First two weeks with Windows 8

It’s been a couple of weeks with the new Windows 8 computer, and while the relationship between us remains a bit tense, at least we aren’t fighting with each other quite as frequently anymore.

Let’s just say I do sympathize with people complaining about Windows 8. Admittedly, day to day, you don’t have to poke around in the bowels of the OS that much, and otherwise it’s not that much different than Windows 7—at least in desktop mode. And it does seem to start more quickly, which is nice.

But when you first setting up a computer, all you’re doing is poking around in the bowels of the OS, and the fact that everything has changed there just makes all those non-fun tasks that much more frustrating. So you do develop this initial, and growing, hatred for Windows 8 as you run through a series of Google searches such as:

How do I map a network drive in Windows 8?

Where is the Control Panel in Windows 8? (Actually, I didn’t figure that one out! I just installed the Star 8 app to put it back in its Windows 7 place on the new computer!)
How do you select which speaker to use in Windows 8?
How do you shut down a Windows 8 computer?

Yes, shut down. I mean, seriously. Microsoft put the Shut down command in the Settings menu, three clicks deep. I’ve now realized that my PC manufacturer added a one-click taskbar menu with Shut Down and Restart options. Yay! But they shouldn’t have had to. That’s just terrible UI design for a super-basic, very frequently used feature.

Windows 8 Shut down menu

Put the pointer in the bottom-right corner of the screen to get the side menu displayed, click Settings [and, oh look, there‘s the Control Panel], click Power, and there is Shut down! Nice and inconvenient.

And why the heck doesn’t the ESC key let you out of those “app” windows? That’s exactly what that key is supposed to be for!

Esc = Savior — This cartoon Copyright © 2013 Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal, http://theoatmeal.com. Click the image to get the full comic.

Instead, you have to click the right Windows key to get out. This is not a usability improvement!

Mind you, I do make things tough on myself because—I’ve realized—I don’t seem to like the default settings on anything, which means I have a lot of tweaking to do on new computers—something normal people (with lives?) don’t bother with.

And, I now have things mostly working, except for ongoing troubles with my display settings. They’re pretty much set as want them. I’ve made peace with the opaque title bars. I still think they’re kind of ugly, but I do find myself entertained by the fact they change colors with my desktop background to match it better. I also like that you can display different desktop background images on each monitor.

So my only issue now, really, is that the computer keeps losing these settings. Whenever it goes to sleep, I “awaken” it to find, for example, that the resolution is all out of whack, and all the desktop shortcuts are a weird size—or have all moved on to my big-screen TV! Rebooting usually fixes things, but not always completely. To be fair, I’m not sure if this really a Windows 8 issue, or more of a hardware problem. All I know is, my old computer never did that…

I’m managing, for now, by greatly extending how long the computer waits before going to sleep. Longer term, we have a much better display driver from an older computer that we’ll probably install in this one (because, as mentioned, I’m not a fan of the defaults), to see if that helps.

Movie review: The Spectacular Now

***½ The Spectacular Now (August 2013) – Theatre

Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson. On the rebound, popular teenager Sutter Keely unexpectedly takes up with the decidly less popular Aimee Finecky, and the relationship develops in a way neither expects.

She says: Apparently we’re seeing all the indie movies about teenagers this summer. Like The Way, Way Back, this one also focuses on a teenage boy, but he’s three years older and couldn’t be more diffferent in character than Duncan in that movie. Sutter is charming and outgoing and fun and apparently at ease with himself—but appearances can be deceiving.

Sutter planned to just mark time with Aimee Finecky while trying to woo ex-girlfriend Cassidy back, but to the surprise of both of them, the relationship turns into something real and meaningful. This movie is hardly schmoopy and simple-minded, though. Sutter has his issues—including alcoholism—and his confronting them isn’t always pretty.

All the young actors in this are very good, and while certainly attractive, notably look less movie star-like than I can remember seeing in a long time.

He says: Yes, that had enough plot for me; I definitely got into the story. It just seemed to real, and that made the sad parts sadder. And I loved that open ending.

