The Crystal Methods - Vernal Geekquinox 2024

Lord knows that if I had just moving into a new house two weeks prior, I would not be anxious to host an 11-person dinner. But that is one of the many things that differentiate the Rare Hipster (and by association, his wife Ellen) from myself.

Having sold both their individiual houses and consolidated their living spaces into a newer, bigger but slightly weirder abode (a double-doored room in the basement with floor to ceiling windows? an under-the-counter microwave?), the two of them felt is was actually past due to hold their first Geekquinox. And with their new glassy domicile nicknamed The Crystal Palace, a crystal-themed dinner seemed wholly appropriate!

Now, I say dinner, but these affairs are kicking off at noon nowadays, partly because we can and also because it allows us to finish up at a reasonable hour - ain't none of us geeks getting any younger, after all. Rob was able to fly out from Ottawa, in anticipation of next week's G&G XVIII.

The new pad is termendously well suited to hosting parties of this size, with the kitchen having access to the deck and barbecue but also a living room area with couches and chairs. There is plenty of space to extend their new convertible table, so everyone is close at ahand without ever feeling crowded.

Audrey's commitment to the theme meant borrowing an assortment of sparkly clothes from her friend Angela (thanks Angela!), whose Drag Brunch attendance frequency necessitates a particularly shiny and fabulous wardrobe. 

I ended up going with a shiny shirt and tie (and sparkly butterfly brooch Audrey found) so I wouldn't look completely out of place next to my wife.

Beginning at lunchtime meant great easts right out of the gate: a baked ziti, cooked in a crystal dish. Tender pasta, a zesty, scratch-made tomato sauce and loads of melted cheese throughout (and especially in the highly coveted corners) got things off to a great start.

After helping Pete marinate some flank steak for a later dish, it was time to try one of his signature cocktails: a basil and lime creation stoked by Crystal Skull Vodka. Delightfully refreshing and tremendously presented to boot. Even Audrey, whose acidic sensitivity makes her wary of citrus concotions, found this one delicious.

Next up, in honour on the disco ball in the basement, was a delicious '70s-style cheese fondue, with generous portions of French bread on skewers. The cheese itself, based on Dubliner Irish cheddar, was a little runnier than Pete had hoped when scaled up to the number of guests, but no less delicious, with a pleasing aroma and savoury tang on the palate.

All too soon it was time for not only another drink, but a drinking game based on Deal or No Deal. With five boxes containing an assortment of liquor ranging from the sublime (Midleton's Extra Rare Irish Whiskey) to the horrific (a cheaper tequila washed with habanero), the contestants were expected to select one at random and all of us drink an ounce of whatever was offered, ending when we reached the Midleton's.

I had serious concerns about potentially having to drink 5 shots of spirits in rapid succession, but hey, rules are rules. I made first pick, which was not the prize, but a very decent consolation: Bumbu spiced rum, which I prefer to drink neat anyways. Luckily, Jeff's next pick led him directly to the prized whiskey, which we drank out of beautiful and heavy Waterford crystal tumblers. (Why on Earth I did not photograph this exquisite glassware, I do not know...).

There had been plans for Pete to serve a salt-encrusted beef tenderloin wrapped in a teatowel and cooked by depositing it directly on hot coals, a Colombian technique called lomo al trapo. But the combination of timing and lack of capacity in the the guests meant saving that dish for a future Geekquinox. 

Luckily the marinated flank steak cooked on the Big Green Egg came out perfectly, and everyone had more than enough protein in the form of strips of succulent grilled steak in a tangy marinade. (The crystal conneciton was being a dish from Mexico, sandwiched between the crystal blue waters of the Carribean and the Pacific...)

And to round out the evening, an exquisite geode cake:

Scratch-made chocolate devil's food cake with buttercream icing and crystalline decorations made of tinted rock sugar. The cake itself was amazingly dense and moist, and while the decorations were not really intended for eating, who could resist sugar crystals in that scale?

We wrapped up the evening around 10 pm, which felt early, but followed ten hours of eating, drinking, and socializing for us guests, and absolutely unequalled hospitality from Pete and Ellen. Thanks again!

