IT'S THE END OF THE MONTH AS WE KNOW IT!

Just a quick update...

Some more Restaurant reviews from our foody blog VANCOUVER EATS: PINKY'S: the new Yaletown Steakhouse, EARLS: the Downtown staple, LIBRARY SQUARE: our close-to-work pub and MARINASIDE GRILL: the North Van tradition.

My stepmom GINA retried after her 15 year "tour of duty" at Liberty Wines with a great sendoff party. It's amazing to think that I've known Gina and her family (now our family) for over 12 years... time sure does fly. Congrats Gina we love you!

It seems that LAVERNE is not totally out of the woods health-wise. While she is doing much better than months back it appears that her pancreatitis is back although nowhere near as severe as before. She will have to go on a semi-permanent diet change to help keep this problem at bay. Poor baby.

Finally, CARMINE our rebellious 7 month old Boston Terrier starts his 1-on-1 puppy training tonight with me at DOGSTARS. We'll see how he does and hopefully his attention span grows from its current 3 seconds.

That's it for now, see you in August!

MEET AMAYA

Michelle and I finally had a chance to meet the latest member of the extended Corsi Clan, little AMAYA AIELLO. She's the daughter of my cousin Ida and her hubby Albert and she's quite the mellow cutie. It's so funny to see my little Cuz Ida become a mother of two wee girls, she's definitely got the Italian flair for motherhood!!! Welcome to the big time Amaya!

MORE STAGS

This past weekend saw two more stags taking place. I spent some time with JASON BOYCE and the crew who did things a little different by taking part in some stage-fighting and sword-fighting as well as the usual food, booze and poker. All in all, the night ended with Jason slurring his words and not remembering much so it was a rousing success. Michelle spent the weekend with the girls in Kelowna to celebrate with ANDREA HIESTAND. The stagette was filled with games, wine tours, lake side relaxing, food and dancing, they seemed to have a great time. Both couples, Clint & Andrea and Jason & Saisha tie the knot in August and you know I will be there with cameras blazing. Great stags all around!

XBOX 360 LOOOSER

So, I work in Video Games as a Franchise Producer (what does that mean? Means, I produce franchises smart guy!) and as part of my job, I need to play the "hot" games out there to keep up with what's good and bad in my industry.

Problem is, I am lousy at games.

Sure I have a good "eye" with a keen "design sense" and can argue pros & cons till the cows come home but as a gamer, I stink. I took a look at my collection of Video Games and realized that I have accomplished very little while most of my non-industry friends have gamer scores in the many thousands, mine just crossed the 3000 point mark (see my Gamertag to the right on this blog). Take a look:

HALO 3 - 2% complete (got frustrated REALLY easily)
BURNOUT: PARADISE CITY - 5% complete (had a few car crashes to see how cool it looked)
TUROK - 10% complete, still too fresh in my mind after working on it.
GUITAR HERO 2 - Finished Easy & Medium, Currently on Hard. No chance for Extreme
GUITAR HERO 3 - Finished Easy & Medium, Currently on Hard. No chance for Extreme
ROCK BAND - Finished Easy & Medium, Currently on Hard. No chance for Extreme
BIOSHOCK - 85% complete on Easy (so much to do & unlock still)
GRAND THEFT AUTO 4 - Not started (game still in wrapper)
DEVIL MAY CRY 4 - Not started (game still in wrapper)
LEGO STAR WARS: THE COMPLETE SAGA - 97% complete (Still have tons of achievements to unlock)
LEGO INDIANA JONES - 78% complete (currently playing this and loving it)

So what does this tell you? Well, I've never, ever "finished" a game. It's a sad, sad, state of affairs. Oh well, the only thing I can do is keep playing and hopefully (although unlikely) get better. Time to get my Game On!

SAISHA'S STAGETTE

Michelle here (I know, it's been a long time since I've written)! Our lovely friend Saisha is getting married to our other awesome friend Jason. It was our duty to send her out in a style, so in true west coast fashion the girls piled into cars and headed to Whistler for some good times on Saturday. New friends and old friends together joined forces to show our Bride an unforgettable day and night.

The bride was picked up at 1100 and after a quick coffee stop we were off to the mountains. Arriving was a bit of a gong show as every hotel in whistler seems to have the words Whistler and suites in the name; our only 2 key words. Thank god for cell phones and the girls were quickly reunited! After check in and a preemptive few glasses of water we headed to Starbucks to begin the day. The girls were divided into 2 teams and the Great STAG-enger hunt began. Super fun! An hour and a half to complete the list of necessary items(all requiring photographic evidence) like strangest thing to find in the street (both teams selected the same guy on his stag independently of each other!), the obligatory trip to the firehall where saisha got dressed into firemans gear and brook and krista got to go down the pole(!!) and the worst outfit you can find in the shops of whistler among others. Despite the rain the girls prevailed and a tie was decided as each team missed only one item.

