What is Tai Chi? And is that how it's spelled?

That's a very pretty picture, very "umber", but it doesn't quite answer the question, what is T'ai Chi Ch'uan?

I've seen it in movies, read about it in books, and watched David Carradine do it in true 70's splendor (remember Kung Fu?), but it's not something I have ever experienced for myself.

Top 100 Albums - The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle

Time for me to make a start on this bucket list thing, otherwise it'll never get done before...well, you know.

Top 100 albums first, I think, so let's have a look at the first one (or the 100th one, depending on how you look at it.  This could get a bit "tensile").  First up will be "The Zombies" with "Odessey and Oracle". 

Let's learn about... Hornets

I've always been curious about hornets - do they serve a useful role in our society?  Are they just like wasps, requiring us to develop new and exciting strategies to wipe them from the face of the planet, or are they all warm and fuzzy, deserving of our love?

Family Day at Cobble Beach

It's Family Day, the day I would look forward to if I was working so I wouldn't have to work.  We get to spend the whole day together and try not to kill each other.  Hurrah!

This year, Cobble Beach are offering a family fun day, which promises that the kids will have, and I quote, "the time of their lives!".

Friendship bracelets

With Family Day coming up tomorrow, we seem to be having a real family-themed weekend here at Thing Central.  Next up is another craft project, friendship bracelets.

Family game night - Pictionary

Saturday nights is family game night round these here parts, albeit with a reduced family as one of them has a sleepover to go to, so the four of us left settled down to a game of Pictionary.

The box says it's for ages 12+, so this could be a challenge as the kids don't get much above 10. It's not easy for them to draw something when they don't even know what it is, but that's all part of the fun, right?

Only if you define "fun" as "maddeningly frustrating".

Look ma, just one hand! Oops...

Eggs are great.  There are so many things you can do with them.  You can boil them, fry them, throw them at politicians or pretend to break them on people's heads (the kids love that one for some reason).

You can't teach your Grandmother to suck one, unfortunately, but everything has it's limits I suppose.

Today we're using them to make cupcakes, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try something new.  How do you break an egg with only one hand?

Just another day

Today is, of course, St. Valentine's Day, marking the 1,743rd anniversary of the death of St. Valentine.  That is what Wikipedia says, so it must be true.  So, what to do today that I haven't done before?

Well, seeing as it is St Valentine's Day, and I have my best gal by my side for the whole day, the choice is simple.

Free your mind

I was never really a fan of self-improvement, I always figured that I knew it all already, how can you improve on perfection? 

Once I'd grown up a bit and been caught with the occasional metaphorical and emotional "mainour" (make of that what you will), I discovered a little navel-gazing can be a good thing.  It turns out that I need a lot of improving. Like, a lot. 

So where do you start on the path to enlightenment?  Well, the first thing you need to do is take stock of where you are before you can decide where to go or how to get there.

Free dental care? You bet your sweet bippy!

While being out of work does have many advantages, such as sleeping in and having time for things (or stuff, if that's more your style), it also has many drawbacks, not least of which is a lack of benefits.

This is especially a problem for the kids, although they don't know it.  Nor would they care if you tried to explain it to them.  No access to ice-cream they can understand, but a lack of good dental coverage not so much.  I blame the parents.

Paper Flying Dragons

Do you have a "kinchin" lying around the house, looking for something to do?  We do. Fortunately for us, Uncle Jason bought him Paper Flying Dragons for Christmas, and this seemed as good a time as any to give them a go.

"I'm bored' he said.

Quick as a flash, and calling upon my not inconsiderable skills at witty banter, I replied with "Do your Paper Flying Dragons then".

"OK" came the snappy retort.   And so it began.

Rockford Flea Market

It's such a beautiful day today, we decided it was past time to go outside for a bit.  All we needed to do was decide where to go.

Owen Sound's various websites are no good to us as they are down right now, damn those "Jacobins" (where's all that porn we were promised anyway?), so finding events is tricky at best.  Not many places of interest open on a Sunday either.

Then a brainwave - we've never been to Rockford Flea Market!

Star fruit

Hey, look!  It finally ripened!  Our star fruit is ready to be opened and enjoyed at last.  It didn't turn to mush, nor did any stray animals/children try to eat it or use it as a weapon.

Preparation instructions look fairly simple, even for my monkey thumbs, so it's time to grab a sharp knife and get slicing. Carefully.

Apple-Cherry Glazed Pork Chops

Time to try a new supper tonight, and as we haven't had pork chops in a while we figured it was time to "hent" our Low-Salt Cookbook and break out a recipe for Apple-Cherry Glazed Pork Chops on this, the 426th anniversary of the death of Mary, Queen of Scots.

(If anyone can find a link between pork chops and Mary, Queen of Scots, please let me know. I couldn't find one.

It is also the 61st anniversary of our present Queen claiming the throne, by right of conquest.  Or just being allowed to as no-one was paying attention at the time.  Something like that anyway.

Meet Ami, our little monster!

