One Of My Resolutions

I have always been a shy person. One of my New Years resolutions is trying to get rid of this shyness. Some people find me anti social, I am not, I am just very shy. Why is it that when people invite me over most of the time  I find an excuse not to go? That is not entirely true, a co-worker has invited me to her place a few time to watch movies and I did go. She’s is the reason that I decided to get rid of my shyness, it is fun to be with friends, especially her, she make me laugh and I like hanging around with her. I am still held back by being shy. I have a problem speaking about anything other than television, movies, music, the weather and computers. It makes me look like I am shallow, but I am not, I do have feelings, I would like to be able to ask the questions to know more about the person I am speaking with.  I don’t know if it is because I am afraid of committing a faux pas or the fear of being rejected for being myself, maybe a combination of both and some other factors, all I know is that I have to do something, I have to expand my comfort zone. I have to be a lot more outgoing. It is going to be hard but I have to be persistent, I will make it happen. That is why I am putting this on the blog because once it is out there in the open I cannot easily deny that I made this resolution.

It is easy to write a blog semi-anonymously than to speak with someone on how you feel. On this blog I’ll write about almost anything but if you were in front of me I probably would not say a word. Being Shy should be considered a disease. The drug companies should create a cure they would make a fortune (well a bigger fortune than they are making now) even though there is a way to fight this condition out there: alcohol! The problem with this self medication are the side effects: seeing double, hard time standing up, making an ass of one self, the slurring of speech, making questionable decisions, feeling like shit when it wears off,… etc.  Like most other drugs the consumption of alcohol can cause drowsiness so do not operate a motor vehicle or heavy machinery.

A major side effect of alcohol as a anti-shyness treatment is a condition known as limp-dick. A lot of men will over self medicate to build up courage to speak to a beautiful woman, and if they do not make an ass of themselves and the woman does invite the man for a nightcap, nightcap stands for roll in the hay in this scenario (for those of you who cannot understand metaphors inviting someone for a nightcap or a  roll in the hay stand for “telling someone you want to fuck them), the man may not preform because the booze has prevented them from pitching a tent, pitching a tent means get an erection in this scenario not actually pitching a tent and for you crude uncouth people out there erection can be replaced by “get a hard on”. Us shy people need a better medication to fight our condition. I implore the drug manufacturers too get working on it now so that there is a cure before I die or too old to actually care if I get an erection or not.

With all of that said, I have proven to you that writing a blog is not the same as speaking with someone face to face. Unless I was shitfaced drunk, I wouldn’t have dreamed of saying this to someone I did not know for at least a year or five but on this blog I write anything that my heart desires, well almost anything my heart desires.

Before I go, I’d like to mention that I am a salesman, oh the irony. Yep, I work all day speaking with people I do not know and try to convince them that this item is made for them and why they should get it from me instead of from some other dickwad elsewhere. I enjoy selling, it gives me a high when I close a sale, be it big or small. I amaze myself when I am done with a customer, that I have actually started a conversation with them and that I have been very charming with them without blushing, well sometimes I do blush. Maybe I should treat everybody I meet like I do my customers, I never thought of that before. I’ll try it out and I’ll hope for the best. Wish me luck.

Music That You Must Listen To

This is an addendum to my last post “Best Album of 2008“. After posting my choices for the best album I decided to see what other people had chosen as their best albums of 2008. I was intrigued by a few entries and I like to listen to music before I purchase so I downloaded a few I hadn’t heard and I am glad I did. I will be spending some of my hard earned money on some of these albums. Albums like Bob Dylan – Tell Tale Signs, I did not even know that this was released until last night, this would have certainly made my list.

Another discovery for myself was Fleet Foxes’ self title CD, I don’t know if this would have made my list but I like it. Neil Young’s Sugar Mountain – Live At Canterbury House 1968, I have a love/hate relationship with his music. I like this album.

I don’t know why MGMT – Oracular Spectacular made so many list, I am amazed that Coldplay’s Viva La Vida made a few list, I have a hard time listening to Coldplay. Everybody have different test in music, listen to what you enjoy and don’t let people like me tell you that the music you listen to is crap. All I want to do with my top ten list is you to listen to something you haven’t heard before. I am glad I did.

