The film Blue Valentine is a sombre movie about a boy and a girl, and they’re relationship over the years. The lead actors is Michelle Williams, and Ryan Gosling. Both excellent actors in my opinion.

You’re led to believe that this movie will be a nice romance movie, but be weary of the work ‘blue’. Yes, there are some romantic parts in it, but the theme of the movie is so dark that you don’t fully get swept up into the ‘aww’ moments.

The maker of this movie was creative, in that they show the relationship and how their lives are at the present time, but then show flashback scenes of when they met, and how. It’ll make you really want to see the past much more than the present.

Don’t let the movie’s descriptions fool you. This movie is a tragedy, but it is one that is showed done in a very realistic manner. Through the way it is filmed, with the awkward up close shots, you really see the emotion on the characters’ faces, which makes it seem very real. Relationships ARE like this, and it’s really too bad.

The basic plot is of a poor man with a lot of love to give, falls head over heals in love with a girl. This girl seems to love him, but you’re never sure if she ever really did. Later in life they have marital problems. His lack of desire to pursue better careers because of his contentment with his family life, in addition to the far too-playful attitude by a man with a bit of a drinking problem, leads them into marital boredom. You feel really bad for the husband for he makes all of the effort yet gets turned down, again and again. His wife cannot communicate, and eventually blows up.

You’re left feeling down after this movie. My mom and I went into it thinking we’d find ourselves a really cute romance film. You leave feeling sort of depressed. It is also a slow and quiet movie. Not a lot happens, although all of the acting is extremely well done.

Watch this movie, but do not expect it to be a romance novel. It isn’t.

The computer game League of Legends (‘LoL’), is a free game published by Riot Games for MS Windows operating systems. The game is based off of a custom game from Warcraft 3 called DotA. If free and DotA was all you needed to hear, then this game can be downloaded here.

LoL is a lot of fun. Especially if you know other people who play. I’m lucky enough to always have someone to play with, since I married a gamer. Now that I know this game well, I totally play it alone, and would recommend it just as well.  Knowing myself though, I’d have never tried it if it weren’t for my spouse, but it’s awesome.

League of Legends is team-based DotA type game, where you play custom, normal, or ranked online games against other players worldwide, or against bots, namely, computer characters. All games are team based, but you can play 1 vs. 1., 3 vs. 3, or 5 vs.5. At the moment there are only two different playing fields, Summoner’s Rift(5 v 5), or the Twisted Treeline(3 v 3).

Before I explain a bit of the gameplay, I have to say that this game is very colourful, has great animation, and a really nice music to it. Having the game screen left on when you’re not playing, is nice and relaxing I find. Yes, I’m a super geek. We know this already.

So basically, your character is a champion, one of 82 hero characters that you level up over the course of a game match(or map). Each character is totally unique with different skills and strengths. You can either play a champion that is a tank class, a mage class, a support class, a fighter class, or an assassin class.

There are two sides to every game, and your goal is to cross to the other team’s side, and destroy their base. Each side releases ‘minions’ which assist the champions in attaining their goal. Along the way there are turret towers to take down, the opposing team’s automated minions to combat, and summoners to destroy; in addition to the other team’s champions.

During LoL you have unlimited lives, but the more you die, the more gold the other team gains which increases their chances at winning. With more gold you can buy yourself better armor, weapons, or magic items. You have to be skilled at playing stealthily, cautiously, and to strike when it counts.

The game-play is very intense, especially when the skill level of both sides is closely matched up. You can get very very angry and frustrated when you lose, but feel awesome when you win.

The more games you win, the better your rankings are and the more master skill points you receive. You need to chose your skill points wisely, for instance, do you want to have a stronger champion, or one that retains mana better? With so many champions to chose from, and no restrictions to which one you take each time, you will have to decide whether to cater more to one class, or another. By no restrictions I mean you can chose a champion from any class type. Out of the 68, only a certain amount of free champions are available to take at once. These change ever so often. You can still take the other champions that are currently greyed out, but you must purchase them with your in game points. Yet another reason why winning is key.