The gods of "gastronomy" have been conspiring against me.  I really want to try the star fruit I picked up over the weekend, but the damned thing refuses to ripen.  It'll probably ripen tonight, while I'm asleep, then be a bag of mush come the morning.

If not, you can expect a post about it soon.  In the meantime, while I waited, I figured I'd try my hand at some Amigurumi. These things are so darned cute.

Language 101 - German

One of the new things I'd like to try is to learn a few basic phrases and words in as many foreign languages as possible.  You never know when it would come in useful to be able to tell a foreigner, in his native tongue, to go fly a kite or to compliment him on his hat.

As I live in Canada, land of beavers, snow and the occasional Frenchman, I suppose French is the best place to start.  So, here we go with some basic German.

Reconnecting with old friends

I am going to be distinctly "dyslogistic" about today, a day that started out with so much promise and suddenly took a turn for the worse.

As is usually the case with life, nothing ever goes according to plan, even when you don't have one.  The gods of chaos seem to delight in making a mockery of our attempts at existence.  A bit overly dramatic perhaps, but I just lost my job, so I'm feeling a little gloomy about things.

57th Annual Wiarton Willie Festival

Today we loaded up the kids, ignored the snow squall warnings, and headed off to the 57th Annual Wiarton Willie Festival. This yearly celebration is held to honor a groundhog that can predict the future.  Yeah, I know.

If we had gone yesterday, we could have seen the magical rodent make his prediction (a "counterfactual" statement, but true nonetheless.  Phew, crow-barred that one in), but we didn't.  We are going to have to settle for the post-prediction consolation activities, where the town tries to maximize their revenue from this bizarre premise.

Nothing to see here!

Nothing.  Zip.  Nada.  Just too busy to do anything new today, unless you count watching ET with the kids, which was awesome by the way.  They hadn't seen it before, so it was a treat to see their reaction.

I suppose I could have tried writing a "boustrophedon" formatted haiku about kittens, but that wouldn't have really worked for me.  Or for you too, I suspect.

Back To School

Now I have a blog, I suppose I'd better learn how to take better pictures, as my current skill level is little better than an "atavistic" monkey without thumbs.  This is evidenced by my attempts to record the process of creating an Origami dinosaur a couple of days ago.


To this end, I hied myself over to the Digital Photography School, and jumped in to the beginner's section.

Señor Jicama

I'm eating a lot of new food this week.  Next up is the Mexican staple, the Jicama.  Those "jackanapes" at Wikipedia like to lord it over us by using the latin name, "Pachyrhizus erosus", but it also goes by the name of "Yambean".

It's a bit like a turnip, but not really.  Eaten raw or cooked, with a sweet, starchy taste, we're hoping to use this as a low-calorie snack option.  Only 46 calories per cup!

Origami Dinosaur

Oh, "wellaway", what shall I do today?  So many things to try, not nearly enough planning done to try any of them.  Oh, what to do?  Learn a language?  Make a pot?  Brew some wine?  No time for any of that nonsense.

How about some quick and dirty origami?  Never made a dinosaur before, looks pretty easy, so here goes...

Bucket List-tastic

Don't all "plotz" at once, but I've finally done something I've been meaning to for a while now, and just in time too.  Not too many years left to try and get it all done, so I figured I'd better get on and write up my Bucket List.

My first Persimmon

What the heck is a Persimmon?  It's a fruit that is actually a berry that might be a smart car.  To quote Wikipedia:

"Like the tomato, persimmons are not popularly considered to be berries, but in terms of botanical morphology the fruit is in fact a berry."

That isn't any clearer, is it?  It's full of words like "morphology" and "the" (which I should add to my "word-hoard"), but doesn't really help me decide if I want to eat it.  Digging deeper, it would appear it can be unpalatable if not ripe.  Not helping here, Wikipedia.

Caramel Macchiato Martini at Eastside Marios

Really, we don't eat out that often, despite appearances.  You just caught us on a good weekend.

Anyway, we went to Eastside Marios tonight (it's a work thing), and I decided to be daring, hand the car keys over, and have a cocktail.  They had a few on their menu, but the one that caught my eye was their delicious-sounding Caramel Macchiato Martini.

Free Pizza!

Mmmm ... pizza.  Doesn't it look yummy?  One of our favorite can't-be-bothered-to-cook-so-let's-pay-someone-else-to-do-it foods, especially on a Saturday night.  We prefer Little Caesars, mostly because their Hot-n-Ready pizzas are such a good deal, but our least favorite has to be Pizza Hut.  Their pizza is always greasy and unpleasant, for our taste anyway, and it is never an option when we are deciding where to go.  You might say we are "antipathetic" to their nasty little pizza pies.  Word-Of-The-Day strikes again.

A Word-A-Day to kick things off

I don't know about you, but my vocabulary sure could use expanding.  Every time my kids hear a new word, ask me what it means, and I have to make something up 'cause I don't know myself, I realize I may have neglected my brain.  Sure, I could just go look it up, but that would just prove to my kids that I'm not nearly as smart as they assume I should be.