The Free Pizza Tour

So today I went to pick up my free pizza care of the blue jays and pizza pizza. It was an uneventful outing as I usually go early to avoid the crowds. While eating my pepperoni slice, these two guys came in after me. Nothing noteworthy except that these same guys were behind me in line at the McD's a few blocks away when I went for my post pizza sundae. I don't think I'm stalker worthy so it seems like this Pizza Pizza to McDonald's route is actually common.

While on the topic of sundae's I thought I should complain about the fact that McD's now charges 1.69 for a sundae. Outrageous. What happened to the 2 for 2 dollars promotions that I used to be so fond of

Pizza Pizza and the Blue Jays

The smell of free pizza is once again in the air. The blue jays obtained the requisite 7 strike outs at their home opener on Friday and Janice was nice enough to give me her ticket for my lunch today.

[Update on Wednesday]
Contrary to what I posted earlier this week, the rules this year are that qualifying Friday, and Sunday games are all claimed on Monday (unless it's a holiday). Pepperoni or cheese. I'm still not sure if substitutions for a few are allowed - that may be up to the stores.

Since I had gone on Monday and they told me to come back on Wednesday to use the Sunday Jays ticket, it wasn't looking good for today's slice since they now had the rules clearly printed out at the store. But my arguing and their great customer service allowed the issue to be resolved with me leaving with a free pizza. And now our faithful blog readers know that you claim your slices on Monday!

Martin's Party

I have been keeping track of years working at my current company by number of boss' Christmas parties attended. This year is number three and they went with the same caterer as for party #2.

The drinks started off well - this year quite a selection of wines with 6 to choose from. I went with Pino Grigio. Pretty tasty.

Appetizers were pretty good - salmon springs rolls, mushrooms on toast, thai beef stuffed in cucumber and some shrimp/salmon on toast things that Ian partook in.

The real theme of the night seems to be stuffed items. Dinner was stuffed tomatoes, stuffed zuchini, more salmon stuffed in pastry, stuffed pork of some sort and lamb chops. Also a lettuce salad with pine nuts.

The real highlight was dessert. Not a lot of selection, but the tastiness made up for that! The usual two bite brownies were on the menu, but were made extremely tasty with the addition of some icing and spinkles. Basically I feel that you cannot go wrong with anything that has sprinkles on top so perhaps I am a bit biased. Also some cranberry & chocolate scones arranged precariously on a layered tray and a platter of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies....mmmmm....

To top off the night, the big boss was giving away very cutely wrapped boxes of chocolate as a parting gift. We each sampled one when we got home - my maple cream was yummy and Ian seemed to enjoy his boring solid chocolate.

This year, they went with some door prizes by pulling names out of a bag. Most prizes seemed to go to the higher up dudes on the board of directors including our CEO.

I think the only thing that we can conclude from this is the board of directors got to their positions through luck??

Although, now that I think about it, I suppose we were all lucky that the stairs did not collapse with 70 of us on there for a photo op!

Looking Where you Walk

At yesterday's Blue Jays game Janice snagged a foul ball (Snag may not be the correct term - she apparently ran away from the ball as it neared her and then managed to recover and grab it after it hit a seat. Surprising behaviour because when I go with her to games she wants me to be always ready to jump and run towards the ball).

That's great but even better was that Burnett picked up the seven strike-outs that earn us a free slice from Pizza Pizza (The deal is that if the Jays get 7 or more strikeouts on a Friday or Sunday home game you get a free slice of pepperoni on the subsequent Monday). Anyway we headed out at lunch today to get our free slice and we were going to blow the bank to buy another slice of cheese pizza for Janice. Quite the meal. As we were walking out of the building though, I happened to see a Jay's ticket on the ground. Luckily I stopped and examined it and saw that it was for Sunday's game! Another free slice. So we ended up having a completely free lunch! It seems like the moral of the story is that it pays to look where you walk.

For the record, I agree it is mildly disgusting to pick up dirty paper from the ground but, hey, for 3 bucks, who wouldn't.

Royal Ontario Golf Club

My company had their annual golf tournament last Friday. Not only did we get the day off, the whole thing was one incredible deal for the cheap person!

$40 got us....

Round of golf and cart ($109 value)
Driving range beforehand
4 pack of balls & tees
Royal Ontario Hat
Nike dri-fit golf shirt
Dinner with wine
Winners and big losers got a $25 gift card to LCBO!

We'll be back next year for sure!

Dinner was pretty decent - roast beef with all sorts of other good stuff. Dessert table was especially tasty!

Free Milk

For those who know where we live, come and pick up some milk! Seriously...please come and get some.

The best things in life are ...

free!

