Toronto Wine & Cheese Show Toronto Wine & Cheese Show
I've been to my share of Beer Festivals, but haven't yet been to a Wine show... I think it's time... Who's in? March 24-26...  ¶ 1:17 AM 0 comments

  Jamaican me crazy...
I know you all desperately want to hear about my trip... I honestly am going to write something up - I started last night actually, but didn't get too far and then tonight I spent about an hour working on a DVD slide show with our pictures, fun stuff... Anyhow, here's a quick pic to tide you over...

ps. my buddy Pete has rec'd his FREE iPod! Whee! If you want to take part in the program now, let me know and I'll forward a referral link from one of the peeps that signed-up under me so you can help them get one of theirs...  ¶ 12:40 AM 0 comments

  No problem, mon! Well we're in Jamaica, everything is great... No trouble with travel, flight was fine, etc... The resort is great... We've having a wonderful time... Not really in the mood to spend a lot of time typing at the moment, we're taking lots of pictures and I'll be sure to post a more thorough review/log when we get back... Weather is about 80 degrees, it's been sunny / partly-cloudy for the most part... Pool is nice, food is good, drinks are cold, what else can I say, wish you could all be here with us... TTYL, will post again in a few days...  ¶ 12:03 PM 0 comments

  I want to get away... I want to FLY away!
Well we'll be at the airport in about 6 hours, so I suppose I should hit the sack...

According to the resort web site brochure - http://www.fdrholidays.com/pebbles/docs/brochure_online2.pdf they have an Internet Cafe, so I expect to be blogging while I'm down there... I'm sitting here listening to Reggae at the moment, having a beer, getting in the mood... :) G'Night!  ¶ 9:27 PM 0 comments

  iPod Quest Update It's official, I've got my 5 completed referrals, and I've requested approval... According to the site, 7-10 days, according to Pete, about twice that... I'll let you know the next step :)

<- Here's a screen shot from the site  ¶ 1:08 AM 0 comments

  SAUDI ARABIA: HAJ STAMPEDE KILLS DOZENS SAUDI ARABIA: HAJ STAMPEDE KILLS DOZENS

345 people dead... This is a tragedy. Why? Thousands of people were running to pelt some pillars with rocks because they felt it would cleanse them of their sins? What a bizarre world we live in...  ¶ 12:29 PM 0 comments

  Caledonian 80/- available at the LCBO is 500ml Cans! This is good news, especially with the World Cup coming up, it's good to have nice, pint-sized cans of good beer available! While I haven't tried the 80/- (Pronounced 80 Shilling), from a Can, I'm hoping it'll be good! Here's more info on the beer from the official web site - Welcome to Caledonian 80/-

Caledonian Brewery is a small brewery in Edinburgh, Scotland.  ¶ 9:43 AM 0 comments

  Caledonian 80/- available at the LCBO is 500ml Cans! This is good news, especially with the World Cup coming up, it's good to have nice, pint-sized cans of good beer available! While I haven't tried the 80/- (Pronounced 80 Shilling), from a Can, I'm hoping it'll be good! Here's more info on the beer from the official web site - Welcome to Caledonian 80/-

Caledonian Brewery is a small brewery in Edinburgh, Scotland.  ¶ 9:43 AM 0 comments

  iPod Quest Update
1) My Status: YES! I've finally got my 5 referals, my bud Steve Edwardson finally took the plunge, just waiting for his offer to be confirmed (a day or two), then I'm good to go...

2) Pete's Status: Pete complete his approval phase about a week ago, and now he's just waiting for his iPod to be shipped, they've told him 6-8 weeks... Will let you all know when he receives it!!!

3) Galleria: I called and cancelled my Galleria membership, it was very painless, this was good news, so it has literally cost me only $1 (and my time of course...).

Thinking about going for it? Well don't click my link, I don't need any referrals, why not help out one of the fine Gents that signed up under me...?

Steve Maragos: Send me your link & current #'s and I'll post it!
Brian Hudson: Send me your link & current #'s and I'll post it!
Jason Bonney: Send me your link & current #'s and I'll post it!
Jason Butterfield: Send me your link & current #'s and I'll post it!
Steve Edwardson: http://ipods.freepay.com/?r=26656244  ¶ 12:23 AM 0 comments

  Where's the best Indian food in Mississauga?
This story starts back last year... We had a big Indian guy working with us at Netserve named Vinod, he told me where I could find the best Butter Chicken around... I think it's even run by a relative of his... Anyhow, it's called "THE HOST", and while they have 3 locations, the Mississauga one is right by Square one (I'll include links below...)

So a couple of weeks ago, Arlene and I were in the mood for Indian, so I said WTF, let's give it a roll... We absolutely LOVED IT!, we started with:

Mila Zula
Mixed platter of vegetable samosa, onion bhajia, khas tikki and murg nisha
$9.99

It was a great start, some really neat finger foods. Something in particular which I enjoyed which I hadn't had before, was almost like a chicken finger, but with a Indian-flavor batter...

