DQ Blizzards? Not any more!

Well maybe I am a little harsh on Dairy Queen. I may sneak an odd blizzard in here or there but my eyes were opened the other day.
I was listening to the radio and they were commenting on the nutritional value (or abuse) in a DQ blizzard; specifically a Large Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough blizzard. This "treat" has 1320 calories and 52g of fat! With 193g of carbs maybe I should be loading on this before my adventure race!
You may have seen such movies as Supersize Me. Honestly, it's the kids that don't have the knowledge yet to make these informed decisions that bothers me. I have to applaud the government for trying to control the amount of trans fats that manufacturers can use. If you're old and know what you are putting in your body and are happy with it - fine - but obese kids is not something we need. Just be thankful we don't have the Triple Whopper with Cheese here in Canada (I think it is just in the US). Otherwise you'd be in store for 1230 calories, 82g of fat and one serious stomach ache if you combined that with a DQ blizzard dessert.

Just remember, most nutritional labels are based on a 2500 calorie a day diet consisting of no more than 65g's of fat. I guess a Burger King followed by DQ for dessert is out of the question for me :)

Chicken & Rib Fest

So this past Saturday I attended the International Chicken-Rib Cook-off in downtown Ottawa. You see these events on TV all the time. Teams from across North America come to little 'ol Ottawa to compete for the best ribs, etc. This was the first time I have attended such an event.
Pete, Brad, Sanjay and I put on our "comfy" pants and headed down for some gorging - and boy was there gorging.
The first problem is determining where to get your ribs from. There were probably 10+ vendors down there, all selling a full rack for $20. Unfortunately they don't have samples or anything so you really don't know what you are getting unless you ask around. My suggestion would be to have little cups of the sauce that you could try.
Lacking any formal selection process we applied the only know selection criteria that we could - the longest line-up must be the best ribs. 3 of us went to one place with Pete getting his from another.
In the end the ribs were OK. I think Pete's were better than ours. Would I do it again? Yeah, probably but my advice is to look at the quality of the ribs being BBQ'd. I was a little disappointed in the quality of meat I was eating. I've had better elsewhere.

Oh yeah, and wear comfy pants. It was definitely nap time after that sitting.

Dockers Ad - Pt. 2

For those who have not seen the Dockers ad. You can see it on their web site at:
http://www.us.dockers.com/lsco/dockers/feature/d_feat_landing.jsp 

The song is entitled Sunday Kind of Love and is performed by Etta James.
 
A side note. Etta will be at the Cisco Systems BluesFest, happening July 7th - 16th. Etta performs on July 13th at 9:30pm. Hopefully by that hour is will be plenty cool enough to wear your Dockers!

More info: http://ottawabluesfest.ca

While you're at it - Check out the Jazz Festival (June 22 - July 2).
http://www.ottawajazzfestival.com/2006/

English Language (?)

 I have a bad habit of analyzing the English language and trying to figure out why things are the way they are. Here are a couple examples:

1) Why is collocation a valid way of spelling co-location? If 'co' is the prefix to location, why do we get an extra 'l'? Cohhabitant isn't valid is it?

2) Is is try that sometimes we use 'an' in front of acronyms instead of 'a'? Is there an English rule that we treat non-vowel starting acronyms as if they were vowels? For example, when I say "I want to buy a RRSP" I think I use 'an'. Am I correct?

 Just something to take your thoughts away from work.

Shameless plug

Well my friend referenced my blog so it would be rude of me not to plug his.
 Check it out some time. He loves Disney songs, lululemon pants and sparkly skin cream?
http://www.warrenyeung.ca/lifetimes.html 

I won! Can you be picky with free?

