Gentlemen's Expo

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address:  222 Bremner Blvd.
Date: November, 2016
Website: www.gentlemensexpo.com

  The Gentlemen's Expo 2017 is coming to Toronto this November 24th to 25th weekend.  We won some tickets and attended the event in 2016.  It focuses on clothes, grooming, drinking, eating and sports.  Despite being the Gentlemen's Expo it was fun for both genders.

  As we entered the Expo we were treated to the drumming skills of a Sasquatch.

  There were many booths offering grooming.  Many men stopped in for a haircut or a beard trim.

  There was a booth run by Tenfed where you could jump from a tower into an air matress.  Tenfed is a company which sells clothing and for every item sold they feed ten hungry children.  They were running a similar program for every jumper.

  Rick Mercer was filming an episode of his show, The Rick Mercer Report, from the Expo.  He was playing a ball game at a booth selling specially designed underwear for men called MyPakage.  It reminded us of a commercial spoof he did on his show called "Knee in my Package".

  There were a few booths from OLG (The Ontario Gaming & Lottery Corporation) where they were warning about gambling and giving out free scratch cards.  They also had a vending machine where you selected a number in hopes of getting the candy you wanted, but it didn't always give you what you selected.  Just like the lottery.  You could choose A5 in front of a bag of chips and instead a bag of skittles would drop from another row in the machine.

 

  The Hockey Hall of Fame had a section set up featuring hockey memorabilia and trophies.  One of the jerseys on display had a 93 on the back and read Gilmour.

  Former Toronto Maple Leaf hockey players Doug Gilmour and Wendel Clark were on stage for a live interview.  They are best known for their time with the Maple Leafs in the 1990s.  They shared some stories and took questions from the audience.

  This year at the Gentlemen's Expo, former Toronto Blue Jays Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter will be on stage.

  During the 2016 Expo we watched an interview with then current Blue Jay pitcher, Jason Grilli.

  We also saw an interview with Big Wreck singer, Ian Thornley.  Big Wreck is best known for their songs "That Song" and "Blown Wide Open".
  All of the above as well as using drink tickets to sample various alcoholic beverages and repeat visits to the Dr Oetker pizza truck for pizza slices made for a fun night for all.  As we left the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, even a moose statue (top of post) was dressed up in his suit looking like a perfect gentlemoose.

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Map of Our World
Metro Toronto Convention Centre (South Building)

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Post # 198

Mavrovouni Dining

Location: Mavrovouni, Greece
Address: Mavrovouni 232 00
Date: Aug 2015

  There is no shortage of restaurants in Greece.  To get yourself a good meal you can usually just walk into any one you please.  This blog is about some of the restaurants in the area of a small village called Mavrovouni.  It is also not so much about the food, but the dining experiences.

  The beach area is a popular tourist destination.  Everyone wants to enjoy a meal while watching the waves of the Mediteranean Sea.  Hotels and restaurants line the road that runs the length of the beach.

  One place that we chose to eat was Ammos Restaurant.  Its blue chairs and checkered tablecloths sit in the shade of the covered patio.  Aside from good food, it has another feature that is very common in Greece.  Cats.

  As soon as we sat down, we knew that we were being watched.  A scan around revealed that feline eyes were spying on us from behind planters or from the bushes.  They were watching in hopes that some scraps would fall to the floor.  Once in a while they would walk past in hopes that they might entice you to drop something for them to eat.

  A small kitten came up to us and tried to use its cuteness to score some scraps.  While we did admit that it was cute we still did not part with our meals.  The kitten became more and more aggressive and less cute.

  We managed to finish our meals with minimal feline interference.  The small kitten was not pleased.

  The next morning we enjoyed some crepes at STILVI cafe.  It is near the main road away from the beach.  The crepes were delicious and the collection of coloured chairs on their patio were delightful.  It looked just like a postcard.  There were no cats in sight.

  We traveled further down the beach that evening.  The mountains were different shades of blue across the water.

