Picasa 3.5

I spent most of tonight playing around with Picasa 3.5, which may not be particularly new but is "new to me" tonight. I mentioned in a previous post that I was considering opening up a Flickr account, hoping that I'd be able to put up higher quality pictures than, say, on Blogger, or more specifically Facebook. So now I'm playing with the BlogThis! function in Picasa.

BlogThis! is not a new feature, I remember it being included even in very early versions of Google's photo library software. I've just never used it.

The picture in the start of this article was on my hard drive. It's a photo I took of the Toronto skyline from the Leslie Spit. Tay & I rode out one afternoon early in the summer, not long after I brought my bike here from my parents' basement in London. Picasa tells me the details of the camera that was used to take the picture, either my Pentax Optio 330GS or my mom's Fuji Finepix that I happened to have at the time. The problem is I can't tell right now since Picasa's blog editing window is open on top of everything. Of course I can easily go back and edit the post afterwards, but that wouldn't really be a fair review. I will add some comments after posting and finding out how it looks.

For me, this editor is pretty bare. It does have all of the features of the web-based Blogger editing tools, but it's a lot less pretty. Basically just a box with rich text tools. I'd like to be able to add a caption to the thumbnail, or do anything other than just drag it around, really. Or add another photo. Well, let's see how it looks.

**

Well, I wasn't too keen on having yet another login to another site, especially when I found out that Flickr is run by Yahoo, the same people that are shutting down my website next month.  I don't like all these different logins, and having another e-mail account I'll never check.  But then again I was going to have to use a different account for Picasa Web Albums anyway (long story, work related).  What sold me on Flickr is its camera directory, which showcases photos done by other photographers with a particular camera.  So I can click on the Pentax Optio 330GS, and instantly see what's possible with my little wonder.

Now I just need sunsets, mountains, and funky-looking trees!

See my first Flickr uploads at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanvector.

Twice Baked Potatoes

Tay & I have been trying to eat what's in our fridge and cupboards over the last few weeks.  It's sort of like rotation in the produce department, except most of what we have doesn't go bad.  On the last trip to Price Chopper I picked up a value pack of steaks at 50% off, and thought for a change that baked potato would be a good accompaniment.  I brought home some good-sized baking potatoes with the steaks, and figured we could put something together out of what we had in the fridge.  Of course, I often start cooking without having any real plan, so just after the potatoes went in the oven Tay suggested we make twice baked potatoes.  For which we had almost none of the ingredients and Tay ended up running down the street to the Valu Mart as I prepped the steaks, defeating the purpose of not buying an entire meal and eating what we have.

Anyway, this is basically what happened:

Tay's Twice Baked Potatoes (makes 4 medium potatoes)

Ingredients (approximate as always):

• 4 russet baking potatoes - size 90 or whatever is commonly available on the market
• cooking oil - enough to dip potatoes in (1 tbsp ish)
• salt - I used coarse ground sea salt, dunno how much
• 2-3 green onions or 4-6 stalks chives, diced (dried chives would do)
• 1/2 cup (or so) butter or margarine - we used a salt-free margarine
• sour cream - 250g tub
• bacon bits (Tay bought strips of bacon to cook because it was cheaper)
• cheddar (or your favourite kind of) cheese, enough for 2-3 strips per potato, or shredded

Preheat oven to 350*F.  Wash potatoes and scrub with a potato brush, or gently with a scrub pad being careful not to remove too much of the skin - you'll want thick skins.  Pierce each potato deeply with a fork a half dozen times to let steam out during cooking.  Pour the cooking oil into a shallow bowl, and roll the washed potatoes in the oil.  You can use your fingers to spread oil all over the skin of the potatoes, then put the oiled potatoes on a plate.  Sprinkle and try to cover evenly with the salt.  Place the potatoes in the oven directly on the rack, and put a baking dish or drip tray on the rack underneath to catch drippings from the potatoes, or your smallish Beach apartment is going to fill with smoke awful quick.  Trust me.  Bake the potatoes for an hour to an hour and a half, until the skin appears wrinkled and golden.

The long baking time gives you ample time to dice your onions/chives, prep your steak or other meat, or if you prefer, get drunk.  It also gives you ample time to send your girlfriend to the grocery store because you don't have any of the ingredients you need, and then to cook the bacon if you choose to go that route.

When the potatoes are baked, remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack until they are cool enough to handle.  Be careful, potatoes hold heat really well!  When they are cool enough, or if you're brave enough to do this with oven mitts, use a sharp knife to cut a slit along the length of each potato from end to end, and squeeze at the ends to open them.  Use a spoon to scoop out the inside of the potatoes into a mixing bowl, and save the empty shells for the next step.

To the mixing bowl with the potatoes, add the margarine and let it melt from the heat of the potato, then fold in the sour cream and onions/chives.  Mix well!  Tay used my grandma's electric stand mixer, because she loves to use it for everything but it really gets the job done.  Use a spoon to stuff the empty potato shells with the mixture in the bowl.  You should have enough to fill each potato shell enough for them to be just overflowing.

I cut the potatoes just a bit too far and the shells didn't hold up when I re-stuffed the potatoes, so we needed a tray with high sides (like this 8x8 cake pan) to finish baking.  Add the bacon bits to the potatoes, and cover with the sliced or shredded cheese.  If you are going to use a pan like this, I recommend greasing the sides.  I didn't, and the potatoes took some effort to get out of the pan after re-baking.

Return the potatoes to the oven for another 10-15 minutes to cook the potato stuffing and melt the cheese.  As an added touch, I broiled for about 5 minutes to brown the cheese, as seen in the picture.  Ignore the dirty pans and messy stove, that is not part of the recipe.

These can be served with more sour cream on the side if you prefer, although we just ate them as-is.  I was really impressed with Tay's suggestion, and the way they turned out.  As an accompaniment to a decent-size steak, one potato would serve one person.  However, it was a good thing we made four, because the discount steaks turned out really REALLY tough, enough that we ended up throwing them out when even the cats weren't interested.

Happy baking!  And remember, put the batteries back in the smoke detector when you're done.

Labour Day Cruising Around Toronto

This weekend, the last long weekend of a somewhat lousy summer (weather-wise), I wanted to make sure I got out on my bike at least once.  With Tay working Saturday and Monday, I thought that Sunday would be a good day for us to get out together and cruise along the waterfront, and maybe go out to the Toronto Islands while the Air Show was going on.  We ended up running some errands in the car on Sunday though, and we were both tired when we came home, so Monday ended up being my bike day.

I set out in the late morning, as I usually do with no particular destination in mind.  I biked along the Martin Goodman Trail from the east end near me, along the Lakeshore direct route between Leslie and Cherry streets, and back to the path along Queen's Quay downtown.  At Lower Yonge Street I contemplated heading out to the islands on my own, but thought I'd save that for the next time I head out with Tay (she's never been!)

