I haven’t been very reflective lately and I haven’t been very political either. I have watched the things going on in both the US and Canada with a distant eye. It is easy to become jaded with everything that I read. All I see are negative people commenting anonymously on the internet and it makes me wonder how much of the population these losers make up. If they are nutty conservatives or wacky liberals they all are so far entrenched in their views that that cannot even begin to discuss anything. They claim they want a discussion but only on their own terms and if you end up agreeing with them and don’t try and make a point that they don’t like. I have seen it personally and there is no point even talking to them. It’s also hard to take anyone seriously when they compare a political leader or a party to “a bunch of Nazis”. When I hear something like that I wish I could take these assholes into the past and show them the showers in Auschwitz.  I think they might take a new appreciation of where they live.

Maybe I am just angry today.

I think I should focus on better things.

Here are better things in life:

The smell of baked bread.

A baby’s laughter.

A hug when you need one and even when you don’t.

Tortilla chips and salsa (like I wouldn’t mention it)

A compliment when you least expect it.

A warm house, a cup of coffee and nowhere to go.

Family, friends and love.

Odd post today. I know.

My post from Friday was quoted on Toronto Mike’s site and it raised a nice conversation about RIM vs Everyone else. A RIM employee got really upset and started to defend the virtue of his employer. Go over and read it if it interests you.   While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I think Ryan (the employee) is too much of a homer to provide an unbiased opinion. He kept telling me that I can’t compare my old Blackberry to a new iPhone and that’s why I prefer my iPhone. After I told him I have a work BlackBerry that I can’t stand (except for BBM) he assumed I must have the wrong one or something else. I admire the guy’s loyalty to his product but I think it represents why the company is suffering. If you can’t see your own flaws you will be doomed to fail. It’s like on any Restaurant makeover show (Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible) where the owners or Chef claim their food is “fantastic” and don’t understand why the expert and the customers all think the food is terrible. The owners claim the food is good and the customers must be wrong. Sometime the menu isn’t that bad but it needs to be updated and reinvented to keep old customers and bring in new ones. The restaurants that realise this make the change and can be successful again. The restaurants that don’t make the change almost always fail.

But enough about that….people love their phones and insulting a Smartphone is almost like making a comment about religion to someone. It can start a winless fight.

I came up with a pasta sauce that I need to work on a little more. I read a few different recipes and then just made my own sauce. It wasn’t a fancy sauce but I think it could work. I just used tomatoes, onions, garlic, salt, pepper and cilantro. Most sauces use basil but I used cilantro to make a bit of a fresher taste. It was also a sweeter offset to the spicy Italian sausage that I used for protein. I am going to attempt to remake this sauce again and make it more Dooku friendly (I also used some olive oil, added mushrooms sautéed in garlic butter and the Italian sausage wasn’t too healthy either). I really should have taken a photo. I think it was good but it may need another spice in there. I also think I could have minced the onion instead of finely chopped it. I don’t have a food processor so all my mincing, cutting and chopping is done by hand. Anyway…I made a few things on Saturday and I ate my face off.

Why did I eat? I made garlic bread (I made the garlic butter myself) and breschetta bread. Both were pretty tasty. I also had tortilla chips and salsa (shocking!) and cherry pie, lemon meringue pie and tiramisu. I also ate some meat tray stuff. I tried the Costco tortilla chips and they were pretty darn good. I don’t know if they are better than Tostitos. They were less salted and lighter. My only issue was that they tasted a little stale. I don’t know why. However, while the Tostitos were better plain, the Costco chips were better with the salsa.  I tried two new types of Salsa but I forgot the name of the one I liked. The one I didn’t was called Green Mountain Gringo. It was a mild salsa and while the ingredients were all natural, they also had an apple cider vinegar in it that made the salsa too sweet. Since it was mild, it didn’t have a kick to it and the sweetness was off putting to me. Oh well. I had a hot salsa that was pretty good. I was happy.

At the end of this evening of gluttony I felt okay and didn’t worry too much about my weight. The next day I was up in pounds but I knew it was temporary. This morning I was only a few pounds over my normal (179.5 this morning) and I still felt pretty healthy. So my diet continues and my cravings are almost all gone. I can look forward to this coming weekend when I will have Pepi’s Pizza, Ninfa’s Salsa (my last jar) and a dessert that I haven’t figured out yet.

