Morons on 4 wheels rant #1 · Saturday February 2, 2008 by colin newell
Darwin spoke about Natural Selection – here is a great example:
Entering Rod Serling rant mode, cigarette clasped between gritted teeth: Picture if you would, a quiet evening on the Trans-Canada highway. You are out for a romantic cruise in your 1956 Pontiac Bel-Air when the peace is shattered by a 2006 Aston Martin and a Ford GT racing down the highway. You and your date Trixie Belden are spooked as the drivers weaved in and out of traffic at high speed.
But this was not an amalgam of bad fifties and sixties B-Grade stereotypes… — it was the Trans Canada Highway Friday about 8:30 p.m. And now two expensive high performance cars are resting their rubber in an impound lot.
The Times-Colonist reports: “The drivers, who were pulled over by Saanich police outside the Red Lion Inn, are prohibited from driving for 15 days. They have also been issued violation tickets for driving without due care and attention, which carries a $368 fine.”
“A driver who called 911 was passed by the speeding cars as he came onto the Trans Canada Highway at Millstream Road. He watched them fly down the highway, until they were forced to slow down near the merge lane of the Old Island Highway. The sports cars twisted and turned through traffic lanes until they were free again to race down the highway into town. Stopped by a red light at Tillicum, both cars shot forward when the light turned green.”
How is it that if I walked into a bank and joked about wanting a zero-interest anonymous loan, I could be tossed into the slammer for 10 years… and 2 knuckleheads high on testosterone and Starbucks coffee can put dozens of lives at risk for the cost of $368? Hell, I cannot buy 3 Canucks tickets for $368.
What gives with society anyway? Two 39 year olds driving about 100,000 dollars worth of Detroit steel could have killed someone… or maimed someone… or killed a whole family. And we slap them on the wrist. How about banning them from getting behind the wheel for a year.
These 2 belong behind the wheel of a 5 year olds tricycle because that is where their actual intelligence is at.
Shame.
I have seen this Aston-Martin parked at London Drugs on Yates St. I think it is the same owner. He flew out of the parking lot one evening a few months ago after picking up his prescription… traveling down Quadra avenue at speeds in excess of 60km/h within seconds of entering the road-way.
What an idiot. Watch for him.
Vancouver iPhone scambuster · Friday February 1, 2008 by colin newell
This was all over the newspapers this morning…
A guy in Vancouver is allegedly scamming people over the much-in-demand iPhone.
A website, based in Vancouver, attacks the scammer head-on.
Interestingly, the scam artist uses intimidation on top of deceptive business practices; sells a products that he does not have and then bullies the victim into silence with threats of frivolous lawsuits if the victim speaks up – classic sociopath behavior.
Check it out for yourself here
Read more on the perp here
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When life gives you lemons... start baking · Sunday February 18, 2007 by colin newell
True confession. I have been lusting after this one kitchen item for years, for over a decade in fact. My first real kitchen appliance was a Champion Juicer that I bought in 1988 or 1989. It is still running like a top. Just not in my kitchen. In my Mom’s kitchen – she pinched it from me just before I got married and never gave it back. Of course, she says, I can have it back whenever I want it.
Right.
Anyway. I digress.
The KitchenAid Artisan mixer is going to make life a little easier for me. I do 100% of the baking around the house and 50% of the chef work. I am the Chef’s assistant in fact. More of a sous chef. A great stir-person. A dicer. A whisker. That’s me.
Anyway. I make all my own muffins, bars, cookies, biscotti, cakes and (lastly) breads. The breads are most definitely at the end of the list because they are the most labor intensive.
Not anymore. Now that I have the KitchenAid Arnold SchwarzenMixer life is going to be that much easier. The 7 watt hand blender will be relegated to omelette duty and my uber-cool Paderno hand-blender will just keep on doing what its doing.
Anyway. I have my mixer. Yipee. Stay tuned for recipes.
Who wants dinner?
Owning a fully automatic home coffee machine · Thursday February 1, 2007 by colin newell
Super-Auto or fully automatic coffee makers are all the rage now. But you have to ask yourself one question: “Can you control yourself?”
Upside With a standard Super-Auto machine, you add coffee beans and water. You push a button. That’s it. Really. That’s it.
Downside Buy one of these units and you will drown in great coffee. On the evolutionary scale, there are few genetic upticks between the human and, say… the gerbil.
Or a hamster. You know what a hamster is, yes? My point: It takes very little stimulus to cascade from civilized beings to caffeine-pellet gobbling rodents.
Anyway – a true story: A wealthy uncle of mine bought a swiss made fully-auto coffee maker.. about 1700$
for his kitchen. A Solis Master 5000 digital.
He loved it. Perhaps a little too much. Heck, I borrowed it for 5 days for use in my lab. And the 4 normally adult male techs in my shop quickly morphed into human/hummingbird hybrids. The more they buzzed around the Solis for yet another shot the more hummingbird-like they became. Go figure.
The Solis is a good machine and the after-sales support is top notch. So, after a year, the sales/service centre that
sold it to him suggested a free check-up.
They were so amazed when they got it in the
shop… and they called me. I can remember the call…
Within 365 days of us, he has clocked in 14,000
servings of coffee. They thought he was running
a restaurant.
This Uncle, who is in his 60’s has a wife who is 32.
He has (or had at the time…) a 3 year old.
He claims: “I put my coffee maker on at 5AM and
I make one or two Americanos coffee every hour til
when I turn it off at 10 PM!”
Do the math. He pressed the brew button over 10,000
times in the space of one year.
Now THAT is coffee drinking!
Personally, I drink about 8 fluid ounces of coffee a day.
Not 8 fluid litres. If I drank coffee like this, my head would explode. Or maybe my bladder would go first.
Either way, if you think you can handle one of these units, go ahead an try. But keep a support group handy… or a life-line or something.
You have been warned.