Traffic west of Yonge was getting intense, due to the CNE going on and the Air Show about to start.  Lots of cars and bikes on the road, but everyone was behaving well.  I left Queen's Quay at the west end and rode along the path towards the CNE grounds and past Ontario Place, dodging wayward pedestrians all the way.  I suppose people can be forgiven for wandering randomly around the path, but when someone comes up behind you ringing a bell, yes, I expect you at least take notice, and move over if possible.  This problem doesn't affect only cyclists on the path.  I came across a diminutive woman jogging along, literally yelling and screaming profanities at people who were ignoring her and stepping in front of her as she tried to pass.  Pedestrian vs. pedestrian violence?  Further along, where the MGT was detoured to make way for more car parking, there were actually street meat vendors set up ON THE PATH.  I really gave up at that point and decided to bike on the grass wherever there was open space.

After getting by the detour and coming back to Lakeshore, I was surprised by one of the US Navy F/A-18 Blue Angels doing a fly-by, and just about fell off my bike.  A few minutes later I left the path again to ride to the shore, and stopped for a bit to take in the show.  I stopped and took some pics (not of the air show) and then continued on to the Humber River bridge, where I stopped for more photos.  I continued on into Etobicoke and realized I didn't really know where I was when I ended up in someone's gated parking lot somehow and had to turn back.  A little ways further on Lakeshore and I recognized the Mimico neighbourhood, and decided that I was far enough west for today.

I rode up Royal York Road to the Queensway to start my return trip via downtown.  Since it was a holiday there was practially no traffic, and the lack of bike lanes on the Queensway wasn't a problem for the most part.  I had a hiccup at the Kingsway interchange and Humber River bridge - there is a path off to the south of the roadway that it turns out does not cross the river, and after about 30 minutes of exploring I determined that the only way to get where I wanted to go was to continue along the edge of the Queensway roadway under the Kingsway overpass, and due to lack of visibility and high speed limits I elected to ride (illegally) on the sidewalk for about 100m.  Bike lanes start on the Queensway one block east of here, and I really don't see what the problem is with continuing them west - there is plenty of road.

At the Queen/King/Roncesvalles intersection I had to weave through some slow-moving traffic to get into the lane I needed to be in to continue on Queen Street.  This would have been plenty dangerous if the cars weren't completely stopped because of CNE traffic.  The Blue Angels were doing more flyovers as I continued through Parkdale.  Under the Queen/Dufferin rail crossing, which is under construction, I was treated to a horn from a driver who had plenty of room to pass, and I was already riding as far over as I could get without kneeing concrete.  Said driver sped off without further incident, and I'm happy to report this was the only vehicle confrontation I had on the entire trip.

I stopped for lunch at Queen & Spadina, for a bit of a recharge, and to think about my route home.  I noted the narrow shoulder painted onto Spadina, and surmised that it couldn't possibly be a bike path - the width is less than my handlebars!  I rode west to Bay and north to Gerrard.  I stopped for the red light at Gerrard & Jarvis, where a crossing pedestrian turned and said "good job, buddy" and I have no idea what that meant.I expected that I would turn south to the bike lanes on Dundas at some point east of the Don Valley, but I continued on all the way to Greenwood which is my usual turn south to Queen anyway.  Traffic in the Beach was crazy as usual, and I stopped at Endz to pick up a new pair of shorts before riding the rest of the way home.

After trying to plot the route on Google Maps (which won't let you make a route on bike paths in Toronto), I figure I rode about 42km in about three and a half hours, which is a pretty good pace for me.

I found that cars passing me tend to move into the next lane to do so when possible, or else pass me slowly, which is nice.  If I'm in a situation where a car wouldn't have room to pass I either wait or take the middle of the lane, depending on traffic.  The few times I had a car turning right in front of me caused problems, because it's my habit to slow down and wait and this seems to confuse the drivers making the turns, as they start turning but then stop (blocking my path) as they wait for me to pass, and then I have to ride into the crosswalk.

In general, Toronto has a long way to go to make its thoroughfares more bicycle-friendly.  Bike routes that don't connect to other bike routes are useless, and a path that leads into someone's gated private parking is just ridiculous.  That being said, I will continue to ride for leisure and exercise, but it'll be a long time before I consider riding to work in rush hour traffic, given the complete lack of infrastructure north of the Beach.

We are not at war

I've been working on a blog post for a few days relating my experiences cycling in Toronto.  Back in the spring, I brought my bike to the city from my parents' basement (where it had been since I was about 16) and I've been out & about with it quite a bit, mostly around my area, but also along the Waterfront and even downtown on a few occasions.  Likely owing to my lack of exposure and the time of the week that I ride, I have not experienced what many drivers and cyclists have referred to as a war on cars/drivers/bicycles/cyclists.  The target of the supposed "war" changes depending on who is talking, but the reference is to the perceived general hostility between drivers and bicyclists in the city.  In my opinion, the characterization of an ongoing "war" is likely the result of a few bad examples leading to broad stereotypes of drivers' and cyclists' behaviour, and is largely political.

The truth is that my experience both riding and driving in the city has been overwhelmingly pleasant.  I have not witnessed this hostility, neither in my car nor on my bike.  I was about to present my own opinion to the blogosphere, that the characterization of an ongoing "war" on our streets was going to lead to unnecessary emotion and violence on our roads.

On Monday night, this happened.  Witnesses suggest an apparently minor altercation at a downtown stoplight between a cyclist and a driver escalated to violence, leading to the driver speeding away with the cyclist hanging on and being dragged for several blocks, and ending in a young man's tragic and senseless death.  Not even 24 hours later, the internets are full of rhetoric and conjecture, people supposing what happened and who should be blamed, and groups on both "sides" of the "conflict" politicizing the tragedy to support their causes, which aren't limited to greater regulation of bicycle couriers, installation of bike lanes on Bloor Street, and more strict laws and stiff penalties for drivers and cyclists, for example.

Let's be very clear here.  This was no accident.  This is not a situation that a bike lane would have prevented.  Although it may have been sparked by a collision, this was a brutal fight between two grown men.  Regardless of the fact that they were on a bicycle and in a car, both men could have reacted differently, and both men didn't.  My fear is that characterizing this incident as driver vs. cyclist violence will result in more of that sort of violence, and we certainly don't need any more of it.  I believe that this incident, while certainly tragic, is random and isolated, and not part of a greater systemic failure.


My sincere condolences go out to the family of the young man killed in Monday's bizarre incident.

