mrtrance

I went to the LCBO in St. Catharines after work today, just for fun. They're going on strike at midnight. The place was a zoo, the lines stretched across the store. Needless to say, I took a look around and walked right out, after a short conversation with a few friends I ran into there.

I was trying to take some pictures of this wicked awful cut I got on my hand at work the other day. When I started to upload them it said there were 135 pictures to upload! I was like WTF? Even if I don't delete pictures off my camera, it doesn't upload them twice unless you ask it to, so what were these mystery pictures?? As it turned out, there were a pile of pictures from the same day as the chipmunk photo session, including some really good ones of a robin having a bath and some other crazy bird having a dust bath, plus a bunch more of the chipmunk at the end! I'd completely forgotten I'd even taken these pictures! Here are a couple samples:

I was at the JoHo today, that's my new local bar that gives winery employees 50% off food Wednesday nights, and I was having a beer with some friends. Creemore was on special, but since we're regulars the bartender Jerry plonked a free pint down on our table that he'd poured by accident. It was in a Rickard's glass, and since we were out on the patio the sun really lit it up, and I noticed something amazing. They'd actually engraved or embossed the Rickard's "R" logo in the bottom of the glass so that the bubbles form and release into the beer in the shape of that "R"! It looked fucking cool! See for yourself!





Amazing!

I know how to use this thing now :)

I got a text from my sister around 5am saying the neighbour's house burned down. I called my dad at lunch and he told me the fire started at about 3am. No one was home, the family was on vacation at the time. It started where the gas line connects to the furnace, and it was only found because a bus driver on SHEPPARD AVE. smelled smoke and called it in. That's like 4-5 blocks away! Then the fire truck just cruised the neighbourhood until it found the fire. Eventually the whole street was lined with every kind of emergency response vehicle there is. From what I hear that house is a write-off, everything inside is completely destroyed, if not burned then soaked by fire hoses, but mostly burned. Here are a few pictures my dad took today. I wish I'd been there to take some last night!







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What the FUCKING FUCK??????? How is anyone getting any bonuses after a company loses over 60 BILLION dollars in 1/4 of a year????? Do they actually have positions like "Senior VP of Epic Corporate Failure" or "Chief Executive of Solid Gold Toilet Acquisition"?? If a company loses that much money there is NO excuse for anyone to be getting any bonuses!! HOLY FUCK!!

A few days ago we went to “Angel's Diner” in St. Catharines, on the recommendation of a friend of mine. We looked it up online and the menu was extensive (as diner food goes) and the prices seemed reasonable. We ordered our meals after much debate and when they arrived we pretty much burst out in laughter. The portions were SO HUGE it was almost comical. Here is Amira’s veal parmigiana with a 1/2 order of spaghetti on the side! A HALF ORDER OF SPAGHETTI!





The plate is wider than she is!

And me, well I was scared that a half rack of ribs wouldn’t be enough, so I got the ribs and chicken tenders combo.



Holy jesus, a half rack of ribs was about twice as much as I could eat! The food was good though, except for the mashed potatoes which were all grainy and clearly from a “just add water” mix.

Going through my mail today I opened my PC line-of-credit statement to find an additional insertion telling me that the rate was going up by 1% effective April 23rd. At least they gave me more than -1 day's notice before jacking up the rate for no reason other than greed, but still it's annoying. I guess I'll be shopping for a host for my line-of-credit in the coming weeks. It's not like I was getting an exceptional deal as it was, so to have it jump by 1%, especially right now, is just ridiculous. Their only excuse is something lame like "changing lending conditions", i.e. "we're not making as much money as we'd like to, so hey, guess what sucker, you're going to PAY!"

I just did something I can't even imagine anyone else doing. I deleted mp3s!! I have ALL of them in my WinAmp playlist on random, and there are several that seem to come up again and again, and I ALWAYS skip over them. So for a while I'd been asking myself, Why? Why do I keep these songs that I never want to listen to? I didn't really have a good answer, so tonight I decided to cut them free! See ya later suckers!! Oh no, now I only have somewhere in the range of 2300 mp3s, what will I ever do? I could never compete with those guys who keep EVERY SINGLE SONG EVERY MADE JUST TO SAY THEY HAVE IT. Oh woe is me (not).

I forgot my camera at Mike's place on Superbowl Sunday. I just got it back last night, so here, finally are pictures of the chili and the inside of the magical and delicious "Bacon Explosion"!!

