My Recent Trip To Canada

Hello there to allow my fellow followers and to the people of the internet in general. How’s it goin? Anyway you may have noticed a lack in activity on this blog and there’s a reason, basically I was abroad in Canada visiting family, and while I was able to post about E3 this year, since I wasn’t in the UK I couldn’t do much in the way of reviews. So since I’m back in the UK adjusting back to normal life I thought I’d do a short blog post about the highlights of my trip. 🙂

 

Catching Up With Family And Friends

One of the main reasons I wanted to go back was to visit my family over there. You see my uncle got married out there 11 years ago and meet my family in-law and their friends. Even though my uncle and his family have come back on a few occasions in recent years, I haven’t seen everyone else for the better part of a decade, and so while I didn’t see everybody, just catching up with people and seeing what’s changed and what’s remained the same, but also being able to have more adult conversations was fabulous. We did so much from playing laser tag and riding a flight simulator over Canada to chilling out playing video games and watching films, it was a delightful mix of excitement and relaxing stuff. 😀

Eating Food

One of the things I loved about my holiday from the first day was the food, I love me some good food and thankfully my auntie wanted to take me, my cousin and sister to all of these different asian food places and we tried so much, from Japanese to Vietnamese to Korean and so much more and there was so much diversity when it came to the meat, seafood and vegetables. For the most part I ate a combination of stuff that was interesting, stuff I liked and stuff I didn’t know I would love, it was fabulous. I ate everything from pizza and burgers to curry to steak and lobster to fried squid to sushi and shrimp and so much more. I was so full on a good few of these days and I probably ate more in the first week than I;d had in the few weeks that came before the holiday. At times it was a little too much but I powered through as much as I could and I think I did a damn good job. 😛

Drinks

Man I enjoyed the drinks in Vancouver. One thing I never got to do last time I was abroad was drink alcohol because I was 2 years below the age limit, so funnily enough my auntie and uncle were keen for us to try all of the different alcoholic beverages the restaurants had to offer, as well as the stuff they had at home and it was a hella fun session. From beers to sake to various cocktails and other mixtures, I had a lovely session. At times it got a little too crazy and I got buzzed on a few occasions, but since we never went out things never got too out of had. But I have to admit, there’s a lot of drinks over there that I. Beyond the alcohol, I had a good few interesting soft drinks whether they were tea, certain juices or fizzy drinks, the types of drinks were much more varied and experimental when compared to what we have in the UK and I need more of that stuff.

Sightseeing

Vancouver is one beautiful place, and when I left there back in 2007 I could still recall all of the wonderful sights I’d seen. But good gravy it was great to go back! From the time I got into the airport to being in Metrotown to Stanley Park, I got to revisit places I hadn’t seen since i was a teenager. Plus there was everything new that I got to see and experience, I love the buzz and energy of Granville, I could walk around that place for ages, admiring the tall buildings, looking at the locations used for filming in certain film and TV shows and checking out the buskers among other things. I also went to my first football match ever in Canada (random I know), and that was awesome because the atmosphere was electric, I loved the chanting, the national anthems and even the opposing team faking all of their injuries haha. Oh and there’s this kick ass place I went to called the Stormcrow which was this awesome full of nerdy stuff like posters, props, masks, and board games from video games and sci-fi and fantasy films and TV. It was delightful.

Meeting Max Landis

And finally we have what could be considered the highlight of my holiday; meeting Max Landis. When my uncle told me he’d be at the comic book shop he used to work at, I jumped at the opportunity to meet him in person and it was easily one of my favourite moments of the year. Like with other notable people who work in the world of entertainment, I was flustered mess haha. I just about able to talk to him coherently introducing myself to him and being able to ask him about his creative process and Landis was incredible. He was just charismatic, engaging and larger-than-life as he appears when I see him online. Just listening to him speak and respond to people is fascinating and I was so glad to get my copy of Superman: American Alien signed and get my photo taken with him..

So yeah that was my little account of my recent two week session in Canada, it was a great two weeks away. It really felt like time got away from us and I wish I had more time to explore and go out for session of dancing or do karaoke or visit other family members. But in the end I had fun and I will go back in the next two years, hopefully. Thanks for reading and look out for some reviews in the near future. 😀

 

Rant 16: I Don’t Like It When People Waste Food

Howdy people and welcome to another instalment in my blogging rants. It feels like ages since I’ve done of these types of posts (just over a year) so I thought it was about time I started it up again. And today’s rant will be on something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, and that is people who waste food and why it bothers me.

Now this is something that most people have done at one point or another (myself included) and usually it is not my choice, normally when food is wasted it is due to either not liking what you’re eating or the more common option is that you’re full and can’t finish the rest… HOWEVER! This blog post is directed at those who are self-aware, buy food and then chooses to waste it later, that’s the kind of shit that brings my piss to a boil yo!

So I’m going to present you with a few scenarios of where this kind of stuff happens.

Fast Food Places

This is the main pet peeve when it comes to wasting food. Several times after nights out whether I’m just leaving the club and going home or leaving the house the morning after I always end up seeing boxes of chicken and chips or fish and chips or pizza just dashed on the floor. It could be half eaten, 3/4’s of the way done or completely untouched and that just bugs me. Why buy food if you’re not going to finish it? Now I’ve heard the popular argument, “Oh but if you’re drunk you may get full or not want to finish your food.” Well I have two things to say about that: 1) Know what your stomach is feeling before you buy your food! If you know you’re only a bit hungry buy a smaller portion of food or don’t buy anything at all! And 2) If you’re buying food that you can’t finish, bring it home and finish it in the morning! I know chips aren’t salvageable after a night out (don’t try microwaves or ovens, it don’t work), but with chicken, burgers, pizza or garlic bread, that stuff still tastes good in the morning. Trust me, I was a uni student and it worked just fine for me and plenty of the other people I knew.

