Author Archives: bluedepth

Daylight Saving Time

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Atomic Fountain

Daylight savings time really only helped people many years ago. Now it just irritates everyone. The irritation for me is the arbitrary selection of the time when we shift all our clocks forward or backward. It really irks me that the date of this time change can be adjusted by a government and force that change on the rest of the world. It was all started to help people cope with the inexorable march that sunset has as we approach winter. It's inescapable if you are north or south of the tropical latitudes.

One thing that I have noticed is that the daylight savings time is hardest on my pets. They are used to mealtime being at 9pm, but take tonight, right after the daylight savings time change has happened, they know approximately that they get fed at a certain time and while the clock reads 8pm, they are pestering us for food because last night 8pm was really 9pm and it was time for dinner. It's impossible for us to explain to our pets why we pick two days of the year when we all collectively agree that the time we think it is really isn't the time it actually is.

All of this silliness is tempered by the fact that all of our time demarcations are wholly made up concepts. When did it start? Thanks to the Church we've marked zero at a certain point in the past. Then we get upset here and there when some of us think that time is all run out, that the second coming is upon us, it's all stupid and made up and utterly contrived.

So I don't think there is room any more in our society for daylight savings time. We should establish the time zones permanently, so if it's going to be GMT-5, then lets stay with that and let the seasons do as they will, sunrise and sunset when they come and we will cope.

Speaking of coping, I can't imagine how these time shifts affect people who are suffering from seasonal affective disorder. Perhaps by letting this anachronistic self-deception cease and people can cope with the change in the seasons. Because for those suffering from SAD, it's gotta be a little relief to not have the hours bouncing around when the changes in the seasons are so pronounced. The only other solution for those people would be to migrate towards the tropical latitudes.

So, for daylight savings time – off with it's head! 🙂

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How I'd Like to Change the World

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Amiens cathedral

The differences between people are getting too out of hand. There has to be a moderation or we're headed to a sticky self-destructive end. To quote Dogma:

Rufus: He still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name – wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.

Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?

Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier…

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120655/quotes?qt=qt0309073)

That's where to start.

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My Favorite Scary Movie

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Like many really good movies, the one you remember is the better one from a more recent remake. In this case, my favorite scary movie is actually a tie. Tied between "The Thing" and "In The Mouth Of Madness". I like them for different reasons. I like "The Thing" because it raises questions of doubt and identity and has some really outstanding creature effects. I like "In The Mouth Of Madness" because it lends credence that reality is formed mostly by our agreement-in-perception and that with enough force to change that perception, that you could in a way, change the world.

I find that the complexity of the first is less than the second. Movies like "The Thing" are simple, situated as it is on the premise of failed quarantine while "In The Mouth Of Madness" is actually far more insidious and pervasive and really more scary in the long run.

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I Wish I Were Fluent In…

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Fleur de Lis

I wish I had time to refine my French. I think it's a beautiful language and I often times find that the actual speech makes it easier for me to express myself and I tend to not mumble in French as I usually do in English. I sometimes think that I mumble in English because it's too easy, that I'm too close. Having to actively think about the language slows me down and makes expression more clear. If I had hundreds of dollars just to blow on a whim I'd likely try the French Rosetta Stone program.

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Halloween 2011: Greek Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

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This recipe is very easy to pull off, and comes together very quickly. I have modified it slightly away from the browned chicken chunks and replaced those with pulled poached chicken.

Greek Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

Ingredients:

  • Chicken Broth – 8 Cups
  • Orzo Pasta – 1 Cup
  • Chicken Breast – 1.5 Pounds
  • Chicken Eggs – 3
  • Lemon Juice – 1/3 Cup
  • Lemon Zest – 1 Tbsp
  • Parsley – 2 Tbsp
  • Cornstarch – 2 Tbsp
  • Water – 1 Cup
  • Salt and Pepper

Procedure:

