored by how wonderful this gem of a place was. I ordered the Sussex Sausage Risotto and for a side paired it with the Sliced Brussel Sprout with Prosciutto and Pine Nut side.

It was so creamy and spicy and flavourful that it blew me away. The Brussel Sprouts we very salty, but that is exactly what you would get in Italy. Unlike many Italian restaurants that simply mimics what you would get in various parts of Italy, this place cooks like a Tuscan or Venetian chef would with access and highlighting of New Brunswick ingredients.

The food was so good but I would not want to not mention how friendly the wait staff was and how efficiently the kitchen was putting out plates. Definitely going to go back and explore more of this menu.

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“Full Out” Review

Posted on by Charles F-M

To say that I would never watch a gymnastics movie, while that. Is simply not true. I loved the movie “Stick It” and must have seen that movie dozens of times. The movie I just saw was “Full Out”. This is based on the true story of Ariana Berlin. Early on in the movie, she gets into a car accident with her mother. After a period in a coma and severe injuries, she is faced with not initially walking and is in the hospital dealing with physiotherapy.

Having her whole dreams taken away and her meaning in life. She initially struggles to find meaning in life and where her new life will take her. This road leads to hip-hop dancing and eventually back to gymnastics with a warm and fuzzy ending.

Given what I have been through I can really relate to her struggles. Even before this I never really had big goals and was waiting for inspiration. Now I feel like I need to do something and want to find that something but many possibilities a beyond large rolling Austrian Alps, but a big rocky Swiss Alps now.

This movie is available on Netflix and worth a watch.

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Mobile Ordering

Posted on by Charles F-M

Today I visited the local coffee shop in the mall. The line was very long and the people started to appear frustrated or tired, but there was the pot of gold at the end of the line to make it all worthwhile. Correction, it was coffee, not gold but in the eyes of the patrons waiting it was more valuable than gold.

Meanwhile, I enter and walk past the line and pick up my coffee there waiting for me and leave to sit in the mall and watch the people and write this. The people watching began before I could even leave the restaurant. The scowl of disgust on their faces as I did not lime them join in the ancient, or present-day British, the tradition of fair queuing.

I participated in the modern “there’s an app for that” method of placing my order using my phone and picking it up. Although I used an app this is nothing really new. For all my life you could call up and arrange for pick-up of take-out restaurants.

Today’s purchase was at Tim Horton’s using their app. When it comes to ordering their app is pretty good. It is very straightforward and adding modifications is simple. The payment process and choosing a restaurant is also very intuitive. The downside of the app is that the specialty muffins are not in the app and some instructions like double toasting bagels are not there.

However, they are making lots of improvements and when I first used the app you could not have 1/2 sugar. There is a promotion now where you can get a free coffee (Regular, Dark, or Decaf) after 3 orders by the end of the year.

Another app I use regularly is the Cineplex app. This app is good for purchasing tickets, but the number of options to buy a ticket can be daunting. The perk, however, is not waiting in line for the kiosks and 50 bonus Scene points (1/20th of a movie).

The McDonald’s Canada app is of similar quality to Tim’s and is really straightforward to make a complex or simple order.

The final shopping app review has to be the Esso Speedpass+ app. This is really convenient as you do not have to stand outside and swipe your fuel savings card, then your points card, then choose a car wash option, then the on-screen payment. It is simply done on the app with very little effort.

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Final Preperations

Posted on by Charles F-M

Let’s continue the story, it is now a year ago last June. It was a great June, I had auditioned again for “As You Like It” and didn’t get a part. I had made Mango Waffles, and ate the peeling, and I booked my trip front bookend.

Apparently Mango skin contains the same chemicals as poison ivy and shortly after I had a face that was totally swollen. On the same day I went for a very long walk and was quite sunburned and my face had really swelled up for a few days. Since then I have had these puss bubbles come and go on different parts of my head. (Important for a later part of this story.)At this point I have decided that for the front book-end I would go to Copenhagen, Denmark. The 2nd place option was Cork, Ireland. Copenhagen won out since it also presented the possibility to day trip to Sweden. For this trip I wanted to try new things and I was debating EasyJet or RyanAir. In the end I chose RyanAir just because every review said that it was the worst airline ever. I thought that everyone must be picky and booked the return flight. My credit card wouldn’t work and had to use PayPal to get the ticket.

The next item I booked was my hotels. In 2011, when I was in Berlin I had fond memories of The Generator so I booked the Generator for my nights in Copenhagen and Denmark.

That was all I planned. Everything else was done improv style for that portion.

For the final piece, I was watching everything book up quickly and decided I could no longer wait for Tony and booked a hostel in Munich. For Rome, the Generator was opening a new location and was advertised as coming soon. It was really stressful and Contiki couldn’t tell me where we were staying in “Rome” and only that it is “usually near Termani”. It wasn’t until mid-August that they opened up bookings and I grabbed it up the same day!

A big part of this trip was to not credit card this trip and to prepay everything that I booked. I had also decided that I really wanted to see Naples and Pompeii. I booked the Tranitalia train to Naples but had heard it was better to get the train tickets there for Naples to Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius.

On July 23rd I received a text from my mother that simply said “can you call me up country”. Now I don’t call my mother very often, let alone up country. This was out of the ordinary. I called her up and she pleaded with me not to go. She apparently had dreams that if I go on the trip that something bad was going to happen. At that point I had so much booked that it was too much stress not to go, but little did I know it was going to be very stressful and cut down the fun of the trip.

About a week before the trip one of the head bubbles started getting really big, and it was too inconvenient to see a doctor before I left on the trip and resolved to see him when I came back.

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The Divorce Movie Review

Posted on by Charles F-M

Last night I attended the premier test screening of the locally produced full length film The Divorce. It stars many people who I have come to know over the past few years. Before I continue we should pause for a moment to see the below trailer.

I went into it with the expectation of some of the other local films. It did start slow but the story was funny, sad, suspenseful, and touching at the same time. Although this movie has aspects of other movies, what it does not have is shallow characters. Though the ingenious storytelling by Rob Parsons and the great acting there is not a character that this movie does not have you rooting for. The story also progresses nicely and leaves you not looking at your watch very much. (I only checked mine once, and it was at 8:46pm).

This movie, considering that I see about 100 movies in theatres per year, is right there along side “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” as my top 200 movies. 4.5/5 stars!