Stop for a great lunch and our second drinks of the day. mmmm Cucumber martinis for the bride, cesears for others. Lunch over, we were all able to squeeze into Get Nailed for super fun pedis. The girls there were great, letting us take over all of their space, drink wine and ride around on their awesome cruiser bicycle! Toes were beautiful and it was time to get us beautiful.

Back to the hotels and we dressed our bride as an angel and we were the devils on her shoulders. Great theme. The night began at Earls for dinner and another obligatory event - the blowjob shooter, of course. With food, our alcohol absorber in our bellies it was off to a Whistler Fave - buffalo bills for some drinking and dancing. There were at least 5 other stagettes there! We did not want our bride to be one of thousands so we were off again to Garfinkles. More drinks, dancing and good times. We made our great escape just before the ugly lights came on and headed back to the hotel for some well deserved rest, meeting up with some very obliging police officers who stood for a photo with our lovely, drunky bride.

Morning came too quickly, and the weekend was over just like that. We all had an awesome time and made great new friends. I know I am really looking forward to the wedding where we can all reunite again. Sure there is more to the great saisha stagette of 2008, but hey that is all you get to hear about!!

Click to see the Stagette pics HERE!!!

CANUCK CHAOS???

I rarely write about non-Corsiworld subjects but as a Hockey fan, I had to vent a little about my Nucks.

It’s an exciting time to be a Hockey Fan. Why do you ask? Well, it’s Free Agency time in the NHL and for the last week, teams have been in a mad dash, signing players to bulk up their defense or add some scoring. That is, every team it seems EXCEPT the Vancouver Canucks.

When new GM Mike Gillis was introduced to the world, he said that he would make some immediate changes to make the Canucks “a contender”. Sure, we’ve all heard that before but we all waited to see what this “new kid” would come up with. The Draft arrived and we did well with our #10 pick and got a character kid whose also a good scorer named Cody Hodgeson (skating is a bit of an issue but hopefully he’ll get up to snuff) but then the moment we were all waiting for arrived… Free Agency. Okay, let’s see what this new GM can do.

Right out of the gate, Gillis stuns the Hockey World by offering Leaf’s Captain Mats Sundin a two-year, $20M contract. $10 Million a year for a player who may be past his prime? Some were excited, others fearful (memories of the Messier Years still stinging their souls) but then the unexpected happened… NOTHING. Sundin didn’t accept or reject the offer… he was just not ready to make a decision. So while all the other teams are signing all the big wheels, we sign guys like Wellwood, Hordichuk, Johnson and Bolduc (not exactly marquee names). On the plus side we signed Sabres Winger Steve Bernier for a few draft picks… not bad but not a franchise savior by any means.

While all this is going on, the Canucks were still waiting for a yay or nay from Sundin.

Then the Canucks received a big shock, their Captain, free agent Markus Naslund signs a two-year deal with the Rangers. THE RANGERS! Any team but the Rangers! Love him or hate him, for 12 seasons, Naslund gave us some great Canucks Hockey and next season its gonna be tough to see him in a Rangers uniform (another Messier moment rings in my head). I was always pro-Naslund but I felt that at $6M per season he should be delivering more. The Rangers signed him for $4M per season and I bet you he’s going to put up some great numbers. Good luck Nazzy, thanks for the memories.

Wow… did not see that coming.

Now it’s Monday the 7th, Free Agency has been going on for a week and the personnel on teams has changed quite drastically. Jarg is going back to Russia, Bertuzzi joined the Flames, Nolan joined the Wild, Malone & Roberts joined the Lightning, Theodore joined the Capitals, Huet joined the Blackhawks, Tucker joined the Avalanche, Holik & Rolston joined the Devils, Satan joined the Penguins, Weight joined the Islanders, Redden joined the Rangers, Hossa joined the Wings and Avery joined the Stars.

The Canucks? Still pinning their hopes on that falling star named Mats Sundin. For $20M over two years, there had better be some gas left in the tank.

What do I think? We signed Luongo a few season too late. If we had him during the heyday of the “West Coast Express” we could have had a decent shot at winning a cup. Now, it looks like we are in yet another “rebuilding phase”, a phrase that stings the Canucks fan deeply cause we’ve been rebuilding since we first started playing Hockey and it seems like we never finish what we started.

Here’s an idea, trade Luongo for a 1st Round Draft Pick or something (before he asks for a trade or his contract runs out and we get nothing), sign Corey Schneider as our “goaltender of the future” get some young up-and-comers who will really start to click after a couple of seasons and maybe, just maybe, we’ll make it to the third round of the playoffs one of these days in 2015.

Mike Gillis, so far I am not convinced your battle plan is the best but I shall reserve my judgment for I am not an NHL Manager, I make games for a living, there’s a difference but at the same time, its sure fun to bitch about.

What do you think? Canucks are on the right track or headed for mediocrity?