The Slow Decline of Apple

There is a thought I've been having since Steve Jobs died -  that the iPhone 5 would be a strong indicator of how Apple's corporate views have changed.

And signs point to where I had feared.

Tim Cook isn't Jobs. He isn't the prodigal son returned.  He lacks a cult of personality and an iron grip on the company. He's no doubt a talented executive, but without being the dictator Jobs reportedly was, the company will revert to a standard corporate structure.

Insular development, eschewing third-party native applications, design by committee, and development based not on quality, but profits.

Jobs seemed to have an understanding of the balance required. Using the iPhone, iPod, and iPad as examples (because laptops and desktops are different beasts), each new generation lacked something. It wasn't something that you needed necessarily, but it was something that would have been nice. Each iteration implied that a direction was being followed. Cries of "why can't it do this?" would fade away, and then the new version would have whatever "this" was. It left the consumer wanting more, but content with what they had.

Because what you had worked well. The touchscreen was responsive, the apps loaded quickly, the experience was seamless. Jobs insisted that "it just work." This was often the reason given for something not being included - "It's not where we want it yet."

And if a number changed in the device from a 3 to 4, or a 1 to a 2, you knew the new one would be envy-worthy.

But the iPhone 5? Meh.

It's taller, thinner, lighter, and it has a different back, and under the hood it's newer and faster. This is called a standard upgrade. There's nothing inspired here. It feels more like "the 4 still looks cool, but we have to do SOMETHING to it for the 5, oh and we have to change the aspect ratio."

But that's only part of it. The maps are getting some wide coverage on how terrible they seem. Bad directions, no streetview, no transit directions, less detailed maps, missing areas, mislabled locations, weird image mapping, etc.. In reality, most of these won't affect people day to day. But it speaks to a slip in quality control. For the sake of not supporting Google apps on their phones, Apple has rushed their own replacement.

This is something that could have been held off until the next iOS upgrade.

And the adapter change reeks of a money grab. It undoubtedly has technological and design benefits, but $30 for an adapter that doesn't actually adapt and won't fit in existing docks? That's exactly the "oh well" sort of thing that loses customers. After all, if I need a new phone and will lose functionality with my stereo either way, then you lose another tether to me. I feel kind of bad for people who integrated docks into their home.

Jobs had a plan. You could see the evolution of the devices as their underlying technology. It was there in how the iPod became a phone which became a tablet which altered the operation of the laptop and had people calling for a television.

Apple now? I fear they'll slowly collapse. Creating devices to compete, instead of creating devices to compete with, will become the norm. Apple has always been behind on specs and tech, but they excelled on taking ideas that had been heretofore poorly implemented and making them accessible and usable. Siri and cloud integration may be the last technologies we see Apple take a lead on. The original phone changed phone design forever. The 4 brought video calling to the masses The 4s brought decent voice interaction and native cloud support. The 5 brings... what? A subpar map replacement, and no native YouTube? An extra row of icons?

Sure, there will always be the fervent followers.  The iPhone 5 is breaking sales records and those sales are living up to the hype even the device isn't.  That doesn't mean it's comparable to the achievements of the past, and I fear it's reinforcement at the beginning of a negative trend.

Under Jobs I was convinced Apple had something up its sleeve. over $100 billion in cash was a strong signal that some big move was coming. My money was on a roll-out of an Apple network. A data-only network without the legacy cell crap.  After all, Facetime is an Internet phone. It's Skype for those who don't know about Skype. Now? I expect the cash will be used to buy up companies with interesting patents and for fighting lawsuits. They've already introduced a dividend instead of investing in the company. In short, there is no grand plan. This is a shame, because love or hate Apple, when it made a move, it changed the board, often to the net benefit of all consumers.

From here on out, I expect the net benefit will be to Apple.

That Bird Has Flown

The Blue Jays 2012 season started full of potential, and was wiped out by injury.

I was at a game a couple weekends ago, and pointed out that only ONE of the starters had been on the opening day roster. In fact, if you added up the RBI count for all the players except Encarnacion, you had less RBIs than he did. Same deal with home runs.  If it wasn't for Rajai Davis, you could probably do the same with at-bats.

The pitcher? J.A. Happ, who we picked up just before the trade deadline.  Oddly enough, my guys won the game in an impressive and entertaining fashion.

