Terminology

Lol I was talking about the Metropolitain to two of my non-Orthodox friends and one said whenever I said the word Metropolitain he always thought of the drink, and then the magazine, and then my other friend added "Or the ice cream" to which the first replied "no, that's NEOpolitain" loll:P

Lol and then I was showing him a picture of a bishop, and he said "Those are the ones that move diagonally!" XD

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BBQ vs. Grilling

Apparently in the southern U.S. those two terms have different definitions than here in Canada. Here they are used interchangeably to mean anything cooked on a grill, whereas things that are cooked by smoking are referred to as smoked. In the States cooking on a grill is grilling, and anything cooked by smoking is BBQ.

I was just reading this and decided I have to have a go at grilling/smoking something myself during my vacation in 2 weeks. I just have to buy a meat thermometer and an oven thermometer, I have a small gas grill with a lid at my parents place in the country where I'll be spending a week during my vacation. I can't wait! I'm gonna bbq myself silly (if my mother lets me. She gets incredibly... stressed out, by me doing regular household things sometimes, like washing the windows, or baking bread, at their place.) and I can't wait :D

A good article

About Arab Christians.

Last night me and Scott went to the movies to watch Crank 2 with one of his friends, but it wasn't playing any more. I was so dissapointed, I nearly went home, finally flipping a coin to decide whether or not to stay and ended up staying to watch Night at The Museum 2 at the Imax, it was ok. I'll rent Crank 2 when it comes out.

Tonight I have to go to the mall to get my phone checked because this morning when I got up there was no signal, which lasted till about noon, when the battery suddenly died, when it had been full earlier. I have something else unpleasant to do but I'll talk about that later.

Nothing much else to say, I'm bored out of my mind between calls at work, it seems like I've seen everything there is to see on the internet. I've gone through my list of usual sites 3 times already. Blah. I need to find something good to read.

This is Why You're Fat

I took a walk on my lunch break along the Lachine Canal and saw 5 turtles sunning on a rock, and 4 more on some logs a bit further. I wonder how tired I'll be? I didn't get to sleep till 1am or so last night. Tonight I'm gonna go see Crank 2, I'm trying to look forward to it but I'm too tired. Hopefully I'll have woken up a bit more by then :P

Oh, and I discovered This is Why You're Fat, and am so gonna make some of those creations! I have some tempura batter at home so this weekend I'm gonna go home and batter up :P I can't wait to try tempura fried sweet potato slices, I had some at the Korean/Japanese place on Sherbrooke W. near Cavendish that I went to with my friend Steph a while back.

Part of my itinerary for this summer

Thanks to this thread, I discovered that this weekend is Main Madness on St-Laurent Blvd. here in Montreal!! I'm gonna try and see if I can scrounge up a few friends to come with me :D

On top of that there's LaRonde to go to, the fireworks every Wed. and Sat. night that can be watched sitting atop the closed-off Jacques Cartier Bridge or even from the Old Port, of course there's the St-Jean Baptiste and Canada Day festivities to attend, and restaurants and terraces to go to.

Slow down, people!

Very good article on how we need to slow down.

The case for working with your hands

I just found a really good article about careers and the way we choose them, and their effects on us. So true. I have to reread this when I have kids.

Shish Poulet and Smokemeat Pete's

Me and my new roommate and friend Scott went to eat at the Shish Poulet on Newman yesterday, it was sooo good! Here's Scott's plate of shish taouk (chicken):



Scott:



The inside of the Shish Poulet:





Here's a fermented milk drink that they had in the fridge with the soft drinks that I decided to try, it tastes like salty yoghurt, I found it ok:



And my delicious charcoal-grilled lamb sandwich with potatoes and garlic sauce, the only drawback was that the lamb had a lot of chewy fat in it, next time I'll ask for lean meat:



Afterwards we went back to my place for a while before leaving again, we listened to trance on di.fm while I sat in my bed and enjoyed the sunshine, I was in SUCH a good mood :D



