Montreal Comiccon 2019 – Day 2 Recap: Lana Parilla, The 100, Umbrella Academy & Elijah Wood

Day 2 of Montreal Comiccon 2019 is behind us now. Saturday is always the big day of the event. Not only is it the day with the most visitors at the event and its an obvious change from the first day, but its also the day where most of the guest of honors and a lot of Q&A panels take place. With a line-up of Lana Parilla, The 100, The Umbrella Academy, Lindsay Seidel, Georges St-Pierre, Elijah Wood, Tom Felton, Ray Park, and Michael Madsen appearing in Q&A panels throughout the day, it is going to be a huge run around to try to catch a portion of these.

Q&A Panel: Lana Parilla

The first big panel to start the day was Lana Parilla, most popular known for her role in Once Upon A Time as Regina/The Evil Queen. She also had smaller roles in Lost and 24. Lana Parilla talks about her different experiences on Once Upon A Time as well as some memorable scenes. She shares about working with the green screen room in the first season as well as the first time directing an episode in Season 7. Suffice to say that Lana Parilla’s roles in Once Upon A Time, because its had so many variations, has been one that has been both inspiring and conflicting for fans of the show.

Q&A Panel: The 100

The 100 panel featured three main characters from the series, Bob Morley who plays Bellamy, Eliza Taylor who plays Clarke and Tasya Teles who plays Echo. After a surprise wedding announcement for Bob Morley and Eliza Taylor earlier this year, possibly fulfilling the ship between their characters on the show, the three are relaxed and fun at the panel as the fans praise the show on its gender equality and LGBT relationships and how the characters are defined by their talents and not these more personal attributes of race, gender, etc. Bob Morley and Eliza Taylor talk about the difference between filming in Australia versus USA. A lot of what are their favorite scenes and favorite things were asked. Due to the pure Q&A session format and no general questions with the moderator, the questions were very fan-based. However, if the excitement in the room was reflective for everywhere else, The 100 still has maintained a lot of its hype (which is great because I also love it a ton).

Q&A Panel: The Umbrella Academy

The Umbrella Academy is one of the newer shows to have a panel at this year’s Comiccon. Bringing in Cameron Brodeur who plays young Luther and Robert Sheehan who plays the conflicted yet flamboyant Klaus, the panel was vibrant to say the least. Cameron Brodeur steps up on his first panel which is very exciting as he shares his love for Spider-Man and superheroes in general. As young Luther had relatively less roles, Robert Sheehan had a lot more questions about his roles from his favorite aspects of the character to the show. They were asked about working with Mary J. Blige as well as the weird and embarassing filming moments. With The Umbrella Academy having a second season greenlit, it probably will be just the beginning of panels for this Netflix Original series.

Q&A Panel: Elijah Wood

At this point, Elijah Wood has surpassed his Lord of the Rings trilogy days especially as that is 20 years old already since its start. He has gone on to be involved in TV and indie horror as well as video games. On his IMDB page, he has over a hundred credits over his 30 years of being involved in the entertainment business. The normal questions of favorites and inspiration came up however, what stood out the most the genuine reactions to all the questions as well as his gratitude for still thriving in the business after so many years. He addresses also his project choices which rely on his gut and finding roles that vary from the previous ones as well. A fun panel to say the least even if the majority of the questions still remain very Lord of the Rings oriented or more on his younger projects and (not so) surprisingly not about his newer projects especially in indie films. Talking about newer projects, he has a film premiering at Fantasia called Come to Daddy.

OVERALL…

Its been a panel heavy day running non-stop between line-ups and wait times from late morning to middle of the afternoon. However, the star studded panels definitely were a lot of fun and gave us a look at some of the different experiences of these TV and movie icons that has gained quite a bit of popularity and love.

Thats it for Day 2 recap!

Other parts for gaming wrap-up and cosplay will be over on the Game Warp Blog shortly, if that interests you.

Also, audio of these panels, once I find time to listen back and see what is usable or not will be posted later on my channel. I will be sure to share it one place or another, when it happens.

Montreal Comiccon 2019 – What to Do and See

I’ve been covering Montreal Comiccon for the last few years mostly for Game Warp and shared some of the cosplay and hauls over here but have never really talked about Montreal Comiccon in depth. This year, I’m thinking that there are some fun little bits to highlight as a beginner’s guide to Montreal Comiccon, in case you are in town and might consider it a fun event or think its one that you’d like to check out at some time in the future (just a guideline since guests and such change every year, as expected).