I highly recommend this game. It is currently my favourite, and I’ve been playing quite frequently. I’m definitely not up to par with most players, but I keep learning, and gaining skills.

See you in game!

~Darleya~

If you enjoy Tzatziki sauce, then whatever you do, do not buy the varieties that are made with sour cream instead of yogurt. My tip of the day.

The MarcAngelo Tzatziki sauce is not a sour cream based tzatziki. Our regular choice for tzatziki was unavailable, and so I decided to try this brand. MarcAngelo’s tzatziki, is found in an odd spot at your grocery stores. Instead of being either with all of the dips and hummuses, etc, or with the yogurts, this tzatziki is found near the bacon, next to some of the company’s other meat products.

The tzatziki claims to be of Mediterranean quality. Yes, the tzatziki has its own claims, ok?

So anyhow, this tzatziki isn’t bad. It’s not that great, either. I feel like there’s an inherent ingredient missing from it. There isn’t nearly enough flavour, and it has a sort of chalky aftertaste. I couldn’t tell you what the missing ingredient is, as I’ve never made tzatziki sauce before, but I’m leaning towards garlic and spices, or maybe some lemon juice?

The good thing about this tzatziki is that it contains no unnatural ingredients. There are no preservatives. Its ingredients are as follows: Yogurt, cucumber, garlic, canola oil, salt. That’s it! I ate it all, which is a good sign, but if I’m forced to buy this type again, I will attempt to add flavour to it myself.

MarcAngelo is a Canadian company, but their products are sold in major retail grocery stores across United States in addition to everywhere in Canada.

~Darleya~

I’ve definitely been on the fence about reviewing this game. It really puts me up there in the super nerd category, but what the hell.

I can’t help it. I simply LOVE playing this game. My brother-in-law introduced it to us, and we’ve been playing it every time we get together; ever since.

It’s so intelligent.(to me)

Dominion, by Donald X. Vaccarino, is a Rio Grande 2-4 player card game that is packaged like a large board game. There are cards that represent currency, game points, attack cards, and action cards; among others.

I will attempt to explain the basic premise, but it’ll sound more complicated than it actually is. Anyone can play this game if they just give it a chance and get past the fact that it sort of looks like “Magic” cards.

Each player receives money and points at the start. The options on your turn are to either play an action card then buy a new card, or simply buy a card, if you’ve no action cards to play. Essentially each round you’ll be adding more and more cards to your personal stash. You can also buy more money cards. New cards are placed in your discard pile for future use.

Each player deals themselves 5 cards from their personal deck, having only those to play with unless action cards tell them they can pick up more from their personal deck. Once you’re done playing your cards, you discard them into your personal discard pile, where they’ll be used again later. Once your deck is depleted, you shuffle your discard pile, and make it your deck once again. And pick yourself up 5 cards. You always need 5 cards in your hand, unless someone attacks you and forces you to discard cards.

The winner of the game is the one with the highest tally of point cards. The skill in this game is to know when to stop buying so many action cards, and start focusing your attention towards buying points cards. The game ends when either 3 action card piles are depleted(in a 3-player game), or, if the entire deck of 6-point cards have been bought.

You probably still don’t get the concept of the game based on the gibberish I’ve written above, but board game geek can fill you in.

The cool part about Dominion, is that you never play the same game. There are many options for action and attack cards you can chose to play with. There are a set of suggested gameplays in the rulebook, which play out in a fair manor. You can also find other game suggestions on the internet, or make some up yourself(i.e- i think we should play with the witch cards, the cellar cards, and so on, until you’ve reached the appropriate number of card decks in play). Basically, you never play with all of your Dominion game, there’ll be many card decks leftover in your box that y

ou can chose to use another time.

Dominion Intrigue is an expansion to the game which allows you to play up to 6 players, and has new action and attack cards to play with. You can then make gameplays using cards from both boxes. Everything is carefully labelled, so you’ll know where your action card deck goes for the next time you play.

