RAY'S BLOGGING AGAIN

More about those 'Healthy Choice' frozen meals

2012-02-17T09:12:00.000-08:00

Here's my remedy to prevent the sauce in the bottom container from boiling dry or becoming too thick and possibly burning during cooking in the microwave.

This will ensure that your meal stays properly steamed during the cooking cycle. That lower portion holding the sauce is usually only about half full or less, and that isn't quite enough for the full cooking cycle in a 1200-watt microwave.

Those telephone scammers....

2012-02-16T11:32:00.000-08:00

I got a call again this morning from someone with a very Indian accent trying to tell me in his own brand of English that he was with Microsoft, and wanted to tell me something about my Windows and what was a problem with it.

In the first place, Patch Tuesday was just two days ago, and I've got all the latest updates for Windows, and it is presumably working just fine. I can't detect any problems with it myself, and if it had some, I'd very likely notice. Secondly, I got a call from someone sounding suspiciously like this guy today a few months ago, and he wanted me to enable remote access so that he could get into my computer and supposedly "correct" it for me. If I'd enabled remote access for him, he could have taken control of my computer and made it act as another server in a malware network to distribute spam or malware to others, just as one example of the various possibilities. I do not grant remote access to anyone I don't know, and certainly not anyone feeding me a line of BS like that guy did. So if you get any calls like that, do what I did - tell him he isn't making any sense, and then hang up fast. If he really was with Microsoft, and Microsoft wanted to contact me, they would most likely do it via the Internet. They have my computer's address for their Windows Updates, and they also have my email address from past contacts. As far as I know, Microsoft doesn't place a lot of calls to their Windows users, and if you call them, then you'd better have fifty bucks to spare, because they're trying to make a profit, and they don't like donating their time.

"Dear Healthy Choice....."

2012-02-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

Once again, I have the same old complaint: there isn't enough juice in the bottom tray to remain liquid for the full cooking time, even if that cooking time is set at the minimum recommended. This has the potential to be a delicious dish, if only it had enough liquid in that lower section of the container to last until the full cooking cycle has been completed. Removing all the uncooked contents from a fresh package, adding more water to the sauce mixture, and cooking it in another bowl works much better, but defeats the purpose of the original packaging, which is supposed to be user-friendly and hassle-free. It isn't. Why? Probably because even frozen items dehydrate in storage, and there hasn't been enough allowance made for that problem while determining the amounts of liquids to include in these packaged preparations.

Just a reminder - Patch Tuesday

2012-02-15T06:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday being Patch Tuesday for all us Windows users, you might like to make sure that you got all of them. Depending on your computer's configuration, there are eleven or twelve updates this time. My quad-core machine got 12, and the dual-core machine got 11. Why, I'm not sure. I don't think it has anything to do with the processor cores, but rather with the various program choices on them.

Something's burning

2012-02-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

This is at the top of British Properties in West Vancouver.

Now that we can see them again, it's still winter in the hills

2012-02-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

Another chair for posture improvement

2012-02-10T20:21:00.000-08:00

This is a kneeling chair, or sometimes called a knee chair, designed to train you to sit in a position which keeps your back in a more neutral position. If it's used correctly, there should be a straight line between your ear, shoulder, hips and ankles. It's adjustable for height, and easy to move.

This illustrates how it is used. You can also remove one leg from the knee rest and straighten it out in front of you if you like, for changes in position. This is better for your lower back than some regular chairs. And it's a lot more comfortable than it looks. If you have lower back problems, this is something to consider.

Warming a little...

2012-02-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

This is the first day in a long while that I've seen the temperature up over fifty F. Can't say the banana trees are sprouting yet, but it's heading in the right direction.

Cereal without added sugar?

2012-02-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

It's Crispix, and it's not bad even without adding sugar with the milk. My doctor would be pleased, even if I'm not exactly ecstatic.

Well dressed dogs...

2012-02-09T08:54:00.000-08:00

Bigger chair needs bigger wheels....

2012-02-07T17:44:00.000-08:00

The old chair is on the left, and the new one on the right, showing its optional larger castors, which are two and a half inches in diameter, with wider wheels.

Tug pulling two barges in Georgia Strait

2012-02-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

I get feedback -

2012-02-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

So how is it now?

Feedback, anyone?

Bad back? This will help....

2012-02-06T17:17:00.000-08:00

It's a multi-adjustable chair. Everything adjusts: the seat height, the tilt of it on its base, the reclining angle of the seat back, the height of the armrests, and the amount of lumbar support, as well as the height of the back relative to the seat. The only thing missing is built-in massage, and they might even be working on that for all I know. This is just about as good as it gets. So if you're hooked on the Internet, park your posterior in one of these. Your back will thank you.

Looks like a nice day ahead....

2012-02-06T07:44:00.000-08:00

Another sunset......

2012-02-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

Another panorama, thanks to Microsoft Research's 'I.C.E.' (Image Composite Editor) composed of three images. Near the left side, between the trees, there's a ship out there in Georgia Strait, end-on toward us. I didn't see it until I viewed the finished picture. I was concentrating on getting enough overlap in the images.

And then the fog rolled in....

2012-02-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

It was a lovely day, and then the fog rolled in.

But the sky is still clear.

Lunch

2012-02-03T16:11:00.000-08:00

Today's sunset....

2012-02-02T17:34:00.000-08:00

The bigger picture, across Georgia Strait to Vancouver Island.

And a 'close-up' showing a tug out in Georgia Strait with the sunset above.

Today's sundown on the hills

2012-02-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

Winter in the hills, but down here spring is coming

2012-02-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

It's still winter in the hills

2012-02-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

Grampa parks the car......

2012-02-01T07:03:00.000-08:00

Not your average old geezer behind the wheel.

Thanks to Pete for this link.

Your anti-virus.....

2012-02-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

If you're using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, the free version has just been updated to a newer version, (1.60.1.1000) so when you do a manual update of its database it will also download and install its new update.

This is one of the best-rated free anti-virus products, and it works along with other security programs without problems, so if you'd like some additional protection, you can get it by clicking here.

However, my own favorite for excellent protection and features, including automatic updates which will audibly announce themselves upon arrival, is the one from Avast, version 6.0, available by clicking here. The free version has features you'd pay for in someone else's program, and it works very well. If you only want one anti-virus program, then this is my choice.

