I didn't put much planning into it, but my birthday turned out great anyway. It fell on Tuesday last week so I co-opted *wing* night for my own purposes. I selected Mengrai Thai which many people claim to be the best Thai food in Toronto. I have no way of judging Thai food (since I have never been to Thailand...you should have been there Rob!) but it was damn tasty. Patrick, Adam and myself all got the fixed price, four-course menu and it was amazing! Everyone else (Kim, Toni, Jen, John, Chris, Jeremy, Matt and Jeff) all ordered single dishes off the menu and had to be jealous/hungry while we ate our starter courses.

My meal started with a selection of four appetizers, then moved on to pumpkin curry soup with lightly breaded spinach (almost like tempura). For my main course I had the #54 Red Curry Chicken which is one of the restaurant's most famous dishes. It is served in half of a scooped out pineapple and has lychee fruit mixed in with the curry sauce and chicken. For dessert I was given a mini crème brûlée with a single candle. The waiter started singing happy birthday, thus forcing everyone at the table to join in. Good times! The food was all totally amazing, and despite being really full I was glad I got the fixed price menu.

The owner of the restaurant was also really awesome. He came out and talked to us because he recognized where I worked from the caller ID when I made the reservation. He even knew that although I work for Autodesk, it's really Alias and Autodesk just bought us. He was super friendly and although the service was slow, I still felt like he was very attentive to our needs.

After dinner we all headed back to my apartment for birthday cake from Dufflet! I got the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle cake and yes, it was totally glorious. We also had Pumpkin Ale from the Great Lakes Brewing Company and hot chocolate with Bailey's. Eventually everyone went home and I went to sleep.

Oh, I almost forgot the most important part! Presents! Jeremy got me a present!

It was a small golden/platinum coloured heart (it's an alloy) with three "chocolate" balls inside. On one side the heart had the word "Glory" along with Japanese characters and on the other it had a sad/angry face. I think I know why. The "chocolate" was not exactly what you would call "good." Jeremy, Patrick and I each had one; mine tasted like poo, Jeremy's tasted like dirt and Patrick's tasted like petrol. Um...awesome?

I also got some good presents from other people. Kim got me a gift certificate to Henry's (awesome camera store and source of most things I want at the moment), my mom got me a subscription to Maclean's magazine which I love and Jen made me Chocolate Frangelico Cupcakes with Nutella Swiss Meringue Buttercream on the weekend. Patrick and Toni got me a selection of random beers and Matt got me a wind up squirrel! Eeee!

Me with my #54 Red Curry Chicken

Chocolate Frangelico Cupcakes with Nutella Swiss Meringue Buttercream

After at least a year of wanting one, I finally got around to buying an awesome leather shoulder bag for carrying stuff with me when I go about my day to day business. Yes, it's a man purse and yes I'm OK with that. When walking is your primary means of transportation it's nice to have something to carry stuff in. I'll be using it every day to bring stuff like my lunch to work and also to carry around useful items like an umbrella and sunglasses.

Another thing I keep in it is a reusable shopping bag for groceries. I tend to stop for groceries on my way home from work and I never carry reusable bags with me (because I don't have anything to put them in!). Now I can stop killing the environment by consuming so many plastic bags. Unfortunately, today, my first day with my man purse, I was a massive failure. I went to the grocery store and got some stuff and as I was checking out I prepared my happy reusable bag. Then for some reason I kinda spaced out and suddenly it was all done and the cashier had already put my groceries in plastic bags. I couldn't really ask her to take them back so I put away my reusable bag and went home. Sigh, maybe I'll succeed next time.

I got the bag from Roots, and it's pretty awesome. It's actually based on the bag that Indiana Jones carries around in the movies and so it's even more cool. I love it!

Raiders Bag in Vintage Tribe Leather

Raiders Bag in Vintage Tribe Leather

Raiders Bag in Vintage Tribe Leather

Last weekend was fun! But I was slow to blog about it. Not much is happening this weekend so I'll blog about the last one now.

We hung out with people and watched movies and we relaxed around the house and I also went climbing. But the most exciting part was going to a camera show with Patrick and Toni and Matt on Sunday. We got up bright and early, had breakfast at Cora's and then headed up to the conference centre near the airport. The show was put on by Henry's and had tons of booths from all the major manufacturers. It was primarily focused on digital SLR cameras but had a little bit of stuff for point and shoot cameras too. The best part for me was getting to try out all sorts of fun lenses on my camera. And by fun I mean potentially expensive. Stupid lenses look so nice.

Anyway this post is shorter than I intended but I'm tired so I'm going to stop.

