New pastels

I've added 3 more pastel drawings in my art gallery. The first two are part of a new series where I've been trying to express my emotions, which I called Women in E-Motions.

This one is called shame

This one is called regret

The last one is a Church basking in an Aurora Australis.

Are your cats driving you into a circle?

It's amusing, because the door is closed, the cats form a circular formation near the door.

Going clockwise from the left, Ziva, Spock, Jethro, and Pixie.

Here's a close-up of Spock's mug and his mutant feet. See the 'thumb'? 

Aye Aye Sir!

Gluten free bread & Pasta...

I made a variant of this gluten free corn bread. I only used 1/2 a  cup of corn flour, and the other half cup was Bob's gluten free flour mix and I did use 1 cup of brown rice flour.  I also added a tablespoon of caraway seeds and a tablespoon of flax seed to the mix as well.The bread came out really nice. 

I couldn't wait to try it with this goat's milk Brie that I found today. I so love cheese and I've found now 3 different types of goat or sheep  cheese. There's the feta type, which is great in salads, there's the Kashkaval type which is great for making mac and cheese and melts in general and there's Brie.. what can I say for Brie.. it's great on bread to be savoured.

Today I went through the spice cabinet and took note of all the ones we were low on and picked up most of  the spices at the Super C on Brunswick & Deacon and then I went to the Bulk Barn at Marche de l'ouest for the rest of the spices. Bulk Barn I found out carries 4 types of gluten free pastas. I had the rice pasta shells with Kashkaval cheese for dinner tonight - so it was shell & cheese :)  Sadly they do not carry unsweetened carob chips. That was a little disappointing. 

They marched like an Egyptian....

The protests going on in Egypt since January 25th, has caught the attention of the entire Middle East and North Africa. It's undoubtedly caught the attention of the world, is the whole Arab world going to change?  The fact protests in Tunisia led to toppling their dictator is enough to encourage the Egyptians to protest until the same thing happens in their country.

My husband has been saying that this discontent has been bubbling under the surface for years and if it doesn't bubble over now, it will very shortly. The momentum will not be stopped. Sooner or later many of the regimes in this part of the world will change. Hopefully not for the worst. Perhaps it might be time that the west let the people from this region chose their leaders, even if they don't appear to be a choice we might have chosen.

I doubt most in the west realize that the countries in the Middle East and North Africa are far more repressed and conservative today then they were in the 60's. No doubt helped along by the various dictators and autocrats. I won't even begin to figure out how the USA had something to do with it, but for sure all these dictators have survived in their own countries by being allies with some of the most powerful countries in the world. It doesn't matter that the dictator, like say Saddam Hussain was hard on his people as long as he was friends with the right leaders.

Most of the leaders in the Middle East and North Africa are old men. Like in Egypt. Mubarak is 82 years old. How can he possibly think he knows what's best for his country which is 50% people under the age of 19.  He wouldn't have a clue. This is obvious, they are chanting for his departure, his solution is to dissolve the cabinet, you know shuffle his friends around, change the titles and pretend there were big changes. It hasn't fooled anyone.

Protests against authoritarian Arab regimes have also broken out in Jordan, Yemen and Algeria. Even the Lebanese are protesting because they want their economic concerns addressed. To quote a student from the Lebanese University "Egypt and Tunisia had only one dictator, we have had 15 or 16"

La belle province had awesome fries.

I liken myself to a french fry connoisseur since sometimes the only thing on a menu I can eat is the french fries. Friday I was treated to a french fry by my ex, which we picked up at the Belle Province restaurant in Lachine on Provost and 10th avenue. 

The fries were really good. They had good taste, no greasy aftertaste [which I often find with Lafleur's fries], they were crispy enough, good size. I was just going to pick a fry from McD, but I'm glad he suggested these fries. They were much better then McD fries would have been. I suspect that the poutine my ex had was really good too since he finished it before I had finished my fries and he can be a slow eater like me.

Some of the worst french fries I've had in the past 5 years had to be the french fries at the Johnny Rockets on the Marina Walk in Dubai. They were obviously frozen fries and they were always undercooked and most often cold. 

Did someone say B-A-C-O-N?

I read recently this article about "Why Bacon is a gateway to meat for Vegetarians". 

It had me laughing as I've been a vegetarian for close to 20 years. I've never been a full vegetarian in the sense that I will still eat shrimp and other sea food about twice a year, and fish, especially salmon maybe once a month. 