  1. Poach Chicken: Bring roughly two gallons of water to a vigorous boil. Add whole chicken breasts to water, reduce heat to medium and cover. Boil for 10 minutes. When time elapses, turn off heat completely and leave for 20 minutes. When done, remove from water, drain, let dry 5 minutes, pull chicken breast meat apart using two forks into fine pulled fibers. Set aside. Dump water.
  2. In pot, add chicken broth and bring to a boil.
  3. When broth is at boil, lower heat to medium and add Orzo pasta. Cook for 15 minutes.
  4. When time elapses, add the pulled chicken to the pot.
  5. While pot is cooking, whisk eggs together, add lemon juice and zest.
  6. Temper the eggs with a ladle of broth, then add egg mixture to broth.
  7. Lower the heat to low, if the soup doesn’t thicken to your liking whisk the cornstarch and water together and add that to soup to thicken. You could add a white roux if you wanted instead of the cornstarch, up to you.

It’s best to prepare this soup immediately and eat it promptly. The orzo will continue to expand until they burst, greatly damaging the texture of the soup. If you enjoy this recipe, please let me know. 🙂

Halloween 2011: Chili con Carne Recipe

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Some recipes can best be expressed by an integer. That number defines an ingredient unity that runs through some of the vest best recipes. It makes it a snap to remember the ingredients and how to cook the meal in general. So with that, here is the recipe for my Chili, which has, by the way, the unity number of two.

Chili con Carne – Single Batch

Ingredients:

  • Ground Meat – Two pounds, any type of protein according to your preference. Meat must be browned, at least to 140 degrees.
  • Green Peppers – Two, roughly chopped. Set aside.
  • Onions – Any globe type, two, roughly chopped. Set aside.
  • Garlic – Two tablespoons of minced garlic.
  • Beans – Two 40oz. cans of Kidney Beans – One can light red, one can dark red. Not picky, up to you.
  • Tomato Sauce – Two 29 ounce cans of Hunt’s Tomato Sauce
  • Tomato Paste – Two 6 ounce cans of Hunt’s Tomato Paste
  • Beef Stock – Two 14 ounce cans of non-MSG Beef Broth (for those allergic to MSG)
  • Chili Powder – Two tablespoons
  • Cayenne Pepper Powder – Two tablespoons
  • Red Pepper Flake – Two tablespoons
  • Black Pepper – Two tablespoons – Fresh ground
  • Kosher Salt – Two tablespoons
  • Sriracha Sauce – Two tablespoons

Procedure:

  1. Brown ground meat. Season optional, but recommended. Several grinds of pepper and a pinch of salt is recommended. If you use 90/10 ground chuck, you may wish to add a tablespoon of a cooking oil to browning.
  2. Chop vegetation, set aside.
  3. Open up all canisters, as you open a can, add contents to pot.
  4. Add vegetation to pot.
  5. Add browned meat to pot.
  6. Add all spices to the top, in any order you prefer.
  7. Stir vigorously until all the ingredients are integrated. The paste will be the most resistant to mixing.
  8. Put lid on pot, insert into standard oven, at 350 degrees. For first hour, pot is covered. Second hour, pot uncovered.

To multiply this recipe, multiply the number of batches by every ingredient. Cooking is best done in the oven itself, not on a burner/stovetop. For doing multiple batches in the oven, multiply the total cook time (2 hours) by the number of batches, and split that number in half for the covered/uncovered periods. If this Chili is done on the stovetop, you must stir very very frequently otherwise it will collect at the bottom, scorch, and burn, ruining the entire batch. If you had to use the stovetop, arrange a double-boiler, keep the water layer filled and double the cook time.

The Chili can be cooled and stored, it improves very well over time, peaking in a few days after cooking is complete. Chili can be frozen solid and kept technically forever in that state. While refrigerated, it can last about a week before having to be disposed of.

If you make this recipe, I would appreciate feedback on what you thought about it. Be forewarned, there will be gas. 🙂

Halloween 2011

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By sunset tonight Samhain (Halloween) will be over. We had about ten people, including us for a little shy of a week. As usual, we have way too much food left over and most of it will have to be frozen. We watched a lot of movies, a lot of old standbys like The Fog and The Thing, including John Carpenter’s Halloween. Everyone was wonderful and we really enjoyed hosting this year and while I was afraid I would incur more debt for the party than I intended it turned out that the door fee that I established hit the mark almost perfectly so it worked out for the best.

