Americanuck

I was just putting together a lasagna for tonight’s dinner (it’s happily bubbling in the oven as we speak) and to keep myself amused I had my mp3 player on while sauteing and grating.

I had downloaded a bunch of songs for free (legit!) from some promotional cards Sean got when he sold some of his old video games to EB Games. He barely has 10 songs he likes or knows he likes so I got em, or rather most of them close to 80 songs worth (I’m still not done picking them all out)

You kind of have to weed your way through a lot of crap to find something you want but I’ve done pretty well. My problem has always been I may know a song to hear it, especially when you get to the chorus, but I have ZERO clue who may sing it or how it may sound from just the title.

Tom pointed out some songs from Squeeze who’s name sounded familiar and once I played the snippet they call samples I was all “Ohhh YEAHHH!! OK! sounds familiar kinda” and picked up a few.

Tonight while listening to my MP3 player a Squeeze song came on and I finally realised that the words in the chorus weren’t (and this is after downloading it and seeing it’s name) “Pulling muscles for Michelle.” but in fact “Pulling muscles from a shell” Yeah, kind of a different concept.

Last night Tom and I had dinner at the Olive Garden (shhh don’t tell Sean!!) as a kind of ‘date night’. We don’t get to spend a lot of time together so most of the time we’re home relaxing, but it’s nice ever so often to go out and let someone else to the fixin’ and cleanin’ yanno?

I was pretty disappointed that the OG decided to get rid of MY FAVOURITE PASTA!! Dammit why why why? Maybe crab shrimp seafood pasta wasn’t popular or something? When I whined asked about it, the waitress said “oh yeah they do that every so often, something comes off, another thing goes on”. Sure by why MINE? psshhh

I ended up ordering a seafood fettuccine which was good but not AS good as my fave (sigh). Tom had the stuffed chicken Marsala which as you see he gave a big thumbs up.

Man though, they sure feed ya lots and you always try to fit as much in before you give up. We both went into a post gorging zombie state!

We were also going to hit up some stores after but it took a bit longer to get seated and then longer still for the serving, receiving of the bill portion of the evening. We stopped by one store and pretty much had 15 minutes to cruise for a few things before the ‘we will be closing the store’ announcement rang out. Oh well t’was worth it!

I like to think I’m not one of those people, you know the kind. The ones that write companies to complain about stuff constantly. Generally I go through life expecting so-so and being blown away by the wow. Sad but true. Sometimes though something will push me, usually when the wow starts sliding to the so-so. When it’s something I really like and I’m afraid it will become something I hate. That and people who rip me off, but that’s another story.

Generally at least one of the weekend days I do a home cooked breakfast. I’m no Martha or anything, it’s edible, barely. What helps though is that I’d found some really tastey bacon, Maple Leaf Maple flavoured bacon. The smell when it’s cooking is so yummy (the stink after eating is still old bacon grease, psshhh they need to work on that) and it doesn’t act like a shrinky-dink and disappear on you like some other bacon.

My beef (pork?) with them though is you generally have to dig through a bunch of packages to find the ones cut well. We always joke that there is a Mr/Ms perfectionist working there cutting bacon, and Mr/Ms slack-ass. Sometimes you are lucky enough to find the product of wonder-cutter and, unfortunately, sometimes you’re stuck with the guy that needs remedial butchering school.

Lately though I’ve found that wonder-cutter seems to have either A.) moved on to another company or B.) perhaps lost their fingers in a nasty jealous bacon-cutter attack by old remedial. Every single time lately, I’ve gone to the Safeway there has been sloppy, wide, thick slices that range from tolerable to plain yuck.

Sooooo, yeah I wrote the company. Or rather I emailed them. I told them that I really liked their products and have been enjoying them for a long time but lately eh, not up to snuff. I told them they could take or leave my comments but it would really be super super nice if they looked into it, if not for me, for the CHILDREN! (Ok I didn’t really say that part) Basically just feedback. I wasn’t looking for a response, frankly I had to vent right after cooking Sunday morning (how sad is that?)

Today in the mail I found a letter from the company. Sure it’s a form letter and yeah they say what the consumer wants to hear, the usual company rah rah and immediate action will take place, you know the drill. Yes dear Maple Leaf Foods, you still have my business, at least for now, but you’re on notice!!

Yanno, I don’t live in fantasy land or anything, but maybe, just maybe they will find a way to sew on wonder-cutters fingers and get him back on the line cutting my bacon.

PS: they gave me $10.00 worth of coupons! Chaching! Bacon for everyone!

It was our condo association’s annual (or semi-annual?) fire alarm/smoke detector test day today. This entails a contractor to come into your suite between 5-8 pm to wave a gas flame below the heat detector by the door then turn the stick around and push on the test button on the smoke detector. This means however that short piercing alarms are going off ALL EVENING as they go door to door. Not exactly conducive to a relaxy post work night.

To make it even better one of the big ass red bells is right outside our door.

One thing about me, normally I’m as jumpy as a cat but factoring in never knowing when they are going to go off next I’m a basket case.

Hardwired into the building alarms is a thing on the wall that sends out a piercing noise into each suite (on top of the bells). After the dude left our suite I covered it up with a rubber jar opener and painters tape temporarily to save me and the cats from a nervous breakdown.

Speaking of cats, Nutmeg has gone deep undercover. He buried himself under the desk in the boys room (brave soul) I guess being in a room full of boy stink is more appealing that the loud noises.

Oh my gosh, this would be a bad day to have been down in Bellingham. Supposedly US homeland security issued a warning to the RCMP that a suspected murderer from California was heading for the Canadian Border on a motorcycle. The Canadian border guards walked off the job (which they can do when they feel their safety is at risk). To compound the problem, there was some kind of motorcycle rally down in Washington so trying to find the RIGHT guy is going to be difficult.

Management has taken over screening people heading to Canada which means the lineups towards the border are crazy. This has been going on since early this afternoon. Some people have already been waiting HOURS.
It’s nutzo because the Canadian Border guards haven’t been allowed to have guns, I mean how dumb is that? I know they are changing that, but obviously not fast enough! From what I understand it could take years. I can imagine it will happen again a few more times before they finally get the guards trained and armed. What is crazy is we have armed TRANSIT police riding skytrain, wouldn’t the border be something you would want to address first??

I’m always afraid that something like this could happen when we’re down there. Man I feel sorry for the people in those lineups! I think this would be one of those times it would make sense to turn around and grab a hotel room for the night, but gosh if they have kids to get home to I can only imagine the stress.

While watching the news I grabbed these screen caps from some awesome shots from CTV chopper 9.

I enjoyed my visit to the station and took some pictures of Tom working as well as a shot (from a distance back in the mind you) of Mike Killeen who was anchoring the late news last night.

I met the new weekend weatherman Marke Dreisschen while I was there who was super nice.

Oh and  Mike brought in his mini dashy and they had him on the desk during a couple of segments last night. Now I’m all conflicted again on what kind of doggy I want. The dashy was so cute!! Eh, I guess one step at a time, we need a house first.