Welcome to the next Adventures! Its been a bit quiet on my end to be honest. Well, kind of. To be fair, the weather’s been pretty weird and then work’s been in its crazy phase. Still, we managed to get some time to hang out with friends, check out an event and pretty much wrapped up some stuff over here while to try relatively calm about everything. At least my few days staycation is just around the corner so I’m ecstatic for it. Can’t wait!
Dinner: Korean BBQ at Mon Ami
Steam Dumplings
Fried Dumplings
Korean BBQ
Korean BBQ
As a replacement for the monthly Battle of Ingredients and to compromise for a busy schedule (and my incredibly messy house that I didn’t have time to deep clean for guests), we decided to head out for a dinner out. The final decision came down to Mon Ami Brossard for All You Can Eat. Its a pretty good deal as it includes a great deal more than just Korean BBQ. It was pretty good but as I was on the verge of getting sick again, I stayed a little further from BBQ food and loved that I could get Bibimbap and a ton of dumplings. Its pretty fun and we had nice chats. Time with friends is always such a great way to stay sane and get in a ton of laughs and good times in general.
Montreal Joue 2019
The 7th annual Montreal Joue Festival is happening right now. It has a variety of game-themed events on its program. For myself, the one that interests me most is their video games festival which was held at Marche Bonsecours. Its been a go-to spot for gaming events lately. Overall, there was a lot of rinse and repeat games that I had seen in last year’s various events (but then, I go to almost 90% of gaming events in Montreal so its inevitable). However, it was nice to catch up with some games that have been on radar especially those in development for a while and finally see that they are all getting a release date. The game above is an upcoming mobile game called Feathers of Time which have had my attention for a while. I’ll be doing a recap on it in a few days over on the Game Warp blog (and That Moment In).
Valentine’s Marathon Officially Done
I know that technically there are like 4 movies that I need to post and they will go up soon by the end of the weekend (hopefully). I need to power through some more of the films to get them watched. However, after watching two great films, the remaining ones are looking a like lackluster. Haha! I’m just kidding…I’ll get to it. However, Valentine’s Marathon dragging further than February is not something I’d like to do. So I’m cutting it off. You will see this format again probably for next year. Its one that I’m enjoying and plan on doing on various months of the year just with more creative themes and maybe not a specific genre.
However, Valentine’s Marathon was pretty great. I achieved the goal of taking movies off My List on Netflix and also managed to discover some pretty fantastic movies. There was a lot of average movies but great films are made everyday so the idea that some showed up is already great. The entire Valentine’s Marathon reviews is updated HERE! Check it out if you think you may have missed any of the reviews.
Asian Cinema Film Club Podcast
I joined Elwood and Stephen over at Asian Cinema Film Club on their podcast to talk about 2012 Hong Kong film, The Bullet Vanishes. They were gracious enough to let me choose and it was a nice discussion we had about it. I never get enough chance to talk about Asian Cinema especially Hong Kong films that I always accept their invite. Plus, any chance to talk about my favorite celebrity Nicholas Tse is one that I won’t turn down. It was super fun as always. Give it a listen and hope you enjoy! Remember to follow them HERE if you haven’t already.
Cute Kitty Pic
That’s it for this Weekly Adventures! I promise the next one will be a bit more colorful 😉 What adventures have you had?
Following the last Weekly Adventures, I was on the fence about something. And well..seeing as its the title of this Weekly Adventures, suffice to say I made a decision on it. If you didn’t see the last post, don’t worry, you will know soon enough when we get there. These two weeks was a lot of eating… that’s all I got honestly. Something crazy happened at work that stressed me out so very much but really gave me the kick in the pants to motivate myself to get back into the groove of things. Find back some of the focus that I’ve seem to be missing.
MTL a Table 2018: Nom Nom Cantine
This year’s MTL a Table in place of the November Battle of Ingredients is at Nom Nom Cantine. We had a pretty good time there, eating delicious food with great company.
The wrong side of the fence is refering to this. Which can only mean one thing…that I decided to start NaNoWriMo this year. I started on Day 7 and the late start and my recent cold has impacted a lot of progress. To be honest, with all the projects right now, I don’t plan to finish but I have an idea that I kept wanting to write about so I just couldn’t resist. Of course, I wasn’t going to do this madness by myself so my awesome podcast co-host graciously joined me in working on his own thing.