I first got a Blackberry about 10 or more years ago. This was when they looked like little pagers and had only two lines of text available to see. They also only did e-mail and weren’t phones or anything else yet. I loved the device. It was very useful for work and I was happy that RIM was from Waterloo. As the time went on, I was able to upgrade to the first phone version where I learned what a PIN message was and started really text messaging with a phone. Again, I loved the product and was thrilled to own one. I eventually left that job and left my phone behind too. I owned a crappy Nokia phone for a few years that could text but that was all. I sort of missed the Blackberry and wanted one again. So when it came time to get a new phone plan, we got Blackberries. I loved BBM and I loved texting on the phone. It was awesome to get e-mails on my device and it was great to communicate with. I saw the iPhone as a crappy product and I hated the touch screen. Nothing was better than my Blackberry!

Then the internet was on the phones. I realised that surfing the internet on my Blackberry was slow and pathetic. I grew tired of it pretty quick and I didn’t even bother. It was weak and sad. I saw a friend with an iPhone viewing YouTube videos and surfing the internet and my Blackberry seemed like that old Nokia flip phone that I gave to the boys to smash in the street. As time went on and I learned about apps and other benefits of the iPhone, I began to hate my Blackberry.

The time came to renew my phone and my wife surprised me and said I should the iPhone. They were offering the 3GS at a great deal since the new iPhone 4 was about to be released. I picked up the iPhone 3GS and never looked back. Within an hour I had the thing configured and I was downloading apps and music and surfing the internet. It was fast and smooth and nothing like the Blackberry. Sure, texting was a little difficult at first but the features of the phone made the Blackberry look like it was from the past. This phone was awesome. I could download videos and keep them on the phone. It took superior pictures and took good video. My son could play on the phone during long drives or just watch a Wallace and Gromit movie or a SpongeBob episode. The phone was and is amazing.

I missed using BBM but I got over it quickly.

My wife loved her Blackberry and thought my fascination with the iPhone was stupid. When I eventually got a deal to replace my 3GS with a iPhone 4, I jumped at the chance and my oldest son took over the 3GS. He dumped his Blackberry like it was diseased as well.

Time went on and Blackberry’s weak internet surfing, sporadic BBMing,  and overall slow operating system made my wife start thinking about the iPhone. She watched as we used ours and could play music and games and videos. We could surf the internet and text quickly. Then she caved. Her Blackberry was slow again and the iPhone came into our house.

She got used to it quickly and now we don’t own a single RIM product. Why should we?

I wish I could support RIM and their devices but something happened where they just lost touch with the average user. Sure, the Blackberry has better security and the business types love it, but that’s not what I use mine for. While I am not an Apple junkie or a RIM hater, I just use what I think is the best product for my lifestyle and the iPhone is it. I am sure I would probably love an Android phone as well but I will stick with the iPhone (and besides, I can’t change phones for a while).

So that’s my RIM story. I used to love it and now I don’t.

I will make one final comparison. If you liked a local restaurant and served great food and the service was great, you would keep going back to that restaurant. However, if the food became a little dull, the service was weak you make question returning. And then a new place opened up that was a little further but the food was better, they gave you more for your money and the service was fantastic. Where would you eat? Keep going to the place that gave sub-par food and service or the new place that wanted your business and made great food?

Oh, and you can invent technology by just promising it will exist. That’s how they’ll get to Mars “quickly”.

Two things came out of a conversation I had with a friend last night. The first one was that I spend so much time discussing good Salsa yet I never mention what tortilla chips are good as well. How could I not mention the chip? The chip is just as important as the salsa. So what do I eat? Right now I have had to settle on Tostitos Restaurant Style chips. Compared to chips found at La Mexican, Ninfa’s or even Lone Star, they are not that great. The real restaurant chips tend to be lighter and have a little less salt. I have tried a few other bagged chips but haven’t found anything spectacular. I have also tried making my own baked version but they came out a little too thick. So I do have a quest to find the perfect chip. I have heard that Costco may have some good tortilla chips, so I will try there next. I am limited on my ability to try these chips since I can really only eat them once a week.

