My September Adventures: Halloween Horror Marathon & Festival du Nouveau Cinema Coming Up!!

Weekly Adventures (1)

September is now behind us. Its hard to imagine three-quarters of the year has gone by. However, it is the case. With July being hectic and then August being more of a laidback and recharging phase, September comes back with a little back to normal balance. Getting things back on track, events big and small and such were all in the plans.

Let’s check it out!

Dreamhack Montreal 2019

Dreamhack Montreal 2019

Dreamhack Montreal happened over the weekend of September 6 to 8 at the Olympic Stadium. It had some changes but this venue is still very suitable for this event overall. It was a bustling weekend with a lot of last minute changes that swapped my schedule around quite a bit. However, all the media coverage is over at Game Warp Blog. Everything is live now as we covered Day 1 and 2 as well as the Indie Game Zone. You can find all the posts below:

Day 1 Recap
Day 2 Recap
Indie Game Zone

IT: Chapter Two & Lambcast

IT Chapter Two

We’ve really kept the theatre experience to a minimum this year except for special commitments that lead me to go. This time, it was for Lambcast recording of IT: Chapter Two that gave us the kick in our behinds to go check it out. We really did enjoy the first one so had it in our plans to see the second one anyways (just probably not on opening weekend initially). I’m not sure when we’ll be heading to the theatres again this year but it might happen again, who knows? I’m not quite on top of the theatre new releases as I should be.

You can check out the Lambcast show HERE.
You can find my written review HERE.

Moon Festival

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Moon Festival happened on September 13th. Wonderful that it clashed with Friday the 13th because I have to say that it was a pretty okay day compared to the rest of the week prior to that. It was also full of sickness and a lot of cough-filled nights. Either way, I ignored my cold (which won’t go away and seems to keep morphing) and ate some moon cake as well as stood by the window and stared at the full moon for a little while, reminding myself that life is beautiful because I’m breathing and looking at those nice little moments of nature and nightscapes and such.

Friend’s Bachelorette Party – Dinner Out

Ichigo Ichie Izakaya

One of my girl friend’s bachelorette party happened the Saturday on the second last weekend. She had it in two parts: the first was dinner and the second was an after party. Due to some other commitment (see below), I only went for the dinner party which was at Ichigo Ichie (which is the restaurant part of ramen place I like, Yokato Yokabai).

You can check out the restaurant recap HERE.

Festival du Nouveau Cinema Starting Soon

FNC 2019

Much to my surprise, today’s announcements also include a press approval for Festival du Nouveau Cinema! Last year, I only got the 10 vouchers to go see 10 movies which had some pretty great films, with one or two that left a little to desire but didn’t fail on being artsy or creative. It will be exciting to see how many we can catch this year as well as what the movie lineup will be as that only goes live tomorrow (Oct.1). Keep an eye out for reviews during the festival from Oct.9 to 20th!

If you also are going, do tell me what movies have caught your eye so far?

Friend’s Wedding Day + Flowers Help Out

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The last weekend of September was all kinds of crazy and lots of fun. Saturday was a day of hunting down flowers at various Costco. Between myself and another friend, we hit 5 Costcos in the morning. We met up in the early after to start making the “boutonnieres” for the groom and groomsmen and men of the families and then went along and made the bride and bridesmaids bouquet as well as a throwaway one. For myself, it was a learning experience since I had never done these before so it was all to help out.

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20190929_172358.jpg Sunday was her big day! We started out the morning to help with the door games (if you don’t know what that is, its part of Chinese weddings to pick up the bride, the groom and his groomsmen and other guys go to trials before he can pick her up). Then, we helped out with the set-up and mostly with the flowers to put together the vases. Yet again, I’m not too experienced with this so just helped out with my other friend. The picture on top is the centerpiece at our table with the flower arrangement. It was a ton of fun! I have a few more artsy pics going on Avenue of Daydreams at some point. It was a really fun night but we couldn’t stay as late as Sunday means work on Monday (aka today).

Announcement: Halloween Horror Marathon

As usual, September adventures wraps up with the official announcement of the Halloween Horror Marathon tomorrow (October 1st)! We’ll be doing double features as per the usual set up nowadays. At the same time, I’ll be trying to put in some horror TV series TV binge posts as well as horror book reviews as well. That’s the plan! While some movies have already been watched at this point (and probably/hopefully written up), I would love to hear what movies you suggest or movies you always watch for Halloween marathon and maybe I’ll see if I can add those in or push it up as higher priority on my list (if its there). All update of Halloween marathon posts will be updated on the page HERE.

