Nullination

Closed

2008-05-04T14:39:00.003-04:00

I've moved my Blog to nullination.wordpress.com as it's just easier.

Links to nullination.com should update automagically soon.

RSS should be directed to feed://nullination.wordpress.com/feed

Sweet Sweet Mac Lovin'

2008-04-17T00:27:00.004-04:00

For my birthday, I received many fantastic presents. Moby and NIN CDs, nice shirts, a very cool BBC documentary and some great cake and family time!

Because I'm spoiled, I also received a new iMac.

.. it's now kitted out with 4gigs of RAM. I've never had a computer this powerful nor

with a screen so large (24"). It's fantastic and even Britgal has started learning the ways of the Mac.

I can live in my Mac world, or if I need access for development reasons to Linux/Windows or QNX I have VMware running. With 4gigs of RAM this computer never touches the hard disk even with VMware :) The most impressive part (at least wow factor) is the 24" display. It's massive and I'm having trouble using all the screen real-estate.

Hopefully with a more reliable computer (our old 900mhz pc was slowly going) I'll have some time to enjoy the computer rather than work on it.

The bonus with this computer is the webcam built in and the photo editing software as we can share more stuff with the grand parents and other family abroad.

Shopping, Sushi, Soup and Supplies

2008-03-06T17:49:00.000-05:00

Bier Garten and Pig Knuckle

2008-03-06T17:48:00.000-05:00

Sights and Sounds of Germany

2008-03-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

Operation München Day 4

2008-02-27T18:31:00.002-05:00

Status: calm and collected

No pictures today as it was a pretty busy and hectic day (and it's late) and I'm tired and I have used too many ands.

Some of my co-workers are looking to either go out for dinner tomorrow night or perhaps on Sunday to a Biergarten. It'll be nice to get outside of the hotel and work for a change and perhaps get to know our co-workers here in Germany.

BTW, the guesses about the last picture in my previous post have been good, but I'll wait to see what else people come up with. So far no one has guessed.

G'night.

Operation München Day 3

2008-02-26T18:25:00.004-05:00

Status: Fumbling towards organization

Some more shots of all things German. Here they don't just have Ethernet; Internet access can also come from a hockey puck. It's high speed, plug and play and quite decorative too! You can see my hotel is the Four Points. It's located in the Olympic park, which was where the 1972 Olympic games where held in Munich. Yes, the same games with the terrorists, yes the same place as depicted in the movie 'Munich'.

Next is a man's ketchup packet! Not those wussy Canadian ones - this one is as long as a pen and filled with ketchupy goodness. You get two of these for your fries; Wimps need not apply as this is more ketchup than should be legally allowed.

You'll never guess what the last picture is :)

Operation München Day 2

2008-02-25T16:48:00.005-05:00

Status: First day confused

As usual, the first day when visiting customers, or sister companies for particular projects things are confused and ill prepared. Most of the day was spent figuring out what to do with the time we have together (which you'd expect would be half done at least prior to leaving) and what we all wanted to get out of the deal.

I'm still tired, but had a decent dinner of beef medallions and beer. Sorry no pictures of that, but I do have photos of my hotel room.

Operation München Day 1

2008-02-24T15:15:00.006-05:00

Status: shattered

Just landed back in my native country of Germany (laugh) and as I step off and feel the German air conditioning hit me thoughts of all previous trips wash back into my skull. While I was out trying to find an open restaurant (things are closed on Sundays - even the hotel restaurant) I took a quick photo off a traffic bridge as well as my dinner. Nothing to really say except I'm really tired.. g'Nacht.

Life as a Dad

2008-01-21T23:17:00.001-05:00

It's been a little over a couple weeks in my new role as dad. I came into this with a few preconceived notions of what being a parent would be like. Not that they where completely off the mark, but rather just devoid of the feeling or experience which completes the picture now.

I've read a lot of articles and books on what to expect, how to deal with parenthood and what is normal during this transition from couple to family. I'm sure every dad strives to avoid changing too much but things DO change and change is hard. Saturdays will no longer be 'sleep in' and hang out doing nothing but drinking coffee and relaxing. That said, I don't miss it as I can now hang out with my little girl. Even now as I type this entry, my sweetie is sleeping on my chest and everything just feels right with the world.

While I'm still very new to this, one common thing I did read about was the idea that doing house work or cooking would take a long backseat. Our house isn't as tidy as we would like, but we still eat good meals at home. The lessons we learned during Britgal's pregnancy helped us develop cooking habits as we couldn't just go out for dinner. Now we'll see how long this lasts as energy continues to be sapped but we're both hopeful :) .

I'm a dad now offically!

2008-01-07T22:37:00.000-05:00

Jan 02/08@20:25 will forever be imprinted into my memory as the date my little daughter came into this world to greet Britgal and myself. The whole experience has been amazing and humbling and we cannot wait to get to know our baby.

While I could talk forever about my little one (and it's only been days since her birth) I'll spare you all. Unfortunately, it must be a disease amongst parents to constantly talk poop/pee as I find myself already doing it - just a fair warning :)

Jack Frost

2007-12-16T22:25:00.000-05:00

Who ordered the double serving of snow with a side order of blowing snow topped with freezing rain sauce??

I'm really starting to loath winter. That said the AWD in our car is spectacular! I was in 4 wheel lock (50/50) going around Kanata today (I had to pickup some necessaries that could not wait) and never had a problem with getting stuck or control. Visibility sucked a times, but I just went slow and things where always fine. I don't think I'd go out willingly, but at least I didn't have a horrible experience.

That said, a lot of nutty people with Geo Metros and the like where braving the roads only to end up stuck. Lots of people got trapped in the snow coming up the hill towards our house; only to be later trapped into a snow bank by a snow plow going by. A rule of thumb is if the snow is higher than the clearance for your car, you're going to get stuck (this goes for everyone). Basic physics say your wheels are useless if your car is jacked up on a ramp of snow with no wheels touching the ground.

I hope it all melts tomorrow.

End of an era

2007-12-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

The Britgal and I have finally said our last goodbyes to our Ford Focus. I can't say we're teary eyed, or even a little sorry. While it wasn't the worst car in the world, we had more than our share of problems (it was the first year of the Focus so a lot of recalls occurred) and with our little one on the way, it wasn't going to serve our needs for space, gear + car seat nor safety in Ottawa winter.

With that, I introduce our new family transport vehicle; the 2008 Mitsubishi Outlander.
These aren't actual pictures of ours, but are close enough and the colour is pretty close (ours is 'rally red metallic'). The car is far and away more vehicle than we would have imagined owning, and still fits in our budget. The warranty can't be beat (5yr full/10yr power train) and it also is our first 'import' vehicle (made in Japan) so I hope the quality lives up to the name. This car is also the basis for the Citroen C-Crosser and the Peugot 4007. They are almost the same car but each with their own styling and interior choices.

After a lot of test driving (Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Rogue, Mazda5) and spreadsheeting, comparing, and fretting we finally decided on the Mitsu as it offered the best combination of features, safety, cost and a standard all-wheel drive (winter). The biggest tell tale feature is the boot. We needed something that could transport humans, kid, and gear without overloading (ie. use of seats). Our new car has this in spades with a special drop door tail gate and massive cargo area. In a pinch, if we need a lot of space we can fold down and flip the rear seats down for even more space (ie. Ikea).

It seems we got the vehicle not a moment too soon as the snow and poor weather is upon us already. AWD, traction control, ABS and lots more make the drive a lot less stressful. We've very happy with our new purchase, and I'm confident we'll have a much better experience than with our Focus.

Funny Cat Video

2007-10-20T23:50:00.000-04:00

Aero pointed me to this video - It was so funny as it was sooo true. Does everyones cat do that?

Taking a step back.

2007-10-14T11:38:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I find myself so engrossed or focused on the issues at hand that I loose sight of the 'big picture'. Nothing particularly special about my situation, everyone does it and everyone (or a large portion of people) also realise that taking a step back to re-evaluate things is also necessary. With all the errands, running around, getting from A to B, working and the 1000's of other little things that we find to fill our days we loose the forest for the trees.

What am I ranting about? Nothing really, at least nothing all that special. Just that I'm reminded of how fortunate I am (and have been). I'm amazed at what I have purely on the chance that I live in the country that I do. I'm humbled by what I'm afforded through my ability to work where I do. Of course, I'm dumb founded that it all comes together regularly and I have the privilege to share it with the important people in my life.

The funny thing, it's the smallest, strangest thing that makes me sit back and appreciate what I have. For instance, this morning I sat at my computer, drinking my coffee and I opened my patio door for some fresh air. That was it. I realized, I live in a house with a patio, and I can open said patio door without fear that some sociopath is going to shoot up my yard. I can sit and sip my coffee in peace and quiet and reflect on things. I live in a country where I do not need to worry about basic health or welfare, nor if some other country is going to bomb us back to the stone age. Things could change (they always can), but for now, things are good; they could always be better, but I try not to loose sight that things are, in fact, good.

No preaching intended here, just pure reflection.

Big score

2007-09-22T17:11:00.000-04:00

Today the wife and I went to our usual haunt of Homesense. Our mission was to acquire a few more fry pans which we can abuse (ie. dishwasher) without concern as we're cooking a lot more often these days (breakfast/lunch/dinner) and Britgal hates using my cookware as it cannot go into the dishwasher.

So we found two new pans (one small one large) which look nice enough and should work fine. We also found a food mill! I've been looking all over the place for a good quality food mill (not those nasty baby ones made of plastic or motorized ones). But of all the kitchen stores I've been too, those that have one (and they are rare) are asking 100$ for it... crazy!

So for 39.99 I got an OXO Good Grips food mill and I'm quite impressed with it's build quality (most of the OXO goodgrip stuff is top notch IMHO). It's going to be used to make our baby food (I've got some super books from Britgal's mum from the UK) as well as make some awesome tomato sauce, or fruit sauces. I'll likely give it a whirl with some of the seasonal tomatoes in the stores this weekend and either make a soup or a sauce... not sure. In either case, an incredible find! They also have a HUGE collection of real LeCreuset dutch ovens/pots. While they are 100$ a pop, they are very nice and I had to restrain myself as I have 3 cooking vessels of similar nature (not LeCreuset, but french made). Britgal reminded me that I do not need more heavy cookware :)

Tomorrow is going to be some card playing with they usual suspects, and I'm looking forward to it as it will be good clean fun (well... fun anyways). I hope I do well.. the sheer number of people going is making me wonder what my odds are going to be like.

Taste sensation

2007-09-17T20:48:00.000-04:00

Well it's been quite a while since my last update and the Britgal and I have been busy preparing for the new arrival. This preparation generally entails spending cash on some of the strangest things (ie. wet wipe warmer). Having been through the whole wedding thing, I though it was a lot of 'cash grab' - they haven't got a thing on this baby market! The whole play on first timers is especially heinous as they drill down on your insecurities. If you don't keep things in check, you're walking out of the stores with more than you could possibly afford. In any case, things are going well and we're starting to get prepared for the big day.

Back to the reason for the post - I recently made a desert which I though was incredible. So simple, and I was highly dubious as it combines things my brain says would be 'yuck'. It's grilled plums with a balsamic glaze (side of vanilla ice cream or cool whip).

Four ripe plums, peeled and pitted in halves.
Drizzle some olive oil on the plums and grill in a high heat pan (oil stops the sticking)
Make balsamic sauce. 1/2 cup of balsamic (reduced to half), 1 tbsp of sugar/sweetener, 1 tbsp lemon juice, tspn of vanilla extract
Drizzle sauce over the plums, and serve with a scope of ice cream or coolwhip

The taste is awesome (and it's not bad for you either) as it's not the same old, same old desert.

Weekend

2007-08-19T22:40:00.000-04:00

Like many weekends, this weekend was an enjoyable one.

Note the last weekend was a birthday celebration for my mom, in which we had BBQ at my sisters (yum), some homemade cake (yum yum), pressies and some glow-in-the-dark mini golf which was super fun. I was doing well on the front nine, but lost my nerve near the end (or perhaps it was my retinas!).

This weekend, the basics all occurred - sleep in 'till 9ish, snuggled with the Britgal, watched some bad British television and had some late lunch. After some quick shopping for popcorn (don't ask - pregnant ladies are just weird), we acquired some snacks at the ever popular Kernels store in Bayshore shopping plaza.

