Escape Rooms 'R' Us

Many, many moons ago, back before I was even in University, I found these online Flash games called "Escape the Room" games. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, you would usually wake up somewhere with no recollection of how you got there, nor where you were. Sometimes in your own room, sometimes, somewhere exotic like a lighthouse. For whatever reason, all the doors would be locked, and there would be puzzles everywhere to solve to help you get your memories back and get out.

I played them for years, usually needing a walkthrough or at least a few hints to get out. I loved them, and was always trying to find new ones. Eventually, I moved on to other things, my mind having that habit of getting bored and moving on.

Eventually, after meeting Rin, I introduced her to them. She was hooked. She honestly sat in my dorm room and played them for hours. Turned out she was a lot better than me, and she found newer and much more sophisticated rooms than I had, so I got back into them too.

Fast forward to 2015, and we found out about live escape games. Well, I think we found out about them before that, but we found one near us that we could actually play in the summer of 2015. Our first two rooms were on the same day at Roundabout in Toronto with two friends. We loved them, but didn't escape either one in time (I'm going to be doing reviews of our recent rooms, but I can't remember enough of these early ones to properly review them).

A couple weeks later, Rin and I went back on our own to do another Roundabout room, and I was already in a bad mood, so this one didn't go well. This led to an escape room hiatus for a bit, but then we got back into it, and we completed our first room at Lost Canada, followed by a room with more friends at Great Escape (which has since closed, which is better for the community) and another win.

Fast forward a bit to summer 2016 and we did my two favourite "rooms" - A Night At the Speakeasy and Lost And Found in Chinatown. I loved these two, so I plan to do a full review on both (neither are running anymore, so no chance of spoilers).

That brings us to this year, after another hiatus for almost a year (Rin got pregnant, and now we have our daughter and secret escape room weapon, Elle). I'll do proper (mostly spoiler free) reviews on these rooms in coming posts.

So, this is my new passion. Along with Disney, travel, and everything else, we now add Escape Rooms to the list.

Have you done some rooms you loved? Leave a comment, let me know about them, and maybe I'll get to check them out one day!

End of Watch

I remember starting this blog with plans to write about games I'd played, movies I'd watched, and just other things I wanted to write about. And then I just stopped. Well, here's to trying to start again.

Tonight, I saw End of Watch. I wasn't really sure what it was about going into it, just that I knew it had Jake Gyllenhaal (my spell-check doesn't like his name, wants me to correct it to "Challenge"), and that it was about cops. The into was very Jarhead-esque. And Jarhead is easily one of my favourite movies, so it gave me high hopes. But it made me a bit worried too, since I thought maybe it would be a touch unoriginal.

That aside, the intro started with Gyllenhaal's voice over and a chase. Once the chase ends, we're transported forward in time, and this it when you realize it. This is a documentary style movie. Much like Chonicle, Cloverfield, and many more, it's filmed pseudo first person, and has the shaky, handheld camera style. Personally, I love this kind of movie, when done well, so it was no big deal to me, but I know some people really aren't fans. One thing I did find odd is that most of the time, the camera is being held by no one. It still retains the handheld camera feel, but there's not actually a character holding it. Threw me of a bit, but not enough to detract from the movie.

What follows is the story of two cops who went through the academy together, became partners and now see each other as brothers. It follows them both on and off the job, and you see the lives of the characters (Gyllenhaal's especially) progress as the movie continues. I like that touch. It gives the movie a sense of time, so that you know that what we're watching takes place over the course of months, maybe longer, and not just a few days.

I won't get into the rest of the movie, if you really want to know more of the plot you can watch a trailer or look it up on IMDB, I don't like to write plot summaries. All I'll say is that I was a fan. I already said I enjoy the camera style, I like Jake Gyllenhaal, I liked Michael Peña's character (and I swear I've seen him before, but can't figure out what in, and I like cop movies (what can I say, I'm a guy).

Not the greatest movie I've ever seen, but a solid 3.5 out of 5.

Thank God for Pet Insurance

If there's one thing I always tell new pet owners, it's get pet insurance. When we got our Lab (Pan) almost two years ago, the first thing we did was look into getting pet insurance. We weren't sure about it at first, and for a while after we got it, I always wondered why we were wasting our money on it. But then we had a few large expense vet visits, and I'm so glad we did it.

Most recently, Pan had a bladder infection. No big deal, a urine test later, it was confirmed, we got the pills, and the bill came to about $100. Of which we paid about $20. But then, it seemed like he was still having some issues. And he started losing a bit of weight. So, back to the vet. Then we needed to get blood work and x-rays. Total cost? Just over $400. And we'll only pay about $80 of that.

More than anything though, it's the piece of mind of knowing we can get those tests done. When we were at the vet, she questioned whether or not we wanted to get both tests at once since they were so expensive. The fact that the cost wasn't something we really had to worry about was one less load off of our mind, and it meant that we could be sure that Pan got whatever care he needed. If not for the insurance, we would have had to wait, and we'd still be wondering about whether or not something was wrong.

Luckilly, Pan is ok, and no major issues were found, though we're still keeping an eye on his weight.

The Expendables 2

So tonight, I saw The Expendables 2. I figured, I watched and enjoyed the first one, why not check out the second one. That, and I was obligated to see a movie tonight (seriously, it's kind of part of my employment), and it was the only one I was interested in that was on during the designated time slot.

So, in I went. Sadly, the theatre I was at is an old style theatre, with the barely sloped seating, not so crisp sound, and old style (non-digital) projectors (Which projector is better? That's a debate for another time). Despite all of the theatre's flaws, I had a good time.

