I do still get the occasional craving under some stressful situations, but that’s more psychological I think. Then I tell myself that I’ve beat this nasty habit for a year, that there’s no point in restarting and going through the pain of quitting again.

(I’m using it because we don’t know if its a boy or a girl, and we decided to wait til the birth to find out)

Click the above picture for a bigger pic.

Like many sites out there, I felt compelled to come up with my own personal Top list for the naughties decade, and here it is! I consciously tried to keep it short and to the point as to not bore you too much. These are not listed in any particular order.

Top 5 Music CDs: Metallica’s Death Magnetic. Since its release, that CD has been the music that’s played in my Jeep probably 90% of the time. That one was an easy choice. The other 4 music CDs that really stood out for me this decade are Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth, Korn – Take A Look In The Mirror, Linkin Park – Meteora, Bullet For My Valentine – The Poison.

Top 5 Movies: Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Watchmen, Star Wars Episode 3, Casino Royale.Yup, Star Wars Episode 3 made the list. As bad as Episode 1 was, Episode 3 I felt was amazing and brought both trilogies together.

Top 10 TV Shows: I couldn’t pare this down to 5, so I had to make it 10. Even shrinking it down to 10 was a bit hard. Not surprisingly however, most of these shows were on the air in the latter half of the decade. Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Survivor, Dexter, Family Guy, Futurama, Stargate: Atlantis, Firefly, The Office, Smallville

Top Life Changes: I’ve had quite a few big life changes in the last 10 years, most of them coming in the last couple of years. I bought my first house, I got engaged and married. I had a wonderful honeymoon in Paris, where I fell head over heels in love with that city. After 15 years of smoking, I was able to finally quit the nasty habit (and I’m almost 1 year clean). And very recently I found out that I’m going to be a father for the first time.

Here’s to another great decade.

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done, delivered, proceeding, or carried on swiftly and sharply

On Monday July 13th I finally got to see a band that I’ve been wanting to see in concert for many many many years; Stone Temple Pilots. STP were playing the  Cisco Bluesfest festival here in Ottawa. Even though we were cold and wet from the rain that poured down during the open act, it didn’t deter me from having great fun in what I consider one of the best concerts that I happened to lay eyes on.

Scott Weiland showed that he was a true frontman, entertaining and captivating the audience throughout the 90 minute show. Dean DeLeo was electrifying on guitar, his brother Robert was bombastic on bass and Erik Kretz was explosive on drums. Mix them all together and you have a show of epic proportions that rocked the socks off of 25,000 fans.

To view a collection of pictures I took of the show, head on over to my photo gallery.

The story is a little slow to get going but after the first 10-15 minutes it does get much better. So don’t walk out on this movie early!

In this 3rd installment, Ellie and Manny are expecting their first child together. Sid grows jealous and adopts 3 abandoned eggs, which hatch into Tyrranasaurus. The dinosaur’s mother soon returns to take her children back, and grabs Syd as well, taking them back to a lost kingdom where dinosaurs still roam. Ellie and Manny, accompanied by Diego, Crash and Eddie head out to find and rescue their pal Syd. Along the way they meet up with an insane weasel called Buck, who helps them to cross the savage lands and find their friend.

I give Ice Age 3D: Dawn of the Dinosaur an 8 out of 10

The story revolves around a group of led by Ryder (Travolta) who take over a New York subway car full of people hostage.  Garber (Washington) plays a NYC subway dispatcher who happens to be the lucky one sitting in the chair when it all goes down. The movie revolves around the interaction between these 2 characters as Garber and the city try to meet their demands before any hostages are killed.

Viewers are taken through different twists and turns which leaves us asking questions until the last 5 or so minutes of the movie.

I give the Taking of Pelham 123 a 7 out of 10 stars. 

- The average temperature for July has been 18.3, down from the norm of 20.9

- We’ve had 0 days in July where the temperature exceed 30 degrees celsius (not counting humidex)

- There’s been only 6 rain-free days in July so far.

-Since the beginning of June, we’ve had raid in 7 out of 8 weekends.

-Normal rainfall for July is 90mm. We’ve had 183mm fall on our fair city so far this July.

-This is the worst July on record since 1992.

Like an acquaintance exclaimed after seeing this video: “This is why in highschool us guys didn’t have flabby arms”. LOL!

Shake Weight Exercise for Women

All I have to say is WOOHOO!

The decor was very reminiscent of a few brasseries that we ate in during our stay in Paris. The colors of the establishment and the decor, the style of the tables and bar, the decorations can be found in many Paris neighbourhood brasseries. The only exception is the room. I didn’t encounter any brasseries in Paris that had so much room between tables and sections, but that’s not at all a bad thing.

