Ratsofrass

Hello Mr Jobs.

I see you’ve been busy in your new role as heaven’s technology innovator. I really thought you’d take it easy for a bit, but no, you’re right back in it, stirring things up as you always did in the mortal world. But I have to ask: what did I do to deserve today?

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I got curious about what kind of internet cooking shows might be out there so I fired up You Tube and typed in “cooking shows” in their search. The “Trailer Park Cooking Show” catches my eye so I pull up the vid. Turns out it’s a video response to an urban legend where if you pour cola on pork, worms and maggots will come crawling out. Ooookaay….
I continue watching and quickly suspected that I was looking at a Dame Edna type. But I couldn’t help laughing. Subtle humor is a rare thing these days and this “Cola BBQ Pork Chops” has it in spades.
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I went over to T&T Supermarket last night for some fruit and stopped by the noodle isle. That’s right, you go to an oriental grocery, the noodle selection takes up a whole isle. The store was about to close, so I had to quickly select some cup noodles out of the many for sale. I ended up picking a “Vegetable and Salt noodles” in a green cup that looked good on the picture, but beyond that I had no idea what it would be like.

Today, I decided to try this thing out for lunch. Looking at the bill, I see that I paid $2.89 for this thing. $2.89?! This had better be some damn fine noodle for that money. Looking over the ingredients list I see fried bean curd noodles, cabbage, French fries… French fries? I bought cabbage and French fry noodles for $2.89? Trying to keep an open mind about this, I poured boiling water into the cup up to the line and waited 5 minutes. At least, that’s what I assume I’m supposed to do based on no instructions in English, and a “no microwave” symbol on the cup. Everything is already in the cup, no packets to open and dump in - nice.

You know what? That was some damn fine noodles for $2.89. All I know is the little English label stuck on the clear wrapping called them “Myojo (Sapporo Ichiban vegier sio falvor..” noodles, they come from Japan (unusual these days) and they are in a green container showing the noodles in a bowl with vegetables, surrounded by a bunch of vegetables and potatoes, but no French fries.

It seems lately that that my neighborhood has been bombarded by Ice Cream trucks. You really can’t miss them - at least by sound. That silly musical bonging playing the same thing over and over and over. The thing of it is, I’m outside working, listening to this thing go up and down one block after another - it must have like a 3 block radius - fading in and out as it goes between the buildings. I could live with it, but I get that STUPID song stuck in my head (there seems to be about 3 of ‘em) for DAYS at a time.

So today, I’m outside sanding my deck, for hopefully the last time ever. I hate sanding. I’m hoping to banish the wood to the pits of hell and get something that does NOT require sanding. Or painting. I hate painting. Anyways, I’m sanding away with a rotary drill disk, and I hear the Ice Cream truck coming. Remembering what happened two days ago when he came by {shudder} I crank up the drill, sanding to the fullest, trying to keep going past the pain that is my spine. Must stop. Hearing Ice Cream truck. Must start again. Sand, sand, sand, ow, ow, ow! Must stop. Still hearing Ice Cream truck. Must start. Repeat about ten times.

Despite my best efforts and a now tender back, I can still hear that Ice Cream truck musac in my head. Damn you Ice Cream truck!

Little story behind this picture. I’ve had this mystery plant popping up a few leaves in my rock garden for about 5 years now - I think it showed up as a hanger on with one of my purchased plants. Every year, it popped out a few long leaves from a bulb, then it would die back before June was even over.

I was tempted to rip it out on several occasions, but it wasn’t really spreading anywhere, and it died back anyways, so I’d forget about it again. Then this year, after all the rotten snow had just melted and the rock garden was just starting to green - THESE FLOWERS appeared today with no warning. Amazing. I’m assuming they are Crocus by the look, and the early flowering. Pretty decent macro for a little point and shoot camera, me thinks.

So let’s pretend I was King of the World. One day, the people’s representative comes to me with a problem
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Farewell emails in this recession era are one of those things where people have gotten bitten by technology they don’t fully understand. First of all, why, oh why do companies give there employees the ability to send globally in the first place? As a rule of thumb, if you can’t remember the name of every employee in your place of work, this probably should not be allowed. Even so, if you’ve managed to accumulate a large address book list, or have many mailing groups you can send to, you can still hit a lot of people with your bridge burning flame fest, or your eloquent touching ’so long and thanks for all the fish’. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it to go for the scathing flame thrower email - you never know when that might come back to burn you (ouch!).