Now, let's be honest: The Expendables 2 (and the first one) isn't exactly a movie to make you think. It's an action movie, plain and simple. And it does action very well. There are enough cheesy lines, one-liners and impossible feats to please any action genre fan. In fact, the movie quite obviously realizes that it's an action movie, and makes fun of itself, and its actors, throughout. Actors use one-liners from previous movies, steal each others one-liners, and comment on the shear number of 'action stars' abound.

But, I have to say I think my favourite part was the 'inside' jokes. Things like commenting on Gunner's (Dolph Lundgren's character) past. Like Dolph, Gunner has a Masters in Chemical Engineering. This point pops up a few times through the movie.

And what better way to ramp things up for a sequel than the bring in even more stars than the first. I feel like Stallone and the other big-wigs sat down and said "Who did'nt we have in the first movie? Ok, get them for the second." I was a big fan of Chuck Norris' inclusion, and the inclusion of one of the many 'Chuck Norris' facts that were all the rage several years ago.

I have to say, this definitely wasn't the best movie I've seen this year (that honour goes to The Avengers), but it was the best stereotypical action movie I've seen in a long time. Probably since the original back in 2010. I have to say though, I was a much bigger fan of the minimalistic poster for the original, simply with the title, a picture of the cast, and a giant list of all of their names. It quite simply screamed out "Come see this, look at the crazy cast we got!"

Paintball!

So, I've been meaning to write a bit about this for 2 weeks now, and I'm just now getting to it. This is why I shouldn't have blogs. I neglect them. I'm lazy.

Anyway, when I was about 15 or 16, maybe younger, a place called Mad Zone Paintball opened up in my hometown of Kingston. I'd played laser tag a few times, but I'd always wanted to try paintball, so off I went with a friend. It was an indoor field, full of sand, and not too big, but it was glorious. It was just the tow of us, so we ran around like mad, diving, jumping, sliding, shooting, and I fell in love with this crazy new game. While I was never a huge laser tag fan, paintball was exactly what I expected. It hurt, it got the adrenaline going, and you actually 'died,' instead of just flashing when you got hit. It was amazing.

So, I had a birthday party at the same place. And I played in a single tournament. But then it closed. Enter my aunt's boyfriend (at the time). I'll call him G. To me, he was a paintball guru. He played all the time. He even owned his own marker. And he took me to my first big game.

It was at Wasaga Beach Paintball, a 5 hour drive from home. This was before they moved to the new location (which sadly, I've still not been to). We showed up the night before, set up our tent in the pouring rain, got up the next moring, and went to play. Everyone knew G. He was kind of like a fixture. He chatted up the owners, introduced me to people with crazy gear that I'd never imagined existed, and made sure I had everything I needed to play. Then, the game started. I think there were around 500 of us there, and I think the field (usually split into multiple smaller fields) was somewhere around 50-60 acres. It was amazing. There were objectives, missions, spies. I got shot so many times, and I shot at more people than I can remember. We played right from 10:00am until 10:00pm. If I wasn't hooked before, I was now.

The big game became an annual thing, and I went out to each one for the next two or three years. We had smaller games at local fields (some places had opened up just outside of Kingston), but Wasaga was the pilgrimage. G bought me my first mask, helped me pick out my second marker, and was always around to obsess over all things paintball with me.

But, then I joined the military. And it's hard to find time during the summer to play paintball when you're in the middle of training. So I think I made it out to one more big game, and a couple local games, one with the guys from my squadron. But, after I left the military, G and my aunt had broken up, I got married, and paintball kind of left my radar.

The last game I played was probably 6 years ago. I still had my gear, but finally decided holding onto it was pointless (and most of it was kind of junk anyway, when you're 17/18 you tend not to take care of things properly), so I sold it about half a year ago.

But then, two weeks ago, 3 of my friends and I decided to try the local field here in St. John's, Frontline Paintball. It was wonderful. They rent Tippmann 98's, which I've always loved, have some great woods fields (as well as a town, speedball field, and a 'road' field), and have some (mostly) awesome refs. I fell in love all over again. I came home exhausted, with a dozen or so welts, and quickly started trying to figure out if I could afford to replace my sold gear (I can't, by the way, so that'll have to wait, it seems).

One of the friends I went with fell in love too, and he almost immediately bought his own stuff. Mask, marker, upgrades, everything. So, we went back out again today with a few of his friends. And it was just as good. The only problem that I have is that I get so caught up in the games, that I forget everything else. I went out this morning at 11:00. I had a fruit bar for breakfast. I didn't eat again until we were done, around 5:00.

But, after nourishment, I quickly got back on the computer and started trying to figure out what set up I want to buy. It's always nice to have dreams. I think I'm officially hooked. Again. I can't wait to get back out and shoot some more people.

Hello World!

So, this is my new blog. I originally started Rambling's of a Travel Junkie to write about my travels, and about travels I want to take. Well, I don't write on there often, mainly because I don't travel as much as I'd like to. And because I'm not really that good about writing about where I want to go. There's just some block there. But, there are times I want to write about things other than travel.

And that brings me here. A place that I can write about anything. Well, almost anything, I'm not completely anonymous here... I can't guarantee I'll write often, but it might see more traffic than my Travel Junkie blog.

As always, if you want to click on the ads that Google is so kind to provide me, I'd appreciate it.  Eventually, it might help me get on another trip, or buy something cool to write about.