So I was at the gym (Goodlife) on the weekend during their charity event. Goodlife supports a kids charity so they were asking for donations for the classes being run that day and a charity BBQ and car wash over lunch.
 For attending their BodyPump class everybody got their name entered in a draw and I won! I am now the proud owner of another Goodlife gym bag, some promotional material, a heart rate watch (cool!) and a Goodlife technical t-shirt.
 So here's the dilemma. The t-shirt is a small and is quite tight on me. Unless I was in Toronto this week celebrating with a certain segment of our society, I really shouldn't be wearing it. So when I was at the gym this morning I asked if I could exchange it. They didn't have any appropriate sizes in stock so they are going to order one in for me. This made me feel awkward. Can I exchange something that was free? Shouldn't I just be grateful?
 Oh well. I am sure there are harder things in life for me to deal with.

Tails of a blown cleat

So it was bound to happen (or so the story goes). I was playing Ultimate last night and blew a cleat. On it's own that doesn't mean much but it was game point! I was tracking down a guy who was going long and we both were diving for the disc when I felt my shoe become lose. I didn't have time to look at my shoe as we were right at the end zone. A couple throws later, and them scoring their 15th point (resulting in us losing 15-13) I look at my shoe and noticed a hole from my midsole to my heel. It seems when you don't properly dry out your cleats it rots the cardboard base and weakens the shoe. I found out the hard way :(

I am now the proud new owner of a pair of GAIA cleats. A little more expensive so they better last a couple seasons! They are comfy though. First test, tomorrow night.

So if you learn something from me it's DRY YOUR CLEATS!

If you don't give my football back...

So I'm enjoying the World Cup. With that comes the usual sponsorship and advertising. The Adidas ad is sticking in my head. The two boys who draft a weath of professional players to play some street ball. The latest ad has a catching tune....

"If you don't give my football back I'm going to get my dad on you..."

A song by Jim Noir entitled Eanie Meany

But if they keep playing this ad EVERY BREAK I may want to pop a football!

BTW - England is 2-0, yeah!

Hamburger Options

So with my new BBQ that can cook up to 35 burgers I thought it would be good to have hamburgers in the house. Have you seen how much fat is in a regular hamburger? Over 30g's on average! While I don't necessarily watch calories, I am aware of fat content. Long story short, I am trialing two alternatives - Meatless burgers and Soy burgers (yeah, I'm crazy).
Test #1 was tonight, the meatless burger. Overall it wasn't that bad but I didn't realize meatless meant replace the meat with onions! Seemed a little weird. I'll be able to get through the package but I don't think I'll be buying these ones again.
Next test, soy. I'm not looking forward to them :(
I've heard that the PC Blue Menu burgers are good. Real meat. I'll have to try those next.

Dockers Ad

Maybe I should just dedicate my blog to the advertising industry. It seems the majority of my posts are around ads I have seen on TV.
The latest is the Dockers ad with the woman who runs into the waiter sending glasses everywhere. A bottle lands perfectly on the mans table, spinning the bottle to point at him. Convenient.
Anyway, the song to the ad goes like this...
I want a Sunday kind of love,
A love to last past Saturday night.
I know it's more than love at first sight
I want a Sunday kind of love.

I wonder if that is a real song or just creative marketing....hrm.

World Cup

Well the World Cup has officially started. Nothing like an afternoon off of work and 15 drumsticks on the BBQ to celebrate that. Should be a good month. England and Netherlands are my teams.

Template

So I changed my template. My friend wanted me to write about my jealousy of his lululemon pants but personally I like them on women better.
Out of tribute though I decided to change my blog template to same as his. That's all you get Warren! :)

Motorcycles

So with the nice weather here I am seeing more motorcycles on the road. Sunday was a prime example. Beautiful sunshine and bikes galore.
It made me think. Have you ever seen a female driver with a male on the back? I've only ever seen it the other way around. Would you be that much less a man? I guess our society has a way to go still.

Honda Fit Ad

So it's been driving me crazy and Google doesn't seem to be able to help me out. Honda's latest ad for their Honda Fit has kids singing some sort of song. It's the cartoony ad.
I can't understand the lyrics! Don't know why it's bugging me but I want to know! Oh well. I'll survive.