We lost 3 starting pitchers within two weeks of each other. None have yet to return.  The starting rotation has been a revolving door of call-ups and relievers in longer roles. There have been some bright spots, but not a single starter has a winning record.

Our closer, who stank, went down early in the season. But lucky us, Casey Janssen turned out to be a hell of a finishing man. It's a shame he doesn't have more games to save.

Our bullpen, even before injuries, had 3 reliable guys in Frasor (currently injured), Oliver (41 years old), and Janssen. That's been improved through trades and call-ups.

The Jays have used more players than any other team in the AL. I think San Diego might beat them in the Majors though.  Toronto's almost definitely near the top in man-games lost.  And as I said, this includes 3/5 of our opening day starting rotation. Leaving one rookie and our ace.  Except Romero obviously can't handle the pressure of being the ONLY experienced starter and being relied on for a win every 5 games. He's performed terribly since the rotation got crushed.

This is a team that was in contention for 1st overall. Then lost that, but was only a few games back of the wild card. That's now long gone too with a 56-65 record, 10 games out of the post-season in any form.

We had the HR leader again in Bautista, now he'd have to go on an epic tear to catch up when he gets back from injury.  Luckily, Encarnacion has done nothing but impress and step up this season, with 31 homers and 82 RBIs and will only look better when more power is back in the lineup.

We have the leader in stolen bases in Rajai Davis, who is practically unstoppable when he gets on base.

Too bad nobody can hit .300, although Lawrie and Encarnacion have come close.

Lawrie, Morrow, and Bautista should all be back this weekend. Which sounds not unlike "unicorns will be farting rainbows across the sky" to Jays fans these days. Lind, Arencibia, and Frasor will hopefully be back by September. Hutchison, Drabek, Santos, McGowan, Litsch, (4 starters and a closer) are all gone for the season.

So let's recap: our 3B, RF, 1B, C, #1 middle-relief, and #2 starter will all be back in the lineup by mid-September. Our 2B, SS and CF JUST got back from less-serious injuries. That's all but 1 position out.

The 2012 season is a write-off. The team needs a mulligan from the fans, and a redo for 2013. The conditioning regimen needs to be seriously looked at, and the coaching staff's methods have to be overhauled. Bad luck is one thing. Losing nearly every single starting player for extended periods of time is unacceptable and a sign of something being rotten in the organization.

And dammit, this team was looking REALLY good. The question marks like Rasmus and Johnson were doing great, Encarnacion has earned every dollar of his contract, Bautista continued to MVP it up, Lawrie was growing into the star he'll be in leaps and bounds, Lind was finally figuring it out, Davis had earned his every day spot, Arencibia was leaving management confused what to do with the mega-prospect D'Arnaud in the minors (now also injured), with no room behind the plate in the bigs for him, Morrow was having a breakout year, Drabek was finally showing maturity, Hutchison and Alvarez were impressing.  Hell, the only hole was in the bullpen, and that could have been fixed if everyone wasn't trying to plug injury hole after injury hole.

I stand by my preseason prediction, this team would have been fighting for the wild card this year. The only bright spot is that they're young enough to put up that fight next year.  Maybe even stronger.  As it is now, with the hope that we do see most of the team healthy, I expect a strong September.  It will be too late, but it should be entertaining.

Sweetbreads

Maybe I should have taken pictures. No, that would have scared you off.

Sweetbreads are sometimes called "gateway offal" because they're pretty damned tasty if done right, not from anywhere particularly disgusting on the animal (thymus, which disappears after the animal is around 6 months old), and aren't a particularly weird texture.

I had them for the first time a few years back at a popular joint in these parts - The Black Hoof. The chef, Grant van Gameren, has since moved on to Enoteca Sociale, and brought his sweetbreads with him. This is now one of my favourite restaurants (the fact the rest of the menu is delicious doesn't hurt either). The first time I had sweetbreads, I literally moaned. That "holy shit this is amazing and words can't describe it" ooohmmmm that comes unbidden when tasting something amazing.

I now tend to order them whenever they're on a menu. They never come close to van Gameren's. They're sometimes quite good, but sometimes also quite bland. I was particularly disappointed when I had them at Carnevino in Vegas. A great restaurant, incredibly bland sweetbreads.

The ones I love are smoked. I don't see this done much anywhere else. They're often sautéed, or roasted, and they lack that depth of flavour smoking gives.

Naturally, I had to try to make my own.