What can I say about bacon? The smell of bacon often gives me nausea. When my eldest daughter lived with me for 2 years, one of the stranger rules I imposed on her was "No cooking of bacon between midnight and 7 am".  I made that rule after being woken up by the smell of bacon for the nth time. This despite sleeping on the top floor and the kitchen being on the main floor.  At the time she liked making herself bacon around 3am and it would always wake me up, it would make me nauseous and it would prevent me from going back to sleep. 

Still on the topic of bacon, they make a variety that is called bacon with maple syrup. I also had a ban on cooking it in my house when I am present. The smell of it cooking increases my nausea like you would not believe. 

So I think if I end up eating meat again one day it won't been bacon that will have lured me back. It's most likely to be chicken or lamb or possibly some exotic game meat. But definitely not bacon. Though probably the most appealing form of pork fat has to be "les oreilles de crisse" found at sugaring off parties in Quebec.

I know chicken is most likely. I used to take a way home that passed in front of a KFC and I'd crave chicken almost daily. Lamb I've been craving for years, and I even put a little bit in my mouth to taste how my Irish stew [which people say rocks] felt. Of course I did not swallow, and made a cat very happy with a little piece of half chewed meat. As for game meat, it's less likely that game animals are filled with hormones and antibiotics and is more likely meat that I would not have issues with. 

Whenever I hear bacon I think of 2 things. Some commercial for dog treats where the dog keeps thinking it's BACON!!!! and "That 70's show" when Eric Forman would pronounce it ba-con. I can hear a little Eric repeating ba-con ba-con ba-con over and over....

It's almost Caturday!

I enjoy photography and since I tend to stay home a lot, I take a lot of pictures of my cats.  So I think I'll  be sharing some..  I like taking pictures of my cats while they look out the patio door because it's the way I can catch them completely natural and often catch all of them. I mean it's hard enough to get 1 cat to pose for a picture but 4? The following two picture were taken before Zeke passed away in July 2010. From left to right, Jethro, Zeke & Ziva

What do you think she wants? 

Look at me! Look at me!

Another Canadian store bought by a US giant

So I read 220 Zellers had their lease bought by the giant retailer Target. That kinda sucks since Zellers in my mind has always been the Canadian WalMart equivalent. It use to mean that money spent at Zellers went back into Canadian pockets, not so much when it becomes a Target. 

Second problem with Zellers converting to Target stores, is that Target does not want to keep Zellers Employees. I can think of my cleaning lady, a late 50's something woman, who's been working at least 10 years re-stocking shelves at night at Zellers. She's barely making ends meet, hence why she cleans my house.  If they lay her off from Zellers to rehire her at minimum wave to work for Target, she won't even be able to make ends meet anymore.

I was reading that according to Quebec laws Target should not be allowed to fire a 20 year veteran employee of Zellers to rehire them at minimum wage. But it remains to see how they will deal with that. I bet you suddenly all the employees they had to keep will be "BAD" and fired for 1001 reasons so they can hire cheap labour. 

I've been assimilated......... by the Lebanese

It had to happen. After 4 years of being in a relationship with a Lebanese, I actually know more about Lebanese politics then I ever wanted to.  I don't care about politics.

The fact Mikati’s appointment as premier on Jan. 25 has been Hezbollah endorsed, does not make Mikati part of the group. It certainly doesn't turn Lebanon into an Iranian state, as some headlines I've seen in the past few days seem to suggest.  As best as I understand it, Mikati is a Sunni  business man from Tripoli who doesn't share Hezbollah views. He's a moderate.  Nothing that should make anyone paranoid.

Paul Kingston, an expert on Lebanese politics from the University of Toronto, suggests that the new government won’t be dramatically different from Hariri’s, because it is still constrained by the same power-sharing and international pressures.

To me that sounds like business as usual.

Jethro and his all cat band

  Pixie on guitar, Jethro on vocals and Zeke on bass. 

On loan from Kahnawake, Whisper on drums. 
July 2009

Cat Lady

From Left to right, Pixie, Spock, Ziva and Jethro in my arms.

It's not Caturday, but I'm talking about my cats anyways....

Jethro and Ziva

I think I was 10 when I got my first cat. It was a white tabby cat. I've pretty much had a cat ever since.  Especially since I discovered at 17 that one of my many allergies was an allergy to cats. The best way to deal with an allergy is exposure over time. So I figure so long as I always have a cat, I don't react to cats. If I were to go without then probably I could never have one again. 

