On Moving...

Things I Will Miss About St. John’s

• The magnificent view from the top of Signal Hill


• Beer in my corner store, Funkman & Frogs


• Trinity Pub


• The Ship Inn


• Nautical Nellies


• India Beer (like I’m taking about 300 cases back to Ontario)


• Did I mention the view from Signal Hill?


• Cool old architecture


• Rupert and Jericho (even though they are my cats, this will be the last time I will live with them.)


• Memorial University (strange as it sounds)


• Being in the QEII @ MUN (especially the reading room on the 4th floor at the long tables looking over the edge)


• The Harbour (The Newfoundlanders haven’t felt any need to “reclaim” their waterfront like so many other cities have. These people understand the need for a wharf!)


• all the artists, and assorted cool folk who live here. Did I mention that I almost creamed some clown on a unicycle juggling batons who was coming down the Signal Hill Road as I was coming up?
  

Things I Won’t Miss About St. John’s

• Potholes


• Drivers (I’ve been in so many close calls since I’ve been driving here)


• The total absence of any snow clearing on Feild Street


• The delay to get mail from the mainland


• Being a CFA


• Memorial University

Why do I always buy Tortellini?

Why do I always buy Tortellini?

I bought a package of tortellini, in a moment of weakness the other day. Why do I keep buying that stuff? It just sits in the fridge for a week and then when I get around to making something with it, it always sucks. Which is kind of a pain, cause I’m a decent cook when I have a mind to be. Now that the tortellini disaster is over with, I’ve got a hankering to go to The Keg for a good steak. Maybe I’ll do that on the weekend…

2 Term papers are finished, and they were the big ones. I’ve been in full on stress mode for the past three days and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank C, H, and especially L for calming me down.

And I helped L set up her blogger page, with some HTML coding tricks which I sent over the IRC channel, to help her add some links to the template. That was my good deed for the week and made me feel pretty good about myself.

In the night kitchen

I'm actually in the library, being a beautiful Saturday and all.
Seriously, the sky is blue, the snow is melting, I think I may have heard a bird singing too. The snow is finally gone from the traffic island at Elizabeth and Allandale, which is great cause there are now 4 lanes again, rather than the 2 that we had to put up with all winter.
My goal today is to get that freaking Tech Comm paper finished once and for all. It's been hanging over my head all semester, honestly you'd think that at nearly 40, I could come to terms with my procrastination once and for all, and just accept it, but I don't. I'll probably still be putting things off at 70. That's a scary thought, "No, I'll oil the wheels on my chair tomorrow."
I've been thinking a lot about me and my life this week. It's kind of an offshoot of all that is going on in my life these days. The major players know who they are. I feel the beginnings of a mid-life crisis coming on. I'll have to sell the jeep and get a porsche. Although as D says, "We're having our mid-life crisis, dude. We're at University!"

Spirit of the West

So S calls me last night at 2320. I wasn't even home yet as I was having a beer or two in the Breezeway bar at MUN with Jason, the deaf guy from my Sociology class. I got home at about a quarter to 12, and she calls a minute later from Club One. I can barely hear her, but she reminds me that Spirit of the West was playing there. I'd only seen that today in The Muse, but I figured it would be sold out, and I was planning on going to Fat Cats anyway. But there were only about 100 people in Club One and Spirit of the West were fantastic!

Amazing Race Ticker

Omigod! mini post! but I've just found the most kick-ass thing for my blog. Scroll down the page and check out the Amazing Race Tracker in the sidebar!.

Day Two in the QEII

I'm in the library for the second day in a row. Why is it that I get work done here that I don't do at home? I'm not sure why, considering the only thing I'm missing here is the TV and the cats. I don't mind working here, they've got these nice long tables with great views over the courtyard, and I can plug in my laptop, connect throught the university wireless, and still do the daily stuff. The only down side to working here is I to take the bus, because I can't find a parking space at the University, and I'm not at home to play with the cats, so they are both waiting by the door when I get home. I've had the sneaking suspicion for the last couple of weeks, that Rupert has taken to sleeping on the stairs when I go out in the evenings. If I come in late at night, he is sitting on the stairs blinking his eyes like he just woke up.

