September 2, 2010

The Wilderness Downtown

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OK, this was cool.

My current favorite band (at least in subcategory: Best years are not decades behind them), Arcade Fire, has this interactive video on their website for the great song, “We Used to Wait”.

You enter the street address of one of your childhood homes and images from that place get integrated into the video. I was skeptical that the fairly obscure Timmins street where my parents live would be included, but about four characters in, it came up as an option.

The multi-window resulting video was really neat, especially on the big monitor I have at home.

Requires the Google Chrome browser.

Then you can try out your the address of your choice at http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

 

August 21, 2010

Too much of a good thing?

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Much as I like So You Think You Can Dance Canada, having episodes daily, many two hours long, has been a bit onerous. Of course, it’s just the auditions; it’s not really essential viewing. But they just have such a great ratio of actual dancing vs. blah-blah about dance that they’re a bit hard to resist.

Anyway, I’ve finally caught up. Of course, I’m behind on all other TV viewing, but this time of year, that isn’t so much anyway. Sunday they announce “our” Top 20. Let’s just hope CTV doesn’t start making these kids dance (and us vote) twice a week, in order to fit this all in before all the Fall shows come back with new episodes.

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Apart from sitting on the couch watching gorgeous young people sweat through dance numbers, I’ve acquired four new CDs in the last week (and one’s a double CD). Even for me, that’s rather a lot, but when shopping for used stuff, you got to grab it when it comes up.

The one I got totally new, though, and in digital download format only, is Arcade Fire’s Suburbia. Given that the album is number 1 in Canada, US, and Great Britain, guess I’m none too original on that front. But this is my first Arcade Fire album (or song or anything). I just grew intrigued from reading the reviews.

I love that it’s a concept album. I love that the concept is the suburbs, as representing emptiness and loss and waste. I love people barely 30 being nostalgic for the past: “I used to write letters. But by the time we met things had already changed. We used to wait.” (Very Ray Davies and Village Green Preservation Society, that way.) The songs are smart and sound gorgeous. I don’t mind pretentious when it’s backed by talent.

Oh, and a tip: Don’t buy the albums on iTunes. It’s $12 there. Get it directly from Arcade Fire’s website — $8.

My remaining purchases are all of old favorites. With the acquisition of Flash Gordon, I now, finally, own every Queen album. Course, this one is the weirdo, as it really is a movie soundtrack in the old sense of the term: Not a bunch of pop songs that play over montages in the movie, but the actual score that sets the tone and mood of the scenes. So it’s mostly instrumentals, along with bits of movie dialog (and the insanely catchy theme song).

So obviously, not the one to get if you’re only going to buy one Queen album. Or even 10. But within the movie score genre, it’s actually quite good.

And, I finally completed my Lowest of the Low collection by getting their final album, Sordid Fiction. I need to give all these more listens, but so far it appears to be just as good as their first three: same catchy pop with an alternative edge, smart lyrics with plenty of Canadian references.

And den I got The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight. I actually don’t own all of their albums yet—haven’t quite convinced myself I need their first two albums. And not sure how I convinced myself I needed this double CD, given that it already have this on DVD, not to mention that it contains yet another version of Tommy. So I think I have 8 versions of that particular opera, at this point.

And, you know, The Who really were great that night, at 4 in the morning or whatever, performing at the Isle of Wight. The only problem is that this is a very similar set to Live at Leeds. And Live at Leeds is just better, in both performance and sound quality. But at least Wight features the entire concert, in the proper order. That’s something.

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Oh, and one more set of CDs that came into my possession this week is the unabridged (9 CD) audio version of the novel The Wife’s Tale by Lori Lansens. This is courtesy of the author herself, who read my earlier blog post lamenting my difficulty in acquiring the audio version of this book. Isn’t that cool? And the timing is perfect for our upcoming driving trip to Quebec.

 

August 15, 2010

Busy (for me)

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Earlier in July I determined that I didn’t want all of summer to get away without me doing anything (given that we don’t take the “big” vacations in the summer, something the rest of the world seems to find odd), so I made a list of things I wanted to do:

  • Swim in a lake
  • See a play at Stratford (or somewhere)
  • Visit Toronto

Somehow, in the weeks these activities all got slotted in, other things also came up, so relatively speaking (that is, not compared to the parents and the workaholics, but for me), I’ve been pretty busy.

