Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 2nd year wedding anniversary! We went out to a very nice restaurant for dinner called "Veritas Wine & Bistro". Since we don't have a car, we biked there (it's only a 20 minute bike ride away). It felt a bit funny walking into an upscale restaurant with our bike helmets and our bike seats (we're a bit paranoid about bike thefts after having had a bike stolen this past summer). Oh well, they didn't seem to mind. We started off with an amazing tuna tartar and pan-seared scallops, and followed it up with a sable fish and Spanish sea bass. When we asked the waiter for a white wine suggestion, he came back with a sauvignon blanc. When we asked the name of the wine, we heard him say "Tie dye". Excuse me? "Tie dye"... um, ok... and then he brought the bottle over and it read "Tydy" from France. I'm pretty sure it's not pronounced "tie dye"... We're at home right now, looking at some old pictures and videos, and feeling a bit of nostalgia from the wedding. 2 years passes by so fast!

Booo... no train wrecks in the Biden-Palin debate

Ok, that debate was really boring. No train wrecks, no big gaffes, although I didn't expect Joe Biden (the "attack dog" of the Democratic ticket) to have an emotional moment. But really, I wish there was a way for the moderator to hold the debaters to ACTUALLY ANSWERING THE QUESTION!!

MODERATOR: Governor, please if you want to respond to what he said about Sen. McCain's comments about health care?

PALIN: I would like to respond about the tax increases....

*Huh?! Answer the question!*

BIDEN: Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild. He did support deregulation almost across the board. That's why we got into so much trouble.

MODERATOR: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?

PALIN: I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again...

*FACT*: The first section was actually on the subprime economic meltdown...

Ugh, and it went on and on... Now I feel guilty that I didn't spend that time watching the Canadian election leaders' debate, though I'm planning on catching up on it tonight. At least THESE people had some fun playing Palin bingo...

Home Sweet Home

We came down here with only 3 suitcases and 3 boxes. Most things in our apartment now are newly acquired. It took us a couple of weeks to slowly get furniture, supplies, etc. After a sizeable dent in our wallet, our place finally feel a bit more homey and we no longer need to sit on the floor and sleep on an air mattress. We're still slowly trying to put up pictures and decorations to personalize our place, but here are a couple of pictures:


Our comfy couch and Dennis' favorite chair!


The dining area looks a bit bare right now, but we'll try to spice it up with some pictures on the wall.

A dilemma

On Thursday night, we will be faced with a dilemma: (1) Watch the Canadian election leader's debate, or (2) Watch the VP candidates duke it out in the U.S. Now normally, this wouldn't be such a tough choice - we're Canadian and the Canadian election is coming up, so we need to be informed to help us make up our minds. But then there's Sarah Palin... To say that there is little expectation that she will do well in the VP debate is an understatement. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of gibberish will come out of her mouth in this debate format, since answering questions isn't exactly her forte. There are gaffes, and then there are Palin gaffes:

On foreign policy

On the bailout... or healthcare?... or job creation?

How is it that there are still people in the U.S. that aren't scared of her potentially becoming one step from the presidency? The rest of the world is screaming... Nevertheless she is great fodder for the comedians - I love these skits on Saturday night live:

Hillary / Palin spoof

Palin-Couric interview

Got a cell phone for -$25 (yes, that's MINUS $25)

Janice and I just got our new cell phone - a pay-as-you-go phone under T-Mobile. They essentially give you the phone for free (after mail-in rebate), and plus it comes with a $25 prepaid card.

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/prepaid.aspx

(See Nokia 2610 Prepaid.) Under the pay-as-you-go plan, it'll be 10 cents / min. Not too bad, eh?

We got Ike'd... not really

Hurricane Ike hit Texas last weekend. Houston and Galveston got pounded last Friday, but since B/CS is about 2 hours inland, we were fortunate that we only got a bit of wind and some rain on Saturday morning. We were reasonably prepared in the event it were worse - had candles, flashlights, several jugs of water, and some extra non-perishable foods. But the storm wasn't bad here at all - didn't even lose any power!

If there's one thing good that Ike brought, it's that the weather is now COOLER. It's about 16 C in the mornings and 25 C at midday, which is AWESOME. Reminds me of home. :-)


Hurricane party the night before the storm



A small tree in front of our place got slightly rooted

The Mini Mini Mini Mart

Ok, so we were expecting that B/CS wasn't going to exactly have the diversity of food that Montreal has... Two types of food that are definitely up to snuff: steak and Mexican food. Absolutely love them. But seeing as we're paranoid about gaining weight down here, we can't eat that stuff all the time. Asian food is so far pretty poor or barely passable - the Vietnamese place just down the street was a big disappointment, and the sushi places are mediocre.

Variety for groceries is somewhat lacking in B/CS, though we did find an Indian grocery stored tucked in the back room of a gas station convenience store called the Mini Mini Mini Mart. It's a 5 min bike ride from our place and I heard about it from my supervisor. It's funny how they don't really advertise it outside, but they have a really good variety of stuff in there!


This was our first attempt at making Indian curry. We bought most of the ingredients from Mini Mini Mini Mart, and turned them into a delicious Saag Paneer & Butter Chicken. Yummmmmm... :-)