The 11th annual Montreal Comiccon starts today on July 5th and runs throughout the weekend to end on July 7th at Palais de Congres in downtown Montreal. Over the three days, there are over 200 activities including panels, workshops, concerts, masquerade, improv, board games, screenings, autographs sessions, photo ops and more related to all things pop culture: anime, movies, TV, comic books, gaming.

On interesting fact to know is that all kids five and under go in for free all three days, while kids ages 6 to 12 get free admission on Friday and Sunday.

Here’s some of the highlights of whats to come over this weekend, for further info, you can find the schedule HERE.

GAMING

Set in the vibrant game development scene of Montreal where not only multiple AAA studios has their offices or headquarters, there are even more independent game developers lurking in every corner. One of the big highlights of Montreal Comiccon for gamers is the Indie Gaming Zone. Indie Gaming Zone will have many game developers showing off their games recently released and in development along with their playable demos so that you can experience it and share your thoughts with them as well.  We will be  having coverage for the Indie Game Zone over at the Game Warp Blog (as well as on That Moment In) during this weekend.

In other gaming highlights: Dreamhack doesn’t hit Montreal until September but before that, you can get a taste of it at the Dreamhack Gaming Zone where there will be a VR station to try out some VR games while also having a PC Freeplay Zone. You can also find the Tabletop Gaming area where there will be an assortment of board games to try out with your friends. While if you are in a more competitive mood and up for a challenge, there are activities for Combat Archery and Rage  Academy (Axe-Throwing) that you can check out.

Gaming also has a good few panels. From the more technical game concepts like Fantasy Map-Making to Narrative Nightmares & Lessons Learned which will talk about writing video games to the basics of launching your game via crowdfunding, Crowdfunding 101. There are also panels on specific games like Jurassic World Alive, Overwatch and Watch Dogs 2.

MOVIES & TV

Movies is a big part of the pop culture with multiple franchises having their cast show up to talk in Q&A panels. At the same time, they are also available for photo ops and autographs. Some of the highlights would be Harry Potter franchise has James & Oliver Phelps and  Tom Felton. Set in the same universe, Dan Fogler from Fantastic Beasts movies is also there. Star Wars fans can see Ray Park.

Disney fans will be happy to find Jim Cummings, the voice actor of Winnie the Pooh and Darkwing Duck as well as Paige O’Hara, the voice actress of Belle in Beauty and the Beast. You can also find Ethan Peck from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (who might be there for the more recent Star Trek: Discovery) while in the superheroes movie world, Shazam!‘s Evan Marsh is also present. Fans of Highlander and Mortal Kombat can see Christopher Lambert in a panel. For fans of Quentin Tarantino films, you can also check out the panel with Michael Madsen.

The guest of honor does have to go to Elijah Wood who has not only TV series under his belt but also The Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as various indie horror films in his filmography.

This year’s TV-related guests has an incredible line-up. There will be The 100 panel with Bob Morley, Eliza Taylor and Tasya Teles. The much more recent The Umbrella Academy has Robert Sheehan and Cameron Brodeur also in a panel together. Lana Parilla will be there if you are a fan of Once Upon A Time.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Of course, that is just touching on the categories we cover here. Anime, cosplayers, comic book artists (Dan Parent, Kevin Eastman, etc) as well as wrestlers, MMA (Georges St-Pierre) and kickboxing figures will also be there this weekend. If you need a break, the Artist Alley and Exhibition Hall is always a nice place to check out a ton of cool merchandise and of course, some great art from different artists based on pop culture in their own style.

That’s it for this general guide!
We’ll be covering Montreal Comiccon and will be having Day 1, 2 and 3 recaps.

Announcement: Halloween Marathon 2018 Officially Begins!

The 2018 Halloween Marathon is upon us. It definitely came by quickly enough.

Halloween Marathon has been always an exciting month in the year over here. This year’s horror movies have been quite limited so its going to be an adventure to work on getting rid of some of the movies in My List on Netflix as well as some movies on our shelves that we’ve bought but never seen. We are in the phase of decluttering and trading in our films is one of the phases we are working on. I do have a lot of horror movies to catch up on and with the Netflix October movie releases and other bits here and there with books and hopefully some cooking as well, its going to be a ton of stuff happening and with a decent variety if things go as planned.