My progress leaves a lot to be desired right now so I’m going to try to push myself over the next half of the month to really catch up. Next Weekly Adventures, I’ll share the final result.
L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon
Like last year, as an end of season marathon thank you for all my early mornings and such, my friend took me out for a fancy dinner at the Casino de Montreal at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. This restaurant definitely is expensive and fine cuisine but the one place that never disappoints me because of how well they adapt to making everyone feel important especially when it comes to my lactose intolerance and having French cuisine.
You can see the full recap of this restaurant experience HERE.
MEGA MTL
This past weekend marks one of the last gaming festivals that I will be going to (since there was also the summit earlier this week which I don’t go to because its on weekdays). MEGA MTL was morphed from the Montreal Independent Games Festival which used to be free and held at Dawson College. Now, it occupies the Marché Bonsecours in Old Montreal and it always shows off a lot of indie games to try out and showcase. Its a lot of games to write about so currently the post is still in the works for That Moment In but should be up soon.
My game of the festival is hands-down a game that has already been released called 39 Days to Mars, which is a coop puzzle adventure game developed by It’s Anecdotal.
Cute Kitty Pic
Thats it for this Weekly Adventures recap!
A quick and easy one this time. We had a few busy weekends so probably the next one will be even more quiet.
Welcome to an evening edition of My Weekly Adventures!
This will be a fairly quick one! Like when I ended up my last Weekly Adventures, we overlapped a weekend and week of E3 activities so really, not that much ended up happening. However, there were some little fun bits that I didn’t blog extensively about either!
Let’s go!
Mont-Ham Hike
The second hike of the year goes to Parc regional du Mont-Ham. You can see the full post here.
It was a challenging and crazy hike but the weather was perfect and the scenery was absolutely worth every single hard moment. It was incredible. We are working on where to go for the next hike. Keep your eyes peeled, it should be happening in a week or so, well for the long weekend if we can manage to fit it in one of those days.
We are heading into July and it might turn out to be hard to get a hike in but we’ll try 😉
F1 Grand Prix Weekend
Honestly, what is there to say? I usually do a separate post for Grand Prix but, its been fairly underwhelming. Porsche is always the heavy hitter and I’ve seen a lot of Lamborghinis around town. They are all pretty cars but you know, the variety is lacking from say, what the event had years ago. The event has expanded to a few locations now so that leads to the festivities over in the park where it had some electronic music going from Piknik Electronique and some food stalls…
Charlie’s Shack & Lobster Rolls
One of the things I love about Montreal events in the last few years is the food. This time, I had a lobster roll at Charlie’s Shack and boy, was it ever so delicious!
I love Buy 3 Get 4th Free sale at Indigo. Its very irresistible! 🙂 At least now I can catch up with my Archie graphic novels and also managed to get the Quebec National Geographic book for sale. We are already getting some long-term travel plans set and looking to see if there are some locations for day trips to hike or sightsee. Maybe some hidden gems.
Cute Kitty Pic
That’s it for this quick round of My Weekly Adventures! Its been definitely less productive here than usual, but I’m trying to get a ton of stuff done.
From the last weekend of November till December 17th held on weekends at the Quartier Dix30 shopping area was this fair that featured different local products in rotation over the weeks. It was a good place to see a lot of Quebec products that I have never seen before in the Salon des Metiers d’arts which is very cool. However, this one was not free. It had an entry fee of $5 which bought a pass for every week of the fair. Before we move forward, I feel that I need to address this. While I did pay for the pass, I did also feel a little surprised to have to pay an entry fee. While I can get why they would need to charge it, it also seems a turnoff to charge for a fair that you’d go in and have to spend more money on buying whatever interests you. Most of the local products are good quality which means they are priced higher than what you’d get at big box stores. With that said, its solely based on principle, it has nothing to do with the price because $5 for 5 weekends is not expensive. It really depends on how much you value seeing local products and treating it as more of an expo where you get to learn, see and taste the local products.
With that said, the experience was pretty good. We only caught the last 3 weekends but there was a lot of cool products to learn about. Even if we couldn’t get everything (limited resources and such), I’ll share what we did buy and also some stores that I will keep an eye out for and maybe see if I can order stuff online later on (if its available).
Haul
The first weekend ended up with 2 different purchases.
The first was Oomph which is a 100% natural popcorn seasoning. There are some allergen free option with this company which is very awesome. We ended up buying a Maple BBQ flavor and the Apple Pie flavor (which I’m seriously looking forward to baking with). We’ve been addicted to the Maple BBQ popcorn seasoning and its just a whole new world of amazing flavors.
