We're Famous!!!!!

There's one thing that has been true since the dawn of time. If you're in the paper, you're famous.

This was true when I was a 14 year old scoring one crappy goal in a losing effort playing hockey in Estevan, Saskatchewan, and it's certainly true now.

Check out the article from today's Calgary Herald - Bite Into Blogosphere

The part about us reads

We don't know much about the two guys, Ren and Matt, who run this site. If one is to believe their "bio," Matt's history involves everything from starring in Bollywood films to seeing an apparition which gave him "the strength and culinary astuteness of 10,000 Michelin chefs." Whoever they are, Matt and Ren's mission is "to provide the average white man with insight on Calgary's most notoriously dodgy restaurants." With their conversation-style reviews that will make you laugh (and make you hungry), they do it well.

All I can say is finding out about this totally made my day. Also apparently the link from DodgyCurry.ca to here is spelled wrong....so there's probably no-body reading this anyway.

ren

This weekend's action

So my great friend (and DodgyCurry.ca webmistress) Chelsea came to town this weekend to attend the Virgin Music Festival. I decided not to go, since I don't really know or care for any of the acts, but we got to hang out on Friday anyway.

We started out by going out for lunch at Tiffin Curry and Roti House. after Matty and I had decided it was time for a re-visit. (More on that at a later date) We'd originally given it a 5/10 but had hoped that we'd just gone on a bad day and that we would have a much improved dining experience this time. I'll just say that we were let down, and I'll tell the whole story once Matty and I figure out what to do with it.

Then we headed back to my place to play some Lego Indiana Jones. It's a pretty fun and simple game. One of the best I've played for two people co-op. In this day and age of online gaming it's kinda nice to have a game that is actually built for 2 people in the same room to play and is even improved by the experience.


After a couple Dark and Stormys (rum and ginger beer with lime....mmmm) we had some food and moved on to watching a movie. The movie of the night.... The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. I'm pretty sure the Wu-Tang Clan watched this one waaaaay too much as kids since they reference it (and other Kung Fu classics) about every 5 seconds.

I'm not going to spoil the plot for you, but a large chunk of running time is spent on the basic training that our hero goes through. Possibly the inspiration for the Karate Kid's Wax-on Wax-off, our hero has to carry heavy buckets of water without letting his arms sag and smash his head against sandbags to get across a plaza. Unlike most movies in the genre, the final fight isn't the big payoff, it's the long hard journey to become a kung fu master that makes the movie. It's known as one of the best of all-time, and rightly so. Check it out.

Paying the bills

Paying for curry week after week can get expensive. Matty and I have long pondered ways to make a bit of money off the site, and really haven't come up with much that would not compromise our journalistic integrity. We could see if restaurant owners would give us free food since we are reviewers...but how do you give someone a 3 when they just gave you food? Too much conflict of interest.

We've considered putting some merch on Cafe-press. .... unfortunately we don't really have any artistic talent so you'd have to buy shirts and mugs that just say "DodgyCurry.ca" in plain font on a white background..... probably won't be a very hot seller. If you know anyone who is an artist that would like to donate some time and skill (maybe in exchange for some paneer pakoras) hook us up. We'd love you forever.

So, yeah...in the meantime, while we wait for our artist in shining armor to show up, I decided to sign this blog up on the amazon associate program. Nothing special, but if you click through the links that will start appearing on some of my posts here and buy stuff, I get some $$$. Good deal, and if it's something you were going to buy anyway it's not really too much of a hassle. And if you don't like them...don't click on them. Easy as cake.

So check it out.

The most vicious dogs in the world

Any of you guys out there that like dogs should really check out this site about the Michael Vick dogs.

It's really incredible what they were able to do here. Most times, when a dog-fighting ring is broken up they simply euthanize all of the animals because it's assumed that they would have been so mentally damaged that it would be impossible to rehabilitate them and have them lead normal lives with a loving family. It's kind of like how when an army liberates a POW camp the first thing they do is kill all their soldiers that were there. After all that twisted-ass POW life it's unlikely that they'd be able to reincorporate into society back home. It's the "humane" thing to do....oh wait...they don't do that....what the hell....

So, yeah....for whatever reason the Feds decided to let these rescue groups test and take care of the animals and make the choice of which ones were suited for family life, and which weren't. The website tells the story waaaay better than I could, but let's just say that even the Pit bull rescue groups were amazed at how many of these dogs could be saved from their lives of neglect and brutal outright abuse.

It's a heartwarming story, but you still might need a tissue.....


Here's my foster puppy Rocky from Pitbulls for Life. Isn't he just the cutest!!!



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Now playing: The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
via FoxyTunes

Toe Jam!!!!