The other thing we discussed was fate and how things can happen for a reason. I think I have written about it before but I will restate it. I truly believe that things happen for a reason and that good can come from almost any situation. I don’t mean that any death or tragedy is a good thing. That’s a little ridiculous. But almost all other life events can be for the better. I lost a job a long time ago and if not for losing that job I would never have tried to go into business for myself (which didn’t work out but I am glad I did it) and through my business it led to many other things and to meet good friends and reconnect with others. I know that all happened because I lost my job. I wouldn’t have been in the places to do those things otherwise. More recently I wrote about applying for two jobs that I didn’t get. One of them I knew I wouldn’t get and I didn’t really want it, but the other one I thought I was meant for. I was devastated when I didn’t get it. It seemed like life was shit and I was stuck in a job that was crushing me. Suddenly another opportunity appeared. It was one that I liked even better than that last one and it was even more suited to my abilities. I got that job and I currently love it. I can look at my being turned down for two jobs as a bad thing or I can look at it as good things. What if I got that first job? Would I be as happy as I am with my current one? The answer is no. Things happened for a reason and I came out better for it.

So if things are not going your way or life seems to be throwing you a curve ball wait and see where it takes you. You never know where you may end up. It could be better for you in the end.

But if it sucks and things get worse, don’t blame me. Blame the government!

But anyway…..

If this Dukan/Dooku diet has taught me anything, it has been that I really enjoy fresh, non-canned foods. I was looking over some pasta recipes last night and the cook book actually suggested using a canned pasta sauce. I was pretty shocked that a recipe book would suggest it. I haven’t looked closer but I am going to assume that the company that makes the canned sauce is the one who financed the book. If that is true, they did it quite surreptitiously.  Their name isn’t on the book. If they didn’t support it, then the person who wrote the book sucks.

But I am still looking at making my own sauces from scratch. I know it takes a lot longer and it will probably result in more than one really bad dish, but I am a little tired of the crazy ingredients I find in a lot of canned food. If I don’t know what something means, I don’t think I should eat it. If Calcium Chloride is a first ingredient, that’s pretty scary. I know it is pretty harmless but if I don’t need to eat it, why eat it?

One of my favourite ingredients listed in a lot of food is “Natural Flavour”. That makes me question what the heck I am eating.

So in my quest to eat healthy and eat well at the same time, I have decided to skip the “on-the-shelf” foods and make most of my foods myself. It means that I will make some bad tasting food (example: I thought cumin as a sole spice on chicken could taste good. Result? It did not. It tasted like feet. Cumin is good, but not alone.) This weekend I plan to make a pasta dish (using store bought pasta…homemade pasta is next) and I will make a sauce from scratch. I may try a few different ones. If they are good, I may post a recipe or a picture. If they are not good, I will say how good the pizza was from Pepi’s.

I think food can be very tasty while being very healthy at the same time. I am hoping that I can come up with some good at home dishes that achieve both of those goals. Let’s see what happens.

It makes me think of the Food Network and the food we see served on all of the shows. Rarely will you see some healthy foods made on Top Chef, Chopped, or whatever show. However, most of the chefs and the people eating the foods are in shape, look healthy and couldn’t possibly eat like that all the time. Is it disingenuous for them to act like they could eat this food all the time? Or would people be bored when someone serves up a boneless skinless chicken breast with a herb seasoning and no oil or butter? Paula Deen has Type 2 diabetes and her food acts likes shes a 14 year-old boy. Clearly the menus she creates has caused a toll on her body and health.

I am not sure if they have some sort of obligation to say, “This food is good tonight but tomorrow it is egg-white omelets and vegetables.”

Maybe I have a good cooking show idea! “Cooking with Count Dooku” or “Dooku Does Dukan” or “Drew Does Dooku, Dude!”

I may be on to something! I may want to refrain from mentioning the Dukan diet. I could get sued or the diet craze could die out or it could be revealed that the diet is not healthy and people are collapsing all over the world. That could hurt my ratings.

Anyway….there have been too many stories about bad vacations to make me want to take a cruise or go to Mexico. They are both things I would like to do but now I am apprehensive and will stick to going to Florida where it seems to be safer but probably isn’t. I think I will just find a Mexican restaurant in Port Charlotte and sit in a rubber raft. That will be like taking a cruise and going to Mexico at the same time. And there will be no danger of getting killed by a drug cartel or sinking. I am a genius.