While at the mall, I remarked on something that while trivial seems almost a little profound for me. I hate the mall now. I used to like the mall a lot, then it was mostly fine - very convenient for shopping and browsing. Now I think I sorta loath the mall. It's not the crowds, as most stores are busy on the weekend (mall store or not). I think it's the environment; the idea that 1000s of stores in one location is a fantastic idea. An idea that brings with it the meta-idea that the mall can be a place of socialisation and even a hobby. A final selection of all things 'you will need' in one spot - one that I cannot abide.

Maybe it's because I like to look for things, I enjoy browsing and checking things out. I enjoy markets, and larger stores where I can get lost and spend my time as I wish. I can stroll and look at the wares in a relaxed manner, or I can zip in and out without much fuss. I find myself in a paradox of shopping. I enjoy the mom/pop shops that bring interesting things to the forefront, and large stores (RCSS, Chapters/Indigo, Farmboy, and even FS/BB to a lesser extent) for the selection and price.

The mall it seems is getting extinct - at least for me.

Later that evening we had dinner with Dinsdale and Lady M at a restaurant I had never been to - Milestones. It was busy and without a reservation we had a 20min wait for a table. Time flew by since the company was great, and dinner was passable. I had the ribs but I think I make better ones in shorter order; too bad since the place has a nice atmosphere and I felt a little under-dressed in a golf shirt with shorts.

On the Sabbath day, we spend the day cleaning - and cleaning :) . It was needed, since a few weeks of neglect have left us dusty and in need of a vacuum. I even tried out my stoves self clean feature. Most stoves have this option, and most people just chuckle about the idea of self-clean. Many I've spoken to have told me that self-clean means it helps but you're still scrubbing for a while.

I was brilliantly surprised when my oven, after 3 hours of incredible heat, turned all the messy spills, splats and runs into grey and black ash. I had to wipe my oven clean with a paper towel; no gloves or cleaner needed. I was very happy :) I even remembered to remove the racks first so they didn't loose their shine and become difficult to slide (since they aren't as smooth after). So my oven looks pretty spanking new and it's a good feeling (for a short while :) ).

Still thinking about it, I'm not sure if I scrubbed my kitchen so thoroughly because I wanted to do it for a while, or I was getting frustrations out (from work etc) and needed to feel like something was getting down right (hehehe).

Oh yeah...

2007-08-15T20:48:00.000-04:00

Check out the new NIN album coming out.

The eagle has landed... in the nest.

2007-08-07T19:41:00.001-04:00

Britgal and I (well mostly me) have been on the look out for cribs and the other baby requirements. So Kijiji and Craigslist have been popular haunts for me (and Britgal for approval). Today we scored a very nice crib and change table (pictured), which is fairly modern, in good nick (the change table looked unused!), and a reasonable price ($275 for both) considering a new crib alone starts around 200$. Ikea cribs are nice, but don't have a side that lowers and that is almost a deal breaker for Britgal as she's short (it's fine for me). Plus to get the change table that matches and also in good repair and sturdy was quite a find!

We also scored a vibrating chair with music and an aquarium for 30$ (usually around 90$+). This lady kept her stuff in awesome condition, so Britgal couldn't leave it at just the crib. I had to drag her out before things got out of hand :)

I'm a Dad!

2007-07-16T10:45:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be a dad, and I'm super excited (read: terrified) and can't wait for the little one to come. You can sorta make out the head (right) and small hand. It was super cool to see the little one moving around and getting comfortable like in a laz-y-boy chair. Let the count down begin!

Orange you tired?

2007-06-03T20:32:00.000-04:00

This past week and weekend I've been re-doing our 'powder room' (fancy name for 1/2 bathroom). My wife had painted it already once, but the colour just wasn't working for us and the flow into the house just wasn't there. Now I'm not one to take the safe route, I do enjoy the flair (as much as any straight man can) and I look for bold colours to define the room. All the creams, and whites, and eggshells etc are just too neutral for me. In our living room we took a small risk on a deep greenish brown which works really well with the white trim, so this time I took a bigger risk - orange!

Not only did we do the colour orange, but in
finish. First step was to paint over the blue walls my wife had previously painted (and failed to remove the fixtures off the wall - stead of just paint we decided on trying our hand at a venetian plaster faux finish (see sample on the right for an idea).

While I'm not an expert in plaster, I can say that after doing this work, there was nothing fake about the effort involved in applying this finish. To start, I painted the bathroom with normal latex paint with the colour set to a very vibrant orange. At first it seemed almost too bright but it did darken a tad after it dried. That took about one night (after work).

Next I had to trowel on two layers of this tinted acrylic plaster (real plaster is made with stone). Each of these coats was taking about 4+ hours to apply to a very small room (3'x7'). I did one coat per night and of course it was hot and muggy (and we don't have AC yet). This stuff was messy and unforgiving too, and my inexperience in troweling plaster onto walls was slowing me down. After the two layers of plaster, I re-inspected for missed areas and re-plastered again.

On Saturday I sanded the whole bathroom down to burnish the plaster and give it the distinctive look it is supposed to have. I then re-plastered some more holes found while sanding, re-sanded again and took a break. After a cold drink of water, I had to wipe down all the walls to remove the plaster dust and cleanup whatever the dust had stuck to (everything, including me).

After the normal cleanup, scraping and removal of drips, I then had to install a framed mirror we bought to match our new bathroom decor. I had a fear that this mirror would be a total pain but with a level and measure tape I knocked it into place without much fuss. After picking up all the plastic, paint tins, tape, towels , trowels, plaster bits and vacuuming things looked pretty good.

The final steps to complete today (Sunday) were to install a new bronze centre set faucet. Now I've installed a faucet before, so this was going to be a cake walk for me. Just remove the old faucet, install some shutoff valves to make life easier in the future, crimp down the valves, connect the supply lines, tighten down the hatches and you're done.

Then it occurred to me that the pop up plug in the sink was silver and would not match our new faucet - crap! So I was all set to go to the HomeDepot and ask for options, but I opened the faucet box first to take some rough measurements for the supply line and what do you know! It came with a new pop up plug assembly matching our new faucet. I was very happy for about 1 minute, until I realized I've never installed anything like a new drain and nothing even close to a pop up assembly + drain. So I whip out my trusty home repair book, consult it for drain replacement and write down the things I needed (putty, large wrench) and off I went to the HD.

I spoke to one of the older guys in the plumbing aisle and he clarified what I already feared. Due to the way the drain was installed (I brought photos!) I had to cut the PVC pipe, re-cement a new adapter as the original tail piece was so deep into the PVC pipe I couldn't just remove it (without removing the pedestal sink at least).

So I got some nice wrenches for plumbing work (20$), a hack saw, putty, PVC adapter, PVC coupler and PVC cement. My wife held the sink up while (just in case) as I hacked sawed the original drain pipe off. It came off without too much issue, and I was off to the races. I did a dry fit of the entire assembly, double checked everything fit as required. I then cemented the PVC adapter, connected the drain assembly, applied the plumbers putty to the the flange in the sink, tightened everything down and was done. I finalized everything by installing the faucet and finally tested with water in the sink for about 10 minutes and then drained the water - All Good!

All told, it took me about 1.5 hrs - mostly due to the learning curve of the drain installation.

Here are some before photos:

Here are some after photos (see my hand - heh! ):

Here are some shots of the faucet and drain, one expensive toilet paper holder (but the wife really loved it) and the floating shelf which really pops nicely with the back drop of the plaster.

Britgal really likes how the bathroom turned out (I think she was iffy on the orange+plaster at first) and is already on the hunt for a bog brush and roll holder to match (*sigh*). As one of my first semi-major projects, it turned out pretty well and I think was worth the effort. Sitting in the bathroom, it actually feels bigger now and has a lot more style to it.

I'm going to go relax now :)

The magic eraser

2007-05-26T22:22:00.000-04:00

So we've all seen those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers (Superstore has NoName versions too). They are awesome at cleaning and removing scratches in walls, stains off tables and all sorts of things. It's basically a super fine sand block so don't use it on shiny things (it'll take the shine off). One use I never though of was for my ceramic stove top. I love my oven, but the top collects grease and stains from cooked off water etc. You can scrub and get most of it off, but there is always that small amount of stuff that seems to live just beneath the surface. So I was reading a home/garden forum (yeah yeah, I'm a domestic) and it recommended using those magic erasers. And it did an awesome job - it took the whole thing to a brand new shine.

I think I'm going to play some PlayStation now :)

Feeding the beast

2007-04-29T22:43:00.000-04:00

I've recently discovered the joy that is Google reader (google.com/reader). Now I can check my RSS feeds/blogs/news all from a central spot. The best part is that you can bookmark their special link into your tool bar to easily add sites. The best part is that you can use your LiveBookmarks in Firefox to read, reader just like any other RSS feed. It's like a super aggregator - it's awesome.

I've been listening to NIN Year Zero (as RJA) and it's growing on me. It's not my favourite album, but it's different. I think I like it more than With_Teeth. With_Teeth was very commercial and accessible and understandable as Trent was still trying to find his feet after a long hiatus. This album was an interesting experiment. I had hoped the album was to be more story telling given all the marketing done. It's a hail back to the old TDS days where he was using textures in his music, but a little more 4/4 time and less odd beats.

Ah yes, well done team TO and the climb!

Well I think that's it for the random thought of the day. Well perhaps one more!

Getting my just deserts.... mmmm cake.

2007-04-16T00:37:00.000-04:00

So I had my birthday over this last weekend, and it was quite a great time! Friday started off with a great lunch at the local Indian with Dutch, Nail, Serdic, RJA and myself all eating some good food. This was followed up with a gift delivered by RJA - Mini Eggs! These things are like crack and it's shameful (and very nice) to be given a box of these candies.

Britgal gave me my pressies on Sat prior to leaving for the family visit. I got some cool t-shirts, golf shirt and some knick knacks. Then she really surprised me with the DVD set for Stargate season 9! Oh man... Then she broadsided me with another gift - a Playstation 3! Wow! I was rather speechless as it was very generous and of course geeky. I do enjoy my games and this piece of kit is quite nice too! Crazy!

Right after that, we then drove to k-town to visit the family, where we had a nice dinner of lasagna with homemade chocolate cake (fudge like icing which was soooo good!). I received a nice shirt, vase for plants and some bulbs to plant into my garden (mud pit at the moment) which will likely find a place to live in my planter box or a nice pot. My sister and her husband generously gave me a gift cert to the FS, so I'll be looking for either a international iPod charger or something else cool.

Next, we had a later dinner with Outraged (Aero to some) and his wife K at Moxies. We followed it up with a couple frames at the local bowl-o-rama for some midnight bowling. The first game I was doing well but the following game, I was definitely sucking quite badly. In any case, it was good fun for all involved to get silly and enjoy ourselves in black light! After bowling we retired around 12:30am and woke up around 9am to have some breakfast at our usual watering hole. My friends piled on the goodness and gave me a nice gift of a chocolate Homer (from the Simpsons), my favourite Japanese soft chew candy and a gift cert to HomeSense. I do enjoy the kitchen stuff, so I'm going to have a lot of looking around fun in shops! Very cool! Here are some shots of my buds, K, A and Britgal all having a bowl of a time :).

And of course, the gals 'forced' the boys to go shopping the next day. They were silly enough to leave us unattended (at-a-boy Aero!) and we found stuff to do. That sure doesn't look like Oscar Mayer!

An excellent way to ring in year 31! Thank you all!!!

Four all to see

2007-04-13T09:35:00.000-04:00

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. Software Developer
2. Technical Support (x2)
3. Hotel Night Auditor
4. Grocery clerk

B) Four places I have lived:

1. Ottawa, On
2. Kingston, On
3. Cornwall, On
4. Thunderbay, On

C) Four TV shows I like to watch:

1. Stargate
2. Firefly
3. Battlestar Galactica
4. Two and a half men

D) Four places I have been on vacation

1. UK (England, Scotland)
2. Italy
3. Japan
4. Thailand

E) Four of my favorite foods:

1. Thai
2. Indian
3. German :)
4. Wife's cooking

F) Four places I would like to be right now:

1. Home
2. Japan
3. India
4. Germany (oh wish granted) - drinking beer rather

Touch down!

