Need Help Making Kitchener Hip

With so much information at our finger tips you would think it would be easier to motivate yourself to have variety in your lifestyle. We sometimes attempt to find something different to do within the city and have to filter through the mountains of junk online to find it. We then have to navigate through all of the restaurants in the city to find the family owned non-chain establishments that gets decent reviews. We get bombarded by advertising from the big chains, and after spending 30 min trying to find somewhere different to go, you end up settling on Swiss Chalet, it’s the easiest. Off of the top of your head name places to eat for tonight that aren’t chains. I can only think of one or two right away. We have to try hard to think outside the box when it comes to almost all of the entertainment in the city. Why aren’t there easy ways to find out cool places to eat and hang out?

I try to find things to do in the city, and end up getting frustrated by the difficulty. Slicing and dicing through the internet trying to find some type of website that will give you a small nugget of knowledge rather than going to the theater to watch whatever “masterpiece” that Michael Bay has released.

You hear about cool things that other people do, but have no idea where they found out about this event or where it was even located. I have realized that unless it is spoon-fed to people they will not make any effort whatsoever. There is a theater in Kitchener that sells craft beer…. It also doesn’t charge $17.00 for popcorn and a pop. It charges $10.00 for a craft beer and a popcorn. Did you know that there is a restaurant downtown Kitchener that sells banh-mi Vietnamese subs (delicious) for $3.00? They actually had a sign outside apologizing that they had to raise the price from $2.75 to $3.00. Word of mouth shouldn’t have to be the only way that these businesses get recognition. Not with the internet at your fingertips. There are sites like Trip Advisor that make it a bit easier. But if I was to wager I would guess that maybe 2 in 10 people use this to make choices on places to eat.

We are zombies that have settled for over-priced mediocrity. Afraid of the unknown. Don’t want to get out of our comfort zones whatsoever. Not wanting to do any type of work to find the hidden gems. Putting your feet up on your lazy boy, throwing on the Big Bang Theory, engulfing your Domino’s Pizza with a Bud Lite in hand ready to face your Friday night head on with your subconscious mind making the easy decisions for you. Maybe we think we deserve a weekend of not having to think. Maybe this is how we unwind. How do we feel on Sunday evening? Well, I hate Monday’s quite a bit more when I feel like I wasted my whole weekend doing exactly what I did for the previous 3 weekends.

Unfortunately I do not have all of the answers. I can only review the things that I have tried and the things that I give the thumbs up to. Some of you have tried the places that I recommended, and enjoyed it. Most of you still haven’t tried, but like the idea of it, can’t push yourself to actually do it. Then there are others. The Zombie Herd. You don’t even want to try it. I have never been disappointed by this place or that place. I don’t need to try this out, this is good enough. I was once one of you. You can break free from this. There are people out there that do and make great things, and we have no idea. Just because they don’t have the money to advertise and you have never heard of it doesn’t mean that it’s terrible. It means you have never heard of it. I do not want to live in a world where Elison’s Bistro or Gilt has to close down so that a Boston Pizza or a Crabby Joe’s can go in its place.

I just got back from New York and I was intrigued by all of the different things there was to do. Now of course KW is not New York, but there are some similarities with all of the different places to go and eat. The majority I had never of. It was a very difficult choice picking between some of the best reviewed restaurants. In most Canadian cities it’s chain after chain. We have a country full of diversity and we somehow have this stigma in certain cities of supporting anything new. It’s becoming better though the younger generation makes me proud. Tech start-ups have brought out interesting young folks that seem less satisfied with the everyday. We are picking up steam in this city. Now if we just had a website that could pull it all together. Restaurant, entertainment, pub, music, and everything Kitchener reviews. KW Awesome where are you on this? Communitech has done a great job of getting talented people with money here. We are looking for places to go and things to eat. Reviewing the best of everything. Inexpensive, moderate, and fine dining. Tell us about the things going on Starlight or Maxwell’s. Sgt Peppers Album by the Beatles was just done by the symphony orchestra and Steven Page formerly of the Barenaked Ladies was a part of it. Pretty cool! Did anybody else know about this? Sort through the mess. Many great things are happening here, we just need a website to tell us about it. Help!

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Sasquatches: Alive and well in Buffalo

I really like Spotify. Unfortunately I don’t like anybody else’s taste in music. So I create my own Spotify list because my musical taste is unique. Be like Daryl’s stick figure.

Over the next 5 years or so we are going to see many retailers close their doors. Here are some words of advice to people that are working at those suffering retail shops. Begin networking. It’s an extremely tough job market out there. It’s rare to find a decent job unless you know somebody on the inside.

Attempted to watch Sisters yesterday. Do Tina Fey and Amy Poehler get passes on movies based on who they are? I feel like a secret society is going to come after you if you criticize their work. I could only take about 30 min of that movie. It was awful.

Do you ever think that if people just didn’t believe in an after-life that it would solve many of the world’s issues? I bet you people don’t blow themselves up if there is no paradise in their future.

Kurt Vile is playing in Buffalo in March, but not Toronto. Here is the pros and cons. Pro – Get to see Kurt Vile. Con – Everything else.

I prefer when the Leaf fans expect their team to be decent, but end up disappointing them terribly. Listening to Joe Bowen’s heart break through a television broadcast is oddly satisfying.

Stanford Prison Experiment – 8.0/10

If I had won Lotto Max this past week I would put it all on Leonardo DiCaprio to win best actor at the Oscars.