On a side note, due to the festival approval, marathon might be slower in the middle of the month! I am working to get more posts done in advance but I do have other priorities as well as podcast recordings so I will do the best that I can before October 9th comes around and hopefully you will enjoy it!

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for the September Adventures!
Looking back, its been kind of crazy! I thinned out some less important bits.
Mostly two announcements and some recaps!
October is looking less varied but probably much busier, as always when there’s coverage to do!

What’s Up 2019 – Week 36

Tranquil Dreams (42)

Its been a crazy weekend to say the least. Between doing coverage for Dreamhack Montreal for Game Warp and then the area where I work having a gas leak and being shut down causing a day off when I really couldn’t afford it but then it can’t be help and finally getting caught up in the rain which has resulted in my current cold and cough which the collective happening of everything up there is why it has been more quiet than usual over here.

READING

the moonlight pegasus

Currently reading: The Moonlight Pegasus by C.S. Johnson

I’m well underway with reading The Moonlight Pegasus with a little slowdown due to Dreamhack coverage and in general, the whole sickness thing giving me less energy and focus. However, I’m still moving forward to hopefully get it done before the blog tour swings around. Reading is my current priority whenever and I’m glad to do so because while The Moonlight Pegasus is fairly lengthy, its actually quite good. I have a few flows of events and reasonings behind why it works so far so looking forward to see how it ends.

PLAYING

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On hold for Dreamhack Montreal! I am still working on some games for this month’s Mobile Game Roundups however.

Gaming was put in the backseat. I’m trying to wrap up some final things with Injustice as Dreamhack Montreal coverage wraps up soon. Here’s the coverage for Day 1 HERE and Day 2 HERE.

WATCHING

IT Chapter Two

  • Antisocial (2013) rewatch – Review
  • The Boy Next Door (2015)
  • Pitch Perfect (2012) rewatch – Review
  • IT: Chapter 2 (2019)

Seeing as going to the theatres is a very rare thing in my current life, our highlight of the week was going to see IT: Chapter Two. We probably wouldn’t have gone on an event coverage weekend but I did have a Lambcast recording which is currently live and you can find HERE. I’ll share the written review for the movie soon.

BINGING

Meeting You

  • Meeting You (2019)

Currently binging: The King’s Avatar, Dream Space 2, Super Vocal 2, Love is Deep

Keeping things a bit more tame on the TV side of things, I actually have been planning a post and then landed on the show called Meeting You which is pretty much the same as Dream Space sort of style where its a dating show sort of thing but just from another channel. Either way, its all about comparison since I’m working on a post about these types of show and how they compare and whether they are good or not in concept. As this week ends, The King’s Avatar enters into their final week ramping up to the ending, Dream Space 2 and Super Vocal 2 are somewhere in the middle right now and Love is Deep is done but I’m still 4 episodes from finishing the series. All very good shows so I’m trying to find time between writing and everyday things to fit it in when I can.

That’s it for this What’s Up!
What have you been reading/playing/watching/binging?

My Weekly Adventures: DreamHack and Family Time!

My Weekly Adventures

Its been a fairly quiet two weeks. Not a ton has happened. Well, one big event happened as you will see unless you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, I did do a quick share over there and here since I was working on Game Warp coverage mostly and vanished last weekend except for Game Warp Instagram and Facebook. Either way, its been fairly uneventful in some ways but that isn’t a bad thing since we’ll be heading into some gardening stuff soon and will be busy with that once the weather cools down.

Let’s go ahead!

