Jeffrey Vanneste’s Personal Blog

While we were out with the sisters-in-law yesterday I saw a 50s diner called Nickels.  I figured I could get a burger and milk shake so we decided to give it a try.  Rachel told me the restaurant was created by Celine Dion.  Well, Celine Dion, your restaurant sucks.

My milk shake was possibly the worst shake of all time.  If I had ordered 2% chocolate milk it would have been thicker than their milk shake.  The burger was well, gross, not to be out done by the utterly plain fries.  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had a burger worse than this one.

Our waitress was pretty bad too, but she could have just been having a bad day so I’ll let that one slide.  When I went to pay the girl behind the counter she was on her phone complaining to what I assumed was her boyfriend about which party they should attend that night.  Classy.

Anyways, this is my recommendation to never goto Nickels.  Do yourself a favour and step up to some much higher quality food at McDonalds.

Renny arrived in Montreal this morning around 8am.  I figured him and I could check out St. Joseph church by our house, eat at Schwartz’s for lunch and then check out old Montreal in the afternoon before meeting up with Rachel for supper.  Well, I was extremely off with my time estimates.

In the morning we had finished touring St. Joseph church, walked around old Montreal and ate some Montreal smoked meat at Schwartz’s.  The afternoon we checked out the biosphere:

Saw some squirrels (yah new squirrel pictures)

Went through the biodome

Went by the olympic stadium

Went to insectarium (3rd time for me)

Then the botanical gardens where the new butterfly exhibit was setup

And after all that touring it was time for a 2 hour nap before meeting up with Rachel on St. Denis for supper at some random Italian place. How’s that for a busy day? Now I need to come up with other things to show Renny tomorrow.

Renny in Montreal photos on flickr.

Just got back from my first hockey game in Montreal.  The Bell Center seems much bigger than the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.  The habs lost 0 to 3.  Our tickets cost a big $25/ea.  You might wonder what a $25 ticket gets you at a habs game?  We sat in the very last row up in a corner.  Very last.

My verdict on the game… I rather watch the Raptors play but it was still worth the $25 this time.

On Friday last week I took my very first train ride.  I got up at 5:30am and got on the train at 6:30.  It sure was nice not to have go through security or have my bags checked.  I was suppose to have wifi on the train but on the way to Toronto it didn’t work so I just watched some movies on my n800.

I had a few hours to waste before Hemant’s flight got in so for the first time I went to a sit down restaurant and ate by myself.  I figured that while I ate I just had to look really busy so people would think I was on a work lunch or something.  Once again the n800 was very helpful here.  After that I walked over to CBC where they had some table hockey tournament.  I walked in right on the championship game.

Once I met up with Hemant we had another few hours to waste before the Raptors game started.  We decided to go check out the St. Lawrence Market.  We geeked out for a bit and abused their free wifi and then checked out some of the shops setup.  The one place had a lemon-plum.  I had never seen a fruit combination like this so I had to buy one.  It tasted like a plum, no lemon.  Boo.

Once at the Raptor’s game we watched some of the pregame show.

Took obligatory photos with cheerleaders:

And finally went to our seats for the beginning of the game. The game was pretty good. It went into overtime with Raptors losing by 4. I got to try out my zoom lense but didn’t really get any spectacular shots.

For Hemant and Gordo I took a picture of the legendary mop girl. She was suppose to come out and clean the court now and then but she was pretty lazy this game.

On Saturday the blizzard was in full force so we didn’t really want to walk around outside too much. Since we both had already toured most of Toronto we decided we would just hit up some movies. 10000BC was first which was OK. You can wait for the DVD. Next up was Semi-Pro which I didn’t care for too much. If you saw the trailer that’s about all you need.

In the evening we went to the Evil Dead musical.  We got premium seats just outside “the splatter zone.”  Apparently being outside the splatter zone does not mean you won’t get blood on you so the waitresses came around and gave all of us some plastic ponchos to wear.  The musical was alright.  Some of the jokes were pretty lame but it was still a good time.  I got sprayed in my mouth and hair with some fake blood so that was… disturbing.  There were some chumps in front of us that were into the blood thing a bit too much.

So that was pretty much all the good times I had in Toronto.  My train ride back to Montreal was not very good.  I got to the station a bit early after digging the rental car out of the snow a bit quicker then we expected.  Right off the start my train was delayed an hour due to weather.  I ended up boarding the train 2 hours after the original time.  I was suppose to get back to Montreal at 4:15pm but didn’t get back until 11:15pm.  So even after wasting half a day on the train I still didn’t hate the train ride.  It sucks that it took so long but it’s hard to hate wireless internet when traveling.  I also got a free sandwich.  Yah free sandwich.

This weekend we have my brother visiting for a few days followed by another 2 friends for a week.

Toronto Photos on Flickr

I know I know, you are probably wondering who would hate chocolate calcium pills? These things are ridiculous.

Rach has been pushing for “woman” vitamin pills since they have higher calcium content. I told her to take 2 normal vitamin pills and then I don’t have to buy 2 bottles of the stuff (she didn’t listen). Some how I managed to fend off the “woman” specific vitamin pills for the last couple years, but then, Christmas came around. Low and behold, chocolate calcium pills in the stocking.

For $20 at Costco you can buy 120 calcium pills. That’s over $0.15 per pill. That’s more than my lunch budget. I can’t believe these things cost so much. For a normal bottle of 500 calcium pills that any sane human would consume it costs a meer $5. I admit, the people behind these chocolate calcium pills are very smart. They know they can charge whatever price they want and wives will still make husbands buy them. I’m actually quite curious, at what price would these things cost too much to not buy? I bet they could go up to $1/ea.

PS. Dear makers of chocolate calcium pills, please don’t charge anymore. Also, I hate you.