The second purchase was at La Pincée. There have a variety of seasoning for vegetables and different kinds of meats including curry mixes and mild, herb, spicy, etc. This one is sold at some supermarkets from what they told us. We chose the Plumée seasoning which is good for poultry which is a huge part of what we eat since we love cooking chicken and turkey a lot.
The week after that, I picked up this scarf sort of thing from Léonce. I hesitated a little because it was like $45 dollars however, I really love this type of scarf that encircles your neck like how I like eternity scarf (but those seem to be out of style this year). This one is supposed to be incredibly warm and feel really comfortable. While I do have a scarf right now, the fabric on it is soft but also irritates my skin. I’m hoping this one will be much better. From what I’ve tried so far, it does the job. They have super cute mittens too which I’m hoping to purchase after my current mittens aren’t good anymore. But then, I love my current mitts so I hope they’ll keep up their effectiveness.
In the final weekend, we ended up picking up from two stalls as well.
The first was at La Lichée which had caramel spreads. My husband loved it so much that he really insisted on getting the caramel fleur de sel type. I couldn’t taste it since it has lactose however I’m sure that he’ll make good use out of it.
The final thing we got was at Chocolaterie Mathilde Fays. My husband bought the Hazelnut Milk Chocolate Bar and I went for the 70% Dark Chocolate bar and the Dark Chocolate Ball. The dark chocolate is lactose free so I’m extremely happy about that. They had a lot of really good variety along with some nice smaller packaging with some fancier designed bite-sized pieces as well.
Now that we’re done with our haul, lets take a look at some places that we really liked and have their card in case we save up some money and get a chance to pick up something from their stores online:
Lecavalier Petrone – Confections Gourmandes: These are some fancy looking chocolates. I like it for the unique look and I’m sure that they would taste great. Luckily, looking at their locations, they seem to have a location nearby to this show so maybe we’ll go check it out. It would be a nice gift to give.
Chali: This is an interesting piece of jewelry which acts as a durable clasp that can be moved from one sort of jewelry to the next whether as a closing an earring or bracelet. Its a really neat idea that stemmed out of a need from the designer.
MB Alpha Wear: Its pretty hard to find clothes particularly for men. This place designs men’s apparel and adds a touch of wilderness design to mix it up. It caught my eye right away at the show. Why do men get all the nice looking clothes? I’ve always wondered that. But then, what would stop me from getting one of the sweaters for myself, right?
Pression: This is a cute little backpack shop with some really beautiful colors and designs. It also has this little hook at the top to hang your keys for those people like myself who spend 5 minutes digging out keys when I get home. Not so fun when its like -30C.
Les CocoNuts: Coconut oil based products all the way. I think one of them that caught my eye the most is their chapstick which you actually refill. A pretty nifty idea as most of you who use coconut oil knows that they have a melting point and then solidify making it pretty easy to see how they could be used as a refillable sort of item. Very intrigued and they have a store accessible to myself so I’m looking to check it out sometime soon.
Thats it for the recap of this event! Anything catch your eye from the haul or the honorable mention?
Back in October, we went to the Pumpkinferno event in Upper Canada Village, you can check out that post here. When we went there, we picked up the combo that included their winter event called Alight at Night. In the rare organized times, we set up the date with friends for this event. Granted there was no snwow when we went on the opening weekend, the city still brought a lovely holiday mood to everyone.
Alight at Night is different than Pumpkinferno. For one, this one leaves the exploration up to the visitor so you can wander outside and in the backyard of buildings and its city maze in itself for this town transformed with lights. Aside from that is the obvious, its all different lights decorated instead of pumpkins. There was the Santa mansion and then the church had a live performance of a singer and her piano accompaniment that took song choices from the audience and performed them. You could watch the bakers make the bread on the spot. There are also shops and restaurants to eat. If you fancied, there are also horse drawn wagons to take you for a tour. If you choose to walk, just make sure to stick to the side of the path as to not step on anything you don’t want to. It took us about 2 hours to walk through (what we think is) everything.
Being the fool that I was, I forgot to charge the battery for the DSLR camera so only used my phone for these photos. I apologize for any bad quality and blur in advance.
That’s it for this beautiful event recap!
If I were to go again, I might have liked it after a light dusting of snow to give it an even more festive atmosphere.
