Absolut Lactam
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Absolut Lactam" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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07:45 pm
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.
 .Comments screened. This is my quick notepad. I'm sixty today.
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05:53 pm
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I just made a little wet spot
CTV is premiering a new show called Flashpoint.
Hugh Dillon is on the show sans hair.
Can I get a "Hells yeah" ?
Dude, I made little wet spot in my pants. This show had better not be canceled.
How the hell did he make that shot?
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11:58 am
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and thus began the human conquest of the galaxy
I met Mike Holmes. He's a cool guy. I've also been working on homes as an assistant to a contractor for about 18 years, as well as helping my parents build their retirement home.
Now I'm working on my own home.
As of about about a half hour ago, I can pee and poo on two different floors once again. This was not an easy job. It began with what I thought was a busted seal. I took the whole thing apart and found something more horrifying: a cracked flange. Unfortunately, the flange was an adapter to an old school iron flange. This means that I was not able to put in an ABS flange. The difference between a screw-in-adapter and ABS piping is about $20. (i.e. $4 vs $24) BOO!!!
Anyway, last night, I put in the new flange, a new wax seal and ... what do you know? Even the gasket that joins the bowl to the toilet was off. Bloody hell. I got a new gasket. No dice.
In the end, I found out that the bowl had cracks in it, so I had to get a new one. A new bowl and toilet, along with a THICK wax seal and an extra thick gasket made for a sweet poopy bowl.
Being able to poop on two different floors is kinda cool. If I count the garden, I can probably pee on three floors. Not sure if the neighbours would appreciate that, but ... hey... whatever..
brown stain ................................ free with the house
wax seal ................................... (times two)
toilet bowl ................................ lots and lots
toilet ..................................... yeah, just as much
gasket ..................................... about as much as a sandwich
being able to pee and poo on two floors .... priceless
Oh, and I just got a new shipment of bananas. Once the freezer takes hold, bread will be forthcoming.
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02:26 pm
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Bananananananana bread
Ok, so we got ...
The Bank of Canada
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
some sort of outfit from Revenue Canada
and my own homies at
a special operating agency of Industry Canada.
This banana bread is a whore. It gets around. I'm going to make a few more loaves just to see how far it'll go. (NO! Shannon, I'm not posting you banana bread)
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10:20 pm
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I have a lot of bananas to use up
I have just made two loaves of banana bread. It is amazingly yummy. I am considering driving into work tomorrow just to have my friends try it out.
My god, it's yummy.
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11:17 pm
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Czas sie obudzić
Za siódmym wielkim miastem
Za siódmym klubem
Małe piekło co zbudowali sobie ludzie..
... It's like there was nothing there at all.
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07:14 pm
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Warning, image!
Sometimes the internet should not be giving out relationship advice:
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04:31 pm
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Oops!
I almost forgot.
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY JOURNAL!
It's been six years! Wow. Close to a thousand entries... wow.
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02:01 am
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Complete technical failure
Three nights of slinging suds, and I'm taking a break. Based on the caps from the kegs that were tapped, I figure somewhere around 3000 litres of beers have been served in the last four hours of the past three nights of Bluesfest.
Tonight was a treat, though. [Unknown LJ tag] and I cooked up some snow crab and crashed after our respective volunteering stints. I'm still buzzing, and watching some old Millennium episodes... can't sleep.
There's more to say, but it's all disjointed. Ideas about my beer club, ideas about pouring beer (which I've done a lot of recently, without having a sip) and so on. There's probably some sort of zen idea in there somewhere, but considering it's half past two in the am, I am far too tired to try and figure out what it is.
Rest of today is for recovery. Back to work Monday, after all.
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02:38 am
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addendum
not only am I knackered, I really hate insomnia. Bloody hell.
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02:23 am
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Bloody knackered
I will have to drink rainbows in order to recover from volunteering. I poured several HUNDRED litres of beer tonight. HUNDREDS!!!! I did not drink any of it....
dude...
I'm hurting here.
dude.
no, really... I still have the caps from the kegs. I figure that each keg is about 55 litres... I have 27 caps, which makes close to 1500 litres of beer.
More importantly, that's close to 1500 litres of beer that I did not drink.
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09:10 am
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Propaganda is bad, mmmm'kay?
If you've ever had the misfortune of putting up with this new wave of "family" shows, I feel your pain. I recently had to endure the indefinite suffering known as ABC Family shows. In particular, "The Secret Life of the American Teenager". Ambiguous and mixed messages about teenagers getting pregnant and having sex in what looks like the Bible Belt is not entertainment. Dude, really? You americans suck. We had much better shows. Degrassi! We had our teen show stars get pregnant, and they had mowhawks!
This religious propaganda sucks. I just know that the guy trying to pick up the pregnant girl is getting set up for the fall. Sadly, I won't be watching the rest of the show. You know what? I'm not even going to finish watching it. I guess it's not indefinite suffering after all.
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12:58 am
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OW!
Good God,
The hunger for a smoke really does come back to haunt you like being hit with a bag of doorknobs.
Owie.
Thankfully, I don't have a pack of smokes anywhere near me.
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09:05 pm
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Oh yes, I forgot
I'm going to take a stab at quitting smoking. I was smoke-free for a while after coming back from the US, but relapsed. I'm tweaking a bit, but it's so much different than before. First of all, I'm not getting hungry like the first time I quit. My daily intake of food almost doubled, and now ? Now... I'm sick to my stomach a lot. I have to postpone meals.