Best Albums of 2008

We are at the dawn of a new year. It is time for “best of” lists. So here is my obligatory favorite albums of 2008. I started thinking about this list a few weeks ago and at first I said to myself  “self, there hasn’t been any great albums this year.” So I decided to listen to all the music I bought and downloaded this year. Thank goodness I decided to listen some of these albums because after a critical listen to these albums I found that there are quite a few that I like enough to place on my list. So here is my list:

10. Elbow – The seldom Seen Kid

9. Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Cardinology

8. Metallica – Death Magnetic (would have been higher on the list if they would have mixed it better)

7. TV on the Radio – Dear Science

6. Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping

5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Hated it at first listen, love it now even though it scares the living shit out of me)

4. Beck – Modern Guilt

3. Glasvegas – Glasvegas

2. Portishead – Third

1. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend  (amazing)

That is it for this year. Happy New Year,

Deep Fried Christmas

Merry Christmas a day late! I was not in town yesterday, I did not have access to the internet. For our Christmas feast I had planned to deep fry a turkey, make some potatoes, brussel sprouts pan fried with bacon, asparagus in a vinaigrette, my mothers stuffing, gravy, home made cranberry jelly, oysters for the appetizer and cream brule for dessert. It was supposed to be the ultimate Christmas meal. I couldn’t wait, I love cooking. you hear that ladies a man that loves cooking and I am still single!

I started making the creme brule in the morning. The turkey was soaked in a brine of salt, brown sugar and water for 16 hours. My mother made her famous stuffing and the cranberry jelly. We prepared the brussel sprouts by taking them apart leaf by leaf, what a tedious job, but it was going to be worth it. It was a very windy day. Not to cold but the windchill factor made it seem very cold. It was so windy that it caused a power shortage. Well the meal would not be spoiled by this unexpected turn of events. Like I said we planned to deep fry the turkey. Worst case scenario we would make the potatoes on the bar-b-que, the brussel sprouts with bacon on the bar-b-que side burner, warm up the stuffing in the bar-b-que, eat the oysters raw and top of the creme brule with sugar and use a propane torch instead of putting them under the broiler. It would still be a great meal.

My brother and I fired up the burner to fry the turkey, placed the pot with the oil, a hell of a lot of oil, on the burner. We opened up each a brewskey and waited for the oil to heat up.We cooked the turkey it took about 15 minutes to heat up the oil and 35 minutes to cook the 15 pound turkey. We had three bears each and a martini. Deep frying a turkey on the patio deck in winds of 60 km/hr is nerve wracking business. After taking the tukey out of the oil we had to wait 30 minutes for it to finish “cooking”, That is when we decided to make french fries with the potatoes. A few were sceptical, my sister in law and my mother, they taught the fries would taste like turkey. We tried one potatoe. It took about five minutes to cook. I wanted one of the women to taste the fries because my brother and I was under the influence and anything would have tasted good at this point. They liked the fries. We fried the potatoes. My brother decide that we would fry the brussel sprouts, why not? We tried a fistful of brussel sprouts. The women did not like them but Alain and I did. We added salt and Lise and Mom gave us the go ahead. We deep fried the brussel sprouts and we threw in the bacon that was cut up to pan fry with the brussel sprouts, it could not make it worse.

I almost forgot to mention that all this was been done in the dark because the sun sets at about 4:30 in this part of the country this time of the year. We had a flashlight to eluminate us. The last time I tried to deep fry a turkey it tasted very good but the turkey was a deep colour of black, this time it looked black to me when we pulled it out of the oil, well everything looked black because of the lack of electricity. The turkey was not black and it tasted great.

All in all we had a very good Christmas meal even though the odds were stacked against us. We all know that fries are good but deep fried brussel sprouts are an acquired taste. We forgot to eat the oysters and the stuffing. We did not make the asparagus in a vinaigrette, the wine was very good. The creme brule was excellent but what I enjoyed the most was being with loved ones. I guess that is what Christmas should be all about. Merry Christmas to everybody.

Holidays Almost Here and New Years Resolutions

Only five beddy byes before Christmas. Have you finished your shopping yet? I did earlier this week. I hate shopping when the stores are packed. The lines are full. Most people are in a bad mood, me included. People are complaining about the weather. What the …? We should all be in a cheery mood, Christmas is almost here. We get to spend it with our loved ones if we are lucky. We get to eat good comfort food. We get to drink as much as our heart desires. We also will be getting presents. What is there to complain about? I guess that there is allot to complain about but we should put it on the back burner for next two weeks and celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the like. For all the atheists out there happy new year.

For some the holidays is a time for reflecting on the past year and making new year’s resolution. I usually don’t make resolutions since most of the time I keep them for a little while and then I fall to old habits. Most people do the same. This coming year I will be keeping a resolution. I am keeping this resolution to myself, for now. I might write about it at a later time, strike that last statement, I will be writing about it at a later time. I know this is a bit cryptic but I don’t people to ask me if I am keeping my resolution.