We went back to Pumpkinferno this year at Upper Canada Village. This year, we had a pretty decent group with a lot of family and friends. Our group ended up being 6 adults and 6 kids which is a pretty sizable group. One advice I do have is that if you have a choice to not go during Thanksgiving weekend. It goes without saying but there’s traffic to go into the parking lot and the parking is packed solid so its a great distance to walk to the entrance. Second, is to buy tickets online before going because you won’t have to do the incredible line-up just to buy tickets to go in. My husband and I ended up buying the combo package for the winter event called Alight at Night also, so look out for that in December. We already planned out tentative days to go with some friends who are also interested. They didn’t come with our group for Pumpkinferno but apparently, they did a LONG traffic line-up to get in (like an hour or something).
This week is our vacation as we’ve taken last year also because its our wedding anniversary and we like to spend time together. This event came at a great time also since this is one of those events we discovered together as a couple back in 2012 or something. I posted that one back then and it is one of my posts that did the best and still get views every year. Its pretty sweet!
Anyways, this one was great. They had dragons and windmills. witches brewing, and Jailhouse Rock, and Coins from around the world and historical events as well as astronauts and snow activities as well as Dia de los muertos (if I spelled that wrong, I’m sorry). Check it out and yet again, my Samsung Galaxy S6 does a great job at taking pictures but it still doesn’t do the exhibit justice…keep that in mind if you think it looks meh.
Let’s start!!
Heading to the start of the trail
After some funky pumpkins (not shown here), its time for some dragons…
And migratory birds
Witches are brewing
And Dia de los Muertos is also happening
Jailhouse Rock is going on with Elvis and Marilyn and Audrey (see below for Instagram video)
And we see coins of the world..its Canada 150 so here’s some Canadian coins
Then we get to test our knowledge of Canadian provinces with their trees and provincial flowers.
There’s even an art gallery and Mona Lisa is of course there.
Not pumpkins but near these windmills, we get a nice shot of the beautiful bright moon
Astronauts floating in space
And one of the most beautiful exhibits of snowflakes in the trees
Ending with some iconic snow activities like hockey games and dog sledding!
This is really just a fraction of Pumpkinferno. If I added more pictures, it might take a millions years for anything to load on the page. I’ll probably post some other photos over at Avenue of Daydreams later in October. Before you go, as promised from above, here’s the Instagram video of the Jailhouse Rock exhibit. Its pretty awesome!
That’s it for today’s Halloween post! It felt a little inappropriate to talk about the Saw franchise today with the wedding anniversary! Everything resumes tomorrow and man, do I have a ton of reviews to write up!
Its been a month since our last update! Honestly, the last one would’ve been just pure Fantasia Festival recap. I was going to put together a Top 5 or 10 films of Fantasia that I saw but after one recording, I just wasn’t happy with it so ended up putting that to the side. I still want to do something more for Fantasia Festival. Just giving it a little time to cool down as I catch up with some outstanding posts. Regardless, that is my own housekeeping and I won’t bore you further with it. On the note of housekeeping, the indexes for both books and movies are updated till the beginning of August so if you are looking for anything, you’ll find it there. I’ll work on restructuring that a little more by the end of the year.
Without further ado, let’s see what went on this past month! 🙂
Fantasia International Film Festival
A Ghost Story
Q&A David Lowery – A Ghost Story
Q&A Eric Valette – Le Serpent aux Milles Coupures
Q&A Origami Cast & Crew
Q&A Chris Peckover – Better Watch Out
Its obvious that the first thing to talk about is Fantasia Festival. It took most of July and overlapped the last My Weekly Adventures. Here’s some of the photos that I took from the Q&As. I did more recording than pictures. I’m thinking of compiling something out of it but working on that. Maybe it’ll be too late when I finally get around to it. However, you can find Fantasia movie reviews both in the Movies section or the drop down to Fantasia Festival, which will queue up all the last 15 posts or something about it.
If you look back at the Fantasia Festival movie list before I started (this post HERE), a good 40% of it probably had changed for many reasons. However, the original plan was around 15 movies and I watched about 14 and had an extra post for the short films. Things worked out quite well, I’d say. I will however get the Top 5 or 10 films list done soon. As I’m writing this, it feels necessary to give it a final wrap-up even if its late.