Oil Country for Old Men - 2024 NHL Playoffs

I don't consider myself a fair-weather fan because it isn't like I cheer for a different NHL team or anything, but I simply cannot be arsed to watch regular season games in pretty much any sport. But tournaments? The games that really matter? I am there every time, and twice for my hometown hockey team.

So I got one of my intermittent Sportsnet subscriptions (and will do so again this summer for the Euros and the Olympics - games where no one gets traded!), dusted off the McDavid jersey I bought last winter and for better or worse, tied my emotional well-being to a bunch of rich athletes whose job it is to chase a rubber disc around a fake pond with sticks while another group tries to murder them.

And to be honest, grit, determination and character is what drew me back to watching the Oilers back in 2006 (Ryan Smyth in particular), and not every player I cheer for brings that to the table. But even guys I feared were old school enforcers like Corey Perry, or potential malcontents like Evander Kane have proven to be great additions to the squad.

Frankly it is easy to like a group led by one of the greatest players in the game today, and even a casual fan like myself can be amazed by the speed and talent that Connoir McDavid brings to the ice - he is simply uncanny to watch.

And likewise Leon Draisaitl, who I keep mistaking for Jake Gyllenhall when they show him on the bench sometimes.

But Nugent-Hopkins, Bouchard, Ceci and especially (playoff goal-scoring leader!) Hyman all add needed ingredients to the cocktail.

I respect Desharnais' size. I love Ekholm's beard, possibly the league's best. And Stuart Skinner adds great, if not always consistent, goaltending that has long been a missing component for my home team.

And tonight, after a stressful seven-game series against Vancouver that featured not one but two elimination games for my team, the Oilers are on to the Western Conference Final against Dallas, who will be even tougher than Vancouver.

Will this next round of playoffs continue to take a toll on my nerves as well as my liquor cabinet?

In terms of self medication (remember kids, it is still medication!), tonight's game required quite a few paralyzers, and the last ten minutes of nailbiting almsot warranted another. But in the end, they were able to hold off a strong team that had already notched a nearly impossible comeback in the same series.

Here's to victory in Dallas on Thursday!

AB = Abjectly Bewildered

What a gong show my home province is becoming.

I mean, yeah, we have always had our fair share (and a bit) of small-minded folks with big mouths, and the friction between those who want smaller government and less taxes versus those who think paying a little more to give people a hand up is a worthy societal investment has maybe been a little more discernible here, sure. 

But in the past few weeks, the provincial UCP government has taken a really weird and hard turn towards authoritarianism that is becoming really troubling.

First they introduced Bill 18, which will require provinical authorization for federal grant funding to reach university researchers, to ensure compatiblity with "Allberta priorities."

Then Bill 20, which will not only introduce political parties to municipal elections, but gives the provincial government the ability to amend or suspend municipal bylaws and even remove councillors if they deem them unworthy!

Oh, but don't worry they tell us, only Edmonton and Calgary elections will have political parties (for now). Surely this will placate the 70% of Albertans who have made it clearly known they want their local politics non-partisan.

And while there is no direct UCP involvement that I am aware of, I can't help but feel that the police behind this weekend's violent clearing out of student encampments at the Universities of Calgary and Alberta may have the same leather-clad glove on the end of their respective leashes as well.

These were students, protesting what they feel is their institutions' participation in genocide in Palestine. They demanded the university cut ties with Israeli academic institutions and pull all investments from companies that operate in the country - similar to what student protest demanded for apartheid South Africa 30-odd years ago.

For their temerity, they were tear-gassed and driven off with batons. Meanwhile on the QEII highway though, if you want to occupy a rest stop with your white nationalist pals, just hoist up an "Axe the Tax" flag so the RCMP know whose side you're on, and you will be left in peace. Just like the border blockade down in Coutts last year, right up until word slipped out about a plan some participants had to "off the pigs."

What do you do for an encore, my home province for nearly five decades now?

What's that? You're gonna let the Take Back Alberta crowd now sock-puppeting the UCP board advise on health policy and pressure changes to vaccination rules? What the actual hell? It is not bad enough that measles is amking a comeback due to this anti-science quackery, now a Calgary riding association is hosting anti-vaxx celebrities too?