On a side note we had our Christmas staff party last week, we had all had fun. I drank allot but I did not make an ass of myself nobody did. This year as well as the last instead of exchanging gifts we donated $1000 to a few unfortunate families in our region.

Caution All-Season Tires Are Not To Be Used In Slush, Snow Or/And On Ice

All season tires are useless for us who lives in the northern climes. I think that all season tires are designed for places like Florida or California, places that do not have real winters. Why do tire companies insist on selling all season tires.  If they would call them what they are, summer tires, they would increase their sales because at the beginning of winter they would sell more winter tires.  I am also sure that there would be a lot less accidents since good winter tires are designed to have better grip on ice and in snow.  All season tires are designed  to be sold to people that cannot afford two sets of tires or are to cheap to buy tw0 sets of tires.

I have driven in the winter with both types of tires.  I am used to drive in snow and I will tell anyone who cares to listen all season tires are crap for winter.  I drove my car the last part of last winter on all season tires and had a hard time driving in 3 inches of snow. So this winter I got winter tires. I got the least expensive one I could find. I compared a few types and the ones I got have an aggressive thread even though they were inexpensive.

I couldn’t wait until we got another snow storm, we already had a winter storm this year and a lot of us were caught unprepared. Two days ago we got what some people would call a storm, it was a mixture of snow, freezing rain and rain. I got to try my tires. I was surprised that my car was spinning in about a foot of snow, I had to “rock” the car by shifting from forward to reverse to be able to get some movement from my car. I was disappointed with my tires.  I then realised that I still had my hand brakes on.  By releasing the brakes my car moved through the snow with ease.  I am very happy with my tires. If I had my “all season” tires I still would be stuck today.

Another must have is heated mirrors. My last car, an Chev Optra 5, had them and I swore to myself that I would also get them in my next car.  My Cobalt LS does not have them, it has a sunroof but no heated mirrors. It has XMRadio but no heated mirrors.  It has air conditioning but does not have heated mirrors.  I should have gotten the heated mirrors. I cannot see in my side mirrors because there is half an inch of ice on them.  I decided not to scrape them after the freezing rain we got the other day because I would have to set them back and everywhere I looked they forcasted 9 degrees Celsius.  Ice melts at 0 degrees. The temperature went up to 3 or 4 degrees but the ice is still on the mirrors. I should have gotten the heated mirrors.  I guess I’ll have to wait until I get a new car.

The Lack Of Coffee Filters Causes Memory Lost

Don’t you hate it when you go to a store for a specific item and when you get back home you bought a whole bunch of stuff but not what you went there for?  This has been happening to me the last few weeks.  I ran out of coffee filter about two weeks ago and every time I went to a store that sells coffee filters I kept on forgetting to get the filters.

One day last week I went to the supermarket, I had made a small shopping list with about five item that I had to get.  Of course the first thing I wrote on the list was coffee filters.  When I got to the store the firt place I go is the isle where the filters are when I get there I think to myself I don’t need coffee why am I here?  I got home, no coffee filters!  What an idiot!

I know that most of us get forgetful some times, but two straight weeks?   This must be a record of some kind, maybe I should contact Guinness?  Maybe they’ll have an entry for forgetfulness with my name in bold letters.  I would be invited to talk shows everywhere to talk about how I prepared for my attempt for the record.  Everybody would want to hang out with me, be my friends.  All the money I would make with my lecturing tours.  Imagine all the women that would want to have my babies.  Goodness gracious wouldn’t that be the life?

Thank God for paper towels,  I have been using them as filters these last two weeks.  I don’t know what I would have done without them.  Yesterday I had to go to the supermarket, I am proud to say that this time I did not forget the filters but the top item on my list this time around was paper towels.   I have to admit that I forgot to get the paper towels, will I beat my record?  Only time will tell.

No Name No Recent Posts No Maintenance Blog

This blog should be renamed to “No Name No Recent Posts No Maintenance Blog”.  I’ve been neglecting my duty as a blogger as of late.  Yesterday I updated the now reading, recently read and listening too quick links on the right of the screen.  I also  posted the same blog as my other blog “The Adventures of Computing” because I needed to post something.