I took a shot and tweeted @GrantVanGameren for tips on how to make them amazing. He replied with some helpful tips, all in 140 characters.  I got a little giddy.

Astoundingly, they didn't turn out as a complete mess, despite being previously frozen, and sitting thawed in the fridge for two days.

It's a bit of an involved process, something I didn't know before deciding to make them. Nothing difficult, just lengthy.

First I soaked them in cold water in the fridge for 24 hours, changing the water once (should have been more, but I forgot). This is necessary to draw out blood and other unpalatable bits aparently.

Then I blanched them for a few minutes in chicken stock. Laziness too over here again and I used a cube to make the stock instead of thawing out some of the 15L of real stock in my freezer.

So far, stellar start.

After blanching,  you have to remove the membrane. This was fairly easy at this point. I just used my hands, as tools could result in losing precious meat.

Then the pressing. The sweetbreads were put on a paper towel on a baking sheet, then another towel was put on top, and another baking sheet pressed down with cast iron pan.  This setup sat in my fridge for another 20 hours.

It was Wednesday now, I had bought them to make on Saturday. Whoops.

At this point, it was finally time to finish them off.

Out came the stovetop smoker. It was suggested to me to use light, cold smoke, but I lack the ability to cold smoke in my condo. So to compensate, I didn't cook them all the way through when I blanched (when are you supposed to cook something entirely in a blanching anyway? Isn't that just boiling at that point?). I used 2/3 apple wood and and 1/3 oak, cut up the sweetbreads, and hot smoked them for 15 minutes. Off the heat they came, and I tested one. A bit offaly still, but cooked through with some smoke flavour. I left the lid closed off the heat to get some more smoke in 'em.

While that was going on, I mixed some flour, corn starch, salt, pepper, smoked paprika and a spice blend (Pensey's Northwoods Fire) (1 cup : 1 tsp each) in a bowl. In another bowl went a cup of buttermilk, an egg, and 1/2 a cup of water.

Then I decided on a sauce. Mayo, smoked paprika, chili powder, chipotle chili powder,  cayenne pepper, salt, garlic powder, coriander seed, orange peel powder, a dash of hot sauce, and a squeeze of lime. Tasty southwesterny sauce.

In a cast iron pan I heated about 1/2" of peanut oil to 350 F-ish.

I took out the smoked sweetbreads, ran them through the buttermilk wash, then a quick dredge in the flour, and into the oil 3 or 4 at a time. Since they were already cooked, the goal here was just to get a golden fry on them. So maybe a minute total, turned halfway through.

After a couple minutes to cool on a rack, it was the moment of truth.

They were damned tasty. The texture was excellent, there was no offal taste, and I was happy. The only complaint would be the smoke was bit too strong. Next time, no oak.  All apple, or maybe some maple. I'll probably also avoid letting them continue to smoke after they come off the heat.  Then they'll be awesome.

Sports Report

Jays = 5th place in the AL East, .506, probably 3rd in your division, 4 back of the wild card.

2nd in home runs
5th in RBIs
3rd in runs
17th in batting average... there's a problem. Although 7th in OPS

3 of our 5 starters are injured. Within a 2-week span. 2 of our past starters have been out the whole season so far, so there goes depth. AA pitchers have been rushed up to the bigs.

Our closer? Sucked and is injured. Luckily Janssen has stepped into that role easily and incredibly.

The pressure on the remaining two starters is looking like it may be too much for them. For young Alvarez this isn't a surprise, but Romero should be better than that.

What more can I say? If we don't get some healthy pitching up front, call this season done by August.

Maybe Hutchinson and Morrow are back by then.  Drabek and Litsch are gone for the season. McGowan? Who knows. In Anthopoulos we trust.

At least the games have been largely entertaining.


But the Leafs... oh boy. My Leafs.

Here's the thing - a Nash, or Parise, or Jagr wouldn't help this team. They're not what they need. Also, they do nothing to make the team attractive to other players. We need a centre. Is there one? Not really. If there was, we don't have much to offer for one. Getting Van Riemsdyk is nice, especially at the cost of Schenn. But he's not fixing anything.

We need goaltending. Maybe Reimer comes back healthy and confident. Maybe Scrivens is ready for the bigs. Maybe nobody gets clocked in the head 8 games in and loses their season. That's a lot of maybes.

