Jan's Willy Wonka!

Nope this has nothing to do with Chocolate Factories! Jan decided that our bathroom needed a little makeover, and installed a really nice rug thing in front of the wash basin, also one of those funky things that go around the base of the toilet. It's very good, it keeps your feet warm while doing the biz.

Not content with these major lifestyle enhancements, she also added one of those pointless Toilet seat cover warmers! Why does a toilet seat cover need a warmer anyway? In my opinion toilet seat covers are right up there with Chia Pets!

The net result is that Jan has created a monster! The toilet cover warmer has changed the entire dynamics of the plastic bits. To take a leak, you now run the gauntlet of the Willy Wonka. Just as you are enjoying getting rid of that 6 pack, 'KERASH', and the Willy Wonka has nailed you!

I am thinking about renting a Porta-Potty, the bathroom is just out and out to dangerous for male use!

Woo Hoo, I'm Probably Going To Live!

The past three months have been hell. And I blame it all on the computer! I was using the damn thing when my arm went numb. The Hospital gleefully informed me it was likely a stroke! It turned out that it wasn't, but they got their digs in with CT scan that showed I had at some point actually had a stroke, the technical term being 'Silent Stroke', there are no symptoms, it just happens.

This started a nasty sequence of hospital related activities that I did not enjoy at all! I hate hospitals to begin with, I don't even like visiting people in the place, never mind being the 'victim'. I swear they stick needles in just because they have a sadistic streak.

Today I got the results of all of the poking, prodding, pricking, MRI'ing, Ultrasounding, heart monitoring, CT scanning, and all the rest of it! Other than having ridiculously high Blood Pressure, they have declared me likely to live! When they took my BP I clocked in at 212/110 which had them reaching for their Tums!

So they have upped the drug level to a dosage that is in the range that likely contravenes the SALT treaty, and I am now the proud owner of a swishy at home Blood Pressure monitor! I wonder how much I can get for it on eBay?

Oh, and for the foreseeable future I get to meet with the delightful Stroke people every two weeks. About the onlt amusing part of this whole adventure is that they want to include Jan in these sessions, so she likely will get as much abuse as I do! hahahaha

Clint Boxes

I live in dread of Clint Boxes. OK, let me explain what a Clint Box is. As you all know I do reviews, pretty much I will review anything, you send it, I'll review it. Well what happened years ago, well it seems like years ago, although it was likely only a few months ago, I started requesting DVD's on a pretty regular basis from one particular US distributor. They liked my reviews so much that they decided that I didn't need to ask anymore, the Director of Publicity selected me for special treatment. They just ship me everything they have! Clint is his name, and boxes is his game!

Now that might seem like a great idea. But, it really has its downside. These guys are so big that they release at least one item each day. This has resulted in a constant stream of innocuous looking brown cardboard boxes arriving. Even the delivery guy knows them because he is here so often. On the rare occasion that I actually see him, he hops out of his truck, comes bounding up the pathway, and with a smile says "Looks like a Clint box".

Clint Boxes are taking over the apartment! They are everywhere! Jan lives in fear and dread of them. Well most of them anyway! A couple of days ago I was heading out the door to go to work, and what did I find? A very frosty Clint Box, it had been there all night, the temperature as something like 10f. Unfortunately the contents survived the arctic conditions!

Later that morning another Clint Box arrived, but Jan didn't mind getting that one, it contained some very yummy Belgium chocolates! Clint is now Jans hero!

New Years Resolutions....

This has to be the silliest idea known to man. I'm sure that Hallmark has a whole series of cards dedicated to the subject.

In a wild move, I have decided to make two New Years resolutions. I'd love to share them with you, but they both involve Jan in a French Maids outfit!

Simon On The Silver Screen?

Well its by no sure a done deal, but there is a possibility. I reviewed a couple of books by an Irish author earlier this year, actually he is a London Times bestseller list author, he just hasn't broken into the North American market yet.

One of the books was optioned for a movie a while ago. And it looks like it is going to move into production pretty soon.

