Boy's Nights

This one’s for the boys! A little bit ago, I hosted some of my buddies for a weekend to blow-off some steam. I needed it, a few of them needed it, the rest wanted a chance to catch-up. We usually gather in early summer somewhere to spend time together and then again in the winter. As life continues to grind away at us, these weekend escapes become more critical and our neglect of putting something together showed in the eagerness of boys. Everyone was pretty pumped, only the Beer Guy couldn’t make it or we would have gotten an updated photo for our old BBM group. It was a solid weekend overall but there were two glaring errors. One is that I tried to squeeze a lunch in on the Saturday only a few hours after a great breakfast at my local greasy spoon. The other was cancelling my cable service the week before hosting everyone. The lunch I wanted them to get after was a classic helping of Tugboat’s Gut Fill Gumbo. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s not gumbo at all, just needed the alliteration. Only a couple of the boys could manage to consume it, most wouldn’t even try it. Those that did enjoyed and one asked for the recipe, which I created a video for rather than write it out.

I don’t really measure anything for it anyways, not directly at least. I use full cans so that is a form of measuring, at least according to the Chef. I think you can follow along in a fashion to re-create this Tugboat classic dish. The other mistake, cancelling cable is something that I have lamented about for over a year. I finally pulled the trigger one rainy Saturday morning. I had a plan laid out and had previously enabled the first leg but moving my internet service to unlimited. I killed cable then signed up for Crave and SN NOW. That gave me entertainment and sports. I’m not able to keep up a few shows but for the most part I can watch what I need to. The sports is the critical piece, I need to have sports in the morning and to be able to watch my beloved Leafs and maybe the Jays. Having the services and internet are part of the journey, the other piece of the puzzle is how to see them. Upstairs I have my old Apple TV that I can mirror on for sports and can access Crave on. Downstairs in the theatre I have both apps on my 4th gen Apple TV. Main floor is a work in progress, I’m trying to hook a computer up to the TV with a media keyboard to allow for maximum entertainment. So far there is something missing that is keeping me from that level. The rest is great and it saves me over $500 a year and I’m not missing anything. I actually find myself more productive with less options to sit and vegetate the weekend away. I’m excited to see where that leads. The mistake aspect was that the internet crapped out in the first period of the Leafs game and pissed us all off, me more than the rest. It did allow us time to do our Secret Santa exchange though so no harm, no foul.