The Jordan VII Raptors are set to release on September 1, 2012. That means this Saturday you can grab a pair if choose to do so. They get their name from the Toronto Raptors' team colours. I would really like a pair to beat up this Fall and Winter. You will probably be able to purchase these at Foot Locker and Momentum on 8th Street.
So I went through with my tattoo idea. Yesterday, JJ and myself went to the Eye of the Needle (1005 Broadway Avenue) to see Nicky. I have known her since elementary school but many friends and acquaintances have said positive things about her work which had enticed me to see her. She was awesome. Considering she had to deal with my complaining and cry baby behaviour she was very patient with me. If I ever think of something new I will definitely go back to her, this was a pretty good first experience.
Location
It's located on 115th Street right beside the Bulk Cheese Warehouse.
Environment
It looks like many other Vietnamese or Oriental restaurants but it doesn't mean it's the same as them. There are photos of the family on the walls, which is nice because relationships are the key to succeeding as a family business and it shows. The father and daughters are excellent hosts. Everyone is friendly and prices are reasonable.
Menu
There is something for everyone, whether you like spring rolls, salad rolls, pho, vermicelli or home style dishes. You can eat alone or share with family and friends.
Food
I ordered lemongrass chicken salad rolls and charbroiled pork and spring rolls on vermicelli. The chicken in the roll was very flavourful and the sauce along with it was very good too. The portion of the noodles was a bit small for my liking but that flavour was spot on!! The pork, spring roll and fish sauce were great.
Conclusion
The staff is friendly, the food is tasty and affordable and it's perfect for those of you living in the North end.
Big Sean of Kanye West's label G.O.O.D. Music is coming to Saskatoon September 15, 2012. That's pretty close. I didn't hear about this until last week.
This is something I'm definitely gonna check out. Big Sean's got the goods.
Sleeping Dogs, a title formally known as True Crime: Hong Kong.
After Activision had pulled the plug on True Crime 3, Square Enix took the reins, with United Front Games on the development side of things.
Sleeping Dogs is something of an open world, good cop, bad cop game. You play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop who must infiltrate the Sun On Yee, a Hong Kong triad gang, and rise in ranks in order to take them down.
But like all undercover cases in video games, Wei Shen becomes emotionally invested.
Despite this game taking place in Hong Kong, much of the dialogue is scripted in English. That being said, the makers of this game definitely didn’t forget about the Hong Kong fact. Much of the word play was a mixture between English and Cantonese, (don’t worry there were subtitles) at times it did seem a bit forced, but eventually you got used to it.
With the Cantonese, it definitely did help with the feel of the game. Much of the interaction with characters in the game was in English, but as you are running around on the streets, everybody speaks Cantonese.
The voices behind this game were all notable actors. Emma Stone, Kelly Hu, Lucy Liu, James Hong, even Robin Shou (Liu Kang from the Mortal Kombat movies). All solid voice actors, and you can really tell.
I’ve never been to Hong Kong before, but this game seemed to me that it did a bang up job on capturing the environment.
From the posh downtown to the seedy areas, all in a compact world.
You will probably read a lot of reviews mentioning that this game is a GTA clone. And technically it is, but it definitely feels like all the good parts in a GTA game. It’s a combination of Yakuza and GTA in which you have the environment and gameplay of GTA and the fighting mechanics of Yakuza.
While brawling in Yakuza, you utilize the environment a lot. The same went for Sleeping Dogs, albeit, it’s probably five times more brutal. You can grab a guy, drag him to a fan and chuck him into it then watch him get sliced up. My favourite one had to be throwing a guy onto a pallet of swordfish heads. Rugged.
The music in the game was quite good, for it did a great job on capture moods. Not much else you can really hope for with music. I suppose there was the radio as well, a few channels that ranged from Classical Chinese music to UK dance music to classic rock. Different strokes for different folks.
There a few things you can do in this game aside from missions. If it peeks your interest, you can go to a bar and sing karaoke songs or you can find a local street race and win some cash or participate in a fight club.