While on this subject, may I remind you that for 'zero-day protection' which means before your database could be updated, then download ThreatFire. It works by detecting suspicious behavior of malware, and doesn't rely on a database which may not be updated quickly enough. So with this and another regular anti-virus program, you're covered quite well. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

What's wrong in America? - a video to watch

2012-01-31T19:14:00.000-08:00

My friend Tommy in New York, on his blog 'Tommy's Ramblings' on Friday, the 20th of January, has a link to a video about 'Engineered Inequality' and it is about half an hour (38 minutes) that is well worth watching. Here's the video.

My thanks to Tommy for providing this link. This interview with the book's authors and their comments about the problems make fascinating listening.

Turning your Blog into a book.....

2012-01-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

My longtime friend Pete, now wintering in Florida, sent me this in an email this morning, and at first glance, it seems like a nice idea...

This is yet another wrinkle in the vanity press business, and it's a fishing expedition aimed at those of us with big pockets and an ego to match, who may be thinking that the world really needs hard copies of our daily blog babblings to put on a bookshelf or to send to relatives and friends who may or may not be all that desperate for reading and dusting materials.

How much of an average blog could we print in 20 pages of stylishly laid out text and images? Maybe a week's worth? Two weeks' worth? And you've been doing your blog for how many years now?

Maybe real hold-in-your-hand books aren't going to become extinct, but they aren't going to be very affordable at fifteen bucks for 20 pages. An eBook makes more sense, until we realize that our blog itself is virtually the same thing, but without requiring any special $200 tablet on which to access it. And that's why Google's Blogger is such a great idea. A great idea that's absolutely free!

Wikipedia, in answer to the question of "How many blogs are there?" reports that as of February 16, 2011 there were "over 156 million blogs". And I'm not even going to talk about the 800 million Facebookers out there, who could be blogging if only they had more to say, or knew how, or cared to learn.

Name this bird - please!

2012-01-29T23:35:00.000-08:00

Just when I want the camera to work perfectly, it doesn't focus sharply, which is probably my own fault for being in too big a hurry. I was afraid this might fly away before I got a picture. The second one shows it compared to a crow nearby. It's about the size of a gull, but has a different shaped head and beak, and gulls don't usually land on power lines. It is probably a juvenile, because the back and wings have gray speckled patterns like some young birds have. My bird book doesn't have a picture of it. It is somewhat similar to a Ross's Gull, but it doesn't have a gull's shape, and gulls don't sit on wires usually. Whatever it is, the crow doesn't seem to feel threatened, and both seem comfortable there. If anyone knows what kind of bird this is, please leave a comment below.

More about freeware programs...

2012-01-29T08:52:00.000-08:00

I was checking for something new on Majorgeeks last evening, and found one for manipulating pictures, called FotoSketcher but after playing with it for a while, I decided that it isn't quite as good as Paint.NET for the actual picture manipulations but it does have a very nice feature called "Add a Frame" which will add a very nice and quite realistic frame around an image of your choice. So it might still be worth having in your collection.

You can choose to add the frame without first altering the image, by looking at the bottom of the drop-down menu in 'Drawing style' which is the first item on the list of 'Drawing parameters' accessed by clicking on the icon for the artist's pallet on the taskbar. Use the up and down arrows at the right-hand end of the line titled 'Drawing Style' to navigate through the list of options, and for the frame-only choice, look at the bottom of that list.

Paint.NET doesn't have a framing option, and while there is one in PhotoStudio from Arcsoft, it doesn't have as many options, and the ones it does have aren't as easily used as these in FotoSketcher. The Arcsoft program is not a freebie, but it is a very good program for editing your images. I've been using it for several years. But if you don't want to spend the money for it, by far the best other one I know is Irfan Skiljan's Irfanview - this is one of the best and most popular image editing programs on the web, and it's a freebie with all sorts of additional plug-ins, although the main program comes with a selection of the more popular ones. Irfan lives in Bosnia, and he appreciates a little donation if you use his great program. I should add here that it also does batch editing such as resizing and renaming batches of images, and it works perfectly. There are literally millions of us using Irfan's program and loving it. You should try it.

Grouse Mountain Skyride upper terminal

2012-01-28T17:44:00.000-08:00

For an after-dark shot, this turned out better than I expected. This is the upper terminal and restaurant, seen in the glow of its own lights of the ski hill reflecting from clouds above it. This was taken with the Pentax X70 at 24X optical zoom and the camera wasn't set for a night scene. I tried one of those, but it didn't come out as well as this one set on 'automatic'. I'm quite pleased with this one.

The flying appetite

2012-01-28T14:02:00.000-08:00

Snow in the high rent district overnight

2012-01-28T12:47:00.000-08:00

Days like this, I'm glad I can't afford to live among the rich and famous.

It's nice to come home with the same four fenders I left with.

Real Cheese......

2012-01-27T11:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, there's real cheese in the cheese bread.

And it's delicious!

Much the same on both coasts today....

2012-01-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

Tommy in New York says his weather is much like ours today.

And shooting passing gulls is harder than it looks.

Today in the hills.....

2012-01-26T13:55:00.000-08:00

Not the greatest, but at least we can see them today.

There's been a few days lately we couldn't.

The weather's back to normal again

2012-01-23T12:38:00.000-08:00

Our snow has turned to rain again

2012-01-20T13:21:00.000-08:00

We had more snow overnight, but it has now warmed up to just above freezing, and the rain has returned. This white stuff won't be here for long.

After the snowstorm...... (Your daily smile)

2012-01-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

Looking for something to plow, and not finding much. I wonder what his wife is thinking about all that.... Two kids with brooms could do better in half the time!

This just in....

2012-01-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

For the whole article, please click here.

Read more: Please click here.

Isn't it nice when common sense wins against special interest groups? And perhaps the politicians in Washington should be congratulated for listening to the voice of reason. And good on Google and Wikipedia and Mozilla's Firefox and others for raising hell about this.

Here's something we should all be concerned about.....

2012-01-18T08:10:00.000-08:00

7:40 a.m., 25 F., and snowing lightly....