Luongo. I don't give a rat's ass if he wants to come here. That's the sort of player the team needs - a proven goalie is a sign to other players that Toronto is serious. That they have someone who can win and steal games for them. That they'll at least make the playoffs. It hides defensive deficiencies. He gives the forwards more freedom. He attracts interest. He's not going to win the Cup on his own, but if the Blue and White see more than 82 games, he'll be a hero to the city.

Will he end up here? I doubt it. Gardiner isn't going anywhere, and that's who everyone wants. If Burke can fool Vancouver into taking a Kadri, or some draft picks, or Komisarek, or some other combination of "potential" and crap, then it's a steal. Of course, Luuuuu has to give up on living in Florida for a few more years for that to happen.

Of course, he Bobby does go the Panthers, Theodore wouldn't look too bad in a platoon with Reimer. Not ideal, but at least proven.

No... my prediction for who the Leafs get? Jason Arnott. He's the typical Leafs free agent grab.

Recognizable name, past his prime, and will get paid more for longer by the Leafs than elsewhere (my guess, $4 mil over 2 seasons), and will do very little to help the team on the whole. Will be brought in as a "leader" and role player. But some people will foolishly think he's a 1st line centre. That or Langkow, but he lacks the cachet and probably won't take the pay hit.

What hurts the most is watching our conference get better while we stand mostly still. The piecemeal approach being employed - a winger here, a 3rd line centre there... that's great when you have core players in all your zones. We have wingers, some decent d-men, a second-line centre, and $12.5 million in cap space.

Hopefully we also have a GM with a trick or two up his sleeve... or a rabbit's foot.

Another Poker Tournament?

Shocked! Shocked am I that there is another organized gathering of poker bloggers online for some virtual chip tossing.

Such degeneracy!

Face Up Gaming, tomorrow, 3pm EDT, Bloggers 2, pw: battle2

I shall attempt to remember to sign up myself, and maybe even play for 30 minutes before I have to rush off. More dead chippies!

See, I have some friends who went got hitched (the fools!).  In celebration of this happy occasion, we'll be shooting them with Nerf guns in a city park near major government offices.  Think live-action FPS, with ammo caches and trees and possibly cops. Also, it's Canada Day weekend, and Pride weekend, so I'm sure there will be no other activities occurring in major city parks that could interfere with these plans.

Should be fun. It's also an hour after the tourney begins, but luckily only a 5 minute walk from my place.

But you, yes YOU, who are NOT  shooting your friends with foam darts and suction cups, should totally play free poker vs lots of friendly folks and Waffles.

One More

I could use a cottage...

The Best Camera...

... is the one you have with you.

A familiar photography adage, often brought up when people are fighting over whether their Canon or Nikon is better than your Nikon or Canon or phone. Funny thing about adages is that they tend to be true.

After my latest course wrapped up, I let my DSLR sit. Life was busy, the weather was erratic, and I was a bit photographically burnt out. I picked it back up for my trip to Montreal, and those pics will get processed and up somewhere eventually.

That's not to say opportunities for a picture didn't pop up though, and my iPhone is pretty much always in my pocket. So it became my default camera.  It's noisy, low-res, not particularly sharp, and in general a technically mediocre camera, but it was what I had with me. With a little in-camera futzing and tinkering, and about 4 different camera apps, some decent results could be turned out.

I figure I'll dump them here, in no particular order.



























As always, they can be embiggened by clicking.

Up a Political Level

Tiny bit about the beauty of political nannyism from a Provincial level.

A while back, our Provincial government mandated that only healthy food be served in school cafeterias. No more fried crap and other unhealthy options that teenagers devour. Why? Because teens are morons who don't know better obviously. I'd kill for my teenage metabolism.

Seriously, large double Big Mac combo with a double Big Mac on the side with no weight gain. Man, I miss those days. Seems like only 30 lbs ago...

Anyway, since teenagers aren't generally held captive in their schools at lunch time around here, they all went across the road to their local malls and plazas to spend their money at the fast food establishments there instead of in the caf. Oh, yah, because they also pay for their meals.

Result? A few dozen school cafeterias are being shut down in the latest round of school board cuts because they've become money-losers after they couldn't sell cheap crap anymore.

Which means that the healthy option provided by those cafeterias is now gone, leaving... the same (or worse) crap food that they kids had before, except now the money goes to businesses instead of the schools.

Bravo.

