Category: Personal

These are a few of my favorite tweets

I didn’t get Twitter for a long time. I’d go there and not really see the point. In practical terms, I didn’t really understand how anything of value could be provided in 140 characters. And there was all that talk of people just tweeting about what they had for breakfast.

Now, though, I’m addicted.

I initially signed on based on a friend’s advice to do so just to get a good Twitter-name, even if I didn’t do much with it right away. Turned out she had a point; most variations of my name and my most commonly used web pseudonyms were already in use by others. But I did find an available combination.

Twitter has a bit of learning curve to it. I started by just following a small number of people and trying to figure it out from there. I soon learned that a lot of power is in the link; sure, you can’t say that much in 140 characters, but you can link to those details. (And to photos. And to videos.)

But when I’m say addicted, it’s not to tweeting itself, which I remain a little gun-shy about. (Apparently I have tweeted 28 times in total.) In fact, I’m still not completely clear on who sees what when it comes replies, direct replies, direct messages, retweets, private message… ? All in all, it’s easier to just listen, most of the time.

Currently I follow 59 accounts, some of whom haven’t tweeted in two years, some of whom tweet so frequently, I don’t know how they stay employed.

Among my favorites are the following.

@Elizabeth May:  A lot of the politicians I follow tweet mostly dull platitudes, toeing the party line. Elizabeth May (federal leader of the Green Party, but you knew that) tweets more like a real person would. I particularly enjoy her tweets from Parliament Hill, which give insight into things that wouldn’t necessarily make the media:

I had planned to make a statement marking Remembrance Day. I am shocked the CPC has blocked my chance to speak.

They didn’t like the point I was making. 40 years 1913-1956 closure used 10x; in last 40 days, 7x

Conservatives keep limiting debate. They have the votes. Not sure why everything has to be forced thru.

Ban asbestos motion. First vote to keep asbestos trade, our PM.

John McCallum asked Tony Clement about an answer by tweet! Twitter seems to be Clement’s only forum 4 G8 $ Q’s. Baird takes all Qs in QP.

Though must say it’s not exactly improving my opinion of the Conservative Party of Canada.

@simont400000: He being Simon Townshend, the much younger brother of one Pete Townshend, and who also tours with Roger Daltrey. Been kind of fun “following” him on tour:

Great show in Vancouver. Smokin’ crowd! Two shows left on tour and the TCT charity gig in LA. Come along… 2.5k a ticket. Rock n’ Roll!

And his random tweets are also kind of funny:

@Kimmittable: I’m a real fan of your earlier work.” I said that to Joni Mitchell once and she told me to Fuck off. True!

And if you’re wondering what it’s like to not be famous yourself (though he is himself quite a talented composer and musician), but hanging with the very famous:

Getting home from tour is strange… no daily sheet, no room service, no living from suitcase or doing laundry – no gigs. Not being a pop star

@dizzyfeet: This being the moniker of Nigel Lithgow, producer of American Idol and judge on So You Think You Can Dance. It’s in the latter capacity that I’m interested, but I don’t follow anyone else connected with that show. Nigel’s feed is just hilarious as he so frequently engages in public battles with those who reply to this tweets. There’s a whole “Moron” meme running through his feed that you’d have to read back on to completely understand.

RT @Clamanity: @izzyfeet Emmy voters are morons. [I KNOW. I’VE BEEN HANDING OUT #MORON NUMBERS ALL NIGHT. HA, HA!]

He’s also satisfyingly blunt (not mean) in posting his opinion. He’s recently been listed on “Recommend people to follow on Twitter”, so I’m not the only one to notice the fun to be had here. His response:

Welcome to all my new followers. Thank you#NewYorkPost I felt truly proud. Bring on the#Morons.

Of course!

@karenscian: Who? Right! She makes Simon Townshend seem famous. She’s my city councillor. Who has actually gotten in trouble for tweeting during council meetings.

But her feed covers a great deal more than the goings-on at Waterloo City Hall. She comments on Waterloo news in general, federal and provincial politics, food, family… An eclectic mix that very often seems to jibe with my own interests.

