Family Life

Idiots confound me

September 20, 2010
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I read this article re: Warner Bros. bemoaning the $0.99 rental price Apple wants to charge customers per episode. Perhaps I’m dense, but at 24 episodes per season that works out to approximately $24 to simply rent it. Not own it. Rent it! For a few extra bucks you can actually buy it on DVD. If anything, $0.99 is too expensive. It should be $0.25 or something similar. The only way $0.99 would make sense is if you could watch it forever on an on-demand type of system. But to only be able to rent it for 24 hours at $0.99 is stupid. And, yeah, I know you can keep on disk for 30 days before you watch it, but once you decide to watch it you have 24 hours within which to watch the episode. Ugh. It’s one reason I will continue to not rent from these types of services and instead just by my DVDs from Chapters or Amazon. Often times if I wait a year I can get the whole season for $25 – 30, which is effectively the cost of renting the episodes. The goal of the media firms should be to push convenience. The only

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The Fattening of America

September 18, 2010
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The Fattening of America

I recently finished The End of Overeating by Dr. David Kessler, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration. It was primarily of interest to me because, like many people, I’ve struggled with weight gain. And following the so-called “Food Pyramid” has only exacerbated the condition. So it was eye opening to read Dr. Kessler’s book on the food industry and why sometimes the food we eat is particularly bad for us. Furthermore, it readily explains much, perhaps all, of the fattening of America that has occurred during the last 50 years or so. The basic question behind the book is simple: What’s causing the so-called “Obesity Epidemic”. Whether you believe in the epidemic or not is immaterial. We all know that way too many people are struggling with huge weight issues. And the usual methods of staying slim don’t seem to work — more on that when I finish Good Calories, Bad Calories. In the book Dr. Kessler examines what we’d consider “normal” food — i.e., the stuff nature produces — vs. the food we often consume from restaurants, processed food sections of supermarkets, etc. He determines that it isn’t fat that makes us fat. And that’s something

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Of 120 Page Phone Bills

August 17, 2010
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I’m here to tell you of an event in our household that I thought I’d never see: a 120 page telephone bill. You read that right. 120 pages. And, yes, I’m talking 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages. Now, it’s not the horror story it might appear, although if delivered via Canada Post it surely would have arrived in a box and would have been photographed for posterity. No. It came in electronically. Who’s bill is this? My daughters. And, what, pray tell is on that 120 pages? Well, I can say there are more than 5 hours of talking. That’s right. 5 hours of yakking on her iPhone. In one month. There’s also nearly 7000 text messages. And Bell has kindly provided each one its own line item on her bill so she can examine it in all its glory, when it was sent, to whom, how long, etc. The only thing that would have made the bill more entertaining would have been if Bell had kindly documented the actual texts, and not just provided the litany of connections. But then the bill would probably be 500 pages. And in today’s day and age, she could probably have published

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Things Kids Don’t Get These Days

February 7, 2010
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I always find it interesting when one of my kids asks me about the lyrics to one of the songs I listen to. Two of late came up. Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio by the Ramones and Panama by Van Halen. The lyric “Do you remember lyin’ in bed / with the covers pulled up over your head / radio playin’ so no one could see” had them asking what that was about and I had to recount doing just that, with my little transistor radio. With the radio on low or with the earpiece in, hoping the covers would sufficiently muffle the sounds of the radio. That song always brings back a lot of memories from my youth. I guess today they’d have to sing about listening to your iPod. Not the same, though. Which also makes me think about how we’d talk about the latest songs that were released that week. The various FM channels would play new releases, sometimes the entire album, and we’d sit there before and after class — sometimes during — and discuss the latest offerings from The Who, The Ramones, The Kinks, The Stones, etc. and how much we despised disco.

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Julie & Julia

August 11, 2009
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Just watched Julie & Julia today with the wife. Very good film. I quite enjoyed it. And though I’m not a fan of Meryl Streep I found her portrayal of Julia Child wonderful. The entire way the film wove Julia Child’s life in with Julie Powell’s was excellent. Well worth seeing. However, I’d love to see Julia Child’s My Life in France made into a movie in its own right, with Streep playing Child again. Parts of that book are the counterpart to the Julie Powell portion of Julie and Julia however the Julia parts are much more interesting and much more entertaining. In fact, the story is so interesting I’m tempted to pick up a copy of Julia’s book just to read it and get to know her better. I always enjoyed her cooking shows, especially with her good friend Jacques Pepin. I’m sure it would be a welcome diversion from my usually heavy technical readings.