2012-01-18T07:49:00.000-08:00

The hills today....

2012-01-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

It's the Awards Season, and..... (here come the critics!)

2012-01-16T09:21:00.000-08:00

The headline in our local daily rag says: "Fashion flops at the Golden Globes", and in the selection of photos, it includes this one of the ever-radiant Nicole Kidman:

I don't think country music had anything to do with it. Nicole and Lucy Lawless of "Xena: Warrior Princess" are almost the same age, and just maybe, Nicole was going for the Xena look. Someone please tell Nicole that series ended in 2001, and it's not likely to be revived. But it's a nice try anyway....

Afterglow

2012-01-15T17:15:00.000-08:00

This is about to become a background on the desktop.

And it looks like this!

Fun with Microsoft Research's I.C.E. and Photosynth and a video

2012-01-14T15:40:00.000-08:00

First of all, let's get the video on here, to start this little experiment:

Then, after I'd made this video of what's basically a moving panorama of the scene outside today, as the storm cleared away, I wondered what might happen if I took this video and simply used drag-and-drop to drop it into the processing window of Microsoft Research's Image Composite Editor ('I.C.E.' for short) which accepts many separate images and turns those into one big or even huge image made of all the separate ones. At this point, I hadn't read all the specs on 'I.C.E.' you see, so I didn't know it's also designed to gobble up videos, separate them into their component images, and then re-assemble those for viewing as panoramas or navigable larger images, like this.....

So when I discovered that 'I.C.E.' can process a video as well as stills, I went one step further, and signed into Photosynth, which can take a project from the 'I.C.E.' program, and turn that into a 2D or 3D navigable composite which you can then upload to the web for others to enjoy. It looks something like this:

You can move it left or right, zoom in or out, and if it had more to it vertically, you could also move up or down in it. My original was a very simple one, but if I had shot it differently, such as both forward and backward, as well as up and down, then Photosynth and 'I.C.E.' could have turned it into a 3D image that could be viewed in detail using all the various controls. You can find the program for 'I.C.E.' by clicking here, and Photosynth by clicking here.

In-flight Refueling - The Movie (very short!)

2012-01-13T11:05:00.000-08:00

This gull sits on the rooftop next door, and waits for me to hold something out the window, and then it's right there, so this whole thing only took about 40 seconds.
But today, I actually got its picture taking the bread from my hand.

Seabirds: Seagull washing its face

2012-01-11T16:38:00.000-08:00

Today's snow report....

2012-01-11T13:27:00.000-08:00

The clean-up crew

2012-01-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

Notice how many pieces of bread it has in its mouth.

It came back later to take the last two,

and then returned a third time to look at the clean board,

and then stare in at me as if to say "More, please!"

I removed the platform for today.

Note: The spokes in that railing are four and three-quarters inches apart, and the bird is covering about seven of those spaces, so if its wings were straight out from its body, the wingspan would be over three feet.

More birds....

2012-01-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

"In-flight refueling"

2012-01-09T20:06:00.000-08:00

Through a screen door, quickly....

2012-01-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

I had the card out of one camera, trying to edit a video taken through the window earlier today, when this guy showed up. I had to quickly grab the other camera and take the shot, without thinking about the screen on the doorway interfering with the results. But I got it, and now I know my plan will work. Incidentally, that board it is sitting on is about 11 and 3/4 inches wide - not quite a foot - so that will give you an idea of the bird's size. From beak to tail it would be nearly two feet. Next time, I'll try to have that screen moved out of the way.

Here's one without the screen door in the way. They're still quite nervous about being close to people, so I had to turn off the lights and stay away from the window while getting this. But it didn't take them long at all to figure out that this new contraption on the railing had food on it. And since it slips easily on and off the railing, they are rather puzzled by its sudden disappearance after feeding time is over and I've got my pictures. Speaking of which, I'm learning that photographing birds close up is a lot like kissing a duck's ass without getting a mouthful of feathers - you've gotta be quick! Lucky helps too.

Bird-watching.....

2012-01-08T11:06:00.000-08:00

Not my sharpest shots, at 24X zoom,

and my excuse is the weather and

the cameraman. That would be me.

I'm better with crows and seagulls. If I hold a piece of bread out the window, the crows won't quite come close enough to take it, preferring that I leave it on the window ledge and back away. But a couple of days ago, one seagull got brave enough to actually fly up to my outstretched arm, and take the bread from my hand. When one of them is that close, and hovering in midair like that , they are an impressive bird. I wish I could have taken a picture of that. It would be a real keeper.

Hot from the oven - Chunky Cheese Bread....

2012-01-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Once again, I got to the store just after the bread came out of the oven, and before it cooled enough to be sliced. So this is today's still-warm loaf of Chunky Cheese, with the end crust ready for eating. And just a hint for you lovers of warm bread: that tablespoon's underside does a lot better job than a knife, for applying a spread on it. It rides over the soft surface without snagging, and doesn't damage the bread. And now you'll have to excuse me, because it's time for another slice!

P.S. - Click here for a recipe to make your own!

How's your computer running? Need more memory?

2012-01-06T06:02:00.000-08:00

If you're using Windows, there's a nice little program that can (and does!) optimize your memory, by shutting down unused processes running in the background that use up your available memory without any real benefits to you when you're busy doing something requiring a lot of memory. It's called CleanMem.

What's so special about this one as compared to other memory-cleaning programs? Unlike those others, this one doesn't simply push some of your memory functions into the hard-disk's page file, thus slowing down your performance, because the hard-disk doesn't respond as fast as your RAM usually can. So this keeps everything still active in your faster-responding RAM (Random Access Memory) while still weeding out the non-essential 'standby' items you probably don't need right now. Result: Less memory is tied up waiting for further requests, and more of it is free to do what you ask of it right now, and none of it got pushed off into the Page File where it takes a longer time to recover it again. Your computer is happier, you're happier, and you didn't have to buy additional RAM, which you might or might not have enough room to install on the motherboard.

To get yours, just click on this link.

Another sundown....

2012-01-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

As the sun sinks slowly in the west, and one of the many floatplanes of the local 'Vancouver Air Force' flies off toward Vancouver Island, it's the ending of another pleasant afternoon on the West Coast. I almost missed it, with my afternoon nap.

