I Blame PopCap

For those of you who got really sick of seeing the booties in my last post getting dusty in my blog, and are mad at me for not writing anything about my recent trip to PAX East in Boston, or the purchase of my new condo in the St. Lawrence Market area, or any other little personal things I may have been up to lately, all I can say is: BLAME POPCAP.

My life has been brutally annexed by the game Plants vs Zombies lately. It’s a simple little tower defense game – zombies are attacking your back yard (or roof, or pool), and you have to garden quickly to stop their brain-eating rampage from invading your home. I can’t explain to you why it’s so addictive, it simply is. For those of you who have had hours or days of your free time swallowed whole by the devastation of some of PopCap’s other delectable goodies, such as Bejeweled or Peggle, I hope you understand my predicament. On the plus side, it goaded me into making a nice container garden on my balcony (see above) in case of zombie attack on Yorkville. You never know.

Now that I’ve taken pains to explain why I’ve been such a naughty blogger lately, let me try and make amends.

First, the day to day minutiae. After making a companion stuffed fleece and terry cloth toy dragon (named Lloyd, see above) to follow up on the triumph of my stuffed knitted Linux penguin (Grumpy), I am taking a break from toy making for a while and focusing on finishing my green triangle quilt (also see above). Desperately avoiding the desire to embroider tiny plants and zombies onto it. Knitting a pink version of Ysolda Teague’s Cloud Bolero, and am already off my stitch count (I hate yarn overs!). Reading a bunch of things – just finished a whack of obscure Agatha Christie (The Clocks, The Listerdale Mystery), and am working on re-reading Bird by Bird, Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert (on loan from MintyNinja), and a tentative start on Terry Pratchett’s massive Discworld series, The Colour of Magic, which has been aggressively marketed to me over the years by a series of maniacal fans, including Edwud, Philip and David.

Next, Travel. Pro Tip: if you are flying to Boston from Toronto, take Porter airlines, their service is AMAZING and their marketing is killer, and on top of all that, if you have a mobile phone with Foursquare and you check in at “Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport Ferry” while traveling the 400 meters to get to the Toronto Island Airport, you unlock the “On a Boat” badge. Wicked.

Boston was lovely. Darren and I decided two PAXes in one year was a bit too much, so avoided most of the heavy nerdery to do some sightseeing and sampling of the local restaurants with my friends HA and BW. Things I did enjoy at the con were the retro gaming room, which had a library of classic NES, SNES, Colecovision and Sega games, and the ancient but beautifully preserved systems to play them on. Right next door was the classic arcade room, where you could play free pinball to your heart’s content. I had a go at Dragon’s Lair and a completely bizarre Japanese game where you play pigs with dart guns being attacked by floating foxes held up by balloons (no, seriously) called… Pooyan. *snicker*

In Boston itself, we tried both ways of getting from Logan International Airport to Hynes Convention Centre. Another Pro Tip: don’t bother with the new “Silver” line. It sucks. It’s not even a subway, it’s just a bus that runs underground for a while, then gets insanely crowded, then lets you off at your terminal. Seriously, just take the shuttle to the Blue line, then transfer to Green. It’s WAY faster! We walked the whole Freedom Trail, starting at the Boston Common and going all the way to the USS Constitution. This was my second time walking it and it was every bit as amazing as the first time I did it. Also, the stupid crazy scary rusty see-through bridge between Copp’s Hill and Bunker Hill was still scary as hell, but I crossed it without plunging to my death, so that was okay.

Food-wise, the best place we ate, hands down, was the Parish Cafe on Boylston. Gourmet sandwiches from local celeb chefs all over Boston. Every bite was fabulous, nice patio, and a handsome wooden bar. Emma’s Pizza in Cambridge ran a close second for tasty, with great ambience, nice wine, and thin crust pizza that I could have kept eating all night. The rest of our noms were found on Newbury Street, including TeaLuxe which provided us with some powerful chai and matcha action.

I won’t bother writing about the new condo purchase, since we don’t get the keys until next Monday, and it won’t be much to look at for a while after that, since we need to renovate the bathrooms and kitchen, paint, buy furniture and move in. Hoping to get all this done before the G20 arrives in Toronto in late June.

Tags: Agatha Christie, Boston, condo, dragon, Freedom Trail, green quilt, Lloyd, MBTA, moguldom, Plants vs Zombies, PopCap, renos, Terry Pratchett, toys

NYC – The Real Food Guide

I’ve decided to tidy up my crazy mental and visual notes for the weekend by dividing them into two sensible categories, and two entries. From the photo-essay I’ve assembled so far, Saturday’s topic, “FOOD,” appears to be taking on the shape of a Zagat guide written by Mary Shelley. Meanwhile, Sunday’s feature, “FASHION,” will be a laissez-faire Vogue tribute to September street sights and Manhattan hipster initiatives.