The weekend after my mother-in-law and sister-in-law visited was the long weekend, which began with a nice long lunch with the girls at Verses. Then on the Sunday and Monday (we couldn’t get reservations on Saturday), we went up to Tobermory. Sunday was mostly about getting there, but we did also visit the little town which was, of course, packed. They have a nice art gallery, but most of the stores are a little on the cheesey side.

We stayed and dined at the Grandview Inn, the only place there listed in Where to Eat in Canada. It was nothing fancy, but it was good food, well prepared, and with a very reasonably priced wine list. The only thing is that the food prices didn’t seem quite as reasonable, with entrees from $27 to $32. On the other hand, I can’t say I wouldn’t eat there again. When in Tobermory, where else you gonna go?

The next day we had a very enjoyable hike in Bruce Peninsula Park.

It seemed a bit chilly for swimming, though, so we moved on to Sauble Beach for that. Though not the hottest day of the summer, it both air and water were warm enough to make that fun.

On the way home, we tried a new restaurant in Goderich: Thyme on 21. This one we were really impressed with—creative seasonings and all. Would definitely eat there again.

The following weekend, I went to see The Tempest at Stratford, with a couple friends. We dined first at The Waterlot in New Hamburg, which was quite enjoyable, then took in the sold-out Shakespeare performance. It was very good! I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t a tragedy, so all the comedy of the first half was something of a surprise!  The cast, led by Christopher Plummer, were very good, with the woman playing Ariel particularly impressing (apart from Plummer, but I expected to be impressed by him).

The next day we had a 120th birthday party to attend: a couple who were each turning 60. Although we didn’t know tons of people there, it turned out to be a nice gathering. And Jean finally got to hear the violin he had helped build be playe. It sounded very good.

This past Tuesday I had the ladies over to discuss The Best Laid Plans, our book club book and also Waterloo Region’s One Community, One Book selection this year. I would recommend it, though it doesn’t have too much competition in the Canadian comic political novel category.

Then Friday and yesterday, we went to Toronto, by train (which happily didn’t go on strike on us). Weather was quite cooperative in being sunny and warm, but not insanely warm. We visited the Distillery district for the first time, admiring the many art galleries (one of which actually had an original AY Jackson. Just beautiful, and only $551,000!). We had an OK dim sum lunch at Pearl Harbourfront (I think Cameron in Kitchener is better) and a more enjoyable, though not spectactular, dinner at Vertical Restaurant on King West. And we stayed at the uber-cool Pantages Hotel.

Saturday we met up with Joanne and Jon, finally seeing where they live. Quite a nice condo. And after we spent a bit of time at Harbourfront.

Next weekend, the calendar looks clear at the moment. And that’s just fine!

 

August 7, 2010

This maketh no census

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I tell you, this federal government of ours certainly has a talent for making me enraged over issues I previously didn’t give two figs about.

I did this personality test thingie recently that said, on how I relate to other people, is that most of all, I just want them to make sense. Probably why I’m employed in the geeky world of computers, driven by the implacable software logic of 1s and 0s. And certainly why politics in general, and the Conservative party in particular, make me crazy.

According to Jeffrey Simpson in The Globe and Mail, making the long-form census optional was all Stephen Harper’s idea, and both Tony Clement and Jim Flaherty opposed it. But any points Clement might have gained (from me) for that initial stance has been squandered by his soldering on, defending the thing.

Of course, the particularities of the defense need to keep changing in light of those pesky facts. First I heard him on CBC Radio arguing that the optional census would be just as good, and if you can’t trust the government on that, at least trust Stats Canada! Because they were totally behind this!

That complete lie was exposed with the dramatic (at least in the world of stats) resignation of the head of Stats Canada over those allegations.

Round two. OK, so the data won’t be as good, but it’s worth it, because it’s just too much intrusion on people’s lives. Oh, and like the tax form isn’t? Way more personal, really, and not anonymized! Also, there was the irritating fact that there was no evidence of mass complaints about the census, and exactly zero people had ever been jailed for not filling it in.