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Awesome bakery

October 19, 2008
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My wife and I took our son and his buddies to Long and McQuaid on Bank at Altavista yesterday. After they finished drooling over the guitars, amps, etc. we all headed over to the bakery in the same mall — I think it’s called the Lebanese Bakery, but no matter, it’s the only bakery in that mall (looking things up in Google seems to show that it’s called Yamine Bakery at 2677 Alta Vista Dr.). To be honest we went in with the attitude we’d buy a loaf of bread or something and probably never go there again. It’s just not in our neck of the woods. That attitude has changed after we tried what we purchased! As I said, we headed in thinking we’d be able to buy an interesting loaf of bread or something similar for dinner, instead of the usual factory bread we’d have found in the grocery store next door. Instead, it was a variety of familiar and unfamiliar baked goods. We decided to buy an assortment of items and try them for dinner. We bought too much, so we enjoyed some for lunch today. Let me tell you, everything was unbelievably good! Unfortunately, I don’t

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Distractions, Big and Small

September 4, 2008
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A few folks who know me well asked why I’ve not posted anything in a while. It’s not for lack of interesting topics but more due to work, kitchen renos, the start of summer, etc. And as summer starts up I’m hoping to get out on the links but the weather, work, and the kitchen have conspired against any such plans. Bit of a bummer, but what can one do. And with so many distractions I’ve needed other distractions to make the lack of a kitchen less onerous, and so I’ve turned to music. Music, I always say, is infinitely listenable. You can listen to the same song over and over again and not be bored. You can listen to something you’ve not heard in years and it not only brightens your day but also brings back memories. Sure, sometimes the memories are bittersweet, or younger days when life was simpler, but even those reminisces are worth it. I have few regrets, so even a not so happy memory can still brighten my day since where I am today is a good place and to get here required me to pass through all the trials and tribulations that were my

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Sanity in Ontario

April 18, 2008
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As those who know me can attest, I’m no greenie. However, I have never understood the stupidity of the clothesline bans some municipalities and communities enacted. Some people find them “unsightly”. Really? Why? It’s just fabric blowing in the breeze. Rumour has it that Primer McGuinty will announce that Ontarians can dry their clothes outside. Finally. A bit of sanity. And why did it take this long? You’d think one of the first things the green types would have demanded would have been the elimination on the ban on drying clothes outside. It’s an easy way to save money for families and environmentally friendly to boot, especially in the summer when it’s hot outside and the electricity would be better spent cooling us down as opposed to heating up our clothes — something the sun can do for free. So a hearty thanks to the Premier for doing something sane and long overdue.

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We made the New York Times!

March 31, 2008
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We made the New York Times!

Well, for all those out there wondering what it’s like in Ottawa wonder no more. The New York Times decided to write up on our little “Winter from Hell”. Gotta love the picture of Luc Guertin, though, and his 18+ft snow wall . Tons of Snow Test a Place Where Cold is No Stranger (registration, free, required) To enjoy a shot of our neighbourhood, here’s what it looks like after the recent melt off! Those banks are about 10ft high, they used to be about 14′ high but it’s been raining today and reasonably mild the last couple of weeks. And during that storm in early March — this was halfway through, with another 20+cm on its way.

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Records. But not ones I wanted to see broken

March 6, 2008
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Records. But not ones I wanted to see broken

I lived through the winter of 1970-71. It was something else. 444 cm of snow — that’s more than 14.5 feet! — fell that winter. I remember shoveling and shoveling and shoveling. And just when you thought not another flake could fall, more would fall. Well, this winter is now officially the second most snowy of all time. We’ve now had 355cm or more than 11.5 feet. And Environment Canada tells us that March usually accounts for 20% of our snowfall! Last night we had nearly 30cm, another record — we’ve had a lot this winter. If we’re expecting to see a “normal” March that means we’ll have another 50cm to look forward to. Think that’s nuts? Well, Environment Canada has said we’re looking at a week or so of snow, perhaps another 25 – 30cm before the middle of next week. And that won’t even put us 1/2 way through the month! Another 50cm would push us over 4 metres! Nuts. Last year we had nearly no snow, just over a metre if memory serves. This year we may have 4 times as much as last year, and well more than a normal winter that sees about 2.5 metres.

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Musings

A blog of my musings. Some folks find it interesting and so I continue. Hopefully it will remain fairly interesting. At worst, it'll keep me writing orthogonally to my day job.

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