Here's an update on this sunset, as darkness approaches and details fade.

American politics: What the hell are they thinking?

2012-01-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

To an outsider like myself, American politics would be very amusing if only they weren't so deadly serious about it.

Take Rick Santorum (Please!) for example: In a recent speech before a crowd of suitably impressionable fans, this intellectual giant stands up there in front of God and everybody and says, "Thank you for taking the first step toward taking back this country!"

As if the good old U.S. of A. had been loaded up, lock, stock and barrel and hauled off kicking and scratching to darkest Africa, to become one of those black-assed African fiefdoms everybody loves to hate because their leaders can't even spell the word 'democracy'.

Know what's wrong with democracy? Too many of the voters are intellectually challenged burger slingers, and not enough of them are Ph.D.s in Economics. Too many of the candidates think that being able to throw shit at their competitors qualifies them for the job of leading the country.

And "taking back this country" implies that it was better off under that idiot 'Dubya' and his pals like Bernie Madoff and those Wall Street whiz-kids who thought up those schemes to peddle junk bonds and hustle people into mortgages that couldn't possibly be paid off. Looks to me like the country is already back far enough as it is, with a debt of over $14-trillion. If I lived there, I think I'd be learning Chinese or Japanese so I could speak to the new owners in their own language. But don't worry - there's always Google Translate....

To Monsieur Beep -

2012-01-04T17:18:00.000-08:00

About your blog entry of Monday, January 02, 2012:

Mit Liebe wie bei anderen Dingen lernen wir aus unseren Fehlern.
Ich hoffe, dass Sie Ihre wahre Liebe finden und sind nie aus dem Palast geschoben.

The Microsoft translator doesn't work quite as well as the one from Google which is now not available as a desktop gadget, so in case the above doesn't read quite right in German, here it is in English: "With love as with other things, we learn from our mistakes. I hope that you find your true love and are never pushed from the Palace."

It took me a while to translate your blog entry, and some of the translation wasn't very good, but I'm hoping I got the right sense of it, Monsieur. You are into some deep waters with that subject, and I hope it all works out for you.

To 'Uncle Ron' .....

2012-01-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

Uncle Ron said..."You two guys kill me...It's all about food...I never heard of Chunky Cheese bread...Does it have big chunks of cheese in it? If it does then how can you toast it? Does the cheese melt down and end up in the crumb drawer?"

Good Morning, Uncle Ron!

"It's all about food", because our sex lives are only two-thirds as good as ever; we are still able to think about it, and we are still able to talk about it.... and I'm surprised that a guy who loves to cook, like yourself, has never heard of Chunky Cheese Bread. "Does it have big chunks of cheese in it?" - Not any more, but it started out with actual chunks of cheddar cheese in the dough, and those would melt into the bread as it baked. These days, for whatever reasons, it doesn't have those actual chunks, but it does have a nice cheesy taste and color, and there are some melted cheese spots in the crust, making the crust one of the best parts. "How do you toast it?" - Very carefully! No, I'm just kidding you - it toasts very well and it's delicious with orange marmalade on it. I think the toasting problem may have been the reason why it no longer has actual chunks of cheddar throughout the bread, but has cheese in another form mixed in the dough. "Does the cheese melt down and end up in the crumb drawer?" Sometimes, there might be a piece from the crust get into the crumb drawer, but on average it isn't a big problem. You won't find yourself dumping the crumb drawer any more often.

"Don't mind me...I'm just sitting here with my first cup of coffee reading your blogs...I've got my sixth to last radiation treatment this morning at 8:30 AM...I told the doc yesterday that I felt like my visits were part of my normal daily routine...What will I do when they're over? ...(pause)...Only an old dude like myself would make such a dumb statement...."

I'm just having my first cup of coffee as I write this. The doctor said the other day "Cut out the sugar!" but I've never enjoyed a cup of coffee without sweetener, and that artificial stuff just doesn't do it for me. I don't think it's all that healthy for you either. My blood pressure was already enough of a problem without having an artificial sweetener making it worse. So instead of choking down a cup of coffee without sweetening in it, I treat myself to at least this first of the day with real honest-to-God sugar in it.

It's a damned shame you didn't catch that Prostate problem in time to get the brachytherapy with the radioactive pellets inserted directly into it. Those worked like a charm for me, and as I mentioned before, it's a one-time thing, so you don't develop a long-term relationship with someone who is trying to pay off his expensive radiation treatment equipment. What will you do afterward? Hopefully, you'll outlive us all, and get rich from introducing Chunky Cheese Bread to the hungry shoppers all over South Carolina. Enjoy your day, Ron!

No picture today - it's a nasty day here.

2012-01-03T16:29:00.000-08:00

I didn't take any pictures today, because it has been raining and stormy all day, and not at all a good day for taking pictures. The weather people are predicting heavy rain and windy conditions until sometime tomorrow. The seagulls aren't exactly walking today, but they are flying quite low. It's a typical winter's day here on the 'Wet Coast'. The good news is, it's only 179 days until July 1st, and the kick-off of the local bikini season.

A little more of This & That.....

2012-01-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

Today, while watching the neighborhood crows flying by my 16th floor window, and a couple of seagulls cruising around looking hungry, I got a piece of bread from the kitchen and held it out the window to see if anyone was paying attention. In only a moment, there was a seagull right there, hovering near my outstretched arm with the bread. It didn't quite get up the nerve to come that last couple of feet but it was very near. It seemed to sense that I meant it no harm, so I laid the bread on the window ledge outside and closed the drapes for a few minutes, so the interior with the lights and computer screen wouldn't spook the birds. The bread was gone within a minute.

Later, shopping at Safeway, I was looking for their Chunky Cheese Bread because theirs is usually made better than their competition down the street. There was no sign of it, so I asked the gal behind the bakery counter when they would be baking more of it. She said, "We won't - we've stopped making it and the Raisin Bread because there just wasn't enough of it being sold. But if you really want some Chunky Cheese Bread, we can bake you a couple of loaves, but you'd have to ask us to do that." I thanked her for the information and declined her offer to make me some. I figured if it's a special order, it will likely cost more, and it was already quite expensive. So their competition is now the only source of Chunk Cheese Bread, and it isn't as carefully made as the Safeway product was. It usually has a lot of fairly large bubbles in it, and those aren't very nice if you're trying to spread something on it. When you're paying over four bucks a loaf for bread, you expect bread, not holes with bread around them.