And I’ll leave the last tweet to her.

Oh Twitter, you are such a procrastination-enabler.

Anatomy of a high school reunion

The impetus for our trip earlier in August was my Grade 13 high school reunion. Upon hearing I was going to that, people had some funny reactions.

“Are you nervous?”

Which I just found confusing. Nervous about… What, exactly? It’s not like I had to give a speech, or hang-glide, or compete in a test of skill. It was just go there, meet people, eat, drink.

But I now realize this is a by-product of the high school reunion being such a popular culture trope, the occasion where dramatic things happen: Where old hurts are avenged. Where one attempts to hide what you’ve actually become (Romey and Michelle’s High School Reunion; that episode of Taxi where Louis has Bobby pretend to be him). Or, where one attempts to show you’re no longer that loser you were in high school (as Liz did fairly recently on 30 Rock).  Or where old romances are rekindled. Or time travel occurs (Peggy Sue Got Married).

For the record, if there was any avenging /deception /bragging /romancing / time travelling going on that weekend, I wasn’t involved.

“Why would you want to see those people again?”

How about this: I’m not on Facebook. So, I was kind of curious how people turned out. High school wasn’t altogether wonderful, but Grade 13 was definitely the best year. A smaller, closer group of people that I was curious about.

I have to think it will be so different for the Facebook generation (which is spreading to every age group, really). With virtual reunions going on continually, how necessary will actual ones be?

The stats

I was quite impressed with the organization of the whole event by the small committee who took it on. One thing they did was put together a spreadsheet of contact information, from which I could glean the following:

  • Original class size: 80 (though I don’t think quite all made it through the entire year)
  • In attendance at the reunion: 37 (46%)
  • Deceased: 2

Remaining numbers are just for those in attendance, plus 4 who provided info via email after—bold for the group I’m in:

  • Married or now divorced: 40 (97%)
  • Child-free: 7 (17%)
  • In the medical profession: 11 (26%)
  • In education: 12 (29%)
  • In high tech: 3 (7%)
  • Living in Timmins: 19 (46%)
  • Living in Ottawa: 5 (12%)
  • Living in KW: 1 (2%)
  • Living in Toronto: 0 (0%)

How we looked

Kind of like this:

Class photo

My brother said that people at a high school reunion looked like the same, only with “swelling”. Funny, but not totally true. Sure, there was some swelling, but some seemed to have lost weight since high school, and many looked to be about the same size as then.

And at any rate, it was hair that really made the difference. The only people I had trouble recognizing were those with much less hair, different colored hair, or more facial hair.  This resulted in a number of conversations with people who clearly knew me, who I also felt I recognized, but couldn’t quite pinpoint—until partway through the conversion (and after the welcoming hug). Very strange feeling.

Did other schools do this?

Other parts of the excellent organization included:

  • Showing a recording of our Grade 13 talent night
  • Re-creating our Grade 13 room (now a storage room) at the high school, and allowing us to restore our autographs to the wall (as they were rudely painted over)

Which led me to wondering, did other schools do those things? Did everyone in Grade 13 get a special room to hang out in? Did everyone put on a Soirée des Treize?

Working on the talent night is something I definitely remember. I believe the purpose was to raise money for our Grad celebration. I wrote a sketch for it that actually proved controversial. It was an ad for a 20-minute workout featuring celebrities. They were fine with the Queen (me) leading everyone in a royal wave, and even with Mick Jagger demonstrating some vigorous pelvic thrusting (well, it was a French school). But the Pope having everyone bend down and kiss the ground? A little dodgy for a school full of Catholics. And Pierre Trudeau giving everyone the finger? Turns out that means the same thing in French as in English.

So you see, I’ve always been a rebel. 🙂

I think in the end we got to keep the Pope (even though the enthusiastic performer was practically French-kissing the microphone in his performance of the move), but had to substitute in a smoking René Levesque for the swearing PET. (Interestingly, the cigarette in the hands of high school students was not considered the least bit controversial then.)

Notes on folks

A lot of the old gang was there, the same but different.