The story was quite surprising. I didn’t think it would too substantial, but it was the main reason why I kept playing. Like all good games should be. It reminded me of a good Chinese movie. And I’m a damn sucker for Chinese movies.
What I didn’t like.
My inner traditionalist kind of wishes that this game would have been completely Cantonese, with the odd exception of Wei Shen speaking English to his cop subordinates from Interpol, but alas it wasn’t. When they meshed the Cantonese into the English speaking Triad members, it felt really forced.
Pardon my language.
“Dogeyes? He’s a pok guy. That lok chat is worse than puk gai.”
With subtitles on you will see this.
“Dogeyes? He’s a (mother fucker). That (cock) is worse than (shit).”
But luckily, it doesn’t take away from the game too much. You get used to it, and I’m just glad that they kept the Cantonese aspect in the game.
A lot of the side missions were extremely repetitive. Mucho chase sequences, whether it be in cars or on foot. After a while it got pretty old. The first times around it’s a rather exhilarating. Shooting a car while it explodes in slo-mo then jumping from your car to another car to hi-jack it. Not too shabby. But after doing it for 15 times in a row, you get kinda tired of it.
The fighting mechanics in this game took a lot of getting used to. I was still sorta stuck on the Yakuza game play, where it would be: square for attacks and triangle for heavy attacks, but this one it’s square for attacks and hold square for heavy attacks and triangle is counter.
First time around I was jamming square and at the end of the combo I’d hit triangle expecting a heavy attack combo finisher, but what it actually does is, it puts Wei Shen into a defense kinda mode where he will pose, waiting for a baddy to hit you. But if the baddy doesn’t hit you at the right time, it just leaves you open for attack. Kinda sucky.
But like the Cantonese and English meshing, you got used to it. Actually after a while, it wasn’t so bad. I was kinda salty at dying all the time because I was screwing everything up. But as your skills got better, you become unstoppable.
If you’re looking for a game that is something new, definitely check out Sleeping Dogs. It’s not too long of a game if you just do the story, but if you are a completionist and wanna do everything, there’s no doubt in my mind that this game could range up to 30+ hours.
This game does a spot on job on capturing the fictitious seedy world of Hong Kong triads, and it more or less feels like you’re playing a movie. You won’t wanna turn off the game until you figure out the next piece to the story and in my mind that alone is worth the purchase.
I purchased these at theDarkside Initiative in San Francisco. I find that these run quite narrow but I will fight through the pain to break them in nicely. The leather insole is a nice change. I am really excited over the look and colour, I plan on using these as one of my everyday sneakers. You can also purchase this in a burgundy colour way.
Rock Creek is located in the new shopping area by Tim Horton's and Kentucky Fried Chicken in Erindale and Willow Grove.
Environment
This restaurant to me has that Moxie's feel. But if you are of age and the weather is nice, you will be pleased with their patio set up. Its roomy and the fire gives off the right amount of heat on a cool evening.
Menu
The menu consists of many burger, sandwich, salad and pizza options alongside ribs, steaks, chickens and others.
Food
I went with a jalapeno and cheddar burger which was very large and delicious. I was quite full after eating this and the fries. Other than Earl's and Fuddrucker's this has been the largest burger that I have eaten in the city. I also tried the pizza, the thin crust really does it. It allows you to focus on the flavour of the ingredients, which was great.
Conclusion
The prices are a bit high and the service was on the slower end but the food truly was good. Now that the hype has died off, come check out this restaurant and give me your thoughts.
I have two categories of music. Music I like listening to when I'm in amped up mode or when I'm out and music I like listening to when I'm at home.
St. Vincent falls in the home category.
Anybody can yammer on about dance music with complete strangers. But the day I find somebody where I can swoon to about St. Vincent, will be the day. Not sure what though, but it will be significant.
Her third release, Strange Mercy has been out for about a year now, and I've been listening to it non-stop since March. It's one of those CDs that I have to listen to at least once a day.
Prior to that was Owen Pallett's Heartland, but that's for another time.