Avoiding Disaster

Some people close to me know that I was somewhat annoyed with Blogger while creating my recent post on HDR photography at Algonquin.  It seemed unnecessarily difficult to position the pics within the tiny blog frame, which I mostly circumvented by editing the HTML directly, which worked out but not as well as I would have liked.  After very briefly looking through the various post settings on the site, I decided that the non-flexible frame width was to blame, because the pics were taking up almost the entire column.

My initial solution was to move the whole thing to Wordpress, and try the post over again more or less from scratch.  I did try that, but ran into the same problem of the pics being too big, the text not going where I want and the frame being too narrow.

This left me with two options: either to continue blogging sporadically on Blogger, or to leave the site behind and continue into the Wordpress world.  Given that I was going to encounter the same difficulties with image posting on either site, it was a matter of figuring out which site's other features I like better.  Although I certainly can't cover a comprehensive review of both sides in the small time that I have (limited by my attention span, honestly), I did come up with three things that made my decision a rather easy one.

The first is familiarity.  Of course, I'm far more familiar with Blogger than with Wordpress, having just opened my Wordpress account.  On Blogger, I know where things are and how to get done what I want to get done, or at least as much as possible.

Second, although I didn't explore very much what features and add-ons are available over at Wordpress, I did spend a fair bit of time way back when (three months ago?) figuring out what was available here at Blogger, and I like the arrangement that I have.  I also have more or less of an action plan for customizing the site with my own colours and graphics at some point, whenever I finally get around to it.

Third, and most important for me, is followers.  Yes, I currently have three followers, all good friends of mine in the offline world, so this is sort of a moot point.  Except that I also follow their blogs, and they all blog with Blogger.  All of this would have been no problem, except that after some invested searching, I could not find the section of the Wordpress dashboard that would let me follow blogs from any site that wasn't a Wordpress site!  To me, that's just stupid.  With Blogger I can follow any website with a feed.

The decision was mostly made up at this point, but two more things happened that definitely cemented my decision.  One, my long-time good friend who has been embarking on the early stages of a literary career finally got around to starting his own blog, which even he admits everyone was advising him to do.  Since I'm obviously going to support his endeavour into the blogosphere (is that still a thing?) I am going to both follow and promote his blog, Speculation and Skepticism, as much as possible.  Since it appears Wordpress won't allow me to follow his blog, I'm sticking with Blogger.

The other random thing that happened just a few minutes ago is I realized that I can edit the HTML of the blog template and just make the post display column wider.  Which solved the initial problem which was causing me to consider Wordpress in the first place.  I'm sort of embarassed that I didn't think of that a week ago.

w00t

High Definition Algonquin

Tay & I are back from our first (together) camping adventure! For most of last week we were on a whirlwind, poorly planned and much needed vacation from the city in Algonquin Provincial Park, about 3 hours north of Toronto. This was a great opportunity for me to try out the HDR capabilities of my 7-year-old Pentax Optio 330GS digital camera (3.2 megapixels!) with the new tripod I picked up at Factory Direct for about five bucks.

For those not familiar with high-dynamic-range (HDR) photography, have a look at this Wikipedia article. Basically, HDR overcomes the optical limitations of conventional imaging by taking several (three or more) images of a scene at different exposure levels, combining the images with software, and ending up with a compiled image more closely resembling what is seen by the human eye. The article has an interesting discussion on the methods that can be used to achieve this and the science behind how the eye sees an image, so I won't try to explain it here.

For me, and for most, this means I can record both the bright and dark areas of a scene reliably. My end result conveys the details of the scene, within the limited dynamic range of the media (your monitor) with a tradeoff in contrast. Following are some examples from our Algonquin trip.

This is a picture of an abandoned bridge constructed by the 19th-century logging town of Mowat, at the north end of Canoe Lake. The camera is incapable of recording different exposures for different parts of this image, so it automatically calculates the proper exposure to record the center of the frame (the bridge and trees) and takes an image, which results in the sky and most of the reflection in the water being overexposed. By taking two more images, one with a darker exposure to record the sky, and one with a brighter exposure to reveal the details in the dark reflections, the entire scene can be recreated.

In the resulting image, the details of the sky, the trees and the bridge are all clearly visible. This image represents the scene in a way that is much closer to what I actually saw from the canoe at that time, by combining the darker sky with the lighter forest.

One issue that can happen, which I just noticed is apparent in the bridge in this HDR photo, is that small variations between the frames result in ghosting in the final image. In this photo, since the canoe was moving slowly through the water and my 7-year-old camera can only take 1 picture about every 2 seconds, each of the three frames is taken from a slightly different angle, and the bridge is not in exactly the same spot in each one. Take a look at the photo full-size and you'll see what I mean.

From the bridge we canoed north along Potter's Creek, a peaceful trip but mostly not good for photography. We stopped here at a portage for lunch and to get out of the canoe for a bit. For the same reason as the bridge picture above, this scene would be difficult to render with a single photo because of the different exposures between the sky, the forest and the creek. This HDR rendering captures all three. Plus I think it looks pretty. Since the wind was mostly calm and the camera was on a tripod, I've avoided the ghosting effect apparent in the bridge picture. The clouds were moving pretty fast but only one of the images really catches the detail in that part of the frame. I plan to blow this up to 5x7 or so and get it printed, although I don't know exactly where it will fit in our apartment yet.

Although I have many more photos from the trip, I'm having issues trying to arrange them on the blog. At some point I guess I should open a Flickr account (so I'm told) and maybe this will be the motivation to do it. Anyway that's it for now. Get out there and take more photos!

Another PVR update!

Well it's been a little over two months since I posted anything, so why not another update on the status of all my computers? That seems like a good way to step back into blogging.

About three months ago, I blogged as I was working on setting up all my various computers in my new apartment. In particular I was working on reconfiguring my MythPVR box, which has become our main source of digital entertainment. Everything was more or less working with OpenSUSE 11.1 with KDE, except for a few console workarounds (like having to watch DVD's with vlc, and buying a new sound card for 5.1 sound support). We could watch and record many digital signals in the Toronto and Buffalo regions. We were free from our slavery to our programming schedule masters!

But I got tired of having to adapt solutions to fit the OpenSUSE OS any time there was a problem. The internet has a wealth of information for Ubuntu mythtv installations, and although OpenSUSE support is out there, Ubuntu seems to be the distro of choice for this particular application. So this past weekend, I started into a fresh install.

Right off the bat, I can say Ubuntu 9.04 boots faster than my old install. I had the same issues with my wireless card not having native firmware, my Nvidia graphics card not having a native driver, and my Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950Q analog/digital tuner not having native support from the OS. A driver is provided for the tuner (au0828), but in my case it wouldn't tune any channels, and has no support for the analog tuner.

After a few internet searches, I settled on the video4linux v4l-dvb drivers, which provide support for both the digital and analog tuners. An initial scan of the analog band yielded a few weak results (as expected), and the digital scan picked up all the channels I had on the OpenSUSE install, plus a few I'd never seen before! I was excited to try it out, and ignored my houseguests to try out watching tv.

