Procrastination...

I've been listening to this recently, and have been quite enlightened with the points he covers off - I'd advise it to anyone...  http://theownerscircle.com/seminar-download.html

Blogged with Flock

Sometimes I'm dumb...

The exact quote would be "You can blog directly from Flock!?!"

As it turns out, yes, indeed you can... I've been looking for a nice simple piece of blogging software..  I started out the whole blogging thing when I'd been playing with Journler which I'd had introduced to me at this past year's WWDC, but it didn't post to blogger, so that was problem #1.  Next I tried out MarsEdit which I do really like, but as I'm such a infrequent blogger it seemed a bit overkill, that and I'm superbly cheap, so after my free 30 days, I went looking for something lean mean and well, free...  I came across Ecto which while not free, is *cheaper*, but still a bit overkill for me, I mean honestly, I only blog maybe 2-3 times a month?  So that's where Flock comes along, bonus #1 is it's free, #2, it's already on my system as my alternative browser, and #3, uh, well, I'm writing this in it, which means it works and it's simple.  So, 3 cheers for Flock!

Blogged with Flock

So, Macworld is getting even more community-fied this year, and have created a Ning network for all the attendees.  (Ning being the next brain-child of ex-Netscape founder Marc Andreessen) So, as IronGate have a booth at Macworld this year, and I'm speaking in the IT Conference again, oh, and I believe the Mac Communities are also hosting a booth, of which the MacEnterprise.org group is a member, all in all I'm going to be a busy girl! So, with all that, a bit of promotion - and a new badge over on the right hand side.  Oh, I can hardly contain the excitement!

Well, there's the Chinese sorted...

There are two things that I tend to search for when moving to a new city - one is a fabulous Indian take-out - this gets qualified with a range of dishes, but usually on the quality of their Chicken Korma, and a good chinese delivery - and this one is measured on the quality of their General Tao/Tso/T** Chicken.

Now, a bit of background, as for these qualifications... it's not so much of a "you make the best" it's more of a "I've had the best elsewhere, now try and live up to that" mentality. So, for the Indian, the standard comes from when I was living in the UK, I lived in the East end of London in an area called Ilford. It was a significantly large Indian immigrant community, and as a result had a wde range of Indian take-out to choose from. So, the place I found there managed to make a korma that was crave-worthy - to the extent that people used to come and visit me solely so that we could order from my local Indian! Sadly, the last time I looked for this particular Indian they appeared to no longer exist, and so my constant has vanished - not that ordering from the UK is the most practical thing from Toronto!

Moving on, the Chinese qualification... I was introduced to "Hot N' Spicy'" (I can't believe they don't have a website, but here's a link to the location) in Montreal in my 2nd year of university there - they have a few restaurants, but the one that I know best is the one in the Faubourg on Ste. Catherine at Bay. It's a small take-out and delivery that I used to live almost across the street from, and as such was quite a regular treat to get their general Tao chicken. I moved a bit further across town, closer to McGill, the year after that and would step up to pay their delivery fee, even as a student, simply for their chicken! In more recent times, I've taken my husband to Montreal to show him my student haunts, and of course had to visit Hot N' Spicy', well, wouldn't you know it, he's no addicted also! To the extent that the last time we were in Montreal we ended up bringing home about 4 ordered of General Tao Chicken to put in the fridge... no, we're not obsessed...

So, back to where I started this, finding local take-out. We moved to Toronto about 5 years ago now, and have lived in 3 parts of town, so have had a wide range of places to order from across the city. Indian is a tricky one to find, there is an Indian area of Toronto, but it's significantly further East than we have ever lived, so we haven't really managed to fully qualify all of those places, but generally, we've settled on a place that was close to our previous house called Siddhartha (http://www.thesiddhartha.com). We tend to work around that area sometimes, so still manage to pick up take-out on occasion - they're still not quite up to par on my take-out from the UK, but I'm beginning to accept that I won't be able to make the trans-atlantic comparison there.

The Chinese you'd think would be easy, it's only a few hours down the road afterall... but we've found there's a huge variation (almost as much as the spelling) on the old General and his chicken... but as of last night, the search is over. While they don't have their own website, the Wok Terminal (http://www.restaurantica.com/restaurants/7099/) has won us over. Not only was our dinner less than $20 delivered, but the General Tao could have been mistaken for Hot N' Spicy's version any day - oh, and they sent free mini-spring rolls, as well as fortune cookies - no more searching for us!

For the record...

<rant>

It's pronounced "An-dree-nah"....

Nothing fancier than that... oh, and when you reply to an e-mail I sent you, it would be nice if you spelt my name the way it's written in that e-mail... it's only visible 5 times... here's your 6th - it's A-N-D-R-I-N-A

</rant>

Where did they find them all!

I knew there had to be a use for the classic Mac - I'd always thought it was as a fishtank, but aparently, no, it's a fashion accessory... (take a look through the catalogues to get the full effect)

rpm.co.zk

Now, more to the point - where did they manage to find all of these machines in New Zealand...

My What a Big Rock you Have...

So it's been a while since I've gone further north than the Muskokas being the good lil' Torontonian I am. So a smidge of culture shock this week as I get to hang out in Sudbury all week. Even better than that I'm spending the week at College... working, not student-ing, but still, the atmosphere is there!

Anyhow, back to the point, things I never noticed as a kid when we did the required Sudbury/Sault Ste Marie/Thunder Bay run:

1. Peeps in Sudbury aren't anywhere as serious about their coffee as folks down in Toronto - i.e. there is a grand total of one Starbucks here (frankly, I was surprised to find that one, but fair play to it, it's in the local Chapters...)

2. When you drive off the edge of the Canadian Shield you know it - there's rocks cropping up everywhere! More amusing, is that it seems that every outcropping of rock along the highway has inukshuks propped up on top of them. Now who would have wandered into the middle of the highway, climbed the rocks and found the rocks to build these things? Of some note is that when you're driving up this way when it's just starting to get dark, inukshuks begin to resemble *things* standing on top of rocks peering down at you... slightly un-nerving!

3. Eating out on a Sunday evening doesn't happen. Seriously - room service finished at 2PM.

4. Boutique hotels don't exist outside of metropolitan areas - it's the Raddisson, Days Inn, Knights Inn or bust up here.

I'm sure I'll find more points to add to the list as the week goes on... Oh, and coming soon will be pictures of the fake McD's - Same red lettering for the name, but only a single golden arch... I've seen 2 of these mystery burger joints up here - amusingly, both have had a real McD's across the street from them!