MJD, still sweet and pretty and fun, but also now a well-loved family doctor whose move from Timmins to Ottawa made it into a nation-wide story on the CBC.

IC, still fun and funny and outspoken, but also abandoned a law career for some volunteer work in the third world, and then his own contracting business. An interesting person, then and now.

FLB, the old boyfriend, as gorgeous now as he was then, but having dismissed thoughts of the priesthood (!) and acquired three university degrees, now settled into a long-term marriage with four kids, and long-time employment with the same high-tech company.

With these and others, it was funny how easily we fell back into the groove (and the old crowds, in large part). One of the teachers there recalled our year as a “special” one—and I think that was meant in a good way. I believe it could be true.

Wine-ing around Prince Edward County

The finale of our not-very-exotic summer vacation was a visit to Prince Edward County. While we did walk some trails and visit some galleries, mostly, we were there for the wine.

Best wine tasting experience: Karlo Estates

Wines with characterWhich is interesting, because right before going there, we were warned by other visitors that the person doing their wine tasting wasn’t very knowledgeable and, for example, didn’t particularly like red wines.

But we got a very well-informed dude leading through a series of five of their wines, all accompanied by suitable matching food! (Like olives, Cheddar, almonds.) It was challenge for him, as it was busy and he had to manage various groups all at different points in the tasting, but he was up to the task.

So, maybe the advice is to visit the winery in the afternoon rather than the morning.

Another neat thing is that they offer kinds of wines not available elsewhere in Ontario. Their rose, for example, is made with the Frontenac Gris grape, that is not even recognized by the VQA. But it was very good, and as rosé’s often are, quite reasonably priced at $16. Though relatively sweet (sugar level 2), it didn’t seem cloying. “Exuding flavours such as strawberry, citrus with a spicy finish and a hint of cinnamon.” the tasting notes say. That could be about right.

They also work with the Bordeau-style grapes: Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. (Did you know you could get Malbec in Ontario? I didn’t.) The blend of these is available as a wine they call Quintus ($35). When one of the individual grapes is having a good year, they will bottle and sell that on its own. Currently, the petit verdot is approaching that status. Though not quite ready for bottling, we were able to taste it as well.

And… They make port! And it’s really quite good, very smooth going down. $29 for a 500 ml bottle.

Runner-up: Rosehall Run

It was just a straighforward wine tasting, not a whole guided experience with snacks, but they were very knowledgeable and accommodating here. (Like, printing out a copy of the tasting notes for me.) Our favorite of the wines we tried here was the off-dry Riesling ($17.75), but we also enjoyed the 2008 Pinot Noir ($19.75) and the 2009 Sullyzwic Rosé ($14.75).  The Globe and Mail said “Rosehall makes some of the best-value wines in the County.”

Also worth noting for more unusual wine offerings is The Grange of Prince Edward Vineyards. We restricted our tastings here to three premiums offerings, and ended up purchasing two of them: The nice Champagne-style Brut 2008, a sparkling wine mix of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, $29, and the late harvest Sauvignon Blanc, a pleasantly sweet dessert wine that was made almost accidentally by forgetting some grapes on the vine. It’s $24.75. (I also enjoyed a glass of sparkling rosé—actually, Pinot Noir—from this winery at one of the restaurants. That one may not be available for general purchase.)

Best winery dining: Wapoos Estates

Wapoos logoWe say this despite not being huge fans of the wines, which all struck us as ultra-dry and quite different from the ones made at the other end of the county. But, they were quite food-friendly, and the food was just delicious. We stopped in here for lunch on the way in the way in, so we didn’t have anything too fancy, but everything was super-fresh (like the tomatoes in the gazpacho), made in-house (like the tortilla in the smoked pork sandwich), and with nicely balanced flavors.

Plus, it was just a beautiful day, maybe the best of our vacation, and they have lovely grounds there. So it was nice to be sitting out looking at water and views while sipping some wine and eating good food.

Despite not being too bowled by the vino, we did get one bottle of Baco Noir here.