No go. The tuner wouldn't start.

The console revealed that the driver was trying to load a different version of the firmware for the tuner. I downloaded it and tried again.

No go. Mythtv wouldn't write to the recordings directory. Easy fix - I changed the permissions on the recordings directory to allow the mythtv group write access. (Mythtv runs as user mythtv, which is a member of the mythtv group.)

Again, no go. Although I wasn't able to determine what the problem really was, there were a few error messages related to the video codec of the analog stream on the console. I left it and went out with my friends, and came back to the problem last night. As a workaround, I disabled the analog tuner - I'm only really interested in watching digital TV anyway. And then ...

Success! The tuner started and the on-screen display indicated it was trying to tune channel 9-1, which is the local CTV affiliate. It wouldn't lock (not unusual on this channel) but a quick skip down to channel 5-1 brought up CBC's beautiful 1080i feed of the Rick Mercer Report! It was skipping, which can be due to a weak or intermittent signal (common in our treed area) but it looked to me more like the skipping associated with a misconfigured video driver unable to keep up with the feed. And with a 1080i feed, which requires somewhat more processing power than the usual 720p feeds in this area, that seemed more likely to me.

As a test, I worked on installing XvMC drivers for my video card, which supposedly allows the video card to offload some processing onto the main processor (as I understand it). I haven't had a chance to test out this configuration, since Tay woke up from her nap and I didn't want to subject her to me fiddling with minor settings in the OS. So we watched some converted-to-divx recordings of The Big Bang Theory for a while until we both fell asleep. Sheldon's Doppler effect costume is still one of our favourites :)

We'll see how some late-night recordings look this evening, if the weather prevents us from going outside!

Here are the local broadcasted digital channels we're able to watch with a very poorly designed antenna, near the lake, near ground level and surrounded by low buildings and high trees:

• 2-1 WGRZ (NBC Buffalo), 2-2 NBC Sports, 2-3 Retro TV Network
• 4-1 WIVB (CBS Buffalo)
• 5-1 CBLT (CBC Toronto)
• 7-1 WKBW (ABC Buffalo)
• 9-1 CFTO (CTV Toronto)
• 17-1 WNED (PBS Buffalo), 17-2 (WNED-SD), 17-3 PBS ThinkBright
  
• 23-1 WNLO (The CW Buffalo)
• 24-1 CBLFT (Radio-Canada)
• 26-1 WNYB (TCT Jamestown)
  
• 29-1 WUTV (FOX Buffalo), 29-2 (WUTV-SD)
• 41-1 CIII (Global Toronto)
• 44-1 CJMT (OMNI2)
• 49-1 WNYO (My TV Buffalo), 49-2 (WNYO-SD)
• 57-1 CITY (City TV Toronto)
• 64-1 CFMT (OMNI1)
• 66-1 CKXT (Sun TV)

Strangely, I seem to pick up the US stations much more reliably than the Toronto ones. I credit Lake Ontario, but I'm sure it would help if I could rotate my antenna. Eventually I will get around to building a better one.

Zipcar Review: Prius Patrice

Earlier this week, I had a lunchtime appointment downtown, which was going to be a pain to get to by subway both ways. Rather than reschedule or take the day off work, I picked up Zipcar's Toyota Prius "Patrice" from First Canadian Place in the morning. It was near my appointment, and I thought I would save a bunch of time by driving one way in the Zipcar, dropping it off and taking transit back to work.

Prius Patrice
What: Toyota Prius hybrid sedan
Again, didn't check the year. I will have to make a note of this for future excursions, as I'm pretty bad at it.

Generally speaking, getting into and driving the Prius is (I imagine) like getting into and piloting a space shuttle. It is spacious and comfortable, like all Zipcars, but the touch-screen multi-function control and display panel is awkward to use while driving (which you shouldn't anyway) and the LCD gauge cluster has an 80's excess, "look-what-we-can-do" feel. A regular dial gauge would have been just fine. It's also sunk into the dash (likely because of glare) and quite far behind the steering wheel. Rather than a key, the car is powered on by a large fob that sticks into the dash, and starting the car is done by simultaneously pressing down on the brake and pushing the large POWER button on the dash.

The engine starts up after a few seconds, either to charge the battery or just to warm up for smoother starts, but shuts off after a few minutes of idling. This is one of the biggest things to get used to in this car: the engine turns off when you stop. The car is capable of mild acceleration and low speed driving entirely on electric power.

City: This car is fun to drive, no question. The car has an old-style push-click type parking brake, and the shifter is nothing more than a knob where you can select "drive" or "reverse". No bells and whistles here; more on the transmission later. It feels odd to step down on the "gas" and have the car start out without the engine running, but you get used to it pretty quick. Having the engine turn on when you're moving 20km/h through the city is surprising at first, too. Although the rear window is small and has some unfortunately placed supports running across, seeing around the car is no problem at all. It handles the streetcar tracks with no problem, and moves and handles like the best economy cars in the Zipcar fleet.

I found backing up in the parking lot a bit unnerving at first, for two reasons. First, the obvious: the large hatch and small window make it odd to look around the car at the back. Second, because of the low speed involved in backing up, the car does it entirely on battery power. That wasn't difficult, just, weird. More things to get used to with this high-tech vehicle.

Freeway: Ok, it may be a car firmly within the economy car segment, but this car hauls ass. Another thing to get used to that I didn't notice at all in the city was the continuously-variable transmission (CVT), another high-tech high-efficiency addition to this vehicle. Winding into the straight merging lane on the DVP and stomping on the throttle, the engine immediately kicks up to high revs, and stays there until you let off the gas. By keeping the engine in its optimum high-power range, acceleration is both smooth and fast. None of the rev-shift-rev-shift transition of conventional geared transmissions. One more thing that might turn off some drivers, but very cool if you ask me.

Generally speaking, I like this car, and I am excited any time I get to drive it. As added incentive, since it is a hybrid and uses far less gas than conventional cars in the city, Zipcar charges a significantly reduced hourly rate to use it, although as a consequence of its popularity there is no daily rate available. Although I haven't had back-seat passengers while driving it, it seems as though four adults would fit comfortably, and there is plenty of cargo room for a car this size. And the electronic touch-screen display and high-tech gadgetry under the hood make this car score very high in geek factor.

Click these links for more information on ZipCars and the Toyota Prius.

Note: this review is a matter of my own opinion, and is not endorsed by Zipcar or Toyota. Use at your own risk.

I am in computer hell

While waiting for more operating system reinstalls, I decided to chronicle what's going on in the blog, on the one computer (out of 4-ish) that is still working acceptably well. Acceptable, in this case, means able to connect to the internet. Although at various times this morning it's also meant "recognizes the DVD-ROM", "can set host name", and "can access the hard disk without requiring a hard reset". It's been a long morning so far.

