High Seas Adventure

Another crazy weekend passes.

Friday I broke down and finally got myself a new car stereo. I've been reluctant to get one since I don't like my car getting broken into. And the more flashy stuff you have for your car, the more some young punk wants to smash your windows in to get it. I went to future shop and had the guy over there put in the stereo. I could have done it myself really, but I dont exactly have a nice warm garage to work in, do I? I got a Clarion MP3CD deck with a removable faceplate, and a matched set of Sony speakers. Not too expensive, but a whole lot nicer than the stock stereo. I found it was hard to get specs on the stock stereo. I couldnt find what wattage the speakers/deck was, what impedance, or anything. Till I took it all out :) my old speakers were an unimpressive 15W. my new ones are 50W. Ok, I know, speaker power doesn't equal speaker fidelity, but these really are a whole lot nicer sound quality wise. The big selling feature for the new deck is that it has AUX input, so I can hook it up to my iPod shuffle.

So, after the stereo was installed, myself, Jeremy, Laurie, and Loralei crammed in the car and went off to montreal to see Neko Case. After some mis-navigation, and some parking adventures, we finally made it downtown in time to catch the last few songs of the opening band, so we didn't miss much. We were able to squeeze down to front-and-center without much trouble at all, so we had a great up close view of all the stage happenings. I forget the name of the openers, but they were pretty good. some technical difficulties happened to them with a couple of shattered drumsticks, but they kept on kicking. Then the Sadies came on stage and played a thorougly impressive set. This was the first time I've seen or heard the Sadies, but now I'm a fan. Then after a short break, Neko came on stage with the sadies backing her up. Her set this time was almost completely different from the other times I've seen her live (this was #4). She had a ton of new material to present from The Tigers Have Spoken, and some stuff that hasn't been recorded yet. All very nice, she never disappoints, especially in live shows. If you get the chance to see her live, you will certainly get your moneys worth.

Saturday was being lazy and playing Sid Meier's Pirates! for the morning (what pirates?). Quite a well done and addicting game. I'm really impressed with it in all aspects. It's got nice graphics, it's very open-ended gameplay, and nice mechanics. You can play through it however you wish, being a trader, a feared pirate of the carribean, choose to work for one nation, or all of them. Cities and settlements flourish or suffer based on what comes their way as far as immigrants, trading ships, payroll, grain, etc. so what you escort, or what you pillage has an immediate effect on the environment. there's a good variety of missions and things to keep you occupied. the game starts out nice and easy, and gives you the option to ramp up the difficulty when it feels you're ready. Like all Sid Meier games (Civilizations, etc.) there's too much detail and depth to cover here. It gets a 9/10 rating from me :)

Late Saturday afternoon was going down to see the ice sculptures from winterlude. It's been warm the last week or so, which isnt so great for the sculptures. So some of them were a little droopy, but there were still some in progress that looked very sharp, and some of the smaller ones were in good shape. I'll be posting some pictures on the rogers site later.

Sunday morning was crepe-fest at our place, and we tried out a whole bunch of sugary fillings. Apples, cinnamon and brown sugar. Nutella and banana. And our try at the kilaloe sunrise (sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice) a popular beaver-tail flavoring. More Pirates! followed the crepe sugar shock.

Sunday night was gaming over at laurie and jeremy's place. ate some awesome lasange and played a couple rounds of bohnaparte and mystery of the abbey. Broke out Bohnaparte for the first time. It's an interesting add-on for Bohnanaza that adds a layer of complexity to keep things interesting. Mystery of the Abbey went really well. That game depends mostly on the players to make it interesting, and we were in good company there.

So with the crazy schedule going on lately, I think I really need to take a night or two to exclusively clean the apartment, there's just been no time for anything chores related, so things are falling behind.

Good times :)