Runner-up: Norman Hardie

Pretty easy win for Norman, as it’s the only other winery we dined at. All they offer here is wood-burning oven pizzas. I had the special of the day, which was a lemon-scented one. Which seems weird, but was quite nice. However, Jean’s Margherita, which is part of the general menu, was better, thanks to the delicious tomatoes.

It’s quite a casual dining experience on a patio, with communal tables. Fortunately, we had another nice day, so that was perfectly enjoyable.

Norman Hardie makes somewhat expensive wines, so I had thought this was a way to have some without a tasting and feeling the temptation of buying up bottles. That worked out. I had a glass of the Chardonnay, which didn’t taste at all how I expected. Not oaky at all, I guess. I finally concluded that I quite liked it. Jean had a 2009 Pinot Noir. It was also quite enjoyable, but again, that’s not the best of Pinot Noir years, so there it is.

Also worth noting is the East and Main Bistro in Wellington. That’s a restaurant, not a winery, but it’s a very good one, and the wine list is mostly Prince Edward County wines, many available by the glass. We complicated our lives by ordering items that were impossible to find a matching wine for (pickerel for me and osso bucco for Jean), but managing by me starting with a glass of that afore-mentioned sparkling rosé, then switching to join in on the bottle of 2010 Sandbanks Baco Noir, because it was just delicious, whether it really matched fish or not.

Favorite overall winery: Sandbanks

At least if you go by the number of bottles purchased! They are also quite reasonably priced, which doesn’t hurt. The wine tasting experience there is nothing very special, but you get good service. We especially enjoyed the Riesling and the Baco Noir, of which we bought the 2009 Reserve as well as that 2010. (That will be an awesome year in Ontario reds, by the way.) But we also liked the Cabernet-Merlot and the Shoreline, which is a blend of Chardonnay, Rieseling, and Gewurtz.

Yes, we are very well stocked in wine right now. We might have to have a dinner party or something.

Music and movie in the park

I’m late in writing about this, but what the heck.

Last Thursday, July 21, was the hottest of the summer so far, and one of the hottest on record ever. (And must say I was surprised to discover that these parts have never registered 40C before. Because, like, Sudbury has…) Nevertheless, we decided to go to an outdoor event: Music and Movies in the Park.

Sponsored by Beat Goes On and Princess Cinemas, these free events take place in Waterloo Park, supporting the food bank. The evening begins with a live band, then as the sun lowers, they put up a big screen and show a movie. We arrived armed with lawn chairs, water, hats, bug stuff (not needed), and a few snacks. Though I couldn’t resist also buying a bag of popcorn.

The band we saw were called The Slacks, and they were a quite decent cover band who did tunes by artists like Neil Young, the Grateful Dead, the Dandy Warhols, and The Who (“Drowned” from Quadrophenia). We had a pretty good viewing spot, and didn’t find the heat too bad. It was evening, albeit still 32C when we left, but the sun wasn’t beating down overhead anymore, and there was a breeze. Plus, we were just sitting there. One thing I did notice was that my feet got really warm, despite my being in little sandals. Guess the ground was just really hot.

RangoThe movie, shown on this big inflatable screen we watched them set up after the band was done, was the animated Rango, starring Johnny Depp’s voice. Interestingly for such a warm day in the middle of our drought, it all takes place in a desert town, centering around lack of water. Pet lizard Rango is thrown from his owner’s car during an accident, and has the cope with being in the real world filled with suspicious locals.

Though nothing you can’t let kids see, this particular animated movie really has more to offer adults, I think. There’s no way kids are going to get all the sly references and tributes to other films (including some of Depp’s, and adult fare like Chinatown), or the jokes about lesbians and peyote and such. But for grown-ups, it’s quite entertaining. (Jean expressed amazement that I finally took him to a movie he liked!)

Then the Saturday after, we escape to Port Stanley where, if anything, it was even hotter and stickier. But we took our time walking around, took refuge in air conditioned shops—which featured some nice paintings, photos, accessories, gourmet foods—and on the beach, including a dip in Lake Erie, which hasn’t overheated. We also enjoyed the very good local restaurants, partaking of Lake Erie fish and nicely priced Ontario wines from the banner 2007 year. Jean put some photos up at Picassa.