Here's where I'm at. Last night, my mythbuntu box deteriorated to the point where I couldn't play a sound file without getting occasional memory errors. So right after watching Family Guy, I started installing openSUSE back on it, using the network install. I had used openSUSE originally for the PVR setup and it was reasonably stable. I decided to try with GNOME this time.

Big mistake.

On the very first boot, as I tried to figure out the interface and find the network settings, right after entering the root password for the setup applet, first system freeze. Not even seemingly precipitated by anything. So reboot, set up the network, fantastic. Try downloading some upgrades. Fail, DNS error, can't find host. Fantastic!

Now, I've found that every time I've done a linux install on any of my computers, it seems to come alive and have a personality and attitude all its own. This case is no different. For some reason, it will save my hostname and IP address with the wired connection but not the wireless. I don't particularly want to have my laptop sitting on top of the tower all the time to get a network connection, so this is no good. So, at the moment, I am reinstalling with KDE4, since that worked for me before and I should be able to get it to work again. Right?

We'll see.

As for the laptop, Windows decided somewhat randomly that it doesn't have a DVD drive. I know it's there, I took it apart myself, and I can see the little yellow light on it every time I turn the computer on, and I was watching movies LAST NIGHT. WTF?! So this might come down to a reinstall as well. It's about due, I've had WinXP on it for almost five weeks without major system problems.

What about the others? The one that works is slow as molasses most of the time, owing to Windows and background processes and all that. Maybe also due for a reinstall. And the fourth needs a new power supply, which I have, but I'm not getting into that right now.

Really I just want to watch TV and play movies and listen to music. I know there's gotta be some kind of magic combo so that I can turn the computer on and have it work without having to open a terminal, restart processes, load drivers, or do ritual sacrifice.

Ahh, looks like I'm being prompted for something. Back to work....

Zipcar Review: Jetta Joyner

Hey, two in a row! I was somewhat pleased with the idea of doing car reviews after my last review of Matrix Manford, so I had this in the back of my mind when Tay asked if we could get a car to take her costumes and equipment up to York University for a film shoot she is working on this weekend. So yesterday morning, in the midst of the first hailstorm of the season, I set out to pick up Zipcar's Volkswagen Jetta "Joyner" from a Leslieville parking lot.

Jetta Joyner
What: Volkswagen City Jetta sedan
I still didn't think to look at the year, but it only had about 20,000 km on it so it's pretty new.

I've driven one of the Zipcar Jettas before, so I had an idea of what to expect. In particular, I was looking forward to the auto tranny with the sport setting :) Fun in downtown traffic, but what about the freeway?

City: I set out on Lakeshore just as the downpour started, and hit the streetcar tracks on Queen just before it became impossible to see. Unlike the Matrix from the last review, driving along the tracks posed no challenge whatsoever. I didn't even know the car was on the tracks, really. A few quick curb-lane passes in sport mode got me back to the apartment just in time to watch the hailstorm from inside the building.

After a brief break, Tay & I loaded up the back seat with all of her gear, then set out for York. Our street has traffic control speed humps which were no challenge for the Jetta (at a reasonable speed of course) and the drive up the rough main roads to the Don Valley Parkway was smooth and comfortable. Like some other cars in the Zipcar arsenal, the Jetta has a transmission with a selectable shifter which allows you to "shift" between gears manually, although it's not a true manual. Unlike many, it also comes with a full-automatic "sport" mode, which keeps the tranny in a lower gear and the engine running at a higher RPM. This gives better acceleration and throttle response, at the expense of fuel economy, engine noise, and a jerky feel when coasting (from engine braking). On the other hand, normal mode seemed to hunt between gears more than it should. The compromise for me was to accelerate in sport mode, then shift back to normal mode for regular driving. I was impressed by the car's drive and handling in the city.

Freeway: Our route to York took us onto the Don Valley Parkway and later the 401. I put the car into sport mode on the onramp to the DVP, and realized halfway up the ramp I was doing 80 and hadn't noticed. Freeway merging and acceleration was no problem at all, and I made a few passes before hitting the Lawrence bottleneck, yeah, even at 9am on a Saturday. I had a hard time getting the side mirrors into the right spot, and with the side windows fogged, lane changes were a bit scary. Due to a large standing puddle on the freeway from the rainstorm and a tractor-trailer collision, the drive to York was quite slow.

After dropping Tay off at York, I learned that someone had booked the car right at the end of my time, so I wasn't able to extend my reservation. I wasn't sure that I would have enough time to get back to Leslieville (I had about 25 minutes left) so the ride back was pretty much all in sport mode. That fits my style of driving pretty well, as hitting 120 on the freeway was no problem at all, fast lane changes were a breeze, and I didn't really feel nervous weaving around the Saturday morning traffic. The car cruises like a breeze and takes turns with no difficulty. I had to brake on ramps for slower traffic quite a few times. Of course, I don't recommend or endorse this kind of driving in any situation, but the Jetta drives on the freeway like it's meant to be there.

Of course I really didn't have enough time since I also had to put gas in, and even with the time constraint I don't drive like an idiot (too much), and ended up returning the car 10 minutes late anyway and getting dinged with the $35 late return fee.

Interior: I lost a bit of time at the gas station because I couldn't find the fuel cap release, and had to read the manual to find it. It's not where you would expect it to be: on the center console beside the parking brake. Those crazy Germans ....

I liked the interior, it seemed well planned. I couldn't figure out how to change the display on the fuel computer from average speed though (it increased a lot over the time I was using the car). The gauges are easy to read but not imposing on the driver's view. Although I had problems aiming the mirrors, once I had them set they were good to go. I didn't play with the radio a lot, it was already set to 107.1, although Tay checked traffic on AM680 when we hit the wall of cars on the 401.

In general, this had been a car I was waiting to try out since my last short drive in a Jetta over the winter. Joyner didn't disappoint, and this will be a car I'll be looking to reserve again.

For more information, check out Zipcar and the Volkswagen Jetta City.

Note: this review is a matter of my own opinion, and is not endorsed by Zipcar or Volkswagen. Use at your own risk.

Zipcar Review: Matrix Manford

I've been a Zipcar member for a few months, after deciding it was about time to sell my Ford Focus rather than parking it in my building uptown and insuring it for $300 a month, which didn't include any actual cost of driving. Today, while running some errands in one of the Zipcars, I thought it might be a good idea to write down what I think of the cars that I've been driving. There are a wide variety of cars available to Zipcar members, and I like to try new things, so this has been working out well.