Today they will announce the Academy Award nominations and I don’t care. I’ve realised that these things are just stupid to care about. I know that the movie, The Artist will get a bunch of nominations and will probably win. I have no desire to see it. It is a silent movie and I just don’t know why I would want to. Sure it may be a neat little gimmick that has a bunch of nostalgia for old timey movies. It may even use the silent aspects of the film in a neat way but I am not excited to go to the theatre to see it. Hell, we are paying for good sound! And in that stupid Empire Extra theatre we are paying to feel we are apparently at a campsite four portages away from life, or we are at a really bad rock concert. But back to the Oscars, I think they are just irrelevant to me now. Look back at what has won the awards vs movies that haven’t and see which ones you still care about.

Here are some movies that won “Best Picture” and I don’t think we see them on TV or in special release very often (if ever):

Chariots of Fire

Out of Africa

Crash

The English Patient

Oliver! (yes it has the exclamation mark)

The Life of Emile Zola

That’s just some of them. When I think that Chariots of Fire won over Raiders of the Lost Ark or that all the movies nominated in 2005 were boring and don’t hold water 6 years later (Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck and Munich).  You may disagree but there were far batter films released in 2005 (Harry Potter, A History of Violence, 40 Year Old Virgin, Batman Begins, Wallace and Gromit, and a few more). I will grant that 2005 also had Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. That was not a good movie.

So bring on the new nominations for a bunch of movies I would never buy on DVD or Blu Ray. Who cares what wins? I will still remember that I laughed a lot during Bridesmaids, Harry Potter was awesome, Drive was overrated, Thor was actually fun, X:Men First Class was better than I hoped, and the Muppets was fun and worth it.

 On the Count Dooku front…..

I think I may have gone off the rails a little this weekend. I am allowed a whopping two bad meals a week and I think I misused the concept a little this weekend. On Friday I took the day off due to a PA Day for the boys. I took them (at their request) to the Mandarin for lunch. I wasn’t a big fan of their choice but they were pretty excited to go so I didn’t fight it. Of course before we left I had a few tortilla chips and Ninfa’s Salsa (and it was so damn good). At the Mandarin I ate from all the sections I could. They were celebrating Chinese New Year and had some special items out. Since the diet began I have been trying new things, so I decided to try everything. For the most part the food was pretty bland. They wasn’t anything that I loved eating but I ate it nonetheless. Sometimes when I have these meals I think the food is worth it and I am glad I ate it. Other times the food wasn’t worth the extra weight I would gain but the company I was with was worth it. This was the company. My boys were happy to be there and they ate well enough. My youngest son even tried sushi and it was worth the price of the meal to see his face. “It that cucumber? I like cucumber. Are those carrots? I like carrots! Is that rice? I like rice too. This should be good.” He thought process worked out well but the taste did not. At least he tried it! His final response, “I can’t get the taste out of my mouth!”

After eating at the Mandarin, I went home and enjoyed some more tortillas and Ninfa’s salsa. But it didn’t end there. I ate a healthy dinner and around 8pm I caved and figured I could eat more tortilla chips and salsa. I was like an addict getting his crack. I finished off the jar of Ninfa’s Green Chile salsa that night. I will say that it was so fucking good that I didn’t care.

On Saturday I stayed true to the diet and ate healthy all day. I didn’t go to the gym but I planned on an extra workout on Sunday.

On Sunday I went to the gym fully expecting to spend two hours. I took a spin class first and everything changed. I don’t know if the class was harder or if I just really pushed myself (I think I pushed myself) but the class killed me. I was a sweat machine and I was exhausted by the end of it. I knew I couldn’t do a BodyPump class afterwards. All I need was a few abdominal exercises and I left. I ate a veggie omelette lunch and prepped a healthy dinner. Around 3pm I treated myself to my second meal of the week. Guess what it was? Another jar of salsa and tortilla chips (again…addict). I ate most of the jar and then put it away. I only put it away to eat some salsa from another jar (an inferior brand but I wanted to compare). I did discover that I can taste the difference between really good salsa and just okay salsa. The tomato paste makes the flavour suffer.

