Slight Delay on "Who"

There is going to be a slight delay with the first "who" post. It follows a discussion I had with Liz last night and continued in the car this morning. In a nutshell, I'm checking into the legality of posting photos on the 'net without people's consent.

Very Australian night last night... had a dream about playing cricket, outside, but with indoor rules, using rock faces instead of nets. I also woke up with the "Lube Mobile" song in my head.

For everything mechanical we've got it - they'll fix the car! Lube Mobile will come to you, 13 30 32. That's 13 30 32.

8 Days Later - Pumpkins

It is now 8 days since the pumpkins were carved, and they're looking a bit droopy. About 3 days ago they were evicted from the living room - the smell of them, bat in particular, was starting to become too strong, with liquid gathering in the bottom of it. Bat's face is caving in on itself, and "Bugaboo" is bending backwards like Neo in "The Matrix". The inside of the pumpkins is now mottled - it appears as though mold is setting in. They live outside now - letting go is hard, though I think we'll have to soon.

This weekend was pretty good - today was the warmest it has been for quite a while, around 20 degrees celsius, so we spent some time outside. Yesterday we got a couch from Liz's grandmother, which is really good, because it means no more using the futon as our living room couch anymore. After 18 months of solid use as a day-to-day couch the mattress on the futon was starting to get annoying and uncomfortable.

Halloween Recap

Halloween was pretty cool. Tiff came over and in the afternoon the 3 of us carved pumpkins. Tiff did a raccoon in a pumpkin, Liz carved a creature/stencil called "Bugaboo" and I did a bat.

Paul and Sandra, who live in the other part of the house, got in to the spirit with costumes and a small cemetery in the front yard. We got zero (0) trick-or-treaters, Paul and Sandra got a few. It did start raining a little later in the evening, which may have lowered numbers, but the main drawback for our numbers was the rear entrance. Paul was actually dressed as a scarecrow in the front yard and would run after the kids after they had gotten their treats which was pretty funny. Here is a photo of the small graveyard, and then of the pumpkins we carved.

It's October 31st (here)

So Happy Birthday, Kel, and Happy Halloween everyone! I'll be getting in the spirit and carving pumpkins this afternoon.

So people may remember from the Cleverbot post that I was planning on adding some different content to the blog. So, here's the info about it:

"Who" will be about random people from around the neighborhood etc. Photos taken without their permission and actual and made-up biographical details will abound. The picture represents the US neighborhood watch logo.

"What" will be about random stuff. I don't know how else to describe it... Perhaps it will be products we buy, or foods we make... The picture being an unmarked tin can reminded me of The Simpsons when Apu opened "Freak-E-Mart" and displayed the can of mystery.

"Where" will feature places that I go around here, probably including photos and descriptions of the place. The picture being a globe should be a pretty straight forward representation of the theme...

I'll be kicking those off in November, starting off with a "who", and depending upon content quantities I hope to post one of each a month, at least.

Hopefully people enjoy reading them, and if they don't, they don't have to read them.

Ah, the smell...

We took delivery at work this morning of a HDD bay from Newegg. Taking it out of the box, I was hit with the same smell as a computer fair at Broadmeadow...

False Prophets

Firstly, I want to congratulate everyone on finding their way to baconisgreat. Don't be fooled by the false prophet!

Last weekend we went to a Chili cook-off that was being held for charity. It was a good time. The cook-off was a Pro-Am format - 7 Stamford restaurants and 7 locals had chilis entered in the contest, and you could go in, sample chilis and vote for your favorite. I tried about 10 of the 14 chilis, and then had seconds of my 4 favorites to help me decide on my vote.

After much tasting, soul searching and deliberation I voted for one of the amateur entries, which the guy described as Quattro Carne: a moderately spicy, smoky, and delicious blend of seasoned chicken, beef, veal and sausage. It was damn good. We went with a group of people (6 in all) and 4 of us ended up voting for him. He won the contest by a margin of something like 5 votes we were told.

I also enjoyed a chili that was made using cut up meat instead of ground beef which was made by another amateur. I liked 2 chilis made by restaurants - one was loaded full of chipotle (small sample cups, so even with 2 samples Chipotlaway wasn't needed), and the other had apples in it. I liked it because it was different.

The event is an annual fundraiser, which I would definitely go to again.

The next big event on the chili calendar is a chili cook-off we are actually making a chili for in November. We made what we thought was a good chili a couple of weeks ago, and going to the cook-off last weekend gave us an idea of what we like about our chili, what we could try to improve it, and what people might be like in judging chili. The competition sounds like fun - they have a chili dog intermission during the sampling!

By the way, the episode of South Park referenced in this post was awesome. In fact South Park since the break has been cool. New episode tonight, in HD!!! And, yes, it does look better in HD.

Hue Test

Here is something else that people may want to try. I tried it, and my results were laughed at. But I'm OK with that, I've come to terms with the fact that I have a colour (Australian readers) or color (American readers) deficiency.

It is the XRite Hue Test.

To give everyone an idea of why people laughed, here is the test after I had carried it out (of course, it looked right to me):

And here are my results:

It was good for a laugh. As shown above, my score was 209, Mike scored 18 and Jim scored 4. Liz scored 10.