So, here is the first of what should be a series of auto reviews, based on my experience taking out Zipcars that are available around Toronto and driving them around the city. My review is intended to be a review of the model in general but is likely to be skewed by the realities of car sharing, good or bad. Plus I have plenty of biases when it comes to driving. But anyway, here's what I think.

Matrix Manford
What: Toyota Matrix wagon (exact year and trim unknown)

Tay's out of town working a gig in Ancaster this weekend, and I had a few things to do that I probably could have easily taken transit to get to, but I felt like taking out a car. Not too many are available on short notice on Saturday afternoon, and I wanted to avoid the Civic after last time, so I set out in the Matrix wagon.

City: It had just started raining when I got in the car, so I got to experience driving in the rain right away. I was headed out Gerrard east toward Victoria Park - a route with streetcar tracks - and right away noticed that I needed to hang on with both hands, or the steering wheel turned sharply as the front wheels fell into the streetcar rails. This is the first car I've driven where I've noticed that was a problem. Otherwise, the car drove very well in the neighbourhood.

Acceleration was very strong at city speed, as I expect from a Japanese car. Suspension felt very firm with little lean in turns, but was very forgiving over rough Toronto roads. I noticed the transmission seemed to be unsure which gear to choose in the turns, but was otherwise smooth without noticeable shifting delay. Overall, I was impressed with the drive on the city streets.

Freeway: On the way back from my shopping adventure I set out on the freeway, to see if the smooth ride kept up into freeway speeds. Acceleration from the ramp to merging speed was not impressive, in fact I was concerned the car would not get up to speed if not for the downhill ramp. I later realized that the car will not downshift unless the gas pedal is pushed all the way to the floor, most likely a fuel economy feature. I actually like this - one of my criticisms of automatic transmissions is that they downshift too easily. This car can't be expected to be speedy at freeway speeds, but it does well for a 4 cylinder. I found it hard to see around the wagon's body, and more than once was surprised by a car in my blind spot on either side. As in the city, cornering was fantastic and the ride was firm but smooth.

Interior: When I had more time to check it out, I found that the interior was well designed. The gauges were nice to look at but not oppressive to the eyes or distracting. The wiper selector was opposite to what I'm used to, but not illogical, and the rear wiper made a lot of noise so I switched it off fairly quickly. There are a few compartments in the dash which don't have any particular purpose, but at least the space doesn't go to waste. Cup holders fit a large coffee nicely, an extra large would be snug and a Big Gulp is just not an option in this car. One nice touch was a tray for about 6 quarters between the steering wheel and the driver's door, right where you'd need them for tolls (if that was an issue in Toronto).

Otherwise, the car lacks the bells and whistles of some of the other Zipcar models and seems more like an economy car, and for an economy car it seems like it would be good value. Of course, being a shared car I don't know what it's worth, but I don't need to, and I suppose that's one good feature about Zipcars.

See these links for more info on Zipcars and the Toyota Matrix.

Note: this review is a matter of my own opinion, and is not endorsed by Zipcar or Toyota. Use at your own risk.

What to do when work is not possible?

Somebody forgot to put their wireless mouse in the charging cradle last night. So it's time for part 2 of the Nermal story!

In the fall of 2007 (wait, I'll say autumn, fall is too foreshadowy) we moved to Mississauga. Nermal spent a few weeks with my mother-in-law again while we carted things back and forth to our new home, and eventually Nermal came on one of the last trips. She delighted in having parquet and ceramic floors to tear around on, two flights of stairs for getting into trouble, a leather couch she wouldn't touch and a treadmill that was the best scratching post ever. She even had a basement rife with nooks for hiding out in. She never took much interest in clawing our leather sectional sofa, which I attribute to dumb luck more than anything. Instead she picked on my grandmother's antique china cabinet, my ex's treadmill, and the walls themselves.

For much the same reasons as why she lost her job in London, my ex and I began to have relationship problems, escalating to the point that we split in June. Nermal's fate was in limbo, and since it was a familiar place she went to live with my (now ex-)mother-in-law for the summer. My ex inexplicably (to me) decided she wanted nothing to do with Nermal, and from very early on it was decided that Nermal would live with me permanently, as soon as I had a place to live. I lived with a relative of a cousin, in a basement room in uptown Toronto, for most of the summer. She had three cats already, some with health problems, and it was best for Nermal not to come live there.

By August, that living arrangement started to get, well, old. There was nothing wrong with it, and I appreciated the generosity very much, but I was feeling like I should have my own space, and of course wanted to have Nermal back. In early August I learned that Alex, a student co-worker of mine, was also looking for a place, as his summer living arrangement was coming to the end of its availability at the end of the summer. I suggested that we should pool our resources and look for a place together, which I think ended up being beneficial to both of us. Although I will admit that Alex did most of the work finding a place, and it was no small task considering we started on the second week of August to find a place for September 1st. We lucked out big-time and found a big two-bedroom sub-let, connected to a subway junction, that came in just inside our budget.

Nermal joined us in mid-September, after a transfer in London made unnecessarily awkward by my ex's unplanned attendance, and a typically uneventful drive back to Toronto, which to date has been Nermal's last inter-city road trip. She took to the new surroundings cautiously at first, pacing the perimeter of the apartment (no doubt looking for an escape) and then settling on the huge 11th story window as the best place ever. She took a while to be ok with Alex (and likewise) but they eventually became buds. Alex would walk through the front door and yell "WHAT'S UP CAT?" and Nermal would run out from whatever mischief she was getting into and tangle herself up in the mat in the front hall. She even decided after a few months that it was ok to attack Al's feet instead of mine when it was 5am food time, and may have slept on his face once, if the early morning fit of swearing and fur flying was any indication.

We did have one incident where a friend of ours was over, and we were all a little sloshed and laughing and carrying on and being loud. Alex has a particularly boisterous laugh, and Nermal responded to one particular fit by launching out from under a table and giving Alex the five-claw handshake, so to speak, then ran off under another table. He survived, but that was the end of that laughing fit.

In the next part: I meet Tay, Alex gets deported, and Nermal's single-cat existence comes to an end ....

Nine lives

I occasionally have weird thoughts. Like, not serial killer weird, just unusual. A couple days ago Tay was out at a gig, and I was home alone with our three cats. We've only officially been living together for just under two weeks, so the concept of joint possession hasn't quite established yet, so I still feel like Nermal is my cat, and Tay's two cats are hers. I know that's not really the case for a variety of reasons and at any rate the cats are already over it, but moving on ....

I got to thinking, as I watched Nermal curled up under the bathmat attacking a crumpled Shoppers receipt, that she has likely had an abnormally interesting life, for a cat. She's on at least her seventh home in three years, and although I've been a fairly constant figure in that time, she and I have had a multitude of environments, partners and roommates over that time.