City Swing

I had a fear when Rob Ford was elected as our mayor. The fear was that such a hard-right leaning mayor, who also happens to be an idiot, would result in a hard-left backlash come the next election. Toronto doesn't need a fiscally irresponsible hippie throwing money at every project and idea any more than it needs a mayor who doesn't understand that income is required to run a city.

Last week, the Mayor got his vote to cancel a 5-cent plastic bag fee to Council. The fee was instituted by the previous Mayor and has been incredibly successful in reducing the number of plastic bags being produced and sent to landfills. Some people are annoyed by it, but if you live here, it's not that difficult to get a few reusable bags or pay a nickel or two every once in a while.

To the surprise of many, the repeal of the fee passed. I had figured it would fail, but a motion to better direct these fees would come forward.

Instead, the fee was removed, and immediately afterwards, Council voted to ban plastic bags by next January. This was little more than big "fuck you" to Ford.

And it was a mistake.

I'm not against a plastic bag ban. I am against one that is done as a knee-jerk reaction with no planning, consultation, or plan. Are produce bags banned? Bulk food bags? What replaces the plastic bags? Do I have to buy a reusable bag every time I forget one? Or will paper be available? (Toronto has never really had the "paper or plastic?" option while I've been alive)

The LCBO (liquor store) dropped plastic bags a few years back, and many wept. They had the best plastic bags, those thick fuckers that could hold a ton of stuff and barely stretch, let alone break. They switched to paper only, except... not paper with handles. A big booze shopping trip now results in awkward balancing of bags if you don't bring your own or take a box. It's completely impractical if you want to pick up a couple bottles in the middle of shopping. If grocery stores switch to these type of bags, it could have a serious effect on those of us who walk to the store.

In the grand scheme of things, this is admittedly minor, if inconvenient. It certainly seems that the environmental benefit will be net positive, and people can adapt easily enough. Where my concern lies is that Council so easily passed this. They were annoyed with the Mayor and another of his stupid crusades, and they reacted by essentially saying "sure, here's what you want... and then something worse!" That's just poor governing. I want Council to be a voice of reason and a controlling element versus a terrible leader, not a power-mad organization who ignore what's best for what's most dramatic.

Welcome Back BBT

Well, the indomitable Sir Al Can't Hang has managed to convince a site to let us silly poker bloggers toss some fake chips around again!

Details are at his site, so I imagine anyone reading this has already read that, but that don't mean I can't point you in that direction.

The only issue for me is that it's this Saturday. I will be kicking back with a beer in hand on a gorgeous deck overlooking a beautiful lake in scenic Quebec cottage country at that time. Or I'll be in a hot tub. There's the small possibility I'll be prepping some German Potato Salad or Strawberry-Rhubarb Galettes at the time too, but those will more likely come later.

Point being, I won't be within easy access of a computer. But if I can get this going in some way, I'll be there to play terrible, terrible poker.

Because a cruise wouldn't suck.

A Couple More Steps

Saturday. All finished Saturday.

That's the promise. Although if a few small things need to be done on some later date, I won't complain.

More kitchen talk of course. I'm excited, deal with it.

Back splash is up and grouted. Counter tops are down and sealed. Dishwasher awaits installation, and the range needs to be pushed back into place. Hell, the fact I can use ice from my ice maker is cause for celebration.

Naturally, I head out of town for an extended weekend just days after this is finished. So I guess I'll put off major food shopping until I return. Although the deep fryer will be back out soon enough.

But it looks amazing and once everything is in place, I'll know how well it works. Do I have enough counter space (I sacrificed some to fridge, sink, and pantry space)? Will I be able to grab that thing I forgot to grab before I started cooking? Where the hell are the measuring cups again? Why would I put the ancho chili powder on the top shelf behind the Szechuan peppercorns? WHERE THE HELL ARE THE OVEN MITTS?

These, and other questions will be answered soon enough.

Which reminds me that I need to pick up a whole new selection of cleaning products. Ceramic glass? Stainless steel cream? You know, if you get enough fingerprints on something, they don't look like fingerprints any more...

Four Ovens

Four is the count. The count is four. Ovens. In my kitchen.

There's the big boy in the middle of the room - dual oven goodness like you see all over the place now. Giant main convection oven that will do most of the heavy lifting, and drawer oven below, suitable for flatter things like pies or casseroles or cookies.

That's two.

Above that is the microwave. Which sneakily doubles as a second convection oven (it also triples as a fan and quadruples as a light, but that's boring). So three ovens in one vertical section of kitchen.