Requiem for my Windows 7 PC

Sunday night, when I returned to the computer I’d been working on just fine all day, nothing was displaying on either monitor, beyond a brief Analog / Digital message. The usual step of just rebooting produced no better effect, and checking all the plugs found nothing loose, nothing amiss.

The next morning, the computer didn’t entirely seem to even be booting anymore (though it’s quite hard to tell what’s going on, with no display).

It was actually the first time a computer had just up and died on me. Of course, I was not pleased. But really, thank goodness it happened in 2013 and not in, say, 2003. Or 1993.

Was a time when losing a PC meant potentially losing an awful lot of data, stored on that hard local drive, not necessarily all backed up.

Now, we store pretty much all the files we care about—songs, documents, spreadsheets, photos, videos, sheet music–on a network drive, with backup . And like everyone else, we’ve moved to keeping some stuff “in the cloud”–email, agenda, blog posts, Evernote lists that organize my life—making them accessible on any tablet, smart phone, or computer. I may not have a computer right now, but I still have basically all my content.

So, this is really more of a bother than a trauma. Despite the above, there are a few things on the old hard drive that I’d like to retrieve if I can, so we’re going to bring the old computer in to get the hard drive taken out and stored into an USB-connected external drive case, which I’ll be able to attach to a new computer.

Did you catch that? Despite this being just a bother (for heaven’s, we have another computer! And two tablets!), I have already ordered a new computer.

I guess the greater speed and power will be nice. Just too bad it’s Windows 8. I swear, the biggest issue these days in having to upgrade hardware, is in then having to relearn software.

I know Windows 8 has its fans. The problem is, Windows 7 is hardly leaving my life. All day, every day, of my work life, I am on a Windows 7 computer, and that won’t be changing soon. And our other computer? Also Windows 7. So it’s not as if I can really move on and switch over to the Windows 8 way of doing things. I fear being in permanent, irritated “learner” mode on my own PC.

Windows 7 desktops are still available, by the way. (Yes, desktop, not laptop. I don’t see the point of a laptop when I have a tablet.) Jean kindly (or, more likely, fearing he’d otherwise have to go back to sharing a computer with me) did the online research and found one decent Windows 7 option, and one Windows 8. I was trying to decide which to get–the Windows 8 one was more powerful, but the Windows 7 one was Windows 7!–when I thought to dig into the question of HDMI ports. The Windows 7 PC didn’t come with one.

“That’s it, then,” I said. “Because HDMI is an absolute necessity!”

And then we both looked at each other laughed at my having put high-definition signals on the same level of importance as food, shelter, and oxygen.

But I still bought the Windows 8 one. Because I do really love being able to connect the PC to the big-screen TV and watching online video super-sized, with great sound, from the comfort of my couch.

And I have found an article called How to make Windows 8 look and feel like Windows 7 , which I’m hoping will be of some help in the transition. And at least iTunes 10 is still available, so I can avoid the transition to iTunes 11 (shudder) a little longer.

You can microwave corn on the cob

I’m just mentioning this because many people seem surprised by it, and Ontario corn on the cob is really good right now.

You don’t have to barbecue or boil corn on the cob. You can microwave it. Doesn’t require a dish or anything; you can just stick the whole thing, husk and all, into the microwave. For one cob, 3-5 minutes; for two, 4-9.

And—this is something I just learned—you can then get the husk off really easily. Just cut the end off, either before or after you microwave it, then you can just shake the corn out. Or for more fun, wack it on the counter, and the corn will slide out. No hair, no problem, ready to eat.

Here’s video proof, albeit without the fun “wacking” method:

This wouldn’t work if you have a whole lot of corn to cook, but for smaller amounts, it’s fewer dishes, faster, and doesn’t heat up the kitchen. And very tasty results!

Women on the brink: “20 Feet from Stardom” and “Game Change”

Comments on two films I recently watched, sans Jean…

20 Feet from Stardom is a documentary profiling backup singers, a group of people I hadn’t given much thought to before—which is what made it interesting. Though a few male backup singers are interviewed, most of the time is devoted to the women who dominate this profession.

What they all have in common is talent. No “weak but interesting” voices here; they all sing with range, power, pitch, and control. So the question is, why are they just supporting the stars?