Oh, and apparently our sitting government can now have a 4.5 yr mandate now, pushing the next "fixed" election date 6 months down the road from May to Octoberso it doesn't face too much intereference from wildfire evacuation notices. 

Give me strength. 

It is really bothersome, and moderately terrifying and I am tired of pretending this creeping fascism is just business as usual. And I used to love living here! Now I find myself daydreaming and yearning that the blimps in Blade Runner were real, and that a new life awaits me on the offworld colonies.

Sigh. Hell of a birthday blog, isn't it?

Bumps, Bruises and Laughs - The Fall Guy, Reviewed

It might be true for cars as well, but some of my favourite movies are hybrids; adept at doing more than one thing. I like sci-fi more than horror, but put them together in The Thing and you have one of my favourite films. I tend to prefer action to comedy, but blend them in something clever like Lethal Weapon and I am likely to be there. 

And director David Leitch has certainly established his action bona fides with Atomic Blonde (and co-directing John Wick), and his Deadpool 2 makes him a dab hand with comedy, but can even he wrangle together an action-rom-com, regardless if it has two tremendously charismatic leads in Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt?

You know, I think he can. We saw The Fall Guy tonight and it ticked all three boxes, pretty much.

My commitment to spoiler-free coverage means I will tell you as little about the plot as possible. I mean, the A-plot, the story driver. There isn't a lot to say about the B-plot either I suppose, suffice to say that my favourite Iron Man writer Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) gives that angle way more room to play than I expected. Leitch even gets to do some directorial cleverness with the interchanges between stuntman Colt Seaver (Gosling) and director Jody Moreno (Blunt) where no action is even happening. Suffice to say that it is nice to see the characters actually work at earning a potential happy ending, whether they get it or not, as opposed to just letting it happen and having charm and chemistry carry you over the goal line.

The A-plot, well, gosh, it's...it's a lot, is what it is. And maybe it feels a teensy bit contrived in places, but honestly, we've all seen worse. What is critical is that it makes ense in the moment, and carries enough mystery and opacity to carry the viewer from an outrageous, psychedelic fight scene to an over-the-top chase scene that ends up having a fight in it, and so on. All while not only pursuing leads and an emotional reconnection, but also perhap the most elusive cup of coffee ever.

The Fall Guy is a big, loud summer movie, about making a big, loud summer movie, and it reinforces my long-held belief that it is a solid miracle that any movie gets made, ever. And when those movies are both entertaining and good, that is the biggest miracle of them all.

At the end of the day, the mystery is fine, the hurt people reconnecting is great, but to me, what The Fall Guy is about is just how far we are willing to go for the people and things that we love. And one of those things is making (and watching) movies.

When producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) tries to bring Colt on board after a long absence, she asks him, "What is the message behind all of my movies?"

"That...nihilism is a viable worldview?"

What follows is a great little exchange about the insidious interface between art and commerce where movies dwell, and this, combined with the actual drama of producing a blockbuster movie is what makes it work - in a subtle way, it may be the most metatextual film I have seen since The Lego Movie. And relationships and honesty are at the heart of that part, all wrapped in stunts and laughs like sexy bacon.

Even beyond the stars, there are lots of people to like in The Fall Guy; Aaron Taylor-Johnson is great as Tom Ryder, the Hollywood 'face' that Colt's stunts make look so good. And I am always happy to see Winston Duke (M'Baku from Black Panther), and as stunt coordinator Dan Tucker he gets as many good lines and film references as action gags.

But the action gags alone make it worth seeing this in theaters. If you have any affection for the planning, hard work and artistry that goes into making an epic stunt, there is more than one to enjoy - including one that broke a Guinness World Record. Director David Leitch is a former stuntman, and he and Ryan Gosling have been vocal about this film being a love letter to the stunt community, and also a chance to spotlight the fact that it is well past time that this critical part of cineman be given its own Academy Award category.

The Fall Guy doesn't do a whole lot that is really new, but it is the brightest, loudest, funniest love story you are likely to see this summer...if you are into that kind of thing.