My ex and I decided to get a cat back in the spring of 2006, mostly a result of our varying degrees of aversion to children, also I had never not lived with multiple cats up to about a year before that. We went to Animal Control in London, and a possibly one-year-old cat slashed my ex in the face without provocation, and then poured on the cute. She came home with us about a week later. What her life was like before that time I have no idea. She was young but not a kitten, and had been picked up as a stray. Animal Control requires pets to be fixed, and rather than pay a deposit and have the operation done ourselves, the staff there put her in with a batch of cats that were going to their contract vet later in the week. We had temporarily named her after a coworker my ex was having issues with, and that got corrupted to Josie somehow. That almost stuck, because I'm a huge geek. But she was cute, so she ended up getting named after Garfield's cute sidekick. Also because I'm a huge geek.

Point of interest: in the Jim Davis comic, Nermal is in fact male. But still cute.

Nermal came to live with us on the third floor of our high-rise, and had a peaceful life of chasing string, clawing up carpet and watching the thousands of starlings that would land in the trees outside every night. When my ex had her work friends over for their Grey's Anatomy parties, she hid out with me in the bedroom. When we went away to Cuba, she lived with my ex's parents for a week, happily chasing chipmunks through the sliding patio door of their townhouse.

The conflict between my ex and her coworker continued to escalate, and in the summer of 2007 she lost her job as a direct result. We ended up making a sudden, unexpected and poorly planned move to Mississauga in the fall, ironically on our last anniversary. Nermal lived in her second home at my ex's parents townhouse for a few weeks while we got settled.

In a later post: Nermal comes to Mississauga, but not for long ....

Ein buch für alle und keinen

Is it just me, or is the "smart guy" in the Rogers wireless commercials a total douchebag?

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, Rogers Wireless has these commercials on TV around here which start off with a guy talking business with someone on a cell phone. He's made out to be an overworked subordinate type, and always seems to be scheduling a meeting with a supervisor, when he ends up in an unfortunate situation, either going into a tunnel or down an escalator, or in the latest one running out of a boardroom, always scrambling to avoid losing his signal but ultimately getting disconnected. I feel sorry for this guy. He seems to be working his ass off all the time and getting no respect, and I imagine he's seriously underpaid and working for a company with no perks, otherwise he could afford a haircut and a nice suit, not to mention a better cell plan.

Of course, every time this poor sap gets disconnected, out of nowhere comes Rogers Guy, around a corner or out of the tunnel, basically going through whatever calamity caused the first guy's phone to disconnect, except he's happily chatting away with someone on his Rogers phone which has kept its connection, depsite the tunnel or bridge or whatever. Rogers Guy is this guy in a nice suit, with a perfect haircut and beaming smile, and despite his obvious status he always seems to be having an inane one-word conversation "yep, yeah, uh-huh" with whoever is on the other line. He notices the other guy having been just disconnected, and says "hey" or something else ultimately unhelpful. In the latest commercial he doesn't let the other guy in from the rain after he runs out a locked-from-the-inside door to try to keep on his call.

To add to the effect (or the insult) every time Rogers Guy makes his appearance, the epic introduction to Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra starts playing. Ahh, marketing.

Finance tip: put 10% of your pay into a savings account

Yeah, two posts in one day. w00t

I've been hearing this little tidbit of advice, or something like it, for years. It's a great little piece of advice for the not-finance-savvy mass public. A typical high-interest savings account is a great, risk-free way to see your money grow over time, and the results of putting in a little bit regularly will really add up.

But this comes with a major caveat that most people don't hear: PAY YOUR DEBTS OFF FIRST!!

A typical high-interest savings account might pay something like 2% - 4% per year. Guaranteed term investments (GIC's) and other products might pay a percent or so better because of your term commitment. Then again, your typical credit card charges an interest rate of about 18% per year, and many retail cards charge close to 30%! Pay these off FIRST. Entirely. BEFORE you open a savings account.

Here is a simplified example. Say you have a credit card with a balance of $2000, and an interest rate of 18%. Starting in January, you have $200 free income to invest every month. You decide to pay the minimums on the credit card (3% typical) and deposit what's left in a savings account paying 4% interest. In one year, you've managed to pay down the credit card to $1,642.86, and have $1,768.32 in savings, earning $31.79 in interest for the year. Not bad, right? Until you factor in the $331.74 in interest you racked up on the credit card balance. You've lost $299.95 overall on your $2,400 investment, a net return of -12.5%.

Here's another example. Same as before, but this time you put the entire $200 into repaying the credit card. By November, the balance on the credit card is paid off completely, and you start depositing the remainder into savings. At the end of the year, you only have $220.19 in savings, but the credit card balance of zero gives you a net loss for the year of $180.47 (-7.5%).

It doesn't seem like much of a difference, and all that cash in savings looks good, right? Extended into a second year, scenario 1 returns a loss of 7.1% in year 2, whereas scenario 2 gives you a gain of 2.2%! And you'll still be paying off your credit card and losing more money under the first method.

What you have to realize is that a payment to your 18% credit card is very much like an investment in a savings account that pays 18% interest, which is much higher than any real savings account will ever be. The only difference is that instead of earning the interest, you are instead offsetting interest that you would pay otherwise.

Side note: if you continued to pay the minimum on that credit card, you would pay off the balance in October of the fourteenth year. You would have paid $1,798.88 in interest over that length of time.

Another side note: paid-off credit cards look great on a credit report, so don't close them once you've paid them off! Just cut them up so you don't rack up a huge balance again!

Her smile makes it all better

Tay suggested some time over the last month that I should probably not have posts on here about work. And she's probably right. So I won't post anything here about work. Well, maybe the occasional humorous anecdote, like that time I got my head stuck in the filing cabinet. But no more schemes for world domination.

Today finds me transcoding videos for the trailer trash party, anticipating picking up the keys to our new apartment in the Beaches, and finally starting to work out equalization settlement details with my ex. Fun times in Gregland. Or the Vectorium. Still haven't told my parents that Tay and I are moving in together, not for fear of reprisal, just because I haven't been home to use my phone to call my mom in a few straight days. And my cell got cut off and Fido refuses to send me the bill. Genius.

A lot of talk at lunch today about Twitter, so I might just hop on. Would give me one more unproductive thing to do at the office, really. One can only play so much nethack ....

Goodbye Ivanvector the Ranger...
You died in The Dungeons of Doom on dungeon level 5 with 3516 points,
and 318 pieces of gold, after 3206 moves.
Killer: magic missile
You were level 7 with a maximum of 45 hit points when you died.

299 Bloor, call control

With info from http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread_archive.asp?fid=3&threadid=1936

If you've spent any kind of time on Toronto's subway system, especially if you're a daily commuter like me, you've likely heard numbered codes being broadcast over the system's public address system. The most common of these that I've noticed is "Two-nine-nine Bloor, call control" or some variation. If you're like me, you like to know what these things mean. Or, maybe you're like me and you are easily bored, or fascinated by numbers, or something.