Restaurants/Pubs

Since I’ve worked in establishments as waiter I’ve seen first-hand how certain customers come in, order food, barely touch it and then leave. What the hell man? Why even come out and pay for food if you’re not going to eat it? Seems so pointless. Other times they’ll get through half of it and give up. If you know you can’t finish it all, get it in a take away container when you go home, I know with pubs that’s not really an option, but with a good few restaurants that it is an option, so why not take advantage? I just don’t get people sometimes. I know you can underestimate the amount of food your stomach can handle or you can try food for the first time and not like it, but I would say just stick to what you know and be sure you can finish it.

At Home

This is a different kind of environment when it comes to wasting good. But it normally comes in the form of making food and not wanting to finish it because you’re full or experimented with flavours and ruined the food or ate some, left some for later but then left it too long to go off date. I know I have gotten rid of food I didn’t want to eat but it is mainly due to very quick expiry dates rather than making something I didn’t want to eat. I still get pissed at myself when I can’t finish food because I love to eat and I’d rather get the full value of my food eating experience.

Well that’s another rant over. Hopefully this has been somewhat insightful and if you’ve had any similar experiences please be sure to comment about it in comments below. Until the next time people, laters. 🙂

 

Rant 05: My Horrible Restaurant Experience

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another installment in my blogging rants and today’s subject will be on the horrible experience I had at an Italian restaurant the other night.

As it says in the title of this post I had a horrible time in a restaurant the horrible day, it was incredible, ridiculous and unnecessary. Never before have I had such a bad experience in any restaurant in my life! Anyway, let me go back to the start of things and explain how my night went from brilliant to horrible in the space of 2 hours.

So check it out, my mate Ela wanted to meet up with me and our other college friends before she went off to Barcelona, so the other night we all met up in town and decided we wanted to go out and eat somewhere fancy. However some of the guys were being picky about where they wanted to eat, but then it was suggest we go to a Greek restaurant, but when we got there that place was closed, though across the road we saw an Italian restaurant and decided to try our luck in there.

Italian food, can’t go wrong right?

So we step inside and it’s all nice, cozy and pretty-looking and very surprising because on the outside it doesn’t look as fancy. The host is pretty charismatic and funny, he got the drinks for our table pretty quickly and he moved around the restaurant a lot when more people came in. Then me and my mates clocked on, he was not only the host, but he was the only waiter in the restaurant (it’s no wonder there was a ‘help wanted’ sign in the window). Me and mates were literally just having a great time catching up and taking pictures, but some us were getting pretty darn hungry (me especially). Luckily the starters showed up and they were actually really good, but we destroyed the starters in a matter of minutes so most us were ready for our main courses… Only problem was that it was gonna take a long time to get to us.

Waiting for food, it is no laughing matter.

I’m not sure when we specifically ordered our food but the thing is after 30 minutes we were starting to get a little irritable and after around an hour even the people on the table behind us asked if we had received our food yet as they hadn’t gotten their food either. It was at this point when we started to get annoyed with the service and wanted to ask what the deal was, so my mate asked the host why the food was taking so long and the man replied “What would you like me to do about it?” And mate said that he should try to speed up our food in the kitchen and then the host/waiter said he’d try and by that point you could see him getting a little agitated with us, not that we cared because we were bloody hungry. Unfortunately the pain only ascended.

By hour and a half mark I was suffering and so were my friends. One of my mates wanted to leave and at one point I was gonna leave with her. A few of us reckoned we could have gone to several other places and gotten food so much faster than we could have in that restaurant. A little while later my mate asked the host/waiter again about our food and as he walked by our table he literally said “It’s coming.” But the waiting was killing me, I was so totally gonna leave. I was rocking forward and backward and stabbing the table with my fork. I was freaking out without my food. Ela kept trying to keep some us calm and told us to stay when we kept saying we gonna leave. But what really drove me to the point of insanity was that the people who came in after us were starting to get their food before us and I was just so ready to blow up, I felt a fusion of anger, confusion and depression. Me and my mates were asking each other what we ordered and thought that it really wouldn’t take that long to make some of those main dishes. I mean two of my mates were waiting for pasta dishes, PASTA DISHES! PASTA DOES NOT TAKE TWO HOURS TO MAKE!

At one point my mate asked the host/waiter for the third time where our food was, and the guy said it was ready and my mate was like “Then what are you standing around for? Go and get our food!” And everyone started laughing, me especially. It was that moment that saved me from being completely depressed in that restaurant, I was still hungry, but I was well happy about what my mate said. Eventually and I mean EVENTUALLY our food did show up after the two-hour mark. Some of the food was good, but mine specifically wasn’t worth the wait. I was just annoyed that it took forever.

Making someone wait for food when they’re hungry is not a good thing to do. It makes them crazy and unstable! No joke.

In the end that was the worst experience I had ever had in any restaurant ever. I had only seen customer service and food-waiting that bad on TV like when I was watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA (great show by the way), but now I know the pain from the customer side of things. It was ridiculous how short-staffed the place was, I only saw two people in the kitchen and there was only ONE waiter! Which was tragic, then add the two-hour wait for our food along with the horrible service we got from the host/waiter guy and that was a recipe for a bad restaurant experience. The food wasn’t bad, but it took too damn long and I will not be returning there anytime soon.

At the end of the day you should never have to wait for your food, if your food takes an hour to get to you, leave beforehand and find somewhere better.

Thanks for reading my rant. Later on! 😀