For our main course we had:

Garlic Nan
Leavened white flour Tandoori bread (with Garlic & Butter)
$4.50

and now I can't find the 2 other dishes we had, I think perhaps the menu on the web site is different from the restaurant, anyhow, we think we had a Tandoori chicken with some type of Almond, and then I thought the curry was a Tikka Masala or something like that... Anyhow, it was the best Indian we'd ever had!

Then Arlene was reading the Star today and read that The Host had actually been selected from like 46 Toronto area restaurants as having THE BEST BUTTER CHICKEN! Ha! So go figure, we DO know what we're talking about (and eating!)

Let's plan a few pints at Failte and then the Vindaloo at The Host!

Official Web Site: http://www.welcometohost.com/

Google Map (directions from Failte to the Host!):
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=li&daddr=33+City+Centre+Dr,+Mississauga,+ON,+Canada&saddr=201+city+centre+drive+mississauga+ontario&ll=43.592498,-79.63985&spn=0.015696,0.034418  ¶ 9:57 PM 0 comments

  Attack of the Rat Monster - Google Video Attack of the Rat Monster - Google Video

Awesome time waster... You need sound, this is absolutely awesome! 2 minutes...  ¶ 1:59 AM 0 comments

  The Million Dollar Homepage - Own a piece of internet history! The Million Dollar Homepage - Own a piece of internet history!

This is really wacky, I heard about it from a coworker... Some dude build this sh*te website, and people have paid $1/pixel for a permanent ad. He has 1,000,000 pixels so he's made close to $1,000,000 on this, he's got the last 1,000 pixels up on eBay and with still 5 days remaining the bid is already up over $100,000!!!! NUTS!!!  ¶ 4:38 PM 0 comments

  Polar Bear Dip 2006 Had an amazing time at the Polar Bear Dip 2006, thanks to Richard Barter and his family for inviting me along for this! It was an incredible day!

Headed out to Coronation park in Oakville, arrived at about 12:30pm, I had taken it easy New Years Eve, so I wasn't feeling hung over or anything, and had a hearty breakfast so I was feeling pretty good. Realized that I'd forgotten to bring a towel (Duh!). I called the Barters and luckily they hadn't left yet so they brought a spare for me.

The kids built a cool snow fort while we milled around a bit, then we got registered and lined up.

Pictured here (from left-to-right) are my fellow polar-buddies, Brian, Richard, and myself (pre-dip). Temperature was probably around zeroish... Not windy or anything, which was good...

At about 2:00pm the line started to move as they allowed groups of about 50-100 'dippers' to the roped-off beach area. There were probably about maybe 3,000-5,000 people there all together including 'dippers' and watchers...

Got down to the beach area, stripped down to my Toon jersey, shorts and old runners... At this point the adreneline really starts pumping, you know it's coming, I'm jumping up and down, anxious to get in... We're there for probably 3 or 4 minutes (not sure why the hold up?), I'm looking around for the boys in the crowd, but can't find them... Theres a really eclectic mix of people, among them, some dude in his 30's wearing a pink leotard... Nice...and then we hear the countdown, 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Yeah!!!

Everyone starts to run into the water, of course the first few strides into the water you feel the freezing cold temperature, as it splashes up, but the mayhem and excitement takes over from any common sense and I continue to run in... A few people sort of slip and fall around me, and I dodge them and continue out to about waist deep water, then I drop in, fully submerged and it's this massive body shock, followed by an almost temporary paralysis, I come out of the water and turn back towards the shore, and I'm looking for Jack, George and Henry along the shore because I knew they were probably about 20 or 30 feet over from the big crowd, and I wanted to see them and wave to them... I'm trying to yell out and wave, but my body isn't quite working right... I head back into shore and I'm sort of walking like frankenstein at first, then I just want to get to the towels and start getting dry and warm...

I get to shore and decide that stripping off the jersey would be a good idea (not so sure about that now), but the thing is totally stuck to me, so it takes a few good tugs to get it over my head, a CTV reporter comes by, and I have no recollection of what I said... Richard, Brian and I get a few pictures snapped, then it's time to gather up our things and make our way to the changing area...

It's a slow slog as there are a bunch of people lined up and we're walking past spectators and stuff, and it's pretty surreal at this point, you don't really feel cold, just mostly in your feet, they're definitely the worse off (probably because of course your shoes are still totally soaked with freezing water), so we arrive at a couple of U-Haul cube vans, walk up a ramp and we're inside (although it's not heated), and we can get changed into warm clothes...

Then it's all over... We're back in our warm clothes, we get a few gulps of hot chocolate (boy does it taste good), then we head over to Richard's brother-in-law's station wagon, he's got a tail-gate-style coleman stove fired up with some mulled wine, which also tastes good, feeling plenty warmed up by now...

All in all a fantastic experience, I'd recommend it to anyone, will definitely do it next year, it's a new tradition!

WHO'S IN??

Here's an article from the Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Render&c=Article&cid=1136155809340&call_pageid=968332188492

and here's one that touches on the topic on CTV.ca:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060101/new_years_wrap_060101/20060101/  ¶ 2:40 PM 0 comments