2007-04-01T09:05:00.000-04:00

I've made it to my hotel once again. I'm quite tired. I did not get my upgrade coupons honoured, so it was economy for me this time. Long flight too - apparently there was low wind, so we lost about 1/2hr or so.

Breakfast on the plane was interesting - I've never had an egg log before. It came with a side of I don't want to know, and a sauce of cheese like something. Truely strange.

I'm going to catch some zzzz's and perhaps wake for some dinner.

Going back

2007-03-31T16:37:00.000-04:00

So I'm going back to Germany again for a few more days of 'workshop' for our customer. This trip has got to be one of the harder ones for me (and britgal). I've only been back a short while and now I'm flying out again.

At least I'm coming back Thursday, so it's a short trip but I'll miss my wife a lot.

I'll also be missing game night again too.

*sigh*

2007-03-25T00:38:00.000-04:00

From Wikipedia:

On December 20, 2006, Disc 1 of a so-called "prototype" edition of the DVD set appeared
on the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay, including the aforementioned bonus content and a
still image gallery. The torrent also contains the artwork from the promotional poster that
was rendered for the DVD, containing more detail than the original VHS cover. On December
23, 2006, Disc 2 appeared, including behind-the-scenes footage of the "Closer" video with
commentary by Mark Romanek. Both of these discs were submitted to The Pirate Bay (along
with The Broken Movie DVD "leak") by a user known only as seed0.

Fans speculate that Reznor may have been the source of this leak, based on a post on his official blog: "12/21/06 : Happy Holidays! This one is a guilt-free download. (shhhh - I didn't say that out loud). If you know what I'm talking about, cool."

---

So I got these Closure DVD images and the Broken movie. The Closure DVD is nice but the quality of the video is not all that and a bag of chips. It's mostly because it was filmed in the late 90's in less than stellar conditions. I've already got this on VHS (official) so I know what the subject matter is mostly. The DVD comes with a few extras (making of) along with a nicer fidelity. Along with this was the Broken movie - something that as NIN fan I've known about for a while. Many bootlegs of this movie are floating around, but to have this 'semi-official' version on DVD is something of a treat for fans. I've never watched it, but I did today. It was disturbing, and to be honest I wasn't ready for this kind of disturbance - it's like a snuf film (The FBI had to investigate to ensure it wasn't) and highly violent. I almost wanted to vomit - it was that harsh. I can see why they never could get the Broken movie published - no one would touch it.

On a different note, I went to a house warming party for Darklight. It was great to meet some truly interesting people (and apparently they read blogs) and see a comfy home. Can't say the music was my favourite (the singing at least :) ), but good times, good food, good people = great party.

Nails in my head

2007-03-14T22:42:00.000-04:00

So Halo 22 is now in my hands and I must say it does kick some ass! I actually managed to goto one of the concerts from this tour (courtesy of my best man Aero) and while the DVD cannot replicate the sense of in your face, viseral beatings it does a good job presenting a nice concert feel.

I wish I could enjoy either the HD-DVD or the Blueray version, but alas I refuse to get a player for $500+ while the format war is on going.

... of spice and men

2007-03-12T19:12:00.000-04:00

Rules for chili:

1. always taste during cooking
2. chili will always be at least x2 as hot when served when compared to single taste tests
3. intensity of both spice and heat rises as simmering continues
4. a chili without some spice or heat is just meat with gravy
5. chili is always served twice (at least) :)

Stupid people

2007-03-07T18:52:00.000-05:00

Dear Xxxxx,

Damn fucking right I'm being overly sensitive about asshole like email messages making unreasonable demands. Working 14hr+ days 2 weeks straight + Sat and getting fucked by a German freight train on it's way to hell tends to do that to you.

Regards,
Null.

I have arrived

2007-02-25T08:59:00.001-05:00

I have made it safely to the fatherland - I'm very tired.

Auf Wiedersehen Pet

2007-02-22T23:33:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the inaugural game night with the usual round of suspects (minus OP). Cards where played, pizza eaten, good times had. In the MtG round, my deck creation proved irritating to many (perfect!), T ended up winning that round. With our Vampire game, Nail proved his metal duking it out with Serdic for a super close finish. I tried experimenting with some politics in the game, and it worked out. I didn't win but I had a plan, and I executed it - which has taught me to do more meddling :)

This weekend, I'm heading off to the fatherland for another beating against the pinata. I expect more blogging activity so that I can read some interesting stuff when I get back from work.

Tortilla Soup

2007-02-14T20:04:00.001-05:00

Tortilla Soup

16 ounce can tomatoes
1 medium onion, cut up
2 clove garlic
4 tablespoons snipped cilantro
1/2 teaspoon sugar
8 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 lbs chicken breast cut up
2 or 3 *chipotle peppers

shredded Monterey jack cheese
Tortilla chips
Sour cream

In blender combine undrained tomatoes, onion, garlic, cilantro, and sugar. Cover and blend till nearly smooth. Put mixture into a large pot with chicken broth, chicken and chipotle peppers. Bring to boiling; cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Put crunched tortilla chips in a bowl with cheese, and sour cream (omit if desired) . Ladle soup over; serve immediately. Makes 8 or 10 servings.

Note: if people are wondering what is a chipolte pepper. It is a smoked jalapeño. Do not think the soup will taste good without it. It is the reason why my soup recipe is so good.

Hot n' Spicy Valentines

2007-02-14T19:54:00.000-05:00

For my valentine, I made dinner and to keep things in the proper theme, tonight was Mexican. To start we had some tortilla soup, and then the main course was enchiladas (from the weight watches cook book).

Overall, I enjoyed both while Britgal was more fond of the soup - the enchilada filling was made of ground chicken, chick pea and black bean. The chick pea and black beans are not her favourite, but she did eat it and it wasn't as bad as she originally thought it might be. Next time, I think I'll puree the chick peas and perhaps use corn or some other veggie. I did tweak the recipe a little adding some jalapenos as well as making an enchilada sauce to soak the tortillas and wrap with. It's basically just some onions and spices (chili etc) but did give a much more complete flavour. The picture in the WW cookbook showed the enchiladas as plain, and the stark white tortilla shell just didn't look all that great IMHO.

We'll cap off the evening with a movie - The Departed. The rest is not blog worthy :)

I miss you too buddy

2007-02-13T15:39:00.000-05:00

So I got a disturbing picture sent to me - damn you guys have too much time on your hands. I suppose it's pay back for sending a txt message to RJA earlier (ie. tag, you're it)?

SG.1

2007-02-12T15:48:00.000-05:00

So I've started to watch SG.1 to see if I would enjoy it. TV has been pretty craptastic (I'm still not sure how we justify the cost to Rogers... but hey) and the SG series has like 10 seasons, so lots of viewing to go.

So far, the first DVD disc of season 1 has got my attention, though I hope things improve a little.

Review of episodes:

As intros go, it's ok - wait was that a MacGyver reference??
This one was ok - those worms are nasty looking. Things are looking good.
Wow, this one was quite bad. I sure hope this isn't what I have to look forward to.
Aren't any races more advanced that humans?? Jezus. What is with the non-military investigation slant? I guess the writers just realized that the story scope would be too narrow if all missions where 100% military by nature.
Eh... a tad overdone and cheesy on the 'ethics' side of travel
This one was cool, though the end was a little fast to wrap up
Concept was cool, but a lot of new story elements introduced w/o background (ie. the first one). I hope they take it somewhere :)
Interesting, though again the end was a tad quick.
Pretty good - I wondered if they'd try a UN like alien thing
Pretty ok
Kinda fishy.
Had some serious possibilities - a little of a let down in the end.
Another god, very cool
This one was inevitable.
Interesting...
Frustrating - someone shoot that advanced butt head in the brain pan
Very cool
Eh... boring.
Kinda over done foreshadowing, but not bad
Ack! a flash back episode... why or why do shows do this...
Ok, the big battle... and it's 'to be continued'... damn you! Damn you all to hell!

Magic Time

2007-02-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

I got my boosters ready to go... looking forward to some socialization :)

Cause I can

2007-02-07T10:39:00.000-05:00

Just to prove Serdic wrong, here we go...

The Love Survey
1. Do you believe in love at first sight?
I believe in attraction - love takes work, commitment and faith. Hard to have that without any history. Love grows day after day, it's not a binary thing.

2. Courtney Love or Jennifer Love Hewitt?
Eh, neither.

3. If you were a candy heart, what would your saying read?
Eat me. (credit: Lewis Carroll)

4. If you loved someone so much, would you get their name tattooed on your body?
One doesn't have much to do with the other IMHO.

5. Do you think love hurts or stinks?
Both. When it stinks a lot, it can hurt. When it hurts a lot, that really stinks.

6. Who would you take a bullet for?
My wife, my family, my friends. Everyone else can take their own damn bullet.

7. Do you know what love is?
Yes. It's the little things. (note: 'the big things' are also included)

8. Have you ever had your heart broken?
Yep - harsh. In the end, it's worth it (re: would you take a bullet for...)

9. Cinnamon hearts or a heart box of chocolate?
Chocolate.

10. Have you ever used a dating service?
No.

11. What are you most attracted to in the opposite sex?
Three B's. Brains, boobs, brilliant smile (Check, check and check).

12. What turns off the attraction for you?
Constant and incessant bitchiness. Oh, and a kick to the nads does it too.

13. Question deleted.
Hmmm... I wonder what it was.
EDIT: 13. Does Joanie love Chiachi?
EDIT: Both exist only as TV characters, therefore their love was not real.

14. Ever play Spin the Bottle or 5 minutes in the closet?
No, not really. Does anyone actually play those games?

15. From Russia with Love, or The Spy who Loved Me?
FRWL - no one could do chauvinism like Connery.

16. How could someone prove their love to you?
The response from 'can you get me a beer?' is a good yard stick :)

17. Is their anybody who loves you, but is too afraid to tell you?
Not that I'm aware of.

18. What is your favourite dessert?
Apple crumble and peach cobbler.

19. Food rubs or back rubs?
Is that supposed to be foot rubs? In any case - yes please.

20. What is your favourite love song?
Tough. 'Sin' by Nine Inch Nails is always a classic. 'Something I can never have' is another.

21. Tag 5 people to answer this.
Nah, but perhaps we'll see a few others pick it up (RJA, Britgal etc)

Sweet crack

2007-02-03T19:29:00.000-05:00

I have been known to enjoy a few pieces of dried mango on occasion. I've recently tried a new form of mango intake - juice. This stuff is pretty good, and convinient makes a great morning pickme up (and it's good for ya too)!.

It's at Costco in cases of 24 (in those old fashions steel cans) - give it a try.

Man, this is going to be a hard habit to break.

Update on home life and DIY

2007-01-31T21:43:00.000-05:00

So, I'm sorta back to normal. Still have sniffles and the usual less than stellar feeling you have after coming off a cold. It's been a whirlwind last week, and we've had some friends come up (outraged and wife) to help paint (we had some much deserved beer during and after). Britgal's mum came over the next week to help out too (no beer - sorry)!

So far we have our basement painted as well as the living room (twig brown I think). Along with some continuous unpacking with the wife, I've been tasked with some interesting activities around the homestead. To start, just few light fixtures jobs around here and there. Then the assembly of my arsenal of cooking weapons.

Things went fairly smoothly with the easy stuff, so I was tasked with the next level of chore. The installation of the dish washer!

Side note: I've never had to install any real major appliance (refrigerators and stoves are hardly difficult - just plug in). Now, I did actually setup our washer and dryer so I did get a introduction to appliance installation. The dryer exhaust connection wasn't hard and the washer was just time consuming. Most of the time spent was because my washer is a front loader so I had to level it quite precisely (which was what took most of the time).

So back to the dishwasher - we bought it last Thursday from Sears and were told that it would arrive this Wednesday. Well we got a call on Tuesday, our dishwasher came early! So Britgal and I rushed over to borrow the van from inlaws and pickup our dishwasher. You can see the boxed dishwasher there on the right; it was quite heavy!

First step, unpack the dishwasher. The directions on the box say to cut along the bottom and remote the carton. So I do so and it wasn't so hard - Sheza!