  We walked until we decided upon a restaurant.  We went inside.   Little did we expect that we would  have an unusual dining companion this evening.  We had to do a double take as at the table next to us was a chicken.  It sat there quietly during our meal and only stood up once or twice to look around.  We did not see it eat anything while it was there, but whatever it did eat would have been the chicken dinner.
 Always an interesting dining experience in a small village by the sea.

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Map of Our World
Ammos , STILVI cafe

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Post # 197

Murdoch Mysteries Props

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address: 66 Hymus Road
Date: July 2014
Website: sullivanmovies.com

  In 2014 we attended a two day event called The Murdoch Experience.  The event was designed for fans of the Murdoch Mysteries television show and the first day featured a tour of Sullivan Studios in Scarborough.  The second day was an event at The Old Mill where cast and crew talked about how the show is made. This blog post focuses on the props department.

  When we first arrived at the studios we were passed by an unusual vehicle.  It was being driven by Craig Grant who is the Property Master for the show (photo at top of post).  This vehicle appeared in the Murdoch Mysteries season five episode called "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?".  In the episode, James Pendrick is accused of murder because he could have used his electric car to travel the distance necessary to commit the crime in the limited time.

 

Pendrick's car wins a race against Henry Ford and Ford's gasoline powered engine.  In the early 1900's the electric car actually became quite popular, but as we all know it was the gasoline driven car that ended up dominating for most of the century.  Out on the Sullivan Studios backlot was a car (above) that looks similar in size to what Ford would have driven.  On closer inspection the vehicle above is just a horse cart as it lacks any steering wheel or motor.  Ford's early vehicles were often advertised as horseless carriages.  Good work Murdoch!

 

  As we entered the studios we were greeted by various prop heads and skulls.  Since each episode tends to involve detective Murdoch solving a murder, these had all appeared on the show at one time or another, most likely on Dr. Ogden's table.

  Soon we were outside on the backlot.  The season two episode called "I Murdoch" featured a giant robot.  Constable Higgins and another constable were posing for photos with the robot and entertaining fans of the show.  We also find it interesting that the role of Higgins is played by an actor named Lachlan Murdoch.

  We walked around the backlot and encountered a few other props.  The episode "Blast of Silence" from season seven featured a man stuck on a pole wearing a sign that read "If the bell tolls the man explodes".  The man had been strapped with a bomb that was sensitive to noise vibrations.  Despite Murdoch's efforts, a backfiring car did end up triggering the bomb.

  There was a sign advertising Barnett's Royal Travelling Circus.  The circus was featured in a season seven epsiode called "Blood & Circuses".  In this episode the tiger trainer named Kitty Walker is found dead and the entire circus is brought in for questioning.  Brackenreid befriends a circus monkey named Athena.

 

  The props department is also responsible for everything you see inside Dr. Ogden's morgue set. This includes a wall of brains in jars or bloody tools.

 And tea service of course.

 

  The next day at the Old Mill, Craig Grant explained how they work hard to be accurate to the time period of Murdoch Mysteries.  Toronto in the early 1900's would have had many rats.   On the table he had many prop rats both dissected and not.  There were also a few severed hands just for good measure.

 

  One popular prop was Mycroft the creepy ventriloquist dummy from the very first season of Murdoch Mysteries.  He appeared in the episode "Belly Speaker".  Craig explained how they found a real antique dummy and then used that to design Mycroft.

  It was interesting to hear how the prop department designs the interesting items used on Murdoch Mysteries.  They try to keep things accurate to the period and also have to consider how they will come across on the television screen.  When it comes to Murdoch's gadgets they use modern techniques to create the illusion that his devices actually work using technology of the time.  The props department plays a big role in every episode of the show.  We were also impressed that a big CBC star like Mycroft stuck around after Craig's speech to spend time with his fans.

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Map of Our World
Sullivan Studios Backlot
Old Mill Toronto

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Post # 196