Cruel, off of Strange Mercy, was the song that got me head over heels for her.
The rest is just awe.
Moral of the story is, St. Vincent is to me, what One Direction is to tweens.
Today it was announced that Nintendo Power would cease publication sometime later this year. Prior to Nintendo Power, another video game magazine closed its doors after a 22 year run, GamePro.
Video game magazines have been steadily declining in sales, there’s no lie there, but how long will it be before magazines in general become completely obsolete?
The first telltale sign to me that video game magazines were becoming a thing of a past was when EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly) ceased publication for the first time. This was the magazine. I bought every issue, every month for as long as I can remember.
When I heard that they were shutting down, I was kinda bummed out. I’m not sure what it is about magazines that I like so much. I rather read my gaming news from a magazine rather than online.
But online is just so much more instantaneous. This is essentially the reason why these video game magazines are shutting down.
Before the big internet boom, the only way to figure out anything about video games was through magazines. It’d be a little blurb, some screenshots, some quotes. And that was just a slight taste that would get you hyped.
Today, it’s bloody information overload. Kinda defeats the mysticism of a video game.
Not that it even matters since 70% of video games are copies of each other, but that’s something for another time.
You can watch trailers for games, gameplay demos, watch fan made analyses of gameplay trailer one, interviews, conferences, everything, all online.
And since everybody has the internet, information is easier to get out there. Fans can get updated by their favourite companies whenever the company wants to release info as opposed to having to wait a month to figure out more info on so and so game.
Call me old fashion, but video game magazines gave me something to look forward to every month. Now if I wanna find something out, I can just Google it.
Now that I think about it, I guess this is something of a first world problem huh?
I guess I’m just going to have to cave and buy a tablet or something. Gotta kill time in the bathroom somehow.
But, what do you think? Should magazines go or stay?
Get at us below. Or you can e-mail us at hellosaskatoon@gmail.com
First and foremost, I'm not a huge fan of DJ Khaled. That being said, Nas and Scarface on a song together? How can you resist?
I'm glad Nas is back to his old self. I couldn't handle his preachy phase. Also, this would be one of Scarface's first few songs after getting released from prison.
I'm working the soundbooth thing at the Global Pavilion which is located at the Saskatoon Soccer Center by St. Joseph High School and Centennial Collegiate.
After a one year hiatus, Bloc Party is back at it again. This time around with their new album Four. Early this morning they released a preview of their album, one week before the release date which is August 20th, 2012.
So far it's sound a tad grittier.
If you've been missing Bloc Party like I've been, definitely give it a whirl.
To celebrate Lego's 80th birthday they have created an animated story of how Lego all began. I spent my entire childhood playing with these. It all began with the birth of my brother, when he was born I was given a large container of six different Lego coloured bricks. After that, I continued playing with them until my early teens. If you grew up or collected in my era, you may have played with the same series as myself such as Ninja sets, Star Wars, Bionics, Duplo, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter just to name some of my favourites.
Only today I downloaded Savage Journey to the American Dream and so far it's pretty good. I think I decided to download it because his beard is outrageous and I appreciate his love for sneakers, see a musician can get my attention that easily. I find myself showing more love to Maybach Music every day. Underneath are two of my favourites from him and a neat little interview with Upscale Hype.
I'd like to do an interview like that with people across the city if anyone is interested in doing that.
This Jordan pack is consisted of two new colour ways. A pack means that these shoes must be purchased all together. This release will come with a special edition box for both pairs. The "Golden Moments" pack is set to release on August 18, 2012 for approximately $400 CAD.
I've reverted back to my original DJ controller, which I had very much so underestimated. It can hold its own quite well in Traktor and for that I am glad. Now I don't have to drop a quadrillion ($1,000) bucks on another controller with more bells and whistles.
Maybe someday later.
That being said, here's a new house mix.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.