So now that the dishwasher is unpacked, I can behold it's glory and power! So far so good - I don't see what's so hard about this. It still has that new dishwasher smell - mmmm. Now all I have to do is put this washer into this space, no biggie. I measure twice - both the space and the washer. Things look spectacular, not too big and not too small. The washer fits on all sides with about maybe 1/4 inch on all sides. I had already purchased a inlet flex line to connect the dishwasher to my water supply over the weekend. So all I had to do was connect the electrical (already there), the inlet line to the dishwasher and finally the drain hose from the washer to my drain line (which was already plumbed in for me). Easy right?

Step one, connect my inlet line to my water supply. Hmmm, I recognize the shutoff valve, and I know that the tubes are PEX plumbing but what is that on the end? The guy at Rona just said it's a cap, but it sure isn't poping off... grrr. So I direct my attention to the drain hose, cut the holes and start trying to route all the cables. Wouldn't you know that the drain hose is like a foot too short! Damn! So after a couple hours of messing around, I called it a night and figured I had to go to the Homedepot for some more tools and parts since the compression fitting on the inlet hose didn't fit the PEX and the drain stub on the drain pipe for connecting didn't have a hole, so I was puzzled. Obviously I need to make a hole, but did that mean there was a punchout I had to open, or did I have to cut it open?

So today I went to the Homedepot and picked up some info - I was, in fact, missing some parts. I needed a compression fitting to PEX connector, some crimping rings, and some metal rings to tighten around the drain hose. I picked up some plumbing tape to wrap around the L fitting so I could attach my hose to the washer (and make a seal) also. To crimp the rings on the PEX tubing, you need a special tool, which is like $200 bucks!! So I rented the crimper for $8 (for 4hrs) and went home ready to get this washer installed (on the left).

I cut off the end cap and rings, put my own rings on, and stuck the compression fitting in and re-crimped the tube. Yes, success is mine!

I continued attaching my drain tube, cut off the top of the drain connector and clamped it down with some metal clamps. Then I connected the three main services to the dishwasher itself. Electrical, water and then drain.

So with the electrics, water and drain all connected and ready to go, I push the dishwasher in, and run it through a cycle to test all the connections. It all goes fine and I level, and screw the washer into place to finalize the install. Here is the final product - whew! Overall, it wasn't too bad, but without the right tools, life is really hard! Once the tools where acquired it went fairly quickly and smoothly. The maiden wash is this evening with our dinner dishes, I'm sure it will go well. I'm not sure what's next, but I'm sure I'll figure it out :) The best part about installing the washer, is that I know what to look for when problems occur (at least basic problems like leaks etc). Can I get a Noriega?!!

Ah crap, i'm sick.

2007-01-28T16:25:00.000-05:00

Well I woke Friday with a wicked sore throat, then Sat I was 'ok', but today I am all congested and sick. Britgal and I have been painting our living room with help from her mum - it turned out pretty good. Now we have to unpack the rest of our stuff! Like packing, it's the last 30% that takes the longest.

Once we've gotten some of it handled, I'll snap some pictures to post up.

we're in.

2007-01-22T23:26:00.000-05:00

So the move when fairly uneventful - so far nothing was broken, and the movers where great guys taking care about moving stuff around our house.

Britgal's friend popped over and brought use some greek food for lunch which made the day much more tolerable. It was a long long day!

We've started to unpack and organise things - it's slow going.

The cats definitely did not enjoy the trip, and it's taken a few days to get used to things. They're not 100% yet but they're definitely more in tune with the house now.

Count down

2007-01-18T11:26:00.000-05:00

So today is house closing day - I'll be incommunicado for at least a few days (internet/voip etc all down). Those that need to reach me can do so via mobile phone. Ciao!

Long time

2007-01-14T22:18:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I've blogged with any real 'true grit' content. Most or all of my entries trend towards the sugar coating, and shallow interests. Now, in truth this is fine as it serves a purpose and I suppose resembles the soap opera side of blogging. You keep up with the goings on of a multitude of characters and their current roles always looking to the next chapter. The yearning to perhaps glean some insight into the meaning of the characters life by assembling the series of events strung by the weaver of this yarn into some coherent interpretation. In truth, this blog is really no more than what it is - the disconnected musings of an introvert.

Sometimes I'm not happy with who I am - strike that, sometimes I'm wish I could just be like others. I don't seem to feed of hanging out as many do. I enjoy simple activities (especially cerebral ones) but I fear I lack the ability to just sit and gab. It seems at odds that I can in fact journal my own thoughts onto the medium du' jour. Well dear reader, while you might infer that this activity is a social one, the connection between you and I is rather tenuous. It's not unlike an novelists, and is mostly one way rather than interactive. Sure there is the option to comment on my entries. Heck, I might even read the feedback (when I notice there is any) but rest assured this is more of a cathartic exercise and much less of a social one.

Over time, I've become accustom to reading other peoples blogs, and even caught myself attempting to decode the sometimes cryptic messages they write. On the face, each entry is mostly straight forward but I also have a personal connection with many of the journals I frequent. This connection allows me to actually interpret the contents into more than just simple plot continuations.

Reading the journals then interacting with the subjects offers a reinforcement of sorts and solidifies the blog. I fear without it, I would become disinterested in many of the blogs today. This isn't a comment about the content - not at all. In fact, my own content read in this light would be utterly banal and painful to ingest. I'm commenting more about my own habits and that I would not be able to commit time and interest to reading a series of disconnected journal entries with no end in sight.

Lately, I've been rather distracted and I'm looking forward to taking some time off and refocusing.

The man stick

2007-01-11T23:16:00.000-05:00

So I recently got a new remote (again). I'm on the hunt for the remote which meets the wife's needs of simple, comprehensive and still comfortable to hold (ie. not a brick). As a guy, I'm perfectly fine with an assortment of remotes on my coffee table, that's why I have a table. The wife is not, and wishes simplicity - I crave flexability.

I thought I'd slayed the beast with the Sony remote I purchases a few years ago. It's got a few buttons, not complicated and has a touch screen which is customizable. It's more a table remote, so it's not all that easy to hold in your hand but it's ok. The pic on the left is what the remote looks like. The size is about to packs of cards next to each other.

So while cruising my favourite deal site redflagdeals for interesting coupons, I found that Dell was having a sale on Logitech Harmony remotes. I've heard lots of positive things from people at work and they seem to get good press and reviews from lots of people on the 'net. So I scored on for about $120 which is cheap considering these puppies got for $200+. I got the 880 model which has a colour screen, more hard buttons (which the wife likes as the touch screen wasn't what she liked for common operations), and is rechargeable. Programming the Logitech 880 is pretty easy; just hit the website, enter all the model numbers for all your equipment and it finds the codes, downloads them and puts them onto your remote. The thing that makes this remote slick is that you don't work with 'devices', you work with 'activities'. So the remote shows 'watch PVR' or 'Watch DVD'. You choose what you wish to do, and it figures out what to turn on, off and change inputs etc to set it up. Then the remote provides control of all the needed functions. So if you're watching a movie, volume is controling your amplifier, play/pause hits the dvd player etc. So far it's working well, and the wife is warming to it :) Yeah!

Stuff to know

2007-01-10T00:36:00.000-05:00

Found an interesting tidbit on the HK DVD47

Turn the player on and make sure that there is "no disc"
Press "OSD/Setup" on your remote
Press "3141590" - the '0' is region 0 (region free) (you could change to 1 or whatever)

Your player is now region free.
Sweet.

On a slightly different note, the wife and I are packing our stuff up into boxes for our upcoming move to the big city. I truely cannot believe the amount of stuff we've managed to cram into our little 2 bedroom apartment - it should be on Ripley's.

Tomorrow I have some dental work to get done (fillings) so I'm going to be at home for a little, then frozen, then back at home to pack some more.

Sometimes I wish I could just 'wish' something done - packing blows chunks.

Our suspect is in the Wings....

2007-01-02T23:24:00.000-05:00

I made some wings for our impromtu card tomorrow evening. In case they taste good, or anyone is curious as to how to make your own wings (way better than anything bought) here is the recipe I use (it serves 4):

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp. black pepper
20 chicken wing segments
1/2 cup butter OR margarine (butter is better)
1/2 cup hot sauce (see below)

In a shallow dish, combine flour, salt, paprika, garlic powder, and peppers.
Coat chicken entirely in the flour mixture; refrigerate coated wings for 1 hour; coat chicken again with remaining flour mixture.
In a 2-quart saucepan, heat butter and hot sauce just until butter melts; turn heat to low and keep warm on stove top.
Deep-fry chicken, 8 - 10 pieces at a time, in 375 degree oil (vegetable oil, canola oil, or peanut oil) for 13 minutes, turning once or twice.
Drain chicken on a wire cooling rack for 30 seconds, then immediately toss fried chicken in buffalo sauce mixture and remove with a slotted spoon.
Repeat with remaining chicken.

Adjusting the spiciness of the sauce: As is, the recipe produces a medium sauce. To change the amount of spiciness, simply adjust the butter-to-hot sauce-ratio:
Mild: Use 3/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup hot sauce.
Hot: Use 1/4 cup butter and 3/4 cup hot sauce.

Notes: I use regular Frank's Hot Sauce. I'm sure another hot sauce like Tabasco® would work fine, but Frank's has a great flavor, not just heat. Here are some interesting ideas for change ups you could do to alter the recipe (of course you're welcome to do what you wish):

Add a little flour if you'd like thicker sauce
Dry and dip the chicken in butter milk first before coating in flour for a super crust
Try using an egg wash instead to get thicker crispy coating and avoid the 1hr wait in the fridge and double flouring.
Use chicken strips (baked) instead for a little less fat
A spoon of horseradish and dijon mustard to the sauce for a little kick

EDIT: re-heating makes them mushy, so avoid doing this if at all posible.

Happy Holidays

2006-12-24T22:39:00.000-05:00

Just a quick shout out to all, Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I know I'll be enjoying the time off.

Appologies to Nail etc for not showing up Friday, I was at work until the bitter end.

He's dead Jim.

2006-12-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

I attempted to revive my ibook last night. I removed the wireless card, and the RAM DIMM just to ensure that neither loose connection, nor bad parts are to blame. The ibook came to life (sorta), but then eventually crashed again, and as I left it on it got worse. I have a feeling that it's heat related (if it was HD related, I'd assume I'd have problems no matter what and that I could boot off my recovery CDROM, which I cannot). That means it's a mainboard problem, and I'm not sure I can stomach repairing it (since it's old, the screen already has a big scratch in it and I've replaced the keyboard already, and the battery is of course loosing it's ability to hold charges).

*sigh*, I've moved my itunes music to the PC, re-formatted my ipod for Windows and I'm living in a trailer park of a PC for the time being. Thank god I had the foresight to put all my music on an external drive for exactly this reason :) Now the rest of my data, I'm fairly sure once I've decided on what I'm going to do, extracting the HD won't be an issue.

Damn it Jim, I'm a Mac guy, not a PeeCee user!

Damn

2006-12-19T09:11:00.000-05:00

Apparently my iBook choose to freeze (something it does very very rarely) and not boot up (never happened before). No sad mac, nothing but grayish LCD lighting. I'm going to check the seating of my RAM/wifi card to ensure things are still kosher, but I have a bad feeling that I've lost my laptop :( . Grrrrr

Tarts

2006-12-14T16:08:00.000-05:00

Apparently I was a good boy and Santa (err Serdic) brought me some butter tarts. Only a few remain, and I'm holding onto them for coffee tomorrow. I must say, they are mighty tasty and the raisins are a great add (I could even do with more)!

I went to see my house as part of an initial trim inspection. This is purely to see that all the upgrades we purchased are in fact installed and/or installing. Things look good, and it's all coming together fairly well. We have a lot of painting ahead of us (everything is white so it looks very sparse).

I've started using Google calendar to see how it fits into my 'way of doing things'. A few nice things is that I can setup the calendar to send me an SMS to my phone (with details) on events/meetings. Since getting SMSs are free (sending is not), it's a nice add. Now I don't have to use my phone as input, nor sync it somehow to a computer. I have a dumb terminal in my pocket and the Gcal sends out my notifications. I've even tried to share with others, to see how that works out. Should be interesting.

Quickie Stroh

2006-12-08T15:23:00.001-05:00

Check this guy out - remember they're using Stroh 60, not 80 which I have.