Xoom, xoom, xoom

I’ve been kind of wanting a tablet since, well, how long has the iPad been out now? Because it’s been about that long. Phones are too small and come with expensive data plans; laptops are too big and have pathetic battery life. Tablets seemed just right.

But, I hate to be an early adopter—otherwise known as suckers. Those tech-hungry folks who pay too much to essentially do beta-testing on versions 1.0 of whatever, thus paving the way for the rest of us to get the better, cheaper 2.0 version.

So when iPad 2 came out to mostly rave reviews, it seemed no longer necessary to wait. Except… Now there were all these competitors as well. And, I didn’t really like what I was hearing about how Apple was treating some of the apps providers. And, I wasn’t really that crazy about having to do everything through iTunes. And not having USB. Or Flash.

But many competitors seemed to have serious failings. Very short battery life. High price. Small screen size. Finally, the Motorola Xoom was released. On size, price, storage, battery life, it was about the same as Apple. Considered more clunky and harder to use, it wasn’t exactly getting rave reviews. But it didn’t tie you to a particular application to load files. And it had Google behind it, and I do use many things Google. So it seemed worth consideration.

Motorola XoomHowever, the Xoom is very, very much at version 1.0. The list of features it supposedly has but that don’t quite work yet (updates someday, we promise) is almost comical: SD card, full USB support, full Flash support, Android 3.1 (created but not yet available in Canada). And the number of apps, particularly those designed for tablets in particular, is way behind what is available in the iTunes.

So that was the dilemma. Get the mature product that would leave me tied to the whims of Steve Jobs, or pay the same amount for a product with the potential—but not the actuality, yet—of being better.

Uncharacteristically, I voted Xoom.

For the record, it does have flaws. Most of which I was aware of before purchase:

  • The screen is an unbelievable fingerprint magnet. You’d think someone would have realized that was a bad idea for a touch device. I’ve never Windex-ed anything so much.
  • The screen is also overly reflective. When viewing darker videos, you get a great reflection of your face back. I’m not narcissistic enough to really enjoy that.
  • It can’t handle that many video formats. Actually, I haven’t been able to load any formats it will view. Though maybe some app would help with that–haven’t checked.
  • It’s not as handy with PDFs as I’d like (though again, there may be an app for that). I can always view them; I can’t always seems to load or download them, and I’m not sure why.
  • Google Books doesn’t work in Canada.
  • The wild and crazy world of apps does take some getting used to.

On the other hand…

It really is great with most things Google. Unknowingly, I’ve been preparing for this tablet by using so many Google features on the computer. After the wireless connection (quick and easy), it asks you to log into Google. And based on that, it sets everything up: Your email, your calendar, your Picassa photos, your YouTube account, your Google docs. And they all work beautifully, with a great tablet interface. The Google maps are also nice. (And I hear Google Chat is very good, but I don’t use that one.) Google Reader is just OK–but I have found an app that improves that.

And the browser experience has been pretty decent so far as well. It’s just so much better, in fact, to view long web pages with embedded video and links and images on the tablet vs. on my desktop. And like on an iPad, you can zoom the font size, change orientation, smoothly scroll around.

It’s also very customizable, which, I’m told, the iPad is not. It comes with five different home pages you can set up how you want. I’m only using two so far, but I like the possibilities.

The on-screen keyboard has also been surprisingly easy to get used to, and much better than trying to type with your thumbs. Mind, functionality that is way basic on a computer takes a little work here—does this auto-save? (Nope. Save command in menu on the bottom bar.) How do I close this? (Can’t. Unless you get an app for that.) How do I copy and paste? (Select, hold, menu will pop up with these options.) But I suppose figuring all that out is good for my brain. (Though it’s actually making me wish for more online help as well.)

Anyway. It’s only day 3, so I still have 11 days to change my mind and return it. But so far, it definitely has more items in the Keep than Return column. Pass the Windex!