This might be my new favourite music video. Nice catchy song. Gotta love David Byrne. Plus...nekkid womens are always good. Even with big black censor bars across them they're tasty.





That's all for now. I likey.

Notes from SDM

So just for the hell of it, and some extra spending cash, I worked a relief shift at SDM the other night. It was a nice slow sunday night, so it was pretty easy. Nothing really challenging came up except that I sold the last Plan-B in the store 5 minutes into the shift, and had to boot one woman out.

I guess most people would think throwing a woman out of a store is pretty interesting, so how bout a story kids?

Started out innocently enough, big african black lady (with these really cool patterned scars on her face and head) asks to use the phone. I told her there was a pay-phone in the mall but she said that was out of service. I had no way to check if that was bull-shit or not and we weren't busy so what the heck, I told her to make it quick and let her go ahead.

Well not more than 30 seconds into the call, she's shouting angrily at the person on the other end, and my other phone rings so I have to answer it and leave her up there shouting. I manage to get off my phone and she's still shouting so I go up to her and tell her to keep it down and she shushes me and puts her hand up in front of my face. Trying to take the high-ground I decide not to head-butt her and I told her loudly that she has exactly 1 minute to finish up.

I let a minute pass and then went up again and told her to say good-bye. She put her hand up in my face again so I hit the release button on the phone. She continued to shout at the person I'd hung up on, and then settled on shouting "hello, hello" into the phone. That's when I told her she'd have to leave the store.

Good times. Not too exciting, maybe for a better story I'll head-butt the person next time. Guess you'll have to keep reading to find out when that happens.



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Now playing: The Doors - Ship Of Fools
via FoxyTunes

Two new posts at DodgyCurry.ca

We've reviewed

Apna Desi Meat Masala

and

Copper Chimney


Hope you enjoy. Check it, check it out!!!



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Now playing: Ice Cube - Check Yourself
via FoxyTunes

It's official.....

The Hockey theme song will not be on CBC next year...

This morning the Calgary Herald published that the CBC and Delores were taking things to an arbitrator.....nice to see that worked out.....wtf.....

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=240196&lid=headline&lpos=topStory_main

TSN would like to introduce you to their new broadcast, "Hockey Night and Canada"....wouldn't that be slick. Heh heh.

Dogs and birds.

Been a pretty rubbish weekend, as far as these things go. Didn't really do anything Friday night except play with the dogs and laze around.

Saturday I was going to go out but it was so rainy and crappy. Only real excitement was Rocky catching a baby bird that got blown out of the sky. He didn't even hurt it. Just carried it near me and dropped it on the grass. I could see it was still moving so I kept both dogs from investigating and it bounced it's way to the nearest bush. It was still there when I checked a bunch of times over the next few hours but then it was eventually gone. I hope it got back to it's family.




This was much better than the time a couple years ago that Daisy gave a bird a heart-attack and it died on my lawn. She ran over to this bird that was hanging out in my yard and gave a big play-bow right as it was trying to frantically take off. I guess this was a little too much excitement for the little guy cause he proceeded to abort take-off and crashed back to the ground making the most horrible shrieking noise. I went to grab daisy to keep her from pouncing it but she was already hiding behind the shed afraid of what the bird was doing. The bird continued to shriek and spasm for about a minute .... in the process losing piles of feathers and then lay silently.

I really don't like dead things....if I can recognize them as once being an animal I really don't like em. So, I did what I had to do...I picked it up with the pooper scooper and dropped it into a grocery bag that I then tied and dropped into a big black garbage bag. This I tied up and took down the block to a garbage can in the park where I disposed of it. Ick.

So the not-dead bird was my excitement. Matty and I wanted to go for curry at a place that advertises they're open till midnight on saturdays, but I called ahead and it turns out they close at 11pm now. Boo.

Today is a write-off....working a short relief shift at Shoppers. Hope I don't get stabbed. For those of you who don't know my thrilling robbery story I'll share it with you on here someday.



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Now playing: The Black Keys - Keep Me
via FoxyTunes

Two of my fave things come together perfectly.

No! No! No! Not girls and jello. Although....hmm....that just might work.

The guys over at gamesradar have posted a nifty vid from GTA IV recreating the intro to Naked Gun. You know...the completely absurd Leslie Nielsen movie co-starring O.J. Simpson.

Check it out!


Oh well....I'm going back to bed. It's another crappy/rainy saturday morning, so I'm just curled up with the dogs. Daisy the Wrestledog and Rocky the Fosterdog are being so good.



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Now playing: Tenacious D - Tribute
via FoxyTunes

Our second national anthem

They're saying the famous HNIC theme might be replaced on CBC due to contract disputes.... Article

If this happens it'll be too bad. But, maybe another broadcaster can pick it up. It'd be pretty funny to throw the wednesday night game on TSN on the tube and hear the old theme-song. It would serve the CBC right.

