Les Bonnes Choses

I received notification today of my departmental defense. I don't know what proportion of readers are familiar with postgraduate academics (yes, I realize it is a bit of a funny overstatement to describe you as being part of my 'readership', as if I'm in syndication or something) so let me just say that our departmental defense is basically a dry-run where they make sure that you're not going to embarrass yourself during the senate defense. This is important because if you fail your senate defense, that's it. You're done. Hope you enjoyed wasting the last 6 years of your life. My defense date will be the afternoon of September 25th, one week after my 34th birthday.

There's a reunion for my high school graduating class on the previous weekend. I'm still sitting on the fence about attending. I watched the deadline fly by, but, because of ticket sales, it was apparently a 'soft' deadline. So just when I thought my fence-mounted perch would have to come down, I find myself still trying to come up with reasons to go. On the cons side, the people with whom I would most likely spend time talking with are those that I could easily have in my kitchen for a game of Settlers of Catan, forgoing the $51 hors d'oeuvres and awkward explanations of what the hell I'm doing.

Yes, I'm still in school. No, it's not because I'm scattered. I mean, yes, I am scattered, but that's not why. And no, forget I even mentioned psychology. I don't care about your relationship problems. I'm more into neuroscience - brains and stuff. The only problem you could possibly have that would interest me would be if a steel rod shot through your head — and even then, it would be more of an academic curiosity than a concern.

Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that one of my major rant topics concerns urban sprawl. One of the outcomes of urban sprawl is that you have to have a car to get anywhere, as retailers move into those bleak parking lot malls anchored by a big-box store. Even if distance isn't a factor, sprawling cities are designed around moving cars around (London doesn't even do a particularly good job at that), so eventually, you're going to hit a major thoroughfare. Now, London is maintaining a ridiculous fantasy about being green, and healthy. If you go to the City of London map and display bicycle routes, you might get the impression that you can hop on your bike and go from anywhere to anywhere in the city with ease (pedaling effort aside). I believe the appropriate word to use here is "fraud".

Most of the "routes" on this map are actually just relatively quiet streets, relative being the key word. Where they exist, the dedicated bike paths are lovely, taking you for a scenic ride along the Thames. However, what they have labeled as Bike Road Routes (signed or otherwise) should be removed from the map until they meet some minimum safety standard - a painted lane marker would be nice, as would the repair of the potholes and cracking asphalt that I routinely have to avoid. A couple of weeks ago, while cycling along a section of Huron that is marked as a bicycle path, I hit a pothole, jarring my saddlebag off the back of my bike, and narrowly avoided having it get run over by the SUV that was coming up behind me. I might also mention that my laptop was in my saddlebag. Given that the signs might give the impression that the routes are safe for cycling, I think there's a lawsuit just waiting to happen.

I no longer remember why the hell I bring this up now, other than perhaps that it's tangentially related to my possible second attempt this week to get my M1 motorcycle license - my first attempt found me lacking a key piece of identification. Apparently an Ontario driver's license is insufficient ID when applying for an Ontario driver's license. Go figure.

Ken is back from his vacation, and has sent back his revisions to my dissertation. As I expected, it's a little bit on the short side, but in a way that will allow me to expand on some points, rather than in a way that requires me to address a glaring omission. So I went ahead and notified Val of my intention to defend in September. That's right, baby, after 15 years of post-secondary education (less 18 months between 1997 and 1999 when I was working for Nelvana, then ThinkTank, then Polar), I am in the home stretch for my doctorate. I'll save the acknowledgments for later. On the whole, there's not as much red as I expected, so I feel emboldened -- so much so, that while Rebecca is away this weekend, I may just go down to the Ministry of Transportation and get my M1.

Speaking of -- ah hell, nevermind. I can't come up with a segue from Motorcycle licenses into tomato plants. Anyways, I had been meaning to blog about this little triumph of nature ever since I discovered it, but I felt the entry needed an accompanying photo. I still don't have the photo, so hold on just a second while I go out to the side of my house and take one...






Is that not crazy? A tomato plant randomly started growing beside the compost bin at the side of the house. As you can see from the second photo, they seem to be growing pretty damn well for plants that haven't been tended at all. You may not be able to judge the size of the fruits, so you'll just have to take my word for it that they're just a bit smaller than fist-sized. I'm just waiting for the things to ripen, then BAM! It's sammich time! Too bad bacon and lettuce plants didn't spontaneously grow alongside the tomatoes.

A couple of weeks ago my laptop battery went south. I wonder whether it might be the wiring in my parent's house, because that's where I was when the battery on my last laptop went out too. Regardless, my laptop was telling me that the battery was malfunctioning and needed replacement. I went to the Lenovo website and ordered a new one to find that it would be 2 - 3 weeks before the they even shipped it. That was a week ago. In the meantime, I checked on ebay to find that one can find genuine Lenovo batteries, as well as generic knockoffs (both produced in China, possibly even by the same manufacturers). I ordered a new knockoff battery from a Toronto-based company two days ago, and it just arrived today. The battery is charging even now, the only catch being that there is a caution icon that displays beside the battery status indicator that warns that I'm not using a genuine Lenovo battery, and might not meet Lenovo's safety and quality standards. But then again, it might. For 50% off, I'll risk it.