Reviews currently being scheduled and writing in progress:

• The Babysitter (2017)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2017)
• Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments (Season 1 & 2)

Some of my top picks:

MOVIES

• Annihilation
• The Babadook (because it seems like I’m the only person in the universe that hasn’t seen it yet)
• Bone Tomahawk
• Green Room
• Gantz: 0
• The Visit
• What We Do in the Shadows
• Sharknado: The 4th Awakens
• Sharknado 5: Global Swarming

TV SERIES (These picks are priority because I want to wrap up the show as they are already done)

• Scream Queens (Season 2)
• Hemlock Grove (Season 3)
• Ash vs Evil Dead (Season 2)

The Maybe List (if I’m in a mood and none of the top picks fit my liking or I want to watch a dumb horror):

• The Forest
• It Comes at Night
• Anaconda
• Mother!
• Mama
• The Open House
• Winchester

Obviously, the list above is all subject to change and its on what I decide to pick. However, I’m open to any suggestions! If there’s any movie that you want me to review on this list, just leave it in the comments or tweet or email or whatnot and I’ll make sure to bump up the priority. 

Also, as I mentioned before, books will be included in there. I’ve currently started one already so we will be having 2 or 3 hopefully pop up over the month.

On top of the normal programming from movies definitely making it in and others in consideration above, Elwood and I are kicking off Movies & Tea Podcast’s season 2 with our look at Guillermo Del Toro’s directorial effort. With that said, there is a lot of horror movies coming out from there. I’d say that we might get through a movie or two in October if things go as it did in the first season of the show.

Before I wrap this announcements and start the Halloween Marathon out of the gates here, I do want to say that I have a last minute decision of attending the Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal so I’ll be covering up to 10 films there. However, none of those films will be horror, or at least from what I think. So, there will be other things going on here. If the marathon takes a little slide in the background, the second half of October will be in full force. You just need to be patient with me as I work through real life, festival coverage and Halloween marathon.

That’s it for this morning’s announcement! 
We officially start tomorrow morning with a movie review! 🙂

Are you doing anything special for Halloween on or off the blog? Leave a comment and a link to your blog so others can go check it out!

My Weekly Adventures: DreamHack and Family Time!

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)

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

View this post on Instagram

The things we find when we help #declutter the #childhood #home. I even found my chewed up #sippycup. #memories #kidthings #cute #bowls #disney #lionking #childhoodmemories

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Sep 3, 2018 at 3:38pm PDT

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

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!!

View this post on Instagram

Its time for #Dreamhackmtl2018 this weekend! #gaming #indie #esports #mtl #514 #events #videogames #dhmtl18

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Sep 7, 2018 at 2:59pm PDT

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.

View this post on Instagram

Everything picked up. Time for #DreamhackMtl ! #gaming #mtl #514 #event #olympicstadium #stadeolympique #montreal #dhmtl18

A post shared by Game Warp (@gamewarppodcast) on Sep 7, 2018 at 2:25pm PDT

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).

View this post on Instagram

Our Stunt Gamer and his nephew joins me for a #supersmashbrosultimate #match at the #nintendoswitch booth. #Firsttime playing on Switch! #dreamhackmtl #gaming #multiplayer #videogames #dhmtl18

A post shared by Game Warp (@gamewarppodcast) on Sep 7, 2018 at 4:14pm PDT

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: Family, Friends & Events

Its been a month everyone! I had to make the executive decision to skip last time because well, the end of June was kind of sad with not much going on. Seeing as the first part of July had just enough to pair it up, here we are!

A note for some things below. Events are in town and in the next two weeks, the main focus going into August will be on Fantasia Festival. However, you will see that I have other posts planned that aren’t all about movies in case you followed this blog for some of the other hobbies that I have and share around here! I have a lot of stuff planned from books to TV series to gardening and other cool stuff. Plus, most of the projects are still going on so busy but fun stuff coming up! 🙂

Let’s check out whats been going on this past month!