Then the toaster oven. Saviour of many a Thanksgiving and Christmas. It will mostly be used for toast, but come those holidays of gluttonous gastronomy, I'm sure it will find itself on the "bake" setting.

Four ovens. Not so ridiculous seeming now.

The kitchen nears completion. It wants for a proper counter top, back splash, dishwasher, sink and faucets, and finishing touches, but it definitely can't be mistaken for anything other than a kitchen now. So much so that I cooked a couple meals over the weekend for the first time in weeks.

Herbed pork chops on Saturday, Serrano-wrapped chicken stuffed with feta, red pepper and onion on Sunday.

I'm a bit out of practice. The chops were overcooked to the point of being dry. Part of that may be in the getting used to convection cooking, most of it's from just not trusting my instincts. I'll figure it out, along with the induction stove.

The place will look gorgeous when it's all done. I keep walking in there and smiling. There are a few cosmetic issues I'm having, but I'll hold off any final judgment until the silicone is dry and the trim is painted.  I've been promised that will be by Friday.  Yes, I'll hold off the ranting until after then.

Oh, and there will be pictures of course.

It's The Cup

At no point before the playoffs would I have believed anyone had I been told the LA Kings and Phoenix Coyotes would be fighting for the Western conference finals. Rangers and Devils in the East? That's more believable.

But the Kings? The Coyotes? Amazing. I have to say, LA has impressed me. A whole team effort, tons of scoring, shut-down defence and of course, amazing goaltending. In short, what it takes.

As a Leafs fan, I have an historic reason to not like the Kings. It's hard to overcome, as it was the closest we've come to the finals in my lifetime. But these aren't those Kings. These aren't the Melrose-coached, Gretzky-led Kings of the early 90's. I'll be damned if I'm not finding myself cheering for these guys.

And for the league, I'm kinda cheering for a Rangers-Kings cup.  New York vs Los Angeles? That strikes me as huge. That strikes me as coastal rivalries. Hollywood vs Broadway. I'm hoping it happens. I'm hoping it goes to triple overtime in game seven.

I'm hoping for good hockey.

Gorillas in the Park

In my (slowly moving) efforts to work through my tens of thousands of photos, I have finally finished processing images from my Disney/Universal trip from September of 2010.  Sadly, I'm not working in chronological order, so this is no indication of where I am.  Still, 1600 images whittled to 350 keepers ain't too shabby.

My favourites from the batch are of the Gorillas in Disneys Animal Kingdom. I find primates fascinating, as I'm sure many humans do. How anyone can see apes and think "naw, we're not related" is beyond me.

As is often the case, I suggest checking out the larger versions.

Pulpy Braaaains

As I mentioned somewhere here, I opted to go with zombies as my final assignment for the latest photography class.  The original plan was zombigami and papercraft dwellings. This hit a small bump when I realized origami zombies required far more work than I had time for.  Also, the detail folding and my stubby fingers were not a good mix.

So I opted for papercraft everything. Lucky for me, I have a friend who, for some odd reason, was willing to help by cutting out the dozens of paper parts for everything. This made my life immeasurably easier.

After cutting and folding and gluing enough for a decent horde, I threw together a scene, some lighting and shot away.  Upon importing everything to my computer, I realized what I thought had looked moody now looked underexposed and murky.  With little time, I opted to see what some post-processing could do.  Some fiddling and staring at shot after shot of paper zombies and paper houses got me thinking of the campy horror films... and Thunderbirds.  Now I envisioned the scratchy, cheap look à la Monster Chiller Horror Theatre, and set to work to age everything. Some adjustments, scratches, and graininess later, I was happy with the results.

Play Ball!

Because it has to be said: Leafs can still achieve 3rd worst in the league! C'mon! You can do it!

Okay, Jays again.  Their season kicks off in 15 minutes, and they've gone and brought something to this city we haven't had in a while, sports-wise - hope.

The line last night was "If optimism was all it took to win the World Series, you could have the trophy to Toronto right now."

Of course, optimism doesn't actually get anybody out, or score any runs, so it ain't quite enough to cut it.