*Note: I wrote large chunks of this Monday afternoon at Gate D2 of LaGuardia airport while waiting for delayed flight 1167 to Toronto to arrive. The rest was lashed together Tuesday night under the influence of high fever delerium. Could be disjointed. Not recommended for the faint of heart or the high of cholesterol. Beware.*

New York is home to thousands upon thousands of restaurants. Good food is abundant, and many people eat it. But the seedy, sticky, enormously distended underbelly of Manhattan’s culinary adventures is what I set out to explore. Five star experiences are a dime a dozen, and guides aplenty tell you where to lay your plastic down for tasty apps and a main. But where can you get authenticity? Where can you find True American Eats? Right here, baby. Right here.

Vegetable: Boar’s Head Pickles. They’re cheap and they’re massive. A single courgette can feed a family of five for a month. You can buy them anywhere in New York, and the only requirement is that you must be able to heft them out of the jar without breaking your own arm.
But watch out… if they soak up too much brine, they can turn EVIL.

Animal: Sturgeon. It’s a fish, whose popularity would suggest it spawns in huge vats of heroin-laced ambrosia. Barney Greengrass, the self-titled “Sturgeon King,” has people lined up around the block waiting for their piscine hit on Sundays. Seriously, some folks camp out overnight. I would have snapped a photo of the ravening hordes, but I didn’t want to be mistaken for the delivery guy.

Mineral(?): There were several fine candidates for the dishonorable mention of most-freaky-totally-chemical ‘food’ item on the shelves in NYC. Despite the stiff competition, I narrowed it down to a tie for first. “New Extreme Crème Taste Oreo O’s Cereal” is terrifying in its frivolous disregard for the health of young Americans. To me, this product smacks of chocolately defeat, a saccharine acceptance of video game culture and obesity.

The second item I caught a glance of in the checkout aisle, casually laying itself out as an “impulse item.” Instantly recognizable as one of my childhood delights, “Fun Dip” has taken on a disturbing new face with the advent of some subtle graphic retooling of their packaging. The dip itself is pictured as having fun, making the figurative horrifyingly literal. The average consumer may not even register the dreadful scene unfolding in happy cartoon colours, as the dip’s anthropomorphized mouth opens wide to receive a tongue piled high with its own substance. Crystalline fructose cannibalism. Apple, grape and cherry cheerfully plunge the dip stick into themselves in an overtly sexual and violent act. What kind of twisted morality is this teaching the children of today?

Other: While not technically edible (the same could be said of Oreo cereal, really), there were a few other food-fetish items that seemed worthy of note. During a routine stop at F.A.O. Schwartz, the giant toy store across from Bergdorf Goodman’s, one can take witness the glory that is the world’s biggest Mr. Potato Head.

Also on display were the latest in cutting-edge plastics that didn’t prove useful in warfare, so got annexed as toys instead. Check out silly putty if you want historical precendent for this practice. You have to appreciate the humour in “Goooze” by Nickelodeon (insert vagina slang joke here). Yes, I know. I have a filthy, filthy mind. But you have to admit, the packaging doesn’t help. Not only does “Goooze” (snort, guffaw, ahem) come in a wide array of food-flavours such as cream soda, mint chocolate chip, whole lotta berry, and the freakish pinenana-splitz, it also has some hilarious marketing imperatives. “New Scented Formula: Smell It!”, “Stretch It”, “Bounce It!”, “Squeeze it!”, “Bubble it!” How’s a girl NOT supposed to laugh? Serious homonym action with a really nasty word for snatch I could giggle at and move on, but SNIFF IT?!? It’s all just too much for my poor perverted mind to handle.

It didn’t help that just one floor up was another strange twist in the weird world of food-related toys. Some bright spark saw a market for new, hip, urban Barbie Dolls, and decided to call them “Flavas.” These dolls are true role models for the Future Leaders of America. Little hip hop ghetto people wearing leopard print tube tops and oversized pants, their ‘hoods tagged with graffiti, sporting names like P. Bo and Kiyoni Brown. I don’t think I need to go on about these. They sort of scream for themselves.

Tags: authenticity, F.A.O. Schwartz, Flavas, food, fun dip, goooze, hipsters, LaGuardia, Manhattan, Mary Shelley, Mr. Potato Head, NYC, oreo cereal, pickles, sturgeon, toys, true American eats