After being curious of the way this pair of denim fit I managed to stumble upon a pair of Wings + Horns raw slim denim. Unfortunately these will not be found in Saskatoon. I am looking forward to starting a new piece of raw denim. My first pair was unsuccessful, my second pair is still in the works and this pair will hopefully top them both off. So far the fit is phenomenal. They are much skinnier than I anticipated but I am happy with that considering that they should stretch a fair bit. I also chose to side down by one size. The length is quite long for me (I'm 5'8) so I choose to double cuff the jeans rather than get them hemmed or let there be extra stacks.
Here are some measurements for different sizes:
SIZES: (cm)
30
32
34
36
1/2 Waist
40
42
44
46
Inseam
88
89
92
93
Leg Opening
16
17
18
19
The simplicity is key for me, the plain leather tab and the plain back pockets. The colour is pretty blue so I am looking forward to seeing how they will fade. Wings + Horns denim is made at Cone Mills in the United States, the same factory that Levis jeans are made. As you can see below, the denim is 13.5 oz.
Fit pictures:
Shout out to Brooklyn Clothing in Calgary for being helpful.
I realized I have never taken part in the newer interview style "What did you wear today", so here we go. This was taken on Sunday in Calgary (Kensington area to be more precise).
Wings + Horns
G-Shock
Stussy
Jordan IV "Military Blue"
You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at @SuMingHS
With the Fringe kicking off this weekend in Saskatoon, why not spend your Friday evening at Lydia's with Gunner and Smith?
Gunner and Smith have evolved from a one man operation to a full band still fronted by the bearded wonder Geoff Smith. Their sound is rich and full of pleasing harmonies with just enough grit to get you out of your seat to groove to their rock-folk style.
2012 has been a big year for the band, playing many shows around Saskatoon as well as an upcoming show in Regina at Bushwakkers on August 15.
Come out and support one of the best up and coming bands in Saskatoon this Friday at Lydias (w/Pirate Fridays and High Waisted) as well as a headlining show at Amigo's on August 11. Compromise is a Loaded Gun is the band's second EP and will be available Friday at the show as well as on iTunes.
It kills me to know that there are cities with the exact same weather as us who have food trucks. By food trucks I simply mean restaurants on wheels, sort of like the Bus Stop downtown but mobile. I realize that there are such things that exist in the city but are only used during special events such as the Fringe (which begins today). I'm not sure if there is some sort of law that prevents it or if entrepreneurs do not see this being feasible but I am writing as a consumer. I want to experience food trucks, I watch Eat St. often and it covers a lot of restaurants around the United States and British Columbia. The food they produce can really give indoor restaurants a run for their money. My friend Pat blogged a couple months back of an event in Edmonton called "What the Truck", he also took this photo below.
If other places in Canada such as Edmonton are able to do this, I would like to see it in Saskatoon too. I really feel like we are missing out.
Location
The Berry Barn is located on Valley Road about ten minutes outside of the city. You simply follow the road outside of the city by Montgomery area. Circle Drive turns into Valley Road when you leave the city.
Environment
Going to the eatery you have a choice of eating inside or in the sun room. The restaurant is quite cluttered and there are souvenirs and artwork for sale within the restaurant.
Menu
The menu isn't big but there are a lot of appealing dishes. Many meals take advantage of the fresh fruits available in both meals and desserts.
Food
I ordered cottage cheese perogies in a cream gravy with cabbage rolls as my main, ate some chicken wings in a Saskatoon berry BBQ sauce and had the Berry Treasure for dessert. The cabbage rolls were very small and to be honest kind of disappointing. But the perogies on the other hand were the exact opposite, the filling was good and the gravy was savoury and addicting. The wings were also really good, having fresh ingredients really did it for me. I was not expecting to be able to taste the Saskatoon berries in the BBQ sauce. The Berry Treasure is Saskatoon berry, raspberry and rhubarb oatmeal with a homemade ice cream. It was really sweet, but it was tasty. I'd recommend for you to share it rather than eat it alone.
Conclusion
On your day off check out the Berry Barn on a hot day. You can pick berries, eat a meal or dessert or go for a walk. This was my first time going in almost ten years and it was a good time.
