1. Breakfast sandwiches.  Elizabeth and I, in our ongoing quest for health, well-being, and general non-fatness, have made a concerted effort to reduce our intake of carbs.  Particularly in the form of pasta (which we love) and bread (which we also love).  This carb reduction also envelopes pancakes, waffles, and crepes, so at this point we have pretty much eliminated four of my five favourite breakfasts – the fifth being bacon n’ eggs.  So this morning, when we elected to make breakfast sandwiches which included (gasp) cheese and (apoplexy) English muffins, along with fried eggs and slices of crispy bacon, I came quite close to weeping for the joy of it.

2. Moneyball.  Both Brad and I recently finished reading this book, and feel the world is a better place for its existence.  The book focuses on: 1) baseball; 2) statistics; 3) the story of a person’s quest to find truth in the face of great odds; and 4) a fundamental shift in an industry.  If you like any one of those four, you will likely enjoy the book.  If you like all four of them, you will love it.

3. Little Big Planet 2.  There is a very, very, very small subset of games that Elizabeth is willing to play.  Incredibly small.  In fact, this subset currently consists of precisely one game.  This is that game, and last evening we spent a pleasant hour or so muddling through a few of the early levels together and generally getting in one another’s way.  I maintain that, on her part, this in-way-getting was largely intentional.

photo credit: Kasia/flickr

City living.

I really didn’t imagine that, at any point in my life, I would actually be grateful to live in the city. Having grown up in rural Ontario, I very much appreciate open skies and wide spaces and the freedom to run about bellowing at top volume without anyone around to see you and quietly judge.

I have, however, come to appreciate living in a place where the commute to work is short, and a goodly number of entertainment sources are within walking distance. The inspiration for today’s post comes from Friday evening, where Elizabeth and I wandered up the street and revisited a restaurant we haven’t been to in a while. The ambiance was just what we were looking for that evening, the food was quite tasty, and they had a Quebec beer on tap which I’d never tried before. I won’t get into pretentious language of hoppiness and fruitness and bounciness; I’ll just say that it tasted like the love child of Guiness and Blue Moon, and the world is a little bit better for it being here.

Being that I had not sufficiently achieved my gluttony goals for the evening, we toddled across to our favourite cafe, the Beechwood, for an après-supper latte and dessert. Here I incurred Elizabeth’s ire when I stole a tiny bit of icing from her cupcake.  Given the deliciousness of said cupcake, I would say a little ire was worth it.

We pretty much froze solid on the walk home, which is one more reason why I was glad that our place was relatively close by.  Settling onto the couch at our homestead, we got to discussing how much more walking we did now that we lived in the city, and the fact that we’re probably the better for it.  It’s not ideal for our pocketbook, and having cupcakes and lattes in such close proximity to the house will surely come back to haunt me in 20 or 30 pounds, but there is certainly something to be said for the experience of having a neighbourhood we call our own.

photo credit: joiseyshowaa

1. Cragganmore.  Particularly of the 12-year-old variety.  Elizabeth, with gentle coaching from Brad, offered this to me this evening in celebration of a recently completed project.  The only thing that is preventing me from getting completely fuzz-bombed on the stuff right now is that it is entirely too fine a product with which to get completely fuzz-bombed.

2. The Museum of Natural History.  I visited this fine institution once again today, and once again was a kid in an academic candy store.  A candy store with giant replicas of the universe and the fossilized carcasses of carnivorous predatory beasts.  To me, it just doesn’t get much better than that.

3. Elizabeth.

1. The French press.  Elizabeth recently procured one of these for me, which means that I can now enjoy a cup of coffee of a weekend morning without hauling out the Buick-sized, coffee-by-the-gallon brewing monster that lurks in our kitchen.  I feel simultaneously more refined and more rustic, as I grind the beans, boil the water, and pour myself a hit of caffeination.

Also, the fact that this particular press was manufactured by Bodum means that I can intone “Bodum, Bodum, Bodum” in a middle baritone whilst preparing the beverage.

2.  Coffee.  This sort of goes hand in hand with the one above, but it bears special mention.  One of my Christmas presents this year was a pouch of a truly splendid blend, grown by leprechauns in the forested hills of Chile before being roasted over St. Elmo’s fire and carried to our home on the backs of homing miniature donkeys.

3. Family.  We are moving about the apartment today, prepping for a couple of my cousins to spend the weekend with us, which is sure to prove entertaining.