 15K Marathon Boucherville (as a spectator)

Marathon Boucherville

Labor Day weekend, also was the Boucherville 15km marathon. Last year, my friend also participated in it and lets just say, I spent most of the time sitting back at the car reading because it was pouring rain. Its good for the whole cooling down during running but not so good for admiring the area it is held in, which is what I do as my friend’s running support. This year was very different. They started the morning okay and it got fairly hot by the end of the 15km. The marathon starts at the side of a river so its quite scenic as well. If you all don’t know, I love being around water so after the run started, I actually walked a little along the waterway before heading back to do some reading in the park. Nice relaxing morning 🙂

Childhood Memories

You know I’m digging for material when I’m using Instagram posts. BUT…my mom has been renovating her kitchen and because of that we had to empty out all of her cupboards and well, we aren’t particularly tall ladies so there was some little nostalgic treasures that I never knew that my mom kept. Not sure why, since we both have a hoarder mentality at times. I’m working hard to not do that anymore but then I don’t throw things out, I just don’t buy new stuff as much. Either way, those things in the photo were all stuff I used when I was a kid. Maybe up to 10 years old or something I still used the Lion King cup. I think the surprising find was my sippy cup.

DreamHack Montreal 2018

The big event of this Weekly Adventures has to go to DreamHack Montreal. I was swamped at work and swamped with Game Warp work. You can guess which I enjoyed and had more fun doing even if it was a pretty tiring event since it is also set in a further venue and well, Montreal is like roadwork galore phase right now so its hard to commute anywhere without taking more time than usual. I managed to get there in the Day 1 Friday evening with my husband and his nephew.

Day 2 and 3 was solo coverage for myself. It was pretty much a 9 hour day or something where I went to finish up the indie game zone coverage by playing some more games there. Also went to watch some e-sports and caught the cosplay competition. There was also a gaming triathlon and all that good stuff. I’m putting together a post and a video for it soon. Its late but I actually took a lot of footage so I’m sorting it out. Almost done 🙂

In-Laws Anniversary Dinner

Les Enfants Terribles

My in-laws just celebrated (a week or so ago) their 45th wedding anniversary. A big deal for sure! My sister-in-law suggested and organized to have us all go downtown for a night out at Les Enfants Terribles on the top of the Place Ville Marie complex. It its just one floor (I think) under the observatory level so there is an outdoor terrace to see the Montreal night view. We had a fairly later dinner time so I had to eat before since I have stomach issues frequently, I don’t mess with eating time too much. So my mom and me ended up sharing a main meal together and we all had a cocktails. I’ll be doing a restaurant post here in a few days as well. So we’ll only touch on it briefly here.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Adventures recap!
Its been a pretty quiet time. Family, gaming and calmer days..it feels good 🙂

What have you been up to? 

I’m at DreamHack Montreal!!

Hey everyone!

I’m just popping in before I head out again this morning to DreamHack to tell you that I’m aware of the lack of posts this week. Call it a little break or just taking it easy a little as I was getting a few personal issues (my mom’s home is doing some renovations) and some work stuff done (both my real life paying job and Game Warp and other stuff done). DreamHack preparation is included in that mix.

If you are interested, I’ve been updating over on the Game Warp Instagram of say some Day 1 stuff. We had some other personal stuff related to the husband’s health stuff I talked about in the last Weekly Adventures so he had the day off and came along with his nephew to DreamHack in the evening. Its great to go with people to these events because of the multiplayer focus. Here’s are two posts (while I sort out some other pictures to wrap up Day 1 coverage before I head out for Day 2 and also my final day but the event ends on Sunday).

Its been a new venue at Olympic Stadium and a whole new setup which I think works for the most part. Its pretty much bigger than previous year’s at the other venue or at least feels that way, plus I think for the venue itself, it has its practicalities and better security I would assume.

I’ll have a coverage post here tomorrow. Game-related posts will be over at That Moment In soon(ish) when I wrap up one more part for the first part of coverage. Well second since I did a pre-coverage. You can find what to see and do at DreamHack Montreal 2018 HERE.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!
I’m going solo today so if anyone happens to be at DreamHack Montreal, give me a shout!

My Weekly Adventures #50

The big 5-0 for My Weekly Adventures. With my sporadic pieces, this really doesn’t mean anything much.

However, with the change of some key elements and the situation plaguing me lately, it become apparent that this little serious and important hobby (that I want to believe is much more) will have to have definite changes. I’m sure you’ve all already noticed obvious but gradual changes going on here. You can head to the serious talk at the end and I’ll explain everything there.

Rainy Boucherville 15K 

Boucherville 15K

Boucherville 15K for my friend ended up landing on Labor Day weekend, which coincidentally was the day that the tail end of Hurricane Harvey hit Canada which really was just heavy rains. It was definitely a milestone for my friend mostly because he’s always been fortunate to not have to deal with rain at any of his races. Maybe misty drizzle but never full on downpour. I am very grateful that we didn’t get the whole deal because looking at the devastation in Texas and the disaster Hurricane Harvey did just breaks my heart and my best wishes extend to everyone that has been affected by it. And also to those people affected by Irma as well.