This morning, Jude found one of Rebecca's decorative dolls, and brought it to Kesswick so that Kesswick could make the doll walk around. Please bear in mind that Kesswick is Jude's teddy bear.

It's turtles all the way down.

Jude is spending much more time interacting with his daddy. We can often be found playing with his die-cast cars from the Pixar movie of the same name, which is what happened tonight. He's a creative little guy. For example, rather than play directly with me, he wanted to play cars with Kesswick, his stuffed bear, who was, of course, animated by me during the following scene:

Jude: Crash!
Kesswick: [rolls the car back]
Jude: [stands] *thhhppb*
Me: Jude, did you toot?
Jude: Kekkik
Me: Kesswick tooted?
Jude: Yep
Kesswick: [looks on, mortified at the accusation]

Of course during all this Kesswick didn't defend himself, partly out of loyalty to his buddy Jude, but mostly I think because he's a stuffed toy. And I wonder whether that might be why Jude blamed the bear. It'll only be a matter of time before he takes plausibility into account and starts blaming his aunt Pretty.

In response to the avalanche of interest I have received regarding my drained yogurt experiment, I feel I must follow up. I have also abandoned my dissertation and have begun work on my first book, which will be part travelogue and part cookbook, called The Princess Dairies - I plan on touring and developing yogurt recipes inspired by famous European castles.

How did the drained yogurt fare as a spread? I sacrificed about a tablespoon of the yogurt from my 'tzatziki stock', mashed in some coarsely chopped strawberries and some sugar, and spread it on a piece of toast. It had a bit of a tangy zing, owing to the fact that yogurt is a bit more acidic than cream cheese, but I didn't mind. I thought it tasted pretty good and would try it again. But first, I have to make the tzatziki. This is the recipe I will be using, which I cribbed from elsewhere on the internet:

* 3 cups regular plain yogurt, drained as described in my previous entry
* juice of one lemon
* 1 garlic clove, chopped
* 2 medium cucumbers, seeded and diced
* 1 tbsp kosher salt for salting cucumbers
* 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh dill
* Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Peel cucumbers, then cut in half lengthwise and take a small spoon and scrape out seeds. Discard seeds. (If you use the small seedless or European cucumbers with few seeds, you can skip this step.) Dice cucumbers, then put in a colander, sprinkle on 1 tbsp salt and let stand for 30 minutes to draw out water. Drain well and wipe dry with paper towel.

In food processor with steel blade, add cucumbers, garlic, lemon juice, dill, and a few grinds of black pepper. Process until well blended, then stir this mixture into the yogurt. Taste before adding any extra salt, then salt if needed. Place in refrigerator for at least two hours before serving so flavors can blend.

Every now and again, I like to grace my readers — both of them — with a helpful tip, because I feel it is important for everyone to live as blissfully as do I. I presently have about 500 ml of plain yogurt draining in a cheesecloth-lined colander in the refrigerator in preparation to make some tzatziki. As it sits in the colander overnight, all the whey drains out of the yogurt, so that it has become about the consistency of cream cheese. Because it is easy to find yogurt in all denominations of fat content, one might be able to use it as a spread in place of cream cheese if one would like to have finer control over their fat intake (also note that, as the fat content of dairy decreases, its proportion of protein increases).

I still plan on making tzatziki, so I won't be able to try this any time before my next trip to the grocery store, but I think that 1 container of drained yogurt either coarsely blended with strawberries and sugar, or else with minced garlic and dill might make for a good bagel spread. If I get around to trying this, I'll have to remember to post an update with my findings. If either of my readers beats me to it, reply with a comment to let me know how it turned out. Remember to save the cheesecloth, as it can be washed and reused.

When this gets imported into facebook, I'm going to tag a bunch of people that I think might be interested in trying this out. It's also part of my master plan to triple my readership!

I have a few minutes to kill before I have to leave with Jude for church. Rather than exhaust the online news outlets, I decided to use the Next Blog link at the top of my blogger page, which jumps to a random blog, which has a Next Blog link of its own. I had hoped to randomly stumble upon something of interest, but instead found myself sucked into a vortex of crap - a flushing toilet, if you will. I came across the following "blog":
http://spro-bro.blogspot.com/
Go ahead. Try it yourself. I have no idea who these pudgy kids are, but once I hit this page, I hit a disturbingly large number of very similar pages. Statistical anomaly? Or a harbinger of things to come? Only time will tell.

I wasn't watching, but according to Erin and Carolyn, Jude can breakdance.

Also, Wonder Woman is on the telee.

We now resume our regularly scheduled programming.