Speaking of recession, “What recession?”, I ask. Home Despot is out of stock on battery operated smoke detectors. The smoke detector shortage, according to one Despot worker, is due to landlords buying them all up after a basement suite fire that resulted in deaths to occupants where said equipment may have been lacking. Everyone seems to be fixing there toilet for some reason, I bough out the last flapper valves, and lots of other items are missing. I have no idea why these are out, the Fed tax credit don’t kick in until you hit a thou, (grasping at straws) perhaps there is a rash of toilet thievery going on - I arrived home on Friday night to find my place broken into. Gone was Six DVD sets, toothpaste, and (wait for it) my downstairs bathroom toilet paper. The thief had discerning, er, taste too only going for the good stuff, and leaving the generic backup stuff behind. Even took the roll on the spool. So, perhaps it’s going to the next level and thieves are stealing toilet parts to kick start plumping businesses. Plumper kickbacks anyone?

Coming back to “What recession?” I note that it is also still stupid busy in a lot of restaurants out there. There seems to be so much excess money to burn in Calgary that it’s taking awhile for the current money pile to smolder down to ash before we notice the downturn. I’m hearing rumblings on the work front about opportunities being way thinner now than a year ago, so it’s coming. Frankly, if you have a good stable job a recession is a great time. Line ups in stores disappear. Fancy restaurants always have an open table for you. Staff are actually available to help you in a store. Parking spaces can be had for less than a king’s ransom. You can hire a contractor, this month, not ’sometime next year’. Incompetent idjits get fired from your workplace. So, it’s all good, as long as you have a job.

At least “Swan’s” in Inglewood is still not too busy. One of the few genuine pubs in town that doesn’t try to also be a sports bar on “Flames nights”, so I can actually go there with friends and expect to chat all evening, rather than having to yell over the game volume. Probably my favorite outing place in town right now - good food, good service, fair price, and some of the colorful character you would expect out of Inglewood, so don’t bring the kids. Oh, they know how to pour a Guinness. ’nuff said.

Alright, you might be thinking ‘wtf is he smoking?’ or ‘wtf is Duke Nukem?’, if you’re young enough. That second part is scary. It has been well over TEN YEARS since the original Duke Nukem 3D was released. It was a heady time for first person shooters - Duke 3D and Quake were released in 1996 and they totally blew away DOOM, which could be argued to have popularized the genera in the first place.

Duke Nukem was much favored by me over Quake. Sure, Quake had a more realistic 3D engine, but Duke had *personality*. The sound track rocked. There was humor. Quake had several sequels released - what happened to the Duke?

I spent several years waiting - having played Quake, then Quake II and still finding them lacking in the fun that was Duke. Eventually, I gave up on a sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, having come to the conclusion that due to perpetual changes in the game, the Duke was relegated to being perpetual vaporware.

The today I was reading the Wikipedia article - what got me interested is that there is video of Jace Hall playing through a level - plus the 3D Realms website has been slowly starting to update with greater frequency and more detail on the game, which leads me to believe they might actually be serious about releasing this puppy some time soon when it’s done.

Oh, and screenshots have been appearing:

a sure sign that *something* has been coded to produce said screen shot. Oh, and from the FAQ sec.1.13 for DNF, they state that they do not plan to release any new game shots until right before the game is released. Hmmm. First screen images released in Sept ‘08. Considering how long development has been, I’ll take any release in ‘09!

Alright, I admit, this is a bit of a long shot for a prediction, but If I’m right, I’ll look like an ef’n genius.

I got to wondering about those Shamwow things they advertise on TV. You can watch the ad online in case you never watch TV, or you can take my word that it’s a rag that’s supposed to have some amazing absorbing properties. Do they actually work something like advertised? So I go do a little Google search and come up with infomercialratings.com, with consumer reviews of the said Shamwow product.

WARNING - I am about to do something I despise on the internet - post images of text. I’m just a data whore tonight.
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This is a cool piece of muzac played on a “Hang” (Wiki for more details) Interesting music on an interesting instrument.