The menu is similar to what you would find in a Paris brasserie. I started the night with a salt cod croquettes appetizer, followed by a coq au vin. My wife had a steak frites as an entree and profiteroles for dessert. The salt cod croquettes were very tasty. The fish was cooked perfectly and the bread coating showed no sign of grease even though the croquettes were fried. The coq au vin was the best that I’ve had on this side of the Atlantic, and was served with some asparagus, carrots, mashed potatoes and smoked pork belly. The chicken in the coq au vin was moist and cooked to perfection, and the accompanying red wine demi glace sauce was succulent. The steak frites comprised of an 8oz ribeye that just melted in your mouth, home made french fries that were tasty and not greasy and were accompanied by a homemade garlic mayo dipping sauce. Though I didn’t try the profiteroles, the look on my wife’s face said it all. These cream puffs were served with some vanilla ice cream, berries and a heaping of chocolate sauce.

We were not at all disappointed with our visit to the Metropolitaine Brasserie Restaurant. My wife and I have decided that we will go back to this little bit of Paris on a regular basis.

Metropolitaine Brasserie Restaurant is located at 700 Sussex (corner of Sussex and Rideau).

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done, delivered, proceeding, or carried on swiftly and sharply

Summer movie season has started, and right out of the gate we have a front runner for best movie of the summer. Its a really great story, with great characters (with a different twist from the characters we knew before), amazing acting and some special FX that are not only really well done, but they blend into the movie and are used to progress the story, instead of just showing off FX for the sake of showing FX. It reboots the franchise allowing for a fresh start (or an alternate universe, depending on how you choose to see it). If you only see one movie this summer, Star Trek is the one to see.  9 out of 10

The first disappointment of the summer came a couple of weeks later with Terminator: Salvation. Its not a bad movie per say, but its not great either. After having digested the movie a bit, I would place it on equal footing with T3. I was expecting more from this movie. More action, more war against the machines, more John Connor. Instead we got introduced to a new character and most of the movie revolved around him. I think that giving McG the reins on this movie was a bad decision. It wasn’t bad, but it could have been so much more, which is what’s the most disappointing. 6.5 out of 10

Metallica are coming back to Ottawa in October for their Death Magnetic tour. We haven’t seen Metallica in our fair city since 2004. Buying tickets for this show was a no-brainer. Didn’t get amazing seats, but they aren’t bad seats either. The show sold out in less than a day which suprised me. Now the countdown begins!

Stone Temple Pilots is one of those bands that have been on my ‘must see in concert’ for a while now. When the band broke up in 2003, I thought that I would never see this amazing band live and in person. I had to settle to seeing Velvet Revolver. Here we are now 6 years later, the band is not only back together, not only about to release a new album, but they are also playing Ottawa Blues Fest! There’s no way I was going to miss this concert. Getting first row tickets was almost beyond belief! I finally get to see STP live! I’m so psyched!

Who would have guessed that Detroit and Pittsburgh would meet again in the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals. I certainly didn’t, and was hoping not to see it happen again. Out of all the teams that made the playoffs, these 2 teams, along with the Montreal Canadiens, were the teams I really did not want to see in the finals. Can Detroit repeat another win this year? I think so. I don’t think that Pittsburgh still has what it takes to be Stanley Cup champions. I call Detroit Red Wings in 6, and Sid the Kid Crosby crying in the corner again this year.

TV season is over, and here’s some thoughts on some shows and finales; Lost had a great season finale, sucks that we have to wait 8 months until the next and final season. Smallville’s season finale was probably the worst of the series. It was very meh. Survivor was good, finally a good guy winning the million again. Really sucks that My Name Is Earl got cancelled. Hopefully it will be picked up by another network. Also sucks that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles got cancelled. This show really delved into the characters of the Terminator universe. We got to see what made them tick. It was very much a psychological and cerebral show. It will be missed. Surprisingly, Dollhouse got picked up for next season. Rumours are that Summer Glau (Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Firefly) will be joining the show. Fringe’s season finale was also really interesting. Fringe and Dollhouse are easily my 2 favorite new shows. I can’t wait to see where both shows will take us.

After years of wanting to get a DSLR, and having learned most of what I could by using a point and shoot camera,  I finally got my hands on one. The new Canon T1i. This was my treat to myself for quitting smoking (4 months now), and I also had to drop my monthly comic book sub from approx 30 books a month to 5, but it was worth it. I’m absolutely in love with this camera, and I’m driving my wife and family crazy because I bring it everywhere I go.  I can already tell that I’ve improved my photography skills and technique and hope that the learning never stops and the skill keeps on getting better.

Last but not least, today (May 31st) marks the one year anniversary of my and my wife’s wedding. I can’t believe we’ve been married for one year already. The time has gone very quickly. Here’s to many more years of happiness together. I love you sweetie.

This weekend was my 3 month anniversary of being smoke free. Those are my last 2 packs that I never smoked. These aren’t quite what was my usual brand, which was DuMaurier Premiere (formally DuMaurier Extra Light). I officially quit smoking on January 23rd. Here’s my numbers according to the Canadian Cancer Society:
My Mileage
Smoke-Free Days: 93
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 1,409
Amount Saved: $521.73
Life Gained:  13 Days 10Hrs 11 Mins: 29 Seconds

I’ve also been off the Champix for over a week now, with no side effects. Instead of getting offo f them cold turkey, I took 1 1mg pill a day instead of 2 1mg pills a day. I did this for about 3 weeks. I still get the occasional craving, but I am not caving in. I can now safely call myself an ex-smoker.