A few weeks ago, I took some candy from a stranger. It's ok it was free













Today was the real score, milk 2 go. Faithful readers will not be surprised to learn I made multiple trips. Don't worry in the later trips I got closed cases so I could stack them! Needless to say the fridge is full. I still feel I should go back but I'm trying to restrain myself

Free Pizza Pizza

Ian and I went to the Jay's game on Friday night and since AJ Burnett struck out 7+ batters, we got a free slice at Pizza Pizza on Monday.

I partook at lunchtime in Mississauga and was a little disappointed. I went with cheese, and it was moderately untasty - not like my delicious veggie square I used to eat in Hamilton when I was out there.

They also seemed to have some head office types standing around in the dining room and they were blocking the seasoning shakers that I like to use. Not so cool!!! In the end, it was too much food and I was feeling kinda queasy for the afternoon.

Ian went for lunch downtown and had the pepperoni - he felt extremely tasty but not enough food.

St Andrew's Club

Thursday I hit up an almuni event at the St Andrew's club. Having to dress up is a little annoying but free food makes it worth it for me. The food was pretty good. There were two stations: an italian and an asian. For the dinner part, the Italian station was the weaker one - a pork thing, some gnocci and some random meat. The asian one was terrific - sushi nigri and maki, pad thai (chicken or shrimp) in the fun little boxes that these fancy places seem to like to use, salad rolls, spring rolls and a few other things I don't recall. It was great particularly the sushi. It would have nice to see the sushi chef there instead of a pad thai attendant but that's me just being picky. For the dessert portion, the stations reverse. The asian consisted of chocolate dipped fortune cookies (I'm supposed to stick with my passion according to the cookie). To make up for this weakness, I had some more maki. Tasty as well. The Italian station had little cake like squares. They were fairly tasty although they seemed a little oily (of course that didn't stop me from having quite a few).

In terms of entertainment, there was the formal program which is interesting. But the humour portion came from some of the alumni who inhabit a different non-engineering or science plane of existence. This one person was excited to talk to engineers as she felt she had this brilliant idea that instead of emergency vehicles using sirens they should vibrate the seat in your car.
Maybe I'll be proven wrong but I don't think that idea will be taking off anytime soon.

Free Pizza

Free pizza always gets a few thumbs up from me even if it is from pizza pizza. Today thanks to the Blue Jays 7+ strikeouts on Friday, I scored two slices of pepperoni pizza at Pizza Pizza

The positive points
- it's free
- the first slice was ready right away

The negative points
- the second slice took quite a while (since they had to make a new pizza)
- the delay meant I had to walk home in the rain

I guess the rain isn't completely Pizza Pizza's fault though. While I was there some people brought their tickets in and then paid extra to get pizzas that are better than pepperoni. In the past they've been dead set against such practices so it's good to see this new found flexibility. Of course I couldn't upgrade to the much loved meat lovers because of my well known cheapness issues

Great, Good and Neutral

This week has been a bonanza of eating out.

Monday was a reception for scholarship winners at some company's headquarters. The tour of the facilities was only moderately interesting but the food was amazing. This was definitely the great. Reasons follow:
1) Open bar
2) Kobe Beef Sushi
3) Regular sushi
4) Lobster Maki
5) Massive sautéed shrimp
All items were very very tasty.

Thursday was the end of year party for the union. I've missed out on the last two so I was determined to go to this one. It was looking bad initially with only two drink tickets but the union came through for us in the end and gave us a basically limitless supply. The party was at the Duke of York. I think people like this place but I unfortunately am not one of them. As pub-style places go I think it's pretty good. They had these "neat" mini fish and chip servings. A tiny newspaper and a fish stick sized piece of fish. Pretty tasty. Overall this was the good.

Finally today was Swiss Chalet day. We had a coupon (of course) for a free appetizer. Janice had the appetizer (perogies) and I had the main course (chicken and ribs). That's definitely a split I could live with. Janice liked her stuff reasonably well but probably wouldn't get them again. I on the other hand would definitely the chicken and ribs again. It was tasty as always. I don't know if I'll go back to this swiss though because I didn't like the waitress at all. It's probably worth the walk up to king street to get people that have adequate social skills? For 20 bucks for 2 it wasn't a bad deal but I'll still have to say this is at best neutral because of the mean waitress and the fact that I got used to eating for free earlier in the week

Sorry readers, this was a weak post

The Westin Harbour Castle

Last night was my company's big "Dinner Dance", although I started to get a sore throat toward the end so no dancing, just dinner for Ian and I.

1370 people attended...pretty impressive stuff!



Started off ok, with a $6 cab ride there. I recently bought the world's most uncomfortable shoes, thus limiting the amount of walking I can handle.

A glass or two of French sauvignon blanc to start pre-dinner during the "cocktail" hour.. According to Billy's classification, I would say a "fresh" wine.

Some so-so tomato soup to start, then a roasted veggie (peppers, asparagus, artichoke) salad with some creamy garlicky dressing and then the main course.

A glass or two of Australian Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner.