We'll see how this goes. Bear with me, I might be grumpy for a little while.
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08:32 pm
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Yum!
Ok, still coming down. Had another party. Fewer people showed up, but considering that Canada Day was in the middle of the week, attendance was not expected to be stellar. I got a handful of really depressing e-mails from people who couldn't make it. People dying, pets dying, kids not sleeping, it's a whole lot of people who need some good karma.
Thus, there was a lot of food left over. I treated myself to some kebabs for dinner, and I have to say that while I do not know how to make a lot of dishes, those that I do know how to make, I make really well. One such dish is Mediterranean pork. Left over from my time in Greece, this marinated meat is possibly the sexiest pork dish I have ever made.
Some of my coworkers showed up, and some of those brought food. Yum! I hope I can remember to return the appropriate tupperware to the right people.
Also, I have to work on my manners. I suck. Hopefully, the time I will spend volunteering at Bluesfeset will set me straight.
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10:55 pm
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Argentina!
Ok, so I got another bottle open. This time, I managed to finish off the last of the bacon-wrapped filet mignon that I had "lying around" (read: I was preparing food for Canada Day tomorrow and needed to make room in the freezer).
I pulled out a rogue wine. Caleta Vineyards Reserve. This is one of those of strange ones that is bottled in Rougemont, despite the fact that the grapes and the juice comes from Argentina. The Quebec company that does this is called "Veritas" (hopefully not an homage to Harvard), which is well known for taking grapes and juices from around the world and bottling it locally. I have to say that I have never found their wines to be notable, and this one was no different. It's heavy on the tannins, which leaves a prolonged aftertaste. It has a very interesting cherry flavour, with a velvety finish. There's not really much of a bouquet to it, just grapes and vinegar.
I does have a nice colour, flows well and otherwise is a very drinkable wine. However, given the uninspired taste, I will have to shelf it to the "B" level, somewhere in the 70's.
I'm starting to think that Veritas is not a good buy.
Tags: wine
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09:52 am
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Quickie
Inappropriate spam subject line: When is the last time you had your colon cleansed?
WTF?
Wait, it gets better. I thought I'd at least look at it, and sure enough, it was an ad for some sort of colon cleansing product. What makes me really laugh, though, is the ad on top that appeared (courtesy of the Google adwords algorithm): 2008 Colon Cleanse Scams?
Nice.
I haven't had the time to make any real updates, simply because I've been busy. Busy fighting off the squirrels, who have taken a keen interest in my irises. Busy attending birthday parties (no kidding, I spend 8 hours at an 8 year old's party). Busy pulling off master plans (since when does Voyageur bus lines go to the VIA train station?). Busy catching up on popular culture (oh wait, Get Smart doesn't count). Finally, there was the game on Sunday. Spain deserved that win, and a good time was had by all (except the Germans).
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05:45 pm
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Reviews
New shows.
Do Not Disturb. Jason Bateman's another attempt at directing and starring in a TV series. This pilot episode had its game up TIGHT: good jokes, good setups for later shows, just the right amount of controversy and silly jokes. It's also got Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who doesn't do a very convincing role of a gay guy. However, the rest of the cast works well together
I figure it might survive a few seasons, kind of like the John Larroquette show.
The Middleman. I love this show. Kicks ass. Kind of like a better version of Chuck (which I could barely stomach). I worry that it might not last even half a season because it will be seen as a ripoff from Get Smart. Eh? Who knows?
Fringe. Looks like it may have something to it. I like the crazy angle. I really like the old lab, too. I kinda wish I had an old lab that I could go back to.
True Blood. Yes, I know they'll be calling this some sort of Anne Rice version of X-Files, but it's lookin' all right. The accents are a little thick at times, but at least I can understand them. The videotape part was was messed up.
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04:32 pm
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A fine white wine.
It may seem that I'm finishing these off day by day, but I've been too busy to update.
Ok, so this time a white. Deinhard's white version of a Pinot Noir. The result? A fairly dry (this is a 2003) Pinot Gris. Went well with chicken. A little velvety, just the right amount of dry to work with a marinated stir-fry. The slight hints of citrus and apple made this a really great one to enjoy in the garden (are you sensing a theme?). A uniquely great matching, I think that what really makes this wine work with a somewhat sweet chicken stir-fry is that dryness of it. The newer vintages are rated at a 1, whereas this one is a 2. I'm thinking that they've improved upon the idea.
It's a nice wine that does not come on strong, and softly leaves the palate, much like the previous entry. It has a "classic" designation on the label, which makes sense now that it's 2008. The only comparable example I could find was a 2005, which got an 84.
This one deserves much better. The pale straw colour is unchanged, but it lacks the peppery spice, and the apple and citrus are more full. If I knew how to give this wine a score, I would.
Tags: wine
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04:25 pm
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A fine red wine.
Sticking with a theme, I went with a 2000 Pinot Noir from Chateau des Charmes. A lovely little estate bottled red that comes from the Niagara Peninsula.
It's a little older, the flavours more subtle, but definitely an improvement over the Mandolin. Less acidic, more of a cherry flavour than the leathery Mandolin. In addition to the subtle flavour, it smoothly disappeared from the palate. Wonderful fading aftertaste. Again, this went with steak. I don't know what it was, whether it was the better cut of beef (filet mignon) or whether it was the wine, but this was simply amazing bottle of Pinot Noir, and that's coming from someone who doesn't usually drink reds.
Maybe I'll swing by the vineyard in the fall and pay them a visit.
Tags: wine
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