Currently we have 4 cats. There's Pixie, male orange tabby, 7 years old now, there's Jethro, male black/white tux Main Coon, 2 1/2 years old, there's Ziva,  female light grey tabby with white stomach/ female who is about 10 months old and the baby Spock who is 7 months old he's a dark grey/black tabby with white  belly. All of them have mitten paws. All except Spock are poly-dactyl. Spock is unique because his front paws have thumbs but no extra toes.

It's funny because I like symmetrical things and yet 3 of the 4 cats now are not symmetrical. Those 3 look like they walked into white paint. 

I find cats make great companions. I've always figured 1 cat alone during the day gets bored, so I've always had at least 2 cats. The most I've had in my house was 6 cats. I find that more then 4 cats is too many cats. I hope as I age I can keep thinking that. One of my biggest fears is to end up being the little old lady with 100 cats.... 

Recyle, Reuse, Reduce....

I strive to be as green as possible. It goes along with my neopagan beliefs.  This past week-end I went through my closet, and 2 of my leather belts with a distressed look, used to look black with some leather showing through, but now mostly just leather color. They both got  some black shoe polish. They both look as good as new.

Two other belts, from man made fabrics, had areas where the two parts that made the belt were unglued. One belt I really like, it's black on one side, and a black/green snakeskin pattern on the other side, and has a buckle that swivels either side. It's perfect for travel if you want to travel light, 2 belts in one.  The other one is a faux leather with an intricate design that I'm fond of, looks really nice with jeans. The fabric glue I picked up worked really well and within a day you could not tell either of these belts had been falling apart.

So instead of buying a new belt, I updated the look on 2 and fixed 2 others. It took me less time to fix what I had then to go shopping to find a new one.  I don't wear belts as fashion statements I wear belts to keep my stretchy jeans from falling.

Nlite is great, but slip-streaming can be a pain

I couldn't slipstream without Nlite, it's a great tool, however slip-streaming is a PITA.

I wanted to make my XPSP3 and XP64SP2 to handle AHCI mode and some RAID and SAS controllers so that I can install them more easily on newer machines. I included Intel and AMD AHCI drivers, as well as drivers from Asus, Gigabyte, Dell, HP and Lenovo for latest machines.

Unfortunately first time I slip-streamed drivers into XP64, I ended up with a 32 bit driver by mistake so CD didn't work. I had to start over from scratch and make sure to not include offending driver. The 2nd time it worked fine.

I had same problem with the XPSP3, originally just to test out slip-streaming I had only included the drivers I needed for the Intel DX58SO motherboard.  So I had to re-do that one and the 2nd time around I had a bad driver  and had to redo it again as well.  I had a co-worker test it out and he says it works. 

Now I need to tackle both Server 2003 standard edition and Server 2003 R2 in both 32 & 64 bits. This will be undoubtedly just as fun as the XP's. 

I love my thinkpad Edge

I have a 15" Thinkpad Edge 0578-CTO, configured with an I5 CPU and 4 Gb of RAM. I got it with the red lid.  I just love it. It's quiet, runs quite cool, is pretty light and the battery lasts close to 3 hours. 

But the things I like the best is that it runs video, really well, the sound never stutters, the wireless network rarely has issues or too little bandwidth even on a bad day. I could go on and on  After my last 2 laptops this one feels like a bit of heaven. It's doing exactly all the things I have always wanted my laptops to do. I love that it has an HDMI port and I am running on it an LG W2253V. While I'm writing this I'm watching a TV show on it from the laptop from a file sitting on another system, via wireless and it's not having any issues. It also plays DVD's really well. My previous laptop didn't even handle my MASH collection of original DVD's in pristine condition, that worked fine in every other PC and home DVD player.  I can't stress how much I'm enjoying this laptop.

The only 'bug' I've found with my Thinkpad and it's not that big of a deal is that when I rest my hands on the either side of the mouse surface while typing  if I try to use the touchpad the mouse sometimes jitter. I have to remove my hands and then the mouse moves properly again. But this is no biggy. I can't emphasize enough how much I love my ThinkPad Edge :)

I remember the old Thinkpads from 10 years ago. They were bitchy. This one on the other hand has to be the friendliest I've used. I have yet to run into a problem with it.  