Family Visit

Last month, I had some family come to visit. We ended up going to one of my favorite breakfast restaurants in Old Montreal called Le Cartet. I’ve probably already talked about it before. Either way, they loved it and its always a great time. Most of my family has moved away from Montreal so its always so fun to have visit and catch up.

Battle of Ingredients: St-Jean BBQ

Check out the full post HERE.

Our first summer BBQ of this year was on the St-Jean Baptiste day for Battle of Ingredients. We have decided to lower the frequency just for less stress however, it still a ton of fun to get together and hang out. I actually have some fun ideas for next time if it happens to BBQ again (which I believe it is for now). It was a tad rainy this long weekend but it didn’t bother us too much.

Canada Day, Heat Wave & Pool Time

Shameless selfie time! Sorry about that but I didn’t really take a lot of pictures of swimming. Haha! Good news is that the pool is FINALLY opened after last year’s absolute nightmare. Everything seems to be going well and all the credit goes to my husband figuring it all out. Lucky because it was a record-breaking weekend hitting well above the 40s degrees Celsius. We don’t have air conditioning system so we just rigged our unit with a fan to get the cool air around the house. Luckily it worked pretty well. Along with time in the pool, it was a lot of fun! I’m one of those people who love water. It makes me so happy when I’m just in water or near water hence why I love hiking and being near rivers, lakes, creeks, streams, and especially waterfalls!

Montreal Comiccon 2018

You can the recap of Montreal Comiccon HERE.

I am so grateful to get the media pass again this year for Montreal Comiccon. For the first year, I angled one week of my vacation here so I actually went for all three days of the comiccon weekend. It was a ton of fun. Maybe a little crazy to get all the coverage done in a timely fashion for That Moment In but it all was finished and I thought it turned it pretty alright. There was a lot of see and the Q&A was absolutely awesome. I actually am still working on getting some of the Q&A audio edited for my own channel but if you want to hear the audio for Shadow of the Tomb Raider Q&A and understand French, its on the Game Warp channel and for your convenience, the video below.

Dinner with Friends

Vacation is the perfect time to catch up with friends. The first dinner was a meet-up with Phoebe and her family before the opening film of Fantasia Festival. We finally had my husband go try out their best-kept secret restaurant called Fuschia at Lasalle College. Its never disappointed and let me tell you, the meal was fantastic. So I’ll have that post go up finally since I’ve been respecting their desire to keep it a best-kept secret but they gave me the okay for this time. 😉

Second dinner was just yesterday. My monthly hangout with the girl friends have been a lot less this year because everyone is just so busy with different transitions and personal life and whatnot. We finally met up for a dinner at this little Czech restaurant called Restaurant Bohemia. I’ll have a full post on it also going up soon. It’ll be little things to cut between all the movie reviews in case you aren’t here for that.

Fantasia Film Festival 2018

Fantasia Film Festival is officially in town. Like last year, I had a media pass approved and so incredibly grateful for it. I have a fairly intense schedule the starts up next week. I only managed to fit in two movies as I try to get a lot of my house stuff done before the intensity really kicks up. You know, real life needs to be taken care of. I felt a little bit bad of skipping out a lot of the screenings this weekend but life doesn’t stop for this even if I love it so very much.

However, two reviews have already been up. You can check it out below

Nightmare Cinema
Playing Hard

The next two and a half weeks is going to be intense. I plan to review about 20+ films in total so next week alone, there are currently 11 screenings planned tentatively so if it all pans out, it’ll be my busiest week of the festival and I’ll get the reviews uploaded. All reviews will also be over at That Moment In. Actually, we are aiming for almost full coverage at That Moment In because of some arrangements. So head over there and check out what David has going on over there as he reviews some other movies at Fantasia that I won’t be able to make it to like this one:

La Nuit a Dévoré le Monde (The Night Eats the World)

I will retweet all of those reviews so either subscribe to That Moment In to not miss out or just follow me on Twitter @tranquildreams_

As for what’s planned, here is a list of the movies I’m aiming to go see in alphabetical order :

Anna & the Apocalypse
Big Brother
Bleach
Cam
Fireworks
Kasane
Knuckleball
La Quinceneara
Laplace’s Witch
Luz
Nightshifter
Our House
The Outlaws
Pledge
Searching
Under the Silver Lake
The Vanished

I’m hoping to fit some more in there but I doubt that sounds remotely possible as my actual paying job will be hitting some crazy work phase by the end of July. Gotta pay the bills after all 😉 Still, I’m more than happy with the schedule here and if it all works out, I’ll already be super pleased! I have a rule to have quality instead of quantity so excuse me if some double day film watching days have a little delay in the review going up.