Today I tried making some 50% whole wheat bread. Like regular, bought in a store, loaf of sandwich bread. It took a while for the rising and to be honest, I think I probably should have let it rise even longer. In the end, the loaf turned out nice, although shorter than I had hoped. Tomorrow we'll giver a taste and see if we no longer need to buy bread in this household!

I've been meaning to try shooting the wildlife under my birdfeeders for a long time now. It's been so cold though, I never wanted to open the window, especially since when I did that in the summer it scared everything away and in the freezing cold I couldn't really just keep it open until animals came back. But today, I slept in again (getting sick kind of killed my almost week long streak of waking up at a reasonable hour), and realizing more and more that I'm going to have to go back to work in 2 weeks now has got me feeling the pressure of trying to do things that I didn't get to do in the past 5-6 weeks. So today, after breakfast at around 2:30pm I busted out my camera and zoom lens and took a few shots through the windows. Most of them didn't turn out all that well, but a couple polished up nicely:

For some reason, every once in a while, Yahoo decides to reroute my bookmark from Yahoo.com to Yahoo.ca. I don't know why, but usually after I go back to the US one a few times it figures it out and starts taking me there again. I don't like the .ca version for some reason, probably partly because of the colour scheme, but also, I guess I get my Canadian news from other sources, so I want to go to Yahoo.com for more international headlines. Anyway, today I got redirected to the .ca website and was greeted with this most hilariously idiotic top story.



I couldn't believe it at first, it's so absurd. "Experiment: How racist are white people?" Are you fucking kidding me? What a farce. "Who is the most racist"...find out tonight on Survivor Island: Racist Edition!

I can’t, off-hand, think of where I saw it recommended, but I did somewhere, so I decided to give it a try. The wine I’m talking about is the Bodega Lurton Malbec Reserva 2006 from Argentina. It was $13.95, and it was well worth it. I wasn’t looking for anything spectacular in the wine, but it delivered exactly what I was looking for, namely an easy drinking, smooth, full-bodied, fruity/oaky every day dinner wine at a reasonable price-point. The alcohol was 13.5%, which is getting up there IMO, but not uncommon these days, especially for South America. I’ve had it open 3 days now and while there were hints of oxidation this evening, I’m sure it would last into tomorrow (were it not so delicious). It paired equally well with my homemade vegetarian pizza Saturday night and my herb roasted chicken with roast potatoes last night. Tonight I’m drinking it on its own since I had breakfast for dinner, and, well, I don’t know that any wines would match well with fried eggs, figs and hummus... It was released through Vintages in October, but there is still some of it around Ontario at various locations as of today (Jan. 5/09). Product code 903153. As an “Everyday Drinker” I’d give it a 5/5 for its balance, mouthfeel, cheap and cheerful food-friendliness and price. I wouldn't age it much though.

I came across a clever (I guess) but LAME-ASS Facebook spam today. There was a picture that said a friend of mine had been tagged in it. The guy in the picture didn't look like my friend, so I clicked it to see. It was actually an ad for a jacket. There were three pictures, front, side and back of this other dude wearing a jacket, with a description of the jacked below, and I noticed that dozens of people were tagged in this photo. What bullshit, but there wasn't any way to report it that I could see, unlike the regular ads on the side that you can thumbs up/thumbs down if you want...

With my internship in Oregon quickly coming to an end, I picked up a few souvenirs today at the local army surplus store "Camo and Gear" which I drive by on my way to and from work each day.

I picked up this awesome hat





Freedom endures, baby!

And then this sweet green dress shirt (for only $4.99!, what a steal!)

Watch it and laugh, OMG, seriously!

Riskay Featuring Aviance - "Let Me Smell Yo Dick"

Apologies in advance for the size/number of picture in this post!









Yes, wine is this cheap here (sometimes, when it's on sale!)








I think this is my favorite shot!

One of the guys from my wine class was in an interview on the CH Hamilton news last week. It's a little better than my "Birds" interview on CTV, lol. If you want to check it out, it's only a 2 minute or less segment, kind of interesting. Just go to this website:

http://www.chtv.com/ch/chchnews/video/index.html

Then click on the bar on the right near the top that says "CHCH News (100 clips)" and search "grape" then click on the the clip entitled "3rd Generation grape grower"

I was reading an article today about some accident on a Russian nuclear sub that killed 20 people and it said that it was the worst Russian submarine disaster "...since the Kursk sank eight years ago."

Holy crap!! Eight years, I mean, I know it feels like it was a few years ago, maybe 4 or 5 if I really think about it, but I never, ever, would have guessed that that happened EIGHT years ago!!!

Where does that time go???