A new appreciation of sage

While I realized that some of the herbs I planted were perennials that would therefore come back the following year, I didn’t realize they’d come back as giants. The oregano and marjoram are sprawling, with much bigger leaves than last year. And the tarragon: I had no idea tarragon could get so tall. I wasn’t even completely sure it was tarragon at that size until I chopped it up for a recipe, which produced the distinct scent and taste of that herb.

But what I still have the most of, again, and now in a much larger size, is sage. It’s a virtual pasture of tall, stately plants with enormous. And as I’ve complained before, there are only so many things, culinarily, one can do with sage. Sage is not the parsely of herbs. Parsley is. (And parsely, sadly, is recently replanted annual that currently looks like a baby plant in there, fighting for a bit of space.)

And then… The sage started to flower. I don’t know if it just didn’t do that last year, or if it was diligently removing the flowers as they appeared in an attempt to get more leaves (not realizing I’d soon be overrun). But this year I let it be and… Wow. Sage is so pretty.

Photo of sage

(The tall leaves in the front-most of the image? The giant tarragon.)

And the bees just love all those flowers, and we’re supposed to encourage the bees. And yes, flowered sage does have fewer leaves, but with that number of plants…. Really not an issue. Plus, after I cut them and use the leaves in a recipe, I have a ready-made centerpiece for the table:

Photo of cut sage in vase

If Canada Post strikes, will you notice?

It may seem strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive.
But what’s stranger still
Is how something so small could keep you alive.

“We Used to Wait” by Arcade Fire

Canada Post delivered my Victoria Secret order today, just ahead of their strike deadline. I thought that was great of them, considering I’d placed the order just on Saturday, and didn’t select the fast shipping options.

I get abnormally delight about having things delivered to my house. As a result, I have a bunch of stuff showing up here on a regular basis. A daily newspaper. A biweekly basket of local organic produce. A bimonthly order of organic fair-trade coffee. Several monthly or bimonthly magazine subscriptions. Music and movies on plastic discs, not just in digital bits! Books on dead trees! And the percentage of my wardrobe deriving from Victoria’s Secret is probably unusually high.

Of course, that doesn’t all get here by Canada Post. Having heard about the strike threat on Monday, I got to wondering what I’d actually miss.

The bulk of the mail I get, of course, is just advertising and requests for donations (with “free gifts”). That stuff just tends to sit around unopened for quite a while. So, I dare say I’m not going to miss that too much.

I used to get mountains of catalogs; the number is way down now. I’ll usually flip through the ones that still arrive: Vintages magazine, the discount books, exercises videos, Lee Valley. And naturally, Victoria’s Secret (once Jean’s done with it). But still, I don’t see missing that stuff too desperately, either.

Now, the disruption to my Rogers Video Direct DVD rentals will be a little annoying. Hey, I’ve just realized that the copy of Central Station that has apparently been shipped to me hasn’t arrived yet! OK, see, I am definitely somewhat annoyed about that. Especially since they’ve already received the copy of Good Hair that I returned. Plus, TV is mostly reruns now.

But, what else. I can still order from Amazon.ca, because they use UPS. Ditto Lee Valley. Ebay, Chapters, VSC are out but, hey, I think I can do without those for a bit. Magazine subscriptions will be disrupted, but I’m always behind on reading those anyway. A chance to catch up.

As for me actually mailing things, well, it has become a pretty rare event to mail personal letters and cards. I do have to send in a cheque for my high school reunion thingie by the end of the month, so if this drags on, I’ll have to use UPS or something for that. But my biggest use of stamps is for insurance companies. Because Jean and I are with different companies, we can’t submit everything electronically. To get the full refund, we have to send in paper forms and paper receipts.

It’s a huge pain that I won’t miss at all, but I do like getting the actual money back. Of course, the Sun Life office is local. I could probably just drop off the paperwork in person.

So wow. A postal strike is hardly the big deal it used to be, eh? Even for those of us still nostalgically tied to old media forms and the thrill of getting a package.

I’m not going to join in on the union bashing here (although, bankable sick days? Probably I’m just jealous, though, since I’d likely have accumulated a year or two off by now if I could do that…), but this could certainly be a tough fight for them. If due to strike, people keep finding other ways around Canada Post, that’s not good for either side.