Dreamhack Montreal 2017

Dreamhack Montreal

Game Warp was incredibly lucky to get our press pass for Dreamhack Montreal 2017. Our focus was definitely on the indie game zone. However, its a great opportunity to step out of our comfort zone and check out the competitions and e-sports things. A definite eye opener experience. If you missed the quick coverage post which was really just a video I compiled. You can find it below. Its short and sweet, hopefully.

Brunch with Friends

Things really don’t get better than hanging out with my girlfriends. We had brunch which was great because of the company. The food at this place honestly isn’t anything special especially when their selection of tea is still just Red Rose. We ended up spending a good part of the afternoon together just window shopping as one of us has also recently become a homeowner so furniture and fixture shopping are in progress.

Serious Talk & Decisions

Its been a few weeks that I’ve been talking about personal stuff bothering me. Just talking about my current situation. I don’t believe in anyone having to help me solve my problems since they are my own. With that said, the big issue looming over our heads have been of the home renovation variety, notably our roof. For other homeowners (or anyone whose been in a house), its something we know very well that these things that cover up our houses and shelter us from all kinds of stuff is really expensive to replace. While I’ve figured out my financials for now, its obvious that there’s a whole lot of cutting of expenses. I’ve been gradually anticipating this renovation and been changing my spending habits. For the most part, its been successful however this renovation came earlier than we expected so now, it has become even stricter about everything. Although, I have already been doing a lot of things to save up like working mostly with Netflix and digging through my TBR books and existing unplayed games for Game Warp.  Its one of the reasons why I’m also incredibly grateful that I’ve gotten the press pass for Montreal Comiccon and Fantasia Festival and lately Dreamhack.  Tranquil Dreams isn’t going anywhere. We just adapt and change to the current situation.

Game Warp will also be a huge focus in my life. We are also very lucky to meet certain people in our Game Warp gaming life. If you are into gaming, go and give our friend Slay aka Insomnia Knights a follow on Twitter and/or subscribe to his Youtube channel. Slay has been a fantastic friend to us and helped us out a ton even if he doesn’t know it. Meeting a lot of great individuals is one of those incredibly rewarding things about being in this online space and it motivates me to keep going.

With that said, while the roof situation seems to be getting some kind of resolution, another huge decision has come to light. This week has been a constant wrestle with making what is the right thing to do. I talked about it last weekend. While the factors have changed a little, the fact of it coming up has really made me consider what is the best way for this. With that said, I’m still pondering it however its something I’ll have to decide and conclude one way or another on my own. Because being in constant emotional dilemma is just not something I’m okay with (probably no one is).

However, this week’s posts has been light and easy so I’ve managed to keep up but I apologize again and in advance if ever things do fall behind again. I’m trying my absolute best 🙂

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Upcoming:

  • TV Binges
  • Double Features
  • Fun One-Shot segments

Hopefully you are all doing fantastic!
This wraps up this Weekly Adventures!
I’m honestly hoping next one will be less “adventure” and more tranquility.
Sleep deprivation and stress is really not doing me any good…

Dreamhack Montreal 2017 #DHMTL17

You can see a more detailed coverage over at That Moment In from Day 1 and Day 2 HERE & HERE.

DreamHack Montreal 2017 happened over the last weekend from Friday (September 8) to Sunday (September 10). The event has grown a lot with much more gaming tech companies and sponsors. The crowd definitely came in mass on Saturday and rightfully so because that was the day with some great esport matches. Here’s a video with some pictures and vids from the cosplay competition.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Are you into esports? If not, do you play games like CS:GO, Hearthstone or Street Fighter V? Maybe Smash Bros or Starcraft 2?

I’m honestly more of a solo player. Team or PvP games take much more strategy than I would like to invest in. However, DreamHack did ignite the curiousity to check out Hearthstone and so far, I might like it more than Elder Scroll Legend. However, I haven’t gotten far enough in Hearthstone to feel a ton more challenge.

Overall, DreamHack was really fun. It turned out to be a really busy Saturday going from one thing to the next. I did wish the Indie Game Zone would have had more games.