Meanwhile, the list of those opposed to scraping the mandatory census continued to grow.

Round three. All these critics are just moochers on the federal government. They just don’t want to do the heavy lifting themselves, and get their own data.

Imagine. Thinking that a Federal government should centralize a service useful to all Canadians! Crazy talk! Of course, every level of government and every agency should raise their taxes and deficits and prices so they can all do their own mandatory census (let’s ignore they don’t power of law behind for that), then spend even more money trying put all these separate surveys together into a coherent package! That is so much more inefficient and time-consuming and expensive, it’s got to be the better way, right?

(Maybe this is a weird stimulus package?)

And the thing, this whole mess isn’t even giving the Conservatives a political advantage. It’s not like the other illogical things they like to get behind, like fighting imaginary crime, that will at least instinctively appeal to some. Nobody cares about the census.

Or they didn’t. But they now do, but they don’t agree with Conservatives, who are now at their lowest poll numbers in ages. Which would be the one thing to be happy about, except that no one other single party is really gaining tons of support either, so Conservatives would probably still win the damn election with another minority.

 

July 27, 2010

The Bauer Kitchen and Angel’s Gate Winery restaurant

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This weekend we had visitors, so we ate out a couple of times.

The Bauer Kitchen is a relatively new restaurant, the latest in a series by The Charcoal Group. I’ve always found Charcoal restaurants to be solid but unexciting, but was curious to try Bauer mainly because every item on the menu is paired with a particular wine by the glass.

Being lodged in a renovated factory, the place itself has a fair amount of character, which is nice. The high ceilings and Saturday night popularity made it somewhat loud, though. The service was perfectly respectable. Pretty informal (“Hi guys!”), but attentive, and no big waits for orders, food delivery, or bill pick-up.

As a starter, I had the mixed mushrooms tart with St. André and Romano cheese. I had some fear would be too cheesy, but that was not the case; the mushroom taste predominated, and was very good. That was paired with a Chilean pinot. Others at our table had cold melon soup with prociutto, part of the Summerlicious menu, and declared merely OK, and baked brie with sugared pecans and fruit. It’s hard to go wrong with baked brie.

For the main course, I went for the Cioppino. This version was a pile of tomato-y onions and sweet peppers, topped with several kinds of fish and seafood. I was pleasantly surprised how well the fish was done, with nothing overcooked. The vegetables had a definite sweet tinge, which was not unappealing. Also tried was the duck, found to be good but not great (nice sauce, but possibly overcooked); baked trout that was apparently also prepared very well; and prosciutto wrapped pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes, both a hit. My dish came with an Australian white of a type of grape I’d never heard of before, and now can’t remember. But it was fine, maybe a bit Chardonnay-like, and did suit the food.

Dessert for me was a mix of sorbet and fruit in an ice wine sauce. I couldn’t really detect the ice wine, but the sorbet was very nice. I had that with one of their specialty coffees (instead of the recommended ice wine), made with steamed milk rather than whipped cream. The other two desserts were declared perfectly appealing as well.

Overall, of course, it was not Verses or Langdon Hall quality, but then again, it’s cheaper as well. I would declare the Bauer Kitchen good value for the money.

Sunday we headed out to Beamsville to visit a few wineries. After a stop at Rosewood, where I got a Gewurtz and a Riesling, we went for lunch at Angel’s Gate Winery. The menu is quite different: It offers four platters, all intended to serve two people, on these themes: Regional, Quebec, East Coast, and cheese. We went for Regional and cheese. Then, most of us also opted for flights of wine, which is 2 0z. of four of their wines.

The Regional platter was really nice, with lamb loin, absolutely delicious tomatoes, green beans done up nicely in a truffle sauce, pickerel fillet, and crepes with berries and goats cheese. The cheese assortment included Cheddar, a Hermitage blue, a brie, and another, with a good selection of fruit and crackers.