All in all, this game is excellent. It’s not one of those drawn-out games either. The games last no more than an hour. I highly recommend this game. It isn’t only for gamers like myself, but given the chance, anyone would have a great time, and want to try again once they fail. I say that, because I have yet to win. I’ve come very close with a 1 point difference, but nope! I’ve been screwed over with attack cards one too many times. That hasn’t stopped me from wanting to play again and again. I will win soon.

Enjoy!

~Darleya~

Cosmetics company tarte makes some truly beautiful cosmetics products. This is why I was so excited to hear about this emphasEYES eyeliner from one of my InStyle magazines.

The emphasEYES aqua-gel eyeliner by tarte is a cooling, absorbing, long-wearing eyeliner. It is made with an aqua-based gel, and is branded as capturing the high pigment concentration and staying power of a gel pot in an effortless pencil.

I’ve been an eyeliner wearer for years, and always put eyeliner on my inner eye rim. Eyeliner on your inner rim never has the staying power like liner on your top lash, for instance. What I like about this eyeliner is that it is incredibly smooth and creamy. You actually feel the wet coolness of it as you apply it.

Unfortunately, putting it on my inner eye rim turned out bad. This eyeliner is supposed to be natural, yet it burns my eyes and gets into my eye, likely because it is still wet when applied. I’ve tried it numerous times, and even tried to hold down my lower lash line to let it air dry, to see if it improved any eye pain. It didn’t.

I now only use this eyeliner for my top lash line, because of this unavoidable burn if it goes on my inner rim. It’s really a shame, because the best part about this eyeliner was the speed with which you can apply it. It just really doesn’t feel safe for my eyes, and that means that for $18, I won’t be buying the emphasEYES aqua-gel liners again, but will definitely continue to try other tarte products, and more specifically; the other natural high-definition emphasEYES liner that is intended for inner eye rims. I should have gotten that one in the first place I think. Tarte products can be found at Sephora, among many other places, and online at tarte.

~Darleya~

For quite some time I’ve wanted a knife block. I’m a fan of originality, so the typical wooden knife blocks with specified slots just didn’t cut it for me.

I once found a really awesome knife block that functioned very much like the one I’ll describe here today, but it was very very expensive and out of my budget at the time because it also sharpened your knives. I never found it again, unfortunately.

The Bodum knife blocks are very funky. They come in eight different colors, to add pop to any kitchen. My husband surprised me with one in my stocking this year, and I couldn’t’ have been any happier. I have finally been able to stop using the boxes that my good knives came in!

There’s no rule as to where you have to place your knives. You can place them anywhere in your knife block,because the inside is made of a bunch of very fine plastic sticks allowing any knife to sit anywhere in the block – tight and secure.

The block itself is also very compact, and doesn’t take up much counter space at all; which is a definite plus. Bodum is a British company, but their products are also sold online, and at a myriad of kitchen stores worldwide, including The Zone, here in Ottawa.

Our Bodum knife block was bought on Amazon for 39.99$ CAD which is very reasonable. It looks especially awesome with my colourful Scanpan knives.

Enjoy,

~Darleya~

The Lise Watier Hydra Lip Stains come in really flattering colours and are sold at Shoppers Drug Marts in Canada.

I bought myself the Rose Classique colour. It is the perfect shade for my complexion and looks very natural. The tip of these lip stains is just like a highlighter marker. There is also a little bit of a fruity smell to them, but it goes away once dry.

Now, although I really love the color of this lip stain, the purpose of a lip stain is for it to stay on your lips all day long.

This really is not the case. This little tube of lip stain costs $20.00. It was a bit of a spur of the moment purchase for me, but had I known that it didn’t stay put anywhere near as good as I thought it would, I wouldn’t have spent that much on it.

I will still use my lip stain, because it does give a really nice shade to my lips, and it’s a good option for me because I really don’t like wearing lipsticks, and glosses typically annoy me with their stickiness.

