Charming Monsters

The pit next door to my house is no longer a pit!

Well, sort of. They’ve finally begun putting in the concrete for stairs; I have some concerns about how it’s going to look when finished, and how much it’s going to stick out onto the sidewalk, but I get the impression part of the delay has involved clearing things with the city planning folks, so presumably it’s all within regulatory allowances. It does have some pit-like qualities still, as you can see below, but at least it’s progress!

As mentioned elsewhere, my pal Brian recently had a birthday celebration, namely a night of board games and drinking at his place. This is what Brian’s parties tend to look like:

There are four board games going simultaneously in that photo. I think we got up to five at one point in the evening. To be perfectly honest, it’s not really my thing – I’d rather be talking to people or playing in a smaller, more focused group – but everyone else seems to enjoy it, and I’m happy to tag along for the crazy ride.

There was one thing about the night that did not make me happy, however…
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Teaser image for tomorrow’s recipe post. So excited to share this one!

I know everyone is flipping out about The Hunger Games trailer today (and it does look fairly awesome, I’ll be honest), but here’s what I’m more excited about: the trailer for the new Studio Ghibli film, “The Secret World of Arrietty” which hits theatres in North America on February 17, 2012. The screenplay was adapted from Mary Norton’s classic children’s novel, The Borrowers, but even in these short clips, you can see the Ghibli magic and wonder shining through.

Although I’ll want to see it in the original Japanese at some point, the English-language voices seem well-done (at least in the trailer). I’m a bit sad about the mid-winter schedule dump – generally February is a weak month for movie ticket sales, and thus a landing pad for films that studios want to release but don’t have much faith in – but at least it’s getting moderate distribution and a bit of that lovely Disney marketing heft to help it reach a North American audience.

About two months ago, I stumbled across this glorious brownie-cookie-heart-attack combo and shared it with some friends on Twitter. My pal Brian immediately demanded to know when someone was making it for him. And since his birthday was coming up soon, I decided to oblige!

(Sorry the final shots are rather blurry – they were taken in a crowded kitchen at a very crowded party, which made things like composition and lighting, and not getting jostled, rather difficult)

Since I had other baking on tap for the day, I opted to make this in the laziest way possible, namely via box mix. Here’s my ingredients all ready to go:

I wanted to shake things up a little, so I opted for a very Canadian maple cream cookie in place of the Oreo, and swapped in peanut butter instead of the standard chocolate chip cookie base to help balance that out. I also added butterscotch chips to the brownie mix, since I had some kicking around in the pantry.
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