We have so much left over food that we won’t need to buy any food for probably the next two or three weeks! That fact will also help pay off all the little extras that will be running up after the party. Mostly the incidental stuff like bathroom supplies took a hit.

Next year Halloween will be on a Wednesday, so I figure we’ll pull a M-F holiday and next year I’m thinking about setting up a few fog-making machines, maybe a strobe, get a scary-sounds CD to play and see how many neighbor children brave the foggy shimmering hazard to get the candy. 🙂 We’ll see.

We’d like to thank everyone who came to celebrate this holiday with us and hope to see them next year as well. After this, we’ve got Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I can’t believe that 2011 is almost over, it boggles.

 

SugarSync Review

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I tried out a new online cloud service called SugarSync this morning. I signed up for their free 5GB account and downloaded their SugarSync Manager for my Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.8 iMac at work.

Everything went smoothly until I installed the SugarSync Manager. It prompted me to share some basic folders, like my Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders. I didn’t want that. I wanted to create a folder off the root of my Macintosh HD Hard Drive called SugarSync and just sync what I put in that folder. After turning all the other options off, I couldn’t find a way to add a specific folder that I wanted to that part of the installation. I clicked “Add More Folders” thinking that might lead me to something, but then the app seized up, beach-ball-of-death, and about 15 minutes later I “Force Quit” the SugarSync Manager program.

I then tried to restart it, and it would not start. I gave it another 5 minutes and tried again, and that time it took. What I saw was a very friendly, very simple sync manager application and I can appreciate it’s simplicity. I went to “Add a Sync Folder” and couldn’t find a way to add a specific folder, it just wasn’t possible as far as I could see. I clicked on Help and then read about how you can right-click on a folder to add it to SugarSync. I did that, and it worked.

Then I went into the SugarSync website and looked at the “Email-To-Sugarsync” feature. Right along this feature it prompts you to read the Terms Of Service. I went through the TOS, mostly standard stuff except for the section about what kind of files you can store on SugarSync. That they reserve the right to cancel the account if they find the files upsetting in some non-defined way. Not that I would send snuff videos to my SugarSync account, but without knowing what the terms in their TOS actually MEAN, well, I might as well just give up now before I actually do anything with the account.

It was a combination of the TOS, the software failures, and a kind of “suffers from simple” approach that did it in for me. Software that is designed for Ma and Pa Kettle can sometimes lack the sophistication that a user like me expects from a service. It’s perfectly acceptable to me to stuff the “Advanced Stuff” behind a button and I don’t mind going a little further to get access to those settings because I know that the majority of people using this software are very new to computers and too many options can turn them off.

In the end, I can’t recommend SugarSync. The only way I could deal with it would be if I filled the account with a 5GB AES-256 encrypted DMG file and just used that. That would protect me from the TOS and give me the freedom to store what I wanted without having to worry about damaging some faceless persons sense of morality. This design of course doesn’t work when you try the whole email-to-service angle, so it’s all just a big pile of wreckage.

iOS Newsstand

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On my way to Grand Rapids with Scott I decided to investigate the new Newsstand feature in iOS 5. I had downloaded three magazines, Comic Heroes, Men’s Fitness, and Mac Format. I opened Newsstand and started to look through the issues I downloaded. I was under the impression that I had at least a free sample.

Boy was I wrong! These “Free” issues were just stub-apps with more prices and a place to subscribe. This fails to reflect the way people usually buy magazines at brick and mortar stores. You can open up a magazine and browse before buying. Can’t do that in iOS!

So it’s a gyp. A bait-and-switch and now it’s tarnished what piddling interest I had in those aforementioned magazines. It’s also tarnished the Newsstand über-app as well. It’s really just a trap. It baits you with free and then thumbs its nose at you with a crass subscription ask or a expensive per-issue price.

It’s simple enough to ignore Newsstand completely now. I had piddling interest in magazines anyways. All the content, really good, fresh, relevant content is on Flipboard or Google Reader, or hell, even Safari! Better yet, those options have a great price tag, free.