Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Christmas Wishes
Howdy everyone.
Yes, it's been a while since I've blogged. Either my life is settling into a comfortable routine or I've lost the will to complain. Ha, yeah, right!
Right now I'm listening to the sound of an automatic breadmaker at work in my kitchen. It's an annoying sound, a loud metal pounding akin to a dying washing machine on its last gasp. Luckily this thing will only go on for another ten minutes or so, I hope. I've never run this breadmaker before; it was a present that Ted received four years ago from his family. I inherited it when Ted passed away. I decided to bring it out of the box and fire it up. It's making an Italian herb bread. I have no faith that it will work as promised, but since I have the machine it might as well get a test.
Ahhh, it stopped! Now I can hear again.
I'm working on Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas Day at the theatre, so I wanted to take a moment now to wish all of you a merry Christmas. I have no plans for the holiday this year other than to work, but that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying yourself with family and friends wherever you gather.
God bless you all.
Yes, it's been a while since I've blogged. Either my life is settling into a comfortable routine or I've lost the will to complain. Ha, yeah, right!
Right now I'm listening to the sound of an automatic breadmaker at work in my kitchen. It's an annoying sound, a loud metal pounding akin to a dying washing machine on its last gasp. Luckily this thing will only go on for another ten minutes or so, I hope. I've never run this breadmaker before; it was a present that Ted received four years ago from his family. I inherited it when Ted passed away. I decided to bring it out of the box and fire it up. It's making an Italian herb bread. I have no faith that it will work as promised, but since I have the machine it might as well get a test.
Ahhh, it stopped! Now I can hear again.
I'm working on Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas Day at the theatre, so I wanted to take a moment now to wish all of you a merry Christmas. I have no plans for the holiday this year other than to work, but that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying yourself with family and friends wherever you gather.
God bless you all.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
More Senseless Winter Woes
I don't know how I could forget in my earlier rant about the senseless waste of money spent on removing snow. Billions of dollars go to waste all across the North American continent each year to push snow from parking lots, driveways, and roads. It's just frozen water!
Yesterday I spent ninety minutes blowing it around here at the theatre. It looked pretty nice this afternoon until a little snowfall dumped another couple of inches on the ground. Another ninety minutes later and it was nearly perfect. Oops, but wait! It's snowing again and it probably won't stop until tomorrow. Only I don't work tomorrow so the fresh snow is going to be someone else's problem.
When you figure in the cost of human sickness and suffering because of moving that snow around the real price is probably in the trillions of dollars. That's the GNP of the entire eastern hemisphere and then some.
How about global warming? When's that suppose to get here? Hell, I'm not planning on having any descendants so bring it on right now. Forty more years of warmth and no snow wouldn't be so bad. Would it?
Merry Frellin' Christmas, y'all!
Yesterday I spent ninety minutes blowing it around here at the theatre. It looked pretty nice this afternoon until a little snowfall dumped another couple of inches on the ground. Another ninety minutes later and it was nearly perfect. Oops, but wait! It's snowing again and it probably won't stop until tomorrow. Only I don't work tomorrow so the fresh snow is going to be someone else's problem.
When you figure in the cost of human sickness and suffering because of moving that snow around the real price is probably in the trillions of dollars. That's the GNP of the entire eastern hemisphere and then some.
How about global warming? When's that suppose to get here? Hell, I'm not planning on having any descendants so bring it on right now. Forty more years of warmth and no snow wouldn't be so bad. Would it?
Merry Frellin' Christmas, y'all!
I Hate Winter
Okay, okay, so I'm going to bitch a lot about winter. I'm sorry, but I haven't bitched about anything for at least a week and I'm feeling the need to speak my mind about this crap called winter.
Yeah, I know: "move if you don't like it." Believe me, if I had a big enough bank balance I'd be on the first boat to Hawaii with all my crap faster than you could say "go." But that's not the case so I try and adapt as best I can. Living here in the Upper Midwest is, for the most part, pretty pleasant. But once it turns to winter it really gets ugly fast.
