Random Thoughts

I've been talking about cooking duck for a while. I got some well packed Canadian duck from the local Giant recently. Well, I finally cooked it... and ate it... and it was great! The skin was crisp, the meat tender. I like cooking. Here's the duck... with veggies and all.

Dear birds, now that spring (or summer if you believe the temperatures today) is out, I understand that you are out to enjoy the weather, the trees and what not. I am glad you are out. You make, for the most part, very sweet noises and provide welcome distractions while I wait for the bus. However, I do have a gripe to bring up with you. I do not appreciate you emptying your bowels while I am walking below you. As it is, I feel bad that I get to work so late... I don't need you letting loose on me on my way to the bus stop, thereby making me walk back home, wash my hair and be even more late for work. Do me a favour and stop crapping while people walk under you. Try using one particular corner of your world (nowhere near my place of residence, place of work or anything else) as most humans do. You might find the rest of your world more enjoyable. I agree with you that seeds need to be dispersed and all, but they are not going to germinate on my head... or on the concrete below. Try...

So, not that I am a chef or anything, but I think I did better than I have done in a very long time. I made an awesome dinner tonight. A nicely brined pork chop, a blueberry gastrique to go with that, steamed asparagus, crunchy sourdough and a glass of orange juice. I finished that off with some lovely caramelized pears from last night. No whipped cream though. Not that I ever hope to be bored out of my mind... but now I can at least entertain myself with decent food. Next on my list, duck!

Fifteen years ago, I lived on another continent, in a land that was (and is) home. Ten or so years prior to that, I lived on yet another continent. Counting back that far makes me feel so old. The former of course was Asia, the latter, Africa. Fifteen years ago, a man named Bill Clinton was President of the free world. Jean Chretien was Canada's big shot in Parliament. John Major was the Prime Minister in the United Kingdom. Maggy Thatcher's dear friend Mitterrand was President of the Fifth Republic. And fifteen years ago, on that continent of Africa, something started. Something so vile that the word used to describe it ( legally as per the IGO called the UN and colloquially) does not quite convey its cruelty and indiscriminate nature. What happened in Central Africa by those great lakes was truly horrible. Genocide. A word made up from a couple of Latin words. An estimated 800,000. In about 100 days. Do the math. That's about 8,000 a day if you assume a uniform distrib...

My former co-worker and awesome person in general, Kirk, had a giant pair of wireless headsets for a long time. Those things were massive. And I think he thoroughly enjoyed using them to listen to music while he worked. Ever since I saw that, I've wanted something similar. From what I recall, he had a set of Sennheiser RS120s which used RF to communicate between the base station and the headsets. My requirements were a little more involved though. For one, it needed to be able to transmit voice as well. The main reason I wanted a wireless headset was to not be tethered to my laptop when making calls on Skype. Well, most technology out there isn't very conducive to transmitting sound wirelessly though (at least for computer accessories). Enter bluetooth. The bluetooth specs have been around for over a decade, but I feel like it has never quite taken off for computer based technologies. About the only thing that uses it are the wireless mice and keyboards that various vendors ha...