Cute Kitty Pic

Thats it for this “Weekly” Adventures!
What have you been up to?
Any cool events going on where you are? Some fun summer plans? Perhaps vacation in the horizon?

My Weekly Adventures #58: Announcements, New Ideas and Upcoming Plans!

And we’re back for another weekly adventures! Excited? Don’t be. I’m being honest. I was looking back at the last two weeks and realized I actually have nothing to talk about today as recap. I got sick for one of those weeks which resulted in nothing much getting done and everything falling behind. Then, the past week has been recovering and massive overtime at work causing everything to fall even more behind. I can’t say its been incredibly productive! HOWEVER….don’t like my sassy self get in the way because if we aren’t looking back, we can always talk about some stuff I keep forgetting to talk about or have been on my mind and some new ideas I’m working on plus some upcoming events I’m heading out to and maybe toss in a progress report.

PC Troubles

And the plague of my PC for myself finally happened. I actually forgot to talk about it in my last weekly adventures post. Its has truly hindered the Game Warp side of things. The short version is that the GPU port on my motherboard died so now my graphics card can’t work. With that said, if I want to keep my current rig, then I have to change my motherboard which is apparently older gen so its hard to replace and if I change it, then the CPU needs to ve changed as well along with something else that I can’t remember. The hardest part here is the whole crytocurrency thing is causing everything in the PC anatomy to be overinflated so I have divised a few alternate solutions since the graphics card side of things needs to get up and running. Either way, Tranquil Dreams is not really affected except my frustration over the situation is getting me a little down so I am digging deep for some positivity. First world problems, right? I know. It just feels like a lot of crap this year especially with some things I can’t talk about.

Now with the crappy part out of the way, lets move on to better things…

Ultimate 70s Blogathon

In the last post, I talked about an announcement and it was the Ultimate 70s Blogathon announcement. Me and Drew’s 3rd installment of the Ultimate Decades theme. If you missed it, you can find the post here. There is still time to participate if you are interested. You can find the info here.

Upcoming Video Segments

In the last Meowbox post, I talked about having a break in the unboxing segment temporarily. With that said, I am getting some slow traction every little while so I will continue trying to capture small clips at events but I have decided to bring back permanently the Whats Up Wednesday segment except in a video format so it will be a quick look at what I’m reading, watching and playing and if there is time then I might do quick reviews of what I have finished. It will not be as fleshed out as the reviews I write. I am currently working on the structure of the segment and hopefully will do every other week that weekly adventures doesn’t happen. I’m even debating whether I would want to do it every week but then some weeks are quite slow. With that said, its not going to just be me staring at the camera because I’m not sure I’m that much fun to look at but I’ll add some fun screenshots and videos for stuff if I can. Like I said, still working on the details. I would however love to hear what you think about this idea.

I’m working on maybe doing more videos since I find some zen in video editing lately so its a direction that I’d like to work on more frequently. I think its a good spot to start since I’ve learned that I’m really  not much of a vlogging type as I tend to just sit around and ramble on about nothing much.

Valentine’s Marathon/Torture Fest Take 2

As per our tradition, February calls on the Valentine’s Marathon. For some of you following a little longer, you will know that I go for love and romance but not necessarily romantic comedies all the time. It really depends how I feel. Of course, it was supposed to start today so I’ll try to get something going up today. A few years back, I did a Torture Fest sort of thing where I watched through Nicholas Sparks adaptations. To my surprise, it was not as bad as I expected. But I’m a romantic so I have a fairly high tolerance for it. This year, we’re bringing it back with the very dreaded challenge to watch through the Twilight franchise! Its going to take more than the 14 days till Valentine’s Day but consider it a little side project between the Valentine’s Marathon and Ultimate 70s Blogathon. Ultimate 70s Blogathon will cut the marathon a little short depending on how we schedule things. If you have any movies you’d like me to watch, preferably available on Netflix but then, I owe a lot of movies that I plan on watching if no one suggests anything that I have access to.

