Leftovers Part Deux

I was looking at the pictures on my camera's memory card seeing if I had anything for a blog post.  I still have a few things on there I still haven't gotten around to writing about yet.  On a trip back to Cranbrook in summer 2010 I took a walk out behind my parent's house and took my camera with me.

This is the trail that leads from behind the house to the powerline.  Remember how many trees there used to be?   They're gone now!  They did some logging behind the house and around some around the Southstar trails, so everything looks crappy now.  Thanks!  That trail looks totally different with all the trees gone, some parts I don't even recognize.

Lots more smaller trees have grown in on the powerline though.  I'm surprised nobody has cut them all down for Christmas trees yet.

Wild strawberries!  Too bad they are so small.  If you were lost and all you had to eat were wild strawberries you would probably die because you'd expend more energy picking them then what you would get from eating the puny things.  I still ate it, but it gave me a kidney stone.

The little pond and creek are still there.  I was up there this August (2011) and it was dry and there was no water and no strawberries.

It still makes a good spot for dogs to cool off in.

Gross, a bug!  This guy was digging a hole and it looked pretty funny as he was tossing little dirt bits out of his hole.  The still photo doesn't do him justice.

Then back at my parent's I took this picture of the toad that lives under the carport.  I may have used this picture before, but even if I did you can enjoy it again.  He's just that cool.

Follow up

Today I had my doctor's appointment with the urologist to find out what type of kidney stone I had.  When you know what type of stone you have it makes it easier to prevent getting them again.  Turns out my kidney stone was a calcium oxalate stone which is the most common one.  These stones are formed by calcium binding to dietary oxalate and then preventing it from being absorbed by the body.

Even though the stone is made from calcium cutting milk and milk products from your diet won't decrease the chance of getting another stone, in fact drinking milk will decrease the risk of future stones.  It's too much oxalate in the diet that is the main cause.  Foods high in oxalate include rhubarb, spinach, beets, chocolate, nuts, vitamin c tablets, sweet potatoes, leeks, parsley, raspberries, strawberries and tea.  I don't eat half those things and I hate beets, so it's good to know that now have a legitimate medical excuse as to why I can't eat them.  It totally sucks about strawberries because I love them and will eat anything with strawberries in it.  All my yogurt is strawberry flavored, I have two jars of strawberry jam in the fridge as well as a carton of fresh strawberries.  Dammit.  I am actually allowed to eat those foods, but in moderation.   I can't do moderation!!

After that I went shopping and bought myself a Korean beef bowl for lunch from Safeway.  Over in the prepared foods area with the sandwiches and salads they have these new Asian bowls.  There are a couple Vietnamese ones, a couple Japanese ones and the Korean one which is my favorite.  I'm not saying it's delicious, but it's the easiest to keep down and only goes in the microwave for four minutes.

I know I said the Korean one was my favorite, but here is a picture of the teriyaki chicken bowl.  It was one of the things I was planning to write about, but never got around to.  Good thing I kept the picture on my memory card, so now Mike knows what to look for.

Then I went to good old Cash Converters because I have to go there every couple weeks.  The location on Macleod Trail has started taking vinyl, so they have some records.  Most of it is overpriced 80's rock, and after the first few bins I lose interest in looking though all of them.  I did see the original Tron soundtrack, but it was $20.  For a few bucks less I did find a House of Pain 12" single for $4.99.

No fancy picture sleeve, but at least it has the Tommy Boy logo all over it.  It's the On Point single and has four remixes as well as Word is Bond on the b-side.  I totally listened it and it was "same as it ever was".  Peace out my brothers.

Twofer

PayPal and eBay are evil because with just a few button clicks you can be ordering stuff you don't need.  I always seem to be doing that, like I'm trying to fill a void in my life with useless crap.  Good news because that useless crap just got doubled.

I ordered the UK pressing of Modern Action's new LP from No Front Teeth Records.  It's on 10" vinyl and has hand stenciled covers and such.  I ordered one, but received two in the mail!  I checked the postage date and they were posted four days apart, so they must've sent one then forgot they sent it and then sent another one.  Even though they were posted four days apart I still got them on the same day.  It is still nice to get something cool and unexpected once in a while, although next time I'd rather buy a lottery

Laundry Day

Damn laundry, it is so dirty.

