I wish chris johnstone turned 30 more often
I wish this because on the occassion of mr. johnstone's bday last eve I enjoyed a delicious meal. How delicious you ask? PREPARE TO BE ASTONISHED!!! The meal took place at Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar. I had not been there in a while but I really like it their. It is expensive, and fancy, and a little nose in the air'ish. But compared to restaurants it is comparable too it is much more laid back and the staff are nice. IT can be super expensive, especially cause they have wicked pricey wine options, but it also can be really reasonable. Last night tended toward the pricey end of the spectrum. But it was worth it.
To start me and lee split a poutine, chris and allicia did the same, and dara, who is a vegetarian, had the winter salad. All of these things were delicious. In a review of jamie kennedy's restaurant at the gardiner the food writer for the toronto star quoted this british tv jerk chef who said "if I were known for my fries I would kill myself." Thing is the fries at the wine bar, and his other restaurants (though the extent to which they are "his" is obviously questionable based on the fact that it he doesn't even cook at them, and obviously the food produced at the restaurants relies more on the work of the tons of people in the ol' kitchen then some jerk with a big hat)are facking delicious. Seriously, if you are around the place and you got ten bucks burning a hole in your pocket just go get some and a glass of wine and you will leave happier than you enter. guaranteed.
so after the poutine lee had a duck confit with smokey beans. it was delicious. i know cause when it arrived I wasted no time in declaring "sharesies." This of course creates a binding verbal culinary contract. the duck was so tender, and they seared it in something hella delicious, it went so well with the beans, which had the trademark lovely flavour of the slow cooked. The dish I got made lee happy I declared sharesies. Entrecote of beef with northern wood mushrooms. Absolutely fucking awesome. The beef was perfectly cooked, and really high quality. The mushrooms were fucking incredible. They tasted fresh, which I Don't really get cause its winter, but whatever, maybe leaps and bounds have been made in mushroom harvesting that I remain ignorant of. They came with a light cream sauce that just augmented their natural deliciousness. ME and lee finished of the meal in the spirit of sharesies by getting a cheese plate and a terrine, pate, and sausage plate. The cheese was really out of hand. We got some bread to go with it that was wonderful as well. All the cheese was canadian, one from ontario, the others from quebec, they were mostly mild'ish but still very flavourfull.
So all in all it was just great food. The wine was real nice. We started with some sparkling stuff from italy, ruggieri or something like that I think. It was $32 which was pretty sweet based on how good it was. Then we had a pinot noir from france with a really long name that was pricier but wicked delicious. I finished off with a port that the server "accidentally overpoured." As per usual the excess did not go to waste. Here is to curious fortune and its porty results.
I guess I haven't posted on here in a while. So this will probably be long and will result in mocking from certain people. But my skin is thick. In fact my skin is 7 pounds thicker than it was at the beginning of dec. So that ain't so cool. But what can you do? Booze and fancy beef doesn't burn itself. And while i have been going to the gym I have only been going three times a week, I would like to go four times, so we will see how that pans out.
I am still bargaining and I still hate it. One highlight of our bargaining session is as follows. The university countered our proposal of increased benefits with a "healthcare spending account." What this account does is it covers money for the worker, and dependants to the tune of $300 per contract. You submit your receipts and then you get paid back. There are a lot of problems with this but an obvious one is how are our members, whose wages are below the poverty line, pay for expensive medication if they get sick when they are paying for books or some other expense? I figure that you should create the least amount of barriers for people to get the care they need, and healthcare accounts don't do that. IN addition to this they have to budget for 100% usage of the account. Even though they said that the unit at U of T who has it in their contract sees around 25% usage. And that is cause they say sessionals are often times covered by other benefit plans. Right, I am sure tons of sessionals are working really well paid jobs with benefits and just take on teaching a course for the hell of it. Fuck off.
SO we are in bargaining one day and we raise our concerns about the spending accounts and the head bargainer for the university goes "well we can just pull it off the table if it is unacceptable." THat must be nice. You go home after a tough day of work and someone asks
"how was your day honey/smoochie/roomie/notary public or whatever and you say "oh it was great I really fucking stuck it to those assholes who actually want their members to have somewhat meaningful benefits" and then there is much high fiving and drinking of goats blood. Good lord.
So as that story indicates I fucking hate bargaining. WE have been doing it for so long too. A bunch of locals say they just apply for concilliation early in the bargaining and I wish we had done that. I was worried about not having people mobilized as the local has been dormant for a long time. But we are still only getting around 15 people to our general membership meetings and only two of those who weren't on the exec expressed any interest about being on the bargaining support committee so I figure at least we would have been finished and screwed as opposed to still bargaining and screwed if we applied earlier. And perhaps a sense of urgency isn't the worst thing to have while bargaining. Live and learn I guess.
Other than that there isn't really anything of interest going on in my life. I got another job to pay my tuition. Marking em papers for a class at u of t scarborough. I guess they are always scrambling for people so hopefully this gets me and in to some summer work. It pays pretty fucking sweet so I figure I may only have to borrow around a grand or two to pay my tuition. Which is better than what I was looking at a week ago thats for damn sure.
