Gradgeeated!

I done graduated! Yay me! After two long, hard, toil filled years at the NSCC I officially have graduated and have my diploma in my hands. I didn’t even want to go to the ceremony at first because I figured it would be hours of speeches, diploma handing outs and other assorted boring things. A night at home in my sweatpants playing Dynasty Warriors sounded like a much better option, but after threats of violence from classmates and sad looks from my mother, I agreed to go. And in the end, I’m sort of glad I did. I skipped my first NSCC graduation years ago cause I hated the progam and my band was going to be famous (…), and even though it ended up being the hours of diploma handing out and speeches, I found myself actually enjoying it (despite my best efforts not to). I guess I did feel a little bit like celebrating after two years, and seeing my instructor’s beaming faces as I walked across the stage (not to mention my mother’s) really made it worthwhile. That having been said, I’m still unemployed… lol. Doing my weekly job site hunt tomorrow I think, once I’ve calmed down a little from the excitement today. The best part? My mother got me Chinese from Fan’s to celebrate for dinner afterwards. And I got to have my Salt and Pepper squid. Nom nom nom.

We’ve been doing some great stuff at the studio lately, and we’re working on something HUGE that I cannot mention at the moment. We’ve done two shoots lately that are sticking out in my mind. One day, I told Anthony “If we ever get a lightning storm here we need to go out and get lightning pics.” Literally that night, we had one of the biggest lightning storms I can remember. So of course, Anthony and I piled into the car at 12:30 A.M. and started to chase down the storm. We got a few awesome pics, but this is my favourite. There were other shots that had brighter or bigger bolts, but something drew me to this one. I can’t explain it, but I love this shot.

The next was a late night shoot at Lawrencetown beach, just trying to capture starfields and scenery. We had a lot of fun doing these, and I think we might be attempting some similar stuff in the future.

And now since certain people have been bothering me to keep going with this, Day 2 of the 30 Day Song Challenge! Day 2 is ‘Your Least Favourite Song’. This one actually took a lot of thought, because there’s a lot of music out there I cannot stand. But rather than go for an obvious target (Nickelback, Hedley, Buckcherry, Rebecca Black, The Beibs), I chose to pick and artist that I actually sort of like, but just released a few god awful songs.

Now, I like Eminem. I find some of his songs very powerful, some humourous and some are just great tunes to dance to. Seriously, put on “Shake That” and I will be on the floor dancing like a redneck stripper on Springer. You all needed that visual. This particular song I think could have worked really well as a tale of growing up in a rough neighborhood, the perils of trying to raise a family while famous, broken relationships and sad children. And then it gets to the last few lines and it becomes a throwaway joke with a bit of cursing thrown in for good measure. Every time I try to listen to this all I can think is “Fuck, that stupid line is coming up at the end and it’s going to ruin everything.” So here you go ladies and gentleman, Mockingbird by Eminem.

An Update? Holy pee!

So yeah, it’s apparently been a long time since I’ve updated this and I guess a lot has changed in the past year and a half since I updated last. I’ve since graduated (well, finished my course work and work term, graduation itself isn’t for a few weeks) and am now in the process of looking for work. I’ve got a good lead on a job that they’ve apparently started looking through the resumes for, so hopefully I’ve got something soon. Unemployement is fun for the first few days but then it just gets old really quick. Money issues aside, I just get bored with nothing to do. I keep saying I’m going to get back to working out and getting in shape (like I’ve been saying for 26 years now…) and I’m slowly creeping my way towards that goal. I did gain 25lbs last year in school, thanks to my lack of self control and an overall lack of movement. Time to get that off!

Oh yeah, I’ve also started helping out a friend of mine with his photo studio, taking care of the money and helping out with lights, styling, cleaning, pack mule duties and generally keeping him company. So you should all check out Intervalia Studio One on Facebook, give us a like and come model for us. Especially if you’re an attractive gentleman. We don’t get enough of those.You could check out our website but the Facebook page has WAY more content and lets you give us feedback, which we always appreciate.