What made Fantasia Festival even better, other than the press pass was having my best friend join me for a day and my husband join me for two movies for back to back weekend date nights. I’d say this event coverage was pretty awesome! 🙂
New Blinds & Decoration
Seeing as I managed to spare some normal expenses in July, I decided to achieve the 2017 goals of changing our kitchen curtains which were lacy white curtains to actual blinds. After some discussion, we got the dark brown bamboo blinds and they are fantastic and match our color scheme perfectly. We just forgot to get a small one for the door but we will live. However, on our trip to Bouclair (a home decor chain in Quebec), I found this darling decoration on top. In case you haven’t realized, I love the word dream so one more thing to add to the den as I slowly transform it into my little world.
Sessions 375 x Ile Soniq
August is like the music festival month. The first weekend kicks off with Osheaga Festival and then last weekend was Ile Soniq. For those who don’t know, I’m like electronic music quite a bit. I’ve been listening to it and honestly as the years gone by, I’ve become more selective. I’ve always wanted to go to Ile Soniq but never really had the chance, mostly because I don’t want to go to these events by myself. However, Phoebe (aka The Starry Traveler & my co-host of Battle of Ingredients, which will return from hiatus very soon) dropped me a message and said that there was a free event in celebration of the Montreal 375th birthday called Sessions 375 x Ile Soniq En Ville. I met up with her at a midpoint and headed there with her and her bun bun. She has the goal of exposing her little one to all kinds of stuff so we didn’t go into the event grounds because of long line-ups and crowds and safety purposes but we watched and listened from afar and it was good enough for us.
The evening ended with a meal and I’ll be sharing a post on that soon. We have two foodie posts coming up. 🙂
Matsuri Japon Festival & Brossard Cultural Fest
Takoyaki
Every year, Matsuri Japon Festival and Brossard Cultural Fest lands on the same day so as usual, my friends and I head out to these events. First stop for lunch is Matsuri and we shared all those foods and my friend had some noodles also, which is not here. The day was incredibly local showers since we were in and out of rain and seriously one patch would have rain and the other would not.
Next up at Brossard Cultural Fest! We just made a little walk around, had a natural juice popstick and then got rained on a little and then left for home. There were some cute bouncy inflatable things every where for the kids and it was so awesome. My fave was the giant T-Rex but there was also a huge tiger, etc. Super cool stuff!
Not sure if I had mentioned it before but Game Warp Podcast has a Instagram. We mostly share random gaming stuff that we come across and hope to expand our platform a little more. Earlier this month, we decided to do a little social experiment, thought up by my fantastic co-host to see if we took selfies and held some random gaming stuff, we could get some more views. We ended having quite some fun with it and I’m thinking of doing that again. Mine turned out pretty good, which is so rare so I even changed a few of my profile pic to this one.
Yes, I know shameless promotion again! You got it! If you have Instagram, go and give us a follow! 🙂
Cute Kitty Pic
Upcoming:
Battle of Ingredients (summer hiatus ends)
Foodie Restaurant Recaps
Movie Double Features
TV Binges
Books
Top 10 Fantasia Films Seen
That’s it for this My Weekly Adventures (more like Monthly)! What have you been up to?
We are halfway through July and at another Weekly Adventures update!
As you may have noticed in the last update, I was on vacation and it overlapped one week into this time. I can’t say that I did a whole lot or went out a lot but I did end up doing one stupid thing, a few cool things to share, small achievements here and there and if you follow me on letterboxd, then you know that I watched a ton of movies that I haven’t reviewed yet. In hindsight, that wasn’t such a great idea because of what is happening now, which if you don’t know, I’ll update you here as well.
Let’s go!
Vacation: New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island
We took a 4 day vacation overlapping Canada Day. It was rainy and a lot of driving but a lot of fun and incredibly beautiful. The scenery was breathtaking. You check out the 4 days recap below:
I met up with my Battle of Ingredients co-host, Phoebe from Starry Traveler’s Road and her bun bun to go check out this public market at Place Ville Marie. There were a good few local businesses selling fresh foods, drinks and snacks. There was a lot of choices. Phoebe picked up some bread and macarons. We got some lemonade. I picked up some spiced nuts and gluten and lactose free oat bars.
Haircut…Finally!
With the encouragement of Phoebe’s company, we both went to get a haircut. It was the final push that got me to my hairdresser after around 15 months. My hair is thick so it was heavy and fell down to my butt. Definitely a record and why I didn’t have the heart to cut it for so long. Anyways, its done and sure feels good to have such light hair again.
