OK, so it's not the Olympics yet, but something really cool happened to my neighbour - he ran in the torch relay!  Somewhere in New Brunswick. 

So this led to something cool for me - I got to hold the very torch he used.

In my liviingroom!

Sometimes, my only quiet time to think is in the shower, and random thoughts often pass through my head. Tonight in the shower, I had a kind of "Eureka" moment (ironic, no?) about when people ask for other people's opinions.

This may be obvious to everyone else and I'm sure I already knew this at some level, only today it snuck into my conscious thoughts.

When people ask me my opinion about issues, they don't really want to know it. What they really want is to tell me what their opinion is. It's not really about the exchange of ideas, but rather the telling. The asking is merely a cloak.

I may be slow, but I eventually unravel the occasional nugget of human nature. And now, back to my blissful ignorance.

I recently had lunch at a Korean sushi place (Korean sushi?!), and being allergic to fish and seafood, I got a little excited when I saw they had something called the “Canadian Dream Roll”. With visions of back bacon dancing through my head, I looked more closely at the menu, only to discover that it had rice, nori (kelp), and prawns. I mean, at least they could have put in some PEI lobster or something! Sure, I wouldn’t be able to eat it, but at least it would have some Canadian element.

So I took it upon myself to create a REAL Canadian Dream Roll. Living close to Québec, I suppose it was inevitable that it would take on a Québecois flavour.

The essential ingredients… crepe batter, julienne potatoes, back bacon, and maple syrup.

While pouring the crepes, I turned the potatoes into hash browns.

Check out the crepe flipping action!

After the hash browns were ready, I sliced the back bacon (Americans call this ‘Canadian bacon’ – they are playing into my Canadian Dream Roll plan) into strips, and glazed it with maple syrup. 80% of the world’s maple syrup is produced in Québec. I might have made that up.

Once all is cooked, I’m ready to roll.

One thing that stumped me for a while was how to get the whole thing to stay together. Then it hit me – cheese! Of course, the natural choice was cheddar, but I only had Monterey Jack in my fridge. Nobody’s perfect.

To help the cheese hold everything together, it took just a few seconds on the griddle.

Et voilà! A truly Canadian Dream Roll, complete with maple syrup for dipping.

There are a couple of things I would have done differently – like cutting the round edges off of the crepes only after I rolled them, and putting cheese all the way through for better stickiness, but all in all, Chris said it was, “mmm…mmmm… yummy”. No macaroni and cheese pie, but how can you compete with the ultimate comfort food?

Bon apetit!

This crossword was entitled, "I'm OK".  I agree. It was OK. Not good, not great. I give it a C-.  Some of the clues were a little bizarre. It might have merited a B- (seriously, "rassles"?) or even a B, if it weren't for this glaring error...

Call me an international organizations geek, but shouldn't someone have verified what "NATO" really stands for? 

Or am I being global-centric assuming there is only one NATO?  Is there some U.S. organization out there called "New American Tummy Oglers" or something, that I just don't know about? If there is, please let me know and I will happily readjust the grade I gave the puzzle. But I stand by my mockery of "rassles".

Hmmm... missed it by one day.

I wonder what's inside... and what a "tab" is...

I also wonder if it's not really "urgent", since "urgent" is in quotation marks. Maybe it's just pretend "urgent".

I have never been much of a big fan of purple. In fact, a quick scan of my closet shows a grand total of one purple sweatshirt at the bottom of a pile. I'm not really sure how it got there.

Recently, it came to my attention that I needed some winter boots. Winter was coming and I didn't have any boots. I happened to be near a Winners store at the time. So I went into Winners and found boots that matched four of my five criteria:

1. Warm (rated to at least -30 Celcius) - check

2. Waterproof (I splash in puddles sometimes) - check

3. Good treads (I'm not very graceful on slippery surfaces) - check

4. Not horribly expensive (I'm cheap, and Winners sells stuff pretty cheap) - check

5. Bearable to look at (I have some pride, after all) - X

It turns out, if I wanted to be warm, dry, and safe from ice for a reasonable price, I'd have to live with boots that were light purple and lighter purple. The other four criteria won out. Hence, my new boots:

After this auspicious purchase, I realized that I was wearing a purple scarf, too. I retraced the events that led to the purple scarf, and realized I hadn't purchased it for its colour, either. I had been on a business trip and lost my beautiful, warm, red scarf somewhere along the way, and was about to head to Yellowknife, NWT. where temperatures can get as low as -25 at the beginning of April. So, I headed out in Calgary at the end of March, when winter was all but over, and could only find one warm scarf. Purple. I still wear it, though, because it does the job, and as discussed already, I'm cheap.

Then, the other day as I was getting ready to leave work in my purple boots and purple scarf, I noticed that my glasses case on my desk was purple. Another thing I didn't choose - the store where I bought my glasses just happened to give them to me in the purple case. And I'm too cheap to buy another case.

(OK, so I realize that this case is not purple. I was taking these pictures at home and these are the glasses I keep in the car, not at work. Note the case is a lovely red.)

And so, I trundle along, with an increasingly purple wardrobe, through no design of my own. Now, if only I can figure out how I came to have that purple sweatshirt...

We just had an election. The U.S. is about to have an election. The U.S. election campaign has been going on for what seems like a couple of years now. The Canadian one lasted five weeks (as legislated).

Having elections running at the same time in both of our countries allowed me to see some of the differences between the level of political engagement by citizens. Beyond the differences in campaiging time, even.