I was starting to think that the numbers were route codes, since the Toronto Transit Commission internally refers to the Bloor subway line as route 2. And I've heard announcements like "506 Dundas" although I later realized Dundas streetcar is route 505; 506 is the Carlton route. So today, I did some internet investigating.

As might be expected, the Toronto Transit Commission doesn't seem to make a list of these codes available online, although I suppose I could call and ask. Regular readers of my blog will know how I feel about telephones, though. At the above-linked forum, I found a list of some of the codes that are used. Although different posters offer different descriptions, they all seem to agree that 299 refers to a subway line mechanic, and 506 to a station janitor. So the "299 Bloor" announcement is a broadcast asking the subway line mechanic at Bloor station to call the control room.

Maybe it's not really useful for subway riders to know that the janitor at Dundas station has gone AWOL, but I suppose it's good to know.

By the way, according to the site, various medical emergencies are grouped together under the code "Priority One", which supposedly refers specifically to a collision with a person at track level. I doubt that the TTC would actually broadcast a Priority One over their PA though; more likely one of their flowery "we are experiencing delays" announcements.

Happy mass transiting!

Deep fried Mars bars!

No really, we actually tried it. Of course, Rocky's Beer-Batter Fish Crisp is probably not the ideal breading medium for this, but it was tasty nonetheless. Tay came up with the idea, after we were done frying up some tasty tasty fresh cod (as fresh as it comes in an area so far from the ocean) and having a whole lot of batter left over and nothing left to fry. So, a trip down to Shoppers for a Mars bar value pack and one pot of semi-boiling vegetable oil later, and we were working away on our first fried candies.

Honestly, as tasty as they were, this whole thing was probably not a good idea, what with the boiling vegetable oil in a pot and all, and not having a fire extinguisher on hand. Yay for cooking adventures!

Lime-Soaked Steak Quesadillas

As some of my friends are finding out, I'm turning into a bit of a foodie. Not the going-out-to-expensive-restaurants sort of foodie, the cheap sort. The buy-something-on-sale-and-do-something-tasty-with-it foodie. In that spirit, my girlfriend (Tay, as she has asked to be referred to in my public-ations) and I made a dinner last night that I have to share, even though I don't *really* have any followers at this point. But who knows?

As most of my creations end up being, this recipe is fairly versatile, and could use many different ingredients. Basically, everything that comes out of my kitchen has a "to-taste" element. I present our lime-soaked steak quesadillas:

• 1 pkg: a good looking but inexpensive cut of steak. We used something I don't remember (eye round maybe?) but it was $4 for a little over a pound of steak.
• 1: lime, quartered. Lime juice would work, but if you can find decent, fresh limes, the flavour is so much better. And they make a satisfying sting in all your job-related papercuts.
• some: Tabasco. I didn't measure it, a few shakes. A few more for good measure. If you don't like spicy, cut back.
• seasonings: I used fresh ground black and crushed (dried) red pepper, garlic powder, crushed chillies, and coarse-ground sea salt (a fine grind would be better). I would have liked to use cayenne pepper because I use it in everything where meat is involved, but alas, Tay didn't have any.
• veggies, diced: Tay chopped up 1 red and 1 green bell pepper, and the most local field tomato we could find (US, not terrible). If you like spicy, add in 2 or more jalapenos, or pickled hot pepper rings if you can stand the salt.
• cheese: I prefer cheddar, the older the better. Monterrey Jack is a good choice, and you can often find it with jalapeno chunks, which is what we used. Grated is best, or thin slices work. Don't use processed cheese slices. Ever.
• soft flour tortillas: We used a package of average-sized whole wheat tortillas and have lots left over.
  

Slice the steak(s) into strips of roughly uniform thickness; the length doesn't matter. Arrange the strips as best you can in a single row on a plate. Squeeze the juice from 3 of the lime quarters over the steak strips, or add lime juice until there is a moderate puddle of lime juice on the plate. Add your Tabasco to taste (me: lots), then sprinkle on your dry spices. Let this sit for as long as you can stand; 30 minutes is ideal, any longer and you should put these in the fridge. Of course, longer is better but not an option when you're hungry. Ours soaked for about 10 minutes.

While these are soaking, clean and prep your veggies. If you're using hot peppers and want an extra-special kick, clean out the jalapeno seeds and sprinkle on your steak strips. Dice the veggies up into smallish bits (what, like a half inch?) and mix up in a bowl for later.

When you're satisfied that your steak strips are ready, heat up a frying pan to fairly high heat - not quite max but close. At the same time, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. When that pan's heated up enough, dump in your steak strips, lime juice concoction and all. It's going to sizzle a lot if the pan is hot enough so be careful. Try to arrange the strips in a single layer for best results. You want these to turn out medium-well or better (very little pink) so fry for about 3-4 minutes a side. It might be easiest to flip them with a fork. After flipping, sprinkle the juice from the fourth lime quarter over the steaks. When done cooking, tilt the pan to let the juice and drippings run to one side, and remove the steak to a clean plate from the high (dry) side of the pan. When the steak strips have cooled enough to handle, cut the longer strips into roughly square size pieces using a clean, sharp knife.

Using a large baking tray or stone, place a tortilla shell flat on the surface. Fill the surface with steak, veggies, and cheese on top. Don't use too much or your quesadilla will collapse under its own weight and be hard to eat. Leave about an inch around the outside of your tortilla empty, for cheese melting. Place a second tortilla over the top. If your baking implement is not wide enough, fill only half of the tortilla and fold over on top of itself. **

Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, until the edges of the tortilla start to brown and look almost burnt. Remove from the oven and allow to cool enough to handle. Give at least 5 minutes for the cheese to harden a bit, or you'll have difficulty cutting and eating. Cut the quesadilla into slices - a pizza cutter works great for this. Serve with salsa and sour cream.

Total prep and cooking time is about an hour, with appropriate time for the steak and quesadilla to cool. If you have a helper (like the lovely Tay) and you're both hungry and impatient, these can be ready in about 30 minutes.

Our results were a flavourful steak with a nice kick, and just a hint of lime flavour. You can make your steak extra-spicy because the cheese will cover it up. We have enough veggies left over that we just might try this one again tonight.

¡Buon apetito!

** If your baking implement is still not wide enough, you need a new baking implement.

Canada Geese ftw

"Birds that caused plane to ditch in Hudson River were Canada geese"
Published in Metro News Toronto edition, 13 Feb 2009

I know it's terrible, and nearly a tragedy if not for the skill of the pilot who landed safely in the river, but it gives me an odd sense of national pride knowing that Canada geese brought down a jet.

Big ones too: apparently the engines can tolerate a smaller bird.