Montreal Comiccon 2017
Game Warp’s first press badge and it is fantastic to have it and cover Montreal Comiccon. It was a tiring weekend. Luckily, I strategically overlapped my vacation so that I would be well-rested.
You can read the recaps over at That Moment In and other posts here.
Fantasia Festival 2017
Tranquil Dreams first press pass! I’ve covered Fantasia the last 3 to 4 years out of my own expenses (much like everything here) however, I decided to give it a shot. Why not, right? What have I got to lose? Nothing. So here we are! My badge is with me and I’m typing this Weekly Adventures as I wait for a film to start. While I don’t have vacation for this, I am trying to work in about 15 movies, adding in screeners and such, it might turn out to be quite crazy! Bear with me if things get out of hand. If movies aren’t your thing, regular programming resumes after this. I will try to keep things versatile but I honestly can’t promise anything.
Cute Kitty Pic
Thats it for this Weekly Adventures! What have you been up to?
Toronto ComiCon 2017 was from March 17 to 19th at Metro Convention Centre. I headed out to meet up with my awesome blogathon co-host, Drew from Drew’s Movie Reviews who met me over there (just like last year). We stayed for a few days and picked up the weekend pass for ComiCon. Call it our little celebration for a successful blogathon, maybe it’ll turn into a tradition of some sort. Who knows, right? Our highlight was the ComiCon so this post will focus on some Q&A panels and cosplay, etc.
Before we start, what type of person would I be if I didn’t bring Drew into recapping Toronto ComiCon with me! When you see K, that’s for myself in normal font and D will be for his italicized part! 🙂
Day 1
K: First part of getting to Toronto ComiCon is to get there. Of course, I always forget that I can just keep Google Maps open so we didn’t get lost. There’s a huge apology somewhere here that I need to tell Drew how I got us lost a few times. I have a horrible sense of direction, something that I’m sure is super apparent, at this point. However, after a little detour, we did make it there! The first mission is coat check and picking up our tickets/weekend bracelet.
K: Next was a few hours to scour the Artist’s Alley and other Exhibitors as we wait for 7:30pm to start lining up for Q&A panel for Ray Park. We chatted with some artists and it was super inspiring and cool.
D:Visiting Artist’s Alley early was kind of an impromptu decision. It ended up working out really well because it allowed us to get a good idea of what prints and items we wanted to purchase, which helped us be more focused in the Alley on day 2.
K: Ray Park’s Q&A panel started a little late because of a delay in the photo ops but they came in with the whole troop (as you can see in the shaky video above). Ray Park was a cool panel. He was pretty insightful and kept it light-hearted as he shared little thoughts on G.I. Joe playing Snake Eyes and Star Wars playing Darth Maul among many questions on the floor. The best part was how he talked about he went into martial arts because he wanted to be in movies.
D:Ray Park’s panel was so much fun! He was such a laid back guy. One of the things he talked about that I really enjoyed was his experience as Darth Maul from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Star Wars is a huge passion of mine so getting to listen to his experience on playing one of my favorite characters was exciting. He also talked about his early experience and how he got involved in martial arts and acting. It was a great start to the convention.
K: Actually, this ended quite in time for us to head back to the hotel, drop off stuff and grab something quick to eat and head out to see Beauty and the Beast for the late showing. Toronto movie viewing experience was definitely eventful. I almost saw a fight break out despite having assigned seating. Anyways, my review of Beauty and the Beast will be out on Thursday. 🙂
Day 2
K: We started Day 2 with Casa Loma which I’ll share about tomorrow. By noon, we were back at the ComiCon for three panels in a row.
K: The first was the Gotham panel with David Mazouz (playing Bruce Wayne) and Sean Pertwee (playing Alfred Pennyworth). This panel was pretty packed and we were sitting further back so the picture isn’t great however the talk itself was. I’m personally a fan of Sean Pertwee. He’s done some great roles and I love his take on Alfred. I haven’t quite caught up with Gotham (halfway through Season 1) but seeing how these two get along and respect each other as actors despite the age difference and experience really shows true professional and bond that spills outside of the show.
D:I have a bit of a confession to make, as much of a comic book and Batman fan as I am, I have yet to watch a single episode of Gotham. Do not fret, it is very high on my to-watch list. This panel was purely Kim’s idea but it was a good one. After seeing these two at the panel, I am even more excited to watch their show now. They spoke with such respect for each other that is hard not to want to watch and see how that translates onto the screen.