Snow accumlations make for nasty driving conditions. We had about eight inches of snow Monday night; it's Wednesday now and we still have many main surface roads that are nothing but wheel ruts of glassy ice. Christmas traffic in many areas only makes that problem worse. Until overworked road crews can scrape the streets with plow blades in a few days it'll only become an even greater hazard. I'm happy to have a 4x4 pickup so getting stuck isn't much of a threat to me, but as long as idiots are out driving around we're all at risk.
Cold weather sucks. It drains the life right out of you, especially if you spend any amount of time outside. Last night I ran a snowblower for ninety minutes at the theatre to clear our sidewalks; I spent the next two hours inside drinking coffee trying to bring my body temp back up to normal.
The threat of cold, snow, and wind make death a reality almost everytime you venture outside in this climate. You've got to take a lot of safety precautions just to make a trip to the grocery store. If you forget yourself, say by talking on a cell phone or whatever, you could hit a spot of ice and wind up smacking into a light pole or another car. Hell, even if you are giving the task your full attention you could still have an accident.
It all seems so contrary to the natural human instinct. Whatever posessed our ancestors to think that this was habitable land? Maybe it was their love for the winters of Europe and Scandinavia that drew them to this frozen wasteland.
Okay. Bitching over. You may return to your warm, sunny day whilst I plow through another frigid one here.
Yeah, I know: "move if you don't like it." Believe me, if I had a big enough bank balance I'd be on the first boat to Hawaii with all my crap faster than you could say "go." But that's not the case so I try and adapt as best I can. Living here in the Upper Midwest is, for the most part, pretty pleasant. But once it turns to winter it really gets ugly fast.
Snow accumlations make for nasty driving conditions. We had about eight inches of snow Monday night; it's Wednesday now and we still have many main surface roads that are nothing but wheel ruts of glassy ice. Christmas traffic in many areas only makes that problem worse. Until overworked road crews can scrape the streets with plow blades in a few days it'll only become an even greater hazard. I'm happy to have a 4x4 pickup so getting stuck isn't much of a threat to me, but as long as idiots are out driving around we're all at risk.
Cold weather sucks. It drains the life right out of you, especially if you spend any amount of time outside. Last night I ran a snowblower for ninety minutes at the theatre to clear our sidewalks; I spent the next two hours inside drinking coffee trying to bring my body temp back up to normal.
The threat of cold, snow, and wind make death a reality almost everytime you venture outside in this climate. You've got to take a lot of safety precautions just to make a trip to the grocery store. If you forget yourself, say by talking on a cell phone or whatever, you could hit a spot of ice and wind up smacking into a light pole or another car. Hell, even if you are giving the task your full attention you could still have an accident.
It all seems so contrary to the natural human instinct. Whatever posessed our ancestors to think that this was habitable land? Maybe it was their love for the winters of Europe and Scandinavia that drew them to this frozen wasteland.
Okay. Bitching over. You may return to your warm, sunny day whilst I plow through another frigid one here.
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Kick It Up a Notch
The Food Network is just genius. I'm really hooked on this cable channel. It's all I watch when I'm home. Fascinating stuff.
Right now Emeril Lagasse is whipping up some kind of fish dish that looks great but since I'm not a fan of seafood it's not really holding my attention. It's a good presentation but what I'm really waiting for is the popcorn cake coming up later--that looks great!
I used to love cooking when I was a young lad, still do I guess, but I never really had a lot of time to do it right. Perhaps I'm hooked on it all now because I still have a secret desire to be a master chef in a big restaurant. Could there be a future in it for me? Sure. Anything is possible.
Before blogging out for the night I want to take a moment to wish the best to two friends who are having birthdays this week: my super-cool friend Ann, and my long-time friend David. Be sure to give them a bit of cheer should you get the chance.
Enjoy your week everyone!
Right now Emeril Lagasse is whipping up some kind of fish dish that looks great but since I'm not a fan of seafood it's not really holding my attention. It's a good presentation but what I'm really waiting for is the popcorn cake coming up later--that looks great!
I used to love cooking when I was a young lad, still do I guess, but I never really had a lot of time to do it right. Perhaps I'm hooked on it all now because I still have a secret desire to be a master chef in a big restaurant. Could there be a future in it for me? Sure. Anything is possible.