Today I have to reaffirm my commitment to post on this blog.  I will post something at least once a week, hence this very boring post.  I’ll attempt to liven things up now.  How many bloggers does it take to screw in a light bulb?  428, one to change the light bulb, 12 to write “how-to’s”, 15 to write reviews, three to write wikis, two to write a play by plays, six to write jokes about changing light bulbs, 25 to write about how they would have done it, 363 writing that changing that light bulb will cause global warming, and one saying that light bulb users are losers and then rant and rave about how candles are much better than light bulbs.

Banshee 1.4 And iPods Are Like Mixing Oil And Water: It Does Not Work!

I’m not a happy camper as I am writing this.  I simply wanted to add some music to my iPod.  Gtkpod froze and my computer was heating up.  Must be a bug.  Rhythymbox works but I decide to try Banshee 1.4, Bad idea!  I am able to load new music fine.  I unplug the iPod after it says that I can disconnect it.  No music on the ‘pod.  What is going on?  Plug the iPod and I can see the music so I disconnect it once more and still no music.  I restart the ‘pod by pressing the “Menu” and “Select” buttons simultaneously.  The iPod restarts, still no music.  I am pissed off!

I connect the iPod back to the computer and  I “Drag’N'Drop” the songs, all 11016 of them, on my laptop.  I don’t feel like pulling out all my CDs and ripping them again so that I can place them in the ‘pod.  I boot Windows XP from the only computer that I own which still has Windows on it and do a factory reset on the iPod using iTunes.

I spend several hours, over several days loading up my iPod with music.  I used Rhythymbox Music Player to load the music in the ‘Pod.  I have to mention that this post has been written in three steps:  the first paragraph was written when my iPod “lost” all of it’s songs two weeks ago.  The second paragraph and the first sentence of the third paragraph was written a week later.  The rest was written today the day I published the post.

I now know that Banshee 1.4 is the culprit in losing all the songs.  I taught that maybe gtkpod was since it had frozen and I had to terminate it because my computer was overheating.  It took all my courage to try uploading songs in my iPod using Banshee and it worked but when I eject the ‘Pod it says that I have “0 songs”.  I know for a fact that I have 11037 on it since I just loaded 21 songs using Banshee 1.4.  Damn, damn, damn.  I plugin the iPod to my laptop.  I launch Rhythymbox.  I see all 11037 songs.  I play one of the songs I just uploaded using Banshee.  It plays fine.  I unplug the iPod and low and behold all my songs are there.  I am so glad, that I am glad, that I’m glad; to quote Cream.  I must dig out their CD and add that song to my iPod.  So I have learned that I cannot use Banshee as my all purpose music player/iPod loader.  I must keep on using Rhythymbox.

I really liked Banshee 1.4 but I cannot use it because of this problem.  If you do not have an iPod I whole heartily recommend it, but if you do I cannot recommend it. Apparently I am the only person that has this problem since I cannot find anybody else on the web with the same problem.  I wonder if it is because I have the 64 bit version of intrepid installed?

If you know of a solution please leave a comment, thanks.

Thanks Giving Turkey, Charred style

Thanks Giving in Canada is held in October, not in November like the US Thanksgiving.  This year Thanks Giving was on Monday October the 13th.  To celebrate this years Thanks Giving I finally decided to deep fry a turkey.  I learned a lot this the first time I attempted this culinary delight.  The first thing I learned was to get a fresh turkey or at least a completely thawed out turkey.  I used a frozen one, mistake number one.  I placed the frozen turkey in a pot and added water, coarse salt and brown sugar.  I let the turkey thaw while it was soaking up the brine.  My second mistake was to let the turkey in the brine in a pot instead of a plastic cooler.  I did not add enough water to the brine.

The next day when it was time to fry the turkey I followed the recipe and heated the oil to 250 degrees and lowered the turkey in the hot oil and waited for the oil to heat up to 350 degrees.  The oil was very close to the top and I was worried, no scarred shit less, that the oil would overflow and I would have a fire on my hands, I drank a few beers to calm my nerves.  I did not crank the heat up so it took about 35 minutes for the oil to get to 350 degrees.  I let the bird cook for about 45 minutes before taking it out of the oil.  My brother pulled it out of the pot, when I saw the turkey I said “Fuck, fuck, we’ll eat at the restaurant.”

The turkey was black as night, black like a sheet of carbon paper, black like charcoal,  you get the picture it was BLACK.  We brought it in the house and I peeled a bit of the charred skin and the meat was white.  I tasted it and it was a bit salty but eatable.  It was very good I must say.  We must not judge a book by its cover.  This Christmas I will attempt to deep fry a turkey again, this time I will not make the same mistake.