K: Maybe I can bring Drew in to do a TV Binge of Season 1 eventually, if he’d like. 😉
K: Next up, immediately after the Gotham panel, was a first look at an upcoming web series called Deep Six. These are the cast and crew. Its written about a story set 250 years in the future where both military and civilians are sent to scout out a planet to live on. Its focus is on the realistic take on the space aspects. I chose this one out of a whim and well, it turns out Drew knew the producer/director and some of the cast that wasn’t there on this show and it turned out to be a very cool choice to go check this out.
D:It sure was! As Kim mentioned, I knew of the producer/director, Davin Lengyel, from my absolute favorite web series, Space Janitors. I kind of lit up and started raving to Kim about how awesome of a series it is (sorry Kim). However, the best part was I got to meet Davin after the panel and talked with him for a few minutes! The conversation made my day, which Kim didn’t hear the end of (again, sorry Kim).
K: To be fair, Drew had to endure some stupid moments during the night before watching Beauty and the Beast when I fangirled over “Something There” and then made an odd stupid giggle at my phone when I looked at the picture of the new little Animators’ Collection plushies when we were lining up, plus my amped up caffeine non-stop talking…if we’re talking apologies, I think I need to join in also.
K: After a small 30 minute window to grab a late lunch and take a quick walk, we went to line up for the last panel of the day with Agent of SHIELD’s Brett Dalton who plays Grant Ward. I’m going to be honest that I moved pretty much at the beginning of the series launch of this one and at my new place, I don’t even have bunny ears so no TV and that cuts out a lot if it isn’t even on Netflix so I’m about ten episodes into Season 1 and never had the chance to progress but this panel was Drew’s choice. However, its great that there was a ton of spoilers (in a way) which helped to understand the context but also some fairly entertaining questions like one about which Disney prince Brett Dalton wanted to be and which was his favorite Disney Princess, considering he was wearing a Mickey sweater, I’d say he is a big Disney fan also. Entertaining and fun doesn’t even begin to describe how cool this panel was.
D: Yes, this was my choice. I am such a huge fan of the show that I couldn’t pass it up. Like Ray Park, Brett Dalton was very chill and easy going. He answered every question with a mix of humility and humor. Everything from how he began acting and what he liked best about his character on Agents of SHIELD to whether he was Team Cap or Team Iron Man. I even had the chance to ask a him a question! This was definitely a highlight panel for me.
K: The rest of the day at ComiCon after this was pretty much picking up the stuff we had seen and deciding what we wanted before heading out for dinner. You can check out my haul post HERE. Also, we managed to stop to take some pictures of cosplayers which you can see above. I’m obviously the more knowledgeable Toronto person (although I don’t venture to Downtown Toronto too much) but we ended up going to Asian Legend (which I’ve talked a ton about on the blog before already).
K: My first actual complete meal over the two days. It was really satisfying plus it was a nice chat after we filled our bellies. We managed to get a few hours to relax at the hotel before heading out again for the Toronto ComiCon Cosplay After Dark party at Brassaii Lounge. It was nice to enjoy some nice music, grab a few drinks and converse in a loud voice. 😉
D:I left the dinner decision to Kim and she really came through! It was my first time eating at Asian Legend and everything was absolutely delicious. I will be sure to look for one around me because it is definitely a place I would eat at again. Besides my conversation with Davin Lengyel, the afterparty was another highlight of the trip for me. We drank, we danced a little, and we had some great conversation as bloggers and friends.
D:Our meet-up in Toronto last year was fun but I think this year was even better. I mean, as movie bloggers, we actually went and saw a movie together! The trip was well worth the travel and I thank Kim for being my guide through the city. 🙂
K: Toronto ComiCon was a definite success in my books. It was fun and complete as a blogger meet-up thing. Getting the chance to literally geek out and make friend with the same passions absolutely is one of the best parts of being a blogger over the years . This time was much cooler than last year because we managed to even grab a movie and went to a party other than just going to the main event and doing a touristic attraction.
Hope you enjoyed the recap of Toronto ComiCon. This new take was a cool way to put it together. Before I wrap this up, I’d like to virtually raise a glass to a successful trip and most importantly, friends! Okay, I’m getting mushy now…so, remember to drop by tomorrow for the look at our visit to Casa Loma.