My other reason for restarting this blog was I was inspired by someone to start doing the 30 day song challenge, and I found that the limited space on Facebook comments just wasn’t enough for me to properly explain my feelings on the song. That and people tend to skip links on Facebook so I’m assuming if you’re coming here you care enough to see what I’m up to and what I think. I can’t promise an update every day, but every time I do update I’ll try to include the next day of the challenge. Day 2 (least favourite song) should be a hoot!

Day 1 is your favourite song. For me, this was a tough one. As many of you probably know, my taste is music has been described as “varied”, “wacky” and “scary”. When I put my iPod on shuffle, my friends tend to either grit their teeth or make the sign of the cross, worrying themselves into a tizzy if they’re going to get something off the beaten path (Klaus Nomi, I’m looking at you). So with this wide variety of music to choose from, how do I pick just one song? What ONE song do I keep coming back to, regardless of time, feelings, genre, anything? I did a lot of soul searching and finally managed to pick one of my favourite songs (I still can’t call it THE favourite), and then spent even more time on YouTube trying to find my favourite version of the song. I was going to go with the single version, but the video was just a picture of the album art. I decided on this live one because to me it encapsulates everything I love about the song and the band into one great shot. Also, it’s subtitled so in case you don’t speak Japanese (I sure as heck don’t) you’ll get the gist of the Japanese part.

So yeah, my favourite song (according to the list) is Tears by X-Japan. Around junior high and high school, my best friend was getting me into Asian music, starting with Beyond, a great Chinese band and Glay, a Japanese band with a flair for catchy rock tunes and fashion. At the same time, I discovered X-Japan. They were everything I loved about music rolled into one, they were excellent musicians that could go from furious speed metal to heart wrenching ballads (sometimes in the same song!), they had an incredible visual style and theatricality that I loved, their songs had poems interspersed with the music, and even when I couldn’t understand the words to the songs, I could feel the emotions flowing through them.

Tears quickly stood out in my mind as a favourite song of theirs, and my love for it has only grown with time. A few weeks after my first listen I discovered the meaning behind the song (the death of the songwriter’s father), which only made it more poignant. Years later, I found out the version I had loved for years was actually an edit, and that the official song actually went on for a few minutes longer and had a spoken word poem at the end. The poem makes an already emotional song even more intense, with lines like ‘someday I’ll be older than you, I’d never thought about that time’ and ‘I will try to live with love, with dreams, and forever with tears’.

The musicianship in the song is fantastic, especially with the piano in this version. The dual guitar solo is one of my favourite solos as well. I keep saying that one day I’m going to sit down and learn it (I already know the bass part and a very simplified version of the piano part!) but it’s another one of the many things I haven’t quite gotten around to yet. I love the live versions because of the audience singing along in the background, I can only imagine how the band must feel having an entire stadium full of people singing along and sharing the sorrow and hope of the song.

The fella playing the piano in the clip is Yoshiki, who was also the band’s drummer and principal songwriter. He’s had a huge career in and out of Japan, and I encourage everyone to check out more of X-Japan and his other work.

So yeah, try fitting that onto a Facebook wall.

Friendship Cake – Part 1 : A Rope of Sand

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here apparently. I’ve even had a request or two (ok, only two) to post again! See, people love my ramblings. I’ve been crazy ass busy with school and work lately, but they’re both going pretty well. Work is boring as usual, but what would you expect?

School is actually going really well, which surprised me. I’d never really given a damn about school when I was in it before, but it’s funny how well you can do when you put your mind to it. Instead of being happy I got over a 70 on something, I’m pissed off when I get less than a 90. Also, the subjects I thought I would love, like Marketing, I’m hating and the subjects I thought I would hate, like Math, I’m loving. Weird how the world works sometimes.

Anyhoo, on with the main show. Tonight I started making one of my holiday favourites, Friendship Cake! I’ve tried finding a recipe online that is the same as mine, but to no avail. And I don’t really want to give the secret away (AKA I’m too frelling lazy to type the whole recipe out) so I’ll have to put it up in parts. Maybe you’ll keep coming back to check up on the recipe as well, nes pas?