A few titles I have right now are: What If, Before We Go, Age of Adaline, Equals, The Vow…all subject to change obviously 😉

Upcoming Events

 

Events season is just around the corner. With some exhibits that has caught my eye in both Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, we’re thinking about the game plan. One of these locations are already fairly set. Here’s a general list of events we are looking at:

Montreal: Montreal Joue Festival (February 24), The Art of Animation (ends April 2)

Ottawa: Dreamworks Animation: The Exhibition (ends April 8), Mosaivernales (ends March 4)

Toronto: EGLX (March 9 to 11)

There’s some fun stuff coming around and I’m sure some event or another is slipping my mind.

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
Expect some other posts going up maybe later today as I strive to catch up with all the backlog from 2 weeks of falling behind!

MEGA Expo Mtl #MEGAexpomtl #gaming #montreal #expo

Today’s post was on delay. I guess I should’ve talked about it before since it always is the case when I have to do event coverage over the weekend for Game Warp.

With that said, this weekend was MEGA expo in Montreal which collaborated with the Montreal Independent Games Festival and had a whole bunch of games  to try out. I went out with the husband to check out the event and spent a ton of time putting together a thorough recap on That Moment In.

Here’s a few photos of the games we tried and caught out eyes. There was probably around 40ish games there, so its impossible to have taken the pictures. I probably should have taken a vlog or video or something but I never think about it. Still figuring out the best way for event coverage especially on the first time heading to certain events.

Wall Mounted Level

0000 by Alvaro Salvagno

Mercenary Kings by Tribute Games

Wolf Gang by Nylon Blonde

N.U.T.Z. by Pandemonium Interactive

The Inner Friend by Playmind

Spectrum Break

Just Shapes n Beats by Berzerk Studio

There’s a ton more games there and you can check out my recap coverage on That Moment In HERE!

There was even a mini concert for Ultimate Chicken Horse by  Clever Endeavor Games. I recorded a bit of it via the Game Warp Instagram. Check it out!

View this post on Instagram

Mini Ultimate Chicken Horse #concert at #MegaMtl @clevendeavgames @vibeavenuemusic #UltimateChickenHorse #music

A post shared by Game Warp (@gamewarppodcast) on Nov 18, 2017 at 10:07am PST

Montreal Expo Gaming Arcade was an awesome event. It actually made the Montreal Independent Games Festival even better than last year’s experience because there was a bigger venue and probably even more games. There was diverse selection and a lot of games from just prototypes to pre-alphas to fleshed out already shipped games that are already available. We had some guests that were showing their games and we got to chat with them again as well. Overall, a really fun experience. I can’t wait for the next gaming event to check out, although I’m not sure how soon it will be.

Sorry for the short post today! I’m working on this week’s posts as you are reading this! 🙂

Finally, if you  haven’t followed Game Warp, here’s some places to follow us for news and gameplays and videos and podcasts:
For gaming news and updates, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
For gaming obsessions and other random gaming thoughts, follow us on Instagram
For gameplays, interviews and podcasts, subscribe to the Youtube channel

My Weekly Adventures #53

The second half of October has been an interesting one. We’re finally settling into our routine after my husband had a work schedule change. Its also calmed down after vacation so in reality, I almost have nothing to really write about but as I sat here think about the last two weeks, its been pretty awesome overall. I honestly have no other words to describe it. Why? Let’s just jump right in!

Shudder

A few years ago (I can’t remember how many years now), I backed a project on Indiegogo. Possibly one of the last projects I backed there because I didn’t find it as reliable especially when projects got funded regardless of whether they reached the goal or not meaning the chances of the project not cashing out is extremely high. I think I’ve backed 4 projects and at least one of them is probably not going to happen. One I’m fairly certain will cash through as its by two big stars and there is a lot of development updates going on. Regardless, I’ve gotten smarter. We’re not here about Indiegogo but rather a project I backed on there finally came through. Its called Found Footage. Found Footage is available for both 2D and 3D (except we got our 3D glasses mailed to us so early that I have no idea where it is now). It got distribution on Shudder, which is subscription streaming service but focused on horror movies.  You don’t need to sign up to see what movies they have so go ahead and check it out because its great. They have a trial for 7 days and such and its not really expensive. However, I do have Netflix so I kept hesitating and after procrastinating too much, something great actually came out of that and I had an extended trial period. Of course, I went ahead. Nothing beats the incentive of having gotten more free stuff. What I’m curious is how frequent there are new movie selections added and that will be a huge factor in whether I keep this one as a paying member. Regardless, its changed my horror marathon line-up in the final week to say the very least and it will also mean that there will be more horror movie reviews coming up. I have my eye on a few movies such as Seoul Station, Bullhead, Dead Snow, Haunter, Cherry Tree, Martyrs for starters.