Admittedly I've always been an IBM fan. I could say it's the fault of my buddy George.  At work I'm the one who collects IBM and now Lenovo machines. I currently work with a Lenovo S20, D20, M58, A57, M52, and an IBM Intellistation Z-Pro 92xx series. I'm the only one at work who has Lenovo's. Most people don't care for them.

Cold Spell freezes Ontario and Quebec

It's been frigid the last couple of days. It's -26C this morning. Not the type of weather that incites someone to spend much time outside. Thank Goddess my Grand Vitara starts up pretty well.   Oddly enough I haven't been cold outside, but I've been cold inside. It's not surprising.

At least we have electricity in this cold. I was reading that they lost electricity for more then 12 hours in Moosonee this week-end. If I lived in such a desolate area I'd definitely have an old style wood stove in my home, that I could use to heat and eat in case of power failures.  That's the one thing that sucks about my current house is that without electricity I have no heating. It sucks that even though my furnace is fueled by natural gas that I need electricity for it to work. I should be able to start it manually and have it work without needed electricity in case of power failures. 

At least our BBQ also has a side burner, so in case of power failures we can use it to warm up food, boil water, and of course we can BBQ things as well.

Time to go get ready to brace the cold. 

Giant Tiger in Ville St Laurent

Last Friday after leaving work I was planning to go to WalMart to get my kitty litter but instead I decided to go to the Giant Tiger on Marcel Laurin in Ville St Laurent to check it out after a friend mentioned there was one near by. I was not impressed. I was expecting a bigger store and more sales. I didn't see anything special and the store isn't particularly big  

The only good thing about driving there  was that it was right next to the biggest Dollarama I'd been to, with items I've not seen at other Dollarama's. I won't be going back to that Giant Tiger though, not worth the trip. 

I noticed there's a Dollarama that opened right next to my therapists office. I should check that one out. Sometimes I find frames, sometimes I find cat toys, random stuff. I find going to dollar store sometimes fills my need to shop and I can get away with spending under $20. :) At Christmas it's where I got my cat some Christmas outfits.

New Additions to my Art Gallery

This week-end I finished 5 pastel drawings.

The first is a Red Aurora over a Cabin. I love how this one turned out.

The second is part of my women in motion/movement series, this one titled "Women walking into the sunset", which came out better then I expected.

The third based on a photo Hot pink northern lights. I have no opinion on this one.

The fourth is from a photo called Sunset on Wakiki Beach. I don't like how this one turned out. I was not going to finish it or scan it.

The fifth is from a photo, represents a Latvian sunset. I like how it turned out.

Canadian Business men stranded in Abu Dhabi airport

Visa rules are now in effect for Canadians traveling to the UAE. It means that if you are a Canadian traveling to the UAE you should be aware of what type of VISA you need for your trip ahead of time and apply for it before arriving at an airport in the UAE. 

Obviously the 2 Canadian business men that got stranded at Abu Dhabi airport did not do their research, or the staff that booked their flight didn't. They were going to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and then back to the UAE. Common sense would imply that they needed a multiple entry VISA not a single entry VISA.  So if they got stuck at the airport for several hours it was their own fault. Not the UAE's fault, beyond of course the fact that they imposed their VISA' on Canadians because we would not grant their airlines more landing rights.

When I traveled to Syria this September, I knew I was going to enter the country twice, so I got myself a multiple-entry VISA ahead of my travel dates. I had no issues crossing borders either, other then 1 border guard wanting a small bribe when I crossed from Jordan back into Syria. It is not uncommon in that part of the world and it is not worth arguing over a few dollars and getting stuck for hours at a border, and my husband would argue, especially at the Syrian border.

Sure it's a little unexpected to us Canadians to have to get a VISA, since most countries welcome Canadians with open arms. But each country has the right to rule as they see fit and impose VISA' on us Canadians as they see fit. If we're not happy with that, then we should choose other travel destinations.

Bob Newhart on NCIS

It was really weird to see Bob Newhart on NCIS in a serious role. In fact a role so touching it had tears in my eyes by the end of the show. It amused me that I have been watching old episodes of the Bob Newhart show famous of course for Larry and his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl. And then out of nowhere, bam there's Bob Newhart.

I was drawing when I was watching NCIS, so I didn't have my glasses on and that's how I recognized him right away. Apparently he did the cameo appearance partly because it's his wife's favorite show :)