The answers vary. Darlene Love was long cheated out of stardom by producer Phil Spector, who would not release her performances under her name. The incredible Lisa Fischer had a successful record—even won a Grammy—but ultimately decided she was frankly happier in a supporting role. Many others tried and failed, because of having the wrong look, poor material, lack of promotion… Or just because.

Through their stories, we get the history background singing in pop music from the subdued style of the 1950s to the increasingly expressive 1960s and 1970s (“rock’n’roll saved us”) to its diminishing popularity in more recent years. It’s a reminder of how important those backup vocals are to many of the songs we love, like “Walk on the Wild Side”, “Thriller”, “Young Americans”, “A Little Help from my Friends” (Joe Cocker), and “Gimme Shelter”. (I had the lines “Rape! Murder!” in my head for days afterward, which was somewhat disturbing.)

Stars are also interviewed in the film, including Sting, Bruce Springsteen, and Mick Jagger. But it’s nice to see the spotlight finally turned on the talented performers behind them.

This movie received a 99% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

I finally got my hands on Game Change, the HBO docu-drama about Sarah Palin’s campaign for the vice-presidency, starring Julianna Moore. It’s somewhat old news now, but maybe it’s best to watch it when Palin is at a low point in her political popularity, because man…Otherwise it would be terrifying.

Admittedly, some scenes may have been slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect, but I did some research, and the essence of what was presented is true. The depth of this woman’s ignorance about the world was astonishing, as though she’d had no historical or geographic education whatsoever.

It’s not an entirely unsympathetic portrayal, either. You do kind of, sometimes, feel bad for her as she struggles to cram in mass numbers of facts in a very limited and very high-pressure time, while being made fun of on SNL. I did find myself rooting for her in the Vice-Presidential debate (which was certainly not the case at the time).

But when on more of an upswing, oh my God, she comes across as arrogant and self-centered and just… entitled and horrible. The way the woman herself often strikes me.

John McCain, by contrast, is given a very sympathetic portrayal throughout. But it’s not really his story anyway.

No longer a current event, but this is still fascinating and well-scripted biopic with a great cast. You get behind the scenes to understand how this could have happened: How someone so unqualified was running to be a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world. It’s not the easiest thing for the HBO-less to get, but well worth tracking down.

Going local: Buskers opener and Solé summer dishes

This region has a Twitter hashtag, #kwawesome, that seems a little needy to me. Places that are truly awesome don’t need to proclaim that fact.

Still, they truly do some things well. The initial, widespread criticism over uptown Waterloo’s public square has long since died down. While certainly not as pretty as downtown Kitchener’s City Hall site, it has proven itself as a great location to hold a wide variety of public events that do bring uptown. This weekend, it’s the Waterloo Buskers Festival.

It’s the 25th year of the event, so the city sponsored a special opening event: a free concert by Steven Page, formerly of the Barenaked Ladies. I got on the iExpress right from my office door to uptown (you see I was determined to fully partake of regional services) to take it in, on what turned into a beautiful summer day.

Mr Page played with one other musician, a cellist who also sang backup. He naturally did some of his solo material, which I admit I didn’t know, but that did demonstrate he hasn’t lost his ability to write catchy songs with clever lyrics. But he also offered a generous dose of Barenaked Ladies material as well, including “The Old Apartment”, “Enid”, “What a Good Boy”, “Jane”, “It’s All Been Done”, and of course, “Brian Wilson”, the closer (before an encore). In between, he offered amusing commentary. He played for about an hour, which is quite reasonable for a free show!

Why Steven Page, a Toronto guy, for this? Because—and while I think I’ve heard this before, I’d forgotten—the Barenaked Ladies played at the Waterloo Buskers Festival way back in 1990, when no one knew who they were. Not only that, but while they arrived a trio, they left a quartet, because they met drummer Tyler Stewart at the Festival. Unlike Page, he remains in the band to this day.

Jean joined me for only the last part of the show (work!), then we walked over to Solé Restaurant to try this year’s Summer Dishes menu: three courses for $33, using local ingredients.