I got my Christmas present.....

2012-01-02T02:26:00.000-08:00

It's now officially January 2nd, and just what I wanted for Christmas, so once again I got what I asked for. Now we can all relax for a while, because it's 357 days until next Christmas. You heard it here first, Folks! So what's next? That would be the Chinese New Year, on January 23rd. In the Chinese calendar, this will be the year 4709, and the Year of The Dragon.

The New Year Snow Report....

2012-01-01T16:41:00.000-08:00

How close can I get?

This is about it - 24X zoom.

New Year's Eve on Mars.....

2011-12-31T17:06:00.000-08:00

It's a long way to the beach from here!

You are there....

2011-12-31T15:26:00.000-08:00

I got some new landscapes backgrounds today for Stellarium, the planetarium program, and here's a view of the Moon and Sun as if seen from the International Space Station.

Here's another view, from the mountain top observatory on the island of Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands.

And here we are on Mars, at the site of Opportunity, looking toward Phobos, its largest and closest moon. See what you can do with this program?

And lastly, Earth and the Moon from Mars, assuming we had a good telescope there. Gives it a different perspective, doesn't it? I don't think we're near the center of the universe, Folks. Without enlarging this view from Mars, we'd be practically invisible, and it's not all that far away in space terms. They call it 'space' because that's what it mostly is.

Year in Review: Mr. & Mrs. Demi Moore

2011-12-30T16:23:00.000-08:00

Boy toys have a limited shelf life,

especially if they don't know how to dress for the red carpet.

Girls would rather have beauty than brains,

because guys can see better than they can think.

If you use this......

2011-12-30T06:02:00.000-08:00

And if you don't, you probably should, because it's an excellent freebie, and it gets along fine with other security stuff you may have, and its scanner gets a high rating for finding the bad stuff - well, what I'm getting to is that it has just had a revision to its main program, so you need to check yours to make sure it's the latest version. You can do that by visiting the website here.

The morning sky......

2011-12-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

Mercury and Antares are just rising in the southeast, while in the southern sky Saturn and Mars are both visible. This is the program Stellarium, which is your own planetarium on your computer, with everything moving just as it does in a real planetarium. You can zoom in on the various objects, move to one of our other planets for a different view of space, and save the pictures by using CTRL + S. Want one of your own? Come with me to the website.

This is one of the nicest freebies you'll ever find, so enjoy it.

What you see is what you get

2011-12-28T17:18:00.000-08:00

This is probably going to be my New Year greeting this year, so you may as well get used to it, Folks. It's a little like the Chinese method, but this one's for all of us Old Farts who are bored cross-eyed with traditional traditions and conventional conventions, and want something entirely different and not too serious.

I went to the other mall today - the one that's down the street eastward instead of a few blocks to the west, because that's where Sears and its Watch Repair is. That Watch Repair and Battery Replacement is tucked away under the escalator going up to the second floor (furniture, appliances, electronics and catalogue ordering departments) and it is run by a nice Oriental chap who is very polite. He's definitely not claustrophobic either, because that place is hardly big enough to turn around in. If he weighed another hundred pounds, he would need to be greased and pushed in there, and he wouldn't be able to turn around.

From the parking lot out back to the Sears store at the front side of the mall is a fairly long hike, especially with a sore toe as a result of that accident with the drill and the board on December 9th, so I pampered myself by stopping quite frequently to rest it. Like at the display set up in the middle of the hallway near the halfway mark. The one at which they are desperately hoping to unload all those unsold calendars for 2012. The reason most are unsold is because they are either about subjects and pictures nobody wants, or are filled with pictures your mother wouldn't approve of, like the ones for Playboy and Sports Illustrated. I looked at the cover of that Sports Illustrated one, and the first thought that entered my tired old brain was "God! They ought to have given it the title of 'Implants Illustrated'! There's more silicone there than around my bathtub!"

I didn't buy one, because, as a cute little exotic dancer once said to me, "I don't understand you guys!" Shocked, I asked, "What the hell do you mean by that remark with you in the business you're in - if anybody ought to understand us guys, it ought to be you, Darling!" And she replied, "I don't understand why you guys sit here in Gynecology Row slobbering over something you know damned well you'll never get your hands on!" I asked, "Who said anything about 'hands'? It's your agile mind I'm trying to get into, and I'll bet you I can over a very expensive dinner for two at one of the best restaurants in town if you'd like to get down off your high horse and rub elbows with the unwashed masses for two or three hours some evening." That was the start of a very interesting summer back in the beginning of my Happily Divorced Days. I still miss Kate sometimes.

Mr. Moffat, you make a miserable excuse for a refrigerator!

2011-12-28T16:24:00.000-08:00

And I have proof! This Moffat Automatic Defrost Refigerator was new in December of 2006, and since then has required de-icing manually four times. And I will try not to rant too long about all the popping and gurgling and other annoying noises it makes when it is running. I'm in a studio apartment, meaning this refrigerator is about six feet from my bed, and the damned thing wakes me up at nights with its weird noises. I'm renting this place, so I can't throw it out, but I can't think of anything that would give me more pleasure right now. I've just spent a part of my day here again, opening up this pitiful excuse for a refrigerator, using a hair drier I bought for this job, and melting all that ice out of its cooling unit, and then assembling it again, and getting it back in operation.

Whoever made this thing deserves a good swift kick in the family jewels, and then be forced to live with this instead of a properly functioning refrigerator for the next fifty years. This one won't last nearly that long, but I'm speaking hypothetically here. The old refrigerator this one replaced was also a Moffat, and it lasted from when this apartment block was built in 1972 or 1973 until it finally died the last week of November, 2006. It was a damned good appliance, and I'd love to know how those guys managed to forget how to do this in those 33 years or so since that old one was built. It never woke me up in the night, and it never surprised me by not working, because it was a manual defrost and I could plainly see when it needed defrosting. This new one has everything hidden behind a stylish plastic cover, and you don't know there's anything wrong until it suddenly quits working and your food starts to spoil. Wonderful. They also forgot what the word 'progress' is supposed to mean. And I don't have to tell you where this goddamned thing was built, do I?