Before blogging out for the night I want to take a moment to wish the best to two friends who are having birthdays this week: my super-cool friend Ann, and my long-time friend David. Be sure to give them a bit of cheer should you get the chance.
Enjoy your week everyone!
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
The Chill of Winter
Ahhh, the cold weather has finally arrived. Local folks know what I'm talking about, but for those of you somewhere else in the world I can tell you that it's about -20.0C in my backyard. It'll probably get another 5C degrees colder before morning. Brisk doesn't begin to describe this chill. It might as well be -459 degrees Kelvin for all that I care. Cold is cold.
Still, I've managed to adapt to the harsh clime without too much bitching. Ha. Yeah, right.
I think my last post promised a review of the new Tom Cruise epic, The Last Samurai. Well, fair enough, if you want to know my thoughts about the pic just read on, if not just skip around to the end.
The short of it is that I liked it a lot. I'd give it about 8 out of 10 popcorn kernels. It's been unfairly compared to Kevin Costner's 1990 acclaimed tome Dances With Wolves. Sure, there are the obvious similarities in the plot, but the style and the theme are as different as night and day. The technical credits on Cruise's film are first rate--the cinematography by John Toll is among the best of any film in the last five years, the editing, music, and production design are also fantastic. I even liked Cruise's acting.
You should check it out soon before it gets lost in the crush of the holiday film season.
Well, it's time to bundle myself up and head off to bed. No chance that bed bugs will be biting tonight--they're all frozen solid like little insectiscles.
Ta ta for now.
Still, I've managed to adapt to the harsh clime without too much bitching. Ha. Yeah, right.
I think my last post promised a review of the new Tom Cruise epic, The Last Samurai. Well, fair enough, if you want to know my thoughts about the pic just read on, if not just skip around to the end.
The short of it is that I liked it a lot. I'd give it about 8 out of 10 popcorn kernels. It's been unfairly compared to Kevin Costner's 1990 acclaimed tome Dances With Wolves. Sure, there are the obvious similarities in the plot, but the style and the theme are as different as night and day. The technical credits on Cruise's film are first rate--the cinematography by John Toll is among the best of any film in the last five years, the editing, music, and production design are also fantastic. I even liked Cruise's acting.
You should check it out soon before it gets lost in the crush of the holiday film season.
Well, it's time to bundle myself up and head off to bed. No chance that bed bugs will be biting tonight--they're all frozen solid like little insectiscles.
Ta ta for now.
Friday, December 05, 2003
That Holiday Feeling
Oh, yes, its that time again.
Time for important holiday films worthy of award recognitions. Sometimes the films are really good but most of the time they're just bloated sketches drawn-out to epic proportions. I'm speaking specifically of the latest Tom Cruise offering, The Last Samurai, opening today at theatres nationwide. Sure, I'll check it out for myself before passing final judgement but my initial reaction upon hearing of this concept last year was: "Tom Cruise as a Japanese warrior? Who the hell is going to believe that?" Most of the critics, it seems. Reviews are overwhelmingly positive.
I'll let you know what I think in a couple of days after I see it.
Meanwhile, its time to get some work done. I've been far too lazy these days, couching it while watching hours and hours of the Food Network. I can't afford to make the meals featured on the programs, but its fun to watch and dream of what life could be like if only I knew how to cook.
Ciao!
Time for important holiday films worthy of award recognitions. Sometimes the films are really good but most of the time they're just bloated sketches drawn-out to epic proportions. I'm speaking specifically of the latest Tom Cruise offering, The Last Samurai, opening today at theatres nationwide. Sure, I'll check it out for myself before passing final judgement but my initial reaction upon hearing of this concept last year was: "Tom Cruise as a Japanese warrior? Who the hell is going to believe that?" Most of the critics, it seems. Reviews are overwhelmingly positive.
I'll let you know what I think in a couple of days after I see it.
Meanwhile, its time to get some work done. I've been far too lazy these days, couching it while watching hours and hours of the Food Network. I can't afford to make the meals featured on the programs, but its fun to watch and dream of what life could be like if only I knew how to cook.
Ciao!