Canadian Gaming Expo Montreal

On October 21st and 22nd weekend was the first time that the Canadian Gaming Expo has been held in Montreal. We went for the free event and did a little coverage for the games showed in the expo area. The coverage post will be up on That Moment In shortly but a little delay due to the hiatus last week. For the first time, my husband’s changed schedule now has him being free when these events happens so he can come with me. It was a lot of fun. We found a good parking spot (which is a pretty awesome accomplishment) and had a lot of fun.

Pretty New Things #1: SNES Classic & GT Sport

Wouldn’t this be a great new segment if only I had money to spend? 😉 I’m grateful for everything I have especially since I love to joke about my first world problems as I fully acknowledge that they are. However, I ended up asking my husband what he wanted for  Christmas and asked him whether GT Sport would be good for his early gift and I knew the answer already. He wanted the fancy limited edition steelbook with all the extra bonuses like extra cars and preorder had extra stuff as well. He really enjoyed the beta a few weeks ago and I know the $90 I put into will be put into good use as the replayability usually is worth it since Gran Turismo is one of those games who takes their sweet time to get out their next one to make sure it adds on a lot more improvement and polish and a better experience.

Aside from that, after I talk about being super poor, I need to justify that the stars aligned and I ended up getting a SNES Classic. October 23rd is a heavy day for myself but it was a day that came with so many great stuff and nice things that happened that I was able to forget the heaviness a little.

Pretty New Things #2: Nice Leggings

Have you ever wondered when you change your seasonal clothes that things just vanish? Mine are always leggings.  Luckily, I went to check if there was a sale at Dynamite Clothing and there was! I picked up these Moto Leggings and a pair of basic high rise leggings. They are super comfortable and feels very durable which is thicker so very suitable for the cooler weather.

Friend’s Baby Shower

Last Saturday, a few of our friends got together to celebrate one of my elementary & high school friend’s baby shower. She’s having a baby boy. I’ve never been to a baby shower but being invited to one was pretty fun. We played a few games which was great, won some candy and caught up with everything about her pregnancy and baby and everything else. I couldn’t stay long since I need to get back to the overtime work but it was nice for those few hours to see friends.

Letting Go

Emotionally, it seems this last month or so has been quite crazy. Perhaps not so apparent on the blog although I’ve mentioned it here and there but I’ve been working out some stuff on my own. More like admitting that I can’t do everything and that sometimes, its just that the right thing to do is to let go. It seems October is one of those months who will always be known for that. Anyways, this weekend, I finally let go of this thing that I’ve been trying to pursue. For the last month, my husband and I have been talking about it and working out the feelings about a lot of those issues and its helped me a lot. While I’ve gotten over a lot of it, there’s still some residuals feelings after actually committing to the decision. Anyways, I don’t really want to elaborate on it too much. Its nothing major just something I’ve spent a lot of time and my life working for (something of a hobby) and now choosing to stop.

Why No NaNoWriMo?

For some of you who have been here for at least the last year or so, maybe even followed me because of the NaNoWriMo writing thing, for the first year since 2012 (or 2013..I can’t remember), I’m not doing NaNoWriMo. I don’t mind the hard work and I actually do have an idea on what I’d like to write about, however, this year has been crazy and I not only need a break but instead of writing, I want to use that time to edit one of my previous novels. Its something I have meant to do for years and years. I don’t intend to publish it as an ebook or anything but its been something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m a reader and its been nice to see what being an author feels like to get that imagination and creative juices and really hammering out a novel and figuring out plots and outlines of different genres over the years but authors go through the entire phase and it sounds like a crazy hard time but definitely an experience I’d like to try and see if I can at least have one of those novels edited and get a few drafts until I think its perfect. Plus…I promised my husband and my best friend that I’d stop NaNoWriMo last year and edit so I’m really just following through on that promise to them this year 😉