One of Uncle Ron's that I revised.....

2011-12-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

Uncle Ron took the picture and I added the dialogue.

This is fun :)

Another Christmas picture...

2011-12-26T04:57:00.000-08:00

Just before sundown Christmas day.

Taken on the Canon G9, which seems to

show colors better than the Pentax X70.

The Pentax has a longer zoom, but the

Canon takes sharper, more natural pictures.

Uncle Ron in South Carolina sends this revision
for my original, and so I'm adding it here with
my thanks to him for it.

Christmas Rainbow

2011-12-25T16:01:00.000-08:00

It's a little out of focus, and I apologize for that.

I was in a rush to capture it before it changed,

and I didn't wait quite long enough before pushing

the shutter release.

But how often do we see one these on Christmas Day?

Near sundown....

2011-12-24T17:11:00.000-08:00

The sun comes out....

Reflecting from windows in British Properties,

Then sets, as clouds return.

A lot of different lighting conditions in just a few minutes.

New element on this page....

2011-12-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

There's a new item in the left margin of this page now, titled 'Monitor this site' and if you provide it with your email address (its own website gets that, not me) then it will notify you whenever this page is updated with changes to it. This may or may not be a great feature, because it only checks once a day for changes, and I usually update this daily, but sometimes I do let a day or so slip by before doing anything on here. Anyway, I thought we'd try it out and see if anyone's interested. Add a comment to a recent blog posting if you've tried it, and let me know what you think, please.

I write to my favorite columnist ......

2011-12-23T10:06:00.000-08:00

In her recent column in The Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente asks "Is Stephen Harper the Dear Leader in disguise?", to which, I replied as follows:-

Dear Margaret:

Stodgy Stephen is popular because:

(1.) He's a good-looking pirate;
(2.) His mouth isn't crooked like Old Crooked Mouth;
(3.) He speaks honest-to-God English we can understand;
(4.) He hasn't been trying to Quebecify the Rest of Canada!

For those reasons, many of us are willing, if not to kiss his
ass until he barks like a fox, at least to vote for him over
the alternatives.

Enjoy your day!

Ray in North Van.

Remember this?

2011-12-23T02:09:00.000-08:00

Remember how I described hunting for it at Whole Foods for the equivalent of $15.13 a pound? Whole Foods has been described by another of its customers as "Whole Foods aka Whole Paycheck". Then finding out that my favorite supermarket did have it after all, in the above packages, for the more reasonable price of $5.79 for a little more than a pound.... and that whole thing because I'd been told that this stuff is safe for Diabetics and those of us who have been told by our doctors to lay off the regular sugar - remember? WELL, I WAS WRONG!

I called my doctor's office yesterday afternoon, and asked if this stuff really was OK for those of us who shouldn't consume ordinary sugar, and the answer was "As far as we know, this tastes differently, and costs more than regular sugar, but otherwise it is still sugar, and not an approved substitute for those who should not have regular sugar."

So it's back to the Splenda or your supermarket's own house brand version of it. But I have to say before I rush off that the Coconut Palm Sugar tastes absolutely delicious on your bowl of Rice Krispies, and it goes wonderfully well in coffee.

The misinformation about it started I think with the Philippine Food and Nutrition Research Institute which published results of testing done on it to compare it with other agricultural sugar products, and it was implied that it is somehow better or safer for you than regular sugars like processed white or regular brown sugars. However, I can't find anything to confirm that on the website of the Mayo Clinic nor the website for Health Canada, which shows no mention of it among approved sugar substitutes. So I have to conclude that my doctor is correct and it is just another exotic kind of sugar. I should have done my homework more thoroughly before I shot off my big mouth about this, but I thought I'd made an interesting discovery and I couldn't wait to spread the word. My apologies, Folks. The moral of this story being "Engage brain before opening mouth!"

Sunset on the first day of Winter 2011/2012

2011-12-22T19:10:00.000-08:00

There's no place like this place

anyplace but here!

I love it!

On the first day of Winter.....

2011-12-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

Not much snow yet, but that's about normal

for this time of the year.

This just in......

2011-12-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

My annual Greetings from Havana.....

And my reply, which says:-

"Warmest greetings for this special season

and best wishes for the year 2012."

"ET Phone Home!"

2011-12-22T10:43:00.000-08:00

They don't make Linesmen like they used to!

I've been further out on a 40-foot crossarm

that this guy's been away from home!

Twilight tonight - a panorama

2011-12-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

This was taken at about 5:05 P.M. and is made up of three exposures from the Pentax X70, composed using Microsoft Research's 'I.C.E.' (Image Composite Editor) the cutting edge technology for assembling a lot of smaller images into one big one. It's an amazing program, and you can have a free copy by clicking on this link. You'll be glad you did.

More pictures......

2011-12-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

Sunrise this morning....

With frost on the rooftops....

And sunlight reflecting from windows.

Our tree in the lobby here.

It pays to shop early and shop around....

2011-12-21T09:35:00.000-08:00

I went to our nearby Save On Foods early this morning, because it's always nice to shop when the store is almost empty (it opens at 6:00 a.m.) and I was telling Alicja there about my adventures yesterday finding the coconut palm sugar, and paying $5.99 for 180 grams at that fancy Whole Foods store in the village next to Park Royal's South Mall.

Alicja said, "We have that! You should have come here!" And I said, "Darling, I'd love to get it here, but I phoned and your expert said 'we don't have it yet, but we've heard of it - sorry.' Then Alicja said, "I'm sure we have it - I've seen it here. Just wait a minute while I go look...." She came back a minute or so later with this bag, slightly more than a pound, and said "Guess what this costs?" I replied, "In the States, my old pal tells me it's $3.48 a pound, but I haven't a clue what yours might be - all I know for sure is that at Whole Foods yesterday, I paid the equivalent of $15.00 a pound for it." Alicja smiled and said, "$5.79 for 475 grams - that's just over a pound." I said, "Sold, My Dear! and may I please return this Splenda to the shelf?" She said, "Yes, you may - you don't want Splenda anyway - it's artificial, and this is a natural product and much better for you."

