Chocolove

While shopping with a friend earlier this evening, I found this fantastic chocolate bar: Chocolove. The chocolate bar itself wasn't anything overly special: it's a bar of dark chocolate with 70% cocoa (which is my favourite). No, the selling point was that there is a love poem inside!

When I first saw this selling feature, I knew I had to get the chocolate bar just for the love poem; had know what it was. So as my friend and I were walking out of Homesense, which was where I found the chocolate bar, I tore into it, looking for the love poem. The poem was titled The Sleeping Beauty by Samuel Rogers, and it was printed on the inside of the wrapper. This wasn't the type of poem I was expecting to find in a chocolate bar. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but it wasn't really this. I might head back in a few days to buy another Chocolove, just to see if you end up with the same poem.

In case you can't read it in the picture, here's the poem:

The Sleeping Beauty

Sleep on, and dream of Heaven awhile -
Tho' shut so close thy laughing eyes,
Thy rosy lips still wear a smile
And move, and breathe delicious sighs!

Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks
And mantle o'er her neck of snow:
Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
What most I wish - and fear to know!

She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!
Her fair hands folded on her breast:
-And now, how like a saint she sleeps!
A seraph in the realms of rest!

Sleep on secure! Above controul
Thy thoughts belong to Heaven and thee:
And may the secret of thy soul
Remain within its sanctuary!

-Samuel Rogers.

Emigrate

I have been after this album for about two years now. I finally got it for Christmas from my bro! I've been so excited, but I was also worried - what if Emigrate didn't hold up to the hype I had built up for it these last few years?

Luckily, I need not have worried. Emigrate rocks!!!! From the moment the first song, "Emigrate" starts, you know the album is going to be great. You can hear Richard Z. Kruspe-Bernstein's guitar, famous from Rammstein, right off the bat. There's the expected heavier music, but with a different sound (this isn't Rammstein afterall). And then around song 4, "Let Me Break In My Tears," the album changes to somewhat softer music. But it's still amazing all the way through the album.

And then the last song hits you. I have the premium edition, which has two extra songs, "Blood" and "Help Me." And "Help Me" is an absolutely amazing song! The music is different, but spectacular. His singing is a little different, but it totally works with the song! I can't really describe it any better than this, so I'm just going to recommend that everyone checks it out here.

OUTSaga

Once Upon a Time . . . a blog was born! Yes, as I mentioned back on the 5th, I have created a blog dedicated to the stories that we tell from the Once Upon a Time card game. That blog is OUTSaga (Once Upon a Time Saga).

Merry (Early!) Ukrainian Christmas

As per tradition, my family bought stocking stuffers after Christmas. The tradition that we started is that we each spend $20 on the other members of the family, wrap whatever we buy up in unmarked presents, and put them in each others' stockings. We then have a fun night of opening presents where we guess who gave us what. Normally this tradition falls on Ukrainian Christmas Eve, but this year my brother will be out of town so we opened everything earlier this evening.


This tradition is so much fun! It's always such a surprise to see what everyone gets! And this year was especially surprising: I got not one but multiple saws!!!!!


A lot of people probably don't know this about me, but last year, I was extremely sad that my brother would not let me saw the end of our Christmas tree off. This year again, my dad did the sawing and didn't even tell me he was going to bring the Christmas tree into the house! (My bro joked that I was off pouting when he came home and I wasn't around that night). There was also Christmas Eve, when we were watching Home Improvement and a guy carved a tree out of a block of ice, after which I declared that I wanted a chainsaw.


So for Ukrainian Christmas, my brother got me not one but MULTIPLE saws!!!!! On top of that, I also got a hammer and some nails. So if you need anything sawed, (or hammered) you know who to come to!

Once Upon a Time

I wandered into The Bookshelf today and found this random game. It sounded amazing, so I picked it up.

Once Upon a Time is a game that involves telling fairy stories. One player is the storyteller, who starts telling a story. They have cards with different fairy tale elements (such as events or characters), which they get to play when those elements come up in their story. Other players use their cards to steal the story from the storyteller, becoming the new storyteller themself. The winner is the player who gets through all of his or her cards and successfully guides the story to their ending card.

I have played one round of Once Upon a Time so far, and I love it! In fact, we had so much fun playing it that we might make a blog dedicated to the stories we come up with from this game!

Happy 2009!

Seasons greetings everyone, and happy 2009!!!!!

It's hard to believe that 2008 is over! So much has happened over the last year. I've started several blogs that seem to be doing well (The List has about 60 posts on it, and Apocalypse Madness has 13 contributors). I've read many great books (and some not so great ones) and have written a fair bit. I am hoping to continue with everything in 2009 (Spacelord still has a lot more story to go!), and to hopefully drum up some more activity on Apocalypse Madness.