I'm finally on the downward slope of my life at University, and feeling pretty upbeat about leaving Newfoundland. Let me get through the next couple of weeks and I will be good. I'll miss the good local music at Fat Cats, that cute little bar Trinity (which was packed on St. Patrick's Day) and that great view of the ocean from the top of Signal Hill. I drove up to Pouch Cove last weekend (just felt the need to get out of the city), and I'd like to drive over to Carbonear way and see the other side of the bay. Maybe I'll do that when C visits.

Speaking of C, she is the only person whom I've told about the TFP, that has bothered to go and sign up for it. Now that she has, she seems to be getting quite addicted to it. I spent about an hour on the phone with her last night, teaching her how to link photos, and how to get Chatzilla set up so she can chat with the rest of the crowd in the TFP channel.

I'm looking forward to getting settled down in Kingston finally once and for all. I've been perusing the housing market and have found a great little brick house in the city, that is in the right price range. It looks like it might be in the middle of the ghetto, but what the hell? The appeal of having a permanent address and finally my own place (where the landlord doesn't care if I poke holes in the walls [not that I have done here or anything]), so I can stop changing my addresses in my magazine subscriptions.

If St. John's is the new Prague, then Mt. Pearl must be the new Scarborough!

Last night I skipped out on the Academy Awards (for the first time in years) and went down to Roxxy's for the John Lennox farewell show. Man, what a hole! I did a Dana, and arrived so early, John was still doing sound checks. But all was not lost...I picked up an India beer and settled in for some Elliptical Pool with Darrell and John.
Elliptical Pool looks like something that Salvador Dali would have invented. Round pool table, about 4 feet in diameter with a honking big hole off center. There are 3 cue balls and an unlimited number of people can play. Balls have to be sunk using bank shots, and the person who sinks the last ball wins. It's kind of fun when you get used to it, but the balls tend to congregate at the edges of the table rather than in the middle, so you spend most of your time breaking up the clumps of balls. I managed to find this picture of an elliptical table on the i-net. The surrounding are much fancier than Roxxy's!

John's show was great as usual, and since I was taping the Oscars, I wasn't worried about missing anything major. Lauren Bacall did the Elizabeth Taylor thing this year. I just don't get the point of trotting out some once great actor, and making them make a spectacle of themselves on live tv. Aside from the Bacall show, this years Oscars were rather tame. The women's gowns were classy and understated (aside from Charlize Theron's massive bow), no one pulled a Halle Berry by bawling, and despite Ben Stiller's antics in the green unitard, most of the presentations went off well.

Food and Drink

After a little mix-up with the dates, Dana and Stu came over for dinner on Friday night. Just as well they did, because I had a whack of fondue and no one to share it with. I made Dragon Noodles and we had the Chocolate/Peanut Butter fondue for dessert. Now my fridge is full of pasta, pound cake and chocolate!

I've been cruising around on other people's blogs, and lifting clever bits of programming to stick in the side bar, to try to jazz up this space. So far, I've managed to get the site meter, and the graphical version (which I think is really cool - I mean, who in Churchill, Manitoba is checking out my blog?), I've got the webcam of downtown up and running (which is good, cause it has that view of the narrows that is blocked by The Rooms at my house), and now I've got some images of books and DVD's that I'm watching and reading.

Firefly is excellent, I don't know how I missed it when it came out. And the Space channel is running 2 hours of Angel everyday, so I can get my Joss Whedon fix.

Here as promised for Dana is the recipe for Dragon Noodles, and here is the link to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario website, so you can browse the recipes from past issues of Food and Drink.

Dragon Noodles

Infused Oil
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp very finely minced fresh ginger
1/2 tsp crushed chili flakes
1 tsp dark sesame oil

Salad
1/2 black beans
1/2 lb capelli d'angelo
3-4 cups shredded cooked chicken
3-4 green onions, thinly sliced
1 carrot, grated
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh coriander
1 lime
2 tsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt


1. Heat Canola oil with garlic, ginger and chili flakes in a measuring cup in the microwave for 30-60 seconds until hot with rising bubbles. Stir in sesame oil. If using within a few hours, leave at room temperature, otherwise cover and refrigerate until needed.
2. Cook pasta until al dente. Drain and refresh under cold running water until cooled
3. Combine drained pasta, cooked chicken, green onions, carrot and coriander in a large mixing bowl
4. Finely grate zest from lime and squeeze juice; stir zest and juice with sugar, soy sauce, and salt. Then whisk into infused oil. Pour over pasta mixture; toss from bottom of the bowl until ingredients are shiny and evenly mixed.
5. Covered and refrigerated, salad keeps well for a day or two.