The setting there is gorgeous: an open terrace looking out over the vineyard. And Sunday was beautiful; a perfect day for that type of lunch. Having four types of wine and so many types of food was great fun, and really, the perfect way to taste wine. Though in the end, I only bought their Tavel-style rosé (just $11.95!).

Après lunch, we headed to Crown Bench Estates, known for their flavored ice wines. Jean’s sister picked up a few of those, but we stuck to the 2007 reds, bringing home the Meritage, which is a blend.

Somewhat rounding out the culinary weekend (which, Saturday, also featured a stop at the Olive Grove in Elora, for olive oil and vinegar tasting), we made a foie gras and duck breast supper, all based on LCBO recipes. The duck was accompanied by beets, oyster mushrooms, and mint, in olive oil and balsamic, and it turned out really well. (Yes, better than at Bauer Kitchen.) The side of Jamie Oliver roasted potatoes, with very fresh rosemary and sage, were also a hit.

Now, to exercise.

 

July 21, 2010

Langdon Hall

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So for the anniversary on Sunday, we finally went to Langdon Hall.

Jean would be quick to point out that it wasn’t his first time there (his work has its privileges), but it was mine. Though we are foodies, and this was recently named one of the top 100 restaurants in the world, the price has always given us pause. But we finally decided to go for it. Key to enjoyment is to not obsess too much about the cost. Though it is impossible to ignore completely.

The setting of the place is beautiful. The dining room is not all that big, really, and is very bright—lots of windows. Of course, it’s all fine linens and nice antique furnishings.

Although the menu was hardly huge—about five appetizers, five entrees, plus an option to have a five-course dinner with matching wines—we spent quite a while with it, debating and trying to decide what to opt for. It didn’t help that the wine list was a virtual catalog. Mind you, an excellent way to narrow the options was to stick to bottles under $75. “OK, so no white burgundies. And most especially no red burgundies! Champagne is out….” And so on.

In the end, we decided on the three-course approach. After giving our order, they brought bread and butter—both made in-house. In-house bread I’d experienced before; in-house butter was a first. And delicious with large salt crystals.

My appetizer was… actually kind of disgusting. I had to not think about it too much. It was foie gras (that’s not the disgusting part) and pig’s head. They didn’t even have a fancy name for it. Just pig’s head. And it didn’t help that the texture was… Odd. Fortunately, the taste was delightful. Some of the best cold foie gras I’ve had, with that other thing. And the sides of gooseberry and salt were beautiful flavor bursts. With that, I had a very nice glass of 1994 Daniel Lenko late harvest riesling (just $10!).

Jean’s starter was cold poached sable fish with an assortment of other items (always harder for me to remember stuff I didn’t personally eat). I tasted the fish, and it was really nice. He had that with a 2007 Tawse Pinot Noir, which we got a half bottle of.

As my main course, I went with potato-encrusted halibut with a side of morels and asparagus. (And had the Pinot with that; very nice, easy drinking light red.) I took one bit of one asparagus, swooned, and dropped another piece in Jean’s plate for him to try. The fish on its own, though, was one slight misfire of the whole dinner: it was slightly overdone, slightly dry. But when eaten with the encrusted potato, it was delicious.

And the morels. What amazing little food items those are. And, these ones were grown right at Langdon Hall. So that’s some fresh.

Jean’s beef strip loin was also accompanied by those morels. He also got some wonderful peas. And the meat? Really good; I tasted that also. The pinot seemed too light to go with that, so he had a glass of a Spanish tempranillo. It was full and fruity, and though he didn’t find it very complex, it did suit the food very well. (The sommelier—who is a woman, which seems slightly unusual—had recommended it.)

And then, dessert. We both picked a proper dessert, then Jean asked about the cheese, and got seduced in that direction instead. He chose four: a bleu de Charlevoix (we have visited that producer), la Sauvagine (his favorite cheese), a Belgian red (new to us; it was nice), and a chèvre noir. And, he asked for something non-alcoholic to go with that, as he had to drive home soon. That unusual request took the bartender four attempts, we were told, but they did come up with a nice cocktail of rosewater, mint, cranberry, and soda water.

I had the best-tasting dark chocolate in the world over chocolate mousse with delicious in-season Ontario strawberries. Oh, my God. And there was also a nice swirl of hazelnut mouse. I drank decaf cafe latte with that.