Anyway..I stopped eating the chips and eventually had a healthy dinner. But I lost it afterwards. I wanted a dessert and figured I could have one with me meal so I ate 6 Oreos and 2 Decadent Chocolate Chip cookies. That should have satisfied me but it didn’t. An hour later I snuck two more Oreos and two more chocolate chip cookies. It was the first time in 8 months that my will power caved. And of all things I caved over cookies that I don’t crave nor cared too much for in the past.

So here I am Monday morning and dealing with my first breakdown. My weight wasn’t out of control today (181 lbs) and I imagine I will drop that weight within the next few days. I am supposed to have a bad meal for the week today and Saturday but I may skip todays and only have one on Saturday. I am still not sure. It is Chinese New Year today and I am supposed to have Hakka Chinese at the Ming Room for lunch.  

This diet is always a constant struggle but I know I am still dedicated to it. I will stay on track the rest of the week and I won’t buckle like I did last night again. I have worked too hard to lose this weight. I am damn sure not going to let it come back.

Just before Christmas I wrote about my wife trying to get me some of The Original Ninfa’s on Navigation’s salsa for a present. Unfortunately she wasn’t able to get it. It was a bit of a downer but I appreciated the effort. Well things change pretty quickly. She followed up with an email last weekend and she got a response. Jamie Lock, the manager, replied very quickly and felt terrible that we weren’t able to get the salsa. So what does he do? He sends us 3 (that’s right 3!) jars of the salsa for free. That’s right, I wrote free. He sent these jars all the way from Houston, Texas to Kitchener, Ontario Canada. The best part was that it wasn’t 3 jars of the same salsa but 3 different types. I literally danced around my house when I opened the box. I pranced around with my jars of Ninfa’s Roasted Salsa, Ninfa’s Chipotle Salsa and Ninfa’s Green Chile Salsa.

I am not going to lie about Ninfa’s. I am an unabashed huge fan of their salsa and fajitas. Back in November when I first wrote about them, I declared that they had the best salsa  and fajitas on the planet. Several months later and many fajitas and salsas later, I still declare them to be the best. Why do they have to be 2406 km (1515 miles) away from my house?  That’s a hell of a long drive.I want to try more of their food but I couldn’t help myself and had their fajitas twice.

Now, why do I say they have the best salsa? It is about the ingredients. Grab any salsa off the shelf in the grocery store and compare them to the ingredients found in Ninfa’s Roasted Salsa. These are Ninfa’s: Roasted Fresh Tomatoes, Water, Roasted Fresh Onions, Fresh Green Jalapeños, Naturally Fermented Vinegar, Fresh Cilantro, Sea Salt, Chile De Arbol, and Garlic & Natural Guar Powder. All of the ingredients are fresh and natural. You’ll notice in other salsas they will have Tomato Paste, Xanthan Gum and other chemicals or flavorings. Ninfa’s Salsa is the real deal.

And the nutritional facts about Ninfa’s? Only about 5 calories per 2 tbsp with 0 fat and 0 sugars. What more could you ask for?

As soon as this salsa is done (and I can’t imagine it lasting long) I will find a way to get more. I should order a box or a crate or something. Sure, I can’t eat it everyday or have nachos or fajitas everyday, but I sure can try. There are many things I can mix salsa with!

And for anyone who is going to Houston or is ever in the Houston area, please go to Ninfa’s (www.mamaninfas.com). I guarantee you won’t regret it. I have been twice and both times the food was beyond excellent, the service was superior and the ambience was perfect. I know I sound like some paid shill for the place but I mean what I say. Hell, I live a 24 hour drive away from them. It’s not like they are comping my meals!

Anyway…

I am thankful to my wife for arranging the salsas, I am thankful to Jamie Lock for sending them and I am thankful to Mama Ninfa Laurenzo (God Rest Her Soul) for coming up with the recipe.

If I ever get back to Houston, I am heading to Ninfa’s first. Screw the hotel! I want Ninfas!