There are many of my friends that post pictures of delicious food posts on Instagram. I may press like on the picture, but it’s more of a jealous like than anything else. You are the Tom Brady of the social media world. I respect what you have made, but that’s not going to get me any of your delicious breakfast.

One of the things that I like to tell people that have cable still is that you will no longer watch as much TV when you have to constantly think about what to watch. You feel great about not wasting time watching some Harry Potter movie that you have watched parts of on 7 different occasions. Instead, I can scroll through my Facebook feed and see why I should be like Bob. Damn it!

Sara and I ventured to Toronto yesterday to go to the Travel show. Sara tried to convince me throughout the day that we were there for other reasons other than trying to win a trip. We were there just to win a trip.

This year is the 10th anniversary of being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. You get no anniversary present Mr. Colitis because you are a pain in the a** (pun intended)!

I really enjoy Spotify. Except when I am in the zone with an album, and a commercial comes on with some pop-punk music with people falling off skateboards. It’s only a matter of time before “Ow my balls” becomes a real show.

Top 3 things that happened during my winter camping experience that made me realize that winter camping wasn’t for me.

3 – With 2 miles left before the shelter I laid down on some snowmobile tracks and said that I could go no further.
2 – Mistaking many trees for the heads of bears, and yelling get out of here bear to a piece of wood.
1 – Hearing sasquatch communicating calls during the night. As we all know, sasquatches are deceptively sneaky.

It would be terrible being a doctor in 1800’s. I feel like you were just taking a guess nearly every time you saw something that you hadn’t seen before. I guess if you hadn’t seen it before you could also just blame the devil.

Stepping on kid’s toys in the night is in the top 20 reasons why I do not wish to have children. Number one reason is that I always thought it would be good to adopt an 18 year old kid so I would have somebody to drink and play golf with when I got older. This seemed like a bad reason to have a child.

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Playing Trivial Pursuit with Leo DiCaprio at the Oscars.

DiCaprio is finally going to win his Oscar. Most people have to just act really well to win their Oscar. DiCaprio has to go through pain and torture to win his. The dude ate a real bison liver in the Revenant. If this doesn’t get the award for him, he will be considered the Pete Rose of the entertainment world. Except he did nothing wrong and makes fantastic films. Just like Pete Rose?

It’s going to be very strange when Keith Richards actually passes away. How will the internet react?

The Big Short – 9.3/10
The Revenant – 8.6/10
Star Wars – The Force Awakens – 9.1/10
Brooklyn – 8.5/10

I went into the new Star Wars with zero expectations. Expecting to have the same feeling after eating a slightly burnt piece of toast with an Our Compliments strawberry jam spread over it. But, and to my chagrin, it is excellent. Only complaint – they didn’t stray far enough away from the original storyline.

Another thing, what is the courteous amount of time that you can post spoilers online without being crucified? I think you can give it two weeks. That’s similar to getting angry at somebody for finishing the chips and dip after two weeks. “I didn’t even get any of that dip man. I had Making a Murderer all queued up. And you ate all of the dip. Sure, there are two scrapings left, but my chip broke off and now I can’t access it unless I use my finger. You ruined the night Rick. You inconsiderate bastard.”

Canadian Dollar problems? Well, maybe we shouldn’t have put the whole country’s future in the stock of oil. We should have started growing more cauliflower.

It’s not the fact that so many celebrities are passing away. It’s the amount of cool ones that are dying which is concerning.

Justin Bieber’s new album isn’t that (while sighing very loudly) bad.

This is one of the few years that I have actually watched every single best picture nominee. Each one of the films deserves to be on the shortlist. Here are my predictions.

Best Picture – Spotlight
Best Actor – Leo DiCaprio – The Revenant
Best Actress – Brie Larson – Room
Best Supporting Actor – Sylvester Stallone – Creed
Best Supporting Actress – Jennifer Jason Leigh – Hateful Eight
Best Director – Alejandro González Iñárritu – The Revanant

I felt so guilty about watching Doctor Who without Sara that I had to tell her right away. I also felt the need to buy her dinner. I then told her that she could watch Law and Order SVU anytime without me. She told me that wasn’t the same. And she was right.

My head is still spinning from watching the Green Bay/Arizona game last night. Throwing a football 65 yards off of your back foot and across your body with that type of accuracy is something that you can only appreciate if you have every played… Well anything! Do you know how fu**ing hard that is to do?

The power went out at the Aud while at the Rangers game this past Friday. People screamed right off the bat, and then the cell phones all lit up. You could have probably played the rest of the game with the light off each person’s phone. So much easier to hold up then a lit lighter as well. “How much longer is this song? My thumb has been burnt 3 times.”

Just to reiterate the point again. Listen to the new David Bowie album. Creating an album of this magnitude while battling a life threatening disease isn’t something that happens every day.

We all wish that Caesar Salad was healthier than it actually is. We mutter to ourselves that we are making the better choice. But we all know the truth. It’s the diet coke of salads.

The way that you get out of being asked to play pick-up basketball is to tell them that you don’t know how to dribble, don’t play any defence, and only shoot 3’s. If you still get asked, then you just continue to say “Game… Blouses!” after every basket regardless of who scored.

Top 3 things that are said while playing Trivial Pursuit with anybody

3 – You only know that answer because you are old.
2 – You always get the easy questions. This is bullsh**.
1 – Let’s play Monopoly and see what happens.