I ordered the veggie, and received some squash and cheese stuffed tortellini/basket pasta things with a squash sauce. Came with some greens. Pretty good, although not quite the gourmet veggie meal that I was expecting.

Ian had a steak with a layered potato thing and some greens. He seemed to enjoy. Steak seemed perfectly cooked - medium well - which is probably the most appropriate for a banquet type event.

A desert sampler to finish- included a mini apple tart, a meringue thingy and a brownie with ice cream.

Overall, high marks for tastiness and service. The organizing committee and the Westin once again did a good job. Ian and I did not win any door prizes, but I suppose that we can hardly hold that against the committee. One funny thing that happened, our CEO dude ended up winning the prize for a two night stay and breakfast at some hotel in Oakville! Ha ha! They drew another name though and didn't give him the prize! What a burn....

The Best Kind of Food

I've almost fully recovered from the incidence of last weekend so I've been back to my usual habits for the most part. The week started off slow because sadly due to the weekend activity I decided to skip the union social on Tuesday. It was at Hart House instead of the Duke of York as it has been in past years and apparently the food was pretty good with some excellent lamb. Missing a free food event destroys a little part of me.

Fortunately I made up for it on Wednesday with free pizza and sushi care of marking. Unfortunately the sushi came from Sushi Time not Sushi on Bloor due to time constraints so we ended up paying more for less and worse sushi. Lesson learned ensure they order the sushi ahead of time. I called in the order and in retrospect I should have offered a little bit extra money to Sushi on Bloor for them to squeeze our order in. Maybe it wouldn't have worked but I should have tried. The pizza pizza was about the same as always. We got everyone's favorite meat lovers plus chicken. Of course it was the first to go.

Thursday was free food event #3. It was the grad school christmas party. I ordered twenty pizzas and that proved to be more than sufficent. I didn't ask anyone for the favorites and instead just mixed it up with a bunch of things. Meat lovers + chicken was of course a hit but so was char broiled burger pizza. I don't think anyone had that before and it was pretty good. Just like a burger. Leftovers provided for free food event #4 on Friday lunch. After 2 days of all you can eat pizza, I was up for something else but some people felt we shouldn't ignore the pizza. Friday I ate some of the potatoe chips too and those seem to have left me with a multi-day stomach ache. No more pizza or chips for a while.

Christmas Party at Big Guy's House

Our global managing director of our group happens to work in the Mississauga office and invites the whole crowd over for a party.

This year they had the usual drinks along with some people walking around with appetizers. A surprisingly amount of veggie appetizer items, although Ian did triple up on shrimp when the guy came around! Also some lamb in pastry thingy, kind of odd but Ian seemed to like it.

Then to the "hot buffet" as people liked to call it. Some stuffed tomato and potato items with salad, carrots, salmon, stuffed beef and some chicken. I had the veggies and salmon. All pretty tasty. Ian seemed to like all the meaty stuff. Unfortunate, but the servers dished up all the stuff. Probably good in my case so I did not over-eat, but big-eating Ian did not end up getting enough to eat and didn't want to cause a spectacle by going for a second plate.

Dessert selection was some squares and cookies.

Some place in Port Dover

I went to a steel plant in Nanticoke today and for lunch we went to Port Dover and had lunch overlooking lake erie. I forget the name...but since most of these blog readers will never ever go to Port Dover it's probably ok!

The menu had exactly 1 veggie item on the menu, so I had cheese tortellini with cream sauce, mushrooms and spinach. It was a kind of run down place with indoor-outdoor carpet kind of thing so I was actually surprised when it turned out to be pretty tasty.

I think the final bill came to $255 for 11 people, so not a spectacular deal, a "moderately tasty" rating.

Condo Party

The new "SuperCentre" at our condo is opening next week so they were having a party to celebrate. The place was packed, but the free liquor, sushi, noodles, pasta, hand dipped choc fruit, porketta, hummus +pita, focaccia etc was all pretty tasty!

Pretty good food and free! Yeah!!!

Was a bit upset, the party said 6:30-9:30, so I arrived at like 6:45. I tried to go upstairs to check out the gym and courts and stuff like that and they told me I couldn't go up till 8 after the band played a special set. It was just an annoying calypso band, so I have no idea what the special finale could have been? Anywho, kind of retarded, but I guess I'll be able to check it out when they open next week.

Westin on Queen's Quay

I went to the company christmas party tonight. The meal wasn't great, weird salad with what appeared to be peeled grapes. Some squash soup was ok, main veggie dish a crappy piece of ravioli type thing with veggie. Meat eaters got chicken and these were the quotes "is this ham?" "this tastes like dominion bbq chicken" "it was rubbery and tastes like microwave crap". Desert was ok, a sponge cake type item.

To make up for the poor food, there was sufficient amounts of free liquor after we scored the bottles of wine from the sparsley populated tables. Even better, a free taxi chit home! So quite the cheap night!!!