With that said, if you are doing NaNoWriMo, I’m cheering for you! Keep it up! Know that you can do it! Message me if you ever need any ideas on staying on track or at least how to push through. My 5 years (or more) of experience has taught me a few tricks. Doing word sprints with the WordNerds are one of those tips. Don’t know who the WordNerds are, search them up on Youtube. 😉

Mini Update: Now Till the End of 2017

I had wrapped up this post and was thinking about now till the end of the year! December, or a good part of it, will be working on a holiday marathon/themed month. Phoebe and I have already started thinking about the Battle of Ingredients menu. I guess the update really is for November. With NaNoWriMo out of the picture and Game Warp needing to get back on track, November is going to have heavy focus on getting a lot of the backlog cleared up. I have screeners and unfinished books and TV Binges that need to be written and a few movies that I haven’t reviewed either. Its going to be a busy trek to the end of 2017, especially with my mind already feeling like making a few changes here.

With that said, as always in November and December, I ask you what brings you to Tranquil Dreams? 🙂

Cute Kitty Pic

Coming up: 

• MTL a Table (in place of the Battle of Ingredients)
• Movie Reviews & TV Binges
• Book reviews

My Weekly Adventures #51

Hello everyone!! Welcome to the next Weekly  Adventures! This will be a slightly shorter one with less fluff or serious stuff mostly because tomorrow is going to be the October marathon announcement or kick-off or whatever! It was why I slightly hesitated to do a Weekly Adventures however, why not, right? Overall, it was a pretty chill half a month. The first week of it didn’t really have anything in particular however the last weekend to this one has been a little more eventful.

Rock ‘N’ Roll Oasis Montreal 2017

In celebration of the Canada 150 and the Montreal 375, this year’s Montreal marathon took place over two days instead of just the Sunday. Obviously, I only was a part of it because of my friend who usually needs me to help with drop off and moving the car downtown where the race ended. This year was pretty cool as because of the event closing a wider area, I ended up having to change where I parked which came with its problems such as discovering where the boundaries were and figuring out where to get some tea in the new area. I work in Montreal however I don’t venture quite as much in the area near the LaFontaine Park surroundings so wasn’t quite so familiar however, I did end up finding some breakfast near the Berri-UQAM metro at the bus station and for the first year, ended up watching the race in the middle of the course. It was pretty nice with a live band and water stations and everything. Anyways, it also happened to be the hottest weekend of the summer, hitting the 40s Celsius in humidity and the full marathon was cancelled. However, the weather really took a turn around and I think because of the heat, everyone wanted to just mentally find that extra gear to get to the finish a lot of faster. Still, the event was cool as usual.

Baking Date

Last Friday night, I hung out with my baking and travelling friend. Its always nice to hang out with friends after a long time and we had decided to the weekend before due to her acquisition of many apples because this is the apple picking season. The original plan was to make apple pie however due to time running late and whatnot, we ended up making these little apple galette and I learned what pate brisee was and that was super cool. I’ve always wanted to make them and never did but they turned out to be pretty simple. Plus, its always fun to hang out with this friend. Hopefully, I’ll get my finances in order and we’ll be able to head on another foodie adventure to Toronto soon.

Battle of Ingredients Gathering

This month’s Battle of Ingredients will go live at some point next week. However, we had our gathering for it. We decided to do an early fall BBQ event. The weather’s definitely dropped since the last month and that weekend before with the  40+ Celsius temperature. We’ve been in the single digits the last few days so its been a sudden hit of cooler weather. Either way, this is coming up and we had a little Moon Festival twist since that’s also next week. Look out for that if you’ve been following it! 🙂

Moon Festival Early Celebration

Moon Festival is officially next week however, we got together earlier for an early celebration as my husband has work during dinner time on the day of. However, I will still have one more dinner with my mom on the day of. Its always nice to get together for dinner.

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

• HALLOWEEN MARATHON!!!

Sorry for the late post today!
I’ve been plagued with migraines all weekend, so not as productive.
Thats it for this adventures!

Halloween marathon starts next week with little bits of random non-Halloween posts
The announcement post tomorrow will cover everything from whats the franchise I’ll be working on and such!
What have you been up to?