This past weekend was a fantasticLly awesome one as I headed out to Toronto for Comicon (just like last year). Its been a crazy process getting back and having everything cleaned and put away and getting back on routine so today, I am doing a simple one to talk about my haul.
I will take a few days this week (probably two) to share the Toronto experience because just like last year, as something of a reward or whatnot, I met up with Drew to hangout and visit Toronto and Comicon together. And just like true movie bloggers, we got in a movie as well amd even made it to a party (comicon related) as well as a sightseeing location. Lots of fun and a packed schedule but I think it turned out pretty great. Look for those posts while I get those new segments finalized (something I ran out of time last week for).
Lets check out what I picked up both before and at the Toronto Comicon.
Before the Comicon, I had a little bit of time before Drew arrived so I went out for a little shopping. I had a few stores on my list to hit and they were:
HMV
(because they are closing out of Canada so lots of discounts)
Disney Store
(never been to the one at Eaton Centre)
David’s Tea
(spontaneously remembered was running out at home)
Toronto Comicon was a weekend thing and we bought the weekend pass so we went on Friday to scout out the show and then did most of our shopping on Saturday after all the Q&A panels. Here’s what I picked up:
Movies& Video Games
I got a super sweet deal for Uncharted 4 at Iceman Video Games which was also there last year. I’m pretty happy about it. They had some awesome choices and selection.
However, I really want to talk about Raven Banner where we stopped by to look at horror movies. They were fantastic and we had a great talk about horror indie films in general. Not sure they’ll read this post but that chat was a highlight of the ComiCon for myself. It really defines why we do this movie blogging thing and meeting people who are equally passionate about this. It was a fun and enlightening chat.
Novel and Comics
Let’s look at this from left to right.
Toronto Comics‘ Yonge at Heart is a Canadian comic author that sets in Toronto. This is a free preview to get a snippet of their comic for their Kickstarter campaign running right now till beginning of April, I believe. I saw them on Twitter before the trip and really liked the art style and the idea of using a Canadian setting. You can check out the Kickstarter here.
Remy’s Dilemma byAndrew Snook is a novel with this plot below from their website. A part of selling your work is being passionate about it. And Andrew does a great job at it. To be honest, his enthusiasm as he told his story and the joy he had recounting the story was so genuine that I could feel the awesomeness in the story. I haven’t started reading it yet but this looks like a fun journey with Remy especially when its set in two provinces in Canada that I’ve visited numerously and live in.
The world is coming to an end. That’s what Remy believes, anyways. While double-checking his lifelong to-do list to ensure he has led a rich life, he realizes he hasn’t come close to completing his goals. Panicked and short on time, Remy embarks on a chaotic road trip to complete the most important item on his bucket list… – Snook Books
Moonshot & Titan from AH Comics: Moonshot is an Indigenous Comics Collection (Volume 1) with various stories from different artists. With the purchase of this one (inspired by my peaked curiosity after my playthrough of Never Alone a few weeks ago), they also gave the gift of their graphic novel Titan: An Alternate History, which is great because then they saved me having to decide on which one to get with my purchase.
Artwork
Foiled Art makes this beautiful little pop culture pieces. They do a lot with gold or silver (or both for limited edition) but I honestly thought that this galaxy one looks superb. It really brings out the art and pops. This is going right over my work station at home because its so fantastically awesome!
Howl’s Moving Castle by Chasing Artwork
I love love love Miyazaki art and Chasing Artwork is a great artist. There are two comics out currently which I passed up on but these pieces are so atmospheric and creative. I actually stood there pondering which to get. He also has one for Nausicaa which just took my breath away. I’m personally a huge fan of Howl’s Moving Castle so this one is great.
Betty and Veronica by Dan Parent (with autograph)
For those of you who don’t know (which you might not because I don’t review comics), I love Archie comics and really I haven’t looked much at the newer ones although they do look cool but these traditional ones. I know I have a few volumes sitting in a box after we moved. I just can’t remember where so I couldn’t take it with me but Dan Parent was there who does a ton of these illustrations. I particularly loved this print and look he signed it also. Consider me a little star strucked when I saw him because I wanted to say a ton and just couldn’t.
The haul could have been so much more. There was so many great writers and artists that the choice was hard to make. However, I retain the idea of picking up stuff from the ones that I skipped but has an Etsy shop or other form of online retail. I have to say this was a pretty successful weekend!
What do you think about the haul? Anything that catches your eye?
Tranquil Dreams 