Sup.

Oh snap, it's CHUCK NORRIS!!  Wait, how did you get in here?

Here, try this.

Hmmmm...

No freakin' way!

Awesome!  Thanks Chuck, you are the greatest!

If I catch you using Tide I'll snap your neck.  Norris out!

I saw a commercial on TV for this stuff and at first I wasn't sure if it was for real or a joke.  I looked online and found out that it is indeed an actual product, so naturally I HAD TO HAVE IT!  I looked at work, Wal-Mart, and the little Safeway in Westbrook Mall with no luck.  Cody found it, but I don't know where, I think the big Safeway in West Hills had it.  It's Chuck Norris approved because it's guaranteed to get out stubborn blood stains, gunshot residue and the tears of your enemies.  Since it's Chuck Norris approved I'm a little scared to use it because it might be too strong.  I'll wash my clothes in it and they be completely dissolved.

Things I forgot.

Turns out I forgot a couple items off my last blog, so here you go.  Not that they are all the interesting or anything.  First up, I finally got with 2005 and played me some Doom 3.  I picked up the limited edition XBox version for $5 which comes in a metal case and has Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 on the disc as well as some "making of" stuff and extras.  I didn't play the entire game because I'm too lazy to put in the work, but that game is DARK.  You get a flashlight, but you can hold either the flashlight or a gun, but not both at the same time.  I guess you cheat a bit and crank up the brightness/contrast settings.  It does feel a bit dated, but maybe it would be better if I played it more.  I doubt I will.

The second and last thing I forgot was this CD I bought at Inner Sleeve.  I bought it, but not because I liked the music on it, but because it was a 3" CD.  Any small CD like that or weird shaped CD (I have a CD shaped like Darth Vader's head) won't play on a tray loading CD player.  So how do you listen to a 3" CD if you have a tray loading CD player?

You can just use the handy dandy CD adapter that comes with it!  How convenient!  The disc only has three songs on it, but why not just make it a full size 5" CD?  Then you wouldn't even need the adapter or have to worry about losing it or the CD popping out inside the CD player.  They were dumb back in 1989.  I will still hang on to it for novelty's sake.

Not much

Isn't it weird that whenever it gets cold all everyone does is complain about the weather?  Isn't it supposed to be cold as it is the middle of January?  It's winter, what do people expect?  That being said, it is friggin' cold here!  This is probably the first real dose of winter we've gotten this year.  Tuesday it's not actually supposed to warm up, but get colder with a high of -30C.  If we're lucky it will warm up by Saturday.

I haven't been doing much even though I had the entire weekend off.  Usually, I get Saturday off and work Sunday, but somehow lucked into getting both days off and I didn't even ask.  Weirder yet, was I had last weekend off as well.  I will pay for it later because I work both days this weekend. 

On my last trip to Phoenix I saw a flyer about some comic/toy "blowout" on Saturday the 14th, so I went and checked it out.  It was in the Sunnyside/Hillhurst community center and it had free parking, free admission and free hot chocolate.  I actually didn't see any free hot chocolate, but despite that it wasn't all that bad.  It had some cool stuff, but nothing that I really really wanted, but I still managed to spend $25.  I bought Logan the old Marvel comics adaptation of Return of the Jedi as well as the two DVDs for the Clone Wars cartoons.  I bought myself a couple comics and a original trading card set from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  I was eye balling a Stormtrooper bust, but when I turned my back some fat guy grabbed it.  They also had lots of cheap DVDs and Blu-Rays which they must've got from some video store close out.   All the used movies had some video store sticker stuck on the back of the sleeves.  I'm pretty anal about that sort of thing, so I didn't even bother buying any.  I don't care if the sticker is on the DVD case because I put most of my movies into binders to save space, but putting stickers on the sleeves where they won't peel off is a deal breaker.  Not cool!