My plan is to serve them fresh coffee.  I haven’t really planned much beyond that.

photo credit: Gideon Tsang

1. Bicycles.  Particularly when they replace old, dual-wheeled dilapidated death chariots like the one Elizabeth was riding previously.  Her former chain-churner should, by rights, have been taken out behind the barn and shot quite some time ago, but we had never really gotten around to it.  This weekend, that changed when we rolled her shiny new toy out to the park, where we did one lap before being driven back inside by frigid winds and the ever increasing threat of chill rain.

2. Caramel squares.  Elizabeth doesn’t make these terribly often, which is probably good because otherwise I would be enormously fat.  I’m talking manatee levels of fat.  Nonetheless, when she does make them, and when I can get to them before they are (horrors!) given away, I stuff them into my face like a chipmunk in autumn.

3.  Blanton‘s.  We’ve spoken before about bourbon, and the merits thereof.  Blanton’s takes bourbon to a whole new level – a wonderful, caramel-y level, where the stars pour forth their melodies and noble stallions charge about your living room.  Metaphorically.

Incidentally, the fact that each bottle is hand-labeled just makes it that much more awesome.

photo credit: josef.stuefer

1. Vacation.  There probably isn’t a need to elaborate further on that, but let me just call out that it is the holiday break, my projects are done, and I am in full-on not-thinking-about-work mode.

2. Skiing.  Elizabeth and I have decided that we need to take up a hobby.  We’ve been looking for something we can do together, that’s active, and that we both enjoy.  Skiing (of the downhill variety) fits the bill, and has the added bonus that it’s frigid cold and offers an unparalleled opportunity to wrap ourselves around trees at high velocity.

3. Lasagna.  Diggory got a great recipe from his mother for the stuff, and it makes for a fantastic meal.  Plus, it’s one of the very few dishes that actually tastes better as leftovers.

photo credit: gregor_y

You may be asking why Elizabeth went off to Spain, while I stayed at home and toiled mightily.

This is a good question.

In any case, she is home and she has posted some pictures and reflections on her shiny new blog.  Feel free to wander over there if you’re interested in Spain, architecture, or giant anatomically correct bull sculptures.

I only wish I was kidding about the bulls.

photo credit: Paulo Brandão

1.  Farmville.  Diggory introduced me to this goofy little Facebook app, which has since been sucking my time away like a Shop-Vac in a box of Cheerios.  Perhaps it’s because it connects with my fond memories of growing up on a farm.  Perhaps it’s the bright colours and pleasant looking fruits and vegetables it sends prancing about my screen.  Perhaps it’s because it is free and yet of comparable quality to a farming sim game I remember paying good money for about 10 years ago (Don’t ask.  Please, don’t ask).  Whatever the case, it’s one of those simple, simple games that I find myself almost unwillingly wandering back to from time to frequent time.

2.  Trail mix.  Elizabeth took it upon herself to make our own last week, after doing some quick math and realizing that she could manufacture trail mix at roughly one-third the cost of what the grocery store would charge for the pre-mixed stuff.  To her great irritation, Diggory and I then proceeded to scarf the whole gallon of it down in the space of a day and a half.  Elizabeth has threatened to visit all manner of horrors upon me if I do not ease up on my trail mix consumption.

3.  Mint.  We’ve been using this site to track our finances and attempt to uncover the black hole that seems to absorb a startling amount of our disposable income each month.  The black hole may or may not be chocolate; the jury is still out on this one.  Still, the site has proven a handy way for us to keep tabs on things and track where the money’s coming in and going out each cycle.  The good news is that it’s free; the bad news is that it isn’t available in Canada yet.

photo credit: kevindooley

Pie.

Just pie, today.  Elizabeth is baking up a storm here, and pie is one of the principal foodstuffs in production at this point.  She has gone to considerable lengths to make it cosmetically appealing, as well as tasty.

It will be out of the oven soon, at which point I expect it to disappear in very short order (mostly into the inner recesses of my own doughy self), but in the meantime I am amusing myself by gazing fondly at the picture I took of it before it went in the oven.

Delicious sweet awesomeness

1. The Escapist.  If you’re not interested in video games or video game culture, or if you are interested in it but struggle with the overwhelming geekiness of it all, this site is probably not for you.  If, however, you can happily wallow in your own nerddom, there’s a lot to enjoy on this site.  Zero Punctuation and Unskippable are definite highlights.

2.  Gord Downie on CBC Q.  The May 11 episode features a lengthy interview with the frontman for The Tragically Hip, one of the best Canadian bands ever.  The interview is a fascinating look into the mind of the poet and performer.

3.  Uncle Jay Explains the News.  More than Fox, CNN, or even BBC, I look to Uncle Jay to make sense of the events in the world around us.  And then to mock them.

photo credit: Pipe ?