Jean did slightly over-order on cheese, and couldn’t quite finish, but otherwise, they did a great job of providing enough but not too much food over the three courses. We concluded that they weren’t necessarily better than Verses in cooking quality, but Langdon has their own brand of originality, a more frequently changing menu, and a real local focus, down to growing their own food. It’s not going to be a regular haunt, but we’re really glad we braved the sticker shock and experienced dinner there.

 

July 18, 2010

How does your garden grow?

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It grows pretty darn well this year–certainly a damn sight better than last year!

Whereas last year we had one (1) pea, this year we actually had a handful! And they were delicious. And we’ve already eaten twice as many tomatoes (4) than we ever got all of last season–despite having far fewer plants this year–and there appears to be many more tomatoes on the way, working their way from green to orange to red.

Yes, the garden has been doing so well, in fact, that some animal has discovered it. This is a first, actually. It’s a raised bed, so that deters a lot of critters right there. I was just plain confused, at first, to find that the parsley and cilantro plants that had been so abundant with leaves at breakfast looked really… stemmy at dinner time. Took a while to realize that meant some sort of animal invader.

The next day was worse, the parsley and cilantro now completely leafless, and some of the tomatoes tried and discarded (they’re still pretty green, most of them).

Worst of all, the critter didn’t even touch the sage. Sage, I’m starting to realize, is the zucchini of the herb world: hardy, abundant, yet not very useful as a food item. That, I would happily share with anyone. Yet all of its many, many leaves remained intact, serving only tp make the naked parsley and cilantro plants nearby look more sad.

I went on the Interweb to look up “keeping animals out of garden”, and of course that just left me totally confused. Cayenne works, except when it doesn’t. Put dirty socks out there. Or smelly soap. Electric fences. Radios set CBC (human voice).

Anyway, we finally decided to try a modified fencing approach. We now have mesh fabric running around the whole garden, lowered at strategic points so that I can still get at it. I have no idea if I’m dealing with raccoon, bunny, or even cat exploring his vegetarian side, but regardless, at least that should make access more complicated, so hopefully they’ll go visit the neighbour’s garden instead.

 

July 10, 2010

The story of my stuff

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You’ve seen The Story of Stuff, yes? The fairly enlightening, partly animated video about how we North Americans all have too much stuff, and why that’s a problem? It has made me think. (99% of what I acquire is discarded within 6 months? Really?) But so far, I don’t think it’s really made me change my behavior.

It’s just so ingrained. Just watch this beautiful justification for why two people having three television sets just isn’t enough….

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Many television series ran their course for the season back in May or so, but we’ve been getting by with season 1 of True Blood (never did develop the love, though), season 1 of Californication (whereas I really did get caught up with all these flawed people), and even finally finishing all my PVR’ed episodes of Flashforward. (And the TV critic who claimed the last episode was confusing and open-ended was an idiot. The last episode wasn’t in the least hard to follow, and the series tied itself up very nicely, leaving some areas open for the future, yes, but hardly to a frustrating extent. The whole thing is recommended for all who like sci-fi, physics, and philosophical questions of will vs. fate, as presented by pretty people.)

But now all those are done, too, so Jean and I have near run out of shows we both like to watch. This is a problem, because we both tend to like to settle down around 9:00 for a bit of TV. What to watch, what to watch, when all I want to do is catch up with So You Think You Can Dance (nestled there on the PVR) but he’s already engrossed in an action thriller on AMC?

What, you only have TV, you ask? Well, no. But the thing, we only have one TV in a location where it’s actually comfortable to sit down and watch it. The second one is in the kitchen, where your only seating option are the high stools at the breakfast bar. Fine for catching the news while preparing and eating dinner, but not so great for settling in for a long watch. (Plus, being that close to the food also leads to way too much snacking.)

And the third? If you can even call that a TV, given that it’s–and I’m serious–a Commodore 64 monitor. So it’s very old and therefore prone to some flickering, and also very small. And, it’s in the exercise room. Being an exercise room, there are no seats in there, unless you count the big weight machine chair. So it’s a great place to play exercise or other videos while exercising. But if you just want to watch TV, you’re kind of stuck with a yoga mat on the floor as “seating”.