Just also wanted to give a shout-out to a cool blog that Matty and I stumbled on. Called "Are you gonna eat that" she's got some pretty cool reviews of restaurants all over Canada and even some international ones. She says we're like an old married couple but I think that we're more of a Kenny vs Spenny dynamic. Especially when matt tries to put together his annual "Death Pool" and I annually figure out a way to get myself disqualified for breaking some rule that he's never even thought of needing until I decided to exploit things. Good times.



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Now playing: The Who - Magic Bus
via FoxyTunes

Just scootin' about

So I finally got the Vespa out of the garage and went for a decent length ride. Good times. It's definitely a lot more work than my first scooter, a Yamaha Vino125. Biggest difference really is that the vespa is a 4-speed and the yamaha is a CVT automatic. My left hand is so cramped up from working the clutch.

The NHL playoffs are over. I mostly lost interest after my flames were eliminated, but there were some really good games here and there that I caught. If any of my readers are going to africa this summer, could you pick me up one of the "Pittsburgh Penguins 2008 Stanley Cup Champs" shirts that they'll have donated to some impoverished village. Pleasey please.



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Now playing: Tom Waits - 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six
via FoxyTunes

Rocky update and more

My foster dog Rocky (from Pitbulls for Life) had a meeting with a potential adopter tonight. Since he's my first dog from this organization I'm not really sure how the process goes but I think he impressed her. He's such a big cutie, even slipped her a little tongue on their good-bye kiss. I taught him that one.

I need a curry. All that curry-writing the other night got me craving. Mmmm..... curry.

Finished watching the movie "The Hustler". I'm pretty sure I watched it as a kid....but I only remember the pool parts. It's pretty damn good. Paul Newman excellent as always, with a pretty good back story. A whole lot more too it than balls and gambling, that's for sure.

Had a tasty dram of Black Bush tonight. I love my irish whiskeys for when I just want a nice drink but without too much "character". Some nights there's nothing better than a triple-distilled smooth as glass irish. And that sound .... oh....my favourite sound in the world is when you pour the whiskey (or whisky....and if you don't know the difference, I'm sorry...you had a negligent father) over the ice and the rocks crack from the change in temperature. Try it yourself sometime. I'm sure you've heard it....but listen for it.....beautiful.


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Now playing: Guy Terrifico - Whiskey, You Can Save Me
via FoxyTunes

Heh heh.

ren

Blog : Day 2

I'm sure I'll come up with better post titles as this goes along.... I sure hope so at least.

So I had the day off work today. Which was nice since I was writing curry reviews until 2am or so. Got em done and shipped off to Chelsea so hopefully they'll be online in the next couple of days. I thought they came together fairly well. Hope ya like em.

Went out and test drove a 2008 VW rabbit today. Nice car. Pretty good price. I really liked it and I'm thinking hard about getting one. Had them appraise my durango while I was there. That was a little disappointing. They'll give my about $6200 for it. Ug.....Was hoping for about $3000 more than that. Oh well....guess I'm not the only one who noticed that gas is $1.30/L and that a durango uses a lot of it.

ren

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Now playing: Jimi Hendrix - In From The Storm (Live)
via FoxyTunes

Off to a good start

Good way to start the new blog. I'm listening to the party-shuffle on my iTunes, sipping a 15yr old scotch and writing a curry review. This is the life.

Unfortunately the song is currently one of "THE BOB'S" weaker efforts.....a cover of Blue Moon.... and the 15yr old scotch is Glenlivet French Reserve that my realtor gave me and that I've decided I don't really like. I gotta get a refill, but with some Lavagulin or something of quality like that. Unfortunately aging a malt I don't like much in the first place for a few more years in some fancy french barrels doesn't make me like it any better.

At least the curry review is coming along well. Heh heh.

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Now playing: Bob Dylan - Blue Moon
via FoxyTunes

Ren's Fantabulous New Blog!!!!

So, I've decided to start a blog. Why you ask? Doesn't writing dodgy curry review all over calgary keep you busy enough?

Actually....not really. I love the curry adventures....but that's really only a day or so per week and there's so much other stuff that I do that I could be writing about. Some people say they enjoy my writing style and the madness that is my thought process so why should I just limit myself to one topic. It's a great big world and I'm a great big girl. ... er.... I really hope that's a song lyric or something.

So as I go along I'll be putting links to all the great curry reviews that matty and I have done....but I'll also keep a running tally of my insane thoughts and ideas and stuff. Should be fun.... right?

right?

ren

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Now playing: Ryan Adams - What Sin Replaces Love
via FoxyTunes