Two things I am done with

Ok, here's a little rant of a post.

There are two things in my environment that I am done with, completely over.

The first is flash mobs.  (Or anything involving flash and/or mobs).  Now, I used to be a fan.  That cell phone commercial at the train station was awesome, and so was the Black Eyed Peas on Oprah.  Other than that, it's all old news and unexciting.  Anyone wishing to start a flash mob now is sooo 2008 (and also 2000-and-late).

Side note - do you remember what cell phone company the ad was for?  Me neither.  FAIL!

Second thing - "teaser" ad campaigns, especially Edmonton-centric ones.

You know what I'm talking about.  We were blessed in March with not one, but TWO such campaigns.  The first was for Southgate mall, and it was their second offence.  At least their teaser had glittery, mesmerizing, trance-inducing signs.

The second one, and also a second offense was for Now! Radio.  Avid followers (again, read: nobody) will know my feelings about this station.  You will also know my feelings about their last campaign.  This time around was a whole series of inane and highly creepy billboards that read like Three Lines Free (for those who are old like me) or craigslist ads (for those who grew up with the series of tubes), asking where "Red Scarf Girl" was, and if creepy billboard man (Prince Charming?  more like Prince Rapist) could find her again.

After a looooong protracted campaign, it was revealed that Now! radio was behind it all.  And we all laughed and laughed.  Then we gave them kudos for being so interesting.  Then we puked.

I am not an advertising person - so I don't get how this can be effective.  I can't imagine that it's true that all publicity is good publicity.  (for example, if McDonald's is in the news for serving mice instead of cows, will that drive sales?)  The only thing these ads did was solidify my dislike for the Now! radio brand.  In my mind, the big reveal was absolutely disappointing.  It should have ended with Red Scarf Girl and Prince Charming really being Belinda Stronach and Peter MacKay getting back together in a Scientologist wedding, or something similarly spectacular.

And this bait-and-switch was brought to you by the station that bills itself as "Honest" and "Open" and "Not Fake"  (and p.s., don't get me started on what that means for a radio station).

My favourite part of this whole saga is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of this anymore on the Now! website.  This is brilliant advertising.

I can only hope that the next campaign they run involves flash mobbing in some form or another.

Weekly cooking - Filipino style

Ok, to start - why is it Filipino and not Philipino?  Also, why not Filippino? I love English.

So, our good friend Lisa got married last year to Ricky, who's from the Philippines.  After OVER A YEAR of trying to get his permanent residency, he was finally allowed to come and live in Canada.

We decided (or maybe we were asked nicely by Lisa?) to host a little party for people to meet Ricky - a man that they'd only heard about (annoyingly, gushingly, amorously) through Lisa.

Ricky loves calimari, so we decided to make some for him.  This was, by far, the easiest recipe.  It involved opening the box of frozen calimari and shoving it in the oven.  Top with some chopped red onion.  Not really deserving of a picture.

We also made this awesome combo of Pilsbury croissants and chicken salad.  And by chicken salad, I mean cream cheese with a hint of chicken:

We also made a pancit, which is basically like a stir-fry, but with cabbage and egg noodles.  It was ridiculously fun to make, but you get no pictures, because I was too busy stuffing my face with dessert:

Lime tarts, Mars bar squares (thanks Janine) and those peanut butter marshmallow goodnesses.  To make Mars bar squares:

4 Mars Bars
1/2 cup butter or margarine (oleo for you crossword fans)
2 cups rice krispies

Melt the Mars bars and butter together.  Stir constantly.  The nougat will turn into this nasty, stringy, snot-like substance.  Keep melting until it's all smooth.  Remove from heat and stir in the rice krispies.  Pour into a pan and melt chocolate over the top.  So simple!

As an aside, those peanut butter things make me think of the Land of Make Believe from Mr. Rogers.  I think I may have eaten one whilst watching that horrible show as a kid.  Isn't memory fun?  Almost as much fun as English.

Anyway, the piece de resistance was this:

You have probably seen these on Facebook already.  And the ones you saw probably looked a lot better than this.  Ours had vodka in them though, so nyah nyah to you.

They didn't set properly, probably because I used room temperature vodka, and not cold vodka, as I read in the Journal today.  (Thanks for coming out Journal - just a week late!)

Anyway, they were a giant pain to make.  Hollowing out oranges takes a long time.  When you're done, you're so sick of oranges that you throw the insides away, because the thought of eating them makes you want to puke.

They looked pretty fun, and tasted..... meh.  But they did pack a punch.... and made people forget about Filipino vs. Philipino.