Duck, Duck.... Goose!

2006-12-08T14:54:00.000-05:00

My stay here has been rather short - or at least it feels like it. A lot of work was done on both sides of the pond, and I think we've done well. I wish I had more time to enjoy Germany rather than work in it - the people are nice, the weather is very close to our own climate and there is Glühwein to keep yourself nice and cozy.

You can see that strange customs are here, such as providing a rubber duckie for your baths - wierdos!

I'm taking a few things back with me for the family - they are hurting bad for supplies apparently and my last trip I was told not to bogard the schaschlik, so I got them their very own bottle. I got a bottle of Glühwein for a parental unit and I received a bottle of wine from a collegue here in Germany from his region. I cannot wait to try it when I get back. I also picked up a bottle of rum, which I will use for all sorts of cool things. This stuff is called Stroh rum, and if you think you've had strong stuff, you ain't seen nutin'.

This stuff is serious. Really serious. 80% alcohol serious! Now you might ask, why I need to bring back something like that, but I had it with my Glühwein, some sugar cube in a spoon and then you light it on fire! It was awesome, and tasted fantastic! You know I'm making fire wine when I get back - and for some cooking, I'll be setting all sorts of other things on fire! That's it on the left, Stroh-Rum 80 - it even makes the Germans laugh (just kidding).

The funny thing is even awful promo items are affixed to their booze just like in Canada. Here I am modeling the latest in Stroh-wear. Can you believe they put this on the bottle for free? It's incredible - you get warm from the booze and keep your head nice and toasty in style!

One last thing I may have ommited from mentioning. While providing a rubber duckie, the hotel does NOT provide mints on your pillow. They do provide gummie sheep - sleepy sheep to be exact. They also provide a business card to go with the sheep, but hey, it's a strange new world out there.

I will say I'll be glad to get home and spend some quality time back in Canada. My 1st anniversary with my wife is coming this Sunday, and I am looking throughly to spending some QT time there.

Hopefully, I'll also get some chances to play some cards and socialize with english speaking folk. Not that practicing my German wasn't fun (if you can call what I speak German) but I think I miss cooking. All this hotel/restaurant/cafe food is making me bored. And for the record, I make a WAY better frikadella than I got here. The Wüsrt is mighty good here but the quality of the dinners is simply random. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes I truely saucy!

Anyhow, my flight is in Stuttgart at 07:20, so I have to be there for around 05:20, which means I have to leave here for at least 04:30. Damn it's going to be a hard morning for me - no coffee either since nothing is open... It's all worth it... it's all worth it...

I'll post more as I get a chance (or when I land in Canada).

More pics of the day

2006-12-06T19:14:00.000-05:00

A room with a view
Ah, my trusty automobile.

An Opel Zafira (1.8l 16v). Nothing to look at but not bad doing 170km/hr.

SchwipSchwap - is there anything it cannot do?

Scrapbooking

2006-12-04T17:17:00.000-05:00

I saw this book in the UK, I might grab it for Xmas pressies, but it's 25 pound in the airport. Here are some random pictures I grabbed around my area.

Quickie

2006-12-03T17:02:00.000-05:00

I might just start putting up some photos of things I see while I'm here. Totally w/o context perhaps too!

Whew.. I'm back on the ground!

2006-12-03T16:41:00.000-05:00

So I started my trip back to the fatherland on Saturday around5pm. I got to the airport a little later than I had hoped, but I diddled around too much, and had too much to drink the evening prior. The lineup for the counter was huge! And my flight was at 19:05! Luckily, I can check in before lots of others via the kiosk and my freq. flyer card, but I still have to stand in line to drop of my bag. You'd think they'd have an auto system for that too, but noooooo.

So I make it with about 1hr to spare, and I wander down to security. Now I always get hassled, so I just remove my shoes, belt, watch, rings, change and everything else metal. I'm also required to remove my coat, and the laptop from the bag itself. The security agent does his usual swab, but this time I hit positive for 'something'. Now they won't tell me what, but they insist on doing a full pat down (ass and groin), I must power on all electronic devices, and submit to a full baggage check. On top of that, they take down my name etc for later in case they need to reach me. *sigh*.

While waiting for my flight, I looked at my boarding pass and noticed it's an 'A' row seat. Now I've flown a few times, and 'A' usually means window. I like windows, but I also like space, and on an 6+ hr flight, I want space - sucks I'm in the window. So far, I'm not a happy camper. I decide a little PSP action to pass the time, and what da ya know - the battery is dead! Grrr.

So they call all business class, Elite and Super Elite customers to board first (yeah, I'm elite fyi). Of course, in usual dumb cow people style, everyone lines up. Fuck..

So I find my seat - SCORE I got the bulk head with lots of extra room! Still a window, but much much nicer! We take off, and the guy next to me leaves to steal another unocccupied bulk head seat so he can sit by himself, SCORE! Oh it was a sweet sweet ride I'll tell you!

Then it was over, and I was at London Heathrow 1hr early! So I'm there at 6am local time and I have to wait until 1400... sigh... So I go grab some breakfast (to the right). Mmmmm coffee and club sandwitch, it's soooo ... airport.

I wandered for a while in the shops, but alas I couldn't hold myself interested anywhere. So I sat in the same spot in a daze until boarding time.

Interestingly, the gate I'm boarding at is in a different part of Heathrow I haven't seen. I recongnize it from the movie 'Bend it like Beckham'. Now the airport people frown on taking pictures in the airport, so I snapped this on the way so it sucks.

Anyways, I'm at the hotel eating some dinner and trying to hold out until a normal bed time so I'm not totally screwed tomorrow.

G'night everyone!

Going back

2006-11-29T19:20:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I updated my blog. To be honest I've been rather distracted with work and work related things. The pressure is constant, and the demand for fixing things is getting higher. Take today for instance, problem reported at 845am, diagnosed and a trial experiment to prove the issue out done prior to a noon conference call to update our status on this issue. The fix is made, code reviewed and checked in by 3pm. The build gets churned out and a patch released all in one day.

Now some might think that is no big deal, but to be honest it's quite a difficult thing. Given that I'm not even close to familiar with this code which makes knowing where to look challenging. Getting people on side to approve a change isn't always straightforward and then testing is always a treat. I'm not complaining, work is work and it comes in heavy sometimes and limits what I can do explicitly (I am working late) or indirectly where I may or may not have to work late or some other work obligation which means I cannot make definitive plans. That sucks, since it's totally unfair to others (wife and friends) and means I miss out on some decompression time.

That said, I think it's starting to take a toll, as I'm home very little and things are starting to heat up with respect to our house. I'm hoping to get some rest during xmas break, come back for another two weeks of work, then I'm going to be off for a month to get charged up and do some different kind of work. So I'm off to Germany again for another week, and hopefully that will be it for the year (and I might get some more downtime while there, but not likely).

Home

2006-11-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Just a note for those in a pool on my return, I was in Canada at 16:45 local time. I'm bagged.

Greetings from Ulm

2006-11-12T15:22:00.000-05:00

Today was my day off, so I got a chance to actually sleep. I woke up around 9am and longed around until 11. I took a shower, and then quickly logged on to see what was in the area. I took a walk hoping to see the munster (church) and find some lunch. The munster was quite nice - it was huge and really gothic! I took a few pictures outside and around the town - the weather was brisk and sunny.

I went into the church, as walked around. It was HUGE, but I didn't take any pictures as I didn't see anyone doing it, and I wasn't sure if it was allowed. I may go back, and try again if I get a chance during the week. When I walked out of the church, I couldn't believe it - the sky has closed over, the sun disappeared, and the heavens started to downpour incredibly. Combined with the cold, it was quite miserable!

I walked around in the rain, and found a Donher Kabap shop. It was great and garlicky and of course I had another Schwip Schwap to go with it. The rain continued, and I beelined it to the hotel. Sigh, I wish I could have walked around a little more but the cold was a little much. Of course I got back to the hotel and it stopped raining - geezuz.

I took a nap and here I am. Going back to work tomorrow for another long week. I will be happy to go home.

My new favourite drink :)

2006-11-11T12:38:00.000-05:00

Yep - that's right... You can read about it here but it's just a mix of orange pop and pepsi. It's nice and refreshing and not as heavy as a full Pepsi (or Coke).

Things are going ok here in Ulm, Germany. Met some nice people, haven't really done anything stupid (like get so drunk I can't find my hotel). Just figured I'd post to let others know I'm alive.

Auf Wiedersehen

Status: Ulm, Germany

2006-11-05T13:31:00.000-05:00

Whew, I made it. That was a seriously long wait at the airport, followed by a rather painful exit (you have to clear security twice now!). Apparently I had cheese and Branston pickle sandwiches (yuck!) for lunch on the flight to Stuttgart.

The drive was rather easy going, the navigation unit made a big difference! I don't know if I would have found the hotel in the dark - crazy little side streets everywhere. I did enjoy the first half of the drive though. Blasting on the autobahn at about 150-160 in my Ford . I had an option of either a Fiat Punto or the Ford, I took the Ford as I've driven the Punto - it sucks.

Not that the Ford is a power house either and with the hills on the second part of the trip, I could barely get the little sucker to go faster than 100km. Mind you these were some pretty steep hills, for long periods of time, but it's just embarrassing that you can't keep the speed up. Even doing 150km, I still got passed like I was standing still on the autobahn. Some Volvo blew by me so fast, it made the car move slightly. He must have been doing 200+ at least... that is scary!

Well, I think I'll forage for food now - see what's what.

Status: Heathrow Airport

2006-11-05T03:58:00.000-05:00

So I have arrived in one piece. The flight wasn't too bad - of course everyone in my area had a baby, but I'm always prepared. Headphones are always a safe bet for any trip, and on this flight a great friend. Usually I have normal headphones, but this time I came equipped with my Shure E3c headphones which are canal/inner ear headphones. The beauty of these is that I get lots of noise reduction (ie. I can barely hear the 'woooshh' sound of the airplane) and no batteries!

The flight itself went by pretty fast - well anything compared to 20hrs in the air goes by fast!

It's about 9am local time (GMT), and I have my next flight at 2pm, so I've got some time to kill. If it's one thing the Brit's know, it's how to queue. Wow... A queue to get off the plane, one to get to the escalator to the terminal, one to get onto the transfer bus to get to the terminal, on to get up the stairs to security, one to go through security (this one was a MONSTER), and another to finally check in to get a boarding pass. I'm sure I'll squeeze in another queue somewhere (likely a a minimum to get onto the plane).

Security - wow. I though the US was bad - these guys are horrible. You cannot take more than one carry-one. Period. You got a laptop, that's it. You got a purse, that's it. If you need a purse and a carry on, you must be able to contain your purse inside your other bag, or give it up. Next up - no liquids period. No water, toothpaste, gels, sprays, deodorant, mascara, foundation, creams, soups, curries, or otherwise (I'm not making that up). You will be asked to surrender it all. Apparently this all changes on November the 6th, of course. Not by much mind you - a little liquid (100ml max) that can fit in a 20cm x 20cm plastic bag. You're still restricted to 1 bag (which I think I good, but not to the point you can't have a laptop + carry on) and very little liquid.

I'm not sure if I should sleep or stay up. I never sleep on a plane, but i still have to fly and then drive another 2 hours. Perhaps a quite kip.

I likely won't be back online until I reach my hotel, which should be about 6pm or so (German time, 12noon EST).

Good times.

Status: Ottawa Airport

2006-11-04T17:57:00.000-05:00

I'm here at the Ottawa airport waiting for my plan to the UK (where I jump over and take another flight to Stuttgart). My flight should be in about an hour, but once I arrive in the UK (around 7am local time GMT), I'll have to wait until 2pm for my next flight - Arrgggh. On the bright side, there was a monster line up to check into AirCanada, but I choose to try out the automated checkin machine. I had my doubts, but I inserted my AeroPlan card, and it found my reservation! It scanned my passport, printed my boarding pass and I was done - YES! I even got to pick my seat from a seat plan of the plan!! So there I was all happy, then suddenly I though, "What about my checked luggage?". And then I saw it, they had a sign which said 'baggage drop off' and the long line was there! Crap. I stood in line, looked about and some had already pre-printed their boarding pass, but alas there are still others which insist on checking in through this line. The upside, the check in takes like 2 mins to drop off your bag, which I'm thankful the majority of people had done. That said, it's always the largest family with the most bags and the hearing aid which insist on slowing down the line. At least it only took 15 mins - it could have been WAY worse if I had to stand in the check in line with the rest of the rank and file.