There was no going wrong with the first course: Tomatoes and feta with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. Lovely. For the main, I talked Jean into taking the pork with apple and sausage stuffing, sweet potato mash, and sugar snap peas, while I stuck with the trout with potatoes and corn that we’d both been eying at first. Lucky for him, as that turned out to be the better offering—really delicious all around. As for the trout, it was nicely cooked, corn is amazing this time of year, and potatoes are pretty decent, too. The problem, to me, was the remoulade on the fish, which just seemed too heavy, disguising the fish too much.

They weren’t offering wine pairings this year, so we figured it out ourselves. I started with a glass of Cave Spring rosé (local, local!), while Jean had a French sparkling of Blanquette (not Champagne). For the main, we shared a half bottle of Tawse 2010 Pinot Noir. It wasn’t as rich as we thought it might be, given that 2010 was a pretty warm summer, but it was still a nice wine.

For dessert, we both opted for blueberry yogurt from Whole Lot-A Gelata, another local restaurant, and it was just delicious. (Maybe even awesome.)

Movie review: The Way, Way Back

**** The Way, Way Back (July 2013) – Theatre

Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Liam James. Awkward, introverted 14-year-old Duncan suffers through a summer vacation at a cottage with his mom, her unlikable boyfriend Trent, and Trent’s self-absorbed daughter Steph, until he finds refuge with the employees of a water park, particularly the manager.

She says: I’m sure there are critiques to be made of this movie, but I don’t care, because it’s just such a satisfying journey. The movie isn’t but feels set in the past—Trent drives a vintage station wagon (does anyone really do that?), no one uses a cell phone, and the water park where much of the action takes place is noted for having had no upgrades since the 1970s. Perhaps that’s an homage to the many teen “coming of age during the summer” movies of the past. This one takes a proud place among them. It’s engaging, has a strong cast, and leaves you smiling.

He says: I don’t know if I should say. You get annoyed, sometimes, when I don’t like shows that you do.

…

Well, they didn’t have to make Trent so unlikable. Duncan would have hated him, regardless.

…

Yes, sometimes I’m kind of picky.

…

But bottom line? I liked that movie. I really did.

Top 10 Canadian albums (with some extras)

CBC recently put out a list of the 100 greatest Canadian albums, which was then discussed on CBC Radio Kitchener. “I don’t anyone can argue with Neil Young’s Harvest being number 1”, said the host. Well…

Look, I own Harvest, I like Harvest. I’m not going to deny that it’s a great collection of songs. It’s certainly your go-to for great Canadian albums, as befitting its also being number 1 in the 2007 book The Top 100 Canadian Albums.

It’s just that I can think of a number of other Canadian albums I enjoy listening to more than Harvest. Such as…

Shakespeare my Butt cover 1. Lowest of the Low – Shakespeare My Butt (1993)

(CBC unranked; book #84)

I’ve expounded on my love of this band and album before, but… I can’t see anyone not loving this album, unless they don’t like the genre of rock music itself. The songs are catchy and instantly likeable. On repeated listening, you realize they’re smart, too. And warm. And funny. The album is 20 years old, and the music doesn’t seem dated at all. It contains a hefty 17 songs—and there isn’t a single stinker among them.

2. Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill (1995)

(CBC #12, book #6)

This was something at the time, wasn’t it? So much fun to play loud and sing along to. Angrily. To me it still holds up, even if she didn’t know what “ironic” meant. It’s melodic grunge. It’s more than just angry—you also have forgiveness, and learning, and being head over feet in love. I’ve enjoyed Alanis’ subsequent albums, mostly (not so much the India one, and haven’t bothered with the motherhood one), but this one still seems her best.

3. Swing – Tradarnac (2008)

(CBC unranked, book n/a)

I discovered these guys on Canada Day at an electrifying performance in Gatineau, and I continue to love this album. They sing in very rapid franglais (French with a healthy dose of English: “Allo, CB buddy! J’tired de m’voir promener sur le highway” and such) over a mix of French folk, rap, and pop that results in music so lively you can’t help but dance to it. Even while sitting or driving. It sounds happy, but has a dark undercurrent in the lyrics, if you can understand them. To me, that just makes it better.

4. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs (2010)

(CBC #22; book n/a)

I am going to complain the CBC list now: No way that their Funeral album is better than this one. No way. Funeral is fine, but it is right that The Suburbs is the one that earned them the Juno, the Grammy, and the Polaris prize. It’s sort of great that someone made a deep, thematic, almost classical-sounding album—about the suburbs. I took to it really quickly and continue to peel away its layers, this album.

5. Amanda Marshall – Everybody’s Got a Story (2001)

(CBC unranked, book unranked)

I felt this album was unjustly overlooked when it came out, then nearly forgot to list it here myself… But it wouldn’t be denied, in the end. I just love listening to this. As befitting the title, most of the songs tell a story—of waking up with a stranger and a snake tatoo; of life as a blond mixed-race person (“a double-agent on my mama’s side”); of being a taxi driver with a PhD; and so on. The music is fun—more dancey, less bluesy than earlier album, but still showcasing her fantastic and powerful voice. I don’t know why it hasn’t’ gotten more love.

6. Pursuit of Happiness – The Wonderful World of… (1997)

(CBC unranked ; book unranked (but Love Junk is at #84))

I believe I own every album this band has released, and I pretty much like them all. This one is far from their best known; I don’t think it contains any hit songs. But I list this one because it’s the most album-y of them all: its 15 songs all lead one into the other as though the whole thing were one big rock opera, or something. (Note the little Tommy homage between tracks 4 and 5.)

Now, it doesn’t actually have a continuing storyline, but more of a continuing theme (which is really the theme of every Pursuit of Happiness album) of the joy, frustration, and sheer messiness of love, sex, and relationships. Yet for all that, the songs also stand alone quite nicely. No mean feat. This is a small piece of pop art.

7. Jane Siberry – When I Was a Boy (1993)

(CBC unranked, book unranked)

I had to list Jane, but it was really a toss-up between this and her first, No Borders Here. I finally went with this more mature work. The opening track “Temple” sets the different tone: “You call that hard? You call that rough? Well, it’s not, rough enough.” Who would have expected that from the quirky singer of “Mimi on the Beach” (although the part of the song where she encourages Mimi to stand up on her surfboard, causing her to drown… Was maybe a clue.) Jane is a bit of an odd duck, but she can certainly put a tune together, and in this album she really seems to be more deeply expressing her soul.

8. Barenaked Ladies – Gordon (1992)

(CBC #25, book #27)

Yeah, they’re funny, but they’re also insanely talented, seemingly effortlessly putting together incredibly catchy pop. And the serious (and still tuneful) ballads like “Wrapped your arms around me” (“I put my hands around your neck)”, “The Flag”, and “Blame it on me” show that it’s not all fun and games, all the time, with this band.

9. Sarah McLaclachlan – Fumbling Toward Ecstasy (2003)

(CBC #20, book #25)

Sarah’s music sneaks up on me, randomly selected by my iPod, making me suddenly realize that I like it better than anything that was played before it. They’re mostly ballads; strong emotions expressed in a more subtle way—no screaming guitars, or any screaming, period. I guess it’s that haunting voice, or… I don’t know what. It’s not what I usually go for, but this is album is beautiful.

10. Holly Cole Trio – Don’t Smoke in Bed (1993)

(CBC unranked, book unranked)

And, I’m not the big jazz girl, usually, but man, I’ve played this album a lot. Holly takes these lovely standards and performs in this slightly twisted, dark way that makes them way more interesting.

The extras…

Top Live: Leonard Cohen – Songs from the Road (2010)

For a very long time I considered Leonard Cohen someone whose songs I loved—as long as someone else was singing them: Jennifer Warnes, KD Lang, Jeff Buckley… Then he started touring with this amazing band. And I began to love his own take on his great songs. This particular collection is his own selection of the best version of each song he did on this tour.

Highly recommended!