It's snowing a little outside...[HIBERNATION MODE TURN ON]

Not much has been going on in Matthew-land lately, thus the lack of blogging. However there was the Canadian election recently. My riding is Trinity-Spadina where NDP candidate Olivia Chow (wife of NDP leader Jack Layton) won again. I found myself very conflicted this time around because I didn't want to vote for anyone. I didn't want the Conservatives to win, but I didn't feel that anyone else was fit to win either. I ended up voting Liberal, but I sort of regret that now. I knew that my riding would go to either the Liberals or the NDP regardless of my vote so I think I should have voted Green in order to increase their share of the popular vote. More votes equals more funding for future campaigns and I feel that the Green Party had a generally positive effect on the whole process.

Overall though, I am one disenfranchised voter. Blegh.

This past week was pretty random for me. I spent Monday through Thursday in King City attending a leadership training course for work. There is a huge conference centre there that includes a gourmet restaurant and fancy hotel. It was pretty fun and interesting but they kept us super busy. The days started around 8:00am and lasted until 11:00pm at the earliest. We were fed extremely well however and the rooms were quite nice.

On Friday I went in for a half day of work to catch up on email and then left early to get a wisdom tooth removed. I'm not sure that the procedure was necessary because the tooth wasn't bothering me in the slightest but my dentist seemed to think it was doing whatever it is that wisdom teeth do that is a bad thing for mouths. Anyway, when I arrived he suggested that he might as well take the other wisdom tooth on the same side while I was there since it would all be frozen anyway. I agreed mainly to reduce the number of future wisdom tooth-related visits to the dentist. So I now have two fewer wisdom teeth and I am spending the weekend recovering (ie. popping Tylenol 3 like there's no tomorrow).

The procedure itself was super quick. One of the two wisdom teeth was already exposed so once I was frozen he was able to yank it out in under a minute. I was super surprised when I heard it fall into the tray. I was all like, "was that it??" and the dentist seemed a touch offended that I thought so little of the procedure he just performed. The other tooth was not exposed however, and so it took a bit longer. Once the dentist exposed it (with knives I assume) the tooth still refused to come easily and the assistant had to hold my head down while the dentist yanked at it. I half expected him to plant a foot on my face in order to get better leverage.

Anyway, I think I'm recovering nicely. Sleeping was hard last night but I think I can stop taking Tylenol 3 soon and switch to regular Advil. I guess I have to keep taking antibiotics for a while though.

This week I went to two fun evening show type things. On Wednesday Kim and I went to Second City to see the comedy stylings of John Dore and Judah Friedlander (who you may recognize from NBC's awesome show: "30 Rock"). Both acts were really funny, although Judah Friedlander's was a bit too long.

On Thursday I went with Matt to our first Tafelmusik concert of the season. This is our second year as subscribers and I'm still really enjoying it. The group is incredibly talented and the church they perform at is a much more intimate venue than Roy Thomson Hall (which is where the Toronto Symphony Orchestra plays).

On Tuesday for wing night we went to Cafe Polonez for delicious delicious Polish food. I had a potato pancake folded over and filled with pork goulash, and Kim had pierogies. I also shared some random Polish beer with Rob and Will. That restaurant is great. The portions are gigantic and the most expensive meal on the menu is $14. Plus the food is amazing.

Repent and seek shelter! For today being the first day of Autumn is also the first step toward the bleak cold death of winter. Tremble and fear before the oncoming cold and snow and prepare thy defences against their bodily onslaughts.

Yeah, I don't like winter and the mornings have been getting colder lately.

Tonight Kim and I went to see Burn After Reading which is the latest from the Coen brothers. It seems to be very much in the style of The Big Lebowski (ie. awesome) in that it is super-random and ultra-hilarious. The cast was fantastic, all of them. I can't pinpoint any particular one because they were all so good. Even the fairly minor role played by J.K. Simmons was awesome.

When we got home I finally got around to making hummus after several delays. I haven't given it a thorough taste test yet because I prefer hummus to be cold, but from what I licked off my fingers while making it I think it's going to be very good. Check out the recipe and a picture of my results below.

Homemade hummus

I did stuff other than TIFF screenings (see below) this past weekend. I spent some time walking around to random places with Matt and Adrienne and ended up buying a new memory card for my camera. One of my old ones recently corrupted itself at a most inoppourtune time so I decided to replace it with something decent. My previous purchase decision was aimed at spending the least amount of money possible. This time I paid more for what I hope will be long lasting quality. We shall see!

We also had lunch at the crépes place on Queen Street. Mmmmm...crépes.

On Sunday night Kim and I went to Toni's for her birthday party! She made us Aussie-burgers (regular burgers plus fried eggs, fried onions, bacon and beets) and also delicious pavlova. Then we played a new game Toni bought, Apples to Apples. Of course I was super-pro at it because of my previous experiences playing in Algonquin this summer.

My next blog-worthy event is coming this Thursday when I intend to make my own hummus. Excitement!