If you’re like me, and dislike lipsticks, then you’d probably like these hydra lip stains. Just don’t assume that they’ll last all day long as promised.

~Darleya~

Have you ever heard of a Powerball?

I hadn’t.

I got one in my stocking this year thanks to Santa. The NSD Powerball Gyroscope is quite amazing.

It’s this little ball that contains an inner ball that spins on itself when started by a sting wind-up, then continued with your own wrist’s movements.

This ball is a tool used for exercise, sports training, rehabilitation(carpal tunnel), music(pianists), and fun!

The trick is to keep the ball rotating by moving your wrist in a circular consistent motion. The ball has a grip on it so that you know where to hold, in addition to a digital display which can show you numerous features, including the speed of revolutions you attained.

Not knowing what this was at first, my husband eagerly took it out of the box, even though it was my toy, and proceeded to show me how it worked.

Well, he struggled quite a bit to get it going. He tried many times to no success, but as I watched him, I thought I could see what he was doing wrong. So finally I got my turn, and on my first try, I got it going!

The trick is to really be consistent with your revolutions, starting slowly at the start. You want to only move your wrist, and not your whole arm. That’s where he was going wrong. If you start to hear the inner ball knowcking, it means you aren’t doing it right.

It’s an amazing feeling once it gets going! The faster you go, the more and more tension builds up, and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep your grasp on it, and keep rotating faster. It’s a natural power creator, and the faster you go, the more it’ll light up as well. It goes bright bright red(or blue), the quicker you move it. It’s a really cool visual, especially in the dark.

After some lessons from the natural Powerball pro, myself, my husband finally got the hang of it. We used it so much that first day that our arms were definitely sore the next. It’s a great tool to improve your forearm strengh, in addition to many other arms muscles, depending on where you hold it while spinning. It really works! You can purchase them off the official website, or on Amazon at cheaper prices.

To get a glimpse at what I’m talking about, here’s a youtube instructional video made by a young boy. There are many youtube videos out there, including world record attempts.

This ball is a fun little gadget that I now have at my desk at work. I have a weaker left arm thanks to a childhood accident, and this ball should really help me strengthen it. A really nice surprise from Santa.

Enjoy,

~Darleya~

During the holiday season, you are always extremely busy. While it’s nice for everyone to enjoy a bunch of homemade foods, we sometimes just don’t have that kind of time. When you’re already baking desserts, or cooking a big feast, you don’t necessarily have the added energy required to also prepare finger foods, or hors d’oeuvres from scratch. The people at President’s Choice, the brand for all Loblaws stores, have consistently proven themselves to be experts at making frozen finger foods. Here are my favourites in the puff pastry category.

This year, President’s Choice has released a new box-set of delicious puff pastry hors d’oeuvres to add to their already substantive collection.

The new packages comes with 40 hors d’oeuvres in 4 different flavours:  chicken sausage rolls, swiss, gruyère & smoked ham boats, roasted sweet potato & goat cheese rolls, and apple, smoked gouda & caramalized onions lattice rolls. All of the above are extremely delicious. If you’re hosting people this holiday season, then you have to run out and grab a box of these little delights. I cannot stop eating them. $7.99 at any Loblaws-branded supermarket.

They are simply fantastic.

Another puff pastry treat by President’s choice is their fig & goat’s cheese blooms. These have been a favourite of mine ever since they came out about three years ago. They are seriously addictive and a perfect addition to an hors d’oeuvres soirée. There are 12 in this package, and they come in individual mini pie plates so that they keep their bloom shape while cooking. I actually like to cook them without the pie plates, because I like it when they flatten out a bit. It’s just my personal preference. $6.99 at any Loblaws-branded supermarket.