Top Compilation: Gordon Lightfoot – Gord’s Gold (1987)

My Dad is a big fan, so I grew up with these songs. As a teenager, of course, I wasn’t going to admit to liking them, but now I can! While I can’t really see buying his individual albums, this “greatest hits” collection is fantastic: “If You Could Read My Mind”, “Sundown”, “Early Morning Rain”, “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”…

The only other thing you might want is Gord’s Gold 2 (for “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, “Alberta Bound”, “Ghosts of Cape Horn”…).

Top Classical: KW Symphony – From Here Out (2011)

No dead composers here: This CD features classical compositions by Nico Muhly, Richard Reed Perry (of Arcade Fire), and Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead). It’s not always comfortable listening, but it’s never boring, either.

Lake Erie wine region

Mainly, we wanted a little getaway. Lots of advantages to travelling in the off-season, which is why we do, but it also kind of bites when everyone else is taking vacation and you’re not. So we thought we’d at least go somewhere on the long weekend in August.

Only we left that decision kind of late, which definitely limited our options on where to go. We looked into the Finger Lakes region of New York State—not the cheapest area—but even though it wasn’t a long weekend there, we couldn’t get the accommodations we wanted. Port Stanley had availability on Sunday night, but not Saturday. Other Ontario inns were a similar story.

So, we ended up at the Pelee Motor Inn in Leamington. The name of it sort of played on our mind, and we got worried we’d be staying at some semi-dive. But it turned out to be a perfectly nice hotel. We had a big room with a king size bed, sitting area, fridge, microwave (which we didn’t use, but there it was!). It also had this huge swimming pool and games area, with water slides, and badminton courts, and whatnot (which we didn’t use either, because it always seemed rather full of kids, but there it was!)

We didn’t have big ambitions for the trip. We planned to visit some wineries, do some hiking in the parks, try to find some decent places to eat, despite nothing much being listed for the area in Where to Eat in Canada. And Jean hoped to get some photos.

On the way down we stopped in Port Stanley, going to the always good Me and Suzies for lunch. We ate on their patio. We shared Lake Erie smelts to start, which were great. Jean followed up with perch, while I had chicken tagine. His was better. From their all-Ontario wine list, we tried a glass of sparkling wine from 20 Bees, which was very drinkable, along with an interesting (in a good way) white blend from Organized Crime, called Mischief. (I think both must be restaurant wines, as neither seems available for sale from those wineries.)

Another stop on the way, just on a whim, was at Smith and Wilson winery. This proved a good thing, as we really enjoyed their wines. They had a nice, drinkable sparkling called Pearl that we bought a couple bottles of. I also tasted a black cherry wine which was very nice—and not so sweet as to be un-pairable with food. But the best, though, was their 2007 Gallantry Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon blend, a truly lovely red wine for only $18 a bottle. We bought a couple of those also.

On arrival in Leamington, we went for a little walk around the harbour, and for some reason stopped to read about each and every one of the many shipwrecks that had occurred in these waters.

We had dinner reservations at Oxley Estate Winery. It’s an interesting location, in a converted barn. A lot of people were sitting outdoors to dine, but we were warned that the bugs were coming out, so we sat inside. But it was freezing in there! Way over-air conditioned; I had to fetch a jacket from the car.

Lamb lollipops — (c) Oxley Estate Winery

Except for that, it was a pretty pleasant meal. The highlights were definitely the appetizers: Really delicious little lamb chops that I started with, and shrimp over Thai vegetables that Jean had. For mains I had perch, which was maybe slightly over-breaded, and Jean had pork chops with delicious beans. As wines we tried their Riesling and Pinot Noir. Both were fine, but not impressive enough that we felt a need to purchase a bottle of either.

The next morning we headed to Point Pelee, having concluded it would be too complicated to navigate ferries to get to Pelee Island. It was a very nice day again, so we did some hiking. Though always pleasant to walk in the woods, and though always kind of neat to look at the Great Lakes (so much water! so little salty sea scent!), we did not find it particularly spectacular. It’s quite flat, does not have especially interesting vegetation, and we did not see much wildlife.

Spider web — We were impressed by this spider web in the park. There were “Spider Control” ads all over Leamington. We weren’t sure if that was about controlling spider infestations, or about using spiders to control insects…

They did have an exhibit of various Ontario snakes there, that you could touch and everything, but Jean did well just to go near them; he wasn’t up to taking photos. (I offered to, but he didn’t seem to want that, either.)