The author contacted me, and has offered me a 'walk on' on the movie! Now the chances of this happening are about zero, but I am flattered. Jan is already out shopping for her Oscar dress!

Brussel Sprout Update

The good news is that Christmas Day came and went. We had our 'way too big' turkey, hell there are only two of us, and by my calculation this monster meant that Jan and I had about 10lbs of turkey each!

My treat though was Brussel Sprouts. On Christmas eve I got off work early and headed straight to Safeway (my local Megamart) in search of these little delicacies. On a previous foray I had noted there exact location in the freezer department. You can imagine my shock and horror when I discovered that someone had bought every last package or them! My first thought was that Jan was responsible, she had snuck in and bought them all!

To say I was disappointed does not cover it, I was devastated. I had set my heart on Brussel Sprouts!

All was not lost though. I checked out the fresh produce, and whoopie, they has the wonderful little critters! And lets face it, fresh is better than frozen everytime.

They were delicious!

The Man From Earth

I couldn't resist getting a review copy of this movie. I don't generally go for sci-fi but the story behind this indy movie was too good not to get involved. Man From Earth went straight to DVD, as indeed a lot of indy movies do. What sets this one apart from the rest is what happened a week before release. Some enterprising pirate got hold of a prerelease copy and stuck it on bittorrent.

Overnight it became the #6 sci-fi hit on iMDB. Not bad when you conside it was something like #2500 a couple of days earlier. The film maker then did something that no major studio would do, he didn't sue the pirates, or even ask them to take the movie down. Instead he posted a 'thank you' on his web site. His rational was that if people were watching the rather poor quality bootleg, they may be driven to buy the real thing!

In my opinion this was a great choice, and one that more film makers should consider.

As it happens, Man From Earth is a dynamite movie, so I suspect that this story is going to have a very happy ending.

Reviewing - You Never Know What Will Happen Next

One of the great things about reviewing is the unpredictability, you just never know what is going to happen next! A good example was yesterday. I recently reviewed an interesting and very funny indy documentary The Gods Of Times Square. Film maker Richard Sandler took a fairly irreverent look at the street preachers and kooks that use New Yorks Times Square as their pulpit to preach whatever nonsense they are into.

Yesterday I received an email from Richard Sandler, he had found my review on google and dropped me a line to say thank you. So of course this has led to an interview with him. Never a dull moment!

Multi Million Dollar Court Case Avoided

Dateline Calgary - In a last minute move the Brussel sprout controversy has been resolved. Moments before the court appearance to get a restraining order against Simon Barrett preventing him from polluting the atmosphere with the smell of brussel sprouts, a compromise was worked out. Simon has agreed to eating Corn Bread Dressing, and in return Jan says it is ok for him to have brussel sprouts!

Another Merry Christmas!

Changing Routers, 9 Gazzilion Reasons Not To

As I wrote earlier, my damn router finaly gave up the battle and decided to go into meltdown mode. My daughter came to the rescue with a $5 one she found at a yard sale.

My elation over getting our primary computers back online unfortunately was short lived. The BeerBox was screwed. And that meant no Web Server. Changing the bloody router had resulted in a new local area network IP addressing scheme. And of course my ISP decided to assign a new IP at the same time.

This was a double whammy! The hurdles in fixing this problem were huge. I had to use trial and error to even log on to the damn Linux box, then an hour wandering aimlessly around the cavernous file system to even find the Web Server.

The good news it that after much fiddling and use of the 'F' word it is mostly back in action. The infamous Bartender bot though is still AWOL. I'll tackle him later!

The Great (Fire) Wall Of China

Being in the media biz I shouldn't be surprised. Every large media outlet has run a story or twenty five about China employing a huge firewall on Internet traffic to prevent the Chinese people from access to controversial political sites. Bloggers have been thrown in jail for criticism of the ruling regime, and in what seems to be a day to day situation sites like CNN are blocked.

Well, it turns out that BNN is amongst the sites that the Chinese government has taken umbrage at. Now exactly what we have done to the Chinese I am not sure, but apparently we are banned!