Since I did quite a lot of traveling last year, I have AeroPlan Elite status (doesn't mean much), but I did notice they stuck a bright florescent orange 'Priority' sticker on my checked luggage. I believe that means my bag comes out first! Sweet!

Hopefully in the UK, I'll have Internet access there (perhaps I'll take a nap somewhere quiet - ha!) and I'll update my flight info on the blog. No promises though.

I've brought britgal's camera with me, and if I remember to take some photos, I'll see if I can upload some of them to my blog.

See ya on the other side!

Auf Wiedersehen

2006-11-03T23:23:00.000-05:00

I should be off to Germany tomorrow - I should be reachable via email, gtalk, MSN, Skype etc. My mobile will not be the same number, so I will not get phone calls from it. I've placed a German time clock on my blog for easy reference (GMT+1) for anyone looking for me.

This time around, I picked up a phrase book by lonely planet. They make some really good travelling books and Britgal and I enjoyed their Japanese and Thai phrase books. Quickly leafing through, this book is up to the usual standard.

Armed with my new phrase book, map and my laptop, I hope to engage a few more Germans in german rather than hoping they speak english. I will be staying in Ulm, Germany - there should be some interesting things to see I hope! It should make up for the long hours I'm certainly going to face . My friend in Germany, whom I met while in Karlsruhe, won't be in town as he's currently in Japan. Hopefully, I will learn and make some decent contact (and drink lots of beer).

I hope to make some blog entries while in Germany - just not sure what I can/cannot say on my blog... guess we'll see. I wonder if I can conference in via Skype or Gtalk for Monday magic?

The beginning of the End.

2006-11-02T20:17:00.000-05:00

Well, the end has come today. Today marks the end of sandal season, and the start of socks and boots. It has been a quiet custom that I wear sandals until the first snow fall (and I always hope that the first snow fall isn't a massive blizzard). So as the first snow flake hit the ground, the end of sandal season came to a close.

I'll be leaving this weekend to goto Germany for a week stint for work. I'm hoping the snow holds off long enough so that I can fly safely and without much delay (and return). While I'm in the fatherland, I'll be picking up some more frikadelle seasoning mix (and perhaps gyros mix too). Outside of that, I'm sure I'll be working long hours, so I may just take a few days off in lieu - after all I'm loosing this weekend, and the next one (fly out Sat/Sun, fly back on a monday).

As long as I don't meet up with my Korean buddy, I think I should be safe. I will be looking for a t-mobile or Vodaphone shop once I arrive as, yet again, the GSM loaner phone situation is abysmal. I don't understand - we ship people over regularly yet we only have 2 German phones. Whatever.

I notice I haven't really updated lately, and truth be told, I haven't much interesting news. I still read everyone else blog regularly and enjoy the quasi behind the scenes view of other peoples lives. One new thing i did was make chocolate biscotti, which turned out ok. Serdic and Nail seemed to enjoy it, at least I didn't see them spit it out ;) .

Currently I'm preparing for my trip. The essentials, such as iPod with a monstrous store of music and I've been thinking about installing a computer game or so for the long nights of jet lag but I'm not sure. I will be taking my PSP so perhaps I should pickup a strategy game. I've found my voltage/plug adapter, so I only have to decide how I want to organise my carry on strategy. Laptop bag, or laptop backpack? Do I take my attache case? I doubt I should - air port security might think I have a bomb.

At least I don't have to enter the US - security is just silly there.

The ith man cometh

2006-10-30T22:49:00.000-05:00

Tonight was magic night and Optimus' friend T-man brought over quite a dinner for all (though I had to take care of my woman for dinner) so i didn't part-take, but it looked fantastic!

Serdic was the usual challenge and defeated me in a close match. Nail kicked my butt and of course my maze of ith was the popular card of the evening. Many groans came out and I was told on a few occasions that I should rebuild my deck. Beware!!! I will be coming back with a serious theme deck!

Chili Nation

2006-10-29T21:17:00.000-05:00

Youch! I made dinner this evening, and it was chili. Of course, I couldn't let it stand as 'just chili'. I had to made really good chili and of course the obligatory side - corn bread. Britgal doesn't enjoy kidney beans, so I had to find a recipe which wouldn't use our friendly bean. The answer is Texas Chili - all meat, no beans.

So off I went to farm boy to get some chilies and some tomatoes, then the Superstore to fetch some extra groceries such as cornmeal and buttermilk. It took about 2 hours to make dinner (including the 45 mins of simmer for the chili) but it was sooooo good, and quite hot! It wasn't 5 alarm hot, but at least a 3-4 alarm - enough to make you drink lots of liquid and sour cream.

Great weekend - the weather was crap, but it was fun and enjoyable.

Tired of Tires

2006-10-26T20:11:00.000-04:00

Looks like I need tires for my car...doing a quick search the size for my vehicle is P195/60R15. Here is my reference page.

These are the top rated all season tires... I'm still not sure if we should get winter tires or not. Yes they are better in the snow, but not so hot in the wet/dry roads after plowing... plus having ot pay extra for new rims, and then each year having to get them flipped.

Coupon!

2006-10-25T22:56:00.000-04:00

I found a great coupon for 2 for 1 Kernels Popcorn! Here is the coupon itself in case you want to see it - great way to support the fight against breast cancer!

Britgal and I put the car into the shop to get a variety of things fixed which have been annoying us. It hurt - $2500 on repairs to get the door locks working, brakes, signal arm, oil, and an maintenance inspection for winter. It appears we need new tires - god, what a money pit! On the other hand, the power locks are nice to have again.... sad to see a button which doesn't work ;) PS. Thanks to Serdic for the lift from the garage!

Had dinner with an old friend of mine this evening. It was good to see her since I don't recall the last time we met (long ago). Some interesting news which I will share later on, but not now.

Manic Magic Monday

2006-10-23T23:50:00.000-04:00

So tonight was the start of the regularly scheduled Magic Monday. Nail, Serdic, Opto, Opto's friend (no nick name yet) and myself sat down for an nice enjoyable game of cards. The splinter deck was the thorn in every players ass (err.. splinter in every player thumb?) as we watched our demise slowly build. Kutos to Optimus for building a successful 4+ colour deck!

Nail of course had the usual assortment of kick ass, bitch slapping, steam roller cards, while Serdic and Optimus' friend where quite, yet dangerous. My deck wasn't up to snuff, and I got eliminated early either because I was too threatening, or because Nail was upset I kept taking his cool toys away :) . I think I will tweak my deck a little more and hopefully I'll have a good mix of black and blue.

Serdic made spaghetti, which was the usual standard of excellence we've come to expect from Casa 'del Serdic.

All told, likely the best end to a Monday one could ask for.

Quick sand

2006-10-23T23:47:00.000-04:00

Did you ever feel like no matter what you did, said or expressed, things only got worse from that point on? Futility is rather a common theme lately, and I've started to take a 'ok, whatever' attitude to many things. I don't like it, but fighting the current has become too tiresome, and I'm literally just putting my head down and waiting out the time until I take my time off.

Hopefully then I'll be refreshed.

Tales from the bog

2006-10-17T23:04:00.000-04:00

Have you ever just wondered
Why others do what they do?
Sat and pondered they wheres,
The whys, the whats and the who's?

It's an interesting thing,
To imagine an others thoughts.
Mustering all of the mind,
While sitting on the pot.

Take this moment for instance.
The mind spinning in its shell.
Of dear readers envisioning,
An author pondering for a spell.

Though no one is around,
This author isn't alone.
Technology allows one to
Pollute others from the throne.

-Null

Cat scratch fever

2006-10-11T21:43:00.000-04:00

I think I outsmarted my cat! For the last few months, my cat Kobie has chosen that 6am shall be my time to get up and pay attention to him. Sometimes it is for food, others I swear he just enjoys torturing me. I do like my cat to sleep on the bed since he likes to cuddle sometimes, but at 6am, I'm not a happy camper. So I've gotten used to him, and I can ignore his cries for attention without much fuss. So he got wise. There are doors on a corner cabinet unit in our room, and he manages to put his paw under the door and pulls it just enough to let it go and the hinges retract, causing a loud wack. He knows he can do this over and over, and since the shelf is mostly empty, the noise is of course more irritating with the vibrations. Try water spray, kicking him out, scolding etc - nothing worked.

Well now I'm getting even. I went to Rona, and got a magnetic door latch and installed that puppy. I thought I was a genius since it will hold them shut, but will still open freely (as opposed to taping those suckers closed - or nailing them). I am concerned at the strength of the magnetic force; I'm hoping he tries, fails and then leaves it alone for ever.

Here's hoping.

Also, while there I did see that they had a rebate for programmable thermostats (well through a ministry program). $15 dollars off any thermostat - so I grabbed the Rona branded $34 dollar job (which does mostly everything except a touch screen) and got it for $20 bucks! Minto wanted $120 to 'upgrade' the thermostat to a crappier programmable one - pffft.

Out of curiosity, I checked out the conservations website to see if I could find other rebates and wow - lots! Light bulb coupons etc - all valid instantly at the cashier! Time to stock up!

Hey Frenchie

2006-10-09T11:06:00.001-04:00

Successful completion of Thanks Giving was done and I had the opportunity to bring my friend the Shivley one. Fun was had, much food was eaten (Thanks Mom!) and we all felt two sizes too big afterwards. Along with the succulent turkey, the sweet potatoes, the squash, the mashed potatoes, the brussel sprouts, the peas and the stuffing, I brought some french onion soup. It isn't quite the usual Thanksgiving fayre, but it was well received (though a tad sweet IMHO). I also made some french stick croutons, which is a fancy word for day old bread, dried out in the oven (with some garlic). For time reasons (and because I don't think the bowls could have been put into the oven safely), I broiled the croutons with the Gruyere cheese separately, and just placed them onto the soup. All in all, still pretty tasty, but not 100% authentic. Britgal gave the thumbs up approval on the soup, so I think I'll be making it again - just have to wait for the smell of 2kg of onions to dissipate from my kitchen.

Hope everyone had a great Thanks Giving!

Congrats to the Greek on his marriage on this rather festive weekend as well!

Trial by fire

2006-10-03T20:37:00.000-04:00

Tonight I made one of Britgals fav dishes, sweet n' sour pork. So I got to you my wok again in two different ways, and the new rice cooker! So, with regards to the wok, I got to deep fry some pork tenderloin, and I will say it performed very well! The cast iron keeps things nice and even, as well as holds the heat well. The holding means I don't over load the pot by putting 5 pieces of pork in. In many other pots, too much meat lowers the temperature too fast and instead of frying you end up with oilly soggy mess. The wok is fairly non-stick already and the more I cook with it, the more non-stick patina gets created.

Along with this meat, I prepared the rice (jasmine) in the new PC rice cooked I scored the day before. Overall, I like the machine. It isn't a beefy as my original one (good thing, since I don't make 20 cups of rice) and this one is a sealed/lock lid which means less mess and more steam. The glass lid version I have over boils sometimes and makes a mess! The time on this machine says 50 mins, which seems quite a bit longer than I'm used to making rice but then again I always start the rice prior to prep/cook and it's done when I'm done. The machine makes measurements easy - if you stick 2 scoops of rice in, you fill the water until the 2 scopes line on the pot. Close the lid, hit the cook button and that is it (well fluff the rice after it's done and let it steam/warm for a little longer). It's very important to rinse the rice as all the starch on the outside will make a sticky mush if you fail to rinse properly.

Now, I did run out of rice, so I made slightly less than 2 scoops so I had a little too much water, but it turned out fantastic anyways. Must be that fuzzy logic technology in the cooker :) .

On the guitar front, I'm still deciding to either get a practice amp which I plug in headphones, or just a straight effect box. The advantage to the amp of course, is that I can rock out loud, but the options are few on these things and they are still small. Here is an example of one I'm thinking of. Now with an effects box, I can get more flexibility in sound, still plug in headphones, but rocking out loud would require connecting to an outside amp (and it never sounds right). The big plus, is that some of these boxes I can connect to my Mac and use GarageBand to record, track, play and all sorts of other things I could not with a straight amp. I think I am leaning towards the effects box, since headphones are important if I have to practice something repetitive, but the ability to crank the amp and shred some rocking riffs out still appeals (much to the annoyance of BritGal).