Licorice enjoyed the sunshine with me:





Then we left, Scott to go to his friend's place, and me to meet up with Mat at the Longueuil Metro, took this while waiting for Mat at the metro:



We went to eat at Smokemeat Pete's (best smoked meat ever!!!) later on, here's the view of downtown Montreal from the Champlain bridge on the way there:





Here's a corner of the terrace outside:





My plate:



The restaurant:



The beautiful sunset I got a glimpse of out the back window of the car on the way back, I have to go to St-Anne's sometime soon to watch the sunset from the end of the wharf, it's so beautiful:

Dinner Experiment

On Friday after reading this thread I decided to go home and try dipping rye bread in meditteranean vinaigrette and toasting it, with anchovies on top once toasted. The toast turned out pretty boring, and the anchovies very salty, won't make this again:







I tried with mayonnaise also, didn't improve it much:



And here's a kickass beetle I saw parket at Angrignon metro the other day:

5 black cats

Lol I found this cool, never seen that many black cats together at one time :P


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

In 10 minutes me and Mat are leaving from his mom's place to go eat at Smokemeat Petes! :D:D:D Can't wait, been a year since I've been there!

The REAL Squeez-Bacon! (almost)

I discovered Bacon Jam today, and unlike Squeez-Bacon, it's not an April fool's joke!lol. I'm gonna order some tonight :D

New Group for Orthodox Christian Bloggers

Any other Orthodox Christian bloggers wanting to network, click here!

Consecration of The Sign of the Theotokos pt.3

Consecration of The Sign of the Theotokos pt.2

The beginning of the service:





The procession around the church:





The placing of the chrism and relics in the altar:







Pouring chrism on the alter and wiping it all down:







Here we can hear what a huge voice this deacon has:



Prayers being read in French:



Another part at the beginning of the service:

Crazy weather

When I checked the weather yesterday it was supposed to be 20 degrees (Celcius) today, so I left without my jacket this morning. Big mistake, it's still only 5 degrees atm, and I froze all the way to work, but according to TWN it's still supposed to be 20 degrees this afternoon, and 28 degrees tomorrow!

Consecration of The Sign of the Theotokos pt.1

The Metropolitain was at my church yesterday for the the consecration!! I only found out after the liturgy on Sunday when the priest in Rawdon announced that there would be a consecration at one of my churches (The Sign of the Theotokos, one of the two OCA churches in Montreal) the next day. I had originally planned to take the bus back to Montreal yesterday afternoon, but I made plans to get a lift with the priest in Rawdon yesterday morning instead so I could attend.

It was sooo beautiful!! It was a bright sunny day and the sun was streaming through the huge windows in the sanctuary (is that the right word?) right onto the altar, and the dozens of priests and bishops were shining in their bright vestments in the sunlight! The singing was beautiful and the deacon who was reading most of the prayers had a beautiful deep booming voice. I think it must be the longest service I've attended so far as the Pascha services were 3 hours and this lasted 3 1/2! loll. I was so tired afterwards but it was worth it to attend such a beautiful service and see the Metropolitain, and of course the food afterwards was amazing too :P

Here is what I've had time to resize and otherwise fix up this evening:

Here's one I took at about 7:30 in the morning on the way to Montreal from Rawdon, I got a lift with Fr. Pau:



Here are the beautiful lilies they had in the hall in the basement, apparently they were originally upstairs in the church but someone was very allergic to them so they had to be moved downstairs :P :





Here we were all waiting for the Metropolitain to arrive:









I like this picture in particular because it reminds me of that moment, the whole church was quiet except for the occasional simultaneous jingling of the censers of these two deacons at the end of the line of priests, the one on the left is a deacon at my other church, St. Benoit de Nursie, and the one on the right was the one with the deep voice:



Here's during the arrival of the Metropolitain:











Here's a short clip just before the Metropolitain arrived:



The arrival and greeting, my priest is the 9th one to go kiss his hand:



The deacon reading prayers at the beginning of the service: