CIBC Run for the Cure

On Sunday October 6th I'm going to be participating in the Canadian Breast Cancer Society's CIBC Run for the Cure. It's a run dedicated to raising funds to find a cure for breast cancer.

I've wanted to participate in the run for the past 4 years or so, but I never knew where I was going to be come October and last year I figured I was going to be working. This year I decided that I was just going to do it.

I don't have a "real" reason for doing the run, no one in my family has been diagnosed, I've just always felt drawn to the breast cancer fundraising. I've always loved October when the Think Pink collection comes out. Basically I'm just running for a cure.

I'm running as a part of the Blue Mountain team, so far there's 12 of us on the team. We don't have an official team name yet, I think that'll be decided by tomorrow. As of today we have 18 days left until the day of the run.

My problem with raising money for things like this is that I hate asking people to donate. I also feel like I should have signed up for the run earlier so I would have more time to raise money, not that I'm sure that would help any. I'm planning on bringing cupcakes to work and getting people to donate a dollar if they would like one.

If you would like to donate you can go to the run website here, and I will be greatly appreciative.

I will do an update post after the run to let you know how it went and how much I and the team raised.

Brief Book Review: A Brewing Storm

Full disclosure, I have not been reading much lately. I have been trying to read We Bought a Zoo all summer and have yet to finish it. However, this past Thursday at work was absolutely dead and of course I forgot my book, so I downloaded the Kobo app onto my phone and started reading A Brewing Storm by Richard Castle. Yes the character from the TV show Castle (which is an awesome show btw and if you haven't yet, you should watch it :) haha).

It's a really short book, a novella? I guess. I don't know book terms (my sister would but she's currently driving herself from St Catharine's so perhaps when she gets here I'll ask her). I also don't know exactly how long the book is, because the Kobo only tells you pages in chapters. All I know is it was short (and I was bad and stayed up late reading it). And my sister has arrived and I was right, it's a novella.

So here's the description from Chapters (it's only available as an ebook).

When Derrick Storm needed to leave the CIA, he couldn't just retire. He had to fake his own death. So when his former boss calls in an old favor that will bring Storm out of early retirement and back to Washington to investigate a high-profile kidnapping, he knows there must be more at stake than the life of a senator's son. Working alongside, but not exactly with, bombshell FBI investigator April Showers, Storm must make sense of a confusing flurry of ransom notes and a complicated web of personal relationships and international politics. He'll get to the bottom of the kidnapping, but the storm is still brewing . . .

I was pretty excited to finally get to read about Derrick Storm, since they talked about the books so much in the show. Like I said it was a pretty short book, but it was still pretty good (minus a few grammatical and continuity errors that I noticed because I'm weird like that). The story ends with a bit of a cliff hanger, which I find weird because I think if they weren't going to wrap up the story in this novella, they might as well just made it one big novel.

Throughout the book you see little things that help you figure out the case. I managed to figure out half of it before the end of the book (and they still don't really tell you the other half before it finishes). I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I actually think it's kind of fun when they give you enough that you can actually try and solve the case before they do.

I thought the characters were alright, we didn't learn too much about Derrick's past or why he "died", but they also seemed to have some really weird names. The plot seemed to move well, but still managed to get everything in that needed to be there.

All in all I enjoyed this book, if you like a short crime story definitely check it out. If you like Castle you should definitely check it out as well, and his other Nikki Heat books (Heat Wave, Naked Heat, Heat Rises, Frozen Heat, and coming out September 17th is Deadly Heat). There are two more shorts in this trilogy, A Raging Storm (which I actually just started reading today) and A Bloody Storm as well as a full length novel Storm Front.

So stay tuned for my review of the rest of the Storm books, and more misadventures.

Uneventful Summer

Labour Day tends to signify the end of summer. I don't care if it doesn't technically end until the 21st, summer is over when the kiddies go back to school. As the title of this post states, my summer was pretty damn uneventful. I may even go as far as saying this summer was disappointing. Don't get me wrong, I loved my job and had tons of fun at work, but that's pretty much all I did.

I had all these things that I wanted to do, go to the Toronto Zoo, go to Canada's Wonderland, go to the beach, go to the drive in, start running, take more pictures, blog more. Some of these things didn't happen just because I'm lazy, I didn't blog much because I didn't do anything else, but others were lack of time off and having no one in my life with a normal job and time off at the same time. 

I suppose I did do a few things, went to Scenic Caves...with work, rode segways...at work, went to the Thornbury pier...with people from work, pool party...with people from work, went to a few movies, played soccer and Fan Expo. 

I just hate feeling disappointed. I suppose I still have time to go to the zoo or wonderland before they close, but somehow I doubt that will happen, unfortunately. 

Overall, uneventful summer filled with work, but unfortunately not full of saving money. Here's to hoping next summer will be better I guess. 

Upcoming September Movie Releases

Unfortunately there are no movies coming to theatres in September that I want to see. However there are quite a few DVD releases and TV show premieres this month.

Now You See Me is released on DVD September 3. So I guess, today haha.

NOW YOU SEE ME pits an elite FBI squad in a game of cat and mouse against "the Four Horsemen", a super-team of the world's greatest illusionists. "The Four Horsemen" pull off a series of daring heists against corrupt business leaders during their performances, showering the stolen profits on their audiences while staying one step ahead of the law.

Now You See Me was a pretty good movie. You can see my review of it here. I probably won't be buying it, but if you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend checking it out.

Star Trek into Darkness comes out on September 10.

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving the world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As the heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

My review can be found here. This movie I will be buying, though I'm trying to decide if I want to buy it when it comes out or later when it's a little cheaper.

Also being released on September 10 are Season 5 of Castle, and Season 1 of Chicago Fire.

The last DVD that I'm excited about being released in September is Iron Man 3 on September 24.

Brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) is pitted against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to a question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

My review of Iron Man 3 can be found here. This one I also plan on buying, but am still deciding whether it's going to be when it's released or in a few months.

Hawaii Five-0 Season 3 is also being released on September 24.

The end of the month also signifies TV premiere time. Castle is again on Monday nights, starting on September 23. Tuesday the 24 is apparently a very popular day this year with NCIS, Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. (both unfortunately at 8pm, so I don't know if I'll be getting to watch S.H.E.I.L.D.), NCIS: Los Angeles, Chicago Fire and Person of Interest (since the last two are both on at 10pm, and I only usually watch PoI with my mom, Chicago Fire will probably win). Elementary premieres Thursday September 26, and Hawaii Five-0 has moved days and starts Friday September 27.

That's my wrap up of what's coming on in September. What shows are you looking forward to?

Fan Expo 2013

This past Saturday my friend Amber and I got to go to Fan Expo in Toronto. It's basically a small scale version of Comic-con. As soon as we heard Nathan Fillion was going to be there we knew we had to go. Unfortunately we didn't actually get to meet him because we learned after the fact that autographs and photo ops are stupid expensive.

We left Midland at 7am, and I managed to make it to Yorkdale without any meltdowns or getting lost. Which is kind of a big deal for me, I hate Toronto traffic. We then got on the subway, we were a little worried we might end up on the wrong one, but no mishaps there either. I felt like a little kid going on a field trip. After we got to Union station, we got above ground and didn't really know where we were going. We then realized; just follow the costumes. We followed a rather scantily clad Joker until we saw the giant lineups of even more costumed expo goers.

We got in the line up, behind a totally adorable little Tenth Doctor. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of him, he was that cute. We mostly people watched while standing in line, checking out all the people in costumes. Finally we got inside the building, only to join another line up to get into the actual expo.

We looked around at some of the things for sale, bought a few things, and then wandered over to where the celebs were signing autographs. We were then stopped before we could cross an aisle, and about 7 or 8 people walked past is, most of them looked like body guard types, and we realized that they were guarding Norman Reedus from Walking Dead. Then we realized that he kind of looks like a giant tool. 

When we finally got to pass the aisle, WE GOT TO SEE NATHAN FILLION!!  Haha. Unfortunately we couldn't take a picture of him because there was some angry fan expo guy yelling at everyone who took out their cameras. That was about as close as we got to him, which is kind of sad, but nothing we could really do about it. 

We wandered around a little bit more, then we made our way to the second part of the building. That part of the building was more things to buy. There was an artists alley where there were a bunch of artists at booths selling pictures, drawings, jewellery, sculptures, all kinds of stuff. This is where I think we spent the most money. We actually got to buy a drawing from someone we went to high school with, so that was pretty cool. 

