All the good stuff: October, 2006

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October 26

Heroes is good

Thank goodness for bittorrent (but boo on Rogers for their bandwidth throttling). After seeing the preseason ads for Heroes, it looked like the kind of show I'd like to watch. But then I missed the pilot and second episode, and caught only the last half of the third. Thanks to bittorrent, I've been able to get caught up. Damn, that's a good show.

That's all for this installment. Rebecca just got in and I have to make dinner.

October 23

"That" table

It's been a hard week. I had my inaugural fMRI experiment last Thursday. Fortunately, the particpant (who shall remain unnamed for reasons of experimental ethics) knew more about running fMRI experiments than I did, which helped quite a bit. I felt like a monkey at a typewriter. It mostly worked out, though one of my runs was messed up. However, since I coded that part the night before, and wrote out its timing sequence during the hour immediately before the experiment, I can't say I'm surprised.

And that brings me to the topic of this entry. So this weekend I was at a wedding. At the reception, we were sitting next to that table. You know the one -- 8 aunts and uncles or second cousins approaching retirement age or something like that who are taking waaay too much advantage of the open bar. Rather than doing that annoying-ass glass kilinking thing, in order to get the bride and groom to kiss, you had to go up and demonstrate how you wanted them to kiss. Yeah, when there's an open bar, that's no disincentive. I'm sure each couple from that table went up at least once. Each time, this one woman at the table with the middle-aged 'hip' lady haircut (kind of like Liza Minelli with her hair dyed with beet juice and a handful of "product" in her hair) would give up a good "whooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!". You know that Karen character from Will and Grace? She's the loud one who always seems to be drinking a martini. Yeah, that was her at the table beside us.

By the way, we were the other that table -- the one with multiple young-ish (if I can indulge myself by calling myself young-ish) couples just starting their families and who don't know each other. It looks good on paper. We're all the same demographic. In practice, it never works. The ambient noise is too loud to actually carry on a conversation with these people, so by the end of dinner, your conversation with these people has been limited to mouthing "pass the rolls".

October 18

MSN won't let me on

I don't know why, but for the last 2 days, using different computers on different networks, I have been unable to sign on to MSN. Just noting that, in case anyone is wondering why they aren't seeing me online. Error code 81000314 (service is unavailable). Stupid MSN.

October 12

I lied

I just noticed that, following the baby announcement where I said that my entries would be short, I made two somewhat substantial entries. Oh well. Sue me.

9:32 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Observations

Oatmeal

At the risk of making this into a recipe website, this is how John makes oatmeal. I'll preface this by saying that one thing to which I look forward when I visit Toronto is staying with John, and getting up the next morning to have tea and Scottish oatmeal. It's just one of those things that gives you pleasant memories. So everytime I see Scottish oats (Loblaws has several brands of them, though they're all called Irish oats, but whatever), I think of breakfast at Johns. Which is different from Breakfast at Tiffany's, which is a movie of which I have only seen a little bit to know that, as much as Audrey Hepburn was a babe in her time, if I ever met her character in that movie, I would smack her silly.

Anyways, here's an excerpt from an email John sent regarding oatmeal. John said the recipes should be credited to Christina Maclean of 9 Cross, Ness, Isle of Lewis. Is that near Loch Ness? I should ask. That would be fancy. But I digress. To the oats!

Scottish (Irish? Celtic?) Oatmeal

Late in the evening prior to the morning in which you will cook the oats, put 1 part oats + 1 part milk in a bowl, stir and put in refrigerator. Water may be substituted for milk. In the morning, put 1 or 1.5 part water in a pot, boil. Spoon in the soaked oats mixture. Stir. Done.

Brose

In a double boiler (a metal bowl that fits nicely over a pot of water will do), mix:

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp sugar (I like brown)

6 tbsp oats

While mixing this, put the kettle on for your tea, but adding a bunch more water. Also put some water in a pot or the bottom of the double boiler, and start boiling that as well.

When the kettle boils, add it to you tea, then put a little in the oats mixture to make it less pasty, then add a bunch more (I just sort of eyeball it to what looks good).

Double boil that, stirring occasionally, until it seems like a nice oatmeal consistency. Enjoy!

A variation on this that I have made is: 2tbsp butter, 2tbsp sugar and 2tbsp maple syrup.

October 10

To the old man driving the silver car last night

So last night, we're driving home from Rebecca's parents, going Northbound down Highbury ave. when we come to the train crossing at Highbury & Florence. A train had been passing through, and there was a decent amount of traffic backed up. Naturally, I stopped. After the gate went up, the road was pretty congested, but moving along reasonably well. But not reasonably well enough for the guy riding up my ass for the next several blocks on Highbury.

Nope, this guy wanted to tell me something. Even when there was an opening in the lane to my left, this guy stayed right there, practically parked in my trunk. After a few blocks of this, he pulled out from behind me, and -- wait for it -- rather than pass me, he just pulled up along side me, and glared at me. Had he not been glaring at me, he would have seen the car directly in front of me, and the pickup pulling a horse trailer in front of it, but whatever. Anyways, it wasn't until Rebecca rhetorically asked what the guy's problem was that I noticed he was keeping pace with me, rather than passing me, so I looked over.

Now, okay, I know it's playing to stereotypes, but perhaps if it was some 20 year old punk in a sports car that I was holding up, I *might* understand what his problem was. He'd still be an idiot, but kids get frustrated like that. But when I looked over, I saw some old-ass middle-management-looking guy in his late 50s glaring at me like he wanted to lay the smack-down.

WTF is that?

Dude, you look like the newly retired night manager from Wal-Mart. He didn't even have veteran's plates, so you you can't even respect him for taking out somebody with his bare hands back in Korea. Now is not the time of your life to get the road rage, because man, IF I EVER SEE YOU AGAIN, I WILL F**** YOU UP! That's right, next time I'm gonna follow you home and then walk all over your lawn. How'd you like that, beeyotch!

There is a baby

For those of you interested in the stats, "Pokey" McNorgan Lubos:

Was born 04:31 EDST on Saturday, October 7, 2006 (6 days overdue)

Weighed in at 8lbs 12.5oz

Was 20.5 inches long

Had a head circumference of 13 inches

Is already pretty muscular (just like dad)

Looks alot like the picture below

I'll be doing a series of shorter entries for the next little bit, partly because it lets me give more easily digested bits of commentary, and partly because I don't anticipate having large blocks of time.