Archive for March, 2008

Balcony BBQ

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Paul Swanson's Balcony BBQ

I now have a new kitchen toy, for the balcony, it’s my BBQ. At the beginning of winter I saw these little beauties for sale and procrastinated to my own detriment. Now, months later, they reappeared and I snapped one up for $10. There’s nothing quite like a succulent pork loin grilled over hot coals of Carpathian hard woods on a cool night.

Home-made Lagane

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Paul Swanson's Home-made Lagane recipe

This is not a pasta dish, this is a coup! I was recently watching a video podcast from Jamie Oliver’s web site, it featured an Italian friend of his making pasta. As I watched I realised that making pasta is just too easy not to do, so I decided it was time to try; what a revelation!  Let’s just say that fresh, home-made pasta is going on the weekly menu.

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Playing with Paradiddles

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

Paradiddles, double paradiddles, paradiddle-diddles. Which is your favourite? It depends on whether you’re having white meat or red meat, and how much you’ve practiced. Paradiddles are a sticking pattern, or rudiment, for drummers to practice and use; commonly they are practiced but not so much used. I’ve been working with paradiddles for sometime in an effort to discover how I could make them an indispensable part of my chops bag, here is one such discovery.

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Paradiddles, double paradiddles, paradiddle-diddles. Which is your favourite? A paradiddle is a sticking pattern, or rudiment, for drummers to practice and use; it is commonly practiced but not so much used. I’ve been working with paradiddles for sometime in an effort to discover how I could make them an indispensable part of my chops bag, here is one such discovery.

Boots

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Football boots

For months I’ve been playing football, the game in which the ball is actually propelled primarily by the foot, but in the course of learning to kick in a given direction I managed to injure my big toe. The sensation, upon connecting with the ball, was similar to belting one’s toe, dead-on, with a small hammer. I decided that my runners were the likely cause of the symptoms and so forked out the cash for some real football boots. I’m pleased to say that the low profile and grippy sole seems to have put my amateur football career back on track.

Telephone Troubles

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Telephone troubles

I’ve been having some trouble with telephone calls of late. Specifically, Internet telephony (or VOIP). Making telephone calls from our computer gives us an economical way of staying in touch with home, but lately it has done little more than inspire me to gnaw my own toes off.

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Better Colours with Firefox

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Firefox colour profiles

Firefox 3 is soon to be released and it comes with a nice tweak for the visually fussy, such as myself. It is now possible to load the colour profile for your specific display (LCD screen) directly into Firefox. Why would one wish to do this? In a word, perfection. The colour profile lets Firefox present images in true to life colours on your display.

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Librarian 2.0

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Paul’s Library

I’m not turning hyper-pedagogical, nor am I trying to out do my mother; I have started my own library. Library 2.0 to be precise. I know this careless expression is just compounding the obscurity that veils, what is arguably, the maturation of the World Wide Web, but, in a shameless bout of whimsy, I’ll employ its misuse regardless. The bottom line is this, I’m starting my own library to retain, and catalogue, articles which, for whatever reason, interest me. This means that I don’t need to rely on bookmarks that could be outdated with time.

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