The theory behind friendship cake is that you let fruit ferment and soak in it’s own juices for thirty days, then drain it and bake the fruit into a cake. Then you give the leftover juices to your friends, so they can start their own cake. Hence, the friendship part. I have no idea how you’re supposed to start the whole chain, I assume just let the fruit soak in it’s own juices. But we’ve had a jar of friendship juice that’s older than I am (which is now a liqueur…) that we’ve always used.

So to start, take 1.5 cups of the friendship juice, 2.5 cups of sugar and a 28 oz. can of peaches (with juice) and throw them into a big glass jar. Stir it until the sugar is dissolved, and then seal it tight. Our jug doesn’t seal well enough, so we put some saran wrap underneath of the lid. It should look something like this.

Unforch, my mother decided to empty out the fantastic friendship juice bottle while I was running downstairs to grab the camera. I’m still planning out her penance. It’s not really a big deal, because as you can guess, I’ll have a lot of juice left over by the time I’m done.

Now stir it every morning and every night for ten days, then you add the next few ingredients. Trust me, this cake is fantastic. Every time I have some to share with people (which isn’t often, I am pretty fat), it’s always a huge hit. If you want to start your own, you’d better get started soon in time for the holidays!!

On another note, I should be posting a lot more now that the holidays are coming up and I’ll be baking and cooking all the time, so keep checking back. Or if you’re following me on Twitter, watch my feed for updates. Thanks for coming!

Chickpea Burgers

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted. But to be honest, I don’t do much that is really exciting lately. LOL. School is all sorted out now, tuition is paid, books are bought, locker is secured, ID is printed. Money is evaporated. -_-

Took a nice trip out to Victoria Park in Truro with the old people the other day. Was a REALLY nice walk, lots of stairs though, which the old people didn’t really like. I on the other hand, climbed up Jacob’s Ladder, which is apparently 200 steps high or something retarded. Sure was sweating like a pig by the time I was done too. I have some pictures from there too, but I don’t have Photoshop on the new computer yet so I haven’t gotten them resized and retouched and all that jazz. Yes, I retouch every picture, regardless of whether it’s people or trees.

So onto the food! I decided that in my eternal quest to not be so fat, I should start incorporating vegetarian meals into my eating. Now I definitely couldn’t do it every day (sorry vegetarians, I just like meat too much… [let's not go there...]), but for a few meals a week it’s pretty good. And healthy apparently. The recipe I used today was from Pulse Canada, and was Chickpea Burgers (for those of you that couldn’t guess that from the twitter post, or from the title of this post…). Now I had to make some changes to the recipe because I am A. lazy and B. stupid. I thought I had green onions and lemon at home, so I didn’t buy any of those. When i got home, I didn’t. So instead of Lemon Rind I used a drop of lemon extract (Which I had to taste test to see if it would work. I offer this advice: DO NOT TASTE THIS ON IT’S OWN. IT HAS ALCOOL IN IT. SRSLY, I GOT DRUNK FROM A DROP OF THIS VILE CONCOCTION!). And instead of Green Onions I used a bit of regular onion and some fresh from the garden chives. Mmm.

Also, since I didn’t want to turn the oven on, I didn’t roast my nuts first. Wow, that sounded kinda sexy. I also had the parsley ready to go and forgot to put it in. That sounded kind of sexy too. I think I need a date.

So here’s what they looked like in their primordial, precooked glory.

Tasty looking, nes pas? And of course, never let it be said I don’t have an eye for presentation.

OK now to be totally honest, I hate tomatos on my burgers. So I cut some tomato slices JUST FOR THE PICTURES and then ate the tomato seperately. I debated lettuce, but I didn’t feel like going to the fridge again.

The burgers turned out really well actually. They of course didn’t have the texture of a real burger, but the taste was darn good. I bet it would be even better if I followed the recipe more closely next time, LOL. I’m gonna check out some other recipes on there, but if you have any suggestions for vegetarian cuisine, twoot at me or comment here or whatever.