Null Out.

Stringing along...

2006-10-02T21:20:00.000-04:00

Here is my new guitar! I scored it on the weekend and for a pretty good deal. I'm on the lookout for either an amp or perhaps an amp modeling device so I can plug in headphones (Britgal doesn't want a big honking amp).

I've been strumming along with this and I've really grown to like this axe quite a bit. It's got a modern and retro look to it - apparently it is based on a Ovation Ultra-GP (not a direct clone, but a re-interpretation) which was apparently not popular at the time but has gained a resurgence. The guitar is made by a Canadian company called EastWood which have all sorts of tribute guitar models which get great reviews as affordable guitars which play well, sound great and are built well. I can say that it sounds good, feels good and is affordable. Time will tell if it lasts, but these have been made for the last few years, and no real complaints. I'm also on the lookout for a good case for this beast.

I was a tad bit of an ass to ditch out on a wedding that Britgal wanted me to attend with her (I went with Nail, Serdic and others to ForanObjects place to dig dirt). So in a sad attempt to make amends, I also scored a PVR for which she as always wished we could have. It takes a while to get used to the idea that once you get a backlog of shows going, you can fast forward commercials etc. Pretty cool and I think I'm somewhat forgiven for being an ass.

Finally on the 'being a good little consumer' side of things, RJA, the Shivmiester and I went to the Superstore to take a look around. Overall, this store is massive (too bad that parking lot isn't as massive) with lots of everything (even TV's). I had seen a flyer with an ad for the PC rice cooker which had 'fuzzy logic'. How could I resist a gadget, for cooking, that had a geek slant! I didn't get a chance to use it this evening, but I think I'll get a chance soon. It's pretty sweet looking.. I hope it cooks well. It's fairly cheap at 39$

Thanks for all the well wishes concerning my illness on Sat - it was strange and unpleasant, but after much sleep I did feel better the next day.

Null out.

Going Postal

2006-09-29T19:48:00.000-04:00

Today I received my cast iron wok! I ordered this June 13th 2006, and I got it Sept 29th... yeah that is a long time. Basically, the first one got lost in the mail - damn USPS and their parcel post! I've never had any problems with USPS express airmail, but if you get the parcel post version it's awful. Slow, hard to track and clearly packages can just 'go missing'.

In any case, my wok came and I immediately put it to work making up a sausage and peppers on pasta quick dinner. It cooked quite nicely, and the heat was kept nice and even (no hot spots) so I got a good fry (stir fry). The nice thing about this wok, is that it's curved on the inside so everything slides nicely, but it's flat bottomed on the outside. The flat bottom means good contact with the stove element (critical for electric hobs). The weight of the wok is quite good (it's cast iron after all) and that means it stays put! Move the food around and it just sits still - which is fantastic for fast stir frying. The only thing I will say is that you must be careful with oil in these woks. Cast iron can get and stay very hot for long periods of time. It's so good at staying evenly hot, that oil with a low flash point can ignite very quickly into flames (olive oil for example). So if you're going to stir fry use something like grape seed oil, sunflower, peanut or soy. Vegetable oil is rather hit and miss for me - since it's a blend of a bunch of oil sources it can be high or medium - but a nasty surprise of fire means I stick with grape seed oil.

Tomorrow a bunch of us are digging out at ForanObject's place - should be a good ol' ditch digging time. Report on status will of course follow.

There was a comment by Nail, and by ForanObject questioning the veracity of my answer with respect to the 'list of 5' question. The fact I may be a whipped husband (and come on, who isn't) doesn't mean I hid my answers. I truthfully have no desire to sleep with someone else. Trying to pretend my wife didn't exist means that all things would be different, and I cannot intelligently speak on things I could not possibly fathom. Now, lots of famous women are attractive, but I just don't feel that 'yeah I'd turn her over a barrel' sentiment. Nothing to do with consequences, and more to do with who I am.

So, I'm a guy. I like women. I like boobs and I'm no stranger to hot women (including my wife). I can be a pig and I can be totally disgusting (ask anyone), but all I can say is that I don't get that 'pull' feeling that I get from my wife with any one else.

Null out.

Wow... bad day.

2006-09-25T22:02:00.000-04:00

So today I'm told that I'm to drop what I'm working on and help someone else who should have been able to do what I'm helping with (ie. basic debugging). That put me in a bad mood. Then on the way home I start to get a headache, nothing big, just something annoying.

Britgal had to go to a soccer party, so I was home alone. I thought to myself, 'self, let's make ribs'. So I cut up some racks of ribs and braised them in my cast iron pot for about 1.5 hours. Then glazed them with some bbq sauce and proceeded outside to BBQ them. After about 10 minutes on the BBQ, I hear a woosh sound and out goes the BBQ flame - I'm out of fuel and the car is gone. Grrrrr.... So I collect up my ribs off the BBQ, back onto the plate and proceed inside. Only, I can't get inside as the door knob on my front door has decided to jam up (happens rarely, but hey, it's Murphy law at work). Now I'm locked out of my house, half cooked food and no way to get a hold of Britgal.

I think to myself, "Self, could you get any more screwed than right now?". And literally just then, I got a sign. Yes - rain. It started to freaking rain. All I could think of was "ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!!?!?". So now I'm hungry, homeless and wet. I put the food on the BBQ again, and start walking to my Landlords house to get a spare key to unjam the door knob. Once there - the lights are dark and no one answers the door - they are gone for the evening. . I walk back and sit on my front stoop for about 10 minutes thinking about what I can do, and hoping Britgal comes home early.

Just then I remember - there are spare keys hidden (I won't say where). I run and fetch them, and let myself in. My ribs are ruined (quickly cooled meat tastes like ass), I'm cold and wet but there is not better feeling than home.

The end.

NIN Coming to DVD!

2006-09-22T21:35:00.000-04:00

Sweet!

Question Period

2006-09-22T21:28:00.000-04:00

1. If you could have any job, without consideration of requirements, experience, or cash flow, what would you be doing?

I'd probably do what I'm doing now to be honest. The details of course would change - few interruptions, projects would be what I felt like working on etc. On the whole though, few positions really afford me the ability to think and rationalize. I enjoy cooking, and I think I will enjoy doing things around my house. Taking up a trade is very interesting to me, but I would like to do both, so I pick what I do now, so I can do what I enjoy on the weekends. It's hard to do it the other way, as the last thing you would want to do after a long week of hard labour is 'think'.

2. Who is your favourite character on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer? You're allowed to split this up into pre-season 6 and post-season 6 if desired.

I've not watched Buffy, but I do know another character other than Buffy - that would be Angel. So since RJA voted for Buffy, I vote for Angel. No reason, just by default.

3. If you could have lunch with anyone, alive or dead, who would you have lunch with?

I think I'd have lunch with my grandfather. He was a total ass, and I would enjoy an opportunity to actually engage him.

4. What movie which never got made would you most like to see?

I would enjoy a movie made from the Anne Rice books (the first one was 'ok', but the books really where enjoyable).

5. What was the last book (fiction only, no reference books) that you read?

The Bourne series by Robert Ludlum - excellent spy adventures.

6. If you could change any one historical incident, only to return to a present changed forever into a horrible mockery of the world you knew, Twilight Zone style, what historical incident would you change?

Well, I don't want to change the present - I'm very happy overall and would not want to risk my friends or family. Without consequence I'd probably change my financial position so that I could remove one source of stress for myself and others.

7. If you could have a summer home anywhere, where would you want it to be?

Italy - near the Amalfi coast. Some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen.

8. You know that episode of Friends where we find out Ross has a card with five names on it? Right. What five names would go on your card?

I don't hold celebrities in that kind of light, so I have none. That's not to say some aren't attractive but I don't get that 'I gotta do it' feeling. My wife is my wife for a very good reason, she's the one I want to sleep with. Perhaps I'm sad.

9. God created the heavens and the earth in six days; on the seventh day He rested. If God hadn't rested on the seventh day what would He have created?

He did create something - the weekend. As such, I celebrate that time by doing exactly as the higher powers dictate - nothing at all. Laziness is next to godliness.

Ok, here is my new question to add to the list:
10. If you were able to take vacation anywhere in the world (money, time, etc all not withstanding) where would you go and why?

The torch is now passed to Serdic.

Yuck..

2006-09-20T21:55:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling kinda off tonight - something weird is happening. I get ways of nausea and a little of dizziness. Weird...

I had my review today - finally. Nothing much to say really. The usual 'this review will be incomplete because of your transition to the group". I got career advice of the nature, 'try not to piss Dan off next time'. Hopefully, some interesting project pop up during the year... Of course I have to move upstairs again... I'm rather hopeful as the guys I'm working with great to work with.

I can't wait to take some vacation and take a break - by the time I close on my house, I'll likely have almost a month of vacation to take... should be sweet and give me time to work on my house.

I just wanna scream

2006-09-20T11:06:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I was looking at my online banking, and noticed the cheques for my line of credit which where NOT supposed to work (according to the bank) did in fact, work. Now I have too many cheques floating around for more money than I have - NOT GOOD!

So I phone the bank to confirm, and I find out that in trying to be helpful, they're 'forcing' the cheques through to make it easier.

I phone Minto, the bank back and forth - finally someone at Minto calls me back and she's actually on the ball. In fact, Minto already noticed the double issue for the cheques and voided the first one from the new set! Even better, they're sending the 2 LOC cheques and the 1 voided cheque back to me tomorrow - so life is going to be all good once I get them back in my hands.

Phew...something that was supposed to be dirt simple got really foobar'ed.

Slo-mo

2006-09-17T22:50:00.000-04:00

It's been a wild week, lots of phone, appointments and persistence in getting people to do what they should. As such, my updating on my blog has slowed down to a crawl and for that I'm sorry. The irony is that so many things are happening I should be blogging about it, but I have not.

First, I've been working on the financial side of our house purchase. I got a call from the my bank telling me that my line of credit has been successfully moved from Kingston to Ottawa. Great, oh but does that mean my checks are still valid - no! Ah crap! So I had to re-issue my deposit to Minto and also start the RRSP withdrawal process.

At the same time, I've been working with banks, brokers etc trying to get the best possible deal we can concerning our mortgage. With that all going one, Britgal and I have been talking, choosing and researching colours, flooring, cabinets etc. Some of the options we will take from the builder (it's easier and the price difference isn't big) others we have to seriously consider going to a 3rd party - like hardwood flooring is about 2K cheaper if we take it from a flooring specialty store. Appliances etc all have to be purchased, and we need to come into budget and still leave enough for window treatments, light fixtures, etc that we want to upgrade. On top of that we should leave enough so we can start some DIY projects to improve bathrooms etc.

On a different track, work has been ok. Keeping pretty busy - but I always feel distracted.

Serdic hosted Magic night, and it was a great success. Great food, great people, great time! It's nice to get out of the 'same ol' routine' of work, home, research. Nice break to unwind and just play some games for fun. This time my theme deck was 'Fakes on a Plain' which was on the same thought lines as Nail's "Snakes on a Plain". This time, my deck worked better than the 'Towns people deck' of last time. I will need to come up with a better theme next time.

Perhaps I will update later on.

This is scary

2006-09-11T13:57:00.000-04:00

Just happened up an ad for this - all I have to say is wow!

My new home

2006-09-10T15:06:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been quite an adventure! Lots of ups and downs, nice places and disappointments. We've watched a few places we've loved get sold before we had a shot to put and offer on them. So this weekend we had lined up some more hopeful spots which were reasonable in price and had potential. Well fate came in a the owner of the house we where supposed to see decided to have an open house Saturday. That meant our Friday viewing was canceled - crap. Then a few of the places we wanted to see Saturday flaked out (non-responsive to a call for viewing).

We did get the idea that we should look at new home development from our agent a few days ago. We saw a place which was brand new (still a resale) and in our price range! Now the owner was a dick, and wasn't going to budge on the price, nor include any appliances (he's even taking the built in dishwasher). So we took a pass - but it was hard.

