Random Thoughts

Computer Problems = Money Problems

I upgraded to Windows 7 on the weekend. It went really well, considering. Just some minor-but-very-irritating issues with connecting to an old Samba share. Also? for some reason the Home Premium edition doesn't include the security policy editor. Fail.

Anyway, my data hard drive, which has been threatening to die for a while, finally did. I was able to get most of the data off, thankfully, but it took forever. Of course, a new hard drive, a dock to transfer files easily, another new hard drive for backups... all add up. Then I went and bought an Acer Home Server that I really didn't need because it was a great price. But I didn't have anywhere to put it and I didn't really need it (I only have 1 computer so I can really just keep everything on it). So I returned that.

Naomi's 4th Birthday

Naomi's 4 years old now - time is really flying fast. She seems to have a thing for tradition, though, same green pistachio cake, same chocolate cupcakes. (Same ladybug costume for halloween too! That was yesterday.) She seemed to have a good time, though she got a bit touchy toward the middle of the party.

Last year, she was all about my chocolate cupcakes, but this year she TOTALLY went for Grandpa's pistachio cake. I'm not sure what's with the BONFIRE of candles (each letter of "happy birthday") but she did a good job blowing them all out.

In unrelated news, Jen's brother is pretty good at table tennis - but unless he let me win, he's not quite as good as I am ;) I can't play easy against him, though, or he wins.

Princess Cake

Princess cake is a Swedish dessert. It's layers of cake with pastry cream and whipped cream, topped with green marzipan. Melanie had made them in the past working in a bakery but never gotten to taste it. So we decided to make one, using a recipe from Martha Stewart. Ours ended up looking a bit more like the homemade attempts than the Martha Stewart version :) More pix and text after the jump.

Garage Door Opener

Canadian Tire had a great deal on a garage door opener - a heavy duty one with 2 openers and a combo lock. At least I think it was a great deal, because it was about a hundred bucks off and the whole skid of them sold out.

Lisa and I installed it on Thanksgiving Monday, in between gorging ourselves on prime rib, yorkshire puddings and pumpkin pie. EVERYTHING went our way - the motor head landed squarely between the electrical outlet and the ceiling light, and underneath the ceiling joist. My neighbor's ladder was the perfect height to support the motor head in place. The rail just barely fit past the garage door spring. When we needed carriage bolts to attach to the door, my neighbour returned home and supplied them. (For some reason, the kit only supplied 2" lag bolts - who has a 2" thick garage door!?) Lots to be thankful for!

I also installed a lock in the garage door to disengage the opener from the outside, in case the power is out or the unit malfunctions. Unfortunately, I measured with the door closed and when open, the hole for the lock was too low and pulled the disengage hook as the door opened. So I had to move it higher, leaving a hole that needs patching.

Anyway, I'm glad to have it up before winter hits, so that I don't have to get out of the car unnecessarily.

Gaming and Google Earth

Dan, Jen and I went to Chris and Eva's place in Toronto to play board games. We played a variety of games, including Goldene Stadt (which I suck at) and Settlers of Cataan (which I'm OK at). There were other games, but I can't remember them anymore :)

Chris' condo is awesome, spacious and in the heart of the city on College and Yonge - steps from the universities, hospitals and biggest downtown shopping centre. And it was surprisingly inexpensive, making me entertain fantasies of living in the city...

In related news, Google Street View is making its way north - here's Chris' condo building Street View is pretty cool, but it's just a bit creepy. Sean's wife was parked in the street in front of his house and you can 'drive' right past it and look in the windows. Yeesh.

Apple Picking

We went apple picking at Pine Farms Orchard in King City. The trees were laden with many, many different kinds of apples and it was fun sampling them all (pesticides be damned!). It was a drizzly day, but we still had a good time. My favorite for eating were the Honey Crisp, but they were a bit more expensive than the others, which were only 89c/lb - not a bad price. Naomi had a good time but got tired pretty quickly.

Long Slow Stew

Quick recipes are nice, but when trying to make a really good meal out of very cheap meat, low and slow is the way to go. I cut the beef, tough shanks, ox tail and blade, into large chunks so that they wouldn't disappear over the 5 hour bake in the oven. I seared them off to add flavor and sauteed with a classic mirpoix (onions, celery and carrot). Smoked paprika with other herbs added some exotic flavor. Parsley, beans and cherry tomatoes from the garden rounded out the meal.

Recipe: Blueberry Muffins

Recipezaar comes through again! This recipe for blueberry muffins turned out really really well and were yummy. Also important, they were very easy to make and used ingredients that are easy to have on hand. I'm reproducing the recipe here so that I won't lose track of it.

Sienna's Birthday

Sienna is up and walking now and her baptism and birthday were both celebrated today (well, allowing for my backdating of posts). Rucell made her usual overflowing buffet of delicious. My contribution was mini chocolate cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Buttercream. They were yummy and the icing was very tasty (I don't usually like icing, but this stuff is good).

All the usual cast were there and everyone seemed to have a really good time. Riley likes watching people play Wii, which I suck at, but I was getting pretty good at Mariokart after a while. He also liked watching the "waiting" splash screen on the Wii Shopping channel, as the little circle graphic cycled. We replayed that for about 20 minutes, following the graphic with our fingers.

The cupcakes took enough time that I didn't get a chance to buy Sienna a birthday gift! Upon consultation with Trev and Sean, Leapfrog DVDs look like a good choice.

Cheapest HDTV Ever

I lucked out a bit with some impulse purchases from Dell. The most recent is their new 23" monitor, the ST2310, which has full 1080p resolution and an HDMI input for just $200 (80 bucks off). What makes it great for HDTV is that it also has an audio output. So the HDMI input can supply audio to the optional Soundbar ($36).

Since I also purchased a very discounted Logitech speaker set that has an auxiliary input, I can plug the monitor directly into that and get good sound from those speakers while still getting computer sound. The picture quality is great (I've only tried 720p and 1080i) for TV. For computer, though, it's not as good as my S-IPS panel 2209WA which has the most even backlighting and color that I've ever had ($220 on sale, vertical screen rotation, but no HDMI and not full HD resolution).

The bad:
The only bad thing about using this as a TV is that it doesn't have some of the features that a dedicated TV set might. The one thing that I'd like is the ability to 'zoom' standard definition letterbox broadcasting to fit the wide screen. Still, it's still a bigger picture than my old SD LCD 19" set.

I also use this monitor as a secondary computer monitor. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a dedicated button that can cycle through the inputs - it takes a couple button presses (and the buttons are inconveniently located on the side) to switch inputs. And when switching from HDMI to DVI, the colors get a bit scrambled, requiring a power cycle. This wouldn't bother anyone who wasn't switching inputs constantly.

The front bezel is glossy black, which I don't particularly care for. It's nicer looking than flat black plastic, but I prefer the flat black plastic as it's less distracting with no reflections.