Author: Kyle Carpenter

CD REVIEWS: Gorillaz: Plastic Beach

Gorillaz’s highly anticipated third album Plastic Beach definitely sounds like a Gorillaz album, but it lacks the flare of their sophomore release, Demon Days. Plastic Beach feels like a concept album, but it’s difficult to tell what the concept is (but it’s certainly not a pinball wizard).

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Spring Basil Salad

A few weeks ago, I ran a workshop at Nuit Blanche. We talked about a great assortment of food facts, including a demonstration of a brilliant tool: foodpairing.be, which generates incredible (and often unexpected) flavour matches. This can be useful for writing new recipes and coming up with innovative dishes.

The recession’s gaming revolution

As midterms finish up and with finals looming on the horizon, it’s your last chance to procrastinate. Many college students are hooked on video games, but most games aren’t friendly to a student budget. With the recession, however, the market is changing, and there are hundreds of high quality games available free of charge.

Three-ingredient peanut butter cookies

My peanut butter cookie repertoire used to consist of delicious, crispy cookies made from a recipe handed down from my grandmother. But they had nine ingredients in them, and who has that kind of time? These cookies have only three ingredients in them, and while they come with a little less childhood nostalgia, they are unbelievably delicious.

Custom cold-brewed coffee

There are two ways to make cold coffee: normal coffee that’s been cooled, and cold-brewed coffee. The second is far more delicious and satisfying. There is a notable difference between letting hot coffee cool off and cold brewing it specifically. Cold-brewed coffee is less acidic and bitter, and a lot more flavourful-particularly if you’ve been using ice cubes to cool down regular coffee instead.

A tale of two hamburgers

For many people, hamburgers bring to mind bad cafeteria food and mystery meat. But two restaurants are redefining hamburgers, or at least getting back to the good old days. M:brgr, on Drummond and de Maisonneuve – best classified as diner-chic, with gleaming white tables and ketchup squirt bottles – serves up custom, gourmet hamburgers, spiked milkshakes, and other glamorized versions of hamburger joint classics.

It’s not too late to save your grades

Did you spend St. Patrick’s Day mourning your midterm grades over Guinness? It’s not too late to get the grades you want, but finals start in just over three weeks, so it’s time to get serious. Problem: You haven’t gone to class. Solution: Start going. You may feel lost, but the professors usually start to give hints about the final exam around this time.

EDITORIAL: A dollar for the DPS: a worthwhile investment

No matter how you feel about the Daily Publications Society’s editorial politics, a “yes” vote is the sensible choice on their proposed fee increase. Newspaper advertising is in the toilet – the Tribune’s advertising revenue has been cut in half in the last two years – and printing costs are steadily increasing.

Tradition or disaster?

The sudden proliferation of gruesome images of adorable seal pups, the fierce debates between the government and animal rights groups, and the manipulative rhetoric used on both sides are some of the events that can be expected around the time of Canada’s annual commercial seal hunt.

Perfect pitch: Fight Band looks to fine-tune McGill athletic pride

The McGill Fight Band doesn’t march. They don’t do halftime shows, they don’t wear Napoleonic uniforms, and they don’t have a dance team. If you’re looking for high-stepping, capes, or colour guards, you’re out of luck. But if you’re looking for spirit, look no further – the growing Fight Band does what fight bands are supposed to do and does it well.

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