OFF TO EUROPE...

See you in a few!

VANCOUVER EATS

For a while I've been writing restaurant reviews on DINE HERE as well as on the Corsiworld Blog (HERE's one for GASTROPOD for instance). Well I decided to start yet another Blog, this one focusing on Food Reviews and I call it VANCOUVER EATS. I've only got 4 reviews up there right now but I will update each time we try something new! Enjoy!!!

VANCOUVER EATS

2 DOGS & A CAT WALK INTO A BAR...

People have been asking about our Animal Kingdom so here's the skinny:

CARMINE - Doing well, caught onto using the "peepads" quickly and accidents have been minor. He's learning "sit" and "stay" but name recognition is taking longer than hoped but it will come. He's eating well and also trying to eat all of Laverne's food at the same time. One area to focus on is "environmental socialization" as he gets quite skittish outside or in his crate in the car. Overall, he's great!


LAVERNE - The mysterious sickness has passed and she is her normal self again, WOO HOO! Enjoys having a little brother to play with but sometimes gets into that "frenetic zone" and can play a bit rough with Carmine. At first, Laverne wanted no part of Carmine but it seems that the more they hang out together, the better they become with each other! Big Win!


PINCHY - The Pincheriffic Pinch! The seasoned vet of our trio, Pinchy is actually getting a kick out of Carmine as Carmine is not afraid of the cat. They chase each other around, Pinchy swats at him but Carmine keeps coming back for more. Laverne is now getting in on the action as well. As a bonus, Pinchy spends more time downstairs with us rather than always upstairs on the third floor.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORGE!

On Saturday night, we hooked up with a few good friends over at HAPA IZAKAYA for some asian eats & drinks to celebrate the birthday of GEORGE. A bountiful feast of flavors as well as Sake & beer were indulged upon as we laughed the night away in honor of the birthday boy. It was a great time and the pics can be seen HERE!!!

WELCOME HOME CARMINE

I've talked about CARMINE time and time again on this blog and now he's come home!!!

On Good Friday, we trucked out to Cloverdale with Laverne to pick up the latest member of Corsiworld. Laverne got to meet Carmine at the breeders house and play together along with their mom Tinker and l'il sister Mindy (the Boston from Carmine's litter that the breeders are keeping). We came home and the two dogs spent the day, "figuring each other out", Pinchy came down for a visit as well but he kept to himself for the most part just thinking "dammit, now I have to put up with another one of these things?"

The Forbzez visited with Bozlee and the three of them played quite well together (the three dogs not Pinchy) and each day gets a little easier. The biggest difference is that Carmine is much more "vocal" that Laverne ever was plus he's a bit of a rebel, that means we'll have a more "training work" than we previously had with Laverne. It's all worth it though, CARMINE is awesome.

BITTERSWEET

What should be a joyous occasion with the arrival of CARMINE is marred by the incredible sickness of LAVERNE.

For the last few weeks, Laverne has been quite ill with various different ailments. What started with vomiting and stomach pains, caused by some form of pancreatitis most likely caused by a food allergy. We changed her food to a much more easily digestible “gastro" formula and the vomit & pains stopped. But the diarrhea started and it was bad, so another vet visit told us that there was a minor bacterial infection in her bowels. With some antibiotics, the diarrhea stopped and it looked like she was on the slow road to recovery, then last night she broke out in a massive case of hives, big red welty ones. It was awful.

I know that Laverne is “just a dog” but she is like our child, we love her completely, we love her absolutely and to see her is pain is horrible. I wish there was a way that she could tell us what was wrong or what we could change to help her get better but for now, we have to work with her and the Vets to help her improve by taking stabs in the dark and running test after test after test. Luckily, her blood work came back negative, her liver is okay, she is negative for Giardia and Diabetes but she’s going in for an Ultrasound on Wednesday to see what else they can see. Now we just have to figure out what’s causing the hives.

One the bright side, Carmine is finally coming home this weekend. It was supposed to be tonight but with Laverne not quite out of the weeds yet, we wanted to give her one more night to recoup before another puppy enters the mix. We are incredibly excited, scared, nervous and psyched to have Carmine and Laverne together, I just wish Laverne was healthier for the homecoming.

As you can imagine, pics are soon to follow.

MINI GAME WEEK

Sometimes the company announces a "team building event" that gets nothing but groans from the staff, the idea of MINI GAME WEEK was one such idea. The basic premise has Propaganda Games shut down for a week and its employees get broken up into 17 different teams with one goal: create a unique mini game in one week. Could be fun? Maybe. Could be a disaster? Probably. Could we create a fun compelling game in 4.5 days? No way in hell.

Sometimes... only sometimes, I am wrong. Mini Game Week was an awesome event and I'm happy to say that all 17 teams successfully completed their goal. We shut down for a week and went to work on 17 different ideas to create 17 different games and they were all playable, enjoyable experiences.

There were games like NORSE NOISE (a singing side-scroller that had a Viking being controlled by the pitch of your voice), PASS THE BUCK (a Propaganda Team Meeting where you had to pass off your "action items" by using the Guitar Hero Guitar), KER-SPLAT (a vertical adventure game where you saved or caught people from a burning building), ROBLOCKS (A 3D puzzle game where you create pathways for your robots or block the paths of others) and FUBAR (create cocktails in this Tetris-block like game before your character gets too drunk).

Our team was called HELLO DAVE and we created a fighting game called 2001: A PUNCHING ODYSSEY. Think of it as MIKE TYSON'S PUNCH OUT meets ROCK BAND in the World of STANLEY KUBRICK. The schtick with our game was that your controller was the Rock Band Drum Kit and the pads were different styles of punches, oh, and you fought with Monkeys. It was a lot of fun and our game also won the award for MOST INNOVATIVE GAME DESIGN. ROBLOCKS won Best Overall Game, PASS THE BUCK won Funniest Game and NORSE NOISE won Best Sound.

Overall MINI GAME WEEK was a fantastic team building and creative exercise, people got to spread their wings a bit and try some new areas of game-making plus we proved that you don't need a lot of time to create something awesome and unique. In fact, we proved it in 17 different ways and I hope we do it again!

Check out some pics HERE