In any case, we went to see some new homes instead of the listing we wanted to originally see this Saturday. So we went to Minto home builders, and took a look at a model called the 'Manhattan'. We fell in love with the design and floor plan (the upgrades a nice too, but we won't have many of them) - and the price of the place is slightly less than most re-sale homes!

We're super excited about our home (it's being built right now). One issue is that we'll have to wait until Jan 18th, 2007 to move in. It's a compromise but it's worth the wait (and only an extra month of rent). So we decided to put an offer in onto the house, and find that there is already a condition offer holding it. We were again saddened, and were about to walk away, when the Minto guy said, if we put a firm offer in, the previous people would have 24hrs to either firm up their offer or let it go. I asked what the condition was in the offer, and the Minto guy said it was selling their existing home.

So we ran back home, grabbed the check book and beelined it back to the office. Cut the check and hoped we would get the house. I had high confidence that if the condition was on the sale of a previous place, and they had not firmed up their offer that meant that they had not sold their house yet. And the best part was that banks are closed Sun, so unless they had the cash to plop down it was ours.

So we waited, and waited and waited for the 24hr period to come and 10 minutes before the 3pm deadline, we got a call. I ran over and the caller ID said Minto - I got pretty nervous. I answered, and the guy told me that the other people gave up and the place was ours! So we hot footed it over to the Minto sales office and signed the final papers.

Pheeew! Now that the house part is taken care of, here comes the waiting.... ah crap - this is going to be hard.

Oh give me a corn, where the bread loafs roam...

2006-09-08T20:06:00.000-04:00

Nail brought some cornbread into work and was nice enough to share with everyone (well everyone that mattered :) ). He also 'happened' to be around when a shipment of magic the gathering cards had arrived. I still think it was on purpose, but Nail swears on a bible that the corn bread was the motive for the trip (yeah, Nail and a bible - I have my doubts).

Today was a slightly longish day, and I certainly need a break. Hopefully I can take some time off soon. Perhaps more later.

Mmmm.. corn bread.

Getting a house

2006-09-06T22:42:00.000-04:00

It's offical, I'm in the house hunting mode. The bank has decided to lend us the money (suckers) and we're looking for our new home.

Energy sucking - lots of research.

Been a while

2006-09-04T20:25:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I updated my blog - I've been busy with a few things (which I'll detail later, once it's closer to becoming a reality).

Tonight was spaghetti night, which I usually dislike as it's boring and uninspiring but I decided to do something about it. I took a recipe to make my own spaghetti sauce and ran with it. This one was sourced from Jamie Oliver (who generally has good ideas) and I make it my own. It's super simple, tasty, but does require some time. I used mostly fresh tomatoes, but had to use some tined ones as well (they cooked down and it wasn't enough).

2 tins of whole plum Italian tomatoes (or fresh tomatoes)
4 cloves of garlic.
1 hot pepper
Olive oil
Basil, oregano

That's it - nice and simple. Just heat some olive oil and saute the garlic cloves (crushed) until fragrant. Pierce the pepper and stick it in whole (it's pierced so that it doesn't explode). Then add your tomatoes (ensure they are peeled if fresh) whole, into the pan - do not crush. Cook down the tomatoes (about an hour) until nice and saucy :). Add basil and oregano and continue to simmer the sauce until thick. Take out the whole pepper, and cut it up into pieces and place it back into the sauce. After, you have to choose to either simmer the sauce for another hour or so until thick, or add a tin of tomato paste. The paste give the sauce a nice simmered taste and consistency.

Now, I added a smidgen of Frank's Red hot which gave it a little more kick (and tasty). Brown your meat and add it into the sauce. Simmer until well blended and season carefully with salt and pepper (make sure you taste prior and after to get the right amount).

Serve on pasta - even Britgal liked it.

Next time, I'll add some onions to see how that works out, but I think the key is to keep it simple so that all the flavours make it through (garlic, tomato, pepper) and that makes it very tasty!

On a different note, tomorrow is back to work. I've enjoyed my long weekend and I kinda want to keep doing 'time off', but alas it is not meant to be. Perhaps I should take some more serious time off sooner rather than later? Food for thought (no pun).

Aero has a new blog (new to me) and I'll be adding a link to it. Some of those video/audio clips are intense! I hope he in-lines some personal story telling to go with it. There is something voyeuristic about reading other peoples activities, thoughts etc. I can't quite put my finger on it's appeal, but posting also has it's rewards. Obviously, it is the other side of the voyeurism equation, but it's also somewhat cathartic to write out and express yourself in a (hopefully) non-judgmental way. I'm not really going into new territory here, I'm sure we're all aware of the virtues and issues of doing personal journals online - it is interesting.

Prior to the weekend, I too got to see the dutch's peanut and she is cute! Almost makes me want my own... well, one thing at a time. It's funny how things change, and how some things stay the same. My dad has retired, my friends are having kids, trying out new things, taking courses, and growing up a little. I do enjoy the fact that we're all also youthful at heart as well - not stupid, college drunk kind of youthful, but kids at heart. I hope that quality doesn't dissipate... why am I washing all nostalgic... Perhaps I made the sauce too spicy and I'm delirious!

In any case, back to work tomorrow.

What's up?

2006-08-31T11:55:00.001-04:00

Something strange is occuring on blogger... can't seem to visit my blog....

Hmmm new dish was good.

2006-08-27T22:24:00.000-04:00

So tonight I made a new dish for dinner. Britgal wanted an Indian dinner, so I planned to make chicken biryani. I've seen this dish in a ready-made box in the Indian store or larger grocery stores. So after some looking around, I found what appeared to be a good one. Made of basic ingredients, yet still sophisticated I was intrigued.

For those who are unfamiliar with this dish, the final result looks something like this (left). At first glance, it's just chicken and rice. In reality, it's a layered dish which you can serve stirred or unstirred (I prefer it unstirred).

The main components in this dish are rice (duh!), chicken, onions, garlic, jalapenos, ginger, coriander, mint, fennel, cinnamon, cardamon and water. So, you make a bouquet garni of about 4, 1/4 inch ginger root (skin on), 1.5 tsp of fennel seeds, a stick of cinnamon and 10 cardamon pods (crushed). Place the bouquet in 12 cups of water, and bring to a boil. Once boiling back off the heat and simmer/low boil for about 30 mins. Essentially, you're making an herbal tea, and you want a nice deep caramel colour (Mine was a little lighter, and while tasty I would like a deeper flavour).

Stick the rice (1.5 cups of basmati) into the water and boil the rice until just under done. At the same time saute 2 onions chopped in 3 tbsps of butter until they are brown and caramelized. Into the onions, add 3 garlic cloves (minced) and 2 jalapenos (minced). Once the smell blooms into the air, set aside. Take 4-6 chicken thighs (tasty) and brown both sides for 5 minutes each in a fry pan. You don't want to cook the chicken all the way through, just get the skin nice and browned. With the rice 3/4 of the way done, take off the heat and save 3/4 cup of the water to the side. Strain the rice and mix some saffron and perhaps some salt to taste.

So put together the whole thing into a deep pot or dutch oven as follows: 1/2 the rice mixed with some saffron in the bottom. 1/2 the onion mixture into the 2nd layer. Place the chicken thighs as the third layer on top of the onion bed. Sprinkle fresh chopped coriander and mint on top of the chicken. Add the rest of the onion mixture, then follow up with the rice bed on top. Pour in the saved 3/4 cup of water you saved into the pot and cover. Put on low heat and simmer for 30 mins.

That was once dish. I made my usual Rogan Josh (beef), and the meat was just right. Strangely enough, the sauce didn't thicken which was a little disappointing and somewhat confusing. Also to go with these dishes, I made my best naan yet! Nice and thin, but not too thin. Nicely soft, yet blacked just right on the bubbles.

As usual, it took a lot longer to prepare it all then I gave myself. I started around 4pm, and didn't have it complete until 745pm... I will get quicker at this. I think more prep is cruicial to getting things done.

Congrats to the Dutch!

2006-08-26T23:00:00.000-04:00

I managed to get a hold of the Dutch Nasty earlier today by luck. He and his wife are doing just fine, and had a bouncing baby girl! The usual group of parents and family are in the round for visits, so he'll be hard to get a hold of in the short term.

Obviously, the Dutch will not be in work for the week as he takes care of his family.

Congrats!!

Tap to blog

2006-08-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

It appears I will be taking a foray into the Magic realm once again. Tommorow will be my debut, and I expect to go down in magic flames.

I've been watching Battlestar Galactica - the start was good, it's been kinda up and down, with some good episodes, and some not so good ones. I'm holding judgement until the end.

Enough with this writing... back to BSG.

Hyping the hyperbole

2006-08-21T18:30:00.000-04:00

I do not understand. The crazy uproar of apparent demand for Snakes on a Plane seems incredible. Any one with a television or Internet connection will likely have heard of this movie. Is it perhaps the draw of Samuel L. Jackson ? He's not exactly the best actor on the planet, but I suppose he has a certain appeal for some roles. Is it the snakes? Snake movies don't usually translate well to the silver screen. It has to be the plane right? Plane movies are some of the best kind of movie - right?

The Internet and media hype surrounding this movie are incredible. It has gotten to the point of fans doing their own videos and promotion. Perhaps I'm too old to to appreciate pop culture now and I'm wrong about this movie. Surely the revenue from the box office will show the true appeal of this film? Perhaps we should ask the critics what they thought (not that they are really a great way of finding out if a movie is good or not)?

I'm not trying to take away the pleasure or enjoyment of this movie; by all means go see it. I do tire of others trying to convince me that it's 'so bad, it's good'. I like b-movies, but this summer has been even slower than last summer; I think you need a minimum of 1 A movie before you can send out the B team.

Of course no one will admit to having not enjoyed Snakes on a Plane, since you clearly know what kind of awful movie you're getting. Imagine if you thought you were going to see a b-movie, and it wasn't "so bad it was good", it was just bad. I'm not talking Evil Dead bad (note: Bruce Campbell is awesome) as that would be really good, but it was just flat out bad.

I am reminded of a great quote from Type O Negative: "Don't mistake lack of talent for genius". This was directed towards Nirvana, but I believe it applies here too. Hype is only that and doesn't translate to good movie making (or revenue for the companies that make them). Now it is unfair that I make such judgements before seeing the movie, and I will likely see it on DVD, but as to spending 13 to see it in a movie theatre with people who can't shut up, or hold their pee, or just sit and watch a flic (aka. "ants in the pants").

I'm sure I'll feel the wrath of the SoaP groupies.

even Closer

2006-08-20T23:54:00.000-04:00

Well, the video is most excellent. Obviously it is as good as VHS could be in it's low-res glory, but overall it's as good a transfer as I could hope for. The concert/documentary footage is already 'less than perfect' as described in a warning prior to the start of the video. I enjoyed watching the videos and concert footage as it was a blast from the past - wow 1994 seems like just a little while ago, crazy that it really as been over 12 years.

Weekend was rather quiet, did some chores, ate some food had some fun.

I presume I will be at work tomorrow.

Closure

2006-08-20T18:18:00.000-04:00

I managed to score a VHS rip of the Closure tapes (NIN for those who are interested). I've not watched them yet - but I hope they are good. I really want a DVD edition (and perhaps slightly updated with remastered sound + goodies) to come out. I understand there were legal issues with Trent's prior management, so it's been a while coming. Now that he has won the right to his own stuff again, I'm hoping the DVD edition is coming sooner rather than later (or never).

In the mean time, due to lack of a VCR on my main video station, I've acquired these captures which at least will allow me to enjoy the tapes I bought so long ago.

Just to rub salt into wounds...

2006-08-17T19:17:00.000-04:00

I've decided to bogart YYLIAs title just for a little fun!

Trouble comes knocking...

2006-08-17T19:05:00.000-04:00

So I come home from a long day of work, and what do I see at my door? The always enjoyable Ikea catalogue. This book of commercialism is the cause and solution of many of the worlds domestic problems. Leafing through this tome elicits feelings of greatness and sadness. Everything is at least reasonable in cost, but I cannot afford it all (nor would I want an all Ikea place, but I'm pretty close).

Well, I guess I'll be spending a while going through this catalogue and checking out the new gear they're slogging out.

You're jealous, I know you are.