I didn't take too many pictures, which is kind of disappointing but there wasn't a whole lot I wanted to take pictures of, and I didn't really feel like asking people in costumes to take their pictures. We also didn't spend too long at the expo, saw pretty much all we wanted to see and were getting kind of tired. We saw a few storm troopers walking around and I said that I just really wanted to see a line of them marching down a hallway, and before we left we actually saw a group of them marching down a hallway, it was kind of awesome. 

All in all it was a pretty decent day. Would love to go back again, but next year it's on labour day long weekend so I likely won't be able to. 

Huronia Soccer Club 2013 Champions!

This past Saturday I competed in the final tournament for my soccer league. I've been playing soccer (all the way home in Midland) every Thursday since around the end of May and our season has just come to an end.

I used to love soccer, played all the way from grade 6 to 12 in school and 9 to 12 in a summer league. Then after I graduated high school and moved away to college, I never really got an opportunity to play again. I decided that this year, no matter what, I was playing soccer. 

Looking back I do wish I had managed to join a league in Collingwood instead of Midland, just because I wouldn't have been so stressed about my work schedule conflicting with my games. But hindsight is 20/20, so nothing I can do about that now. 

We had a pretty good team all season, though we didn't always have a full team. Somehow I think we managed to have the smallest team to start with, plus the most players who didn't show up. Regardless of that, we still managed to win almost all our regular season games. Not that they even counted. 

The last Thursday we played was the start of the tournament, and we actually had one sub! We won the game, which wasn't exactly surprising because I'm not sure the team we played won any games all season. Our first game on Saturday we played really well, until the other team started to dig at our team. It threw all of us off and we ended up losing. We needed to win our next game or we were out of the finals. 

We played great, and ended up scoring with about 10 minutes left to win the game. So we were off to the finals to play against the team we had already lost against. We knew we were the better team, and we played like it. We were down one goal with less than five minutes to go, when we made a spectacular play and tied the game. No overtime, just straight to the shoot out. We had a phenomenal goalie, and some pretty great kickers so we knew we could pull it off. And we did.

Me and our trophy

 

We didn't get anything exciting for winning other than the trophy. Which I believe may be going to the office of our sponsor, who also happened to be a player on our team. We did get t-shirts though, which say play off champions on the back, so that's kind of fun.

Mini Movie Review: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

I was super excited to use my new Scene Visa card at the movies, and I finally got my chance this week. We were originally going to go see The Wolverine, but then I found out that and Smurfs 2 were going to be at the drive in this weekend, we changed our plans so hopefully going to see those tomorrow night and saw Percy Jackson on Wednesday.

To save their world, young demigod Percy Jackson and his friends must find the fabled and magical Golden Fleece. Embarking on a treacherous odyssey into the uncharted waters of the Sea of Monsters (known to humans as the Bermuda Triangle), they battle terrifying creatures, an army of zombies and the ultimate Evil.

I haven't read the Percy books, so I can't tell you how the adaptation was, and that's probably a good thing haha.

Percy and his friends have to go find the magic fleece, because Talia's tree (which forms the protective barrier around camp half blood) has been poisoned. They travel to the Bermuda Triangle, which is apparently outside of Poseidon's domain so Percy's powers are useless. In the Sea of Monsters there is an island that is home to a cyclops who likes to eat half bloods, and he is in possession of the magic fleece.

It sort of felt like most of the movie was just them getting to the Sea of Monsters in various different ways. They make a pit stop to see Hermes at the Olympus Postal Service (the UPS store) to try and find his son that they're chasing. They also take a cab ride with 3 eyeless cab drivers, which seemed kind of random and ridiculous.

The movie was definitely entertaining and had some pretty funny parts to it, but also a few more serious parts as well. It's definitely a movie that adults or kids could enjoy, as I believe are the books. I occasionally found it a little hard to follow with the different gods and children and all the mythical names, but it wasn't too bad that it distracted from the movie. All in all a decent movie, though I probably will not be adding it to my collection.

Stay tuned, there should hopefully be reviews for Smurfs 2 and The Wolverine coming soon, as long as we get to the drive in.