My problem is that a few people that I know from work went to her husband’s funeral service yesterday and I am not sure if I should have gone. As bad as it sounds, I think a few people didn’t go for her or her husband. I think they went to be seen by some upper management types. I can’t be sure of their motivations and maybe I shouldn’t question them. They went and showed support and that should be good enough. I shouldn’t judge it but I can’t help it. Maybe it is because I view death a little differently. If I suffered a loss like that, I wouldn’t expect people I barely knew to show up at the funeral. I would hardly expect anyone from my work to come. I honestly don’t think I would care who was there. I wouldn’t be looking for faces in the crowd or a signature in a guest book. I would be mourning the one I loved. I am positive that my friends and family would support in ways that I cannot fathom (nor care to). It wouldn’t be about the people at the funeral. But that is just how I look at it. I have been to enough funerals to see how they can be used a way to say, “Look how close I am to the family! Look what I did for them!!!” I don’t like it. When my Grandmother died someone got a singer to come and perform some weird song that did not mean anything to my Grandmother and it seemed really out of place. They even introduced the singer like she was supposed to have some sort of credibility but I didn’t care. I wanted to hear memories of the woman I just lost and I wanted to feel her presence in the room. I didn’t want someone who didn’t know her sing a song that she didn’t care about.

I didn’t scan the people at the funeral to see who came. It wasn’t about me. I was there to remember my Grandmother and support my mother.

I am not sure what I am trying to say but it didn’t feel right for me to go. Maybe I am trying to justify it. I have no idea. All I know is that I feel terrible for her loss but doubt that I could do anything to ease her pain. Maybe I should have gone to the viewing to offer condolences. That would have been more appropriate.

Elsewhere in the corners of my mind……

I watched that Sweet Genius show the other day. I have to admit that the host wasn’t as bad as I thought he was going to be. He actually said things that were relevant, helpful and without malice. The ads for the show make him look like a complete ass and made me not want to watch the show. But the show is on the Food Network and they have me by the balls. I watched it and liked it and now I want to make desserts that I cannot eat. I am not much of a baker but this show is making me want to be one. I also don’t have a big sweet tooth and haven’t missed sweets too much. However, this show has reminded me of a love I have for pies, pastries and pudding. Now I am craving nachos, Coconut Cream Pie and a hamburger. Yes, in that order.

Elan: “You wanna buy some death sticks?“

Obi-Wan: “You don’t want to sell me death sticks.“

Elan: “I don’t wanna sell you death sticks.“

Obi-Wan: “You want to go home and rethink your life.“

Elan: “I wanna go home and rethink my life.“

It always makes me laugh and it makes me think about smoking. I know that I used to love to smoke but the health risks and everything else associated with smoking far outweighs the little pleasure I got from smoking. I don’t crave it anymore. I don’t want to smoke anymore. When I see the smokers go outside with a variety of methods to either keep themselves warm or dry, I don’t understand it. Although if they were serving Nachos in the rain; I would probably do the same things. But I don’t smoke and I and happy for it. I just hope my kids don’t.

Elsewhere in life……

Here is a news article that may brighten your day a bit. At first I thought this was some sort of fake news item from the Onion or another piece of satire. But no, this is a true life item from Indonesia. Here is the gist….In Indonesia they are having trouble on their commuter trains with people riding on the roof of the trains. This isn’t an issue where there are one or two people on each car but there are dozens, if not more. The officials claim that they have tried appealing to these riders with religious leaders to no avail. They have tried putting barbed wire on the trains but they were just ripped off. They have also tried setting up paint dispersing techniques to cover them in paint but that didn’t work either. They even resorted to using paint ball guns but the riders found a way to disable those as well. The police even tried to arrest them but were pelted with rocks “so they gave up”. So what have they done to prevent this problem? They have suspended rows of grapefruit-sized concrete balls to rake over the top of trains as they pull out of stations, or when they go through rail crossings. That’s right. Their latest attempt to prevent riders on the top of trains is to kill or maim them. I love that this isn’t about the safety of riders but about getting people to buy tickets instead. When I first read the article I thought it was all about the dozens of people a year that are falling off and dying. But no, it is about getting those bastards to pay.

The first run of the concrete ball experiment failed. They had the balls hanging too high and everyone just ducked underneath them. The officials vow to lower them soon. I wonder what they will do when this fails. It sounds like a game show. Now on OLN, “Get to Jakarta!”