I said, "Alicja, My Dear, it's a real pleasure doing business with you, and I'm going home and make a nice hot coffee with lots of this sugar in it, and thank you for your help finding it. I hope you have a really nice day."

I probably won't go back to that pricey Whole Foods ever again, now that I know where else to find the coconut sugar.

If your doctor says "Cut out the sugar!" here's a great substitute.

2011-12-20T19:26:00.000-08:00

This is a natural product, has more good things in it than white or brown sugar, and is approved as a sugar substitute for diabetics and others who should not use regular sugars, and don't like the artificial sweeteners.

It's a bit on the pricey side compared to the old 'white death', but it tastes nice and it lets you enjoy your coffee with sugar in it in the same amounts as you would use ordinary sugar, and still be following your doctor's orders.

My thanks to my old friend Peter, now wintering in Florida, for this very helpful suggestion. Now, I can still enjoy my coffee like before, and my doctor won't have to nag me about it. I might even get him using it if he isn't already. Us old bikers have to look after each other. Works for me.

A little more 'This & That' from the 'Oldest Living Blogger'

2011-12-19T19:56:00.000-08:00

How about those jaywalkers who seem to believe that if they don't look sideways to see if anything is coming at them from right or left, then the Traffic Fairy will make sure nothing hits them as they cross the street? I have terrible news: I can still turn you into a bumper sticker even if you don't see me coming!

We might be able to recover from our economic downturn sooner if the main streets weren't so congested by the gridlock caused by curb lanes blocked by concrete delivery trucks delivering to construction sites. For months lately,almost every main route has been blocked up by either road construction work or by trucks or portable cranes parked in the road at building construction sites. Suggestion: Block the damned streets during the night, when we're home for the day, not while we're trying to get something done across town.

Only 194 days until July 1, 2012......

2011-12-19T14:14:00.000-08:00

About Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) in Windows 7

2011-12-17T13:17:00.000-08:00

Some of you are a little confused by Windows 7's treatment of Windows Explorer, so please let me explain about it, and please bear with me if I'm going over something that is "old news" to you.

Windows Explorer in Windows 7 works pretty-much like it did in XP, but it may not be quite as easy to get at, so let me perhaps fix that problem for you right now.

There are two ways to open Windows Explorer in Windows 7 :- (1.) Right-click the Start orb and on the pop-up menu that appears, select the item that says "Open Windows Explorer". Left-clicking those words opens it. (2.) Left-click the Start orb, and go to (click on:) All Programs -> Accessories -> Windows Explorer.

In (2.) above, when you get to the Windows Explorer line in Accessories, instead of left-clicking it to open it, you can right-click on it, and hold down your clicker while you drag it out onto an open space on your desktop. There, when you release the right-click, you will see a little menu which will invite you to:-
*Copy Here
*Move Here
*Create Shortcuts Here
*Cancel
You can left-click on "Create Shortcuts Here" to put a shortcut icon of it on your desktop. Once you have that, you can drag it down onto your Taskbar where you will see another option to pin it to the Taskbar, for quick access to it. With its icon pinned to the Taskbar, you can right-click on that whenever you have several windows open on the desktop, and you can then choose the option to "Close all windows", and if you left-click on that, it closes all open windows.

Now then, if you look at the image of it here, you will see that parts of that left column's "tree" have little white or empty arrow-heads to the left of the various items in the list. Those are items that you haven't yet tried to do anything with. If you left-click on one of those little arrow-heads, it will turn from white to black and change direction from pointing to the right to pointing downward, and below it will open a supplementary branch of it showing whatever folders it contains within it. Left-clicking on any of those titles will open that folder in the main right-hand window.

If you're in that left-hand column, and you want to move folders from one place to another, and have them moved into a new folder in that tree's list, then you can drag and drop them just like you did with XP. The thing to perhaps remember is that in Windows 7, you need to look carefully for those tiny little arrow-heads and do the clicking right on them to make them open or close to show or hide whatever's inside them. But for rearranging folders, you can still use the drag-and-drop method just like before with XP.

So now you know how to get at Windows Explorer, and what to do with it once you have it handy. As you'll maybe notice in that screenshot of mine here, I have Windows Explorer pinned to the Taskbar right beside the Start button, where it is always handy. You can do that too if you like. It saves a lot of looking for it.

Obscured by Clouds

2011-12-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

Not to be confused with the Pink Floyd hit of the same title.

In case we actually remember the Seventies.

Some nice seasonal lights....

2011-12-17T01:14:00.000-08:00

There's some nice pictures of the beautiful lighting displays at our Van Dusen Botanical Gardens here, in the Vancouver Sun paper, and for a look at them,
please click on this link. These are said to be the best ones in town this year.

Solved: Another aggravation in the computer....

2011-12-16T12:33:00.000-08:00

For quite a while now, whenever I'd check the window which shows me the list of Notification Area Icons, and offers me a choice to show or hide them, I've noticed that there was a lot of stuff on there which got left behind when old programs got turfed out but didn't properly remove all their little scattered bits. Things like this probably shouldn't bug me so much, but they do.

So today, I went Googling for solutions to that one, and found there really is one, and you can find it by clicking here.

When you're all done, and go onto that window for the Notification Area Icons again, you'll find that it's now all correctly displaying only those items which you are still actively using, not a bunch of junk left behind by departed programs.

Just be careful while editing your Registry, because mistakes in there can have some nasty side-effects, and I'm trying to help you avoid those. And before I forget to mention this, be sure you do a reboot right after you've restarted your explorer.exe to make sure that everything is refreshed and up to the minute, and really will show you only the latest list of items.

This is what mine looks like now that it has been cleaned up and shows what's actually there.

Where you are....... SiteMeter's chart of my readers.

2011-12-14T23:34:00.000-08:00

It's snowing in the high country

2011-12-14T15:19:00.000-08:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

A little warmer-upper....

2011-12-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

More music of the season

2011-12-14T12:45:00.000-08:00

For all of us who like the movies, especially you!

