Bacon

May 2nd, 2009

A little while ago, April 1st actually, fellow blogger SNiP had a little post about bacon. This got me thinking that I hadn’t had bacon in at least two days. Shamefully really.

So I bought some.

“Verily,” you say “that can’t be it. Surely thine tale continues.”
“Indeed,” I assure you “more doth follow”

You people do say “verily”, right?

There’s only so much one person can eat at any given time. To freeze the bacon and ration my supply, I set out to wrap it up as four-piece portions in cling wrap. Thus allowing me to unravel the roll slightly, pry off a portion of bacon while still preserving the rest, safely sealed away under layers of cling wrap.

“Is that it?” you pose.
“Nay! Dear readers,” I exclaim, “that was nary but an extended foreward; the heart of the post lay directly before ye”

I had decided to surprise myself. Completely forgotten, I had at random intervals, sealed away an extra slice of bacon so that, on occasion, I would be delighted with not four, but five slices of bacon.

“Brilliant,” you exclaim, “medals all around!”

And that made my morning.

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Know Your Dinosaurs.

April 29th, 2009

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The joke is on me.

April 26th, 2009

A long time ago, back in my Performa 5200CD days, a friend and I used to send a lot of files back and forth. This was 1996 and neither of us had the internet or a CD burner — the net result was a constant trading of floppy disks.

Unfortunately, most of our files were a bit too big for the 1.4mb disk (hard to believe, I know), so we’d end up segmenting whatever it was over several disks. The other person would then have the fun job of inserting disk after disk after disk into the computer to recombobulate everything.

As a jest, I took a rather large mp3, about 16mb, ran it through the program, wrote it to 15 or so disks and handed it off with no clues other than stating it’s a surprise.

What was it? None other than the 17:05 rock epic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

But I guess the joke is on me. He liked the song and I had to spend even more time segmenting it all to the 15 disks than he did to put it back together.

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Irina and a Fudge Question

April 22nd, 2009

A shiny new post with everyone’s favorite guest:

Hello Franz!!!!
I am happy that I got your letter.
I want to tell you about what I like and what I don’t like.
I like when people are frank to me.
I hate the lie. And I think that people can’t make happiness on the lie.
I think you think so too. I don’t like when in my house is disorder.
Also I don’t like lazy people. I was born in the country
and when I came to the city I don’t stay lazier.
Though in the city is not so as in the city and work about the house is smaller.
But I always find what to do( erase, cook…).
It is very pleasant when my friends come to me and feel themselves comfortable.
In Latvia people tell:”If in your house everything well everything well in your soul”.
I think that the main in man is soul beauty, private condition.
If you love and you are loved it the happiness.
But not the whole day is borrowed with the work,
I have always time to have a rest, to read some book.
I read love novel now. I like to read novels.
When I read I am immersed in a plot.
Sometimes I cry sometimes I laugh with the heroes.
And what do you read now?

I’m waiting for your reply.

Irina.

Now, thanks to my reply, I’ve got a craving for fudge:

Dear Irina,

Thank you for your letter. Was it for me?
I am confused. My name is Franz, not Frank. Are you emailing someone else? I would be very hurt if you are.

Have you decided on a name for our son?
Do you like fudge? If not, we have problem. I cannot talk to someone who does not like fudge. I hope you like fudge.

Franz.

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Cheap shot.

April 21st, 2009

This one kind of crept on me. Or I just got really lazy.

Either way, this is the third anniversary of the blog and I present last years post presenting last, last years post.

If you’re really, really lucky, I won’t do this next year.

already? yes indeed.

April 21st, 2008

Hard to believe that this day a year ago I landed in Newfoundland. Especially for a job that I didn’t ever expect to hear from.

For some reasons, and I really have no idea why, I like anniversaries and tradition. Anyone who knows me probably knows this, and if you don’t, then you don’t know me as well as you think you know me. I guess. So, for my one year in Newfoundland and from the blog archive, here’s the first ever post, written the day after I landed.

001 | false sense of security | Sunday, April 22

As usual, before takeoff the pilot came on the speakers in his usual laid-back voice, gave a few details on the trip and what to expect during the flight and upon arrival in St. John’s: warm and sunny (could it be everyone back home was lying to me?). The plane ride itself was pretty uneventful, mostly involved me reading the same page of my book, nodding off, catching myself, and rereading the same page again. This went on far too long for my own good. Eventually I sat back and zoned out for a bit until the plane jumped and we started to make our descent.