We also took the shuttle to the Tip, so now we’ve been at the southern-most point of Canada.

Our lunch this day isn’t worth going on about; that was our one bad meal.

But on happier note, we then visited more wineries! Viewpointe Estates we visited partly for the view, but we did also try some wines. We weren’t bowled over by them, but we did leave with their refreshing 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, along with their rather smooth 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon—pretty well aged for an Ontario wine.

Viewpointe Estates winery — The grounds at Viewpointe Estates. We did walk around, but did not have a drink on their patio.

We next visited a newer one called Cooper’s Hawk. They did particularly well with off-dry whites, and Jean seemed particularly in the mood for those, so we left with Pinot Grigio, a Chardonnay Musque, and a really interesting, effervescent Riesling / Gewurtz blend called Touché.

Though we’d originally planned to stop at two, we ended up also visited Black Bear Farms Winery, which had been recommended to us by the Smith and Wilson folks. They do only fruit wines (and here Jean would point out that grapes are a fruit, so OK, they make wines only with fruits other than grapes). And everything tasted pretty darn delicious—sweet, but not too sweet, not ice wine sweet. So the key was not trying too many types, or you’d whole cases of the stuff. As it was, we left with a blueberry, a red raspberry, a red / purple raspberry, and an elderberry (blended with some strawberry and raspberry).

I did some serious research afterward, in an effort to find a decent place for dinner. We ended up at Mettawas Station in Kingsville. It’s in an old train station, which was neat.

Mettawas Station restaurant — Side view of Mettawas Station Restaurant in Kingsville

Service was unsophisticated, but good, and most importantly, food was quite delicious. I had the escargot in portobello mushrooms, which was nice; very moderate in cheese. Jean had tomato, basil, and bocconcini—hard to go wrong. We both had pasta mains: Jean the gnocchi, me the “Athena” with olives, roasted red peppers, feta, white wine sauce. They do very well with pasta. After much debate, we had a Pellee Island red blend (2010 Vinedressers) that we quite enjoyed.

Main courses at Mettawas Station — Very good pasta

There was a bit of confusion over our taking home the leftover wine, but it was sorted, and we left with the corked bottle.

Monday was mostly travel, but after breakfast and checkout, we did visit Mastronardi wines, in Kingsville (and bought some peaches from a stand along the way). We weren’t too bowled over by their wines, but did get the 2008 Cabernet Merlot. We stopped in Port Stanley for lunch again on the way back, this time dining at the Windjammer Inn. Quite a pleasant outdoor lunch there, of baked goods followed by more Lake Erie fish.

Non-virtual spam (and I don’t mean the lunch meat)

It was an unusual enough in itself that my mailbox—and by that I mean my non-virtual mailbox, the one that Canada Post delivers items to—apparently contained no junk mail this day. No flyers, nothing unaddressed. Just real mail! It seemed. Airs of bygones days, when mail was still mostly nice to receive. I got:

A real-life thank you card, with hand-written note.
The latest issue of a paper magazine that I subscribe to
A rental DVD! (From zip.ca, still in business, though I don’t know how long.)

The final item was a bit of a puzzle. An international letter, addressed to me. I was most curious about this one.

This was the opening paragraph.

Firstly, I must solicit your confidence in this transaction; this is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top secret. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make anyone apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day.

Utterly confidential and top secret! Both! With assurances that all would be well, “at the end of the day”. I was mesmerized.

Somebody in Spain had composed a full, legal-ish sounding letter, largely correctly spelled, outlining an inheritance scheme. But instead of just emailing it more or less for free to every virtual address they could get their hands on, they printed it on paper, folded it and put it in an envelope, added international postage (a stamp celebrating Unesco), and put in a real mailbox.

Is this sort of brilliant, or especially moronic? Either way, I must appreciate the effort. At least this person is working for their ill-gotten gain.

All he requires is my honest cooperation, if it doesn’t offend my moral ethics. This transaction is entirely risk free. 🙂

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The extras…

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