On Sunday I didn't do much because it snowed and really there was no place I needed/had to go.  I did clear out the bottom shelf  of my cupboard and tossed out an incredibly old box of cereal. 

I saw this cereal at Costco and when I saw it was Cinnabon cereal I freaked because I instantly thought it would be the greatest cereal on Earth.  I was wrong.  I had exactly one bowl of it and it was terrible, so I put it in the back of the cupboard.  It has stayed in the back for a very long time because the expiry date on it was June 2009.  How can it taste so bad even though it's made with their exclusive Makara cinnamon?  What's the big deal about Makara cinnamon?

On Monday I had to work, but only four hours in the morning, so I still had lots of time to go out and look for stuff I don't need.  I went to Wal-Mart to look for something I did need, but they didn't have it.  Then I went to the Inner Sleeve to look for a replacement 10" sleeve for a picture disc I have, but they were all out.  They did have the Back to the Beach soundtrack LP!

Me and Cody watched this movie not that long ago too.   It's got all your favorites like Surfin' Bird by Pee-wee Herman, Jamica Ska by Annette Funicello and Fishbone and Pipeline by Stevie Ray Vaughn and Dick Dale.  Soon as I got home I put it on the record player and listened to it.  Oh, the 80s!

LOOKIT ME!

IMA VEGAN!!

According to Peta's website Cap'n Crunch's Peanut Butter Crunch is vegan and so are Oreos.  While I do eat both of those the fact that I ate a steak last night doesn't make me vegan, so I dodged the bullet on that.  I'm sure the only reason they are vegan is because they are made from all kinds of chemicals instead of products from animals, but I don't think that makes them any healthier.  Check out the full list of Accidentally Vegan products.  Good news Cam, Sour Patch Kids on the list.

The Cap'n Crunch is from the States, so you won't find it in Canada.  Don't be too disappointed because it's not that great.  It's absolutely nothing like regular Cap'n Crunch instead is just Corn Pops with a faint peanut butter taste and the Cap'n Crunch name slapped on the box to help them sell.  The worst part is that the t-shirt offer is only open to residents of the USA.  Noooooooooooooooooooo.........

Leftovers

I have pictures on my camera memory card that go back YEARS and I don't want to delete them in case I might want them again one day.  Yes, the picture of the toast and beans is on it because that is classic and should be framed one day.  There is also a picture of Cam and his PZ3, but that one just looks funny.

He sure loves that thing.

I also have taken pictures for blog posts, but haven't quite got around to posting them.  The next few posts will deal with all the things I meant to write about, but didn't get around to it.  I should catch up on the old stuff and start the new year off fresh.

I can't even remember where I bought this Simpsons Kinder style egg, but I think it may have been just a little mom & pop convenience store.  It looked cool, but unfortunately it didn't taste as good as a Kinder egg.  The toy wasn't as good either.

One of the big selling features on the toy is that it is hand painted.  The Simpsons egg comes all the way from Italy and I always thought they were big on painting and artsy stuff, but the toy still looked lame.  Boring sculpts and the hand painting doesn't look like much, two black dots for the eyes.  Homer just looks weird with his super dark brown five o'clock shadow.  The worst part was that out of all those figures I get the one I wanted the least, Lisa.

I wanted the cat on the TV!

It's not all bad as the next leftover item was a cookie I got from Crave.  As you know they make awesome cupcakes, but once when I was there they had some wicked soft cookies.  They were made from the same stuff as the cupcakes, just the cake was two "buns" and the cupcake icing was the filler.   I only got the one and the couple times I've been back since, they didn't have anymore.  :-(

It's a sugar sandwich.

I've got a few more items to write about, so stay tuned.

Crappy New Year!!

Hope everyone had a good holiday and new year's!  Since I've been getting up for work at 4 am by the time 10:30 pm came around I was so tired I went to bed, so New Year's wasn't a big thing for me.  Before that I watched Surf Ninjas and played BF3 and Cam don't even think of not adding me on Battlelog, it's DiesEazy BTW.  Now if you excuse me I'm going to eat some Jiffy Pop for breakfast.