I don't watch much TV, but from what I've seen, people in the U.S. strongly advocate their political views, even on talk shows that, if they were Canadian, would be fiercly neutral. Canadian television personalities rarely endorse candidates. Sometimes you will see certain issues being raised or put forward by various groups (such as a bunch of angry artists this time around who had just had some kind of funding program cut). But you won't see people like Elizabeth Hasselbeck (sp??) going to a party convention and introducing the candidate for Prime Minister.

But the best part is the paraphernalia. You see election signs sporting various candidate names and parties spattered around here and there in Canada. On the other hand, I have not been to the U.S. since before all the campaigning began, but I have in my house an Obama bobble head and an Obama keychain. I hear tell that you can also get finger puppets. I would like a finger puppet, but I don't think I know anyone heading across the border again before the election.

Not that I asked for a bobble head to be brought back (or a keychain for that matter). They actually showed up in lieu of the finger puppet I had requested.

I CANNOT imagine a Stephen Harper doll or Gilles Duceppe mug being sold here. Although I might be interested in a Gilles Duceppe mug for the sheer kitsch value of it. That would be awesome.

We are just so low-key here. I am sometimes frustrated by the lack of Canadian enthusiasm for political battles. Fortunately, American politics is almost as much a Canadian spectator sport as hockey. I, for one, will be in front of the TV on Tuesday night with my popcorn and hot chocolate, rooting for my "team". It will be awesome. I hope I get to see Elizabeth Hasselbeck yelling at Joy Behar again for her (what I see as perfectly reasonable) views again before it happens.

Yay American politics!!!!!!!!!

Question: Why can't Bell Canada do simple arithmetic?

My bill consistently has calculation errors for consumption tax charges. The past two months, you have overcharged by three cents, although this amount varies. Conservatively, if you have three million customers and overcharge them each three cents per month, you are illegally profiting by $90,000 every month. I am tired of calling every single month to have it corrected. Please teach your computers how to do arithmetic. Also, if you contact me about this, please do not use it as an opportunity to try to sell me more services. That is very annoying.

Sitting at the computer while Chris is shaving, I look at the blog of some person I don't know (I read it occasionally - Chris reads it avidly). I've never met this person, and I likely never will.

"Steve ate more tree brain," I casually say.

"Yeah," Chris says, "I think it's going to be an annual treat."

I believe that may rank as the most bizarre conversation I've ever had in such a boring, matter-of-fact, almost blase tone of voice.

Every once in a while, I look at my blog and think, "Wow. I should really write something." But then I don't. The balloon saga was... well... pathetic. I mean, I couldn't even bring myself to backdate the entries far enough to be anywhere near accurate.  OK, I mostly backdated the entries to be fairly accurate, but by the end of it, I pretty much gave up.

I went to Rhode Island about 14 months ago and have been meaning to write about that, maybe post a few pictures for friends and family to look at. I did manage to put some stuff up about going to Yellowknife, but I had such plans for posting more on Edmonton, which I visited during the same trip.

The thing that shocks me is that whenever I bother signing in and looking at the statistics on this blog, they never really drop off significantly. Somebody actually looks faithfully at this thing, I suppose hoping that I'll someday post something else (sort of what I do with all the "Blogs I Like" listed on the right of this.  Either that, or 80-100 random people surf in every day. Either way, I feel bad that I'm disappointing people who might expect to see something here besides months-old pictures or a brief comment on something someone else wrote.

Even this guilt, though, doesn't seem to change my behaviour. I'd like to think it's because I'm busy, but I can't even explain it with that. I do manage to watch at least 3 episodes of the X-Files every week, and even the occasional episode of Jeopardy. (Wow. That sounds waaaay geekier than I am.) I can't claim laziness because I'd probably be watching more TV if it were that.

I have 114 unread messages sitting in one email account, 25 or so unread messages in another, and 19 in Facebook. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed by the computer age. I mean, the computer age isn't really that old, but it has taken over soooo many facets of our lives. 120 years ago, nobody had electricity and now we can't live without it. 20 years ago, few people had home computers and most work was done with typewriters. Now, if a computer system crashes, workplaces are completely paralysed. If my home computer died, I wouldn't know what to do. Everything is on there - my resume, my business accounts, and most important of all, the Internet, which now holds the knowledge I used to find in encyclopaedias, phone books, atlases... I can't even remember half the resources I considered readily available! 

Thirteen short years ago, there was no email, no information superhighway, no Wikipedia, no blogs, no instant communication gratification. People got mail in their mailboxes outside their houses. Real letters from friends. Phone calls were made. Friends who moved to other cities slowly dropped out of sight unless a real commitment was made to stay in touch. The Internet is marvelous - I can "talk" to my friends as much as I want to, even though we're hundreds of kilometers apart.

What I need is a good month to sit down and write some nice emails to people I miss, especially those whose emails sit marked "unread" in my mailbox. I have read them, I have just marked them unread because I know I want to answer them. Someday.

Then, I'll blog. 

I was shocked and dismayed today to read this blog entry today: Hate groups don’t belong in Canada – Go home Westboro Baptist Church!  I can't believe a group that calls itself a CHURCH would invade the funeral of the victim of such a horrible crime. And their reasons make about as much sense as ... well, I can't think of anything as poorly reasoned.

It also makes me sad that they smear the reputation of our good friends and neighbours to the south, who already have such a bad rap to deal with. I have met few individual Americans who actually deserve the reputation the country has. It's stories like this that fuel the fire.

Well, the balloon glory has been over for a long time. The middle of April was the last time I could even barely consider it floating. Just a bit...

 It's almost like it's waving goodbye. It gave me joy for four whole months, first far above my head, then later at eye-level, and finally just getting in the way of my feet as I tried to use the stairs. Ah, balloon, what a prankster you were.

Goodbye, balloon!