This is where the Pilot came back to tell us how much of a liar he is and it’s actually cold and snowing with visibility of about 5 miles (no, people back home weren’t lying to me). Which, in airplane terms means that as soon as you break cloud cover, you’re about to hit the ground.

I later found out from Jena that only Air Canada will dare landing in those conditions and any other airline would have diverted the plane to Gander. Not quite sure what I think about that yet.

My first, delightful impression of St. John’s is grey, everything is grey, and all the trees are covered in ice. Home sweet home.

As promised, Jena met me at the airport, drinking her Tim Horton’s coffee (Newfoundland isn’t that different afterall) and we had a good little chat while waiting for my luggage to come in from Heathrow Airport (at least, that’s what the sign claimed). Then she drove me around, gave me a tour of the city (of which I remember little), the offices where I’ll be working (remember slightly more) and then took me for breakfast at Cora’s (and even though there are several in HRM, it was still my first trip). I had eggs benny with ham. No crazy seafood snuck in, but there was a piece of bacon in my potatoes. I considered it a bribe to get me to like St. John’s and quickly ate it before it was discovered.

Later in the evening, Jena and Michael picked me up and took me out to a lovely little place called “Get Stuffed” that, despite the name, is actually very classy. There are pillows on the benches. It was great, we had a good talk, covered a lot of stuff that’s been going on and talked a lot about back home and what St. John’s is like. Jena and Michael shared a bottle of wine while I fought with the server over their beer selection.

“Do you have any reds?”
“No.”
“Do you have a beer list?”
“No.”
“Do you have any beer at all?” Michael then asked him.

Eventually I settled on a Sleeman’s Honey Brown. Followed by the milk that came with Jena’s cookies that she didn’t want and another beer while they were having another glass of wine.

The hotel I’m staying at is not unlike my apartment on North Street. In fact, the layout is almost exactly the same, but flipped. The combination fridge/sink/two burners brings back bad memories. Who wants to FedEx me my Panini maker? Other than that it’s great. Even has a recliner I made use of, a TV I haven’t made use of yet, and a bed that was occupied for a good twelve hours when I finally collapsed.

I took this in the afternoon, not at 1:57 in the morning. That might be next weekend. We’ll see. But it’s a fair approximation of the last thing I saw before becoming unconscious for a good twelve hours.

It’s actually sunny today with blue skies and a high of three. Going to try the walk to work and see what downtown is like.

-devo
Still possessing his keys, and the spare keys that were supposed to be given to mom.

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Return of the Irina

April 16th, 2009

After a long, long wait — I’d nearly given up — everyone’s favorite spammer finally wrote me back.

Hello dear.

Excuse that I did not write to you. I could not write as I had many problems in connection with my moving.
Now I’m fine and I at last have moved to Russia. Now I live in Russia I will write to you from here.
I really hope that you will write to me, to me really is very sad that I not could to write to you earlier.
I do not wish to lose contact to you and I hope that you will answer me. I will wait your letter and I with pleasure will answer all your questions.

Irina.

And my usual response:

Dear Irina,

Please forgive how long it took for me to write you as I know you are very tender but I could not as I was away tending to my banana plant. They are also very tender.
In way of apology, I think I will consider this plant our son. Do you prefer the name “Dr. Banana” or “Señor Banana”?

I look forward to your answer in the naming of our son.

Franz.

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Tweenbots

April 13th, 2009

Graeme sent this along to me earlier today and now I’m sharing it with the world. All seven of you.

http://www.tweenbots.com/

Aren’t they possibly the cutest thing ever?

So, assuming you’ve been to the site, what would you do, help or mislead? Give a little push towards their goal or aim them for the nearest crevice?

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An unenjoyable entry.

April 12th, 2009

Well then. It’s been a little while and I figured I should cobble together some sort of post for you dear readers to enjoy. Though that last part is optional. Forthwith I make the disclaimer that enjoyability, should it happen, is purely coincidental and unintentional. I think.

So, for my update: Nothing is going on.

But here’s a picture. For the entirety of the time I was there taking the picture, I had Alice In Chain’s “Man in the Box” stuck in my head. Except it became “Man in the Rock”.

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So. There you go, enjoyable eh?

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Name This Plant!

April 6th, 2009

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So, without much surprise, everyone voted for Beer and Heavy Metal as a headache maker. For the next poll I’m opening up the naming of my lovely bathroom plant to you people. It’s a banana plant and it’s growing in my bathroom in Newfoundland. I figure I’ll move it to the kitchen by the end of the summer.

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The end boss is hard

April 5th, 2009

This came up in my Facebook newsfeed just a few minutes ago and I thought I’d share it.

facebook

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