Also delicious, and in their puff pastry collection is the PC Cheese Hors d’oeuvres pack, which includes 4 varieties of unique cheese fillings. Cheese & Onion puffs, Mushroom & Cheese Triangles, Cheese Tomato & Pesto crescents, and Cheese & spinach puffs. This variety, while not quite as fantastic as their latest creation, still offers some pizazz to your pallet. My favourite from this pack is the cheese & onion. $7.99 at any Loblaws-branded supermarket.

Yet another pack by President’s choice is their PC Mediterranean Hors D’Oeuvres, which include 4 more choices for your guests. Creamy Artichoke & Spinach, roasted red pepper & three-cheeses, Caramelized onion & Asiago cheese, and Feta Cheese and Sun-dried tomato. These ones are neat looking. When frozen they are simply little balls of filling laid out on flat pastry. They come to life once baked. $8.99 at any Loblaws-branded supermarket.

The last two of their puff pastry collection are their mini Beef Wellingtons and their Wild Pacific Salmon mini Wellingtons. Both look really cute once cooked. I haven’t tried the salmon ones, just because I’m not a big salmon fan, but I’m confident that a salmon lover would enjoy these. $8.99 at any Loblaws-branded supermarket.

Christmas eve and New Years are our main hors d’oeuvres soirées. I love eating finger foods, they are far more interesting because you get such a wide variety of flavours, and you can eat them anywhere.

Enjoy!

~Darleya~

Do you get a real tree for Christmas? If so, then here’s a tree stand that you’ll love.

A few years ago, we bought this stand, and have not been disappointed. This stand has a swivel, which makes it exceptionally easier to put up your tree. You can even set up your tree alone!

The Swivel Straight XTS3  tree stand is very easy to use. You must first attach the smaller rounded part onto your tree trunk while the tree is laying down. You can then lift your tree, including the compartment attached to it, then just flip it onto the swivel where it clicks in.

All you have to do next, is make your tree stand up nice and straight by unlocking the swivel base with the lever, and shifting it around until you are satisfied that the tree is straight. Once straight, lock the base once again with the lever and you are done!

This tree stand can hold any tree up to 10 feet tall and 100 lbs. Some of these tree stands come with a side water dispenser; ours does. The water dispenser doesn’t seem to be included on the ones sold today, and I can attest to the reason. After a while, the mechanism for the water dispenser gets loose, and it starts to leak. We solved the problem by just leaving the dispenser on the stand and filling it directly instead of removing it to transport to the sink.

Even without a dispenser, this stand holds plenty of water to feed your tree.

A fun side tip I learned from Blahggy, is to add 1 can of Sprite or Ginger Ale to your water mix, in addition to a small capful of bleach. This will both feed your tree with extra sweet nutrients, and, once time to dispose, the tree stand will not smell all moldy as they typically do.

The Swivel Straight Tree Stand is currently available at Canadian Tire for $59.99, in addition to numerous other retailers, including Amazon online.

~Darleya~

So those that know me know that I love condiments, and Frank’s RedHot sauce is no exception. Since everyone puts that shit on everything, I won’t bore you and review how awesome the regular Frank’s Red is.

Recently, we bought the gigantic bottle of orginal Frank’s RedHot sauce, and it came with a smaller RedHot BBQ Wing Sauce.

Now, I’m not one for eating chicken wings because they sort of gross me out; but that’s just my odd taste. Who needs to use things for what they’re intended for? Certainly not I, and I would have never tried this sauce had it not been conjoined with the large Original Frank’s Red.

Luckily, I did get to try it, because the Frank’s RedHot BBQ Wing Sauce is superb! I didn’t really have any expectations for it, so it certainly was a pleasant surprise. The sauce tastes like a cross between Bull’s Eye’s original BBQ sauce, and Frank’s RedHot itself. So basically, it is sweet, but with a good amount of kick. Not so much kick that will have you racing for bread or water, but enough so that you notice its steaminess.

I love this new sauce, and I’ve started using it with numerous food items, including pizza, grilled cheeses, rice, you name it! It’s an excellent addition to the numerous condiments and sauces in my fridge, and I highly recommend that you try it.

~Darleya~