As far as my school work goes I am in big trouble friends. Big trouble. But the sweet stress of crunch time will lead me to success. Or at least that is the story I am goign to cling to until I am sobbing in front of a computer at the end of august screaming "WHY NICHOLAS WHY MUST YOU BE SO BADS?!?!?!" I get to present at a conference in windsor this weekend. Take that CV. I will get to see my friend jared which will be fun. And I think tommorow is going to be awesome cause I Will be rolling with sharmeen, first sushi, then prairie new years and possibly a housewarming in between. Let the good times roll.
To start me and lee split a poutine, chris and allicia did the same, and dara, who is a vegetarian, had the winter salad. All of these things were delicious. In a review of jamie kennedy's restaurant at the gardiner the food writer for the toronto star quoted this british tv jerk chef who said "if I were known for my fries I would kill myself." Thing is the fries at the wine bar, and his other restaurants (though the extent to which they are "his" is obviously questionable based on the fact that it he doesn't even cook at them, and obviously the food produced at the restaurants relies more on the work of the tons of people in the ol' kitchen then some jerk with a big hat)are facking delicious. Seriously, if you are around the place and you got ten bucks burning a hole in your pocket just go get some and a glass of wine and you will leave happier than you enter. guaranteed.
so after the poutine lee had a duck confit with smokey beans. it was delicious. i know cause when it arrived I wasted no time in declaring "sharesies." This of course creates a binding verbal culinary contract. the duck was so tender, and they seared it in something hella delicious, it went so well with the beans, which had the trademark lovely flavour of the slow cooked. The dish I got made lee happy I declared sharesies. Entrecote of beef with northern wood mushrooms. Absolutely fucking awesome. The beef was perfectly cooked, and really high quality. The mushrooms were fucking incredible. They tasted fresh, which I Don't really get cause its winter, but whatever, maybe leaps and bounds have been made in mushroom harvesting that I remain ignorant of. They came with a light cream sauce that just augmented their natural deliciousness. ME and lee finished of the meal in the spirit of sharesies by getting a cheese plate and a terrine, pate, and sausage plate. The cheese was really out of hand. We got some bread to go with it that was wonderful as well. All the cheese was canadian, one from ontario, the others from quebec, they were mostly mild'ish but still very flavourfull.
So all in all it was just great food. The wine was real nice. We started with some sparkling stuff from italy, ruggieri or something like that I think. It was $32 which was pretty sweet based on how good it was. Then we had a pinot noir from france with a really long name that was pricier but wicked delicious. I finished off with a port that the server "accidentally overpoured." As per usual the excess did not go to waste. Here is to curious fortune and its porty results.
I guess I haven't posted on here in a while. So this will probably be long and will result in mocking from certain people. But my skin is thick. In fact my skin is 7 pounds thicker than it was at the beginning of dec. So that ain't so cool. But what can you do? Booze and fancy beef doesn't burn itself. And while i have been going to the gym I have only been going three times a week, I would like to go four times, so we will see how that pans out.
I am still bargaining and I still hate it. One highlight of our bargaining session is as follows. The university countered our proposal of increased benefits with a "healthcare spending account." What this account does is it covers money for the worker, and dependants to the tune of $300 per contract. You submit your receipts and then you get paid back. There are a lot of problems with this but an obvious one is how are our members, whose wages are below the poverty line, pay for expensive medication if they get sick when they are paying for books or some other expense? I figure that you should create the least amount of barriers for people to get the care they need, and healthcare accounts don't do that. IN addition to this they have to budget for 100% usage of the account. Even though they said that the unit at U of T who has it in their contract sees around 25% usage. And that is cause they say sessionals are often times covered by other benefit plans. Right, I am sure tons of sessionals are working really well paid jobs with benefits and just take on teaching a course for the hell of it. Fuck off.
SO we are in bargaining one day and we raise our concerns about the spending accounts and the head bargainer for the university goes "well we can just pull it off the table if it is unacceptable." THat must be nice. You go home after a tough day of work and someone asks
"how was your day honey/smoochie/roomie/notary public or whatever and you say "oh it was great I really fucking stuck it to those assholes who actually want their members to have somewhat meaningful benefits" and then there is much high fiving and drinking of goats blood. Good lord.
So as that story indicates I fucking hate bargaining. WE have been doing it for so long too. A bunch of locals say they just apply for concilliation early in the bargaining and I wish we had done that. I was worried about not having people mobilized as the local has been dormant for a long time. But we are still only getting around 15 people to our general membership meetings and only two of those who weren't on the exec expressed any interest about being on the bargaining support committee so I figure at least we would have been finished and screwed as opposed to still bargaining and screwed if we applied earlier. And perhaps a sense of urgency isn't the worst thing to have while bargaining. Live and learn I guess.
Other than that there isn't really anything of interest going on in my life. I got another job to pay my tuition. Marking em papers for a class at u of t scarborough. I guess they are always scrambling for people so hopefully this gets me and in to some summer work. It pays pretty fucking sweet so I figure I may only have to borrow around a grand or two to pay my tuition. Which is better than what I was looking at a week ago thats for damn sure.
As far as my school work goes I am in big trouble friends. Big trouble. But the sweet stress of crunch time will lead me to success. Or at least that is the story I am goign to cling to until I am sobbing in front of a computer at the end of august screaming "WHY NICHOLAS WHY MUST YOU BE SO BADS?!?!?!" I get to present at a conference in windsor this weekend. Take that CV. I will get to see my friend jared which will be fun. And I think tommorow is going to be awesome cause I Will be rolling with sharmeen, first sushi, then prairie new years and possibly a housewarming in between. Let the good times roll.