And as I've said before - the realist in me knows that we probably aren't seeing much October baseball  this season, but I am looking for some surprises and a bit of a fight for 3rd at the very least. A young team with confidence coming out of spring training can mean a strong start. But more importantly, management and coaching and the players have all realized that they still have to play in June, July, August and September.  Depth is a keyword this year. Depth on the roster, depth on the farm, depth to fill holes created by injuries and under-performance.  Talented guys champing at the bit in AAA, and even AA ball, waiting for their shot.

I've got my ticket for Monday's home opener.  I can't wait.

Because I'll be damned, I'm actually legitimately excited about the Jays again.

Trojan

A post that has nothing to do with high school mascots or condoms, and only a little to do with dead civilizations.

Last week I was grabbing a whack of zombie papercraft for my final photography assignment. Somewhere in all that I accidentally downloaded a trojan. Specifically the SMART HDD malware.  This insidious piece of software creates the glorious illusion of a hard drive failure by throwing up a bunch of real-sounding error messages, wiping out your desktop, blanking out your start menu, hiding entire drives and making them read-only, preventing anti-malware software from running, and restarting your machine.

Oh, and then it throws up a believable Microsoft-like taskbar bubble that warns you of problems, and launches a legit-looking analytics and recovery program.

It had me fooled for a second.

Except a physical scan of 120GB of space isn't that fast.

And the "failed" drive is a solid-state drive, which wouldn't be subject to typical drive failures. Especially not as epic as was being put forth.

And my data drive is a mirrored RAID, so I know I wouldn't lose everything.

And my Windows is set up to display hidden files, so I could still see them, except they were all faded-like.

And the Intel drive monitor was still running and everything was green.

And after it "scans" it informs you that you only have the trial version of this software you've never seen before and you can upgrade to the full one that fixes things.

In short... no way it was actually a drive failure.

So the search began to figure out how to get this piece of crap off my machine. Luckily, I have a Macbook and phone nearby that both give me access to the Interwebs.

Solutions were long and complicated... do this, then this, run a sub-user cmd prompt, get this program... cripes.

So fuck that. I reset, restarted in Safe Mode, disabled the program startup in the registry (it's a series of random letters), and restarted normally. No more annoying "failed drive!" popups. Run a couple anti-malware programs and remove this crap.

Except my desktop and start menu were still blank, and all my files still hidden and read-only.

Hey wait... system restore is still on.  2 days prior image returned... everything looks normal. Files still marked as hidden and read-only. Damn.

Mass attribute change, knowing it might cause a few minor problems, but I could live with that.

But there are still lingering problems. Thunderbird keeps redownloading mail I've already grabbed. Every 5 minutes.  Some games don't work because Securerom got fucked (there's irony in there somewhere).  So now comes the fun task of reinstalling crap that don't work and hoping that things like config files and saved games are kept.

I don't even know how it was delivered. Since all I was grabbing was PDFs and JPEGs.

Stupid fucking trojan.

Fried Chicken

I can't take any credit for this one, but I made some fried chicken over the weekend... and it was AMAZING.

Recipe can be found over at Bon Appétit. I bought this issue because of the giant picture of a fried chicken leg on the cover and the bold claim of the best fried chicken ever.

A few notes:

1.- Make sure you use kosher salt, regular salt will make it too salty according to the comments.
2.- I substituted half the paprika with smoked paprika, because smoked paprika is awesome.
3.- Use cast iron pan with high sides. I imagine most complaints of splattering are from low-side pans. Remember, hot oil splatters, and Archimedes figured out a few thousand years ago that putting stuff in liquid makes the liquid go higher.
4.- I found the chicken took a couple extra minutes to cook through than claimed.
5.- Thermometers can never be overrated. I had a deep fry thermometer in the pan, but took it out because it wasn't getting an accurate reading. That's why I had my Thermapen out as well, which I used to check oil temp and meat temp for doneness.
6.- I used a full bottle (just under a litre/around a quart) of peanut oil in a 12-14" skillet

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

A side-effect of knowing your kitchen is going to be out of commission for a few weeks is that the drive to use it increases.

This past weekend saw some excellent meals - amazingly simple and delicious pork chops from Julia Child (the secret is butter), tasty potatoes, stuffed chicken thighs, and waffles from Robuchon (these were not all in one meal).

But the unseasonable heat from last week (which I am thrilled has broken) led to some cooler options as well.

Among those was peanut butter ice cream.

A nearby restaurant has some as part of a rather good dessert of chocolate ganache, caramelized banana, and the ice cream.  The ice cream is the best part, although caramelized bananas are always tasty.