This, combined with the grumpiness that comes with the heat and humidity of late, that has led to us arguing over our respective television preferences, and who is to be banished to the uncomfortable upstairs. Adding insult to injury, upstairs person also loses PVR access. Stuck with live TV, with its many, many long commercial breaks (all telling you that you suck and need to buy more stuff)…

So, clearly, we need to put a TV in the living room.

Much like TV in the bedroom, this is something I’ve always resisted, with some idea that the living room should be about “higher” culture like books and music and paintings and conversation.

But one has to be practical. Fact is, it is the only other room in the house with couches and chairs.

But we ain’t putting a TV cabinet in there. So, the thing will have to wall-mounted. And, it’s the living room; it’s going to have to look good. So there’s no question of moving one of the existing extra TVs into that room (and besides, we need them where they are!). Clearly, we need a new TV.

A lovely, sleek, new flatscreen television.

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See how that works? And the lovely new television will, in turn, lead to justifications for high-definition TV receivers and service and PVRs, not to mention BlueRay DVD players and discs. And won’t that mean some sort of sound system upgrade? …

And hence we demonstrate our value in this culture of consumerism.

 

July 5, 2010

Odds and sods

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I’d mentioned to some that the SD card from our trip had cracked right in half when inserted into the computer. Well, it turns out that Windows 7 has a feature to help you recover from such a thing. To access it, simply remove the card, reinsert it, and accept the repair option. In the end, we lost very few photos. (And I’ve finally managed the finish the web pages about the trip.)

Too bad it took us a few weeks to figure that out.

*****

Have a new iPod classic. Well, new to me. I bought it used on Ebay. It’s in excellent shape, though; looks brand new. I was mainly after greater storage capacity, and boy do I have that now: 120 GB. Given that it’s taken me 5 years to get to 30 GB, that should be enough for some time. It’s also black, which is somewhat cooler-looking than the white. And it has a better screen, a “cover flow” feature (which I’m not entirely sure of the point of, but is weirdly compelling to look at), more information displayed about each song and playlist, and the ability to create Genius playlists on-the-fly.

The Ebay experience was a little stressful due to uncommunicative seller, but to his credit, he was very fast in shipping it out. So fast, in fact, that he didn’t even bother to remove his 60 GB of music first. So much music, so little I have any interest in. To start fresh? Click that scary, never-before-used “Restore Factory Settings” button.

*****

More nice tributes have come in for Pete Quaife of The Kinks, including an obituary in the Globe and Mail on July 1, by one his former—but post-Kinks—bandmates. Also very beautiful was Ray Davies’ dedicated rendition of “Days”, the most perfect song to sing to a departed friend (and a song he’s often associated with Pete in the past). Ray almost loses it on the opening lines.

 

June 29, 2010

RIP Pete Quaife

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Having gotten a little behind on checking in on Kinks news, I found out only today that Pete Quaife had died. Pete was the original bassist for The Kinks, a founding member of the band who left in 1969. So his bass lines underscored all their great early hits, starting with “You Really Got Me.” His bass is particularly prominent in the opening of one of the most beautiful songs ever, “Waterloo Sunset”. And he even got to sing lead once, on the country-esque “Willesden Green.”

Pete also happens to be the only member of The Kinks I’ve met personally. It was at an academic conference, of all things, albeit one on the subject of Popular Culture. The conference was in Toronto, and Pete was living in Canada at the time. He presented a session on the British Invasion in general, and The Kinks in particular. His presentation was funny and engaging, and he was very congenial about shaking hands afterward.

So, I find myself pretty bummed that he’s gone. At 66, he is the first of the four founding members of The Kinks to die.

Really nice tribute to Pete from the maker of the Do It Again documentary (a quest to reunite the original Kinks. Now I’m bummed again.)

Another artifact of Pete’s time in Canada: A YouTube video of his appearance on On the Road Again

Pete spent years on dialysis. He passed the time making cartoons about it. Actually pretty funny…

 

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