2011-12-14T00:53:00.000-08:00

If you'd like the best book of reviews of over 31,000 movies before you go to Pirate Bay to grab a torrent of one, and then maybe waste an hour or so downloading something that VideoHound rates as a 'Woof!', you should get a copy of this book first. And what is a 'Woof!' you ask? That's the Hound's lowest rating, or in his own words, "Watching your neighbor's vacation videos might be less painful. May be redeemed by stretches of unintentional amusement."

Instead of stars, the rating scale is Bones. For example, One Bone means: "Poor use of camera, film, sets, script, actors, and studio vehicles." One Bone and a Half: "Toying with respectability, while still lurching in the gutter. Often lacking in standard cinematic devices, like plot and performances." Two Bones: "May be perfectly delightful for certain tastes. A waste of time for others. Usually uninspired genre flicks." For Two Bones and a Half: "Technically well made but often standard fare; won't make you yell at the screen too much." Three Bones: "Good story, fine acting provide decent entertainment return on video investment. Would recommend to family members, even distant cousins." Three Bones and a Half: "Memorable cinematic fare with flair, verve, polish, sheen, and panache. Easily able to recommend to friends." And lastly, Four Bones: "Masterful cinematic expression. Flawless or nearly so. Will want to recommend to complete strangers on the street."

This book is a paperback, and it's 1,921 pages of scintillating reading, and when next year's updated edition comes out, it will make one hell of a doorstop, in case you need one. Don't leave home without it, especially if you're heading for the video store. Get the picture?

Oh, and before I forget, here's VideoHound's home on the Wild, Wild Web, just in case you have trouble lifting a book that's eight and a half inches by almost eleven inches by two and one-quarter inches thick. (Hernia, anyone?) and costs mucho dinero.

The climate change fiasco

2011-12-13T18:57:00.000-08:00

My favorite columnist in my favorite Toronto paper, The Globe and Mail, has another excellent column today that tells us about this climate change fiasco.

You can find it right here, and I hope you do read it. Margaret and I often exchange short emails about what's in her column or what maybe should be, and this one might have something to do with a rant I did on my blog a few days back, or maybe not, I'm not really sure - but I'm glad she did this one.

As she rightly points out, this climate change thing isn't really about the climate change at all - it's about money and power. And as I mentioned in my own rant, greed trumps common sense every time, so I don't expect anything to get done about saving our nice little planet. All this talk is just so much hot air to let the politicians feel like they're actually doing something, and they are - they're growing older one day at a time, just like you and I. But they aren't saving the planet, because that wouldn't be good for business. So they're buying time until we all end up at each other's throats because the murk of pollution has clogged our air and water, and left us with very few unspoiled resources to fight over or use for fun and profit. It's all over but the shouting, Kiddies, and there's going to be lots of that.

The Bible's Book of Revelations says something about how the heavens and the earth will be rolled up like a scroll at the end. I doubt anyone will be around for that, because civilization will have already fizzled away by then because we couldn't agree to try saving it while we had the opportunity to do it in time.

This was a nice little planet while it lasted. Too bad we couldn't save it. And for the record, one more time, Old Uncle Albert was right when he said that we can't solve a problem using the same level of intelligence which created it. That's my rant on the subject, now please read Margaret Wente's column on it.

Just a reminder...... in case you need one.

2011-12-12T17:45:00.000-08:00

And now, for a nice piano version....

See? I told you it was nice....

Another look at our Christmas Tree.....

2011-12-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

'The Oldest Living Blogger' returns, sorta.....

2011-12-12T04:55:00.000-08:00

Actually, I enjoyed using that 'handle' on my original blog, even though it did get a few negative reactions from those who rightly assumed I wasn't really quite old enough to be justified in using that title. They missed my point, which was that it was meant as an eyeball-grabber, and for that, it worked wonderfully well. It got me and our community blog here mentioned in 'USA Today', and reprinted in the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune and a few other big city papers, and you can't get much better than that.

But I'm digressing again - I call it 'stream-of-consciousness writing' by the way - and it just goes with the flow. I was looking just now at one of those newsy type websites where they use a lot of glitzy pictures of celebs and good-looking 'wannabe' types, and on there was a picture of a formerly-famous still-young actress from a well-known series (who shall remain nameless) and she's grimacing for the camera in a semi-sexy dress at some run-of-the-mill semi-compulsory 'grand opening' of yet another mediocre melodramatic Hollywood production where they hope the advanced hype will con you out of your ticket money before they have to rush it onto a DVD to recoup enough to satisfy the howling investors....you know the kind.....and I'm looking at this kid, and I'm thinking, "God! She looks like she'd been hit by a truck and then poorly reassembled by some learner plastic surgeon at a Mexican clinic where they make up in volume what they lack in skill and quality..."

All of which brings me to pointing out, in case it's even necessary, that there's a hell of a lot of useless 'fluff' and pure brainless nonsense packed into attractive layouts on webpages to grab our passing eyeballs and waste our time while pretending to actually be 'news'. Hell, where I came from, news was the semi-reliable, almost-trustworthy gossip you heard from your next-door neighbor or the guy at the gas station, and then tried to confirm for yourself by talking to someone else about it until the evening news came on, and you could get the real poop straight from the poopdeck, with Edward R. Murrow or another famous 'talking head' on the Boob Tube. Those talking heads of course were presumed to have verified the story or exposed the fakers prior to news time. We don't have that same kind of faith today in these internet stories, because we already know that the internet is fueled by its porn-hunters and their 'bait' is famous for being surgically enhanced, grandly but not well, and therefore the whole magilla is based on the stuff that makes the grass grow green - good old steaming BS.

These creators of this so-called 'news' are playing to our baser instincts and assuming we've all got the I.Q. of an unwashed turnip, or at most one that doesn't exceed our belt size, and it pains me deeply to report that in most cases they appear to be correct in that assumption. These days, we've not only got too much information, but most of it isn't even real information. Much like some of this stuff I write for this blog, it's mostly just 'filler' with the rare nugget of fact tossed in for seasoning here and there to keep you from nodding off before the end. Which happens to be right about here!

And that's 'stream-of-consciousness' composition, Kiddies.

Moonshots..... no eclipse, just the moon.

2011-12-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

The first, with lots of digital zoom,

and then just some optical zoom.

I keep trying for more detail,

but without spending big bucks,

and there's just no way....