Well screw em I say, I am going to boycott Chinese stuff as a result. No more take-aways, no fortune cookies, in fact I am not even going to use my Wok! I'll teach the little bastards!

If a recipe calls for Soy sauce, I'll use BBQ sauce instead!

This is war!

Router Hell

The Barrett data center took another hit yesterday. I knew it had to be something serious when Jan called me at work, as soon as I heard her voice on the phone a million things flashed through my mind. Had someone died, was the house on fire? Jan never calls! No-one had died, but, something equally catastrophic had happened, she could not get on the internet! This is trouble indeed.

Some quick technical support later, it seemed like the router had finally given up the ghost, no lights on it! No problem, and after much cable reagangement we had Jan's puter hooked directly to the modem. Alas it was still a no go. A quick call to the ISP had the problem resolved, damn mac addy!

So, I got home last night, and no sooner had I walked through the door than my daughter came to visit. I explained the network meltdown and she said 'well if you need a router I have a spare'. I said, nah, I have a spare. Well of course my spare, was a router that I have never tested, and guess what, it was dead on arrival!

So a quick call to Laura and she was over again with her spare router. Of course there was a catch, she hands it to me and says "Oh, I have no clue if it works, I bought it at a garage sale for $5". Eek me thinks.

Anyway, it did power up! That was a good start. A little (actually a lot) of fiddling with Mac addresses, DNS's, gateways, and IP's later it is 10:30pm and the data center is restored to its pristine glory!

Ya just got to love computers! Jan of course has a theory about the router going bad, we had worn it out! All those articles on BNN had finally taken their toll!

The Battle Of The Brussel Sprout - 2007

Apart from Politics, Economics, Religion, Gun Laws, Abortion, and Velveeta Cheese, Jan and I pretty much agree on everything.

Well everything except the lowly brussel sprout. Jan has some pretty fixed ideas when it comes to vegetables, and when I stray from the Straight and Narrow vegetable road she lets me know.

I am a big fan of brussel sprouts, teeny weeny little cabbage like critters. Boiled, drained, then served with lashings of 'real' butter (no stinking margarine for this kid), this is one of natures gifts at Christmas time. I have resisted the urge to have these fabulous vegetable nuggets for almost 2 years. The last time, I bought a small bag of frozen ones. My theory was that while Jan might not like them, I could on occasion dip into this secret stash. It was a small bag, and it took up almost no room in the freezer!

I got to sample them exactly once, Christmas 2005, it was a banner day, Turkey, roast potatoes, sage and onion stuffing, gravy, and those oh so good brussel sprouts! I guess it was my lucky day, Jan allowed me to use one of her pots, and even the stove in the kitchen! I had been half expecting that she would make me go out and buy a pan just for the event, oh and a butane camping stove so that it could all be done outside in the snow!

I had not heard the end of the brussel sprout saga. I still had a few left, they were minding their own business in a dark corner of the freezer, but not hidden from Jan's gaze. Every time we returned from a grocery shopping trip she would groan about having no space in the freezer, and point an accusing finger at my harmless brussel sprouts! This went on for over a year, twice a month I would have to deal with the Brussel Sprout problem.

Eventually I caved in, I let her throw them out, it was a sad day indeed!

Anyway, Christmas is two weeks away, and I think its time! So I am going to sneak a small bag of them into the frezzer for Christmas day!

A Post For Outer Mongolian Mark!

Well today I got something wonderful in the mail. A review copy of a new book. Now that in itself is hardly a surprising occurrence. Jan who fields most of the deliveries is on first name terms with all of the drivers from Fed-Ex, UPS, Purolater, Canada Post, etc.

But today we scored a great find, when I first read the press release I knew I had to have it, if only to make Outer Mongolian Mark green with envy, 'The Book Of Spam'! Yes folks some one has written a book all about that delectable canned meat product. Better yet, no expense has been spared in this books production, on heavy weigh glossy paper, each page (200) contains pictures and interesting facts about Spam.

Needless to say, all other reviews are on hold while I 'devour' this one. With a bit of luck the review will be up tomorrow.