Maybe I’ll just have to try them new-fangled online movies…

We used to wait for it. We used to wait for it.
Sometimes it never came.
Sometimes it never came.

Vacation stats

We’re back from a really lovely vacation, a river cruise on the Danube. In advance of the full report, a few comments.

Days away: 9

But they seemed to go by in a flash.

Number of cities visited: 8

  • Budapest, Hungary
  • Bratislava, Slovakia
  • Vienna, Austria
  • Melk, Austria
  • Linz, Austria
  • Passau, Germany
  • Regensburg, Germany
  • Kelheim, Germany

Plus the airports of Munich, Germany and Amsterdam, Holland.

Temperature range: 3c to 20C

It started out quite warm and sunny in Budapest, then cool and sunny, then cloudy, rainy, back to cloudy, and finally around to cool sunny, then warm and sunny again. Typical spring. No snow, at least.

Number of off-boat meals: 1

(Not counting airport and airplane meals.)  That one was a fantastic lunch at the beautiful Cafe Centrale in Vienna. Otherwise, we partook of our included onboard meals. And fortunately, except for a few failed efforts here and there, those were pretty good. And sometimes very good—the roast duck, roast lamb, and grilled prawns on risotto were highlights.

Number of countries’ wines we tried: 4

  • In Hungary, we visited a wine store, learned quite a bit about their industry, and my parents purchased a wonderful pinot noir that they opened on-board.
  • In Bratislava, Jean and I visited a wine bar for Slovakian wine, which we enjoyed. But most impressive was the price: 1 Euro a glass (about $1.40). In a restaurant.
  • Onboard, they served Austrian wine, red and white, in quite generous amounts. We also tried a few other varieties in Melk.

That’s 3 of the 4. The last is Chile, as that’s what KLM serves on their flights. (It was pretty good, too.)

Most surprising highlight: Melk

Pretty well everywhere we visited had something worthwhile, and certainly a number of places we wished we had more time for (notably Budapest and Linz), but I have to say the Melk exceeded all expectations. It’s a very small town, and had one tourist attraction that I knew of: The Abbey. So, we went to see the Abbey. We figured it would be some old building with a few interesting artifacts.

But it just blew us away. One of the most interesting, original sites I’ve ever visited. I’ll describe more when I have pictures to go along with it, but here’s an idea (a Wikipedia photo):

Melk Abbey library

That’s the library. And it’s not even the best part.

Number of photos taken: 0

By me, at least.

Jean took about a million-billion, though, so I’m not too worried about lacking visual memories of our journey.

Our on-board claim to fame: Dancing

There was a live band nightly. There was a small dance floor. We took advantage. People noticed (apparently in a positive way). Can’t let those dance lessons go to waste.

Number of books read: 3.5

  • The High Road by Terry Fallis (so I could read a novel about a Canadian federal election while being away from the actual one)
  • E A Novel  by Matt Beaumont (so I could read a novel entirely written in emails while having no access to my own)
  • What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell (that’s the half)
  • Journey to the Edge of the World by Billy Connolly (the book that kept Jean engaged while “stuck” on board)

Look better naked!

Cover of DVDI’m not entirely sure what to make of the marketing of this DVD. Six weeks to my leanest, hottest body ever—really? Even though I’m now in my 40s, and when in my 20s, apart from having 20 years fewer gravity effects to combat, I worked out something an hour or two a day? Still, this DVD’s going to make me look better than that?

I’m skeptical.

Also, it looks a little porn-y. But in case you’re wondering, the fitness instructors are in fact clothed during the workout, in fairly standard (not especially slutty) workout gear.

And, I assume the title is meant to evoke that Showtime series, How to Look Good Naked. Although the whole point of that show was not that fitness and better diet were necessary, but mostly improved self-esteem. (And maybe a more supportive bra.) It was all about making women feel better about their current size, not trying to change it.