Now, knowing a bit about making ice cream, and having settled on a reliable and delicious base recipe, I knew this was something I could make at home with relative ease.

Note: This could destroy any diet plans you have.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Equipment
Ice Cream Maker
Wooden spoon
Whisk
2 qt pot
2 big mixing bowls
1 medium mixing bowl (that fits inside one of the big ones)
Ladle
Strainer
Silicon/rubber spatula for scraping down sides
Ice
Water

Ingredients
2 cups whipping/heavy cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup + 1 heaping tablespoon peanut butter

Prepare an ice bath - half fill one of the big bowls with water, and dump a whack of ice cubes in it. If you want, you can also add salt, which speeds up the release of the cold.

Combine the cream, milk, sugar, and salt in the pot.  Heat over medium heat, stirring regularly, until just scalded (small bubbles for along the side) - or 175F if you're being precise (I am). Remove from heat.

Whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl until creamy and thickening. 1-2 minutes by hand, or use an electric beater.

SLOWLY ladle about half the hot cream mixture into the eggs, WHISKING THE WHOLE TIME.  If you put the cream in too quickly, or aren't stirring the eggs, you can end up cooking and scrambling the yolks, which makes for breakfast, not ice cream.

Add the egg-cream mixture back into the pot, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.  Cook until thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. The traditional method is to run your finger through the coating on the back of the spoon, and if the line holds, it's good. 185F is the max temp it should be.

STRAIN the mixture into a clean bowl and place the bowl into the ice bath, careful not to let the water into the mixture.  Stir occasionally until the mixture is cold.  You may need to add more ice to the bath, you may not.

Remove from the ice bath.

Combine about 1 cup of the mixture with the peanut butter and stir/whisk until combined. Add the peanut butter mixture back to the rest and stir until combined.

Pour the whole thing in your ice cream maker according to its instructions.  When it's done, transfer to a container and freeze for 3 hours to harden.  Or just eat it soft.

Enjoy!

Bits

Leafs still suck, our Mayor and his lapdogs are still idiots, and I still have no idea what my final photography project will be.

Leafs - 8-0?? 8-0?????? WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Yah, it's Boston. Yah, they own us. Still 8-0?? You can't throw the whole season in ONE game guys! You have to lose them one at a time! Damned Leafs can't even lose right.

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OK Blue Jays!

Brett Lawrie's spring training numbers? 9 games, 23 AB, 5 runs, 14 hits, 6 doubles, 1 triple, 8 RBI, 1 walk, 1 strike out, 5 stolen bases, .609 avg, .625 OBP, .957 SLG!

Out with a groin strain.  Pulled himself from the game. All indications are he's a full-throttle player but a smart kid. Has superstar written all over him.

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Hey, let's say you really tied yourself to a failing plan for subways, but your council has all the evidence that supports light rail transit instead, and the citizens of your city are slowly swinging that way because they have brains and can see the evidence.

Do you

A) Provide feasible counter-evidence supporting subways as a better long-term solution, along with at least a bare-bones plan for funding the subway?

B) Enter into an intelligent debate in an attempt to find a workable compromise between the plans.

C) Call the latest commissioned report "hogwash", without any evidence, because it 100% supports LRT development as the best option even when money isn't taken into account. Then have one of your lackey councillors hand out pictures of LRT crashes to the opposition, including pictures of a couple that died in one, considering that some sort of evidence that subways are better.

If you said C, then you may be qualified to be Mayor of Toronto! Actually, no, you aren't qualified, you're an idiot who might get elected by people who were too lazy to spend 5 seconds looking beyond your obviously empty promises.

Remember kids - things crash! You know what crashes more? Cars! Also bikes. And planes. And people running, or walking but not looking where they're going.  Oh, and subways sometimes. Devastatingly so.

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Final project is due in a couple weeks for the latest photography class. Subject - whatever the hell I want.  Just make it look purdy.

Except I have no idea what I want to do.  Poker night last semester didn't work as I wanted. So I'm hesitant to set up a whole scene again.

My latest thought was origami.  I have a rather kick-ass Zombiegami book I got for Christmas, with coloured papers and complex designs.  My first attempt from it half worked out, but if I actually started folding when not watching TV, I imagine I could get a nice little paper zombie apocalypse going... a couple set pieces and it could be something interesting.

Yah, I'm liking that more all the time. It's good to type things out.