More Baking and Some School News…

Hi everyone! Good news today, I finally heard back from the NSCC. I was on the waiting list for one of their programs and basically had been told “Don’t hold your breath, you’ll find out in august.” But today I found out that a spot opened up and I got accepted. Confirmation fees paid for and everything. Totally excited! I haven’t been to school in a few years now, after the last (disastrous) attempt at education. Since then I’ve just been languishing in awful retail jobs, so I’m hoping this kick at the can works out a lot better than the last one!

Also, since it was my day off today, I did a bit more baking. This was another Splenda website recipe, Almond Cheesecake Bars. Now, they smell great, but they’re still hot a little bit so I haven’t tasted them yet. From the crumbs I picked up though, they turned out pretty good. I did rush them out of the pan a little too fast I think, because about a quarter of the base crumbled away. Oops.

Also, the top of them got a little burnt, so I sort of had to peel off this burnt layer of shmutz on the top. But aside from that they look pretty good! I’ll let you know how they taste in a bit. LOL

Aside from that, I have no plans for the day. I got a couple of Chinese Martial Arts flicks from Zip.ca so I think that’s how I’m going to spend my evening. Hope y’all have a good day!

Did some baking today…

Well today was a great day, mainly because I was off work. This meant I had a whole afternoon to basically waste, so I decided to do some baking I’d been putting off forever. My big thing lately is using recipes from the diabetic cookbooks, so that way June can eat them too and I feel wonderful about myself. Splenda doesn’t taste that great sometimes, but I can get around that.

I would LOVE to say that all these are original recipes, but I’m not that talented. If I found them online I’ll try to link to them.

The first thing I made was a Quinoa Fruit Salad. “But Mark!” I hear you say. “What is a Quinoa? For that matter, how do I pronounce whatever that is?” And then I tell you, “That’s why God invented Wikipedia” and you go read that and enjoy yourself. And if you already knew what it was, I apologize for being a patronizing jerk. But make no mistake, God DID invent Wikipedia, who else could have thought of something so simple, but so fantastic?

Now, it may not look that pretty but it tastes fantastic. It’s the Quinoa grains, mixed with Kiwi slices, Strawberry slices and Mandarin Orange pieces, then all tossed together with a Mint & Yogurt sauce. It’s fantastic. On a side note, I should be a hand model. Look at those fingers!

Next, I had been debating making Gingerbread for a while, because I love it. No other reason. Really. It’s just that damn good. So I took a look over at Splenda Recipes and found a very nice Gingerbread Recipe.

Now, I didn’t have a bundt pan (I know, what kind of loser doesn’t have a bundt pan? I’m still ashamed to admit it!) so I just used a loaf pan instead. There was a bit of batter left over as well, so a few small muffins were made. They unfortunately didn’t last long enough for me to take photos.

Lastly, I made Cherry Muffins with an Amaretto Glaze. Except, I didn’t make them in muffin tins, and I didn’t make a glaze, I made an icing that quickly became too thick and turned into something more akin to fudge. So they’re now Cherry Squares with Amaretto Fudge Topping!

The icing kind of cancelled out any hope they had of being diabetic friendly, but the main body of the squares is still made with Splenda. What happened with the icing was that I started to make the glaze, but decided I didn’t want to wait for it to all boil down to a syrup, so I threw some icing sugar and butter in with it and prayed. Apparently God wasn’t editing Wikipedia at that second, because he heard me and gifted with me fantastic icing, even if it did set a little too quick. But they taste great!!

Aside from that, I was going to make another dish, Turbot a la Nage. I’m missing an accent somewhere there. It’s a french dish, basically poached fish in a white wine sauce. I know, sounds orgasmic, doesn’t it? I read the recipe and felt the urge to fondle myself a little, but figured that was inappropriate in polite company. But in comes Mr. Large-Supermarket-Chains to ruin my fun and not carry the fish I needed. And in comes Mr. I-Don’t-Have-My-License-So-I-Was-Walking-Everywhere-And-I’m-Lazy that made me not want to go any further than Sobeys or Superstore. So the fish will have to wait for another night. Which isn’t too bad really, cause by the time I was done all the other stuff, I didn’t much want to do another set of dishes.