So, it seems I should be sort of offended by this thing. But in fact… It’s a really good DVD workout. What I like is that in a compressed 30 minutes, you get a really good workout. One 30-minute option is called “Metabolic”; the other “Strength”. But with both of them, you actually get a combination of aerobics and muscle training. So covering a lot of fitness needs in a short amount of time. (You can also do the whole thing in 50 minutes.)

The queuing is excellent, with a visual appearing before each new move giving the name and number of reps, along with verbal queuing by the instructor. And she’s quite appealing, motivating without being irritating. Two other women do the workout with her, one modifying some of the moves for beginners.

And I’ve been feeling it. The metabolic one has this interval training approach that is a good addition for me, because you do get to some pretty intense moves, but only for a reasonable number of reps, then followed by an easier set of moves. The strength requires one set of dumbbells, and moves you through the items before any get tedious.

And you know, it may even be possible that my abdominals looks slightly more defined now. Though it hasn’t been six weeks yet.

So what can I say. Despite the dubious packaging, I do recommend this DVD if you are looking for an aerobic/strength training workout. (I also recommend Collage Video in general for fitness DVDs.)

And don’t discount the fun of having a reason to entitle a blog post, Look better naked!

Surrounded by sound

I tried to watch TV just now and found myself listening to Richard Gere’s Robin Hood while watching an old episode of Saturday Night Live, featuring a faux Kim Jong-il. It was interesting juxtaposition, but not what I was after.

Yesterday we’d been happily watching Moulin Rouge on DVD on this same TV when the picture simply disappeared.

It shouldn’t be so hard to do something as lazy as watching television.

It seems especially wrong to be churlish, though, when these troubles are all the result of really nice work anniversary gift Jean got, of a BluRay DVD player and surround sound system. Since the only place we currently have an LCD television is in the living room, it made sense to set up the BluRay there. This is also provided surround in that room, where previous we merely had stereo sound.

Plus, then we were able to move our older sound system into the kitchen, which we will also, eventually, have surround sound. In the meantime, I have better stereo sound, and can now hook up the iPod in that room, rather then from the bedroom.  Particularly handy when it decides to randomly play a song that is a complete mystery to me (I have a lot of songs), compelling me to look at the iPod screen to see what it is. That task no longer involves stairs.

All nice things. Except that it really is bloody complicated watching television now. You have to turn on the three devices: PVR, TV, sound system. No big deal, right? Except that every one of three remotes tries to control all the devices—sort of. So you turn on one, and then you grab a second remote to turn on the next, and that one turns off the first while turning on the second, and so on… Then they’re finally all on and you accidentally press some Power button again, and oops! They all go off again.

It’s enough to make you think maybe you should just read a book.

Then, the settings. Of course, the sound system needs to be set to right option–Sat / Cable,  not TV, and of course not DVD, FM, Audio, or any otheir subsettings… One day, the only way I could find to get sound from my record player was to turn the TV on and change its source input. What?

Yes, the TV also needs to be set to be on the right source. Now is it HDMI1 or HDMI3? Or maybe BD (BluRay disc) system?

If things still are synching up correctly at this point, it may be because of the switches. We do still have a TV downstairs, but only one PVR now (the older having collapsed and died a few weeks ago). We’re kind of proud we figured out how to hook up two TVs to one PVR, but it does mean setting various switches to the right position depending on what you want to do (watch upstairs or downstairs, watch live or recorded). Not to mention the strange kind of voodoo dance you have to do downstairs in front the remote control signal, trying to successfully get the signal wirelessly upstairs. But when you finally hit that sweet spot, it’s exciting!

Sigh. But I will say that high-definition picture really is very pretty. And, it really is great to have both the pretty picture and surround sound available in one room, instead of having to choose one or the other.

What we still haven’t achieved? Hooking up the computer to make it easier to watching streaming video. We tried with our really old computer (which had been in the kitchen), but it frankly could not handle being projected onto such a big screen. So despite Toronto Life’s interesting article called “Honour among thieves”, which made it sound like practically a patriotic duty to steal your content from the Internet, we can still only do that by downloading, putting that content on a USB, and popping that into one of the DVD players or the TV.

Which remains slightly more onerous task than turning on and watching the TV. But only a just.